The Daughter of Evil - Volume 3 - Chapter 2.21

Chapter 2, Section 2-The Signal Fire of a Counterattack; Scene 1
Praeludium of Red, page 111-115

♣ Yukina ~In the Beelzenian Empire, “Rucolebeni"~

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It was three days after that, on fourth street in Rucolebeni.

“They’re running into that alley on the right!”

“We can’t let them get to fifth street! They aren’t finished evacuating yet!”

“How many are left!?”

“Five. Chartette, Can you get them all together?”

“Ay ay sir!”

She waved her large blade through the air.

The dead soldiers’ bodies were pulverized. The destructive power of Chartette’s special weapon that she’d rushed to finish mending–a massive claymore–was extremely effective against the dead soldiers, despite their bodies being unusually robust for having originally been decayed corpses.

“One left!”

The dead soldier they were chasing down charged towards the unit.

“Hah!”

Germaine’s rapier flashed. The dead solder’s head went flying.

“Is that it?”

“Looks like it.”

The soldiers sank down on the spot. That was only natural. They’d been fighting for three days and three nights with barely any rest. They were at the peak of exhaustion.

“You’ve done well everyone,” I said appreciatively, handing out water and food to them.

“You too.”

“Thank you, young miss.”

“Are you injured?”

“Ain’t a big deal, just grazed me, yannow.”

“I’m impressed.”

“Eheheh.”

“You did well too.”

“Excuse me…”

“Oh, what is it, Miss Germaine?”

“What are you doing here?” Germaine asked, looking displeased as she accepted her food. “Weren’t you told to stay at the castle?”

I had been, but I’d ignored that and secretly slipped out. And now I was doing my best as a temporary combat medic for the Langley Unit like I was now.

“You can’t fight but you come here to the front lines anyway; I wish you’d stop, but…”

Swallowing down my impulse to point out how hypocritical it was for her, someone who had drunk herself under the table in an emergency before, to say that, I forced a smile and replied, “I want to help everyone, even if only a little. Am I being a bother?”

“No–you’ve been a great help to us providing first aid, I guess.” Patching up wounds was my specialty, using my knowledge as a lady. “I think in that case you’d be better off staying with York at the rear-guard…”

“But it’s seldom that I’m able to have personal experiences like this.”

“…Good grief, it’s like this is all a game to you…”

Germaine sighed. Immediately after that, I heard a scream from far away. Everyone present readied their weapons.

I had no weapon, so for now I gripped the basin I was holding in my hands.

“It’s a dead soldier! Looks like there’s one left!”

“It headed that way! Langley Unit, catch it!”

At that voice from another unit, the soldiers readied themselves for whatever threat would be attacking them.

…

……

But after waiting a long time, the dead soldier didn’t appear.

“…?”

Eventually I heard the sound of footsteps from the lane that lead to third street.

But it wasn’t the moist tromp of a dead soldier, nor the clang of military boots on a live one.

It was the sound of hoofbeats.

“This even worse than expected. What kind of person is it who’d use such monsters as these? That must be them.”

The end of a lance held by a heroine riding a white horse had pierced through the body of a dead soldier.

“It…it’s you!”

To the Langley unit, this woman wasn’t an ally they could rely on. I understood that things had become even tenser than before.

Chartette shouted, “What the hell do you think yer doin’ here so brazenly, Mouchet!?”

“Still a blockhead as usual, eh Langley? Give the emperor a message. Tell him that the former commander of the Retasan Fortress, Lily Mouchet, has come to see him.”