The Faraway Paladin, volume 2: The Archer of Beast Woods.
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Chapter 1.
They were wearing a cloak with a hood that made it difficult to see their eyes. They were holding a uniquely decorated bow in their hand. An arrow had already been nocked on the string. It had white feathers. They hadn’t drawn the bowstring back yet, but they seemed to have an alertness about them that told me they could have that done in an instant if they felt like it. Their cloak and outer clothing had a soil-and-grass color scheme, and they were wearing tall leather boots and leather gloves. A short machete was hanging from their waist, and they had several other knives as well. This person was probably a hunter.
Dead silence.
Me versus presumed hunter. Neither of us spoke or moved.
The tension thickened with every passing moment.
Not good, I thought. I should have been appreciating the emotion of my first meeting with another living person right now, but I couldn’t even afford to do that. This was seriously not good.
First contact had accidentally been established between two complete and total strangers in the middle of the woods. My previous life’s knowledge alone could have told me this was an extremely dangerous situation. After all, this was a forest far from civilization. There was no judicial system or law enforcement here. In other words, if violence suddenly broke out, I couldn’t hope to receive the slightest bit of assistance. It was a place like that where we had run into each other, both of us strangers, and both of us armed.
Now… what would be the right course of action here?
Should I smile and ask for a handshake or something? I put myself in his shoes: If an armed man I’d suddenly run into grinned back at me and held out his hand… could I take that hand?
Maybe I was supposed to let go of my weapon to show I was harmless? What if they already intended on fighting me? And what if they suspected a trap? What about the possibility that when I let go of my weapon, that movement could be misinterpreted as the first sign of an attack?
Use benediction to show I’m a devout follower of a god? No, that would still leave the possibility of me being a priest of an evil god, trying to hide my true nature. What’s more, I had to question whether they’d really just stand and watch while I started to use a skill right in front of them.
Yes—I had no way of proving I wasn’t a threat. And even worse, I didn’t belong to a community. Therefore, I couldn’t even provide the name of someone who could vouch for me. That meant I had no way to prove my character. In my previous world, cultural anthropologists had warned of the dangers of accidental first contact with unknown people. Tension and wariness ran high in this kind of situation, and it was possible for that to develop directly into a lethal fight.
My heart rate was creeping upwards. The hunter was still deciding how to handle this situation, but I could tell that they were as tense and on their guard as I was; the sharp stare being cast over my equipment from the depths of their hood was proof. They were being pressed to make a decision between fight or flight.
The hunter dropped their hips a tiny amount. The tingling sensation on my skin grew stronger.
This was bad. Just really bad. At this rate, we were going to end up fighting to kill each other.
As I desperately searched for the right words and turned my eyes to what the person was carrying, I suddenly realized: the bow the presumed hunter was carrying—I’d seen that style of bow before, in Gus’s natural history lectures. Yes, that was—So I should—
Panicking internally and moving very slowly so as not to trigger an attack from my opponent, I placed my right palm on the left side of my chest, and pronouncing every word as clearly and carefully as possible, I spoke—
“‘The stars shine on the hour of our meeting.’”
The hooded person before me went wide-eyed. “Old Elvish…?” they said with a tremor of shock in their voice. It was a beautiful voice as clear as a bell. “You have a connection to the elves?”
“No. But I thought you might.”
I had a memory of that type of bow. According to Gus’s lectures on natural history, Rhea Silvia, the free-spirited goddess of water and greenery, had as her minions a race of beautiful and long-lived people descending from the greater fae that had been created long ago by the Progenitor. They were a race called the elves, and it was to them that this bow belonged. So I thought that using an Elvish greeting might help to loosen a little of the tension.
“Keh!” the hunter spat out disdainfully. “Well, you’re not wrong.”
I’d guessed right. The hunter’s voice had softened a little, but this time it was my turn to be surprised: despite having quite a musical voice, their tone sounded pretty rough. I’d heard that the elves’ long lives made them a patient and very graceful race…
“Eh. Whatever.” The hunter relaxed their posture and pulled off their hood.
The first thing that caught my eye was the silver hair. Furrowed eyebrows, sharp eyes of jade, a slender nose, elegant chin line, and tight, thin lips. From under the hood, the face of a boy with a somehow feminine beauty was revealed.
His ears weren’t the long, pointed ears I might have expected, but were short, about the same size as a human’s, and only a little more pointy. If I remembered my lessons correctly, that was characteristic of a half-elf, a child of mixed race born between elves and humans—
“Better question,” he said, cutting across my thoughts. “You do that?” He pointed at the hog lying on the ground and then at the blade of my spear, wet with blood.
“Yes, that was me.”
He frowned. “That’s an old way of speaking…”
I was confused for a moment, but after thinking about it, I realized that about two hundred years had passed since Blood and Mary’s time. That was more than enough time for a language to change, even if this world did have races like the elves that lived much longer lives than humans. I must have sounded old-fashioned. Maybe even archaic. In terms of English from my last world, I might have sounded like I was speaking using words like “thou” instead of “you.” I’d have to listen to how current people spoke and fix my speech to match so I wouldn’t make people wary of me.
“Sorry. It’s kind of a habit.”
“Weird, but whatever. So this thing,” said the silver-haired half-elf, turning the topic back to the hog. “This was mine.” He pointed to the arrow sticking out of it.
The arrow’s feathers were white, the same as the other arrows in his quiver. The fact that there hadn’t been much time between me killing the hog and him turning up also indicated that he probably wasn’t lying.
“You butted in and killed it,” he said bluntly.
The reason he was practically accusing me of stealing his kill was probably because he was wary of exactly that happening to him. He wanted to stop me before I got the chance.
The urge to say sorry was almost instinctual, a habit from my past life, but I avoided it. “Yes. It came charging at me, so I was forced to do it to defend myself. But—” This was, in fact, a matter for discussion. It was time for negotiation tactics. “I did finish it off, so I assume I have at least that much right to it.”
