Kazuma's turn

After the somehow not surprising discovery that I was going to be part of the bait for a horrible monster, I'd have thought my morning was pretty much as ruined as it could get.

Then Komekko opened her mouth.

"We're in their prime hunting grounds now. I'm gonna send up some scouts to watch our backs!" the perky archwizard announced. I hadn't noticed her too much between the dark and all the crazy going around last night. But in the light of day she was shortish, slender, and probably high school aged. Her black hair cut short in back with a longer bit on either side in front, each side held back from her face with a yellow star shaped clip. Like the rest of her clan I'd seen so far, she dressed like she was on the way to a cosplay event. In her case a much patched, ankle length hooded black cape (seriously, what was with those in this world?) and a blouse the color of her eyes tucked into a frilly black knee length skirt. Stompy black leather boots with actual hobnail cleats in the soles finished her look off.

So far, fair enough. Scouts made us less likely to get ambushed and eaten, so I was all for it. Until the little maniac drew a quick circle in the dirt with one finger, and dropped a pinch of bread crust in the center. Now I was expecting like, a dove, or a raven, or maybe if she was feeling edgy a bat or two.

"ARISE! ARISE AND SERVE YOUR MISTRESS! ONLY IN DEATH DOES YOUR DUTY END!" Komekko shrieked to the heavens, and out of that circle turned hole in reality came something I still refuse to think about too much. It sounded like the world's angriest wood chipper, and was blacker than a serial killer's heart. Whirling within a bubble of force fully a meter across rising to eye level was a swirling mass of razor edges, clashing and scraping in a flurry of sparks.

Then, somehow, I knew it was watching me. Weighing, considering. How well I'd splatter once it got loose and turned me into confetti? Or worse? I couldn't say.

Komekko made a circling gesture above her head, and the bubble popped. Before I could draw breath for one last scream the storm of blades scattered in all directions, leaving only a faint humming in their wake.

"Wwwwhat the hell was that!?" I gasped, hand on chest.

Iris smiled with poisonous sweetness at me. "Oh? You wouldn't have seen one before, would you? That's a Scrin, a common low level demon." She turned and nodded cool, wary respect at Komekko. "I'm surprised you could summon one with so little though, your reputation didn't do you justice."

Somehow, I suspect I didn't hide how much I enjoyed Iris getting knocked off balance by so many mundane things in my world as well as I thought I did.

Our now revealed to be terrifyingly dangerous archwizard preened at the royal praise. "Thanks! Demons have always liked me, and they're super fun to play with. Everyone complains when I summon some to help out with the rebuilding in Axel though…"

Eyeing the path of mangled leaves and random bits of who knew what her pet had left in its trail, I dryly replied, "Can't imagine why. So, now we wait?" I asked as we started walking again. A morning nature hike wouldn't ever be my first choice of entertainment, but I could put up with a lot worse if it meant spending the morning with two cute girls. On the other hand, getting into deathmatches with angry predators probably fit under 'a lot worse.'

"They'll seek us out for glory and fame!" Komekko agreed readily. "Their mates will want the strongest partners, so they'll pick fights with anything!"

I flinched as the scrin exploded a raven into feathers and gore some distance ahead of us, and hoped that my hiking partners really were the most dangerous things in the forest.

I glanced over to find the archwizard had taken out a few pieces of jerky and was gnawing on them one by one as we went, in spite of breakfast having only been an hour ago. Every now and then she'd glance over in some random direction, probably reacting to something her familiar had seen.

I relaxed a bit as we continued our hunt, loosening the white knuckle grip on the short sword I'd gotten with my Adventurer card this morning. Though I might've jumped once in a while at the odd squawk from the scrin catching a bird or what have you in its perimeter.

We didn't talk much after that, Komekko was too focused on her familiar and Iris stayed quiet as well, maybe unusually for her. She seemed like the kind of woman who enjoyed chatting and socializing before, but maybe she just had her game face on. Her new wardrobe bore that out; she'd traded in her rather fetching traveling clothes for a set of silvery plate 'half armor' as she called it. The gear might've done nothing for her figure but boosted her intimidation factor through the roof.

After a bit more walking, Komekko halted, her gaze swinging about 45 degrees to our right. "Found one, and he's found us too. He's trying to sneak around our flank," she whispered. "Maybe 100 meters that way," she added, nodding in the right direction.

I drew my sword. Iris did as well, though not her fancy one. Caliburn was overkill for this to hear her tell it. We wanted them alive for me to finish off, not in pieces across a town square sized area. So she left her usual dance partner at home and brought the best non magical sword the village blacksmith shop had on the shelf.

