What If (1)
Unable to resist the Great Chieftain’s persuasion, I decided to stay until I found a plan to break the deadlock. Following the scheme he devised, I pretended to leave and settled into an uninhabited stretch of the forest.
“We have prepared a few things you may find useful while you remain here. If anything is lacking or inconvenient, please do not hesitate to speak.”
But… are you kidding me? You said you wouldn’t leave any evidence!
“This is not what we agreed.”
“Do not worry. These were all taken discreetly; no one will ever notice. Feel free to use them.”
What is he even saying? Things that are supposed to be there are missing—how is that supposed to go unnoticed? No matter how carefully you cover it up, the moment something is gone the chance of discovery is inevitable.
“I will not take them. Take them back.”
Right now the only people who know I exist are the Great Chieftain’s most trusted inner circle, but still. Aren’t these people being far too bold? Does it not even occur to them that my staying here at all is already a risk?
Wondering if I was the only one fretting this much, I exercised my right of refusal with my stomach twisting in frustration.
“But……”
“If this happens again, I will leave this place for good.”
“…Understood.”
Fortunately—if you could call it that—my counterpart yielded without further protest to my growl. Eight pupil-less eyes narrowed.
“Even if not everything, would you at least accept a portion? If the Mountain Lord and the Great Chieftain learn that everything was refused, they will both be distressed.”
No. Had he really yielded? Or had he planned to end up here from the start?
I weighed whether I should bat even this away, or whether I should accept at least this much because it was obvious Sangun would come whining about it. There was only one answer.
“…I will take only the food and the medicine.”
I would accept these. Having Sangun show up and fuss over why I hadn’t taken anything would be far too annoying.
“I do not need healing potions.”
“…Then.”
“…This will do.”
Besides, this acceptance included a sly calculation that consumables like food and medicine would be easier to hide the absence of.
And though I did not say it aloud, these two things were exactly what I needed most right now. Damn it—my pathetic fire-starting skills were one thing, but this forest had far too many bugs.
“Yes.”
Watching my counterpart suddenly beam, I could not hide the suspicion that I had just been played.
Still, I could hardly take back what I had already agreed to accept, so I simply took everything that was handed over one by one. My empty inventory filled again.
“Should any problem arise, call for us at any time.”
“Do not come looking for me again.”
I won’t call. Absolutely not.
Am I crazy enough to call?
Grumbling like that, I turned and walked away. I had deliberately chosen a meeting place some distance from the campsite, just in case.
For reference, the way we met was simple: one side left a note with the agreed date, the other read it and either waited that day or did not. Miss the timing and you simply do not meet. Just as I planned to do from now on.
Crunch.
Anyway.
Instead of soil, the bark of a tree I stepped on crumbled lightly. It was not that I had stepped especially hard; the trees around here were simply that ancient. With root diameters exceeding two meters, that said everything.
The problem was that in the course of growing however they pleased they had tangled and twisted into undulating ridges the height of a person. Add the springs and waterfalls flowing between the trunks and the slippery moss, and you understood why so few people ever came this way.
Honestly, the path was ridiculously treacherous. It was not a zone anyone would enter just to gather herbs or mushrooms.
“Hoo.”
Of course, that was also exactly why it could serve as a refuge.
Giving thanks for the brutal terrain, I stopped in front of a rotten tree. The giant was so massive that twenty full-grown adults standing in a circle might just barely reach around it; for some reason its trunk had broken and was now rotting away.
Yet the true value of this rotten tree was not its majestic exterior. Inside, a cleverly placed gap led into a spacious cave.
“…I still don’t know how Sangun found this place.”
Praising the Mountain Lord who had arranged the location for me, I slipped into the tree. Every time my hand brushed the walls I felt soft moss and the tiny rivulets of water running through it.
“Home at last……”
And before long, when the dark passage was dyed blue, I let the tension drain out of me. The domain of glowing moss and luminous mushrooms overlapped the cave’s boundaries exactly. In other words, I had finally reached my hideout.
“Ah, I haven’t even done anything and I’m already exhausted.”
