Chapter 9
Chapter 9
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 9
Chapter Title: Uninvited Guest (1)
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By the time the grass had grown up to his waist, the wounds from the Night Lord had fully healed. Though he had become a Great Warrior, there was nothing particular to do until winter returned, so he spent his days lounging about.
The number of magic beasts raiding the village had also decreased compared to previous years. Thanks to that, his days were filled with eating, sleeping, and fighting... If only he had a smartphone, it would have been the exact same unemployed life as on Earth.
'The food supplies are running out.'
When the sun was high in the sky, he quietly got up and stepped outside. It was to fetch the stockpiled food from the warehouse. His stomach wasn't growling yet, but he had to eat. Preserving meat for long on the plains was no easy task.
"This time, I'm the great Great Warrior Ivar!"
"Then I'll be the Night Lord!"
"I'm Satchpi......"
In the open clearing, Harald's children were playing pretend. The kids were busy running around among themselves. To the seasoned warriors who showed him respect, he was a Great Warrior, but to the other kids in the tribe, he was just the neighborhood uncle.
"Ah, evil imperial adventurer! Take my sword!"
At that moment, the eldest, who was holding a wooden weapon, spotted him and charged.
Hoo, coming at me, huh. A true warrior never holds back, no matter if the opponent is a mere infant.
Now called the Great Warrior or the Red Ghost, even earlier, one of the nicknames his comrades used for him was sly Ivar. To seize victory, he had done everything—ambushes, poison attacks, asking if they had any last words before a cowardly finish.
Not a shred of shame. What if he let his guard down and this seemingly frail kid turned out to have the talent to become a Great Warrior at just six years old?
Those who seek honor on the battlefield and die to a blind sword or arrow can't complain afterward. The moment he was about to summon his Ancestral Power for retribution, his eyes met Olgen's, who was hanging laundry nearby.
"......"
"......"
Not long ago, Harald had married the daughter of the Pushunka Tribe's chieftain, taking his eighth wife. And at the end of the fence in front of his tent, lined with magic beast skulls, there was always an empty skewer standing alone.
He lacked the courage to ask who it was waiting for. But he did know that she, Harald's childhood friend and first wife, climbed the great rock mountain barehanded every dawn to train relentlessly.
"Ugh! Got me......!"
"I did it! Now I'm an even greater warrior who defeated the great Great Warrior!"
So he obediently clutched his stomach and pretended to collapse. There were things in the world more fearsome than disasters.
The kid who "killed" him soon grew bored and pulled out a ball from somewhere to play with his siblings. After a moment, Ivar got up and retrieved meat stored deep in the warehouse.
"Ah, Ivar!"
As he carried it to the neighboring tent, a cheerful voice called out. It was Aiter and the shaman sisters.
The eldest sister, Ilena, gave him a prickly look.
"What, you're here again today?"
"Feels like it's about time for you to leave soon."
"So you're here to suck us dry to the bone? Becoming a Great Warrior made your face even thicker."
"Ilena! Don't say mean things to Ivar!"
It wasn't that they got along poorly. If there was real malice, she would have just cursed him instead of scolding him outright like this.
The shamans of the Water Star Tribe had to follow the stars' movements, periodically changing their settlements. So he had come to her before she left, to stabilize the seventh rune he earned by slaying the Night Lord.
The sisters stood to give them space for the private ritual. As Ilena headed out, she glanced sideways at him from behind her mask.
—You know what to do, right? Do it properly.
In truth, she had hinted before that Aiter had feelings for him. He wasn't oblivious; she had even freely given him a treasure that let him breathe underwater.
But shamans who served foreign gods, not Ishkar, couldn't marry plains tribesmen. They couldn't remove their masks either. Showing their bare faces to others meant losing all their shaman powers.
So what Ilena wanted from him was probably to make things clear—commit or cut ties. Harald already had three children. As a Great Warrior, he was receiving far more marriage proposals than before.
She didn't want her youngest to get hurt if he suddenly accepted one and met them months later. Especially since Aiter was still young, they worried he might exploit her affection.
"Pfft, so you played dead and she just went in? Olgen must have held back a lot."
"No, she must respect me. I subdued the Winter Witch and made part of her power mine, I subjugated the Night Lord and brought dawn to the plains as the tribe's Great Warrior, and......"
"Sometimes, Ivar seems less like a great Great Warrior and more like a childish kid......"
