Chapter 73 - From the Beginning (8)

Before this, our method of travel... or rather, our method of deciding our travel destination went like this.

We would set the location Windhand mentioned as the final destination, but if we found a stronghold along the way, we would take it out while we were at it.

However, Bipurit's newly revealed location was, with a bit of exaggeration, right under our noses. There was absolutely no need to take a detour to give people some breathing room.

In other words, we were close enough that striking the leader was more effective than taking a detour to clear out the riffraff.

Well, since we couldn't be 100% sure, Bipurit might not necessarily be there. But it was a route we would have passed through anyway.

There was no harm in making up our minds and going there prepared. Even if Bipurit wasn't there, a castle was still a castle, and we'd have to prepare to raid such a castle all the same.

"You aren't really going right away, are you?"

That's why I brought up the idea of charging in blindly just by ourselves...

"We depart at dawn."

I brought it up. Not as a joke, but in all seriousness.

"The enemy has occupied an entire castle! Are you really going like this? What about the main force!"

Naturally, DeB freaked out.

"Um, Demon Knight. Even to me, it seems better to join up with the main force and fight. The distance to the main force is only two or three days away now."

"Sir Knight, let's have a little patience. We don't know what kind of demon is waiting for us. Sure, we have some information obtained from those who escaped or infiltrated, but that's only a part of it... In a situation where we should be tapping the stone bridge before crossing, going in recklessly is a bit..."

I looked at those presenting reasonable opinions and agreed inwardly.

'Yeah, I know that's the standard strategy. This is siege battle content, after all.'

'And a typical siege battle relies on terrain advantage, numbers, and weapon power. It's not something you can just tackle with a single party.'

"Even at this moment, demons must be being born. And yet you tell me to give them more than a day?"

'But listen here. Let's assume they've summoned demons and will continue to do so.'

'Let's also assume lower-ranking demons are their main force. That means they're going for a war of attrition, right? And wars of attrition heavily consume troops on both sides.'

'But it's not like we have a massive army to mobilize. On top of that, them summoning demons is exactly the same as grinding up the islanders as sacrifices.'

'The longer the fight drags on, the greater the number of sacrificed lives! And what does an increase in civilian deaths lead to in this kind of quest?'

'It could lead to a GAME OVER...'

'If they called in a raid boss-class monster like a Kraken, that would be a problem in its own right.'

'Even if I stepped up to fight it, I could already clearly picture the others getting swept up and killed. The same would be true if those newly invented throwable curse jars we saw a few times at the strongholds made an appearance.'

"But..."

"The weak are only a hindrance."

'In other words, I'm beating around the bush, but my point is that waiting to join the main force will only increase the casualties.'

'And if allied casualties are too high, the game will say this: "Not a chance, try again!"'

'Ha, going through that is absolutely out of the question. I'm clearing this on the first try.'

"Even so, if we go head-on, even you..."

'Of course, going with this number of people has major drawbacks. Setting aside Windhand being useless because he lacks combat power, a frontal assault is impossible even for me.'

"I do not know what the Archmage saw in you."

'But what if it isn't a frontal assault? What if it's infiltration and assassination? I see a pretty good chance of winning with that.'

'I mean, they may have fled, but former high-ranking Ayu Hin officials are right here. Surely they have at least one secret passage only they know about?'

"Where are Ayu Hin's Minister of Finance and Captain of the Guard?"

"Excuse me?"

'Of course, this path comes with its own risks. It's not like they're idiots; they must have made preparations. If we get discovered, enemies will be on all sides, leaving us nowhere to run.'

'Moreover, we have a traitor among us. If the traitor were to leak this fact, I know it would be like shoving our heads right into a tiger's jaws.'

'But what if we successfully bypass the traitor? A secret passage assumes escaping from the heart of the place to the outside undetected, so doing the reverse means we can pierce straight into the core at once.'

'High risk, high return; I'd say this is a gamble well worth taking.'

"Why the Minister of Finance and the Captain of the Guard..."

"A secret passage...?"

'After all, if the choice is between a chance for 4 people to survive instead of the guaranteed death of hundreds, versus guaranteeing the safety of hundreds instead of the potential death of 4 people, isn't there really only one answer?'

'At least for me, the answer is fixed.'

"Sir, are you perhaps thinking of a secret passage?"

Quick-witted DeB asked me. He already looked certain, so I didn't bother giving him an answer. Instead, I glared at him as if demanding an answer from him.

"Right away... I'll guide you right away. No, wait. Please wait here for a bit until I bring some people."

His dark green eyes, shadowed by his hood, sparkled brightly.

"Aren't security and infiltration my specialties?"

