“I shouldn’t have read them…”
Looking back, it was something I deeply regretted.
Who would have thought that just because I was an avid reader of RDO novels, I would end up possessing the character destined for devastation in the novel? How could this even be possible?
If I had known this would happen, I would have stuck to reading dragon possession stories instead. At least those would rarely involve suffering.
“Hm? What did you say?”
John, who had been a bit sulky after having his offer rejected, tilted his head and spoke to me again. His hearing was unnecessarily sharp.
“Nothing. I was just talking to myself. Don’t mind me and go rest.”
I brushed it off with a somewhat cold tone, then put the chin guard back on to cover my face, and started wiping the blade of my longsword that I had pulled out of the ground with a cloth.
It was a silent message that I had no intention of talking any further.
“Ah… I see. Alright then.”
Even a country youth lacking in social awareness seemed to understand this much. John clicked his tongue softly but didn’t try to get closer.
It was fortunate for both of us.
John quietly returned to the other party members, plopped down on the ground, and started chatting with them, while I silently continued to wipe my sword blade.
Until all the sticky goblin blood and fat were completely wiped off.
It was a tedious but essential task.
Unless it was a sword engraved with magic, an ordinary iron sword could easily get caught while cutting an enemy if even a little maintenance was neglected.
If your sword stops in the middle of a fierce battle, most people would freeze in confusion and end up dying a miserable death.
The lifespan of fools who didn’t know that the condition of their equipment was their lifeline couldn’t be long.
* * *
About ten minutes passed like that.
“Ahem, everyone seems to have rested enough, so let’s get up.”
Hans, who had been chatting with the other two party members for a while, cleared his throat and stood up.
“Hey, you there. Hilde, was it? You’ve rested enough too, right? Let’s get going. The sun will set at this rate.”
Speaking informally to someone he just met, really.
Is he trying to show off because he’s older? It wasn’t pleasant to see him giving orders as if he was better than everyone else when he was just an iron token adventurer like me.
“Yes. Let’s do that.”
I nodded halfheartedly and got up.
There was no point in telling him not to speak informally. He wouldn’t listen, and it would only cause unnecessary trouble. I didn’t want to waste time on such things now that the request was completed.
Clank. Clatter.
The metal sound of the pauldrons and breastplate on my body resonates.
Unlike the other three adventurers who, befitting their iron or wooden tokens, barely wore armor for the sake of appearances, mine was plate armor made of high-quality forged steel.
It was armor that was like my lifeline, which I had barely managed to acquire by selling the armor I was wearing when I first possessed this body.
The performance of my previous armor was several times better than this one, so I had actually lost out by selling it… but it couldn’t be helped.
Wearing that armor in front of others would have been no different from announcing my identity to everyone.
That would have been troublesome.
If it became known that I was working as an adventurer under the alias ‘Hilde,’ a threat incomparable to these goblins would come for me.
A threat that made me throw away everything I had without hesitation and choose to run away the moment I realized the true nature of this world.
The threat of the fate of a RDO heroine.
* * *
For about an hour, we retraced our steps through the dungeon corridor.
As a swordswoman in heavy armor, I was walking at the front alongside Hans, who held a shield.
Jamie, the archer, was whistling leisurely behind us, while John followed at the very back, prepared for any surprise attacks.
Vanguards protecting the ranged attacker from front and back. It was Hans’s suggestion.
Perhaps his abundance of dungeon raiding experience came with his age. It was a flawless, textbook formation.
One of the most common mistakes novice adventurers make is placing all their warriors at the front, only to be wiped out by a surprise attack from behind.
To prevent such a situation, we had to place one agile warrior at the very back of the group, just like we were doing now.
So they could quickly join the vanguard if enemies attacked from the front, or immediately turn around to protect the priest, mage, or archer if there was a surprise attack from behind.
In other words, this formation was the most efficient for dungeon raiding.
It was also very efficient for turning a party member into ‘loot’…
“Ah, shit.”
A curse involuntarily slipped out. I swung my left arm wide behind my back while thrusting the longsword in my grip towards the enemy in front of me, as if throwing it.
Clang!
The sound of metal collision reverberated off the dungeon walls.
A heavy impact struck the gauntlet on my left arm, and the longsword that deflected the one-handed sword aiming for my leg sent a slight vibration to my fingertips.
“She blocked it?!”
“Damn, did she notice?!”
Exclamations of shock and curses brushed past my ears. I frowned deeply and scanned the bastards who had suddenly ambushed me through the visor of my helmet.
“No, not with a shield, but with her forearm…?!”
Jamie hastily created distance while pulling out a new arrow.
His widened eyes were trembling, perhaps shocked at the sight of an arrow being deflected without even looking.
