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Proofreader: Xemul

The next day, Loren woke up before the sun had even risen and saw two pure white cocoon-shaped things that seemed to be crying out for attention in the tent.

He looked at Nig, who was clinging to his shoulder, wondering how the spider could have possibly made such large cocoons, but he could not tell whether Nig was awake or asleep as the spider did not move an inch.

Thinking that there was no need to wake him up, Loren put his ear close to one of the cocoons. It seemed to be tightly wound, but there were some gaps, and he could hear faint sounds that seemed to be sleeping breaths, which told him that the person inside was not dead.

“What do we do now?”

Loren had asked Nig to do something about Lapis and Gula before he went to sleep, but he didn’t expect the spider to pack them so well. He worried that he might hurt the person inside if he used a blade or something to cut the cocoons open.

Loren looked down at the cocoons with his arms folded, not knowing what to do. Just then, Nig, who was clinging to his shoulder, began to move as if he could sense that Loren had awakened.

“Hey, can’t you do something about this?”

When Loren pointed to the cocoons and asked, Nig suddenly jumped down from his shoulder onto a cocoon and began to poke and pierce it with the tips of his forelegs.

As Loren watched, the spider skilfully used his forelegs to cut a slit in the cocoon he had made. When the slit reached a certain length, Lapis pushed the slit open to reveal her upper body.

“Is it morning?”

“Yes, but a little early. How do you feel?”

“I had an okay night’s sleep. Your cocoon bed is nice, Nig. It’s a little stuffy and sticky, but it’s quiet, warm, and reasonably fluffy.”

Loren, who had been lying directly on the ground, felt stiffness all over his body, perhaps from prolonged contact with the cold hard ground. He was rotating his arms and neck to improve blood circulation, and Lapis’ words made him wonder if he should have asked Nig to wrap him up as well.

But at the same time, he wondered if he should give up the idea, as he worried that it would be hard to breathe, and that he would not be able to respond immediately if something were to happen.

As Lapis rose up from the slit and removed spider threads from her body and clothes, Nig jumped to the other cocoon and made a slit in it with the same procedure as he did with the cocoon Lapis had been in.

Similarly, when the length of the slit reached a certain point, a sleepy-eyed Gula began to slowly rise up from inside.

This cocoon seemed to have been packed even tighter than Lapis: white strings of Nig’ threads were sticking to Gula’s exposed tanned skin, and the contrast between the white threads and the tanned skin, combined with the dimly-lit tent, created a somewhat suggestive atmosphere.

“Fuwah… That was a good sleep.”

After a small yawn, Gula noticed Loren’s eyes looking in her direction, and with a silly smile, she tried to wave her hand at him only to notice that her arm was covered in Nig’ threads.

“Uwah?! What is this? It’s a little sticky?”

As if he did not care, Nig jumped down from the cocoon in which Gula had been in and began to climb up from Loren’s feet, then stopped exactly where he usually clung to.

In the meantime, Gula was complaining and trying to remove the threads stuck to her body by picking them up, but the threads seemed to stick to her very firmly, and her attempts to get rid of them did not seem to be working very well.

“So, Loren, is there some reason you woke us up at this hour?”

Lapis asked Loren as she opened the entrance to the tent a little and peered out through the gap.

It was still dark outside, and bonfires were still burning. It was too early in the morning to wake up.

“Well, the truth is… I’ve been thinking about sneaking out of here.”

“Why? Is there something you don’t like?”

Perhaps startled by Loren’s words, Gula tried to stand up with force. The action shredded the unremoved threads, which seemed to have been carefully attached to her clothes, and Gula’s top and bottom slid down at the same time, putting her in a rather dangerous situation. She hurriedly crouched down in the cocoon she was trying to escape from, which caused even more threads to stick to her body.

“WHAT THE HELL?!”

“Keep your voice down. They’ll notice.”

Loren told Gula to keep her voice down as she lamented the fact that she was almost at the starting point again. Then he made sure Lapis, who had been looking outside, looked in his direction before explaining why he had woken them up.

“So, you want to sneak out?”

Loren nodded silently at Lapis’ words.

He was not sure how much guilt he would feel about quietly sneaking out and disappearing without telling anyone where he was going, but he found no reason for Yuri to accept his plan, and he had neither the time nor the confidence to try to persuade him.

“I feel bad for doing this to the Commander. I feel bad about not making these things clear.”

“I guess you’re equal now, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“The Commander also decided to destroy the mercenary group without explaining or consulting with you, didn’t he? Perhaps he also thought you would not agree, and it would be impossible to convince you, so he decided to do it.”

