Kick the ground and jump forward.
Thick roots wriggled beneath my feet, getting in the way, but I stomped down on them with one swift motion and overcame them all.
When walking through forests, mountains, or unpaved roads, it is actually a mistake to be cautious about the uncertainty of what is under your feet. When running along natural animal trails, the correct thing to do is to have the determination to go without hesitation no matter what is under your feet, and open up a new path.
Trusting the sturdy soles of my shoes, I jump again, trampling over the piles of branches, leaves and moss.
His breathing was rough. The sweat running down his forehead was getting into his eyes, so he blinked laboredly to make an escape route for the sweat.
There was neither time nor reason to look back. Besides, there was practically no chance of me escaping. The footsteps of my pursuer were still running alongside me, tailing me as if mocking my flight.
Lean your body forward and sprint as fast as you can while reducing the surface area exposed to the wind as much as possible.
His lungs hurt, his whole body creaking, he gasped for oxygen. And Subaru, who was opening and closing his mouth awkwardly like a fish that had been landed,
"What a shameless face... that tells you where you're from."
"--Hey, remember this later!?"
Regretting having used up too much oxygen, Subaru shifted his arms around the girl in his arms - Ram - and held her tighter, petite body.
Approximately ten minutes had passed since the launch of the "Natsuki Subaru Decoy Operation", which was likely a black mist connected to the witch.
Just as Subaru had planned, the battle with the gathering magical beasts became extremely fierce, and in the end - with no other option, the two chose to flee, running through the forest.
"I trusted you because you said you could fight, and this is what happened!"
"In fact, she could have fought. Ram's stamina just wasn't as strong as we thought it would be."
"You said something like, 'I'll cross a dangerous bridge in a cool way,' right!?
"It was more dangerous than you could have imagined. I almost fell off before even crossing the bridge."
Ram was always brazen in her responses to Subaru's cries.
It was hard to believe that he was in a state where he was unable to conserve mana after repeated battles and could not even move his arms and legs properly.
The beasts were being smoothly lured out by the lingering scent of the witch that Subaru was giving off.
The numbers were far greater than Subaru had imagined, and to be honest, the rate at which they appeared was so unmanageable that he could only think of words of regret.
Making full use of wind magic, Ram managed to eliminate seventeen monsters.
Having dealt with everything in a flash, Ram suddenly lost her strength and collapsed. Subaru, who was nearby, was stunned and in a panic picked her up and began to flee――
"So far, it's been a bit of a whirlwind."
"You're being carried and yet you're making so much noise! And don't make me talk too much! I might bite my tongue... and besides, I don't have the stamina to last..."
He is a reclusive student who achieves extraordinary results in all athletic endeavors, but because he doesn't like to go outside, he suffers from a serious lack of physical strength. When it comes to long-distance running, he is at a level where coming in last place on campus is not out of the question.
Even with such meager stamina, he would squeeze it all out if his life was at stake. Of course, it was only a matter of time before his fountain of strength dried up.
The pursuing witchbeasts must have realized that Subaru's strength would soon run out as he fled.
As if enjoying the process of weakening its prey, every time Subaru's footing slowed down it would scrape under his feet to keep him in check, igniting his fading instinct to flee.
Subaru: "Balus, he's just to the left. If you swing your sword you'll hit him."
Ram in his arms turned her head and, judging from the changing scenery, advised him on a suitable distance. When he glanced in that direction, he could see the snout of a demonic beast running alongside Subaru, clearly underestimating the threat it posed.
He aimed in that direction with a single handed sword that he had unsheathed from his waist. His aim was perfect, and the slash split the arrogant demon beast's face in a straight line from top to bottom, adding a new piece to the forest's fertilizer - or rather, it didn't.
Ram looked up at him from deep within, as if she had grown impatient with Subaru's refusal to draw his sword, and anger welled up in her eyes. However, Subaru glared back at her with the same emotion,
"Why don't you draw your sword?"
"One person! How can you swing a sword while running with both hands?! Even if you swung it, it wouldn't hit, you'd drop it, and I'd fall, and it'd be a three-way defeat, you idiot!"
