Paladin Of The End Volume 3.1 Chapter 3
The black-haired dwarf Al became my squire, and Grendir paid us a formal visit a few days later. Good to his word, Ghelreis seemed to have persuaded him.
“Uhh, so, Al,” I said. “Squires are often asked to cover for their own expenses, but I will be providing your equipment and also paying you a wage.”
“A-Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“It’s not a question of minding. I can’t go taking money from the dwarves who moved here right now. They’d see me as a heartless monster.” Many of them still didn’t even have a reliable way of supporting themselves. There was no way I could take money from them. “So let’s talk about how much to pay you.”
“Huh? Uhm... If I can serve you, that’s... enough for...”
“No.”
“O-Okay.”
“One thing that a certain person I know always told me is that money is important. Hmm, let’s see. Taking on a squire isn’t quite like hiring a servant, for example, but—”
“Right.”
“If I don’t pay you or you don’t accept payment, that can be taken as your work, your ‘sincerity,’ not having any value.”
He didn’t reply.
“It might not be very classy to put a price on everything, but it’s what everyone looks at, so I want to make sure I don’t cut any corners where money is concerned.” I spoke with finality, thinking that Gus would probably say the exact same thing.
“You’re so adult.”
“I’m just trying hard to grow up.”
We decided upon his pay and the other details of the arrangement. He would live in my mansion and work for me, and join in with my morning training. After that, I started to think about what I’d teach him first, which caused me some hesitation.
“All right, once more around!”
Al followed behind me, panting as we ran laps of the city.
Now that I thought about it, I had never taken a pupil before and had no experience in teaching. I tried remembering what I’d been taught by Blood, but there were a lot of differences between me, who had begun learning as a child, and Al, who already had a grown body. In what way and in what order was I supposed to teach him things like how to fight and how to be a warrior, and how could I get them to stick?
Very soon after beginning to consider these things, I felt a renewed appreciation for Blood, Mary, and Gus. They had taught me their own skills as if there was nothing to it, but now I wondered how much planning had gone on behind the scenes to get me to absorb so many things so efficiently. Which should be taught first, footwork or stance? Standing here in the shoes of a teacher, I realized that even seemingly insignificant decisions like these had logic and planning behind them.
“Almost there! Push yourself!” I ran just ahead of him to encourage him. He was sprinting his heart out and almost collapsing from exhaustion, but he was still fighting to keep up.
Teaching was making me realize just how far I still was from the place my parents had reached. But one day, I was sure, I’d catch up to them.
“Good work! Walk around for a bit to get your breath back, and we’ll move on to muscle training!”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
“In a battle, muscular strength is the foundation upon which everything else rests. In the words of my mentor, ‘Get ripped, and you can solve pretty much everything by force!’”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
So I could stand shoulder to shoulder with those three, so I could tell them with a smile how far I’d come, and so I could do justice to the sincerity Al had offered me, I vowed to do my utmost.
◆
Now then. It bears repeating that what that was expected 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. So I was providing my squire Al with a warrior’s education as well, hoping first of all for him to become physically strong. The woodlands around here were dangerous, and I regularly set foot in the most perilous parts of them and fought against innumerable dangers. If he couldn’t protect himself, he would be useless.
Al aside, however, you might ask if I wasn’t doing anything remotely resembling the activities of a feudal lord, which is a separate question worth answering.
There was a little bit of a gathering that day.
Because of the Fertile Kingdom’s Southmark expansion policy, people from many areas of the northern continent of Grassland were coming to settle here.
For example, the cook in that mutton place in Whitesails was from Arid Climate in the northeast. Reystov, I suspected based on his external characteristics and his imposing yet quiet bearing, was probably born somewhere even further north on the northern continent, probably around the Ice Mountains. Ethel and Bishop Bagley, of course, had come from the original Fertile Kingdom and specifically its capital, Ilia’s Tear.
Many others came from the Allied Kingdoms, a federation of small- and medium-sized kingdoms to the west of Fertile, or from the Hundred Warring Kingdoms in the southeast, which was still a conflict zone where warlords fought for power. Still more came from the islands dotted around Middle-sea, from large forests all over that were home to the elves, from the dwarven mountains, and from even farther away than that. There were also wanderers like Bee the troubadour, who had no singular home at all to speak of and traveled from place to place.
Torch Port really was home to all kinds of people, and they tended to live in concentrated areas with others from the same country or cultural sphere, so every street and section of the city had its own personality.
On the other hand, the fact that each individual part had its own personality was also a source of conflict. Gestures carried different meanings in different cultures, certain expressions could be taken as serious insults, disagreements could arise in contracts and payments as a result of the two sides having different business customs. And in some cases, things couldn’t even get that far because the groups couldn’t understand each other’s language to begin with.
So yes, there was trouble, and all kinds of it. Early on had been the worst. There was even one time when an argument became magnified, people standing up for one side led to more standing up for the other, and the situation escalated into almost becoming a battle between multiple groups in the middle of town, their families and friends behind them. Menel, Reystov, and I settled things down by force before they got serious, but it just served to underline how scary differences in culture really were.
If you let these kinds of things go, the turmoil would only get worse, so after consulting with the priests, I also created a variety of rules and penalties that would apply only within the city. I established rules to observe when selling, rules to observe when using the boats and port, and a rule for when problems arose; that one said to make your case with logic and reason to the feudal lord or one of the priests who worked for him and await instructions. They also laid out what kind of punishment you would receive if you ignored this process and started a disturbance or joined in with one and escalated it, among other things.
The experience made me realize that the ancient laws of my past world that placed equal culpability on both parties in the case of a fight had been made for a good reason. It also made me think of the struggles faced by Ethel, who ruled over the larger city of Whitesails, and Bishop Bagley, who ran the main temple there.
In any case, in addition to the firm-handed approach of rules and punishments, some softer touches were also required. One of these was to set up regular gatherings where representatives of each group would meet and talk. I had been trying to show up as much as possible, and that day, I left Al’s training to Menel so I could take part. I heard all kinds of different opinions and noted them down. We talked from late morning until the afternoon, with a break for lunch in the middle.
After we broke up, I made my way to a certain tavern. It was the one where I had talked with Al. I just wanted to check that there hadn’t been any particular problems after the incident and that the owner’s illness hadn’t flared up again. It had only been a minor illness, so I didn’t expect a problem, but illnesses that had their roots in lifestyle or nutrition problems sometimes recurred easily, even after I cured them with benediction. Neither prayer nor miracles were all-powerful.
