En Route (3)

Leading our escort target, the merchant, with his four wagons, we made our way out of the River Town of Donsama toward Corky. Along the way, in a strange meadow dotted with large boulders, we spotted a wagon stuck in place with a broken axle.

It was roughly a kilometer ahead of us… positioned at just the right spot where we couldn't pass alongside it or take a detour. One man was standing next to it, arms crossed, looking troubled.

Seeing that, Gozoh immediately checked that his weapon was within easy reach.

"Kehma, those are thieves. Get ready for a fight."

"Ah, so they really are thieves?"

Gozoh cracked his neck as if to say "obviously."

Right. It's suspiciously obvious.

"First off, getting stuck right in the middle of the road like that is already eighty percent suspicious. Around here, the proper etiquette is to at least unload the cargo and move the wagon out of the way or push it to the side. And with a man there not doing any of that work, he's either a complete idiot or a thief."

"Plus there aren't even any horses. Just an obviously broken wagon sitting there… When it's like this, we're allowed to deal with them as thieves, so lucky us～"

At Ichika's addition, Niku stood up inside the wagon as well.

"The wagon's borrowed, and we definitely can't let the noble's crest get damaged. Let's stop here and go on foot… So, who's staying behind to watch the wagons?"

"Ah, then my group will stay behind. You guys in Team Bacchus go hunt down those thieves. Take Shikina with you too, she's in the way."

"I-I am in the way!?"

Yep. In the way of my nap.

"Good opportunity, so go have a fight with those thieves. I'll be praying it doesn't turn out like it did with the orc."

"I-I'll be fine!"

"Hm. So Kehma's party is on guard duty, then? In that case, we'll head out without holding back. Oi, Wataru, you hear that?"

"Yeees. Heard you loud and clear."

Wataru answered from the coachman's seat of the wagon one back, where he was sitting with the merchant.

"Right then, we're off."

"Rokuko-chan, everyone, be careful out there."

"I put up an [Air Barricade], so you should be safe from arrows… but please be careful."

We stopped our lead wagon about four hundred meters from the thieves' position. Gozoh, Roppu, and Wataru hopped off the wagon and headed toward the thieves, feigning defenselessness as they called out, "Hey, what happened? Break down?"

They were probably hoping to get in a surprise attack.

Now then, let's sit back and leisurely watch them from guard duty.

Just as I was about to lie down, Ichika pulled out her weapon, the kitchen knife.

"Man, I'm itching for a fight, Goshujin-sama."

"Hm? What's up, Ichika? We're just watching over things, so we don't really have to do anything, right?"

"What are ya talkin' about? Our job on guard duty is to protect the horses, coachmen, and wagons from the ones hidin' in ambush, yeah? Time to show off our skills. Right, Niku-senpai?"

"Yes. I will show Goshujin-sama what I can do."

"With four wagons to cover, it's gonna be pretty tough though. I never thought Goshujin-sama would volunteer us for the harder job."

Eh.

Seeing Niku draw her Golem Knife and get ready to fight, I was about to ask "Is that how it is?" when Gozoh and the others' battle began.

At the same time, arrows flew toward our wagon, but Wataru's [Air Barricade] sent them off in the wrong direction.

"… Oh, so guard duty was the busier choice?"

"Those arrows just now were aimed right at the coachman. They've got a pretty skilled archer out there. Well then, time to counterattack～"

"Leave the support to me!"

Rokuko, you sit down. Also, if you're going to use a crossbow, do you even need the rapier at your waist?

 

＊ ＊ ＊

 

Seeing that arrows were ineffective, the thieves who had been hiding came pouring out. One, two… no, more than ten of them. This was bad. How were three of us supposed to defend against all of them?

"Yeah, we're seriously outnumbered here."

But making up for our lack of numbers is my specialty magic… [Create Golem] would gouge out the ground for materials, and camouflaging the magic stones would be a pain. Let's go with [Summon Gargoyle] here.

"… [Summon Gargoyle], [Summon Gargoyle], [Summon Gargoyle]… gah, this is annoying. Come out ten at a time, [Summon Gargoyle x10]!"

I'd gotten so fed up with chanting the spell name that I just shortened it, but magic circles appeared one after another around the wagons. Gargoyles sprouted up from each of them.

"Protect the wagons, gargoyles!"

The merchant and coachmen we were escorting were startled by the sudden appearance of monsters, but hearing my command and seeing them position themselves to shield the wagons from the thieves, they recognized them as allies.

