On the downhill path after the rain, Lara left one footprint at a time in the mud.
In the distance, a village sent up thin wisps of cooking smoke.
Rainwater dripped from the vivid green leaves onto her pauldrons; her boots sank into the mud.
Leaning against a roadside tree, Lara removed her helmet and cradled it against her chest.
The weather was cool — and yet beads of sweat clung to her forehead.
“This godforsaken dirt track — how can it possibly be this hard to walk on.” Lara’s full equipment and baggage together weighed over three hundred kilograms; every step she took sank her several decimeters deeper into the earth, and her feet were already soaking in mud.
Reflected in her crimson pupils, the sky was blanketed in heavy cloud.
The light was still reasonably bright, but another downpour was imminent.
After a brief rest, Lara put her helmet back on, steadied herself against the trees nearby, and set off toward the village.
She stepped through the puddles on the ground, sending up splashes of water.
The trees and shrubs in her field of view fell steadily away behind her — and before she ever reached the village, what appeared in front of her was a cart.
The cart’s wheels were stuck fast in the mud.
The reddish-brown horse hitched to it let out anxious whinny after anxious whinny, while behind the cart two people — a young man and a middle-aged man — were straining to push it free.
“One, two — push!” The young man pushed twice, saw the cart hadn’t budged, and started looking around — right as his eyes met Lara’s.
Lara stopped in her tracks.
The sheer weight of her body made every step feel like she was taking root in the mud.
Her helmet turned slightly, her gaze sweeping over the cart wheels mired in the mud, the restless horse, and finally settling back on the two humans with their imploring expressions.
The air seemed to freeze for a few seconds.
“…” Lara said nothing, only stood there in silence, like a metal statue that had hauled itself up out of the swamp.
The young man swallowed, mustered his courage, and spoke — his voice a little hoarse and uncertain: “Um…
e-excuse me…
sir?
Could you…
lend us a hand?
The wheel is stuck way too deep — the two of us just can’t get it out.” He pointed at the cart, then looked again at Lara’s outlandish equipment, his eyes brimming with hope.
“Haah…” Lara let out a sigh.
She didn’t reply — she just lifted her legs and moved, her heavy footsteps making a wet, muffled squick-squick through the mud, step by step toward the back of the cart.
The two men instinctively stepped aside to make room.
Lara stopped at the edge of the deepest section of mud behind the cart and sank into a slight crouch, the motion accompanied by faint sounds of metal scraping against metal.
One armored hand braced against the crossbeam at the rear of the cart; the other pressed flat against the side panel of the cart body.
The young man and the middle-aged man exchanged a glance and hurriedly resumed their positions.
The young man took a deep breath.
“Right!
Ready!
One, two—” “Three!” A low voice sounded from beneath the helmet, and an overwhelming surge of force erupted from Lara’s body all at once!
The metal boots drove deep into the mud, swallowing her to the shins.
“Hraagh—!” The two men threw every last ounce of their strength into it as well, veins bulging across their foreheads.
The horse seemed to feel that surge of force pushing from behind and lunged forward with everything it had.
With the combined force of three people and one horse, accompanied by the teeth-setting suction sound of the mud and the groaning creak of strained wood, the deeply mired wheel wrenched itself free of the mud’s grip and — hauling a great clump of wet earth with it — rolled up onto comparatively solid ground with a thunderous splat!
The momentum sent the cart lurching forward; the horse stumbled a couple of steps before finding its footing.
The two men pushing couldn’t pull back in time and nearly toppled face-first into the mud.
Once they had steadied themselves, they were both heaving for breath, their faces full of surprise and relief.
“It’s out!
It’s finally out!” the young man shouted, overjoyed.
The middle-aged man wiped the sweat and mud from his face and turned to Lara, his eyes brimming with gratitude.
“Many thanks!
Many, many thanks, good warrior!
You’ve been an enormous help!
If it weren’t for you, we honestly don’t know how long we’d have been at it!” Lara slowly straightened up, her chest plate rising and falling gently.
She glanced down at her shins, once again sunk deep in the mud, then looked up at the direction of the village ahead and the increasingly heavy sky overhead.
Still silent, she simply raised one hand and pointed in the direction of the village, then pointed at the sky, then set off once more to continue her long journey.
The young man watched Lara’s retreating figure — that solitary suit of armor trudging off into the mud and rain — and murmured: “What a strange one…
though that strength is genuinely terrifying.” Little episodes like this were something Lara had encountered countless times on her journey.
