04.LITTLE GIRL HUNTS BEARS

No matter what kind of world it is, there is always a difference in strength. And in that, things are classified from good to bad. Obviously, this was applied even for mercenary jobs.

It is said that even if it was a common nameless mercenary, each month, he would get about two hundred thousand Goldin by going to the war. It was a job that you easily risked your life at, but having only one life, the reality was that most times there really weren´t many people working at this business and only desperate people would apply for it.

If one was to enter in a mercenary group, half of the reward would be taken, but being a cooperative body, there is great advantage in the group, and there was also the fact that if one didn´t have an outstanding fighting prowess, there were better chances in surviving by joining in a mercenary group. If one had an outstanding fighting prowess, it was also possible for the person to become one of the leading figures of the mercenary group.

Besides that, although it was obvious that you would get even better rewards by going to war, even if fantasizing about getting rich in one go, the truth was that mercenaries worked for the sake of keeping themselves alive, and so most of the people believed that it was fundamental to earn money in a reliable way.

Inevitably, things would go differently from expected and the number of deaths would get higher than what it is expected to be. However, if it is about machiini pilots that it is being talked about, the situation would be completely different.(TL note: -.- ->それが結果として戦場を分別の付いた戦いへと変えていて、死者数は考えられているよりも実はかなり少ない。<- Not sure about the accuracy here :/)

According to the estimations of the wager of a machiini pilot nowadays, even if it is a common and nameless one, they would get paid two million Goldin monthly. If one had enough strength to have received a nickname, depending on the negotiations, the amount could increase even more.

However, even if it was a nameless machiini pilot, if you brought down one enemy machiini, you would get a reward of four million Goldin. Besides, if you were able to get a machiini without destroying it, you would receive an additional ten million goldin. And so, machiini pilots were targets of envy, and at the same time, were targets that were worth a killing of money.

And so, although this was obvious, it was common that machiinis would the ones to beat other machiinis down. And so, they would go to the battlefield on their own will, and while making their names, at the same time, they would become appealing prey for other people. It was the reason why they were called the flowers of the battlefield.

With that being, most of the eight million nine hundred thousand Goldin of the reward Bela received was took up the money from the three machiini pilots. Because the bandits were opponents that would make one fight seriously, although the amount of money wasn´t much, she got the amount an average mercenary would earn in years in one go.

The little girl Bela, who had this great amount of money at hands right now, had gone deep into a mountain range.

—-

“Hya!”

Bela was piloting her Machiini [Ainandina], running through the mountain range while carrying enough money to modestly live half of one´s life in comfort.

The ones that were following her were three giant bears of about five meters. They were savage beasts known for its extreme danger in the Ishtaria continent and were called greater beasts. The giant monsters that were following the machiini Bela was piloting were bigrobears, which were very violent even among the other bear races.(TL note: Is greater beasts a good name?)

“”They came in a batch, huh.””

With the field of vision being transmitted from the spiritual stone and shown at the crystal eyes that were at the head of the machiini, Bela stepped on the left foot pedal with all her strength.(TL note: 感応石 = spiritual stone would be accurate? I can´t find a translation for this anywhere. From what I could find, this would be some kind of magic stone.)

And then, momentarily inclining forward, the giant of more than three meters did at turn while scattering clumps of snow and earth from the ground. With the suspension system at its waist being loaded, silvery smoke intensively spurted out from its pipe, but even so, its balance wasn´t broken.

Bela had used all the frana she had acquired from the two machiinis of the bandit group she had destroyed to strengthen [Aiandinna]´s waist. This had effects, such as the damper of the suspension system being able to absorb impacts better, and the structure of the legs that had become sturdier and thicker than before. But these legs endured an impact it couldn´t completely absorb.(TL note: Fuck this sentence. It made me want to hit my head on the wall at the time. Just saying ¬¬)

[Ha, go flyiiing!!]

And then, doing drawing an arc filled with intense centrifugal force, the war hammer hit the bigrobear who was approaching [Aiandinna] from the front at the head at full force, splitting into two and having its contents fly into the air.

[Hyaha!]

In answer to that, Bela showed a smile. However, although she was able to kill it, because the force of the swing at full power [Aiandinna] did was still too much for it, its stance broke apart.

