Chapter 26: Mousetrap

[2]

“—Oh”

As usual, Yuri spent the morning in the office of the lord’s building and read some documents. Suddenly, she raised her voice with a slight surprise. This is because one notification was sent from magic of [space grasp] which constantly maintains the monitoring of the city. It is set in advance so that the caster will be notified when the information that can be confirmed in [Spatial grasp] meets specific “conditions”. Apparently that condition was met.

“…? How was it, lord?”

Looking at the state of the Yuri, Kiri, who is with her as today’s “love duty” and escort, asks suspiciously.

Kiri is the deputy director of “Sakuraka”, and has the occupation (class) as <Swordsman (Talha)>. it is easy to understand if you imagine a character like a so-called “samurai”.

A dark blue hakama on an eye-catching bright cherry-colored top. She has two, large and small swords on her waist. All of Sakuraka’s children are dwarven with a height of less than 150 cm, but once in battle, they lightly swing their swords, which are about 1 meter long, including their handles, and lightly twist their enemies. Sakuraka is a unit of children with a fairly high individual fighting power in the “Yuri Empire”.

“It looks like a mouse has invaded Nildea.”

“A mouse?”

“It’s a kingdom spy.”

Yuri cast the magic of [Spatial grasp], and it was set to notify when “a civilian employee of any country” enters within the effective range.

It was a spy from the Kingdom of Eldart who entered the city of Nildea this time. The number of people is eight, three men and five women. Some are dressed like sweeper, wearing leather armor and swords, while others are actually riding in wagons and pretending to be merchants.

Yuri immediately marks the eight people in “red”. The marked target will be able to be grasped by everyone in the “Yuri Empire”.

I see, there are only eight people — Kiri murmured in a small voice.

“Then, let’s throw it away now!”

“… Kiri. Didn’t you escort me all day today?”

Yuri smiled unintentionally at the words that Kiri told her dashingly. What do you do when you are away from the escort target when foreign enemies are invading the city?

“That’s right. Excuse me.”

“And it’s a ‘human resource’ sent by the kingdom. Let’s thank them.”

Telling that, Yuri smiled. The other party is those who collect information on the “Yuri Empire” and attempt to infringe it. Yuri is not so good as to be compassionate for her enemies. ――― On the contrary, it is even “villainy”.

(… Well, if we want to keep it, women are better)

Rethinking, Yuri changes the markings on the spies to “yellow” only for women. Then she activated Guild Chat and talked to everyone in the “Yuri Empire”.

“— Order for “Kuroyuri (Nostia)”and “Nadeshiko”. Eight mice from the Kingdom of Eldart have invaded the city of Nildea. Kuroyuri should quickly destroy the three animals marked with “red” and turn them into nutrients. Nadeshiko should capture the remaining five animals marked with “yellow” and confine them in the basement of the lord’s building. ”

“I understand”

“I understand, master”

Cassia, the captain of Kuroyuri, and Partita, the captain of Nadeshiko, immediately announce their consent.

Even the highest level of spy who invaded Nildea is only “31”. No matter how you think about it, the spies are not their enemies, so if you leave it to them, there will be no problem.

“Excuse me. Is it okay to give one opinion, my sister?”

“That voice is Meteora. I don’t mind, what is it?”

Meteora is a child who is the captain of the construction unit “Kikyo”.

It seems that she is devoting herself to the construction of a new city, and unfortunately Yuri hasn’t seen her  much recently.

“The basement of the lord’s building is not very large, and it seems that the capacity is about 10 people at most. Perhaps considering that a spy replacement will continue to come from the Kingdom of Eldart, I think that confinement in the basement of the lord’s building will soon reach its limit. ”

“Hmm … That’s true …”

From the perspective of the Eldart Kingdom, it would be a country that they had never heard of, such as the “Yuri Empire”. Because they have maps and it can be seen that the neighboring nations are irrelevant to the Yuri Empire, they may even think that the “Yuri Empire” is a group of rogues who deceive the “country”. If such a partner had defeated Nildea, a key city, and had been unfairly occupied for two weeks. Of course, the kingdom cannot overlook this. The spies who are coming to Nildea now are the ones sent by the first move. Probably the second and third spies will be sent in quick succession soon after.

“Meteora, do you have any good ideas?”

“Okay. In the new city currently under construction, there is an underground passage that covers the entire city, and there are also underground warehouses and underground prisons.

