by Funa
As their opponents were unarmed, this wasn’t much of a ‘battle,’ anyway, but more of a ‘capture.’ Attacking them by surprise this time would help ensure no one on the other side was injured, and therefore it need not be a blow to the beastmen’s pride.
That was how the second retrieval team had been made to understand it. Their leader, to assuage their anxieties, had explained it simply: “We beastmen are a proud race. If we ever sully the names of our people, our families, or ourselves—if we bring shame upon them—this sin can be cleansed only by death. Wouldn’t a sneak attack be disgraceful for proud soldiers such as we?”
However, as they weren’t able use the sneak attack after all, such concerns of honor ended up moot. They shook their heads at themselves.
Even so, the situation wasn’t problematic yet. They faced eighteen unarmed humans, with non-combatants in their midst. Even if several rescuers arrived, there was no way normal humans could stand up to beastmen in serious combat.
Believing this, the leader—relieved they had caught up—didn’t doubt their success.
“Okay boys, surround ’em. Once we have, we’ll close the perimeter. When they spot us, we’ll show ourselves as one and demand their surrender.”
Even if the humans intended to fight, seeing they had been discovered and surrounded should be enough to make them surrender. They should know that no harm would come to them even if they were captured and that they would be released as soon as the beastmen were finished with their business. They had told the humans so over and over. Given the kind treatment they had been shown until now, hopefully they believed it.
Therefore, he couldn’t imagine them resisting to the death, not without any arms.
And indeed, his assumption was correct.
At least, until the Crimson Vow arrived…
***
“There they are!”
Mavis’s shout put everyone on edge. Tension flooded the hands that gripped various weapons.
The Crimson Vow had expected pursuers, but not only twelve of them. They thought there would be at least a few more. However, they couldn’t have predicted the eight men from their first encounter would withhold information about the girls’ strength to save face. And Mile was the only one who knew about the trap. This was a surprise, but it wasn’t exactly going to be a problem for them.
Once they realized the escapees had spotted them, the beastmen jumped into view. Encircling the group, they began to close in. Before the escapees, who stood with their backs to a large tree, were four young girls the men didn’t recognize. They were positioned as if to protect the others.
Are they the ones who came to rescue the prisoners? Four little girls… Are they the all-female party the interception team spoke of the other day? The ones they chased away?! Those idiots! They were followed!
The leader now understood how the prisoners had escaped. However, now wasn’t the time to stop and ponder this.
“As you can see, you are surrounded. Surrender. Don’t do anything stupid. The only ones with proper weapons are those two young ladies in front, so there’s nothing you can do. We don’t intend to hurt you, do you understand?”
The leader was a bit rattled to see the escapees all outfitted with what were most assuredly ‘weapons,’ wooden though they may be, but he didn’t allow it to show on his face. That was the most basic tenet of negotiation.
However, the Crimson Vow stood firm.
“Why should we listen to a bunch of bandits and turn ourselves over? You think we’re stupid?”
“What?! We aren’t bandits!” the leader of the beastmen shouted indignantly. Reina was undeterred.
“You attacked this group in the middle of the woods, took their weapons and belongings, and locked them up! If that’s not the work of bandits, then what is? Are you criminals, or is banditry normal for beastpeople? If that’s the case, we need to let the capital know so word can get around. As long as people are properly aware of your customs, then such misunderstandings can be avoided in the future. Would you mind telling us your names? We need to share the names of the brave beastmen who provided this valuable information, after all!”
“Wh-wh-wha…” Reina’s over-the-top proposal left the leader speechless.
If those kinds of rumors got around, the beastmen’s reputation would be ground into the dirt. And with their names attached, they and all of their kin would be barred from living in their villages again.
However, what the girl said wasn’t entirely wrong. At this rate, the good name of beastpeople was going to be sullied, all because of them.
The only thing they could do now was capture everyone present and take them back to camp. Then they would return the humans’ belongings upon releasing them, telling them the truth of the situation when they did so as to clear up any misunderstandings.
“…Guess we got no choice. We didn’t wanna get rough with you, but if that’s how you’re gonna be, then we’ll have to show you our true strength!”
“Oh, your true strength?” Reina was grinning.
Seeing this, the leader commanded in a sharp voice, “Attack!”
The beastmen harbored no ill intent toward the humans, and in fact, upon first capturing the investigation team and the hunters, they had taken care not to harm anyone.
Fighting against someone you knew had no intent to kill or injure gave you an advantageous position in battle. The Crimson Vow had discussed just such advantage before the beastmen arrived. Therefore, the four girls decided to hold back a bit, as well.
Save for Pauline.
“Ultra Hot Shower!!!”
Fwshhhhhh!
A garishly crimson liquid rained down on the three beastmen facing Pauline.
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
For the beastmen, with their sharp senses of smell and sight, this was incredibly, incredibly, incredibly painful…
Two of them were rolling around on the ground. And the third? He fainted immediately.
