Chapter 3: Kidnapping

Chapter 3:
Kidnapping

 

ONE DAY, just a normal kinda nothin’ day, I was training my eyes at the inn. See, the eyes are a weak point in the human body, and I don’t just ignore a weakness. Nope: I put some juices from mashed-up chili peppers in my eyes. Sure, it was a little torturous at first, but you gotta feel the burn when you’re getting swole, you know? After a while, it felt the same to me as applying eye drops.

But that wasn’t good, of course, because how was I gonna get better? I kept increasing the concentration, and at that point I was at 4,000 percent concentration. It was actually quite stimulating. Completely knocked the drowsiness out of me.

It did, um, hurt like crazy.

“But this pain! Will make! My eyes stronger! Come on, me, you can do it!” I roared in the empty room. Filia was out; it was her turn to do the grocery shopping. “Man, though, she’s late…”

It was past noon, but Filia still hadn’t come back. I couldn’t imagine she was out eating alone or something, but who could say?

Whatever the reason, I got bored and started to roam the room looking for a thing to do. Somewhere mid-roam, I found a newspaper folded up into quarters, probably something Filia had bought. I knew she, like a lot of people, occasionally bought newspapers to find out stuff. I picked it up, thinking I’d try reading it myself. A newspaper, after all, was nothing an intellectual muscle man couldn’t handle.

I scanned the articles until my eyes were drawn to one part in particular. “What’s this?” I cleared my throat and read it aloud in the empty room, sneaking in some throat training for good measure. “Third case of Elf Hunting this month. The Knight Order have put up wanted posters for ‘Crazy Face’ Misery Mosery…”

Weird. Apparently, elves had gone missing all over the country lately. These guys only targeted elves, though there weren’t many elves around here to begin with. The Knight Order had called the incidents “Elf Hunting” and were taking it seriously. As for that “Crazy Face” guy, he was a masked man named Misery Mosery. He was the mastermind, the Knight Order said.

Yeah, it was quite a thing to read if your elven friend happened to be really, really late.

Elves being hunted. Filia not around. Maybe…?

“I mean, it’s Filia. She’d be fine, obviously,” I muttered.

But if she wasn’t? Just in case, I decided to go look for her.

If I have a scent, I can track it. I remembered her smell, obviously, but just in case, I double-checked. Filia and I’d been sleeping in the same room, so a good long whiff of the bed and pillows would do.

Man, if Filia had seen me right then, her trust in me would plummet. At the moment, I wouldn’t have minded at all if that happened. Please, please, please, come back, Filia!

I gave the pillows a good long sniff and thought hard about her coming back. The bed had a gentle smell. Flowery. Enough. I headed out.

Filia’s scent was pretty faint, so I couldn’t get distracted. I put all of my focus into tracking, following the odor through the streets of Mussen Morgeth.

“In here, huh?” I muttered.

The scent led into a mansion that stood tall in front of me. It was stone. Finely made. Mansion-y in all of the really classic ways. But what business did Filia have at a house like this? She didn’t know that many people. Maybe she’d happened to bump into someone she knew when she was out grocery shopping by herself, but that seemed pretty unlikely.

I slammed the knocker against the door a couple times. Wood and iron banged together with a dull thud. The knock produced no echo.

“Hey, sorry,” I called out. “Got something to ask you.”

I didn’t get an answer. I sharpened my senses and tried to detect a presence in the house.

Hm. I sensed…six living things. I found this increasingly suspicious. If someone was inside, why wouldn’t they come on out? Maybe they were hiding something. I really wanted to break in, but…

I glanced around. A few passersby walked down the street in front of the house. No, I probably couldn’t hope to sneak into the house without them seeing.

But so what if they saw?

“What’s important here is Filia!”

I busted the door to the house right down, just like that. If I was wrong about this, I’d have to apologize, maybe make a few payments—but I could afford a fine after completing all those requests, day after day.

I tracked the scent through the house. No sign of anyone on the first floor.

Snifffff. “Up on the second, huh?”

I went upstairs, and there I found it: the source of the scent.

“Hrmph? What was that noise?!” a man shouted and snarled. He narrowed his eyes. “Who are you? Why are you in my manor?!”

He resembled a dangerously heavy pig, brushed heavily with cooking oil and badly shoved into overpriced clothing. Ugh, I didn’t have time to deal with this dude.

“Where’s Filia?”

