Ambush at the Water's Edge
[Grrr.]
"Rai!"
I wrung out my hair and stepped out of the water to find Rai baring his teeth at a small child, gums and all.
The moment he spotted me, he quickly hid his fangs and pretended to lick the top of the child's head.
[Ugh, what a cute little human brat.]
The licking looked painfully awkward.
When Rai was in his wolf form, he had a habit of showing the whites of his eyes whenever he was guilty and trying not to get caught by me.
Just like now.
"You weren't about to bite him, were you?"
[What are you saying! There's no way someone as virtuous as me would do such a thing! What an unpleasant misunderstanding!]
"Do you even know what 'virtuous' means? You're the one who enjoys watching your master suffer."
[That's not true? I was just quietly guarding Master's clothes like this. I'm Rai, the loyal hound.]
Maybe this guy didn't really care that he was a spirit. Maybe he wasn't even a spirit at all.
When I gave him a suspicious glare, Rai immediately flopped down and rolled over, exposing his belly.
I plopped down on his back without ceremony and started picking up the clothes I'd left beside him, putting them on one by one.
Rai's wolf form made a decent chair. He was rock-solid, so there wasn't much comfort, but he was sturdy enough.
"Jeanie, how many days were you planning to stay here?"
"Hmm... I'm still thinking. Maybe one or two more days? Would that be all right?"
"Of course. You could stay longer if you want. If you'd like, I can look into finding you an empty house."
I finished tying the drawstring of my undergarments into a tight ribbon and looked up.
"An empty house? Didn't you say staying in the village for long wouldn't be possible?"
"That was before you did us a favor. Everyone's quite fond of you now, so a week should be fine."
A week. That was tempting.
Thanks to an unwanted stay in a dragon's lair, I'd slept on bare ground for two whole months, and even after escaping, I'd wandered the vast forest for ten days. What I needed most right now was stability.
Things like a comfortable bed and a proper, well-seasoned meal.
After a moment of thought, I shook my head.
"No. It's a shame, but I'll leave the day after tomorrow."
I slipped my feet into my leather boots and stood up.
"You must still be tired. Are you sure?"
"By then the fatigue should be mostly gone... and more importantly, I need to contact my family and friends as soon as possible."
"If that's the case, there's no helping it."
"They must be worried about me."
Worried whether I'd died peacefully, whether any bones remained, whether I'd been buried somewhere underground. That kind of worry.
First, I had to let them know I was alive.
Since I'd been kidnapped by a dragon over two months ago, no one would still be clinging to false hope that I might be alive and suffering for it.
"Then I'll have the horses ready in time."
"Thank you. Just thinking about walking out of here makes me... By the way, how do I return the horse?"
"There's an inn our tribe members always use when they go to Mielta. You can leave it there."
"Leave it there? Will one of your tribesmen come pick it up later? That feels like too much trouble..."
"No, it'll be used by the next tribesman heading into the city."
So that was how it worked. I nodded in understanding, and Arnel smiled lightly as she pulled on her leather shirt.
"Though you'll have to stay at the inn for about a day."
"That's the least I can do. What's the name of the inn? Is the city large? I'll need communication facilities to contact my family and the academy."
"Of course. Mielta is a big city. One of the few in Moran that has a mage tower."
"That's a relief."
This world didn't have many means of communication.
Letters were common, but they took three or four months at minimum, making them useless for urgent news.
Nobles mainly used telegrams, though not through mechanical devices. Instead, they relied purely on magic, which meant they could only be sent between cities with mage towers.
The advantage was speed; the disadvantages were the high cost and the fact that someone had to transcribe and deliver the message, making the contents easy to leak.
The method I planned to use was the fastest and most expensive form of magical communication—in short, a magical video call.
Through a round glass orb like a witch's crystal ball, you could see the other person's face and talk. It, too, could only be used at a mage tower.
"Undine!"
I summoned Undine and grabbed the presence that had been bothering me the whole time, right after I'd finished dressing.
While pretending to chat with Arnel, I'd noticed a small presence following me and ambushed it from behind a rock.
"Kyaa!"
The moment Undine was summoned, she swiftly snatched the presence and trapped it in water before bringing it before me.
Got you, you little rascal!
Trapped inside the water droplet was a girl I'd never seen before.
"Einy?"
"......Ah."
So she was Arnel's daughter!
Then why not just say something instead of sneaking around and following me? How suspicious!