"Tell him we're wise to him. Then let's go meet our new friend," she grinned.

Komekko launched a frikkin laser beam or something in the direction she pointed. Iris followed it moving scarcely slower with a whoop, her bared two handed sword gleaming in the morning sun as she went.

Magic, for the record, is awesome. As long as you're on the giving end of it.

That bar of pure destruction glowed like the sun as it went, neatly punching through leaves, branches, and brush leaving nothing but ash and scorched black charring surrounding a perfectly straight line between us and a bear who put a grizzly to shame.

Fully four meters high, with shaggy fur with two tufts on its head, and probably heavier than a car. Supposedly even full parties of low level adventurers refuse to go near them. All kinds of bad news, basically. It reared up on its hind legs to bellow at us with a roar that would've turned far stronger bowels than mine to water.

If Komekko hadn't immediately blown a leg off at the hip in one shot, sending it crashing right back to the ground in a heap with a pained howl. "Paralyze," she chanted next and the bear went still.

Iris was on it in an instant. "Kazuma! All yours!" she called out once she was sure it was restrained, and I jogged up, Komekko following.

"Your sword isn't long enough to pierce the vitals, you'll need to cut its throat," Iris advised. "Aim on either side of the neck, that's where the big arteries are."

Up close, that sounded like a lot taller order than it sounded earlier. I wasn't one of the people who flinched and got shaky during frog dissection in biology, but straight up cutting something's throat was a little much for me. I grew up in a small rural town, true, but not so rural that we were killing our own livestock for dinner instead of visiting the store. I was definitely sweating as I approached and caught a whiff of wet fur, cooked meat, and carnivore breath from it.

But it was more than that. The sheer malice that thing radiated through its gaze stopped me in my tracks, like it was staring right through to the back of my head.

A wolf back home or something would have just wanted me for dinner, or out of its turf, or because I hurt it. This thing just wanted me dead, full stop. Somehow, that made things easier. I took up the sword in both hands as Iris showed me and gave two quick thrusts.

Pro tip: I should've stood to one side first.

"On the plus side, we won't have any trouble attracting them now," Komekko tried to cheer me up after she hosed me off.

"Sorry, I forgot you were a city dweller too," Iris said as she wiped a stray blood spot off her armor. "I did the same thing my first few times until I learned to cauterize as I cut. Much less messy."

"Thanks," I grumped. It wasn't cold enough to be dangerous but squishing along in wet everything isn't a good time in Belzerg's late spring. "He was worth plenty of levels at least, any idea what to spend them on?"

"We'll decide later, just save them for now. You must see a skill demonstrated to acquire it, and all we've done is Basic and Advanced Magic so far," Iris instructed me.

I agreed absently, examining my card as we went. Sure enough, Basic magic was shown in my skills list, softly glowing to show I had the points to get it. Below it was Advanced, but it was grayed out and listed 30 points as the minimum. It should've been a tipoff how badly suited I was for this that the 9 points I'd gotten from leveling were ALL I had to work with, no baseline points at all, but by the time that dawned on me it was way too late.

We settled in to wait, the scent of blood would attract company soon enough. Another few small fry showed up and were quickly dispatched, including several horned rabbits. It bothered me to finish off the rabbits, they really were adorable. Though less so after one that was faking launched itself like a missile trying to impale Iris with its horn, and she swatted it through a small tree. Barehanded.

Note to self, earning a slap from her would be dancing with death.

Another bear showed up and got handled the same as the first, and I was beginning to think I was getting the hang of things around lunchtime when Komekko's scrin vanished after going berserk.

Seconds later, a rolling boom echoed through the trees.

"It's close! And coming this way, any second now!" she cried, stepping between me and it.

Iris' turn

Moguunin revealed itself in a spray of branches and leaves on the opposite side of our little clearing we'd set our bait in. It had a sleek, metallic shell the color of old bone, with four jointed legs and a scorpion like arrangement at the back. Atop that was a long tapering cylinder, clearly a weapon of some sort, trained unerringly on Kazuma and Komekko. A single red eye glowed in front where the head should have attached, below it was a pair of smaller jointed arms each tipped with a blade.

"Harem party detected. Crimson Demon, please stand aside," the coolly emotionless voice requested.

"That's a mecha. Who the hell builds a SPIDER mecha?" Kazuma swore incredulously. "At least make it something cool like a Gundam or a ninja!"

"Cry moar normie," the Moguunin replied. "While you chased tail, I studied the blade. Your opinion is irrelevant."

