However, while equipped, user takes damange from healing magic.
Is a cursed equipment that can not be removed.
…*
It really was nothing decent.
Jashin Average – 3
Chapter 3 – A Common Development
A suspicious girl clad from head to toe in pitch black walked wordlessly through the forest… It’s me though.
I experienced various shocks, but thinking about it won’t get me anywhere, so I decided to do something for now.
At any rate, what I really want to do right now is reach a human settlement.
Based on what I’ve seen from the skills earlier I can’t really feel any hope about it, but even so if I stay here my only choice is to starve to death so there’s no other way.
In the skill explanation it said “the effect on humans is lower” so I have no choice but to bet on that.
Moreover, I was worried about the curse of the tantou and robe, but what they meant was “if you drop it, it’ll return to you after certain amount of time” and “even if you try to equip something else, it’ll fly off”.
I gave putting the tantou in my item box for a try, and found that the putting away part was possible.
But after thirty minutes it flew out on its own and settled itself into my right hand.
And moreover, while my hand was empty I tried to pick up a branch about the size of a wooden sword, but this time the tantou immediately flew out and knocked the branch out of my hand.
…Because it looked like it was jealous, I ended up finding it a little cute.
Also, it was fine if I picked up a small branch that wouldn’t become a weapon.
As you’d expect, even if nobody was around, I didn’t feel like stripping, so I haven’t tested the robe, but it’s probably the same.
But this means that I won’t be able to wear other clothing.
I don’t have a habit of dressing up, but I’m against having only the one suit.
Let’s sincerely pray that there’s a way of dispelling the curse.
Because I didn’t have shoes, I had no choice but to walk barefoot.
At first I walked timidly, afraid that rocks or sticks would cut my feet, but mysteriously there was no pain.
It might be that the physical ability that the evil god spoke about isn’t just athletic ability, but includes toughness and stuff as well.
Once I considered that this unknown body of mine might not be human the dread surged forth, but I’ve decided not to think about it for now.
But still, my field of vision is terrible.
Because of all the thickly grown trees, there’s nothing but blind spots.
I don’t show it on my face, but inside I’m scared that an animal will suddenly jump out from the shade of a tree and attack me.
No, if it’s just a normal animal then that might still be okay.
From the fantasy-ness of this world, it’s plenty possible that a monster or something will appear.
The aimlessly wandering girl is suddenly surrounded by a pack of orcs and goblins.
The pitiful and unfortunate bishoujo was made into their plaything and… Mn, impossible, huh?
Despite myself, I accidentally had an impossible delusion.
If the me right now could have such a heroine-like development, it wouldn’t have been odd for me to have had a steamy romance in my old life.
But in fact there’s never even been a sign that I’d be able to get a boyfriend, and it was all underlings one-sidedly pledging their loyalty to me.
Mn, thinking about it once more, it’s impossible, right?
Even considering my skills, I can’t imagine anything except a scene of orcs and goblins waiting upon me.
I don’t want to experience such a shocking event either, so let’s hurry up and get out of the forest.
◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆
Smoothly and quickly progressing through the forest, the forest suddenly stopped for a while.
I could see a roughly 20 metre clearing between the trees.
Though it wasn’t paved, it was probably a road, and along the flattened dirt of this road that stretched to my left and right were a number of wheel, hoof and foot prints.
And on the right hand side was a carriage that had stopp-… stopped?
Feeling doubt about a carriage that went out of its way to stop in the middle of the forest, I looked more closely and found that around the carriage were about ten men, clearly nobody decent, surrounding the carriage with swords and clubs in hand.
Wai-, could that carriage possibly be in the middle of being attacked by bandits?
And of all things, right here right now as I leave the forest?
Why do I have to encounter such a cliched scenario? It couldn’t be that this is some scheme of that evil god, could it?
There are still a lot of things I don’t understand, but for now I have to think about what I’m going to do.
For now, I have three choices────
(1) Anri-chan with her strong sense of justice, rushes to the aid of the carriage, driven by her sense of righteous indignation.
(2) Anri-chan who obeys the strong, butters up the bandits and attacks the carriage together with them.
(3) Anri-chan who follows the creed of letting sleeping dogs lie, decides that she didn’t see a thing, and runs away.
Before I knew it I was using my revised name… Incidentally, I’m picking choice (3) of course.
Eh? Isn’t this where you’re supposed to pick (1), you ask?
Don’t joke around, I have absolutely no intention of fighting.
As a cultural clubs-type person right down to the bone, I really wish that you wouldn’t hope for such sports clubs-type stuff from me.
And moreover, nonchalantly strolling in front of that group of brutes would be like a sheep jumping into a pack of wolves.
For the same reason I’ll say no to (2), and to begin with, I’m not so inhumane that I’d support the bandits.
