Source
https://kakuyomu.jp/works/16816927863045760906/episodes/16817330648775765818
The forest was burned and half destroyed by the attack of the “Four Pillars of Hell.”
Elven soldiers were injured, and some of them lost their lives.
However, thanks to the efforts of Seti and his crew, the invasion of the tyrants was stopped, and it was a fact that many of the elf-soldiers were saved.
“There are wounded! Make way!”
In the “temple” called the ruins of the ancient elves, wounded elven soldiers were brought in one after another.
Although they were given first aid by Priestess Fiala’s healing magic, some of them were unable to move on their own and were being carried on simple stretchers.
“Thanks to Seti sama and the others, the forest and many soldiers were saved. We will take care of the rest! Everyone, first of all, you must do your utmost to heal the wounded soldiers!”
Riel, the previous spirit queen and the person in charge of the “temple,” raised her voice and gave the order.
Her attendants, elves skilled in recovery magic, nodded their heads and began working to heal the wounded elven soldiers who had been brought in.
“…… Seti, onii chan”
Hina, who had been told to stay at home, watched the scene from the corner of the pillar.
Her round eyes were moist and she had an anxious look on her face.
In fact, she would like to fight alongside her beloved Seti, whom she also adores as an older brother.
But smart Hina understands that she will only slow him down.
Although she has been training with a gun every day and improving her skills, she is not yet ready to fight like the beautiful girls she calls “Onee-chan”.
Moreover, the absence of Shabazo, who is always by her side, has only increased her loneliness and anxiety.
(I want to …… grow up as soon as possible. I want to be strong enough to fight with Seti onii chan.)
I tighten my grip and stare at the gun in my small hand.
“–Be careful! There’s a fake in there!”
Suddenly, the boy’s voice is uttered.
While everyone around her is in an uproar, only Hina recognizes him from his familiar tone of voice.
It was Pomple of the dwarf fairy tribe.
He had been with Seti and the others until about halfway through the trip, helping to extinguish fires and rescue people in the burning forest.
He had been told by Seti that he could flee alone if things got dangerous, and he had come back on his own initiative to hide among the injured elven soldiers who were being transported.
Pomple, who had been hiding, showed himself, waving his hands widely to announce his presence.
“I saw! There’s an assassin from the organization mixed in with the wounded soldiers!”
“What?!”
Riel is startled by the sight.
The pupils of her twin eyes widened, and she activated her “foresight” skill.
–Pomple is not lying.
It seems that Pomple, while on a rescue mission with her granddaughter Miriel and others, happened to see the assassin dressed as a wounded elf soldier and independently followed his trail, breaking off from her companions.
But doubts remained.
“It was you, …… Pomple, wasn’t it? I understand that you are telling the truth,……, but my eyes do not see any images of such a person among the wounded”
“That’s his Grace skill! His name is Grove! He is a senior member of the organization and a master of disguise! He is the assassin who is said to have taught Master seti the art of disguise!”
According to Pomple, he is a famous assassin of the executive class who taught the art of disguise to Seti, who was still a member of the organization, when he played the role of a fake hero.
Grove also possesses Grace-type skills, and it is apparently not easy to spot him even by magic and skill appraisal.
Incidentally, although Seti was perfect in the art of disguise, he became mentally unstable as he came into contact with the beautiful girls of the heroes’ party who were Alta’s fiancées at that time, and his own mentality was shattered without his noticing it.
Hearing Pomple’s explanation, Riel and the attendants who were trying to heal the wounded stopped and were puzzled.
They were puzzled because they could not carelessly make contact with a fake assassin among the wounded.
However, there are urgent circumstances.
Even though Fiala had given them a certain amount of recovery, it was only a simple first aid treatment.
Even for a high-level priest, it was extremely difficult for her to recover all of them by herself.
Either way, they could not just leave it like this.
“Pomple san, as far as you are concerned, what do you think is the purpose of this assassin named Grove? Do you think one of these people is trying to assassinate?”
“I don’t know the details. But I think that the purpose is most likely to be RIel-sama and Hina-chan!”
“Me and Hina? What’s the evidence?”
