Chapter of Living Dreams: Bonds of the Mercenaries

"Mm... As expected, nothing, huh..."

"... Nothing... is it?"

"Nothing."

"I... see..."

"I'm sorry, Yumi."

"No, it's... it's fine..."

Korwen looked at me, his expression apologetic.

"Whatever she did, she left absolutely no traces... Probably either magic or something else was at play here."

"..."

"For now, we'll keep the guard up as much as possible. You know what that means."

"Nn... I do... Haa..."

I glanced behind me, at the huge man who was supposed to guard me. Noticing me gaze, he gave me a thumbs up...

Several days had passed since my unfortunate encounter with Yumelia and... somehow or another Korwen forced a guard on me at all times for our remaining duration at the capital. That wasn't a problem in and of itself. Heck, I welcomed it...

Just... the first day it was a normal relatively young mercenary, clad in leather armour, carrying his weapon. The next day it was someone from Fenna's squad. The day after it was a man wearing metal armour. And from the day after that one, it had been this huge man, wearing black armour, from top to bottom and armed to the teeth.

Actually, I didn't even know if it was the same man. The face was hidden by the helmet...

"If possible, stay close to either Karen, Lily or Ria as well."

"Nn... Will do."

"Don't worry. We won't let that happen again."

"Nn..."

I could only hope it wouldn't...

Right after that woman had left, the Elder came rushing over to me, having noticed that her protection or whatever had triggered. And just a short while later, the whole mercenary camp was up and running, trying to find that woman. Unfortunately, with no success.

"Haaa..."

"Yumi? Still worried about what Mr Captain said?"

"Nn... A little."

"I see... I'll be here for you! Even if she comes again, I'll chase her away!"

"Nn. Thank you, Sis."

Karen squeezed my hand, trying to cheer me up. I was blessed to have her with me, wasn't I?

"But I rather she doesn't show up again in the first place."

Back then I hadn't noticed, but I had been a lot more scared than I realised. Once that woman had left, all the tension was gone. Simply gone.

Or to say it in other words, I had a bit of a breakdown. No worries, I was fine now, for the most part. Although, I had to admit, that I didn't want to be alone if possible. It wasn't on the level where I would break down again but I did feel a little anxious.

But right afterward Yumelia had left... It had been pretty bad. Like, really really bad.

The only welcome part of it was that it had been the Elder who found me first. As expected of someone living such a long live, she knew how to comfort someone... Although I did feel a bit sorry that she had to see me like that. She even helped me preserve my dignity as an adult. I couldn't even begin to describe how thankful I was to her.

"... That would be for the best but... Yumi, I doubt she will leave you alone."

"Probably..."

A vain hope... But, maybe, just maybe... Something happened and she wouldn't come back again. Yeah, wasn't that the most optimal outcome?

Yeah, probably not... She clearly wanted something from me. Or rather, she wanted me to do something. Because of who I was...

And that also means... She knew about me... And about what I am...

Maybe I should have tried to pry some information from her... In hindsight, in hindsight... What was done, was done. Either way... whether she would have told me anything would have been a completely different matter altogether.

Either way, at the time, I had been more concerned about myself, trying to get to safety. There was no leeway to worry about such a thing.

"Haaa..."

Sitting in Karen's lap, I leaned back, resting my head on her chest and enjoying her warmth. A second later and I could feel her arm wrapping around me and squeezing me gently.

"Nn..."

"I'm sure it will turn out fine."

"Nn... I hope so... But... She did manage to run away without leaving any trail..."

"That's..."

The mercenaries were no detectives, investigators, hunters or anything else that required specialised tracking skills. Of course, there were a few that were rather adapt at it but according to Korwen, they were average at best. I did not ask what kind of average.

"If they had at least let them into the city, they might have managed to dig something up."

"Nn... The Captain mentioned that it's unlikely that would have changed anything."

"Really?"

"Nn."

She kind of tricked us, after all... She was probably a lot more proficient in magic than we had thought at first. The Captain was still cautious that it might have been a trick at our initial meeting but... He vastly underestimated the degree.

I wasn't too sure about the details but Ria suspected she had cleared the area around me with very subtle magic. So subtle, that we wouldn't notice. Although, because it was so subtle it probably didn't affect anyone with sufficient inherent mana and a certain level of control. In other words, magicians. That was probably why she had to wait for Karen to leave on her own before she appeared before me.

