To a Distant Land (10)
“...Is that true?”
“Yes. Fortunately, thanks to the barrier, they don't seem able to find this location... but it appears they followed the envoy's trail.”
“...Unnecessarily sharp bastards.”
“We've had the hunters erase most of the traces, so they won't find us quickly.”
The scent of a quest was one thing, but failing to grasp the situation was another. Judging by the Archmage's grave expression, something had clearly blown up in spectacular fashion.
“Is it impossible to send the warriors out to deal with them?”
“Their numbers are great. If we aim not merely to drive them off but to wipe them out entirely, we would have to commit most of the village's warriors.”
“...Our guest here is the chieftain of Bigabol. If we draw out most of the warriors, he will surely notice. We must ensure he remains unaware of this.”
“Then what are we to do...?”
“Does the chieftain know of this matter?”
“As he is currently conversing with the guests, I am reporting first to the High Priestess.”
“I see. I shall inform the chieftain myself. Gather the hunters within the village. Summon the warriors only to the degree that the guest will not notice.”
“Yes!”
Ah, whatever. Hehe. They would explain once the conversation ended, so I might as well enjoy myself for now.
I sipped my tea with studied nonchalance. Whether it was the fragrance or the flavor, it was delicious either way. If they offered to share some, I would gladly take it.
“Jatav, is it. It seems no small trouble has arisen.”
As the second cup of tea neared empty, the Archmage whispered softly. Naturally, an unfamiliar proper noun—it did not seem a verb—emerged.
“The Jatav are a tribe as mighty as Bigabol. They are also the tribe that has produced the greatest number of Great Chieftains. As I understand it, the reclusive nature of the Great Forest's peoples stems from them.”
It was a true blessing that the Archmage always appended explanations. I sat blankly, not daring even to request a refill, as I jammed the foundational knowledge into my brain.
“Yet for them to be discovered near the settlement at this precise moment... Whether they seek to diminish our strength or to obstruct the alliance, they are clearly conscious of Katina.”
So whether they had caught on or not, they were exercising force to interfere... right? The power struggles here were cutthroat.
“I should have left the village earlier after all.”
I agreed with that sentiment. I held no regrets over saving those people, yet the cleanup was far too bothersome. It was not that I felt no pity for them, but neither did I wish to insert myself into another's struggle for power.
“However, the greatest problem is...”
“...?”
I returned the Archmage's fixed stare with a blank look of my own, utterly at a loss.
What? Why? What did I do? Don't hold saving people against me. Don't hold saving people against me!
“Drink some more.”
Oh. My thanks.
I accepted another pour of the tea I had been too self-conscious to take myself and drank. Delicious.
“Guests from beyond.”
At that moment the High Priestess, who had been deep in conversation with the outsider, turned toward us. A quest had arrived. Having lived through this far too often, I awaited her words with a thoroughly unmoved heart.
“Please... help us.”
An earnest yet unbowed request spilled forth along with the High Priestess's bent waist.
“I understand your feelings, yet that is impossible.”
“I know it is a shameless plea. But Warrior who slew the Green River—your strength is desperately needed.”
“We are outsiders. If outsiders meddle in Katina, what manner of talk will that invite?”
Mercifully, the Archmage fielded every blow. The High Priestess's lips were ground between white teeth. I chose to believe it sprang from anxiety rather than irritation at us.
“That is...”
“High Priestess! The Jatav bastards have mobilized the Jahukaya!”
Another figure burst in shouting. The High Priestess's yellow skin blanched as pale as steamed white rice cake.
“Snakes that devour light...?”
The Archmage's expression grew subtle as well. It was not the face of one hearing something dangerous, but rather the look of someone thinking, What is that? So even this fellow had gaps in his knowledge.
“I shall go ahead. Forget my request and rest at ease here. Makaka, remain and attend to the guests.”
The High Priestess hurried out with the hunters. The girl who had been assisting her floundered helplessly before the teacups spread before us and the bundle of tea leaves set in the corner.
“Sh-shall I pour more tea?”
You knew how to speak this tongue as well?
“What is a Jahukaya?”
As I received another pour of the tea that had dwindled by half, the Archmage asked. The girl rounded her eyes and scratched her head with her remaining hand.
