Chapter 10 — We’re Not Gonna Get Attacked by More Weirdos, Are We?!
Yogiri and Tomochika hadn’t managed to move much from the area boundary.
“Aren’t we getting attacked way too often here?! Come on, give us some room to breathe!” Tomochika complained to no one in particular.
“Himeln, wasn’t it? I guess they don’t have any reason to take it easy on us,” Yogiri replied.
After killing someone who had appeared to be their prince, they had been attacked by the gods who protected him, and then by soldiers covered in full body plate armor. After killing them, nine men and women who seemed quite full of themselves had appeared, floating in the air in front of them. They didn’t have the same armor as the other soldiers, nor any kind of matching outfits. They could have been commanders in Himeln’s army, but apparently, that army didn’t have uniforms.
“Hey, hey, I don’t feel nothin’ from these two.”
“Yet it is true they defeated seventy-one S units.”
“Sure, but even we could kill thousands of S units without breakin’ a sweat. We’re on a different level than those guys.”
“We need to defeat them before they have the chance to do something!”
“All right, let’s get to it!”
“Die!”
And then all nine of them flopped to the ground as Yogiri responded to their killing intent.
“We’re not gonna get attacked by more weirdos, are we?!” Tomochika looked around, now suspicious of everything.
I must admit to feeling somewhat worn down. It has become expected that our enemies all die of their own accord. Though it is clearly an issue for a successor of the Dannoura School to feel that way...I suppose I cannot complain much in this situation. I can hardly ask that you cease.
“Looks like there’s one left,” Yogiri said, looking at the single remaining soldier, who was frozen in place. The armor he was wearing indicated that he was a low-level soldier. He hadn’t attacked them, so Yogiri had left him alone. He was now trembling slightly. His helmet hid his expression, but it was still clear enough that he was terrified.
“What are you doing?” Yogiri asked.
“U-Umm...please don’t kill me!” the soldier responded.
“If you don’t attack us, I won’t. I was just wondering why you’re the only one who didn’t come after us.” Yogiri figured there was a reason a single one of them had been held back, but the soldier didn’t seem willing to answer. “If you don’t want to answer, that’s fine. Looks like they’re done sending reinforcements, so I guess we should move on. Did you see which way Scott went flying?” Though he could guess Gerhardt had done something to Scott, he hadn’t been able to tell exactly what had happened. He assumed Scott had just been sent flying backwards, but he didn’t have any proof of it.
“Oh, that’s right. We were going to look for Scott. I saw him go flying, so...this way, I think?”
“So you did see.”
“Yeah. Not much I could do other than watch, though.” Tomochika pointed to the north, back in the direction of Scott’s old village, so they decided to head that way. It was possible the dead Himeln soldiers had some cylinders with points in them, but that didn’t help much if they didn’t know how to use them. It was best to reunite with Scott so that he could explain how things worked.
“Okay, let’s go.”
Stepping over the bodies, the two of them headed north. There was supposed to be grass ahead of them, but the earth was now bare. The terrain had been transformed by Gerhardt and then again by one of the gods, so the deathless, infected grass had been moved outside the area of effect.
After walking for a while, they found a huge hole in the ground. It was where Scott’s village had once been. Last time they had been here, the hole had been covered in plants, but it seemed the transformation of the terrain had reached even this point. Looking around the hole, there was no sign of Scott. Avoiding the pit, they continued forward.
“Takatou, can I say something?”
“Hm? Are you going to say something bad?”
“Uh, not really, it’s just a way to bring this up.”
“Go ahead, then.”
“Why is that guy following us?!” Tomochika turned and pointed behind them. The lone soldier in full armor was standing there. He had been walking behind them the entire time.
“Is he keeping an eye on us?”
Indeed. He appears to be some sort of scout. If you wished to avoid further trouble, perhaps killing him would be best.
“If he’s just going to follow us around, we can ignore him.”
Even if we spare him, is it perhaps best we attempt to lose him?
“That would probably be difficult. He’s definitely more athletic than I am.”
Even a small fry soldier would have minimal strength, being involved in the war in Belm. He likely had skills and the level-up system from Battlesong, so it was hard to believe an ordinary person like Yogiri would be able to lose him in a barren field like this.
“I wonder how long he plans on watching us?”
“Probably forever,” Tomochika guessed.
The soldier seemed terrified but still stuck with them. It seemed he was doing everything he could to suppress the urge to run away, but it would still take more than a little effort to shake him.
“Oh, it’s Scott! Hey!” Tomochika called out in a loud voice. There was a small hill in front of them, on top of which a figure had appeared. Yogiri couldn’t recognize him at a distance, but it was no surprise to him that Tomochika could.