Quite the scary magic... You won't even realise that she forced you to go away...

But Ria emphasised that this was, in the end, just a theory. It made sense when you listened to it but it was ultimately just a theory with no hard evidence to support it. That, of course, didn't change the horror the mercenaries felt, understanding they had likely become the target of such magic. Who wouldn't feel horrified there?

Korwen was trying to implement protective measures against magic like this in the future, but that was a lot easier said than done. They never had to deal with such a situation before, either.

To add on that, before these protective measures were set up, even if they had managed to track her down... She might have been capable of just turning them away, thinking they had the wrong person. And we would be none the wiser...

The only saving grace was, that Korwen had a pretty good idea on how to prevent this in the future. The only problem was apparently money...

"Yumi."

"Nn?"

"To change the topic a little, did Mr Wormaz call for you already?"

"Nn? No, he didn't. But he did say he should finish around noon latest."

"Then he should finish soon, right?"

"Nn..."

I looked up at the sky, searching for the sun. It wasn't yet quite noon, the sun still closer to the horizon than the zenith.

"I guess so. Want to go take a look, Sis?"

"We can. But don't you have your training with Merim soon?"

"Not today. He gave me off for a day because the Captain called me."

"Oh? How nice of him."

"Nn... He'll definitely make up for that tomorrow, though..."

It wasn't purely because he was nice, either. He was still the vice-captain, so he did have his own work as well. Surely... He always seemed awfully free but that was probably just my imagination.

How come the vice-captain was stuck with training us, anyway?

"But Sis, what about you?"

"Me? We finished while you were at Mr Captain's. Rina and Lily were there too."

"Oh..."

So diligent, those three. Karen could have asked for a day off as well. Though she and Lily were currently learning about combat  and magical theory from Ria and some older mercenaries, which wasn't as physically taxing. They still had normal practice, of course.

Meanwhile, I was stuck at pure stamina and muscle training... Because my stamina was so bad that Merim was actually astonished at how fast I was out of breath... And it didn't seem to get better at all either.

At least Rina was about the same as me. If I should be happy about that considering her past... Well... At least we weren't alone.

"Should we go check up on Mr Wormaz then?"

"Nn. Let's do that. I'm curious about the result."

"So am I."

We stood up from the bench we had occupied and slowly made our way to our destination. Like always, mercenaries were running to and fro, busy with work. There were jobs to do after all. Adding that incident with Yumelia and the camp wasn't making it any better either.

That obviously also included the guard silently following me and Karen right now.

"Nn, that reminds me. Did they figure out what to do about that ogre capture?"

"I heard from Ria that they intend to trap it. It seems they don't yet know what they should do after they trapped it..."

"After?"

I tilted my head. Didn't they just need to deliver it to the Academy?

"There's no way the ogre will sit quietly around, right? And they don't have any cage or something to contain it."

"Ohh..."

That was indeed a problem. A raging ogre would likely just instantly break out of any regular cage.

"In a way, it's good that things got delayed with the jobs, especially with the ogre."

"Nn, true."

The incident took priority, after all. Thankfully, the Academy wasn't in a hurry either, so they didn't mind. I had the feeling they still wouldn't mind even if it took a month longer...

Though, it wasn't like all of it was put on hold.

"Reminds me, I saw Fenna and her squad at the Captain's."

"Oh?"

"Those two girls were with them as well. Apparently they'll stay here for a few days."

"I see."

The two girls seemed rather anxious, most likely because of the unfamiliar environment. Not all too surprising. This was a mercenary band, after all. And most of them didn't have the best of reputations.

They might also be worried about the situation in general... Not that there had been any news so far... Haa...

So many things were going on... Couldn't they come one after another and not, like, all at once? Was that too hard?

Probably... Such was life. One problem rarely came alone.

"Oh, Yumi, look."

"Nn? Ohhh."

We had arrived at our destination. The wagon, our future workshop.

"Huh? Fucking hell, are you daft?! I told you to bring me that metal window! Metal! Do you understand? Metal! It's that hard as fuck shit with screws in it! What am I supposed to do with this? Huh?!"

And there he was, a tiny, muscle-packed man, the literal incarnation of how I imagined a dwarf. Except, he wasn't a dwarf.

"But, I thought this works too?"

