Demon of the Grasslands
Demon of the Grasslands
The busiest times for the west gate guards of Kelbast Fortress were usually early morning and early evening. Beyond the cursed great grasslands lay mostly the domain of magical beasts, so the vast majority of those they dealt with were adventurers, and adventurers generally left in the early morning and, unless they camped out, returned in the early evening before the sun fully set.
Since their main clientele were adventurers hunting monsters, you'd think it would be an unpopular posting since they couldn't expect the kind of side income other gate guards gleaned from 'tolls' extorted from merchants, but the fixed hazard pay and relatively light workload meant it was better regarded than people generally assumed.
You could call it a sort of resort. A resort where you'd spend a few days working your fingers to the bone collecting tolls at another gate, then relax and gaze out at the grasslands to soothe your mind and body. Even if orcs showed up, the gate guards weren't the ones fighting them, so it wasn't much of a downside.
Gate guard Hans Dek had approached the job with roughly that perception, same as the rest. He'd thought that way right up until the moment he leisurely settled in for lunch after dealing with the adventurers heading out onto the grasslands in the early morning.
Until an orc riding a demonic beast appeared from the distant horizon, a massive double-handed axe held in one hand.
The reason Hans Dek and his fellow gate guard managed to hold onto some shred of composure instead of reflexively blowing their emergency whistles and hammering the warning bell was that the orc in their sights felt somehow different from the usual.
First, the fact that it was mounted on a demonic beast meant it was clearly one of those bastards from the Kakula tribe out on the grasslands, yet it was moving alone. Second, it wasn't charging at the gate but walking in very slowly, almost leisurely.
Even as chills ran down his spine, Hans Dek had properly noted those points and pulled out an expensive telescope— the kind you weren't even supposed to touch except in emergencies— to examine the orc, and was shocked again.
"A, a person?!"
The demonic beast was definitely the kind of mount the orcs he knew used. He couldn't not recognize it; he'd had the misfortune of running into them on patrol once and nearly got torn apart. But the figure sitting on top of it was clearly human. Hans Dek confirmed it was a human with a build as large as an orc's, draped in a fur cloak like savages wore, and breathed a small sigh of relief, though he couldn't easily decide how he was supposed to process a human riding back in on a demonic beast like an orc.
The stranger, of course, didn't wait for Hans Dek to figure out what his job was. He'd thought the figure was approaching slowly, but when he came to his senses, the mounted human had already arrived right in front of the gate.
"Ah."
He still had not decided what he was supposed to do. Despite Hans Dek’s inner lament, he and his colleague mechanically went through the motions of their duties.
"H, halt! Stop that beast right now!"
Honestly, he had no idea if this was the right response. Because no human had ever ridden up to the city on a demonic beast before. At least the other party complied and stopped, which was a relief.
But he was even more threatening up close. He'd been dealing with adventurers day in and day out for a long time, yet for some reason the pressure emanating from this man was exceptional. Was it because he was riding a demonic beast? As he stood frozen, muscles tensed, staring to see what the man might do, the man glanced around briefly, dismounted, and asked.
"Pardon me. Is this Kelbast Barrier?"
It was a baffling question. It wasn't like there was another city with a wall like this out on the grasslands, and since he'd come out of Kelbast, he must be returning from the great grasslands, so why that question? A sinister thought flashed through Hans Dek's mind.
'Fuck, could that urban legend about the Demon of the Grasslands or whatever actually be real?'
Unlike the joke about some new demon rising up to push out the Green Demon of the Grasslands, the rumor was incredibly bloody.
The rumor was simple. 'The orcs are fleeing in terror.' That was it. But for the people of Kelbast, who'd spent their entire lives suffering under orcs, that simple rumor was even more terrifying. Living face-to-face with the threat, you came to understand it whether you liked it or not. How utterly absurd it was for the massed orc horde to be frightened and fleeing.
Especially now, with the orc numbers swollen to an unprecedented scale because of that bastard Kakula. Hans Dek couldn't even imagine what kind of horrific monster would have to appear to make those bastards run.
"Th, that's right. This is humanity's barrier fortress city, Kelbast. Please present your identification."
He moved forward while reciting an introduction he'd never imagined he'd make at the west gate, but the exhausted-looking man raised a hand, a look of relief on his face, stopping Hans Dek. It was a gesture heavy with a wait-a-moment nuance, not a refusal, and while Hans Dek tilted his head in confusion, the man swung the axe he was holding like lightning and lopped off the head of the demonic beast he'd been riding in a single stroke.
He'd been staring blankly as the beast's massive body crashed to the ground with a heavy thud, dead before it could even react, let alone resist, from the blow too fast and too clean. The man pulled out a cloth, wiped down his axe, and said flatly.
"Pardon me. It wasn't trained."
How the hell did you ride it all the way here if it wasn't trained?
The question that nearly sprang out reflexively was forced back down his throat, largely thanks to the skill the man had just demonstrated. Besides, if he stopped and thought about it, and really tried to look on the bright side, the man didn't seem like a bad person. If he'd come any closer, Hans Dek would've been stuck on duty covered in blood splatter until his shift change, then spent his time off cursing up a storm while he went to work cleaning his equipment.
Still racking his brain to try and find a positive in the situation, Hans Dek took the ID the man handed over and found himself tilting his head once again. The questions hadn't stopped from the moment he'd spotted the man, and it was clearly an unusual situation, but with no other options, Hans Dek asked cautiously.
"This... isn't this an Itisel Kingdom adventurer badge?"
