1082: Gamudo and Deployment
After liberating Princess Serimea and Miriam, we brought them to Bulbora. The two woke up midway, and began celebrating their freedom with tears of joy.
However, they quickly remembered the subject of their sister. Serimea took the lead to ask Fran about Marle.
Two princesses sitting on the giant Urus.h.i.+’s fluffy fur was quite a surreal scene, but everyone present was completely serious.
「Where is Marle right now?」
「Marle… became a spirit.」
「Huh? A spirit, you say?」
『Uhh, that’s not going to get the message across.』
The princesses looked very puzzled, which was understandable.
In the first place, a human turning into a monster before morphing into a spirit sounds like complete nonsense. Not even I really understand what happened. They would think it came straight out of a fairy tale.
But soon afterwards, the princesses had no choice but to accept it.
「This is… Marle?」
「Marle! How did…?」
Marle had revealed her spirit form, and spoke telepathically to her sisters. Not that I could hear anything though.
She vanished again in under a minute, but it seems that was enough to make Serimea and Miriam believe Fran’s words.
「I have to thank you for granting Marle’s wish.」
「…Thank you.」
With tears streaming down their faces, the princesses bowed their heads. However, Fran only stared anxiously at the place where Marle had appeared.
『What’s wrong?』
（Marle pushed herself too hard and got fainter.）
『Is that, uh, safe?』
（She says she’s going back to sleep.）
First she disabled the barriers on the Water Dragon Battles.h.i.+ps, and now she manifested herself physically in front of her sisters. For someone who recently got reborn as a spirit, such actions must have caused a great deal of strain. It seems she already fell asleep inside Fran.
Her sisters looked concerned, but neither of them were capable of spirit magic. In the end, all they could do was to bow to Fran again and ask for her continued a.s.sistance.
Throughout our exchange, Urus.h.i.+ continued his dash through the sky. We reached Bulbora in no time at all.
The aftermath of our battle with the fleet seems to have been visible from Bulbora, which put the city on high alert. A scouting party of adventurers including Gamudo was waiting for us at the port.
By the time we arrived, they had noticed Urus.h.i.+ and started welcoming us with open arms.
「Fran, what the h.e.l.l’s going on?! Was it those Raydoss a.s.sholes again?」
「Nn!」
「I see… Huh? Who are those girls?」
「Princesses.」
「Hah? Princesses?」
「Nn.」
Fran explained how she rescued the Seedran princesses from the Raydoss fleet and sank all the enemy s.h.i.+ps.
She refrained from mentioning anything about Marle or my covenant magic. Marle’s situation is kinda too complicated to explain, and I don’t want anyone to know about covenant magic.
We’ve asked the princesses to keep quiet about it too, though I was kinda expecting that to be a job for my magic. We could make a regular contract ensuring they wouldn’t tell anyone about our secrets, nothing like a slave contract.
Fran, however, didn’t like my idea. It seems she’s averse to the idea of magical contracts in general, not just ones for slavery.
That being the case, I had no choice but to trust them not blab. Their statement of “never telling anyone else” wasn’t a lie, so I guess we should be fine for the time being.
We needed to have a detailed exchange with Gamudo, and there’s not much time to waste. Fran pulled Gamudo a small distance away and explained the situation regarding the Kingdom of Shallus.
「Shallus! We’ve been having a lot of issues with them in the Adventurers Guild too.」
「Their prime minister works for the West Conquest Duke of Raydoss.」
「Seriously?! Shallus’s prime minister is famous for being extremely talented…」
I’ve heard that they recently got a new king who is kinda incompetent. In reality though, this prime minister guy is probably just manipulating him.
「They said Shallus would invade after the attack from the seas.」
「So in other words, we don’t have much time left, huh?」
「Nn. I’m heading out.」
Though Fran was very ready to deploy, Gamudo apparently had a different plan in mind. That said, he also had no intention of telling Fran to stop because of the danger, or anything like that.
「I’m coming with you!」
「What about Bulbora?」
「The submaster and the lord are still here, so the city’ll be fine. More importantly, we’ve gotta repel the Shallus army at all costs! I’m done sitting around and letting them push us around like this!」
That last reason seemed to be the biggest motive, and Gamudo isn’t someone who would hold us back. In fact, he is a veteran with way more combat experience.
「Get ready in 10 minutes. Then I’ll take you too.」
「h.e.l.l yeah! Just wait right there!」
Gamudo acted incredibly quickly, sending out adventurers to inform everyone of the incoming threat from Shallus, and how he was heading out to protect them. In no time at all, he had obtained approval to deploy. Well, truthfully speaking, all he really did was yell to shut up anyone trying to stop him.
He already had his battle gear on, so he was ready for a fight. In the end, we seriously managed to leave in about ten minutes.
「Let’s go, Fran!」
「Nn. Hop on.」
「Sorry about my weight. You okay?」
「Woof!」
Gamudo climbed up Urus.h.i.+ in full body armor with a huge hammer on his back, though Urus.h.i.+ didn’t so much as flinch. We flew up into the sky at the same speed as usual.
Seeing this, Gamudo laughed excitedly.
「Wow! Not even a wyvern can fly long distances with me riding! You really are a high-ranking magical beast!」
「Woof!」
Gamudo gave some more detailed directions as we moved through the sky.
「There’s only one road going from Shallus to Kranzel. The others are all too rough for a large army, so they’ve got no choice but to pa.s.s through there.」
「Okay.」
「If possible, we don’t want to lay a figure on Shallus territory. Fighting within our borders will give us the advantage in the war’s aftermath.」
Gamudo pulled up a map and pointed out a suitable location for the battlefield, a barren wasteland in southwestern Kranzel. There were no nearby towns or villages, while the army from Shallus had to pa.s.s through the region.
「We’ll intercept them here.」
「Nn!」