A wild translator appears!
Translator used dogeza.
It is super ineffective!
Translator trembles in fear.
Translator escapes!
Translator drops a chapter!
...Really sorry for picking up a series and then just disappearing after only two chapters. I have no excuse, I simply lost interest in this project. I knew it'd happen eventually, it always does, but I had hoped to be able to carry on considerably longer than I ultimately did. Well, anyway, here's a random chapter release. No idea if or when the next one will come, but as long as no one else expresses interest in translating Saratoga, I have no intention of officially dropping it. If someone does, I'll happily hand it over, but unless the author himself picks the story up again (it's currently stalled at 156 chapters: the author is active, but working on another story), the chances of another translator becoming interested in this are probably pretty low.
Chapter 8 - Deploy for combat! Request Lord Seldis to sortie!
“My apologies!”
Panting, Kirie rushed in to Mio’s office. The rest of the senior staff were already seated around the table. Mio at the centre, the superintendent Bozmus, the magician Shumelvi, and the generals Meshmendi and Gustavo. In addition, the secretary Kirchheim, who had been absent from the previous session, was now present. Furthermore, there was a little girl sitting on Shumelvi’s lap and swinging her feet.
“It is quite rare for Kirie to be late, is it not?”
Mio smiled wryly.
“I’m really sorry. The haircut took unexpectedly long...”
“Haircut?”
Everyone present turned in unison to look at Kirie’s hair, and were puzzled to find it looking the same as usual.
“Ah… No, I mean, I had some errands to take care of… Haha...”
Kirie was clearly acting unnaturally, but judging it a matter not worth pursuing, Mio cut the talk short.
“...Very well. Shumelvi, please.”
“Certainly~”
Saying so with a sweet voice, Shumelvi slowly, deliberately, reached her fingers into her cleavage, and with an erotic sigh, pulled out a folded map.
Bozmus and Gustav gazed at her chest fixedly, while Meshmendi got his eye poked at by the little girl and writhed in agony. Kirchheim had his eyes on the documents in his arms, and didn’t seem to notice.
“Kirie!”
“Yes!”
“Let me know your thoughts on this.”
“Yes.”
This was a typical exchange between Kirie and Mio. It could be said that this was an obligatory development. The other people in the room showed no reaction.
Without paying attention to her surroundings, Shumelvi spread the map carefully and held it from diagonally opposite corners.
“Il luogo (mark the location).”
Solemnly reciting scripture, she invoked the magic of detection. Nine luminous points gradually appeared on the map. Of those luminous points, two were on the left half of the map. The rest were gathered on the right side.
“This is Saratoga.”
Shumelvi pointed her finger at one of the dots on the left side.
“And this is Gergios… or it should be, but...”
“It’s weak, isn’t it?”
Even now, the luminous point seemed to be disappearing. While they watched, the point flickered repeatedly, as if about to vanish any second.
“It seems their magic crystal reactor has been almost shut down, they’re moored 150 farzangs (roughly 750 kilometres) to the west. It’s as though they decided to anchor within confrontation distance from Saratoga.”
“If they’ve shut down their magic crystal reactor this far, it should take about half a day to restart it.”
“Indeed.”
“If they stay moored, we could catch up tomorrow morning.”
After pondering for a while, Mio requested opinions.
“Bozmus, what is your assessment?”
“Hmm, hmm. It would be natural to think that they’ve ran into some kind of trouble. The Count of Gergios doesn’t excel in strategy.”
“Well, that’s true. Old man Gergios loves a frontal assault, after all.”
“That’s right, Mio-sama has met him.”
“Yes, I accompanied my father to a conference of the lords as a child. Good grief, he really was an immature old man. He was so unreasonably angry.”
“Angry?”
“He wore a splendid armour, and when he took it off once, I stuffed minced meat into one of the gauntlets and thoroughly grilled it.”
“Well, anyone would get angry at that.”
As Gustavo’s cheek twitched, everyone revealed their thoughts by nodding in unison.
“The other lords found it funny, though.”
The look everyone gave to Kirie was the very embodiment of a retort.
“However, now that you mention it, the way they have been running away so far is unlike that old man. No, to begin with, everything starting from that surprise attack has been unlike him.”
Come to think of it, that was true. A person preferring frontal assaults resorting to means like a surprise attack? That time, he had consciously chosen to approve of a raid penetrating all the way inside the fortress. Mio shuddered at the thought of what might have happened, had the Lord of Saratoga been their guest at the time.
“Gergios’ Count may have changed without our knowledge.”
“Hmm, hmm, I see, that may have happened. In that case, the chances of it being a trap are higher.”
“Kirie, what do you think?”
“Yes! I think having a younger brother is good.”
“What the hell are you talking about!?”
With a preoccupied expression on her face, Kirie made a slip of a tongue. It seemed that in the middle of the war council, she had been occupied with some unrelated delusions.
“To elicit a retort from me… So you can do it, huh?”
“Hmm, hmm, perhaps the new Count of Gergios is after the position of the capital city.”
Sensing the competitiveness burning within Mio, Bozmus immediately changed the subject. As expected of a long-serving retainer, he was familiar with his lord’s temperament.
“If they’re aiming to become the new capital city, would it not make sense to go to the central?”
“Ultimately, they’ll have to subdue all of the mobile fortresses. From that standpoint, there’s nothing strange about this.”
Raising his gaze from the documents, Kirchheim calmly presented his opinion.
“Hmm, hmm, not to mention the fact that, if they’re aiming to become the capital, their greatest obstacle must be...”
“...Lord Seldis, and thus, our Saratoga.”
Sighing, Mio finished the sentence.
“In that case, how about we aim to become the capital as well!?”
Gustavo raised a passionate voice. However, Mio subtly shook her head.
“We do not have such capacity. Since I took over from father, my hands have been full just with Saratoga. I do not care who takes the position of the leader, as long as our Saratoga is left undisturbed.”
Gustavo made a bored face and let his raised fist fall.
“This discussion is over. At any rate, we will be engaging in combat with Gergios tomorrow. Everyone, don’t be negligent in your preparations!”
As everyone started to stand up from their seats, Mio turned to face Kirie.
“Well then, how is Nanashi doing?”
“Yes! Nana-cha- That damn bug should be cleaning the parade ground with Miria at the moment.”
“Nanacha?”
“Um, no, er...”
“Well, nevermind. Tomorrow, when we make contact with Gergios, we will also discuss the plan to recover his little sister.”
As the executive staff were walking towards the door, that door was opened and a flurried soldier barged in.
“I have a report!”
“What is it?”
“A large number of undead have sprung out within the fortress! Numbering in the hundreds, they are pouring out of a single location. At the moment, the second army has blockaded the location and is commencing counter attack.”
“What!? What’s the location?”
“The parade ground.”
“Wha-!?”
Her face going pale, Kirie crumbled on her knees. Taking a single glance at her, Mio raised her voice.
“Deploy for combat! Pass down my command to all troops! Gustavo will take command of the second army, Meshmendi’s first army is to be deployed inside the fortress as a precaution. Shumelvi, gather magicians who are able to use ‘Kyrie, eleison’!1 Bozmus! Request Lord Seldis to sortie!”
-------------------
1”Lord, have mercy.” Greek, a prayer derived from a Biblical phrase. In this setting, a holy spell used against the undead.
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