Death March — Fixed

“Tek here, people always say that killing, even in self defence, or defence of loved ones, is an unpardonable sin--they are naive, having never been in that kind of situation. However, in my own personal point of view, killing in mercy is the same whether it is a wounded animal or a human who would suffer worse if they lived.”

 

““Good morning, master””

 

“Good morning.”

 

Lulu and Liza, who have woken up at the first sign of the morning sun, greet me almost in unison as they climb out of the wagon; I’m surprised, usually Liza sleeps heavily and is bad at waking--maybe this only applies to if she is woken unnaturally.

I carefully move Tama, and stand up. She wakes up and looks at me with a smile, before jumping to her feet and hugs me, “Morning!”

Returning the hug for a few seconds, and a thorough head patting, I release the girl and pick up the spear taking it over to Liza, to explain the changes and apologize if I have to.

“T-This is.” Liza seems speechless, her eyes widening.

Since externally, her beloved spear looks like it now has strange, pulsing, veins on it; I hope she doesn’t think it looks disgusting.

I take a step towards Liza, waiting to see her reaction--she isn’t paying attention to me.

As though to check on the new condition of the spear, she turns so that she isn’t facing anyone, and tries stabbing it into thin air many times--the light that appears when she uses Heavy Blow is stronger than before.

“Master!” After she finishes swinging the spear, she rapidly approaches me, the tone of her voice is a bit higher than normal, it would be good if she isn’t upset, “This is, it must be a reward, right?”

Well, for the time being, since she looks really happy, let’s go with that; and she has done very well, so I would be happy to give her a reward.

“Yes, it is. It’s because you have always worked so hard. How is it?”

“Thank you so much, master! Ahem, the weight is the same as usual, but it is now possible for my arm to become one with the spear, all the way to the tip.” She looks so happy, she’s embracing the spear tightly, rubbing her cheeks on it with a massive grin.

I apologize for doing something to her spear without at least warning her first, but she repeats what she said about her and her spear being my belongings.

I probably shouldn’t take advantage of that, since it seems to be something ingrained in her from her training as a slave.

***

Since Lulu said that she will call me when Liza finishes with the breakfast preparations, I pick up a towel and go to the river beside the camp. Since we are near a river, I want to get clean, and have the girls clean too.

By the way, the water temperature is below ten degrees, so I would normally get cold--but I don’t feel it, probably because of my Cold Resistance skill. At first I was curious, because I got Ice Resistance but still felt cold from the water that came from the Hell Water Bottle, until I got Cold Resistance--it seems that Ice Resistance seems to only decrease the damage from Ice Attribute damage; and to stop the chance of frostbite, however, you can still feel cold.

Rather, I’m more interested with Lulu’s gaze, which I can feel from over the bushes. During cooking, she occasionally takes a glance over here--I see Liza do the same a few times.

I thought that the bushes may entirely cover me--oh well; I don’t really mind, since this young form is much more fit and slightly better looking than my old body from Earth. It seems that one of the Stats, or maybe a hidden Charisma Stat, influences how good looking someone it--which would explain why I have yet to see an ugly person in this world.

Since it would be troublesome if Arisa wakes up while I’m cleaning myself, mainly because she would want to bathe with me and I wouldn’t deny her, and I would then have to clean myself again--I quickly wash myself with soap.

Before I leave the water, I notice that I can see several large fish swimming about, so I throw skewers. I catch around ten fish, putting them into Storage.

Since Liza and Lulu have already started cooking, and it would probably be bad to have them change plans, these fish are for lunch or dinner.

I wipe my body, and put on my clothing.

My hair is still wet, but it should dry soon, both from the sunlight, and from me sitting next to the fire.

 

“Good morning, master.”

 

“Good morning, Nana. Try saying some more words after the morning greeting.”

 

“Good morning, master.”

 

While she just repeated her words, she technically followed my suggestion.

“Yeah, that’ll do.” I smile and stroke her hair--which is silky smooth.

Nana shows a pleased look in her eyes, though her face stays blank.

 

“Morning.”

“Ning?”

 

Mia and Tama have woken up, walking over to the fire.

“Good morning.” Pochi clambers out of the wagon.

Arisa follows after her, “Good morning--”

Hmm, something is wrong?

“Why?” She looks at me, and then points at my wet hair.

What is she talking about?

“Please say something if you want to take a bath! It’s part of my job as a slave to wash my master’s back!”

“Your real motive?”

“I will wash master’s back, front--and other pl--”

I quickly place my hand over her mouth.

Not only are Tama and Pochi looking on with expressions of wishing to follow her words, but so are all the other girls; and Nana looks like she wants to try it out, washing me, out of curiousity--but Lulu and Mia are both blushing and looking at me with a glint in their eyes.

Only Liza is still cooking rather calmly, though the tip of her tail is erratically twitching.

This ends when Liza announces that the food has finished being cooked.

I am grateful for this interruption, and Lulu gestures for Tama and Pochi to come over to help distribute plates.

Liza doesn’t let her new spear out of sight the whole time, she had at first, stabbed it into the ground near her while she was cooking.

