"It was you, Freya."Freya, who was assigned to stand night watch in the same squad as me.She must have been making her rounds and ended up where I was."Yes. Is there anything unusual?"When Freya asked about the situation, I shrugged and grumbled,"Unusual, huh. Honestly, the fact that I’m out here at all is what’s unusual."Dragged out beyond the wall on an expedition and stuck standing watch the moment I get back home.If that isn’t strange, what is."……"Freya stood there awkwardly in place.It seemed she hadn’t just come to check our status; she had something else to say.Crackle—.I used Transmutation on the earth to make another chair so Freya could sit."Thank you. For the bathroom as well.""That was just basic consideration."Freya thanked me for making the bathroom.Though considering I’d rushed to make it only after hearing Malt’s reminder, I might have been a bit slow on the uptake.Freya sat silently in the chair.After quietly staring into the darkness for a while, she finally parted her lips."About what happened in the village, are you all right?"When Freya brought up the ambush in Moerfit Village, I answered calmly,"Why wouldn’t I be. I didn’t actually suffer any damage. It wasn’t a real threat. Their blades, their poison, none of their methods could hurt me.""That’s not what I’m asking.""Then what?""…We helped the villagers, and what we got in return was an ambush in the night, wasn’t it?"Her voice held a faint hint of frustration.We’d cleared the boulder from their field, opened their clogged well, moved the logs at the village entrance, and chopped the firewood they’d use to get through winter.We had given the villagers quite a bit of help.But as Freya said, what came back in return was a stranger with an axe and flames that swallowed our lodging.Most people would be angry at the betrayal.But I shook my head."Not really. You can more or less guess, can’t you? That the attack on me was just past karma coming back around.""……"Loen Dvralis.His behavior had changed a lot since coming to Union, and Freya had seen that process clearly.Starting from second year, Loen had mended his ways, unlike in the past.From that perspective, this accident had happened while he was doing good deeds for the villagers, so she was probably trying to consider the matter from my point of view.But even so, the sins past Loen had committed didn’t just vanish. Someone out there was bound to hold a deep grudge against me.This incident was one of the events that proved Loen’s situation.It had nothing to do with the kindness we’d shown the village.A single day’s worth of good deeds wasn’t enough to justify taking someone’s life, either."……"Freya moved her lips for a moment, then clenched the fist resting on her knee and spoke."…On the way to the main fortress, I heard a few things from Miss Ciel.""You two were sharing secrets, huh."For the three days from Moerfit Village to the Dvralis fortress, they’d been whispering to each other every night.Freya spoke in a small voice."You said you traveled around the villages under the pretext of collecting payments… but what you actually took wasn’t valuable treasures, it was commoners’ household goods and clothing.""……"So that’s how it was.This time, the village chief had handed over silver coins.'Come to think of it, he did say they hadn’t known I was coming, so they threw it together in a hurry.'They wouldn’t have been able to rush to gather up household goods and clothes the villagers were using, so they’d probably scraped together whatever silver they had on hand.Freya continued,"And after that, you sent relief supplies to those villages every year in the name of the former head Lord Kaizel or Duchess Aslan."Sent relief supplies?Loen did?At Freya’s words, I felt puzzled but glossed it over for now."I don’t really remember.""It’s useless to deny it. Miss Ciel testified to it. She said she personally handled that work.""……"At Freya’s words, I fell into thought for a moment.He went to the village and took the commoners’ belongings, then secretly supported them from behind?On the surface, that made no sense.Why deliberately do something that brought him infamy out in the open, {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} then do good deeds in secret?'Come to think of it…'I recalled another incident related to this.'Amy’s death, the cause of the Moerfit Village ambush this time.'You could see that as part of a similar pattern.On the surface, it was an incident where Loen had killed Amy, and her father, the village chief, and her husband Duron burned with a furious desire for revenge against me.But her son Jimmy had delivered words of gratitude to Loen.The gulf and misunderstandings between these people weren’t just simple coincidence; maybe they were intentional.'Maybe…'I began to think that Loen’s bad reputation might not be solely because of his misdeeds.It might also be the reason Ciel had silently stayed with the delinquent Loen all this time.While I was turning over that sudden suspicion and various possibilities, Freya’s voice sounded beside me."Loen, have you perhaps been deliberately committing misdeeds?"Freya’s blue eyes shone in the dark.Maybe there was a bit of expectation about who Loen really was mixed in there.But I couldn’t meet that expectation; I slowly shook my head."Of course not."I might have had a weird hypothesis for a moment, but what kind of idiot would spend their own effort and money just to spread a bad reputation?And why would anyone intentionally shoulder a misunderstanding and infamy for murder?It was impossible to understand. At least, not with the information we had now."Then why on earth…"To Freya’s question, I answered bluntly,"I don’t know.""