After our little find in the main building had been taken care of, I went downstairs and left the building through the backdoor. The smell had already gotten a little better compared to earlier. Or maybe I had just grown used to it. I honestly didn’t want to know which one it was.

They said the residential building is this one, right?

A little behind the main building was another large building. Although it was probably more accurate to call it building complex. Having seen the blueprints I knew it would be large but… it really was large.

I crossed the yard that separated the main building and the residential one, walking up to the large door. This one, at least, hadn’t yet collapsed.

Okay, it’d be nice to know where they are searching within this building, though… It’s too big.

With the main building, I had known where the group should be, approximately. But here? What if they were already on the fourth or fifth floor? I’d have to look around for them for quite a while in the worst case.

Well, standing around won’t solve the problem, though. I’ll just hope I can find them quickly.

With a wry smile, I pushed open the door and entered the building.

“Mm? Miss Yumi!”
“...”

So much to searching for them. They were right behind the door. Or at least, two of them were.

“Miss Yumi? Is something the matter, ma’am?”
“Ah, no. I was, err, just surprised to see you down here. Where are the others?”
“Our group is currently searching the ground floor, ma’am.”
“Oh? You two as well?”
“No, we’re currently comparing the floor plan of the blueprints with the actual layout, ma’am.”

In other words, I got quite lucky. But they were still on the ground floor, so I probably would have run into some of them after a while anyway. Worried for nothing there.

“I see. And are things coming along well? Does the blueprint match the building?”
“We believe so, ma’am. So far, we haven’t found any differences.”

That was good, at least. We hadn’t gotten the wrong blueprints then.

“However, there are a few areas that seem to be inaccessible.”
“Nn? How so?”
“Parts of the ceiling have collapsed at different places.”
“… That’s bad, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am. It is bad.”

But weren’t these buildings constructed with the help of Earth magic? I already knew they weren’t indestructible just because of that, but they should be rather sturdy, shouldn’t they? And if the ceiling had collapsed at several places…

“... It might be too dangerous to search the upper floors. If the floor collapses, that’S not going to be a laughing matter.”
“Should we remain on the ground floor then, ma’am?”

Should they? Probably, yes. Their safety had priority. And I knew how much Korwen valued the safety of his men.

“... Nn. Do that. And be careful of the ceiling. Also… Avoiding areas that seem too damaged and everywhere where the ceiling already collapsed might be better, too.”
“Understood. We will relay those orders.”

Orders, huh? Even something as simple as this was considered an order.

“You heard her, go and catch up with the leader and the others.”
“... Got it.”

The other mercenary’s face scrunched up for a short moment before he acknowledged the order and left.

But we can’t go upstairs then, huh… That’s a little disappointing.

I had held a bit of hope that, maybe, I would be able to take a look at our future room. But I’d rather not get buried beneath the rubble. If I could believe Yumias words, I wouldn’t be in any particular danger even if I would be buried but it wasn’t something I was keen on trying.

“Oh well… Did you find anything noteworthy in here?”
“Noteworthy… not, no. We found a lot of personal items, however.”
“Personal items? Of the former residents?”
“That sounds likely, yes.”
“Nn…”

They cleared everything else but left the personal items behind. That was a little odd, no? According to my understanding, it hadn’t been abandoned in too much of a hurry. They cleaned up everything else, after all.

“Anything other than those personal items?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I see.”

Maybe I should take a look at whatever those items were? Not like there was anything else to look at. And who knows, maybe I’d find something else that was interesting. The book earlier had been quite an unexpected find, too, after all.

“Where are the others exactly? I’d like to take a look at the things they found.”
“I’ll guide you there, ma’am!”
“Nn, tha— Wait... Don’t you have a job to do?”

I pointed at the blueprint in his hands. Nearly fell for that one.

“I have yet to check that area anyway, ma’am, so it will be no trouble.”
“... Okay then, lead away.”
“Understood, ma’am!”

I’d assume he was innocent and not trying to use me to shirk his work right now. Well, having him guide me would prevent me from getting lost in here which wasn’t bad either. Especially through all these sameish looking corridors. Whenever I peeked into a room we were passing by I’d see the same layout of a bed, a work desk with a chair, a nightstand and a small lamp squeezed into a tiny room.

