CH 30

Chapter 30 – Battle Slaves And An Elf Girl

After taking a break and confirming that my magic had been restored, I told Myrril that I would resume the seizure operation.

“It may be effective in terms of inflicting damage on the enemy, but we don’t need any more supplies, do we? We have nowhere else to put them.”

“I know. I’ll leave the wagon next time.”

“And it looks like they’ve started to take precautions.”

That’s true. If a quarter of the supplies of the Transportation Corps, which supports the front line, disappear, it is impossible not to notice. Myrril looked at the enemy camp with binoculars from high ground.

“Heavily armed infantry units surround the remaining wagons.”

“Hmm… So, maybe I should move on when it gets dark.”

We decided to take a break and returned to the church where the beastman children were helping to peel potatoes. The church had been turned into a shelter and dining room, with all the food and other supplies moved to warehouses and larger houses, leaving many empty spaces.

“Oh, Yoshua!”

“Yoshua, do you want some food? I helped make the stew.”

“Do you want a snack?”

“There’s drinks there too. Today it’s herb tea.”

It’s noisy, but I’m glad the children are having fun.

The beastman like meat, and the dwarves and elves like potatoes, so those two things are on the menu whenever possible. I don’t want to keep eating only preserved foods and military rations, so I’m grateful for that. It was simply baked meat and boiled potatoes or stew, but it was rather tasty whether the ingredients were good or well cooked.

The women seemed to have finished cooking and were preparing the food to be eaten at any time, leaving the serving and other tasks to the children. I ate a light meal of stew, thin bread, and herb tea.

“Yoshua, are you tired?”

A young beastman girl leans her head at my feet on a chair. It’s Maruko-chan, right? She has round ears and brown fur that looks like a fluffy little bear. She’s cute.

“No, I’m fine. But I’m a little nervous. I’ve never been involved in a war this big before. I want to make sure that everything goes well and that I’m prepared for anything, but I’ve been thinking about what I might have forgotten.”

I don’t mean to be rude, but I think I felt like I was talking to a cat or a dog at that moment. I was just talking to myself, or rather, I was talking to myself to reconfirm myself. But then she smiled and looked at me.

“Yoshua will be fine.”

“Eh?”

“I know. It’s okay, and it’s going to be all right.”

It’s weird, but I felt like I was going to cry. I tried my best to hold back from squirming in her tiny lap and smiled gratefully. The old man, who must have lived four times as long as she did, was impressed by the fact that such a young and adorable girl had a strong motherly nature.

It’s not because I’m a pedophile. Absolutely not.

When it was getting dark around me, I set out on the second round of the seizure.

Things went well at first. No problems occurred, and the results were good. I was able to get through the siege and the alert by shifting and steadily taking the wagons in storage. I took out a couple of guards, and then I did very short teleportation to get behind them, store their clothes, and stab them with a knife when they were confused.

The corpses can be stored, but I find them unpleasant, so I dump them in the woods.

I can feel myself getting used to it. I don’t have much resistance to killing without using a gun now. The only way to survive is to kill all of them anyway.

I decided not to bring the discarded wagon back to the fort but to pile it up on the plain after removing the wheels and set up homemade bombs at the bottom. This was in addition to the scattered pig iron pieces and broken nails.

Both the method and the choice of location resulted from an idea by a dwarf who now knew much more about explosives than I did. It blows away the enemy soldiers who have gathered for protection and causes secondary damage with the rusted iron pieces.

Yeah, not bad. And pretty gruesome.

“Huh?”

The strange thing was when I started to collect from the last group of Transportation Corps. As I was storing the wagons as part of my routine work, I saw a group of figures tumbling down from where the wagons had been.

There were five unconscious beastman, four dwarves, and an elf. They were all naked, but that was probably the result of a living being bounced out of storage. This in itself is a phenomenon that has also occurred with the kingdom soldiers…

“…Could it be?”

When I looked into the carriage next to me, I saw ten beastman in cages with shackles and collars, and also in the carriage next to it. I didn’t recognize them because they were popped out naked, but I guess the first group of people were in the same situation.

All of them were still not reacting, but they weren’t dead; they seemed to have been put to sleep by drugs or magic or something.

Not good. This is not good.

Just from a quick check, there were 68 people in 7 wagons. There’s no way they’d go to the trouble of bringing prisoners of war to the front lines before the war even started unless there was a good reason to do so.

I saw this in a movie or a manga. It’s the kind of thing where you tie enemy prisoners of war to the army’s front line to keep them out of the way of bullets and prevent attacks. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be guns or not, but if it’s supposed to be elven arrows, it’s the same.

So how do I get them out? Wake them up… No, this is enemy territory. Sending out a microbus… is fine, but the task of loading everyone is beyond me. Should I wake one of them up and let him carry them away? No, I don’t think he’ll listen to my persuasion as a human when he wakes up. It would be dangerous for both of us if he started making noise. If a battle broke out, they would be caught in the middle.

