Chapter 55
Chapter 55
Ch. 55 .｡.:✧ Chapter 55 ✧:.｡.
—————————————————————–
Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
—————————————————————–
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
It seemed they had no intention of moving as long as we didn’t touch the queen.
Honestly, we could withdraw from here.
If we just guarded this area and prevented them from coming out, and took all the things we had secured above, the request would be fulfilled.
Whether they laid eggs again and rebuilt their nest afterwards had little to do with me.
‘Still, it’s better to be sure.’
In any case, Kayla had awakened and secured a high level of force.
The ones guarding the entrance looked strong, and the ones inside probably weren’t ordinary either, but it wasn’t particularly worrying.
“Since it’s the last room, there’s no need to save strength.”
Following my instructions, she coated her sword with aura.
It wasn’t the faint aura from before, but a form with deep color and a distinct shape, though it didn’t seem to be at the superior level.
‘Does she think it’s still too much?’
It could also be that she thought this much was sufficient.
The guard ants seemed to have noticed that we would fight to the end, and they started making strange sounds by rubbing their bodies.
Grrr.
However, Kayla didn’t wait for them.
Crack, crack.
Kayla, who had instantly kicked off the ground and arrived right in front of her opponent at high speed, cut off the connection between their head and chest before they could even react.
Thud, thud.
Soldier ants that looked similar to them rushed out as if they had been waiting inside, but Kayla occupied the passage and beheaded them as soon as they came out.
Their quality seemed high, but their numbers didn’t seem very large.
Perhaps that was more convenient for Kayla, as she was showing even cleaner movements than before.
Before long, there were no more of them crawling out from inside.
“They have all been dealt with.”
After praising Kayla, I entered the queen ant’s chamber and saw something quite surprising.
“Oh my…”
As if the rooms we had seen so far were a joke, an enormous space at least three times larger was revealed, and inside were a dozen or so workers presumed to be attending to the queen and a queen boasting a tremendously large abdomen.
“It seems she’s laying eggs?”
Those attending to the queen showed a threatening appearance towards us, but of course, none of us were intimidated.
“Shall I dispose of them?”
Kayla asked in a flat tone.
“No, wait.”
I stopped her.
Athena asked as if puzzled.
“It seems someone else wants that separately.”
I pointed my finger into the air, and there, the specter was glaring at the queen as if coveting her.
Perhaps because the queen was full of vitality as her purpose was to lay eggs and increase the number of individuals, the specter’s gaze wouldn’t leave her.
“She doesn’t seem to have any offensive abilities anyway…”
Well, even if she did, these ones without mana wouldn’t be able to damage the specter.
The queen’s vitality was far from the inferior level I had been feeding the specter so far, so I thought it would be good to give it to the specter if possible.
“Eat.”
-Kkyaaaaak!
As soon as I gave the order, the specter rushed towards the queen.
Thwack! Thwack!
As her role was to lay eggs, she quickly noticed her loss of vitality and tried to shake off the specter by twisting her body.
The other Giant Ants, realizing it was our attack, charged at us.
Athena ran out in place of Kayla and cut them down, and as the queen was left alone, the specter began to gleefully suck out her energy in earnest.
I gave Kayla and Athena a break and watched the situation until the moment the queen became a mummy.
“What in the world is this…”
“Terrible. You’re truly different, Sir Knight.”
“Isn’t that… Carlton? My goodness, he went missing… He was killed by the Giant Ants.”
“How awful… He must have suffered a lot…”
“But Sir Knight avenged him, didn’t he?”
After the specter turned the queen ant into a mummy, we returned to Evergreen Forest Village and mobilized the villagers.
Except for young children and the elderly, we mobilized all the villagers and various tools, including carts, so it looked like quite a large group.
On the way, monsters whose territory had been invaded were tense, and there were a few clashes.
They weren’t very strong, so we could handle them sufficiently.
However, Kayla and I found such things very bothersome.
I couldn’t use magic or undead in front of the villagers, and Kayla had to pretend her leg was inconvenient.
Like that, we arrived at the ant nest together, and I instructed the villagers to clean up the corpses of the Giant Ants.
Kayla, Athena, and I guarded the surroundings and went inside to check the situation in case of any emergencies.
“It’s a shame there’s no usable equipment.”