Indeed, no matter how much Yuri wanted to keep Loren’s existence hidden, Loren could not believe that he would have agreed to destroy the mercenary group even when it was explained to him. Yuri probably had the same thought, and Lapis’ suggestion that this was why he took action without consulting Loren made sense.

“So, if you do something similar this time, you’ll be even.”

“Is that how it is?”

“Maybe not, but I have no choice but to make a strong argument along these lines. If you insist on it, even a lie will become true once in a while. It’s not anything admirable though.”

“In cases such as this, it is important to give a reason to convince yourself. Worst-case scenario, you can just apologize later and get away with it, can’t you?”

Gula, who had given up on tearing the threads off her clothes and had begun to eat the cocoon itself with her Authority, spoke in a light tone, and Lapis laughed as if her own words had been a joke.

“We’ll have to try something along those lines.”

Loren said with a laugh, as if he had been enticed by the idea.

Lapis, ready to take action, peeked outside again, and Gula, who had eaten up all the cocoon, stood up and started to pack up her belongings.

Loren was about to lend Gula a hand when he heard Lapis, who was looking outside, mutter a few words.

“If we’re going to pull this through, then we would require a diversion.”

Stopping without thinking, Loren looked at Lapis intently.

His plan was to sneak away from this tent, move while keeping themselves hidden to avoid attracting the attention of the soldiers and get out of this stronghold, but Lapis seems to have a different idea in her head.

“If we cause any injuries or deaths, it will hinder the soldiers’ actions later on, so we have to think about what kind of diversion we can create.”

“Wait, wait. Doesn’t word like ‘secretly’ and ‘quietly’ exist in your head?”

As Loren called out to Lapis to dissuade her from doing so, she turned her gaze at him and looked surprised. When he was thinking that he had not said anything strange, she asked.

“Loren, you want to sneak out with that body of yours? It might have worked during the night, but the day will break soon, won’t it?”

It was getting bright around them, albeit faintly. With visibility available to a certain degree, Loren’s large body was certainly a far cry from the words ‘secretly’ and ‘quietly’.

“I mean, with your size, it’s difficult even at night, isn’t it?”

“Maybe it’s doable somehow with an inferior army, but since this is the troops of Yuri, who brought you up, it would be difficult.”

“Sorry for my big body…”

Loren, a little offended, said in a sulky tone. Gula patted him on the back soothingly, and Lapis, looking like a child about to pull a prank, opened the tent entrance a little wider and slid into the gap.

“So please leave the diversion to me. It’ll be alright. It’s your Commander’s troops, so I’ll do it without causing any injuries or deaths this time.”

“What is it with ‘this time’? What do you mean?”

“Gula, while you have the chance, please leave the base with Loren.”

“Leave it to me. But, Lapis-chan, are you sure you’ll be able to join us later?”

Neither Loren nor Gula knew at this point what kind of diversion Lapis would create for the Empire army, but she would at least do something that would throw the base itself into chaos, leaving open the question of whether she would be able to find them later as they took advantage of the chaos to escape.

That was why Gula asked, looking a little worried, but Lapis answered confidently.

“If it’s Loren, I’m almost certain I can recognize his presence.”

“What kind of confidence is that?”

“Just get out of here when things start to happen. I’ll leave the timing to you.”

“All right.”

Loren answered shortly, and Lapis smiled with satisfaction and slipped out of the room.

Although there was some uncertainty as to what she was going to do, Loren and Gula gathered their belongings and waited for the right moment, because if they missed it, Lapis’ action would be wasted.

“The enemy has attacked! The enemy is here! Prepare to intercept! Get up! The enemy is coming!”

“Damn it! Why the hell are they coming from the Empire direction?”

A few moments later, they heard warnings from a soldier, who was probably on guard duty, from a distance, then felt a rush of soldiers around them running toward the source of the voice, weapons in their hands.

Gula peeked out of the tent, checking what was happening, and quickly returned.

“It’s illusion magic. Lapis seems to have cast an illusion over the entire base that makes it seems as if a horde of flesh golems were attacking.”

“The soldiers are one thing, but will the Commander fall for it?”

“Even if he doesn’t fall for it, if most of the soldiers do, there will be confusion. So, let’s sneak out from the other side and get away before he comes.”

Once he noticed that the attack was an illusion, Yuri might come to confirm the movements of Loren’s team before reigning in the soldiers. Loren did not like to think that Yuri would neglect his soldiers, but he knew that there was a possibility, and they had better to hurry to get out of there.

“Sorry, Commander. You can be pissed off as much as you want when this is over.”

Loren muttered quietly; even though no one would hear him, he felt as if he had to say something like that. Then he ran after Gula, who had pulled the tent cloth up wide.

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