Chapter 192. Decoy (2)
A battlefield wind blew gently for a moment.
With a nonchalant expression, as if the gazes of the surrounding squad members meant nothing, Lien took a step closer, still holding my wrist.
Then, she quietly moved her lips from my ear and glanced back at me.
“Does that wound have to be made?”
“Yes. It can't be helped.”
Lien’s blue-silver eyes, which had been quietly watching me in the faint darkness, narrowed coldly.
I shook my head and added calmly.
“But this time is different from before.”
I added, glancing at Lily who was waiting with her magic gear clutched as instructed.
“A healer from The Order will be helping.”
Of course, there was also the emergency ampoule from the Holy Séjour that Saintess Amelia had provided. But I wanted to save that as much as possible unless it was a truly necessary situation.
That said, I couldn't have a healer from The Order like Lily, who had no combat ability, constantly on standby nearby during a fiercely unfolding battle.
If so, this would be the best option.
“I promise you for certain, I will get the wound treated as soon as this luring is over.”
As soon as my confirmation ended, shouts and explosions were heard from the front line.
The sound of the freelancers' desperate resistance shaking the ground, and the horizon dyed with the light of mana as magic circles drove away the darkness.
Beyond that, the hordes of magical beasts, filling the ground in black, advanced.
Even at this very moment, the battle situation was becoming more urgent by the second. I added calmly.
“There's no more time for long explanations.”
I whispered calmly.
“It's okay, right, Lien.”
Lien looked back with cold eyes.
“You surely know that it's dangerous. Is there a reason you must step forward?”
“Because you’ll be by my side anyway.”
For a moment, Lien’s breath caught slightly.
“……!”
For a while, Lien stared at me with wide eyes, clutching the apron of her maid uniform tightly.
Between the strands of her silver bangs that slightly covered her eyes, Lien’s blue-silver eyes wavered with a single tremor.
“You, what… those words he said, how….”
I widened my eyes slightly.
It wasn't out of surprise. It was just that Lien showing this kind of reaction again felt new.
As I calmly faced her, still perplexed by her incomprehensible reaction, the silver-haired maid momentarily turned her gaze to the side as if to sort out her confused thoughts.
“…You resemble the Young Master. To a strange degree.”
For a moment, I narrowed my eyes.
It was definitely a statement I couldn't just ignore. She had mentioned before that for some reason, I seemed to be becoming more and more like the Enoch of the past.
If so, what kind of person was he? Really.
For a moment, in an illusion as if the image of the past Enoch was shimmering before my eyes, I unconsciously shook my head.
I don't know if I'll ever be able to find out about the past of Lien, who sometimes shows these incomprehensible reactions, and what truth awaits beyond that.
But at the very least, it seemed clear that Lien was a precious person to the Enoch of the past.
To the point where she would be shaken by words he had said.
Lien closed her eyes for a moment, then slowly opened them and gazed at me calmly.
“Fine. For now, I'm just making a rational judgment.”
Lien slowly turned her back and added.
“In a situation like this, talking for a long time would have a higher probability of endangering your life.”
“Right.”
I quietly nodded my head. Indeed, this judgment of Lien’s was surely not just because I reminded her of him from the past.
Of course, there might be the option of Lien participating directly and resolving the matter.
But she probably chose to watch over my side instead, a very Lien-like choice that focused on ensuring my safety.
In reality, there was no way for me to know her inner thoughts, as she always seemed emotionless, but having acted together until now, I could guess that much.
“…However, know this.”
Just then, Lien’s eyes shone clearly as she added.
“Literally, I will always be by your side.”
Lien’s blue-silver eyes, shining in the white moonlight in the darkness, stared straight at me.
“If the Young Master’s body is truly in danger, I will not hesitate to use any means necessary.”
“There won't be a need for that.”
Lifting my head, I replied quietly.
“At least in this luring, that won't happen.”
In the end, it was time to focus on the task at hand.
Without another word, as I rolled up my sleeve and a sharp rock fragment scraped across my arm, red drops of blood welled up from the wound.
Lily, who was watching from the side, was startled and her eyes widened as she came running from afar, shouting.
“Aah, Direct Lineage Member!! What on earth are you doing now…! Suddenly making a wound with an unsterilized rock!!”
“It's okay, I’m going to lure the magical beasts. I'll ask for treatment when it's all over.”
I explained calmly and lifted my arm.
The blood of Elsyde, which in the original story might have had some hidden backstory.
But for now, I would simply use even such incomplete information, based on the certain facts I knew, to fit my own purpose.
“Sirocco.”
I swiped two fingers through the blood flowing down my arm, then held them out to Sirocco.
“Smear my blood on your body. You should be able to lure them.”
Sirocco stared at the blood on my hand, checked the wound, and perked her ears once.
“You know. Does that, not hurt?”
“It's bearable.”
Sirocco approached me as I replied nonchalantly, stared at the hand stained with red blood, and then grabbed it.
Then, she brought my palm to her white cheek, closed her eyes gently, and rubbed against it.
“O-oh my!”
For a moment, I saw Lily, beside me, blush and bring both hands to her mouth.
At Sirocco’s willful but cute action, I stared at her for a moment.
“Hey, you…….”
On Sirocco’s soft, white skin that fit in one hand, two red lines from the blood on my fingers were drawn.
Sirocco, now looking like a girl about to go on a hunt, smiled brightly with her small face cupped in my palm.
“Well, this should do it, right?”
Then she stepped back, wagged her tail once, spun around, and laughed cheerfully.
“Alright. With this, we’re ready!”
