Chapter 38

This is a story following a small encounter between people that took place behind the scenes of Varna’s brawl plan—.

“The probability that Veera’s dwelling is the Orc nest itself is high… and, done.”

Bevion, who had finished writing his report and returned to have Nonoka-san proofread it, closed the document by scribbling down the startling additional information he had overheard there. He hesitated for a moment on whether to submit it as is, but his rare decision to run and have someone else check the papers first actually paid off for once.

As for the pattern where it wouldn’t have paid off, it would involve his seniors shouting something like, “Don’t come here every single time just to confirm something so obvious! I’m busy!”

Even if they said that, he was only in his first year since joining and was full of anxiety about everything he did, yet his seniors showed no mercy. Senior Varna didn’t snap and was actually quite supportive, but was it true that he only acted that way because he was lonely after four out of the five recruits from last year left?

…No, that had to be a lie.

“To be doted on that much by Nonoka-san and still claim to be lonely—that’s an unforgivable act of arrogance! …But he really is talented, frustratingly so. I wanted to be like that, too!!”

Varna had smashed through the difficult military academy entrance exams, pushing aside the privileged classes to pass with top-tier grades. By last year, after being rotated through various squads, he had earned the unstoppable reputation of being “capable of excelling anywhere.”

He was favored by the Commander; as the last remaining rookie of the previous year, he’d had various knowledge and techniques hammered into him by his seniors; and because Chef Tamae liked him, he was naturally held in high regard by the entire Cooking Squad. This time, he was even receiving the extreme special treatment of being assigned a solo mission.

To be blunt, he had far more dignity as a knight than Senior Rock standing next to him.

…Though that might just be because Senior Rock was so useless that Varna looked better by comparison.

“Regardless, I’m the one who’s going to win this time… Senior hasn’t returned to the Motive Carriage, so he doesn’t know about little Veera-chan’s existence. I’m the one who will be the hero!! …Well, I feel like Caliban will be the main one, but anyway, the spotlight won’t be on him! I’m the one who’s going to get a head-pat from Nonoka-samaaaaa!!”

The monologue of Bevion, getting hyped up all by himself in his room, showed no signs of stopping. He was intensely fired up, wanting to surpass his great senior even by a little and earn Nonoka’s attention.

He gathered the documents, put them in an envelope, and stepped out of the Motive Carriage in high spirits.

There were multiple Motive Carriages, each equipped with different facilities—one for the dining hall, one for the reference room, and so on. Most of the other spaces were used as knights’ quarters, and the carriage containing the Vice Commander’s office was different from the one where Bevion’s room was located.

During that transit…

“Um, excuse me…”

“Hmm?”

Bevion met her.

He truly met her.

A lovely young girl with the most adorable downward-sloping eyebrows.

‘Guh-haaaaa!! This passionately raging rhythm piercing my chest!! Her Little Girl Power is 3000… 4000… no, could it be in the 10,000 class?! To discover a high-level young girl radiating S-rank charm in a remote town like this…!! And she spoke to me! She spoke to me!! This is surely the Goddess of Fate whispering that I should be more popular—in other words, a divine revelation!!’

—All of this thinking occurred in exactly 0.1 seconds.

To Bevion, a young girl was an object to be protected above all else in the world.

They were beings that compelled him to follow an ironclad unwritten rule: always be a flawless gentleman in their presence.

No matter the social standing or the purpose of the girl, Bevion would absolutely prioritize her, and he was perfectly willing to offer up his own life for that cause.

Therefore, without a moment’s hesitation, Bevion dropped to one knee and spoke to the girl in a gentle tone.

“I am Bevion. I am but a humble knight. Might I ask for your name, young lady?”

“…I’m Baum. I live in the town…”

“What a beautiful, resonant name. Now then, Miss Baum? Seeing as you’ve come here, could it be that you have business with the Royal Foreign Hazardous Species Countermeasures Knights? If you have need of us, I shall lend you the strength of the Knights at any time.”

A rookie knight declaring he would mobilize the Order on his own authority. This was, of course, a huge problem.

Furthermore, if Bevion deemed it necessary, he fully intended to appeal directly to Vice Commander Rony to gather personnel. Whether that would actually work was a different matter entirely.

