Chapter 35
The soldiers at the camp didn’t come close to us.
I just watched the adventurers getting off the wagon and saw them fussing among themselves from a distance, but they didn’t even move until we stood in a line and looked at the forest after receiving simple instructions from the guide.
“Leader. What are those chidees like?”
I ordered them to stand in a neat line and asked the man who was moving while checking the distance between them. Only a blunt answer came back.
“Don’t you know when you see it? It’s a private soldier of the farmer to be on guard against thieves.”
“Are you ready to go to war?”
“For them, it will be no different from a war to protect the farm. Just stay focused.”
Perhaps it was because he naturally followed the action of keeping the distance as if he were observing military ceremonies, he said only that far and then went on, demanding the same distance from other adventurers. It didn’t look particularly rushed, but it didn’t mean it was leisurely either.
However, the strangely pressured tone gave off the scent of a training assistant whose purpose was to deliberately block anyone from thinking about anything else.
“What does it mean to line up 60 people like this?”
“Actually, it wasn’t a request to exterminate thieves, but rather a request to find a needle in the forest.”
“If you look at it, it’s credible.”
Of course, neither of us cares the slightest about that possibility. Needless to say, we stared at the forest with utmost nervousness, and before long the leader, who had all lined up, gave a loud command.
“The request is not much different from what everyone knows! It’s just added that we run from here to the border of the forest like this! We can’t pay a reward to those who distort the formation or run away!”
However, what came out of his mouth was not words, but bullshit. Needless to say, adventurers quickly start complaining.
“Don’t fuck! Let’s just do what the contract says!”
“We’re sick and tired, really. Are we idiots? Did you know something would fly out of the woods and pay the price?!”
“In a situation where we should be grateful that we lined up even though there was no explicit command line, it’s a little tricky to catch fault with even running, sir, leader?”
“Unlike you, we learned to walk right away, so pay more if you want to see us mess around like idiots!”
It was a very natural reaction. Even if you do adventurer things relatively safely in the capital, you are still an adventurer after all. If you ask for more than a contract from those who risk their lives for pennies, that’s the way it has to be.
When I looked at him, thinking that the leader would be taken aback by the unexpectedly intense reaction, the leader, far from embarrassed, was smiling with a meaningful smile.
“Good! Two silver coins will be awarded as an additional reward to those who advance confidently!”
With a decision that seemed like they had been waiting, Cheryl and I looked at each other without asking who said first.
“That’s it!”
“You were a nobleman who knew how to deal with people!”
Unlike the adventurers who cheered and laughed ferociously, what we felt was a very strong premonition of being fucked.
An ineffective demonstration of force? The military could do that. If they were soldiers wearing armor and equipped with shields, and could easily block the bows fired by quite a few guys, they would be able to go on foot, let alone run. At least, even among adventurers with a higher level of skill, there were quite a few such guys, so if they had spent more money, they would have definitely put an end to it.
However, there are 60 adventurers who are only green level, and there is no one who tries to do it in a line in front of the enemies in the forest. Even having the enlisted men standing by in the back and taking action close to such a war of attrition…at least, from my point of view, it was one of the three.
The thieves are quite a bunch of idiots, so I’m sure that they can’t do anything even if they do this, or our commanding authority is an idiot, or it’s actually an adventurer, not a thief, who is being eliminated.
First of all, since this quest is secondary, the first one is excluded. Because the small party failed several times, so the 2nd request occurs. Even if you don’t know how much these guys are, they definitely have their own skills.
The second prediction is also ambiguous. If the leader had the right to command, the odds of him already raising a serpent in his stomach were higher than the odds of being an idiot, and if there was a commander in the encampment of those noble soldiers, he would have proudly presented an idiot-like tactic and come out to see the results. .
The third is just intuitive. I couldn’t erase the feeling that I had become a moving target at a shooting range when I was looking at this little girl that I couldn’t understand or understand with common sense.
“Eldmia.”
“Uh. Tell me.”
“Compared to the size of the camp, there are few remaining people.”
Why do dog-like premonitions rarely go wrong? I furrowed my brow involuntarily and studied the floor leading to the forest as hard as I could. And soon enough, too many people could find the footsteps that had been trodden at similar intervals.
The long footsteps leading into the forest showed signs of returning to the campsite in a similar form. I would like to believe that the traces are just traces of the search party, and that he hired an adventurer because he tried to subdue them with his privates and failed, but of course it was a delusion that made no sense. There’s no point in saying that an aristocrat’s enlisted soldier is not as good as a green-class adventurer.
“Are there any fools who make me speechless?”
“I’ll have to run into the woods and then I’ll be sure.”
My head couldn’t easily accept the situation, but it was definitely not my fault. Is the result I’m really expecting correct? Is this what it sounds like?
He tricked adventurers and guilds and killed a party of ignorant adventurers in order to give his soldiers real combat experience in this situation? I forcibly separated myself from the adventurers around me who shouted and recharged my motivation, and I rolled my head but couldn’t find an answer. Of course, if you don’t get caught, you’ll be fine, but how can something so blatant go unnoticed?
Even Cheryl, who is almost at the top of the kingdom’s nobility, is grinding her teeth at the crazy move we predict. No longer looking at the forest, she was in serious trouble as she looked at the campsite. Perhaps they are weighing whether to keep an eye on the progress or to leave it out. I look around just in case, but the knight who is supposed to be escorting Cheryl is not showing up.
Did they say lions push their cubs off cliffs? Of course, real lions never perform such eccentricities, but the lion named Ecap may surprisingly have no objection to such eccentricities. He is a man who clearly differentiates between caring for his children and caring for and raising them unilaterally.
“It’s better to see it with your own eyes than to judge hastily.”
As befits the daughter of such a man, a bold conclusion comes out of Cheryl’s mouth. It was a perfectly reasonable argument, but is it a decision worthy of risking one’s own life? There was a little bit of skepticism about the part.
“It’s true that your skills are good, but haven’t you tried avoiding or hitting flying arrows?”
“Well, it’s possible, but it doesn’t mean it’s actually going to happen. Even if it were, I’d be able to do normal shooting somehow. I don’t think there’s a person with the ability to shoot with mana on a bow.”
“That’s shameful confidence.”
“That’s not what you’re talking about.”
Cheryl looked at me with a dissatisfied look at me, and I moved my head to express my question, but she did not give me a specific answer. what? I didn’t show myself dodging or blocking arrows, so why are you saying that? I think there’s nothing you can’t avoid if you want to avoid it, but you never bothered to show it off?
“Above all, the escort hasn’t appeared yet. I don’t know who it is, but they’re probably judging that I can get through this much of a situation.”
“Isn’t that just believing that you’ll fall for yourself?”
“If the situation is so sudden that he can’t respond, my exclusive butler will take care of it and devote himself to it.”
In the end, I felt sorry for Cheryl, who did not want to reveal her identity and leave this place even in this situation, and Cheryl’s vicious mind trying to wield my life as if it were her own. I couldn’t help but applaud in admiration for the misfortune of ‘.
“Why are you clapping all of a sudden?”
“It’s because I couldn’t stop admiring your vicious personality…”
“Charge!”
As if the applause was a flare, the leader shouted, so we couldn’t talk any more. Whether the other adventurers were stupid, easy-going, or bold and full of skills, I started running frantically for two silver coins even in such a pathetic situation, and Cheryl and I looked at each other and sighed.
“At least we weren’t the first to face an unexpected situation.”
“That’s right.”
After a long time behind, we decided to walk slowly while watching the others running furiously.