Chapter 553
You sure brought back a lot. (2)
"Who's this guy?"
Ghislain asked with a pitying expression, and the knights scratched their heads, laughing awkwardly.
"I asked Tarim, and he says he's one of the deputy leaders of the Revolutionary Group."
"That so?"
As he turned his head, Tarim had already appeared beside him. This guy moves way too fast.
"His name is Jaren. He's one of the four deputy leaders."
"There was no mention of a deputy leader coming, though."
"Well... I couldn't possibly know who was leading the other battalions."
It was a classic case of a decentralized organization. Until they had gathered here, no one knew exactly who was in charge of which troops.
Tarim hurriedly continued, as if making excuses.
"This guy isn't here just because of the war. The deputy leaders don’t usually move around. They handle more administrative duties."
"Hmm, is that so?"
Tarim enthusiastically explained everything he knew about the Revolutionary Group's structure.
"Yes, yes. The deputy leaders are at least somewhat educated."
The Revolutionary Group was a massive organization in its own right. Naturally, they needed people to manage finances, supplies, and troops.
They couldn’t entrust such responsibilities to uneducated marauders, so the deputy leaders handled them instead.
Especially Leonard, who had seized his position through rebellion he had strictly used the deputy leaders for administrative work.
Jaren, the deputy leader, glared at Tarim as he spoke.
"You... you traitorous bastard... It was you who snitched..."
The failure of their ambush operation and the sudden attack on this village had come as a thunderbolt out of the blue for the Revolutionary Group.
It was only natural for Jaren to assume Tarim had betrayed them and leaked information.
But that assumption was only half right. Half wrong. Ghislain had already known about the ambush plan before even meeting Tarim.
Tarim kicked Jaren hard and shouted.
"How dare you try to deceive the Holy One! The Holy One already received divine revelation and knew everything! I merely followed the will of the goddess!"
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Tarim enthusiastically kicked him several times. Somehow, it just felt like the right thing to do.
Thump.
Ghislain placed a hand on Tarim’s shoulder and spoke.
"Stop making up things about how I feel. This guy is something else. What’s up with your empathy skills? Are you some kind of emotional sympathizer?"
"...Yes, sir."
Tarim stepped back, and Ghislain rotated his shoulder, gripping his hand axe.
Beating people up was his job, after all.
Crunch!
"Arrrghhh!"
"I've been using this a lot lately. I'd like you to empathize with me, too. So, why are you here?"
"Ugh... Hrk...! You already know! That bastard must’ve told you everything! We were planning to strike the Allied Forces from behind!"
“Still, was there really a need for someone in charge of internal administration to come all the way here?”
“It’s an important matter! And I can fight a little too!”
“That sounds like a lie. My heart isn’t convinced.”
“What lie…?”
Kwachik!
“Arghhh!”
“Be honest. Why are you here?”
“I, I…”
Kwachik!
“Gyaaah! I-I'll talk! Money! We came for money and supplies!”
“From where? Do you think you lot are some kind of tax collectors?”
This entire area was under the control of the Allied Forces, and they were in the middle of a war. What nonsense was this about coming to retrieve money and supplies like some kind of sanctioned collection?
Jaren gasped for breath as he struggled to continue.
“I mean the supplies we’ve been stockpiling at our hideout.”
“Oh? So you have a lot of them left?”
“With wide scales of operations from multiple kingdoms and rebels, won’t security get tighter for a while…? If we keep searching the area, this village could get discovered as well…”
“So you planned to move them before that happened? And that’s why you personally came?”
Jaren obediently nodded and added,
“Yes… I was ordered to do so. Since we wouldn’t be able to use the supplies in this area until the war is over, we intended to convert them into military funds.”
The Allied Forces weren’t fools they wouldn’t fall for the same trick twice. A thorough search of the surrounding areas was inevitable.
That was why they had attempted to relocate the hidden resources from their nearby hideouts.
When Ghislain glanced at Tarim, the man frantically shook his head and shouted,
“I really don’t know anything about this! I don’t even know all of the hideouts! I only know the ones that were specifically told to me!”
Even surprise attacks required supplies. Their method of resupplying was to store dried provisions in various hideouts and retrieve them as needed.
However, even those hideouts were only revealed to operatives on a need-to-know basis. Tarim had only been given knowledge of the ones necessary for his task.
