The following morning, the evacuation began. Several adventurers who had requested rescue, along with those examinees deemed in poor health, started their descent from the fort. Since the incapacitated adventurers required constant assistance to move, the groups were small and their progress was slow.
By the time the last of them departed, every adventurer who had arrived alongside Ren to assist in the rescue had left the fort.
"Lord Hero! We owe our lives to you!"
Those were the parting words Maydas left behind.
"My apologies, but about my name and that title..."
"Ah, right—forgive me. I don't know the reason for the secrecy, but since it's a request from none other than Lord He—er, from you, I’ll keep it quiet. My apologies for the slip of the tongue."
Hoisting his partner, Kai, onto his back, Maydas flashed Ren a genuinely grateful grin before beginning the trek down the mountain. The two female adventurers also left with that group, which provided Ren with a quiet sense of relief.
Their departure left the fort feeling suddenly hollow and deserted. Only a handful of people remained: a few examinees, those still bedridden, Ren—who stayed as a precaution—and the knights remaining to support him and Fiona.
Early that afternoon, Ren stood at the entrance of the fort, looking over his morning's work.
"Maybe I overdid it," he remarked.
"Not at all. It won't go to waste," a voice replied.
When Ren returned to the fort, the two knights who had stayed behind emerged to meet him. They had initially been reluctant to leave the hunting to him, but considering his rapport with Fiona, they had eventually deferred to his wishes and remained at the fort to manage things.
"Good heavens! This is magnificent!"
"There’s enough here to feed us for a month!"
Welcomed by their praise, Ren lowered the monsters he had been carrying onto the ground outside the entrance.
"I’m back. By the way, how is the treatment of the Chartered Merchant going?" Ren asked, remembering the stakes.
Fiona had been using her skills to treat the bedridden, and the merchant was among those in the most critical need. His condition was part of the reason Ren hadn’t been able to insist that Fiona evacuate with the first group. To prioritize only her and the merchant for a heavily guarded descent would have also invited scrutiny; the other students were children of high-ranking nobles as well, and any hint of favoritism or neglect could lead to disaster.
"Lady Ignat says it's proceeding smoothly," one knight answered.
"We’re relieved as well. Had that merchant died, it would have surely sparked a political firestorm for the Clausel family."
Ren nodded, satisfied. "That's good to hear."
With this, it seemed they might actually pull through. The first group included advance scouts, so the situation in the lowlands should stabilize fairly soon.
Because of the students, a significant portion of their strength had to be diverted to guard duties. Furthermore, the monster swarm that had attacked Fiona’s group just as Ren arrived was a grim reminder that they couldn't lower their guard. At one point, they had considered sending only scouts down to call for massive reinforcements, but the students were too exhausted to endure a long stay at the fort. Waiting ten days or two weeks for a large-scale rescue wasn't an option. Even signal fires were useless, as the lingering foul weather would have obscured them from the foothills.
As Ren had hoped, the first group carried messengers who would break off from the main party once they reached a safe elevation to race ahead and coordinate further support. The escort had been carefully balanced to ensure the students remained protected even after the scouts departed.
"Please, leave the processing to us," one of the knights said, stepping forward to handle the monster carcasses. "You should go and wash up, Lord Ren."
"Then I’ll take you up on that."
Ren accepted their kindness and stepped back inside the fort. To his surprise, the rugged stone structure contained a functional bathing area. While the space was as spartan and utilitarian as the rest of the interior, the luxury of hot water in such a remote location was more than welcome.
He headed straight for the bathroom at the back of the fort. Since the water had been prepared in advance, he was able to soak his weary muscles immediately. There was nothing remarkable about the room itself; it was simply a place to scrub away the grime and ward off the mountain chill.
"That's better," he muttered to himself as he stepped out.
His damp hair clung to his neck and forehead. Without magic tools to dry it, he had to rely on a towel and the drafty air. As he walked down the corridor with the towel draped around his neck, he happened to pass the hall where the injured were being kept.
Just as he reached it, the door swung open.
"Oh—!"
Fiona emerged, the sheer weight of her exhaustion visible in her eyes. Startled by Ren’s sudden presence, she gasped and reflexively pulled the door shut behind her.
