The Archer of Beast Woods

by Kanata Yanagino

  What on earth happened here? What was the reason that these people had attacked their neighbors?

  While pondering that mystery, I went from person to person and undid the Words.

  ◆

  After unbinding the people from the neighboring village and asking them to explain themselves, a situation jumped out at us that was even more dreadful than before.

  “Demons. Our village was done in by demons...”

  “Many people died.”

  “They brought beasts the likes of which I’d never seen...”

  To summarize what they told us: Their village, which was about a day from here, had apparently been devastated by an attack from demons and the beasts they brought with them. Around half the villagers had been killed, several buildings had been burned to the ground, and those lucky enough to have escaped with their lives had nowhere to go. With women, children, and the injured to protect, they were left to simply await death in the bitterness of winter, without food, walls, a roof, or a single possession.

  That was the situation they were in when—

  “I was the one who suggested looting,” Menel said in a low tone, his head down. “They wouldn’t have stood a chance of beating demons backed up by beasts. Instead of just lying down and dying, I suggested they go loot somewhere nearby, fill their bellies, and go somewhere else. Anywhere else.”

  Apparently, Menel had happened to pass by that village while tracking the wild boar and had quickly gathered their situation. Then he’d hunted down the boar to satisfy their immediate needs and returned with the meat as they stood freezing in the forest. That was when he had suggested looting, and rallied the men together to carry out a night raid.

  From their point of view, this village likely couldn’t afford to take in many refugees, and even if they attempted to ask for their help, they could see the rejection coming. If the village was concerned about them becoming thieves, they might even be attacked. In which case, they might as well become thieves in the first place, attack before the village understood the situation, take the goods, and get away from the demons.

  In a place where the kingdom’s power didn’t reach, it certainly was a logical decision to make in a crisis. But then, Menel—

  “You didn’t live in that village, right?” I asked. “Why did you go so far out of your way for them?”

  “Marple, the old lady from the village,” he said briefly. “She did a lot for me.”

  “What happened to Marple?” Tom asked, frowning.

  “They said she died.”

  “...I see.” He nodded quietly.

  “I was the one who suggested it. Hang me. I led the others astray. Let them go. Please.”

  The discussion was thrown into disorder. Screams and shouts began to be traded back and forth: some crying, “Like hell we can do that, hang ’em all,” others saying they should find some way to offer protection to old acquaintances, while others insisted they couldn’t possibly provide for them.

  John and Tom wore grim expressions.

  “Elder...”

  “Mm.”

  They were in a situation where village-destroying demons were right nearby, but before that discussion could get underway, they first had to pass judgment on these people, who were both their neighbors and originally victims themselves. It must have been frustrating.

  “We have a debt to the hunter, and I sympathize with the plight of our neighbors... However,” he said painfully, “they must hang.”

  Even if the villagers released them, they would still have no place to go and would probably plan another raid. Which meant that now that they’d attacked, the village had no choice but to kill them, both for their own protection and to save face.

  Even if unavoidable circumstances had led the raiders to this, the villagers would still kill them for safety; they had neither the methods nor the resources to save them. The attackers, too, knew that even if they had asked for help, no mercy or tolerance would have been afforded them, and that was why they’d had no choice but to opt for violent methods from the beginning.

  Being rational meant being cruel. This was the exact concern my parents had voiced about the outside world. The state of things out here was indeed dark.

  Many people would have called this a hopeless situation. They would have said that was the kind of violence and cruelty often found in remote places, and no good could come of getting tangled up in it.

  I had neither a reason to intervene in this incident nor a duty to get involved to begin with. I could just pretend I hadn’t seen a thing, and keep on heading to the town up north. I was sure I could find some way to fit in if I found an urban area that was slightly more civilized. There was no point in getting caught up in every bit of trouble I came across.

  I knew that would be the wise decision.

  However.

  My mom had told me that she wanted me to do good, to love people without being afraid of loss. My dad had told me to always move forward and have confidence in the outcome, to not let my worries hold me back. And their words were still there in my heart.

  And so I decided to say, “Screw being wise,” and take a tiny but daring step forward.

  “Excuse me!”

  For the sake of the words my parents had left me, for the sake of keeping the oath I’d made to my god, I was going to try to overturn the “hopeless situation” before me.

  ◆

  I raised my voice as loud as possible, and to my relief, everyone turned my way. Enunciation was important to using the magic of Words effectively. I was using the training Gus had given me to its fullest.

  Spreading my arms wide exaggeratedly to focus their attention, I chose my first words carefully—

  “Can this be solved with money?!”

  The villagers’ eyes looked as if they might pop out of their heads. I pressed on, trying to stay one step ahead of their comprehension.

  “Compensation. Atonement money. Do you have a custom like that here?”

  According to Gus, it was a custom in many regions that when some kind of wrong had been committed, the matter could be settled with a payment of silver or livestock instead of blood. The knowledge I had from my previous life supported that claim. Such customs had been followed in regions all over the world, from Germanic to Celtic, Russian, and Scandinavian. I read somewhere that it still existed in some modern-day Islamic areas, where you could choose between qisas or diya—retaliation or compensation.

