「He comes from the south, so he can't handle the cold,」 Helkov explained, accounting for General Wageris's obsession with the hot stone bath.
Now that he mentioned it, capybaras are creatures from warm climates, aren't they?
「Romrushi should be the northern country that's the birthplace of the beastmen, right? Are there warm places there?」
「It's something of a legend, but long ago, there were beastmen who sought new lands and ended up settling in the southern continent by going around the west.」
Apparently, General Wageris is a descendant of those migrants—an old-established beastman clan that moved to the central continent after the Empire was founded there.
And when I think about how even beastmen capable of physical reinforcement historically didn't step into the central continent, I suppose humans were surprisingly shrewd after all.
We were having this conversation late at night.
It was in a survey hut with no surrounding residences, where not even military personnel were camped.
「...Really, humans are shrewd. They don't give up after a single failure.」
At my words, Helkov, who had been waiting inside the room, quietly bristled with killing intent.
My primary objective in coming here was achieving the goal of the dispatched troops.
The engineers were already working on that, including adjustments to the gas masks, but it was still in the very early stages.
In other words, a problem that would take time to achieve.
If so, there was another issue that needed to be addressed first for the sake of what lay ahead.
(Sephira, go let Ikuto and Werarel know that assassins are approaching.)
(There is insufficient priority to leave my master's side when he is currently the target.)
An unexpected refusal.
True, I was the one the assassins were targeting, and they were the same people whose surefire rockfall attack had ended in a dud.
There was no way they'd give up after one attempt, and being targeted continuously without knowing when I could return was too much of a hassle.
So I had told Sephira to keep watch in town, but she refused that too.
That was why I had hastily consulted Werarel and created a magic formula that functioned like a transmitter.
(You have their movements grasped. If you moved, you would be faster than anyone. There is no one more suitable. Or can you not maintain contact while monitoring them?)
(...Confirmed possible.)
She seemed rather reluctant about it.
I suppose she still wasn't very flexible about these things.
Unwilling to bend from what she deemed proper, preferring to handle everything with her own strength rather than cooperating.
「Helkov, do you know why they haven't made a move these past two months?」
「They were watching and waiting, no doubt. And trying to lock down the target's behavior patterns with certainty. Precisely because they failed once, I'd say.」
As he spoke, Helkov took up a cudgel that was easy to swing inside the room and checked his grip.
There was something vaguely amused in his eyes as he looked at me.
「And yet, to think they came without realizing that Your Highness holing up in this hut late into the night once every five days was a trap to lure them in. How foolish.」
The transmitter magic had been attached two months ago.
When communication personnel went down to the town, Sephira would act as guide accompanied by one close aide, keeping an eye on things as well.
She monitored them while reapplying the magic on those occasions.
We had grasped that people were skulking to this village via the old road, but there had been no movement for two months.
"Two months, huh. They really took their time."
"Well, the enemy is entirely human. It's impossible to infiltrate a place where only beastmen live and only familiar faces come."
Once you enter the village, it's bowl-shaped with good visibility, and the only cover is houses where people actually live.
It could only be called a harsh environment for assassins from elsewhere.
And even if they tried to disguise themselves as soldiers, they basically move in pairs, so if they attacked and replaced them, they'd be found out in half a day at best.
To begin with, there were too few people around me for there to be any opening to replace anyone.
"They did well just to avoid being discovered."
"No, the moment they approached, they were already found out by Your Highness like this."
"By Sephira, you mean. Anyway, was it really okay not to tell General Wageris?"
The truth was, I hadn't told the person in charge of the military that assassins were probing around.
That was because Helkov, who knew General Wageris, had stopped me first.
"That woman would just catch them herself and deal with them crudely, nothing more. If it were a matter of moving the army, that'd be one thing, but she isn't someone who can juggle two things skillfully."
He had said something similar before.
And the one who agreed with that was Ikuto, who cited the time he tried to stop the royal guard rebellion.
She can be decisive, and even stand up to authority while seeing reason through.
However, she can't manage the subsequent adjustments and attention to detail.
