Black Iron Magician

Chapter 135 Hiking

A short distance from the battlefield of Haru and the bandits, there is a hill that offers a good view of the surroundings. Trees grow thickly on the roadside and there’s plenty of greenery around the hill, so you won’t be inconvenienced to use it as a hiding place. There are two men watching Haru’s battle, one is lying in the grass and one is hiding behind a tree.

「O-Oi oi oi…! What’s the meaning of this!? All those comrades that were gathered here are already reduced to half!?」

The man hiding in the grass seems to be terribly agitated, and although he’s hiding, he is shouting roughly as if to blame the other man. He was trying to blame the man in the shadow of the tree, but he was also too careless. In the face of an overwhelming enemy that could annihilate his comrades like a piece of paper, if this place were found out, he would be a practice partner too. The man in the tree shade exaggeratedly shrugs his shoulders to show that he is not at fault.

「Don’t be so loud. You’ll be noticed, you know?」

「I know that! Not only that monster, but I also don’t like your attitude! The carriage is loaded with treasures? Most of them are women and children so the security is lax? If we gather the number, they will be nothing but convenient sparring partners? Does that thing look like that!? Tell me, Tuds-san!」

The man, who’s the leader of the bandits, usually takes action in a place far from the big town. Normally, he wouldn’t have had the guts to plunder in a place like this, halfway between the castle town and Genius. But, this large man in the shadow of the tree, Tuds the executive staff of the Midnight who control the slums, provided him with information that led him to launch this raid. The main information provided was exactly what he had just said.

「I would like you to stop making strange accusations. I didn’t lie and I have never recommended you to attack. I merely mentioned that such a carriage would be passing this way.」

「Y-You bastard…! How much do you think I paid to buy that information…!?」

「It was your decision to buy this information. Are you saying that we, Midnight, forced you to buy this information? Didn’t we warn you about this thoroughly? Regardless of what you do with this information, we will not take any responsibility for it. That’s not of our concern. It was your decision to buy it.」

「T-Then, why did you come with us!? You were trying to take a sip if things go well, weren’t you!?」

To the leader of the bandits who is even angrier, Tuds pointed at something in half amazement. There are small flowers that grow on the ground where he pointed at.

「… Ha? Wildflowers? What’s about it?」

「Well, hiking is my hobby even if I look like this. I often visit this place because it has a lot of greenery. If there is a wildflower that I like, I will make a pressed flower from it. This time, we happened to be going to the same place and I ended up coming with you… Well, it’s something like that. I thought you guys were going on a group hiking trip. I didn’t expect that you would attack that carriage.」

「………」

The face of the leader is quickly turning red.

「Y-You bastard… that’s not a nice thing to say――」

「―― I didn’t expect it, but now that I’ve seen it and heard it in person. I’ve got the word that you are the main culprit behind the carriage attack. Now, let’s go to the court.」

In the midst of his burning anger, his mind gradually begins to understand the situation. They have been set up. Tuds is a watchdog to see if the bandits are doing a barbaric act. They were offered a good offer and being led to the carriage of the monster. In short, they are being sold.

「Shit, shit! That was your plan all along, wasn’t it!?」

「I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just walking in the mountains after all.」

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Haru asked again, and several minutes had passed since the bandits started fighting in desperation. There had been over fifty of them, and now there’s only one of them. Haru gently beheaded him whose legs were shaking like a fawn.

「Phew… Shishō, it’s over~!」

「Good work. It seems that you managed to get the hang of it in the latter half, huh?」

「I had a hard time~」

The result of this time. Of the 50 people, half who fought in the first half were, well, yeah… Instead, even though the other half who fought in the second half were injured or seriously injured, she could make them fainted to a level that was not life-threatening. Now, even if she uses her Doggan staff in case of emergency against the students of the academy, it will probably be okay. It’s safe if they can recover.

「T-Thank you very much, O-Ojou-chan. Are you hurt―― I guess not…」

「Yes! It was much safer than my normal training, so there’s no way I could get hurt!」

「I-I see. Students these days are strong, huh… Even though it was so noisy, everyone in the back is still asleep…」

Yes, no matter how much screaming and shouting was going on, they were sleeping soundly without a care in the world. And they are still sleeping even now.

「By the way, Shishō, there are two people coming towards us. Are they also practice partners?」

「Eh?」

「Oh, they’re finally here, huh? Well, you’ll have to wait and see what they do.」

「Understood!」

「Eh? There are more bandits?」

「Don’t worry, one of them is probably from a cleaning company.」

A little later, a large black-skinned man landed in front of the carriage. He’s carrying another man that seems to be a bandit on his shoulder.

「Ah, Tuds-san!」

「Long time no see, Ojou-san. It seems you’ve become really strong.」

The man who appeared was Tuds of the Midnight. While greeting Haru, He roughly dropped the man on his shoulder to the ground. The man who was dropped to the ground tried to scream out in pain, but with his mouth covered and his hands and feet bound, he seemed to have no choice but to endure the pain.

「I was hiking as a hobby, but I happened to see this man. From the way he was talking and acting, he’s probably the main suspect in the attack of this carriage.」

Haha, hiking is a bit of a stretch for the setting. Tuds went on with his words, which he had probably decided to say beforehand.

「Hiking? That’s nice! Especially in autumn, when the leaves change color is the best!」

「Oh, do you like hiking too? Even though you are young, you have a good prospect, huh. I’ll tell you a good route next time.」

「Yay!」

…… That is a setting, right? And Haru, probably your hiking is just you running through mountains.

Actually, these bandits are the ones I was asked to gather by Requiem of the Midnight. They are those whose behaviors were past the line and were too much to handle. The real job was to lure them and clean them up when they were caught red-handed. A power technique that forcibly justifies dirty work. Of course, there are dangers and there are few people who are willing to do it, so this time I offered to take the request. Requiem, who was worried about me, had a disgusted look on his face, but in the end, he lost to my enthusiasm and let me do the job. Yeah, I know. It is that thing, right? The thing that’s called tsundere, right?

「Still, from the looks of it, many of them are dead, huh? This is going to be hard to clean up.」

「I-I’m sorry. I had a hard time handling the staff… But now, as you can see――」

Haru holds her Doggan Staff and faces the bandit lying on the ground. The bandit opened his eyes wide and became bloodshot at the same time.

「――As you can see, I somehow can handle it!」

The swung Doggan Staff grazed the bandit’s head. It’s not clear whether he was knocked out by the staff or by the shock, but the bandit man fainted with his eyes opened wide.

「I see, that’s wonderful. Also, don’t worry about it. Compared to the effort of defeating them, it would require less effort to just let my men clean them up. Deris-san, would you leave it to me to count the number of survivors and corpses?」

「Yeah, I’ll leave it to you. When you’re done, bring me the reward later.」

「Understood. I’ll have my men bring it to you after you return to the town. …… And then, Ojou-san.」

「Yes?」

「Would you like to pick up where we left off?」