"How is it, are they still chasing!?"
As Mirene shouted while running through the forest, Yohanna glanced back and shouted in annoyance.
"They're still chasing! Honestly, what a persistent bunch. Am I really that attractive?"
At Yohanna's joke-laced shout, a man from the Former Mobile Unit cracked a smile.
"Attractive, sure—but I think they find you attractive as food. In the sense of being soft meat."
"Then we're tough and full of muscle, so it wouldn't be much of a treat for them."
"Idiots, do you really think Cyclops care about whether their food tastes good or not? As long as their bellies are full, anything goes!"
They probably couldn't actually hear that conversation, but an irritated roar erupted from behind them all the same.
(Ekril, why haven't you come back? Did they get you? ...No, if that were the case, all five Cyclops would be chasing us... Could it be that red Cyclops? Please, be safe.)
The face of the party member who had stayed behind alone to obstruct the Cyclops flashed through Mirene's mind.
The only reason they had the luxury of talking while running was because Ekril had been shooting arrows at the Cyclops to slow their pursuit.
But because of that, Ekril had been forced to stay behind, and she still hadn't rejoined them.
As they kept running, worrying about their party member, the place where they had left the horses and carriage came into view. ...But what they saw was the sight of those who had stayed behind to guard the horses and carriage locked in battle with two Cyclops.
No—rather than battling, it was more accurate to say they were desperately holding on, focusing entirely on defense.
"Wha!?"
The Cyclops weren't just five.
As that realization struck, Mirene was seized by a powerful sense of urgency.
Two C-Rank monster Cyclops.
For the members present, it wouldn't be easy, but they still wouldn't expect to lose if they fought them head-on.
But that was only if they fought normally. If asked whether they could defeat two before the five Cyclops behind them caught up, the answer would have to be no.
"Mirene, what do we do!?"
Surnin, who had followed behind, shouted while readying his staff.
As if snapped back to herself by his voice, Mirene hastily scanned their surroundings.
The rampaging Cyclops must have been responsible. The carriage was already destroyed, and all the horses lay dead.
With the mobility of horses, escaping from the Cyclops wouldn't have been difficult—but the horses hadn't been free to begin with.
They had been tied to nearby trees to keep them from wandering off.
In that situation, there was no way they could have escaped the Cyclops. A single blow from a club had killed every last horse.
(If we stay and fight here, annihilation is certain. In that case, should we all flee in different directions? That would give us the best chance of survival, but...)
Normally she would have made a decision instantly, but the reason she hesitated this time was the red Cyclops—the one that had driven them to flee in the first place.
A being that likely had the ability to command Cyclops, which ordinarily lived solitary lives rather than in groups.
The initial sighting had been of a single creature, and the subjugation request Mirene and the others had accepted at the Guild had also been for one Cyclops.
But upon arriving at the forest, they had found five Cyclops.
Beyond that, there was the red Cyclops—and at the place they fled to, two additional Cyclops had appeared.
In other words, there was a high probability that even more Cyclops were lurking nearby.
It took only a few seconds to reach that conclusion. The choice Mirene ultimately made was...
"Everyone, scatter in different directions! And someone—anyone—get to Gilm and inform adventurers with stronger combat capabilities about this!"
Once Mirene made her decision, they acted fast.
Everyone present scattered into the forest all at once.
"Gaaaaaaarrrgh!"
With a roar that seemed to say "don't run," one of the two Cyclops tried to charge into the forest after them...
"You're not getting away with showing me your back! Shock Wave!"
Mirene's longsword slammed down onto the Cyclops that had turned away from her.
The Cyclops had tough skin, but the shock tore through its body without regard.
It was a skill Mirene excelled at—driving a shockwave generated by magic power into the target through her blade.
The effect was similar to Vihera's Magic Impact Palm, but several levels weaker in power.
More precisely, the depth at which the shock penetrated was shallower.
Moreover, the larger the body and the greater the surface area in contact with the ground, the more easily the shock dissipated. Against a Cyclops standing nearly four meters tall, that meant a one-hit kill was out of the question.
Even so, there was no way a Cyclops subjected to such a skill would escape unscathed.
Not just the Cyclops hit by the Shock Wave, but the other one as well judged Mirene as dangerous and halted its pursuit.
If they left her alone, she might unleash that same attack from behind again and again.
Even a Cyclops's brain could grasp that much.
"Gaaaaaaarrrgh!"
"Gaaarrrgh!"
Clubs in hand, the two Cyclops closed the distance toward Mirene.
"Wind Arrow!"
A volley of wind arrows sped toward one of the Cyclops.
Mirene didn't need to think about who had fired them.
"Surnin!? Why are you still—!"
She shouted while dodging the club swung at her, throwing herself sideways.
Landing on her feet and glaring at the Cyclops, she cast her gaze aside for just a moment—and there, just as she expected, was Surnin with his staff in hand.
But that wasn't all. Yohanna was there too, thrusting her spear toward the Cyclops that had flinched from the Wind Arrows.
The spearhead pierced the Cyclops's body, but with Yohanna's physical strength, she couldn't drive it in deep enough—only half the blade embedded itself.
Furrowing her brow at the unexpectedly tough skin and muscle, Yohanna forcefully swept the spearhead sideways.
Tearing a shallow gash across the Cyclops's torso as she wrenched the blade free, Yohanna spoke.
"Trying to sacrifice yourself for everyone else's sake—that doesn't suit you at all."
"Shut up! What about you? Didn't you have a promise with Rent? At this rate, you'll be late!"
As Mirene shouted while dodging another swing of the club, Yohanna fired back while keeping the Cyclops at bay with her spear.
