Marauders at the Gate

Just as the Gatefront Inn came into view, we encountered some soldiers of the count’s army who had just returned from patrol.

“Ah, Zenacchi!”

“Lilio! And Iona and Lou, too!”

Finishing up their roll call in the plaza in front of the main gate, Zena’s three escorts came over to us.

They must have fought another wyvern or something, because Iona and the others had scratches all over their heavy armor. The large-framed woman called Lou was missing one of her shoulder pads.

Rushing over to them, Zena hurriedly began to cast a healing spell with her Wind Magic.

“Master, I’ll go ahead and bring our baggage inside.”

“All right, thanks.”

Arisa and the beastfolk girls split up at the entrance of the inn, heading toward the room and the barn respectively.

Since Zena couldn’t talk while she was chanting the healing spell, I spoke to Lilio and the others in her stead.

“Looks like you had a rough time. Did you run into another wyvern?”

“If wyverns showed up that often, I’d have quit being a soldier by now.” Lilio shook her head and sighed. So that kind of gesture is the same here as it is in Japan.

“No, today we had an encounter with a monster called a giant fanged ant.”

“Damn that rat bastard! If I see its lousy face again, I’ll make roasted skewers out of it!”

Iona supplemented Lilio’s statement, and Lou chimed in confusingly.

So was it an ant or a rat? I wish they’d be clear about this.

Noticing my puzzled expression, Iona clarified further.

“Before we ran into a pack of giant fanged ants, we happened to see a ratman cavalryman invading our territory. Lou thinks that he may have been the one who led the ant monsters to us, hence her anger.”

So the ratman had used a technique called “mob training” in MMORPGS—grabbing the attention of monsters and leading them toward other players.

Seemed like the kind of move that could lead to war between Seiryuu County and the ratmen.

But was it really all right for them to tell an outsider these things? Maybe that kind of discipline was lax around here, or the Shiga Kingdom didn’t put enough emphasis on information control.

“He was wearing a distinctive red helmet, so if I catch him, I’ll bring him straight to the gallows!”

The completion of Zena’s healing Wind Magic spell interrupted Lilio’s blustering.

“Thanks, Zenacchi.”

“You’re welcome.”

Zena smiled warmly at the trio as they thanked her, then turned her attention to healing the other wounded soldiers.

“Aaah!”

A young girl’s scream arose from the courtyard of the inn.

Shoot, I forgot my radar was still zoomed in.

That was little Yuni’s voice. She probably just saw a snake or something, but it still worried me, so I headed toward the source. For whatever reason, Lilio and company followed me.

“Gotchaaa!”

“Master! Look what we did, sir!”

Tama came racing toward us, carrying something in both hands above her head. Next to her, Pochi held a slim piece of firewood in one hand.

The three soldiers drew their swords in unison.

Alarmed by the sudden bloodthirst directed toward them, Pochi and Tama stopped in their tracks.

“Don’t worry, it’s dead,” I told the soldiers as an AR pop-up confirmed this information. Then I turned to Tama. “Where did that ant come from?”

Yes, the prey that Tama was carrying toward us was the corpse of a giant flying ant.

“We beat iiit!”

“It jumped down at us from the top of a carriage, sir!”

The two flailed excitedly as they answered my question.

The dead ant, which Tama tossed to the ground, was covered with dents that suggested it had been hit with a blunt object and had a hole in its head where Liza must have stabbed it with her spear.

“Master, there do not seem to be any others lurking about.”

Carrying her spear over her shoulders, Liza appeared with a report. Yuni was close behind her.

Clearly frightened, the trembling little girl was clinging to Liza’s overcoat.

Hmm…the variety is a little different, but could this be related to the enemies the soldiers fought?

The range of my radar’s Enemy Detection was relatively narrow, so I opened up my map to check the forest that spread outside the main gate.

…Red. The red dots of light that signified enemies were approaching from within the forest in countless numbers.

“Pochi, Tama, go and fetch your short swords. Arisa, bring Lulu here. Liza, grab the tent that we used to make the bed in the barn.”

“Yes, sir!”

“’kay!”

“Okay.”

“Certainly, sir.”

At my instructions, the four of them promptly ran off. I thought Arisa, if not the beastfolk girls, would ask me why, but she simply did as I requested.

Surprised by my sudden actions, Iona looked at me uncertainly.

“Did something happen?”

“A giant flying ant like this would never act on its own. Most likely, more will follow. You should send out as many scouts as possible…”

I was proud of the explanation I’d created with my “Fabrication” skill, but before I could even finish my statement, an alarm sounded from one of the guard towers of the city’s outer wall.

They must have sighted the ants approaching.

I watched as Zena and the soldiers all rushed over to gather near their commander.

The landlady of the inn and her daughter, Martha, both peered outside as well, looking anxious. With Liza gone, Yuni had started clinging to my leg instead, so I ushered her over to them.

