Paladin Of The End Vol 3.1 Chapter 1

Paladin Of The End Volume 3.1 Chapter 1

The wisteria hanging from the pergola swayed in the breeze. We were in the courtyard of the lord’s mansion at the center of Whitesails, the city that was the gateway to the continent of Southmark. Flowers of bright colors blossomed in full glory under the mansion’s windows, surrounded by the brilliant white of its walls.


“Thank you very much for your trouble.” Under an arbor in the courtyard, His Excellency Ethelbald, Duke of Southmark and feudal lord of Whitesails, spoke to us in a solemn tone. The gentle sunlight of early morning surrounded us. “I expect you’re getting tired of hearing that from me,” he added, a smile crossing his face as his expression relaxed.

I wasn’t very good at coming up with witty responses, so while I was still thinking of what to say, Menel replied casually, “You got that right. Sending us to work every time something comes up...”

“That would be because the paladin is my retainer, after a manner at least.”

“And what about me, who isn’t your retainer? You’ve got me running around doing work for you as well, here.”

“If I mobilize Sir William, I get a second hero tagging along for free. Truly good value.”

“I’m not a freebie you got at some street stall.”

“But you are the dear friend of the paladin.” Another response shot back. “Just as a friend fights for his friend, so a knight fights for the people and his liege. Am I wrong?”

“Service, devotion, fealty... Sure, they sound attractive, but what’s the reality like? If you put too much burden on someone, he’s gonna grow unhappy with you. And once you start to suspect he resents you deep down, it’ll be hard to count on him when it really matters. Isn’t that how things work? I wonder what’s gonna happen when you have to go up against something scary without this hero to help you.” Menel pointed at me with an exaggerated motion.

Menel had no direct allegiance to Ethel, and he had nerve and no restraint. He would be frank with anyone, even a member of the royal family.

I couldn’t remember clearly what had gotten Ethel and Menel talking, but conversation between the two of them had become more frequent at some point during the past two years, and now they spoke quite a lot.

“Heheh. Indeed, indeed, the thought of my paladin running off is certainly scary. In that case, I had better keep him well compensated to make sure I keep him, hadn’t I?”

“Yeah, see, exactly. That kind of attitude’s important. Then this guy can feel good about showing you loyalty.”

Ethel laughed graciously. It looked like he was quite enjoying his exchange with Menel. That aside, I was coming to the frightening realization that some haggling about how I should be compensated had apparently been occurring just under the surface of their discussion. By the time I became aware of it, the flow of the conversation had already shifted to me receiving a reward.

“I shall see that money and items of your request are sent to you later. Now then, that aside, Sir William...”

“Y-Yes, what is it?”

“I have something I want to talk to you about. I would like you to give me Meneldor here.”

“Huh?”

From Ethel’s face alone, it was plain to see that he was serious, and his solemn tone removed all doubt.

“He is a skilled elementalist and a spectacular hunter. And not just that—he is a half-elf, slow to age, and he has no reservations about speaking his mind. I want him. I dearly want him!” The duke sounded like he was greatly enjoying himself.

I gave a half-laugh, half-sigh as I thought about what to say. “Your Excellency, Menel is not an object. As much as you say you want him, he is not mine to give.” I paused. “If he were to say he’d like to serve Your Excellency, then that would be another matter, but—”

“I serve no one,” Menel said, interrupting. “Like hell I’m gonna be bartered around like some dog or cat.”

Although Ethel had been demoted to commoner status, he was a member of the royal family. But this made no difference to Menel, who flatly rejected his offer, closing his jade eyes and waving a hand in front of his face to show he wasn’t remotely interested.

Ethel sighed upon seeing Menel’s reaction. “Dear, dear. What a shame. I can never have enough talented people, you see.”

The Duke of Southmark was from the northern continent of Grassland. Brother to the King of the Fertile Kingdom, he was in charge of expanding the kingdom into Southmark. He probably had a lot of difficult things to deal with and was always short of people and resources.

“I just need one more ship, I just need one more trustworthy, competent official... I am sure you too must have thoughts like these.”

“Yes. Especially recently... I’ve started to understand what that feels like.”

After being pushed into the position of lord of the region of Beast Woods and doing all kinds of work to develop the area, I’d developed a close familiarity with that kind of difficulty.

“I see. How is the river port?” asked Ethel.

“Fortunately, it’s going okay with everyone’s help, but there are a few issues...”

