CH 267

Episode 267 – Outbreak of War

Author’s Note: This chapter is written from Ahmed’s POV.

About 2 days had passed since the Laudungeon Company reporter who writes about Lewin had paid us a visit. Since then, we hadn’t gone down into the Dungeon. Instead, we began to make battle preparations for the attack of the Demon King’s Army, and… it seemed that the time had finally come.

I was awoken by the sound of a noisy ruckus going on outside the inn. I woke up annoyed, thinking that I had been woken up over something stupid, but I soon noticed the irregularities in the noises going on outside. My head cooled immediately. It was the so-called ‘attack’. And at that very moment, there was a loud, frantic pounding on my door.

“Eliza! Hurry up and wake up!! The city is already surrounded by monsters! Eliza, wake up!!” (Smash)

I had calmed down just moments before I was set off once again by Smash pounding away at the door with enough force to break it down. I crawled grumpily out of bed and finished changing clothes before bothering to answer him.

“Eliza! Get up already! …I’m comin’ in now!” (Smash)

Smash opened the door immediately after he had stopped knocking. I was already done changing, and after the door opened, I met eyes with the dirty baldy. His face widened into a smile.

“What the hell! If you were awake, you should have just answered me. Let’s g―” (Smash)

“You were being loud as hell this early in the morning, and how many times do I have to tell you to not call me Eliza before you get it into that thick skull of yours?!” (Ahmed)

As Smash tried to turn around and leave as if nothing had happened, I gave him a knuckle to the head. Casting a sidelong glare at Smash, who had crumpled neatly to the ground in agony, I left the room towards the outside of the inn.

The innkeeper and the rest of the guests were already nowhere to be seen. I made my way outside amidst the bizarre quietude of the inn, and I soon spotted Dion standing at the entrance.

“Ahmed-san, good morning. This morning, the troops of what appears to be the Demon King’s Army attacked.” (Dion)

“Seems like it. What’s the situation?” (Ahmed)

“There’s still no precise information, but I’ve heard that there are close to 2,000 monsters surrounding the city.” (Dion)

“Eh, 2,000? Less than expected.” (Ahmed)

“Not at all. Landaust only has about 200 soldiers. There are more adventurers, numbering at about 1000, but a majority of those adventurers are those that are stuck on the shallow layers, which puts them at about the same strength as an ordinary soldier. Frankly, there are way more monsters than we’d anticipated.” (Dion)

“Don’t worry. I’ll defeat at least 200 of them.” (Ahmed)

“…It’d be great if it were only weak monsters. But do you remember what that reporter from the Laudungeon Company had talked to us about in the bar the day before yesterday?” (Dion)

“Hm? You mean when he was telling us about how Lewin spoke highly of me?” (Ahmed)

“Sigh. No, not that part… I meant the part where he was talking about the powerful serpent and Demon that he saw.” (Dion)

“Come to think of it, he did say something like that.” (Ahmed)

“This is just my own speculation, but that serpent and Demon are probably the general-class monsters that are bringing all these monster troops together. If those monsters are as powerful as that reporter described, I think your role in this battle will be to fight against those general-class monsters, Ahmed-san.” (Dion)

Powerful serpent and Demon… If they had power on the level of a Dungeon Boss, it would be really bad, and those soldiers and adventurers wouldn’t be able to stop them. I wanted to just endlessly mow down small fries, but I guess strong opponents aren’t bad either.

“…Hey, why are you smiling like that? I don’t even know what you’re thinking, but you seriously look scarier than a monster right now.” (Dion)

“Hehehe. What a sight.” (Ahmed)

“I suddenly started feeling sick.” (Dion)

“Me too. It kinda looks like a scene straight out of hell.” (Smash)

The fighting had already started, and there were corpses littered about, most likely having perished in their attempts to defend the city against the monster invasion. There were dozens of flying monsters in the air above Landaust. An awful stench filled the air, but it was unclear whether it was the scent of death or the odor of monsters.

“There’s a double-layered gate, and it seems that it hasn’t been broken through yet. It looks like the information spreading played a big role in them lowering the gates right away.” (Dion)

“More importantly, let’s hurry up and get out there! It’s time to hunt monsters.” (Ahmed)

“No, no! We still need to stay on standby! That reporter said that as soon as he knew the position of the enemy generals, he would come to tell us!” (Smash)

“Exactly. It’s not so much about preserving strength, it’s more about being able to grasp the position of the enemy generals as soon as possible.” (Dion)

“Tch. Isn’t it just because you guys don’t wanna fight?” (Ahmed)

The moment I had mentioned wanting to go out through the gate, the two of them desperately tried to stop me. I thought it would be better to thin out their numbers as much as possible, and I also wanted to fight a bit until we found the enemy generals.

“Of course we don’t want to fight, but at least we won’t run away when they’re attacking. If they manage to capture Landaust, then Lewin-kun, who’s in the Dungeon right now, will get attacked when he returns.” (Dion)

“We wouldn’t leave Lewin and run away. Well… it’d be a solution if we ran away into the Dungeon, too.” (Smash)

“Hehehe. As long as you guys are up for it! It’s not like I want to protect Lewin or anything, I’m just fighting because I want to fight!” (Ahmed)

The goal of not letting Lewin, who was down in the Dungeon right now, come to harm was one of the reasons for me to fight, even if it was just a minor one. He was so close to fulfilling his promise of catching up, and then we would be able to go adventuring with him. I didn’t know why in the world these guys were attacking Landaust, but I wasn’t about to let these guys get in the way of that future.

For the time being, I held down my desire to go berserk in battle, which felt like it would overflow at any moment, and continued to quietly observe the situation of the war until that reporter showed up.