Paladin Of The End Volume 2 Chapter 3
“All our livestock’s been wiped out, and a whole lot of tools that’ll be impossible to replace have been smashed.”
“Wow...”
There were still a lot of problems for the villagers even after taking back their village from the hands of the demons. Many of their draft animals and tools had been lost. The villagers had serious expressions on their faces as they discussed the problem from all angles. “We’re gon’ needa stock up at Whitesails...”
“But what do we do about the money?”
“We need help also.”
An unfamiliar word came up in their conversation, so I asked Menel. “What’s Whitesails?”
Menel looked at me like he was looking at an alien. Was “Whitesails” the name of a place that you couldn’t help learning if you spent any amount of time living here?
“What is the deal with you, seriously?” he asked. “Were you living under a rock?” Then he gave me a brief summary of the history of this region.
Apparently, Blood and Mary’s era was now referred to as the Union Age, in which all kinds of races had formed a large confederation. With the exception of regions like this one at the border, it had been a peaceful golden age without much conflict.
However, the influx of demons that followed caused the Great Collapse, and the Union fell apart. Southmark was lost under the flood of demons. The Hundred Heroes—that referred to Blood and the others who had helped him—killed the demons’ king, but all the same, mankind was forced to abandon this continent for a while.
Crossing the channel and the inland sea called Middle-Sea, mankind retreated to Grassland in the north. But as a result of the Great Collapse, the central government of Grassland lost its ability to govern, and the continent fractured into smaller regions that vied for power. There was no quick end to the infighting among all those military factions, and while it continued, no division saw good reason to interfere with the darkness in Southmark, farthest of all places and teeming with undead, demons, and goblins.
After the Fertile Kingdom unified the southwestern part of Grassland, that changed a little. Over the last few decades, they had been expanding and rebuilding with a vision to retake Southmark, and Whitesails was the port city that was currently the heart of the settlement effort coming from the north.
No wonder he’d given me that look of utter disbelief for not knowing it.
Anyway, Whitesails, which was the port at the north side of Southmark and the base for their settlement project, was apparently crammed full of immigration ships and trade vessels. And with so many of those going in and out, it was natural that suspicious folk, those with things to hide, and people forced to leave their homelands would also turn up.
Proper immigration procedures were as good as nonexistent in this era, so of course, there was no way to shut those kinds of people out. Some dived headfirst into the organized criminal underbelly in Whitesails, while others slipped away, made homes, and planted fields on the very edges of the borderlands, where the influence of those in power didn’t reach. Independent settlements such as those were scattered around Beast Woods.
“Those sorts of people aside, a lot of adventurers come here, as well. Though you could ask just how different the two really are...”
An “adventurer,” he told me, was a job in which you earned your daily bread by trolling the ruins from the Union Age and taking on mercenary-type jobs. Adventurers weren’t members of a single, unified organization; they were drifters, existing in almost any large town, who took jobs at special-purpose taverns and carried them out for a fee. Most were people down on their luck and unable to make a proper living, but that was why they saw the Union Age ruins as the key to fulfilling their dreams.
“In the unlikely event you find a pot of gold coins or something, boom, you’re rich. Your whole life turns around, just like that. People who dream of hitting the big one call themselves adventurers and flock out here. Though, it’s not just them, to be fair. There’s also people hoping to become heroes, people like you who had revelations from their god—all sorts.”
So you couldn’t generalize them as just people living in poverty. It seemed to be a pretty complicated occupation.
“You’ve got your own reasons too, right?” he asked. “You’re having revelations and helping people out, so you’re probably also trying to spread your faith or something too, I guess? I mean, the southern continent used to have a deeply rooted faith in Gracefeel.”
“Hmm... Can you tell me more about that?”
I asked him a few questions, and learned that the god of the flame had apparently once formed the basis for people’s religious faith here in Southmark.
However, the flood of demons caused by the Great Collapse two hundred years ago made a mess of Southmark, and as a result, Gracefeel’s followers scattered. Some were just barely able to flee to Grassland in the north and keep her name alive. But unlike the major gods, whose worshippers were numerous and not isolated to particular areas, Gracefeel’s faithful seemed to have waned considerably.
Demons and beasts were running rampant. There were many villages where the people could barely afford to get by, and sometimes became desperate enough to become thieves. Faith was dwindling to the point of disappearing completely. Things were awful in a lot of ways. And knowing that the mission I’d been given by my god was to do something about it somehow made me feel even worse.
Blood, Mary, Gus? Outside is a really scary place, I lamented inside my mind. Then I slowly breathed in, and out again.
To be honest, this was blatantly too much of a burden for me, and I’d really have liked someone else to do it, but I had sworn an oath to my god and decided to live a proper life. In the name of my faith, I decided to do as much as I could. “First things first. This village.”
“About that. You’ve done enough already, so I’m sorry for asking this, but the people here don’t have any money. If possible, they’d like to borr—”
“Menel, let’s go explore some ruins! We’ll split whatever we find!”
“What?” Menel’s mouth dropped open.
◆
“I can’t believe you’re this good at ruin-hunting as well...”
“I’m used to it.”
Menel and I conquered the ruins that neighbored the village, and saw off the spirits of the wandering undead there at the same time.
I’d been thrown into the city of the dead’s underground quarter and had some seriously hard training at the hands of Gus and Blood, so I was relatively good at this kind of thing. Menel’s past experience as an adventurer had clearly helped him, too; he was very quick on his feet.
By collecting money and magical items from the ruins, Menel got the amount he needed to rebuild the village, and I succeeded in replenishing the various supplies I’d consumed. I’d been told that there were a lot of untouched ruins around here, so it seemed that I’d be able to amass the funds I was going to need on my own, at least for the time being.
“Seriously, who are you...” Menel wondered aloud.
“You weren’t going to pry, right?”
“Yeah, and I’m sticking to that, but... hell.”
