“Well, this isn’t something you give up on. I’m tired now that I’ve eaten, so I’m going to sleep for a bit.”
I flopped down on my back in front of Aira.
Truth was, I might have lost my cool too.
Thinking back now that I’d calmed down, even if I got free of the rope, I hadn’t given any thought to where to go from there. In short, all that high-and-mighty stuff about chances? I got there by accident and winged it. I was a little ashamed of myself.
“Um, Chris.”
“Yeah?”
Aira addressed me shyly.
Though I was lying down, the carriage was back on the road. Irritated by the awful ride, my reply was unintentionally curt.
“Why are you this — strong?”
Strong…?
I didn’t quite understand what she was asking.
“What?”
“I mean — ”
Maybe choosing her words, Aira thought things through little by little as she spoke.
“That is, I — I already thought that I had no choice but to give up. Everyone else was the same. We told ourselves that… how should I put it, we… were unlucky. Until now, we’ve always been at their mercy… So I thought that even though I was going to be sold into slavery, there was nothing I could do. I think all of us felt that way. That it couldn’t be helped.”
“‘Couldn’t be helped’? That’s not what it is.”
I interrupted Aira.
“You’re right, there are things in the world that can’t be helped. But rolling over and accepting it, saying that it can’t be helped — those are words you say when you’ve done everything you can, not when you suddenly slam into a wall for the first time.”1
As I spoke, I thought:
That’s how I am.
I don’t know about stuff like that, but, even if turning into a woman is just me reaping what I sow, I can’t just take it lying down. And slavery — does it even need saying?
So I won’t give up. I can’t give up. There’s no way I can say something like ‘It can’t be helped.’
I haven’t exhausted all my options yet.
First is escaping from these slavers. Then, searching for a way to restore my original body.
These things are absolutely non-negotiable.
“Here’s the gist of it. After becoming a slave like this, what will you do? Live in slavery? Before that, ask yourself: What’s out there? Are you so ready to hand over your life to someone else? Ha–, give me a break.”
In conclusion: ‘You’re going to roll over just like that? Are you idiots?’
Actually, even though slavery is illegal, I’ve seen people who see things that way, or live in that very situation. It wasn’t a particularly unusual story.
This world, the people in it — they weren’t so earnest that they’d follow the rules just because it was forbidden.
The fact was, slavers and the like built their trade on it. As long as there were buyers, there’d be sellers.
— In other words, that was how it was.
But if I told those slaves that their eyes looked dead, they’d just be a bunch who didn’t know if they were dead or alive.2
Well, that kind of behavior might have been drilled into them, but anyway, to put it bluntly, at least I didn’t want to end up like that.
So, I wouldn’t give an inch, all the same.
“…You really are strong, Big Sister.”3
Gatunk-gatunk-gatunk–
“Big Sister?”
I couldn’t care less about the first half, but that last bit filled me with an incredible dread. I got up in a hurry.
Aira was looking at me with a smile that words couldn’t describe. When I looked around, I found the other women looking at me with the same gaze.
The h.e.l.l?
“Uh, wait a sec, I — ”
“I mean, you’re so pretty, and so cute, and you look younger too, but you’re so reliable and strong… I wish I could be like you.”
I’m a man, you know.
Before I could say it, Aira drew closer to me. Close. Your face is very close.
Uh, I mean, don’t look at me. Don’t look at me with those soft eyes.
“…I’m — cute?”
Turning my face away from those gazes, that was the best I could do.
‘Pretty’, ‘cute’ — until this moment, it was the first time in my entire life that anyone had ever said that to me. And I generally expected that after this moment, I’d never be told that again.
“That’s — ” As the word unintentionally slipped out, Aira nodded emphatically and moved even closer.
I found my bound hands aggravating for a different reason now.
“After all, you have such pretty silver hair, and it’s surprising how lovely your skin is. Even as a woman, I think they look amazing. And yet… Big blue eyes, soft-looking lips, slender body… You look very young, but it’s as if you were designed by an artist.”4
Eeeeeeeeee.
[How handsome], [So manly]. I’ve heard that kind of empty flattery from the women in rundown saloons and brothels plenty of times before.
But although this was different, hearing my female self being appraised like that, I didn’t have mixed feelings so much as an overwhelming dread.
Frankly speaking, it was having my face rubbed in it. ‘You’re a woman!’
“D–don’t be stupid, stop it.”
“–…Your face is deep red. Big Sister…You’re unbelievably adorable…”
Clearly excited, Aira approached me. This was getting scarier by the second.
I retreated, slowly sliding backward with just my legs. But in that brief moment, my back struck some kind of wall in the middle of the narrow carriage. It might’ve be one of the barrels riding with us.
Desperate, but with nowhere to run, I backed away as much as possible, as if I could become one with the wall.
In contrast, Aira was crawling closer on all-fours like some kind of animal. Her eyes were moist. Scary.
What was she going to do to me? We hadn’t spoken all that much in the first place, and it wasn’t exactly the right time or place for that sort of thing either.
What? Was this the so-called suspension bridge effect? Between women? Why?
“Big Sister…”
As her face came closer and closer, those lips on their way to who-knows-where, it happened without warning.
