It has been a few days since we left Racist City. I use the small blade on the other side of my spear to hit away a small monster that has the shape of caterpillar, but was more like a tortoise. Basically, a bunch of shells on the caterpillar-like, though still reptile, body.

“[Itching Breath]!” Kyou-san sends a magically infused powder towards another of the minions. Yes, minions.

We are basically fighting a group of eight caterpillars that are larger than horses and have smaller ones under their back shells. The big ones have shell armor at more places, like the reptilian legs and tails, and they're currently rolling around us.

Rine kicks one of the minions in the way of the bigger ones, and with an ugly sound, it's crushed. However, it made the big one go into a bad spin, which caused it to open up a bit. Rine suddenly is above it and pierces through the gap, not deeply enough to kill it, but it's just a matter of time.

“[Fountain Gun]! [Fountain Gun]!” Ara-san and Kyou-san take care of the minions. While Ara-san's spell itself isn't very effective, it shoots them away.

Seriously, it's not a difficult fight. With all their rolling and shells, it's just annoying and there are little opportunities to deal real damage.

One of the big ones changes course, it begins to glow while I can hear how the air currents intensify. Its target is Kyou-san. No you won't! “[Rising Point]!” Countering its air current with my own, my upwards spear attack doesn't do any visible damage against the shell, but lifts the monster into the air.

It opens up and tries to rend me with two of its six legs, but I block both with my spear pole and the moment my feet touch the ground, I brace myself.

Gross! Its slobber runs down from my spear to my arms. “I got this!” I say aloud, so that the rest can do whatever. I only need to push it back a bit, then I'll kill it with [Armor Piercer].

Or so I thought. A sudden pain runs through my leg, and it yields to the pressure of the monster. While my arms hold firm, I fall backwards to the ground and now the caterpillar-form proves to be dangerous, as it can now use all of its legs, instead of just two.

Its claws cut into my arm and only my armor protects me from serious injuries. “[Rising Point]!” Using one of my sudden power-ups per day, I lift it again with a new air-current and hit it in the eye. Its skull has eyes too small for me to get to the brain with my spear-blade, but it’s just a matter of seconds. “[Armor Piercer]!” A rather weak attack, that however pierces much better through hard materials, like shells, and bones. Even on one leg, it's enough to finish that monster off.

Now that the immediate danger is over, I take a look at my leg, which feels rather strange. This felt like... no, not only felt like. There is an arrow in my leg! I change to [Ranger] and use [Farsight], trying to find-

I jump aside, as I just heard another arrow from a very different direction coming. I roll on the ground to get back to my feet immediately, but this was a bad idea. “Ahhhhhhh...” While my leg does listen to me, as I'm a hero, it also makes clear that it doesn't like listening to me. Also, no matter how robust a hero-body is, it's a fact that some of my muscles have been damaged and aren't able to perform at their absolute peak.

Another one! “[Watershield]!” Ara-san, who has even better senses than me, noticed the arrows as well and put a sheet of water around me and her. She then catches the arrow that lost at least some speed after piercing the water-spell. “Kenta-kun, we need to get closer to the rest.” She cancels her spell, but if someone is sniping at us from afar, we need to include at least Kyou-san in the shield.

I have absolute certainty that any arrow aimed at Rine will incidentally be deflected by her into one of the monsters. She has great instincts, feels danger when she shouldn't, and deflecting any sort of missiles is just what she does.

“Kyou-san, come here!” As every step hurts, I call out to her. She follows my order without question.

“Stay close to me,” Ara-san is untypically reliable, while also changing to [Acrobat], most likely trusting that she can catch arrows that way without any spells.

Kyou-san finally notices the arrow in my leg and changes to [Priest]. “[Heal]! I need to leave that in for now.”

The spell makes the scratches at my arm close, while I can feel how the flesh around the arrow starts to contract around it. “Sure.” She can't give me full medical treatment, there are still monsters... well, five in total, one big one and four minions, as Rine has taken out most of them by now.

For the remainder of the combat, however, there were no more arrows. Ara-san stays on guard, while Rine and Kyou-san treat me. “I'm ready, Kyou.” Rine has one hand on a poultice, one above the wound.

“Alright.” Then Kyou-san pushes the arrow out of my leg. I endure the pain as good as possible, but I can't help but groan while it takes like forever for the arrow to leave my body.

“[Heal]!” Using her spell, Rine immediately alleviates me from the pain while starting to apply the poultice. Kyou-san quickly then bandages it around my leg.

