Chapter 16: Foresight and the Irregular

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The contents of the joint quest were extremely simple. The task was to conduct a regular survey of the Rubble Mountain Range. The recommended difficulty level set by the Guild was determined based on these regular surveys, and quests primarily appeared for adventurers ranging from Gold to Copper rank. The Rubble Mountain Range was intended for Copper-rank adventurers, but if one went deeper, it became suitable for Gold rank.

【Lily Garden】 was Emerald rank, a promising party expected to be promoted to Copper rank.

From the standpoint of letting them gain experience, forming a joint quest with Gold-rank adventurers was an extremely rational decision. The shallow layers would mainly be handled by the girls, with us supporting them, while from the middle layers onward we would take the lead and instruct them.

Still, since there weren’t that many points of caution in the Rubble Mountain Range, Marianne’s opinion was that we could finish everything within a single day. Me? I basically left that kind of thing to others. When I worked solo, I had to think for myself, so I did, but when I was in a party, I entrusted things to my companions.

No, I was really just a commoner by birth, so I never received a proper education. What I learned from my master was how to use my body and how to fight with my fists, nothing like what you’d learn at an academy. So my basic knowledge and perspective were overwhelmingly narrow. Even so, things got better once I reached Copper rank and started going to the library.

Looking at the survey checklist in my hands, I thought back. The first time I took a survey quest, I didn’t understand a thing… I had no idea what was going on and just checked things at random until Carla couldn’t stand it anymore and helped me out. She really was a young lady from a noble family, so she had common sense.

Sorry for being a commoner with less common sense than a foreign young lady.

As I was thinking that, knock knock—someone tapped on my armor.

“Finn-san, how do we investigate this collapsed area?”

“Hm. This is a type of survey item that’s pretty common in mountainous regions…”

The one asking was Violet. She was the only girl in Lily Garden with no prior connection to me, but we shared the point of being former commoners, even though she was now a baron’s daughter. 

Hmm, this easygoing familiarity i s nice, very approachable. But isn’t she standing a bit too close?

Something about her…Her eyes weren’t they a bit intense? Or was that just my imagination?

『It’s your imagination.』

Carla-san is always strict with me. But that is part of her charm.

Living under the thumb of a noble young lady wasn’t bad either. It had a certain dreamlike quality to it. If the war ended and I made it back alive, there’d be an emotional embrace, then at night… Back position, candles, whipping… All kinds of masochistic play you could pile on endlessly. “Moderation” was something only small fry talked about. Sadism with love behind it? You could never have too much of that.

Wait, this isn’t the time for that.

She’d gone out of her way to ask, so as a senior, I had to answer properly.

“Do you understand that 〈Tainted Zones〉 where monsters spawn have unstable environments?”

“Yes. That’s what causes stampedes, right?”

“Correct. It’s included among phenomena triggered by special individuals that appear from time to time.”

Mass outbreaks and stampedes were inseparably linked.〈Tainted Zones〉 were apparently places where magical power and even the atmosphere changed easily. Sometimes, individuals born after absorbing massive amounts of mana, or powerful monsters that survived brutal territorial conflicts like insect poison breeding, would emerge and cause such phenomena.

What Lily Garden had encountered was probably one of those cases, but if there was conspiracy mixed in, things became troublesome. Causing a stampede by human hands was not impossible. Once you reached Gold rank, you could access a fair amount of the Guild’s internal documents.

When I studied with Marianne after getting promoted, I saw all sorts of things. Abnormal outbreaks, stampedes, cities that were damaged, and cities that defended themselves as if they’d known in advance… Yeah. Most of the time, the culprits were nobles.

These bastards really never did any—ahem. Not something I should be thinking in front of a noble young lady.

“Environmental changes don’t just happen in visible places. They can occur underground or in caves as well. For example, monsters could be killing each other nonstop beneath our feet, allowing an abnormal existence to survive. Naturally, we can’t sense it directly, but if a collapse occurs, we can detect beforehand that ‘something is happening.’”

For us investigators, that reduced the chances of getting ambushed, and if a dangerous individual was unleashed on the surface, a quest would immediately be issued to adventurers of an appropriate rank. Even then, it wasn’t guaranteed. 〈Tainted Zones〉 weren’t places that humans could manage. We could influence them, but there was no way to completely suppress them. If there were, adventurers would’ve gone out of business long ago.

“…That’s kind of terrifying.”

“Well, it doesn’t happen often.”

It was a fairly rare case, but there were several reported cases. The correlation between collapses and special individuals had only been established recently, so it wasn’t surprising that the knowledge hadn’t spread yet.

“So if there’s a collapsed area, we need to investigate its location and scale. We’ve brought the previous survey records, so we only need to check places that aren’t listed there.”

