“W-wait!”
Someone shouted urgently and came running after us as we left.
It was Sairun.
He dragged his heavy body toward us, panting, his face taut with nerves.
When we frowned and looked at him, he immediately got to the point.
“C-could you take me with you too?”
“You? With us?”
A hollow laugh escaped me inwardly.
‘…Is he in his right mind?’
Even sparing his life was something he should have been grateful for, and now he wanted us to carry his baggage too.
What was I supposed to do with this guy?
Perhaps seeing the anger simmering in my eyes, Sairun quickly continued.
“I… I have a carriage hidden away!”
“…A carriage?”
“Yes! Before we entered the forest, I hid it in the grass! If we go there together, we can ride it!”
He had a carriage? What was this about?
“You hid a carriage?”
Sairun spoke while gasping for breath.
“Yes, that’s right! We can use it to get out of here. I covered it up in the grass near the forest entrance.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, steadied my breathing, then looked at Aileen.
Aileen still seemed wary, gripping her dagger.
“If you came by carriage, then you came by carriage. Why hide it?”
“We… entered through a narrow forest path to the west of here. The carriage couldn’t get through there.”
Looking at that vacant face of his, I found myself thinking it might actually be true.
“Fine, but how do we trust you?”
Instead of answering, Sairun pressed his lips shut and lowered his head for a moment.
…Even you think you’re not trustworthy, don’t you?
I swallowed a sigh and looked around.
From afar, I could still hear the sound of something continuing to pour in.
We didn’t have time to dawdle.
“Tch… Let’s take him.”
Even after saying it, I felt uneasy, but we didn’t have many options right now anyway.
It would be better to travel even a little more comfortably.
Relief spread across Sairun’s face, and he quickly turned around.
“This way! Hurry!”
We left the zombies behind and made our way out of the forest.
Sairun took the lead, cutting between the trees at a brisk pace, while Aileen stayed behind me, keeping watch and scanning our surroundings.
My breath rose all the way to my chin, but strangely, my heart felt lighter.
In this situation, escaping as quickly as possible was the best course anyway.
Near the edge of the forest, Sairun plunged into the middle of a thicket thick with leaves.
There was a small, shabby cover there that looked like a bundle of straw, and beneath it, wheels were faintly visible.
“It’s there!”
I shouted in a low, firm voice.
“Shut your mouth. You’re too loud.”
Sairun hurriedly nodded and carefully cleared away the pile of grass.
Beneath it, an old carriage had been hidden.
The iron fittings were rusted and the wooden wheels creaked, but at least it looked good enough to ride away in.
It wasn’t much to look at, but a small pony was tied to a nearby tree as well.
Its mane was slightly dried out, its eyes lifeless. Still, it was breathing.
“Oh… This is pretty usable. You didn’t steal it, did you?”
“Ahem… One of my companions was a merchant…”
Well, its origins weren’t exactly important right now.
“Good. Let’s go.”
Sairun’s face brightened at once.
The way he looked so pleased annoyed me for a moment, and I considered just leaving him behind, but—
‘Sigh. Let’s not become the same kind of guy as him.’
Considering he had guided us and even brought us a carriage, I decided to let it slide one more time.
“Thank you! I’ll just inspect it for a moment!”
Sairun checked the carriage wheels once, then nodded.
“Looks like there are no problems. Please get on quickly.”
I tightly gripped the handle of my mace in my left hand and climbed onto the back of the carriage.
Aileen quickly followed.
Sairun climbed onto the saddle and let out a long sigh.
“…You even know how to drive a horse.”
Seeing as he also had a bow slung across his back, it seemed he could do more things than I’d expected.
When I muttered calmly, Sairun said nothing and only scratched his head.
The carriage began to move slowly with a creak.
The sound of the zombie horde growing distant behind us gradually faded.
An indescribable emptiness spread through my mind, and into that gap seeped the relief of being alive.
***
Rattle, rattle.
The carriage diligently shook as we crossed the plains.
And at last, we reached a stable stretch that could at least be called a road.
‘What on earth was that druid trying to say?’
Contrary to his warning, we had escaped the forest fairly easily.
I’d expected something to happen, but at this level, it was practically a picnic.
While we were there, we hadn’t done anything in particular that could have become a variable either.
…Was it just nonsense?
Or had he been peddling fear to scare us?
Either way, it was fortunate we’d gotten out of the forest so quickly.
“How long do you think it’ll take?”
“Mm… I think about a day.”
The sun had already passed its zenith and was slowly beginning to tilt.
Everyone was too exhausted to run through the night.
