Huge Holy 9 (Patreon)

9 - Meanwhile, in A Empire (1)

RAW

A few days after Josiah left A Empire...

☆

At the wall construction site, there was not a sound of workers being whipped, instead, gloom and frustration permeated them.

“Shit! It stopped again!! How many times does this make!?”

The one shouting in anger was the supervisor knight.
A magical gondola that was introduced in place of Josiah's dismissal.
During the work, malfunction occurred again and again, and the work was interrupted. It also takes even more time to call a contractor for repairs.
The vicious cycle continued.

The contractor who finally arrives is also fed up and says in a strong tone.

“The cause is the overweight load again. I've said this many times already! Didn't I tell you the gondola's load capacity as well!?”

“We don't have time to measure it every single time! Besides, the gondola is too slow!! At this rate, we can't finish it by the deadline!”

“The heavier the gondola, the slower it will go. Even children can understand that.”

“You know what? You seem to be acting all high and mighty here, but the magician I hired last time could do about twenty times the work of this (a gondola) with just a magic circle that looks like graffiti!”

“Ha...? N-no, that's impossible. What's more, a magic circle? Using such an old technique nowadays is――”

“There’s no way in hell it’s impossible! Because we can cut that cheeky magician's labor costs, we trusted you guys and let you install the magic equipment!! I'll let the higher ups know about this!!”

“Please wait! There won’t be any problem as long as the magic tools are used correctly!!”

“If you have time to make excuses, try to improve it quickly! If the [wall] is not completed by the deadline, you bastards will be held responsible as well, so prepare yourself!!”

“T-that’s…”

☆

Even in another place, serious troubles arose.

“Oi! Isn’t it done yet!?”

“How long do we have to wait!”

The rowdy men who have been fired as adventurers are making a fuss.
An employee angrily shouts, “Shut up!”

“We’re hiring you guys who have nowhere to go! If you complain, I'll fire you immediately!!”

This place is the only post office in A Empire.
It’s an important agency that collects and distributes all mail within the empire.
What sorts those mails is a magic tool. That’s how it should be, but...

The ten magic tools that were provided would each take in one mail, read the address with a technique similar to [Scan], identify it, and eject it compartment by compartment.
This series of actions took a little over a minute.
If they do it one by one, they will never get it done. In fact, deliveries have been delayed by several days.

Even if it’s temporary, every mail in the empire was piling up into higher and higher mountains.
Moreover, in A Empire’s case, they had to check for suspicious items and record all mails.
Hence, they would gather them all in one place.

Furthermore, the publication and delivery of newspapers were approaching.
This too, can't be delayed, but the delay in delivery was more serious than that.

An employee who grew impatient called out to the former adventurers who were waiting.

“It can't be helped. Hey, you guys!! Help me with sorting! I don't care if you use magic!!”

Every former adventurer who actually starts the sorting work says.

“No matter how much I try, the amount doesn't decrease at all! What's going on!?”

“You said I can use magic for this, but what and how should I use it for sorting…”

“I heard that Josiah guy used to finish it in about 30 minutes.”

“That's obviously a lie! He is just a guy who can’t use [Holy]――”

The employee yelled, “Move your hands, not your mouth!”, and the adventurers reluctantly fell silent.
Since they made no progress, other employees also gathered together and spent time sorting.

☆

The medical business in which Josiah was involved has been struggling with the treatment of severely ill patients, despite trial and error with magic circles and medicines he taught them.

The cleaning company was told that since the construction of the sewage system would take some time, they have to continue cleaning for a while, they screamed that they shouldn't have fired Josiah.

The middle class had asked Josiah to repair everything from buildings to antiques and tidy up warehouses and rooms, but were at a loss as to what to do without receiving the free benefit of light magic.

There were other small businesses where Josiah had become an unsung hero that also lamented it, but the most serious thing was...

☆

After a major personnel change, the Empire's reborn guild receives a dungeon investigation request from C Principality.

C Principality formed an alliance with the dubious A Empire because the empire's adventurers are highly skilled.

The number of dungeons around C Principality is small among the developing countries.
Instead, their conquest difficulty is high.
Even the lower ones is at [B Rank].
There is even one of the few [S-rank] dungeons in the world there in the frontier far from the capital.

Even among adventurers, only high ranking adventurers can deal with it.
Hence, the natural client of C Principality is its neighbor, A Empire, where excellent adventurers gather.

The conquest this time is the usual monster subjugation and field survey in the dungeon.
If there are signs of dungeon activation, they will promptly evacuate the population and set up a large-scale siege around the dungeon.
This happens two or three times a year.

It's not a dungeon that can be conquered with a formation that underestimates it.
That’s how it should be, but…

“Um. this is, what does this mean?”

A red twin-tailed [Hero] girl who still has some youth left asks the inspector sent by the government.

Buffs to allies and debuffs to enemies, swordsmanship and magic... a [Hero] has a good balance of everything and tends to naturally become the main force in the party.

It’s the same with her.
Maybe because the request came from an allied country, she became the leader of a party made up of people carefully selected by the government.
However, the party composition was full of problems.

"Why aren't there any supporters? With this, we can't do an efficient conquest.”

“Unnecessary existence like supporters is useless”

“...Ha?”

“Or what? Are you saying you can't conquer the dungeon without any supporters? Even though they’re useless in battle.”

“Um…”

The Hero girl was at a loss for words.
She was wondering what the people in front of her, what the country, were thinking.
The Hero girl spoke while suppressing the urge to hold her head.

“Their role is to map the dungeon, process loot, and swiftly deal with heal and buff. In particular, they are trained to dispose of monster corpses in at least 30 seconds――”

“I thought you were about to say something worthwhile... What we’re saying is that all it takes is only you, the hero, alone. It's useless to spend unnecessary personnel on the work of just stripping the subjugation parts and magic stones from the corpses.”

“Excuse me, but have you ever actually been inside a dungeon…? Monsters won't wait. Dungeons change suddenly. It's impossible even for me, a hero, to deal with all of them. That's why it's more efficient to――.”

“Don't say something ridiculous if you are the hero. You can’t do it without supporters? Don't be spoiled. If you're a hero, having supporters is just foolish, it's only natural for you to be able to go around the dungeon on your own. ...Enough already. You won’t be a leader anymore. If you won’t do it without supporters, you'll be demoted in rank.”

Her words won’t go through.
The A Rank, no.
The former A Rank girl says “I understand” and leaves.

It’s over for this country.
The girl realized.

――――

(T/N: if I forgot to add a release to novelupdates, please add it in my stead. use the [add release] button in your profile page. while we're at it please do it for other series as well if they forgot to add the release. well, it probably won't happen to me anytime soon, but just in case.)

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