After the Battle

The fifteen adventurers, myself included, had plunged into the lair of the heinously wicked bandit Shaga.

We rampaged through the ruins of the old castle that had become their stronghold and wiped out every enemy—or so it seemed.

"Everyone, it is still too soon to let your guard down."

Sir Northpole cautioned the adventurers. As expected of a battle-hardened veteran.

Everyone appeared to be alive, though there were some injured. The old man was using something that looked like healing magic on them, but fortunately none seemed seriously hurt.

"What's with you, old man? You can use healing magic?"

"Of course I can, but using it on scum like them would be out of the question, wouldn't it?"

Apparently, the difference in our values was insurmountable. As they listened to the exchange, the beastfolk twirled their ears.

"For now, the only thing we can hear is a woman's sobbing. I don't hear anything suspicious."

The beastfolk had excellent hearing, after all. Still, as Sir Northpole said, we shouldn't let our guard down.

I ran over to Primula-san.

"Primula-san! Are you all right?!"

"Kenichi-san!"

She threw herself into my arms with one breast still exposed.

Perhaps because the drug was taking effect, I felt an urge to knock her down right there—but calm down, calm down, me!

I took a blanket from my Item Box and draped it over Primula-san's shoulders.

"Primula-san, this man lying here is the leader of the bandits—Shaga, correct?"

I pointed to the man with the large scar on his cheek lying near her.

"Yes. The other villains were calling him that too."

"Sir Northpole! Shaga was saying something outrageous earlier... Something about nobles—"

"He certainly did say something like that... Hmm."

Sir Northpole was wiping the blood from his sword with the clothes of a corpse lying nearby.

But then Primula-san gave us some astonishing testimony.

"According to what that man said—he claimed that a noble had paid him to abduct me."

"W-What?! If that's true, this is a grave matter! This is no joke. I knew there were many corrupt nobles, but I never imagined it went this far..."

Most likely, they had intended to abduct her, a beautiful woman famous throughout the city, make her a slave, and toy with her.

"Could you search their hideout and secure any evidence, Sir Northpole?"

"Indeed! Leave it to me."

I know nothing about nobles, after all. The other adventurers were in the same position. We might overlook evidence we had gone to such trouble to find.

The women were brought out of the barracks I had destroyed with the heavy machinery. They all walked along bashfully, naked and covering their breasts and crotches.

Apparently, they had all been abducted from various villages. But one woman among them stood out for being extraordinarily large.

"Isn't it awful to make them walk around naked?"

I searched Shangri-La for blankets. They sold for about 2,000 yen each, so I decided to buy them.

There were nineteen women in all—2,000 yen × 19 made 38,000 yen.

I handed out blankets to everyone, but apparently they wanted to wash themselves. There was a well behind the building in front, so I took an LED lantern from my Item Box and was about to lead them there—

when another woman was led down the deck stairs from the building in front by an adventurer and brought into the plaza.

But she backed away as though she didn't want to be led by the hand, trying to escape. Unlike the other women, she was also wearing fairly fine clothes.

When the naked women wrapped in blankets saw her, they shouted.

"That one's been shaking her ass for those villains and tormenting us!"

"What? Then she's one of Shaga's accomplices?"

The woman being denounced had apparently been abducted herself in the first place. She had ingratiated herself with Shaga through clever words and tormented the other women as the villains' mistress.

"Because of her, Polia was... Uuuu..."

"I was desperate to survive too! What's wrong with using those villains for my own benefit?!"

One of the women who heard that picked up a short sword lying nearby, threw open her blanket, and charged at the other woman with her naked body.

The two collided and tumbled down in a tangle, and a woman's scream tore through the darkness of the plaza.

"Aaaaaah!"

When the naked woman slowly got to her feet, a short sword was glinting, buried in the chest of the woman pinned beneath her.

"Ugh... ugh."

Black liquid spilled from the woman's mouth. Of course, it was blood, but in the faint light of the bonfires, its color was indistinct.

When the stabbed woman's movements stopped, the naked woman covered her face with both hands and collapsed in tears.

"There's nothing we can do about this—let's say the bandits did it..."

The other adventurers nodded at my words. We draped a blanket over the shoulders of the crying woman.

"We're a bandit-subjugation party from Dalia. We won't hurt you, so don't worry. If there's somewhere you'd like to return to, we'll take you home."

"Really?!"

"Yeah."

