Dead Man's Harem. Since I can't kill myself, I'll find other ways to be happy.

"It was going faster than a jet plane!" Devon explained, mimicking the movement of the toast with his hand.

The countess looked a bit confused. "Devon, what's a jet plane?"

"Uh…" he stumbled for a moment, forgetting that he was not talking to another girl from earth. "It's like a really fast bird. Super super fast. Had them in my country."

The countess nodded, as the sounds of confrontation continued outside. "I want to see this 'jet plane' from your country some day."

From outside, the shuffle of feet indicated a development in the combat situation.

"That's the last of 'em, captain!"

"Alright, let's move onto the next burrow," the captain barked. The battalion began to advance over the hill, towards the next goblin burrow they wanted to eliminate.

"They're going quite a ways away, huh…" Devon muttered, noticing that the entire battalion of soldiers was leaving their line of sight.

"It's okay. Father told me to stay in the carriage no matter what, because the soldiers will not go too far."

Devon nodded. "I see."

An awkward silence began as the two simply waited for the soldiers to come back. The sounds of shouts and grunts from the soldiers were still audible but were decreasing in volume as the battalion advanced further.

A few minutes later, the sounds of soldiers disappeared completely, and it was eerily quiet. Devon frowned and watched as the horses drawing the carriages neighed nervously.

Devon chatted and made small talk with the countess for a while longer, but there were still no sounds of soldiers. Countess Ilyana also began to worry, glancing every so often out the window and only giving half hearted answers in their conversation.

"I'm going to step outside for a bit," Devon said. "And see what's going on."

"Wait!" the countess replied. "Father told me to stay inside, since it's not safe."

"You can stay here then," Devon replied. "But he never instructed me to do anything besides keep you company to and from the destination, and to observe the battalion in action. I can't observe if there's nothing to observe, right?"

The young countess thought about it for a moment, and then began getting out of the carriage as well. "I'm coming with you," she said in a determined voice. "I'm starting to have a bad feeling about this, and it will be safe if we stick together."

Devon nodded. "As long as you tell your father that this was your idea, and not mine."

Countess Ilyana smiled. "Of course~"

Grabbing his sheath and sword from inside the carriage, Devon stepped out with the moonlight steel longsword hanging by his side. Maybe he should have paid a bit more attention to that blacksmith from last night, he thought to himself.

Then again, he had zero experience in swordfighting and expected to be killed easily if any fight did happen to occur.

"Just letting you know again, I'm not a good fighter," Devon cautioned the countess. "Don't expect anything, if you see a monster just turn and run immediately."

The countess nodded curtly in agreement and stepped out of the carriage and onto the grass, her elegant side split dress brushing against the grass.

Devon began ascending the hill towards where the earl's battalion headed off towards, making sure that the countess was right behind him. To his surprise, the countess ran in high heels through dirt almost as fast as he could sprint with his shoes. Girls in this world were really built differently, he thought. Or maybe this was unique to the countess, he didn't have enough experience to know.

Once they reached the top of the hill, Devon saw what was going on.

Only a dozen or so of the original battalion's soldiers were still alive in the distance, fighting against a massive black demon-like creature that resembled a bull. The bodies of countless of the earl's soldiers lay on the grass, some of them gored and gravely injured, and others already dead.

One of the soldiers saw the countess at the top of the hill, and shouted at the top of his lungs, waving his arms. "Countess Ilyana, run!!!!"

The countess walked a bit closer to see the fight, her eyes trembling at the sight of so many of her fallen bannermen, but Devon held her back with his arm.

"Go back to the carriage," he instructed her.

"B-but," the white haired aristocratic loli replied.

"No buts, just go."

"What about you?" she replied, concerned.

Devon laughed. "There's a secret I haven't told you about, and I'm about to test it out. Just go."

Hearing the shriek of another soldier who got pierced by the demon bull's horn, the countess turned and ran back to the carriage with a look of fear on her face.

Devon just smirked. This was a perfect time to test out the limits of this joke class, [Dead man walking].

---

[author] Hmmmmmmmm, what's going to happen

Thank you sooooo much Dominick Batista for pledging <3 [/author]