“Hm. Let’s hear them. Perhaps I can give you some advice.”

“Not very generous of you,” Menel said. “Only advice?”

“Material support as well. That is, if you are willing to take it in place of the reward I mentioned earlier...”

“Tch.”

The two of them smirked at each other. Then, from the entrance to the courtyard, I heard gravel being stepped on and the sound of heavy breathing.

Walking towards us while wiping copious amounts of sweat off his face was Bishop Bart Bagley, the man in charge of the main temple of Whitesails. He had a portly body and was wearing loosely fitting priest’s robes with gold and silver thread woven in. His movements exuded impatience, and he had a sternness to his expression that came from his quick-to-anger personality and the stress of his daily responsibilities.

As usual, he was a person who, to put it politely, did not impart all that positive an impression—but even so, I respected him.

He stopped in front of the arbor, gave a bow to Ethel, and then turned his gaze on Menel and me and gave us a long, searching stare. “Hmph. Returned victorious, I gather. I was expecting all the flattery from people calling you a hero and a peerless, brave warrior to have gone to your head and earned you a crushing defeat or two by now.”

I bowed to him. It was because he was someone who would speak like that to me that I continued to respect him as much as I did. I returned a full smile to him. He blasted air out of his nose and turned the other way.

As Ethel watched us, he let out a chuckle and said, “Thank you for coming, Bagley.” Then he composed himself, and his serious face was back. “Well then, let us hear your report of the incident.”

◆

“The fire of dark disaster shall catch in the mountains of rust. That fire shall spread, and this land may all be consumed.”

After we finished giving our account of the incident and the killing of the demon responsible, we then began to speak of the prophecy. Silence immediately descended upon the table under the arbor. Not reporting it hadn’t been an option.

“Those were the words the Lord of Holly used.”

“The Lord of the Woods said that...” His Excellency grumbled to himself and massaged his temples. “Beasts, then demons, and no sooner had I begun to think things had settled down than we face the unidentified threats of a ‘fire of disaster’ and ‘lord of miasma and wicked flame.’ The story I heard from you in the past, of the demons’ High King sealed in a city of the dead, also concerns me. The trouble never ceases, it seems. Good heavens, this continent. It never bores.”

I could sense considerable tiredness in him. Since becoming a paladin, I’d seen him forced to do a lot of work responding to demon plots, damage caused by beasts big and small, and all kinds of other things. He provided aid to settlements that had suffered real damage from attacks. He negotiated with the mainland to coax aid out of them. He had knights patrol areas to prevent damage before it happened. He employed adventurers on a temporary basis to hunt down and kill the causes of these problems. He took care of the documents necessary to carry out all of that. He actually traveled to the affected areas and provided consolation and on-site instruction. And of course, he couldn’t neglect normal city governance, either. I had never seen Ethel relaxing and enjoying a break.

Out of consideration for the duke, the bishop asked in his place. “Hunter, what level of power does this Lord of the Woods have? Can his so-called prophecy be trusted?”

“I have a name, old man.”

“As do I, boy.”

The two of them glared at each other and tutted. These two did not get on very well.

“U-Um, both of you, try to get along...”

“Hmph. Get along with this lout? You must be joking.”

Menel snorted. “You got that right. I hate self-important guys like him.”

The two of them openly displayed their displeasure of one another, Bishop Bagley by crossing his arms and looking down on Menel, and Menel by resting his chin on his hand and drawing his eyebrows together. It felt really uncomfortable that my friend and the person I respected hated each other’s guts so much.

As I wrung my hands, Ethel smiled brightly at the pair. “But I’m sure you’d both agree that as a business partner, the other is more than suitable, yes?”

“Well, indeed. I am not ignorant of his talents.”

“Wouldn’t even be in the same room as him otherwise.”

Neither of them sounded happy about it. His Excellency glanced in my direction and winked.

“Fine, whatever,” Menel said. “This is business. I’ll answer. Have a look at this.” He took a map out of the leather bag he’d been carrying and spread it out on the desk. We had obtained this map from Tonio, a merchant we were on friendly terms with. It was a detailed, pretty carefully crafted map of this area as it had been during the Union Age. Being two hundred years old, the map had changed quite a lot, and it was covered from corner to corner in Menel’s corrections.

