CH 30

I made a mistake

[Why did this happen?]

After leaving Lena, I tried gathering information about the new species monster, but I can’t find anything in Seizelia gave me any promising clues. Also, there’s a limit with me cutting into our party’s savings, so I have no choice but to join other party’s temporarily as a helper.

With the situation of the territory still unsettled and the bulk of force focused on Fleuretus Forest and they’ve been sending adventurers over there for a year now but it didn’t go well.

The adventurer’s guild which was required to achieve a certain level of result, has lost many of its best adventurers by recklessly putting personnel on the wrong job, just like what happened to my party. And now after some member of my party perished, we disband and I’m left alone tracking the new species m monster for taking our magic sword <Zentetsu> which was the first ever weapon our party acquired.

I still remember how we acquired it. It was a battle against a monster with a powerful weapon, that proves to be troublesome. And that battle made us into a coherent team.

I want   to get that back but—

(Please don’t tell me the sightings are in Canaan and not in Seizelia. Even if we weren’t at war right now it cost a lot to cross the border)

Currently the Kingdom of Canaan and the Rohmheit are gathering troops at the town of L’Ecole which is in the southern frontline. As a southern frontier, the town of L’Ecole is attracting mercenary and other job-hungry people to try and exterminate monster around the former Imperial city.

Now I am one of them.

I have no choice but to gather funds so that I could gather information. This time’s job is to exterminate the goblins nesting in olf Fort Karnash. Accordin to the preliminary investigation, it is certain that a queen exist as the leader of the nest and the monster count as many as 1,000.

Fort Karnash was afort that Canaan once lost to the Empire during the great war, and even after the war they still failed to get it back. And since the for was originally constructed to defend against the Empire and Seizeria, it’s only natural for them to take it at all cost. The issue though is the fact that it had been occupied by the empire for so long that it’s might be possible that we don’t know what’s inside it.

And as someone who had a painful experience over one of these Imperial bases, it makes don’t want to go inside. That’s why I was fortunate that I was exempted to join in the expedition inside it because I’m a mage.

[I didn’t expect a siege against goblins…]

I muttered to myself as I looked at the fortress that Kingdom of Canaan once had spent so much money and time to build. The walls are hard and sturdy, and are shaped in a way that makes them suitable for defense. 200 years have passed but they still retain their shape but they are still being used by the goblins. Even the mercenaries who had lots of experience was scratching their heads unsure on how would they attack.

It’s not that difficult to make it fall it but the problem would the amount of damage. Currently they are mercenaries are looking at the fortress in front of them thinking about how to minimize the damage and efficiently exterminate the goblin but with the height of the for, even stone throwing is not foolproof. And they should also have to be wary against arrows from above. They would need a battering ram too to break in the gates.

(Surely this would be costly. No wonder the mercenaries are pondering.)

The gap is still quite big s arrow’s aren’t flying yet but we can already see the goblin station at the top of the wall. So I picked up my blue hat on and step back and lean against a nearby tree. I am not tired of walking but there are chances that the battle would start tomorrow but this night we might end up with a standoff.

We just hope that the mercenary would have found the way to attack by then.

After a while of no movement on both sides the surrounding suddenly becomes noisy. 

[It doesn’t seems like there’s any collapsed part on the wall and also it looks like they’re fortifying the gate.]

[seriously? It is bad to get the troop unnecessarily hurt against the goblin]

I heard such voices on the mercenary camp. I sighed as I realized that a herd with a leader os troublesome after all, while I was listening for some useful information a mercenary walked up to me.

[Hey, how much for a night?]

[there’s a queen in the fort right there, go over there and do her]

I looked around for a mercenary that I could team up with, while appropriately brushing aside the mercenaries who approached me while looking at my chest.

I’m proud to say I’m a skilled magician. Since I would be stationed at L’Ecole for a while , I would like to find a group of mercenaries that I can be a good  customer for, or any group that is convenient for their purpose.

At dusk, a man dressed as a knight gathered the heads of mercenary groups and made a lot of noise and shouting. Some of them are angry because their suggestion is ignored. I walked around a little to find a quieter place and when I found one, I made a make shift hammock with the rope from the backpack and the leather cloak I had taken off, and lay it down in it.

If you draw a stake with a strange decoration that looks like a magic item stabbed in a tree even if it doesn’t have any meaning it you won’t get attack unless they’re idiots. Even if we are attacked the unstable hammock is designed to break off and as long as we woke up we can do a counter attack

Whatever happened we will start tomorrow anyway, so I closed my eyes to prepare for tomorrow.

