The god of undeath sounded as if he was enjoying himself. I shrugged. “I’m going against a dragon. If I lose, there won’t be a trace of me left.”
“Hahaha. How right you are!”
We both laughed.
“Then I shall take my leave. Gracefeel must be getting quite ticked.”
Although the warning revelation had certainly stopped ringing inside my head, I could somehow sense that her stress levels were building. Gracefeel was very godlike most of the time, but on matters concerning the god of undeath, I got the feeling that she seemed childish, maybe even human.
“Farewell, then, paladin of the flame, my wise and foolish foe!”
Leaving those words behind, the Herald-raven flew off and was quickly obscured by the darkness of night. As I watched it go, I was careless enough to allow a hint of a smile to creep onto my face.
“Owww!” The concept of a sharp, pinching sort of pain was sent into my head. I winced.
Th-That was mean, God!
◆
The following morning after my unexpected chance encounter and dialog with the god of undeath, the post-party elven settlement was filled with the sounds of an argument.
Having made quite a lot of use of benediction the previous night in addition to my conversation with the god of undeath, I was just a little mentally fatigued. Rubbing my eyes, I wandered out of the hut that had been provided for me and looked to see what was going on.
“Look, just let me go, goddammit!”
“You can’t seriously expect us to just let you go and do that!”
It was Menel and Dine who were arguing. My dozy brain considered this for a few seconds. “Oh, it’s just a lovers’ quarrel,” I concluded, and had just about started to head back into the hut to get some more sleep when I was gripped firmly on both of my shoulders.
“Hold it, you.”
“Would you care to repeat that?”
Their voices sounded pretty threatening. This was finally enough to wake me up completely, and at the same time, make me break out in a cold sweat. I laughed nervously in the hope it would get me out of this. Tell me, God, what’s the right answer to that question?
Dine sighed. “It’s not exactly the time to abandon ourselves to romance.”
She had a point. This was a time of life and death for their village. Whichever way you sliced it, there were clearly matters that took precedence.
“Ya.” Menel nodded in agreement and shrugged. “If only it was, huh? Too bad.”
I didn’t miss Dine’s shoulders twitch and her composure falter. I couldn’t help seizing at the topic. “So if circumstances were different, you would have been saying something to her?”
“Hm? Well sure, she’s pretty, right?”
Dine knit her beautiful brow. She turned her cheek away from Menel and was about to say something back when he continued.
“Probably would’ve tossed her some flattering bullshit in place of a greeting, sure.”
Dine froze. And then she started trembling.
Menel...
“I don’t get you...”
“Ya, well, you’re so unused to women it actually makes me worried for you.”
There was a pretty big gap between Menel and me when it came to where we each stood in the world of chatting up women. It was probably on the same level as a Japanese person in my previous world compared to an Italian. Though that said, Menel could be pretty dense at times as well.
“With Ithil elves, once you’re able to recite a single love poem in front of a woman, that makes you an adult.”
“That’s why you Ithils are always called irresponsible!” Dine glared at Menel sharply with her violet eyes.
Menel shrugged casually. “Well, Remmirath folk are apparently a bunch of headstrong shrews.”
“Oh, you went there!”
Before I knew it, the argument had started up again. They both had tongues as sharp as swords, and as the verbal spar unfolded between them, the Elvish got faster and faster, and I could no longer pick the words out. When it came to these kinds of arguments, elves made heavy use of sarcasm and metaphor, which made it even harder to grasp.
But Dine kind of looked like she was having fun.
I suddenly thought back on the heavy expressions of the elves when we first arrived at the settlement. They’d lost many talented warriors and elementalists in the war-torn era of the Great Collapse and were cut off from civilization. Their forest was violated by curses and poisons, became isolated and diseased, and fell into decline. And two hundred years went by, during which not a single one of the brave elves who journeyed out in search of contact with the outside world ever returned...
Those years must have been so difficult that silly arguments like this went right out of everyone’s mind.
“You really are a ■■■■■■!”
“And you’re a feckin’ ■■■■■■■■.”
That one left her open-mouthed.
I wondered what those insults meant. If even the great Gus had no memory of learning them, I figured they had to be pretty bad.
◆
After their argument had calmed down, I intervened and brought the conversation back on topic.
“So what was that about going somewhere?”
“The Lord of the Woods,” Menel said, clearly still in a bad mood. “The Lord of the Woods around here. I should be able to heal it a little.”
That was a good point. I had my hands full with healing yesterday, but I’d been thinking about discussing this with him when we got up. I figured Menel would be able to improve the situation in this forest a bit. However—
“We can’t possibly let you.” Dine’s response was curt. “No way.”
“For God’s sake...” Menel frowned, but Dine had her arms folded in a pose that indicated she wasn’t going to budge an inch.
The Lord of the Woods was the forest’s core, the being that was its greatest weak point. If something with power and malice came into contact with it, terrible damage could be done. We’d seen that just recently when Beast Woods had begun to be contaminated by that Cernunnos. Even if they were somewhat indebted to us, the elves who lived in this forest probably wouldn’t allow outsiders in so easily.
