Subjugating Monsters

After spending time walking around the city, we realized that no normal part of the city remained.

There were only three kinds of places left: the city areas that had turned into slums, the places where people were forced to work for the upper class, and the places where those people of the upper class lived.

“Luca, do you think it would be safe if Ann came to this city?”

Rebecca muttered that quietly while we headed toward the outer gate of the city to go hunt monsters.

“…It might be dangerous if she came when we weren’t around.”

After walking around the city for just two days, it was painfully clear how often women—who were generally in a weaker position—were harassed. It would be best for her not to enter the city alone.

“That’s what I thought too. Maybe we should ask her not to come into the city until we return from our search.”

“Yeah. I’ll ask Lady Seremees to relay the message to Ann through Lady Milora.”

“Thanks.”

As we talked, we soon arrived at the outer gate, and before leaving the city we called out to the gate guard.

“Excuse me. Has a message arrived from a knight named Ernesto?”

The guard seemed to remember our faces, and perhaps out of fear his expression stiffened as he replied.

“I-it has not…”

“I see. Thank you very much. We’ll come ask every day from now on, so please keep that in mind.”

Since the guard looked extremely frightened, we quickly passed through the gate and exited the city.

“Just because we entered the city with knights, they’re that afraid of us.”

“That shows how terrifying the knights are to them.”

In a normal country, the knight order was supposed to protect the citizens. Yet even the soldiers were that afraid—at that point, it didn’t feel right to even call them knights anymore.

If knights used their power to dominate the weak however they pleased, then they were nothing more than bandits.

“I don’t even know where to begin fixing this country.”

“Yeah… the fastest way would probably be to subdue the upper class by force and start over, but it’s scary not knowing how many of them there are.”

It would be ideal if we could identify the person responsible for creating this entire situation, but it wasn’t even certain that such a person existed.

Normally it would be the king, but there was no way Lady Seremees wasn’t monitoring the king… which made it seem likely that the king himself was simply being manipulated.

“For now, let’s defeat monsters from one end to the other so that the people in the city can survive, even if just a little longer.”

“Yeah.”

Even if we kept thinking about it here, we wouldn’t reach a conclusion, so we decided to focus on what we could do right now.

“Should we start near the city?”

“Yeah. But I don’t want the situation where the people of the city come out to hunt food and find nothing left. I’d like to leave weaker monsters alive. What weak monsters live around this city…”

On the way to the city earlier, the knights had been defeating monsters, and since we had been riding horses most of the time, we hadn’t been attacked much, so we didn’t have a good grasp of the monster distribution around here.

We had studied monsters that lived in the Empire but not in the kingdom, yet we didn’t remember exactly where they lived.

“Maybe Horn Rabbits?”

“No, weren’t Horn Rabbits uncommon around the Imperial Capital?”

“Was that it? Then… I don’t really remember either. For now, let’s go into the forest. We can fight them and see if they’re monsters the people of the city could defeat. If so, we’ll leave them alone.”

“That’s probably the best way.”

After deciding on a temporary plan, we stepped into the forest located right near the city.

Perhaps because there were no adventurers left, we encountered a monster almost immediately after entering the forest. Encountering monsters this often so close to the city was extremely dangerous.

“That monster… it’s a Black Bear, right?”

“Yeah. It’s not a monster that should be this close to a city.”

When humans—their natural enemies—disappeared from the area around the city, perhaps strong monsters that normally lived deep in the forest started moving in like this.

If that was the case, hunting in this forest would be far too dangerous for the people of the city.

“Luca, I’ll aim for its eyes.”

“Got it. Be careful, that one can use dark magic.”

Without taking my eyes off the Black Bear glaring at us, I drew my sword. The moment I did, the Black Bear roared and kicked off the ground.

For a moment I was surprised by its speed, which was faster than expected, but I quickly regained my grip and redirected the charge of its massive body.

“Grrraaaah!”

The Black Bear crashed into a nearby tree, yet it ignored the impact and swung its sharp claws down at me. This time I blocked the attack with my sword and fired an Ice Spear into its stomach from close range.

However, since I didn’t have time to pour much magical power into it, the Ice Spear only pierced shallowly and failed to finish it off.

Even while staggering, the Black Bear somehow steadied itself on its hind legs and created two black arrows in the air. It was likely the dark magic Black Arrow.

To cancel out the magic, I launched a Fireball, and in that opening Rebecca accurately shot an arrow into the Black Bear’s eye. The Black Bear collapsed to the ground and died.