Day 61 Daytime, Narrogi Town
As I thought, the most effective and economically sound strategy to minimize damages from banditry is to cause damages to bandits and thoroughly plunder them. Such a perfectly logical economic approach. Yup, its perfect.
Are there any super rich bandits with tons of female underlings? How about we just go directly to them to get attacked? No decent bandits are showing up, and all of them are middle-aged men!
I was raising such a massive number of flags for sexy female assassins but all I got is an even larger number of middle-aged men! What is this? Just how far is this infinite middle-aged men world spreading?
Back in the frontier there was nothing but middle-aged men too, dont tell me that the entire kingdom is nothing but middle-aged men?
First of all, since you are guarding me, please dont be so assertive and happy to get attacked, much less, dont go out of your way to proactively get assaulted. What is the meaning of going to the enemy camp to get attacked? Doesnt that mean that you are the one attacking them?
Why would a bodyguard be taking his escort target to assault an enemy camp? Arent you simply rearing to rob them with no intention of protecting me? Arent you just using me as a decoy? Or rather, as bait?
What was a guards job again?
This world is behind the times. Grasping the business chance (getting assaulted by bandits) is all about first come, first served. Thats right, in the modern competitive worldKill before the others do!is common sense, you know?
If you keep waiting, others will take the initiative and it will become impossible to catch up with them, its all over if the front runner manages to get away with the lead. It was written in the financial newspaper that was wrong on almost everything, so it has to be true.
This town has no eating places left, so lets have dinner outside? The town is swarming with middle-aged men, so I really dont want to eat here? I hate the thought so much that Im ready to roast the towns middle-aged men instead of BBQ! Alright, lets have BBQ tonight?
There are no movements among the people still spying on us. If they are merely looking from afar then they are not much different from innocent stalkers or peepers.
Now that I think about it, that sounds sort of suspect, or rather, criminal, but regardless of whether they are guilty or not, they are still middle-aged men. That alone is basically a crime, so nothing changes. Be it monsters or middle-aged men, I can just sweep them if they get in the way.
Dungeons apparently dont spawn as frequently outside the frontier, and there is no Evil Forest around, so it should be alright outside.
There are also ordinary monsters from which materials can be extracted, unlike those in the frontier that spawn from highly-concentrated mana, but their numbers are overwhelmingly small. Since they dont spawn spontaneously, hunting them prevents them from multiplying.
This is a pumpkin pie-san, highly recommended by the people whose horizontal growth wont stop but who are unable to control themselves regardless, so please dont blame me if collaboration with pumpkin chips will accelerate your growth too? Its delicious though? Have a whole lot? Kind of?
Thank you very much, well gladly try it.
And the gist of what they told me during the meal is all of the work was for nothing. Looks like the culprits werent the patrols, but nearby mercs, or rather bandits, and small nobles from the neighboring lands that arrived early.
Thats why they had neither goods nor gold, in other words, they wont yield profit!
But this bandit hunt should lessen losses by merchants, and as for that assassin Tajima-kun? Was that old man sent to get the princess after all? And he was the only assassin? Its hard to take measures if we dont understand what the opponents aim is.
I was pretty sure someone would come to abduct the princess, and an assassin showed up instead. But the guys in tidy clothes that were giving orders to bandits were trying to take her alive? So there are two factions? White team and red team?
I cant care less which one wins!
However, it wouldnt be strange to see the armys scouts, but there are no movements from them, it seems that the only ones acting now are the nobles alliance and the first prince. Then the assassin is from the prince, and kidnappers from the nobles?
I wonder which one is white and which one is the red team? Well, doesnt really matter? Honestly.
Horses? Isnt there something riding them? Are there flags, or special symbols on the armor? Ceres, my weapons!
Hmm, they are still pretty far, I can tell that there are some horse-like characters approaching, butA flag? But thats A red diamondShingen-san?! [1]
On a flag-like something there is a red diamond on white background? But there is no furinkazan Should I make Bishamontens helmet in opposition? [2]
A red diamond?! Why would His Excellency Royal Prince be heading to the frontier? Where are they? We must immediately hurry to the rescue, is there a pursuit?
His Excellency is currently acting as the regent, its unthinkable that he would leave the capital, what could have happened?
Is that an ally? He is in a serious hurry, so maybe he is being pursued, but the cloud of dust prevents from seeing whats behind him. But isnt this country done for if even the acting head of the state is getting attacked?
The king collapsed with a sudden illness without picking the crown prince, and is currently unconscious. If the regent is being attacked then its either treason or a rebellion.Is that really the time to be attacking the frontier?
But even so, the kingdom will fall without magic stones, so they have no other choice but to head to the frontier.
The guys behind him have no flags, but they are wearing green armor with a white stripe. Hmmm, looks like he is being pursued?
But all of them give a strong middle-aged men vibe, even if there are women among them, I dont want to do anything with such gorilla-like ladies, so would you mind if I incinerate them all together?
Deep green armor and a white line, what is a foreign mercenary band doing in the kingdom?! Its Theocracys mercenary unit specialized in fighting beastmen, what is it doing on the kingdoms lands, and even assaulting the Royal Prince?! This is an act of war!
Theocracy, in other words, followers of that geezer (god). In that case, no idea about the Royal Prince, but the church is definitely an enemy.
Claiming the frontier to be a corrupted land, they provided no support at all, and yet monopolized magic stone processing under bullshit pretext of Divine Purification, fair trade law and antitrust act breaking bastards.
And they are also my personal enemies, claiming to have sealed the villainess, who opposed the god, in the depths of the great dungeon.
If they like calling themselves the gods justice so much, Ill give them a proper and clean massacre and deliver them all to that white room, to the god that they like so much.
If they say that Angelica-san, who fought with the darkness all by herself for what mustve been an eternity in the earths depths and still resisted until the very end, is evil, then Im on evils side, you know?
Yup, such justice (trash) should be incinerated and dumped into that white room on top of that old farts (gods) head. If they like the god so much but are dissatisfied with everyone else, then they should just scram off to his side or wherever, damn pests of this world!
Ah~ shouldve called the geeks too.Thats apparently an anti-beastmen mercenary unit of a lovely Justice (religion) that enslaves and sells off beastmen, claiming them to be tainted animals. Im sure even after butchering them to the last they still wouldnt forgive them.
After all, they are very big fans of animal ears and hate oppressors and bullies.
Well, I dont think Ill be able to leave any for them, so lets forcibly deport this lot to the geezer. The shipping is PRICELESS? Pay on delivery!
[TL Notes:
[1] Frinkazan (Japanese: , Wind, Forest, Fire, Mountain), is a popularized version of the battle standard used by the Sengoku period daimy Takeda Shingen. The banner quoted four phrases from Sun Tzus The Art of War: as swift as wind, as gentle as forest, as fierce as fire, as unshakable as mountain.
[2] Bishamonten In Japan, Bishamonten (), or just Bishamon () is thought of as an armor-clad god of war or warriors and a punisher of evildoers. One of his famous followers was Uesugi Kenshin a rival of Shingen.
Many of his followers and others believed him to be the Avatar of Bishamonten, and called Kenshin the God of War. So its sort of if you have Takeda we are going with Uesugi logic on Harukas side.