I hate being wed in a fantasy world!

A piercing pain runs through my heart, it's guilt. No, this is childish, I knew that I'd used him, that I lied to him, but hearing this name out of nowhere... “Meldorn...” He appeared suddenly, not because I didn't sense his spirit, but because I somehow didn't mind.

“Good to see you're well... I didn't recognize you before.”

I look at his bow, his arrows... he uses the same kind as always... the same kind that shot me. “Why are you here!”

He doesn't answer me, instead he turns to Rine, who suddenly snaps out of her confusion, sheaths her sword, and returns that strange greeting. “Well met, Huntsman.” Why does it sound more important than it should be!?

“Your Highness, I'm part of a convoy that is tasked with returning you to your father. I'm speaking on behalf of the group's leader, Sir Gottfried.”

“Instructor is here!?” Wait, isn't that the person that is supposedly a hundred times stronger than Rine!? “I apologize for my uncouth behavior. So Sir Gottfried is leading the convoy. While I welcome his concerns, I will have to decline your escort.” Why is she speaking that overly polite!? I mean, she may be a princess and it makes sense on this occasion, but it's absolutely unlike her!

“Sir Gottfried isn't asking about your opinion on the matter, but rather if you surrender yourself voluntarily.” Hearing Meldorn talk politely is also out of character, but he seems much more rough than Rine. ...also, they will force us to fight if they need to...

“I would prefer to discuss this matter with my party, Huntsman. I welcome you to wait until we reach a conclusion.” She moves her open hand like an eight, most likely another thing of the highborn. Meldorn lowers his head for a second, then he turns around and walks a few meters... If his hearing is half as good as mine, he will hear every word we'll speak. “Kenta, we have a problem!”

No kidding. If what Rine told me is true, her instructor is on Luuto-level, so above what we could usually tackle. Maybe if we work all together, but... While I don't want Meldorn to listen to our conversation, I also hesitate to talk to him. So I just try to do it indirectly: “He'll most likely hear every word we say, so mind what you share. Why is he staying so close anyway!?”

“First, “ Kyou-san interrupts: “Why Bob!?”

“Could we talk about that bit later?”

“Kenta, the Huntsman is a messenger, so he will wait until he has a message to deliver,” Rine answers my original question. “So what do we do!?” She's panicking a bit.

“Do you want to return?”

“No! I like being with you.”

“We also have the curse to consider, so parting with you would be dangerous.”

“What about,” Ara-san begins to speak with reason: “just surrendering to them and return to Feuerberg? Our objective is to lift the curse, and from what we heard before, Feuerberg has the means to do so.”

This sounds logical, though this would mean that our work the past few months would be for naught, which somewhat annoys me. Also, there is still the whole supposed kidnapping-thing. What about Correo? There are a thousand things that make me think of it as a risk I don't want to take.

On the other hand... I exchange a glance with Kyou-san. “You're right. It makes most sense to give up.”

“I agree,” the black-haired girl supports. “This might be the chance to lift the misunderstanding.”

“Huh!?” Rine looks baffled, Ara-san just moves her ears away from her head.

“Rine, trust me. This is the best way. Though we have to be careful,” I assure her. Next to me, Kyou-san's eyes move slightly to the ground, I send my own answer.

“This might be a trap though,” Kyou-san adds, apparently deep in thought. “We'll meet up with your instructor here, so we can see him from afar and determine if this messenger is telling the truth.”

“Nah, let's rather use the raising there,” I point at something that could be called a hill with a lot of optimism, that rises above the land some kilometers away. “We can see further there.”

“Alright.” Kyou-san turns to Meldorn: “Huntsman-san, we decided to wait on that hill, then we will negotiate the terms.”

Meldorn nods once before turning around and leaving. I take Rine's hand and drag her behind me, while Kyou-san does the same with Ara-san.

Once I felt myself far away enough not to be overheard, I say: “Make yourselves ready for our trackless-strategy.” Means, I'll take Rine piggyback, Ara-san takes Kyou-san, then we use my [Trackless]-skill and Ara-san's natural ability as an alfr to leave no tracks on vegetation to get away. “I don't know how they found us, but I guess we left enough tracks for Meldorn to puzzle things together. Add in the times we were stationary and they may have just caught up, so we should be able to lose them if we're careful. Make sure to have some SP-pots on you to feed Ara-san with, Kyou-san.”

