The Horseman Who Calls Death (9)
Life's realizations or answers often come from places you never expected. There's a reason the word "eureka" exists. Of course, expressing what I'd learned with something as cheerful as "Eureka!" felt a bit off.
【Um……? No more questions?】
When we fell silent—more precisely, when we stopped exchanging thoughts among ourselves—Alice asked hesitantly.
【……I'm done asking. Thanks for answering. It feels like a toothache finally went away.】
Even if I wasn't happy about it, at least I had a clearer picture of the enemy's movements. At my words, Alice glanced around nervously before asking again.
【Then, about that promise……】
【The blessing? Sure. I'll do it.】
“Heng-hing!! (Yahoo!!)”
Good grief. She was so overjoyed she let out an actual horse neigh. Veronica wore a bitter smile. I could understand that feeling, and telling the truth would probably give her a headache too. Imagining that sensation, I flexed my fingers.
【But are you sure you're okay? If you go back to god-mode, you can't turn into a horse anymore. Can rune magic handle the transformation?】
【I can't transform, but that's fine! I can just buy a horse!】
Look at that ambition. Was this girl loaded like Veronica too? Curiosity poked its head up, but I brushed it aside. Hiromain might grab me by the collar for turning his personal bike into a moe girl, but that was this virgin-obsessed idiot's problem to deal with.
【Even with the blessing, your virgin allergy—well, in your case, non-virgin allergy—won't be cured.】
【Jeanne is a virgin, so it's fine!!】
That was one detail I could've lived without. Hearing a middle-aged female professor's sex life spelled out so bluntly was messing with my mood. Misinterpreting my reaction, Alice shouted with sparkling eyes full of expectation.
【I've been finding human masters to mooch meals off for about two hundred years now! A forty-year-old virgin who's never married or dated is a first for me!! She's the perfect master!!】
【Auntie…… why do you even like that?】
【How could I not!! Most masters lose their purity once they get a little older! I've lost count of how many times I've parted ways in tears. But Jeanne is over forty and still—】
【At that point she's not a professor, she's a nun.】
Why was she trying to sell me on Professor Hiromain's charming points? I just hoped she wouldn't expose any more of her master's flaws. Being an old maid even at that age was only something to brag about from their perspective. Virgin-obsessed types always judged everything by their own standards—that was the problem. Still, it was the kind of story I kind of wanted to tell our girls too. It proved that people who grind their lives away on research couldn't get married.
‘You should all be grateful to me, former old maid. Show some daily loyalty to the cock that smashed your hymen.’
【So how do you give the blessing?!】
【Um…… by scratching to lift the curse?】
【What?】
I cracked my knuckles and stretched. It might work on unicorns too, though I wasn't certain. It was basically a lottery ticket for getting blessed.
‘Well, unlike Veronica, this one should be a virgin, so there shouldn't be any side effects from the blessing.’
Fortunately, unlike the bicorn, Alice the unicorn had two people who could trigger her allergy. I gestured to Veronica.
【Veronica. Pin her down so she can't run.】
【Understood.】
【What? No, wait a second?! If you all come closer, the curse will make me shudder—uuuwaaaah──!!】
***
Thus, the next morning.
“Jeanne!!”
Alice, who had passed out from the blessing's aftereffects, woke up and immediately performed a morning wake-up call on the tent like some morning variety show. The brown-haired beauty who used to be someone else's horse charged energetically into our temporary lodging.
“Jeanne, Jeanne!! It's me! Do you recognize me?!”
“Huh? Um……? W-who are you?”
With a bright smile, she pushed aside the tent flap and approached the bewildered Hiromain. Alice slipped past the just-awakened Franc and Dana to hug her.
“I'm Alice! The horse you used to ride!!”
“……Heh?”
Hiromain let out a strange sound at Alice's words. Overnight, the horse she'd been riding had turned into a girl with a scar on her forehead. Anyone would be flustered, so I gathered our party members and stepped outside. Victuar? No way that guy was in the women's tent.
“Haaam……. Senior? Did you lift that kid's curse with the blessing last night?”
“Judging by how thoroughly you loosened up her body, I guess she wasn't a bad brat after all?”