Aiter lit the fire in the hearth and, as usual, took out the mortar to finely grind the powder for inscribing the rune. Even amid their trivial chatter, he pondered how to wisely resolve this issue.
In truth, marriage wasn't an immediate concern for him. He hadn't even crossed the empire's walls yet—why start a family and have kids now? But to the plains tribes, continuing the bloodline at his age was a major matter. If he was causing worry around him, he needed to clarify his stance.
"There, it's done. The meat too."
"Thanks."
"H-how's the taste?"
"Like tearing into an alligator hide and all. Horrid."
He had tried to remove the gamey smell, but the Night Lord meat still tasted awful. Still, if it activated the rune, it was tolerable. The amount he could use depended on intake, so he had to eat as much as possible.
After swallowing all the earthy-tasting meat, he removed one beast tusk from the necklace around his neck and gave it to Aiter. It was a relic left by his father, Wolfhead Kashyrn.
"Here."
"Huh? What's this?"
"The only possession I have besides my karangal and weapons."
It wasn't a promise for the future or a confession of feelings. Compared to what he'd received so far, it was a tiny gift. Yet Aiter was overjoyed, practically leaping.
"I-Ivar......! Eek, eekee!"
Her pure white hair, tied under the overturned goat hide, fluttered. With her feet in a basin inside the tent, splashing water, glimpses of her pale thighs flashed.
She's going to trip. He caught and steadied her.
"No need to be that happy."
"No, I am. Now I can check on Ivar's status from anywhere, anytime."
"Huh?"
Wait.
Did he hear that wrong?
"You can do something like that?"
"Yeah! It's a spell you can use if both have items imbued with feelings for each other. I gave Ivar the breath talisman, so this completes the pair!"
"Never heard of a spell like that."
"My sisters can't do it. The head shaman said I'm the first!"
Come to think of it, becoming a Great Warrior wasn't solely his own achievement. The seventh rune had inscribed itself with the Night Lord's blood after the kill, but before that, Aiter had drawn them herself to form the mana circuits.
The holes in her mask looked especially dark today. She had occasionally shown jealousy before, whenever other women came up around him.
"I was already anxious. For your sixth rune, you chose the Winter Witch's soul, right?"
"......"
"To fully use that power, you have to devour the target, but you only drank a sip of blood. That's not enough. I heard from Harald—you said you wanted the Winter Witch as your bride. So what does 'devour' mean then? It could be literal, but you wouldn't do something so barbaric. You're pure. Wait, could it be like those pictures my sisters hid in the spellbooks? What if Ivar does that with some other woman far away? If I gain stronger spells, maybe I could claim Ivar all for myself? Could I prevent Ivar from being defiled?"
A chill ran down his spine. Maybe Ilena's warning wasn't to watch out for her sister?
"Ivar, Ivar, Ivar......"
"Wait, Aiter. Give that back for a sec!"
As he hurriedly tried to snatch back the tusk he'd given her, the tent flap opened, and something rolled in.
The kids outside playing ball must have accidentally kicked it their way. But as he picked it up to throw it back out, he realized it wasn't a ball.
It was a human head.
"Harald's kids said it was the people who attacked them on the plains."
"Attacked?"
"They took the little sister hostage and asked the way to the tribe. Seems the kids ambushed them when they let their guard down and killed them instead."
Even so, playing with a severed human head instead of a ball? Grak said he'd given them a stern scolding with a troubled expression.
No wonder his abdomen, stabbed by the wooden sword earlier, ached subtly. The kid already showed warrior potential.
"Northern Defense Army?"
"They weren't wearing white armor, from what I heard. And Winter Witch soldiers wouldn't approach our territory in just three."
No matter how talented, if it had been the 9th Legion with drawn swords, they wouldn't have stood a chance. The season was already early summer. Feeding troops cost money, so those gathered to subdue the black dragon had long dispersed. That left only one likely possibility.
"Marquis Marcus......"
"Hm? What'd you say?"
The military man guarding the north alongside Serath.
It wasn't winter, and with border defenses left to the 9th Legion, why would a hedonist like him wander the plains? Why send underlings all the way here—to find the Stonegar Tribe, no less?
Thankfully, the curious kids had asked questions before revenge. The eldest hesitated, then pointed at him.
"They were looking for you, Ivar."
"Me?"
"Yeah."
Grak pulled out one item from those found near the discarded corpse and showed it to him.
"They said their boss, the rat leader, ordered them to deliver this."
Glowing golden in the sunset, it was a document stamped with the imperial seal.