  At this rate, blood would be shed. If I could solve that with money, then that was what I was going to do. I could imagine what Gus would say: ‘How wonderful money is—it can even buy blood and retribution!’

  “Ho-Hold up, hold up! Sure, we do that, but who the hell is gonna pay?”

  “These guys ain’t got no more than the clothes on their backs!”

  I got a response. What’s more, it hadn’t been “Atonement money?! How dare you!” but rather a practical question of who would pay. If they’d rejected the idea flat out, things would have gotten complicated, so I very gratefully snapped at the opportunity they’d given me.

  Inside my head, the mental machinery that Gus had equipped me with was being set in motion.

  “I will pay!”

  Murmurs again spread throughout the crowd.

  “Settle down, everyone.” Tom calmed the villagers, then asked me, “Why is that, holy warrior?”

  “It is because demons are my mortal foes and caused my parents’ deaths.” While I exaggerated a little to make myself sound more convincing, it wasn’t a lie. It was true that Mary and Blood had died because they had stood against the demon forces. “And I am a priest bestowed with my god’s protection. I have sworn an oath to my god, the god of the flame, to drive away evil and bring salvation to those in sorrow. If evil demons have done harm to these people, then these people shall have my aid.”

  I declared my position as I stood and gestured dramatically. These speaking tricks had also come from Gus.

  “Furthermor
e, the demons cannot be left alone to occupy that village. I will head there to fight them. That being the case, you, the man over there—” I pointed at Meneldor. He was looking at me, dumbfounded. “You are a talented hunter who knows the woods, are you not? I would like to hire you to track down the demons. You will be paid handsomely.”

  The buzz of chatter arose from the villagers once more. If they could reclaim their demon-besieged village, there would be no need to fight each other. The outstanding grudge could be settled with atonement money, and they could call it even. Everybody wins, with the sole exception of one benevolent holy warrior that nobody knew from Adam, who would suffer a reasonably large loss.

  They talked things out amongst themselves, and it wasn’t long before they came to the same understanding. The fact that I had tossed a few gold and silver coins in front of them had also given them an effective push.

  “Are you certain abou’ all this, sir?” John asked me. “This arrangement’s all upside’s far’s I can see, but there’s nothing in it for your good self—”

  I smiled back at him. “If you gain from this situation, then it will have been the gods blessing you all for your good natures,” I said while praying to my god for a tiny miracle. “Gracefeel, god of the flame, ruler of souls and samsara, is watching over your lives with eyes of mercy.”

  As I spoke those words, the miracle I wished for appeared. A tiny flame rose up before the village square’s shrine dedicated to the virtuous gods. A low gasp came from the onlookers, who chanted words of gratitude and offered their own prayers.

  I helped people in a crisis while spilling as little blood as possible. And though I might have overdone the presentation a little, I reminded them that You exist, as well. I suffered a bit of a financial loss, but as Your hands, as Your blade—maybe the way I overcame that situation wasn’t too bad...?

  After I whispered this in my mind, I got the feeling that somewhere, my god had given me a little smile.

  ◆

  I talked it over with everyone, and we had a representative from each village take part in a sworn ceremony to settle their bad blood.

  As soon as that was done, I set about protecting the survivors of the demon-attacked village who had been physically unable to participate in the raid, such as women, the elderly, and children. They were huddled together around a campfire in the forest, shivering from the cold. They were frightened of me at first, but after I got Menel to explain the situation, they quickly understood.

  Many of them were injured or starting to catch colds, so I healed them using the blessings Close Wounds and Cure Illness. Then, I got the first village to shelter them temporarily, with the promise that it would only be until I retook the village that had been attacked.

  They took them in with open arms, though I was pretty sure there wasn’t an ounce of goodwill in why they did so. It was just that we’d struck a deal; they were probably also considering the value of holding them as hostages against the men, who they’d also been forced to take in for the time being. That said, protection was protection, and I was glad for it.

  I imagined what would happen if I died trying to take back the village. It was possible they’d become unable to support the people they’d sheltered and be forced to kill them. As I prayed by the shrine, I thought about how I had to win at all costs.

  Meneldor approached me. “What’s your endgame?”

  “Hm? What I said it was. I’m not hiding anything.” I couldn’t ignore the spread of the demons, and I wanted to keep everyone from killing one another. All I had done was take the measures necessary in order to make that happen.

  “Oh, right, I’m working for you already. I guess it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.”

  Oops. That wasn’t how it was meant to go. I felt like it was important to get Menel’s approval. “Can I hire you to reclaim the village and track down the demons?”

  He frowned. “Uh, brother? I incited pillaging and murder. Are you sure you don’t need to pass judgment on me, O holy warrior?”

  “I’ve already closed the book on that by paying them compensation. And you didn’t do it by choice, right? You couldn’t abandon the village—the village that helped you—in its hour of need.”

