Chapter 44
“Ugh….”
-Shk.
After clutching the wound and pulling out the piece of rebar embedded in it, Haru immediately brought her fingertips close to the injury and drew up her mana.
Mana with a green rather than blue hue spread softly, gently enveloping Charlotte’s thigh.
“…So you knew how to use healing magic too?”
“I just happened to learn it.”
Haru made up a suitable answer, then withdrew her hand from the wound.
“I’ve finished the basic regeneration and toxin removal for now.”
‘Toxin… More accurately, the proper term would be bacterial infection.’
This was a world where even disinfection could be handled with magic. In the first place, people did not know what bacteria were, and the simple fact that wounds rotted away horribly had long been described as toxins, a term that had stuck to this day.
Of course, Haru also knew about bacteria, but there was nothing to gain from bringing up something strange for no reason, so she had simply spoken as everyone else did.
“N-no. Thank you… Ugh.”
Charlotte nodded and tried to rise, but her head swayed and she collapsed into Haru’s arms.
“Charlotte!”
Roxanna shouted in panic. Haru laid the groaning Charlotte back down against the outer wall of the building’s remains and said,
“The thigh is a vulnerable spot where a major artery runs, Miss Charlotte. If we’d been even a little later, you might not have made it. Just rest for now.”
“….”
Charlotte nodded silently.
“Understood? Once we return to the academy, you must see a professional healer.”
Haru repeatedly reminded her before adjusting Charlotte’s position so she could lean back comfortably.
Then she approached Roxanna, who was sitting on the ground and gasping for breath.
“Miss Roxanna.”
“…Instructor!”
Roxanna jerked her head up and cried out in a shrill voice.
“I-I… I’m… I can do it now, I….”
“Roxanna.”
Haru silently knelt and pulled Roxanna, who was panting and flustered, into her arms.
“You did well.”
“….”
Roxanna fumbled for words in confusion, but at those words, she closed her mouth.
Haru’s single remark reverberated through her mind, like a sound in an empty cave.
“…Hic.”
Tears streamed from Roxanna’s eyes. Soon, she buried her face in Haru’s shoulder and burst into silent sobs.
“Teacherrr!! Teacher Haru!!”
“Don’t yell, you damned woman… My head’s ringing…!”
Miriam and Kariya came running after finally pulling themselves together.
“Sorry, Charlotte! I ran all the way to where everyone had evacuated to look for Haru, but she wasn’t there….”
“Shh.”
Charlotte weakly looked up at Miriam, who was babbling anxiously, then placed a finger to her lips and shook her head.
“…Ah.”
Only then did Miriam notice Roxanna sobbing miserably in Haru’s arms.
Miriam bent her knees, brought her face close to Charlotte’s, and whispered.
“…Did she do something wrong??”
“You really are unbelievably oblivious.”
Charlotte sniffled and spoke quietly.
“It’s the opposite.”
“Huhhh?”
Miriam tilted her head, still seeming unable to understand.
Then, after a minor incident in which Kariya, unable to bear it any longer, drove a fist into her temple,
It was only much later that Roxanna stopped crying and mumbled in a congested voice, tears still glistening in her eyes.
“…Sniff. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.”
Haru shook her head and carefully took the shattered musket from Roxanna’s hands.
“It seems… you’ve found your answer.”
Roxanna smiled bashfully and nodded without a word.
Haru smiled back silently, stroked her head, and rose to her feet.
“…Well, then.”
-Crack.
Haru straightened her back after keeping it bent for a long while, then looked past Miriam and spoke quietly.
“I have quite a lot I’d like to ask all of you over there.”
“….”
The village chief, who had been looking around the utterly ruined village, met Haru’s eyes.
“…M-me?”
The flustered chief asked in return.
“Yes.”
Haru gave a brief reply and brought a hand to her ear.
When had it appeared? A blue magic circle glimmered beside her ear.
“I was going to let it slide. Surely you powerless villagers couldn’t have guessed that there might be more than one manticore.”
“Th-then of course. We really….”
Haru glanced down at Charlotte, who was leaning against the ruins, pale-faced and dozing, and spoke. Perhaps the chief hadn’t even noticed where Haru was looking; he kept nodding and sweating profusely.
“Of course. That’s what I thought, naturally.”
Haru murmured quietly and brought her hand to the magic circle by her ear again.
“Rex. Are you going to take much longer?”
[No.]
Rex’s voice echoed softly beside Haru’s ear.
-Boom!!
Then, something came plummeting down from the sky.
“Gasp…!”
“Aaaah!”
The chief recoiled in horror and fell backward, landing hard on his backside, while Miriam, who had been quietly watching the situation beside him, also screamed and toppled backward.
Kariya, who had recovered a fair amount of strength, calmly leaned against the building’s wreckage and chided Miriam.
“You need to practice honing your senses.”
“Mind your own business!”
Leaving the grumbling Miriam behind, the chief opened his mouth with a tremble.
“A-a knight…?”
“Yes, a knight.”
Rex, who had fallen from the sky, answered nonchalantly.
With the nape of a beastman warrior who had been beaten half to death clenched in one hand.
