53 The Fire

Right now, all I wanted to do was get as far away from this place as possible, but there was no way to tell how dangerous it was outside. The soldiers patrolling this city might not be familiar with who Amber and Lica were, but they would most likely recognize me with ease, considering how I was the only human around and how I was being targeted by the lieutenant general himself. Thus, the best option for me now was probably to have the two girls climb into the mansion through the broken restroom window and be ready to join the fight with me. I didn't know whether the remaining two soldiers accompanying lieutenant general Tuha were any stronger than the two struggling around on the floor here, but we at least had a numbers advantage right now.

"Could you two climb in here and help me?"

"Okay."

For some reason, Lica and Amber both chose to leap from the window sill onto the two soldiers wiggling themselves on the floor, even though the two shouldn't have known that they were hostiles. Then again, if those two weren't enemies, then they wouldn't be shaking with their mouths stuffed full of toilet paper in the first place. Amber found the two soldiers highly distracting, so she kicked them unconscious as I explained the situation to the girls.

"Can't we charge straight in and beat up that Tuha guy?"

"He has two more soldiers guarding him."

"Then we can take down the soldiers, while you beat up Tuha."

"That's not possible."

"Why not?"

"Can you withstand an attack from a dragon?"

"Definitely not."

"That's why I can't fight him. He's just as strong as general Denato, so if we're careless, he could probably easily kill us before the general can stop him."

"What should we do, then?"

"I have an idea, but I'll need you two to help me. It might sound stupid, but I think this will give us the best chance of getting out of here safely…"

+ + + + +

Meanwhile, in the governor's office, lieutenant general Tuha began to feel uneasy. After all, it had been almost ten minutes since two of his accompanying soldiers escorted his hostage to the restroom, and neither of the two had reported back to him. It was unlikely for Blaze to be able to fight the two and escape, considering how he was unarmed and had no protective clothing on him, or so Tuha thought in order to reassure himself. Besides, even if Blaze did manage to somehow escape, the guards posted in front of the mansion were on his side, as well as several other patrolmen stationed at every possible exit in this city.

"Just give up already, Tuha. I promise I won't execute you if you just peacefully surrender."

"I've been planning this for half a decade already. I'm not giving up just on a whim! Now hurry up and write your resignation letter!"

"Blaze has been gone for ten minutes already, and your lackeys haven't reported back. I think we can conclude that he managed to get away safely now."

"No, I refuse to believe that! He's probably very constipated or something!"

"Knowing him, he probably escaped already, and is likely planning to strike back some time soon."

"How can you even be so sure? You've only known him for a few days."

"I reckon it's because he's the kind of person who would recklessly fight a dragon."

"You know too well that recklessness doesn't equal success, especially given how pitifully weak that boy is."

"And yet he still managed to deal significant damage to a dragon. He might not have strength, but he's smart enough to come up with unconventional ways to get out of a tough situation."

"Geh… Stop trying to feed me those ideas! He's definitely constipated, and my lackeys are probably using the restroom too!"

"Sure, believe in what you want to believe, but I'm not going to resign as governor of this province."

Tuha became more and more anxious with each passing second. The success of his plan to take over Denato's position as governor of this province depended on how well he could dress up the murder of Blaze as a huge scandal to embarrass Denato in the eyes of the king and the other governors. Thus, it would be a terrible thing if the target of this plan managed to avoid death. While Tuha could have had his lackeys take Blaze's life while in the restroom, he determined that it was a better idea to instead end Blaze's life while Denato could witness it, as that would quell any suspicions the general may have about being presented a body double or fictitious evidence.

What was originally a ten minute wait soon became a twenty minute stare-off. Tuha's impatience could easily be seen based on how he was fidgeting and occasionally stomping his foot on the floor. He turned over to one of the two other soldiers in the room.

"You! Go check on the restroom!"

"Yes, sir."

Denato had confidence that Blaze had somehow managed to take care of the two lackeys in the restroom, and figured that a third one wouldn't pose much of a threat either. As the soldier left the room to go check on the restroom, he slightly smirked while Tuha's attention was focused on the door. So long as Blaze could eventually send a signal that he was safe or could take down the remaining soldier in this room without alerting the guards at the mansion's gate, victory was assured.

* * * * *

For Amber, who was trained to secretly sneak around places, eavesdropping through the governor's office keyhole and fleeing away undetected was a very simple matter. Even though she had to sprint back to the restroom as quickly as possible to inform Blaze that a soldier was coming over, she was still able to move so quietly that nobody knew she was there in the hallway.