“Okay, so...”
The “feudal lord walking in during business hours incident” wasn’t something I was keen to repeat, so I made sure that the sign hanging on the door did read “Closed.” I could hear talking going on inside, so I went to knock on the door, but before I could—
“I’m sorry to spring this on you. Thank you very much!”
“Not at all. Consider it done.”
The door swung open in front of me.
“Oh!” My eyes opened wide in astonishment.
“Oh my! It’s you, sir!” The tavern girl had her hand over her mouth and was looking at me in surprise from behind the dwarf who had opened the door.
“Good afternoon,” he said.
At the door to the tavern, I had run straight into the dwarf with the scar, Ghelreis.
◆
The tavern owner’s illness seemed to have completely cleared up, and he showed no signs of another flare-up. They invited me to stay awhile, but I said I couldn’t inconvenience them while they were busy preparing to open for the evening, and I took my leave immediately, with Ghelreis walking down the street beside me. We were headed the same way.
Neither of us was saying a word.
Ghelreis, like most dwarves, didn’t speak much, and he had quite a harsh air about him that made it difficult to start up a conversation with him. But the silence was worse; I couldn’t bear it. I brought up a topic.
“What brought you to the tavern today, Ghelreis?”
“They have a reservation for a large party or something in about ten days. They hired me to procure a decent amount of beast flesh.”
“So you hunt for a living?”
“No. I’m a kind of mercenary, hired muscle. But I happen to have a little skill with crossbows and traps as well, you see—”
“It’s something like a side job, then?”
“That would be a fair description.”
Once I actually tried talking to him, I found he was a surprisingly eloquent speaker. So he was a mercenary, a warrior for hire. That was the same job Blood had. The old scar on his face had clearly been made by a sword, so it made a lot of sense.
We walked down the street in the glittering afternoon sunlight. The faint clanging of hammers reached us from some distant workshop. Different groups of people enjoying their own conversations passed us by. Every so often, one of them would notice me and acknowledge me with a nod or a bow.
“It’s a good town,” Ghelreis said. “It’s almost unimaginable how quickly it’s developed, considering that it was only built a few years ago.”
“Yes. It couldn’t have been done without all the help we received from all kinds of people.”
Ghelreis nodded. Then silence fell again. This time, it wasn’t so suffocating.
“Paladin,” Ghelreis started.
“Yes?”
“I was once a warrior who served the Iron Country.” He spoke quietly, wearing a calm expression as he walked beside me. “At the time, I was still inexperienced as a warrior and was not permitted to die with our lord. I held to his last wishes and protected the people who had been left behind. I earned my daily bread by taking up my weapon and fighting for whoever would hire me.”
I remained quiet and listened.
“It isn’t easy to find a place to live in peace. We wandered across many lands to make it here.” Despite how quietly he was speaking, lots of different emotions showed in his voice. I thought I could sense them churning inside him.
“Please, guide the young master well.”
“I will.” I stopped walking, looked at him with a serious expression, and placed my fist against my heart. “By the flame.”
◆
A line of sweat ran down my neck. Al and I were locked in a grapple on the grass in my yard. Menel was watching us from the sidelines.
After a lot of thought, I’d decided that the next thing to teach Al after the fundamentals was grappling. Al had a naturally good physique, and appeared to have muscle strength, too, despite the fact that he hadn’t had any training. Maybe that was just the nature of dwarves. My idea had been to begin by teaching him grappling moves, where muscle power had an especially large influence, so that he could gain confidence in his own abilities.
But I hadn’t been expecting this. I was somewhat stronger than him, but even though I was pulling him towards me with all my strength, he was starting to resist me. In a simple push-and-pull exercise, he was holding his ground to a certain extent. He was showing astonishing muscle strength and intuition considering that he hadn’t received any specialist training. There was no other way to say it: he had a natural talent for this.
I understood the reason why he’d been hesitant to hit or grab anyone before. With this extraordinary level of natural muscle strength, it wasn’t surprising he’d developed an attitude like that. In fact, he might actually have injured someone unintentionally at some point in his past, or at least come close to doing so.
“Al.” I spoke casually, deliberately not letting any strain or effort show in my expression. “Is this your full strength?”
He grunted and pushed harder. My whole body groaned under his tremendous power, but I resisted and pushed back. The body Blood and I had forged together wasn’t so puny that it couldn’t handle this.
“I think you’ve got more,” I said.
He whined.
I needed him to know it was okay for him to go all out, to be more savage. That was probably what had to come first for him.
“If this is all you’ve got...” I dropped my hips and pushed forward with all my might.
“Wh-Whoa!” Al started sliding backwards, his feet leaving marks in the grass as he tried to press his weight into the ground.
“I can overpower you. I’m stronger.”
So it’s okay for you to go a little more wild. It’s okay for you to use all the strength you’ve got. As I spoke those words to him inside my heart, I maneuvered my body and pulled close to him, then lifted him up and threw him on the ground as hard as I could. I kept my grip on his collar to make sure he at least didn’t hit his head. He made a sound like the wind had been knocked out of him.
“Sorry, Al,” I said. “You lose.”
My general rule was to hold nothing back when it came to this side of things. Getting used to pain was a part of training, and I had to approach this prepared for him to hate me. I didn’t feel good about it, though.
“Ho—”
“Hm?”
“How do you do the move you just did?!” Al asked me with sparkling eyes, leaping to his feet immediately. Even though I was forcing him to run for ages, throwing him about, and making him go through stuff that was pretty painful and hard to endure, he showed absolutely no sign of giving in. He really was persistent and eager.
“That one?” I hummed in thought. “Menel, come here a sec.”
“What am I, your punching bag?”
“It’s easier to get the idea looking from the side. Please.”
“S-Sorry about this!”
Menel tutted. “Fine. You better give me a clean throw, you got it?! A clean throw!”
I wondered if the day Al became a warrior might come sooner than I expected.
◆
Training in magic in this world was similar at times to training in acting and calligraphy. To speak the Words, it was necessary to enunciate them precisely in terms of both pronunciation and volume, so vocal training was mandatory. Similarly, to use the characters—that is, the Signs—it was necessary to write them precisely, so penmanship practice was a requirement.