The girl looked at Bevion’s face and was wary at first, but eventually, she hesitantly held out an envelope.

“This… I was told to give this to someone named Nonoka, quickly.”

“This…? I see, understood. I shall take responsibility for delivering it to Nonoka-sama.”

The envelope he received was reasonably large and sealed with wax.

Though Bevion had accepted it unconditionally, a thought suddenly occurred to him.

Just who was this envelope from?

Delivering documents to Nonoka was a common occurrence.

However, that usually happened within the Order. It was hard to imagine a villager from a town they had just arrived in suddenly naming Nonoka specifically to hand over a large envelope that wasn’t even a letter.

Should he ask, or should he not—at the moment he agonized over it, the answer was flatly provided by Baum.

“Varna-kun asked me for a favor… He said it was something important involving the town’s safety, and that he trusted me… So, please make sure it’s delivered, okay?”

“…!!!”

Leaving behind those words, Baum hurried away from the spot.

Left behind, Bevion collapsed to his knees after a short silence.

“In the middle of a solo mission, he managed to win over such a cute child… And based on the conversation, the contents of that envelope are a report on the Orcs?! Dammit, dammit!! This is too much… No matter how hard I try, is that man going to stay ahead of me in everything?! Dammit alllllll!!”

Wailing toward the sky like a tragic man who had lost everything, large teardrops fell from his eyes. The humiliating gap—where Varna had befriended another young girl while Bevion was busy putting in effort for the sake of young girls—left a void in Bevion’s heart like a bottomless abyss.

As a knight and as a lover of young girls, it was a clear and total defeat.

“Hey, Bevion is collapsed over there and crying for some reason.”

“Didn’t Nonoka-san just dump him? Man, that guy never learns…”

——It went without saying that, from an objective standpoint, he was a total idiot.

On the night of the third day—for the Knights, it was around the time they should have already finished scouting the site and begun preparations for the Orc sweep. However, the Order currently only grasped two things: they had found a place that seemed to be the nest, and they couldn’t confirm the interior.

Among the scouts, since the raid route to the town remained unknown, suspicions were even arising that the cliff where those Orcs stayed was actually just one of the entrances to the nest.

Even so, Vice Commander Rony, who served as the second-in-command, carried out his duties quietly in his combined bedroom and office without panicking or making a fuss. Such composure in this situation—as expected of the Vice Commander and the person in charge on the ground. It gave a glimpse into the depth of character possessed by those of privileged class status.

“…Tomorrow is the fourth day. Even if the plan is finalized tomorrow, preparation will take at least two days, and if we include at least two days for follow-up observation during the aftermath, that’s ten days total… Hahaha, the Commander told me to wrap this up within a week and wait for further orders, but it’s already hopeless. Yep, it’s no use. After all, knowing when to give up is essential, right? This delay will surely be compensated for by using up my paid leave. Hahaha… Sorry, Maki, looks like I won’t be making it home again. Sorry, Livery, that promise to play together on Sunday… I don’t think I can keep it anymore…!!”

——Correction: it appeared he was, in fact, not doing well at all.

Stories about men mentioning their families’ names on the battlefield are all too famous, but in his case, the flavor was entirely different. If anything, it was a collection of the tragic screams of a pitiful father being buried alive by work.

Living in a whirlwind of demonic busyness, Rony was the number two of the Royal Foreign Hazardous Species Countermeasures Knights. Consequently, he was swamped with paperwork and bore responsibilities proportional to his high rank. In a world where free time melted away the higher one rose, he couldn’t even satisfactorily keep a promise to his son.

This wasn’t Rony’s fault, nor was it the fault of the old bearded man, Commander Luger; rather, it was the fault of the excessive workload poured into this Order. In conclusion, it was the Orcs’ fault. Incidentally, the people of the Holy Knights who framed Rony and had him demoted shared a portion of the blame, but that was beside the point.

Regardless, Rony’s mental state was reaching its limit.

He was faking his way through by getting stomach medicine from the “big sister” types among the Three Great Mother Goddesses in the infirmary, but lately, Rony was so cornered that he couldn’t sleep at all at night. When work was delayed, many troubles besides just salary issues would sprout up.