He traced a finger across it as we all peered over. “So, first off, when I say ‘Lord of the Woods’—there are leylines around there which are like conduits for the mana in the earth.” He drew several invisible lines with his finger, probably representing the leylines, and then pointed at the spot where many of them crossed. “Where they meet, you have a Domain, and ‘Lord of the Woods’ refers to its lord. As for what a lord actually is, it varies. It can be a great fae dwelling in a tree or a boulder, an old wild animal that had its den in the Domain for a long time and gained intelligence, or a bunch of other things.”

Pausing for breath, Menel brushed his silver hair back behind his ear. “Not only do they live far longer than one or two hundred years, they’re directly connected to the leylines. They store up a lot of memories and knowledge, and are constantly drawing mana into their bodies from all the areas the leylines connect them to. The lord is the woods’ heart, its brain.”

This world was made up of Words. When the trees rustled, or sunlight filtered through the trees leaving patches of light and shadow, a skilled sorcerer could pick out faint Words from the fluctuation in mana and interpret them.

Of course, there was a limit to how much information a sorcerer could read from something like that. Even magic users as great as Gus, who had raised me with Blood and Mary and was known as the Wandering Sage, couldn’t learn all there was to learn just by listening to the rustling of trees. But Gus had also told me that was because we humans read Words within the framework of human thought. If it was a being much closer to Nature, then...

“The Lord of the Woods isn’t as powerful as the gods, who can even read the unwritten future to an extent, but... if this is coming from him, you can bet there’s a damn solid basis behind it.” Menel’s tone was firm. “It’s less a prophecy and more, uh, an educated prediction.”

Bishop Bagley hummed quietly. “It appears necessary to prioritize this matter, Your Excellency.”

“Yes. The Rust Mountains... Fallen capital of the dwarves, and a den of demons...”

Everyone under the shade of the arbor had a serious expression. It wasn’t surprising. There had been nothing but trouble recently, including many incidents not worth an explicit mention, and now, on top of it all, we had to contend with a ‘fire of disaster’ that would come from a den of demons. It would depress anyone.

So I decided to laugh.

“Sounds great!”

The three of them turned to look at me. I did my best to put on a huge grin.

“I can go as wild as I like!”

If you got ripped, you could solve pretty much everything by force. Blood gave very good advice. “We know the location of the problem, and even better, it’s in enemy territory, desolate to the point that there’s no risk at all of me hurting any bystanders! This problem was made for me!”

I clenched a fist as I said it, and Ethel couldn’t help but laugh. “Come to think of it, you’re right. Can I trust you with this, then, paladin?”

“Of course!”

Bishop Bagley and Menel both sighed at once and automatically glanced at one another, then snorted and looked away again.

“Give the word, and I’ll gather some men and head out at once—”

Ethel chuckled at my eagerness. “No, I doubt there’s a need to rush it that much.”

I nodded. I’d suggested it energetically on purpose to help clear away the gloom, but actually I was of the same opinion.

Everyone here was a quick thinker, so I was sure they’d all realized as well: regarding the “fire of disaster,” the Lord of Holly had said that “it shall not be long in coming,” but he had also promised us “a bountiful harvest” for the autumn. That meant that unless something happened that the Lord of the Woods didn’t foresee, we could safely assume that nothing would happen until autumn at least.

“I’m afraid that we don’t know very much regarding the Rust Mountains, either,“ Ethel said. “Can I also ask you to gather information?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I will try asking my friend who’s a troubadour and the dwarves who live at the port. As for the prophecy from the Lord of the Woods, we should keep it a secret between all of us here for the time being.”

Everyone nodded, as if to say they’d already been planning on it. The period from the summer to the autumn was the busiest time of year for the farmers, who made up the majority of the population. The summer wheat harvest wasn’t yet over, and they had a lot ahead of them once autumn came around: planting winter wheat, fattening up their livestock with nuts and berries from the woods, harvesting fruits, and making alcohol. Now that the threats of beasts and demons had finally been alleviated, everyone’s lives had begun to settle down and they were all looking forward to the harvest. At a time like this, none of us wanted to arouse fear in people by spreading unsettling rumors.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure this will work out somehow.” I forced a smile.

The duke laughed. “I start to believe it when I hear it from you.”

“Hmph. Don’t let the hero treatment go to your head, or your complacency will be the end of you,” Bishop Bagley said, showing his concern in his usual way.

Menel and I looked at each other and exchanged wry smiles.