I was on a journey north with Menel right now. Our destinations were the same—Whitesails, the most prosperous city in Southmark—but our reasons for going were different.
Menel’s was simple: he needed to go there to buy the draft animals and various tools that Marple’s village needed.
As for me, I had many reasons. I wanted to help Menel, I wanted to learn about the activities of the demons in Beast Woods, and I wanted to get more information on the continents and countries of this world. Doing something about the demons’ suspicious behavior, spreading faith in the god of the flame, helping villages—all of these required first heading to a city where people and things gathered.
We were walking through Beast Woods. The view surrounding the trail barely changed, and the heavily wooded forest let little light through. Fortunately, with it being late winter, the bushes and undergrowth weren’t that thick, but even so, we had spent so long walking that it was starting to feel like we were just going around in circles. I’d seen nothing but this same kind of scenery for several days now.
Today, too, we had been walking about half the day, and as the sun was starting to shine through from high in the sky, I could hold it in no longer. “We are making progress... right?”
“Of course we are,” Menel said. “Starting to get you down?”
“Kind of.”
“Well... Can’t say I blame you. I can’t wait to get out to a village somewhere, or at least to a nice, open plain. The ears of winter wheat should be waving in the wind at this time of year. Should be pretty beautiful.”
“Oh, that sounds really nice,” I said, getting a little excited as I imagined the view.
Then, a long, loud, and piercing shriek filled the air, and a second voice with it. “He-Help! Anyone!!”
Menel and I glanced at each other, and immediately ran in the direction of the voice.
◆
There was a deafening bellow.
It came from a gigantic ape with dark brown hair. The ape was easily over two meters tall, and I estimated its weight at close to three hundred kilograms.
It was big. Its arms were thick, as were its legs. Its torso, its neck, its lips, its eyes—all were large and bulging. It reminded me of the depictions I’d read in martial arts stories in my previous life.
There was another high-pitched shriek. Two people were frantically running in our direction and away from the ape. One was a scrawny man with a pack on his back who looked to be a hawker. The other, carrying a stringed instrument of some kind on her back, was a little girl—no—
“A halfling, huh,” Menel muttered.
She was definitely very short, and a pretty fast runner for her size. Her ears were pointed like leaves, and her hair was red and curly. I’d learned about halflings from Gus—they were a vagabond tribe of cheerful little people who enjoyed singing, dancing, and eating... Hmm, now wasn’t the time to be thinking about this.
The two of them ran madly towards us. The short girl caught up with the man and his goods and began to pass him. “What are you doing?!” she cried. “Dump it! Dump it, you dingbat!”
The hawker looked ghastly pale and was sweating profusely as he tried to run. “But—” he started.
“Nuts to your but! Oh, why me?!”
Before they could bicker any further, the giant ape charged them, and with two simultaneous yelps they darted away in opposite directions. Taking advantage of her small body, the girl rolled into an area heavily obstructed by branches.
It looked like she was going to be able to get away.
But she looked at the hawker, and saw that now he was the one being chased. Her eyes went hard with determination. Shouting, “Hey! Over here!” she picked up a tree branch and threw it at the ape. Evidently, she was hoping to draw its attention to her.
I stepped between the short girl and the ape instead.
“Look a—ah?! Wh-Who—W-Wai-Watch out...!”
When the giant ape saw that I had barged in front, it stopped its charge. Its large eyeballs rolled in their sockets towards me, and it stared. Then, its enormous mouth opened wide as it roared and threatened me with its long, thick canines. Its rage made the air tremble.
I stared unblinkingly into its eyes.
It roared again, pounding on its chest with the palms of its hands. The sound was incredible, like it was beating a set of enormous drums.
I stared unblinkingly into its eyes.
In my peripheral vision, Menel seemed to be helping the hawker to his feet, but I wasn’t going to take my eyes off the ape. I kept on staring. The ape was looking back at me while emitting a very low growl. Blood had told me that in an encounter with a wild animal, you lose the moment you look away.
Come on then. Wanna wrestle? I’m game.
I continued staring intensely, letting the ape know that I was more than willing to fight. Its growl grew steadily fainter, and it began to back off. Finally, the staring contest was ended by the ape breaking its gaze, and it turned around and headed back into the depths of the woods.
I breathed out.
I didn’t have to fight. What a relief, I thought, and turned around.
“Are you all right?” I said, and the halfling girl came flying at me.
“What was that?! What was that, that was crazy crazy crazy! Hey tell me tell me, who are you, an adventurer?! Giant apes don’t stop just ’cause you look at them, that’s just wow, I mean wow!”
Her eyes were sparkling with curiosity.
◆
“I’m Robina! Robina Goodfellow! I’m a troubadour, I sing, I dance, I go where the wind takes me, you can call me Bee! And this dweeb is a hawker, he’s Antonio! But I call him Tonio! The ships of the trading company he was working for all sank one after another and it folded, so now he passes himself off as a hawker on country roads at the border!”
Robina had red, curly hair and a childlike physique. A halfling girl—could I call her a girl? A “young woman,” perhaps? She looked small, but she probably had a longer lifespan than humans, so I wasn’t really sure of her age. What I did know: she talked a lot. I’d never met anyone like her before.
“Hahaha... I don’t believe there’s anything left for me to say. Hello, my name is Antonio. Please feel free to call me simply Tonio. As Robina says, I’m a lowly hawker of goods. I was on my way back to where I’m based in Whitesails, when... well, dear me, that was a close shave. Thank you truly.”
Antonio was a bearded man somewhere in his late thirties. He looked peaceable and friendly, but a little fatigued, lacking any get-up-and-go... Yeah, no offense to him, but I could see where Robina was coming from with her “dweeb” comment.
“I’m Meneldor. I used to be an adventurer, but now I’m a hunter around here. I was just going to town to buy some stuff. And this is—” Menel looked at me.
