Chapter 15: Southbound
Ten days have already passed since I first came to Sachiru town, and I think I accomplished quite a lot during that time: I resolved the town's delinquent problem, started a delivery service, familiarized myself with a new writing system, and learned some spells that probably no other human adventurer would ever learn.
I'm definitely fond of my life as an alchemist here. The work isn't too difficult, I have a high pay, and the I get along quite well with the townsfolk. The only downside is that I don't get to travel much, since I have to manage this shop. I thought that I could make up for that by talking to traveling merchants from faraway lands, but strangely enough I couldn't find any. Merchants here typically only travel as far as the next town and then back.
It really seemed like I would be stuck in this shop for most of the foreseeable future.
Or so I thought.
After receiving the supplies, the giant left a letter for me in addition to the daily payment.
"Dear Blaze,
I hope all is going well. The battle is intense, so I'm going to keep this letter short.
Amber reported to me everything that has happened since you came to town. It looks like you made a name for yourself by defeating some strong delinquents. If my suspicions are correct, then you will be conscripted into the war when your province's rotation comes tomorrow because you established yourself as a strong individual. I will make sure you don't get drafted in the future, but please come to the battlefield just this once.
Mavuto.
P.S. Don't worry about the shipment of daily supplies. You need only make enough for tomorrow."
The way he phrased it really made it sound like I could choose to stay here in town, but it's not like I have a choice of whether or not to come. Avoiding the draft after getting conscripted would cause me to be branded as a traitor, and that was probably something that could cost me my life.
"Is that a letter from the commander?"
"Yes… Wait, when did you get here?"
I swear I was alone when I was reading the letter. Did she use teleportation magic or something?
"Just a while ago."
"Strange, I don't recall seeing you. But more importantly, if being strong was the criteria for being conscripted, then shouldn't Casath and Hanung have been called at some point? Why were those two jobless delinquents?"
"Well… Nobody knew where to find them since they didn't have a home, and the general decided not to pursue that matter…"
If it was that easy for the two to avoid the draft, I could have just traveled to another province when it was this province's turn to send reinforcements, since nobody would be able to find me…
Well, it would be too suspicious if I went on vacation now, so I guess the only thing I can do is pray that I don't actually get conscripted for war.
After having lunch and receiving my shipment of materials, I spent the afternoon crafting the commander's daily supplies as usual.
"How exactly do people know if they get drafted for war, anyways?"
"Usually a letter gets delivered to those that get conscripted, but sometimes a high ranking officer comes to see the person instead."
Besides the one from the commander, no other letters have come for me so far today. I suppose it's more likely that someone would come to the shop later." Unfortunately there's no way for me to tell the difference between a military officer and a normal customer, so I can't really close the shop or chase people out of here…
"Well, I'm going to go take out the trash now."
Amber was physically weak, so it was usually my job to take the waste byproducts of crafting over to the disposal site down the street. Even though it was called a disposal site, it was just a spot on the ground where people decided to toss their trash at. By some unknown means, all the trash would disappear from that spot the next morning.
When I opened the front door, there was someone in front of it.
It was a female fairy about 70 centimeters tall, with chestnut colored hair tied in a bun. She was wearing a purple one piece dress with embroidered silver patterns, and her petite stature made the dress completely cover her arms and legs. She had a baby face, which I couldn't tell for sure if it was a trait among her race or not, but that made her look like a cute little child trying to dress up as an adult. The fairy was fluttering her dove-like wings about, hovering around in circles in front of my shop door while muttering to herself and completely lost in her train of thought.
"Should I go in? Or should I just leave a note at the door? But then what if the wind blows it away? Or what if he doesn't read it? Maybe I should just go in… But what if he wasn't home? What should I even say? What if he doesn't want to hear what I have to say? Maybe I should do…"
I'm the only person who would be referred to as "he" around here, so it looks like she was here to see me. Considering how much of a nervous wreck she was turning out to be, it seemed unlikely that she was an army officer. Maybe I wasn't going to be conscripted for the next few days, after all.
"Excuse me."
"AAAAH! You startled me! How could you! No, w-wait, that's not what I meant! I'm s-sorry for loitering around! Wait, don't leave! I n-need to talk to you!"
"I need to take out the trash, so why don't you come inside and gather your thoughts for a while? I'll be back in a couple minutes, so we can talk after you calm down."
She took a deep breath and came into the shop. Ignoring the girl, I took the trash out to the disposal site as slowly as possible so as to give her a little more time to calm down.
When I came back, Amber and the fairy girl were happily chatting with each other.
"Huh, you two sure got acquainted quickly."
"We already knew each other before."
"What?"
"Blaze, this is Batinu, the eighth ranked general of the Demon King's army."
Considering how Amber was a maid for commander Mavuto who ranked higher than the generals, it was very likely that she had already met all eight generals at some point. But what she said just now sounded completely strange.
"Sorry if this sounds offensive, but you're telling me this nervous wreck is a general? This isn't a prank of some sort, right?"
"Her title is general, but she doesn't actually take part in battle since commander Mavuto handles this province's troops."
"So you're telling me the title is just for show, and that she's completely useless in the war?"
"Hey! I'm n-not useless!"
The fairy girl puffed up her cheeks as I commented on her role. Looking at that cute baby face, it was really hard to believe that she was even an adult.