“Uuugh….”
A groan escaped the beastman warrior’s mouth. Rex lifted him by the nape and shook him so they could get a good look, then said,
“This fellow was loitering around the village outskirts.”
“I-I know nothing about it!”
The chief screamed in horror.
“Oh, is that so?”
Rex tilted his head, then flung the beastman warrior he was holding onto the ground and said,
“That’s strange. It’s different from what this fellow told me.”
“Ghk…!”
The moment he hit the ground, the beastman warrior glared up at Rex.
Rex glanced down at him and continued calmly.
“He was hanging around where my students were fighting that male manticore, so I brought him in. I don’t know whether he was planning to stab them in the back or merely watching to see how things played out, but either way.”
“….”
“But then this fellow told me that the village was in league with his people.”
Rex tilted his head and spoke.
“Where is that woman from earlier?”
“The woman…?”
“You folks—pardon me. You know, that woman who was raising her voice while arguing with the others earlier. I don’t see her.”
“Uh, well….”
The chief looked away from Rex and let his words trail off. Rex watched him silently, then spoke quietly.
“Haru.”
Haru, who had silently placed a hand on her sword hilt, stopped dead at Rex’s words.
“I understand how you feel, but stop.”
“….”
“The rest is for the judges to handle.”
“The judges?!”
At that, the chief cried out in horror.
“Why are they coming?! What have we done wrong…?”
“Ah… It seems there’s been a misunderstanding. The judges aren’t people who only come when someone’s done something wrong.”
Rex answered calmly and shook his head.
“Rather, their job is to uncover the facts in ambiguous situations like this. Well, I don’t know whether they’re all like that because of the nature of their work, but it is true that they tend to be a bit forceful… Ah, and they do have a rather notorious reputation. Still, if you have nothing particular to hide, you don’t need to be so afraid.”
“Ugh….”
“And besides, if the actual circumstances at the scene differ from the contents of the mission report, the judges are supposed to come down here as a matter of principle, so this isn’t exactly a situation where I can do anything about it.”
Saying that, Rex grabbed the beastman’s nape again.
“And we’ll be taking this fellow with us. You don’t object, do you?”
“O-of course not! He’s someone I’ve never seen before….”
Even as he forced himself to shout, the chief kept stealing glances at the beastman.
Rex stared at him and added one more thing.
“He does look rather unusual, doesn’t he?”
“….”
The chief did not answer.
It was only a full week later that the truth came to light: the village chief and some of the villagers had colluded with beastmen in exchange for money and valuables of unknown origin, using the manticore that had taken over the mountain near the village as bait to lure magic knights into a trap and kill them.
Yet how the manticore had happened to settle in the mountains around the village at such a perfectly convenient time—and why a family of manticores, including a pregnant female, known to be extremely ferocious and wary, had all settled in the mountains near a human village—
Whether that too had been a simple coincidence or another part of the trap was never discovered.
=
Three days after that. It was the tenth day since the manticore incident.
“Charlotte, are you feeling better now?”
“I told you I’m fine. Aside from losing a lot of blood and the scar, they said I don’t have a toxin infection or any other aftereffects.”
At Training Ground Seven, Charlotte—with a mana-infused bandage wrapped around her thigh and using a single crutch—and Roxanna finally met face-to-face again.
“Well, putting that aside.”
Charlotte pointed at the equipment in Roxanna’s hand and asked,
“So… you’ve decided on that?”
“Yeah, it’s my magical equipment.”
Roxanna nodded with a bright smile for once, a musket in her hands.
But several parts of it looked quite different from an ordinary musket. To begin with, the stock looked completely different.
The stock was C-shaped, curving up and down as if to wrap around her shoulder; both ends were engraved with a fire-element spell formula that could emit small flames to control recoil.
The barrel was more than twice the width and thickness of an ordinary musket. Even at a glance, it was obvious it would be absurdly heavy. As a firearm, and as a piece of magical equipment, its appearance practically warranted a resounding rejection.
“It looks heavier than my battle axe…?”
“Yeah, it is heavy, but….”
Roxanna answered with a shrug.
“They said it wouldn’t be able to withstand the pressure of barrage magic unless it was at least this sturdy. Even this already has an enormous number of resistance inscriptions carved into the inside.”
“I see….”
It was an utterly unsightly design, far removed from the ordinary equipment used by magic knights and focused solely on practical combat.
But knowing that this was the answer Roxanna had finally found after going through endless cycles of aimlessness and frustration, Charlotte could not bring herself to say anything harsh.
“I guess I can just work on building my stamina to deal with the weight.”
“…Yeah.”
Charlotte nodded as she watched Roxanna smile bashfully.
“…Wow.”
And on the rooftop of a building beyond the training grounds.
A girl who had been secretly peeking at Roxanna through binoculars held up to her eyes let out a sigh.
“That’s magical equipment? Why does it look like that?”
Karen, muttering incredulously, soon lowered the binoculars and spoke quietly.
“Still, well, if it’s good enough….”
As she said this, a slight smile touched her lips, carrying a hint of relief—as though she were saying, ‘At last.’
“…Not bad.”