As a result, a sorcerer’s handwriting was naturally beautiful. I had heard that sorcerers who worked for powerful figures often served a second job as their scribe. I was no exception to this rule; Gus’s tough education had made sure that I could write quite beautifully.
I was in my office.
My quill, made from a beast feather, slowly traveled from left to right across the paper as I carefully wrote down the concise and formal message that I’d come up with in advance. I was using the very best quality paper I could get my hands on, and the same for the ink.
I finished writing and used some sand to absorb the excess ink. After folding the paper neatly in thirds to hide the text, I folded it again in thirds horizontally and prepared to apply the seal.
I slightly warmed some scarlet wax over a flame, dripped it onto the paper and sealed it, and then pressed the signet ring I’d made just last year onto the wax. It left behind a symbol of a flame shining on a ring of fate inside a shield. It was my family insignia, the crest of Maryblood. I’d had quite a few ideas for it, but ultimately I’d settled on a “ring and flame” symbol for Gracefeel, and a “shield” symbol to represent a knight.
Lastly, I made sure that the front had both my signature and the name of the recipient: Bishop Bart Bagley.
“Good.”
The letter contained a request for Bishop Bagley to search the libraries for some information for me.
I thought back on those words that the Lord of Holly had spoken in his domain in the woods.
— The fire of dark disaster shall catch in the mountains of rust. That fire shall spread, and this land may all be consumed. That land is now a den of demons, wherein the great lord of miasma and wicked flame slumbereth upon the mountain people’s gold.
And then there was what I’d heard from the dwarves.
— The dragon is coming. The dragon is coming! The dragon is coming! Valacirca! Calamity’s sickle descends upon you!
Based on what I knew now, I needed to have some research done in the temples and the Academy where the sorcerers assembled. After all, I was going to be up against a formidable opponent.
If “the fire of disaster” and “the lord of miasma and wicked flame” in the Rust Mountains had been a General-ranked demon, I would have been confident that I could scrape out a victory. Even if he had followers with him, I could manage something. I had built up enough experience over the last two years that I could say that for sure. And even if the worst came to the worst and it all looked hopeless, I still had my trump card, Overeater. As long as I didn’t make a mistake and get killed out of nowhere—and of course that was always a possibility in any battle—I could win against a General. But...
“Valacirca.”
If I remembered correctly, it was an Elvish word that referred to the Northern Sickle, a constellation made up of six stars. It consisted of two stars connected like a handle and four curved like a blade. Each of those stars had the name of one of the six main gods: the god of lightning, the Earth-Mother, and the gods of fire, fae, wind, and knowledge.
“Calamity’s sickle, the sickle of the gods—”
And the name of a dragon.
This dragon was feared enough to have earned that big of a name from the proud race of the elves. I was certain that it had to be a dragon in the true sense of the word, and it must have existed since time immemorial.
I’d never fought a dragon. They hadn’t even turned up in Blood’s heroic stories. So it was virtually impossible for me to even guess at their strength or my chances of winning.
Born at the time the Progenitor created the world, the dragons had wielded their power in the battles between the good and evil gods, power that was said to be unmatched by any except the gods themselves. They had huge, supple bodies covered in tough scales, and they possessed the innate intelligence to manipulate Words. They had strong wings to catch the wind, fangs as thick as trees, and claws as sharp as the finest blades.
Most of them had now vanished from the world. There was one theory that it was because the battles between the gods had reduced their numbers too severely, and another that they had left the confines of the physical world behind and ascended to the dimension of the gods. Whatever the truth of these theories, the fact of the matter was that there were hardly any dragons left in this world. Only the many ornate legends about them and the various demidragons that were said to have been their minions long ago were left as proof that the dragons had once existed.
“A dragon...”
To repeat: their power was second only to the gods. Even the Echo of Stagnate had been hopelessly dangerous, and that was after Gus had destroyed one half of his physical body and probably put him in a weakened state. He had brought me to the brink of death. If the goddess of the flame hadn’t come to my rescue, I would have died then and there. I remembered the terror the god of undeath had made me feel. A shiver ran down my spine.
“An Echo and a dragon...”
Which was stronger? I didn’t know. But I was certain of one thing: there was no chance at all of a dragon being significantly weaker than Stagnate.
I wanted to be extremely cautious. That was why I’d decided to send a request to the bishop to see if he could find out anything that could help me while I still had time to spare. All kinds of books and a lot of talented people were collected at the temple and the Academy to which Gus had once belonged. Apparently, the temple and Academy even had the occasional elf who had left the forest in search of knowledge sign up. There was a chance that some old oral lore would turn up.
I breathed out slowly to calm myself down.
I took a little bit of pride in my strength—I was a man, after all, and a warrior trained by Blood. But at the same time, there was something I’d learned from all the battles I’d fought. Battles represented reality at its most cruel, treacherous, and unforgiving. Once one started, it was almost inevitable that someone would die.
“God...”
My hands were shaking for the first time in a while. This was an opponent who was at least my equal and probably stronger. There was a serious likelihood I could lose. It was an opponent who would probably steal away my life with heartless brutality.
“Oh, man...”
I found myself thinking about Mary. I remembered her hugs and the pleasant smell of fragrant wood burning. Will. William. I heard her voice, my mom’s voice, calling my name.
I murmured quietly. “I’m scared...”
“Don’t be so feckin’ gutless!”
I jumped. I was sure someone had heard me.
“Come on! Again!”
The voice was coming from outside the window. I looked out. Menel and Al were having a mock battle.
◆
“Hah!” Wearing armor and holding the practice sword I had made in his hands, Menel effortlessly kicked Al over. “What’re you doing hesitating to hit me when I’ve got armor on? You’re more of a softy than Will. A pushover!” Menel provoked Al and frowned down at the dwarf as he lay on the ground groaning. “Come on, what’s wrong? Giving up already? Gonna turn tail and run home, rich boy?”
“I, I’m not giving up!”
Al attacked him again with his practice sword. Menel didn’t even dodge. He allowed the sword to come straight down onto his forehead guard and didn’t so much as blink as the thud rang out.
“Brother, you’re hitting me square from the front and that’s all you’ve got? Are those thick arms just for decoration? Huh?” With the sword still resting on his head, Menel edged up to Al and glared at him. Al winced. “Oh? Oh? Cowering, huh? Just gonna cry and run away? Go on then.”
