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How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: Volume 8 (Premium)

Page 15

by Dojyomaru


  Hmm...

  “Then, since it looks like a ryuu’s mouth, how do you like ‘Naden’s Mouth’ instead?”

  “Don’t go putting my name on it without permission!”

  “Here’s how it’d sound on the battle field: ‘Let’s use Naden’s Mouth here!’ ‘This is the essence of Naden’s Mouth.’ ‘Is there no one here who can break out of Naden’s Mouth?!’”

  “Stoooop iiiit!”

  “You two...I know I’m not one to talk, but this is a battle, so be a little tenser, would you?” Hal, who was had brought Ruby’s body closer, said in exasperation.

  Ruby nodded. “You too, Naden. Take your job more seriously.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong this time, did I?! Souma’s the one acting silly!”

  “...You have a point,” Ruby admitted.

  “Don’t worry, I’m looking around like I’m supposed to!” I called back.

  My job in this battle was to monitor the area and ensure no unexpected crises arose. We couldn’t be sure there would be no sudden influx of reinforcements. That was why I was using Living Poltergeists to scatter my wooden mice and monitor a wide area around the battlefield.

  As we were talking, I had a response.

  “Hal, there’s a group of lizardmen coming in from the north. New ones that’ve crossed the river. There’s fifty.”

  “Got it! We’ll wipe them out real quick. Let’s go, Ruby!”

  “Okay!”

  Ruby flapped her big wings and flew off to the north.

  Hal and Ruby were a commando unit. They used their power and mobility to support areas that looked ready to collapse, or to respond to unexpected situations like just now.

  “Now then...” I said, looking down.

  There was a one-sided fight unfolding. The lizardmen were being pushed back by the force Julius was leading and gathering at the narrow escape route to the west. With all the pushing and shoving to get there, some were even being trampled to death by their own kind.

  It looked like some lizardmen were getting out of the encirclement through the escape route. They were trying to flee into the woods, but...it wasn’t going to be that easy. This was a war of extermination. In order to avoid later troubles, we couldn’t let them get away here.

  “So, I’m counting on you for the finishing touches, Aisha.”

  My strongest fiancée was waiting for the ones fleeing into the woods.

  ◇ ◇ ◇

  The lizardmen fleeing into the forest must have thought they’d escaped. However, there was no time for them to feel relief, as another crisis came down on them from above.

  “Hi-yahhh!” Aisha shouted.

  Thud! There was a loud sound as her greatsword swung into the ground, and a large lizardman was split in two.

  The bisected lizardman’s dead body crumpled.

  Aisha, the strongest fighter in the kingdom, lifted her greatsword with one hand, a weapon heavy enough to split the ground after cutting through the lizardman, then effortlessly swung it to clean off the blood.

  “This feeling... It’s been a while.” Aisha held her greatsword level with her eyes. “Today I am not here as His Majesty’s fiancée, or as his bodyguard, but as a single warrior here to demonstrate her skills. Aisha of the God-Protected Forest is coming for you!”

  She held her greatsword sideways as she ran forward. As she passed by some lizardmen bewildered by the sudden surprise attack, a single flash of her sword divided three of them in two simultaneously.

  “Gishaa!” the lizardmen shouted.

  Coming back to their senses, the lizardmen pounced at Aisha, but she used nearby tree trunks as footholds to bounce from tree to tree.

  “I was born and raised in the God-Protected Forest. I have a slight advantage fighting in the forest,” Aisha grinned with confidence.

  It wasn’t like the lizardmen could understand a word of what she was saying. But Aisha turned toward the ones who were bunching together to try to attack her and swung with her greatsword’s flat side down. Like swatting flies, the lizardmen were smashed.

  Aisha shook off the blood like before, then looked at the lizardmen as if searching for her next prey. That glint in her eye intimidated the creatures, and they stayed still.

  “You aren’t coming? Then I will go to you!” she yelled.

  Aisha cut down the lizardmen one after another in order of proximity. For the lizardmen further away, she sent a cutting blast of air pressure, Sonic Wind, to cut them up. Her Sonic Wind slashed up not just the lizardmen, but the surrounding trees as well, making it like a violent wind.

