Ch.135Fugitive

Looking back, I think I was a bit hasty. While I wouldn’t make the reckless choice of immediately using my newly acquired power in actual combat, I was eager to reach Northern Fortress as soon as possible, set up some targets, and pull the trigger.

With such anticipation in our hearts, I believe our steps toward Northern Fortress had unconsciously quickened.

*Clop-clop-clop…*

If that hadn’t been the case—if we had leisurely led Ancestor along, stopped somewhere suitable to eat some bread, rested a bit, and then continued toward Northern Fortress after the sun had set and darkness had fallen on the mountain path…

*Bang! Bang! Ratatat!*

*Neeeigh~*

*Clop-clop-clop…*

We wouldn’t have had the perfect timing to discover a group of people engaged in a horseback chase less than a kilometer from Northern Fortress.

A petite blonde woman clutching a newborn baby to her chest, bleeding as she fled, pursued by five men shooting at her.

“You idiots! Kill her already! If you can’t hit the woman, at least shoot the horse!”

“She’s not an easy target! If you’re so confident, you try hitting her!”

“Damn it! If you have time to chat like little girls, fire another shot! Before she reaches the fortress!”

A woman desperately fleeing and five rough men trying to kill her before she could reach Northern Fortress.

There was no need to think about whose side to take.

Whatever the circumstances, people who would shoot at a newborn baby couldn’t possibly be decent human beings.

“Fireball {Explosive Grenade}!”

*BOOM!*

*NEEEIGH!!!*

“Whoa?!”

A massive fiery explosion erupted in the open space between the fleeing woman and her pursuers.

As the horses carrying the pursuers reared up with terrifying screams, the two men in front were thrown off, and the three following had to stop their pursuit to calm their agitated mounts.

What appeared before the pursuers’ eyes as they recovered from the pain of being thrown to the ground and barely managed to calm their horses was a group of adventurers.

A gunman mounted on an imposing large black horse, a beautiful woman in a corset dress riding with him, and a brown-skinned cat-folk girl running alongside them.

And some distance behind, a slender elven blonde beauty and a silver-haired dwarf girl barely reaching the elf’s waist were rushing to catch up.

“Well, well, where are you all rushing to?”

“Who the hell are you, you crazy bastard!”

*Bang! Bang! Bang!*

The three men who hadn’t fallen off their horses grimaced and aimed their guns at me, but none of them succeeded in pulling the trigger.

In their hands were only the remains of “what used to be pistols,” with the upper parts of the grips cleanly blown off.

The other two sensed that their lives would be forfeit if they tried to pick up their dropped guns, so they remained frozen in awkward positions.

“If you have a desperate reason for shooting at a baby, I’m willing to listen. But only if you can identify yourselves and explain at the Northern Fortress security office.”

With a fireball dancing at Jessica’s fingertips and Seti’s spear somehow blocking their escape route, the five would-be infant killers had no choice but to submit quietly, be bound with ropes, and be escorted to Northern Fortress.

After handing the prisoners over to Northern Fortress security and asking about the woman who had escaped ahead of us, we were told she had been taken to the clinic but could only receive basic first aid because she couldn’t afford treatment costs.

Needless to say, Jessica, outraged by this fact, rushed into the clinic, paid for emergency treatment, and personally healed the woman with a Heal Touch.

Afterward, we brought the woman and baby to our lodgings, raided Northern Fortress’s grocery store for simple ingredients, and quickly whipped up a bacon cheese potato soup with macaroni pasta using the Crafting Tablet.

After everyone had filled their hungry stomachs and given the woman time to nurse her baby, we gently laid the soundly sleeping infant, wrapped in a blanket, in a corner.

With skin white as rice cake and hair in a brownish-orange shade—ginger hair, was it called? Anyway, it was a baby with very noticeable hair color.

“Thank you so much. Not just for saving us, but for the medical costs and the meal…”

“Remi, right? That child is indeed yours?”

“Yes. My child.”

“Hmm, it might be rude to ask a woman I’ve just met, but how old are you…?”

“Eighteen.”

When we exchanged introductions while bringing her to our lodgings, I thought her voice and manner of speaking retained a youthful quality… and I was right.

Since humans in Grantis are considered adults from age 16, it’s not impossible, but a young woman carrying a nursing infant and being chased outside the Great Barrier is certainly no ordinary situation.

“…I see. Well, everyone has their circumstances, so let’s leave that aside. Is the baby alright? Exposure to black mana at such a young age seems quite dangerous.”

“From what I briefly observed earlier, there doesn’t seem to be any major issues. Of course, it would be better to have the baby examined at a larger clinic, but they say even newborns can withstand black mana for about 24 hours.”

“…Huh? Wait a minute. Then where did they come from?”

Remi’s expression hardened as she flinched at Mina’s question.

It was a natural question. She had fled from the northwestern foothills of Northern Fortress, a direction where not even an outpost to bypass the swamplands had been established, let alone a western city.

“‘They’? That’s quite rude to refer to a child’s mother that way.”

“Ah… sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t talk, but you look even younger than your age.”

“It’s, it’s okay. I hear that a lot…”

“So, where did you come from?”

