Three days into the trip, past several more towns.
The map showed us past the halfway mark. Foot traffic was definitely picking up.
I’d been wrestling with the books and picked up two new spells: a zero-friction-coefficient spell (very brief) and a wide-area sense-extension spell.
The nice thing about the sensing one: concentrate and you can see/hear what’s happening up to a kilometer out. Very useful for scouting before walking into something dangerous, hence acquired. The girls immediately warned me not to use it for peeping. Come on.
Right now I had Long Sense active, checking the situation a kilometer ahead, just experimentally. …Oh?
That’s — the smell of blood? I turned my visual to the source.
What jumped into view: a luxury-grade carriage, armored soldiers, surrounded by a force of leather-armored lizardmen. One man in a black robe stood among them.
Most of the soldiers were down. The survivors were fighting curved-blade-and-spear-wielding lizardmen and defending the carriage.
“Yae! People are being attacked ahead! Full speed!”
“Understood!”
She whipped the horses; the carriage surged forward. I kept the sense-link open. Soldiers continued falling. Inside the carriage I could see an injured elderly man and a child. Going to be tight — can we make it?
…There!
“Flame, come — coiling spiral — Fire Storm!”
Linze in the back chanted. A column of fire erupted from the center of the lizardman cluster ahead.
Off that, Elze sprang from the moving carriage first, then me, then Yae — we leapt out as the carriage roared past the front line. Linze took the reins.
“KISHAAAA!”
A lizardman charged at us as we landed. I used the new spell — focused magic — activated:
“Slip.”
Zero-friction under the lizardman’s feet. Its legs went vertical comedy-style and it went down hard.
“GRGH!”
I finished it as I dodged the next one charging in, then took its side off with a horizontal cut.
Beside me, Elze caught a curved blade with her gauntlet, opened the opponent up, and Yae’s blade tore across its torso. Nice combo.
While I looked, an ice spear flew past me and pierced a lizardman that had been coming in from my blind spot. Linze had stopped the carriage and joined.
We pushed forward, dropping lizardmen.
A lot of them, though. I’d thought we’d cleared a chunk…
“Dark, come — what I call forth, lizard warrior — Lizardman.”
The black-robed man in the back murmured the spell. A handful of new lizardmen crawled out of his shadow. What.
“Touya-san, that’s summoning magic! He’s calling lizardmen in!”
Linze shouted. Summoning — Dark element. That’s why the numbers weren’t dropping. He’d hit a magic-cap eventually, but the supply was bad.
“Slip!”
“Aagh—!”
The robed man went down. He started to get up — slip again.
“Ngh—!”
“Goodbye.”
Yae shot in at lightning speed and took his head off. Slightly gory. The head bounced. Namu Amida Butsu.
The remaining lizardmen, with their summoner gone, vanished. Returning home, presumably.
“Cleared. Everyone okay?”
“Fine, nothing on me.”
“M-mm, I’m fine.”
“Sessha as well.”
We were unhurt, but the convoy had been hit hard. One of the surviving soldiers limped over.
“Thanks — you saved us…”
“Anytime. Casualties?”
“Seven of ten escorts dead… damn it, if I’d noticed sooner…”
His fist shook with frustration. If we’d been faster too, I thought — but that’s nothing now.
“Someone! Somebody! Grandpa — Grandpa!”
A girl’s scream snapped us toward the carriage. A blonde girl about ten, in white, was sobbing through the open door.
We ran over. A white-haired old man in black formalwear was lying inside, blood on his chest, breathing in painful gasps.
“Save Grandpa! Please — there’s an arrow — in his chest—”
She was begging through tears. The old man clearly meant the world to her. The soldiers carried him out and laid him on the grass.
“Linze, healing magic!”
”…N-no — the arrow snapped when he fell. The head is still inside him. Healing now would seal the foreign object inside. And the wound is too severe… my magic can’t…”
Linze whispered apologetically. The girl’s face went white with despair. Tears streamed; her shaking hand gripped his.
”…Milady…”
“Grandpa — Grandpa —!”
“It is time… for farewell… My time with you… the most precious — cough—”
“Grandpa! Stop—!”
Damn it. Nothing we can do? Large-scale healing magic — I hadn’t tried, but I’d read about it. I knew the incantation. Could probably do it. The problem: healing with the arrowhead still inside might force it deeper. Could hit his heart.
…If only I could pull the arrowhead out… Yes.
“Step back for a second!”
I pushed the soldiers aside and knelt by him. I pulled out another arrow that had embedded in the carriage and memorized the arrowhead shape. I focused the image hard.
“Apport.”
The next instant I was holding the broken bloody arrowhead.
“You pulled the head straight out of his body!”
Elze cried. But it wasn’t done.
“Light, come — peaceful healing — Cure Heal.”
The wound on the old man’s chest sealed itself, like watching a video rewind. The wound closed. Gone.
”…Oh? The pain — has eased? What — has — happened… it’s gone… no pain…”
“Grandpa!”
The old man sat up slowly, and the girl flung herself at him, sobbing into his coat. The old man, looking somewhat overwhelmed, let her cling. I exhaled and sat down in the grass.
“Hwoooo…”
Glad it worked.