Chapter 54
The man was covered in blood from head to toe, with wounds on his face and arms that looked as if he had been bitten by a beast.
Ugh… that looks incredibly painful…
The leather armor he was wearing was also gouged in places, as though it had been bitten and torn away.
Dragging his especially badly injured left leg, he appeared before us—and then collapsed to the ground as he was.
“Hey! Are you alright?!”
Raiga rushed over, supported the man, and checked the adventurer’s badge hanging from his neck. It was the same as mine: an Iron Adventurer’s Badge.
“Jean… D-rank… Were you in the middle of subjugating monsters?”
Raiga called out to the man, but he only groaned and gave no response.
I peered into his face, now bright red with blood.
I feel like I’ve seen this person before…
“Ah, the one who prayed this morning!”
He was the swordsman Sonya-san had dragged along earlier that morning.
“He’s one of Sonya-san’s companions!”
“Sonya’s? Come to think of it, Lill said Sonya and the others also went out on a request to gather magic herbs. This area is a place where magic herbs grow in clusters…”
“So… nya…”
The man—Jean-san—murmured painfully. We brought our faces closer to his.
This is the first time I’ve seen someone this badly injured—.
Blood kept streaming down his strained face.
Naturally, I swallowed hard.
It really looks painful… but… —it looks delicious—.
…?
I grabbed my head and shook it vigorously. That was wrong. Painful, painful, painful…
Jean-san moved his mouth clumsily.
“…They told me to run… …Rabbits? With… horns… a lot of them…”
“Horned rabbits? Horned Rabbits (Ikkaku Usagi)? —They’re not supposed to be around here, though.”
Stefan looked up at the sky. The thin smoke we had seen earlier was now billowing much more thickly.
“—That smoke… could it be Sonya? Raiga, can you carry Jean and Layla?”
“Leave it to me.”
Raiga tied Jean-san securely to his back with a rope Stefan pulled from the luggage, then casually picked me up as well. His wolf-like hands were soft and warm.
The next moment, the two of them dashed at full speed toward the smoke.
They easily leapt over the grass one patch after another.
The reason we came here so slowly was because they were matching my pace.
Raiga is fast, but it’s amazing that Stefan is keeping up with him too. If I tried running, I’d definitely get left behind…
After passing through the grass and reaching a slightly open area, the two of them stopped.
“Ugh.”
Raiga groaned.
The air was filled with smoke and the smell of burning.
“Stefan… are these Horned Rabbits…?”
White fur, caked with mud.
Many rabbit-like masses, each with a horn growing from the center of its forehead, writhed across the ground. Their long ears stood straight up, and the way they squirmed was grotesque.
—The strangest thing of all was that none of the rabbits had legs.
Because they had no legs, they writhed, slithering across the ground with just their bodies like snakes.
Siiiiiiii—
It wasn’t a cry, but the sound of air leaking through the rabbits’ bared teeth echoed all around.
“I think so, but why don’t they have legs… Sonya…!”
Stefan looked toward the direction the rabbits were threatening.
At the edge of a cliff stood Sonya-san, holding her staff ready.
In front of her, a wall of flames had risen, undulating as it held back the surging horde of rabbits.
