As they headed through a thick grove of trees, the adventurers ran smack into a group of dogs, who panicked at the sight of the humans.
“Aaah!”
“What are they doing here?!”
The kobolds screamed and ran away from the humans coming from the trees, some of them even throwing their spears down in terror.
Fundamentally, there’s an unbridgeable gap in the fighting strength of a human and a kobold. It’s impossible for a small group of kobolds to fight a large group of adventurers head-on and win. Their earlier skirmish in the riverbed had proved that.
“Don’t let ’em get away!”
“Hell no! I’m skinning those fucking mutts!”
“That blue one’s mine! That thing killed my partner!”
The adventurers rushed after them, burning with a desire for vengeance and unwilling to let this opportunity slide. It wasn’t just about the money anymore. The adventurers had been terrorized by these primitive, inferior beastmen, and their rage wouldn’t be quelled with anything less than the gruesome deaths of the little monsters.
“Wait! Wait for me!”
“Are you stupid?! Get up!”
A panicked kobold tripped, spurring on the sadistic adventurers even more. The ground must have been muddy from the rain a few days ago. The sludge would be hard to run through, but it would be a simple matter to catch up to their prey and finish them off. ...But it was more than just hard to walk through. By the time the humans realized that, quite a few of them had already entered the area. The ground was covered with fallen leaves and thick weeds, and it wasn’t until they were deep into this part of the forest that they realized that this wasn’t just an ordinary layer of mud. The adventurer in front suddenly sank up to his stomach in the muck, and the one behind him crashed into him. It was then that they finally realized that they’d charged into a swamp.
“Stop! S-Stay back! Stay out! It’s a swamp pit!” The second man screamed as he sunk halfway in, just like the man in front of him.
The humans piling into the area tried to turn around and get out, but about half of them failed in their attempts to escape as more and more came in from behind. Meanwhile, the kobolds who’d entered the swamp before them had all scrambled out to the other shore, as other kobolds hidden in the trees tossed ropes out to their kin.
“Urp... Somebody, help me up.”
“Hey, wait a second, my foot’s stuck!”
“Let go of me, dumbass!”
“Well, what am I supposed to do?!”
“Seriously, can someone help me up? I’m kind of in trouble here.”
“Uhh, you’ve got like four leeches on your arm, dude.”
“Wha...Yaaaaaah!”
“Somebody... Somebody help me up...”
Those who just had their feet stuck were not so bad off, but the ones who’d rushed in first were stuck deep and were in danger of being completely consumed by the sludge.
One of the adventurers must have had experience with this sort of situation. “Shut up! Stop moving! You’ll just sink faster if you struggle!” The scrawny man at the back of the pack hadn’t fallen into the swamp. He set about helping the stuck adventurers with four other people who had lagged behind or had escaped on their own. They quickly got ropes out of their packs and tied them to thick trees with sturdy root systems, affixing them firmly with tight knots. ...That was the moment the black swordswoman hiding in the thicket attacked.
First, she stabbed a man who’d just knotted a rope, then flashed her sword wide to the side, slashing a woman in the stomach on the way. There was a young man in chainmail about to throw a rope into the swamp; with both his hands occupied, he was powerless as Darke shoulder-checked him, throwing him into the sludge himself. The other two fell to kobold attacks by sword and axe, one falling into the swamp and one to the ground. Then, the final blow...
“Captain! What shall we do with the remaining humans?!” Blue Gale asked, breathing heavily.
“Leave ’em. They’ll sink,” Darke answered, wiping the blood off her face with one of the corpse’s cloaks.
Behind her came a cry: “We’re sorry! We’ll leave you alone! Please... Please help us!”
“Come on! We’ll never come to the forest again! You can’t just leave us here!”
“We’ll do anything! We were just hired by the guild! It’s not like we chose to come here! Right?!”
The stuck adventurers begged for their lives, slowly sinking deeper all the while, their screams growing more desperate.
“These impudent maggots... They dare beg me for their lives? Why would I waste a precious opportunity to be of use to him?”
Blue Gale recoiled in fear, smelling something dark and fiery coming from his captain’s soul, but...
“...However. I suppose I could save you later, if you swear to never do any harm to the Kobold Kingdom.” Darke twirled her fingers, narrowing her eyes and laughing with a crooked smile on her face. “How lucky for you~! Her Excellency, our general, is just the cutest little thing, so compassionate and hardworking and always thinking of the future. Oh, but her cuteness is the most important thing, of course.”
