Chapter 273
- It’s best to start by drawing bigger picture (6)
What is the most important thing when escaping?
Speed? It’s important.
The faster you escape, the more distance you can create and have more leisure to not get caught.
But I have no magic. I was mocked by the evil evil god and did not have any magic left.
So no matter how much distance I create, if I just run with my feet, I can’t go far before getting caught.
Just having magic itself allows one to have a noteworthy speed, as well as inexhaustible stamina.
At the very least I need to ride a horse to create distance, and ride a drake to leisurely escape.
But in this situation I could not obtain a mount.
This is the elf forest.
They do not raise monsters classified as drakes, wyverns, griffins etc and they let horses roam but due to the terrain of the forest the horses cannot reach their full speed.
Then what should I do?
Obviously it is to escape without being noticed.
Escaping at high speeds is amateurish.
I am not the fastest in the world and numerous variables could occur when escaping.
No matter how fast, if I get surrounded, my movements get limited, and no matter how fast, if I get caught by a trap I will ultimately be caught.
In that sense, the expert at escaping does not get noticed.
First and foremost, the best method is to not have my existence noticed.
Just by not having my existence noticed, escape naturally becomes possible.
But having been brought here by elves, it would be unreasonable to think the other elves don’t know me.
In the first place, the only humans in the elf forest are warriors and porters, and nobody else aside from me.
On top of that with what that crazy elf normally did, the elves would chatter ‘that person?’ ‘that gentleman?’ even if I were an elf and not human, there would not be a single elf who didn’t know me.
Then is it unreasonable to escape without being noticed?
That is not the case either.
If I don’t make everyone look at me then I can escape without being noticed.
It is named based on gender equality.
Using the good material called the hero, I concentrated all the elves gazes in one place and escape!
I prepared various groundwork to execute that plan, and even made scripts to directly teach the hero on the day of escape.
“Instead of that person, I’m confident I can do better.”
“Wrong! You need to bring out a slightly more pitiful yet clumsy feeling.”
“Understood.”
It is referencing the legendary confession lines from my previous life’s memories, from deep within.
They were confession lines so perfect I thought there could be no better spectacle, no, confession.
Because elves who are evaluated as being long-lived yet only obtain a single spouse their entire lives have an extremely stimulating confession with short dating periods!
On top of that it is the love affair between the royalty high elf of the elf world and the hero human of the human world!
This will sell!
No, they will definitely watch it!
My soul as a Korean tempered by all sorts of crazy dramas was confident this operation would succeed.
And I,
“Isn’t it too slow?”
“On the contrary this is better.”
Was escaping extremely slowly.
“We may be pursued.”
“You need to trust that hero guy.”
If he can just buy time well then that’s good.
The place the hero confesses was a place I prepared through meticulous investigation, the optimal place to see well from the lodging we were staying at.
Truly an auspicious land to see the hero’s confession.
The elves who were monitoring me under the pretext of guards could not take their eyes off the hero’s confession, and would just absentmindedly nod their heads to what I was saying.
To the point that they didn’t notice even when I said I would rest in the room and escaped through the window!
“The forest is the elves’ homeland. There’s no way we can escape the elves in the forest. What we need to do is to not get noticed.”
No matter how I say I have no magic, the forest is dangerous.
Even if I can’t get detected by magic, the sounds of stepping on branches, the sounds of brushing past leaves cannot be helped.
So I have no choice but to move carefully.
Like I’m just normally going for a walk.
So that even if my existence is noticed it’s not strange.
If this place was a bustling big city, having the appearance of a passing pedestrian would be even more helpful, but I could only regret that there were simply no people itself in the elf forest.
“Now as long as I don’t encounter border guards….”
Still, because there aren’t even fences in the elf forest I was able to safely escape to the outskirts.
Now all I need to do is avoid the border guard elves scattered throughout the forest in case of emergencies, and retrieve the hero after he finishes acting.
And both of those,
“It’s over.”
Were safely resolved by the hero returning.
“How did it go?”
“I got slapped and ran away crying.”
To get slapped by a high elf.
He must be the only one in human history to have this experience.
“Any pursuit?”
“None. Since I was cruelly rejected, the elves probably won’t chase either.”
The hero guy saying it expressionlessly somehow looks a bit pitiful.
-Then comfort him a bit?
-Once we catch the Demon King it’ll be liberation.
Let’s have him be a bit more pitiful until then.
A young man who is not even 50 years old needs to exert himself rather than me who is over 50.
-What was master doing at that age?
-Around then master was an assistant instructor once, and became a formal instructor right?
-Oh my! While some are suffering trying to catch the Demon King because they met bad people at a young age, master was raising a Demon King at the hero’s age!
-Is that right?
Now that I think about it, at the hero’s age I was raising a Demon King.
Looking at it the opposite way, Howling can also be considered an extraordinarily remarkable organization.
It is the place that nurtured the current strongest hero of the continent’s dark world unified by the Demon King after all.
-Pitiful Howling…….It met master and got done in by master.
I felt uncomfortable like I was told my strong point was my strong point, but what can you do? The volcano is far and the elf forest is near.
