Something Like This Won’t Hurt Me!

But that apparently became the signal.

The bandits dressed as merchants slung large cloth sacks over their shoulders and fled at full speed.

Some dove into the brush. Some mounted horses they had pulled out from somewhere and rode off. Some tumbled down the cliff as though rolling.

They all fled in completely different directions, so my men were thrown into confusion.

“Huh…? Commander… um, which ones do we chase?”

One knight stood there dithering with his sword still drawn.

Normally, a few men would stay behind as a rear guard—or rather, as sacrifices—while the rest fled together, but…

What the hell were these people? Were they not even a proper group to begin with?

“Well, they ran, so fine. More importantly, let’s rescue the victims. Move that bandits’ wagon out of the way.”

Maybe it sounded cold to say it, but at the end of the day, they were just bandits from another country. Where their boss was, or where their hideout was, was none of my concern.

When I gave the order, my men sheathed their swords and called out to one another.

“Rescue them!”

“Secure the victims!”

“Unhitch the horses from the wagon!”

Only then, hearing those voices, did the knights of the Kingdom of Luminous seem to let their guard down as well. They collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion.

Wryly smiling at the sight, I approached the covered wagon that had lost its horses.

Part of it was because a moment ago it had looked like one of the bandits had thrust his hand in there, but also… for the merchants of this wagon, or rather… there were too few victims.

Had they all fled into the covered wagon and curled up inside?

While my men were calling out toward the brush and the mountain trees, “It’s all right now. Come out,” I lifted the rear flap of the wagon cover.

The cargo bed itself was tilted like a slide.

I had already been able to tell from the outside, but the interior was quite spacious. Still, because the cover enclosed the whole wagon bed, it was darker than outside.

For people hauling around such a large cargo, they had to be fairly substantial merchants with established routes. But the wagon was almost empty.

Had it been stolen, or sold off? All that had fallen to the very back of the wagon were ropes and a large cloth for protecting cargo.

“…Is someone there?”

I called out softly.

That was because I could smell faint perfume, and in contrast to that, the heavy smell of blood.

Placing a hand on the slanted wagon bed, I looked upward.

There they were.

Right at the very front.

Two women.

A glamorous young woman who looked about Shitoen’s age was holding a baby-faced girl… maybe in her late teens. Holding that girl in her arms, she glared at me.

Then my eyes met those of the teenage girl in her arms.

“Nooo! Sister!”

The instant she screamed, I jumped in shock.

Wait, I shaved today, didn’t I!? I don’t have a beard, right!?

I remembered how, long ago, when I returned to the palace after finishing frontier duty, I had been all scruffy, and a lady had burst into tears and even insulted me by saying I stank. That one had seriously traumatized me.

“Stay back! I won’t let you lay a single finger on this girl!”

She threatened me in beautiful Tania.

It was probably because the wagon bed was slanted. Gripping one of the cover poles with one hand so she would not slide down, and holding the teenage girl with the other, the woman shouted at me. She had just been called “Sister,” so she must be the older one.

That girl’s right arm. I thought it was trembling in small spasms, but blood was actually streaming endlessly from the hand gripping the cover pole.

“You’re hurt? Are you all right?”

Were they merchants from Tania?

Even though I spoke as gently as I could, the younger sister clung to her older sister and burst into loud sobs.

…That stung. It stung badly.

“I came to help. Calm down. I’m from Tidros—”

“If you come any closer, I’ll bite you!”

And the older sister kept yelling at full force too.

This was no good.

As I stood there bewildered, Raul flipped up the cover flap and climbed in.

“What are you doing, Commander?”

“No, the victims… Oh, right. You’re in uniform.”

I lifted the cover flap a little and pulled several nearby men into the wagon.

“See? They’re all wearing uniforms, right? We’re the knights of the Kingdom of Tidros. We just happened to come across this and stepped in to help.”

I explained that to the sisters while pointing at the jackets worn by several knights, Raul included.

I myself had not been wearing the order uniform because it was a hassle, and that had to be what went wrong.

That had to be it.

It was not that my face looked too severe, or that my body was unnecessarily too big, or that I did not have a refined air about me or anything like that—surely they had only been wary of me because I was not wearing the order uniform. Yes, that was what I was going to believe.

