Paladin Of The End Vol 2 Chapter 2

Paladin Of The End Volume 2 Chapter 2

The following morning, after spending the night under their hospitality, I was seen off by Tom, John, and the other villagers, and left to take the village back from the demons.

Guided by Menel, I made my way northeast. After a reasonable distance, I met a branch of the wide river, took some stepping stones across it, and moved on through the forest. Treading on dead leaves and clambering over the mossy trunks of fallen trees, I followed after Menel with an appropriate level of caution.


I’d gotten surprisingly used to following his trail. These woods had such bad visibility I was close to losing my bearings, but Menel pressed forward without hesitation. From time to time, he called to the fairies, and the thickets and bushes moved themselves out of his way.

Blood once told me to never get in a fight with an elf in a forest, and now I understood clearly why: the odds were good that you wouldn’t even get a “fight”; you’d just be toyed with and killed.

Taking periodic breaks, we advanced through the forest quite quickly.

“We’ll camp here,” the half-elf said.

The sun had started to set. We’d been told that it was about a day to the neighboring village, so our destination was probably very close.

“People of green, grant me a night’s shelter. A bed of grass and roof of trees, and tolerance for a sudden guest.’” He incanted a spell to call the fairies, and the trees around us bent into a dome. Soft grass grew at our feet, and bushes crowded together on the outside to protect us.

“Wh-Whoa, incredible!” It was worthy of being called a tent of trees. As elementalist techniques went, that had to be pretty difficult, didn’t it?

“It’s not that impressive. Go to sleep.”

“Don’t we need someone on watch?”

“We’ll leave that to the fairies dwelling in the trees. If anything happens, they’ll make a fuss and wake us up.”

The amount of effort I’d had to go through to camp up until now seemed ridiculous.

Menel was a skilled hunter and expert elementalist. As an enemy he was frightening, but as an ally, he was a great asset. Now if only he’d open up to me a little more...

“Hmph.” There he went again.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“I’m what you call ill-bred, I guess. I don’t like guys like you who look like they had a cushy upbringing. I’ll repay my debts, and I’ll do my job properly, but that’s as far as it goes.”

So unapproachable, I thought.

“We’ll be at the village tomorrow morning. I’m guiding you and that’s all. I don’t plan on helping you beat up demons.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Menel had a sullen look on his face. We’d had the fortune to meet, and although we’d crossed swords, I wanted us to get along. But I wasn’t having an easy time of it.

A while after we both went silent, Menel was lazily gazing in the direction we’d be heading tomorrow. After seeing the painful look in his eyes, I couldn’t bring myself to intrude and ask about the relationship he’d had with the people of that village.

We lay there in silence on the soft bed of grass, and I slowly fell asleep. The magical awning of greenery felt very comforting.

◆

The following morning, a thick fog filled the frigid air; maybe it was because we were next to a river. The way that milk-white mist drifted slowly between the trees felt as if I had wandered into a place not of this world.

As I walked onwards following Menel’s lead, the foundations of an ancient stone wall came into view.

“A ruin?”

“Yeah. Nearby.”

Due to factors like the availability of water and transport, the places most suitable for establishing a settlement weren’t that much different now than they’d been in the past. And if there was an ancient ruin nearby, it could be taken apart and its stones repurposed. It was an intelligent way of building a village.

Archaeologists from my previous world would probably have deplored dismantling a ruin, but fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), there was no one in this period of history who would bemoan the loss.

We steadily approached the village, keeping ourselves hidden behind the ruin’s old stone walls and crumbling buildings. I could hear several creatures moving.

“They’re about,” Menel said quietly.

I nodded.

“I’ll scout. Wait there,” he said, and moved forward with completely silent footsteps. He had perfected this to a level that would put most experienced scouts to shame.

Blood had taught me the technicals of scouting to a certain extent, but judging by this, yeah, Menel was probably better than I was. As a rule, the trained are better than the untrained in any field. That was just obvious.

Spear in hand, I waited in the shadow of one of the ruin’s walls. After a short while, Menel returned.

“They’re doing some weird ritual in the remains of the temple just outside the village.”

“What’s the temple like? What kind of demons are they?”

“The temple’s something like this.” Menel started drawing the layout on the ground with a stick. “There’s no ceiling anymore, and the walls have collapsed in a bunch of places. They’ve taken up position in the middle here performing their ritual. Two Commanders, faces like lizards. What were they called again...?”

“Vraskuses? With scales and a spiked tail?”

“Yeah, that sounds right.”

I’d fought a vraskus back when I first obtained Pale Moon, the spear I was holding. So, there were two of those, and—

“What else?”

“A few Soldiers roaming outside the temple. I managed to spot one beast inside, but there might have been more.”

“Any details on the beast?”

“Its face looked kind of like a person’s. It had a body like a lion, bat-like wings, and a body as big as a horse.”

“That’s a manticore.”

Beasts with dangerous spiked tails. I’d heard from Blood that they were “a little dangerous”—Blood’s “a little” sometimes being my “reasonably” or “considerably”—so I’d have to brace myself.

Menel was looking at me with a bemused expression.

“What?” I asked.

“You know a hell of a lot about this.”

“I’ve been taught a lot of stuff.”