I was hoping that this might lead to me finding a settlement—though whether that would be an elven one or a human one, I had no idea.
◆
The negotiations went on in depth for a little while.
The silver-haired half-elf was quite the skilled negotiator; I, on the other hand, had no real-world experience in negotiating and was pretty much at his mercy. He appeared to be in the same age bracket as me, but elves and, indeed, half-elves who shared some of the elven blood were said to live longer, so for all I knew he could have been considerably older than I was. Despite this, I somehow managed to hold my ground, and we eventually settled on a deal where I’d get the shoulder on the side I stabbed in exchange for helping to butcher the hog.
Butchering a wild hog takes a good deal of work.
To start with, we had to carry it to a river, bleed it out, then clean it down together. Its fur was covered in mud. It had probably been wallowing in it somewhere.
“Ahhh, the feckin’ thing’s in bits,” Silver-hair said, looking at the head of the arrow he’d pulled out of the wild boar. It had broken to pieces. It must have hit a bone.
I watched him detach the arrowhead and carefully stash it away in his pocket. It looked as though metal items were pretty valuable in this area at the moment. “We’ve gotta dig out the fragments,” he said. “If someone bites into one of those after this thing is meat, they’re gonna have a bad time.”
We made use of a flat area of rock by the river to carefully take out the fragments of the arrowhead, then started work on butchering the hog. I’d developed some level of skill at this thanks to Blood, but Silver-hair was even more efficient than I was. The subcutaneous fat was delicious on wild hogs, so the test of your knife skill in this situation was how close to the skin you could cut. And he was terrifyingly precise and fast as well.
“Now then.” He stuck his knife in under the hog’s jawbone and cut all the way around its neck. He looked to have reached the neck bone, so I held the head and twisted it around to dislocate it.
“Heh. You know your stuff.” He threw me a grin, so I smiled back. Then, with a few little movements of the knife, he cut through the flesh and sinew and separated the head entirely.
I laid the hog’s carcass on its back and held it in position, and he started cutting down its belly all the way from its throat to its back end, being careful to only cut the skin. Cutting in deeply would cause damage to the internal organs, which would result in… um, what’s a nice way of putting it… the contents of its intestines, bladder, and reproductive organs spilling over everything and making a huge mess. With this approach, there would be no need to worry.
When he was done with that, he made cuts in a number of places with a hatchet, and then together we forced the ribs apart. We cut around the anus, cut open the chest cavity, down the diaphragm, peeled off the membrane down to the backbone…
“Out you come…” He grasped the hog’s trachea and esophagus and pulled them towards the back end. All its guts came out at once in a single mass. He was efficient at this.
At this point, it looked quite a lot more like “meat,” the kind I’d seen frozen and hung up in movies and on TV in my previous life. I faced the hog’s head we’d removed and put my hands together in prayer.
I’m sorry. And thank you. We won’t waste what we’ve taken.
“You’re a real believer, aren’t you?” he said playfully, gently shrugging his shoulders. “Mmkay, as agreed, one shoulder for you.” He skillfully inserted his machete into a joint of the meat which was once a boar and sliced off just its front shoulder. “And that does it for portioning.”
“Yep.”
With a blood-soaked hatchet and a short machete in our hands, we exchanged smiles in recognition of each other’s hard work. “Guess we better eat the liver though. It goes bad real fast,” he said.
“Ah, I’ve got a pan.”
Fresh liver is delicious.
We’d been working in the cold, winter river, so my hands were already frozen stiff. While Silver-hair was away collecting driftwood, I gathered together some dry twigs and quickly set fire to them with a whispered Flammo Ignis. I thought I’d better keep it a secret that I could use magic for now. It wasn’t that I thought he couldn’t be trusted… although that was possible. I just didn’t know enough about modern society. Magic may have been accepted in Gus’s time, but I didn’t know how society regarded it today.
“Brrr… Gods, it’s cold.” I took off my boots and warmed my hands and feet beside the fire.
After a while, Silver-hair came back. “Freezing,” he said, tossing some driftwood into the fire. Then he took up position beside me. We grinned at each other for some reason.
“Okay, here’s what we’ve been waiting for,” I said.
“Ya.”
I held the pan over the flame and put in some hog’s fat. Once it had amply coated the bottom of the pan, I put in the strips of liver which I’d already cut up, then shaved off some rock salt and sprinkled it over. A sizzling sound accompanied the gorgeous smell of cooking meat.
I closed my eyes and put my hands together. “Mater our Earth-Mother, gods of good virtue, bless this food, which by thy merciful love we are about to receive, and let it sustain us in body and mind.”
“Damn, you really are hard-core religious.” The silver-haired half-elf was looking at me incredulously. It seemed he wasn’t the type to have much belief in these things.
But thinking about it logically, I was the one with memories of a previous life. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for me to be the one impatiently waiting to eat, and him to be religious? Despite being in the middle of prayer, I was amused by how backwards that felt.
“For the grace of the gods, we are truly thankful.”
“Awesome. Let’s eat.”
He may have been impatient, but he was at least polite enough not to ignore my prayer and start eating before me.
After I finished praying, we each took a knife that we’d washed and cleaned, jabbed it into a piece of cooked liver in the pan, and lifted it out. Steam was rising from it. I stuffed it into my mouth.
It was hot. And so delicious. The strong flavor of liver with just a pinch of added salt filled my mouth. Gods, it was good. I caught myself wishing for a cold beer.
Even the wrinkles on Silver-hair’s forehead had loosened now. Meals eaten after hard work really were delicious.
Before I realized it, the sun had almost set.
◆
“Huh? You want to know… the way? What?”
When I asked him the way after we’d finished eating, he looked at me strangely, just as I’d expected.
That was when I knew I’d been right to leave asking this until the end. The question was a little dangerous. It invited queries that would be difficult to answer. Such as—
“Seriously, where’d you even come from? I’ve never seen you around here.”