“I-I'm not well versed in this language.”
“This tongue is fine as well.”
“Then I shall explain. Jahukaya are snakes, just as the name implies. They eat light.”
“Light? You mean they sustain themselves through something akin to photosynthesis?”
“No, not that sort of light...”
The girl spread her remaining hand wide and laid her palm level with the earth. In a moment a shimmer of light sparkled above it.
“This kind of light—that is, they eat mana.”
The Archmage shot to his feet.
“Demon Knight, we must catch them!”
What was he on about after whispering among themselves in a language only they knew. That man seemed to think I was a polyglot like himself. I was not.
As I understood it, the Jatav bastards were breeding snakes that ate mana.
It was not an ancient practice—only a few months old—and how they had come to raise such creatures remained a mystery, yet from our perspective it was a windfall.
We had found a substitute for the snake we had killed.
“Catch one—no, five of them.”
Excuse me. After one, the next number is usually two, is it not? Inflating it fivefold just like that?
Even as the thought crossed my mind, I wondered whether this was right.
After declaring we would not meddle in power struggles, was it proper to sneak off and snatch mana-eating snakes? And to assign the task not to Dev, specialist in ambush and theft, but to me, whose specialty was frontal assault?
“I am told the Jatav treasure their Jahukaya greatly. Miss this chance and we may have to march all the way to the Jatav heartland.”
Yet I was not ignorant of why the Archmage was acting this way.
Solving things with my body was easier than joining conversations, after all.
In the end I shed my coat and accepted the leather poncho and hood Makaka—the girl the High Priestess had left behind—held out to me.
The difference in number of arms would inevitably reveal my race, yet there was no need to show my face as well.
Fearing I might be identified, I set down every weapon. The machete they provided here would be my sole armament. Unfamiliar in the hand, I doubted I would actually use the thing.
“Th-this is the High Priestess's clothing, so if you could treat it gently...”
Makaka, who had handed over the garments, pleaded with a face on the verge of tears. The High Priestess herself had offered them readily enough when told we would merely deal with the snakes.
Serving someone else apparently meant fretting over many things.
“I shall take care.”
If the child asked me to be careful, then careful I would be.
I passed the warriors waiting near the outer wall.
Their movements risked pinpointing the village's location, so they were bracing for the worst inside the barrier that concealed the settlement.
The hunters? I had heard they were slipping out by back paths. To serve as bait, apparently.
That too carried the risk of revealing their position, yet it could not be helped. Fixating only on the future and losing the present was the act of a fool.
“If you go out there the barrier will—!”
But that was their concern. I endlessly weighed what I could do, then reached a decision.
And when roughly ten meters remained to the boundary line, I poured strength into my legs.
Mana gathered in my limbs.
“What are you trying to—!”
Boom!
The earth trembled faintly as my body soared into the air. The dark poncho spread left and right like a hawk's wings.
“...!”
For reference, though it had only been a few days prior, the Archmage's special lecture on the differences between holy power and mana had given ideas to more than just the Inquisitor.
I too had gained quite a few insights. Not so much new applications as a realization of why the techniques I already possessed had taken the forms they did.
That did not make the knowledge meaningless. Once I properly understood it, crafting them became far easier.
“A black... trail through the air...”
Thanks to that, I could attempt things like this.
For instance, rather than merely coating my flesh in mana, wrapping spiral streams of it around myself as well?
“Hey, doesn't it sound like something's coming from over there?”
“Then Serhang's stronghold really is nearby—”
“What is that?!”
Whether this counted as a good application was doubtful. I did not think so.
Easier or not, a scale like this still demanded headache-inducing calculations, and since the mana was projected outward it did nothing for actual physical ability. In other words, boosting the body required still more mana.
Nor did the expended mana convert into equivalent offensive power. If the consumption matched Bombard while the force barely exceeded Stinger, that about covered it.
Even so... it was fine. I had gained a method of cladding not only the body but the space around it in mana as well.
I had yet to test its defensive performance, but I had created something that looked like a barrier. One usable offensively, at that.
Far better than the time I had tried before, failed—back then I had not known how hard it was to form a plane and had attempted it that way—and given up.
