“Hard to starboard!” Riza said.

  “I don’t know what ssstarboard is. Jussst sssay right or left,” Naga replied.

  “Right.”

  Naga slammed her tail in the water on the left side of the boat until the vessel turned parallel to the shore.

  Riza was certain the kidnappers had made their escape by boat because an unwilling subject could put up enough struggle to make themselves known if taken past a guard post. Moreover, the lack of a boat elsewhere along the shore suggested their destination wasn’t Elsifeya City. The tide had been ebbing last night so hiding a beached boat was unlikely even if the adventurers were deigning to help.

  Riza guessed they were sailing rather than rowing because, in her own words, “adventurers are too lazy to row,” and, in a rare moment of agreement, both recalled the wind blowing north the night before. This was how the two ended up paddling northward for two hours in search of any sign of a sailboat.

  “Why am I going hard to ssstarboard?” Naga asked.

  “Reefs,” Riza said, gesturing at the water which was beginning to take on a bit of color. Despite being halfway in the water, Naga hadn’t noticed them. A moment later she felt their coarse texture graze her tail.

  “You have good eyes,” Naga said

  “Thanks,” Riza said. “I’m sure you would have seen them too if your eyes weren’t so used to the dark.”

  “Perhapsss.”

  Riza also spotted the sailboat first. It was moored in a bay between two cliffs with an extremely narrow inlet of ten feet at most. Ironically, she found it by picking up the sound of flapping sails. The adventurers had been too lazy to lower them.

  “It looksss like we found our kidnappers,” Naga said.

  Riza stared at the boat and frowned. “Should we go back and alert the castle guard? We don’t know how many there are and if we fight them directly we might get in trouble for harming adventurers.”

  “I’ve harmed adventurers. What’sss a few more?” Naga said.

  “A few more and we will have trouble with Mystiferia.”

  “Yesss, and right now we have trouble with the people in there. If we’re too ssslow it won’t matter what that vile elf does with usss.”

  The lizard girl paled. “You don’t think they would kill Jessica so quickly, do you?”

  Riza glanced between the bay and Elsifeya Castle, two hours the other way.

  “Alright, we can scout the place if you can keep your slithering quiet.”

  “Have you ever known sssnakesss to be loud?” Naga replied, steering them into the bay with her sore and overworked tail.

  “I’ve known at least one,” Riza replied.

  Naga brought their boat onto a narrow strip of sand. The only way forward was through the cliffs via a ravine barely wider than Naga. Before they entered, the lamia made a brief stop at the moored boat and flickered her tongue.

  Her face wrinkled. “Oh yesss, thisss is where they took her. I tassste the sssulfuric acid.”

  Riza, meanwhile, was investigating the ravine. Just outside of it was a puddle of saltwater that had survived evaporation by being shielded from the sun. Through it ran tracks of sandy footprints. Her reconnaissance training kicking in, Riza counted five sets of footprints by the difference in gait. One smelled like an animalar and one had the sickly-sweet smell of a succubus. The other three were human.

  “Not the numbers I was expecting,” Riza said to Naga slithering up by her side.

  “A party with three adventurers in it? How… uncommon. Who do you think they are?”

  “Hired thugs from Mystiferia?”

  Naga smiled cryptically. “That’sss not how she worksss. Sssome people from her passst, perhapsss?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ah. She hasn’t told you much yet. I sssupose she and I had more time to talk when we were down in that cell together. I’m sure she’ll be happy to explain once we rescue her.”

  Right as Riza felt like they might be getting along, the petty lamia had to go and ruin things by bragging about her being roommates with Jessica for longer. Ultimately, the lamia was still an instinct-driven monster guided by self-interest and possessiveness.

  “Climb up on my back,” Naga said as she squeezed her human half through the gap of the ravine.

  Riza glanced at the black and acid-green scales comprising Naga’s snake body.

  “Must I?” she asked.

  “If you would like to hide our footprintsss, you should climb up.”

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  The texture of Naga’s scales did not agree with Riza. They were too smooth to grip, forcing her to squeeze her legs together for traction. It was not unlike riding an unusually slippery horse. Just as she was settled, the lamia launched forward, propelling herself through the contours of the ravine like a serpentine train. It was almost fun except for the jagged rocks whizzing by a few feet from Riza’s head.

  After a minute she worked up the courage to raise her head. She was glad she did so. There was a cleft in the ravine up ahead and her instincts told her to have Naga slow down. A rock stairway came into view that ran all the way up to the cliff above the ravine.

  “It’sss sssubtle… But there’s a new ssscent here,” Naga said.

  “I smell it too,” Riza said.

  It was not a good smell either. Blood. Burnt hair. The earthy smell of dirt. The two of them looked around for the owner of this unpleasant odor but it was impossible to see ahead once the ravine plunged into rock and became a cave.

  “No time to wassste,” Naga said, hurling herself through the tunnel.

  Once more Jessica was left with just her auditory senses. This time she didn’t have the benefit of a calm presence of mind. Something had spooked her captors and the feeling was contagious. Unlike them, she couldn’t run and hide. She was stuck to a chair with a bag over her head. Her only real choice was whether or not to yell for help and that felt like a bad idea.

