“Woah!”

I stumbled backward as something hit me in the shoulder, tripping over something and falling on my backside.

“Oh no, you. Don’t!”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Lily’s fist sinking into the man’s abdomen. His eyes went wide, so wide it seemed they might pop out of their sockets any second now. His mouth was closing and opening and it seemed like he was… struggling to breathe. A moment later, he collapsed.

“Well then, now he’s down for real. Yumi, you alright?”
“Eh? Ah. Nn…”

I checked my shoulder when she asked but there was nothing.

“Sorry for shoving you. Does it hurt?”
“Ah. No, it’s fine.”

Lily had shoved… I hadn’t seen her doing that at all… Until she told me, I had absolutely no idea what had hit me at that moment.

“That.. man… he pretended to be unconscious?”
“Ahh, well… I am fairly sure he was at first. I think he woke up somewhere around the time we picked him up, though.”
“I… I see.”

Wasn’t that nearly the entire time?!

“Anyway… Let’s take a look at this.”
“Nn?”

Lily crouched down, stabbing her Zweihänder into the ground, and picked something up from the ground. A long knife. No, rather than a knife… A dagger?

“A dagger, huh… But this kind…”

Lily furrowed her brows as she scrutinised the dagger in her hands.

“Is something wrong with it?”
“No, not directly, just… No, let’s get back to the others first. Merim will likely say something.”
“Nn?”

Disregarding my confusion, Lily picked up her sword, securing it on her back, and then once again grabbed the unconscious man by his collar.

“Where to, Yumi?”
“Nn? Ah, one moment…”

I was still sitting on the ground. I stood up and took a look at our surroundings, searching for the others.

“Over there.”
“There? Then, let’s go and hand this guy over.”
“Nn.”

With Lily taking the lead, we made our way through the undergrowth of the forest. She didn’t speak up while we walked and her expression was… quite serious.

She keeps glancing at that dagger in her hand… It doesn’t really seem special, though?

If anything, the dagger seemed really plain… Just an oversized and long double-edged knife, from what I could see.

“Oh, I can see them, Yumi.”
“Nn? Ah, true.”

It really hadn’t been that far anymore to the others. Barely two minutes on foot.

“Vice-Captain! We’re back.”
“Lily, Yumi. It looks like you had some success.”

Visible relief could be seen on Merim’s face.

“We had. But they were a bit of a disappointment… I hoped they’d put up a fight but…”
“Guess they didn’t? Well, I am honestly not too surprised by that.”
“Fighting monsters would have been more thrilling.”
“I didn’t send you for the thrill…”

With a wry smile on his lips, Merim’s eyes glanced to the dagger in Lily’s hand.

“... That is?”
“This guy’s dagger. He played unconscious and tried to attack Yumi. Take a look, Vice-Captain.”
“This is…”

Similar to Lily’s reaction, Merim had a look of surprise upon seeing the weapon.

“This mess might be a lot deeper than I expected.”
“...”
“Uhm… Lily, Merim… What is the issue with that dagger?”
“That’s… Karen, could you watch the others for a moment?”

Merim turned around to Karen, who was at the other end of the group. While not quite sure what was going on, she nodded.
After having confirmed that Karen was keeping watch, Merim led me and Lily a little to the side, probably to make sure nobody would overhear him. Lily still dragged the unconscious man along, though.

“Yumi, what do you see here?”
“A dagger.”
“Anything else?”
“... No? Seems like a normal dagger to me?”

Not that I knew much about daggers.

“That’s right. It’s a normal dagger. A completely normal and average dagger.”
“Nn?”

The heck was he going on about?

“Yumi, there are many types of daggers,” added Lily from the side.
“Types of daggers?”
“Yes. Most daggers are stabbing weapons, often carried along as a secondary weapon. In other words, they usually aren’t a primary weapon.”
”Nn, well, but this man carried a bow, right?”

Lily nodded to my question.

