Chapter 869: The Second Year of the Great Invasion 5
As expected, the dragons hadn’t noticed Charlotte at all. She must have used some kind of magic when hiding in the attic, but the traces were so faint they completely missed her.
“My apologies……if she were an assassin, this would have been a major incident. We will exercise the utmost vigilance going forward”
“No, well……it’s just that this girl is beyond belief……if she wanted to kill me, she could have done it ages ago”
Charlotte panicked at my single remark to Leda.
“N, No, me, a murderer!?”
“No, honestly, I think you’ve got the perfect talent for assassination. Sneaking right into their lair without the dragons noticing? Even 100-man Commander Becker, could barely manage that. Probably in any human or dwarf nation, you could do whatever you wanted”
Tetes, already changed into her pajamas, gave her high praise, but Charlotte just shook her head vigorously. Luna scrutinized her posture intently, trying to uncover the secret behind her stealth.
“If she can erase her presence without magic……there must be some trick. Steal it”
“Luna-chan, you’re surprisingly diligent……try to be more fluffy, fluffy”
Naris yawned. Honestly, you’re being way too fluffy-knightish.
“Since the last stowaway incident, we’ve been reasonably vigilant……but to be completely hidden like that? ……This is troublesome. If she can do that much, we can’t counter it”
“Yeah……”
Dianne and Anzeros crossed their arms, looked down, then up at the sky—similar gestures of frustration. Exactly. The problem is that even if we’re on guard, we can’t prevent the unexpected. If we can’t control Charlotte’s movements at all, every action carries the risk of the unforeseen. Specifically, we always have to consider Charlotte suddenly appearing or disappearing, or bringing trouble back with her. This town of Rennesto has every kind of trouble source imaginable. There are a fair number of thugs with primitive behavior patterns—the kind who rape any woman they see in an alley. Fights and scams can happen anywhere. Telling her to just stay put is useless; her curiosity won’t let her listen. That said, sending another dragon to Polka just to bring her back……well, we have the manpower, so it’s not impossible, but fundamentally, if we can’t prevent her from stowing away, the anxiety won’t go away.
“Why not just abandon her and pretend we never knew?”
Corti voices this radical idea, but I find it hard to agree. Because of her birth, she became an outcast with no place to belong, like a half elf. We certainly pitied her for that. Her curiosity to see the wider world shouldn’t be dismissed outright. Granted, she’s gotten a bit carried away—or rather, the freedom of leaving the forest has led to some reckless behavior. But so far, that alone hasn’t caused any truly disastrous consequences.
“Umm……Charlotte”
After thinking it over, I leaned in close to her face.
“Y, Yes?”
“……Want to go see something interesting?”
“Eh……”
——————–
Three of us riding on the Blue Dragon’s head: me, Charlotte and Naris.
“I mean, why me!?”
“Because you seem the least likely to make weird decisions out of all the knights!”
“Hard to be happy about that……!”
In the end, I decided bringing Charlotte along on the night sortie would be the least troublesome. And having Naris ride along was because I figured if Charlotte started acting weird, an ordinary guy like me wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Well, you could argue, 「What the hell is she gonna do on a dragon’s attack flight?」, but Charlotte is, after all, an amateur. And amateurs, as with anything, suddenly do things experienced people couldn’t even imagine. We’re wrapped in 「Silk chains」 as a pretext for fall prevention, but there’s still a risk Charlotte might wriggle free and start moving. At this point, it might sound like I’m treating Charlotte not as a person but as some kind of unknowable spirit or something. But with elves, you never know who’s developed what original spells, so that assumption isn’t overly sensitive. To handle that situation, you really need someone with Ace Knight-class physical ability and sound judgment to back me up. The other girls might make cold, calculated decisions in a pinch, but I don’t think Naris would do anything cruel. Having loyal Emma or Leda back me up was an option, but with Lord Buster already at his wits’ end, I felt a sense of restraint about running everything with a Dragon-Dragon-Dragon……all-dragon setup. Plus, I didn’t want to leave Princess Ran’s Celesta Mansion understaffed. Not that it’d be understaffed even without dragons, but well, I wanted to keep her within my sphere of responsibility.
