Combatants Will Be Dispatched - Volume 7 - Chapter 2.3

3

After placing Grimm’s body on the altar, we make our way to the gathering point where we find three expendable Combat Agents, Heine, and our guide, Little Bashin.

The girl looks happy that we’re going to save her village, holding her ax over her head in a cheerful gesture.

“What now, Lady Belial? Grimm isn’t going to revive for a while.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about with this revival stuff. Remember? The enhancement surgery wiped out part of my memory.”

Why would surgery that happened years ago wipe out her short-term memory, exactly? Oh well, I guess she’s just trying to pretend that the little dustup with Grimm never happened.

Having set those recent unpleasant memories aside, Belial turns to the group and raises her voice.

“All right, we’re all here! Agents, roll call!”

“Six!”

“Fifteen!”

“Seventeen!”

“Twenty-nine!”

"...!"

“Um.. .what am I supposed to...?”

After we each yell out our own numbers, Belial comes and gives each of us a light smack.

“I didn’t tell you to call out your names! Whatever! So four agents and two locals, right? So counting me, that’s seven total. All right, the mission continues even if we suffer light wounds, but we'll scrap it if we lose someone.”

“You could at least say something motivational, like, ‘We’ll finish this without losing anyone!’ We do have feelings, Lady Belial.”

Sigh. Lilith, Alice, they’re all the same, treating us Combat Agents like we’re expendable. That’s why Kisaragi has a reputation for ruthlessness.

Belial blinks as she looks over in our direction.

“Don’t be stupid. You’ve got me on your side, so there’s no way any of you are going to die. I’ll make sure to protect you all. If we’re gonna lose anyone at all, I'll make sure it’s me.”

“You know, you should really warn us before you say something like that. You made my heart skip a beat.”

Yeah, despite the fact that she can be unreasonable and overbearing, sometimes she can cut through your defenses and hit you right in the feels.

As my colleagues look down a little shyly, Heine, whose cheeks are faintly flushed, whispers to me.

“Hey, Six, is it just me or is Lady Belial one of the good bosses?”

I don’t know if she’s one of the good ones or not, but I do know that she’s simply a good person at heart.

It’s been several hours since Little Bashin started leading us through the woods.

From deep in the brush, we hear drumming of some sort—signals, it seems—from the Bashin tribe.

"...!"

When she hears them, Little Bashin glances up sharpy and begins to gesture rapidly. It seems she’s trying to tell us something, but we can’t tell what she’s trying to say.

Given the fact that she’s blocking the direction the sound is coming from and crossing her arms in a big X, is she trying to tell us not to go that way?

“If you have something to tell us, speak up!”

“...?!”

Our unreasonable boss has no qualms about yelling at the tribal child.

It’s not that she can’t talk, it’s just that her grasp of the common tongue isn’t the strongest.

Little Bashin shakes her head intently to try to communicate this to Belial, but...

“Try telling me what’s going on in front of us. I get that you’re so shy, you have to wear a mask, but now’s not the tune to be bashful, is it?”

Um, pretty sure she doesn't wear a mask just because she’s shy.

Little Bashin spends a few moments lost in thought before pressing her mask to Belial’s ear.

"--.--!"

“See? You can talk when you need to.”

Belial approvingly pats Little Bashin on the head.

“To explain... ‘The village ahead is under attack by a large group of giant monsters and dragons, and the situation is grim. The adults have set fire to the village in the hopes of taking the monsters down with them, while the children are to fmd shelter with Kisaragi.'”

Belial continues to speak coolly, not even bothering to face us.

“And this little one’s saying, ‘We can’t involve you further in our fight; let’s turn back.’”

She then glances down at Little Bashin, who accepts the patting without complaint.

“You all know what we need to do. Don’t let me down, dammit.”

When Little Bashin turns her head up to look at Belial in the face, the Supreme Leader smiles reassuringly and, without a second's thought about the side effects, injects herself with a nitro cartridge.

“Let’s go, you apes! Chaaarge!”

““““Yahooo!””””

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAA! ”

“W-wait, don’t leave me!”

Her eyes bloodshot from the nitro cartridge, Belial charges forward with a band of bloodthirsty Combat Agents in tow—

“Lady Belial leapt in and incinerated the forest and the monsters.”

“Why can’t you write a better report?”

Alice presses for details as I write up my report.

“Eleven twenty, arrived at the Bashin village under attack. Eleven twenty-one hours, Lady Belial unleashed a jump kick on the lesser dragon leading the monsters, defeating it instantly. Afterwards, Lady Belial incinerated the dragons and monsters who were attacking the village along with the village itself.”

“Why would you let her do that?”

Don’t ask me.

“I didn’t even have time to try to stop her. The moment we ran into the enemy, a dragon—you know, a creature that’s supposed to be immune to fire—gets blasted away by a kick and bursts into flames. I think we just need to feel lucky that there weren’t any casualties.”

Alice crosses her arms in thought as she digests my explanation.

"...And? Where is Lady Belial herself?” Alice asks as she notices Belial herself is absent.

“Well, she felt bad for accidentally burning down the Bashin village, but she said she could balance the scales by burning down the other one, too. Then she ran off in the direction of the Hiiragi village.”

“Go get her. NOW,” Alice says with a serious expression.

“To be honest, I don’t think we’ll make it in time. Apparently, the Hiiragi village isn’t too far from the Bashin village.”

Right on cue, the plastic sheeting covering the broken windows flutters as a giant pillar of fire erupts from the forest.

“...I was hoping we could get the technology or whatever they were using to control the monsters.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s gone up in smoke by now.”

Still, this means the enemy tribe is gone, making our invasion all that much easier.

“Six, what was the point of Fritz from the Hiiragi Agency of Order looking so confident when they told us that the Hiiragi tribe was tougher than they looked and that they wished us luck in our retribution? I mean, the dragon was wiped out pretty much instantly, and the Hiiragi tribe went down ahnost as an afterthought.”

“Either way, everything worked out in the end. Although the Bashin village burned down, the adults who were planning to go out in a blaze of glory wound up surviving. When Lady Belial gets back, we should thank her with a feast.”

There’s actually a reason I’ve come back on my own.

Belial said that she wanted to eat some local delicacies when she got back to the hideout.

I don’t know why that thought occurred to her just then, but I figured I’d get back early and surprise her with a roast ore’s head.

“...Yeah, true. The moment a Kisaragi Supreme Leader showed up, I knew peace wouldn’t be an option. Given that the problem was taken care of so quickly, I guess it’s better than when Lady Lilith was here. Since it was quite an ask to get HQ to send us Lady Belial in the first place, I'm just glad we can send her back after only two days. Let's try to at least make her feel appreciated tonight and send her back to Earth in a good mood.”

“Lady Belial’s pretty easy to please. Just point her in the direction of a powerful enemy. However...”

As I'm about to finish my sentence, one of my colleagues reports in via radio.

“This is Combat Agent Fifteen. Burning the village went according to plan, but Lady Belial started chasing the fleeing monsters and Hiiragi tribesmen. We’re going to lose sight of her...”

“...When she finds an enemy, she charges in without thinking, ends up getting separated from the others, and usually gets lost.”

“After her!” shouts Alice, in a rare moment of panic.