[V10C22] War is Hard for Monsters
Translated by Jodas 10: A Job for a Con Man“Looong liiive pretty bo~ys!”
As he brought his improvised song to a close, Wren prayed:
(Please, be satisfied by this, Rose!)
Rose’s eyes were wide with surprise, but after blinking a few times, he asked Wren:
“Umm, so you met this witch in the forest and she gave you those candies?”
“Y– yeah, because I’m such a pretty boy… I think?”
Wren forced a smile.
Did it look too forced? This wasn’t going to work, was it? Wren desperately worked his mind to come up with the next excuse, but then Rose spoke again.
“Oh really? That’s cool. I’m glad to hear it.”
Rose’s tone sounded completely like his usual self, causing the tension left Wren’s body.
Honestly, he expected more follow-up questions.
(If Rose is part of the Roseberg Family… I’m guessing he’s here looking for the Ancient Magical Artifact ‘Chromatic Garden’… The one the Harpies took away?)
Unsure what to think, Wren hesitantly asked Rose:
“It’s fine with me, but… are you sure you’re okay with that explanation?”
“Yeah. After all, I trust you, Wren.”
Rose nodded contently.
“I’m sure that witch took a liking to you too. That’s why I’m not worried that you have those candies.”
From time to time, Rose would casually say things that made Wren think ‘Are you really sure you’re okay with that?’
He definitely had such thoughts now… but if Rose, the adult, was leaning back and insisting “It’s fine!” then Wren had no reason not to accept his courtesy.
(Still, I’ve got to have a talk with Rose at some point. About the Roseberg Family, and the First Thorn Witch…)
As Wren’s eyes settled on the bottle and his mind wandered back to that uncanny witch, Julius addressed him with an unnerving smirk.
“Kuku… Wren, let me tell you something worthwhile.”
“W– What is it?”
Julius held out three fingers towards Wren, who jolted in panic.
“Three gold coins.”
“Huh?”
“That’s the rough value of that magical medicine… and I’m not talking about the bottle. That’s the price for each one.”
“……”
Wren stared at the bottle of candies with his mouth hanging open. Stiffly, he turned his neck to face Sevil.
“…Sevil, maybe we shouldn’t use these candies for the mission?”
“Don’t be so stingy, pretty boy!”
Sevil snatched the bottle from Wren’s hands and held it high.
Disregarding Wren’s shouts of “Thief Princess!” Sevil pushed on to the topic at hand.
“Now we’ve secured ourselves a means of addressing the mana density. Next problem: how do we get in?”
“Piyo!” Tia chirped and rose to her feet. Strapped to her back was the Magical Flying Device she’d brought from the mages at the Management Office.
Rukiye had already finished her final checks, so it was ready to use at any moment.
“I’m gonna go scout out where we can get in!”
Tia had two reasons to volunteer for scouting.
Reason 1: Tia had an idea for a secret passage they could use to sneak into the Wedge Tower.
(…When I was trapped in that underground room and Kai came to save me, The path that Kai used has to be somewhere.)
The other reason was her sister.
If she could make contact with her sister, maybe she could learn what was going on at the Monsters’ side.
If she and her sister could persuade the other Monsters and convince them to go back to the Crystal Territory… At that point in her thought process, Tia chastised herself for wishful thinking.
Tia and her sister were merely two Harpies. There was no way they could convince the other Monsters to change their minds. That was simply the nature of Monsters.
Tia was aware that her thoughts were slowly becoming more human these days.
Now, Tia found herself grasping for some way of solving the problem through means that didn’t involve cutting down, tearing apart, and killing everything in her way.
Those conflicts must have shown through on her face. Wren looked at Tia with concern and asked her:
“Tia, what’s the matter?”
“Piyo, um… Is there anything else I should be looking for when I’m out there?”
She said that mostly as an excuse, but Gerald immediately took her up on the offer.
“…I’d like to know anything you can get about the species, number, and abilities of the Monsters.”
Thinking back, even when he resisted the idea of fighting in the magic battle, he worked his hardest to get a grasp of their opponents’ abilities. He’d probably had those instincts drilled into him as he grew up.
Ella spoke after him, having done much information gathering herself.
“Both ‘Ignatius, the Severer’ and ‘Despina, the Chain of Fools’ have fallen into the Monsters’ hands, right? I’d like to retrieve them if possible… That’s probably not going to happen, but I want to at least know where they are. It would be nice if the Monsters haven’t destroyed them yet, but…”
“I think the odds are high that Ancient Magical Artifacts like that have already been destroyed.”
Roswitha muttered under her breath, and Julius nodded along.
“I agree. Even though Monsters can use Ancient Magical Artifacts, neither ‘Ignatiius, the Severer’ nor ‘Despina, the Chain of Fools’ are very useful to the Monsters… Even if they were, Monsters don’t use tools anyway.”
It was just as Julius said. Even if their group had Ancient Magical Artifacts, Tia figured they wouldn’t consider actually using one outside of some extreme circumstances.
Monsters, meanwhile, would not rely on tools unless it was absolutely necessary like the crystal rivets.
(But if Kai is human… he might use them.)
Then, Rose spoke casually.
“Something else we’d like you to scout out, you say? I guess it would be nice to know where the crystal rivets are embedded into ‘Chariclea, the Wedge Tower’… Also, maybe find out where Finn and Ms. Röhm are? Or where Chariclea’s contractor is?”
