The Slave Hunters
They were masters of elf-hunting.
And why wouldn't they be? They had been at the work for years. If they were not masters, who was?
Elf-hunting had always been a dangerous trade, save for those earliest days when the restraints that sealed elven magic first appeared. And the risk only climbed as the years went on. Ten years in, a single expedition had grown perilous enough that losing a man or two was hardly worth a laugh. The clumsy ones had all died off across that decade. Stories of unlucky hunters who went after elves only to be taken themselves and dragged into the elves' horrific arenas were not even uncommon news in the business.
So when they were in the thick of passing an elf woman around to their hearts' content, taking their pleasure, and a recruit dropped among them with a splitting shriek—thud!—their movements were swift.
Live long enough in this trade, and if you mean to keep living, you learn a few things. You learn that the restraints which seal elven magic are not perfect objects, and that every so often—rarely, but it happens—they simply fail to do their job. And if that situation ever comes to pass, you are facing an elf who has clawed one step back from the threshold of hell in the instant before being dragged off as a slave to serve as a human plaything. You are facing an enraged mage with the reins cut.
If something bewildering happens mid-expedition, get clear of that spot at once. Because there is a high chance a magical bombardment is about to land right there.
Do not feed a captured elf slave. Because if the restraints happen to fail, you want even the slightest edge in putting the elf down.
Those were the two great maxims handed down among elf hunters. And so they scattered at once. The more they spread, the lower the odds of being caught by magic. In the process, not one of them spared a thought for the recruit thrashing on the ground beside them. In this business a newcomer was meat-shield fodder from the start, a sacrifice kept on hand for when things went sideways—dimwits who had wandered lightly into the trade, dazzled by talk of a fortune overnight and the chance to hold an elf in their arms. Spending fellows like that to save a veteran's life was the obvious choice, if anything was. And if a recruit happened to survive a few expeditions... well, then you treated him as a colleague.
The scattered hunters seized their arms. They kicked the dull recruits in the rear, forced shields into their hands, and shoved them to the front, while a few senior hunters fell in behind. A vanguard to draw the eyes of the elf raging out front and threaten her, and a strike team to hit from the rear—they took their places as naturally as breathing. Aside from the boss, the most experienced seniors took hold of the steel net. Woven from fine, tough wire that carried the craft of Macaia, the net did not snap easily even under a fair amount of magical fire. It would buy them the time they needed to rush the prey and clamp the restraints on. Better still, luck had been with them this expedition; they had not yet needed the net, so it was in peak condition. Cover her properly, and they ought to be able to shove the thrashing elf back into a cage. Surely the odds of two restraints failing in a row were vanishingly small.
And so, when they finished their preparations and turned back, the elf was still standing exactly where she had been, as if she had been waiting for them.
"..."
At the sight of her, the hunters felt their throats go dry for reasons they could not name. They scanned the surroundings. No one was dead. The faces they knew were the faces they knew. Even the recruit rolling on the ground in pain was not dead yet. This was plainly not a normal case.
Veterans or not, swift as they had been, they had been in the middle of passing an unarmed elf woman around. If that elf had come at them meaning to kill, at least three or four of them ought to have been on the ground. That was normal. And yet not one of them was dead—not so much as a scratch? (The nameless recruit flailing over there obviously did not count.) The camp was not even burning or torn apart in places? The only thing that had changed was that the elf they had been passing around was nowhere to be seen.
At that sight, the instincts of men who had rolled through ten years of the trade seemed to sound an alarm. They ignored it. The opponent was merely arrogant, merely careless. The more that was true, the higher their chances of victory. So they told themselves. And no wonder—the elf before their eyes was far too beautiful to flee over a bad feeling. They knew the reward that would come from taking her. Years in the trade had taught them exactly what she was worth, and that knowledge paralyzed reason and instinct alike.
They held their tension and studied her. If there was any sign she was casting, they would have to move at once. Elven magic activated far faster than that of ordinary human mages; they could not afford to let their guard slip. The net-bearer sent a covert hand signal, measuring the timing.
"Surrender. One of you can't do a thing. We don't want to put scars on you for nothing either!"
To draw her eyes, the most senior hunter of the vanguard started running his mouth. Fortunately, the elf's gaze stayed fixed on the front. The strike team's senior weighed the opening with care. The moment the net bound that insolent elf bitch, they would all rush in and get the restraints on her somehow. If only that happened...
