Cannibal (2)
The village was plunged into chaos the moment a cannibal monster that screamed about how delicious human flesh was came charging in. And yet, not a single person died. The creature simply fled. We were left utterly fucking stunned by this unprecedented situation.
What the hell did it even come here for?
Even when I scanned the village lit by flickering flames, there were no corpses. It hadn't slaughtered the villagers. Instead, it had charged straight for us, flung some spells around, and then suddenly used a substitution technique to pull a vanishing act. What the actual fuck?
It appears to have retreated. Had the battle continued, I could not have guaranteed victory.
Veronica said, her voice heavy. She seemed drained—probably still reeling from having her rune magic shattered head-on. Or maybe it was because her mana had been sucked away? My own body felt heavy, like the morning after a night of terrible sleep.
Suddenly anxious, I checked my mana reserves.
“……What the fuck?”
The results left me staring in disbelief.
My mana pool had been cut in half thanks to that damn Jēra rune, but that was whatever. My maximum MP was unchanged, so it would recover on its own. The real problem was something else entirely.
My face turned deathly pale as the horrifying truth sank in.
It was gone.
All the mana I had stored in my runes—every last drop—had vanished!!!!
“GyaAAAAAAGH!! Mana thief!!!”
I let out a guttural scream, feeling the same hollow despair as if I’d lost my only hot pack during winter training.
“Kenaz!! Ansuz!!!”
I shouted the names of the runes like a lover screaming from the edge of a cliff, but my reliable second-job skills gave me no response whatsoever. This wasn’t being ignored. My runes had been straight-up kidnapped by that black-haired, green-skinned, tanned bastard!
Fuck!! Stealing someone else’s skills? Is that even allowed?!
I collapsed to my knees, pouring out every ounce of mental anguish I possessed.
“Huuuuurgh…… I left the mana right there, so why can’t I eat it? Why can’t I eat it…… Today really is the unluckiest day……”
The despair felt like having one of my balls pickpocketed!
As I wallowed in misery, Veronica clicked her tongue and explained.
It stole the mana of the Nine Gods. I lost one portion as well. This would be impossible with ordinary Jēra. It must be an artifact from an ancient civilization.
“Who the fuck cares about that……”
The shocking new revelation that rune mana was actually the mana of the Nine Gods didn’t surprise me in the slightest. After your girlfriend gets stolen by some golden sun bastard, who gives a shit about checking out her family background?
Still, damn it. When I thought about it, it made sense. The gods of Germania were called the Nine Gods, so naturally the mana in the rune magic created by Odin would be a type of their mana.
……Hmm. But if that’s the case, what the hell did that Tabula bastard see in me to start babbling about the mana of the Nine Gods?
I had no idea. The overwhelming despair I hadn’t felt in ages made it impossible to organize my thoughts.
As I squeezed out more tears, Veronica spoke again.
Stand, my husband. If you have not forgotten the enlightenment you gained when acquiring the runes, you can accumulate the mana of the Nine Gods once more with time.
“Mommy…… How long will that take?”
……Well. Would one year per rune not suffice?
Fucking hell.
My sadness rapidly transformed into pure rage.
Let’s kill the ogre. The ogre is my mortal enemy.
I was seriously going to murder that son of a bitch.
While I ground my teeth, converting sorrow into fury, Tirsi gathered the bottles she had used as magic mediums and spoke.
“An ogre that speaks human language… I still can’t believe it. Its intelligence seemed extraordinarily high.”
“Right? An ogre using magic of all things. I feel like my entire common sense is collapsing.”
“I agree. We don’t know what that ogre will do now that it’s escaped, so we should quickly assess the village’s damage first—”
Tirsi began giving orders like a proper party leader, then stopped. She turned to me.
“……Is this also me being nosy?”
“I don’t want to hide in the inn while everyone else cleans up and then get side-eyed for it. Let’s tidy things up carefully while staying alert for another ogre ambush.”
Tirsi nodded. The expression on her face was a bizarre mixture of self-loathing and amusement, like someone had mixed soju and beer at a perfect ratio.
I moved as well, burning with hatred for the ogre.
My husband. Are those the only companions you have?
Since she was in her horse form and couldn’t help directly, Veronica extinguished the fires with rune magic and asked. Now that she mentioned it, those troll bastards hadn’t shown their faces at all.
“There are more, but I don’t know where they went.”
I wasn’t expecting anything from them anyway. Once the promotion test was over and we parted ways, I planned to delete their faces and names from the hard drive in my head after three days.
—Boom.
We put out the remaining fires and cleared away the debris. The villagers must have been terrified of the ogre; none of them came outside. I could totally understand not wanting to step out while a tank was roaming around, but this wasn’t a zombie movie. Hiding in your house wouldn’t mean shit if the ogre kept rampaging.
“Are you the adventurers, sirs?!”
At that moment, an old man who appeared to be the village chief finally showed himself. His resolute expression suggested that, with not many days left in his life, he had come to take responsibility and speak with us directly.
“Khk… Thank you for driving away the ogre……”
“No need. We’re just glad no one was hurt.”
“Indeed. For such a terrifying monster to attack and for the village to remain unharmed—it’s nothing short of a miracle! This is all thanks to you!”
The chief kept bowing deeply as he spoke.
I left the task of explaining things to the chief to Tirsi, our party leader, and stepped away from them. Veronica followed behind me, her hooves clopping.
My husband.
“Veronica.”
Our words overlapped, so Veronica stopped her telepathy. I spoke before she could continue.
