Chapter 582 – A Post-Incident Meeting
The expedition sent to investigate the ancient underground ruins suffered tremendous losses after unexpectedly encountering the mysterious army.
Even so, surviving for several days against a force of roughly five thousand with only a hastily constructed fortress was nothing short of miraculous.
The terrain was one reason. It restricted the directions from which the enemy could attack.
Another was the original purpose of the expedition. Since much of the planned work involved road construction and other civil engineering, many of the participating adventurer teams included people skilled in earth magic. That allowed the expedition to construct and repeatedly maintain its defensive walls.
Most of the attackers were Olog-Hai—monsters that didn’t fear death and would charge forward even over the corpses of their own allies. Without the walls, the expedition would have had extreme difficulty maintaining a defensive line.
Strangely enough, it had also been fortunate that the enemy was commanded by a rational officer.
The human commander hadn’t wanted to suffer excessive losses against an expedition whose presence was apparently unexpected, because doing so could interfere with the army’s true operation.
Instead of treating the monsters as disposable and launching an immediate all-out assault, he chose to wear the defenders down through repeated attacks over several days and nights.
Had he been willing to sacrifice the monster force regardless of later plans, the expedition might have been annihilated in only a day or two.
But General Barbatos was a first-rate commander. He treated the Olog-Hai as valuable military assets rather than disposable tools.
From a commander’s perspective, avoiding the heavy losses that would have come from storming the entrenched expedition all at once hadn’t been a foolish decision.
His plan, however, depended on the assumption that no reinforcements would arrive.
Even adventurers who managed to break through the encirclement were pursued by forces large enough to ensure that they would normally be killed before reaching help.
Then an element appeared that neither side could possibly have predicted.
Tauro and Black-Gold Wings.
No one could reasonably have imagined that a single adventuring team would annihilate one of the pursuit forces and then arrive with combat power comparable to a national military unit.
The veteran General Barbatos and the expedition, which had been on the brink of annihilation, would probably have agreed on that much.
Because of that unforeseen intervention, the expedition narrowly survived.
“Damn it! If you’d arrived a little earlier, we wouldn’t have suffered nearly this many losses! You made plenty of money from us, so the least you could have done was get here sooner!”
Inside the command tent of the makeshift fortress, Negame—the nervous-looking bespectacled official serving as Count Swen’s representative and nominal supervisor of the expedition—shouted hysterically at the exhausted Tauro.
“…What?”
Even Tauro was momentarily lost for words.
Black-Gold Wings had fought a brutal battle of its own and had lost four precious Rock-series puppets.
Without their intervention, the expedition would have been annihilated, thousands of monsters could have spread into the Kingdom of Sart, and the country might have been thrown into unprecedented chaos.
The Empire could then have taken advantage of that disorder to invade.
If that happened, not only the expedition but even Count Swen’s territory might have been lost.
Faced with such blatant blame-shifting, Tauro, the territorial-soldier captain, the adventurers, researchers, and scholars present all stared at Negame in disbelief.
“Lord Negame. Isn’t that an extraordinarily ungrateful thing to say?” the territorial-soldier captain rebuked his superior.
“What nonsense! The territorial army has suffered the greatest losses! If soldiers die, we have to pay compensation to their families. If they’re wounded in the line of duty, we have to cover their treatment. We’ve used all the potions we brought, and our weapons, armor, and arrows have been worn down or consumed. These supplies were supposed to last for the entire investigation! How am I supposed to explain this to our lord after only a few days!?”
Negame seemed more concerned about the supplies consumed during the battle than the fact that the expedition had survived at all.
Judging by his words, he even appeared to think the investigation could continue.
“Lord Negame, this was an emergency. Continuing the investigation is impossible. And according to Lord Tauro, one of the messengers we sent for reinforcements reached a military base. The kingdom’s army should already be on its way here.”
“What!? That’s terrible! My lord and the honorary-count general stationed nearby are constantly at odds! If Count Swen learns that I asked that man for help, I’m the one who’ll be blamed!”
“……”
Everyone in the tent fell silent.
Negame clearly didn’t understand the situation.
When the expedition had first been surrounded, he had declared warfare outside his expertise, left everything to the territorial-soldier captain, and hidden trembling in the rear of the cave.
Now that his life had been saved, he had immediately returned to calculating profits and losses.
“…With all due respect, the enemy monster army has lost its commander, and some of its surviving units have scattered into the wilderness. We’re still hunting them down, but they’re intelligent and dangerous. Driving all of them back toward the Imperial side of the Antas Mountain Range will require military assistance. Count Swen will also be waiting for a report as soon as possible,” Tauro said on behalf of everyone present.
“…! Fine, then. You! Testify that you’re responsible for the damage from this incident! If you do that, I won’t be blamed!”
Negame still seemed convinced that Tauro’s only fault was arriving too late.
“Lord Negame, that’s an outrageous way to speak to Lord Tauro, who’s our benefactor!” the territorial-soldier captain said sharply.
The captain knew that Tauro was an honorary viscount.
“W-what did you say!? How dare you speak to your superior like that! And how could I possibly be disrespectful to mere adventurers? We suffered these losses because they arrived late. Depending on the circumstances, we might even demand compensation—”
As Negame continued insulting Tauro—
“That’s enough!”
Aeris finally lost her patience.
“If we hadn’t come, every one of you might have been wiped out! And Tauro is Honorary Viscount Giro Sugar! I’m the daughter of Marquis Van Dyne! Do you understand what that means?”
“!?”
Negame stared at them in disbelief.
Without saying a word, Tauro took the insignia of an honorary viscount from [Magic Storage] and pinned it to his collar.
Negame rubbed his eyes repeatedly and stared at it.
Then the adventurer representative delivered the final blow.
“Lord Negame. Everyone here will testify to how rudely you have treated the nobles who saved us, and Count Swen will hear about it. But right now, the rest of us would like to celebrate the fact that we’re alive. So could you please shut up?”
Everyone present nodded.
Negame’s face went pale, and he collapsed to the floor.