After our small encounter with Korwen, we parted ways with him again and returned to the others. There, we continued playing until dinner and some more after that. Basically, we wasted the entire day playing. But with all that said, it had been a ton of fun so I sure as hell didn’t mind.

We only called it a day when the sun had long gone down and Emily, Maya and Seele became sleepy. Even then, it was only with great reluctance from those three. Understandable, in my opinion. Very much so.

Once those three went to sleep, it didn’t take long for us to do the same. And so ended a day full of playing around.  Tomorrow, we’d go back to work, most likely. Or so I thought when I went to bed, snuggled safely in between Karen’s arms.

Morning came, accompanied by an ear-deafening noise rattling the wagon and jostling us awake.

“Huh?!”
“Wha— Ack?!”
“Sis?!

Startled, Karen and I jumped up and Karen let out a painful cry the next moment. I pretty much woke up to some loud sound and Karen rubbing her elbow.

“Are you okay, Sis?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine. Rather than that, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know. But we should probably hurry and check what happened.”

Whatever had made that noise couldn’t be good.

“Agreed. Let’s hurry.”

Without a further word, we both slid out of bed and got dressed immediately. There was no time to put on my armour or anything, not to mention fix our bed hair, so once we were in a halfway decent state, we hurried outside.

Unsurprisingly, there were many others scurrying about, having woken up from the noise. Most mercenaries ran around with a weapon in hand, already prepared to fight.

“It looks like they’re going over there, Yumi.”
“Nn, let’s go.”

We followed the other mercenaries, approaching the source of the commotion. What we saw… blew my mind. There stood a wagon, with half its roof missing. Wooden scraps and metal parts were scattered around.

“What in the…” I muttered.

What could rip apart the wagon like that? And why was there no sign of it? And… and…

I didn’t know what to say. I stood there, staring at the wagon in shock.

“Hey, Sis. What… happened here?”
“... I don’t know.”

I turned to someone next to me, intending to ask.

But then I saw his expression.

“Ah, shit, this again?”
“... Eh?”

The man’s shoulders slumped and he turned around, walking away with a sigh. Others had similar reactions, sighs and annoyed expressions everywhere.

“Yumi.”

While I was still confused, Karen patted my shoulder to draw my attention to her. She was pointing at the wagon. Through the damaged wall, we could make out several magic tools of unknown purpose which had drawn her attention.

“Isn’t that Miss Ria’s wagon?”
“... You’re right.”
“...”

That reminded me of something.

“Did she… blow up her wagon?”
“... I think so.”
“Seriously?”

Wait, but when where was Ria?

“Is Ria fine?”

I looked around and a short way away, I found her sitting on the ground. Krutz stood next to her, tending to her arm.

“Miss Ria!”
“Ria!”
“Mmm…? Ah! Ouch!”
“Don’t move, I’m not done yet!”

Ria tried to turn around to us, only to be stopped by Krutz.

“Ria, are you okay?”
“Mm… I’m fine…”
“You’re not! You’re absolutely not fine!” interrupted Krutz, his voice louder than before.
“Just some… scratches…”
“You broke your arm! You had burns all over and you were bleeding enough to drown a troll!”
“...”

That definitely wasn’t okay… is what I would say but she looked pretty okay to me? I couldn’t see burns or any bleeding wounds on her. A broken arm wouldn’t be easy to see but she wasn’t screaming in pain as Krutz tended to her arm.

“She looks… quite healthy to me?”
“Healing magic, of course. Neither Wenners nor I can fix a broken arm, though. So, Ria, you better go see a healer in town.”
“Mmm… I will… think about it…”
“...”

Krutz grimaced at her lack of motivation.

“Think about it, she says… Think about it…”

I had a feeling this guy was about to have a mental breakdown. But as sorry as I was for the man, I was relieved to see she was well. All the tension left my body. I had to hold on to Karen’s sleeve, or my legs might have buckled.

“Are you… done…?”

Ria, meanwhile, was entirely oblivious to our worries. Her question earned her a glare from Krutz.

“That’s all you have to say?”
“Thank you… for healing me…”
“... You’re welcome.”

He was looking away, embarrassed and blushing. He sure was easy to please…

And right then, another group came.

“Ria! What in the Spirits’ name did you do this time?!”

Yeah, it was Korwen… followed by Merim, Taddick, Fenna and a few others who I didn’t know the name of.

