13.Rescue

Editing/Standardisation: Medicine Melancholy
Original Translation: Medicine Melancholy

Part 1

Reiji

“…Where am I?”
I found myself standing in the middle of a medieval-style town. If I
recalled correctly, this was the square of the frontier town I was in just
a few minutes ago… However, its scale had expanded several times,
and the square, buildings and streets had become completely spacious.
“Reiji-san? Is that you, Reiji-san?”
“Oh, you’re here too, Ayame.”
A silver-haired young man, one head shorter than me, stood beside me.
He was wearing sharp-looking bluish metal armor, a cloak covering only
his left side, a shield on his back, and a slender sword hanging from his
waist. The familiar Saul from the game, but with strangely realistic
texture.
“Yes, I got swallowed by some weird magic circle, not to mention…”
“What’s the matter?”
“I feel something weird between my legs…”
Ayame… no, Saul, looked embarrassed as he mooched around the base
of his legs.
“Well, that’s because you’re a dude now… wait what?!”
I almost missed this detail, but there was no such “realistic” thing in the
game, was it?! I’m used to it in real life, so I was slow to notice it, but
what the heck!
“It can’t be helped, then. Seriously, how do you men move around with
this thing… Oh, Reiji-san, come take a look.”
He scooped up a handful of soil from the flowerbed and flaked it off.
“…This is too real. I don’t remember any specs like this.”
I picked a pinch of soil myself and put my nose to it, but it smelled
firmly of earth. I had no idea what kind of calculation was required to
reproduce such a realistic image. Game turning into reality, or sending
its players to another world, I’d only seen such developments in
Yanagi’s stash of novels he read for entertainment.
I pulled out a knife from its sheath strapped to the side of my waist.
Back in the game, the knife was just a decoration and I shouldn’t have
been able to pull it off… I took off my gloves and lightly scratched my
fingertip.
“…Ouch. Is this blood I’m looking at here…?”
The sharp pain and the slimy feel of my fingertips told me more and
more that my current situation was unusual.
As I was doing this, I suddenly felt eyes around me, and looking around,
I saw people looking at me from a distance and occasionally whispering
something to me… Well, to be fair, two adult men suddenly fiddling
with dirt and cutting themselves on their fingers would have been
suspicious, but then again, the game AI wouldn’t have reacted in this
way.
“Hey, Saul, let’s get moving… Saul?”
I looked at Saul, who was standing beside me, and saw that he was
mumbling something with a blue face, as if he were out of his mind.
“…Ah, let’s go somewhere with less people around, shall we?”
I saw him nod, and moved with Saul’s hand outside the town gate.
The road was wide and long, and all sorts of people were walking along
it. The snow underfoot was slippery in places, just like in reality, and it
took about 10 minutes to move to the town entrance, which took
almost no time in the game. When we reached the town’s wall, where
no one’s around, Saul suddenly stopped. I looked suspiciously at him,
who had not uttered a word since a few minutes ago.
“Saul? What’s on your mind?”
Saul had a blue face and looked like he was about to cry. I had never
seen this kind of expression in a game, and I frowned at the unusual
sight…
Hold on, there’re quite a few times when Saul… or rather Ayame-chan,
made this kind of face in real life. When this happened, it’s usually…
“Onii-chan?!”
“Oh, crap!”
That one word made me so upset that I wanted to punch myself in the
face. That should have been my first thought. But I was so bewildered
that I didn’t notice it.
“Onii-chan must be at level 1 right now because he’s just been
reincarnated! If I’m still ‘Saul’ here, that means he’s that ‘Iris’ with the
same looks and pure support status!!”
Hearing those words, I feel cold as if ice had been thrown into my head.
That guy has always allocated his stats based on the assumption that he
would be working with us. Base STR, and only the minimum VIT needed
for requirements because Saul had always been the perfect tank. Even
though he’s gone through his reincarnation, his level 1 stats were just
the initial value with a different color, only helped by a higher growth
rate. Even though the enemies in this area were not so strong, they
were still a sufficient threat to him. In the first place, it was unclear
whether the original stats were even valid in this world, and if, worst of
all, the physical abilities were only as good as one appeared, “Iris” was
nothing more than a slender, fragile girl. Moreover, he had almost no
useful offensive skills. What was I waiting for here? His situation must
be far more severe than ours.
