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I'm listening to Ken's explanation.「They had their mounts, after all, which would make them take another route, instead of blindly following us. I think Meldorn has put something like a tracker on us.」

“Ken suspects that Meldorn has a way to know where we are.” While I should repeat word for word, I try to shorten it up, as it feels stupid to just parrot whatever I hear.

“So we can't escape?” Rine-chan asks, half-determined.

“In the long run, no. We have run so far, though, that they will have problems catching up. What do you think, Ken?”

「Hah!?」

“Sorry. Wh-at_doooo_youuuuuu_thiii-nnnn-k?”

「I still don't understand.」

“Mou,” I write it down and show it to him. For him to have a chance to understand my words, I have to speak one syllable of the sentence at a time and only concentrate on that syllable while blending out the sentence and word as much as possible, which creates awful long pauses.

「If we want to escape, we need to find the road as fast as possible and get to the next town, fetch some mounts, and just outrun them while we're ahead. Maybe the tracker is distance-dependent. If we want to confront them, we should head towards the forest though that spell they threw may level it, given enough time.」

“Erm...” I try to summarize it. “The question is, whether we head to the town to get horses and ride away, hoping that their tracking spell or skill will lose us, or whether we confront them in the great forest we were heading to. Personally, I think running away is the best choice.”

Rine-chan puts her hand on her sword. “I heard that the Huntsman once followed a years-old track, so he won't lose us. I say we should fight!”

“I can see the logic in that,” Arako adds, though her voice isn't as supportive as her words. “The question is, how can we fight them? The wizard seems to be capable, but he needs time to prepare and a less frail arm. The priest seems to be unfit for combat. The Huntsman avoided getting close, so I assume that he doesn't want to get into close-quarters with a hero. Gottfried-kun is too much for us, at least when he's at his peak. So we need ways to tire him out and to trick him, circumvent him. He's a native, overwhelming in fighting, but that only means we have to defeat him otherwise.”

“Sounds solid.”

「What did she say?」 Ah, this is super-annoying!

I show Ken my status-screen, there is an option to make it visible to others. This shows him that I want to check his, as I can't do it via the WP-system right now. He has a particular condition, which has overwritten his usual screens:

[Suppressed Heroism] Your hero-system is suffering from several malfunctions and is currently fixing them. Please refrain of dangerous actions until the issues are solved, as the full amount of damage is still to be determined.

Known issues:

• Recovery of HP, SP, and MP by items, spells and natural means is lower than it should be

• Using language activation for [Skills] doesn't work

• [Class-Change] doesn't work

• Several menus are corrupted and unable to be called upon

• Your [Inventory] is currently closed

Estimated time until recovery: 3 hours, 12 minutes, 6 seconds

The recovery of his SP is apparent, as he breathes heavily even after resting for a bit. I'm sure though, that he will just stubbornly insist on getting another hour of running done.

I write him a message. 'We will keep going to the forest. We may not be able to flee them, after all.'

「It's simple... we need to take out Meldorn. Without him, they won't be able to follow us at all. Break his legs. He was just too far away to shoot at him, and the horse was more important. Yes, the forest is good. I will have recovered by then and the moment we are in the forest, I'll sneak up behind him and take him out!」

“Are you sure you want to do that, Ken? Isn't he your mentor?”

「Japanese, please!」

“ARGH!” This is grating on my nerves!

“What did he say, Kyou?” Rine-chan, let me have my outrages in peace! I'm sick of being the translator! Seriously!

After ranting and then sharing some thoughts, we decided to hustle a bit again. It will take another day to get to the forest at this pace, but it's the best plan we have and we only need to take out one person for it to function.

I'm still concerned. I know that Ken is willing to do whatever needs to be done, but there are several doubts I have. Is Ken physically capable of overwhelming Meldorn, or are his injuries so severe that even when his hero-system fully reactivates he will need to have a break? How far can we travel at this pace before the dreaded [Worn out]-condition kicks in? We did more before, but this time, Arako and Ken burdened themselves especially with carrying us over great distances. Also, is Ken maybe planning to even kill Meldorn, his own mentor? He would certainly be crazy enough for that, just lying about the disabling to make us worry less.

「Hhhh-haaaa--- What are you looking at!?」

“[Stamina]!”

「...meh.」 He's clearly irritated, and this makes me think that he's about to do something stupid. He's also short on breath. How long have we walked without a break? The terrain may not have changed—still hills, high grass, some boulders, bushes, and trees—but it must have been at least two hours, maybe even close to a third? I can only take the sun for a hint, and while I may ask Ken to show me his status again, it's obvious that walking is already painful for him.

Even though he's stuck in his [Pikeman]-class and therefore should have more [Vitality], which may or not play into his endurance. I may need to check my manual for that...

「...u-ahu.」 With a very painful sounding breath, Ken holds his chest. 「Uh.」

“What's wrong!” I basically run the two steps to him, already using [Check-up]. This shows me the medical condition of a patient, in this case it's the best thing I can do without reading his status.

「...pain. I...」 His eyes look glassy, then he falls over.

“Kenta!” Rine-chan catches him before he hits his head, which I'm very thankful for. “Kyou, what to do!?”

“Lay him down. He's suffocating, but I can't determine why yet.” I see a window that shows me what is wrong with him. It lists his bruises, his external wounds, his malnutrition... wait, malnutrition? Also, he's suffering from intoxication? It's a type of blood poisoning, which spreads towards his organs. “Something is wrong with his blood.”

