A surveillance outpost located on the outskirts of the Frontain Barony.
There were those there who could not sleep even in the late hours before dawn.
“Hmm?”
“What, need to take a piss?”
When the guard Malei asked with a sneer, Ostan tilted his head and replied.
“No, didn’t you hear something?”
“At this hour? Even if you did, it was probably some animal.”
“No, I’m telling you it came from below.”
“Hey, you bastard. You think I’m going to fall for it again?”
Since Ostan had played a prank during their last shift, Malei dismissed it as nothing.
But this time, it truly wasn’t a joke, so Ostan only felt wronged.
“Don’t say anything pointless. Gilly got disciplined last time for making a fuss too.”
“Tch... I’m sure I heard—”
Thud—!
Just then, a dull roar rang out.
It was clearly a sound that had come from inside the dungeon.
“What the hell!”
“See! I told you it was real!”
Ostan, his grievance relieved, shouted triumphantly.
“What are you so happy about! We need to report this right now.”
“Damn it, why does this always happen whenever I’m on watch...”
At that moment.
Step, step.
From within the darkness, a figure in an embroidered crimson robe approached.
Seeing as he had passed through the entrance, he must have been granted permission, but procedure required confirmation.
“Who are you?”
Instead of answering, he held out a sheet of parchment.
On the parchment, a request bearing the seal of Baron Frontain was clearly stamped.
“A request from the lord? What business would there be in this tiny dungeon—”
“Hey, you idiot. Why are you questioning him? Just let him through.”
At Malei’s rebuke, Ostan hurriedly moved the barricade aside.
Only then did the mage quietly disappear into the dungeon.
“That robe... the Red Magic Tower, right?”
“No doubt. I saw them at the tavern last time, and their tempers were—”
Bang! Bang!
As soon as he entered, rough noises filled the dungeon.
“Damn it, what the hell is he doing in there?”
“Shouldn’t we report this too?”
But the noise soon died down.
In the silence that returned, the two let out sighs of relief.
“...Is it over?”
“Looks like—”
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
A sudden noise.
This time, it rang out from right behind the barricade.
“Damn it, open the door!”
“Move the barricade!!”
Urgent shouts rang out amid the chaos.
What could be seen through the gaps in the barricade were the prisoners from yesterday.
As the prisoners’ clamor pushed the barricade, the two hurriedly braced their bodies against it.
“What the hell? Aren’t these the prisoners from yesterday? Have these bastards gone mad?”
“Got scared for nothing. Get the hell away!”
At Ostan’s intimidating tone, the prisoners suddenly threw themselves flat on the ground.
But at that very moment.
Bang!
With a massive crash, the barricade shattered to pieces.
And from the impact, Ostan and Malei were sent flying and tumbled across the ground.
Just before losing consciousness, Ostan saw through his blurred vision.
‘A woman wearing a box over her head...?’
That was his last memory.
***
A forest near the dungeon.
Fortunately, we were able to escape safely.
Thanks to the commotion the mimic caused, the soldiers all rushed toward it, and we managed to flee in the meantime.
Guilt rose in me at the thought that I had foisted death onto it, but once I considered my own situation, I was able to forget it quickly.
“We have to go to another territory!”
“No.”
Drek and Baldik were exchanging opinions on where to head.
Drek was firmly against it, but Baldik was desperately trying to persuade him.
“We have to leave now.”
“If we run, they’ll put out a wanted order across the whole territory—”
“It’s not like we can just die here!”
An argument in which neither side yielded an inch.
But when I asked, thinking, Wouldn’t it be fine if we each went our own way?
According to Baldik, wandering around outside with nothing to your name was no different from suicide.
In that case, I should give my opinion too.
“I think running is the right choice too.”
“What?”
“See! I told you that’s right! We don’t have any other way!”
I was someone who had almost nothing to lose in the first place.
The only thing I had to lose was my life, and I couldn’t very well throw it away right now because I was worried about the future.
When even I joined in, Drek seemed to think it over, then finally came to a decision.
“Fine. We’ll go together.”
And so, we walked along the forest path.
