The food store room was quite spacious, but it was divided up into stalls like a stable. Some of the stalls towards the rear were so dimly lit that it was hard to see.
Kai was led to a stall at the very back of the room. It was dark, but there were torches burning, so there was enough light to work in.
In the stall he found the girl who had once piled his plate high with food when serving him his dinner. Kai realized that it had been some time since he last saw her. When she looked up at Kai, there were tears streaming down her face.
Kai was surprised when she then threw her arms around him and held herself tightly to his chest.
The girl said nothing, so one of the girls who had led Kai spoke for her.
“Kai, Elsa needs you right now.”
“...”
Kai had no idea what that meant.
The softness of her body and her indescribable scent made him feel light-headed.
“Elsa was chosen,” the girl continued.
It took Kai a few moments to realize what that meant.
The girl’s grip on Kai’s clothing then tightened. Then everything made sense in Kai’s confused mind.
“You mean he wants her?”
It was so unexpected that Kai didn’t know how to react.
30
Not this girl...
Kai remembered the horrible things he’d heard about the inspector wanting “pure girls.” It had felt like something unpleasant happening somewhere far away, but now the reality hit him like a slap in the face.
The warmth of the girl in his arms made the reality hard to ignore.
Kai turned when he heard the sound of soft footsteps approaching, and there he saw Adelia guiding the other women out of the food stores.
He wanted to ask why they’d forced her onto him, but before he could find the words, Adelia silenced him with an awkward wink before leaving the room.
Somehow, he knew that the wink had meant, “Take care of her.”
Kai and the girl were left alone together in the storeroom late at night. The girl moved so she could look up at him. She was several years older than Kai, but Elsa’s expression reminded him of a small, frightened child. Kai felt a strong urge to protect her.
“I want it to be you, Kai.”
“...”
Until then, no member of the opposite sex had ever shown Kai affection so openly.
He was unsure how to react, but his instincts triggered passionate feelings. Rational thoughts vanished, and they followed their instincts as a man and a woman. The dizzying atmosphere of the room must have been prepared specially to make it happen.
Kai had been holding Elsa tight, unsure what he should do next. It was Elsa who took the lead.
Kai saw her face quickly move closer, and then their lips met. Then his legs gave way, and he landed awkwardly on his rear at the edge of the room.
Her body was entwined with his.
And then the two were one with the other in the darkness, in the clumsy fashion of two inexperienced lovers.
**
The expedition force left the village the next morning and headed for the forest.
The party was made up of Truthseeker Nada, who would lead the survey, together with the 20 soldiers of the four selected squads who were there to escort him. Many villagers turned out to see them off when they left the village, and Kai’s squad were among those who looked back and waved to them many times.
“Something happened, didn’t it?”
When Kai had returned to the barracks covered in dust, there wasn’t a single man there who didn’t immediately guess where he’d been.
Manso patted him on the back and asked, “How was it?”
In the end, none of them had gotten any sleep, so Kai was never given an opportunity to hide the evidence.
Manso was apparently “experienced” himself, and when he teased the other members of the squad they couldn’t help but get angry at his taunts.
Regardless, Kai refused to tell them anything. Not just because it was embarrassing, but also because he felt he’d lose his sense of self-worth as a man if he brought shame on the girl.
“Will she be all right?”
“Yeah. She’s probably fine now. Everyone said so.”
If she’d wanted, Kai had been ready to fight with the loathsome inspector that very night. But she told him no. Kai’s feelings were still eating away at him when he left the village with the deep forest expedition party as scheduled.
The women’s council had promised to protect her, and they told him that the guest would lose interest in her now that she was Kai’s. But Kai still couldn’t help but be angry with himself for not doing more.
His focus now was on finishing their task so that he could return to the village. He decided that once he returned, he’d take the girl with him to the valley.
The closest edge of the forest was roughly one yuld from Lag.
The hooded priest spread out a piece of parchment that looked like a map and carefully adjusted the direction in which the party were headed. At first, it was the priest who walked in front, but that wasn’t possible once they entered the forest. Instead, the four squads surrounded him for protection.
Kai’s squad was considered the most capable of the four, so they took the lead.
As the most skilled soldier in the expedition party, Kai’s position was by the side of the priest. This meant that the priest spoke to Kai when he wanted someone to talk to, and he had many questions to ask about their destination and the forest. Kai was constantly annoyed by the priest’s attempts to start a conversation.
“These scent bags smell quite awful, don’t they?”
“We use them to hide our scents. It’s best to wear them when you’re in the forest.”
“I see. The demi-humans must have a keen sense of smell. This smell of herbs makes our scent much more difficult to identify, I’m sure... But the smell really is quite awful.”
“You just have to deal with it.”
“I shall certainly try to do so... Now tell me, do the people of your village often enter this forest?”