“Well, that’s… hard to explain. I’m not sure what to say.”
If I were one-hundred-percent honest with him and said, “I was brought up by undead in a ruined city, fought the god of undeath, and set out on a journey,” he would find that story so crazy that I had absolutely no confidence that I could get him to believe it. Not having a way to prove who you were made things very difficult, no matter the society. Humans have no way of proving themselves harmless on their own; they can only ask other people to vouch for them. In my previous world, that came from social systems like the family register and ID cards, and in this world, it seemed to come from your relatives and local community. My not having those was equivalent to declaring to the world that I might be a dangerous person. But a sorcerer who uses Words can hardly afford to lie… so for the time being, I decided to be somewhat vague so I wouldn’t have to lie outright.
“I came from the south, how’s that?”
“The south? Brother, there is no ‘south.’ This is as south as it gets.”
“What do you mean, there’s no south?”
“This is the southernmost point. Mankind’s frontier. You’re in Beast Woods in Southmark.”
Beast Woods. That was a pretty intimidating name. Maybe there were a lot of ferocious creatures. That boar certainly was one. I was going to have to be careful.
How was I meant to explain this, anyway? I seriously had no idea.
“I did come from the south. It’s complicated…”
“Ohh… Are you… one of those adventurer types? A ruin-hunter?”
A ruin-hunter… Now that I thought about it, there had been ruins dating back to Mary and Blood’s time dotted about on the way here. Maybe excavating those kinds of places was an occupation for some people? If so, my own situation wasn’t so different. After all, I myself was trying to subsist off only what I’d gained in that ruined city.
“Yeah, it’s sort of like that…”
“And you got lost?”
“Umm, I guess… that’s kind of it…” I replied, sounding almost dejected.
“Oh, boy.” The silver-haired half-elf sighed in apparent despair. “You’re the most oblivious adventurer I’ve ever seen. Ehh… whatever. Just follow this river downstream. A couple of days and you’ll be at a little town. It’ll probably work out from there. Good luck.” The tone of his last two words told me clearly that he was done caring. It looked like the good will I’d fostered by working with him was rapidly disappearing thanks to the very suspect conversation I’d started.
“U-Um, I understand it’s unreasonable to ask this,” I started hesitantly, “but if there’s any chance I could stop by the settlement you’re a part of or anything…”
His eyes turned incredibly sharp. Breathing a long, exasperated sigh, he looked daggers at me.
“I don’t want to get involved with you for a fig second. Don’t make me spell it out.”
“I’m sorry…”
I couldn’t argue. He was totally right, and I knew it. If I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with me, either. I was an armed soldier of unknown identity and affiliation. Who’d want to invite someone like that into their community?
“So don’t follow me.”
I noticed that the sun had almost set, and it was getting a lot darker.
He stood up and flung the boar onto his back. He had a slim build, but he seemed to be stronger than he looked. He must have trained. Training boosted your physical abilities far more in this world than in my old one.
“Ah—Are you okay without a light?”
“I can handle myself, thanks.”
He muttered something, and what looked like a ball of light came floating out of the depths of the forest toward him.
“What’s—”
“It’s a fairy.”
“I’ve never seen one before…”
Fairies and elementals were lesser fae: beings with frail existences that were nature’s mediators and helped it with its work. There were techniques for being able to talk with them and, at times, make use of them. Those who could manipulate those mystic arts were referred to as elementalists.
The elves, who were minions of the god of fae, Rhea Silvia, were said to have a strong affinity with other fae minions. Evidently this half-elf who had inherited elven blood was no exception.
I remembered once reading in one of Gus’s books that the essence of elementalism was being sensitive to, empathetic with, and accepting of the nebulous and fickle. It was yet another branch of the mystical, separate from “magic”—the power of Words, with its focus on theory, knowledge, memory, and repetition—and from “benediction,” which offered protection and divine grace for acting with religious faith and discipline.
“Bye,” he said simply, and plodded away with the hog on his back.
It had been the only conversation I’d had with another person in almost ten days. Maybe that was why I felt a strange urge to not just let him go. Before I knew it, I was calling to him as he left.
“I’m Will! William G. Maryblood! You?”
There was a pause before he responded. “Menel. Meneldor. I doubt we’ll be seeing each other again, though,” he answered, walking away. “Try not to die on the road.”
With the butchered hog on his back, he ambled off, the ground around him illuminated by the shining fairy’s light. I watched him go without attempting to tail him.
Wary of creatures that might be attracted to the smell of blood, I moved a good distance from where we’d butchered the boar. I kindled another fire and used rope to tie my sheet of canvas between some trees to make a rudimentary tent. I inscribed Signs that would serve as warning alarms in various places, and incanted Words with the power to ward off insects and things of a demonic nature. Finally, I laid down my blanket and went to bed. The pork shoulder I got would be tomorrow’s breakfast.
I’d held a conversation with a real, living person. It had actually gone surprisingly well. I’d been worrying for nothing.
Menel. Meneldor. I seemed to remember that it meant “a very fast-flying eagle” in Elvish. He had been a bit rude, but I’d had fun talking to him.
He’d said we’d probably never meet again. As I drifted off to sleep, I hoped that someday we would.
In the dead of night, I heard a voice.
“Prithee, O flame.”
In the fog between slumber and wakefulness…
“O flame of mine.”
…was a young woman with black hair and a hood that obscured her eyes.
“As you travel—”
Ever reticent and expressionless, she spoke her wish:
“Prithee, bring light to the faraway darkness.”
And then, like strikes of lightning, numerous visions lit up the inside of my head, burning themselves into my mind.
Weapons. Screaming. Chaos. Blood. Blood. Bodies. Bodies. Bodies. And—silver hair.
I inhaled sharply.
“Lumen!!”
As I imbued light into Pale Moon’s blade, I hurriedly readied my equipment and dashed into the night forest.