“They all look the same.”
“These were likely quarters for non-military personnel, ma’am.”
“Oh, right, they had to live somewhere, too.”

Wouldn’t do to put them to the soldiers in the barracks. At least, I wouldn’t like that. And there had to be quite a lot of them, judging from the number of rooms.

Nn… I wonder how many soldiers and other personnel lived in this fort.”
“Err, apologies, ma’am, but that’s not something I can answer…”
“Ah, no, I wasn’t asking you specifically. I just wondered out loud.”
“Understood…”

I should probably keep those thoughts in my mind for now. No need to make them feel more uncomfortable than necessary.

“Over there, ma’am.”
“Nn? Ahh, I can see them.”

We entered into a slightly larger hall and immediately spotted several mercenaries working. Among them was the man that had been with us just earlier.

“Ma’am, I will return to my work then.”
“Nn. Thank you for guiding me. Good luck with your work.”
“Yes, ma’am!”

I watched him salute me, a wry smile on my lips again. It just made me remember again that I was, in a way, their superior right now. Honestly, I was impressed how not even one of them ever questioned that I was giving out the orders here. Especially when you considered how short my time with them had been so far.

“Miss Yumi, ma’am!”

As I approached the working mercenaries, one of them spotted me, straightened his back and saluted me.

“Nn, I came to take a look at the things you have found so far.”
“Do you mean the personal items we recovered, ma’am?”
“Nn, those.”
“Understood, ma’am. This way.”

He led me to a rather considerable pile of… things that they had piled up in the middle of the hall.

“... These?”
“Yes, ma’am. There are more things in the rooms but these were the only items that seemed to be of interest.”
“I see.”

It was mostly tools, accessories and similar things. There were also quite a number of books among them.

“Let’s see…”

I picked up a book, not expecting a whole lot after the library incident from earlier.

“Oh? This is… a diary?”

I opened the book and sure enough, it was a diary. Handwritten accounts of daily life at this fort.

“A diary?” asked the mercenary next to me.
“Nn. A diary. You don’t know what that is?”
“No, ma’am.”

Well, that was a surprise. Were diaries a foreign concept here? But there was one in front of me so it couldn’t be that odd. Actually, the other books had a similar appearance to the one in my hands, so they, too, might be diaries.

“I see. It’s a book where you record your daily life.”
“People do that?”
“Some do.”
“Sounds like an odd hobby.”
“I guess it is.”

But wasn’t there something interesting about reading someone’s diary? It was like you’d be able to see the hidden thoughts of a person. Thoughts they might never have voiced out loud. It was a treasure trove of a person’s secrets. On the other hand… I wasn’t quite sure whether it was proper to take a look at these diaries. Even if the person who wrote it was most likely long deceased. On the other hand, they might have recorded some valuable information by chance…

... That’s a decision I can leave to the captain, right? Let’s take a look at the other books for now.

That was a problem someone else could deal with. For now, I picked up another book and opened it.

“Oh, this one is not a diary… Is this a novel?”

Not exactly what I was looking for… Maybe they borrowed it from that library. I went for the next book and it was once more a novel with questionable contents. The ones after that were also for the most part novels. A few other books were mixed among them but nothing too interesting, apart from two other diaries and one book that was entirely empty. It might be just an empty diary.

“There really is barely anything interesting here…”
“They’re just personal items, ma’am. Some of the accessories might hold value but apart from that most of it is garbage.”
“...”

Calling it garbage was a little too blunt, maybe…

“Anyway… Is there anything else noteworthy here?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I see…”
“Had any problems or so?”
“No, ma’am. Some areas have collapsed but following your orders, we will avoid those for now.”
“Nn, that’s good.”

At least, everything was in order. I could hear the mercenaries shouting towards each other, which area was clear, which one they’d start searching now and so on.

“Nn, seems everything is in order. Then, I’ll leave you to it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”

I nodded at his salute and then left them to their own devices. There was no point in me lingering around when everything was going smoothly. It’d just make them nervous if their superior would sit around, watching them. No need to make them go through that kind of torture.

Well then, ket’s return the way I came. Should be easy enough.

I walked back the corridor, arriving in the hall where I had entered the building. The mercenary from earlier wasn’t around anymore, most likely having gone off to continue his work.

Seeing as there was nothing else keeping me here, I left the residential building.

