Chapter 86

Chapter 86. The Old Woman in the Tower (11)

“Which one should we choose?”

At those words, I looked for the young lady who had been removing the men’s hoods and looking at their faces earlier.

She was standing behind us, watching our actions as though she found them amusing, so I was able to find her easily.

“You were Miss Minire, correct? Which man do you like?”

“Yes?”

“I saw you lifting their hoods earlier. I will give you the right to choose. Pick one.”

After hearing my words, Rick gave a bitter smile.

And the blond young lady whose name had been called gave a silly grin, raised her hand, pointed at the third man from the left, and said,

“That man. He is the youngest, and his face is at least the most bearable among them.”

I nodded at her words.

At that, Rick immediately pulled down the hood caught over the man’s nose and roughly slapped his cheek, waking the unconscious man.

SLAP! SMACK!

“Stop sleeping and wake up!”

The man let out a groan, opened his eyes, looked around slightly, then furrowed his brow and closed his eyes again.

At that sight, Rick twisted his face fiercely and raised his fist.

“If you do not open your eyes right now, I will shove my fist into your mouth. You do not want to live on soup for the rest of your life, do you?”

At his threat, the man opened his eyes again, looked up at us, and clenched his teeth.

“Damn it!”

The man, who had a youthful voice and a face somewhere between his late teens and early twenties, offered that as his first word.

And in return for that first word, Rick drove his clenched fist into the man’s stomach.

THUD!!

“Haaagh!?”

“We do not have time. So if you spout nonsense one more time, next time….”

He drew the defensive sword, the main-gauche, from his waist, pressed it firmly between the man’s legs, and smiled coldly.

“Do you have a girlfriend? If you do, I will make that young lady very sad.”

At his words, the man’s face turned deathly pale.

And the young ladies standing around watching showed two kinds of reactions.

Those reactions were either wicked smiles or blushing faces.

Here, the young ladies who wore wicked expressions tossed jokes at the blushing young ladies, saying they were pretending to be innocent.

Thanks to that, the menacing atmosphere Rick had worked so hard to create vanished high into the sky because of the young ladies’ bickering.

Rick glared at the young ladies with a fierce expression once more and made their chattering mouths shut, but it was already too late.

The man lying on the ground with a pale face from Rick’s threat had begun giggling.

Rick pressed his lips tightly together and raised his fist again. The man lying on the ground clenched his teeth and turned his head aside.

“Could you wait a moment?”

Rick turned his head toward me with his arm still raised.

“Yes?”

“I will try.”

He looked somewhat reluctant, but obediently lowered his arm.

I crouched down, looked at the man, and opened my mouth.

“We do not have much time, so I will get to the point. How about we make a deal? You do not want to be locked in prison at such a young age, do you?”

“You are saying you will let me go?”

The man looked up at me as he spoke, and I smiled gently and nodded.

At that, the man shook his head and spoke again.

“Tch! Lies! You will say that, then hand me over to the guards, will you not?!”

“I have never lied to anyone other than my wife.”

At that moment, something like a stick suddenly tapped my shoulder, and Rene’s dry voice came from behind me.

Ugh! I had forgotten she was standing behind me.

“Say that again. Han, what did you just say?”

Leaving behind the startled gazes of the people around us, I swallowed hard and slowly opened my mouth.

“Um, dear. I am in the middle of talking right now, so later….”

At that, Rene’s sheath pressed firmly into my back for a moment, then slowly withdrew again.

I cleared my throat and was able to resume negotiating with the man, whose eyes had gone round.

“Ahem! Here is what I want. Tell us everything you know. Where is your gathering place, and how many companions do you have… Hey, are you listening?”

“W-Wait! That elf is your wife?!”

“Ah, yes. She is. Why?”

The man opened his eyes wide and stared carefully at my face. I let out a sigh, raised a hand, and waved it.

“I am human. My wife is an elf. I will tell you the details later, so for now, tell me what you know. Where is your gathering place? With numbers like this, you seem to be some kind of named organization.”

The man, who had been frozen for a moment, looked back and forth between me and Rene standing behind me with a dazed face.

Then he smiled cheerfully, hardened his face again, and shook his head.

“No. If I talk, retaliation is obvious. Do I look insane enough to spill that?”

“What?! You bastard, hurry up and talk! My fiancée was taken! Tell us right now! Otherwise, I will—!”

It was the man who had bowed his head earlier and said his name was Troy.

Before I knew it, he had drawn his sword and was lifting it high. The man lying on the ground bared his teeth, closed his eyes, and turned his head aside.

Just as his sword was about to come down, I stretched out my gauntleted hand.

But Troy’s sword did not come flying.

Because Rick caught his wrist first from above.

Rick glared coldly at Troy, who was breathing roughly, then slowly moved his mouth.

“Let go of the sword.”

“Let me go! Chelsia was taken by these bastards! I cannot stand this!”

“I will say it again. Troy Bass, let go of the sword.”

“Grrr!”

Troy bared his teeth and resisted fiercely. Seeing him, Rick let out a sigh and opened his mouth again with a weary face.

“Troy, doing this will not bring Chelsia back. We have to go rescue her. But if you act like this, time will only keep passing. You are not the only one worried about her. So let go of the sword.”

At that, one of the young ladies standing behind them, a woman who seemed slightly older than the others (though she was still only in her late twenties), walked forward, placed a hand on his shoulder, and spoke in a gentle voice.

“That is right. Troy, lower the sword. As Rick said, you are not the only one worried about her.”

“Damn it!”

Troy lowered his head, clenched his teeth, and bent the hand holding the sword to the side.

At that, the woman took the sword and handed it to Rick.

Rick released Troy’s hand, received his sword, stuck it roughly into the ground, and bowed his head slightly to the woman standing behind him.

