Tolma
Satou here. For some reason, maybe because of a movie I saw long ago, the phrase mountain hunt always makes me picture men with torches hiking into the mountains in the dark. If you ask me, going into the mountains at night is way too dangerous.
When we reached a fork in the road about half a day’s journey away from Gururian City, we were reunited with a knight who was an old friend of ours.
Because of my radar, I was already well prepared to meet him.
“S-Sir Pendragon… Please, could you lend me a horse?”
I handed the knight a flask of water, and he drained it at an alarming rate.
It was the temple knight Heath from back in Muno City.
“Thieves have captured the oracle priestess. I need to tell the viceroy right away!”
What?! Is Miss Sara in danger?
The phrase oracle priestess made me search my map in a hurry, but Miss Sara seemed to be safe in Gururian City. He must be talking about a different person.
“Go ahead and use this horse, then.”
I gave him the reins to Nana’s usual mount, the fastest steed we had.
He seemed a bit surprised as he accepted them. He must not have expected it to be so easy.
His tattered overcoat was covered in dirt, leaves, and sticks from rushing through the mountains.
“I owe you.”
Though he looked fatigued, the knight struck his fist to his chest in salute, straddled the horse, and took off at a gallop toward Gururian City.
“Hey, master. What shall we do with these thieves?”
I turned back to Arisa, who had finished things up while I was talking to the knight.
Behind her, a group of around thirty thieves was tied up, disarmed, and even knocked out with Arisa’s Psychic Magic.
This band of robbers had been chasing the temple knight.
Three of them were lying dead at the side of the road, but that was the work of the knight, not us.
When my radar had alerted me to the chase, our group waited at the intersection, armed to the teeth, and rounded up the thieves as soon as they arrived.
Our enemies were surprisingly well equipped; most had bronze armor and swords, and four of them even had Fire Rods and Thunder Rods, which were magic tools reserved for military use. I was a bit concerned about where they had gotten all this.
“The knight will probably come back with reinforcements, so let’s just leave the trouble of transportation up to them.”
I was more than happy to leave the cleanup of the bandits to the proper authorities.
With that, I opened my map to investigate.
We had to rescue the oracle priestess from the thieves’ hideout, after all.
There were ten of them at the base: seven women and three men. The abductees consisted of four men and three women.
One of the captured women was the same temple knight who had been guarding Miss Sara. She had probably been tasked with guarding the oracle priestess along with Sir Heath.
I thought about going by myself, but there were more people to be rescued than I’d initially bargained for.
So I elected to take a few people with me. Arisa’s Psychic Magic made her a vital addition, so I would bring her, Liza, and maybe one other.
“I’m going to the thieves’ hideout to save the abductees. Arisa, Liza, and Tama, you’ll come with me.”
The indicated trio nodded, but Nana, Pochi, and Mia seemed disgruntled.
“Master, permission to accompany?”
“Pochi is unwanted, sir?”
“Mrrrr. Going.”
Nana was expressionless as usual, Pochi was teary-eyed, and Mia’s cheeks were puffed out in anger.
“I need you three to stay here. Protect Lulu and the carriage.”
“Master, instructions to defend the base have been registered, I report.” Nana nodded immediately, but Pochi and Mia weren’t so easily swayed.
I patted each of them on the head and repeated my explanation.
While I did so, Nana swiftly lined up next to the other two, so I patted her as well.
“I’ll be terribly scared on my own… Aren’t there aaany strong swordsmen or brave magic users to protect me?”
Catching my drift, Lulu cleared her throat and loudly tried to draw the pair’s attention.
“Pochi will protect you, ma’am!” Pochi was drawn in right away.
At that, the horses flared their nostrils and whinnied.
“I’ll protect you, too, Rye and Effie, sirs. And you, New and Bie. Zard too, of course, sirs.”
Pochi hurried to reassure each of the horses by name.
The horses whinnied again, as if to say, Yeah, you better.
As that conversation played out, I continued trying to persuade the last holdout.
“Please, Mia.”
“…Mm. Fine.”
When I squatted down to talk to her eye to eye, she reluctantly agreed, giving me a quick hug.
