Homura was once again unsure how she had gotten here. This time, she was in a forest.
The sunlight filtering through the trees was warm, and the fresh scent of trees and grass was carried along on the cool breeze. The girls seemed to be standing amid ruins of some sort, with a round patch of mossy stone tiles beneath their feet and several crumbling columns located nearby.
“Well, I guess we’re here now…” Homura double-checked her person. “Huh. Nothing’s changed…”
Despite having died along the way, she seemed to have popped into this world exactly as she had been before, clothing and all. Would that make it a “reincarnated into another world” isekai or a “transported into another world” isekai? Or maybe it was the “summoned into another world” type. Whichever subgenre it was, the hard reality was that she was here now.
“I expected a little more from a different world. This place is boring. Are we sure this isn’t Earth?” asked Psycho.
Homura looked around. It was true; nothing jumped out as being particularly different. There were bunches of trees and grass, and the sun was up in the sky. She continued to breathe in and out just like always.
“Give it some time. I bet a slime or a goblin or something is going to pop out of the bushes at any moment,” said Homura, half in anticipation.
“No, there’ll be a shark fin swimming through the grass,” Psycho countered. “And then BAM! A cheap-ass-looking CG shark will pop up out of nowhere.”
“What the heck are you talking about? Why would there be a shark on land…?”
Four-Eyes was off her rocker. Still, better to be safe than sorry. Homura took another glance at their surroundings.
As Homura looked around again, she began to realize that something about herself felt off, physically. It was difficult to explain. A vague sensation, as if she were slightly lighter or more full of energy.
She was still puzzling over the source of this strange sensation when Jin suddenly began peering off into the far distance.
“I hear sounds of battle. I’m going ahead.”
With some difficulty, Homura managed to pick out faint noises in the distance that did not sound very nature-y.
“Hold up, don’t go running off on your— Hot damn, she’s fast!”
Jin had immediately darted off into the forest, completely ignoring Psycho’s attempts to stop her.
Her speed seemed practically superhuman, but maybe that was just standard running speed for professional assassins. It wasn’t like Homura had any way of knowing.
It was dangerous to split up, though. They still hadn’t gotten their bearings.
“Hmm. It looks like my sensors are malfunctioning,” said Proto. “I don’t seem to be detecting life-forms properly, so I can’t tell what’s happening over there.” She tapped repeatedly at the headphone-like devices attached to her ears.
Homura felt a little thrill hearing Proto talking like a real sci-fi character. Now wasn’t the time to geek out, however. She needed to focus!
“In any case, don’t you think we should be following her?” Homura suggested.
“Not that we’ll actually be able to do anything once we catch up to her…”
The rest of the girls began running.
Between the light feeling in her body and the speed at which Jin had run off earlier, Homura had begun to suspect they might have been gifted special physical abilities upon arriving in this world. Unfortunately, nothing could have been further from the truth. It only took a few seconds of running before her sides began to hurt.
“Oh shoot, ow!”
Homura really wished someone would explain to her why running should give you side cramps.
The path beneath their feet could barely be called a road. It looked as if it had never been properly cleared or paved. Until today, Homura had had no idea that plants and trees could make it so difficult to run.
After a few moments of sprinting, they finally broke free of the woods, spotting a covered wagon that had stopped in the middle of the road. There were several dead bodies lying nearby—
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Psycho called. “Looks like you’ve been busy!”
“There are still several of them in hiding,” Jin replied. “Take heed.” As she spoke, she stared off into the woods on the other side of the road.
She gave her katana a flick, shaking off the accumulated blood. The crimson splatters soaked into the dirt below. The nearby pools of blood and the crimson splatters along the hood of the wagon gave off a metallic scent. Homura pinched her nose shut reflexively.
Several of the corpses lying on the ground had been beheaded—likely Jin’s work. Based on their appearance, they had all been ne’er-do-wells. Probably bandits.
The other bodies looked like the wagon’s coachman and guard. The cart horses were also lying on the ground, completely still. The bodies were littered with sword wounds and embedded with arrows.
The man who seemed to have been a guard was dressed in a full suit of metal armor, but he had likely been outnumbered and overwhelmed. Blood streamed from the joints and other chinks in his armor.
The fact that there had only been one guard suggested that this area was usually not that dangerous.
“I can’t believe our first fight is against other humans. Don’t they have any slimes in this place…?”
It was a human-on-human bloodbath like nothing Homura had ever seen before. Her first glance at this new world had already left a bad taste in her mouth. This place was clearly far from peaceful.
“It’s dangerous there. Get behind the wagon,” Jin urged.
“O-okay!”
Homura snapped out of her daze, dropped down on all fours, and began to crawl pathetically toward the wagon. Unfortunately, someone chose that moment to release an arrow in her direction.
“Ah…!”
Homura stared dumbly at the projectile as it hurtled toward her face. It seemed to be moving in slow motion. Obviously, she had no idea what it was that was flying toward her—only that it brought death.
In the very last moment before the arrow hit, it suddenly came to a halt in midair.
“Huh…?”
Jin had caught it with her bare hands. Uncanny.
With incredible momentum, Jin whipped the arrow back into the bushes from which it had come. A man groaned from within the foliage and then immediately went silent.
“There’s three more, I believe.” Jin scanned the area, but there were no suspicious sounds from the undergrowth. The bandits must have been lying low.
Once they knew where the bandits were, Jin would be able to make short work of them, even if a battle broke out. As long as they remained hidden, however, it was too risky to make a move.
Surprisingly, it was Psycho who finally brought this stalemate to an end. Her methods, however, were highly questionable.
“Hey! If you keep hiding like that, your friend here is gonna get lonely!”
Homura could barely believe her eyes. Psycho had just reached down, picked up one of the decapitated bandit heads lying next to the wagon, and lobbed it into the bushes.
“Aiieee!!”
The severed head spun through the air, leaving behind a whipping trail of blood. The bandits hiding in the bushes must have seen it as well. They let out stifled screams at the sight of the fate that awaited them.
“Found you.”
The instant Jin located her prey, she darted like a hawk into the bushes.
The men immediately began to run. They held crossbows in their hands but must have realized how useless they would be. Not one of them fired a single shot.
“You’re twisted, you know that?”
“Mwu-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
With victory now assured, Psycho began to enjoy herself, laughing at the top of her lungs. She didn’t bother remaining hidden behind the wagon. There was no use trying to figure out what went on in the mind of a madwoman.
“Kill them! Kill them! Kill them all!” she cried. “Off with their heads, every last one of them! Strip them naked and rob them blind!”
Psycho’s vicious tirade echoed throughout the peaceful forest, mingling with the sounds of slaughter and the voices of the bandits as they begged for their lives. Naturally, their entreaties fell on deaf ears.
Homura couldn’t fight. All she could do was wait breathlessly in the wagon’s shadow. Her pulse was racing, and her heart beat so loudly it sounded like it was next to her own ear.
Being so close to death felt terrifying. But there was also a thrill in Homura’s chest, something not entirely fear. A quickening she didn’t quite understand.