by Funa
Before the four beastmen rushed them, the two who had been lying in wait sprung out from the opposite side. It was a clever tactic, designed to invite more chaos than leaping out at the same time as the rest of the attackers. It was very much a ploy of those used to close-range combat.
Inexperienced opponents would be flummoxed by such a tactic. Unsettled, startled. The Crimson Vow? Not so much.
They faced the attackers coming at them from the front, Mile and Mavis taking one apiece. The other two men ignored them and aimed for the mages on the backline. Reina and Pauline met them with fire magic and ice magic in turn.
Reina—certain they would assume the girls were too distraught to make a move, given that they did not appear to be casting any spell, and so would be close enough that no attack would miss—had silently prepped a flame ball with her fire magic and let it fly into one attacker’s gut. Likewise, the other took Pauline’s ice spear. Both were blown backwards.
The tip of Pauline’s ice spear was blunted, so the beastman who took her attack wasn’t gravely injured. Reina’s attacker’s injuries were more severe, his stomach covered with harsh burns. These beastmen wore neither metal nor leather armor, or even simple leather guards.
…Apparently, beastpeople relied a little too much on their pelts.
Mile blocked the swing of her opponent’s machete before swinging her own sword. She knocked the weapon from his hands. Meanwhile Mavis, in a burst of speed, sent her opponent’s weapon flying with a hard-hitting swing.
The beastmen’s weapons were designed for one-handed attacks and couldn’t stand up to the force of Mile and Mavis’s two-handed sword strikes. However, losing to a human in a contest of strength was unthinkable for beastmen—much less against a pair of young, weak-looking little girls.
It was an utter defeat.
Perhaps because there was no way that they could face two sword-wielding opponents empty-handed—no matter how strong they were—or perhaps because they were in such shock from being outclassed by a pair of little human girls, the two who lost their weapons stood stock-still. Mile and Mavis struck them in the guts, and they quickly hit the ground.
The last pair of enemies rushed in after a beat, charging from behind at Reina and Pauline. The mages leapt forward and ran behind Mile and Mavis, only stopping to begin chanting another round of attack spells.
Before them stood Mile and Mavis, swords brandished. Reina and Pauline chanted behind the swordswomen, arming their spells.
Only two remained standing now. Two out of a group of eight.
The beastmen were incredibly rattled, but they couldn’t run away and leave their felled allies behind. With dire but determined expressions, they faced the Crimson Vow.
But then…
“Run, now!” Reina commanded.
“Okay!” the three girls called.
All four members of the Crimson Vow ran. It was easy, since they weren’t exactly surrounded by enemies anymore.
For a short while, the enemies they left behind were frozen in place, their mouths hanging open dumbly. Then they remembered themselves and quickly moved to help their allies. All the while, they gave thanks to whatever god had smiled down upon them.
They lent a hand to the more injured members and, along with their allies, beat a hasty retreat.
“Just as we planned. Let’s go,” Reina whispered.
“Roger that!” the other three replied.
The Crimson Vow moved quietly through the underbrush. They were tracking the beastmen.
If they had captured and questioned them, there was no guarantee the beastmen would be truthful in their answers. Besides, dragging along that many prisoners would slow their progress immensely. That said, they couldn’t just leave them to run amok in the forest. And they couldn’t just kill them.
“Let them go free and follow them.” It was a standard maneuver the party kept at their disposal, just in case of situations like this. It was useful, even if it didn’t have an especially creative name.
Normally, it would be difficult to track beastpeople, whose hearing and sense of smell far exceeded most humans’. For the Crimson Vow to remain at a safe but trackable distance, where they would not lose sight of their quarry in the forest, would require them to stay within range of the beastmen’s sharp senses. However, the men were preoccupied at the moment. The smell of blood and singed fur swirled around them. Several were giddy with pain and proceeded with a far more jarring gait than usual, so they weren’t able to pay anywhere near their usual attention to their surroundings.
If they used Mile’s detection magic, they would have followed the beastmen from a much safer distance. However, for the sake of the party, Mile wouldn’t allow that. Instead, she elected to track the beastmen the old-fashioned way. Thankfully, the circumstances allowed them to do so.
***
“What…is this?” Reina uttered.
The shock was understandable. What the girls saw as they peeked through the trees was the beastmen assisting their injured fellows into one of five crudely fashioned shacks that now stood before them.
That was fine. The problem was the scene unfolding beyond that.
They appeared to be ruins, hewn of quarried rock but half-crumbling. Among them was a great number of beastpeople, working with plows, hoes, and other farming tools.
Mile’s initial impression was that of an archaeological dig site, and perhaps that truly was what was going on.
“What do we do?” asked Mavis.
“I mean, what can we do?” Pauline replied, concerned. Reina, still shocked, was at a loss for words.
“This is a reconnaissance mission,” Mile snapped. “Of course, it’s important for us to get this information back to the guild right away. But if there are any clues here that might lead us to the missing hunters, or if there’s something here that directly affected them, then there’s still a chance that we may make it in time to help them.
