Encounter
Encounter
"Captain!!"
A villain's scream was always pleasant to hear.
"You'll be joining him soon, so why are you calling for him so desperately?!"
Honestly, it wasn't all that pleasant. It was just so damn loud it made me want to beat them to death. What did those villain bastards have to be so aggrieved and pitiful about, screaming like that when dying quietly would've been too good for them?
Still, I'd been able to confirm that the guy I cut down was the captain, so I liked that part. Counting the captain, had I killed around ten? Even after pushing myself as though I were spraying Magic Power everywhere, my condition was perfectly fine.
If I wasn't surrounded, and could get support fire from Asilie, it seemed like I could win without any trouble at all...?
"Eldmia!"
"Yeah! That's me... Yekaterina?"
From the forest path in the direction we'd flown in, a familiar large woman with flowing blonde hair revealed herself.
Why was Yekaterina coming from there?
"I'll support you!"
Magic Power flowed in behind her, so when I paid a little attention, I saw that not only Rellie but Gin and even Gaendal were running over together. Even Yekaterina—I had no idea when she'd started running—had already arrived nearby, swinging her massive polearm and literally turning two bastards into mush with a thunderous roar.
While even the adjutant bastards gaped in shock at that dizzying sight, I, somewhat calmer now, cut down one more who was close by.
"My anger melts away when I see familiar faces—this is a real problem."
No joke, the rage that had boiled all the way to the top of my head just up and died in an instant. I don't know about any random adventurer bastards, but seeing the best dream team of my life had made my anger vanish completely.
"Fuck! He wasn't alone! Retreat! Re...!"
Well, it was true he wasn't alone, but there hadn't been that many. Since he seemed to have enough wits about him to give orders, I quickly rushed in and killed him.
Ambush and headhunting were always the right way. That alone created the possibility that forty soldiers would turn into forty stragglers. And this time, it was right on the mark again.
Ah, now there were probably fewer than thirty left, so about thirty-some stragglers.
"Aren't you way too good at startling people, Eldmia!"
I couldn't help but laugh at Gaendal's shout as he, with the fastest movement among the three, broke through to where I was and prevented the enemies from surrounding me one-sidedly.
"Who's saying I'm not? What an incredible coincidence this is!"
A comrade I could trust my back to. I couldn't help but be amazed that trust could run this deep after just one quest together. Fighting alongside them felt different from fighting paired with Asilie or Sheryl—unfamiliar yet genuinely delightful.
More than anything, the fact that they'd joined me despite this clear numerical disadvantage had already made any displeasure vanish completely. Whatever the story was, it must have meant they were unhappy with the atrocities the mercenary band had committed here. Good people always knew how to make a person feel good.
"We'll talk later. They've been keeping the villagers in the Pantheon. We need to make sure they don't take them hostage!"
"That's excellent information!"
At any other time, maybe not, but right now I knew the absolutely perfect way to deal with these underhanded bastards.
"Yekaterina!! Shoot down every bastard heading for the Pantheon! There are hostages!!"
Unlike Gaendal, who stared at me with a blank expression, Asilie definitely heard me and shot an arrow instead of words.
The arrow laden with Mana streaking across the still-dim dawn sky was probably a sight only I could see. But Gaendal, reacting reflexively to the sound of the arrow in flight, quickly turned toward the Pantheon and saw it bury itself squarely in the back of the head of the bastard who'd thrown off his helmet and was running there.
"So you weren't alone?"
"It's a stroll taken with a guardian."
Fortunately, there wasn't a single bastard bundled up in full plate armor, so Asilie alone could handle the ones heading for the Pantheon. As I cut and kicked at the enemies before me and merged with Yekaterina and Gin, Yekaterina, despite being drenched in blood, gave a beaming smile and heartily slapped me on the back.
"Hahaha! We were just talking about you, you know—do you even know how to use magic or something?"
"Urgh. I can't, talk, so, please, gent-ly, gent-ly!"
While I was receiving a welcome grand enough that I thought if I'd been wearing steel plate instead of leather armor it would have dented into the shape of her palm, Gin split an incoming enemy's crown with his axe and shouted.
"Rellie will finish the incantation soon! Don't overdo it, just hold out until then!"
"An incantation in this brawl?"
"Haha! You'll see! There were too many restrictions to attempt it when it was just us, but in this situation it's perfectly possible!"
I had no idea what spell she was trying to cast, but since she was that confident, I didn't doubt it. Accepting their consideration for the chaos I'd caused earlier, I briefly pulled back to rest, and as I turned to look at Rellie, the most magic-like spectacle of my entire life in this other world was unfolding.