“You should have aimed for the legs, the legs!”
Hans, who had drawn his sword and swung it, had a contorted face, perhaps from the numbness in his hand.
With his already ugly face all scrunched up, he looked just like a mountain hermit engaged in human trafficking and debt collection.
These bastards.
“Judging by how well-coordinated you are, this isn’t your first time doing this, is it? I thought you looked like thieves from the start.”
There was no reason to be polite anymore.
So much for not judging by appearances, both Hans and Jamie were acting exactly as they looked.
They were the kind of scum who took advantage of the fact that request office staff don’t care about the lives of lower-ranked adventurers, killing their party members in dungeons where there are no witnesses and reporting it as a combat death.
This was a type of person I frequently encountered as a woman working as a low-ranked adventurer.
Of course, the request office staff weren’t fools either, so they did keep an eye on adventurers with suspiciously high party member death rates, suspecting them of being looters…
But honestly, from what I could see, they didn’t seem to take it too seriously.
Unless deaths occurred every single time, they tended to overlook it if party members died about once every ten requests.
Thanks to that, there were many such bastards among lower-ranked adventurers.
“Did I look that easy to you?”
I tended to encounter these types particularly often. Almost once every three days.
Was it because I wore armor that was too good for my rank?
Or was it because of this obscenely sexy body that could be guessed to be beautiful even with a helmet on, befitting a main character of the original story?
…Maybe it was both. From the looters’ perspective, it must have felt like a two-for-one deal.
Anyway, now that the surprise attack had failed, all that remained was battle.
“Tch, in that case…!”
“Bring it on.”
I gripped my drawn longsword with both hands and swung it towards Hans, who was thrusting his dented shield at me, filled with hostility.
Crack-crack-crack!
Wooden splinters flew like sparks. The silver arc roughly scraped across his shield.
I deflected the one-handed sword that came flying in retaliation with the back of my gauntlet, and quickly jumped sideways to avoid the second arrow.
Thunk!
The missed arrow hit the dungeon wall, leaving a scratch as it ricocheted off.
“Fast as a rat…!”
“Is that so? Am I just fast?”
The fierce battle continued.
Perhaps due to the torchlight, a reddish gleam of sword light flashed as it cut through the air, and the clear sound of metal clashing with metal rang out chaotically, mixed with curses.
* * *
It wasn’t long before Hans retreated, staggering back with a rough cry.
“Gah…!”
He clutched his left arm tightly with his other hand, blood pouring from a gaping hole.
“Not much of a challenge. Is this all you can do, even with two of you?”
A clear disadvantage. It was an injury that could be considered decisive.
My longsword, pressing down on the edge of his shield, had pierced through his crude chain mail like paper, mercilessly penetrating and severing the muscle and arm bone beneath.
If it weren’t for Jamie’s arrow that flew in at that moment, I might have been able to slice his arm off completely… but well, this was enough.
With the bone cleanly severed, it would be impossible for him to wield a shield with that arm now.
“Well, I guess that’s why you’ve been robbing other adventurers. How did you even get an iron token? Did you scavenge it off a corpse?”
Perhaps my mockery about their weakness touched a nerve.
“Fuck…! John! Joooohn! What are you doing, you bastard?! Don’t just stand there, help us!”
Hans turned around sharply and shouted fiercely with a voice filled with rage.
“Ah, y-yes, sir!”
The axe man, who had been standing dumbfounded at the sudden outbreak of violence, nodded his head in surprise and rushed towards me.
“Ha.”
So that country bumpkin was in on it too.
No, judging by how he had been standing there in a daze until now, he probably wasn’t in on it from the start.
Then, during our rest time earlier, did they discuss ambushing and robbing me?
Yeah. That seems about right.
Like the three sworn brothers who shared wine and peaches, they must have persuaded him to join their side by offering to share my body.
In other words, he was guilty.
Just because I didn’t gratefully accept the water he offered, they tried to rob and kill me. Isn’t that an excessively harsh retaliation?
“Gaaaaah!”
John, who had already rushed up to me, swung his raised axe like he was chopping firewood, letting out a rustic battle cry.
“Now’s our chance! Push her!”
Hans and Jamie also swung their sword and shot arrows, seeing this as their opportunity.
It reminded me of the old saying about three against one.
“Pathetic.”
I let out a faint sigh and pulled my gripped longsword back behind my shoulder.
There was no tension.
Three is three, but one half-wit and one with a crippled arm. Even combined, they weren’t worth one proper warrior.
They weren’t three, they were still just two.
And…
The number 2 is a symbol of defeat. The truth of the world proven by a man who fell for the same trick three times gave me confidence.
Confidence that there was no reason to lose.
A rain of sword light poured out a purple mist of blood.