As proof of that, the blade of the sword gleamed sharply. Rio swung his
sword at the approaching knives —
The shrill sound of metal colliding with metal echoed throughout the
forest. Rio had foreseen the trajectory of the girl's knives and knocked them
straight out of the air. He returned his sword back to its sheath as the girl
swiftly descended from the tree. At the same time, Rio jumped up into the
tree where the girl had just been.
The force of his jump snapped the branch beneath him, making him
move to another nearby branch instead. Then he dropped down to the ground
once more... But the girl closed in on him, as she had anticipated the timing
of his landing. She thrust the knife in her right hand towards Rio's torso, but
Rio calmly moved his left hand, parrying her knife attack. He then moved his
right hand too; using the palm of his hand, he countered the girl's attack with
a blow to her chin. But the girl moved her head to the side, evading his palm.
She spun the knife around in her hand, attempting another strike on Rio's
body.
There was probably poison on the knife too.
Rio used his flawless defensive movements and refined footwork to
skillfully continue to dodge her attacks, but the girl refused to give up. She
persistently tried to land one more attack.
Her fierce attacks continued on for a while, but Rio observed her
movements meticulously, and avoided each of her attacks with simple
precision. Only the pitiful sound of the blade cutting through empty space
echoed through the air.
Eventually, the girl became aware of the difference in their ability. Her
emotionless face began to show signs of impatience as her movements
gradually became rougher. Rio had seen through the girl's habits, and at this
point, was deliberately creating chances for her to attack. The girl completely
fell for his trap, swinging the knife horizontally at his face.
You're focusing on the knife too much.
Rio flung himself backwards to avoid the knife. Simultaneously, he
timed a kick to the girl's feet just as she swung her knife, and knocked her off
balance. He then grabbed the girl's arms and disarmed her of the knife,
throwing it away with vigor. He flung the girl back-first at a tree, but she
flipped midair to regain her balance and landed by the tree on both feet,
negating her momentum. She kicked against the trunk like a springboard, and
launched herself back into the air, drawing a backup knife from her pocket. She thrust it forward, aiming for Rio's heart.
It's like watching an animal move... Rio found himself in awe of the
girl's combat senses, but he dealt with it calmly.
Grabbing her arm as she leapt towards him, he threw her over his
shoulder and onto the ground with force.
"Guh...!" She received the brunt of the impact against her back this time,
making her groan in pain. The strength in her limbs gave out, making her let
go of the knife. Rio kicked the knife away and straddled the girl's body,
holding her down.
"It's over. You can understand my speech, right?" he said, pressing his
weight down on her. He didn't miss the brief flicker of fear in the girl's
emotionless eyes.
"Uuh... Uwah! N-No! No! Nooo! I dun... I dun wanna die...!" She
struggled, shaking her head about in violent discomposure.
"H-Hey, calm down!" Rio said, trying to soothe the desperate girl.
"E-Eek! S-Save me! Mom! Mama...!"
It was hard to believe this was the same girl who had just fought so
calmly before. She was in no state to hold a conversation — once he
determined that, Rio placed his hand on the girl's head and imitated sleep
magic to put her to sleep by force. The girl's body fell completely limp.
Rio removed a rope from his sack of belongings; In order to make sure
she didn't thrash about when she awakened, he'd remove her robe and
inspect her body before securely tying her up. But halfway through the
process, he noticed a metal collar around her neck, and frowned.
"...The Collar of Submission, huh?" Rio muttered with furrowed brows.
The Collar of Submission was a type of magical artifact used on slaves
and criminals — an artifact that controlled the free will of the wearer. When
the wearer received an order from a registered owner, they would feel greatly
inclined to follow that order. On top of that, if they resisted the order too
strongly, the registered owner could chant a certain spell to cast extreme pain
on the wearer.
Slaves were seen as property that could be owned. They had no human
rights, and could be treated like objects without resistance, no matter what
they really thought inside their hearts. That was what slaves were, and the
Collar of Submission existed to supplement that.
This werefox girl, who had just tried to kill Rio, was wearing such a
collar, unmistakably making her the slave of someone else. She had probably been raised as an assassin and ordered to kill Rio by her registered owner. As
long as she had the Collar of Submission on, she would continue her attempts
to kill Rio. If she didn't, she would have to suffer erratic shocks of pain
throughout her body.
It was almost like a curse... To both the girl, and to Rio.