“Ah…”

Faced with Mina’s persistent questioning, Remi was once again at a loss for words.

Jessica, unable to watch any longer, restrained Mina and gently patted Remi’s shoulder, asking in a soft voice.

“It’s alright. Everyone here isn’t the type to casually insult or look down on others. You’re a gang woman, aren’t you?”

“…Yes.”

Gang woman. I can roughly guess what that ominous nuance implies.

Even rough outlaws who reject comfortable city life and wander the wilderness need women.

It might be the simple desire to have a beautiful girlfriend, or it might be for more basic sexual needs, but occasionally there are women who respond to such desires from rough men while looking for a place to belong.

“I’ve been wondering, how do outlaws solve the black mana problem? Sneaking in and out of cities can only work a few times, and it’s impossible for pregnant women or new mothers.”

“They probably made a counterfeit barrier tower with stolen mana cores. Gangs with scale or magical technicians sometimes set up hideouts that way.”

“A counterfeit barrier tower… Well, I suppose if it’s a human invention, there’s no law saying outlaws can’t have it.”

“Shamefully, there are even adventurers who sell mana cores to outlaws instead of reporting them to the Pioneer Administration.”

Mana cores used as materials for barrier towers are extremely rare spoils found in dungeons and the most important resource for western pioneering.

Therefore, all pioneers with Frontier Licenses are obligated to report and transfer any mana cores they find to the Pioneer Administration, and private use or leaking them to third parties is treated as a serious crime.

But the ultimate goal for adventurers exploring dungeons is to strike it rich, and if outlaws offer better rewards than the Pioneer Administration, some people will inevitably be tempted.

“If a woman living in such a place fled with a baby, that means, conversely, that there’s an outlaw hideout within a day or two’s ride from here…”

“That would be the case.”

“No wonder those men were desperate to catch her. If they didn’t kill her before she reached a pioneer settlement, the hideout’s location would be exposed, and a subjugation force would be dispatched as soon as Northern Fortress gathered enough troops.”

“It’s strange that they remained undiscovered if they were so close all this time.”

“That’s because they weren’t an organization that directly confronted the pioneers.”

As Remi answered, she slowly pulled down the shoulder of her clothes, revealing a black heart-shaped tattoo on her left shoulder.

It was a simple tattoo with two overlapping heart marks, without any other decorations or letters.

“The place I was at was a gang called Black Heart. It was an organization formed by people who believed it was wrong for the Pioneer Administration to monopolize the right to pioneer the west, that barrier tower manufacturing technology should be made public, and that anyone should be free to pioneer. Instead of engaging in robbery or slave trading, they focused on black market mana core trading, moonshine production, and running gambling dens…”

“Wait, how does an 18-year-old girl know so much about the inner workings of a gang?”

“I was born and raised there. I couldn’t help but know the details, whether I liked it or not.”

“Why would someone like that make the dangerous choice to escape from a gang?”

A woman who grew up in an outlaw organization would know better than anyone the risks that come with escaping.

If she couldn’t endure the harsh treatment from the gang’s men, it would be understandable, but would she then try to protect and care for her newborn baby so preciously?

Rather, she must have judged that staying with the Black Heart gang would make it impossible to protect not only her own future but also her child’s.

“…It’s drugs.”

“Drugs?”

The answer from Remi’s lips more than confirmed my speculation.

“The current Black Heart leader is insane. He makes all members take drugs supplied by a suspicious non-human man, and those who take it become more sensitive to sensations and stop feeling pain or fatigue. I was exempted because I was pregnant, but as the time approached for my baby to be weaned…”

“They started insisting you should no longer delay taking the drug. Judging by the skills of the five who chased you, it doesn’t seem to be a drug that particularly helps fighting ability.”

“…I think that’s just because you were overwhelmingly strong. Did you kill them all? Or did some escape alive?”

“No. We captured them all and handed them over to the security force. They’re probably being interrogated in a cell right now—”

“WHAT?!”

At the news that all her pursuers had been captured and handed over to security, Remi turned pale, jumped up, and screamed.

The sudden loud noise startled the sleeping baby, who began to whimper, but Remi, ignoring the baby’s cries, looked around at us with a ghastly face and shouted urgently:

“We need to get rid of them right now! Otherwise…”

*BOOM!*

“Whoa?!”

Before Remi could finish speaking, a huge explosion sounded from outside.

Hurriedly opening the window to look out, I could see fragments of stone buildings scattered across the streets of Northern Fortress as darkness fell.

The source of the explosion was right next to Northern Fortress’s entrance, at the security office.

The place where the five outlaws who had been chasing Remi were being held.

*Waaah~ Waaaah~*

The baby’s cries grew louder, and soon the voices of people murmuring began to be heard from all over Northern Fortress.

Some people ran toward the security office, while others pointed their guns at the sky, looking for fire drakes.

None of the residents seemed to understand exactly what had just happened, but…

*Ding-a-ling-a-ling!*

“Attack! We’re under attack!! About fifty outlaws with torches on the northern hill!”

It seems no resident would fail to predict what was about to happen.

Tonight, Northern Fortress would turn into a hellish pandemonium.