We Go For It First! (9)

Soil City had a garrison of ten thousand troops. I summoned two thousand of them, and on top of that, I separately brought along one hundred snipers and positioned them around me before moving toward the place where the great magic had fallen.

“Is this really the right way to use snipers?”

At Hare’s words, I smiled awkwardly and said,

“Everyone recognizes the snipers’ skills, don’t they? Since Wijel, Debik, and the others aren’t here, we have to rely on them. Hare and Demina have to be deployed to investigate the cause, don’t they?”

Hare had an expression that said I was hopeless after hearing my words, but Demina objected.

“I will not step forward. Your Highness’s safety comes first.”

Lately, whenever Demina looked at me, she had been calling me “Your Highness.” I had also tried correcting her properly and firmly, telling her not to, but it only worked at that moment, and now I had half given up.

“That puts me in a difficult position, you see. Having ordinary soldiers do it is… a bit much, isn’t it?”

At my words, Demina’s expression stiffened for a moment, but she still continued, saying that it would not do. Thinking there was no helping it, I decided to use the snipers who had come with us, and that was when we arrived near the destination.

“Quite a lot of magic power is spread widely around here… but I can’t tell where the center is. It seems like the magic power is swirling in this form to disturb the location of the person who moved here… What should we do?”

“In the end, that means we have to push through with manpower, right?”

“I suppose so.”

Thinking there was no helping it, I looked around and spoke to the soldiers, including the snipers.

“As you heard, all of you have to find something. If the other party attacks, respond immediately. However, you must not kill them. And the moment you discover anything, quickly inform those around you. Understood?”

At my words, everyone answered with solemn expressions, and when I told them to spread out and investigate, I saw them split into groups and scatter in every direction.

And since Demina said I should enter the panic room just in case, I had no choice but to wait while using Construction, exchanging various words with Hera.

That was when Demina said that a whistle audible only to beastkin had sounded and that she would go check it out, and as I watched Demina disappear in an instant as though sprinting with all her might, I felt needlessly worried.

“Nothing will happen, right?”

“If it’s Demina, then there shouldn’t be much trouble in most cases… but since the amount of magic power used was large, I suspect the user might not be in a normal state either.”

“You can tell the amount of magic power used too?”

“Hmm, to explain it simply, in the case of movement magic, you can think of the amount of magic power used as roughly one-tenth of the remaining amount left at the place where they moved after the magic power was used. From that, you can roughly infer where they moved from. In addition, by looking at the direction in which the magic power spreads out, you can even examine the location where movement magic was used. That is why people say it is better not to use movement magic if possible.”

“Then where would the person who moved here have come from?”

“I think it might be the battlefield.”

“The battlefield?”

Hare nodded and pointed in one direction as she spoke.

“The battlefield between the Demonic Tribe and humanity. I’m thinking it might be there. It would be good if it were someone like a Hero.”

She seemed to be talking about the person who had moved here.

A Hero, huh? I could not exactly call them a welcome existence. On top of that, if it was a Hero who had been dragged here along with me, they might remember me after seeing my face.

To put it bluntly, not even a year had passed, and because it was an impressive memory, it could last for a long time.

But how much time had passed? Demina came running back, and several beastkin followed behind her. On one of their backs, a woman with black hair was being carried.

“It looks like a human moved here.”

“A human… Well, I suppose it should be fine for me to go out for now, right?”

“She looks unconscious, so I think it should be all right for you to come out. Still, be careful. Understood?”

After saying I understood, I erased the panic room and stepped outside. Demina approached me and reported.

“This is the woman presumed to have moved here. She is a human woman, and rather than external wounds, the wounds inside her body appeared serious, so we first gave her medicine to protect her internal organs and immediately ran back here.”

“Was she unconscious from the start?”

Demina nodded and pointed to one side as she spoke.

“This is the discoverer.”

“I am 8-star soldier Silbanek!”

That meant he had earned eight stars in the arena. Silbanek reported to me as I nodded.

“In the case of the discovered person, she had collapsed while leaning against a tree. Considering that she was not wearing a single piece of clothing, had a pale complexion, and blood was gushing steadily from her mouth, we administered medicine. I attempted to bind her just in case, but since she was unconscious, I first watched her and blew the whistle!”

“You did well. It was an appropriate measure and a quick response. The training was worth it, wasn’t it?”

“Thank you!”

I chuckled at his booming shout and examined the face of the unconscious woman. She certainly had an appearance that was difficult to see in this world.

She looked East Asian, and her hair was black. In addition, she had pale, bright skin, but for now, my impressions ended there. I thought the first priority was to prepare a place where she could rest, so I spoke to those around me.

“We have accomplished our objective, so we will return. Still, just in case, leave one hundred-man unit behind and have them search the surrounding area further. Understood?”

Demina said she understood, and after confirming that she had soon left one hundred-man unit in the rear, we were able to return to Soil City.

And I had intended to wait until the woman who had moved here regained consciousness, but I still had a mountain of work left, so after telling several snipers to remain behind and watch her, I resumed work on Soil City. That was when half a day passed.