Gus put a lot of effort into his natural history lectures, and Blood loved to tell stories about when he was alive. They had both told me that when going against a monster, it was important to have prior knowledge about their weaknesses and methods of attack. Unknown foes were the most terrifying.

“Well, okay,” I said. “I’m glad that’s all we’re dealing with.”

“That’s all?”

I had experience fighting demons, but none against those ranked General or higher. If I’d had to fight those, I’d have been worried about the risk. But if they were just two Commanders accompanied by Soldiers with a beast in tow, having the advantage of knowing the situation beforehand, there were plenty of ways I could make it work.

“Let’s crush them.”

◆

They were the remains of an aged little temple. The ceiling had fallen in, and the space inside was around the size of the classrooms I’d known in my previous world.

Lined up at the rear of the building were statues of the gods, among them the god of lightning, Volt, and the Earth-Mother, Mater. Their faces had been scraped off. It was probably the work of the demons.

It took a lot of effort to destroy a statue; scraping off their faces instead to make them “nobodies” was something I’d come across in the history of my past world as well.

Praises to the gods, which should surely have been present on the wall, had also been scraped off. In its place were many Words written in a large, eerie script. Those Words, written in blackened blood, were praise for Dyrhygma, the god of dimensions worshipped by the demons. Stretched out and squashing the flowers below Dyrhygma’s crest, which featured arms grasping the eternal cycle, was the manticore that Menel had mentioned.

Farther forward, at the center of the temple, on the uneven stone floor with grass growing from its cracks, there was a pile of human bodies.

With the corpses, the beast, and the crest before them, the two demons—a wild mixture of humans and crocodiles—chanted Words blaspheming the virtuous gods in harsh, sonorous voices. I could tell it was some kind of ritual, but I didn’t know exactly what kind. That wasn’t surprising, given that even Gus’s knowledge didn’t cover the intricate details of these kinds of dark ceremonies. For now, all I knew was that I couldn’t let this continue.

Hiding the sound of my footsteps, I crept forward, readied my spear, and simply thrust it into one of the vraskuses’ necks. Just like that, the creature collapsed and turned to dust.

“...■■■?!” Taken by surprise, the other vraskus screamed out something in demonjabber, drew its curved sword, and swung it around.

Its reaction to the surprise attack was faster than I expected. The large movement I had to make to avoid its blade broke the effect of the Word I had cast upon myself: the Word of Invisibility. It played tricks on others’ visual perception of the user, making it extremely effective when ambushing enemies that relied on sight.

I’d used this magic to escape being seen by the Soldiers outside and break right into the middle of the ritual site. I didn’t want to get into a situation where I had to contend with two fully prepared vraskuses and a manticore while I was tied up with Soldiers. That really would have been dangerous. Instead, I was using the method that Gus and Blood had taught me: surprise, initiative, and division.

“Cadere Araneum.” As the manticore was about to advance, I hit it with a web to restrict its movements and entered close-quarter combat with the vraskus.

I deflected the horizontal sweep of its sword with my shield and stabbed repeatedly with my spear. Taking into account the vraskus’s tough scales, rubbery skin, and thick muscles, I aimed for its joints, efficiently inflicting wound after wound.

At this stage, the Soldiers outside seemed to have noticed my intrusion as well.

“Currere Oleum.”

I layered grease near the temple’s entrance to buy myself some time. As the vraskus’s tail came at me from a blind spot, I sliced it off with the blade of my spear without even looking, and with the return swing I drew it across its throat. Number two turned to dust.

Not a moment later, the manticore ripped through the web, and roared.

“Acceleratio!”

I was there in a single bound and drove the spear’s blade into its neck.

The manticore, sounding like it was choking, swiped angrily with its arms, trying to resist. I increased my pressure, forcing the blade in and pinning the beast to the wall of the temple. A strike from its wildly flailing claws dragged across my mithril mail. Still pinned, it tried to swing its spiked tail at me.

Taking aim at its body, I spoke the Word “Vastare,” and blasted a vortex of destruction directly into it. The roar of the blast combined with the bellow of the beast as its insides were turned to pulp. Finally, both faded until there was silence.

A big, showy magic attack like that came with risks, so I hadn’t much wanted to use it, but the manticore had been putting up too much of a fight. Trying to finish it off with only a spear would have taken too long.

“And that just leaves...”

Remaining vigilant, I drew the spear back and held it couched. There were only a few left. They may have only been Soldiers, but I had to keep my wits about me until I finished this. Yet as I stood there so ready to fight, there was no sign at all of any enemies rushing in.

Confused, I stepped outside to see the Soldiers turning to dust and scattering. White arrows were sticking out of their chests and necks.

“Oh!” Perfect execution as ever, but—

“I thought you weren’t going to get involved?” I asked.

“You had it in the bag anyway. Just saving time.” Menel appeared from the shadows, took a look around, and furrowed his brow. “Pretty sure you can’t just march in and beat guys like that solo... normally...”

“Yeah. The conditions were just right.” If I’d charged in and tried to fight this many enemies head-on, a very close and desperate battle would have been unavoidable. Observe the opponent first, surprise them, and exterminate them without allowing them to make use of their strengths. All this was part of a warrior’s battle tactics.

“No, even with that, that kind of strength isn’t normal. You doing anything special?”

“Uh... Eating a whole lot of holy bread?” Mary had prayed for a loaf to give me with every meal, so there was a chance it had changed my constitution. The god of undeath had said something like that, too.