◆

There was some further discussion over a host of little details, and then we left the mansion. His Excellency and the bishop seemed to have even more to talk about. They had it tough.

“So, what are we doing?” Menel asked. “Right now, I mean.”

“Let’s go see Bee first to get information on the Rust Mountains. She should be in the plaza right now.”

Menel gave a small grunt and pulled the hood of his cloak over his eyes. There was a reason he preferred to avoid attention.

“Fff.” Menel scrunched up his face as if to say he’d known this was coming. The plaza was filled with the sound of a three-stringed instrument known as a rebec.

“Near and far away, vicious-looking beasts ran riot. People and horses came and went no longer. The north wind drowned out wails and cries. Around the woods, the howls of beasts echoed.”

The tale being recited was one I had heard before, of people suffering at the hands of demons and the beasts they controlled.

A single young holy warrior with the blessing of the god of the flame appeared from parts unknown. The young warrior reformed a beautiful half-elven hunter who was turning to crime in that time of distress, and the two became friends. The warrior saved him from his predicament, and they headed to the city together.

What they encountered there was a wyvern bent on the city’s destruction. The warrior broke its neck with his bare hands and gained renown. He raised the people’s plight with the lord, who dubbed him a paladin for his commendable resolve. His name drew brave adventurers to his cause.

At last, the paladin and his party finally headed to the barren valley that was the base of the demons and their beasts. But they were caught in a despicable trap and forced to flee. The paladin fought his way out of the battle with the dark power of his sealed demonblade. But when his friend was gravely injured, the demonblade’s darkness came close to engulfing him.

As the warrior was nearly reduced to a berserker, his friend the half-elf brought him back with words and fist. Hot tears were shed; an embrace was shared. The two regained their solidarity, and gave battle to the beasts.

“Thus the heroes marched on the valley, where a great, clawed beast stood in their path. The head of a lion, with razor fangs. The head of a goat, with evil magic. The head of a dragon, with crimson fire. And its wriggling tail, a venomous snake. Its raging roars rent the wind, and its feet shook the earth as it walked.”

Leading the other beasts was a gigantic beast with three heads called a chimera. The warriors set up a wall of shields, raised their swords high, and bravely took on the pack. Among those warriors was a swordsman also known as the Penetrator, who used a sword faster and sharper than anyone else’s.

“William the Faraway Paladin and Meneldor of Swift Wings charged into battle together.”

Around here, the storyteller’s speech style began to heat up.

“O great god lost to history, O reticent guide of souls! God of the flame, ruler of the eternal cycle, Gracefeel! Will you guide our heroes to the darkness ravaging the frontier, and show your radiance to the world once more?!”

The chimera battle was tremendous. I listened as Sir William, with his peerless strength, grappled with the chimera and punched it with his bare hands. Ohh, he just punched the chimera and sent it flying. It hit a rock and smashed it in half. I let out a “whoa” in spite of myself. What a hero.

Menel, beside me, had a huge frown on his face.

When it came to the half-elven hunter, descriptions of his beauty abounded. Every time he did something, excited squeals would come from the audience, particularly the girls.

“Ahaha...”

Young men with brownish hair and blue eyes could be found everywhere, so I didn’t stand out that much. Menel, on the other hand, was a half-elf with silver hair and jade eyes. He couldn’t have been more distinctive. These stories meant he would become the center of all kinds of attention, so he was probably feeling a bit uncomfortable.

But as the passionate retelling of our chimera kill continued beyond the throng in the proud and happy voice of the storyteller, Menel’s expression softened, a reluctant smile crossed his lips, and he let out a sigh, as if the will to resist had deflated out of him.

At the same time, a loud cheer erupted from the audience. Sir William had just impaled the chimera’s lion head with his favorite spear.

◆

The tale ended, and tips were thrown. I waited for the audience to disperse, and as the troubadour was packing up, I waved a hand and called out to her in a subdued voice.

“Bee.”

Her pointed ears pricked up. It seemed that was all she’d needed. She whipped around in surprise, and her face lit up with a beaming smile. She came running over and catapulted herself at me, crying out, “You were listening!”

“It worked out that way, yeah!” I said as I caught her and spun in circles on the stone paving. She giggled playfully. This girl, a halfling troubadour with charming facial expressions, messy red hair, and the physique of a child, was our friend Robina Goodfellow. She was as bright as ever today.

“It looks like it’s still popular.”