There weren't many options to escape that curse, either: the fastest option
would be to kill her, but Rio had never killed anyone before. Amakawa
Haruto inside him still strongly rejected the idea of crossing that line. But at
the same time, he knew that choosing to solve this another way would only
bring him more hardship.
Unable to hide his annoyance, Rio let out a heavy sigh.
After several moments of hesitation, he placed his hand against the girl's
neck. Then, a faint light emitted from his hands — Clack! The collar that had
restrained the girl fell off. Rio had dispelled the sorcery cast on the artifact by
imitating the high-class magic, Dispello.
"Hey. Wake up."
Rio retrieved the Collar of Submission and shook the girl awake.
"Ngh... uhh..."
After a few shakes, the girl's body gave a twitch. Not long after, she
blinked her eyes open. Then, seeing Rio's figure in her field of vision, she
tried to get up in a panic, but soon realized she was restrained.
After a bit of struggling, she came to accept the fact that her movements
had been completely constrained, and she cowered in resignation. She looked
up at Rio with wary eyes.
"It seems like you understand the situation now. If you don't want to die,
don't thrash around like you did before. Okay?" Rio decided to intimidate her
a little with a threat, but fear filled the girl's eyes.
"...If I don't... thrash... you won't... kill?"
"That depends on whether you answer my questions or not. You were
ordered to come kill me, right? Is your master one of the royals of Beltrum,
or one of the nobles?"
The girl fell silent at Rio's question. She had probably been under strict
orders to never act in a harmful way toward her master. Breaking that order
would have resulted in extreme pain gnawing away at her body, making her
instinctively want to avoid speaking, even though Rio had already removed
her collar.
"Hey. Do you know what this is?" Rio held the Collar of Submission up for her to see the same collar she had been wearing moments ago.
"A c-collar...?!"
The girl gave a confused reply, immediately followed by a gasp. Her
eyes widened. She desperately wriggled her body under her restraints to
check for the sensation of the collar. Eventually, she realized that the
sensation of something that should've been there was missing.
"It's... gone... The collar... is gone? But... why?" The girl blinked her
eyes in utter astonishment.
After a moment, she snapped back to herself with a gasp, then struggled
to check the presence of the collar once more...
"Eh... w-weh... hic... hic... Waaaaah!"
...Then burst into violent tears.
"Hey..." Rio found himself at a loss before the girl's flood of tears. All he
knew was that the Collar of Submission must have weighed heavily on her.
With a sigh, Rio decided to let the girl cry all she wanted for now. He
took that time to go and collect all the weapons they had used in their battle.
"...Are you done yet?" Rio asked as her cries finally started to settle
down. The girl flinched, and worriedly looked up at him.
"The collar is gone now, so you can answer my questions, right? Who
ordered you to come kill me?"
"Ah, uh..."
The girl didn't respond right away to Rio's question. She glanced around
at her surroundings, and sniffed the air.
"I don't know what you're so wary for, but it's only you and me out here.
You can rest easy," Rio said, making the girl's body shake once again.
Eventually, she opened her mouth.
"I-I... d-don't know the name... of my master... He never... told it... to
me..."
It was more or less the response Rio had been expecting. Having a slave
for the risky role of an assassin meant the master probably didn't allow any
more information to be passed on than necessary.
"...Do you know the house name?" He didn't have very high
expectations, but he asked anyway.
"H-House name? I don't... know." The girl tilted her head in confusion as
Rio gave a disappointed sigh.
"B-But! I know... I know Brother's name! Stewart... I-It's Stewart!" The
girl strung together her sentences in a rush. Rio narrowed his eyes at her response.
It was a very familiar name to him. The same name as the boy who tried
to push the blame for shoving Flora off the cliff onto Rio. If his family had
found out about Rio, it would make sense for them to send their pet assassin
after him.
"Stewart... Is he a werefox like you?"
"...Brother... isn't... a werebeast. He's human. T-The one who trained
me." The girl shook her head furiously from side to side.
"Trained? If he's a human, then that means you're not related... right?"
Rio frowned slightly at the mention of a brother. It was hard to believe
she could have one. While he knew it was possible that she could have been
the child of another slave, he didn't want to jump to any hasty conclusions, so
he asked just to make sure.
"I don't... know..." The girl bobbed her head without confidence.
"...Let me change my question. Where did you follow me from?"
"The... same place... as you."
"So the capital of Beltrant, huh."
