by Ryota Hori
But since they failed to capture me while I was in the capital, I’ve pretty much already won. The fact they don’t know what I look like already puts me at a huge advantage. Now I just need to get to the border somehow...
As Ryoma pondered things, the path before him suddenly opened up. The forest’s trees were cleared, leaving an open space in the middle of the forest. The growling of animals suddenly reached Ryoma’s ears.
Ryoma looked ahead, catching sight of large dogs, roughly one meter in height. There were thirteen of them; likely a family. Some of them were visibly pups.
So those are wild dogs...
They were still only growling, trying to scare the intruder away. They weren’t trying to pounce on him, likely hesitating out of the urge to keep their young safe.
This is my chance.
Ryoma pulled out his chakrams swiftly, taking aim at the older dogs which stepped forward to protect the pups. Ryoma unleashed the chakrams, which cut through the air toward the dogs. They were fired at a calculated angle; if the parent dogs tried to dodge, the pups would get hit, and if they didn’t, they themselves would be targets.
It was a cruel ploy that used their desire to protect their offspring against them, but Ryoma unleashed his chakrams with no mercy. The sound of flesh being torn filled the forest, and a yelp of pain reverberated against the trees.
Ryoma then rapidly drew his sword and rushed toward the wild dogs, who had already recognized Ryoma as an enemy. Enraged by his harming their family, the dogs mercilessly bared their fangs at Ryoma.
There were eight of them. The five that had been damaged by the chakrams retreated. The dog that took off first jumped up two meters ahead of Ryoma.
Guess that’s what you can expect out of a dumb animal...
Ryoma drove his sword between the dog’s opened jaws. Jumping wasn’t a wise decision in the slightest, since without wings it was incapable of moving in the air. The circumstances mattered, of course; a surprise attack was another story, but doing it during a frontal assault like this was nothing short of foolishness.
Of course, the wild dogs didn’t have the intellect to understand that. They attacked Ryoma as their instincts dictated. Ryoma simply slipped by their sides, cutting their heads off one after another as he did. Each swing was a kill, as he flowed from one to motion to another.
But as he dispatched the dogs with almost mechanical procedure, Ryoma must have grown complacent. One of the dogs didn’t leap at him, simply rushing toward his right leg with its mouth open. Ryoma reflexively kicked up his leg, driving it into the dog’s throat. As the dog crouched in pain, Ryoma drove his sword into its head.
Phew. That was close. I almost let my guard down...
Three dogs remained, the pups nestling up to their parents’ corpses. Ryoma stepped up to them, who jolted up, sensing the danger.
As one might expect of creatures called monsters, even the pups seemed ferocious. Even with their parents dead, they didn’t back off, growling menacingly. There were roughly five meters between them. Ryoma propped his sword up on the left of his body, in a stance preparing to slash from the lower left to the upper right.
As they glared into each other’s eyes, the air gradually became heavier. It was Ryoma versus three wild dogs. At the moment where both of their killing instincts were at the breaking point, Ryoma suddenly wiped his resolve away.
The dogs, which were about to pounce at any moment, lost their aggressiveness in confusion, hesitating at Ryoma’s odd behavior. It was then that Ryoma suddenly closed the distance, making a diagonal slash from the bottom left.
The first dog’s head was cut clean off. Ryoma then swung a second time with his sword swung aloft, tracing the same trajectory again to split a second dog’s abdomen in two. All that transpired within mere seconds.
The third dog broke off into a sprint, running the other way. Its instincts urged it to prioritize flight over fight, it seemed. But Ryoma wasn’t going to stand idly by and let it get away. Lodging his sword into the ground, Ryoma fired off a chakram at its defenseless back.
Phew, that makes thirteen...
The battle only lasted three to four minutes. Since each of them was slain with a single blow, it was hardly a lengthy one.
The chakrams are lethal enough, but... They’re not all that easy to retrieve, so that’s a bit of a turn off...
