Shion panicked.
“Y-Yeah, I do. Totally.” Shion nodded, not entirely sure what she was agreeing to.
Renya smiled.
You said it, not me. We all heard you.
He secretly reveled in his victory as he began barking orders at her. It was best not to give her time to recover.
“All right. First, we get the hell out of this forest, pronto. Everything else comes later.”
Shion nodded in an almost mechanical fashion. He looked to Rona, who had been patiently watching their exchange, and gave her a quick pat on the back. Then, they resumed their escape.
“Renya! What’re we going to do after we get out of the forest?” asked Shion as they ran.
Apparently, she still had enough wits about her to ask questions.
“The two of you will keep running until you’re back in the city. Once you get there, go to the guild and explain the situation. Tell them a bunch of crazy monsters popped up and a lot of the parties that went on the mission are dead. Then get them to put together an investigation and extermination squad.”
“You think they’ll listen?” asked Shion worriedly.
She wasn’t wrong to worry. It was hard to imagine the higher-ups in the guild rushing to put together an investigation squad just because two fledgling adventurers told them to. This was assuming, of course, that Shion and Rona were actually just fledgling adventurers. He wasn’t sure about Shion, but he knew for a fact that Rona, being a knight, should have ways to make people listen.
“Rona, do something about it.”
“Understood.”
As expected, she immediately nodded.
“Renya, you said the two of us, right? What about you, then?”
It peeved him that for all her denseness, she was quick to notice the things he didn’t want her to notice.
“If I went back to town with you, then all three of us would have effectively run away, right?”
“Huh? But…”
He couldn’t risk the lives of people he knew for people he didn’t. The only life he could risk was that of the one who chose the risk— his own.
“I’ll stand guard at the entrance to the forest. I doubt it’ll happen, but if those monsters come out of the forest and head for the city, someone needs to hold them back.”
“Renya! You can’t—”
He didn’t let the wide-eyed Shion finish her sentence, speaking right over her protests.
“Shion, remember this. If you insist on doing something you can’t handle, you’ll just force that burden onto someone else. In the end, that burden may very well end up killing him. I don’t know what’s behind your obsession with saving others, but if you keep doing things this way, things’ll keep playing out the same way again and again.”
“Renya… I…”
“Don’t bother explaining. I don’t need to hear it. You agreed to listen to what I say, so do it.”
He stopped Shion from speaking. They kept running as he glanced back to find her looking at him. He smiled.
“Cheer up. We’ll say this time is an exception. If you’re really worried, hurry up and reach the city so you can send me some reinforcements,” he said jokingly. He had hoped to change the way Shion thought, but his string of harsh words left him feeling a little sorry for her, so he decided to end things on a lighter tone.
A strong gust blew past Renya, leaving his hair in disarray. It failed to move him. Standing perfectly still in the midst of surging gales, he stared straight at the silent forest. Aside from the windy ambience of the woods, silence surrounded him. In the absence of noise, even a leaf’s flutter sounded unnaturally harsh to his ears, leaving him on edge. On occasion, a scream would echo through the trees — a sign that whatever lurked there continued to terrorize the straggling adventurers. Renya tried not to imagine what was happening to them.
The wind changed. It began to blow from the forest, bringing with it the scent of flora, along with the stink of rust and rot. Renya’s nose twitched. His expression contorted in displeasure. What was supposed to be the pleasant, calming smell of trees and greenery only served to accentuate the foul odors that mingled with it.
He didn’t like the smell. That was all. He just wanted to get rid of the smell. After repeating the excuse a few times, he found that he started to believe it himself. Then, he took a step forward.
Airblast.
He pumped as much mana as he could into the spell, quickcasting it at the forest. A massive gale surged forward. It met the forest wind head-on, overpowered it, and sent the pungent forest air right back into the trees. With the smell problem solved, he let out a breath.
His true motive was, of course, different. As far as he could tell, Shion never did realize that Renya could only watch a very small part of the forest. There was no way he could stop monsters from coming out of other places along the perimeter. Normally, it should have been fairly obvious, but it didn’t seem to occur to her. Maybe she was too busy feeling guilty about leaving Renya by himself.
As for Rona… to be honest, Renya wasn’t really sure. She could have realized and kept her mouth shut. It was also possible that she simply didn’t care. Perhaps it was both. Or neither. Pondering the issue seemed fruitless, so he stopped. Anyway, the point was that he couldn’t cover such a wide area by himself. Realistically, it was an impossible proposition.
In that case, how could he stop the mystery monsters from leaving the forest and heading for the city? For him, the answer was actually quite simple. It wasn’t a surefire solution, but he could lure all the monsters that might come out of the forest toward him. By blowing wind into the forest, he was sending his own scent toward the monsters and telling them he was there. From what he could tell, the monsters were pretty enthusiastic about attacking humans, what with the whole chasing people and appropriating their stomachs. If it was their nature to prey on humans, once they hunted down all the adventurers in the forest, they were almost guaranteed to go after whoever was nearby. He’d just made it extremely clear that he was their next closest target. It was, in a way, a provocation.
“Well, turns out… I’m a fool too, I guess,” he said mockingly.
Shion and Rona were probably making a mad dash toward town right now, trying to get back as quickly as possible. They had left behind almost all their belongings to lighten their load, taking nothing but their weapons. Figuring it would be a waste to throw so much away, he waited for them to disappear into the distance before shoving everything into his inventory. He didn’t look through their belongings; there were probably things in there he wasn’t supposed to see. In their mostly-unburdened state, it should take them a little over an hour to reach town. No more than two. Then, they had to go to the guild, slap the sleepy counter staff awake, and get them to report to the higher-ups. The higher-ups would then have to select some reasonably skilled members to send out as an investigation squad. The extermination squad would depart even later, following a frantic scramble to assemble enough capable fighters.
Renya had a feeling he was in for one hell of a wait.
Assuming the higher-ups in the guild weren’t complete idiots, though, they would probably send out an advance party. In that case, they could probably put together the necessary people and equipment in three or four hours. If they properly understood the urgency of the situation, they should be coming here either on horseback or by horse wagon. Once they started moving, the trip would take them about an hour. Factoring in various delays and issues, he figured that optimistically, he would be relieved from his post after standing guard for maybe eight hours. The extra time was to account for the fact that rarely if ever did anything go as people intended. There was bound to be some friction as the higher-ups tried to avoid responsibility and play the blame game. Particularly stubborn ones might not even listen to Shion and Rona’s report. It was likely that even the very logistics of gathering people and equipment would face difficulties, considering it was still the middle of the night.