“Shouldn’t finding where people are be a lower priority? There’s a chance they might move around, you know.”
Roswitha chimed in to contradict Rose, then fixed her gaze on Tia.
“Tia, what’s the highest you can count to now?”
“Pefun!” Tia puffed out her chest and proudly declared “A hundred!”
Wren and Sevil beamed with pride.
“Awesome, isn’t it? It took a lot of hard work, on Mr. Hütter’s part.”
“Indeed, it was quite the monumental task. For Mr. Hütter.”
Roswitha looked like she wanted to say something, but rather than derail the conversation elected to get back to the point.
“Then if you can let us know how many of each species there are, and how many Greater Monsters, that’d be great. That said, promise me you won’t do anything too risky, okay? If any Monsters see you, run away immediately. Those guys won’t let you go just because you waved a white flag, after all.”
“…Piyo? White flag?”
Tia tilted her head, and Sevil whispered in her ear.
“It means you surrender. Its used in human wars.”
That made sense. It was a custom Tia had never heard of as a Monster.
To a Monster, surrender usually meant death. Considering that, it was always better to either try to run until you could not run anymore, or to lunge at your opponent and try to bite their windpipe out.
That was why, unlike humans, Monsters would essentially never consider surrender. In some cases, they might not even understand the concept of surrender.
(…Fighting between humans and Monsters really is different from wars between humans.)
Apparently, human wars were fought for reasons such as land, resources, or honor. If you killed too many people, you might not get as much out of the war, so surrender was welcomed.
On top of that, too much slaughter would earn the ire of other countries, giving them justification to attack you. To avoid having to kill so many, surrender was welcomed.
Everyone had their own reasons, but generally as long as the war was fought between humans, there was reason to welcome a surrender.
And those who did surrender were not guaranteed to be killed. Occasionally, they would be allowed to live under certain conditions.
There were rules in wars between men.
(…War is just too hard for Monsters.)
Thirteen years ago, there was a Monster who was obsessed with war who launched a makeshift war against the Wedge Tower.
But that Monster surely failed to understand what war was.
He had merely found a dark revelry in the concept of a world where human lives were treated as nothing more than numbers. In the fires of war where lives were thrown away without a second thought. That was his obsession.
That Monster surely would not have understood the meaning of waving a white flag. Just as Tia did.
“…I’m gonna go out scouting now. I’ll be back soon, and don’t worry, I’ll definitely run away.”
With those parting words, Tia activated the Magical Flying Device and leapt from the window.
Once Tia headed out on her reconnaissance mission, Sevil began to speak.
From here on out, they would be discussing something she didn’t particularly want Tia to hear.
“The coming battle between humans and Monsters… Allow me to be blunt here. As it stands, the odds of the human side winning are close to zero.”
Having lead armies and commanded battles countless times, she understood that well.
—This was a losing battle.
Sevil traced her fingers over the words Wren had written on his page.
“Remove the crystal rivets embedded in ‘Chariclea, the Wedge Tower,’ then the mana density goes down → Monsters won’t be able to do anything without crystal rivets anymore → Monsters are weakened, humans have better chances of winning!”
This was the aim of the Wedge Tower’s folks seeking to turn the tables. Sevil was shooting to do the same thing.
…But even if they did succeed at that, it was hard to say their chances of victory would be all that much higher.
“If we can weaken the Monsters through this plan, our chances go from zero to roughly ten percent.”
Gerald and Roswitha took this news with unexpected calm. Perhaps after fighting a Monster for real gave them a sense for exactly how insurmountable the wall between humans and Monsters was.
Sophie, meanwhile, looked on the verge of tears.
“Eek… After all of that, just ten perceeent?”
“At present, the human side has an overwhelming deficit in strength. At this rate, any advance operations we can pull off wouldn’t make a difference to the Monsters’ inevitable victory.”
The losses of the Ancient Magical Artifacts ‘Ignatius, the Severer’ and ‘Despina, the Chain of Fools,’ as well as the humans’ strongest asset, Headmaster Möbius, being taken out of the fight hit them hard.
Even if Saint Helena and ‘Eurydice, the Cackling Foam’ made it in time, her effectiveness was limited against Greater Monsters.
“Even after weakening the Monsters, the human side needs enough strength to surround them. We won’t be able to assemble such a force in time.”
Wren winced at Sevil’s blunt statement.
“Hey, Sevil. I know it’s rude but I’m gonna say it anyway… Couldn’t you do something about that with your status and influence or whatever?”
Ella had the same reservations, but relying on Sevil’s influence was a reasonable idea. Thus, Sevil did not take any offense to it at all.
Sevil believed in using everything available to her. She had to dignify this proposal with an answer.
“My answer is this: ‘There isn’t enough time.’ If the wall would hold out for a week or more, then perhaps I might have been able to do something about it.”
They only had one day to spare. Unless a huge army comes running up tomorrow by some miracle, there would be no hope of taking back the Wedge Tower.
“If only they would undo my seal…”
Rose gazed at the pattern on his wrist with a troubled expression.
Wren leaned over to look at Rose’s wrist, then looked him in the face.
“By the way, you said you and Sophie were sealed by ‘Despina, the Chain of Fools,’ right? What could you do if the seal was removed?”
“Hmm… Something awesome?”
“What, like picking up a whole lot of acorns?”
Rose responded with amusement to Wren’s idea of ‘something awesome.’
“That sounds nice, I’d sure like to have that sort of magic.”