The Archer of Beast Woods

by Kanata Yanagino

  So unapproachable, I thought.

  “We’ll be at the village tomorrow morning. I’m guiding you and that’s all. I don’t plan on helping you beat up demons.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Menel had a sullen look on his face. We’d had the fortune to meet, and although we’d crossed swords, I wanted us to get along. But I wasn’t having an easy time of it.

  A while after we both went silent, Menel was lazily gazing in the direction we’d be heading tomorrow. After seeing the painful look in his eyes, I couldn’t bring myself to intrude and ask about the relationship he’d had with the people of that village.

  We lay there in silence on the soft bed of grass, and I slowly fell asleep. The magical awning of greenery felt very comforting.

  ◆

  The following morning, a thick fog filled the frigid air; maybe it was because we were next to a river. The way that milk-white mist drifted slowly between the trees felt as if I had wandered into a place not of this world.

  As I walked onwards following Menel’s lead, the foundations of an ancient stone wall came into view.

  “A ruin?”

  “Yeah. Nearby.”

  Due to factors like the availability of water and transport, the places most suitable for establishing a settlement weren’t that much different now than they’d been in the past. And if there was an ancient ruin nearby, it could be taken apart and its stones repurposed. It was an intelligent way of building a village.

  Archaeologists from my previous world would probably have deplored dismantling a ruin, but fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), there was no one in this period of history who would bemoan the loss.

  We steadily approached the village, keeping ourselves hidden behind the ruin’s old stone walls and crumbling buildings. I could hear several creatures moving.

  “They’re about,” Menel said quietly.

  I nodded.

  “I’ll scout. Wait there,” he said, and moved forward with completely silent footsteps. He had perfected this to a level that would put most experienced scouts to shame.

  Blood had taught me the technicals of scouting to a certain extent, but judging by this, yeah, Menel was probably better than I was. As a rule, the trained are better than the untrained in any field. That was just obvious.

  Spear in hand, I waited in the shadow of one of the ruin’s walls. After a short while, Menel returned.

  “They’re doing some weird ritual in the remains of the temple just outside the village.”

  “What’s the temple like? What kind of demons are they?”

  “The temple’s something like this.” Menel started drawing the layout on the ground with a stick. “There’s no ceiling anymore, and the walls have collapsed in a bunch of places. They’ve taken up position in the middle here performing their ritual. Two Commanders, faces like lizards. What were they called again...?”

  “Vraskuses? With scales and a spiked tail?”

  “Yeah, that sounds right.”

  I’d fought a vraskus back when I first obtained Pale Moon, the spear I was holding. So, there were two of those, and—

  “What else?”

  “A few Soldiers roaming outside the temple. I managed to spot one beast inside, but there might have been more.”

  “Any details on the beast?”

  “Its face looked kind of like a person’s. It had a body like a lion, bat-like wings, and a body as big as a horse.”

  “That’s a manticore.”

  Beasts with dangerous spiked tails. I’d heard from Blood that they were “a little dangerous”—Blood’s “a little” sometimes being my “reasonably” or “considerably”—so I’d have to brace myself.

  Menel was looking at me with a bemused expression.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You know a hell of a lot about this.”

  “I’ve been taught a lot of stuff.”

  Gus put a lot of effort into his natural history lectures, and Blood loved to tell stories about when he was alive. They had both told me that when going against a monster, it was important to have prior knowledge about their weaknesses and methods of attack. Unknown foes were the most terrifying.

  “Well, okay,” I said. “I’m glad that’s all we’re dealing with.”

  “That’s all?”

  I had experience fighting demons, but none against those ranked General or higher. If I’d had to fight those, I’d have been worried about the risk. But if they were just two Commanders accompanied by Soldiers with a beast in tow, having the advantage of knowing the situation beforehand, there were plenty of ways I could make it work.

  “Let’s crush them.”

  ◆

  They were the remains of an aged little temple. The ceiling had fallen in, and the space inside was around the size of the classrooms I’d known in my previous world.

  Lined up at the rear of the building were statues of the gods, among them the god of lightning, Volt, and the Earth-Mother, Mater. Their faces had been scraped off. It was probably the work of the demons.

  It took a lot of effort to destroy a statue; scraping off their faces instead to make them “nobodies” was something I’d come across in the history of my past world as well.

  Praises to the gods, which should surely have been present on the wall, had also been scraped off. In its place were many Words written in a large, eerie script. Those Words, written in blackened blood, were praise for Dyrhygma, the god of dimensions worshipped by the demons. Stretched out and squashing the flowers below Dyrhygma’s crest, which featured arms grasping the eternal cycle, was the manticore that Menel had mentioned.

  Farther forward, at the center of the temple, on the uneven stone floor with grass growing from its cracks, there was a pile of human bodies.

  With the corpses, the beast, and the crest before them, the two demons—a wild mixture of humans and crocodiles—chanted Words blaspheming the virtuous gods in harsh, sonorous voices. I could tell it was some kind of ritual, but I didn’t know exactly what kind. That wasn’t surprising, given that even Gus’s knowledge didn’t cover the intricate details of these kinds of dark ceremonies. For now, all I knew was that I couldn’t let this continue.