I muttered the line I always used whenever a deadline was crushing me. My legs, comically enough, were already carrying me steadily toward the bed I had prepared in one corner of the cave.
Well, “bed” was a stretch—it was just moss and leaves with a hide thrown over them—but in a place like this, that level of comfort already counted as luxury.
When I had pretended to leave, accepting the mountain of supplies the priests had packed for me without any shame had been the right call.
Rustle-rustle.
“…Ah.”
And picking up insect repellent today had been the right call as well.
I forced my tired body up and reached into my inventory. Stink bugs, weevils, earwigs, and cockroaches were one thing, but the horseflies, ticks, ants, and sand fleas were making life impossible.
Being glad this world had no mosquitoes had been premature.
“Die, you spawn of Satan.”
I shoved the insect-repellent herbs into the small fire I had managed to light—it had taken… a while.
Bugs, please give up on living with me. As if to prove my wish, smoke began to rise in lazy curls.
“Keh, pffah.”
Ugh, I was ready for it, but it was pretty spicy.
Instead of forcing myself to stay in character and suppress it, I coughed freely and waved my hands. Even though the cave was full of air holes—of course it was; this was not a stone cave but one formed by tree roots—the acrid haze was slow to clear.
I won’t actually suffocate like this, will I? With physiological tears beading in my eyes, I forced the fingers that wanted to scratch my leg to fold shut.
From experience I knew that as long as I did not touch it, the swelling and itch would vanish within an hour.
For the record, that was only possible because my recovery was good; it was not that the insects here were weak. After all, even when we were traveling the main roads the Inquisitor and Deathbringer had suffered plenty.
Right. One of them had no prevention skills against bugs, and the other lacked the power to heal a bite in one go, so every day had been war. Fed up with the sight, they had eventually compromised by lending each other their strengths, but……
“Mm.”
I swallowed a low hum at the memory that had floated up after so long. For something I had completely forgotten while drowning in my own circumstances, the weight of those recollections felt far too heavy now.
“…I wonder if they’re doing all right.”
I lay back on the bed and sank into thought.
What the four of them might be doing right about now. Whether they had taken a heavy shock upon learning I was gone. Whether they had decided to chase after me. And if so, what feelings formed the foundation of that decision… thoughts of that sort.
“With me gone, they really ought to get some meat in their diet.”
A little worry crept in as well.
If the Inquisitor and Deathbringer started fighting again, who would break it up? Who would handle DPS in the raids still to come? Would Berserk and Weapon Master’s damage be enough to cover? Or would they recruit Meister and somehow fill the gaps?
Worries of roughly that flavor.
“Ah, right. The Great Sage and Meister.”
In the process I also remembered things I had completely forgotten. Chief among them were Cheongsanho and Meister.
“I hope the two of them didn’t take any real damage……”
It was true they had helped me directly and indirectly, but I still hoped they had not suffered for it. Especially Meister.
He had helped me, yes, but whether that help had actually influenced the escape was ambiguous at best.
“…What the hell. I was already being plenty selfish.”
Even if they had fallen into hardship, there was nothing I could do. Further, the me of the past would have made the same choice even knowing they would take the hit.
Just like them, who—however they might feel about me—would ultimately put the greater cause before me. Yes. Just like someone who, in the end, had no choice but to put the greater cause first.
Because at the very end I, too, am someone who can only put myself first.
“……”
That fact did not suddenly fill me with self-loathing. Nor did the reverse leave me feeling bitter or resentful.
Of course not. Even between spouses or parents and children, people wrestle with the choice between a life’s goal and the person in front of them. Who was I, and who were they, to place another person higher? Especially when there was nothing particular between us to begin with.
“Ah.”
But.
But……
“Maybe I should have left an apology behind.”
Regret of the sort that whispered we had not been the kind of people who could part so coldly without a single word did surface.
It was not regret over ranking them low in priority or leaving without a moment’s hesitation. It was simply the regret of “I should have left at least one word,” nothing more.
Leaving that one thing behind would neither explain my actions nor lighten my guilt.
“……”
Damn it. I don’t know.
Thinking about it like this was not going to rewind time.