“That’s right. That was probably his primary weapon and the dagger was for self-defense.”
“Nn… I still don’t get the problem.”

Merim smiled when he heard me.

“Can’t blame you. The type of dagger isn’t really the problem after all. Well, not quite. Daggers like this are easily accessible and quite common among bandits, thugs, assassins as well as bodyguards. Usually.”
“Usually? Then, this one isn’t common?”
“Not here, in Larfas. This dagger is of Akkian make.”
“...”

Akkian make. But then…

“This weapon isn’t something you’ll see here all that often. And there’s little reason to go out of your way to get such a hard-to-acquire weapon. Unless, of course…”
“They got it for free?”
“Exactly.”
“Then… But…”
“Seems you understand the problem.”
“Nn…”

Who would provide these people with such weapons? Most likely, the place where this dagger was made.

“This might mean that the Akkians are a lot deeper involved than we expected.”

Merim shook his head in exasperation.

“It’s not like it is all that surprising anymore at this point. It is still pretty bad news. Also, you might have figured already, but don’t tell this to the other girls. Informing Karen is okay later but right now, it would only serve to make them uneasy.”
“Nn, understood.”

I nodded. It would probably really just make them feel unsettled.

“One more thing. Lily, was there anything notable about their other weapons?”
“No, not really. Common arms you can find anywhere. Only the dagger was different. They also seemed quite used.”
“Mhm, probably their own weapons then.”

He paused for a moment, then nodded to himself.

“Very well then. Good work you two. You did well.”
“Glad to have helped, Vice-Captain.”
“Nn.”

And with that, the discussion ended and we returned to Karen and the other girls.

“So, what do we do with this guy?”
“We’ll drag him along. Karen, could we ask you to carry him?”
“... Do I have to?”
“Yes.”
“... Understood.”

Slightly reluctant from the looks of it, Karen took over dragging duty. Quite literally.

“What if he wakes up, though?”
“I punched him pretty hard so I don’t think he’s going to wake up any time soon. I hope he is going to wake up at all...”
“... Okay.”

Karen didn’t ask further. Probably better so.

“Well then, with that out of the way. Yumi, which direction?”
“Nn? Uhm… One moment… Ah. That way.”
“That way. Okay, let’s go and meet up with the others.”

And like that, we made our way to the other mercenaries.

---

“Vice-Captain!”
“The Vice-Captain’s come!”

Well over two dozen armed men welcomed us with cheers as we came out of the forest onto the clearing.

“Seems you’re all doing well here. Maybe we didn’t need to come.”
“Whatcha talkin ‘bout, Vice-Captain. There’s no way we wouldn’t need your lead here. Now we won’t need to take responsibility.”
“Hey, your true thoughts leaked there.”

The men burst out into laughter at the exchange between them.

“More importantly. Give me a report of what led to this.
“Very well, Vice-Captain.”

The man who seemed to be in charge until now saluted and then started to explain. To keep it short, just about all of the groups had a run-in with at least one group of our attackers. An especially unfortunate squad managed to encounter a total of four of them. Quite some luck there.
Despite that, the injuries were mostly minor and nothing life-threatening.

“We didn’t know what their aim was so we decided to group up with the other squads. With Vice-Captain’s group, this should be just about everyone in our area. Think one squad is still missing.”
“We encountered them before. They’re already on their way back to the camp.”
“Back?”

The man’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“Their aim is most likely the two girls in my group, our guests. They’ve set up ambushes at points where we are most likely to pass through. That also means that a single group is unlikely to engage a squad for long. They’re not exactly skilled in direct combat.”
“I see. I guess it was fortunate of us that we grouped up together then. But Vice-Captain, won’t they group up as well and try to attack in force?”
“That depends on how good their communication network and their leader is. At least, our captive there had no communication devices with him. Might still be that only the group leader had some but judging from their other equipment, that’s unlikely.”
“Mhm… Sounds like they’re third-rate at best…”
“In exchange, there’s a lot of them. Can’t expect too much from thugs around these parts.”

