Chapter 21
Chapter 21
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 21
Chapter Title: Bestia Mountain (4)
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Fortunately for Sion, as soon as the Hero arrived, all the attention directed at her shifted straight to him.
"Yo, it's the Hero!"
To the people on the front lines, the Hero wasn't just their nation's champion—he was the savior who had pulled them from the jaws of death on the battlefield time and again.
"Olivia, what's the damage on our side?"
Having noticed signs of a recent skirmish, the Hero immediately asked about allied casualties.
After all, the Bestia front lines were in a dire situation where minimizing troop losses was paramount.
"We have a few wounded, but no fatalities."
"...That's a relief."
In the battle that had just ended, their side's fatality rate was 0%—miraculously, not a single sacrifice.
"It's all thanks to those two. If they hadn't shown up, I probably..."
Olivia knew full well it wasn't due to her own efforts.
And her gut told her she wouldn't have made it out unscathed without Sion's group.
"Those two...? Who..."
In the direction Olivia gestured, two girls stood.
Two girls whose stamina was intact enough to stand on their own feet in the brutal battlefield that even burly soldiers struggled to endure.
The white-haired girl who had turned the beasts into pulp with a hammer at least twice her size.
And the girl in a familiar-looking mask who appeared to have carved up those massive beasts with a tiny dagger.
"Hmm..."
Even to Karl, who had traveled the continent for the Demon King's subjugation, these two looked anything but ordinary.
"Thank you both so much for your help. Thanks to you, we avoided needless sacrifices."
Still, gratitude came before questions.
After all, without these two, the front-line soldiers couldn't have guaranteed their lives.
"Y-yeah... just... whatever..."
"The front lines are always short on manpower. Talented warriors like you are always welcome."
"Um... I'm a mage, though..."
"...With a weapon like that..?"
"It's... complicated."
In the middle of the battlefield, a mage(?) smashing beast skulls with a hammer.
Even to her own eyes, it lacked any persuasiveness, so Sion decided to shut her mouth.
"Anyway... let's talk details inside the command tent."
"Command tent..?"
"Olivia, wrap things up and meet us in the briefing room."
"Yes, sir."
Karl had a ton of questions about the two, but he prioritized resolving the current crisis over prying.
"Oh, and bring those two inside too."
Of course, that didn't mean he had no intention of investigating them.
"-Four? Oh, y-yes sir!"
"Leave minimal troops for security, and the rest take a break. All command-level personnel, report to the tent."
"..Yessir!"
"There's important info everyone on the front needs to hear."
The Hero summoning the brass before even cleaning up the battlefield.
Naturally, there was a clear reason for the haste.
"Maybe... we can resolve this situation."
In the endless onslaught of beasts with no end in sight, it seemed Karl had brought information that might actually solve it.
'A meeting... I really don't wanna go to something like that...'
Why drag me into a meeting on your own whim.
Should I smash his head with the hammer?
...No, better hold back.
Of course, it wasn't welcome news to everyone.
The command tent where all command-level personnel from the Bestia southern front had gathered.
Sion, roped into this crucial discussion on the front's future, felt deeply uncomfortable right now.
"..."
The reason? Pretty much every soldier in the tent was staring at her.
'Ugh... why's everyone staring like that..'
Sion wasn't used to others' gazes to begin with.
The moment she felt eyes on her, her body tensed up automatically.
And when multiple gazes converged, her breathing quickened in no time.
Back in her original world, she hadn't been particularly striking, so it never bothered her much.
But after being dragged to Rilteia and stuck in a woman's body, her overly attention-grabbing looks had been tormenting her.
No wonder she'd worn a mask as the Grand Archmage.
"Rion? Is something wrong-"
[Leave her be, Cloe. Right now, giving her space is the best help.]
Lily, who knew Sion's temperament well, stopped Cloe from fussing over her.
To Sion, attention was poison.
'It's suffocating...!'
And right now, she was drowning in it.
"Did you see that..?"
"...Yeah."
Of course, the soldiers weren't looking at her with negativity.
On a battlefield rampaging with beasts, a Grand Archmage wielding a massive hammer and slaughtering foes.
The soldiers who'd witnessed her dazzling performance could only gaze at her with awe and fear mixed.
"Hero, sir, I understand calling in the lower ranks due to the severity, but..."
Ironically, the one saving Sion from this was Viscount Donbar, who harbored the worst feelings toward her here.
"Did it really require bringing in adventurers like her?"
'Good job, Bombar!'
Sion was actually rooting for Donbar, who'd been blocking her from the start.
If he saw her as an outsider, she could just coolly exit stage left.
For Sion, his needling was far less painful than the oppressive weight of all those stares.
'If he pushes just right, I can slip out... no problem!'
Just as Sion eyed the perfect moment to leave the tent.
"Yes, it does."
