episode_0059

The carriages that received the signal slowed down and came to a complete stop shortly thereafter.

-Clatter, Clatter

Amidst the rough breathing of the Hildisvinis, who were being overworked. The coachmen checked the condition of the carriages they were in charge of, confirmed there were no casualties, and gathered together.

“How’s the situation?”

As Donar asked. The coachmen opened their mouths one by one.

“The wheel’s a bit off. Looks like it got hit by the hail.”

“Over here, the window’s shattered. People were hurt by the glass fragments. Thankfully, they didn’t get seriously hurt.”

“Looks like all the carriages need to be repaired. They’re completely pockmarked.”

After checking for damaged carriages, goods, or casualties in that way. The damage from the hail was considerable, but there were no deaths. Considering how many times people enter the cloud zone and either don’t return or more than half of them die, it could only be described as sheer luck. After all the confirmation was complete, the coachmen who had been silent then burst into laughter at the same time as someone let out a chuckle.

“Pfft! What is that on your heads?!”

“Haha! Look who’s talking!”

It was because of the sight of the coachmen with hail the size of fists stuck in their helmets from being hit by the hail. They couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of them looking like they’d been beaten up by someone and had lumps on their heads. Perhaps it was because they had safely escaped the cloud zone, everyone seemed to be in a good mood.

“But isn’t hail ice, so isn’t it expensive?”

“It is expensive. Even the lowest grade is something you can’t even dream of unless a magician makes it for you.”

The moment someone exchanged those words. They all shut their mouths. The sight of their own armor and carriages, dented and pockmarked from being heavily beaten by the hail here and there, came into view. If someone saw it, they might ask if they had just fought a war.

“What are you doing!? Quickly put it in the empty carriages before it melts!”

They needed money to repair the damaged carriages and armor. It seems they were going to sell the hail to reduce the losses since the hail caused damage. Donar watched with a helpless expression as the coachmen, not even distinguishing the hail stuck in their helmets that had given them a moment of laughter, were carrying it away, and then he heard the voice of Guitte, who had driven the carriage with him.

“Here, you’ve worked hard. Have a drink of this.”

What he held out was a metal water bottle. Judging by the fact that the inside was made of leather, it was quite an expensive item. This is a good item for storing cold water, so he thought it was cold water and opened the lid, and a tipsy yet sweet smell wafted out.

“This is wine? Where did you get this precious stuff?”

What was inside was not water but wine. Wine is very expensive because it is made by fermenting expensive fruits. If you’re lucky, you might be able to save up and get one of the lower grades, but usually it’s something that high-ranking people drink. Even the lower grades usually cost more than half a year’s salary for knights, even if they tighten their belts. Of course, it’s more expensive than the water bottle it’s in.

“Damn, if I had known it was wine, I would have secretly taken a sip!”

“Wasn’t this yours?”

“How could I have such an expensive thing? A beautiful lady told me to give it to you.”

Then Guitte pointed behind him. Donar, who discovered the figure of a woman in the place he was pointing to, understood what was going on.

“Sif.”

He muttered her name, knowing that his face wouldn’t be visible anyway because of the helmet, and lowered his head. Then Guitte chuckled.

“So, when did you and the most beautiful woman in our group become so close?”

“No, that’s…”

He wanted to avoid his question somehow, but he couldn’t deny his relationship with Sif, so he didn’t know what to do.

“Are you okay with being hit by that hail? It looked like you were hit head-on.”

“Are you changing the subject?”

“Oh, come on!”

“Hehe, you didn’t seem to be bothered at all, even though it hit your head so loudly.”

Guitte knew everything and was smiling, but he was letting him off the hook. He knew very well that this made people even more angry. He couldn’t even hit him. But then the words he heard next made Donar awkward.

“Still, thanks for driving the carriage alone.”

“Alone? You drove it with me, didn’t you?”

Donar said, recalling that he had also driven the carriage, as if Guitte was giving him all the credit.

“I just blocked some of the hail. But when I listened to the others, I heard that crabs attacked while I was knocked out?”

