Opportunity
Opportunity
Pulling society tended to have very little to do with the word 'insularity'.
In fact, the problem could be said to be the opposite—they loved interacting with others to a degree that could feel excessive. Not that they'd hand over their liver and gallbladder to just anyone, but they were a race who passionately devoted their entire lives to making true friends of those who were worth it.
Since even so-called scholars had never figured out what kind of process could instill such altruistic baseline psychology on a racial level, there wasn't much point in me questioning 'why' at this late stage.
That alone would be enough to call them a truly peculiar race, but the defining social trait that was the actual hallmark of the Pulling lay elsewhere.
An almost obsessive love of family. A sense of responsibility, duty, and belonging that came with it, thrown in as a bonus.
What was interesting was that this hadn't evolved into covering up for erring family members, but into voluntarily taking on collective responsibility. They even considered it both proper and perfectly natural.
Maybe that was why. The Pulling valued the communal entity called family above even their own lives.
They were a race that considered suicide the more honorable and decent course of action than disgracing or selling off the family name. For a Pulling, to stake one's family meant something far beyond merely clinging to life—it signified a cataclysm that must never happen twice in a single life, a promise made to protect something of equal worth.
Of course, no matter how grave the reason, by universal common sense they deserved a thorough thrashing with questions like 'Who the hell are you to gamble your entire extended family into the pot?' But the Pulling, who had that bizarre sense of collective responsibility on a racial scale, took it very differently.
Meaning they understood it as having been through something so catastrophic it simply couldn't be helped. As I'd said, it was possible because the psychology of 'I'd rather die than sell out my family' was a racial norm, but from where I stood, it was no different from blind faith, a point I couldn't easily feel any kinship with.
The only thing I found remarkable was that they somehow lived sanely in this harsh world and even kept their bloodline going while holding such a mindset... but if that was how they chose to live, what could I do?
Anyway, that was why the dagger presented by the Pulling named Sen was no empty promise. It was a pledge backed by the entire Kikuidel house as collateral: proof that if anyone present failed to keep the promise, she herself would take responsibility, and if she could not, her family members would carry it on until the day the house vanished from existence.
There was Asilie here, so the matter of authenticity could be verified right on this spot. She'd said that while there might be slight differences from house to house, each inevitably had a common decorative element, so distinguishing it wasn't difficult.
I simply decided to rule out the possibility that the Pulling named Sen was a mutation lacking in familial affection, the first such anomaly in centuries across the entire span of continental history. That collateral was just far too overwhelming to discard over a variable with such astronomical odds.
It also wasn't bad that she'd tried to include a magic imprint in the negotiation. The downside was that to actually form one, we'd need to visit someplace like a library and get third-party help, but fortunately I had a connection named Radnelbandes. I hadn't even properly seen his face lately, but if I asked through Ragnis, he'd gladly help out. Mr. Widra might even lend a hand.
Having reached that conclusion, I raised my hand and called out to Asilie far away. This wasn't something I'd gone through alone, so the decision had to be made together.
Asilie approached, calmly watching those infuriating bastards tense up, and asked without dismounting.
"What did you decide?"
"The mage offered a magical imprint and the Pulling staked their family... what do you think, big sis?"
Asilie had taken the magic imprint in stride, but when she heard the Pulling had even put their family up as collateral, she showed a fair bit of surprise, her gaze shifting between the Pulling's heightened tension and the dagger she held.
"Honestly, I thought it'd be hard to forgive them no matter what since they were going to drag us into their mess for their own convenience, but knowing they were ready to go that far... the story hits a little differently. Shouldn't it be fine?"
"...You think so?"
"It's not exactly common to find adventurers who not only admit their fault but are also willing to pay that kind of price."
I might not know much else, but that was a fair point. In a line of work where the ill-bred ones had no conscience whatsoever and resolved most things by force, where you made a living killing people or monsters, I'd recently realized all over again just how depraved humans could become as they matured.
There had been a time when I believed there couldn't be that many people who'd meet every one of those vile conditions. As for the reality... let's just not go there.
Thinking about it that way, these guys—even if their first impression had been completely fucked—were at least capable of reflecting on their mistakes, making them the sort who might reform into someone like Zikmel.
"But for the magic imprint, we'd have to go to a library to get it properly inscribed. Are we going back?"
