The Recluse Menace (3)
“This is really delicious!”
Aria said as she ate the food laid out on the table.
It was Mars’s dinner.
Made with stream trout and wild greens that grew only in the valleys of the Grendel Mountains, it was the sort of delicacy you’d be hard-pressed to find even in a top-class hotel.
“Eat up. The spread’s nothing special, but still.”
Mars, the tombkeeper, was actually a highly skilled cook.
He’d spent years studying cooking for the sake of his daughter, who had to live alone in the mountains for centuries.
His skill had already reached a level beyond first-rate, to the point where you could say it went even beyond the Heavenly Demon State he had once pursued in his youth.
Not bad, actually...
Even Sian thought it was surprisingly decent.
Sian was a demon.
And demons didn’t ordinarily eat human food, which meant they couldn’t properly taste it; even when they did eat, most things felt like chewing on old cardboard.
She didn’t know whether all demons were like that, but at least the food she’d eaten here had only managed to feel “warm.”
...Is this spiciness?
Mars’s cooking had taste.
Quite a few different kinds of taste, in fact.
“Oh, this is good too—”
-WHACK!
“Gah?!”
“What’re you picking at so slowly? Hurry up and eat!”
“Why are you taking it out on me?! They say you don’t even kick a dog while it’s eating, so why me?!”
Thanks to that, there was a bit of a ruckus, but the meal went on anyway.
What’s more, while most of the food in this world was flour-based, Mars cooked in an East Asian style, which made it feel nostalgic, too....
It seemed the base cuisine was beastman food, but since Sian had studied the beastman kingdom in advance, it was still something of a fresh experience in this world.
“By the way, isn’t that girl eating? I mean... Mars’s daughter?”
Halfway through the meal, Aria asked the question.
Come to think of it, there was a spoon and chopsticks on one side of the table, presumably belonging to the recluse—Mares.
But she still hadn’t shown herself.
Judging by Mars’s reaction, it seemed like she usually ate here, but for some reason today she didn’t seem to be eating at all.
“Well, maybe she’s shy because we’ve got guests. Or maybe she feels bad about what she did...”
“Ah, yeah. That makes sense.”
“Did something happen while I was gone?”
If they were going to guess at the reason, there was one thing they could point to.
The mess that had broken out in the bathhouse a few hours earlier.
When Sian had finally decided she couldn’t stand the sight of it anymore and stepped out for a walk, that was when it happened. Apart from the very first hole that had been punched into the Grendel Mountains, the two holes made after that had both come from fists thrown at Rain.
[“Um... are you all right?”]
Rain had manners fit for a gentleman.
So when he saw a woman crouched there, crying—familiar somehow, yet strangely different—he couldn’t just keep watching, and cautiously spoke to her.
[“Eek?!”]
-BOOM! BANG!
[“G-gahhh...!!!”]
As a result, the first form of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art, Fist, was thrown at Rain twice.
The startled recluse—no, Mares—had driven her fists into him twice, and if a tentacle hadn’t snatched Rain up and yanked him aside, he might have died right there.
The recluse was the sort who only half-killed people—just enough that they wouldn’t die—and then chased them away.
But Mares, back then, had launched fists purely to protect herself, so there’d been no restraint at all.
In other words, he’d nearly crossed the River Styx twice.
“...Haha, th-there’s no need to feel that sorry about it.”
Rain said with a bitter smile.
To be honest, even now, just remembering it made his blood run cold, but Mares had screamed and run off before he could say much of anything, so they’d ended things without exchanging many words.
Still, the more he thought about it now, the more unpleasant memories came back. Specifically, the memory of when the adventurers had gone together to subjugate the Grendel Mountains’ recluse.
After seeing that woman, Rain had thought of the recluse and wondered if they might be the same person.
But in both personality and appearance, that woman was clearly not the recluse.
If he had to find the person most similar to that recluse, though...
“What do you think? She’s more useful than you expected, right?”
It would be Sian there.
Hearing about what had happened while she was away, Sian looked rather pleased that she’d gone ahead and forced the adventuring party to share her tentacles.
Maybe if you ignored the difference in those giant breasts, she really could be called another recluse.
“I guess so... though she’s a little creepy, so there’s that.”
-Sluuurp.
And as they said, pets take after their owners.
Before long, a small tentacle climbed up onto Rain’s shoulder and wriggled there as if making an ahem! gesture.
In contrast, Aria’s tentacle, wearing a dress(?), was sniffling gloomily just like Mares, while Thomas’s tentacle was quietly eating its meal.
He didn’t know whether tentacles needed to eat, but since even Sian, a demon, was doing it, it wasn’t that strange a sight.
“...Anyway, I’ll have to bring the girl’s portion separately. Looks like she has no intention of coming out. I’ll be back in a bit.”
