Despite my small injury from overuse of my mana… And all the blood loss, I was fine. After my mana fully regenerated I felt normal again. As normal as I could in my still foreign body. We quickly knocked a few more things off the list, taking care of Mochi’s teeth after realising I had forgotten about it. ‘I should be able to fully empty out my storage when we get home, and that will at least let my mind relaxm it’s too cluttered… I’ll figure out what to do next after that.’
I suddenly heard a scream and a crack of a whip that made Mochi tremble, squeezing my hand even tighter than when the priest was healing her teeth.
‘If she actually was a little girl I’d probably try to coddle her right now… Honestly, I still want to.’ I let go of her hand and looked back at her. “Hey, hey open you’re eyes.”
Her jaw shook as she did what I told her.
“Whoever’s using that can only hurt you if they can hit you. Do you understand?”
I saw her whole body move with her throat as she swallowed like she was gulping down her fears as she steadied her posture.
“Now, are you ready for a fight? If you’re not that–”
“Let's go.”
“Quick to answer as always I see.” ‘Now let's see what’s going on.’ I grabbed my great blade from storage and pulled her back as she tried to step out in front of me. “I’ll take the lead, if we do end up fighting try to use rock bullets from the sides, rather than shooting through me. The alley is narrow so it’s possible only one of us will be able to fight at a time.”
I turned the corner to see what was going on and before me was a group of rogues. They wore all black leather with a broken chain symbol as their guild crest.
In front of them was a white Orc man, bruised and beaten nearly unconscious, growling with every breath as his back bled from the whip. To the side was a young female goblin, hesitantly taking off her clothes to reveal a tight chest wrapping and loin cloth that probably wouldn’t even pass for a swimsuit.
With one glance at her the orc let out a defeated growl, and without a word averted his gaze. “T-there… Now you’ll leave him alone right?” The girl stuttered.
As embarrassed as she clearly was… It was obvious, to me at least, that they didn’t actually care about her at all. Ironically, what they really wanted was to humiliate the Orc.
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I couldn’t help but let out a sigh as I walked forward ‘It must have been a pretty huge hit to his pride to have her do that for him, so I’m sure he won’t mind if I salvage what’s left of it...’
Drawing my greatblade and pulling a blanket from storage I walked over to cover the girl. “Mochi, earth wall between the girl and the rest of them.”
In an instant a massive tower of dirt blocked off the entire alleyway. ‘Let's take care of this first.’ I kept my guard up in case they had someone with them that could break through the wall, but most of my focus was on the girl. After all, I had my assumptions, but I didn’t actually know what was happening for sure. “Are you alright?”
From her appearance, I guessed she was probably from both the long ears and the fanged tribes. She had flawless skin that was a minty shade of olive green, and a bubbly shade of coral pink covered her hair. Looking at her, her face and ears were both bright red. So much so that I thought her skin color was changing, but that was probably unrelated... “F-fine… If you’re going to help give me a weapon and lower the wall, otherwise you should have stayed out of this…”
‘She’s surprisingly composed. Even if her voice is a little shaky.’ I pulled my hunting knife from storage. “This one do?”
She nodded accepting it. “Two on the left, one on the right, and one scaling the wall right now. I’ll take the left.”
“Then I guess I’ll go right. Mochi, use bolder toss to take out the section of wall highest up and send it flying.”
Before the dirt sank back into the ground the girl next to me became cloaked in shadows, and the moment the wall dropped she vanished. The one climbing evaded Mochi’s spell, but it was fine, as the man jumped and fell he became an easy target for my blade to whip him into a wall and crush him flat like a grape in a wine press.
The second man tried to fight back, parrying my first swing… but then the orc rammed his tusk-like fangs clean through the man's leg, lifting him up into the air. He was still bound, and unable to move very well, so from there he just dropped him and kicked him in the head to finish the deal.
I turned to check back on the girl, but all I saw were two more bodies lying on the ground. Suddenly I felt a tug from behind me. “It’s taken care of. Thank you…” The girl's voice meekly spat out as she carefully positioned herself between me and the Orc.
I was actually bigger than her, at least in my new body, so it worked pretty well, not that he was looking anyway.
‘Right… Now how do I deal with this awkward mess…’ I took the knife and threw it back in storage along with my blade, then I used lesser healing on the orc, who still hadn’t bothered to look at me. Given what was behind me I couldn’t blame him though, especially because of how much his race was known to value honor… And how weirdly specific they got in regards to what that meant.
For that same reason, I figured it would be better to let him free himself, so I threw my knife into the dirt at his feet, getting a grunt of approval. As I slowly turned around the girl behind me jumped, flinching suddenly as her eyes darted to the side. ‘A bit skittish for someone that just knocked out two men twice her size.’
She was tightly gripping the blanket around her neck to cover herself, constantly moving her eyes around the area like a cat finding itself in a dangerous position, unsure of what to do. “Hey.” I snapped my fingers in front of her to draw attention. “You’re ok, right? Not hurt?”
After a short pause, she started nodding. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Then you should go put your clothes back on,” I said, pointing to the pile on the ground where she left her gear, hoping to give her some direction for her nervous energy.
I hardly believed it when her face somehow turned even more red. “Out in the open?!?” She yelled, her eyes pleading for help.
“Well you took them off out in the open didn’t you…” To an extent, I understood how she felt, but wasn’t it better than walking around with just a blanket? I glanced over to Mochi as she hesitantly approached, awkwardly trying to get closer to me while staying away from the strangers.
“Mochi… can you check on the orc’s wounds while I deal with this…” Her eyes got big real fast. ‘Does everyone here have social anxiety or something?’ Rolling my eyes I let out a sigh and conjured a wall of thorns to block the view as I pushed the sheepish goblin back over to her equipment.
I wanted to ask her more questions… But as curious as I was I decided in the end it probably wasn’t worth talking about much more, sense it was already all said and done.