Chapter 3 (2/2)
“We’re running downward! Don’t get hurt! We’ll leave you.”
Crunch–!
“Gyaa–!”
It happened right before my eyes, before I could finish speaking.
The eighteen year-old girl. Her eyes had been half-dead, but just a little bit earlier, they’d grown a little more lively.
Something struck her in the head, and she toppled over with a short scream.
I just barely caught sight of what happened.
A boulder.
A boulder flew at her from G.o.d-knows-where and pulverized her head.
The fallen woman twitched momentarily, spraying out blood. Her eyes rolled about, lost, before she stopped moving.
To get right to the point, she died.
“KYAAAAAA–!!!!”
The shrieking voice belonged to the slow-looking girl, the next oldest.
We’ve been seen! I clicked my tongue inside, but doing my best to ignore it, I look in the direction the boulder came from.
There was a figure visible on the crest of the hill.
— Troll!
Troll. A monster roughly as well-known as the goblin.
Bodies three to four meters tall. Strong, if their appearance was anything to go by, but sadly lacking in brains. Giants, pretty much your stereotypical monster in build and so on.
However, precisely because of its low intelligence, there were other intelligent monsters who would trick them. It wasn’t especially uncommon even for the lower-ranking goblin.
Not uncommon, but right now, it was so very hateful.
Collecting myself, I realized that the things responsible for tearing open the roof and for tilting the carriage were the troll’s stone missiles. That would have been impossible in the first place, if it were only the weak goblins.
I didn’t pay as much attention to details earlier, but the wheel of the carriage we’d been riding had been smashed to splinters — small wonder it had ended up tilted.
Our only stroke of good luck, and perhaps the dead woman’s bad luck, was that the troll seemed committed to providing logistical support from the rear. Staying in position on the ridge, it kept throwing boulders. When I thought about it charging in to block our way, our current situation was infinitely preferable.
“Oi! Don’t drag your feet! Run! Get out of here!”
I screamed at the remaining women.
Hardened to the shock of a friend’s sudden death, Aira and the girl with the ugly look in her eyes snapped out of their daze and sprinted off.
But perhaps overcome by shock, the dull-witted girl didn’t move from her spot as tears flowed down her face. And then, to make things worse, she fell to the ground with a thump.
“…s.h.i.+t — . You guys go first! I’ll figure something out!”
Urging on the other two, I run over to the side of the dull-witted girl, who seems to have lost herself to panic.
“Oi, get it together! We’re running away!”
“Ah–…ah… — ”
She shook at the sound of my voice, but she was in such a muddle that even her voice wouldn’t come out right. Her eyes, flooded with tears, were strangely unfocused.
“Oi!”
I called her one more time. For a moment, her wavering eyes stilled and looked at me.
That gaze.
Pleading.
I grit my teeth. My molars creaked.
Then I looked around. There was no time.
I sighed. Looking at her one more time, I said,
“I’m sorry,”
and I drew the knife in my hand across her throat.
“Guheugh…–!”
Fresh blood spurted out from her neck, drenching me.
As the sound of her breath escaped from her lips, her eyes looked mournful, as if to ask me [why]. But it was only for a moment. The light faded from her eyes as they rolled up into her head, and she died.
I had to take responsibility.
I at least laid the dead woman on the ground gently, my eyes squeezed shut.
But that was all.
Without hesitation, I spun on my heel and followed the other two down the slope.
And so, I left behind the bones of two people.
Author’s Notes
I’m sorry that it’s short.
This is my first experience with the format of posting as I write, so I’m not very good at organization.
Footnotes
1. Guessed: 見捨てるなど、何を今更と思えた ↵
2. Straight up made it up: かなり体が持って行かれる ↵
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