“Oh, geez…”

I quickly teleported back and called out to Myrril, who was in front of the church, and also grabbed Yadar, the tiger girl, and dragged her to the front of the church. For some reason, I feel like I can trust this girl. She is definitely powerful.

“Hey, what are you doing all of a sudden, idiot?”

I bowed my head to the two questioning faces. I don’t have much time, and I don’t have much space in my heart. They are being humiliated as prisoners of war, and some of them are being left naked because of me.

“Please! Give me a hand. I want to rescue the beastman held captive by the kingdom’s army. I need your help, and I need it now!”

“”What?””

With two people who didn’t understand what was happening, I forcibly teleported them to the destination. It seems to have consumed a lot of magic power, but I don’t care about that right now. I’m not sure if they were both sick from the teleportation or not, but I’m going to ignore that too.

“This is…”

“They are battle slaves. This is awful…”

They immediately understood the situation when they saw the naked subhumans and the caged transport wagon next to them.

Next to the carriage I had just found, I set up a microbus in the shade of the road.

“Now that we know it, we have to rescue them. Hey Yoshua, do you know how to open this cage?”

“I don’t know, and we don’t have much time. I’ll store the entire carriage. Yadar, take the people who were thrown out and put them on the bus. I’ll return the clothes later.”

“…Okay. I don’t know anything, but I know what I have to do.”

“That’s enough. Myrril, cover me. We’ll get out of here as soon as we finish loading, but there’s a good chance they’ll find us before then.”

“Mfufu…”

What is she laughing at?

She has changed from a noja loli to a smug loli and is smiling broadly as she slumps down on her thin chest.

“If there are 110 and up to seven people, leave it to me.”

As expected, there are not that many Transportation Corps guards. …Oh, that’s right, UZI and 1911 ammunition. How can you be so sure you’re not going to miss your target and neutralize everything with one shot?

How confident are you?

“From what I’ve seen so far, I’d say two to thirty at most, but I’m sure there’ll be armored infantry or cavalry, right?”

“No problem at all. You should start as soon as possible.”

I looked at Yadar and saw that the first beastman had already been put into the microbus. Yadar gestured for me to continue. Oh no, I’m late.

I started storing the wagons one by one, and Yadar quickly helped me load them. I knew that this tiger girl’s physical strength was beyond that of a human.

By the time we reached the third carriage, the horses had sensed something was wrong and started to make a voice. I had already removed the restraints, so why didn’t they just go away?

The disgruntled stamping of feet and the neighing of the horses increased, growing louder and louder.

“Shall we kill the horse?”

“No. They are innocent. If you want to kill them, why don’t you do it over there?”

The guards were the first to be killed, but the soldiers who seemed to be camped out in the woods started to sound suspicious. Yadar also nodded calmly to Myrril-chan, who looked at it with a smile.

“Hey, Coleman! You gotta shut up those horses!”

“What’s going on? Respond!”

I could hear them calling for the guards. What am I supposed to do, answer them?

“Hurry up.”

It must have taken about an hour to get everything loaded out. I stored, rescued, and loaded one after another, and when I was examining the last one, I found it.

A near-dead elf. A male, his arm crushed to bits. Perhaps it was because of the wounds, but he was unconscious.

“I don’t know if it was the drugs or the magic, but he desperately refused to be rendered unconscious.”

“What? So he did this to himself?”

“That’s some fighting spirit you got there. Hang on; I’m here to help you.”

“…p-please. My wife and daughter… will become their plaything.”

The cargo is already loaded, and the only thing left to do is escape. But… the two women were already on fire.

“Oh, Yoshua. You should take them and run. I have a little business to do.”

“No, no, no, wait, wait. You can’t do that…”

“Yoshua, quickly store the wagon. I’ll be right behind you.”

Yadar grabs me by the shoulders with a smile while spreading the murderous intent of a beast. I’m sure she thinks she’s doing it lightly, but it’s nothing short of painful. I’m going to shatter; I’m going to break for real! Who are they after? Where? How did they do it?

As I stored the wagon, Yadar loaded it up in seconds, carrying two or three people in each arm. By that time, Myrril is already running towards the encampment.

“Oh geez… Idiot, I’m really such an idiot!”

“What’s the point in confirming the obvious, huh? Here, I’ll give you an invitation too. You’re invited to the grand ball, Casemaian style.”

Before Yadar and I could step into the encampment, the first shots were fired.

I immediately pulled out my AKM to cover, but there was no one standing in range. The kingdom soldiers were rolling on the ground and groaning, each taking a precise blow to the groin.

“Fuck you, you little…”

“Shoot, shoot, shoot…!”

Bang, bang, bang… The gunfire rose in a calm rhythm, and with each shot, an enemy fell. A heavy infantryman who was about to step into Myrril with his sword raised collapsed, and a group of light infantrymen trying to draw arrows flew apart.

We don’t use full auto. We won’t let them die easily. The bullets that contain Myrril’s anger and hatred are ruthlessly and accurately blasting away at the men’s flesh.

To be honest, just looking at it makes me wince. It’s not the same as being stuck in the ball.

Myrrill calmly speaks to a man who seems to be a new recruit who is frozen with his sword drawn.

