Ch.112Milia, Demian, Friede

======[Millia]======

The previous silence was gone, replaced by shock and screams pouring down like a sudden shower.

Terrible screams that made it difficult to imagine what horrible acts were taking place.

Even from a distance, I could clearly see a person being thrown into the air, spraying blood, before quickly falling back down.

Monster, demon. As panic-stricken shouts spread, people from the eastern part of the village began to emerge from their homes one by one.

‘Those are Kobolts. Kobolts. So, I just need to… shoot the Kobolts coming this way.’

Millia calmly drew her bowstring.

At that moment, a burning fireball rose in an arc through the air.

‘Magic…? That can’t be…!’

Millia’s gaze turned toward the fireball.

There couldn’t possibly be a mage in such a small village.

Haschal had Mana Resistance, so he couldn’t use magic.

…Looking closer, it wasn’t magic at all.

In the center of the fireball, a black figure was desperately struggling.

Though missing one leg, it was clearly a person.

‘My god. Did he set a person on fire and throw them…?’

It was truly like Haschal—an extremely violent and bizarre action.

But it was certainly effective.

The fallen fireball began to spread in all directions, gradually setting the eastern part of the village ablaze.

The screams of people who saw the flames grew louder.

People who had been pointing at the burning village began running toward Millia.

Cutting away her hesitation, Millia pushed her left hand forward and drew the bowstring.

Her fully contracted back muscles trembled, and the bent bow creaked with strain.

“Right. Those are… Kobolts. Isn’t that right, Haschal? This is correct, Demian?”

Muttering the words that escaped her lips, Millia spread her right index and middle fingers wide.

With a whistling sound, an arrow shot out like lightning, piercing straight through the head of the man running at the front.

The man, killed instantly, fell backward with the arrowhead protruding from the back of his head.

“Den!”

“Wh-what?! I thought the monsters appeared over there…!”

Confused by the scene before them, the men all stopped at once.

A man with a scar on his cheek spotted Millia nocking another arrow and pointed in her direction.

“You idiot, look over there! What monsters? That’s the adventurer woman from earlier! Go catch her!”

“How are we supposed to catch an adventurer who hasn’t been drugged?!”

One frightened young man objected.

And he had a point—most of them were just ordinary village youths.

Not knights or adventurers, not even at the level of soldiers.

They had captured drugged or paralyzed women, cut their tendons, and kept them captive, but they lacked the ability to defeat a fully capable adventurer.

“So you’d rather die? She’s just one girl!! If we all rush her, we can take her down somehow!”

“Y-yeah! Better than burning to death in that inferno!!”

The men, who had been in confusion, began charging toward Millia with weapons in hand.

Millia silently drew her bowstring.

As she watched the shouting men rushing toward her, she recalled the Kobolt packs she had seen before.

‘Two Kobolts. Three Kobolts… four… five…’

Once she had made that mental shift, the rest was easy.

Arrows began to rain down, piercing through the enemies.

“Gack!”

“Aaaagh! My leg!!”

“Run if you don’t want to die!”

The Kobolts tumbled to the ground, screaming in voices that resembled the Imperial language.

A Kobolt with its head pierced, brain matter spilling out.

A Kobolt clutching its abdomen before collapsing.

A Kobolt rolling around, gripping the arrow lodged in its leg.

Kobolts.

Millia let out a hollow laugh.

Once she started, it wasn’t particularly difficult.

—-

“You damn bitch!”

Somehow, several Kobolts had approached close enough that they could reach her with their spears and swords in just a few steps.

Their expressions showed relief and elation.

As if they were certain they could capture her now that they had closed the distance.

‘Monster-like intelligence.’

Could they not see what she was riding, let alone the three swords hanging at her waist?

Millia mocked them as she cracked the reins.

The brown horse surged forward as if it had been waiting for this moment. The distance between her and the Kobolts widened instantly.

“Wh…what?”

“Son of a…”

An arrow lodged itself in the mouth of a Kobolt who was about to curse.

The arrowhead that pierced through was tangled with pieces of medulla and cerebellum.

The gurgling Kobolt collapsed.

—-

It didn’t take long for the charging Kobolts to be completely annihilated.

Millia turned her horse around and moved among the corpses, adding another hole to the heads of any Kobolts that were still alive.

“Ah…ahhh…”

“P-please spare me, sister…!”

Only the young ones remained.

One young male with traces of youth on his face begged, tears streaming down.

“Sister? You mean me?”

Millia looked down at it. Its chin was darkened.

Unfortunately, it was a Kobolt.

An arrow sprouted from between the young Kobolt’s eyebrows.

The fallen youngster trembled briefly before going limp.

She felt almost no compassion.

If it weren’t for Senior Frider and Haschal, she would have met this creature tomorrow, with it mounting her.

“Aaaah! Aaaaaaaah!”

A young one beside her screamed. Millia pulled out another arrow and observed him.

‘No beard…?’

Then it was a human. Probably.

Millia put the arrow back.

She didn’t particularly want to check the lower parts.

Five remained. One young Kobolt and four humans including this boy.

