[V8C9] According to Frederik: Operation Helena Bomb
Translated by Jodas 8: The Witch of the BoundaryFrederik’s face paled at the words ‘spider webs’ and he rapidly interrogated the man who came running in.
“Where’s the location of the sighting? Species? Numbers?”
The man who reported the Monster attack pointed at the map, describing “A centipede Monster here, a mantis Monster here…” It seemed he didn’t have a precise grasp on their numbers — To me more accurate, there were simply too many of them to count.
Then, to make things worse, spider webs had been stretched between the trees. A spider Monster must have been present.
Helena covered her face with both hands and broke down crying.
“Ah, bug Monsters of all things… They’re the worst… I can’t believe I have to fight those things… I hate bugs…”
Frederik glanced at the sobbing Helena.
He muttered his thoughts.
“Helena is our best tool for dealing with lots of weaklings… It’s a shame she deals with small bugs so poorly.”
The Ancient Magical Artifact Helena wielded, ‘Eurydice, the Cackling Foam,’ created bubbles that could engulf things coated in Mana and explode.
It was incredibly powerful thanks to its ability to generate many bubbles at once, but the weakness of the bubbles was their slow movement speed. Thus, they were a poor fit for fast, maneuverable bug Monsters.
Frederik muttered ‘Alright,’ and gave his suggestion.
“First, we throw Helena into the middle of the horde of bugs, then have her take down as many as she can with ‘Eurydice, the Cackling Foam.’ I’ll handle any that are left.”
“You said you’d throw me into the middle of a horde of bugs? You said that, didn’t you? …What a sad state of affairs. To imagine you would sacrifice your allies first…”
Despite being classmates, those two had issues working together to a sad degree.
“Now, now…” Otto tried to mediate.
“We can leave the intermediate-sized bugs to Helena. While I would love to burn away the flying bugs with my fire… It would be a problem if we set off a forest fire, so I would like to team up with someone who’s capable of water magecraft.”
The members of the Extermination Office shared opinions and quickly determined their deployment locations.
Once the broad strokes had been decided, Hütter spoke with a sigh.
“I guess I can’t ask you to give us an escort team and send us to the Wedge Tower in these conditions… We won’t be much use in combat either, so we’ll help keep watch around the village.”
“Then I’ll go support Brother…!”
Oliver stood up from his chair at the same time as Frederik leapt over the table at him.
Frederik’s fist impacted straight into the side of Oliver’s face.
Oliver collapsed to the floor along with his chair with a thud as Frederik looked down on him and spat in a low voice.
“You keep your head down and patrol the village!”
(……Huh?)
Tia was confused to catch a glimpse of some emotions other than anger from Frederik’s voice.
Tia was sure that she was the only one to notice this.
Frederik’s voice dripped with feelings of panic and fear — a Monster’s favorite emotions.
The majority of the Empire’s subjects seemed to believe that Monsters had gone extinct long ago, but they were an everyday threat to the people of this village.
Thus, a curfew went in place whenever the bell rang to announce a Monster appearance.
That said, since it was rare for Monsters to actually make it to the village itself, there were a few who stayed outside working in the fields even after the bell rang.
Tia and the other Apprentices’ job was to inform those people that this attack was not like the usual ones and that they really should get inside right now.
“Everyone, get inside—! Monster attack! There’s a lot more of them this time!”
Oliver projected his voice with Tia and Wren walking side-by-side behind him. Naturally, Tia was wearing the Magical Leaping Device.
To warn the villagers, they split up into two groups: Oliver, Tia, and Wren on one team; and Hütter, Sevil, and Rukiye on the other.
The Protection Office’s Otto was a former Extermination Office member and had extensive experience fighting Monsters, so he was tasked with protecting the area between the mountains and the village.
They divided their forces such that the true powerhouses like Frederik and Helena entered the mountains, those with moderate skills would guard the perimeter, and the Apprentices would scout around the village.
As they walked, Wren whispered.
“This stinks… It’s time like this when I really realize just how useless inscription magic is in a real fight.”
Wren had brought all of the paper and ink he would need for inscription magic with him on this trip.
Tia had seen him practicing writing every night in the inns to make sure he was ready to use it at any time, but she hadn’t seen him actually using it.
During their magic battle with the Extermination Office, they’d had their classmates to support them as they used inscription magic, but that same strategy would be difficult to pull off on this trip.
“Pevuvu… I’m frustrated too. Not being able to fly is super frustrating.”
As it stood, Tia could use her leaping wings to jump around, but flying would be difficult. That being the case, her options were limited.
As Tia grumbled under her breath, Oliver turned around to face her.
“Tia. Your good eyes and ears are a valuable weapon. We need to be on alert for Monsters at all times. You’ll definitely be useful.”
He was probably right. But the sounds bugs made were comparatively quieter than a beast’s growling.
Even with Tia’s good ears, she couldn’t distinguish the sound of bugs’ wings from the other side of the mountains over there.
“Pevuvu… If it were beast-type Monsters, I could tell by the noises they made, but… Bugs are harder… Peu!?”
