Ogre Power Gauntlet
Nature does not belong to humankind.
An obvious truth — yet in the North, it stands as absolute law.
Max spoke.
"As you well know, though our Wintershield Grand Ducal House has long reigned as masters of the North, we have never truly conquered the entire region."
"Indeed."
The Wintershield Grand Ducal House held de facto control of the North — but only over human territory. In other words, it had never managed to bring non-human beings fully to heel.
"Wild beasts that grow so starved they come charging down into the villages. Monsters that raid on a regular cycle. We cannot rule over such things."
In a way, it was only natural.
And Max focused on the side story that came with that natural truth.
"Precisely. Against the monsters and wild beasts that so often threaten the villages, the Grand Ducal House periodically dispatches people to root them out completely. But with most of our forces committed to the Great Wall, a full sweep of the entire North is simply impossible. And so, from time to time, mutant magical beasts appear."
"Like that mutant ogre lying dead in the center of the village."
Max nodded.
"Indeed. That mutant ogre was a monster at least one and a half times larger than the average of its kind as I knew it."
"But you brought it down, didn't you, Butler?"
"There were two reasons."
"Two reasons?"
"The first was the impregnable wall Your Young Master erected in Jemili Village. The second was that the creature was already wounded."
"…?"
Already wounded?
"While it ran amok, I kept searching for its weak point. In the process, I discovered a large wound at the back of its neck."
Wait — he saw that?
Even if a mutant ogre was the size of a house, he spotted it in the middle of a dark night?
Does he actually have the Evil Eye or something?
"That a retired old soldier like myself could sever the monster's neck in a single stroke was only because I aimed for that wound. At the time, it was the reason we survived — but now it has become a source of concern."
"You mean there's another monster nearby capable of wounding a beast like that?"
"In all likelihood, yes."
I had rushed inside once the fighting was over and never noticed — but Max, who had carefully examined even the creature's injuries, was certain of another monster's existence. And he felt the need to report it to the Grand Duchy at once.
"So you're leaving right now?"
"My apologies. I ought to attend you to the end, but… the soldiers who came with us can move by day. The only one who can set out this very moment is this old man."
Hmm…
Is this right?
Watching Max look ready to depart at any second, the little Confucian dragon inside me let out a howl. As if making an old man do the hard work weren't already bad enough — now I was the one sending him into it.
But it's not as if there's another option.
"Understood. Please go on ahead. We will follow as quickly as we can."
Max bowed low at the waist — and then truly leapt down outside the walls at once. He mounted a horse already prepared for him and vanished into the darkness beyond the snowfield.
The day after Max left, I woke in the house of Jemili Village's chief.
"Aigoo! You're awake, Young Master!"
The village chief had clearly been up for some time already. I filled myself solidly with a bowl of gukbap he had boiled in advance and was stretching when he suddenly asked,
"Come to think of it — the Seventh… that is, the butler left ahead of you. Has something happened?"
Why had he left?
Should I even say this?
Max had rushed off in the middle of the night to report the existence of an unidentified magical beast and arrange countermeasures. That was a matter for the Grand Duchy to handle — not something to scatter among civilians. Hiding information from comrades who had fought beside you felt harsh, but releasing it without any proper plan would only stir panic for nothing. Embargoes existed for a reason.
So I fudged it with a half-truth.
"Ah — I sent him to call a merchant caravan regarding disposal of that mutant ogre. The thing weighs so much that dealing with it won't be easy."
"Ohh, that makes sense. With a beast of that size, it would certainly have that as well."
"That?"
"Heh heh heh. Its core. The core."
"…?"
A core?
I'd only been spinning an excuse, and now an interesting topic had dropped into my lap.
"That thing has a core too?"
"Well, you'd have to split open its belly to know for certain. But in my experience, mutants of that caliber always have one. Even if it isn't anything special, selling it brings in a tidy sum. Ah — and don't worry. We have our pride; we have not the slightest intention of demanding a share of its core."
"What? We took it down together, didn't we?"
"Ha ha ha. I'm honored you would say so… but in truth, Your Young Master and the people of the Grand Duchy did all the real work."
Hearing the village chief — who had shown archery worthy of a legendary marksman — make such modest noises left me oddly embarrassed. Unlike Max, who had used the secret technique of the Slayer of the Seventh Night, or the soldiers who had carved the mutant ogre to pieces afterward, I had genuinely done almost nothing.
"At any rate, we'll package the core carefully and ship it to the Grand Duchy. Ah — and the other byproducts as well."
"I'd appreciate that. Still, take whatever you need for yourselves. With a body that huge, there should be plenty of meat."
