As the morning dawned and I began to tidy up my sleeping bag, Rubina hovered around James like a ghost.
When it came time to prepare breakfast, her intuition was sharp; she’d neatly stack all the dishes needed for the meal, or fill the water container for washing up after eating, and while washing, she’d be right there, drying the dishes with a cloth.
“Hmm, let’s get going now.”
As Kaiyak stroked Rubina’s head, she gave a slight nod and moved to stand next to James.
James then smoothly picked Rubina up and, with a bit of flair, spun around to carry her on his back, expertly wrapping a long cloth to secure her.
“Today should be a bit warm.”
James chuckled leisurely.
Just as he said, the sunshine, making its way to the zenith, was indeed quite warm.
On this northern continent, summer was short, and winter arrived quickly.
With summer being brief and fall even shorter, winter wheeled in faster.
Nobody welcomed this season, but it seemed to come rushing in, as if it were grumpy.
“How much further to the Duchy of Kapatia?”
“At this pace, if all goes well, we should be there in about three or four days.”
“Almost there, then.”
It’s scary how accustomed I’ve gotten to this distance.
Yona sighed deeply to herself.
The thought of it taking three or four days by foot was madness!
“Alright, Rubina. Shall we walk with sister now?”
“…Huh?”
Not waiting for Yona’s reply, James untied the wrap and set Rubina down.
Rubina looked at him, then quietly walked over to Yona’s side, joining her.
“…Mr. James?”
“Since we’re taking her to the Kapatia Cathedral orphanage anyway, we need to talk to them directly. I mean, we’ll have to explain some things when we drop her off, so why not get a bit closer in the process?”
James flashed a warm smile.
He wasn’t wrong, but it felt a bit ridiculous considering Yona had resolved just last night not to get attached.
Yona glanced down at Rubina as they walked.
Standing next to Yona, who was tall for a girl, Rubina couldn’t even reach Yona’s waist. But hey, she was only ten—she was a bit small. It was probably because she didn’t eat well.
“Rubina.”
At Yona’s call, Rubina looked up at her.
Her black eyes sparkled in the sunlight.
“…Are you sure you don’t regret it?”
What a strange thing to ask.
Yona wondered why she had even said that.
“I mean, you followed us. We’re headed to take you to the orphanage, so don’t you regret coming along?”
“…No.”
“No? Why not? It might have been better growing up with the village folks. Weren’t they nice to you?”
“…No. They were the ones who hurt my sister all the time.”
“Hurt her?”
Now that was an unexpected comment.
The townsfolk had said that Rubina’s sister helped with odd jobs and got paid for them. What Rubina was saying seemed to contradict that idea.
Yona stared at Rubina intently.
Rubina stared blankly up at Yona.
Golden eyes met black ones.
Rubina’s red lips flickered again.
“They come to see my sister every night. The uncles. And then my sister pretended to be sick.”
“What?”
What did I just hear?
It wasn’t just Yona who caught that; Alex, who had been walking beside her, heard it too.
“What do you mean…?”
Yona widened her eyes and stared at Rubina.
Rubina seemed flustered by Yona’s gaze, looking down and fiddling with her hands.
“It’s nothing… I’m sorry.”
“No, no. Rubina, it’s not your fault. Oh—it’s just that my sister didn’t hear you properly.”
Suddenly, Kaiyak and James, who had wandered off for a moment because of the odd atmosphere caused by Alex, Yona, and Rubina, returned.
Kaiyak, who was about to ask what they were doing standing around like that, sensed something strange and quietly moved to Yona’s side.
“No, Rubina. What did you say? Uncles?”
Yona knelt down on one knee to meet Rubina’s gaze.
Rubina struggled to hold Yona’s gaze and looked down again.
“Every night, two or three uncles came to see my sister. When I pretended to sleep because they got angry if I was awake… they usually came drunk, so I woke up quickly…”
“…And then?”
“If I asked who it was, they would get mad, so I stayed in my room. The uncles went into my sister’s room, and she made sounds like she was sick.”
“And then?”
“The next day, breakfast had more vegetables than usual.”
The four of them fell silent.
Only Rubina looked anxiously at them, worrying she had said something wrong.
They tried to think of it as something common.
After all, for sisters without parents living in a small village, it must be an unavoidable choice, or at least that’s what they attempted to think.
But that thought didn’t take hold.
“Kai—”
“No, don’t.”
Alex grabbed Yona’s wrist as she tried to shout for Kaiyak.
Yona glared at Alex, who held her wrist tightly.
“Everyone thinks that way, Yona. But it shouldn’t be like that. We’re not the apostles of justice, nor are we heroes of justice. We have no obligation to do that. And— it’s not rare; it’s actually quite common.”
“You say that so easily.”
Alex calmly faced the blazing fury in her golden eyes.
“We’re adventurers. We’re not murderers killing ordinary people. We take money to solve problems.”
“But they’re criminals.”
“It’s not a crime. What’s wrong with selling my own body?”
“But she was just a child. Just a few years older than Rubina.”
“That’s exactly the point. Because they’re children, that’s the only way they could survive. Look at the village chief; who would help them? They sold their bodies, and adults bought them. It’s dirty and disgusting, but this kind of thing isn’t unique to this place, nor is it something only Rubina has experienced.”
Yona fell silent.
This world had a bizarre lack of concept regarding human rights.
While it’s a general belief that children should be protected, such events happen frequently in places like this.
Even though it’s a common notion that children must be protected, this place has its fair share of crazy incidents.