  Hiding the sound of my footsteps, I crept forward, readied my spear, and simply thrust it into one of the vraskuses’ necks. Just like that, the creature collapsed and turned to dust.

  “...■■■?!” Taken by surprise, the other vraskus screamed out something in demonjabber, drew its curved sword, and swung it around.

  Its reaction to the surprise attack was faster than I expected. The large movement I had to make to avoid its blade broke the effect of the Word I had cast upon myself: the Word of Invisibility. It played tricks on others’ visual perception of the user, making it extremely effective when ambushing enemies that relied on sight.

  I’d used this magic to escape being seen by the Soldiers outside and break right into the middle of the ritual site. I didn’t want to get into a situation where I had to contend with two fully prepared vraskuses and a manticore while I was tied up with Soldiers. That really would have been dangerous. Instead, I was using the method that Gus and Blood had taught me: surprise, initiative, and division.

  “Cadere Araneum.” As the manticore was about to advance, I hit it with a web to restrict its movements and entered close-quarter combat with the vraskus.

  I deflected the horizontal sweep of its sword with my shield and stabbed repeatedly with my spear. Taking into account the vraskus’s tough scales, rubbery skin, and thick muscles, I aimed for its joints, efficiently inflicting wound after wound.

  At this stage, the Soldiers outside seemed to have noticed my intrusion as well.

  “Currere Oleum.”

  I layered grease near the temple’s entrance to buy myself some time. As the vraskus’s tail came at me from a blind spot, I sliced it off with the blade of my spear without even looking, and with the return swing I drew it across its throat. Number two turned to dust.

/>   Not a moment later, the manticore ripped through the web, and roared.

  “Acceleratio!”

  I was there in a single bound and drove the spear’s blade into its neck.

  The manticore, sounding like it was choking, swiped angrily with its arms, trying to resist. I increased my pressure, forcing the blade in and pinning the beast to the wall of the temple. A strike from its wildly flailing claws dragged across my mithril mail. Still pinned, it tried to swing its spiked tail at me.

  Taking aim at its body, I spoke the Word “Vastare,” and blasted a vortex of destruction directly into it. The roar of the blast combined with the bellow of the beast as its insides were turned to pulp. Finally, both faded until there was silence.

  A big, showy magic attack like that came with risks, so I hadn’t much wanted to use it, but the manticore had been putting up too much of a fight. Trying to finish it off with only a spear would have taken too long.

  “And that just leaves...”

  Remaining vigilant, I drew the spear back and held it couched. There were only a few left. They may have only been Soldiers, but I had to keep my wits about me until I finished this. Yet as I stood there so ready to fight, there was no sign at all of any enemies rushing in.

  Confused, I stepped outside to see the Soldiers turning to dust and scattering. White arrows were sticking out of their chests and necks.

  “Oh!” Perfect execution as ever, but—

  “I thought you weren’t going to get involved?” I asked.

  “You had it in the bag anyway. Just saving time.” Menel appeared from the shadows, took a look around, and furrowed his brow. “Pretty sure you can’t just march in and beat guys like that solo... normally...”

  “Yeah. The conditions were just right.” If I’d charged in and tried to fight this many enemies head-on, a very close and desperate battle would have been unavoidable. Observe the opponent first, surprise them, and exterminate them without allowing them to make use of their strengths. All this was part of a warrior’s battle tactics.

  “No, even with that, that kind of strength isn’t normal. You doing anything special?”

  “Uh... Eating a whole lot of holy bread?” Mary had prayed for a loaf to give me with every meal, so there was a chance it had changed my constitution. The god of undeath had said something like that, too.

  “Eating bread doesn’t do this, brother.”

  “I guess not.” Menel was right. You couldn’t build muscle just by eating a lot of bread without doing any training.

  “Whatever, enough on the bread. Temple’s clear. You think it’s safe to assume that you stamped out the bulk of them?”

  “We’ll go around the village, clear out any left over, and take it from there, I guess.”

  Whether we were going to bury the bodies or search the area to see if there were any more survivors, it would be difficult in a place where enemies could still be lurking. I thought we were probably okay now—I couldn’t sense any more demons—but we’d need to go around the village once to play it safe.

  I prayed to the bodies piled up in the temple, and then the two of us walked towards the village.

  In any event, we had won. Winning the battle had been our greatest initial source of worry, so while there were still plenty of reasons to be apprehensive, I thought Menel and I were both relieved.

  “I hope there’s at least someone who’s still all right,” Menel said, looking anxious.

  “Yeah.”

  But just at that moment, we heard a feeble and childlike voice.

  “Men... el...”

  Menel’s expression froze.

  ◆

  I looked in the direction of the voice. There was some kind of small hut, perhaps a shed, and something was crawling out of it towards us.

  “Menel...”

  It was the corpse of a boy, burnt black and its bones half-exposed. Only the top of its body was left; everything below the waist had been either severed or burned off.

  “It was demons, they, umm, attacked the village.” The corpse looked up at Menel with empty sockets. Menel was still frozen in place.

