Opportunity
Opportunity
After returning to the Ogatorf manor, Asilie and I finished our simple preparations, borrowed horses, and moved to leave the capital.
Since we were treated like people heading to their hometown on leave, the servants just sent us off normally, so there was nothing special about it. With Sheryl gone, the tasks I needed to hand over were few and far between, so I was able to leave the manor feeling lighthearted.
"Five days' worth of food should be enough, right?"
"Plenty. We're not walking, we're riding."
We bought various things at a store selling preserved food mainly to adventurers, paying attention to nutritional balance, and passed through the city gates without any particular inspection, heading out onto the freezing plains.
At first, we just planned to travel normally, but Asilie, excited about something, suddenly started galloping ahead first. As I followed, before I knew it, we were racing each other on horseback.
As expected of horses from a knightly family, the warhorse bastards didn't know how to tire easily. Perhaps if they were wearing barding, but carrying ordinary people not even properly wearing armor, the warhorses raced across the plain at a sufficiently fast speed without any sign of exhaustion.
Since they were damn expensive creatures, I originally intended to decline and find somewhere to rent appropriate horses, but I couldn't overcome Sir Ekaf's firm will, who told us to just take them and that he wouldn't hold us responsible even if the horses died.
The plain was desolate. Occasionally, adventurers or travelers walking along the road came into view, but even though we rode fast and covered a considerable distance in a short time, the people we encountered were few enough to count on one hand.
In the old days, I might have felt desolation from that sight, but perhaps because Asilie's heightened emotions had transferred to me, what I felt was a strange sense of refreshment.
"Eldi! Your riding skills have improved a lot!"
"I've gotten better with practice!"
Even before coming to the capital, I rode horses often when going to Ogwen, but it was only at the level of using them as transportation and leaving my body to them. It was fundamentally different from learning horsemanship under the premise of mounted combat at the Ogatorf household. I still didn't particularly feel that riding a horse was enjoyable, but I could now ride to a level that wasn't unsatisfactory.
"I think it'd be better to start learning archery from horseback soon, though!"
Asilie spoke with a joyful laugh, but I shook my head firmly and stubbornly refused. I had no leeway to master such an advanced skill that took a very long time to become proficient in when I hardly ever needed to ride a horse in the first place.
Asilie just let my argument flow past with a refreshing laugh, and we rode further for a long while before settling in a suitable spot and deciding to eat the lunch we'd packed first.
When I first came up to the capital, I hadn't had the leisure to look around, and afterward, there was no particular reason to head toward Ogwen, so I was admiring the utterly unfamiliar scenery and eating a sandwich loaded with vegetables, ham, and cheese when Asilie, who had been twitching her ears cutely, tilted her head.
When Asilie moved her ears in such a disheveled way, it usually meant there was an unusual sound nearby.
I felt uneasy, wondering how long it had been since we left the capital before we were about to get caught up in another incident. As I stared at her silently, Asilie met my eyes and spoke.
"Let's take a little detour to the right after we finish eating."
"...What do you hear?"
"The sound of fighting. Seeing that there's less clashing compared to the mass movement, it might be that a small group is being chased by a larger one? And of all things, the direction seems similar to ours. Still, if we keep our distance, there shouldn't be a problem."
This goddamn fantasy world was always, everywhere, without rest, engaged in some sword fight or another.
I had no hobby of volunteering to get tangled up in bothersome and annoying matters, so I quickly devoured my sandwich and spurred my horse after Asilie. I thought about hurrying and galloping, but since we'd ridden too excitedly earlier, it was hard to pick up speed.
I felt a futile regret that if I'd known this would happen, I should've moved a little later and kept my distance from that fight. Had about 30 more minutes passed like that?
"This isn't good."
Asilie opened her mouth with a slightly serious expression.
"Why? Are they coming this way now?"
"It's not just coming. They've suddenly started getting closer."
"Suddenly?"
What possible reason could there be for that? The question had barely flickered through my mind before, as if reading my thoughts, Asilie explained.
"Probably... they intend to forcibly drag us into their business."
"...Why the hell?"
"To buy even a little time because their opponent is too much for them? Or to confuse their enemy by making them think we're part of their group? Whatever the reason, it's certain they aren't coming out of consideration for us."
Unlike Asilie, who spoke calmly, Bad Eldmia and Worse Eldmia began to convulse within me for the first time in a very long while.
"So, in the end, you're saying they're trying to use us?"
"I don't know how they identified us, but yes, that must be it. It looks like a mage probably used a visibility expansion spell like Eagle's Eye to detect the surroundings."
Magic? Just in case, I drew up my Magic Power and scanned the vicinity, but there was no particular movement. At ground level, that is.
Feeling an odd displeasure, I raised my head and looked up at the sky, confirming that some kind of massive sphere of condensed Magic Power was floating there. Since it wasn't visible if I filtered out the Magic Power, that seemed to be it.
The fact that there was likely no point now in borrowing Asilie's bow and shooting an arrow filled with Magic Power at that thing pissed me off.