“Eating bread doesn’t do this, brother.”

“I guess not.” Menel was right. You couldn’t build muscle just by eating a lot of bread without doing any training.

“Whatever, enough on the bread. Temple’s clear. You think it’s safe to assume that you stamped out the bulk of them?”

“We’ll go around the village, clear out any left over, and take it from there, I guess.”

Whether we were going to bury the bodies or search the area to see if there were any more survivors, it would be difficult in a place where enemies could still be lurking. I thought we were probably okay now—I couldn’t sense any more demons—but we’d need to go around the village once to play it safe.

I prayed to the bodies piled up in the temple, and then the two of us walked towards the village.

In any event, we had won. Winning the battle had been our greatest initial source of worry, so while there were still plenty of reasons to be apprehensive, I thought Menel and I were both relieved.

“I hope there’s at least someone who’s still all right,” Menel said, looking anxious.

“Yeah.”

But just at that moment, we heard a feeble and childlike voice.

“Men... el...”

Menel’s expression froze.

◆

I looked in the direction of the voice. There was some kind of small hut, perhaps a shed, and something was crawling out of it towards us.

“Menel...”

It was the corpse of a boy, burnt black and its bones half-exposed. Only the top of its body was left; everything below the waist had been either severed or burned off.

“It was demons, they, umm, attacked the village.” The corpse looked up at Menel with empty sockets. Menel was still frozen in place.

“I was hiding just like you told me to... I didn’t do anything dangerous...” It crawled closer, dragging itself forward on its elbows. “It was hot, but I put up with it and didn’t make any noise... ’Cause...”

Menel was shaking. Both his hands and jaw were tightly clenched.

“I knew you’d come.” The corpse smiled; it was a blood-curdling and gruesome sight, and yet it felt warm. “And you did. Thank you.”

With a frightfully happy look on its face, the corpse extended a hand to Menel. Menel tried to take it, but he hesitated for just a second. I couldn’t tell if it was because of his revulsion towards the corpse, distrust of the undead, regret at not having made it in time, or guilty conscience. Whatever the case, the corpse sensed his rejection, and its face filled with despair.

“Huh...? Wait... Why? Am I...”

I knew there wasn’t a moment to lose. I fell to my knees, picked up the blackened corpse—and hugged the boy tightly.

“H-Hey...!” Menel looked at me, disconcerted.

It’s okay, Menel, I thought. Embracing the undead isn’t anything to be afraid of.

“You did a great job,” I said. “We’re very proud of you.”

“Huh? Who are you, mister?” Still in my arms, the boy tilted his head. Flakes of charred skin fell off.

“I’m Menel’s friend. I’m sorry about Menel. He’s just a little tired. He isn’t quite with it. Please forgive him.”

“Okay.” The boy nodded.

“Good boy. Come on, Menel.” I held up the boy’s arm for Menel to take.

This time, he didn’t hesitate. He squeezed the boy’s badly charred hand. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner.” His voice was trembling.

“It’s okay.”

“You must be tired out. Go to sleep.”

“Good idea... I feel really... sleepy...”

“Dream well.”

“Kay...”

Even as he trembled, Menel didn’t look away.

“Gracefeel, god of the flame. Repose and guidance.”

It was the blessing Divine Torch. As the boy closed his eyes in peaceful sleep, the flame rose softly into the air and took his soul, along with those of so many others drifting nearby, with it towards the heavens.

Menel watched until it could no longer be seen, and then, after a while, he spoke.

“Hey, uh...”

“What is it?”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

There was silence as Menel chose his words. “I was looking down on you and you didn’t deserve it. I thought you were some muscleheaded rich kid who fluked the gods’ protection and disappeared up his own ass. Just a do-gooder without a clue.” He sighed.

“So... I’m sorry.”

“It’s no big deal.” I gave him a smile.

Despite the deep anguish on his face, he gave me a slight smile back.

◆

The two of us walked around the village together.

Menel never hesitated again after what had happened. He held the hands of the undead who still had their intelligence and reason, and bid them words of farewell. Those who did not—those who had been taken over by hatred and madness—I purified using the power of the protection of the goddess of flux.

“Gracefeel, god of the flame. Repose and guidance.”

Divine Torch was an effective technique to use against the undead, but it wasn’t all-powerful. If the undead themselves resisted the technique, whether it would have an effect became a contest between the strength of the user’s protection and the attachment of the undead. For instance, if a high-level undead on par with Gus, Blood, or Mary seriously tried to resist, it was dubious whether I would be able to guide their souls with my prayers. If I could become as advanced a user of benediction as Mary then it might be possible, of course.

Anyway, for that reason I was slightly concerned that there might be some people in this village who were beyond my abilities, but luckily no one here had become that powerful an undead.

The spectral body slipped out of the crazed woman who was standing in front of me, brandishing a cleaver. Bewildered, her spirit took a look around her and soon understood the situation. I placed my hand over my heart and said as if making a vow, “Leave the rest to me.” The woman smiled, nodded, and one more soul returned to the eternal cycle.

“Umm.” I checked around me. It was hard to tell because of the fog, but I thought we’d more or less finished going around the obvious places. “Menel, are there any more houses?”

“One more... Follow me.” Menel walked ahead, stepping on the bare, well-trodden earth.