  Jessica sat there trembling as the echoing footsteps drew nearer.

  “Oh, look at that! Someone gift-wrapped you for me!”

  Her brain scrambled to identify the voice but it sounded like no one she’d met. They moved toward her but were stopped by the clang of metal against rock.

  “That’s our bounty,” said Kagezora from somewhere above and behind Jessica. “It’s three adventurers against one and I don’t see any party members with you.”

  The voice laughed. They were undeniably female, their tone diabetically high-pitched.

  “The bounty belongs to whoever brings her in, silly. And your numbers don’t really matter.”

  “Take another step forward and you can find out whether or not those numbers matter,” Ebony said.

  The voice giggled. “I already know they don’t! I’m a much higher level, so you won’t be able to stop me without getting hurt. If you don’t want to get hurt you should leave.”

  “If you try to kill other adventurers you’ll end up in deep shit, same as her,” Jared said.

  The girl snort-laughed. “I already have, ya goofball! If you’re smart about it you can blame it on monsters. It’s super-duper easy to get away with!”

  “I-I’ll tell the guild what happened!” Jessica yelled through the hood.

  “Heehee. They’re not gonna believe ya! I’m just a cozy farming girlie who needs a couple hundred thousand gold to buy more crops and so I date all the villagers. I couldn’t possibly harm anyone, unlike the mean old lady who throws acid on people. Now if ya don’t mind—”

  Lights flashed behind the burlap sack. Metal sparks and arcane particles danced around the cave to an ear-splitting concert of magical abilities and screaming. In the midst of it Jessica’s face was splashed with something she thought was water until she noticed it tinted the sack red.

  “Kagezora-sama!” Petra and Molly screamed.

  Another snort laugh poked through the cacophony. “What a silly name!”

  There were two loud, wet thwacks spaced a few seconds apart as something rolled to a stop at Jessica’s bound feet. Ebony screamed. To her left she heard Jared hyperventilating. Then he ran.

  “Oh no ya don’t, buster!”

  There was another thwack, this time flatter and not as resounding. It was accompanied by a gurgling moan.

  “Please, I’m sorry! You can have her! I won’t tell anyone, I swear!” Ebony said.

  “Nope! The offer to run was all or nothing. Either y’all left or I have to get rid of the witnesses. Sorry!”

  “Oh God, please! Please don’t—!”

  One more thwack and the cave was silent. A shudder ripped down the length of Jessica’s body. She didn’t know whether she wanted to have her sight back or wanted to keep the sack on until they left the cavern. Unfortunately, the choice wasn’t up to her.

  The hood was torn from her head. Greeting her was a small girl with a short, round face, tiny nose, bright blue eyes, and two big lumps of fluffy green hair bunched around her shoulders. Giblets of gore streaked across her cheeks, down the apron of her farmgirl outfit, and over a crystal necklace with a sprout inside. In her left hand was an enormous, equally gore-covered thatching rake made of a teal-colored metal.

  “You really are a hag! How come someone like you got isekai’d?” she said, patting Jessica’s cheek.

  Jessica’s eyes wandered to the bodies behind the girl. Kagezora’s head was cleaved down the middle. His body lay beside Molly who was disassembled from the clavicle up. Petra’s head, complete with little bunny ears, lay next to Jessica’s right foot. What was left of Ebony and Jared looked like the human version of tilled earth.

  “Y-You— You did this for money!?” Jessica said.

  “Duh! Farm supplies are expensive. So are gifts for my romance options. B-But I’m gonna give some of the reward money to charity!” she said, blushing like a guilty child. “Oh! How rude of me! I didn’t even introduce myself. I’m Mercy! Mercy Monzant! Number Five of the Original Eight and your”---she stuck out a tongue and flashed a peace sign over her eye—“cozy farmer in another world! Nice ta’ meetcha, Jess! Not that I’ll know ya for too long. We gotta getcha back to the guild for that reward.”

  Her stomach sank at the mention of the Original Eight. Whatever the girl said, this was about more than the reward money.

  “L-listen, a-about Min-woo, I—”

  Mercy giggled. “Min-woo’s a dumb-dumb who let his guard down. Who cares about him? Plus, he makes fun of my farming, the meanie!”

  She pouted for a split-second before going right back to a grin. “I’m not gonna let my guard down though. Nuh-uh! What I’m gonna do is prune your limbs off so you can’t do any more icky, yucky chemistry. The bounty didn’t say anything other than ya gotta be alive!”

  Jessica thrashed at the ropes around her wrists and ankles. Of all the silly thoughts to come to her in that moment of raw terror, the first was that it was unfair she couldn’t bust out of the ropes in a moment of need. When she had daydreamed similar scenarios she always imagined herself summoning a freak burst of strength at the last-minute to save herself. This did not happen.

  “Ugh! Hold still or it’ll be messy!” Mercy said, drawing back her giant rake.

  Jessica bit down on her teeth until she thought they would crack. Awaiting that horrible thwack, she shut her eyes. There was a sound like rolling gravel and she wondered for a moment if time had slowed down and this was the sound of metal tines on bone. Curiosity forced her eyes open.

  Charging Mercy from behind was a lizard girl riding a lamia.