“Umm, but, Menel can be trusted. I swear it. If you need some kind of guarantee, you could take me hostage or...”
Dine shook her head, as if to say I’d gotten it all wrong. “It’s not that. We do trust you all.”
“Huh?”
“We trust you and we’re thankful to you. I don’t know how many people you must have saved just last night. If there’s something you seek, we want to do whatever we can to satisfy your request. If you ask us to provide you with military strength, we’ll give you warriors, and if you need to be shown the way, we’ll gladly guide you.”
“Then why?”
“If we could show you safely to the Lord of the Woods on your request, then there would be no problem.” Dine looked down. “The area around the Lord of the Woods is beast territory now. It’s no longer ours. We can’t guide you.”
“But that’s even more reason—”
“Even more reason for us to depend on you?” Dine tilted her head and smiled. “You saved our lives and gave us back hope. And you’re just about to head into battle. How could we possibly push another battle onto you, completely inconsiderate of your circumstances? ‘Oh, please, heroes, we’re in such trouble and we can’t handle it on our own, please drop everything you’re doing to help us, we beg you!’”
She shrugged. “I’m sorry, but no. As if we could make such a shameless request. This isn’t about asking others for help, it’s about clinging like a leech to people to whom we’re already indebted and placing further burden on them.”
Lost for a response, I unconsciously looked to Menel for help. Umm, what is she... just... what?
With an incredibly complicated expression, Menel said simply, “See? Elf.”
I could only nod. They were incredibly noble a
nd an incredible pain to deal with. I could understand what everyone had said about them.
This nature of theirs might have arisen from the way they lived such long lives in perpetual youth. As a result of hardly aging, there weren’t many children or elderly in the settlement who needed protecting. Most of them were physically young. That was what enabled them to make these choices. Humans who grow old in no time at all couldn’t hope to imitate them.
“That’s how it is, so thank you, but there’s no need for you to needlessly use your power to help us.”
As I was thinking about what I should do about this, Ghelreis lumbered over. Because it was dawn right now, his hard expression, made sterner by the scar running down from his forehead, looked drowsy. His eyelids were still half-closed. “What is it?” he asked.
“Well, you see...” I explained the situation to him.
A deep expression spread across his face. “Truly, elves never change.”
“What do you think we should do?”
Ghelreis hummed and nodded. “Just do it, I say.”
Well said, I thought. It was clear that he was a veteran. “Alright, let’s just do it, then. Menel, can you tell where the Lord of the Woods is located?”
“It’s weak, but I can just about pick it up, sure.”
“Ghelreis, please gather Al and Reystov. Full gear.”
“Mm.”
“Once we’re all here, we’ll eat breakfast and go.”
Dine looked between us all, flustered. “W-Wait, what? Wait a minute. You’re talking as though you’re going on a stroll to walk off your breakfast. Where are you going?”
“Well, beast hunting.”
“B-But we don’t...”
“Who said we can’t help unless we’re asked? We’re sticking our noses in whether you like it or not,” Menel said lightly. “And more to the point”—he poked my arm—“there’s no way regular old beasts are going to wear us two down at this point.”
It really wasn’t much different from an after-meal stroll, and it would inconvenience me more to have to abandon them. I had sworn an oath to my god that as her hands, I would bring salvation to those in sorrow. In this world where gods existed, a very strong oath was a serious thing to make. It was even close to a geas, a type of vow from Irish mythology in my previous world. It was easy to imagine that breaking one intentionally wouldn’t bring about good results, and more importantly, if we came back here to find this settlement destroyed, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.
Ghelreis was right. It would be best for us to take it upon ourselves to interfere and help for our own reasons.
“So,” Menel said, “what do proud and noble elves do when the people who helped them go wandering into dangerous territory all by themselves?”
Dine groaned in frustration. “Oh... boo!” It wouldn’t make sense for them to stop us, and they would find it physically impossible to do so in the first place. “Wait there a minute. I’ll go and call some skilled people who can get moving right away. Don’t you dare go on your own! Understand?!” Dine went running off.
Menel, Ghelreis, and I looked at each other and laughed out loud.
◆
All across the land, forests home to elves were held to be inviolable territory. I could give all kinds of reasons, but the simplest and most powerful one was that most elves who kept guard over a forest were excellent hunter-warriors or elementalists. Opposing the race of elves within a forest meant a brutal death. Specifically, you would be chased around like a hunter’s prey, unable to get any real sleep, and after being toyed with by the fairies, you would become food for the animals. Therefore, elven forests were off-limits, sacred territory feared and respected by all races.
The elven settlement in Lothdor, however, didn’t have very many strong warriors or elementalists. This made sense; the main hunter-warriors and elementalists among them had apparently died in battle, boldly fighting the demons during the collapse of the Union Age. In elven society, that was a severe loss, because elves typically lived long lives and didn’t bear many children.
