Chapter 193
I spent the entire next day preparing to escape.
Food was running low, so while gathering edible nuts in the sparse forest, I spotted several more unfamiliar monsters.
(Maybe they exist in the "surface world" too.)
The army ants with green carapaces were larger than my body.
The four-armed gibbons leaped from tree to tree at astonishing speed, then eventually moved away warily without attacking me.
Thanks to 【All Creation】, I was able to see through the camouflage of the man-eating mushrooms. They were highly poisonous, so I left them alone.
(Their ecology is completely different.)
During the day, I checked the area around the Subterranean City, and also made a point of checking the direction of the Holy Royal Capital in the "surface world."
It was—nothing but a wasteland.
The barren land had no grass whatsoever; its soil lay exposed, there was almost nowhere to hide, and poisonous marshes were scattered throughout.
(Even if I told the young lady about this, she probably wouldn't believe me.)
After conducting a thorough investigation and gathering the supplies I needed, I returned to Subterranean City.
Apparently, there was little traffic in and out of this city from the outside world. Perhaps because they were confident the Subterranean City could "never be found," there were no guards either, so I had no need to worry about my intrusion being discovered.
There was one problem.
I had completed every preparation for helping the Lef people escape without neglecting a thing. All that remained was to wait until everyone was asleep and launch the escape operation.
So what was the problem?—Who exactly was this so-called vice-captain? According to the captured Sergeant Major, he seemed like a complete piece of trash.
I wanted to confirm it with my own eyes. So I planned to return before lights-out and watch from a distance to see whether the vice-captain came out.
He might be a good man who had deliberately donned the skin of a villain to save his comrades.
And then—there he was.
Thirty minutes before lights-out, I spotted a Lef man wandering around outside, surrounded by three Subterranean soldiers.
"Hee hee hee hee. Oh, I'm terribly sorry! To think that even I would be allowed to have a drink!"
"We definitely need you to investigate the airship technology. The other Dragonkin are too tight-lipped."
"Ah! Those guys are just so stiff, you know, so stiff! You should give them a couple of slaps across the face!"
"You are... No, never mind. As long as you'll talk, that's all that matters."
"Hee hee hee hee! I can't wait to try the alcohol here..."
A good man who had deliberately donned the skin of a villain to save his comrades... Maybe... just maybe... right? The possibility isn't zero, right?
At lights-out, I headed to the izakaya where the four of them, including the vice-captain, had gone in. The cooking hours must have ended, because no smoke was rising from the chimney, and it seemed they were serving food kept warm by residual heat.
"Ha-ha-ha! Drink up, drink up!"
"Hey, miss, come have a drink with us!"
"You bastard, you bumped my shoulder! You moron!"
...The voices I heard were incredibly rowdy—or rather, downright thuggish.
I opened the hatch leading from the rooftop, where I cultivated Maika mushrooms, to the attic. When I climbed down the ladder, I had a good view of the floor through the gaps in the floorboards.
The not-so-spacious interior was crammed with tables and chairs. The drunk Subterraneans' skin had turned a spectacular shade of red.
Perhaps cowed by the menacing atmosphere, the vice-captain hunched in on himself, but he was still happily drinking the beverage poured into his mug—probably something like ale.
"Hey, Vice-Captain-san. You still claiming you're from the 'Lef Magic Empire'?"
A man who looked to be in his mid-thirties, seated beside him, draped an arm around the vice-captain's shoulder.
"Y-yes... That's right."
"None of us has ever heard of any such country, y'know. Don't tell me—you're making a fool of me, are ya?"
"Pffft—n-no, of course not!"
The vice-captain shook his head while spraying ale, but the man's thick arm kept him restrained.
"The other crew members are saying the same thing as I am, aren't they?!"
"Yeah, that's exactly it... That's what's suspicious."
"Huh?!"
"You've all got your stories straight, haven't you?"
"That's not true! Please, have mercy, Centurion-sama."
Centurion... If I remember correctly, that was the rank of someone who commanded a hundred subordinates. That rough-looking man—well, most of the Subterraneans here looked rough—was a fairly high-ranking officer.
The two men who seemed to be his subordinates and had come along were keeping a vigilant eye on the vice-captain to make sure he didn't escape.
"But we ain't got no proof."
"Proof... You mean evidence?"
The vice-captain smiled with a grim look in his eyes.
"Then how about this? Torture one of the crew members. That will tell you whether I'm lying or telling the truth, won't it?"
"...Well, ain't you saying something downright frightening?"
"But without going that far, I can't prove my innocence. Anyone will do. They're the ones who made fun of me, after all..."
No, no, no, this guy's hopeless!
How can he sell out his comrades so easily?!
Even the Sergeant Major, despite hating you, only talked about "beating you to a pulp," but you're saying "torture them"?
(...This guy's no good. He isn't pretending to have defected. If the Subterraneans took his words at face value, they might actually torture one of the prisoners. And it was entirely possible that the victim could die from the resulting injuries.)
I wanted to blast him with magic—not just "beat him up"—but held myself back.
(In that case, I'll just carry out the escape plan for the twelve people. Let's go.)
If I stayed here any longer, I was liable to hear a whole lot more things I didn't want to hear.
Just as I was about to leave, I heard the Centurion speak.
"I get that you're trying to save your own skin, and we're damn grateful for that, but... you just don't know enough about this so-called airship. It'd be a pretty lousy offering for that very person."
The vice-captain shrank into himself, looking thoroughly apologetic.
...Good grief.
I climbed back up the ladder and emerged onto the rooftop.
I was already feeling utterly exhausted, even before the operation had begun.
I didn't know how the vice-captain would be treated if he were left here alone, but I didn't need to worry about him that much.
All right, let's begin the operation.