Chapter 14
Chapter 14: Carol is a Master Manipulator!
The two parties were having a combined strategic meeting in an unassuming corner of the adventurer’s guild, [Gardener].
“First, let us start by introducing everyone. I’m Gercel, the leader of [Shaltz]. The chubby guy over here is Olmann, and the buff one is Ayrad. We are all swordsmen so I can’t say the balance of our party is quite flattering.”
The leader of the party, Gercel, gave a troubled smile as he explained.
“...Sharon.”
“— Oy, is that it!? Umm, well I’m… Frank… I can use a bit of a special magic… a magician basically. And this guy’s a healer.”
I felt a little nervous as I cautiously came up with an alias on the spot.
“I see. You two have exactly what we’ve been missing in our party. Now I’m even more glad to have invited you both to join us.”
I barely managed to pass off a business smile in response. Unexpectedly, even Carol seemed to be much more frigid than I thought.
Now that I think about it, she did seem rather unsociable when she just joined the army back then but—.
Carol curled up in her chair as she gripped on my sleeves tightly.
“Well then, allow me to brief you about our joint operation this time.”
The leader Gercel pulled up a map of the area as he was chattering.
On the southern parts of the map lay the Kingdom of Kushior; located on the domain of the heroes. The territory of the Demon King spread towards the northern parts and at the far north end of the map held the dictatorial symbol of the Demon King’s military state, the Demon King’s castle. The colossal structure of Demon King’s castle encompassed such a vast area that it was visible to each and every corner of the territory.
There were also a number of small branches of the main castle expanding towards the outer regions of the territory. A detailed network of transportation laid among each castle to keep matters interconnected with a high efficiency rate.
In Odel Knights, the newly established great guild [Gardener] stood right at the borders between two opposing territories.
This guild was only formed a few years ago, yet they still managed to upset the balance between the two territories from the moment they stepped a foot on the land.
Originally, there was a tacit agreement to refrain from constructing any large structures within Odel Knights and this unspoken understanding had been kept throughout the past thousand years. But now, this gigantic guild building stood erect in the midst of it all with no regards to maintaining that delicate status quo.
Over the course of the thousand years of same repeated struggles, disregarding mutually inconvenient affairs had naturally become a commonplace. And the war had turned rather stale and strung-out.
Moreover, there were many who have managed to make a living out of this constant struggle between the heroes and the demon army. So, if the war were to suddenly cease, many would lose their way of life and be thrown out to the streets.
Which was why this conflict had prolonged all these years.
If either party were to stand out or overextend, the current stale state of war would greatly be shaken.
The whole existence of [Gardener] defied all of such unwritten rules and common sense. As the hero's offense further intensified, the demon army was forced to take appropriate measures.
Battles ran rampant and skirmishes had turned much more violent, often involving Odel Knight in their midst.
Although the demon army faced many losses at one point due to the sudden rushed aggression from the heroes’ side, yet soon afterwards, they had bounced back to reclaim their stance and resist the invasion by deploying stationed demonic monsters at various locations. While doing so, they managed to slowly recover the lost numbers thanks to the recovery of the commanding structure.
— However recently, the monsters that were urgently deployed in various places had gone feral, reproduced spontaneously, and began to ravage the heroes' territory and the city of Odel Knights.
Thus. In addition to fighting with the demons, the heroes’ side also had come to face this added issue of subjugating the stray monsters that had become uncontrollable.
Well… it is what it is.
As I kept pondering about the state of affairs, Gercel pointed towards the first branch castle just outside the Odel Knights. It’s a frontline castle of the demon territory specialized in anti-hero military tactics.
“This time, Gardener has come up with a plan for the next major incursion. Three years ago, our advance was hampered by this Galfa Castle, frontline branch of the demon army… But now, our forces are completely different from back then. And more importantly, in preparation for the decisive day of the battle, there’ll be a famous hero joining us in the center.”
Gercel had a determined expression on his face as he explained, while the two faces at the back turned a shade darker at this new found information.
“...Did everyone here participate on the major front three years ago?
Carol, who was huddling on her chair all this time suddenly muttered out.
Carol was one of those who had made a name for herself during the recent major front 3 years back. In addition to being a rare breed of vampire, she also had excellent recovery abilities. Instead of running around the battlefield and fighting the heroes, the sight of her figure hurriedly tending to the wounded on the backlines of the battlefield, was fresh in my memory.
Back then, Carol had managed to elevate her status to another stage without having to directly engage with the enemy. It would even be fair to say that she was the cornerstone of the defense in the demon army.
As for me, I was just running around the battlefield as a lowly underling under Garlock at that time. Honestly, I still don’t understand why Garlock had his pets be chased around like that.
It makes me wonder if Garlock had been scheming something behind the scenes.
“This’ll be the first time for us. But we won’t be taking part in the main battle. Instead, our role here is to be an active scouting unit of sort?”
“... Scouting unit?”
“Ah, it basically refers to a squad that usually subjugates monsters that are lurking near the branch castle. If we were to take those out first, it would take about another three weeks for them to deploy more monsters. Therefore, we will be clearing up the path ahead while pretending to engage the enemies as usual. So that the main battle which will happen in two weeks, will kick off in our favor. And we, [Shaltz] are the first to be honored with this great opportunity.”
“So… we also get to join in this mission?”
Gercel smiled seeing Carol's beaming face.
“Yeah. Usually, only parties above C-class are allowed to participate in the scouting unit. But once I put a word in with the guild, it should be okay for you guys to join in.”
“Th-thank you so much! We’ll do our best! Right, Frank?”
“Ah..haha…ha..”
This girl is quite the pretty one in her own right to begin with. And when she pretends to act cute like this, things could get a bit dangerous. You could possibly even end up falling in love for real.
In fact, the three fellas in front of us were blushing rather furiously.
“It’s good that we got to know each other early on. Well then, magician and healer… Frank and Sharon. This might take a while, but we’ll be counting on you from now on.”
Carol innocently smiled back in reply.
Of course, members of [Shaltz] had no knowledge of the true face behind that sweet smile.
That said, isn’t this supposed to be my day off…?
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