“Plus, if the missing people have been captured and we were to show up with a bunch of fighters, then they might run off with them, or take them hostage, or kill them as an example…”
“We’ll search the area tonight!”
The moment Mile said the word “hostage,” the look in Reina’s eyes changed. More than likely, she was recalling her father’s final moments.
After they had observed the site for some time, someone came running out of the hut that they had seen the beastmen enter previously. A number of others shortly ran in and out as well, making a huge fuss until eventually everything appeared to be settled.
It didn’t seem like they planned to pursue the Crimson Vow. The beastpeople probably figured the girls knew nothing of this place and were just a group of hapless rookie hunters who wandered too deep into the forest. They seemed to have decided the girls were harmless.
They had no clue they were full-fledged hunters or that they had come in pursuit of their fellows. To the beastpeople, they were rookies who had encountered beastmen and fled in terror.
After inflicting harm, of course.
Thankfully, the excavation site was upwind from them, so the beastpeople, even with their sensitive noses, couldn’t catch their scent. They had planned it that way, noting the changes in the wind as they tracked the beastmen.
Mile, who had loved a certain book in her previous life, would never overlook such a detail.
Indeed, that book. The one that said: “Though you stood downwind, you fools never noticed me!”
“All right, here’s the plan.”
The Crimson Vow had moved to a place a bit farther downwind from the excavation site, so as not to be discovered, and went over their plan as they ate.
They had plenty of time to cook, but to minimize the risk of discovery, they refused to light a fire. Their meal consisted of hardtack, dried meat, and water.
It was a bit early for dinner, but it wouldn’t do to mobilize immediately after eating. They had decided to eat sooner and keep their meal light.
“There are five huts in total. If anyone has been captured, they have to be in one of those,” Reina explained. “If we observe the comings and goings for a while, we should spot anything suspicious, but the risk of being noticed is high, and we don’t have all that much time. Even if we spot something suspicious, there’s no way to confirm it, and if there aren’t any captives here in the first place, we’d never be able to tell. So observation is out.”
The others nodded. With this many unimpeded beastpeople milling around, the risk of them being spotted was far too great.
“On the other hand, it would be too dangerous to sneak inside the huts. For one, we’d definitely be found out.”
“…”
“So, Mile, you’re up.”
“Huh?” Mile, suddenly thrust into the spotlight, was perplexed.
“Look. We already know you have our best interests in mind. However, people’s lives are at stake here. Give it your all, just for this. We need you to use your detection magic at full strength!”
“A-all right.”
She had been found out.
Thinking that utilizing her useful magical skills on a daily basis would be bad for her comrades, Mile had been limiting herself to “just a little bit of convenient magic” so they wouldn’t be troubled if she wasn’t around. Apparently, however, they were aware of this.
Even with that knowledge, though, they never said anything about it.
Mile took a steadying breath. It was time to abandon all restraint.
However, this was a one-time deal. Next job, she would go back to using only so much magic as wouldn’t hinder her companions from continuing to take on work, should she disappear. That way, even without her, they would still become amazing hunters.
Of course, her “storage magic” was the exception. Losing that would be incredibly inconvenient, and their earnings would go way down.
She didn’t like it, but she would follow the same philosophy as always.
“Now is now, and then is then!”
***
“Let’s go.”
“Okay!”
Under cover of darkness, the Crimson Vow moved out, heading for the five small huts.
Their eyes were accustomed to darkness, but there were many among the beastpeople with sharper night vision. Combined with their sense of smell and superb hearing, there was no chance of success without some kind of camouflage.
However, they couldn’t afford that luxury. They had to somehow pull this off under their own power. Three of them proceeded nervously.
The fourth, on the other hand…
For now, I’ll keep up a barrier that’ll keep our scent from circulating through the air. That way, as long as we aren’t directly spotted, we should be fine…
Mile wasn’t nervous at all.
“The nearest hut is the most suspicious. There are fewer people in that one than the others, and most of them are huddled in one spot. There are only two others in the rest of the space. Also, the reaction I’m getting from them seems more human than beast…”
In truth, she could give them a far more detailed report, but that would be overdoing it. Telling them this much was enough.
Reina immediately understood what this meant: the people in the hut were prisoners and a guard or lookout.
“Let’s go…” Reina directed quietly, giving Mile a nod.
The rest nodded in agreement and moved forward, slipping carefully through the trees, avoiding any openings where they would be in clear view.
Mavis suddenly gave a signal. “Get down,” she whispered harshly before crouching low to the ground. The rest instinctively dropped as well. Just then, a single beastman passed by their hiding place.
Oh crap, they thought, realizing they had been a bit slow to drop. The beastman appeared not to have noticed. When they looked behind him, they saw tail feathers.
“He’s a bird-type,” whispered Mavis when it was safe.
“Oh, he’s night-blind!” Reina breathed a sigh of relief.
“Why would a bird be the night lookout?” The reasoning was beyond Mile, but she wasn’t about to complain.
