18 11

You nitwit! Every crisis is a golden opportunity!”
“Uh, I dunno about that. I think a crisis is a crisis.”
Yume nodded in agreement. “Crises are crises because they’re always crisesin’.”
What’s that even supposed to mean? Haruhiro thought, but decided not to poke fun at her. Yume was just being Yume, like always. And that was fine.
As for Kuzaku, despite sounding negative, he was calm. He had a certain resiliency that let him bounce back when he was feeling cowed. There was nothing to worry about with him, other than his lack of consideration for his own well-being.
When Merry and Haruhiro’s eyes met, she exhaled, then nodded.
Though stiffly, the corners of her mouth turned up. It was beautiful. Seriously beautiful. Well, her face was always beautiful, no matter what expression she made. Sure, he might have found the iron king bizarrely attractive, but Merry was special. It was possible this was only true in Haruhiro’s eyes, but if so, he was fine with that. He might even prefer it that way.
Don’t get distracted, Haruhiro warned himself. Uh, not that he was. He was just reminding himself of how special Merry was. Every second of every minute. No matter how many times he thought about it, he kept discovering new feelings for her.
No. I can’t do this. I’m gonna get caught in a loop, Haruhiro thought, slapping his cheeks and stopping himself.
“I’d like to see us set some goals,” Setora said plainly.
Goals. Yeah. Setora was usually right about these things. Haruhiro would have liked to say she was always right, but she was too stringent to accept that. Everyone makes mistakes, so it’s not possible for me to always be right. That’s what she’d probably say.
“Itsukushima. Sir Haruhiro,” the red-bearded minister of the left addressed them. He approached the team, beckoning the two of them to meet him halfway. “I have a favor to ask of you, but I need you to be discreet about what I am about to say.”
Haruhiro and Itsukushima glanced at one another and shared a nod.
Axbeld lowered his voice, speaking to them through his red beard. “In addition to the Great Ironfist Gate and the Walter Gate, our kingdom has another entrance—the Duregge Gate. Or rather, it had another. The great inventor Duregge made a path that leads from the king’s bedchambers to the east of the Kurogane Mountain Range through a series of elevators and moving walkways. Only a select few know this secret...”
The minister of the left explained that there had been no one like Duregge before or after him. The great inventor did have apprentices, but none of them had lived up to their master’s reputation.
The Duregge Gate had functioned flawlessly for fifty years after its inventor passed away. However, after that it began to break down frequently before finally becoming completely irreparable. Even so, they were able to make the contraptions man-operable, allowing it to continue serving as an emergency escape route for the king, until a decade ago.
“But now even just getting to the other side is incredibly difficult. It has almost no practical use whatsoever.”
The Iron Palace was divided into the lower levels, where the iron king resided, and the upper levels, which were connected to the city. If the elevator that connected the two sections were destroyed, there would only be narrow tunnels left between them. If they caved those in, they could seal off the lower levels. And even if the enemy made it to the lower levels, they could still shut themselves in the audience chamber and hold out there.
Even in the worst-case scenario, they could still defend the iron king. However, in the event that they did shut themselves inside the audience chamber, it would be little different from being buried alive. The ventilation ducts were well hidden, and there were stores of food and running water, so they could survive for quite some time. But without support, eventually starvation would get them, or the enemy would destroy enough of the ventilation ducts to suffocate them.
“Which means...” Itsukushima said, “if it comes down to it, rather than have her take shelter in the lower levels of the Iron Palace, you’d prefer for Her Iron Majesty to flee somehow. Do I have that correct, Minister?”
“Precisely.” Axbeld’s eyes had this glassy, fixed stare. No, he wasn’t drunk, and he wasn’t angry, so maybe it just showed how determined he was? “Her Majesty is not yet aware, but I will do my utmost to persuade her. It would be meaningless for her and her retinue to survive alone in the bowels of the Iron Palace, and if she were to fall into enemy hands or be slain, we dwarves would fight until every last one of us was dead. I am sure many dwarves would like nothing more than to die fighting. However, as one of our elders, I cannot allow the dwarven race to end here. To ensure that doesn’t happen, Her Majesty’s survival is essential. So long as we have her, no matter how great a blow my people take, we will be able to rise again.”