An arrow cut through the air.

Now four.

All the Kobolts were dead, only humans remained.

Millia lightly stretched her stiff shoulders and slung her bow back over her shoulder.

“I won’t kill you, so just stay still and wait.”

The children nodded, trembling at her gentle voice—a voice that seemed out of place coming from a girl who had just killed all the village adults, which only deepened their terror.

Millia smiled slightly and looked toward the village.

The spreading flames had already consumed more than half of the village.

Since no more were running out, it seemed Haschal had hunted down all the remaining Kobolts.

‘But is it okay to burn everything like that…?’

Millia tilted her head.

‘I don’t know. Haschal must have his reasons.’

Deciding to postpone her concerns, Millia dismounted and began pulling arrows out of the Kobolts.

She needed to reuse the arrows that were still in good condition.

Each time she yanked out an arrow, the Kobolt corpses twitched and spurted blood.

The children’s crying grew louder.

======[Chapel. Frider and Demian.]======

“Demian. Have you ever killed a person before?”

Frider, who had stopped the carriage, suddenly asked Demian this question.

Demian pondered the meaning of the question briefly but concluded that there was no harm in being honest.

‘I already cut down one person today anyway.’

“About three or four times.”

Frider raised an eyebrow at Demian’s nonchalant response.

“With such an innocent face, that’s unexpected. But I suppose that saves me from having to give advice.”

The usual advice—don’t hesitate to cut people down if you’re going to live as a knight, hesitation will cost you your life, and other such common wisdom.

If it wasn’t his first time but his third or fourth, he would have already come to terms with it mentally.

Frider and Demian, crouching in the bushes next to the cemetery, observed the chapel.

It was larger than expected.

A two-story brick building.

A pointed spire sat on the roof, and windows the size of a person’s upper body decorated the walls all around.

Above the main entrance hung an old religious symbol, slightly tilted.

The mark of a sickle over a tombstone. The symbol of Ceres, goddess of earth and death.

“So what do we do now? Should we go in and cut them all down?”

Demian gripped the handle of his greatsword. He looked ready to charge into the chapel at any moment.

Frider extended her arm to block Demian.

“Don’t be stupid. I don’t know how many there are, but they’re all probably having fun underground right now.”

If they were in the chapel at this hour, the reason was obvious. They would be having a grand time. Anticipating new trophies.

Frider gritted her teeth, clearly showing her rising disgust and contempt.

“Shouldn’t we enter quickly then?”

Demian urged once more. Frider didn’t blame him.

It was a common attitude among novice knights who lacked experience but were full of righteousness.

She had seen it many times before, and a good explanation would suffice.

‘Might as well play the senior role a bit.’

Frider met Demian’s eyes.

His expression seemed resolute, as if showing firm determination. Just like other novices she had seen.

Except for a very subtle sense of incongruity.

It didn’t take Frider long to notice the cause.

‘…Right, his eyes are different.’

That was the source of the incongruity.

Demian’s eyes seemed to reflect strong righteousness, but they lacked the nervousness that novices typically displayed in such situations.

Even his urging of Frider seemed not to express urgency but rather a simple exchange of opinions.

It wasn’t a typical reaction.

‘…What is it?’

Frider tilted her head but soon pushed the suspicion aside.

There was no point in dwelling on it now.

“Senior Frider?”

“Ah, right. Let me explain. Unless you want to be an assassin, charging in head-on right now would be the worst option. Besides having to witness unspeakable scenes, most enemies would immediately grab the nearest hostage. You understand?”

She didn’t know how many enemies were inside, but if more than ten of them took hostages, even Frider would have no way to save the women.

Demian nodded, understanding Frider’s explanation.

“Good. So we wait. Until the commotion from the village draws them out sufficiently.”

With Haschal let loose in the village, there would be quite an uproar.

Enough to make those committing atrocities underground rush out in surprise.

That would be the moment to strike.

Soon, with the burning inn as a backdrop, roars and screams echoed throughout the village.

“That must be Haschal, right?”

“Seems he’s causing quite a scene. He’s been particularly aggressive today. I wonder why.”

Though she found it amusing enough to let it continue, even Frider noticed that his behavior seemed different from usual.

Rather than becoming more ferocious, it was more like… yes, like pent-up frustration bursting out.

Like a cat tearing at a mouse, he seemed full of malice.

“Could it be? The Day of Rage?”

Demian lifted his head suddenly, as if having realized something.

‘…Day of Rage?’

“What’s that?”

It was a term Frider had never heard before.

Wondering if it might be some commoner slang, she asked Demian for its meaning.

“The village girls were saying that women have a Day of Rage once a month, so we should understand if they act irritable.”

“Ah.”

Frider sighed, roughly understanding.

‘So that’s what it was…’

It was a reason she could comprehend.

Demian seemed not to understand the meaning of what he had just said.

Urgent footsteps began to echo from beneath the chapel.

“Get ready. The first ones to come out will probably be scouts, so let them be. We’ll strike when they return with the others.”

Frider carefully drew the saw hanging at her waist.