“Ugh, the smell…”

I honestly had to take back my earlier statement. I was not fine. The three of us walked through the main hall, passing by the dead bodies. It was hard to stand the smell already and it was even worse to look at them. The bodies were rotting. It didn’t seem like animals had found their way inside here, at least.

“This is quite horrible... “

Fenna, holding her hand over her mouth and nose, approached a corpse and looked down on it. The body was wearing worn leather armour, a breastplate, boots and a helm. A deep cut bore into the breastplate and a deep dent could be seen in the helm. A rusted sword was stuck in the body, dispelling all doubts one might have had about his death. Thankfully, the helm covered his face and we couldn’t see the expression. I was fairly certain that I didn’t want to see it.

“Looks like they fought a person, at least. These obviously aren’t wounds an animal would leave.”
“... Unless an animal learnt how to use a sword.”
“That’d be pretty scary, Yumi.”

Agreed, that’d be pretty scary.

“I wonder if they really died from infighting… Mmm…”
“Fenna?”
“... Do you see this man’s weapon?”
“Huh?”

His weapon? I took a look around but… there were plenty of bodies here and just as many weapons strewn around. That said, there wasn’t anything you could clearly claim to belong to this man.

“... This isn’t going to be pretty, you might want to close your eyes.”
“What do you—”

Before I could ask her about it, Fenna grabbed the sword in the man’s body and pulled it out.

“Fe— Fenna?!”
“Miss Fenna?!”

Karen and I could only stare in shock as the blade slid out of the corpse. Our shock was quickly exchanged with disgust, as a clear, questionable fluid spilled out of the wound. Even the black-coloured tip of the blade was covered in it. To make matters worse, the smell only intensified. So much, in fact, that even Fenna stepped back, averting her face.

“This is… not pretty… Spirits, what a smell...”

She waved with her hand in an attempt to get rid of the smell but, alas, that was quite pointless…

“Fenna… Why did you do that?” I asked, holding my hand over my nose and blocking it.
“I’m regretting it already.”

Fenna once more approached the corpse, similarly blocking her nose, and then… flipped it over with her foot.

“Ah, as I thought.”

She squatted down, grabbing something that had been buried beneath the corpse.

A scabbard?

An empty scabbard was now in Fenna’s hand. With practiced movements, she slid the sword into it. It was clear even to me that it was a perfect fit.

“He was killed with his own weapon. Talk about ironic.”
“His own weapon? But how?”

I tilted my head in wonder. I very much doubted he casually slipped with his weapon drawn and impaled himself. That only left a single choice…

“Someone stole his weapon and killed him with it.”

Killed by his own weapon…

“The question is whether it was only for this one or if it is the same for everyone.”
“That’s…”

I glanced at my surroundings. The momentary distraction of Fenna’s eccentric actions made me forget completely about it but… The bodies didn’t go anywhere, obviously.

“Yumi, Karen.”
“... ”

Why did I suddenly have this really dreadful premonition?

“We’re going to check the others, too.”
“I fucking knew it.”
“What?”
“Nothing…”

Fenna raised an eyebrow at my reaction but didn’t comment on it.

“But… do we really have to?”
“You managed not to barf yet so you’ll be fine.”
“That’s not very reassuring.”
“If you really can’t handle it, you can wait outside.”
“... No, I’ll… at least try.”

Compared to what I had seen back at the village, this wasn’t nearly as bad. Although, I personally felt the smell was significantly worse. Probably because we were inside a building.

“Understood. I’ll count on you, then.”
“Nn…”

Wait, why was I agreeing to do something that Fenna herself claimed that it made her regret it?

“I’ll go over here and start then.”
“Nn…”
Great… Too late now.

I looked over to Karen only to find her frowning. Not really thrilled either. Still, she didn’t say anything and the two of us began to take a look on the opposite side. A dozen or so corpses, right in front of me, rotting on the floor.

Uhhh… Yumi, just think they’re pumpkins! Think they’re pumpkins!

The self-suggestion did not work. Left with no choice, I decided to focus my eyes as much on their clothing as I could. With no other choice left, I approached the nearest body:
A—probably—rugged man, wearing similar worn leather armour to the previous man. He wasn’t wearing a helmet but at least he was face-down. A knife was stuck in the back of his nape, angled upwards into the skull. He wore a belt with several pouches. Each pouch contained a similar-looking knife.