Ga–Gaan!
“Whoa!”
“Kyaa!”
Suddenly I heard the sound of something crashing into the carriage from the outside, and the carriage jolted forcefully. Stuck in our weird poses, Aira and I went rolling across the floor.
At the same time, wood chips showered down on us from above.
A chance!
I couldn’t have imagined that it would arrive right away. I’d been in dire straits just before.
But even so, after a few moments, I got my head in order and examined the situation.
The rocking of the carriage had settled down, but it seemed that all movement had come to a stop. At that very moment, a great commotion went up outside.
“W–What’s going on!?”
“Aira! It’s our chance — ! Get this rope offa me — !”
I couldn’t help but yell harshly at Aira, who’d been shaken by the unexpected turn of events. Me, I kept my eyes peeled and my ears perked up to see what I could pick up about our surroundings.
For the time being, I set aside Aira and the other women, who were scared witless, and looked up at the ceiling. I spotted the reason for the earlier rain of wood chips.
Unsurprisingly, a big hole had opened up in the ceiling. It was just that the hole could only accommodate someone’s head at best, and that wasn’t guaranteed either. As for whether we could use it to escape, it would be a bit — no, very difficult. And to make things worse, it was just a little too high up.
So then, why did that hole open up?
Filthy slavers those s.h.i.theads might be, but as expected, the carriage they used to transport their cargo was the st.u.r.diest they could get.
Something had opened up a hole in that sort of carriage. It must have struck us from the outside. And at a high speed, too.
Of course, I had no idea what any of that was about.
Only that it was the result of a situation that even the slavers hadn’t predicted.
“Oi! Don’t s.p.a.ce out! The rope! Get the rope! Hurry!”
“Ah, eh, y–yes.”
Irritated by Aira’s dazed dawdling, I shouted at her.
Sure took her long enough, if you ask me, but perhaps Aira finally broke out of her stupor. She sidled up to me in what was, for her, life-or-death desperation, circled around to my back, and began to untie the rope.
Meanwhile, I continued to keep tabs on our surroundings.
For now, I couldn’t see anything outside of the carriage. Any visuals I had came through the hole. All I could see was the sky.
So I strained my ears.
The area outside the carriage had been in an uproar since the earlier impact.
I could pick up the racket of the traders shouting at each other. I focused on them, but combined with the background noise, I couldn’t clearly make out what they were saying.
Other than that — a flurry of metallic hissing — the sound of swords being drawn. Or maybe armor being put on.
Putting it all together, it seemed reasonable to a.s.sume that the caravan had been attacked by some external force.
In short, after being taken completely by surprise, the slavers were rushing to meet the enemy?
But the problem was… what they took the hit from.
An order of knights tasked to arrest slave traders?
— No, based on the circ.u.mstances, I couldn’t help but find the possibility unlikely.
We were three days’ travel out of the Artor Ruins. I couldn’t say where they were headed, but I did know that they came from the direction of the imperial capital. If that was the case, what was at the other end of this journey?
Because there was no question that we’d been traveling by highway, we were at a point from which there were several divergent paths. Eliminate the small forks, and our options would generally be limited to one of two pa.s.sages.
Which was it: the route that pa.s.sed through the great Beres Forest on its way to the fortified city of Kakraw.a.n.ga, or the one that followed the hills toward the port city of Telaberan?
“~~~~! It’s toughhh.”
“I get it, so hurry up!”
My mind continued to spin as I rushed Aira to work faster. I had no way of checking, but I a.s.sumed it would be the hill route.
First off, these were slave traders.
So their wares had to be sold somewhere. Kakraw.a.n.ga, the fortress city at the end of the forest route, was an important staging point for the imperial military. In other words, entering the city would require very stringent inspection.
Slavery was usually illegal in the empire. Keeping that in mind, it was difficult to imagine that their destination would be Kakraw.a.n.ga.
For the moving around illegal goods, a port city would be better.
Once my thoughts got that far, I looked up at the hole in the ceiling.
I could see the blue sky.
It seemed obvious that we weren’t in a forest. So, we had to be somewhere on the hillside route. At least three days away from the Artor Ruins by carraige.
I caught a ride with a carriage from Telaberan on my way to Artor, but that time, it took six days to arrive. In other words, we were somewhere in the middle of the route from Artor to Telaberan.
In that case — .
“It’s untied! Yay, I did it!”
“Alright! Quiet down a bit.”
I rudely silenced Aira, who was overjoyed over untying the rope. She looked immensely dissatisfied, but I couldn’t do anything about that right now. Lightly ma.s.saging my freed wrists, I focused even more on my ears.
The voices of the slave traders filtered in through the hole in the ceiling.
[…But…gob……of them.]
‘Gob–‘. Goblins — I thought as much.
It was relatively well-known in adventuring circles, but , goblins had recently been staging raid after raid on merchant caravans right at the halfway point of this stretch of the highway. We were probably near that point now.
Even I had guarded the carriage I took to get to Artor as a hired hand. Fortunately, we weren’t attacked back then.
To sum up, goblins were the ones currently attacking the slavers.