'Since we've dragged this out long enough, it was time to rapidly push forward.'

* * *

'For the sake of my fatigue, I wanted to go to sleep at midnight. Naturally, that was an unreasonable wish.'

'Still, sacrificing some of my fatigue was worth it.'

'Because I succeeded in gathering the city's leaders and the Information Guild members who knew the city's back alleys inside out to secure an infiltration route.'

'As for the traitor... well. I think we paid as much attention to security as possible. If someone wasn't helpful in planning, we went beyond just excluding them from the discussion room and didn't even mention the plan at all.'

'If our operation still leaks despite that, wouldn't that just be inevitable? It would mean the guys we brought in because we needed them to plan the route were the traitors, which makes everything pointless from the start.'

'Well, enough with the gloomy talk; we also received solid support.'

'It made sense. Even if supplies were short, our success was directly tied to the survival of this place. They couldn't afford to haggle over supplies.'

'Even though the official in charge looked pretty much like he was dying as he watched the list of things I was sweeping into my inventory.'

"I pray the sea breeze pushes your back."

"Haha, I wish you luck in battle."

Anyway, we left after being seen off by Windhand, who didn't know where we were going but knew we were departing at dawn.

'Why was Windhand seeing us off? That was obviously because he had been dropped from the party.'

'Yeah, his personal combat power was weak, his specialty in sailing was useless inland, and he wasn't a local of Ayu Hin, so we couldn't use him as a guide.'

'On the other hand, if he stayed behind, he could act as a buffer between the harbor and the main force people. There were far more reasons not to use him than to use him, so there was absolutely no need to stubbornly bring him along.'

"Please do my share as well."

'Especially when he himself had agreed to it. Of course, all he was told was something along the lines of "Your combat power is weak, so it's better if you stay here."'

'Then again, he just didn't know the detailed plan; he seemed to have guessed that we were going straight to smash into Ayu Hin. Windhand has pretty much figured me out by now.'

'Especially since he came out to see us off with perfect timing even though we didn't mention we were leaving at dawn.'

"Will Sir Windhand really be able to handle the main force well?"

'But that was already two days ago. There was no point in worrying about it anymore.'

"I believe it will be fine since the Archmage is there."

"True... With the Magic Tower involved, things won't just blindly blow up."

"More than that, I'm worried about these horses. Are we just going to release them into the forest when we arrive?"

"I guess we'll have to."

"They'll die."

"That's probably highly likely. Especially with the beasts attacking like they are now."

"I'd like them to live."

"I just hope they don't turn into demons like these ones. Phew."

'For reference, the horses the Hidden Harbor generously provided us also became expendable due to the high number of demonized beasts in the forest.'

'I wondered if it was okay to use horses—which were expensive on the mainland and even more so on the island—as expendables, but what could we do when that was the reality? Time was money, and we couldn't just walk all the way.'

'As expected, this game desperately needs a mount patch. Actually, it needs some quality-of-life improvements too. No, the most urgent thing is the logout function.'

"You seem to have the leisure to flap your gums."

Anyway, I said that while tossing aside the corpse of the demon I had just stabbed to death. At my mutter, the two dumplings clamped their mouths shut.

"We can't even go to the bathroom carelessly around here."

Meanwhile, Lukwan, who was standing in the back, bantered regardless of what I said. Mm, who is Lukwan? He's the guy who joined the party this time instead of Windhand.

"I'm more surprised by your guts to even think about going to relieve yourself alone, noonim."

'It wasn't just Lukwan. I brought along a few more people who had the dual advantage of being locals and skilled in infiltration.'

"We make a living by hiding our bodies, so what good is it if we get scared over something like this?"

'As a result, 5 more Thieves from the Information Guild's "Ayu Hin Branch" were suddenly added to the group... but since they're competent, let's just overlook it.'

'I'll also overlook the downside of the Inquisitor having a hard time dealing with them as a cute quirk. They made a vow, so as long as they aren't treated like DeB, it's fine.'

'Even the party composition of 1 swordsman, 1 paladin, and 6 Thieves... Since the situation has become somewhat like reality, isn't it not a completely ruined composition?'

"Hold on, I see tracks."

"This looks like a patrol route."

'I don't know about DPS (Damage Per Second), but at the very least, our ability to find enemy tracks had greatly improved.'

"We'll have to abandon the horses now."

'The fact that there was a patrol route meant our destination was nearby, and the destination being nearby meant the infiltration was now beginning.'

'Ha. Are we really just walkers now? I looked at DeB. It was meant to roughly ask, "Do you think so too?", but I guess that made him uncomfortable.'

The recipient of my gaze twitched his lips before nodding his head.

