I incanted several Words and killed the light dwelling in Pale Moon’s blade. First things first: scouting. I decided to keep my ears open and approach with caution. Keeping my body low to the ground, I exited the forest and approached the fields. Then, I heard talking.
“Thought I saw something shining in the forest...”
“Sure you weren’t seeing things?”
There were two lanterns, and they were getting closer. Holding the lights were two men, one middle-aged and one an adolescent, each wearing a fur smock over a faded tunic and carrying a club in his hand. My first thought was that they might be on village night patrol. At least, they didn’t seem on edge as they would have if a disaster like that had occurred.
Then things weren’t as I’d seen them in that revelation yet, after all. Thank the gods.
“Hm?”
As I was beginning to relax, the older of the two men noticed my shape caught in his lantern light. I smiled awkwardly at him and decided to walk over. I figured that if I named myself as an acquaintance of Menel’s, they wouldn’t immediately get rough with me. They looked at me and had barely opened their mouths to speak when I stepped forward hard and lunged out with my spear.
“Wha—?!”
“Hyeeek!”
There was an echo of clashing metal. I stepped forward again and swung my spear to the side without breaking flow. There was another metallic clash.
“Get back!” I stood in front of the two to protect them, blocking whatever it was that was flying at us with my shield.
The attacker...! If they were using a projectile weapon, then they weren’t a beast. That left demons, goblins, and the undead. I quickly glanced at what had fallen, hoping I’d be able to pin down the identity of my opponent.
It was an arrow with white feathers.
My mind froze. That very instant, there was a sudden noise. The twang of a bowstring! I raised my shield and deflected the arrow flying this way.
Arrows coming from the front are essentially points. It’s very difficult to knock them away with a spear. While shielding the most vulnerable areas of my body, I expanded my conjured light and looked in their direction.
At the end of my line of sight... frowning with a serious look on his face... was a silver-haired half-elf with an arrow nocked on the bow in his hand.
Behind him stood about ten more men in slightly dirty clothes, armed with basic clubs and spears. There was no doubt.
“Menel...”
Menel’s settlement? A disaster was going to befall him? I had to rush in and save him? How foolish had I been...
Menel—Meneldor wasn’t going to be a victim of the tragedy I’d witnessed.
He was the perpetrator.
◆
My brain couldn’t keep up. Why was Menel... We’d shared laughs and smiles together, hadn’t we...?
“Go. Secure the village,” Menel ordered. “I’ll deal with him.”
The men behind him started to scatter.
“Wai—” I tried to move to stop them when another arrow flew my way. If I dodged it, its course would take it right into the two behind me. I deflected it with my shield.
“I said not to follow me... Seriously, brother...” Some kind of emotion flashed in Menel’s eyes, but it disappeared in an instant. “Die.”
The feat I saw in the next moment was incredible. He fired three arrows—aimed at my face, arm, and leg—in a single, fluid, uninterrupted motion.
My mind was still a muddle, but my body, trained by Blood, reacted to Menel’s amazing attack with precision. While using my shield to knock away the arrows coming at my arm and face, I pulled my leg back and turned my body sideways, dodging the final arrow.
“Ah... ah...” The wordless gasps of the two behind me began to turn into screams. They had finally started to understand the situation. “Everyone! Wake up! Wake up!”
“WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!! Bring weapons! Hide the women and children!”
“Tch!” The screams seeming to put him under pressure, Menel fired more arrows at me. Every one of them was brutally accurate. I was certain that if I hadn’t had a shield, I’d already have several arrows sprouting out of my body. And to think I’d considered not bringing it at all; as it turned out, this thing was saving my life.
As I advanced while keeping up my defense, Menel retreated, keeping the same distance between us.
If this was his ideal separation, then... I’d close that distance!
“Acceleratio!” An explosion of speed—
“‘Gnomes, gnomes, slip underfoot!’” Menel shouted at almost the same time. The ground suddenly wriggled all over, trying to take my legs out from under me.
In all likelihood this was Slip, a spell that made use of gnomes, the earth elementals. I was still accelerating; if my foot got caught, my momentum would likely cause a fracture.
I could see Menel grinning with satisfaction. He’d used that elemental power at the absolutely perfect moment, and I had no immediate strategy for dealing with this kind of thing. And since I had no strategy—
“SSEHHH—HNG!!” I slammed my foot down with all my strength. There was a thunderous noise. The ground shook powerfully, and the gnomes stopped their work as if frightened into stillness.
“What?!” Menel gaped at me. So did the men trying to attack the village. Even the men who had come out with weapons, intending to fight back, were staring at me with eyes wide open.
They were all evidently unaware—that if you got ripped, you could solve pretty much everything by force!
“Fig!” Menel backed off further, cursing.
After shooting arrows at me in quick succession, he slung his bow over his shoulder and started throwing knives at me. They came at me in an arc—maybe he had a special way of throwing them, or maybe the knives themselves had some trick to their design—curving towards me from the left and right. The ones that were safe to avoid, I dodged by turning my body; those that weren’t, I deflected with my shield. I pressed even closer. Shields really were convenient. I was glad I’d brought one.