[Show me some guts Dinna!!]

Bela was already prepared for this from the beginning. Skillfully stepping onto the pedals left and right, while regaining its posture and preventing it from stumbling down, in that manner, it fell onto the corpse of the huge bear that was still heading towards her, receiving its impact. However, Bela´s aim wasn´t only to stop the machiini´s movements. Strongly pressing the foot pedal with full force with her posture still like that, moving to the side, she had the bigrobear´s carcass fallen at the ground.

And then, the remaining bigrobear that was coming from behind crashed at the bigrobear´s carcass that [Aiandinna] had laid there.

“”Gaah.””( ガァアッ)

The giant bear that had been following [Aiandinna] with full force until now had fallen down to the ground because of the impact. While looking at it with the side of her eyes, Bela looked at the remaining bear that was coming.

[Is it a brat!?]

Looking at the last one that was most likely a child bigrobear, Bela laughed.

[Haha, aren´t you just scared!?]

While saying that, in response to the bigrobear that was obviously faltering, Bela increased the speed of [Aiandinna] in one go. Falling in fear, without being able to deal with those movements, the bigrobear had its heart pierced by the sharp pike part of the war hammer.

And then, the sound of the roar of the giant bear echoed through the mountain range.

That attack was a fatal one without doubt. However, no matter how much she had pierced it at its weak spot, there was no way the giant beast would stop moving all of the sudden. Pulling back from the child bigrobear that was violently using its last strength to move,

Ignoring the bigrobear child that was fallen and had bubbles made of blood going out of its mouth, Bela looked at the last bear.

[Are you angry? Well, you would be angry with that, right.]

While saying those words, shaking off the blood of the war hammer by doing a swing with it, the iron soldier [Aiandinna] turned at the last target and licked its lips.

It seemed that the bigrobear in front of its eyes had become angry in reaction.

That would be understandable. The bigrobears had gone after the iron giant in front of its eyes since it had suddenly invaded their territory. Those guys wouldn´t attack human villages, and there also weren´t any humans nearby for them to be attacked. They had got attacked unreasonably, and now it had its family stolen. However, in the nature, which the strong eats the weak, such was the obvious.

The first to die was the father, which had its head cracked. The one to have its heart pierced should be the child. And so, Bela presumed the one in front of her eyes was probably the mother. Normal bears wouldn´t meddle themselves in raising their child, but the bigrobear was a curious race in which the parents would raise their child. Because of that, it felt deeply melancholic.

However, Bela´s eyes weren´t showing sympathy or sadness. With her view shining in naked killing intent, she went forward with the machiini [Aiandinna], rushing towards their last prey.

And then, after two weeks, the sight of [Aiandinna] carrying more than ten pelts at the city of battle slaves, colossus, that was at the north of the Ruuin kingdom.

—-

The city of battle slaves, Colossus. It was close to the national borders of the kingdom, and it was a city that had many times changed its subordination to different countries and kept its existence through the times. Since its formation, it already had seven hundred years of history.

It had been at the control of the Ruuin kingdom for two hundred years, and until twenty years ago, it had been the center of commence of three countries. However, because the Ruuin kingdom and the Paroma kingdom started to war for territory, the trade became only between the third country, the common wealth of Biahma, and the Ruuin kingdom. Its demands were focused on weapons, mercenaries and battle slaves, which was what sold the most.

With the space inside of the city not being enough, presently, flea markets would be opened outside the city and people would gather. Moreover, because the entrance of machiinis was still not allowed as a general rule, it became the place where armaments and raw materials for machiinis were managed.

“I see. Those are good quality materials.”

At the outside of the Colossus city, the merchant Kouza Benmark was letting voices of praise as he looked at the huge pelts.

“I just by carrying one of them is taxing, but yes, I´ve carried it all here. It would be a waste otherwise.”

Here was a residential district that was inside the flea market. It was the place a big company, the Benmark company, traded their goods. In there, together with many other machiinis, Bela´s beloved [Aiandinna] stood there. At its feet, the bigrobear pelts, bones, smoked meat and oil were side-by -side.

“I didn´t hold back. Those are guys I got to crack their heads, so I don´t mind if you buy them cheap.”

“You don´t mind, you say…. Well, I will have many uses for it though.”

