Survival in Another World with My Mistress!, Volume 2, page 28
Just then, from up ahead, we heard someone shout, “I’ve spotted our destination!”
Somehow, we had arrived at the first shelter. We had enough room for everyone to sleep without issue. I would have to work on food once we got there.
“I hope we can get to know one another much better too, Kousuke,” Melty said.
“Uh, okay?”
“Grrrrr!”
“Hissss!”
Their scare tactics showed no signs of stopping.
***
Far to the north of the Great Omitt Badlands, where Kousuke and the others were busily doing their thing, a stout man was restlessly walking in circles around a desk. The white robes with golden embroidery gliding behind him as he paced marked him as a high-up member of the clergy.
“What should I do? What should I do? What’s the right move here?”
After losing a thousand soldiers, he—the archbishop—had lost another five thousand. That was roughly half of the forces stationed in this province. Losing half their troops would likely hamper their ability to keep the roads safe and maintain public order, starting with the defense against monsters and bandits. No, not likely—it would hamper it. Most certainly.
“Should I gather mercenaries? No, if I did such a thing, they would know. But it’s impossible to hide what’s been happening at this point. What should I… What should I…?!”
The words What should I do? kept tumbling through his mind, but in truth, he already knew. It wasn’t a matter of what he could do—in fact, nothing could be done. He was in checkmate, and his position as archbishop was as good as gone. If anything, he’d be relegated to some remote region or even demoted. No, perhaps he couldn’t outrun his mistakes.
“Grrgh. Graaaagh! Why? How did this happen?!” The man was overcome with rage at the absurdity of the situation. He simply couldn’t comprehend it. But at present, he did know two things.
Firstly, he knew this was no mere uprising among the demi-humans. They had strong fighters and some mysterious power that enslaved demi-humans did not possess. Some of the kingdom’s men had claimed they sighted Leonard the Twin Fanged. In other words, this was clearly related to the revolt three years prior.
Secondly, the man was convinced that they wielded powerful unknown magic or weaponry. That would explain how a scrappy group of fifty had routed a hundred cavalrymen and annihilated close to nine hundred infantry, bowmen, and logistics officers, as well as a battalion of over five thousand soldiers, in a single night.
What kind of sick joke is this? he wondered. It’s absolutely impossible. And yet, it actually happened. We still have no idea what this magic or weapon actually is. This is a nightmare. For now, I need to prevent the situation from getting any worse. I’m sure they’ll be calling for my head if it does. Literally.
As he contemplated his fate, there was a knock at the door. A weak one. He had a bad feeling about this.
“What is it?”
“We just received a messenger from a fortress along the border… Um, he said it’s urgent.”
Give me a break already. O God! O Adol the Father. Where did I go wrong?
The archbishop looked up to the heavens. The faint sound of laughter came from a corner of the room, but in his despair, the archbishop didn’t hear it.
Chapter 9:
Let’s Capture Some Fortresses!
WE SPENT THE NIGHT at the first shelter and did the same at the second, third, and fourth shelters before we arrived at the ruins of the temporary fortress. It had been more than two weeks since the temporary fortress blew up, so we prepared ourselves for a gruesome sight. Y’know, fields of putrescent gore, desiccated bodies frozen in their final moments of agony, that sort of thing.
“There’s a whole lot less than I was expecting,” I said.
“It still smells some, but it seems that the gizmas cleaned up the place for us,” Sylphy replied.
As we got closer, the gizmas’ numbers dramatically increased. They were probably the ones who had come here to feast on the corpses. But when I thought about how they had taken care of all the mess for us, I got to thinking they might actually excel as cleaners.
After collecting and dismembering the gizma corpses, I disposed of the meat. We weren’t keen on the idea of eating anything that had eaten a person. There were so many issues with that. However, I would use their carapaces, leg tendons, and such for materials.
We proceeded past the site of the temporary fortress to construct a new temporary fortress in a place that didn’t reek of death. Using the blueprint function, I was able to pop it out in an instant.