But was this knife his own?

Since the man was laying face-down, the body covered up part of the belt. I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself and preparing for what I was about to do. Only to regret it immediately, as the horrible smell made me retch once more.

Once I calmed myself for real, I went down on my knees and cautiously pulled on the belt. It took a little effort but eventually, I could see the front pouches…

“One’s missing.”

This man, too, had been killed by his own weapon.

“Yumi, how is it over there?”

Karen called from next to me. She had taken a look at a different body. She held something that seemed to be a mace in one hand and in her other a piece of leather.

“His own weapon, probably.”
“Same here…”

I stepped away from the dead man. Korwen had said these were likely bandits but I still felt a little bad about doing all this.

But only a little, huh?

It felt a little scary to see how much I got used to these things, even though I knew well that it wasn’t something I could avoid. It wasn’t the first time I had realised this. Maybe I should actually feel grateful about it, that I could get used to it.

“Haaa… Off to the next one...”

---

After a while, we had finished checking every single body in the hall of the main building. The result?

“Each and everyone one, killed with the weapon they carried…”
“Nn.”
“And it’s clear that some of them died in ways that would make suicide impossible. That means, someone actually killed them all.”
“Nn… Is that really possible? Against so many?”

Since we had gone through all the bodies, we knew how many there were. Forty-three. That wasn’t a small group of bandits.

“It’s not impossible, at the very least. The one who did it has to be quite skilled. Bandits aren’t usually very strong but with these numbers, you have to be quite good nonetheless. There’s also the chance it was more than one person. But if you ask me, it’s more likely they were poisoned prior.”
“Poisoned?”

That would be possible… but why bother killing them then at all and not let the poison do the work?

“Yes. If they were poisoned, it would make it far easier to kill them.”
“But then, why not just kill them with the poison?”

I posed the question I just wondered about.

“Mm… there could be many reasons. Maybe they didn’t have a weapon? They might have been captives trying to escape and only had limited choices. Or they were interrogating the bandits? I don’t know, really. Could be anything.”
“I see…”

Those were possible, too.

“I doubt we’ll find out either. These bandits clearly died a while ago. Unless the captain or the others find something, of course.”

I couldn’t imagine them not finding anything. The bandits lived here. Even if they didn’t stay here for very long, there had to be traces of their life.

“Anyway, we’ll just report this to the captain later. For now, let’s search the remainder of the building.”
“Nn, okay.”
“Understood.”

With Fenna taking the lead, we began searching the other rooms. The main hall was a mess with all the dead, so I honestly expected the other rooms to be in a similar state.

“Stay behind me, I’ll open it.”
“Nn.”

We stood in front of the first room, ready to face whatever was behind it…

“And here I go. Woah?!”
“Eh? Ah!”
“Uhh!”

A grey cloud hit our faces the second the door opened, followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the floor. The three of us began coughing because of the unexpected assault. An assault… of dust.

“Spirits! What in their name…”

Once the dust settled, the three of us finally stopped with our involuntary coughing fit.

“... Did nobody ever clean this?”
“Clearly not, Yumi… Gee, and the door is done for, too.”

The door that fenna had pushed open was not on the floor. The wooden frame had rotten away and the door simply fell over without the hinges.

“This is going to be a lot of fun to repair… Anyway, let’s get in.”

Fenna stepped inside and the two of us followed behind. The room we entered was… Actually, what was this? There were broken chairs and tables as well as a few shelves. Books and vase shards were strewn over the floor.

“Fenna, what’s this room?”
“Maybe a reception room? Or a break room? Probably something like that. There’s a door at the other end, too.”

Avoiding the shards, we approached the other door. Fenna warned us to take some distance and then lightly pushed the door. And like the previous door, it fell over instead of swinging open, releasing another dust cloud. At least, this time we were warned.

“A hallway… Yeah, I think that’s a reception room.”
“Why so?”
“The hallway has no decorations. This is probably the servants’ work area.”
“... In a fort?”

Why would a military building need something like that?

“I imagine it’s for high-ranking guests. There are aristocrats visiting places like this. I’m fairly sure the Hollow Fort had something like this, too.”

