He couldn’t see anything while facing down. Not that he would have been able to see well even if he’d been face up, but he struggled to raise his head anyway. Despite his best attempts, though, he simply ended up with the ground in front of his eyes once again.
There wasn’t much grass around him, which was probably because the cage carts came this way frequently. The ground had ruts in it too. It consisted of the kind of dirt that would quickly turn to mud in the rain. Pressing his face against it would have been painful, so Manato put his arms together in front of his forehead, though the spot where it touched his arms still hurt really bad.
Man, this was rough. So rough, he couldn’t help but laugh. And when he laughed, his whole body ached, which was even more laugh-worthy.
But Manato couldn’t just stay there doing nothing but laughing at the situation, so he raised his head again. He still couldn’t see out of his left eye, but his right one seemed fine. And it seemed like his body was still capable of moving a bit. Manato started to get up, managing to get on all fours somehow.
“Oh!”
Goblins. The goblins. There were goblins outside of the cage cart. He didn’t know how many had gotten out, but the majority were still inside the cart. And it was a pretty large majority too. One of the goblins was at the door, calling out to the others. He must’ve been telling his friends to get out of there, and to run away, and they had to hurry, and stuff like that. Was that the goblin? The one who’d bitten the slave soldier? It might have been him. Manato couldn’t tell them apart, but he had a feeling it had been.
“Manato!”
Looking up at the sound of his name, he saw Yori was there.
“Whoa, that looks awful!” Yori said, cringing as she looked at him.
Manato laughed. “I’m the one in pain here,” he said.
“It’s amazing that you can laugh like that.”
“Well, I’m starting to heal. It still hurts, though. I’m aching all over... Heh heh.”
Riyo was leaning the upper half of her tall body into the cage cart, seizing goblins and tossing them out. The goblins were now pushing and pulling one another as they started heading toward the door too. The cage was a lot emptier now. What had happened to the two slave soldiers and the two orcish thralls? Manato didn’t see them. Had they been taken care of?
“We’re getting out of here!” Haru said, racing over to them.
“You’ve gotta be kidding!” Yori immediately shot back. “There’re still more goblins in the farm! We’ve got to at least release them!”
“What about you, Manato?!”
“I’m fine!” Manato said, quickly trying to get to his feet. He actually managed it, surprising even himself. “Whoa— Blugh!” And then something came spewing out of his mouth.
“You’re coughing up blood!” Yori exclaimed, and immediately tried to offer him her shoulder.
Manato pushed Yori away. “Nah, uh, I’m fine, just fine... Gack...”
“There’s no way you’re fine!”
“I-I’m not gonna die from this. Probably... Bwugh!”
“Normally, this would be more than enough to kill someone!” Haru scolded him.
This was enough to kill a normal person. Was Manato not normal? He’d been different from Juntza and the others, he knew that. But even if they’d been different from one another, if he thought of them as comrades, then they were comrades. Whether he was normal or not. But it was weird to hear Haru talking about how things “normally” were. What a laugh.
“Gack, gwugh, kagh!”
“Hey, this guy’s laughing as he hacks up blood,” Yori said.
“Blegh... I-It doesn’t hurt that bad, so it’s fine,” Manato insisted.
“No, we’re evacuating you to a safe place!” Haru said, scooping Manato up in his arms. “Yori, Riyo, come on! Please, just listen to me for now!”
“Then you carry Manato, Haruhiro! Riyo!” Yori called her sister’s name as she took off running. “Hurry, to the farm!”
Riyo followed Yori, and Haru chased after the two of them, still carrying Manato.
“Why did everything have to go so wrong?!” Haru complained.
Manato wished Haru would set him down so he could run on his own two legs. But he didn’t feel like he could go that fast yet. Or rather, he was sure he’d cough up more blood if he tried. He’d never imagined that he would end up with a body that spat up blood whenever it ran. That was something to laugh about. No, no, he had to resist the urge. He’d coughed up blood the last time he’d laughed too. Though, it seemed like he was going to keep doing that no matter what. Habitually coughing up blood? What kind of human did that? It was beyond hilarious. But still, he couldn’t laugh about it. No laughing was allowed. He needed to avoid thinking about things that would make him laugh.
“Oh, my sword...and my dagger too,” Manato moaned.
“They’re replaceable!” Haru shouted at him.
Haru’s having a rough time, Manato thought as if it had nothing to do with him. It did, though. Who was the one putting Haru through so much trouble? It was Manato. Maybe not just Manato, but half of the trouble, more than half, was Manato. What was he laughing for? Manato tried to tell himself off for it, but for some reason that did nothing except make him want to laugh more.
Stop laughing and take this seriously, Juntza and the others had warned him time and time again. He didn’t feel he had been goofing off, but he looked unserious when he was laughing. He needed to be careful. He was trying to be, but he still couldn’t help but laugh sometimes.
All I can do is laugh. I’m not gonna, though. No way will I laugh.
Up ahead, Yori and Riyo were trying to open the farm gate.
“Yori!” Haru shouted.
The wall, huh? Up on the farm’s wall, there was a slave soldier running toward them. Another guard? One guard had rushed to the aid of the cage cart when the group had ambushed it, but that hadn’t been the only guard here. The slave soldier jumped off the wall, springing at Yori and Riyo.