The Two Leaders

Enri nervously peeked out the window, and Jugem’s silhouette was illuminated by the moonlight.

She sighed in relief.

In order not to wake Nemu, Enri quietly spoke outside the window.

“Jugem-san, you’re safe.”

“Yeah, Ane-san. In the end, it was all right. I’m sorry I woke you up, but some things I think you should know early.”

Enri opened the door slightly, and squeezed her body out through the gap. She was worried that the moonlight coming in would wake Nemu. Understanding from her movements, Jugem lowered his voice and spoke.

“There’s something we need Ane-san for.”

“Now?” Enri smiled.”Of course.”

“I’m really sorry about this.”

Enri followed in Jugem’s footsteps while telling him not to apologize. It might have been better for Nemu to be awake for this, and she’d considered it, but Jugem had come for her knowing that everyone else was asleep. There had to be a reason for it.

“I’ll explain as we move along.”

Maybe he was more tired than usual, but this was work ― after Jugem made up his mind, his words took on an edge.

Although Enri felt that it was okay to be more casual with a simple village girl like herself, Jugem had never let himself relax up till now, so Enri gave up on that idea.

“Firstly, we found some members of Agu’s tribe.”

“That’s wonderful!”

“…but they’re emotionally fragile, and I think they’ll need to rest for a few days. We’ll need to borrow Ani-san for this.”

Sensing Enri’s surprised expression, Jugem followed up with an explanation.

“When we found the survivors of Agu’s tribe, they were being held by the Giant of the East’s ogres, and used as food. Although Cona healed the wounds of their bodies, their minds are still scarred.

Ani-san has some medicine to calm them down, and we want him to help treat them. After that, there’s a somewhat more troublesome matter.”

Jugem watched Enri’s expression before continuing.

“When we rescued them, we captured five ogres. Although we only did it to question them… it seems ogres normally coexist with goblins, and while the ogres fight, the goblins provide food, shelter, and so on, in a mutually beneficial relationship. Because of that, they said they’re willing to fight for our tribe. According to Agu, this isn’t uncommon… so, what should we do?”

“Can we trust them?”

“Agu says we can. The ogres won’t fight for anyone apart from the goblins of their tribe, they betrayed the Giant of the East because he wasn’t of their tribe. It’s something like that.”

“Mm. But, ogres sound kind of scary…”

“Once they accept the people in the village as part of their tribe, all you need to do is feed them and it’ll be fine. You can give them just about any kind of food too. The ogres’ tendency to eat anything is quite helpful here.”

Honestly speaking, this decision was very difficult for a simple village girl to make.

“How about killing them?”

This was delivered in a casual tone.

“Frankly speaking, I have no problems with killing them outright. It would save us a big stack of problems. In the first place, people like them who betray others might turn on us if things start to go bad. Agu says they won’t, but blindly believing everything a kid says is a little…”

“And what do you think, Jugem-san?”

“If they could fight for us, it would be great. We don’t know how many pursuers might come from the forest, so a few extra meat shields would help a lot.”

“Then, one more question, will they eat people?”

“…Ane-san. Although ogres have a reputation for eating humans, they’re just monsters who eat meat. The only thing is that it’s easier to catch humans to eat than wild animals.”

For ogres, it was better to catch humans than say, rabbits. It was only natural when you considered humans were easier to capture and gave more meat too.

“Well, if you give them something to eat, they won’t attack the villagers. In the first place, they only attack people to fill their stomachs. You have my word that we’ll hunt enough animals to fill their bellies. Of course, they’ll still need to be supervised and we’ll have to see how things go. I promise we won’t let anyone in the village be hurt.”

“…In that case, it would be good if we could trust them enough to make them subordinates. Not just for now, but for the future as well.”

“I’m glad you understand. Only thing is, there’s a small difference with what I said earlier. If they fail next time, we’ll wipe them out. Truthfully speaking, I’ve been thinking of how to impress on those ogres that Ane-san is the strongest.”

“Eh?!”

Enri let out a noise that sounded like she’d been flipped turned upside down. This was too much of a leap for her. Why did a simple village girl like herself have to become the leader of a band of ogres?

Wouldn’t it be enough if Jugem was their boss?