The priest was blessed with good luck.
“Let us make haste,” he said.
The priest began to run, and Kai and his squad followed.
“Godspeed.”
“Don’t get yourselves killed!”
The other soldiers wished them luck as they set out.
Although those soldiers were staying behind, they had been given the task of supporting Kai and the others if they needed to retreat, which was a dangerous task in itself. They needed to secure their path of retreat and if necessary, provide a diversion to draw the enemy away. They had no guardian bearer with them, so they may have been the ones in the greatest danger.
Kai and the others ran out from the forest and used the landscape as cover so that they could move toward the settlement without the org soldiers noticing them. The orgs’ hunger for macaque godstones was so great that it left them unconscious of their surroundings.
A single org did notice them, but the priest leaped at it quickly while it was feeding and broke its neck with his staff before it could make a sound.
When the human soldiers hesitated for a moment to consider taking its godstone, the priest scolded them and urged them to keep moving. He advised them that the task at hand was more important and that death awaits those whose greed prevents them from seeing beyond what lies at their feet.
Then they came to a place where they could see the land around the brick towers that they’d seen earlier. Up close, it looked similar to the monastery in Lag. There were incense burners that looked fitting for a temple and beside them was a wooden door leading into a tower.
The wooden door had been left wide open. Needless to say, there were guards standing by the entrance on the lookout for would-be intruders.
At the feet of the guards lay several bodies that must have belonged to the residents of this dwelling. Strewn across the ground were the corpses of deer-like demi-humans with horns like tree branches growing from their heads. Although Kai had never seen them before, he knew these were uzelle, a species just as rare as the koror.
The copious amounts of blood pooled around the corpses suggested that their godstones had already been extracted. Their horns were highly prized among humans as ingredients for healing remedies, but those had been left as if they had no significance to the org soldiers.
Kai and the others studied the area and stayed alert for any signs of enemy approach. Then the priest, with power equivalent to a guardian bearer, charged at the org guards.
The first was probably dead before it knew what was happening. The priest extracted a hidden blade from the top the staff that he used like a cane while walking. The blade pierced straight through the guard’s brainstem.
The group tactics that followed were as natural to the soldiers as breathing. Kai and the others had leaped from the shadows the moment the first guard fell. This drew the attention of the other guards and left them unable to deal with the priest who emerged from behind the collapsing body of the guard he’d just killed.
A great shudder ran through the second guard’s body as the blade entered from below its jaw and pierced through to its brain, and then the org’s back hit the wall as it collapsed.
The priest was deadly.
Kai had no time to be awestruck if he wanted to keep up with the priest advancing into the tower.
Inside the tower there was a pungent smell of blood and entrails. The tower had no windows to provide ventilation, so the strange stink of the dead lingered.
Everyone followed the priest deeper into the darkness while holding their noses.
“Fire, I call upon you,” the priest muttered, causing a blue flame to appear above his hand.
This was undoubtedly the same fire magic that Kai used himself.
The priest didn’t seem to notice that Kai was watching him closely. He took a small booklet from his pocket and began to read the engraved words that were in front of him.
At first, Kai wondered why the priest needed to go to the trouble of using the booklet, but then he remembered that this priest wasn’t a guardian bearer. If he’d been blessed by a land god, he probably could have read the inscription on the grave simply by touching it with his finger.
Kai managed to touch the inscription with his finger while the priest was still examining it.
As expected, the text on the front was a jumble of words that Kai couldn’t understand. He tried moving to the rear of the grave instead and there he found a short piece of text.
I am Nazelkazeel.
That was the entirety of the inscription.
There were no names of gods that this god served. This god must have existed in this land in isolation.
Kai checked that no one was watching him and then he softly put his hands together. With the land in chaos, this god must have been weakened. He felt sincere pity for the god.
Then he felt some sort of presence.
Kai looked up, thinking he heard the priest walking towards him. That wasn’t surprising. If he simply wanted to know the name of the grave’s owner it was quickest to read the rear face.
Kai didn’t realize that those footsteps were too soft to be those of the priest.
32
As Kai moved toward the rest of the group, he pretended to be searching the area so that the priest wouldn’t notice that he’d been reading the inscription.
Huh...?
Something seemed wrong, but rather than dwell on it further, he strained to hear the priest’s muttering.
“It seems the land god who lies in this grave is named Nazelkazeel. The monastery has developed means for deciphering these inscriptions. It would appear that the guardian bearer blessed by this god still lives. It is an ancient, founding god, but alas, this is not the god spoken of in the prophecy.”
The priest had deliberately spoken his thoughts aloud for the soldiers to hear. Now that he knew this was not the gravesite he was looking for, he made his next decision quickly.
The party moved toward the exit with the priest leading the way. They had spent roughly a quarter of a toki by the gravesite, and the org forces were likely to return before long.