Memory was crucial for a gate guard. Not just for dealing with adventurers and commoners, but because they had to instantly recognize and properly handle nobles, major merchants, and other key figures. But there wasn't an army in the world that only had you memorize what was neatly necessary. One of the notoriously onerous duties of Kelbast gate guards was 'memorizing the adventurer badges of every nation.'
And Hans Dek could swear on it. He'd lived forty years, spent half his life as a gate guard, but he'd never once seen any of the countless badges he'd memorized back in boot camp actually come up.
Which made sense. Adventurers who could freely travel between nations were those who'd renounced their nationality and converted to a universal badge, and those who moved around while keeping their nationality carried special permits, not adventurer badges.
'But that record broke today.'
He thought it might be a first for Kelbast. As he stared awkwardly, the man, who'd been furrowing his brow in serious thought, slowly opened his mouth to explain.
"Well, the explanation's a bit long..."
True to his word, the explanation was a bit long, but he spoke so logically and well that it wasn't complicated. Thanks to that, Hans Dek, leaving his colleague behind, was able to sprint with all his might to the guard post, but after passionately recounting what he'd heard, he got smacked upside the head by the guard captain.
"You dumb bastard! Do you actually think that makes sense?! A human dropped right in the middle of Kakula's village not only walks out on his own two feet, but kills the bastard and takes his axe too?!"
It was unfair. Why the hell was he throwing a fit when, if he'd arbitrarily decided it wasn't real and it turned out to be true, he'd have screamed about cutting heads off? Still, a stinging head and foul mood were better than a pay cut or getting fired, so Hans Dek earnestly tried to persuade the guard captain.
Whether it was due to his earnestness, or because the captain figured his own position would be in danger if he arbitrarily dismissed it as fake and it proved real, the captain, still looking displeased, sought out a knight who could identify Kakula's axe.
Luckily, the process didn't take too long. There wasn't a knight in Kelbast who didn't know the story behind Kakula's axe, and even fewer who didn't know what it looked like.
Though he had no time to also recount the man's lengthy tale when he visited the knight holding the axe, since that wasn't what was important right now anyway, Hans Dek paid it no mind. Returning to the gate with the knight, Hans Dek listened in on their conversation and was shocked to learn that the axe really was the double-handed axe of Kakula.
"Adventurer, I don't know how you came by this, but this axe is the memento of Kelbast's great hero, Sir Maxim Dubbert. The legal rights belong to Kelbast, so I must ask you to return it."
"I apologize, but this is a trophy I justly obtained by defeating Kakula. I refuse."
"...Did I not say. The legal rights..."
"So that's what I'm..."
"...No..."
But just as the conversation was rocketing forward, giving him no time to process his shock, it happened.
"Hey, you law-ignorant fuck! That's not legal!"
Before he could even process his shock, the situation spiraled into a bizarre direction in the blink of an eye. Another thing to question. Did I hear that right? Fuck? Bastard?
Luckily, Hans Dek's ears were perfectly fine. The knight's face, which had been calmly tilted upward, instantly twisted.
"Wh, what?!"
"You got your asses beat by some orc bastards and had it stolen, so why the hell would you still have rights to it? Does western law operate in its own separate world? You think I'm a pushover?"
Whoa, he's going fucking hard.
Forgetting his eyes were bugging out of his head, Hans Dek began slowly shuffling backwards. The knight didn't seem to believe the man's words or his skill, but Hans Dek, having seen the man cleave through the demonic beast's log-thick neck in one strike right before his eyes, had zero doubt about his ability. It looked like blades could come out any second, and being too close would definitely mean getting caught in the crossfire.
More than anything, for Hans Dek, who'd lived his whole life with the common sense that confidence in your own skill and getting on the bad side of a nation's power were two entirely different things, the man's hardline attitude was so terrifying it made his blood run cold, which also compelled him instinctively to put some distance between them.
"How dare some lowly adventurer scum!"
Understandably, the knight was even more extreme. Face flushed crimson with rage, the knight's hand darted to the sword at his waist. Gods, I really would be the main topic of conversation at drinks tonight. Just imagining starting the story with how a knight and an adventurer drew blades and an incredible fight broke out, with all his colleagues' attention focused on him, already sent chills down his spine.
"Crazy helmet-wearing fuck."
But the blood-draining battle Hans Dek anticipated didn't follow.
-CRACK!
Because an axe, clearly far heavier than a sword, swung at a speed the eye couldn't follow and split the knight vertically, armor and all.
"...Huh?"
Watching the lightning-fast movement, the feeling that washed over Hans Dek was an absurd sense of refreshment, as if a person had been cleanly split like a piece of firewood. That's how unreal it was. In the unbelievable sight he'd witnessed right in front of him, just as Hans Dek was about to finally succumb to terror, the man, paying the dead knight no mind whatsoever, spoke to Hans Dek.
"I'm sorry for the trouble, but could you bring someone who knows the law this time?"
His attitude was so polite you'd never believe he was the same person who'd just unleashed a string of curses and cleaved a knight in half. Turning his body to run once again, Hans Dek saw the back of his colleague already dashing off into the distance and lamented internally.
'Fuck. Since it's come to this, please just bring some high-ranking person.'
Or not? If some high-ranking person came and got split in half too and died, wouldn't I be the cause of it and be in danger?
After twenty-some minutes of internal conflict, standing in the presence of the chilling man who was calmly wiping his axe as if killing a knight was nothing, his hated colleague returned, along with the lord.