A Curious Swordswoman
The far north of the continent. A small village on the outskirts of Pelrts Territory, which sat on the western edge of Silstimore — close enough, geographically, to feel the reach of the Vermound Empire, the power that held the western lands in its grip.
True to Silstimore's reputation as a second home for adventurers, even this tiny village boasted an Adventurer's Guild, however modest. And given a profession where life and death swung back and forth like a pendulum, hot-tempered humans could be found in every guild hall — and such men always traveled in packs.
"You joking? You think a demihuman like you has any business setting foot in a place like this?"
Whether it was the proximity to Vermound — a land steeped in the ideology of humans, by humans, for humans — or something else entirely, this village too carried a thick undercurrent of hostility toward demihumans, the collective term for every non-human race.
Of course, the man currently leading the charge with his big mouth wasn't a local either. He was an outsider who'd simply put down roots here after years of adventuring work. Still, he could spit those words without hesitation, because the person standing across from him was even more of an outsider — and a demihuman to boot.
A woman stood opposite him. Her hair was tied high, but far from neat — a wild, messy cascade that looked almost wind-torn. And that hair was a vivid, eye-catching red, made all the more striking by the pair of fluffy fox ears, covered in the same crimson fur, that poked out through it. Golden eyes gleamed beneath, and her clothing — steeped in the culture of Sardorim, the eastern island nation far from the continent — all but advertised that she was a foreigner.
"Oh? Looking for a fight, are you? Fine by me… Step outside."
She hooked her arm over the hilt of the sword at her waist and calmly walked out through the guild hall doors.
"You've gotta teach her the rules of this place properly, boss!"
"Damn right! Girls like that need someone to hammer it into their heads who actually owns this land!"
"Heh heh heh… Yeah. Yeah. Let's show this demihuman woman who washed up from across the sea what happens when she starts swinging a sword around like she owns the place."
The three men spat out lines straight out of a third-rate villain script and prepared to commit the cowardly act of a three-on-one.
Ah — and for the record, the whole incident had started because the woman had helped herself to the liquor sitting on their table while the men were off using the bathroom. The men were, technically, the victims.
In the middle of the village road, one woman and three men faced each other, tension thick in the air. Onlookers began to gather, curious about the commotion, while mothers shooed their children indoors, warning them it was dangerous.
The woman slowly lowered her stance and rested her right hand on the hilt. Then she simply held the position and stopped moving.
"Come at me, brats."
A breeze stirred, sending blades of grass skimming across the ground between the men and the woman.
"Junior — you go first. Soften her up. You can handle that, right?"
The leader called the fat man Junior and ordered him to attack. Naturally, he was a throwaway card meant to gauge the opponent's skill. That said, he wasn't entirely disposable. Even that fat man was the same rank as the rest of them, and he'd eaten adventurer rice for years. He was stronger than green rookies or random street brawlers who'd never been in a real fight.
"Yes, sir! I'll pound her into paste!"
The man drew his sword from the scabbard at his waist and advanced on the woman. She still hadn't moved — crouched low, hand on the hilt, completely still.
"That's it — come at me, you fat pig!"
He closed the distance step by step.
"Don't get cocky, you damn animal!"
He charged, swinging his blade — and in that instant—
Clang!…
Ssshk…
His sword snapped clean in two, and every scrap of clothing on his body was shredded and stripped away.
"E… eeeek!!!!"
The man curled into a ball on the ground, covering himself in pure mortification. And the woman… was still in the exact same stance. The same posture she'd held before drawing. She had clearly drawn her blade, shattered his sword, and cut his clothes to ribbons — yet no one had seen her swing, draw, or even sheathe it.
"You dumb fatso! Sit there blubbering! Hahaha! Who's next?! Come on!!"
The leader of the trio was rattled. He couldn't even tell what had just happened.
"Wh… what the hell… Hey, Number Two! You go!"
And so he sent out the second sacrificial lamb.
"Y… yes, sir! You bastard! How dare you do that to our Junior!… Gyaah!"
The result was identical. And with a mind that spun surprisingly fast when it came to self-preservation, the leader understood: this woman possessed power far beyond anything he could match. But…
All he had to do was not get close.
"Tch. Bad luck today. I'm done. Stay in the village or get out — do whatever you want."
He turned his back and walked away. Just trudged off, slow and steady.
"Hey, you! Where do you think you're going?! Scared because I'm too strong, is that it?! Hahahaha! Come on! I said come at me!"
It was the kind of line you'd shout while chasing someone down — but she remained frozen in that same stance. With the man growing more distant by the second, there was nothing she could do.
Ryunen Reika.
A swordswoman from Sardorim, the eastern island far from the continent, and a master of a certain blade technique. From her drawing stance, anyone who entered her range would be cut down without fail — but her fatal flaw was that she could not move while holding that stance. What's more, the drawing technique was the only attack she had practiced her entire life. To strike, she had to stand still. She could never catch an opponent who simply ran away.
And the reason she had left her island and come all the way to this distant continent? She was bored.