The house, located deep in the village, had been completely burned to the ground. It looked like it had once been quite a large building, with maybe three or four rooms. The other houses had just one or two large rooms plus a shed and pen at best.

Menel gazed at that house for a while. He took a deep breath in and slowly released it. Then, tightly squeezing his hand into a fist, he called out. “Yo! You here, Marple?”

“Oh?” A specter appeared, slipping through a soot-covered pillar. “It’s you, Menel.” She was an old woman who looked like she had lived quite a number of years. But her back wasn’t bent, and she still looked full of vim and vigor.

I briefly thought of Gus—and the instant I did, I realized something, and a chill ran through me. This was bad. The ghost of this old woman called Marple was probably close to fully materialized. Where the other ghosts were indistinct and lacking in clarity, the old woman’s body was as well-defined as Gus’s. I couldn’t say anything about her combat ability, but I got the feeling, somehow, that her soul was going to be tenacious. If she was confused or distraught and resisted my blessing, it was possible that sending her off might be beyond my abilities. And that would mean that I might have to use a weapon that worked on specters—a weapon like Pale Moon or Overeater—to cut up the old woman’s ghost in front of Menel...

“Heheh. You needn’t worry so much, young man.”

She’d seen through my moment’s hesitation...

Then, she smiled. “I’m not senile yet.”

The light of wit certainly dwelled in her eyes.

◆

“Good to hear. Looks like you still had some unfinished business and got left behind. Don’t worry, though. Look, this guy’s a genuine, principled high priest. Met him by chance.” Menel started talking to the old woman’s ghost. He was being awfully chatty. “He can send lost souls like you back to be reincarnated, heal the wounded—he’s a whiz at all that stuff. So us two’ll do something about the village. Go on, thank him and get going already.”

I was a principled high priest? He was really playing me up.

“Or is there something else? Some message you wanted to give someone? I’ll tell them for you, so you—”

“Menel.” With a single word, the old woman ended his verbal barrage. Then, she sighed. “You’ve been misbehaving again.”

I didn’t miss the twitch in Menel’s shoulders. “N-Not really... Where’s this coming from? You sure you aren’t going dotty?”

“I can read you like a book.”

“Oh yeah? How?” Menel feigned ignorance, but it wasn’t working. Marple continued with conviction.

“You’re a terrible liar, dear. And a difficult child. But deep down, you’re a scrupulously honest person with integrity.”

Menel looked like he was trying to say something back, but the words wouldn’t come out. The old woman simply smiled. They kind of looked like family. One living, and one undead. The days I’d spent in a family of four floated back into my mind.

“Killing and stealing... Someone like you isn’t cut out for all that nasty business.”

Menel had no reply.

“And it’s high time you admitted it. Stop living through clout. Give up this way of life of always fighting with others.” Her words showed no restraint, cutting Menel’s lifestyle to the ground and discarding it as casually as a butcher tossing unwanted parts.

“Shut up...” Menel’s voice, by contrast, was shaking.

“Shut up! Stop talking to me like you’ve got all the answers! What was I supposed to do then?!” He was yelling, on the verge of tears.

“You died, the rest of the village was starving and freezing! What the hell else could I have done?! My strength is the only thing I can count on! Or are you saying I should have prayed to God?! When has God, when has any fig god ever helped me?!”

Menel tried to grab the old woman’s ghost, but his hand swiped the air.

“Pig shit... This is... Pig shit!” Menel dropped to his knees and buried his head in them.

All I could do was watch.

“I’ve had enough... Let me go with you...” As fog swirled about the devastated village, the sorrowful tones of the half-elf’s beautiful voice echoed around. “The life of a half’s too long for me...”

Those who inherited elven blood lived several hundred years. His life wouldn’t end so easily. Even after losing the people and places important to him, he would continue to exist. What words did I possibly have to offer him? I had no idea.

“Listen to me, Menel. Meneldor.” Marple raised her voice, her tone serious.

Menel looked up. “God has given you one more chance.” She smiled slowly. “One last time. Wash your hands of this wretched way of life.”

Her smile was full of love. I was even reminded of the Echo of the Earth-Mother Mater I had once seen. She may not be able to swing a sword or use magic, but I was sure that this person had something far more amazing and precious than anything I possessed—such was the power of that smile.

“You may hate God, but God will always love you. Whether you realize it or not, God is always shining on you, unremitting, untiring.” Through the silence of the perished village, the voice of the perished woman carried clearly, whispered like a young child telling her friend where she’d hidden away her treasures.

“Now, it’s all down to you. All you need to do is see the light.” She smiled. “Give it a go, and I promise you it’ll all work out.”

Menel was covering his face and weeping silently, his shoulders shaking.

Then... the woman turned to me.

◆

“Now, Father, may I have a word?”

“Of course.”

“Could I ask you to take care of this silly boy? He isn’t a bad person at his core. Would you... well... get along with him?”

It was the last wish of a person departing this world. I nodded firmly. Marple gave a satisfied nod of her own.

“Oh, yes... About the demons with beasts who attacked the village—it seems it wasn’t a case of lone demons wandering here by chance. They have a leader and a base where he lives deep in the woods, and he sends out underlings to various places from there. I don’t know the exact details, but it sounded like they had some truly evil things planned involving taming beasts and attacking people.”