Now that she mentioned it… And we had been there, when we visited Commander Ruben.

“Let’s keep going.”

We followed the hallway and checked the next few rooms. We found small bedrooms, a large kitchen and even a food storage room. It wasn’t a particularly large storage room so it was probably not intended to feed the whole fort.

“Definitely the servants’ area. But I’m surprised the bandits didn’t pilfer this place.”
“For food that’s hundreds of years old?”

I frowned. We had found some food stores but… There wasn’t even a need to ask whether that was still edible. Not like there was much left anyway.

“Who knows? They’re bandits. The devil eats flies in desperate times.”

That’d be very desperate, then.

“Miss Fenna, there’s a large forest just outside. With nearly no monsters. Surely there’d be something to eat there.”
“If they could find food there, they wouldn’t be bandits. Then again, they didn’t come here so they actually might have?”

Fenna tilted her head as she pondered over her own question. After a while, she just shrugged her shoulders with a “Whatever,” and kept walking.

“At least, we haven’t found any more bodies.”
“Nn, and the smell’s gotten better, too.”
“That’s just you getting used to it.”
“... I hope not.”

That was the last thing I wanted to get used to.

We kept going for a while but in the end, we didn’t find anything noteworthy in this area. After a good while, we had searched the entire ground floor, servants’ area and the other areas, as well. No other bodies turned up. Theys had all been in the main hall, which raised questions on its own. Fenna figured they might have actually moved there, either before or after their death. Some rooms had clearly been in use, yet there were no bodies. It was quite unlikely that all bandits just happened to be in one place.

But like Fenna said, we probably won’t ever get to know about it.

The bandits were dead. Their assailant unknown. And we were basically just searching the fort for any potential dangers. Once we determined that nothing was wrong, we’d probably just clean up the space and that’d be it.

Can’t say I’m thrilled about this type of welcome, though…

Part of me wished we hadn’t come along with Korwen. Too late now. What was done, was done.

“Anyway, should we take a look upstairs, Fenna?”
“No, let’s first go outside and report to the captain. I’m sure some of the others have already returned, too.”
“Nn, okay.”

Leaving the remaining search for later, we went outside.

“Ahh, fresh air!”

Such a pleasure. Fresh air! No smelly bodies either! Yes, this was far more preferable over the insides of that place.

Nearby, we found Korwen talking with a few women from Fenna’s squad. His expression was quite grave.

“Captain.”
“Mm? Fenna. How was it?”
“We’ve searched the ground floor but found nothing out of ordinary. Most of the rooms don’t seem like they were touched in a very long time. As for the bodies… we believe they were all killed with their own weapons.”
“Their own weapons?”
“Yes. And it probably wasn’t suicide, either.”

This seemed to surprise Korwen quite a bit.

“That’s… quite something. We’ll need Ria to take a look at this then, just in case. Haaa… One thing after another.”
“Did something else happen?” I asked, curious about that mutter.
“The ground collapsed in one building.”
“Oh…”

That was bad.

“Mr Captain, wasn’t this place supposed to be, err, sturdy?”
“Don’t hit where it hurts, Karen…”

Korwen sighed, clearly not very happy.

“At least, we found no bandit survivors yet. As long as there’s nothing else, we can fix this place just fine.”
“Including the collapsed ground?”
“Probably. I’m going to take a look, want to join?”
“Nn? Well…”

I peeked to my side to Fenna. We just went out to report to Korwen without finishing the remaining floors of the building.

“I don’t mind. I’ll just take some others along when more people come.”

In that case, as long as Fenna didn’t mind…

“Nn, I’d like to see. What about Sis?”
“I’ll join you.”
“Good. Let’s take a look then.”

With the woman who had reported to Korwen leading us, we entered one of the side buildings. It didn’t take us long to find the place she had talked about.

“Wow… That’s a huge hole…”

In a relatively large room, the entire floor had given way to gravity. The hole had fortunately not reached the walls but this still didn’t look really good.

“Wooden floor, huh… Maybe I should complain to Will about his country’s building practices. Haaa... “

Korwen approached the edge of the hole and peeked downward as he complained.

“A basement. Did you find any stairs leading down?”
“We did, captain, sir.”
“Mh, show me.”
“Yes, sir!”

The stairs weren’t all too far from the hole. We went down but… There was no room with a hole in the ceiling.