Axbeld’s passion was so fierce it threatened to burn them. The dwarf was driven by an intense sense of duty. His reasons and motives weren’t hard to understand.
That said, for a human like Haruhiro, being exposed to that kind of passion didn’t make him want to take risks to help the dwarf, it just weirded him out a bit. Still, he wasn’t so heartless that he could brush away the hand of someone desperately grasping at straws.
Haruhiro was a mediocre guy like that.
“What do you want us to do?” he asked.
“I’d like to ask you to guard Her Majesty,” Axbeld responded instantly. “Depending on the circumstances, if there is no other way, I would like Her Majesty and the elven leaders to escape. In the event that no other choice remains, I will remain here and send Rowen with you.”
“Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” Itsukushima said in a blunt tone. “Maybe it’s not my place to say this, but tough guys like him are replaceable. A dwarf like you? You’re one of a kind.”
“I’m happy to hear you say that,” Axbeld said, smiling behind his thick beard. “However, while you humans likely can’t tell, there are enough years between Rowen and me that he could be my son. No matter how much time goes by, he’ll always be a snot-nosed brat to me. Because of his unusual size, he was always rumored to be a cursed child or the son of an orc. He cried about it all the time. From a young age, whenever he threw a tantrum, no one could stop him. He still has a short temper now, and likes to boss people around, but his men respect him. He needs to be given the chance to grow up.
This stays between us, but I am hoping he will marry Her Majesty. That will, of course, be up to her, however...”
“Okay, enough already. We get it, old man,” Ranta said, clapping him on the shoulder. “We wouldn’t be real men if we said no when you’re asking like this. Leave your king to us.” Grinning, he gave Axbeld a thumbs-up.
“You have my thanks,” the minister of the left said, bowing his head to Ranta.
Kuzaku grumbled, “What’s Ranta-kun making the decision for?”
“Are you stupid? That’s just the way things are going! Instead of
Haruhiro taking forever with his wishy-washy responses, it’s better if I just come right out and say we’ll do it. Obviously.”
“Understandable,” Setora said, shocking Haruhiro with her immediate agreement. Okay, yeah, he kinda agreed. He was well aware he could be a little wishy-washy.
“Uh, don’t just ignore me...” Neal grumbled, but no one cared.
The party quickly hashed out the details with the minister of the left.
Rowen, the captain of the royal guard, had already left the Iron Palace to command troops in the battle for the city. The iron king, her guards from the lower levels of the Iron Palace, the minister of the left, and Haruhiro’s group were going to relocate to the upper levels. If the battle went well, then good. However, if things looked bad, they would immediately escort the iron king to the House of Bratsod’s residence. Elder Harumerial and the other prominent elves would join them if possible. Then, when the time came, they would recall Rowen and organize an escape party, which would flee the Ironblood Kingdom through the Walter Gate.
As the minister of the left had already declared, he would remain in the Ironblood Kingdom and fight to the end. Nothing would break his resolve. He was a dwarf as hard as nails, after all. Red-bearded Axbeld had two sons, three daughters, and six grandchildren. Even if she left the Kurogane Mountain Range, dwarves of the House of Bratsod would continue to serve the iron king.
It seemed Axbeld, always a shrewd operator, had planned out what would happen after such an escape in advance.
Before the dwarves put down roots in the Kurogane Mountain Range, they’d had mine shaft cities in other mountains here and there. All of these had since been invaded, destroyed, or otherwise abandoned. But some small number of these mine shaft cities, though only a very few, were intact enough they could be made livable again with some work.