"No! It fucking doesn't! Stop thinking and start listening, you peanut brain! No, forget it! Just leave, I'll do it myself! And don't fucking come back!"

"But..."

"No buts! You can go! Shoo, shoo!"

The boy he was shouting at turned around dejectedly and left. He barely seemed to be around fourteen or so.

"Mr Wormaz."

"Mh? Oh, you two. Sorry, but I'm not done yet. Still a few parts missing. Haaa..."

He shook his head, letting out a deep sigh.

"Nn, who was that boy?"

"That brat? Don't fucking remind me. He's one of those problem kids from fucking Korwen's group. Came crawling asking for apprenticeship. I really want some help around so I figured, hey, let's give him a chance. Worst decision I made, I tell you! Doesn't move unless you tell him to, has a brain the size of a peanut at most and worst of all, he doesn't even come to me on his own, I have to fucking call him for work! I'm not his fucking caretaker nor his babysitter! Gah!"

Wormaz threw the hammer in his hand at the ground while shouting. His sudden scream made me flinch back in surprise.

"Is, is that so..."

"Ah. Sorry, you girls, got a little too angry there. Not at you, of course."

"It's fine, it's fine."

He picked up the hammer that was buried in the ground and cleaned it up.

"Either way, that brat caused me more fucking work than he helped, so it got delayed. Still need to fix some up some stuff on the outside, but it's mostly finished. Ah, the inside is done already. And no worries, I didn't let anybody else in."

"Thank you."

The wagon had changed significantly from a few days. There were black metal plates covering it, rivets along the ends of each plate, securing them. The emblem of the Dragon Knights was drawn on one plate, large enough to be visible from quite a distance. The emblem of the Black Guards was similarly displayed, albeit a little smaller.

"Reinforced the outside with magic iron and some Silver Moon metal. It should be able to withstand most attacks from people and small monsters. It can't hold up long against magic, though, keep that in mind. Monsters with a lot of strength like the ogre can probably trash it as well given enough time. Anything larger and don't even try to hide in there."

That was already quite a lot, to be honest. After all, the ogre couldn't break through it immediately.

"Had to remodel some parts, especially the windows, the door and around the wheels. Made a cover protecting the wheels, the door and the windows are both completely made of metal now. Still got to fetch the windows and install them, but you won't be able to open them entirely anymore. Only partly."

"Nn? Why only partly?"

"Cause you don't want people to peek a glance inside, do you? For the door I had to get creative a little. There's a partition behind it so you can't look inside now. Had quite a hard time installing that. I'm no carpenter, after all."

Ohh. I hadn't even considered those things.

"There's a few other things but I don't want to bore you with the details. The inside I mostly got rid of everything unnecesary. How about you take a look inside?"

He walked to the door and entered the wagon, motioning us to follow him.

Curious, we peeked inside and sure enough, I couldn't see anything through the door. A black metal partition blocked my view and I had to walk inside first.

"Nn, it got really spacious."

That was my first impression upon seeing the inside. Shelves, benches and stuff were all gone. Only two desks, a few chairs, a small table and one bed remained. Though, the bed was actually an addition. There were a few crates in the back as well.

"What are those?"

"Mh? ah, the crates? Your captain had them brought over yesterday. Full of those tiny mana crystals, they are?"

"Nn?"

I walked to a crate and lifted lid.

"Woah..."

It really was full with them... Each crystal was barely as large as my fingernail.

"That's a lot."

"It is, you better fucking believe it! And those crates are heavy!"

They surely wouldn't move from this spot within the foreseeable future, then.

"Doesn't look like we'll run out of them anytime soon..."

"Nn... But this is a lot more than I ever imagined."

Just one of these crates was already enough... But there was half a dozen of them now.

"Now, the other side, though."

Wormaz pointed at the black wall. Yes, a black wall. To prevent them from taking over the entire inside of the wagon, Wormaz had installed a wall in the middle, effectively separating the wagon into two halves. The wagon was by no means small, so it wasn't a big issue, thankfully.

I walked up to the wall and opened the metal door.

"Ahh..."

The other side was... Well... Rather lively.

"I removed any furniture from that side. There's nothing else in there now."

It was indeed compeltely barren, outside of the tentacles that already covered the entire floor as well as a significant portion of the walls. They had grown a ton and there sure didn't seem to be an end in sight either.

"Thank you, Wormaz."