I chewed my lip for a long while, then let all the strength drain from my body. Growl. The stomach that had been so carefully fed these past few weeks announced the hour on schedule. My gloomy mood flipped straight into absurdity.
“Even at a moment like this the stomach still gets hungry… well, it did the same when my legs were shattered……”
Even so, I did not particularly want to eat. I knew that the times you least feel like eating are exactly when you should force yourself the most, and still I did not want to. I truly did not want to eat.
I simply closed my eyes.
Maybe because there was no hearth, it was a little cold.
“Inquisitor.”
In the Archmage’s view, hierarchy was rather important in any group living. Whether the group’s atmosphere was vertical or horizontal made no difference.
At the very least, the final decision-maker had to possess authority befitting the apex of that hierarchy. Without it, the group could not last long. That was the lesson her long experience had taught her.
“He did attach those conditions when he made the request… but what are your thoughts on the matter, Inquisitor?”
For that reason the Archmage carefully put the question to the one who had only just been granted a rest period. She knew the question would interrupt the youth’s respite, yet there was no other choice.
True, she was respected as an elder and granted the right to advise as a sage, but that hardly gave her the right to overstep her bounds with the other.
Choosing the companions was the leader’s role alone, and the heart of this party was the Hero alone. How could an Archmage who might counsel but could never captain the journey make such a decision on her own?
“Will you accept his request?”
Thus she forced an answer from the Inquisitor’s gaunt cheeks. “A moment, please. Give me time to think.” The sunken green eyes asked for a little more time.
Even after the Archmage had summarized as much as possible, the story that had grown rather long still seemed to be complicating her heart. Of course it would; the tale could hardly do otherwise.
“…The God granted me an oracle not long ago.”
“…Pardon?”
But this was a story she truly had not expected.
The Archmage flustered; the Inquisitor lowered her gaze. At that somehow vacant movement the Archmage’s voice, which had begun to rise, folded back down again.
“May I ask… what sort of oracle it was?”
“Go north and seek the answer, He said.”
“North……”
“And finally, the lost one… hmm. Send him back… was what He told me. Whether it is right to interpret it that way remains doubtful.”
If one received an oracle one was supposed to report it to the temple. Yet at the Inquisitor’s following words the Archmage reflexively thought of someone.
“Kill… save… depending on how you look at it, the meaning could be translated into either of those two words as well.”
Was this… an oracle aimed at someone they knew? Of course not a single related word appeared, and the odds were higher that it was not. Still.
“…It has been a long while since the God gave us such ambiguous words.”
Separately, this was the first oracle that required multiple words. The Archmage paid that fact considerable attention as well.
“Ordinarily an oracle, no matter how many words dressed it up, resolved into a single meaning once summarized……”
That was only natural: while oracles themselves were extremely rare, the oracles that did come down almost never left room for alternative interpretations. Whether announcing the demons’ invasion, expanding the nine Commandments into ten, or even selecting the Hero, it had always been so.
The God of this world did not enjoy having His will read in multiple ways.
“The ‘lost one’ mentioned earlier is also vague. Even the modifier ‘lost’ leaves far too much room for interpretation……”
That it split into three words of completely different meanings, and that you could not immediately tell who was meant just by hearing it, made this oracle truly exceptional.
The Archmage gripped her own chin at that fact. An untrimmed nail that had jutted out pressed into her cheek.
“Do you truly think so? The moment I heard the words you just told me, Archmage, I already sensed the identity of the target.”
Skin hidden beneath fur was scraped by the nail and a bead of blood quietly welled up.
“…Inquisitor.”
“Once matters here are settled I will head north. Daniel the Inquisitor’s joining us… is of no consequence. Simply make it clear that ensuring no trouble arises with the temple he belongs to is his own responsibility.”
“……”
The Archmage, listening to the Inquisitor’s dry voice, traced the cheek that had begun to sting. Could this still be turned around?
“I will report the oracle to the temple myself. Until then, please pretend you know nothing. If they hear of it they will certainly press us to leave at once.”
Could this still get better?
“…Understood.”
…Was she going to fail again?
In the end the Archmage left the place without managing to say another word.