50 The Incident (1)

The girls told me the outdoors banquet had over 300 different dishes served, and there were so many people outside that nobody paid any attention to what others were doing. It made me wish that I wasn't forced to stay inside the mansion, but there's no way for me to change the past. I'm just glad that I got through the night without making a fool of myself, really.

There wasn't much to do after we got back to the inn, and it was already close to midnight at the time, so we decided to go straight to bed. Despite having consumed a lot of beer tonight, for some reason I didn't feel the need to use the restroom before calling it a night. Maybe I sweated out all the excess water in my body while being forced to dance earlier.

* * * * *

I woke up in the middle of the night because my body felt a little uncomfortable. It seemed like I was just slow on digesting what I took in, because I was now feeling the need to use a toilet. Judging by how Amber was snoring, I figured that it had probably already been over an hour since we went to bed, otherwise she wouldn't have been in such a deep sleep. It was still completely dark outside, so my best guess was that it was around one or two o'clock right now.

Given how there were about fifteen rooms in this inn, I couldn't help but wonder why the innkeeper didn't install more than one restroom. It would certainly be troublesome if one day, all the rooms were booked, and forty or so people needed to use that one restroom at the same time. Heck, even five people trying to use it at the same time would probably cause enough problems. In any case, the restroom was located inside a small shed, downstairs and outside of the inn, so I got out of bed and slowly moved towards the door.

As I got close to the door, I heard some strange quiet noises coming from it. Figuring it was probably just the wind or some rodents, I continued on and turned the lock. Wanting to reach the toilet as soon as possible, I swung the door open, which soon resulted in a bumping sound and the door stopping halfway. Seems like I accidentally hit someone with the door…

Taking a peek outside, I saw a small figure clad in dark colored clothes lying on the floor. In the hand of this person were some tools that looked like what a lock picker would be using. Judging by the outfit, the tools, and by how this person was lying face up, it was probably safe to assume that such individual was attempting to break into our room, only to get stopped by me accidentally ramming the door at their face.

The person soon stared directly at me and moved their hands. The left hand pushed against the ground, while the right hand was reaching for something at the waist level. The moonlight gleamed on the object, making it clear to me that this person was taking out a knife or some blunt weapon and preparing to attack me.

Because closing the door would require me to reach myself out, I could not take the risk of slamming the door shut. There was only one possible way I could think of to hinder the assailant's movements.

"…Huh?"

Closest to the door was the girls' bed, so I yanked the blanket off and threw it towards the door to obstruct the assailant's view and movement. Amber was still soundly asleep, while Lica quickly woke up to what I did.

"Get up! There's an intruder!"

Because of their small figure, the assailant had trouble throwing off the blanket and was simply wiggling around by the door. Lica seemed to have caught a glimpse of what was going on and immediately sat up, then shook Amber in order to get her to wake up.

"…Get off of me!"

Judging by the voice, I guessed that the assailant was male. Knowing that he had a knife in hand, I was hesitant to do anything out of fear of getting stabbed, but Lica boldly pounced on him after seeing him wiggle his way into our room and almost manage to throw the blanket off.

"Lica, careful! He's armed!"

Come to think of it, she most likely didn't see the knife earlier since I had already thrown the blanket onto the assailant at the time she woke up, so I suppose her pouncing wasn't really a bold act…

In any case, Lica kept kicking the assailant's back while securing the blanket over his head, so it was difficult for him to fight back since he couldn't see anything. I found it a little strange how he did not try to stab Lica since it shouldn't be too hard to reach behind him, but I didn't say anything since speaking up would probably plant that idea in his head. To help Lica out, I also threw some punches and kicks towards the assailant, but he didn't make any painful groans. It seemed as though my attacks were wholly ineffective because I was physically weak…

"…Hm? Blaze, what's with all the ruckus?"

"Wake up already, Amber! There's an intruder!"

As I yelled at Amber, a knife hit the ground just a short distance away from my feet. Shortly after, another knife flew towards me, grazed my left leg, then hit the ground.

"You're targeting me?"

I jumped back a little as I asked that, and one more knife hit the ground exactly where I was standing previously. It became quite apparent that I was the one the assailant was trying to attack. I couldn't tell whether someone tasked him with attacking me, or just because he wanted to get back at me for flinging the door directly onto his face earlier, but this situation made me feel very uneasy. As for why the knives kept hitting the ground, it was probably hard to target my face since I was taller than him.

