Because I've Been Reincarnated As A Girl I Just Want To Do Yuri Things, But Things Aren't Going Well Chapter 166

Published at 25th of January 2023 07:12:56 AM

The search was to be carried out in 2 parts. 1 platoon of Royal Guard Division knights plus 5 student volunteers form a group and enter the dark forest. Rutger and Simon are in a different group than Ludwig, so he's going without them.

“Hey… come to think of it, what happened to that fat knight that's usually around?” one of the students asked.

“Now that you mention him…”

It was a while after entering the forest… one of the Royal Guard Division knights who was participating in the search was now nowhere to be seen. That knight belonged to the squad that was always entrusted with escorting Ludwig and company, and he was wandering around HQ, so everyone remembers him well. Most of all, he wears bizarrely large armor only on his torso compared to the rest of his body, so once you see him, you won't forget him.

Since that squad was Ludwig's escort during this search mission, the usual fat knight should have been there when they first entered the woods. Even so, by the time they realized it, the fat knight had disappeared.

“That guy was useless no matter what the situation,” one of the students said.

“That may be so, but if we lose even one person, we'll be in more danger,” another said.

“Ah… even if he was useless in battle, we could have still used him as a meatshield,” a third said. “With the way he was, we could have used him as bait and a distraction while the monsters ate him.”

The students are saying outrageous things, but the members of the Royal Guard Division have no choice but to listen silently. Even among them, they mocked that fat knight, but there's no reason for the sons of high-ranking nobles being raised to be pretty bonbons who don't know actual combat to be mocking the knights who'll see an actual battle. However, the Royal Guard Division's position still means they can't loudly protest.

Ludwig can hear them, too, but he can't blame them. If he criticizes them here and now and causes a conflict of opinion, there is a possibility that the cooperation between the halves will crumble everyone will be in even more danger. Besides, the knight indeed disappeared without permission, and it's justified that they're complaining about his disappearance regardless of how they talk about it.

And now the search for the students is the top priority, and it's not the time to search for the missing members of the Royal Guard Division within the shallows of the forest. If he was a member of the Royal Guard Division, he would be responsible for his death, but if he let a student die, it would be a troublesome matter later. That's why searching for students is prioritized over searching for missing knights.

The fat knight who originally didn't seem to be of much use was left alone and the search proceeded without him.

“Hiih…!”

“Hyeeh…!”

“WhWhat are these Forest Wolves doing here?!”

3 of the students who had escaped from the camp were walking through the forest in teams. They shouldn't have gone that far into the forest yet, but they were soon surrounded by a pack of forest wolves.

Although they are called forest wolves, they are not necessarily found in forests. In this world where monsters are rampant, wild beasts belong to the lower part of the food chain, even if they are apex predators on Earth. These forest wolves are naturally low-ranking beasts, and they are called “forest wolves” because they hide in the woods and “mainly live in forested areas” to hide from and bypass stronger monsters.

Also, although this forest wolf is classified as a monster, it is not biologically a monster. In this world, there was no classification according to biology or evolutionary processes, and the boundary between monsters and beasts was ambiguous.

Even in Earth's biology and taxonomy, monsters are not easy to classify. A monster is a creature that has incredible magical power and harms humans. However, regardless of whether humans or wild animals are large or small, all creatures have magical powers. If it's harmful to humans, then bears and wolves can be said to be harmful monsters.

If we categorize them a little more academically, we can say that monsters are creatures that, for some reason or another, have been altered by harboring magical powers that are stronger than those originally possessed by other creatures. Monsters have no evolutionary process or similarity. It is thought that the original creatures have become monsters for some unexplained reason.

So, by definition, forest wolves are just wolves that have changed to live in the forest, but they harm humans, in other words, they are counted among monsters as “pests.” In fact, there are many instances like this, and there are many things that are classified as beasts even though they are monsters, and are included in monsters even though they are beasts.

However, such classification didn't matter, and whether the forest wolves were monsters or just beasts, these 3 were still in mortal danger.

“Why is there a forest wolf when we're not that deep in the woods?!”

“What were the Hunt Teams doing?!”

The students were cursing, but the Hunt Teams were doing their jobs properly. However, forest wolves are nocturnal, just like how most normal wolves are nocturnal, and wolves and dogs boast the ability to roam vast distances to hunt. For the forest wolves, it was only a light walk, as they sensed that a large number of humans had entered during the day, ran away to the other side of the forest, and returned at night when the threat was gone.

“Grrrr…”

“Growl…”

“””Hii—!”””

And at the very moment when the forest wolves were finally about to pounce on the students… BAHN! A gust of wind blasted past them.

“……Huh?”

“They're……?”

The 3 students averted their eyes as the forest wolves when they were about to pounce, and when the attack never came after so long, they dared to open them again. And as they did… there was nothing in front of them. The forest wolves had disappeared like smoke without even the signs of a fight.

A gust of wind blasted past the three students, and a knight with unnaturally large body armor ran through the forest. Because the armor gets stuck easily, he has to put out his right hand with his right leg, and his left hand and his left leg, and he can't even run properly. Even with such unnatural movement, he moves through the forest at unbelievable speed.

Both hands hold swords that have not been pulled out of their scabbards. The forest wolves who were about to attack the three students earlier were caught in those swords. With both hands and swords sticking out, he ran through all the wolves.

If you do that, it might seem like the wolves will rampage and attack the knight. But most of the wolves were already dead. It was like being hit with a hard stick at tremendous speed. Those that had been slammed in the necks, now had their heads bent at impossible angles, and those that were slammed in the bodies had them so constricted into themselves that the rest of their bodies looked unnaturally wide.

