The Loner Who Conquers the Other World
chapter-238

Day 61 – Daytime, Narrogi Town

As I thought, the most effective and economically sound strategy to minimize damages from banditry is to cause damages to bandits and thoroughly plunder them. Such a perfectly logical economic approach. Yup, it’s perfect.

「Are there any super rich bandits with tons of female underlings? How about we just go directly to them to get attacked? No decent bandits are showing up, and all of them are middle-aged men! I was raising such a massive number of flags for sexy female assassins but all I got is an even larger number of middle-aged men! What is this? Just how far is this infinite middle-aged men world spreading? Back in the frontier there was nothing but middle-aged men too, don’t tell me that the entire kingdom is nothing but middle-aged men?」

「First of all, since you are guarding me, please don’t be so assertive and happy to get attacked, much less, don’t go out of your way to proactively get assaulted. What is the meaning of going to the enemy camp to get attacked? Doesn’t that mean that you are the one attacking them? Why would a bodyguard be taking his escort target to assault an enemy camp? Aren’t you simply rearing to rob them with no intention of protecting me? Aren’t you just using me as a decoy? Or rather, as bait? What was a guard’s job again?」

This world is behind the times. Grasping the business chance (getting assaulted by bandits) is all about first come, first served. That’s right, in the modern competitive world『Kill before the others do!』is common sense, you know? If you keep waiting, others will take the initiative and it will become impossible to catch up with them, it’s all over if the front runner manages to get away with the lead. It was written in the financial newspaper that was wrong on almost everything, so it has to be true.

「This town has no eating places left, so let’s have dinner outside? The town is swarming with middle-aged men, so I really don’t want to eat here? I hate the thought so much that I’m ready to roast the town’s middle-aged men instead of BBQ! Alright, let’s have BBQ tonight?」

There are no movements among the people still spying on us. If they are merely looking from afar then they are not much different from innocent stalkers or peepers. Now that I think about it, that sounds sort of suspect, or rather, criminal, but regardless of whether they are guilty or not, they are still middle-aged men. That alone is basically a crime, so nothing changes. Be it monsters or middle-aged men, I can just sweep them if they get in the way.

Dungeons apparently don’t spawn as frequently outside the frontier, and there is no Evil Forest around, so it should be alright outside. There are also ordinary monsters from which materials can be extracted, unlike those in the frontier that spawn from highly-concentrated mana, but their numbers are overwhelmingly small. Since they don’t spawn spontaneously, hunting them prevents them from multiplying.

「This is a pumpkin pie-san, highly recommended by the people whose horizontal growth won’t stop but who are unable to control themselves regardless, so please don’t blame me if collaboration with pumpkin chips will accelerate your growth too? It’s delicious though? Have a whole lot? Kind of?」

「「Thank you very much, we’ll gladly try it.」」

And the gist of what they told me during the meal is all of the work was for nothing. Looks like the culprits weren’t the patrols, but nearby mercs, or rather bandits, and small nobles from the neighboring lands that arrived early. That’s why they had neither goods nor gold, in other words, they won’t yield profit!

But this bandit hunt should lessen losses by merchants, and as for that assassin… Tajima-kun? Was that old man sent to get the princess after all? And he was the only assassin? It’s hard to take measures if we don’t understand what the opponent’s aim is. I was pretty sure someone would come to abduct the princess, and an assassin showed up instead. But the guys in tidy clothes that were giving orders to bandits were trying to take her alive? So there are two factions? White team and red team? I can’t care less which one wins!

However, it wouldn’t be strange to see the army’s scouts, but there are no movements from them, it seems that the only ones acting now are the nobles alliance and the first prince. Then the assassin is from the prince, and kidnappers from the nobles? I wonder which one is white and which one is the red team? Well, doesn’t really matter? Honestly.

Them having no unity or proper chain of command in a way makes them more difficult to handle. Well, for the time being, I guess it’s fine to just crush them as we find them? I’m not very familiar with military affairs, but taking down an enemy commander should probably settle it? Since he is the first prince, he must be the son of the douche king, then it’s probably the douchiest guy of them all? But nobles are probably pretty douchey too?

「Slime-san, you might get『Douche』skill if you eat a noble, so you absolutely shouldn’t do that? I’m quite serious right now!」

(Shake Shake)

Yeah, looks like he doesn’t want any douches either, which includes the skill too. Thank goodness he isn’t interested in eating them. It’s hard to imagine what a douche slime would be like, but I’m glad I won’t have to see it. What if it turned out to be cute?

「What were you planning to do? If your plan is good I might rip it off and use it?」

「I’m planning to stop the army, if it doesn’t work I’ll settle things in a duel, what about it?」

Yeah, I knew it. I wasn’t expecting anything since the moment I heard that Meripapa-san taught her in military affairs and swordsmanship, but as I thought, charge in with an orthodox frontal attack, do you even need an instructor to arrive at that idea? Even our idiots could do that? Or rather, that’s the only thing they can do, so I don’t think you have to learn it? I mean, that’s just running in?

Waiting in this town doesn’t seem fun, it’s basically a ghost town by now, no stores or anything, only empty buildings. According to the map provided by Stalker Girl’s clansmen, if we follow the road to the capital there should be another town. Should we go over there? Well, Royal Girl is definitely not turning back, so there are only two options, wait here or go forward, but what do we do?