“What?”

Donar couldn’t understand what he was saying.

“Knocked out? You saw the crabs with me, didn’t you?”

“You must have been quite out of it. Did you see something that wasn’t there? I passed out when the first hail fell after being hit by a piece of hail.”

Donar was speechless at his words that he woke up again from the shock of being hit by hail the second time. He had even handed him the reins while he went to assemble the ballista. There was no hint of playfulness in him, so he couldn’t think that he was simply lying to tease him.

“Thanks to you, I lived. Good luck with Sif.”

Guitte said that, patted him on the shoulder, and left. What on earth happened? If what he said was true, who was the person he handed the reins to for a while? The things he experienced under the cloud zone felt like a strange dream after hearing Guitte’s words. As Donar was feeling doubtful, he heard a boy’s voice.

“Mister? Mister!”

Looking down at the now familiar voice, he saw the children who were traveling with them. The blonde boy, who was short but still had the look of a boy, and the beautiful red-haired girl who captivated people’s attention were noticeable wherever they went. When he thought he had met the golden eyes inside the mask. He remembered what happened with the girl last night. He still had the cross from that time on his chest.

“Did you help?”

Logically, he didn’t think that could be the case, but for some reason, he thought that it was thanks to this girl that he safely passed through the cloud zone. The girl didn’t panic at Donar’s rambling question, but shook her head as if she understood what he wanted to say.

“There’s nothing I can do. So I didn’t do anything either. That child saved you. So if you want to thank someone, thank that child.”

Then the girl pointed to the Hildisvini who was leading the carriage that Donar was driving. He scratched his head at the sight of her pointing at the guy who he had been a little uncomfortable with for eating the rabbit that Rogi had given her alive.

“Still, thank you.”

“Why are you saying that to me?”

The girl avoided his gaze as if she was embarrassed.

“Mister.”

“Oh, that’s right. Usher.”

“I was the one who called you, so why are you talking to Belka?”

“No, it’s a misunderstanding! Don’t look at me like that!”

And Donar had to face Usher, who was glaring at him suspiciously and hiding Belka behind him. Donar, who wasted time dispelling his misunderstanding, arrived with them on the roof of the carriage he was driving.

“Wow, what is this?”

“It’s called a ballista.”

Usher called him because he was curious about something he had never seen before suddenly appearing on the carriage. It was understandable for the children to be curious.

“Anyway, I drove the carriage again without dismantling it, so it’s a mess.”

The ballista that is installed on the carriage is usually dismantled and stored for safekeeping, but in a hurry, there was no time to dismantle it again, so he left it as it was and went down to the driver’s seat, and the hail that poured down had damaged everything. He even had an arrow loaded to shoot at the crab.

“I can’t even dismantle it like this.”

“Why?”

“Take a good look. It’s already loaded, so if you touch something wrong to dismantle it, it’ll fire.”

The ballista had to be left as it was. Instead, thanks to leaving the door where the ballista was stored open, there was a lot of hail piled up on top of the carriage. So, will he have to sell the hail again to cover the repair costs? But it seems like he won’t be using the ballista in the future, so he’ll shoot it somewhere appropriate, collect it, and sell it to the blacksmith.

“Let’s go down now.”

“Eh, I want to see more.”

“What can’t be done, can’t be done. Are you telling me to leave you and a dangerous object alone together?”

“Yes.”

That’s when Donar swept the hail into the basket he took out of the driver’s seat and was about to go down to the bottom of the carriage first to receive the children who were coming down.

-Puuuung!!

The sound of the Hildisvini warning him was heard. His face hardened at the sound of the horn-like cry, which was different from his usual cry.

“You guys, you’ll have to stay there for now.”

“You told us to come down quickly earlier.”

“Don’t talk back and hide!”

Donar, who answered Usher’s grumbling irritably, hurriedly grabbed his weapon and ran towards the side where the Hildisvini’s cry was heard. There were only two cases in which the Hildisvini made such a cry. It was either a request for help from a fellow species or a human, or a signal that a natural enemy was approaching. He had been driving Hildisvinis for a long time, so he couldn’t have misheard. When Donar arrived at the place where the sound was heard, passing through the people who were evacuating, many coachmen had already gathered.