◆
I kept moving, my path lit by magic. That I had no faster way was maddening. The revelations had blatantly been forecasting a tragedy, and Menel was going to be victim to it.
I clenched my teeth.
I’d been suspecting it, but now it was confirmed: the age I was living in was seriously dangerous. Someone you met today could be a corpse tomorrow. Crazy…
I looked around me. There was nothing but dark forest. The winter meant that the grass wasn’t too overgrown, at least, but I doubted I’d be able to reach Menel’s village in this blackness just by pressing on blindly. I did have the option of tracking Menel’s footprints, but if I did that kind of careful search, I didn’t know if I’d make it in time. Not to mention that Menel might well have covered his tracks. He was wary of me, after all, and he was a professional hunter. If he was remotely serious about hiding his tracks from me, I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
I incanted a number of Words in quick succession. These were Words of Searching, to use for detecting things.
“That way…!”
It was a simple magic that estimated general direction, but it was better than nothing.
I got ready to be very reckless.
Holding my shield up, I powered through the forest thickets, leaped down a steep slope, and incanted Feather Fall to soften the landing. I pushed onward, making heavy use of a variety of techniques that anyone used to normal forest walking would definitely frown at if they saw me.
The fact that there was a settlement meant that there should be a pretty open space somewhere. Stopping from time to time to get a general sense of direction with the Words of Searching, I kept on running.
All of a sudden—there it was. I could see open land outside the forest. There were fields with rows of furrows, and beyond them, through the darkness of night, I could just about make out the outlines of a dozen or so houses surrounded by a wooden fence. It looked like nothing had happened.
“I’m… not too late…?”
No… There was a chance, a reasonably good chance, that the tragedy had already occurred. I didn’t know the cause of what I’d seen in that revelation. It could be a demon, a goblin, an undead creature, a beast… If I approached carelessly, it was possible that I’d take a hit before I was ready.
I incanted several Words and killed the light dwelling in Pale Moon’s blade. First things first: scouting. I decided to keep my ears open and approach with caution. Keeping my body low to the ground, I exited the forest and approached the fields. Then, I heard talking.
“Thought I saw something shining in the forest…”
“Sure you weren’t seeing things?”
There were two lanterns, and they were getting closer. Holding the lights were two men, one middle-aged and one an adolescent, each wearing a fur smock over a faded tunic and carrying a club in his hand. My first thought was that they might be on village night patrol. At least, they didn’t seem on edge as they would have if a disaster like that had occurred.
Then things weren’t as I’d seen them in that revelation yet, after all. Thank the gods.
“Hm?”
As I was beginning to relax, the older of the two men noticed my shape caught in his lantern light. I smiled awkwardly at him and decided to walk over. I figured that if I named myself as an acquaintance of Menel’s, they wouldn’t immediately get rough with me. They looked at me and had barely opened their mouths to speak when I stepped forward hard and lunged out with my spear.
“Wha—?!”
“Hyeeek!”
There was an echo of clashing metal. I stepped forward again and swung my spear to the side without breaking flow. There was another metallic clash.
“Get back!” I stood in front of the two to protect them, blocking whatever it was that was flying at us with my shield.
The attacker…! If they were using a projectile weapon, then they weren’t a beast. That left demons, goblins, and the undead. I quickly glanced at what had fallen, hoping I’d be able to pin down the identity of my opponent.
It was an arrow with white feathers.
My mind froze. That very instant, there was a sudden noise. The twang of a bowstring! I raised my shield and deflected the arrow flying this way.
Arrows coming from the front are essentially points. It’s very difficult to knock them away with a spear. While shielding the most vulnerable areas of my body, I expanded my conjured light and looked in their direction.
At the end of my line of sight… frowning with a serious look on his face… was a silver-haired half-elf with an arrow nocked on the bow in his hand.
Behind him stood about ten more men in slightly dirty clothes, armed with basic clubs and spears. There was no doubt.
“Menel…”
Menel’s settlement? A disaster was going to befall him? I had to rush in and save him? How foolish had I been…
Menel—Meneldor wasn’t going to be a victim of the tragedy I’d witnessed.
He was the perpetrator.
◆
My brain couldn’t keep up. Why was Menel… We’d shared laughs and smiles together, hadn’t we…?
“Go. Secure the village,” Menel ordered. “I’ll deal with him.”
The men behind him started to scatter.
“Wai—” I tried to move to stop them when another arrow flew my way. If I dodged it, its course would take it right into the two behind me. I deflected it with my shield.
“I said not to follow me… Seriously, brother…” Some kind of emotion flashed in Menel’s eyes, but it disappeared in an instant. “Die.”
The feat I saw in the next moment was incredible. He fired three arrows—aimed at my face, arm, and leg—in a single, fluid, uninterrupted motion.
My mind was still a muddle, but my body, trained by Blood, reacted to Menel’s amazing attack with precision. While using my shield to knock away the arrows coming at my arm and face, I pulled my leg back and turned my body sideways, dodging the final arrow.
“Ah… ah…” The wordless gasps of the two behind me began to turn into screams. They had finally started to understand the situation. “Everyone! Wake up! Wake up!”
“WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!! Bring weapons! Hide the women and children!”
“Tch!” The screams seeming to put him under pressure, Menel fired more arrows at me. Every one of them was brutally accurate. I was certain that if I hadn’t had a shield, I’d already have several arrows sprouting out of my body. And to think I’d considered not bringing it at all; as it turned out, this thing was saving my life.
As I advanced while keeping up my defense, Menel retreated, keeping the same distance between us.
If this was his ideal separation, then… I’d close that distance!
“Acceleratio!” An explosion of speed—
“‘Gnomes, gnomes, slip underfoot!’” Menel shouted at almost the same time. The ground suddenly wriggled all over, trying to take my legs out from under me.
