Chapter 24. Hunting C̶̪̔͒̀h̴̢̼̬̝̱̑ì̷̧͎̮̥̳̪͌͠çk̶̜̼̙͈͚̳͋̾̀̆e̶͙͚̹̪̹͗̀n̷̰͎̽͗͠͝
Morning the next day, in front of Winter City's gate.
Wearing iron armor and an iron sword on his waist, Lacius rode a horse while marching in front of a thousand soldiers.
Slightly behind him, Hars, Yuma, Tsukiko, and twenty other blessed followed suit on their horses.
Tsukiko, who sat behind a female blessed said, "I think I just got horse sickness. Or whatever the equivalent for car sickness in horses is."
On a horse next to her, Yuma's face has changed color to bluish red from the horse's shaking. He occasionally made some noises that sounded like burps.
In front of him, the blessed that controlled the horse Yuma rode turned his head backward while staring coldly at Yuma. "I'll throw you down if you vomit toward me."
"Don't be like that, Alan. Don't you know I am the hero? I am the person sent by the creator of your world to save this place." Yuma said while Alan merely coldly stared at him before focusing on the road once more.
Losing Alan's attention, Yuma turned his head toward Tsukiko and chatted with her to relieve his nausea.
"Big sis Tsukiko, before you invented all those things, you should've invented a carriage first. The kind with a suspension system."
Tsukiko rolled her eyes, "I would if I knew how to do it."
"Actually, I'll even search for a way to create it if I knew we'll need to travel by horse." Tsukiko said while closing her mouth with her palm.
Both of them chatted for a long time under Alan's occasional annoyed glance. And so, a whole week quickly passes by.
After a week of traveling, both Yuma and Tsukiko had turned silent as their eyes lost all their light like a dead fish.
If not for the movement of their chest and the occasional grunting sound they made. They are truly no different from a corpse.
As someone who has lived a comfortable life in a modern world since the time they're born. Traveling by horse for a week straight has taken a massive toll on Tsukiko and Yuma both mentally and physically.
Thankfully, at this time, Lacius's voice can be heard. "We've arrived."
He then controlled his horse toward Alan and Yuma's, "Can you lead us to the place where that demon hid itself?"
Inside the Divine Space. Cedric, who has observed their entire journey, quickly sends a message toward Yuma.
[The demon is currently resting in front of a cave a kilometer to your northeast! There are 26 soldiers imprisoned inside that cave.]
Yuma saw the screen and quickly regained his vitality. 'Finally, we've arrived! Although the journey back will be as hellish, but that's a problem for later!'
He repeated the word Cedric had sent him to Lacius, "The demon is resting in front of a cave a kilometer to our northeast. There are also 26 soldiers imprisoned inside."
Lacius nodded and shouted, "March toward the northeast!"
With Lacius's command, the thousand strong army continued to march forward for a few hours.
During the journey. From the Divine Space, Cedric occasionally sent some message to Yuma to correct their path and shorten their travel time.
Nevertheless, by the time Lacius's army has arrived at the mouth of that cave, the demonic chicken has escaped into the cave a long time ago.
To be honest, Cedric is slightly awed by that chicken's sense of danger. It actually escaped into the cave long before Lacius's army arrived.
Cedric then shook his head to push those scattered thoughts and sent a message to Yuma's Basic System Screen.
[The demon has escaped into the cave.]
Yuma, who has accepted his fate as a repeating machine, told Lacius about it.
Lacius looked at the cave in front of him and frowned."This cave is too small and will limit our combat abilities."
He then frowned while thinking of a plan.
After spending a few minutes, Lacius turned his head toward Alan. "Alan, use your blessed power and check whether there are other exits in the cave."
"Alright!" Alan jumped down while leaving Yuma alone on the horse. He walked towards the cave's mouth while closing his eyes.
Soon, he looked at Lacius and said, "I sensed no wind coming from the cave. This should be the only entrance into the cave."
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Lacius nodded at Alan's report and said, "Try to sense the cave's size."
Alan nodded and closed his eyes once more.
This time, while standing with closed eyes. His clothes can be seen moving on its own, just like being blown by a strong wind.
When Alan reopened his eyes, he immediately reported to Lacius. "It's beyond my detection range. That means the cave should be at least a hundred meters deep. As for the width, it's around 5 meters wide on average."
"You may return." Lacius waved at Alan while massaging his temple. 'This is quite troublesome. Should I try to pull the demon outside to utilize our superiority in numbers, or should I just send some blessed inside to fight against that demon with unknown strength?'
After some thought, he called Hars and told him. "Send some soldiers to investigate the cave."
Hars nodded and gathered ten soldiers.
Lacius looked at the ten of them and said, "I want the ten of you to investigate the demon's location and the depth of this cave. Whether or not you found the demon, I want you to return within an hour!"
The ten soldiers that had been selected bowed toward Lacius and agreed.
With the equipment on their body and several torches made of dried wood, they walked into the cave.
Around twenty minutes later. While the people outside are waiting with bated breath, a soldier can be seen running out of the cave while screaming, "Help! Help! Demon!!!"
Hearing the soldier's scream and seeing his panicked expression, Lacius felt an ominous feeling.
