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Chapter 315: From an Invitation to Joining Forces (2)

The women in maids’ uniforms finished laying out the tea and left the room as quickly as they had arrived. Loren watched them work, admiring how neat and tidy it was. Lapis, standing beside him, waited until the maids had left the room before speaking softly to Loren.

“They are all trained fighters.”

“They’re maids, right…?”

“The way they move is not that of maids. They probably have weapons hidden under their skirts, so they may have been trained as assassins.”

Lapis was whispering to Loren in front of Yuri, but her voice was so low that the man should not be able to know what they were talking about. Even Loren was having trouble catching some of her words, but for some reason Yuri, who was further away from Lapis, seemed to be able to hear it clearly.

“Isn’t that what maids are supposed to do?”

Yuri said this with a good-natured smile, but Loren didn’t even hide the bewilderment in his voice when he replied.

“I’ve never heard of such maids.”

“A maid is the person who is closest to her master. Therefore, it is only natural that she should have the skills to protect the master.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Anyway, tell me how you are doing.”

Yuri asked again, his smile overpowering Loren’s words.

Loren was about to say something in response when Lapis intervened.

“I shall start then.”

Loren considered himself not a very good talker. When asked to talk about himself, he had nothing to say except that he had stopped being a mercenary and had become an adventurer, and he knew that Yuri would not be satisfied with that. That was why he decided to let Lapis take care of it.

He was about to take a sip of the tea the maids had left for him when he heard Lapis’ next words, which nearly made him spit it out.

“I have had the pleasure of going out with Loren since…”

“Hey, wait a minute. That’s not how to put it.”

‘Going out’ here meant traveling together as fellow adventurers, not going out as a couple did. But Lapis’ choice of words was not so much as causing confusion, but deliberately misleading. Letting Yuri have such a misunderstanding would be troublesome, so Loren tried to interrupt, but Yuri, seemingly unaware of Loren’s situation, leaned forward with his cup of tea in his hand.

“Let’s hear the details, shall we?”

“Hey, Commander!”

“When I first met him, I had a feeling that he was the one.”

“Wait a minute!”

“It’s called fate. Hmmm… that Loren…”

“Listen to me!”

Loren raised his voice and his fist, but there was no place to put his fist down. If they were at a cheap inn or a diner, he could have slammed his fist down the table in front of him, but what was in front of Loren now was a table that, although not fancy, was definitely worth a lot of money according to Lapis.

However, no matter how well-made the table was, it probably could not withstand the force of Loren’s fist if he slammed it down with all his might. The table would most likely be smashed into pieces, and if something like that happened in an Imperial Army’s facility, not only would he surely be forced to pay for his action, but one wrong move and soldiers would fly in to accuse him of committing an act of violence against a General.

Disregarding Loren, who had stopped moving after having no destination for his raised fist, Lapis proceeded with her conversation with Yuri.

[‘You’re in a tough spot, onii-san.’]

Loren slowly lowered his raised fist, trying to push the conversation out of his mind as much as possible, when he heard the worried voice of Shayna in the back of his mind. Nig also tapped Loren’s shoulder with his front legs as if to console him.

“I see. It seems you’ve had quite a time.”

After a short time, which seemed like torture to Loren, Lapis finished her story, and Yuri expressed such a sentiment.

Apart from a few unclear parts where Loren didn’t know if Lapis was trying to paint a love affair or induce misunderstanding, her story was reasonably easy to understand, and even Loren, who was listening without really paying attention, could remember that such things had happened.

Of course, Lapis did not tell Yuri her true identity, or those of Gula and Luxuria, who were currently traveling with them. Loren was glad that he had left the talk to her. If he had been the one to talk, there was a definite risk that he would leak some information.

Even so, the mental exhaustion was too much for Loren. He put his hand on his forehead and let out a deep sigh.

“Now that you know what’s going on on my side, I’d like to hear what happened on your side.”

“It’s not nearly as interesting as your story, though.”

Yuri sipped his tea and began to tell his story, as if responding to Loren’s request.

“It’s nothing spectacular. After the group was destroyed, I managed to escape and somehow ended up in this place. The only thing a mercenary leader can do is to fight, and that’s why I joined the army.”

“I understand that much. But how come you are now a general in the Imperial Army?”

A General, not to mention of the regular army, was not a position easy to obtain. Even if you came from a family of military personnel, you might never be able to reach such a position. The fact that a wandering mercenary was able to hold that position was beyond comprehension for Loren, but Yuri answered with a puzzled expression on his face.

