Didn't I Say To Make My Abilities Average In The Next Life?! Volume. 2

by Funa

  A debate raged over the fate of the bandits.

  “We still have at least a day and a half’s journey to Amroth, and we can’t bring them all that way,” Reina argued passionately. “There’s no room for them to ride in the wagons, and if they’re on foot, they’ll slow us down and we won’t make it to Amroth before nightfall. Besides, they could escape from their ropes and slit our throats while we’re sleeping. If we bring them to the city, we could collect a reward—or fetch a nice sum selling them off as forced labor—but right now we’re in the middle of an important job! Isn’t it better to just bring in their heads and claim the reward that way?!”

  The bandits trembled at her words.

  “Yeah, but…while killing them in the midst of battle is one thing, it’s another to murder them when they’re beaten and helpless. If any of their friends show up, we can kill them, no question, but for now…”

  Bart seemed far more inclined to bring the bandits along with them. It wasn’t clear if that was because he was uninterested in wanton murder, or just because he was unwilling to give up the money they would get by selling them off.

  In the end, it was determined that this was a matter to be decided by majority, and they held a vote for the twelve hunters and four merchants. The drivers were excluded.

  The result was a 9-to-7 decision to bring the bandits along with them—alive.

  Mile was surprised that the merchants, who seemed relatively gentle, had all raised their hands in favor of killing the bandits, but then again, perhaps it was to be expected. The bulk of the hunters had voted in favor of bringing them along—not because they were kind, but because it was a chance to increase their profits with relatively little danger to themselves. The Flaming Wolves in particular seemed strapped for cash and were in favor of any plan that involved making money.

  Pauline and Mile used magic to heal the bandits just enough that they’d be able to walk and left the rest of their injuries to decrease the danger of them escaping. They’d provide more healing before turning them over to the authorities in Amroth. That way, after the bandits were sentenced they’d be healthy enough for forced labor, and the Crimson Vow might even be able to receive payment for their healing work.

  As they moved out, only the bandit chief rode inside the wagon, bound. The other six had their arms tied and ropes around their necks, each attached to the wagons. If they chose not to walk, they’d be strangled. It was up to them whether they’d walk or be dragged along as a corpse. That also prevented them from wasting the merchants’ time by walking slowly. Naturally, they were separated so that they could neither conspire with their companions, nor collaborate on a story they might tell the authorities when they stood trial. It was Pauline who’d proposed that system.

  By now, the Crimson Vow had given up on sitting by the drivers, instead assembling in the fourth wagon just as they had upon their departure from the capital. They were all wearing their hunter’s garb.

  However, the atmosphere amongst them was not a cheerful one.

  “Reina, what were you thinking back there, trying such a lethal spell?” asked Mavis. “The other bandits were already incapacitated, and we were almost in the clear. Besides, we still needed to press them for information. There was no need to kill their leader. I’m sure you have plenty of spells you could have used just to capture them, don’t you?”

  “There was no reason to leave him alive. If you take pity on a bandit, who knows when he’ll stab you in the back? Plus, I’m sure they’ve murdered countless innocent people. Who are they to complain when their number’s up?” Reina’s face was sullen.

  “Still, it’s one thing to kill them in battle. After they’ve been incapacitated, that’s another matter. Their punishment is something for the authorities to decide. You don’t want our ‘first time killing someone’ to be the one-sided slaughter of a helpless opponent! Do you?”

  Reina was silent.

  “It’s not like you to fixate on something like this, Reina!” said Pauline. “Did something happen with you…and bandits…?”

  Reina was silent a little while longer before she nodded, her voice quiet.

  “…them…”

  “Hmm?”

  “They killed them! My father, my friends—everyone! The bandits killed them all!”

  And so, Reina told the rest of the party about her past…

  ***

  Reina was a merchant’s daughter.

  Ever since she could remember, her days were spent traveling with her father in a modest cart from town to town and village to village, peddling their wares. She had no recollection of her mother.

  Reina’s magic was just enough to make life a little easier. At a level akin to that of a sorcerer’s assistant, she could produce water for humans and horses, and light small fires to cook by.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Reina.”

  “Hehehe!”

  They were not wealthy, but not destitute either, and their peddling days were easy and free. They imagined their journeying would only end if they saved up enough to settle down somewhere and open a shop, or perhaps Reina’s eventual marriage…

  But that wasn’t to be.

  Reina was ten years old when it happened. They were making their way between towns. She was napping happily in the front of the wagon when her father, who was driving, cried out.

  “Bandits! Hurry! Hide yourself between the crates!”

  Reina climbed quickly into the tightly packed cart and slipped between the wares. In all their long days on the road, this was not the first time they’d been assailed by bandits.

  Of course, bandits knew that a peddler with a single cart, who could not even afford an escort, was unlikely to have much money. Even if they stole their peasant pots and pans and gardening tools, they were bulky and unlikely to yield much profit. Normally, bandits would let such a wagon pass by unmolested, holding out for a more profitable prey.