“I, I’m not going to run!”
“Then hit harder! Put some power into it, you loser!”
Al let out a wild yell and swung his practice sword about with all his might. Menel took the blows skillfully on his armor, but those impacts looked pretty heavy even with armor to block them. I was impressed that he wasn’t showing even a hint of pain.
Recently, Menel had been taking over the role of the strict coach for Al’s training.
Al was just too gentle. He had a lot of muscle power and showed good intuition when it came to learning technique, but when it came to actually hitting Menel with the practice sword or grappling, he would get beaten and thrown, even though I knew Menel had less muscle.
For a person, having the kindness to feel sympathy and be hesitant to hurt anyone was a virtue that couldn’t be faulted, but for a warrior, it was nothing other than a weakness. I’d discussed this with Menel, and we had concluded that the only way forward was to make the motions a matter of muscle memory. And so, Menel was being offensive towards Al, kicking him over, and pressuring him with an intense focus on making him strike back. Just as I’d been trained to get used to killing birds and other wild animals, getting used to very stressful battle situations and striking living opponents with all his strength had to be the first steps for Al.
Al yelled out again. There was a tremendous crash, followed by a brief choking sound. Al had swept his practice sword horizontally and smashed it into Menel, knocking him back despite the chestplate armor he was wearing. That must have hurt. That seriously must have hurt.
“Heh. You were pretty fired up that time.” Menel didn’t let the pain show on his face. He just furrowed his brow a little and forcibly kept a calm expression. “That’s the way.”
Menel was doing a really good job of being a teacher. He was actually a caring person who had a lot of life experience. Perhaps he was even more suited to teaching than me.
“Th-Thank you very much!”
And Al was earnest. Even though he sometimes flinched or held back out of concern for his opponent, he never allowed Menel to break his spirit despite all the shouting, intimidation, and pressure. His hazel eyes sparkling, he yelled out a battle cry and charged at Menel, a warrior overwhelmingly stronger than himself.
Al was really impressing me. I could see that he was getting slightly stronger with every battle. What he couldn’t do one day, he would be able to do by the next. And what he couldn’t do the next day, he would be able to do the day after that. They were all little changes. Sometimes he would put his effort into the wrong thing and lose some ground for a little while. But what if he kept making those little improvements for ten whole days? What about twenty? Thirty? Fifty? A hundred? A thousand? What if he never stopped at all?
Warriors aren’t warriors because they’re born that way. They become warriors by making mistakes, getting injured, and learning from it, making the smallest of improvements many times over.
Below my window, Menel kicked Al over again. He rolled on the ground, completely covered in dirt. But to me, he looked like he was shining like a gemstone. He had the irregular gleam of a rock that was yet to fall into human hands. He was going to be cut and polished, and I was sure that he would shine even more beautifully. The thought of it somehow calmed my worries a little, and I felt warm inside.
Blood... Were there times when you felt like this?
◆
When lunchtime came around, Al sat in the dining room drained of all his strength. Menel had driven him hard for what must have felt like forever.
Menel was really something to have robbed someone as persistent as Al of all his stamina. That said, it seemed to have taken a lot out of him, too. Apparently he didn’t want to appear weak in front of the person he was teaching; he told me he was going to eat out and asked me to deal with Al, then staggered off to town. He reminded me of a wild animal or something. Maybe that was just what he was always like.
“Food’s up.” On the table, I placed deep bowls full of the vegetable and smoked meat soup my housemaids had made during their morning visit, followed by a plate of boiled eggs and bread that was more stodgy than fluffy and light. There was certainly quantity here. It was important for building up his body.
“I, I’m not sure it’ll all go down.”
“Force it down. If you don’t, your training will go to waste. You have to eat even more than you’ve worked out or you’ll defeat the point of the training.”
Eat a lot after exercise—this was one of the fundamentals that Blood had repeatedly drilled into me. If Al couldn’t do this, the training wouldn’t serve its purpose. It was better not to exercise at all than to weaken your muscles by exercising while fasting.
“There’s no need to rush, but get it all into your body.”
“O-Okay...”
After saying grace, I poured the herbal tea I’d boiled into two cups while watching Al slowly attack the meal. I was training every day just as he was, so I kept quiet as I chewed and drank. I had no intention of going out of my way to start a conversation with someone who was clearly worn out and tiring him out further.
I chewed the distinctive multigrain bread and tried to recall where in my previous world had heavy, somewhat sour bread like this. Perhaps it was somewhere like Germany? As I thought idly about things like that, Al sat up straight and opened his mouth. “Um... I’d like to... thank you again.”
“Hm? What’s up?”
“I really am very grateful for everything you’re doing for me. Taking me in as your squire, giving me training and even food and pay...” His hazel eyes were locked on me. I put down the piece of bread I had pinched between my fingers and met his gaze.
“Do you... know about our past?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Th-Then, you know about my position, too?”
“I think I have a pretty good idea. I won’t probe into it. You can tell me any time you like or not at all.”
“Yes, sir...” Al lowered his gaze slightly.
Even the name I was calling him by was probably an abbreviation. I still didn’t know his real name.
“I... was nobility within the clan.”
“Right.”
“My mother and father passed away from illness when I was young, so I was brought up by the clan, protected from trouble.”
“It certainly looked that way.”
He looked like he was being greatly cherished. But that was exactly why he’d developed this complex.
“But a part of me wondered whether that was okay,” he said. “We dwarves look up to the god of fire as our creator. Our pride is a warrior’s pride. Yet I, who bear responsibility to that clan, am so weak and cowardly...”
He might also have been feeling a sense of duty and responsibility as someone born into nobility.
“Wh-When I heard about you, I admired you. You’re about the same age as me, and you already have many great tales told about you and are looked up to as the lord of an entire region. I wanted to be like you.” The tension in his face relaxed and a toothy grin replaced it. “So... being able to serve by your side is like a dream. I can’t tell you how happy I am that I can learn of warriors and bravery from you.”
His smile was contagious, and made me feel a kind of ticklish happiness. “Thanks.” I laughed, embarrassed. “Even if this arrangement is only temporary, I’ll work hard to be a fitting master for you.”
Then, I smiled a little nervously, and added, “But I’m not very confident I can teach you about bravery.”
◆
Al looked at me blankly. It was as if he didn’t understand what I was telling him.
