Chapter 120

When everyone’s eyes gathered on him, Cole shrank back slightly.

“Well, there is a mine that has exactly the sort of conditions we are looking for… However, I cannot really call it a very proper proposal.”

“Not proper?”

Cole nodded, then looked at Iiria.

“Iiria-san might find it unpleasant.”

It seemed he had once called her Iiria-sama and been given a displeased look, so Cole had settled on calling her Iiria-san.

“I would? Why?”

“That mine is under special circumstances.”

In front of everyone’s puzzled faces, Cole took a letter from his breast pocket as though giving up on something.

“It is a letter from my older brother Frost. He contacted me, saying that although it is extremely problematic, if it became necessary, I should tell everyone about it.”

When he placed that letter on the table, Cole looked somewhat like a soldier surrendering.

That was probably because he was prepared for the fact that hiding the information from Frost might be seen as betrayal or secret communication.

In fact, Kururu narrowed her eyes and looked at Cole with a dangerous expression.

Even if it was his former family home, the fact that Cole alone had been entrusted with information from Roran’s Bax Company would bother Kururu, who had a strong sense of camaraderie.

“I’ll say this before opening it.”

Then Iiria, who had been looking at the letter placed on the table, turned her gaze to Cole.

“I don’t doubt you, Cole-kun, and neither does anyone here.”

Cole raised his face in surprise, and since his eyes happened to meet mine, I nodded.

Only Kururu wore an expression that said that was not true, but I could tell by looking at her ears and tail. If she were seriously wary of betrayal, it would have shown there much more visibly.

“You had a good reason for keeping this put away, didn’t you?”

“…Yes.”

When Cole answered while looking somewhat downward, Iiria smiled and unfolded the letter on the table.

“Huh, is this a map too?”

What came out was a map and several documents.

Cole rubbed his face with his palm to collect himself, then spoke.

“It is a detailed map of Voden Province, located in the northern part of Azuria Province. The northwestern edge of that province does not actually end with land there.”

“You mean there’s more beyond this?”

Iiria pointed to the larger map that had already been spread out on the table.

It was true that on that Western Frontier map, land was drawn up to the northwestern edge, but it looked as though it might become the sea there, or as though there might be more land continuing beyond it.

“Beyond that, island regions continue, and it is the land of barbarians.”

Iiria and Kururu’s ears sharpened.

“Does that mean…”

“Barbarians, in other words, beastfolk… is not necessarily what it means. It means those outside the empire’s rule.”

It was probably the same as how Roran was a city with history, yet was called part of a province and treated as though it were some backwater.

However, based on Cole’s tone and the way the world worked, those barbarians should include no small number of beastfolk.

“When the empire once invaded this Western Frontier region, its advance was stopped here.”

Cole’s finger indicated the northwestern edge of the map.

“And the fortress on the barbarian side that stopped the empire’s advance was a magic stone mine.”

“A mine was a fortress?”

Gerario added an explanation for Iiria, who did not seem to grasp it.

“For magicians, it’s a natural armory, and inside a mine, where the temperature is stable in both summer and winter, food can be preserved for a long time. There’s no shortage of spring water either. It’d be perfect for a siege.”

“But this mine? Is it an old mine?”

At Iiria’s question, for some reason, Cole looked at Falone for an instant.

“This mine is a sacred place to the barbarians.”

“Sacred…”

Iiria murmured that word in her mouth, looking puzzled.

Then there was the sound of someone sharply drawing in a breath.

It was Falone, staring in shock with his eyes wide open.

“Surely not—”

“Yes, when I heard your story, I also thought surely not. But at the same time, I imagined it.”

Cole quietly said that with his eyes lowered to the map.

“This place is said to be a mountain where the god worshipped by the barbarians lives.”

Mountain worship? I thought for an instant, but this was a world where magic existed.

Above all, what I had to remember was Falone’s story when he decoded the writing carved into the magic stone.

It was about the strange beings called great spirits, who appeared even in the church’s doctrine.

Falone, who did not seem to believe in gods at all, had said that only those great spirits might actually exist.

Because even within the church’s doctrine, they were far too vague an existence.

Falone had theorized that these great spirits were actually beings belonging to a different system of belief, and that the church had forcibly tried to incorporate them into its own doctrine, resulting in something distorted.

And now, in front of us, was a story about a god worshipped by barbarians, said to live in a magic stone mine that had even repelled the empire’s advance.

It was very difficult to resist the temptation to connect them.

“I do think it is forced interpretation, and I have heard that in war, people always end up finding something divine. It may simply be that they wanted to say a god lived in this mountain because it stopped the empire’s advance.”

Cole, trying hard to stay calm, looked at Gerario as he spoke.

“It’s true that on the battlefield, there were a few times I thought an angel had protected me. Well, most of the time, that angel was a hairy bastard with not a single cute thing about him.”

Gerario said that, but he must have been saved before by something like inexplicable luck.

Moreover, this barbarian mine was the place that had pushed back the empire’s great army.

Even if they came to hold a belief that a god lived in the mountain that became the base of a miraculous battle, it would not be strange… Just as I thought that far, I suddenly noticed something.

“Was that faith born when the empire advanced?”

At that question, Cole sighed.

That was probably because Cole himself was half in doubt about this story.

“The faith itself seems to have existed since long ago. However, it is said that people began saying the god truly existed when the empire attacked. Apparently, that was around fifty years ago.”

“I see.”

Then Gerario asked,

“Did the empire not try to capture it afterward? I can’t imagine those people giving up easily.”

“I felt the same discomfort when I read my brother’s letter. That is why I thought about it.”

Could it truly be there?

The being called a god that had mowed down the empire’s soldiers.

“…However, one could say that the empire has not completely given up. Voden Province, which holds this mine at the edge of its territory, has received orders from the empire, and its successive lords have attempted to seize it.”

“Ah, so it’s that thing where they push it onto the underlings. For us mercenaries, it’s good work, but the side it gets pushed onto suffers from endlessly bleeding war funds.”

“Yes, and the method of procuring those war funds is exactly the problem.”

Cole sighed.

When speaking about this, Cole had said that Iiria might find it unpleasant.

“Voden Province covers its war expenses by selling beastfolk as slaves. And the root that supports the beastfolk slave trade throughout the entire province, including Roran, lies here.”

“…”

After Gerario thoroughly scraped his beard, the place his gaze turned to was Iiria and Kururu, who had drawn in their breath.

The existence of enslaved beastfolk was burned into everyone’s mind at Roran’s harbor.

“What do you mean?”

After taking a deep breath, Cole began to explain.