Chapter 26.1 – A Desperate Escape Act

The day after Gaikaku’s advance party arrived, the main force—the Beastkin, Dark Elves, and human infantry—reached them.

They were exhausted from their frantic journey, but there was no time to rest.

Following Gaikaku’s orders, they rushed to prepare.

The plan was, in a sense, very much like a “magic trick,” but it was more tense than any they had ever performed.

After all, when the women heard the mission outline, their first thought was, Is that even going to work? It was that dubious.

And even Gaikaku himself couldn’t say with any certainty that it would succeed.

Gaikaku’s strategies often involved a two-pronged approach: a “conventional operation” led by the human infantry, and an “unorthodox plan” centered on illegal weapons.

The enemy, caught between these two, would become his prey. This time, however, there was almost no “conventional operation.” In fact, there was none at all.

To successfully rescue an Elven hostage with nothing but a risky gambit that had no guarantee of working…

It was tantamount to leaving it all to luck. It was, in fact, nothing less.

But still, everyone threw their full effort into the unorthodox plan.

As Dikes had said, there was no strategy under these conditions that could guarantee success.

If there was even a slim chance of success, whether it was a trick or something else, they had to take it.

With the full cooperation of the denizens of the Elven forest…

The time to execute the plan arrived.

※

It was noon on a clear, sunny day.

The Elven forest was thick with trees, but the sunlight filtering through the canopy was enough to illuminate it, making it a very bright day.

The Lizardmen inside the manor, however, didn’t know this, as they had drawn the curtains.

They were simply trying to heal their wounds, forcing down tasteless food, and pacing in the tense air…

And more than anything, they repeatedly checked the room where they had confined the hostages.

The room at the center of the house had only one entrance.

They had placed heavy furniture in front of it, physically blockading it.

They could only check on the interior through the peephole in the door, which was really just a round hole.

There were six hostages.

Dikes’s daughter, Aspi, and her five handmaidens.

They were huddled together in a spot visible from the peephole, not moving a muscle.

As long as they—no, as long as Aspi was alive, they would be fine.

The Lizardmen fell silent, clinging to that single belief as they waited for time to pass.

It was then that a loud sound came from outside.

It wasn’t the same as yesterday… No, this was clearly the kind of lively music a child would enjoy, like something from a show or a parade.

“What, the elves again…?”

“I’ve had enough. Maybe we should just kill one of them and make an example of her…”

“No, wait. That’s not an elf.”

“Huh? So the elves called in the Knight Order?”

The Lizardmen peered out the window.

There, they saw humans frantically playing instruments, and in front of them stood a man in a hood.

“Ladies and gentlemen! To all residents of this Elven forest, and to our Lizardman guests! It is a pleasure to meet you! I am the Knight Commander of the Conjurer Knights, Gaikaku Hikume!”

Acting more like the ringmaster of a circus than a magician, Gaikaku played the part of the clown to the fullest, even displaying the banner the Supreme Knight Commander had made.

“…The Conjurer Knights?”

“That new order everyone’s been talking about…”

“The one that solves any case like it’s a magic trick…”

“Hey! Go check on that room, now! This could be a decoy, they might already be inside the manor!”

“R-Right!”

At the order from Gyausaru, who had settled into the role of leader, one of the Lizardmen scrambled toward the central room.

He peeked inside and saw the elven women were still just where they were supposed to be.

Perhaps sensing the commotion outside, they seemed to be trembling. But he could clearly see that all six were there.

“They’re there!! What now? Should I check inside?”

“No, that could be a trap too! They might burst out the moment you open the door…! If anything, pile more stuff in front of the door! We just have to keep them from getting out of that room!”

They were all certain there was no other exit.

If there had been, they would have all escaped by now, or a rescue would have come from the outside.

Since that hadn’t happened, as long as they kept the door blocked, there shouldn’t be a problem.

“Yeah… Right, let’s stack more furniture! That way, even if someone sneaks in, it’ll take time to move it all!”

