Chapter 10 - Overnight Companion (3)

Strictly speaking, “we” wasn't the right word. It was Erwin, not me, that the duo of Tubby and Scrawny had shown an interest in.

I nudged Erwin with my foot again.

“Mmm...”

What do you mean, mmm? Get up already. I know you're awake. I saw you sneak a look the moment you heard their voices, then hide your face under the blanket.

“Eek!”

Not wanting to waste time arguing, I simply grabbed her shoulders and hauled her to her feet.

“Why are you pretending to sleep?”

“Well...”

Erwin trailed off and averted her eyes. It was a pretty frustrating response when I needed information and a decision as quickly as possible.

I caught her chin and briskly turned her face toward mine. Reluctantly, she spoke.

“You'll leave once I wake up...”

I see. So that was why.

I'd sworn an oath. If trouble arose with other explorers while I was on watch, I had to fight alongside her. Unfortunately, this had happened during the last shift we'd agreed on.

Not that I gave a damn about honor... but she didn't know that. So she'd tried to hold out however she could. The moment she opened her eyes, our oath as overnight companions would end.

“Whew.”

First, I let out a deep breath.

If a grown man like Mister Hans had pulled this crap, I'd have been angry. But seeing someone barely twenty do it, I felt sorry for her first.

Of course, that was one thing, and this was another.

“What happened between you and those two?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why did you hide?”

“... They had the same emblem on their clothes as the human man who tried to hurt me. They must belong to the same group.”

A group... Fuck, this just got a lot worse.

I was even starting to wonder whether I should just say goodbye to this young elf and go my own way.

“Let's talk on the move for now.”

“You're going to help me?”

“Let me hear the rest first.”

First, I took Erwin away from where we'd been resting. Moving at practically a run, I pieced together the rest of the situation.

“Tell me everything that happened.”

Perhaps sensing the urgency, Erwin gave me a concise account of the important details without any fuss.

“The person I met as an overnight companion on the first day attacked me while I was asleep. I found out later that he was an officer in a group that mainly operates on the first floor.”

The group's name, incidentally, was the Crystal Union.

“I barely managed to escape, but since then, members of the same group have attacked me whenever they saw me. That's how I got hurt.”

I interrupted her.

“Wait. How did they know about it?”

“Message stones.”

And what the hell were those? There hadn't been anything like that in the game I'd played.

“Explain.”

“They're magic devices that let you talk through message stones you've synchronized beforehand. I heard their range is about three hundred meters.”

“I see.”

A kind of radio. Set the frequencies in advance, and you could communicate within a three-hundred-meter radius.

The situation was starting to make sense. With magic devices like these and plenty of manpower, passing information around would be easy even in this enclosed environment.

The problem, though...

“Why go to such lengths to chase you?”

Erwin hadn't done anything wrong. So why were they putting so much effort into hunting down the victim?

“Are they trying to silence you?”

“... I don't think that's the only reason.”

“There's more?”

“Well...”

After answering my questions so readily, Erwin was hesitating again. If she kept this up, there was no way I could help her.

Just as I was thinking that...

“W-when I first escaped, I was swinging my knife wildly. But it hit him somewhere bad...”

“... Somewhere bad?”

For some reason, I felt a chill. A breeze kept brushing between my legs.

“Y-you know, d-down there...?”

So it really was.

“Ahem. Anyway, from what I heard the people chasing me say, it got cut clean off, so they couldn't even reattach it with a potion... I think that's why...”

No wonder they were so hell-bent on catching her.

“I-I'm s-sorry...”

She had nothing to apologize for. He'd brought it on himself, hadn't he? He'd gotten what he deserved. The problem was that far too many people in this world didn't understand even that simple principle.

“Mister, I think someone's following us.”

“What?”

“Don't look back.”

I focused on my hearing, but couldn't hear anything unusual.

“They're... about a hundred and fifty meters behind us, I think.”

That seemed absurdly far away to sense someone's presence, but she didn't seem to be lying. She had no reason to, either.

Was this the innate perception elves possessed?

Suddenly, I saw her in a different light.

“We'll have to pick up the pace. Can you manage?”

“Yes. I can still keep going.”

Her wound must have reopened, because her once-white bandage was stained red. Even so, Erwin didn't utter a word of complaint.

She had grit.

Though it left me with a lot more to think about.

“How far behind is our pursuer?”

“... Still about a hundred and fifty meters.”

We'd sped up, but we weren't gaining any distance. This wasn't good.

By now, our pursuer would be reporting our position to his companions through that message stone or whatever.

We needed to take him out.

If I had been their target, that was certainly the decision I would have made. But I kept running. Once we killed him, I wouldn't be able to back out anymore.

So before getting involved, I needed to check a few things.

“Um, Mister...?”

How much risk would I be taking on, and what could I gain in return?

I needed more detailed information.

“Erwin.”

“Y-yes?”

“What are you good at?”

“I'm confident in my laundry and cleaning. I-I'm not very good at cooking, though...”

What was she talking about?

“In combat.”