“I’ll ask first. When exactly did you fly to that forest of holy water?”
Last night. Roughly twenty hours ago.
Veronica spoke as if recalling the events of the previous night.
The God’s teleportation magic circle requires a cooldown period until the mana recharges after each use. That is why it took time after we parted for me to use it again and return. I had also expended a great deal of mana, so I rested for the night.
“Ah. So that’s why you were completely silent for over a month.”
Indeed. After receiving the grace of life-saving from you, I left Britannia, but to meet again I had to wait thirty-one nights for the teleportation circle to recover.
Her answer flowed like a clear stream. Naturally, it meant Veronica had been thinking along the same lines as me.
I started grinding my teeth again as fresh anger surged.
“It stole the mana of the Nine Gods from us, and its rune mastery was at an expert level. The conditions are met.”
──I cannot believe it. I was certainly captured by those wicked seeds in Romania, then used the teleportation circle twice in the forest of holy water here.
When I muttered, Veronica let out a groan in protest.
But how could that mere ogre have figured out how to use the teleportation circle?
That was exactly what we were thinking. The reason the ogre bastard had stolen our mana and then fled.
Although she spoke as if it were impossible, Veronica probably knew the truth as well. She simply found it difficult to accept.
I shook my head.
“I don’t know the reason. And it’s not something we need to worry about right now. What you should be concerned about is the possibility that the ogre bastard might fly to where your kin are within the next day or two, right?”
……Truly, just hearing it is unpleasant.
Veronica looked so disgusted that it was obvious even in her horse form. An ogre capable of countering rune magic launching an assault on the Bicorn sanctuary? I hadn’t personally witnessed how strong the other Bicorns were, so it was hard to say, but in this kind of fantasy world, wasn’t it common sense for a sanctuary to become a battlefield?
It is my mistake. I should have crossed the sea instead of using the magic circle. If I had, the creature would not have been able to pinpoint our location……
Perhaps imagining her kin’s blood being spilled, Veronica grew visibly anxious. I asked a question to cool her racing mind.
“Since you used it to come here, doesn’t that mean you have to wait another thirty-one days until the mana refills?”
Not so. If mana can be infused into the circle, it can be reused. The circle only activates at dawn and dusk, but if that barbaric ogre has gathered mana, it should be able to activate it at daybreak.
“……I have some bad news. Want to hear it?”
Do not speak. I can already imagine it. Last night, I did think the forest smelled unusually of blood.
The reason the ogre had attacked the orc settlement suddenly made sense. Just like a bear fattening up before hibernation, it had devoured efficient prey left and right to recover its stamina and mana, all to gather the mana of the Nine Gods needed to activate the circle.
I spun my elite brain at three thousand percent and said, “It’s not human sacrifice, is it? Maybe it stored its own mana in some kind of item for a long time?”
It already possessed an artifact that could steal other people’s mana. It probably had something to store mana as well. Like a spare mana tank.
The ogre bastard must have been eating well, sleeping well, recovering its mana, and diligently depositing it into its mana savings account while happily waiting for the day it could go on an overseas trip. Using the accumulated regular mana—if not the mana of the Nine Gods, then any type would do—as the price of its plane ticket.
And the rune mana it stole from us is the passport needed to pass through the magic circle?
This is so fucking shitty. The rage wouldn’t stop when I imagined a voice phishing criminal who had stolen my passport now living it up on a YOLO vacation.
“Fuck. Was that bastard targeting our test proctors to steal mana potions or something?”
No matter how smart it was, it was still a primitive ogre from a barbaric civilization. It probably couldn’t obtain mana potions. There was a limit to how much mana you could recover through the civilian method of eating and sleeping. So maybe it had targeted the test proctors who carried mana potions that could restore its regular mana?
Test proctors?
“Ah, about that—”
When I explained everything, including the Audumla Guild promotion test proctors, Veronica frowned deeply.
This is becoming an even greater problem. If the creature came specifically to steal our mana, it has likely already located the magic circle and estimated the exact amount of mana required.
“Exactly. It seems to have chased after either you or me.”
Because both you and I possess the mana of the Nine Gods.
Veronica nodded in agreement with my words. What had that bastard said? Something about there being two suitable targets? It had also mentioned being lucky. That son of a bitch had been preparing to snatch my runes from the very beginning.
The more shitty foreshadowing that was revealed, the more helplessly furious I became.
Given how things have turned out── I am sorry, my husband. I must ask you to wait a little longer for the repayment of my life debt. I have already left word with my kin. Even if something happens to me, another companion will come to deliver the message later.
“What the—?”
Suddenly Veronica started spouting nonsense. What was that about repayment?
Of course, I know I cannot handle it alone. I will lie in wait near the magic circle. Then, when the creature attempts to teleport, I will move with it and alert my kin before I am captured and killed.
In response to my reaction, Veronica added what she must have thought was a helpful explanation. It was basically a suicide commando operation. The kind Japanese soldiers would love.
“Oh, I see.”
I nodded, then delivered a chop straight to Veronica’s foal-like head.
“Taste the bitterness of fear!!!!!”
Hkyaaat!!
—Whack!
A refreshing impact sound! The foal screamed and planted a kiss on the ground. Being a primitive four-legged species with only front and hind hooves and no hands, she couldn’t even cover her head. And I hadn’t even hit her that hard—she was totally overreacting.
W-what are you doing!! How rude!!
Veronica shouted with tears welling up in her wide, sparkling eyes. I spoke to the crying Bicorn.
“Stop trying to look cool and just honestly ask for help, you idiot.”