"Tch… Boring lot. Hmph."
She clicked her tongue and walked back into the Adventurer's Guild. With the spectacle over, the other patrons returned to their seats and picked up their conversations. And with her twitching fox ears, she caught a scrap of talk that sounded interesting.
"Lately they've been hearing some kind of unknown roar from deep in the forest."
"A new kind of monster?"
"Who knows… But supposedly no one can pin down the location — the sound alone carries ridiculously far, loud enough to hear from a huge distance."
Her curiosity sparked. Whether it was a human or a monster didn't matter. She was curious, so she was going to find it. No deep thought. No deliberation.
It had been roughly a week since I'd fallen into this forest. Spending every night wide awake, watching beasts and monsters attack, was unsustainable — so I'd found a place to hide myself, and stocked up on water and food.
It felt less like an isekai reincarnation and more like a wilderness survival show, and whether I liked it or not, I was gradually getting used to it.
"Ugh… so tough…"
I'd found a sharp-looking rock and was using it to dress a deer I'd hunted. Peeling off the thick hide was every bit as hard as the hunt itself.
About seven bullet holes were punched into the deer's flank. And once again, no bullets remained. The first time I'd killed those bugs, I'd been too grossed out to check — but it had been the same with the fish and the snake-monster. Traces of the rounds punching through, but no bullets left behind anywhere.
Whether they dissolved into nothing or some natural system made them vanish, I couldn't say — but leaving no evidence was, if anything, a good thing.
A week of hunting had given me food, of course, and I'd also swapped my clothes from grass leaves to leather. It was still basically a loincloth, but it felt like an upgrade all the same.
The points I could spend at the gun shop had also climbed little by little. Ordinary animals paid less than the monsters — or rather, given that this was another world, the magical beasts. Their point values ran a bit higher. As the points accumulated, more items in the gun shop unlocked.
All sorts of items had unlocked, but with only 620P to my name, most of them were pie in the sky.
While the dressed venison roasted over the fire, I considered what to buy. Anything over budget was out, obviously. That left earplugs, the magazine pouch, and the cleaning kit.
Having earplugs available was a genuine relief. Ever since the first time I'd fired the gun, my ears had been ringing nonstop. Gunshots were loud to begin with, but in an elf's body — with hearing this sharp — they hit even harder. I'd toughened it out through the first night while killing the snake, but by day two I couldn't take it anymore and had jammed grass into my ear canals to dampen the noise as best I could.
So priority number one: earplugs. Buy the 320P pair, and I'd have 300P left. Spend 120P on the magazine pouch, and 180P would remain. That was a solid option too. Right now I was essentially naked under a scrap of hide that looked like it belonged on a caveman, with no way to carry spare magazines. When I ran dry, I had to open the gun shop, buy a mag, and load it on the spot.
In an emergency, that took far too long — so being able to keep spares on hand was a real win.
I considered dumping the remaining 180P entirely into extra magazines, but the cleaning kit kept catching my eye.
Back in my army days, I'd been told over and over that weapon maintenance had to be rigorous. Clean before shooting, clean after shooting — I remembered scrubbing guns until they shone. So what about my pistol? For a full week I hadn't wiped it down once. I'd just blasted away with it, and it had even gotten soaked.
If this pistol — built by whatever special system that window ran on — were conveniently immune to malfunctions from filth, a cleaning kit would never have shown up in the shop in the first place. So I figured I needed it.
Watching a full week's worth of carefully saved points vanish in an instant left me with a faintly hollow feeling — but then the new gear materialized, and my mood lifted right back up.
I put the earplugs in first. They weren't the over-ear headphone type — more like foam plugs that went into the ear canal. I'd worried they wouldn't fit an elf's ears, which were nothing like a human's, but they slid in perfectly and comfortably. Other sounds got a little muffled too, but that was still better than feeling like my eardrums were about to rupture every time I pulled the trigger.
I strapped the magazine pouch — the kind with a connecting strap — around my waist and slotted in the two spare mags. It looked like it could hold five total.
Then I pulled out the cleaning kit and started working on the pistol…
"Shit. I shouldn't have done this… What do I do?"
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly. But if you don't know the order? You end up exactly where I was. I'd scrubbed every corner of the disassembled pistol with the brush, oil, and cloth — and then spent two hours lost, unable to put it back together.
"Th… this way? Oh… oh! Got it!"
Without the pistol, I was nothing but a fragile, big-chested elf — which meant losing the gun was the same as becoming a free meal for every beast in the forest.
Once all the maintenance was done, I test-fired a round or two to check the pistol and the earplugs, then washed up in the stream in high spirits.
Bang!
Bang!
Her crimson-furred ears twitched, catching the roar echoing through the forest.
"That sound…!"
Reika had just finished dealing with a pack of wolves that had come at her. Standing still in her stance was no trouble at all when the wolves obligingly charged her on their own.
Beast corpses and blood lay scattered in every direction, and the foreign swordswoman — drenched in red — pushed deeper into the forest, following the sound from far away.