Reincarnated Into A Dead Woman's Body In Another World-Chapter 111: Arc 3, - 21: Halted
"Oh, it wasn’t you," Jotou faced the brunette.
"What!? What did I do!?"
"I don’t know! You were casting some spell and my sense went off, I guess it was the carriage stopping. Asobi?"
"I’m fine!" Asobi gave a thumbs up and got up from all their feet, back onto her seat as Hotaru held onto the curtain.
Hotaru furrowed her brows, opening the little window to the coachman, "What happened?"
Aviv turned back, "Don’t know, these guys came out of nowhere. They’re wearing camouflage and were lying down. They asked me to stop; they have guns too."
"Everyone in the vehicle please step out!" through the window the voice echoed.
"Are we getting arrested!?" Asobi’s eyes bubbled, "I don’t want to get a tattoo!"
"What prison have you been to?" Fumeko leered.
"We’re not going to prison, calm down. We’ll deal with this and be on our way," Jotou steadied the elf’s shoulders.
"Let me do the talking, you three stay back," Hotaru stated before a man in a cap and desert camo, knocked on the left door.
One by one they got out of the carriage, the afternoon Sun beaming right onto the carriage. Small plateaus were west of them and tall grass went for a while in all directions.
Lone trees stood still, not even a rustle of their leaves. The people who halted them came forward. The emblem of Cravolta on their uniforms and a smaller emblem of Galuvit—soldiers.
In desert camo, muskets slung around them, they approached the luggage, beginning to unfasten the cargo.
"Hey! Don’t you dare touch that without proper compliance. Guys, make sure they don’t touch anything, they’re not allowed to," Hotaru shouted over.
Fumeko pushed a soldier aside, the tan-skinned woman in camo turned with a light scoff. "You heard her, go away," Jotou added as the two others wanting to rummage their items left it alone.
Around fourteen or fifteen armed soldiers sauntered about, surveying the carriage from different angles, like lions circling their prey.
Hotaru began doing her thing, talking to a man with dark skin, one hand holding his musket steady; he seemed to be in charge. Meanwhile, the other three kept their gazes in a swivel.
Aviv stood on the ground, complying by giving his licences and identifications. "Hey, you two; do you see that?" Fumeko squinted to the near distance.
"What? Grass and oh wait, more grass?" Jotou’s eyes glazed over.
"Yeah, the grass, but doesn’t something seem off about it?"
"They’re very puffy and fluffy! I wonder what would happen if we jump into them?"
"We’d all be taking turns being healed by Hotaru from cuts; it’s grass in the Sun, it’s not gonna be ’soft’."
"Idiots, I’m serious," Fumeko pointed.
"Ai, ai, ai," Jotou leaned forward and peered over to the grass. It’s then when her head tilted and brows knitted.
The grass around them, around the carriage, around the cart, all were brushing across their legs, barely able to reach their knees. It was the same all around—west, east, north, south...
However, in the distance, the grass was noticeably taller. Probably able to engulf most of their bodies to the point Fumeko would be nothing but a neck and a head through the grass.
And where the short grass went into tall grass, it had no linear increase... Almost as if the taller grass bordered the shorter grass all across. It had the same sunshine, probably the same amount of water out here in the wild... Then,
"How is the grass here shorter?" Jotou stated to which Asobi noticed now.
"I’m not sure... Nobody would come out here to cut the grass unless it was on the path," Fumeko looked west, past the redhead, the grass completely short westwards, but the odd pattern she saw was northwards.
It curved perfectly as if drawing a part of a circle. No scent of cut grass and the grass was not blunt. No road lied west either, so no point cutting the grass there. How could this be something manmade?
Fumeko pondered and pondered, "It’s too, neat. The shorter grass, even if it was cut, wouldn’t be this perfect. Also, the grass is the same height all the way west and all along the way we came... It’s only here that it’s taller going forward."
"It’s definitely weird. Is there some sort of special Cravoltan grass I don’t know about?" even as Jotou queried comedically, the grass did not show any noticeable difference in appearance other than height.
"Maybe it’s shy? I can go try to talking to it!"
"No you dolt," Fumeko sighed before glancing at the blonde, "This must be something about that time thing you were talking about, right? You said, time travel’s a paradox."