“—You seem to be suffering quite a bit.”

“Uwoah?! …A-Ah. Senega-san. Please stop entering the room without a sound, it’s bad for my heart. Really.”

“Oh, my apologies. I forgot to knock.”

As Senega let out a mock knock on the door behind her, Rony let out a weary sigh.

Because Senega used to be part of the privileged class, she was more capable of handling paperwork than other members, so she was a woman often assigned to support Rony. However, because she had a somewhat more twisted personality than most, she would pull stunts like intentionally erasing her presence to enter the room just to startle Rony for no reason.

‘Even her direct superior, Njya, is a bit soft on her. Girls really are difficult to handle. Even though the kids in the Cooking Squad are so straightforward… Wait, no, no.’

If Senega had come to the room, it meant there was a report.

“So, what is it?”

“I have two pieces of good news and two pieces of bad news.”

“The bad ones first.”

“A classic and cliché choice. No, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, though.”

Senega pushed up her glasses, but the gesture had no real meaning; she likely just said it for the sake of saying it.

She often adopted an air that seemed significant while actually having no intention behind it. A woman’s heart is a mystery, but her heart was more of an enigma.

“The bad news then. First, Knight Varna is skipping today’s report.”

“I see, understood. He won’t be coming back today, then.”

Senega was intentionally adding a malicious twist to it, but as far as Rony knew, Varna was a man who was far too serious about his missions. To be honest, the lack of a report made him anxious, but well, there was probably a reason.

To his lukewarm reaction, Senega muttered, “I guess this trick won’t work anymore…” Naturally, it was at a volume just barely audible to him. In the past, he had been caught by this kind of mischief and thrown into confusion, but now that he was used to it, he could simply let it slide.

“And the next report? Did Rock drink too much and collapse again, or did Akina go on a rampage and injure Zato?”

“No, it’s nothing major. Just that a monster of a different species from the Orcs was captured in the river near the town.”

“Pffft—whaaaaat?!”

“Heh… I got exactly the reaction I expected.”

“Don’t play with people! More importantly, what do you mean a monster other than Orcs?! And why haven’t I received any report about one being captured?!”

While realizing that her strategy was to lower his guard with the first shot before firing the second at full power, he took massive damage from the sheer impact of that second shot. A monster other than an Orc was national-level news, so why was a capture report coming in before a sighting report?

“Normally, you’d confirm with your superior before capturing it!!”

“Apparently, that aquatic monster was extremely weak, and it was small enough for the Familiar managed by Caliban to capture it just for fun. Currently, it is being managed safely under the guidance of Miss Nonoka. A different person will provide a detailed report later.”

“A-Ah, I see… It’s really okay, then?”

“That is what the report says.”

He wondered why he felt so endlessly uneasy. Since that little scholar’s sensibilities were so vastly different from common people, he worried that her scale for “safety” was also skewed.

“Hah, I’m suddenly exhausted… Please, give me the good news.”

“It seems the place that monster used as a dwelling is very likely the Orcs’ dwelling as well, so the investigation will proceed along those lines starting tomorrow.”

“W-What?! Has the Goddess of Fate not abandoned me yet…?!”

At the joyous news that blew away his accumulated fatigue, Rony reflexively slammed his hands onto the desk and stood up. It was a light so precious it made him forget the pain in his hands—a ray of hope that had finally pierced through the dark clouds hanging over the investigation.

The home of a monster captured by chance happened to be occupied by Orcs by chance.

He couldn’t send enough words of gratitude to the god who had prepared such a twist of fate.

What’s more, there was one more piece of good news.

“And the other piece of good news: it looks like Knight Varna has managed to identify the infiltration route the Orcs use when they appear in town, so he will be submitting a report first thing tomorrow morning.”

“No way!! Why didn’t you say that soon—I mean, that first piece of bad news wasn’t even necessary!! Why did you go out of your way to pad it with news you didn’t even have to mention?!”

“Because I wanted to see that reaction. ♪”

“A thrill-seeker?! For the sake of my stomach and blood pressure, please stop that!!”

Vice Commander Rony found that the beautiful smile she showed him wasn’t pleasing at all.