“Isn’t that the same guy from earlier?”

At Shalby’s words, if they looked at the place they were looking at, they could see the crab, who they thought they had shaken off from under the cloud zone, was rapidly approaching this way.

“Was it still chasing us!”

“I’ve heard it’s fierce, but was it this much?”

Someone said as if they were fed up, and he agreed. He never expected that it would follow them so persistently even after leaving its territory, the cloud zone. There was a story that it persistently chased its prey, but he didn’t think it would be this much. There was a reason why it was so infamous.

“Tsk, I kept hitting it with bullets. It doesn’t seem to have done much damage.”

The coachmen with slings shot bullets to snipe at the crab, but the shell had dried out a bit in the meantime, so it ended with just a bit of cracking. To do proper damage, they would have to keep sniping from a long distance like now, but the distance from the crab was already within 200m while they were talking. In the cloud zone, it moved similarly to the Hildisvinis moving at full speed, but its speed decreased as it left its habitat. Nevertheless, the fact that it was fast did not change, so it seemed like it would collide soon. But there was a bigger problem.

“But it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop!”

“Looking at it, it’s completely lost it! It looks like it’s going to ram right into us!”

If it were another creature, it would have been better to go into a sturdy carriage and hide. But the crab is a different story. Its hard shell and strength can easily crush a carriage. If such a thing hit a carriage with that size and speed, the result was obvious. First, he thought of those who were the fastest on their feet among the coachmen.

“Shalby and Audur, tell the people to come out of the carriage! If you’re not careful, you could die inside the carriage!”

“Okay!”

Based on past experience, the habit of people taking refuge inside the carriage when they heard the Hildisvini’s warning sound did not work well this time. The crab was already close to them.

“What about the crab?!”

The Hildisvinis had already exhausted all their energy running at full speed under the cloud zone and were tired. Even if they urged those guys to drive the carriage and try to avoid the crab, it would be difficult and it was too late. In the end, the remaining method was.

“Block it somehow! If you hit its legs, it’ll work somehow!”

“You want to block something that’s coming at that size and speed? How is that any different from blocking a cavalry charge with your body?!”

“There’s no other way!”

He also knew that it was nonsense. In fact, looking at the crab’s size and the speed at which it was running, he knew that it would be more than a cavalry charge, if not less. But they had to do it.

“If we don’t do this, it’s all over!”

They each grabbed blunt weapons like maces and shields. None of the shields were intact from blocking the hail, but it was better than nothing. If the crab had been wary of them and tried to hunt carefully, they could have broken its shell little by little and hunted it in reverse. In the end, there was only one of them. The problem was that it was trying to ram into them as if it was going to die together. There was no time to think more. In the end, the huge crab had rushed right in front of them.

“Don’t try to block it rashly, aim for the legs! It’ll slow it down a bit!”

Fortunately, its shell had not completely dried out. One of the relatively thin legs was broken with one swing of the mace, and the crab’s body tilted to the side.

“It’s swinging its pincers! Get away!”

“Ugh!”

One of the coachmen was sent flying into the air with the shield he had blocked, as if it wouldn’t just take the hit. It still didn’t stop running, so they took the risk and broke more than half of its legs.

“It’s not going to stop at all!”

Even so, they missed the crab because of the speed at which it was running. They tried to chase after it, but it was impossible. At that time, Donar saw someone who shouldn’t be there at the end of the direction the crab was rushing. He saw it.

“Sif!!”

There was a woman he had promised to marry. Was it because she was coming out because people had to come out of the carriage? She saw him and discovered the crab, and her face turned white. This crab was rushing towards that place. He ran with all his might, holding his breath, but he couldn’t catch the crab with his running speed. Sif’s face was frozen as if she was frozen at the sight of the crab rushing right in front of her. At this rate, he would lose her. But there was no way for Donar to stop the crab.