  “I was hiding just like you told me to... I didn’t do anything dangerous...” It crawled closer, dragging itself forward on its elbows. “It was hot, but I put up with it and didn’t make any noise... ’Cause...”

  Menel was shaking. Both his hands and jaw were tightly clenched.

  “I knew you’d come.” The corpse smiled; it was a blood-curdling and gruesome sight, and yet it felt warm. “And you did. Thank you.”

  With a frightfully happy look on its face, the corpse extended a hand to Menel. Menel tried to take it, but he hesitated for just a second. I couldn’t tell if it was because of his revulsion towards the corpse, distrust of the undead, regret at not having made it in time, or guilty conscience. Whatever the case, the corpse sensed his rejection, and its face filled with despair.

  “Huh...? Wait... Why? Am I...”

  I knew there wasn’t a moment to lose. I fell to my knees, picked up the blackened corpse—and hugged the boy tightly.

  “H-Hey...!” Menel looked at me, disconcerted.

  It’s okay, Menel, I thought. Embracing the undead isn’t anything to be afraid of.

  “You did a great job,” I said. “We’re very proud of you.”

  “Huh? Who are you, mister?” Still in my arms, the boy tilted his head. Flakes of charred skin fell off.

  “I’m Menel’s friend. I’m sorry about Menel. He’s just a little tired. He isn’t quite with it. Please forgive him.”

  “Okay.” The boy nodded.

  “Good boy. Come on, Menel.” I held up the boy’s arm for Menel to take.

  This time, he didn’t hesitate. He squeezed the boy’s badly charred hand. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner.” His voice was trembling.

  “It’s okay.”

  “You must be tired out. Go to sleep.”

  “Good idea... I feel really... sleepy...”

  “Dream well.”

  “’Kay...”

  Even as he trembled, Menel didn’t look away.

  “Gracefeel, god of the flame. Repose and guidance.”

  It was the blessing Divine Torch. As the boy closed his eyes in peaceful sleep, the flame rose softly into the air and took his soul, along with those of so many others drifting nearby, with it towards the heavens.

  Menel watched until it could no longer be seen, and then, after a while, he spoke.

  “Hey, uh...”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  There was silence as Menel chose his words. “I was looking down on you and you didn’t deserve it. I thought you were some muscleheaded rich kid who fluked the gods’ protection and disappeared up his own ass. Just a do-gooder without a clue.” He sighed. “So... I’m sorry.”

  “It’s no big deal.” I gave him a smile.

  Despite the deep anguish on his face, he gave me a slight smile back.

  ◆

  The two of us walked around the village together.

  Menel never hesitated again after what had happened. He held the hands of the undead who still had their intelligence and reason, and bid them words of farewell. Those who did not—those who had been taken over by hatred and madness—I purified using the power of the protection of the goddess of flux.

  “Gracefeel, god of the flame. Repose and guidance.”

  Divine Torch was an effective technique to use against the undead, but it wasn’t all-powerful. If the undead themselves resisted the technique, whether it would have an effect became a contest between the strength of the user’s protection and the attachment of the undead. For instance, if a high-level undead on par with Gus, Blood, or Mary seriously tried to resist, it was dubious whether I would be able to guide their souls with my prayers. If I could become as advanced a user of benediction as Mary then it might be possible, of course.

  Anyway, for that reason I was slightly concern
ed that there might be some people in this village who were beyond my abilities, but luckily no one here had become that powerful an undead.

  The spectral body slipped out of the crazed woman who was standing in front of me, brandishing a cleaver. Bewildered, her spirit took a look around her and soon understood the situation. I placed my hand over my heart and said as if making a vow, “Leave the rest to me.” The woman smiled, nodded, and one more soul returned to the eternal cycle.

  “Umm.” I checked around me. It was hard to tell because of the fog, but I thought we’d more or less finished going around the obvious places. “Menel, are there any more houses?”

  “One more... Follow me.” Menel walked ahead, stepping on the bare, well-trodden earth.

  The house, located deep in the village, had been completely burned to the ground. It looked like it had once been quite a large building, with maybe three or four rooms. The other houses had just one or two large rooms plus a shed and pen at best.

  Menel gazed at that house for a while. He took a deep breath in and slowly released it. Then, tightly squeezing his hand into a fist, he called out. “Yo! You here, Marple?”

  “Oh?” A specter appeared, slipping through a soot-covered pillar. “It’s you, Menel.” She was an old woman who looked like she had lived quite a number of years. But her back wasn’t bent, and she still looked full of vim and vigor.

  I briefly thought of Gus—and the instant I did, I realized something, and a chill ran through me. This was bad. The ghost of this old woman called Marple was probably close to fully materialized. Where the other ghosts were indistinct and lacking in clarity, the old woman’s body was as well-defined as Gus’s. I couldn’t say anything about her combat ability, but I got the feeling, somehow, that her soul was going to be tenacious. If she was confused or distraught and resisted my blessing, it was possible that sending her off might be beyond my abilities. And that would mean that I might have to use a weapon that worked on specters—a weapon like Pale Moon or Overeater—to cut up the old woman’s ghost in front of Menel...

  “Heheh. You needn’t worry so much, young man.”