Testing My Luck in the New World

Volume 2 - Chapter 25

"Not much. He just said that he had an idea of where the spriggans were, so I went with him to find them."

I pinched my eyes shut. If that's all it took to get her out of the room, it was a Goddess-send that there were no dingy white vans with the word "candy" spraypainted on their side in this world.

"Mana... Why would you believe that?"

She tilted her head, her big blue eyes staring at me in open confusion. Sensing that something was worrying me, she tugged at the front of my pants and slipped her own hand inside to grasp me.

"His heart wasn't lying."

"But he tricked you, didn't he?"

If Tillmann was right about half-truths being capable of tricking the ears of a cat-kin, him saying he might know where the spriggans were must have been some sort of double speak, he did actually know they were in the forest, but not exactly where in the forest. It was a simple trick, a play on words, and I was fairly certain I might have believed him as well.

"Then what happened once you got here?"

"Hmmm...."

According to her explanation, which came with minimal detail, they arrived here by cart as we thought, but as soon as she spotted the barrier in the distance, she finally realized their trickery and tried to jump away.

Arthur caught her by the wrist and easily overpowered her. Pinning her arms to her sides, he even went so far as to clamp a hand over her mouth to keep her from drawing the attention of the forest's wildlife. Like this, she was carted into the barrier.

However, after enough constant squirming, she managed to squirm enough to take a good bite out of Arthur's hand. This caused him to let out and she fled into the trees with her bow. She didn't say so, but I assumed the bite had something to do with why he was drunk.

"Then one of the humans chased me," Mana continued with a sigh. "I lost him easily in the forest, but he wouldn't leave me alone. So, I had to keep moving."

That explains why I had such a hard time tracking her.

"Then he found you?"

"... Yea."

"And he hurt you?"

"No. I hid again before he could."

I shifted my grip on her, inside her, and she tightened a bit. "Mana, you don't need to spare me the details. If he hurt you..."

If she managed to gain the Archer class before coming to help us, then it only made sense she killed him. So, I would not be getting my revenge for whatever he did, but I still wanted to know.

"He didn't," she insisted. "I hid. He said some mean things and I ran. Then he kept chasing me, so I shot an arrow at him. It missed, but..."

"Mana, I can see your health bar. If it wasn't him, how did you get hurt?"

"..." puffing up her cheeks into a pout, she said nothing.

"Mana..."

"Mmm... Fine!" she huffed, pointing to her shoes. "These things made me slip on a branch. I fell out of a tree and landed on my butt. That's how he found me. I got up and ran, and he chased me again. I shot some arrows at him, and he kept chasing me."

"You shot him and he kept chasing you?"

Was the guy a friggin' terminator or something?

Still pouting, Mana shook her head, grinding her ears into my chin.