“Right… Even if the guy’s a magician, without some kind of trick up his sleeve, he can’t do a thing!”

Panicked but trying to respond calmly, the Lizardmen reacted.

Whether he knew what was happening inside or not, Gaikaku continued.

“Today, ladies and gentlemen, you will witness a miraculous escape act! Lord Dikes’s daughter, the Lady Aspi, has been captured by the terrifying Lizardmen… I will make her vanish from that manor in an instant… Such is the trick I shall perform!”

It was a demeanor that screamed “showmanship.”

But what he was trying to do, what he had declared, was perfectly natural.

Frankly, it was unclear what else he could have come here to do.

“There’s no way he can do it… right?”

“Yeah, magic tricks need secret passages and tunnels! This house doesn’t have any of that!”

“Can he really pull off an escape act with no tricks or devices whatsoever?”

The Lizardmen were more serious than any audience.

While they thought such a thing was impossible, they were genuinely worried about what would happen if it did.

“That’s right…”

Gyausaru, too, chanted words of reassurance as if to suppress his own anxiety.

“No matter what kind of escape plan they have, it won’t work if the people escaping don’t know the plan themselves.”

The Lizardmen, and perhaps everyone else, held their breath.

The moment to rescue Aspi had finally arrived.

“Three!”

“Two!”

“One!”

It was an all-too-obvious countdown from Gaikaku.

In sync with it, others began to move. The Beastkin grenadier squad, which had been surrounding the Forest Chief’s manor from a distance, threw the smoke bombs they were holding toward the building.

Most of them hit the walls, merely shrouding the manor in smoke, but a few hit windows and went inside.

Naturally, the smoke began to fill the interior.

“Ugh?! Fire? Are we on fire?”

“Calm down! There are elves in here, they wouldn’t do that!”

“It’s just smoke bombs! There’s no way they’re poisoned!”

The Lizardmen tried to remain calm.

They told themselves the enemy was trying to confuse them, and fought to keep their composure.

“Right, as long as we guard the entrance to that room, nothing serious can happen! They might be able to smash the manor walls, but they can’t just barge into the room, or the elves inside will die!”

“There’s no way they’d do anything that… rough…”

The Lizardmen peeked through a small gap in the curtains to see outside.

The manor was, of course, enveloped in smoke, but after a while, it began to clear.

And from within that clearing smoke, an elven girl in noble attire emerged.

No, to be precise, she emerged from the smoke and was now moving away from the manor.

It was as if she were trying to escape from the Lizardmen.

Being an elf, she wasn’t fast, but she was running with all her might.

“W-Whaaat?! Hey, check inside! Go inside and see if she’s really there!”

“Are you sure?!”

“Hurry! If she’s really escaped, we’re done for!”

It can’t be, there’s no way that happened.

It was precisely because they wanted to believe this that the Lizardmen went to check.

If she had truly escaped, it was all over.

“…!”

The Lizardman hurriedly moved the furniture he had piled up outside the room.

Of course, it was exactly as it had been when he piled it there himself moments ago. There was no sign it had been moved, no sign it had been put back.

But still, he couldn’t feel at ease.

Because the elves in the room were all hiding their faces.

“Hey! Show me your faces!”

The Lizardman forcefully grabbed the face of the woman in noble clothing, who was surrounded by her handmaidens.

And despair washed over him as he saw her face.

“It’s… it’s not her! This isn’t the Forest Chief’s daughter!”

“W-What did you say?!”

“No way, that can’t be…!”

The other Lizardmen rushed into the room.

Even they, who didn’t remember elven faces well, could tell that the elf in noble clothing was not Aspi.

For starters, she was the wrong age. She was clearly older, more like a mother than a daughter.

“Fufufu…!”

The woman had been forced into the noble’s dress.

It was obviously the wrong size.

“Lady Aspi has already escaped! You saw her, didn’t you?”

“You bitch!”

It was unclear how she had escaped, but it was clear that she had.

Enraged, Gyausaru kicked the tauntingly smiling woman in the stomach.

“!!!”