Self introductions were never my strong point—not in my previous world, and not in this one. I always got nervous at times like this. “William. William G. Maryblood. I’m an adventurer, and a priest to the god of the flame, Gracefeel.” I made sure to smile. “Call me Will.” Yeah, that was probably passable.
“Woww that’s a real noble’s name, wait did you say Gracefeel?! Gracefeel’s that one right, from the south! The god that has basically no priests anymore! Whoaaa, what a discovery you are! And you’re not just a priest you’re also a skilled warrior? I mean you must be, who else just stands in the way of a giant ape?! So are you or what?!”
“That’s about right,” Menel said on my behalf. “He looks a little slow, but he’s ridiculously good. I mean, I’ve been walking with him, and there’s hardly been a single beast attacking us.”
“You mean even the beasts know how much stronger he is and they avoid him?! Whoaa, that’s amazing!”
Hm? “There’s normally more beasts than this?” I asked.
“What about you two, you alone?” Menel asked, looking around. “Didn’t you have any bodyguards? They get killed or something?”
“Well, the thing about that, you see... I’m ashamed to admit that when we ran across the giant ape, they all ran off...”
“And they made such a foofaraw over it that the ape got worked up and then look what happened! Giant apes never attack people normally!” Robina sounded very frustrated. “They just look scary, they’re actually really nice!”
When Menel heard this, he burst out laughing. “So they showed up totally unprepared, ripped you off the up-front payment, and ran for it! You need to work on your eye for people, brother, if you’re gonna be a merchant!” Cackling, he slapped Antonio on the shoulder several times sympathetically. Antonio looked embarrassed and timid.
It seemed like this was something every adventurer went through once or twice. That was a bit of a shock... More importantly, though, that meant that these two had lost their protection.
“What are you going to do now?” I asked. “If you like—”
“We can tag along if you want,” Menel chimed in. “You can pay us back later.” His eyes were very loudly saying, You leave the negotiating to me! so I was forced to keep my mouth shut.
“Hmm. And how would you like us to do that?”
“I’m looking to buy some draft animals from Whitesails. I’ve been helping this guy out with some ruin-hunting, and we made out pretty well from it, so I want to use the money to take the strain off the people back at the village.”
“Ah, I see! Yes, I wouldn’t mind helping you with that, of course. I have connections with a merchant I can introduce you to.”
“That’s a big help. Sorry for butting in. This guy can be a bit... His world knowledge has a few holes.”
“Oh, so I was right with the noble birth thing? He does kinda give you that feeling, doesn’t he?! Sheltered maybe, or like, naïve...”
“L-Look, there’s no point saying where I came from, you probably wouldn’t believe me, and anyway, it’s not something I can go spreading around...”
“So you’re an adventurer from a noble house who’s gotta keep his past a secret ’cause of noble business?! I get it! And not only that, a priest to a forgotten god! Wahaaa! How magical! My poet’s brain is loving this!”
Wait... what? It seemed like no matter what we said, it only deepened her misunderstanding...
◆
What followed that was several more days of walking along the trail through the unchanging late-winter scenery of Beast Woods.
Robina and Antonio quickly became Bee and Tonio. Tonio was gentle-mannered and skilled at closing the distance between himself and others; as for Bee, she held nothing back, to the point where I found it doubtful whether the concept of closeness with other people existed in her head to begin with.
Every time we got to a village, she would whoop out something like, “Woohoo! Here I am, baby!” with a rowdy and cheerful laugh, and make sure everyone there had a wild time. After she’d sung, danced, livened up the place, and had plenty of tips thrown at her, Tonio would then open up shop. By then, everyone would be in a good mood, and their purse strings nice and loose.
They were a pretty effective combination. Even Menel was impressed by the way they did business. According to him, there were good hawkers and bad hawkers, just like everything else. They weren’t all like Tonio; there were also a lot of aggressive sellers and others that were not much different from petty thieves. Which probably meant it was true that Tonio had originally come from a reputable company.
Tonio now had me with him, and he was putting this new element to fantastic use as well. Bee gathered people together, then I asked whether there were any sick or injured among them, gave them treatment, and we transitioned from a celebration of their recovery into a party. Apparently, the parties were getting into full swing even faster now because of this new approach.
“Okay,” I said. “Show me your affliction.”
I cast the miracles of Cure Illness and Close Wounds on everyone I could.
Just as the essence of magic was creation from chaos using the Words, the essence of benediction was rewriting reality using the influence and benevolence of the gods, the higher beings of this world. It really was faintly terrifying how people were healed as if nothing had ever happened to them in the first place, almost like erasing a part of a pencil drawing and effortlessly redrawing it. The greatness of the gods could never be matched by human magic.
Benediction was inflexible—you had to become the servant of a specific deity, each of which had a specific focus—so it was not a superset of magic, and there was some separation between the two fields, but every time I re-examined benediction, I was reminded of what an incredible power it was.
This power was one I was borrowing from Gracefeel. I had to be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking it was my own power. If I ever did, I was sure that nothing good would come of it.
“E-Excuse me,” said the housewife I’d treated for burn scars on her arms, “how much should I give you in return for this...?”
“Oh, that’s not necessary. I’m only in training at the moment, and your thanks should go to the god of the flame, not to me. If you still feel like you owe something, please buy an item from Tonio.” The woman bowed to me several times, then went over to where Tonio had laid out his wares. Menel was giving me a reproachful look for describing myself as “in training.”
I wasn’t pulling a fast one on her... I really was in training...
And like that, we walked from village to village treating people, playing songs, and selling things and buying them as we headed north over ten days.
I couldn’t say just how far we’d traveled; the forest paths were constantly twisting, and we’d taken quite a lot of detours to stop by villages that Tonio knew. My senses told me we’d walked quite far, but it wasn’t easy for a person on the ground to convert that into a straight-line distance.
In any case, today was another day in the gloomy forest.
After an age spent doing nothing but walking, there was a huge, sudden cheer at the head of our group from Bee. As I ran up to her to see what was up, my surroundings got brighter and brighter, and then my view cleared.
