Scout 5

Rotmiller had excellent navigation skills.

Well, that made sense. A sixth sense is naturally more sensitive to misfortune than luck.

Sure enough, not long after I rushed toward the danger he sensed, enemies appeared.

“About seventy….”

Roughly seventy enemy soldiers.

Their numbers were overwhelmingly smaller than ours. And as for the one to watch out for…

“Red Axe Jack! He’s a notorious criminal who joined Orcles over ten years ago, so be care—”

Regrettably, there was no need.

[Erwin Fornacci di Tercia has cast [Burst].]

KWAAAAAAAANG—!

Judging by how Rotmiller warned us, the bastard must have been somewhat famous. But with a single arrow from Erwin, his head was blown clean off.

“I did well, right?”

“Yeah. Good job.”

“H how was that so easy….” Rottmiler muttered in a hollow voice.

Well, his reaction was understandable. The battle that forced Rotmiller into retirement was the fight against the Dragon Slayer. We risked our lives and barely survived, even after making sacrifices.

But…

“That was years ago.”

There was no reason to flinch at the name of Orcles anymore, especially since the Corpse Collector and the Dragonslayer were among their top ranks. Some nobody like Red Axe wasn’t even worth mentioning.

“I’d only heard rumours… but you’ve really grown strong.”

Well, we’ve been fighting like hell ever since, shouting our ancestors’ names as we charged forward.

“Bethel—RAAAAAAA!!”

As I charged forward like a tank, the enemy troops, now without their commander, couldn’t even mount a proper resistance.

“Jack! Sir Jack’s down!”

“Run!”

As I smashed skulls left and right, they scattered in terror, scrambling to save themselves.

Chasing down and killing every single one of them seemed inefficient, so..

I grabbed a few who looked like they had some rank and decided to interrogate them.

“What were you guys doing here with such a small force?”

“Th that’s….”

“You don’t want to talk?!”

CRACK—!

I crushed one guy’s head as a warning and looked at the one next to him. The information started flowing before I even had to ask again.

“W we’re a scouting unit!”

“Scouts?”

“Yes! We move around the battlefield in small groups, gather information, and report back to headquarters!”

In short, human radar. They were spread out across the area to quickly contact the main force if an enemy or a threatening variable approached.

“Oh, then you must know the current state of the war quite well?”

“…Yes! Of course!”

The guy answered confidently, and he knew as much as his confidence suggested. Thanks to him, I could grasp the current situation at a glance.

The royal army, which had been in sector 5, had entered sector 7, where the Noarkan main force was clashing with them head-on.

Of course, the information itself wasn’t surprising. I was the one who had requested reinforcements that morning, after all. The real key piece of intel came next.

“The commander is still in District 7?”

“Yes! I don’t know what he’s doing exactly, but he’s definitely there!”

“Any news about Alluva Raven?”

“Alluva Raven… the Golden Mage?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry. I don’t know…”

Tch.

Where did Raven and Astarotta disappear to?

I asked the same question to the other captured candidates, but they all gave me the same answer.

With that, the questioning came to an end. Now all I had to do was deal with them quickly and leave.

“Um…”

One of them suddenly spoke cautiously.

“Would it be possible… to spare me?”

…What?

I almost laughed at how quick-witted he was.

“Just let me go and I’ll hide in the sewers until everything’s over. I swear. Please believe me.”

First time I’d seen someone like this. Lots of people had begged for their lives, but none this polite. Still…

“No.”

But…

“No.”

As I firmly drew the line, the guy gave an awkward smile, but there was fear in his eyes.

“Haha… I see… then please just kill me painlessly.”

Well, since he told me quite a lot, I could at least do that much for h—

“…Wait, something’s weird.”

I lowered my hammer.

It wasn’t instinct so much as experience calling out to me. A lifetime of betrayals was warning me about something. I couldn’t say what exactly, but I knew something was wrong.

“Versyl, use a verification spell.”

“At his level, there’s a high chance it won’t work.”

“Just try it anyway.”

Versyl silently cast the spell at my command.

And…

The verification spell didn’t work, but I wasn’t disappointed. I’d expected it to fail from the start.

Tap, tap…

Tap, tap…

I quietly tapped my thigh with my finger. I’d been watching him the whole time, carefully observing his expression when the verification magic was mentioned and when the spell was actually cast.

“…You’re an interesting fellow.”
“W what do you mean? I swear I didn’t lie!”
We’ll see.
I pulled out Misplaced Trust from my subspace.
Although there was only one use left… it was too unsettling to just let it slide.

‘Right, I can just get a new one later. so let’s use it without holding back.’

Just as I decided and was about to activate Misplaced Trust—

“Hehehehe…”

Suddenly, he bent at the waist, his spine cracking audibly. It was as if everything he’d shown until now had just been an act.

“What are you doing?” I asked warily

“Hehehe, Bjorn Jandel…”

“Answer me?”

“This place will be your grave!”

“Hehehe….”

He cursed with a chilling glint in his eyes. Then he collapsed forward in a heap.

Thud.

Misa, who was standing nearby, flinched and rushed over to check his pulse.