“It can’t be helped. And even if there was, the ants probably used it all up. You saw the queen’s royal guards at the end, right?”
“Indeed, they were peculiar. Their exoskeletons looked like they had metal mixed in.”
“They probably ate all those equipment and became like that.”
“You said the baron’s family is taking all their exoskeletons, right?”
“They say they’ll pay for it, but it’s actually almost like a debt. If they can’t break through the merchant union, we won’t be able to receive most of it anyway.”
“That’s very unfair. They can’t just take the mercenaries’ money as they please.”
“We’re not even official mercenaries, and we’re cornered. What can we do?”
Officially, I was just a resident of the territory with an honorary position called an honorary soldier.
Although I received various privileges, from the baron’s perspective, I was someone who could be easily exploited.
Of course, it was true that I had intentionally put myself in that position.
In fact, I had also taken advantage of it.
It’s just that I didn’t know the territory would end up like this.
‘I didn’t expect the butterfly effect to be this strong.’
Still, since I haven’t suffered any major losses, it was just absurd.
“By the way, do we have to move all of this to the castle?”
“Probably? The people of Evergreen Forest Village might feel wronged, but if the lord orders it, there’s nothing they can do. Still, I plan to let them eat some in advance.”
I planned to distribute some food to Evergreen Forest Village first at my discretion.
Even if the lord tried to find fault with that, I could just say they had become so exhausted that they needed to eat in order to work.
In the first place, the lord had no right to say such things to me.
It would be known that I had risked my life and saved it together with my companions, and the quantity was sufficient.
He wasn’t stupid enough to find fault with me in that situation.
If he did that, he might lose the hearts of the people in a situation where a war was imminent.
It took two days to move all the remains of the Giant Ants.
Of course, we thoroughly erased any traces of the queen ant.
On top of that, although I was reluctant, I also hunted a few beasts for exclusive delivery to the lord.
Thanks to Kayla, Athena, and I thoroughly guarding the surroundings and ordering the residents to work as carefully as possible, there were no clashes with monsters after the initial entry, so there were no casualties.
The villagers followed our instructions thoroughly.
Rather than because we had secured food for them, it seemed they were too afraid to casually ignore our orders due to the terrible sight of the three of us creating the gruesome scene inside the ant nest.
With the gap in status and the gap in force added, they had no choice but to follow thoroughly.
I arranged for the report to arrive at the castle a day late, and in the meantime, I released some of the food to the people of Evergreen Forest Village, creating a small festival.
The villagers weren’t fools either, knowing that if they didn’t eat it now, most of the food could be taken away, so although it was called a festival, it felt like watching an outdoor buffet scene.
Of course, there would be some among them who secretly diverted some of the food.
No, in fact, most of them would probably do such things knowingly or unknowingly.
However, I had no intention of preventing even that.
“Thank you for keeping your promise, Sir Knight.”
“…You all worked hard too, so you have the right to eat.”
Although there were no actual casualties, it was a situation where it wouldn’t have been strange for them to occur at any time.
‘There are orc tribes around too.’
If they had rushed in, even we wouldn’t have been able to protect all the villagers.
Moreover, since there were hardly any young men left in the village, although they had large numbers, their actual fighting power was vulnerable.
Even if there were, they wouldn’t have been a match for the orcs, but they might have been able to reduce the damage a bit.
“Thanks to you, the village is lively again for the first time in a long while.”
The village chief spoke while looking at the villagers eating and drinking excitedly.
“I hope those rascal bandits will be properly wiped out and the young people who left will return safely.”
Since it was difficult to explain the details, the mercenaries were being introduced as bandits.
To be precise, the lord was treating them as bandits first, so that’s how they became known.
“I hope so too.”
I spoke appropriately without meaning it.
The day changed, and the lord, having heard the news, sent people.
“My goodness, all of this…”
The people sent by the lord were familiar to me as well.
“Disan, Danian. Fancy meeting you here.”
“As expected of you, Sir Jimnis. To think you wiped out this many in such a short time… With this much, we won’t have to worry about food for a while.”
Talking to them, it seemed they would also be participating in this war.
“Well, it seems Kuman is quite involved… In the first place, it was no secret that Kuman had a close relationship with the Owalan Baron family. It was obvious.”
Still, as someone involved, he seemed to know the rough circumstances.
