Chapter 283 Bezos VS Mitsu

When she reached the eastern side of the village, the scene at the gate here hit Mitsu like a physical wall of noise the moment she and the guild staff rounded the last corner.

Lanterns and mana-bulbs on most people’s waists threw uneven yellow light across a stretch of the crowd of people that had already turned the space here half-muddy with monster blood and other stuff.

Women of many ages formed a ragged but determined line in front of the wooden gate. Spears, pitchforks, a few proper longswords, and more than one sharp stick rose and fell in uneven rhythm, as they were up on each other’s shoulders, trying to drive the weapons down to stab and slice monsters on the other side of the wall continuously, from over the wall itself.

There were some monsters lying here and there too, inside the wall, possibly having been killed as they had come over the wall by jumping.

The monsters here were larger than the ones Mitsu had seen at the western breach when she had been with Elara, closer to the western gate. These things were thick-bodied lizard-things with heavy tails, and a couple of the bipedal ones that looked nearly as tall as a man.

Mitsu arrived with her lungs burning and her heart trying to jump out of her. The guild staff woman, Melanie, kept a firm grip on her upper arm, half-guiding, half-dragging her through the press of bodies until they reached the man who seemed to be ordering the adventurers around in this section of the eastern wall.

Pell.

He was in the middle of shouting orders to a pair of women trying to brace a section of wooden barrier that had started to splinter. A bundle of spears rested against his shoulder. His face was set in a tight, exhausted expression, making him look very old for his age. The guy was barely middle-aged, but with all this responsibility on top of him, pressing him down, he looked almost ready to fall at any time.

When the two girls reached him, Melanie pushed Mitsu forward a step.

“Manager Pell. You need to hear this.”

Pell glanced at them without really seeing. “Melanie? What are you doing here?” He looked at the girl beside her, who was barely able to stand on her own after running all the way here.

Getting a feeling from seeing the girls that they were not here to join the fight, Pell spoke, “If you’re not here to fight, then step aside. We’re short-handed enough already.” He told Melanie off without even letting Mitsu the chance to talk.

“I’m not here to have fun, Manager Pell,” Melanie said. Her voice cut through the noise with flat confidence. Even though Pell was her direct superior, she was still not used to talking with this guy with respect. She was someone who had been recommended by someone at the capital and had not yet learned to soften her tone for the guild’s official ranks.

Getting recommended by someone in this case only implies that she had enough backing to be considered on equal footing with Pell, even though Pell worked in the capital guild for years, having way more experience than her. Just having strong backing has that kind of effect, whoever it is. Though, even if she wasn’t directly rude to the guy, she never acknowledged or it could be said she never showed proper respect to him all this while of them coming here, in this outskirts.

“This girl has a message. I think you should listen to her before brushing us off.” Melanie said in her usual gruff tone.

Pell’s jaw tightened at the girl’s refusal to listen to his order. He started to turn back toward the barrier, done with her getting in his way. “I don’t have time for any messages. If it’s about some minor disturbance in the guild, tell them that when I come, if I find them arguing with each other even at this time when we are fighting for our lives here, I’ll have their salary cut for this month, from every one of them. Now get going; we’re already too busy here to care for those petty squabbles of you all staff members. If you can’t help with the fighting, at least don’t get in the way.”

Melanie’s hand shot out and closed around his wrist when he was about to turn.

Pell stopped. He looked down at her fingers, then up at her face. The exhaustion in his eyes sharpened into something colder: anger, frustrated by the girl’s audacity to get her hands on him. Even if she had some backing, getting her hand on him, a man, was a serious thing to do, in an official sense. Considering the rarity of a man’s status now in this time and age.

“What is the meaning of this, Melanie? Have your head risen too high for you to not even be able to get what you can or can’t do? How dare you block me when I’m trying to save the village?”

When he said her name, the word came out rough. Even though Pell was a very easygoing man, when it came to Melanie, he had always been very disappointed with her. Not only did she come into this work through nepotism, but she also always disrespected senior staff all the time. Just because she was good at her work, he tried to not use his authority as a senior staff member to get her in line.