“Bjorn…? He is dead…”

Ah, come on. What the hell is this now?

Way to make things unsettling.

***

A vast stone chamber bathed in bright light. Under it lay a heap of bodies piled like a mountain.

One, two, three, four…

There were so many that counting was meaningless. The corpses, easily numbering in the thousands, all shared one commonality: every single one of them was shriveled up like a dehydrated vegetable.

Clatter!

At that moment, the ceiling opened and dozens more corpses poured down.

Bang!

Once the downpour ended, the ceiling sealed itself again, and silence returned to the chamber.

And…

“…”

The man standing at the entrance didn’t look away. Although he was frowning as if in pain, he watched the scene with firm determination in his eyes.

After some time—

“Ah, here you are! Another charge has finished, Marquis Tercerion.”

“…Is that so? Let’s go up.”

The marquis left the underground chamber and returned to the surface. He was in a vacant area surrounded by high walls. In the center sat a massive magic-tech weapon connected to dozens of pipes.

Its official name was Thunder. One of the three ancient magic-tech weapons held by the royal family.

Well, strictly speaking, it was a part of Thunder, but regardless.

“Isn’t it a magnificent object? To think it can produce enough power to blow up a royal palace just by grinding up some useless humans.”

The marquis turned his head and looked at the man standing beside him.

“It’s all thanks to you, Marquis. If this had remained in the royal family’s hands, this war wouldn’t have even been able to begin.”

Though the man was old, his body remained strong, and his eyes burned with more passion than any youth’s.

He was the lord of Noark.

“Forgive me for asking so late, but why did you decide to stand against the royal family in the first place?”

“……”

“Now that we’re in the same boat, let’s speak frankly. You contacted us out of nowhere and offered to seize Thunder for us, saying you’d stand on our side once the war began. Yet you claim you have no desire for the throne. Naturally, we can’t help but worry… about your true intentions.”

“…Hatred.”

“…Pardon?”

“Let’s just call it hatred.”

The marquis ended it there.

The lord made an awkward expression, then forced out a strained laugh.

“…Haha! Then I suppose the King must have done something to earn your deep resentment?”

The marquiss answered with a bitter smile, and silence fell between them.

Uncomfortable with it, the lord spoke again.

“By the way, why do you keep charging it? Since you hold authority over Thunder, I assumed you had your reasons, so I didn’t ask before… but if you’d used it earlier, we could have already taken over half of Raphdonia by now.”

At that question, the Marquiss let out a long breath.

“I’m waiting for the right time. For a moment when it will be used for something far more important.”

“More important than taking half of Raphdonia?”

“At least, that’s what I believe.”

“…I see.”

The lord seemed to tire of lingering with the marquess. After another round of small talk, he excused himself, saying he had somewhere to be.

Tap, tap.

A man dressed in knight’s armor entered the building and bowed to the Marquis. The Marquis did not speak at length.

“Did you find him?”

He asked calmly, and the man nodded in response.

“Yes, my lord. At last, we’ve pinpointed the location of Jandel.”

It was time.

****

Everything has signs.

If your hair suddenly stands on end, lightning is about to strike.

If rats or insects flee in groups, it means there’s a high probability of an earthquake. If so, what about this situation?

“Them?”

“They’re still following us. Keeping watch.”

After the man I interrogated killed himself in a fit of manic laughter, another group of soldiers began tracking us with a clever, ruthless pursuit.

“Can we catch them?”

“Wouldn’t it be pretty hard? They’re so far away that even Erwin’s arrows can’t reach them.”

They hadn’t attacked us yet.

They simply kept their distance and followed.

But the problem was…

Thump.

That’s exactly why I felt more uneasy.

That bastard who died after saying those ominous words. And these guys tailing us right away.

All of it felt like a warning sign of something.

“Increase speed to the maximum.”

We increased our speed even further, but for some reason, not a single enemy was visible.

“Rottmiller.”

“I’m not sure where to go either. For now, I just have a feeling that something bad is about to happen.”

Even the navigation I’d been relying on suddenly stopped working for some reason.
But the real final nail in the coffin was this.

“…Bjorn? They suddenly stopped following us.”

Our pursuers had vanished. No, more accurately…

“…?”

“They’re not slowing down their pursuit…they’re deliberately keeping their distance.”

The guys who had been trailing us were now suddenly turning around and putting distance between us. What on earth did this mean? Out of nowhere, a saying came to my mind: If you see the water rapidly receding at the beach, you need to get out of there immediately.

PHISHUUUUUUUUUNG!

At that moment, a roar like a jet streaking overhead echoed through the air, and everyone instinctively ducked in shock.

Well… everyone except me.

What the hell is that?

As the guardian responsible for everyone’s safety, I raised my head and scanned the situation.

“…?”

For a moment, I doubted my own eyes.

I’d heard that District Four had already fallen to the Noarkans, and from that direction, I saw what looked like a massive projectile hurtling straight toward us.

“Thunder… it’s Thunder!!”

Unlike me, who had been underground when it went off, my companions recognized its identity immediately. As soon as I heard the name, a curse escaped my lips involuntarily.

“Son of a…”

Missile bombardment is cheating.

 

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