“You have no idea. It’s my go-to staple thanks to you! Look at this!” Bee showed us a basket full of copper and silver coins. “Made a bundle yet again! Yeeeah!”

“Good to see our hard work is making piles of cash for someone,” Menel said jokingly.

“Awww. Okay then, it’s near enough lunch time anyway, I think I oughta pay you guys back a little!” Bee laughed, put her hands on her hips, and looked up at us. “What do you wanna eat, you two?”

“Meat,” Menel said immediately.

“You know if your fans heard that they’d be so let down.”

“Shaddup.”

“Don’t you have something a bit more, I dunno, something? Elf-like, elegant, you know.”

“Okay. Vegetables. Garnishing the meat.”

That got a laugh out of me.

In the poems and stories, elves were an elegant tribe living in the depths of the forest in harmony with nature, and didn’t have much of an image as meat-eaters. But in actual fact, living in the woods—living in harmony with the woods—also meant eating animal meat as a predator. I had a memory of learning from Gus long ago that the reason elves were renowned as archers was because they were excellent hunters. And that was borne out in reality; Menel was quite the meat-eater.

“What about you, Will?”

“Meat for me too, I think... It isn’t often we come here to the city.”

“You warriors are real meat-lovers, huh...”

As a side note, there weren’t many opportunities to eat the meat of livestock in the countryside. I would say there were only two main times: when old livestock died, and during the autumn when it came time to slaughter livestock that wouldn’t survive the winter. Cows and horses were valuable workers, after all, and it took quite a lot of effort to slaughter and butcher even a single one. Not only that, but those animals could be taken to the city and sold for cash rather than eaten.

Due to all those various reasons, everyday meals in the countryside would normally be bread, wheat porridge, and beans, or occasionally the meat of birds and other wild animals that a huntsman would come back with.

In the city, however, cattle and other animals brought in alive from the countryside were slaughtered and broken down everyday, and they lined the front of the butcher’s. Because of the large population, there would always be people who wanted meat today, and dedicated businesses and shops could survive here by meeting that demand. And with specialist shops came an increase in eateries that depended on them to serve meat. All of which meant that you could get your hands on a meat dish far more readily in the city than anywhere else. Passing it up wasn’t an option.

“Boy oh boy, you two have no grace at all,” Bee said, spreading her arms in feigned disappointment.

“Oh yeah, and what about you?” Menel asked. “What do you want?”

“Me? Hmm...” The red-haired troubadour looked as though she was thinking for a moment, and then she laughed. “Meat, I think!”

◆

A little before noon, the three of us carnivores were drawn to a tavern by the delicious smell of meat, and we went straight in before it got too busy. As Bee secured us a table meant for four, she called out to the brown-skinned shop owner boiling something in a large pot. “Excuse me! What are you cooking today?”

“Boiled mutton, my dear!” he replied in a spirited voice.

“Woo! For three, please, and great big helpings!”

“Comin’ right up!”

What came out on each of our plates was a well-boiled, piping-hot lump of mutton on the bone. On the side, there were also boiled vegetables, and some kind of bread made by kneading wheat flour into dough, fermenting it, and then steaming it. It was similar to the steamed buns I knew from my past life. Because the city of Whitesails was a port town facing an inland sea, you could see food culture from a wealth of regions here, which was really interesting.

“Ah, this is Arid Climate cooking, isn’t it?” Bee said, pinpointing its origin in a single glance.

“Sure is,” came the reply from the cook. “That’s the taste of my homeland.”

Arid Climate... I’d heard of it before. If my memory served me, it was a land of nomads, sprawling steppes, and endless wastes. True to its name, dry winds blew across the land, and climatically, it was cool. I’d heard that although caravans of merchants crossed that land heading to countries in the far east, it was quite a dangerous place that was scattered with plateaus controlled by tribes of goblins. And finally, the thing that had left the biggest impression on me when I heard about the place was—

“Is it true that there’s a race of centaurs around there? Half-man, half-horse?”

The shopkeeper laughed and nodded. “There sure are. Scarily good with a bow, every last one of ’em. All right, I’ll leave you to dig in.” And he went back to the kitchen.

Menel, still with his hood on, stared intently at the mutton. “From below the neck up to the ribs, looks like,” he said, identifying the cut.