A fourth of the recovery team was out already.
12 ÷ 4 = 3
Pauline’s work was done. However, she already had her next spell ready. Just in case.
“True Godspeed Blade, 1.4 Speed!!!”
Beastpeople were faster and stronger than humans. If Mavis didn’t go full force from the very start, fighting against even one of them would be a trial; challenging three could mean instant death.
However, beastpeople weren’t too much faster than humans. Up against a human with sufficient training, the difference was small, at best.
Of course in the heat of battle, that small difference could make or break you.
However, Mavis was equipped with the True Godspeed Blade.
She might not be able to cross swords with three beastmen using the normal Godspeed Blade she acquired through her own hard work, but with the True Godspeed Blade—obtained through body-strengthening magic—she became a self-styled 1.4 times faster. (It was, actually, about 1.3 times her usual speed, and perhaps only somewhere between 1.15 and 1.2 times faster than the average A-rank hunter.) Mavis already had a lot of potential, but with this she became a formidable force.
However, this didn’t mean Mavis could win against an A-rank hunter. Factor in differences in skill, experience, tactics, and stamina, and such a thing was out of the question. But fighting beastmen, who preferred to rely on strength and loathed technique, she had a good chance of an even match.
And of course, there was a difference in their weapons.
The beastmen carried machetes, hatchets, and other things not designed for battle. Compared to Mavis’s short sword, which had far better reach and speed for swing, they were at a distinct disadvantage.
Above all else, Mavis was a swordswoman who practiced on a regular basis, and she fought with civilians at her back. For someone who aimed to be a knight, no one—no matter how skilled or how physically fit—could beat her spirit.
With a roar, she dashed forward.
Introducing a great deal of fo
rce stiffened the sinews and forced one’s speed to drop. She dropped a bit of her strength, to move at 100 percent speed!
She was up against machetes and hatchets, but Mavis, who knew which way the blades were going to move, had absolute faith in her beloved, unbreakable sword.
She moved a split-second faster than her enemy could read and prepare for. Their blades clashed at an odd angle, such that if her timing had been off, her weapon could have been thrown back or struck from her hands. Mavis turned the sword ninety degrees and struck it hard into her enemy’s guts.
Being that it was a double-edged blade, there was no point in striking with the back of the sword. They would have died.
“Gwah!”
“Urk!”
Two of the beastmen fell to the ground. The third stood and stared, his eyes wide in disbelief.
Reina, on the other hand, had begun the fight at a disadvantage.
Because she had been speaking to the leader until the fight began, she hadn’t had a chance to prepare a spell ahead of time.
By all measures, fighting in melee range against enemies who were quick and skilled in close-range combat, without any prior preparation, was a situation most mages hoped to avoid at all costs.
And yet…
“Guh!” The beastman who tried to rush her met the pointed end of a staff to the gut. He was almost immediately immobilized.
“Wh…”
Of the three beastmen facing her, two now remained, the undeserved grins upon their faces twitching.
One of them alone should have been enough to take an unprepared mage; a small human girl, no less. Or so the two had assumed, leading them to hang back casually. Now, they tried to quickly summon their strength, but it was already too late. While Reina swung her staff at the first beastman, she had been chanting a spell. Now that relatively short incantation was complete.
“Hot Inferno!”
A mild whirlwind whipped up, swirling gently around the beastmen. The air turned a little reddish.
“Gyeeeeeeee!!!”
The three beastmen, including the one who had already fallen, rolled on the ground, clawing at their throats. Tears streamed from their tightly shut eyes, and snot dripped from their noses.
At least for now, Reina remembered to use non-lethal magic. As she said to Mile and Pauline:
“As long as it’s non-lethal, it doesn’t matter if allies or other bystanders catch friendly fire. It uses up less magical energy than any large-scale flame spell.”
Upon hearing this from her, Mavis had sputtered in disbelief, but Pauline nodded in agreement. Amazing, non-lethal magic! Mile had initially thought. Something someone cool like ‘Stern the Destroyer’ would use…
But not Starlight Breaker, absolutely not! If she used that, someone would definitely die!
She had elected not to teach that to Reina. Even Mile had some common sense, now and then.
The beastmen’s leader was part of the trio facing Mile.
Normally, the leader, the strongest of their group, would go up against Mavis, seemingly the strongest of the Crimson Vow and a swordswoman. That was what Mile assumed, but perhaps thanks to his instincts, the leader realized Mile was the strongest of the four. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t know just how strong she was.
Just as Mile moved to deflect his knife, a ball of flame flew toward her from behind him.
“A-an attack spell?”
Magic was a weak point for most beastpeople, whose power lacked in comparison to humans. However, that was only true for the majority of beastpeople. There were many who couldn’t use magic at all, and many whose limited magic was far weaker than the average human’s. However, among them also existed those whose magic was as strong, or stronger, than a human’s. That number just happened to be much lower.