As Tia listened closely and surveyed their surroundings, her eyes widened.
On the other side of the wooden stockade fence that encircled the village, she spotted a human shape.
A short, gaunt young female with black hair — That was Oliver’s childhood friend Romy.
“Oliver, over there, I see Romy…!”
“What?”
Oliver and Wren glared in the direction Tia was pointing. But by then, the silhouette that resembled Romy disappeared out of sight behind the trees.
Oliver asked Tia with a grim expression.
“Did you really see Romy?”
“Yeah, she just walked between those trees over there.”
‘Those trees over there,’ of which Tia spoke, were of course outside of the village. There were many trees surrounding the village, so it only took a little bit of walking to suddenly disappear from sight.
Wren calmly looked up at Oliver.
“Oliver, where does Romy live? Shouldn’t you ask her family if they know where she is?”
“I don’t know Romy’s family. I don’t even know if she has a family.”
“You should know that! Ask her! You blockhead!”
Disregarding Wren’s shouts, Oliver faced out from the village and called out “Romy!!”
But there was no response, and no sign of Romy’s form.
Cautious not to let themselves be split up, all three of them moved at once towards the village gates.
There, Oliver once again shouted “Romy!!” and once again heard no response.
Looking around, Wren offered a suggestion.
“Oliver, let’s take a lap around the stockade. Either way, we should confirm if there aren’t any other villagers outside, and we can see if we spot her along the way.”
“Ah, yes, let’s do that.”
“Tia, listen close for any human voices, okay?”
“Piyopp!”
The three of them took care to stick together as they walked around to the outside of the stockade and walked around the perimeter of the village.
The stockade was reasonably high, so it would be hard to jump over, but in case of an emergency, Oliver and Tia would have no issue making it over with their flight magic and Magical Leaping Device.
At regular intervals along the stockade, something resembling an incense burner was hung, and a distinctive-smelling smoke emanated from them.
“Oliver, what’s that smoke?”
“It’s smoke that Monsters hate. Because otherwise flying bug Monsters would just be able to go right over the stockade.”
Now that he mentioned it, she recalled seeing incense burners like that scattered around the inside of the village too.
But as a Harpy, Tia only thought ‘Huh, that’s a weird smell,’ so it definitely didn’t work against all Monsters.
(It probably only works against bugs… and some beast-type Monsters with good smell, I guess. If any other kind of Monsters showed up, it would be a little dicey.)
As they walked, Tia listened closely.
She couldn’t hear any human footsteps outside the village other than their own. Nor could she hear any speaking or screaming voices.
Mountains and forests always made all sorts of sounds.
The sound of the wind blowing through the foliage. The sound of wild animals’ footsteps. The calling of birds. — Yet now, she could barely hear any wild animals or birds, nor could she sense their presence.
All she could hear was the rustling of the leaves.
(…It’s too quiet.)
Most likely, the wild animals had noticed by now. Something dangerous is coming.
The Monsters had been spotted in the mountains deep behind the Lange manor. But that did not exclude them from wandering around through the expansive forest and attacking the village from behind.
Of course, the Lange Family had people stationed to watch that forest, but they were sure to miss one or two. Bug Monsters were hard to spot.
As a Harpy, Tia could understand the signs of other Monsters to an extent.
At the moment, there were no such signs of Monsters in the area… but that was no reason to relax.
It was then that Tia’s ears picked up on a faint voice. It was the voice of a young girl.
“Over there! A voice!”
Oliver ran off in the direction where Tia pointed. Tia and Wren followed after him.
After running a little bit through the forest that surrounded the village, in the direction towards the mountains, they spotted a silhouette in an area where the trees were particularly dense.
“Romy!”
She did not respond to his voice. Romy only stood motionlessly, staring into the distance.
Looking at her from the side, there was no sign of the cheerful smile she’d given Oliver earlier.
(Wait, could there be a Monster around here that can cause mental interference in humans…?)
Tia knew of Monsters that used humans as bait.
First, they would apply mental interference to a suitable human and separate them from their village. Then, when other humans went searching for that person, the Monster would attack them all at once. This situation resembled that too closely.
“Romy!”
Oliver grabbed Romy’s slender wrist and called to her.
Then, Romy’s body shook with a start. Her round eyes blinked as she looked at Oliver.
“…Eh? Oliver… Why…?”
“Why are you here?”
“Um, I was hungry… and I was looking… for something to eat…”
Romy answered Oliver’s pressing question with a faint voice.
With her head dipped, her neck looked so thin it might just snap. There was no meat on her bones at all. She suffered from abysmal nutrition.
Oliver must have noticed this, as he swallowed what he was about to say next. He fumbled around his pockets, most likely looking for something edible he could give to her.
Tia saw one of the bushes on the other side of Oliver rustle as he did that.
“Oliver! Something’s there! Something big!”
Tia screamed, just as that ‘something’ leapt out towards them.
It had a slender green and brown body and of its six legs, the front two were shaped like huge scythes with coarse thorns growing along the insides.
And on its chest, a glowing crystal shard.
This, about the size of an adult human, was a mantis Monster.