Huff… huff… Someone, save me…
It happened just as she was praying for salvation.
She saw flickering flames ahead of her. Six of them, in total. If she could see them so clearly from this far off, they had to be pretty big fires. Juno nearly came to a stop, despite herself. Then, “Whoa!”
An arm suddenly reached out and pulled Juno into the bushes.
“O-Ow…!”
Pompf.
Juno started to scream, but something soft covered her mouth. Now that she got a better look, there was a round-ish, puffy thing in front of her. When she saw it, Juno let out a little cry.
“Y-You?!”
Juno knew this thing. That roly-poly body. That face wrapped in white silk with acorn eyes peering out. The wicker basket on his back, the large prayer necklace he wore, the naginata in his hands.
This was the one known in rumors as the Kigurumi Adventurer, Little Musashibo.
“You’re Mr. Kigurumi! What are you doing here?!” she exclaimed.
In response to Juno’s question, Little Musashibo brought a round hand up to cover his mouth.
“…” (Little Musashibo was saying, “Be quiet, please. They’ll find us.”)
Find us? My pursuers are right there… she thought.
“…” (“It’s okay. Just look,” he said, gesturing for Juno to look.)
Hmm?
After going through one of their usual conversations, where they managed to communicate somehow, Juno poked her head out of the bushes in time to see the flames from before passing by. They had patchwork bodies, tattered clothing, zombie-like movements, and flames blazing from their heads.
The flame pierrots…
Juno instantly recognized them as the new monsters that had been reported to the guild. However, when she looked at them closely, something seemed wrong. Their movements were strangely jerky, almost like they were marionettes.
While she was thinking that…
“Ahhhh!”
“Wh-What are these things?!”
…the principality horsemen who had been pursuing her started shouting.
Once they saw the flaming aberrations moving towards them with a click-clack noise, the horsemen had bigger things to worry about than their scouting mission. They had nothing to gain by staying here and fighting these unknown monstrosities. Notifying the main force about the existence of these things came first.
“Tch! We don’t have time to deal with these guys. We’re heading back!” the leader shouted.
The horsemen retreated. Juno breathed a sigh of relief, but she wasn’t out of danger yet.
Now, she had a swarm of flame pierrots near her. Juno drew her short sword, so she would be ready to fight at any time.
Pompf.
Little Musashibo placed his hand on Juno’s head.
It was so sudden, Juno’s eyes went wide. “H-Hey, Mister?! What do you think you’re doing at a time like this…?”
“…” (“It’s okay now. The danger has passed,” he said, patting her head.)
“The danger has passed…? But, those things are still here!”
“…” (“Never mind them. Let’s hurry back to Dece and the others,” he was saying.)
Then, Little Musashibo lifted Juno up, throwing her into the wicker basket on his back.
“Whoa! This again?!”
Ignoring Juno’s protestations, Little Musashibo plodded off. Juno was bewildered for a while, but once she came to her senses, she rested her chin on Little Musashibo’s head.
“…This is the second time you’ve saved me now, Mister.”
“…” (Little Musashibo gave a thumbs-up.)
“What are you doing here?”
“…” — Little Musashibo didn’t say anything to answer Juno’s question. No — he never had said anything, but even Juno couldn’t sense his feelings this time. However, as she looked at his back, she felt that she could sense something like sadness.
Juno scratched her head, then started bopping Little Musashibo’s back repeatedly.
“…” (S-Stop, please,” he said, flailing his arms around.)
“Hmph!” she said. “If you want me to stop, then cheer up. Things don’t always work out in life, but still, just surviving is a victory. It means you still get to eat tomorrow.”
“…”
Little Musashibo said nothing in response. However, his footsteps seemed a little lighter now than they were before.
“Just surviving is a victory… huh.”
Juno had gotten a little rough, but she had probably been trying to encourage him. Juno’s words had certainly reached Souma, who had been controlling Little Musashibo and the flame pierrots from far away in the capital.
This was the plan Hakuya had come up with to save the people of the southeast from the principality.
By using Souma’s power, Living Poltergeists, they would have a bunch of bizarre dolls go around as a new breed of monster, the flame pierrots. They would use them to attack towns and villages along the route of the principality’s army and force them to evacuate. Then they would issue a quest to the adventurers’ guild. This would lend the story credence, and they could leave escorting the refugees to the adventurers.
In fact, he had even used the flame pierrots to burn some of the now-unoccupied towns to the ground. From the perspective of the people whose villages were being torched, it was a terrible inconvenience. He did intend to compensate them later, but he was still burning down their homes, no doubt filled with precious memories, for his own benefit.
Little wonder Hakuya had warned him in advance that it was a rough plan.
Despite that, Souma had still chosen it. He had thought it was better than leaving the unsuspecting people to be tyrannized by the armies of the principality. He had weighed his options, then made his choice to save what he could and cast away the rest. His actions were certainly not praiseworthy.
It had weighed on his heart, but Juno’s words had lifted his spirits a little.
“She’s right. If they don’t survive, I wouldn’t even be able to apologize later.” Whispering those words to himself, Souma walked out of the Governmental Affairs Office.
Meanwhile, around that same time, Julius, who was with the main force of the Amidonian army, was looking at the report he had received, puzzled. The appearance of a flame monster… It was hard to take at face value.
There are reports that towns and villages along the army’s path have burned down…
When he’d received the report, he had thought that some soldiers must have run wild, running ahead of the army to engage in pillaging. They were aiming to annex this region after the war, so it wouldn’t serve their interests to alienate the local population too much.
Just as Julius had been thinking he should warn the entire army against this, he had received a report saying that those towns and villages had burned down a number of days before the principality forces had arrived. While he was glad it hadn’t been caused by rampaging soldiers, why had the towns and villages burned down?
The next thing that came to Julius’s mind was scorched earth tactics. In other words, he suspected that the people had burned down the towns and villages along the Amidonian army’s route to keep them from replenishing their provisions locally. In that case, it would mean the kingdom had predicted exactly what they were up to. If so, it was dangerous to advance now, and Julius should advise his father Gaius to retreat.
Still… It’s too poorly done to be a scorched earth strategy.
With it being the end of the ninth month of the year, they were in the middle of the harvest season now. If they were using scorched earth tactics, they should have razed the fields and destroyed or poisoned the wells, too.