March. Attack. Defense. Meal. Camping. Waking up.
And march again. Attack again.
For a caravan journey of just ten days, we had to engage in combat with bandit groups almost every two days, encountering so many attacks.
“We’re under attack! Raise shields!”
“Again?!”
There were even days when we were attacked twice in one day. It was a journey with more bloodshed than expected.
If there was any consolation, most of the bandits were just slightly more intelligent goblins, but…
“Ughh…! These guys are quite skilled!”
Occasionally, there were strong ones among them that even copper token adventurers couldn’t underestimate.
While our party might be fine, other parties, except for Bardu and Amina, couldn’t face them one-on-one.
Moreover, unlike the rabble wearing fur clothes close to rags, these guys were all armed with metal armor.
Of course, even if it was metal armor, it wasn’t full steel armor covering their entire body like knights, but just cheap iron plate breastplates or chain mail… but still, that was something.
To be frank, even iron token adventurers often go around with just quilted armor with leather patches.
Anyway, these guys were clearly not at a level to be doing banditry in this cold place. Neither in terms of skill nor equipment.
“What kind of guys are these…!”
Amina, who had narrowly avoided a two-handed axe swung by a bandit in chain mail, clicked her tongue and widened the distance as she saw another bandit thrusting a spear.
“Hahaha, look at her fleeing with her chest bouncing!”
“…Isn’t it ‘flouncing’?”
“What are you saying, ‘bouncing’ is right!”
The axe man and spear man mocked her appearance, laughing. Pointing at the area around Amina’s upper body with fingers covered in metal gauntlets.
“…How vulgar. Half-baked things.”
Amina frowned in disgust and spat on the ground.
Moving as if dragging her feet, neither approaching nor retreating but maintaining a constant distance, she seemed to be aiming to look for an opening while consistently defending instead of charging in openly.
Right. If it was just one bandit at the level of a copper token adventurer it might be different, but after all, it was a two-against-one situation, so she had no choice but to be more cautious than usual.
If she recklessly took the offensive and allowed a counterattack, the situation would inevitably become drastically unfavorable.
Well, come to think of it, it was her own doing.
That woman Amina, while her swordsmanship was decent, she only wore light armor of tough cloth with troll hide patches, saying metal armor slowed her movements.
That might have been enough for mediocre enemies, but against two bandits at least at copper token level, the lack of defense would inevitably be painfully felt.
On the other hand, I…
Clang!
A metallic sound like an alarm bell ringing. The bandit’s blade, blocked by steel pauldrons, slid along the curved surface.
“You should aim more carefully.”
How could a sword swung with one hand possibly break steel armor?
It might be different for a knight, but it’s impossible at the copper token level.
“Like this.”
I reached out with my left hand covered in gauntlets to grasp the side of the blade that had lost its momentum, and while pulling it strongly, I thrust the longsword grasped in my right hand.
“Huk…!”
The bandit, unable to withstand my strength, stumbled forward.
His nape was fully exposed as he reflexively raised his head trying to regain balance. My black iron longsword plunged into the middle of it with a thud.
“Guhhk…!”
“How foolish, you should have let go of the sword here.”
The black iron longsword pierced through his vocal cords, shattered his cervical vertebrae, and came out through the back of his neck.
As I struck the side of the convulsing bandit with bulging eyes with my left arm and swung the blade flat, the bandit whose head had separated from his body staggered a few steps sideways as if dancing.
“You bitch!”
Another bandit charged in, enraged at his comrade’s death.
A large man with a beard grown shaggy like some bandit… ah, right, he is a bandit.
Yes, a large man with a shaggy beard befitting a bandit.
Though when I say large, he was still just at the level of a child compared to the enemies I’ve faced so far.
No, more than that.
“I feel like I’ve seen him somewhere before…”
The bearded bandit charging toward me was wearing a headscarf instead of a helmet, and his fully exposed face had a strangely familiar look.
Where on earth have I seen this guy before…?
“You, are you perhaps from Vespian?”
I threw the one-handed sword I was holding in my left hand toward him while voicing the question that had come to mind.
“Kuh! What does that matter!”
The bearded bandit shouted as he swung the mace he was holding to deflect the flying blade.
Seems I’m right. He’s from Vespian.
After hearing his answer, I roughly understood. The reason why this guy’s face felt familiar… and where these bandits with such skills and equipment had appeared in such numbers.