Breathing heavily at the displeased Ram, Subaru worked frantically, sweat running down his forehead.
Even though Ram was small, her weight on her arms must have been no less than 40 kilograms. Just running like that while carrying that much weight was quite impressive. On top of that, Subaru couldn't pull off something like drawing his sword and fighting, something you only see in manga.
There is only so much an untrained student can do while carrying a girl. Naturally, his only option is to grab Subaru and run away.
「It's about time I unleash my hidden power――Ouch!!」
The voice that was eagerly awaiting the moment of awakening suddenly changed to a cry of excruciating pain in his shoulder. Twisting and looking around, he saw the fangs of a monster that had jumped on him, piercing his right shoulder. With one blow from the beast that had grown tired of tormenting him, the flesh of his shoulder was dug roughly, and his throat trembled in pain as the tip of its fang touched his collarbone.
but,
"Carelessness is the greatest enemy."
Still in Subaru's arms, Ram reaches out to his waist and swings her one-handed sword, releasing a sharp stab at him diagonally.
The tip of the blade perfectly penetrated the side of the beast's nose, destroying its brain and protruding from the back of its head. The thrusting fang lost its strength, and was thrown off by Subaru's momentum as he ran, falling to the ground - Leaving the rolling corpse behind, Subaru immediately saw the blade run past the side of its face,
"Don't do anything extremely dangerous, you!"
"You have prevented the curse from worsening even further, be grateful. —Balus, if you are bitten by Urgarm, kill him no matter what. The longer you let him escape, the further away his life will be."
Ram skillfully brushed the blood off the blade of her sword with her arm, glaring at Subaru as she warned him. Subaru pretended to focus on running and refused to reply to her words.
I am aware that the roots of my teeth are trembling slightly inside my closed mouth.
I can't decide if it's because I'm nervous or scared. That's a lie. I've almost given up and accepted that it's probably the latter.
I'm scared of magical beasts. Their fangs and claws are terrifying.
The fang that had just pierced his shoulder had only felt shallow, but it was still sharp enough to strike fear into Subaru's primordial mind.
His entire body had been chewed to shreds.
How could I forget the pain, the sense of loss, the despair?
Even though he had a sword in his hand, Subaru had never once swung the blade at a Witchbeast's body, even while fighting alongside Ram. He only waved it around to keep them at a distance, to stop them getting too close.
As a result, he put a lot of strain on Ram, and was forced to flee with her in his arms. It was all Subaru's own fault, including the fact that he hadn't imagined the beasts would get so close.
The wound on his shoulder hurt. Blood was dribbling from the gaps in his torn clothes, and his right sleeve was soaked up to his elbow. His right arm felt weak, so he frantically moved forward, holding Ram again and again. At any rate, he tried to move her even a little.
"Ram!"
"I'm doing it."
Ram's eyes turned blood red as she brusquely responded to the call.
He periodically activates his clairvoyance to search the surrounding area for any signs of Rem's reaction, and during those times it falls to Subaru to protect Ram, who is completely defenseless.
He looked around, wary of any signs of magic beasts jumping at him. Fortunately, perhaps because the previous one had been defeated, he didn't see any that were trying to provoke him. They just kept a close distance, stalking him, as if waiting for his stamina to run out.
The eerie silence made Subaru hold his breath, unable to completely shake the bad feeling he had.
Every now and then, it would turn left and right to check us, changing course to avoid an ambush. Every time it did this, it became impossible to tell which direction it was heading in the first place.
It had been a long time since he had lost sight of the direction to the village, the path leading to the depths of the forest. Since Ram, who has clairvoyance, hadn't mentioned anything, he could at least avoid running in the wrong direction, and so he ran through.
Abandoning that thought and simply continuing to run mindlessly, the result was――
"Shit――!"
He was rewarded with the forest suddenly opening up and the ground disappearing beneath his feet.
My feet scrape through the air, and I'm hit by a floating sensation, as if all my internal organs are being pulled upwards. Immediately afterwards, my heels scrape against the slope, and I lose my balance and begin to slide down.
It was a scary moment, but it wasn't like we were facing a cliff.
It was much simpler, and he came across a depression in the forest. Holding the girl in his arms, he slid down the slope and almost fell, but he arrived at the end of the slope in an ugly fashion. He looked around, grateful that he had not fallen, but then realized that his gratitude had been premature.
He landed in a valley in the forest, a V-shaped depression carved into the ground with two exits on either side. However, the footsteps of multiple magical beasts could be heard from both paths. At the same time, there were signs of more magical beasts sliding down the slope Subaru had fallen from.
"I've been set up...!"
Magical beasts should not be underestimated as mere beasts.
Though Subaru sensed from their repeated contact that they possessed some sort of wisdom, the situation and their appearances did not permit him to dwell on it.
This was the opportunity that led them to choose a path that was to their advantage, leading them to a place from which they had no hope of escape.
In his arms, unaware of the seriousness of the situation, Ram's vision is still darting into the distance.
It was impossible to leave it to her, who was unable to grasp the current situation, to resolve the situation. Therefore, Subaru's ability to overcome this predicament was a testament to her trust in him.
"I have no choice but to do it...!"
The tendency to make quick decisions is one of the few virtues that exists in Subaru.
He somehow managed to hold Ram in place with just his left arm, and with his right he snatched the one-handed sword from her hand. The wound on his right shoulder was throbbing with pain, but it wasn't enough to impair his grip strength.
Subaru took a deep breath as he felt the presence approaching from behind, left and right, and raised his sword in one hand.
"Let's go, Ola!"
He thrusts it into the slope in front of him, mobilizing all the muscles in his lower body and right arm, and begins to conquer the slope in front of him.
The method he chose was to flee once again - breaking through one of the three paths and opening a path to victory was not worthy of being judged as a heroic act. Since military cheats were not permitted, it was unclear whether the blade would even reach the first monster.
I stab the blade, bite into the moss-covered slope with the soles of my shoes, and use my whole body to climb the slope. If I roll down, it's the end of the story, but no matter where I wait, it's self-evident that the end will come. So, if I don't at least struggle, everything will be in vain.
Twisting his body, he rubbed the elbow and shoulder of his right arm, which was thrusting the blade, against the slope, trying to gain as much friction as possible as he headed up the slope. Behind him, the demonic beasts that had been trying to pincer Subaru and the others in the depression butted noses together, then looked up at their fleeing shadows and roared.
However, even if he realized our intentions, it was too late now.
After being stabbed a dozen times, Subaru and the others' bodies reached the top of the slope. Leaning forward, they somehow managed to climb up by hooking their upper bodies,
"Yessss! I did it! I did it surprisingly well! Nice job, me! Nice job! My traditional one-handed sword, the blade is all chipped and cracked, but... ooahh!"
As he continued to praise himself, he immediately pulled his body back down the slope. Immediately afterwards, a ferocious storm passed overhead, dragging along earth and sand - his nape, which he had been slow to avoid, was dug up by the aftershock, causing a burning heat and intense pain at the same time.
"--You!"
Grimacing in pain, he leaned forward again up the slope, and there, far ahead in front of him, stood a small shadow - the figure of the puppy-like demonic beast, which Subaru had come across for the fifth time overall.
The posture is like lying face down with the limbs stretched out and the stomach on the ground.
The sight of it turning its glowing red eyes towards me only swells up an unceasing hostility towards its failed prey.
In short, preparations were underway for the second shot.
「This has got to be a joke, I won't take that!」
As the torrent of mana began to interfere with the natural flow, Subaru hastily dashed up the slope, putting off putting away his sword and picking up Ram, in order to escape the beast's sight - chasing after its fleeing back, the forest was ravaged by a horizontal landslide.
Trees were cut down, and I felt the extraordinary force of the ground being turned upside down right behind me. I didn't have time to turn around, and my calf, which was slow to escape, was torn apart by the aftermath of the attack, and blood spurted out.
"Dammit!"
Screaming and jumping.