Amber managed to make it back to the restroom in just a little over half a minute. It was a good thing that the soldier heading over to check up on the restroom was walking rather than running, so the group had well over a minute to prepare for a surprise attack.

"Wow, your fur is so soft."

"I'm only going to let you touch me just this one time."

"Come on, we slept in the same room on several occasions before. Surely you're more comfortable around me than that."

"How about I turn around and slash your face instead?"

"Please don't."

"Then stop saying weird things."

Worried that the soldier coming over to check up on the restroom might have higher endurance than the other two, Blaze opted not to use his fire magic to attack the incoming foe. It was probably better, he thought, to have Amber cast a sleep spell to make sure the enemy could not fight back in any way. Amber's magic for some reason only affected males, so Blaze had high confidence that it would work since the soldiers' faces and bodies looked male when he saw everyone in the office earlier. To ensure success, Blaze was currently transferring his mana to Amber so she could charge up her magic as much as possible. The only way to transfer mana, however, was through direct contact at a location close to the heart. Since Amber was unwilling to take off her clothes, Blaze had no choice but to grab the back of her neck instead. While Amber sounded like she didn't like having Blaze touch her, she actually didn't hate the physical contact on her neck right now. It wasn't that much different from a cat being patted on the back of its head, after all.

"I hear footsteps."

Blaze and Amber promptly turned their attention to the restroom door once Amber heard steps in the distance.

Blaze had already instructed Lica to do things elsewhere in the mansion, so they were completely certain that whoever was coming was the soldier tasked with checking up on the restroom. A few seconds later, an unfamiliar voice sounded out as the door slowly opened.

"Is everything here still-"

"Sleep!"

"Oi, Amber, that thing's not a javelin!"

Even though transferring a large amount of mana was already enough to make Amber's spell absurdly effective, Blaze still gave her his staff so that she could more easily direct her magic in one direction, towards the door. It was not known whether Amber did not know how to swing a staff or if she did such thing intentionally, but the staff flew through the air as soon as Amber let out her magic. The tip of the staff flew straight into the now unconscious soldier's mouth, knocking out a couple of his teeth because of its bizarre enchantment of being "tougher than tempered steel." It was at this moment that Blaze felt thankful that he was never on the receiving end of Amber's attacks. In that regard, while Blaze did get clawed a few times by her before, Amber held back on every single occasion out of fear of leaving large scars.

"I'm going to go check on Lica now. Can you clean up here?"

"Why me? You're the one who came up with this plan."

"Because you're the one who knocked them unconscious. Well, I'll help with disposing the guy at the door, but you have to take care of the other two."

Thinking that the three soldiers were better alive than dead, Blaze decided to have them be carried out of the broken window and dumped somewhere in the long, dark alley. After all, if one were to consider how serious Tuha's crime was, then it would be unlikely for him to remain alive after this evening. Thus, keeping as many of Tuha's accomplices alive as possible for interrogation later was probably a good idea, or so Blaze thought.

"By the way, that guy might choke on his broken teeth, so could you pry them out of his mouth?"

"…"

* * * * *

"Bleh! Too salty… And this is too spicy!"

At around the same time, Lica was enjoying some food in the kitchen. Blaze had instructed her to find as much oil as possible and scatter it all over the hallway, and Lica had done just that. She was also told to wait for Blaze to come to the kitchen after she was done, so she was now munching on some snacks while waiting. The only problem was that there was nothing but raw ingredients in the kitchen, and that she was unable to cook, so all she could put in her mouth right now was spices and seasonings.

Having decided that storming into the office was a bad idea, Blaze decided that the best course of action was to force everyone inside to leave instead. Thus, he opted to set the mansion on fire, and all the cooking oil that he had Lica dump all over the place was to make sure that the fire would be nearly impossible to extinguish. As soon as smoke comes into the office, everyone inside would be forced to jump out of the window since the hallways would have been set ablaze, and Blaze could try to make use of the chaos and commotion to sneak away unnoticed.

"The general can probably repurpose the state guesthouse for work after this place gets burnt to the ground," Blaze thought.

Although the soldiers posted at the front gate were on Tuha's side, Blaze figured that it was unlikely for them to attack general Denato. There was hardly anyone awake or on the streets at the moment since it was well past two o'clock, but given how there was about to be a large fire in the middle of the city, there was bound to be people who would wake up and pour onto the streets to spectate, especially when the fire was at the governor's mansion. Fighting the governor would certainly leave a bad impression among the citizens, so the guards posted at the gate would definitely have no choice but to work on preventing the city folk from getting close to the scene to make sure there would be no witnesses in case a fight does break out between Denato and Tuha.

"Lica? Why are you snacking? Didn't I tell you to pour oil all over the hallway?"

