It was quite a heavy expense for a man like him to give up a gold coin just like that, but he’d offered it not just to his own men, but also the hired hunters and thugs, pretending it wouldn’t hurt his own wallet to do so. He was likely a good man who unfortunately hadn’t been blessed with a good superior and lord. However, that was the case for most men, and there was nothing that could be done about it.
And so, the hunter who had gotten their commanding officer to treat them to the lavish gift got slaps on the shoulder and words of praise from his fellow men.
“We found her. She’s staying at an inn and seems to be protected by an all-female party of five mid-ranking hunters. They aren’t bad in terms of skills, but they’re just some women. They won’t stand a chance against us soldiers, and they probably can’t beat the hunters we hired either. As for the thugs...well, maybe they could serve as a diversion. They’re just there to obscure our identities, after all. It wouldn’t affect us one bit if they end up dead.”
The report had come from a junior officer who had been working under the commander since before they had joined the operation. The commander smiled wryly. Their opponents may have been women, but it was highly unlikely that mid-ranking hunters would be beaten by some common thugs.
“We can’t cause a commotion in town. It’d be a critical blow to us if the guards and local soldiers were to join the fray. We’re all supposed to be individual groups of hunters, thugs, and travelers with no connection to each other. Besides, the town is full of folks who would be willing to jump to the girl’s aid. So...”
“We make our move outside of town?” the soldier asked.
“Exactly. I want you to learn the locations and patterns of her activities. She may have bodyguards, but if she does something careless and stupid, we’ll have plenty of opportunities to attack. I feel bad for the hunters who’ll lose face for failing to protect their client, but let’s hope they take it as a painful learning experience.”
“Yes, sir!”
“...So, that’s what’s going on,” Ishris reported.
“I see...”
According to the report, they were up against seventeen men total, though this included those who’d been arrested. Their forces, who’d split up and infiltrated the town, included pretend hunters who were clearly trained soldiers, bottom-of-the-barrel hunters who took on illegal jobs behind the Hunter’s Guild’s back, and ordinary thugs you’d find just about anywhere.
“The lowlife hunters and thugs haven’t done anything illegal quite yet, but it’s a serious crime for soldiers to impersonate hunters. The Hunter’s Guild already has enough cause to shut them down with full force. They could demand an apology and compensation from their employers, along with punishments for the perpetrators themselves. There are very rare cases where soldiers are registered as hunters, but I doubt all of them have gone through the trouble.”
Wait, what?
“But once their identities are exposed, wouldn’t the fact that a bunch of soldiers from another territory faked their identities to come here for some secret operation be a bigger problem than pretending to be a hunter?” I asked. “One false step could lead to huge consequences, like war breaking out between the territories or the king sending out his army, right? Besides, I don’t think their employer would ever admit to being involved. They’d just act like they didn’t know anything about it.”
“That’s...true,” Ishris agreed, the realization setting in as she thought about it.
“Maybe they think they won’t get caught, or they can just talk their way out of it if they do,” Emis suggested.
“Or maybe they thought they could brute force their way out of trouble once they secured the Angel,” Chessie said.
“Ha ha ha...”
They were joking, of course. After all, I was just an ordinary priestess who’d been slightly blessed by the Goddess.
Anyway, it wouldn’t be immediately obvious whether we were dealing with real or fake hunters. With the level of technology here, it would be easy to make a fake hunter’s certificate, or they could simply buy one from the black market that had been stolen or taken from a corpse. It wasn’t as if the certificate could be immediately verified by contacting the guild of the town where it was issued, and there weren’t any mystical ways of checking its authenticity by detecting its holder’s magic energy or anything like that. So, at this point, it was virtually impossible to confirm whether someone was a real hunter or not before capturing them. They would simply be hunters on the move who hadn’t committed any crime yet.
“To recap, the enemy’s numbers are fifteen in total. Nine of them are soldiers, and the rest are hunters and thugs... I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we won’t be able to defeat them in a fight. I think it would be best to hire additional bodyguards or ask the local lord to lend you some soldiers,” Ishris said, but I shut that idea down.
“No, they wouldn’t attack if we did that!” I said.
“What?”
“I mean, they wouldn’t try to attack unless they had an overwhelming advantage, right?”
The Blazing Valkyries stared blankly.
“Wait...you want them to attack?”
“Yeah. Otherwise, I’ll be stuck being a target, paying for protection the whole time, and not able to leave town,” I said. “Besides, we need to capture them and make them tell us who the mastermind behind all of this is.”
“Oh, but we’ve already been torturing them for answers,” Ishris said.
“What?”
“Huh?”
“Whaaat?” we all yelled at once.
“...Never mind!” she said.
I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. I’d heard some of the enemy had been taken in by the guards, but there was no way they’d be tortured just for a little drunken argument. It wasn’t that serious of a crime. That was why I needed them to actually attack me, which was a crime severe enough to warrant a little torture.
“Anyway, I don’t want this dragging out too long, and it’s unnerving not knowing when they’ll jump out of the shadows. They might catch us off guard eventually. That’s why...” I trailed off.
“Yes?” Ishris asked.
“I’ll have them attack when I want, where I want them to!”
“Whaaaaaat...?” the Blazing Valkyries said in surprised unison. Of course, guiding the enemy toward the time and place where you’d have an advantage was an ironclad rule of combat.
“But even if you’re able to get them to attack at a time and place of your choosing, and even though half of their forces are low-ranking hunters and thugs...we would be up against seventeen men, nine of whom are career soldiers,” Ishris pointed out. “We would need to at least match their numbers, or they’ll quickly take us down with multiple opponents apiece, then join another fighter elsewhere. It would only be a matter of time before they overwhelmed us. Besides, as more of their forces are freed up, they could decide to kidnap you while we’re preoccupied. Then it would all be meaningless!”
She had a point. And she’d only been talking about the perspective of protecting me and hadn’t mentioned anything about whether they would live through that situation. Normally, hunters wouldn’t take such a risk just because someone had hired them for protection once. It wasn’t as if they were fighting the people who’d killed their parents or something. It was just a job, and there was no need to expose themselves to danger beyond what they’d been paid to do. Our agreement was for them to protect me if I got attacked in town—that was very different from baiting a huge group of enemies into attacking us so we could launch a counterattack. Besides, if that was the job, it would’ve made more sense to go to the Mercenary’s Guild instead of the Hunter’s Guild.