“To the enemy, your powers must be straight out of a nightmare,” Sylphy told me.
“I know, right?”
A fortress had sprung up out of nowhere, after all. In actuality, this new temporary fortress was less than half a day’s walk from the nearest fortress along the border. It was a bit farther from the fourth shelter, but there was no helping that. We had fought a ton of gizmas along the way, so by the time we arrived here and I put down the fortress, it was already dark out.
“I-I saw about three hundred and fifty soldiers,” Flamé reported.
“Morale’s lookin’ a mite low down thar,” Capri, another tawny, added.
After dinner, the two had gone out for nighttime reconnaissance and were now giving their report in the temporary fortress’s conference room. Harpies didn’t usually have good night vision, but these two were exceptions.
From the way the feathers on Flamé’s head bounce, almost like animal ears, maybe she’s something like a horned owl? But what kind of bird does that make Capri? A nightjar? Capri was an unusual lady who spoke in an unpretentious accent reminiscent of Kansai speech from Japan.
“Let’s get some rest and then head out at the crack of dawn. We’ll surround their fortress in the early morning and cut off any messengers,” Sylphy said.
“An early-morning attack? I am all for it.” Madame Zamil grinned viciously. Maybe she intended for it to come off as a broad smile, but it looked quite vicious on her reptilian face.
“We shall proceed as we discussed before we left. Surround the fortress, prevent them from sending messengers. The harpies will bomb them to thoroughly whittle down their ability to resist us. All the better if they surrender. If they don’t, we’ll wait until nightfall, when Kousuke will burrow our way underneath the fortress and we’ll send in soldiers to seize it from the inside,” Sylphy said.
“I believe we said that the fortress has two entrances?” I asked.
“Yup. We saw ’em both. Right, Flamé?”
“Y-yes, Capri’s right. One to the north and one to the south.”
“I shall take half of my elites and the crossbowmen to defend the northern side. Your Highness, I would like you to take the remaining soldiers to defend the southern side,” Danan said.
“Does that mean it’s okay if I go with Her Highness to contain the southern gate?” Shemel asked.
“Yes, please do,” Sylphy replied.
“Right-o.”
“I’ll take the mages to help blockade the northern side,” Ira said. “Since Kousuke will be with us on the southern side, I’m sure they’ll have a way to defend against arrows, but the troops on the north side will have insufficient defenses with our current composition.”
“Excellent,” said Danan.
In summation, Danan would be taking a hundred elite soldiers and one hundred fifty crossbowmen along with Ira and her ten mages to the north. To the south would be Sylphy and Madame Zamil leading a hundred and fifty crossbowmen with Shemel leading a hundred ex-adventurers and me with fifteen harpies under my command and five musketeers to lock down the gates.
The mages could protect them against arrows by creating barriers with wind and earth magic. Ira was right that Sylphy and I would be able to do something about pesky arrows. If I wanted, I could make a wall taller than their fortress, and we could just hit them nonstop without them being able to fight back. I wouldn’t, though.
“Well, now that we’ve verified the situation, let’s call the meeting here. Everyone, make sure you’re fully rested and prepared for tomorrow. Got it?” Danan looked at Sylphy, Ira, and the harpies. He knew who was in charge here, so he didn’t bother looking my way. His consideration for me brought me to the verge of tears.
Sylphy smirked. “Don’t worry.”
“Okay.” Ira nodded, her expression blank.
“No need to fret.” Pirna smiled on behalf of the harpies.
Danan looked at them skeptically but accepted it for now. I prayed that the women would be true to their word. To be honest, I really didn’t mind it all that much. Who would be bothered by beautiful ladies sneaking into your bed night after night because they desired you so? I supposed it would be more accurate to say that they dragged me to their bed than snuck into mine. At first, my moral values from growing up in Japan got in the way, but I was completely used to this arrangement after a week. I even look forward to it now, ha ha ha.