"Someone once said."
"Hmm?"
"If someone dislikes you for no reason, give that motherfucker a reason."
I don't know who it was, but they were approaching to do something I'd dislike, so wasn't it fair to consider that they disliked me?
◈
A single carriage was crossing the plain.
The carriage, pulled by no less than four horses snorting noisily, was utterly ordinary at first glance, but its wheels and other linkages had been reinforced like those of a chariot. The coachman roughly driving the horses was a heavily armed adventurer no matter how you looked at him, and the man sitting in the coachman's seat wore only light armor but clearly flaunted that he was no ordinary person by carrying no less than two crossbows that were clearly top-quality goods.
Following behind it was a group of ten that looked thoroughly suspicious no matter who saw them. Faces hidden by masks, hoods pulled down low so they wouldn't be stripped away even during the violent gallop, running with swords and bows drawn—it wasn't easy to cast a friendly gaze upon them.
Four of them, who looked as though they'd just changed positions, stuck as close as possible to the back of the carriage and took out short spears loaded on their saddles, thrusting them at the wheels, but the short spears were crushed as if caught in a grinder instead of breaking the spokes.
One of the masked assailants, having almost used up all the short spears they'd prepared, gnashed his teeth and shouted.
"Fucking bastards! They've gone and modified it into a war wagon!"
"Then fuck off if you know what's good for you!"
The man in the coachman's seat answered irritably, handing the crossbow he'd had wedged between his legs to the coachman. He aimed as carefully as possible at one of the assailants and fired the loaded crossbow. It was an action that had been repeated throughout the ongoing chase, and the assailant blocked it with a shield without much difficulty. The man clicked his tongue as he watched the bolt become just one more among countless bolts embedded in the shield with a Bang! sound.
"Those fuckers have slapped a fucking enchantment on their shields too! Petty bastards!"
The coachman didn't bother to ponder the correlation between enchanting a shield and pettiness. He understood it was just a matter of grasping at any excuse to curse, overwhelmed by surging irritation. Instead, he simply finished reloading the crossbow skillfully and handed it back to the coachman's seat.
"Merdela! Are you sure about this?!"
"Stop asking, I'm losing focus, just keep running! We'll see them soon!"
Mage Merdela answered with difficulty, barely managing to separate the view inside the violently shaking carriage from the view shown by the magic eye looking down from the sky, which were trying to merge on their own.
"But will they even be any help?"
"It'll be better than our situation now!"
It was sorry to people whose names and faces they didn't know, but their own lives were at stake. One of the adventurers the magic eye had shown was an elf, and since she was holding a bow, she would certainly be far more helpful than her companions who were busily firing crossbows that didn't even fit them.
"With an elf's spirit arts, bypassing that shield and shooting an arrow is nothing! Right now, we have to stick to them by any means necessary!"
The reinforcing effect cast on the horses was about to run out. The pursuers knew this too, so rather than overexerting themselves to chase, they were merely following at a reasonable distance, slowly driving the hunt. If the Itisel Kingdom security forces had been visible, they would've run straight there, but in this area, those two were the only ones dressed in a way that suggested they could fight.
"I see them! Now what?!"
"Pretend we're companions!"
"What?!"
"That way, those damned bastards will think it's an unexpected situation too and get flustered! Even if those two run away, if they think we're connected, they'll at least send a detached force!"
"But if we do that—"
"Kals, you dumb fuck! Then do you just want us all to die together like this?!"
Merdela, having dismissed the now unnecessary magic eye, spat out a curse and immediately began casting an attack spell.
Being an adventurer was originally like that. Struggling desperately to survive, doing terrible things for the safety of your comrades and yourself. They had all endured too long in the yoke of reality to live harboring dreams and romance. Merdela's companions all knew she wasn't saying such things because she was a psychopath lacking empathy.
And the man in the coachman's seat called Kals knew that fact all too well, so he couldn't refute Merdela's shout.
"Hey! The plan's gone wrong! We've got a tail!"
So, he feigned urgency as best he could and shouted out as if they were companions with the two distant adventurers. But the response that came back was in a form he had not anticipated in the slightest.
"Huh?"
The tall man dismounted from his horse with a relaxed motion, and the elf beside him skillfully led his horse away and began moving to the side.
"What the? What's that guy doing?"
"Damn it, at this rate, we're going to crash—"
"I am!"
Ignoring the distance that was closing in an instant, the tall man shouted.
"Eldmia Ega!"
There was no time to wonder what the hell he was talking about, what he was doing.
Faster than they could comprehend the situation, the man approached the moving carriage at an explosive speed and swung his fist, smashing the forehead of one of the horses running at the front.
-Hiiiing!
The horse struck in the forehead died without even letting out a scream. The echoing cries of the horses were merely the death throes of the other horses tumbling over the corpse. And Kals, watching the other horses that began to stumble over the dead one and the carriage overturning as it got caught on them, was certain.
"Fuck."
Something had gone terribly wrong.