"It stinks! Where did you even teleport us to?!" Iri covered her nose as soon as she and Beru teleported to Cabos, the city said to be in the worst condition.
Since Iri was afraid that Beru, that simple-minded oaf, might directly teleport into the enemy lines, she had activated sensory teleportation. Unexpectedly, this fellow teleported behind a strange building, which looked very much like the back of an independent warehouse. Then Iri smelled an extremely foul and putrid odor.
"Ah… Ah… This is the back of Cabos's grain warehouse, where I placed my teleportation plate," Beru said, pointing to a small metal plate hidden behind the warehouse.
Ugh… To hide a teleportation plate in such a place… Beru was quite clever in some aspects, but no matter how well it was hidden, it was useless now. Previously, this idiot had proudly exposed herself in front of the Dragon Queen, saying that she had already installed teleportation plates in all cities of the Dragon Kingdom.
If the Dragon Queen were to truly pursue the matter, Beru would be in real trouble. However, given the current situation where they needed help, she probably just pretended not to care. After the Orc crisis was resolved, they would definitely thoroughly investigate and remove these teleportation plates.
So, if it was a grain warehouse, why was there such a smell? This didn't smell like decaying plants; rather, it was the smell of decaying living beings. Iri closed her eyes, held her breath, and focused all her attention on her other senses.
Sure enough, there were faint sounds of breathing… and painful moans…
Iri deactivated her senses, having basically understood why such a situation existed. With a serious expression, Iri walked directly to the main entrance of the grain warehouse. Seeing the tightly shut warehouse door, Iri kicked it open, easily breaking the already loose wooden door, revealing a shocking scene inside.
Beru, who had rushed over, also instinctively covered her mouth and nose at the sight, averting her gaze with an expression of disbelief.
After all, even Iri found the horrific scene somewhat unbearable. Corpses and severely wounded individuals were all piled together like slaughtered livestock. Although there were indeed some severely wounded still alive in this mountain of corpses, parts of their bodies, where they had wounds as if torn by some fierce beast, were crawling with white worms. Judging by their current condition, they were probably suffering more than death itself. Had it really come to this?
From Iri's perspective, these people could have survived even with low-level healing, yet now they were left in such a place to die. Had the Dragon Kingdom fallen to such a dire state?
"Please… please… wait for me, ugh…" Beru tried to suppress her dry heaves from the putrid stench, frantically wanting to go in and cast healing magic on those severely wounded who still had a breath left. Iri immediately pulled her back.
"Clementine-sama?" Beru turned her head to look at Iri, utterly confused.
"Do you still have MP?" Iri simply asked quietly.
"Yes… roughly, enough for two more healing spells," Beru replied.
"Then save it. In their current state, basic healing spells are meaningless," Iri said, shaking her head.
"But…" Beru still wanted to insist on helping them, but with Beru's basic healing spells, all she could do was prolong their suffering. In fact, what they needed most right now was for someone to end their lives directly, not useless aid.
Of course, if Iri were to act, saving these people would be incredibly simple. It's just… there would be no benefit. They weren't people from E-Rantel, and her current identity was Clementine, an aid from Theocracy, not Princess Iri of Nazarick. There was no benefit in helping them.
"Let's go! All we can do now is end this war as quickly as possible, and end all of this," Iri said slowly, and then tried to pull Beru away.
"Who are you?! How did you get in?!" Then, they were immediately discovered by the guards who were pushing carts laden with corpses and severely wounded individuals.
"Ah, ah! We're not bad people… uh… this…" Beru immediately panicked.
"We are merely Adventurers passing by, entrusted by your Queen to come and support you," Iri motioned for Beru to produce the Queen's letter.
The guard took the letter from Beru with a skeptical look, examining it for a long time as if unable to make sense of it. However, he eventually returned the letter to Beru and relaxed his guard.
After all, their enemies were Orcs, and these two beautiful young women were normal humans. If they were spies, there would be no point in coming to a place where corpses were being dumped, right?
"How awful… there are still…" Beru said, looking at the cart with great unease after putting away the Dragon Queen's letter. The battle here hadn't ended yet, so wasn't it normal for there to be casualties?
Iri also followed Beru's gaze. There were seven or eight severely wounded individuals lying on the cart, mostly missing limbs or with severe injuries, the kind that could barely survive if they received basic healing magic.
"Don't you have any priests who can use healing magic?" Iri asked casually.
"There are a few, but they alone can't save so many injured people. We can only bring them here to wait for death…" The leading guard said with a frustrated expression, and then the two guards who came with him began to unload the "cargo" from the cart.