“Don’t tell me you can speak demonjabber?” Not even Gus knew much about that language. Maybe some research had been done on it sometime in the past two hundred years?

“Well... That’s a long story from long ago.”

What kind of past did this woman have?

“Judging by the direction they were sending out their familiars and so on, I’d suspect their base is in the direction of the Rust Mountains, the fallen capital of the dwarves.”

I looked west. Beyond the fog, I could faintly see a reddish-brown mountain range in the distance. That had to be it.

“Did you not want the burden?”

“On the contrary, you’ve been very helpful.”

“Good,” Marple said with a smile. “I was feeling guilty that I couldn’t thank you in some way. If it helped you, Father, then I’m glad.”

“Um, your unfinished business, might it have been...”

The old woman roared with laughter. “Of course it was! As if I could take that to the grave! Someone had to know!” She laughed for a while. “So, that’s all. I hope you don’t mind, but I won’t be needing your guidance. God, you see, is already waiting for me.”

I saw a faint flame beside the old woman. Ah... You’re here, I thought.

“With that said, I’ll be on my way,” Marple said, and smiled.

The situation in the outside world wasn’t good, just as my parents had feared. But there were people here. It wasn’t all bad.

“Menel, keep your chin up. This world is full of things that can’t be undone. You mustn’t brood over them and let them hold you back. Stand up, face forward, and do what needs to be done.”

“Fig. So you’re just gonna say your piece and go,” Menel said bitterly.

Marple laughed. “Look in a mirror, dear. We both like to do things our own way. Gracious, what a boy.” She smiled, crow’s feet forming at the corners of her eyes, and put her incorporeal arms around Menel, rubbing his back with hands that couldn’t touch.

“All right,” she said calmly. “The rest, I trust to you.”

“Okay.” I placed my hand over the left side of my chest, and returned a vow.

“You can leave it to me.”

She smiled.

And another soul returned to samsara.

◆

After Marple went back to the cycle of reincarnation, Menel was in a daze for a while.

Once he regained his composure, we had a discussion and decided to begin dealing with the bodies of the villagers.

I repurified the remains of the temple with magic and blessings, and made it into a sacred area that creatures and beasts couldn’t approach. For each of the villagers’ bodies, I put my hands together and prayed for them, cleansed them with magic, lifted them onto my back, and lined them up at the ruined temple. Pray, cleanse, lift, carry. Pray, cleanse, lift, carry. Pray, cleanse, lift, carry.

I repeated this over and over. No matter how grotesque the body, I gave them all equal treatment.

As I worked, I thought about the state of the outside world. It was looking pretty bleak right now. How many battles had I gotten into already in the small number of days since I had left the city of the dead? Dangerous beings like demons and beasts were widespread and hadn’t even been driven out of areas where people were still living their lives.

And when people suffered from these attacks, the result, either due to extreme poverty or the failure to organize a buffer of emergency supplies in advance, was the continual creation of starving bandits. Because of the cold rationality created from everyone having nothing to spare, there was no mercy or allowance made for others, nor was there any semblance of law or order.

Violence was rampant, and survival of the strongest ruled above all. This was the case for at least the entire region known as Beast Woods, if not an even wider area. Even just the brief glimpse I’d had of it was pretty darn awful.

Of course, I could have shamelessly said, “That is their culture, their society, and their choice. It’s not my place as an outsider to interfere,” and passed through while assuming the attitude of a neutral observer.

My hometown was the city of the dead, not these woods. I was only a passerby, and had no obligation to do anything with regard to this area. The societal problems of an entire region weren’t going to be fixed overnight by the efforts of just one person, so I had the option of just dealing with the immediate problem in front of me and only getting as involved as my oath required.

From the look of things so far, I seemed to qualify as a pretty strong warrior even in the outside world, and I also had my powers of magic, my god’s protection, and a good amount of wealth. If I wanted to live in peace somewhere inconspicuous, I could probably accomplish that surprisingly easily. I just had to find some city that wouldn’t make too much of a fuss about my origin, blend in, and I was sure it would work out.

However...

“As you travel—”

“Prithee, bring light to the faraway darkness.”

If that was my god’s wish, then I had to lend her an ear. I owed her a debt too great to ever repay.

That said—

“What should I do...?”

The heart of the problem wasn’t the demons or beasts. It was the compounded societal issues of poverty and disorder that surrounded them. I could defeat the demons and beasts with a sword or a spear, but societal problems couldn’t be cut down with a demonblade. As I thought about what to do, I prayed, purified, lifted, and carried, over and over.

◆

A few days later, the villagers returned to the besieged village. It was scorched all over, and many of the buildings had collapsed. When they saw the state of it with fresh eyes, they looked to be in shock.

Together, we scraped together the remaining farm tools, dug some holes, and held a simple funeral service to mourn the dead.

Everyone took turns piling a little bit of earth on top of the bodies lying in the graves. To make it feel like a legitimate funeral, I spoke some passages from scripture I had once been taught by Gus and Mary as I watched the villagers work. However, I wasn’t following any prescribed form; I was really only borrowing from what others had told me to make it “sound right.” It looked like I’d need to make contact with a priest belonging to a proper organization somewhere and learn from them.

After the funeral had started to wrap up, I decided to raise a question.

“So, umm... What are you all going to do now?”