SQUELCH.

My boots were the first to step down onto the swamp-like terrain. My brow naturally furrowed at the soft, squishy sensation, like walking in mud.

THUD.

The Inquisitor, who was the second heaviest after me despite wearing cloth armor for the infiltration, stepped down second.

The Thieves dismounted one by one and began to collect the reins.

"Run away."

Erasing the tracks after the horses left to find freedom was also their job. While they covered our tracks, I checked my skills one last time.

'Of course, it didn't mean much. I could use combat skills without leveling them up, and I had already maxed out all the passives that increased health, defense, and attack.'

'I had even maxed out the ones that increased healing amount and speed. All that was left were negotiation and tracking types...'

'I had already organized them before coming, but there was one level I gained on the way. I put it into a tracking-type skill.'

「Silent Steps│A proper hunter knows how to hide their presence. Footsteps become even quieter.」

'I wondered if there was any point to it in the early game and was planning to put off that skill tree until the end, but it might be useful in the current situation.'

'But does this really have any effect? Why don't the footsteps sound any quieter to my ears?'

I slowly set off with the sentiment of, 'Phew, the system isn't doing its job again.'

With Lukwan—a Shaggy race in the form of a black panther—taking up the rear, the curtain officially rose on our infiltration. The destination wasn't the castle itself, but the entrance to a secret passage supposedly located somewhere near the castle walls.

"Amazing... I never imagined something like this."

A Thief groped for traces of the passage, clearing away and adjusting various things. Soon, the entrance opened. Among those who saw it, the rawest reaction belonged to the Inquisitor.

"The Temple probably has one or two of these as well, but seeing as you're a Heresy Inquisitor, you must not know."

'We were moving together, but the bad blood hadn't completely disappeared. One of the Thieves stealthily made a remark to take a jab at her.'

"That is correct. I have never heard of it."

"... You're proud of that?"

"They must not have informed me for a valid reason, so why shouldn't I be proud?"

"..."

'But our girl is nothing if not consistent. DeB was shaking with silent laughter. Lukwan—who seemed to be the representative of the Thieves, though he didn't appear to have absolute command since they weren't from the exact same group—was also chuckling.'

"Now, now, let's not waste our energy on useless things."

She patted the back of the guy who tried to take a jab but got jabbed instead, finishing the job of concealing the entrance.

「Ayu Hin: Castle Wall Dog Hole」

「❖ The Fangs Aiming at Zakrati

∎ Liberate Ayu Hin

∎ Bonus: Kill Bipurit」

'The quest finally updated.'

"Let's move."

'No matter how much work they did on the passage's entrance-slash-exit, hovering around it indefinitely would render it meaningless.'

We moved our steps deeper into the passage. The path, which was nothing more than an earthen tunnel, changed its foundation the further in we went, eventually turning into an artificial path made of stacked stones.

"Can we get a light?"

'The stuffy air made me physically feel the lack of oxygen. What are the odds of suffocating to death from using an oil lamp in a space like this?'

We threw away all the oil lamps we had. What Lukwan took from me instead was the flashlight I had been using usefully since I logged in.

'It didn't literally use electricity, but as a magic item, it didn't consume oxygen. It was perfect for this situation.'

"Sir, and you over there, take this while we walk."

While Lukwan and the Thieves found the way, DeB handed us something.

"This is a potion that erases body odor. And this is a dye that colors your hair for a day. These are slave clothes we got from the rescued people, and since it would be awkward for slaves to be clean, let's smear some soot on as we go."

'Uh, stealth was the goal, but there was talk of disguising ourselves just in case. I just stood back and assumed they would handle it among themselves.'

'But you really prepared for this in earnest, DeB...'

"Is there anything I need to do?"

"All you have to do is stay still."

'As displeased as she might be, an expert is an expert. Leaving it to the expert, the Inquisitor silently followed the instructions and walked obediently.'

'As he began doing her makeup while matching our pace, her face—which looked like a white steamed bun—quickly became grimy. It's funny because her clothes are clean but her face looks like that.'

"Your hair color too... Ah, try to walk without swaying so much. Can't you even do that?"

"I-I am doing my best!"

"The crown of your head! Lower the crown of your head a bit!"

Because the height difference between DeB and the Inquisitor wasn't that big, DeB had to walk on his tiptoes the entire time he applied the hair dye.

'It would have been a bit easier if we sat somewhere and took our time, but unfortunately, we didn't have the time for that.'

'It made sense; even magically made hair dye takes some time to set. But we couldn't just drag things out for another hour at the castle's threshold.'

"Sir Knight, do you have a moment too?"

'But I didn't hear anything about me having to do this too. ACK!'