But only nine of the women said they wanted to return to their hometowns. The rest said they wanted to go to Dalia.

Apparently, even if they were rescued and returned home after being abducted by villains, there was a high chance people would look at them strangely.

Some had apparently lost their parents, siblings, or husbands, so perhaps they wanted to go to Dalia, where they knew no one.

Without anyone to rely on, a woman would have to somehow make a living on her own. Dalia had a large population, and therefore plenty of work.

I see... I decided to let them choose what they wanted.

It had turned into quite a scene, but since the women wanted to wash themselves, I went to the well behind the building, lighting the way with an LED lantern.

There was an old-looking stone well there.

I set the LED lantern beside the well, took soap from my Item Box, and lent it to them.

"Here, soap. Use as much as you like."

Well, they wouldn't need conditioner—or so I thought, until Primula-san came over too.

She said she wanted to wash herself with them. In that case, I supposed I should bring out some conditioner.

"After you wash your hair with soap, use this. This woman knows how to use it."

We would need towels and bath towels, too—so I searched Shangri-La and bought four sets of five bath towels for 3,000 yen each and two sets of ten towels for 1,500 yen each.

Then they would need clothes as well. Primula-san's clothes had been torn, too.

I tried buying one simple white blouse with a black ribbon and asked what they thought.

"They'll all be the same, but is this all right?"

"If you've rescued us and are giving us clothes too, anything is fine... Ah, but this, the front closure..."

All the women's clothes sold through Shangri-La buttoned left over right. But all Western-style clothing in this world was standardized to button right over left.

"Ah! Right, of course. That's a problem."

I searched again. When I brought out a white blouse with no overlap that could simply be pulled over the head, everyone said that would be fine.

It was about 2,000 yen each, and I needed twenty in size M—that came to 40,000 yen.

Then there were the skirts. I brought out navy-blue maxi-length skirts, a common style in this world.

These seemed to be fine as well. They were 2,000 yen each, and I needed twenty in size M for these too.

But I had forgotten about the one enormous woman. She was honestly about as big as a male beastman.

The skirt fit her waist in size L, but she was tall with long legs, so the maxi skirt ended up an awkward length and looked a little odd.

Even so, she apparently preferred the skirt to wearing trousers.

Women's clothes didn't fit her broad shoulders at all, so I reluctantly put her in a men's T-shirt and navy jacket—it suited her surprisingly well.

According to her, she was strong too, so the bandits had made her carry things and work in the fields.

"What? They have fields too?"

"There are. Behind the barracks, there are."

Her voice was low and husky, but with her red hair tied in a ponytail, she had a rather cute face.

Just as the women began washing themselves and I was about to leave, Myaree arrived with a child in filthy, tattered clothes.

"Wash this child too, nya."

The child's face was pitch-black, and long black hair hung down in a tangled mess. But I thought something white had moved atop that black head—

I took an LED headlamp from my Item Box and shone it on the child. Sure enough, something white was writhing among the hair—insects?

"What the hell is this? Lice?"

"Fgyah?! Aaaaaah!"

Myaree, who had brought the child, fled as though shot from a cannon. Naturally—creatures covered in fur like the beastfolk would find this sort of thing terrifying.

I searched Shangri-La for lice.

Huh, they sold quite a variety of things. I thought lice were a thing of the past, but I bought medicated shampoo for lice and a special lice comb with long teeth. The total was 4,000 yen.

"Primula-san, could you wash this child along with the others? Please cut the child's hair short."

I handed the scissors to Primula-san, who was naked and covering her breasts. But she was startled when she saw them.

"Huh? What are these?"

"They're for cutting hair and paper like this..."

I took the scissors and demonstrated by snipping at the child's hair a little.

"C-Could we sell these through the trading company as well?"

She approached me naked in an excited state, and I had no idea where to look. So this world doesn't have scissors...

Even in a situation like this, she didn't forget about business—she really was a merchant's daughter.

"Hey now, isn't it a little improper for a young lady from a good family to approach a man naked?"

"Ha-ha-ha."

"Huh?"

After the women's retort brought Primula-san back to her senses, she desperately tried to cover her breasts and crotch.

"Primula-san, this is medicine for lice. Use it to wash this child's hair. No one else is to use it."

"Yes..."

Apparently, the women knew how to use the special comb. They said that even in their villages, they used combs to remove lice from children's heads.

