Chapter 28:
A Sortie
The next day…
“You all ready? Let’s go!”
“Yeah!”
And so, the Crimson Vow set out.
It was half a day’s journey to the village where they had captured Lobreth. The area was deep in the forest, but the villagers took quite a bit of offense to that description. They preferred to think their home was “a village on the outskirts of the forest.”
The going was easy, so the group reached the borders of the village before noon. They knew, however, not to stop in the town; the welcoming committee would hold them up. So, the girls passed through without stopping. The fact that they didn’t need to replenish their water supply worked out in their favor.
Soon, they passed through what the villagers referred to as “the true entrance of the forest.”
Just as they entered this neck of the woods and thought to themselves, Why, this is no different from any other part of the forest —a fangbear suddenly appeared. It was a strange beast to encounter here: more powerful than most regular creatures and clearly looking for easy prey. It was like they were in an RPG and had suddenly encountered a mid-level boss the moment they left the “Starting Village.”
Well, that was unfortunate for the fangbear. The Crimson Vow wasn’t a group of Level 1 onion knights equipped with wooden rods, but rather a group of garlic knights equipped with fearsome mystery blades.
Eep!
“It’s pretty dangerous to have something like this hanging around where the forest is still so thin,” Pauline observed.
After processing and storing away the fangbear, they proceeded deeper into the forest.
“It seems like there are a lot of small animals too… I guess they ran away from the heart of the woods.”
Just as Pauline said, there were many more animals and monsters around than usual. They hunted anything that would threaten the village as they traveled, along with the monsters the guild had instructed them to catch or cull. Mile stored them in her inventory, feigning storage magic as usual.
It was mostly for their own peace of mind, but the hunting was good to do. Besides, it was part of their job description. They could sell parts for an added reward on top of their commission, as well. Of course, finding the investigation team in a timely manner was their priority, so the party moved along, hunting only when it wouldn’t slow down their progress.
Darkness came early in the forest. It had been around midday when they first entered the woods, so they decided to make camp once it was too dark for them to go further safely.
Tomorrow, they would set out as soon as it was light. They ate a light dinner and headed immediately to bed.
***
“Something is a little strange here,” said Reina.
Indeed, as they continued toward the heart of the forest on the second day, something felt off. This was the first time the girls had entered this part of the forest, so the only information they had to go off of was what people had told them. However, compared to other forests, something was clearly strange here.
First off, it was lacking the animals and monsters that had been abnormally numerous on the first day. There were very few of the mid-sized beasts around as well, perhaps because the field mice, jackalopes, and other small creatures they usually fed on were scarce.
By contrast, fangbears, ogres, and other fairly strong monsters were numerous. Since these were among the creatures the guild had asked them to thin out, the Crimson Vow felled one after another. Mile put them away with her “storage magic” (read: inventory).
Normally, such prey would be impossible to transport, and hunters resorted to cutting off some token part as proof of the kill. The Crimson Vow weren’t like other hunters, though. Their earning rates were in a league of their own.
They got the feeling that all the more hapless wildlife had been driven out, while only the stronger, more territorial creatures remained. Of course, many stronger creatures had moved out for the same reason or left in pursuit of the animals that were their prey.
Just like that very first fangbear they encountered.
“I can think of a number of reasons why we might not be seeing weaker animals and monsters here,” Reina said. “Number one: their own food sources have vanished. Number two: the number of creatures that want to make them food has increased. Number three: it’s become difficult for them to live here for some other reason. Or number four: a large number of them suddenly went extinct.”
Answering the hand signs Reina made as she spoke with a subtle nod, Mile nonchalantly reached her left hand down and grasped the slingshot at her belt. Her right hand slipped into her pocket to grab a stone.
Whoosh!
Mile quickly slipped the pebble into the pouch and let it fly. The pebble soared through the air fruitlessly, disappearing into the trees.
“Sorry, I missed.”
“That’s fine. I’m sure it will come back again,” Reina said.
Indeed, something had been peering down at the girls from a nearby tree. Unsure whether or not this something was a human, Mile had used a somewhat dialed-down attack, but it had been avoided.
Mile had become more skilled with her slingshot, so lately, not wanting to rely too much on the nanomachines, she had been forgoing their course correction. However, her aim was still true.
She hadn’t missed; her target had dodged. In other words, this was proof that it had been looking directly their way.
“Anyway, we know that it isn’t reason number one or two. All the grasses, fruits, and bugs the prey animals usually eat are normal, and we didn’t see a large number of mid-sized animals or monsters either. Plus, I don’t see signs of any great calamity or environmental change that would have caused a sudden mass extinction, so number four is out…”
“H-hey, Reina, just a minute ago, what was that?” Mavis asked.
Ignoring her, Reina continued as though nothing were out of the ordinary.