“I get it, Yona. I really do. Part of me wants to go back to that village and wipe them all out. I even regret cutting down on the reward for capturing Trolls. But we can’t do that, Yona. Otherwise, we’d just be ordinary murderers.”
“…”
“And if those people hadn’t acted the way they did, Rubina… she might not be alive. She would have starved to death long ago.”
Yona silently looked down at Rubina.
Rubina was holding Yona’s left hand, staring directly at her.
*
That night.
Lucky Yona won the first watch.
With her back against a rising rocky hill, Yona tossed a few more logs into the campfire.
‘…It might get cold.’
Yona stood up and pulled her sleeping bag a little closer to the fire.
From inside the oversized sleeping bag, she could hear the quiet, frail breaths of Rubina, who had already drifted off to dreamland.
After getting a bit more warmth and moving her sleeping bag closer to the fire, Yona finally straightened up and looked around.
And then their eyes met.
Several pairs of sinister eyes were watching her from afar.
Instinctively, Yona dropped flat to the ground.
Just as she did, a crossbow bolt whizzed past where her head had been.
A searing pain shot through her, as if her old scar was reopened, but Yona rolled to the side, grimacing.
“It’s monsters—! Everyone, wake up, wake up!”
With a loud crash, dust billowed into the air.
Those who had been sound asleep in their sleeping bags jumped out like popcorn, hurriedly putting on their gear and scanning the area.
“Rubina, stay here, okay? You’re not allowed to take this off.”
Before rushing to the front where Alex stood, Yona shoved Rubina into a rock crevice.
Rubina caught on to the atmosphere and nodded without hesitation, quietly hiding as Yona instructed.
Yona quickly pulled two sleeping bags over Rubina’s head to shield her from any stray arrows and then dashed towards Alex.
“What’s going on with those guys?”
“Gnolls.”
As he adjusted his shield, which already had a couple of crossbow bolts sticking out of it, Alex replied.
Peeking over his shoulder, Yona spotted around six wolf-headed figures standing on two legs.
Yep, definitely Gnolls.
They didn’t seem too strong, but a pack of about seven to ten mixed with those wielding crossbows was on the prowl.
Alright, then—
“James!”
“Already gone.”
The powerful but slower-firing crossbows belonged to the Gnolls, while they had an Orc Archer, James, on their side. A quick glance showed he had already slipped into the tree line.
About six Gnolls were visible now.
It was unclear how many crossbow-wielding ones were lurking behind them, but finding and eliminating every last one of them in the dark would be tricky, so they had to rely on James.
– Spotting!
In that instant, a crossbow bolt lodged itself into Kaiyak’s shoulder.
The arrow hit the target.
Startled, Kaiyak, who was sneaking up on the target, froze in his tracks, and instead, the baffled enemy swung his dual axes at Kaiyak.
“Hmm!”
Kaiyak blocked the axe with the handle of his axe.
Just then, another axe came flying at Kaiyak’s waist, which was intercepted by a shield.
“One down!”
Alex’s hammer smashed into the enemy’s jaw.
While the enemy was weakened, Kaiyak’s axe split the enemy’s head open, and Alex quickly kicked the corpse away.
“Stay still. It’s gonna hurt.”
Yona forcefully pulled the crossbow bolt out of Kaiyak’s shoulder.
Not that anyone cared about Kaiyak’s expression, but judging by the groan, it must’ve hurt.
As Yona’s hand touched the bleeding shoulder, a white light gently enveloped it.
“Is it done, yet?”
“If you don’t like it, go see a priest, lizard.”
“You’re better than any ordinary priest.”
“Nice words. It’s done, now go!”
After Yona gave Kaiyak a light push on the shoulder, he picked up his axe and charged forward once more.
Facing off against Kaiyak was the enemy with his mouth gaping open, brandishing a great sword—
– Phew!
An arrow lodged itself right into the enemy’s head, causing him to topple over as he lunged forward.
*
James’s contributions usually happened in the shadows, just like this time.
Unlike most archers who sought to ambush enemies from afar, James utilized his orc heritage to infiltrate the enemy ranks directly.
He was the kind of archer who would shoot at an enemy archer hiding in a tree from another tree.
Taking advantage of the orc’s exceptional physical traits, he was a shadow archer, bypassing resistances to strike with stealth.
James thrived in the night; as frontline warriors took down one enemy, he systematically eliminated three more crossbow-wielding foes, providing backup from behind.
Thanks to him, the victory against the enemies felt largely like James’s solo effort.
“Ouch, that hurts.”
“Aww, what a wuss. Our tough guy is whining because he barely scratched himself.”
Yona laughed heartily as she healed Alex’s wounds.
Each time her right hand, firmly bound by the Sacred Barrier, touched Alex’s injury, it seemed to wash away like magic, and Rubina stood by Yona, watching in fascination.
“Sister, Yona.”
“Yes?”
“How do you do that…?”
“What do you mean?”
“The healing… how do you make the wounds disappear…?”
“Oh, you mean healing? James, come here for a second. Let’s see that scrape from climbing the tree.”
Being an archer doesn’t automatically grant superhuman abilities; it’s normal to get the occasional scrape or cut while climbing trees, and Rubina observed intently as each small injury disappeared at Yona’s touch.
“This is healing. It’s possible because my job is healer.”
“Healer…? You mean you’re a healer?”
“Yup, I’m a healer. A bronze-ranked healer from the Evian Adventurer’s Guild. I’ve survived for three whole years as a healer!”
Yona puffed out her chest proudly, her nose lifted high.
“Sister, then I want to be a healer too!”
“…Huh?”
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