Besides, the way Yanagi… Iris acted during our last conversation was
unusual. The more I thought about it, the worse it became.
“…Sorry, I hadn’t noticed. We must meet up with him as soon as
possible. You know which way to go?”
“Yes… we’d better hurry.”
After checking the direction with a compass, we hurriedly left the place.
The legs and endurance of this body were tremendous, and the scenery
was drifting backward in a flash. We had already been on the road for
more than two hours, sprinting about half of that time, but I didn’t feel
tired. The earlier concern, that if the in-game stats didn’t reflect the
physical capabilities in this word, was moot, but it was barely a relief.
It’s highly likely that a level 1 Iris would be no stronger than an average
person in the area, probably even worse.
However, even though I was marching at such a brisk pace, I could not
see the abandoned temple that I was aiming for. I was already running
at a pace that would have gotten me there in about five minutes if I had
been playing the game. I was getting impatient, wondering how much
of the world was out there.
We should have accompanied Iris to the reincarnation site.
I could not say such words out loud, because they would only drive
Saul, who was running next to me, into a corner.
Then, in my drifting vision, I suddenly thought I saw a figure among the
trees to my left. He seemed to be a man of good physique and mature
age. It seemed like a familiar face, but I could not recall.
“…Reiji-san?”
“Sorry, but could we talk later-”
We had to secure that guy as soon as possible. However, something
was strongly tugging at me. I couldn’t help but be curious, so I stopped
and walked to the place where Saul and I had just been, following him
with a dubious look on my face, but there was no human figure there,
as if I had seen it wrong after all. But instead…
“Is this… a page from a book…?”
“It looks brand new… Why is it here, of all places?”
…we found a blank piece of paper that seemed to be a torn page from a
book. As we looked at each other, we heard a “kin” sound of hard
objects colliding with each other in the distance.
“Did you hear that?”
“Sounds like someone’s fighting.”
“Let’s take a detour. You okay with it?”
I couldn’t help but be curious. It was as if something was guiding me,
some kind of premonition swirling inside me. Saul seemed to feel the
same way. He nodded his head, followed behind me, and we rushed
toward the sound.
Scott
“Scott, you coward, where the hell are you going?!”
“Because of your ass running away, we missed the fucking party! How
are you going to settle this, huh?!”
Of course, they knew that I was trying to escape and call for help. I was
almost on the road when I felt a sharp pain and something hot flowing
in my shoulder when I noticed the four pursuers. By the time I realized
that the arrow had pierced my leg, I was limping and had fallen. By the
time I got up, they had already surrounded me and seemed to have no
intention of letting me go.
They couldn’t wait any less to get this over with and return to have
their lowlife “party”. When I was confronted with the fact that my own
life was an insignificant thing that stood in the way of their “fun”, I bit
down in frustration so hard that my back teeth cracked.
“Even a coward like me still has something to do… I can’t die here just
yet…!”
I held up my dagger. My hand and feet were shaking, but if I didn’t
overcome this crisis, that girl would… So that’s why, this time… I must
do it…!
“What the hell’s wrong with you?! Wasn’t it you who ‘sold’ her to us to
save your own skin?!”
It’s just as they said. I’m a completely spineless coward.
My left arm was numb from the arrow, and I couldn’t do anything with
just a short dagger against the four of them… I must… call for help… no
matter what…!
Reiji
We ran a little further into the woods, and saw a fight. To be more
exact, four dangerous-looking men were pointing their weapons at a
wounded man with an arrow in his shoulder, looking absolutely
distraught. I didn’t know what’s going on… but I let my intuition take
over and instantly decided to help the latter.
“Get down!”
One skill that I usually used came to mind. As if moving from one
dimension to another, I closed the gap of about 100 meters to zero in
an instant, and swung down my large single-edged sword with all my
might.
My unique class was “Sword Saint”, and the skill I just used was
“Skanda”. Even though the system was not working, the acceleration
was still there, and the flash of speed and weight left my hand with the
unpleasant sensation of something cracking and shattering.
