"It's about fifteen minutes from here if you run," Lanti said, pointing in the direction they had come from. "If you take the wyverns, it'll be less than five."
"The situation is urgent. As you heard, Alise, Ryuu, I'd like to ask the two of you to take these girls to town first. If we delay too long, their lives may be in danger."
After hearing Lanti's answer, Artemis turned to Alise.
"I—"
"Let Lanti and Letsa go together," Alise cut in before Ryuu could speak. She slapped her breastplate confidently. "All of you are wounded right now. There's still a long way to go before we're out of the Great Forest. If a monster horde shows up on the road, it'll be trouble. Ryuu and I can serve as the vanguard for the group. Right, Ryuu?"
"…You said all the good parts yourself. I have no objections," Ryuu answered with a sigh.
"In that case, it's decided. Lanti, ride one wyvern back and bring the other over. Once both groups have regrouped, we'll leave this area first and rest after that."
Since Alise had already laid everything out, Artemis did not hesitate. The huntress goddess had always been decisive; dithering was not in her nature. Once she made the call, she sent Lanti off at once.
Only after Lanti and Letsa returned riding the wyverns and carried off the two badly wounded girls did the weight on everyone's chest lighten a little.
When the two groups finally reunited after leaving the corrupted forest behind, the joy of reunion barely lasted any time at all. The moment the tension snapped, people began dropping where they stood and falling straight into deep sleep. Pain and exhaustion had become the best sleep aids imaginable; once the mind stopped holding itself taut, all that strain came crashing down at once.
"Lady Artemis, you should rest too," Lanti said, bringing food and water over to her.
Meanwhile, the members moving around the camp gently laid the sleeping girls down on blankets spread across the ground. Though those who had fallen asleep were closer to unconsciousness and likely felt nothing at all, the others still worked in pairs, orderly and careful, out of basic respect.
"I'm fine. To be honest, I wasn't much help on this expedition. The children protected me the whole way."
Artemis took the food and water, but there was guilt in her voice.
Though she had been the one necessary to open the ruin, it had also been her insistence that drove them deeper inside.
As the Goddess of the Hunt, Artemis had always had absolute confidence in her own martial skill. Even against Level 2 adventurers, she believed she could defeat them on technique alone. But once a battle reached the level of second-tier adventurers, the focus shifted from technique to raw physical ability.
Even if a god of war descended, a divine skill housed inside an ordinary mortal body still could not compare to the sheer physical power of a second-tier adventurer.
At that point, the overwhelming difference in bodily ability crushed whatever advantage technique might offer, and the higher the level, the more brutally obvious that became. No matter how refined your skill was, if you could not break a monster's defenses or endure its attacks, then it meant nothing.
Artemis had once been able to move freely against surface monsters, but these black aberrations had reduced her to dead weight.
If nothing else, if she had not been there, the others would not have had to put themselves in danger to protect her. Duncan and Letsa would have been able to direct and manage the group far more effectively.
"Now that's just not true. Children protecting their god is only natural, isn't it?"
Lanti's straightforward words pierced right through Artemis's thoughts. Looking at the foolishly earnest girl in front of her, Artemis reached out, pinched her cheek, and smiled faintly.
"You're right. But I don't want to become one of those gods who does nothing but burden their children. That would make me no different from the people in Orario I despise. In the future, if we encounter powerful monsters again, I'll try to listen to your arrangements."
"Really?! Wait—did you say try?"
Lanti's eyes lit up, only for her to seize on that one choice of wording a second later.
"Gods do not change so easily. And that face of yours—are you really that eager for me not to join the fight?"
"N-no, not at all. Heh."
Lanti scratched the back of her head and played dumb. Wanting it was one thing, saying it out loud was another. Even if Artemis stepping out of the fighting would mean losing a combatant, to them nothing was more important than the safety of their goddess.
"Go on. Get back to your work."
Faced with Lanti's transparent act, Artemis could only laugh helplessly and wave her away. Once the girl scampered off as if she had been granted amnesty, Artemis thought for a moment, then made her way over to Duncan.
Duncan was currently checking the shop inside his head.
The moment he had obtained Andares's drop, he had recharged the system. The icon for the Sacred Pendant was now lit up and available for exchange—but considering the situation, he still had no intention of taking it out just yet.
The constant ache running through his body told him plainly that, while he had been treated, he was nowhere near fully healed. Even with Ryuu's healing magic and superior recovery elixirs, his heavily damaged body could not be restored completely.
Judging by the pain, several bones were still broken, and his right arm—badly set in the absence of a proper healer—stuck out at an awkward angle.
He had heard that this kind of aftereffect was common when someone was given emergency treatment without an actual healer present. Fortunately, his dominant hand was his left.
That said, the rest of his body was hardly in any better shape.
The battering he had taken had ravaged his bones and internal organs alike. If not for the toughness of a Level 3 adventurer's body, he would never still be able to move in this state.
Every level an adventurer gained was a qualitative transformation of the body. If Level 3 was already this monstrous, he could barely imagine what a first-tier adventurer must be like.
"Duncan."
"Lady Artemis?"
Artemis's voice broke his train of thought. When he looked up, he found her standing there with food and water in hand, holding them out to him.
"Are you all right?"
Seeing how tightly his brows were drawn, Artemis asked with open concern.
"To be honest, my bones and my insides are in bad shape," Duncan answered frankly. Perhaps because he had been with Artemis for some time now, formalities had thinned considerably between them. "But I can still manage. Adventurers are absurdly resilient."
"Shouldn't we have Ryuu heal you again?"
"…Better not."
Duncan thought for a moment, then shook his head.
"Right now, those two are the strongest people in the whole group. It'll still take almost two weeks to get out of the Great Forest from here—ten days at the fastest. Everyone else is wounded. If we run into strong monsters like the giant bears again, Lanti and the others won't stand a chance. At this point, preserving Alise's and Ryuu's fighting strength is the top priority. As long as there are two Level 4s with us, we'll be fine unless another monster like Andares shows up."
....
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