What do I do now? Return to the spot from earlier and wait there? Guess that’s going to be it…

Frankly, I didn’t like being in command. That much I knew now. The work you had was making me nervous. It was so much responsibility that it felt like it’d crush me, even in an ‘easy’ situation like this. I also felt weird whenever they saluted me, doing exactly what I told them. Following Korwen’s image was working out somehow but it wasn’t something I was keen on doing again. Some of it was probably just a matter of getting used to but…

That aside, the time you didn’t have work to do… Well, you didn’t have work to do. In other words, you were waiting without end.

It’s not like back in my world where you could easily find something to busy yourself with, after all…

While I had such thoughts, I made my way back, crossing the main building and returning to the yard in front of it. And much to my surprise—and relief—I found a familiar face waiting there for me.

“Fenna. You’re back.”
“I’m back, Yumi. How did things go here?”
“... Things somehow worked out? I hope so, at least…”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure you did fine.”

That’s what I hoped, too.

“But first things first: Yumi, the captain’s calling for you so you should head back.”
“I can go back?”
“... You sound quite happy about that.”
“... Must be your imagination, Fenna.”

Oops. I should probably take a little more care. Everyone kept telling me that my expressions were hard to read but it clearly wasn’t like they were impossible to read…

“I’ll pretend it was my imagination then.”
“Thank you.”
“Haaa… To answer your question, yes, you can go. I’ll take over again.”

Yay! I was freed from this rather undesirable job.

“Could you give me a rundown of everything that happened while we were gone?”
“Nn, sure.”

I quickly briefed Fenna about all the things that had happened. The elves, the Elder and Taddick’s group, the findings in the main building as well as what happened just earlier in the residential one.

“Mm… Sounds like quite a few things happened while we were away.”
“Nn, definitely.”

I glanced at Fenna, gauging her reaction.

“Sorry about hoisting that on you so suddenly. We already gave the captain a piece of mind in regards to that. I’m sure Taddick will put one atop that later, too.”
“No, it’s fine. And, err, I don’t think you should complain to the captain about that?”
“He can take it.”

Fenna shrugged her shoulders, clearly not bothered about it.

“I see. Thank you, Fenna. For being worried about me.”
“You’re welcome.”

She smiled and then put her hand atop my head, ruffling my hair.

“From what you told me, you did your job just fine. Don’t worry.”
“... Nn!”
“Now, go find the captain. Wouldn’t want him growing flowing atop his head while he waits.”
“... That sounds like it’d be quite interesting, though.”
“... Yes, it does.”

We shared a short chuckle, before Fenna pushed my back, ushering me to take my leave.

“I’ll take care of things here. Until later.”
“Nn, until later.”

Finally, I was freed from this unexpectedly heavy burden. With my shoulders a little lighter, I made my way back underground.

---

Back underground, I found that the hall had filled up quite a lot compared to the time I left. There was, however, no sign of Korwen or even Merim or Karen. I asked a nearby mercenary and was told I’d find them on the other side. The other side of the portal.

Well, but weren’t we supposed to keep on this side as much as we could. Or at least, me.

But he had called for me so… Either way, I went through the tentacle door into the tent on the other side. Then I peeked out of the tent, taking a look at my surroundings.

“Ah, found the captain.”

A little away from the tent was Korwen, together with a few other mercenaries and Merim. Still no sign of Karen, though.

“Captain.”
“Ohh? That took quite a while, didn’t it?” exclaimed Korwen, turning around to face me.
“Nn? I came immediately back when Fenna told me?”
“Did you?”
“Nn.”

Maybe Fenna had waited for a while already, though… Not that she had said anything.

“I see. Well, that’s not important anyway. Yumi, I heard you found quite an interesting book.”
“Nn? That worshippers’ book, yes.”
“Could you tell me in detail what happened there.”
“Sure.”

I recounted what had happened when I found the book, the things I had read and what Ria had told me when she had come by.

“... and that’s it. Couldn’t you have asked Ria, though?”
“That idiot locked herself in her wagon to read exactly that book. She refused to come out.”
“...”

Korwen shrugged with his shoulders, dismissing the problem as if it was nothing of import.

“That’s why I called for you, after all. The book might be quite a find, after all.”
“That so?”
“Yes. Those books are something like their religious guideline. There is a lot of information that is hard to come by in those books.”

