To Distant Lands (7)
One day into tracking the hatched demon.
They had tacitly settled the first and second watches for the night and claimed what rest they could. Fresh from sleep, the Archmage meant to take the second watch.
It would have gone smoothly enough, if only the Demon Knight had not immediately tried to set out the moment he confirmed she was awake.
"Please, just sleep!"
Hunting the demon was urgent, yes. But they had nearly caught up; rest took priority now. Facing a demon while exhausted was never going to end well.
So she pleaded, nearly begged, and finally managed to get the Demon Knight to close his eyes. Five full minutes of a battle of wills had won her that much.
"Tsk."
How could anyone be so stubborn?
She rubbed her brow and checked the insect-repelling herbs and the campfire. The herbs only needed a flame, so that was fine, but the fire—though he had clearly tended it—showed faint traces of clumsy handling.
Strange, given his long career as an adventurer.
And yet, watching him sleep without so much as a blanket made it feel entirely natural. He looked like the sort who could pass a winter without any fire's warmth at all.
"……."
Whether that was normal—well. Of course it wasn't.
Abandoning one's own safety to live only for a goal was hardly ordinary human behavior either.
A man who knowingly walked into ruin to destroy himself, and a woman who had known it all along and simply looked away—neither of them could claim to be whole.
"Revulsion… is it?"
For nearly the first time, she studied the young man carefully.
Not to gauge his danger, but to understand him as one person looking at another. That, at least, was new.
And at last she saw what she had missed.
The deep fatigue pooled beneath his eyes. The unusually dry lips. The way every scrap of skin was covered, as if he could not bear to show even a little. How young his sleeping face looked.
And the simple facts: that not long ago a Great Demon had swallowed him whole, and that before he could even gather himself he had been forced to face yet another.
…That one reads the past. Memories that could only be called nightmares. Keep it in mind.
She also recalled what the Demon Knight had said about the Great Demon of Sloth.
At the time she had been too focused on whether the seal was shaking, whether Sloth would attack again, to think deeply about the words.
But… but when she turned them over now, there was more to them than mere information. How else would the Demon Knight know something that appeared in no text?
In the end, the Demon Knight had probably… his own nightmares…
"Ha."
A calm demeanor was no proof he had not been wounded. Strength of body did not prove strength of heart.
And yet she had looked away all this time. The more she understood, the deeper the sigh that escaped her.
"You were an innocent victim as well."
Looking back, she had rarely treated the Demon Knight as a human being.
Only as a useful piece who, properly managed as a demon's vessel, could serve the party—and after he had lost control, as a time bomb that might go off at any moment.
That was separate from any consideration of character: whether his nature was fundamentally kind, or whether he was simply awkward at expressing it. Those thoughts had felt too rude to voice.
If she had truly regarded the Demon Knight as a person, she should have done something the moment she realized he treated himself like a cast-off shoe.
After he lost control, she should have checked first on the state of his body and mind, not merely fretted that the same thing might happen again.
She should have wondered first what he had felt when he faced a Great Demon…
"…I ought to thank White Wind."
Perhaps the thought that it's fine if he dies had been contagious.
If he died, the Great Demon died with him—so in a crisis that might even be more efficient. And since the man himself was already abusing himself, he would hardly complain if she failed to treat him humanely.
Just as she had come to loathe herself over the results of her research, it was acceptable to despise a man who carried a demon in a human body.
"To still be unable to find what is right at my age… how am I called a Great Sage…"
A truly foolish conclusion. The Demon Knight was already restraining himself enough, despising himself enough—what right did she have to heap more weight upon him?
She who had lived far longer than that child—how could she?
"…How does one even apologize?"
At least she had realized it early. If the word "early" even applied.
She sighed and turned the fire. She had recognized her mistake; now it was time to correct it. She doubted the Demon Knight would accept any apology, but still.
A flicker.
In that instant the sleeping Demon Knight's eyelids opened. Perhaps it was the bloodless skin, but it looked almost as if a corpse had opened its eyes.
"What is it?"
As the Demon Knight suddenly rose, the Archmage rose with him.
Slash!
Before she could get an answer, a black Chamgyeok carved through the forest.
"Why, what is wrong?"