About 200 people can be accommodated, so if you don’t mind, we will take care of them on the new city side. Kikyo will be in charge of feeding the mice in addition to the construction work. ”

“… Wait. I haven’t received any reports about making various things underground.”

“Let me see……. I’m sorry. We just made it along the way.”

“Come on, you …”

“Because it’s a big business to build a city from scratch right!? I can think of a lot of interesting things if I make various things, and I can’t stand it !!”

“Oh, yeah…”

There is a content called “Guild War” in the game of “Atros Online”, in which guilds compete for a base called “Aerial Castle (Atros)”. In most cases, the siege side and the defending side will put out a little less than 100 characters to each other, and it will be a large-scale fierce battle where all the power is hit.

In the “Guild War”, the construction unit “Kikyou” makes a big success by creating a “barrier” to repel the enemy, digging a “trench” to protect allies, and building a “fort” at the key point...

To put it the other way around, it also means that they were forced to build to that extent.

The construction capacity of “Kikyou” is tremendous, it takes about 30 seconds for a barrier, and even if they want to build one fort, it will be completed in about 10 minutes. It may be that they, who have such construction ability, had a strong desire to build a larger one in their hearts. If so, this “new city construction” would be a great opportunity to fulfill their wishes.

Should I close my eyes so that Kikyo’s desire for construction can be dissipated? Yuri thought so.

“Meteora, moderately please…?”

“Okay! We will do our best positively!”

After a little trouble, Yuri just said so lightly. From the response, it seems unlikely that Meteora’s can be expected to do so at all.

“… Well, that’s fine. If you have a prison facility in the new city, please take care of them there.”

“Confirmed. Partita, can the POWs be taken to the new city by Nadeshiko?”

“We know. It seems that the securing of the target has been completed, so I will transport it after this. ”

“As expected of, partita. The work is fast.”

“I’m honored. There was a person who happened to be near the target person. ”

“So”

Partita said it happened “by chance”. Perhaps Nadeshiko was also watching the suspicious person. The nadeshiko with excellent intelligence technology is also excellent in counterintelligence technology. No matter how spies pretend to be “good passengers” such as sweepers and merchants, they cannot slip through their eyes.

“Oh, that’s right. Cassia.”

“What? Because my work is slow I will accept punishment”

“Let’s save that play until the day when Cassia becomes ‘love duty’?”

“Oh, oh. I’m looking forward to it. I wonder what will happen …? ”

Because of expectations, Cassia’s voice was slightly raised.

If the character of the blood-sucking species (Carmila) is a subordinate NPC, its personality will be masochistic. For Cassia,  such as “punishment” from Yuri is nothing more than a “reward”.

“That’s okay. It would be boring for the spies to just be imprisoned underground. Please also give them the ‘love’ of the Kuroyuri properly”

“… Oh, is that okay?”

“Yes, but I’m going to use it as a labor force later, so please don’t break them. It would be very helpful if you could make it an obedient and supportive child.”

“Yeah, I understand. It’s fun to fold a rebellious child.”

Telling that, Cassia smiled bewitchingly. No, Yuri felt that Cassia smiled bewitchingly. Unfortunately, Yuri can’t see the other person because it’s a conversation through guild chat.

Actually, NPCs under the blood-sucking species (Carmila) become atrocious only to the person they like. In the case of Cassia and other Kuroyuri children, not only the main Yuri, but also all of the “Yuri Empire” will be included in the target.

For other unfavorable opponents ――― the opposite they become sadists.

If Yuri leaves it to Kuroyuri, they should be able to train the spy.

“Then, that’s all for this case. However, I will give one final notice to everyone.

As Meteora said earlier, the Kingdom of Eldart will probably send spies several times. In that case, I will mark it again, so please treat it with Kuroyuri and Nadeshiko in the same way as this time. ”

“I understand”

“I understand, Master.”

“If you send a spy several times and you can’t get in touch with the spy you sent in, the other party will soon notice the fact that the spy was caught. Then the next move I think it will be is to “exercise their strength”. I’m sure it will be a war of a fairly large scale. So everyone please be ready for that. ”

The purpose of the spies sent by the kingdom is to measure their strength.

They would like to find out how much strength the opponent who trapped Nildea has, and how much army should be sent from the kingdom to quickly regain the city. In other words, the main purpose of the other party is “war” to recover the lost land from the beginning. The day when the fire lid is cut is not so far away.