The commander looked somewhat troubled, but he didn’t think it was too big of a problem yet. His unit may have been small, but he was a military officer; he’d come prepared.
He took out a whistle and blew it, and a sharp, clear sound rang out.
Suddenly, nearly thirty men appeared from the nearby trees. They were all dressed like hunters, but their short, buzz-cut hair, coordinated movements, and overall demeanor showed that they were obviously soldiers. The tables had once again turned in an instant. The enemy reinforcements were almost completely composed of soldiers; apparently, they’d had backup waiting nearby in case they were needed. They had only sent half of their men into town, with the other half being held in reserve. He was a military officer after all; he was well-versed in field tactics. He grinned, confident that he now had a major advantage.
“Hey, what are you doing to those women?!” another voice angrily called out.
“Huh?”
The commander slowly turned his head in a manner that sounded vaguely familiar, the movement so stiff it could’ve made a creaking sound. There, standing before him, were about forty fully armed soldiers.
“I’m the lord of this territory. I was on my way out for some nighttime training with my army’s elite soldiers. What business do you have with my people?” the lord asked.
The commander was in trouble now. Although his men were disguised as hunters, their movements and swordsmanship would quickly give them away as soldiers. The low-ranking soldiers weren’t properly armored because of their disguises, and they had no chance against fully armed elite fighters of the territorial army who also vastly outnumbered them. Even if they fought until the end, the majority of them would end up killed and the rest would be captured.
And since his men were lowly grunts and not specially trained spies, there was no reason to believe they would be able to endure whatever torture awaited them. Once they were forced to talk, they would reveal that soldiers from another territory had committed military actions in disguise and engaged in battle with a platoon led by the local lord. This could easily be considered an assassination attempt and the most heinous of conspiracies. It wouldn’t simply be a quarrel between territories; it would be no surprise if the national army ended up being mobilized.
The mission was a critical failure. There was no way they could win with such a disadvantage in numbers, and they wouldn’t be able to escape unharmed. And since they were dressed as hunters instead of in military uniforms, they had no right to be treated as prisoners of war. They would be treated as spies, saboteurs seeking to disrupt trade, assassins, or a group of regular bandits, regardless of what their actual intentions were. And of course, their own lord would not admit to any fault or try to retrieve them by paying reparations. They were considered expendable, and that was why their unit consisted of low-ranking soldiers, bottom-tier hunters, and common thugs.
Meanwhile, the local lord was considering what to do next. With their overwhelming advantage, it would have been easy to wipe out the enemy forces. However, he didn’t want to risk a single one of his soldiers getting killed or injured in the process. That was why he wished to avoid a fight if possible. Even so, he couldn’t simply let them walk away. If he did, the other territories would take it as a sign of weakness and might be encouraged to do something similar, and then he would lose the trust of his territory’s citizens and soldiers...along with the Hunter’s Guild and Commerce Guild.
Of course, Kaoru was similarly troubled.
What in the world is going on?!
There was a harsh power creep on both sides with reinforcements appearing one after another. This was all completely unexpected—in fact, she’d already been lost when the Blazing Valkyries had appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
If a fight breaks out, the lord’s army will easily win, but not without casualties of their own. With so many people swinging swords at each other, a few of them will die or get seriously injured. Sure, soldiers signed up for the job knowing the risks, but they chose their profession to protect their town, their territory, their country, and the people they cared about. They didn’t become soldiers to get dragged into some wannabe priestess’s intrigue and get so badly hurt that they couldn’t work anymore. Like hell I’m gonna let innocent people’s lives get ruined because of me!
I could’ve blown them up with a nitro potion or taken them all out by creating poison, but the grunt soldiers were just following their superior’s orders and weren’t necessarily evil. I mean, what they were doing was bad, sure, but they were no different from soldiers in a country’s armed forces, and it wasn’t as if they could refuse the orders given to them. It was their job to do whatever profited the aristocrats they worked for.
It was hard to fine-tune the efficacy of my potions, and if I insta-killed them with poison, then revived them to full health with no negative effects, it wouldn’t do much in terms of intimidating potential enemies from messing with me again. Besides, that would be seen as the Goddess’s miracle and would stray from my story of being only slightly blessed. I had no choice; I had to use the thing I’d prepared just in case of an emergency...
Okay, speech time!
“It sure is convenient having reinforcements, isn’t it?” I said and grinned. “Yes, convenient. That’s why I prepared my own.” I paused for dramatic effect. “When Saint Edith was still but a stray priestess, some shady nobles were running rampant to the south of the royal capital. Just who were those shadowy figures? In order to eradicate them, Edith called upon a masked angel from the land of deities...”
Everyone stared, mouths agape, unable to make sense of my sudden speech. Then, the one that’d been lying in wait, invisible, appeared out of nowhere with a full-faced smile.
“It is I, the Namahage!”
Actually, it was Reiko wearing an outfit made of straw and a red mask to hide the upper half of her face.