Arisa yelped, “Ah!” with jealousy, but I pretended not to hear it.
Once I sectioned off the felled thieves with three layers of barriers using Shelter, it was time to head to the thieves’ mountain hideout.
We ran along a narrow trail to get there. Since Arisa was utterly lacking in physical strength, of course, I carried her on my shoulders.
After a while, the entrance to the cave came into view behind the trees. A broken barrier post or something similar stood in front of the entrance, maybe preventing monsters from approaching.
There were two men standing guard in front of the cave. As we arrived, they were right in the middle of welcoming back more of their number.
“How’d it go?”
“Just two stupid little girls and a bunch of crappy loot.”
A thief carrying a couple of large sacks responded grumpily to the watchman’s question. My bet was that the sacks contained hostages.
“The coachman abandoned the brats and ran off t’ the mountains, so some o’ ours chased ’im down like a bunch o’ hot-blooded morons.”
“Hope they don’t ferget the boss told ’em to bring ’im back alive.”
“Yeah, right. What’s it matter anyway? Even if they did bring ’im back, the boss’d end up torturin’ ’im to death anyway.”
Hmm, so their boss is some kind of sadistic freak?
Leaving Liza and the others in the bushes, I crept toward the thieves.
“No kiddin’. Ever since she got that weird vase, the boss’s been even madder than usual.”
“Y’mean the one from those purple robes with all the weapons an’ Fire Rods an’ stuff?”
“Yeah. I bet that thing’s cursed…”
While the thieves had their guards down, I stepped between them, knocking out four of them before they could react. One tried to sound an alarm horn, but Arisa’s Psychic Magic spell Mind Blow put a stop to that.
The last two thieves threw down their sacks and reached for their swords, but I quickly kicked the swords away and caught the sacks before they hit the ground.
Signaling for the others to join me, I had them tie up the unconscious thieves.
“Are you all right?”
“Huh? We’re…saved?”
The first sack turned out to contain a middle school–aged girl, who looked around and mumbled in confusion.
“Siiiiiis!”
Sobbing, a little girl about Arisa’s age burst out of the other sack and latched onto the first, who was evidently her sister.
“Arisa, take care of these two, please. Liza and Tama, keep watch here for other returning thieves. I’m going to scout out the cave.”
With that, I headed into the hideout. The three thieves on their way back were all less than level 7, so Liza and Tama should be able to handle them without a problem.
With the help of my cave map, I made a beeline to the abductees.
They were gathered in a large room all the way in the back of the hideout, along with the boss and her right-hand woman.
The number of prisoners had decreased since we left, too; it appeared the bandits had killed three of the men. We had to hurry.
Of the remaining six thieves, four women were gathered at a pool of water, and the other two were coming toward the entrance.
I knocked out the pair as they rounded the corner, then made my way toward the room in the back.
“Hmph… Kill her.”
A woman’s voice echoed from the hall where the boss had the hostages.
Peering inside from the entryway, I saw Lady Knight chained to the wall.
Her armor had been removed from the waist up, and her shirt was torn open, exposing one of her breasts.
If the bottom half of her armor was still intact, she was probably safe for now. I looked around at the rest of the room to assess the situation.
A middle-aged man with unkempt hair was sitting next to her, trying to show her something with a slimy expression of pleasure.
Beside him was a female thief with heavy makeup and a skimpy outfit, giving Lady Knight a once-over and snickering cruelly.
The other abductees were trapped in a cage a short distance away, staring lifelessly at the floor.
In one corner of the room was a pile of mangled bodies.
There didn’t seem to be any traps, so I chose to finish this quickly.
“C’mon, it’s no fun if you give up so quickly. I wanna see you fight.”
“St-stop… Get that thing away from me!”
The disgusting man held a puppy-size wasp with its wings torn off.
According to the AR display, it was called a corpse bee, a horrific monster that laid eggs in animal corpses, where its young would turn the corpse into food with decay-inducing poison. Truly the stuff of nightmares.
“Let’s see what happens if this thing stings you…”
I had no desire to watch something like that happen to a woman, so I took a pebble out of Storage and threw it at the corpse bee, destroying it.