“Sure.”

Rine's face is pure disbelief: “So you lied!?”

“Of course. You don't want to return, I see no reason to trust them, and while I won't underestimate your instructor nor Meldorn, I'm confident in what we have to escape.” They won't use lethal force, as long as they want to return us to Feuerberg, so I like my chances. Even if he has taught Rine, even if he's as strong as Luuto, if worse comes to worst, we will somehow handle it. Other than Luuto, this Gottfried-guy is not a hero, so he lacks the abundance of stamina, the resilience that allows us heroes to push our bodies beyond usual limits if we set our mind on it, and the variety of [Skills] that makes heroes unpredictable.

It's not a fight we need to do. We can avoid it. We also have bought some time, as we won't even go to that hill in the first place.

I turn around and use [Farsight]. I can see Meldorn's back that begins to blur away from the light mist. After I lost him, I say: “Get on my back, Rine, and get some SP-pots ready. Course correction that way. We use the most direct way towards that greater forest. If we hustle, they won't be able to keep up anyway. Especially if we go through this high grass.”

“I hate you!”, says Ara-san in an almost teary voice, which reminds me of a little child, as I not only make her carry Kyou-san for long distances, but she also realizes that I will use the least passable paths I can find to discourage the use of any mount, if they have any.

“Sorry, but not sorry.” I can't help but to make it sound as nasty as possible. “Rine, tell me everything you know about your mentor again.” She has made some remarks, and it made him sound like a monster, but on the other hand, she has been smacked by him since she's a child, so of course her perception of him may differ from reality.

“First,” Kyou-san speaks up before Rine can, “tell me: Why Bob!?” Why does she have to insist on 'that' detail!?

“I approached strangers and everyone looked like a westerner. Hoping that there were no Asian-looking people in this world and that they will most likely think of me as just strange, I needed a local name, something that sounds westerner.”

“And you came up with Bob?”

“That's the first and only name I could come up with at the moment! Just name three western names in three seconds!”

“Easy! … …Brad... Tom...”

“Time's up!”

“Alright, spontaneously coming up with a name is hard, I'll give you that. However... Does Brad sound like a proper name to you, Rine-chan?”

“No, it sounds strange.”

“What about Bob?”

“Likewise.” Dammit!

“For me, every single of your names sounds odd,” Ara-san adds while trying to find a good position for Kyou-san on her back. “Poor me, Kenta-kun does his best to break me.”

“Better I than them, right?” Meldorn is just a hunter, in the end. He will need his tracks, he can't follow the scent, he can't ask plants, he can't look from above, he shouldn't be able to see as far as me. Though I still don't know why he is part of this group... maybe because of me? Did he figure out that Bob is Katsuragi Kenta before meeting me here?

Does he want to repay me for my lies? For how I exploited him and the other hunters? It's not like I need to feel guilty, I'm doing whatever I can to return home. There is nothing- well, there are some things that can stop me, like back when I couldn't return Rine to her father for the bounty. However, this doesn't mean that I won’t find other ways if necessary.

Yes, even though I appreciate what Meldorn has done for me, I will stick to it: It was the fastest way, so I had to do it.

I just hope that I don't need to face that Gottfried-guy. While I'm sure that there are ways to defeat him, that he has plenty of reasons to hold back, if I can avoid him I will... If it doesn't work, we'll talk. Adults are always quick to accept any half-assed apology because they like peaceful solutions.

I mean, this is the one who trained Rine. I can't imagine that there is a particularly bright mind behind it. Powerful and dangerous, but most likely as easy to trick, otherwise Rine would be much sharper just by hanging around that guy.

Well, time for a slow run. Having Rine on my back had three effects: First, I feel her softness through her armored parts, though my arms are holding her legs that are quite firm. Second, she's about as tall as me, carrying her just seems super off, it's like there is no comfortable position... I guess Ara-san has it worse, as Kyou-san is taller than her. Third, I think she's kinda enjoying it!? I mean, the way she moves, how the tension is... is she thinking of me as a horse!?

Nevermind, I need to concentrate on what's going on. “Now back to topic: Your instructor. How strong is he?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't know? How?”

“How can I describe it... While we had some sparring, it's not like we ever fought...”

“Can you beat him?”

“I never did before.”

