The Adventurer Who Fled
"Hey, Levan."
"What."
"I think someone's yelling for help."
I pushed myself up on unsteady legs, and Levan looked at me as if I'd lost my mind. The pity in his eyes, as he took in the sight of me standing there with my sword hanging limp in my grip, was almost worse than the ache in my body.
"Looks like that fight hit you harder than I thought. Here. Chew on this, at least."
Is that it? Have I actually gone funny in the head?
I reached for the green herb he held out, and then the sound came again.
"Aaaaaah! Somebody help meee!"
It was terribly faint, but there was no mistaking it. Levan didn't seem to hear a thing.
Why only me? Don't tell me this is the Goddess's power... If it's out here hunting down quests for me on its own, that might actually be it.
"I'm going to take a quick look around. Stay here."
"What? Hey!"
I didn't waste time thinking it over. I just ran. If someone needed help, then helping them was exactly what I had to do right now. Getting stronger meant doing things for the sake of the world — and besides, I couldn't have ignored a cry like that even if I'd wanted to.
I followed the sound.
It was coming from a fair distance off, the kind of thing you wouldn't catch unless you were already listening for it. Someone was being chased. The pleas and the screams came in fits and starts, and I set my course by them and kept running. Even that was enough to tell me I was closing in.
"Aaaah! Uwaaah!"
A woman's voice, raw with desperation. It grew a little louder with every step, and the louder it got, the more frantic it became, ragged breathing tangled up in the cries. My own pace quickened to match.
The trees gave way at last to a river, and on the far side I saw someone sprinting toward me.
"Ah — ahh...! You! Please, help me!"
"Over here!"
She was bolting straight for the water without looking. I pointed her toward a bridge nearby. She veered at once, and from the direction she'd come, several goblins came bounding after her.
"Kieeet!"
"Kiik!"
"Kyaek!"
They made for the bridge as well, and in a moment all of us were up on it together.
The little monsters had been happily running down a human who did nothing but flee. The sight of me standing there with a sword in hand made them falter. They muttered among themselves for a breath — and then, all at once, they lunged.
"Kieee!"
The small creature flying at me seemed to hang in the air, slow as syrup. My senses felt sharper than usual.
Whoosh.
"Kek!"
The goblin still airborne with its dagger raised split clean in half under the downward stroke and died. I stepped in and cut upward through the next one charging in beside it. Its body tore open lengthwise, and goblin blood burst out and splattered hard across my clothes.
Once the ones that had rushed me were slaughtered, the rest simply turned and fled. I watched until they were gone, then looked back at the woman.
"Hah... hah... I'm alive. I think they're gone... urgh."
She'd been running for her life without a thought in her head, and now she simply folded to the ground and retched. How long has she been sprinting...?
"Ugh... huu..."
"You all right?"
"Yes. I... I nearly ran myself to death."
She looked like someone out adventuring on her own. Light armor covered her arms and legs. A blue muffler was wrapped around her neck, and a small sword was stuck into the heavy-looking pack on her back.
"Lucky I happened to be nearby."
Still on the ground, she crawled to the river, drank, and fought to get her breath back.
"It is. I almost thought about fighting them, but running was the right call. To meet a benefactor like this... hehe..."
Once she'd recovered a little, she set her pack aside and stood. She rummaged through her clothes and produced something like a medal, holding it out for me to see.
"Thank you. My name is Runesa. I was a vassal of Count Arer's house, and now that the Count has gone missing, I've been forced into becoming an adventurer."
Runesa of House Arer... A name I know, showing up for the first time in a long while.
A mercenary you could hire in Darkland. The worst of the lot, at that. Meeting her like this wasn't part of the scenario.
"Wh-what is this. What happened?"
I turned at the sound of Levan arriving late. He'd come after me in a hurry with the herb basket in hand, panting, and his worried eyes went from the dead goblins to the blood smeared across my torso.
"You okay? You get hurt again?"
"It's not my blood."
Once I told him I was fine, he let out a breath and finally turned his attention to Runesa beside me.
"Who's this. So there really was someone."
"Ah, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm, um... Runesa."
The introduction had shrunk considerably, but the smile she wore was as bright and unashamed as ever. Watching her, I caught my breath as well.
"More importantly, I was on my way to Belmor Castle. Are the two of you adventurers based out of Belmor?"
"Yeah. That's right."
While Levan handled her, I rinsed my sword in the river and stepped over beside the two of them.
"I was heading for Belmor. Would you be willing to let me come with you that far?"
At that, Levan looked at me.
"Come on."
Taking her along was the obvious thing to do, and yet some uneasy feeling kept telling me this was going to turn into a responsibility. Levan must have felt the same, which was why he'd hesitated.