Their only wish now was for a swift return home. In their haste, they made enough noise to attract the attention of some org soldiers, but they concentrated on running and hoped to shake them off.
Now that they knew the uzelle guardian bearer was still alive, the gravesite was not so important. It explained why it hadn’t been well secured. Kai simply saw this as good luck.
They hid themselves in the undergrowth at the edge of the forest and met up with the other soldiers. The group of humans then hastily set out on the return journey. Their first task was to reach the safe zone provided by the lagarto marshland, and they hurried there frantically without looking back.
The party crossed through the marshes and over rivers, hoping that the lagarto marshland had obscured their tracks, and they made it back to the macaque-controlled region of the forest in just over half a day.
The battle between two demi-human species had drawn the macaque forces out of the forest, making it likely that this was a safe place for the time being. This was where they finally rested and made preparations to set up camp. Night had already fallen, and their surroundings were dark.
“Some of our party haven’t caught up yet.”
“Ganz and El aren’t with us.”
In a world where godstones could be harvested to increase one’s power, physical ability varied greatly between individuals. While they waited, the slower soldiers gradually caught up, but it had been some time since the last soldier had arrived, and there were still two others missing.
The soldiers from Lag were silently exchanging glances, and it was the four squad leaders who gathered together to talk where the priest couldn’t see them.
Naturally they were talking about sending someone out to search for the missing men. The squad that the missing men belonged to was led by a soldier named Carick.
“My squad’s going to go l
ook for them,” Carick said apologetically while rubbing at his hairy arms. “I know it’s asking a lot, but we need more men with us.”
The priest knew that the soldiers were having this discussion, but he pretended not to notice. Although the priest was the most powerful fighter of the group, it made no sense for the soldiers to ask for help from the person they were there to protect.
“I’ll go...”
Kai was the first to volunteer. Two other soldiers, each from different squads, were also chosen.
Carick smiled with relief when he heard that they’d be joined by Kai, the highest-ranking soldier. “I owe you one,” he told Kai with a nod of his head. The nervous-looking soldiers who would guard the rear also nodded to one another and began making preparations to set out.
Kai returned to his squadmates and told Manso to take care of things while he was gone. Kai then collected up his belongings. His squadmates were sitting on the ground exhausted.
“I don’t know how you’re not tired,” Manso said with a wry smile. “Good luck.”
The two bumped fists. “We’re lucky,” Manso said. “It’s a bright night.”
Kai looked up at the sky.
There wasn’t a single cloud in the night sky, and the stars were shining like a million jewels. The brightest body in the sky, Ispi Rio, shone brightly above his head.
The giant body known as the moon didn’t exist in this world. The nights were lightest when Ispi Rio was shining overhead.
It’s so much like the Milky Way, Kai thought absentmindedly.
It was a strange feeling when the knowledge drawn from his previous life was slightly off the mark.
The lights in the river of souls would slowly move together with the flow of the whole. One way it differed from his past life memories was that these shining jewels overhead were not exactly stars. The constellations that appeared in the night sky of this world were slowly and continuously changing as if floating on water.
It was a beautiful scene, and Kai felt as though his soul was being drawn in as he stared into it. But he looked away from it with a wave of his hand. He had never seen the night sky as bright as it was tonight.
“Let’s go.”
Kai and the rest of the search party headed back the way they came.
With just over a toki having gone by after leaving the camp ground, they had traveled back a long way.
They’d spent the entire day running, so the members of the party were fatigued and walked with heavy footsteps. With the journey back to camp still to consider, Kai and everyone else were no doubt wondering if they were approaching their limit. But Carick’s squad weren’t going to say anything because it would mean giving up on their squadmates, and the search continued.
As usual, there was no sign of lagarto in the lagarto territory, but they found danger waiting in the territory just beyond that, which was now controlled by the orgs.
The orgs had formed a group that was hunting through the mountains.
Kai and the others hid in the grass at the edge of the lagarto territory and watched the org hunters, who were communicating using their inhuman voices.
Carick and his squadmates gulped and broke into a cold sweat. The situation looked bleak for the missing soldiers.
All of the humans, Kai included, jumped to the conclusion that the orgs were there to search for the humans they’d sighted. It was easy to imagine how the hunters might have been enraged after returning to the gravesite and finding that outsiders had tried to defile it.
“Looks like the search ends here.”
“But Ganz and El...”
“We shouldn’t have to die just because they’re both too slow. I say we head back. Anyone who says otherwise can go on without me.”
“Wait, there’s one pointing this way,” someone whispered, causing the others to instinctively get ready to run.
Even though they were hidden in lagarto territory, the orgs could choose to trespass there for a little while just as easily.
Then things went from bad to worse. At the worst possible timing, they heard shouting that sounded like a human voice from within the forest.