Axbeld had his eye on a former mine shaft city about a hundred miles to the east, in Mount Spear. He’d also located another, a further two hundred kilometers north, in the Kuaron Mountains. He’d invested the House of Bratsod’s own money in the mine shaft city in Mount Spear, sending his family members to prepare it for a group of anywhere from a few dozen to maybe a hundred to live there long-term.
Their guide would be an old dwarf, Utefan, who was celebrating his hundred-and-thirty-fifth birthday this year. He was a direct descendant of the House of Bratsod—Axbeld’s uncle, as a matter of fact—but had been disowned in his youth for his prodigal and freespirited ways. He had taken this as an opportunity to travel the world, and he was known as far as the Red Continent, if one believed the stories he told.
The party rode the elevator to the upper levels of the Iron Palace with Itsukushima, Neal, and Gottheld. The palace was abuzz with activity. The Great Iron King Gate was especially hectic, having been turned into a frontline base.
A barricade had been erected in front of the open gate, and blackbearded dwarves from the royal guard were manning it with guns. There were more gunners on the battlement above the gate too.
There was a constant stream of black-beards or red-beards coming out in squads of five to ten dwarves and deploying onto the main street through the Great Iron King Gate.
The air in the Ironblood Kingdom was never that clean to begin with, but it was extra smoky now. Because of the gunpowder? There was this uniquely metallic, powdery smell. Was it gun smoke? No one seemed to be firing near the Great Iron King Gate, but gunshots rang out almost ceaselessly. The sound echoed through the Ironblood Kingdom, which had no sky, hurting their ears.
The party approached the barricade. Merry cast a support spell with Haruhiro, Ranta, Kuzaku, Yume, Setora, and Itsukushima as the targets. The priest’s light magic spells that strengthened or defended people were built around the six points of Lumiaris’s symbol, the hexagram, so they had a limit of six targets.
“What about me?” Neal looked dissatisfied.
“I’m sorry,” Merry quickly apologized. Neal shrugged and said no more.
Ranta asked one of the black-bearded dwarves manning the barricade, “How do things look?!”
“How should I know?!” the black-bearded dwarf shouted, pointing his gun toward Ranta, who panicked.
“Whoa, man! That’s dangerous! What if that thing goes off?!”
“Then there’ll be another dead human! That’s all!”
“Wow, dwarf humor sucks!”
“Was he joking, though?” Kuzaku said under his breath. The dwarf must have heard him, because he smiled. Maybe it had been a joke, of a sort.
Six red-bearded dwarves were running out past the barricade, and there were another twenty or so near the Great Iron King Gate, preparing to head out.
“It’s Captain Rowen!” one of the dwarves up on the battlement shouted.
“Rowen!”
“Rowen!”
“Rowen!”
“Rowen!”
The black-bearded dwarves were all calling his name. The black-clad dwarf leading a squad as they rushed back up the main street toward the gate was clearly larger than the rest. No one could mistake him for anyone but Captain Rowen. He was carrying something over each shoulder. Whatever they were, they didn’t look like weapons.
“Support the captain!” the black-bearded dwarf who’d just been joking about Ranta shouted. The black-bearded dwarves manning the barricade readied their guns. If any enemies were pursuing Rowen’s squad, they were going to shower them with suppressive fire.
It was hard to see through all the smoke, but the enemy didn’t seem to be chasing them. Rowen circled around the side of the barricade.
“Where’s the enemy?!” Haruhiro asked, and Rowen gave him a death glare. His armor and helmet were pitch black, so Haruhiro hadn’t noticed until now, but the dwarf was covered in blood. He was carrying a black-bearded dwarf on each shoulder.
“They need healing!” Merry said, about to rush over, but Rowen shook his head. He set the two dwarves down, laying them on the ground.
“No need. They’re already dead.”
It wasn’t just Rowen. The other black-beards who had returned with him were also carrying the remains of their comrades. It wasn’t just royal guards, though. There were red-beards too. They’d all been shot by the enemy. Haruhiro watched as they laid eight corpses in front of him.
