106. Finals Are... Out of Service (8)
106. Finals Are... Out of Service (8)
"Ugh, I wanna get off this island..."
"Same here."
I shook the blood off my shovel and surveyed the destruction. Fortunately or unfortunately, it hadn't taken us long to reach the scene of the incident. The island was so small, it was only natural.
Several golden-brown roasted monstrosities were visible, but Lewis's party was nowhere to be seen. Where had they fled to? I lopped off the heads of the still-twitching creatures one by one, searching for any trace of people.
I found signs of people after I'd turned roughly twenty monster heads into soccer balls.
"Yohan! There are footprints over here!"
"Are they the right ones?"
"These footprints are evenly spaced!"
The monstrosities did have 'human' bodies, so they did leave footprints.
The creatures shuffled as they moved, leaving similarly messy tracks. Human footprints were normally more orderly, so the difference was obvious. I went to the spot Sif had indicated and examined them.
"Looks like a match."
Toward the sea, then.
A reasonably smart choice. They had no way of knowing how many more of those things were out there, so blindly heading deeper into the forest would have been tantamount to suicide. Without a means to escape the threat like I had, the sea, with its wide-open visibility on all sides, might actually have been the better option.
"Sif. We're moving to the southern shore."
"Wow, you can still stomach jerky after seeing something like that."
"Even when you don't feel like eating, you eat if you want to live. That's the rule."
It was the first lesson I learned on the uninhabited island. To survive, you had to replenish calories, no matter the situation.
Oh, except mushrooms.
I quickened my pace south with jerky still between my teeth. The sea should have been close. Avoiding the increasingly sparse creatures, we reached a beach left in complete disarray.
"Whoa, there's a ton of corpses here too..."
"Over there."
Footprints not yet washed away by the waves, and a long, drawn-out trail of blood. We followed the blood trail along the beach.
...How much farther had we walked?
We spotted a grotesque creature's tentacle flying through the air. Severed by something sharp, it splashed into the sea and spread a dark red stain.
"Who goes there...! You're... a knight?"
"We're allies. Lower your weapon."
At my words, Lewis panted and lowered his sword. He really was the protagonist, wasn't he? Lewis looked fine aside from a few minor scratches. Shuri looked fine too, without a single injury. The nameless alchemist, however...
"Yohan, that..."
"Don't say it."
I took bandages from my backpack and approached them. The owner of the blood trail was gritting their teeth, clutching the wound, and groaning, with no attention to spare for their surroundings. I passed Lewis and Shuri, who looked outwardly fine, untied the torn cloth wrapped around the alchemist's wound, and checked its condition.
"This is..."
"V-Viola tried to protect me... and that m-monster bit her..."
Was it poison? Or something like a virus? I handed the alchemist, whose skin now showed blue veins like something out of a zombie movie, over to Sif and turned my gaze to the protagonist and the heroine looking at me. A strange expression mixed with curiosity and relief. I glanced at the horde of monstrosities approaching from afar and addressed them.
"You seem to have a lot of questions, but save them for later. Retreat comes first."
Everyone nodded at my words.
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"It hurts..."
After bandaging the wound, I took out another bandage and tied it tightly around her upper arm. Then I questioned Shuri, who was fidgeting beside me.
"How long since the injury?"
"A-about an hour..."
"What caused it?"
"A m-monster bit her..."
Bitten by a monster, huh. It really was a shame the priest burned to death.
I'd brought potions just in case, but they were useless for this kind of wound. It needed cauterization—or an even more drastic treatment. I glanced at the campfire in the center of camp, then looked back at the student named Viola.
"Hey, can you hear me?"
"I-I can..."
"The situation isn't good. The blue veins showing through your skin are creeping farther up your arm—"
"B-Brown...?"
"Dead."
At the news of Brown's death, Viola's face grew even paler. Perhaps she'd lost her final hope. Ignoring the despair slowly appearing on her face, I continued.
"The priest is dead, so we have two options. Endure while praying that the injury doesn't spread through your whole body until we get back... or...
"...cut off the arm."
Something like a virus was clearly spreading up her arm, leaving amputation as the only drastic option. Viola squeezed her eyes shut at my words, and tears spilled from her swollen eyes.
There was no other choice.
