Chapter 97

Chapter 97. Secret Operation (1)

Where, and from whom, could he possibly get advice about a unique technique of his own that no one else knew?

No matter how much Balun thought about it, no answer came to him. The best he could come up with was the Seven Sages.

Mages so erudite and wise that they were said to have understood the principles of the world.

If they were the seven sages whom anyone walking the path of magic respected, perhaps they could give him an answer to his troubles.

Of course, one of them, the man who bore the title of Gray Sage, had not been able to resolve this question.

But would the other six not have an answer?

You never know. They might find one.

That was what he had decided, but the problem was how he would meet the remaining six sages.

They were sages respected to the point that even great nobles could not treat them carelessly, so meeting them would not be easy.

It seemed that problem had been resolved more easily than expected.

“We wrote a contract. When this is over, you introduce me. If you don’t keep your promise, I really won’t stay quiet.”

“I understand, so stop saying it. Good grief, you repeat yourself to a disturbing degree. I will have your words memorized. Memorized, I tell you.”

Count Monteki shook his head as if he had had enough, but Balun did not care.

Was repetition and mastery not the most basic of basics?

“I’m saying it so you don’t forget. Promises are important.”

“I ask out of curiosity, but what does ‘won’t stay quiet’ mean? What do you intend to do to me?”

“That is too harsh to tell you. You’d be shocked if you heard it.”

“Too harsh?”

“That’s right. I’m being considerate because you’re a good man, Count. If it were someone else, I’d have gone ahead and said something very harsh.”

“Haha. Well, that is very kind of you!”

Even in the face of Balun’s somewhat over-the-line rudeness, Count Monteki did not show the slightest sign of displeasure. Rather, he merely treated Balun with a pleased gaze.

Instead, the ones wary of Balun were the leaders of the count’s army, who were made up of nobles.

And with good reason. Count Monteki was openly showing signs of favoring Balun. Since most of those gathered here were people seeking advancement, Balun could only be an eyesore to them.

If he had at least been a noble, it would have been less galling, but Balun was a commoner mercenary nobody. A Barbarian, at that.

“Ahem. You are rather insolent, Barbarian.”

“Mind your tongue. Even if the Count is generous, he is not someone you may treat carelessly.”

At the flood of reprimands, Balun roughly nodded and answered that he understood. He could just start a fight then and there, but there was no need to create needless strife.

The war was not over yet, after all.

“Then that settles it. I will assign people to you right away, so work together.”

“Understood.”

“That is all I have to say. You may go now.”

“There is something I want to ask before I go.”

“Ask.”

“Why me? If it’s such an important mission, shouldn’t you assign it to someone more trustworthy?”

“That is because the meeting concluded that you, Balun, are the most suitable person for this task.”

“Suitable?”

“Yes. Go and bring him.”

When Count Monteki gave a signal to one of his adjutants, the man immediately went out and brought back a mage.

Balun’s eyes widened.

It was someone he knew.

‘Huh? Oskal?’

Why was that man showing up here?

As Oskal greeted Balun with his eyes as if pleased to see him, Count Monteki introduced him.

“Allow me to introduce him. Mage Oskal of the Red Tower. He is the mage who will be participating in this mission. He is also the one who strongly recommended that this mission be entrusted to you. I heard the two of you already know each other. Is that correct, Mage Oskal?”

“Yes. We are already acquainted. We have even carried out a mission together. You could say we are already comrades who have shared blood.”

Oskal answered with a slight smile. Balun let out a hollow laugh.

‘Why am I his comrade who shared blood?’

I’ve never donated blood.

“From here on, it would be best for Mage Oskal to explain directly. Please, Mage Oskal.”

“Yes.”

Oskal lightly bowed his head, approached, and began his explanation.

“The objective of this mission is to stop the Croan army’s schemes in the valley. To do that, we must infiltrate the valley and assassinate the mages. The problem is that the Croan army has installed a large-scale Mana Detection Magic Array centered here, deep inside the valley.”

Oskal pointed to the marker placed in the valley.

“That is to say, if you use Mana near the valley, you will draw their attention. Do you understand so far, Balun?”

“I understand.”

“The problem is that the Mana Detection Magic Array they installed is far too advanced. They have laid Fifth Tier magic arrays all throughout the valley.”

“Hm? Is that high?”

“Of course. It is difficult enough just to find a Fifth Tier mage, but the fact that they spread Fifth Tier magic over such a wide area is truly enormous. It means they made an enormous investment. They either ground money into it, or they ground people into it. One of the two.”

