To the Sacred Tree (2)
Swish, swish…
Every time Carlson swung his wooden staff, the undergrowth bent this way and that.
The path itself was well known, so this was a kind of preemptive threat-clearing — flushing out snakes or whatever else might be lurking in the brush before it could get a chance.
"This road is a real pain in the ass."
As Miscot grumbled, Yona nodded along — a rare instance of her actually agreeing with him.
The moment they'd entered the forest, the trees and undergrowth had closed in thick and heavy, at times growing as tall as a person and swallowing their field of view whole.
This really is dangerous terrain.
Still, with a few years of adventuring behind her, Yona rested a hand on Carlson's shoulder up ahead and walked close behind him.
Something could come charging out of the brush at any moment, and if Carlson took a hit from a surprise ambush, she needed to be right there to treat it fast. It was one of the basic postures of working as a Healer.
"So — is the Sacred Tree sacred because it's in a place like this, or is it in a place like this because it's the Sacred Tree?"
"We've still got another full day to go, you know? If it's already this miserable, what are we supposed to do for the rest of it?"
Miscot snapped back at Irene's grumbling like he'd been waiting for the chance.
So that bastard doesn't just run his mouth at me.
In a way, that was almost a relief. Watching Miscot in action, Yona found herself thinking it might have been better to have joined a different party back then.
But given that Mary had specifically picked this one out for her, well — the alternatives probably hadn't been any better.
Yona hadn't chosen her party herself.
The truth was that Healers were so scarce that plenty of parties were desperate for one — but the moment a Healer actually joined, they got worked to the bone, which made finding a party you actually liked a genuinely difficult proposition. It was just that kind of job.
So the approach she'd taken was to have Mary matchmake her into a party that was recruiting a Healer — one that already had its destination picked out and a decent structure in place around it.
That was the safer route.
From Mary's point of view, every Healer who didn't die was a win.
If a Healer like Yona — one who'd scraped and clawed her way to Bronze rank over three whole years — accepted an invitation from some random party and promptly dropped dead, that would be an enormous loss all around. So Mary naturally only steered her toward parties with proven competence.
"Ahh, we're about halfway there now."
Carlson tossed his wooden staff aside and stretched his back with a crack.
Partway through the forest there was a river, and along its banks the undergrowth thinned out considerably. That was the stretch the party had finally emerged into now.
"I was worried we might run into a snake. Thank goodness."
At Yona's murmur, Carlson broke into a grin.
"If a snake had shown up and bitten your junk, you'd have healed it, right? Kind of a shame, thinking about it that way."
"Cut the crap. I'd just amputate it. Why the hell would I touch something like that?"
"Aww, right — a guy can't exactly go around touching another guy's dick, can she?"
"Correct."
Why would I touch a man's dick anyway?
I'd sooner just lop the damn thing off.
Not that it mattered — a Healer of Yona's experience, three years in the field, could reattach a severed member and have it working again after some hands-on treatment.
Not that she had any intention of providing said treatment.
"So do you touch Alec's?"
"I said cut the crap, you bastard. Why would I touch Alec's?"
"Why not? He finishes too fast? Was he a quick shot or something?"
Yona delivered a solid, smacking kick to Miscot's backside for his one-liner of filth, then followed after Carlson.
The river was nothing large, but it flowed with a certain stately force.
The party, which had set out in the middle of the morning, was now well into late afternoon, and the river water glittered silver under the sun, which had swung well toward the west.
Now and then a fish leapt from the surface — a picture of peace at first glance. But once you knew those fish were man-eaters, it was rather hard to appreciate the scenery.
Anyone who falls in is getting eaten alive.
The forest was profoundly quiet.
Every so often a long, drawn-out wail drifted through the air — some magic beast murmuring in its sleep, perhaps — but it was the Heavenly God's hour now, when all beasts slept. No need to worry for the moment.
Even before falling into this godforsaken world, Yona had been fond of fantasy novels and webtoons.
One of the scenes that cropped up relentlessly in those stories was the campout — adventurers bedding down mid-journey — and now that she was doing it herself, she couldn't help but think: so those really were just works of fiction after all.
For a five-person party to sleep even remotely safely, a campsite couldn't be in the open.
It couldn't be anywhere exposed on multiple sides, either.
The best option was the base of a cliff, or behind a rock formation. At worst, they had to pitch camp behind a fallen ancient trunk.
Only a massive expedition that could post two or three watchmen at a time could afford an open campsite. In a party like this, one person always ended up standing watch alone, and unless a human had eyes in the back of their head, an open camp guaranteed blind spots.
An attack from an unseen angle meant the watch went down — and if the watch went down without so much as a squeak, the rest of the party, sleeping in blissful ignorance, got slaughtered to the last soul.
And so the party spread their bedrolls with their backs to a sizable boulder and built a campfire out front.
