After choosing to leave, they regretted it.

But this time, such an important matter, I didn’t hear any relevant news when I met with him before.

This is not right.

At this time, Miss Witch was holding a plate full of cookies.

"Give."

She leaned on Aize, picked up a piece and put it into Aize's mouth.

Then he cast his gaze on the map and said:

"Could it be that the information was only circulated within a certain clan and not shared with others? The demon clan is actually quite isolated from each other."

Humanity has several major forces headed by the Church of the Empire Kingdom. Each of them has its own plans, but overall, especially when it comes to fighting against the demons, they are still united.

Even though the kingdom was in such a mess, the nobles finally exercised restraint and did not engage in large-scale fighting - even Auchinleck, who wanted to be king the most, did not dare to directly attack the capital.

On the demon side, the situation is even more complicated.

There are thirteen major clans, and even more minor clans that are not visible on the surface. From a biological point of view, these things are not the same thing at all. Their styles of behavior and purposes vary greatly, and there is no trust between them.

Therefore, a front row of giants or orcs, with a core of vampires and witches as defenders, is an ideal combination that looks terrifying, but it is actually basically impossible to appear.

They all fight alone.

Lilbas, the target of this expedition, was captured by the orcs in the previous invasion and is still occupied by the orcs.

This is where the problem lies.

"After the last battle, the main force of the orcs was completely destroyed. The current defense force of Lilbas is small in number and of poor quality, making it vulnerable to attack. That's why the Empire launched the expedition. The problem is, once the Demon King knows the Empire's intentions, he will probably force the orcs to hand over Lilbas to other tribes for defense. But until now, there has been no news of such a thing. It's very strange."

After saying that, Aize took a bite of the biscuit near his mouth.

Then--

“…Hmm? Uuuuuuuuu—cough cough cough, what…what the hell is this!?”

The spicy and bitter taste spread in Aize's mouth all of a sudden. In an instant, his entire mouth felt like it was on fire and he couldn't speak.

His face suddenly turned red, and he opened his mouth wide and stuck out his tongue in an inelegant manner, trying to relieve some of the pain.

"Spicy--water--water--"

"Uh, sorry, here I come."

As Aize started shouting, Villian had already taken out a water bottle from the storage space and handed it to Aize.

Aize snatched it away, unscrewed the lid, rinsed his mouth several times, and took a few minutes to finally recover a little.

Then, he immediately launched an attack to question the culprit:

"What the hell are you eating?!"

"Uh, this?"

Villian picked up a biscuit. It was round, brown, and looked very ordinary, nothing out of the ordinary.

"I just bought them when we stopped for a break. They seem to be a new product imported from the Imperial Chamber of Commerce. What's it called? Oh, they're called Strange Flavored Assorted Cookies. They say there are over ten basic flavors and hundreds of hidden flavors. The one you had should be the hidden desert pepper flavor."

"Holy crap, Desert Pepper! Isn't that a plant-type monster?! Over two meters tall with legs, chasing people while spewing eye-irritating poison!? Can you eat this thing?"

"That's why it's a hidden gem. I've been trying them for so long, and they've all been pretty ordinary flavors. I was even wondering if they were just making false advertising. You're lucky."

"I--"

"Okay, okay, it's okay if you don't like this, I have something else here..."

As she spoke, Miss Witch opened the storage space and took out a pile of boxes, jars, and bottles.

"The local specialty cake I bought in the last city doesn't keep well, so I have to eat it quickly. And the salted meat I bought in the village yesterday at noon is too hard and makes my teeth hurt, but it's not bad to just hold a piece in your mouth. And this..."

He explained everything one by one with great enthusiasm, and even picked up a piece of dried meat and stuffed it into Aize's mouth.

This time, Aize didn't dare to bite it directly. He just took it and shook his head:

"We're going to war, and the future is uncertain, yet you're really taking it easy."

Miss Witch picked up another cookie and put it into her mouth.

It seemed to taste quite good, and he squinted his eyes in enjoyment:

"It tastes like wild fruit... What's the big deal? There's nothing much to do on the road anyway, and I can't be worried about what's coming next all day long, right? That would be too tiring~"

As he said that, he snatched the map from the ground.

"You too, you've been looking at this map for a few days, and it's just the same old thing over and over again. You haven't made any progress and you've even lost a few hairs. If you keep this up, you'll be bald before you're old enough!"

Aize subconsciously covered his head.

"When did I lose my hair? Don't—Oh, never mind. You're right."

If it weren't for the destabilizing factor of Rosaline, it wouldn't have mattered if I hadn't participated in this expedition.

Once you get to the scene, you just need to improvise and be on guard against internal problems.

Let the Imperials solve the military problems themselves.

You can't just stop fighting without me, right?

Thinking of this, he put down the dried meat, reached out to pick up another biscuit from Villian's plate, and moved it in front of his eyes.

Look, there's nothing wrong.

Smell it, nothing special.

Just now I got myself a big hidden version. I can’t draw it again, right?