However, the thieves also set their sights on me.

"They're summons! Kill the casters and they'll disappear! They're in the lead covered wagon!"

It seemed they knew how to deal with summon-type magic. Whether it was the thieves being knowledgeable or common knowledge, I didn't know… but staying in the wagon might be bad?

"Leave it to me."

"I'll do my part too～"

Niku and Ichika stood in the way of the thieves heading toward our wagon.

"It's a girl! Quite the clean-looking pet slave. We'll take her!"

"No thanks. My chastity belongs to Goshujin-sama."

"Ei."

The two of them easily cut down the thieves who charged at them. Hey, Niku was going straight for their necks even against humans without any hesitation… what a terrifying little girl.

"She's strong!"

"Underlings, charge! Overwhelm them with numbers!"

With that, the thieves' underlings… the slaves wearing collars rushed at Niku and Ichika, who were protecting me.

"Hey, let me do something too! Tei!"

Rokuko fired her crossbow… and landed a headshot on a gargoyle.

Yay, friendly fire. Sit down.

"That's a noble's daughter! She'll fetch a high price. Don't hurt her too much, capture her alive!"

"Even if all the slaves die, we'll still come out ahead!"

Oops, more and more thieves were focusing on our wagon. But I wouldn't let them have their way.

"Adding more [Summon Gargoyle]s…"

After all, our gargoyles were practically an army at this point. As long as we could hold them off like this…

"Tch! You useless slaves, go—"

"Alright, that's enough."

Wataru pinned down the thieves' leader. Checkmate. That was quick.

By the way, Shikina was collapsed on the ground twitching, so it seemed she was no good against thieves either.

 

＊ ＊ ＊

 

With the battle over, we decided to restrain each of the thieves. I left that to Team Bacchus and Shikina.

Apparently, they could be sold as criminal slaves if kept alive, making for some pocket money. If sold at a proper place, each one with all limbs intact would go for five silver coins. Even selling at an inn town would net a solid three silver coins each… criminal slaves were cheap. But my policy was to pick up loose change when I had the chance.

"Good work, Goshujin-sama."

"Good work to you too, Niku. We managed without killing too many."

"Yes, thanks to you, Goshujin-sama. Without the gargoyles, I would have had to behead them one after another."

Ah, so she could have handled it that way. I mean, this girl's thinking really is dangerous. She is reliable though.

"That was quite the show of force. But was it okay to reveal that? The gargoyles, I mean."

"No problem. In fact, it's better to have shown this much capability. It'll make future cover stories more plausible."

"Well, that's true. Being able to use summons is handy for decoys or errand runners… though the quantity was a biiiit… no, considerably abnormal."

The thieves earlier said "casters" in the plural, so yeah, the quantity must be abnormal.

"Sigh, I wanted to kill at least one of them."

"Rokuko, you're pretty bloodthirsty. You've always had that side to you, but…"

"No, I just wanted to see if killing someone outside the dungeon would earn me DP. I wasn't looking to kill for the sake of killing, okay?"

… I see. That was indeed worth investigating. If there was a way to earn DP outside the dungeon, it wouldn't hurt to know. For now, checking if Niku's kills had earned anything… nope. Right.

But killing a thief now would seem unnatural, so let's try again when we get another chance.

Just then, Wataru approached. Time to cut the internal chatter.

"Good work. Did any thieves escape?"

"I've got gargoyles holding all of them down. Should I have let some escape?"

"No, no problem."

When I asked with the nuance of "Should we have let some go to find their hideout?", Wataru answered, "A little threatening and they'll talk."

"Still, Kehma-san, you're amazing. To summon and control this many gargoyles… You're a one-man army. A magical one, I guess?"

"There's a trick to it. I give simple commands and leave the rest to their autonomy."

"Even so, this quantity is really a lot. For gargoyles… an ordinary mage could manage three at most, and even court mage level would have trouble reaching double digits."

… Yeah, I summoned about twenty.

Umm, well, let's just dismiss the idle ones one by one. Dismiss, dismiss… Good work, everyone.

By the way, we later raided the thieves' hideout together with Wataru.

I thought their hideout might be a dungeon, but it turned out to be nothing of the sort, just an abandoned village.

It seemed dungeons being taken over as bases for bandits and the like didn't happen often.

Wataru easily dealt with the remnants. As expected of Wataru.