But then Sirocco, as if remembering something, tilted her head and looked back at me with a worried expression, asking.
“But, are you going to be okay?”
I smiled faintly and said.
“Don't worry about my side. Someone else will be with me.”
“With you, who?”
At Sirocco’s question, I glanced at my back.
Indeed, this time I couldn't use the sword in the cloth bag on my back. To be precise, this plan wasn't designed with that in mind. From the start, I was confident I could do it without drawing the sword.
And the underlying reason for that was just one thing.
I turned my head to the side and looked at someone.
“Stay by my side and protect me. Alicia.”
“Hah! Y-yes!!”
Alicia, who was singled out, perhaps not expecting to be called upon so suddenly in this situation, widened her innocent, clear blue eyes and looked up at me.
At that, Sirocco suddenly crossed her arms and stared at the Dragoon girl standing next to her, letting out a humph.
“Hmph~, so this is the new female?”
But whether she didn't notice Sirocco's somewhat displeased, narrowed eyes, Alicia suddenly bowed her head deeply and politely to her.
“Ah, yes! P-please take good care of me!!”
Sirocco, who had been staring at her for a while, lifted her head slightly and whipped it to the side.
“…Hmph. Fine, I get it. I saw you were strong anyway. That should be enough.”
“Yes! Please leave it to me!”
Alicia said with determination, raising the Bombardment Lance she held in one hand to the sky.
“Although this is temporary, the Direct Lineage Member is someone who my master said he received help from! I will absolutely not let him get hurt!”
“Alright, but I will absolutely not lose to you!”
In response, the wolf-eared girl, perking up her tail, turned her back sharply and declared boldly.
“I’ll be the most helpful!”
Sirocco lifted her head high and shouted.
“Well then, here I go!”
The moment Sirocco lifted her slender yet full bare legs from under her short skirt fluttering in the night wind and kicked off the ground as if to stomp on it.
A red light wrapped around Sirocco's ankles as she soared into the air with a powerful backdraft, rushing forward.
In front of everyone looking up, she leaped forward, cutting across the night sky like a meteor splitting it in two.
Watching her receding back, I turned and signaled to the other squad members.
“We’ll move out too. We need to move quickly.”
“Yep, got it-ssumda!”
Nano, who was right beside me, replied energetically, then gently stroked the drone floating next to her, emitting a clear blue light, and said.
“So, Direct Lineage Member, what should we do? I’ll do my best to support you with Bzz-Bzz with all my might-ssumda!”
“Good. Then I’ll quickly state the plan.”
I nodded. There was a tactic I had been thinking about since earlier. This was also a plan that required the skills of all squad members.
Without a doubt, that would be the best choice I could make in the current situation.
After briefly looking up at the night sky full of dark clouds, I slowly opened my mouth and began to explain.
Of course, as always, there was no guarantee that this was the definitive right answer.
But even in a world like this, where one couldn't see an inch ahead and not a single wrong answer was allowed.
I would, without fail, only move toward the right answer I believed in.
***
A chilly wind was now blowing over the battlefield.
The ground was on fire due to the fierce battle, and on the plains that had been scorched by the impact of rock pillars, only corpses remained in the magical beasts' path of advance.
In the middle of the plain where the bodies of the fallen magical beasts were rapidly turning into black ash and crumbling away, a spectacular scene unfolded, as if black snow was slowly rising to the sky.
TAAAAAANG!!
Just then, a sniper round dyed in pink light pierced the darkness and streaked across the sky once.
In an instant, it exploded high in the air, scattering the light of mana. With that dazzling light at the center, a wind suddenly whipped up and began to race across the plains.
HWIOOOOOO!!
The humid midnight wind swept up the black ash.
It turned into a gale and blew toward the magical beasts that were thoroughly advancing toward the defensive line established by the freelancer corps.
And in that moment, something mixed in that wind caused an anomaly to occur among the magical beasts.
- Kiririririririk!!
The smell of blood. A strong smell of blood.
As if shouting in unison, the green lights leaking from between the carapaces of the experimental magical beasts all glowed at once, dyeing the darkness.
There was no mistake.
The scent of blood that they absolutely had to pursue.
It was a smell of blood ingrained into their biological information as a mission more powerful than anything else, in their twisted bodies that had been mutated into magical beasts.
Where is it, where is it.
The moment the magical beasts that had been advancing a little away from the leader all flinched, their senses on high alert, and stopped in their tracks.
“…It’s working.”
At the voice heard from the top of the hill next to the plain they were advancing on, the faces of all those magical beasts turned.
The smell of blood was also coming from there.
Just in time, as the dark clouds in the night sky parted, and the faint moonlight began to color the battlefield.
“I was waiting.”
On the black plain, on the high ground of the dark battlefield.
There, a black-haired boy walked out of the darkness, slowly revealing himself.
I smiled faintly as I looked down at the scene spread out below the hill.
The gamble I had attempted.
As if to prove that the one bet I had made with the incomplete knowledge of the original story had worked, I looked down at the magical beasts that had all stopped in their tracks and slowly opened my mouth.
“I would appreciate it if you would pursue me with all your might.”
I whispered quietly to them.
“That way, I’ll be able to find out just how close you've gotten to the original.”
As soon as the words were finished, the roars of the experimental magical beast horde, as if to fill the vast plains and forest, echoed as they looked up at me standing alone in the darkness.
The next moment.
- Kiriririririk!!
The massive horde of magical beasts that had covered the ground in black scattered in all directions and began to launch a life-or-death pursuit towards me.