Roadside Ambush

"Hey, mister. Horsies are so cute, aren't they! slurp"

"Y-yes, I suppose so."

Miitei-chan was cheerfully chatting with the young merchant.

His face was still tense.

While keeping an eye on those two, the rest of us were killing time with a card game handmade by Penpen (setting aside any trademark issues for now).

"Ah, UN○, yo."

"Draw 2."

"Draw 2 combo."

"You bastards, yo! You really did it to me, yooo!?"

Man, Penpen could even craft stuff like this. Pretty impressive.

She'd apparently also brought chess, Reversi, Geist○r, and other popular board games, but those would topple with every bump of the wagon, so they'd have to wait. Card games you could hold in your hands were the way to go for wagon travel.

We had regular playing cards too, of course.

"When I get back to Home today, I'm putting magnets in the pieces and metal plates in the boards…! But man, being able to craft all kinds of stuff in this game is seriously fun. Though making games is kinda pointless if you've got nobody to play with."

"Making games to play inside a game is pretty wild, though."

"It's getting to where you can't even tell what's the game anymore, yo. A gestalt collapse of gaming, yo."

"Making and playing other games inside a game occasionally happens a lot in crafting games."

Like when people make full use of the game system to build stuff on their own.

… Hm? Oh, what do we have here…

"Ah. Watch out, mister!"

"Huh?"

An arrow came flying at the young merchant, and Miitei-chan shielded him.

The arrow lodged deep into Miitei-chan's arm, the tip poking out the other side and stopping just centimeters from the merchant.

"Eek…!? Th-thank, a-are you okay!?"

"It's a fight, yooo!!! Not one of you is getting away, yo!!"

Alto leaped out of the wagon, thrilled for battle.

She'd actually been ready to go since before the arrow was even fired. The red dots on the field map had been dead obvious, after all.

Miitei-chan, you deliberately waited until the last second to throw yourself in the way, didn't you?

"Alright, I'll scout for anyone trying to run. Bandit loot is fair game as drops."

"I'll stay and guard the wagon. Though I probably won't have anything to do this fight."

Alto would mercilessly gun down any bandit trying to flee.

Alto's strength was guaranteed by the Guild as a high-ranked adventurer. Could mere bandits really beat a player who'd been grinding levels this hard?

… Well, that depended on the bandits' levels. Games sometimes threw ridiculously strong bandits at you, so you couldn't let your guard down.

You'd get the type who'd obviously earn more as an adventurer yet chose banditry anyway.

That said, judging by the bandits' reactions, these guys really weren't much of a threat. Going by the red dots on the map, they'd panicked and started running the instant Alto burst out.

"Hey, if there are any cute ones, take 'em alive!"

"Oh right! That was the plan, yo! … There aren't any, so it's a massacre, yo!!"

If there aren't any, can't be helped. Attacking us without being cute is your own fault. Death it is. If you wanna survive, reincarnate as a beautiful girl and try again.

What, that's unreasonable? Trying to kill us out of nowhere is what's unreasonable!!

After a while, Alto and the others came back.

"So yeah, no harvest to report, yo."

"Too bad. Any loot?"

"Nothing worth taking. Might as well grab the bows and arrows, at least."

"Spirit-sama, can I go eat the leftovers?"

"Well, it's not like we're in a rush… and she might pick up some bandit skills from it. Sure, why not."

"Alright, Miitei-chan! Tria gave the go-ahead, so off you go, yo! Go munch munch, yo!"

"Yay! Munch munch time!"

And with that, Miitei-chan ran off with the arrow still stuck in her arm.

"Hey, Merchant-san. Come here a sec. You're not hurt, are you? Let me take a look."

"Um, wait, isn't she the one who's hurt…? She had an arrow in her arm…"

"She's fine. We've got some, uh, special training. Now face this way."

And so Gin-chan quietly redirected the merchant's gaze, physically, to keep Miitei-chan's affection rating from dropping.

Right, right. She'd bet on Miitei-chan getting along with him, after all.

Firmly grabbing his face to block his view of the feeding scene, all while playing it off with a bright smile.

"Don't move, okay? Now let's see here…"

"O-okay."

… Isn't he gonna fall for Gin-chan at this rate? They do say nurses and medics are popular.

"Hmm, doesn't look bad enough for healing magic. Seems like you're completely unscathed."

"U-um. I can't move my head and it's really ow ow ow ow ow."

"I said don't move, didn't I?"

"Could you ease up, p-please ease up a little!? My head's gonna get crushed!?"

"Crushing would be bad, yeah."

Oh, nope. He's not falling for her. Crisis averted.

After that, Miitei-chan came back having finished eating everything, and the merchant's head was finally freed.

While she was at it, the arrow that had been in her arm was gone too. She must've eaten that as well.

"You okay, mister?"

"Oh, y-yeah. Thank you, you saved me… Is your arm okay?"

"I'm fine! I'm cute, after all!"

"???"

Being cute doesn't normally make you immune to arrows, I'd think. But hey, her affection rating went up properly.