“Umm...”
“What I mean is, I’m not actually very brave.”
There was a pause before he responded. “Even though you stood up against a wyvern and a chimera?”
I nodded. “Listen, Al. The world at large might see those as the actions of a brave man. They might see me as a champion standing up against terrifying monsters. But I’m not so sure.”
I really couldn’t see it that way myself. After all—
“Can you really call it ‘bravery’ to challenge an opponent when you know for a fact you can win?”
Al goggled at me. “You knew for a fact you could win?”
“I mean it.”
That was just how it was. If I had to go against that wyvern again and fight it bare-handed a hundred more times, I was sure I’d win at least ninety-nine. Even if I had to take on that chimera, as long as I had the right weapons and armor, I would almost never be bested.
“I’m overwhelmingly more powerful than a wyvern or a chimera. That’s my most honest analysis. I can kill those things just by trusting my training to make the right moves.”
Al was speechless. It looked like he didn’t know how he should respond.
“I’m probably a lot stronger than you and the others imagine.”
In fact, probably the only ones to have a concrete grasp on just how much I deviated from ordinary people were Menel, Reystov, and maybe a few others with good eyes.
“They don’t scare me. Wyverns or chimeras.”
Only once had I felt fear from an opponent’s strength in battle: that being shrouded in black mist. I had despaired, fallen to my knees, and curled up on the ground. And the reason I was able to stand up again had absolutely nothing to do with being brave. If I’d been alone, I was sure that I’d have stayed there clutching my head until the storm was entirely past, crushed under the weight of my fear and despair.
“A person who beats those far weaker than himself is no brave hero. Winning against something that doesn’t scare you isn’t bravery.”
“Then—” Al hesitated for a moment before asking. “Then what is bravery?”
“Honestly? I’d like to know that too.”
I’d been able to stand back up only because Mary had been there to admonish me. I’d forced my shaking legs forward because I wanted to protect those three. It wasn’t that I was especially brimming with courage. In fact, I wasn’t relying very much on my mental strength at all. I had a well-trained body and was well prepared. I was winning because I had every right to win. That was all.
Perhaps my old nature had carried over into this world. Maybe I really was a coward.
“How are you meant to challenge an opponent who’s stronger than you? Hopelessly stronger than you?”
The time for battle was drawing near, and I doubted I would get a chance to put together a surefire winning strategy. When that time came, would I be able to fight? Did I have that much bravery?
◆
That afternoon, Al and I were in my office getting the small amount of paperwork I had to do out of the way when I heard noises at the entrance to the mansion. Wondering whether I had a visitor, I put the paperwork away for now. Then, there was a knock at the door.
“William, I’m back,” said a familiar voice. The door opened, and there stood a man with an unshaven face, piercing eyes, and a well-built body. His thick beast-hide cloak was mottled with blood spatter and grass stains that couldn’t be washed off. He was an adventurer who carried the title of “the Penetrator.”
“Reystov! Welcome back! How’d it go?”
“I dispatched all the beasts you ordered. There were a few Commander demons going around leading troops, so I took care of those as well.”
Beast Woods was vast. Beasts and demons showed up all over it to cause problems. It was physically impossible for me to handle them all by myself. I always struggled to secure people who had both a trustworthy personality and the necessary combat skills to solve these issues. Reystov, meanwhile, was an adventurer seeking strong, substantial enemies to defeat for honor and glory. His skills with a sword, especially his lightning-quick thrusts, were the stuff of epics, and he was a loyal adventurer with class among a sea of ruffians.
“I didn’t come across anything particularly unusual. Should I just report the details to Anna as per normal?”
“Yes, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Also, I heard you had a new squire, but—” He looked at Al. “He looks like a nobody,” he muttered in a low voice.
For a while now, Reystov had been going around villages far from here, so this was the first time he’d seen Al. He gazed at the dwarf standing there and said nothing for a few moments. Al tried to say something, but subjected to the man’s hard stare and blunt way of speaking, he shrank back a little and produced only a whimper.
Reystov walked straight up to him. “You’re stooping too much.” He slapped Al lightly on the back, grabbed his shoulders, and pulled them up towards him. “Your shoulders are too far forward. It makes you look despondent and completely destroys any commanding presence you might have had. Listen closely: if you’re a man, tuck your chin in, straighten your back, and keep your jaw tight. Don’t let your eyes wander. Keep them trained on either the eyes or the mouth of whoever’s facing you.”
“R-Right!”
“Good. You look a little more respectable now.” Reystov always made eye contact when speaking. “I am Reystov. You are?”
“A-Al.”
“Al. I see. What do you think of William?”
“I, I respect him!”
Reystov nodded. “Then, as a squire, don’t conduct yourself in a way that lowers the status of your master.”
Al’s breath caught in his throat.
“Always walk tall and dignified, with your back straight and your eyes fixed forward. When opening your mouth, speak the right words with confidence. If you cannot, choose to remain silent instead. That is what will make you somebody. Got it?”
“Yes!”
As Reystov continued talking to Al, I could see Al’s back getting straighter and his eyes becoming more focused. I got the feeling that I knew how Al felt at this moment. When Reystov looked at you with that penetrating stare while giving you advice, you felt as if what he was saying was actually achievable. It gave you confidence. It might have been another one of his talents that he could have that effect on people.
“William.”
“Yes?”
“You don’t mind?”
“No, be my guest.”
Reystov could be a little too brief sometimes, but we had known each other for a few years now, so I had grown to understand him most of the time. By “You don’t mind?” he meant “Do you mind me sticking my nose in and correcting him on his demeanor and so on?”
“In fact, I was planning on asking you to help.”
“I see.” Reystov nodded slowly, then looked at Al again. “You said your name was Al?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to speak my mind for a while.”
“Yes, sir!”
The earnest Al and the experienced and straight-talking Reystov looked like they were going to get on well together.
“Oh, Reystov?” I said, getting the sudden idea to ask him something.
“What?”
“What do you think bravery is?”
He wrinkled his eyebrows, looked at me, and said, “I don’t know what’s on your mind, but you’ll never figure that out until you stop thinking that way.”
◆
Some time passed. As our information-gathering continued, I kept a wary eye on the Rust Mountains, but in the end, it was peace personified from summer to fall.