There were no trees to the left or right, and there was no gloom or darkness.
When I looked up, light was pouring down from the sun which had started to tilt into the western sky. A clear blue sky of an imminent spring was spread out overhead. I lowered my eyes; the road gently meandered towards the horizon, and on both sides was a series of partitioned fields, creating a patchwork of beautiful, natural colors. A gust of wind blew, and the young, green wheat swayed.
Even though it wasn’t cold, I got goosebumps.
“WHEAT ROAD!! YAHHOOOO!!”
Bee danced around, then grabbed Tonio by both hands and spun around in circles.
Menel gazed at the wheat swaying in the wind, deep in thought.
The sheer expansiveness of the plain left me speechless for a while as well—then Bee grabbed my hands, and I too was dancing in circles. I laughed in spite of myself, and started goofing off with her.
However, because we spent so much time fooling around, the sun started to set well before we could make it to the nearest village. Visiting late at night and getting mistaken for robbers would just be stupid, and we happened to have come across a little shrine, so we decided to set up camp there.
“Heheh, I’m in a good mood today!” Bee said. “Why don’t I perform for you all? Free of charge!” She took out a small three-stringed instrument shaped a bit like a pear (it was apparently called a rebec), and placed a bow against the strings with an overdramatic flourish.
“Ooh!” Menel said. “Generous of you.”
She laughed proudly. “Oh right, have to pick something. Of the recent songs... Reystov the Penetrator is overplayed right now, but then the Berkeley Tale of Valor is such old hat...” She hummed in thought for a moment. “Right, I know! I can do one of the epics of the Three Heroes from the famous Killing of the High King. The Wandering Sage, the War Ogre, and the Beloved Daughter! Sound good?”
I thought my heart was going to stop.
“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Tonio said.
“Seems a fair choice,” said Menel.
“Come to think of it I haven’t played for a li’l while. Um, ’sup Will?”
“U-Uh, nothing, it’s nothing! Please, go on! I’d love to hear it!”
“Oho! Nice, nice, that’s just what I like to hear! Okay, let’s get started!”
The bowstrings started to sing. It was a sad tone that made the air tremble, bringing back memories of distant homelands. My heart was pounding.
“Time marcheth on; nay, mayhap we are the travelers.” Bee’s voice, usually full of cheer, now took on a deep and mournful quality, the words carrying clearly through the night air. “The veritably strong, even the ingenious sage and holy maiden—they too perish alike with the turns of the moon, ’til nary a thing save for ash and a name endures...”
The sounds of the strings echoed through the air.
They had survived.
“Wherefore let the melody play strong, praying meanwhile that their deeds be everlasting, their heroic names echo down the ages.”
The sound of her voice was creating an indescribable sense of excitement inside me.
They had survived.
“Tonight I speak of the Killing of the Wyvern, but one of the many deeds of the Three Heroes...” Bee smiled at me. “Everyone, if I may have your silence and attention.”
They had survived! Their names, even now, still survived!
◆
In the small, dusty, and poorly lit shrine, the rebec’s melody echoed out with the crackling of the campfire.
After her prologue, Bee spoke masterfully about the heroes that would feature in the story. I was in a trance, almost as if I was floating on air. I felt such pride, such happiness... I had such fond memories of those days.
“The first, a child born in the south, in a remote settlement of savages. As he raised his first cry, a star fell from Leo, so it is told. The child grew and grew strong, and departed for parts unknown with his demonblade tempered by a shooting star. Known as the Lion, Star Sword, the Hired Blade, the Gods’ Gift to Warfare... this man was Blood, the War Ogre. His path was the course of a raging blood storm, and his shouts of victory boomed forth like the roars of a lion.”
My heart was dancing. Damn you, Blood, you didn’t speak about yourself at all. So that was the history behind that sword...
“In the islands of Middle-Sea was an infant with a gift: a natural affinity with Words. Bandits attacked his homeland; thereupon he confounded them with fog, and repelled them. The wise men of the time invited that child prodigy to their place of education. He leaped up the ranks thereof, two at a time. Yet soon he stood down from his position, and spake his immortal words: ‘There is no truth in academia.’ The Wild Wanderer, the Unrecognized Great Mind, the Torrent, the Culture Connoisseur—these are the names of Gus, the Wandering Sage. His true name unknown to the world, who knows now the depths of his mind and heart?”
No one knew the name Augustus? Come to think of it, Gus had said that some sorcerers, being users of the Words, thought that names were Words of power themselves, and so concealed their own, and went by only a nickname or an initial. I guessed that the reason he’d so readily told me his real name was that he’d stopped being cautious about it after he died.
“Whence hailed the woman? Perchance a shamanic noblewoman of our own land; perchance the princess of a land afar. Or it may have been that a constellation of fresh-verdure spirits coalesced and formed her sparkling eyes of emerald, and the resplendency of the heavens solidified and became her flowing, golden hair. Whencesoever she arose, how can we doubt that in such a divine form dwelt the soul of a goddess? The Saint of the South, the Unmercenary Maiden Martyr, the Bringer of Blessings, the Dainty Flower... Mary, known also as Mater’s Daughter. Her white and merciful hands, to which even fierce beasts bowed their heads, were the brilliant light that pierced through the darkness.”
It seemed that Mary’s history was unknown, and she was speculated as being of noble birth. I had to agree that her dignified style brought that kind of thing to mind, but if Mary had said to me, “Oh, it’s nothing like that. I was born in a poor little hamlet!” I’d easily have been able to see that, too.
After all, Mary loved puttering around in the garden, sowing flower seeds. And once spring came, even the garden beside that temple would burgeon with blossoms...
“Long past now are those bygone days...”
Their voices, their faces, their words—they filled the inside of my mind, and I felt tears starting to come to my eyes.
“Ahh, memories and feelings as numerous as the stars: if thou hast no way home, I can but play thee loud, and carry thee on the blowing winds...”
