For half an hour, Kazuma ran blindly through the jungle, jagged leaves cutting his face and arms, thorns ripping at his legs and chest, and stinging insects biting at him. Through it all, he clutched Alice to his chest desperately, shielding her from as much harm as he possibly could.
Even the massive dose of adrenaline Kazuma had gotten during the attack could only keep him going for so long though. He wasn't in the best of shape, and though he was from planet side with heavier gravity, he could only run for so long, especially with the mounting minor injuries. Eventually, his ragged breathing and screaming muscles caught up with him, and he was forced to first slow to a jog, then a trot, then to stagger blindly forward.
His arms burned and felt as though they were made of lead, but when he looked down at the unconscious face of the girl in his arms, Kazuma gritted his teeth and made himself keep going forward.
I'm sorry, Lia. I'm sorry, mom and dad. I failed. I can't do it again. I'm sorry.
Kazuma's heart thundered in his chest, and his vision began to swim. The oppressive heat combined with high humidity meant that he was rapidly becoming dehydrated, and he had not brought any supplies with him, save for the machete that now hung from his belt, his arms too tired to use it to clear a path any longer.
Just as he was hitting the edge of his strength, Kazuma stumbled into ankle deep water. Swearing, he staggered, then dropped Alice, who fell into the water with a splash a moment before Kazuma collapsed himself. He sputtered and tried to fight for the surface, only for something to grab onto the back of his shirt and yank him up out of the water.
Desperately Kazuma tried to grab the machete and slice at whatever was holding him, images of a Lorian dropping out of the canopy to grab him, or a Canopy Crawler's jaws striking from on high.
"Alice! Alice get up and run!" Kazuma gasped, the muddy water filling his eyes.
"Um, that's me, right? You can stop struggling, I have you."
Kazuma's vision cleared, and he saw that Alice was holding him up out of the water with one hand as she waded to a higher patch of ground, where she heaved him up out of the muck and onto the bank.
"Oh, um, thanks," Kazuma managed, gasping and collapsing on the mossy ground.
Alice looked down on him, concerned, but a noise off to the side made her look around, startled. "What is that? Where are we? I remember…another attack? But I don't…where is…the woman…I knew her, I think, I don't…"
"Sylvia and her thugs attacked us, got Chris. Had to leave her behind," Kazuma admitted, managing to sit up with a groan. He unhooked the machete from his belt and looked at it for a moment. Then sighed and gave it to Alice. "You know how to use that better than I do…the heck was that back there?"
"I…I just…I knew…" Alice swallowed and then sat down, starting to cry as she hugged her knees to herself and rocked back and forth.
"Hey, it's OK," Kazuma said, crawling over. Despite the muck, he gave Alice a hug, not knowing what else to do. To his surprise, she clung to his chest, pressing her face to his breast and weeping. He gingerly squeezed her, his own eyes shut as he thought of the last time little hands had clung to him. How long? Those bastards.
"T-thank you, big brother," Alice whispered, drawing back and wiping at her eyes. "You must have fought General Sylvia and escaped. The Flesh Shaper, she is…no, no that's not right…"
Something caught in Kazuma's throat. "My parents…they called Sylvia a general too. I'm not sure…I don't think even they knew why. Just that the corporations are evil. I had to work for them though, had to get away from… never mind."
"Corporations?" Alice's face scrunched up in confusion, so Kazuma rubbed her damp hair.
"Don't worry about it. Right now, we need to focus on staying alive. The jungles of Discord are dangerous."
"Ah. Such as the creatures that attacked us earlier?" Alice asked, standing up with Kazuma. She clutched at her machete as if the weapon gave her comfort, looking around with some trepidation.
"Feral throwbacks. Basically, escaped lab experiments. That lot was pretty damn nasty. Took out a full team of commandos and Killer Hawks. We need to keep moving though; it's hard to track people in the jungle, but I'm leaving a bit of a blood trail and that's bad."
Kazuma went over to the water, kneeling down and peering at his muddy reflection. He sighed, but scooped some water into his mouth, drinking it. "Probably gonna get the shits from this, but it's that or die of thirst…"
"Did you not take some purification magic or disease resistance?" Alice asked, coming over. She scooped water to her mouth as well, looking around warily.
Kazuma chuckled, taking out his Adventurer's card. He blinked at it. "Huh, it says I'm level 3 now. Got some skill points, but I don't know how to spend them?"
"Oh! I think I can grant those," Alice reached over and put a hand on Kazuma's card. "Hmmm, yes, you are an Adventurer class. I can give you Basic Magic. I never use it, but you should be able to create drinkable water for yourself that way."