“Where is the elf girl?”

“Who the hell are you…?”

A gunshot rang out, and a .45 was fired into his groin. It’s not surprising that the shock would kill him instantly, but in his state of excitement, he was writhing and screaming and rolling around. The fresh blood spurting from his crotch is vivid and frightening even to the night eye. That’s right. There’s a huge artery running down the inner thigh, so it’s probably only a matter of time before he dies.

“Aaahhhh!”

“Where is the elf girl?”

At that moment, a man in disheveled armor jumped out, kicking off the tent.

His armor was elaborately designed as if he was the commander of this unit, but stupidly, the lower half of his body was bare, and he was looking around in a panic, holding his underwear with a sword in his other hand.

“What the hell! Who are you people…”

“There they are!”

Yadar ran into the tent from which the man had emerged and came out carrying two elven women. They were wrapped in blankets, but I could see that they had been stripped naked.

The younger one’s face is distorted from crying, and the older one seems to be unconscious, her arms and legs shaking and plodding as she is shaken.

“…I’ll kill you.”

A low voice rises, resembling the snarl of a ravenous beast. Yadar laid the elven women on the ground.

“I am Viscount Mekelmon, commander of the Transportation Corps of the Royal Army! I’m only treating the subhuman, you bastard will, haguh!?”

The tiger girl’s fist struck him in the face, and the man rolled over and convulsed.

He was trying to stand up while struggling, and it seems that she took it easy on him. She thinks of self-restraint in the state of rage… and then I realize what the purpose of it is.

When she looked at the elven girl with painful eyes, Myrril lowered her head in front of the cowering girl.

“I am sorry you had to go through this, Elven girl. I am sorry I was late in helping you. Here it is!”

“…Ugh… uuu.”

The dwarf girl pulled out a knife from her waist and presented it to the crying girl. The elf girl seems to have understood exactly what it means to be presented with the handle pointed at her.

“You have something you need to do, don’t you? If you can’t do it, I’m always here to help. But…”

“I will.”

The elf girl replied shortly and took the knife. She threw off her blanket and stood in front of the man, completely naked.

Her skin was stained with dirt, her hair was a mess, and she wore only a collar and shackles, but to my eyes, she looked divine.

“O-oh… it’s you, good, listen to me.”

The man who looked up at her was confused, but he spoke to the girl with a twisted smile on his face, as if he thought he had found a way to survive.

“I’m going to make you my concubine. You will be the concubine of a nobleman in the most powerful and largest country in the world. What happened to your mother was an unfortunate accident. She struggled so hard to protect you that it was unfortunate…”

The elven girl kept her face expressionless and raised her foot wide, crushing the man’s crotch.

“Gyaaaaa…!”

Swinging her foot up again, she stomped down on his nose. This time, the man didn’t even let out a scream, just a dull grunt.

The elf girl sat down on the man’s chest, who was convulsing and struggling to get up.

“Look at me.”

She said in a quiet voice. She sounded rather calm, and it sent chills down my spine.

“Yes. Look at me. I am the daughter of the elf you tried to defile, the gentle and beautiful elf you raped and killed.”

“T-that’s…”

“No, that doesn’t make any sense. My mother did not call for help. She did not beg for mercy. She just asked for a contract. She said that if she gave herself up, her daughter would… be spared. And you accepted.”

“Yes… yes, I did. So I…”

“While laying waste to my mother and strangling her, you said. I promised you that I would help your daughter… That was a lie.”

“No, it wasn’t… It was…”

“My mother died in despair and hatred, listening to your vulgar laughter. That debt must be repaid.”

The tip of the knife comes close to the man’s eyes. The man looks straight into it, unable to scream or run away.

“…You will have to pay for the broken contract.”

“S-stop…!”

The tip of the knife pierces the eyeball. The man bounced back like a shrimp and tried to shake her off, but the elf girl didn’t seem to budge at all and put her weight on the man’s face. The knife buries itself further into the man’s face.

“I promise you, here and now. I will burn your army, your country, and your family with my own hands. Hate me. You will die hating me. That is your retribution.”

“….Y-you mons…ter.”

The man died with a final spasm.

The elf girl, still weak, was helped up by the tiger girl and wrapped in the blanket again.

“You have done well. Your mother will be buried with dignity. I promise you the same. I promise you that I will do everything in my power to help you avenge her death!”

“Yes, that’s right.”

…Eh? What’s that look in those eyes, you two?

Oh, you want me to put the body in storage. Oh, yes. Right. Hand you over the weapons. Understood. And clean up after the survivors while you’re at it? No, you’re kidding, right? We have to go back.

The elf girl looked at me suspiciously as I panicked. That’s right. In many ways, I’m out of place here.

“This man is Yoshua. Although he’s a human, he’s the one who understands us the most and is our most reliable mage. We welcome you into our Casemaian Liberation Army. And this is the proof.”

Myrril gives the Elven girl the shotgun she took from me.

Is that okay? I wonder if that’s really okay. Yeah, give them all the shotguns they want. I understand, geez!