The chief guard of the lizardmen ran through the forest, the orders still fresh in her mind. Her exact destination, though, wasn’t clear. As much as she honed her senses, searching for a trace of the aura that belonged to the envoy known as Soei, she could find nothing. So instead she ran, trusting in her instincts.
Lizardmen were nimble creatures in the marshes, but less so on dry land. Her breathing was ragged, her heart felt like it would explode, and she could feel herself growing more fatigued by the second. But she never stopped running. She had a bare minimum of duty for the monster who offered them an alliance, and she intended to fulfill it.
It had been around three hours since she began running. It had been a constant run ever since she slipped out of her bonds, and while her mind was still strong, a single moment’s distraction and she was likely to fall on the spot.
She knew the truth well enough. There was no guarantee that the monster Soei was anywhere ahead of here. If he was, there was no guarantee he would lift a finger to help. The thought was starting to occur to her—maybe she should just keep running? For good? Away from home?
No! How could I betray my people? My own father?
She tried to banish the thought, focusing on other matters.
As far as she was concerned, the charge engineered by her brother Gabil was something she should have stopped. She knew that, above everything else, what her brother wanted was their father’s approval. But she could never bring herself to tell the chief. She respected Gabil too much—as her brother, and as a lizardman warrior—and she thought he would become a splendid chief in time without her butting in on his affairs.
And now look at what that earned them.
Perhaps this was just the result of a hundred happenstances coinciding at once, knocking everything out of whack. But she couldn’t help but think it. If only she talked things over with him more, as a sister, maybe they could’ve avoided all of this. And if that was the case, she had a responsibility to uphold.
No, she couldn’t abandon her homeland. If she stopped running now, she’d never run again. So she kept at it.
✦ ✦ ✦
Someone was watching her. Someone that she, running with all her might, could never have noticed. He was nimbly leaping from tree branch to tree branch, following her every move without a sound.
Now he smirked to himself, a bit of drool falling from one edge of his lips. He was waiting for the moment. The instant when her exhaustion took her, and she could no longer move…
And when it did, he soundlessly descended in front of the chief guard.
His arms were long, like a gorilla’s, his legs those of a carnivorous animal. His head and torso, however, unmistakably identified him as a member of the horrifying orcish race.
“Geh-heh-heh… You appear tired. Your muscles must be so well-toned, so delicious.”
Pain filled the chief guard’s eyes as she looked at the monster. He was a high-level orc, no doubt about it. And he had more with him, a few dozen behind his back. Survival was not in the cards for her.
“You…”
“Geh-heh… Bah-ha-ha-haaaaa! I am one of the generals of the orcish army. Consider it an honor to take up residence in my stomach!”
“An…an orc general?!”
The chief guard readied the spear on her back. But it was clear to everyone involved how this fight would go. She was already slowed by her fatigue, totally bereft of the strength she would need to defeat the orc general and his men.
She knew it was hopeless. But she was ready to fight anyway. Her pride dictated it.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oooooh yeah! Now this is getting good!”
The mysterious man did a little dance where he stood, his cheerful voice booming. His eerie-looking mask and clothing were like nothing else on this planet.
Laplace, the man who had exchanged a few words with Gabil earlier, was playing with three crystal balls, as if teaching himself how to juggle. Each one was about the size of a person’s head, and images were visible inside them all. A keen-eyed observer would be able to see that each one depicted a scene from a battlefield.
All three were valuable magical items by nature, capable of seeing through the eyes of any person of one’s choice and projecting their field of vision into the crystal. Only one person could be followed with each ball, and that person had to physically touch the orb to make the connection work, so Laplace could only track three at once. But that was more than enough for his needs.
He had connected the crystals to three of the orc generals he found easiest to control, and now he was using them to steal glances of the current battle. It wasn’t something he took a prurient pleasure in. It was his job, part of the duties his client placed upon him. But Laplace was still taking full advantage, apparently having a blast as he peered into each orb in succession.
The war was unfolding just as he wanted it to—just as he had been enlisted to make happen. “Nice! That oughta please the boss,” he said to nobody in particular.
But something was different this time. He actually got a response.
“You seem to be enjoying yourself.”
“What’re…?!”
A woman appeared before the confused Laplace, a fleeting beauty to her form. Her green hair was as tangled as a wall of ivy, loosely covering her entire body, and its translucence made the contours of her frame visible.
“I am Treyni, one of the dryad wardens of the forest, and I have no intention of letting the monster tribes do as they please here. Thus, I’m afraid I must remove you.”
The moment she completed her declaration, she began casting a spell. This unnerved Laplace.
“Whoa! W-wait a second! I ain’t in no monster tribe!”
“Silence. The disturbance you have caused to the forest already makes your crime clear.”
The magic began to take effect.
“Wait! Wait-wait-wait! What’s that spell…?!”
“Come to me, spiritual summon Sylphide. And with you, I summon the extra skill Unify!!”
The dryad constructed a shell of magicules over her own spiritual body. It was similar to Rimuru’s Replication—although she did not, strictly speaking, have any physical form at all, apart from the holy tree that housed her soul. Those properties allowed her to unify her spirit with others like her.
“Unified” with the high-level Sylphide, Treyni now had the ability to wield the full powers of that spirit. And what she unleashed next was one of Sylphide’s most powerful magics.
“Your judgment is here. May you pray for your ultimate forgiveness. Aerial Blade!!”
The spiritual Unification meant Treyni no longer had need for long casting times. In an instant, Laplace was locked inside a gap in the air itself—one occupied solely by great blades of air that rent everything they slashed through. There was no escape once imprisoned.
It was a fearsome move, and Laplace, if anything, weathered it well. His own intrinsic Anti-Magic skills let him escape mortal injury. All it managed to take from him was a single arm—and with a puff of smoke, the arm went into so-called Stealth Mode. This was an original skill, exclusive to Laplace, that combined illusory magic like Deception, Infiltration, and Concealment, and he was so deft at casting it that it even let him deceive the spiritual senses of a dryad.
“Yikes. Prone to violence much, lady? You coulda let me at least get a word in edgewise… Well, my work’s done here anyway, so I think I’ll get while the gettin’s good. See you around!”
He had apparently set up several potential escape routes for himself in advance. When the smoke cleared, Laplace was gone.
“…I cannot believe he escaped my grasp,” Treyni whispered. “But…not from a monster tribe? Then who are those people…?”
No one was there to answer. Treyni filed the question away for later, instead turning her eyes toward the battlefield. Running her mind through the roots of the plants that surrounded her, she used her dryad skills to swim in an ocean of information.
“Things do not appear to be going well… I wonder how much I should really be trusting him.”
The whisper disappeared into the wind, just like the one before it. Traces of concern began to manifest themselves upon her face.