It looked delicious. My anticipation built. But instead of immediately attacking the food, I first paused for a moment. “Mater our Earth-Mother, gods of good virtue, bless this food, which by thy merciful love we are about to receive, and let it sustain us in body and mind.” I prayed with my hands together. “For the grace of the gods, we are truly thankful.”

As I finished offering the prayer, Menel and Bee joined in. “We are truly thankful.”

“Let’s eeeeat!”

We took our knives and wiped them, then inserted them into the lumps of boiled mutton in front of us and started cutting them up. None of us spoke, although it wasn’t on purpose; it just happened as we each intently focused on taking apart the meat. I’d heard it said that people can’t talk much while eating crab, and apparently the same thing went for mutton.

I inserted the knife, cut away a single bone and all the meat that surrounded it, and sunk my teeth in. My mouth filled with the umami flavor of the meat and a saltiness that was just a little stronger than I expected. The mutton had a pretty distinctive smell and texture, and every time I bit into it, the flavor seemed to ooze out and really gave me the feeling that I was eating meat. The light and fluffy steamed buns had a mild flavor to them, and worked well to break up the meal, like white rice.

“This is great!”

“Ya, this one’s a winner.”

“Told you! Ah, it’s good eaten between bread, too.”

“Hm, I hadn’t thought about that.” I tore open one of the steamed buns and stuffed the boiled vegetables and some of the meat I’d cut off inside it. It was delicious.

But I thought this was a good point to take a break, and decided to broach the main topic. “By the way, there’s something I want to ask you, Bee.”

“Hm? What’s that?”

“Something’s come up, and... I want to know as much as possible about the Rust Mountains.”

“About the Rust Mountains?” Bee lifted her eyes from the boiled meat and knife in front of her and looked at me. “A poet’s poems aren’t free, bucko. Gonna pay me for the info?” She grinned at me mischievously.

“P-Pay you? Umm...”

Menel spoke up before I could. “If we end up going to the Rust Mountains, you’ll be first to hear about what we got up to. Material for a brand-new adventure story. Sound good?”

“Okey-dokey, you’ve got a deal!” Bee nodded.

I had a bad habit of overthinking comments that weren’t meant to mean anything. I needed to learn to think on my feet more.

“That said, I really don’t know all that much.” Bee laid her knife next to the boiled mutton on the plate for the moment, and started to talk. “Two hundred years ago, the Rust Mountains were apparently called the Iron Mountains. And there used to be a country there called the Iron Country. It was the underground kingdom of the dwarves, the mountain-dwellers that are the minions of Blaze, god of fire and craft. It was a powerful country that made a name for itself during the Union Age.”

Bee continued. “But that was just another thing lost in the chaos of two hundred years ago. The dwarf lord in his halls of stone, along with many powerful warriors, died fighting in those mountains trying to hold back the demon invasion. Much blood was shed, many weapons lay scattered on the ground... and once the Iron Mountains became a den of demons, at some point they started being referred to as the Rust Mountains instead. That’s what I’ve heard.”

It represented the ruin of what iron once was, the pitiful wreckage of former glory, full of corroded weapons and the rusted, metallic smell of spilled blood.

“I don’t know the details of what happened in that battle,” she said. “There really is no info at all.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because the dwarven warriors and the people of those mountains who fought to defend them were completely wiped out. And also...” Bee took a breath before continuing. “Because the fate of the dwarves who escaped their country was so cruel. You must know, Will, you sheltered some dwarven refugees about a year ago, right?”

I thought back to those people with exhausted eyes. They had been covered in mud, smelled foul, and had huge beards covering their sunken cheeks.

“It’s obvious what would happen to a people driven out of their homeland by war, right? That’s why they won’t tell me anything about the mountains that were once their home, or the last battle that happened there. It’s a hard, painful memory for them, one of tragedy and humiliation, but at the same time, their shared memories of glory are the single bond keeping them together and allowing them to hold onto their pride.”

Even though Bee had no instrument and was just talking off the cuff, there was a kind of power in the way she spoke. She had a flowing, sing-song voice that was pleasing to the ear, and she knew just how to pause to draw the listener in.

“So it’s a secret they keep hidden within themselves. No one who isn’t from the fallen Iron Country knows. So that’s all I can tell you. Sorry...” Bee gave an apologetic smile. “If you want to know anything else... I think there were dwarves who migrated to your river port, right?”

“Yeah.”

“They’d open up if you were the one asking, I think. No, I’m sure of it. If you keep what I said in mind.”