Things got even worse after that, when the forest was cursed by a Taboo Word and the fall of the Iron Country left it isolated. Due to the roaming monsters and the poison, even food was difficult to come by and the fairies’ power was weakened. There was no way they could raise any new warriors or elementalists under those circumstances. And from what I heard, the few talented elves who survived the Great Collapse attempted contact with the outside, only to fail and never return.
Now that I thought about it, some of the corpses in that murky river were only partially rotten. If those remains had been two hundred years old, they would surely have all been bones by now... which could only mean one thing.
Furthermore, due to the fall of the Iron Country, the supply of weapons had dried up, so metal products seemed to be very precious. There were even people using stone arrowheads or spears with stone blades, as if it were the Stone Age.
I could see that if beasts had claimed the Lord of the Woods’ domain in circumstances like this, there was no way that the elves could reclaim it very easily. In fact, I thought it was impressive enough that despite being put in such a stressful situation, they had still managed to keep things under control and continue sending people out without giving up on contacting the outside. It felt as though they had already stepped some distance over the line where a human settlement would have long since collapsed.
“So, the beasts that have taken over the domain are bug-type beasts... devil-bugs, I think they’re called...” We were walking through a forest of dead trees under a cloudy sky. Dine had accompanied us in the end, joined by four elven hunters. “The defensive strength of the giant earwigs with their hard shells is hard to deal with...”
“Ah! These, right?! I’ll do my best!”
“Mm. This will be good training, young master.”
Al smashed them with his Immense halberd as they appeared. The ones he missed were crushed by Ghelreis’s Sword-smasher mace.
“Then there are the purple poison moths that come down from the sky...”
“Right.” Telperion’s silver string sang a high-pitched, beautiful note in Menel’s hand as it was pulled back and then released. The approaching poison moth was shot perfectly through its weakest point and fell to earth.
“Ah, watch out, poison scales...”
“Sure, sure.”
Without even an incantation from Menel, the wind scattered the scales according to his will.
They were hardly having any difficulty. As the three of them cleared away the giant bugs, Dine stood there dumbfounded. The other elves were equally surprised. But there was nothing particularly surprising about it. This threat wasn’t significant enough to destroy an already seriously weakened elven village. These three hadn’t trained themselves so weakly that this would give them a hard time.
“There’s nothing for us to do, is there?” I said, smiling wryly.
“Standing by’s important,” Reystov admonished me.
He was right; the reason Al, Menel, and Ghelreis could focus on what was in front of them and go all out was because we were standing on alert behind them. This was an important role in itself. But ultimately, I remained in that role all the way into the domain, where we were confronted with the sight of so many cocoons and larvae that it almost got a “blergh” out of me.
Menel cleared it up. He poured some strength back into the Lord of the Woods. The noxious air began to clear. Power returned to the forest. The elves cheered. And still I hadn’t gotten anything at all to do.
It made me feel kind of... itchy.
“Maybe I should have gotten in on the action...”
“You know, for how calm you look, you can be real bloodthirsty sometimes.”
I looked away.
◆
The large trees, which had been covered in revolting bugs and started to die, regained a little of their vitality. The elves were openly displaying their joy, but gradually t
heir beaming expressions began to fade, and before I realized it, looks of shame had taken their place.
“William, are you sure this was okay?” Dine asked the question that seemed to be on all of their minds.
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“If the dragon or the demons notice you because you’ve done this...”
“We’ll be in big trouble.” I nodded. That would definitely be bad. We were already at the western foot of the mountain range. Now that we had drawn so close, it would be difficult for them to immediately move all their forces positioned on the east side over to the west, but even so, what we had done was still risky.
“Then you—”
“However—” I put a hand up and stopped Dine as she tried to argue further. “Abandoning this village at this stage would be even more unthinkable. Who knows how many of you could die by the time we get back.”
Poison, monsters, food, resources—the factors that could lead to someone dying in this place were too numerous to list. Furthermore, it was possible that we wouldn’t be able to return at all. As long as we were going to be fighting, we intended to win, but only a fool wouldn’t give any consideration to what might happen should he lose.
“So this is fine.”
Just as I’d declared to the god of undeath, I had no intention of abandoning anyone in order to win. I’d made an oath to that effect, and I intended to keep it. And that was why my god was providing me with such extraordinary protection. It was far too late to contemplate breaking that oath.
“Are you sure?”
“I swear on the flame of the goddess, I don’t regret it.”
That’s right. I didn’t regret it. Judging by the prickling feeling on the back of my neck, things probably hadn’t turned out very well, but I was prepared for that, and I had been ever since the day I chose this way of living. Only...
“Al, Reystov, and Ghelreis... I’m sorry for getting you involved in my personal business.”
Menel aside, this hadn’t had much to do with the other three. I bowed my head to them, thinking that they might not have a very good opinion of me.
The Lord of the Rust Mountains (Complete) Page 25