That said, there were far fewer beastpeople than humans to begin with, so the observation that “there are no beastpeople good with magic” was an understandable misrepresentation.
Naturally, those few beastpeople who did have strong magic were sent to the front lines.
The leader and the mage. The two strongest members of their team were both facing off against Mile. They must have had a very high opinion of her.
Mile, who had assumed beastmen couldn’t use magic, was thrown off by the sudden magical attack… not. As she swung her sword two-handed, she pulled her left hand away. She repelled the leader’s knife with her right hand alone and redirected the flame orb with the back of her left.
The flame orb shot straight into the gut of the third beastman, who had the misfortune of standing behind the leader.
“Wh…” The leader and the mage froze, watching as the orb blew their companion back.
Because it had been fired without intent to harm, it didn’t explode on impact. Instead it scattered, dissipating when it reached its intended target, its surface temperature low to begin with. What had sent the beastman flying back was half-shock, half-him trying to renegotiate his own stance. He hadn’t really taken much damage at all.
However, the mage was terribly shaken and unable to prepare his next spell. The leader stood stock-still as well, his blade still crossed against Mile’s.
“Hup!”
Mile pushed her sword forward, flinging the leader’s knife away. She struck him in the side with her sword.
The mage, who had returned to his senses, began to incant a spell but discarded it halfway. He realized what was going on around him. Mavis had felled her third opponent, leaving him and the relatively undamaged youth who had been thrown back by the repelled flame orb the only remaining combat-capable fighters.
The mage understood: Their chances of victory were now zero. If the two of them fell as well, it would spell doom for their companions.
It wasn’t as though the humans, who probably wished to leave, had gravely injured them. Yet, even if they just left them here, not killing them out of fear of war between humans and beastpeople, there was no telling how many days it would take them to get back to the worksite. Nor how many it would take before the others grew worried that they hadn’t returned and sent out a search party.
And there was no guarantee that such a prime target as a group of wounded beastmen wouldn’t be attacked by wild beasts or monsters in the meanwhile.
To avoid this, it was critical the two of them remain in good health. That way, he could send the youth back to the camp for aid, while he used every ounce of his power to heal and protect the injured from monsters, until help could arrive.
Of course, who knew if things would even proceed that well. Perhaps the humans didn’t care whether a war started and would try to kill them anyway. The beastmen were the first to attack, after all, so they could easily claim self-defense. There was a strong chance that the other beastmen, not wishing for a war with the humans, would retreat.
However, they were running out of options.
For now, only the mage and the youth were in any shape to talk. And since he outranked the youth, the mage was currently in charge.
So, the mage shouted, in a loud and determined voice, “We surrender! Please don’t kill us!”
“Now then, what shall we do? It would be too much work to bring all of them along,” Reina said, pondering.
“Wouldn’t it be better to kill them?” Pauline asked nonchalantly.
A shiver ran through the restrained beastmen.
Of course, she wasn’t being serious; she was bluffing so the men wouldn’t take them lightly. And to have a bit of fun, too.
“Please wait!” The hasty protest came not from the beastmen but from the leader of the escort hunters.
“That would be a mistake before we understand what the whole situation is,” the man said. “If this goes south, it could mean conflict with the beastpeople as a whole. Let’s try and handle this a little more gently.”
Apparently, he had thought his new allies were being serious.
“Hm, I wonder. Guess it depends if they answer us truthfully when we question
them,” Reina said.
However, in spite of the ample threat Reina and Pauline represented, the beastmen’s lips were sealed. Despite lengthy questioning from a number of angles, they gave not a single answer, not for why they had captured the investigation team and the hunters, nor for what they were doing at that worksite.
Well, at any rate, it didn’t take a genius to figure out the beastmen had captured the humans to prevent them from finding out what they were doing at the site.
As they couldn’t rightly torture them, everyone was growing a bit frazzled. That was when Mile butted in.
“What exactly do you hope to do by excavating something like that after all this time? I’m sure it’s because those people asked you to, but you realize you’re only being used, don’t you?”
“What?! H-how do you know about it? And they would never—”
The youth fell straight into Mile’s trap.
“Y-you idiot! Quit talking!!” the leader screamed.
Mile grinned. She had confirmed nothing more than what Dr. Clairia had theorized, but that meant any information they did get would now be significantly more reliable. Their motives were still unclear, but at least now they were certain of the beastpeople’s goal.
“We aren’t going to get anything more out of them without torturing them,” said Mile.
“That’s true. Shall we kill them?” Reina asked lightly.
“Oi oi oi oi oi oi oi oi!!!”
As the group interjected, Reina scowled. “That was obviously a joke!”
However, a singular sentiment rang in everyone’s hearts:
It sure didn’t sound that way!!!
The beastmen, meanwhile, were pale and trembling.
“Truthfully, I’d like to take along two or three of them,” said the escort leader, looking the beastmen’s way. “However, if a rescue team comes after them, and they think humans took their allies captive, it’s gonna start a big hubbub among the beastpeople.”