"Look at this junk, I swear. Henson said it was mid-grade jerky, but taste this garbage."
"Should've bought the premium stuff then. What's mid-grade even supposed to be? Barely a step above the cheap crap."
Judging by the sauce smeared on during drying, there really was a difference — the jerky Carlson was chewing gave off a reasonably decent smell.
The jerky in Yona's mouth, by contrast, tasted like a sewer.
"Ugh, damn it."
But she was hungry, so what was she going to do about it?
Skipping this meal would only make things worse.
"Well, at least with Irene around we don't have to worry about keeping the fire going. That's something."
"Hey, I'll have you know I'm a fire mage. You lot using a mage as a glorified matchstick — the audacity is yours."
"What's wrong with enjoying the perks of having a party member?"
As Yona snickered, Viola asked her a careful question. The way those long ears of hers perked up and swayed was genuinely fascinating.
"Yona… are you really from another world?"
Yona stopped mid-chew, frozen. Those golden eyes rolled slowly over to look at Viola.
"Yep. Really. The world I lived in wasn't this one."
"Oh, here we go again. Viola, you believe this stuff?"
Yona flung the heel of her jerky straight at Miscot. The bitter end of the strip wasn't worth eating anyway — worked out fine for both of them.
"Hey, you'd have to say something believable for anyone to believe it. A carriage that runs with no horse pulling it? Carriages flying through the air? A world packed full of buildings tall as the sky? Who's gonna buy that? I'll grant you've got a hell of an imagination."
Miscot had his own point, to be fair.
Yona's constant stories about her home world were, to them, absurd nonsense — pure fantasy.
The Imperial Palace itself couldn't climb past five stories, and no building in this world went beyond four. And a carriage was a carriage precisely because, by definition, horses pulled it.
But she kept spouting all this and insisting, dead serious, that it was true — so the members of the Adventurer's Guild had long since firmly concluded that Yona was a little unhinged.
"Ugh, believe whatever you want then. All right, I'm taking first watch. The rest of you sort yourselves out."
There were no formal rules for setting watch rotations. Every party hashed it out their own way — so Yona staked her claim immediately and settled herself up close to the campfire, radiating an air of having absolutely no intention of yielding it.
"Hey, then I'll take last—"
"Bastard — hey! Then I'm after Yona!"
"You're putting the women in the middle of the rotation? You serious right now?"
Listening to them squabble, Yona stared into the fire.
Damn it all.
My hometown. I miss it.
It was true that she'd been dirt poor back there — hadn't owned a damn thing. But if she could go back, she wanted to go back.
And if not that, then at the very least, she wanted her body to go back properly.
I want my old self back… the man I used to be.
"Yona. Wake up."
At the clear voice, Yona opened her eyes.
Viola's pretty face was looking down at her. Behind her, the morning light was glowing faintly gray-white — which meant, thankfully, that Viola had taken the last watch.
"Mgh… is it morning already?"
"It is. Time to get ready to move. I woke you first since you take the longest."
"Mm… thanks."
Yona rolled up her bedroll, stuffed it into her pack, and plopped down on the bare ground.
She'd never unwrapped her Holy Shroud in the first place, so there was nothing to rewrap — she just pulled the loosened knots tight again, and that was that.
Then she fished her comb out of her pack.
Her hair was so obstinately coarse that a single day without proper brushing sent it floating up around her head like a lion's mane.
"Ow! …Damn it."
Still a dog's pelt, this hair. It snagged the comb and yanked a strand or two loose every single time she brushed it — painful, and endlessly annoying.
By the time she was done, the others had all gotten up and readied themselves, and Yona finally rose, stretched her stiff, sleep-sore body in a long pull, and shouldered her pack.
"All right — if we head out now, we'll arrive around lunchtime. Tying the guardian ropes isn't anything difficult, so let's get it done quick and head back. We'll camp here again tonight, I'd say."
"Yeah, got it."
Yona hoisted the pack that had been sitting on the ground, tore open a pouch labeled breakfast, and bit into a hard, bread-like biscuit as she followed after Carlson.
"Here we are."
The Sacred Tree — so thick and tall that a dozen grown men would have to join hands to encircle it.
It served no particular function; it had simply lived so long that divinity had settled into it, or so the story went. Around it, guardian ropes had been woven tight to protect the tree.
They were man-made, of course, so wind and rain loosened them over time — and depending on how loose they got, a signal reached the temple, whose response was simple: go and tend to it. That was the entire commission.
The job itself wasn't difficult.
A quick task — ten minutes' work, honestly. The only burden was the long road out and back. Compared to most commissions, this was an easy one.
And yet — there was one variable.
Someone was lying collapsed at the base of the Sacred Tree.
"…Hey, isn't that a person? Yona, let's go."
Yona hurried over with Carlson at a run.