“In that case, we can assume this isn’t because of natural causes, but rather the work of some external force. And if the makeup of the monsters in the area suddenly changed—”
Mile continued. “Then these stronger creatures either evolved or invaded, and caused a change in the local biosphere?”
Reina nodded. Mavis and Pauline’s eyes went wide with shock.
“M-Mile,” said Mavis, “You’re using a lot of big words there, but do you understand what they all mean?”
Pauline nodded in agreement. Apparently, that was what the two were shocked about.
“Didn’t I already tell you that I was head of the class back in my home country?!”
“Well, we thought that was because you crushed all the honor students with your magical skills.”
“Whoever said it was anything like that?!?!”
“Layl—uh, no one. It was no one!”
“Laylia?! It was Miss Laylia, wasn’t it?!”
“Waahhh…”
“Now, shall we continue our conversation?” Reina said, her voice strained as veins popped on her forehead.
The other three girls snapped to attention.
“Yes, ma’am!”
“So, I was thinking maybe something like a fenrir or an earth dragon appeared. If that’s the case, then just confirming the existence of the creature will mean half of our job is done, but given the sense we’ve been getting…”
If such a monster were to appear, even a party of four A-rank hunters would be no match for it. The guild had already assumed a party of only a few hunters couldn’t handle the task in the first place, which is why the job was an “investigation” and “finding the source.” “Elimination” wasn’t part of their mission. That would happen after the cause had been determined, and they had a chance to organize for battle. This was merely a preliminary investigation toward that end.
“Someone’s watching us?” Naturally, Pauline had a sharp nose as far as such matters were concerned.
“Yeah, and given the fact that it was watching from above the trees, and that it disappeared in the blink of an eye, I don’t get the feeling that it’s a human we’re dealing with,” Reina said.
Mavis, who was normally quick to spot enemies, looked shocked. She hadn’t noticed, but she had never been very good at detecting foes who intentionally obscured their presence.
Mile wasn’t fond of using tricks, and was scared of everyone becoming too reliant on her, and so she had not been using her long-range detection magic. However, being negligent—or worse, letting them stumble into a situation they couldn’t escape—was a scarier prospect, so she had been using short-range detection magic to at least ward off surprise attacks. That was how she had noticed the watcher, but the fact that Reina had done so without magic was even more impressive.
In reply to Reina’s implication that the thing watching them was not human, the other three asked as one:
“…A demon?”
Yes, saying that something that “wasn’t human” was in this forest immediately brought to mind what the elderly mage (naturally, they had all long since forgotten his name) had said about receiving his pet “from a demon.”
Everyone’s expressions went tense.
The Crimson Vow could brag that they were no longer rookies but proper C-rank hunters. But with a demon as their potential opponent, they were suddenly nervous. “Demons” were really just another race, the name of which came from a truncation of the phrase “decidedly magical persons.” They couldn’t assume that the individual in question was of lower-than-average ability.
Looking at this objectively, the only one with any possibility of winning a one-on-one battle with such a being was Mile, and even that was just a possibility.
If the four girls took on demons as opponents, they could reasonably handle two—assuming the demons were weaker than they imagined. They probably weren’t. The demons in legends were always much stronger than anyone imagined.
Of course, legends only ever told of the most grandiose of events.
Indeed, just like Mile’s “Japanese Folktales.”
Unthinkingly, Mavis began to fiddle with her pockets. In them were two containers Mile had given her; two very small, metal containers. Mile had handed them to her before they left the capital, “in case of an emergency.” Because they were small and metal, they would be difficult to break.
However, the Japanese folktale Mile had told them after giving her the containers was the one known as “A Slice of Bread.” What was the significance of that?
Slightly, ever so slightly, Mavis glared at Mile.
The Crimson Vow proceeded through the forest for several more hours.
The path they followed was the investigation team’s planned route, provided by the guild. The primary directive for this job was to search for the missing team, so they had little other choice but to keep to that plan.
The missing hunters had been free to follow whichever leads they chose, but the Crimson Vow stuck to the route as much as possible. They had, after all, made a promise.
“We will absolutely… make your wish come true!”
They had no obligation to honor an oath coerced by threat or force. In fact, it was better to simply laugh off such oaths and put them firmly out of mind.
But promises made to people who believed in them? Promises made to people who were desperate or hurt? Those were the promises they simply couldn’t break. No matter what happened.
Even if her chances of survival were painfully slim—even if all they could bring back was a piece of her or her belongings—the four of them would find the guild master’s daughter, and bring her home. They had given him their solemn vow, and they would see it through with conviction.
“There’s a lot fewer of them, aren’t there?” said Mile.
“Yeah,” Mavis agreed.
Just as the two noted, the numbers of the monsters they had been told to cull were shrinking.
That could only mean one thing.
“We’re here! There’s eight people, three hundred meters ahead!”
They had reached the source of whatever had caused the unusual relocation of the creatures in the forest.