Kazuma blinked at her. "Er, sure, OK…"
"Grant Spell," Alice chanted, and a moment later, knowledge rushed into Kazuma's mind as kanji appeared on his card. Create Water, Earth, Wind, and Fire, plus Flash and Darken. The six basic spells of the six schools of magic. But how did he know that?
Didn't matter. First, drinkable water. "Create Water."
A trickle of water spouted from Kazuma's finger, and he guzzled it thirstily. A second casting of the spell provided Alice with a sort of drinking fountain, which made her giggle and she drank.
"Much better than that muddy stuff," she said.
"Why didn't you use Create Water?" Kazuma asked curiously.
Alice shrugged. "I don't know, I suppose because I can drink pure poison and survive."
"And…you know that how?" Kazuma asked suspiciously.
"Why, it's right here on my…on my…" Alice clutched at her head, her expression suddenly pained. "I don't know. I just…I know. I think…I think I skipped Basic Magic?"
"Then how can you grant it?" Kazuma asked, frowning.
"I…" Alice's head whipped around. "Something is coming. Several somethings."
"Shit, what is it? Not a baloth pack," Kazuma groaned, standing up and backing towards the water. Then he felt a tremor. He looked down, and saw the murky water trembling itself. Wait. A watering hole…this was a watering hole. It was about 10 meters across, a shallow pool with a narrow stream trickling in and out of it and both ends. Which meant…
"We gotta go!" Kazuma gasped, and grabbed on to Alice's arm.
However, she had taken a firm stance, raising her machete into a high guard. "I shall not retreat. I shall not back down. No foe can face me. I am the Sword of the Realm."
"You're a little girl lost in the jungle!" Kazuma shouted over the oncoming roar. "We have to-"
A herd of creatures burst from the jungle at a run, bellowing their panic. Their skin was gnarled and thick, with two large tusks coming out of their mouths and large, sharp hooves pounding the ground.
"Barkhides!" Kazuma gasped. They were far from the most dangerous animals in the jungle, but they traveled in large herds and they could easily trample over most things that got in their way. Their tough, barklike skin also meant only the deadliest of predators could take them, as they were invulnerable to both small arms fire and most claws and fangs.
Not, it seemed, to Alice. Her simple machete moved in a blur, and in two strokes, three barkhides died, sliced in half. The herd bleated in panic and curved around the two, though Kazuma did grab Alice and back up against the trunk of a massive tree next to the water. The herd beasts splashed through the water, but as they did so there was a snapping sound. Kazuma glanced behind him to see a section of the far bank collapse, a dozen barkhides falling and impaling themselves on sharp spikes at the bottom of a pit trap.
"No! Someone's hunting them!" Kazuma gasped. "We have to get out of here!"
"I can take them!" Alice gasped, raising her machete again. "I can fight!"
"Not worth it! Plus, ranged beats melee!" Kazuma told her, taking her wrist. He ran around the base of the tree, then froze as a barrel pointed into his face.
"That's far enough. Damn, you make a lot of noise," a man's voice drawled. He was dressed in jungle camo, his face smeared with mud or makeup to hide it, two brown eyes peering at Kazuma. His weapon was a large caliber shotgun, big enough to take down a barkhide, and large enough to blow Kazuma and Alice to bloody bits. "Thought you'd spook the game. What's a kid and a janitor doing in a Class 5 Red Zone?"
"Do not threaten us, knave, or I shall be forced to put you down," Alice declared, raising her machete.
"Hoo hoo! Look at that! Thinks she's a badass, does she? Girly, I'm wearing two grade armor under this coat, and that piddly thing won't do jack to me," the man chuckled. "Just take it real easy; no sudden motions. You try to call the corpos on us, and we'll have a problem."
"Dust!" a woman's voice called from behind them where the herd had come from. "Be careful! She took down three barkhides with that! She's a combat android or something!"
"Oh come on, she's not an android!" Kazuma protested. Despite himself, he was too nervous not to add, "Besides, as a girl she'd be a gynoid."
"A what now?" Dust asked, raising his weapon and frowning. "Lolisa, drop the cloak. Don't want Rin taking you out by accident if she gets a bad angle."
Kazuma jerked away as a silent figure in a black body suit decloaked next to him. They were slender, with a blank mirrored visor, and a dark fiberglass crossbow with various bolts on a bandoleer across their chest.
"Demon!" Alice hissed, shoving Kazuma back and raising her machete. "Get back!"
"You take one wrong move towards Lolisa and you're dead, little girl," a third voice said, this one coming from a woman in light body armor with a rifle in her hands, and a tail poking out of the back of her pants.