The tale began.
◆
Blood had apparently once been a wandering sword for hire. The Union Age was mostly a time of peace, but even then, there had been a lot of fighting in outlying areas like this, against goblins, beasts, and other humans. Blood was one of those ruffians full of fight, earning his money by risking his life sticking his neck into all kinds of conflicts.
Come to think of it, I remembered him once giving me a suspiciously detailed lecture on the secrets to staying out of trouble when selling your sword skills. That must have referred to this.
And one day, a certain incident led Blood to meet Gus, and they resolved that problem together. The barbaric swordsman learned of the way of the wise man, and learned to rein in his wild nature and add the sharpness of intelligence to his blade—or so Bee’s story went. But if they were the same back then as when I had known them, I could see Gus as the admittedly intelligent loose cannon, and Blood as the one with a surprising amount of common sense who followed after him, astounded by but used to the wizard’s antics.
Their free-roaming journey continued, and one day, Mary entered the picture. Where that happened and what brought them together were apparently shrouded in mystery, but it was known that Mary established herself within the party as a surprising source of strength and decisiveness—yeah, I could imagine that—and the three, their abilities and personalities now balanced, built up a name for themselves as heroes of the hinterlands.
With that introduction out of the way, Bee began her recital of the story proper, saying that it was just one of their many deeds. It had occurred near some remote villages, and there had been a monster in the nearby mountains: a wyvern.
Wyverns were winged demidragons capable of flight, although if I remembered Gus’s lectures correctly, it was the subject of academic debate whether to categorize them as demidragons or beasts. Although wyverns breathed fire like dragons, they had no front legs and were smaller, weaker, and more simpleminded.
Even so, they were still a significant threat. Hunting a wyvern required a reasonably sized, trained team to attack its nest. It was extremely difficult to secure a victory on flat land against a wyvern when it had absolute control over the sky.
It was also said that some rare wyverns could speak the language of dragons. These wyverns served the dragons, and lizardmen exalted them. As for the wyvern in these mountains, it was one like a beast: it had low intelligence and was unable to talk.
From time to time, when the wyvern got hungry, it would attack the villages, destroy the barns, and carry off the beasts of burden.
The people of the villages discussed the problem together, and decided to offer up one person a year as a sacrifice for the wyvern. In remote regions such as these, work animals’ lives were often more valuable than people’s.
The one chosen that year was a beautiful half-elf girl from a nearby village. Her elven side came from her grandparents; the parents she was born to were both human. Naturally, the father suspected the mother of being unfaithful, and there were considerable arguments between them.
As she grew up, the girl herself became a source of discord due to her beauty. Some fought over her, while others looked at her with jealousy and envy and treated her as an outcast. The resulting strife led people to keep their distance, and from there, it was inevitable that she would be the one chosen to be sacrificed.
I once heard from my parents that it was hard for a half-elf to gain equal treatment living among humans, or even elves. Half-elves were beautiful, skilled, and lived long lives, yet not to the same extent as elves. Their only options were to stand in their natural place at the top of society, be placed at the bottom, or distance themselves entirely and live as hermits. Too exceptional to be a human and too quickly maturing to be an elf, it was hard for them to be treated as equals in either society. Menel’s past had unfortunately followed the same pattern.
When Mary, Blood, and Gus dropped by the village and heard the situation, they had differing opinions. As the story went, Mary was strongly in favor of rescuing her, Blood asked if Mary planned on raising her as well and where the hell the money was going to come from, and Gus remained silent in contemplation.
It felt to me as though the actual conversation had probably been similar, but slightly different. The personalities the characters had in the story felt slightly off, particularly where Gus and Blood were concerned, and especially with respect to Gus’s fixation on money.
In any case, what ended up happening was that Blood gathered the villagers together and told them, “We can kill the wyvern. Is there anyone who can pay? Would you like to pay money to have the wyvern killed?”
A stir ran through the crowd of villagers, and their only response was silence. As things stood, the villages were functioning. What would happen if this failed and the wyvern was only injured and became enraged? And supposing they succeeded, adventurers who could kill a wyvern would command an enormous sum in reward money. Did they really want to go so far to save the sacrifices?
Amid the silence, Blood clucked his tongue and headed back to their lodging, leaving Mary with the words, “See that? That’s reality.”
But that night, the three were visited by a poor farm boy. The boy, who by the looks of it hadn’t been taught any manners, gruffly held out several coins for them to take: copper coins coated in verdigris, and silver coins with worn-down edges and blackened faces. He didn’t speak, but these were clearly the boy’s entire savings.
Blood said, “You want us to fight a wyvern for this pittance?”
But Gus snatched the coins from the boy’s hand, took a good, long look at the dirty currency, which didn’t even have a hint of a shine, and said, “Ohh, yes, this is good money. Look at how it sparkles.”
I was sure that was word for word what he said because I could visualize the scene as clear as day.
“Don’t you agree, Mary?”
“Oh, I couldn’t agree more, Gus. We’ve been given something very special.”
“Mm. And I think, in light of the fact that we have received something of such value...”
“We’ll have to do our job, won’t we?” Mary smiled warmly, softly.
Blood scratched his head in frustration. “Goddamned softies. Working for nothing,” he muttered.
Then, the boy stepped up to Blood and proclaimed, “If it’s not enough, I’ll pay with myself. You saw them. No one here’d have the guts to come after me if you took me away. Sell me to a slave dealer or whatever you want.”
“You ain’t worth jack,” Blood said, returning him a hard stare.
The boy didn’t look away.
Blood broke into a broad smile. “Heh. So you do have guts. Guess even runts can be warriors.” He cast his eyes over the boy. "I’m a warrior, too. And when one of us warriors swallows his pride and asks for help, we oughta support each other. So... what the hell." He ruffled the boy’s hair, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Let’s get it done.”
“Yes.”
“Mm.”
And the three took on the wyvern.
