"Don't let anyone escape!" A man riding a horse and carrying a rifle announced.
He wore a full suit of knight's armor, forged from a lightweight, light steel alloy. The chest plate, pauldrons, and greaves retained the elegant curves and segmented plates of classic medieval armor. Still, the joints were reinforced with flexible, almost fabric-like metal mesh, allowing him to run, mount a horse, and handle firearms without restriction. Red crosses adorned the chest and shoulders, vivid against the light metal. He had no helmet, leaving his face visible.
Hajime glanced toward the man just as gunfire erupted, and people nearby began dropping to the ground one by one.
"What's going on?" he muttered, watching the people around him fall, bleeding and struggling to escape, while others lay completely still, motionless on the ground.
Hajime stumbled backward and fell to the ground, his legs trembling at the horrific sight before him.
....
Meanwhile, at the training ground, where Reiko and Rica were. No one knew about the current situation taking place in the village, and on this day, there were a lot of people training than on the day Hajime was there.
While training with Rica, Reiko winced as a sharp ache pulsed in her head. She stopped and said to Rica, "Let's take a breather for a moment." She started walking to sit down by a tree nearby.
Rica followed her as she looked at the others training with curiosity and confusion in her stare.
"Hey sis. Why are there so many people here today?" She asked while still keeping her eyes on the others.
Reiko looked at Rica and then looked at the others training and replied, "I don't know? Maybe they train here all the time, and I just don't notice them-" As her head started to hurt even more.
She touched between her eyes and wondered, 'What's going on?' while she raised her face slowly and looked at the barrier around her.
Every time Reiko is on the training grounds, she always puts a barrier up just in case something bad happens inside, and the barrier prevents all fatal damage taken inside it.
"...Is everything alright?" Rica asked, her voice filled with curiosity, while Reiko turned her head gently to face her.
She had not yet replied to the question. But wondered what was going on with herself that her head started hurting so suddenly. She pondered as she stood from where she was sitting, and looked at the other people training by.
'Is it because of them that my head hurts this much? No. My barrier can hold around up to ten million people, as Nanako said, so that wouldn't be possible, unless there's something else at play here.'
She bit her lip, trying to fend off the pain by causing more pain somewhere she could simply control it.
Rica's facial expression shifted from curious to worried while she studied Reiko, who turned to face her.
'No one else is using up my mana, except for Rica. Then what's making my head hurt right now?' She continued with curiosity as she then turned and started moving towards her barrier when Rica suddenly asked again, "Is something the matter?"
Reiko stayed mute for a second before replying. "I'll be right back. Stay here, okay." continuing towards her barrier.
"Then I'm coming with yah," Rica said, but Reiko did not respond to her; she just kept moving forward and focused on finding out what was causing her head to suddenly start hurting for no reason, but her not paying Rica attention, Rica followed her anyway.
***
She reached the edge of her barrier.
She slowly approached it and pressed a hand against it.
'Huh... What's she doing?' Rica, who was behind her, was confused because in her eyes, there was nothing in front of Reiko, and she wondered what her sister was touching while staring at her right hand, which was the hand pressed against nothing.
Reiko slowly closed her eyes while touching the barrier. Suddenly, cyan lights that looked like long threads of wool passed by while drifting in the air. Rica still saw nothing, then more and more threads of the same size as the last one started passing by as they also drifted through the air, only that they were colored green.
These strings were being produced by Reiko's barrier, and they meant that everything was fine at the moment, and there were no threats inside it. These threads only read the inside and not the outside, making Reiko ponder even more.
'...Then what's making my head hurt?' As she let go of the barrier, she heard a loud sound coming from outside the barrier, which was so familiar to her, but she was the only one who heard it from the inside.
"Hm?" She uttered as she looked up at the barrier.
'Is something happening to the village? Wait... That scream? It sounded like someone from the town square. Is someone attacking the village?'