With this thought in mind, he put the biscuit into his mouth and bit it hard.

Then--

“Hmm, ahh ...

It was so smelly, it was enough to make one's internal organs turn upside down.

Aize screamed, and before he could even call for the carriage to stop, he fell out of the carriage window. Before he even landed firmly, he rushed into a ditch beside him and started vomiting violently.

Chris, who was sitting outside to take a walk, was stunned by what she saw.

"Aize, are you okay?!"

Villian quickly stopped the horse-shaped puppet, hurried to his side, patted his back, and handed him a kettle and paper.

"Hu-hu-"

Aize gasped for breath, looking at Villian with a look of despair on his face.

"...This one is also a hidden model?"

Miss Witch smiled bitterly and nodded:

"Yeah, I think it should be... the flavor of caltrop."

Stonebank flower, a rather rare plant, mostly grows in the cracks of rocks near the water, hence its name.

The flowers are red, large and beautiful, and can also be used as materials for making medicine.

But the smell of its flowers is as foul as a rotting corpse, and it can be smelled for miles, sometimes even making the whole village miserable.

Turning this into food is a bit of a brain disease.

"...Isn't this thing you're eating some kind of trick food?"

"Uh, no, what I just ate was pretty normal and delicious."

As she spoke, Villian picked up another piece.

Just as he was about to hand it to Aize's mouth, he saw him shaking his head in disgust, so he threw it into his own mouth.

"It's coffee flavored. Not too good, but pretty normal. Why? Do you want me to pick another one for you?"

"……never mind."

Aize, still frightened, shook his head.

If you feel like you are being targeted, it is better not to be stubborn.

After sighing, he began to look around.

This is the main road connecting the two cities, located on a small section of the wild.

There is a river on one side and a forested mountain on the other. The air is fresh and the climate is cool. It is quite comfortable to be in such a scene on a hot summer day.

It's a pity that I couldn't stop to admire it.

"Master, what's wrong with you?"

Chris, who was standing there confused, finally walked over cautiously.

"No, it's nothing. I just ate something...unclean. Don't worry."

It’s too troublesome to explain, so I’ll just say this for now.

Unexpectedly, Chris jumped up all of a sudden:

"Oh? Really? Master, how are you? Are you feeling any discomfort?"

"No, it's no big deal—"

"When I was asking for directions just now, someone told me there's a village up ahead. How about we go there and take a rest?"

Chapter 24 On the way (2)

Although he didn't feel any physical discomfort, Aize was indeed a little hungry at the moment. It would be great to have a place to rest and eat some proper meals.

They agreed to Chris's proposal, and they got in the car and set off again.

Within a few minutes, a row of buildings appeared before our eyes.

Within the field of vision alone, you can see several hotels, as well as restaurants of varying sizes that are difficult to count, grocery stores selling various props and potions, taxi stalls, stalls hawking various local specialties, and even branches of the Chamber of Commerce with flags hanging on them. There is everything you can think of.

It is called a small village, but in fact it is more like a town.

Pedestrians and caravans came and went, making the place extremely bustling.

I stopped the carriage and walked into a roadside restaurant. The owner immediately came up to me with a smile on his face:

"Sir, would you like to have lunch? Please come in quickly~"

Perhaps because they saw that Aize, who was walking in the middle, was dressed respectably and seemed to be accompanied by two servants, they thought he was a nobleman from somewhere and behaved particularly politely.

Aize was too lazy to correct him and was invited into the private room.

As soon as I walked in and closed the door, Chris came up impatiently and said with concern:

"Master, how are you feeling? Are you feeling better?"

"Well, it's okay."

Aize sat down casually, rubbed his throat which was still aching from the repeated tossing and turning, picked up the kettle on the table, poured himself a glass of water, and drank it all in one gulp.

Over there, Villian leaned against the window, observing the people coming and going outside with great interest:

"I thought it would be quiet near the border, but I didn't expect it to be so lively. It feels like there are even more people here than in Tafia."

"Before, the relationship between the Kingdom and the Empire was not good, so it was quite quiet. But after the outbreak of this war, the two sides formed an alliance, and border tariffs and other things were liberalized, and border trade suddenly became lively."

While Aize was speaking, he poured a full glass of water, drank it, rinsed his mouth, and then spit it out.

The disgusting stench and pungent spicy taste were finally basically eliminated.

After finishing his work, he stood up, walked to the window, and pointed to a carriage team passing by:

"For example, they're flying the flag of the Imperial Royal Chamber of Commerce, so they must be from the Empire. There are also companies from the Holy City, the Northern Territory, and so on. Given time, this place should be able to develop into a trade transit center."

"Um……"

Villian nodded slowly.

Aize stretched his arms and continued:

"Actually, the Empire is generally much more prosperous than the Kingdom. It might have been similar before, but with half of the Kingdom's territory destroyed, there's no comparison now. Plus, the nobles are still fighting each other... well, it's getting annoying to talk about it too much, but that's pretty much it."

After saying that, he turned his head and looked at Chris.

"Speaking of which, Chris."