The adventurers all held their breath, listening to Darke’s words as she swayed on the spot and looked down at them.
“L-Later...? Like, when?” A man on all fours in the mud asked weakly.
“Well, after the fighting’s over, of course. As long as you stay still, you’ll probably be all right. If you’re lucky, that is.” Darke turned her back to the pleading adventurers. During all this, the kobolds who’d acted as bait and crossed the swamp had come back around to this side. “Okay! Time to get going!”
“Yes, ma’am!”
“Okay.”
“Sure thing.”
The attack squad pumped their fists into the air, tails wagging. They took the opportunity to replace their weapons with new ones from a stock hidden in the hollow of a nearby tree and set off, Darke leading the way.
Just one flax-colored kobold remained, staring at the adventurers stuck in the swamp.
“What is it, Rain Grass?”
“Hm? Oh... just...” The kobold warrior responded in a much more subdued tone than usual. “Something I have to do...”
He picked up a spear one of the decoy kobolds had dropped and turned to one of the adventurers who was stuck up to his thighs in the swamp. “Hey, long time no see. I’ve been I’d see you again.”
“H...Huh? W-Wait a second. We don’t want to fight anymore...” The man’s cheek twitched with panic as Rain Grass aimed and threw the spear as hard as he could. “Wai—”
Right as he shouted, the man with long blond hair fell back into the swamp with Rain Grass’s spear sticking straight up out of his eye, but the blow wasn’t enough to kill him instantly. Now trapped by the thick, heavy mud, the man was unable to stand upright and slowly began sinking down into the muck, screaming. “Help! Help me! No! I don’t want...gbbbbh!” The mud entered his mouth, then his windpipe. His gruesome, wordless moans continued for a short time until his face sank completely beneath the surface, leaving behind only a few bubbles and his spasming, clutching hands, which soon stopped moving and fell down under the surface. All the adventurers around him could do was watch.
“I’m done. Sorry for the wait. Okay, let’s go.”
“Hmm.” Darke didn’t ask him his reasons. She didn’t admonish him either. She could guess the reason he’d done what he did.
The flax-colored kobold realized Darke was being considerate and quietly explained himself as he walked past his comrade. “He was one of the ones who came to our old village. I remember him very well.” The kobold warrior gave a quiet, forlorn whine. “But now...I’ve gotten justice for Fog’s husband.”
＊
The spirit messenger with the attack squad was receiving a new order from the Command Center. “Message from Command. Two adventurers are being attacked by one of the bugbears. We’ll have to pass by them on our way to our next objective.”
“Ooh, how frightful. Careful not to draw the bear’s attention, everyone.” Darke shivered exaggeratedly.
“Haha, eh, if he comes our way, we’ll just pelt him with this, right in the nose!” The kobold patted a leather pouch at his waist. The bag was stuffed with white flowers that only bloomed in this season that gave off a unique scent. The beasts didn’t like the smell, so the kobolds had been using the flowers as a bugbear repellent for a long time. Recently, they’d even been used to disguise the smell of a certain king’s feet.
“Just as reported! Over there, the bugbear is...huh?!”
Blue Gale gasped, and he wasn’t alone in his astonishment. The attack team looked beyond the trees and saw, just as they’d been told, a bugbear attacking two humans. There was an overwhelming difference between the strength of a human and that of a magical beast. The humans, then, naturally should be ripped apart by the bugbear’s claws and falling prey to its fangs. However...
“Nnrraaah!” With a shout, a man in red armor actually caught the bugbear’s massive paw in one hand as it swiped at him and pushed its arm aside. He took up his sword in both hands and swung it, slicing through the bugbear’s thick fur and driving the blade into the beast’s neck. “Ogwaaah!” The man shouted in pain as patterns drawn over his armor began to light up. A few seconds later, the bugbear’s head had been completely severed from its body. The beast’s body thudded to the ground and the man leaned on his sword like a cane, holding himself up.
“No frickin’ way... That guy caught the bear’s arm.”
“Quiet, Rain Grass. We’re withdrawing.”
“Hm? O-Oh. Yeah.”
But they were too late. The man in the red armor looked around as he was catching his breath, and his eyes landed squarely on the attack squad. He picked up his sword again and gave them a glare that made them shudder even at the distance between them, and then suddenly he was charging.
“Well, this fellow’s certainly trouble,” Darke muttered with a cluck of her tongue. It was Wyatt, guildmaster of the Ryburgh Adventurers’ Guild; the one man Gaius had warned her not to cross swords with.