Then, she began eating with only one hand, though it slows her usual speed--while cuddling her spear with her free arm.

***

Today, my Magic practice ends in failure again.

Since I am disappointed, I decided to sit at the front of the wagon next to Lulu, who is taking the chance to practice her driving, and I carve some small shields using wood.

 

>>Skill: Armour Creation Acquired.

 

Since I get the Armour Creation Skill after only making one, I set the points to maximum and activate it. Even though the shields are made of wood, they’re made with the highest level of technique possible, using Armour Creation.

At first I was surprised that I could calmly carve while the wagon was moving--but I figured it out that my incredibly high DEX Stat I had a good sense of balance and hand-eye coordination, as well as inhumanly steady hands.

I turn around and present the two new shields to Pochi and Tama, both of whom have been standing up and peering over the board separating the wagon and the driver’s seat, for the last 15 - 20 minutes. These two shields are the ones I created after I got the skill and maxed it out.

I’ve only had the chance to make three, but since time’s almost up, I store the tools--Arisa seems to have noticed as well and she pokes her head over the board, “The guys you mentioned earlier?”

“Yeah, very soon. There are two people in the highway, five people in the forest on each side of the highway, and two people in a tree a bit further away. Arisa will deal with the two on the highway, while the five on the right will be taken care of by Liza, Pochi, and Tama. I will defeat the two in the tree and the five on the left. I will leave guarding Lulu to Mia and Nana.”

Everyone nods when I instruct them--since I had explained it to them beforehand, they didn’t have any particular questions.

Everyone is slightly tense, but the enemies aren’t really a big deal. On the left side, beside a singular level 7, the others are small fries at level 2-3. Each of the Beastkin girls, acting alone, could annihilate them if they wanted.

When we enter the forest, following a slight curve in the road, we see that there is a man and a woman sitting on the road.

They look like normal villagers.

“Oi!”, they call out to us.

When I signal for Lulu to stop the wagon, and it finally does, the man approaches us while trying to say something.

“I’m sorry, my wife is,s,s,s.” He looks dazed and begins to repeat the final letter of his sentence over and over again.

“Pssh, I have no interest in a thief’s acting.” Arisa hit the man and woman with Ming Magic. She had a bit of a difficult time choosing the best location and timing, so as to not hit our horses with it.

Without checking the result of Arisa’s battle, I use two crossbows to shoot down the two in the tree. Since they haven’t threatened my girls, and they are weak, I have leeway to capture them alive and see what my companions think I should do with them--it is possible that they could be worth bounties.

Since I shot them in the shoulder and knock them from the tree, it is likely that they are alive.

The Beastkin girls jump out of the back of the wagon and begin their own assault on the thieves in the forest.

In just a few minutes, the ‘Oyu Village Thieves Guild’ is annihilated. Half of them have injuries, but none are dead yet. We quickly take their weapons and pile them up in the bed of the wagon, to sort through later.

I feel that it’d be wasteful to use our few ropes, I wrap them up with nearby vines, per Liza’s suggestion.

The restrained thieves have been subjected to Arisa’s Mind Magic, to make them sleep.

Just in case, I check the map, but there is no village called, “Oyu Village”, in this region.

“By the way, what do you want to do by capturing them? Isn’t the Earl’s City still relatively far away? Isn’t it faster if we just kill them?”

“Since you ordered me not to kill if possible, I didn’t kill anyone, but thieves should be killed as soon as one comes across them. If Master wants the prize money, then their heads are enough. Furthermore, even if one kills a thief, their Reward & Punishment won’t change into ‘Murder’.”

Arisa and Liza’s suggestions are quite reasonable, so far it seems that this world works how I expected.

If I were to overlook these guys here, they would probably kill or sell the merchants or travelers, who use this road, as slaves.

The reason I told the girls not to kill, was because I didn’t want to force them to.

“So, is everyone in agreement, we should kill them?”

The Beastkin girls nod, seeming unaffected, to my words.

Arisa looks down for a second, before firmly meeting my eyes and nodding--Lulu, seeing her sister’s vote, nods in agreement.

Nana is circling the restrained bandits with a curious look, she looks up at my words, “Whatever Master declares, this slave will obey.”

There is a slightly proud look as her eyes meet Arisa’s--it seems that Arisa has been teaching her odd things again.

“Well, we are in agreement. I don’t wish to make you girls kill unless necessary, so I will execute them.”

I feel slight guilt, for a second, before my Stats cancel it out; and pull the Magic Gun from my storage. With a single shot at half-power to their heads, while they still sleep, they all die instantly and painlessly.

Arisa frowns a little for a second, then looks away from the corpses and back at me, her face smoothing out.

Lulu, however, has slightly teary eyes.

I quickly walk up and sit next to her, placing one arm around her shoulder, pulling her against me--she sniffles softly, and lent her head against my shoulder.

“We will leave the corpses here. Let’s get going again.”

The Beastkin girls quickly get back into the wagon; and Nana, who had been crouching down and studying the dead bodies, got up and joined them.

Thinking about it, this was likely the first time she had seen dead humans.