The Wind Rides the Staff
On the way home after sparring, Eric wore the face of a man whose soul had left his body.
"If something hurts, say so. I'll call Blanc for you."
"Nothing hurts on the outside… It's just my heart…"
Wooden sword against live steel, and he still got wrecked. No wonder he's sulking.
"Still, other than when you panicked, you've improved a lot since the beginning. Your blade looked like it was carrying real weight."
"I can feel it myself. I can move the sword more naturally now."
"Sheesh… I can only imagine what you were like the very first time you picked one up…"
"Urgh… Don't tease me…"
"Not a chance. I'm going to tease you for the rest of your life, my disciple."
I was still needling Eric when it happened.
"Cawww!"
"Huh? Hugin?"
"Master, something must have happened."
"Let's hurry."
"Yes, sir!"
When Eric and I reached the house, the fence surrounding it had been smashed to pieces, and boulders were embedded in the outbuildings.
"What the hell…"
"Master! Look over here!"
"Haa… Yetis paid us a visit."
Along the side of the house lay yeti corpses split cleanly in half — Hugin's handiwork, by the look of it.
"Caw!"
"Hugin! You're not hurt anywhere?"
"Caw!"
Hugin confirmed he was fine, then scanned the yard for any further trouble.
"Master… it looks like way too many of them came."
"At a glance, maybe around ten… Hugin! Where's Hati?"
"Caw!! Caaaw!"
Went off to clean up the surroundings, huh…
At Hugin's request, we circled the forest looking for Hati. Everywhere we went, yeti corpses had been crushed by overwhelming force or left with clear bite marks.
"Hati's really strong, isn't he? How does something that small take down yetis like this…"
"Come to think of it, you've never seen Hati's true form."
"What is Hati's true form like…?"
"He's taller than I am."
"What?! A wolf bigger than a person… A Dire Wolf?! But right now Hati's only the size of a large dog, isn't he?"
"That's magic."
I showed him the earring I was wearing.
"Miniaturization magic. It shrinks the body while leaving the strength intact."
"Ah… I keep forgetting Master's a mage."
"I don't use magic much day to day, so that happens."
"Woof!! Woof!!!"
"Oh? Sounds like Hati's over that way."
"Let's go, Master."
We headed toward Hati's barking, and — wow.
"This many of them got this close?!"
"Master… it may no longer be safe to stay on this mountain."
More than thirty corpses lay strewn across the ground, and Hati was shaking the blood from his fur.
"Aigoo… Hati, you really worked hard. Thank you."
"Woof!!"
I praised him and checked him over, but he had no visible wounds.
Does this guy have some special ability like Hugin? Otherwise there's no way he could fight without taking a hit…
"Woof!! Woof!!!"
"Hm? You want me to return you to normal?"
From Hati's point of view, fighting in a reduced body had to feel incredibly awkward.
Since we were likely to keep clashing with yetis, I released the miniaturization spell — and he got even bigger?
"WOOF!!!!!"
"Whoa, Hati… that voice is too loud."
"Whoa… he really is a Dire Wolf…"
Hati slathered my face with hot, sloppy licks until I was covered in drool.
"Urgh… Hati, hold on a second…"
Lick lick lick.
"Woof!!"
Hati used to be so tiny as a pup… Seeing him this huge is honestly moving…
At this size, he was big enough for Eric and me to ride. Maybe…?
"Hati, can you carry Eric and me?"
"Huh?! I get to ride too?"
"If this guy lets you."
Hati lowered himself beside us as if to say it was no problem, and we climbed onto his back.
"Whoa… the view is about the same as riding a horse."
"The ride quality's pretty good too… Maybe I should make a saddle later? For now, take us home, Hati."
"Woof!!"
Thanks to Hati's incredible speed, we reached the house in no time.
"Good work, Hati."
"Woof!!"
"Uuuugh…"
"Eric?"
"My head's spinning…"
"At least we got here fast. Go lie down over there."
Eric slid off Hati, staggered a few steps, and sprawled out on the ground.
"Woof!!! Lick lick lick lick"
"Urgh… Hati… p-please stop…"
Leaving the two of them to play, I inspected the house and the storage sheds.
Haa… The food storehouse and the house itself are fine, but everything else is wrecked…
Especially the fur shed and the lumber shed — pull those embedded boulders out and the whole things will collapse…
What am I supposed to do about this…
No — at least the house is intact! That's something!
I worked so hard building this beautiful cabin. If it had come down, I really would have cried.
"It's a relief the house is fine… Hugin, without you we would've been sleeping outdoors in this weather. Thank you."
"Caw!!"
We set about cleaning up the ruined homestead.