She simply rounded up the royal guards and contained them, without paying any mind to what the guards might say afterward.
So while we were in the lower town, Ikuto would apparently check on things during his breaks and glare at the royal guards who were spreading rumors that I was in the wrong.
(They did assign people properly to handle it, but the army has no surplus to begin with. I suppose they can't scrutinize what everyone says. Well, in the royal guards' case, I think part of it is that they probably look down on General Wageris herself.)
(Report: There were individuals fuming that they could take as much revenge as they liked once they returned to the imperial capital.)
Sephira, having returned, cut into my thoughts.
And while this was the first I'd heard of it, she had casually gathered rumors about people in the palace too, so it was rather late to be surprised now.
(Sephira, what about Ikuto and Werarel?)
(They have already taken their positions.)
I checked a concern with Helkov.
"General Wageris will get angry if we don't say anything before leaving the disposal of the captured assassins to her, won't she?"
"That's just how it is. Since Your Highness is racking his brains trying to solve the village's problems, just let her handle what can be done through military means."
General Wageris had no thoughts beyond making others submit by force, and now she was using the military officers and civil officials she had brought to hold disorganized negotiations for merging the two villages.
She came to the hot stone bath almost every day since she had taken a liking to it, but on the days she didn't come, it was supposedly because the villagers were brawling among themselves, and she had to clean up or pull apart the parties involved, leaving her without the energy to come this far.
Mediating other people's quarrels must be terribly exhausting.
"I thought it might make for a nice change of pace... They're here. Your Highness, hide."
Since it was a trap, we had already put away anything in the room that would be troublesome if broken.
I crawled under the desk just in case and had Sephira activate the optical camouflage.
Yeah, I might even say I'm a little good at hiding.
As we lay in wait, a loud sound rang out as the door was kicked in.
They tried to cut us down immediately, rushing inside with momentum.
However, Helkov, who had been waiting beside the door, instantly struck down the first two from the side with his cudgel.
"Now then, how many?"
"We have two targeting the window here."
The one answering Helkov was Ikuto, standing at the entrance.
The sword he carried gleamed wetly even in the darkness... well, best not to ask.
Ikuto's safety came first.
"Inside makes nine. There were three securing the escape route."
Werarel reported as she tossed the three unconscious men to block the exit using wind magic.
Apparently, a total of fourteen assassins had come.
Seven remained conscious.
However, they were pinned down from front and back in a room that wasn't even spacious.
Furthermore, their target—me—couldn't be found no matter what they tried.
"Could it be a trap!?"
"Correct."
Helkov answered as he swung his cudgel at the nearest assassin.
The assassin hastily raised his sword, but it lost to the cudgel and snapped, and he took a heavy blow to the chest.
During that time, Ikuto cut down one who tried to push through the entrance.
Werarel took ample distance and crushed their legs and arms with wind.
"Hey, what the—!? Hey, you!"
As expected, the military noticed the commotion and came running with lights in hand.
Of course, General Wageris was at the forefront. She opened her mouth ready to roar, then her eyes widened at the suspicious figures collapsed on the floor.
But what ultimately came out of her mouth was the same old roar as always.
After that, she did properly give orders to be on guard and search the surroundings for any remaining accomplices, though.
Just when I thought she was getting to work, she left the matter to those in charge and entered the hut while letting out a displeased voice.
"If you had the leeway to set a trap, you should have said so!"
"Huh? How did you know I set a trap?"
Playing it off as if I had simply been hiding in the shadows, I deactivated the optical camouflage and asked.
General Wageris immediately brought the light closer and checked that I was uninjured.
"Hah. Walking away completely unharmed despite being outnumbered while protecting a charge—this isn't how someone who took a surprise attack would look."
"You really are sharp when it comes to that sort of thing, and yet..."
"What?"
It seemed her mind only worked for the actual business of fighting.
I wonder if she'll listen properly to the precautions I need to tell her after this?
I want to make as much effective use of these assassins as possible.
Having caught grown adults like this, I found myself a little worried.
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