There looked to be enough surviving houses that if the survivors all lived together it would work out; however, many of the fields had been rendered useless. If they couldn’t eat, if the only route available to them was going to be pillaging, then in the worst case, I was thinking I might be forced to give them money and have them spread out to neighboring villages...

“Hahaha! Well, you just watch.” The villagers laughed off my serious expression. They beckoned me over to a barn, where they started digging up the dirt. Straw bags and pots filled with grain came out one after the other.

“Ohh...” I said.

“You see, robberies and burnings ain’t anything special around these parts.”

“Yes,” another villager said. “If you can get back, you can get by. That’s if, mind you.”

“You’re very generous, but we ain’t planning on taking advantage of you, Father. We can cope, don’t you worry.”

Some people who had disappeared into the woods surrounding the village also started to come back with food and other supplies. God knows where they’d hidden those. It looked like these people had no intention of allowing themselves to be beaten so easily. Maybe the people here were cursed to become desperate muggers time and time again, but it was that very aspect that had also fostered the villagers’ toughness and strength of character.

“Well, this is a great relief.” At the very least, it looked like I’d been more than a bit of a busybody to think I needed to watch over the whole affair from beginning to end. It was just that the demons and the beasts together had been a little too much for just one settlement to handle on this one occasion. They could handle themselves without me, in their own way.

In which case, what I should have been thinking about wasn’t how to completely take care of them throughout the whole process, but merely how to contribute. And that was a good question...

Fires were being stoked, and I heard the lively voices of the women starting their cooking. Evidently there was going to be a bit of a feast tonight, to celebrate their homecoming and to mourn those who had died.

“Father, we owe you a debt of gratitude for giving us back our village.”

“We’d be more than happy for you to join us.”

“I’d be glad to,” I said, nodding—and then suddenly, I noticed. “Huh?”

At some point, Menel had disappeared.

◆

I told the people preparing for the feast where I was going, and went to search for Menel. He seemed to have left his stuff here, so it was unlikely that he’d gone far.

I couldn’t see fairies, but sorcerer’s theory stated that all things in the world were made from the Words. Reading the difficult-to-interpret Words and Signs that represented the trees and soil, I walked through the woods, somehow managing to follow his trail.

I took in the smell of the dry winter forest. Some of the trees around me were bare like weather-beaten skeletons, while others were deep verdant evergreens. The sky was glowing red in the west; the sun was well on its way to setting. Cold wind was whistling through the trees. It was beginning to get pretty dark.

“Lumen.” I made Pale Moon’s blade glow softly.

It wasn’t a good idea to act carelessly. There had only just been an attack by demons and beasts. They could jump at me from anywhere. I had no intention of dropping my guard.

Remaining alert to my surroundings, I walked step by step through the woods, and as I did so, I thought about Menel.

Was he okay? I wondered. Parting with Marple must have hit him pretty hard. Putting myself in his position, I thought it was probably like if I had lost Blood or Mary in a sudden incident.

Expressing it that way gave me a new appreciation for how hard this had to be for him. I couldn’t imagine that someone like me, who Menel had only met a few days ago, would be able to do anything for him in a time like that. Perhaps what he really needed was some time alone to think things over, and what I was doing was just unwanted meddling. But even so...

— Could I ask you to take care of this silly boy?

I had certainly been asked, so I probably had a duty to at least keep an eye on him. If he said I wasn’t wanted, then I would just have to turn around and leave dejected. After all, until just a few days ago, I’d been a sheltered boy who had never seen another living human in his life. I had zero experience points in social interaction, so when I’d set out into the world, I’d been prepared from the beginning for everything to go south.

As I walked along confidently thinking that if I made a fool of myself I could simply cringe about it later, I arrived at a bit of an upwards slope. I could see what was left of perhaps a stone wall running across it.

A phosphorescent fairy danced lightly across my vision. I followed the momentary blinking with my eyes, and when I looked up I saw, almost entirely hidden by trees, the remains of a small and time-worn building that might have been an ancient watchtower.

Built on a small hill which could be used as a vantage point, the structure had since collapsed, leaving only the base behind, around which fairies were blinking like fireflies. As if they were concerned about someone, they were whispering to each other while stealing glances inside.

There was no doubt in my mind—he had to be there.

I carefully made my way up the slope, paying extra attention to my feet and the loose, mossy stones. Once I reached the top, I circled around the partially collapsed stone wall, and my field of vision widened.

“Ah.”

As I looked down from the hill, I saw the city built from stone below me. The countless houses along the streets spreading outward from the river had aged, crumbled, and been taken over by forest, and now stood only as a reminder of the city’s former prosperity. The color of the sunset, changing every moment, gently illuminated them all.

“Hey, Will.”

There he was, sitting with one knee up, against the base of an evergreen tree that had spread its roots between the stones of the broken watchtower. A sorrowful look in his jade eyes, his fair skin was lit by the sunset, and his slightly pointed ears peeked out from his flowing, silver hair. The fairies’ phosphorescence occasionally danced around him.

“Menel.”

Even when he was feeling down, he was picture-perfect. Attractive people have it good, I randomly thought.

◆

“Can I sit here?”

“Knock yourself out.”

I sat down beside him. “This is a nice view.”

“Yeah, from the outside.”

I gave him a puzzled look.

“That ruin’s a den of undead. It’s devoured countless adventurers. No one’s ever come back from there alive.”