“The entire city is in chaos. We can’t contact the Great Ironfist Gate,” Rowen said, letting out a powerful snort. His eyes were bloodshot.
“Our first order of business has to be securing lines of communication with the Great Ironfist Gate. Does the enemy have only one point of ingress, or several? How large is the force that’s entered the city? There’s much to do! If you want to survive, you people had better help!”
“You don’t have to tell us that...”
Honestly, Haruhiro’s head was already full thinking about how to get the iron king out through the Walter Gate. The Ironblood Kingdom would never be able to survive. The captain of the royal guard had rushed off to take command, and now he’d turned back after getting a bunch of his men killed. It was best to cut their losses early. Or rather, Haruhiro had already given the city up for lost.
At the same time, he could understand how Rowen felt. This mine shaft city was the dwarves’ home—their motherland. It wasn’t easy for them to accept that they probably couldn’t defend it and they should cast it aside.
“You just need to know what’s going on at the Great Ironfist Gate, right?”
As soon as the words left Haruhiro’s mouth, Ranta tried to stop him.
“Whoa, Haruhiro, you’re not gonna—”
“I’m going to head there alone. It’ll be easier that way. We need someone to check if the Great Ironfist Gate has been breached either way.”
“You’re talking sense,” Neal said, nodding sagely. “Okay. Haruhiro and I will both take separate routes to go check out the Great Ironfist Gate. We want to be sure about things, after all. I’ll leave this with you, for safety’s sake.”
Neal produced something from his pocket, which he handed to
Setora. It was the letter from Jin Mogis. He’s planning to run, Haruhiro thought. That was just how Neal lived his life. Haruhiro couldn’t blame him, and it really wasn’t his place to.
“If you don’t come back, we won’t be waiting for you,” Setora told Neal, her tone cold.
Neal smirked and shrugged his shoulders. “Wasn’t expecting you to.” “This guy...” Kuzaku said with a sigh.
“Haru-kun!” Yume showed him a clenched fist, like she was saying, Do your best. Merry looked him in the eye and nodded.
“Make sure you come back alive,” Rowen said, grabbing Haruhiro and Neal’s shoulders. Maybe he thought he was just placing his hands on them lightly, but it kind of hurt. His hands and fingers were unusually thick and incredibly powerful.
“Be back soon,” Haruhiro said, shaking free of Rowen’s grip and turning to go. He jogged around the side of the barricade, then off down the main street. Neal was still following him.
The farther they got from the Great Iron King Gate, the thicker the smoke, and the louder the gunshots. He could hear screaming dwarves. Haruhiro leaped over a dwarven corpse. It wasn’t one of the royal guards or a red-beard. It was a man, naked from the waist up. Had he been working a forge when the attack came and taken up arms to defend the city, only to be shot? Maybe he had tried to flee then, making it this far before succumbing to his wounds. There were others like him lying all about, and not only bearded dwarven men. There were the bodies of dwarven women, built like particularly sturdy young human girls too. From the look of things, it wasn’t half and half, but maybe a third of the fallen were women.
They’d be at the first major four-way intersection soon. Neal still hadn’t separated from Haruhiro.
There was intense gunfire down the street on the right, and the gun smoke blew against him from that direction like a sudden gust of wind. It came mixed with the sound of shouts and cries of anguish.
“The enemy’s already penetrated this far in?!” Neal said, but not to Haruhiro. He’d probably said it without meaning to.
Haruhiro turned down a side road. He let his consciousness sink. Stealth.
The shooting down the road to the right soon stopped.
There they were. The enemy. Yellowish-brown skin. Hunched backs, and over-developed upper bodies.
Hethrangs.
They had guns. Were there ten of them? Twenty? No, more. Some had halberds instead, and their armor varied. Some wore chainmail, others bronze plate. He saw some hethrangs that were half-naked, with only helmets. They gathered in the middle of the intersection, seemingly trying to get into formation.