"Ha ha. Your words alone are thanks enough."
I kept insisting they take leather or sinew if they needed it, but the chief demurred, claiming the concrete walls alone had already been more than generous. You can't force gifts on people who refuse them — so I figured I'd just slip them something later when the chance came.
"Then… is there anything else you require of us?"
"Not particularly… Ah. Come to think of it."
I had been about to wave him off when something suddenly came to mind.
"That 'Seventh Night' business, or whatever it was. People kept calling our butler that. What does it mean?"
I had used the nickname half in jest, but everyone else's reactions had been quite serious. Even the chief just now had clearly known the name, so I tossed the question out lightly.
His expression turned strange.
"The butler never mentioned it himself?"
"He didn't, no?"
That was why I was asking.
"Ha ha… Then it would be awkward for me to speak of it either. To some it is a heroic tale; to others, a past they would rather erase. I think you will have to hear it from the man himself."
Hmm. That serious?
Even digging through the original Logwell's memories, all I had on Max was that he had once been a centurion.
"All I can tell you is this… the butler was, for a time, a man whose name resounded across the North in more ways than one. Whether that name was martial renown — or infamy."
In the end the chief left trailing cryptic remarks. It almost felt like an invitation to go dig up an extraordinary past on my own…
"Forget it. Who in this world doesn't have a story?"
I had only been curious because of that ridiculous instant-kill technique. I had no intention of prying open a past someone chose not to reveal. I simply took comfort in knowing that a man that capable would cross a freezing snowfield in the dead of night and come out fine.
"More importantly, this is what matters."
I wandered out, strolling the village like a hen that had just left the yard. In the center lay the massive corpse of the ogre. No preservatives had been applied, yet the North's characteristic bitter cold was proving the absolute pinnacle of fresh storage.
"Ah! You're out, Young Master!"
"Young Master!!"
Villagers already at work spotted me and roared greetings in booming voices.
"Good morning."
For the record, they were already hard at work dismantling the ogre. Last night had been late and everyone exhausted, so they had simply hauled the thing into the village and gone to sleep — but you couldn't leave something that valuable lying around forever.
They were factorizing the butchered ogre into its component parts. I was no expert on slaughter myself, but even at a glance their tools looked anything but ordinary.
That's a saw. And that's an axe.
I was staring blankly at the scene when one of the villagers approached.
"Good morning, Second Young Master."
"Yes, good morning. Though…"
And you are?
My eyes asked the question for me. The villager grinned and thumped his own chest.
"I'm Bruno. I do the tanning work in this village."
A tanner was someone who stripped animal hides and worked them into leather goods. The Grand Duchy had professional tanners of its own, but this being a medieval world, every village apparently had at least one such person.
"Ah. And what brings you over?"
"Ha ha ha, nothing much. I saw Your Young Master looking at the hide and wondered if there might be something you needed."
"Ah."
There wasn't, not really. I had only been staring at the corpse for traces of the wound Max had mentioned.
But in a state this thoroughly butchered, finding traces of anything is going to be hard.
Any ordinary beast would have had its commercial value ruined by such savage mutilation — enough to give someone a fit. The mutant ogre, though, was so enormous that hide remained in abundance.
"Is that so? What do people usually make from something like this? The hide looks extraordinarily tough and thick."
Poking through the dead body, I found that the arrows the villagers of Jemili had fired hadn't even reached the subcutaneous fat. Wondering if anything made from it wouldn't just end up as living armor, I asked — and Bruno answered with an easy laugh.
"All sorts of things. Depending on how you dress, strip, and compress it, you can make gloves or boots. Use it whole and leather armor is possible. Though what sells best is usually arm guards or chest guards."
"Arm guards or chest guards…"
"As you know, the game in the North is incredibly tough. So we northerners use special greatbows — and the draw weight on those is no joke, so people put a lot of stock in protecting that area."
Fair enough. Even the village chief had been loosing a greatbow nearly as tall as he was.
The memory of that night made me nod. But—
Doesn't seem like there's any equipment I could actually use.
Among the steel-bodied people of the North, for a frail specimen like Logwell Wintershield, such things belonged to another world entirely. Greatbows? I couldn't even manage a regular bow.
"Nothing that catastrophically multiplies the wearer's strength, is there?"
Building power the honest way by stacking mana was already a lost cause. Wasn't there some method where you just went slurp like a pink balloon monster, swallowed something whole, and freeloaded the power straight out of it?
I was muttering nonsense even I found ridiculous when—
"Ahh. You're talking about the OPG."
"Pardon?"
"The Ogre Power Gauntlet. Isn't that what you mean?"
Something like that… actually existed?