“Ah… Captain… I did it…”
“Yes, I can see that! I can see that you blew up the wagon! Again!”

If glares could kill…

“Not that… I think… I know… how to… draw out… mana from… the crystal…”
“That’s great but did you have to blow up again for that?”
“Mmm… It went… a bit… out of… control…”
“A bit? A bit?!”

Korwen put his hand over his forehead while massaging his temples. He turned away, taking several deep breaths.

“Calm down, calm down,” he muttered under his breath.

Despite his attempts to calm himself, his entire body was trembling.

“It shouldn’t… happen… next time…”
“I better hope so!”

Poof went his calm.

“Mmm… I am… sorry…?”
“You better be! But you say that every time! Ever. Single. Time! And then you do it again! You finally managed months without blowing things up! Until now! So why. Why?!”
“Mmm…”

She looked away from Korwen as if evading the question.

“Look at me! You’re not a little kid! Do you know how troublesome it is to clean up this mess and repair the wagon?!”
“Mm… I’ll help…”
“Of course, you will!”

Behind Korwen, Merim stepped forward, patting the big man on his back.

“Now, now, Captain. She didn’t do it on purpose.”
“She better not!”

No success. Merim ran away.

I turned to Karen, pulling on her sleeve so she would bend down.

“Hey, Sis, I think he’s about to blow up,” I whispered.”
“He is,” she agreed.
“Should we leave?”
“We should.”

It was time to make ourselves scarce. I felt a little sorry for Ria, not to mention that I was curious about what she actually did but I definitely didn’t have enough lives to survive Korwen exploding. We’d end up as collateral damage at this rate. I pretty much died once already, that was enough for me.

With that decided, we sneaked away from the scene, careful not to draw any attention to us. We went to the other side of the wagon, so we could take a look at the aftermath. Unsurprisingly, we weren’t the only people curious. Quite a few men and women had gathered, looking at the wreckage.

“They’re really not surprised at all, are they?”
“It really must happen quite occasionally.”
“Nn.”

I lightly kicked the piece of metal in front of me. It was completely bent and the edges were torn. It was clear just how much force had ripped this apart. It was a solid piece of metal. Not even a thin sheet, but easily thicker than my palm. It was more like plated armour. Yet, that hadn’t stopped the explosion.

“Maybe Ria actually got lucky.”
“Why do you say so?”
“If I remember right, explosions in an enclosed room are extremely dangerous. If the roof hadn’t broken, it might have ended up a lot worse. That is, if it was a regular explosion, of course.”

She said it was out-of-control mana, so this probably wasn’t your run-of-the-mill explosion. But what exactly had happened was hard to say without Ria’s account. On the other hand, the sound of the explosion that woke us up had sounded like a regular explosion to me. But I had been asleep so maybe that had been just my imagination.

“Either way, I am amazed she got away with only a broken arm and some scratches.”
“It could have been a lot worse.”
“Nn. A lot… lot worse…”

Still, until we heard what had exactly happened here, it was hard to judge.

At least, for the surrounding crowd, this wasn’t something all that worrisome apparently. The looks they had seemed more like a mix of curiosity and annoyance. Most of them were still in their smallclothes. At most, they wore a hempen shirt in addition to that but quite a few had their upper body bare. That, by the way, included one woman, who wasn’t caring in the least about displaying her ripped abs. So there were well-built women with muscles like that, after all.

Okay, maybe  I shouldn’t let my eyes wander too much.

“Still, what a way to start the day.”

I was relieved that it hadn’t been an immediate emergency. There could have been worse things going on. Maybe we were being attacked or a fire had broken out or something like that. Okay, it might actually have been an emergency, judging by Krutz’s words. If he hadn’t treated Ria, this could have gone way worse.

Ah, but Ria can use healing magic too… Maybe she could have healed herself?

That… could be the case. Maybe she got careless, knowing she could heal herself. It wasn’t very enviable, though, if that was true. At least, for me, I would still hate getting hurt. Pain wasn’t nice and I definitely wanted to avoid it.

“Yumi! Karen!”
“Nn?”
“Ah, it’s Lily.”

Lily came rushing over in our direction, followed by Rina right behind her.

“Yumi, Karen, what the hell happened here?”
“Nn, well… Ria blew up the wagon.”

I pointed at the roofless vehicle behind me.

“She… blew it up?”
“Nn. She did.”
“And is she…”
“She’s safe. Though, it seems she broke her arm.”
“... Aahhh.”