Larilura and Dana, still weak in the mornings unless it was the day after sex, yawned. Only Franc, who was always energetic except right after sex, seemed to have roughly grasped what was going on.
“Yeah. I got quite a bit of useful information out of her…… I'll explain. Let's go somewhere quiet first.”
I led the group into the forest. Veronica set up a soundproof barrier without needing to be told. We leaned against trees or hugged while talking.
“—So that's why I think the Compilation Battalion's actions might have shaped the ethical code of Hoenir's group.”
I summarized last night's conversation. There was no shock or commotion. Maybe we'd been through too many of these situations. Everyone seemed to calmly digest my words without further surprise.
“Need any more explanation?”
“Ah, nah. I pretty much got the gist.”
Dana scratched her head casually.
“But let's clear this up. Unicorn Abidus—is he one of Hoenir's subordinates? He had some connection to that Yerna bitch.”
“Hmm. Probably not, right?”
Larilura, who was hugging Franc because of the cold, spoke up.
“That bad elf killed someone who looked like an Immortalis black mage in the ruins of the Ghost City, remember? So they probably weren't on good terms.”
“Ah, right.”
Dana seemed convinced, and I nodded along. The black mage's corpse Franc's sparrow drone had found in the Ghost City was presumed to be the Immortalis mage Yerna had killed using plant magic. If they were the same organization or allies, that would've been strange. Though if it was just criminals backstabbing each other, there wasn't much to say.
“Abidus infiltrating that black mage clique as a spy…… is that too much of a stretch?”
“It's possible, but there's no point thinking about it. We still don't know the goals or bases of the other groups, let alone Immortalis.”
Veronica wasn't wrong. Immortalis was the opponent we knew the least about. Thinking about it now was just a waste of mental energy. Besides, we didn't have much contact with those bug-eaters anyway. Our party's main enemies were clearly them, but the other two organizations threatening all of humanity deserved more attention. Honestly, we were already busy dealing with the Compilation Battalion and Yerna's group.
‘Without some trigger, we probably won't run into those black mages again.’
I hoped that trigger never came, and Larilura seemed to share the thought as she changed the subject.
“More importantly, once we get to Romania, won't we have a higher chance of running into guys like the God-men or the Compilation Battalion~? I'm suddenly worried about the troupe leader and my circus friends……”
“Yeah. Tirsi has some connection too……”
“They won't operate openly. Still, we should be careful in case we run into them.”
I said that to ease their worries. Truthfully, I wasn't completely at ease either. It was rare for criminal scum to cause trouble in broad daylight. But there were also lunatics like Abidus who acted crazy without restraint.
‘There's also the Tirsi incident. If it's some rural backwater, they could silence witnesses by wiping them all out.’
And this was a fantasy world with underdeveloped information and communication technology. If the state got involved, covering up incidents was easy. I didn't want to imagine those absolute bastards having connections to Romania's leadership, but caution was still necessary.
“……Looks like we definitely need to bolster our forces.”
Dana muttered with a frown.
“Adding more people risks leaks, so that's out. We have to improve our party's strength instead. If Nord's deduction is right, there are guys stronger than Enlir out there.”
“Yeah. The iron rule when fighting organizations is to never let the enemy escape. Once we fight, we have to finish them for good. Otherwise, they'll expose our information.”
It was a hunting principle, but it applied to fighting humans too. Among the God-men, there were several stronger than me, the party's top combatant. Ganging up on them would be convenient, but we could just as easily get ganged up on ourselves.
‘If we fight, the only way is to eliminate them the moment we meet so they never learn our identities.’
For that, it would be better if our party had higher combat strength than them. Running away was easier than winning, but if the enemy escaped, it was our loss.
—Clap!
Dana clapped as if to wrap things up.
“Simple enough. We can either explore ancient civilization ruins or learn Ulster techniques. It's not like we were just sitting around while hubby was getting trained to death, right?”
“Right. But no need to rush? Those hyperactive lunatics have been quiet, so they probably don't know our identities yet.”
These were the bastards who destroyed the elf kingdom and the unicorn sanctuary, then sprinkled papa powder on the dwarf kingdom. If they'd figured out who we were? It wouldn't have been strange if a Chinese-made Aesir god meeting had been held at our house while we were preparing for a wedding. With that, we returned to the tent with the shared goal of “power enhancement.”
