A Knight's Return to the Farm Is Wise (3)
The night on Vulcan was not merely dark. It was a blackness so dense it might as well have been a blackout curtain drawn shut against every last trace of light.
Moonlight and stars, the only lights a traveler might have trusted, were blocked by trees that surged up like towers. Lose the trail out here and let night fall, and it would be no surprise at all to be swallowed by the dark and simply vanish.
In a certain sense, though, a silence this pitch-black could be peaceful.
In a word—
"...Hehe."
"Every time I look, I'm impressed. Truly."
—sleep came absurdly well.
The maid's sleep, of course, was a realm all its own. How was it even possible to be out cold one second after lying down? Honestly.
"Sweet dreams."
Lee Han made sure she was asleep, then quietly snuffed the candle. There was always the chance she might wake in the night, find no flame, and stumble in the pitch dark.
Our maid isn't the sort to get hurt over something like that.
Strike a rock and she would break the rock long before the rock ever broke her. That was the maid. A woman who might match Lee Han himself for sturdiness. He shrugged and went quietly down to the first floor.
Thump.
"Ah. That's better."
The hammock she had made him was soft past all reason. She had dressed the hides of the animals he brought in and washed them until they were fluffy, so they even seemed to carry a faint smell of sunlight.
But seriously, how did she kill the smell?
No chemicals, no soap, just her bare hands. How was that even possible? Anyway.
"Talented. I'll give her that."
Lee Han shook his head at yet another of her mysteries and closed his eyes, meaning to sleep quietly, just like this.
Then—
"Woof."
"You don't sleep either?"
"Woof."
Scratch, scratch. Using its dainty little paw pads, Orthrus began to write something on the sand board Lee Han had made for it.
Of all things—
Daytime goblin and gnoll packs: elimination complete. Went far. Clean disposal. Maid Layla will not know there was a threat.
—it had written words.
A creature with intelligence beyond a human's, Orthrus had found learning to write no great difficulty, and in a mere fortnight it had cracked the written language.
"Mm. Good work. You're doing well."
Was easy work.
Conversation was possible, just like that. ...Still absurd. Convenient, though. Being able to talk was an obvious advantage.
Want compensation equal to the hardship. Want to eat the ogre's Monster Core.
But now that talk was possible, Orthrus's wishes came through clearly, and it demanded what it wanted.
"You ate the goblin and gnoll cores, didn't you?"
Were worthless scraps. Cores had not even formed.
"Mmm. I'd give it to you if it were up to me.... Sorry, what can I do? I already buried that core."
Why bury it!! Such a waste—!?
It was common sense that a Monster Core buried in the earth vanished into the soil's nutrients in under a minute.
"Woof...."
Worked up, Orthrus was about to bark loud enough to wake the house, but Lee Han warned it in a low voice.
"Make enough noise to wake the maid, and I might just pull one of those heads off."
"......"
"If you want to find out whether I'm joking, go ahead and bark."
Sleeping at night is important. Agree with human master's words one hundred times!
"......"
On reflection, compensation also unnecessary. Going to sleep now. Good work!
In a blink Orthrus was gone to the doghouse it had made outside, and Lee Han clicked his tongue.
"...That damn mutt kind of reminds me of the Assistant Instructor."
Somehow it was a night for missing Assistant Instructor No. 1. ...Not that he actually wanted to see the man.
"—Hoo."
Lee Han sat cross-legged on the hammock and went on meditating in silence.
Was he getting any sleep? Is a man even a man if half an hour of sleep leaves him bursting with strength? A short rest recovered most of his fatigue. No — he had so much energy to spare that managing to sleep even thirty minutes was already the impressive part. Give him the will, and he could probably stay clear-headed through a solid week of days and nights. Proof that he was gradually leaving human limits behind.
It started after I began training Intent.
The steady sense of stepping past what a human body could do. Probably not only him. Most knights who had touched Intent might spend their nights like this, eyes open till dawn. But Lee Han had little desire to lie awake through the night, and he did not want to go outside and train on purpose either.
If a man wants to live like a man, he has to keep his routine.
He had no intention of wasting an entire life just to grow stronger. He lived in order to be glad and happy. Live miserably, and what meaning was left in any of it? So lately he had been putting his effort into meditation.
"Hoo—."
On and on, until the sky grew bright. Someone might ask what use any of it was, but meditation, unexpectedly, was a decent practice. It emptied the thoughts and brought a peace of mind.
In the midst of it—
"...That thing's glittering for no reason."
Something shining broke his meditation, and Lee Han frowned. A beautiful liquid, as if someone had melted gold and poured it, glowed inside three potion bottles. Each held no more than ten grams, and yet the ingredients in those ten grams alone were said to cost as much as ten warhorses. Ingredient cost was only the floor. Weigh the rarity of the craft that had gone into them, and setting a price became meaningless.