With that, Mars headed off to the kitchen to prepare his daughter’s meal separately.
He really did seem to care for her with extraordinary devotion.
Not only had he spent centuries taking care of his daughter, but even after death he’d remained here as a ghost and stayed by her side.
...But how is he moving around so normally if he’s a ghost?
Looking at Mars, Sian felt puzzled.
Mars had definitely said he’d died a few years ago.
Though he was currently in a ghost’s body, he was hardly any different from a living person.
He probably wasn’t some ordinary undead, then.
Undead or ghost-type monsters couldn’t walk under the sun, but Mars roamed around just fine.
And ghosts were supposed to be intangible, yet he’d just whacked Rain over the head with a staff, and now he cooked perfectly well too.
I’d like to know how he does it.
Magic that could manipulate the dead would be useful.
Unfortunately, Sian hadn’t learned necromantic magic, so she couldn’t use it.
In fact, she’d tried to learn it once before, but the peculiar revulsion that came with dealing with the dead had bothered her so much that she’d never looked into it again after that.
Still, Mars gave off no trace of death’s aura, so if it was a method that produced results like that, it seemed worth trying.
If she could bring the dead back like that, there was one “character” in Sian’s mind she’d immediately think of.
“Hmm, interesting.”
“What’s so interesting?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing you need to worry about.”
Sian shook her head at Aria’s question.
-Rustle.
“I’m going outside for a bit.”
And then she got up from the meal.
Where she was headed wasn’t clear, but Sian merely rolled her neck lightly and started walking.
-THUD!
<~Danger Stage~ Beastman Kingdom, Sabna Plain Area>
There were a tremendous number of beastmen gathered there.
More than ten thousand, to be exact.
And every single one of them was an elite—seasoned mercenaries and adventurers alike.
Why they had gathered there was unclear.
But one thing was certain: if a third party were to look at those beastmen, they would seem like berserkers.
Like hungry beasts roaming the plains.
Sharp fangs, coarse manes bristling out in wild tangles.
Already, there was no trace of “humanity” left in them; at present, they maintained the form of wild beasts.
-THUD! THUD! THUD!
The moon rose in the night sky. Come to think of it, tonight was practically a full moon.
And on nights when the full moon shone, beastmen’s instincts grew exceptionally strong.
So what, exactly, was their purpose?
Late at night, the elite forces of the beastman kingdom had assembled in the royal palace.
The world called them a “subjugation force,” and the beastman kingdom’s subjugation forces were especially famous for being rough and savage.
The reason they had gathered here was simple.
-KOOOOM.
The king had ordered it.
The king of the beastmen, Nemea.
He had issued the command to execute the “traitor” of the beastmen race, the one who had betrayed their people and stood on the side of humans for more than several centuries.
And so the beastman kingdom’s massive subjugation army had come together.
-CRACKLE!
Black magical power enveloped the subjugation force.
That power strengthened the beastmen.
It was a powerful enhancement spell, and a powerful brainwashing spell.
As a result, they knew no fear and no terror. In other words, a literal army of berserkers, one that had transcended the limits of emotion in living beings, had been created.
-CRACK.
“Hoo, this should be enough to deal with that monster, right?”
Then a demon appeared above the berserk beastmen.
With pure white horns and black hair, a beautiful woman looked down at the army.
To create this subjugation force, she had gone to bed with that beastlike king hundreds of times.
She had thrown her body into seducing him, all to make these berserkers, and so her shoulders were stiff, her insides tingling and throbbing with pain.
She didn’t even know how many times she’d lost consciousness.
To think she’d been copulating like mad with that beast—if she hadn’t been a demon with a strong body, she might have died long ago.
Still, thanks to that, she’d recovered a great deal of her magic power, and she’d also managed to create an army to take care of that “recluse,” so it was fine.
You could say she was quite satisfied.
“Hoo, once I take care of that bastard, I’ll be able to get the legacy Crecia left behind...”
The demon smiled with satisfaction as she looked at the beastman warriors.
[“You filthy whore... and you dare set foot on this sacred land...!”]
“Ugh, that muscle-brained bastard...”
Even now, just thinking about it sent a chill down her spine.
She had only approached the portal, and yet out of nowhere he’d appeared and beaten her to within an inch of her life—that rude beastman.
At first, she’d gone there without knowing a thing and gotten thoroughly smashed, but numbers beat everything in the end, and if she used this many people to take down that recluse, it would be over quickly.
“Ahem! Anyway, everyone, stand up!”
It was time to begin her revenge.
And the timing was perfect: it was the night of a full moon, when beastmen were at their strongest. At this level, each one of them had power no less than that of a demonkin.
“Our target is the Grendel Mountains’ recluse! Tonight, you will tear that recluse limb from limb...!”