Chapter 46: Arc 4 Ch. 1: Girls and Lancer

The Dourland—a rocky, inhospitable wilderness that lived up to its name as a hellish place no one wanted to find themselves lost within. The hilly, craggy mountain range was hardly suitable for settling, unlike the gentle plains that encompassed much of the continent, and no iron deposits or mana crystal lodes had ever been discovered there to give the Gadean Empire a reason to try. What was more, the few hunters who lived there had all fled or gone missing in recent years, and not a soul wanted to say why. As a result, only fools dared to venture into those godforsaken wilds for the scant few resources that could be found within, never to be heard from again…

Or at least, that’s how the stories went, according to the merchant who had offered to take us halfway to that very place. But she also tried to sell us some salamander bile as an aphrodisiac, so I had a good idea what type of person she really was…

I hadn’t expected much when Titania said she could find us transportation there, and the results were pleasantly unsurprising. Horses for the four of us might have been nice, but not only were they incredibly expensive, none of us knew how to ride them and eventually we would have to travel on foot anyway. Instead, our fourth party member arranged for us to ride in the back of a merchant’s horse-drawn wagon heading to a village on the outskirts of civilization.

I wanted to teach Alice those three spells that the witch had given me and practice them on the way, but the merchant insisted she didn’t want us casting magic back there. I couldn’t tell if she was wary from previous bad experiences with mages, or if she just really didn’t like nobles and had us mistaken.

Regardless, Alice was predictably jealous when she found out how I had summoned Viela and wanted ‘her own’ animal spirit. I wasn’t sure how to comfort her at first; after everything I went through with just one spirit, I couldn’t imagine summoning and dealing with another. Then I got the impression Alice was pretending to be more upset than she was for a good excuse to play with our party’s fox spirit again. Viela was happy with the affection either way, thrilled to be the center of attention on our brief journey riding in that wagon. When we weren’t taking turns gently scratching behind her ears or petting her fluffy tail, Titania kept us entertained with tall tales of her adventuring days and some questionable humor mixed in for good measure.

After a few days, we finally reached the ‘village’ on the frontier, which looked more like a desolate outpost of hunters to me. I almost didn’t want to have to say goodbye to that merchant and the relative comfort of her wagon, but this was as close to the edge of civilization in this direction she could take us. We had one last chance to stock up on food and supplies before we had to continue the rest of the way on foot.

This wasn’t the first time I had trekked through woods in this world, but it was the first time I was starting to hike up an incline into the highlands. Titania led the way with her lance carefully stowed between her back and her giant backpack, never getting too far ahead and occasionally looking behind to make sure the rest of us were following. Since the four of us had started to set off by ourselves, for some reason the atmosphere had gotten surprisingly awkward. I wasn’t sure what to say to break the uneasy silence, and the way I would sometimes catch Viela looking back at me with a slight grin didn’t help.

The thought occurred to me that out of the others in our party, Viela was the only one who knew about… me in my previous life and what I had looked like. As one awkward minute passed into the next, I decided to pull her aside for a moment and ask the question at the back of my mind.

“Hey, Viela. You’re not going to, you know… randomly tell them or anything, right?”

She gave me an intimate wink and whispered in my ear, “Tell them what? All the fun things we did together that night?”

Ugh. That wasn’t even what I meant, but clarifying with her wasn’t going to make it much better. With any luck, she just thought it was going to be more amusing for her this way…

Alice and Titania were starting to look back at us with curiosity. As we hurried to catch up with them, I searched for the right words to break the ice again. But of all people, it was Alice who decided to speak next.

“Um, Miss Vixen, there’s something I was wondering…”

“Alice, you can call me Viela,” she replied, stepping closer with a smile.

“O-Okay, Miss Viela—”

“Just Viela.”

Alice fidgeted as she walked like she was debating whether to ask. “Well, I’ve never met someone like you before, and there’s a lot I don’t know about the Spirit World. So, I was wondering… where do fox spirits come from?”

Viela lit up with an impish grin. “Oh, you sweet little thing! You see, when two fox spirits love each other very much—”

“Stop, please,” I groaned. I couldn’t bear to watch her mess with Alice like that.

“Beryl, she was just getting to the good part!” Titania protested.