“Who dares…?!”
Covered in the green fluids of the corpse bee, the thief whirled around in rage.
Without bothering to answer his question, I quickly dispatched him.
A few pebbles to the knees sent two more bandits tumbling to the ground. They shouted obscenities at me from the floor, so I kicked them in the stomachs to shut them up. That should keep them unconscious for a good half hour.
Lady Knight was still blinking in surprise, trying to process what had just happened, when I walked up to her.
“Y-you’re…from Muno Barony…”
I covered her chest with a nearby cloth, then destroyed the restraints on her wrists with a knife.
She’d been splattered with dead corpse bee, too, so I handed her a towel and a flask of water.
“Thank you, Sir Pendragon. But how did you find this place?”
“We dragged it out of some robbers who were chasing a young temple knight.”
As Lady Knight searched around for her stolen equipment, I turned to the people trapped in the large iron cage.
“I’m here to rescue you. I’ll have you out of there soon, so hang on just a little longer, please.”
I smiled gently at the abductees as they gave a weak chorus of gratitude, then checked on the map to see where the key was kept.
Ah, it was on a desk up against the wall.
“A young temple knight? Is Heath with you, then?”
“No, I had him go on ahead to Gururian City to send for reinforcements.”
I answered Lady Knight’s questions as I approached the untidy desk.
The first thing I noticed was a vase in the center of the desk. It had a suspicious design composed mainly of eyeballs and mouths.
According to the AR display, this lidded vessel was called a malice urn.
It must be related to that “chaos jar” thing that the demon I defeated in Muno City said was needed for resurrection. It had probably been gathering resentment and other negative emotions in all sorts of places.
This had to be the vase the thieves had been grumbling about, the one that had driven their boss insane.
Opening the lid would probably curse you right away, so I quickly impounded it in Storage.
Once I got to the old capital, I could probably have the holy woman of Tenion Temple purify it.
I found the key shortly thereafter, so I freed the captives from their cage.
“You’re safe now.”
“Th-thank you.”
I offered a hand to a woman in her mid-twenties who was carrying a baby.
The last surviving man’s face was swollen, and one of his arms seemed to be broken.
“What terrible injuries.”
“The bandits beat him up when he tried to protect us…”
“I had to protect my wife and daughter, didn’t I?” The man grimaced through the pain, trying to summon a smile.
I was surprised that he hadn’t been killed, until I saw his bloodline in the AR display. According to his profile, he was a high-ranking noble of the old capital. They’d probably kept him alive to demand ransom.
He was severely wounded, so I gave him a lesser magic potion to heal his broken bones. It was a high-quality product that I hadn’t gotten a chance to use in a while.
“Is this a potion? Thank you…!”
As if he had just received a glass of water, the man gratefully guzzled down the potion.
“Well, I’ll be damned! It’s healed already! This is good stuff.”
The efficacy of the potion took the man by surprise.
“I’m Tolma. This is my wife, Hayuna, and my daughter, Mayuna. If you go to the old capital, pay Viscount Siemmen a visit. I swear on the Siemmen name that you’ll find a warm welcome!”
“The viscount…?”
If I remembered correctly, the viscount Siemmen who Mr. Tolma spoke of ran a scroll workshop in the old capital.
If Mr. Tolma was his younger brother, this connection might be an unexpected stroke of luck.
And his daughter, Mayuna, was the “oracle priestess.”
I smiled at her, and she gave a curious-sounding gurgle. She had to be an exceptionally brave baby not to cry in a place like this.
Mr. Tolma had introduced himself, so I did the same.
“A noble of the Muno Barony? Why, I didn’t know my second cousin had taken on a vassal. Is he well, then?”
So he and Baron Muno were closely related. The baron did say that he came from the old capital, so it made sense.
As Mr. Tolma and I carried on this bland conversation, Miss Hayuna suddenly gave a bloodcurdling scream.
The cause turned out to be Lady Knight, who’d taken her revenge.
Blood dripped from her sword as the heads of the thieves rolled away.
I generally didn’t think well of killing someone who couldn’t resist, but her retaliation was probably natural, considering how close she’d come to joining the pile of bodies in the hall.