“‘Where have I seen your face?’ is the question. Ah, yes. You’re the champion of the magic battle tournament. You must be talking about your little elf friendo, mm? Terribly sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t tell you where she is. Don’t be mad, though. If you want to be mad—if you want to hate—point that hate in the right direction, like the fact that your little friendo happened to be an elf. Go home, champion. Otherwise, well…”

Five people jumped out from behind the smirking man. Three of them guarded him, and two leapt at me.

Bad guys, huh? Good. No need to hold back.

I instantly released my muscles, and (wham, crack) beat up the two that leapt at me, followed by (biff, crunch, oof) the remaining three. Which left expensive-suit guy. I grabbed him by the lapels and lifted him into the air.

“Otherwise what?” I asked.

“Buh?! B-buh…?!”

“Don’t make weird sounds. Give me an answer. Where’s Filia? This isn’t the tournament. If you don’t tell me, you’re going to die.”

“Buh?!”

“But before you die, I’m going to do a whole lot of things to your limbs.”

“Th-they dug a hole underground! Took her to the hideout! There, I told you! Please, don’t kill me!”

I tossed the man aside and went back to the first floor. A little searching and I found a hole in one of his rooms, filled with what seemed like a wall of solid earth. Someone must’ve gone through the hole that no longer existed, but it looked like they had sealed the way with earth magic after they passed through. More importantly, Filia’s scent stopped abruptly at the wall.

I went back upstairs to the second floor and picked up my good buddy Mr. B-Buh. He had passed out, so I took care of that right quick by plucking the fingernail from his pinky finger. Screamed pretty loud as he woke up, lemme tell you.

“Hey, man, where does that closed-off passageway go?”

“My fingernaiiiil!”

“Answer.” I punched him in the stomach, but don’t worry: I took great care to make sure that I didn’t knock him out again. “Where does it go?! Answer!”

“I don’t know. They didn’t tell me anything! Really, they didn’t! It was the Verkis Bandits! The Verkis! They took the elf! I’m just a victim here! I was forced to cooperate with them because, ah, they saw I’d fudged some numbers and—other ugliness. Forced, you see, to follow orders. Terrible, just terrible!”

I punched him in the gut once more to make sure he was telling the truth, but his answer didn’t change. He just ranted on about being the victim.

The victim? Yeah, that’s a guy who calls his men on me with a grin on his face. Sure. That part aside, it sounded like he was telling the truth.

But, if he was, that was bad. I’d just lost Filia’s trail, and now I had no leads but the name “Verkis Bandits.” I ran from the manor, leaving the man writhing in a lot (a lot) of pain. My destination was the headquarters of the knight order in Mussen Morgeth. Surely they knew something!

 

***

 

At the knights’ headquarters, I ran up to the counter, leaned over it, and asked the receptionist what I wanted to know: “Verkis Bandits! Location! I gotta know, tell me now!”

The receptionist frowned. “I am terribly sorry, sir, but I am unable to release confidential information to an outside party. Please be on your way.”

“Screw that! If you know something, tell me! They took my partner!”

“Your partner…” She shuffled a few papers absently. “I see. In that case, we’d be happy to hear your story. After confirming the credibility of your statement, the order will dispatch some units to take care of the bandits, so—”

“That’s! Not! Gonna cut it!” I howled. Telling her my story, having them verify every word, mobilizing their troops, and finally attacking to the bandits’ stronghold—how long would that even take?! No way I could take that kind of time right now. I mean, Filia could die. “We don’t have time to just sit around and chat! We don’t have a minute to lose!”

“My apologies, sir, but it’s protocol.”

I lost my cool. My blood boiled. Unable to bear it, I hauled up the receptionist by her collar—but she didn’t show any sign of irritation. Yeah, she probably wasn’t going to talk, even if I’d threatened her with force. The thought cooled me back down a little, and to be honest, I didn’t feel great.

“Please,” I said, letting go and standing back, “please tell me. If I know where they are, I can take ’em down. Just…please!”

The receptionist seemed to think I was calm enough to talk now. “Against the Verkis Bandits, a person of ordinary skill would undoubtedly be outmatched and defeated. A skilled adventurer, on the other hand, could ensure there wouldn’t be any collateral damage. If you are Rank A or higher, I can provide you with the information. Do you fall into that category?”

“I’m Rank…C.”

If we were talking skill alone, I knew I could match any A-Rank adventurer, but no way could I convince her just by claiming that.

“Then I’m very sorry, but I cannot divulge this information. Please leave it to the professionals; we will get your partner out of there as soon as possible,” said the receptionist, looking straight at me.

I started thinking, and fast. Would it be better for me to take the time to talk this through with the receptionist, or would I be wasting my time? Or would I waste more time running out to search alone when I didn’t know where to go? What should I do?!