Some of the wolves were still alive, but they were all mortally wounded. Those forest wolves can't become any kind of threat now.

The fat knight who ran past the three students stopped for a moment and shook off the wolves clinging onto his weapons, and just in case, he stabbed them to finish off for certain before dashing off again. 1

A series of bizarre events occur throughout the forest. Those who encounter them do not yet know that those series of events are connected by their succession because they encountered them separately at different times and in different places. The only thing we do know is that they were all saved by something when they were about to be attacked by monsters and wild beasts.

The first trio didn't see what happened because they closed their eyes. But there were also those who witnessed it.

Some testified that a dark-colored monster ate the monster in front of them in one gulp. Another eyewitness said that a limbless suit of armor flew around on its own and killed the monsters.

It is not clear which one is correct, whether such a thing really happened in the first place, or whether such a person existed. The only thing they can say is that a later investigation revealed that there were certainly dead monsters and beasts lying around in the forest in incredibly suspicious circumstances.

However, the corpses were also eaten by other beasts by them, and the cause of death was not clear. All they know is that there must have been the remains of some kind of monster or beast here and there. Some of them had only traces of blood left and not even a body. All the truth was not revealed even after the investigation. But that's for later. No one knew what was happening right now.

A gust of wind blasted through here and there, and the monsters and beasts that were about to attack the students died before they even had time to let out their death cries. The students who encountered them began to return to the outside of the forest in a hurry, realizing the danger they were in while inside it.

“Hey! Who's there? Over here!”

Hearing the rustling sounds of someone running, Rutger shouted. Hearing that voice, the other party hurriedly rushed to Rutger's side.

“Lo-Lord Rutger! Please help me!”

“I will so calm down!” Rutger yelled back. “So what in the hell happened?!”

“I don't know! It's just that I was attacked by a monster… I ran away while something strange was fighting with the monster. It looked metallic… it's a monster I've never seen before.”

““““…………””””

Rutger, Simon, and the Knights of the Royal Guard Division looked at each other.

“It-It's true!” the student said. “Over there! There should be monster corpses lying around over there!”

“I understand,” Rutger said. “I'm not doubting you. Just calm down. You're going to help us out.”

Rutger and company had found and protected many students before coming here. They were looking for the remaining students while everyone was joining up. And most of the students he protected said the same thing. Something they had never seen passed through them at tremendous speed. Then the monsters that were attacking them would either disappear or die mysteriously.

“Hii…! I can't do this anymore!” the student yelled. “I don't want to go deep into the forest! I'm going outside it!”

He seemed completely frightened and stopped moving. It's meaningless to let him walk alone in the forest even though they already took the trouble to have him join. On the other hand, they don't have enough manpower to send each and every student they find back to camp. In that case, there was no choice but to take the people they found with them and go even deeper into the forest.

“You were the one that ran into this forest on your own, to begin with, so you had this coming!” Rutger yelled. “You have a choice, we throw you out of this party and leave you behind or you join us in searching for the rest of you guys!”

“Hiii..!” the student squealed, shrinking and shaking his head.

It's better to be protected by the knights of the Royal Guard Division and act together than to be left alone here. Originally, in such a traumatic experience, there wouldn't be any bringing an ultimatum, it's natural to be grateful and help, but this student still hasn't reached that point. Even now, they still look down on the Royal Guard Division.

Even if they find them, Rutger cannot take the option of “You look down on the Royal Guard Division, so we're going to toss you out and leave you behind.” It's troublesome, but there are many such people in an Academy attended by the children of high-ranking nobles. While somehow acting as an intermediary between the Royal Guard Division and the students, Rutger and company go deeper into the forest and search for the rest.

After that, they gathered up 17 students after a while. As expected, the Royal Guard Division of the current scale cannot take care of them anymore. It is possible that the rest of the students have joined Ludwig and the others since these are the only ones with them. As they were about to return to camp to exchange information now that it was necessary, it appeared.

“Woah, woaaaahh…!”

“Hiii…!”

“Wha… what in the hell is this thing?!”

“BUH-MOOOOOOOO…!”

Something appeared before Rutger and the others, it roared, causing the trees in the forest to rustle and the ground to shake. With just that yell, the students would cover and some even fainted from the fear.

“We… we've never seen anything like this before, have we?!” one of the knights yelled.

“Retreat! Take the students and retreat!” another knight yelled.

Even the most elite Royal Guard Division was at a loss. A completely unknown monster that they have never even heard of. It looked like a muscular cow walking on two legs. A cow's head and a human body. A completely unknown monster that the humans of this world have never seen or heard of, and if an Earth native sees it, everyone would probably answer that it looks like a “Minotaur.” A monster with such an imposing figure stands in front of Rutger and the others.

“Students, retreat!” the knights yelled. “Those who can fight will serve as shields! The 1st Squad will escort the students!”

Rutger and the others prepared their equipment while talking at the campsite and before entering the forest. Compared to that, the students who entered the forest in a panic ran away with nothing but their sleepwear on. Nothing can be done as poorly equipped as they were. They hurriedly left the scene while protecting the students so that those who were properly equipped would act as shields.

“Fuuuckkk…!” Rutger cursed. “What in the hell?!”

As he brought up the rear to protect the students as they retreated, Rutger swore, yelled, and desperately worked his brain to figure out how they were going to survive.

Chapter end