Jotou crossed her arms, "Yeah, and it always has problems. I was thinking about the headaches you all got."
"Well, if Trailon had such a power, they would’ve won ages ago, but they still haven’t."
"I thought about that too... If they have magics that powerful, how can anyone hope to stop them? Unless, it’s not actually that powerful..."
"It’s a trick?"
"Not really Sobi... I think Meko’s trying to connect the dots between the time reset and the grass."
"Right, when does it reset?"
"Every time I wake up on the 19th of August, after sleeping and the conversation we had. For you guys, it’s still the first day. I had, one, two... Including today, five days in total."
"And... where exactly does it reset?"
"Whatever the ’reset button’ is, it’s with Eli Frye in the rogue battalion... Far west..." the dots connected in Jotou’s head now too.
"Maybe it’s one of the drawbacks. I don’t think this grass got cut, it got reset and the grass out there didn’t. Whatever this thing is, it must have a distance of how far it can go."
"So, if we leave through the tall grass," Asobi pointed her wand with an illusory arrow.
"We might be out of the radius of whatever magic this is and can’t be affected by the time looping over and over," Jotou looked back to Hotaru... Slowly squinting... "You keep your wits about you, I’m going to Hotaru."
"Miss, we will have to ask you to turn back to Hartamat or we’ll be forced to arrest you."
"Under what authority are you making this arrest? Who gave this order?"
"This is apart of Minister Saady’s travel ban. We can’t allow anyone past this point."
"Yes, and I’ll tell you again, we can’t be held to that ban because we are using private means of travel and the ban was implemented overnight with no warning. You have nothing to arrest us for."
"Miss, please, just turn back..."
"No, we will not comply with this."
"Hotaru, let me talk," Jotou put a hand forward.
The man gave a sigh to the ground, "Miss, you cannot convince us, these are direct orders from the minister."
"I demand to know why we can’t use this road." 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮
"Our orders are to keep anyone from continuing forward. Have you not heard of the news of a rogue battalion from the Regime setting up camp?"
"Yes, I’m well aware of the rogue battalion. I am the Thundering Blade of Kria and I’m going to put this very, simply. Your uniforms indicate you’re a part of Hartamat’s Defence Force, right?"
"...Yes..."
"Then why are you here, instead of preparing for the battle that’s going to take place, far, far west of here. In fact, why is this road blocked when we are, hours, away from Hartamat’s border?
Surely your jurisdiction doesn’t extend till this point, why not closer to the border itself? Am I right?" Jotou glanced at Hotaru.
"Yes; actually, it’s quite odd to be so far out," Hotaru’s tail spiked.
"Also, if this is just a simple roadblock, why is everyone armed and there isn’t a block? Why were you wearing camouflage, lying down? If you have the right to arrest us, why do you need to conceal yourselves?"
The man gulped, a sweat going down his brow as his hand steadied on his musket. Jotou took one step closer, "Why this," she glanced at the inconsistency of the grass, "Very specific spot...?"
Jotou glared to the lack of an answer, "I’m getting better at this aren’t I? I can see right through you, you Trailon bastard." Sparks went through her blonde strands.
"Blast!" His gun fired as Jotou’s eyes widened. The redhead with no adventuring gear or spell active gasped, fell back. The blonde didn’t even see Hotaru in time.
The musket aimed for Jotou, but she caught the front of the barrel with her hand, veins visible along her wrist, "Spark!" she kicked to his torso, making him stagger as Jotou caught his neck in her open hand.
Jotou gritted her teeth, staring into the soldier’s dark eyes, "Zap!" electricity fizzled, arcs of scars spread across his nerves until his body went limp and spasmed in her grasp—his eyes shrinking.
Jotou threw the corpse aside as more musket fire echoed from the front of the carriage; she barely noticed that, because she saw a bullet wound right under Hotaru’s chest to the right.
"I’m, ngh, fine, I’m fine," Hotaru gritted her teeth, two fingers reaching into the wound to remove the round bullet, "NGH!" before she attempted healing it.
"We need to get out of here quick-"
"JOTOU!!!!!!" the familiar bloodcurdling scream from near the luggage. Jotou turned just in time as Asobi fell to the grass and hear Fumeko’s last cry before she was injected with something in her neck from behind...
