Last Preparations

“‘The New Order!?’” a knight shouted, surprised by my words.

“Yes! We need to talk to the captain, now!”

Recognizing the importance of the New Order, the knight ran off to find the captain of this garrison so he could handle the situation. It was something completely beyond him.

After running for a while, we had managed to reach the knights’ barracks. As one would expect, it was a mess due to the demon’s attack that had taken Naoya. Knights were running everywhere, some tending to the wounded, and others still bringing victims of the disaster who remained outside. The situation had escalated too far and everything was chaos.

“Miss,” someone called as I kept watching the place. “They told me you needed to speak with me.”

The man was tall, very muscular, and wore a uniform similar to Captain Edran’s, but with some differences in colors and the emblem, surely to mark the distinction between the knights of each territory. As for his hair, it was blond and short, and somewhat messy.

“I am Captain Irons, the knight in charge of Uvras’ security.”

“Ah! Yes, my name is Liz, I am a mage, and she is—”

“Ena, a pleasure.”

Ena’s contrast between her usual whining, scatterbrained self and this new, more polite facet was surprising. I suppose we had underestimated her. Also, she did not reveal her identity as an elf, so I suppose I will be careful about that too.

“Please, we need information about the New Order. They took our companion.”

“Wait, was the one who took your friend the demon that attacked us?” he asked, to which I could only nod.

“Yes. He said the leader of the New Order needed him, but we have no other clue where to start looking… Please!” I exclaimed forcefully.

This was the only option I could think of to get information quickly. If it was not them, I would have to go to the capital or even return to Captain Edran to try my luck with the investigation they were doing, but we did not have time for that. We needed to act now.

Captain Irons thought for a moment, and perhaps moved by my determination or worried about what the New Order might want with Naoya, he spoke shortly afterward.

“From what we know thanks to multiple reports, the place where the New Order is most active is the capital, so it is likely they operate there and have their hideout.”

That was what I wanted to hear!

It was still a possibility, yes, but Naoya and I had already traveled through multiple towns and there had been no New Order activity, so it is quite likely they are hiding in the capital.

“Unfortunately, that is all we know. We would like to help your friend in some way, but the destruction of the town is our priority right now.”

Yes, I expected them to say that. However, already having a possible location is more than enough to continue our search.

“That’s okay! Thank you very much!” I said gratefully, then left the garrison.

So Naoya could be in the capital. It was our original destination anyway, so our course was not affected. However, now we had an important problem: lack of people. As much as I would like to go help right now, I could not do it alone; we needed more people.

“All right, what now?” Ena asked in her usual carefree attitude.

“We will need to get help if we want to face the New Order… How about we ask the elves?”

“Eh? No way!” the elf exclaimed. “They already scolded me for bringing humans! What do you think they would do if I suddenly asked them to go save one!?”

She had a good point. The elves blame humans for their current situation for having destroyed the great tree Mildfir; such was their hatred that they reached the point of attacking us to the death the moment they saw us; it was not going to be easy at all to convince them, but they were our only hope.

It is true that we still had the knights and adventurers from the capital, but if there are more demons like the one that attacked us before, then we would need all the help possible.

“Please! The only one capable of giving them mana was captured… Are you really going to say that is not important!?”

My argument seemed to reach Ena, who began to hesitate and think for a while, and although she tried to continue arguing in favor of her position, she could not say another word. Finally, she lowered her gaze in resignation and nodded.

“…All right. But I am not responsible for what might happen.”

“Yes! Thank you!”

We would have to travel back to the forest, so the sooner we left, the better. We needed to hurry as much as possible.

“Let’s find a cart! Let’s go!”

“Are we going to run again!? Hey, wait!”

And, with our objective set, we departed back toward the elves’ hiding place.

***

“Aaaaaaaaah!”

“Yeah… much better,” said Darkahia before letting me go, falling to the ground unable to move. “Rest for now, later they will bring you food.”

Shortly after that one-sided exchange, the great demon left the room, taking the candle with him and leaving me in the dark again.

This had been a routine we had been keeping since I arrived here. He comes, steals my mana, and leaves. Fortunately, it seems he needs me alive at all costs to continue taking advantage of my soul, at least for the moment, so he brings me food and water so I can recover.

I no longer know how much time has passed since I was confined here. I feel that a couple of days have gone by, but being underground and without any source of light to mark the hour makes measuring time incredibly difficult, and even more so when I sleep or lose consciousness from having expended more mana than usual.

Monotony was another problem, but I managed to cope with it thanks to meditation. It not only helped me train the control of my mana, but I have even been able to speak a little more with the consciousness of the great tree Mildfir. Perhaps due to my meditations or the frequent theft of my mana, the consciousness has been able to manifest for longer than before.

At last it formally introduced itself as the great tree’s consciousness and explained what my situation in this world had been. I was supposed to appear 100 years ago, during the war between humans and demons for control of the great tree. However, the demons’ interruption of the summoning ceremony ruined everything, and the destruction of the tree ended up crushing the people’s hopes for the arrival of a hero; or at least that is how it should have been.

The great tree Mildfir did not die that day, and taking advantage of the fact that everything needed for the summoning was already in place, it used the mana it had left to activate the spell and bring me into this world, but the process was so slow due to its dying state that it took 100 years to complete. That is why I am here.

It is a pity I arrived so late. Had I been summoned during the war, perhaps I would have been able to do more for this world.

On the other hand, I also remembered that the consciousness had manifested to the leader of the elves in the past, so I took advantage of that to send a message for help by that means, or at least to warn that things had become complicated.

Honestly, I do not know if I will be able to count on the elves to get out of here given their complicated situation with humans, but I am sure Liz must already be moving to free me. Until then, I must endure here as long as possible.