I nodded and smiled at her. “Thank you.”

I wondered how much of it they would tell me. While picturing the rugged faces of the dwarves, I thought about the prosperity and fall of that kingdom of mountain people.

◆

After that, Bee said she would wander about singing her stories for a while longer, and Menel and I left her to it. We departed the city of Whitesails and headed south.

After a few days, we returned to Beast Woods, and stepped foot into the fairy trail.

Once again that strange scenery surrounded us, of day and night trading places at whirlwind speed, the forest wriggling, fairies whispering amongst each other, and horribly thick darkness. The tingle I felt down my spine was no different than the first time I’d done this. I walked cautiously through that place for about half a day, the sense of awe and fear never leaving me.

We passed through a strange ring of light that was the way out of the fairy trail, and our field of view opened up. I felt wind blowing towards me. I took a moment to get my bearings, and realized that it was dusk, and I was standing on top of a hill.

An endless number of trees stood tall, and beyond them an orange sun was setting in a red sky. The sky around me had started to turn the color of night, and I could just make out the twinkling of the stars. There was forest as far as my eyes could see, and a vast river snaking through it.

I shifted my gaze and saw that straddling that great river was a ruined city of two colors: a dull gray, and the green of clinging plants. And nestled right next to it was an expanse of soft-red brick roofs and white plaster. It was a living city, with people coming and going through it.

A long time ago, after I had that battle with the god of undeath and said goodbye to my parents, I followed this river from the city of the dead downstream to the north. It was there, before meeting Menel, that I had seen a half-submerged city, and at this very moment, human hands were hard at work redeveloping it.

“Looking at it like this, it’s gotten pretty big,” Menel said in a murmur.

“Yeah. It’s grown quite a lot in just two years.”

We talked about it as we made our way down the hill and said hello to the people we passed as we walked through the sunset streets.

We found Tonio near the harbor, talking about something with a warehouse keeper. Noticing us, he cut his discussion short, gave us a brief wave, and came over.

“Welcome back, both of you.”

“Thank you!”

“You’ve returned considerably earlier than I was expecting. Is the abnormal—”

“Safely resolved. We’re done with our report to the duke as well.”

Tonio looked at us in amazement.

Menel and I looked at each other and laughed conspiringly.

“Goodness, you truly are frightening. What trick did you use this time?”

“A secret elementalist trick,” Menel said. “Might not be much use for business, though. It’s not suited for transporting stuff.”

“It sounds useful for gathering information, however. I’d very much like to hear the details from you later, if you’d be willing to share.”

“I said it’s a fig secret and you’re still trying to get it out of me? Wow. Aggressive tactics.”

“I am a salesman,” Tonio said, laughing.

When I first met Tonio, I got quite an impression of tiredness from him, but lately I was getting the feeling that some of his spirit had returned. Maybe the fact that business was booming had caused self-confidence, a sense of fulfillment, and all those kinds of things to show on his face.

The redevelopment of this city was something Tonio had taken the opportunity to propose while the adventurers were still in one place after getting rid of that chimera. We had sent many parties of battle-hardened adventurers out on a large-scale sweep to remove all the dangers still hanging out in the ruins. With Ethel’s support, we had performed maintenance on the river port, dismantled the ruined buildings for materials, and rebuilt houses.

Then, using this place as his base of operations, Tonio started a lumber business in the depths of Beast Woods, felling trees, building rafts, and sending them downstream. This was hugely successful. The development of the Whitesails area had left it in need of firewood for fuel and lumber for construction. Meanwhile, Beast Woods, which was located upstream, had a ruined port city that could be redeveloped, as well as an abundance of wood resources. Where there’s demand for something, you stand to make a big profit if you can find a method of supplying it.

That may seem obvious, but it was the way that Tonio reliably spotted those obvious opportunities and actually took advantage of them that defined his way of doing business.

As for me, after I killed the chimera, the areas around there had reached an easy consensus on making me a feudal lord, but it seemed that all they were expecting from me was the military might to guarantee the region’s safety and for me to use my title of paladin to stand in front of His Excellency and represent the area. It wasn’t as though there were a mountain of things for me to make decisions on, either. In fact, despite being a lord, I didn’t even have a house.

I’ll repeat that: I didn’t even have a house.

