The Slave Hunters
A pale flash of lightning.
A spear of thunder, loosed with a speed that could only be called instantaneous, drove straight for Artia, still bound in the net of lightning.
A single instant.
Intercepting a Great Thunder Spear once it had been fired was an art that demanded the full concentration of even a high-rank warrior. Artia knew no swordsmanship, not even the fundamentals of a brawl, so rather than attempt anything clever she simply thrust a hand forward. She trusted her own body.
Vajra Indestructibility.
If she went down to a mere intermediate spell, those four characters would have every right to weep buckets.
And so the magical light, kin to the wrath of heaven, sank into Artia's palm without the slightest resistance, as if it had been sucked in.
Kzzzzzt—
The spear of lightning bared its fangs, determined to burn, melt, and pierce through everything in its path. A bolt that would have erased a knight's steel plate and a master warrior's woven mana armor with equal indifference—why, then, was it struggling? It writhed, helpless, against the hand of a single elf: a hand so smooth, so slender, so beautiful that one could only call it exquisite.
"Wh-what is that—"
Pale lightning thrashed, spraying bolts in every direction. Crackle! Crackle-crack! Fragments of the bolt scorched and melted everything they touched to black.
But the beautiful elf's hand remained beautiful. Not a wound. Not a scratch.
The savage beast—the spear of lightning—steadily lost its light and its strength.
And then—
Squeeze—
CRASH!
The elf's open hand closed just a little, and the spear shattered like glass.
"F-fuck, that can't—that can't be—"
Ander's voice, thick with shock and horror, rang hollow through the space where the lightning had vanished.
A Great Thunder Spear, stopped by a bare hand?
Say a thing like that in a tavern and they'd beat you half to death for talking nonsense. Who blocks a Great Thunder Spear with their bare hands? Even a warrior who had reached the higher realms would be a fool to try it. Dodging it, cutting it—maybe. Catching it barehanded?
"A lie—an illusion? Yeah, an illusion—"
Like most people confronted with something they simply could not believe, Ander reacted in the usual way. Denial.
"Hah—one more. Fuck, this is really the last one—"
He pulled another scroll from his pocket. If the first shot didn't do it, you just used another, right? The target had taken one dead-on, so the damage had to be—
But Ander's desperate flailing died before it could even begin.
Ziiing—
A streak of light shot in from the far side, pierced his hand along with the scroll, and burned them both.
"Gyaaaaaah—fuck—"
"Hah—hah—a-are you all right? Lady Artia!"
Even as he screamed from the pain of his burning hand, Ander somehow gathered his wits and looked toward where the light had come from.
There, in the shadow of the wagon, stood an elf who had burst out at some moment he hadn't noticed, still frozen in the pose of an outstretched hand, breathing hard.
It was Elgaia.
Artia had undone her restraints before joining the fight, and Elgaia, watching for any chance to help even a little, had sniped Ander.
"There's another elf loose from the restraints? How the fuck little do those mage-tower bastards actually work?!"
Watching her, Ander exploded in curses and rage, while the elf hunters around him broke into a cold sweat and eyed one another. From their perspective, it was pure despair. They hadn't been able to handle Artia alone, and now there was another freed elf. There was simply no answer.
Veterans that they were, the elf hunters grasped reality in an instant, and every face went dark.
"Hm."
Artia clicked her tongue and looked down at her perfectly unharmed hand. For having taken a spell dead-on, there wasn't a trace of sensation left in it. She shook the hand out, then gave a short nod of thanks to Elgaia, who had forced out magic even though her condition was nowhere near normal.
Artia wouldn't have been hurt if Elgaia had simply left it alone—but people have hearts, don't they?
After that, she moved at once.
This bastard. He dared stab me in the back? She hadn't taken a scratch, but insolence was still insolence.
Thud! Crack! Boom! Snap! Crunch! Crush!
"Guhk!"
"Agh!"
"Kyeok!"
"Krugh!"
A storm passed through them. The elf hunters were sprawled with their limbs shattered before they even registered that something had happened to them.