“Well, you see, I used to be the leader of a mercenary group.”

“That’s not an explanation.”

Being the leader of a mercenary group was not likely to have any weight in any way. Loren knew that much, but when Yuri told him again so clearly, he wondered if the man had been chosen for the general position because of his experience as the leader of a mercenary group.

“Even if you say so. In this Empire, which is not on good terms with the neighbouring kingdom, there is no shortage of places to fight, and as long as you have a place to fight, you can earn merits, right?”

“So?”

“I was just fighting, and before I knew it, I had become a general.”

Yuri said nonchalantly. Loren almost raised his voice until he took one look at Yuri’s face, which seemed to say what was so strange about this story. He remembered his own days as a mercenary in the man’s group and kept his mouth closed.

It was Lapis, who asked in place of Loren, who had gone silent.

“Is it that simple?”

“Well, I’m reasonably competent.”

Yuri said as if he was simply stating a fact without a hint of boasting. Lapis stared at him in wonder, and Loren told her.

“It’s generally true, so there’s no way to argue with that.”

“Is that so…?”

“I didn’t do much. When I was a foot soldier, I made my mark by targeting enemy commanders, and when I was on the commanding side, I just kept doing what the enemy didn’t want me to do, and the merits would follow.”

“It’s not as simple as you put it, though”

“Since it is him, he can do it.”

“What’s with this trust?”

Loren admitted in a resigned tone of voice, while Lapis was shocked.

Yuri watched them with a smile on his face, but after a while his expression turned serious and he lightly tapped the tabletop with his finger to get their attention.

“Now that we know each other’s situation, let’s get down to business.”

Yuri, who had drawn Loren and Lapis’ attention to himself with just that small sound, laced his fingers together on the tabletop and began.

“It’s about the girl that you met.”

Although Loren and Lapis had lied about Gula and Luxuria, they told the Imperial Army that they had met a girl named Rage Satania, who called herself the Evil God of Wrath. The reason was that they did not know what kind of impression they would make on the Imperial Army if it became known that they were withholding information they had obtained on the battlefield.

Loren’s team had already reported the existence of Evil Gods to the Guild of Adventurers, so if the Imperial Army and the Adventurers’ Guild, which were currently cooperating, shared information, it would not take long for them to find out that there such beings exist.

However, as they had not reported that these Evil Gods were roaming the world, or that there were even those living normal lives like Gula and Luxuria, or that their origin dated back to the Ancient Kingdom period, Loren was not sure if either the Empire or the Guild would ever know such facts.

“It is reasonable to assume that she is a powerful magician wielding fire magic, but the staggering amount Imperial Army casualties cannot be explained by that alone.”

Many units had been destroyed by the unidentified enemy, but the places where they were destroyed still remained. It was clear that those areas had been burned to the ground by a powerful fire, but Yuri said that until now, the Imperial Army had not been able to find out what kind of entity could have caused such a fire.

This time, according to the report of Loren and Lapis, they were able to establish that it was an entity that took the form of a girl and called itself an Evil God. However, the Imperial Army apparently did not take the girl’s title of ‘Evil God’ literally.

“It’s hard to believe that a mere magician could have this kind of power. It is reasonable to assume that she has enhanced her power in some special way. But that is of little importance now.”

Lapis wondered if the first thing to do now was to find out how the enemy was raising their power to such an incredible degree, so that they could consider imitating their methods or taking their power away from them, but Loren and Yuri had a different idea.

“It doesn’t matter what the method is, we need to think of a way to deal with this girl first.”

“If all of the scouting and guerrilla units have been wiped out, we can’t just go around looking for the source of their power.”

“I understand what you’re saying, but it’s impossible to counter them with no plan, you know? We almost died too. Even if you ask us to do something about it, we will have to decline.”

“Of course not, I’m not senile. I won’t ask anyone to charge at an opponent who has caused such damage with no plans.”

Yuri smiled wryly at Loren’s words, who feared that they had been summoned because they had encountered the Evil God of Wrath once before and would be asked to do something about her because of their experience in returning alive.

“So, you’ve got a plan, and you want me to take care of it, right commander?”

“Thank you for speaking so quickly, Loren. You’re the only one I can ask.”

Loren, who had understood from Yuri’s tone of voice as he looked at him that this was not something he could refuse, gave a quick nod, praying that Yuri’s plan would really be effective against the Evil God of Wrath.