CH 33.2

Roseline considered revealing her identity, but Chaos is so cautious that he turned around as soon as he sensed that something troublesome was happening in Clermont. He would probably toss her out and run away. She felt guilty about it, but the nation is in crisis right now. She decided not to reveal her identity and assumed the alias of Rosa. Therefore, Chaos surely hasn’t yet realized that Roseline is the princess of this country.

If he knew that he was making the royal princess act as a coachman, what kind of expression would he make? Remembering Chaos’s pale face from earlier, Roseline makes a mean smile.

By the way, as to why she is acting as the coachman, everything was fine until she boarded the carriage, but then Chaos admitted that he had no experience handling a carriage until now. As she looked at him with the realization that he and his inexperience may have been the cause of the carriage running out of control, she began to regret her decision a bit, thinking it may have been a mistake.

Because of this, Roseline volunteered to be the coachman. As she enjoys exercise more than dressing up in the palace, she has experience horseback riding. Therefore, she concluded that it would be better for her to do it herself than leave it to Chaos, who is an amateur.

This turned out to be the correct decision. Currently, the two horses are sprinting through the forest according to her wishes. At the palace, she was never able to ride as she liked, since she could lose her life if she fell from the horse the wrong way. Being able to drive a carriage without restraint is a new experience for her.

These horse-like beasts are faster than the war horses that the knights of the palace ride, and they’re tough enough that they show no sign of exhaustion. The carriage itself is also comfortable to ride in. She hasn’t been riding in it for very long, but Roseline has already lost her aversion to the monsters and begun to like this carriage.

“How did you get a carriage this good?”

“From gacha. I just happened to get it by chance.”

“Gacha? Is there a place like that?”

Chaos nods. Apparently, Gacha is the name of a location. She isn’t very well-informed about these things since she lives in the palace, so the name doesn’t ring a bell. But if they produce horses and carriages this good, then she definitely wants to order some for the palace.

But the palace is already… A shadow is cast on Roseline’s heart. Her parents have already fallen into their hands. She remembers the distant, cold gaze they directed at their own daughter as they passed her by. Since then, she’s stopped thinking of her parents as family. At this point, more than half of the palace has already been changed into entirely different people by a mysterious group. At this rate, there’s a chance that Roseline may also fall into their hands. Fearing this, the few that still retained their sanity felt that she alone, as the legitimate heir, must live on, and through their efforts, she was able to escape from the palace and head to Charante.

Duke Chartelle is her uncle. She has met several times before, and he is someone she can put her trust in. Around her, he was always a funny, nice old man, but her father, who she looked up to, described him as a sincere yet cunning person. With this unknown group as her enemy, the existence of Duke Chartelle is reassuring to her. No matter what it takes, she must inform him of the palace’s crisis, mobilize the duke’s army, and eliminate the group that threatens the palace.

Even if that means defeating her own parents, the king and queen.

Chaos, who was sitting quietly, suddenly turns to the back of the carriage. Roseline, who was lost in her thoughts, is brought back to reality. At some point, they made it out of the forest, far enough that the ravine will soon be within sight. Once they cross the bridge over the ravine, they’ll reach Treve. She wouldn’t have made it this far in one day on foot. It just goes to show how abnormally fast this carriage is.

“What’s wrong, Chaos?”

Chaos’s gaze is still fixed on the rear. Since there’s a glass window at the back of the box seat carriage, they have a good view of the rear. Roseline follows suit and looks behind her. However, there’s nothing that looks out of the ordinary. All she can see is the cloud of dust being kicked up by the racing carriage. Roseline can’t figure out what Chaos is staring at.

“Rosa, speed the carriage up more.”

‘Even though we’re going this fast, he wants to speed up?’ Roseline thinks questioningly, but Chaos looks serious, so she says nothing and pulls the reins to have the horses run faster. She’s astonished to see such a pathetic man make an expression like that.

Even with the carriage sped up, Chaos’s expression remains stern, and he continues staring at the rear. Once again, Roseline looks to the back. This time, she’s able to clearly see what’s so unusual. In addition to the dust cloud being kicked up by this carriage, there’s another cloud of dust approaching from behind.

“That’s absurd! They’re catching up to this carriage?!” she shouts in disbelief.

There was a possibility that someone would pursue. However, there are no war horses in the palace that are this fast, so she never anticipated that they would come after her at even higher speeds.

In a way, her prediction was incorrect. Let’s assume that this is a pursuer. The carriage certainly is fast compared to normal ones, but they’re crossing a forest with low visibility, not a paved road. Since she started driving the carriage, she’s been doing her best to avoid obstacles as they go. But even if they were tracking her all the way from Clermont, there was a decent chance they would catch up to her. And above all else, the speed of the carriage doesn’t necessarily give them an absolute advantage depending on the situation.

The thing chasing after the carriage is becoming visible through the cloud of dust. It’s not a horse. It’s a lizard-like reptilian monster which is bipedal with a green body as large as a horse. And the monster isn’t all there is. She can also see a man in armor riding on the monster’s back. Roseline doesn’t recognize him, but she does recognize the armor he’s wearing.

‘There’s no doubt about it! That’s our soldiers’ armor!’

He’s clearly a pursuer who’s after Roseline. She did expect soldiers to come after her if they sent pursuers, but she never expected them to be riding monsters.

