Where I'd gone, a mountain of corpses had been built up.
No, seriously.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
The corpses that made up the mountain were the remains of the Imperial Army that had assaulted the elf village.
The Imperial Army that Natsume-kun had led all the way here had fought the elves, only to be ambushed from behind by the Demon King's army. They'd taken a beating and completely fallen apart.
Of course, quite a few survivors remained, but you could honestly call it a total annihilation in military terms.
They say you're considered wiped out once casualties exceed thirty percent?
Or was it forty?
Either way, the damage was definitely worse than that.
The unit Natsume-kun had personally led was up against relatively normal opponents like Yamada-kun's group and Sensei, so their losses were on the lighter side.
But the other units had ended up tangling with
When I say secret weapons, I don't mean the sea urchin things I fought or the Gloria thing the Demon King apparently took on — those were one-offs. I'm talking about mass-produced models.
The same kind I'd been smashing to bits along the way.
That said, even though they were junk by my standards, they were a monstrous threat by the people of this world's standards.
Weapons strong enough that ordinary humans couldn't hope to contend with them — and they were mass-produced, so of course they swarmed out in droves.
Yeah. You'd die real easy.
And so, this mountain of corpses was the result.
Apparently, the surviving Imperial soldiers and Mella's subordinates had been working through the night, recovering bodies from the battlefield.
Here I was complaining about sleeping uncomfortably, and meanwhile they'd been pulling an all-nighter on the very day they fought?
I feel kinda bad about that.
Sorry for being selfish.
Just getting to sleep at all was already good treatment.
Soldiers in Another world fight until they die, and if they don't die, they get forced to work overnight — an absolutely brutal occupation.
To all you who dream of Another world! Want to become a soldier in Another world?
…Man, I'm starting to feel really sorry for them.
The Imperial soldiers were always meant to be disposable, and this was all within expectations, but still.
I'd specifically had Natsume-kun recruit soldiers from those corrupted, rotten Imperial nobles who were perfectly willing to die — but even if the higher-ups were rotten, the soldiers themselves weren't guilty of anything.
Sure, some of them had probably lapped up the sweet honey dripping down from above.
But they'd played their part admirably all the same.
So I think they deserve a proper burial with appropriate honors.
We can't exactly carry these corpses back to the Empire as-is, so we'll have to bring back their personal effects, or cremate them and bring back the ashes.
Either way, they need to be buried with care.
The elf corpses, on the other hand, aren't here.
They all disappeared into my stomach.
More precisely, my clones divided up the work and ate them.
This is my own way of giving them a proper burial, you know?
After all, in nature, it's only polite to eat what you kill.
That corpse was devoured by me and became my blood and flesh.
Mm. Splendid.
Potimas will surely weep with joy knowing his own kin became the blood and flesh of a god.
"Shiro-sama. Good morning."
As I gazed at the mountain of corpses, Mella approached and greeted me.
"Have you had breakfast? If not, I'll have it prepared."
She announced breakfast arrangements with absurd efficiency.
Well, yeah.
Mella is very thoughtful, and under normal circumstances there'd be nothing odd about her saying something like this. But right now she's here in the position of Legion Commander.
With subordinates still nearby, the fact that she's going out of her way to be this considerate toward someone who's technically her equal in rank is a bit strange.
Mella is someone who knows how to properly separate work from personal life.
She'd never let her subordinates see her openly acting subordinate.
…Could it be that Mella-kun is worried I might eat the corpses?
If she'd looked up, I'd probably have caught her side-eyeing me.
Did she sense that atmosphere? Mella's eyes wavered slightly.
It was a subtle flicker of unease imperceptible to ordinary people, but my eyes don't miss a thing.
This woman.
Whatever. I definitely haven't had breakfast, so I'll go along with what Mella suggests and have her prepare some.
The least she can do is take care of that, or I won't feel right about it.
"FWOOOOOOOH!"
Just as I was about to nod in agreement, a bizarre object came hurtling toward me with a bizarre sound and bizarre movements.
Its sheer bizarreness momentarily froze me in place.
But Mella, standing right beside me, reacted instantly.
She drove a knife-hand strike into the incoming bizarre object.
"GUFH!?!"
The bizarre object was slammed into the ground by Mella's fairly serious chop, coughed up blood, and collapsed to the ground — or rather, it didn't?!
Somehow, even while taking Mella's strike, the bizarre object had prevented itself from falling by striking yet another bizarre pose.
The people call that pose a prostration.
"What are you trying to do?"
Mella questioned the bizarre object with a mix of anger and confusion.
"Please, please make me your disciple!"
The bizarre object was saying something equally bizarre.
I don't understand.
Mella was looking at me with a confused expression, having no idea what was going on.
Well, obviously?
Someone charges in out of nowhere asking to be made a disciple — of course you'd go "Huh?"
They were probably talking to me, but Mella doesn't know the situation, so she's confused.
I know the situation, but I'm still confused.
What is this person's deal? It's off the charts.
I have a bad feeling about getting involved with this bizarre object.
My instincts are going into emergency mode.
I should not get involved with this.
What even is this?
It's like… yeah… I can't put it into words.
I restrained the prostrating bizarre object with thread, right as it was.
After immobilizing it, I turned to Mella.
"Let's go."
"Um, are you sure about this?"
I gave the deeply confused Mella a firm nod of confirmation.
This is a clear case of leaving it alone.
No — I have no choice but to leave it alone!
I left the bizarre object as it was and started walking toward breakfast.
Mella kept glancing back at the bizarre object, but seeing me walk off without hesitation, she hurried to catch up.
From behind, I thought I heard something like "W-wait, please!" but it was probably just my imagination.
To me, it was nothing but a bizarre sound that scraped past my ears like discordant noise.
I must not process it in my brain as meaningful words.
I was completely exhausted before I even met up with the reincarnators.
No energy left.