12 - The 12th "」」」」」」"

The Land of the Half-Elves, Rattestwood.

People were gathered in the central square of the settlement.

"Beastmen?　Who is that?　These are not the people of Rattestwood. Don't tell me the adventurers have returned?"

"No. It must be one of the travelers.

"Besides the beastmen, there's an elf and a human. Three travelers in total.

"Elves!　Is it safe to let them into the settlement!"

"It seems that he saved Master Leifa's life. She herself invited him."

"If that's the case, I don't blame you, but I don't think you can ...... help yourself. ......"

"...... Hey. By the way, what the hell is that beastman doing here?"

At the center of the buzzing crowd, it is Levee who attracts the most attention.

She has placed a cauldron from the village storehouse on top of a foundation made of wood and stone. Then, she takes out a from her bosom and shakes it upside down on the cauldron.

A large amount of granular material poured out of the mouth of the pouch like a waterfall. The grains are high performance food with high nutritional value and good taste--white rice.

"What?

"What the hell is that?　It just keeps coming out!"

"There's no way it's going to fit in that little bag. ...... right?"

"Magic items...... no, but that's still a lot of ......."

Next, Levee shakes the mouth of the once upward and shakes it several times (shake). When she shakes it again, a large amount of cool water begins to be spit out from the sachet into the cauldron with great force.

"""........................"""

The people who witnessed this unbelievable scene opened their mouths in shock.

Paying no attention to the speechless crowd, Levee uses her magic of ignition to set fire to the firewood. After putting some more meat and vegetables into the cauldron, she began to stir the contents with a large spatula.

He adds seasonings from time to time, and when he has reached a satisfactory level of taste, he puts the away at his chest. Then, with another spatula in his free hand, he carefully stirs the contents of the cauldron.

The contents of the cauldron are quite large, and the load on the hand holding the spatula must be considerable, but Lieve does not seem to be sweating and keeps stirring with a cool face.

Within a few minutes, a good aroma started to waft from the cauldron.

"...... what is it?　You think you're cooking up a storm?"

"Mom, it smells so good!"

"Shh. Stay put."

People who had been watching from afar began to gather as if attracted by the smell, and in no time at all Levee was surrounded by more than a hundred people.

However, no one looked at him from afar, and no one took a step toward the unknown traveler.

Then, a young girl slipped through the gap between the crowd of people who were looking at each other.

"Dog sister, is your food ready?

It was Lillipha.

With a bright smile on her face, she walked up to Lilywe in a nonchalant manner.

She was so natural that the people forgot to stop her and watched her movements.

"I'm not a dog, but I'm almost ready. Would you like a taste?"

"Can I?"

"Yes. Helian ......, you asked for it. Yes, please.

Stuck for words in a strange place, Levee transfers the nutritious porridge from the pot to her bowl. The meat and vegetables were scooped into the bowls in generous portions.

After the poison has been served, Rieve hands the bowl to Lillipha.

"Wow, it looks delicious!　Thank you for the blessings of the divine tree!"

As a courtesy before the meal, Lillipha sipped the gruel after uttering a prayer of congratulation, a ritual peculiar to the elves. Immediately, she smiled a different kind of smile from the one she had just shown, an expression of mixed surprise and delight.

"Delicious!　What's this?　It's so good, dog sister!"

"I'm not a dog. I'm not a dog, but I'm glad you enjoyed it.

"Come on, you guys, eat up!　This tastes better than rice in the castle!　Come on, come on!"

The people, who had been watching from afar, hurried one by one to Levee's side as if urged by the smiling Lillipha.

Levee hands a bowl to each of them and begins to distribute the food to the people.

Once the flow started, there was no stopping it.

A long line of people quickly forms in the central square of the village.

+ + + +

...... seems to have accepted us somehow.

Helian let out a sigh of relief that he had managed to pull off a successful cookout, despite the fact that the group of travelers included the hated elves and humans, who had apparently been a bit wary of him.

