Chapter 4:
The End of the Battle
A MONTH PASSED.
I was standing near the edge of the forest in which lay the Ravine of the Earthwyrm. Around me stood simply constructed wooden houses. In a clearing where the trees had been cut down, a jumble of people walked this way and that. There were Superd, human carpenters and laborers hired from the Biheiril Kingdom, woodcutters…and the Ruquag Mercenaries.
“Hey, Big Bro, could I get you to clear a few trees over on the eastern side of the forest?”
Naturally, Aisha was there too. She strode about the village and issued instructions to everyone. After getting her orders, the mercenaries were then under the command of Linia and Pursena. Watching this, you’d be hard-pressed to say who the real company leader was.
“Yeah, no problem.” I was working alongside them to rebuild the Superd Village. I cleared trees with magic. Then, I used earth magic to build foundations for houses and a road from the village to the Earthwyrm Ravine. There was lots to be done.
I’m sure you’re burning to know why Aisha and the Ruquag Mercenary Band were wandering around here, and why, when Alec showed up, no one was to be found except Orsted.
I guess I’d better explain.
It’s a short story: it was all Aisha’s scheme. Okay, well, scheme sounds like she was getting up to mischief, so let’s call it work—it was all Aisha’s work. When the teleportation circles and communication tablets stopped working, she and the mercenary company had been thrown into chaos. With their lines of contact with far-off nations cut off, unease, then panic set in. Not for Aisha, though. She stayed calm and coolly assessed the situation. They were close to the border. If the fighting had already begun, they wouldn’t get there in time, and there wouldn’t be much they could do. She concluded that, as there was a strong possibility that Geese might flee the scene, they would work on getting the teleportation circles running again—in other words, restoring infrastructure.
The trouble was that in addition to the teleportation circles, all the magic circles back at the office that corresponded to the spare magic circles she had on her had been destroyed. There was nothing she could do. I’d have given up there, in her shoes. I mean, I did give up. But see, Aisha had a brainwave. Her genius brain remembered that a certain individual had a secret technique. This technique allowed one to draw a new magic circle corresponding to a teleportation circle whose pair had been destroyed, and thereby travel to where you wanted to go.
The individual in question…c’mon, you know the answer. It was none other than Armored Dragon King Perugius Dola.
To request his aid, Aisha had hunted down a monument to the Seven Great Powers that stood near the border. When she found it, she used Perugius’s flute to travel to the floating fortress. Perugius, knowing that we wanted to help demons, was reluctant, but something about Aisha convinced him.
“I’ll link up one for you,” he said.
Aisha chose to link the magic circle near the border with the teleportation circle that led to the Superd Village.
And so, here we were.
“I’m impressed you got Lord Perugius to agree.”
“Yeah, he really didn’t want to. But then I told him Orsted would owe him a favor for this battle and he softened up.”
After that, while I was busy fighting, she’d traveled to the Superd Village. After hearing what was going on, she used the teleportation circle to evacuate the residents and others to the town near the border… It was a close one. Luckily enough, Aisha had ended up covering up for the teleportation circles after the fact... And it wasn't like it could've worked out any better. But now, with all the dust settled, Roxy kept on beating herself up about it.
It was just how the cards had fallen. Roxy was still mortified about it.
“Around here?”
“Yeah, just chop ’em all down. Better to make more space than less, right?”
“Fair enough. I’m on it.”
“Call me when you’re done, okay? I’ll get the mercenaries to cart the wood away.”
“Yes, sir.”
It had been a month since the battle. I’d stayed on alert, ready to fight, but the next battle never came. There wouldn’t be another one. So, I’d had Roxy, Sylphie, Zanoba, and everyone else head back to Sharia. Eris was also kind enough to accompany their party under the title of “bodyguard.” The magic circle for summoning the Version Zero and the one used in the evacuation had both been destroyed in Orsted’s battle with Alec, so I’d asked Perugius to send a decent portion of the party back again. Those who returned would work on rebuilding the office and restoring the communication tablets and teleportation circles. Apparently, nothing had happened in Sharia. Even the elf girl was safe and sound. The worst of the damage was that the weapons and armor kept under the office were buried, along with the detailed documents Orsted had written out every day. The evacuated Superd villagers connected back up with the magic circle in the Second City of Irelil and returned from near the border. After that, the Biheiril Kingdom officially welcomed the Superd. The kingdom was happy to accept them as citizens. It probably helped that after losing the Third City and the Ogre God, they weren’t in a position to say no. They did set one condition, which was that to facilitate taking the Superd into the country, a minimum of three Superd be sent from the village to serve the kingdom. This was how it had been when establishing peace with the ogres, reportedly. Those three envoys had been chosen and were now working toward restoring the village. If the restoration continued without any problems, the Superd would have a home in the Biheiril Kingdom before long.
We had defeated the disciples and made the Superd, the ogres, and the Biheiril Kingdom our allies. We’d won. But could this really be called victory?
“Master Rudeus.”
“Oh, Sandor.” While I was cutting down trees, lost in my thoughts, Sandor appeared behind me. He wasn’t alone, either. Ghislaine, Isolde, and Dohga were with him.
Sandor had come back around ten days after the battle ended. Not only had the Fighting God dealt him a mortal wound, he’d also been thrown into the ocean. He somehow managed to drift to Ogre Island, where he took some time to recover. It was impressive that he’d taken on the Fighting God and made it back alive. Only, when I saw him again, he looked uncomfortable. I guess maybe, when you went by the name of North God Kalman, losing in and of itself was an embarrassment. Or wait, maybe it had nothing to do with that, and he was embarrassed because he’d been acting like such a big shot all the time…
“Hey. What do you need?”
“Oh, nothing—we’re planning on returning to Asura soon, you see. So we came to say our farewells.”
“Ah. Right.”
Their work here was over. They were Ariel’s subjects at the end of the day, so if there was no fighting to be done, they had to go home.
“Sandor, thank you,” I said. “We’d never have made it this far if not for you.”
“Please, it’s Queen Ariel you owe your thanks to.”
“Sure thing. Please tell Her Majesty to let me know right away if she ever runs into trouble. Tell her I won’t hesitate to help.”
“Very well.”