"M-Master… the smell is really foul…"
"Hati took one look at us starting the fire and ran for it. Now I know why… If we'd burned them in the yard, we'd have been in real trouble."
We gathered the yeti corpses far from the house and burned them — and the stench was something else.
I was just thinking that if we'd done it in the yard we wouldn't have slept for days when we noticed something strange.
"Master. There aren't even any bones left. Did you use magic?"
"No… this is…"
Flesh and bone reduced to nothing but ash?
Then Grandfather Deprim's words from the lake came back to me.
'Haren, have you ever slain creatures created by demons?'
'I killed a two-legged tentacle monster. They said it was a demon called a Propagator.'
'I see. And how did you dispose of the remains?'
'At the time… we burned them all, and they turned to ash.'
'Well handled. Beings that do not belong to this world slowly crumble to powder after death, and even that powder eventually vanishes.'
'Then there's no need to burn them, is there?'
'Leaving them as they are is unsightly, so we burn them to hasten their disappearance. And those minions have a certain characteristic.'
'What kind of characteristic?'
'Some are bound to a demon and vanish when the demon dies. Others can continue to exist even after their demon is gone.'
'Then the Propagators would be the latter.'
Going by Grandfather Deprim's words, these things…
They weren't native life forms of this world. They were minions created by a demon.
When I shared this with Eric, his expression grew grave.
"So these things are minions created by demons…"
"Yeah. We should prepare for the worst. First, let's finish cleaning up the house."
"Yes, Master."
We returned to the house and finished the cleanup as the sky grew darker and night settled in.
"Eric, time to rest."
"What?! This many yetis already came looking for us!"
"Even so, you need rest. Stamina isn't infinite."
A little later, with the uneasy knowledge that yetis had attacked still clinging to us, we were just about to sleep off our exhaustion when—
"!!!!"
A gaze thick with murderous intent pressed in from outside…
Hati was barking outside the house. The yetis were back.
"Grrrrr!! Woof!!! Woof!!!"
"Eric!!!! Eric!!! Get up right now!!"
"Nnngh… Master… wha—"
BOOM!!!
"Urgh! What was that?!"
I checked where the sound had come from… a-a boulder in the wall?!
"My house!!!"
In the end… the house was ruined.
"Uh… um… Master?"
"What?"
"Your face… is kind of terrifying…"
Eric had gone pale looking at me. Just what kind of expression am I making right now?
Anyway, I grabbed the wooden sword by the bed and stepped outside — and there were an enormous number of yetis waiting.
"Kik?!"
"Haa… So you were the ones throwing rocks at my house?"
"Ki… kiik?" "Kkik…" "K-kruk…"
Perhaps they felt my killing intent. The yetis slowly backed away.
At that, I wound wind around my wooden sword and swept it horizontally.
Slash-slash-slash-slash-slash!!!
"Kik..!!!" "K-ruk…" "Kiek…" "Kk…."
In an instant, the entire front rank was wiped out.
"If you rang the doorbell, you should come inside."
Eric has Hati and Hugin, so he'll be fine. Time to dance properly with this blade.
A short while later…
I swung the wooden sword like a madman, using every technique I knew. When I came back to myself, I was standing in the middle of more than a hundred yeti corpses.
"Master!! Are you all ri— huff!"
Eric and the others took one look at my blood-soaked figure and the mountain of corpses and became models of polite, respectful behavior.
"What?"
"P-please go rest inside first! I'll clean this up!"
"There's a hole in the house. How am I supposed to rest?"
"Th-that is true."
"Hugin!"
"C-caw…"
"Hey… why are you acting like that? Do you know where these things are coming from?"
"Caw!"
"Hugin, I'm counting on you. Eric, put on your gear, grab a wooden staff about my size, and come this way. Hati, stick with Eric."
"Yes, sir!!" "Whine…"
Seeing them so polite and well-behaved… maybe showing my temper once in a while isn't such a bad idea.
"Blanc…"
"Pong!!"
After putting the others to work, I called Blanc. This one was just happy no matter what state I was in…
With Blanc's power, I stripped the frozen blood from my body and blew the moisture away. Once I was soft and clean again, my mood settled a little.
"Let's clean up for now… Blanc, can you help me with the blood clots around here?"
"Pong!"
"Cawwww!"
"Hm? It's barely been any time at all — that fast?"
Just as Blanc and I were about to clear the yeti corpses, Hugin's cry rang out from the sky.
A little later, Hugin settled on my shoulder, and Eric and Hati came over to talk.
"According to Hugin, past five peaks, yetis are pouring out of a large cave near the mountain."
"Master… isn't that too far?"
"On the ground, sure. Not through the sky."
"Pardon?"
"Hugin? You can carry someone my size, right?"
"Caww!"