However, even after looking over the naked women's bodies, I saw no signs that any of them were pregnant. I asked about it as tactfully as I could, and apparently the villains had taken proper precautions, since pregnant women would have been troublesome for them to deal with.

I left the women to Primula-san and returned to the plaza.

The corpses of the murdered bandits had been gathered in the plaza. The drug seemed to be wearing off just then, and in the dim orange light, the horrific scene spread before me forced reality upon me.

The corpses I had created were the worst of all...

Even if the drug had caused it, this was too much. I covered my mouth without thinking—but then an even more shocking sight unfolded before my eyes.

The beastfolk began cutting off the heads of the corpses.

"Hey, hey, what are you doing?"

"What do you think? We're taking the heads back as proof of subjugation. Boss, is this your first time?"

"Yeah..."

"Well, if you work as an adventurer, this sort of thing happens all the time. You'll get used to it."

Get used to it? Could anyone get used to this? But if we couldn't count the subjugation as complete without bringing back the heads, there was nothing to be done.

Apparently, if all that mattered was the number, ears would do, but this time we had to verify the villains' faces. After all, the bounty was huge.

That was simply the rule of this world. Typical of another world—it wasn't all sweetness and light. The moment you stepped outside the city, this was what you got.

I forcibly swallowed the contents rising from my stomach, went over to the beastfolk, and grabbed the freshly severed head.

"I-I'll put the heads in my Item Box, then."

Trembling violently, I shoved it into my Item Box.

"That'd be a big help! They start to stink if it takes too long. It'd be nice to have a lot of salt, but we don't have enough to bury this many heads, and even transporting them would be a pain."

They wouldn't rot if I put them in my Item Box. But still—I'd never imagined I'd end up storing something like this...

How did it come to this?! Where did the slow life go?

Looking closely at the heads, I saw that some of them had black tattoos.

"Nyakero, what's the black mark on this head?"

"Boss, didn't you know? That means he's a slave."

"A slave?"

"Probably an escaped slave."

According to him, if you found an escaped slave, you were free either to report them for a reward or kill them. In other words, slaves in this world had no human rights.

"So they made slaves help with their crimes in exchange for sheltering them?"

"Well, you see stories like that pretty often."

Even while talking with me, he kept twirling his ears as if staying alert for danger around us.

"Can't your ears or nose sense any enemies hiding nearby?"

"Nope, none."

"I see..."

Counting the corpses, there were fifty-two. We had heard fifty, so the number was more or less what we expected.

The corpses of the ones I'd crushed in my Yumbo attack were torn to pieces. Guts were strewn everywhere, filling the area with a rank, sour stench.

Ugh—I'd really done it this time. This was going to traumatize me...

As I held my head, I happened to notice my partner left sitting in the plaza.

Oh, right, I'd left the power shovel that had caused all this sitting out. I had to put it away.

Before that, I took water from the plastic tank and gave it a quick wash. Why did I have to do this...?

As I put the Yumbo into my Item Box, the women came into the plaza carrying lanterns and wearing the clothes I'd given them.

"Whoa, everyone looks great."

"We got such fine clothes..."

"Don't worry about it."

Looking at them, I saw that everyone's hair—black, brown, golden, red, all kinds of colors—was still damp. Most of them had long hair, so it wouldn't dry quickly.

Oh, right. I could use that.

I took a jet heater and a table out of my Item Box.

"Huh? What's that?"

The women stared intently at the silver, jet-engine-like object that had appeared on the table.

It still had fuel left, so I thought I could use it to dry the women's hair—but then—

Oh, right, this thing needed 100 volts. I hadn't brought the generator, and I'd left the mobile battery at home...

What should I do...? I could buy a new battery, but—after thinking for a moment...

Of course! We had the truck. I could buy an inverter that plugged into the cigarette lighter. The jet heater's fan only used about 30 watts, so the smallest-capacity one would be enough.

I looked at inverters on Shangri-La—and found the one I wanted for 3,500 yen.

"All right, 【Purchase】! Click!"

I plugged the inverter that had dropped out into the truck's cigarette lighter, connected the jet heater's power cord, switched it on, and pressed the ignition button.

A clicking ignition sound rang out, and soon roaring red flames began to emerge.

"See? Hot air comes out here, so you can dry your hair with it."

"Whoa~ is this magic?"

"Something like that."

"Whoa~"

The women peered curiously into the machine.

"How many of those things do you have?"