The worshippers were seriously troublesome, after all. And chances were quite high we’d encounter them again. Especially with me here. Yumelia had escaped back then, too. As long as she was around, she’d surely come after me again… The mere of it thought was scary.

“We got really lucky to sack one of those. I do wonder why we found it up there though and not with the other things underground…”
“Maybe they hid it there?”
“I’d question whoever decided that the main building is a better hiding place than the secret underground area.”
“... Good point.”

Now that he had said that, I’d question them, too.

“But those answers will probably have to wait until Ria decides to come out of her wagon. Really, what a bother.”

He didn’t seem to be too mad at her, though.

“So, Yumi…”
“Nn?”
“How was your first time giving orders?”
“It was—”

I opened my mouth to answer but immediately paused. Honestly, what should I say here? Overall… It could have been worse. Fenna said I did a good job, too. But… I was a little annoyed at how he sprung that onto me without warning. Honestly, I wanted to give him a piece of mind but now that I stood here I had no idea what to say… After a few seconds of deliberating, I decided to just tell him exactly how I felt about it.

“... It was uncomfortable. I don’t like it.”
“... Now, that’s quite upfront, isn’t it?”

Well, sugarcoating it wouldn’t change it, after all.

“I see, you didn’t like it.”
“Nn, I didn’t.”

If it was just something like supervising people, that wasn’t so bad. But, actually being the one giving out the orders? The one deciding the direction? I wasn’t fond of it in the least.

“See, Captain, I told you that’s how it was going to be,” commented Merim.
“I know you said that. But I had some hope… Can’t be helped then.”

Oh, he took it far better than I expected.

”That said, there are going to be times when you might have to take command, Yumi. Especially in regards to your own squad.”
“Nn… I’ll do my best.”
“That’s good.”

Korwen let out a sigh as he scratched the back of his head.

“Well, no point in forcing you to do it. It was worth a try.”

I felt a little bad since he seemed actually disappointed about it.

“Nn… By the way, where is sis?”
“Karen is over there.”

Korwen pointed towards the camp. Between the mercenaries running to and fro, carrying supplies or running errands, was Karen, giving out instructions to the mercenaries.

“... Did you also put her in charge?”
“Yes, I did. Surprisingly, she’s taken to it pretty well. She’s doing a pretty decent job at it, too.”
“Ohhh…”

Watching her for a little while, I could see where he was coming from. She directed the mercenaries, without being perturbed. It was completely different from how I did it, probably. Not that I could really judge that.

“Sis is amazing.”
“That you can say. But it’s about time we called her back as well. Having her experience being in charge is good and all, but she’s an incredible help for moving heavy stuff. And that stuff won’t move itself, as much as I wish it would.”

Korwen sighed again, turning his gaze towards somewhere else in the camp. Probably where some of that said heavy stuff was.

“At least we got the worst done already. Well then, Merim, you’re in charge here. If those people show up again, you know what to do.”
“Yes, Captain.”

Merim saluted and then returned to the camp. After seeing him off, Korwen and I went towards Karen. While we walked, I asked Korwen about what he mentioned to Merim.

“People?”
“Ahh… We got some visits.”
“Oh?”

Had to be someone important if Korwen went back for that.

“Turns out this region isn’t as remote as I expected. There are other mercenaries working in this area.”
“And those people came?”
“Pretty much. It’s a smaller band, only around four to five dozen of them. But they’re more than enough to deal with any local problems. But, well, now we showed up. And they were none too happy about it.”

Four to five dozen was… already quite a group, though? Weren’t the Black Guards somewhere around that size, too?

“So, what happened then?”
“Nothing much, really. They made a bit of a ruckus about this being their turf. They quickly shut up when they heard our name and our purpose of being here, though.”
“...”

Well, even I knew by now that the Lomerian Dragon Knights were rather well-known. Having such a well-known band in front of you was probably intimidating enough for them.

“What’ll happen to them now?”
“Who knows? If they are smart, they’ll make use of the fact that they are known in this area to get work. Depends on their reputation too, though. Either way, we probably won’t bother much with the local issues unless we get a job offer for it. And if we do, I guess their reputation wasn’t that good.”
“That’s… rather brutal.”
“It is what it is.”

