Explosion (1)
Halfway up a nameless mountain sat a cave, its mouth guarded by men bristling with spears and swords. From deep inside, a voice thundered out, raw with fury.
"You—you pieces of trash...! Do you have any idea who I—!"
"Somebody shut that old man up. He's giving me a headache."
"Yes, Boss."
That was all it took — a word from the man seated on a throne of layered bearskins. A fist swung. The crack of impact rang through the cave, followed by a scream. The old man hit the ground and rolled, and the beating that followed was merciless.
"Aaaagh! Aaaaaagh!!!"
"H-hiiik...!"
"Mama...!"
"It's all right, it's all right, that's a good girl. Just hang on a little longer..."
The terrified chatter of the onlookers grated on someone, and he bellowed.
"Every last one of you, shut your mouths! You want me to do you the same as that old bastard?!"
He drew his blade as he roared. The hostages flinched and fell silent. Watching them cower, the bandit chief curled his lip in a smirk.
"Easy. Easy. No point scaring them more than you have to."
"Yes, Boss... So what do we do with the goods?"
"Same as always. Sell the lot."
The carriage they had hit this time had been loaded with expensive cargo. Typical of a wagon coming out of Karpe, a city crawling with adventurers — monster parts and finished goods made from them, stacked to the brim. Hand it all off to their usual fence and they would walk away with a serious haul. A real catch.
"Beats the hell out of busting our asses fighting monsters every damn day, doesn't it? Nice and easy, and it pays. Am I right?"
"Couldn't have said it better myself, Boss!"
The man fawning at the chief's side was the gang's second-in-command in all but name — the vice-boss, or Little Boss, as the others called him. He put on a careful expression and spoke.
"...Boss. Then what about the people we grabbed?"
"Kill 'em? Be a lot less hassle, wouldn't it?"
He said it the way another man might talk about the weather. The meaning was simple enough. This was someone who had already put a blade through a human body more than once — and had gone numb to it. The hostages, staring into the madness that lurked behind his greed, held their breath in terror. The chief's mouth twisted into a cruel smile.
"Hey. Look at that. They're so scared they can't even lift their heads."
"B-Boss! Come on, don't..."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Killing them all just makes a mess. We're clearing out of this area anyway — no reason to leave a trail of hunters behind us."
"Haa..."
The vice-boss let out a sigh of relief he couldn't quite explain and swept his gaze over the cluster of captives. Men and women bound hand and foot with rope, trussed so they couldn't so much as shift. And among them, two figures stood out.
Unlike the rest, who were pale with fear, a young man and woman sat wearing expressions of complete indifference. One black-haired, one brown-haired, the pair were looking around the cave as if they had all the time in the world, clicking their tongues in open disapproval.
"The hell is with those two...?"
The vice-boss wasn't the only one who noticed. A younger bandit twisted his face and shouted.
"Hey, you two! What are you staring at? Enjoying the show?"
"...Us?"
"Yeah, you two... Ooh. The girl's not half bad, is she?"
He licked his lips as he said it. In a gang of nothing but men, a young woman was rarer than stars in daylight, and he lived by a simple rule: when the chance came, you took it. He smacked his lips and reached out —
"Cut it out, you idiot!"
"Ow! Little Boss, why'd you hit me?!"
"D-did you not hear the Big Boss? Don't make trouble!"
"Trouble? This is a good time, not trouble. If that girl got a taste of what I've got—"
"You—you crazy son of a—!"
"Ow! Ow! I-I won't, I said I won't!"
The vice-boss cracked the back of his subordinate's head again and again, then roared.
"Stop acting like a dog in heat and go check the cargo! If I look it over later and it's a mess, every one of you is dead by my hand, you hear me?!"
"Y-yes, sir!"
Only after several more blows did the man abandon his greasy ambitions and scramble off toward the piled freight. The vice-boss finally exhaled, relief mixed into the breath.
"Horny little shit. If you've got no skill, at least have some sense..."
"Don't be too hard on him. He's one of ours, isn't he?"
"Boss! If you keep letting things slide one by one, we'll all go down in a single hit. You've got to draw a hard line or the discipline falls apart!"
Something in the way his own man was talking felt uncomfortably like a lecture. The chief, still seated on his bearskin throne, frowned.
