The machine was thrilled with the maintenance done on his joints. He got very lucky. The two soon-to-be lovebirds didn't seem too interested in fixing him up at first, but once they had their little moment, they suddenly felt it necessary to clean every inch of the machine. Obviously, it was just so they could spend more time with each other. They reminded him of an old couple working on a jigsaw puzzle together.
Anyways, he could now move his limbs without causing any sound. Currently, he was testing the flexibility of his claws while hidden under the cover of the swaying cart. So far, they were both clean and silent.
The machine could also feel the Gerenium slowly doing its work. There was an itch around the wound in his chest. He couldn't see his own wound in detail, but it felt like it was gradually sealing itself up. However, it was a very large wound, so it would probably take a considerable amount of time before he saw any serious improvement.
'I probably need to find more of those cubes to heal completely. I wonder where I can find more.'
As the machine thought to himself, he noticed the fat cleric man walking behind the cart. Due to the way he had been loaded into the cart, he still couldn't see anything except for what was behind them. Normally, he could only see the faces of the duelist and the marksman, but today the cleric was there as well.
It was truly a strange sight. The cleric was a very big man. He was certainly fat, but it should be noted that he was also incredibly tall. A large frame and a lot of weight... he undoubtedly had a lot of muscle hidden under his blubber.
The duelist and marksman were both a bit taller than the average man, but their eyes only came up to the height of the cleric's collarbone. The cleric wore a lavish white robe made of heavy cloth and golden trim. The machine wondered how the holy man kept his fancy clothes so clean during the journey.
Currently, the pious behemoth was trying to chat with the duelist and the marksman- the two most silent members of the party. Needlessly said, is was a very one-sided conversation. He continued to blab on and on with no response from either member of the rearguard. He would only occasionally stop to heave a boisterous laugh which would cause his round belly to bob up and down, which would throw around the gold tassels on the front of his robes.
Both of the quiet men had moderately annoyed looks on their faces, but the big man continued talking anyways.
The machine couldn't tell what he was saying, but was diligently focusing on the man. He had acquired a lot of vocal information from each member of the party and was now working to acquire a new form of communicatory information.
Now the machine watched the cleric intently. There were many languages back on Earth. Some were incredibly simple while others were tremendously complex. Did the language here use tenses? Were there inflections which could change the meaning of a word? Was the linguistic structure even similar to anything the machine knew? There were so many possibilities.
'Hmm?'
The machine was brought out of his thoughts when he saw a slip of paper fall from the robes of the cleric and land gently on the ground behind them. However, the cleric was walking slightly behind the two rearguards while talking their ears off, so none of them noticed it. The machine saw it and wanted to grab the paper out of curiosity, but it had already fallen beyond his reach.
'Damn, I just missed my chance to see how they write!'
The machine's thoughts were cut short by the sound of feet pounding against the ground. Someone was sprinting, but it didn't sound right. The steps were a little too fast, even for a sprint. It also sounded like the one running wasn't wearing any shoes... no, there were more than one.
The fat cleric's eyes widened in horror. The duelist drew both his weapons, sword in his right hand, dagger in his left. The marksman swung his rifle from its sling, bringing it up to his shoulder with one smooth motion.
The guardsman immediately started barking out battle orders while the mage gave instructions to the non-combatants. They quickly pulled the cart to the side of the passage, so as not to hinder their retreat should they need it. Once it was there, the three carriers hid beneath it and the mage cast a quick protection spell of some sort on them before running back to the battleground. The combat had already begun.
No one noticed when the machine's head turned towards the site of the battle. What he saw was frightening to say the least.
Sparks burst from the collision of steel against the guardsman's great shield. The creature facing him was covered in dark green scales and had a maw full of jagged teeth. The beast stood on its hind legs with an upright posture and held a bastard sword in one hand, but didn't seem to have any sense of swordsmanship. Instead, it slashed towards the guardsman's side with nothing but bestial power. Incredibly enough, the guardsman was able to manipulate the massive wall of steel just in time for the blade to crash against it, causing another rain of sparks to shower the ground between the two combatants.
The guardsman focused on blocking the beast while the marksman shot from a distance to try to deal some damage. His gun didn't work like the firearms from the machine's original world. Instead of bullets, a blue crystal was loaded into a chamber. It would then float there as if it were suspended by magnetism, spinning about its forward axis. When he pulled the trigger, the crystal would flash lightly, seeming to either summon an ice shard or instantly create it. It was hard to tell which, because the moment an ice shard came into existence, it would be launched forward as a projectile. Each time an ice shard hit the lizardman, a small patch of ice would form around the point of impact. However, the lizardman's scales were remarkably tough. Each ice shard either bounced off entirely or only slightly pierced the creature.
Knives of all sorts were spinning in the air as the blade caster held off a second lizardman. His footwork was incredible. The hooded figure danced and weaved to dodge each of the reptile's brutish attacks, but didn't seem to be causing much damage with his counterattacks. For now, he was simply keeping the creature distracted and away from the others.
To make things worse, there was a third lizardman with strange red scales facing off against the duelist. He was meant to stay near the back to protect the marksman, but no one else would be able to hold the beast back, so he had to step up. However, of the three who were face-to-face with the creatures, he was doing the best. He used an incredible amount of skill to pull the creature's mindless attacks in certain directions, making use of both his sword and parrying dagger to misdirect the enemy and counterattack with heavy strikes. While the others were doing their best just to stay alive, the duelist was drawing new blood with each passing second.
Through all of this, the cleric was reciting scripture from the book he always kept at his side. He spoke in words the machine had never heard before, and as he did so, his allies' wounds sealed themselves.
The mage was performing spells to assist in combat. With each wave of her staff, strange discs of purple light would spontaneously appear between her allies and the lizardmen to block attacks which couldn't be avoided.
All six fighters were engaged in combat and giving it their all. The fight was close, but it looked like they would win if they could last just a few more minutes since the duelist was gaining ground against the red lizardman. Once that one was down, he could move to help with the other lizardmen and take them out one by one.
Suddey, the red scaled lizardman unexpectedly disengaged from the fight and put some distance between itself and the duelist. This was unheard of, as lizardmen were brash and unthinking by nature. The duelist relaxed a bit, thinking the wounded reptile would retreat.
However, once it had made some distance, it didn't retreat, but instead let out a thunderous bellow like a crocodile. Instantly, the two green scaled reptiles left their own fights and rushed to help the red one against the duelist.
The other humans were surprised, never having seen this before and weren't prepared to react fast enough. The duelist defended well against the first few attacks from all three of the beasts, but was quickly overpowered. One of the green lizardmen finally landed a hit on him, slamming its tail into the duelist's abdomen.
The sickening crack of snapping ribs resounded in the air, causing time to seemingly slow down for each of the humans watching. The duelist was thrown viciously from the impact as if he had been hit by a truck. A few meters away, his body hit the ground and clumsily rolled a few times before sliding to a stop on the stone floor.