Is that so.

“Then I’d better go in there later and return them all to the cycle of rebirth.”

“What? Were you even listening?”

“Yeah, you said it’s a dangerous place. So I have to do something about it.”

Menel shook his head and put his hand to his forehead as if he were trying to cope with a headache. “Of course you’d say that. I forgot who I was dealing with.” He let out a massive sigh. “Being with you throws me off my groove. I thought I was, y’know, more cool and collected than this.”

“Cool?”

“Yes, cool! Fig!”

“Hahaah...” I treated him to a deliberately mocking laugh. He growled in frustration.

I was surprised at how much fun it was to tease him, or more, to watch his reactions.

I was having quite a lot of... discoveries, I guess, talking with Menel. I first thought he was a pretty nice guy; then he tried to kill me without any hesitation at all. That had been something. Then I thought he was stubborn and difficult, but he was actually genuine, with a funny side as well.

This probably wasn’t limited to Menel. Humans in general are pretty multifaceted. They have harsh, inconsiderate sides, and they have charming sides that put a smile on your face. There’s a lot to see, as long as you’re willing to look for it. Maybe confronting these kinds of things was what building a relationship with another person was all about.

As these thoughts went through my head, Menel and I teased each other. The last time I’d had this kind of fun with someone my age might have been when I was a kid in my previous life.

After we’d gone at that for a while, I asked him, “So, what kind of person was Marple?”

◆

Menel shrugged his shoulders. “She was a weird old lady. You could probably tell.”

The sun was beginning to dip down below the horizon. The world turned from red to purple, and on to the color of night.

“I was born in Grassland to the north, in the Great Forest of Erin where the elves live.

My mother... She had a very curious personality when she was young, and ran away from the forest. Then, after a few years, she came back pregnant with some guy’s kid. She died an early death, apparently. As for me, I was growing faster than everyone else around me, and I couldn’t get along with them, anyway. The whole deal with my mother was still dragging on... They were calling me a stain on their home... In the end, I thought I’d just run away from the forest, and... yeah. That’s how it goes with mongrel halfs like me.”

Pretty heavy, and he’d only just gotten started.

“Of course, the world of people wasn’t a paradise either. It wasn’t until after I left that I found out that for all its problems, I’d had it easy in the Forest of Erin. Fortunately, I knew how to handle a bow and a knife, and most importantly, I could see fairies.” A fairy stopped on the tip of Menel’s extended finger, frolicked there, and then left again. “I was strong enough to kill the hell out of whatever or whoever came to prey on me. If not for that, I’d be in some back alley whoring myself out right about now.”

“You do have a pretty face...”

“Don’t agree, goddammit.”

“I just thought you’d have been pretty popular with guys who are into that.”

“Fuck off.”

What did he want me to do? Lie? That said, I didn’t have a sexual inclination towards those of my gender, so my thoughts didn’t go any further than “he’s got a pretty face.”

“Anyway, the point is, for a bunch of reasons, I became an ‘adventurer.’ Southmark still had a lot of ruins, so I made use of the Fertile Kingdom’s open policy and crossed over here.” Menel had a distant look in his eyes. “Then, one of the people I’d banded together with betrayed us and poisoned us. I was this close to getting killed.”

I had no words. How vicious...

“It was greed that did it, I bet. The spoils from the ruins were too good. Luckily, I barely touched the poisoned food, so it didn’t get me that bad. I somehow managed to kill the fecker, but still...”

So this was the standard in this region of the world. It was so savage, and the difference in the way things went here compared with my past life was staggering. I could imagine Blood and those like him having a riot out here, though.

“All the other guys I knew back then were dead on the ground, foam around their mouths, and the poison and my wounds were making my head all fuzzy. I have no idea how I bumbled my way to the village in that state, but I did, and that was where I went down, just outside there. And Marple took me in. If it wasn’t for that old lady... Of course, back then she wasn’t quite so old.”

Menel continued to speak, that faraway look still in his eyes. “She really was a strange old woman. She took me in, some sketchy and surly guy lying half-dead on the ground, and she gave me food to eat and a place to sleep; she even lectured me on living a proper life. There were a ton of people like that, different circumstances but similar stories—they’d all ended up settling in that village after being picked up by her.”

“Who was she?”

“Beats me.” Menel shook his head. “She said she was an ‘uneducated country bumpkin’ or some crap. Please. Anyway, she’s dead now, and the truth’s gone with her. Happens a lot on this continent.”

I remembered a saying from my previous world: “Everyone has a story.” And unfortunately, a single human being cannot pore through them all.

“So, she took me in, and she may have been a preachy old bat, but I owed her one. I couldn’t stomach settling down in the village and playing the part of a farmer, but... I did go around to the nearby villages, doing my best impression of a hunter. ’Cause hunting dangerous animals was something I could do.”

Menel talked nostalgically, as if he were cherishing a broken treasure. “Beast Woods has a ton of nasty creatures in it. People were finding me pretty useful. I’d found a place where I belonged.”

And then—

“Without any warning, it was gone.”

The village, attacked by demons; the nice old woman, Marple; the children in the barn—all of that was gone.

“So I decided I wasn’t gonna be someone who gets stuff taken from him. I was gonna be a taker, and protect what I still had left. Which failed spectacularly, thanks to you.” The silver-haired hunter breathed a long sigh. “That’s what this place is like. You’ve gotta be like that if you want to survive out here.”

