The overcast sky was thin enough to permit the western sun to filter through, but even with my head tilted towards it, I couldn�t feel its warmth. I didn�t think I needed to worry about frostbite, but the numbing chill of the air was hard to ignore.

This area�s climate rarely had snow even when it was cold. When it did snow, there would be a thin layer on the ground at most. I�d known this back when I was in the temple. Even now it was �just� freezing, and there was no sign whatsoever that snow was coming.

I pulled my cloak tighter around me and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. I was walking on the dirt by the side of a cobblestone road. Walking on the road would actually have been dangerous. It had already deteriorated with age and was full of holes. I�d be likely to trip unless I was very careful.

�Ugh... Too cold.� My breath came out as a white mist.

Setting out in winter had, I thought, been a bad move from a common-sense perspective.

I, William G. Maryblood, had left the temple only a few days after that final battle with the god of undeath where I fought to defend my parents� souls. That final battle had been on the day of the winter solstice. That is to say, the middle of winter.

To be honest, even I thought it hadn�t been a very wise thing to do, but if I�d spent the winter at that cozy temple waiting for spring after I�d made graves for Mary and Blood and given them a funeral, I�d have wanted to stay forever. I�d protect their graves and persuade Gus to let me live my life as the protector of the seal that had long kept the demons� High King imprisoned in that city. It was an attractive, almost irresistible idea, even though I knew it was wrong. However, the act of holing myself up and being spoiled by the gentle tolerance of my family would have been just the same as my previous life. If I stopped moving, if I didn�t take action, I could tell that this idea would grow and grow inside me. So I couldn�t hesitate. I had to believe in myself and step forward.

That said, I was making very sure I wasn�t going to collapse and die by the roadside in the cold weather. If worst came to worst, I was even considering turning around and heading back to the temple for the time being. Gus would probably laugh at me after the overly dramatic way I left, but there was no need to feel bad about turning back. I could just think of it as reconnaissance and set out again in the spring, having checked the condition of the roads and the places that could be used for camping out. Even that would be a much better use of time than just sitting inside and doing nothing. So I took little breaks from time to time, set up camp when night fell, and all the time in between I walked, just walked, with my gear on my back, enduring the cold.

I�d had several encounters with demons already. That city of the dead was where the High King was sealed, and some of them had probably been keeping watch over it. It wasn�t surprising that they were coming to attack me. A human had come out of that city, so they�d obviously want to capture me and make me tell them what I knew. But small fry like them were no match for me. I�d been trained by Blood, Mary, and Gus.

I had several surprise attacks launched against me by strange and misshapen demons that were a blend of animals and humans, but I sensed them coming, preempted them, and with the aid of my spear, Pale Moon, I systematically turned them to dust. It was my first time fighting against demons that hadn�t been turned undead, but they didn�t give me any real problems. I dispatched them swiftly and without hesitation, just as Blood and Gus had taught me to do. I�d fought with an immortal god; no-name demons weren�t going to get the better of me now. As for the city of the dead, Gus had told me he�d be strengthening its defenses with a grand magic called Maze Fog, so there was probably no need to worry about it.

My seemingly endless trek occasionally took me past some ruined stone buildings of various sizes. They had probably once been post stations or resting places along the highway. Many of them had either collapsed or been burned or destroyed, the victims of an old war. But there were still some left that retained much of their original structure and promised to make that night�s camp somewhat less of a hassle.

Looking at how there had been facilities like this available, I thought that Mary, Gus, and Blood must have lived in a pretty advanced civilization while they were alive. The ancient Roman Empire came to mind from memories of my past life.

�Which would currently put me at the fall of ancient Rome... no, after that. Except we were invaded by demons and not by barbarians...�

From what I could picture based on my previous world�s history, it didn�t seem likely that things were very good. I used to like history and stuff, enough that I didn�t just swallow all the talk about Rome being civilized and the Middle Ages being some kind of �Dark Ages,� but even so...

�It�s been a couple centuries since then, and people still haven�t come back here... That can�t be a good sign... can it?�

I was talking to myself again. This was what walking on your own for so long did to you, apparently. To keep from being bored I�d also been singing to myself, but even with two worlds� worth of songs to draw from, I was fast running out of material. I�d already gotten sick of the landscape around here, too, but I looked around again just for the sake of it.

To the right and a reasonable distance from the main road, there was a pretty impressive river that must have been a few hundred meters wide. The area near it was an expanse of sparse shrubland. I could imagine that when the weather got warmer, those shrubs would grow taller, making it a lot more difficult to see across. The reason there were no big trees along the river was probably that they kept getting flooded out whenever the river swelled, so they weren�t able to grow uninterrupted.

Looking beyond the river, there was another expanse, this one of forest. Trees were covering the whole area. It was the same to my left: almost all trees. It was a completely virgin forest, dark and quiet, and pervaded by an atmosphere that felt... I don�t know, forbidding, like it demanded my respect. If I wandered carelessly into it, I would be constantly tripped up and forced to slow down, and if I lost my sense of direction inside, there would literally be no coming back. So I was avoiding it for now, only going in when I needed to search for firewood for camp, and even then only as far as I had to. I was lucky to have this road right next to a source of water; there was no reason to make things hard for myself. I just needed to follow the path.

I walked a while longer, and the sun started to set. The road was leading me up a hill, and I couldn�t tell what the situation was like beyond. I traipsed up it in silence.

When at last the scenery came into view, my breath was taken away.

�Wow...�

The ruins of a vast stone city were lit up by the glow of the setting sun. Streets of countless houses spread outwards in a circular fashion from both banks of the large river. Judging by how there were still traces of supports, a large bridge seemed to have once connected the two sides of the city. I could see facilities like a river port and warehouses. This would probably have been quite a prosperous place where traders gathered with their goods.

But now, all of it was horribly destroyed and reduced to ruins.

The wall surrounding the city was pitifully broken in numerous places, and the blackening still visible on the houses suggested they had been burned down, probably shot by flaming arrows. I could also see deep, bowl-shaped craters in various places. It must have been a pretty big spell they used to cause that. And finally, water from the river had flooded in through the destroyed structures, and the town was half-submerged.

Prosperity and ruin. The greatness of human accomplishment and the heartlessness of conflict. The flow of time and the impermanence of all things. This sight made all of it more real.

I stood on the hill for a while taking it in and then, after tracing the road ahead of me with my eyes...

�Aghhh...�

Downstream, the large river had forked into several branches�perhaps the destruction of the city or a weir had changed its flow�and one of those branches had completely swallowed up the road I was meant to be following.

I put my hand to my forehead and sighed deeply. �The terrain�s changed...�

Well, of course a river�s not going to still be the same after two hundred years. Yup. Nothing I could do about that.

...Now what?

I spent that evening in the ruined city, offering the prayer of Divine Torch so the souls wandering here could pass on. The lost souls followed its flame like fireflies and returned to the night sky. Together with the shadows of the destroyed city wavering in the light of the campfire, they produced a very fantastic scene.

I got up early the following morning and prayed to the god of the flame. I scooped up some water and used a Word to purify it before I drank. Then I used benediction to create holy bread and ate it with some of my supply of meat jerky.

I puzzled over what to do about the road for a little while, but there weren�t actually any real choices to be made. I had nothing to help me cross the river, so I just decided to follow its outermost branch downstream.

The ground started to become sludgy with mud; it probably had something to do with the river splitting into lots of tiny branches. The forest around me was feeling increasingly oppressive.

It would be a mistake to venture much farther from the river than where I could still hear it flowing. I decided that if I was unlucky enough to get lost in the forest, I would forgo any other plans and just focus on finding the river and heading upstream. I�d be able to return to the temple that way at the very worst.

How many days had it been now since I left the temple? The fact that I hadn�t talked to anyone for days was leaving me feeling very lonely and empty. I prayed as I walked, offering this loneliness, this emptiness, in dedication to my god.

Everything was so quiet.

I was already starting to run out of the meat jerky and other preserved food I�d brought with me. Needless to say, there was a limit to the amount of food I could carry. If this were an ordinary journey, I�m sure I would have just replenished my stocks as needed by buying food from a store or a house as circumstances dictated. But the first goal of this journey was to find a dwelling like that, so resupplying on the way clearly wasn�t going to be possible. I was getting to experience firsthand why mountaineers who took on unexplored mountains were so insistent on their food being lightweight and high in calories.

Noon had passed some time ago. It looked like it was going to be another day without discovering any signs of people. If I hadn�t learned to produce holy bread with benediction like Mary, the very act of leaving the temple and seeking human habitation might have been physically impossible to begin with, due to the radius of how far I could travel. I felt another wave of appreciation for the god of the flame, and an obligation to express it. For a little while, I immersed myself in prayer.

Suddenly, I heard something. A loud rustling. Something rushing through the forest thickets at a furious speed.

Now, I was fully alert. I flung off the leather sheathing Pale Moon�s blade and held the spear at the ready. I was just beginning to wonder if it was another demon attack when a large boar came charging out at me.

Not only was it a bit bigger than an ordinary boar, something seemed to have made it very agitated. Its eyes were bloodshot and it was foaming at the mouth. Its sharp, curved tusks came up to about my thighs.

While my brain was uselessly reminding me that getting stabbed in the femoral artery was no laughing matter, my muscles, trained by Blood, were moving on their own. I sidestepped the hog�s attack and jabbed my spear in close to where its front legs met its body and it had its most vital organs: its heart and lungs. I felt the blade pierce its skin, and as soon as I knew the blade had gone in deep enough, I yanked it back out to prevent it from being ripped out of my hands. The hog�s momentum carried it straight forward, and it crashed headlong into a tree. It staggered about for a while, then spewed blood, collapsed, and stopped breathing.

It looked like I�d gotten a good stab through its major organs. But I knew never to underestimate the toughness of wild animals. You could approach them thinking they were dead, only for them to suddenly go into a frenzy. It was possible to end up seriously injured that way.

I watched it for a moment, and as I started to consider using Pale Moon to stab it one last time from a distance to make sure it was definitely dead, I noticed something. Stuck in the side of the hog opposite to where I�d stabbed it, there was a white-feathered arrow.

�What��

Before my thoughts could arrive at the meaning of it, I heard the sound of underbrush rustling again behind me. I turned. Between the trees, shadowed by branches, there was the figure of a person.

They were wearing a cloak with a hood that made it difficult to see their eyes. They were holding a uniquely decorated bow in their hand. An arrow had already been nocked on the string. It had white feathers. They hadn�t drawn the bowstring back yet, but they seemed to have an alertness about them that told me they could have that done in an instant if they felt like it. Their cloak and outer clothing had a soil-and-grass color scheme, and they were wearing tall leather boots and leather gloves. A short machete was hanging from their waist, and they had several other knives as well. This person was probably a hunter.

Dead silence.

Me versus presumed hunter. Neither of us spoke or moved.

The tension thickened with every passing moment.

Not good, I thought. I should have been appreciating the emotion of my first meeting with another living person right now, but I couldn�t even afford to do that. This was seriously not good.

First contact had accidentally been established between two complete and total strangers in the middle of the woods. My previous life�s knowledge alone could have told me this was an extremely dangerous situation. After all, this was a forest far from civilization. There was no judicial system or law enforcement here. In other words, if violence suddenly broke out, I couldn�t hope to receive the slightest bit of assistance. It was a place like that where we had run into each other, both of us strangers, and both of us armed.

Now... what would be the right course of action here?

Should I smile and ask for a handshake or something? I put myself in his shoes: If an armed man I�d suddenly run into grinned back at me and held out his hand... could I take that hand?

Maybe I was supposed to let go of my weapon to show I was harmless? What if they already intended on fighting me? And what if they suspected a trap? What about the possibility that when I let go of my weapon, that movement could be misinterpreted as the first sign of an attack?

Use benediction to show I�m a devout follower of a god? No, that would still leave the possibility of me being a priest of an evil god, trying to hide my true nature. What�s more, I had to question whether they�d really just stand and watch while I started to use a skill right in front of them.

Yes�I had no way of proving I wasn�t a threat. And even worse, I didn�t belong to a community. Therefore, I couldn�t even provide the name of someone who could vouch for me. That meant I had no way to prove my character. In my previous world, cultural anthropologists had warned of the dangers of accidental first contact with unknown people. Tension and wariness ran high in this kind of situation, and it was possible for that to develop directly into a lethal fight.

My heart rate was creeping upwards. The hunter was still deciding how to handle this situation, but I could tell that they were as tense and on their guard as I was; the sharp stare being cast over my equipment from the depths of their hood was proof. They were being pressed to make a decision between fight or flight.

The hunter dropped their hips a tiny amount. The tingling sensation on my skin grew stronger.

This was bad. Just really bad. At this rate, we were going to end up fighting to kill each other.

As I desperately searched for the right words and turned my eyes to what the person was carrying, I suddenly realized: the bow the presumed hunter was carrying�I�d seen that style of bow before, in Gus�s natural history lectures. Yes, that was�So I should�

Panicking internally and moving very slowly so as not to trigger an attack from my opponent, I placed my right palm on the left side of my chest, and pronouncing every word as clearly and carefully as possible, I spoke�

��The stars shine on the hour of our meeting.��

The hooded person before me went wide-eyed. �Old Elvish...?� they said with a tremor of shock in their voice. It was a beautiful voice as clear as a bell. �You have a connection to the elves?�

�No. But I thought you might.�

I had a memory of that type of bow. According to Gus�s lectures on natural history, Rhea Silvia, the free-spirited goddess of water and greenery, had as her minions a race of beautiful and long-lived people descending from the greater fae that had been created long ago by the Progenitor. They were a race called the elves, and it was to them that this bow belonged. So I thought that using an Elvish greeting might help to loosen a little of the tension.

