Chapter 117.1: Interviewing

Chapter 117.1: Interviewing

PART 1/2

Erani, Ainash, and I all stood around Ripley, who was sitting disarmed on the ground.

She’d said she was friendly to our cause in some form, but we still took the basic precautions, taking her combat gear, searching her for any Enchanted items, searching the surrounding area to ensure it wasn’t a trap, and so on. Ripley stayed silent throughout the whole endeavor, simply allowing us to do what we needed without complaint.

While we did this, Astintash came up to speak to us.

“I am gracious for your help,” it had said, “and I am glad we reached an agreement. Now that the enemy is dispatched, I will take my leave.”

And with that, it just flew off. Really, part of me was expecting something more. But I supposed that, to a Dragon, killing massive swaths of life and taking part in gigantic battles was just like any other day. The only strange part of this whole situation to Astintash, I suspected, was the fact that it ended up forming a temporary alliance with a couple of Humans.

And it didn’t seem to want to keep that alliance, considering how soon it left. We held up our end of the bargain, and it held up its. Nothing more to it.

After that, we took Ripley away from the battlefield. Even though we didn’t find any soldiers tailing us or hiding in the shadows, we couldn’t be certain there wasn’t anyone around, so going to some other remote place would probably be a good idea.

Plus, even if there really wasn’t anyone around, who was to say they weren’t getting reinforcements as we spoke to come back and attack us? Sure, Astintash would probably be keeping an eye on the area to ensure nobody came back—and the Demons most likely knew that—but we couldn’t say for certain.

But really, I just wanted to get away from all the corpses. I’d become familiar with death ever since I’d gotten the Minute Mage Class—much more intimately so than I’d have liked—but that didn’t mean I liked it. Astintash wasn’t exactly clean with its crushing of heads and burning of the masses, and even if I was somewhat used to the sight, I didn’t feel like I could ever get used to the smell.

So we continued further into the mountain valley with Ripley in tow as our prisoner.

It took about an hour before we felt comfortable enough to sit down again—partially because it took about an hour for everyone to get their Mana back and for me to get back enough Stamina for another activation of Regenerate—but once we decided to rest, it took all my strength not to just collapse into the ground.

The past day had been much, much longer than it had any right to be. Both mentally and in a literal sense. I’d used Time Loop twice, each time going back four hours. That meant the day had lasted around thirty-two. And I’d spent at least half of that time actively dealing with life-or-death scenarios. I wanted nothing more than to just fall asleep—preferably for at least a week.

But we still had a prisoner with us, so I couldn’t do that just yet. Hopefully Ripley wouldn’t cause us any problems. She’d been too low on Stamina for the past while to try and fight back, but taking some time for us to regenerate ourselves also meant she got to as well, and it was possible that she might do something like activating Berserk to try and fight us in a last-ditch effort to escape. So we needed to stay on guard.

Ainash just wanted to kill her—not that I was particularly surprised by that—but she agreed not to. Definitely a step up from her prisoner-killing exploits of the past, though I wasn’t sure if praising her for just wanting to kill someone was really all that much better than going ahead and doing it. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a bit proud of her progress.

“‘Course I did. Couldn’t really do much about it, though. I wasn’t planning on doing anything, either. But when I was under Berserk, I wasn’t really thinking straight. Made the decision there and then to just fuck ‘em and get away.”

“So you don’t plan on going back, then?”

“Hells no. If they want to kill you, that’s their business. And if you want to survive, that’s yours. But I won’t be dying for either of those causes. They don’t have anything to do with me.”

“Don’t you want to help us take down the Demons, then? If we worked together—”

“I’m just going to stop you there. This is your fight. I don’t want to hurt you, and I sure as hells want to see those Demons sent back to where they came from, but... I don’t think you understand what you’re up against.”

“Why don’t you try enlightening us, then?”

She just shook her head. “It’s hopeless to try and take them down. They made sure to beat that into me. And one day, it’ll be beaten into you, too. I’m not going back to the kingdom, and that includes fighting against them, as well as with them.”

“So then you’ll be traveling to the Barinruth Empire with us, then?”

She laughed. “As far as I know, I’m still your prisoner. I assume that we’re operating under ‘what you say goes,’ right? In that case, I don’t think I have a choice.”

I pursed my lips. “Guess so. But I was hoping to establish a bit more of a friendly relationship, if you’re not going to be working against us.”

“If it was up to me, I’d get the hells away from you as fast as I could. You’re a magnet for danger. The Demons may kill me on sight now that I’ve deserted, but they’ll be actively looking for you. And I don’t wanna be near when they see you.”

I grunted. “That’s fine, I guess.”

“Anyway,” Ripley said, her face suddenly growing much more serious, “down to what I wanted to tell you in the first place. Something’s wrong with Koinkar. The kingdom is corrupt, sure, but the king, too. He’s different.”

“The king is different?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, but he’s not acting right. Something more serious is going on than just some extortion. I think they’ve infiltrated us to our core.”