"Why go to all that trouble for people who'd be dead if not for us? You guys are coming along with me for a while."
As I dropped that one-sided notice and passed the dagger the Pulling was holding over to Asilie to check it, the Pulling's mouth twitched, unlike the others who were deeply relieved.
"Um, there are still some party members left back at the completely wrecked carriage, you know."
"I heard you all coming while you were running your mouths earlier. So what?"
"Well, you see... they're not adventurers like us, but victims tangled up with those bastards, so..."
I'd assumed they were non-combatants, but victims. Reading the tone of things, it seemed the gist was that they wanted to finish the request after all. Since I'd decided to keep them alive and use them, I figured it was necessary to grasp the situation.
"Hey, armor. You go wait at the carriage and bring those people over when I call. And mage. Stop your sniveling already and take the leftover guy to round up those horses scattered over there. Pulling, you're going to have a little chat with us."
The effect of 'I'll spare you for now' was immense.
That alone made them follow orders with utter meekness, and Asilie and I were able to hear a brief account from the Pulling about what the hell kind of clusterfuck had caused all this.
"So... these kids are among the very few survivors of human sacrifice, and you took a request only up to the point of investigating those cultist bastards, but you just couldn't stand by and watch, so you rescued them, and now you were being chased?"
"Exactly."
"And those zealously devout friends, who were apoplectic about having their god's sacrificial offerings snatched away, have been tailing you for a week?"
"Pretty shameless, isn't it? What makes them so high and mighty that they're that furious? Truly the end times."
Maybe because the serious situation was over, or maybe it was the power of her bloodline, but the Pulling launched into uninhibited chatter as if she'd completely forgotten what had happened moments ago.
I threw a sidelong glance toward the carriage and saw two little ones clinging tightly to just the carriage, shivering even while keeping a wary distance from the armor guy. Because of the distance, all I could make out was that both had lank, dull blond hair, one was tall and the other short, and their clothes—including the skirt and trousers they wore—were closer to noble attire.
"They were moving no different from common bandits, which ironically meant the heat was falling on the wrong bandits. I'm sure the bastards were aiming for that, too. It was purely luck that we caught their trail. Just a little later and everyone would've been dead."
Thinking of Shadow Foot, I had to admit it really did seem to run in the blood. It took a great deal of effort not to be rendered speechless by how completely she'd relaxed, making me wonder if this was really the same person who'd been under mortal threat just moments before.
"That carriage seems a bit too story-convenient for an impromptu rescue, doesn't it?"
"My noble benefactor, those relentless bastards had been chasing us for a whole week already. We gritted our teeth and fled for about three days, but running at full gallop with two non-combatants in tow was the absolute limit. Figuring it was just no good, I bought that adventurer-grade carriage with a hefty sum. I bought it boldly, since I figured we'd get ample compensation if we returned with just these two alive."
Though the horses got absolutely smashed to pieces thanks to our poor choices, anyway. As the Pulling finished her words and let out a laugh, I felt my head spin. That unidentifiable, fundamental cheerfulness was truly a racial trait, then.
"Where were you headed with them."
"Ogwen."
She wouldn't have made up a lie after reading my expression, since we hadn't yet said where we were going. Because of that, I'd heard an unexpected answer, and I couldn't hide my considerable inner bewilderment, having to ask again.
"Why there?"
"They said their parents are nobles of Ogwen?"
And at the Pulling's reply, which came as if stating the obvious, I inadvertently looked at Asilie.
But Asilie's response was a shrug and a shake of her head, so I looked back at the Pulling with a dubious expression, and having noticed something odd about us, the Pulling's eyebrows began to twist in a peculiar way.
"Don't tell me... no, right?"
"Probably yes, actually?"
Unlike with the mage earlier, this time we'd truly seemed to telegraph what each other was about to say. I flatly informed the Pulling, who was trying to deny reality by shaking her head.
"The noble who manages that place is the old lord, and his only child is a son who just barely passed his mid-twenties, and even that son has been away at war for four years already. I saw it myself during the deployment ceremony. I clearly saw even the image of his wife holding their only heir, still a newborn at the time, while seeing him off."
And apart from them, there were no other nobles in the frontier backwater of Ogwen.
What alternate-universe Ogwen did these kids come from?