“Why don’t we try something else to pass the time,” I suggested. “Maybe we can play ‘I spy’ for those herbs we need to find?”

“No, we’re not deep enough in yet,” Titania replied. “The locals back there would have combed through this area if there even were any growing out here.”

Well, so much for trying to get two birds with one stone. “Then… why don’t you sing for us? Do you know any good marching songs, or something?”

I was half-joking, but to my surprise, she puffed out her chest and stood a little taller. “Sure, I’ve got one!” The lancer took a long, deep breath before breaking out into song. “J’aime l’oignon frit a l’huile, j’aime l’oignon car il est bon—”This is half of the first verse from a French marching song called Chanson de l’Oignon (Song of the Onion). It’s a real song from about 1800 when Napoleon was First Consul of France, and it is quite literally about how tasty onions are.

“I’m impressed you actually did it, but how about one in English for the rest of us, Napoleon?”

“Hey, you don’t need to ‘get’ the lyrics to enjoy a good song!”

“Um, I can look for some wild onions if you’d like,” Alice offered.

We both stopped and stared at her. “Alice, you could understand that?” I asked.

She turned away, fidgeting again. “That’s, uh… a local language here. I just happen to know a few words.”

Hmm, there was a lot I still didn’t know about how the magical translation ability given to us Outworlders really worked. Now that I thought about it, perhaps different languages from Earth might have different interpretations for a native of this world like Alice.

But then again, since the Demon King had allegedly brought the whole continent into the same empire long ago, wasn’t there supposed to be only one language here that everyone used…?

“Hey Beryl, why don’t you sing us a song!” Titania said, interrupting my train of thought.

“Huh?! No, that is not happening.”

“Then maybe you could tell us a joke?”

“Alright, let me think… Yeah, I heard a really good one recently! It goes like this: a witch, a fox, and a futa walk into a bar—”

“Quiet!” the fox whispered.

At first I was afraid Viela had caught on to me, but she wasn’t upset or even looking my way. Instead, all her attention was focused on something nearby with her fox ears over her head twitching like crazy.

Viela motioned for us to quickly take cover behind a nearby bush. After half a minute of strained silence looking through the gaps in the foliage, a big wild cat prowled into view. It was almost as large as a tiger, covered in white and grey fur with black spots, two round furry ears, and a black-tipped tail that was nearly as long as its body.

“Is that a snow leopard?” Alice couldn’t help whispering, a little too excited.

The leopard stopped in its tracks, warily glancing around. I couldn’t tell whether it was looking for prey, or predators, or reacting to the sound of the whispered question. Titania began drawing the lance from her back, hefting its sharp metal tip in the beast’s direction with an unfamiliar determination burning in her eyes.

“Do you really think that thing would attack us?” I whispered.

“She’s not coming in our direction,” Viela noted. “Let her pass.”

“Her?”

Titania shifted on her knees, getting a better grip on her weapon. “Just leave it to me,” she said with a lewd wink. “When danger rears its head, I thrust hard, and I thrust fast.”

Alice covered herself. “Thrust where?!”

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“Are you seriously getting drunk off of the adrenaline rush?” I asked.

“It’ll be fine, I can handle this!” Titania replied.

The leopard turned halfway around to look behind, and a moment later, two new critters came scampering out from under a distant bush. They were both leopards with the same color of thick, fluffy fur as the first but much smaller, about the size of a house cat. Each one took a quick look at their new surroundings before hurrying after… their mother…

“You monster!” Viela hissed. “You were about to turn those adorable cubs into orphans!”

“No, she’s way the hell more dangerous now!” Titania said.

“Shouldn’t we just pull back?” I offered.

She shot me another wink. “Not a chance; once I get started, I never pull out early.”

Alice covered herself. “Out of where?!”

“Enough with the dick jokes! Viela, do you have another idea?”

The fox spirit reached a hand between her breasts and somehow brought out a full deck of spell cards. “It’s been a while, but it should be—”

Suddenly, I felt a rush of adrenaline surge through my body as the full-grown snow leopard turned to face directly toward us. Her massive tail came curling over her body as she growled at us hiding behind the bush, slowly advancing while looking twice as big as before.

My whole body tensed up while Alice and I began to retreat, but Titania braced for combat. “Oh this takes me back,” she said, a disturbingly excited smile spreading across her face.

