Rescued from the swamp

This painting is a continuation of the previous one. Please view Part 1, Part 2 and Part3 first.

And that's the end of this story.

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“...Guh! Guh!”

From the flat ground beside the marsh, the sound of someone coughing violently to expel something foreign from their mouth echoed into the forest.

There she was, covered head to toe in mud and in a state of utter exhaustion.

Still lacking the strength to stand, she sat on the ground, rinsing the mud from her mouth with water from a canteen she'd taken out of her pouch, somehow managing to wash it away.

“...Why didn't I sink into the swamp?”

Back then, she had indeed sunk completely into the bottomless swamp spreading before her.

Yet now, somehow, she had escaped that swamp and survived.

Furthermore, the rope that had bound her arms was severed, lying discarded near the spot where she had awakened.

“It... seems... you've... noticed...”

At that moment, before she could fully process her situation, someone spoke to her.

She turned her face toward the voice and saw a skeleton, covered in mud just like her, standing there.

“Undead!?”

Faced with the suddenly appearing monster, she tried to assume a fighting stance.

But contrary to her wariness, the undead before her showed no intent to attack and continued speaking.

“You... were also... cast... down...”

With those words, she understood who the undead before her was, and why she had survived the swamp.

Among the undead, some are born from those who possessed strong magical power in life and held intense regrets or grudges at the moment of death.

This undead was likely a victim of those thieves.

They had been drowned in the swamp and lost their lives, but their intense attachment to this world remained, turning them into undead.

And to prevent more victims like herself from falling prey to those thieves, it had saved her from being drowned in the swamp.

“You saved me?”

The undead nodded stiffly.

Though now nothing more than a mud-covered skeleton, its face seemed to hold a faint smile.

“I'm glad... you were saved...”

With those final words, the undead vanished deep into the forest.

After some time, having managed to recover her strength, she safely returned to the Adventurers' Guild and reported on the bandits.

As a result, a group of adventurers directly under the guild's command would soon be dispatched to eliminate the bandits.

Later, she visited the edge of that marsh once more.

She would soon leave this country.

Before that, she desperately wanted to express her gratitude to the life-saver who had vanished into the depths of the forest that day.

“Thank you for saving me. I will never forget you. Rest in peace.”

She couldn't tell if her words reached him.

But at that moment, she felt the miasma drifting around the marsh seemed to lift ever so slightly.