Realizing that the two soldiers were still alive, Carick and his two squadmates broke away from the rest of the party.
“That’s them!”
“Wait!”
“Forget about them!”
Kai and the others couldn’t stop Carick and his squadmates from running out toward the voices they’d heard. The shouting had given away their position to the enemy. The nearby orgs were already gathering together and heading in their direction.
Kai gritted his teeth.
He knew that if he wanted to, he could drive away a few orgs no problem. But he didn’t want to do it if it meant revealing to everyone that he was a guardian bearer.
Maybe I’m heartless...
If he was ready to give up on his current life, he could save everyone. But there’d be no place for him in the village afterward. These men were fellow soldiers, but they weren’t close friends, and he had to ask himself whether he was willing to throw away his current lifestyle to save them from a mess of their own making. The answer was a definite no. He wasn’t willing to give up so much for the sake of two soldiers from another squad, or for Carick and the others who’d just ran out.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Forget those idiots.”
Kai got ready to run while thinking about which direction the other two soldiers were likely to head off in.
The gathering of orgs headed straight for Carick and the other two careless soldiers, and the remains of the three of them were unrecognizable just a few moments later. Their screams stopped just a few moments after they’d started.
Human lives were fragile. The orgs began to fight over the godstones of Carick and the other two, reducing the number of orgs heading in Kai’s direction.
“Don’t go...”
“Help us!”
The slow soldiers who’d caused Carick and the others to die were still shouting from some distance away, but no one paid them any attention.
Kai and the two soldiers with him were all chosen for their physical fitness. They ran as fast as they could without looking back, believing that they’d survive somehow if they just kept going. But then something unexpected happened.
The orgs began to call for more of their kind with high-pitched cries, and within an instant something came flying toward Kai and the others before colliding with a tree on their path to escape.
The object embedded itself deep into the middle of the tree trunk with a sound that caused the soldiers to stop and cower. It was one of the familiar iron axes that orgs would often carry.
“...”
Then the undergrowth in front of the three frozen soldiers parted, and there appeared a massive figure that towered above them.
No one knew how long it had been there. No one knew how it had gotten there.
As it moved, its armor made grinding sounds and shone with the reflected faint light of the night sky.
The guardian bearer!
It was the massive armored org that had led the orgish army.
33
Kai stared dumbstruck at the armored soldier that stood in their path.
It was easily three yules tall. It was more than a head taller than an ordinary org.
Its mass wasn’t ordinary either. They had never seen a muscular org before, but this stout armored soldier looked to be hiding great amounts of muscle beneath its skin, rather than fat.
The proof was in the fact that every time the armored soldier took a step, the thick, exposed skin of its arms and legs would shake, and broad, vine-like muscle tissue would be visible for just a moment deep within.
The armored org effortlessly pulled the axe from out of the tree and used it to point in the direction of the humans.
Its strained cry was much deeper than the cries of other orgs. It may have said something to them in orgish, but Kai and the others had no way of
knowing.
Maybe this one can speak the human tongue too, thought Kai.
Demi-humans were more intelligent than he’d once thought. He’d heard of negotiations happening between humans and certain types of demi-humans in the west, and Kai’s experience suggested that all of those negotiations were carried out in the human tongue. Humans were an important species that ruled over vast territories, so the demi-humans in neighboring territories must have been forced to learn their language, but Kai had never encountered a human who could understand the words of the demi-humans around them. He wondered if creatures able to learn the language of other species might actually be more intelligent than humans.
But the armored soldier said nothing in the human tongue. Instead, it regarded the humans as mere foot soldiers who weren’t worth the time.
It was as if it had stumbled across some weak creatures while moving through the forest and had decided to kill them for fun. The armored soldier’s first act was to swing its weapon straight down at the humans to see how they reacted.
“Spread out.”
If the guardian bearer had come at them seriously, they’d have had little chance to dodge its attack. The org was reddish black, like the color of inflamed skin, and it hadn’t yet shown its kumadori. It was obvious that it saw no need to get serious.
Its first target was the soldier named Chito, who had been running ahead of the others. He was a quick-witted man, more skilled with knives and short spears than with the long spear. He acted more or less instinctively. Times like these were the only times that the soldiers benefited from having watched those training bouts where the baron demonstrated how a guardian bearer fights.
He raised his short spear in time and its handle slid across the blade allowing him to just barely escape that first attack. But the incredible strength of the armored soldier was more than Chito could withstand. The wrist of the hand that held the spear was now bent at an unnatural angle.
Chito quickly realized that he’d just lost the ability to fight. He dropped to the ground and rolled out of the path of the armored soldier. At this point, the other soldier, Nail, was alone and fleeing the scene as quickly as he could. His back could be seen bobbing up and down as he ran through the grass.
Teogonia: Volume 1 (Premium) Page 20