◆
The wyvern soared. It flew fast against the wind, acting as if the sky was all its own. It was thinking that today was about the day for its food to get placed on the field at the base of the mountain. It was simpleminded, but it had enough intelligence to roughly follow the passage of time.
There was a simple altar in the field, and by it stood the sacrifice, wearing a veil and with her head lowered towards the ground. The creature swooped down, intent on devouring her.
At that moment, the wyvern was knocked back by an expanding wall of light. Rich, golden hair flowed from behind the sacrifice’s veil.
It was Mary.
Without allowing the wyvern a second to recover, Gus appeared from behind the altar and cast the Word of Knotting. The wyvern immediately attempted to withdraw from this unexpected situation, but it had no freedom to resist. In an instant, its wings were magically bound, and it plummeted to earth.
The sound it made as it hit the ground was booming, but the wyvern’s body was tough. It drew a deep breath, preparing to defend itself against its sudden adversaries. Blood raised a war cry and charged, his sword firmly gripped in both hands, ready to strike.
The wyvern breathed fire.
Behind Blood, Mary was praying. Her blessing protected him and scattered the flames. Gus’s fingers drew the Word of Knotting again and again, forbidding the monster flight. The sky denied to it, the wyvern bared its fangs and thrust its head at its attackers. A single swing of Blood’s two-handed sword sent it flying from the rest of its body.
In that instant, did the wyvern’s head realize what had happened to it? Three little “meals”—that was all there had been. And those little meals had killed it. Of course, its consciousness probably faded in a second or less as jets of blood spouted and soaked the earth.
The following day, the villagers came to check on the sacrificial altar and discovered the decapitated corpse of the wyvern, stripped of every part that could be exchanged for cash.
After that, Mary, Gus, and Blood took the poor boy and the half-elf girl with them and headed for a city. There was no place in the village for those two anymore.
Blood asked them what they were going to do, and the boy replied he’d come up with something. Hearing this, Blood gave the boy a dagger to keep with him. It was a magical dagger engraved with Words.
“Old Gus engraved Words on it. It’ll do more for you than most amulets. Every warrior’s gotta have a short sword or a dagger. Can’t show off without one.”
“Please take this, too,” Mary said, handing the girl a bag. “Take care of your bodies, and of each other. I’m sure you have lots of hard times ahead of you, but please, don’t forget how important it is to persevere.”
They looked inside the bag. It was full of silver and copper coins.
They both turned it down as fast as they could. This was more than the reward the boy had paid the three to do the job! The girl protested, too—they couldn’t accept something like this. But Gus shrugged and said, “Hmph. Whoever said I was giving it to you? This is an investment. I’m lending it, nothing more.”
The two tilted their heads to the side in confusion. Lending it?
“Here is what we want from you,” Gus said. “Live hard, increase your wealth, make a name for yourselves. Spread your names far and wide, so wherever they go, they are accompanied by thunderous applause. And when your names reach our ears, that is when we or a delegate we dispatch will come to collect what we lent you, plus interest.”
Then Gus said he would tell them his real name, which they would use as a code word, and to remember it well. And so the boy and the girl learned the name of the Wandering Sage, the name unknown by anyone in this world.
The boy and the girl took each other by the hand and headed to the city together, and the Three Heroes took the main road in search of new adventures. And so, under a blue sky, the tale of the Three Heroes’ Killing of the Wyvern came to an end.
“And there’s a bit of a rumor that comes with this story...” Bee grinned mischievously. “Count Dagger of the Fertile Kingdom... They say his proper surname was Wizardsdagger.” The strings reverberated, the note and the story both lingering pleasantly. “Even today, at the count’s mansion, an old half-elf lady is waiting for the Sage’s delegate.”
Then...
“The Sage passed away, but she still believes that one day, a delegate who knows his true name will come.”
Their names...
“And she will return the dagger, the money she was lent, and the interest, as well as the amount that was entrusted to her husband.”
Their names were still echoing.
“And she will say her thanks for what was done for her.”
Over two hundred years later, and they were still echoing, right up to the present.
“And that’s the end of my story. A story of great heroes that echoes down the ages, even today... Huh? Will? Will, are you crying?”
As she tilted her head and peered into my face, I panicked. My face was bright red, and my eyes were blurry with tears. I was only moments from a complete breakdown. “C-Crying?! No, I’m not crying!”
“Ohh yes you are! Your eyes are red!” Bee gave a satisfied laugh. “My awesome storytelling touched you, didn’t it?”
“N-No, no it didn’t!”
“Hehehe, fess up fess up!”
We teased and ribbed each other a lot that evening. As we joked together, I felt that something warm had flared to life inside my chest.
Blood, Mary, Gus.
There are so many people in this world besides me who still remember you.
There were so many.
And I could cry for joy.
◆
The following day, I was outside the shrine before the first light of dawn, practicing thrusting my spear and pulling it back. The fact that I had been on night watch duty since late last night had something to do with it, and I was just a little excited as well.
I’d now heard about the “Fertile Kingdom.” It was a country that had expanded from Grassland down here to Southmark. Count Dagger was nobility, and the expansion of the Fertile Kingdom to Southmark was a new development of the past few decades, so the half-elf woman in the story was probably back on the other continent. Which meant that if I crossed the sea, I could find someone I could talk to about Blood, Mary, and Gus.
I had a lot of things to deal with right now, so I couldn’t just drop everything, but one day I wanted to cross the sea and pay her a visit. Thrusting the spear forward again with a grunt, I thought about how I wanted to feel like I’d earned the right to say with pride, I was a member of their family.
Mixing in some footwork, I jabbed out with my spear again, sharply. And sharper again.
In the language of battle techniques, “sharpness” didn’t refer to simple speed. It referred to the swiftness of the switch between stillness and action.
Stillness...
Explosive motion.
Stillness...
Explosive motion.
Sharper. Sharper. Sharper still—
“Lo. I see you’re hard at work already.”
