Wico shook her head.
“Ah, Selva, Selva! What did I tell you over and over again?”
The girl only looked away unhappily without answering. Still, this time, Wico didn’t relent.
“In a real fight, there’s no such thing as circumstances. There’s only your side and the other side. You, your allies, and your enemies. You help your allies and you kill your enemies. That’s all there is to it.”
Selva responded after another moment of silence.
“Still, it wasn’t their fault they became like that.”
“Maybe not, but so what? The moment they chose to attack us, they became our enemies. Men, women, this or that species, elderly or children, it all doesn’t matter anymore. There’s no such thing as pity when you fight for your life. You just kill them all.”
“…”
“Do you understand?”
“…”
“Answer me, Selva.”
“…I got it, master.”
“Good. Let’s not talk about this anymore.”
This was also a lesson my instructors kept harping at me constantly. I probably heard it from twenty different people, if not more. When so many of them insisted on the same thing, I had no choice but to believe they were right. Now that I was older and could think more clearly about it, I still agreed with them. Things were even simpler than what Wico explained. Kill or die. That was all there was to it. Any attempt to go easier on your opponents to avoid killing them could cost you your life. This was the absolute reality of real combat.
We let Selva rest some more while Wico flew around to monitor the surroundings. After around thirty minutes, with the rain having stopped falling, the girl stood up on her own.
“I’m good enough now.”
“All right. Let’s continue forward. It’s best not to stay here for too long.”
I sat in the driver’s seat and Selva took her usual position next to me. As for Wico, she glued herself to me in a very natural manner. She was still full of blood, which eventually stained me and my clothing, but I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t a big deal since I was extremely used to blood. I probably was the person of my age who had seen the most blood in their life. And if not, I could only pity whoever had gone through worse than me. Really.
Yet, that didn’t mean we shouldn’t do something about it.
“We should find a place to clean ourselves up.”
“There’s a small forest with a river a few kilometers from here, after going down the hill.”
“Okay. Let’s go there.”
It helped that we had someone very familiar with the topography. Considering her age and the type of work she was doing, she probably had done a similar trip many times and it wasn’t weird she knew everything about it.
We were mostly silent during our short trip downhill and forward. Wico seemed restless on my shoulders, constantly wiggling one way or the other, sometimes munching my hair while doing so. After some time, she indicated east, toward a forest on the side of the road, and I directed ourselves in that direction. It seemed this was a path other people often took because there was a small track going straight to the river, situated a few hundred meters from the forest’s entrance.
I stopped the carriage there and we used the cool river water to clean ourselves up. Once I was done, I took care of the horses while the women finished washing themselves. When I turned back, ready to leave again, I saw Selva squirm in the water. A few seconds later, she turned around after leaving us with a single word.
“Toilet.”
She walked far away from our position, enough that we couldn’t see her anymore. Wico was still playing in the water and suddenly jumped out, completely drenched, only to stick herself to me again. The cold contact made me shiver.
“Come on, master.”
“Kahahah! Is it cold? Am I wet?”
“Cold and wet, master.”
“Hehehe.”
She clung to me happily and I let her be. Still, there was something I had to say.
“That was very shrewd of you, master.”
“Hmm?”
“You hid inside the carriage to make the bandits attack us, didn’t you?”
“Oh…! You’re so smart, Tila. I’m not used to having a smart disciple. It’s a strange feeling! What else did you notice?”
“I think you knew the area had a high chance of having bandits and you created this situation on purpose. The bandits would never have attacked us if you had clung to me as usual.”
“Yes, yes, that’s completely right.”
“I’m not very interested in your reasons so I’ll stop here.”
“What a shame. But then, you’re not much better than me, are you?”
“How so?”
“You knew I was acting weird and probably guessed something might happen but you didn’t say anything. You’re quite the crazy boy, my disciple.”
I smiled.
“Aren’t we all crazy?”
“Well said! Kahahah!”
“There’s just one thing I’m unsure about.”
“Tell me.”
“Why are behaving strangely right now?”
“It can’t be helped if you don’t know that one. Many sorcerers feel in a particular mood after an intense fight. That’s why I’m feeling restless.”
“A particular mood?”
“I’m super horny right now!”
That was indeed news to me. I didn’t think I heard anything about that in my world. Then again, I was always mostly only surrounded by mages so I didn’t know much about sorcerers. I only had the same basic common sense normal people had, which didn’t touch on that topic.
“Huh… Wait, then, Selva…?”
“Yes. Did you think she went that far for no reason? She’s going to calm herself down, just like what she does in her room!”
She giggled for a bit more before taking a blanket and placing it on top of the weapons in the carriage. She then lay down on it and opened her legs widely, still as pantyless as ever. I was met with her cloaca for the third time, and she grinned at me.
“And your role here, as my disciple, is to help me cool off the heat!”