“Yeah. But only people who know how to fight. And we never go this far in.”
“Whereabouts would you say the macaques’ area of activity begins? Would you say that they are the species we are most likely to encounter on this expedition?”
“Well, there’re a lot of them around.”
“I have had a brief encounter with them myself. They are rather aggressive, aren’t they? The moment they saw us, they came charging over. Do they always approach humans with such hostility?”
“When we see each other, we kill each other. You don’t take chances with macaques.”
“I have heard that there are demi-humans who live in harmony with humans...”
“The koror, maybe.”
“These koror, do you suppose we might encounter them in this region?”
“...”
“What other demi-humans have you encountered yourself?”
There was no end to his questions.
Even when Kai decided to start ignoring him, the priest continued talking for a long time, and only stopped when they spotted the first macaque.
In all likelihood, with such a large group so deep into the forest, the macaques had probably sensed the human presence and avoided approaching them carelessly. But now they were finally entering into an area that was true macaque territory.
“Will there be fighting now?”
“We’re just here to look around. We’ll avoid fights if we can.” Manso had started answering the priest’s questions after realizing that Kai was avoiding conversation.
If they were to start a fight here, they might kill several macaques, but then others would come seeking revenge.
For a while, they were followed by macaque scouts, but then they entered into marshland controlled by the lagarto and were able to shake them off.
The party trekked further into the forest and reached a region shrouded in fine mist
that made their bodies shiver, where very few humans had ever ventured. What lay before them were the depths of the forest that demi-humans considered their garden.
The party were trying not to draw attention to themselves as long as they were in the forest, but they’d already seen several crude huts in the treetops that suggested there were macaque dwellings here. They also saw ash-covered clearings that looked like evidence of slash-and-burn farming.
It was common knowledge in this world that wherever there’s a village, there’s probably a land god, and probably a guardian bearer receiving that god’s blessings. All were left speechless to see signs of macaque activity so close up and the obvious poverty in which they lived.
“Let us stop here for today,” the priest said.
Kai gave the order to start setting up camp using a simple hand gesture. The first day of the survey had come to an end.
They were setting up camp in macaque territory. They cut deep into a thicket where they’d be less noticeable and tried to make space for themselves to lie down. They all had nothing other than their cloaks to lie on, so no one was particularly comfortable. They couldn’t light a fire. The smoke would have given them away.
“We’ve made good progress towards the destination. I expect we might reach it with just one more day of travel.”
“Two days one way? These depths aren’t so hard to reach if you know how to use lagarto territory.”
Kai admired the unfamiliar forest scenery as he bit into hard baked bread.
It was the same old vegetation with many balen cedars, but the trees were so much bigger and there were many more creeping plants that grew low on the ground.
Someone tried picking and eating some of the thumb-sized berries that grew on the creeping vines and found they were actually edible and not so different from potatoes. This naturally led to all of the soldiers gathering up these berries for themselves.
The priest was normally very talkative, but now he had become quiet and meditative. Now and then, he seemed to come to his senses and he would write something on the map.
“Quite a large number have gathered...”
He wanted to tell his escorts more about the situation. He gathered up the soldiers who had nothing to do after their modest meal other than lie down, and he shared all the information he’d been able to gather that day, leaving nothing out.
He told them that roughly 1,000 macaques had gathered up ahead.
An equal number of another bulky species of demi-human had also gathered, as if they were preparing to fight them. Those were most likely orgs.
The priest had also looked at the area between the two armies and found what appeared to be the gravesite of a land god.
“The dwelling surrounding it was completely burned to the ground just yesterday. It was attacked by those pig-like demi-humans.”
“So they’re attacking macaque villages to steal from them?”
“That may be the case. Or perhaps not. What I can be certain of is that there have been many deaths on both sides. There were many souls lighting the path to Samsara.”
Demi-humans weren’t limited to attacks on humans.
Even in this area beyond human eyes, bloody battles would take place between other species. Humans were declining in number, but that problem wasn’t necessarily unique to humanity.
“I do wonder what type of land god these two species want so badly that they’re willing to accept so many deaths among their own kind.” The priest laughed to himself. “I must say I’m quite intrigued.”
Although the priest spoke calmly, the soldiers all caught a brief glimpse of something troubling within him that made them avert their eyes. No one doubted that the priest was mad.
Kai felt that only a madman would be willing to come to a place like this, but then he remembered and it made him think about how different his valley was. Unlike the other soldiers, Kai himself was in the habit of visiting a region controlled by demi-humans each night.
His thoughts then turned to the girl in the village, and he tried to imagine how her face would look when he took her to the valley. That thought made him restless.
Then he remembered that there was already another girl in the valley who he’d left to take care of it in his absence. “Ah,” he muttered to himself.
