Leave a comment

　Afternoon of the third day after leaving the fief capital enroute to the royal capital. The weather was nice enough to make you want to nap, but there were several corpses strewn around in front of me.

　The reason was because bandits had attacked us and we had fought back. Yes, I killed a person for the first time. I had been preparing myself to do so since a long time ago and that time had eventually arrived. But I still end up thinking various things and whether I dirtied my hands.

　It wasn’t something I needed to particularly agonize over. Or rather, I wasn’t even feeling anything about it……it was more something along the lines of it just couldn’t be helped? But that was the reason why it was so jarring.

　When I saw the corpses of the people who were riding in the carriage with me during the cliff accident, I had just regained my previous life’s memories so it was quite hard on me because of my past Japanese ethics. But now I was a bit overwhelmed since I didn’t even feel anything after killing them……hm, I should cool down a bit.

　Umm, so I guess I just graduated from being a killer virgin? No, I’m a girl now, so I guess it would be I lost my killer virginity? Ahh, it was my first time! Wait, no, no, I’m still feeling overwhelmed. Let’s take some deep breaths.

　Hm, I did regain my previous life’s memories, but the foundation was based on the common sense I had acquired after living in this world for 10 years. As such, I could only think of it as natural to kill the bandits when they attacked us. I guess it would be normal if I thought of it that way?

　Additionally, I hate being forced into doing something that I didn’t want to do, so I suppose I also didn’t feel anything about killing someone who attacked and might have even killed me, so something like that? Hm, I don’t even understand myself sometimes.

　The current world I was in was one where I had to defend myself in order to live, so I guess being objective would be better than excessively agonizing over it? Mmm, I tried looking at it in different ways, but it still felt weird……

　So I thought back to the situation where we were attacked by bandits. It happened after we had been on the road for a while, and the bandits had ambushed us from the forest on both sides of the road. A log was on the road and blocking the way. When we got off the carriage to deal with it, bandits appeared from the bushes on the left and right.

　There were six of them. Additionally, my Detection revealed that there was also a person lying in wait on both the left and right side of the forest trees near the road. They were probably archers?

　The bandits had told us to leave our money, and carriage, and then upon realizing we were women, said they would take us too. Yep, cliche bandits. Of course we resisted, but it was rather one-sided.

　First, Lily had used her trump card she mentioned before which turned out to be a Barrier Magic that formed around the carriage. With this, the carriage couldn’t be damaged, and we were also safe inside the barrier.

　Next, Norn and Bell jumped out and knocked aside the bandits surrounding the carriage, and dashed into the forest to eliminate the backups.

　Arisa jumped out of the barrier and slashed at a bandit who had been caught off guard by Norn and Bell, and Lily shot offensive magic from within the barrier. I was told to step back so I backed down.

　Yep, I was being treated like a child. Well, I am a child though. And so, the one-sided development continued, Arisa brought down one person and Lily scattered the bandits with her magic, then Arisa faced off against someone who appeared to be the bandit leader.

　I then noticed Bandit A sneaking up behind Arisa to attack her from behind, so I had immediately fired a knife at his head. The bandit leader was surprised by the scene and Arisa took the opening to slash his neck, thus killing him. At this point, there were only two people left, and those two had tried to escape due to the disadvantage they were in. But Lily took one of them out using her magic, and I eliminated the other by shooting a knife to the back of his head.

　Hmm, since my attacks had been indirect attacks instead of direct attacks, the actual realization might have just not set in yet. Hmm… But the mental stress……huh? Was it perhaps due to my Mental Resistance.

“Ren, what’s wrong?”
“Ah, well, It’s actually the first time I’ve killed a person, so……”
“Is that so……but it’s better not to overthink it, okay? These people are criminals. If we didn’t fight back we would’ve been killed.”
“That’s right~ It’s only natural to defend yourself~”
“Ah, no. I was just thinking it didn’t affect me as much as I had expected……is that normal?”
“I see, I guess that would be shocking. I was like that my first time too.”
“I guess for me I just didn’t have time to worry about it~? But I didn’t really mind it ever since then~”

　I see. I suppose I should check my skills later.
　Then Norn and Bell came back from the forest. While dragging the corpses.

“By the way, what should we do about the bodies?”
“If we take them to the town hall, the officials will handle it, but loading them onto the carriage is rather…….”
“Right……”

　To be honest, there was some resistance to placing them inside of Storage too.

“I think it’ll be fine if we just leave them on the side of the road. Since they’re criminals, there’s nothing wrong with leaving them out to dry.”
“……Won’t the bodies become rotten and start to smell?”
“If we tell the gatekeeper when we get to a nearby town, they will come handle it so it should be fine. If there’s a reward, we’ll get it later on.”
“I see, let’s do that.”

　As such, we piled the bodies to the side of the road. Or rather, Norn handled it. I also recovered my knives. I stored the log that was blocking the road inside of Storage. I could use it as firewood so I kept it.

“But what kind of attack did Ren do anyways? For the knife to be stuck this deeply into the head……”
“Um, it’s a secret? Rather, I thought Lily’s barrier was much more amazing.”

　Barrier magic seemed quite useful. But if it was some sort of rare skill, it would be a bit difficult for me to use it. However, I still observed it during the fight to grasp the magic structure. Due to the Analyze skill, I was able to figure out the magic structure, so I could probably do it……but I’ll leave it for later.

“I guess it’s one of Lily’s few good points~?”
“Arisa, I’ll get mad!”
“Eh~?”
“Not at all, Lily’s offensive magic was amazing too.”

　Right, her offensive magic was also amazing. I didn’t know any offensive magic, so I would like to learn it somehow.

“Huh? Ren can’t use offensive magic?”
“I cannot. I was thinking of looking for a spell book when we get to the royal capital.”
“Ah, in that case, I could teach you if you want?”
“Um, is that okay?”
“I don’t mind at all! Please tell me if there’s anything else you would like to learn!”
“Well, I would like to learn about non-attribute, dark, and lightning type magic……”
“So non-attribute, dark, and lightning, I got it! I can use non-attribute and dark type magic, but I can’t use lightning type. However, we can use a spell book for that. I learned magic alongside my sister so I can definitely teach you!”

　Oh, it seems that I would be able to learn all the attributes with this. Oh, right.

“Ah, do you also know about alchemy?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m unfamiliar with alchemy……the Alchemy skill can only be obtained if someone teaches you it. I was told that it would be good to know, but I didn’t have the time.”
“I see, I didn’t know about that.”
“So there’s things even Ren doesn’t know about~?”
“That’s only natural. There’s a lot of things I don’t know about.”
“I can tell by just looking.”
“That’s right~”

　Somehow, that felt rather mean. But I guess I’ll postpone alchemy for now~ However, I would like to learn more about it somehow, so I can create an automata.

“Shouldn’t we get moving soon~? Having a conversation while standing next to a pile of dead bodies is kinda weird, right~?”
“……Right.”
“……Let’s do that then.”

　I actually forgot we were standing next to the corpses. Teehee~