In all likelihood this was Slip, a spell that made use of gnomes, the earth elementals. I was still accelerating; if my foot got caught, my momentum would likely cause a fracture.
I could see Menel grinning with satisfaction. He’d used that elemental power at the absolutely perfect moment, and I had no immediate strategy for dealing with this kind of thing. And since I had no strategy—
“SSEHHH—HNG!!” I slammed my foot down with all my strength. There was a thunderous noise. The ground shook powerfully, and the gnomes stopped their work as if frightened into stillness.
“What?!” Menel gaped at me. So did the men trying to attack the village. Even the men who had come out with weapons, intending to fight back, were staring at me with eyes wide open.
They were all evidently unaware—that if you got ripped, you could solve pretty much everything by force!
“Fig!” Menel backed off further, cursing.
After shooting arrows at me in quick succession, he slung his bow over his shoulder and started throwing knives at me. They came at me in an arc—maybe he had a special way of throwing them, or maybe the knives themselves had some trick to their design—curving towards me from the left and right. The ones that were safe to avoid, I dodged by turning my body; those that weren’t, I deflected with my shield. I pressed even closer. Shields really were convenient. I was glad I’d brought one.
Menel looked like he had finally resigned himself to face me. He held his hatchet ready to strike, and then—
“‘Salamander! Scorch him!’”
From behind, Fire Breath bellowed towards me out of the flames of the middle-aged man’s lantern. Without turning around, I stuck out my spear and thrust it into the flames, dispersing them.
I’d pretty much seen that coming.
“No way.” Menel looked stupefied.
His feint was positively straightforward compared to the god of undeath’s lack of scruples and the tricks Gus and Blood had pulled on me when they got serious.
As Menel stood there, I closed the distance.
“You’re feckin’ strong…” he said with a bitter smile on his face.
I rammed the handle of my spear into his solar plexus.
I heard the air being forced out of his lungs, and he fell to his knees. His diaphragm was spasming and he couldn’t control his breathing. He wouldn’t be able to move properly for a while. In the meantime, I incanted the Word of Web-making to restrain him.
I looked towards the village. There was no battle; everyone had just been watching our fight in amazement. I counted myself very lucky.
I decided to capture the rest of the raiders before anyone got hurt.
◆
The outcome: nobody died.
After striking down Menel, I managed to neutralize the rest of his ten-strong band of raiders with relative ease by using the Words of Sleep and Paralysis. Somehow or another, a terrible raid had been avoided, and although there were a few people injured, I had no trouble healing them with my benediction.
Because of this, I received a great deal of thanks from the people of the village as “a passing kind-hearted holy warrior”—but by the time the sun had started to rise on the village square at its outskirts, my face was showing nothing but displeasure.
In the center of the square was something like a small shrine, where a pile of irregularly shaped stones had been stacked. It was a shrine dedicated to the good gods. I could imagine that it had been created by piling up stones that villagers had unearthed while cultivating the fields and didn’t know what else to do with. In that sense, it was probably also a monument to their agricultural efforts.
If the custom here was the same as what Gus had taught me, important discussions were often held before the gods in small settlements like this, sometimes while making oaths to them. Even in my previous world, there were many regions that held assemblies and important votes before their god. In this world, however, where the gods could exert their influence upon reality, this custom carried even greater significance.
At this very moment, in this square with its shrine, the men of the village were holding a debate concerning how to deal with the village’s assailants, who had been paralyzed and tied up.
“For the hundredth time—”
“Hang the ruddy buggers! End of discussion!”
“Listen to what I say to you!”
“First off—Hey! I said, first off—”
“They just suddenly came and attacked us!”
“Look, that ain’t what’s important here!”
What a mess. In fact, it looked like everyone was just shouting at each other.
This was awful.
For a moment, I wondered why they were behaving like this—and then I suddenly realized something about the villagers. They had all different skin tones, each one of them had a different accent, and in their agitation, some of them were angrily shouting out coarse vocabulary I hadn’t heard from any of the others.
As I took notice of this with surprise, a middle-aged man approached me.
“My ’umble apologies, sir, for the disgraceful display. Thankee kindly for the ’elp, I’m much obliged.” He bowed his head to me. I realized that this was the same man I had met earlier, one of the two who had come under Menel’s first attack. “Name’s John, sir.”
“Ah, you’re welcome. Umm… My name is William. Uhh… So…” Ignoring the people yelling at each other for the time being, I tried to get a better picture of things through John.
Just as I’d heard from Menel yesterday, I was currently in Beast Woods, Southmark. The woods were deep and expansive, with ferocious creatures and even more dangerous “beasts” running rampant. As a result, John explained, the influence of the Fertile Kingdom that ruled this area did not extend here.
“I will say that we ’ave a lot of characters of, shall we say, int’restin’ ’ist’ries…”
Criminals, runaway serfs, those who had fled here from fallen nations, would-be adventurers still trying to make their way by ruin-hunting—all kinds of people who, for one reason or another, couldn’t live in the city had naturally gathered together and formed this village. Apparently, there were a number of such settlements dotted about these woods.
Naturally, the settlers’ places of origin, their norms, and their perceptions of law all varied wildly. No wonder they were like this when they tried to hold a meeting. I sympathized with their difficult situation, but at the same time—
“I wonder what will happen to them.” I glanced at Menel. He had been bound by the Words of Web-making and Paralysis and left to lie on the ground; I couldn’t see his expression from where I was standing.
If you formed a group and raided a village in an area beyond the reach of the law, then failed and got captured… I had to admit what would happen to you was kind of predictable.
Menel would be killed at the hands of the mob and left to hang… or something along those lines, I guessed.
That left a bad taste in my mouth. I could sense that I was acting soft, a carry-over from my past life, but there was still something making this a little difficult for me to accept.