  This is crazy. There’s no way we can take her. The lizardmen instinctively sensed that and scattered.

  However...

  “Whoa, there. Young Miss Aisha’s not the only one used to fighting in the forests!” a voice called.

  Having circled around in front of a fleeing lizardmen, Kuu took a hard swing with his cudgel into the underside of the lizardman’s jaw.

  An arrow that flew in from between the trees in yet another direction planted itself in the lizardman’s forehead.

  Up on a branch in a large tree nearby, Leporina held her bow at the ready.

  Kuu jumped up into the branches, hanging down by his tail with a cheerful laugh. “Members of the snow monkey tribe are good at climbing trees, and Leporina’s from a family of hunters. It’ll be another thousand years before you’re any match for us in the forest.”

  “If you get too cocky, you’ll get hurt,” Leporina warned him as she jumped from branch to branch.

  “Oh, come on, like that would ever—Whuh?!”

  When Leporina landed on a branch in the tree Kuu was hanging from, the branches shook, and his tail slipped, making Kuu fall headfirst to the ground.

  Leporina quickly looked down below. “Wait, Young Master?! Are you all right?!”

  “Ow... I didn’t quite land properly.” Though he was rubbing his head in pain, he didn’t seem particularly badly hurt.

  Though Leporina was relieved, she puffed up her cheeks. “Geez, don’t worry me like that.”

  “Sorry, sorry... Now, let’s clean up the rest of them.”

  Kuu shouldered his cudgel and took off running. Leporina hurried after him.

  Those like Kuu, Leporina, and Aisha, who excelled at fighting in the forest, had been lying in wait to exterminate the lizardmen when they fled in there. The lizardmen who had been hunting chimeras were now being hunted themselves.

  Just as the battle in the forest was ending, the battle in the field wrapped up too.

  As might be expected from the side that had held the advantage from beginning to end, compared to the piles of lizardman bodies littering the battlefield, the combined forces of Lastania and Elfrieden had taken only minor losses.

  The battle near Lasta was about to end in victory. However, it wasn’t as though it was all over, so they couldn’t afford to stop.

  In with the soldiers, Julius was shouting, “The liberation of Lasta is a success! However, if nothing changes, we will be surrounded again! We will continue north from here, seize the fortress at the river crossing, and push the line of defense up! Only once that is possible can the families inside the walls get a good night’s sleep!”

  Then Julius thrust his sword skyward.

  “It’s just one last push! Let’s go!”

  “““Yeahhhhh!”””

  With that, 3,000 soldiers marched on the fortress to the north.

  They advanced up to the Dabicon River, taking out a group of a little over ten lizardmen that were heading south along the way, and approached the fortress near the crossing point.

  It seemed there was no shortage of lizardmen nesting in the fortress, but they didn’t have the intelligence to fight a siege and were quickly eliminated to retake the fortress.

  “Well done, everyone!” Julius called. “Give me a cry of victory!”

  “““Hip, hip, hooray!”””

  The soldiers’ victorious shout echoed as dusk
fell on the fortress.

  Souma and Julius went on to use this fortress as their base, eliminating the lizardmen that crossed in small numbers, as they waited for the main body of reinforcements to arrive from Friedonia.

  Material aid from the Union of Eastern Nations was now able to enter the liberated Lasta, and supplies were carried to the front-line fortress by the wyvern cavalry who had returned.

  Then, a week later, roughly 60,000 reinforcements at last arrived from the Kingdom of Friedonia.

  Chapter 9: Help Arrives

  Ludwin, who was leading the reinforcements, rushed over the moment he saw me. “Your Majesty! I’m glad to see you’re safe.”

  There was no way the 60,000 reinforcements from the Kingdom of Friedonia could enter a small-scale fortress with 3,000 soldiers already holed up inside, so the main body of the reinforcements camped in the nearby field, while their leaders were now at the fortress.

  We who were in the fortress were meeting them with our key members all together.

  Ludwin knelt in front of me, clasping his hands in front of him as he gave his report. “Ludwin Arcs has just now arrived with the reinforcements.”

  “Well done,” I said. “You can take it easy now.”