Even (3) is inhumane, you say? No, no, telling a feeble level 1 girl to fight more than 10 bandits should be what’s inhumane.
To you inside the carriage────probably a princess, or a merchant or something────sorry, but just write this off as bad luck and give up, and please don’t get me wrapped up in this.
I quietly began moving back into the forest so that the bandits and the person in the carriage wouldn’t notice.
Going by the standard in stories, right now would be when I step on a branch and the sound draws attention to me, but I’m not going to make such a mistake.
Even while keeping my eyes in their direction, I’m paying attention to my feet… Geh-, our eyes met.
“Hii!?”
The bandit furthest back; in other words, the man closest to me, looked in my direction and let out a shriek.
Hey-, oi.
“W-, What is it?”
“A-, A woman? No…”
Like a chain effect, the other men who looked in my direction backed away.
“No…”? You know, I am technically a woman you know, biologically speaking.
“…”
“…”
At about 30 metres in between, the bandits and I wordlessly faced each other.
A strained silence filled the area.
“…”
Unable to bear the silence, I unconsciously thought ‘anything is fine, just say something’ and opened my mouth.
But at that instant, that tension was torn apart.
“UWAHHHHHHHHHHH―――――!!!”
“S-, SAAAVE MEEEEEEEEE―――――!!!”
“W-, WAIT FOR ME!”
At that moment, the bandits fled in all directions.
Completely dumbfounded, I just gazed at their retreating figures.
..*
When I snapped out of it, the bandits were already all gone, and only the stopped carriage was there.
No, I didn’t notice ear
lier, but looking closely there’s one man still by the carriage.
I thought that it might have been a bandit late in escaping, but he was wearing clothing different from the bandits I just saw.
He was probably the owner of the carriage, and was just about to be attacked by the bandits.
It was just barely in time, but it seems that things ended without him being killed.
I unexpectedly ended up saving him, but I wonder what happened.
From what I saw of the bandits’ response from earlier, there’s no doubt that the skill works just fine on humans as well.
Meaning that the chance that this man is afraid as well is high.
Honestly speaking I just want to pass on anything that’ll gouge at my heart even more, but I might be able to come into contact with him amiably, so passing up this chance is a waste.
Indeed. I didn’t do a thing and the bandits just ran on their own, but you could say that to this guy I’m his saviour.
If I speak to him friendlily, I’m sure it’ll be okay.
Thinking this, I approached the man.
Oops, I’d better put this tantou in my item box so that I don’t accidentally provoke him.
Also, smiling is important for developing friendly relations. Smile, smile.
However, when I desperately put on a smile, the already pale man’s complexion grew noticeably worse.
Did I fail somehow?
Tilting my head in confusion, the man flung the leather bag in his hand towards m-…HEBU-!?
“S-, SAVE ME GOD―――――!!!”
It seems that something metal was inside the leather bag, so something hard and heavy smacked into my face.
While I was confused at this sudden abuse, the man frantically jumped onto the coachman’s spot and pulled the reins, and hurried the carriage away.
The carriage ran away like it was sliding, and travelled down the forest road just like that, before finally disappearing.
Still holding the leather bag that dropped from my face into my hands, I just stood frozen there.
… … … … … …It hurts.
Jashin Average – 4
Chapter 4 – Relief
After experiencing that heartrending event of being run away from by both bandits and their victim, I stood stock still for a while, but I pulled byself together and decided to have a look at what was inside the bag that was flung at me earlier.
Just as I had guessed from that painful experience earlier, the inside of the bag was stuffed with gold coins.
I don’t know what the currency in this world is worth, but there are quite a lot inside, and I think it might be a fair amount.
…The pain was proportional though.
When I counted the contents more carefully, I found that there were 5 gold coins, 48 silver coins, and 114 copper coins.
To be hit in the face with such a heavy thing, you did well in getting out unscathed, me.
I’m not sure, but it’s probably that the carriage owner from before was just about to beg the bandits for his life with this money.
And then I appeared, and he threw it at me without checking what was inside…
Thinking about it again, I’m really getting a little irritated.
Though it wasn’t intention, I was his saviour, but he threw something at me and ran away, so my anger is justified.
And so, I’ve decided to keep this money as reparations.
It doesn’t seem like I’ll have a chance to give it back after all.
Having tidied this matter up in my mind, I put a few silver and copper coins into the pocket of my robe, and toss the rest into my item box leather bag and all.
Now then, what am I going to do from now on.
From what I saw of the reactions earlier, even if I arrive at a town, I think the possibility of them letting me in is low.
It’s still better if they just get scared and run; if things go badly, I might even get attacked.
But staying away from civilisation like this is impossible.
I don’t have any survival skills, and even if I did, it’s dubious as to whether they would work in this other world.
