Ann planned on doing her best at her chosen place of work as well.
“Guess we don’t need anybody holding down the fort anymore. I’ll go to the Hunter’s Guild too, then.”
Elm left for the Hunter’s Guild as well. And Sara and Haruto headed for the castle.
It was just like Sara’s last visit, from the king, the prime minister, the guildmasters of the Hunter’s and Apothecary’s Guilds, and the knight commander all being there in the meeting room, down to the map on the blackboard that Liam stood in front of. But some things were different this time as well. The guildmaster of the Apothecary’s Guild was Sara’s boss now, and the Hunter’s Guild guildmaster was an acquaintance she was on friendly terms with. The commander of the knights was still someone she had no relationship with, but Liam, at least, was no longer her enemy.
“Our plan to divert the cotton sheep’s route from the capital has utterly failed. This will sound like an excuse, but we simply couldn’t spare the manpower for the operation during migrating dragon season. When we attacked them to try to reduce their numbers even just a little bit, the whole herd went berserk, as we feared.”
Perhaps it was a sign of Liam’s growth that he was able to state so plainly that they had failed.
“We believe the cotton sheep are heading for the fields to the east of the capital. The northern fields were all filled with wheat that was already harvested in autumn, but everything south of the capital is to be harvested in spring. In other words, if the cotton sheep destroy those fields, it’s possible that we’ll be dealing with food shortages next year. We must divert the sheep from the fields in the east and lead them to the meadows to the south of the capital.”
Sara prepared herself for the conversation to turn to the two of them.
“Fortunately, since this spring, many of the knights have acquired a shield spell based on the Invited Sara’s barrier that we call Kuntz’s shield magic. This magic has been effective in repelling the cotton sheep to change their trajectory. But we still don’t have enough personnel to utilize this technique effectively. What about the Hunter’s Guild?”
If Kuntz were here, he’d probably be begging Liam to stop. In any case, Liam had asked for Konrad’s input first, so Sara was able to relax for now.
“The Hunter’s Guild also has a good number of people who can use shield magic now. I’m grateful for it, since it’s contributing to lower numbers of injuries among Hunters.”
“Can we request your aid, then?”
“Of course. I’ll put out an emergency request when I get back to the guild.”
“Much appreciated.”
Relieved, Liam turned to Chester next.
“The Apothecary’s Guild is working on increasing our stock of supreme potions and mana potions. We’ll dispatch apothecaries to the scene as well, if you need us to.”
“That would be appreciated as well.”
Liam looked thankful that the meeting was proceeding smoothly.
“Once we’re sure what our numbers will be like, we’ll plan to repel the cotton sheep with protection cases and Hunters and knights who can use shield magic, moving past the capital with them.”
Sara hadn’t thought Kuntz’s shield magic would come in so handy. She was thoroughly impressed.
“Liam, I know I entrusted you with this matter, but why are you being so circuitous? Haruto’s right there, is he not? What is a time like this if not the perfect time to utilize the power of the Invited?”
The knight commander suddenly brought up Haruto.
“Haruto has wide-range magic, does he not? I recall it being powerful enough to cause quite a commotion in the dungeon once. Can he not simply defeat all the sheep in one blow?”
He didn’t stop there. The knight commander then turned to Sara.
“Or what about the other Invited? You built those walls when the continental tortoise came, didn’t you? The sheep aren’t nearly so tall. It should be easy for you to construct a low wall. We’re busy dealing with the migrating dragons right now. We should just leave this to these two.”
This was a new knight commander, but his way of thinking was exactly the same as the previous one.
Sara saw Haruto’s fists clench beside her before they went limp as if he’d given up. If asked if they could do it, Haruto and Sara would have to admit that they could. If the plan had been to build a wall from the start, then they could have planned a route and gotten started earlier, finishing with time to spare. But instead of saying so, Sara stayed quiet and waited. It hadn’t been her that the knight commander had addressed, after all.
Liam let out a quiet sigh like he was holding his irritation in. “Commander. I reported to you in advance that we would not be relying on the Invited, did I not? I believe I informed you that we would handle this matter with the knights, the Hunter’s Guild, the Apothecary’s Guild, and the citizens of the capital. We’ve handled the migrating dragons almost entirely on our own this year as well, have we not?”
The knights should have all been on the same page at this point. The fact that it was their leader who was holding them back was not a good look.
“Then why did you call the Invited here today?”
“Well...”
He’d been explaining everything in a set order. Sara felt a bit bad for him since he’d been interrupted, but she felt like she understood what he wanted from them too.
She thought Liam might want the Invited to suggest their own roles in the plan. He was laying out what they were working with in total and would then ask what Sara and Haruto would contribute on top of that. But before Sara could open her own mouth, Liam continued speaking.
“I’d like to save Haruto’s wide-range magic as a last resort. If a great number of cotton sheep perish, it could upset the balance of the monsters in the meadows.”
Sara looked to Liam in surprise. She’d raised the subject of the balance of living things plenty of times in the past, but she hadn’t thought Liam really understood what she meant.
“I considered Sara’s walls as well, but even with limitless mana reserves, it’s simply too much to ask of one person. I determined that it would be difficult to implement such a plan without ample time to prepare.”
Sara was thankful that he felt the same way she did about that plan.
“Then there’s no point in having them here, is there?”
“The Invited were not brought here by the goddess to be useful.” Liam spoke for the goddess Herself. “I asked them to come to see if they could suggest any ideas we couldn’t think of ourselves. We have no way of really knowing the full extent of what they’re capable of, Haruto and Sara both.”
Liam probably hadn’t truly understood what Sara was capable of until she demonstrated her barrier for the knights.
“We’ll be dealing with the cotton sheep ourselves, but is there anything you can think of to add to our plan?”
He asked the exact question Sara had been expecting.
Sara exchanged a glance with Haruto and nodded. They’d already discussed what they could do.
Sara and Haruto had thought of the things the knight commander and Liam had brought up and decided that they could do them but didn’t want to. So what did they want to do, then?
They’d met several days earlier at the Hunter’s Guild, anticipating a gathering like this. It had been evening, after Sara’s plant gathering and Allen, Kuntz, and Haruto’s hunting. They met right when everyone was coming back from the dungeon.
“I think my only contribution would be my barrier.”
“You did stop those frogs from getting to Camellia before,” Allen said, thinking back to that time. Then he shivered. They’d come out to the meadow at sundown and it was getting cold out. Sara looked up into the sky and saw tiny migrating dragons flying in the distance. “You froze the ground at the same time that you used your barrier then, right? That was really cold...”
He must have remembered fighting in the cold back then too.
“I did a big wide-area barrier and used freezing magic at the same time, but Liam got in my way, so I had a hard time concentrating. Wait a second...” Sara said to herself. “I’ve done all sorts of different things with my barrier, but if I used it just as a barrier, I wonder how much area I could cover...”
The last time she’d covered a large area with her barrier had been two years ago in Gardenia.
“I used it over a wide area back then, but the hardest thing to do was keep it up for such a long time.”
“You really held in there.”
She was always happy to be praised for her hard work.