“Now I get it. You guys- no, you. You’re those adventurers who ran away back then, aren’t you?”
That’s right. The identity of these copper token level bandits was the adventurers who had chosen to desert during the Abyss Priest subjugation mission.
Seeing that they didn’t return to the city but fell to becoming bandits, among them, probably…
“You’re those fools who fell for that cursed nonsense and betrayed us, right?”
The traitors who were deceived by the Abyss Priest’s bluffing and attacked other adventurers and priests. They must be the culprits who turned a situation that could have ended with little damage into a catastrophe.
“Since you killed priests, returning to the city would mean burning at the stake, and it’s daunting to run far away and start over from wooden token… so the only path left was robbery, is that it?”
I smiled through my helmet and pulled back the black iron longsword grasped in both hands behind my shoulder.
“I understand. It’s exactly the kind of idea that empty-headed idiots would come up with.”
“Shut uuup!”
They say people resort to cursing when they run out of things to say. Perhaps having hit the nail on the head, the bearded bandit raged and raised his mace high above his head.
Full of openings.
I inhaled the cold air between my teeth and pulled my arm muscles back as far as possible to store power. Like drawing a strong bow and nocking an arrow.
“I’ll crush your limbs and have my way with you thoroughly!”
“Look who’s talking. Seems banditry suits your nature well?”
As the mace came crashing down like a hammer on a construction site, a fraction ahead of it, my Iron Arm slash, with its output minimally suppressed, was about to horizontally cut through his lower body―
“T-To Ms. Hilde!”
Boom!
With a sound like an explosion, his head was flattened as if caught between vise grips.
It was because Friede’s greatsword had been swung down on the bandit’s skull from behind him.
Because she swung it down with the blade flat rather than edged, the bandit’s head wasn’t split in half but was crushed and burst along with the bone.
“To Ms. Hilde! How dare! You say such things!”
As if not intending to stop with that single strike, Friede continued to swing down her greatsword as if to plant the already dead bearded bandit’s body into the ground.
A booming sound echoing after each word she uttered.
The headless bearded bandit was only allowed to lie on the ground after his height, which had been taller than mine, became even shorter than Friede’s.
“Ms. Hilde! I took care of him! D-Did I do well?”
Friede smiled as if asking for praise while swinging her greatsword sideways to shake off meat scraps and bone fragments.
It was a reaction that left me speechless.
The sight of a human body being compressed to the level of a dwarf was one that would make even me, who had executed human trash by the hundreds, lose my appetite.
Still… she did help me, so I should… praise her, right…?
“Uh… yeah, thanks.”
I forced myself to express gratitude with a slightly uncomfortable voice.
“Heheh!”
Friede nodded with a grin and then launched her body like a bird of prey toward another bandit.
Perhaps because she too, like me, was a skilled individual with few peers among adventurers of the same rank.
Unlike Bardu and Amina who were struggling somewhat due to the numerical disadvantage, she had an air of overwhelming composure.
“Hilde! If you’ve won, come help over here!”
While my gaze was momentarily caught by Friede’s back, Amina, who was engaged in a fierce battle against two bandits, shouted for me to help her if I had free hands instead of just standing around.
Unlike our party members who were each holding their own, her party members, the trio of handsome young men, seemed to be of little use in such an intense battle, all three being at the average level of iron token adventurers.
I knew this would happen. I thought this would happen someday.
By gathering party members with the sense of collecting pretty toys rather than forces that would be helpful to her, when she meets enemies stronger than herself, she inevitably gets overwhelmed like this, unable to put up a fight.
“I’ll be right there, just hold on!”
I shook the blood off my longsword in the air and launched myself toward her.
Although she wasn’t a person I particularly liked, I couldn’t just leave her to die.
* * *
“Guuurk…!”
The last bandit collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, dyeing his chain mail red with blood he vomited.
“We won!”
The hired hands raised their hands and cheered.
The adventurers, including myself, after looking around and confirming there were no more enemies left, put away our weapons and caught our breath while soothing our tired bodies.
“First, take care of the dead and wounded!”
Lug, the caravan leader, ordered his employees to deal with the situation first before expressing joy.
Although we managed to win somehow, it wasn’t without casualties.
If the opponents had been just a bunch of nobodies it might have been different, but since a group of bandits at the level of copper token adventurers had charged in, this time we too had to engage in a fierce battle.