"I-I'm so sorry!" she said, bowing her head.
"No, it's my fault for being right in your way," Ren replied, offering a quick apology to put her at ease.
An awkward silence followed. Neither spoke, and both instinctively looked away in opposite directions. Growing uncomfortable with the stalemate, Ren opened his mouth to explain his presence.
"Um—"
"The thing is—"
Their voices overlapped perfectly. They both turned back to look at each other at the same time, their gazes locking in the narrow hallway.
"P-Please, after you," Ren managed to say, breaking the tension.
Fiona hesitated, taking a tentative half-step back before she spoke. What she said next caught Ren completely off guard.
"I heard that your group came from Clausel, and..."
She started to change the subject, but then bit her lip and fell silent, looking panicked.
"I-I'm sorry! We promised to maintain non-interference, and here I am prying..."
"Don't worry about it. But why do you ask?"
Fiona hesitated, but her curiosity eventually won out.
"Actually, I have a benefactor in Clausel. Since I heard you all came from there, I wanted to ask if you had ever met them. I felt that you might be close in age to that person..."
She didn't use the term "life-saver." Her father, Ulysses, had kept the details of her previous brush with death a secret to protect her reputation, and she was careful not to exaggerate her story given her standing.
"Actually, please just forget I said anything."
Fiona bowed deeply, clearly regretting the lapse in protocol. She feared that breaking the non-interference pact might somehow jeopardize the evacuation of the other students.
"I’m truly sorry. This was a breach of our agreement, wasn't it?"
"Not at all! I was the one who asked for clarification, so please don't let it weigh on you," Ren said with a reassuring smile.
Fiona bowed several more times before hurrying away.
As the days passed, the examinees seemed to grow more accustomed to the presence of the rescue party. However, the two groups remained largely separate, and the promise of non-interference was strictly upheld. The rugged, cold atmosphere of the stone fort remained unchanged, even with so many people filling its halls.
But finally, the wait was over.
One evening, the knights and adventurers who had led the first group returned. They were visibly exhausted, but they had pushed through the snow to lead the final group down. Reinforcements from the foothills were with them, bringing extra equipment and magic tools to facilitate the final march. They had gathered the maximum number of personnel to ensure the safety of the remaining survivors.
"That’s strange," Ren noted, scanning the crowd.
Maydas, the leader of the rescue adventurers, was missing. Ren turned to one of the newly arrived knights to ask why.
"Excuse me. Where is Maydas?"
The knight explained that Maydas had left a message on a piece of parchment and departed for the base of the mountain shortly after arriving there.
"He said that Kai’s condition still wasn't improving," the knight said. It had happened while the knights were preoccupied with the examinees, and no one had been able to stop him.
The other adventurers in the room grumbled with irritation.
"Those guys have no sense of duty," one muttered. "I don't care how worried he is; you don't turn your back on Lord Hero and the others like that."
"Exactly. To receive such a favor and then run off... it’s pathetic."
The adventurers ridiculed Maydas and his partner openly. The knights, likely feeling their own share of frustration, didn't bother to defend him and remained silent.
"You knights agree, don't you?" a burly adventurer asked. "We’ve been through hell together, and the kid here carried more than his share of our weight. After all that, Maydas just bails? It’s ungrateful."
"It's not our place to judge," a knight replied diplomatically. "In exchange, they helped us secure the students' safety."
"That's just circular logic."
"True. We've all been helping each other out, so there's no point in starting a fight over it now."
"Still... for us adventurers, if you don't repay a debt, you're as good as dead. I get that Maydas was worried, but his partner isn't on his deathbed anymore. He should have stayed to help."
Fortunately, despite the grumbling, there was no real animosity between the knights and the remaining adventurers. If anything, the adventurers were siding with the knights out of respect for the work they had done.
"At any rate, Lord Hero," one adventurer said, clapping a hand on Ren's shoulder. Since Fiona and the other students weren't nearby, he didn't bother hiding the title. "The rest of us are staying until the job is done. You saved our skins back there with those Steel-Eating Gargoyles, and we haven't forgotten it."
Ren felt heartened by his words.