"Hey, hey, let's not be racist here. No reason to hate on the succubi," Dust laughed. "Let's just all relax. Now: you don't LOOK like corpos, or at least, you shouldn't be out here with just a knife if you were. Why don't you tell us what you're doing out here?"
"Don't have time," Lolisa whispered, her voice barely audible over the background noises of the jungle. "Blood. Will attract predators."
"Keith and Taylor will be here with the ship soon. So we need to ice these two or take them with us," Rin growled, keeping her rifle trained on Kazuma's head. Kazuma spotted distinctive scars on her neck from a slave collar, and shivered slightly.
"You're slavers," he gasped, pulling Alice back. "You can't have her."
"No!" Rin growled, while Lolisa shook her head vigorously.
"Not exactly," Dust sighed. He bent over slightly, stepping into Alice's line of sight as her eyes were locked on Lolisa. "Look, kiddo. Were you…" Dust reached over and felt the back of Alice's neck.
In a flash, Alice shoved Dust away, and the man went flying through the air, landing with a splash in the watering hole a good eight meters away. Kazuma swore and grabbed Alice, dragging her down to the ground as a crossbow bolt went through where his head had been, and Rin's rifle roared, the tree behind where Alice had been exploding and sending out splinters.
"DIE, DEMON!" Alice snarled, getting out from under Kazuma and rushing forward, her machete coming up in a deadly arc.
Lolisa, however, activated her stealth cloak, shimmering out of visibility as a zipping sound could be heard. Alice went barreling through where Lolisa had been, her machete carving a tree an arm span thick in half with a single blow.
"DUST!" Rin wailed, and she tried to bring her rifle down towards Kazuma.
Something triggered in his mind, and Kazuma stretched a hand out, shouting, "STEAL!" a moment later, he felt something soft in his hand, and he blinked down at not the rifle he had thought to take, but rather a warm bit of fabric that was.
"Eh-he-he-he," Kazuma chuckled to himself as Rin squawked, her rifle falling with a splash as she twitched in surprise.
"Big Brother!" Alice gasped, coming over and snatching the panties out of Kazuma's hand. She wagged a finger at him. "Shame on you! This is not how one fights!" Then she turned around and held out the undergarments to Rin, who was swearing and reaching for her sidearm. "My apologies, miss. I promise that my brother will comport himself more honorably in our conflict hitherto."
"I, um, I…how'd you do that?!" Rin demanded, snatching away the panties and blushing furiously. "You were all the way over there and…ARGH! DUST! Tell me you're not dead!"
"I'm OK!" a rather woozy Dust called as he staggered up out of the mud. "Stand…stand down! I think they're like you, Rin…girl's got a port on her neck. I think…I think she's an escaped slave too."
Kazuma hastily nodded, raising his hands as Rin finally got her gun out and pointed it at him. "I swear! I'm a janitor! I…I found her in the basement level. She was hooked up to some machines. I…I had a kid sister…I couldn't just leave her there, ya know?"
"And that justifies you stealing my panties, how?" Rin demanded, flicking her safety off and shoving her panties behind her belt.
"I was trying for the gun! I swear! I've never used that ability before!" Kazuma babbled. Though he couldn't help a leer towards Rin's panties, though when she shoved her gun into his face he let out a "meep" and took a step back.
"Rin," a soft voice called from up a tree. "He used…magic. So did she."
Kazuma looked up, and was surprised to see Lolisa hanging from a branch high above by a grappling hook. She dangled high above, her crossbow now holstered at her hip. With a whir, she lowered herself down to Alice's level, prompting the young girl to snarl at her. The other woman removed her helmet, revealing the youthful face of a pink-haired succubus that appeared to be in her teen years, though that was deceptive for that race. "What are you?"
"I am…" Alice licked her lips, and looked at Kazuma.
"My sister. Now, I've figured out that you're poachers," Kazuma said as Dust wadded towards them, rubbing a growing bruise on his right cheek. "Honestly, don't give a damn. We don't have much, but, um…do you need two more crew members? I've got some skills, so does Alice…we just need transport away from the moon."
Dust ignored Kazuma, going over to Rin and Lolisa and pulling them back a few steps. He put his arms around their shoulders, holding a quick whispered conference. Kazuma didn't catch much, aside from Rin glaring at him.
"You really must stop stealing the panties of maidens, Big Brother," Alice said with a sigh. "Whatever will father think?"
Kazuma slowly turned to look down at Alice, but she looked suddenly dazed, holding her head with one hand and swaying slightly. "What was that?"