“They don’t look like monsters, like goblins or orcs. They look…like they’re human…”
Mile’s words were halting, but they understood. It was likely because the people were demons, and so her detection magic had a slightly different reaction than it did with humans. Coming to this conclusion, Reina couldn’t contain herself.
“We have to launch a counterattack! Our enemies are probably stronger than us. When an enemy launches a surprise attack on you, you have to intercept them with your own counterattack. Consider this our only chance of winning.”
These were rather pessimistic words, but if their opponents were even half as strong as the ones she remembered from her father’s bedtime stories, or the ones she read about in fairy tales and legends, then their chances of victory were slim.
In the middle of the woods, they wouldn’t be able to shake off a group of opponents who were well versed in the terrain and likely had far greater physical abilities than themselves. They would likely run themselves to exhaustion and then be pounced on, or picked off, one by one.
All they had managed so far was being stalked by demons and learning that the destruction they’d been seeing was possibly demon handiwork, but that did mean they had fulfilled the investigation portion of the job. Now, they needed to determine what sort of force would be necessary to get rid of the demons.
And then they had to make it home alive.
Whssh!
Suddenly, two shapes whizzed out of the treetops.
“Earth Rod!”
“Water Spear!”
Bang!
Ka-shunk!
One of the pair of enemies who had suddenly descended from the treetops toward Reina and Pauline, hoping to instantaneously disable the backline fighters, was struck hard by the rod of earth that Reina had conjured and tumbled to the ground. The other was struck by Pauline’s water spear and crumpled in turn.
Because the attack was made of water, the spear didn’t pierce the enemy’s body; however, the force of the water compounded with the speed of descent increased the attack’s power several fold.
“Huh…?”
The four stood perplexed. Thanks to Mile’s precise detection magic, they had accurately predicted when their enemies would strike. However, they hadn’t expected their attackers would be felled so easily, nor that they would attack physically rather than with magic.
However, just as they moved to observe the creatures crumpled on the ground…
“Don’t move!”
They looked back only to see four enemies at their rear. The other two were probably hiding somewhere. Atop the heads of these enemies who had now shown their faces were…ears. Strange ears.
A pair of tall, pricked-up cat ears. Lopped and drooping dog ears. Fox ears. Rabbit ears.
And they all had fluffy tails.
“B-beastpeople?” the girls gasped in unison.
Indeed, no matter how you looked at them, they weren’t human. But they weren’t demons, either.
“Don’t resist and you won’t get hurt. Keep quiet and throw down your weapons.”
If the beastpeople—or rather beastmen, now that they looked—had intended to kill them from the start, they would have been better off attacking with spears or bows, rather than plunging from the trees. Even now, with the Crimson Vow so off guard, they could have launched an attack without preamble.
That they did not meant that they probably only intended to capture them.
Even so, this didn’t mean the Crimson Vow would just surrender and allow themselves to be captured. Regardless of the beastmen’s apparent intentions, there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t be interrogated or offered up as living sacrifices to some vengeful god.
Plus, they had yet to offer any reason as to why the girls should be detained in the first place.
Now that they knew that their opponents were not in fact demons, the Crimson Vow had a bit more room to work. Though beastpeople had greater physical prowess than humans, they lacked magic. This was probably why they had schemed to take the mages out from the start. Unfortunately, that plan had fallen apart.
It was likely they had made light of the Crimson Vow, thinking that with two little girls in the front and two novice mages at the rear—and all with the weak physicality of humans—they would be easily overtaken. Even now, the beastmen seemed to think that the two companions on the ground before them was just a side effect of their sneak attack.
“If you don’t resist, we won’t kill you. Lie down on the ground, bellies up,” Reina commanded.
“Wh…?” The four beastmen were dumbfounded.
This was unthinkable. The position Reina demanded they assume was one of utter submission and absolutely humiliating. They would never do so willingly, and certainly not on the command of some little human girl.
Of course, there was no way someone as smart as Reina wasn’t aware of this. She was clearly trying to provoke them.
Being taken prisoner in a place like this would be a problem, and of course, to simply do as they said would be unthinkable. So, they needed to wrap this up quickly—in other words, by goading them into battle. That way they could say that their enemies had attacked them and they had merely responded with “justified self-defense.”
However, this gambit wasn’t something Reina had concocted independently. It was one of several that the four had planned ahead of time for just such a situation, having brainstormed many such scenarios they might encounter on the job.
Naturally, they did not intend to kill them. This was a plan concocted with a great deal of thought. The moment she realized their opponents weren’t demons, Reina had decided to act on it.
“Y-you little… Looks like this little lady’s underestimating us,”
The four beastmen approached, spitting the phrase the girls had now heard so many times before. They were equipped not with swords but with something more like machetes. These were perhaps not originally intended as weapons but as tools for navigating through the woods.
First off, Mile was clearly much stronger than these men.
And, if Mavis strengthened her resolve and went into ‘True Godspeed Blade’ mode, they shouldn’t be any problem for her either.