Merim shrugged with his shoulders and the other man burst out in laughter once more.

“Gahahaha! That’s true! Guess we shouldn’t expect that much!”
“Right.”

Suddenly, Merim turned around to us.

“Yumi, Karen, Lily, you stay here. The others go take a break. You’ll be safe here.”

The mercenaries had set up a small resting place with a fire in the middle of the clearing. Some of the men were also taking a rest while the others stood watch.
With slight reluctance among the three little ones, they still left and took a break. This had been still quite a trek through the forest and with having to watch out, it was probably mentally quite exhausting for all of them. Or rather, all of us.

“Yumi.”
“Nn? Yes, Merim?”
“Is there any movement among our attackers?”
“Nn, one moment.”

Karen offered me her hand again so I wouldn’t stumble as I took a look around. The mercenary next to Merim sounded a little surprised when I closed my eyes and started to look around. Was probably an odd sight, but what could you do?

“Nn… Mhm… Not that I can see anything. They’re still scattered all over the place in small groups.”
“I see. If they had any communication equipment, they would have started to move already. I feel a little disappointed.”
“... Isn’t it a good thing they don’t?”

First Lily, now Merim. What were these people, battle maniacs? Well, they were mercenaries, after all.

“Mhm, the girl can detect those people? Now, that’s some convenient magic if I ever saw one.”
“It really is.”

Go ahead and praise me more. It was fine to do that.
Jokes aside, though, it was indeed quite convenient.

“Thanks to that we managed to get us a captive to interrogate. Now we only need to wake him up…”

Merim glanced at the  unconscious man that Karen was still dragging behind her.

“Karen put him down.”
“Okay.”
“Now then.... Woah, that’s quite the face. Lily, what did you do to the poor sod?”
“Eh? Punched him. A bit above the stomach.”
“Ah, that spot, huh. No wonder he looks more dead.”

Merim opened the robe of the man and rummaged through his belongings. Once done, he started to check the robe in detail.

“Mh, no hidden pouches or anything. A little bit of money, nothing else. Oh, what’s this?”

For some reason, he started fumbling with the man’s shirt. Probably found something. Having some trouble, he took out a knife that was on his belt and cut the shirt apart.

“The heck is this?”

A small piece of leather had been hidden inside the shirt. It seemed like an ordinary piece of leather so… the heck was it doing in there?

“You girls, is this maybe some magical thing or something?”
“No, I can’t see it having any mana.”
“Odd. Oh, you can open it. Oh? Ohhh?”

Turned out the piece of leather was actually two layers that could be split apart. And on the inside was a symbol embroidered.

“Some kind of mark? Never seen this one before. Lily, you recognise this?”
“No. Never seen it either.”
“Well then… Let’s put it aside for now. Seeing anything else on him?”

He continued checking the man from top to bottom, mostly the clothes. If I didn’t know any better, he would’ve looked like a robber turning his victim’s belongings upside down to find even one more coin.

“Nothing else. Then, last spot…”

Having finished all others, Merim turned to the man’s face, or rather... his mouth?

“Eh?”

He grabbed the man’s jaw and forced his mouth open, taking a look inside. After an initial look, he picked up a small branch from nearby and started poking inside the mouth.

“Nothing hiding here either. Well, not that I expected much.”
“Uhm… Merim, why are you…”
“Taking a look there? You’d be surprised where people start hiding stuff.”
“Like… poison?”
“Mh? Well, that sure is a possibility. Not that I ever found someone hiding poison in their mouth. But we did find someone hiding a magic tool before inside their mouth. Man, that wasn’t a pleasant experience. We had quite some injuries that day.”

A magic tool, huh… Did that man…

“I’ll never forget that ridiculous look when the guy started spitting flames out of his mouth. Who the heck thought that was a good idea. Not to mention, he burned his own mouth as well.”
“...”

