Homecoming (11)
Perhaps because my eyes were so used to the materials I handled every day, the familiar ones leapt out at me first, rather than anything new.
It wasn’t a bad thing, exactly, but it left me a little disappointed.
“Wow, so the Forest of Delusion has Mystic Herb growing in it too.”
Of course, I did manage to spot a few ingredients that had always been hard to come by.
“There aren’t many of them, though.”
Priest Daniel helped diligently with the gathering while never once letting his guard down. Thanks to him, I could focus on collecting with a bit more ease.
I’d love to get a few slime cores while I’m at it… but no slimes are showing up, huh? Back in the old days I would have prayed that no monsters appeared even if it killed me. Now that I’d learned both magic and Holy Magic, part of me almost hoped a few would show themselves.
Maybe I should have written that in the letter I was going to send to the Church…
For now I filled half the basket I’d brought with Foam Herb.
“Haven’t you gathered a bit too much?”
“Come on, it doesn’t matter how much soap we make. We can stockpile the stuff forever.”
There was no risk of it rotting and going to waste, and when I thought about how much the entire village would need, even this amount felt like it might not be enough.
I’d roughly finished collecting everything I’d decided we needed. Now it was time to go looking for something new.
“We’re heading deeper in.”
“Understood.”
Priest Daniel really was easy to take along. If it had been Sister Mary, she would have fretted endlessly about the danger and told me not to go too far in. Whenever I spotted an interesting plant or flower along the way, I examined it carefully and checked the encyclopedia.
Most of them were already recorded. None possessed any particularly special properties—just minor medicinal effects or a bit of toxicity here and there.
I’d already used things like that plenty of times. I needed something more extraordinary.
“Maybe I should go even deeper…”
I’d never ventured this far into the forest before. In the past I’d been too weak; it had simply been too dangerous. But now? The situation was completely different.
First of all, my own combat strength had changed. And I had a reliable escort with me, didn’t I?
“If not now, when else would we get the chance?”
Priest Daniel spoke with a voice full of adventurous spirit. Those words set my heart racing.
Sister Mary or my sister would never have said something like that…! Ah, I couldn’t resist this!
“All right, then. Let’s go a little farther.”
Priest Daniel and I pushed deeper into the forest. I had expected nothing particularly different just because we were farther in…
But there was something.
I had thought there wouldn’t be, yet there was. An ominous aura began to press against my senses…
I had felt something similar before. Yes—it was familiar. When was it…
Ah, right! The undead! It was close to the malevolent energy I’d sensed in that village where the undead had appeared.
Once I realized that, I could roughly guess what was spreading through the forest.
It seemed demonic energy had saturated the woods. Priest Daniel must have felt it too; he kept restlessly bringing his hand to the sword at his hip.
“I didn’t notice it on the outskirts, but once we came inside, the aura grew thick.”
“Yes. This is my first time sensing it as well.”
I had come this deep into the forest before… but back then I had no Holy Power, so I never noticed anything strange.
No—even after I gained Holy Power, I had been near the forest. I hadn’t felt this kind of foreboding then.
Why? Turning it over in my mind produced no answer.
If I had to guess… maybe because I had grown accustomed to my power and could now handle it with far greater precision?
Come to think of it, the Instructor had always told us the forest was dangerous and that we must never go inside.
Connecting that to the present, perhaps this aura had always been here. Speculating about it now wouldn’t give me any solid answers, though…
“I should focus on searching.”
“Yes. Please be careful.”
Even after sensing the ominous energy, Priest Daniel never once suggested we turn back.
I soon pushed the foreboding feeling aside and began exploring the surroundings.
We hadn’t gone far enough yet for the plants to look any different from those on the outskirts.
In the middle of that, my eyes caught on some edible mushrooms.
“Hmm…”
I picked one and examined it carefully. Something about it was slightly off.
“Is something wrong?”
“Well… this one seems to be holding mana.”
Every living thing naturally contained mana, of course. Animals and plants, yes—but even stones, rocks, and water held faint traces of it.
The mana in this mushroom, however, was different.
It carried the same ominous aura that filled the forest. And yet that aura wasn’t purely malevolent.
Why did I feel this power was ominous in the first place?
I would have to think about it carefully later.
“Daniel, please keep anything we gather from deeper inside separate from the rest.”
“Understood.”
To study this energy, I went back and re-collected some of the plants I had already gathered. Since it was for research, I didn’t take too many.
The farther we went, the denser the aura became, and I began to sense something like a presence nearby.
“It seems monsters are approaching.”
“You’re right.”
They appeared to be watching us rather than charging in immediately.
That was fortunate in its own way… but it also meant the time to end this expedition was drawing near.
“Unfortunately, we should head back soon.”
I wanted to explore more, but going any farther would be dangerous. My instincts were screaming it.
“Yes. We could handle them if we had to, but there’s no need to take unnecessary risks.”
I decided to collect one last eye-catching flower before we left. It was a soft, beautiful lavender blossom that also held mana—something special about it.
“Just this flower, then we go.”
Several of them were blooming in one spot, so gathering only what was here would be more than enough for experiments.
If I stripped the entire colony bare, the habitat would be ruined, so I carefully took only the flowers on the outer edge—about twenty blooms, roots and all.
