Magic Caster of Destroy

As he saw Enri’s eyebrows furrowing, Nfirea took a deep breath and shifted his body over.

Hm? So he’s really restless, after all? He does do a lot of experiments everyday… but it’ll be cold ifhe sleeps here. Although it’s kind of warm in the hay…

While Enri was thinking about this. Nfirea slowly leaned more and more of his weight on her.

What’s wrong? Though come to think about it, it would be better if Nfirea were a bit stronger… Iguess he needs more meat. He hasn’t been eating and sleeping enough.

A playful impulse came over Enri, and she pushed Nfirea back. She’d originally intended to use just a bit of force, but because she used too much strength, she ended up pinning him below herself instead.

“―Ueeeeh?”

Before Enri’s eyes, Nfirea’s surprised and confused face slowly turned bright red.

Aaaah~ It must be embarrassing for a man to lose to a woman in strength. That’s why I said youneed to eat more…

Just as Enri rolled herself off him, Nfirea lay down in the hay and closed his eyes.

They stayed like this for several seconds, enjoying the peace and quiet.

“…What’s wrong, Enfi? Do you want to sleep?”

Nfirea sat back up, his face uncharacteristically red.

“Uh… oh… um. N-nothing…”

“―Ane-san!”

The door flew open without a knock as the shout reached her ears. So forceful was the entry that the door crashed loudly against the nearby wall.

“Hueeee?”

The curious squeak came from Nfirea.

“W-w-w-w-what happened?”

“Sorry for disturbing you two, but this is an emergency!”

“What happened?”

This was the first time she’d seen Jugem this worried ever since that troll attacked. A strange, terrible premonition seemed to run through her body.

“Troops! A large body of troops is heading this way!”

“Eh?! What, what did you say? Whose troops are they?”

“We don’t know about heraldry so we couldn’t tell. But there’s a lot of different coats of arms, so you should come and look… In any case, we should shut the gate first. What should we do?”

“That! Ah… well, can you tell us which coats of arms make up the most among them? If you can describe or sketch them for me I can help.”

After listening to Jugem’s explanation, a suspicious expression spread over Nfirea’s face.

“How strange. Those are flags from the Kingdom. If we knew which nobles’ crests they were, we could identify who was coming here.”

Carne Village was a frontier village, and before it had been founded there had only been forest here.

It was obvious that their objective was Carne Village, but why they were coming here was still a mystery.

“But why? Do you know why, Nfirea?”

“Why would the Kingdom’s troops would come to the village? If they wanted to go to the Great Forest of Tob, it’s strange that they’re sending so many troops. They could have just sent adventurers instead. If that’s the case… maybe there’s a revolt or something…”

“Could that sort of thing really happen?”

“It’s just a rumour, but I’ve heard that the King’s power isn’t actually very strong. Currently, it seems like the nobles are in conflict with the King. If that’s the case, are they coming to Carne Village to attack it?”

The blood drained from Enri’s face.

Could it be that the village would be subject to a dreadful assault like last time?

―However, the circumstances now were different from then.

Enri decided to face it head on.

“We should flee into the forest before the troops reach here!”

“…Ane-san, I’m sorry. We spotted them too late, so if we ran now, we’d have to leave all our things here. In addition, since it’s winter, the chances of monsters appearing in the forest are also very high. If we run from one problem, we end up running right into another instead.”

Jugem’s pained expression made Enri feel dizzy.

They would not be able to survive if the troops burned the village down in winter.

“If that’s the case… ah! That’s right! If we can’t flee with our possessions, then we should prepare for battle and hide food and the other necessities at the same time!”

“Yes! That’s a good plan, Enri! The cellars where Jugem and the ogres hid from the tax collectors shouldn’t have been buried yet. We’ll move everything in there!”

Just as Enri was about to move into action, she remembered a question she hadn’t asked yet.

What were their numbers? The villagers could estimate how much food to hide if they knew how many there were.

“How many are there? It should be about a hundred, right?”

“No…”

As Enri saw Jugem taking a deep breath and slowly answering, she had the sudden urge to stuff her fingers in her ears.

“Not just a hundred… more like thousands.”

Enri blinked. So did Nfirea beside her.