A very short time later, Artia appeared before the leader, who was groaning as he clutched his burned hand.
"I'll give you credit for not running, and for staying put like a good boy."
"W-wait! Elf! A-Arti? Artia! Lady Artia! L-let me talk! I—I was wrong! Please—gyaaaaaaah!"
Artia took special care in shattering the limbs of the rotten bastard who called himself their captain—thoroughly enough, unlike the others, that no ordinary potion would erase the disability. For him, this might hurt more than dying. The comfortable old age he had dreamed of was gone forever.
"Thank you, Lady Artia!"
"Thank you!"
After dealing with the elf hunters, Artia was personally undoing the restraints of the captured elves, one by one. Ordinarily she ought to have used the key taken from the hunters, but there had been an unfortunate accident. When a slightly irritated Artia had carefully tenderized the elf-hunter captain—Ander—rotten luck had seen the restraint key in his clothes thoroughly tenderized along with him.
Using something that had gone from a key to something that used to be a key was out of the question. Which left only one way to deal with the restraints wound around the elves' wrists: Artia taking them apart herself, one at a time.
It wasn't hard work, but it was a nuisance, and more than that, a little embarrassing. Every time she undid a restraint, beauties and handsome faces—people who, back on Earth, could easily have been the faces of a generation—bowed and thanked her with desperate sincerity right in front of her. For Artia, whose immunity in this department was sorely lacking, it left an itch in one side of her chest she couldn't sit still through.
In any case, after she endured a bit of embarrassment, every elf present had finally found their freedom.
Wah! Clap, clap, clap!
The slave merchant's wagon that had caged the elves became, in reverse, a wagon for caging the slave hunters, and the hunters' camp would be put to thrifty use as a place for the elves to gather themselves. The camp filled with cheers and joy.
Of course, they were in the Shiland Hills, ground that might as well have been enemy territory, and who knew what dangers would follow before they reached their homeland of Orteia. But for this one day, surely they could cast every worry aside and simply enjoy the relief.
Watching the elves seated around the campfire, deep in their meal, Artia smiled without meaning to. Watching the people she had saved was a strange feeling.
Looking around like that, her eyes found Elgaia moving among them. Even in a crowd of elves packed with beautiful faces, Elgaia's presence shone. A rather large pot in one hand, portioning out food, she looked like an angel.
She's really something to look at.
She was thinking that when Elgaia came over, a bowl of soup in each hand.
"Lady Artia. Here."
"Ah—you're here?"
Steam curled up from the soup, carrying a savory, salty, genuinely appetizing scent. She had no idea what it was made of, but it felt a bit like Earth's porridge, maybe. Artia took the bowl and spoon Elgaia offered and reflexively blew on the soup. Hoo—hoo—
Honestly, her expectations weren't high. Think of modern Earth's diet—abundant spices, every kind of fresh ingredient, cuisine from all over the world at your fingertips—and no matter how fantastical the setting, the quality of a meal in a medieval-flavored world was obvious. The one mercy, perhaps, was that even on Earth Artia had never been a picky eater.
She scooped up a wooden spoonful. The warmth of the steaming soup was appealing, and the scent riding the air, quietly teasing her nose, was better than she'd expected. Whatever it was, this was her first meal in another world—her first meal after working her body hard, at that. Unless it was truly awful, hunger makes the best sauce, and Artia was confident she could enjoy this whatever-it-was, porridge or soup. Besides, a transcendentally beautiful elf was right beside her. Wouldn't the food go down smoothly just from looking at that face?
All right. Mysterious otherworld food—I'll give you a try. Hup!
Hm?
The result: it tasted pretty good. Properly salty, properly savory, the kind of flavor that didn't get old. Like spring sunlight, maybe. To someone used to every stimulating taste on modern Earth—to a Korean for whom spice was the baseline—it was a little plain.
Well. Not bad.
Nom, nom.
A bowl of food after doing a good deed. If that wasn't happiness and a sense of reward, what was?