�Keh!� the hunter spat out disdainfully. �Well, you�re not wrong.�

I�d guessed right. The hunter�s voice had softened a little, but this time it was my turn to be surprised: despite having quite a musical voice, their tone sounded pretty rough. I�d heard that the elves� long lives made them a patient and very graceful race...

�Eh. Whatever.� The hunter relaxed their posture and pulled off their hood.

The first thing that caught my eye was the silver hair. Furrowed eyebrows, sharp eyes of jade, a slender nose, elegant chin line, and tight, thin lips. From under the hood, the face of a boy with a somehow feminine beauty was revealed.

His ears weren�t the long, pointed ears I might have expected, but were short, about the same size as a human�s, and only a little more pointy. If I remembered my lessons correctly, that was characteristic of a half-elf, a child of mixed race born between elves and humans�

�Better question,� he said, cutting across my thoughts. �You do that?� He pointed at the hog lying on the ground and then at the blade of my spear, wet with blood.

�Yes, that was me.�

He frowned. �That�s an old way of speaking...�

I was confused for a moment, but after thinking about it, I realized that about two hundred years had passed since Blood and Mary�s time. That was more than enough time for a language to change, even if this world did have races like the elves that lived much longer lives than humans. I must have sounded old-fashioned. Maybe even archaic. In terms of English from my last world, I might have sounded like I was speaking using words like �thou� instead of �you.� I�d have to listen to how current people spoke and fix my speech to match so I wouldn�t make people wary of me.

�Sorry. It�s kind of a habit.�

�Weird, but whatever. So this thing,� said the silver-haired half-elf, turning the topic back to the hog. �This was mine.� He pointed to the arrow sticking out of 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 and 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.�

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 concerned 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.�

She�d seen through my moment�s hesitation...

Then, she smiled. �I�m not senile yet.�

The light of wit certainly dwelled in her eyes.

�Good to hear. Looks like you still had some unfinished business and got left behind. Don�t worry, though. Look, this guy�s a genuine, principled high priest. Met him by chance.� Menel started talking to the old woman�s ghost. He was being awfully chatty. �He can send lost souls like you back to be reincarnated, heal the wounded�he�s a whiz at all that stuff. So us two�ll do something about the village. Go on, thank him and get going already.�

I was a principled high priest? He was really playing me up.

�Or is there something else? Some message you wanted to give someone? I�ll tell them for you, so you��

�Menel.� With a single word, the old woman ended his verbal barrage. Then, she sighed. �You�ve been misbehaving again.�

I didn�t miss the twitch in Menel�s shoulders. �N-Not really... Where�s this coming from? You sure you aren�t going dotty?�

�I can read you like a book.�

�Oh yeah? How?� Menel feigned ignorance, but it wasn�t working. Marple continued with conviction.

�You�re a terrible liar, dear. And a difficult child. But deep down, you�re a scrupulously honest person with integrity.�

Menel looked like he was trying to say something back, but the words wouldn�t come out. The old woman simply smiled. They kind of looked like family. One living, and one undead. The days I�d spent in a family of four floated back into my mind.

�Killing and stealing... Someone like you isn�t cut out for all that nasty business.�

Menel had no reply.

�And it�s high time you admitted it. Stop living through clout. Give up this way of life of always fighting with others.� Her words showed no restraint, cutting Menel�s lifestyle to the ground and discarding it as casually as a butcher tossing unwanted parts.

�Shut up...� Menel�s voice, by contrast, was shaking. �Shut up! Stop talking to me like you�ve got all the answers! What was I supposed to do then?!� He was yelling, on the verge of tears. �You died, the rest of the village was starving and freezing! What the hell else could I have done?! My strength is the only thing I can count on! Or are you saying I should have prayed to God?! When has God, when has any fig god ever helped me?!�

Menel tried to grab the old woman�s ghost, but his hand swiped the air.

�Pig shit... This is... Pig shit!� Menel dropped to his knees and buried his head in them.

All I could do was watch.

�I�ve had enough... Let me go with you...� As fog swirled about the devastated village, the sorrowful tones of the half-elf�s beautiful voice echoed around. �The life of a half�s too long for me...�

Those who inherited elven blood lived several hundred years. His life wouldn�t end so easily. Even after losing the people and places important to him, he would continue to exist. What words did I possibly have to offer him? I had no idea.

�Listen to me, Menel. Meneldor.� Marple raised her voice, her tone serious. Menel looked up. �God has given you one more chance.� She smiled slowly. �One last time. Wash your hands of this wretched way of life.�

Her smile was full of love. I was even reminded of the Echo of the Earth-Mother Mater I had once seen. She may not be able to swing a sword or use magic, but I was sure that this person had something far more amazing and precious than anything I possessed�such was the power of that smile.

�You may hate God, but God will always love you. Whether you realize it or not, God is always shining on you, unremitting, untiring.� Through the silence of the perished village, the voice of the perished woman carried clearly, whispered like a young child telling her friend where she�d hidden away her treasures. �Now, it�s all down to you. All you need to do is see the light.� She smiled. �Give it a go, and I promise you it�ll all work out.�

Menel was covering his face and weeping silently, his shoulders shaking.

Then... the woman turned to me.

�Now, Father, may I have a word?�

�Of course.�

�Could I ask you to take care of this silly boy? He isn�t a bad person at his core. Would you... well... get along with him?�

It was the last wish of a person departing this world. I nodded firmly. Marple gave a satisfied nod of her own.

�Oh, yes... About the demons with beasts who attacked the village�it seems it wasn�t a case of lone demons wandering here by chance. They have a leader and a base where he lives deep in the woods, and he sends out underlings to various places from there. I don�t know the exact details, but it sounded like they had some truly evil things planned involving taming beasts and attacking people.�

�Don�t tell me you can speak demonjabber?� Not even Gus knew much about that language. Maybe some research had been done on it sometime in the past two hundred years?

�Well... That�s a long story from long ago.�

What kind of past did this woman have?

�Judging by the direction they were sending out their familiars and so on, I�d suspect their base is in the direction of the Rust Mountains, the fallen capital of the dwarves.�

I looked west. Beyond the fog, I could faintly see a reddish-brown mountain range in the distance. That had to be it.

�Did you not want the burden?�

�On the contrary, you�ve been very helpful.�

�Good,� Marple said with a smile. �I was feeling guilty that I couldn�t thank you in some way. If it helped you, Father, then I�m glad.�

�Um, your unfinished business, might it have been...�

The old woman roared with laughter. �Of course it was! As if I could take that to the grave! Someone had to know!� She laughed for a while. �So, that�s all. I hope you don�t mind, but I won�t be needing your guidance. God, you see, is already waiting for me.�

I saw a faint flame beside the old woman. Ah... You�re here, I thought.

�With that said, I�ll be on my way,� Marple said, and smiled.

The situation in the outside world wasn�t good, just as my parents had feared. But there were people here. It wasn�t all bad.

�Menel, keep your chin up. This world is full of things that can�t be undone. You mustn�t brood over them and let them hold you back. Stand up, face forward, and do what needs to be done.�

�Fig. So you�re just gonna say your piece and go,� Menel said bitterly.

Marple laughed. �Look in a mirror, dear. We both like to do things our own way. Gracious, what a boy.� She smiled, crow�s feet forming at the corners of her eyes, and put her incorporeal arms around Menel, rubbing his back with hands that couldn�t touch.

�All right,� she said calmly. �The rest, I trust to you.�

�Okay.� I placed my hand over the left side of my chest, and returned a vow. �You can leave it to me.�

She smiled.

And another soul returned to samsara.

After Marple went back to the cycle of reincarnation, Menel was in a daze for a while.

Once he regained his composure, we had a discussion and decided to begin dealing with the bodies of the villagers.

I repurified the remains of the temple with magic and blessings, and made it into a sacred area that creatures and beasts couldn�t approach. For each of the villagers� bodies, I put my hands together and prayed for them, cleansed them with magic, lifted them onto my back, and lined them up at the ruined temple. Pray, cleanse, lift, carry. Pray, cleanse, lift, carry. Pray, cleanse, lift, carry.

I repeated this over and over. No matter how grotesque the body, I gave them all equal treatment.

As I worked, I thought about the state of the outside world. It was looking pretty bleak right now. How many battles had I gotten into already in the small number of days since I had left the city of the dead? Dangerous beings like demons and beasts were widespread and hadn�t even been driven out of areas where people were still living their lives.

And when people suffered from these attacks, the result, either due to extreme poverty or the failure to organize a buffer of emergency supplies in advance, was the continual creation of starving bandits. Because of the cold rationality created from everyone having nothing to spare, there was no mercy or allowance made for others, nor was there any semblance of law or order.

Violence was rampant, and survival of the strongest ruled above all. This was the case for at least the entire region known as Beast Woods, if not an even wider area. Even just the brief glimpse I�d had of it was pretty darn awful.

Of course, I could have shamelessly said, �That is their culture, their society, and their choice. It�s not my place as an outsider to interfere,� and passed through while assuming the attitude of a neutral observer.

My hometown was the city of the dead, not these woods. I was only a passerby, and had no obligation to do anything with regard to this area. The societal problems of an entire region weren�t going to be fixed overnight by the efforts of just one person, so I had the option of just dealing with the immediate problem in front of me and only getting as involved as my oath required.

From the look of things so far, I seemed to qualify as a pretty strong warrior even in the outside world, and I also had my powers of magic, my god�s protection, and a good amount of wealth. If I wanted to live in peace somewhere inconspicuous, I could probably accomplish that surprisingly easily. I just had to find some city that wouldn�t make too much of a fuss about my origin, blend in, and I was sure it would work out.

However...

�As you travel��

�Prithee, bring light to the faraway darkness.�

If that was my god�s wish, then I had to lend her an ear. I owed her a debt too great to ever repay.

That said�

�What should I do...?�

The heart of the problem wasn�t the demons or beasts. It was the compounded societal issues of poverty and disorder that surrounded them. I could defeat the demons and beasts with a sword or a spear, but societal problems couldn�t be cut down with a demonblade. As I thought about what to do, I prayed, purified, lifted, and carried, over and over.

A few days later, the villagers returned to the besieged village. It was scorched all over, and many of the buildings had collapsed. When they saw the state of it with fresh eyes, they looked to be in shock.

Together, we scraped together the remaining farm tools, dug some holes, and held a simple funeral service to mourn the dead.

Everyone took turns piling a little bit of earth on top of the bodies lying in the graves. To make it feel like a legitimate funeral, I spoke some passages from scripture I had once been taught by Gus and Mary as I watched the villagers work. However, I wasn�t following any prescribed form; I was really only borrowing from what others had told me to make it �sound right.� It looked like I�d need to make contact with a priest belonging to a proper organization somewhere and learn from them.

After the funeral had started to wrap up, I decided to raise a question.

�So, umm... What are you all going to do now?�

There looked to be enough surviving houses that if the survivors all lived together it would work out; however, many of the fields had been rendered useless. If they couldn�t eat, if the only route available to them was going to be pillaging, then in the worst case, I was thinking I might be forced to give them money and have them spread out to neighboring villages...

�Hahaha! Well, you just watch.� The villagers laughed off my serious expression. They beckoned me over to a barn, where they started digging up the dirt. Straw bags and pots filled with grain came out one after the other.

�Ohh...� I said.

�You see, robberies and burnings ain�t anything special around these parts.�

�Yes,� another villager said. �If you can get back, you can get by. That�s if, mind you.�

�You�re very generous, but we ain�t planning on taking advantage of you, Father. We can cope, don�t you worry.�

Some people who had disappeared into the woods surrounding the village also started to come back with food and other supplies. God knows where they�d hidden those. It looked like these people had no intention of allowing themselves to be beaten so easily. Maybe the people here were cursed to become desperate muggers time and time again, but it was that very aspect that had also fostered the villagers� toughness and strength of character.

�Well, this is a great relief.� At the very least, it looked like I�d been more than a bit of a busybody to think I needed to watch over the whole affair from beginning to end. It was just that the demons and the beasts together had been a little too much for just one settlement to handle on this one occasion. They could handle themselves without me, in their own way.

In which case, what I should have been thinking about wasn�t how to completely take care of them throughout the whole process, but merely how to contribute. And that was a good question...

Fires were being stoked, and I heard the lively voices of the women starting their cooking. Evidently there was going to be a bit of a feast tonight, to celebrate their homecoming and to mourn those who had died.

�Father, we owe you a debt of gratitude for giving us back our village.�

�We�d be more than happy for you to join us.�

�I�d be glad to,� I said, nodding�and then suddenly, I noticed. �Huh?�

At some point, Menel had disappeared.

I told the people preparing for the feast where I was going, and went to search for Menel. He seemed to have left his stuff here, so it was unlikely that he�d gone far.