We had a wheat harvest and a lively harvest festival. Parties were held with freshly brewed ale and fruit wine. Gathered around a fire with drink in our hands, there was no distinction between dwarf and human. Everyone drank with a smile and made noise together. For the sake of the harmony of the city, I took the initiative and went to a bunch of different parties myself. Reystov got together with Grendir, Ghelreis, and all those others, and once they all started talking of their heroic stories, they hit it off well. Menel had his arms around Al’s and my shoulders. It was rare to see him in such a good mood.
Once autumn arrived and nutritious nuts like acorns started falling from the trees, that was the time of year to let the livestock pour into the woods. By doing this, the animals would fatten up enough to survive the winter, although a portion of the herd would then be slaughtered and their meat smoked or salted to preserve it for the cold season to come. People stepped into the forest more often at this time of year too, in search of blessings like fruits or mushrooms and firewood to help them through the winter. As the Lord of Holly had promised, the woods this year were bountiful, and everyone was pleased.
This was also a busy time of year for the adventurers.
Up until now, the people who lived in this area had been very restricted because they and their livestock would be targeted by beasts if they went into the forest. They had been forced into making meager livings within the small safe areas surrounding the villages they secured, because to go deep into the forest would have been an act of suicide.
However, two years after I arrived, this situation improved dramatically when the adventurers and I carried out large-scale beast hunts. After that, quite a large area became property of people once more. The beasts’ territory shrank, and more land could be used for foraging or raising cattle. But even so, this was still Beast Woods. There were plenty of beasts that tried to make their way into the regions where people lived. Fending them off was one of the major jobs of adventurers around here, alongside exploring the ruins hidden deep in the woods.
Villages hired adventurers to be beast hunters for them specifically, in return for accommodation, food, a little money, and the hides of the beasts they brought down. Through this arrangement, the villages were kept safe and the adventurers got rewards and sometimes even honor when they took down a big enemy. Of course, they died sometimes too. I also saw the occasional adventurer accidentally develop a deep relationship with a village daughter or widow and just end up settling there.
In any case, the beast hides and bones obtained from their hunts were sold to Torch Port along with any gathered wheat, vegetables, firewood, or coal. With the money they earned, the adventurers resupplied and fixed up their equipment, and the villagers bought farm tools, daily essentials, and livestock. Through this, the villages became richer and increased their output, and Torch Port, meanwhile, got the food and fuel it needed to sustain its citizens.
The craftsmen worked busily off the food provided by the farming villages. Blacksmiths, potters, woodworkers, weavers, and more made products for both rural and urban areas. At regular and not-so-regular intervals, ships came from Whitesails loaded with goods we couldn’t make in the Torch Port area. Laborers unloaded them from the ships and, in their place, loaded the ships with pottery and wood products produced here instead.
This river trading between Whitesails and Torch Port was profitable for the merchants. In some cases, they also made money by getting their hands on a warehouse or something similar and opening up shops aimed at the potpourri of people who lived in this city.
As for me, the liege lord of Beast Woods, I collected funds and labor from various points in this system and used them to govern and manage the area, although I was reliant on the priests I’d borrowed from the bishop for the majority of the work. For example, I instituted land taxes, community service for a fixed number of days, fees to use the ports, warehouses, and markets, and so on.
And so Torch Port had a functional economy, industry, and government. At present, the city’s various industries were growing every year, and although the labor market fluctuated a little, it held steady in favoring sellers by a reasonably safe amount. It was thanks to this that we weren’t in a state of needing to take urgent action even though immigrants from Grassland to the north were on the rise. Although it wobbled from time to time, we had a well-balanced positive feedback loop.
This was something to be happy about, but it was important to remember that we were running a dangerous juggling act. This meant that if the balance broke down, the positive feedback loop we were currently enjoying would also collapse very quickly.
What would happen, for example, if the rural areas across Beast Woods that were the foundation of this system were badly damaged by beasts? It would result in a domino effect. There would be a food crisis at Torch Port, which depended on the villages to supply food and fuel, and on top of that, it was very possible that the fuel shortage would mean that the workshops would have to suspend operations. If something like that happened, the merchants would also have to put a hold on their business, and there would be fewer ships going back and forth. Then tax revenues would go down, our ability to deal with the problems would be lessened, and the beasts would run rampant to an even greater degree. It would be difficult to recover from that chain of events once it kicked off.
Looking at it objectively, we had very little redundancy or room to err in case something happened. Any trouble had to be nipped in the bud early.
◆
“Haaaah!”
I felt my body lift into the air. Heaven and earth changed places. I hit the ground with my arm and correctly broke my fall. Instantly, a foot stamped down right beside my head with tremendous force.
I’d been holding back a little bit, but even so, a loss was a loss.
“Fantastic! That was great!” I said in a cheery voice, looking up.
“Th-Thank you very much!” Al said back.
Al had been taught by all kinds of people over the past few months. He now stood up straight and carried his head high. He was really starting to give the impression of someone strong and brave. He was yet to fight any real battles, but his skills were improving greatly, and he was carrying himself more appropriately, too.
He really did seem to have a natural gift for this. Speaking purely about the matches we’d been having to practice his armed and unarmed combat, the odds were still against him in a fight against Menel, Reystov, or myself, but nevertheless, he was already looking pretty respectable. His unarmed fighting in particular was amazing.
Something I realized during our many training sessions was that dwarves were pretty well suited for grappling techniques. They were heavyset and had strong muscles but were short in height. Al was tall for a dwarf, but even he wasn’t so tall as to exceed the height of a human or elf. And the fact that dwarves were short meant that they had a low center of gravity.
Amateur grapplers often imagine grappling as applying force from the top down and pressing the opponent hard as if trying to crush them, and often that’s what they actually do. But the correct way to do it is to lower your center of gravity and lift your opponent into the air from below. If this is difficult to understand, try to imagine a large ball and a smaller ball about half its size pushing against each other sideways. The small ball will slip underneath and push the large ball upwards. Once the opponent’s feet are off the ground, they can’t apply force anymore. Become the small ball, stand firm below, and use the power of the ground to push the opponent upwards—that’s one of the correct principles for winning a grapple.
In that sense, the dwarves were blessed to have short and heavyset bodies. The only problem was their short reach. I wondered if that meant that long-handled weapons would be best suited for them in armed combat.
“My lord, my lord.” Someone called for me.