"Then what about mine?" I asked coldly, stepping beside Komekko as Kazuma sputtered. "In the name of the Crown I, Iris Stylish Sword Belzerg, Queen of this land, order you to stand down or be guilty of assault on the Royal family and its appointed delegates."

"I'm sorry Iris," it replied with a perfectly unruffled timbre. "I can't do that." And then it charged, twin blades leading the way.

Komekko's readied Cursed Lightning forced it into a quick dodge, gracefully skittering out of the way before launching a wire anchor and changing direction in an instant.

"Kazuma, down!" Komekko cried, tackling him to the ground and forcing the 'mecha' to jerk its blades clear and tapdance awkwardly to avoid harming her.

Before we could capitalize on it, another anchor hauled it bodily away and skidded to a stop leaving us basically trading places.

"Stay behind me as much as possible ," Komekko said to Kazuma as they rolled to their feet, and he hugged her around the waist, pulling her up on her toes with his greater height to shield him almost completely. "Close enough," she sighed. "You owe me dinner for this." Then she started casting in earnest.

Moguunin was like nothing I'd ever fought before, it had more raw speed than even me and was actually weaving BETWEEN the lightning, and staying too close for any of my flashier skills without endangering all of us. Meanwhile it couldn't use its signature Detonation magic either, basically we held each other in a mutual hostage crisis.

It was silent of any further commentary, just the creak and whine of its joints and thumping steps as we panted and jockeyed for position amid the crack of spells.

"This is pointless," Kazuma said from behind Komekko. He jerked his head back with a yelp, dodging a wire anchor that nearly took his head as he peered around her. "Can you make a mud pit or ice patch or something to slow it down?"

"Yes, but it would just cripple us too, her Majesty especially!" Komekko growled testily. "Unless I summon something REALLY nasty, she's the only one who can catch it! I can't even keep Light of Saber on it long enough to matter!"

"No, do it." I commanded hastily. "Turn this place into a glacier if you have to!" Better that than Eris knew what coming through a portal to make our lives even more interesting.

Without another word she did just that, spreading a layer of ice 15 cm thick on the ground for a good 50 meters around. People wonder sometimes why I tolerate so much 'insolence' from the Clan. Generally, these are the same fools who've never seen what they're capable of. But once again, they delivered for me.

Komekko's cleated boots let her keep her footing. But Kazuma's more comfortable wood and leather soled boots made him less fortunate, his feet went out from under him instantly and nearly took Komekko down with him. Even my hobnailed boots were slipping, turning my charge at the now skittering Moguunin into more of a drunken waltz competition between us.

That seemed to be all the opening the monster needed, wary of the last time it'd used an anchor and had the cable severed for its trouble it planted three of its legs with a sharp bang to stabilize itself. It then raised the left front one to reveal a spike protruding slightly to one side of the clawed foot at its base, pointing it right at Kazuma as he flailed and tried to find purchase, having skidded a few feet away from Komekko.

"Create Earth! Create Water!" He bellowed sharply, and several gobbets of mud spewed from his hands to coat its glowing red eye. The monster twitched, the spike as long and thick as my forearm burying itself to the base in a tree after gouging its way for meters along the ice.

Then it was my turn. It tried to switch legs and try again, a tiny arm clearing its eye with frantic sweeps as Kazuma unleashed another salvo, resorting to scooting along the ground to take cover behind Komekko again. My feet gliding like I was back on the frozen lake outside the palace, I leaned into the skidding and tried to make it work for me this time instead.

Amid a scream of effort and a squeal of grinding, tearing metal, the raised right leg parted from the rest at the 'knee', turning once before falling to the ground with a solid crack as the stump trailed sparks. My poor sword took its own beating in the process, the edge wrecked beyond repair.

Dropping the now useless weapon I drew my backup dagger specially enchanted for close encounters and closed in again. This time it was ready for me, its remaining wire anchor zipping past with a pop I'd only heard from the fastest of crossbow bolts. I tried to cut the cable again, but it twitched the cable in a looping motion that took it away from my dagger before it could find purchase. No matter, it would need time to reel it in again.

It knew it too, the three remaining legs held it mostly stable but it couldn't manage the same acrobatics as before, so the twin blades on its small arms beneath the eye rose to meet mine, striking sparks as they passed, and I tried to pin the Mogunnin in position long enough for a finishing blow.

"Lightning Strike!" Komekko declared, sending a bolt into the exposed wires in its bad leg. With a spasm the joints locked up, and then went limp. The sound of several tons of metal hitting solid ice must be heard to be believed, leaving a further spider web of cracks for meters around. For a moment afterward the light in its eye slowly dimmed, and then went out without a sound.