There’s no benefit in provoking the metal bat’s mood now.
I just decided to let it go for now and meet later at the volcano.
“Any elves nearby?”
“None. Now is the chance.”
If they were elves there may be some existences that can escape the hero’s magic detection but they would at least have to be elder-class. And the elders don’t move much.
It is the role of elders to hold the weight by sitting at the round table with their canes in hand to face the crisis of the world.
– What’s that strange yet persuasive imagination?
– What, it’s literally the image of elders.
Without actually stepping forward themselves but ordering others, the image of so many elders is clearly visible.
“I will go.”
“Yes.”
Gripping the metal bat just in case.
The hero takes the lead, spaced a bit apart from Shuttle following behind in the format of the hero suppressing the elves if spotted by the elves.
I and Shuttle will run away and the hero buys time. That was our position.
And we,
“This easily?”
I did not expect we would be able to get out of the elves’ forest so easily.
“Now, where should we go?”
“Hmmm…….”
If it went according to the original plan, there should have been some commotion.
No matter how much the high elf’s mind is full of flower beds being the elven prince, and the elves’ forest that has not allowed invasion of foreign powers for thousands of years, I did not think we could get out this easily.
So,
“For now we need to get a carriage from a nearby village and move. Do you know the geography here?”
“Hil will know.”
“Ah, yes.”
Shuttle efficiently takes out a map from his luggage and adeptly locates the current position. It’s a skill learned from the temple to guide heroes.
“The nearest village is about a 3 day walk.”
“We need to move quickly as we don’t know when the elves will chase.”
As I nod, Shuttle takes the lead about a step to guide the way.
“Is there a problem?”
It was the hero’s question, silently following behind Shuttle.
A problem? Of course there is.
“There is.”
“What is it?”
“The fact that nothing has happened.”
“Huh?”
Seeing the hero not understanding the meaning of my words, I sighed.
“Think about it carefully. Has anything ever been smoothly resolved so far?”
“That’s…….”
It won’t be.
It was that way when on a mission at Howling, and after Howling was destroyed.
When we were close to winning the championship in Yugrasia, didn’t the imperial princess pop out, and while watching comfortable life with my daughter, didn’t a dragon come out of an egg I bought at the market?
Getting suddenly attacked by demons, exposed by the hero, just as it was becoming livable after crossing over to the demon continent, the Demon king popped out.
“The calm before the storm. It’s said that it’s quiet before the storm starts blowing, but… we’re already being battered around by the storm. It can never be quiet.”
“That means…….”
The hero finally seemed to realize the seriousness of the situation.
“Right. It has to be noisy at a time when it should be quiet, which means!”
“Something terrible can happen!?”
The hero shouted in disbelief but his expression was one that already completely believed it.
Yes, your life got screwed up too.
Even though born as the child of a noble, the highest in the world’s strongest country besides the emperor himself, starting from ending up at a place like Howling, the organization collapsing and becoming a hero, the worst sucker, after returning home.
– Master, that’s the one that’s missing! Out of all those numerous instructors! If only you didn’t meet master, 90% of life wouldn’t have been screwed up!
This time I couldn’t ignore the metal bat’s words.
What do you mean, that tone as if I’m the root of all evil!
– It’s not me, it’s you! If only you had quietly stayed put, my life wouldn’t have gotten screwed up like this!
If the metal bat had just stayed quiet, evil wouldn’t have been unleashed in the world, and something like a Demon King wouldn’t have existed either.
Then the imperial princess wouldn’t have had fragments of evil or whatever, so just an ordinary royal, she wouldn’t have been interested in me.
Then I would have quietly done menial chores in the royal palace as an errand boy, with no relation at all to the princess occurring.
And if the princess didn’t move, Howling that I thought was my job for life wouldn’t have collapsed! Then I would have lived busily earning money still as an instructor!
– Mas, Master, that’s your fantasy!
– Indeed. An extremely likely fantasy though!
– Ugh!
The metal bat closed her mouth.
It was the first victory in a long time.
I added one last line to the metal bat, completely defeated and tight lipped.
– It’ll be better not to say things you can’t take responsibility for.
Why is guarantee called the express lane to miserable defeat?
Because you can’t handle it yourself, so you pass it onto someone else.
Taking on something that others can’t handle and receiving it, where else does such foolishness exist!
That’s why the one giving the guarantee is called a sucker.
Sucker. Sucker… sucker……?
I glanced at the hero.
Hero. A sucker that gods manipulate however they want.
“Hmmm…….”
I turn my gaze. Now I see Shuttle guiding the way in front of the hero.
Saint. A sucker that can hear the revelation of gods.
There were two suckers here.
“Hero.”
I needed to revise the plan a bit.
Originally, I was going to make the pursuing elves and imperial army chasing me collide, and if possible, add in the Demon King and hero, but I couldn’t execute that plan since the elves weren’t chasing.
Then let’s come up with an entirely new plan.
“Yes, Instructor.”
Seeing the disciple that doesn’t even call me instructor since there are no people around, I made a proposal to the hero.
“Let’s make a guarantee.”
“Yes?”
A debt guarantee proposal.
