This Love is Futile

Chapter 091 – There’s a Limit to How Pushy You Can Be!

“Crash?! Why are you here?”

I ran up to Crash. He was so worried about me because he doesn’t like aristocrats and I was just attacked the other day, so why is he here all alone?

“I wasn’t too keen on coming either, but I needed to deliver a few rare items to the store here. I can’t tell you any more than that though. I’m on my way there now. Where is Mac staying? I want to stay at the same place as Mac.”

“Oh yeah. I’ll show you. It’s close to here.” I glanced at the map and saw that the location of the general store was just down the street from the inn I was staying at. We decided to go there together, and I started walking with Crash, who pulled his horse along with us.

“It was far too important to ask someone else to do it, so I came here myself. I was secretly practicing the magic circle of transference1 until Quattro.”

“But didn’t Emily-san tell you that it’s not safe to travel without an escort?”

“Hmmmm… Well, yes, that’s right, but there weren’t any adventurers in Tre who I could rely on. Mac was already here. I was going to take a horse-drawn carriage to get to the desert city, but then I found this little mare at the stables. I felt like she was asking me to ride her, so I decided to take her with me.” 

“I’m really glad nothing happened to you on the road.”

At any rate, I’m happy he arrived safely. If something was to happen again, I wouldn’t know what to do. I exhaled in relief as I walked next to Crash, who pulled his horse with a smile on his face. Then Crash looked in my direction and his mouth twitched a bit.

“When you say that, I wonder if there’s something going on with Mac.”

“Uh, what?” Well, I was spotted by an aristocrat, but I got away so we can say it didn’t happen, right? Yes, that’s right. “What, nothing?”

I looked away for a moment as I answered him. Crash looked at me with quizzical eyes and said, “You hesitating is making me suspicious.”

“Hahaha.”

When I tried to cover it up with a laugh, he fired back, “You really aren’t one who should be saying that to others.” 

Really. It was a bit of a mess. I gave up and looked off into the distance. Seeing me like that, Crash made a dejected face. 

I introduced Crash to the inn where I was staying, and he promptly got a room. He said they had a proper stable in the back, which was a big help since he had to take the horse back to the desert city. Oh, Yuuta and the others rode off in the desert city, right horse-san? I’ll look into it when I can ride a horse. I’m not sure when that will be, but it sounds convenient.

“I’m going to head for the general store. If you like, let’s meet up tonight,” Crash said, holding onto his horse with one hand and waving goodbye. We agreed to dinner that evening, and I started to make my way to the library. 

Then, on the main street in front of me, a carriage suddenly stopped. Ah, it’s that coachman. I made a U-turn in a hurry, but he must have noticed me because he had his eyes firmly fixed on me.  

“You there, boy! Wait!”

I’m not waiting! I’m gonna run away in the direction I came from. But running is a completely different speed than a horse and he soon caught up with me.

The people around us were surprised by the tremendous momentum of the carriage and were paying attention to us. But since the other party was an aristocrat’s carriage that you could recognize at a glance, I could assume that help was definitely not coming. 

“Why are you running away? The master wants you! Come with me!”

“I refuse!”

The coachman jumped down from his platform to land in front of me, and he grabbed my arm. Even though I tried to resist, he seemed to be well-trained and I couldn’t shake him off at all.

“If you had followed along first, I wouldn’t have to be so pushy! Get in quickly!”

“I told you I don’t want to!”

He restrained me and I was forcibly stuffed into the carriage. I thought it was dangerous, but the difference in power was obvious. The magnificent door slammed shut in my face. A clicking sound told me that the door had been locked from the outside.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I punched and kicked at the door, but the magnificent carriage was not affected. On the contrary, my body was the only thing that got hurt. How do you deal with an abduction? I took a deep breath and tried to calm down a bit, and from outside the carriage, I faintly heard Crash’s voice yelling “Mac?! Mac?!” 

Could it be that Crash saw it? And he’s chasing after me on horseback? No, he can’t! This carriage is taking me to the aristocrat district!

“You idiot! Don’t follow!” I tried yelling but I was pretty sure he couldn’t hear me over the sound of the horses’ hooves and the wheels of the magnificent carriage. It would be hard for sound to leak out. He’d have to be very close.

The windows were closed so I had no idea where we were going. For some reason, my map disappeared when I was stuffed in the carriage. I wonder if it’s made of some kind of material that can block such things. I have a small bomb, but if I use it in the carriage, it would do a lot of damage to me too. What could I do? Even the items in my inventory didn’t seem to be useful in this situation. Shit. I wonder if Crash is still following me. It would be bad if he was. 

I pulled out the sword at my waist and began attacking the carriage, but with my meager sword, I only managed to put a few scratches in it, and the carriage continued on without incident.

“Really, what the hell is going on?” I swung at the window with a forceful slam, and it made a thud sound, and one side of the window slanted. “The window broke! All right!”

I smashed the hilt of my sword against the window and succeeded in forcing the other side out of alignment as well, the glass falling into the street. But the window was no bigger than my head, so I didn’t think I could get out through here, and the carriage is going pretty fast too. 

“Hey, carriage! Stop right there! What are you doing, kidnapping my best friend right in front of me?!” It was definitely Crash’s voice. So he followed us after all. 