Menel looked like he had finally resigned himself to face me. He held his hatchet ready to strike, and then—
“‘Salamander! Scorch him!’”
From behind, Fire Breath bellowed towards me out of the flames of the middle-aged man’s lantern. Without turning around, I stuck out my spear and thrust it into the flames, dispersing them.
I’d pretty much seen that coming.
“No way.” Menel looked stupefied.
His feint was positively straightforward compared to the god of undeath’s lack of scruples and the tricks Gus and Blood had pulled on me when they got serious.
As Menel stood there, I closed the distance.
“You’re feckin’ strong...” he said with a bitter smile on his face.
I rammed the handle of my spear into his solar plexus.
I heard the air being forced out of his lungs, and he fell to his knees. His diaphragm was spasming and he couldn’t control his breathing. He wouldn’t be able to move properly for a while. In the meantime, I incanted the Word of Web-making to restrain him.
I looked towards the village. There was no battle; everyone had just been watching our fight in amazement. I counted myself very lucky.
I decided to capture the rest of the raiders before anyone got hurt.
◆
The outcome: nobody died.
After striking down Menel, I managed to neutralize the rest of his ten-strong band of raiders with relative ease by using the Words of Sleep and Paralysis. Somehow or another, a terrible raid had been avoided, and although there were a few people injured, I had no trouble healing them with my benediction.
Because of this, I received a great deal of thanks from the people of the village as “a passing kind-hearted holy warrior”—but by the time the sun had started to rise on the village square at its outskirts, my face was showing nothing but displeasure.
In the center of the square was something like a small
shrine, where a pile of irregularly shaped stones had been stacked. It was a shrine dedicated to the good gods. I could imagine that it had been created by piling up stones that villagers had unearthed while cultivating the fields and didn’t know what else to do with. In that sense, it was probably also a monument to their agricultural efforts.
If the custom here was the same as what Gus had taught me, important discussions were often held before the gods in small settlements like this, sometimes while making oaths to them. Even in my previous world, there were many regions that held assemblies and important votes before their god. In this world, however, where the gods could exert their influence upon reality, this custom carried even greater significance.
At this very moment, in this square with its shrine, the men of the village were holding a debate concerning how to deal with the village’s assailants, who had been paralyzed and tied up.
“For the hundredth time—”
“Hang the ruddy buggers! End of discussion!”
“Listen to what I say to you!”
“First off—Hey! I said, first off—”
“They just suddenly came and attacked us!”
“Look, that ain’t what’s important here!”
What a mess. In fact, it looked like everyone was just shouting at each other.
This was awful.
For a moment, I wondered why they were behaving like this—and then I suddenly realized something about the villagers. They had all different skin tones, each one of them had a different accent, and in their agitation, some of them were angrily shouting out coarse vocabulary I hadn’t heard from any of the others.
As I took notice of this with surprise, a middle-aged man approached me.
“My ’umble apologies, sir, for the disgraceful display. Thankee kindly for the ’elp, I’m much obliged.” He bowed his head to me. I realized that this was the same man I had met earlier, one of the two who had come under Menel’s first attack. “Name’s John, sir.”
“Ah, you’re welcome. Umm... My name is William. Uhh... So...” Ignoring the people yelling at each other for the time being, I tried to get a better picture of things through John.
Just as I’d heard from Menel yesterday, I was currently in Beast Woods, Southmark. The woods were deep and expansive, with ferocious creatures and even more dangerous “beasts” running rampant. As a result, John explained, the influence of the Fertile Kingdom that ruled this area did not extend here.
“I will say that we ’ave a lot of characters of, shall we say, int’restin’ ’ist’ries...”
Criminals, runaway serfs, those who had fled here from fallen nations, would-be adventurers still trying to make their way by ruin-hunting—all kinds of people who, for one reason or another, couldn’t live in the city had naturally gathered together and formed this village. Apparently, there were a number of such settlements dotted about these woods.
Naturally, the settlers’ places of origin, their norms, and their perceptions of law all varied wildly. No wonder they were like this when they tried to hold a meeting. I sympathized with their difficult situation, but at the same time—
“I wonder what will happen to them.” I glanced at Menel. He had been bound by the Words of Web-making and Paralysis and left to lie on the ground; I couldn’t see his expression from where I was standing.
If you formed a group and raided a village in an area beyond the reach of the law, then failed and got captured... I had to admit what would happen to you was kind of predictable.
Menel would be killed at the hands of the mob and left to hang... or something along those lines, I guessed.
That left a bad taste in my mouth. I could sense that I was acting soft, a carry-over from my past life, but there was still something making this a little difficult for me to accept.
As selfish a reason as it was, the idea that people I’d captured were going to die—that I would, in essence, cause the deaths of others—wasn’t something I wanted to be confronted with, nor did I want brutal mob justice to be one of the first things I got to see upon entering civilization. Furthermore, even if he was a bandit, I didn’t feel good about the prospect of watching someone I knew, someone I’d had a conversation with, die in front of me in a state of paralyzed confusion.