 

Hearing that, Lily’s legs gave in and she fell to the ground.

“So it’s nothing serious… I’m so glad…”
“A broken arm is pretty serious, I think.”
“Ugh, I’m not denying that, Karen. But it could be so so much worse.”

Lily sighed in relief, her body relaxing.

“And you, Rina? That probably startled you, too, right?”
“It did. We fell out of the bed from the shock.”
“Yikes, that sounds like it hurt..”

Rina laughed awkwardly.

“It hurt, yes… But I’m glad it wasn’t anything worse than that.”
“Nn…”

Now that I took a look at the two of them… Their appearance was also quite messy. They both wore very simple clothes that they had probably just thrown on. Their hair was really messy, too. But most importantly… there was a mark on Lily’s neck.

Looks like they get along fine. But I’m not sure that’s something we should have seen.

I should probably pretend to ignore that. Rina was… She didn’t have anything.

“Mm? Is something wrong, Lil’ Sis?”
“No, nothing. I just thought you have quite the bed hair.”
“Lil’ Sis, I don’t think you’re one to talk.”
“I can only imagine.”

In all the hurry, none of us had the time to fix their appearance. Seeing everyone so messy was actually quite the view. It’s not a look you could see every day, after all.

“At least, we’re not the only ones.”

I gestured to the surrounding mercenaries, everyone as unorderly as the next.

“I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not.”
“Nn, I wonder.”

But it wasn’t all that surprising, was it? Everyone woke up in a panic. There was no time to gather anything.

“Oh, that reminds me. Lily, I have a question.”
“Huh? You do?”
“Nn. Everyone is in their… well, night clothes, I guess. But what if we had been attacked? With nobody wearing any armour, it would be dangerous, no?”
“Ahh, so that’s it.”

Well, yeah. It was bothering me quite a bit, to be honest.

“It’s because they didn’t ring the alarm bell. If we had been attacked, they would have first worn their gear before coming out.”
“Ohhh… But there was no alarm, so they came out like this.”
“Yes. Ah, but there should be at least two different bells. One for cases like this and one for attacks. Maybe others, too. I am not sure how the Dragon Knights handle that, actually. The Black Guards only had two.”
“I see.”

This time, the bell hadn’t been necessary, though. I mean, that explosion was loud enough to wake up everyone anyway.

“I think they’ll do some training for those kinds of emergencies. Better prepare yourself for some sleepless nights when they do.”
“... No, thank you.”

Lily giggled at my refusal. But look, I wasn’t looking forward to that kind of training, thank you very much. I could do without that. Even though I knew I would probably still do it if we had to. I understood it was important, whether I liked it or not.

“Anyway, thanks for explaining that to me. I was a little confused about the…”

I looked around us.

“... lack of clothing.”

At the very least, nobody had come missing the bottom part. But even then, there were a lot of muscles around us.

I feel like Elina would enjoy this…

To mind came a certain magic craftswoman with a certain fondness for muscles. She was so fond of them, that it immediately brought her to mind even.

“Mercenaries sure are amazing.”
“Yes, we’re amazing.”

Lily puffed her chest out, all proud. But… I had seen Lily in the bath so I knew. She had no well-defined muscles. She would look like a frail girl if it wasn’t for the huge sword she was usually lugging around.

“Yumi, you don’t believe me?”
“Nn? No, I believe you.”

She wasn’t wrong. The mercenaries, Lily included, were amazing. This was just me getting hung up about the weirdness of this world.

“Anyway, how long are you going to sit on the ground, Lily?”
“... Until my legs recover.”

I hope I wouldn’t need to retract my own words so fast.

“They just lost all tension. And now it looks like they fell asleep and it’s uncomfortable to move them.”
“Ahhh… Good luck.”

It wasn’t like we were in a hurry, so she could take all the time she needed. Yes, all the time…

“Hey, Yumi, I don’t like the look you have there.”
“Nn? How do I look to you?”
“Like you got a really bad idea.”

Oh, she was sharp. But even if she was, there was nothing she could do to stop me.

With a grin, I put my foot forward and poked her thigh.

“Gah! Stop that! Stop that, Yumi!”
“Ehh? I’m just helping you wake up.”
“I’m awake and my legs won’t wake up like this!  Stop!”
“Nn.”

I quite enjoyed watching Lily squirm so I didn’t stop. It was quite enjoyable to watch.