"You're welcome. It's my job after all. In exchange, if you find anything useful, I hope you'll share it with me! Hahaha!"

"Nn, we'll do that."

"Right, right. Karen, how about you become my apprentice as a thanks?"

"... I am sorry but that's not possible."

"Gah! Figured!"

Still hadn't given up on it, huh.

"Still, if you learn how to make Silver Moon metal, I hope you won't mind making some for me."

"... I will try to remember it."

"Better than nothing. Well, if there's anything else you girls need, just call me."

"Nn. Thank you, Wormaz."

He had been a huge help, really. He had done a lot of work, improving the wagon, turning it into a workshop.

"Ah, right, before I forget it. This here."

Wormaz pointed at a corner where a weird-looking metal contraption stood.

"I originally wanted to fix it on the ceiling so it wouldn't be in the fucking way but I didn't get to it yet. I'll do that when we get that other fucking tool, until then, you shouldn't touch that."

"Is that the mana scrambler?"

"Exactly. It's running fine for now, but it was a pain to set up properly. Don't make me do it again."

"We'll try to be careful."

So that was the mana scrambler, huh. Better not touch it.

"Good. I still got some work to do, though, so I'll get back to it. I won't mind it if you two stay inside but it might get a little loud."

"Okay."

"Nn."

And like that, Wormaz left the wagon again, leaving Karen and me alone inside.

"Nn..."

A little curious, I approached the bed that was added to the room. Though it was really just a mattress in a wooden box on the floor.

"Yumi?"

"... It's hard."

The mattress was, of course... It was a lot better than sleeping on the floor with a blanket but... I kind of wanted a bed from my old world...

"You think so? Seems pretty normal to me, though? Just having a mattress in the first place is already quite a luxury."

"Nn... Is that so?"

Were mattresses that rare?

"They take up quite a lot of space, they're not something you can casually carry around."

"Ah, you meant it like that."

Not the price was the issue but space was.

True, usually you don't have the space for these things...

Reminded me a little of the things I had heard about ships. There was so little space that only very few people had the luxury of a bed or even any privacy in general. It was by far not as bad as it was on a ship, but we didn't have an infinite amount of space either.

"But, how come he added the bed in here then?"

Not to mention, it was only one bed. It was... only one...

"Oh, Wormaz asked me about it. The Black Guards still had one or two leftover mattresses and since there was space left, he asked if we were interested."

"... Good job, Sis."

Unfortunately, I had the vague feeling we wouldn't be able to make too much use of the bed. Emily, Maya and Sele wanted to sleep together with everyone, after all.

But occasionally... Occasionally... Yeah, I was looking forward to this. This was actually a huge leap forward in terms of privacy.

Finally, we can have some alone time!

Nobody would notice if we hijacked a little bit of our work time for some other stuff, right?

"Yumi."

"Nn? Sis?"

"Did you hear what I said?"

"... No. Sorry, I wasn't listening."

"... I suggested that we should go and bring our stuff here."

Our stuff? Well, there certainly was enough space for those.

"We can do that I guess?"

"... I don't want the girls to find a certain collar or a certain stack of images."

"... Let's fetch them immediately."

It'd definitely become troublesome if they found those. Lily and Rina knew about the collar but not about those images...

Speaking of which, I completely forgot to ask the dolls about those pictures.

Should do that sooner rather than later, lest they create even more questionable art I couldn't show to anyone.

With that in mind, we left the wagon again. Wormaz was already back, having fetched the things he needed by himself.

"You leaving already again?"

"Nn, we're just going to bring our stuff here."

"Ah, I see. Good luck with that."

He gave a quick wave and then returned to his work.

Without further ado, we made our way towards the tent we were currently occupying.

"Mr Wormaz is impressive, isn't he?"

"Nn? Yes, he is."

Most of the remodelling and reinforcing was done completely by himself. That was a lot of work. Obviously why it took him several days. He even had to do some stuff he wasn't familiar with, although that didn't seem to bother him much.

In addition, he was also rather calm when he saw those tentacles. He wasn't told anything, but he also didn't ask anything. Only commenting that 'he had seen weirder stuff from his mother.'

Just what the heck was up with that mother of his...

"I hope he can find an apprentice soon."

"I'm not going to do it, Yumi."

"That would be a problem for me anyway so that's fine. I don't want our time together to decrease."

"Ehehe, is that so?"