And while Pauline and Reina defended themselves with their staves and their spells would be less powerful than usual, they were accustomed to firing off quickly incanted spells, which would give them the advantage in battle. With enough leeway, they could probably even let off a slightly more powerful spell. Plus, they had already silently prepared their first spells, just waiting to let them off.
Mile would have sensed where the two hidden enemies were by now, so they were no problem, either.
With this all in mind, Reina thrust out her left hand, palm to the sky, middle finger beckoning.
Yes, this gesture was a sign of provocation: Bring it.
“Y-you little… All right then, let’s go! Just be careful not to kill them!”
Apparently, the beastmen really didn’t intend to harm them. At least, not here. But now they were in combat, so all bets were off.
They might not want to kill the Crimson Vow, but on the field, with both sides swinging their weapons around, who knew what might happen? Even if they actively tried to avoid vital areas, they might still land a fatal blow while dodging an enemy attack, or something like that. Such things happened often.
Before the four beastmen rushed them, the two who had been lying in wait sprung out from the opposite side. It was a clever tactic, designed to invite more chaos than leaping out at the same time as the rest of the attackers. It was very much a ploy of those used to close-range combat.
Inexperienced opponents would be flummoxed by such a tactic. Unsettled, startled. The Crimson Vow? Not so much.
They faced the attackers coming at them from the front, Mile and Mavis taking one apiece. The other two men ignored them and aimed for the mages on the backline. Reina and Pauline met them with fire magic and ice magic in turn.
Reina—certain they would assume the girls were too distraught to make a move, given that they did not appear to be casting any spell, and so would be close enough that no attack would miss—had silently prepped a flame ball with her fire magic and let it fly into one attacker’s gut. Likewise, the other took Pauline’s ice spear. Both were blown backwards.
The tip of Pauline’s ice spear was blunted, so the beastman who took her attack wasn’t gravely injured. Reina’s attacker’s injuries were more severe, his stomach covered with harsh burns. These beastmen wore neither metal nor leather armor, or even simple leather guards.
…Apparently, beastpeople relied a little too much on their pelts.
Mile blocked the swing of her opponent’s machete before swinging her own sword. She knocked the weapon from his hands. Meanwhile Mavis, in a burst of speed, sent her opponent’s weapon flying with a hard-hitting swing.
The beastmen’s weapons were designed for one-handed attacks and couldn’t stand up to the force of Mile and Mavis’s two-handed sword strikes. However, losing to a human in a contest of strength was unthinkable for beastmen—much less against a pair of young, weak-looking little girls.
It was an utter defeat.
Perhaps because there was no way that they could face two sword-wielding opponents empty-handed—no matter how strong they were—or perhaps because they were in such shock from being outclassed by a pair of little human girls, the two who lost their weapons stood stock-still. Mile and Mavis struck them in the guts, and they quickly hit the ground.
The last pair of enemies rushed in after a beat, charging from behind at Reina and Pauline. The mages leapt forward and ran behind Mile and Mavis, only stopping to begin chanting another round of attack spells.
Before them stood Mile and Mavis, swords brandished. Reina and Pauline chanted behind the swordswomen, arming their spells.
Only two remained standing now. Two out of a group of eight.
The beastmen were incredibly rattled, but they couldn’t run away and leave their felled allies behind. With dire but determined expressions, they faced the Crimson Vow.
But then…
“Run, now!” Reina commanded.
“Okay!” the three girls called.
All four members of the Crimson Vow ran. It was easy, since they weren’t exactly surrounded by enemies anymore.
For a short while, the enemies they left behind were frozen in place, their mouths hanging open dumbly. Then they remembered themselves and quickly moved to help their allies. All the while, they gave thanks to whatever god had smiled down upon them.
They lent a hand to the more injured members and, along with their allies, beat a hasty retreat.
“Just as we planned. Let’s go,” Reina whispered.
“Roger that!” the other three replied.
The Crimson Vow moved quietly through the underbrush. They were tracking the beastmen.
If they had captured and questioned them, there was no guarantee the beastmen would be truthful in their answers. Besides, dragging along that many prisoners would slow their progress immensely. That said, they couldn’t just leave them to run amok in the forest. And they couldn’t just kill them.
“Let them go free and follow them.” It was a standard maneuver the party kept at their disposal, just in case of situations like this. It was useful, even if it didn’t have an especially creative name.
Normally, it would be difficult to track beastpeople, whose hearing and sense of smell far exceeded most humans’. For the Crimson Vow to remain at a safe but trackable distance, where they would not lose sight of their quarry in the forest, would require them to stay within range of the beastmen’s sharp senses. However, the men were preoccupied at the moment. The smell of blood and singed fur swirled around them. Several were giddy with pain and proceeded with a far more jarring gait than usual, so they weren’t able to pay anywhere near their usual attention to their surroundings.
