152 A Golem Can Swap Its Back and Belly

 

「Um, Remonde-san. I get that this skill is terrifying depending on how it’s used, but, uh…」

「What is it, pipsqueak?」

「It’s kinda plain, isn’t it?」

「Eh?」

「I mean, compared to something like [Garou] or [Messenger of the Mine], it just doesn’t have the same flair, you know?」

「You…!」

It seemed certain that Remonde—and by extension, the Elves as a whole—harbored some rivalry toward the Werewolves and Dwarves. She bit her lip, unable to refute Angelina’s words. Was it just my imagination, or were her eyes starting to glisten a little?

「I know that! That’s why I’ve been trying to compensate with presentation…! When Altora and the others staged that fake arson, all I could do was time my entrance right. If I stayed too long, I’d blow my cover, so I had no choice but to cut it short…!」

She clearly felt some inferiority complex toward the Werewolf girl who could become a golden wolf, or those Dwarves who could manipulate the earth with mystic grandeur and heroism.

「Still, it’s powerful.」

「No denying that. As long as the enemy’s alive, it practically guarantees victory. Actually, now that I think about it, this skill’s potential for rice cultivation is insane. For example, rice diseases are usually treated with pesticides, right? But those are also toxic to the rice itself. With this skill, you could tweak the potency just enough to kill the disease with a tiny dose, then neutralize the rest. As collateral, it’s more than good enough, right?」

「Very well. I’ll lend you the skill. The question is, what skill?」

「You’ve got a whole set of escape-oriented skills, right? Lend those to the Elves. If you’re also willing to get the back-alley folks out, I’ll take them with me.」

「…No. Just escaping won’t be enough. I want to give them some combat skills, too.」

「That’s quite the change of tune.」

A speed-boosting skill like [Flash Step] or a danger-detection skill like [Scout’s Intuition] should’ve sufficed—or so I’d thought.

But that assumption was overturned by what came through one of the detection skills I’d kept up to monitor the knights and soldiers.

「I’m sensing monsters. I can’t pinpoint the exact location, but there’s a sizeable enough group heading toward Fathie that even I can feel it from this far.」

「Say what!?」

Remonde hurried to the window without hiding his alarm. I didn’t think the monsters would be visible from this distance, but she wasn’t looking for them.

She was looking for smoke signals relayed through the mountain range’s intermediary posts.

「Four red columns…!」

「That’s signal code. What does it mean?」

「‘Danger to Fathie. High level.’」

「What kind of situation would that imply?」

「Four red columns mean monster control failed and some spilled into the Fathie side. But the Elves we sent were well-trained and thoroughly prepared. Even if something went wrong, it shouldn’t have been enough to cause a full-blown stampede in this direction.」

「Then the Narshe army and the knights must’ve done something.」

「That’s the only explanation. To cover their tracks by letting monsters devour the whole city… Those bastards are insane…!」

Their objective was clear.

The Narshe government wanted to bury the truth of their war of aggression using drugs. And nothing covers up evidence quite like a rampaging horde of monsters.

「If there are elderly, children, and the sick, they’ll never outrun the threat. Someone who can fight has to stay behind and delay the monsters.」

「Like I said earlier, the Elves don’t have warriors. Even if you lend them strong skills, they won’t be able to make use of them.」

「So that just leaves Gelli and Skill Lender-san as fighters… Not nearly enough.」

If we could reach the dungeon from which the monsters were spilling out, we could cut off the source. But while that was happening, someone had to hold back the monsters approaching the city. And that alone wasn’t enough.

If the monsters didn’t arrive, the knights and Narshe army would simply resume their campaign of capturing Elves and razing the slums to the ground.

We needed someone to tackle the dungeon, someone to intercept the monsters, and someone to defend the city from the army and knights.

At a minimum, we needed that many people.

「Hmm. Maybe we should just give up on some of it and throw everything we’ve got at the dungeon raid. Still, let’s think a bit more, Skill Lender-san. The Emesmes family has a saying: ‘A golem can swap its back and belly’」

「Golems don’t care which side is front or back, sure. …Wait, what does that even mean?」

「It means that when you’re at the end of your rope—when it feels like there’s no other way—you have to stay flexible in your thinking.」

It was a very Emesmes philosophy—making the impossible possible. Easier said than done, of course.

But then, the potential ‘back’ we might swap had just shown up. From outside came a voice I knew well—and didn’t care to hear.

「I know you’re in there, Marge!!!」

「…Altora?」

「If we could swap it out, that’s a back I’d rather not use.」

The voice belonged to the familiar blonde I’d just seen at midday, now tussling with the Vehl family guards who were trying to keep him away from the inn. Gordon and Eria were with him, too.

「Should we send him packing?」

「No. Let’s bring him in.」

「Gelli doubts Pervert-san will be any use in a crisis like this.」

「We’ve already considered everything that might be useful. Time to consider the stuff that might not.」

「Makes sense. Understood.」

「…And, well, there’s something I want to ask him. We can release the suggestion from the grunts, too.」

I dispelled the mental suggestion from the Vehl Family grunts, allowing Altora’s group inside. The three of them were surprised to see Remonde there, but Altora immediately launched into a rapid-fire rant, as if he couldn’t spare even a second.

「A huge pack of monsters is swarming down from somewhere in the mountains toward Fathie! The Narshe army’s turned against us too—at this rate, the back alley’s gonna be crushed between ‘em and turned into cinders!」

「I’m aware. The monsters are coming from a dungeon. Angelina’s helping the residents escape, and I’ll be heading in to clear it.」

「R-Right. But what about the city? Even if you clear the dungeon, the monsters and the army aren’t gonna vanish. The whole place’ll be razed to the ground!」

The one who answered Altora’s protest wasn’t me, but Remonde. Her icy shackles were gone, and she was calmly giving orders to her lackeys who had come in with Altora’s group—facing reality head-on.

「It’s all about priorities, Altora Carmancy. We’re abandoning the city. And you should too.」

She spoke with resolve, but Altora wouldn’t accept it. He was clearly no longer the grinning pushover from earlier in the day. He glared at Remonde, full of outrage.

「And you’re okay with that, Remonde!? The city you controlled until today is just gonna be wiped out like it was nothing!?」

「Whining doesn’t help. Even a brat can do that. Got any bright ideas?」

「There’s still an S-Rank party, isn’t there!? If the Divine Silver Sword gets back in shape, we can take on monsters or soldiers, no problem!!」

Slamming his own chest with one hand, Altora made his plea with desperation etched across his face.

He was asking—no, demanding—to be given a skill.

Koe-san looked at him with a calm, frigid stare.

「We can’t trust him. Have you already forgotten what you did to us?」

TN: The whole back and stomach thing in the chapter is a pun based on the Japanese proverb 「背に腹は代えられぬ」 (“You can’t sacrifice your stomach to save your back”—meaning you have to endure some hardship to avoid a greater one, or sacrifice lesser things for the sake of something more important).