He sounded like he’d given up, like a tired old man. “Living longer than other people in a place like this... It’s painful, you know? Just hopelessly painful.” His words held no intensity, just exhaustion and the sense that something inside him had been worn down to nothing.

“Sometimes I wish I was dead.”

◆

I didn’t know what to say to Menel after his emotional outpour. It reminded me of my previous life and the time when the god of undeath’s words had thrown me into a pit of despair.

I wondered how I could comfort him. I wondered how I could encourage him. I didn’t know. I couldn’t do as Mary, Blood, and Gus had. I couldn’t think of anything.

This was something I’d become painfully aware of when I met the ghost of the old woman Marple. There were certainly gods in this world, and if you received their protection, you would become able to heal wounds and cure illnesses. It was almost a little superpower, like the ones you found in comic books. But it wasn’t as if it gave you more life experience. It didn’t give you the ability to say the kinds of words that could resound in someone’s heart, words that could help someone through hard times.

I could heal the body, but not the heart. That was something that, in the end, a person had to take charge of themselves. And as the silence dragged on, I was unable to say anything. What was I supposed to say? I wished someone would tell me. What was I supposed to do in times like this? I had no experience with this in my previous life, and I didn’t have much in this one, either. If Blood, Mary, or Gus were here, they might have been able to come up with something. But for everything I had learned, I couldn’t produce the right words, not even a single sentence, to save my life.

“U-Um... I, I guess, you... uh...” I mumbled something, but it didn’t help. Gods... I felt like I really had regressed to how I used to be. But Menel was in a really bad place right now. I had to say something.

But while I was racking my brain, Menel exhaled sharply. “Right,” he said, stretching his arms above his head to loosen up his stiff body. “Sucks, but gotta move on!”

Huh?

Menel looked at me and tilted his head. “Hm? What’s up? You done making stupid faces?”

“What? Huh...?” I was confused.

No, wait, hold up. He had just been so depressed, and now he... wha?

“Haha, he’s losing it. Y’know, the normal you and the you that does the priest thing are like two totally different people.”

“Pleeeeeeease shut up.”

“Too bad, ’cause you’re pretty cool when you’re full-on priest.”

“I wasn’t—I was just—uhh...”

After taunting me a little, he bounced lightly to his feet and looked at me with serious eyes. “Will... William. Priest of the god of the flame. I’m grateful to you. For stopping me before it was too late, and for saving the guys in the village. So—” He put his hand on his chest, gracefully descended to one knee, and bowed his head before me. “With you as my mediator, I ask the protection of the god of the flame.”

This was the standard phrase used when changing your guardian deity and oath. Startled by the sincerity in his voice, I hurriedly stood to face him.

“Will you do this for me?” he asked.

“I shall be your mediator and bring you together with my god.” I responded with the standard, age-old reply I’d once been taught by Mary. I placed my hand gently on Menel’s head and prayed to my goddess as he knelt. “I pray for you to the god of the flame. May Gracefeel love you, shine on you, and be with you on your journeys.”

In the darkness, I felt a faint flame glow warmly in the air behind me.

“Then to my guardian deity, I make this oath.” Menel raised his eyes and looked up at the flame. “I will atone for my sins and live a positive life, looking forward.” It was a powerful declaration. “Please light the way before me with your flame.”

That had also been Marple’s wish for him, to the very end.

“Menel...”

“Life’s hard a lot of the time. Sometimes it beats me so badly I want to just lie there and die. But I’m not gonna stay down.” He shrugged and put on a brave smile. “I’m gonna get up somehow, and just like Marple said, I’m gonna keep looking forward and do what needs to be done.”

My previous life ended without me ever being able to recover from my despair, and it had taken a pep talk from Mary for me to manage it in this life, too. But Menel had mustered the strength to stand back up all on his own. He had found a way to resolve his internal struggle, changed his attitude, and sought out how to behave to make up for his past behavior; and he had done all this by himself.

He’d had Marple’s words to help him, and he was probably putting up a brave front as well, but even so, I couldn’t have done what he had. How arrogant was I, to think that he needed my words? He was strong. Stronger than me. Stronger than I’d ever thought.

If only I’d had this kind of strength in my past life; maybe something could have been different then. When I thought about this, my chest tightened with a feeling of regret that I couldn’t shake. “Menel, you’re awesome, really,” I said with admiration.

“I truly respect you.”

“What, feck off,” he said, rising to his feet and giving one of my shoulders a playful shove. “You’re the awesome one. How do you get that good at fighting?”

“It’s not me that’s awesome. It was my teachers.”

“Can’t imagine what your childhood was like for the life of me. Eh, whatever, I’m not gonna pry,” he said, walking past me. “Let’s get back already. Food’s probably close to being done by now.”

“Oh yeah. You’re right. We’ll make them worry if we’re much longer.” I followed after him, and we headed back to the village together.

The feast of homecoming and mourning was just beginning. Though it was small for a ‘feast,’ they wouldn’t stop offering me drinks. Menel tried to keep a low profile in the corner, so I dragged him out and made him get involved. He resisted, and we ended up getting in a weird scuffle.

It was a night of competition, of fooling around, and of moments spent quietly, listening to the fondly remembered stories of those who had passed away.