Swamp Girl!

So far, neither the slavers nor the goblins had noticed that we’d made it outside.
We had a chance, but we were still in just as much danger as before. At this rate, the slavers would soon be wiped out, and if so, our fates would be sealed.
Before that happened, we had to get out of here.

I checked behind me. Including Aira and myself, there were five of us.
In the gloom, with more pressing issues on my mind, I’d spent three full days with these people without noticing how young we all were.
Aira was around twenty or so, followed by a twenty-five year-old woman who looked a little slow on the uptake. Another, about eighteen, had a half-dead look in her eyes. Then — a young girl of maybe twelve or so, with an extremely ugly glint in her eye.
I’d say that everyone was a beautiful woman in their own way, or beautiful girl. Even slavers had a pretty discerning eye.
Though since they’d be exterminated before long, it didn’t matter whether they were connoisseurs or not.

And of course none of us, myself included, carried a thing on them.
Even our clothes, these grimy light brown dresses — it didn’t sound half-bad when you put it that way, but let’s be honest: they were sacks with holes in them. Couldn’t say they cut a very s.e.xy figure.
Well, as a girl myself at the moment, I cared so little about it that it was almost sad. Or rather, I was completely naked before, so it wasn’t a big deal even if I didn’t have any underwear on.

Clothes aside, it was the lack of shoes that was the problem.
Though we were on the highway, it wasn’t like it was being maintained that well. It was no better than a ravel road. Running on it… how long would our feet hold out?
In any case, these were hardly ideal circ.u.mstances for running away at top speed. If I were by myself, maybe, but the others would definitely drag me down.

“Uh, um, B–Big Sis…”

They might have been able to read those thoughts from my eyes. Aira timidly tried to bring something to my attention, but she stumbled over her words, unable to continue.
I suppose the other women were observing me too.
Each was distinct from the others, but they all watched me with the same pleading look.
Under the weight of those eyes, I hesitated for a few moments.
But I suppressed something in my heart and addressed them all.

“~~~–! We’re escaping! All of us are going. If you fall behind, you’ll be left behind. Run with everything you’ve got! You hear me!?”

That was the compromise I came up with at the last moment.
I knew it was naïve. To be honest, even with my experience as an adventurer, my best option was to [abandon them], without a doubt.
It was just that, I also knew that I couldn’t abandon these women, who could only be described as ‘pitiful’.
Besides, Aira was alright. Somehow, after spending the last three days together, I might’ve gotten attached to her. Abandon her? What was I thinking about after all this time?1
I didn’t want to think that there was nothing else I could do, but I made the decision myself. Forget it, I just wouldn’t think about it.

“Yes!”

d.a.m.n, good response.
From every one of them, in spite of their dead eyes.
But, ah, was that it?

I was the one who did it.

“Alright then, guys, you have ten minutes to pick up anything useful in this area! Don’t carry too much! Once ten minutes are up, I don’t care what it is, you leave it! Go!”

So I had to take responsibility.

For a moment, my mouth twisted in a self-deprecating smile.
Pushing it down, I gave the women orders. And I looked around too.
Right off the bat, I found one of the slavers lying face-down where he’d fallen. It was the one who’d been looking after us, in the loosest sense of the word.
From the looks of it, he had no external injuries but he’d lost consciousness. For now, I took what was probably his shortsword. It had fallen nearby.
One light swing. It was a little — no, it dragged me along considerably.2 An unpleasant reality, but I didn’t have the leeway to fuss over it at the moment.
Couldn’t say right now if it would prove useful, but it was better than nothing.
While I was at it, I searched his body for bags and found a pouch at his waist. After checking the contents, I grabbed it for myself.
Anyway, there was no time left. My final act was to pull out the knife stashed at his waist.

“Oi! Time’s up! Let’s go!”

“Y–Yes!”

I looked over my shoulder to see everyone holding an arbitrary collection of tools.
Axe, knife, rope, bag, saucepan — I made them lose the saucepan right away. Thinking about the way ahead, it wasn’t a bad idea, but it was big. Basically, it would slow us down.
I looked over the area one more time to get a read on the situation. Naturally, it had gotten worse.
But our luck was still holding. No one had noticed us yet.

“Alright, this way. Run!”