It was the phantasm of an elixir the maid had received from Isis when she left the kingdom. If what he himself had drunk before was as incomplete as a thing could be, this was as close to finished as a thing could be. And there were three whole bottles of it. Just looking was enough to make his flesh tremble.
And yet, at the same time—
Proof the curse I'm carrying is vicious. Seriously vicious.
The Curse Poison Lee Han had swallowed as a child was no different from a virus spread through every corner of his body. It had dwelt in him so long that by now it might as well have been an incurable disease. A curse that could not be wiped away, no matter the method. Without a draught on the order of Ambrosia, or an elixir-grade medicine, there was simply no treating it. In truth, a cure had originally been impossible.
And now I have three bottles.
The elixir he had taken in place of severance pay, and the only means of breaking the Infertility Curse. Seen another way, it also meant he could not be fully cured unless he drank near-complete Ambrosia three times over. A curse to raise gooseflesh, if ever there was one.
...Even so, one could say that now the medicine existed, a horrifying curse was a horrifying curse and nothing more. For the past three months, Lee Han had not laid a hand on a single bottle.
The reason?
It feels wrong.
Strangely, he did not want to drink it. He knew perfectly well that if he only drank, he could at last be free of the Infertility Curse. He knew it plainly, and still he did not want to drink.
Why? Because he thought Isis might have tampered with it?
She isn't that kind of person.
Vicious in places, perhaps, but a woman who kept a promise once made. She would not have cheated him with some petty, cowardly trick. So the medicine was surely real....
"Then why...."
"You don't have to wrestle with it so hard. Take your time and think it over."
"You think so?"
"Of course! More than anything, Sir Knight, you ought to trust your own sense. That sense has always kept you safe, hasn't it? Then there must be a reason you shouldn't drink it."
"Mmm. Hearing it that way, I suppose you might be right."
"Think it through, one piece at a time. Unlike before, you have room to spare."
"...All right. Now that I hear it, I think the maid has the right of it."
"Hehe. I'm glad if I was any help."
"There is... one thing."
"Mm?"
"......You were sleeping perfectly well. Why are you suddenly here?"
"No reason. It's just cold tonight."
"......"
A soft shift of cloth. Lee Han said nothing as she climbed onto his hammock without the slightest hesitation.
No. He locked rigid.
Pat, pat.
"Lie down, Sir Knight."
"...Mmm."
"Come on."
"Listen, I..."
"Oh, and, Sir Knight."
"?"
"......"
......All at once he thought of a Dream Fiend who had been nothing like a Dream Fiend. A sorry excuse for a girl who had not seemed like a Dream Fiend in the least. The proof was simple: when that one had come to tempt him, he had felt nothing at all. Only irritation. Only displeasure.
...And yet now, watching her urge him to lie down beside her with those still-gentle eyes, he caught himself thinking.
Is this what a real Dream Fiend's temptation feels like?
Wrong or not, maybe I ought to drink the Ambrosia right now.
Not a thought worthy of a man's man?
Lee Han, you're a troll's pride! Endure it, you bastard!
Wouldn't living as a lesser man actually do the world some good?
A troll angel and a troll devil seemed to whisper in his ears at once, and he felt as if he had awakened the Wudang Sect's Yin-Yang Divine Art without ever having learned it.
Wait. Why are the angel and the devil both trolls?
Heart Demon had come for him, it seemed. In the happy sense....
"Woof...."
Those humans were at it again.
Orthrus was a beast in the end, and with hearing sensitive past all reason, every word spoken in the house reached it. A monster, and yet it felt ready to come down with a case of bottled-up rage.
"Kaaak!"
At last it clicked its tongue and made to spit, but unfortunately—
"—Have I ever seen a mutt with worse manners. Spitting, of all things."
Smack!
In the next instant Orthrus took a tremendous blow to the back of the skull and dropped unconscious where it stood. Only one head had gone out, of course, so the other meant to raise a cry.
"W-woof...!"
"Ah-ah. I told you not to shout. Yelling in the dead of night is not done."
Smack!
"Kwek...?!"
Thump....
Before it managed even that, the back of its head was struck again, and the remaining head lost consciousness as well. Weakened or not, Orthrus had the strength to put down packs of goblins and gnolls without trouble, and this man had suppressed it with a single palm. He clicked his tongue and shook his head.
"The young ones are in the middle of a pretty love, and someone has to go and spoil it. Tsk, tsk."
Young as any man could be, and yet he spoke like an old one. Slowly, he turned his feet.
"Heh heh. I'll have to come back later."
With that gentlemanly remark — that he could not be so tactless as to interrupt — the man unhurriedly took himself elsewhere. But as he went, he noted the traces of training left all across the yard, and a small sound of admiration escaped him despite himself.
Heh heh. With a loose, hearty laugh, the man stepped into a forest black as a drawn curtain, in high spirits. As if he were already looking forward to the meeting.