And then, while wondering what the little girl that was standing in front of [Aiandinna] meant by those words, Kooza answered that.

It was the pelt of a large beast. The fur at its surface was worn out, but the skin was more resistant than the average steel, and if it wasn´t knight groups that would give priority to elegance, it would be a material that could be used in anything.

“However, this is twelve pieces in total.”

One of the main reasons why Kooza was surprised was because of the amount of pelts that were brought.

“Originally, I was planning on getting about one or two. But maybe because they got attracted by smell of blood, they gathered at me.”

Kooza showed a cramped smile because of those words. Normally, this would be a situation a small squad of machiinis would get annihilated.

Actually, if it wasn´t for the hagre greater beasts that would go down to the villagers, there weren´t many machiini pilots that would be proactive at hunting greater beasts. There were many cases of people that would enter inside the beast territory deep inside the mountains just like Bela and end up surrounded by several beasts. Once the situation became like that, even if the machiini was of a “platoon class”, it was difficult to get out of the situation.

“I see. You´ve done quite the impossible. Specially with this young one.”

Looking at the three meter machiini standing behind Bela, Kooza grumbled that. Even though the machiini had been repaired by using the frana gathered from the bigrobears, there were still scars remaining through its whole body. But even so, because it was able to properly move without losing its center of gravity, it seemed that the machiini actually hadn´t received any fatal damage.

“It seems you have the skills befitting this result.”

While in awe of the little girl in front of his eyes, Kooza spoke.

“Thanks for the praise.”

Although Bela answered back with a smile to Kooza´s words, they actually hadn´t been words of praise.

Kooza thought it was a joke when he saw a little girl getting out from the machiini. He thought there was someone else piloting it, but nobody left the machiini other than the girl. And then, looking at the raw materials that were brought to be sold, he thought that wasn´t something she had done alone.

However, looking at the state of the machiini, Kooza, who had been dealing with machiini pilots for a long time, he was able to imagine the outline of what had happened, and this had matched what Bela had told him.

The cute blonde and fluffy haired brown-skinned girl that had the appearance of the rahsa race of the west, which in addition, could also be said to be cute, was just a little girl, but right now, Kooza was able to understand her insides didnt´correspond to that.

“The job done at the other things looks to be very precise.”

“I´ve been at a village down the mountain for a week. I´ve told them I would give them part of the meat, so they´ve happily done it.”

“This year had bad crops after all. This was something that had their life on the line, so they also did their job earnestly.”

Bela nodded at the merchant´s words, saying “I guess”. This also was the reason why Bela was sold to a slave merchant.

“”It was supposed for me to be sold in this place, right.””

Bela had memories of the name of the city of Colossus. Bela heard from the slave merchant that bought her that he was planning on having Bela bind by the slavery contract at this city.

“”For now, I guess I need to be prepared for what might happen.””

Bela nodded to herself, but Kooza, who was in front of her eyes, didn´t notice.

And then, with curious eyes, she looked around the surroundings. Because the flea market was outside the city, there were machiinis walking inside it, and they constantly would raise clouds of dust as they moved. At the Benmark company, there also were some machiinis. For the sake of appraising the pelts and other things Bela had brought, they came to take them.

“”Oya?””

Bela looked at a green machine that had about two meters and a half which was moving around.

“Is that an “element”?”

Kooza nodded at Bela´s words.

“Yes, it is the elven sylphy. Because they would be useful for cargo carrying, I had employed them. They work really well.”

The sylphy was one of the elven elements, which would be summoned with elven summoning magic. They were iron giants that would have a maximum height of about two to three meters and had certain special abilities, but because their base strength was inferior, the impression that they were second rated machiinis was strong. This was a power characteristic of their race. Because they could be summoned, there was no need to be troubled about the space to store them or worrying about it being stolen. It seemed there were many people that would do routine tasks like that without going to war.

Because the demihuman races such as elves, dwarfs, drago and mamans, which were the ones that utilize the element, were rarely seen in this region, elements weren´t really seen around.

Becoming more interested in the sylphies, Bela enjoyed herself gossiping with Kooza. Bela, who was from the countryside, had many things she was very interested at among the things Kooza was talking about.

And then, after about two hours of waiting, the appraisal ended.