I couldn�t see fairies, but sorcerer�s theory stated that all things in the world were made from the Words. Reading the difficult-to-interpret Words and Signs that represented the trees and soil, I walked through the woods, somehow managing to follow his trail.

I took in the smell of the dry winter forest. Some of the trees around me were bare like weather-beaten skeletons, while others were deep verdant evergreens. The sky was glowing red in the west; the sun was well on its way to setting. Cold wind was whistling through the trees. It was beginning to get pretty dark.

�Lumen.� I made Pale Moon�s blade glow softly.

It wasn�t a good idea to act carelessly. There had only just been an attack by demons and beasts. They could jump at me from anywhere. I had no intention of dropping my guard.

Remaining alert to my surroundings, I walked step by step through the woods, and as I did so, I thought about Menel.

Was he okay? I wondered. Parting with Marple must have hit him pretty hard. Putting myself in his position, I thought it was probably like if I had lost Blood or Mary in a sudden incident.

Expressing it that way gave me a new appreciation for how hard this had to be for him. I couldn�t imagine that someone like me, who Menel had only met a few days ago, would be able to do anything for him in a time like that. Perhaps what he really needed was some time alone to think things over, and what I was doing was just unwanted meddling. But even so...

� Could I ask you to take care of this silly boy?

I had certainly been asked, so I probably had a duty to at least keep an eye on him. If he said I wasn�t wanted, then I would just have to turn around and leave dejected. After all, until just a few days ago, I�d been a sheltered boy who had never seen another living human in his life. I had zero experience points in social interaction, so when I�d set out into the world, I�d been prepared from the beginning for everything to go south.

As I walked along confidently thinking that if I made a fool of myself I could simply cringe about it later, I arrived at a bit of an upwards slope. I could see what was left of perhaps a stone wall running across it.

A phosphorescent fairy danced lightly across my vision. I followed the momentary blinking with my eyes, and when I looked up I saw, almost entirely hidden by trees, the remains of a small and time-worn building that might have been an ancient watchtower.

Built on a small hill which could be used as a vantage point, the structure had since collapsed, leaving only the base behind, around which fairies were blinking like fireflies. As if they were concerned about someone, they were whispering to each other while stealing glances inside.

There was no doubt in my mind�he had to be there.

I carefully made my way up the slope, paying extra attention to my feet and the loose, mossy stones. Once I reached the top, I circled around the partially collapsed stone wall, and my field of vision widened.

�Ah.�

As I looked down from the hill, I saw the city built from stone below me. The countless houses along the streets spreading outward from the river had aged, crumbled, and been taken over by forest, and now stood only as a reminder of the city�s former prosperity. The color of the sunset, changing every moment, gently illuminated them all.

�Hey, Will.�

There he was, sitting with one knee up, against the base of an evergreen tree that had spread its roots between the stones of the broken watchtower. A sorrowful look in his jade eyes, his fair skin was lit by the sunset, and his slightly pointed ears peeked out from his flowing, silver hair. The fairies� phosphorescence occasionally danced around him.

�Menel.�

Even when he was feeling down, he was picture-perfect. Attractive people have it good, I randomly thought.

�Can I sit here?�

�Knock yourself out.�

I sat down beside him. �This is a nice view.�

�Yeah, from the outside.�

I gave him a puzzled look.

�That ruin�s a den of undead. It�s devoured countless adventurers. No one�s ever come back from there alive.�

Is that so. �Then I�d better go in there later and return them all to the cycle of rebirth.�

�What? Were you even listening?�

�Yeah, you said it�s a dangerous place. So I have to do something about it.�

Menel shook his head and put his hand to his forehead as if he were trying to cope with a headache. �Of course you�d say that. I forgot who I was dealing with.� He let out a massive sigh. �Being with you throws me off my groove. I thought I was, y�know, more cool and collected than this.�

�Cool?�

�Yes, cool! Fig!�

�Hahaah...� I treated him to a deliberately mocking laugh. He growled in frustration.

I was surprised at how much fun it was to tease him, or more, to watch his reactions.

I was having quite a lot of... discoveries, I guess, talking with Menel. I first thought he was a pretty nice guy; then he tried to kill me without any hesitation at all. That had been something. Then I thought he was stubborn and difficult, but he was actually genuine, with a funny side as well.

This probably wasn�t limited to Menel. Humans in general are pretty multifaceted. They have harsh, inconsiderate sides, and they have charming sides that put a smile on your face. There�s a lot to see, as long as you�re willing to look for it. Maybe confronting these kinds of things was what building a relationship with another person was all about.

As these thoughts went through my head, Menel and I teased each other. The last time I�d had this kind of fun with someone my age might have been when I was a kid in my previous life.

After we�d gone at that for a while, I asked him, �So, what kind of person was Marple?�

Menel shrugged his shoulders. �She was a weird old lady. You could probably tell.�

The sun was beginning to dip down below the horizon. The world turned from red to purple, and on to the color of night.

�I was born in Grassland to the north, in the Great Forest of Erin where the elves live.

My mother... She had a very curious personality when she was young, and ran away from the forest. Then, after a few years, she came back pregnant with some guy�s kid. She died an early death, apparently. As for me, I was growing faster than everyone else around me, and I couldn�t get along with them, anyway. The whole deal with my mother was still dragging on... They were calling me a stain on their home... In the end, I thought I�d just run away from the forest, and... yeah. That�s how it goes with mongrel halfs like me.�

Pretty heavy, and he�d only just gotten started.

�Of course, the world of people wasn�t a paradise either. It wasn�t until after I left that I found out that for all its problems, I�d had it easy in the Forest of Erin. Fortunately, I knew how to handle a bow and a knife, and most importantly, I could see fairies.� A fairy stopped on the tip of Menel�s extended finger, frolicked there, and then left again. �I was strong enough to kill the hell out of whatever or whoever came to prey on me. If not for that, I�d be in some back alley whoring myself out right about now.�

�You do have a pretty face...�

�Don�t agree, goddammit.�

�I just thought you�d have been pretty popular with guys who are into that.�

�Feck off.�

What did he want me to do? Lie? That said, I didn�t have a sexual inclination towards those of my gender, so my thoughts didn�t go any further than �he�s got a pretty face.�

�Anyway, the point is, for a bunch of reasons, I became an �adventurer.� Southmark still had a lot of ruins, so I made use of the Fertile Kingdom�s open policy and crossed over here.� Menel had a distant look in his eyes. �Then, one of the people I�d banded together with betrayed us and poisoned us. I was this close to getting killed.�

I had no words. How vicious...

�It was greed that did it, I bet. The spoils from the ruins were too good. Luckily, I barely touched the poisoned food, so it didn�t get me that bad. I somehow managed to kill the fecker, but still...�

So this was the standard in this region of the world. It was so savage, and the difference in the way things went here compared with my past life was staggering. I could imagine Blood and those like him having a riot out here, though.

�All the other guys I knew back then were dead on the ground, foam around their mouths, and the poison and my wounds were making my head all fuzzy. I have no idea how I bumbled my way to the village in that state, but I did, and that was where I went down, just outside there. And Marple took me in. If it wasn�t for that old lady... Of course, back then she wasn�t quite so old.�

Menel continued to speak, that faraway look still in his eyes. �She really was a strange old woman. She took me in, some sketchy and surly guy lying half-dead on the ground, and she gave me food to eat and a place to sleep; she even lectured me on living a proper life. There were a ton of people like that, different circumstances but similar stories�they�d all ended up settling in that village after being picked up by her.�

�Who was she?�

�Beats me.� Menel shook his head. �She said she was an �uneducated country bumpkin� or some crap. Please. Anyway, she�s dead now, and the truth�s gone with her. Happens a lot on this continent.�

I remembered a saying from my previous world: �Everyone has a story.� And unfortunately, a single human being cannot pore through them all.

�So, she took me in, and she may have been a preachy old bat, but I owed her one. I couldn�t stomach settling down in the village and playing the part of a farmer, but... I did go around to the nearby villages, doing my best impression of a hunter. �Cause hunting dangerous animals was something I could do.�

Menel talked nostalgically, as if he were cherishing a broken treasure. �Beast Woods has a ton of nasty creatures in it. People were finding me pretty useful. I�d found a place where I belonged.�

And then�

�Without any warning, it was gone.�

The village, attacked by demons; the nice old woman, Marple; the children in the barn�all of that was gone.

�So I decided I wasn�t gonna be someone who gets stuff taken from him. I was gonna be a taker, and protect what I still had left. Which failed spectacularly, thanks to you.� The silver-haired hunter breathed a long sigh. �That�s what this place is like. You�ve gotta be like that if you want to survive out here.�

He sounded like he�d given up, like a tired old man. �Living longer than other people in a place like this... It�s painful, you know? Just hopelessly painful.� His words held no intensity, just exhaustion and the sense that something inside him had been worn down to nothing.

�Sometimes I wish I was dead.�

I didn�t know what to say to Menel after his emotional outpour. It reminded me of my previous life and the time when the god of undeath�s words had thrown me into a pit of despair.

I wondered how I could comfort him. I wondered how I could encourage him. I didn�t know. I couldn�t do as Mary, Blood, and Gus had. I couldn�t think of anything.

This was something I�d become painfully aware of when I met the ghost of the old woman Marple. There were certainly gods in this world, and if you received their protection, you would become able to heal wounds and cure illnesses. It was almost a little superpower, like the ones you found in comic books. But it wasn�t as if it gave you more life experience. It didn�t give you the ability to say the kinds of words that could resound in someone�s heart, words that could help someone through hard times.

I could heal the body, but not the heart. That was something that, in the end, a person had to take charge of themselves. And as the silence dragged on, I was unable to say anything. What was I supposed to say? I wished someone would tell me. What was I supposed to do in times like this? I had no experience with this in my previous life, and I didn�t have much in this one, either. If Blood, Mary, or Gus were here, they might have been able to come up with something. But for everything I had learned, I couldn�t produce the right words, not even a single sentence, to save my life.

�U-Um... I, I guess, you... uh...� I mumbled something, but it didn�t help. Gods... I felt like I really had regressed to how I used to be. But Menel was in a really bad place right now. I had to say something.

But while I was racking my brain, Menel exhaled sharply. �Right,� he said, stretching his arms above his head to loosen up his stiff body. �Sucks, but gotta move on!�

Huh?

Menel looked at me and tilted his head. �Hm? What�s up? You done making stupid faces?�

�What? Huh...?� I was confused.

No, wait, hold up. He had just been so depressed, and now he... wha?

�Haha, he�s losing it. Y�know, the normal you and the you that does the priest thing are like two totally different people.�

�Pleeeeeeease shut up.�

�Too bad, �cause you�re pretty cool when you�re full-on priest.�

�I wasn�t�I was just�uhh...�

After taunting me a little, he bounced lightly to his feet and looked at me with serious eyes. �Will... William. Priest of the god of the flame. I�m grateful to you. For stopping me before it was too late, and for saving the guys in the village. So�� He put his hand on his chest, gracefully descended to one knee, and bowed his head before me. �With you as my mediator, I ask the protection of the god of the flame.�

This was the standard phrase used when changing your guardian deity and oath. Startled by the sincerity in his voice, I hurriedly stood to face him.

�Will you do this for me?� he asked.

�I shall be your mediator and bring you together with my god.� I responded with the standard, age-old reply I�d once been taught by Mary. I placed my hand gently on Menel�s head and prayed to my goddess as he knelt. �I pray for you to the god of the flame. May Gracefeel love you, shine on you, and be with you on your journeys.�

In the darkness, I felt a faint flame glow warmly in the air behind me.

�Then to my guardian deity, I make this oath.� Menel raised his eyes and looked up at the flame. �I will atone for my sins and live a positive life, looking forward.� It was a powerful declaration. �Please light the way before me with your flame.�

That had also been Marple�s wish for him, to the very end.

�Menel...�

�Life�s hard a lot of the time. Sometimes it beats me so badly I want to just lie there and die. But I�m not gonna stay down.� He shrugged and put on a brave smile. �I�m gonna get up somehow, and just like Marple said, I�m gonna keep looking forward and do what needs to be done.�

My previous life ended without me ever being able to recover from my despair, and it had taken a pep talk from Mary for me to manage it in this life, too. But Menel had mustered the strength to stand back up all on his own. He had found a way to resolve his internal struggle, changed his attitude, and sought out how to behave to make up for his past behavior; and he had done all this by himself.

He�d had Marple�s words to help him, and he was probably putting up a brave front as well, but even so, I couldn�t have done what he had. How arrogant was I, to think that he needed my words? He was strong. Stronger than me. Stronger than I�d ever thought.

If only I�d had this kind of strength in my past life; maybe something could have been different then. When I thought about this, my chest tightened with a feeling of regret that I couldn�t shake. �Menel, you�re awesome, really,� I said with admiration. �I truly respect you.�

�What, feck off,� he said, rising to his feet and giving one of my shoulders a playful shove. �You�re the awesome one. How do you get that good at fighting?�

�It�s not me that�s awesome. It was my teachers.�

�Can�t imagine what your childhood was like for the life of me. Eh, whatever, I�m not gonna pry,� he said, walking past me. �Let�s get back already. Food�s probably close to being done by now.�

�Oh yeah. You�re right. We�ll make them worry if we�re much longer.� I followed after him, and we headed back to the village together.