Since they had no handle, and their rims were entirely made up of blades, the chakrams’ lethal effectiveness was certainly strong, but it also meant they tended to get buried in the opponent’s flesh. Wiping the six thrown chakrams clean of blood with a cloth, he put them back into the sack on his waist.
Let’s see... What parts of wild dogs are...
According to the booklet, the most valuable parts of a wild dog’s body were the two fangs growing from its upper jaw and its fur. Ryoma proceeded to skin the dogs of their furs using his sword, albeit awkwardly, since he wasn’t used to it.
Chapter 3: Resolve
“Good work last night, everyone!” Rolfe’s voice echoed through the plaza in front of the gate. “I’ve come to relay our new plan of action, decided just now. Lady Shardina, Lady Celia, Sir Orlando and I will serve as captains and lead companies of thirty to forty soldiers each. We’ll then head to the south and east, and commence our search! Our formation will be as discussed earlier. As you all know, the culprit is the otherworlder that slew Sir Gaius. Exercise the utmost of caution. Now, each of you be swift, for we’ll be setting out!”
As he watched the soldiers take their positions, Rolfe thought back to what had happened last night. The empire’s pursuers unknowingly passed Ryoma by at the gates. Celia, Rolfe, Orlando and Shardina had continued their pursuit since noon and deep into the night. But the trail of the soldier who had left the city gates quickly went cold, and no information as to his whereabouts cropped up.
“How does this make any kind of sense?!” Celia’s angered bellow echoed through the capital’s gate. “We have this many soldiers mobilized, and we still cannot locate one man?! None of you are slacking off, I hope!”
She looked around with a face befitting a demon. Her well-shaped eyebrows were furrowed upwards, and her eyes were dyed red. Her troops, which scattered in all directions in their search, returned empty-handed to their gathering point near the gate. As the price for not having located a single clue, they could only stand there and soak in her verbal abuse.
All they had for now was an eyewitness report of a man dressed in a soldier’s armor passing through the gate at around two in the afternoon. That was a mere twenty minutes before they organized their forces and passed by the gate themselves. After searching for more than ten hours, deep into the night, their search came up with nothing.
It was only natural for Celia to raise her voice in answer, especially considering Gaius had been her only remaining blood relative. It was hardly unreasonable to expect her to become emotional over this, but this was a problematic situation for a commander to be in.
“Calm yourself, Celia. The soldiers have all worked to the best of their abilities.” A voice as pure as the chiming of a bell gently chastised Celia from behind her back.
“Lady Shardina... My apologies.” Turning around to face the speaker, Celia’s voice lowered in tone.
She couldn’t find it in herself to argue against the empire’s first princess.
“I believe we should probably stop here for today... Everyone looks quite tired.” Shardina looked around.
No soldiers made a blatant show of being tired, but they were all still visibly fatigued.
“But... If we stop now...” Celia intended to argue back, but Shardina shook her head.
She’d realized that if Celia were to force them to continue the search any further the way she was now, she would achieve nothing.
“It’s dangerous at night, even in the vicinity of the capital. We should revise our search and start again tomorrow.”
Rolfe, who had come over to see what the fuss was all about,
backed up her words. He was likely thinking the same thing.
“Yes, it’s just as Lady Shardina says. Overexerting yourself in this search would yield nothing. We would do well to step back for now and restart our efforts. What say you, Lady Celia?”
Celia couldn’t find the words to argue back against Rolfe’s idea, but her emotions, which spurred her to chase down the killer of her family, wouldn’t let her accept the facts.
“Sir Orlando,” Shardina said, hugging the silent Celia’s shoulders. “Take Celia back to her mansion. I’m sure this day has been hard for her, with Sir Gaius’s passing.”
“No. I can go back on my own.” Celia rejected Shardina’s concerns.
It was obvious to all that she was at her limit, though.
“You shouldn’t force yourself, Celia. Sir Orlando, please see to her.”