The attack started early morning and even though it was almost noon the fort hasn’t fallen yet. It’s probably because fo the fact that the first death from stone barrage has slowed down the momentum and now the archer’s and mage are doing their best to clean up the outer wall. It seems like they are planning to whittled the goblins number rather than concentrating at one spot to minimize the damage.

The mercenary group may not want to worn out their fighting potential but the knights are already shoeing their frustration by the way they fight, even though he is a real knight sent by his lord he keeps complaining about the mercenary’s fighting style. After defeating several of them at once with magic for the nth time, they run out of power and begins retreating.

The other side seems to know what is our plan so they no longer group themselves on one place making it hard to kill the archers.

[I think I’ve killed 300 of them, but we can’t reduce their item because of the materials the Empire once used as shield and at the same time they are using arrows wounding us.]

[should I support with my bow]

[No we should just use some crossbows, that way there would be no fear of them getting reused]

Thanks to the head of mercenary group held a meeting and planned they limited the death toll to three. The number of injured people is increasing, but they are all within range of what can be called minor injuries, so there are no hindrances to battle.

[My magic is already running out, I need to retreat]

[Aiyo]

One of the mercenary leaders, answered.

The knight who was supposed to be chaperone seemed to be annoyed by the turn over of the mages gave us a hard look. And after resting for a while on a hastily made couch, there’s a change in situation. It seems like that arrow on the other side had already run out.

Honestly this would have been easy if those knights allowed it to be burnt down but unfortunately the knights vehemently opposed it. Anyway, now the mercenaries are moving. They then line up the ladders, magically drive away the goblins on top, and one by one and finally reached the top of the wall, once it was under control they open the gate opened and they slowly entered, there was no one inside except the queen and few of her goblins. The goblins are dispatched quickly and the hulking queen was left to die on arrows after its leg was crushed by the mercenary.

[Is it over?]

When I muttered this, battle cry of victory had been raised. The result of this expedition has five deaths and 65 wounded. The death toll increase because of morons that fell off from the outer wall and some people failed to aim for the queen to gain credits. Really there are people who are in rush for credit and failing harshly. With the mercenaries getting ready to leave, I quickly packed up my belonging.

I wait until the mercenaries are ready to retreat, then suddenly the mercenary who crushed the leg of the queen come up to me.

[Hey that was quite the feat]

The man smiles and raises his hand and I let out a sigh

[Again…]

[This is about business, don’t be alarmed]

As if to check up on the man I gave him a look and speaks

[Just tell me what you want]

[Actually, we’re after a big fish right now you know? It was found around here recently]

I was quite surprise to hear the story from him, but I didn’t react in any way, making them think that perhaps I was surprised that a new species appeared.

[Interesting details]

[I appreciate for you to bite the bait so do you want to take the job. It wasn’t really official yet but we are already looking for people to help and frankly we don’t have enough mages.]

[I’d like to ask you a question: what do you mean by not enough mages? From the way you say it seems like the issue is not you having number issue but having firepower issue]

The man scratches his head to my word

I was told that there was a group of mercenaries who engaged that guy I guess it was you guys

[Fine, If you accepted my conditions]

[Depends on the conditions]                                               

It looks like the shortage of magician is chronic based on his reaction

[there’s two condition first is money. I would like to have reasonable amount of salary of course if you can’t pay then I would ditch you]

The guy made a difficult face when it comes to money, well it’s natural for mercenary

[then the right to take a certain thing from him]

[is there anything you like from him?]

[Yes, a personal belonging]

[Belonging?]

When I hear it I inwardly say [shit].

[I have little information on new species. Looks like you’re pretty informed aren’t you then I wouldn’t be surprised if he have something like a magic item for example]

The man then seriously considered my words. It seems that they have some idea.

[I forgot to tell you something, before your encountered with that monster, there’s reports that are filed with the Seizelia’s adventure’s guild]

[I see… the mercenary I contacted from Canaan was yours]

The man shows a <gotcha> face

[What is it that you want to do?]

[I don’t all I know is I’m still a hunter]

Negotiation stopped here and apparently they are going to discuss this internally, It seems that guy was the leader of Daw of War named Orlando. He’s not bad looking and he seems to have good equipment so I have high expectation from him.

After I returned to L’Ecole what awaited me is an invitation from dawn of war but since I have no intention to join a mercenary group I declined the offer but I got hired as a temporary for a certain amount of money.

I thought I got enough money, but the man named Edwared took on the nrgotiation and cheated me on it.

[Oh and Diera-san we didn’t just made contact to that monster we fought and we loss. I’m looking forward to your cooperation]

It’s unfortunate the changing the contract is impossible so I made a new goal to punch Edward on the face while getting information and secretly gathering money.