Strictly speaking, “we” wasn’t the right word.
Ricky and Buster had been interested in Erwen, not me.
I nudged her again with my foot.
“Ugh…”
Don’t give me that. Wake up. I know you’re not asleep. The moment you heard their voices, I saw you pull the blanket over your face.
“Hey!”
This charade was a waste of time. I grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her upright.
“Why were you pretending to be asleep?”
“That… that’s…” Erwen mumbled, refusing to meet my eyes.
Given that I needed information to make a decision, and fast, her attitude was starting to grate on me.
I hooked my fingers under her chin and forced her head up. Finally, reluctantly, she spoke.
“Because… you’ll leave when I wake up.”
So that was it.
I had sworn an oath, after all. If we ran into trouble with other adventurers while on watch, we had to fight together. But our time was up. This had happened on the very last turn of our promised guard duty.
Not that I gave a damn about my honor, but she didn’t know that.
So she’d tried to hold me here, to keep me bound to our promise. The moment she opened her eyes, our contract as night friends would be over.
“Hoo.” I let out a long breath.
If a grown man like Eckhart had tried a stunt like this, I would have been furious. But she was only twenty. A sliver of pity took root in a corner of my mind.
Of course, that was then and this was now. I still had to make a choice.
“Was it those two?”
“No.”
“Then why were you hiding?”
“They had a pattern on their clothes. It was the same as the man who tried to hurt me. They must be from the same group.”
A group. This was getting complicated. For a moment, I seriously considered just walking away from the fairy girl and all her problems.
“Let’s talk on the move.”
“You’re going to help me?”
“I’ll listen to your story, at least.”
First, we had to get out of here. I could figure out the rest on the way. We set off at a pace just short of a dead run.
“Tell me everything.”
As if sensing my urgency, Erwen skipped the preamble and gave me the vital facts.
“The first night, the man I’d just partnered with for the watch attacked me in my sleep. I found out later he was an executive of a group that’s mainly active on this floor.” The group, she added, was called the Adamant Concord.
“I managed to get away, but ever since, people from his organization have been attacking me on sight. I got this injury during one of the fights.”
I held up a hand, stopping her for a moment.
“Wait. How did they all know who you were?”
“They use message stones.”
Message stones? That wasn't in the game.
“Explain.”
“It’s a magic tool. It lets you talk to other stones that have been tuned to the same resonance. I heard the range is about three hundred meters.”
“I see.”
So, a kind of walkie-talkie. Set the frequency, and you could coordinate across a wide area. In a closed environment like this labyrinth, it would make spreading information incredibly easy. I was starting to grasp the scale of the situation.
But there was still one problem.
“Why are they chasing you?” Erwen hadn't done anything but defend herself. Why would an entire organization hunt down a single victim? “To keep you quiet?”
“I… don’t think that’s it.”
“Is there something else?”
“Well…” Erwen, who had been answering so calmly, hesitated again. If she kept this up, I couldn't help her.
Just as I was thinking of cutting my losses, she spoke.
“When I first ran away, I swung my knife at him. Where I hit him… it wasn’t a good place.”
“A bad place?”
For some reason, I felt a sudden chill. A cool draft seemed to brush against my groin.
“That… um… down there?”
Of course.
“Anyway,” she continued, her voice small, “I overheard some of the people chasing me later. It was… completely cut off. They said even a potion couldn’t reattach it. I guess that’s why…”
That would do it. That was certainly a reason to hunt someone down with everything you had.
“I… I’m sorry.”
She had nothing to apologize for. The man was the attacker; he reaped what he sowed. The problem was, in every world, there were far too many people who couldn’t grasp such a simple concept.
“Uncle, I think someone’s behind us.”
“Where?”
“Don’t look back,” she hissed.
I’d been listening intently but hadn't heard a thing.
“On the path. About a hundred and fifty meters away.”
It was strange that she could sense a presence from that far out, but her tone was certain. She had no reason to lie. An innate elven perception, maybe? My opinion of her shifted again.
“I need to speed up. Can you handle it?”
“Yes. I can.”
Though the white bandage around her wound was already stained with fresh red, Erwen didn’t make a single sound of pain.
She had guts. My thoughts tangled again.
“How far is the tracker?”
“Still about a hundred and fifty meters.”
Even after we picked up the pace, we couldn’t seem to widen the gap. This wasn’t good. By now, the pursuer was no doubt reporting our location to his friends with his message stone.
I had to get rid of him. If I’d been their target, the decision would have been simple.
But I was still running. Once I killed him, there would be no walking away from this mess. So before I took the plunge, I needed to be sure.
“Uncle?”
How much risk was I taking on, and what was the potential reward? I needed more data.
“Erwen.”
“Yes? Yes?”
“What are you good at?”
“I’m good at cleaning and laundry. Oh, I’m not a very good cook, but—”
What was she talking about?
“In a fight.”
