Several days later, Rickert decided that they should ditch his mode of transport for a more conventional wagon pulled by an animal. 

His tank was too easy to follow as it bulldozed its way through forests and hills, leaving huge tracks that were easily followed. 

The girls pouted as the transport was very comfortable, and in these pre-technology realm it was downright luxurious. 

They holed up in a abandoned farm as Rickert decided to reconfigure the transport for something more suitable for the era. 

After much consideration, he designed a more conventional looking covered wagon, pulled by a huge mechanical bull which would be built from the parts of his earlier transport. 

Luckily he himself and the girls were all quite small sized, so the wagon easily fit a huge bed where they could all sleep together, while below their bed, he could store his tools and weapons. 

He also reconfigured the wheels as he managed to create air filled tyres and shock absorbers for a more comfortable ride.

As for his mechanical bull, he created one that looked menacing and was powerful enough to pull the wagon at high speeds comparable to a fast stallion. 

Although the bull Rick created was monstrous looking and could be used in battle, with a push of a button, it could shrink and look like a harmless buffalo.

While he did that, the girls gathered their combined knowledge of magic and power to find a way to neutralize the brand on Rickert's hand, so that he could get some rest at night, and not have to stay awake every night fighting monsters. 

With his help to use alchemy to create the suitable materials, the girls designed for him a pair of white gloves, the one that covered his human hand and the brand would block the magical power in the brand that acted as a beacon to the evil spirits and apostles. 

However, the glove negated all magical power and otherwise, so he could not use alchemy with that hand if the glove is on. That was the downside. 

"Thank you. This makes my life much easier" he said with a smile. 

"It was this, or we cut your other hand off and you build yourself a mechanical one" Rory joked.

"The thought did cross my mind" Rickert said seriously. 

The girls stopped laughing when they realized that he wasn't joking. 

After they solved the brand issue, they decided to find some way to help Rickert's mental issues. 

As the design and creation of the bull took several days, they had time to help him with the merger of his 3 memories and minds. 

He managed to segregate the memories of his otaku self as memories from a past life. Memories from Edward, he treated it as an inheritance he received. His memories of Rickert was the memory he retained as his current self. 

In order to stay anonymous, they decided that he should change his name, and he decided to change his name to Rick the inventor. They all liked his new name. 

Of course, during the few nights they stayed at the farm, they were constantly under attack until the day they created the glove for him. 

Even so, the farmhouse was mostly destroyed and the moment he completed his new wagon and bull, they sat off immediately. 

As they had changed his name and downgraded their transport so as not to attract too much attention, the girls too had to sacrifice their favorite dresses in favor of more average looking farmgirl dresses. 

The girls moaned and complained, but eventually gave in. They all dressed in pretty but plain and simple looking farm dresses although Tanya decided to wear a tomboyish outfit of shorts and a loose singlet. 

The closest thing that felt and looked like Tatsumaki's dress is a night dress, so she decided to dress in that, even though it made her look like she was always in bed. 

Even Tanya's auto-rifle was redesigned to look like a broom and Rory's halberd looked like a shephard's staff. 

This was all an illusion of course. Using special materials that refracted light a certain way, their weapons only looked like harmless tools. 

If one tried to touch the crook in Rory's "staff", you could easily chop off your whole hand if you touched the invisible edge. 

Similarly, Tanya could kill someone several kilometers away by pressing the trigger hidden in the broom side and aim the tip of the handle at the target. 

As the girls sacrificed their style and fashion, Rick did the same and wore dungaries and a long sleeved shirt to hide his mechanical arm. He looked like an amish or puritan, while the girls looked like typical cute farmgirls. 

Thus the bull was in lazy buffolo mode several days later as the wagon moved slowly down the road a few days later, passing by a legion camping at the side of the road. 

"Hey kids. Where are you going to?" a burly soldier asked, seeing the young man and his wagon full of pretty young girls who seemed to be sleeping. 

"We're going to Vritannis, hoping to get a ship to Ys" Rick answered.

His real goal of course is to try to get to Skellig, where Guts and Casca was.

"Oh, Vritannis? The city has become a garrison for the Holy See since the Kushan invasion." the soldier said,

"I know, so it should be safe from monsters right?" Rick said.

"If you want safety, you should head the opposite direction, to Falconia" the soldier said. 

"Uh, no thanks. I've been there. Some of the army there makes me uncomfortable, if you know what I mean" Rick said. 

The soldier suddenly put his finger to his lips, telling Rick to be silent about it, and nodded, indicating he understood what he meant. 

The demon army of Griffith's universally made all the remaining humans fearful. 

Rick waved goodbye and his wagon ambled slowly into the dark forest not far off, that stretched all the way from the plains here to Vritannis. 

"Wait! It's getting dark, maybe you should camp here and leave tomorrow" the soldier suddenly said. But to his surprise, the slow moving wagon was already out of sight. 

Within minutes, the sun set and the place was completely dark except for the fireplaces the soldiers had built. 

In the distance, loud roars of inhuman monsters echoed through the forest. 

"Poor kids. They don't stand a chance in the night against such monsters" the soldier lamented. 

However, unknown to the soldier, the roars of the monsters were not triumphant roars of victory upon capturing and killing their prey. 

They were the death cries of monsters wailing upon their own senseless deaths as cute little girls slaughtered them for fun.