It was impossible to come up with a good idea in just a few days, and today, after finishing work, I was at a bar drinking sake with my friends, clinking beer mugs.
“Arrgh! This is irresistible. I live for this one drink!”
“… Gastor, you really say that line every time.”
“Don’t say that, Ed. I don’t feel like my day is over unless I hear that line from Gaston.”
“I’m with you! It’s kind of a relief to feel like …. today is over and done with.”
“What, you guys love me? Then you can at least buy sake f――”
“”I REFUSE””
Gastor frowned when we all said the same thing. But that was only for a moment. He immediately laughed and poured some ale into his mouth, and his red face quickly turned bright and happy.
While I was enjoying food, drink and silly conversation as usual, an unusual visitor unexpectedly came up behind me.
“Hm, you look like you’re having a lot of fun.”
“Oh, Jou-chan…No, Captain!?”
“Eh!? What does a distinguished knight captain want in a bar like this?”
The drunkards’ tone was rough, but they were not being sarcastic; they were just letting their drunken minds dribble out questions. The female knight seemed to understand this, and what was on her face was not anger or annoyance, but simply a wry smile.
“I’m not really your captain, … and yes, there’s a reason. The reason I’m here today is to talk to you about a new guy who just joined us recently and is doing very well.”
“Why is it that Ed gets all the attention? Ugh, why do these scrawny brats always get all the girls?”
“Oi Ed, I’ll keep Tia-chan in the dark and you’ll let me know what happens later, okay?”
“Captain! Don’t I deserve a reward too? I think I’ve been working pretty hard!”
“I really wish you guys would stop with that… Sorry about that. I’ll make sure to give them a good punch later.”
“Don’t worry about it. It is true that I am a knight and a nobleman, but I am not so tactless as to flaunt my status in a place like this. I’ve reserved a nice restaurant, would you like to have a meal together?”
“Thank you, I will.”
I left the place with the female knight while listening to the idiots who were making a racket in the background again today. But as we were leaving the bar, I stopped and she started talking to me.
“Well, actually, I’d like to invite one more person to dinner, if that’s all right.”
“Another person? I don’t mind, but who?”
“Mm, actually there is another woman besides you who entered the same day and is active. I believe it was an elf spirit magic user. ….”
“Oh, you mean Tia by any chance? Then she’s my friend ……, or rather, a companion I’ve traveled with up to this point, so there’s no problem.”
“Really? That’s quite a coincidence… Well, it makes sense that your companions would be strong considering your abilities. Let’s invite Tia too and have a meal with the three of us”
“Understood. If it’s Tia, she should probably be drinking with the rearguard group… is it the bar over there?”
“Yes, let’s go there.”
She nodded at my statement and easily found Tia at the bar we visited, and the three of us were led by her to a private room in the restaurant, which was expensive to look at. When we were all seated there, she introduced herself once again.
“Then, let me introduce myself again. I am Amelia Carlton, belonging to the 3rd Corps stationed in Drasdon, the Kingdom of Leverdead.”
“Carton-sama huh, I am Ed, a wandering mercenary”
“I’m Lunaritia. Like Ed, I’m also a wandering mercenary”
“Ed-kun and Lunaritia-kun. Nice to meet you. Ah, aside from official occasions, you don’t have to use “sama” on a regular basis, okay? Amelia is fine.”
“Is that alright? Isn’t it disrespectful to call a noblewoman by their first name?”
“Uh, no, I didn’t say you don’t have to use honorifics, rather I was going to say you can call me “Amelia-san”…”
“Ah, right, of course. I’m sorry.”
Amelia looked a little troubled, and I bowed my head in a straightforward manner. Then Tia looked at me with a puzzled expression on her face.
“Reallly, what are you doing Ed …. Oh, and you can call me Tia. Nice to meet you, Amelia-san.”
“Nice to meet you.”
The greeting ended amicably anyway, and we proceeded to have a nice conversation and shared a meal. We were asked about our recent activities, our hometowns, and our personal histories, but we had thought this through, so we were fine. Both Tia and I responded in a casual manner, and since Amelia was probably not interested enough in the subject to go into it in depth, the conversation was lively enough to switch from one topic to the next.
“Right Ed-kun, I wanted to ask you something, as you’ve been fighting here at Drasdon for a week or so, did you feel any sense of discomfort or something that felt out of place in the battles here?”
“Discomfort, you say? Is there a specific intention behind your question?”
“I have been fighting in this fortress city for seven years since I was appointed as a knight at the age of eighteen. So I don’t know how the battles are in other places. But as you are a mercenary, you must have a lot of experience in fighting with the monsters that are active in the inner cities, right? If so, I was wondering if there is any difference in the activities of the demonic beasts there and here.”
“Oh, so that’s how it is. Then the biggest difference is the frequency of attacks. There is no place in the interior, or anywhere else for that matter, where demonic beasts attack so frequently and in such large numbers. Since demonic beasts are living creatures, it takes time for them to multiply and they need food, so it is overwhelmingly strange to have them attack us day after day, ignoring all of that.”
“Hm, that is certainly be true. Everyone feels that this is an anomaly, and teams have been sent to the “Black Forest” numerous times to investigate the cause, but they have not yet been able to determine the cause. Well, with that many demonic beasts, it would be difficult to even take a hundred steps, so it’s unavoidable. ….”
Amelia frowned, and I nodded in agreement. It was natural that there would be no results if we tried to investigate a mass of uncertain factors, such as something that might be somewhere within the almost inexhaustible swarm of demonic beasts.
“Also, yes. I think the demonic beasts here probably revive in exactly the same place and at the same time.”
“………… what?”
The expression on Amelia’s face suddenly turned stern at my casual remark.
“What do you mean? Why do you think so?”
“I’m just guessing, but I think those guys probably resurface deep in the woods when they suffer near total destruction. At least if they’re springing up in places where people can pass by to watch for things, they’d have been recognized by now.”
“…… Right. Go on.”
“So, I think that the demonic beasts that revived deep in the forest would immediately start moving toward us. But even if we talk about demonic beasts, the speed of movement differs depending on the type of beast, doesn’t it? Big ogres and trolls are slow, but wolves and boars can run through the forest and come close to the town in no time. So basically, their raids are the most common. And then, when they are almost wiped out, they come back to life deep in the forest and come at us again, but on the way they catch up with or overtake the ogres, and depending on the timing of that, I think the composition of the enemy forces that reach the town changes.”
“That’s… a very interesting opinion. But if it’s true…”
“If the time between the defeat of each type of demonic beast and its subsequent attack is properly measured, it may be possible to know in advance …what type of demonic beast will attack at what time. However, we shouldn’t be overconfident, as there is a possibility that it could be used against us and catch us off guard.”
Amelia kept staring at me with a serious expression on her face as I gulped down my mug.
7/10