“Yes, ma’am! Now, Lady Celia, come this way.”
Reacting swiftly to Shardina’s words, Orlando tried to wrap his arms around Celia.
“Let go of me, Orlando! I can go home on my own.”
But in her attempts to shake off Orlando’s hands, Celia lost balance and tumbled to the ground. It was only natural, since she’d been on the march for over ten hours, searching for the culprit without a break.
In the end, Orlando carried her over to a carriage they’d prepared for her, and Celia went back home to her estate.
“Haah... With all said and done, Lady Shardina, what are we to do after this?” Rolfe sighed, watching the carriage roll away.
“I don’t think there’s much to do. There is no point in searching any longer...” Shardina shrugged casually at Rolfe’s question.
“No point, you say...” He’d already presumed as much, but hearing it straight from Shardina’s lips still made Rolfe’s face contort slightly.
“It was decided the moment that soldier left the gates.”
“But still... We organized all our forces for this...”
Rolfe honestly believed he had done his best, and doubted that anyone could take command under such conditions better than him. That was the sort of pride which a war hero would naturally possess.
“I am aware. Sir Rolfe, I have no qualms regarding your command here. You’ve done all within your purview.” Shardina’s gaze shifted toward the forest. “Our chances of arresting him within the borders of the empire were already quite slim. After all, we don’t know what he looks like or what his age is. Still, if he were walking around dressed as a soldier, we might have had a chance of catching him.”
“So what you’re saying is, he’s no longer dressed as one of the royal guards?”
“It is most likely...” Shardina nodded.
If I were in his place, I’d change out of those clothes as soon as I had the chance... Anyone being actively pursued would no doubt do the same...
“Then... What are we to do next?”
“We’ve already given orders to blockade the barrier stations. All that remains is to head for the borders and continue our search as we go.”
As Shardina spoke, Rolfe regarded her with an anxious expression. Were they really supposed to continue searching for him without any way to tell him apart?
“Do you think we’ll be able to find him that way?”
“At any rate, we can narrow the options down to two possible destinations.”
Rolfe’s face was washed over with surprise. He picked up on the confidence in her tone.
“Two destinations? So you believe he will head south or east?”
Rolfe faintly imagined the distance between the capital and the empire’s borders. Since she had said two destinations, he naturally considered the most adjacent border, the southern one, and the eastern border, which was the second closest.
“Correct. But he’d most likely go east...”
“May I ask what makes you think so?”
“Honestly speaking, it’s mostly intuition.” Shardina said with a smile. “But I doubt I’m wrong.”
Turning to face Rolfe, she continued.
“He’s the kind of man capable of escaping the castle and shaking off our pursuit until now. He wouldn’t run about mindlessly.”
“So you’re saying the otherworlder is aware of the empire’s geography...? But that’s...” Rolfe’s expression clouded over.
If Shardina’s assumptions were correct, the task of catching this man was far harder than they’d anticipated.
“It seems most likely...”
“But wouldn’t he choose to go take the shortest route and go south? I would not pick the eastern border, were I in his shoes.”
If nothing else, Rolfe would prefer the shortest route if he were on the run and in a situation where every moment he spent within the empire’s borders was a moment his life was at risk. In his opinion, there would be no point in deliberately picking the longer way out.
“Right. If your intent was just to run, you would head south. But consider that this is what we would predict he would do.”
“So you say he chose the eastern border over the southern one, assuming we would predict he would choose the latter? Impossible... No matter how you look at it, it’s too...”
“Sir Rolfe.” Shardina shook her head at his words. “I, too, hope my suspicions are unfounded. But he’s outsmarted us every step of the way so far. If we underestimate him, he may slip through the border without us even noticing it.”
“True enough...” Rolfe said, pondering. “However, we can’t discard the chance he might go south...”
Rolfe’s sense of judgment was always pragmatic. That was both his finest feature and his greatest fault. For better or worse, he couldn’t shake off what he perceived as common sense.