The village she aimed to reach today was, by all accounts, a small town that the hero Himmel had once saved.
Lara figured that in a place like this — one that had been on the receiving end of the hero’s grace — she might be able to get some specific news about their itinerary.
Even if she couldn’t pinpoint exactly where Frieren and the others were, simply knowing their return route would be a massive boost to her progress.
Going by her memories, even though the anime hadn’t spelled it out explicitly, judging from what was depicted, their pace on the return journey ought to be almost unbelievably fast.
Which meant that at this point in time, all she needed to do was position herself along the Hero’s party’s inevitable route, and she would almost certainly not miss them.
A village came into Lara’s field of view, growing clearer with each step she took.
The fences, bound together with straw, leaned at a slight angle.
A bronze warning bell hung from a post at the village gate.
A cobblestone road wound away behind the buildings, and not a single person wandered the streets in the about-to-rain stillness — it had a somewhat lonely feel to it.
At the grassy edge of the village, Lara used magic to give her boots a quick clean-up — at least enough that her feet wouldn’t have to keep soaking in mud.
The sound of hoofbeats.
Wheels rolled over Lara’s footprints.
The cart she had just pushed out of the mud came rolling out of the trees — it turned out their destination was the same village as Lara’s.
The young man driving the cart spotted Lara from a distance.
She was leaning against the fence, bent over cleaning the mud from her boots.
“Warrior!
Warrior!” Lara looked toward the voice.
The young man on the cart was waving at her with an excited grin.
“Are you planning to rest in the village today, warrior?
Then how about coming to my place?
I’ll make sure you have a comfortable night — consider it thanks for what you did just now!” Rather than heading straight into the village, the young man guided the cart to a stop right in front of Lara.
The sky remained dark.
The wind began to stir restlessly, laced with a bone-chilling cold, sweeping across the rain-soaked grass and bare branches with a low, mournful moan.
A few icy raindrops crashed down without warning — plip, plip — striking the puddles in the hollows and splashing up murky water.
“…” Lara said nothing, only gave a slight nod of assent.
She used magic to rinse her boots and shins clean, then carried her boots in hand and climbed straight up onto the cart.
The cart was loaded with various goods; sheltered by the canopy overhead, the interior was reasonably dry overall.
Several crates were stacked together, and the middle-aged man was sitting on top of them — leaving Lara not a great deal of space.
Lara stepped up onto the cart in her freshly-rinsed boots, and the middle-aged man greeted her with a warm smile: “Where are you headed, warrior?
You don’t look like you’re from around here.” Lara, who had only just boarded, paused at the question and felt that this was an opportunity.
So she took off her helmet — if she was going to be talking at any length, wearing it wasn’t much use anyway.
The man hadn’t expected to find a young, beautiful girl beneath the helmet.
His surprise was plain as day on his face.
“Do you know which direction the heroes are returning from?
I want to go and meet someone I admire.” Lara paid his reaction no mind and turned the conversation to probing for news of Frieren’s itinerary.
“Hmm…” Hearing the question from his benefactress, the man tamped down his surprise, propped his chin in his right hand, and thought.
Nothing broke the air except the sound of rain falling.
He thought for a moment, then spoke with a touch of awkwardness: “Their return route?
That’s honestly not the sort of thing a commoner like me would know…
but…” — his tone shifted, and what followed brought a proud expression to his face — “…word has it that before long, the heroes will be heading to the Royal Capital.
After all, when all’s said and done, this country is his homeland.” At those words, Lara’s pupils contracted.
She scrambled to lean out of the cart, pointing toward the northwest.
“The Royal Capital is that way?!” Her reaction was quite different from the first impression she’d given him — she was far too worked up over news of the heroes, and the man was a little taken aback.
He gave a nod to confirm, and privately thought: ‘Lord Hero really is a rotten scoundrel — making a little girl chase after him like this.’ With her confirmation in hand, Lara grabbed her helmet under one arm, leaped down from the cart, and turned her back to give a wave.
“Thanks for the information — I’m off.” The man tried to reach out and stop this girl who had helped them, but before he could blink, Lara had already vanished into the rain.
The helpless man had no choice but to shout at the top of his lungs: “At least eat something before you go!” Lara didn’t respond.
She put her helmet on and wove her way through the trees, with only one thought in her head: Jackpot!
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