Chapter 24 – Commence Critical Mission

Elves are a race with exceptionally high magical power, but in exchange, their bodies are frail.

For a race with such an obvious weakness, their natural enemy is said to be the Lizardman.

A bipedal reptile, a creature you could call a crocodile-man or a lizard-person.

This being, much like Ogres, Beastkin, and Dwarves, is physically superior, but…

What is especially noteworthy is the strength of its scales.

They have high toughness and high hardness. Put simply, their defense is high.

On top of that, they can wear proper armor, making them resistant to most attacks.

Of course, they can have their necks snapped by the monstrous strength of an Ogre, so overconfidence is a mistake, but the overall toughness of the race is famous nonetheless.

In other words… since they can withstand an Elf’s magical attacks to a certain degree, they can beat them to death in the meantime.

This is just a popular theory, but you do often hear tales of them being a bad matchup in practice.

And… a group of young Lizardmen, having heard this tale, decided to try it for themselves.

They formed their own team and attempted to raid an Elven forest.

If the rumors were true, they could run wild as much as they pleased. It was an incredibly thoughtless atrocity.

At first, their simple-minded raid was reasonably successful.

The ten or so young Lizardmen possessed enough talent to become conceited, and as a result, they were able to repel the magic of an average Elf to some extent.

Pleased with themselves, they went on a great rampage.

However, once a full-fledged defense force appeared, the situation changed completely.

Avior, the elite Elf that Gaikaku and his team defeated. There aren’t many with his level of skill, boasting magical power over forty times that of an ordinary person.

But there were thirty Elves with about twenty times the magic, and well over a hundred with ten times the magic.

When that many come at you with the full intent to kill, a slight matchup disadvantage hardly matters.

Well, in the first place, the Elves themselves know that normal magic is less effective against Lizardmen, so they’ve devised anti-Lizardman spells.

It might be a different story if an elite of the elite, the kind who could join a Knight Order, arrived in force, but ten or so merely strong elites are no problem.

In fact, if an Elven stronghold could fall that easily, the Elves would have been extinct long ago.

Thus, this incident should have ended with a bunch of fools running wild before being annihilated.

But the misfortune here was that the Lizardmen had scattered to some extent.

When they began their rampage, they got too carried away and split up.

This makes them easy to pick off one-by-one, but conversely, it also means they are difficult to round up in one fell swoop.

If they had been gathered in one place, they could have been disposed of all at once. But because they were scattered, their annihilation was delayed.

As a result, the remaining Lizardmen realized, Wait, isn’t this bad? and stopped their rampage to hide in the town.

Even so, they should have been annihilated as soon as they were found.

That should have been the case, but the Lizardmen were just cunning enough to cause trouble.

Their numbers halved, they attacked the largest building in the Elven forest, the Forest Chief’s Manor, and occupied it. What’s more, they barricaded themselves inside, taking the Forest Chief’s daughter and her handmaidens hostage.

※

The forest where the Elves dwell, one of many.

The home of the chief who governs that forest, the Forest Chief’s Manor.

The five Lizardmen occupying it were loudly arguing, wrapping bandages around their wounded bodies.

“What’re we gonna do?! There’s a whole swarm of pissed-off Elves outside the manor!”

“Coming to this manor was a mistake… We should’ve tried to escape outside!”

“Don’t be an idiot! We were surrounded out there, weren’t we? If we had tried to run, we would’ve been killed!”

“For now, as long as we’re in here, they can’t make any rash moves… And there’s food stockpiled, even if it’s for Elves. We probably don’t have to worry about being starved out.”

“And then what?! In the end, we still can’t escape!”

They were fools who had attacked on a whim to begin with.

Driven into a corner, their unity was nonexistent.

All they did was argue over whose fault it was, that it was the other guy’s fault, that it wasn’t their fault.

These idiots, who had already murdered many civilians, were now causing an even more heinous incident.

At this point, even they themselves couldn’t fix this situation.

Because they had no plan whatsoever.

“Now that it’s come to this, it can’t be helped. Fretting about it won’t get us anywhere.”

The one who said that was Gyausaru, the strongest among the remaining Lizardmen.

“For now, quit the fighting. Let’s just settle in until our wounds heal.”

“Well… I guess you’re right, but…”

Gyausaru’s words were, to an extent, correct.

Every one of them, including Gyausaru himself, was covered in blood. They couldn’t accomplish anything like this.

