Opportunity
Opportunity
Should I call it a blessing in disguise? Even though the carriage flipped and flew, tumbling across the ground several times, no one had died.
The heavily armored adventurer serving as coachman had thrown himself clear of the carriage the moment the horses collapsed, avoiding injury, and though the people inside who had been completely unaware of the situation had rolled around quite a few times, thanks to the sturdy carriage they'd gotten off with nothing worse than groans.
One horse had been properly crushed under the carriage and died screaming, but seeing as the remaining two horses couldn't rise from the ground either, likely having broken something from the impact just moments before, perhaps that was the kinder fate after all.
Of course, none of that mattered to Kals as he rolled across the dirt. No matter how much he might like horses, he wasn't the type to worry about their lives and deaths when his own was already hanging in the balance.
'We're fucked.'
It was a situation he hadn't anticipated in the slightest.
If luck was on their side, they'd get help. If luck was bad, he'd figured the enemies would just keep chasing without paying any mind to adventurers desperately fleeing. Even if the adventurers figured out their intentions and turned hostile, he'd never imagined they'd attack—fling curses, sure, but attack?
"What is it, what's going on? What the hell happened?!"
Inside the completely overturned carriage, the other party members couldn't right themselves properly, but the female Pulling, who thanks to her small body could stick her head out the window just fine, was free from that predicament. Watching her roll her two large eyes around in shock, Kals let out a hollow laugh without meaning to. So the day had come when that clueless reaction actually helped ease the tension.
"Sen. Get them out of the carriage first."
"Aha. You're saying things are so fucked there's no time to explain."
Though she'd clearly grasped the gravity of the situation, the Pulling called Sen flashed a smile with composure as she kicked the carriage door to pieces and stepped outside. It was a rather impressive sight considering her small body, but it became a bit less impressive when she immediately started huffing and struggling to pull out the party members still inside.
Merdela, who'd crawled out with her help, opened her mouth without managing to compose her bewilderment.
"F-fuck. What the hell is going on...?"
Kals didn't blame her. This wasn't the kind of thing anyone could have predicted in the first place. Instead, he drew the two daggers at his waist and answered in a low voice.
"Merdela. We're fucked. The adventurer attacked."
"What...?"
"Out of nowhere... his own name? Or some unknown title? I don't know what it was, but anyway he shouted something and then just smashed the horse's skull with his fist."
"Fuck."
Her vision was still spinning, but Merdela's situational judgment was quick. The enemies were closing in, the adventurer was hostile, and the carriage was wrecked, so the only thing she had to do was recast her attack spells.
"Son of a bitch, trying to cast spells on me."
An unfamiliar voice came alongside a sound like something slicing through empty air.
As far as Kals could tell, it was an unremarkable motion—the adventurer had merely drawn his sword and cut through the air once—but Merdela's face went pale at the sight.
"M-my magic..."
The core principle of dispel magic was simpler than one might think. It temporarily blocked Mana from forming in the surrounding area. The only difference in skill levels came from whether you deployed that method in a more advanced and precise way or not. Since it created a void where no one could use magic for the duration of the dispel, the key was to cut off the opponent's spellcasting at the most precarious moment, wasting their Mana.
But no dispel magic could touch Mana that was already properly gathered and scatter it at will. At least, not any dispel that she knew of.
Feeling terror at the unknown situation, Merdela shifted her gaze toward the direction the voice had come from.
"If you've dragged innocent people into this, the way of the world is to smash your own head in first, but like the untaught brats you are, you don't know the way of things."
A massive man she hadn't been able to make out through the magic eye due to heavy distortion was approaching with his sword drawn. The circumstances made it clear he was the one who'd unraveled her magic, but Merdela's mind couldn't accept that fact.
Instead, her trembling hands gripped her staff again and she tried to cast.
"Go ahead and throw your fit."
Once more, a blade cutting through empty air. And magic unraveled once again. Merdela's trembling hands finally dropped the staff she'd been holding.
Only then, realizing something was wrong, Kals asked urgently.
"What is it? What's going on, Merdela?"
"Th-that man. He's interfering with the casting."
"......Fuck. What the hell did we mess with?"
Was this like dodging a wyvern only to hit a dragon?
Rather than pointlessly debating whether Merdela's answer made sense, Kals, who'd decided to trust her, felt his mouth go bone-dry as he adjusted his grip on his daggers. A warrior who could punch a horse to death, block spells unilaterally before they were even cast, and even with ten armed men chasing him, was composed enough to be thinking solely about cutting off the heads of those who'd pulled their little stunt on him. Yeah, they were properly fucked.
"I figured the kids were safer inside the carriage so I left them... whoa, look at the size of that guy. Next to him, I'd be a quarterling. So he's the one we messed with? Feels like we're really fucked now, huh?"
No one could stop the mouth of Sen, who'd come dashing up from behind to join them, drawing her dagger. Her party members had long since grown accustomed to her chattering, but it was also a cursed mouth that frequently needled the enemy's temper for no good reason, so Merdela, Kals, and the armored adventurer all tensed up.
"...A Pulling?"
Which was precisely why they couldn't help but be thrown by the man's reaction as his expression shifted from one that looked ready to kill someone any second to something strange. The only one not thrown was Sen and her cursed mouth.