As selfish a reason as it was, the idea that people I’d captured were going to die—that I would, in essence, cause the deaths of others—wasn’t something I wanted to be confronted with, nor did I want brutal mob justice to be one of the first things I got to see upon entering civilization. Furthermore, even if he was a bandit, I didn’t feel good about the prospect of watching someone I knew, someone I’d had a conversation with, die in front of me in a state of paralyzed confusion.
I mean, after leaving the city, I figured the first place I’d come across would be an outskirt area with poor law and order, so I’d been prepared for things to get a little rough, but I never expected it to go this bad this fast.
Fighting off bandits is a classic adventure-story trope, but now that I’d run into them in real life, I realized how hard they were to deal with. You couldn’t just send them on their way and expect no trouble later. As I was wondering whether there was anything I could do—
“’Fraid I don’t know what’s gonna ’appen to them, either.”
“You don’t know?” I tilted my head. In a situation like this, I’d been expecting that whatever solution they settled on would probably involve killing the raiders.
“They’re familiar faces, see. Our neighbors, if you will, from th’ nex’ village over. Ah, I say neighbors, but they ain’t immediately adjacen’ to us. There’s a day’s walk between us through the woods and ’cross a brook.”
“Huh?”
The neighboring village raided them? In the middle of winter? Without any warning?
“They weren’ well off, none of us are, but they ’ad enough provisions, ’s far’s I know… I’d’ve said they were right nice people for residents o’ these woods, and I though’ we’d been getting along quite well ’til now.”
Hmm. That did sound mysterious.
“Wha’s more, tha’ silver-’aired elf, ’e ’as a good reputation ’round this neighborhood as a renowned wand’ring ’unter. ’E’s ’elped us many times in eliminating dangerous beasts. Sev’ral of us here owe our lives to ’im. I don’ understand it.”
I was starting to see where John’s doubts were coming from and had just nodded in agreement when I noticed a shift in all the shouting at the meeting.
“Very good, very good,” an old man said, clapping his hands loudly. “I’m sure you’re all getting tired of talking. Why don’t we all have a drink of water?”
It did look like everyone had yelled themselves hoarse at this point. The old man must have been waiting for that perfect moment to join the meeting.
He was short, with hair that had turned almost completely white, and he used a cane. He seemed friendly, but he had a look in his eyes that told me he was a man to keep a close watch on. The small scar near his left eyebrow was very distinctive. It looked like an old blade wound.
“Tha’ old gentleman is Tom,” John told me helpfully. “’E’s the village elder.”
While the water jug was being passed around, Tom began to speak. “All right. You don’t have to stop drinking, but I’d like it if you would listen to what I have to say for a moment. First of all, just to check: The ones laid out here are mostly from the next village, yes? And then there’s the silver-haired hunter.”
The elder’s speech had a smooth flow to it that seemed to draw me in. Because he’d timed this just when the villagers were tired of talking and were now drinking and taking a breather, all those men who had shouted so much were making no attempts to interrupt the elder’s words. He’s clever, I thought.
“John, I believe you saw these people rush into our village last night, armed with weapons. Is that correct?”
Everyone’s eyes turned to John, who was sitting some distance away from the rest of the others at the meeting.
“I did indeed, Elder,” he replied calmly, nodding. “And I was saved by this ’oly warrior.”
“Mm. Please, allow me to also express my thanks.”
“There’s no need,” I said. “It’s, uh… It was all thanks to the guidance of the god of the flame.”
“Then I must express my gratitude to that god as well,” Tom replied. Turning to the shrine, he gave an informal bow of worship and smiled. His expression reminded me just a little of Gus.
He briefly shot me a meaningful glance, and while I was still trying to figure out what exactly it meant, he continued. “Well, let’s see. For the time being, can we assume that while we’re here discussing this, you will protect us in the event that something happens?”
“Hmmm…”
It sounded as though Tom wanted this conversation to head towards getting an explanation from the bandits. He wanted to get to the point where he could say that it’d be safe to release their paralysis because I’d be around for protection if they started getting violent again. I thought for a moment and replied, “On the flame of Gracefeel, I will protect everyone here.”
The reason I kept the object of that sentence vague was just in case I found out this village had a good reason to come under attack. Depending on the circumstances, I might also have to protect the assailants.
“Then we’ll be safe even if they turn on us again,” Tom said, smiling lightly. He seemed to have picked up on my intentions. “Everyone, I am thinking we should start by getting them up and asking them some questions. What do you all say?”
One of the villagers who had been chugging down water finished his drink with an audible sigh of satisfaction. “Elder,” he said, “it ain’t a good idea to give people you’re gonna be hangin’ a chance to chat. You start feelin’ sorry for ’em and then it ain’t so easy to do the deed. Stuff like this is best done quick.”
I could see a few people agreeing.
The people this far out were probably reasonably used to rough things like this. The fact that they half-knew their attackers probably had a lot to do with it as well.
“Surely you must agree it’s dangerous to remain ignorant of the facts? Besides, it wouldn’t be good to make the holy warrior who helped us out think we’ve got something to hide.” Tom seemed to have gotten the villagers onto his side. He turned to look at me.
I nodded back.
Menel may have had a blunt personality, but he hadn’t looked like a person who enjoyed killing people and stealing their goods to me. And although I’d entertained the possibility, it didn’t seem like the people of this village knew any reason why they deserved to be attacked, either.
What on earth happened here? What was the reason that these people had attacked their neighbors?
While pondering that mystery, I went from person to person and undid the Words.
◆
After unbinding the people from the neighboring village and asking them to explain themselves, a situation jumped out at us that was even more dreadful than before.
“Demons. Our village was done in by demons…”
“Many people died.”
“They brought beasts the likes of which I’d never seen…”
To summarize what they told us: Their village, which was about a day from here, had apparently been devastated by an attack from demons and the beasts they brought with them. Around half the villagers had been killed, several buildings had been burned to the ground, and those lucky enough to have escaped with their lives had nowhere to go. With women, children, and the injured to protect, they were left to simply await death in the bitterness of winter, without food, walls, a roof, or a single possession.