I picked the direction to run in mostly by gut feeling.
Taking the highway to go forward or back would’ve been a bad idea. If they attacked caravans, the very first thing they would ordinarily do would be to set up a blockade.
The highway cut across the gently sloping hillside. So, we’d run downward. It was fast that way, and this place was pretty thin on hiding places to begin with, so the goblins would have come over the ridgeline for sure.
In that case, escaping downward was our only choice. It was process of elimination.
Of course, it was possible that they’d antic.i.p.ated this and taken up position at the bottom. But the hill angled downward gently, and when I looked down at what lay ahead, I couldn’t see any enemies. It wouldn’t pose a problem. Probably.
Irresponsibility had its limits too. I knew that, but I could only trust in my instinct now.

“We’re running downward! Don’t get hurt! We’ll leave you.”

Crunch–!

“Gyaa–!”

It happened right before my eyes, before I could finish speaking.
The eighteen year-old girl. Her eyes had been half-dead, but just a little bit earlier, they’d grown a little more lively.
Something struck her in the head, and she toppled over with a short scream.
I just barely caught sight of what happened.

A boulder.

A boulder flew at her from G.o.d-knows-where and pulverized her head.
The fallen woman twitched momentarily, spraying out blood. Her eyes rolled about, lost, before she stopped moving.
To get right to the point, she died.

“KYAAAAAA–!!!!”

The shrieking voice belonged to the slow-looking girl, the next oldest.
We’ve been seen! I clicked my tongue inside, but doing my best to ignore it, I look in the direction the boulder came from.
There was a figure visible on the crest of the hill.

— Troll!

Troll. A monster roughly as well-known as the goblin.
Bodies three to four meters tall. Strong, if their appearance was anything to go by, but sadly lacking in brains. Giants, pretty much your stereotypical monster in build and so on.
However, precisely because of its low intelligence, there were other intelligent monsters who would trick them. It wasn’t especially uncommon even for the lower-ranking goblin.

Not uncommon, but right now, it was so very hateful.

Collecting myself, I realized that the things responsible for tearing open the roof and for tilting the carriage were the troll’s stone missiles. That would have been impossible in the first place, if it were only the weak goblins.
I didn’t pay as much attention to details earlier, but the wheel of the carriage we’d been riding had been smashed to splinters — small wonder it had ended up tilted.

Our only stroke of good luck, and perhaps the dead woman’s bad luck, was that the troll seemed committed to providing logistical support from the rear. Staying in position on the ridge, it kept throwing boulders. When I thought about it charging in to block our way, our current situation was infinitely preferable.

“Oi! Don’t drag your feet! Run! Get out of here!”

I screamed at the remaining women.
Hardened to the shock of a friend’s sudden death, Aira and the girl with the ugly look in her eyes snapped out of their daze and sprinted off.
But perhaps overcome by shock, the dull-witted girl didn’t move from her spot as tears flowed down her face. And then, to make things worse, she fell to the ground with a thump.

“…s.h.i.t — . You guys go first! I’ll figure something out!”

Urging on the other two, I run over to the side of the dull-witted girl, who seems to have lost herself to panic.

“Oi, get it together! We’re running away!”

“Ah–…ah… — ”

She shook at the sound of my voice, but she was in such a muddle that even her voice wouldn’t come out right. Her eyes, flooded with tears, were strangely unfocused.

“Oi!”

I called her one more time. For a moment, her wavering eyes stilled and looked at me.
That gaze.
Pleading.

I grit my teeth. My molars creaked.
Then I looked around. There was no time.

I sighed. Looking at her one more time, I said,

“I’m sorry,”

and I drew the knife in my hand across her throat.

“Guheugh…–!”

Fresh blood spurted out from her neck, drenching me.
As the sound of her breath escaped from her lips, her eyes looked mournful, as if to ask me [why]. But it was only for a moment. The light faded from her eyes as they rolled up into her head, and she died.

I had to take responsibility.

I at least laid the dead woman on the ground gently, my eyes squeezed shut.
But that was all.
Without hesitation, I spun on my heel and followed the other two down the slope.
And so, I left behind the bones of two people.

Author’s Notes
I’m sorry that it’s short.
This is my first experience with the format of posting as I write, so I’m not very good at organization.

Footnotes
1. Guessed: 見捨てるなど、何を今更と思えた ↵
2. Straight up made it up: かなり体が持って行かれる ↵