But from the looks of it, this was his limit. Melanie did not flinch even though she knew she clearly made him angry now. She met his stare with equal force.

“And why do you assume I’ve come all this way here for some petty squabbles? I told you I brought this girl to relay a message. You can’t just leave without hearing it. This is more important.”

Pell’s free hand flexed once around the spear bundle. For a second it looked like he might shove her off. But then he exhaled hard through his nose and jerked his wrist free.

‘Wait! Even though this girl had always been a little rude before, she never did anything like this. Maybe it is as she said, maybe she really came to relay some important message.’ Pell realised this.

Even though his judgment was not as sharp as before, he at least knew people around him quite well. And Melanie was not a girl to do something as reckless as this, getting in his way at an important time like this.

“Fine. Say what you need to say. But if I decide this was a waste of time, you’ll answer for interrupting the line. Clear?”

Melanie simply tapped Mitsu between the shoulder blades.

“Go on. Tell him.”

Mitsu stepped forward on legs that still felt unsteady from the run. Pell’s gaze landed on her face and stayed there, searching for recognition and finding none. She was just another village girl to him, pale, breathing too hard, thin dress damp with sweat.

She forced the words out as clearly as she could.

She began telling him about the western gate. About the smaller monsters she saw with her own eyes, causing chaos in the neighborhood of the western gate. She kept her voice steady even when it wanted to shake.

When she finished, the first person to react was not Pell.

Bezos, who had been fighting with mere villagers and adventurers till now, was now coming from a few paces back, clearly irritated that Pell had not yet delivered the spears he had asked for. He had caught the last part of Mitsu’s report- western gate, monsters inside the walls- and the words almost immediately caught his attention.

The village chief’s face darkened. He strode forward, snatched the spear bundle out of Pell’s hands without asking, and turned on his heel toward the western streets.

“Pell, I’m going there. Tell John for me.”

Pell’s hand shot out and caught him by the upper arm before he could take a second step.

“Village Chief? And where do you think you’re going alone?”

Bezos tried to pull free. “What the…? Who are you to grab me? And where else do you think I’m going? The western gate, of course. I should have guessed it the moment I saw the smaller monsters circling back, not smashing their head in the wall like others. It seems they weren’t running from the fight; they were simply looking for an easier way in.”

“And? After realizing that fact now, can’t you tell the importance of this situation more than before? Why are you still heading in without discussing it with everyone first?” Pell’s voice was flat and hard, but still didn’t cross the boundary of rudeness.

“And now that you have learned this, what do you think you could do all by yourself? Yes, monsters have been peeling off and circling toward the rear of the village. We’ve all been watching them. But we shouldn’t forget, the ones that turn back are the smaller ones, too weak to compete for space at this main assault. They get pushed out and go looking for softer targets. That’s just their natural instinct. But as I heard from others, weren’t you also here five years ago when these walls were made, Mister Bezos? Don’t you know about it then, more than me? Those small fries, weak monsters, can’t break timber and iron bands that easily. Not that section of the wall, at least, where Miss Rhuvia had reinforced herself before she had gone out. And if they can’t break through the walls, then the gate should be out of the question, am I wrong?”

Bezos stopped straining against the hold. His breathing was heavy.

“But if that…”

“Yes, then another question arises,” Pell said, stopping what Bezos was saying. “What exactly happened back there? How did monsters get inside?”

Both men turned to look at Mitsu.

Bezos stepped closer. He was a big man, broad-shouldered and solid in frame.

As Pell released his hand, he stepped close to Mitsu. Standing in front of her like a living wall, he blocked out part of the lantern light that had fallen on her. She felt the weight of his attention land on her like a physical thing. Her shoulders wanted to hunch. Her eyes wanted to drop to the dirt.

But she did not let them.

She kept her gaze fixed somewhere near the collar of his tunic and held her ground, even though her fingers had curled tight into the fabric of her dress.

Bezos’s voice came out lower, more controlled than before.

“Girl. You were the one who came from the western side, right? That means you saw it with your own eyes. So tell me straight. Was the gate actually broken, or was it opened from the inside? What exactly is going on over there?”

New story link: https://www.scribblehub.com/series/2620100/tales-of-the-pervy-sage/

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