The feast of homecoming and mourning was just beginning. Though it was small for a �feast,� they wouldn�t stop offering me drinks. Menel tried to keep a low profile in the corner, so I dragged him out and made him get involved. He resisted, and we ended up getting in a weird scuffle.

It was a night of competition, of fooling around, and of moments spent quietly, listening to the fondly remembered stories of those who had passed away.

�All our livestock�s been wiped out, and a whole lot of tools that�ll be impossible to replace have been smashed.�

�Wow...�

There were still a lot of problems for the villagers even after taking back their village from the hands of the demons. Many of their draft animals and tools had been lost. The villagers had serious expressions on their faces as they discussed the problem from all angles. �We�re gon� needa stock up at Whitesails...�

�But what do we do about the money?�

�We need help also.�

An unfamiliar word came up in their conversation, so I asked Menel. �What�s Whitesails?�

Menel looked at me like he was looking at an alien. Was �Whitesails� the name of a place that you couldn�t help learning if you spent any amount of time living here?

�What is the deal with you, seriously?� he asked. �Were you living under a rock?� Then he gave me a brief summary of the history of this region.

Apparently, Blood and Mary�s era was now referred to as the Union Age, in which all kinds of races had formed a large confederation. With the exception of regions like this one at the border, it had been a peaceful golden age without much conflict.

However, the influx of demons that followed caused the Great Collapse, and the Union fell apart. Southmark was lost under the flood of demons. The Hundred Heroes�that referred to Blood and the others who had helped him�killed the demons� king, but all the same, mankind was forced to abandon this continent for a while.

Crossing the channel and the inland sea called Middle-Sea, mankind retreated to Grassland in the north. But as a result of the Great Collapse, the central government of Grassland lost its ability to govern, and the continent fractured into smaller regions that vied for power. There was no quick end to the infighting among all those military factions, and while it continued, no division saw good reason to interfere with the darkness in Southmark, farthest of all places and teeming with undead, demons, and goblins.

After the Fertile Kingdom unified the southwestern part of Grassland, that changed a little. Over the last few decades, they had been expanding and rebuilding with a vision to retake Southmark, and Whitesails was the port city that was currently the heart of the settlement effort coming from the north.

No wonder he�d given me that look of utter disbelief for not knowing it.

Anyway, Whitesails, which was the port at the north side of Southmark and the base for their settlement project, was apparently crammed full of immigration ships and trade vessels. And with so many of those going in and out, it was natural that suspicious folk, those with things to hide, and people forced to leave their homelands would also turn up.

Proper immigration procedures were as good as nonexistent in this era, so of course, there was no way to shut those kinds of people out. Some dived headfirst into the organized criminal underbelly in Whitesails, while others slipped away, made homes, and planted fields on the very edges of the borderlands, where the influence of those in power didn�t reach. Independent settlements such as those were scattered around Beast Woods.

�Those sorts of people aside, a lot of adventurers come here, as well. Though you could ask just how different the two really are...�

An �adventurer,� he told me, was a job in which you earned your daily bread by trolling the ruins from the Union Age and taking on mercenary-type jobs. Adventurers weren�t members of a single, unified organization; they were drifters, existing in almost any large town, who took jobs at special-purpose taverns and carried them out for a fee. Most were people down on their luck and unable to make a proper living, but that was why they saw the Union Age ruins as the key to fulfilling their dreams.

�In the unlikely event you find a pot of gold coins or something, boom, you�re rich. Your whole life turns around, just like that. People who dream of hitting the big one call themselves adventurers and flock out here. Though, it�s not just them, to be fair. There�s also people hoping to become heroes, people like you who had revelations from their god�all sorts.�

So you couldn�t generalize them as just people living in poverty. It seemed to be a pretty complicated occupation.

�You�ve got your own reasons too, right?� he asked. �You�re having revelations and helping people out, so you�re probably also trying to spread your faith or something too, I guess? I mean, the southern continent used to have a deeply rooted faith in Gracefeel.�

�Hmm... Can you tell me more about that?�

I asked him a few questions, and learned that the god of the flame had apparently once formed the basis for people�s religious faith here in Southmark.

However, the flood of demons caused by the Great Collapse two hundred years ago made a mess of Southmark, and as a result, Gracefeel�s followers scattered. Some were just barely able to flee to Grassland in the north and keep her name alive. But unlike the major gods, whose worshippers were numerous and not isolated to particular areas, Gracefeel�s faithful seemed to have waned considerably.

Demons and beasts were running rampant. There were many villages where the people could barely afford to get by, and sometimes became desperate enough to become thieves. Faith was dwindling to the point of disappearing completely. Things were awful in a lot of ways. And knowing that the mission I�d been given by my god was to do something about it somehow made me feel even worse.

Blood, Mary, Gus? Outside is a really scary place, I lamented inside my mind. Then I slowly breathed in, and out again.

To be honest, this was blatantly too much of a burden for me, and I�d really have liked someone else to do it, but I had sworn an oath to my god and decided to live a proper life. In the name of my faith, I decided to do as much as I could. �First things first. This village.�

�About that. You�ve done enough already, so I�m sorry for asking this, but the people here don�t have any money. If possible, they�d like to borr��

�Menel, let�s go explore some ruins! We�ll split whatever we find!�

�What?� Menel�s mouth dropped open.

�I can�t believe you�re this good at ruin-hunting as well...�

�I�m used to it.�

Menel and I conquered the ruins that neighbored the village, and saw off the spirits of the wandering undead there at the same time.

I�d been thrown into the city of the dead�s underground quarter and had some seriously hard training at the hands of Gus and Blood, so I was relatively good at this kind of thing. Menel�s past experience as an adventurer had clearly helped him, too; he was very quick on his feet.

By collecting money and magical items from the ruins, Menel got the amount he needed to rebuild the village, and I succeeded in replenishing the various supplies I�d consumed. I�d been told that there were a lot of untouched ruins around here, so it seemed that I�d be able to amass the funds I was going to need on my own, at least for the time being.

�Seriously, who are you...� Menel wondered aloud.

�You weren�t going to pry, right?�

�Yeah, and I�m sticking to that, but... hell.�

I was on a journey north with Menel right now. Our destinations were the same�Whitesails, the most prosperous city in Southmark�but our reasons for going were different.

Menel�s was simple: he needed to go there to buy the draft animals and various tools that Marple�s village needed.

As for me, I had many reasons. I wanted to help Menel, I wanted to learn about the activities of the demons in Beast Woods, and I wanted to get more information on the continents and countries of this world. Doing something about the demons� suspicious behavior, spreading faith in the god of the flame, helping villages�all of these required first heading to a city where people and things gathered.

We were walking through Beast Woods. The view surrounding the trail barely changed, and the heavily wooded forest let little light through. Fortunately, with it being late winter, the bushes and undergrowth weren�t that thick, but even so, we had spent so long walking that it was starting to feel like we were just going around in circles. I�d seen nothing but this same kind of scenery for several days now.

Today, too, we had been walking about half the day, and as the sun was starting to shine through from high in the sky, I could hold it in no longer. �We are making progress... right?�

�Of course we are,� Menel said. �Starting to get you down?�

�Kind of.�

�Well... Can�t say I blame you. I can�t wait to get out to a village somewhere, or at least to a nice, open plain. The ears of winter wheat should be waving in the wind at this time of year. Should be pretty beautiful.�

�Oh, that sounds really nice,� I said, getting a little excited as I imagined the view.

Then, a long, loud, and piercing shriek filled the air, and a second voice with it. �He-Help! Anyone!!�

Menel and I glanced at each other, and immediately ran in the direction of the voice.

There was a deafening bellow.

It came from a gigantic ape with dark brown hair. The ape was easily over two meters tall, and I estimated its weight at close to three hundred kilograms.

It was big. Its arms were thick, as were its legs. Its torso, its neck, its lips, its eyes�all were large and bulging. It reminded me of the depictions I�d read in martial arts stories in my previous life.

There was another high-pitched shriek. Two people were frantically running in our direction and away from the ape. One was a scrawny man with a pack on his back who looked to be a hawker. The other, carrying a stringed instrument of some kind on her back, was a little girl�no�

�A halfling, huh,� Menel muttered.

She was definitely very short, and a pretty fast runner for her size. Her ears were pointed like leaves, and her hair was red and curly. I�d learned about halflings from Gus�they were a vagabond tribe of cheerful little people who enjoyed singing, dancing, and eating... Hmm, now wasn�t the time to be thinking about this.

The two of them ran madly towards us. The short girl caught up with the man and his goods and began to pass him. �What are you doing?!� she cried. �Dump it! Dump it, you dingbat!�

The hawker looked ghastly pale and was sweating profusely as he tried to run. �But�� he started.

�Nuts to your but! Oh, why me?!�

Before they could bicker any further, the giant ape charged them, and with two simultaneous yelps they darted away in opposite directions. Taking advantage of her small body, the girl rolled into an area heavily obstructed by branches.

It looked like she was going to be able to get away.

But she looked at the hawker, and saw that now he was the one being chased. Her eyes went hard with determination. Shouting, �Hey! Over here!� she picked up a tree branch and threw it at the ape. Evidently, she was hoping to draw its attention to her.

I stepped between the short girl and the ape instead.

�Look a�ah?! Wh-Who�W-Wai-Watch out...!�

When the giant ape saw that I had barged in front, it stopped its charge. Its large eyeballs rolled in their sockets towards me, and it stared. Then, its enormous mouth opened wide as it roared and threatened me with its long, thick canines. Its rage made the air tremble.

I stared unblinkingly into its eyes.

It roared again, pounding on its chest with the palms of its hands. The sound was incredible, like it was beating a set of enormous drums.

I stared unblinkingly into its eyes.

In my peripheral vision, Menel seemed to be helping the hawker to his feet, but I wasn�t going to take my eyes off the ape. I kept on staring. The ape was looking back at me while emitting a very low growl. Blood had told me that in an encounter with a wild animal, you lose the moment you look away.

Come on then. Wanna wrestle? I�m game.

I continued staring intensely, letting the ape know that I was more than willing to fight. Its growl grew steadily fainter, and it began to back off. Finally, the staring contest was ended by the ape breaking its gaze, and it turned around and headed back into the depths of the woods.

I breathed out.

I didn�t have to fight. What a relief, I thought, and turned around.

�Are you all right?� I said, and the halfling girl came flying at me.

�What was that?! What was that, that was crazy crazy crazy! Hey tell me tell me, who are you, an adventurer?! Giant apes don�t stop just �cause you look at them, that�s just wow, I mean wow!�

Her eyes were sparkling with curiosity.

�I�m Robina! Robina Goodfellow! I�m a troubadour, I sing, I dance, I go where the wind takes me, you can call me Bee! And this dweeb is a hawker, he�s Antonio! But I call him Tonio! The ships of the trading company he was working for all sank one after another and it folded, so now he passes himself off as a hawker on country roads at the border!�

Robina had red, curly hair and a childlike physique. A halfling girl�could I call her a girl? A �young woman,� perhaps? She looked small, but she probably had a longer lifespan than humans, so I wasn�t really sure of her age. What I did know: she talked a lot. I�d never met anyone like her before.

�Hahaha... I don�t believe there�s anything left for me to say. Hello, my name is Antonio. Please feel free to call me simply Tonio. As Robina says, I�m a lowly hawker of goods. I was on my way back to where I�m based in Whitesails, when... well, dear me, that was a close shave. Thank you truly.�

Antonio was a bearded man somewhere in his late thirties. He looked peaceable and friendly, but a little fatigued, lacking any get-up-and-go... Yeah, no offense to him, but I could see where Robina was coming from with her �dweeb� comment.

�I�m Meneldor. I used to be an adventurer, but now I�m a hunter around here. I was just going to town to buy some stuff. And this is�� Menel looked at me.

Self introductions were never my strong point�not in my previous world, and not in this one. I always got nervous at times like this. �William. William G. Maryblood. I�m an adventurer, and a priest to the god of the flame, Gracefeel.� I made sure to smile. �Call me Will.� Yeah, that was probably passable.

�Woww that�s a real noble�s name, wait did you say Gracefeel?! Gracefeel�s that one right, from the south! The god that has basically no priests anymore! Whoaaa, what a discovery you are! And you�re not just a priest you�re also a skilled warrior? I mean you must be, who else just stands in the way of a giant ape?! So are you or what?!�

�That�s about right,� Menel said on my behalf. �He looks a little slow, but he�s ridiculously good. I mean, I�ve been walking with him, and there�s hardly been a single beast attacking us.�

�You mean even the beasts know how much stronger he is and they avoid him?! Whoaa, that�s amazing!�

Hm? �There�s normally more beasts than this?� I asked.

Whitesails was a wealthy city. The people walking through the streets were wearing clothes dyed in all kinds of colors, and I could see certain tendencies in their hairstyles and accessories.

In short�get this�trends existed here! They had the time and money to think about fashion! Just that fact alone was shocking to me.

In fact, my first shock had come before that, when I entered the city. There was no kind of check required, and no toll to pay to pass through the city gate. I�d subconsciously been assuming that there would be that kind of thing based on what I knew about medieval cities, and I�d been prepared to be kept waiting, but they just let us right in.