  Having exchanged some formal greetings, Ludwin stood up and immediately voiced his complaints.

  “Still, sire, this is too much! What were you thinking, accompanying the advance party yourself?! Taking non-combatants like Lady Roroa and your little sister with you too!”

  “Our former enemy Julius was in Lasta. There was no telling if the Dratroopers could coordinate well enough with him on their own, right? Roroa and I had to act as intermediaries. Besides, if I wanted to gather more information, having Tomoe’s ability was a necessity. I brought Aisha and Naden too, so we could flee if it got dangerous, meaning there was no problem.”

  Incidentally, I had brought both Roroa and Tomoe from Lasta to the fortress too. I figured that Tomoe always had Inugami guarding her, and if things got dicey, I could have Naden carry them away, so it was probably fine.

  Ludwin pressed his fingers against his temples with a sigh. “Still, there’s always the remote chance something could happen. If the princess heard of this...”

  “Urkh... I think maybe I’ll have you keep quiet about this to Liscia...”

  I was justified in my actions, but Liscia would worry. The more we worried her, the longer I would get scolded later. I appreciated her concern, but I still wanted to anger her as little as possible.

  Ludwin shook his head in exasperation. “The soldiers are already telling stories about your bravery in leading an advance party into a city hopelessly surrounded by monsters. When the soldiers return home, it won’t be long before the princess hears of it.”

  “I guess I’ll have to turn myself in, huh...”

  I was likely to get a lighter scolding if she heard about it from me rather than someone else. But still... I was usually told I wasn’t much like a hero, so wasn’t it unfair that Liscia told me off anytime I did something that required bravery, for once?

  “Aw, well, it shows how much Big Sis Cia cares for ya, now doesn’t it, Darlin’?” Roroa asked.

  “That’s right,” Aisha nodded. “You have to accept it.”

  “I mean, I just carried you around like you told me to,” Naden said.

  Those three were all in agreement.

  “No, I think you’ll all be getting an earful too, you know? Naden for being my accomplice, Roroa for acting just as reckless despite being a non-combatant, and Aisha about her responsibility in watching over us.”

  “...Big Sis Ai, Nadie, how about we avoid goin’ to see Big Sis Cia for a while?” Roroa asked.

  “Y-Yes, let’s do that,” Aisha said.

  Naden nodded. “Roger that.”

  “Isn’t that kind of unfair?!” I cried.

  While we were talking, Julius, Jirukoma, and Lauren came over.

  When Ludwin noticed Julius, he put on a grim face.

  In the battle of the forces of the Elfrieden Kingdom and Principality of Amidonia facing off near Van, Ludwin had been commander-in-chief of the kingdom’s forces, and Julius had participated as a top commander alongside Gaius VIII. These two, it could be said, had directly fought one another.

  “Sir Julius Amidonia,” Ludwin said in almost a whisper, and Julius extended his hand.

  “The Amidonia name now belongs to Roroa alone. It’s just Julius now, Sir Ludwin Arcs of the kingdom’s Royal Guard.”

  “You know of me?” Ludwin asked.

  “I took command on the front line in place of my father during that battle. I remember the name of the one I fought. Your command was solid, and I could find no place to break it apart. I thought you were quite a difficult opponent.”

  “I see now,” Ludwin said slowly. “The reason we couldn’t break the principality’s forces, even with their low morale, was because you were there.”

  Ludwin and Julius exchanged a firm handshake. There was none of the awkwardness I had felt meeting Julius again. That was likely because they held something as common as warriors who oversaw commanding troops.

  Besides, Ludwin was an affable young man, so it was hard to dislike him.

  “I’ve heard about your exploits from His Majesty,” Ludwin said. “He said something about the Lastanian royal family entrusting you with the command of their armies, and you breaking through the encirclement with only 3,000 troops. I couldn’t be more reassured to have you on our side.”

  “No, that was only possible with the Dratroopers’ assistance,” Julius said. “Besides, Lastania’s soldiers alone will not be enough to exterminate the tens of thousands of lizardmen that are no doubt on the other side of that river. I am keenly grateful for your assistance.”

  “Indeed,” Ludwin said, nodding. “Let us overcome this crisis together.”

