#048 Active Duty
#048 Active Duty
Caw, caw.
A vast host of crows filled the sky.
Each was a gigantic monstrous bird easily over two meters long, flying through the sky as they sneered at the panicking humans below.
"Commander, what should we do now?"
"Deceive the humans. Deceive them again. And deceive them again."
Malphas flew at the head of the aerial formation and pointed south, toward the human city.
"If we just fly in like idiots, we'll obviously be intercepted. At times like this, I shall employ the Demon King's patented specialty."
"Th-the Demon King's...!"
The crow subordinates' eyes sparkled.
Seeing the admiring gazes of his subordinates, Malphas felt both pride and, at the same time, a faint wistfulness.
"It was five hundred years ago, when the Demon King seized the royal castle of... some kingdom, the old Demon King's castle. The Demon King—"
"C-Commander! The humans below are attacking!!"
"What?!"
SWISH!
From the ground, flames laden with mana shot up into the sky.
"You insolent wretch!"
Malphas immediately spread his wings and flew, batting the fireball aside with a wing.
Smack!
As if slapping a cheek, he merely struck it with his wing, yet the fireball burst without even scattering its flames to the side.
"To dare attack while I am speaking of the Demon King's achievements... unforgivable. All units, maintain formation and fly south!"
"Commander! What about the humans below...?!"
"I'll handle them!"
Malphas folded his wings and dropped downward.
The speed of his fall from the sky was too fast for human eyes to follow, and Malphas revealed himself before the humans in an instant.
"......Honestly."
Black hair, crimson eyes.
Aside from the crow wings on his back, Malphas's appearance evoked a noble young lord of the Demon Realm.
"You lack manners."
"Wh-what are you?!"
"Commander of Deception. Thirty-eighth. Member of Acedia, commanding officer of the Normance occupation force. Malphas."
"Wh-what...?"
"That should be enough of an introduction, no?"
"Y-you bastard!!"
The adventurers who had rushed in pursuit of the flock of birds aimed their weapons at Malphas, who had landed as if blocking their path.
"Die!!"
RATATATAT.
The guns and magic staffs the adventurers aimed spewed mana.
Sharp magic bullets and mana arrows descended upon Malphas in an instant.
"Weak."
Flutter—!
"Black Whirlwind."
Malphas gave the wings on his back one great flap.
At that, a black gale surged from his wings, deflecting every attack flying toward him.
"Wh-what in the...?"
"Did you think you could stop our advance with something like that?"
"You bastard! Stop acting so—"
Click.
The adventurer pulled the trigger.
But the magic bullet did not move forward.
"Wh-what is...?"
Something black was lodged in the adventurer's gun barrel.
A single black feather, wedged precisely into the muzzle hole. The adventurer clamped his mouth shut.
"I don't like guns. The advancement of technology is certainly a good thing, but in my day, there was romance in fighting with only swords, magic, and arrows."
Had that feather lodged in an eye, throat, or heart, the adventurer would have been a dead man.
"You are weak because you rely on things like guns. The humans of the past, who fought with their lives on the line, seem stronger."
"Y-you bastard!"
"Shh."
Rustle.
As the feathers fluttered, the humans collapsed to the ground.
Malphas turned his back on the unconscious humans.
"Tch. I want to kill them, but I have to hold back."
Malphas was genuinely regretful.
"Well, the more living humans there are, the better. Heh heh."
Malphas soared back into the sky.
Perhaps because he had released his power, he transformed into a black crow with a body length reaching several meters and came to a stop before the distant city walls.
"So that place is Normance."
"Commander. Over there, the humans on the walls are aiming at us one by one. What should we do?"
"Hmm. Crossing the walls won't be easy. ...Scatter."
No sooner had Malphas's words fallen than magic bullets began pouring into the sky from the walls.
"Magitech anti-aircraft cannons, huh. Tsk, tsk. Technology, truly... no, never mind. This is no time to be lost in old sentiments."
Malphas raised his hand high.
"I command the entire legion. Break through the enemy's net of fire and assault. We are...."
Flash.
Malphas's eyes gleamed toward the south.
"Drawing their attention."
A legion of ten thousand crows.
The large-scale air raid had begun.
* * *
WEE-OOO, WEE-OOO.
Emergency alarms began ringing throughout Normance.
We had been asleep, but we hurriedly equipped ourselves and rushed out, taking in the situation as we watched the Normance soldiers bustling about.
"Um, Master. What is all this...?"
"...Hm."
Something.
I shouldn't have laughed, but I couldn't help it.
'Yes, this is it.'
A situation bringing chaos to a peaceful human town.
Like the Demon King's army arriving a day earlier than expected, or not arriving on the day itself but around three days later, once the guard had slackened.
That was how the Demon King Army fought: not against humans brimming with vigilance, but against humans in comparatively poor condition.
"It seems something has gone wrong with the Dimensional Gate."
"The Dimensional Gate?"
"Yes. If I had to guess...."
"Emergency!! A Dimensional Gate has opened! Enemies are coming!!"
As expected.
I cheered inwardly.
"Magic Beasts are flying in from the sky!"
"What?! Damn it, then we can't block the Dimensional Gate!"
"Get the people to safety first!! Damn it, what kind of bolt from the blue is this in the middle of the night!"
'Now this is the Demon King's army!'
Since when does the Demon King's army have a code of chivalry?