There was no law against killing bandits in the Shiga Kingdom, but I still didn’t entirely approve.
“What?” She glared at me. “Are you going to tell me that was unchivalrous?”
“I won’t tell you not to kill thieves, but please at least refrain from slaughtering people in front of others.”
“Fine. I’ll be more careful next time.”
Returning her sword to her scabbard, she went to put her armor back on in a corner of the room.
Honestly, that’s so gross. I don’t want to see that.
I sent the rescued captives to meet up with Liza outside, captured the other female thieves, collected some spoils, and secured a means of transportation before rendezvousing with everyone else.
The transport in question included a covered wagon, a beast of burden called a “dullalkosaur” that seemed to be a cross between a hippopotamus and a dinosaur, a velociraptor-esque riding animal called a “runosaur,” and some horses.
“Master, this runosaur is an excellent steed. Its movements are quite agile.”
“And it turns sooo quickly, meow.”
Liza and Tama were impressed with the runosaur. Oddly, Tama appended a meow to her sentence, which was probably Arisa’s doing.
Unable to see around the runosaur’s neck while seated, Tama was standing on the saddle to operate the reins. The creature was quite docile, despite its carnivorous appearance.
Before we boarded the dullalkosaur-drawn carriage, I handed Mr. Tolma a mithril dagger and luggage bag I’d found in the hideout.
“Oh-ho! It’s my dagger with the family crest on it!”
“So it does belong to you, then.”
Because the AR display confirmed it as such, I returned it to him.
“I truly appreciate all you’ve done. This will surely help me save face when I return to my brother. Thank you, Sir Pendragon, thank you!”
“You can just call me Satou.”
“Very well, Sir Satou. I’ll be sure to repay you in the old capital!” Mr. Tolma paused for a moment and then continued a little awkwardly. “Unlike my dear brother, I have relatively little funds to give, but…I am still a man of good renown in high society. I’m sure I can be of some use to you.”
I didn’t really want to make my debut in high society anyway, so I asked Mr. Tolma to tell me about the old capital on the road.
Better yet, during the journey, he promised me a tour of the scroll workshop.
“Well, if you’re a scroll collector, how do these strike you? These two have already been used, but this Remote Arrow scroll is still brand-new.”
“Are you sure it’s all right if I take it?”
“Of course, by all means! It’s not nearly as valuable as the dagger you returned, but if it pleases you, I’m happy to give it.”
I gratefully accepted the scroll that Mr. Tolma produced from his luggage.
When I registered Remote Arrow to the magic menu later and tested it out, it was fairly similar in function to Magic Arrow, but its homing ability seemed pretty handy.
True to its name, the dullalkosaur was about as fast as a donkey, so we made it back to Lulu and the others before the temple knight Heath returned with reinforcements.
Sir Heath brought thirty of the viceroy’s knights and yeomen.
Twenty-four of them set off into the mountains to hunt down the remaining criminals.
“Well, I’ll leave the rest to you.”
“Yes, sir! We shall guard the thieves with our lives!”
The honest-looking older yeoman took on the task with a dependable smile.
He led five other knights and yeomen in transporting the prisoners. Supposedly, they would rope the thieves—quite literally—into pulling the carriage over areas where the slow dullalkosaur couldn’t.
Back on Earth, they’d probably be sued for abuse of prisoners, but in this world the prisoners didn’t have any rights. They meekly accepted their lot—and if they refused, they’d be beheaded on the spot, so I guess I couldn’t blame them.
Anyway, I cleared my mind of thoughts about comeuppance and headed back to my own carriage.
Tama and Pochi were riding the runosaur, while Liza, Nana, and Mia were on horseback.
Pochi, Tama, and Mia kept peeking inside the carriage, seemingly fascinated by the baby.
The temple knights, having celebrated their safe reunion, were on standby on their horses as well.
“Master! Look what Liza gave us, sir.”
Noticing me, Pochi grinned proudly from atop the runosaur.
It seemed Liza preferred to keep her favorite horse.
“Master, Arisa and the others are inside the carriage.”
Lulu gave a report from the coachman’s stand, so I nodded and got in as well.