"But I finished!"

"That fast?"

"Yeah."

"Well I guess that's fine, then. Let's get moving."

+ + + + +

"Can't we just burn the kitchen?"

"No, it's too close to the office."

"So?"

"If they discover there's a fire too early, then they might be able to put it out before it gets serious."

I was currently moving down the hallway with Lica in search of a better location to start a fire. It had to be far away enough so that by the time the smoke gets to the office room, the fire would have spread so much that it would be impossible to extinguish, which would require everybody to flee to safety.

"How about here?"

"That's definitely not going to work…"

I never thought I would ever see an indoor aquarium, but apparently such a thing was behind one of the doors.

"Here?"

"How in the world do you expect me to set fire to an indoor pool?"

"This room?"

"Please stop asking that for every door you open…"

I hoped that she would at least try to look at what was behind each door before asking whether it would be a good idea to start the fire there, but she still asked me a couple more times without taking the time to think as we walked through the hallway. I opted to just stay silent and only slightly shake my head on each occasion.

"Hm… This looks like a good place."

Eventually, my search brought me to a small library. This room was far enough away from the office to give a fire enough time to spread, and there was plenty of burnable objects inside. I felt kind of bad about burning all this reading material, but it's not like I could read it in the first place.

"Just to be sure, are there any books worth saving here?"

"Nope!"

"You didn't even look around yet."

"I can't read."

"What?"

"Can't read any of the titles."

"Wasn't it the case where almost everyone could read the local language?"

"Nobody taught me."

"Oh… Well, I'm sorry to hear that."

I secretly felt happy to finally know that I wasn't the only one who had no idea what any of the writing here meant. I picked up a few books and tore out a few pages, then crumpled them up and tossed the paper balls all over the place. This was probably unnecessary since the carpet looked like it was flammable enough already, and the hallway was already oiled up.

"Alright, let's get out of here."

After using a basic spell to start a fire in the library, I rushed outside with Lica. As we moved along the long hallway, we opened just about every single door we passed by, just so the fire could spread to as many rooms as possible. When we reached the restroom where we were supposed to escape through the broken window, Amber was strangely standing in front of it, waiting for us.

"What are you doing here? Weren't you supposed to wait for us outside?"

"We have to escape somewhere else."

"Huh? Why?"

"After we dumped those guys in the back alley, some patrolling soldiers came by."

"Really?"

"I turned off the lights in the restroom! They probably won't notice the broken window."

"I'm pretty sure they'd notice glass shards on the ground, and the lights suddenly going out…"

"They were far away. I think it will take a while."

"If they were far away, then how do you even know they were patrolling soldiers, then?"

"Because I have good hearing."

"Oh, right. I forgot about that."

I still have no idea why Amber thinks that patrolling soldiers wouldn't notice abnormalities where the restroom's window was located, but in any case, it seems like my plan to hide ourselves in the back alley, then escape in the midst of panic after the fire in this building was big enough wasn't going to work.

"Looks like we have to find another escape route, then…"

It had already been over a minute since I started the fire, so it was probably impossible to turn back since it would have spread quite a bit by now. We had no choice but to move through the rest of this hallway. From what I remember upon first entering this mansion, the hallway from the main entrance branched in two directions, so it seemed very likely that we would loop back to the front of this mansion if we kept moving along the hallway. In other words, I probably don't need to worry about hitting a dead end. Even if we did get stuck, I could probably blow a large hole in the wall with my magic for us to escape through, but that would easily attract attention, and the soldiers loyal to lieutenant general Tuha were most likely waiting outside.

"Nope."

"…Not this one either."

"…What sort of design is this…?"

I checked to see if the windows in other rooms along the hallway were suitable for us to escape undetected, but they were all either pointed at the now dangerous back alley or to the side of the mansion. Regarding the window directed at the side of the building: I wasn't sure if such a design was intentional or just incidentally bad, but the window was so close to the fence surrounding the perimeter that one could neither squeeze any of their body parts through, nor even climb outside because of the five centimeter gap. Because of this, we had only one choice left…

"We'll probably be noticed if we escape through the front door, so let's see if any of the front windows have a bush or tree in front of it."

Unfortunately, the greenery in front of the mansion was too short, so we would most likely be too easily detected regardless of whether we chose to exit through the front entrance or a window.

The fire had been burning for almost three minutes by now, and smoke was beginning to pour out towards the front of mansion where we were located.

"I guess we could try running out when the smoke gets thicker. Maybe they won't notice…"

While such a thing was unlikely to happen, I prayed lieutenant general Tuha and his one remaining lackey wouldn't show up here while we waited around.