A Sweet Proposal

"Ah, please, have a seat. Forgive the state of the place."

Cora said this as she laid Poro down on a poorly kept bed.

A chair in front of a table littered with slightly spoiled food. Dust had settled everywhere.

Outside the window, the beastmen—still unable to shake off their suspicion—were pressed flat against the glass, but the moment I looked their way, their heads vanished at remarkable speed.

"......"

Their bristled ears stayed upright, though.

"Could you tell me a little more about the illness?"

"...Before that, might I ask you one thing first?"

Cora's voice trembled as she asked. She seemed afraid of daring to ask a question at all—understandably so. To her, I was an intruder, and a lawless one who had knocked down the man who appeared to be one of the village's most important figures.

I smiled.

"If it's something I can answer."

"...Are you, by any chance, from the neighboring village?"

"No."

This village, and the village beside it. Whether there were more settlements in the forest I couldn't say, but given the way even the cutscenes pointed only at the neighboring village, that was probably all of them. From the beastmen's perspective, the other village would naturally be more suspect than the people they'd lived alongside all this time.

Cora nodded slowly after a beat of silence. She didn't trust me completely, but her wariness had eased at least somewhat.

"You all have quite varied tastes, I see."

"Pardon?"

"Never mind."

In the past, too, there had been plenty of people fond of beastmen. They were, after all, a union of beast and human from the start. That said, it was a bit of a stretch to think the beastmen's origins lay in some bond forged between animals and people. It made more sense to assume the species had simply sprung into existence out of nowhere—not a product of natural evolution, but something that appeared one day, poof. The Celestials and Demons, after all, had their own rootless legends claiming they were born from the primordial light and darkness.

"You asked about the illness, didn't you? It began about four months ago. Exactly ten days after we received Blue-Ring's oracle."

One day, the beastmen began collapsing. An illness with no warning signs and no cause. They developed trouble breathing, their bodies weakened, and those skilled with mana lost most of it. Beastmen were inherently blessed with vitality and regeneration, so they could offset the sickness to a degree—but it was only a matter of time. Once more than thirty percent of the beastmen fell ill, the already-thick suspicion curdled into distrust, and they threw themselves ever harder into hunting the culprit.

"...But the culprit was never found. Every single house in our village and the neighboring one was searched, and nothing turned up."

"Did you go to see the priest?"

"The day after the illness appeared. He wasn't in seclusion then, so I was able to meet him, but..."

"That is what he told us. And then he entered seclusion, declaring he would trust no one."

"...The priest."

"They seem fine in day-to-day life, though."

"Ah. Beastmen have high regeneration, so if they push the beast's power further, they can manage ordinary living. The problem is that their thinking gets rather... simpler."

But it's better than dying.

Hahaha. Cora laughed bitterly. Come to think of it, their behavior did lean more beast than human—not all of them, but some.

"Where can I find the priest?"

"...What the hell."

Yena opened her eyes.

She had been soaring through the sky on suspension when some sudden exertion of force dragged her off somewhere. Then she'd blacked out. When she came to, she was lying all alone in a place with no one around.

'It's been a while since an abnormal status hit me this hard.'

"Where even is this? Where'd Lily go?"

Ugh... Yena rose and scanned her surroundings. She was enclosed in a dome of blue leaves, in a space resembling something like a cave. Reaching into her subspace, she produced a single orb—a fire orb that glowed brightly and circled her, illuminating the area.

"Lily abandoned me?"

Lily had left me behind. A shock, to be sure—but not something I couldn't accept. Lily was the sort of person who went out of her way to look after people and repay their kindness, yet drew the line without hesitation when it was time to be cold. If anything, that was probably the single biggest reason for her popularity.

Yena examined the leaves through which the fire orb's light fell. Each one bore an intricate, unusual pattern, evenly engraved across its surface. An artificial pattern—nothing nature could ever produce on its own.

"This is..."

Like a magic circle.

"One of the constituent elements of Blue-Ring, yes."

"...!"

At the rumbling voice, Yena swiftly drew her twin daggers and whirled around, falling into a combat stance. Perhaps because her mana handling had grown so much sharper, her readiness was far quicker than before.

At the tail end of the voice stood a single bear beastman, middle-aged to look at him. A considerable quantity of mana radiated from around his body.

"Who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the hell are you?"

When Yena glared at him with startled eyes, the bear beastman bowed his head.

"I apologize for startling you. I am a humble creature who receives the oracle of Blue-Ring. The beastmen call me their 'priest.'"

"Ah, so you're the priest?"

"I am."

"I apologize for the necessity of bringing you here. There was a matter I wished to entrust to you, an outsider..."

"Where's Lily? Why just me?"

"The woman beside you... is someone even less suited to this than you are."

The one I need is a single person.

So saying, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠priest spread his hands wide. At once the space around Yena brightened, and what the darkness had been concealing was revealed: colossal leaves, formed like waves of blue water. The sheer grandeur of it—like the vast root system of some titanic tree—made every hair on Yena's body stand on end.

'This guy's stronger than I thought.'

She'd guessed he was at least the equivalent of a level 80 field boss, but he was beyond even that. Perhaps on par with a Low-grade World Boss. Yena quietly abandoned any thought of capturing the guardian spirit, just in case. A World Boss tier threat demanded something beyond a single guild—minimum, a guild 'alliance.' Last year, the Griffin had been taken down through the cooperation of twelve top-30 guilds, four nations excluding the Empire, and twenty-seven smaller organizations. The Griffin's Shield claimed at that time had gone to the guildmaster of 'Guardian,' the guild that racked up the most contribution points.

'That really was such bullshit...'

Yena, who hadn't been able to participate because of a dungeon and a pile of other scheduling conflicts, smacked her lips in regret.

"Lily's strong, though. She might be stronger than me?"

"You are free to your illusions, but you are, in fact, the stronger of the two."

"No, I'm serious."

Yena denied it vehemently, but the priest shook his head firmly. A small shard leapt from his palm—a fragment gleaming a blue deeper than any mana stone.

"Do you know what this is?"

"A mana stone shard?"

"No. This is a piece of Blue-Ring himself. The wicked have stolen its light for now, but once they are dealt with, the light will return."

"It's lost its light?"

It's sparkling right there, though?

"This is merely the color of the fragment. Its true radiance is already gone—unrecoverable as things stand."

"...Hmm. So you want me to find it?"

"No. I am hunting the culprit with my own power, and once the culprit is seized, the light will inevitably return. What I would ask of you is something else."

'...What?'

"A portion of the village has fallen to a wicked illness. The disease gnaws at the beastmen's bodies, but the greater problem is that the mere existence of the afflicted sends its influence creeping toward Blue-Ring and everyone else besides."

Gulp.

"I have no means whatsoever of dealing with them myself. And so, before the sickness spreads any further... I beg you—grant them their rest."