Chapter 24 – Mountain Scouting
The reason Dorothea called me was to scout the mountains.
Up until now, if the commander-in-chief said he would go around alone, his subordinates were extremely discouraged and couldn’t try it, but since I was transferred out and the number of mage-level wizards was reduced to two, he seemed to think it was worth a try.
She rode on the back of her pet dog, Toto, and I borrowed the back of Eva, a centaur.
It was a tough job to climb the mountain, and there were not enough seats to board, so Camilla, who was a nuisance to follow, decided to remain at the camp.
Climbing that suddenly started in the morning.
“Hook-Hook-“
“It’s okay?”
“I’m fine, I am.”
Not only is it going up a steep slope, but the snow is piled up to the knees, so it consumes a lot of physical strength.
However, Eva, who was carrying the burden of the country on her back, was climbing the mountain silently without saying anything dissatisfied.
Even when I asked her if she was okay out of apologetic feelings, Eva kept repeating that she was okay.
There is no choice but to maintain the marching speed.
Has it been about an hour since I started climbing up in such a quiet atmosphere?
We finally arrived at the Obu Ridge of the Vulcan Mountains.
“Let’s rest here for a while.”
As he conquered the highest peak he could see from his position and saw an open snowy field spread out in front of him, Dorothea said so and got off the back of her pet dog, Toto.
Seeing that, I immediately jumped off Eva’s back.
It was to check the condition of her body, who suffered a lot while coming up.
“Are you okay? Can I get you some cold water?”
“…Please.”
As Eva said, probably not having the strength to speak anymore, she sat down recklessly on the snowy field.
Actually, that’s a very bad move.
This is because all remaining body heat is taken away by the eyes.
But she can’t tell a jaded person not to sit down and rest, so I did my job without bothering to point out her behavior.
I put snow in a cone from my backpack, dig a hole in the ground, and set fire to the wet soil.
It wasn’t too difficult to procure drinking water if you could light a fire because snow was everywhere.
If you’re in a hurry, there was also a way to eat snow without boiling it.
It’s not like the eyes polluted by various pollution like in modern times.
I asked Eva to stretch her legs while the water was boiling in her nose.
Naturally, Eva tilted her head and asked why, and I confidently replied.
“I’m going to give you a massage because I had a hard time riding the mountain.”
Then, as if it was her rather attractive proposal, Eva entrusted her body to me without much hesitation.
‘Where… ‘
The first place to touch is the back leg.
Compared to humans, the horse’s endurance is not that great, so it had the disadvantage that it spread quickly if the legs were abused even a little.
So, when traveling long distances on horseback, regular rest was not an option, but a necessity.
I pressed the thumbs of both of her hands against the muscles of her sturdy legs, recalling the memories of my old horseback riding.
“Black!”
Then the long tail hairs on his hips stood up stiffly.
Flinch! Flinch!
Even that wasn’t enough, the shiny, brown, graceful body caused a slight convulsion.
I asked her, gently loosening her grip on her.
“Are you sick?”
Then Eva shook her head and answered in a melted voice.
“Oh, no. It feels better than I thought.
“Because the legs are muscles that are used every day. Originally, the parts of the body that are most prone to fatigue are the legs, so it may be that you are used to the pain and do not notice it more.”
In the case of a centaur, like a normal horse, it had a large body weighing 400 to 500 kg and even had a human upper body.
In such a state, the four legs, which are relatively slender compared to the body, support all the load emitted from this load.
Of course, the muscles had to come together often.
The meridian massage, which started from the thighs of the hind legs, eventually descended to the calves.
As if she had been taking good care of it, her hair was shiny.
This is a sign of good health.
With one hand, he massaged her thighs while the other gently caressed her calves.
Eva, who at first had been shy and covered her mouth with her hand and suppressed her moan as much as possible, now began to let out her moan openly.
“Huang! Ah! Aaaaang!”
The voice is unnecessarily bewitching, so if you close your eyes and listen to it, you’ll know that someone is playing porn.
