CH 15

“Ah……. I was really wrong.”

“I think the lord may have done something wrong.”

“…… Sein, aren’t you still my vassal? Can you at least ask me why we fought?”

At my words, the gray-haired man snorted and said.

“The lord’s shady, hmm. I apologize. He is a person who even blushes at clumsy words of love, and it’s a little hard to think that he did something wrong in his affectionate relationship with the lord.”

“…….”

You…… You were thinking the things I said were shady.

But if you think about it, Sein was right. Hisch has always done his best for me. It was an undeniable fact.

So, in the end, it’s me. No matter how greedy I was in the first place, Miller’s business should not have been pulled in.

Or if I had replied to Miller’s words, ‘Of course I love him more than you’.

No. If I had just sarcastically said, ‘I love Hisch to death and married him?’, the situation would not have come to this point.

But seeing Miller so innocently putting love into his mouth, I couldn’t help but retort like that…….

Looking back, I think I just did everything wrong. I’m doomed.

“…… When is Young Master Firenze coming?”

“Yesterday’s contact showed that the inspection of the Magic Stones was almost completed and he would return within today.”

And Miller Firenze, who had greatly damaged our marital relationship, left the next day like the wind along with the magic engineer.

Well, he must have felt embarrassed to meet me after having such a conversation.

I was rather glad because I was not in the right mind to talk to him because I was too concerned with Hisch.

“I’m afraid I’m just going to break the deal…… What’s the point of making so much money?”

“Lord.”

Sein said with a determined expression.

“If you make a deal with the top of Firenze, you can become rich even though you have failed in love. But if you give up everything now, the lord will simply become a failure in both money and love.”

“Hey! What do you mean I failed!”

Your words are too harsh to listen to and are crossing the line, really! Eventually, I couldn’t stand it and started calling my vassal with vulgar words like ‘Hey’[1], when I heard a murmur from the hallway.

Noises such as ‘What is that?’ and ‘What is it?’ have been transmitted through the walls. For a moment, Sein and I met eyes.

At that moment someone banged on the door.

“Lord!”

It was an appearance that was unlike the butler who likes to keep up appearances. Albert shouted in a trembling voice.

“I have something to report to you! Strange things over the hill……!”

The atmosphere was unusual. With those words, Sein and I left our seats and ran outside without anyone saying anything first.

The open sky, an ordinary afternoon scene, seemed to have changed in an instant to a foreign one.

Sein supported my body at the sound of my breathing.

Even though we went out as soon as Albert informed us, the ‘strange things’ he had already said were crossing the outer walls.

A previous life where I didn’t play games that much. And even though I had spent my present life sitting only at the head of a desk, I was able to intuitively recognize what those groups of dog-like creatures were.

It was a monster.

“Looks like a goblin.”

Sein said. He was closer to a mage engineer rather than a wizard standing on the front lines, but he had a relatively calm voice, apparently because he had seen quite a few monsters.

In a blink of an eye, they crossed the walls of the outer castle and climbed to the walls of the inner castle, and a rough cry came from somewhere.

“Territory forces, fire!”

Tung, the sound of a tight string being pulled and released. And the sound of a blade cutting through the air instantly filled the surroundings.

Arrows shot high up in the sky poured down like rain, but they were usually seen bouncing off without being able to penetrate their tough skin.

“There aren’t many trained soldiers.”

Shoot, shoot! In the midst of the shouts of the soldiers shouting to uplift themselves and their comrades, I rolled my head to grasp the situation as best I could.

“I haven’t heard of any reports of monster colonies being formed nearby.”

Although it wasn’t particularly wide, Ensis was also a territory.

Of course, watchtowers where the guards stayed were installed throughout the territory, and in case of an emergency, a system was established to quickly report to the lord of the territory.

Since this emergency system was managed at the kingdom level, not at the territorial level,  it would not have been related to the level of the Ensis’ lagging territorial army.

And yet, without any contact, the monsters invaded so suddenly?

I looked back at Sein and parted my dry lips.

“I’ll have to look into the cause.”