Although bipedal monsters are slower than carriages when running in a straight line, they’re agile with good maneuverability, so they can take the shortest path to the carriage. In contrast, since they’re on a winding path with many obstacles such as boulders, they can’t make full use of the carriage’s maximum speed. The carriage is sturdy enough that they could just cut through, but either way, when you compare a bipedal monster that can move with ease and a carriage that’s likely to be slowed down by obstacles, the results are clear as day.

She looks at Chaos, who’s been dragged into her problems. Chaos leans off the side of the carriage, takes a staff out from somewhere, and readies it.

‘Chaos is a mage?’ As soon as she realizes this, purple lightning surges from the end of Chaos’s staff towards their pursuer. However, the soldier riding the bipedal monster isn’t the least bit bothered by this, bending forward and swiftly veering to the side of the road to evade it.

At this rate, he’ll catch up to them. As if her internal panic is seeping out, Roseline’s face breaks out into sweat. Conversely, her throat feels dry.

‘I dragged Chaos into it…’ Even though she suppressed her conscience to make that decision, now that the time has come, her chest tightens with the feeling of guilt that should have been suppressed. Looking at Chaos right now fills her with an all-consuming dread. But since it was her who dragged him into it even though he had nothing to do with it, the responsibility for possibly leading him to his death is a sin she must bear. Roseline steels her resolve and looks at Chaos.

Chaos is still leaning off the side, looking backwards and forwards repeatedly. Ahead of them is the stone bridge. Roseline thinks he’s calculating the timing for something. But in the next moment, Roseline freezes. She doesn’t know what Chaos is thinking, but he fires a spell forward. Roseline wants to shout and ask him if he’s lost his mind, but Chaos opens his mouth before she gets the chance.

“Rosa, keep going!”

The man she thought of as unreliable is diligently giving instructions. He probably has some sort of plan. Struck by this realization, Roseline diligently steers the horses.

The bridge that Chaos is attacking is only just barely wide enough for a two-horse carriage to pass through. In other words, the bipedal monster can’t overtake the carriage. The spell has left cracks on the stones of the bridge.

“Now! Stomp through!” Chaos shouts the instant the horses pass the cracked stones. The eight-legged horses take those legs and smash the stones. There is a strange noise as it begins to shake. Roseline finally understands what’s happening.

‘Is Chaos trying to break the bridge?!’

The carriage clears the bridge, and Chaos fires another spell at the collapsing bridge for good measure, destroying it completely. The bipedal monster and its rider, being very close behind, have no way to evade this. Caught up in the collapse, they fall to the bottom of the ravine. Nobody can pursue them now.

Even though he was riding a monster and chasing after her, it breaks her heart to see one of her country’s soldiers lose his life, so Roseline instinctively averts her gaze.

“It’s alright. That’s a vampire, not a human,” Chaos says to her.

“A… vampire…?”

A soldier of her own country is a monster? ‘If what Chaos said is true, then this country is…’ A terrible premonition crosses Roseline’s mind.

***

As I looked at the map to monitor our surroundings, a monster attacked us on our way to Treve. It was a dinosaur-type, a deinonychus. And there was even a humanoid vampire riding it. It made me want to shout, “Is this even a thing?!”

In most RPGs, the monsters get stronger the farther you are from a town. The same is true for Another World. In other words, the deinonychus and the vampire were both over level 20. Rosa and I, who hadn’t leveled up since logging in, were both level 1. If we fought them, we wouldn’t be able to beat them. To be exact, it was an unwinnable fight.

The situation reminded me of a chase scene from an action movie, but to be frank, actually being chased by a drooling dinosaur is bad for my heart. If I was alone, it would have gotten ugly, but now I had Rosa. I doubt it was very pleasant for her either. She looked really nervous. I had to give it my all! I am a guy, after all, so I wanted to show off just a little.

At this rate, they would catch up with us and it would be game over. Even when I attacked, they evaded. After staring at the map and thinking as hard as I could, I came up with an idea.

Alright, I’ll break the bridge up ahead and make them fall.

…No, wait. Other players are supposed to be playing this game, so destroying the bridge would cause problems. But I couldn’t think of any other way.

I glanced at Rosa. Her eyes were downcast and she was trembling. …She was pretty scared, huh.

Alright, I’m doing it. I estimated the distance to the bridge. It would be tough with only a low-power Mana Bolt. But if the horses’ legs were strong enough to knock down trees, they should be able to break it.

The bottom of the bridge was an arch shape, so I used Mana Bolt to crack the part where the bridge was thinnest to mark it, and the moment we passed by it, I gave the horses an order. The horses acted according to my will and kicked through the bridge. Then, the bridge made a noise and started to collapse. ‘Take this!’ I thought as I used Mana Bolt to destroy the bridge.

As the bridge suddenly collapsed, the monsters fell. A few seconds after they sank to the bottom of the ravine, I leveled up. …Huh, this counts as defeating them? Should it really work that way? Come to think of it, the Archer’s Rank 2 class does have a trap skill. I guess this is treated the same way…? W- well, since I leveled up, I guess it’s all good.

I looked at Rosa to see what she thought. She was averting her gaze as if she was disturbed by this chain of events. Well, vampires do look human, so watching one fall to the bottom of a ravine would be pretty traumatic.

Uhh, that’s just a monster. It really is, honest.