That was the situation they were in when—
“I was the one who suggested looting,” Menel said in a low tone, his head down. “They wouldn’t have stood a chance of beating demons backed up by beasts. Instead of just lying down and dying, I suggested they go loot somewhere nearby, fill their bellies, and go somewhere else. Anywhere else.”
Apparently, Menel had happened to pass by that village while tracking the wild boar and had quickly gathered their situation. Then he’d hunted down the boar to satisfy their immediate needs and returned with the meat as they stood freezing in the forest. That was when he had suggested looting, and rallied the men together to carry out a night raid.
From their point of view, this village likely couldn’t afford to take in many refugees, and even if they attempted to ask for their help, they could see the rejection coming. If the village was concerned about them becoming thieves, they might even be attacked. In which case, they might as well become thieves in the first place, attack before the village understood the situation, take the goods, and get away from the demons.
In a place where the kingdom’s power didn’t reach, it certainly was a logical decision to make in a crisis. But then, Menel—
“You didn’t live in that village, right?” I asked. “Why did you go so far out of your way for them?”
“Marple, the old lady from the village,” he said briefly. “She did a lot for me.”
“What happened to Marple?” Tom asked, frowning.
“They said she died.”
“…I see.” He nodded quietly.
“I was the one who suggested it. Hang me. I led the others astray. Let them go. Please.”
The discussion was thrown into disorder. Screams and shouts began to be traded back and forth: some crying, “Like hell we can do that, hang ’em all,” others saying they should find some way to offer protection to old acquaintances, while others insisted they couldn’t possibly provide for them.
John and Tom wore grim expressions.
“Elder…”
“Mm.”
They were in a situation where village-destroying demons were right nearby, but before that discussion could get underway, they first had to pass judgment on these people, who were both their neighbors and originally victims themselves. It must have been frustrating.
“We have a debt to the hunter, and I sympathize with the plight of our neighbors… However,” he said painfully, “they must hang.”
Even if the villagers released them, they would still have no place to go and would probably plan another raid. Which meant that now that they’d attacked, the village had no choice but to kill them, both for their own protection and to save face.
Even if unavoidable circumstances had led the raiders to this, the villagers would still kill them for safety; they had neither the methods nor the resources to save them. The attackers, too, knew that even if they had asked for help, no mercy or tolerance would have been afforded them, and that was why they’d had no choice but to opt for violent methods from the beginning.
Being rational meant being cruel. This was the exact concern my parents had voiced about the outside world. The state of things out here was indeed dark.
Many people would have called this a hopeless situation. They would have said that was the kind of violence and cruelty often found in remote places, and no good could come of getting tangled up in it.
I had neither a reason to intervene in this incident nor a duty to get involved to begin with. I could just pretend I hadn’t seen a thing, and keep on heading to the town up north. I was sure I could find some way to fit in if I found an urban area that was slightly more civilized. There was no point in getting caught up in every bit of trouble I came across.
I knew that would be the wise decision.
However.
My mom had told me that she wanted me to do good, to love people without being afraid of loss. My dad had told me to always move forward and have confidence in the outcome, to not let my worries hold me back. And their words were still there in my heart.
And so I decided to say, “Screw being wise,” and take a tiny but daring step forward.
“Excuse me!”
For the sake of the words my parents had left me, for the sake of keeping the oath I’d made to my god, I was going to try to overturn the “hopeless situation” before me.
◆
I raised my voice as loud as possible, and to my relief, everyone turned my way. Enunciation was important to using the magic of Words effectively. I was using the training Gus had given me to its fullest.
Spreading my arms wide exaggeratedly to focus their attention, I chose my first words carefully—
“Can this be solved with money?!”
The villagers’ eyes looked as if they might pop out of their heads. I pressed on, trying to stay one step ahead of their comprehension.
“Compensation. Atonement money. Do you have a custom like that here?”
According to Gus, it was a custom in many regions that when some kind of wrong had been committed, the matter could be settled with a payment of silver or livestock instead of blood. The knowledge I had from my previous life supported that claim. Such customs had been followed in regions all over the world, from Germanic to Celtic, Russian, and Scandinavian. I read somewhere that it still existed in some modern-day Islamic areas, where you could choose between qisas or diya—retaliation or compensation.
At this rate, blood would be shed. If I could solve that with money, then that was what I was going to do. I could imagine what Gus would say: ‘How wonderful money is—it can even buy blood and retribution!’
“Ho-Hold up, hold up! Sure, we do that, but who the hell is gonna pay?”
“These guys ain’t got no more than the clothes on their backs!”
I got a response. What’s more, it hadn’t been “Atonement money?! How dare you!” but rather a practical question of who would pay. If they’d rejected the idea flat out, things would have gotten complicated, so I very gratefully snapped at the opportunity they’d given me.
Inside my head, the mental machinery that Gus had equipped me with was being set in motion.
“I will pay!”
Murmurs again spread throughout the crowd.
“Settle down, everyone.” Tom calmed the villagers, then asked me, “Why is that, holy warrior?”
“It is because demons are my mortal foes and caused my parents’ deaths.” While I exaggerated a little to make myself sound more convincing, it wasn’t a lie. It was true that Mary and Blood had died because they had stood against the demon forces. “And I am a priest bestowed with my god’s protection. I have sworn an oath to my god, the god of the flame, to drive away evil and bring salvation to those in sorrow. If evil demons have done harm to these people, then these people shall have my aid.”
I declared my position as I stood and gestured dramatically. These speaking tricks had also come from Gus.
“Furthermore, the demons cannot be left alone to occupy that village. I will head there to fight them. That being the case, you, the man over there—” I pointed at Meneldor. He was looking at me, dumbfounded. “You are a talented hunter who knows the woods, are you not? I would like to hire you to track down the demons. You will be paid handsomely.”