Drek took the role of guide.
Seeing as he knew the name of a village on the outskirts, he seemed to have been here before.
“But what crime were you brought in for?”
During the tedious mountain trek, Drek asked the question that had been an unspoken taboo.
“Well...”
Baldik hesitated before answering.
“I took some holy water and made liquor out of it to sell...”
“You’re a madman.”
Drek’s assessment was concise.
I didn’t know much about religion either, but wasn’t that crossing a line?
“How did you not get executed?”
“Our god looks generously upon the mistakes of drunken humans, you see.”
“Seeing as your head isn’t hanging in the square, he must be very generous indeed.”
Just what kind of god did he worship?
“Then what about you! You’re no different!”
Having been poked where it hurt, Baldik counterattacked.
“Me? I... killed a man.”
“One man? For someone who only killed one man, you look... And there’s no way they’d send you here just for killing one person.”
Baldik sneered.
“He was the son of a fairly successful merchant company owner.”
“Good heavens.”
The sneering Baldik immediately shut his mouth.
It seemed Drek wasn’t exactly a normal man either.
“Then what about you?”
This time, the question came to me.
“I... don’t know.”
“What? You don’t know?”
“How can you not know what crime you were arrested for?”
The two looked puzzled.
But soon—
“Well, everyone has their own circumstances.”
“If it’s bad enough that you can’t say it, you must have done something really filthy.”
They glossed over it in their own way.
They probably thought I was hiding it because I had some story behind it.
‘But I really don’t know.’
The truth was that I genuinely didn’t know.
Because our status prevented us from using the roads, we had to take a long detour along the mountain paths.
Walking those mountain paths with my frail body was sheer torment.
“When the hell are we getting there?”
It seemed I wasn’t the only one having a hard time, as Baldik, who had been scurrying along on his short legs, began to complain.
“I’m fairly certain you were the one who said we should go.”
“Even so, this is taking too long.”
“We’re almost there. You’ll see the river soon.”
A river?
When I listened closely at those words, I could truly hear the sound of water trickling through the trees.
Once we pushed through the undergrowth, an open view spread out before us.
A long river flowing below the mountain, and beyond it, a green plain stretching wide.
Behind the plain, a village could be seen as well. It looked fairly large.
“Is that it?”
“Yes. Once we cross that river, we’ll be in the Adelpelit County.”
“...”
But no one could continue speaking.
Because the width of the river was beyond imagination.
It was a distance that could never be crossed by swimming.
Seeing Drek’s physique, the thought crossed my mind that he might be able to manage it, but he spoke first.
“There’s a village if we go upstream.”
“A village in a place like this?”
“A trade village. We’ll have to find a way there.”
“Is it what I think it is?”
“It’s similar to what you used to do, so you could call them your business partners.”
Were there people like brokers there?
Judging from the flow of the conversation, it seemed they planned to smuggle themselves into another territory through them.
“But if it’s a village, won’t security be tight?”
“We’ll have to pray news hasn’t spread this far yet.”
We headed upstream along the river.
Because I had forced my weak body to walk too much, my lower half felt like it was creaking.
We couldn’t even take proper mealtimes, so everyone walked with jerky in their mouths.
And finally, we found a group.
“Kerek.”
But they weren’t human.
“They’re Goblins.”
“Could there be a goblin settlement nearby?”
“Shouldn’t we turn back if that’s the case?”
As we hid in the bushes and watched, they were indeed goblins.
With physiques similar to kobolds and dark bluish-green skin, they didn’t look strong at first glance.
But unlike kobolds, they held wooden clubs in their hands.
“If it’s a settlement... how many would there be?”
“Given goblin tendencies, at least twenty.”
“Twenty? We really should turn back, shouldn’t we?”
“No. If we turn back, it’ll be too late. We have no choice but to push through like this.”
As we moved with our bodies low in the bushes, we spotted another group of goblins returning from a hunt.
They were carrying animal carcasses in their hands.
We held our breath and watched them.
Then Baldik shifted his posture, as if his legs had gone numb.
Crack!
It was the sound of a dry branch snapping underfoot.