「Maid Girl, do you have any of those flying monsters left? It’s not like we have anything better to do, and I wanted to try them, and also walking is a drag? I think I heard that you can fly by using some sort of round bats, don’t you have them anymore?」

「We used them all for infiltration and all of them were confiscated by the frontier’s army. Surely, there are more of them left in the capital, but we have no means to obtain them from here, and please don’t ride them just because you are bored. They are very valuable and expensive.」

Well, it should be fine to just follow Royal Girl from behind. I mean, the slit on the dress is opening as she walks, giving glimpses of her smooth, white thighs! I’d follow those anywhere, but there is a stare on me coming from her shadow? Please come out and then give me a flat gaze, okay?

「Slime-san is also bored, aren’t there any lovely profitable sexy bandit bands around?」

The reply is Flat Gaze! Both from the Royal Girl’s main body and from her shadow! That must be a skill! But waiting for the arrival of the main force, which might still take over 10 days, is too much of a drag. And since their forces are in disarray, and marching here separately, waiting for them to assemble is foolish. Moreover, we have only one aim, the rest doesn’t matter.

Once Armored Pres-san is done with the errand to Murimuri Castle, she should be awaiting Pres and the others while remodeling the Fake Dungeon. We don’t want another force to move into the frontier while I’m away, if we miss them here by accident. And there shouldn’t be any civilians trying to enter a dungeon where a battle is about to break out, that’s why we are preparing a welcome.

But it will take forever for the enemy leader to arrive, so we can crush him. I tried scanning surroundings with『Farsight』but there is only a bunch of horses running far away, they seem to be coming this way though?

「Hey, Royal Girl, do you happen to have acquaintances among horses? There seems to be some running, or rather, galloping this way? There is a huge cloud of dust, so they must be in quite a hurry? They might be running away from something, but what if they are running from themselves and don’t want to be found? Should we pretend we didn’t see anything?」

「Horses? Isn’t there something riding them? Are there flags, or special symbols on the armor? Ceres, my weapons!」

Hmm, they are still pretty far, I can tell that there are some horse-like characters approaching, but……A flag? But that’s… A red diamond……Shingen-san?! [1]

「On a flag-like something there is a red diamond on white background? But there is no furinkazan… Should I make Bishamonten’s helmet in opposition?」 [2]

「A red diamond?! Why would His Excellency Royal Prince be heading to the frontier? Where are they? We must immediately hurry to the rescue, is there a pursuit? His Excellency is currently acting as the regent, it’s unthinkable that he would leave the capital, what could have happened?」

Is that an ally? He is in a serious hurry, so maybe he is being pursued, but the cloud of dust prevents from seeing what’s behind him. But isn’t this country done for if even the acting head of the state is getting attacked? The king collapsed with a sudden illness without picking the crown prince, and is currently unconscious. If the regent is being attacked then it’s either treason or a rebellion.Is that really the time to be attacking the frontier? But even so, the kingdom will fall without magic stones, so they have no other choice but to head to the frontier.

「The guys behind him have no flags, but they are wearing green armor with a white stripe. Hmmm, looks like he is being pursued? But all of them give a strong middle-aged men vibe, even if there are women among them, I don’t want to do anything with such gorilla-like ladies, so would you mind if I incinerate them all together?」

「Deep green armor and a white line, what is a foreign mercenary band doing in the kingdom?! It’s Theocracy’s mercenary unit specialized in fighting beastmen, what is it doing on the kingdom’s lands, and even assaulting the Royal Prince?! This is an act of war!」

Theocracy, in other words, followers of that geezer (god). In that case, no idea about the Royal Prince, but the church is definitely an enemy. Claiming the frontier to be a corrupted land, they provided no support at all, and yet monopolized magic stone processing under bullshit pretext of 『Divine Purification』, fair trade law and antitrust act breaking bastards.

And they are also my personal enemies, claiming to have sealed the villainess, who opposed the god, in the depths of the great dungeon. If they like calling themselves the god’s justice so much, I’ll give them a proper and clean massacre and deliver them all to that white room, to the god that they like so much.

If they say that Angelica-san, who fought with the darkness all by herself for what must’ve been an eternity in the earth’s depths and still resisted until the very end, is evil, then I’m on evil’s side, you know? Yup, such justice (trash) should be incinerated and dumped into that white room on top of that old fart’s (god’s) head. If they like the god so much but are dissatisfied with everyone else, then they should just scram off to his side or wherever, damn pests of this world!

Ah~ should’ve called the geeks too.That’s apparently an anti-beastmen mercenary unit of a lovely Justice (religion) that enslaves and sells off beastmen, claiming them to be tainted animals. I’m sure even after butchering them to the last they still wouldn’t forgive them. After all, they are very big fans of animal ears and hate oppressors and bullies.

Well, I don’t think I’ll be able to leave any for them, so let’s forcibly deport this lot to the geezer. The shipping is PRICELESS? Pay on delivery!

[TL Notes:

[1] Fūrinkazan (Japanese: 風林火山, “Wind, Forest, Fire, Mountain”), is a popularized version of the battle standard used by the Sengoku period daimyō Takeda Shingen. The banner quoted four phrases from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: “as swift as wind, as gentle as forest, as fierce as fire, as unshakable as mountain.”

[2] Bishamonten – In Japan, Bishamonten (毘沙門天), or just Bishamon (毘沙門) is thought of as an armor-clad god of war or warriors and a punisher of evildoers. One of his famous followers was Uesugi Kenshin a rival of Shingen. Many of his followers and others believed him to be the Avatar of Bishamonten, and called Kenshin the “God of War”. So it’s sort of “if you have Takeda we are going with Uesugi” logic on Haruka’s side.