"...You getting cocky? You trying to teach me how to run things?"
"I-I-I would never. I-I'm only thinking of you and the gang's discipline, Boss...!"
The chief clapped a thick, gap-toothed hand against the vice-boss's shoulder as he spoke, and the gesture was terrifying enough that the younger man pleaded in a shaking voice.
"W-would I ever do something that insolent to you, Boss? P-please believe me! This whole score — the big one we just pulled — that was my intel, wasn't it?!"
They had started as small-time trash, preying on clueless outsiders at the edge of the city. After getting themselves all but kicked out of the Adventurer Guild, they had never even managed to plant a proper foot in the underworld — just a pack of two-bit thugs shaking down unarmed civilians for their wallets. It was this man who had argued they needed to crawl out of that pathetic hole, and who had brought them a job worth the name.
His sword arm was mediocre and he didn't look like much, but his head worked well enough. The chief, who knew how to do little more than swing a blade, found the man's know-it-all attitude grating — but still.
"Heh. Yeah. Thanks to you, we did hit a big one. Even found us this hideout. All right. I'll trust you. We're family, after all."
"Th-thank you, Boss!"
"Yeah, yeah. I'm your boss, aren't I. That's right."
This world ran on strength, and nothing else. A clever man died the moment you cut his throat. A smart man died the moment you caved in his skull. The chief believed in that iron law with his whole heart, so a subordinate getting a little ahead of himself didn't bother him much.
If the man became a problem, he could always just kill him.
He still needed that slippery little brain if they were going to get clear of Karpe the way he'd planned. Once they were gone for good and everything was cleaned up...
That would be the day he cut that insolent tongue out of the man's mouth.
"All right. Get going. Make sure that cargo's checked properly."
"Yes, Boss!"
The chief waved him off, his true thoughts buried deep. The vice-boss, who could not have imagined what was turning behind those eyes, put distance between them and let out a long breath of relief.
"Hoo... We need to get out of here. At this rate I won't even die of old age."
"L-Little Boss! We finished sorting like you said! What now?"
"The fence is coming, so stack it neat! I want it ready to load the second he shows!"
They needed to grab the goods and run. If they got tangled up in something strange, all kinds of trouble would follow. If they dragged their feet and knights came crashing in, every last one of them was bound for the afterlife.
So do as you're told. Finish it fast. And run—
"B-Boss, we've got a problem!"
"Fuck, what now?!"
"The mountain's crawling with adventurers!!"
"...Adventurers?"
It was a scenario he had never accounted for. The response was far too fast — and the fact that it was adventurers combing the mountain, not a knight order or the peacekeeping troops, sat nowhere in his plans.
"F-for now, move the goods quietly! And..."
He was still scrambling for the next words when a voice cut in from behind.
"Adventurers? Why the hell would those idiots come out here?"
The chief, who had been listening, scowled.
"What kind of nonsense is that? You sure you didn't see it wrong?"
"No, Boss! It looked like every adventurer in Karpe came pouring out!"
"That's bullshit. Why would those bastards come looking for us?"
Hunting bandits and highwaymen was the work of knights and soldiers, not adventurers. If they had been some massive, notorious gang running rampant across the region, maybe. But they were just drifters looking to score once and get out of the area.
"B-Boss. I think we should pull back. We can meet the fence later. For now we grab the goods and run..."
"...You telling me to run?"
"I-it's not running! It's for our safety...!"
A massive fist slammed into the vice-boss's face.
"Aaaagh!!"
He screamed and rolled on the ground, writhing in pain he could not endure. The chief looked down at him.
"You worthless piece of shit. You don't get it, do you? You keep tucking your tail and people start thinking they can walk all over us."
"B-Boss! This isn't the time to worry about pride! If you keep this up—"
"Shut up! A handful of adventurer bastards — doesn't matter how many show. We just kill them all. Hell, this works out. I was thinking we were a little light on loot. Strip their swords and armor and sell it, we'll walk away fat."
"B-Boss!"
"Hey. Dump that idiot somewhere and drag the captives out."
"Th-the people we grabbed?"
A subordinate gawked at the order.
"You said the mountain's packed with adventurers, right? Then we need to match their numbers."
