Encounter
Encounter
The birds were chirping, and the flowers were blooming... well, not blooming, it was autumn with winter right around the corner, but today was an especially mild and clear day, so there was no discomfort in traveling. In fact, the thought crossed my mind that it was perfect weather for a picnic.
Nevertheless, after that brief disturbance, we maintained our silence and continued the march, tense as if walking on thin ice.
It wasn't really because we were conscious of the victims or trying to be considerate of them, but more about staying wary of some half-assed ambush.
The 'half-assed ambush' I referred to here meant trouble caused by bandits—or equivalently deranged lunatics—who would look at us, people who anyone could plainly see had absolutely fuck-all worth stealing, and still decide to attack us in hopes of looting something.
"I've felt something tailing us for a little while now."
Perking up her ears, Asilie reacted to the presence she had just noticed. It wasn't hiding its presence particularly well, so honestly, everyone except the villagers had already caught on, but there was a clear reason none of us bothered to pay it any mind.
"Probably just scoping us out. If they had any brains, there's no reason to go out of their way to hassle us when we've got nothing."
Itisel was, at least in name, a nation that outlawed slavery. I'd just happened to get tangled up with slave traders an unusual amount lately; living a normal life, the odds of seeing an illegal slave trader even once in your entire lifetime in Itisel were about right. Which meant it was by no means an easy environment for buying and selling slaves illegally. There was a reason slaver scum went as far as building connections with mountain bandits to secretly kidnap people.
Conversely, that meant bandits not included in that network could try all day long to capture people and make contact to sell them, but since they were unvetted, they'd just get the door slammed in their faces. In severe cases, the slavers would just slaughter or capture all the bandits, then hand them over to the city along with the people the bandits had grabbed, using them as material for reputation laundering: 'See how virtuous we are? We only deal in legal slaves.'
That was probably a far more profitable business than getting caught selling unvetted, worthless people into slavery.
Ultimately, even if some run-of-the-mill bandit scum had attacked us and succeeded in looting something, all they'd get in this situation was a meager amount of daily necessities, some pocket change from six people who looked like adventurers, and the worthless score of some women and children. At least, on the surface.
In a situation like this, they'd actually reveal themselves just to rob us? Now that was truly a world-class dumbfuck—
"Heh heh. Where are you adventurer folks headed, lugging all those women around?"
"You dumbfuck cunts."
"Wh-what?"
"You dumbfuck cunts."
The face of the world-class dumbfuck who appeared on the forest path, leading more than twenty scrapshit bandits, instantly crumpled.
"No, I'm the one who should be getting a sour face here, so why the hell is yours the one looking crumpled?"
My benevolence—where I'd sensed their presence but was just going to write it off as them scouting for prey and move on—had been trampled underfoot. If anyone had a right to be pissed, it was me, so why the fuck...? I was already so fed up I was on the verge of drawing my sword right then and there, and the big dumbfuck in front of me, completely oblivious to my state of mind, pulled out the axe he wore at his waist and started making threats.
"Have you ever seen such a shitty situation? I was gonna let you go peacefully if you just left the elf behind—"
"Rule of engagement number one, for whoever among you might survive, to remember and carry with them for the rest of their lives."
"What? What the hell's this bastard been yapping about since—"
"In front of a mountain-sized black-haired man, do not start trouble over a beautiful platinum-blonde elf."
I didn't even need to draw my sword. I just charged in and completely caved in the axe-wielding bastard's face with a full-power straight hook. React? If scum like this could react, I'd be so ashamed I'd bash my own head into the dirt and die.
Unlike me, who didn't even glance at the corpse I'd made with a single punch and was just loosening my wrist, the faces of the bandits behind him—who had been sneering with those triumphant, nasty smirks—began to flood with horror.
"Rule of engagement number two."
"F-fuck! Attack! Attaaaaaack!"
"Never lay a hand on Eldmia Ega."
What did an elven slave even represent to those criminal bastards...?
Just looking at Asilie, elves were never easy targets, to the point it made me wonder what the hell happened for specialized elf hunters to capture her and drag her around as a slave before she met me.
In a world full of lunatic humans not even thirty years old who dropped meteorites, there was no way it was easy to enslave an elf who had lived for hundreds of years. It wasn't like she was some hikikomori elf who'd done nothing her whole life.