“The foresight skill that Riel-sama possesses is troublesome for the organization! She may be able to see through the boss’s inconvenient content! And Hina-chan could become a suitable hostage for Seti-sama!”
Pomple’s thought makes sense.
It must be so, Riel thought.
Riel nodded and held out one arm to get the attention of the others.
“Then, I’m going to apply the “sleep magic” to all the wounded! By forcing them to sleep, it will be impossible for them to attack me, and we will know which fakes are not wounded!”
The maidens and soldiers were amazed at this ingenious idea and exclaimed, “Ooo, as expected, Master Riel!”
“She is a former fairy queen, after all! She has the advantage of age, doesn’t she?!”
At Pomple’s in-your-face compliments, Riel smiled and silently applied the pressure.
Even the elves, who may have lived for several hundred years, are women. Their sensitive parts are not to be touched.
Realizing this, the 30-year-old Pomple apologized, “I’m …… sorry.”
That moment.
“Don’t–don’t do anything unnecessary!”
The elf soldier who had been lying on the stretcher jumped up and ran out.
In his hand, hidden by bandages, was a dagger.
This is the assassin, Grove.
Grove sprints toward RIel with his well-honed speed.
“Protect the Lady Riel!”
Two of her personal bodyguards stand in front of Riel and draw their stabbing swords from their waists.
“I’m sorry, but that’s not what I’m aiming for!”
Grove leaps over the heads of Riel and her men with amazing leaping power.
Landing backward, he accelerates even more and rushes toward the pillars of the temple
–That’s where the Hina stand.
“Uggg!”
Reflexively, Hina readied the pistol in her hand and pointed the muzzle.
But the standard is blurred and her aim is not precise.
Hina understood that it was because she was scared and trembling.
No wonder.
She is only nine years old and has never shot a person before.
No matter how many techniques Seti gave her, she was not yet ready to fight.
(Seti onii chan!)
Hina thinks of the young man she loves as her older brother.
At the same time, the image of the late Io, whom she still considers her real father, also came to mind.
–I have to fight. If I don’t pull the trigger, I will be killed.
Even though she understood it in her head, her body and her fingertips were too scared …… to do anything about it.
“I can’t let you do it!”
At the same time, Pomple also ran out.
Even though he was a low-level assassin, the dwarf fairy tribe was known for its lightness and quickness.
In no time at all, he had Grove in range, and he flexed his leather whip, his weapon of choice.
“Traitorous little fish! die!”
Grove easily evades and turns around.
He pulled out the small sword he had hidden in his chest and threw it at Pomple.
“Gufu!”
The small sword pierces his right chest and Pomple falls flat on his back.
“Uncle Pomple!!”
A moment later, Hina’s fear disappears.
She realizes that lost time has occurred, and now the enemy is full of openings.
In Hina’s mind, this was the only place to go.
And then,
Don!
She took aim and squeezed the trigger without hesitation this time.
“Ugggghhh! W-What the ……?!”
Grove turned around and was shot in the center of the chest, causing him to vomit blood.
He collapsed to his knees and fell to the ground.
From the twitching of his fingertips, he seems to be alive, though barely.
An elf guard rushes in and restrains Grove while applying recovery magic to the extent that he does not die.
It was not out of mercy, but out of consideration for the young girl Hina, who was still too young to bear the karma of a murderer.
Hina was stunned by this scene for a while, but then she came back to reality and ran to a certain place.
“Uncle Pomple, are you okay?!”
Hina goes to Pomple, who had been damaged protecting Hina.
Pomple was still lying on the ground, and despite the small sword in his right chest, he got up with a whimper.
“……Hina, please don’t call me uncle. I have the “bad luck” skill, so as you can see, I’m fine.”
“But you still have a knife in your chest.”
“
…… still didn’t reach my body. Instead…”
Pomple stands up and rolls up his jacket to show it to her.
There was a lump with a distorted shape on the right side of the chest, where the dagger had pierced.
It used to be beating like a heart, but it has stopped beating after being damaged by the dagger.
“The ‘heart’ that Pasha-anee san entrusted to me…she really died from this.”
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Oh? I didn’t expect Pomple to do this. Maybe he is a better character than we thought. Now that the Four Pillars of Hell are done, the next step is to deal with Mors.