“Do not stop! Keep moving forward!”
With Melinda in the lead, I stormed into the building with the other mercenaries.
“Kill them!”
Ordinarily, the right answer was not to accept this kind of tracking and rescue assignment without solid clues.
Putting aside the fighting, even following the trail was not easy without a proper hunter or mercenary with an investigator’s background.
If I had not had solid clues either, I would have had no choice but to use the half-burned remains of the mercenaries’ corpses as leads, asking here and there about the perpetrators’ whereabouts and wasting time.
But I did not need to do that. I had received this assignment too.
It was an assignment written vaguely on the board as one that needed a little muscle, with the client telling you the target when you met them in person.
I had not merely considered this assignment. I had even met the client, the young blacksmith, and spoken with him.
To account for the last possibility, I had even waited briefly in front of his house and eavesdropped on the conversation between the young blacksmith and the mercenary. There was no need to doubt who the culprit was.
“Hup!”
I stabbed the startled mercenary in front of me to death.
I was not the only one. Melinda swung her axe in every direction and cut off a mercenary’s arm, while Iris, Dana, and Jema, who had entered after us, each brought down one enemy.
This was an ambush. The enemies had not had time to put on their armor or even fully draw their weapons.
Mercenaries below a certain level were armor racks and weapon racks. A mercenary who could not grab his weapon and armor was no different from a living, moving scarecrow.
“A-an attack! Everyone, move!”
I turned my head and looked at the mercenary who had not fallen into a panic.
‘The captain!’
The stance in which he held his drawn sword was not ordinary. Unlike the other mercenaries, that bastard, the captain of this mercenary company, was a proper warrior.
‘I will have to take him on.’
No matter how many enemies there were, enemies who panicked and floundered without even properly gripping their weapons could not injure my allies.
But if I gave that mercenary captain time, it would not have been strange for him to cut off Anna’s or Jema’s head within minutes.
“Insolent bastard.”
I immediately drew my sword and swung it at the captain. But he smoothly diverted my strike.
“Crude.”
“Even so, I think I can beat someone like you.”
The first variable. An enemy I needed to invest sufficient time to kill.
Of course, he wore no more than leather armor, while I wore proper metal armor.
He had to strike my weak point at the perfect moment to inflict even minimal damage, while I could deal a certain level of damage wherever I hit.
Considering that the difference in our skill was not so great, I would ultimately win if the fight dragged on. The chance of me being injured was not high either.
“Why not die quickly? Or surrender. I do not want to drag this out for no reason.”
“I will cut off your head and take that armor far beyond your station!”
But even if I swung my sword with all my strength, I did not think I could bring him down easily. That alone was already a bad variable.
Then misfortune piled on top of it.
“Aaaaaaaargh!!!”
A wild roar rang out. I could not believe my ears. Melinda froze.
“A-an, uh…… An orc?”
An orc holding a greatly curved sword rushed out of another room. This was also an unexpected variable.
‘It is possible…… but!’
Orcs were fundamentally enemies of humans. They usually lived by gathering with other orcs to plunder and take everything in sight.
But among them, a very small number of orcs were socialized. They lived mixed into human society.
Most were slaves, and the rest became laborers or mercenaries. They could not find proper employment.
Even so, an orc separated from such a group was uncommon. I had not anticipated even this.
“Ah, ugh, uh. No…….”
Melinda panicked.
But my mercenary company was far too strong to collapse over a problem of this degree.
“Melinda, hold on! Think of your daughter!!!”
I shouted to calm her. I had not exchanged many words with Melinda, but I could tell that she was gradually relying on me.
That much shouting would not completely erase her fear, but it would let her hold her position for a brief moment.
“Dana, Song of Courage!”
“Yes!”
Dana was the strongest bard. She was a person who could fulfill without exception the role a mercenary company expected from a bard. She was a bard who would never be discarded or replaced until the moment my mercenary company fell apart.
Though she was not of much help in battle just yet, that was only because she had not learned many songs.
As long as she could sing the needed song at the needed moment, she could produce tremendous effects, just as she had performed a miracle in the fight against the Man-Eating Spider.
Melinda’s weakness, her Orc Phobia, was certainly a fatal problem. But it was not a problem my mercenary company, with Dana in it, could not handle.
It was a problem that would be solved with one song.
“Awaken, you who have a lion’s heart—”
Dana sang. But the song needed a little time to take effect.
Only five seconds. But Melinda was exposed to the orc’s attack, frozen in place and unable to do anything.
“GRAAAH! I’ll kill youuu!!!"
The orc’s curved sword came down toward her.
“Aaaaaah!”
Melinda screamed. Because I was holding swords against the mercenary captain in front of me, I could not see what happened next.
Soon, the sound made by the curved sword rang out. A CLANG as weapon struck armor.
“Huh?”
Melinda’s bewildered voice reached me. I let out a sigh of relief.
‘Of course……!’
An orc separated from its group was generally a weak orc.