The Magic Power wasn't just churning around Rellie—it had connected to her eyes and was glowing blue. Even after seeing mages duel at the Imperial Academy, this felt like 'real' magic.
And as the light from Rellie's eyes deepened, the world grew brighter.
"W-What is that...?"
It was no wonder a fearful murmur slipped out among the enemies. If it had been me, and a sun suddenly started rising over my head in the middle of a fight, I'd have immediately looked for the bastard who seemed to be casting the spell and taken his head off.
The difference was that the mage whose head you'd want to take was on our side, and the enemies would have to get past me to take our mage's head—which was a scenario straight out of hell.
"A-A mage! The mage is...!"
How incredibly kind. A bastard not far away was trying to regain control. I hadn't needed the rest in the first place, so I immediately charged at him.
There were obstructions, but they meant nothing. They were just slow, clumsy, and half-assed. In my mind, this battle was already over.
The only thought that came to me was that the inland's standards of strength were weirder than I'd expected. Same as the Demonfolk bastards I'd faced in the Empire—the gap in strength was far too severe. Had all the truly strong ones really been conscripted to the borders, leaving only those who were second-rate at best? There had to be some first-rate ones who'd stayed behind to profit in this environment.
The answer was clear. That damn Wandering Knight title.
Once I got that, I had to rush straight to the border and experience for myself how the world really worked.
Between laments and worries that didn't suit the battlefield at all, after cutting down a couple more, Yekaterina gave a thunderous warning.
"Eldmia! Don't engage them!"
But the warning was a little odd. Don't engage? Was that enough? Whatever it meant, since the warning was aimed at me, I immediately put some distance between us, and right then Rellie's shout—enormously amplified by Mana—rang out.
"Burn!"
Before my doubts could even fade, the two bastards who had been checking me burst into flames on the spot. And starting from that, all the surviving mercenaries began to catch fire one after another.
"Gyaaahhh!!"
"Hwaaahh!"
Fuck.
Good grief.
Fucking hell.
◈
Vice-captain Gwens of the Hawk's Talon Band had extraordinary instincts.
He'd never told anyone the specifics on purpose, but those instincts were so sharp they could practically be called magic, and he'd lived his entire life relying on them to survive.
The reason he'd stayed with a rebel group despite having such instincts was because he truly never considered it dangerous in the slightest.
It had looked viable, and even if it became dangerous, he was confident he could run before that happened.
He'd only just realized that had been nothing but arrogance, but Gwens still didn't stop trying to survive. While suppressing the urge to vomit from a sense of crisis he'd never felt before, he spotted the small sun rising over the ruins—and what came to mind was a battlefield from his past.
Born to a prostitute who followed mercenary bands, he'd once happened to watch a battlefield from afar when a mage joined the fighting. Back then, too, a fireball like that had appeared over the battlefield.
And people had started burning—specifically, only the soldiers in the mage's enemy camp. The mercenaries on the opposing side were unharmed, but the sight had been more than enough to terrify anyone.
Now that he knew the principle he hadn't understood back then, Gwens threw away his sword, flung off his cloak, and desperately struggled to strip off even the armor he could remove immediately.
He didn't know the exact method, but that magic activated simultaneously on everyone who shared equipment recognized by the caster.
Since he couldn't know what the mage had used to designate the group, he had to strip off every piece of equipment shared among the mercenaries. He couldn't warn anyone around him. If he did, that swordsman who was no different from death incarnate would surely rush over and take his head.
With no room to care about his surroundings, he convulsively tore off every piece of gear, and just as he flung away his final greave, the Mana-laden shout rang out.
"Burn!"
At that spine-chilling shout, he reflexively squeezed his eyes shut, but Gwens survived. All around him, his former comrades were writhing in agony as they burned, but he still survived.
Just as he felt relief and tried to move his body to quickly escape this place, Gwens froze solid.
"You've got good instincts, friend."
The instincts that had been screaming like mad just moments ago fell silent.
As if they had no meaning anymore.
"I once met a guy named Gadweri. I nicknamed him Chatty Wery. The conversation I had with him was very, very helpful—I don't know about now, but back then he got through a deadly crisis quite well."
In the tension that made it impossible to move a single finger, he slowly moved only his head and eyes to look up at the owner of the voice.
"I wonder if our quick-witted friend here would get along with Wery?"
Death incarnate, impossible to even tell when he'd approached, stood looking down at him with a horrifying smile.