Since when does the Demon King's army issue declarations of war and follow continental law?
The essence of the Demon King's army is to bring down the enemy by vicious means.
'Acedia really is the successor of the Demon King's army.'
It had its flaws, but it hadn't lost its roots.
I felt like bestowing a reward upon the commander of the raiding force that had so thoroughly thrown Normance into chaos.
For the plan of throwing the enemy into confusion alone, I would not spare my praise.
But what if they only cause chaos and fail to actually occupy Normance?
'Then it's meaningless.'
Could the raiders truly occupy Normance?
A place where the 'Fire Hero' was, no less?
"The raid has started a day early, all of a sudden."
"Master, what should we...?"
"Right now, we don't have any assigned sector. We were originally supposed to launch the raid right in front of the lake. We have three options."
One. Run away.
Two. Hide.
Three. Stand and fight.
"Lucius. What do you want to do?"
"......I will save people."
Four. Lucius chose neither flight, nor going to ground, nor confrontation, but 'rescue.'
"The people in Normance right now are in a panic. I don't know how far my strength can reach, but... I want to do what I can."
"Yeah, that's the spirit."
I clapped Lucius hard on the back with my hand.
"If a person wants to save people, what grand reason do you need? Let's go!"
"...Yes! But Master, where are we...?"
As I was about to dash off, Lucius grew flustered.
"Isn't that... the south gate?"
"That's right."
"But the Portal opened at the north gate...?"
"That's exactly why we're going to the south gate."
The Demon King's army's patented specialty.
The diversionary operation.
Tactics are never about securing only one advantage.
The real objective lies elsewhere.
"Shall I explain as we go, or do you want to hear it first and then move?"
"I'll listen as we go!"
Fortunately, Lucius and Rosemas followed my lead without a moment's hesitation.
'How diligent.'
Back when I infiltrated a Hero Party as a sage and led those fools around, they would spout common sense and insist on standing and fighting, and I missed the golden time explaining things to them.
"It's a tactic called attacking in the east, striking in the west."
"What... is that?"
"To put it bluntly, hitting them in the back of the head."
But now things were different.
"If a large-scale force of Magic Beasts comes down from the north, the south will obviously be empty. They opened a large-scale Dimensional Gate, so do you really think they made no preparations elsewhere?"
"I see...."
"And if they... didn't make preparations?"
Rosemas cautiously raised an objection to my thinking.
"If they're far stupider than you think, Witch, and don't come knocking at the south gate...?"
"In that case...."
I stretched out my arm, then moved my fingers as if tracing a wide circle.
"We go around the wall and head north. To catch the commander."
"......."
Both of their reactions were oddly off.
But if there were enemies to the south, then they would move in earnest, with faith and trust in me.
"Aaaah!!"
"Save me!!"
"Monsters are coming!!"
The south was already utter pandemonium.
The gatekeeper who should have been guarding the gate could not easily open it, and the area was a mad crush of people trying to flee in a hurry.
"No dog hole in sight, right? Then we have no choice but to go over the wall."
"Master, to go this far, so decisively...."
"Let's climb the wall first."
I took the two of them up onto the wall.
The guards who had climbed up before us glared at us as if asking what business we had coming up, but they soon shut their mouths when they saw our equipment.
Adventurers who had come to the south gate.
They wouldn't understand why we had come to the south gate.
Because there was no one here but us.
"Where is the defense commander here?!"
I hurriedly looked for the person in charge.
Soon, one man among the soldiers approached me.
"What is it, at a time like this?!"
"Do you have a mana detector?!"
"Why do you ask?!"
"Over there, to the south, I sense a strange energy...!"
"What are you talking about...."
This was just me creating an alibi.
I didn't sense any strange energy to the south at all. It was simply to prepare for any troublesome questions later.
"You must not open the gate!"
"What are you suddenly—"
Clatter.
The gate opened anyway.
I thought the soldiers had opened it, but civilians trying to escape through the gate to avoid the crow attack had forced it open and begun pouring outside.
'I clearly said not to open the gate.'
For later.
If we were ever questioned about why we had been in the south rather than the north, the people who had wrangled with me atop this wall would testify that 'my intuition' had told me so.
If.
If I were a commander leading an army as the head of the Demonfolk.
If I aimed for the north, then of course fugitives would pour out to the south.
If I were leading the Demon King Army.
Without exception.
I would target the civilians first.
'Though I wouldn't kill them.'
"Ah, o-over there!!"
The footsteps of the people who had fled outside grew strange.
One by one, they began flailing and thrashing on the ground.
"What is that...?!"
A massive swamp.
Earth magic that turns the ground into a bog, planting humans in the earth for later capture.
"......As expected."
Capturing humans was Acedia's goal.
Just like when they summoned me, Belphegor.
"...What are you trying to do by capturing people, Acedia."
"Master! Over there!"
"......!!"
Kwoooooo!!
Soil erupted like a waterspout.
And in that place.
"Wow, seriously...."
There was a Sandworm with no teeth.
Raid the north gate.
Humans flee to the south gate.
Capture the humans.
...And then have the Sandworm swallow them for transport.
"......."
Acedia—though its leader Zepar was a piece of trash—really was the successor to my Demon King Army.
'This is my tactic.'
Seeing my tactics still working, tears involuntarily welled up in my eyes.
"Master... you're crying...?"