Chapter 4.4

Chapter 4.4

「…Well, we did it. Let’s take it apart, shall we?」

「Ya good to go already?」

「Still a bit out of it, but I could take on a Giant Mantis or something. No problem.」

「All right.」

Nodding to Haruna’s proposition, Hiroshi asked for her to take apart the legs, where there wasn’t anything too important. There were a bunch of materials that could be harvested for potions and catalysts around the torso, most of which required a certain degree of knowledge to collect.

「There. I’m done with the torso, so I’ll go turn this guy’s silk balls into thread.」

「Okay. I’ll join you once I’m done with the legs.」

「Thanks. I don’t got good feelings about those balls, anyhow.」

Nodding in response, Haruna went to take apart the third leg. Since she had torn them apart with the big move, just digging around for them was a chore in itself. In addition to its exoskeleton (which felt like something more than a chitin) rigor mortis had set in on the flesh in the legs. If it weren’t for the especially sharp knife Hiroshi had crafted, she wouldn’t have been able to get anything out of the corpse.

When Haruna had finished taking apart the last leg, she hear Hiroshi call. With everything worth selling packed into the bag, Haruna ran to Piaranork’s web, where Hiroshi was supposed to be.

「What’s wrong?」

「Trouble. As expected.」

With that, he gestured to a girl with platinum blonde hair, who was apparently found from one of the silk balls. She looked to be around eleven or twelve years old. On course with the rest of the people of Farlane, whose stature were relatively larger, she was only a little bit shorter than Haruna.

She was wearing an elegant and detailed (obviously expensive) dress, undoubtedly signifying that her family held considerable wealth and status. As she was barely breathing, her chest (adorned with a pair of breast that had just begun to grow) was barely moving, either.

「…Okay. Is she alive?」

「She is, yeah. In a coma, though.」

Nodding, Haruna observed what she could. While it was faint, her life force itself was present. Some sort of magic (she couldn’t tell what) was cocooning her, and most likely keeping her alive.

If they dispelled this magic, the girl would probably come out of the coma, but unfortunately with Haruna’s Dispelling spells, she couldn’t dispel a special spell of this level that was this complex, at least without a catalyst. It would be a piece of cake for a player that specialized in support, but…

「Without a catalyst here, I can’t bring her back here.」

「Same with me. I can craft an item that negates all this, but ingredients aside, the equipment we got ain’t up to snuff.」

「We have the ingredients?」

「I can make it work with the stuff from the bugs ‘round here.」

Haruna nodded.

「Can we get the equipment in order once we get back to Wulls?」

「Not with what we got, but the one they sell at the Association will do.」

「Okay. Do you want to call it for now?」

「Hold on. There could be more survivors in the other ones. The problem is, we’re in an awkward spot if there’s a bunch more survivors when we take ‘em out here. So, I’m thinkin’ of taken all the ball, the ones over there too, back to the camp and makin’ ‘em into thread over the night.」

「All right. So I can take her to camp, right?」

「Please do. I’ll gather as many balls as I can.」

Nodding in response, Haruna hung the bag on her arm, and carried the girl on her back and out of the nesting areas. It was a relatively open lake they had passed on the way. While there was some wildlife, the area only consisted of less aggressive species. As long as they set up Hiroshi’s barrier items and kept the fire going, there was no chance of being attacked. Truly the ideal campsite.

「This is starting to smell fishy…」

Noticing the outfit of the girl on her back, Haruna couldn’t help but mutter that to herself. Bad vibes were crawling under her skin. Truth be told, like Hiroshi was saying, she only ever felt weary of the silk balls all along.

「What do I know about the nobles around here…?」

As she carried on towards the campsite, she recalled all sorts of rumors she had heard while she worked the food stand or singing in the streets. Like the rivalry between Duke Alsus and Marquis Powell. Like the battle for the throne between the Crown Prince, his younger sister, along with their illegitimate older brother taking place under the surface.

And perhaps because of that, there were no rumors whatsoever about the Crown Prince’s bedroom. Like the fact the current court has three children of the king and queen, and five illegitimate children of the king. There were some suspicions regarding the queen’s current pregnancy as well. However, everything except the number of royal children and their gender were all just rumors without proof.