“... A bow! I'm good with a bow! Oh, and spirit magic, too!”

A textbook elf archer.

“What element?”

“... Fire.”

Hmm. The most valuable element.

That was starting to give me a picture.

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

“No... But I can.”

She wouldn't know that until she tried.

“I see.”

I asked her one final question.

“Erwin, will you become my teammate? Until we leave the Labyrinth. I take ninety percent of the loot, and you take ten.”

“I-I will!”

And with that, I had a reason to get involved.

* * *

“—I promise this on my clan's name.”

“And I swear it on my honor as a warrior.”

As before, we sealed our trust with a gesture, upgrading our relationship from overnight companions to temporary teammates.

All while running like hell, of course.

“How far?”

“About a hundred meters!”

We were going as fast as we could, but he was gaining on us.

I made up my mind.

“We're heading for the outskirts.”

“Yes!”

I changed direction and entered a dark passage. The glowing crystals on the walls and ceiling grew sparser, and soon pitch-black darkness loomed ahead of us.

My feelings were complicated.

Whew. I'd never thought I'd willingly come back here.

“Erwin, summon your spirit.”

A flame the size of a watermelon rose above her palm, lighting our surroundings. Watching my footing, I hurried into the darkness.

And then...

“Dismiss it.”

We hid in the dark.

“Where is he?”

“You'll be able to hear him yourself soon, Mister.”

“I see.”

Keeping as calm as I could, I concentrated on listening.

The best outcome would be for our pursuer to lose us and run past. Then we wouldn't have to kill him, and I could still back out later.

PATTER-PATTER-PATTER.

Before long, I could hear our pursuer's footsteps too. Contrary to my hopes, however, he didn't pass us. His footsteps stopped right at the junction where we'd turned.

TAP.

Damn it...

He apparently had some way to track us. Scent, sound, or something magical.

STEP, STEP.

He turned and slowly approached, then stopped about thirty meters away from us, at the boundary where the bottomless darkness began.

“...”

He craned his head to peer into it, while we watched him from within, holding our breath.

“Here they are.”

After sniffing a few times in the still silence, he muttered to himself. Then he took something out of his pocket.

I'd never seen one before, but I instinctively realized what it was.

A message stone.

The instant I saw it, I gave a brief, murmured signal to Erwin, who would have been aiming her arrow with her bowstring drawn all this time.

“Shoot.”

THUNK.

An arrow loosed before I'd even finished speaking buried itself between the man's eyes.

THUD.

Even after the dead man collapsed, I didn't step out right away.

“...”

Beside me, Erwin was trembling too hard to hide it.

“Well done. Hesitating would have put us in danger.”

It wasn't empty praise. I meant it. Hadn't I hesitated when I brought my shield down on Mister? Erwin hadn't even had time for that just now.

She must have understood without needing me to tell her again.

She couldn't afford to hesitate.

“Yes...”

“Rest for a moment.”

Leaving the consolation at that, I stepped out of the darkness and searched the corpse.

The pursuer was traveling fairly light, perhaps having left his backpack with a companion so he could move quickly.

'Feeling disappointed at a time like this... I've really become one of the locals.'

First, I stripped him of all his gear from head to toe, then sorted through what I'd acquired: a belt, leather top and trousers, two daggers, a fairly heavy pouch of magic crystals, a bottle of potion in a pouch attached to his belt, and the message stone.

“Good. Come here.”

Having roughly sorted the loot, I called Erwin over. Then I removed her bandage and treated her wound with the potion.

The wound began to close with a sizzling hiss.

“Nnngh...”

There was no need to stay quiet, but Erwin gritted her teeth and endured it anyway.

She had a tough side to her, too. Or was she just in shock?

I hoped it was the former. I wasn't confident in my counseling skills.

“Feeling more alert now?”

“Yes. Wide awake.”

“Then change into these.”

After the few minutes of treatment were over, I held out the leather top and trousers I'd just acquired. I'd decided they were much more practical than her fluttering cloth outfit.

“I'll go put them on right away.”

Had she decided that following all my decisions gave her the best chance of survival? Wearing them could hardly have been pleasant, yet Erwin immediately took the clothes into the darkness to change.

“A little big. Come here.”

I trimmed the excess from the sleeves and trouser legs myself.

“Put this on, too. That should help.”

The clothes still looked a little loose overall, but once she put on the belt, she looked reasonably comfortable.

Maybe it was the change of clothes, but her whole air had changed. Before, she'd looked like an elf girl out on a picnic. Now she looked like a proper warrior.

Even her expression.

“... This feels really strange.”

“You'll get used to it.”

“I will... won't I?”

“Yes. You will.”

I stuffed everything else into my backpack, then dragged the now-naked corpse into the darkness and hid it. Then I picked up the message stone.

“How do you use this?”

“One moment. Let me try.”

Erwin examined the message stone, then pressed something with a click.

[... We've lost contact with Serdin, who was tracking the elf bitch and the barbarian. Everyone receiving this message, converge on the goblin district.]

So far, everything was going as I'd expected.