  However, now and then, you found bandits who were especially strapped for cash. Who’d snap at any scrap of profit. In these cases, Reina’s father would merely hand over any coin he had on hand and leave with cart and cargo intact. The more folks who were injured by bandits, the more likely it was that the region might form a bandit-hunting brigade. Rather than snatching unprofitable goods, it was better for bandits to allow the poorer merchants to continue on their way. If they lost their money but still had the cart and goods, it wasn’t so hard for a merchant to get back on his feet, meaning he might provide a target for these same bandits in the future.

  And so Reina’s father stayed calm in the face of the attack. They had encountered countless misfortunes in the past, so what was one more?

  Yet, perhaps because the bandits they encountered were in particularly dire straits, this turned out to be the greatest misfortune.

  “Quit yanking us around! Is this all you’ve got?!”

  “W-well, you see, I used my earnings in the last town to restock my wares… most of my humble profits go into maintenance, so I don’t have very much to—”

  “You think I care, old man?! We need money! It looks like we just have to take what you’ve got. Oy!”

  At their leader’s command, his three underlings descended on the cargo.

  “P-please don’t! If you spoil the goods, then I won’t be able to…”

  Thinking of his daughter hiding amongst his wares, Reina’s father tried desperately to stop them, but of course, the bandits refused to listen. Instead, they climbed onto the cart and began rummaging for valuables, and after a short while there came a scream.

  “No! Let me gooo!!!”

  They dragged Reina from the cart.

  “Oh, she’s a feisty one, ain’t she?!”

  Seeing Reina, the leader of the bandits gave a sinister grin.

  “So you did have some ‘valuables’ in there…”

  “P-please, stop! She’s only ten years old!”

  “Don’t you worry. We’ll take good care of her… and afterward
s, she can live a happy life as the slave to some rich gentleman. Ha ha ha ha ha!”

  “B-boss! O-over there!” one of the bandits shouted in a panic.

  “What is it?”

  The chief looked in the direction the man was pointing, wondering what could be dampening his good mood.

  “Wh—a hunter?!”

  Four hunters were running toward them at top speed, coming to the wagon’s defense.

  There was no way that these bandits—who had fallen into thievery after failing to become hunters themselves—could possibly stand up to an active party. Worse, there appeared to be a magic user amongst the approaching group.

  Whether the hunters were acting out of chivalry or whether they simply aimed to collect the reward for the bandits’ heads, they would fight with their all. The bandits, having been caught up with the merchant, his daughter, and their cargo, had been too slow to escape.

  “Damn it! We gotta go! Take the girl!”

  At the man’s orders, the bandits tried to pull Reina up.

  Yet Reina knew that if she could stall for just a moment longer, she would be rescued. Slipping out of the bandits’ hands, she rolled beneath the cart.

  “Damn you! You little brat!”

  The underlings hurried to drag her back out, but she wrapped her arms and legs firmly around the axles, so that even with their greater strength, they couldn’t dislodge her. As they struggled, the hunters drew nearer.

  “Little girl! Don’t you care about what happens to your father?!”

  She could hear the lead bandit shouting. From her position beneath the cart, Reina couldn’t see, but she could well imagine the scene above. The bandit was holding a sword to her father’s throat.

  “If you don’t come out, then… how do you like this?!”

  Reina heard no sound.

  “You piece of filth! Your little girl can’t hear you… how do you like this?!”

  “G…Gwaaah…”

  This time, it was too much for Reina’s father to bear. He let out a moan of pain.

  “St-stop! I’ll come out! I’m coming out right now!”

  “No, Reina! Don’t come out! You can’t—”

  Hearing her father’s anguished voice, Reina could no longer resist. She crawled out from under the wagon, only to be snatched up in the arms of the bandits.

  “Father!” Reina screamed.

  Her father was collapsed on the ground, gripping his right shoulder where the sword had struck.

  “All right.” The chief drew his sword from the merchant’s shoulder and pierced him through the stomach.

  “Guhh…” With a sharp twitch, Reina’s father doubled in half. The strength rushed out of his body.

  “Looks like we’re all through with this guy. Let’s make sure that magic man wastes his time on him… oh my, was that too much? Looks like he’s gone and died… oh well! Let’s get outta here!”

  “Faaaaatheeerrr!!!!!!”

  Reina pounded her arms and legs with all her strength, clawing at the bandits’ faces.

  “Oww, hey, settle down there. Quit fighti—eurgh!!”

  Her foot flew into the bandit’s guts.

  “Gaahh!”

  Her toes ground into his abdomen.

  “What the hell are you doing?! Hurry, those guys are… wahh!”

  Fwoosh!

  An arrow grazed the chief’s cheek.

  He broke away from his underlings and ran as fast as he could.

  “B-boss?”

  The moment the others realized, they let go of Reina and made their escape.

  “Father! Father!!”

  Reina clung to her father as he mustered his last breath. He gripped Reina’s hand and forced out a few words.

  “Reina, be happy… your father…and mother…will always…”

  And with that his hand went limp, falling to the ground.

  “FAAAAAATHEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRR!!!”

  The hunters, who had finally arrived at the cart, showered the fleeing bandits with arrows and attack spells. Three ran in pursuit, while one remained with Reina.