"...Carriage wheel ruts and footprints. Looks like they made people haul the wagons themselves."
"They killed the horses. So they used the hostages in their place."
Er and Jina studied the dirt as they spoke. Beside them, Haru stood with her eyes closed, gathering mana.
"...No traces of magic. Mana is... unknown. Just a meathead with a strong arm, probably."
"That's a little too convenient. There were marks where a single blow shattered a carriage wheel."
The wrecked wagon had been a passenger coach. The evidence pointed hard toward the passengers being pulled off it and yoked to the cargo wagons in place of the horses.
"...If they needed that much labor, they wouldn't have killed the passengers. For now... we've avoided the worst."
That did not mean no one had died. The men who looked to have been escorting the caravan, and a few who appeared to be merchants attached to it, lay cold beside the broken carriage. But there were no bodies among the ordinary passengers.
That alone was enough for Ain to claw back a sliver of composure. His eyes glittered, cold and sharp.
"Where did they go to ground."
"...The other adventurers are tracking too, and there are a few rangers among them, so we'll find them soon. So..."
"I won't tell you to calm down... but don't worry too much. They'll both be all right."
Even with the two of them trying to comfort him, Ain's expression did not ease. Of course it didn't. How was a man supposed to stay calm when his own parents had been kidnapped by bandits and vanished without a trace?
The women could see it — beneath that unusually cold exterior, rage and dread had condensed into something ice-still. They were about to say something more when a rustle reached them from the undergrowth.
"Protect!"
Protect
Sky-blue mana flared out with Haru's voice. In the same instant, a blue film bloomed around her companions — and something slammed into it.
A metallic clang rang out. What bounced away was a thick-shafted arrow. It failed to find its mark and dropped weakly to the dirt, and from the dense brush came a hiss of panicked whispers.
"A-a mage!"
"Ah, fuck! Run!"
Urgent footsteps crashed away through the trees. Ain was already moving before the thought of letting such obviously suspicious men escape could even finish forming.
"You sons of bitches...!"
"Ain, don't go alone!!"
"After them, quickly!"
Unencumbered by any real weapon, Ain was light on his feet, and he tore after them at once. What was he thinking, charging in with no plan at all? His companions paled at the sight and threw themselves after him — and it was not long before a familiar back came into view, standing still in the middle of the path.
They recognized it as Ain's and were about to call out when a desperate voice cut across the clearing.
"P-please, help me!!"
The bandits' voices followed, oily and mean.
"Oh, perfect timing! Three more wallets just walked in."
"You pretty ones mind putting those weapons down? Unless you want to see some knife-work on these poor, innocent faces."
As they spoke, one of them pressed the flat of a dagger against the cheek of a young woman bound hand and foot.
"Don't tell me..."
"These sons of bitches. They're using the people they kidnapped as hostages?"
"You really think you can get away doing this?"
Er's voice shook with fury. The bandits only grinned.
"We're not trying to get away!"
"That's right. Opportunity like this drops in your lap, why would we run?"
"...Opportunity?"
Ain echoed the word, his gaze going cold. The bandits met those gold eyes and a shiver of fear ran through their shoulders — but only for a moment.
"Y-yeah! This way, you can't do a damn thing to us, can you?"
"You try to kill us and a blade might just 'accidentally' end up in one of these poor people. What then?"
They had decided they held the advantage. Their faces split into ugly grins.
"So put the weapons down, nice and easy. You too, mage! You don't drop those eyes, you're gonna have a real bad time!"
"...Mage?"
Ain wasn't holding anything in either hand, and the bandits had taken him for a spellcaster. They kept up the threats. Ain turned his head a fraction, met Haru's eyes, and gave a small nod.
"...Fine. We'll put the weapons down. So you let that person go."
"Heh heh. Of course. We're stand-up guys. We keep our word."
"Which means you'll be keeping yours too. Mage, you get on the ground and put your face in the dirt. And you pretty ones in the back — weapons, armor... and the clothes. All of it. Underwear too!"
"Heh heh. Was getting sick of the bosses having all the fun. Nice to get a show of our own."
Certain they had already won, the bandits sneered. They watched the women set down their weapons without a fight, watched the "mage" drop to the ground and plant his hands in the dirt, and their mouths twisted with contempt.