"Nn."

Karen took hold of my arm, pulling me closer to her side.

"I won't let you take that back."

"That's fine. I have no intentions to do so."

Our time together had actually increased a lot in the past days. Karen had become really overprotective and kept being around me at all times. I felt a little bad about taking advantage of it since it was out of worry but I very much welcomed her staying around.

Although, it is a little embarassing... After all...

I threw a glance behind me.

Accompanied by the clanking of metal pieces, the fully armoured guard followed us, watching us silently. The time with Karen increased, but our time alone decreased a lot.

"Haaa..."

It wasn't even possible for me to see the reaction of the man beneath all that armour. And he kept completely silent as well. It was a little creepy.

Still better than the guy on the first day, though. The guards were supposed to be with me at all times. Of course, not literally all times. When nature called, when I was sleeping or when we were in that wagon slash workshop, they wouldn't follow me but keep close.

But the first guy took the job a little too literally... Well, he got what he deserved. It certainly wasn't his brightest idea to follow me to the bathroom in Karen's presence...

What happened to him... Well... He surely wouldn't come close to Karen or me in the foreseeable future. It was one of the comparatively younger mercenaries that I had barely interacted with outside of Merim and Fenna.

"Yumi? Is something the matter?"

"Nn? Ah, I just wondered... How do they decide the guard?"

"Mm... Did you not ask them?"

"Well..."

Once more, I glanced at the man behind us. I hadn't asked them, no. It was a little hard to strike up a conversation... They just followed you quietly, always looking... It honestly made me feel uncomfortable, though I knew why it was necessary.

"Should I ask?"

"Nn... Could you?"

"Leave it to me!"

Maybe she noticed my dilemma, having offered to ask in my stead. Karen turned around, facing the mercenary.

"Hey, how do you guys decide who keeps watch over Yumi?"

"... We draw lots. Or play dice."

"... Lots?"

The two of us exchanged a confused glance.

"Why lots? Or dice."

"... To keep it fair."

"Uhh... Fair? Like, the winner is free, or what?"

"No. The other way round. The winner is allowed to take the guard job."

"..."

The winner? Was it something they wanted to do? Wasn't... Wasn't guard work rather boring?

"Ehhh... Why the winner and not the loser?"

"..."

"Hey?"

"..."

Not saying another word, he fell silent.

Curious, we stopped in our tracks and turned around to the guard. We had arrived at the tent now anyway.

"Why the winner and not the loser?" Karen repeated the question to the unmoving guard.

"Because..."

""Because?""

"..."

Once again, he fell silent.

The heck was up with this? Was it something he couldn't say?

"Because Miss Yumi is a good chil— person."

"..."

"And everyone wants to help her."

Ah, I see... They saw me as a child they needed to protect? Was it that?

"Just for the record, I'm an adult."

"But you are still young, right?"

"That's..."

"You both are young enough that you could be their daughters."

"I see..."

I had a little bit of a mixed feeling about this, to be honest.

"Please don't hold it against them. They just mean well."

"Nn... Still... I feel a little bad about making them worry..."

It might be a bit rude but I had only talked with few of the mercenaries. In the first place, the band was several hundred men large. It was impossible to know everyone. With that said, they were, rudely said, mostly strangers.

"It's not worry, Miss Yumi. They are angry."

"... Angry?"

"Yes. Someone tried to harm a mercenary, a member of our band, our comrade, our family. And it had been our own blunder that allowed it to happen. How couldn't we be anything but angry?"

"... Ah."

The mercenary band was one large family. I had been told that a few times.

It's not just lip service. They really mean it.

They really believed it. And as such, they were angry that someone tried to harm me. It didn't even matter to them that I hadn't spoken to them before.

"I see... Then, I guess I should say thank you."

"... You're welcome, Miss Yumi."

"Nn."

Just a little, the uncomfortable feeling vanished. The person following me was not doing it because it was simply their job. They did it because they wanted to.

That... rather than making me feel bad... I felt happy. It was odd. If it had been out of worry, I would feel bad. But they were angry, and I was actually thankful for it. It made me happy.

They got angry on my behalf...

Once again, I was reminded, just how much these people cared for each other.

Rinne

Seems it caused quite a bit of an uproar. But at least Yumi saved her dignity as an adult. If nothing else.

Not like there was much else to lose at this point. Yeah...

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