Once you could create something, room for improvement inevitably followed.
“S-snakes!”
Above all, this simply looked magnificent.
Jet-black energy not only cloaked my charging form but spiraled ahead into a sharp point while trailing long behind—how could that fail to be cool? On top of that, face and entire body were veiled by the mana.
“S-save me!”
“Uwaaaaah!”
Ah. At this rate, had there even been a need to change clothes? Hmm. Probably did not matter much. But speaking of clothes reminded me of something I had forgotten—ah!
I had forgotten to mention the sealing tool. I would bring it up again once I returned. This time I absolutely would not forget!
Yet even the sealing tool could only be discussed after the work was finished. I streaked between the warriors less than a hundred meters from the village.
The red mud smeared on them made identification easy; the moment I appeared they screamed and scattered in every direction.
I had no idea where those “Jahukaya” snakes were.
“Come back, shh! Shh-shh!”
Yet I located the Jahukaya surprisingly quickly. Even without knowing a Jahukaya's appearance, the handlers raising the snakes were easy to pick out.
Moreover, they were hurriedly retrieving the snakes in their haste to flee. I easily fixed their position and charged.
“Gyaaah!”
As I had said earlier, this technique's offensive power relative to mana spent was abysmal.
A direct hit shredded grass and slender twigs, yet against a tree trunk or a human body it merely carved a host of deep scratches. Deep and numerous scratches, admittedly, but still.
Rather than raw damage, the knockback—the force shoving things backward—seemed stronger. The handler went flying sideways.
The snake nearly went flying too, yet somehow I caught it. Its hide was rather... well, a bit tattered, but it was alive, so it should be fine? Haha.
I raced every which way with its neck clenched tight so it could not bite me. My hands being large in proportion to my height proved a true blessing. Two snakes fit in one hand.
“Retreat! I said retreat!”
“Black, black snakes. Black snakes...! Snakes that fly in like the wind!”
By the time I had seized four snakes in total and my mana had dwindled to less than a fifth remaining,
I dodged the dispersing Jatav warriors—I had deliberately herded them opposite the village and fretted whether that was too obvious—and sprinted toward empty ground.
A single burst of physical reinforcement sent my body leaping several meters; it traced a parabola and landed dozens of meters farther on.
The afterimage of the mana that had wrapped me lingered in the air like a long tail before vanishing.
Boom!
Of course that was not all.
Perhaps because I deliberately used Ground Crash upon landing. The earth bellowed and shuddered with a thunderous roar.
Nearby trees bent slightly, undergrowth was ripped apart, the ground split open—that sort of thing.
For the record, I had intentionally left these traces somewhat distant from where Serhang's stronghold had stood. So even if the Jatav warriors came to investigate later, that side should escape harm... right?
I had been careful not to leave traces at the departure point as well.
They would not go there, would they?
Well, the deed was already done. With thoughts of whether I had caused more damage than I prevented—though at least I had driven the warriors off without shedding blood—I returned.
Forest on every side made the path a little confusing, yet by using the traces of my rampage as a guide I could roughly tell the direction.
“Our benefactor...!”
That, and the fact that some of the village hunters and the High Priestess herself had come running out to meet me.
I tossed the snakes toward the Archmage, who had taken a position to one side.
Miraculously they had not fainted, yet the snakes staggered in a half-dead or dizzy state. With hunters nearby there was no chance of losing them.
“J-just now...”
Ah. Had I known it would turn out like this I would have gone without changing clothes. Pointless character-breaking.
“Just now, how in the world...”
With one hand I unfastened the button of the poncho's hood. Had it been a simple hole cut in the cloth rather than a button, removing it would have been difficult; being able to undo a button was fortunate indeed.
Whoosh.
Thanks to that I could shrug it off in this manner.
I returned the borrowed hood to the High Priestess and picked up the machete I had never even drawn. That too went sailing through the air to land in the hand of a hunter lined up elsewhere.
The blankly staring hunter flinched and clutched the machete. Had I not thrown it sheathed, he might have sliced his palm.
In any case, I made eye contact with the Archmage one last time and asked,
“Is it insufficient?”
“No, this will do.”
Good. Perfect down to the finishing touch.