“Thank you, Miss Scarlet.”

The young lady called Scarlet shook her head slightly with a faint smile and stepped back, and Rick lowered his head to look at Troy now.

“You stay quiet and wait. Do not interfere. Understood?”

Troy nodded weakly. Seeing that, Rick let out a sigh and shifted his gaze.

“Did I almost die just now?”

“If things go wrong, you really might die. So hurry up and talk. And there is something I want to say. I do not want to move any more corpses.”

What I meant was that I did not want to kill him.

But the man pressed his lips shut and said nothing else.

Around the time Rick began slowly scowling, I realized the man was hesitating.

So before Rick could raise his fist, I spoke first.

“You seem to be hesitating. Then let us do this. You and your people must have taken quite a lot from attacking travelers, correct? If you help us, then excluding the goods these people lost, I will give you everything that remains. What do you think? Tempting, is it not? If you want, we can even take you to a nearby village.”

Here, I cleanly ignored the way Rick’s face twisted ferociously.

The young ladies also seemed to be saying something, but that did not reach my ears either.

I spoke like that with an unchanging expression.

At that, the man looked up at my face and seemed to think for a moment. Then he let out a long sigh and opened his mouth.

“Phew! Then untie me first.”

“Are you going to tell us where it is?!”

That was Troy, who had been sitting quietly beside us and watching after Rick’s warning.

At that, the man glanced at him, then made an extraordinary proposal.

“Even with an elf, you will not find the place. It is where an old dwarven mithril mine used to be, so magic does not work there. So I will guide you.”

“How can we trust your word?”

It was Rick who said that.

The man turned his head toward Rick’s face, gave a small laugh, and closed his eyes again.

“If you do not want to, then forget it.”

In the end, Rick untied the man with a face as though he had chewed something foul. The man rose from the ground, rubbed his wrists a little, then brought both hands to his stomach and frowned slightly.

Rene had probably kicked him in the stomach earlier.

He turned his head slightly, looked at Rene, and gave a bitter expression.

“You are impressive, Miss Elf. I am fairly tough myself, but you knocked me out in one blow.”

“My name is not Miss Elf. It is Rene Tarsis, Mr. Human.”

Under Rick’s watch, the man who had been called Mr. Human by Rene looked slightly dazed, then scratched the back of his head and revealed his name.

“Uh, I am Kennis. Kennis Valentine.”

When he gave his name, the young ladies stared blankly at his face, and Kennis turned his head slightly, conscious of their gazes.

Then, while the young ladies sent amused looks at his reaction, Rick pressed one hand against his forehead, ground his teeth, and urged Kennis on.

“That is enough introductions. Guide us already! Where is it?!”

At Rick’s words, Kennis glanced at his companions still sprawled on the ground, then pointed in a certain direction and said,

“Follow me. If we walk, it will take about an hour.”

At that, flames seemed to pour from the eyes of the two men.

“What! An hour?!”

“Then untie the rope around my waist too. If we run, it is about twenty minutes away.”

For a moment, Rick looked troubled because of his urgency, then suddenly smiled brightly and turned his head toward Rene.

Rene showed a faint smile to Rick and Kennis, whose waist was tied with rope, and said,

“Mr. Kennis? If you are thinking of running away, abandon that thought. I will be following you.”

“Playing tag with an elf in the forest at night? Uh, I have no such thought. Then I will guide you, so follow me. If we run, we can arrive within twenty minutes.”

After hearing his words, Rene nodded.

At that, Rick was about to untie the rope tied to Kennis’s belt when he noticed Troy standing beside him and tilted his head.

“What are you doing right now?”

“I am going too.”

“Is that so?”

THUD!

“Krrgh?!”

Rick mercilessly drove his fist into Troy’s stomach, and Troy let out a groan, trembled, and sank to his knees on the ground.

At that sight, Kennis and the young ladies looked appalled. Rick left a few short words for Troy, who was clutching his stomach.

“Do not make things difficult with emotion. I will rescue your lover, so you stay here. Mr. Garant? Please look after the Leader and the dancers.”

“Understood. Be careful.”

Garant, who had been watching us from the driver’s seat for a while now, nodded slightly.

After that, the encouragement from the ten or so young ladies poured out and made Rick look troubled, but with firm will, he pretended not to hear it and cut the rope tied to Kennis’s belt with his main-gauche.

At that, Kennis touched the back of his waist a little with both hands, then immediately ran into the forest and shouted,

“Follow me if you can!”

The moment I thought a wind carrying Rene’s scent had passed beside me, she was already running beside Kennis as he ran.

Rick and I pressed our lips shut and ran after them.

At that moment, Troy’s voice came from behind us.

“If anything happens to Chelsia, Rick! I will kill you with my own hands!”

“Do not worry!”

Rick shouted that without even looking back, and Troy’s shouting no longer reached us.

After running through the forest for quite some time between trees whose leaves were nearly all gone, two balls of light suddenly flew toward us from up ahead.

“Ghost Ball?!”

“…No, those are Light. It is magic. It seems my wife sent them.”

The Lights flew over at high speed and rose above our heads. Thanks to the much brighter field of view, I could see Rick’s dumbfounded face very clearly.

He looked at me, then turned his head and looked up at the balls of light flying above our heads, circling as they illuminated our surroundings. Then he abruptly said this.

“Are you truly husband and wife?”

“Yes, we are.”

After staring carefully at my face for a moment, Rick’s mouth seemed to lift slightly. Then he pressed his lips together, turned his head, and took the action fitting for the current situation.

I matched my pace with his and focused on controlling my speed as I ran closely after them.

Thankfully, Rene, who was running ahead with Kennis, raised one Light above her own head so her position would be easy to find.

We were able to follow them by watching the ball of light moving in the air up ahead.