“Once our wounds are healed, let’s use these guys as hostages and escape. What’s the big deal? If we tie ‘em to our bodies while we run, they won’t be able to touch us.”

“…I see, that might just work.”

“We’ll have to look after them until then so they don’t die.”

“Elves die so easily, man. That much of the rumor was true…!”

They were currently covered in blood, but half of it was from their victims.

They are by no means pitiful weaklings, just cornered murderers.

In the same room as those murderers were the pitiful Elven girls.

Among them, the especially beautiful one was the Forest Chief’s daughter, Aspi.

Clad in a silver-like cloth dress that only those of a special class among Elves could wear, she was being held protectively by several of her handmaidens.

But those handmaidens could do nothing but tremble, and should the Lizardmen truly rampage, they too would be killed, powerless to do anything.

The five or so hostages all had gags in their mouths.

It was merely cloth bundled into a rope-like shape, but it was enough to prevent them from chanting spells.

If it weren’t for this, even if they couldn’t defeat the Lizardmen, they could likely escape.

An Elf whose magic has been sealed is no different from a baby.

“M-Milady Aspi… please rest assured, we will protect you no matter what…!”

“Y-yes…”

“Your father will surely come to save us. Please, believe and wait until then…!”

They could do nothing but encourage each other, trembling.

Watching their frightened figures, the Lizardmen just smirked.

※

Those outside could only imagine the horrific situation inside the manor.

With no way to confirm if their imagination matched reality, a frantic anxiety gnawed at them.

Among them, the one trembling most was the Elven Forest Chief, Dikesu.

His own manor was occupied, and his daughter was being held hostage.

She was under the same roof as the barbaric, thoughtless, idiotic, massacring Lizardmen.

Faced with this reality, he looked as if he might unleash a grand spell at any moment.

The chant for it occasionally leaked from his lips.

However, the rationality not to do so still existed within him.

“…Send a dispatch request to the Knight Order.”

“…Forest Chief, that would be—”

“Akin to revealing that we lack the ability to solve this problem ourselves, creating a great debt, is that it? This is no time for such things!”

He gave the order to his aide in a loud voice.

“My manor is occupied! My daughter has been captured! Is it not already obvious that I lack the ability to resolve this?!”

“Forest Chief… my apologies, this is our failure…”

“You are not to blame! I, who ordered them to hide in the manor while neglecting its defenses, bear the responsibility! More importantly… reinforcements!”

At this point, he had no regard for shame or appearances.

The Elven chief, Dikesu, loudly ordered a call for aid.

“You can put it down as my personal debt, just call the Knight Order!”

※

And so, we find ourselves at the Knight Order Headquarters.

Unusually for Tistria, she had summoned Gaikaku with a very tense atmosphere.

Sensing this, even Gaikaku refrained from his usual clownish behavior.

“Lady Tistria, for what reason have you summoned me?”

“Lizardmen have attacked the Elven forest governed by a chief named Dikesu. Dikesu led his subordinates to intercept them, but half survived and assaulted Dikesu’s manor. They have captured his daughter and her handmaidens and are now occupying the building.”

After hearing the brief explanation, Gaikaku was silent for a moment.

Then, he said it plainly.

“This is beyond me.”

He said it more bluntly than ever before.

“This is very difficult for me to say, but we cannot guarantee the hostages’ safety. Lady Tistria, I apologize, but I must ask this of you…”

“I have another mission… A request for aid has come from a battlefield, and it has already been decided that I will go.”

“…”

Supreme Knight Commander Tistria had her own attendant Full Knights and a retinue of Squire Knights.

In an emergency, leading them as the final Knight Order was part of her duty, but it seemed her hands were already tied.

“However… even if I go, I doubt they will accept me. As newcomers of unknown origin, won’t we just cause unnecessary conflict?”

For Gaikaku, he was making a lot of excuses.

Or rather, it was a sign of how many worries he had.

“You need not worry about that. That forest is Avior’s homeland… They will not look down on you, the ones who defeated him.”

“…Understood. I will do my best.”

That was Gaikaku’s answer.

He would go as far as he could.

In that case, he had no choice but to do his best.

Gaikaku was about to face his greatest challenge yet.

※

Leaving the Knight Order Headquarters, Gaikaku convened his order with the same tension he felt when he first met Tistria.