Danan looked at me in silent pity. Stop staring, please. It’ll get to me…
***
Everyone actually restrained themselves, so I was able to have a quiet night for the first time in a while. However, we all slept together in this gigantic bed—whatever’s bigger than king size. Sylphy and Ira’s bodies and the harpies’ feathers sure felt warm.
We woke up while it was still dark out, ate, and marched. Since we couldn’t use fire, the other soldiers had block cookies and jerky. We, however, had warm meals that I took out of my inventory. Sylphy was with me, after all, so this kind of special treatment was expected.
Dawn still had not broken when we arrived at the fortress at the border.
“Do you think they’ve noticed our approach now that we’re this close?” I asked Sylphy.
“It’s not yet dawn, but it’s starting to get brighter. It’ll be too late for them, even if they start panicking now.”
Danan’s force had already split from us. They should have been in position to block the northern gate by now. We could see soldiers scurrying around on top of the fortress’s walls, and a bell was ringing intermittently. It must have been the alarm.
“Okay, Kousuke. Let’s go.”
“You’re not gonna give them an order to surrender or anything?”
“No. It’d be pointless.”
“I see. Okay, let’s get into crossbow range.”
“Got it. Forward march!”
At Sylphy’s signal, the crossbow squad took up positions about seventy meters from the walls. Using the goat’s foot crossbows, which had relatively strong plate springs, we could easily hit enemies on top of a wall from this distance. The crossbowmen had practiced shooting at targets on castle walls from this distance during their training.
“Kousuke.”
“Coming up.”
I began to put down shields in front of everyone for protection against arrows. The enemy still hadn’t readied their counterattack yet, but Madame Zamil was guarding me just in case. Arrows came flying at me sporadically, but they didn’t even graze me.
Once the shields were set, the crossbowmen began returning fire. The enemy was taking quite a lot of damage thanks to everyone’s training. We sustained some injuries as well, but we were overwhelming them.
“Kousuke,” said Pirna, “we’re going to join the fray.”
“Okay. Let’s get you ready.”
I started equipping the harpies with their bombs. The task itself was simple. I had further improved the bombs, so now the harpies could just hang the hook for them on harnesses instead of needing the string fastened to them. All the user had to do was grab the handle and then pull the hook attached to the string that set off the fuse. Each harpy needed only about ten seconds to get ready.
“Now, we’re off!”
“Remember, safety first!”
“We won’t forget!”
I watched the harpies fly away as Sylphy ordered the crossbowmen to prepare for the explosions. It’d be stupid to let ourselves get hurt by the shrapnel and whatnot that would come flying at us. We would focus on defense, keeping ourselves hidden behind the shields until the bombings were over. Sylphy, Madame Zamil, the civil officials, and I would hide behind shields I put down.
When I looked up, I saw the harpies dropping their bombs from high above.
“Here it comes! Everyone down!” At Sylphy’s order, everyone hid behind the shields and plugged their ears. I had warned them to open their mouths, but how could that possibly help?
We heard an incredibly loud sound, and then came the impact. We could still feel it from behind the shields.
Once we confirmed that the explosion had subsided, we peeked out and saw the fortress in a pitiful state. Huge sections of wall were collapsing or barely even standing. The gate, which had been the epicenter, was partially destroyed. I didn’t know what it was like inside, but I was sure that it was in an equally bad state.
“Uhh, what should we do now?” I asked.
“Hold on. Danan, what’s the status over there? We’ve destroyed the southern gate, and the enemy won’t be able to stop us,” Sylphy said over the golem communicator.
“Same here. Shall we storm the fortress?”
“Yes. We’ll begin our assault in five minutes.”
“As you wish.”
Just as they finished their conversation, the harpies returned.
“We did it! It was a huge success!” Pirna cheered.
“We got more of the enemy,” Capri said.
“Praise us, praise us!”
“Uh, yeah. Good work,” I said.