I turned around to see a businesslike woman with braided, flaxen hair. “Anna.”
Anna was one of the priests that Bishop Bagley had dispatched to me. She was always helping me out with the running of the city, religious services, and stuff like that. I’d heard recently from Bee that there was something going on between her and Reystov, but I couldn’t read that kind of thing, so I had no idea whether it was true or not.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“A situation that requires a little urgency has been brought to my attention.”
“What’s happened?”
“I’m told there has been an undead sighting in the woods.”
“Undead...”
For a while now, the main troubles around here had revolved around beasts and demons. It had been quite a while since I’d had to deal with anything involving undead.
I had arranged for matters relating to undead near Beast Woods to be brought to me first of all via the temple. I could throw it over to the adventurers, but they wouldn’t necessarily have any method for returning the dead peacefully to the eternal cycle of samsara. Granted, a few warriors with maces could pulverize a zombie or a skeleton to the point of unrecognizability and the problem would be solved for the people under threat, but I felt that was a bit too cruel. Because of my history of being raised by Mary, Blood, and Gus, I couldn’t help but feel for the undead, so I was trying to make sure that as often as possible, matters like this were handled by me personally, or failing that, one of the priests.
“Ah!” I suddenly got an idea. This might be perfect for Al’s first battle. Due to my devotion to the god of the flame, I had a large advantage against the undead. If Al got into danger, it would be much easier to support him than if we were facing a beast.
“Al, about this, I’m going to handle it personally. Will you come with me?”
Al’s face lit up. “Y-Yes, sir! Please allow me to accompany you!”
◆
Traces of summer still lingered in the forest, which smelled strongly of greenery and soil and was full of thick undergrowth and exuberant bushes and vines. Coming through here when the visibility was as bad as this was dangerous, even if the situation had improved slightly compared to the height of summer.
I turned around to face Al, who was walking behind me. “I hear that dwarves can see well in the dark, but make sure not to over-rely on your sense of sight.”
“O-Okay.”
Al was wearing studded leather armor and a helmet, and he had a shiny battle axe in his hands. He looked pretty stylish now that he was standing up straight and was properly equipped, and all the more so because he had a solid build to begin with.
“So let’s go over this,” I said. “Where are we going?”
“Pillar Mound to the west.”
The recent beast hunts had expanded the area available to people. New ruins were being discovered frequently by beast-hunting adventurers and others who ventured deep into the woods to gather wild vegetables and hunt. The place we were heading now to get rid of the undead was just such a place. Its discoverer had called it Pillar Mound, and it was apparently a small hill with lines of old, rotting, wood posts.
“The report of its discovery was made very recently, but a search still hasn’t been carried out. There are several reasons for that. How deep into the woods it’s located—” The wind blew. A gray-white mist began to descend around us. “The fact that this area gets very misty. It’s unclear whether that has something to do with the geography, an ancient magical barrier, or if it’s something playing tricks, maybe a fae or something that’s settled here.” The mist was growing thicker with every step we took. “And lastly, the fact that there was an unholy aura about the area. The hunter who made the discovery said that they saw ‘undead,’ but...”
The experience seemed to have shaken them up quite a bit, and they were only able to give vague information about the sighting—something like a bone-chilling presence and the sense that something was moving in the mist. They might simply have been seeing things. Or it might have been a beast or a golem of some sort that had wandered out of a ruin.
“We don’t know what might turn up,” I said. “It could be nothing. An atmosphere like this can make you see things that aren’t there. But let’s be careful.”
“Yes, sir!”
We walked through the mist in silence for a little while, searching for anything out of place. Suddenly, our field of vision opened up. From behind me, Al stifled a yelp of surprise.
“Oh, wow.” The sight took my breath away. Countless rows of wooden pillars were lined up on a hill shrouded in thick fog. They seemed to have once been covered in red paint, although it was half-peeled off by now.
“C-Creepy.”
“Yes. But magnificent.” I gazed through the gray-white fog at the forest of rotting red pillars with peeling paint. The rows became more indistinct the farther back I looked and appeared to sway in the fog in the distance. They looked like the horribly twisted, slender figures of blood-red giants standing silently in this place as the last vestiges of the activity that had certainly once existed here.
I signaled with a hand gesture, and we moved carefully forward, trodding on the wet soil. Menel and Reystov weren’t here this time. It wasn’t a big enough deal for all of us to go, and we had the Lord of Holly’s prophecy to think about, so I had them standing by in Torch Port. But I slightly regretted that decision. If anything, Menel was the one suited to this kind of search. As a half-elf, he had sharp senses and could also call fairies to his aid, so he was more suited than me to this kind of reconnaissance work. That said, we couldn’t help what we didn’t have. I would just have to deal.
While casting my eyes left and right, I slowly approached the hill. The first thing I did was to check the pillars. As I thought, they were made of wood. They had been sawn with precision, were all either octagonal or hexagonal in shape, and had been buried deep into the ground. I wondered if the red was part of the customs or culture of a now-lost tribe. Perhaps it carried some kind of religious message or prayer.
A warm gust of wind whooshed by, taking me by surprise. Al let out a short scream and turned pale.
I looked in the direction he was pointing.
Behind a pillar, something was there, looking at us.
◆
As I reflexively held Pale Moon at the ready, I looked at where Al was pointing. He was looking at something with a cracked face, brown skin that had started to rot, empty eye sockets, haphazard teeth...
It was—it looked exactly like—
“That’s not a zombie,” I said, smiling.
“Huh?”
“Come on, look more closely.” I took Al and walked closer. It was a figure carved from wood into the shape of a person. Horrifyingly black holes had been cut into the figure for eyes, and it bared rows of teeth made from the quills of bird feathers. The wood used was probably the same as the pillars.
“Maybe he’s a grave keeper?”
“G-Grave keeper?”
“Yeah.”
The fact that they had placed a frightening figure like this here probably meant that—
“This is probably a burial mound. A graveyard.”
I looked around at the lines of pillars. Each one of these was surely the tombstone of someone who had once lived here. Once I started thinking that way, I got the feeling that it explained this strange place neatly.
“The reason for the figure with the frightening face is probably to intimidate grave robbers.”
