977: Bahar

After defeating the supertitan, the second division made an attempt to enter the town of Scholz. However, we had no choice but to give up on it.

The city was a complete wreck. Antidemons walked around like they owned the place, with no signs of any living humans. Meanwhile, we were accompanied by Sarthe’s refugees, while our two strongest members, Izario and Matsuyuki, were exhausted.

We couldn’t afford to do anything risky in this condition. There was probably another of the Dragon King’s magic circles here, but searching the huge city would be difficult. We had no choice but to leave it alone for now.

「Shikimi, what now?」

「The original plan had us moving further west to the town of Bahar, but……」

「The titan earlier came from the west.」

「Exactly, meaning there is a possibility that titan originated from Bahar……」

That said, we can’t assume the town fell based on speculation alone.

We decided to go to Bahar first. If it’s still unharmed, we’d leave the inhabitants of Sarthe with them. If not, we’d head for the next nearest town instead.

Seems like the safest course of action.

The biggest problem would be if the earlier titan didn’t come from Bahar, and there was yet another titan running amok in the city.

Shikimi said we would release Berserk in that case, which means…

Fran stared at the carriage running alongside us, probably thinking the same thing as me. There was a deep melancholy in her eyes.

（……Master. If there’s a titan, we have to defeat ourselves. Absolutely.）

『……Absolutely?』

（Nn. Absolutely.）

Her determination seems solid.

I understood how she felt. Letting Izario use his divine sword any longer would be dangerous, and Matsuyuki will surely lose her life if she releases Berserk.

Fran stuck firmly to the belief that no one would be placed in danger as long as she defeats the titan.

I wanted to tell her that she was taking all of the risk herself, but I know that wouldn’t change her mind.

『……First of all, let’s see if there actually is a titan in Bahar.』

（Nn.）

Amidst much anxiety and panic, the second division made its way to Bahar. However, the presence of the Sarthe refugees made our progress very slow.

The mostly civilian group lacked stamina, and their fatigue was amplified by marching alongside us. The frequent antidemon raids didn’t help either. It simply wasn’t possible to speed up the tired refugees any further.

What should have been a day’s journey took us more than twice as long, but I don’t blame them.

Besides, the people of Sarthe seemed plenty resilient to me.

No beds, no change of clothes, and few breaks. Yet they never complained. Still, I can’t say if it’ll stay this way in the future. Our food supplies were a bit worrying.

We could manage without a water supply thanks to our sorcerers, but food can’t be produced out of nowhere. The refugees carried some food with them, but it wasn’t enough for everyone.

Each unit shared some rations with them on the first day, but our stocks were already running out. We didn’t bring much in terms of food to begin with.

Obviously, we couldn’t reduce the rations for the fighters. They wouldn’t be able to protect the refugees on an empty stomach.

But if the refugees saw the fighters eating while they were starving, I could easily see them getting angry. That would obviously harm the atmosphere of the second division as a whole.

We would be in a bad spot unless we can resupply at Bahar. Well, assuming we don’t use our dimensional storage.

Our stored meat alone would be enough to feed a thousand people for a few days. The issue being if we do feed this many people, was anyone gonna pay for it?

Will the council even reimburse us for this? I’m worried since Sarthe’s an illegal city, so the residents there may not be treated as an official citizens.

Of course, we didn’t intend to let them starve to death. Fran would be willing to give them free food if the situation called for it.

But I don’t want us to get a reputation for handing out free food either. We might get all sorts of beggars, especially on this continent. That might get really annoying.

『Best case scenario is us being able to stock up on food in Bahar.』

「Nn.」

It actually would have been better if we could have stocked up in Scholz. However, the city was too big and we had no clue where the food reserves were. There were so many antidemons crawling around that we could hardly explore at all.

While rationing out the food supplies a bit more, we spent two more days marching to Bahar.

As we were on an unobstructed plain, we could easily see Bahar’s devastation. Like Sarthe and Scholz before it, a portion of the walls was blown open. This was clearly the work of a titan.

Although the titan was already gone, we could feel the presence of countless antidemons on the other side of those walls. There was no way the town could be intact.

「Shikimi, what now?」

「We’re lucky that the titan is gone, but…… there is no way for us to rest in that town. Our biggest priority right now is to secure food supplies.」

「Nn. Should I go check out the town again?」

「Please do. In case we find nothing, we will likely have to rely on you, Black Lightning Princess-dono. If that happens, my country will offer payment.」

Actually, we had already discussed this issue with Shikimi last night. She wanted to secure food supplies by any means necessary, so we offered her our high grade magical beast meat.

Rather than taking it as a donation, she promised to pay us for the meat. Although high-grade magical beast meat was on the expensive side, she laughed it off and told us it was a cheap price for buying fame.

Half of that was true, but her reputation should already be soaring after ensuring the safety of Sarthe’s inhabitants. The other half was probably out of concern for Fran. Shikimi wanted to allow us to provide the food without hesitation.

The people from Hagane seemed pretty decent compared to Silard. At the very least, they were capable of showing consideration to others.

（Master, let’s go.）

『Yeah, focus on all the big buildings and see if we can find some food. Maybe we’ll get lucky and stumble upon a stockpile.』

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