  I could have just said that a sin was a sin. All of them, Menel included, had technically had the option of lying down and dying without harming anyone, and if they had been able to choose that option, that may have been very noble.

  But choosing to steal from another instead of accepting death wasn’t despicable; it was natural. Even more so if they had people like women and children they felt an obligation to protect.

  “I’d prefer not to pass judgment on a normal person making a normal decision if I can help it...”

  He tutted. “Ever thought I might hold a grudge and stab you in the back?”

  “If I die, it’s the villagers who suffer.” At least until I took back the village from the demons. I couldn’t imagine that the silver-haired hunter in front of me was incapable of weighing the gains against the losses.

  Menel finally looked away. “You’re an easy mark. Someone’s gonna rob you blind someday soon, and that’ll be the end of you.”

  “Maybe, yeah.” I couldn’t help smiling. That was a future I could imagine. I reminded myself that I couldn’t keep on taking from Gus’s gift; I had to earn money somewhere to make back the amount I’d used.

  “Keh. Whatever, brother. I’ll work for you. I need the money for them, anyway.”

  “Yeah. Thanks for your help.”

  Menel’s lips curved cynically, and he nodded. “On that subject, what are we doing then, master?”

  “Moving on in, I guess? We can’t afford to waste time...”

  That was followed by silence and a faultfinding stare.

  I... I did have a plan... of sorts... But maybe I should have expected he’d be against this. Maybe I had been a bit thoughtless...

  “Eh, you’re right.” Surprisingly, he nodded. “We had better move fast. I mean, there’s a good chance the guys in the village have become undead.”

  I fell silent. I’d forgotten.

  Just as this world was filled with the protection of the virtuous gods, it was also filled with the benevolent protection of the god of undeath, Stagnate.

  It was extremely rare for the god of undeath to call out directly to talented heroes, form a contract with them, and create high-level undead, as had happened with Mary and Blood. However, due to the pervasive nature of the gods’ protection, it was nothing special for a person who died with lingering regrets to rise again as one of the undead, and it could happen for any number of reasons, including enmity, confusion, or simply death coming too suddenly to realize or accept.

  “There’s no need to give the guys back in the village an eyeful of their undead parents, siblings, and children. We should probably finish ’em off quick if we can.”

  I nodded in agreement. “I have to return them to samsara before they start wandering and become lost.”

  I only needed to locate them, and I could return them to samsara with the god of the flame’s benediction. But I couldn’t do anything about lost souls that I had no way of finding. I had to act before that happened.

  “But do we have a chance against the demons in the village?” Menel asked. “If there’s a whole pack of them, and they’ve got beasts as well...”

  “Yeah.”

  Well... Yeah, I thought. I don’t think that part’s going to be a problem, Menel. After all, I’d been mowing down undead demons day after day under that city of the dead, so by now—

  “I’m used to it.”

  The following morning, after spending the night under their hospitality, I was seen off by Tom, John, and the other villagers, and left to take the village back from the demons.

  Guided by Menel, I made my way northeast. After a reasonable distance, I met a branch of the wide river, took some stepping stones across it, and moved on through the forest. Treading on dead leaves a
nd clambering over the mossy trunks of fallen trees, I followed after Menel with an appropriate level of caution.

  I’d gotten surprisingly used to following his trail. These woods had such bad visibility I was close to losing my bearings, but Menel pressed forward without hesitation. From time to time, he called to the fairies, and the thickets and bushes moved themselves out of his way.

  Blood once told me to never get in a fight with an elf in a forest, and now I understood clearly why: the odds were good that you wouldn’t even get a “fight”; you’d just be toyed with and killed.

  Taking periodic breaks, we advanced through the forest quite quickly.

  “We’ll camp here,” the half-elf said.

  The sun had started to set. We’d been told that it was about a day to the neighboring village, so our destination was probably very close.

  “‘People of green, grant me a night’s shelter. A bed of grass and roof of trees, and tolerance for a sudden guest.’” He incanted a spell to call the fairies, and the trees around us bent into a dome. Soft grass grew at our feet, and bushes crowded together on the outside to protect us.

  “Wh-Whoa, incredible!” It was worthy of being called a tent of trees. As elementalist techniques went, that had to be pretty difficult, didn’t it?

  “It’s not that impressive. Go to sleep.”

  “Don’t we need someone on watch?”

  “We’ll leave that to the fairies dwelling in the trees. If anything happens, they’ll make a fuss and wake us up.”

  The amount of effort I’d had to go through to camp up until now seemed ridiculous.

  Menel was a skilled hunter and expert elementalist. As an enemy he was frightening, but as an ally, he was a great asset. Now if only he’d open up to me a little more...

  “Hmph.” There he went again.

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “I’m what you call ill-bred, I guess. I don’t like guys like you who look like they had a cushy upbringing. I’ll repay my debts, and I’ll do my job properly, but that’s as far as it goes.”