Some may think, “It’s only a figure, what’s the big deal?” but just like the Japanese dolls from my previous world, humanoid figures that feel as if someone’s intent lives within them are pretty scary. It would probably seem even scarier to people who came here with a guilty conscience intending to loot the graves. It might not be able to scare off all unscrupulous people, but if at least those who still had some doubts could be kept away with this, that alone would be useful. It was kind of like fake security cameras in my previous world.
“Actually, the mist might be a magical barrier too, or some kind of agreement with a local fae.” The people of the past had probably arranged this so that the ones they loved who had passed away before them could rest in peace. “I think this place was probably made over many generations and with a lot of effort and feeling.”
I gently laid down my spear and got to my knees. Then, I put my hands together and prayed.
We haven’t come here to disturb your burial place. Please rest in peace.
After praying for a while, I opened my eyes and saw that Al had been doing the same.
“Um... but then...”
“Hm?”
“But then where are the undead?”
“Now that we know this is a grave, I’m starting to think there’s a good chance they were just seeing things.”
“Huh? I’d have thought undead would be more likely to show up if it’s a grave...”
Al’s words confused me. I tilted my head. “Why? They’ve all been respectfully laid to rest.”
Graves generally contained corpses that had been given a memorial following a proper procedure. It was actually rare for graves to produce undead, despite the image they may conjure up.
“It’s when someone is killed and their body hidden or when a dead body is left out in the open that it becomes more likely for them to receive the protection of the god of undeath.” I paused, then added in a subdued voice, “He’s a kind god in his own way.”
“The god of undeath is... kind?”
“Yes. Really kind.” I shrugged.
Even though I had once fought him as an enemy, I had to admit it: the god of undeath, Stagnate, was kind. It was just that I and most likely the majority of everyone else couldn’t accept what that god viewed as kindness, and that was why we called him an evil god. But the way I saw it, that label did nothing to change the fact that he was kind.
“People suffer miserable, hopeless deaths that are too awful to watch. Stagnate, the god of undeath, can’t stand that. So just as the seasons and nature shift with the blessing of the god of the fae, the god of undeath grants all creatures who have met with death the right to overturn their tragedies by becoming undead and rising to their feet again.”
“Um—”
“Yes, I know what you’re going to say. That wouldn’t make most people happy. In fact, a blessing like that would be nothing but a nuisance.” I shrugged. “For the living, it would be a little bit unbearable to say the least if their dead parents rose rotten from the grave for a final embrace. And as for the dead, regrets of the moment just before death are usually burned into their heads. No real rationality is left; they just lose control. Only a very small subset of people can become rational undead. Only those with strong wills and souls.”
But even so—
“But even so, it’s a fact that what the god of undeath is giving is a blessing, not a curse. From the bottom of his heart, he’s trying to tell them that they don’t have to end their lives in frustration and encouraging them to overturn death with the radiance of their souls.”
“Um...” Al looked like he’d been badly wanting to say something. “Master Will, err, you know an awful lot about Stagnate. Could it be you’ve...”
Oops.
“Have you met an Echo of—no, what am I talking about. That couldn’t happen, not even to you. Have you met one of Stagnate’s Heralds or something?”
“...”
“Why are you looking away from me?!”
“N-No reason, I just, uh, I just... Hahaha...”
“Don’t laugh!”
“Hahaha...”
◆
With the odd moment like that to break things up, we walked around the hill for a while, but as I expected, we didn’t spot anything suspicious.
“Yeah, it feels likely they were just seeing things.”
“S-So it was all a false alarm...”
I laughed sympathetically. “Well, it’s like that sometimes.”
Al had come steeling himself for his first battle, and it had just been a false alarm. His shoulders sank and his expression showed a mix of disappointment and frustration. “Ah—b-but, the hunter said they sensed an unholy aura, didn’t they?!”
“An ‘aura’ is a pretty vague concept, after all. With an atmosphere like this place has, if you thought you saw something undead here, you might feel like you sensed an aura, don’t you think?”
“I guess so...”
That being said, he did have a point. That ‘aura’ was the one thing that was still bugging me. If the hunter really was seeing things, we just had to go back and say it was nothing. But it would be terrible if we reported that it was nothing and then there were casualties later. With these thoughts in my head, I went around the hill one more time.
“Hm?” Through the mist, behind bushes and undergrowth at the bottom of the hill, I got the feeling that I caught a glimpse of something. “Al, this way.” Making my way through the undergrowth, I moved towards it.
Hidden among bushes and undergrowth at the bottom of the hill was a dilapidated old door.
“Is that a way into the mound?”
It probably wasn’t very large, judging by the size of the hill. I regarded the door with suspicion. There was a chance that some magic or a trap had been set up as a measure against grave robbing, but I had to check. I mentally said some words of apology to the people buried here.
“Let’s check this out, too.”
“Right.”
I listened out carefully and cautiously placed a hand on the door. It had an extremely simple construction without even a lock, and even though many years must have passed, it still just about opened.
“Lumen.” I converged mana onto the Sign engraved in my favorite spear, Pale Moon, securing myself a magical source of illumination. “Okay. Good. And... Flammo Ignis.” I also used a Word to create fire and light the torch I’d brought with me. “Al, hold onto this.”
“Yes, sir. But why two different types of light?”
“If you were an intelligent undead who could see in the dark and you wanted to use darkness to ambush someone who couldn’t, how would you go about doing it?”
There was a long silence.
“I’m glad you understand.”
Magical light couldn’t be extinguished with water, and conversely, the Word of Negation that could erase a magical light wouldn’t erase a fire that physically existed. If we used two kinds of lights, it wasn’t very likely that we’d lose both of them at the exact same time. It was one of the fundamentals of exploring.
Once I’d prepared our light and performed a few additional equipment checks, we cautiously made our way through the wet soil passage, keeping alert for any signs of a cave-in. We soon reached the burial chamber at the innermost part of the mound. At that instant, my entire body was assailed by an abnormally dense unholy aura.
Al let out a frightened yelp. I froze completely and my hair stood on end.
No. No, something was wrong.
This was no normal, naturally occurring undead—
“Welcome to my temporary abode.”
A voice echoed from deep in the darkness. An icy chill ran down my spine. That thick aura, so strong it made you want to drop to your knees—I’d felt it before. Al was shaking violently, both of his hands still wrapped tightly around the handle of his battle axe.
“Has it really been two years, warrior of the flame?”
In the darkness at the back of the burial chamber, red eyes glowed. He was grinning. I could see it in his narrowed eyes.
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