If they used Mile’s detection magic, they would have followed the beastmen from a much safer distance. However, for the sake of the party, Mile wouldn’t allow that. Instead, she elected to track the beastmen the old-fashioned way. Thankfully, the circumstances allowed them to do so.
***
“What…is this?” Reina uttered.
The shock was understandable. What the girls saw as they peeked through the trees was the beastmen assisting their injured fellows into one of five crudely fashioned shacks that now stood before them.
That was fine. The problem was the scene unfolding beyond that.
They appeared to be ruins, hewn of quarried rock but half-crumbling. Among them was a great number of beastpeople, working with plows, hoes, and other farming tools.
Mile’s initial impression was that of an archaeological dig site, and perhaps that truly was what was going on.
“What do we do?” asked Mavis.
“I mean, what can we do?” Pauline replied, concerned. Reina, still shocked, was at a loss for words.
“This is a reconnaissance mission,” Mile snapped. “Of course, it’s important for us to get this information back to the guild right away. But if there are any clues here that might lead us to the missing hunters, or if there’s something here that directly affected them, then there’s still a chance that we may make it in time to help them.
“Plus, if the missing people have been captured and we were to show up with a bunch of fighters, then they might run off with them, or take them hostage, or kill them as an example…”
“We’ll search the area tonight!”
The moment Mile said the word “hostage,” the look in Reina’s eyes changed. More than likely, she was recalling her father’s final moments.
After they had observed the site for some time, someone came running out of the hut that they had seen the beastmen enter previously. A number of others shortly ran in and out as well, making a huge fuss until eventually everything appeared to be settled.
It didn’t seem like they planned to pursue the Crimson Vow. The beastpeople probably figured the girls knew nothing of this place and were just a group of hapless rookie hunters who wandered too deep into the forest. They seemed to have decided the girls were harmless.
They had no clue they were full-fledged hunters or that they had come in pursuit of their fellows. To the beastpeople, they were rookies who had encountered beastmen and fled in terror.
After inflicting harm, of course.
Thankfully, the excavation site was upwind from them, so the beastpeople, even with their sensitive noses, couldn’t catch their scent. They had planned it that way, noting the changes in the wind as they tracked the beastmen.
Mile, who had loved a certain book in her previous life, would never overlook such a detail.
Indeed, that book. The one that said: “Though you stood downwind, you fools never noticed me!”
“All right, here’s the plan.”
The Crimson Vow had moved to a place a bit farther downwind from the excavation site, so as not to be discovered, and went over their plan as they ate.
They had plenty of time to cook, but to minimize the risk of discovery, they refused to light a fire. Their meal consisted of hardtack, dried meat, and water.
It was a bit early for dinner, but it wouldn’t do to mobilize immediately after eating. They had decided to eat sooner and keep their meal light.
“There are five huts in total. If anyone has been captured, they have to be in one of those,” Reina explained. “If we observe the comings and goings for a while, we should spot anything suspicious, but the risk of being noticed is high, and we don’t have all that much time. Even if we spot something suspicious, there’s no way to confirm it, and if there aren’t any captives here in the first place, we’d never be able to tell. So observation is out.”
The others nodded. With this many unimpeded beastpeople milling around, the risk of them being spotted was far too great.
“On the other hand, it would be too dangerous to sneak inside the huts. For one, we’d definitely be found out.”
“…”
“So, Mile, you’re up.”
“Huh?” Mile, suddenly thrust into the spotlight, was perplexed.
“Look. We already know you have our best interests in mind. However, people’s lives are at stake here. Give it your all, just for this. We need you to use your detection magic at full strength!”
“A-all right.”
She had been found out.
Thinking that utilizing her useful magical skills on a daily basis would be bad for her comrades, Mile had been limiting herself to “just a little bit of convenient magic” so they wouldn’t be troubled if she wasn’t around. Apparently, however, they were aware of this.
Even with that knowledge, though, they never said anything about it.
Mile took a steadying breath. It was time to abandon all restraint.
However, this was a one-time deal. Next job, she would go back to using only so much magic as wouldn’t hinder her companions from continuing to take on work, should she disappear. That way, even without her, they would still become amazing hunters.
Of course, her “storage magic” was the exception. Losing that would be incredibly inconvenient, and their earnings would go way down.
She didn’t like it, but she would follow the same philosophy as always.
“Now is now, and then is then!”
***
“Let’s go.”
“Okay!”
Under cover of darkness, the Crimson Vow moved out, heading for the five small huts.
Their eyes were accustomed to darkness, but there were many among the beastpeople with sharper night vision. Combined with their sense of smell and superb hearing, there was no chance of success without some kind of camouflage.
However, they couldn’t afford that luxury. They had to somehow pull this off under their own power. Three of them proceeded nervously.
The fourth, on the other hand…
For now, I’ll keep up a barrier that’ll keep our scent from circulating through the air. That way, as long as we aren’t directly spotted, we should be fine…
Mile wasn’t nervous at all.