The barrier blocked all sounds and any means of communication, so there was no way to know what was going on the other side of the barrier without leaving it. And the barrier covered every corner of the training grounds, and it made everyone inside think that it was normal outside, even if it started raining.
"Hey Rica, look after the people here, and wait for me until I return," Reiko said as she turned to face Rica, who was still confused about what was going on with her sister.
"Where are yah going?" Rica asked.
"Just wait for me here?" Reiko continued as a part of her barrier cracked open to allow her to pass and head to the other side.
"Huh?" Rica uttered as Reiko started to walk out of the barrier.
"Wait, are ya going to finis-" Before Rica could finish her question, the barrier sealed shut with a swift motion, and in Rica's eyes it was as if Reiko had just disappeared into the fin air.
"...What? Where did she go?" Rica wondered, her eyes fixed on the spot where Reiko had vanished.
***
Back in the village, Hajime sealed himself inside his house, trying to hide from the calamity that was happening outside.
More and more people were screaming and running while in a state of panic. Some of them started getting together in groups to go and stop the attackers, while the others were busy retrieving corpses and putting out fires.
Most of the villagers had taken refuge in an old building that once belonged to a noble family long deceased. The majority of those hiding inside were children and women, some pregnant, others who had recently given birth.
"Who would attack a village during the day?"
A group of men stood outside the old building, trying to determine who had attacked the village and where they might be, but they had no idea who it could have been.
"Was the barrier breached somehow?" a man named Xou asked, crossing his arms as he glanced at the others.
"No, at least we don't think so," another of the men in the group replied as he touched his jaw and started stroking it.
"Where's Reiko? She might know more about the barrier than we old men can." Xuo said as he looked at some of the men behind him. Then he added as he turned to face the men in front of him.
"Let's focus on how we should handle the situation and protect as many souls as we can... speaking of souls, where's Nanako's son?"
The other men started to look around the group of children who were inside the building with the women, but one of them remembered that Hajime was staying at Reiko's house. "I think she is with Reiko?" He said as everyone pivoted towards him.
"Then where's Reiko as of now?" Xou asked as Reiko passed behind them from a short distance in a panicked state, but no one noticed her pass by.
She rushed toward her house, her mind consumed with worry. The moment she saw smoke rising from the village, all she could think about was whether Hajime was safe.
As she got closer to her house, she found the baby dragon standing in front of her house's door. The moment the girl saw her approach, it quickly rushed towards her. Reiko immediately noticed it as it was coming towards her and stopped while looking at the baby dragon's horns.
The dragon jumped after her, and she received it with open arms while she started to glancing around.
"Did Hajime already left?" She wondered as the baby dragon shook its tail with excitement at seeing Reiko.
She approached the door. At first glance, it looked open, but Reiko made sure to calm herself and not overthink; she stayed calm, though a little panicked and tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge.
She felt relieved on finding the door sealed, and she let out a deep breath she had been holding in ever since she saw the smoke from the training grounds.
She assumed that maybe Hajime was still in the House as she took out her keys to open the door.
The moment she unlocked the door, the house felt eerily empty, the silence pressing in around her. Without wasting a second, she hurried straight to the room where Hajime was staying.
"Hajime! Are you there!" She called out as she approached the room whose door was open.
She arrived at the room and found that Hajime was not in it when she entered it. She saw that the daggers she had left for him were still where she had left them earlier, and there was Hajime's footprint on the floor heading out of the room.
She set the baby dragon down and infused a small amount of her magic into it. Instantly, it transformed into a full dragon, smaller than most, but fully draconic. Its horns remained much the same as in its humanoid form, while its tail had grown longer and more imposing.
A second later, she observed the footprint closely while the dragon followed them out of the room.
Reiko quickly straightened herself and watched the dragon do its work. The dragon rushed while smelling the floors of the building and stopped at the window where Hajime had fallen earlier.
"Huh?" Reiko murmured, her tone curious as she stepped closer to the window.