As I was talking the harpies down, Sylphy and Madame Zamil told the ex-adventurers to prepare to storm the fortress. Shemel eagerly brandished her giant kanabo. We didn’t know how many enemy soldiers were left, but I felt bad that after taking such a heavy blow, they’d have to face this lot.
“It’s time to storm the fortress! After me!” Sylphy rallied the troops.
A loud, whooping cry rang out among them. “Aaahhh!”
And with that, Sylphy led the charge. The attacks coming from the top of the bulwark had already stopped, so there was nothing to impede them. After a flash of light, the broken gate was blown away by Sylphy’s spirit magic. What in the world did she just do? That was terrifying.
For a short while, I heard the sounds of battle inside the fortress—or rather, I kept hearing the angry cries coming from those who were rushing in. I said short, but it was only about ten minutes. Then came resounding battle cries as a new flag was raised above the partially destroyed gate. It was the flag of the former Kingdom of Merinard.
“It looks like they’ve successfully taken the fortress,” Melty said.
“Yeah. That was fast.”
The only things I had done were put down shields and take bombs for the harpies out of my inventory. I had helped them gear up, but Melty and her people were just as responsible.
“Guess I gotta go repair this sorry fortress.” I looked wearily at the walls and the gate that Sylphy had utterly destroyed. I felt like it might actually be easier to just turn the place into a vacant plot of land and rebuild it with the blueprint function.
“Good luck. We’ll be rooting for you.”
“Thanks?” I replied listlessly as I began to make my way toward the fortress, but then Melty grabbed my arm.
I gave her a quizzical look as she leaned toward me and whispered in my ear. “If you so desire it, I’ll give you a reward later.”
“Eek!” I couldn’t help but tremble at the seductive tone of her voice.
“Noooope!” Fortunately, Pessa and Capri cut in between us. Nice job.
“Don’t give in, Kousuke. I don’t even wanna think what’ll happen if you piss off Her Highness,” Capri warned.
“I’m sure you’ve got things to do inside the fortress, so we’ll take care of things here.”
“O-okay.” I decided to follow Pirna’s suggestion and head inside. I could’ve sworn I heard giggling and chirping coming from behind me, but I was sure it was just my imagination. I dashed into the fortress without looking back.
***
“Bluuuuuuurgh!”
“That’s repulsive,” Ira said.
“Hey, I’m sure this kind of scene is hard to stomach for those who aren’t used to it,” Sylphy said.
The inside of the fortress was a dreadful spectacle. While bloodstained corpses and corpses with no physical defects were sort of charming, in a way, it was the unidentifiable bits and pieces that set me off. It was awful. Just plain awful. Like, so bad I didn’t have the words to describe it anymore. After seeing this, I could see just how much consideration they put in for players of gory games. Also, it stunk. Reeked to high hell.
“This is mostly because of the bombs,” Ira noted.
“Yeah, regular weapons are incapable of this kind of carnage. Though perhaps it would be possible with magic,” Sylphy said.
“At any rate, we cannot use the fortress in its current state. Let’s get this cleaned up as quickly as possible.” At Danan’s command, the elites and ex-adventurers began gathering the scattered corpses in one spot to burn them.
Sylphy had been rubbing my back the whole time. Thank you, Sylphy.
“Oh, how are you going to burn the bodies?” I asked.
“With magic. Then we’ll bury the ashes,” Ira answered.
Normally, they would do their best to identify the bodies and snip off their hair, but under the circumstances, standard operating procedure didn’t apply.
“Any prisoners?”
“We have about twenty of them. They were the people lucky enough to be knocked out with minor injuries and the few who surrendered when faced with combat. The majority of those still alive and able to move chose to resist and died in battle. As zealous believers in Adol, surrendering to demi-humans would be an unimaginable disgrace,” Sylphy answered.
“For real? Religion is scary.”
“I agree.”
Nevertheless, it still felt like it was over way too soon. Bombing them had probably been too unfair on our part; it hadn’t really felt like a battle at all. I heard that there were less than 50 soldiers who could still fight in the fortress when we stormed in.