The odds she was some fresh-faced elf not even twenty years old? I'd have better luck finding a Demon Sword lying by the roadside.
But the reality was, despite that, the world was overflowing with these mental patients unable to see reality for what it was. It was so absurd that at this point, I seriously wondered if someone wasn't egging on these poor bastards and putting them up to it.
And yet it actually happens. Seriously. I wish someone would explain this bizarre phenomenon to me.
"Die, fucker!"
The ones with sharper instincts already noticed I was operating alone and didn't even try to approach, but everywhere you went, there were those with zero situational awareness. Just slipping inside the swing of a clumsily swung blade and nailing a jab to the face was enough to make a bandit collapse like a puppet with its strings cut. I sent them off to the afterlife one by one, like some kind of tournament where they took turns rushing at me instead of coordinating. I must have repeated that process about ten times.
I split the jaw of a bandit—who seemed to be planning his escape, his face gradually hardening with terror—with an uppercut, and when I looked around, the rest of the bandits had already fled, tripping over themselves to get away. And this was the result even though the rest of the party, overflowing with trust in me, just stood there blankly watching. It was utterly hollow.
"Huh... Well, Miss Asilie is an elf, but... the inner workings of bandits these days, you really can't ever figure them out."
Stroking his chin and tilting his head as if he'd just seen something completely baffling, Gaendal looked just as dumbfounded as I felt.
"Even goblins seem smarter than that. I mean... can they seriously not gauge the odds?"
"Rather, the more half-assedly they've harmed people and gotten drunk on power, the more blind they become. Let's just conclude they were exactly that level of scum."
Coolly explaining to the deeply bewildered Yekaterina, Gin untied the water flask one of the bandits had been carrying and handed it to me.
"Wash up."
"I'm fine... no, I'm not. Thank you, Gin."
"Mm."
Not much blood had spilled from the bastards who'd died with their faces caved in, their skulls literally split without external tearing, or their necks broken from the impact. But my gauntlets, which had done that to them, were not a pretty sight.
"Using your fists was a wise decision. The outcome might be the same for them, but it would be less traumatic for those people."
"I can't help but think that beating people to death with your bare hands might actually be more traumatic."
"That only applies when you beat them to death brutally."
"Is that so?"
"For the most part. When reality and fantasy mix appropriately, it evokes admiration and envy rather than fear."
Honestly, I'd just used my fists because the bastards were too insignificant to even bother drawing my sword, but after hearing Gin's words, I could see it hadn't been a bad choice. When I turned around after wiping the blood and flesh off my gauntlets, the villagers seemed to look relieved, if anything.
"Anyway, this is supposed to be the outskirts of the capital, and it's absolute chaos with unmanaged mercenary bands and bandits. Has it always been like this?"
"War gnaws away at a nation. I'd say the fact it's only this bad is impressive. There are plenty of countries worse off even without a war."
Gin watched the residents preparing to move again under Gaendal's direction with an unfathomably deep look in his eyes. Having clearly lived a considerable number of years, he must have witnessed countless grim scenes like the ones he himself had described.
Anyway, since this counted as a fight, we readjusted the formation—swapping the order so that Yekaterina, who had been in the rear, moved to the front, while Asilie and I rotated to the back—and only after that did our march resume.
In the meantime, Asilie, who had been tilting her head back and forth beside me and mulling something over, carefully opened her mouth.
"Somehow, Eldi, doesn't it seem like you attract trouble everywhere you go...?"
"Given my circumstances, I won't say I don't have a tendency to go looking for trouble, but still, isn't 'attracting' it a bit much?"
"The fact that the very mercenary band you were targeting happened to be in the middle of looting, and then while you're escorting the people you rescued after dealing with them, you get attacked by bandits—I think that all by itself is an extremely rare occurrence."
It was a pretty damn credible argument, but if we were measuring things by rarity, my very life was already the final boss of rare occurrences, so I felt no particular emotion. So I just gave Asilie a nonchalant answer.
"I think this level of stuff is just... something you shrug off."
"...You really are strangely calm and detached in the weirdest places, Eldi."
I mean, I've already been reincarnated. It would be a bit much to get all worked up just because some incidents and accidents were toppling over like dominoes. Getting pissed off at morons who defy imagination was just instinct, so there was no helping that.
But I couldn't exactly tell them about the reincarnation, so I just gave a shrug and brushed it off.