“Oh, interesting things……this, is it……”
And Charlotte, without needing to be told, wrapped her arms tightly around my waist and peered nervously down at the ground. Honestly, it was pitch black and I couldn’t see a thing, but each writhing shadow was likely a massive horde of beast-type monsters like hard wolves and horned leopards. Under the faint, hazy moonlight, the land just looks like it’s writhing. But the frantic echoes of their howls, the sounds of them fighting each other and destroying things, make it painfully clear that’s not all it is. Monsters have no reason. Grass and trees that grew this past year, makeshift huts built for farming, even the most ordinary rocks – if they catch their eye, they’ll mindlessly devour or destroy them. It’s not uncommon for them to suddenly attack and devour even their own kind, whether out of displeasure or hunger. Whether it’s good or bad that I can’t see this state of the land is unclear. But Charlotte, looking down at it with her night vision, is definitely turning pale. That alone makes bringing her worth it. It’s reckless to come sightseeing right into the thick of this – she gets it faster and more convincingly than any words could say.
“Well then……time to get to work, Maia!”
I deliberately say it cheerfully. Not that I’m actually enjoying this, but we came here to fight. We came to harness this dragon’s power. To show it to Charlotte, to Lord Buster, and to the monsters. Maia lets out a high-pitched cry that echoes far and wide, then beats her wings hard to accelerate. Naris and I each grabbed one of her horns, bracing ourselves low to prepare for Maia’s aerial maneuvers. She was flying carefully, moving her head as little as possible to protect us, but she couldn’t avoid moving entirely to sweep the ground clean with her blizzard breath. We had safety lines wrapped around the horns themselves for emergencies, but we still clung as low as possible, bracing ourselves against the side-to-side sway.
“Kyuooooooo!!!”
Was it a scream or a gasp? A momentary shockwave reverberated through her skull, and the breath of prison ice was blown onto the ground.
“Hii……!”
Charlotte, likely seeing a dragon’s breath attack for the first time in her life, gasped and tightened her grip. I felt my breath catch a little too, but I smiled and guided Maia’s slaughter.
“Next is over there! Wipe out every living monster within five kilometers of Rennesto!”
“You’re really into this, 10-man Captain Smithson……”
“I didn’t come here reluctantly. For every one we kill, someone gets saved. So why hesitate?”
“……Well, it does help, as a citizen of Rennesto……”
Naris was backing away a bit. Well, that was a reasonable reaction. Fine by me. I even felt like she was deliberately having this exchange for Charlotte to see.
“Laila’s handling things over there. We’ll finish this by midnight”
Far off, beyond Rennesto, the crimson light of dragonfire licking the ground could be seen from the sky. Laila and Dianne-san’s sector was east of Rennesto. Ours was west. With the power of two dragon breaths, tonight would claim the lives of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of monsters. Even so, the reality of this massive invasion is that we can only call it 「A fraction, just one stronghold」. Still, I think the fighting will be considerably easier. If we can eliminate the fast-moving beast types, we’ll only need to intercept the slower, heavier rock types arriving later. The national army has established tactics to defeat them, not just the gauntlet, so with enough numbers, we should be able to handle it without too much casualties (hopefully).
“Above all, if we wrap this up quickly, I can finally get a good night’s sleep until morning. Better to be ready than sorry, right?”
“Well, yeah……a good night’s sleep, and maybe some Rennesto Walking tomorrow for the first time in ages. Ugh, but it’s getting colder……”
“Well, we are at the base of blizzard breath”
“And yet, only 10-man Captain Smithson is bundled up like that! Tell them to put on cold-weather gear before forcing them aboard, no questions asked!”
“Umm, should I cast a cold-weather spell……?”
“You can actually use that, Charl-chan!?”
“Eh, yeah, my clan tends to venture out into the dead of winter sea, so we’re pretty strong with this kind of magic……”
“……You’re capable……”
No, it’s just that Naris and Almeida, who can barely cast magic despite being elves, are the special ones—or rather, the rare species. ……I kept that thought to myself and accepted the benefit of that magic. Honestly, it’s still pretty cold even with layers. It is the night sky, after all.
The troubles I’d worried about never materialized. In the end, the breath’s sweep of nearby monsters concluded before midnight.