One hethrang stood out. His clothing was of the same design as Jumbo or Godo Agaja’s. He swung his gun around and spoke with a deep, throaty voice.
It’s Wabo, thought Haruhiro. He must have been the leader of the hethrangs. They were all shouting his name.
“Wabo!”
“Wabo!”
“Wabo!”
“Wabo!”
The Ironblood Kingdom had been using hethrangs as slave labor.
They must have hated the dwarves and the iron king pretty badly. The unit of escaped hethrangs pushed up the main road, looking ready to launch an attack on the Iron Palace.
Neal was trying to slip between two buildings facing onto the main street. Haruhiro moved closer to the scout and grabbed his sleeve.
“The hell are you doing? Let go.” Neal moved his lips, glaring at Haruhiro.
Haruhiro indicated the escaped hethrangs with his eyes, then looked back at the Iron Palace. “Go back and tell the others about them. I’ll check out the Great Ironfist Gate.”
“Why should I?”
“Just do it.”
Haruhiro gave a strong tug on Neal’s sleeve. The scout was surprisingly pliable. In the end, Neal turned back toward the Iron Palace, albeit reluctantly.
The ranks of the escaped hethrangs had swollen to about a hundred.
It didn’t look like any more were coming. Wabo fired his gun upward.
“We! Not hethrang! Clay dwarf!”
The hethrangs shouted in unison. “We! Clay dwarf!”
It sounded to Haruhiro like they were saying they weren’t hethrangs, they were clay dwarves.
“Go, go, gooooo!”
The escaped hethrangs moved forward on Wabo’s command. They were all basically running. What incredible momentum.
They probably couldn’t break through the Great Iron King Gate. That said, both sides had guns. It would be a pretty intense battle, wouldn’t it?
Haruhiro felt uneasy. He was worried for his comrades. But right now, even if he turned back, there wasn’t much he could do.
Haruhiro turned right at the intersection. The gunshots never stopped ringing out from somewhere in the city. Haruhiro occasionally spotted dwarf men and women running around confused, carrying axes or swords. Many of them had already been shot. The enemy picked these dwarves off from a distance. He saw some go down, shot in the chest, back, or head, while other times the shots missed. Even when they were momentarily spared, though, if they stood around looking for the enemy who’d shot at them, another shot would come.
Some dwarves fled into buildings. When they did, the green-coated gumow rangers, orcs, or undead would rush inside after them. The royal guard and red-beards were having a pretty hard time locating the enemy, apparently. If the enemy shot at them, they returned fire. But by then, the enemy had scattered. Haruhiro watched one black-bearded dwarf go down to a hail of bolts and arrows. The enemy had archers and crossbowmen. It looked like there was closequarters combat going on too. One orc, his head split half open, his entire body grievously wounded, was crawling along, soon to breathe his last.
There was a barricade in front of the large tunnel leading to the Great Ironfist Gate too. Dwarven and orcish corpses lay scattered around it, but there was no sign of an active battle there.
Haruhiro maintained his Stealth as he crept toward the barricade.
Someone poked their head out over the top.
An elf. Female? He’d had the impression that elves were fair-skinned. Not her, though. Her skin was tanned—a light brown or golden color.
“Huh?” Haruhiro was flabbergasted. He’d been found. Somehow, the elf had noticed him. Haruhiro had thought his Stealth was in full effect, so it’d never occurred to him that someone might discover him. The elf looked him right in the eye.
“A human?!” the elf cried, instantly nocking an arrow. Haruhiro was scared shitless, of course, but didn’t lose his head. So long as he could see the archer, he might be able to dodge her arrows. But something was strange. The elven archer, she’d been quick to ready her bow, but not eager. Did she not want to shoot? That was the sense Haruhiro got.
It turned out he was right.
“Don’t move,” said a voice right beside him. It came from his left.