Sein nodded at my words. He held out his arm to me, and I grabbed it without hesitation and closed my eyes.

“Lord, this is not the time for this! Please give me instructions!”

In response to Albert’s desperate cry, Sein spoke with a firm voice.

“If you distract her concentration, it will harm the lord, so be quiet.”

At the same time as those words, I gave strength to my closed eyes and opened them.

No matter how many times I used this ability, it was hard to get used to this sensation.

To explain, well. For convenience, I call myself a ‘clairvoyant’, but to be precise, it felt like a disengagement from the body.

My body is here, but my soul flies farther than my body and captures a distant landscape in my sight.

…… Or, speaking from the point of view of modern Koreans, it felt like a street view on a map provided on the Internet.

Anyway, not long after using the ability, I saw the nearest town to the castle.

Located near the Lord’s Castle, it was a small town that could be said to be the most developed in Ensis.

Each of the people there either ran away with a fearful face, or hurried into a building and locked the door.

As I concentrated more power against their flow, I saw a strange sight.

A black hole in the air.

It was elongated as if someone had ripped it apart, and the gaps were swirling in black, giving a feeling of intimacy.

It’s as if someone took the lid off the space to expose the black flesh……

While I was observing it, the gap spewed out a monster. The goblin, covered in a sticky saliva-like liquid, shook his head and lifted his head.

Even from a distance, I thought it was creepy. The moment I thought so, I felt nauseous because it felt like I had intuitively seen the antennae of a cockroach.

My mind flashed and I felt dizzy, and Sein held my trembling body firmly.

Because this has happened to me a lot, my vassal knew very well what role he had to play in times like these.

“Did you see something?”

“……I’ve seen it, but I don’t know what it is…….”

I took a breath trying to calm the feeling of someone shaking my brain recklessly.

There was little recoil at least because of the short distance, but if I looked at a longer distance, I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed for a few days.

“……There’s a strange crack in Sobern. It’s as if monsters are born there…….”

As I spoke about the situation in the town, which is closest to the Lord’s Castle, but not a distance that can be seen with the naked eye, I heard a confused voice next to me.

“What is this… How can you do that?”

Unlike Sein, who was listening carefully to me, Albert just looked at me and Sein alternately.

At that moment, the ground shook with a thump.

I hurriedly looked down and saw a huge monster slamming the tightly closed door with its body.

The soldiers fired their bows at it at once, but they couldn’t penetrate the tough skin and all the arrows bounced off.

“…… A little bigger one came out.”

The idea of taking time to resist has completely changed. I turned my head and said to Albert.

“First of all, gather all the people of the mansion and evacuate. You can use horses or carriages. We have to take refuge for the time being, and restore this place later. I know there’s an outpost northwest, so you’d better get some help there.”

“…… Ah, I understand.”

“The lord…”

“Of course, the Lord must also take refuge.”

At that moment, a muffled voice was heard. When I turned my head, a man already drenched in the bodily fluids of a monster was looking at me, steadying his shaky breath.

Sir Ted, who cleaned the remains of the monster on his sword by swinging it in the air, came close to me and bowed his head.

“Forgive me for being late. I rushed to where you were, but I couldn’t see you……”

“…… Sir led the army.”

Perhaps the harsh voice that first instructed the territory’s army to fire was Gran’s, and the only native knight in the territory was commanding the soldiers with his blood vessels visible on his neck.

Somehow, the time it took to fight without my orders was short. However, it was not something to be blamed for, since it is the knight’s job to lead the army under orders in an emergency situation.

He bowed his head once more. At that moment, I heard a thud under my feet.

“I’ll take the punishment later for arbitrarily moving the soldiers.”

He said as he glanced at the giant monster preparing to rush into the closed gate.

“It’s not a tough opponent, but it’s difficult to gain momentum because the front line is so disorganized. I think it would be a good idea to take a breather and plan for the future.”

TL Notes: 

[1] ‘야’ or ’Hey’ is a korean expression and is informal. So, I guess it can be considered vulgar.