Hearing that, Balun stroked his chin. When it was put that way, it really did seem unusual.

“That means that bullshit scheme of theirs is worth investing that much in.”

“That is correct. As expected, you are intelligent, so explaining this is easy.”

Oskal nodded and pointed to the northern part of the Kingdom of Corint on the map.

“The bastards’ objective is probably to wipe out the Count’s entire army and open a path. If Halborn Plain falls, the road to central Corint opens, and if that happens, the kingdom will be in danger. In other words, the entire kingdom will become a battlefield.”

“That’d be pretty bad.”

Balun said that, but he wondered whether this was really right.

No, was this not getting far too large in scale?

Of course, the situation had inevitably flowed this way, and that was why he had made his decision and joined the war.

But he had not intended to get involved in anything this complicated.

“Fine. Let’s say that’s their intent. What does that magic array or whatever have to do with me?”

“That is because you do not use Aura, Balun.”

“Hm?”

What was that supposed to mean?

“The weakness of Mana detection is that it cannot detect what is not Mana. That means you are perfect for this.”

“Because I don’t use Aura?”

“Yes.”

Balun let out a hollow laugh.

‘So I’m suited for this because I’m stealth that doesn’t show up on radar?’

It felt strange.

Should he be happy about this or not?

To think he was the right person because he alone could not do what everyone else could.

Count Monteki, who had been quietly listening until then, approached and patted Balun on the shoulder.

“The kingdom’s future depends on you. I hope you succeed in this mission.”

No, don’t put pressure on me.

***

Balun immediately met the people Count Monteki said he would assign to him. They were five knights from the Ironwall Knight Order, the knight order held by the Monteki Family, thirty elite soldiers, Oskal, and two rank-and-file mages from the Red Tower whom he had brought with him.

Thirty-eight in total. Including Balun himself, thirty-nine.

‘Isn’t that too few people?’

He wondered if it made sense to raid the hideout of the bastards plotting this conspiracy with fewer than forty people, but since it was a secret mission, he somehow accepted it.

They said every last one of them was elite, after all.

The soldiers had been carefully selected, and the five knights were said to be highly skilled as well.

Above all, these knights had handled intelligence missions even within the Ironwall Knight Order, so their abilities seemed trustworthy.

He had no idea why knights were carrying out intelligence missions, though.

“I’ll be counting on you. I am Gordon of the Jeffrey Family.”

“I’m Gareth.”

“Duncan. Call me that. These two are Dario and Mateo. Brothers.”

He exchanged brief introductions with them. The knights had a rather curt attitude, but Balun strongly felt that they were not so much curt as on edge.

They had become serious and sharp because an important mission lay ahead.

“I saw you fight Viscount Roent. You were skilled.”

Gordon, the knight who seemed to be their leader, held out his hand and offered a handshake. Balun took his hand and said, “I got lucky.”

“Luck is part of skill. Please display that luck for us as well. We will support you with everything we have.”

“Doesn’t it bother you? Supporting a mere Barbarian mercenary, I mean.”

“We may or may not succeed even if we join forces. If we get red-faced over such petty feelings, even work that could succeed will fail.”

“Heh heh. True. I like that answer.”

None of the five seemed to have any territorial posturing or power plays, so Balun felt that they had not been assigned to him for nothing.

He could say he liked his first impression of them.

“Rather than speak at length, let us draw up the operation first. Gather here after lunch.”

After eating lunch, they gathered separately and held a strategy meeting.

It was called a meeting, but in practice it was closer to an exchange between Gordon and Oskal.

Balun mostly only listened.

Well, one had to know something in order to draw up a strategy, did they not?

“So we sneak in through a hidden side route and cut them down, is that it?”

“Correct. We have already surveyed all the side routes. We do need to take a bit of a detour, but it is fine because it is a place those bastards have not defended.”

“Good. Then when do we leave?”

“At dawn tomorrow, immediately.”

That day, Balun went to sleep in the early evening, then woke in the dark hours of dawn, long before daybreak, and set out for the valley.

On foot, at that.

“We’re not riding horses?”

“Infiltration missions do not need horses.”

“That’s true, but if we rode, we’d arrive faster. We could just park them in front of the valley.”

“Stealth is more important than speed. The bastards will be using scouts too, so it is better not to do anything that stands out. But what is parking?”

“There is such a thing. You don’t need to worry about it.”

And so Balun’s group detoured around the outer edge of Halborn Plain, where the undergrowth grew thick.

