I was Betrayed then Reincarnated as a Kitsune - Chapter 263: A Prank Gone Wrong

[Luna POV]

At some point around midnight, I was woken up by loud sounds coming from the minotaur town.  There was a lot of crashing, sounds of something heavy pounding on the ground causing it to shake, and yelling.  I shot out of bed and quickly conjured some clothes since that was even faster than quickchanging.  When I got outside, I saw the others on the deck.

“What’s the situation?” (Luna)

“Not sure.” (Velvet)

“All of you get dressed, I’ll head to the town first and see what’s going on, meet me there.” (Luna)

They all nodded and ran back below deck.  I teleported into the town and asked the first person I saw what happened.

“What’s going on!?” (Luna)

“*huff* Not sure, but our Cretan bull got out and is on a rampage.  Wait, who are you?”

“All you need to know for now is that I’m an S-rank adventurer.  I’ll help with what I can, and the rest of my party will be here shortly.” (Luna)

He looked surprised but decided it was better to go and check out the damages first.  The two of us ran to the place I saw earlier where the bull was kept.  As we ran, I asked for anything I needed to know.

“We kept that bull here for breeding purposes of our dairy cows as well as the fertilizer it’s feces is used in.  Otherwise, the forests we get out lumber from wouldn’t grow as fast and strong as they do.  It’s normally very docile unless it’s in its mating season, but that’s still months away.”

As we approached the detached part of the town, we could hear more yelling.  There was a large group of people surrounding something or someone.  When we arrived, the yelling became more clear.

“Oi!  Wake up, are you alright!?”

“Hey!  He’s bleeding too much, someone go get a potion or bandages or something!”

“GAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!  MY LEGS!  AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!”

Seeing as there were people that were injured, I started to push my way through the crowd.  I thought it would be more difficult seeing as all the minotaurs that were there were quite muscular and large, but they were surprisingly light.  When some of them wouldn’t move, I might have accidentally thrown them out of the way.  When I finally got to where the injured people were, I found three male minotaurs who’s horns were more like nubs.  One of them had their legs bent in ways they weren’t supposed to be while another one had several gashes that looked like they were made by splintered wood and maybe something sharp.  The third one was the worst of the lot, he was bleeding from his head, had a hoof shaped indent in his chest,  and his arms and legs were broken.  It was honestly a miracle that he was even barely alive.

I ran up to the most severely injured youth and started to use healing magic.  The first thing I healed was his chest.  I heard audible creaking sounds as his ribs returned to their original position and mended.  The same happened with his arms and legs.  After those were done, I moved on to his head.  There wasn’t much needed here, and he was unconscious due to the pain from his other wounds.  When I was done making sure he was going to survive, I moved on to the second guy that was bleeding.  He had fallen unconscious as well and his treatment ended quickly.  The third guy was going to be the most trouble.

“We’re here, Luna.” (Skadi)

“Good.  Skadi, Ophidia, hold him down and make sure he doesn’t move.  Velvet, Soleil, Mio, calm the people here down and try to figure out more of what happened.  I’ll explain the information I got on my way here with telepathy.” (Luna)

The others quickly went to do what they were assigned.  Skadi and Ophidia grabbed the still injured youth and held him down while I knelt over him.

“I’m going to start healing your legs, but I need to get them straight first.  It will hurt a lot, so try to bear with it.”  I then pulled out a large wyvern scale from my inventory.  “Bite into this if you need to.”

He nodded frantically and I placed the scale in his mouth.  I then got to work straightening his horribly bent legs.  The second I touched one, he started to scream in pain.  Ignoring this and the ringing in my ears, I continued my work.  After a few slow minutes, I finished straightening his left leg.  I then moved onto the right one.  Once they were both facing the correct direction, I started using my healing magic.  His pained screams faded into quiet sobbing and then silence as the adrenaline from the ordeal ran out and he fainted.

Skadi and Ophidia let him go and all three of us stood up.  I looked around and found the minotaur that I got the information out of on the way here.  Now that I took the time to really get a look at him, he was clearly the tallest and most muscular one here.