“…You are… knights of Tidros?”

At last, the edge left the older sister’s voice.

“Are they people from Tania?”

Raul asked me quietly, so I gave him an ambiguous nod.

“Looks like it. They were speaking Tania from the start…”

Looking more closely, the sisters were wearing clothing unique to Tania.

It was gathered just below the chest, and the skirt fell straight without puffing out. It was close to a one-piece dress, but what made it distinctive was the fabric pattern. A combination of geometric designs, with elaborate colors and embroidery.

“Sister!”

The younger sister suddenly gave another scream, and the two of them slid down from the wagon bed together.

The knights and I hurriedly caught them.

Seen up close, the older sister’s injury was bad.

And maybe because she had fainted, although the younger sister managed to get to her feet, the older one lay limp and unmoving in my arms.

“This is bad.”

The bleeding had not stopped.

“Sister, she protected me…”

The younger sister clung to my arm and started bawling all over again.

But looking closely, she was injured too.

Especially her back.

Maybe she had been cut while fleeing with her back turned. The wound was shallow, but it was bleeding. More than that, her clothes were torn, which was a serious problem in itself.

“Hey.”

Before I could call out for someone to hand over a jacket, Raul casually took off his own and draped it over the younger sister’s shoulders.

…No, really, this man was such a good guy.

And yet he still had not found a wife… why was that, I wonder.

“For now, let’s get them outside.”

Prompted by Raul, I thought he was right.

There was no reason for a bunch of men to remain all packed together inside the dim wagon cover.

One of the knights lifted the cover high for us, so without even having to duck, I carried the older sister out into the open.

When I had first come to this spot, it had felt very dark, but maybe because I had just been inside the wagon cover, it still seemed bright enough outside.

Raul called to several knights and had them spread cloaks out on the ground.

We laid the older sister down on top of them.

The younger sister immediately rushed over, plopped down on the ground, and began sniffling.

“Should we bind the wound and stop the bleeding?”

When I asked Raul, he tilted his head with a somewhat troubled look.

“I do not know whether that would be the correct thing to do. Why not ask Princess Shitoen?”

That was true enough.

Shitoen knew a great deal about medicine.

This is a secret, but according to her, she had been a physician in her previous life. Certainly, although there was no sign that Shitoen had studied medicine in either the Kingdom of Tania or the Kingdom of Luminous, her knowledge of it ran deep. The Kingdom of Tania already had ideas about reincarnation to begin with… maybe that had something to do with it too.

Still…

“Even though there may still be bandits around here… bring Shitoen?”

I was a little uneasy about whether it was really safe to bring her down from the carriage and have her come here.

At that moment, the younger sister burst into even louder crying again.

The surrounding knights paused what they were doing for a moment and looked over at her with pity. Some even stepped closer and tried to offer words of comfort.

“…It can’t be helped. Give Shitoen a strong escort and bring her here. Tell her I want her to look at the wounds.”

I said it to Raul with a sigh mixed in.

Raul nodded, took the reins of his beloved horse, swung up onto it in one smooth motion, and rode back down the way we had come. Well, that should somehow take care of things. Now then…

“Hey, what happened to the people traveling with these girls?”

I called out to one of my nearby men and asked.

They were probably merchants, but surely they had not gone peddling with just the two of them alone.

The covered wagon was too large for that, and more than anything, the two of them were too well dressed. Once they were out in better light, I noticed the older sister had a golden buckle on her arm. The younger sister wore a jade pendant around her neck.

Rather than girls who personally went out into town to do business, they seemed more like daughters of a wealthy merchant house with a large number of servants.

And yet, where were all the attendants who should have been with them? Had they all been killed by the bandits?

“Well, we searched nearby and called out, but got no response. No bodies either.”

The man gave a little shrug.

“They either ran off and abandoned their masters at once, or got kicked off the cliff, I’d say.”

“Or they were in league with the bandits,” I muttered.

Then I approached the younger sister, who was still sobbing uncontrollably.

When I knelt on the ground and peered into her face, she gave a tiny scream and clung to her older sister lying there.

I will not be hurt.

Something like this will not hurt me, damn it…!

But Raul! Get back here quickly!