The alarm magic had given no reaction. So why? However sensitive the Demon Knight might be, her barrier's radius was not exactly small.
"A pest."
Separate from her own failings, the Demon Knight's temperament was still not a gentle one.
Watching him bolt without a word of explanation, the Archmage felt a headache coming on. If only he would give her some kind of hint.
Had the Archmage's persuasion and the crushing wave of sleep simply overpowered me?
Some instinct caught a presence. Stealthy. Somewhat elongated.
I wanted to ignore it out of sheer exhaustion, but I couldn't. I forced my eyes open.
"What is it?"
How should I know. Something just felt wrong—what was I supposed to do about that.
I pressed a hand to my foggy head and gripped my sword. Ssshk. That faint presence brushed me again.
Slash!
Half-unconscious, I swung. A Chamgyeok flew.
"Why, what is wrong?"
A Chamgyeok never gave any satisfying feedback. But you could still tell whether the target was dead or not by whether the presence vanished…
"A pest."
Tch. Still moving. Not dead, then.
The presence that had raised every hair on my body still lingered, so I stepped forward.
Even then the desire to just lie back down kept clawing at me; I had to press my palm harder against my forehead.
Honestly. I was so, so, so sleepy. If I hadn't slept at all it might have been different, but dozing for a bit and waking up only made me feel more exhausted.
Rustle.
I planted my feet harder and forced my eyes wider, trying to stay ahead of the sleep that kept pouring over me. The edges of my vision stayed dark even with them open, but it was still better than keeping them shut.
"What on earth is out there…"
So what was the insolent thing that had interrupted my sleep. I followed the clear sword scar.
The twisted presence was pulling away as if fleeing, but it was still slower than my stride.
And it was even weaving in an S-shape.
Thud!
Got you, you snake bastard.
I hadn't advanced even seven meters before I drove the blade down. Only then did the snake—its mottled pattern so close to the underbrush that it had been nearly invisible—tremble.
Like an insect specimen pinned in place. Still alive, that was all.
"Wh-what in the…"
The Archmage, who had followed, recoiled in shock.
"…Hah."
The snake wasn't dead yet, but at least I no longer had to worry about it escaping.
I turned, gently stepped on the head of the snake that was still trying to bite me, and pressed hard at my temples. The snake hissed under my boot.
It barely registered.
What bothered me more was the Archmage's earlier claim that she would set the barrier at a twenty-meter radius before we slept.
Had I simply slept through the alarm? But the Archmage hadn't stayed still either, so that didn't fit.
"H-how did it pierce the magic…? No—before that, is this even a demon? Why can't I sense any demon energy…"
Right. From the way she was panicking, I could tell the alarm had never triggered at all. Fine.
I swallowed the irritation that swelled larger from lack of sleep.
Objectively I knew this wasn't the Archmage's fault—of course not. If it wasn't a mistake then it was deliberate, and at that point anger wouldn't even be the right response—and more critically, if I lost my temper the wrong way I might accidentally flip on the Rage skill.
"Disguising itself by converting demon energy into mana, perhaps…?"
And above all, I didn't even have the energy to get angry right now. I was sleepy. Could I just go back to sleep?
"Wait, wait. Do not kill it under any circumstances. To determine whether that hypothesis is true, we must take it alive and examine its abilities."
Ah. Right. I'd forgotten about killing it. Watching the Archmage work, this way seemed better anyway, so it didn't matter.
I watched her bind the snake in chains and rubbed my neck. A familiar tightness seemed to brush across my skin and pass.
"Thank you. Keep pressing it like that a moment longer."
I'd rather not. This was a quest to begin with. Wait—was it a quest?
The quest window was glitched out and not working, so it was hard to tell. Was this thing even the quest target?
"…There's a hole in the barrier. That's why it never activated. But how? How does one create a gap like this…"
Having finished restraining the snake, the Archmage swept her gaze over the barrier as well. What spilled out of her was something closer to lamenting shock.
"Good heavens. Not only the disguise—has it also gained the ability to devour existing mana…?"
That single line hit me like cold water and jolted me fully awake.
It eats… mana? Isn't that a little—no, a lot—dangerous?? Isn't that the kind of ability final bosses or near-final bosses are supposed to have??