I'll make her pay in full for all the trouble she's caused.
She was one of the two their boss, Ander, had warned them never to lay a hand on—he did not care about the rest—but that hardly mattered. In a job this close to death, you could not work without a little something on the side. The boss knew the nature of the trade better than anyone. He would understand.
Gulp—
Someone swallowed. Hard to say who. Maybe every hunter present did.
And then—
Whoosh—
The steel net flew. The elf was still standing there. No prelude of magic on that body. Not even the prelude of a movement...
BOOM—
A storm came down.
The steel net struck the earth with a pitiful thud. A net that ought to have bound an elf tight was shoved aside by the aftermath of force, fluttering like a leaf before it dropped in a far corner.
"Hm—"
Stillness settled over the space. Only Artia's bewildered voice rang out, thin and scattered. A silence in which even breathing seemed a luxury, and within it the shock could be felt, vivid and raw. Even Artia, the one who had caused it, felt her heart hammering in surprise—so what must the ones who had taken that force full-on be feeling? If one were to describe the elf hunters' faces... yes. Like the shocked expression from a certain famous pirate manga back on modern Earth.
Whoooosh—
The gale kicked up by the force blew the dust clear, and what it revealed was, from the hunters' point of view, nothing short of wretched. Their special shields—big things, reinforced with especially hard wood and metal—were shattered to pieces. Literally. The human bodies that had been bracing behind them had, of course, been flung far off and were thrashing where they landed. The men beside them, and the ones who had been aiming crossbows from the rear, were little different. The shockwave of that immense force did not bother to distinguish a direct hit from anything else.
And even this was the result of Artia pulling her strength at the last instant, having gotten the distinct feeling that if she simply threw the punch as it was, something very large and very awful was about to unfold—the sort of scene that would need an R-rating as a baseline. Had she not eased off, bright reds and pinks would have spread like modern art into a truly fantastic mess.
Thud—
Artia kicked off the ground again. Bewildering as the situation was, she had done it herself, so she recovered a little faster. Her aim from the start had been to take the elf hunters down in a single sweep. There had been a small error in power control, but that itself was no great problem. What she needed now was speed. She had shown far too much force in the opening exchange. Move late, and they would scatter in every direction, and things would get tiresome.
The elf hunters she faced did not look exceptional as individuals, but their strength as a group was nothing to dismiss. Even while they had been sunk in pleasure, passing an elf woman around, the moment they sensed something had gone wrong they had all set desire aside and moved to get clear of the dangerous ground. After that, in an instant, they had split into a vanguard to draw aggro and a strike team to drive in the real blade—the net, in this case?—and formed an encirclement. Watch that coordination unfold like flowing water, and anyone could see these were no random rabble. People who showed this much unity would have a loyalty of their own. Let even a few slip away, and she had a feeling that getting the captured elves somewhere safe would turn into a thorough nuisance.
Crash!
Every time Artia's body cut the wind, every time that fist swung once, elf hunters broke apart in an instant. Anyone with even a little grounding in unarmed combat would have clicked their tongue and lamented at the way she moved. The ridiculous fists of a child swinging wild. But if what those fists held was a strength that could crush even solid rock, the ones who had to meet it directly would never manage a laugh. To begin with, the speed was so great that not one person present could properly see her move.
Still, a few seemed more skilled than the rest, and tried to resist by drawing their weapons. The edges of blades glittered under the sun, but that was all. Steel that would ordinarily have split human skin and muscle with ease was simply crushed beneath the elf's unreasonable strength.
Crack!
"Guhk—"
"Kek!"
Elf hunters rolling on the ground multiplied in an instant. An arm or a leg snapped and twisted, or they bled in streams where fragments of the blades they had swung shattered and struck them.
Ah— this is seriously fucked. Who the hell was that bastard yelling that a mage is still a person, and if you just get close and cut them the knife still goes in?
No one said it aloud, but everyone still standing shared the same thought. They had to run. Looking at that monstrous elf's movement, it was doubtful whether running would even get them clear—but run they must. How to slip free? In this moment there was no bond of years spent sharing hardship, and no loyalty. Better that bastard take the hit than me, and better that the piece of shit I had always thought was an asshole eat it than that bastard. But how, exactly? Move first and live? Or eat the first blow?
A suffocating battle of nerves. A battlefield wrapped in silence. And into that silence came, for them, an unexpected thread of hope.
"You there, elf—stop right where you are."