Now, we needed to stop for a while and catch our breath.
“Let’s rest here once before moving on.”
“Yes.”
“Yes…”
Honestly, whether Sairun dozed off or not, all we had to do was sit in the carriage, so I’d considered pushing on.
But if we took the wrong road, we really would be properly fucked… so resting was the right choice.
We got down from the carriage and began setting up camp.
Naturally, all the camping equipment was what Sairun’s party had loaded into the carriage and left behind.
When I asked why they had left so much, Sairun smiled awkwardly and said,
“We thought it was a simple request and that it would be over in half a day…”
They must have been quite the bunch of idiots.
From what I roughly gathered, it had been a missing persons investigation request similar to that priest from Kaltzheim.
And they had gone in thinking they could finish such a request in half a day.
…Well, maybe this was the average for mercenaries who lived without thinking.
It wasn’t as if every mercenary in the world could be a professional in the first place.
Silence briefly settled over the campsite.
Everyone was exhausted, and none of us had been particularly talkative to begin with.
Just as I wondered whether I should close my eyes like this—
“…What am I supposed to do now?”
Sairun asked with a gloomy face.
Mm. What did he want me to say?
I understood that he felt lost after all his companions died, but…
We weren’t close in the first place, and I wasn’t in a position relaxed enough to listen to some guy’s worries.
But at the same time, his words stirred many thoughts in me as well.
Because I had always lived with a similar worry.
What on earth was I supposed to do?
For now, I was taking requests, fighting, running away, and merely enduring each day.
But after that? When the request ended? When the carriage stopped?
I… where was I supposed to go?
My ultimate goal was to return home.
But I still had no idea how I could actually return.
Was it really okay to keep living like this?
My mind grew complicated.
Then, a small voice came from beside me.
“…I’m similar.”
It was Aileen.
Beyond the firelight, exhaustion was plain on her face.
When I turned my head, she hugged her knees and spoke quietly.
“At first, my goal was simply to survive. But as I kept running away… at some point, I think I forgot both the reason and the direction.”
No one could respond to those words.
Sairun, me, and even Aileen—perhaps all of us were caught in the same question.
Other than surviving, what else were we supposed to do?
The flames crackled softly.
For a while, we silently watched that small sound.
***
The next morning.
After finishing a light breakfast with the one remaining hardtack, we climbed back onto the carriage.
Sairun, who had been steeped in dawn sentiment yesterday, seemed embarrassed by it and couldn’t lift his face the entire time.
…It made me feel awkward for no reason…
Actually, even though I hadn’t said much, I felt like I’d gotten emotional with them at dawn for no reason too.
Still, well, nights like that happened.
“You’ll be able to find the road properly today, right?”
Sairun silently nodded from the front and looked out at the roadside.
The pony pulled the carriage without much trouble, and though the wheels still rattled, it was better than yesterday.
A dirt road stretched steadily across the tranquil plains.
At this rate, it really seemed like we could reach the village within a day.
And as for what came after that, I decided not to think about it yet.
Like that, the carriage slowly moved forward beneath the morning sunlight.
“You’re a mage, right…?”
After quietly holding the reins for a long while, Sairun cautiously opened his mouth.
After coming this far, there was no way he didn’t know I was a mage.
I’d even made water for him during breakfast. If he hadn’t noticed after seeing that, that would be stranger.
The fact that he was asking that now meant he must have been pretty bored.
“Why?”
“It’s my first time seeing a mage.”
“Really? Then what are mages like in your mind?”
Truthfully, I was curious about that too.
Not from someone like Aileen, who had grown up in a castle, but from the perspective of a guy who had rolled around in the field in his own way.
“Mm… I don’t know. People who shoot fire from far away, and can do anything with just a wave of their hand? That kind of image, I guess.”
Sairun carefully tugged on the reins as he continued.
“Actually, a while ago, I heard rumors in the capital that knights had clashed with a mage. They said mages were frightening people and not to even meet their eyes.”
That kind of story wasn’t unfamiliar.
It was true that in this world, mages were not common, and because of that, they seemed to be objects of both fear and reverence.
Well, I was the same when I first used magic after possessing this body.
“Then are you scared of me now?”
When I asked with a faint smile, Sairun shook his head with a flustered expression.
“Ah, no! I’m not scared. It’s just… fascinating. Somehow, it’s like you’re not really human.”
…Like I wasn’t human, huh.
Those words lodged in me in a slightly strange way.
Was it because I truly wasn’t a person of this world?
Or was it because the act of using magic itself felt like something distant from humanity?
