Combatants Will Be Dispatched - Volume 7 - Chapter 4.4

4

"Hey, gimme another piece of that bread! Also, more water!”

“I’ll take more bread, too! Ah... The last time a simple piece of bread tasted this good...was when I was given a piece of rye bread at a soup kitchen after going five days without food when I lived in the slums...!”

It seems they were famished; the two start vacuuming up the food I ordered with my Evil Points.

As Snow weeps while gnawing on a piece of bread, Heine also starts to tear up for some reason.

“You’ve had such a hard life... Here, have my piece of bread, too.”

"Don't be ridiculous, Heine, you need to eat that. I haven't forgotten that you lied, telling me you didn't like the gaminess of monster liver, and gave it to me, even though you love it so much, you were salivating just looking at it! I’m going to feed you until you burst!”

They exchange tearful words as they eat their bread. Is it just me, or are they weirdly close now?

I guess they became friends during the course of their survival training.

“Here, this meat’s ready. It’s times like this I’m glad I’m a fire mage. It makes it easier to control the cooking fire.”

“Heh... That’s the Heine I know. I’ll gratefully take it. But you take this skewer that looks the tastiest.”

As they laugh and offer each other barbecued meat skewers...

"If you two don’t want them. I’ll take them.”

““Ack!””

Completely oblivious to the friendly mood, Rose gobbles down the two skewers.

“Why are you eating that skewer! I was trying to give it to Snow to eat...”

“Heine was close to death earlier! Heine should have been the one to eat that...”

Heine and Snow exchange glances after yelling at Rose and blush.

“You two look ready to start a shipping company. When’d you start dating?”

“You moron! Don’t tarnish our friendship!”

“You always have your mind in the gutter! What can’t you just appreciate a friendship forged in the fires of adversity that goes beyond race and country?!”

Pretty sure they’re just delirious from exhaustion. I bet things’ll go back to normal in a few days.

“Well, I'd forgotten all about you two ever since we teleported you away. What were you up to these last few days?”

At my casual question, the two look at me, eyes wide with fury, and tremble in anger.

“What do you mean what were we doing?! As you can see, we were fighting for our lives! The dragons chased us down and took our rations, then the rest of our equipment...!”

“We needed to keep a fire lit through the night, and there’s a limit to how much magic I could use. Snow would hunt the predators that attacked us, and I’d use my magic to cook them... We made it through by relying on each other!”

Guess Alice was wrong about greater dragons being too smart to want to attack humans.

I exchange glances with Alice about that, and she simply shrugs it off as a miscalculation.

Belial, who’d been quietly wolfing down meat, looks over at the pair curiously.

“So why did you teleport them out there? Was it some sort of prank or punishment?”

“Why are you making it sound like you’re uninvolved? We sent out search parties every time there was a high-energy surge to find you when you were lost, Lady Belial.”

Well, toward the end. we did start to enjoy it and started picking points on a whim...

Belial gets shifty-eyed for a moment then finishes her skewer.

“I wafn’t loft...”

“Are you still saying that? If you stay in denial, we’ll just leave you here.”

Rose, evidently satisfied after eating more skewers than anyone, smiles over at Snow and Heine.

“Anyway, I’m glad you two are all right. Russell and I were also tied up and brought here to Grunade against our will.”

“You’ve been through a lot, too, it seems... Which reminds me, I’ve been wondering, who is the lady there?”

Snow points to the pouting Belial.

“Oh, right. I hadn’t introduced you yet. This is Lady Belial, one of the Supreme Leaders of the Kisaragi Corporation.”

“I see... A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Belial. I am Snow, Kisaragi Combat Agent, and Knight Commander of the Grace Kingdom’s Royal Guard. I hope to be of use to you...”

Showing off her refinement as a knight commander, Snow curtsies elegantly.

At receiving Snow’s introduction, Belial then claps her hands together as though she recalled something.

“I remember your name. I saw it in Six’s report! You love money and magic swords, and you kissed Six when he couldn’t move!”

“Ack! What are you doing?! Stop! Quit struggling!”

I restrain Snow when she attacks me at Belial’s statement. Alice, having finished cleaning up the camp, states to the group:

“All right, then it’s time to head back to town. The original plan was to spend the night here then start looking for Snow and Heine, but they found us first. It’s better to get back to the inn and sleep rather than camp out here, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. You guys came out to look for us? If you’re nice enough to do that, maybe you could have not teleported us to the middle of nowhere in the first place...?”

“I agree... Well, we were all right in the end. Survival training isn’t too bad, and it did give me a chance to get to know Heine.”

Heine smiles a bit shyly at Snow’s words.

“It’s true that we came to find you, but technically we weren’t looking for you two. We were looking for Heine’s sorcery stone.”

“What?”

It seems they’ve become synched over the past few days; Snow and Heine both tilt their heads quizzically.

“Oh, I remember now! The sorcery stone Miss Heine has was the one Tiger Man obtained by fighting and defeating a dragon!”

Rose claps her hands together as though everything clicked for her, prompting Heine to glance down at the sorcery stone on the outside of her hand.

“Meaning you need my power now?” Heine says with a confident smirk, prompting Alice to interject.

“What we need is the stone. It needs to be a red one that’s come from a dragon.”

...Heine tearfully resists as she holds the sorcery stone to her stomach to keep us from taking it.

“This stone is precious to Heine. If you intend to take it by force, I don’t care who you are. I’ll help her fight to keep it,” Snow declares loudly, then draws her sword and steps in front of Heine like a knight protecting the weak.

Heine, who was curled up and crying over her stone, looks up at Snow as though she were a shining knight, wiping the tears from her face and rising to her feet.

She stands behind Snow, dropping into a stance to offer magical support.

“I know full well I can’t beat you all, but even then that's...”

"If we take the sorcery stone to the princess, we’ll get a huge payout. I’ll give you a big bonus, too.”

Snow’s pure expression of chivalric virtue wavers at Alice’s statement.

“What it...means to be a knight...but...”

“Lady Belial’s the most powerful warrior in Kisaragi. Careful you don't die resisting her.”

At my words, Snow then quietly lowers her gaze.

“...S-Snow? We're BFFs, right? You’re not going to abandon me, right?” Heine says worriedly to Snow, whose shoulders are trembling.

“...If I recall, that sorcery stone was a present from Tiger Man, right? Then, if you hand it over and get a bonus, you’ll come out ahead, Heine.”

“What the hell are you talking about?! The day we split that last piece of dried meat, you said I was the first demon friend you ever had!”

.....

“Under these circumstances, it’s useless to resist! Then it’s smarter to hand over the sorcery stone and get our share! You got that sorcery stone for free; don’t be greedy!”

“You bitch, that’s the worst kind of betrayal! That’s why I hate humans! Thinking back on it, it’s because of your greed that I had to try to curry favor as much as I did with that prince in Torace! You really need to stop being so fixated on money!”

I figured things would go back to normal within three days, but they didn’t even last a day.

The two glare at each other and close the distance between them, each looking for an opening.

“Blast you, cursed demon! Now that I think about it, I haven't liked you since the moment I first saw you!”

"That’s my line, dammit! Don't mess with a former elite of the Demon Lord’s Army!” 

As the two women begin grappling and brawling, Belial looks at them with an exasperated sigh.

“Hey, Six, you should pick your subordinates more carefully.”

“Lady Lilith told me the exact same thing.”