"I don't…I just…I can remember…you…did that before?" Alice said, her tone questioning. "But…but my first memory is seeing you…you and…"
"It's OK, they messed with your head in that pod," Kazuma said, smiling and patting Alice on the head. She smiled at him, sniffing and wiping away a tear that had been forming in the corner of her eye. "You'll get your memories back."
"You think so?" Alice asked hopefully. She glanced at Lolisa and frowned, then looked back at Kazuma. "You do not…you do not mind that I call you Big Brother?"
An invisible hand grabbed Kazuma's throat and squeezed hard, so he just shook his head mutely. He thought of a girl with dark hair, but the same blue eyes and innocent smile. And it was all he could do not to weep.
"Right, good news! We'll get you off this death trap!" Dust said happily. "And we promise not to sell you into slavery, provided in trade, Alice gives me a pair of her panties."
"DUST!" Rin gasped, adding a matching bruise to Dust's other cheek, while Lolisa sighed and shook her head. "She's like twelve!"
"..." Lolisa looked away, hugging herself. "He is not…he is joking."
"Ow, ow, come on, relax! I was kidding! You two are both more than enough woman for me!" Dust said, putting his arms around both girls' shoulders. Rin elbowed him in the gut, while Lolisa cringed and stepped away. "Man, can't a man catch a break? Look, we'll get you out of here. But we need to get loaded! Rides here!"
There was a gust of wind, and Kazuma looked up to see a small ship coming down out of the sky, the plants around them whipping as about as the engines roared.
"RIN GET BACK ON OVERWATCH!" Dust shouted as the ship hovered just above the water. "SHOOT ANYTHING THAT TRIES TO STEAL OUR KILLS. IT WILL TAKE US A WHILE TO GET LOADED, BUT WE-"
As Dust barked orders, the rear ramp of the ship lowered, and a lanky brown-haired man with a visor trotted down towards them, hauling a heavy rope for getting the dead barkhides aboard. Kazuma knew their skin was valued for its durability, but the meat itself would sell for a fortune down on Belzerg, where fresh food was millions to the right buyers.
"Kazuma…do we go with them?" Alice asked, uncertain. "They have a demon…"
"Look at her neck," Kazuma said, pointing to Lolisa, who was hurrying over to take the cable the man was passing down to tie to a dead barkhide. Each had at least half a ton in meat, with the offal and bones being valuable in their own ways as food or materials. There weren't many large animals left on Belzerg, and those that had been so polluted their flesh was inedible. That didn't stop some starving fools from trying to eat them, but most died soon after.
"I see a mark of some kind," Alice said. Her own hand trailed to the back of her head, where a socket was drilled into her skull. "Is that…?"
"Not quite like you. She was…chipped. If she can talk and function…they must have not completed it. That, or somehow her original personality was preserved and put in. But a chipped succubus…they're sold as slaves. They're worth a lot of money."
"I see. So…this demon is not our foe?" Alice asked.
"Yeah, I think she's on our side. Rin and Lolisa are both escaped slaves. Since, um, Rin looks carved and it's ChimeraTech that sells chipping tech…they're probably on the run from Slyvia just like you."
"Then we should help load the carcasses?" Alice asked, looking at Kazuma uncertainly. She clearly wasn't sold on Lolisa being friendly, but she seemed to trust Kazuma at least.
"Yeah, let's get to it," Kazuma agreed.
Dust and Lolisa had just gotten one carcass tied to the cable and the other man was winching it aboard when Alice walked over and picked up the first carcass. The poachers froze and watched in awe as Alice casually tossed the 1000 kg of dead animal up the ramp and into the hold. Then Alice jumped down into the pit and tossed five more corpses up, climbed out, and threw all five in. By the time Dust and Lolisa collected themselves and got their first animal winched in, Alice had gone and gotten the three beasts she had butchered and thrown them in the hold as well.
"Our cargo is loaded, Captain Dust. Let us depart. I do not wish to meet the Flesh Shaper again unarmed and unarmored," Alice said, nodding to Dust. Her clothing was now stained red with gore and splattered with mud, but she managed to smile sweetly.
"Uh, yeah. Good work," Dust said. He jerked his head towards the ramp. "Well, come on, let's get out of here before a patrol comes looking for someone."
"Sweet revenge Dust, where did you find this one? Another pair of escapees?" the other man asked as they boarded.
"They just keep finding me, Keith," Dust laughed as they all scrambled aboard, Rin last of all, her rifle still trained on the jungle. As the ramp closed, Dust suddenly laughed, then began to cry. "We found her, Keith. After all these years…we found her."
Kazuma felt something cold form in his chest, and he hugged Alice to himself. What now?