He watched from a distance so as not to provoke the villagers, but thanks to Lillipha's initiative in eating the porridge, the people seemed to have accepted it.

Even now, Rilifa is trying to explain to the people with her whole body how delicious it is. It is the behavior of a child. Her smiling face is a source of serenity to all who see it.

Had it not been for the earlier sequence of events that led to his promise to her, Helian would have thought of Lillipha as nothing more than a naïve child. It was such a natural performance.

Herian's conscience creaked a little at the sight of her.

"----"

Mind the line.

Helian reminded himself of the situation he was in.

He told Lillipha that he would help her "to the best of his ability".

This is the fulfillment of that promise.

Providing food for the people who might not have enough to eat was as much help as Helian could give at this time.

Levee and Eltina's is filled with a large amount of foodstuffs.

Among them, white rice is an excellent [food] and is useful to keep the morale of the soldiers on the march.

If the food supply runs out, the soldiers will be in a state of "starvation". Starvation is a terrible condition that causes a sharp drop in loyalty, happiness, and morale, in addition to a decrease in basic stats.

A marching army is, of course, fully armed, and if it falls into [starvation] and a rebellion is started, it will be a worst-case scenario. Some of the soldiers in the army have valuable equipment on loan. They are reliable as a part of their own forces, but if they become a part of the enemy's forces, it would be extremely troublesome.

For this reason, Helian has instructed them to always fill a quarter of the maximum capacity with food during the expedition since he got the .

Usually we end up with a large surplus due to oversupply, but it is better than not having enough. Helian was more of a safety margin player, which was fine with me.

Rieve, seen in the distance, has released a considerable amount of food from his , but he does not need to worry about running out of food since he plans to return home soon after this.

Incidentally, I have obtained the permission of the chief director, Leifua, for this cookout.

When Leifa returned from her consultation, Helian brought Lillifa along with him to discuss the food offer.

At first, Leifa was very grateful to Helian for the offer of food, even though she was the one who should be thanking him. However, when Helian and Lillipha pushed him hard, he withdrew more readily than expected and said, <

Although he did not bow his head, perhaps because he was in front of the people, his reply conveyed his deep gratitude.

It seems that the food situation in [RATESTWOOD] was severe. As a result of accepting people who fled from the capital, the number of people living in this village has greatly exceeded the number of people allowed to live there. If this situation continues for three weeks, it is not surprising that the food situation will worsen.

Shaking her head as if to shake off the negative feelings that were about to come to the surface, Helian asked the girl by his side.

"So, are there any anecdotes related to the demon king in the Abyssal Forest?"

A corner of the settlement, far from the crowds of people.

There, Helian was talking with Leifa to gather information.

At first he was going to ask Wenli or one of the other half-elves, but Leifa herself agreed to be his interlocutor. She said that she wanted to help us in any way she could in return for our help.

Helian thought that the Supreme Leader had a lot of things to do, but he decided not to mention it.

It did not matter if Leifer had some kind of agenda or not.

Helian would only cooperate "to the best of his ability," as he had promised to Rilifa. We do not intend to enter into their affairs any further. As the king of a country, Helian is not allowed to enter into their affairs.

Then we should not think about anything else for now, but continue to gather information.

No, we must.

"Yes. According to the Elven lore, this is the area where the Demon Lord once existed. There are many other legends about the Abyssal Forest, such as , etc., and their truth is not certain, but the Abyssal Forest has long been considered a forbidden land.

Leifua answers the question in a fluent tone, as if she were reading from a textbook.

Even without such lore and traditions, there are not many elves and half-elves who would go out of their way to go near the Abyssal Forest.

"When you say ......?"

"From time to time, demonic beasts come from the Abyssal Forest. They are so strong that even a bunch of normal forest-dwelling monsters can't beat them. Sometimes a team is formed to defeat them, but the success is rare. Most of the time, they seem to do their best to bend the course."

"What happens to the demonic beasts that are not defeated?"