"Heh. Idiots. Acting all noble over people you don't even know."
"The world's nothing but selfishness, kids. You play at being good, and this is what you get."
One of them stepped in and kicked Er's sword and Jina's gauntlets away from their feet.
"All right then, ladies. Whenever you're ready."
He smiled that filthy smile at the disgust on their faces — and that was the moment.
"Pathetic bastards."
"...Hey, mage. I don't think you've got a handle on the situation. My friend and I can swing a blade a lot faster than you can cast a spell. Sounds like you want to learn that the hard way—"
"You're the ones who need the lesson. Can't even pull off a crime without being stupid about it."
"You—you little—!"
Ain was already on his feet, looking them over, the corner of his mouth curling up.
"Freeze!"
Freeze
The bandits' arms and legs locked in ice. Even the thick hands that had been holding blades to the hostages were sealed in clear frost, frozen mid-threat, unable to so much as twitch.
"Wh-what the hell?!"
Stripped of the use of their limbs, they stood as stiff as ice statues. Ain didn't bother to hide the contempt in his voice.
"What do you think. You picked the wrong people to rob."
He had stood up and drawn every eye on purpose. The instant he spoke, Er and Jina exploded forward from behind him and slammed into the bandits' bodies.
"Aaaagh!!"
The men hit the ground in a heap. Ain snatched Er's fallen sword, crossed to the hostage, and cut the ropes binding her.
"You all right? Are you hurt anywhere?"
"N-no. Thank you, thank you...!"
The tension broke and tears spilled down her face. Ain let out a small breath of relief.
"Sorry to do this immediately, but — where are the other hostages?"
"Th-the other hostages...?"
"The passengers who were on the carriages."
Er and Jina, hearing the edge in his voice, turned on the bandits they had just put down.
"If either of you knows something, you'd do well to talk."
"Unless you want to stay frozen to those hands and feet and end up crippled."
"Y-you fucking bitches...!"
"You think that cheap little magic makes you tough? When our Big Boss gets here, you lot are—"
"...Shut up, trash."
Jina drove a kick into their ribs. Something — one rib, maybe two — gave with a wet crack, and they screamed. Ain tuned them out and asked again.
"Have you seen a couple — black hair and brown hair?"
"I-I don't know for sure, but if they were taken, they'd be in the cave about halfway up the mountain! They're not among the people who were dragged out just now. That much I can swear to."
"...Thanks. If you go that way you'll hit the main road. There'll be a crowd of adventurers there. Can you go tell them the same thing?"
"O-of course. Thank you. Thank you!"
She bowed again and again, then ran in the direction Ain had pointed. He stood, handed the sword back to Er, and spoke.
"String those idiots up in a tree and let's move. Someone will come along and collect them."
"Yeah. That works."
"Haru. How's your mana?"
"Still good."
"If you're running low, say so. Blood, whatever you need — I'll give you all of it."
Er caught the impatience written across his face.
"Ain, even so, you can't go charging off alone. You, by yourself..."
"...I know. I'm sorry. I just— I couldn't wait."
"No matter how urgent it is, if you get hurt, it's over. And if they turn out to be injured..."
"...Got it. I'll stay behind you."
Having to say it at all made his own situation feel intolerable. Ain clenched his fists until the knuckles went white and kicked a stone across the dirt for no reason. Er read at least some of what was turning in him, and for a moment her face was full of sympathy. Then she wiped the expression away and spoke in a low voice.
"I don't know what kind of idiotic thinking this is, but the bandits came charging out here to strip adventurers for loot. That means their base should be empty."
It was a move that ran against all common sense. Adventurers were combing the mountain with blood in their eyes — and in the middle of that, the bandits had grabbed hostages and gone out to ambush more of them?
"I don't know who's in charge, but they're definitely insane."
"Doesn't matter who it is. Works out better for us. Their hideout should be sitting empty."
Er and Jina nodded. At the same time, Haru — eyes still closed, mana turning behind them — spoke.
"...Mid-slope. Mana traces. Same as what was left on the carriage."
"Good. We go now. And when we get there..."
Ain's voice was startlingly flat.
"We wreck them. Every last one."