“Crash! Don’t follow me, it’s dangerous!” 

“Mac?! Are you okay?! I mean, I can’t! Cause if I lose them here, I’ll lose Mac, too!”

I shouted frantically out the window, and this time it seemed that my voice reached Crash. But Crash, I can come back if I die. You know that I can use that move in the end. 

“Welcome back, Raymond-sama!” Amidst the rattling, I heard a voice. It was the voice of that scary gatekeeper. So we were already at the gate!

“Stop right there, you!” The scary gatekeeper shouted at Crash.

“Hey, gatekeeper! Stop that carriage, not me! They kidnapped my friend! Vidello! What the hell are you just standing there for? Mac is riding in there!”

I knew from Crash’s voice that Vidello-san was standing at the gate. Vidello-san, please stop Crash there. Monto-san said that the nobleman who targeted Crash is missing, but it doesn’t mean that there aren’t others who had a hand in it. I’ll get away somehow!

With a prayer, I swung the sword in my hand even harder, but the door seemed to be much more solidly made than the window and it didn’t budge at all. If it had been Yuuta, he would have been able to cut it down with a single swing! I wish I could do that. It’s cool and a little frustrating.

“Mac!”

I wondered if Crash got stopped at the gate because his voice had become distant. If Vidello-san can handle it, then Crash will be safe. I exhaled in relief and stopped my hand, which was beginning to go numb. 

My stamina, which had been depleted by swinging my sword around blindly, was slowly recovering. If I couldn’t escape, then I would recover as much as I could, and when the carriage stopped and they let me out, that would be my chance. I decided to rest my body. 

A blinding potion could work. But I know that if I throw such a thing at the aristocrat, it’s going to end badly. That would give them a reason to make things even harder for me. Well, what else is there? There are drugs that can paralyze people, but they are for use against demons, so I can’t guarantee what will happen if you use them on humans. Rejected. The same applies to using a bomb, and I’ll definitely end up getting caught, so it’s a last resort. 

And the rest. I remembered Raymond’s condescending eyes, and I shuddered a little. I’m sorry I worried you, Crash. And Vidello-san. Vidello-san was so careful to make sure this didn’t happen. Why was I so lax in the end? I hate myself. 

As I fell into self-loathing, the speed of the carriage gradually slowed down. When I looked out the window, I saw a building in the distance that looked like some kind of foreign castle. Since he’s an aristocrat, he must live close to the castle. That means we’re quite a distance from the gate. I’m not sure how far away it is.  

The carriage finally came to a stop around the back of the castle. The spacious grounds were filled with buildings that had an air of luxury about them. So Raymond lives in a place like this? Even if I got out of the carriage, the space between the buildings was so wide that it would be absolutely impossible for me to proceed under cover. And even if I ran away, I would be caught immediately.

“What am I going to do?” I cried despite myself, and the carriage door opened. 

“Come on, get out! Look who I’ve brought you, master.” I hear the coachman’s voice from outside. So, this Raymond guy is just standing there waiting for me? I’m kind of pissed off that he thought kidnapping me was okay. I stood in the carriage with my sword at the ready. The coachman looked up at me and was startled when he saw the sword in my hand.

“I’m not going to do anything bad to you! So put that sword away!” 

“Doesn’t the fact that you forcibly brought me here in this carriage count as bad to you? Then you and I have different standards for what constitutes bad, don’t we?” I said this to the coachman with my sword at the ready, though it was really only a threat. The coachman heard my words and frowned a little. He didn’t have anything to say. “And I won’t do anything bad either if you just let me go back!”

As I was holding my sword and not getting out, he closed the door with a grim look on his face. He even locked the door with great care. Is that it? Did he go to call someone who could shut me up by force? 

I guess I could cut my head off with this sword here and just come back from death. I can get out of here. I thought of it as a joke, but that thought became serious the moment I looked out when the door opened once more.

The man who forced the door open and entered was the most muscular, macho, and scarred man I’d ever seen. I panicked and tried to cut my own throat by pointing my sword at my neck, but he instantly closed the gap between us and knocked my sword aside. Then my sword was kicked outside by the macho man in front of me. As a powerless commoner, I had no choice but to be captured by him. 

“Stop it! Get off of me!” It was no use fighting back. Even if I had been restrained by a person who was slender in comparison to him, it would have been futile to resist. Even though I flapped my legs, Macho-san didn’t care at all and got out of the carriage with me in his arms. He held me firmly with both hands, so I couldn’t throw anything at him. “Dammit! What the hell are you doing?” 

“I just wanted to thank you for the other day. I admit I was a little pushy,” Raymond, who was standing just outside the carriage, said with a sneer.

No matter how I looked at it, when Raymond looked at me, he didn’t look at me like I was a person. There’s nothing more unreliable than the words coming out of the mouth of someone like that!

“It’s a little bit much, isn’t it?! This is not the way to thank me! Get me the hell out of here!” 

“That’s something I can’t do. It’s time for me to move back up to the top. I thought maybe you could help me with that a little.”

Monto-san was right! I stared at the aristocrat while being held by Macho-san, and Raymond squinted his eyes as if he was enjoying himself. The look on his face said he was confident he could handle me.