Helping them would bring no benefit to herself or Nazarick, Iri told herself, and then decided to ignore them, turning her head to ask the leading guard from before.
"Where is your commander? Can you take me to him? I wish to join the battle immediately."
"Please wait a moment, we will take you over. In the current situation, the more hands, the better," the guard said, meaning they would probably wait until they finished unloading their "cargo" before going together. So, Iri could only wait.
Just then, a guard who was carrying a severely wounded person, intending to walk to the grain warehouse, probably due to extreme fatigue or something, stumbled and fell to the ground. The severely wounded person he was carrying also fell, landing right at Iri's feet.
Iri merely looked at this young man, who had already lost a leg and was covered in injuries, with a sympathetic gaze, doing nothing.
"Save…" The young man instinctively stretched out his dirty hand and grabbed Iri's shoe. Iri did not move her foot but stared at him blankly.
Alright! Alright! You win!
Even though her karma value was negative, seeing such a scene still made her soft-hearted, even though she hadn't been soft-hearted at all when slaughtering the Royal Army before.
Now, seeing such a scene, she was suddenly overcome with a saintly compassion. Good grief… she wasn't Sebas, the handsome old man at the entrance, to have compassion for people with no relation to her! What a failure!
"Beru! Come here!" Iri called out, clearly annoyed, and Beru scurried over.
"Yes! Clementine-sama, do you have any orders?" She had seemed eager to go and cast healing magic on the newly arrived injured, but Iri's call made her turn back.
Although she decided to save them, preventive measures still needed to be taken.
"Anti-detection activated…" Iri quietly activated the anti-detection magic scroll hidden in the secret pocket of her cloak. This would essentially disable Astrology Thousand Miles's surveillance. The duration was about half a day, which was enough.
"Take these and pour them into these newly arrived injured. If they can't drink, find a way to make them drink! You all help too!" Once Iri had taken her preventive measures, she wasn't afraid of exposing her spatial bag. Anyway, Beru, that simple-minded oaf, wouldn't notice. So, she directly opened her small shoulder bag and took out all the trial-version recovery potions that Enphilia had previously offered. Anyway, she didn't need them, so she might as well use these people as test subjects!
"Eh, eh, eh?? These? Purple potions? What are these?" Beru was utterly bewildered seeing Iri pull out piles of potions containing an unknown purple liquid from her shoulder bag. The guards had never seen such things either and looked hesitant.
After all, this stuff was a specialty of Karn Village, so it was normal that they hadn't seen it. Originally, the local recovery potions were inferior blue potions. Enphilia, with Nazarick's support, had produced purple potions of better quality than the blue ones.
Although still not as good as the red potions from Yggdrasil, the potency should be sufficient, right? Probably… After all, Iri hadn't taken them out to use since she got them!
"What are you still standing there for? Didn't you say you wanted to save them?!" Iri yelled at Beru, who was holding a pile of purple alchemy potions and looking conflicted.
"But… this? Is this poison?" As soon as Beru finished speaking, Iri immediately jumped up and smacked Beru on the head. After all, that simple-minded oaf was quite tall, so Iri had to jump to hit her on the head.
"Idiot! If I really wanted to give them a quick end, I'd just give them a quick stab! Why waste potions?! These are experimental recovery potions given to me by a friend! Their effect is much stronger than ordinary potions! These few who just arrived should be savable!" Iri said.
"Ah! Recovery potions! I! I'll go right now!" Beru's face, which had been wronged after Iri's smack, immediately switched to a smile.
"You! Go to the grain warehouse, see who still has a breath left, and bring them all over here!" Iri turned to the stunned guards and gave orders.
"This…" The leading guard looked at Beru, who was holding the strange potion and about to feed it to a conscious, severely wounded person lying on the cart, looking somewhat troubled.
He looked like he wanted to stop her but didn't dare, after all, it was already a blessing that someone was giving them alchemy potions, if only that alchemy potion wasn't a strange purple…
"What are you still standing there for?! Aren't they your comrades?!" Iri pointed at the grain warehouse, yelling again, clearly annoyed.
"Ah… immediately… immediately!" The leading guard, after personally seeing Beru give the severely wounded person the strange purple potion and then seeing him immediately regain his spirits and his injuries significantly ease, looked surprised and quickly called out to the other equally surprised guards and ran towards the grain warehouse.
Hah! Let you bumpkins see what a true miracle is! Iri clenched her fist, then cracked her knuckles, thinking so.
"Hah! Let you bumpkins see what a true miracle is!" Iri clenched her fist, then cracked her knuckles, thinking so.
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