“Please, leave it at that! Yumi! I’m sorry! I don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry!”
“Yumi… Don’t bully Lily too much.”
“Nn? You can try, too, if you want, Sis.”
“... I won’t.”

Well, too bad. Anyway, I didn’t want Lily to hate me over something like this, so I stopped poking her leg.

“Uhh, Yumi, you’re the worst.”
“Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t resist.”
“I’ll get payback sometime, I guarantee you that!”
“... Good luck.”

Could my legs even fall asleep? If I recalled correctly, it had to do with a lack of blood flow, right? In that case, it probably wouldn’t happen to me anymore.

“Now my legs feel all tingly… and it’s not getting better.”
“Nn… I think it won’t as long as you sit on your legs…”
“Wait, seriously?”
“Nn.”

Lily immediately lifted her behind while kneeling on the ground. She rubbed her thighs for a few seconds.

“Oh, it gets better! Okay, I forgive you, Yumi!”
”How merciful.”

No need to worry about payback anymore.

“Ahh, I think I can stand again. Or… Well, they still feel a little wobbly.”

Lily stood up, moving her legs around a little.

“But to think it was because I sat on them. Ugh, no wonder it didn’t get better.”
“Nn, I think they fall asleep when the blood flow is restricted or something like that.”
“Oh, is that so? Good to know for next time.”

It definitely was convenient to know that. It was a very unpleasant feeling. Now I felt a little bad about teasing her.

“By the way, Yumi, where is the captain?”
“Nn? He’s somewhere over there, lecturing Ria. Or he should be.”
“Can’t see anything.”

The crowd hadn’t thinned out in the least. You’d think all the half-naked people would want to tidy up their appearances, but most of them didn’t seem to care all that much. They rather started talking with others, cleaning up the surroundings or just looking at the roofless wagon.

“A lecture by the captain… I don’t envy her.”
“Neither do I.”

Ria would survive, hopefully.

“Okay, my legs feel better again.”
“That’s good. So, what are you going to do now.”
“Going back to sleep.”
“... Seriously?”
“Seriously.”

Well, it was early in the morning. Very early. Under normal circumstances, it would still be quite a while until we usually woke up.

Oh, wait… maybe Lily and Rina went to sleep a little late, yesterday…

In that case, it was understandable.

“Rina.”
“Yes, Lily?”

Lily turned around, calling out one half of the sister pair.

“I’m going back to bed. What about you?”
“I’ll come along then!”
“Got it. Then, good night, Yumi, Karen.”
“Nn, night. Sleep well.”
“I’ll try.”

Lily left with Rina following right behind her. They were talking about something and seemed to have fun.

“There they go.”
“They do.”
“They seem to get along well.”
“That’s the best thing we could hope for, isn’t it?”
“Nn.”

Though, it wouldn’t hurt if they made sure to hide any… aftereffects a little better. Well, not my business.

“Anyway, think the captain is done by now?”
“I wonder. Want to take a look?”
“Nn.”

It had been quite a while so they should have finished. They should, right?

As it turned out, they kind of were done. Ria was now standing, her arm in a makeshift sling. As for Korwen, he was talking with Merim, holding his head as if he had a headache. Actually, he probably had a headache.

“Ria.”
“Mm…? Ahh… Yumi… Karen… You’re back…”
“Nn, sorry for disappearing so suddenly.”
“It’s fine…”

Ria smiled wryly. She probably knew why we fled.

“So, what actually happened there?”
“Mmm… I think… I know… how to… draw mana… from the… large crystal… I was… trying to… confirm my… theory… on a…small one… but it… didn’t go… well…”

I glanced at the wagon again. Yeah, not going well was an understatement there. It literally exploded.

“So, the mana went out of control and it exploded?”
“Yes… Exactly…”
“...”

Pretty amazing stuff, I had to say. Mana was sure dangerous as heck, even if it wasn’t used for a spell.

“But now… I am… one step… closer… to figuring… this out…”
“That’s great but please don’t accidentally blow yourself up again.”
“Mmm… I’ll try…”
“...”

Why was I still feeling so worried then?

“Even if… I can… protect… myself…”
“You still got hurt quite badly, though?”
“No… this isn’t… all that… bad… I was… through worse…”

So, a broken bone counted as ‘not all that bad’ to her?

“But… I’ll take… care… Captain… also… got mad…”
“He sure did.”
“He was very angry.”

Ria looked away.