“Thank you, Miss S-rank adventurer.  My name is Asterius, mayor of this town.” (Asterius)

“Luna Reed.  This is Skadi and Ophidia, the other three are Velvet, Soleil, and Mio.  I’m done healing these three, are there any more injured anywhere?” (Luna)

“Reed!  No, there is time for that later.  No, these were the only injured that we know of.  Thankfully no one were in the buildings that were crushed in the bull’s rampage.” (Asterius)

“Have you figured out what caused it to rampage?” (Skadi)

“We need to wait for them to wake up.  From what the others told me, they were here before anyone else.” (Asterius)

“Lunya, we found some things nya.” (Mio)

Skadi, Ophidia, Asterius, and I moved over to where Mio, Soleil, and Velvet were.  When we got there, I saw Soleil and Velvet lifting up a large metal rod that was glowing on one end while Mio was trying to put out some straw that caught fire by covering it with dirt.

“That’s a brand we use to mark some of our woodworks.  What’s it doing here?” (Asterius)

Asterius picked it up out of Velvet and Soleil’s arms and stuck the glowing end in a nearby trough of water.  It sizzled for a few seconds before cooling down completely.

“I feel like I know what was going on here now.” (Luna)

“I think so too.” (Soleil)

“Mayor!  All the cattle are loose!”

“And the bull has pulverized half the town and run off into the forest!”

“Tch.  This is a problem.  A big problem.” (Asterius)

“We’ll help since we’re here.” (Luna)

“You’ve done enough for us, Lady Reed.  Healing those injured youths is more than we could have asked for.” (Asterius)

“Just Luna is fine, and I still want to help.  It can’t be good to leave that bull alone to rampage freely and we have the strength to stop it.” (Luna)

“It’s not that, Lady Reed, I would love to accept your assistance, but we can’t pay the appropriate reward for an S-rank adventurer.” (Asterius)

“No need to talk about payment at the moment, there are other pressing matters to worry about.  And besides, I want to capture the bull for a completely different reason than monetary gain.” (Luna)

“Mister Asterius, take some advice from us, it’s better to let her do what she wants and not think about it than to try and stop her.” (Velvet)

“Yeah nya.” (Mio)

“I see.  Then let us discuss this in the morning.  We’ll bring those three to rest more before we get answers out of them.  After that we’ll assess the damage and follow the bull’s trail of destruction.” (Asterius)

We nodded and Asterius went over to the group of minotaurs to calm them down and organize what needed to be organized.

“Now, all in agreement that this was a failed prank by those three?” (Luna)

“Yes.  It’s quite obvious and poorly planned out.” (Soleil)

“It would make the most sense nya.” (Mio)

“Why didn’t you bring this up with the mayor?” (Velvet)

“It was a good choice not to.  Minotaurs are easily influenced by emotions and when they get flustered like they are now, are more prone to violent outbursts.  With how flustered he was, he would easily get enraged and probably take it out on those three.” (Skadi)

“Sure, let’s go with the thinking I actually knew that.” (Luna)

“What was the real reason master?” (Ophidia)

“I mean, it’s kind of obvious with what you three found over here.  A still hot brand in a pin that held a bull that is normally docile, and three injured youths.  If this wasn’t a prank gone wrong, then what else could it be?” (Luna)

“Anyway, what’s our next move?  The mayor said one thing, but are we really just going to sit around and wait for morning to get here?” (Skadi)

“Of course not.  I say we start tracking down the Cretan bull now and work on bringing it back.” (Luna)

“I’m in nya.” (Mio)

“I am as well.” (Ophidia)

“Let’s get this done.” (Soleil)

“It’s been a while since we’ve done something like this, so let’s do it.” (Velvet)

“This is why I love traveling with you guys.  You all think the same way I do.” (Skadi)

With our objective decided, we started to follow the trail of destruction the Cretan bull left.

Chaos Realm:

Fenrir: Those three young minotaurs really are idiots.

Atmos: I know, right.  I can understand wanting to pull a prank, but what kind of prank is branding a bull that is bigger than a minotaur house?  That’s just plain cruelty.

Order: Payto, any input from you?

Young people do stupid things.  Of course, I’m not defending them at all, but that is what I believe this whole incident can be chalked up to.  Especially at the age those three are at, though I’ve seen behavior like this mostly in humans of other worlds.  Guess spontaneous stupid actions are a thing no matter the world or race.

Tamamo: Annoying.

Atmos: Oh no.  Tamamo, calm down.

Tamamo: Annoying.  They just HAD to interrupt my watching of sleeping Luna.

Atmos: Tamamo.

Tamamo: Don’t worry, I won’t do anything.  I’m just venting my dissatisfaction.

Fenrir: Crisis averted then.

Order: Shhh.  Don’t say her name or she’ll show up and make it worse.

Crisis: I was called?

Order: No, you definitely were NOT called.  Go back to whatever else you were doing.

Crisis: Tch.  Killjoy.