I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them.
The sky was clear, and the horse was still pulling the rattling carriage.
I let the mana settled within me flow very faintly to the tips of my fingers.
A single droplet of water formed, then soon vanished as if seeping into the air.
“…That’s not wrong.”
“I’m not scared!”
Aileen cut in, and I nodded briefly before letting out a small laugh.
Then, quietly, I sank back into thought.
The carriage continued moving forward.
And in that quiet peace, I felt my heart settle in a strange way.
***
I wasn’t sure whether the country was a mess because things had always been this rotten, or whether things were so rotten that even the country had fallen apart.
One thing was clear: expecting proper roads in this country had now become a luxury.
The paths people mainly used had either already been occupied by monsters or had become areas crawling with bandits.
We were carefully passing along a single road that ran between small woods.
And then, just as expected, trouble happened.
Goblins burst out from between the bushes.
“Keeek!”
“Aaagh!!”
Hiiiiiing!
Along with Sairun’s scream, the startled horse bolted forward, trampling one goblin as it passed, and the carriage lurched violently for an instant.
Fortunately, the wheels held. The carriage instead picked up speed and charged ahead.
“Goblins again?”
“Liv, above you!”
But several goblins had already clung to the carriage.
One was trying to climb up toward the roof, another was hanging near a wheel, and—
“K-khek!”
The hand of the one climbing up beside me touched the window frame.
I swung the mace without hesitation. When I struck its fingers dead-on, the goblin’s scream rang out with a sticky rupturing sound.
“Kreeeeek!!”
“Get lost!”
With a scream, it tumbled off. But it wasn’t over yet.
“Aaaaaah! Get away!”
Sairun’s scream came from the front.
It seemed goblins had attached themselves near the horse as well.
But the rear was more urgent right now.
“Aileen! Take the windows!”
I shouted and checked inside the carriage.
This carriage had a structure that seemed like it had originally been a cargo cart modified for use.
It was shaped like a crude wooden box, with small windows about the size of a palm cut into both sides.
Normally, they would have simply been for letting in air, but to the goblins, those windows were excellent entrances.
Through the empty holes without even bars, the small-bodied creatures were crawling in.
“I’ll block the back!”
“Yes!”
I gripped the mace and turned.
At the widest entrance, one goblin had already shoved its upper body inside.
It bared its jutting teeth and let out a sharp scream.
“Keeek!”
There was no time to hesitate.
I swung the mace as it was.
Crack.
With the sound of something being crushed, the goblin’s body was flung backward.
But it wasn’t over.
As the goblins clung on, the carriage slowed and its balance faltered. Taking advantage of that opening, I could see more goblins rushing in from outside.
There were more of them than I’d expected.
[Waterflow Barrier]
In an instant, a cold stream of water surged into the air and filled the entrance.
As a transparent curtain of water enveloped the doorway, the goblins clinging to the carriage screamed in confusion.
“Kiek!? Kiek!”
One scratched at the curtain with its front paws, then, perhaps growing angry, began thrashing about.
But the barrier did not break easily.
This wasn’t simple water, but a barrier condensed with mana.
A goblin behind poked the one in front, then raised the stone in its hand high as if saying, “Move aside.”
Then it brought the stone down on the barrier.
Thud!
The stone bounced off as it struck the mana, and the barrier shook violently once.
Perhaps gaining confidence from that tremor, the goblins began shrieking excitedly.
“Kehihik! Keeek!”
As if they sensed me gritting my teeth, they hung from the carriage and gleefully pounded on the barrier.
These little bastards… they were having the time of their lives, weren’t they?
I deliberately took half a step back.
I created just enough space between the entrance and the Waterflow Barrier for the goblins to enter.
“Kiek?”
The goblins were momentarily confused.
But soon their eyes gleamed with excitement, and they pushed their bodies into the gap in the barrier.
One, two, three.
Four… good.
I poured mana into the Waterflow Barrier to reinforce it, and in that instant, I quickly rushed forward.
Tatadak.
“Here we go!”
Bam!
A shield charge, pushing forward with the massive Waterflow Barrier.
The four goblins that had entered were thrown out of the running carriage all at once, tangled together.
The goblins’ screams trailed through the air.
“Kiyaaaaak!”
“Kieeek!”
One goblin flung from the carriage crashed straight into the others chasing behind it.
Like pins struck by a bowling ball, the goblins toppled backward.
Crash! Thud.
Watching that sight, a strangely refreshing thought passed through my mind.
‘Maybe I’ve already adapted to this world after all.’