Could only hope for them that their reputation wasn’t that bad. But… they did try to make a ruckus here so… that sure didn’t inspire any confidence.

“If they are dumb, however, they might try to mess with us. With that in mind, don’t wander around alone for a while. Last thing we need is you getting kidnapped.”
“I’ll take care.”
“Good. Tell that to Karen as well. Both you have to be careful. And I know Karen is strong but she’s not a trained mercenary. Don’t let her do anything dumb.”
“Nn.”

Not that I expected her to do anything like that. But it was better to be careful anyway.

“Good, good. Now then… Karen!”

While we talked, we had arrived at our destination and Korwen called out to Karen, drawing her attention to us.

“Mr Captain? Ah, Yumi!”
“Good work there, Karen. I’ll take over again. Go and take a break with Yumi.”
“Yes, Captain.”

After seeing Karen salute, Korwen nodded once and then turned to the mercenaries and shouted some instructions at them, continuing where Karen had left off.

“Good work there, Sis.”
“Yumi…”
“Woah?!”

My vision suddenly turned dark as Karen hugged me.

“Sis?”
“I was so nervous…”
“Ohhh…”

It wasn’t that she hadn’t been perturbed or bothered… she just hadn’t let it show.

“You did well, Sis. I watched a little and you were amazing.”
“Really?”
“Nn. Really.”
“I see. That’s a relief.”

A sigh of relief escaped Karen as she let more of her weight rest on me. Only enough that I could take it, thankfully.

“Let’s sit down somewhere and take a break.”
“Okay.”

Karen released me from her hug and walking hand-in-hand, we sat down near the tent with the tentacle door. There were no chairs here, so we simply sat on the ground, using a nearby tree as a backrest.

“Haaa… That was surprisingly exhausting…”
“Did you have to direct the mercenaries moving the supplies?”
“Yes… and not only that, I had to decide which supplies to bring, which ones to leave for now and all that… It was hard.”
“Wow…”

That… sounded worse than the stuff I had to do.”
“How about you? Mr Captain sent you to the fort, didn’t he?”
“Nn… I had to take over for Merim and Fenna. With the search of the fort.”
“Oh? I heard Ria got something from the people searching around, was that you?”
“In a way? They found a book from the worshippers, so I called for Ria. She was… well… rather happy about it.”

Happy enough that she had ignored Korwen and shut herself in her wagon.

“A book about the worshippers?”
“No, from them. It was one of their books. Probably some kind of… religious text, I guess? Not that it even read like one.”

It was a little blunt for that. More like an instruction manual, if anything.

“That does sound like something Ria would like…”
“Nn. Other than that… Well, not much happened…”

Speaking of which, I hadn’t mentioned the stuff with the elves to the captain but… that was probably fine, right? He didn’t ask for a report anyway. And they’d just ask him…

No, I probably should tell him later…

Just in case. Better than not doing it and then some problem would come out of it later.

“Oh well…”
“Yumi?”
“Nn, nothing.”

I leaned to the side, resting my head against Karen’s shoulder.

“I’m just glad it is over now. I really didn’t like this…”
“Was it that bad?”
“Well… I don’t like giving out orders like that… Deciding what to do… How to say it… It’s unpleasant.”
“... I overheard Merim saying something about the burden of command. Is that what he meant?”
“The burden of command, huh…”

It was, without a doubt, a heavy burden. If this was already so exhausting to me, I didn’t want to imagine how bad it had to be for Korwen on a job.

“Nn, I’d rather not have to do that.”

Things like that were better left to people better suited to it than me. I was quite comfortable in my current position, right next to Karen.

“I’m sure Mr Captain won’t force you to.”
“Nn… I won’t get around it entirely, though.”

Though, how things would go at that time, even I couldn’t say for sure.

“Let’s just hope that it won’t be that bad.”

Or maybe, at the time I’d be able to deal with it a little better.

“Right now, I just want to take a break, though.”
“Ehehe, come here, Yumi.”
“Nn? Ohhh?”

Karen gently pulled me towards her, letting my head rest on her lap.

“Nn, this is nice.”
“Ehehe.”

I let Karen spoil me for a good while. Resting on her lap was so incredibly comfortable. It was the best.

With Karen gently stroking my head and brushing through my hair, we enjoyed our break at a leisurely pace, until we had to get up once more.