I mean, after leaving the city, I figured the first place I’d come across would be an outskirt area with poor law and order, so I’d been prepared for things to get a little rough, but I never expected it to go this bad this fast.
Fighting off bandits is a classic adventure-story trope, but now that I’d run into them in real life, I realized how hard they were to deal with. You couldn’t just send them on their way and expect no trouble later. As I was wondering whether there was anything I could do—
“’Fraid I don’t know what’s gonna ’appen to them, either.”
“You don’t know?” I tilted my head. In a situation like this, I’d been expecting that whatever solution they settled on would probably involve killing the raiders.
“They’re familiar faces, see. Our neighbors, if you will, from th’ nex’ village over. Ah, I say neighbors, but they ain’t immediately adjacen’ to us. There’s a day’s walk between us through the woods and ’cross a brook.”
“Huh?”
The neighboring village raided them? In the middle of winter? Without any warning?
“They weren’ well off, none of us are, but they ’ad enough provisions, ’s far’s I know... I’d’ve said they were right nice people for residents o’ these woods, and I though’ we’d been getting along quite well ’til now.”
Hmm. That did sound mysterious.
“Wha’s more, tha’ silver-’aired elf, ’e ’as a good reputation ’round this neighborhood as a renowned wand’ring ’unter. ’E’s ’elped us many times in eliminating dangerous beasts. Sev’ral of us here owe our lives to ’im. I don’ understand it.”
I was starting to see where John’s doubts were coming from and had just nodded in agreement when I noticed a shift in all the shouting at the meeting.
“Very good, very good,” an old man said, clapping his hands loudly. “I’m sure you’re all getting tired of talking. Why don’t we all have a drink of water?”
It did look like everyone had yelled themselves hoarse at this point. The old man must have been waiting for that perfect moment to join the meeting.
He was short, with hair that had turned almost completely white, and he used a cane. He seemed friendly, but he had a look in his eyes that told me he was a man to keep a close watch on. The small scar near his left eyebrow was very distinctive. It looked like an old blade wound.
“Tha’ old gentleman is Tom,” John told me helpfully. “’E’s the village elder.”
While the water jug was being passed around, Tom began to speak. “All right. You don’t have to stop drinking, but I’d like it if you would listen to what I have to say for a moment. First of all, just to check: The ones laid out here are mostly from the next village, yes? And then there’s the silver-haired hunter.”
The elder’s speech had a smooth flow to it that seemed to draw me in. Because he’d timed this just when the villagers were tired of talking and were now drinking and taking a breather, all those men who had shouted so much were making no attempts to interrupt the elder’s words. He’s clever, I thought.
“John, I believe you saw these people rush into our village last night, armed with weapons. Is that correct?”
Everyone’s eyes turned to John, who was sitting some distance away from the rest of the others at the meeting.
“I did indeed, Elder,” he replied calmly, nodding. “And I was saved by this ’oly warrior.”
“Mm. Please, allow me to also express my thanks.”
“There’s no need,” I said. “It’s, uh... It was all thanks to the guidance of the god of the flame.”
“Then I must express my gratitude to that god as well,” Tom replied. Turning to the shrine, he gave an informal bow of worship and smiled. His e
xpression reminded me just a little of Gus.
He briefly shot me a meaningful glance, and while I was still trying to figure out what exactly it meant, he continued. “Well, let’s see. For the time being, can we assume that while we’re here discussing this, you will protect us in the event that something happens?”
“Hmmm...”
It sounded as though Tom wanted this conversation to head towards getting an explanation from the bandits. He wanted to get to the point where he could say that it’d be safe to release their paralysis because I’d be around for protection if they started getting violent again. I thought for a moment and replied, “On the flame of Gracefeel, I will protect everyone here.”
The reason I kept the object of that sentence vague was just in case I found out this village had a good reason to come under attack. Depending on the circumstances, I might also have to protect the assailants.
“Then we’ll be safe even if they turn on us again,” Tom said, smiling lightly. He seemed to have picked up on my intentions. “Everyone, I am thinking we should start by getting them up and asking them some questions. What do you all say?”
One of the villagers who had been chugging down water finished his drink with an audible sigh of satisfaction. “Elder,” he said, “it ain’t a good idea to give people you’re gonna be hangin’ a chance to chat. You start feelin’ sorry for ’em and then it ain’t so easy to do the deed. Stuff like this is best done quick.”
I could see a few people agreeing.
The people this far out were probably reasonably used to rough things like this. The fact that they half-knew their attackers probably had a lot to do with it as well.
“Surely you must agree it’s dangerous to remain ignorant of the facts? Besides, it wouldn’t be good to make the holy warrior who helped us out think we’ve got something to hide.” Tom seemed to have gotten the villagers onto his side. He turned to look at me.
I nodded back.
Menel may have had a blunt personality, but he hadn’t looked like a person who enjoyed killing people and stealing their goods to me. And although I’d entertained the possibility, it didn’t seem like the people of this village knew any reason why they deserved to be attacked, either.
The Archer of Beast Woods Page 3