“Recruiting soldiers?”
Patausche scowled despite herself.
After cavalry drills, she’d had a meal in the city with the leader of the sniper unit, Siena. When she returned to the barracks, she found Xylo waiting in the common room with his usual stern expression. In fact, he’d been looking even grimmer than usual ever since they arrived in the First Capital.
“Are you all right?” she asked instinctively. “You look like you haven’t been sleeping well, and…Goddess Teoritta will be worried if she sees you like that.” The second half was a bit rushed, as if Patausche was covering up some other thought.
Xylo rubbed at the corners of his eyes with his thumbs and smirked. “You don’t have to worry about me. I actually just woke up from a little nap.”
“I never said I was worried about you.”
“I train hard. I won’t mess up just because I didn’t sleep for a night or two. I’m sure you’re the same, right? I’ll take care of what needs to be done.”
Such feats were normal for a soldier. In fact, they were the bare minimum. An officer had to be capable of enduring nonstop marching drills and combat training. They had to be capable of taking action and making swift, appropriate decisions with as little rest as possible. Patausche herself had trained by marching back and forth between Galtuile and the royal capital without a second’s rest.
Nevertheless, Xylo’s remark irritated her.
I’m not worried about whether you can do your job.
However, she couldn’t quite put what she was worried about into words.
As she hesitated, Xylo spoke. “High Priest Nicold Ibuton will officially run for archpriest in the upcoming election.” He was practically growling. “That means we’ve got two jobs left, and only three days to take care of them. We don’t have much time. Pretty depressing, huh?”
“Crying won’t solve anything. What do we need to do?”
“First, we need to take care of Gwen Mohsa. Tsav and I will handle that, since he’s managed to find out where they’re hiding. We’re about to head out.” Xylo held up two fingers. “Our second job is to recruit guards for High Priest Ibuton.”
“…Yes, if he truly plans on running in the election, then it’s urgent we secure enough guards. We won’t be able to protect him alone.”
“Exactly. We need soldiers we can freely command. As long as we can get them by Luffe Aros, everything should work out. I’ll have Tatsuya and Rhyno guard him until then. I figure our enemies won’t stage a real attack until the day of the election, though.”
“You sound confident. What makes you so sure?”
“Because if they take him out before then, we can always just find another high priest to replace him. The higher-ups said they have a Plan B that uses Ibuton’s death to their advantage. That’s what Adhiff said, at least.”
That meant they needed to focus their preparations on the day of the election. Either way, they couldn’t exactly conjure up a bunch of guards out of thin air. If an attempt on the high priest’s life came early, they’d just have to hope Tatsuya and Rhyno were up to the challenge.
“We need a hundred guards. At least,” said Xylo.
“That would be the absolute minimum,” Patausche agreed. “But it’s still a lot to ask.”
Given the current situation, they had no choice but to recruit from the general populace. That meant they needed to find one hundred people willing to join a group of penal heroes on a dangerous, disreputable mission. In other words, they needed one hundred people who were totally out of their minds.
“Technically, we only need to worry about getting half. Venetim said he would recruit the other fifty on his own.”
“Venetim? …That worries me.”
“I was the same at first. But after hearing his plan, I think it has a good chance of working. It’s better if I keep you in the dark about that, though.”
“Wh-why would you say that?”
“Because we need it to be a secret, and you’re terrible with secrets, right?”
“…What? I can keep a secret!”
“Sorry, I phrased that poorly. I don’t want you to have to get good at hiding things. Lately, I’m getting real fed up with people like that.”
Patausche looked Xylo in the eye and found it hard to talk back. He seemed terribly exhausted.
In the end, she cleared her throat and nodded. “All right… I won’t ask for details. But recruiting even fifty soldiers is a tall order. We’re basically asking people to volunteer to be put on death row. How will we compensate them? Can we even properly employ them?”
“We can offer them positions in the Saint’s unit, the Consecrated Brigade. It’s still being formed. You’ve heard the rumors, right? They’d be treated as volunteer soldiers.”
The Consecrated Brigade had been a hot topic lately. It was supposed to be the cornerstone of the spring offensive, and its commander would be the Saint herself, Yurisa Kidafreny. Of course, Yurisa had no military training and couldn’t possibly lead troops into battle, but she would take a symbolic role.
“This will be difficult… The pay won’t be good, and whoever joins will wind up right in the middle of the upcoming battle.”
“Please. I’m counting on you. We only have three days left.” Xylo looked down, and Patausche could see dark circles under his eyes. “We’ve still got loads to do.”
Ultimately, Patausche was the only one he could turn to. Dotta was stuck in the hospital with several broken bones, and even if he wasn’t, this sort of thing had never been his forte. And Tatsuya would be an even worse choice. As for Rhyno, well, putting him in charge of recruiting was like intentionally setting a disaster in motion.
“Am I the only one who will be working on this?”
“No, Norgalle will go with you. You’ll need to work with His Majesty.”
“Him? Will he be any help, you think?”
“He’s good at giving speeches. Remember how he rallied all the adventurers in Ioff? As long as you keep an eye on him, he should prove useful.”
“…Fine.” Patausche sighed. The situation was dire, and they couldn’t afford to have anyone sitting around twiddling their thumbs. “But get some sleep before you head out, okay? You look awful.”
“I’m fine. I need to go now… There’s no time to sleep.”
“So you’re going to work without sleep for some personal request from Adhiff Twevel? Is this really worth sacrificing yourself?”
“The situation has changed.” Xylo grimaced, as if he was enduring something. He’d probably meant to smile. “It seems the people working against us this time are involved with the Uthob Front, Unit 7110.”
“Isn’t that…?”
“Yeah. They’re the same ones who set up me and Senerva. And if they’re a unit, they’ve got to have a commander, or someone else calling the shots. And whoever it is, they’ve got control of Verkle Corp, they’ve convinced Gwen Mohsa to do their bidding, and now they’re backing High Priest Mirose in the election.”
Patausche remained silent. Xylo was pushing himself too hard, but she didn’t know how to stop him. Her mind raced, searching for the right words. At last, she found them.
“…Goddess Teoritta has been worried about you, too.”
Yes, Teoritta is the one worried about him, not me.
“You know she made plans to enjoy the Luffe Aros Festival with you, right? Yet you’ve been out running around who knows where for days. You’d better not break her heart.”
The words felt wrong the moment they came out of her mouth. This wasn’t what she’d wanted to say. But what had she wanted to tell him?
“Guess I’d better finish up before the festival, then. As long as we keep him safe, High Priest Ibuton has a good chance of winning. And once he’s archpriest, our work is done, and we can enjoy the festival.” Xylo patted Patausche on the shoulder. “Say hi to Teoritta for me. I’ll be back in time to check out the festival with her. So make sure you recruit those guards.”
“…All right.” After some hesitation, Patausche nodded.
This was a rare opportunity for her to show off. Frenci Mastibolt had contributed significantly to the success of their previous mission, and that bothered her for some reason. But now Frenci was back home preparing for the winter.
Patausche didn’t have anything against the woman, and she wasn’t interested in competing with her in the slightest. Nevertheless, she decided to take this moment to prove herself, as a woman who had once been chosen as captain to an order of Holy Knights.
She needed to prove to Xylo that he could rely on her—no, on all of those around him. The man in front of her had many flaws, but chief among them was the way he tried to take on everything by himself, childishly claiming it was no big deal.
“You can count on me,” she said. “It won’t be an issue.”