�That�s one of His Excellency Ethel�s policies. He�s the one governing this city,� Tonio explained to me.

A huge volume of goods was being sent into this city via the sea route to the north, and spreading to the rest of Southmark via the land routes and waterways as if they were blood vessels. Because there was such an overwhelming amount passing through, stopping it all at the city gate would be a recipe for chaos, and in fact would create a hotbed of smuggling.

So His Excellency Ethel brought in the money needed to run the city by imposing fees for the ships to dock at the wharves, rental fees for space at the market, taxes upon the companies setting up shop within the city, and avoided interfering with the movements of people, goods, and money as much as possible. That was the direction he�d taken, at least for Whitesails, Tonio told me.

I hmm�ed, somewhat impressed. I wasn�t that well versed in economics, but I got the impression that this was quite a progressive, open-minded, and liberal policy.

The way people speak about Duke Ethelbald seems well deserved, I thought as I walked around the city. �Hm? What are those?�

Some kind of pillar-like objects were lined up along the road. Each had something like an... umbrella at the top...?

�Uh, those are streetlights.�

�Streetlights?!�

What?!

�You didn�t know what those were? Oh my God, Will, get with the times! They have the Word of Light engraved on them. Apprentices at the Academy of Sages come around in the evening and light them up. The apprentices get to practice binding mana to Signs, and the city people get to have light during the night as well, so that�s pretty useful.�

�Exactly. It is good training for apprentice sorcerers, and an avenue to earning a little bit of pocket money as well. Similarly,� Tonio said, pointing at a large building ahead of us, �that is another large source of income for sorcerers-in-training. It makes frequent use of the Words of Heat and Purification, after all.�

�Is that��

�Hehe...� Bee gave me another mischievous laugh. �I bet even you know what that one is,� she said, spinning around on the spot just to be funny. �You guessed it, it�s the balnea!�

Balnea...?

�Hm? Something up, Will?�

�Is something the matter?�

Wait, I knew that word! Wasn�t that a public bathhouse?! I could take a bath there?!

�Let�s go!� I announced without a second thought. The other three looked surprised.

To cut a long story short, my first bath in some time was a wonderful experience.

After all, considering the time period, I�d honestly been considering the possibility that the water would be dirty, unhygienic, and carry all kinds of diseases, but the Word of Purification was doing its job, and the water was crystal clear. The problem of needing an immense amount of fuel to maintain the temperature had been solved by the Word of Heat. Wonderful. I�m repeating myself, but it was wonderful.

It wasn�t like the Japanese-style bathhouses I was familiar with�instead, there was a sauna-like hot bath and a cold-water pool�but even so, it was amazing. The travel fatigue that had accumulated in all the muscles throughout my body melted away in the heat and disappeared as I relaxed. It was a moment of bliss.

After exiting the public bath, I felt like a whole layer had slipped clean off my body like the shell off a boiled egg. My body felt toasty warm, and the breeze felt good against it. Even while on the road, I�d been keeping clean with the Word of Purification, but a proper bath was something else.

The three of us men killed time in the open area outside the bathhouse, and after a little while...

�LA LA LA...♪� Bee came out holding the things she�d left with the bathhouse owners. She was singing a tune to herself and was clearly in a very good mood. �It�s really nice to have a bath every once in a while,� she said.

�Absolutely.�

�Won�t deny it, but I don�t like packed places like that very much.� Menel had attracted an awful lot of attention because of his beauty and the fact that it was rare to see a half-elf in the first place. Normally he could get around this by wearing a hood or something, but there was just no way for him to conceal himself like that at a bathhouse.

At this very moment, he had his hood firmly down over his eyes with a sour look on his face, so we decided to hurry up and change locations. �Lessee,� Bee said, �how about we get something to eat at a tavern, and then...�

�What next?�

�I suggest we head to a temple,� said Tonio. �Will is a priest, so I imagine he will want to pay them a visit.�

�Oh!� I said. I�d had my attention pulled in so many different directions that I�d almost forgotten. I had to make contact with an established temple. I was technically a proper priest bestowed with a god�s protection, so I was hoping they�d make time for me, but I had my doubts.

The four of us walked together to a tavern and had something to eat. I was very surprised when I saw their cooking used rice. It seemed to be what I had once known as Indica rice, probably grown in a dry field. They first stir-fried vegetables with oil and�fittingly for a port�a selection of seafood, including shrimp, shellfish, and whitefish in a flat-bottomed, shallow pan, then added the rice and water and cooked it all together.

The rice had absorbed the flavors of the fish well, and the dish was salted to perfection. I could have eaten this stuff all day. The diluted wine it was served with tasted good, too.

This was civilization. That was the only thing I could come up with to describe it. This was the taste of civilization.

Tonio and Bee were debating the meal.

�This tastes quite good, wouldn�t you say?�

�Hmm.� She didn�t sound entirely convinced. �I could have done with it not being boiled down so much.�

For these two, a traveling hawker and a troubadour, this city was a base of operations. They were probably relatively used to it.

As for Menel and me, conversation was just not what we cared about right then, so we skipped that entirely in favor of gorging ourselves on what was in front of us. And when we were done, we both ordered seconds.

Civilization really was such a wonderful, marvellous thing!

And so we reached the temple in Whitesails. It was a majestic building made of smooth white stone, with big, wide columns, column-lined walkways, statues of the gods, and a front garden full of carefully pruned plants and trees. It all looked brand new, but still it had a kind of artistic character. Menel commented under his breath that they must have spent a hell of a lot on this place.

I asked Menel, Tonio, and Bee to wait in the front garden for the time being, and I walked into the temple proper. Once inside, I thought I�d find a priest and ask to be shown to someone high ranking.

However, the first reaction that came from the young male deacon who stood before me wearing loose white robes was an uninformative �mmm.� It sounded like I was giving him problems.

�You say you�ve been blessed with the protection of Gracefeel, god of the flame?� he asked.

�Yes, that�s right.�

The young deacon mmm�ed again.

�That is a deity not often seen... By our rules, we like to make use of the prayer of Detect Faith in this instance...�

�That�s perfectly fine.�

Just imagine if a priest of an evil god, not caring about the consequences of his actions, nonchalantly walked in and said, �I would like to greet the high-ranking priests.� Not all priests were trained in combat as I was, so I could see the need for a security step to check that someone suspicious stopping by�like me, the priest of a minor god�wasn�t working for an evil god and trying to conceal their identity.

�Yes,� he said, �but most unfortunately, I�m afraid that everyone sufficiently blessed to determine the faith of others is out at the moment...�

�Out?� In a large temple like this? I was surprised that was even possible.

�Yes. Attacks from beasts big and small have been on a significant rise everywhere recently. Everyone from the vice-bishop downwards is being kept very busy.�

From the vice-bishop downwards... Did he say vice-bishop?

�What are you doing that requires taking up the walkway?� someone said from behind me in a grave voice that seemed to echo. I turned around to see an incredibly fat middle-aged man, dressed in loosely fitting priest�s robes embroidered with gold and silver thread. They did nothing to hide his noticeable potbelly, nor did his big, puffy cheeks compensate for the sternness in his expression. He was wearing several gold and silver rings on his sausage-like fingers.

�B-Bishop Bagley!� The deacon twitched in surprise and visibly straightened his posture.

�I asked you what you were doing,� Bishop Bagley repeated. He looked irritated.

The deacon seemed very uneasy and didn�t look like he was going to be able to give a proper answer. Although it was slightly bad form, I decided to interject.

�It�s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is William G. Maryblood. I was blessed with the protection of the god of the flame, Gracefeel, and have come to this Whitesails temple to introduce myself.� I put my right hand over the left side of my chest, brought my left leg back a little, and bowed. Mary had taught me this.

�Hmm. Bart Bagley. I am in charge of this temple.� Bishop Bagley bowed to me roughly in return, and then glowered at me. �Gracefeel... God of the flame. Practically a lost god. The possibility remains, of course, that what we have here is a suspicious character misusing Gracefeel�s name to carry out some nefarious plot...�

All kinds of things continued moving forward at an incredible pace. After all the merrymaking was over, I put in a formal request to Ethel and the vice-bishop and received permission to go demon-hunting. Ostensibly, I was a single priest doing some independent charity work, but I had the backing of proper authority and power. The scale of what I was now involved in was incredible, but this was the smoothest way to get things done. If there was any trouble from now on, it would probably be necessary to demonstrate my allegiance to the bishop and the duke, but that was the price to pay for my new authority. I couldn�t imagine that anything would develop that quickly, so I decided to think about that later.

Bishop Bagley supplied me with a number of priests, including Anna, who could use benediction and was versed in all kinds of ceremonies, from celebrations to funerals. The priests all had a wealth of experience, reliably making up for the areas where I was lacking. I felt so indebted to Bishop Bagley that I didn�t know if I�d ever be able to fully pay him back.

Tonio seemed to have used the festivities surrounding the knighting ceremony to collect donations and contributions for my work. He�d gathered together lots of carts and wagons, agricultural and workshop tools, textiles, consumables, seeds for commercial crops, and animals cured of their injuries and diseases. And he�d found workers to manage them all.

Tonio laughed and said, �I might be able to start up my own trading company soon with all of this.� I nodded enthusiastically, thinking that I would very much like him to do that, and he said with a mischievous smile, �I can look forward to receiving your business, then.�

I put the ruffian adventurers I�d contracted to work as convoys guarding our purchases, and we all returned to Beast Woods. That was the start of yet another hectic period.

I dropped by each of the villages we�d visited on the way to Whitesails, giving them a further round of medical treatment and having Anna help me organize religious festivals. With help from Tonio, I lent out draft animals and various kinds of tools in exchange for providing us shelter; I also allowed the villagers to buy them from us and pay in installments.

When there were reports of demons or beasts, I had Reystov and some of the other adventurers form a party and go out to hunt them. Reystov in particular was incredibly skilled; by and large, the corpses of the beasts he brought back had been penetrated straight through their most vulnerable spots, just as his nickname boasted.

Just out of curiosity, I asked him, �Can you do that to a wyvern?� and he replied gruffly, �If it�s within sword�s reach.�

That wasn�t all. When there were disputes between the villages, I mediated them. When there were crimes in a village, I asked for the help of the priests and we held trials for those involved, so the matter would be solved as fairly as possible. I hadn�t originally been planning to do so much, but Tom, the elder of the village I�d first helped when a dispute arose, asked me if I�d help him out again since I�d done it once before. I couldn�t say no. And as my reputation spread, other villages also started to request my help to handle disputes that were getting out of hand, and I found myself with more and more to do. That�s how I ended up I traveling all over the place, doing all kinds of work.

When I heard about a village I hadn�t come into contact with, I got someone from the village we were currently in to introduce us and forge a connection, and then I�d do the same thing there. Bee really came in handy for making friendly first contact with unknown villages and whenever we had some message we needed spread around. I got the feeling I was paying for that with all the embellished stories she was also spreading about me. Maybe I needed to think of it as the cost of doing business.

Of course, if I kept on doing this kind of thing, I�d quickly find myself in debt in the literal sense. But while that was true, the livestock and agricultural tools that I�d lent out and sold off to the villages hadn�t gone anywhere; they remained in the village as valuable community property, and were visibly accelerating the villages� development and production. These villages were essentially nothing more than places where vagrants had gathered together, so for many of them, just a plow, an iron axe, and a hoe would be tremendously valuable additions. And if we made that a plow and a horse to go with it, and threw in a ten-piece set of metal farming implements and other tools, work efficiency would jump up dramatically. If that improved, there would be more fields giving greater yields. With greater yields, the people would be able to repay their debts to us, and they�d become able to afford to purchase goods.

In parallel, I and the adventurers would be clearing Beast Woods of the dangerous demons and beasts, making the area safer. As the area became safer, merchants would be able to go to and from the villages without the need for heavy escorting, which would lead to a burst of commercial activity. The Fertile Kingdom�s authority didn�t extend here anyway, so it wasn�t like there was going to be a toll for them to pay. They could do business here freely. And with more merchants coming in and out, the villagers could buy things with currency. Their improved production capacity should lead to them obtaining all kinds of things with money. Before long, an increasing number of those places would start dabbling in commercial crops in their desire for cash, anticipating demand for them from the city. And once money and goods started changing hands, neighboring areas would naturally become more interconnected for the sake of commerce. Access and transportation would improve. This was what Gus lovingly called �living money,� money that moved around and made itself useful.

�And then one day, perhaps we can climb back out of the red,� Tonio said, while doing some estimates on his abacus. �That is, if you and I are both still alive.� That was definitely something I was aiming for, living at least long enough to get back out of the red.

Of course, we had only just gotten the ball rolling, and not everything was going according to plan. Often, people would try to engineer things so they�d keep all the profit for themselves, or intentionally default on everything they�d borrowed. I tried to contain situations like that as much as I could. Usually, this was by getting help from Anna and the other priests, who knew about law and how to persuade people, but some of the scarier-looking adventurers were also effective deterrents. Fortunately, in the short span of time that we were involved, there wasn�t anyone dangerous enough to try something too disruptive. Even if a person like that was lurking somewhere, it was probably natural that they hadn�t tried, in a way. If you did something like that in place like this, you�d find yourself surrounded and beaten until you became tree food.

