〇 〇 〇
Caim and his companions continued to head east, maintaining their survivalist lifestyle without approaching any towns. Their journey was going well. They still hadn’t met a single assassin, and while they had been attacked by monsters when foraging for food, Caim had easily dealt with them. The only thing that could be called an issue was that Lenka was depressed by how much better Lykos was at hunting.
“This is going a little too well,” Caim commented.
They had stopped the carriage and were currently taking a short rest, drinking tea made from herbs they’d gathered out of wooden cups. A short distance away, the horse was drinking water and eating grass.
“Maybe nothing will happen and we’ll safely reach Lance?” Caim said, sipping at his herbal tea.
“My, how unusual for you to let your guard down like that. Are you underestimating assassins?” Rozbeth teased him. “They strike when you least expect them to. In fact, perhaps one is currently targeting even as we speak.”
“Don’t say something like that. What if you jinx us?” Caim complained, but just in case, he surveyed their surroundings. There was nowhere for anyone to hide and no sign of imminent threats.
“Isn’t it good that everything is going so smoothly?” Tea returned from giving water to the horse and sat next to Caim. “We’re already halfway there and should arrive at our destination in a week. The town was called Berwick, right?”
“Yes,” Millicia replied, sitting on Caim’s other side. “I visited there once in the past. Berwick is an eastern port city and one of the empire’s most prominent trade harbors.”
“So that means it’s connected to the sea...” Caim commented. While he had seen the Flumen River en route to the empire, he had never seen the ocean and wondered if it truly was that much bigger.
“The sea is vast, Sir Caim—far more than you imagine.”
“You sound like a country bumpkin. Seems like there’s a lot of things you don’t know.”
Lenka and Rozbeth spoke, half smiling.
“I’m certain you’ll be deeply moved when you see it.”
“Yeah, I was really surprised the first time I saw it. Hey, did you know that seawater is salty?”
“I know that! Don’t take me for a complete fool!” Caim retorted, annoyed, then downed the rest of his cup of herbal tea in one go. “All right, let’s get moving. I’m gonna see how great the sea truly is.”
“Yes.” Millicia stood up and stepped toward the carriage, but Caim immediately grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward him, making her yelp in surprise.
“Stay behind me!” Caim ordered, protecting her, then glared in the direction of the main road as he sensed something ominous. Before long, a man emerged from behind the hill in that direction. “Who is that?”
The man was wearing everyday clothing and wasn’t carrying anything. He didn’t seem like a traveler or a peddler—more like a villager or townsman on a stroll.
“I’m not sure if he’s an enemy... I don’t feel any hostility from him,” Rozbeth said, perplexed, as she placed her hands on the hilts of her knives.
There was nothing strange about the man—he looked perfectly ordinary. If they had seen him in a town, they wouldn’t have paid him any mind. But this wasn’t a town—this was the outside world, where monsters and bandits lurked. Wandering around unarmed was downright suicidal.
“The blonde woman...”
“What?”
“We need to bring the blonde woman!”
As the man got nearer, Caim’s sharp ears managed to catch the words “blonde woman.”
“I found her! The blonde woman is there!” the man shouted, waving his hand behind him. The next instant, a group of about ten men dressed like ordinary townspeople appeared. “She’s right there! Let’s capture her!”
“Yeeeeeaaaaah!” the other men yelled in unison.
“What?!” Caim exclaimed as the men rushed toward him and his companions. They were unarmed, and Caim didn’t understand what was happening, but he still prepared himself to fight.
“Capture her!”
“Yeeeeeaaaaah!”
“Who the hell are they?” Caim blurted out, baffled. “If they’re searching for a blonde woman, I guess their target must be Millicia.” Caim punched a man in the face, knocking him away. A few broken teeth flew out of his mouth. They were regular people, so Caim didn’t even need to use Mana Compression.
“I have no idea what is happening, but these people are ordinary citizens! So please, harm them as little as possible!” Millicia cried. She truly was a kind princess who even cared about people who were attacking her.
“You’re pretty generous even though they’re our enemies... Oh well, they’re small fry, so this should be pretty simple.”
“These people are way too weak.”
“Five points. They’re trash—not even worth killing.”
Caim punched, Tea clawed with her nails, and Rozbeth struck with the pommel of her knives.
“Why are you attacking my lady?!” Lenka asked, striking a man with her sword still inside its scabbard.
“We don’t have a choice! Just let us capture her already!”
“My daughter’s life is on the line!”
The men yelled in response.
“What?!”
Despite the clear difference in strength, they still continued to attack without flinching. Their eyes weren’t filled with hostility or malice—they were filled with despair at being cornered.