  “Are you all right?! Are you hurt?!”

  “My father! My father is—!”

  The man who’d stopped appeared to be a mage. He quickly checked her father’s condition, then shook his head.

  “Father…!!”

  After a while, the other hunters returned.

  They had managed to bring down two of the four bandits, the chief among them. Yet while the hunters’ spells and arrows had slowed them, the other two had gotten away.

  “If I hadn’t been there…or if I could have stayed under the wagon and stalled…just a few more minutes…”

  Reina sobbed, repeating these words. The four hunters of the Crimson Lightning took turns stroking her head in silence.

  The Crimson Lightning was a party of four men.

  There was Braun, the swordsman of 38. Ari, a swordsman of 27. Gordon, the archer, was 22. And then there was Erik, the jack-of-all-trades, a twenty-eight-year-old mage-archer. Erik didn’t have an immense amount of magical power, but he could use every type of magic without any strengths or weaknesses. To keep from taxing his magic, he could also use a bow so, while he was not especially skilled in either area, he was quite useful to have around.

  Certain that their approach was one of the reasons Reina’s father had been killed, the men felt no small sense of responsibility, although that was unfair: the situation had been hopeless from the start, and their presence had only helped matters.

  Still, as far as hunters went, they were rather softhearted. Upon learning that Reina had no family besides her departed father and that, thanks to their lives as wandering peddlers, there were no other acquaintances who might take her in, the hunters discussed things for a bit before asking Reina, “Would you like to come with us?”

  “Huh…?”

  Things would be certainly be difficult for a ten-year-old girl living on her own.

  Her best bet would be to go to an orphanage, but even finding one would be a challenge.

  She could work herself to the bone as a servant in exchange for crumbs, only to be tossed out the moment she fell ill—or she could simply resign herself to the slums, where she might find other orphans. After that, since she was good-looking, there was the chance that someone might try to sell her as a slave, or worse.

  With all that in mind, any dangers she might face living with hunters paled in comparison.

  She was only ten years old, but she was still a peddler’s daughter and had observed many things along their journey. So Reina thought for a while, and then gave her reply.

  “I would. If you’ll have me.”

  The men of the Crimson Lightning dug a hole to bury Reina’s father, then loaded the fallen bandits onto the peddler’s horse and headed toward town. If they didn’t have a wagon, it would have been much easier just to bring the heads of their victims, but if they had the option of bringing the whole corpse it was simpler to claim the reward.

  With Reina’s consent, they sold the wagon and goods upon arrival. Though having a wagon would have been a boon when traveling the highway, they couldn’t use it in the forest or the mountains, and the cost of maintaining both wagon and the horse would be dear. For hunters below C-rank, these were luxuries they couldn’t afford.

  Naturally, all the proceeds from these sales were Reina’s alone.

  That was how Reina, at ten years old, began her life with the Crimson Lightning.

  She had only ever studied magic independently, focusing on things that would help her and her father along their journeys. That meant she was only capable of a bit of water magic to provide for both them and the horses, some earth magic to prevent the wheels of the wagon from getting stuck in muddy roads, and some basic fire magic—enough to light a bonfire. After joining the Crimson Lightning, Erik, the party’s jack-of-all-trades, started to teach her many things. Although her magical abilities were even more modest than his, she began steady progress toward the pr
oud status of jack-of-all-trades #2.

  As she was small, with magical abilities far weaker than those of any full-fledged mage and neither strength nor combat prowess, the Crimson Lightning encouraged her not to register as a hunter.

  Perhaps they imagined that one day, when she was older, she could settle down in some town and get a normal job. Still, there was no harm in teaching her a few useful things. Even if Reina did not have the strength to become a full-fledged hunter, she could still practice with her weak magic, as well as train with a staff for self-defense.

  Indeed, Reina trained diligently, hoping that she might be useful to the others—in magic, in wielding her staff, and as a hunter—even if only just a little bit.

  So among these grown men in their early twenties to late thirties, there traveled a single little girl, ten years old, not even registered as a hunter. And while fellow hunters mocked the Crimson Lightning mercilessly, they all knew that they had taken Reina in for her own protection. As Reina grew older the teasing continued, although soon, half were jealous of the party for having a cute girl in their midst.

  Time went by. One day, when Reina was thirteen, the Crimson Lightning took on an escort job.

  There were four guards in the two-wagon train, an appropriate number. Reina was yet to learn much combat magic, but she could summon their drinking water as well as handle small-scale healing and recovery spells. Since that allowed Erik to conserve his magic, there was no need to train her in the ways of war.

  Apart from the Crimson Lightning, their group consisted of a single merchant and a driver for each wagon. The fact that the procession was guarded made it clear that these were not simply carts loaded with various sundries, but vehicles carrying something of value from town to town. It was unclear whether the presence of guards would cause bandits to overlook them or whether it would make them a more desirable target—bringing danger into their midst. It depended on the bandits’ outlook, and their finances.

  That day, the bandits’ scales tipped in favor of an attack.

  “Bandits! Forward right side! They’re blocking the road! Ten of them!”

  “And six from behind! It’s too many!”