"A promise? Oh, you mean him offering to treat me to something. But Rent would find someone else if I were late! Besides, if I abandoned Mirene here, I wouldn't be able to face Set-chan!"
She parried the swinging club with the shaft of her spear and delivered a sharp counterthrust.
The blow pierced the Cyclops's body just as before—but just as before, only half the spearhead sank in.
"Surnin! You need to get out of here now! You're already slow enough as a mage without being dull on top of it!"
"Unfortunately, that's not an option. We need to wait for Ekril to return, and Cyclops aren't particularly resistant to magic to begin with. Besides... if I disappear, what's your plan for the five Cyclops coming from behind? With magic, we might still be able to put up some kind of fight."
Gripping his staff, Surnin spoke while keeping a wary eye on their rear.
Even in the heat of battle, the footsteps of the five Cyclops approaching from behind remained audible.
If possible, the best course of action would be to defeat the two Cyclops in front of them before being caught from behind, then turn to face the five pursuers. But Cyclops were monsters that a C-Rank party could only fight to a standstill when taking them on at full strength.
Even with Yohanna present, they lacked Ekril's covering fire from the rear—and they were facing two Cyclops.
No matter how they looked at it, fighting head-on was impossible.
(Then I have no choice but to fight with unconventional means. To buy time until Ekril returns and until everyone escapes! Besides, as the oldest here, I can't be the one to run.)
Staff in hand, Surnin glanced behind for just a moment to confirm there was still some time before the Cyclops caught up. Then he concentrated his magic power and began to chant.
"O wind, O wind, thou art sharp, a blade that cleaves all. Become an invisible blade that tears through the throats and severs the limbs of the enemies that stand before me."
As he chanted, four blades of wind formed around Surnin.
"Wind Sword!"
The moment the spell was complete, the wind blades launched toward the Cyclops's eyes and throats—two blades each.
"Gaaaah!"
"Gyaaaaah!"
The Cyclops fighting Mirene caught the wind blades with the club it held.
But the club the Cyclops wielded was no properly forged weapon—it was nothing more than an uprooted tree or a broken branch.
Naturally, something of that caliber couldn't block the wind blades. The club was effortlessly cleaved in two.
However, by cutting through the club, the wind blades were deflected off course, flying off in unexpected directions and severing several trees and branches behind the Cyclops as they went.
The Cyclops itself came away with nothing more than a scratch on its cheek.
The Cyclops fighting Yohanna, however, had been focused on her spear and its wider reach, making its reaction a beat too slow.
Surnin's wind blades couldn't slash through the Cyclops's throat, but they succeeded in carving a large gash across its giant single eye.
"Hahh, hahh, hah..."
That spell had consumed a considerable amount of magic power, leaving Surnin breathing hard.
Even so, thanks to that reckless effort, he had succeeded in robbing one of the Cyclops of its sight.
The eyeball was a valuable material among Cyclops parts, but it couldn't be traded for his own life.
In any case, Surnin's magic had blinded one Cyclops, partially neutralizing it.
Of course, it had only lost its sight. Since it was still rampaging and swinging its club, it wasn't completely neutralized.
But in the current situation, managing to neutralize even one Cyclops, however partially, was a tremendous boon.
"Mirene, let's hurry and take down that one! They're coming from behind too—we're out of time!"
"I know!"
Both shouting in unison, Mirene and Yohanna launched a coordinated assault on the still-intact Cyclops.
Their movements were so perfectly in sync, it was hard to believe these were two people who bickered constantly.
If someone who knew nothing had seen them now, they would have had no trouble assuming they were close friends who always worked well together.
Naturally, the two of them would absolutely never admit to that—and would loudly point out each other's shortcomings instead.
Mirene's longsword and Yohanna's spear swung, each trying to bring down the Cyclops.
But the Cyclops was a C-Rank monster, and exceedingly tenacious.
The wounds Surnin had inflicted weren't regenerating instantly like the red Cyclops's, but the blood flowing from them was visibly diminishing.
It was gradually healing.
Desperate to finish it off while it was still bleeding, Mirene and Yohanna pressed a fierce attack.
Mirene's longsword tore through the Cyclops's skin and bit into its flesh.
Yohanna's spearhead pierced its hide and gouged out meat.
And yet... even so, they couldn't kill it in a single blow.
Given time, they might have managed to bring it down. But what they needed right now was to kill it as fast as possible... and time flowed on without mercy.
"Gaaaaaaarrrgh!"
At that roar from behind, Surnin turned with a grim expression.
Breathing hard but somehow steadied, staff in hand, the wind arrows he had finished chanting floated around Surnin.
More than ten of them.
Their attack power wasn't particularly high to begin with, but in exchange, the wind arrows flew fast.
He tried to use them to pierce the Cyclops's giant single eye... but the next moment, he saw a club hurtling straight toward him.
A direct hit at this rate—evasion was impossible.
Judging so, he unleashed the wind arrows at the club to knock it off course.
The club, deflected using nearly every arrow he had, sailed past right beside Surnin and struck the head of the blinded Cyclops that had been rampaging nearby.
"Gaah!?"
The Cyclops screamed and collapsed to the ground.
Then, the Cyclops that Mirene and Yohanna had been fighting suddenly lost its balance and dropped to its haunches—and the next moment, it crumpled to the earth, spewing blood from its single eye, nose, and mouth.
Behind the fallen Cyclops stood a figure with one hand extended forward.
She wore thin clothing like what a dancer or a prostitute would wear, with hand armor and foot armor on her limbs.
The expression on her face at the prospect of battle could only be described as indecent.
As for who that person was... the only one in this place who knew was Yohanna.
"Vihera-sama!?"
Yohanna's voice rang out across the clearing.