“The nearest hut is the most suspicious. There are fewer people in that one than the others, and most of them are huddled in one spot. There are only two others in the rest of the space. Also, the reaction I’m getting from them seems more human than beast…”
In truth, she could give them a far more detailed report, but that would be overdoing it. Telling them this much was enough.
Reina immediately understood what this meant: the people in the hut were prisoners and a guard or lookout.
“Let’s go…” Reina directed quietly, giving Mile a nod.
The rest nodded in agreement and moved forward, slipping carefully through the trees, avoiding any openings where they would be in clear view.
Mavis suddenly gave a signal. “Get down,” she whispered harshly before crouching low to the ground. The rest instinctively dropped as well. Just then, a single beastman passed by their hiding place.
Oh crap , they thought, realizing they had been a bit slow to drop. The beastman appeared not to have noticed. When they looked behind him, they saw tail feathers.
“He’s a bird-type,” whispered Mavis when it was safe.
“Oh, he’s night-blind!” Reina breathed a sigh of relief.
“Why would a bird be the night lookout?” The reasoning was beyond Mile, but she wasn’t about to complain.
Maybe someone had complained it was unfair for bird-type beastpeople to avoid taking a turn on the night watch. Normally, such idiocy in the name of “equality” would be insufferable, but right now they were lucky the idiot was on the enemy’s side. A great boon, indeed.
After all, the greatest danger is not a fearsome foe but a foolish ally.
In any case, their defense was clearly lacking. The Crimson Vow would find plenty of openings.
It was possible the beastpeople had grown lax, as most people didn’t try to navigate the forest at night. And until it had grown dark a short while ago, the open space the beastpeople had occupied had had plenty of lookouts. It was merely chance that the girls had drawn close to where a lookout was stationed. They wouldn’t have found this spot before sunset anyway. Not without any signposts or landmarks.
The beastpeople probably assumed the girls who had stumbled into the forest had run home, beelining for the human village on the outskirts of the forest.
The Crimson Vow finally neared the hut, hurrying from tree line to hut wall and clinging to it like shadows.
Like the other four, this hut hadn’t been built with any particular forethought. It was a ramshackle construction, as though the beastmen had been in the middle of removing meddlesome trees and suddenly thought, “Hey, you know what? Let’s build some huts with these.”
There was a bit of a gap between the walls and the roof. Of course, the builders would probably claim that was deliberate. “Oh no, we put that there on purpose! It’s for light and ventilation!”
Regardless of why it was there, the gap was an incredibly convenient spot for Mile to peek through. After clambering up the wall and looking through to confirm what was inside, she let off a spell.
“Surround the beastmen with sleeping gas…”
Soon, the two beastmen acting as lookouts fell asleep in their chairs.
What Mile didn’t realize was that she was the only one who could ever achieve such an effective result with a spell like that.
No matter what other people said, they would produce no results without conveying the appropriate mental image through their thought pulse. However, Mile, who had a level-5 authorization as far as the nanomachines were concerned, could therefore direct them with verbal instructions. If she just said the right thing, the nanomachines would do her bidding—and with gusto.
Her instructions were a command, from the only level-5 being existing in this world.
Mile merely assumed, I was thinking of what I wanted while speaking aloud, They just read between the lines .
The entrance of the hut was on the opposite wall, in view of the other huts and the excavation site. Opening the door would allow light from within to spill out, making their movements more conspicuous.
There was no telling who might be watching, so they couldn’t afford such a risk. Instead, they clambered up the wall behind Mile and wedged themselves through the opening.
“Eurgh!!”
They all heard Pauline’s groan, but Mile and Reina pointedly ignored it. Undoubtedly, some part of her was having difficulty fitting through. Some part, indeed.
Though they had all slipped into the hut with relative ease, the two were suddenly stricken by intense displeasure.
“…Who’s there?” From the corner of the dark room, a woman’s voice called out, questioning. Perhaps to save on oil or candles, the only light within the hut was a low-burning wood fire.
Once their eyes adjusted, they saw a sturdy wooden lattice partitioning one section of the hut into a jail cell. Inside were at least a dozen humans.
“We’re thiev… we’re hunters who took on a search party job,” Mile explained.
“What’re little girls like you doin’ taking on a dangerous job like this?” asked a middle-aged man who appeared to be a hunter. It wasn’t as though they could have known the job would turn into something like this. The others stared warily at the beastmen, though they showed no signs of waking. The four understood the suspicion; status-altering magic and medicinal magic weren’t things many people were well versed in.
There were eighteen human captives in total: sixteen men and two women. One of the women looked so young she couldn’t possibly be of age yet.
The Crimson Vow had been told there were six hunters, two scholars, and one guild employee on the investigation team. Among the captives before them were a man in his early forties and an airy-seeming, attractive woman of noble birth in her twenties; they were undoubtedly scholars. The pair were probably professor and assistant. Their clothing was sturdy and practical, nothing more than normal cotton garb. No armor at all.