“... Weird. Were those the only stairs?”
“Yes, sir. We searched thoroughly but there was nothing.”
“... But there’s clearly a basement there.

A little confused, we all went back to the hole in the floor. Korwen once again peered down the hole from right at the edge, completely unperturbed by the creaking floor.

“Captain… The floor…”
“Mm? Ahh.. just one moment, I’ll take a look down there.”
“Huh? What?”

Before I could process his words, Korwen took action and… jumped into the hole.

“Ca— Captain?”
“Mr Captain?!”
“Ehhh?”

Karen, the other woman and I rushed to the edge, ignoring for a second the insatiable floor and tried to find Korwen. As if nothing had happened at all, he stood on the ground, looking around.

“Cap… tain…”
“Mm… You three, wait up there. It seems this isn’t quite a basement but a tunnel.”

He stomped the floor a few times and we could hear something splashing. Was that water?

Korwen didn’t wait whatsoever and just disappeared into the tunnel. We could hear his steps from up here but… he sure wasn’t one to get scared easily, huh…

“So, what do we do now?”
“Nn, good question. Waiting, I guess, like he asked us to.”

We walked away from the hole, just in case the floor would give in again. I didn’t want to fall down involuntarily. Actually, neither did I want to do that voluntarily.

“Miss Yumi, Miss Karen, may I inform Miss Fenna about this?”
“Nn?”

The woman who had led us here was standing straight as a pole as she asked us. I wondered for a second why she would even ask us in the first place but…

“Ah, ahhh, sure you can.”
“Thank you.”

The woman saluted and went her way.

“Nn… Why did she even ask us?”
“Yumi, isn’t that because you are someone with authority now?”
“... Ah.”

I forgot again. This really was something I still wasn’t quite used to so I forgot for a second there.

“Well, even if you say I have authority, it’s just for show…”
“But even if it’s just for show, it’s important to keep up with appearances.”
“Nn… I guess that’s true. Well, it mostly took me by surprise.”

Either way, there wasn’t anything to do for now except to wait. Korwen’s footsteps became quieter by the second but they were still barely audible. Whatever that tunnel was, it had to be pretty long.

---

It took quite some time until Korwen returned. We could hear his footsteps approach again and after some time, his massive frame jumped out of the hole. He jumped. Out of the hole. Just like that.

People in this world are crazy… crazy strong…

Although I wasn’t quite sure whether it was just the mercenaries who were trained or whether that also applied to normal people to a degree…

“Captain, welcome back.”
“Welcome back, Mr Captain.”
“Ahh… I’m back.”

He stretched his arms and his back, confirming that everything was all right after his landing.

“That took quite a while, Captain.”
“It’s long. Really long. But at least I have an idea what it is now.”
“Oh?”

So the tunnel had a purpose. Well, obviously it had one.

“It seems to be connected to the lake. It’s an underground water canal.”
“A… canal?”
“That’s right. An underground one.”

That… wasn’t what I had imagined seeing the hole… Oh, but if it was a water canal, that made sense why the floor here had been rotting.

“Mr Captain, there’s no water, though?”
“Well… that’s what bothers me, too. It’s clogged up at the other end. Rubble and wood and other stuff. Some water still trickles through… We’ll have to figure out what to do about that…”

If water trickled through, then there was water on the other side… If he unclogged it… Yeah, no…

“Another problem on the list… But this seems to be the only place where a wooden floor is above it. Maybe this building was built later. Or it was just an oversight during construction. Still a pain that we have to repair it now.”

But we all knew it was likely going to be in a state of disrepair… We all knew…

“At least we won’t get around hiring an Earth magician anymore. The tunnel was built with Earth magic and if we want to plug that hole we’ll need someone to fix it. What a pain.”

Korwen scratched the back of his head as he stared at the hole that he just jumped out of.

“Anyway, let’s get back. Not much we can do for now.”
“Nn. But is it all right to just leave it here? What if someone gets injured?”
“... I’ll order people to stay away for now, I guess. I don’t think anyone would be dumb enough to but… Yeah, you’re right, better safe than sorry.”

That’d be good, probably.

“... Yumi.”
“Nn? Yes?”
“Can you use your tentacles to block the entrance?”
“... I could, probably?”