"Probably... Th-There were lots... of pretty houses."
"I see. Then, is there anyone other than you who's trying to kill me?"
"...I-I don't know. But... probably not... I think." the girl replied feebly.
"Okay. Here's my last question, then."
Instantly, Rio's aura darkened dangerously.
He gazed deeply into the
girl's eyes. She couldn't look away, and swallowed nervously as she waited
for Rio's question.
"...Do you still intend to kill me?"
"I-I won't kill." The girl trembled, shaking her head stiffly.
The eyes were a window to the soul; no matter what kind of expression
was pasted on the face, some form of emotion would always reach the eyes.
Rio could no longer observe the calm killing intent she had carried in her
eyes before. While she was fairly terrified at the moment, she didn't seem to
have any other hidden agenda.
"...All right, you're free. I've left all your weapons with your robe over
there," Rio declared with a sigh as he began to untie the girl's restraints.
"Huh...?" The girl made an expression of confusion.
"I'm saying: you can get away from here. Without a collar to control you,
you no longer need to return to your master. Though... I guess that makes you
a runaway slave now," Rio said with a rather sullen look. He understood that even if he released this girl here, she didn't have many options available to
her.
There were no human settlements in the Strahl region where a demi-
human could live alongside humans in peace. This meant that it would be
impossible for a werefox like her to live with humans. However, even if she
were to live away from humans, she had been born a slave — it was hard to
believe she was taught any form of self-sufficiency. She had been controlled
by the Collar of Submission, but it hadn't been the only thing restricting her.
If she wanted to continue living in the Strahl region, she'd have to become
slave property to someone.
That was her reality.
The girl had yet to understand that herself. She stared back at Rio with a
blank look on her face, tilting her head a bit with worry.
"...If you leave this country and head east, there'll be a vast area called
the Wilderness. There should be land there where demi-humans like you
live," Rio said; he had opened his mouth before he realized he did.
"The... Wilderness? East...?"
"East is the direction I'm heading in... Beltrum is to the west. You'd be
better off finding your own kind in the Wilderness than staying in these
lands."
"Own kind... East... Wilderness..." The girl muttered to herself. A
glimmer of hope appeared in her eyes.
She had no idea what to do with her newfound freedom, but with Rio's
guidance, she now had a vague hope for her future. Rio watched her silently
for a moment, before speaking: "I'll be off, then. Just a warning, but the next
time you attack... I won't hold back."
He started to walk off, reassured that he had indeed granted the girl her
freedom from the Collar of Submission. However, that was simply because
the girl — no, the reason was because he didn't want to kill anyone. That was
why he had no obligation to oversee what the girl did from here. He repeated
this reasoning to himself in his heart.
The girl instantly adopted the expression of an abandoned puppy.
"Ah-"
She reached a hand towards Rio's departing figure and let out a small
sound, before quickly drawing her hand back in. She paced around that spot
for a while. Once Rio had completely disappeared from sight, she hesitantly
started to follow his footsteps.
Plod plod, plod plod. She followed along at a distance, making sure not
to lose sight of Rio walking ahead.
Now that she was free from slavery, she had nowhere to return to. She
would never go back to that place where she had been a slave ever again.
With that, she only had one place she could possibly go: the Wilderness that
Rio told her about. But without a map, nor a sense of the land, she was scared
of moving forward aimlessly. And if she wanted to rely on someone else,
then there was naturally only one option. She chose to follow Rio, who
seemed to be heading in the same direction.
That was how far backed into a corner she was. To rely on the person she
had tried to kill... Though it had been under someone else's order, she
couldn't help but feel guilty about it. There was also the possibility of him
rejecting her if she asked for his help outright. As a result, her selfish desires
made her choose to sneakily follow after him.
A few minutes of walking through the forest later, Rio suddenly came to
a stop.
"Come out," he said loudly over his shoulder.
The girl flinched. She was sure she had hidden her presence, so she
wondered how he had noticed her... But she was more than well aware that
she couldn't win against Rio, no matter how much she struggled. Without
thinking too much on it, she revealed herself to him.
"Do you still want something from me?" Rio asked the trembling girl.
"U-Umm... I want... to go... east... with you," The girl answered
falteringly. Rio placed his right hand against his head and heaved a sigh.
"Are you serious?"
"I-I want... to go." The girl bit down on her lip and nodded.