"That's a secret, old man."

Myaree pointed at the jet heater and shouted.

"It's the thing we used last time, nya! Since you've got it, can we wash ourselves too, nya?"

"Here's some soap."

Myaree took the soap and raced off to the well. She could see even without any light, after all.

Apparently, because the beastfolk wore fur, it was a hassle once the blood dried on it.

I took the lice-removal shampoo and put it away in my Item Box.

"Kenichi-san... Primula-san said that girl used this..."

"Ah... Well, you know—we had a Forest Cat at home, right? Myaree wanted to see her..."

"You called her by her name... Even though you still call me '-san'..."

"Well, you're the daughter of an important business partner, after all. Ha-ha."

Primula-san's eyes were frightening.

"You're strong enough to slaughter heinous bandits, and you're this generous. Of course women wouldn't leave you alone, right?"

All the women nodded together.

Hold on—still, it was good that the women we'd rescued didn't seem too despondent. It would be troubling if they were only forcing themselves to act that way.

In reality, they were acting cheerful and smiling, but their smiles were painfully stiff.

They had been through terrible things. It wouldn't be strange if their minds were broken. Some women were silently drying their hair without smiling at all.

But all the women who said they wanted to go to Dalia seemed to be looking ahead.

I fled from Primula-san and went over to Nyakero.

Over here, they were in the middle of chopping heads off corpses. What kind of chaotic situation was this?

Without looking Nyakero's way, I gathered up the abandoned polycarbonate shields, one for each person.

The bucklers the beastfolk in particular had used were covered in white scratches.

Oh, right, I also needed to collect the crossbows and Myaree's compound bow, along with all the arrows.

The arrows were carbon, and the arrowheads were alloy. They were far too advanced for this world.

"What are we going to do now?"

I cautiously spoke to Nyakero, who was cutting off heads.

"What do you mean, what are we going to do? We're stripping the equipment, of course."

"Yeah, I figured..."

"Once it's light, we'll search the buildings too and snatch up every valuable we can find!"

"Which side are the thieves on again...?"

"Ha-ha-ha! If they hadn't committed crimes, they wouldn't have ended up dead, would they?"

"That's true, but why don't you wash yourselves first?"

"Oh, right! Good point. I got so caught up in chopping heads that I completely forgot."

Watching Nyakero and the others run toward the well out of the corner of my eye, I steeled myself and shoved the severed heads into my Item Box one after another. Fifty-two in all...

Naturally, a new entry appeared in my Item Box: 【Human Head】×52—what kind of situation was this...?

When I looked toward the women, the child from earlier was having the hair cut short and dried with the jet heater.

Looking more closely, I realized the child was a girl.

"Oh, you were a girl?"

"..."

The girl nodded.

"Then we need to get the girl some clothes too."

I immediately searched Shangri-La. Nothing too flashy, probably—something simple.

I found a navy dress with a white collar. It was simple and looked nice, so I bought it for 3,000 yen. It had no overlap either, so this should be fine.

"Here, you can have this. Go ahead and put it on."

I handed the dress to the girl, but she just stared at it.

"Don't know how to put it on? Could you help her get dressed?"

"Sure thing."

One of the women grabbed the hem of the girl's tattered clothes and pulled them off in one swift motion.

She pulled the navy dress over the girl's head and down onto her naked body.

"That suits you pretty well. What's your name?"

Her short, bobbed black hair went well with the navy dress. She kept staring at me with slightly upturned eyes.

"...Anemone."

"Anemone, huh? That's a nice name. Nice to meet you."

The beastfolk were absorbed in treasure hunting in the darkness. Their night vision meant the darkness didn't matter to them.

I left that to them and decided to sleep with the women.

I bought a blue tarp from Shangri-La and spread it over the ground.

It was a little lumpy, but not too uncomfortable to sleep on. Apparently, the women had all been sleeping together without enough blankets, but today they had the blankets I'd given them.

As I lay there gazing at the stars, the girl—Anemone—came over and clung to my side.

Primula-san was on my other side, while Myaree seemed to want to come sit beside Anemone but hesitated.

Myaree was probably worried about the lice.

—It was very warm, but this was getting a little troublesome...

It's not Myaree's fault, but what if the lice spread?

Well, they had apparently used the shampoo and comb, so they should be fine today.

I didn't know how many days we'd be together, but I'd have to shampoo her every day.

I fell asleep amid the scent of soap.