“Kerek!”
“Kiiik!”
The goblins whipped their heads around.
Then the one in front approached this way, as if scouting.
“S-sorry.”
“We have to deal with all of them here. I’ll ambush first.”
Drek quietly gave instructions, then picked up a suitably sized stone from the ground.
The goblin drew closer and closer, until at last it pushed its face through the bushes.
“Ke—”
Thuk.
Drek’s dagger pierced the goblin’s throat.
The goblin died, coughing up bloody foam.
The remaining ones froze for a moment, and when they realized their comrade was dead, they began to howl.
But there was no way Drek would miss that opening.
He threw the stone with the full strength of his body.
Whoosh—
Crack!
With a scream, another one collapsed.
He really knew how to fight.
The sight of the goblins dying was grotesque, but Drek’s combat skill left an even stronger impression.
That thought lasted only a moment before Drek let out a heavy shout and charged forward.
The goblins, who had flinched as if facing a wild beast, soon came to their senses and began to flee.
“We have to kill them all! It’ll be trouble if they come after us!”
Drek shouted as he grabbed a fleeing goblin by the shoulder and threw it to the ground.
I hurriedly chased after the one that had fled to the left.
The sight of it desperately running away on its short legs was pitiful.
But because it was running in a panic, the sound of its footsteps was clear.
It glanced back several times and tried to speed up, but the more it did, the more its balance fell apart.
And in the end, it tripped over a tree root and pitched forward.
Crash!
Perhaps badly hurt, it couldn’t get back up.
It looked at me with frightened eyes and desperately crawled along the ground using its arms.
“Kerek...”
An appearance not so different from a human’s.
If not for the color of its skin, it looked like something I might have seen somewhere before.
I caught my breath and adjusted my grip on the dagger, but no strength entered my hand.
Because the being before my eyes felt not like a monster, but a person.
The thought that I had to end it here tangled with hesitation, leaving my head in turmoil.
Then I noticed its suspicious movement.
‘Hmm?’
Spit—
I instinctively twisted my body. A stone grazed past my head by a hair’s breadth.
At the fist-sized rock it had thrown, my reason momentarily went numb.
“You son of a biiiitch!!!”
I charged straight at it and strangled it with both hands.
“Ke-kek!”
I had nearly died.
“Kgh!”
I had nearly lost my life over some low-grade sympathy.
“Kek.”
After one short death rattle, no more noise could be heard.
Only the sound of the bushes rustling spread quietly.
The strength left my fingertips, and a cold sensation reached me.
...I had survived again.
Even so, one corner of my chest sank heavily.
If I hadn’t turned my head, I would have been the one to die.
Gasping for breath, I looked at my hands.
It felt as though the sensation of strangling it still remained.
This was a heartless world.
Then I had to be the same.
I clenched my hand, then opened it again.
And returned to the group.
***
The group seemed to have sorted things out quickly and had returned near the riverside.
I saw Drek doing something as he handled the goblin corpses.
“What are you doing?”
“We need to cut off the ears. We don’t have a single coin right now, so we have to collect even things like this.”
“The ears?”
“If we take them to a guild, there’ll be a reward.”
As it turned out, Drek had been gathering proof that we had killed the goblins.
“Let’s clean this up quickly and go. They might come after us.”
“I... I’m sorry. This got bigger for no reason because of me.”
“...Forget it. Let’s move.”
As if he paid no mind to Baldik’s apology, Drek calmly finished preparing to leave.
I was angry too, but I decided it would be better to stay quiet rather than ruin the mood, so I shut my mouth.
We let the goblin corpses drift away in the river, then set off for the village again.
Before we knew it, night had fallen. Everyone was exhausted, so we decided to rest for a while.
It had been a forced march ever since the dungeon; the only sleep I’d gotten was the brief nap I’d snatched inside.
At this rate, even the hard dirt ground would probably feel like a soft mattress.
We decided to have a simple meal. The only food left in the pack was one loaf of bread and two strips of jerky.
The leather waterskin was already empty, but we had a human water purifier here.