“As long as Gottfried-san doesn't know skills that somehow turns his unarmed attacks into toxic weapons, it has to be the relic,” says Arako eerily quiet and calm.

I use [Medication] and [Detoxification], two [Skills] I seldom use, to determine what the best course of action might be. The answer is: “We need to provide him with more oxygen!”

“Oxygen?”

「----h---h---」 Ken's whole body cramps up, pain and terror flashes his face, he's suffocating right before our eyes!

“KENTA! STAY WITH US! WHAT'S OXYGEN!? WHERE IS IT!”

I... I don't have any oxygen-tanks or flasks. Ken... Ken will die! No... no, no, no! “Ken! Breathe! Breathe, Ken!” I try to massage under his chest, where his diaphragm should be, which is already cramping up badly. His lips are turning blue.

Suddenly, I'm pushed away. “Let me handle this.”

―○●○―

Far away in Feuerberg lies the village of Funkenpflug. In this village resides the research facility of the heroes of Feuerberg that decided to not participate directly in the war against the demons, the so-called non-combat group, or research group.

Saegusa Mamiko is the former homeroom teacher of the highschool students that were summoned to be heroes and something like the head of the research group, which has suffered greatly in numbers.

After the arrival of Harada-kun and the others, things have changed. There used to be eight students in the research group, four of them have left, while three of the remaining ones are silently considering whether to join Harada-kun and his party of zealous fanatics or to stay in Funkenpflug, where the research is rather slow and nothing like what they hoped it would be, which is understandable, as things even as simple as a battery made out of iron, copper, and dead frog, basically something like a voltaic pile, won't work at all. The last one, however, made a career as a chef in this country.

Using modern science in a fantasy world may appear like a good idea, but Saegusa has grown smarter. Not only by the level-ups in her occasional hunting group, but also because she had a realization. She started to perform the most basic experiments to discern whether her hypothesis is right or not.

Matsuzawa Hideko-san, her only remaining assistant, holds a paper and a pen for the protocol. She draws the specially made flask with the iron powder inside. The flask has a second opening at the upper side, which is connected to a tube that rises slightly and has a funnel-like end.

Saegusa puts a bigger flask upside down on a stand, so that it's directly over the first opening. Then she takes a final flask, one with hydrochlorid, and pours its content into the funnel-like end of the tube.

This is an easy way to create hydrogen. A base metal with hydrochlorid will create a reduction, which will cause the separation of the hydrogen from the hydrochlorid, which will rise and fill the upside down flask.

Too bad that she couldn't get zinc that easily. However, iron is good enough in this case.

The bubbles are forming as the acid meets the metal, and Saegusa hopes that this part works as intended, as she really wants that hydrogen.

After the bubbles recede, she takes a pair of pliers. “Hideko-san?” Her assistant takes a match and ignites it, then Saegusa takes the burning match with the pliers and puts it into the upside down flask...

Almost no sound, but it's not a test tube, so maybe its body of sound doesn't work the same. There were some small flames though. Saegusa quickly plugs the opening and then waits. Burning hydrogen should create water.

After several minutes of cooling down, there is a liquid inside. “I dictate: The liquid that has formed is clear with a slightly blue-to-violet tint. It's inviscid and when moving, it leaves small drops that cling to the wall of the flask.” She opens the flask again and proceeds with the odor test before closing it again: “It has an acrid smell. In conclusion, it's possible that inside the water is another component. Next, we will vaporize that liquid to see whether it leaves any remains or not.”

“So impurities in the metal, the acid, or the flask again,” concludes Hideko-san with the knowledge of chemistry that she has accumulated in middle school and high school.

“Possibly, though like with the failed experiment of iron wool combustion in mind, I have another source for the impurities in mind. The air.”

“The air?”

“Yes. I had this suspicion for a while, now with twenty basic experiments as a reference, I dare to say that it's almost certain, and I believe it without a doubt. I made the mistake before to take usual environmental conditions into account, instead of questioning it. In our world, the air is composed of roughly 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% other gases, including carbon dioxide and argon, though the accurate numbers vary by study. This may not be the case here.”

“So the composition is different?”

“This for once, and there is even the possibility that there are gases in the air we don't even know of in our world. I suspect that with every combustion, at least one other gas also reacts, hence why the ferrous oxide we tried to synthesize didn't look or react like one, as in fact, it was another compound.” This news, however, doesn't excite Saegusa.

And neither Hideko-san: “Oh great! So everything we know about science is wrong!”

“No. We just need to be actual researchers, instead of relying on our knowledge. And for that, we need to learn what we can about this world and its... let's call it pseudo-science.” Which would mean that Saegusa actually has to learn alchemy, and learning this hoax science isn't really something she's looking forward to. “Hideko-san, let's conduct some more experiments to be 100% sure about this pet theory of mine. Then... then something might change.” They've been stuck for a while in their so-called research and Saegusa still remembers vividly the letters of the chancellor, who is expecting results. Maybe it will give them time and more resources, if she can prove to him that, while her scientific knowledge has much less value than anticipated, the scientific way and the methods she has learned will be valuable.

However, the student is trembling a bit, pale by a thought that crossed her mind: “So we're breathing air that has unknown and possibly toxic gas in it!?”

“It shouldn't be dangerous. We did it for months with no detriment.” Saegusa doesn't even waste a second on that thought, as she's filled with determination and focused on the next task. She's finally at the starting line!