As far as I could tell from the information on my map, the giant flying ants were only around level 3. On their own, they would be much weaker than the well-armed soldiers of the count’s forces, only about as strong as a normal human adult.

However, these giant flying ants had sharp claws and an outer shell much harder than that of an ordinary ant. And on top of that, they could fly. That was more than enough to make them a threat to ordinary humans.

My first thought was to just rush out of the city and use Fire Shot to roast them while they were still airborne, but the flying-type monsters were faster than I expected; by the time I had made up my mind, the ants had already reached the city walls.

The horde of insects aimed to fly straight over the wall into the city at first, only to quickly change their trajectory and wheel away at the last second, like a bird that’s just noticed a glass window in front of it.

A few of them didn’t turn fast enough and crashed into something above the wall. Even the ants that avoided crashing seemed to have a hard time flying, and as they slowed, the soldiers on the city wall quickly shot them down.

What was that?

“Looks like the anti-monster barrier above the wall is working quite well.”

Arisa had returned with Lulu at some point while I was distracted, and she resolved my confusion as if she’d read my mind.

“But they got through, didn’t they?”

“Well, it isn’t Space Magic. It would take too much magic power to keep a barrier there like a physical wall at all times.”

But didn’t the barrier at the Valley of Dragons give me some physical resistance? …No, that wasn’t important right now.

“Arisa, you and Lulu take refuge inside the tavern. Stone walls on three sides’ll surround you, so it should be safe there. I’ll have Pochi and Tama protect the entrance, so don’t worry.”

I gave Arisa her instructions, then, once Pochi and Tama returned with their short swords, I stationed them right outside the inn. I used a desk and the tent that Liza had brought back to create a barricade, just in case the ants invaded.

“Pochi and Tama, please protect the entrance.”

“Yes, sir!”

“What about yooou?”

“Liza and I will drive away any monsters that come near the inn.”

People who had been working outside the city came rushing in through the gate. It looked as though some of them were injured.

Meanwhile, the count’s army was getting into formation in front of the gate. Zena was using defensive magic to protect them from above, but it seemed like the number of people was making it more difficult.

After the last straggler, a dog-person slave carrying a large, heavy-looking basket, the main gates slowly began to close.

Like an ill-mannered jerk who rushes onto the train after the doors started to close, a single ant jammed itself in through the closing gate.

“It’s just one monster! Crush it with the gates!”

From inside the guard station by the gate, the voice of the knight Sir Thorne rang out, yelling at the gatekeepers.

But it wasn’t just one ant anymore.

In the brief moment that the gates stopped closing, another ant, and then another, started to thrust themselves through the gap, widening it until the ants behind them were able to break in to the city.

Along with Zena, the troops who had only just returned from patrol began to intercept the ant invasion.

Zena’s Fallen Hammer spell struck down the ones that tried to take wing upon entering the city; Lilio and the others used crossbows to fell those that escaped her magic.

Wary of the crossbowmen and Zena’s magic, the remaining ants stopped trying to fly.

A ground-based battle was more advantageous for the count’s army, but the number of ants was a problem.

A dozen or so managed to get around the troops and started to attack Liza and me. The nearby stores, too, of course.

“Master, please leave this to me.”

Liza swung her black spear toward the ants. Lunge, parry, strike—she took out ant after ant with a single blow to each.

Some of them flew at a low altitude toward the horses in the courtyard, so I took them out by shooting pennies at them.

Hmm, this is a little too easy.

With a bit more ingenuity, I felt like I could even hit an enemy that was behind cover.

While I was distracted by coming up with such unnecessary tricks, I neglected to keep an eye on Liza’s situation, and a few ants started to get close to the Gatefront Inn.

“We won’t let you pass, sirs!”

“No entryyy!”

Pochi and Tama stood squarely in the path of the several ants that were trying to invade the inn.

From inside the inn, I heard people screaming as they saw the ants up close.

“Take this, sir!”

Pochi pulled out the two short swords hanging readily at her waist and struck down the leading ant with a single attack.

As soon as she landed, two other ants brought their claws down toward her from either side—

“Your guard’s dooown!”

Tama hopped onto Pochi’s back, using her short sword and buckler to stave off the attacks.

“Thank you, Tama!”

“Don’t worry—be happyyy!”

Where had she learned that—? Oh, it must have been Arisa.

As the ants drew back their claws, Tama whirled through the air, impaling the one on the left with her short sword.

The recoil sent Pochi flying to the ground, but she sprang back up in seconds, piercing through the head of the ant on the right with her blade.

The little warriors defeated all three ants in the blink of an eye, earning them some reluctant praise from inside the inn.

In less than a half hour, nearly all the ants in the plaza had been exterminated.

There were a few close calls like the one Pochi had, but there were also times when an ant would suddenly freeze unnaturally in place or start spurting blood from its eyes and mouth.