Ep.4 - One Pursuer, Two Fugitives
Ep.4 - One Pursuer, Two Fugitives
"Kheheng! It's still tingling...!"
Kaede, who had been sniffling repeatedly and on the verge of tears,
finally calmed down and opened her eyes again, surveying her surroundings.
"These... these wretched excuses for humans!"
Ah.
Having even forgotten her own persona and bristled with anger, she soon glanced around at the other adventurers who had collapsed, groaning, and collected her voice once more.
"Ehem, ehehem... Truly disappointing behavior."
No one had actually struck Kaede with a God-bow or anything of the sort, but regardless, she was keenly aware of others' gazes as she once again flaunted the dignified bearing of an S-rank adventurer.
Kaede of the Gale!
Thus she steeled her ironclad resolve once more and set out in pursuit.
The proud wolf with the silver mane had already made a firm resolution never to let the two criminals, laden with all manner of charges, slip away.
Treason...?
Insurrection (disobeying orders)...??
In addition, the wanted posters of those two, scrawled with a jumbled mess of very difficult words like theft? violation of law? order? trampling?, had been crumpled up and stuffed between her cleavage by Kaede. She now pulled them out and unfolded them again.
"Utterly heinous fiends! But I've already memorized all of your scents, so you cannot escape!"
A tightly clenched fist!
A symbol of her fighting resolve soaring high into the sky!
"Just you wait! I, Kaede of the Gale, shall pass judgment upon you!"
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With her nose pressed flat against the ground, Kaede was sniff-sniffing relentlessly.
Her tail bristled sharply, a sign of her intense concentration.
"!!!"
Kaede had found something!
The fur on her fluffy silver-maned tail stood straight up!
"It's this way!"
Using her astonishing sense of smell to track the two women's scents, she pursued them swiftly at a speed befitting her alias, Gale.
Beastmen do not tire. Even if they do tire, a short nap is all it takes to recover.
Of course, not all beastmen are as annoyingly strong and tenacious as Kaede. She is simply a special case.
While an average beastman would merely have a slight edge in physical ability over others, Kaede had transcended those limits.
The vigorous mana that permeated her core was constantly boiling over along with her passion.
She is strong.
Strong, beautiful, and yet noble? A wandering knight.
Why she stubbornly insists on the title of wandering knight is unclear, but she always referred to herself that way to her adventurer comrades.
It seemed she thought it was cool.
But anyway,
let us observe her pursuit once more.
"They aren't resting for even a moment! This humble one already knows that if they keep going like that, they will surely grow exhausted!"
Steadily sniff-sniffing as she continued her pursuit, she was brimming with self-confidence.
The knight and the thief were certainly very strong women,
but when it came to continuous running, Kaede also had great confidence.
She could even pour herself into running for a full day without sleep.
She chased the women with a stamina more vigorous than a little child begging adults to play with them.
The lone wolf wandering knight would never let the women go!
However, at some point the sun had set and the moon began to peek out,
and as the pursuit continued past two small villages, one large forest, and one wide river, Kaede briefly harbored a doubt.
'How strange. Are those who have made a name for themselves truly different? How can they, in human bodies, run for this long...'
It felt like they had been running for almost five hours straight, yet the knight and the thief were still running without any sign of fatigue.
Kaede could sense it. Their scents were steadily growing distant at a constant speed.
A headwind blew in.
The scents of the knight and the thief were carried on that wind to Kaede.
"Snff, kreung..."
This time, the scents being conveyed were somewhat distinctly different.
A bit denser, a bit clearer...
'Aha! So they are finally tired! They ran remarkably well for humans, but as expected, there is no surpassing Lady Kaede!'
Judging the denser scents to mean that the two exhausted criminals had momentarily slowed their pace and were resting, Kaede continued her pursuit.
"Kyawng... kyawung..."
But a very slight problem had arisen.
The scents had suddenly split into two separate trails reaching Kaede.
From the left, a slightly stronger and more vivid scent wafted over,
and from the right, a faint and blurry scent drifted.
'This cannot be... what in the world is happening! How can there be such divine deception!'
Kaede halted her pursuit momentarily, crouched down on the spot, and racked her brain. During serious contemplation, her tail swept the ground very slowly... very leisurely.
A deadly serious wolf!
Truly the best pursuer!
S-rank adventurer Kaede of the Gale, you are always the best!
Surely, if she used her clever head, she would be able to figure out the answer!
"Snff, kreung-"
She sniff-sniffed a few times, then sprang up from her spot with a cheeky grin.
Which was to say, she had arrived at a truly excellent solution!
"I'll just run fast and check both!"
...So it was.
A truly superb judgment to catch everything without missing a single one...!
At any rate, while chasing the clear scent coming from the left would be wiser, grasping the truth of the scent coming from the right wouldn't be so bad either!
She derived the best conclusion and was about to act immediately... or so it seemed, but she crouched down again, gently swishing her tail as she began to ponder.