The voice broke me out of my concentration. How many of those practice thrusts had I done? I was pretty short of breath, so it had probably been at least a hundred.
“Tonio.”
The one who had come out of the aged shrine was the man with the beard and mild smile. I went to put away my spear.
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Please continue.”
“Ah, thanks...”
That said, I’d allowed myself to get way too absorbed in practice. I still had walking to do today, so it would do me no good to exhaust myself by pushing my body to its limits. I had to do some cooling down exercises anyway, so I decided to just practice my form. Tonio sat down on a nearby stump and watched me.
“I must say, you are strong, Will.”
“Am I? You think so?”
“Well, I’m not sure how much this is worth, coming from someone who was cheated by a group of fraudulent adventurers...” Tonio laughed as if to conceal his embarrassment.
I listened while practicing my form with slow, gentle movements. Knock away the opponent’s weapon, lower myself, upwards thrust...
“But I can at least tell that your movements are very polished. And more than that, if I may give my opinion as a merchant...”
“What is it?”
“I believe that spear to be a dwarven masterpiece, and you look perfectly natural with it. Someone who’s a perfect match for a gem like that must be a gem themselves.” He shrugged. “However, there is something I don’t understand.”
“Something you don’t understand?”
“Yes,” he said. I suddenly noticed that behind his gentle gaze were the keen eyes of a merchant carefully evaluating a product. “What is it that you truly seek?”
◆
I paused and tilted my head to the side. “Truly seek? Hmm, well, what I want is for the god of the flame—”
“Those are your desires as a priest. Well, perhaps once one is a saintly priest, it becomes a way of life, but all the same... Do you not have any individual desires?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Because I am a merchant.” Tonio laughed. “That which abounds far away, I sell close by, and that which abounds close by, I sell far away. That is what it means to be a merchant. Our business is in moving products, granting people’s wishes, and ensuring their satisfaction in exchange for an appropriate price.”
He spoke openly and honestly, but his tone was serious. It dawned on me that this was the creed which he lived his life by.
“And yet... I cannot picture how you could be satisfied,” Tonio continued. “You are a bit of a mystery. You have muscular arms and plenty of pluck. Based on the way you heal difficult wounds and illnesses, you have earned the gods’ blessings. I sense etiquette and erudition in the way you act, and you seem to have built up a financial cushion as well. And yet, you are sensitive enough to shed tears at a famous story as if you have barely experienced life at all. I have never seen a person quite like you before. It seems to me that ‘nobility’ is not quite accurate. You are like the holy knights that one hears about in stories.”
Tonio smiled with his whole face. “So for my own edification, I thought I would ask you directly while I have the opportunity. What is it that you, as an individual, are looking for? Or are you indeed a representative of God through and through?”
I had to think about the answer. What did I want from the outside world—from this world? In fact, to begin with...
“Tonio, I, um... prior to now, I was living in a small and happy place, with people who... well, they were the ones who raised me, they were my teachers, and I also thought of them as my family. But just before I was due to set off on my own and become independent, I suddenly lost those people and was forced to leave. In their place, I gained the protection of the god of the flame.”
Those events with the god of undeath—it seemed unreal, but they had only happened a few weeks ago.
“I still know so little about the world—about anything, really—so I’m basically just mindlessly following the mission my god sets for me, I think.”
I didn’t know anything about this place, so how was I meant to know what I wanted here? I thought that I probably needed first to learn about this world, this world that Blood and Mary and Gus had fought to protect, and I told him that. “So, the first thing I want to do is learn about the world. I think I’ll discover what I want as I encounter things and learn about them.”
As I said it, an image came into my head of Blood, Mary, and Gus laughing, and I pictured their exploits together.
I looked down a little, embarrassed. “Also, I... I’d like to make some friends... I guess.”
That was something I hadn’t been able to obtain in my previous world. A gang of friends like Mary and Gus had been to Blood. Those three had been my parents and teachers, but this was something they hadn’t been able to give me, something I needed to go out into the world and obtain for myself.
“Is Menel not a friend?” Tonio asked.
Put on the spot, I gave a single laugh while I thought of an answer. “I think we get along pretty well, but he won’t look at me as a friend, you know? And everyone else puts me on a pedestal, calling me ‘sir’ or ‘Father’ or something...” I couldn’t get used to that, and I felt uncomfortable being respected so much when I was so ignorant about so many things. If Menel said we were friends, I had a feeling it would make me pretty happy.
“Yeah,” I said. “Friends would be nice...”
Voicing it brought home the reality. I was saying I wanted friends because even at the age of fifteen (according to the solstice system), I didn’t have a single one. That was pretty darn bad, I had to admit. So much so that it was a little bit funny. People really don’t change much.
“I see.” Having heard my answer, Tonio smiled cheerfully. “Then perhaps I will put myself forward for the third place position.”
“Huh?”
“I fear incurring the wrath of Menel and Robina if I beat them to the punch.”
Seeing me tilt my head in confusion, Tonio laughed loudly and rose from the stump. The sun had risen without me noticing. “All right. Let’s collect some water and start preparing breakfast.”
Tonio was good at cooking. For breakfast, he made bread by mixing flour with water, kneading it into dough, winding it around a stick, then heating it over the campfire. It was simple, but eaten steaming hot with cheese, some lightly grilled bacon dripping with grease, and a little salt sprinkled on top, the result was delicious.
According to Bee, Tonio’s skill at cooking was the reason she was accompanying him. Apparently she was a halfling who really enjoyed eating.
As for me, I had learned how to cook, generally speaking, but the ingredients available to me in that city of the dead were extremely limited, so there wasn’t much I knew how to make. And Menel, in contrast to his pretty exterior, was the kind of guy who didn’t care about taste so long as he had something to eat, and it showed in his cooking. Tonio’s presence had enriched our daily meals considerably.
