Simple Plan

Their situation caused me to recall exactly what happened with my teammates.

'Or rather, my past teammates.'

Painful memories swarmed into my brain right then. I just barely let it take effect on my expression.

'But she's right, I can't let it,' I told myself silently. 'I can't let the past hunt me. Not now. And not ever.'

Right now, my teammates were Kiyotaka, Moguzo, and Sasha.

The time we spend alone isn't much, and to be honest, I don't trust them enough to protect my life, but nothing will start until I try. Neither would they willingly trust their lives in the hands of a priest who didn't even try to perform her most important role. As the more experienced one, that would mean I'd have to be the one to protect theirs. The choice that prioritized their survival.

"It's, uh---" the priest's hesitant reply gave me a poor notion, though. "---fifteen, I guess? No, it's sixteen. We only managed to kill two of the total six goblins we planned to kill at the start before the other three to four groups came as reinforcements. We were forced to retreat in that situation, which is, without someone holding off the four goblins we fought first, no one would be here right now. Kikkawa was chosen, or rather, 'chose' to be the one who did it."

"I can relate to his decision..." Moguzo chimed in.

It takes a warrior to know one. Is that what it is?

"He's just an idiot," the curly snorted. "It's obvious that I'm better suited to hold them off."

"Nuh-uh, that'll only cause more trouble for Yume and everyone else."

"You just don't have the eyes to decide that, Tiny Tits."

"They're not tiny!"

"Oh, yeah? Then let me see it! Then maybe I'll change my mind, hehe... he...? Ah. Wait! What's the knife for?! Get that thing away from me! I'm going to die if you stab me with it, okay?!"

Are they really okay in the head?

Yes, I know that one's exterior can't judge the merit of one's character, but in their case, it might actually be true.

"If I'm being completely frank," Sasha piped up sourly. "We'll probably all just die together if we fight them."

"Yeah, I know." The priest muttered grimly.

He was probably the most sane among them. He knew well about the grimness of the situation. But then,

"If we attack them without thinking, sure."

Kiyotaka's come into the discussion.

"Don't tell me you're planning to help them?" I frowned.

I would love it if he had considered things when he was saying that.

"Not without any real benefit, of course. It's still risky for us in the end. Worst for them."

"What would... you want, then?" The mage girl asked hesitantly.

"I was thinking of starting a gathering," He responded right away..

"By a gathering..." I came up with a thought. "A clan?"

It's basically a group of joint parties to achieve a goal that cannot be achieved by a party alone. Orion is like that.

"You can say it like that."

"Uh, what for...?" Haruhiro, the priest and the leader, seemed unable to connect with Kiyotaka's words. "If I could, you know, learn what exactly it was for?"

"I would say for the purpose of overcoming things,"

'I don't like the way he said it...'

He clearly avoided the question.

Haruhiro and his friends didn't seem convinced by Kiyotaka's offer either.

"Don't worry. It's not a near-term goal. We can build up our strength gradually to get ready. Besides, don't you think that Kikkawa will be in big trouble if we continue our talks any longer?"

"C'mon," The curly dread knight nudged Haruhiro on the side. "Make up your mind quickly. You're too wishy-washy. I'll have to take your place if you keep that up, you know?"

"No!" The hunter, Yume, wrapped her arms around Haruhiro. "You can't let him, Haru-kun! Yume and Shihoru's gonna have a hard time if Ranta does!"

"Whaddya mean by that?!"

"It's exactly as she said," Shihoru muttered grimly. "You're just going to get us into trouble."

Haruhiro spoke up before it exploded into further argument. "I know," he awkwardly removed Yume's hand from his. "I had my mind made up from the start, anyway."

"Then spill it out!" Ranta stomped furiously on the ground. "Spit your guts, anything at all! If you already decided from the start, that is! Oh, Hurry it up, Parupiro!"

The man in question seemed to be resisting the urge to punch the dread knight, but he looked like someone who could hold his temper well. He skillfully ignored him and faced Kiyotaka.