In the end, I have no choice but to get to a town somehow in order to survive.
Can’t I control these annoying skills somehow…?
Wait, hang on?
The bandits and the carriage owner looked scared after they met eyes with me.
In other words, can’t we say that the fear is limited to the effect of the mystic eyes, and the aura alone doesn’t have that much of an effect?
I accidentally thought of them as a set, but the weakened effect against humans was only written for the Evil God Aura, and it didn’t necessarily affect the Mystic Eyes of Wicked Authority.
If the Evil God Aura doesn’t seem like it’ll be that much of a problem, and only the Mystic Eyes of Wicked Authority are an issue, then there are still ways I can cope.
Since making eye contact is the activation condition, the effect won’t activate if I make it so that our eyes don’t meet.
Fortunately the robe has a hood, so if I pull it down enough that it hides my eyes, I’ll just be a person with a slightly eerie atmosphere… at least I hope that’s how it is.
I can’t deny that there’s a lot of wishful thinking mixed up into there, but given that I don’t have any other choices, I’ve decided to follow my original plan and look for a town.
First of all is the problem of which way I should head for now, but────
“…Let’s go this way.”
I’ve decided to go not in the direction that the carriage escaped in earlier, but to go the opposite way.
I think there should be human settlements in the direction that the carriage came from as well as where it was going, but I don’t know which is closer.
The probability is an even 50:50.
In that case, considering just in case that I meet with that carriage owner again, it seems like it would be nothing but trouble, so let’s go in the opposite direction.
And like that, I once again began to walk.
◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆
I don’t have a watch so I can’t tell the time accurately, but I think after walking for about two hours, the forest ended and I reached a wide grass plain.
If it was the me from before, then I would have been unable to move from the exhaustion long ago, but because of the reinforcement of my physical abilities I’m not even sweating.
The highway stretched out through the plain, and in the far distance I could see a town.
It was surrounded by a wall, and seemed to be quite a big town.
It’s just what I can see, but it seems that I’ll need to walk for another hour to get there.
After looking about the plain and confirming that there weren’t any dangerous looking animals, I headed to the town.
When I got close to the town, I could see that at the end of the highway was a small building set as the entrance, and in front of it stood a few people and their carriages.
I quietly added myself to the end of the line, and listened as best I could for information.
Since I know nothing about this world’s common sense, I don’t even know the procedures of how to get into town after all.
The merchants riding their carriages showed the gate guards a card, and their carriage underwent a check before passing through.
As for those walking on foot, some of them showed a card just like the merchants, and some of them paid money and received a wooden card.
Those cards are probably identification papers of some sort.
But though there seem to be those that don’t have them, in that case it seems that they pay a silver coin before being let through.
I’m worried as to whether this flawed system will be alright, but to me it’s convenient.
While squeezing a silver coin I had in my robe pocket, I waited for my turn to come.
“Next… Just one person?”
“Yes.”
It was my turn now so I walked before the guard.
Inside, my heart was pounding, but I didn’t let it show.
Thankfully, because the hood was pulled down enough to cover my eyes, it seems that they didn’t get scared.
“A woman huh. Do you have ID?”
“I don’t.”
“Then pay a deposit, and we’ll issue you a temporary ID. The deposit is 1 silver coin.”
Not a toll, but a deposit huh?
I wonder if they’ll give it back when I leave.
I took out a silver coin from my robe pocket, and handed it over.
“We have certainly received it. When you leave the city, return the temporary ID and we’ll return the deposit. Even if you get an official ID when you’re in time, don’t throw away your temporary one.”
“Got it… How would I go about getting an official ID?”
“Did you just come from a country village or something? The fastest way should be to register at the Adventurers Guild and get an Adventurers Card. There’s also the church, and the Merchants Guild, but the former is no good unless you’re a resident or a believer. As for the latter, only merchants can enter so it probably doesn’t have anything to do you with, miss.”
Well, no matter how you look at it, I doubt I look like a merchant.
Since our eyes aren’t meeting I don’t know what kind of expression he’s making, but this guard is quite kind.
The Adventurers Guild, the church, and the Merchants Guild; for now I know that the town has at least these establishments.
“Well then, this is your temporary ID. Make sure not to lose it.”
“Yes.”
Putting the wooden card away in my robe pocket, I went through the gate.
The town was mostly round in shape, and the road stretched from the gate I entered, through to the central plaza, then all the way to the gate at the opposite side.
I don’t know what map direction it is, but from the words of the people walking around me, the gate I entered through was the eastern gate, and there were apparently also western and southern gates.
The northern side doesn’t have a gate, but the estate of this town’s────which seems to be named Riemer────governing lord.
Evil God Average 【First Half – Book of Evil】 Page 2