“Let’s head out, Lulu.”
“Yes, master.”
Lulu’s technique as a coachman had been improving lately; when we started moving, we didn’t accelerate more than necessary.
“I’ve never ridden in such a fine carriage…”
“Mm-hmm. It’s so fluffy!”
“Nice, isn’t it? We finally got these comfy seats not long ago.”
Across from Arisa and me, the villager sisters we’d rescued were getting excited.
“Heavens, what a comfortable ride! It’s just as good as our carriage at home.”
“I’m honored to hear you say that.”
Mr. Tolma, who was sitting in one of the spare seats in the back, was examining the interior with great interest.
“Wasn’t this awfully expensive?”
“Tolma, don’t be rude.”
Seated at his side, Miss Hayuna scolded her husband for his rather indelicate question.
Little Mayuna, who’d been quiet up until now, began wailing.
The AR indicated that she was hungry. Miss Hayuna was starting to open her shirt, so I quickly turned my gaze away.
With the crying baby in the background, we continued along the highway next to the great river.
I was tempted to keep us moving until we arrived in Gururian City, but at the temple knight pair’s recommendation, we stopped in a village along the way for the night.
They told me the road was dangerous after dark thanks to monsters from the river.
I didn’t see anything of the sort on my map, so it was probably just superstition.
“Hey, sorry to just show up with so many people out of nowhere.”
“N-no, it’s no trouble in the slightest.”
The village headman responded to Mr. Tolma’s friendly remark with a slight screech.
I couldn’t blame him for that reaction, given that the likes of a high-ranking noble from the old capital and some temple knights had suddenly shown up on his doorstep.
On the map, many of the village girls were hiding in a barn far away from the village headman’s home.
Maybe they thought we might be here to look for women. I didn’t know whether to be insulted or just apologetic for frightening them.
At any rate, I would have to give them some money and goods as thanks for hosting us before we left tomorrow.
“I’m terribly sorry to put you up in such an unbecoming place…”
“Is this a meeting hall?”
“Yes, I’m afraid it’s the only room spacious enough to accommodate a party this large.”
The anxious village headman had guided us to a one-story house across from his home.
The enormous room was more than a hundred and fifty square feet. A group of elderly women were already at work preparing a banquet.
Just as Pochi’s and Tama’s stomachs started announcing themselves, the finished dinner finally arrived.
Each person received a dish containing a soup of beans, dried sardines, and mushrooms, along with a plate holding a savory mushroom and herb pancake and a small grilled fish.
“Wow, what a feast! Isn’t it amazing, big sis?”
“I-it’s like a banquet…”
I had assumed this was a standard meal for the farming village, but their comments suggested it was exceptional to ordinary villagers like the sisters we’d rescued.
It was just the right size for the likes of Lulu, Mia, and me, but it might not be enough for the beastfolk girls.
In fact, Tama and Pochi were already looking around for more.
“Um, Mister Satou…”
“What is it?”
The elder sister tugged on my sleeve nervously.
“We don’t have enough money to pay for all this food.”
“Don’t worry about that. It’s my treat, all right? Just relax and eat.”
“O-oh, okay…”
I encouraged the worried young girl to go back to her seat.
Mr. Tolma and the temple knights didn’t seem to have any problem with the presence of commoners or demi-humans.
“Heavens, what a humble-looking meal…”
“It’s not so bad to eat like the poor once in a while. As long as it’s edible, what’s the problem?”
“Tolma! Don’t insult the good people who made this for us!” Miss Hayuna hastened to scold her husband for his rude remarks.
The village headman and the old women who had prepared the meal stiffened, so I quickly covered for him.
“Please pardon my fellow traveler. We’d like to thank you for your kindness from the bottom of our hearts.”
“O-oh, there’s no need for that, sir…”
Maybe it was my imagination, but I was starting to suspect that the village headman thought I was the noble from the old capital.
Tolma and his wife were wearing normal traveling clothes, so my finely tailored robe probably helped me pass for an aristocrat.
In fact, I was the only one with an extra plate. I’d have to share it with whoever wanted some later.
“Well? Let’s eat!”
