Earth Land, Ishgar, Kingdom of Fiore, Takanosu.
October, x785.
"Who are you?" The female squire asked harshly while pointing her magic pistol at Elicia. "And what happened here?"
"Okay, take it easy." Elicia said while raising her arms disarmingly. "You can put those weapons down, too. I'm not here to hurt anyone."
"That would be more convincing if you didn't just appear in here with three dead bodies." The squire replied sharply.
"Touché." Elicia replied with a wry smile. Then, she gestured towards the three dead men, who were still lying on top of the women they were violating. "But I think you should pay more attention to the whole situation. Look at those men and the women beneath them more carefully."
Though still suspicious, the squire and the five people, three men and two women she brought along with her all looked towards the dead men and the women in the room. And when they did, they all frowned in disgust. Then, after recognizing the women, their expressions changed once again.
"Leah! Sheila! Anna!" The squire shouted as she holstered her magic pistol and ran towards the three bound women. "We thought you were dead. How did you end up like this?"
Meanwhile, the three women, Leah, Sheila, and Anna, after seeing the squire, finally calmed down from their panicked state. Instead, their panicked expressions were replaced with relief. Then, once the men's corpses were pulled off them, the damn holding back their emotions was shattered as they began crying loudly.
Though the squire was the first to approach the bound women, the rest of her group also approached and helped to untie them. Meanwhile, they also kept a close eye on Elicia. Elicia, on the other hand, started using her magic without a care in the world.
"What are you doing?" A tall, burly man asked as he raised his magic pistol in Elicia's direction.
"Making something for those women to cover themselves." Elicia replied casually. "Besides, I'd put that gun down if I were you. My friend is starting to get antsy."
With that, Elicia dropped the [Hiding in Plain Sight] spell. In the next instant, Rei and Kohta became visible to everyone else in the room. While Kohta was still hiding behind the cover he found and had his rifle trained on the group of new arrivals, Rei was standing behind the burly man with the tip of her spear pointed at the back of his neck.
Naturally, seeing two people appear from nowhere surprised the other eleven people in the room. However, they were all smart enough not to make any sudden, hostile moves.
"So, are you ready to talk now?" Elicia asked as she finished weaving three blankets for the violated women.
"Yeah." The squire replied with a nod. "We need to thank you for saving Leah, Sheila, and Anna, too."
Then, the squire looked back at the rest of her group and gave an order.
"Lower your weapons." The squire said. "We need to focus on getting medical attention for these three."
Though reluctantly, the other five people who entered the room with the squire lowered their weapons. And once they did, Rei and Kohta also lowered their own weapons. Though, everyone kept their guard up.
After that, everyone left the room. Then, when they were able to get a little more comfortable, the squire finally got an answer to her questions about where Leah, Sheila, and Anna had been.
The day before, the three women, who were trained to defend themselves before everything went down, had volunteered to scout the surroundings. Unfortunately for them, the six men from the opposing factions ambushed them while they were out. As a result, they were captured and brought back to be the men's sexual relief.
Luckily, they were all brothel girls. So, having sex with men they'd rather not was not such a big deal to them. However, they were still scarred mentally by the rape. But since they had been through so much before all this happened, they were rather resilient.
"I guess that means you saved them." The squire, who the three brothel girls had called Asami, said after hearing the three girls' story. "Thank you for helping them."
"Don't worry about it." Elicia replied with a dismissive wave. "That's kinda the reason I'm here in the first place."
"What do you mean?" A short, skinny man asked.
"Well, my husband and I took an emergency quest to investigate the situation in this town." Elicia replied. Then, she pulled up the short sleeve over her left shoulder, revealing her guild mark. "We're members of Fairy Tail. I'm Elicia Marcus Taylor, an S-Class wizard."
Hearing that name, most of the hostility from the group of survivors disappeared. They all knew Fairy Tail's reputation, after all. On top of that, the women in the group's eyes all lit up, too. Elicia was a big name in Ishgar's fashion world. So, most of them owned at least one article of clothing from the Taylor Shop.
"You said your husband came with you, right?" Asami, or Asami Nakaoka, asked curiously. "Then, where is he? I know he's not Alfonzo Marcus."
As she spoke the last part, Asami pointed at Kohta, who could only smile wryly.
"We're moving separately for now." Elicia replied with a smile. "He's been helping some of the people we rescued reunite with their families."
"Speaking of which, you're a squire, right?" Rei asked, cutting into the conversation. "Are there any knights here? Or do you know what happened to Captain Miyamoto?"
"Ah! Now that you mention it, you look a lot like Captain Miyamoto's wife… Just younger. Are you his daughter?"
"That's right, I'm Rei Miyamoto." Rei replied. "So, do you know what happened to my dad?"
"Unfortunately, I don't." Asami replied while shaking her head gently. "I would assume he's either at the knights' barracks in the town or at the shelter on the other side of the bridge."
"He might have even rushed home to check on your mother, Rei." Elicia said while patting Rei on the shoulder. "And since he's a captain in the knights, he's probably pretty strong. Strong enough to get to your house, anyway."