Then there was the lively young teen girl. She wore leather guards that were sturdy and maneuverable but only seemed to do the bare minimum of guarding her most vital points. She was, most likely, the guild master’s daughter.
The others had to have been the investigation team’s escort, and some hapless hunters who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were no women among them; only all-male parties would be foolish enough to take a dangerous job in a strange forest.
“Would you happen to know how much time we have?” Reina asked.
“W-we should be fine,” the scholar’s assistant answered. “They just changed guards a short while ago, so I don’t think anyone will be here before morning.”
Naturally, as a professor’s assistant, she was quick-witted.
“Just for confirmation, you’re the investigation team from the guild, yes?” Mile asked, perhaps a bit tartly.
Even if they denied it, there would be no real way to tell. But waiting for confirmation until they had returned to the capital would have been instant death for the Crimson Vow. It wasn’t a risk they could take.
“Yeah, that’s right,” one of the men replied. “There’s nine of us altogether: us six guards, those two scholars, and the little miss there from the guild. Thankfully, all of us are here and safe. The other nine here were two parties who were captured separately at different times, which makes eighteen of us prisoners.”
All of the investigation team were here, alive and well. The Crimson Vow beamed internally.
If they were honest, they would admit they thought the team’s chances of survival were slim to none, at best. They had hoped that if they were lucky, they would find their bodies. If they weren’t, their belongings and the manner of their death, which they would share with the guild. That the entire team was alive? The Crimson Vow were overjoyed. Given that the number of prey animals had decreased due to the changes in the environment, it wouldn’t have been unusual if the investigation team had been attacked by some starving predator. Compared to that, being captured by beastpeople was probably preferable. There was a chance of escape or rescue, at least.
In truth, however, there were more than two parties who had gone missing. Perhaps they were also captured by these beastmen and killed or attacked by some fearsome creature.
“Anyway, let’s get out of here. We can sit and discuss this once we’ve escaped,” Reina directed.
“Roger that!” The Crimson Vow chirped in immediate reply, but the prisoners looked uneasy.
“Even if we run, we’re up against beastmen. They have better night vision and a better sense of smell, not to mention they’re strong and agile. I don’t think we can outrun them. However, if it’s just the four of you, who they don’t know about, they probably won’t catch up. Go. Report to the guild and our lord! Then they can get a force together, and—”
“We refuse,” said Mile.
“Huh?”
Stunned by her sudden refusal, the leader of the investigation team halted mid-sentence.
“If go back without you all, we won’t get as high of a reward!” Beside her, Pauline nodded emphatically.
“You idiots. If you get captured, then there’ll be no one to tell the guild! The whole thing will start all over again. If we have to go through this whole process again, who knows how long it’ll take for us to be rescued!”
Clatter.
As they argued, Mavis’s sword flashed. She cleft the sturdy lattice elegantly in twain, freeing the captives from their symbolic prison.
“Whoa!” The captives exclaimed in shock and praise. Mavis shied away, suddenly bashful. She was freeing innocent prisoners from a villain’s lair. For Mavis, who longed to be a knight, there was no greater joy.
“Wh…” The guard leader’s eyes went wide.
Even wooden, the lattice wasn’t so cheaply made that a lady could do away with it with a mere swipe of her sword. Or at least, it shouldn’t have been. He had long since confirmed it was strong enough to prevent escape.
Though it was unclear whether she read his thoughts, Mavis, having noticed the leader’s gaze, muttered with a self-deprecating smirk, “I may as well let you know now, but I’m the weakest of the bunch.”
“No,” Pauline interjected as she cut through the prisoners’ fetters with a Water Cutter, “I’m the weakest.”
The leader stared in slack-jawed awe. Just as Mile taught her, Pauline had increased the hydraulic pressure of the water by narrowing the surface area and mixing in grains of sand to create a cutting edge of startling strength and sharpness.
“We don’t have time to chitchat! You’ll have plenty of time to argue once we get out of here. Now, let’s get going!” said Reina.
The hunters nodded, standing one by one after rubbing life back into their freed legs. The leader, with no other choice, stood as well.
“If we don’t put out the fire, the light will spill out when we open the door. Use your water magic to—”
Mile interrupted the man again. “Oh, we aren’t going out from the front. But we probably should put it out, yes.”
Following the leader’s advice, Mile extinguished the flame with a wave of her hand. Instantaneously. Without water.
Whish!
“Wh…?”
Mile’s arm moved faster than the eye could see, drawing her blade, swinging it, and with the same swift movement, placing it back into its sheath. Then she firmly gripped the wall and pulled.
Suddenly, a hole, wide enough for a crouching adult to pass through, opened up.
“…”
“Now, quickly!”
Mavis hurried along the hunters, who were standing still for some reason. They sputtered wordlessly but silently slipped out through the hole one by one.