Most of them go on a rampage for a while and then disappear into the Abyssal Forest. For the elves, it is like a natural disaster. We have to hide and wait for them to go away. Of course, it is the same for us. ......"

This village is close to the Abyssal Forest.

But it is a foolish question to ask

The half-elves have been persecuted and this area is the only place they could have built a stronghold.

"Moreover, the Abyssal Forest has an illusory effect that leads people astray. If you go too deep into the Abyssal Forest, you will not be able to return.

"I see. ...... So, there are no elves or half-elves who like to go near the Abyssal Forest, but are there other races?　And these are the ones who love it."

"There are humans. They are what we call adventurers. They come here for the special materials that can be obtained from the Abyssal Forest.

Adventurers.

I found some keywords that caught my attention, but for now, I will just put them in a corner of my memory and put priority on gathering information about the Abyssal Forest 《abyss》.

"There are some high-ranking adventurers who go out of their way to search for magical beasts in the Abyssal Forest (Abyss). Perhaps because the magical beasts of the Abyssal Forest contain abundant magical power, many of them can be used as special materials.

"Does that mean that a good number of adventurers will come to [RATESTWOOD]?　I would have guessed that in a country so close to both the human realm and the Abyssal Forest, they would have come and gone."

"Yes. It's crazy from our point of view, but there are always a certain number of people who dream of getting rich and making a name for themselves. However, we appreciate their visit because they drop off valuable foreign currencies when they stop by. I know it is a selfish opinion, but..."

"It's a natural opinion for a politician to have."

He is conscious of Ertina standing behind him, looking at him, and says something along those lines.

In fact, from a politician's point of view, he agreed with the idea that the likes or the crazies were valuable customers who would enrich his country's economy.

Even if you spend money only within your own country, there will be a limit to growth at some point. Helian had experienced this once before with the Tactics Chronicles.

"But ...... there seems to be no sign of this adventurer..."

"About a month ago, there was an attack by a pack of magical beasts in the eastern border city.

An emergency call has been issued to the neighboring adventurers, and all of them have gone to the border city. It is said to be a rather large scale attack, and the other side seems to be in a great deal of trouble. It was three weeks ago that [Noblewood] launched a war against our country, so it was right before that. ...... I can only say that the timing was bad."

"Border Cities ......?"

It is a human frontier city built on the borderline between the human realm and the realm of the demons. It is also called the shield of humanity.

"...... I see."

I had expected this to some extent, but I had never heard of it in the game [Tactics Chronicle] before.

There is a race of demons in [Tactics Chronicle] as well. In fact, Camilla of the Sixth Legion is a kind of demon tribe.

On the other hand, however, I have never heard of a . There were countries ruled by NPC demon tribes, but the nuance of would be different.

There are many more questions I would like to ask you at ......, but my head is about to explode.

I would like to think that this is not a problem of my brain's ability. I would like to think that this is not a problem of my head.

I already have a slight headache. I have no intention to stop gathering information, but I need to calm down now.

I quench my thirst with a glass of water and take in the scene in the plaza.

The people gathered in the square seem to be smiling at the food served by Levee.

"It seems to be well received ......."

As a member of the king's entourage, Levee has been trained as a versatile character who can be used in a variety of fields while being a specialized force against single combatants. He has mastered many skills other than combat, including .

From the looks of the people gathered at the cauldron, it seems that he is fully demonstrating the effects of his . Adults and children alike were all eating deliciously.

Even the soldiers, whose nerves were on edge. They were all looking relieved at this moment.

Most of them are half-elves, but some of them are of other races.

"Is that ...... a warcat?"

Yes. They are small because they are half dwarf (korobokkur). I am a relatively new citizen of Latticewood.

I see. If he had the blood of a Korobokkur, his size would make sense.

There were also rabbit-eared beastmen and, to a lesser extent, even dwarves. He might be a half-breed, since his beard is a little thinner than that of a normal dwarf.