I blasted the big man away as lightly as if he were a baseball. The man
rolled for a while, then crashed into a tree and fell down. Naturally, I
had little experience in seriously wielding a weapon against people in
my former world, and I almost felt my knees tremble at what I had
done to the man who had fallen and was twitching. But now was not
the time to be talking about such things, so I put it in the back of my
mind and covered it up.
I look at the other man holding the bow at a distance. Saul held out his
sword to the limit and fired a thunderbolt, which was the skill
“Stunpiercer” of his unique class “Knight Lord”. The enemy archer fell
from the top of the tree with a muffled scream and fell silent. Normally,
that skill was used to catch a target that jumped far away and protect
the rear guard, but it seemed to have more power than that here.
“Calm down, old man, we’re with you.”
I stand between the dazed old man and his two attackers. Inwardly, I
was dripping with cold sweat, but somehow I managed not to show it.
The two remaining men became alert and readied their weapons after
two of their allies were knocked out in the blink of an eye.
“You are…”
“Please stay still, here’s some medicine to treat your wounds.”
“Ah…”
With Saul helping the old man up and handing him the wound medicine
on the side, I stepped out to face the remaining enemies.
The battle ended not long after. It seemed that the in-game stats were
indeed somewhat valid even in this world, and we could still use skills
without any problems, although there were many aspects that need to
be verified. For those of us whose level in the tertiary class had risen to
a certain extent, the enemies weren’t a big deal… except for the
emotional hurdle.
Leaving that matter aside, I turned to the old man we had rescued.
“Old man, you alright there?”
“Sir Swordsman and Sir Knight, I beg of you!”
“Hey, calm down, will you?”
As soon as the battle was over, the old man who had been standing
back grabbed at us with a desperate look.
“T-That girl…! I beg of you, please save that girl…!”
He pleaded to us with a tearful and snot-covered face… but what’s
more important was the word “that girl”. I couldn’t stop feeling a chill
down my spine.
To sum up, the first thing I heard was that it was definitely Iris who had
been captured.
The first thing I felt when I heard all this was immense anger.
“…Bastard, how dare you?!”
In a fit of anger, I grabbed the old man by the collar and tightened it
around his neck. I was tempted to strangle him to death, but then a
hand gently stopped me, and I reluctantly loosened my grip.
“Calm down, Reiji. I know you’re angry, but we can’t waste time taking
out your anger on him. Save that for later.”
“But, because of this asshole…!”
Saul had a point. But this shithead we saved was actually the one who
betrayed Yanagi… Iris, for his selfish end.
That being said, my voice, about to continue, instantly cooled down
when I saw the expression on Saul’s face next to mine.
Saul walked up to the man lying on his back under the tree that I had
just blown away, and swung his sword down mercilessly, without a
shred of hesitation. Immediately, blood spurted out like a geyser, and
before it could stain the surroundings, the sword was swung three
more times at the remaining living ones in the same manner.
He ”disposed of” four men before the blood could even stick to his
clothes.
“Sorry, but it would be a problem if these guys wake up later and get in
our way again. Your name is Scott, isn’t it? We’ll save her. Lead the
way.”
“…Y-Yes… This way, please…”
Saul’s sagacious face, set against a bright red snowy landscape, was
completely devoid of expression, and only his eyes were glazed with a
murderous intent.
However, I couldn’t even think of blaming my old friend for his sudden
and heinous act. In fact, I felt unworthy of myself for having let Saul,
who was a girl inside, do it. Honestly, I wanted to do it. I’ve never felt
such rage, such a desire to kill so much, that I would have never
thought of it in my former world. That’s right. It’s not this old man that I
want to take my anger out on, it’s the people who kidnapped Iris.
I didn’t even have time to keep up with the old man’s pace. I carried
him on my shoulder like a sack of rice and start running as fast as I
could, relying on his directions and leftover footprints.
“Wait for me, Iris, I’ll save you… so please, stay safe.”
Before I knew it, the trembling from fear of hurting someone of my
own volition had stopped.
(Author’s Note)
These two are seriously pissed, and all hesitation against killing people
are temporarily turned off.
Part 2
Reiji
(Timeskip to post-Chapter 11)
My gut was churning with anger. Iris was held down on a table, her
cheek swollen from abuse and her whole body covered with painful
scars. It’s hard to say that we’d made it in time, but the last line before
things truly became irreversible, was barely safe, such was the critical
timing of our arrival.