…?""I don’t really remember what happened back then."When I let out a sigh and looked up at the dark night sky, Freya lowered her head."I see… I’m sorry."She clearly thought I’d lost my memory after ending up in the hospital from trying to save her.Memory loss was just an excuse I used to quietly gloss over topics about Loen I didn’t know anything about, though.I spoke calmly,"It’s not because of you."Things had just turned out that way.Loen… probably didn’t regret it either.***Next day.The expedition officially began its monster-subjugation work.The main purpose of this expedition was to intercept the abnormally appearing high-grade monster and destroy its habitat.Before that, we arrived at the habitat of the Black Moss.Aslan gave orders to the armed soldiers."From here, we’ll split into squads. However, each squad will maintain distance close enough to see signal flares. Burn the Black Moss habitats and regroup here by 17:00. Move out!""Yes, ma’am!"Ciel, Freya, and I followed behind Crosen and Malt toward the Black Moss habitat.A forest packed with twisted, jagged trees.Squish—.Wearing boots, we waded through the black mud carpeting the forest floor and entered deeper into the habitat.Our squad had three rookies with no expedition experience, but its overall combat strength was extremely high.Thanks to that, Crosen and Malt led the squad without much burden.With Crosen taking the lead in front, Malt moved behind him and approached me to ask,"Lord Loen, you know what the colors of each signal flare mean, don’t you?""Yeah. Green means all clear, blue means on alert. Yellow is enemy sighted, red is in combat, white is request for support, and black is the signal to retreat.""Correct. I’ll give you the flares, so use them according to the situation."Even if my combat power was high, I was fundamentally a mage.Out of the five of us, I had the weakest stamina and the slowest raw reaction speed, so I took the center position.Of course, with enhancement stones, items, and traits I could burst out extreme power, but that was temporary.My base stats were lacking.After taking the flares, I looked around and said,"Anyway, starting off with destroying a Black Moss habitat as our first fight… not exactly lucky.""Oh? You know about the Black Moss?"At Malt’s question, I nodded."Of course."Black Moss were literally black moths.The problem was, they were bigger than most eagles.On top of that, they were poisonous, making them just about the worst enemies for the soldiers defending the wall.'They’re pitch-black so you can’t see them at night, they’re huge and disgusting, and they’re loaded with deadly poison?'To sentries and lookout troops, they were practically disaster incarnate.You had to destroy their habitats in advance to prevent a mass outbreak.'They don’t drop anything worth using, and they’re annoying to kill, so they’re not exactly great monsters in the game, either.'Useless even in the game and dangerous in reality. We’d wipe them out.As we pushed through the black mud and moved deeper into the forest, we soon saw black cocoons.Moth cocoons about the size of small refrigerators.The thought of those things holding giant moth pupae inside made me want to shudder."I’ll demonstrate first."Crosen, who was at the front, approached a nearby moth cocoon.He opened his canteen and poured troll oil over the cocoon, then struck a spark with his flint.Fwoosh—.Flames burst harshly over the cocoon.The fire roared, burning the cocoon and the pupa inside.Screeeeech—!With a chilling scream, the Black Moss pupa burned to death along with the cocoon.Troll oil let you maintain a strong flame for a long time even with a small amount, so it was an efficient method.After finishing the cocoon-demolition demo, Crosen said,"That’s how you get rid of them. Sometimes moths burst out and attack from cocoons that are about to hatch, so be careful.""Can’t we just burn the whole forest down?"To Freya’s question, Malt answered,"This is an extremely damp area, so under normal circumstances, fire doesn’t spread well. Also, because of the black mud scattered throughout the forest, large-scale flame magic doesn’t work either. The mud breaks down the mana particles that compose the fire spells. So we have no choice but to burn them one by one by hand."'Bell would’ve been useful here, then.'Bell’s extreme flames would scorch everything regardless of those conditions and limitations. Thinking that made me a bit disappointed.'No, wait.'I rubbed my chin and corrected my thinking.No need to be disappointed. If the black mud was the problem, I just had to solve that.I thought of a few methods, then beckoned Malt over."Malt, lend me your ear for a second."Maybe we could take out the entire habitat in one shot instead of lighting every cocoon by hand.***"Ugh, what a godawful smell."A temporary camp set up near the Black Moss forest.Aslan sniffed as she looked at the thick black smoke rising beyond the trees.The smell of burning cocoons was always incredibly awful, every time."But the smoke’s way thicker than usual, isn’t it? It’s not just me, right?"Shading her eyes with her hand, Aslan stared at the clouds of black smoke billowing up into the sky.Rather than just cocoons burning… it felt like the entire forest was on fire.Was it just her imagination?A soldier preparing meals nearby chimed in at her question."It does look much thicker than usual to me as well, my lady.""Right? So it’s not just my eyes."She’d thought burning down the entire forest would be difficult because of the black mud.Had the expedition found some new method?'…The only thing that’s changed from before is that Loen and his friends are part of the expedition now.'This change was probably thanks to one of them.'Those promising brats.'If that was really the case, their big sister would have to praise them in person.Aslan snickered to herself, imagining hugging the little chicks when they came back from their work, when—Flash—.A signal flare was launched from beyond the forest."…!"Glittering amid the black smoke, the flare’s color was red.The signal for enemy attack.

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