Because orc society was one where strength decided everything, the very fact that an orc had been driven out proved that it was not strong.
It was still incomparably stronger than an ordinary human, but it was woefully weak compared to real orcs encountered on a battlefield.
Moreover, a curved sword was not suited to stabbing an armor’s weak points or delivering impact to the enemy inside the armor.
Of course, an orc’s strength could instantly cut down a lightly armored enemy with powerful slashing force, but Melinda’s armor was different.
It was dwarven armor. Armor that would not be damaged even by the attack of an orc chieftain.
Considering that the one wearing it was the dwarf Melinda, there was no way she could fail to withstand a mere single attack.
She could endure it.
“Melinda, get to my side! Now!”
But there was no need to make Melinda face the orc she feared.
I had roughly assessed the orc’s ability just now. If I faced it, I could kill it easily.
Melinda would not last long against the mercenary captain either, but at least she would not die in an instant.
I only needed to switch positions briefly, deal with the orc, and then face the mercenary captain again.
“Yes!”
What I had not expected was that Melinda obeyed the order more quickly than I thought she would.
I thought she would hesitate longer. We had not trained thoroughly to coordinate with each other, we had not built up enough trust, and I thought she was still suffering from Orc Phobia.
But Melinda, who had just taken the orc’s attack without trouble, was relieved. Dana’s song had instilled courage in her on a far greater scale than I predicted.
That created a variable. Melinda’s charge came far more swiftly and rapidly than I thought,
far more quickly than the mercenary captain standing before me thought as well.
“Hup!”
The mercenary captain who had been trading swords with me hurriedly changed his stance and dodged Melinda’s charge.
It was common sense. A dwarf in armor charging with all her strength was no different from a heavy lump of iron rolling toward you.
If it hit, one or two bones might break from that alone, and at the very least, it would knock you down. Avoiding it was the sensible, safe choice.
But the mercenary captain had been fighting me. Forgetting that fact was an exceedingly foolish act.
“Hey. You need to show this side some respect too.”
Looking away from someone who could cut you down at any moment was foolish.
Of course, I had looked away from the mercenary captain to check Melinda’s condition too, but I wore top-grade armor. I could not be killed in a single strike, so I had room to spare.
But the mercenary captain did not wear armor that thick.
“Urk!”
There was a gap in his armor around the neck. I did not miss the opportunity.
The mercenary captain, who might have endured for several minutes, perhaps more than ten, if he had only watched my sword, collapsed to the ground with blood pouring from his neck.
“That is enough, Melinda. Charge!”
After sending Melinda at him, I immediately ran toward the orc in excitement.
“Captain, dead! Dead!!!”
“Yes, I killed him.”
With a blood-tinged smile, I lightly avoided the orc’s wildly swinging curved sword.
“An uneducated orc.”
The orc’s attack just now had been too large a movement. It was a posture that could lead neither to defense nor evasion.
Such an attack had to hit the enemy.
At the very least, it had to strike the armor and deliver impact. And if it missed, it had to force a certain level of expenditure from the enemy.
For example, making the enemy evade the attack with a large movement while accepting that their posture would be badly broken, or making them retreat far back to create distance.
This time, it had done neither. The orc had no choice but to pay the price.
“Graaagh!”
The orc screamed and collapsed. My sword split its neck in two.
When I looked around, it did not seem any allies had been injured elsewhere either.
It was a one-sided ambush. Armored allies had rushed in first to massacre enemies who had not even put on their armor or taken hold of their weapons.
We could not help but win.
“Ugh, where……?”
“Is this a dream? Why is the captain dead?”
Enemies who were thoroughly drunk appeared wielding broken liquor bottles as weapons. They were too pitiful even to kill, so I kicked them unconscious.
“P-please spare me! I was wrong! The captain ordered everything!”
“I-I was forced to join the mercenary company! They said they would kill me if I refused to become a mercenary! I was not even paid wages! Please, pleeease!”
Some mercenaries threw down their weapons and begged to be spared. I did not go out of my way to kill them. They would make good additional income.
My mercenary company continued hunting the enemies. A fair number of mercenaries remained, but they died under my sword, Melinda’s axe, and Iris’s spear.
“I think…… we have brought them all down.”
Iris reported between ragged breaths. The entire building reeked of blood. We had brought down a considerable number of mercenaries, and the captured mercenaries trembled as they watched my mercenary company.
I roughly wiped the blood from my sword on a corpse’s clothes and gave the order.
“Search this place from top to bottom! We can collect the money later, so find hidden enemies and the hostage!”
After finding the basement, we brought down every mercenary hiding there as well. It did not take long.
Then we finally found our target.
Heaps of ingots, and the armor and gold coins that had just been stolen from Melinda’s smithy.
And someone more precious than all of that to someone else.
“Meri…… Mother is here. Mother…….”
“M-mother?”
We found Melinda’s daughter. The two had a touching reunion.
I watched the scene with a faint smile.