“I perfectly understand what you mean. Heading for the east is simply my intuition... Which is why I believe I will leave the southern border to you, Celia and Sir Orlando, and I will head for the eastern one.”
“I don’t think that’s too bad of an idea... But wouldn’t it be wiser to split into two pairs instead?”
Rolfe’s suggestion was a reasonable one. In most such cases, they would split their forces in half. Shardina shook her head, however.
“No. Going east is simply my idea. Which is why, Sir Rolfe, you should stay behind and support Celia... After all, you have nothing to worry about. I have a reliable vice-commander at my side.”
Rolfe recalled the sight of how Celia, usually calm enough to be known as the Queen of Blizzards, was overcome with frenzy.
Yes... Just as Her Highness says, it would be dangerous to leave Sir Orlando alone to restrain Lady Celia’s rage... Rolfe took a moment to calculate things. Well, with that man at her side, I doubt Her Highness will come to harm.
The image of the reliable vice-commander Shardina spoke of vividly surfaced in his mind.
“Very well. I will organize our formations according to your decision, then.”
“Please do, Sir Rolfe.”
Rolfe then went on to force his tired body awake, working into the night to organize their formation. All this to apprehend a single otherworlder.
“Sir Rolfe! We’ve finished moving the troops! We’ll be departing shortly!” The voice of a runner dragged Rolfe out of his reminiscence of what had happened last night.
“Shall we go, Lady Shardina?”
Shardina responded by waving her sword ahead, beyond the gates.
“March onward!” Rolfe’s shout prompted two hundred soldiers on horseback to set out, in pursuit of the elusive otherworlder.
The column of horsemen rushed along the highway leading east. The vice-commander, Saitou, approached Shardina, who rode at the top of the line.
“Your Highness. Just as you’ve ordered, we’ve prioritized setting up a blockade at Adelpho.”
“I see. Good work. Very quick too, Saitou.”
She’d only given the order last night, so his execution was quick, even if he was on horseback. Her expression showed she was pleased at Saitou’s report.
“Do you think w
e’ll be able to arrest him in Adelpho?”
This man, Saitou, seemed to be in his late twenties. He had a thin, tempered body, and his hair was carefully combed down. He gave the impression of a dignified salaryman. If you were to put him in a business suit and send him out to the business district, he would likely naturally blend in with the crowd. The eyes hidden behind his silver-rimmed glasses glimmered with intelligence.
“Oh?” Shardina regarded the calm man’s question with a whimsical smile. “Did I ever say anything to that effect?”
“No. That is precisely why I’m asking, Your Majesty the Princess.”
Perhaps his answer didn’t fit with her expectations, because Shardina became a bit moody as she answered him.
“Then let me ask you, my dear, reliable Saitou. Will we be able to arrest the otherworlder in Adelpho?”
“No. It would most likely be impossible.” Saitou answered plainly.
Shardina seemed to like that answer.
“Oh? How so?” She asked, smiling faintly.
“How are we to seek out a man when we don’t know what he looks like? Or do you happen to have some sort of information regarding him?”
That had been the most problematic element of all their attempts thus far. All they knew was that the otherworlder was a tall, well-built male, and that he was intelligent and unforgiving in nature. You could find plenty of people like that in the empire.
They had sought him out yesterday based on the assumption he was wearing a soldier’s armor, but once they left the gate, they lost all traces of him. As such, assuming that he changed out of his armor, as Shardina did, was reasonable. But that also meant they had no more clues to track him with.
“That’s right... Heheh. No point in trying to seek out someone when we don’t know what he looks like.”
“What should we do, then?” Saitou regarded Shardina’s smile with a dubious expression.
Honestly speaking, the situation seemed rather hopeless. That question, however, simply made a prankster’s smile spread over Shardina’s features.
“Well, we don’t know his face, so we’ll just have to have him tell us, won’t we? That he’s the culprit.”