“Ah, Mr. Takatou! I’m glad you are safe.”
They had managed to reunite with Scott without too much difficulty. His clothes were in terrible shape, but he seemed uninjured.
“I’m glad you’re okay too.”
“I got sent flying pretty far. It seems he went easy on me, though, as he didn’t want me to revive right there in front of him.”
“Do you know what’s going on now?” Yogiri asked, giving Scott a brief explanation of what had happened since they had been separated.
“I don’t know much about those gods, but if you defeated an L unit, that’s a pretty big deal. I would expect them to try and take revenge.”
“If that’s the case, why would they send so many weaker guys after us?” Yogiri asked.
“Good question. If the L unit came here on his own, they may not know the situation very well. Maybe they were just trying to see what was going on?”
“I see. So that guy is probably telling their home base about us?” Yogiri pointed at the soldier some distance from them.
“Probably. Though I can’t prove it.”
“Okay, we managed to find Scott, so now what?” Tomochika asked. “Originally, we were going to the Neutral Zone to gather information.”
“Is there anywhere else we could gather information?”
“Heading to a nearby settlement sounds like the best bet. It may not give us much in terms of information, but it’s going to be dark soon.”
Looking up, they noticed the sun had crept awfully close to the horizon. They had a simple tent and sleeping bags in their packs, but Yogiri felt it would be best to avoid spending the night in an open wasteland like this.
“Okay, let’s go there,” he agreed.
“We’re really not getting anywhere in the long run, are we?” Tomochika complained.
“I feel the same way, but we don’t have a choice but to keep trying.”
“This way,” Scott said. “The barren ground ends close by, so the settlement should be intact.”
With Scott in the lead, the three of them started walking.
“I guess that guy is probably going to keep following us, huh?” Yogiri commented.
“I imagine—wait, there are more!” shouted Tomochika as she turned to look, prompting Yogiri to look back as well.
There was only supposed to be one soldier following them, but now there were two. The second was a woman in a tight white robe. Her appearance made it clear that she was not an ordinary foot soldier.
“Who are you?” Yogiri asked instinctively. Judging from their past experiences, he expected to be ignored, but she unexpectedly answered.
“Hello. My name is Childa. I’m an L unit for Himeln!” The three of them stared at her in silence. “Oh, come on! I introduced myself, so you can at least do the same!”
“Uh, our names are private.” They had almost certainly been designated as enemies of Himeln. Yogiri didn’t feel it was a good idea to give someone who worked for the country their names.
“Anyway,” Childa continued, “as you may guess from my appearance, I am something of a doctor.”
“Oh, you’re a doctor. I just thought you were doing some sort of erotic nurse cosplay.”
“It kind of irks me to hear you say that so bluntly. I came here to revive Gerhardt, but just like his sister, I couldn’t do it. Do you know why?”
“I mean, isn’t it obvious that dead people don’t come back to life?” Yogiri replied.
“Not at all. My powers allow me to manipulate time. I can reverse it at will. I’ve never seen someone who doesn’t come back to life after I do that.”
“I don’t know anything about your power, but maybe you can’t use it anymore?”
“You think so?” Childa asked, cutting through the air with her hand. As she did, the head of the soldier beside her went flying. The metal armor covering him from head to toe hadn’t so much as slowed her down. Swinging her hand around, she slashed the soldier to pieces. What had once been a soldier was now just a mess of red on the ground. But she then aimed her palm at him, and like a film rewinding, his scattered remains lifted into the air and stitched themselves back together.
“You see? It still works perfectly fine.” The freshly revived soldier didn’t seem to have any idea what had happened. If what Childa said was true, she had probably rewound him to a point before he had been killed, so he had no memory of ever being hurt.
“If you’re a doctor, why can you cut people up with your hand like that?!” Tomochika exclaimed.
“Is that what you have a problem with here?” Childa answered.
I believe back-alley doctors performing surgeries with their bare hands are common enough in fiction.
“Anyway,” Yogiri interjected, “I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at, but we’re just passing through. Do you need something from us?”
“You did something to Nina and Gerhardt, didn’t you? So of course I have to avenge them.”
“Okay, seriously, when is this going to end?” If killing people to protect himself would cause others to seek revenge, this was going to go on forever. Yogiri was already getting sick of it.
Such is the cycle of vengeance. I was once caught up in something similar!
“What did you do about it?”
We wiped out their entire clan. Leaving no survivors was the simplest method of ending things.
“Are you serious?” For a ghost from the Heian Era, that may have been common sense, but Yogiri wasn’t interested in taking that path.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login