“Wow… They’re really thorough.”

“These days, you’ve got natural occurrences, man-made ones, and on top of that, Demon Lord Army officers and legendary monsters popping up like it’s normal… The Guild’s having a rough time.”

Seriously. And they always showed up right in the Kingdom. Why? Go rampage on the front lines. Why do they casually appear in human territory? The Kingdom’s pretty far from the front lines, you know?

Even Platinum-rank adventurers couldn’t defeat the Demon Lord Army despite fighting actively. High-ranking officers from that organization shouldn’t be showing up so casually.

“Is there anything else we should watch out for?”

“Yeah… You should observe the monsters’ behavior.”

“Their behavior?”

“During the recent mass outbreak of Treehorns, how were the other monsters acting?”

“…They seemed more hostile than usual.”

“That’s because there was a lot of Treehorns’ prey around.”

Many forest-dwelling monsters fed on trees. The Immortal Forest in particular had many such monsters, yet the forest never vanished, hence the name “Immortal.” Because of that, monsters were usually calm. There was rarely competition over food. When they became aggressive, something was usually happening.

“More food means more numbers, and that leads to territorial conflicts. That’s what you call an unstable environment.”

“I see…”

With a serious expression, Violet checked off the survey items one by one. At present, we were proceeding along the westernmost mountain trail. There were five trails in the Rubble Mountain Range. We split into four groups to investigate. We would regroup at the final point and return together along the last trail.

I’d ended up paired with Violet, while the others—including Her Highness—were probably deepening their own bonds. Mostly golems and bird-type monsters appeared here. Ranged attacks were annoying, but you could just knock them aside and smash them, and golems went down if you punched them hard enough. Even I could handle them easily.

Violet fought with a one-handed sword and shield. She was similar to me, but not exactly the same. Hopefully she could learn something from this experience…

“…Hm? What’s that?”

While I was thinking that, Violet noticed something.

“What is it?”

“Well, um… Monsters haven’t appeared at all. Is that normal?”

We’d advanced for two hours and only encountered two golems. And they were just Stone Golems from the shallow layers. There weren’t any flying bird-type monsters in sight. We were currently in the middle layer. Changes compared to the shallow layer weren’t strange, but…

“No. We should be running into more.”

I gripped the mace at my waist. In the shallow layer, there were still flying birds. Golems were active too, even if distant. So this change happened from the middle layer onward. It hadn’t affected the entire area yet, but something was influencing even the middle layers.

“Good catch. Well done.”

“Haha, I grew up near the slums, so I’m confident in my sense of caution.”

“Yeah… That’ll stick with you. Best to think of it as a valuable asset.”

“Yes. I’ve accepted it.”

She really was a good girl. Living near the slums and becoming a baron’s daughter couldn’t have been easy, but she had a brightness that didn’t show it. This was the kind of girl you wanted to date.

I wanted to support her… And at night, I’d become her chair.  “Why’s the chair moving? Don’t move!” Smack! And then she’d slap the exposed butt while saying that…It burns! It burns!

“Perfect timing. Since we’re already here, let’s look into the irregularity—”

A sound. A shattering sound. No visible form ahead. But there was a shadow. Above us?! I pulled Violet into my chest and protected her inside the great shield.

—DOGOGAAAA!!!

In an instant, the impact transmitted through me. My feet were ground backward across the earth, but I endured, poured strength into my left arm, and pushed back. Oh, that was a pretty good feeling. Something heavy and massive… Not rock. A body? Something strong flew at us. Not a golem. It felt like two legs… Humanoid?

“—GRAAAH!!”

A beast’s roar. Another impact slammed into us head-on. My view was blocked, so I couldn’t see the enemy, but I’d gathered enough information. Could I handle it solo? Violet was here.

The difficulty was higher than usual. At the very least, this thing was far stronger than a Forest Bear.

After blocking the enemy’s attacks five times, I cut off my thoughts and stepped forward. Of course, I was still holding Violet. The great shield I shoved forward with one arm advanced unfazed by the blows.

BAM!!

The impact rang through the shield. Power that reverberated down to my bones, and overwhelming speed. This might be a slightly troublesome opponent.

“You fight well, human.”

The figure revealed as I shifted the shield was not human. A lion’s head atop a gigantic humanoid body. Red skin, clad like a warrior. A beast that could speak and possessed both power and speed… No matter how you looked at it, this was a Demon Lord Army case.

That memory resurfaced… A snowy mountain… Blizzard conditions that hindered movement. A grotesque form and a vile nature… The monster I encountered three years ago on that mountain… That completely different appearance overlapped with the lion-headed figure before me…

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“—Hmph. To come before me so boldly… You must be quite confident with your skill.”

—Kiin.