"Which would be better to go to first. Hmmm..."
The deadly serious contemplation resumed.
Due to that deadly seriousness, she was already wasting about ten minutes of time,
but Kaede did not care in the slightest.
"Aha! That's it, exactly!"
At last, she solved her dilemma and sprang up!
'Since my tail is pointing to the right, let us go right first!'
What kind of logic that was, I couldn't say, but anyway she headed toward the scent wafting from the right.
Quite unfortunately, due to that feeble logic, she ended up completely distancing herself from Neva and Philmark,
but also quite ironically, she encountered a new connection...
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"..."
"..."
Chichi trudged along wordlessly, and Delin followed by her side.
After sending Arwen back to her hometown, the two were traveling together.
But a strange air flowed between them.
Awkward, yet gloomy, a drooping atmosphere unique to just the two of them...
"Where are we going?"
Delin asked.
Since he was currently riding on Chichi's broom, he couldn't be separated from her.
The option of staying in Arwen's village had existed, but if they stayed in the village and Neva and Philmark came rushing in, wouldn't that cause harm to the good villagers?
Thus, Delin ultimately chose to leave with Chichi. Of course, he had already created a save point near the entrance of Arwen's village.
"I don't know either."
Chichi's voice was listless.
She was a woman who had lost the meaning of her life overnight, so that was only to be expected.
Worn out, depressed,
wondering what on earth she had been struggling so hard for up until now,
worried about what she should live for now,
yet still not letting Delin go...
"Just. Let's go to another city for now."
"But why are we walking instead of flying on the broom?"
"Just feel like walking a bit."
"...Well, fine."
Delin briefly gazed at Chichi's strengthless back.
He didn't hold any favorable feelings for her, but seeing her so drained like that was pitiful nonetheless.
"You could just teach me how to ride the broom and leave. You don't want to be with me anymore anyway. Well... unless you're dragging me around thinking of tormenting me, then I guess it can't be helped."
"..."
Because of the incident with Arwen, Delin had firmed his resolve.
Since other men in this other world would have to suffer like him, he had made an altruistic resolution to directly dedicate his own body and travel around!
Perhaps as an isekai summoning bonus, or something of the sort, his body seemed to attract the gazes of women more readily, and was sturdy enough to even handle their sexual desires.
So he decided to push through this world based on that sturdiness—or overwhelming prowess.
Better that I be the one to suffer. Rather than other people suffering and living with lifelong trauma...
Well, and also, truthfully,
he was gradually becoming accustomed to the pleasure the women gave him.
The psychological revulsion he felt at first had long since been washed away by repeated rape and gang rape,
and now he had reached the point where he could afford a degree of composure even in situations where he was being violated by them.
In a way, that could even be called a kind of growth.
Or it could also be called a defense mechanism to maintain his sanity...
"But know this one thing for sure. It wasn't me who did wrong, it was Chichi-ssi and the other witches. I only did what I had to do. I've said everything I needed to say, so do as you please now."
"I don't particularly have any intention of tormenting you. I don't even want to torment you. I'm just worried about what I should do from now on..."
Within the empty void, Chichi had no intention of giving up Delin, the sole thing that lifted her spirits.
She could no longer ignore the strange feeling she harbored for him.
However, following that feeling and accompanying Delin came with one considerably large problem,
which was that while she could have protected Delin from Philmark and Neva if she were with the other witches, right now she was alone.
No matter how well she fought, she wouldn't be able to avoid death or an injury nearing it.
Neva and Philmark were not easy opponents.
She could not hold them off alone.
"...This is a big problem. Really."
She didn't want to die.
But at the same time, she didn't want to give up Delin.
Her previous empty life...
Unlike that time when she wasn't even afraid of death and just lived as things went,
she now desired to survive this empty life somehow.
Chichi, having lost her original life's purpose, now had a new one:
it was simply the one man riding on her broom.
In her former life, always absorbed in magic, she had no survival instinct,
but the secret feelings she harbored for the man contained a bizarre survival instinct to ensure she survived at all costs.
"...!"
Perhaps it was because of that survival instinct.
Chichi's eyes flew open as she grabbed her broom again.
"Aiit!"
Because of that, Delin briefly landed hard on his backside on the ground,
but right now there was no time to spare for such minor pain.
She warned the sharp gaze she sensed among the dark thickets.
"Show yourself. Right now."
That intense presence, akin to a wild beast, was easily comparable to Philmark and Neva.
Chichi instinctively blocked Delin's front and entered a combat stance. Three or four blue magic circles manifested before her in perfect form...
"I will count to three. One. Two..."
Just one second before countless mana crystals poured out from there!
"Halt. This humble one means you no harm. I am always yearning for battle with the strong, but I believe now is not the time to fight."
Along with a fairly courteous voice, a long tail and perked ears poked out from the thickets.
"However, this is perplexing. Would you mind explaining to me why the scents of the criminals I am chasing are coming from you?"