[Condensation]
Droplets of water formed at my fingertips. I’d gotten the hang of it now, and learned that if I used Condensation with my fist clenched, I could easily fill the waterskin.
Baldik, who had been watching me share out the drinking water with a fascinated look, spoke.
“It’s amazing every time I see it.”
“I find your hemostasis more amazing.”
“That’s the power of a god, so let’s say that makes sense. But you lot aren’t like that.”
After spending time together, I’d grown somewhat close to Baldik.
There were times when his rude words and behavior annoyed me, but according to Drek, it was a dwarven trait, so I tried to be understanding.
On top of that, since he was a former priest, he was knowledgeable, which made him good to ask whenever I was curious about something.
As I barely managed to chew and swallow the hard bread, I asked Baldik a question.
“The power of a god, huh… Then what god do you serve?”
“I serve Ulgran.”
“Ulgran? Who’s that?”
“The god of alcohol and festivals.”
Ah, so that was why he was still alive even after making liquor out of holy water. Everything finally made sense.
“Ah, that liquor really did taste good…”
Baldik looked just like a drunk as he chewed jerky and emptied his waterskin.
Seeing him still longing for alcohol even after being captured because of it, I couldn’t help but feel horrified for a moment.
When I turned my head to the side, I saw Drek’s cold expression as he looked at Baldik.
“What, you bastards! Like you know what that tasted like?”
“That… Mm. Never mind.”
When Baldik felt Drek’s gaze and snapped at him, Drek silently turned his head away.
I should be careful not to end up like that.
After we finished eating, we set off again.
My eyelids kept drooping from lack of sleep, but I felt like if I stopped now, I’d never open my eyes again. So I forced myself to get moving.
Perhaps the village was farther away than we’d thought, because even after marching all night, we still couldn’t reach it.
We saw the village when the sun was high in the sky.
“Damn it, a village… It’s a village…!”
Baldik cheered in a voice that sounded like he was about to die. Far in the distance, the village could be seen faintly.
Rather than a village, its walls looked tall and sturdy.
It was like a fortress preparing for war. It was probably because it was a village near the border.
“But are we really going to go in through the front? Wouldn’t it be better to find another way?”
“If we take too long, the pursuers will come. It’d be better to settle everything here instead.”
“Hmm… I’ll trust you for now.”
In the end, our last method was like a gamble.
In preparation for the checkpoint, we assigned everyone their roles and set up the situation.
“So we were attacked and lost our identification plaques…”
“No, that’s not it.”
Just then, a sound came from beyond the forest. Shouts, groans, and the sounds of fierce battle.
At that, everyone looked at Drek, and Drek nodded before creeping toward the scene.
Hiding in the grass as we watched, we saw a carriage collapsed by the roadside.
The horses lay dead, and there was also a person crushed to death under the carriage. Fortunately, there were still people alive.
Three people in thin leather armor were fighting a group of goblins.
There were only three people, but there seemed to be about a dozen goblins. One of the three was already badly injured.
There were goblins here too. Did that mean their range of activity was wide?
“Looks like they were attacked. Unlucky.”
“What should we do? Should we help?”
“Hmm… This might be our chance to enter the village. Let’s join in.”
Drek said that and rose from the grass.
As his huge body moved and made a sound, everyone’s attention focused on him.
“Damn it, what is it? Bandits?”
“Kerek? Kerek!”
Neither side seemed to grasp the situation properly. Amid that confusion, Drek charged forward and shouted.
“What are you doing? Attack!”
“What? Ah, attack! Attack! They’re allies!!”
With unexpected reinforcements appearing, the goblins fell into confusion and were forced onto the defensive. Once the numerical disadvantage was reduced, the goblins were no longer a match for them.
Before long, the remaining goblins fled.
Leaving the fleeing goblins behind, we helped them clean up the battlefield.
A short while later, someone dressed in splendid clothes emerged from the carriage with support.
To think there had actually been someone alive inside. Of course, they weren’t completely unharmed, and their arm was wrapped in bandages.
That person seemed to be the representative of the group and approached us.
“Thank you. I am Dardan, the owner of a small merchant company. May I ask who you are?”