Chapter 1239: Potima

Having defeated Potima, we collected her body and quickly returned to the village.

The battle had already concluded, with zero casualties on our side. Only a few enemies were still conscious.

Well, not like they stood a chance against Sibylla and Eiworth.

Seems like they were trying to resist interrogation, but they broke down upon seeing the sorry state of Potima’s corpse.

Following that, they began answering our questions readily.

「So you say this operation was carried out at Potima’s discretion?」

「Yeah… Captain said there were signs of the Evil God’s revival in the north…」

Eiworth was currently questioning the second strongest man in the group, who was apparently one of the brigade’s vice-captains.

The mercenary brigade “Fiend Hunters” was initially established based on contributions from several small nations. They shouldn’t be allowed to deploy all members to Kranzel, far from their normal region of operation.

Potima didn’t realize it, but the nations had a great deal of influence on the brigade’s actions. She was essentially a puppet.

「The brigade was initially brought together to make use of the Captain’s powers…」

It happened over ten years ago.

There was a remote mountain region where the borders of several nations converged, making it unclear who had ownership over the territory. They deliberately left it in an ambiguous state to serve as a buffer zone with the other nations.

A certain incident occurred there.

There was a huge boom in the orc population, causing a stampede. It’s not that they had risen to become a Dungeon Master. In fact, quite the opposite.

An orc succeeded in conquering a dungeon, and thus rose to become an Orc King. They established their base in the now defunct dungeon, and gave birth to a legion of orcs.

The orcs avoided discovery due to being in such a remote region, and kept multiplying in secrecy. Then eventually, the orc legion spilled out from the dungeon and began invading the surrounding nations.

Somewhat similar to the goblin stampede in Alessa, but the Orc King not being a Dungeon Master meant one big difference. They could only replenish their numbers through reproduction, so any slain orcs must be replaced the hard way.

That said, the orc stampede was by no means less dangerous than the incident at Alessa. Orcs were simply way stronger than goblins, and their numbers were nothing to scoff at.

A dozen villages were swallowed up in no time at all, and the surrounding nations had no means of countering the orcs. The southern nations had few magical beasts to begin with, so they were inexperienced in handling stampedes. The lack of adventurers meant mercenaries specialized in human conflicts would have to deal with it.

The problem was emphasized due to the countries in the vicinity being particularly small, with only the capital cities having any noteworthy defenses. They simply lacked the power to contain the situation.

For example, one country had fewer than 1000 knights, and gathering all the soldiers within their borders would barely reach 3000. The land was practically barren, so they barely got by as a vassal nation to their neighbor.

A few countries dispatched squads of 300 knights to quell the stampede, without any significant results.

Rather, they were utterly defeated by squads of around 100 orcs.

But then, the devastated nations witnessed an anomaly. The rampaging orc squads inexplicably began to retreat, vanishing like a receding tide.

The nations were wary of the calm before the storm, and sent knights and mercenaries to scout out the orcs. What they found was a shocking scene.

They stumbled upon a village with the scattered corpses of over 1000 orcs, and a bloodied young girl standing in their midst. Given the circumstances, there could be no doubt that the girl was responsible for the massacre.

Everyone had the same thought: what on earth happened here?

The girl’s name was Potima. She had immigrated from Beast Kingdom with her parents the previous year. Her parents had committed some sort of serious crime, and were forced to flee the country. Apparently, their crime involved doing dirty jobs for a certain politician, who was on the losing side of a political upheaval.

Potima was a genius who had achieved Awakening, the shared racial goal of all beastmen, even before arriving in the southern nations.

Of course, that was nowhere near enough to match the vast orcs legions. Her father fell, her mother fell, and finally, Potima herself was about to reach her limits. That’s when she claimed to have heard the voice of God.

With her divine power, she successfully defeated the Orc King. The horde was thrown into confusion by the king’s fall, and Potima continued feeding on their flesh and blood. This led to the rapid development of her level and skills, granting her overwhelming strength.

Thus spreading the seeds for a new battle, this time over Potima. Such a formidable force could not be ignored. However, trying to monopolize her powers would only result in turning the neighboring nations hostile.

Meanwhile, Potima had become fanatical, filled with devotion to her god and increasing hatred toward fiends. She immediately eradicated any fiend she came across, even if it meant getting into a conflict with others.

Additionally, she would seek out and destroy any artifact with a slight evil aura regardless of its history. The young girl even snuck into a royal treasury and declared “the evil is defeated” upon confirming the target’s destruction.

Upon seeing her crazed smile, the nations gave up on keeping her within their borders. They didn’t want to bear responsibility for her when push came to shove.

As a result, several small nations pooled their resources and formed a mercenary group to most efficiently utilize Potima.

This initially consisted of former knights and soldiers transferred in from the southern nations. Nowadays, many members burning with vengeance against fiends have joined, but the leadership still consists entirely of those individuals with government backing.

Though they usually only hunt fiends, there is the occasional mission sent by the southern nations. That said, nearly half of these missions were based on false information. Potima would be sent to eliminate bandits or rebellious factions accused of “harboring fiends”, when in reality they had no connection whatsoever to the Evil God.

However, Potima eventually amassed fanatical followers who blindly obeyed her. That’s when she began acting beyond the interests of the nations.

In particular, this plan of using thieves to infiltrate a village in Kranzel was apparently something Potima started on her own. Or more accurately, there was a man among Potima’s followers who excelled at such schemes, and she accepted his plan. However, this man was also one of the spies sent in by the southern nations.

Potima’s ultimate destination was the Kingdom of Raydoss. She heard about the evil dragon and sword on the way there, and took a detour to eliminate us.

「Ahh… How are we supposed to deal with the fiends now…」

Not a single apology or a word of remorse for Potima. The man was only concerned about himself until the very end.

Fran harbored much hostility for Potima, but this left her displeased.

『Fran?』

（While I hate Potima… I hate these guys even more.）

Fran bit down tightly on her lips.