“JeanneJeanneJeanneJeanneJeanneJeanneJeanneJeanneJeanne!!!”
“I get it, I believe you!! I know you're Alice, so please get off me for a second!!”
Hiromain was being tackled by Alice.
—Roll roll.
Two slugs that had been basking in the morning dew tumbled out of the violently shaking tent.
“……My beloved.”
“Yeah. They noticed, so let's stay quiet.”
That was definitely not the look of someone feeling friendship. Apparently, whether Alice's beloved had a dick or not didn't matter to her.
‘Well, since she's a unicorn, she can't even get laid until the curse is fully lifted anyway.’
Maybe the logic was that there was no point obsessing over men when sex was impossible even with a dick. How unisex of her. Alice seemed to notice our looks and shouted.
“Ah, why?! Homosexuality is normal in Romania!”
“A-Alice! Even so, girls don't usually do that with each other!!”
“Most Romania people prefer men anyway.”
Larilura said it indifferently, but given how often she got touchy-feely with our wives, she wasn't completely unaffected by that culture either. Of course, that didn't mean Larilura was a lesbian, but still—you know how it is. There was that saying about how Korean women were so physically affectionate that Westerners sometimes mistook them for lesbians. Honestly, had anyone ever seen Korean dickmen walking around arm-in-arm like women did? The culture of the country that shaped your growth showed itself in ways like this.
“By the way, Veronica. Aren't you jealous? Unlike you, she can fly around energetically even with just half the curse lifted.”
“Huhu. I can fly around energetically now too, you know?”
—Squish.
At my words, she linked arms with me and rubbed against me suggestively. Well, after going all the way with me and losing her virginity, Veronica had almost no restrictions on her movements—unless she planned to hole up in a convent or something.
“Seriously, there's never been a day I was more grateful that you're a bicorn.”
“Huhu. In the end, it's all thanks to you, isn't it?”
“No, but if you were a unicorn instead…… ugh, terrifying.”
We would've ended up having to do it from behind like those pre-marital purity-obsessed nobles. Of course, pounding her ass until it was wrecked wouldn't count as preserving purity, but it would depend on whether the unicorn-style virginity test considered the back door acceptable or not. If even that was out, we might've been limited to 69 even after marrying Veronica. In that sense, it was fortunate Veronica was a bicorn. They said couples without sex broke up quickly even if they became deeply involved. Ah, as an aside, I'd already explained the truth about the prophet's prophecy to Alice earlier. I'd also made her swear on a rune not to reveal that I'd lifted the curse. Yet that brain-for-brains pure girl had only been briefly disappointed.
—I never really believed in prophecies anyway! My homeland's been destroyed, every sanctuary's been ruined! What unicorn would still believe in that prophecy? I'll just focus on the reality in front of me!
That was what Alice had shouted telepathically after hearing our explanation. It seemed more like she was focused on her sexual desires than reality, but given the circumstances, it was an understandable reaction. Let's just be grateful she didn't turn into an “all humans must die” type like Abidus. In a way, the hardships awaiting Hiromain ahead were just as valuable, weren't they?
“Jeanne! When we reach the big city, let's buy magic materials and cosmetics first to fix your skin elasticity! Staying up all night keeps giving you wrinkles around the eyes!”
“Alice, I never imagined you rubbing your face on me every night meant that……”
Hiromain looked mentally broken as her travel companion suddenly became a girl who could be her daughter (older, lesbian), but this was all a sacred sacrifice to guide her away from straying down the path of love. Thinking that, even this scene looked pleasant. Have a good love life.
“Outsiders. Energetic from the morning.”
Just then, Stella appeared leisurely, apparently having heard the commotion. Thankfully, she was wearing clothes. She had a smiling face, as if she had no intention of scolding us for being noisy.
“And Nord? You come with me.”
She looked around at us contentedly before pointing at me. Having received that sudden proposal yesterday, I tensed up—only to widen my eyes at what she said next.
“It's the chieftain's orders. I'll teach you the Beast Possession spell and how to use Aura.”