I placed the shovel I had wiped clean with cloth into the campfire and began heating it.
"Shuri... was it?"
"Y-yes!"
"Hold her down. The pain will be difficult to endure—"
I raised the red-hot shovel above my head. The target was the shoulder. There was no worry about missing. A shovel was, after all, a tool I wielded expertly. Viola opened her eyes, looked up at me, then closed them again. It would be far too cruel to watch her own arm being cut off.
My shovel fell toward Viola's shoulder like a merciless guillotine. A sickening resistance traveled up the handle, and blood splattered across my face.
"It huuurts!"
A scream filled with agony. Hot blood. But there was no time to hesitate.
I cauterized the cut with the flat of the heated shovel, then quickly covered it with bandages. Fortunately, Viola managed to endure the excruciating pain.
"Shuri, there's water in a canteen. Give some to Viola. I have work to do, so if you need anything, tell that cat over there."
"Eh? What things?"
Sif, who had been applying ointment to the wounds on Lewis's body, asked me. I answered without looking at her.
"Going to get water."
With more people to support, food might be difficult, but securing a source of water was essential.
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"I'm so relieved there was someone else in the rift besides us..."
It was a comment Laperinne suddenly made, sitting with a noticeably more relaxed expression. At those words, Lewis and Shuri found themselves nodding along.
Because it was true.
Without him, they would have become food for those monstrosities by now, or perhaps...
Everyone stared at Viola's severed arm, which still writhed like a mollusk. What was that thing? Sif ignored the commotion, rummaged through her backpack, and pulled out a bundle of jerky.
She'd brought enough to fill a third of the large backpack, so there was still plenty of food. The Thief Cat, suddenly saddled with four patients, sighed inwardly as she tore sheets of jerky as broad as a notebook and handed them to Lewis's party.
"Hungry, right? Eat this at least."
"Thank you..."
"Thank you."
"I'll definitely repay this kindness someday."
Lewis's party chewed on the jerky. Having eaten nothing all day, they devoured the salty jerky in a flash. Sif chuckled, tore off more jerky to hand to them, and passed over a canteen for them to drink.
"A building in a place like this... That's incredible."
"I was surprised too. Rifts truly are fascinating places..."
Having taken a simple meal and gained some breathing room, the party belatedly looked around the camp and voiced their thoughts. They admired the camp like primitive people discovering fire. Sif watched them and spoke with a mischievous smile.
"Yohan made this, you know?"
"Huh?"
"This was made yesterday."
"What do you..."
Laperinne looked at Sif with an uncertain gaze, unable to tell if she was being teased or if it was true. Regardless, Sif repeated herself confidently.
"Yohan's got a knack for this kind of thing, you see. He made this right after we fell into the rift yesterday."
"Was he a Wizard? I could barely sense any mana from him..."
"Nope."
Sif shook her head at Laperinne's question.
"What? Then how..."
"I think it's a Skill. He's never told me, so I don't know for sure."
"That's an incredible Skill. A building like this in a single day..."
"Something like this is possible with a Skill? Shuri, is it possible to build a house like this with a Skill?"
At Lewis's disbelieving voice, Shuri, a known bookworm, answered hesitantly.
"I've never heard of it either..."
It looked as though the building had been made by packing earth into a mold and hardening it, but constructing even something like this in a single day was absurd. Despite Sif's explanation, the party only stared at her skeptically.
'People who saw what Yohan did always had that look on their faces.'
A small smile spread across her lips at the amusing sight, despite the grim situation.
They had just begun to relax and talk when sudden footsteps made everyone look toward the stairs. A familiar man was coming up into the camp.
"Sif. Gather all the canteens. I've secured drinking water, so we'll transfer it all."
"I'll help."
Lewis, who had been resting against a wall, stood up and began picking up the canteens scattered on the floor. As he rose, Shuri hesitated for a moment before speaking up.
"I-I'll help too!"
"No, Shuri. You look after Viola."
"O-okay... Be careful!"
"Don't worry."
Shuri and Lewis exchanged an affectionate look. Watching this, Yohan clicked his tongue.
'They were making goo-goo eyes at each other.'
"Then we'll depart..."
"I'll lend a hand as well."
Finally, the heiress of House Nereid joined the water-resupply effort.