"Tell me that's it," Kazuma gasped, gingerly getting to his hands and knees.

I removed one of the short blade arms with a slash of my dagger, and it didn't even twitch. "So it appears."

"Great. Wonderful. Fantastic." He slumped into a sitting position. "What do you both say to never doing that again?"

—

Afterwards there was a bit of excitement, the Detonation magic right before had already had the Clan worried since they knew we were out there. Yunyun's husband, Bennet, led the search party that found us in the process of deciding how to disassemble the thing. Komekko seemed to think it would make a fine trophy in the main square next to the Griffin.

Her clanmates agreed, and once they teleported us back, they left again to see about moving it to its new home. I bid my companions farewell and promised to meet for dinner, and made my way to the detached cottage that served as the guest quarters. Stretching and shifting as I went, I dropped bits of armor and padding on a direct line from the door towards the bath already drawn up in anticipation of my arrival and kept warm.

I hadn't had a good hunt like that since I assumed the crown, and leading an army just wasn't the same. The old lines I'd grown up with about life at the front being 99 parts boredom and routine and 1 part terror had been more true than I'd imagined as a mere princess who spent most of her time at Court dreaming of adventures. And Adventurers.

"Bubble bath. I forgot to ask Kazuma what bubble bath was," I mused to myself after rinsing off and sliding into the tub. He'd mentioned it while we were out shopping for Seresdina's presents, and then we'd totally forgotten. Oh well.

I was definitely going to be having words with Yunyun after this. I asked for a clanner with knowledge of demons and a willingness to travel. And while that's exactly what I'd gotten, someone who also summoned one before me as casually as calling a servant over for tea hadn't been. Summoning and binding demons wasn't quite heresy, at least the lower level ones without much mind of their own, but it was a pretty dark gray area. And it might've been no threat to her or me, or even anyone with more than a dozen levels no matter the class, but if her control had slipped before the binding finished Kazuma would have been stew meat.

But that was for later. I took a deep breath, and emptied my mind. What was done was done, and this was the first time I'd been out of the capital or an army camp in years. Dad and Jatis had been the real meatheads of the family, but this had been great stress relief. I should enjoy it, not get wrapped up in might have beens. I'd let Kazuma go head to head with a general and a boss monster, a minor demon surely wasn't even worth worrying over. Surely.

I had too much else to consider in any case. Last night had been much too busy, not to mention noisy, to think at all about all I'd seen in the other world. We'd managed to bring back a few small items in spite of the strict weight limit. Rain and whoever Yunyun assigned were probably already taking apart the pepper spray dispenser at least. But in the end, those were amusing toys.

Ever since the war began, both sides had faced one bedrock fact. There were only two good invasion routes from the Demon lands either in or out, and their biggest and best fortress sat directly astride the better one. The other was only slightly less well guarded. Other routes existed, but were either too dry, or too high altitude, or both, to move more than a small raiding force through. Worse yet, the land on either side leading up to them was no better.

It worked in our favor as often as it had theirs over the years, with the Crimson Demon Village on our side proving every bit as resilient as their king's castle. But uncounted lives had been lost over the years attacking into the teeth of each other's best defenses for simple lack of any better option.

Railroads, that was the key to the deadlock.

It had taken my seeing it in person to fully understand, and I could've cursed the previous Otherworlders for not explaining, and myself and my forebears for not asking the right questions. Any army that moved away from its home base could only sustain itself by stripping the countryside as it went. Wagons could only move so far in a day, and after any more than a week's round trip the draft animals, drovers and guards, and their mounts had eaten the cargo they were supposed to be transporting. Adding more wagons just for extra fodder only made the problem worse in a vicious cycle of their draft animals needing fodder, more guards needed to protect the ever more valuable convoy, and more food for them and their mounts.

Not enough food or fodder along the route? Then the destination might as well be on the moon.

The great engines that pulled the carriages of Kazuma's home were far beyond us, and perhaps always would be. But the rails they ran upon weren't. Expensive, yes. But no worse than repaving the kingdom's roads into something that a wagon could travel on at high speed, and certainly quicker to build. Perhaps they could be pulled by the domesticated lizard runners we used for high priority transport pulling floating carriages? They were capable of far better speed than any horse, perhaps enough to get an army past the badlands and into a fertile area? There couldn't be that many available, but perhaps domestication efforts could be stepped up?

Too many questions, with too many ifs to be solved today. But for the first time I could remember there was a chance for something better. Smiling as I leaned back on the rim of the tub, I sighed.

A most wonderful day, and hopefully the first of many to come.