“Could it be...? Were your families taken hostage?!” Millicia shouted from behind her companions, who were protecting her. That was what she’d deduced from their words.
“Aaaaaaah!” However, nobody answered her question. Instead, a young boy suddenly leaped out from behind a large man and charged at Millicia with a sharpened tree branch.
Caim clicked his tongue and prepared to repel the boy’s attack, but before he could do so Lykos kicked the boy in the face, blowing him away.
“Well done, Lykos!”
“Mmmh!” The wolf girl followed by stepping on the boy to prevent him from moving.
“We’re not making any progress... Step back, everyone.” No matter how much they were hurt, the men resolutely stood back up and their number was becoming a hassle, so Caim decided to use one of his spells. “Purple Poison Magic—Poison Hornets!” He threw a lump of mana which exploded midair, scattering projectiles of poisonous mana that struck the men and caused them to drop to the ground, groaning.
“Don’t worry. It’s only a paralyzing toxin,” Caim said. The poison he’d used only immobilized its victim, nothing more—it was kind to people and nature. “The old me might have killed you by accident, though, so I guess you’re lucky.”
Caim had greatly improved his mana control thanks to producing so much dragon-slaying toxin for the wyverns.
“E-Everyone...” muttered the boy trampled by Lykos, dumbfounded.
Caim stood over him and stomped his foot right next to the boy’s face, threatening him. “So... Care to explain what’s going on now?”
“Uh...” the boy whined, trembling in fear.
It goes without saying that it didn’t take long for the scared, crying boy to tell Caim everything.
“A weird old man took over the town,” explained the boy a few minutes later, now bound in ropes. “I live in a small town called Orwell. A few days ago, a weird old man with bone monsters came and captured all the women, my mother and sister included. He’s keeping them hostage and told us to bring him some blonde woman if we wanted them back.”
“Bone monsters... So, skeletons,” Caim whispered.
Millicia gasped and looked at Caim and Rozbeth, who both nodded at her.
“There’s no doubt about it. That must be the Bone-Eating General,” Rozbeth declared.
The Bone-Eating General was the assassin who had attacked them when they’d left Extobell. And now, he had taken over an entire town using his skeletons.
“The militia and some adventurers tried to fight back, but they were all killed and turned into bone monsters themselves... The old man said he would do the same to my mother and everyone else if we didn’t bring him the blonde woman.” The boy’s face twisted in frustration. “The local governor was killed too, and we were told the hostages would die if anyone reported to the lord... So with no other choice, we all searched around the main road hoping to find a blonde woman...”
“And then you found and assaulted us,” Caim concluded.
“...Yeah.” The boy hung his head, his tears falling to the ground. “I know it’s wrong to listen to that old man, but I didn’t know what else to do to get my mom and sister back!”
“That is all right. I do not blame you.” Millicia knelt and placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “If anything, I should be the one apologizing. This is all my fault. I never expected him to do something like that...” Her face twisted with sorrow.
They understood from the boy’s explanation that after failing to capture Millicia, the Bone-Eating General had instead decided to force an unrelated town’s men to do the work for him by taking all the women hostage.
“What a vile and foul assassin!”
“This is despicable...”
Lenka clenched her fist in rage, and Tea grimaced in disgust. Rozbeth stayed silent, but the way she slightly frowned showed she was displeased too.
“So... What do we do now?” Caim asked Millicia, who was still comforting the boy. “We could just ignore them and continue on our way.”
While Orwell had been taken over because of Millicia, she really shouldn’t feel responsible for it. The fault was with the Bone-Eating General for using such underhanded means to capture her. She had no obligation to accept his invitation.
“...No, we must go.” However, Millicia’s answer was exactly what Caim had expected. “Even if I am not directly responsible, it is my fault that a criminal has assaulted their town. I cannot simply ignore them!”
“I knew you’d say that,” Caim said. She had refused to abandon the domain under attack by wyverns, so of course she wouldn’t be able to ignore a town taken over by an assassin when she was the underlying cause. “It does feel like we’re just doing what he wants, though.” Caim didn’t know how far the Bone-Eating General had planned things when he had taken Orwell hostage, but if he had anticipated that Millicia wouldn’t be able to abandon them, then he was quite a schemer. “It’s annoying that we have to go there even though we know full well it’s a trap...” Caim sighed and shook his head.
“It’s hard being a princess’s bodyguard. I feel you.” Rozbeth gave him a sympathetic pat on the back.
Caim wasn’t the only one thinking it was a bad idea to go along with the Bone-Eating General’s plan, but neither he nor his companions blamed Millicia. After all, they all shared her disgust for the assassin’s barbaric actions.