CH 150

The lively crowd has left, and my daily life was a little quieter ……, but that didn’t last too long. If it were because a newcomer had just joined the team, it would be peaceful, but unfortunately, all that was heard was the sound of bells announcing an attack by demonic beasts.

Kahn-kahn-kahn-kahn!

“Shit, already! There was an attack just a few minutes ago!”

“Isn’t the interval between attacks getting shorter these days? The number of demonic beasts seems to be increasing. …”

“It’s all in your mind, right? I’ve never had so much free time that I could tell the difference. Now, stop wasting your time and get to your post!”

With my colleagues exchanging light banter, I too passed through the town gate and stood at my post. I pulled out my sword and readied it, and soon after, a huge number of demonic beasts flooded out of the forest in front of me.

From there on, it was business as usual. Bows rained down, attack magic blossomed, and I slashed and killed the remaining demonic beasts incessantly. The [Dawnbreaker], forged by my master, was as sharp and sturdy as ever, and the corpses of demonic beasts piled up around me.

Kahn-kahn-kahn-kahn!

“Phew, finally over…… hmm?”

The bell that signaled the end of the battle rang five times. But even though the bell rang five times, it rang again soon after.

Kahn-kahn-kahn-kahn!

“Not yet! More of them are coming! Everybody back to your posts!”

“No way!?”

Hearing Amelia’s voice coming from the top of the wall, I hurriedly prepared my sword and looked ahead. I saw something approaching through the trees in the forest.

“Hey captain, what’s going on with the replacements!”

“I’m trying to arrange for a replacement, but it won’t be anytime soon!　Hold on for a while longer!”

“Tsk, Can’t help it!”

Amelia answered someone’s question, and someone else complained. Mercenaries may appear to be free, but in fact they were bound by contract. Unlike regular soldiers, they were not charged with a crime for running away, so if they were about to die, they might run away, but for those who like to stand here, the current situation was not yet so hard that they would pay a huge penalty to run away.

“It’s a good time to make some money! Get fired up!”

“Wow! Emily-chan, please wait!”

“I’m only waiting for your bag of gold coins to arrive!”

Every one of them was saying random things and putting their energy into their tired bodies. With that in my ears, I readied myself again and found that there were more demonic beasts arriving at our side than before. The power and number of attack magic, not to mention arrows, were clearly less than before. Well, mana doesn’t recover that easily.

We still managed to fight off the beasts, and the third bell never rang, and I was able to return safely to the town to switch places with my replacement. After this, I would normally have gone out to a bar with some random guys. ….

“What’s up Ed, you don’t want a drink?”

“I’m sorry, Jonathan. Today’s battle was a hard one, so I’m just trying to get back into the swing of things and take care of my equipment.”

“Then it can’t be helped. I’ll drink  for you!”

“Yes, please.”

A mercenary who neglects to take care of his equipment would never survive in such a harsh battlefield. We parted without any particular talk, and I returned to my room at the inn, but what I was going to do there was not to take care of my equipment. Slowly displaying the [Auto-Mapping] I organized the map of the neighborhood and the information I had gathered in my mind and frowned.

“…………This is bad.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Whoa!? Tia!?”

Suddenly, a voice called out to me from behind, and I couldn’t help but let out a surprised yelp. I don’t know why, but it’s hard to sense Tia’s presence these days.

“What’s going on?”

“That’s my line! I saw Ed leaving by himself, so I followed you. So what’s wrong?”

“Oh, that’s… well, I see. Tia can’t see it.”

“Are you using some kind of power? Then…………Yes!”

Tia walked past me and reached out her hand toward me as she lay down on my bed.

“……?”

“So, if I use [Heart Engage] to get inside Ed, I can see what he sees, right?”

“Ah! I see, so there’s another way to use it.”

In my mind, it was an ability to use my banishing skills in the [White World] but surely if Tia’s consciousness is inside me, then she can share what I’m seeing. As soon as I took Tia’s white hand, I felt the power drain from it, and instead something warm, nostalgic, and mysterious entered me.

[Ohhhh! It’s been so long since I’ve been inside Ed. So, what’s up?]

[Look at this.]

Still not used to the sensation of hearing Tia’s voice from inside me, I traced my finger over the map displayed on the [Auto-Mapping]

[Uwa, it’s displaying a pretty big area, isn’t it?]

“Fufufu, I sneaked out on an expedition on my day off to fill up the map.”

Using the [Mirage Shift] banishment skill, I could move regardless of whether there was a herd of demonic beasts or not. The time limit was one hour, so I could only go as far as 20 minutes one way, but even so, I was able to complete a map of a reasonable area because I used the [Hermes Dash] in combination with it.

“Let’s get to it. First of all, this is how demonic beasts moved when we first got here.”

[Amazing! The red dots are moving! Wow, it was like this.]

“So, the next one was two months ago. And this one was one month ago… and this is today.”

[Ummm, ……, Are the number of enemies increasing by a little bit?]

“No, it’s not that. Can you tell by color-coding?”

Using my abilities, which probably increased thanks to the fact that I recovered some of the Demon King’s power, I can change only the Wolf-type demonic beasts to yellow dots from among the attacking demonic beasts.

[You can even do that! I wish I had this kind of ability too. …. Hmm, wait a minute? Looking at it like this, they didn’t increase?]

“Yes, The number of demonic beasts is not increasing. The reason why it feels like they are increasing is because the frequency of attacks is increasing.”

[…The frequency of raids is increasing even though the number is not? Is that possible?]

“Yes, it’s possible. I can think of only one reason why this might be happening.”

If the number of demonic beasts attacking at one time is halved, the frequency of attacks can be doubled. Or, if the number of demonic beasts itself is doubled, then of course the same forces can double the number of attacks.

So how do we increase the frequency of attacks without reducing the number of attacking forces or increasing the total number of demonic beasts?

The answer was simple. If the place where the demonic beasts are resurrected is closer to us, the frequency of attacks can be increased as the travel time is reduced. In other words–

“The entity that is resurrecting the demonic beasts…… is getting closer to us.”

[!? What, it’s a big problem!]

“Yeah, that’s why I said it’s bad.”

We’ve been wondering how to get to the Demon King for a long time, and it seems that he was coming this way from the other side. It certainly saved us a lot of trouble, but that means that the area right next to this town will become a battleground, so it’s not a situation we would welcome with open arms.

[What are we going to do? If it were just the Demon King it’s one thing, but against such a large number of demonic beasts we can’t do anything on our own, can we?]

“I know that. If the Demon King doesn’t suddenly start going all-out, we should still have some time, so for now… we should consult with Amelia.”

If there is a limit to what you can do on your own, you can always ask for the help of an organization. I will make full use of the connections of the noble family that I unexpectedly obtained.

8/10