  Suddenly, an energetic voice broke in. “Brother!”

  For a moment, I thought it was Roroa, but she didn’t tend to address her brother quite that way. Looking in the direction the voice came from, Jirukoma’s little sister Komain was rushing over.

  Behind her was Poncho, who was in charge of managing logistics, and the head maid who was assigned to be his assistant, Serina.

  Komain ran straight to Jirukoma. “Brother! Thank goodness you’re all right!”

  The appearance of the sister he had left behind in the Kingdom of Friedonia made Jirukoma’s eyes bulge wide. “Komain?! What are you doing here?!”

  “King Souma arranged it. I’ve come together with the man I now serve.”

  “The man you now serve?”

  “Sir Poncho.”

  With that said, Komain went to stand beside Poncho, who was slowly walking over.

  Poncho placed his right hand on top of his head, bowing repeatedly to Jirukoma. “I-It’s been too long, Sir Jirukoma. Komain has been helping me a lot as my assistant, yes.”

  “Oh, you were the one she wanted to serve with, Sir Poncho? We are in your debt for the food you gave us refugees in our time of need. If my little sister can be of help to you, please, work her hard.”

  “No, I couldn’t do that...” Poncho said nervously.

  “Don’t worry. Sir Poncho is too considerate to do that to another person,” said the woman in the maid uniform who was standing opposite Komain.

  Jirukoma looked at that woman who was wearing a maid uniform despite being in a war zone. He cocked his head to the side. “Who might you be? Are you Sir Poncho’s maid?”

  “I am Serina, the head of the castle’s maids. It’s an honor to make your acquaintance.”

  Serina lifted the hem of her maid uniform’s long skirt and curtsied.

  “My mistress is Princess Liscia, but for various reasons I now act as an assistant to Sir Poncho. Ah, yes... You may think of me as a colleague of Madam Komain’s.”

  “You’re...colleagues?” Jirukoma asked, taken aback.

  Well, strictly speaking, it was less that they were colleagues, and
more that they’d both been entranced by the food Poncho made, but a capable woman like Serina was never going to give off any hint of that.

  Komain noticed the woman in armor standing awkwardly behind her older brother. “Brother? Who is that woman?”

  “Oh, I forgot to introduce you. This is Madam Lauren, the captain of the soldiers in the Kingdom of Lastania, where I now reside. Madam Lauren, this is my little sister. Her name is Komain. And this is Sir Poncho of the Kingdom of Friedonia, who has been taking care of her, and Madam Serina.”

  Then Jirukoma pushed Lauren forward and introduced her to everyone.

  Lauren’s face was a little tense as she saluted the three of them. She seemed flustered by the sight of Komain. “I-I’m Captain Lauren. You’re Sir Jirukoma’s sister? S-Sir Jirukoma is always helping me...”

  Poncho and Jirukoma probably assumed she was just feeling shy to be meeting someone new, but Komain and Serina knew exactly what was going on.

  Komain asked Serina in a hushed voice, “Um... Serina. What do you think about this?”

  “I don’t know what else there is to think. It’s exactly what you’re imagining, isn’t it?”

  I knew it, Komain thought as her shoulders slumped. It seemed this Lauren woman had a thing for Jirukoma. In which case, one thing concerned her. “Do you think my brother has noticed her feelings?”

  “I would suspect not,” Serina whispered. “Look, he has the same expression as Poncho, like he’s looking out for a girl who’s younger than him.”

  “Ahh... There’s no way he’s noticed then.” Komain scratched at her cheek.

  She had no intention of inserting herself into her brother’s love life, but it was going to be awkward having to deal with his partner as his younger sister. That said, Lauren didn’t seem like a bad person, so Komain gave the tense female soldier an awkward smile.

  “Um... I’m sorry. It seems you’re doing a lot for my brother.”

  “Oh, not at all! If anything, he’s the one who’s always helping me. Sir Jirukoma has saved me on countless occasions,” Lauren said, blushing.

  Ohh...she’s got it bad, Komain understood. And seeing how big a crush the woman had on her brother, his utter lack of self-awareness about it started to irritate her as a fellow woman.

 

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