The sound of the guard brushing the scabbard echoed.  Without stirring her crimson hair even a fraction, Carla unleashed a single slash. The cut carved deeply, leaving a hole in the rubble.

“G… GUGIGI, GUGYAGYA!”

The owner of that cry was cleaved apart and collapsed into the debris. But it wasn’t dead. The severed surfaces of its body bubbled grotesquely, flesh regenerating with sickening sounds. The divided body eventually transformed into two living beings. Patchwork skin and mismatched faces. A thing that seemed to be made from multiple humans combined together grinned eerily.

“…Lucille. Fall back.”

One became two. Instantly grasping the mechanism, Carla lowered her stance and took an iaijutsu posture.

“If it splits, then I’ll keep carving until it can’t split anymore.”

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“Are you 【Tempest】?”

What blocked Astrea and Chloe’s path was an absurd storm. A tornado spiraled upward, dragging rubble along with it. The figure that emerged from its center closely resembled the 【Storm God】 spoken of in the eastern nations.

“Yeah, that’s me. You’re using wind in such a filthy way.”

“Hahahahaha! Would a delicate elf even understand the beauty of this wind?!”

“What part of that is beautiful? You’re just forcing it to move.”

“So you do understand. Power itself is beauty! A storm is a divine gift from the heavens that surpasses nature! Thus, it is the most beautiful symbol of destruction!”

“So obnoxious. Chloe, don’t stray from me.”

“Y-yes…”

Standing protectively in front of Chloe, Astrea glared at the man. Green skin, a self-assured expression.

So they’re doing this elsewhere too. Maybe it’s better to deal with this quickly…?

Through the wind, she sensed her companions’ situations. Everyone had started fighting, each facing an opponent with the worst possible compatibility. Thinking that she was probably the least badly matched, Astrea focused on what needed to be done.

────FWAAASH!!

Just one move. With a single swing that carried no special intent, the raging storm behind the man dissipated like mist. As the man stared in shock, eyes wide, Astrea spoke.

“I don’t know why you came here… But I’ve never lost back in my village.”

An elf who lived with the wind. Among them, Astrea was the one most loved by it.

“Come at me. A wind user should have a little fire inside their heart.”

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“—【Holy Smite】”

From Marianne’s staff, auroral light burst forth. Swallowed by brilliance that filled its entire field of view, 〈Wisdom〉 quietly observed.

【Crimson Sword Saint】—stalemate.

【Saint of Holy Smite】—stalemate.

【Tempest】—also a stalemate.

Magic could not be effective against the body of 〈Wisdom〉, whose base was human. 〈Wisdom〉, having modified its body specifically to suppress Marianne, confirmed that this was no illusion of its own. That meant the remaining two would undoubtedly reach the same conclusion as what it had observed.

(All that remains is the 〈Variable〉.)

〈Wisdom〉 could see the future. Since being chosen by the Demon Lord and becoming a demon, it had used that power to contribute to the Demon Lord Army’s advance. Their forces were sufficient. Countermeasures against humanity’s irregularities were in place.

With 【Heavenly Saint】 at the forefront, they had scouted monsters with special strike capabilities to face the adventurers who would eventually confront the Demon Lord Army head-on. The only future that remained uncertain was the 【Hero】, who crossed blades with the Demon Lord many times. But even there, it knew the Demon Lord would win with high probability. Thus, all that remained was to deploy the right forces at the right time. That alone should have allowed the Demon Lord Army to dominate the continent.

Finn Debyura. A mere adventurer who had never even registered on its radar rewrote fate and defeated the officer prepared as a countermeasure against 【Heavenly Saint】. 〈Wisdom〉 could not see Finn’s future. Even the 【Hero】 had only been an uncertain factor to 〈Wisdom〉, this man was completely unreadable.

How he would act, what he would do… Nothing could be observed. There was no one else like that in the world. The only one who could oppose 〈Wisdom〉 was the 【Prophet】 residing in the elven village. Between the two who had observed each other for so long, the sentient 〈Wisdom〉 had held the advantage. That was why it targeted Astrea, a relative of the 【Prophet】. The only High Elf who had left the village.

Even if she wouldn’t become an irregular, leaving her alone would interfere with their forces. So she had to be killed. That alone should have brought the Demon Lord Army significantly closer to victory. For years, it lay low in the Kingdom, slipping past the eyes of the irregulars led by 【Heavenly Saint】 rampaging on the front lines. The Demon Lord Army had neither lost nor won.

〈Wisdom〉 spent those years solely to eliminate the 〈Variable〉.

Even so, it could only bring minimal forces to maintain the front lines, and erasing an entire party was impossible. But if the 〈Variable〉 were removed… No irregulars would arise.

(Die here, irregular…)

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