"Whoa. Of all the people to mess with, you picked a civilized noble sort. You didn't go at him hoping things'd go to shit because you had a gut feeling he's a million times better a person than you, right, Kals?"
"What nonsensical—"
"Pulling. Do you know Shadow Foot?"
Kals couldn't finish his sentence. Because the man's face had returned to that look ready to kill someone. And in a manner entirely different from his thuggish attitude just moments before. That was what it looked like to stab someone dead with your eyes.
This wasn't gut feeling or anything—he just knew. Whatever Shadow Foot was, saying you knew it was definitely not—
"Of course I know. It's the pride of my maternal bloodline! But judging by your expression, I don't think I'll be hearing any proud heroic tales and exploits of Shadow Foot from you. Your tongue doesn't seem as long as your height, so bring it on, you fucker."
Cursed mouth. Cursed family-oriented Pulling society. He couldn't curse their family love too, but Kals found them all accursed regardless.
Still, Sen was their comrade, and since the man was clearly an enemy anyway, Kals didn't bother blaming her. It wasn't like they'd taken her on as a comrade without knowing about the Pulling rage-control disorder that flared up exclusively when it came to family matters. It was just sad that it had to be at this very moment.
Amid waves of complicated emotions, Kals quickly churned his mind, struggling to sort out and understand the situation.
Since the carriage had already flipped, and since they were in a standoff with this unknown man, the armed men were approaching slowly, showing no particular urgency now that they'd gotten close. Even at a glance, their intent seemed largely to figure out just who this man was that had created this standoff, and that, conversely, was proof they were completely unrelated to each other.
A sliver of hope. Just barely, a sliver of a hopeful situation.
The man had taken hostile action purely out of rage at the intent to drag him in without his consent. If their enemies, unaware of that, just kept attacking one-sidedly, then that man's sword—like an explosive spell ready to go off at any moment—might turn the other way...
"Out of consideration for Shadow Foot, I'll help you for now. I'll hear your excuses afterward, so you'd better use your heads well."
"You can babble all you want, Shad— huh? What?"
Sen looked around as if to say, 'Did I just hear that right?' but no one could give her a definitive answer. Because they were all sharing in her bewilderment.
"...Is he fucking with me right now?"
But the man turned around as if it were only natural, then planted his longsword in the ground like a knight and stood straight, facing off against the pursuers.
"No, right now, seriously? Huh?"
With a demeanor that showed not a single worry that an attack might come flying at his back, Sen kept babbling as she repeatedly glanced back at her party members, who couldn't even show their dumbfounded reactions properly. In the midst of that, one of the armed men who'd arrived right before them stepped forward, bowed his head politely, and offered the man a greeting.
"...I know not who you are, but our business is with them alone. Would you step aside?"
Perhaps because their eyes weren't just knotholes, the armed men who'd been wary of the man who'd flipped the carriage were exceedingly courteous.
That's one of the worst possible reactions, for starters. Quite the contrast to us, who tried to act chummy out of nowhere and drag him into this mess. Kals furrowed his brow without realizing it.
But at the man's answer, his brow didn't just unfurrow—both his eyes went wide.
"I, too, have business with that Pulling young lady, so I'm afraid that won't be easy. If we can settle this through conversation, I'd like to cooperate as much as possible and resolve this amicably, however."
Was this really the same man who had been glaring with murderous intent and spitting curses moments ago? Not to mention the other party members, even Sen was gaping, but the armed man shook his head and responded calmly.
"Regrettably, that will be difficult. Those wretches are sinners who have insulted the Order. Under God's name, there is no compromise."
"Y-you fucking cultist bastards, who said you could call anyone sinners?! Did that god of yours who scavenged and devoured human flesh like a dog tell you that?!"
"...Especially that accursed, half-destroyed bitch who deserves nothing less, to say the least."
"Hm."
Because the man had turned around, they couldn't tell what expression he was making, but his sword spun around and pointed skyward. Then it slowly came down horizontally above his head, aimed at the lead armed man.
"Those who do not wish to fight may throw down their weapons and dismount at any time. This is advice I offer out of acknowledgment that you are a third party to this."
"Crazy. Am I inside a fairy tale right now?"
Sen's muttering still missed the mood entirely, but no one could say anything about it.
Even with a gauntlet equipped, smashing a skull in one blow was no ordinary feat. If it was brute strength alone, that went without saying, and even if he'd used aura, it was clearly something only possible with considerable mastery.
But before ten mounted soldiers, the man was wearing nothing more than a leather cuirass, so despite the imposing presence he'd displayed, Kals and the others couldn't help but have distrust and doubt flickering in their eyes.
Their opponents weren't run-of-the-mill mountain bandits. Cultists they might be, but they were warriors treated as elites within that very Order. Warriors so formidable that Kals's party hadn't chosen to flee for nothing.
"I esteem your courage and resolve, and shall send you off without pain."
The armed man spoke as he adjusted his grip on his weapon, but the man didn't answer. He merely flinched for a moment.
By the time they realized that flinch was not tension but a preparatory motion for an attack, the body of the armed man who'd stood at the front had already been bisected diagonally along with the horse he'd been riding.
While everyone remained unable to collect themselves, the man's sword cleaved through the air, radiating a blade-like blue light.