After waiting and seeing no other person leaving the cave, his ominous feeling strengthened and he asked the soldier who had escaped the cave. "What's going on? Where are the demons and the other soldiers?"
"They are all dead! I saw the demon in the cave. It spewed fire and poisons from its mouth and easily killed the others!"
"What about the other 26 soldiers captured inside?" Yuma asked the soldier.
But before the man could reply, he saw a screen appear in front of him.
[Those soldiers are dead, they have been killed by the demon. You should tell the human king to simply smokes the entrance of that cave to suffocate or at least force that demon out! Currently, it has dozens of human corpses to sustain itself, so it could stay inside the cave for a week or two.]
"Huh?" Yuma is shocked by the news of dozens of people's deaths. But as he didn't see death with his own eyes, he wasn't as shocked as the soldier that ran from the cave.
Once he regained his senses,Yuma asked. "You mean smoke as in burning things to fill the cave with smoke?"
[Yes! But as the cave is pretty deep, you can go chop the surrounding trees and use them as fuel to create smokes.]
Ignoring the weird look the surrounding people give him while he talked to the invisible screen, Yuma told Alan to move toward Lacius.
Lacius looked at Yuma with a complicated gaze and asked, "Have you been communicating with the god all this while?"
"Yes." Yuma answered.
"Is the god the one giving you directions?" Lacius asked him.
Although he did nothing wrong, the look on Lacius's face made him uneasy. Which makes Yuma answer Lacius's question in a soft voice. "Yes."
Lacius looked upward, "What does the god say?"
Yuma repeated Cedric's words, "They said the 26 soldiers kept inside had all perished and turned into the demon's food stock. So, you can smoke the entrance of that cave to suffocate and force that demon out."
"Hmm? Then, we'll follow the god's command." Lacius turned toward Hars and said, "Send the soldier to begin cutting trees. Also, tell the blessed with divine strength to gather the trees toward the cave."
"Alright." Hars nodded and moved toward the rear.
While Hars commanded the surrounding soldiers to cut trees, times quickly moved and a whole day and night has passed.
Morning the next day, Yuma and Tsukiko walked out of their tent and looked at each other's eye bags while smiling wryly.
Throughout the night, the sound of falling trees has been hindering their sleep.
Although the frequency of tree falling has decreased by a lot compared to daytime because the soldiers took turns to rest. But, the occasional falling tree caused the earth to greatly shake and woke them up from their sleep.
After drinking some water that has been stored on their horse, Yuma and Tsukiko looked at the cave mouth that has been half filled with trees.
At an unknown time, Lacius suddenly appeared next to them and asked, "Do you think this is enough wood to smoke the whole cave?"
Yuma and Tsukiko jolted in shock.
While Tsukiko patted her chest to calm down, Yuma saw a message from Cedric.
[Yes.]
Yuma saw it and answered Lacius, "The god said it's enough."
Lacius nodded and told Hars, "The amount of trees is enough. We'll rest for two hours, then we will burn the three and smoke that demon's cave."
Hars nodded and walked away.
After two hours of rest, the soldiers stood at attention around the cave's entrance.
Soldiers wearing shields made of hardwood stood in front, while some soldiers wielding spears stood behind them.
Seeing the army had prepared their formation, Lacius pointed at the female blessed who controlled Tsukiko's horse. "Rumina, lead the other fire element blessed and burn the tree in that cave."
Rumina nodded and led two people toward the cave's mouth.
Lacius then pointed at two blessed, "Follow me. We'll block the cave mouth after Rumina's group finished burning the woods."
The blessed pointed by Lacius looked at each other before silently following after him.
Tsukiko saw Lacius leading several other blessed to block the cave mouth and shouted, "Leave some hole for air. Otherwise, I am afraid the fire will stop burning midway due to a lack of oxygen."
Although Lacius doesn't understand what oxygen means. But he still got the gist of what Tsukiko is saying.
After watching in person the strange knowledge the people from another world have, he decided to trust her and told the other blessed, "We'll only block half of the entrance with rock. As for the remaining half, it will be left open."
The three of them walked towards the cave's entrance and activated their power.
With a rumbling sound, walls made of rocks rose from the ground.
After being blocked by the wall, the cave's entrance slowly turns smaller until it is merely half its initial size.
***
Inside the Divine Space, Cedric saw Lacius's army had begun their preparation to fight against that chicken and felt nervous.
While sitting on the edge of his seat, he controlled his mental power to investigate the surroundings and the interior of that cave.
Sensing no danger, he focused his attention towards the cave that's slowly filled with thick smokes.
"I hope this chicken doesn't have some sort of smoke resistance or something similar. Otherwise, the plan will fail and I'll be embarrassed." Cedric watched as the smoke begin to fill the chicken's surrounding.
He then saw the chicken coughing while its eyes turned red.
'This is the first time I saw a chicken cough.' Cedric thought while feeling glad. That cough should mean the chicken is affected by the smoke created by Lacius's army.
Finally, that demonic chicken couldn't hold it anymore and ran toward the cave's entrance.
Seeing it, Cedric quickly sent a message toward Yuma.
[Prepare yourself. The demon will soon exit the cave!]