“Don’t be afraid, you idiots! If they’re here to save the hostage, just
kill…”
“That’s not happening.”
Saul’s skill, “Invisible Shield”, deployed an invisible barrier around the
fallen Iris. Immediately after, the window shattered into dust with a
rumbling sound. The man who had been holding Iris down was forced
to release her and cover his head against the rain of shrapnel.
The next moment, Saul jumped in through the window and attacked.
He tore off the neck of a bandit on his left, while avoiding the impact of
his landing by spinning, and the moment he stopped spinning, he
immediately lunged forward and stabbed another in the heart as he
passed by.
Saul, who had mortally wounded two men in the blink of an eye,
quickly threw his shoulder cloak, which he had apparently removed
beforehand, over Iris’ naked body.
“Force Shield!”
Saul thrust his shield into the floor, piercing the stone floor beneath,
and a wall was erected to protect Iris. This was another of the Knight
Lord’s skills that generated a force field around the user’s shield.
Although it had the massive drawback of giving up the shield, which
could become fatal to the tank position, it was the most solid defense
for important allies, and now the enemies around him could no longer
touch Iris.
When we raided this hideout, we had already ascertained from the
light we saw that Iris’s location was a room on the second floor. While I
charged head-on to get the attention of everyone inside, Saul moved in
from another direction to rescue Iris from the enemies.
It was a feat of strength that could hardly be called a plan, but the quick
action, which could only be described as remarkable, made one wonder
if this Saul guy was really a tank. Anyway, our biggest concern, which
was Iris’ safety, had been dealt with, so there’s no need to worry about
it anymore.
“Now no one can escape. Every single one of you, who have injured and
humiliated my Iris… don’t ever think of leaving this place alive.”
“And don’t even try to beg for forgiveness either…!”
The cruelty done to Iris earlier was seared in my eyes, and even now, a
new rage was welling up in me. At this moment, there was neither
hesitation nor mercy in the hands that hold the weapons, and to
dissipate this anger, we both leapt furiously at the bandits whom we
had set our sights on.
Our surrounding quickly became a hellscape. Every time Saul’s sword
flashed, fresh blood started dancing, and screams of despair rose up. As
we had declared, we had no intention of letting any of those people
escape. While Saul targeted the enemies who were trying to flee, I cut
down anyone who even showed a shred of resistance.
The reasonably sized room became a pool of blood, and the number of
live people inside went down, one by one.
“What the hell are you doing, they’re just two guys!! Goddammit, why
does this happen out of nowhere?! Iris…? Ah shit, she’s that rumored
‘Princess’, isn’t she?!”
Something improbable came out of the bandit ringleader’s mouth.
The name “Princess” was supposed to be some kind of nickname
imposed by the game’s official developers. Why did someone from this
world know about it…? Did the events of the game affect this world or
something…?
“Looks like I fucked up big time… Should have killed that walking bomb
instead of trying to play with her… Uooooooh!!”
The enemy ringleader suddenly stood up and charged at me with a
rusty sword in his hand, but he’s too late.
My sword was enveloped in the dazzling light of my fighting spirit.
I lightly ducked below the path of the opponent’s sword, and as he
passed by, I gave him a shallow cut to the side of his stomach. It looked
like a minor wound… but that’s all I needed.
“You’re already dead.”
“What the hell are you talking about- GYAAAAAAAAH?!”
The fighting spirit I left within the wound I had just reaped gushed out.
His abdomen swollen up and exploded in a flash, turning his body into
chunks of flesh scattering everywhere.
“B-Boss!!”
“W-We surrender! Just spare our lives, please!”
The people around him began to sit up and beg for forgiveness at the
sight of his gruesome death. I had heard that there was a method of
destroying the spirit of the enemies by cruelly disposing of one of them,
and it seemed that I had unknowingly demonstrated such an effect by
striking with maximum force in anger.
I felt nauseous at the sight of these bandits.
“…Fine.”
A moment of relief passed in the air as I muttered so. However…
“Only those who stopped when she told you to stop would be spared.”
The surrounding froze with my next words.
Of course, there’s no way anyone like that existed in this group, and I
wasn’t going to bother checking each and every one of them.