A magic tool to spit flames… My head hurt…

“In the end, the Captain punched the guy straight in his face, breaking the magic tool and just about every single tooth. That was a mess.”
“...”
“Anyway, that’s why I rather take a look. It has become pretty common since then for us to check there as well.”
“I see…”

Honestly, that sounded like a pretty… unique experience… There sure were odd people around.

“But this guy has literally nothing. Only this patch of leather. Guess we can wake him up now… I think one of the squads brought along some water stones, didn’t they?“
“They did. I’ll bring them.”
“Then, in the meantime, let’s tie this guy up.Would be a problem if he started attacking us.”

While the other mercenary with us left to fetch the stone, Merim produced a rope from his bag and tied the attacker up. A short moment later, the mercenary came back with a small blue-coloured stone in his hands.

“Here you go.”
“Mhm. Then, let’s wake him up.”
“Nn?”

Somehow, I had a bad feeling about this… Merim held the stone above the man’s face. A moment later, water streamed out of the stone, straight onto the face. At first, there was no reaction, then, he started twitching. The second he saw him twitching, the volume streaming out of the stone increased.

“Grplwghfgwaa! Haaaa!”
“Oh, he’s awake.”

Desperately trying to catch his breath, the man looked around, his eyes wide in fear. It took a moment before he realised the situation he was in.

“I, I am not saying anything! I won’t!”
“That’s wonderful.”
“... Eh?”
“It’d be boring if you immediately spilled the beans.”
“Hiii! I’ll talk! I’ll talk!”
“...”

A look of disappointment washed over Merim’s face.

“Seriously? Come on, aren’t you an assassin? Assaulting a mercenary band? Do you have no pride as a man?”
“I’m just a thug! I’m no assassin! An ordinary thug! Please, don’t kill me! I, I have a family!”
“So do other people. Start talking and you might get to see them again.”
“Yes, I’ll talk! I’ll talk!”

Merim let out a sigh as he was dealing with the man. That… was awfully quick for an interrogation.

“So, who are you guys and who hired you?”
“I’m just a thug! No idea about the others, but probably they are too! Saw some familiar faces here and there. Some, some odd guy approached me, saying he got some good business for me. Paid well, he said. Just got to get rid of some little girls, he said. How should I know we’d take on mercenaries! I would’ve never taken the job then!”
“So you’re just disposable, huh. Thought we dealt with some small organisation, not just a ragtag group of hired thugs… Are those people even trying? Assuming what you say is true.”
“It’s true! I swear on the spirits!”

The man looked utterly desperate. Honestly, he didn’t seem to be lying to me.

“Then, explain to me how come you guys are all over the forest? Seems a little too organised for some random thugs, to me.”
“They... They send some guy to take charge of us. Small groups, just a stakeout. And we’d get paid even if nothing happened.”
“... We captured the wrong one, huh.”

Merim furrowed his brows when he heard that.

“Okay, next question. This dagger. Where did you get this?”
“That? Got it from the guy in charge. Is, is there a problem with it?”
“No…”

The man’s eyes darted left and right between Merim and the other mercenary, waiting for the inevitable judgement. Or further questions.

“Let’s see… Why did you attack this girl and pretended to be unconscious?”
“That, That’s… She, she seemed to know where we were hiding and that… that other girl… No way I could fight that monster! I’d die!”
“Hmm…”

Merim’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t seem all that convinced. It was a bit of a weak reason, yeah…

“Last question: What is this piece of leather?”
“Huh? That’s! That’s the charm! Ah, please, please return it!”
“Charm?”
“My… My daughter made it… To keep me safe… and wishing me luck...”
“Hmm… Then, what are these symbols supposed to be?”

The piece of leather thrusted before his eyes and Merim staring down at him, the man fell silent… It took a little before he opened his mouth again.

“They’re… flowers, I think?”
“You think?”
“Uhm… I don’t know either?”
“You don’t know either? I see.”

He returned the piece of leather into his puch, then stared down at the man.