I thought of persuading some village to let me live with them, but my entry into the village would mean I would be forcing my way into the top of their social hierarchy. There would be people who wouldn’t be very happy about that, and others who would try to use me. Furthermore, I thought it was completely foreseeable that some people in the village would get the idea of using my existence to give themselves the diplomatic advantage in relations with other villages. So given all that friction I would probably cause, I was hesitant to ask to live in a village without careful thought.

There was the option of not settling anywhere and governing by traveling around my territory—I knew examples of that from my past life—but that method had all kinds of problems, so I wanted to avoid it if possible.

And so I decided to get on board with Tonio’s business. I invested, helped provide security, and while I was at it, I settled here in this newly formed city.

Together with Menel and some adventurers including Reystov, I spearheaded beast and demon hunts for the city’s security and provided medical treatment. Sometimes I headed out to various places in Beast Woods by request and handled an assortment of minor issues by coordinating with His Excellency and the priests I had borrowed from Bishop Bagley, including Anna. And that was how I spent my days.

It was just about that time that it happened. A band of mountainfolk—that is, dwarves—came, hearing that the woods had become pretty safe. I was the first one to meet them, in the woods. They were covered in dirt and mud, and looked as though they had fought starvation and wild animals to get here and only barely made it. They seemed to be really struggling, so I provided them with food and temporary lodging, and tried to help them find jobs.

Dwarves were a race of craftsmen who were good with their hands, but these were drifters, and I wasn’t expecting a high level of specialized knowledge from them. But once we got talking, I found that many of them did have a surprising amount of knowledge in things like smithing, the manufacture of leather, woodworking, pottery, weaving, and carpentry. I asked them why on earth they had gone through so much just to come all the way here to the depths of Beast Woods, but they wouldn’t speak about it.

In any case, since they had skills like that, I wasn’t going to let their talents go to waste. I decided to invest most of the money I had on hand, which I’d gotten from exploring ruins and so on, into their craft. I offered to lend them the funds to build all kinds of facilities: a woodworking shop to process the logs after they’d been chopped down, a leather-processing facility for making products out of the skins of the beasts we hunted, a smithy, kilns for pottery and making charcoal, and more.

I intended that proposal to be taken at face value, but they goggled at me in surprise, and came to the negotiating table greatly fearful and wary of what kind of terrible interest and terms I would impose on them. And when I presented them with the interest and terms, they goggled at me again.

But for me at the time, it was a necessary decision. There are an unbelievable number of things needed to maintain and expand a newly created settlement: weavers, woodworkers, stonemasons, carpenters, blacksmiths, leatherworkers, charcoal burners, and much more besides. At the beginning, you can get by to a certain extent with makeshift purchases and amateur work, but before long, you need skilled professionals.

There weren’t very many craftsmen curious enough to come all the way to the back of Beast Woods when they already had marketable skills. So now that people who had the skills we so badly needed had made their own way to us, there was no way I could waste their potential on unskilled labor like loading and unloading wood. They were emphatically worth spending my money on.

However, simply lending a person money would just make them suspect that I had some underlying motive. That was particularly true for these dwarves, many of whom were acting very cautious. I could only guess what had happened to them while they had been out roaming the land. Several among them insisted that creating debts was a bad idea. I visited them several times, each time re-explaining my circumstances in the hope of winning their trust.

As I bowed my head to them for the nth time and told them we needed them, their leader, a man named Agnarr, spoke up. “I think,” he said, “if this man betrays us... none of us could be blamed for having believed him. What do you think, everyone?”

I remembered feeling very happy for those words.

Not long after, workshops of all kinds were built; the air filled with the sounds of hammers, saws, and looms; and fires burned in kilns.

Once workshops existed, people opened shops targeted at the people who worked there. As the list of items being shipped to Whitesails grew longer, there was also an increase in the number of ships coming and going along the big river. Of course, it was a waste for the ships to come back up the river without any cargo, so they started to return loaded with things they thought they could sell here, and after selling them, they went back down the river loaded with this city’s products.

Goods and money changed hands again and again, and this was accompanied by an influx of people. By now, this place that was once a half-submerged city was rapidly becoming a center for river trade. Ships carrying wood and leather goods cruised down the river with the logs, and ships loaded with products came from downstream, their sails swollen with the wind.

More and more houses were appearing each day, and the sounds of the craftmen’s hammers and saws never stopped until the sun went down. I felt quite happy about it all.

“Well then, shall we head back?”

“Yep!”

People now called this city “Torch Port.”