Chaos

What a blunder. Just because I saw a familiar face I ended up being way more trustful than necessary.

I already knew that Three should be aware of our destination, as well as the fact he could move by flying—meaning, he’d get here much earlier than us. That would give him quite enough time to prepare for our arrival.

It was likely no more than a cruel twist of fate that we ended up meeting Diane’s group first, of all people.

The girl herself seemed to grow pale at my accusation. Mana also looked to me with shock. “T-that’s not,” mumbled Diane. “We obviously didn’t—”

The other huntresses all readied their weapons. Things were looking bad.

“He… he told me Kai was fine,” said Diane, tears sparkling in her eyes. “He told me… that we just had to…”

There was no need to ask who the “he” she was referring to was. She was definitely talking about Three.

“Diane, move back!” shouted someone. “Everyone, prepare for attack!”

“Eh?” Mana said. “W-wait, let’s talk this out!”

The next sequence of events was almost too hard to follow even for me. My instincts that I had been born with and that were honed further by my experiences in this world exhibited their full powers as I moved.

About five arrows were let loose at the same time. Mana and Diane both shrieked as I moved.

I grabbed Mana, spun her around behind me and used the momentum to swipe with Tarisha, cleaving an arrow in half. Another one grazed my arm, but all others completely missed.

And now my blade was directed at the throat of the other girl in front of me. Diane’s knees shook in horror.

“Don’t make any move,” I advised. “I don’t want to hurt her.”

“You coward!” came a shout from nearby.

Hah? The same goes for you.

That being said, using such a strategy did make me recall Two and mentally cringe. Perhaps she and I weren’t so different, after all.

“Saga…” mumbled Mana from behind me.

No, we were different.

I swung my sword hard. Diane shrieked and fell down with a thud.

—The moment before impact, I turned my sword around and struck the girl with the grip. It probably still hurt, but she should be fine. Taking advantage of the surprise of all parties involved, I then flung Tarisha at them, throwing her like a javelin, grabbed Mana’s hand and began to run.

That gave us a running start.

“Sorry,” I said. “I should’ve noticed earlier.”

Mana was still clearly having trouble catching up with the situation. “You… but… Oh, we walked right into that one, didn’t we?”

I could hear arrows thwacking from behind. The huntresses were in pursuit.

Had Three promised them something in return for catching us, or just threatened them? It didn’t really matter. They were now our enemies.

“Should I… should I open a door?” asked Mana.

I hesitated. Mana’s teleport skill was useful, but we still didn’t know if it was stable enough, and besides, we wanted to save it—both for our battle strategy as well as our getaway, assuming we made it to the Crossroads.

“Let’s see if we can get away for now,” I huffed as we continued running.

Oddly enough, no arrows followed us; had we actually managed to lose even that pack of huntresses, who were much more experienced in this area than us?

Somehow I had the feeling that was wrong.

A feeling which grew stronger and stronger as I heard screams flying in the air—and then howls as well.

Many, many howls and growls coming from all around us. I then noticed the shapes of not only wolves, but even squirrels running atop branches and large lizards I had never seen before.

“Ah.” Mana breathed. “This is… really, really bad, isn’t it?”

There was no need to reply to that very correct statement. Instead, I focused on trying to find the path with the least animals. At the very least it didn’t seem like they were aiming at us, but rather ran around haphazardly… but then, several of the pack broke off and headed toward us.

“S-Saga!” Mana shrieked.

I threw Tarisha at a nearby wolf, piercing its head, resummoned her to swipe at an approaching lizard to cut through its thick neck, then thrust and stabbed another wolf that tried sneaking up on Mana.

Mana looked horrified at this display.

Hah. She really was inexperienced, even after all this time. Or was she shocked at seeing me so effortless slaughter all of them?

But this was who I was.

A natural-born killer. The perfect warrior. A girl created only to kill. Someone who—

“Hurry up, let’s get away while we can!”

Mana was suddenly at my side. She grabbed my arm. Perhaps I was frozen in a combat-ready stance for too long, waiting for the next opponent? I was growing careless.

Looking around, there were only corpses around us right now. There were still howls and other such noises from nearby, but I couldn’t see any of the beasts near us.

Mana pulled at my hand and I was set running.

“Saga? I get the feeling you’re thinking about something stupid, but this is our chance!” the girl said. “Besides… I think we’re close!”

I was confused about what was going around us, but encouraged by Mana’s words.

“Can you sense it?”

“It’s very, very faint… but I’m sensitive to the fluctuations created by the borders between spaces. It means we’re probably close to the Crossroads!”

I didn’t know what Three’s plan was, but it was possible that him dispatching both these animals and the amazons at the same time was going to bite him in the ass.

Soon, however, I realized I was still being naïve. A certain smell wafted in the air, and I could see eerie lights from up ahead.

Orange lights that flickered and devoured everything in their path.