Chapter 80: Scout Troop

About 2 Km away from Irz village, the scout troop dispatched by Norz’s main troop was stationed.

“How is it?”

“It doesn’t look like there are people in the village.”

The members of the scout troop stopped their magic [Hawk Eye] meant to look at distant things.

“I see. It seems all the villagers have run away.”

“Should we chase?”

“If they were still in sight then we could have. But they must have evacuated to the nearby village called Kuar. We won’t make it in time now.”

The soldier agreed with the commanding officer’s words. The two weren’t surprised since they were already expecting it to be like this.

“Alright, let’s search if there’s someone still in the village, just in case. It’ll be dark soon, we’ll scout Kuar tomorrow so let’s make a camp in Irz tonight.”

All the soldiers agreed.

“They seem to have run away in a hurry so we might some silver coins as well but, don’t stay up all night just to ‘look for treasure’.”

“That sounds like a difficult order.”

Hahaha, the two of them laughed lightly.

They weren’t soldiers who received high wages so they could only gather ‘bonuses’ like this on-site locally.

“It’s too bad we have no women even if we have money.”

“Don’t worry. A brothel will be set up sooner or later. Daedalus already has one with ‘local women’. Seriously, those merchants are damn quick.”

Though that’s good for us, he gave a twisted smile as he thought so.

“I don’t want demons as partners though.”

“I won’t mind if it’s just elf women, at least ——“

The commander looked behind him with a fed up face.

“Oi, Tsumiki ~ Tsumiki-chan ~ where did you go!?”

A single woman was shouting while moving between the soldiers.

“—they’ll be better than stupid adventurers like that.”

“What’s up with that woman?”

The soldier asked with a bored face.

“Like I know. That Sylvia nee-chan authorised her accompanying us so we can’t complain either.”

While choosing the members for scouting, this adventurer girl was added suddenly as if on a whim.

It was suspicious no matter how you think about it but they couldn’t do anything since it was an official order.

“In the first place isn’t it weird to hire ‘them’ even though we have enough numbers?”

It wasn’t rare to hire mercenaries inside the Syncrea Republic for campaigns. But that was only in cases where they lacked men to deploy.

The force deployed by Cardinal Mercedes under Norz had no problem regarding the number of soldiers.

But still, to have hired such mercenaries even then was unnatural no matter how you looked at it.

Even their equipment was different from the united Crusader equipment which made them stand out even more. Though, there existence wasn’t something that required being hidden.

But still, the objective behind hiring them was still unclear.

“I don’t know what the top brass is thinking but they didn’t ask us to treat them specially either, so its best to leave them alone.”

He wondered whether the adventurers hired had been given a special secret mission or not.

The ones with him looked all commonplace, especially that girl who kept shouting ‘Tsumiki, tsumiki’ didn’t feel like an adventurer at all.

“Well, as long as they don’t interfere with the mission, I don’t really care.”

Praying to god that the girl who was just a baggage for them doesn’t cause any problems, the commanding officer continued the mission.

.

The mysterious adventurer girl walked through the main street of Irz village alongside the commanding officer in the front.

The Crusaders could only think of her as a clumsy, dunce, newbie adventurer.

She was the lowest level among the adventurers but it seems that she still had the ability to at least ride a horse properly though.

“Ojou-chan, is that the tsumiki you were talking about?”

In front of them was a small cat with black fur. The silver collar around its neck showed that it was not a stray but a pet.

“Yes, cute right!?”

With a somewhat proud smile, she lifted [Tsumiki] with the nape of its neck and brought it in front of the commander.

As it’s golden eyes met with the commander’s, it gave a small nyaa cry.

“Also my name is Ai, remember it!”

“It’s such a common name.”

“Don’t say that…”

[Ai] puffed her cheeks in protest but it was the truth. It really was a common name in the republic.

“Rather than that, don’t let that cat run away next time.”

“ahhahha, I’ll make sure!”

The commander’s sigh was drowned by the girl’s laughter.

(“Isn’t she really just a normal brat?”)

He looked at the girl with bored eyes.

She had a cute face with blue eyes and long golden hair tied up in a twintails hairstyle. Although, it really failed in practicality as an adventurer.

A magician would have been fine with long hair since he/she had the excuse of possessing magic, but she was an archer no matter how you looked at it. Her main weapon was a long bow mage out of worn out wood.

The only type of protective armor she had was the leather breastplate, gloves and boots. Her upper body just had a thin shirt and her lower body had a miniskirt for some reason.

The silver bracelet on her right hand was the only thing that looked useful. But even that was a silver accessory of the lowest quality that was giving off a weak light representing some kind of enhancement.

Rather an adventurer, she looked more like some town girl who decided to dress up as an adventurer. If she didn’t have her slender and small yet well toned body, she really would not have looked like an adventurer at all.

(“What were the upper guys thinking letting her participate in the campaign?”)

As if to ridicule the commander who was thinking, the cat cried nyaa nyaa towards him.

“Why the hell is it a cat? Isn’t the partner of a hunter with a bow supposed to be a dog?”

“Eh, but cats are cuter!”

(“This girl is nuts. She brought an animal to keep as a pet.”)

As he had said, a dog would have been much more useful.

A cat which didn’t listen to the orders of its master was useless. In fact it was worse if it went missing in between.

“If we end up in a fight, look carefully after it.”

“Leave it to me old man!!”

“I’m not an old man yet—-“

That instant, the commander’s head burst open.

“Wha?”

Ai stared at the figure of the commander falling down from his horse with a hole in his head.

“Enemy attack! Be careful, it’s an ambush!!”

The soldier behind Ai shouted in a loud voice.

At the same time, demons wielding weapons appeared from the shadows and rushed in towards the main street.

Beastmen, demi-humans and humans swung their swords and attacked the soldiers.

They instantly understood that the enemy were demons, that too skilled adventurers.

“Wa Waa! A lot of them came!?”

In panic, Ai ended up stretching the reins of the horse, and she fell down as the horse struggled.

“Ugiya!! It hurts ~ I hit my head ~”

In front of the tearful Ai, a battle filled with blood sprays had started already.

“Shit, there are too many! Don’t get divided Maintain formation——“

Ai saw as the soldier, who had take command, had his head blow off.

“Oh my ~ this looks dangerous, should we run away while showing our backs Tsumiki? Wait Tsumiki!! Don’t run away alone without your master!!!”

Wait ~ while shouting, Ai slipped through the soldiers in battle while chasing the black cat.