31
After reaching the end of a lagarto marshland, the party continued to walk in a straight line.
They were getting farther and farther away from the plains ruled by humans. The terrain was noticeably more treacherous, and they had to navigate mountains and valleys several times.
They climbed a rocky scree that had been blocking their view of the landscape beyond, and finally their view was unimpeded. At the edge of the forest there was a broad plain that very few humans could ever have laid eyes upon.
This was a fertile land unknown to humankind. For humans who lived in the plains, it was a comforting and familiar landscape, so much so they worried that they might have gotten turned around and approached the village once more.
The plain was uncultivated, and lonely trees could be seen growing here and there. They even spotted a small stream. It was enough to make a human clench their fists in frustration at the sight of this land going to waste at a time when food was so scarce.
And on this vast uncultivated land, there were countless demi-humans engaged in a chaotic battle. The fighting appeared to be at its peak.
The two species fighting were macaques and orgs. They screeched at one another and took each other’s lives. Though the battle was happening far away, so much blood stained the soil that it was clear to see.
“How the hell do you expect to get through that?”
The priest had been calm and ready to rush straight through the chaos of the battlefield. He believed the enemy would be most careless while the fighting was at its peak, but as rational as he sounded, not a single soldier was convinced. The priest had strength comparable to a guardian bearer, and it was possible he might survive the battle, but any ordinary soldier would be massacred. Although the soldiers were ready to risk their lives, they weren’t ready to let their lives be treated with such disregard.
“Well, this is quite a problem...” the priest said while scratching his head through the fabric of his hood.
Then, he used the power of his doi sigil in an attempt to charge toward the battlefield. It took every one of the soldiers to hold him back.
No one wanted to imagine the wrath they’d face from the baron if they were to abandon their responsibility to protect the priest after coming this far.
“Let’s at least wait for the battle to end... Once the winning side starts hunting for survivors, we’ll have a chance to slip through.”
“Yes, let’s wait for that!”
A fierce battle could never continue indefinitely.
Although they had to wait, the wait might be over after just a few toki if they were fortunate. And if not, Kai thought that they’d be wise to lie low and wait for a few days at least.
Hundred eyes is amazing...
This mysterious gravesite was probably dozens of yulds from Lag. The fact that the priest had found it from that distance suggested his eyesight was incredible.
Somewhat below them, they could see three towers made from sun-dried bricks, standing side-by-side. These short, round towers resembled upside-down bowls.
Scattered around the towers were the burnt remains of the settlement, and it was clear to everyone at a glance that these towers marked the gravesite they were looking for. It appeared that every species preferred to cover their gravesites with buildings.
There were several orgs standing guard around the towers as if they’d taken up positions to defend it. The settlement was occupied by the orgs while the macaques were attacking them in an attempt to take it back.
“Very well,” the priest said. “We can watch the course of the battle for the next few toki and then sneak in when the time is right. As for who goes, we can’t move quickly with too
many people, so I’d like to take just Kai’s squad.”
The soldiers were assigned roles quickly and began to prepare in silence.
Everyone understood that their lives were on the line, and they quietly accepted the fact that their lives were being used for the sake of a single priest’s survey. They were unsure whether any of them would return to the village alive. After living through many situations in which they had killed and watched others be killed, something may have been broken inside all of them.
Kai quietly concentrated and listened for signs of life in the surroundings. He used as much of his power as he could without showing his kumadori, but he couldn’t help but feel uneasy with the perceptive priest at his side.
The battle between macaques and orgs had finally been decided in favor of the orgs, the macaques had begun to scatter, and the orgs had naturally transitioned to hunting for surviving macaques.
The orgs were led by a massive armored soldier whose body shook with each quick movement it made. It ran with power that seemed to mismatch its heavy body as it chased down and killed macaques. A terrible reddish black snout was visible beneath its large horned helmet.
The armored soldier was very clearly a guardian bearer. And it was clear that this soldier was far more powerful than an ordinary guardian bearer.
A single word came to Kai’s mind.
Rigdaros... Maybe he’s one of them.
Although it was far away, this soldier clearly looked like a worthy commander of an army of 1,000.
The only human in the borderlands capable of gathering so many soldiers was Count Balta. It seemed reasonable to expect that this was a similarly strong guardian bearer with equal authority.
The excited orgs were relentlessly chasing down every last one of the fleeing macaques to claim their godstones. The hunt for godstones was a standard part of any battle. It meant that the soldiers pursuing the losers had no reason to let their enemy escape. The same had been true for the org soldier that chased Kai to the edge of the valley. Every species hungered for godstones and the growth they caused.
They didn’t have to wait long before almost all signs of life were gone from the battlefield.
Teogonia: Volume 1 (Premium) Page 19