It was honestly not that hard.

“Then do that.”
“Okay… Should I block the whole door or just enough that people don’t just walk in but can see through?”
“The latter. We might have more things to block off so it’s better if we know what is there.”
“Okay, got it.”

I retrieved a mana crystal from my bag and got to work. I let a tentacle grow at around the middle of the entrance’s frame and had it reach to the opposite side where it stuck to the wall, effectively blocking regular entry. Then I repeated that two more times at lower heights in case someone wanted to crawl beneath it. Once I was done, three tentacles stretched across the entrance.

“This good enough, Captain?”
“... That works surprisingly well. Looks good.”

Korwen poked the tentacle barricade a few times, making sure it was secure enough. Once he was satisfied, the three of us went outside to the others.

“Oh, did I take that long down there?”

Korwen asked in surprise as he spotted the people outside. He had sent for others to join us but, unexpectedly, they were already here. Several dozen had gathered, looking around in awe. Excited like a little boy about his new toy.

“Captain! You are back.”

Having spotted us, Fenna ran over immediately. The other mercenaries heard her shouting and immediately turned in our direction to salute.

“Ahh. We blocked off the room in that building. Make sure everyone knows they are not to enter that room.”
“Will do, Captain!”
“Well then… Guess quite a few gathered.”

Korwen walked past Fenna and approached the crowd of newcomers. He stopped a few steps away, addressing them in a loud voice.

“Listen, men! This is our new home. Your job is to search the entire premises for anything out of ordinary, as well as any damages to the structure. You got that?!”
“””Yes, sir!”””
“Good. Begin!”

The men saluted again before setting off in groups to search the fort. Seeing the men doing their work, Korwen returned to us.

“Fenna, I’ll leave the command here to you.”
“Captain?”
“I’m going to return. There are still plenty of things to do, after all. Don’t disappoint me, Fenna.”
“Yes, captain! I’ll do my best.”
“Good.”

Seeing Fenna salute, he turned his attention to us.

“Yumi, Karen, I would like you two to stay here and help Fenna. There might be other areas that need to be blocked off or other situations where your magic might come in handy. Can I leave it to you?”
“Nn, no problem, Captain!”
“Understood, Mr Captain.”
“How reassuring. I’ll return for now. Don’t forget the time and come back too late.”

He raised his hand and then left towards the gate we had entered from. We watched him until he was out of our sight.

“Well… Fenna? What should we do?”
“Whatever should we do… That’s a good question, Yumi…”

Fenna had a strained smile as she thought about our next course of action.

“The answer would be waiting, I guess. We’ll wait for reports and if there’s something going on, we’ll take a look. And depending on it, I’ll need your help. Other than that...  I guess you could cheer them on?“
“Cheer them on... “

That was… not exactly the most exciting option. But hey, it was better than having to search through that building with the bodies again. Speaking of which… I glanced over to that building and saw a few mercenaries trying to… enter it. They weren’t very fond of it, though, and it seems there was an argument about who had the ‘honour’ to do it…

Hey, at least I’m not the only one who really disliked that…

It was a bit reassuring to see that they had the same issue with it… Oh, it seemed that one group lost the argument and now they entered the building.

“Well… In that case…”

I cleared my throat, watching the people that were now in front of the collapsed double door. I took a deep breath.

“Do your best!”

The group of men turned around in surprise.

“You can do it!”

Hearing my cheers, their faces instantly lit up and I could hear them shouting back things like “Leave it to us!” and other things. And the group that stayed behind actually seemed like they regretted not going now. It was a little embarrassing, seeing how happy they were about such simple words. On the other hand, I was glad it helped them a little.

And for you guys staying behind, believe me, you really got it better than them. Really.

Either way, if this worked then that was good.

“Is this fine, Fenna?”
“... Yes. Although I hope this won’t have any side effects…”
“Huh? Side effects?”

Why would there be?

“Nothing. Being oblivious is best.”
“... Okay?”

It clearly wasn’t just nothing but it didn’t seem like Fenna wanted to explain any further. I was curious now, though.

“So, should I continue?”
“I guess so. Not like there’s much else to do.”
“Nn, okay.”

And with that decided, I cheered on the men—and, of course, the women, too—as they had the very unfortunate task of going through the entire fort.