“Mh, that’s enough for now.”
“The— Then, are you going to let me go?”

The man seemed hopeful that this questioning was already at an end.

“Letting you go? No. We don’t even know if you are telling us the truth. You’ll come along with us and we’re going to hand you over to the authorities in the city.”
“No, no!  Please, don’t! They’re, they’re going to kill me!”
“Tough luck.”
“Ahhh… Ahhhh…”
“Take care of this guy.”
“Will do, Vice-Captain.”

The mercenary grabbed the collar of the man and dragged him away. Nobody really thought of carrying him or anything, did they?

“Mr Vice-Captain… That…”
“We’re not going to kill him, Karen. And if others kill him for his failure, that’s only his own responsibility. That is a grown man and not some child. He is responsible for his own actions.”
“But… wasn’t he basically tricked?”
“If what he says is true, yes. And I am a little doubtful about that.”

Merim sighed as he watched the mercenaries in the distance, continuing to scare the poor sod. I honestly doubted the guy would be able to keep up lying—assuming he was lying—while surrounded by several mercenaries, every single one an intimidating giant.

“We need to get back and contact the Captain. All of this is completely getting out of hand… There’s something really really bad going on…”
“Nn… You think so?”
“Too many problems at once. The incident at the fort and the following accusations. The war. We can’t reach the king either. Issues with the army and that Allena family. The attack on the girls from Lady Karker with the Akkians involved. You can’t tell me anymore there isn’t something foul going on. There’s just one thing…”

He narrowed his eyes as he continued to watch his men.

“I am not quite sure where to place the incident with you girls. I mean, with that Yumelia woman.”
“...”
“That’s the only one I don’t know if she’s related to all of this… Though, it seems likely. But… The Akkians and the Witch Worshippers? That’d be one odd combination…”
“Why that?”
“Well, the Witch Worshippers place the Witch as their saviour and the one most important to them. The Akkian Empire, though… Most of them put the emperor at the top, outside of those religious fools, I think? They don’t mix well. Especially with those religious fools.”

The Witch Worshippers and the Akkians, huh…

“Vice-Captain.”
“Yes, Lily?”
“You think the stuff in Arkesta might be related as well?”
“... Maybe. Maybe they are. Haa… This has turned into a fine mess… Anyway, let’s take a short break and then return to the camp. With a group this large we shouldn’t have any issues going back..”

With that, he dismissed us for now. A short break… was surely needed right now.

Something foul is going on, huh…

---

A short while later, Merim rounded up everyone and we made our way back, with the three girls as well as Rina, Elma and Nela being protected in the middle. Merim, Lily and I were at the front, leading. Well, Merim was leading. I only told him where the ambushes were located. Never thought that seeing souls could turn out to be this convenient.

“Nn, there’s another group in that direction and one over there.”
“There and there, you say. Okay, this way.”

Surprisingly enough, Merim knew the forest well enough to lead this large group past most of the ambush points. We had to engage two groups so far, since it wasn’t possible to sneak past them. With that said, the engagement was… really short. A few mercenaries rushed forward, taking them by surprise and incapacitating them in an instant. All made possible thanks to them knowing their exact hiding locations.

“We’ll be back at the camp soon already, huh. This went a lot smoother than I expected.”
“Nn, but…”
“There are more over there, right?”
“Nn...“

Merim had already suspected that they’d put more men close to the camp in the hopes of catching us on our return trip. And indeed… There were quite a lot of them there.

“Just how many did they hire… They really picked every scoundrel and thug they could find for this, didn’t they?”

So far, we had encountered a few dozen already. And in front of us were again two or three dozen men spread out.

“Merim, should we maybe take a detour and leave the forest at a different spot?”
“We could… They’re only in the vicinity of the camp, you said?”
“Nn. A little away and there are no others.”
“Mh… Then, let’s do that. No need to engage them more than necessary.”