"Good. Then I'll go wipe them out myself. Before that… let's see your skills, Eric."
"M-me, to that place?!"
"No, I'm not taking you there. But you do need a rematch against the yetis."
"!!!!"
"You can do it, right? Five yetis are heading this way right now."
"I'll do it!!!"
"Hoo…"
Five yetis arriving any moment now…
I was tense, but thinking of this as a chance to prove everything I'd trained for sent strength surging through my body.
This would be different from the ambush on the road.
"Kiik!!!" "Kiriik!!"
The yetis approached with those bizarre cries.
Their coordination, however, left much to be desired — they weren't sticking together, and one had drifted apart from the pack.
I closed in on the isolated yeti.
"Kiiiiiriik!!!!!"
Spotting me, it turned and screeched toward its companions.
I charged the yeti that had looked back, taking the Ox stance — high thrust.
It registered me closing the distance, but too late. My blade punched through its throat, and blood sprayed.
"Krrrruk…"
I recovered the sword in a flash and shifted left from the direction the yetis had come.
I kept Master's teachings.
First: when facing multiple enemies, never stay in the same spot.
Second: disrupt the enemy group's path of movement.
Third: in a multi-enemy fight, two at once is acceptable — never let it become more than that.
Master's teachings proved exact.
Moments later, four yetis came into view, but I had already moved aside. Confused, they looked around without finding me.
Slash!!!
"Kik…." "Kik?!"
I closed on a yeti still peering around, killed it with a sudden strike, then spun and cut the throat of the startled one beside it.
"Krruk…"
Two yetis collapsed, spraying blood.
In an instant, five-to-one had become two-to-one.
The best defense is a good offense — so I kept pressing forward!
A yeti swung its fist at me as I closed in. I pulled one foot back and slipped past it.
"Ki?!"
Slash!!
I severed the extended arm, then shoulder-checked the yeti behind it.
"Kruk?!"
It never expected a body slam. Its stance collapsed, and when I cut through the back of its knee, it writhed in agony and crawled across the ground.
"Kkik… k…" "Kiiingh…"
I finished the two half-crippled yetis with my sword. They fell.
"Hoo…"
I flicked the blood from the blade and walked slowly forward, then dropped to one knee before the corpses and closed my eyes.
"Hoo… I claim your lives as my own."
Clap clap clap clap
Sudden applause…?!
I spun around in a panic to find Master standing behind me, smiling.
"That was truly perfect, Eric! The last line was a bit much, but… still."
"N-no, Master, that was…"
"I claim your lives…"
"Aaaagh!!! Please don't imitate me!!!"
Leaving the mortified Eric behind, I called Hugin.
"Caw!"
"Right. I'm counting on you."
A long wooden staff should be weapon enough.
I took hold of Hugin's feet and we rose into the sky. Looking down from that vast expanse, the land below was beautiful.
"Hugin, have you been looking at scenery like this all by yourself?"
"Caww!"
"Yeah… it really is beautiful…"
Looking at this watercolor painting of a view makes me want to develop a flying spell of my own…
Before long, we arrived at the place Hugin had found.
"Hugin… is that it?"
"Caw!"
Light spilled from a large cave as yetis poured out in a continuous line.
"There really are a lot of them… Hugin, drop me over there."
"Caw!!"
"It's fine. I'll cushion the impact with wind."
Looking down from above the cave, I felt a distinct presence of mana.
"That is…."
A yeti twice the size of the others stood wearing a crown of ice.
Cold mana was pouring from that ice crown — that had to be why the yetis were being born.
"Hugin!! Now!!"
"Caww!"
I released Hugin's feet and fell from the sky.
In that instant, wind rushed beneath me, gathering and thickening into a massive cushion.
BOOM!!!!
"Kirik!!!" "Kiiiik!!" "Keruk?!"
I landed on the earth without a scratch.
The startled yeti horde charged the moment they saw me — but they couldn't approach. I had already layered dozens of Ice Shields.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Boom! Thud! Boom! Boom!
"Kirik??" "Kiik!!" "Kiiing?!"
As the yetis hammered on the transparent ice walls, it was time to show them the fruits of my training.
Stars descended upon my staff.
After a deep breath, I set a mass of wind beneath my feet and drove down a fierce Jin-gak.
BOOM!!
A storm of wind erupted from under my soles, then coiled into a single band that circled my body.
BOOM!!!!!
The wind from the second Jin-gak flowed along the staff.
BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!
With the third Jin-gak, the band of wind around my body and the band along the wooden staff overlapped and fused into a single line.
"Farewell."
I whispered and snapped the staff forward.
The storm that burst from the staff became one colossal shell of force that tore the earth apart.
And in front of me, there was nothing left at all.