Escape From a Deserted Island With Enemy Female Soldiers

38 – Not a Dog, But a Fox (2)

Valkyrie was the first to react.

She grabbed a rope from the lifeboat and threw it into the water. The beastkin, after clamping the rope in his mouth, nodded urgently.

The saintess and I helped pull the rope, and we managed to pull the beastkin to safety.

* * *

Fwip-fwip-fwip.

The amphibious creature shook itself as it clambered onto the land. Water sprayed everywhere.

[‘No manners.’]

[‘That’s just how beasts are.’]

A woman with violet bobbed hair and deep-purple eyes, almost the color of ink.

Her two tails flicked in opposite directions, and on top of her head, a pair of animal ears, tufted with snow-white inner fur, twitched.

Her face is pretty. Her *face*.

It’s those ears and tail that trigger an instinctual repulsion.

“Whoa, hi there!”

That was Ascalia’s greeting. Now that I look closer, the creature is wearing clothes with the Holy Kingdom’s insignia.

Looks like a uniform, but I’ve never seen one like it. More workwear than battle attire, it seemed.

“I almost died! Uuum, uh, well, you natives? Thanks for saving me? I don’t know if you understand Riyo, but…”

“We’re not natives.”

“Huh?”

The Saint and the Valkyrie started babbling away.

The creature’s eyes grew wider and wider with every word.

“The Saint and the Black Cat are alive! That’s such a relief! Now we just have to get back and everything will be lucky! But…who’s that guy?”

“He’s a magestone officer from the Magus Kingdom. It’s a long story…”

No sooner did the Saint glance my way than the creature’s gaze turned towards me as well.

[‘Woah.’]

[‘Scary.’]

They don’t seem friendly, at the very least.

Yeah, it won’t be easy.

“Grrr…”

Two people and one beast sat huddled around the campfire, warming themselves. The reason there were only two people was because the Valkyrie was sitting a little ways apart.

“Haa, it’s a bit chilly…”

Creepy.

This island seemed to be colder than the others.

At this rate, the Valkyrie might catch another cold. If even one of us gets sick here, we’re all going to suffer like dogs. I took the magic stone I got from catching a merman and synthesized it into a heating stone, then approached the Valkyrie.

“Here, put this on.”

“…Huh? Oh, okay.”

The Valkyrie carefully took the heating stone.

Three months.

It had already been that long since I’d been with this woman as survival partners.

The animosity was still there, since we’d both killed each other’s comrades, but it seemed that we had progressed to the point of being able to exchange items without suspicion. It takes too much energy to suspect each other every single time.

Then, the Valkyrie, who was fiddling with the heating stone, turned up the corners of her mouth.

“……”

That face.

That smile she flashes is the problem.

She doesn’t smile often, but when you do her a kindness she sometimes grins, seemingly without realizing it, and every time that happens, my hostility wants to dig its way through the floor.

Cute, or wanting to protect her, or wanting to see that face every day.

[‘Hey, junior.’]

[‘Senior?’]

“Ah.”

Calon and David’s voices snapped me back to my senses.

*Calm down. Get a grip.*

I shouldn’t be overly nice to this woman. I’ll use her thoroughly until we escape, then ditch her. Even if we meet again on the battlefield after that, we’ll be strangers…

That’s what I was telling myself, while steadying my mind.

“……Thank you.”

The Valkyrie offered a clumsy thank you in the magic kingdom’s language.

“Mage, like. This.”

“Ha.”

“Ah, don’t get any wrong ideas because of this. I just don’t want to be in your debt. When we go back, if we go back…we’ll have to fight again.”

I hurried back to the campfire. Being around that woman any longer would have meant getting eaten up by the mood, forgetting my original position.

The campfire situation was at least manageable.

The saintess, and the dog beastkin.

The distance between the saintess and myself was just right right now. Not too far, not too close. A neutral relationship that would vanish the moment we left this island.

On the other hand, things with the dog beastkin were just beginning.

“Grrr.”

He was about to bark.

It was a level of hostility that matched what I’d first seen from Valkyrie. I didn’t know the exact reason, but she was growling at me just from hearing I was a mage, so I could infer she had a past as bad as Valkyrie’s.

[‘Well, beastkin have been used as experimental subjects a lot in the past.’]

[‘I’m hearing about this for the first time. Did that really happen?’]

[‘It’s a dark history. Even the Magic Kingdom wants to hide it, so if you don’t dig deep, you won’t know. Not even a hundred years ago, beastkin weren’t even treated as human, they were bought and sold for animal experimentation.’]

Two-Dol was right.

It hasn’t even been a century since beastkin started being treated as individuals.

[‘Even that’s because human rights were finally established. Before that, it was a mess. If you look up related records, you can’t help but feel sorry for them, even though they look like that.’]

[‘Then shouldn’t they have animal rights? I can understand the Holy Empire because of the Goddess’ blessing, but why did our country give those beast b*stards human rights? They’re not even people.’]