A rumor that might have any bearing on Hiroshi and Haruna’s lives was one that the second princess, the older sister of the Crown Prince, was sick and weakening by the day as they couldn’t find a potion to cure the ailment. Still, Haruna couldn’t imagine that this had anything to do with the situation they were facing. The fifth princess (a legitimate heir) was close in age to this little girl, but even if the ingredients needed to cure the second princess was around these parts, there was no reason for a princess in line for the throne (albeit she was near the back of the line) to risk her life coming down here.

「I guess I have to wake her up and ask her for the real story…」

She knew so little she couldn’t even form an educated guess. While she didn’t want to consider this young child surviving such an attack as a burden on her, Haruna wished she could celebrate the fact without any reservations about her own situation.

I swear, if this girl got into this mess because of some scheme… Whoever’s behind it is going to see hell.

Haruna decided that, if they were going to get mixed into it anyway, she would rather focus on imagining how to beat up whoever was behind it. With how things were going, they were definitely getting roped into some political struggle, nine out of ten times. So, she was determined to make whoever was behind this regret roping her into this. With that image in mind, she hastened her step.

「Three total, huh…」

「For bein’ caught by Piaranork, three out of eight is pretty lucky.」

In response to Haruna’s disappointment, Hiroshi could only respond with a sigh. Three warrior-looking men, a scholarly man, and a woman who looked to be a servant were found dead. While they weren’t expecting any survivors to begin with, seeing the corpses was a bit of a downer.

「Where they only just eight of them?」

「Not sure, but this ‘counts for all the balls.」

Out of the people found within the silk balls that Piaranork was holding, only three of the eight humans were found alive in a coma, including the first girl they found. The other survivors were a twenty-something woman, and an older man. Each of them was adorned with a thick set of metal armor.

「Something’s off, isn’t it?」

「Ya think so too?」

There was no sense in brooding over what they couldn’t do anything about. It was true that they couldn’t save the rest of them, but it was almost a miracle within itself that any one of them came out alive; it didn’t seem right to feel guilty about that. Partially as a distraction, they decided to analyze what caught their mind.

「The other two that survived are obviously knights, right?」

「Judgin’ from the quality of their equipment and their build, they’re didn’t buy their rank, for sure.」

「Do you think they would get caught by Piaranork without a fight?」

Hiroshi clenched his brows. While they couldn’t tell the true prowess of these knights without fighting them, Hiroshi and Haruna had just taken down Piaranork with barely any equipment. If they had earned their ranks as knights, it certainly seemed possible.

「A trap wouldn’t be a stretch…」

「For example?」

「Lot of times, the folks out front can be less resistant to status condition spells. If they been caught with Paralysis or Bindin’, they could have been taken out one-sidedly.」

「Uh-huh. That would make sense why they were caught without any signs of a struggle.」

「They coulda been here under someone else’s volition to begin with, too.」

Hiroshi glanced at the servant girl and the scholarly man. Neither of them would have wound up here under any normal circumstances.

「Well, there’s no use worrying about that.」

「Yeah.」

「So, how are we getting home?」

「That’s the problem. Even if we give up on carryin’ the bodies back and only take back keepsakes and identifications after cleansin’ and buryin’ ‘em here…」

「The problem is, how do we carry the three survivors.」

Hiroshi nodded.

「I mean, I got somethin’ in mind.」

「What is it?」

「There were some bags in Piaranork’s web, must have been left behind by the adventurers it ate. They’re almost out of magic, but there were two Transportation Stones left.」

「Can we use them?」

「If we put some magic in ‘em, I bet we can get everyone, even the bodies, back to Wulls at least.」

With that Hiroshi, started converting the rest of the silk balls (that entrapped the insects) into thread. It was a form of escapism to avoid overthinking what was lurking behind all of this, but his nearly inhumane mental endurance also aided in his escape as well.

「I can take apart the bugs?」

「Just leave the hornets. Those make some potion ingredients.」

Once the plan was set, Hiroshi switched right back into his usual gear. As she chuckled at this, Haruna began taking apart the bugs from inside the silk balls, to help get her mind off the possible complications that lay ahead of them.