"No, she's more of a back-line support who leads the squad of medics in healing the troops that get injured on the front-line."
Oh, so she wasn't a useless little girl, after all.
"I see. Sorry for rudely doubting you, Miss Batinu…"
"It's f-fine! It's m-my fault for n-not introducing myself earlier…"
I do wonder, though, was she really that bad at talking to strangers? She didn't seem to be stuttering when she was chatting with Amber a while ago.
"So if a general is here, then that means I'm being conscripted, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
"S-sorry! There was n-nothing I could do about it!"
"Nothing you could do about it? Aren't you the one in charge of selections in the first place?"
"The selection p-process takes place a w-week in advance, so when the c-commander notified me about y-you it was already too late! I already s-sent out the list to the entire p-province at that point…"
I'm more bothered by how the thought of overriding the draft selections didn't seem to come up for her. Nonetheless, it was probably too late to make any changes at this point.
"It's fine if it's just this one time. I'll go upstairs and pack some clothes now."
Batinu looked like she was going to explode from her self blame and social awkwardness, so I left the two girls alone downstairs.
* * * * *
The next morning, the giant arrived a few hours earlier than usual. I have no idea how he managed to let himself into the shop, but he was already moving the crates from the back by the time I woke up and went downstairs. By eight o'clock, he loaded the last supply crate onto the carriage and made a motion that seemed like I was expected to get on the carriage.
"There should still be some space left in the back."
"Wouldn't that create a risk of some crates shifting around and falling down?"
"That's our ride to the battlefield, Blaze."
"Oh, okay. So that's why there was space in the back."
Amber and I each threw a bag containing two changes of clothes onto the carriage, then the two of us hopped on. Amber told me everything else I might need would be provided by the army, so I didn't pack anything else. We brought only clothes since we were not expected to be fighting on the front-line, so military uniforms would not be provided.
There were only two towns along the 100 kilometer road south towards the border. The first town, located fifteen kilometers away from Sachiru, was called South Sachiru and had a population of less than 1000. The town had expansive pastures and prairies, so its primary use was for raising livestock to supply Sachiru and the army down south with meat. I saw a large flat open field of dandelions and was tempted to jump off the carriage to lie down and take a short nap, but quickly gave up on that thought since I was expected to report to the battlefield soon. There was also the fact that the main livestock being raised here were demon bulls that were at least triple the size of regular cattle in Kitrod, and I really didn't want to risk getting trampled.
Another fifty kilometers down the road was the town of Ladita. Similar to South Sachiru, it was primarily focused on agriculture. Unlike the previous town, Ladita only produced grains for the southern province, and had vast fields of crops and several windmills scattered throughout its land.
Our carriage traveled a bit slower than the average speed of one due to its heavy load, so it was already noon by the time we reached Ladita. If we continued at the same pace, it would take another two hours for us to arrive at the border, so we decided to buy some food for lunch here to eat while on the road.
Since this was the town closest to the border so far as I was aware, I expected life here to be the most badly affected by the war. However, what I saw didn't seem to be the case. The streets were still bustling with activity; the residents in town didn't have any worried looks on their faces, and children were still happily playing around. It was hard to imagine there was a war going on less than thirty kilometers away. Was it perhaps because the soldiers were doing their best to fight for the peace of the people, thus these people were doing their best to show the soldiers what they were fighting for?
Being a town that only produced crops, Ladita offered an abundance of rice and wheat based dishes. Amber bought some seasoned rice balls for us to eat the road. I offered one to the giant, but he kept shaking his head. His inability to speak made it hard for me to tell if he didn't want to eat, didn't need to eat, or couldn't eat now since he was busy controlling the horses.
Oh well, that just means there's more food for me.
On a side note, I'll definitely want to spend some time exploring this town on my way back to Sachiru in a few days.
Almost two hours later, our carriage arrived at a settlement about two kilometers away from the border, according to the area map posted at the entrance. This place was a temporary living community that the soldiers established decades ago, but since the war had been at a stalemate with neither side being able to make advances, the settlement was able to evolve into a full fledged town, unofficially called Border Town. Probably because its residents were almost all soldiers and militia, the town lacked children and had hardly any visible shops or entertainment facilities.
The housing in this town was varied in design: some were stone dens, some were wooden cottages, some were field tents, some were brick homes, and so on. Since the soldiers came from all over Badoth, there were over a dozen different building styles to accommodate all the different races. The varied designs and colors made it look like there was a carnival in town.
There were banners and posters hung on every street, with text written in both the common language and demon language. Judging by phrases like "Glory to King Badoth," "Kitrod humans won't welcome other races, but we will," and "Fight to keep our freedom," as well as drawings showing humans getting assaulted, there was no doubt these were propaganda posters and banners. Being human, however, really made me feel uneasy here. Military police were stationed in outposts at the end of each street, but I reckon the soldiers didn't really take the propaganda to heart since they didn't pay any attention to me.
At the center of Border Town was a moderate sized stone fortress, which Amber said was the command quarters. It was around sixty meters in width and depth and around twenty meters high. Somewhere near the center of the fortress was an observation tower that stood as tall as about forty-five meters.
Judging by how the carriage was moving towards the fortress, I would assume that this was our destination, and that commander Mavuto was waiting for me inside.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone