Episode 11: The Captive
Stabbed an additional three times, even a guy like Kuma-san seemed to have given up and stopped moving.
While Fran, who had somehow managed to tie him up, was taking a breather, I went over to the old woman.
“You don’t look like one of the bandits, but who are you?”
“My name is Hanna, and I am the wet nurse for the young lady of the Moran Trading Company. Did you come to rescue us?”
“Well, it seems like we ended up rescuing you, but I still don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“There are only two of us. We were attacked, so we fought back, and as a result, we ended up storming this place, but who knows how many more of them there are. Besides these guys, how many accomplices do they have?”
“There are many. There were a lot of them when they attacked our carriage.”
A lot, huh? There were 11 who followed us from town, 5 outside, and 3 here, making it 19 people.
I don’t know the scale of bandit groups in this world, but if the Guild Master is the boss, it would be easy for him to command disgruntled Adventurers and ruffians from the town.
If this were a light novel or anime, I’d be using some bestowed magic to mow down the bad guys one after another, but unfortunately, I’m just a Tamer with the lowest abilities.
Seriously, what an outrageous world they Summoned me to.
“Shinya, what are we going to do now?”
“The sun will be setting soon, so I guess we have no choice but to sleep here tonight.”
“Are we kicking these guys out?”
“No, there’s a young lady and her wet nurse, so we can’t just abandon them. And even if we escort them to town, we’ll need living witnesses of the bandits.”
I placed the three tied-up men back-to-back, re-tied them by connecting each one’s hands and feet to the person next to them, and as a finishing touch, I connected their necks so they couldn’t move.
They were barely breathing, but it didn’t matter whether they lived or died.
“You! Don’t move, there’s a bee!”
When I looked at the shoulder the old woman was pointing to, Bee-chan was perched there, resting.
《Bee-chans, go rest at the entrance. I’ll give you some meat later, okay?》
With a 《Yes, sir!》, they moved to the entrance and made themselves comfortable.
“This bee won’t attack, so don’t worry. More importantly, there were five others besides these guys. Do you know how many more there are?”
“There are 8 here, but 6 have gone to town.”
After searching the hideout and confirming no bandits remained, I took a closer look at the large bundle the old woman was holding and saw small feet sticking out.
“You should let the young lady out. She must be uncomfortable in that state.”
“But…”
The old woman’s gaze fell upon Fran, who was stripping Magic Pouches and weapons from the tied-up bandits.
“We’re confiscating the weapons, and the Magic Pouches were probably taken from their victims anyway. The money is our fee for the trouble. We’re Adventurers, after all, so it’s natural to turn loot into cash. We’ll return your things, so tell us what was stolen.”
“Only this child’s change of clothes, and a magic bag containing toys and accessories. Everything was in it, but it was taken and is now in that Magic Pouch over there.”
As she said that, she removed the covering, and from under a pile of clothes and fabric—probably to protect her from the bees—a little girl emerged.
“This is Lady Mina of the Moran Trading Company, located in Holm.”
“Moran Trading Company, do you know it?”
“Never heard of it. I’m just a country bumpkin.”
“You don’t know of the Moran Trading Company, which supplies various crafts and artworks even to the royal family?”
“As you can see, I’m an Adventurer. We live in different worlds, so I wouldn’t know. Where is Holm, anyway?”
The old woman shook her head as if exasperated by my question.
“It’s Holm, in the Elzart territory, the fourth large town south from the Royal Capital Langus, along the Tanzas Highway.”
I couldn’t help but exchange glances with Fran, but she looked just as bewildered.
“Excuse me, but from which direction of Zandra are you from?”
“You really are an ignorant country bumpkin, aren’t you?”
Hanna-baasan said, shaking her head in exasperation.
Even though we rescued her from being captured by bandits, she sure has a high-and-mighty attitude.
“Fran, rather than dealing with the old woman, let’s get them to hand over the Magic Pouch with the kid’s change of clothes and stuff.”
“Right. It doesn’t seem like I, a country bumpkin, can have a proper conversation with her.”
However, the one the old woman pointed to was the large, bear-like man, and I wondered what to do.
I decided to try a torture method I’d seen in a movie, picking out a weapon from the confiscated Magic Pouches.
“Kuma-san, if you willingly remove the user registration from the Magic Pouch, you won’t get hurt. But if you refuse, you’ll lose your fingers one by one. Or rather, if you want a Potion, remove the user registration.”
Kuma-san lifted his swollen face and spat.
As thanks for the spit, I smashed his kneecap with a club I found.
“Ugh…” “You bastard… Are you… prepared…?”
“So you’re prepared, huh? Well then, shall I crush the other one too?”
“Guh… Damn it!”
“If you endure too much, a Potion won’t be able to heal it.”
This time, I snapped one of the tendons in his elbow, and he let out a scream, “Ugaaaaargh!”
I remembered! I heard that a ruptured Achilles tendon is painful enough to make a grown man cry.
“I think this next one will hurt even more. What will you do? Will you remove the user registration?”
He still clenched his teeth and glared at me, so I took off his dirty boots, but the stench was so bad I nearly choked and threw up.
I instinctively cast “Clean, Clean, Clean” three times in a row.
“Shinya-san, please spare us! Not just the old woman, even the little kid is gagging!”
“My bad. I didn’t know the inside of boots could be such a hazardous material.”
Feeling sick, I slammed a knife onto his Achilles tendon.
“Gyaaaaargh… Sto…p it… Sto…p…”
“Ah, you still have one leg left!”
“Shinya-san, please, not that smell again~!”
“It’s okay. This time I’ll cut through the boot, so I don’t think it’ll smell.”
I stomped on his foot and placed the knife against the back of his boot, and he said, “Stop… please… I’ll… remove… it.”
“That’s what I said from the beginning. If you’d just removed it willingly, you wouldn’t have had to go through this pain.”
I dabbed Kuma-san’s finger with blood and touched it to the Magic Pouch. He muttered something, and it seemed to be unlocked.
I spread out the large cloth the little lady had been covered with and turned the Magic Pouch upside down.
Well, a surprising amount of junk came tumbling out, so finding the specific Magic Pouch was a pain.
The bear-man begged tearfully for a Potion, but I put him off and searched for the Magic Pouch, then handed it to Hanna-baasan.
The problem was the Potions. About 10 various bottles came out, but I had no idea what they were for.
While questioning Kuma-chan, I sorted them out: 2 Antidote Potions, 5 Minor Potions, and 3 Medium Potions.
While getting a lecture on Potions from Kuma-chan, I sprinkled a Medium Potion on his wounds.
He pleaded for an Antidote Potion too, but I rejected him with a single word: “Nope.”
The remaining Potions were to be split with Fran, but since I didn’t think I needed an Antidote Potion, I gave them to Fran.
Kuma-chan’s wallet, a leather pouch, was quite heavy. I tossed it into my Magic Pouch to be split later.
When I was struggling because I couldn’t put the scattered items into a Magic Pouch, Hanna-baasan offered to keep them in the young lady’s magic bag.
Hmm? I thought, and asked, “Magic bag?” She explained that items up to Rank 3 are called Magic Pouches, and those Rank 4 and above are called magic bags.
When I asked for reference, she said Rank 12 is the highest rank.
Little Lady Mina was engrossed in eating sweets taken out from the magic bag.
I don’t know how long she’d been captive, but the food made by those grubby old men must have been terrible.
I had Fran block the entrance; even though the bandits were tied up, I had no intention of sleeping with them.
We decided to sleep in shifts. I thought about having Bee-chan keep watch just in case, but bees sleep at night, don’t they?
＊ ＊ ＊ ＊ ＊ ＊ ＊
When the sun was high, I crawled out of our den, had Fran make a thick earthen pipe, put a lid on it, and had her make a hole for Bee-chan to go in and out.
“What are you going to do with something like this?”
“I’m going to use it to capture Bee-chan’s friends. Capturing and Taming them one by one would be a pain, right? I plan to lure a large number of them in and Tame them one by one as they come out of that hole.”
I propped up a perch inside the earthen pipe and said, 《Bee-chan, could you call your friends again? This time, have them come inside here, okay?》
《Yes, sir! I’ll call a lot of them~♪》
《The rest of you, let’s go find some Horned Rabbits and eat some meat.》
《Leave it to us!》
《Let’s eat meat soon!》
《For our friends too~》
“Shinya, aren’t you going back to town?”
“Ah, don’t come out. A large swarm of bees will be here soon, and you’ll get stung.”
“You said you were a Tamer, but can Tamers also control bees?”
“Oh no~, I don’t have that kind of ability. I think it’s probably because I have the Tamer God’s blessing that the bees are cooperating with me. It’ll be dangerous when the bees come, so stay by Mina’s side.”
Just when I thought we’d helped the old woman out, she started getting all high and mighty, bossing us around like we were servants and she was the wet nurse to some young lady from a prominent store.
“The bees are cooperating, are they~?”
“You’re being noisy. If it gets out that I can Tame Poison Spiders and Killer Bees, it’ll undoubtedly lead to trouble. Fran, you shouldn’t say anything unnecessary either. If someone asks, just say something like, ‘Perhaps it’s because I have a divine blessing that they’re protecting me?'”
“It’s alright. It’s common sense for Adventurers not to reveal their hand, nor to leak their comrades’ skills to others. More importantly, it seems Bee-chan has returned.”
Since the low-pitched buzzing of wings was approaching from a distance, I had Fran temporarily take cover. I propped open the lid of the clay pipe slightly, and preparations were ready.
I also moved a short distance away, crouched down, and waited with bated breath for the swarm of Killer Bees to enter the clay pipe.
When Bee-chan, with the fluff attached to its leg, entered the clay pipe, the swarm following it disappeared one after another into the pipe. However, finding nothing inside, some began to turn back.
When I pulled the vine connected to the lid I’d prepared, the stick propping it open gave way, and thunk, the clay pipe’s lid slammed shut.