Mary had once told me, �The greatest trap one can fall into when trying to do something good is to make the mistake of thinking that because you are acting with a good goal in mind, you are bound to get results.� Even if you decide to do something good, the people around you won�t lend you their help unconditionally, nor will the gods bless you with protection. Results come only by setting a reasonable goal and using appropriate methods to achieve it. And so, Mary had told me, the most important thing is to be practical and realistic. I took advice from everything Gus had taught me about money and regularly consulted with Menel, Bee, Tonio, Reystov, Anna, and the elders of villages all over, all of whom were very familiar with this world and its customs.

And together, we moved things forward. We went all over Beast Woods, back and forth, and as the winter transitioned into spring, I started to get the feeling that I was seeing more smiles in the villages. I felt as if there were now slightly fewer people who had no idea what tomorrow would even bring, who would wear gloomy or expressionless faces, or who would lose it completely and go off the rails. Perhaps that was what triggered the memory of something that Gus had once lectured me on.

� If you want something done, you don�t have to use magic. You just buy the tools you need or hire some people. Reshaping the terrain is a powerful piece of magic, but if you�ve got money, you can just hire laborers and workmen to do construction for you instead. Make no mistake, the ability to earn money and make it work for you is just as important as magic!

�Yeah...� I finally understood what Gus had been getting at�and he was right. Even when he said something that made you twist your head, Gus�s lessons were always right. Making people smile and giving them hope... It felt like magic greater than magic itself.

Under a canopy set up in a vacant lot I�d rented from one of the villages, I was giving Pale Moon an inspection, checking that the neck of the blade and the metal collar were in good shape. As I idly wondered whether summer might start to make itself felt soon, a gruff voice called out to catch my attention. I looked up as Reystov came over.

�Pip�s party�s not come back,� he said. �They were the ones searching the west.�

Pip... If I remembered correctly, he was a young lad who�d come from some farm. He�d been in a party with two other men, Harvey and Brennan. �How long have they been gone?�

�They said they�d take ten days at the longest. They�re over by two already. And those guys have skills.� He was obviously implying that something must have happened for them to be this late.

�All right. We�ll go out and search for them.� I thought for a moment about who should go. It was possible that there had been some kind of accident, or they�d been attacked by wild beasts. But there was also the remote possibility that Pip�s party had been spotted by the demons� lookouts. In which case, we�d need party members with combat skills. Also, to be absolutely sure we could follow their trail, we�d need a hunter or ranger skilled in tracking.

�Me, Menel, and you are definites. Also, whichever two parties you think are most skilled at forest exploration, I�d like to merge those into our search party as well. Are you okay with that?�

Reystov nodded to say he was happy with my suggestion. �I�ll get everyone together right away.�

Our party members gathered quickly in the village square. I explained the situation to them simply. I could talk about the details once we were on the move.

�Pip and the others are two days past their return date. We�re going to go searching for them, but there�s a possibility that there�s been more than just an accident. They may have been spotted by the demons� lookouts. If that turns out to be the case, we may also end up in a battle against demons.� When I said that, I noticed everyone�s faces visibly tense up.

�It�ll get a bit more peaceful around here if we take them out.� Menel nodded in response.

It wasn�t a certainty that there�d be demons�it might just have been a simple accident that had befallen them�but the tension in the air was palpable as we all got ready and headed out.

�Hey, uh.� Menel called to me as we were walking. We had followed the trail of Pip�s party and were just about to enter where they had been planning to search. �I gotta... thank you.�

We were hanging back from the group. Ahead of us, Reystov and the other adventurers were deep in discussion about the trampled leaves dotted about the forest floor.

�Umm... For what?�

�A bunch of stuff.� Menel�s jade eyes weren�t looking at me. In fact, he was practically facing the other way as he talked. �Without you, I would�ve hit rock bottom. And now I�m living for something good, and that�s �cause of you. So... Uh... Yeah.� He paused awkwardly for a moment, trying to get the words out. �Thanks, brother," he said, still looking in the other direction.

I felt something warm filling my chest. �I�m the one who should thank you. Thanks for helping me out when I was so ignorant about the world.� I smiled and nodded at him. �But...�

�What?�

�Say it again while looking at me.�

�Feck off!� He stormed away, still refusing to look me in the eye or even turn his face towards me. The other adventurers collectively ooh�ed in our direction.

The search for Pip�s party continued.

It took several days before we found their bodies.

Several days after we left the village in search of Pip�s party, the dense greenery of the forest which had been around us for so long disappeared, and a blue sky came into view. What lay ahead of us after we exited the forest of green was a valley of craggy rocks. Beyond the valley was more forest, and beyond that, I could see a reddish-brown mountain range: the Rust Mountains. It was probably safe to assume this valley had been created by a flow of water pouring down the mountainside. The flow had either changed or dried up, and only the valley and rocks had been left behind. The valley wasn�t that deep, but it ran for a good distance, and where the riverbed must once have been, there were a lot of round stones lying around.

Pip and the others had been scattered around that area. It looked like the kind of mess left behind after a young child�s playtime�as if a child had gotten their hands on something insubstantial, like a paper doll, and clumsily pulled it apart, ripped it into many randomly sized pieces, thrown them everywhere, and then moved on to something else.

Menel and the others chased away the birds and other animals that had gathered around. Crows took off, their black wings flapping noisily, and other carrion feeders large and small darted away in all directions.

�Look at this.� Menel�s eyes stopped on some tracks. They were the footprints of a beast, stained with blood, each about as large as the shield I had over my back... �Extremely large. What kind of beast is this?� Menel asked, and the other adventurers also gathered around and stared hard at the tracks.

�Hm... Not sure.�

�It�s big. Bigger than a manticore.�

�A wild creature living in the valley? Or...�

Was the demons� stronghold somewhere deep in this valley? I got that far in my thinking when one of the adventurers said in a chipper voice, �Well, they got to fight a monster. Good way to go. I�ll bet Pip, Harvey, and Brennan are pretty damn satisfied with that, and kicking themselves, too.�

�Yeah. Bet they�re saying, �How awesome would it have been if we could have killed that?!��

�They died good deaths. Adventurers� deaths!�

�O gods of good virtue, please grant their souls repose!�

�Have a last drink on me, lads,� one of the adventurers said, and took a bottle out of his inside pocket and poured its contents over the scattered body parts. I did my part too, using the blessing Divine Torch to make extra sure that their corpses wouldn�t turn undead. Menel and a number of the others talked and kept an eye over the area while Reystov went around the bodies collecting clippings of hair, which were often kept as mementos.

�Hmm?� Reystov sounded confused. �There�s only two heads. They�ve been damaged so badly it�s hard to tell, but...�

I looked around. Now that he�d mentioned it, I was kind of getting the feeling there should have been more here. �Probably just got eaten, right?�

�Plausible.�

�No... wait,� Menel said, raising his voice. He�d noticed something. I looked in the direction he was pointing and saw that there was a sword, a shield, and gauntlets scattered on the ground along a line that seemed to be heading into the valley.

�Did he... run away shedding his equipment?�

�Why into the valley?�

�If it blocked him from going into the forest, he probably wouldn�t have had another choice.�

�Good point.� We all nodded to each other and went down into the valley to check.

We walked down into the valley.

Helmet, breastplate...

After following the trail of dropped items that far, something suddenly occurred to me, and it seemed to have occurred to Menel and Reystov at the same time. �That�s weird...� I muttered. Menel and Reystov both nodded in agreement.

�Yeah. This is strange.�

�What�s strange?� one of the others asked.

�The ground in this valley is pretty bad...�

There were loose rocks scattered everywhere. It certainly wasn�t suited to sprinting. And as for useful obstacles to hide behind, there was only the occasional large boulder; the view we had down the valley was actually pretty clear.

Let�s assume that the large, unknown beast had been preoccupied with slaughtering the other two people. Even if that was the case�in a place like this, over this distance, there was no way a human could get away from a beast of that size.

I gasped. I�d seen it now, but far too late. As if to prove my fears correct, placed on the top of a large boulder in the middle of the path ahead was a decomposing human head.

�It�s a trap! Retreat�� I had barely started to speak before my words were drowned out by a deafeningly loud roar that echoed through the valley. It was coming from the forest we�d just left. No, they were coming from the forest, towards us. Several beasts�a giant, two-headed serpent, a huge deer with bloodshot eyes, a wildcat that could have been mistaken for a leopard... Everywhere I looked, there were beasts, beasts, beasts. Every one of them was spewing miasma from its body. Someone gasped out a terrified scream.

�Don�t panic!�

�Keep calm! Wall of shields!�

The adventurers who had shields all stepped forward and lined up in a row, protecting each other, and Reystov and I stood on either side to protect the line. Now that we�d fallen for the trap, we�d just have to push through it.

No sweat, I told myself. We should be able to deal with guys like these.

The beasts and their miasma closed in.

Right... That gas was poisonous. I quickly used a number of spells and blessings, and cast Vitality and Anti-Poison on everyone. From the looks of it, Menel had also called to the fairies and given everyone some protections of his own.

�You have my gratitude.�

�Thanks, guys!�

�Real help!� They shouted their thanks one after another.

�Here we go. Those brutes think they caught us in a trap. We better remind them who�s the hunter, and who�s the prey.� It was rare to hear banter like that from Reystov.

I could feel Menel calling to the fairies and readying his bow behind me. The other adventurers were also holding their weapons and shields up and trying to steady their breathing. The group of monsters approached slowly, slowly, as if to strike terror into us.

Still holding up my shield, I took some stones from a bag hanging from my belt, then pulled out my sling. I put a stone inside and spun it around with one hand, faster and faster�

�Now! Fire!� The distance carefully judged, Reystov shouted the command and arrows flew, inflicting serious wounds on several of the beasts. I let my stone fly as well, blowing off one of the beasts� heads. The attack set the rest off, and they charged. Even as they did, more arrows were fired, and I smashed two more heads with my stones.

�Braaace!!�

Everyone bellowed in unison. We dropped our center of gravity, ducked behind our shields, and prepared for impact.

That was the moment an enormous shadow was cast over our heads.

The winged shadow effortlessly leaped over our frontal defense, attempting to attack from the rear. I wanted to go deal with it, but I told myself no. I had to keep the beasts from advancing.

�Menel!� I continued facing forward and shouted out the name of the person I trusted the most. I want you to buy us time somehow�

�Gahackk��

I heard a sound like... a slab of meat being punched.

I couldn�t bear not knowing. I turned to see.

As if he were nothing, Menel, the person I trusted more than any other, had been smacked by the giant beast and sent flying.

The beast was enormous.

Extending upwards from the soles of its feet, which were as big as shields, were great, thick legs that looked like barbed wire had been twisted and coiled together. The typical farmhouses I saw in the poor villages around here were far tinier than this monster, even if it curled itself up as small as possible. Even the wyvern would have looked slimly built next to this thing. Standing in front of its lion-like body felt overwhelming, like standing directly in front of a towering cliff face.

The beast had three heads: a goat, a lion, and a demidragon. Each of those heads was filled with contempt, ridicule, and malice for everything smaller than itself. It was a chimera�an extremely savage, dangerous beast created by crossing other beasts in a blasphemous ritual.

�Oh��

It looked like Menel had called to the earth elementals in an attempt to protect himself and those of us behind him. The wall of stone and earth jutting out of the ground, a huge chunk taken out of it by the chimera�s elephantine front foot, was proof.

Menel�s body slammed against a sheer wall of rock.

The chimera looked at him�

�Stop��

�and, with a gloating grin�

�Stop!�

�from its demidragon head�

�Nooooo!!�

�it breathed fire.

Menel�s body flailed within the flames, burning. He was going to die�he was dying before my eyes�

I heard something snap inside my head.

�AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!�

My boiling blood dyed my vision red. I�d never felt this much anger, even when the wyvern attacked the city. Filled with that boiling emotion, I incanted the Word of Lightning.

�Tonit��

At that instant, there was a heavy impact on my shield.

Oh, right, the beasts... were charging...

The Word... died in my throat...

Misfire. Backfire.

Those fragmented thoughts flashed through my head, and not an instant later, the lightning I�d failed to activate ran through me. I shook. My body convulsed. I collapsed.

Wh-What was I doing? Why was I being so pathetic? I had to fight. I had to protect everyone. Why was I letting myself get destroyed�

As I fell to the ground and my vision clouded, I saw the other adventurers trying to somehow endure. Reystov was fighting for his life, swinging his sword fiercely, but I doubted he would last long.

A despair colder than arctic ice washed over me and extinguished the flames of my anger. Why? What did I get wrong? I�d been doing pretty good, hadn�t I? Where�Where did I go�

A serpent head closed in on me while I lay on the ground. It opened its mouth to swallow me whole. It lunged at me, and I�no, my body, trained by Blood... drew Overeater as if by instinct.

Slash. The serpent�s head flew off. Crimson thorns shot through the air. My wounds disappeared. Life force filled me. I roared, even louder than before.

Everything began to fade, began to grow cold. All thought disappeared from my mind. Everything emptied to white, until only the positional relationships of me and the beasts occupied my head.

A slaughter began.

Fangs came from the right. I slashed.

Claws swung at my left leg. I let them hit me, then slashed. The pain was excruciating.

I slashed. My wounds healed. The excruciating pain was gone.