Is a random mob allowed to have that??
"…Eats mana?"
I reflexively echoed part of the Archmage's words. For a second I worried I'd broken character, but the Archmage—too pressed to spare attention—let it pass without comment.
"I know it sounds absurd. But without something of the sort… a breach like this would be impossible."
She even answered kindly. As a complete layman when it came to magic I had no idea what "a breach like this" meant, but I understood well enough that this was unprecedented.
"We must return at once. This is not something we can bury out of concern for friction between the Magic Tower and the Temple. If this spreads, then…"
Yeah, yeah, of course. I stepped past the Archmage as she reached for the snake and picked up the tightly bound coil myself.
Sure, when I stood face-to-face with her my gaze only reached her jawline—she was that large—but as I'd said more than once, I was the warrior class and the younger one.
It would be better if I carried it rather than the Archmage. Probably.
"Thank you."
"Unnecessary."
Slightly off-topic, but why can't living things go into inventory. If they could, I could have stuffed it into either the bag inventory or the new one I'd just acquired and walked comfortably.
───!!
Then, for just a moment—
Just as I was about to pull ahead of the Archmage, a sound slammed into my ears. Something was clearly making a racket at a distance where I couldn't see it but could still hear it.
"What is it?"
The problem was that human screams were mixed into the noise.
"……."
Ah, I'm tired. I'm really tired.
But I can't just leave, can I?
Thud.
I tossed the coiled snake back down and ran toward the shouting. The Archmage made another suffering noise, but lives were on the line—I hoped she'd understand.
─Block it!
Adisa, dodge!
Just run…!
With every step the sounds drew closer and the cries grew clearer. The language was unintelligible, but the emergency was unmistakable.
No!
And when I reached the heart of the commotion, a massive snake that seemed to be the source of the chaos was about to swallow someone whole.
It was happening right in front of me.
"Out of the way."
…What.
Sorry. I don't have the strength to speak loudly.
I shoved aside the person who had been about to loose an arrow at the snake and planted myself in front of its maw. The person who had been about to be swallowed was shoved aside with me and toppled sideways.
Thud!
In that span I drove my sword into the snake's lower jaw to pin it and braced my hand against the upper jaw to keep it from closing. With people behind the snake, launching a Chamgyeok hadn't been an option.
Squelch!
But I was so sleepy I misjudged the angle. One of the snake's fangs punched through my right shoulder. Of the roughly thirty-centimeter fang, only five to eight centimeters went in, but still.
Y-you are…
The world spun a little. Even so—a hole in the shoulder in exchange for one life saved felt like a fair enough trade.
I put more strength into the hand bracing the upper jaw so the fang wouldn't sink deeper.
Then, instead of the two-hander still pinning the jaw, I drew the longsword at my hip and sliced the snake's upper jaw clean across.
Thanks to the way a snake's brain clusters near the mouth, that single cut killed it almost instantly. Being able to pull the fang free of my shoulder was a bonus.
Th-thank you!
The snake, in an instant…
So strong…
Whoa. The one I'd just caught earlier had already seemed big, but this one was on another level. Was this thing capable of eating an entire elephant?
I looked over the corpse of the snake I'd just killed and found myself admiring it for no real reason. Without exaggeration, coming face-to-face with a house-sized snake left me with nothing but pure astonishment—no room even for disgust.
Ah!
Then one of the people I'd saved came running toward me in a panic. Four pairs of eyes and three pairs of arms stood out. Everyone present seemed to be of the same race; those features were uniform.
Venom! Venom!
"……?"
More importantly, I had no idea what they were saying. Different language?
You have to get the venom out right now! Or you'll die!
…They looked urgent, at least. Hmm. One hand pointing at me, the others at my shoulder… ah, the wound? I'm fine…
Damn it, he's a foreigner—we can't communicate!
Wait. Don't tell me that snake was venomous.
Take your clothes off, hurry! We have to draw the blood!
I pieced the situation together from the clothes-off gestures. Yeah. That snake really had been venomous.
I'm screwed.
"……!"
And apparently a fast-acting venom at that. Before I could even react my head spun and my nose started gushing blood. Screwed.
N-no—!
Tilting vision was the last thing I saw before the film cut out.