"Yeah, I know." Rei replied with a nod. "Dad is strong. Both he and Mom are the ones who taught me how to use a spear, after all."
"Anyway, can I ask why you came here?' Asami asked, bringing the conversation back to the original topic. "Oh, and what happened to the last of those men."
"Ah… Oops!" Elicia exclaimed as she just remembered the man she left dangling upside down from the third-story window. "Anyway, we can deal with that guy later. But we came to find food. There's a primary school full of teachers and students that were running out of food. So, we wanted to help them. Oh, and I think we'll be setting up shot there, too."
"Hmph! Well then, you better go look somewhere else." A man of average height with a muscular build said arrogantly. "Everything in this outlet belongs to us."
Hearing that, both Rei and Kohta narrowed their eyes. Meanwhile, Elicia tilted her head cutely.
"Do you really think you could stop me if I insisted." Elicia said in a friendly tone. Though, by looking in her eyes, you could tell she was not pleased with that response.
"Be quiet, Shimada." Asami barked. "They only want to help some children. And we have more than enough food to share. With those magic refrigerators, there is enough to feed an entire school for a long time."
"Is there really that much food here?" Kohta asked with an eyebrow raised.
"There is." Asami replied. "That's why, despite having an issue with the men from before, no one was willing to leave."
"I guess that makes sense." Kohta replied with a nod of understanding.
"Anyway, we only need enough food for a couple days." Elicia said, re-entering the conversation. "By then, we'll have this zombie problem taken care of. Right now, the reason we haven't wiped them out completely is because we want to get as many people as we can out of the blast radius."
"Blast radius?" all the other people in the room asked in confused, yet concerned, tones. "Are you gonna blow up the whole town?"
"Hahaha! No, we're not like the rest of our guild." Elicia replied while laughing uproariously and waving her hands. "But with Fonzie's magic, people nearby could be hurt if he uses it on a large scale."
'I don't think there will be too many people that can survive a whole street being flooded with UV radiation, after all.' Elicia thought to herself. 'Though, he'd probably rather use his [Super Flare].But I think that would destroy large parts of the town along with the zombies.'
["Yeah, hitting big parts of the town with a high concentration of microwaves isn't the best way to keep property damage to a minimum."] Scylla said in agreement.
"I see…' Asami said, sounding a bit apprehensive. "Anyway, I guess it shouldn't be a problem for you to have some food for the school."
"You really should come with us, you know." Elicia said.
"Hell no!" Shimada replied harshly. "We're perfectly safe here."
"I'm not so sure about that." Elicia said, her expression turning solemn. "Both Fonzie and I found a horde of those zombies coming this way. And quite a few of them are the super-strong ones."
"Are you serious?" Asami asked, her expression turning solemn as well.
"Yeah, there are at least five hundred of those things now. And there were almost a hundred strong ones in the group." Elicia replied.
In fact, Elicia had been tracking the group Shido was leading the whole time. So, the numbers she just gave were current numbers. And she was sure that the numbers would rise by the time the horde passed the outlet.
"If she's telling the truth, we should go with them." Asami said sternly.
In response, the three brothel girls, the two women that came with her to investigate the screams, and one of the three men agreed. However, Shimada and the burly man from before were strongly against relocating.
"Even if we believe her, we still have to leave here and walk to that school." Shimada argued. "And that's not a short walk. We'd be in just as much danger as if we stayed here to fight the horde."
"We don't have time to debate this." Elicia said. "They're going to pass this building sooner or later. And personally, I'm not planning on being here when they do. Otherwise, we won't be able to get the food to the school. So, make your choices quickly."
Unsurprisingly, Asami and the other six who agreed with the relocation decided to follow Elicia, rei, and Kohta back to the school. Meanwhile, Shimada, the burly man, and the other people in the outlet decided to stay behind. As a result, only seven people chose to stay behind in the outlet.
So, with the number of mouths to feed in the outlet reduced, Elicia and Asami's groups loaded as much food as they could into the back of the Escalade. On top of that, Elicia created large bags from her threads they fastened to the top of the vehicle, as well.
Despite taking so much, there was still enough food for the seven remaining at the outlet to live comfortably for the next week or so. Unfortunately for them, when Shido passed by the outlet with his horde a couple hours later, he had the zombies break in, kill all the men, and bring all the women to him.
At about that time, Elicia, along with all those who chose to follow her, had arrived at the primary school. Unfortunately, they were slowed significantly by the people who had to make the trip on foot. Still, with only a few run ins with normal zombies, they all made it to the school without taking any damage.
Meanwhile, Alfonzo, Saeko, Saya, and a spear wielding woman they picked up along the way had made it to the Takagi mansion around the same time Elicia returned to the school. Unfortunately, there were quite a few zombies between the school and the mansion that needed to be cleaned up. And the reason for that was probably due to the fact that there were so many people gathered there. So, the noise they made was impossible to hide completely.