I slashed the next foe. Deep red thorns filled the air.

I punched with my shield and slashed. Let them stab me and slashed. Let them bite me and slashed. Held them close and slashed.

Slashed. Slashed. Slashed.

Thorns. Thorns. My vision bled red.

I roared.

It was shameful, blind desperation. My trained muscles, my polished technique, my fortified spirit�none of that was there. I was just leaving everything to the abilities of my demonblade, and slashing and cutting my way through without any strategy or grace. It was an incredibly, hopelessly pitiful, embarrassing, and saddening battle. I felt like I�d failed them all. I felt pathetic.

I slashed and cut the beasts down like a madman, tears spilling from my eyes. Drenched in blood and guts, I�d lost count of how many I�d slain so far. But I had to kill more. More. More�

�Stop! That�s enough!� A voice shook my eardrums. Someone had forced my arms behind my back.

It was Reystov.

�Huh�Ah��

I realized that nothing was moving. The chimera had run off somewhere. The area around me was a literal sea of blood and guts. Reystov and the other adventurers weren�t uninjured, either�

�Heal Menel! He�s going to die!!�

I snapped back to reality. �M-Menel!!� I sprinted, almost tripped my way over to him.

He was charred black, and his beautiful face was burned beyond recognition. His arms were twisted, and he was missing several of his fingers.

I started hyperventilating.

I prayed and prayed.

The miracles of the god of the flame began to heal his body.

�P-Please�Please�� Tears filled my eyes. �Wake up... You can�t... You can�t die...�

He was so gravely injured. The healing was progressing slowly, but he wasn�t opening his eyes. I prayed, prayed, prayed...

I was feeling very faint. I�d swung that demonblade so much and indulged in its power for so long. Maybe that was taking its toll on me.

But I... have to heal... Menel...

And while I was still mid-thought, the ground suddenly tilted at a strange angle, and I blacked out.

When I woke up, Reystov was there to explain the situation to me.

I was in a village close to the valley, and this was an empty house that they had allowed us to rent after being filled in on what had happened. After the battle, Reystov and the others had retreated here, carrying Menel and me over their shoulders. Fortunately, I had cut down the entire horde of beasts, and after the chimera�s retreat, there had been no sign of it attempting another attack.

Menel had escaped death.

It was probably thanks to the number of spells and blessings I�d cast on him beforehand. It had also majorly paid off that Menel hadn�t foolishly attempted to hold his ground when the chimera struck him, but had rolled with the blow and willingly been knocked away. The collision with the rock wall and the chimera�s fire breath had both nearly killed him, but the magic I had bestowed upon him had somehow kept him breathing, and my blessings had made it in time.

However, because I overused my demonblade, I had passed out halfway through treating Menel, so he hadn�t come to yet.

�For now, just rest a little more,� Reystov said.

�But��

�Meneldor�s condition is stable. You�ve exerted yourself too much. Rest,� he said emphatically, giving me a hard look. Then he left the room.

He�d looked exhausted as well. There must have been other victims besides Menel and me in that chaotic battle, but he hadn�t mentioned anything, probably deliberately.

And so, in this unoccupied house with its simple mud walls, I sat under a faint ray of light that shone through a gap in the roof, my head lowered in thought.

Where on earth had I screwed up?

Was it when I trusted Menel with defending against the rear attack? No, given the situation, that had been unavoidable. The choice ultimately resulted in our suffering a near-total defeat and having to flee with our lives, but nevertheless, from where I stood at the time the decision to leave the chimera to Menel wasn�t an obviously bad move. I was pretty sure of that. If I�d gone to handle the chimera myself, there was a chance that everyone else might have been trampled by the charging demons.

The worst moment for us was most likely when we fell for the trap that used the dead body. We had a good number of people, we�d been very successful up until that point, and we were acting a little braver than we should have to insulate ourselves from the shock of having seen the corpses of people we knew. All those factors combined must have resulted in each of us being a little bit careless.

We should have been on alert from the moment we discovered the bodies. We should have been patient and thorough, and sent out scouts in every direction. If we�d done that, we wouldn�t have aimlessly wandered into a wide-open valley and gotten lured into a battle where we were at such a disadvantage.

So the cause of this failure was a very, very simple lack of caution. We got our comeuppance for allowing ourselves to get distracted in enemy territory and take careless actions. End of story.

And yet�

There was something... something that didn�t feel quite right about this explanation. I was overlooking something critical. I could feel it. What was it? What hadn�t I realized...?

I was lying on my back with my head full of this feeling I couldn�t place when I heard voices through the thin walls.

�Forced to retreat, huh...�

�Unbelievable, right? It�s the Wyvern Killer and the Penetrator we�re talking about here.�

�There was some unearthly big chimera thing there, I heard. A horrible mix of different beasts.�

�What�s the plan to deal with that?�

�Beats me.�

�That mixed elf guy got injured badly too, you hear about that?�

�Yeah, he�s got it rough. He shouldn�t let himself get roped into the kinda battles the Wyvern Killer fights, it�s just suicidal. The guy�s a monster.�

The two of them�adventurers, I thought�passed by outside, probably completely unaware that I�d been able to hear their conversation.

A black realization flickered into my mind. Now I saw it. It wasn�t the strategy. It was the strength of our forces.

In my mind, someone talked in a sticky voice.

I trusted Menel to have my back. I thought that even if we were faced with a powerful enemy, Menel would be able to stave it off for a little while if I left it to him. And when the chimera appeared, I thought the same, as if it were a totally natural expectation.

However, what was the reality? Menel couldn�t put up any resistance against the chimera at all. He wasn�t as strong as I�d been casually expecting. I�d assigned him more danger than he could handle, innocently, without thinking twice about it. I treated him like a friend, and I just thought he could handle that much�

�Oh...�

It was all fitting together now. Something came crawling out of the very darkest part of my heart. It was probably something I�d been unconsciously trying to avoid confronting. I�d been putting it out of my mind, but I wasn�t going to avert my eyes from it anymore.

By this world�s standards, my level of strength was completely insane.

I had been told this countless times since leaving the city of the dead, both explicitly and not so explicitly. And every time, I�d smiled humbly and politely, and let those words pass me by.

Why hadn�t I thought about this until now? I�d probably unconsciously been avoiding thinking too deeply about it. No matter how much everyone around me praised my abilities, I kept on being modest. I elevated all the other skilled people I met, and felt shame at my immaturity. Because otherwise, it would have meant admitting it.

No matter how pitiable the people I met were, no matter how horrible the sights I saw were, I avoided feeling sorry for anyone. I just tried to be a good problem solver. Because otherwise, it would have meant admitting it.

That we weren�t equal.

And once I admitted that�

Once I recognized that I was above them, and everyone else was far, far below me�

Once I started to realize that asking someone to fight alongside me might be forcing a terrible burden upon them�

I could never be like them. Not like those three. Having each other�s back, supporting each other, respecting each other. I�d never have friends like that. Because I would be alone.

So I refused to acknowledge that there was a difference in our strength.

But what was the reality like? I wanted Menel to fight alongside me, but he was weak. I�d beaten him effortlessly when we first met. Even in my battle against the wyvern, all he did was spread out my Word and help me to drop the wyvern to earth. That was all. I�d been unconsciously averting my eyes from the simple truth that, compared to me, he was very weak. It was like it was something disgusting I didn�t want to look at.

Why? Why was being alone something to be afraid of?

The instant I thought that, a scene flashed into my mind, with a flash not of bright light, but of pitch-black darkness.

It was my old room, in my past life. It was an empty room with no one there, a house without parents, a place as silent as the grave. I was scared. I was afraid. I was lonely. I hurt inside. I couldn�t take it�

�Oh...�

Oh.

So that was it. It was so simple. I didn�t want to be alone. I was afraid of not having anyone by my side.

So even though he was someone I should have been protecting, someone who I should have been saving, I�d tried to see him as an equal against all reason. I made excuse after excuse to not think about the clear and obvious facts. I coaxed him into standing alongside me, and as a result, I nearly destroyed him. And it was all for the single, most despicable reason that I didn�t want to be lonely.

I finally understood... what I�d been doing wrong.

I got to my feet. I wobbled a little, but a prayer sorted that out with no trouble at all. There was no need to worry. I was very strong.

I started walking. First of all, I had to go see Menel. I had to heal him.

It had started drizzling at some point, but it didn�t bother me in the slightest. I felt like all my cares had been blown away.

And I laughed, from the bottom of my heart.

It was drizzling outside.

Menel had been laid on a bed, in a farmhouse that looked like it had wealthy owners. His wounds hadn�t fully healed, and fluids were seeping out from the burns all over his body and soaking into his bandages. He looked like he was having difficulty breathing. His cheeks looked somehow sunken, and his silver hair looked dull.

This was my sin.

I was vaguely aware that I was overwhelmingly powerful, and at the same time, I tried to remain unaware of it. I feared being better. I shied from solitude. I ran away from being responsible for my power.

I caused this, I told myself. I�ll do it alone.

Do it alone.

I couldn�t force other people to bear the burden of standing by my side, especially not in battle. What did it matter if I couldn�t become like my parents, anyway?

I offered a prayer to my god. Gracefeel, please heal poor Menel, who lies before me. God healed Menel right away, just as she always did. His gruesome burns, his partially-healed claw scars�all of them started to disappear.

My vision suddenly warped disorientingly, taking me by surprise. I was experiencing a revelation.

I saw my black-haired goddess, who always wore a hood over her head and rarely spoke or showed expression. But she had her hood down now, and her lips were pressed sorrowfully into a thin line.

Oh, Gracefeel... Thank you for worrying about me, I thought. But it�s okay. I�ve been a fool. Just watch me. I�ll stop your sadness. So I beg you�put your mind at ease. I�ll save everyone, everyone within my reach, as your blade, and as your hands.

�It�s okay,� I whispered. �I�ll solve everything, everything, all by myself...�

I walked unsteadily out of the room, and returned to the house where I�d been sleeping.

There was my equipment. I gave it a quick check. There wasn�t much of a need. All I really needed was myself, a sword, and a spear. I could heal both disease and injury. I could receive gifts of food from my god. And if I felt like it, as long as I had nothing by my side to protect and nothing else to consider... I could kill anything.

Yes�it was time to admit it. My strength was not normal for a person of this world. I�d killed a splinter of an evil god; I could kill wyverns with my bare hands. I was like a video game character who�d maxed out the level counter�or even a hacked character, created by using cheat codes to mess with the data. I was far and away stronger than anything else in this world.

So there was no need to worry. I would kill the chimera. I would kill the demons. I would bring peace to this area. And I would make a bloodbath of any enemies who got in my way. That was the shortest, fastest, most efficient way to do good, to see justice done. It was the best path to making my goddess�s wishes become a reality.

I left the house through its gate and into the pelting rain, and headed for the outskirts of the village and the woods beyond�

�Hey!� A figure stood in my way. He had silver hair, sharp facial features, tightened lips, and jade eyes burning with anger.

I had no idea when he had gotten up, or when he had circled ahead of me, but one way or another�Meneldor was there.

In a field near the edge of the village, Menel and I faced each other in the pouring rain.

�Where do you think you�re going?� he asked me, his voice sharp.

�What?� I tilted my head. �To kill beasts, Meneldor.�

Meneldor narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips together. �Alone.�

�Yes...?� Of course alone. �You can�t keep up with me. Right?� So I had to protect him. Wasn�t that obvious?

Meneldor�s expression twisted.

Feeling cold and empty, I slowly put on a smile. �Don�t worry. It�s going to be okay. I�ll go solve everything myself. I�ll kill the chimera and the hordes of beasts. If there�s demons behind it all, I�ll kill them, too.�

And then everything would be resolved. Why had I been overcomplicating this? This was what I should have�

�The hell you will!� With quick movements, Menel closed the distance between us.

He never swung his fist back. It was simply thrust at my face at close range. The motion was beautiful.

His fist collided with my cheek. �Wake up, you stupid shit!�

But all I felt was... disappointment. I was right. This was all he had. I hadn�t moved an inch. It just stung a little. That was all.

�Is that it, Meneldor?� I said quietly, his fist still pressed against my cheek. Even I thought my eyes must have looked terribly cold.

As I started to turn away, planning on ignoring him entirely and leaving, he lashed out with more punches and kicks. I made slight movements to change where the blows landed, and they barely hurt at all.

�Dammit! Why are you acting like this?!� He still wasn�t giving up.

At this point, I was starting to get a little irritated. I couldn�t have him following me. What could I do about this?

Maybe just one arm wouldn�t be too bad.

As he lunged out with his fist, I grabbed his arm.

�Wh�?!�

Then, I pressed it with all my body weight and dislocated it. The feeling of his shoulder popping out of its socket was horribly recognizable. Meneldor seemed to jerk, and then he let out a long, indistinct groan and fell to the ground, squirming in pain.

I�m sorry, I thought. It�s for your own good...

�Get someone to treat that for you.�

Figuring that now he wouldn�t be able to fight me, I started to walk off.

�I�m... not done with you yet...� From behind me, there was the sound of clawing at grass. I turned to see Meneldor with tears in his eyes, clutching his arm, and yet, staggering to his feet.