"I'll accept the offer," he extended his hand. "I wish for the best in the future, Kiyotaka. I feel like you're a capable guy. I, and I think the others, as well, will be at ease working with you."

"Oh, you can rest assured with that." Kiyotaka returned the handshake.

'He's a shockingly arrogant fellow.'

I hope that doesn't bring him down in the future.

"I'd say he's only speaking the truth rather than trying to brag, though."

"Huh?"

I blinked, looking at Sasha in surprise and a little bit of confusion.

She flashed me a dry smile. "Even if I personally didn't spend enough time to say that I knew him, I can at least say that I did know him better than anyone, even the Moguzo there."

"You are?"

"Yep."

"Well, about the plan," Moguzo initiates. "What would that be? Simply their numbers aren't exactly on our side."

"It's actually very simple."

Kiyotaka shot Haruhiro a look. I don't know what he took from his gaze, but he nodded as if he understood, immediately walking towards the direction where he and his friends had run off from earlier in response to his gaze. Kiyotaka didn't say anything in response, so that must mean he was right.

'Uh, how?'

Ignoring my confusion, Kiyotaka continue his talking.

"Anyway, I won't hold back, so I'll be the lead in this operation."

"Does that refer to running across the rooftops of the Old City ruins and killing whatever it is that gets in your way?" Sasha said something rather gruesome in a very light tone.

"What's wrong with that?"

And to make matters worse, the man appeared to be genuinely mystified by it.

"I mean, I wouldn't say that in a realistic approach, it's what a 'paladin', a heavy tanker whose role is defending the team, would actually do."

"I just can, so I went and did it. And it's not like all paladins don't do that, right?"

"Well, yeah."

'They're a little bit creepy.'

What they experienced during their volunteer soldiers' trainee days might have been worse than I thought. Or perhaps, to be more precise, the experience they had to go through was. I have to assume that it led to their standards being higher than others without them realizing it themselves.

"So..." Haruhiro sounds a little uneasy. "What's the plan?"

"Well, before that, do you have a map or at least a basic knowledge of the layout of Old City? Likewise, where was the last time Kikkawa was approximately?"

"It's a one or two-minute straight walk from here. As for the layout of Old City, we've made a crude map of it." Haruhiro gave a fairly fluent answer. "If it's in the realm of where Kikkawa could possibly go, I would safely think that I remember the layout well."

"That's great." Kiyotaka nodded, then proceeded to explain his plan the moment after. "In short, I will draw their attention to me. All of them. Entirely to me alone. As far as I'm concerned, there would be a lot of things to consider for a thoroughly established plan, so much so that an explanation taken with the things we have at hand wouldn't be enough to explain in short. In fact, Kikkawa will very likely die while we are trying to learn all the ways and anticipate other scenarios that I'd think you people wouldn't learn enough about in one day.

"Hence, the most efficient way for that is to handle everything flexibly on the spot. To that end, everyone will have their own part to play in disrupting the enemy forces that have been disrupted by me. The pair will be Haruhiro and Ranta, Shihoru and Yume, Merry and Moguzo, and Sasha independently. Depending on the enemy and the battlefield, this will be entirely up to you for the end result. Some of us will potentially even fall in the process. Understand?"

"What, you can't do it alone?" Sasha wondered.

"Probably," he shrugged his shoulders. "The situation back then just happened to be in my favor. The same thing might not happen again this time."

"Right..."

Yume was giggling. "Sasha-chan sure looks Kiyo-kun pretty high, huh?"

"W-Well, of course I do. Can you really blame me?" Sasha was acting a little bit weird, rubbing her cheek in a flustered manner. "Even if you never actually know the baseline of other people's performance, I bet you'd think Kiyotaka is just built differently from them when you see the way he performs. He's just that darn good, okay?"

"By all means, I don't know what kind of baseline you're referring to."

"...well, he's a little bit off in the head. I guess that's a negative."

"I can still hear you."