Haruhiro held his breath, moving just his eyes to look in that direction.
When did he get there? I didn’t sense him at all.
Another elf had his knife pointed at Haruhiro. The edge of its blade touched Haruhiro’s throat—only a little, but it still broke the skin.
This elf’s skin was darker than the archer woman’s. Gray. Could he be one of those gray elves? Haruhiro was confused. The gray elves, unlike the elves of the Shadow Forest who had sided with the humans and dwarves, had been on the No-Life King’s side. They were enemies.
“Who are you?” the gray elf asked.
Haruhiro couldn’t help but think, I could ask you the same.
“If I said I was with the Volunteer Soldier Corps...no, the Frontier Army...would you understand?”
If the elf wanted to, he could cut Haruhiro’s throat in an instant. Haruhiro couldn’t be too bold. Not that he was a particularly bold person to begin with.
“Erm, I think we’re on the same side, sort of. Probably. Captain
Rowen sent me to check how things looked at the Great Ironfist Gate, see. Uh, my name’s Haruhiro, by the way.”
“Tiebach,” the archer woman called out to the gray elf, Tiebach presumably being his name. “You don’t need to kill him. It sounds like he’s on our side, more or less.”
“Yes, Lady Rumeia,” Tiebach said, withdrawing his knife. His yellowish eyes never left Haruhiro, though.
“Come, Haruhiro,” the female elf whom Tiebach had called Rumeia beckoned Haruhiro.
Haruhiro did as instructed, walking around to the other side of the barricade. Tiebach did likewise. He stayed close to Haruhiro’s back, making it readily apparent he was ready to kill the thief at a moment’s notice. He probably wasn’t even trying to hide that fact. Tiebach had a bow and quiver on his back, and also a thin sword on his hip, in addition to the knife in his hands. He seemed highly capable. Haruhiro likely wouldn’t have stood a chance in a straightup fight.
On the other side of the barricade there were just ten red-bearded dwarves and about fifteen elven archers.
“I’m Rumeia of Arularolon,” Rumeia said with a surprisingly friendly smile, offering her right hand. Her ears were long and pointy, and she was one of several elven archers here. She was an elf, but she wasn’t very elf-y. And besides that, the way she was dressed, with just a thin cloth covering her breasts and another hanging around her hips, was indecent.
“Lady Rumeia is one of the Five Bows—the head of the House of Arularolon,” Tiebach whispered.
Haruhiro took Rumeia’s hand. She shook his hand firmly before letting go and giving him a friendly swat on the arm with her palm.
“I’m technically something like the captain of this unit of elven archers. Though, Tiebach’s the one who does all the stuff. Tiebach’s amazing, you know? He’s better at drawing a bow than me, and he can really shoot. Not many archers—even elven ones—can hit a bee in midair.”
“Well, I’m not a pure-blooded elf,” Tiebach said with a sigh. Rumeia winked.
“Maybe that’s for the best, you know? I’d be good with it either way, though. An archer’s just gotta be good with a bow, and besides, everyone’s already accepted you for who you are, Tie. Or maybe I should say you made them accept you.” “Would you stop, Lady Rumeia?”
“It’s nothing to get all bashful about.”
“No, that’s not the issue...” Tiebach looked at Haruhiro with upturned eyes.
“Oh, I see.” Rumeia smiled. “We don’t have time to shoot the breeze like this. What was it that you said, again? Rowen sent you to come look? Things are pretty bad in there, huh?”
“Well, yes, they are, but...”
Your lack of seriousness and generally casual attitude are pretty bad too. Haruhiro wanted to say that, but held back. If he didn’t stay on task, he was going to get caught in her groove.
“How is the situation at the Great Ironfist Gate?”
“Fort Halberd fell.”
That seemed like a pretty serious development, but Rumeia sounded indifferent about it.