However, since I was doing the massage with a really pure heart, I massaged her back leg with all my heart and soul.
So she rubbed her four legs alternately for about 10 minutes, and then Eva couldn’t stand it any longer and collapsed in front of her in exhaustion.
Judging from the state of affairs, it seemed unreasonable to do more than this, so I decided to finish it at this point.
“Have some warm water.”
“…Thank you.”
Perhaps because of the lingering aftertaste of her meridian massage, Eva’s twitching hand barely held the cup I handed to her with both of her hands.
As she sipped her warm water, I turned her head away wondering what Dorothea was doing.
There, Dorothea, leaning against the body of Cerberus Toto, stared at me and Eva with a very interesting gaze.
She snapped her fingers as my eyes met hers.
“Fun. Try more.”
“…You mean massage?”
Then Dorothea smiled and nodded her head.
“I’ve known her for quite some time, but today is the first time I’ve seen Eva look so disheveled.”
It was clearly intended to make fun of her subordinates.
That would mean that Eva and Dorothea are close in private, but I had no intention of delving deeper into their relationship.
It’s because I didn’t want to buy unnecessary suspicion in a situation where I was hiding my identity.
“Please stop teasing me like that. It’s sexual harassment.”
In the meantime, Eva, who had been exhausted, bruised Dorothea and raised her body from the snow, as if her physical condition had improved somewhat by taking a short break.
“Would you like to take a walk?”
When I first suggested it, Eva walked a little over her snow with her dubious expression on her face, and then she turned her head away with a startled look on her face.
“Her legs are as light as a feather!”
Seeing her jump for joy, I felt that it was worth the effort she put into giving me a massage.
Dorothea, who had been as quiet as a sack of barley she had brought in during her massage, heard our conversation and shrugged her shoulders, then jumped up again and climbed onto Cerberus’ body.
“After you’ve had enough rest, let’s start again.”
“Yes!”
At her urging, Eva and I immediately prepared to set off.
I forgot about it for a while, but we’re only half way to our goal.
***
She arrived at the top of the Vulcan Mountains after about three hours had elapsed.
Looking around, there were no ridges or peaks to climb.
It literally means reaching the top.
At the point where the slope of the mountain road became too steep, I got off Eva’s back and climbed up with her bare body, so the feeling I felt was different.
Perhaps because of the fine weather today, the world seen from the open field of vision was truly vast and beautiful.
As she stared blankly at her snowfield, Dorothea, who had walked beside her, pointed at a certain point with her finger.
“That’s the castle where the human army is stationed.”
I followed her gaze and turned her head.
Certainly, in the place her finger was pointing at, there was a black old castle nestled between a large valley.
Since it was first built, it is a fortress of the Hamburg family that has never been attacked.
Shortly thereafter, Dorothea turned and pointed in the direction we had come up the mountain.
It was hard to see because it was quite far away, but the Demon King’s army camp we walked out of in the morning was definitely there.
“And this is the border that divides OZ, the kingdom of humans, and DOOM LAND, the territory of demons.”
As Dorothea said, she stared at me standing next to her.
“During the months since I was appointed commander-in-chief here, I tried everything I could to bring this border up even a little further. But it all ended in failure.”
She asked.
“Patrasch, if it were you, how would you attack humans in this land?”
I listened to her words and looked at the black fortress in the distance.
Impregnability.
From the point of view of the demons, such words are inevitable.
Even during the human-horse war that took place five years ago, the kingdom’s forces defended this fortress to the end, so they were able to establish a temporary truce with the demons.
This was a strategic point and at the same time, it was one of the last bastions of the kingdom army.
Breaking through here would mean that the highway on the way to Oz, the capital, would be wide open, so they had no choice but to be even more desperate.
I, who was once in a position to stop demons in that old castle, suddenly came up with an interesting idea I had in the past.
“Then why don’t you try to create an avalanche?”
“…What?”
Upon hearing my answer, Dorothea’s stitches widened.