When they passed near the Croan army’s encampment, they moved by crawling almost flat against the ground.

They did not even make the sound of breathing.

“It’s been a long time since I did this sort of thing.”

“You speak as though you have done it before.”

“I did it a lot in the past. I used surprise operations often.”

“On battlefields?”

“Yeah.”

“Funny. A Barbarian using surprise attacks.”

Gordon laughed, thinking Balun was joking, but Balun was not joking.

After all, surprise operations were tactics Balun had often used in countless tribal wars.

Even just recently, when he had subjugated the bandits, he had used a surprise operation.

“Do you see over there? If we go down that way, it leads deep into the valley. There is a secret encampment the Croan bastards have hidden there.”

“It looks rather ominous.”

“Of course. It is deep inside. Besides, they have even installed a magic array, so it is bound to.”

They continued moving.

Down the slope.

The sun had not risen, and they were even descending, so it was truly a world of pitch-black darkness. However, Balun’s group went down without any trouble. Everyone was accustomed to night assaults.

The four mages had poor night vision because they could not even receive the aid of magic, but that was not a problem since they only needed to trail along behind the others.

“Stop.”

At Gordon’s words from the front, everyone halted.

“What is it?”

“There are people ahead.”

Everyone’s gaze turned toward the tip of Gordon’s finger.

It was too dark to see clearly, but a moving silhouette was visible in that direction.

“They’re probably Croan soldiers. It looks like they’re standing guard......”

“No, they’re knights. Three of them. Ah, there are archers behind them. Five men with bows.”

At Balun’s interruption, Gordon paused and looked back at him.

“Balun. You can see all that?”

“I can.”

“How can you see it?”

“I just can.”

“You just can......?”

“Yeah.”

“Remarkable. A man who cannot even use Aura has night vision this good.”

High-ranking knights could draw up the Mana inside their bodies and enhance their physical abilities. That was why their night vision was sharp.

But Balun did not even know how to use such a thing, yet his night vision was simply good. In fact, he seemed to see even better than Gordon himself.

How could that not be remarkable?

“Ah, I ate some things that were good for the body. You should eat things like Fine Root of Mandragora too. Your eyes will get better.”

At that, Gordon snorted and lowered his voice.

“Fine Root of Mandragora, my foot. Where would I get something that precious and eat it? And eating it does not improve your eyesight. It may increase the amount of Mana in your body, but that is all.”

At that, Balun tilted his head.

‘That’s not right. My eyes got better, though?’

It was not only his eyes. His physical abilities had improved evenly across the board. Balun could feel that clearly.

‘Why does someone else only get more Mana while my body improves? Is it because of Enhancement Art?’

While Balun held that question, the group succeeded in entering safely without being caught.

After they had gone for a while, Gordon stopped again.

“Why are we stopping?”

“This is as far as we go. From here on, you have to go alone.”

“What?”

“If you go beyond this point, you will be within the range of the Mana Detection Magic Array. If we pass through, we will be detected.”

At that, Balun narrowed his eyes and asked,

“If I’m doing this alone, why did you follow me? Was there any need for you to come?”

“Did we not say it yesterday? It is a division of roles.”

“Division of roles?”

“Yes. If you succeed in infiltrating the inside, reinforcements from the Croan army will probably rush over. Our role is to cut off those reinforcements on the path. We will help you escape.”

At those words, Balun nodded. Thinking it over carefully, it seemed that was the agreement they had reached.

He accepted it, but he could not help that his lips jutted out in a pout.

No, did it really make sense for him to go in dangerously alone?

What if he infiltrated and fucking died?

Were they going to take responsibility?

“Just follow this path. Now that we have come this far, it is not difficult. I’m counting on you.”

“Fine.”

After exchanging a look, Balun soon went ahead without hesitation.

Not long after he descended along the slope, however, he had no choice but to stop.

Something felt wrong.

‘I don’t think I should go down this way.’

There was clearly an opening without a single guard.

Yet, strangely enough, his senses were ringing an alarm.

Mana Sense had begun to activate.

Balun did not ignore that feeling.

‘Not here. Let’s find another path.’

Now that he had come this far, turning back was not an option.

Balun looked around, then casually looked to the left of the slope. Beneath the sheer cliff, he saw a precipice.

A place where falling meant instant death.

It was a dizzying sight just to look at.

‘All I have to do is get down there, right? Then I can just cling to the cliff and crawl down, can’t I?’

For some reason, Balun’s eyes were shining.