Mile went at the head. She had the sharpest night vision, and with her detection magic, she would be the first to know if any monsters drew near. Plus, she could cut a path through the brush for the people following her. Just behind her was Reina, ready to back her with magical attacks.
Mavis took up the rear, prepared to ward off attacks from behind. Pauline kept to the middle, prepped to handle any flanking attacks. She would also be able to jump to the front or the back at a moment’s notice.
Naturally, the hunters had had their weapons taken away on capture, leaving them empty-handed and unable to fight. There were four mages among the freed captives, including both women, but of the four, only one man and one woman could use attack spells. It fell on the Crimson Vow to defend the group.
As they moved from the open area into the woods, Mile had a sudden idea. She attached a piece of wood painted with a “magical luminescent material” to each person’s back. As they moved with their eyes to the ground, every so often they could look up and not lose sight of the person ahead of them. Naturally, she instructed them to remove the markers at the first sign of an enemy.
Using a regular reflective material in the dark would be fruitless, so this was either a “material with stored luminescence,” or “something with luminous material mixed in.” However, Mile had passed the duty of making it entirely over to the nanomachines, so she had no idea which it was. So long as it didn’t contain radium and subject them all to radiation, as some materials like that did, it was fine.
Once they were a fair distance away from the beastpeople’s camp, the group took a break. They were all exhausted. Dashing through the night taxed their physical and emotional strength, not to mention the general exhaustion of hiking through rough terrain. If anyone was injured or collapsed, it would be a huge problem, least of all because their speed would decrease by a great deal.
The beastpeople had yet to notice their escape.
As everyone rested, Mile selected a suitable tree and lopped off a nice-looking branch. And then another and another. When she had collected a good number of them, she whittled them all down at tremendous speed. Naturally, she did so where no one could see her. Then, her work done almost as soon as it had started, she returned to the others, items in hand.
“Everyone, please choose one of these for yourself!”
“Wh…”
The hunters eyes went wide as saucers as the bundle clattered to the group, displaying an array of wooden swords and spears.
“Wh-where did you…?”
“Oh, I just made these.”
“…”
After several moments of silence, the hunters quietly began to select their arms. Naturally, as hunters who had purposely taken on a dangerous job, they were quite adaptable.
Though made of wood, the swords and spears wouldn’t shatter or be cleft in a few strikes, even if they clashed with iron. Mile had chosen a firm and sturdy tree. Still, they weren’t invulnerable, especially if they came up against someone particularly skilled or with a very good sword.
They had other uses as well, doubling as a staff or walking cane. They would brush branches and tall reedy grass away and ward off animals or monsters. Besides, having so many unarmed hunters would be troublesome. Even if they were all wood, the swords and spears would put them all at ease.
The hunters’ expressions were already far more confident than they had been just a short while ago.
Mm-hmm, all according to… plan.
Shing!
A single piercing gaze shot towards Mile.
It was from a girl in her teens. The guild master’s daughter. Why was she looking at her like that?
Did she think it looked bad for a guild employee to be rescued by a band of girls the same age or even younger than her? Did she think it would sully her father’s reputation as the guild master?
It would probably be best to try and curry her favor.
Thinking this, Mile began to speak.
“Um, we were asked by your father to look out for you…”
“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!?!” the girl suddenly shouted.
“Shhhhhhhhh!!!”
Everyone turned as one to shush her. Even if they had gotten a fair distance away, it was still dangerous to make loud noises.
“S-sorry about that…” the girl sincerely apologized. “A-anyway, you’re saying that you all met my f-father? Wh-where? When?!”
The girl latched onto Mile’s words, her cheeks red and her eyes damp.
“Huh? I mean it’s not like we just ran into him somewhere. When we were at the capital guild branch, he asked us, ‘Look out for my daughter…’”
“Huh?”
“Huh?”
“Huh?”
“Um…” a voice muttered from behind them.
Mile turned to see the professor’s pupil—the airy, attractive assistant.
“If you’re looking for the guild master’s daughter,” she said, “That’s… me.”
“Huh?!” the Crimson Vow gasped.
“No way! There’s no way a rough old dude like him could have a daughter like you!” Reina, as always, was incredibly blunt.
The young woman sighed. “I hear that a lot…” She hung her head as though suddenly overcome with exasperation.
“Hm? Then you must be the scholar’s assistant.”
“I’m not!”
“Huh?”
Then who was this little girl? As the Crimson Vow nearly tore their hair out over this conundrum, another voice came from behind.
“I’m the assistant,” the man in his forties said.
“ You are? Uhh, th-then, that means the professor is…”
“That’s right! I am Doctor Clairia, or as you all put it, the ‘professor’,” the little girl quipped with a grandiose manner. She puffed out her nonexistent chest.
“A dwarf?”
“I’m an elf!”
“ Shhhhhhh! ”
“S-so sorry…”
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