"...You may be misunderstanding something here. I didn't release you
from slavery because I wanted to save you. It was just more convenient for
me to choose not to kill you."
To put it bluntly: he didn't want to carry around the weight of a murder.
That was why he had removed the girl's Collar of Submission. He wasn't
completely apathetic to the girl's situation, but he definitely didn't act out of
pure intentions. That was his thinking behind all of this.
"B-But I-I don't know... what... to do," The girl muttered, ducking her
head with tears in her eyes. Rio scratched his head awkwardly.
"...I'm a human. The same species as the people that treated you as their
slave. Aren't you afraid?"
"You... don't... seem bad." The girl shook her head.
Rio had a vague feeling this would happen from the moment he removed
her collar. Considering the girl's circumstances, it made sense. That was why
he had purposefully made sure to walk away, just in case the girl decided to
pursue him. Sure enough, here they were. But did this girl really understand
what it meant to move together with the person she had tried to assassinate
just moments ago...?
"Have you considered how I might feel about you, after you just tried to
kill me?" Rio asked flatly. The girl's face fell aghast.
"Ah! I-I'm sorry! The collar... hurt so much, I..." She began to apologize
in a panic, tears dropping from her eyes.
"I'm not actually angry. I don't know what kind of pain you suffered
from the collar, but I know you only tried to kill me because you couldn't
disobey it. But that doesn't mean I have any proof you won't attack me again.
In other words, I can't trust you. Do you understand that?" Rio explained
with a troubled sigh.
It was true that a part of him didn't mind bringing the girl along with
him, but at the same time, he wasn't exactly at ease with the idea of traveling
alone with an unknown former assassin.
"T-Then, the collar! You can... You can put it on me! P-Please. Take
me... with you," she begged frantically through her tears.
"The collar... Didn't you hate wearing that thing?" Rio asked in near
exasperation at the girl's failure to understand the weight of her words.
"I don't... want to be... alone. I'm... scared. So... please," she sniffled and
sobbed with her head down, making Rio feel even more uncomfortable. An
extremely uneasy expression fell over his face as he clenched his hands into
fists. He sighed for the umpteenth time.
"All right. Do as you please," he declared, giving in. He weakly reasoned
to himself that it was better to move together than have her secretly follow
him.
"Huh...? Ah... O-Okay!" The girl hesitated for a moment before nodding
enthusiastically.
"We're going to go back to the city first. Come." Rio came up with that
plan of action after glancing over the girl's body.
"U-Umm, are you... going to put the collar on me?" The girl hesitantly
asked Rio's back as he began to walk off.
"I threw that away long ago. Let's go already; we can only travel for so many hours a day," Rio replied as he walked briskly.
"W-What... are we doing... there?"
"You don't have the proper equipment. We have to prepare your share of
supplies for the journey."
The girl was only wearing a single, thin layer of clothing under her robe,
which wasn't appropriate for the long journey they were about to take. He
also had to buy more food supplies to make up for her share.
"T-Thank... you."
"...Put your hood on inside the city. Otherwise things will get messy,"
Rio said, glancing at the girl stumbling to keep up with his pace.
"Okay!" she nodded happily.
"By the way, what's your name?" Rio suddenly came to a stop to ask the
girl for her name.
"It's... Latifa!"
"I see. You might know this already, but I'm... Rio. Nice to meet you,
Latifa." With a small sigh, Rio introduced himself somewhat reluctantly.
◇◇◇
After they went shopping, Rio and Latifa departed from Amande once
more. While it wasn't as huge as Rio's, Latifa now had a large backpack on
her back as well.
Then, once they were out of Amande, Rio tried running through the
forest at his usual speed. He was testing Latifa's stamina. As a result, they
discovered she couldn't last for very long while carrying a heavy backpack.
Once they knew Latifa's limits, Rio slowed his movement speed to a pace
that she could keep up with. They took breaks more frequently than usual,
too.
As they sat down on some boulders next to a spring in the forest, Latifa's
stomach growled loudly. Rio looked at her with widened eyes.
"I-It's nothing! I'm... I'm not hungry!" Latifa shook her head furiously,
blushing bright red.
"You don't have to hold yourself back. It's way past time for breakfast,"
Rio said in amusement, reaching into his backpack for the sandwich Rebecca
made him. He cut it in half with a cooking knife and offered it to Latifa.
But Latifa merely looked at the sandwich in confusion. Her eyes moved
between the sandwich and Rio's face several times.