Ghislain pulled out a map and handed it to Jaren.
“Mark them.”
“T-then will you spare me?”
Kwachik!
“Gyaaah! I-I’ll mark them!”
Unable to endure the pain, Jaren frantically scribbled locations onto the map.
Loyalty or camaraderie didn’t exist among them anyway. The Revolutionary Army was merely a group sustained by Leonard’s reign of terror.
And when faced with an even greater terror, they would inevitably crumble.
Ghislain stood up and addressed the knights.
“We’ll keep this one around for a while to confirm some things. As for the rest, clean up the village.”
The Mobile Corps began searching through the ruined village. Many revolutionaries lay crushed beneath the wreckage, already dead, but there were plenty more who had only been wounded.
Puk!
“Guhh!”
The Mobile Corps casually executed the fallen and continued searching the village.
Taking them as prisoners would only waste food supplies and be a hassle to manage.
Jaren trembled as he watched the scene unfold. He had heard rumors of their ruthlessness, but seeing it firsthand made it all too real.
"I’ve already told them everything… Is there anything else I should say?"
His mind raced. If he wanted to survive, he had to confess every bit of information he could remember.
As the Mobile Corps cleared away the debris and searched the village, they uncovered entrances leading to underground chambers.
Upon entering, they found an enormous stockpile of dried provisions and valuables.
Ghislain smirked.
“They sure did steal a lot.”
It was the result of years of plundering. And if such treasure troves existed here, it meant there were likely many more spread across the continent.
Jaren knew the locations of quite a few hideouts. Some were currently inaccessible, but still, it was valuable intel.
Of course, even Jaren didn’t have the full picture. Each deputy commander oversaw different regions.
The only person who knew the whereabouts of all the hideouts was Leonard.
“That conniving bastard.”
Ghislain sent Dark to inform Claude and the other Mobile Corps commanders about the hideouts’ locations.
Once the Mobile Corps raided them, Claude would dispatch forces to retrieve whatever was left.
“Well then, let’s go loot the rest.”
Ghislain wasn’t one to let an unexpected windfall slip away. Even if they couldn’t reach the farthest hideouts, they could still strip the nearby ones bare.
Money was always better in excess.
* * *
“Hahh… the operation was a complete failure.”
Leonard gritted his teeth as he fled. His ambush tactics had never failed before.
Now, ten thousand revolutionaries had been wiped out. He hadn’t stayed to witness the final moments, but the outcome was clear.
Of course, this alone wouldn’t bring down the Revolutionary Army. If they were so fragile that a single defeat could break them, they never would have swept across the continent in the first place.
There were still plenty of revolutionaries left. Most of them were currently supporting the 3rd Legion of the Kingdom of Atrode.
The real issue was Leonard’s wounded pride.
“What a disgrace.”
He had meticulously planned the operation and launched it with full confidence, only to be utterly crushed.
The Salvation Church and the Kingdom of Atrode would surely see him as a fool.
His teeth clenched in frustration.
How had the Duke of Fenris known?
And for a brief moment… that presence he had felt.
"Even in a one-on-one fight, victory wouldn’t come easy."
Leonard had rarely encountered someone who exuded such overwhelming force. Even if he fought with everything he had, he wasn’t confident he could win.
He had always hidden his true strength, allowing him to maintain an air of composure. But the world was filled with powerful beings.
“For now, I need to relocate the valuables.”
One of his deputy commanders, Jaren, had been in Stonebrook Village.
If Jaren had died in battle, that would have been fine. But if he had been captured, then the hideouts had surely been exposed.
Leonard quickened his pace toward another hideout. He never trusted his subordinates.
There were a total of five hideouts in the region.
Even if Jaren had revealed them all, Leonard had moved faster than the Mobile Corps. He could at least salvage four of them.
Fwoosh!
Leonard burst forward, his mana surging explosively.
Only the village chief knew his face.
He had planned to meet him in secret and send all the valuables to the Kingdom of Grimwell. At the very least, that would help him save face.
Afterward, he intended to dispatch a messenger to clear out the other hideouts in the nearby regions.
But then—
Boom! Boom! Boom!
“What the…?”
Leonard was at a loss for words.
An army had already arrived and was razing the village to the ground!
Hiding in the shadows, he carefully observed the scene. It wasn’t the army led by the Duke of Fenris.
