Subjugation Campaign (1)
"You move because I say so, Hex. Just because a few mercenaries died, this is hardly...
"I am telling you for the last time, it wasn't just a few mercenaries. The mercenaries are gone, my men are gone, and above all, we haven't heard a word from the villagers. This is no trivial matter!"
The information broker Hex had met with one of the city administrator's men, more precisely one of the administrator's stewards, and poured out the whole story to him.
The steward, who had taken more than a few hefty bribes from Hex over the years, could hardly dismiss his words outright, no matter how absurd they sounded.
"It may still not be enough. No matter how I think about it, there shouldn't be anything in this northern forest capable of wiping out an entire village and slaughtering a band of mercenaries..."
"Please, calm down a little. In any case, the administrator has already dispatched troops to investigate, just as you asked. A full hundred men have moved out."
The steward frowned at Hex's hysterical display. But Hex, who valued his own life above all else, could not seem to rein in his panic.
"There have been strange reports everywhere lately, haven't there? The Demon Realm's erosion, the appearance of demons, the rampage of mana beasts and all the rest. I can't accept something that horrible happening right next to where I live."
"W-Well, neither can I. There have been plenty of bizarre rumors reaching even this borderland. They say there's a rebellion in the royal palace, that the Empire is about to split in two, that ancient races thought long vanished are appearing again."
The steward grimaced at Hex's trembling words. The world's affairs had already been sliding into chaos, and recently the disorder had only deepened.
This was the frontier, so the impact had been slightly dulled here, but being on the edge also meant they lacked the power to resist it.
"Ahem! In any case, don't worry too much. The soldiers went with Sir Robert as well."
After clearing his throat, the steward ultimately left him with nothing more than the obvious: don't worry. There was no point worrying, anyway. It would not change a thing.
...
Left alone, Hex toyed with an empty wine cup. For some reason, he could not shake the unease gnawing at him.
At last, frowning, he sprang to his feet.
"Has your mind settled down a little now?"
Hex made his way to the cellar. When he unfastened the crude lock meant to keep someone caged inside and opened the door, there was indeed someone imprisoned there.
...
"In the end, it seems your brother failed to pay back the money. Rousseau, who went to collect the debt, has also gone missing... The problem is, Rousseau owed me money too, so the ownership rights that were held as collateral have passed to me as well."
He gave a thin smile at the sight of her crouched in the corner, glaring at him.
She was Donald, the mercenary captain's half-sister, forced to serve as collateral for a loan. After that, when word from Rousseau ceased entirely, Hex, who had already learned of her existence, had all but forced her into his own possession.
"Wouldn't it be better to find out what happened first?"
"Yes, but that's not for you to worry about."
"Ugh..."
Hex flinched at her retort, then forced a smile and seized her by the hair.
"A full hundred soldiers have gone to investigate the place. There will probably be nothing at all. So stop worrying about that and start thinking about how you'll satisfy customers from here on out. If you do that, maybe you'll be able to pay off all your debt."
Then he muttered those words into her pained face.
She gritted her teeth and glared at him, but she had neither the strength to resist nor the power to change her situation.
...
After Hex left, she remained alone in the darkness, sinking into despair.
Helplessness. That revolting, hateful thing had taken hold of her body.
***
"Look at this! There are traces here too!"
"Hmm... what in the world are these bastards doing?"
The hundred soldiers Hex had boasted about. Robert, the knight commanding them, looked down at the tracks on the ground and gave a low murmur.
The marks suggested something had been dragged away after resisting violently. There was not just one or two such traces in the area.
And yet no clothing or personal effects had been found anywhere, so even whether this had been done by a mere monster was uncertain.
"If we go deeper into the forest and inspect the village, we'll surely learn something."
"You're right. Prepare to move."
At his adjutant's words, Knight Robert nodded. In the end, what mattered most was the survival of the forest village that had steadily paid taxes to the city. If it was unharmed, then this might all be nothing more than an overblown disturbance.
"Th-this is impossible."
"The village!"
But their hopeful expectations shattered in an instant. The village, where quite a few people had once lived, lay in ruins so complete that not a trace of life could be found.
"Prepare for battle!"