[‘Think about it. Do they have a lot of money, or what?’]

The facts I knew about beastkin also didn’t deviate much from those two.

Their race itself had a tragic past, and currently, they held immense capital enough to manipulate the underworld.

And one more thing.

Even though official discrimination was forbidden, the gazes of many people were still harsh.

I was no different.

“What are you staring at? Krrr…”

Krrr?

Is that onomatopoeia coming from a human mouth?

Alright, fine. I’ll let that much slide as a cute quirk. The problem was their appearance.

The fact that someone’s human appearance had beast ears and a tail attached was hard to accept physiologically. If it were food, it would be like putting mint herbs on top of chocolate.

I barely managed to suppress the nausea that was rising.

It’s a mercy he wasn’t a full beastman, if he’d been covered in fur head to toe, I would’ve puked a long time ago.

“Sergeant Liyo, until we escape this place, we shouldn’t antagonize any mages.”

“But, Saintess, it’s three-on-one, I think we’d win?”

“It’s not about winning or losing. If we want to increase our survival odds even a little, having more people is better.”

“But the mages are dog-like, ah, no, fox-like b*stards….”

“Tsk. That’s an order.”

“What if that mage smacks us real hard in the back of the head? And this island looks like it’s managed by the magic kingdom, wouldn’t it be more advantageous for us to tie up the mages like *this, like that*?”

“You’re talking about prisoner negotiations, I see. You have a point. But who knows how the situation will unfold, I don’t want to needlessly ruin what little credit we have.”

“Saintess?”

The beastman’s eyes, mid-conversation with the Saintess, suddenly widened.

“It’s funny, right? That the Saintess is defending a mage.”

“Oing-oing indeed.”

The dog beastman folded his arms and nodded. The beastman’s sharp fingernails that had been sticking out were gradually retracting.

[‘For a dog, he can hide his claws like a cat.’]

[‘Is he actually a cat, perhaps?’]

[‘Didn’t you hear him almost bark just now? He’s a dog b*stard through and through.’]

Maybe it was because of the two’s chat, but my gaze kept returning to the beastman’s hands.

The length of his nails growing and shrinking wasn’t human-like, but surprisingly, if you just looked at his whole hand, it wasn’t that unusual.

“Hoo.”

Now that my body was mostly dry, I got up from my spot first.

“Mage? Where are you going?”

“Just going to scout a bit deeper into the forest. Maybe grab some firewood while I’m at it. Want to come along?”

The saintess’s eyes, a live feed.

Orange, then pink.

“My clothes aren’t even dry yet…”

The saintess, huffing, tried to hide herself with her nun’s habit.

[‘Ah, Erich, what a blunder! You’re asking a naked enemy saintess on a forest date!’]

[‘Senior, how can you make such a beastly suggestion while wearing human skin?!’]

Right, she couldn’t be wandering around like that. Something about the rules high clerics have to follow, or whatever.

Guess I’ll have to take Valkyrie.

That was my plan, and I was getting ready when…

“The Major’s not feeling well.”

“Huh?”

Valkyrie’s head drooped as she touched her cheek.

“I don’t know what it is, but my body feels stiff, and my face is burning…”

“She says her face is hot. I need to check on her today. See how long she’ll be sick for.”

I sighed. Look, if we had just sat by the fire for a bit longer, how nice would that have been? Will a heating stone really dry you properly?

Should we just rest more now and move later?

Absolutely not.

The firewood was soaked and we desperately needed new kindling. Plus, our mouths have increased and we’re already running low on the food we’d stocked.

Gotta move, like, *now*.

But the Saint won’t ’cause of her damn faith, and the Valkyrie’s too sick.

Part of me wanted to just drag them along, like, *who cares about faith?*, but that’s a bad move. I’d painstakingly cultivated this image of respecting the Holy Spirit Church, and saying that now would just screw everything up.

“……Sorry. I’ll do what I can here instead. Herbs, making shelter.”

“I think I can manage with the sea fishing. I’m not just gonna sit here if I’m not going along.”

It’s not like they’re refusing to do anything, so I can’t get mad for no reason.

[‘It’s only midday, wouldn’t it be better to just go alone?’]

[‘Senior, you and those enemy female soldiers made a rule about this. When exploring uncharted territory, there have to be at least two people to deal with any emergencies.’]

[‘Aren’t we three including ourselves?’]

[‘Right now, with this body, is there anything we can actually help with?’]

[‘We are still magic stones, aren’t we? We could be used…’]

Okay, cut.

No time to overthink.

“Hey, doggy, come on.”

“…Woof?”

The Beastkin tilts her head. The Saint giggles and whispers. Then the Beastkin’s face crumples like paper, and she nods.

“I’m not a dog. I’m a fox.”

Suddenly, the Beastkin speaks in the Mage Kingdom’s language, pulling something out from behind her.

It was a hatchet.