“The bow! The bow! Oh, and spirits, too!”
A standard fairy archer, then.
“Which element?”
“Fire.”
Well, that was the most useful one. A plan was slowly starting to form in my mind.
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
“No… But I can.”
You never know until you’ve done it.
“Right.” I asked her the final question. “Erwen, do you want to partner with me? The contract lasts until we get out of this labyrinth. Loot distribution is ninety percent for me, ten for you.”
“I will! I will!”
That was reason enough.
“I promise in the name of my clan.”
“I swear on my honor as a warrior.”
Just like before, we performed a quick ceremony, a token of trust. Our relationship had evolved from night friends to temporary allies.
All while running for our lives, of course.
“Distance?”
“About a hundred meters!”
Even at our top speed, the gap was closing. I’d made my decision.
“Change of plans. We’re heading for the outskirts.”
“Yes!”
We veered off the main path and into a dark side passage. The glowing crystals on the walls and ceiling grew sparser, until a deep, profound blackness swallowed us. My thoughts were a tangled mess. I never thought I’d be returning to this place on my own two feet.
“Erwen, summon the spirit.”
A flame the size of a watermelon bloomed on her palm, bathing our surroundings in a warm glow. Keeping an eye on the floor for traps, I led us deeper into the darkness.
And then…
“Dismiss it. Now.”
We plunged back into the dark and pressed ourselves against the wall.
“When will you give the signal?” she whispered.
“You’ll hear it.”
“Right.”
I calmed my breathing and focused, straining my ears. The best outcome would be for the chaser to miss our turn and run right past us. Then there would be no need for killing, and I could still find a way out of this later.
Step, step, step…
Before long, the sound of footsteps reached me. But contrary to my hopes, he stopped just before our passage, right at the crossroads.
Step.
Shit. He had some way of tracking us, whether by scent, sound, or magic.
Thump, thump.
He turned into our passage and walked slowly, stopping about thirty meters away. He stood at the border where the faint light of the main corridor died and the absolute darkness began.
He craned his neck, peering into the blackness where we hid. We held our breath.
“There you are,” the man murmured after sniffing the still air a few times.
Then, he pulled something from his pocket. I’d never seen one before, but I knew what it was instantly.
A message stone.
The moment I saw it, I gave Erwen the signal, a single, sharp whisper. She already had her bow drawn, an arrow nocked and aimed.
“Shoot.”
Thwip.
Before the word had even fully left my lips, the arrow slammed into the man’s forehead.
Thud.
Even after he collapsed, I didn’t move.
Beside me, I could feel Erwen trembling.
“Well done,” I said, and I meant it. “Hesitating would have been dangerous.”
Hadn’t I paused for a split second before bringing my shield down on Eckhart? Erwen hadn’t allowed herself even that small luxury. She knew, without me having to tell her, that you could never hesitate.
“Yes…”
“Take a break.”
My ability to offer comfort ended there. I left the cover of darkness and went to search the corpse. The pursuer was traveling light, probably having left his pack with a comrade to move faster. He was a bit poor.
To feel a pang of regret over something like that… I’d really assimilated into this world.
I stripped the body of everything, from head to toe, and laid out the items: a belt, a leather tunic and trousers, two daggers, a heavy pouch of mana stones, a potion from a smaller pouch, and the message stone.
“Good. Come here.”
After a rough inventory, I called Erwen over. She unwrapped her bandages and poured the potion over her wound. It began to heal with a sickening, sizzling sound.
“Kkkh…”
It would have been fine to cry out, but Erwen just clenched her teeth and endured the pain in silence. She had a tough side. Or maybe she was just dissociating from the pain. I hoped it was the former. I wasn’t equipped to be anyone’s counselor.
“Did you black out?”
“Yes. Just for a moment.”
“Then change into this.”
Once the potion had done its work, I handed her the leather armor. It was far more practical than the loose cloth robes she was wearing.
“I’ll wear them.”
She must have decided that her best chance of survival was to follow my every instruction. It had to be awkward, but Erwen immediately took the clothes and disappeared back into the darkness to change.
“That’s not all. Let me see.” I took a knife and trimmed the excess length from the arms and legs. “Wear this, too. It should fit better now.”
With the belt cinched tight, the armor was still a little baggy, but it looked serviceable. The change in her outfit was startling. Her entire demeanor had shifted. Before, she’d looked like a fairy girl on a field trip. Now, she looked like a warrior. Her face had hardened to match.
“It feels… very strange.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I will?”
“Yes.”
I shoved the rest of the items into my pack and dragged the naked corpse deeper into the darkness. Then I picked up the message stone.
“How do you read the messages?”
“Wait. Let me.” Erwen took the stone and fiddled with it. A moment later, a voice echoed from the small object.
[Serdin, who was chasing the fairy bitch and the barbarian, has lost contact. All units, gather in the Goblin Zone.]
Things were proceeding exactly as I expected.