I sighed. What was I supposed to do now? I�d been the one trying to think of him as a friend; really, we�d only paired up because it was easiest, so I�d thought this would have been enough to get him to let this go. But for some reason, he was still keeping at it.

What could I do?

Maybe I could seal him from moving by using a Word. But Words were a little bit unreliable... Aha. I could choke him out by compressing his carotid artery. I took a step towards him.

��Gnomes, gnomes, form a fist! Clench your hands and strike the foe!��

The ground behind me ruptured, and a great many small stones came flying towards me. It was the spell Stone Fist.

Apparently the pain was causing Meneldor to make bad decisions. That surprise attack from behind was something I�d already seen when I first fought him, and although this was certainly a powerful spell, it gave me a lot of advance warning. It was the kind of spell best used as part of a team. I could simply dodge it.

But as I started moving my feet, I realized. The spell was headed for Meneldor.

In that instant, I was pressed to make a decision. If I avoided it, Meneldor would take serious damage. So without even thinking, I stopped in my tracks and hardened my defense�and an endless onslaught of pebbles battered my body.

I groaned. My body was throbbing all over. I lost control of my legs, and they gave out.

�Hah! �I�ll go solve it myself.� What a load of pig shit!� Menel approached me while I was still in terrible pain from Stone Fist. �You�re just being a goddamn coward!� He kicked me in the stomach as hard as he could.

I was wearing mail, but even so, he�d kicked me in a spot where his spell had also hit moments ago. It hurt like hell. I crumpled to the ground, trying not to shout out in pain.

However, Menel wasn�t entirely unharmed himself. His shoulder was dislocated, and as I looked up at him, I saw that Stone Fist had hit him, too. That wasn�t surprising; he�d been asking for it with the way he used that spell. He was covered in mud, he looked unsteady on his feet, there was foam at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were bloodshot. His usual handsome features were nowhere to be seen. It was painful to look at.

Under the brightness of the summer sun, long grass swayed in a pleasant breeze.

�Yeeeaaahhh!�

�Here�s to victory!�

The field was full of adventurers clapping each other on the shoulder and raising their horns in toast.

There had been a lot to deal with in the immediate aftermath of the battle, but we�d sorted most of it out, and were attempting to head back to Whitesails. However, the enormous number of beast heads and demon dust we were carrying with us caused roars of celebration in each village that we passed through. Casks were brought out, and parties started in middle of the day. The ale poured into the horns tasted refreshing under the early summer sunshine.

All the villages had that same kind of party mood. The adventurers, too, were enjoying the feeling of release after their life-or-death battle, and raising a racket in every place they went. The trip back was very lively.

We were soon able to join back up with Bee and Tonio, whom we�d unfortunately left behind some time ago.

With his usual, soft expression, Tonio congratulated me on a job well done. It was thanks to his help that I was able to provide dozens of adventurers with the supplies they needed, and get them all working together. He was always lending me his subtle and modest support when things began to look shaky, the time after I beat the wyvern being the perfect example. I wanted to find some way to thank him sometime soon.

Bee jumped at me and Menel with her usual brightness. She pestered us repeatedly to talk more about our adventure, and ran ideas for her tales by us. And then, clenching a fist, she declared, �Looks like I need to get Menel included in this one!�

�Oh, shit! No!� The look on Menel�s face completely changed as he suddenly realized that he should have been paying attention to this conversation as well.

�Awww, why not?!�

�This weirdo might be happy to grin like a goofball while everyone gawks at him, but I�m not!�

�Meanie pants! I can tell you�re planning to follow your darling Will down the path of heroes anyway, so put up with it, mister grouchy!�

�Shut up! And he�s not my darling!�

�He so is! Oh! I know! I�ll make your title Meneldor the Beautiful!�

�Then all the poets are gonna add some twist, like turning me into a woman!�

�And then you can be Will�s girlfriend!�

�Dammit, if you agree with me, don�t do it!�

Everyone burst out laughing watching the two of them running around. I laughed, too. As usual, Bee was cheerful, spoke her mind, and had a way of making all my worries seem completely stupid. Watching her really made me think: Yeah, there are other ways to go through life! You can be pretty carefree, if you want!

Incidentally, let me add that as a result of Menel�s fierce objections, his nickname was revised from �Meneldor the Beautiful� to �Meneldor of Swift Wings.�

The excitement of taking down a powerful enemy seemed to have worn off for Reystov; he had returned to his normal, lethargic self, taking tiny sips of his drink with a sullen, dull look on his face. He was the kind of guy who didn�t make a big thing of himself. He had a kind of subdued coolness.

The finesse he had with that sword was very impressive, too. He�d killed that demon in a single thrust. I asked him if we could train together sometime, and he gave me a silent nod. I hoped my eyes would be good enough to spot the secret to his stabbing technique. I badly wanted to steal it.

I looked around at the villagers. Now that the threat from demons and beasts had eased off, their faces were looking a lot sunnier.

�Everything�s gotten so... lively.�

Only about half a year had passed since the days when I�d lived in that city of the dead with just me, Blood, Mary, and Gus. What a merry circle of people I�d surrounded myself with in just that short span of time.

�It�ll get even livelier,� Menel said from beside me. �The beasts and demons are much less of a threat now. More people are gonna come to the south, looking for a new world down here. I bet it�ll cause some problems, too...� He was looking philosophically into the distance. �Gonna have to live with it, I guess.�

�Yeah. You�re right. Wonder what I�m going to do now.�

Menel tilted his head when he heard that. �Now?�

�Yeah, I mean, what next. Of course, if there�s any matters left to sort out on the way to Whitesails, I�ll be helping with those... but I wonder what I�ll do after that.�

I�d reached a good stopping point for this area. I felt confident saying that I�d achieved the task my god had charged me with here. In order to run what looked a lot like a military campaign in Beast Woods, I�d ended up becoming a knight, but I didn�t have any land and it wasn�t a hereditary knighthood, either. It was pretty much an honorary position. Not only did I have no territory to rule over, I didn�t even hold any real official post.

I thought it might be an idea to get permission from the Duke of Southmark, if I could, and try going on a journey traveling around places like my parents had. Each day an adventure spent searching for ancient ruins and the like. That sounded fun�

�Well, you�re gonna be the lord, aren�t you?�

...Huh?

�The lord?�

�The lord.�

�Of where?�

�The villages of Beast Woods.�

�Hahah.� I was worried for a moment, but Menel just had the wrong idea. �Come on, Menel. I�m a knight with no land who can�t pass on his title. It�s kind of like an honor, that�s all. In practice, I�m seriously no different from an adventurer!�

When I said that, not just Menel, but everyone around me went silent. Wh-What?

�He doesn�t realize...�

�You can�t be serious.�

�Really?�

�He... hadn�t been thinking about it?�

�And here I was, thinking he was doing a pretty good job...�

A small commotion started among the adventurers.

�This guy�s smart, but sometimes he�s the world�s greatest idiot, isn�t he?�

�I can�t believe he�s so good at managing what�s under his nose, but he wasn�t even thinking about how it�d end up.�

�No way...�

�So he�s clueless...�

H-Huh?

As I stood there, puzzled, Menel sighed deeply and began to speak. �Even if you aren�t given land, you have the freedom to conquer unclaimed areas, don�t you?�

�Conquer? No, I don�t plan on doing anything like that.� Maybe back when I fell into that dark place where I was trying to do everything myself, but certainly not now. I didn�t want to be a ruler...

�Lemme ask you something.�

�Okay.�

�Say you�re someone who wants to start a business in these woods. Who do you go talk to?�

Well... That would be the person who�s started dealing with large transactions and is already working industriously to help me with just that sort of thing, namely�

�Tonio.�

�And the majority of Tonio�s capital is financed by you, right? If you pull your funding, Tonio gets hit hard.�

Yep... Hm?

�I don�t plan on doing that.�

�But you could, is the issue, right?�

Everyone else nodded.

�Apart from that, you have the blessing of the god of the flame and you�re a paladin sanctioned by the Kingdom and the temple. You�re authority incarnate! You have the military power, hiring all these adventurers. Oh, and you�re also arbitrating village disputes, so this place is literally your jurisdiction for all intents and purposes. And, as I just said, you also have control over goods distribution.�

I tried calmly to think of a counterargument. But... Huh? Wait... Wait, what? It was strange... I couldn�t think of... anything...

�Basically, in the process of wiping out the demons, you�ve effectively taken complete control of this region�s authority, military power, legal system, and the distribution of all its goods. The position is blatantly about to be yours, and we�re all behind you. If you suddenly renege on it with �I don�t want to do it� there�s gonna be chaos, brother.�

My mouth hung open. Menel and all the others were looking at me with faces of disbelief.

�So you literally hadn�t realized?�

I could feel myself going pale as I nodded repeatedly back.

I�d simply been hoping that if I just did a little something about the demons and then improved the poverty situation a bit, the rest would just naturally work itself out, and I hadn�t really thought in any detail about what would come after. I�d just been vaguely thinking that I could saunter off into the sunset like my parents had.

�Uhhh...�

�Yeah?�

�Wh-What do I do?!�

In the end, those were the words that came out.

This wasn�t how it was supposed to go... When my parents had solved issues like this, they�d departed the scene dashingly without any problem! Had I somehow screwed up right near the beginning, and I hadn�t even noticed?! Where?!

�I... I guess I have to... get some people? Umm... um...�

�You already have merchants and priests who know about law, don�t you? If you need anyone else, I�m sure you can get that duke to introduce someone to you.�

The bishop had apparently seen this development coming. I could understand the priests who knew about the liturgy and sermons, but now I understood why the bishop had given me people with experience in law and office work as well...

�Oh my God...�

I hadn�t realized just how big things had become. As I held my head, the people around me cheered and laughed at my reaction.

�Where did I go wrong for things to turn out this way...? Please, tell me, Gracefeel...�

I felt like I heard faint giggling. Her as well?!

A cool wind carrying the smells of greenery and earth blew by as we laughed together in our merry circle, the dazzling summer sun shining brightly on this faraway land.

� The Faraway Paladin II: The Archer of Beast Woods � Finis.

To everyone who picked up this book, thank you very much, and to those who have been with me since Volume 1, it�s a pleasure to see you again. Kanata Yanagino here.

Four months after the first volume, I�ve been fortunate enough to be able to publish a second. It�s thanks to all of you who pick up my books. Thank you very much.

The text of this second volume is a revised version of what I posted on Shousetsuka ni Narou one year ago. In fact, I am finishing my revisions as I write this.

Looking back on myself a year ago, I remember that I was terribly agitated, confused, and frightened. The reason was obvious: it was because my environment was changing so drastically.

The parts corresponding to Volume 1, which I had posted as practice, became the subject of some discussion. I became listed in the site�s ranking tables. More and more people started posting their impressions. There was even talk of turning it into a book. The practice work which I simply assumed that people wouldn�t take to was treated to a reception far greater than I�d ever been expecting. I was both thrilled and shocked.

Because it was so popular, feelings of self-doubt and a fear of disappointing people welled up in my heart. Would I be able to continue writing stories of similar quality? I had to choose whether to go ahead with the book idea, not go ahead with it, or put the idea on hold; and I also had to consider how I could balance it with my current job. I couldn�t even have imagined these kinds of worries back when I was writing Volume 1 and overreacting at every little comment.

Of course, at the time, I didn�t have the right mentality to deal with a situation like that. I was overthinking everything and getting excited and depressed over the smallest things. Looking back, I�m now aware that I was pretty difficult to deal with.

I am very grateful for my creative associates, who were so patient with me during that period. They lent an ear to my confused and incoherent rambling. They gave me advice on my drafts. They took part in our usual random chats. And above all, they showed me their own works, always created at their own pace. All of us chatting night after night about each other�s works was a pleasure with no substitute. By looking at what my friends� creations were like, I was able to continue typing away at my keyboard, even though I still felt very unconfident. This story, which started from a small idea, continues today thanks to the passion and enthusiasm I was able to borrow from them. For that, I am still truly grateful.

However, despite this, my writing was pretty rough due to the psychological state I was in. After I decided to revise the story for publication and looked back over it, I found something I thought I could have done a little better on everywhere I looked, and I had a real headache thinking about how to fix everything and fit it into a single volume. What to leave and in what form, how to change things, how to include new elements... Remaking something once it�s already finished is quite difficult. Unlike Volume 1, which came out very well in that sense, the second volume was a real struggle. I did everything in my power to improve it, and now, it�s like a completely new work. I sincerely hope you enjoyed it.

Finally, some acknowledgments.

To Kususaga Rin-sensei, who added marvelous illustrations to this book: Thank you, thank you, thank you. I jump for joy every time I lay eyes on one of your beautiful illustrations.

To my fellow creators: I said enough, no more, too embarrassing. Thank you, please keep on being my friends.

To my editor, the editors at Overlap, everyone involved with this book�s printing, sales and marketing, and everything else related, and to you, the person who took this book into your hands: I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

The next volume will either be The Lord of the Rust Mountains, a journey of adventure about the extermination of an evil dragon, which enjoyed the same kind of good reviews as The Boy in the City of the Dead when I published it on the web, or it will be a newly written tale of adventure which I will create specifically for book publication.

Either way, I will do my best to make it something you will all enjoy.

I hope you will read it when the time comes.

Praying that we can meet again,

Kanata Yanagino, June 2016