<~> Chapter 147

"I'm starting to get worried..." Bella was looking off in the distance. It had been a few hours since the three others left and they hadn't said when they would be back.

After laying down for an hour Raya had recovered from her mana sickness and was practicing controlling the ambient mana around her with Morrigan again. This time she made sure Raya was only working with the ambient mana and Raya was plenty motivated to stick with that after vomiting. If she used up any more of her own mana she would be right back to where she had been an hour ago.

"...I don't know. What do you think Morrigan? Should we be worried yet?" I asked.

Morrigan looked up at the sky, it wasn't getting dark yet but we only had a few hours of daylight left and we still had to walk back. "I wouldn't worry too much about them but Torien probably would have been back by now if she didn't find anything."

"Do you think she's in trouble?" Bella asked.

"Eh, probably not." She shrugged. "But it's late enough that it probably wouldn't hurt to look for them. Most likely they found something but haven't been able to drag it back yet."

I looked over at Raya who was still sitting in the grass, she seemed a bit better now but still looked kinda sick. "What about Raya? Would it be too dangerous to take her with us if she's feeling this bad?"

Morrigan looked unsure. "I don't know, normally I would say yes but if we got stuck outside of the walls at night, I'd rather do it as two groups rather than three. Do you think you'll be okay to walk Raya?"

"I'm okay I think. I just hope I don't have to run."

Morrigan and I gave each other concerned looks.

"W-what?" Raya asked.

Bella smiled and helped Raya to her feet. "Sometimes running is the best option."

Sibyl took Raya's hand. "Don't worry, I have a strength and endurance build. If we need to run I can carry her."

Something about the cute and short catgirl saying something so serious made me laugh to myself. I tried very hard not to let it show on my face but I don't think I did a good job because Sibyl turned away and pouted.

"Sorry, I trust that you know what you're doing but are you sure it won't be too awkward to carry her with your new body?" I didn't want to point out how much shorter she was, I didn't think that would do me any favors.

"Let me check." The smaller catgirl picked Raya up and held her in her arms bridal style. While it did still look a bit comical, Sibyl didn't seem to be having any trouble. Raya however didn't fare as well, her face was bright red, the least composed I've seen her since Sibyl had changed.

Sibyl smiled, "No problem! Raya feels light!"

"G- great! You can put me down for now then, I'll be fine."

"Oh um, sorry." Sibyl put her back on the ground and Raya wobbled on her feet but seemed to recover quickly.

"That settles it then," I said. "Let's get moving, we need to find the other girls before it gets dark." I ripped a piece of paper out of my journal with a note to Torien in case she came back here while we were gone. She was actually a tracker, so she would probably have an easier time finding us than we would be finding her. I stuck it under a rock in a conspicuous spot and we started heading off in the direction Torien had headed.

Without Torien or Silva, I led in front with the girls in the middle and Sibyl in the back. None of us knew anything about tracking so the best we could do was head in the direction they went and hope for the best. The more I thought about this plan the less I liked it but we didn't have many better options, we needed to find the rest of the party. [Bonded Communication] had a maximum range so even though Mimi was with them it wasn't going to help until I got in range of the ability. While it seemed reasonable to send Torien at the time, I was feeling her lack of presence pretty clearly right now.

About half a bell of looking around I heard some voices coming from off in the distance, it sounded like some kind of argument. Our group headed in the direction of it and it wasn't that difficult to figure out what the problem was. There was a large animal that I didn't recognize with two arrows in it. It had been shot from two opposite directions. One had fletching I didn't recognize and the other was Torien's.

There was a group of six men, the man in the front was yelling at Mimi while Silva blocked them from getting any closer. She had her spear ready which was thankfully enough to keep the men back but not enough to make them leave. Torien looked incredibly annoyed but kept quiet and rolled her eyes whenever the man spoke.

The moment I got in range of the bond Mimi noticed it and turned to look at me with eyes filled with relief. -- "Lilith! These guys are yelling at me and I don't know what to do! They're saying we tried to take their kill but Torien hit it first!" --

When I walked up the men from the other group looked at us warily. The man who was berating Mimi turned to me. "What do you want animal?"

I walked over and put my hand on Mimi's shoulder. "What seems to be the problem? Why are you yelling at my party members?"

The man glanced at Silva then back to me. "Are these your slaves then? They don't know their place, trying to talk to me while the only one of them without a collar stood there looking at me like an idiot. That halfbreed is trying to steal my kill, she shot at the animal I had been tracking for hours," he said indicating toward Torien.

"Torien?" I looked over to get her side of the story.

"If they were tracking it, it couldn't have been for hours. We followed it this way and even got upwind of it for me to take my shot. We circled around it, there's no way they were tracking it. At least not for as long as we were. When I took my shot their arrow hit a moment after. ...They didn't even get a kill shot."

"How dare you lie bitch! Who would believe a halfbreed slave like you?" The man continued to rant which caused Torien to roll her eyes.

She looked back at me. "Lilith, please order me to speak the truth so I can prove to this pathetic man I am not lying."

I felt uncomfortable about giving orders but since she asked I would. "Torien I order you to speak truthfully, did you steal this man's kill or were you hunting it first?"

She turned to the man as the lines on her collar glowed blue. "I spoke the truth, we were hunting it first, there was no way he could have been tracking it. They are the ones who are lying."

I turned to the man and gave him a look over. His hair looked rough and his clothes were torn. He looked emaciated, like he hadn't been eating enough and the group behind him didn't look much better. The only thing any of them had that looked to be decent quality were their weapons but those could have easily been on loan. They were desperate, probably for food.

I sighed. "Apologize to Torien and Mimi for insulting them and we'll split the carcass with you."