"......There are a lot of different races here. There are a lot of half-breeds, but I was surprised to see a Dwarf as well. I thought elves and dwarves were basically on bad terms, but in your case is it different?"

"Yes. It is true that this country was founded by half-elves, but it was a collection of many different races at that time. And so the country that we all worked so hard to create is Rattestwood.

"So we are not a multi-ethnic nation, but a multi-ethnic nation."

It's not that great, though," Leifua chuckled.

"It's the result of a weak tribe with no power and no one to rely on huddling together that created the ...... nation. Well, because of that, there is no hatred between races. We sometimes clash with each other because of the customs of each tribe when we live together, but we have been able to resolve it by mutual compromise. We have to help each other to survive."

Leifa says this as if she is trying to be condescending, but the point is that they created a country by themselves, without relying on anyone else.

Even Helian could see that there had been tremendous hardships. No, no. It cannot be predicted. They must have gone through unspeakable hardships. It is an insult to their efforts to talk about it as if they knew about it.

Therefore, Helian only said, "It's a great country.

Leifa looked a little surprised, but then smiled softly with a modest chest and said, "We are very proud of our country.

Then Helian and Leifa continued to talk about nothing else until Leewe had finished distributing the food.

Helian was on the lookout for Leifa's request for something from her, or for Levee and Eltina's help, but they did not touch on such topics at all.

They talked about their favorite foods, hobbies, how Lillipha had always been a spoiled brat and had never learned good manners, and other such trivial things.

I felt that he was indeed a leader of a country who could talk about such trivial things and make people smile even under such severe circumstances. I wonder if I would be able to behave in the same way if I were trapped in the same situation. I don't have a shred of confidence.

......I wonder how my country (Alkimaira) is doing.

As I was thinking about RATESTWOOD and the princess sisters, I suddenly wondered about my own country.

Before I left for the foreign mission, the turmoil in my country had been somewhat settled.

Besides, after all, only half a day had passed since then.

As long as there are six corps commanders waiting in the wings, there is no need to worry about what is going on right now, ...... but it might be a good idea to at least check on the situation, just to be sure.

Just as the conversation was interrupted, Helian took his eyes off Leifer and looked up at the sky, seemingly lost in thought.

Without letting Leifer notice, she opens the chat window by a thought operation.

A translucent virtual window is projected in the air, but it is not visible to Rayfa.

In the game [Tactics Chronicle], the virtual window is only visible to the player himself. Even if you are another king, you cannot see the virtual windows of others.

（Mode: Select. Conversation 《Text Chat》.)

Then, the chat mode is set to text chat by a thought operation.

Players can talk to each other in voice chat, but NPCs can only give vocal instructions, but cannot listen to reports in voice chat. Text communication is the basic method of communication.

Due to the data capacity, there is a limit to the number of characters that can have fluent AI depending on the size of the nation. Since not all characters can speak naturally, it is inevitable that text-based communication is used.

The user looks directly at the virtual communication window (chat window) that appears in front of him/her and selects the group of the corps leader from the "access list" of possible connection destinations by eye movement. The second corps leader, Baran, is selected from the group and a call is made to him.

After a few moments, Balan answers the call.

I was worried about whether we could communicate across the Abyssal Forest, but fortunately, there seems to be no problem.

If we were to communicate using as in the game, we would have entered <>, but there is no point in being concerned about now. I type the sentence as if I were dealing with a human being.

>

Successful text transmission.

Within seconds, a reply from Balan arrived at Helian's doorstep.

Admiring the meticulousness of the Commander of the 2nd Corps, he looked over the text sent by Balan and gulped. Helian's eyes widen and he stands there, oblivious to the fact that Leifa is right next to him.

"...... Herian?"

Leifa's questioning voice does not reach Helian.

A translucent virtual communication window (chat window) floats in midair.

A message of only ten letters, reflecting Balan's reply, is displayed inorganically. The virtual window that the pallid Helian stares at reads

--The rebellion that Helian had feared the most had broken out with ease.