The buzz of chatter arose from the villagers once more. If they could reclaim their demon-besieged village, there would be no need to fight each other. The outstanding grudge could be settled with atonement money, and they could call it even. Everybody wins, with the sole exception of one benevolent holy warrior that nobody knew from Adam, who would suffer a reasonably large loss.
They talked things out amongst themselves, and it wasn’t long before they came to the same understanding. The fact that I had tossed a few gold and silver coins in front of them had also given them an effective push.
“Are you certain abou’ all this, sir?” John asked me. “This arrangement’s all upside’s far’s I can see, but there’s nothing in it for your good self—”
I smiled back at him. “If you gain from this situation, then it will have been the gods blessing you all for your good natures,” I said while praying to my god for a tiny miracle. “Gracefeel, god of the flame, ruler of souls and samsara, is watching over your lives with eyes of mercy.”
As I spoke those words, the miracle I wished for appeared. A tiny flame rose up before the village square’s shrine dedicated to the virtuous gods. A low gasp came from the onlookers, who chanted words of gratitude and offered their own prayers.
I helped people in a crisis while spilling as little blood as possible. And though I might have overdone the presentation a little, I reminded them that You exist, as well. I suffered a bit of a financial loss, but as Your hands, as Your blade—maybe the way I overcame that situation wasn’t too bad…?
After I whispered this in my mind, I got the feeling that somewhere, my god had given me a little smile.
◆
I talked it over with everyone, and we had a representative from each village take part in a sworn ceremony to settle their bad blood.
As soon as that was done, I set about protecting the survivors of the demon-attacked village who had been physically unable to participate in the raid, such as women, the elderly, and children. They were huddled together around a campfire in the forest, shivering from the cold. They were frightened of me at first, but after I got Menel to explain the situation, they quickly understood.
Many of them were injured or starting to catch colds, so I healed them using the blessings Close Wounds and Cure Illness. Then, I got the first village to shelter them temporarily, with the promise that it would only be until I retook the village that had been attacked.
They took them in with open arms, though I was pretty sure there wasn’t an ounce of goodwill in why they did so. It was just that we’d struck a deal; they were probably also considering the value of holding them as hostages against the men, who they’d also been forced to take in for the time being. That said, protection was protection, and I was glad for it.
I imagined what would happen if I died trying to take back the village. It was possible they’d become unable to support the people they’d sheltered and be forced to kill them. As I prayed by the shrine, I thought about how I had to win at all costs.
Meneldor approached me. “What’s your endgame?”
“Hm? What I said it was. I’m not hiding anything.” I couldn’t ignore the spread of the demons, and I wanted to keep everyone from killing one another. All I had done was take the measures necessary in order to make that happen.
“Oh, right, I’m working for you already. I guess it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.”
Oops. That wasn’t how it was meant to go. I felt like it was important to get Menel’s approval. “Can I hire you to reclaim the village and track down the demons?”
He frowned. “Uh, brother? I incited pillaging and murder. Are you sure you don’t need to pass judgment on me, O holy warrior?”
“I’ve already closed the book on that by paying them compensation. And you didn’t do it by choice, right? You couldn’t abandon the village—the village that helped you—in its hour of need.”
I could have just said that a sin was a sin. All of them, Menel included, had technically had the option of lying down and dying without harming anyone, and if they had been able to choose that option, that may have been very noble.
But choosing to steal from another instead of accepting death wasn’t despicable; it was natural. Even more so if they had people like women and children they felt an obligation to protect.
“I’d prefer not to pass judgment on a normal person making a normal decision if I can help it…”
He tutted. “Ever thought I might hold a grudge and stab you in the back?”
“If I die, it’s the villagers who suffer.” At least until I took back the village from the demons. I couldn’t imagine that the silver-haired hunter in front of me was incapable of weighing the gains against the losses.
Menel finally looked away. “You’re an easy mark. Someone’s gonna rob you blind someday soon, and that’ll be the end of you.”
“Maybe, yeah.” I couldn’t help smiling. That was a future I could imagine. I reminded myself that I couldn’t keep on taking from Gus’s gift; I had to earn money somewhere to make back the amount I’d used.
“Keh. Whatever, brother. I’ll work for you. I need the money for them, anyway.”
“Yeah. Thanks for your help.”
Menel’s lips curved cynically, and he nodded. “On that subject, what are we doing then, master?”
“Moving on in, I guess? We can’t afford to waste time…”
That was followed by silence and a faultfinding stare.
I… I did have a plan… of sorts… But maybe I should have expected he’d be against this. Maybe I had been a bit thoughtless…
“Eh, you’re right.” Surprisingly, he nodded. “We had better move fast. I mean, there’s a good chance the guys in the village have become undead.”
I fell silent. I’d forgotten.
Just as this world was filled with the protection of the virtuous gods, it was also filled with the benevolent protection of the god of undeath, Stagnate.
It was extremely rare for the god of undeath to call out directly to talented heroes, form a contract with them, and create high-level undead, as had happened with Mary and Blood. However, due to the pervasive nature of the gods’ protection, it was nothing special for a person who died with lingering regrets to rise again as one of the undead, and it could happen for any number of reasons, including enmity, confusion, or simply death coming too suddenly to realize or accept.
“There’s no need to give the guys back in the village an eyeful of their undead parents, siblings, and children. We should probably finish ’em off quick if we can.”
I nodded in agreement. “I have to return them to samsara before they start wandering and become lost.”
I only needed to locate them, and I could return them to samsara with the god of the flame’s benediction. But I couldn’t do anything about lost souls that I had no way of finding. I had to act before that happened.
“But do we have a chance against the demons in the village?” Menel asked. “If there’s a whole pack of them, and they’ve got beasts as well…”
“Yeah.”
Well… Yeah, I thought. I don’t think that part’s going to be a problem, Menel. After all, I’d been mowing down undead demons day after day under that city of the dead, so by now—
“I’m used to it.”
Diamond. diamond. diamond.