A sniper who came to find me relayed unexpected words.

“She has regained consciousness, but a problem has arisen.”

“A problem… Don’t tell me she has amnesia or something?”

I said that because I thought it was the kind of situation that always happened at times like this, but the sniper looked at me with a surprised expression and nodded.

“How did you know?!”

“….You’re joking, right?”

“I’m serious.”

“Let’s go.”

The sniper looked puzzled at my words, and Hare laughed, seemingly finding this situation amusing. Afterward, we returned to the inn, and the moment I faced the woman who had regained consciousness and was trembling, my head became complicated.

At a glance, she was East Asian. Since the situation even subtly gave off a Korean feeling, I approached carefully and greeted her first.

“Hello?”

First, I tried greeting her in “Korean,” and what do you know?

“H-Hello…?”

She returned the greeting in Korean. I was dumbfounded, but it was definitely Korean pronunciation, and under the woman’s gaze as she looked straight at me, I immediately asked another question in Korean.

“What is your name?”

“I don’t remember…”

She was Korean. I had never expected that a day would come when I would converse in Korean in another world. Well, strictly speaking, there were the people who had moved here with me and those who had been dragged here earlier as well, but I had never had any reason to speak with them, and the only time I saw the Heroes was when I was moved to this world, so it felt deeply moving in a strange way.

“What language are you speaking in?”

Hare asked as though her curiosity had been stirred, and after vaguely telling her that it was the language of my homeland, I asked the woman before my eyes.

“So you don’t remember who you are, where you were, or what you were doing, is that right?”

The woman slowly nodded. This time, I used the common continental language of this world, and she understood that as well. I wondered if she had the same Linguistics talent as me, or if not, whether it was a memory that had remained naturally because she had lived in this world for a long time.

‘Putting the language aside for now, is she a Hero? But from what I remember, there were only four female Heroes. I know the faces of three of them… and I can infer the remaining one too. I heard she was a foreigner. Was she blond…?’

If so, the woman before me could, for the moment, not be a “Hero.” My head became complicated because there was a possibility that she was someone who had been swept up just like me.

To put it bluntly, how could there have been only one or two people swept up like me before I came?

However, the problem was that a Korean had been swept up, that she had moved specifically to our territory of all places, and on top of that, the fact that the woman had lost her memory. My head became complicated for a moment, but first, I said to her.

“For now, please rest and calm down. It would be best if you recover, but even if you don’t, you can stay comfortably without feeling burdened. Understood?”

“…Th-Thank you.”

The woman carefully gave her thanks, and leaving her behind, I left the inn with Hare and Demina. Then, after putting a suitable distance between us, I explained the information I knew to them in moderation and asked Demina.

“What is that woman’s condition like?”

Demina, who knew what sort of answer I wanted, answered tactfully.

“The amount of mana and magic power in her body is only a little higher than that of an ordinary person.”

“Hmm, how does it look to you, Hare?”

“Considering the extent of her injuries, the fact that she is maintaining her current state suggests that she may have been very strong. In addition, if she had magic knowledge at the level of a great mage, then if she began drawing on external magic power instead of keeping magic power inside her body, it would be difficult to recognize.”

“Cases like that exist too?”

“Yes. In the case of great mages, their tendencies are divided according to two kinds of enlightenment. I could be said to be the type who raised the realm of magic by possessing magic power within my body and refining it. The characteristic of this form is that magic activation is quick, and it has the advantage of being able to concentrate a large amount of power at once, but it is disadvantageous in prolonged battles.”

“So it’s something like a short-battle great mage and a long-battle great mage?”

“No. Strictly speaking, it is correct to divide them into short-battle great mages and large-scale great mages.”

“What is that supposed to mean now?”

“That is not what is important right now, is it?”

“…True. Please tell me later. Then does that mean there is almost no possibility that that woman is a Hero or anything like that?”

“Judging by the direction of movement, there is a high possibility that she is a Hero, but you said you know the appearances of all the female Heroes, and that woman was not included among them, correct?”

“That’s right. I’m fairly sure she’s not a Hero, so what is she?”

“There are a few things we can estimate. However, I don’t think we can jump to conclusions. And there are rumors that the Apoca Kingdom is detaining many people summoned from other worlds. We can consider the possibility that one of them was dragged to the battlefield and luckily escaped… but the possibility would be slim.”

“I think so too. On top of that, there aren’t any people connected to the Apoca Kingdom in this allied army, are there?”

“That’s right. I hear the war is actively ongoing on the southern continent as well.”

Certainly, the Apoca Kingdom was also in a situation where it was responding to the Demonic Tribe. I remembered hearing that because there was at least a “Saint” and a “Saintess,” they were able to send the Heroes elsewhere.

‘What are they going to do when the fire reaches their feet? Tsk, well, it’s none of my business, is it?’

It was already a country I had cut my lingering attachments to, and I had no time to care about that place. After only a brief moment of concern, I spoke to Hare and Demina.

“Would the two of you please take turns keeping an appropriate watch?”

In the end, this was the only decision I could make. I could not know what sort of connection this would become, but for now, it was something to watch over.