Chapter 1150: Suspicions

Bang!

The sun was about to rise on the hilly region in front of Rajhil, a few hours before the start of our operation.

A giant pillar of fire broke the darkness in Kranzel’s military camp.

「Enemy attack?」

『Yeah! It’s coming from the officer tents!』

Did someone leak the operation? They launched a surprise attack at the perfect time to crush Kranzel’s momentum and lower our morale.

In addition, enemy soldiers had deployed from Rajhil’s gates.

Our plan involved Fran and her comrades purposely revealing themselves here, before inconspicuously moving east for the real objective. However, Raydoss attacked before we even started.

Not to mention the horde of 2,000 undead suddenly appearing between us and the city walls.

Undead may be slow on their feet, but those are dangerous numbers.

（What now?）

『Let’s ask Donadrond for instructions.』

「Okay.」

Probably not a good idea to deploy without permission, especially since we’re in enemy territory. It’s times like these where being part of an army can get frustrating.

We exited our tent and paid a visit to Donadrond. Along the way, we confirmed that the enemy had yet to reach our camp.

Maybe that explosion from earlier was simply some kind of trap being triggered?

「Donad.」

「Fran! We’re having all the adventurers stick together for now. Can you keep an eye on the perimeter?」

「Okay.」

We watched over the surrounding area for a few minutes.

The adventurers were ordered to take care of the undead, since the knights were busy protecting the nobles still panicking from the surprise attack.

One might think we’re just being used, but none of the adventurers really cared. Many of them preferred going on the offensive more than defense.

「Fran! Can I ask you to hold back the undead without damaging them too much?」

「Nn!」

「You have my gratitude! Those undead shall now become my newest servants! Fuhahaha!」

It seems Jean planned to dominate the enemy undead, so he didn’t want Fran to destroy them outright.

『In that case, let’s surround them with land magic.』

「Nn.」

『Urushi, keep an eye out for anyone trying to sneak around. The undead might be a decoy.』

「Woof!」

Sending undead all by themselves makes no sense if they know Jean is here. The chance of them being a decoy is pretty high.

We continued scanning the surrounding area as we created walls to block the path of the horde.

That’s when we noticed a certain group trying to circle around to the Kranzel army’s rear. Like I suspected, they intended to launch a surprise attack.

『Urushi!』

「Woof woof!」

Another 30 minutes passed.

Jean had dominated a portion of the undead, but the rest disappeared in an instant. It seems Raydoss mass dismissed the undead to avoid any more losses.

That’s pretty annoying. Maybe they developed this technique to counter Jean.

Meanwhile, we found that the group trying to flank us also consisted of undead, but they crumbled apart the moment Urushi caught up with them. Were these just a decoy too?

I don’t see any point to sacrificing them before putting up a fight.

Perhaps their only purpose was to confuse us.

Kranzel’s leaders were certainly thrown into chaos by the surprise attack.

Frankly speaking, Raydoss was obviously trying to buy time. If anything, they’d probably hate it if we immediately strike back at them…

However, the nobles focused on the possibilities of intel leakage and additional traps, deciding to prioritize rebuilding camp first.

I think Raydoss purposely made the undead crumble apart in front of Urushi to make us suspicious. They wanted us to search for non-existent ambushes.

And we fell for the trick.

What’s more, Kranzel even started looking for spies within their ranks. Only certain officers and nobles knew the details of our surprise attack operation, and Raydoss struck right before we could put it into action. It’s only natural to suspect a traitor.

That said, traitors aren’t the only possible source of information. One of the oldest tricks in the book is to look for smoke. Soldiers tend to eat more right before a battle, so spotting more cooking smoke than usual means an oncoming attack.

I’m sure Kranzel had a countermeasure in place for the smoke, but there were still other signs. Even the foot soldiers would realize when they will deploy based on the amount of food served. Perhaps Raydoss even recognized the slight changes of movements within our lines, or magically eavesdropped on our meetings.

Spy hunting seems like a waste of time to me. However, the stupid nobles without much experience decided they wanted to play the blame game instead.

Worst of all, suspicion fell on Fran too. Guess that can’t be helped, since few know her history and she can manipulate evil energy…

The other suspect was Maleficent. Despite being the famous Rank A known as the “Black Spot”, his past was also unknown. In fact, his race, age, birth name, skills, and so on were all unknown.

Putting it simply, he’s even more suspicious than Fran.

Moreover, he refused to speak about his past when interrogated by a noble with a lie detector.

Fran was also interrogated, but she answered all the questions truthfully. They asked stuff like where she got her sword, but “I found it” isn’t a lie. In the end, she was cleared of all suspicion.

Nevertheless, we can’t afford to indulge the nobles forever. Even the untalkative Forrund voiced a complaint, putting an end to the inquisition.

Our operation was to go on as planned, so Fran and Jean departed inconspicuously for the eastern front.

We did manage to leave an impression of our presence before we left, so I guess it wasn’t all bad.