“Better,” I say while slowly standing up. Using bandages, poultices and such has a great effect on heroes. The wound still hurts, but I can already tell that it has closed and will heal in time.

I use [Farsight] again. We're in one of the more open sections of our route, I can only see a forest some kilometers away... has the sniper hid itself back there?

...most likely, though not necessarily. When you have skills like [Camouflage], you start to accept that there will be people hard to find if they don't want to be. I also have a [Skill] like [Seeker], that makes the arrow change course to a small degree, so... the sniper could be everywhere and aiming at every angle.

Most likely, it rather ran away than hide though. I pick up the arrow. “We need to move fast.” While we could get to the forest, it'll take a while and it'd be a detour. So I just hope that the sniper won't follow us, now that their position will be most likely compromised without any monsters that can serve as distraction.

Searching the whole perimeter for any clue may be just a waste of time. Maybe it was just a scout, after all, who saw an opportunity.

“Phew... it has to be Correo again,” I share my thoughts. “Probably with other mercenaries.” He may use Inoue, that fake, again, but they only had one archer and that one couldn't hide as far as I know. Also, this doesn't seem to be their mode of action. They're much dumber and more direct.

“Unless you made Flamebane hate you much more than we know,” answers Ara-san, at least providing that other possibility.

“Unlikely... he was a jerk, but he had a mission with that trader, so unless something happened, it shouldn't have made him aggro us so much.”

“Erm... I have to confess something,” says Kyou-san a bit hesitantly. “Do you remember when I said that I needed to take care of some business before we left the city? I... may have used [Rumor Mill] to discredit him and his mercenaries.”

…

… … …

“WHY!?”

“The way you talked about them, how they treated Arako... I don't really expect that it's them, though. I mean, [Rumor Mill] takes a while to take full effect, and I was careful. I'm just saying it now, in case it's them.”

“Pheeeeeew... well, I also don't expect them. Also, I'm not against pissing them off... so... no harm done?”

“Probably.”

“Kyou!” While I'm strangely OK with it, Rine wasn't. “You shouldn't talk bad about anyone... especially if you want to harm them.” What's that logic?

“I see this differently,” I can already see that Kyou-san will bring some arguments that will at least sound right.

“Back to topic,” I interrupt, as we're still in danger. I let my eyes wander around the landscape while talking and walking. “Why are they aiming at me?”

Rine has an answer for that: “Because you're strong and our leader.”

“More like, expendable... Also, wouldn't it make more sense to deal with our healer first?”

“Hey!”

“I'm just saying! Also, didn't Correo have more beef with Ara-san than with me!?”

“He knows that it won't work?”

“Also... why stop there? Or are we running into a trap?” I use [Farsight] to look around once more, but unless Correo uses his strange magic to appear with an army, something that seems very unlikely seeing how he had to fetch everyone from the fake-heroes one-by-one to save their asses... Just what is happening here!?

I take another look at the arrow. …that arrow-head is used to hunt monsters, made to easier pierce thick skins and pelts. The last time I saw one of those was when I was learning under the hunters right after being summoned into this world. While it may be good enough for hide armor, there should be a better option, right?

Who the fuck was that?

―○●○―

Meldorn watches them from the forest and witnesses how, instead of investigating, they decided to leave as fast as possible... Seems like he doesn't need to use the traps, after all.

Time to return. He was just scouting ahead and saw an opportunity to slow them down. Meldorn leaves the forest deep in thought, yet fully aware of his surroundings. He mounts his new horse that he bound to a tree on the other side of the forest.

It will most likely take a while to meet up with the others. Meldorn was on his own for some days, mostly to assess the situation while the rest were following at a moderate pace to keep themselves in top shape. And to keep their bruises at a minimum, as Sir Gottfried is the only one who has experience in riding, and healing them constantly would be a waste of the pontiff's magic.

Meldorn sure hopes that they were able to follow his signs. He went through every one of the signs he will use with them, but having companions so poorly trained in any survival-skills, Sir Gottfried included, made Meldorn wonder.

Still, aside from assessing the situation, there were other reasons why Meldorn went ahead. Even on a mount, he can travel faster alone and now that he has declared the princess his [Quarry], he will know where she is, no matter where she goes. He feels her presence in his mind.

She can't escape anymore. Though having an elf and a ranger will complicate things even more. Especially if said ranger is able to control minds and is rather fleeing instead of going after Meldorn, who would have just lured him into a trap. Either it's insight, fear, or instinct.

A ranger. A hero. Katsuragi Kenta.