“So, what are you going to do about your arm?”
“This…? Well… I can’t… work… like this… so… I will… have to… go… to a… healer…”
“ I see. And they can fix that?”
”Mmm… They can…”

Healers were amazing.

“Miss Ria! We’re ready to leave.”
“... Ohh…?”

Krutz and Wenners approached, both carrying small backs with them.

“Then… I will go… and have this… fixed…”
“Nn, got it. Until later.”
“Mmm…”

Ria joined the other two magicians and the three of them made their way towards town.

“Well, there she goes. What do we do now?”
“Mm… We could also go back to bed?”
“That actually sounds quite tempting but I don’t think I could fall asleep now.”

It was early in the morning, sure, but it was already bright outside as well. Not the best time to take a nap.

“Ah, but I’m always up for just lying in bed as well.”

I hugged Karen’s arm. Snuggling with Karen was something I’d never pass up.

“Hehe, that would be nice. But I think we should leave that for tonight.”
“Ehh? Too bad.”

And here I was hoping.

“We have to work today, Yumi.”
“Right… We do, huh? But…”

I looked towards Korwen. He sat on a  nearby bench, massaging his temples again.

“What do we do about that?”
“I wonder…”

In that case, we should ask the next one in the line of command.

“Merim.”
“Oh? Ah, you two. So you’re still here.”
“Nn. we are.”

We called out to Merim, who had gone to take a look at the wagon as well now.

“Ria sure made a mess.”
“Is it that bad?”
“It is. Repairing this is going to take a lot of time. The craftsmen aren’t going to like this. And we need them to work on things for the fort, too.”

Merim sighed, shaking his head.

“Ria chose one heck of a bad time for this… but it could have been worse if it happened yesterday or the day before. At least, there’s not much to do today.”
“There isn’t?”
“Not really, apart from the work with the fort, of course.”

Luck during a disaster, huh…

“Anyway, what did you two need from me?”
“Nn, we wanted to ask about today’s work. Since, you know, the captain is… a little occupied.”
“Yeah… Honestly, I don’t think he had anything planned for you today. You’re free to help out wherever, or you can just take a break. Go see the city or something like that. You didn’t really have the chance to do that yet, did you?”
“We didn’t but is that fine?”

I mean, we already played around all day yesterday.

“It is. Usually, unless the captain or I have specific work for you to do, you should just follow the duties you were assigned to. And I think you weren’t assigned to much apart from chores, were you?”
“Uhhh… well, yeah…”

There were a few, though. But even those had been neglected since we had followed around either Korwen or someone else. Most of our assigned work was, technically speaking, to figure out ways to make use of my abilities and things like that.

“So that’s how it is. Just go to town and enjoy the day or something. I think we all need a break after what happened. Resting is also part of the job.”
“I mean, it is but…”

Before I could get another word out, I heard some clattering from behind us. I turned around and found Korwen standing there, staring at the sky.

“I’m done with this shit! Screw all of this! Screw it! You can all go get screwed by an ox, for all I care!” he shouted.
“I don’t care anymore! Spirits-be-damned! I’m taking the day off!”

And with those words, he stomped away.

“Uhh… Did the captain just snap?”
“He snapped.”
“He definitely did.”
“...”

Wow. The stress finally got to him. Now I felt bad for him. He hadn’t even chosen all this trouble. It had just all come to him.

“There you go. Even our captain is taking the day off.”
“That’s not quite the same…”

He deserved it. Korwen did a lot of work, even though his daughter had finally come home, too. He should spend some time with her, rather than getting stressed out over all these things.

“Even if you say that, I got no work for you and the captain’s going to thank you if you bring up work with him now. I dare you to try it.”
“I like to live so I won’t.”
“See?”

Well, yeah, if he had nothing for us…

“Just do whatever you think helps us out. Or just take the day off. Really, as long as you get results, nobody really cares if you don’t follow your assigned schedule to a T.”
“Nn… I guess that’s true… Haaa… Well, if you have no work for us, I guess we could go to town. What do you say, Sis?”
“I’m fine with that. We didn’t have much time to look around last time.”
“Nn.”

Then, that was decided.

“What will you do, Merim?”
“Me? I’m going to enjoy some quality time with my wife!”

Oh, that was nice. But there was one burning question when it came to his wife.

“Still playing her father?”
“No, I’m now her little brother, apparently.”
“...”

I was never going to understand Helma…