Instead, a woman was massacring the villagers, scattering dozens of daggers in all directions.
“H-How is this…?”
It made no sense. The only one who knew about this hideout’s location was his deputy commander, Jaren.
Leonard had anticipated that Jaren would be captured and spill the information. The problem was that it wasn’t the Duke of Fenris who had acted on it someone else had arrived instead.
There was no way word could have traveled this fast. Leonard couldn’t make sense of what was happening.
“I-I need to check another location.”
Under normal circumstances, he would have stayed to fight, but that was impossible now. The village had no defenses, while the enemy was filled with superhumans and elite soldiers.
He chalked it up to coincidence.
It had to be some bizarre twist of fate that he didn’t understand.
But then, as he arrived at the next village—
Boom! Boom! Boom!
“Aaargh!”
A massive woman was demolishing buildings with brute force. The soldiers barely had anything to do.
Upon closer inspection, she resembled the Saintess, Parniel, whom he had only heard about in rumors.
Another different army.
“……”
Leonard could only blink in disbelief.
The enemy was moving faster than him faster than the only person who knew all the hideouts.
It was impossible.
No army could communicate and mobilize this quickly.
Unaware of Dark’s existence, Leonard was left in utter confusion.
“I-I need to check another one…”
For the first time in his life, the usually cold and taciturn Leonard was visibly shaken.
Panicked, he rushed to the next hideout the closest one.
He had to get there before the enemy. He pushed his abilities to their absolute limit.
Boom!
He moved like a streak of light.
This time, it had to be different.
Twice could be a coincidence.
But—
“Haaahp!”
BOOM!
“……”
At the third hideout, a woman was swinging a hammer larger than her own body, smashing everything in sight.
For some reason, she looked absolutely livid.
There were two thousand soldiers stationed here. Among them was a white-haired superhuman.
“Gillian.”
That confirmed it.
This was definitely the Fenris Mobile Corps.
Leonard could no longer deny it.
“They really… sent word ahead.”
Leonard had no idea how the Duke of Fenris was pulling it off, but he was able to issue commands to other units at an absurd speed.
This was an incredible advantage in war.
No wonder everyone kept falling victim to the Ritania Army.
The ten battalions that hadn’t made it to Stonebrook Village were probably wiped out by the divided forces of the Mobile Corps as well.
“Haa… This won’t do.”
Leonard gave up on heading to the next hideout.
Instead, he decided to head straight for the farthest one.
The greater the distance, the longer it would take for the enemy to arrive.
BOOM!
Leonard pushed his speed to the absolute limit. He sprinted forward without sparing an ounce of mana.
And when he finally reached the last hideout in the region—
“As expected.”
Because of the distance, the Mobile Corps had yet to arrive.
He swiftly slipped into the village and found the chief.
“Huff! Commander! What brings you here all of a sudden?”
“Gather all the valuables here and move immediately. Time is of the essence.”
“Huh? What do you—”
“Now! The enemy knows about this location! Arm yourselves and move!”
“A-All right!”
The village chief quickly assembled the villagers.
Everyone immediately armed themselves and rushed to the underground storage to retrieve the valuables.
Since they had always been prepared for emergencies, their movements were swift. Working in teams, they managed to load the carts in no time.
But even after seeing this, Leonard couldn't shake off his unease.
It felt like the Mobile Corps would arrive any moment.
“Take only what’s necessary and move. We’ll be tracked soon, so split up into multiple groups.”
“Understood.”
There were only about two hundred villagers, but the supplies they managed were enough to sustain thousands of troops.
That was why they had to take as much as possible.
They had even prepared decoy carts for situations like this.
Now, the decoys would split into multiple groups to confuse their pursuers.
Just as preparations were almost complete, Leonard clenched his teeth and turned his head.
“…Damn it. They’re already here.”
Thud, thud, thud, thud!
A massive unit was charging toward them with terrifying momentum.
The Mobile Corps without a doubt.
Leonard had no choice but to step forward.
“I’ll buy you some time. Move now.”
He had no intention of fighting seriously.
His only goal was to delay them long enough for the carts to escape.
Or at least, that was his plan.
But then—
Leonard’s expression hardened as he caught sight of the man leading the charge on horseback.
‘Who is that…?’
One look was enough to tell.
That man was strong.
Before Leonard could finish his thought—
The man swung his sword from atop his horse.
Schlak!