Three days went by in a blink of an eye, and the subjugation squad Julian and his father have assembled was already outside the city gate. The number of people that have gathered was higher than I expected.
Julian has his personal unit of 25 knights, 15 mages, and 10 priests. A dozen of the knights were on horses, guarding him in the frontlines, while both mages and priests were riding inside carriages. The leftover knights who didn't have horses were positioned to guard the others instead.
There were three adventurer parties who were invited. All of them were given wagons to ride. The strongest of them consists of C rank adventurers, while the other two were both mostly D ranks. One of those parties was Gil and the others.
Julian did not picked the adventurer parties himself. He hates them, so he left it to his father. Like the arrogant bastard he is, I can see him scowling at them. Just what made him hate adventurers so much?
Other than Julian's unit and the adventurers, there were the ordinary foot soldiers, who were assigned for miscellaneous work, like managing the supply wagons and taking care of the weapons.
Lastly, there was me...
I was at the back together with the foot soldiers. I can see them looking at me like I was some kind of weird animal, whispering to themselves, not knowing that I can hear them.
Looking ahead to the front, I saw Julian talking to one of the cavalry knights. That knight came riding here to the backline and immediately went to my direction when he saw me.
"I assume you're Eria-sama? Julian-sama was asking for you. If you don't mind, may I ask you to come?" the knight said, lightly tapping the back of his horse.
"Ah... Okay..." I was a bit startled, so I simply nodded and did not say anything else.
I mean it's obvious... he's asking me to ride the horse with him, right? So, I absent-mindedly follow through.
"Let me help you," the knight extended his hand and helped me come up the horse.
"Thank you."
"Please hold tight."
I did what he said, and just when I finally got to comfortably sit down, the horse came running right away to the frontlines, where Julian and his guards were.
What is he planning to do now to mess with me this time?
"I was waiting for you. You should've come here instead when you arrived. Not at the back, that place is for the servants," Julian nonchalantly said.
"Are you really asking me to ride here with you?" I sighed.
"Stupid, what else would I call you here for?"
"I can't. I'm not working as one of your bodyguards."
"What are you talking about? Aren't we equals? If I'm here to the front, you should be too."
Looking around, I can see the everyone staring at me with baffled expressions. They were looking randomly at each other, as if verifying if they're seeing and hearing the same thing. Gil and the others on the other hand, looked stunned. Their eyes are telling me that they couldn't believe what they were seeing.
"Mm?" Julian groans, frowning his eyes at the knight who was with me.
His eyes momentarily turned to look at my chest, which was pushing against the knight's back. It looks like he was flustered about being hugged by me and that caught Julian's attention. I can't do anything about it, so I just ignored him.
"Are you not comfortable?"
"A little... but I think I can get used to it," I answered, trying to fix my butt. I moved a little on my seat when the horse came running, so it became a little uncomfortable.
"Is looks like this is your first time riding a horse," Julian figured and said, "How about you ride here with me instead?"
"No, no, no...! I can't accept that!"
Julian's saddle was cushioned, so I would've liked to accept his offer, but with so many eyes on me, I couldn't. I would get weird stares if I just casually ride with him like that.
"I see why you can't..." he replied with the same tone he always has, but I can see in his eyes that he was somewhat pissed off. He took a glance at his men and clicked his tongue.
I guess even he understood why I can't ride on his back.
"Don't make her uncomfortable," Julian said to the terrified knight.
"Ye-yes, sir!"
I can only pity him.
"You know I can just walk like the others, right?"
"No, you need to stay by my side. You'll need to conserve your energy for when the fight comes."
I feel really awkward to this special treatment. I'm just a nobody who came from the back of the lines. I'm the lowest rank adventurer here too.
"I'm sorry about this."
Feeling regretful, I apologized to the knight in front of me.
"Do-don't worry about it... uhh... Eria-sama... it's my pleasure," he replied, scratching his head after when his eyes stumbled on my chest.
"Let's go."
With those words, Julian started the march.