We ate the holy bread I was bestowed each morning after my prayer as a snack while on the road. Meals were eaten two or sometimes three times a day in this world. Physical laborers in particular usually had a midday meal, and right now, we were in the middle of a journey. Walking all day took a lot of energy. I wanted a midday meal if I could get one, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to stop walking. Tonio had been the one to suggest that we should light a fire for breakfast and leave the holy bread for lunchtime, and it had sounded like a perfectly good plan to me.
“You ask me when I’ll be back home / I wish I knew that great unknown.”
Bee often sang as we walked.
“The heavens open on a stagnant pond / We both fall silent as the rain beats on.”
She didn’t much care whether it fit the mood.
“If we don’t know when, we’ll say ‘someday’ / That someday, we’ll embrace again / And laugh about today.”
Oh. I thought it was going to be a depressing song about lovers, but it flowed beautifully into a hope-filled ending. Clever.
“Hehe.” Bee sounded proud. “It’s a pretty nice one, isn’t it?”
“The final verse felt like a ray of light piercing through the clouds.”
“Yeah, exactly!” Bee said, equally entranced by the lyrics. “That’s what’s so great about it.”
She really did like songs and poetry.
Chatting like that, we passed through several villages, which became more flourishing the further north we went.
Occasionally, we even came across places big enough to call a town, with probably over a thousand people living in them. In places like that, Tonio would quickly buy and sell and gather information, and then we’d move on. He looked like he’d mastered this process. I thought again about just how good of a merchant he probably was.
“Oh, right, I meant to ask you,” said Menel. “How’s Whitesails doing right now?”
I suddenly realized that he, too, had been cooped up in a remote village, so it must have been some time since he visited the port.
“The Fertile Kingdom is in a transition period at the moment with its new king,” Tonio said.
“Wait, you mean Egbert II has...?”
“Yeah,” said Bee. “His posthumous name’s ‘Egbert the Bold,’ they’re saying. He was a pretty good king, I thought...”
“So he’s dead...” Menel closed his eyes. Somehow, I felt the dignified character of an aged half-elf in him.
According to Tonio and Bee, the Fertile Kingdom had recently suffered the passing of its king, and a new king had succeeded him.
The one who had enriched the kingdom thus far and shown an eagerness to expand into the southern regions was King Egbert II, also known as Egbert the Bold. After his death, he was succeeded by his son and heir, Prince Owen. From listening to them talk, I got the impression that King Egbert II had been a pretty brilliant man, and at the same time, the kind of person to want to run the show all on his own.
Although King Egbert II ran the kingdom excellently and led it to prosperity, the local feudal lords were not the least bit happy at having their rights and interests gradually eroded by the domineering tactics of the king and the aristocrats who were advising him. However, because he was actually producing results, they were unable to openly criticize him.
It was at a time like this that Egbert II’s love of alcohol came back to haunt him. His death came suddenly and was attributed to a stroke or something similar. He may have surrounded himself with priests offering strong divine protection, but there was apparently nothing they could do in a case like this where he was there one moment and gone the next.
King Owen, who inherited the throne, was in the prime of his life, but was said to be a pretty undistinguished person. He wasn’t a degenerate or a wayward thinker, but he was neither as talented nor as wise as his father. In terms of the report cards I got from school in my past life, he would have gotten a run of Bs and Cs, but no As, even when including extra points for having the right attitude.
In terms of his personality, he didn’t possess his father’s decisiveness either, and the feudal lords that the previous king had kept under his thumb seized on the opportunity to assert themselves. They insisted that expanding to the south was a bad idea after all. King Owen replied that it was good, and that they should continue it. To which the lords complained about “our expenses” this, “our forces” that, “our defenses are suffering,” and on and on, ad infinitum.
“Isn’t that... pretty bad?”
“It is. It seems that the political situation over on the continent is a little chaotic. Fortunately, however, Southmark has not been greatly affected thus far. That would be due to Owen’s younger brother being dispatched here. His Excellency is an extremely gifted individual.”
The king’s brother, Ethelbald Rex Fertile, was a youthful man in his thirties. He was the son of Egbert II and his second wife, and didn’t share the same mother as King Owen; however, it was said that he took after his father, excelling equally in the arts of the sword and the pen.
King Owen, concerned about the political turmoil, pushed through an order to demote his brother to the status of commoner. Then, he revived the extinct aristocratic family of Southmark, and ennobled his brother Duke Ethelbald Rex Southmark. In other words, he appointed him in charge of the entire expansion effort to Southmark.
Once Duke Ethel received his title, he gathered together a group vassals of both military and non-military prowess, finished making the necessary arrangements, and immediately crossed the sea to the south. As the turmoil on the continent continued—
“That all the necessary functions of government are somehow still operating around Whitesails is the result of His Excellency’s excellent governance.”
The situation seemed to be pretty dramatic.
As we talked about all these things, we walked up a road with fields on either side. The ears of wheat rustled in the wind. The air was cold; we were still in winter, but I could detect a hint of spring.
When we reached the top of the hill, the faint salty scent of the sea tickled my nose. Spread out before us was a horizon of ocean.
It was the bay.
Long stretches of land spread out on both sides, as if it were hugging the sea. The blue sea was busy with boats with white sails coming and going, and right in the inlet was a large town. My eyes caught the vivid red and brown tiled roofs, then the rows of white houses lining the slope towards the sea, the steeples, and the bell tower. And was that beautiful series of arches running along the outer edge of the city an aqueduct?
This was a city, an actual, living city. Several thousand people were probably living here—maybe even close to ten thousand. There were city streets filled with people. There was activity, the busyness of people going about their daily lives. Even though I was looking at it all from a great distance, I could feel the the city’s vibrancy like I was there in the middle of it all.
A city. An assemblage of human activity. It was a symbol of what Blood, Mary, and Gus had risked their lives to see protected.
As sunlight glittered on the surface of the sea, I remained gazing at the bustle of that dazzling city until Menel and Bee called my name.
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