He bounded down the slope to his right, a different direction from before. Deciding not to be caught up by the landslide, Subaru plunged his sword, which he had been holding in his reverse hand, into the ground once more,
"It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!"
Subaru scraped the ground with the right half of his body, twisting and digging the sword into the ground, controlling his fall. Half crying from the pain of his increasing scrapes, Subaru looked up at the cliff he had fallen from,
"Oops."
Unable to stop due to too much momentum, he knocks the beast's body rolling down the slope.
Screaming like an indoor dog, several of the beasts fell straight down. Unlike the previous depression, the slope that awaited them was a valley with sharp rock faces. The fallen beasts were mercilessly embraced by the sturdy earth, and fell silent with the sound of their bones breaking.
"I was almost sorry for your loss, but--"
"Balse――! Rem was there!"
In his arms, Ram let out a cry of joy, and her bloodshot eyes returned to reality.
Then she put on a look of delight, then frowned at the fact that their view was tilted,
"What's going on since I haven't seen you in a while?"
"We're on a cliffhanger due to unavoidable circumstances! I'd rather hear about the outcome of that, even if it's just to distract me from reality."
Feeling the muscles in his arms trembling, Subaru shifted his focus to distracting himself with some good news. Ram nodded slightly, without commenting on Subaru's worsening condition.
"Another vision caught Rem's shadow not far from here. The timing was bad so I couldn't catch Rem's own vision, but she should have been heading this way."
"How do you know?"
"The vision that Ram stole belonged to Urgarm, and while he was moving somewhere with several other members of the pack, he encountered Rem. He was crushed and the sharing was broken."
"Is that so...?"
I don't know what kind of shock Ram would experience if the person he shared his vision with died, but I imagine it would certainly not be a pleasant sight.
In any case, it was a blessing to be able to confirm that Rem was safe. Just as we had expected, she was happily hunting in the forest, and that was great too.
"The problems are much more numerous over there... I rushed over thinking that Rem was in danger, but it wasn't even a case of the hunter becoming the hunted."
"If we fall off the cliff, it'll be in danger for the both of us, Barus. Can you climb up?"
"We can do it with sheer willpower. The bigger problem is the monsters that have followed us up there..."
As they discussed what to do, they put strength back into their right arms, which were supporting the two of them. They leaned their weight onto the sword that was piercing them at an angle, and tried to somehow make their position more comfortable.
""--a""
Their voices joined together, and at the same time a high-pitched sound of steel breaking rang out.
The blade of the one-handed sword that had been thrust into the cliff broke, leaving about a third of its tip on the slope. In a panic, he thrust the warped blade into the ground, but the force with which it penetrated was weaker due to the tip now being flattened, and simply――,
"---Is it possible that the bodies of the fallen monsters could act as a cushion?"
"It's more likely that Ram and the others will become a cushion for the monsters that fall after this."
Subaru said as if praying for the heavens' will, to which Ram replied with a resigned air. In that instant, the blade, which had not yet penetrated the slope, was released and the fall resumed.
They pressed their entire right sides against the slope, prepared to have their flesh sheared off, but they were unable to obtain enough friction to support the weight of both of them, and they were thrown helplessly off the cliff.
「Damn it, damn it――!!」
"--This is going to be expensive, Barus!!"
The sensation of falling headfirst reminded Subaru of the time he had thrown himself at someone else, and his whole body went numb. Still, he unconsciously held Ram close in his arms to at least protect her from the impact of the fall, proving that he hadn't given up on being a boy.
Feeling the forceful embrace, Ram stiffened and stretched her arms out towards the ground,
"--El Fura!!"
At the same time as they shouted, mana swelled up and an explosion occurred on the ground where the two were expected to land.
The wind pressure from directly below carried Subaru's body, which was falling, up the air current, reversing his headfirst fall and slowing his falling speed at a little.
This is it, he decided in a world where his field of vision was rotating half a circle, and he put all his strength into both his feet and endured the shock by clenching his teeth hard enough to crack.
"Ngghhhhhhh, aaaahhh -- I endured it!!"
--I endured it.