With the righteous indignation of a beast protecting her young, the leopard unleashed a fierce grunt as she charged at us.

“Viela, now would be the time!” I shouted.

“Found it!”

With a triumphant flourish, Viela pulled a card out of her deck, stood up, and deftly flung it at the snow leopard. By the time the animal realized what was headed right at its face, it was too late. The card struck the leopard on its forehead and planted itself as if the back was covered in glue. A dull grey light glowed within the beast’s eyes, and the momentum of its charge instantly slowed to a crawl before it stopped, gently laying down on its side with a strangely contented expression upon its pacified face.

Viela stepped out from behind the bush to approach it. She knelt down to pet the leopard and, as if deciding she couldn’t help herself, dropped to the ground and hugged it with her whole body.

“Ahh, she’s so warm and fluffy~!”

With a surprising lack of regard for any danger, the two snow leopard cubs came walking over to investigate what was happening. Taking a hint from the fox spirit’s bad example, Alice approached the nearest cub and dropped to a knee. She reached down to stroke its fluffy fur and squealed with joy when the cub let out a soft meow before licking her face. The tension of the moment had even evaporated from Titania who set her lance down with a shake of her head and a laugh. When she knelt down to pet the other one, the bold cub chose to jump onto her shoulders instead, its long tail flexing outward to help keep its balance.

In one minute, our party’s first life-or-death encounter had transformed into some kind of perverted petting zoo. I would have felt relieved—if I wasn’t so damn nauseous…

“Guys, can we take this a little more seriously?”

“Beryl, these kitties are so cute!” Alice said. “I know we can’t take them home, but… b-but, do you think…”

“Aren’t they technically cubs, not kit—wait, that’s not the issue here! Doesn’t this world have any, like, wildlife regulations?”

Titania shrugged. “Uh… no? I don’t think those have been invented yet.” She reached behind her head to grab the mischievous cub that had started to chew on her backpack.

I finally let my shoulders relax with a heavy sigh. Putting aside the fondling of wild animals, something about this just didn’t feel right. We had barely even entered the highlands; what was a snow leopard doing this far down the mountain?

I stared at the adult leopard on the ground. She was still getting tenderly embraced by Viela with reckless abandon, the fox spirit’s own fluffy tail happily wagging away. The leopard lay motionless, awake yet helplessly pacified as if hit by a tranquilizer dart. As I peered beyond the dull magical glow in her silvery eyes, I saw something that sent an icy chill down my spine, like an intelligence staring back at me that shouldn’t have been there. There was only one thing I could tell for certain:

She was pissed.

I cleared my throat. “Guys, we should really get moving…”

***

We eventually managed to resume our hike after the others had finally detached themselves from the trio of snow leopards and said their tearful goodbyes. Viela assured me the Pacify spell would wear off before too long, but to my concern, she could not specify exactly how long that would be.

The four of us continued onward and upward until the setting sun began to dip below the western mountaintops, and Titania insisted we should set up camp for the night. My feet were sore and aching from an unusually long day of walking, and the other two seemed to feel the same given their eagerness to rest.

The lancer picked out a small wooded clearing against a hill, set down her backpack, and got to work gathering firewood with a hatchet. The rest of us got out our bedrolls Titania had helped us pick out back in the capital, arranging them around the ring of stones we set up for our campfire.

It wasn’t long after she had gotten the fire going that I had the uncanny feeling we were being watched. I couldn’t tell from where—or by what—and Titania didn’t inspire any confidence when she nervously continued gathering enough twigs and branches to turn our small campfire into a roaring bonfire. She insisted everything was alright, but she kept an anxious hand rubbing her neck while she scanned the hilly and now quite dark woods around us.

As we munched on our traveling food of bread, cheese and dried meat, I looked to the others for a topic to chat about and found Alice staring at me. At first I thought she might be thinking something weird, but I wanted to find out anyway.

“What’s up?” I asked her.

She blushed and looked away, eventually answering after a moment.

“Um, Beryl, you… you never finished that joke you were telling earlier!”

“What? Oh, that?” I sighed. “I don’t think it’s even that funny anymore.”

“Come on, tell me! Pleeease?”

“…You wouldn’t get it.”

 

And here's a bonus snow leopard cub because why not:

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