Merim then led us towards the edge of the forest. There weren’t any other ambushes set up at this point anymore. Still, we kept vigilant. We could still get attacked by monsters, after all.
Thankfully, though, nothing happened and the thick forest came to a rather sudden end.

“We’re out. Oh, I can see the camp from here, huh.”
“Nn…”

We really got out without much trouble. In the end, coming back in such a large group hadn’t really mattered all that much, seeing that we barely had to fight anyway. Still, it was better than going separately and people getting injured or even killed.

“Let’s hurry back.”
“Nn.”
“Understood.”

Without much delay, we marched straight towards the makeshift camp in front of the forest. Several mercenaries had stayed back here to keep the camp up and running and as soon as they saw our large group approaching, some men left the camp and walked up to us.

“Vice-Captain! What is going on?”
“Quite a lot. Did the other group return already?”
“They did. We escorted them back to the main camp to treat their injuries.”
“Well done. Any news from the Captain?”
“None, Vice-Captain.”
“... None?”

The man shook his head in response to Merim’s surprised question.

“We haven’t gotten any news from any of the squads that went along with the Captain.”
“Well now, that’s… odd.”

No news from Korwen? At all?

“For now, let’s get the injured to safety. Thankfully, there are no serious injuries among our group. Also, send someone to the main camp and inform Fenna and Ria.”
“Understood, Vice-Captain.”
“Good.”

Finally, we had returned to the camp. Well, the makeshift camp. This had been surprisingly exhausting… Seriously.

“Yumi, you okay?”
“Nn… Somehow, Sis.”

We watched as the mercenaries began to execute Merim’s orders, treating the injured and preparing to send a messenger back to the main camp. Merim seemed satisfied with it as well, as he nodded to himself.

“Now the, as for you girls. Yumi, you’ll stay here, everyone else should prepare to return to the main camp.”
“Eh?”
“Huh?”

I should stay here, he said?

“Uhm, Mr Vice-Captain? Why should Yumi stay here?”
“Because we might need her, simple as that.”
“Then…”
“You girls go back. You and Lily are one thing but we can’t keep the others here. Especially those two girls… They’re safer at the main camp. And they would probably appreciate it if you girls went along. They don’t really know anyone except for you all and Fenna’s squad, do they?”
“That’s…”

Karen seemed reluctant to accept that reason, looking back and forth between me and Merim.

“I’d love to send Yumi back along with you but we really might need her. Especially since her ability to locate people in the forest is a lot more reliable than Emily’s so far. In the worst case… We might have to go back and look for the Captain.”
“Nn?”
“Mr Vice-Captain… You think something happened there?”

He nodded.

“It’s odd that he didn’t send word back yet. I very much doubt those thugs were only in our area. And the squads in the Captain’s area are mostly our younger mercenaries who don’t have much experience yet. It’s unlikely that something happened to the Captain himself but there’s no telling what those greenhorns might do.”
“...”

So Korwen went along with the younger mercenaries? Probably similar to how Merim went along with us, huh…

“Either way, I rather take Yumi along than Emily, not only because she’s more reliable. I’m sure you know why.”
“... I do.”
“Good. Then, get ready to go back. Also… Stay vigilant, even when you are back at the main camp. This isn’t over yet.”
“... Understood.”
“Good.”

Then, Merim smiled at Karen.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to bring her back in one piece. Now, go.”
“...”
“I’ll be fine, Sis.”
“But…”
“Merim’s here and all the other mercenaries as well.”
“... If you say so.”

She still seemed reluctant, so I took her hand and squeezed it, hoping it’d reassure her, even if just a little.

“Take care of the others, okay?”
“... Okay.”
“Nn.”

With Lily and Karen watching, I had little to worry about.
Now… If only the same could be said about Korwen…

I hope nothing happened over there… But like Merim said, something probably did.

But for now, we’d wait some more and send off the injured as well as Karen and the others. And then… Then we could worry about Korwen and the other mercenaries.
Hopefully, nothing bad had happened.