Several merchant group guards were lying around as corpses or half-corpses, and one unfortunate porter was also choking with an arrow lodged in his neck.
The employees who had lowered their hands ran around busily, gathering the bodies of the dead in one place and tending to the wounds of their injured comrades.
Although the treatment was nothing more than first aid of pouring potions and bandaging wounds, while those with minor injuries might be fine, those with severe injuries seemed unlikely to survive.
The adventurers also plopped down on the ground to tend to their own wounds. Only I, Friede, and Amy were without injury.
Not only Bardu’s party and Amina’s party, but even Kikel had two arrows lodged in his tail.
“Kachak! This mosquito! Wrap, it heals!”
He laughed it off nonchalantly, pulling out the arrows and saying it was nothing more than a mosquito bite, but.
“Alright, just stay still for a bit. Don’t squirm.”
Because of the location, it seemed difficult for Kikel to bandage it himself, so Amy poured a potion on his tail and wrapped it with bandages.
“Hmm. These greaves seem quite usable. Here, take these, Jane.”
“Thank you, Bardu.”
Bardu seemed to have already finished his treatment and was sorting through the equipment of the bandits they had killed with Jane, picking out usable items.
The sight of him stripping greaves from a severed leg lying around and then gifting them to his lover like Valentine’s chocolate was indescribably bizarre.
“…Hey, are you alright? You almost had your leg cut off.”
Reneom, Ben, and Hamill sat together tending to their wounds and sighing. Befitting their skills that were inferior even to Jane, let alone Kikel, their bodies were covered in wounds.
“I protected what’s between my legs, so it’s fine.”
“You crazy bastard, is that important right now? I’m telling you, you almost lost your leg?”
“What could be more important than that?”
“Well, that’s true.”
“You guys are out of your minds…”
They did seem to get along well, as expected of guys who share a bed with Amina, but it wasn’t a conversation I particularly wanted to listen to.
“Thanks for earlier, Hilde.”
As I was wiping the blade of my longsword with a sigh, Amina approached me with a bandage wrapped around her forearm and expressed her gratitude.
“It’s nothing. We should help each other in dangerous situations.”
“Still. It really was dangerous.”
I’m sure it was. With a spear blade grazing her left arm, she had to fight with just one arm. If I hadn’t helped, even if she had won luckily, wouldn’t she have definitely lost an arm?
“Phew… Seems like my sense has all died.”
Amina, who had approached next to me, lit a magic cigarette and let out a long sigh.
Ah crap, cigarette smoke. This woman is repaying the favor of saving her life with enmity.
Amina was blowing smoke quite openly, befitting a world without the concept of secondhand smoke.
If I said something, I’d just look like an overly sensitive person, so I didn’t bother to argue and just fanned the smoke away with my hand while grumbling internally.
“I thought it was a simple request, but look at this mess. I should have just gone to a dungeon instead.”
Amina seemed to want to lament her situation a bit. Was she trying to build some rapport between fellow longsword users?
Her attitude was strangely friendly. In the past, she used to harbor a sense of competition toward me, immediately retorting to whatever I said, making her a tiresome woman to talk to in various ways.
Is it because I saved her life?
“These things happen sometimes. For me, it’s been like this all the time lately. Really, I’ve gone through near-death experiences I don’t know how many times.”
I shrugged lightly and went along with her appropriately.
Giving her a sort of non-comforting comfort by saying that while this might be her first time things have gone wrong, for me, every request I’ve taken recently has gone to hell.
“Why don’t you get yourself a pair of pauldrons at this opportunity, Amina? Even if a breastplate is too burdensome, pauldrons wouldn’t be that heavy…”
“Well… maybe I really should―”
Crack.
Her voice suddenly cut off.
Accompanied by the sound of flesh being torn.
I reflexively widened the distance and quickly turned my head to look at Amina.
No, what had been Amina until just a moment ago…
“Gurk…!”
The headless body convulsing and staggering.
And one more.
“What’s this, not much? Aren’t these the ones…?”
An unknown female warrior with red hair, grasping Amina’s head with the cervical vertebrae dangling.
“This one looks a bit stronger… so, are these the right ones?”
Thud!
Behind her. At the same time as Amina’s body, which had been flailing its arms, collapsed lifelessly to the side.
“Well, we’ll know if we kill them.”
The female warrior, who had casually thrown away the head she was holding like trash, drew the long spear strapped to her back and charged toward me like a beast.