The Hero, silent until now, spoke up, snuffing out Sion's chance to bail.
"...Pardon?"
"I called her because she's necessary. Need more explanation?"
"B-but this goes against propriety-"
"Propriety? Instead of worrying about that nonsense, why not think about how to improve the situation?"
No matter that he was the front's overall commander; even Donbar couldn't challenge the Hero's authority.
"...My apologies."
With the Hero's firm response, Donbar backed down, glaring at Sion with eyes thick with disgust.
'Why glare at me like that? I wanted to leave too, y'know?'
Of course, Sion felt pretty wronged.
'This is so annoying...'
She'd been letting it slide thinking he'd chase her out if she played along.
But if not, that changed things.
Sion inherently disliked mingling, but that didn't mean she just took pokes lying down.
On the contrary, she had a subtly nasty streak.
'...Telekinesis'
-Ting!
"Wha?!"
The button on Donbar's uniform, barely holding back his ample gut.
As Sion's magic flung it off, an unsightly scene unfolded in the tent that was hard to witness with eyes open.
"Wh-what is this..!"
'Idiot, serves you right.'
Donbar, forced into an impromptu strip show in the briefing room.
Unique Grade: Telekinesis
Oops, sorry. It was on purpose.
[Success]
The soldiers in the briefing room struggled to hold it together, most breaking a sweat to stifle laughs.
"Pfft, hahaha!"
Of course, one didn't even try.
"Ah, sorry sorry, just too funny."
Even with someone openly mocking him right in front, since it was the Hero, Donbar couldn't utter a word.
"Haa... man, it's been forever since I laughed like that.."
"..."
"The viscount livened up the mood, so... let's get to the main topic."
Karl, who'd laughed his head off, sobered up with a serious face.
"Info from the northern front. Might take a while."
So listen carefully.
The info Karl brought from the northern front boiled down to this.
The Empire's investigations had detected abnormally strong 'mana waves' from inside the mountain.
Circumstantially, these mana waves were likely the root cause behind the beasts' rampage.
[And as everyone knows, there were far too many beasts for this small mountain to naturally support.]
[Probably, they're being created inside the mountain somehow.]
Given the sheer number inhabiting Bestia Mountain, it was deemed likely some kind of 'hatchery' generating the beasts.
So, there was one thing to do.
[Right—charge in, destroy the hatchery, done.]
Eliminate the hatchery inside Bestia Mountain producing the beasts.
[Of course, scout first.]
The needed intel: the exact location of the presumed hatchery somewhere in the mountain.
To pinpoint it, they'd have to investigate inside first.
[Perfect—Olivia brought exactly the guests we needed.]
Fine, whatever.
Everything's great.
They needed the precise spot of the suspected hatchery before launching an assault.
As part of that, me and Cloe—who know Silent magic—joining the scout made sense...
But why, of all people...
"Rion, was it? You're slower than expected. Gotta work on that stamina."
"..Sorry."
Why do I have to move with you.
Honestly, it made her uneasy.
From their first meeting on the front until now, Karl kept staring at her whenever he got the chance.
Especially when she blasted Bombar's button—he'd stared right at her, laughing openly.
As if he knew it was her doing.
She'd avoided his gaze since he didn't seem about to say anything... but now they ended up like this.
He'd surely heard from Olivia that she was 'Rion, disciple of Sion.'
[Sion, Siooon~ Let's hang out~]
[No thanks.]
[Sion~ Let's grab drinks~]
[No thanks.]
Karl used to chat her up out of nowhere constantly.
So naturally, she'd expected a barrage of questions now that she was outwardly his 'disciple Sion.'
"Makes sense—Sion wasn't great with stamina either."
"..."
But this Karl was noticeably quieter than before.
It was embarrassing how much she'd pondered 'how to shut Karl up.'
Maybe since she wasn't really Sion, he wasn't that interested.
But then why had he kept glancing her way?
No complaints about him not talking—it was a relief, but at this point, relief edged into anxiety.
What if...
'Did he figure it out..?'
Unlikely, given Karl's perceptiveness during the Demon King subjugation party...
But Karl being this quiet was equally improbable, making it plausible.
'Should've gone with Olivia...'
Both sucked, but she'd thought Karl was the lesser evil.
My bad.
Thus, as Karl and she climbed the mountain in awkward silence.
-Wooong!
"..Rion! That just now-"
"..Yeah, mana waves..!"
A fairly strong mana wave pulsed from not far off.
Sion and Karl bolted toward the source.
They nearly ran into beasts a few times en route, but thankfully passed without combat thanks to Silent magic.
Reaching the epicenter of the waves, what Sion and Karl saw was—
"A gate..?"
"...Yeah."
The source of the mana waves inside the mountain wasn't some beast hatchery.
"This... things just got a lot more complicated."
It was a massive gate summoning beasts from elsewhere.