“Anything about his feats? Can he use flying sword slashes? Cut through iron? Did he ever destroy an army on his own?”

“Yes, yes, and for the last one... I think? I mean, it happened long before I was born, so it's just one of the many stories about him.”

“Like what?”

“Like when he swings his sword at full power, he creates storms.”

OK, this must be an exaggeration. I mean, Feuerberg summoned heroes to help them in the war, so if they had someone who could do that, wouldn't it be easier to wreck their country by storms? It's not like I underestimate him, he may very well be able to take everyone of us out, but this vagueness of Rine's description... Yes, I’ll just put him on the same level as Luuto in my mind for now. Dexterous, making everything look easy, able to cut you before you realize what he's doing, impossibly strong. “Other examples?”

“Yes, everyone knows the stories. Like how he decapitated an enemy's general from five miles away. Or how he disrupted the Parlaar forces by walking by, as the monsters all left their hiding places to run away from him, and they decided that breaking through their army was still safer than the tiniest risk of meeting him. When he was young, he threw some rocks towards the sky, that's why the moon has craters. He is one of the three major powers of Feuerberg, next to royalty and the church. Whenever he goes by a grocery shop, his presence causes all of the vegetables to cut themselves. When he needs juice, he takes a tree and presses it whole. When Hagen founded the kingdom, instructor came to him by cutting a path to the past and they drank beer together. When people dies, they see the Reaper, when the Reaper dies, he'll see instructor.”

...OK, that seems just over-hyped.

“You've forgotten some, Katarine-san.” Why is Ara-san now acting like an expert!? “Whenever he needs to calculate the decimal of a fraction, Gottfried says the numerator out loud while cutting before his face as many times as the denominator says, which transforms his words into the result.” After seeing at Rine's blank face, she tries to explain. “Let's say Gottfried needs to calculate what the decimal of five-seventh is. Then he says five, while cutting the air seven times, and then it sounds like 0.714285-”

“Oh! I need to learn that!” Don't take her seriously!

“Phew... did you just invent that?”

“Yes, but I've tried to learn as much about Gottfried as I could at some point, as some of his deeds sounded like he could be a hero.”

“For example?”

“You remember how Katarine-san mentioned that he can unleash storms? If we put it on a more basic level, it means he's able to create wind-currents with his sword-fighting. This sounds much like a [Skill], it's probably one as well, but I came to the conclusion that he's just a capable non-hero that has been a big factor for many wars over the course of decades, and Katarine-san has confirmed my conclusion.” That's kind of a relief, as it would be a huge pain if he was a secret hero.

So he's basically Luuto with probably no skills outside of combat. Means, as long as we can avoid combat, everything should be fine.

There is something on my mind though: “You called Meldorn Huntsman, Rine?” It's just another way to say hunter, but I learned a long time ago that whenever a profession comes up, it may be more specific in this world than in mine. For example, the difference between a shaman, a druid, and a witch. Shamans are just people that use [Spirit Magic] and act as spiritual guides for people, druids are shamans with great education that dabble in divination and manipulating natural forces, and witches are shamans that also use dark magic for curses and such. Therefore there is the base-class [Shaman], and the class-ups [Druid] and [Witch].

“Yes, I was a child, when he received the title from father. That ceremony was boring.”

“What is a huntsman in your world?”

“It's a title given to the best hunter in a kingdom. When there is a difficult to track monster that causes big trouble, it's up to the huntsman to find and kill it.” That... makes me worry. Dammit, we should have attacked Meldorn and overwhelmed him... Why didn't I think of it before? Can he follow us even without tracks?

If he can, there must be a trick. A [Skill], most likely. Non-heroes usually learn less than ten skills, according to Ara-san, so if we say Meldorn and Gottfried have around twenty, most of them in things they won't even realize themselves, like [Stepping], [Camping], and such...

Don't worry, me. We have faced Correo's schemes, we have survived Luuto, we have escaped Hoshibashi and Yoshimura, we have beaten up Inoue and his posse, we should be able to handle this as well. Just one of the many things that oppose us and may stop us in our tracks for a moment, but then somehow will be solved.

The next time I see Meldorn, I'll take him out for good. Maybe breaking his legs, so he can't walk anymore and transporting him would be a slow process. Yes, then he can recover over the course of two months, and then we're already in Zethtrin and have broken the curse.

Just please, don't find us!