“Let’s head back.”
“Will that be enough?”
Priest Daniel looked at the many flowers still remaining.
“Yes. If we take too many, the colony will collapse.”
“The colony?”
Ah, he didn’t know?
“Living things—especially plants—need certain environmental conditions to survive. If you harvest too much or ruin the soil, they can’t grow anymore.”
I didn’t know the exact science myself; I just understood it in those terms.
“So we only take enough that the plants can still survive. That way they can drop seeds and grow again.”
“I see. That makes sense.”
“Besides, I don’t even know what properties this flower has yet. There’s no need to over-harvest.”
I wanted to open the encyclopedia and check, but the presence around us was growing stronger. There was no time.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes.”
Priest Daniel and I cast Blessing and reinforced our bodies with Holy Power, then broke into a run. The moment we made those rough movements, whatever had been giving off the presence began to chase us.
“It seems the monsters are following us.”
“I know. Just keep pulling away for now.”
We had no idea how far they would pursue us, so the first priority was getting out.
“Fighting inside the forest puts us at a disadvantage.”
We needed open ground where magic was easier to use before we could fight properly.
“Saintess!”
In that instant a powerful force slammed into us from behind. Fortunately, the Holy Magic I had prepared in advance blocked it.
“Kh—!”
Apparently the enemy’s ambush had been faster than our escape.
“No choice, then.”
I whipped up a gust of wind at my feet to keep the approaching monsters at bay and steadied my stance. Then I simply flung everything I was carrying onto the ground and drew my weapon.
“Daniel!”
I called his name out of worry, but…
Well, there was no need to worry.
Even with the cumbersome packs still on his back, Priest Daniel cut a monster clean in half.
“You needn’t concern yourself.”
He sealed the enemy’s movements with Holy Magic and then severed its neck with a powerful sword stroke. The monsters were no match for him.
I looked at the two monsters in front of me.
There were four near Priest Daniel, so these two were apparently my share. Monkey monsters… or maybe gorilla monsters? They were tall but not particularly bulky, so calling them gorillas felt a little off.
“Die!”
I thrust my spear. The spear was a feint; the real attack was magic.
I adjusted the tip toward the direction the monster dodged and released the spell I had prepared. Wind Arrow—the razor-sharp blast of air slammed straight into the monster’s body.
“A monster really is a monster, I guess.”
I had fired the magic intending to pierce clean through, yet it left only a shallow cut on the skin. The moment I attacked one, the other charged.
I yanked the spear back to block and immediately began calculating my next spell and move. The monkey tried to dart around nimbly, but I gave it no opening.
Or rather, I had already bound it.
Using the Holy Magic Sister Mary had taught me—Sacred Chains—I wrapped it tight. It couldn’t move an inch. Its body was tougher and more agile than expected, and it even seemed fairly intelligent, but its raw strength wasn’t that impressive.
“Easy.”
I immediately formed another chain and bound the second one as well.
Neither monkey monster could break free. I created still more chains and locked them down completely.
As for Priest Daniel…
He had already finished three and was about to deal with the last one. In that case, I might as well finish mine off too.
I stepped up to the restrained monsters and drove my spear into them. Their hides were tough enough that the spear didn’t go through in one thrust, but with magic reinforcing the strike and sheer force behind it, I managed to pierce them.
“You’ve finished them.”
“Yes. Grab the bags and let’s get out of here.”
The smell of blood could draw more monsters. We needed to leave quickly.
“Understood.”
Priest Daniel began hastily gathering the scattered packs and items.
I abandoned some of the less important things and focused on securing what truly mattered first.
“Let’s go.”
There were still a few items lying on the ground, but I left them. Priest Daniel looked reluctant to abandon them and started to pick them up.
“Just leave them.”
“Aren’t they valuable?”
“Our lives are more valuable.”
“That’s true.”
I had failed to recover about fifteen percent of what we’d gathered. It was a shame.
Still, we had made it safely out of the forest, so that was what counted… right?
“This is the Forest of Delusion, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“It really is dangerous.”
I couldn’t quite laugh at that. It seemed Priest Daniel had been underestimating the Forest of Delusion.
“It is.”
We were lucky the monsters that attacked us this time hadn’t been particularly strong…
“And they were monsters I’d never seen before, too.”
“Is that so?”
Well, I had read the monster encyclopedia, and I had never come across monkey-type monsters like these.
“Anyway, let’s head back.”
We had spent so much time wandering the forest and gathering materials that the sun was already setting.
“Yes. Please give me the bags.”
“Are you sure?”
He had just used a lot of strength fighting monsters. Was he really all right?
“Yes. If something this light exhausted me, I wouldn’t be fit to call myself a Holy Knight.”
Well… if he said so.
I handed every cumbersome pack over to him. Priest Daniel took them all without the slightest hint of complaint or fatigue, and I was able to walk back to the village feeling much lighter.
Was it because I had walked and moved so much? Or simply because I could finally relax?
The moment the village came into view, a wave of tiredness washed over me.
“You worked hard today.”
“Not at all. I was able to gain some valuable experience myself.”
I had no idea what part of it he considered valuable experience.
Anyway, once I got home I would sort the materials we had gathered and then get a good, long rest.