Thinking that I must be looking really dangerous right now, I coldly cut
down all those who were still trying to make excuses, those who were
trying to pin the blame on others, and those who were trying to escape,
all together, in order.
It took less than five minutes to clean up everything.
I wrapped Iris, who was still sleeping, in my cloak in addition to Saul’s so
she didn’t get cold. The poncho I had found earlier, which I thought
belonged to Iris, did not look too dirty or damaged, so I picked it up as
well.
When I carried her body, she felt as light as a feather, as if she would
break at the slightest touch, and it pained me to think of how much
torture she must have endured.
It was at this point that I finally managed to calm down and started
feeling terrible about the way I had been acting, even killing people in
cold blood. I couldn’t help but feel frightened at the idea of me, an
ordinary person until just yesterday, had acquired the power to kill
people so easily in just a few moments.
But when I felt the weight and warmth of the girl breathing in my arms,
taking out a gang of bandits seemed trivial in comparison.
Without my current power, surely we would have lost her forever.
“Aaaah… young miss, making you hurt so badly… it’s my fault… it’s my
fault…”
Old man Scott, who had been waiting outside, collapsed when he saw
Iris sleeping in my arm.
“Don’t beat yourself up over it, we managed to save her from the worst
of it… You have our thanks.”
“No! I don’t deserve your gratitude… I’m sorry, I’m really sorry…”
The old man’s lamentations did not stop, but from the way he was
wailing, there was no doubt that he was concerned about Iris. Before I
knew it, my anger at the old man had dissipated, and when I looked at
Saul, he simply shook his head.
If this is the case, the rest is all up to Iris, not up to us.
“Pardon my impudent request but… there’re more girls captured by
those people in the basement, could you help them out as well?”
The old man, now calmed down, told us about the girls who had been
kidnapped from the nearby towns. Maybe some of them were from
that town we were sent to.
“…Of course, please show us the way.”
“Follow me.”
He then led us to a horrible-looking basement. The air reeked of mold,
blood, and carnal desire, so nasally that we couldn’t breathe properly.
Some of the equipment inside was clearly intended “for that purpose”,
and in one corner, in a cage that was probably intended for animals,
several young women were sitting frozen and trembling.
“…I have no words for this.”
Various traces of the bandits’ deeds were left on the women’s bodies.
Some were badly bruised and scarred, some had deformed limbs, and
some were even missing body parts. A crushing fear grew in my heart
that if we had been late, Iris would have been among these people.
If Iris had been awake, she would have been able to heal the injuries,
but there was no way I’d wake her up when she looked so pale and
exhausted right now. I decided to leave it to Saul, whose eyes seemed
to tell me, “I’ll take care of it”. If the other party was a woman, he was
probably more attentive than I was, and it wasn’t something I was
supposed to look at anyway. Granted, both of us were in men’s bodies
now.
The old man and I would stand guard outside the door while Saul
destroyed the cage locks and any shackles or restraints he found.
“So, what do we do with these girls?”
“Let’s go back to town and inform the mayor, he’ll send people to pick
everyone up…”
“But we can’t just leave these girls alone, can we?”
It might sound heartless, but our first priority was Iris and only Iris, and
we really wanted to get her out of here as soon as possible and settle
down, for the sake of hygiene. Once we found an inn or somewhere we
could rest, we wouldn’t hesitate to report and get help afterward…
“Then let me stay back and take care of them.”
“…Are you sure about that? They probably like you as much as they like
those bandits.”
“I can’t blame them. It was me who turned a blind eye when these girls
were tortured or worse, and if they wanted to beat me up or kill me for
it, I think that’s a crime I should be willing to pay for.”
Seeing the old man so prepared, I didn’t have to say anything more.
“I see… Then this place is now yours. We’ll come back to pick you up as
soon as possible.”
“Yes, I’m leaving the young miss in your care.”
“That’s a given. You, too, must live to apologize to her.”
“Understood.”
I met up with Saul, who applied simple treatments to the women,
headed back the way we came, and returned to that first town.
Just like we expected, the town was also a victim of the bandits’ raid.
When we reported the bandits’ subjugation and the missing women,
the mayor thanked us and dispatched a group of men to pick them up.
As part of their gratitude, we were able to rent a room as our lodging.
Iris… didn’t wake up until three days later.