Speaking of goblins, they had characteristically green skin and a height of 120 centimeters at most. Based on their build, they were monsters that fell under the ‘weak’ category.
They constructed bases everywhere, choosing locations without much activity.
And as fairly well-known monsters, almost everyone knew of them. They were also famous as the villains in children’s tales.
The greatest threat posed by those weak creatures was the horde.
As I said earlier, they established bases. Flocking together in one place, their numbers could grow to staggering proportions.
Even though their numbers were rarely estimated, they could swell into the thousands. It wouldn’t even strange for them to hit the tens of thousands.
If the horde were to grow that large, it would be fine if they pa.s.sed their days minding the fields and having fun. But there was a reason they were called ‘monsters’–they made a living by attacking people.
In other words, it wouldn’t be wrong at all to call them a band of vicious thieves.
At any rate, there was a goblin colony nearby, and right now it was attacking us.
Since I didn’t know what was going on outside, I couldn’t say how many are attacking us. But based on my experience, even with the most conservative estimate, there’d be over fifty of them. They had some intelligence, if they attacked a caravan, they’d a.s.semble the necessary number of troops.
In any case, they were a nasty bunch.
In the meantime, the faint sounds of swords clashing, as well as an urgent hustle and bustle, drifted down from the open hole.
I didn’t know the state of the battle, but no matter which side won, staying here would only lead us to a tragic end.
But with the carriage door still tightly shut, I was short on options. For now, I moved close to the door, waiting for one of the panicking slavers to open it. In order to make my move the very moment that happens, naturally.
Aira came along too, but without any tasks or expectations for her, I left her to her own devices.
“Wh–What will we do?”
Perhaps feeling uneasy because of my lack of response, Air kept pestering me with questions.
But there wasn’t actually anything to do. Right now, with nothing to do but wait, there wasn’t anything that particularly needed to be said. Or maybe this was the point where I was supposed to say something comforting. [It’s okay, no problem]. Like a big sister.
–Yeah right.
“Big Sisteeeeer~”
But Aira was slowly getting teary-eyed, the pleading in her voice increasing every time. Unsurprisingly, it got on my nerves.
“I get it, so just hold on a little longer.”
/Wha-dunk–!/
As soon as I opened my mouth.
A jolt just as strong as the one that opened the hole in the ceiling — no, even stronger — rocked the entire carriage.
Even though I was on my guard, the jolt sent me tumbling to the floor.
“Uwooh–!?”
“Kyaaaa!?”
There was the sound of a crash as the swaying carriage stopped at a slanted angle. Of course, everyone, including me, had rolled towards one side, forming a heap in the corner.
“s.h.i.t! What was that!”
“Big Sister, I’m scared!”
I tried to rise, cursing, but Aira was on top of me, her limbs all tangled up with mine. Or more precisely, getting tangled up with mine. Peeling her off, I scanned the surroundings to find that the impact had warped the back door, leaving it hanging half-open.
“…–! Aira, move! Get outside! You guys too, hurry!”
Irritated with Aira’s reluctance to come unstuck from me, I mercilessly freed myself with brute strength and kicked open the door.
Something hit the door from the other side, prompting m.u.f.fled screams from the women, but I ignored them and leapt outside.
In any case, this was all the chance we’d get. I struck the ground with my legs, falling into a crouch, and quickly scanned the surroundings.
“…Hii–!”
Behind me, Aira was looking outside just the same when she let out a small scream.
The other carriage, burning. The whinnies of the terrified horse.
Swarmed by a good number of goblins, exhausted slavers spewed out gouts of blood from where they’d been skewered by the monsters’ rusted swords. Similar scenes of carnage unfolded everywhere.
The slavers were clearly at a disadvantage.
As I feared, there were too many goblins, and the slavers’ defenses were too lacking for a caravan of this size. Their formation relied on agility, but their choice had obviously backfired on them. The moment they were taken by surprise, it was all over for them.
They should have run with all their strength. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances, they probably would have.
But my guess was, the surprise attack and encirclement had left the slavers with no option but to fight.
In any case, the slavers had mounted a hopeless counterattack, and now, despairing, they were on the verge of destruction.
True as it was, I didn’t think, ‘Serves you right.’
Because once the slavers and their token resistance were wiped out, we’d be next. And in the end, we’d be killed faster than the slavers…or should I say, annihilated.
In short:
“You guys! RUN!”
In other words, we had no other choice.
Author’s Notes
I was happy that several people had bookmarked the story, but I felt pressured too.
When I think about whether this update frequency is okay…
Footnotes
1. Guessed: 何かにブチあたってイキナリ一発目から言う言葉じゃねえよ ↵
2. Guessed: ただ、そうした奴隷っていうのは、みんな目が死んでて、俺から言わせれば生きてんだか、死んでんだか、わかんないような奴らばかりだった ↵
3. A real footnote! Regarding character speaking habits: Aira addresses Chris as onee-sama and uses polite speech with pretty much every other character in the story. She’s a modest kind of a girl. I’m not super happy with “Big Sister” as a translation, but I prefer not to have j.a.panese honorifics in my European fantasy. Suggestions? ↵
4. Guessed: そんなにしっかりした意思があって、それで ↵