"You..." The man gritted his teeth and the men behind him shifted uncomfortably.

I glared at him. "I could claim the entire thing for myself, it sounds to me like you were trying to poach our kill, not the other way around. Apologize to my friends and I'll let you split the bounty on it, you're not going to get a better deal."

"Like I'd trust you animals and halfbreeds!" Before I realized what was happening an arrow plinked off my breastplate then everything happened at once.

Silva knocked out the one who shot at me immediately after with the back of her spear, spinning it around like a staff. Sibyl dashed forward and leaped into a spin kick that slammed a man's face into the ground before grappling with another and breaking the man's arms. The two in the back were wrapped up in roots that shot from the ground and Mimi held one of them in the air by his neck after he had tried to stab her with his sword. She crushed the man's wrist until the hand limply dropped the sword he was clutching.

"Don't kill any of them," I called out.

Silva's eyes found mine and she pulled back her spear.

"Is anyone hurt? Er, any of us hurt?" I asked.

I looked everyone over and they seemed fine.

Sibyl checked the one she had kicked after letting go of the sobbing man with broken arms. "These amateurs probably need healing, they'll probably die if we leave them unconscious in the forest."

What a pain in the ass. The monster they had killed was pretty large, it looked like some sort of fusion of a tiger and a horse. It had hooved legs that were shorter than a horse and a feline-looking head, the whole thing was white and covered in black stripes. I wasn't sure how we were supposed to drag back the monster carcass and five unconscious people but I wasn't excited to wake them up either. We also couldn't just dump the body into Mimi's storage without advertising she had spatial magic. It was too rare to show off, I'd rather not have a bunch of merchants flocking to us right now.

I turned to the one man who was still awake. "Hey you, I'll ask Bella to heal your arms up if you help us drag your friends back to the guards. Beats sleeping in the forest right?"

The teary-eyed man nodded his head so I turned to Bella. "You heal him up while I tie these guys together. I don't want to leave them here so we'll have to heal them up too."

I dug through my bag for a coil of rope from my camping kit. It wasn't as long as I would have liked but it was enough to tie all of their hands together at least.

"Sure." Bella sat down next to the crying man and healed up his arms. He relaxed once he was able to move his fingers again.

"Does this sort of thing happen often?" Raya asked.

Sibyl shook her head. "Which part? Others attacking you or the Racism?"

She shrugged. "Both I guess..."

Sibyl sighed. "A lot of people are prejudiced like this but they get worse when they're desperate. Most of the time adventurers don't attack each other without knowing who they're attacking because a lot of powerful adventurers are hard to identify at a glance. These guys are hardly adventurers though, more like small game hunters that picked a fight with people that clearly outclass them. Their arrow didn't even pierce the Korton's skull like Torien's had. They should have known from Silva and Torien alone that they wouldn't win in a fight, even at a disadvantage. I didn't expect Mimi to be so strong though."

I looked at the dead monster. "This thing is called a Korton?"

"Yeah." Torien pulled the arrows out of the creature's head. "They're monsters but their meat is edible, tasty too. They should have taken your offer to split the bounty, this thing is worth a decent amount. It also has a core but the city wants to keep those as part of the bounty."

I was suddenly curious what it tasted like. "Do you think we could keep it and have the brothel use it for food?"

"Unfortunately no," Sibyl said. "Normally that would be allowed with a hunting license but right now all game is being purchased by the city. That's usually good enough since there are still people who are trading portions of their rations for gold. They might need to change the incentives if food continues to get more scarce and people's willingness to take gold goes away though. That hasn't happened yet though."

I nodded, finishing up the last knot on the unconscious men's wrists. "Okay Bella, heal these guys up too, and let's head back to the city."

The walk went a lot slower on the way back. Silva and Sibyl carried the large carcass together while the rest of us guarded the men who attacked us. I just wish the defacto leader would lighten up on the expletives and racist name-calling, it was getting old really fast.

We made it back as the sun was setting over the wall, it wasn't completely dark yet but it was getting close. I spotted the guard we had talked to earlier by the gate and decided it would be easier to explain what happened to someone who recognized me.

He smiled when he saw the large carcass Silva and Sibyl were carrying but the expression dropped when he noticed we were dragging along six people with their hands tied together.

The guard sighed when he saw them. "Another friendly fire incident?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Worse. They tried to steal our game, then when we offered to split the bounty, they tried to attack us."

His brows furrowed and he turned to the group. "What, are they stupid?"

"That animal is lying! They attacked us out of nowhere and tried to steal our bounty!"

The guard gave them a flat look. "Seems like it. Hey, dumbass, you see that deer-kin over there? She healed me yesterday when a shadow demon stabbed me in the gut. I'm more inclined to believe them over a damned racist. Their party is strong, they wouldn't need to attack you and take your stuff and if they did, they sure as hell wouldn't lead you by the wrists back to town. Are you willing to make those same accusations in a [Zone of Truth]? If you want, that can be arranged. This party is friends with the city's leadership."

That comment made the leader of their group clam up hard.

The guard turned back to me. "Don't worry, I'll take care of this. I'll call over someone else to help you with your bounty." He turned and waived down another guard.

I looked at the stunned man. "Don't go too hard on them, people are desperate for food right now."

The guard looked at him again. "You hear that, this 'animal' is showing you mercy. Thank the nice sheep-kin."

The man looked like he swallowed a lemon. "Thank you, ma'am." He looked away in disgust.

I laughed. "Not very sincere but I'll take it. Thanks uh, what was your name?"

"Nico." He held out his hand and I shook it.

"Thanks, Nico, I'll see you around."

Saine

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