"Yes! Thank you!"
The way her eyes lit up took another layer off my wariness.
"Hoo. Runesa, was it? You hurt anywhere?"
Once it was settled that we'd head back together, Levan turned a warm smile on her and asked. Why's he being so slick.
"Want one of these?"
"Oh, thank you!"
Runesa accepted a single herb and looked back and forth between it and Levan.
"Do you just... eat it?"
"Chew it well and it'll help you recover."
She stared at the herb, then set her jaw, put it in her mouth, and munched away.
"Edible?"
"Mm... yes. It's delicious."
Levan laughed and glanced at me.
"You two'll get along. She says it's good."
"You done gathering herbs?"
"I think we've got enough."
"Let's head back. Lingering where you've just fought is a bad idea."
Even when this world looked as real as the one I'd left, it still threw me whenever something I'd only ever seen in the game came charging in out of nowhere.
Runesa's existence hit that feeling harder than anything else. The people who were supposed to be in Belmor as NPCs, or someone like Levan, a human I'd simply met at the guild — those had been easy enough to accept.
It was nearly full night by the time we made it back to Belmor.
"House Arer, you said?"
"Yes. This here is the house seal."
At the gates of Belmor Castle, Runesa introduced herself to the guards, and before long we were allowed inside together. Even in a world like this, a noble name still made for a remarkably effective form of identification.
"Well, we're at the castle. What do you want to do? The inn's the way we're headed, and the guild's off that way, but..."
"I, for now..."
"Come with us for now. You look like you might be hurt, and we're going past the infirmary anyway."
At my words, Runesa's eyes sparkled and she nodded. Setting aside the fact that she was a character who used to drop from the gacha, she was plainly not someone you could leave on her own. Abandoning her would have felt like a crime. She had the look of a pitiful puppy.
"Thank you!"
"Yeah. That makes sense."
We headed for Airika's infirmary.
Airika was outside, sweeping the yard. When we turned up with a basket of herbs and an extra person in tow, her eyes went round and she looked from one of us to the other.
"You two... did you have a daughter you'd been hiding?"
"What are you talking about."
Even so, what kind of thing was that to say. I frowned at a thought I didn't want to entertain and shot Levan a look. He let out an awkward laugh and shrugged.
"Your jokes are getting out of hand, Airika."
Airika kept up that everyday smile of hers. Once the brief silence passed, Runesa launched into another lively introduction.
"I'm Runesa. These two saved me when I was about to die."
"Strictly speaking, that was me."
"Airika, the herbs."
Listening to Runesa's introduction, Airika took the herbs and checked them over.
"So Levan brought back the herbs, and Selen brought back a person."
Put that way, she wasn't wrong. Levan had done all the gathering.
"Come in, first. You look badly hurt."
She set the herbs down and looked at me before anyone else.
"The road out to gather herbs must have been rougher than expected."
"We ran into nolls, is all."
Levan cut in as if he were defending me. Not that it seemed necessary — right now Airika looked like the one feeling sorry.
"I thought it would be a light errand, but outside the castle is always dangerous, isn't it. I ought to be a little more grateful to the people who make it back alive."
"Our luck was just a bit bad this time."
Airika sighed as she wrapped fresh bandages over the wounds that had split open again after this morning's treatment.
"No drinking today. Go straight back and rest."
"Got it."
Once the treatment was done, we returned to the inn. Selling off a reasonable share of the loot from the nolls covered dinner.
"Um... may I eat too?"
It seemed Runesa had been wandering on her own for quite a while since leaving the count's house. The hunger showed plain as day in the way she faced down the inn's thoroughly unremarkable fried potatoes.
"Eat all you want."
I drank my water and watched her work through the potatoes. Meanwhile Levan, pouring himself a glass from a bottle of wine, turned to her.
"So this House Arer — which way is it?"
"Ah, well... the domain was a fair distance west of here."
"So you came here from the west?"
At that perfectly obvious question, Runesa stuffed her cheeks so full of potato they bulged and nodded.
Then Levan looked at me. She'd come from the west, and from quite a long way off. Did that mean she'd passed the ruined fortress out west, the one with the skeleton swordsman?
I took a sip of water and asked.
"You made it all that way. That's something."
"Yes... it was truly dangerous. Skeletons chased me out of the ruined fortress and I barely got away alive, and the moment I relaxed because I'd nearly reached Belmor, goblins ran me down and I almost died."
So she did come through there.
"You remember roughly where it is?"
"Yes. I fled in a hurry, but I followed the road properly, so... are you thinking of going there?"
I nodded. In that instant Runesa's hands trembled, and she set her fork down.
"I'm not asking you to come with us. Just tell me about where it is, and what was around it."