Maybe someone had complained it was unfair for bird-type beastpeople to avoid taking a turn on the night watch. Normally, such idiocy in the name of “equality” would be insufferable, but right now they were lucky the idiot was on the enemy’s side. A great boon, indeed.
After all, the greatest danger is not a fearsome foe but a foolish ally.
In any case, their defense was clearly lacking. The Crimson Vow would find plenty of openings.
It was possible the beastpeople had grown lax, as most people didn’t try to navigate the forest at night. And until it had grown dark a short while ago, the open space the beastpeople had occupied had had plenty of lookouts. It was merely chance that the girls had drawn close to where a lookout was stationed. They wouldn’t have found this spot before sunset anyway. Not without any signposts or landmarks.
The beastpeople probably assumed the girls who had stumbled into the forest had run home, beelining for the human village on the outskirts of the forest.
The Crimson Vow finally neared the hut, hurrying from tree line to hut wall and clinging to it like shadows.
Like the other four, this hut hadn’t been built with any particular forethought. It was a ramshackle construction, as though the beastmen had been in the middle of removing meddlesome trees and suddenly thought, “Hey, you know what? Let’s build some huts with these.”
There was a bit of a gap between the walls and the roof. Of course, the builders would probably claim that was deliberate. “Oh no, we put that there on purpose! It’s for light and ventilation!”
Regardless of why it was there, the gap was an incredibly convenient spot for Mile to peek through. After clambering up the wall and looking through to confirm what was inside, she let off a spell.
“Surround the beastmen with sleeping gas…”
Soon, the two beastmen acting as lookouts fell asleep in their chairs.
What Mile didn’t realize was that she was the only one who could ever achieve such an effective result with a spell like that.
No matter what other people said, they would produce no results without conveying the appropriate mental image through their thought pulse. However, Mile, who had a level-5 authorization as far as the nanomachines were concerned, could therefore direct them with verbal instructions. If she just said the right thing, the nanomachines would do her bidding—and with gusto.
Her instructions were a command, from the only level-5 being existing in this world.
Mile merely assumed, I was thinking of what I wanted while speaking aloud, They just read between the lines.
The entrance of the hut was on the opposite wall, in view of the other huts and the excavation site. Opening the door would allow light from within to spill out, making their movements more conspicuous.
There was no telling who might be watching, so they couldn’t afford such a risk. Instead, they clambered up the wall behind Mile and wedged themselves through the opening.
“Eurgh!!”
They all heard Pauline’s groan, but Mile and Reina pointedly ignored it. Undoubtedly, some part of her was having difficulty fitting through. Some part, indeed.
Though they had all slipped into the hut with relative ease, the two were suddenly stricken by intense displeasure.
“…Who’s there?” From the corner of the dark room, a woman’s voice called out, questioning. Perhaps to save on oil or candles, the only light within the hut was a low-burning wood fire.
Once their eyes adjusted, they saw a sturdy wooden lattice partitioning one section of the hut into a jail cell. Inside were at least a dozen humans.
“We’re thiev… we’re hunters who took on a search party job,” Mile explained.
“What’re little girls like you doin’ taking on a dangerous job like this?” asked a middle-aged man who appeared to be a hunter. It wasn’t as though they could have known the job would t
urn into something like this. The others stared warily at the beastmen, though they showed no signs of waking. The four understood the suspicion; status-altering magic and medicinal magic weren’t things many people were well versed in.
There were eighteen human captives in total: sixteen men and two women. One of the women looked so young she couldn’t possibly be of age yet.
The Crimson Vow had been told there were six hunters, two scholars, and one guild employee on the investigation team. Among the captives before them were a man in his early forties and an airy-seeming, attractive woman of noble birth in her twenties; they were undoubtedly scholars. The pair were probably professor and assistant. Their clothing was sturdy and practical, nothing more than normal cotton garb. No armor at all.
Then there was the lively young teen girl. She wore leather guards that were sturdy and maneuverable but only seemed to do the bare minimum of guarding her most vital points. She was, most likely, the guild master’s daughter.
The others had to have been the investigation team’s escort, and some hapless hunters who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were no women among them; only all-male parties would be foolish enough to take a dangerous job in a strange forest.
“Would you happen to know how much time we have?” Reina asked.
“W-we should be fine,” the scholar’s assistant answered. “They just changed guards a short while ago, so I don’t think anyone will be here before morning.”
Naturally, as a professor’s assistant, she was quick-witted.
“Just for confirmation, you’re the investigation team from the guild, yes?” Mile asked, perhaps a bit tartly.
Even if they denied it, there would be no real way to tell. But waiting for confirmation until they had returned to the capital would have been instant death for the Crimson Vow. It wasn’t a risk they could take.
“Yeah, that’s right,” one of the men replied. “There’s nine of us altogether: us six guards, those two scholars, and the little miss there from the guild. Thankfully, all of us are here and safe. The other nine here were two parties who were captured separately at different times, which makes eighteen of us prisoners.”