In fact, all the mercenaries who had ties with me, the combat slaves who were scheduled to be sold, and even Pipis, who wasn’t very close to me, were being mobilized for this war using all the forces Kuman possessed.
The only exception was Baldur?
Since he also had to manage the slaves and guard Kuman, he became the sole exception.
By the way, Baldur was one of the disciples trained by Kayla.
Although it was a master-disciple relationship forced by oath.
While hearing various news, we moved most of the food brought from Evergreen Forest Village to the territory with the help of the villagers.
And there, I had to hear another absurd thing.
“…Are you saying to take all of these to the other villages as well?”
“That’s right. They say the monsters are going wild because the defense forces have decreased. I’ll have to ask you to subjugate the monsters there too.”
His face was almost at the adamantium level.
“The war preparations are coming to an end. Now that we have food, we plan to clash once. Thanks to you, we have some leeway. Good work.”
The lord said that if we won the battle, we could reap abundant fruits.
Well, if we really won, he would probably give out quite a lot.
The merchant union would be shattered, and the spoils falling wouldn’t be ordinary.
Moreover, there would inevitably be some loss of power on our side, and in such a situation, I would have to be used preciously.
‘Well, it’s better to play with monsters than to get involved in that.’
To the extent that even Rikinri, who had the eyes to see the situation as a knight candidate, said their chances of winning were at best 30% even with a generous estimate.
He just wanted to avoid it.
“Ah, don’t worry about transportation. I will select people from the castle and assign them to you.”
How very kind of him.
Of course, it was a request in name only and actually an order, so there was no right to refuse.
If I refused, it seemed they would drag me to the battlefield.
He seemed to think that as time passed, things were becoming more favorable for him.
Seeing him showing the best smile while looking at the beasts I had hunted separately, I forgot what I was going to say.
With the thought of definitely killing the lord in my heart, I accepted his request and started moving again after a day of rest.
Thea’s face became sorrowful at the news of them leaving again just a day after arriving, and Athena had a hard time comforting her.
Of course, Thea didn’t throw a tantrum or anything.
She wasn’t a child, and she knew her place.
She had virtually no voice in the group anyway, so she was just expressing her regret.
‘Maybe it’s a buildup to secure power.’
Considering that her complaints were directed only at Athena, it made sense.
In fact, Thea was well-mannered and obedient to me, and she also showed a respectful attitude towards Kayla, calling her teacher.
Leaving behind the regretful Thea, we began delivering food to the villages and spent time dealing with the surrounding monsters.
Thanks to that, we received a lot of praise from many people, but it didn’t have much impact.
‘They called us saviors, right?’
Among the village chiefs, there was even one who tried to make ties with me by sending his daughter, but it was sorted out at Kayla’s level.
While we were going around outside the castle, there were rumors that the lord himself had led the army to subjugate the bandits.
Since there was someone who had seen the departure ceremony, it wasn’t a false rumor, and there was no particular news for a few days after they left.
After being out of contact for a while, news of the territorial army arrived after ten days.
“They say it was a big defeat.”
It was the expected result.
“At first… they won.”
Summoned by the lord, I quietly listened to the story in front of him after returning to the castle.
He didn’t seem to have suffered any major injuries, but he clearly looked quite displeased.
“Perhaps because they received the news late, the enemy hadn’t properly gathered yet. So we were able to wipe out two mercenary groups without much difficulty, and we were confident of victory.”
Wiping out two mercenary groups was indeed a big feat.
In fact, the baron’s family had only hired one mercenary group, and even including those hired by Kuman, they had only led a total of two mercenary groups to war.
Of course, since the survival of the territory was at stake, conscripted soldiers, Knight Rankbink, and that guy Rikinri were included, but still, the only ones that could be considered elites were the two mercenary groups.
“But… the number of enemies was beyond imagination. There were more than ten mercenary groups hired just to isolate the territory. Even though we had destroyed two entire mercenary groups with a preemptive strike, it wasn’t enough. Some of them operated cavalry separately.”
They succeeded in bringing down the equivalent of three mercenary groups after repeated hard fights, but at the cost of most of the conscripted soldiers dying, the mercenary groups being half-destroyed, and even Rikinri being killed.
Among the mercenary group members who died, there were some familiar to me as well.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