[She's been following us the whole time.]
[You knew?]
[Yes. She seemed to be Arnel's daughter, so I left her alone. She's been following us since we left the house.]
I gestured for Undine to release the child.
As a bonus, I also dried the water from her soaked body.
Einy's eyes darted around anxiously, still shaken from being trapped in the water droplet, before she dashed behind Arnel and hid.
The way she peered out at me from behind Arnel's legs was exactly like a baby lynx.
"Sh... she's weird!"
"Einy, I told you not to be rude to guests."
"But she was talking to the wolf! I saw it! The wolf talked!"
[What! There's a talking wolf? Where!]
Idiot.
[Rai, she's talking about you.]
[Huh?]
Wait a second.
Now that I thought about it, this was strange.
How had this kid heard Rai's voice? A spirit's voice should only be audible to its master.
Unless she was a spirit herself. But no matter how I looked at her, she was just an ordinary human child.
"What are you talking about, Einy?"
"It's true! That wolf and that person! I heard them talking to each other! They're still doing it!"
Oh my. So she really could hear.
I looked down at Rai.
Rai blinked his large eyes up at me.
"That wolf must be possessed by a demon!"
"Einy!"
"That sister must be a witch too!"
People had often called me a witch before. Even at the academy, my nickname had been "Witch of the Annex."
Kids generally feared me.
I knew why. It was because I didn't smile for the sake of their emotional stability.
What could I do? I just didn't like kids.
I couldn't be unkind to myself just to be nice to others.
"I'm sorry, Jeanie. Einy gets scared easily."
"It's really true! Mom!"
"I'm used to it. It's not the first or second time kids have disliked me..."
I stopped mid-sentence because of a chilling sensation.
Arnel and I both turned sharply toward the riverbank at the same time.
A split second later, a piercing scream tore through the air from that direction.
The sound of something splashing anxiously against the water reached us, stirring unease.
What shattered the peaceful afternoon was the presence of multiple hostile entities.
"Lizardmen!"
[Whoa, there's a lot of them.]
There were over twenty of the monsters, even at a glance.
They were crossing the narrow river with alarming speed.
Only their vicious heads visible above the water made them look like a pack of crocodiles.
Lizardmen, who could breathe underwater, were highly intelligent monsters sometimes classified as a demi-human race.
They traveled in groups, hunted intelligently, and possessed culture and language. They could even communicate with humans.
Yet opinions remained divided on whether to classify them as demi-humans or monsters because of their hyena-like habit of devouring even their own kind, along with humans and anything else they could eat.
Our luck was rotten. Lizardmen at the riverbank.
And of all times, when everyone was undressed and unarmed.
[It seems like they deliberately timed this.]
Rai stood up and looked toward the riverbank, scratching his ear with a hind leg as he spoke like it was someone else's problem.
[Looks like it. They really are smart, just like they say.]
[Even so, this is an ambush. Aren't you being a bit too calm, Master?]
[You're one to talk.]
I was definitely relaxed.
Watching the lizardmen emerge from the water—over two meters tall, proudly displaying their fierce teeth and swinging their long, thick tails freely—my only thought was whether their tails would regenerate if cut off.
They looked reptilian, yet walked on two legs and moved freely in water. What strange hybrids.
I'd known they were common in the jungle, but this was my first time seeing them in person.
There hadn't been any near the dragon's lair.
"We have to go."
Unlike me, who was leisurely observing, Arnel quickly snapped off a tree branch and shoved Einy deep into the bushes.
"Einy, stay quiet here."
"Mom! Don't go."
"I have to!"
"I-I'm scared... Can't I just go home?"
"No. They might be attacking from other directions too. You have to stay here. Understand?"
Arnel's firm instructions to the trembling Einy felt strangely familiar.
It reminded me of long ago, when I was still young and an ogre had attacked our mercenary group. Arnel had hidden me just like this.
Back then, I hadn't known what I could do.
Just like this kid now, I'd been at a complete loss.
While I glanced down at Einy, Arnel had already sprinted toward the riverbank.
Despite the chaos, the tribespeople moved in perfect unison.
They grabbed whatever was within reach and blocked the lizardmen from reaching the village.
They were a brave tribe.
The only ones fleeing were the very young children.
"Undine."
Even so, what could they possibly do with mere clubs?
If more people got injured, I'd end up having to heal them again, so I moved to prevent that.
Not that I was particularly trying to help them.