Despite Mr. Tolma’s comments about the food, he was the first to rub his hands together greedily and dig in.
He was as fast as a schoolboy who’d missed lunch, but the nobleman’s manner of eating was still impeccable.
Hayuna and the village girls followed suit and started eating. They were pretty speedy, too.
“““Thanks for the food!”””
My kids all chorused along with Arisa, then started on their meals.
It was a bit plainer than our usual fare, but none of the girls complained. Mia and Tama even traded fish and vegetables.
For the most part, the meal proceeded as normal, but Pochi and Tama were acting a bit strange.
I was glad to see them eating more slowly—there was less food than usual—but when they’d finished about half their meals, their eyes started shifting between their plates and Miss Hayuna and her baby.
Then, they got out of their chairs and carried their plates over to her.
What’s going on?
“We’ll shaaare?”
“You can have half, ma’am.”
The pair held their dishes out to Miss Hayuna.
For some reason, they looked quite serious, even a little pained.
“C’mon now. There might not be much food, but we’re still not gonna eat scraps from some demi-human slaves!”
Mr. Tolma’s insult wasn’t particularly loud, but it was poorly timed so that it echoed through the otherwise silent room.
On hearing that, Tama’s and Pochi’s ears flattened.
“Tolma! How many times must I tell you to think about who you’re speaking to before you run your mouth?!”
Miss Hayuna rose from her chair and raged at her husband for his misstep. The next thing I knew, her hand was shooting out.
After getting a firm smack on the head, Mr. Tolma looked up at Miss Hayuna miserably.
I wanted to give him a piece of my mind myself, but Miss Hayuna had already scolded him thoroughly. I elected not to try to follow her act.
Given the enormous wealth gap between the rich and the poor in this kingdom, it might have seemed like a natural reaction for Tolma, but to my mind that was no excuse for lashing out at the well-intentioned girls.
From now on, I’m just going to call him Jackass, at least mentally.
Oh, but forget about Jackass. I had to take care of Tama and Pochi.
“What’s the matter?”
“Babies have to eat a lot, or they’ll diiie?”
“Babies cry when they can’t have nipples, sir.”
I didn’t quite follow their meaning, but maybe this was why they were acting so strangely.
Come to think of it, what if they thought the baby was starving because she cried the whole way here?
“Master, when we were with our previous owner, there was a leopard-woman who had a child. She was unable to produce breast milk, perhaps because we had so little to eat, and the baby was on the verge of starving to death. So we demi-human slaves all shared half our food with the mother and child. I imagine that’s what they’re referring to now.”
“I see. Well, Tama and Pochi, that was very kind of you. But don’t worry—the baby is just fine. So you can eat the rest yourselves, all right?”
Liza’s explanation made the girls’ reasoning clear. Their former master had indeed seemed cruel enough to do such a thing.
Miss Hayuna patted the girls’ heads. “Thank you for worrying about us.” Meanwhile, her jackass husband scratched his head and complained about the lack of beer.
The villagers appeared to hear Jackass’s demands, but none of them moved to respond.
Once Miss Hayuna and I had spoken to them, Tama and Pochi nodded meekly and returned to their seats.
Then, after the meal…
“I am so, so sorry about my husband.”
“Ouch! I take it back, Hayuna, just please stop yanking on my ear!”
“I think not. I won’t forgive you until you apologize to these children.”
Still smiling away, Miss Hayuna dragged her husband over to apologize.
“Sir Satou, I’m sorry for rejecting your slaves’ kindness.”
“Shouldn’t you be apologizing to someone else?”
“No, this is considered proper between nobles! Besides, it’s like I said… Lots of demi-human slaves are unclean, y’know. What if you share food with them and get some strange illness? I can’t have my wife and daughter sick!”
So he was worried about the baby’s weak immune system? That did make sense, I suppose.
“Please don’t argue any longer. Sir Tolma, I accept your apology. Let us put this matter to rest.”
“Really? Well, I appreciate it.”
We would be traveling with this jackass to Gururian City.
I was absolutely going to use this connection to see the scroll workshop, but I’d have to be careful to keep him from interacting with my kids in the future.
I want to raise them right, after all!
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