“Oh? Well, if it isn’t Sir Yuri! Been a while, eh?”

That voice—Gauche Moratrim, the knight we’d met in Astarte after I took out the Grim Reaper. Not stopping to wonder what could have brought him to Mussen Morgeth, I ran up to him and pressed him for an answer. He knew how capable I was, so surely he’d clue me in!

“Gauche! I need to know about the Verkis Bandits! They kidnapped Filia! What’s the skinny?”

“What’s a sk—wait, they took Lady Filia?! Understood. I’ll bring you to them myself, immediately!”

“Deputy Commander Gauche?! But when you consider the danger that the Verkis Bandits pose, releasing that information to a C-Rank adventurer is base foolishne—”

Gauche raised his hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll take responsibility. As deputy commander of our order, I assure you this man is more than qualified. But enough talk—let’s have at them, Yuri! You can fill me in on our way to their hideout!”

Gauche exited the station, and I ran right after him.

Filia had to be safe, she just had to…

 

***

 

An hour later, Gauche skillfully maneuvered his earth dragon through the fields, and I ran along beside him on foot. We’d arrived at a mountain overgrown with trees. Gauche dismounted from his earth dragon and examined the ground, which transitioned into a steeper and steeper incline.

“Thank you,” he said, with a nod at his dragon. “That’s enough for now. Wait here for me.”

His earth dragon responded with a screech and fwumped comfortably to the ground, cuddling a nearby tree.

“You know,” said Gauche, turning to me, “I’m genuinely surprised. I can’t believe you really can match the speed of an earth dragon.”

“Don’t worry about me right now. We gotta find the hideout. That’s what matters.”

“Yes, you’re certainly right. The hideout is a little ahead. We go on foot from here.”

The minutes passed in silence as Gauche led the way, keeping even his breathing quiet, and I followed on his heel. Soon, he pointed to our left at what like a made-man cavern of some kind. A single guard stood watch.

“The Verkis Bandits consist of roughly twenty people,” whispered Gauche. “Some are stronger, some weaker, but their leader is unquestionably powerful. If you wanted to put it in terms of adventurer ranks, I would rate him at least Rank A. The odd thing is, ah, there aren’t many people standing watch. Maybe something has happened?”

“Can I go to the punching now? Is that all right?” I hissed. I just couldn’t sit still after hearing something like that. Even the guard standing watch seemed to be fidgety.

“We cannot allow impatience to take control. Come on, Yuri—follow me.”

Gauche sprouted black hands that looked like shadows from his back, one after another, and with them reached out toward the watchman by the cavern. Then the countless black hands were on the man, and he was unconscious on the ground before he could even scream. Were those shadowy hands Gauche’s ability?

“All right,” he said, taking a step closer to the cavern. “Let’s go.”

Yeah, of course—but before entering the cavern, I tried to sense what was inside, just to be safe.

“Wha—?!” I couldn’t hide my surprise. “Hey, Gauche? There’s only one person inside.”

“Are you sure, Yuri?”

Gauche seemed surprised to hear that.

“Just wait a minute.” I sharpened my sense of smell, reading the air with my mighty nose, and yeah, that was definitely Filia’s scent just up ahead.

But my nose picked up another smell. An overpowering scent. The rank smell of…

“Death! I can smell lots of death up ahead! Hurry!” I shouted. “Something might’ve happened to Filia!”

“The scent of death?! Understood! Let’s go!”

We hurried into the cave. The path forked several times inside, but we zeroed in on the path down which I sensed signs of life.

Piles and piles of mutilated bodies scattered the floor of the cavern. In the center of it all stood Filia herself, surrounded by the whirling power of her summoning spell, Wind God.

I ran to her. “Filia! Are you okay?!”

“Is that…Yuri…?” she said hoarsely.

She collapsed.

I scooped her up in my arms. Her body was unsettlingly light, as always, but her lungs took in breath and her heart definitely still beat.

“Thank goodness…” I let out a gut-deep sigh of relief.

She wasn’t hurt.

“This is incredible.” Gauche stared down at one of the dead bandits—or one of the bandits from the neck down, at least, because the head could’ve been lying just about anywhere in all the piles. “To think she completely annihilated the Verkis Bandits all by herself…”

From the looks of it, Filia had overwhelmed the boss and his underlings all at once.

“Let’s hurry on back for now,” Gauche advised. “We must let Lady Filia rest in a safe place.”

I didn’t have any particular objection to that. With Gauche once more in the lead, we returned to Mussen Morgeth, and I carried Filia in my arms the whole way back.