“We have two forts left. Fort Ax was always the toughest, and it’s not gonna budge, but I dunno about Fort Greatsword. If they take that one, I’d say we’re in big trouble. We elves have our swordsmen and shamans at Fort Greatsword too, so for that one I can’t say it’s not our problem, you know?”
You sure talk like it’s not your problem. Haruhiro suppressed his urge to take a comedic jab at her for that.
“It would seem the enemy has launched a total offensive, like we thought,” Tiebach commented.
“Oh, yes, they have. Yes, indeedy,” Rumeia said, looking toward the large tunnel. She narrowed her eyes a little. Tiebach’s long ears twitched too.
“Tie,” Rumeia said, addressing Tiebach.
“Yes,” he responded briefly.
Rumeia slapped Haruhiro lightly on the upper arm and took off running. That probably meant Follow me. Did he have to? Well, the way things were going, it seemed like the only option.
Haruhiro chased after Rumeia. Footsteps echoed loudly in the large tunnel, which had watch fires here and there throughout. It wasn’t just Haruhiro and Rumeia’s steps either. There were dwarves shouting something. He could hear the high voices of women too.
Soon, the crisis at hand was made apparent. The Great Ironfist Gate was at the end of the tunnel, and there was a large crowd of dwarves amassed right in front of it. Some of them were cowering, and others had fallen. The smell of sweat and blood filled the air.
“What happened?!” Rumeia shouted.
“Fort Ax has fallen!” a dwarf responded angrily. “We need to take it back right away or we’re in trouble!”
“Yikes.” Rumeia came to a stop. Sighing, she bonked herself on the head repeatedly with her left hand. “That one, huh? My guess was off. They’re the ones who fell first, huh? Well, that’s not good.”
“Harden our defenses in front of the gate!”
Was that a frontline commander? Someone was barking orders. There was shouting all over. The dwarves’ morale hadn’t broken yet, though. Having seen the way they were, Haruhiro figured they could probably fight a losing battle without getting dispirited. But even if they remained undefeated in their hearts, they’d still die if they got shot. Indomitable spirit could only make up for so much.
“Fire!” the frontline commander barked. A volley of gunshots sounded out. They must have come from the dwarves defending the Great Ironfist Gate. Which meant the enemy had to be attacking. Was that a proper read of the situation?
“Fire! Fire!”
The shots rang out one after another, practically without interruption. It was a deafening, ear-splitting noise.
Rumeia pulled Haruhiro close to her to whisper in his ear. “I doubt we’ll be able to hold them back! Hurry and let Rowen-san know!”
“What about you, Rumeia-san?!”
“Uh, I dunno, but I can’t leave them, so I’ll have to do what I can!” The elves had evacuated to the Ironblood Kingdom after losing Arnotu in the Shadow Forest. They’d been taken in by the dwarves, whom you couldn’t say they had ever gotten along with very well. They must have felt indebted, and unable to turn tail just because the tide of battle was going against them.
“Any message for Tiebach-san?!”
“I feel like he’ll come this way on his own, so not really!”
“Got it! Take care!”
“You too! Until we meet again!” Rumeia smiled and waved.
Haruhiro started running down the large tunnel, back to where they’d come from. Along the way, he passed Tiebach and the elven archers. They didn’t even spare a glance in his direction. Haruhiro decided not to distract them by calling out.
As he came out of the large tunnel, the dwarven gunners noticed Haruhiro and shouted, “How was it?!”
What was he supposed to say? Should he ignore them? Or should he lie? Should he try to gloss it over? Haruhiro couldn’t do any of those things.
“Fort Ax has fallen! The enemy is attacking the Great Ironfist Gate!”
One dwarf slammed his gun against the barricade with a wail of despair. Haruhiro kind of wanted to apologize to the guy. Obviously, that wouldn’t do anything to help, though.
Haruhiro went around the barricade and headed for the city. He came close to breaking into a full run, but that wouldn’t do him any good. Don’t rush it, he told himself. Sinking his consciousness, he went into Stealth once more.

Chapter end