And then, in that very instant, Robert's keen senses caught something instinctively and he ordered the soldiers to prepare for combat. Startled men yanked out spears and swords and pointed them in every direction, their wavering eyes fixed on the front.
"What is that sound?"
Soon the soldiers themselves sensed the change and began to stir. The ground was shaking. It was as if a horde of enemies were charging straight at them.
"Over there! It's the enemy?!"
"H-Hey! Monsters!"
Without even trying to hide themselves, the monsters came barreling through the rough woods at full speed, driving straight toward them. At the sight of the dreadful creatures they had never seen before, the soldiers recoiled, their spear tips trembling in the air.
"C-calm down. Hold your ground!"
Robert barely managed to keep his composure and command them. Of course, once fear had already seized them, the soldiers could not simply be gathered into one unified force by barking orders alone.
"They're coming... Aaaah!"
The lead Ascalas minions slammed into the soldiers without the slightest hesitation.
With thunderous impacts and shockwaves exploding outward, the soldiers who had tried to brace together were flung backward helplessly by the charging monsters, screaming even before they could feel the pain.
Minions were nothing but dolls that moved only according to the Great Lord's commands, so they knew no fear and no hesitation.
"According to your choice, our side launched a surprise attack and struck the enemy after they had moved deep inside. Do you believe we can win easily?"
"...We'll have to see."
Watching that desperate, brutal struggle in which they fought with their lives on the line, he frowned. Watching events unfold by his own choice was, as always, no easy matter.
"It looks favorable to me."
"Not yet."
Ascalas said this while observing the soldiers, who were failing to properly respond to the minions' assault. But he was not convinced.
There was no doubt the minions held the upper hand against soldiers already driven half-mad by fear. But that advantage came largely from momentum. Compared to the soldiers, whose morale was deeply affected by terror, Ascalas's minions possessed no such thing as emotion, and could throw themselves at weakened enemies as though they had already accepted death.
"This still isn't enough to satisfy me."
Even so, he muttered as if uneasy. Even though they seemed to be pressing hard, the minions were facing proper soldiers rather than a few mercenaries, and that was exposing their limits in subtle ways.
Their overall combat ability varied wildly, but the minions' teeth, tentacles, and the like could not pierce the soldiers' steel armor. Aside from a few larger minions, they had to exert far more force to bring down armored men.
He thought that if the soldiers had not been paralyzed by fear, if this had not been their first time fighting Ascalas, things would not have been this easy.
"Then what about the warrior class? Just by evolving one step beyond minions, the Ascalas warriors loyal to you have gained power that cannot be compared to before."
Of course, there was a clear strength as well. Agares showed him Lena, who had charged into the battlefield alongside the other minions.
She was currently the only warrior-class unit he possessed, and at the same time the only one with clear potential to keep growing.
"This monster bitch... so you're the leader."
After cutting down a hobgoblin minion in a single stroke, Knight Robert set his sword toward her in the middle of the chaos, his face hardened.
"And you must be the captain of these people."
With a grin, Lena pulled free the spear she had driven through another soldier's body and let her red-stained eyes gleam.
Purity. What shone in those eyes was, quite literally, madness in its purest form. That made Robert's gaze waver slightly.
It did not help that he could see a minion based on the massive, triangle-horned black bear monster roaring as it sent three soldiers flying with a savage sweep of its forelimbs.
"I can feel it. If I kill you, I'll grow another step."
"How insolent, for a nameless monster queen."
"A name... of course you wouldn't know it. But don't worry. If I kill the lot of you who came to look for the mercenaries, and then kill those who come to save you, and finally seize the city itself, then who in the world could fail to learn our names?"
Robert's provocation had no effect on that madness at all. In the end, he only clenched his jaw and gripped his sword more tightly.
"So that's your aim, beasts of hell. To harm and devour people!"
"That's right. Everything is as he wills!"
Lena bared her teeth, laughed, and kicked off the ground first.
Robert barely managed to block the strike. That spear, bending as though it were truly alive, was something even a veteran knight like him had never faced in his life.
Lena's skill had been growing rapidly as she accumulated experience. She had obvious shortcomings, but the high-density essence provided by the Great Lord was strengthening her body all the more.