Nonetheless, after realizing that throwing knives while blinded by a blanket wouldn't work so well, the assailant leaned his body towards so that he could get close enough after struggling around. At the same time, he swung the knife in his hand around wildly, probably with the hope that it would eventually hit me. I wanted to blast this person away with some magic, but doing so would injure Lica, and I had left my staff with my robes inside the wardrobe near the door so it wasn't possible for me to ensure that I would accurately hit the assailant. Thus, I was left with no choice but to repeatedly jump back in order to avoid getting slashed.

"Eh?… Ack!"

I regretted not checking my surroundings while jumping backwards, because I ended up breaking through our room's window and falling onto the street down below. I suppose I was lucky enough to not land on my head, but my body still felt really sore after dropping down three meters onto stone pavement. To add to that stroke of luck, the broken glass only gave me minor scratches and no cuts, so I was thankfully not bleeding at all. I made a mental note to myself to go complain to the innkeeper in the morning about the flimsy glass windows he installed in our room.

"Watch out!"

As I sat up, I heard a voice shouting from far away, along with some noises that sounded like a horse trotting down the stone pavement. Looking towards where the voice came from, I saw the silhouette of something that resembled a carriage coming my way. I quickly got on my feet and dived forward to avoid the oncoming carriage. It was slightly unfortunate that I wasn't too far away from the inn, since my arms ended up hitting the inn's wall, but I at least managed to avoid getting trampled and run over by a horse-drawn carriage.

The carriage driver most likely ordered his horses to slow down in advance just in case I couldn't get out of the way in time, as the carriage came to a complete stop less than ten meters past the inn. While I most likely wouldn't have died if I didn't dive forward earlier, a carriage pulled by large horses was still heavy enough that I would definitely have suffered significant injuries, so I was thankful that the driver slowed down to give me time to react.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine… Eh? Lieutenant general Tuha?"

The carriage driver got off to check on me; to my surprise, the driver was none other than the lieutenant general I had just met a few hours prior.

"Blaze? What are you doing out here?"

"I'm staying at this inn, and fell out of the window just now…"

I pointed towards where my room was located, and a bright flash of light came out of the window as the two of us looked there. If I had to guess, Amber was probably using her magic to blind the assailant. I didn't hear any screaming, so I guess the two girls were still fine.

"Is something happening in your room?"

"Someone tried to sneak in and attack me, but it seems like the girls are subduing him right now."

"I take it you fell out of the window while trying to get away?"

"Yeah… I didn't check my surroundings and ended up crashing through the flimsy glass…"

"I see. That explains why you're wearing your underwear in the middle of the street."

"…Oh."

"I thought you were drunk at first."

Had the lieutenant general not mentioned that, I would not have noticed that I was only wearing underwear and a sleeveless shirt right now. It was a good thing I didn't have the habit of sleeping in the nude.

"I'm perfectly sober. In any case, what are you doing outside this late, anyways?"

"I had to bring some drunk soldiers back home."

"They must have made you travel a lot, huh…"

"Not exactly. I was done about an hour ago, but then received an urgent message that someone passed away."

"Eh?"

"That fool, Sagib. He was so drunk that he got hit by a carriage, fell into the river, and drowned."

Sagib was the officer who escorted me out of the mansion when I left the banquet, wasn't he?

"Wasn't he traveling with a group of officers when he left?"

"Hm… If he was, then he probably got into an accident after seeing all the others off."

Wouldn't that mean he was still conscious enough to be able to navigate around? How did he manage to get hit by a carriage, then? A few questions lingered on my mind, but I didn't ask since I wasn't that close to Sagib, nor was I a part of the authorities here.

"Well, I'm sorry to hear about what happened to that officer. Anyways, I'm going to go check on the girls upstairs now."

"Wait."

"…? Is something wrong?"

"I'm sure your friends are fine. Please come with me."

"But…"

At that moment, Lica stuck her head out of the window… then lost her balance and fell to the ground. Luckily, her arms hit the ground first, so she didn't seem to have suffered any major injuries from the fall. She sniffed around for a moment, then walked over to where I was standing with her eyes closed.

"Lica, how did you manage to fall out of that window?"

"I couldn't see anything after Amber used her magic. I'm still blinded, so I tracked you by scent."

"That explains why you fell down, then. Anyways, are you two alright? What happened to the assailant?"

"Yeah, we're fine. Amber kept kicking him in the crotch until he passed out."

I felt a bit sorry for the assailant after hearing that. I hope he doesn't become sterile or something…