Hopping on the spot to comfort his legs that were complaining of an extreme numbness, Subaru looked up at the cliff they had fallen from and was stunned by its height.
The height of over ten meters is roughly equivalent to the height of a four-story school. He was thrown from there onto the hard ground, and it's amazing that he managed to escape with his life.
"Seriously, Ram-sama's timing is heavenly. If it weren't for that wind magic, now would be..."
Just as Subaru was about to express his gratitude for having escaped death, he noticed that Ram in his arms was not moving a muscle. With her head down, a trickle of blood trickled from her nostril, she had her eyes closed and was breathing shallowly and groaning in pain.
"Hey, Ram? Oh no, hey."
He called out to her, shaking her body gently, but there was no reply from Ram.
Her body was already worn down from fighting the monsters to begin with, and the magic used to cushion her fall added to that, likely wearing her down mentally.
"Ugh, shit, what terrible timing for me."
Cursing his own carelessness, Subaru holds Ram in his arms more carefully. He awkwardly puts his sword, which had broken halfway through, back into its sheath and looks up.
Up on the cliff, the monsters that had been chasing them seemed to have detouring the path and started searching for an alternative route to pursue Subaru and his companions who had taken a shortcut.
I want to put as much distance between us as possible while I can,
"I can't afford to waste time――!?"
Running away would mean losing time, and that loss would directly affect his life. Subaru tried to hold back the urge to click his tongue at the fact that they had no choice but to run away. However, that sentimentality was quickly shattered by the loud bang that came from the top of the cliff.
"Hey, you're kidding."
Looking up, above him, a massive avalanche of debris was flowing down the slope Subaru had just slid down - carrying on it over a dozen magical beasts, including a puppy.
I quickly jumped back, at the very least trying to avoid being caught in the mudslide.
However, when the demonic beasts landed on the same ground along with the earth and sand, the advantage that Subaru and Ram had risked their lives to gain instantly vanished.
The creation of this machine had caused Ram's consciousness to sink to the bottom of the water, and on top of that, Subaru's unreliable armament became even more unreliable.
"I hate you witch... Your perfume is too strong."
Be grateful when things go as planned, but quickly reverse your opinion if you realize that it is leading to current failure.
How dirty, just like Subaru would have you think. Evaluating his own small-mindedness, Subaru began preparing to flee once more, knowing that it would only serve to postpone the outcome.
They got out of here in a frenzy, praying that they still wouldn't underestimate the two of them and attack immediately――
"Wait, what?"
Just before he was about to take off, Subaru sensed something was off and tilted his head.
Something was strange about the monsters that had fallen. I had assumed they would bend over the mudslide and jump at me as soon as they landed, but...
"Hey, hey, I'm over here."
Just as Subaru's shocked voice had indicated, the moment they landed, the Witchbeasts scattered into groups and began running down the cliff.
Their appearance, like a swarm of spiders scattering one another, was so shameful that it reminded Subaru of his own flight earlier.
"What's wrong, you guys--"
The tension of being attacked eased slightly, and such questions filled my mind.
Immediately afterwards, the answer exploded on the cliff and rained down on Subaru.
"picture"
Subaru looked up once again, confused at the change on the cliff above - and when he saw dark red pieces of flesh flying one after the other before his eyes, he understood.
--A lone figure appears on the cliff far above.
A girl in a waitress' uniform was swinging a blood-soaked iron ball around, glaring down the cliff with insane eyes.
The moment his eyes met those murderous gazes, Subaru felt the worst kind of premonition and his back became drenched in cold sweat.
The next moment, with a leap, the ``demon'' effortlessly descended from the very high cliff onto the ground below.
Surrounded by magical beasts in a deep forest, facing off against a ``demon,'' holding the girl he must protect, and with a broken sword in one hand, Subaru held his breath, knowing that he had reached the final stage.
"But don't you think I'm a bit too poor for that?"
Her appeal went unheard and was ignored by the wind blowing through the forest.
Now, this is what we call the crucial moment.
Subaru saw his own distorted profile reflected in the blade of his drawn one-handed sword, and it looked terribly weak