Sensing his anxiety, everyone except the Goblins wore solemn expressions.

“An attack by Lizardmen has occurred in the Elven forest ruled by Dikesu! They are currently barricaded with Dikesu’s daughter as a hostage, and her rescue is our mission!”

Lizardmen have captured an Elf, so let’s go rescue her.

From that overly simple sentence, the difficulty of the task was conveyed to all.

“…As expected of a Knight Order. We’ve been given one hell of an assignment.”

The infantry captain muttered as much.

What made it so difficult was the part about rescuing an Elf.

Elves are frail and weak to physical trauma; from an ordinary human’s perspective, they die so easily it’s shocking. ‘That’s enough to kill you?’

Being ordered to save one was more reckless than being told to steal a piece of delicate glasswork from the enemy.

But if it weren’t such a difficult request, the Elven forest wouldn’t have sent a request in the first place.

It was only natural for a Knight Order to receive difficult jobs.

“If we pull this off, we’ll be heroes in the Elven forest…”

“Well, that’s how tough this job is. In fact, I tried to pass it off to Lady Tistria myself.”

Even for Gaikaku, who had always said, “I’ll solve it like a magic trick,” for every job until now, this was a mission with no guarantee of success.

Knowing this, everyone shivered again.

Yes, this is what it means to be a Knight Order.

“Time is of the essence. Therefore, the Ogres and Goblins will remain behind this time. Everyone else is coming. However, the Dwarves and Elves will ride ahead with me in the Lives. The humans, Dark Elves, and Beastkin will follow, changing horses as needed.”

The Ogres and their Fresh Golems require time to transport and deploy.

For that reason, they were being left behind, but he would take everyone else he could.

No one questioned Gaikaku’s decision…

“U-um…”

Or so it seemed, until several Elves raised their hands.

“What is it?”

“I… I was born in the forest Dikesu rules…”

“I was born there too, before I was sold…”

“I don’t have very good memories of it… and, um… I might just get in the way…”

The bottom-tier slave Elves had been sold by their own families.

Thus, even when they were still at home, they had been treated quite coldly.

They were not enthusiastic about saving that forest.

“…”

Hearing this, Gaikaku was silent for a moment.

After that moment of silence, he brushed their concerns aside.

“I’ll be blunt.”

Gaikaku looked down on them with condescending eyes.

“Selling your own daughter to a slave trader is not an ‘illegal act.’”

It was a cruel truth they already knew.

Not a matter of right or wrong, but a legal fact.

“Even if you were sold by your families, I cannot condemn them for it. At least, not as a Knight Order.”

“Yes…”

“So allow me… to speak to you without the pretty words.”

Gaikaku said it plainly.

“Rescue them, then ruin them!”

It was a statement that made it hard to tell if he had high or low professional standards.

“All of you, just imagine this for a second. The king of this country is holding a parade, and he suddenly starts wailing on some random civilian. You ask him why he did it, and…”

It was a ridiculous scene to even imagine.

“What would you think if he started saying something like, ‘This guy used to bully me when I was a kid!’”

It was a difficult analogy to respond to.

“…It’s like, he’s the king, so he should find another way to get revenge, right?”

“Exactly. And if I or Lady Tistria said the same thing, you’d think the same, wouldn’t you?”

“I would…”

“You’re all in a similar boat. You’re part of a Knight Order now, after all.”

But now that he put it that way, it made sense.

They, too, now held the ridiculously respectable status of being members of a Knight Order.

Whether it was getting revenge or proving them wrong, there were many ways to do it.

“First, succeed in this mission. After that’s done, I’ll help you with your revenge or your power trip.”

“You will, Sensei?”

“Yes. I will help you. I promise.”

When this Gaikaku made a promise, it inspired a tremendous sense of trust.

“Besides, it’s not like Dikesu himself or his daughter did anything to you. In fact, if you rescue them and put them in your debt, you can just say, ‘Please make that family an outcast in the village,’ and that’ll be the end of it! So do your best for that! Get positive!”

His definition of “positive” felt a bit off, but the direction was correct.

In any case, accomplishing the mission would also be for their own benefit.

“Your answer!”

“…Yes, Sensei! We’ll rescue them and make them owe us!”

“That’s the spirit… Everyone, get fired up!”

The most difficult mission for Gaikaku Hikume’s Conjurer Knights since their founding was about to begin.