An Unexpected Encounter (2)
A troll.
A monster that towered over even a Lizardman in height and matched an Orc in sheer bulk.
Its strength was every bit as monstrous as its size, which was why the Adventurer's Guild flatly refused to let any single party accept a troll-slaying request. The troll's power was bad enough, but its regenerative abilities were absurdly overpowered — even a body severed cleanly at the waist could be slapped back together and live on. Unless you took its head off in a single stroke, wounding it to death was, for all practical purposes, impossible.
It was a carnivore, and a gluttonous one at that — the kind of monster that belonged deep in forests teeming with mountain beasts.
In other words, not the kind of thing that had any business showing up in a backwater village like this.
"That's a troll, isn't it?!"
Swinging a massive stone pillar like a weapon and smashing everything in sight, the troll let out a string of shrieking roars.
Looking down at it from the ridge of the hill, Yona's party couldn't bring themselves to move.
"There's no need to save them, Yona. Those people are none of our concern."
Kayak had a point. A troll was not an opponent you could take on casually, and even with four seasoned adventurers like them, no one could promise victory. They hadn't taken a request for it, and even if they won, there was nothing to gain.
"…But if we just walk away and it ravages this place, I won't sleep well either."
"…That's true."
True — and yet.
Yona couldn't quite bring herself to nod along to Kayak's logic. These people meant nothing to them, there was no reward for killing the troll, and one wrong step meant nothing but loss. Looked at coldly, there was no reason to get involved.
"Let's head back—"
Yona had meant to say let's circle around the mountain — none of this is our business. She wasn't overflowing with a sense of justice, nor was she so selfless that she'd risk her neck for strangers who were perfectly fine.
Yona, before you are an adventurer, you are a priestess. Being a healer does not make you any less a priestess. Keep a priestess's heart — one that pities others, that has compassion for humankind. Don't ever forget: you are a priestess.
It felt as if Sister Aize's voice was ringing in her ears.
And that voice was holding Yona's feet in place.
Just then, another thunderous crash split the air. The stone pillar slammed down into the ground.
"Big sis—!"
A child's scream, raw enough to tear something inside the ear. In the very moment Yona turned to leave, she saw it — a young girl shrieking like she was being ripped apart. Something bright red spilled out from beneath the pillar the troll had just brought down.
…Is this… is this really right?
Was turning her back the right thing to do? Walking away, calling it none of her business? Leaving like this — was that really the answer?
The troll slowly lifted the stone pillar again. Its mouth gaped wide open, filthy drool streaming down, lapping up the blood that ran along the pillar's surface — and its rolling, bloodshot eyes glared down at the girl.
The pillar rose, slow and steady, above its head.
Is this right?
Yona's golden eyes stared blankly at the scene below. The pillar climbed higher and higher, and there was no doubt in the world where it was aimed — straight at that girl.
"—Mister James!"
"Been waiting on it!"
An arrow tore from James's hand like a streak of light. The whistle of cleaved air chased right after the flying shaft, and at last it buried itself in the troll's skull, quivering.
"Yona, well done!"
Kayak roared the words and charged ahead first. Kicking up dust along the mountain path, he tore downhill toward the village.
"Good call, Yona. You made the right choice."
Alec gave her shoulder a couple of hearty thumps, then sprinted after him. Dust bloomed hazy into the air and settled almost instantly in his wake.
Yona watched them blankly for a moment — then, without quite realizing it, she let out a bark of her own.
"Hey — w-wait for me! How are you supposed to fight without a healer, you bastards?!"
And she pounded down the mountain path after them. Covering their charge as best it could, another arrow — unmistakably James's work — split the wind and flew for the troll again and again.
In a party facing monsters, the Guard's primary job was, at its core, to absorb the enemy's attacks. He stood at the front and took the hits so the warriors could focus entirely on dealing damage without worrying about what came at them — and the healer stayed glued to that guard, healing his wounds so he could keep taking hits without fear.
Now and then, a warrior's enthusiasm would run hot and he'd ignore all coordination with the guard, just raining down attacks. When that happened, the guard inevitably overextended — and the healer overextended right along with him.
Kayak had a bit of exactly that problem. Big frame, great strength, and dual one-handed axes besides — every single one of his swings carried enormous destructive power, but left gaps just as large. That meant Alec had to work that much harder, and Yona along with him.
When the physical mismatch was as extreme as it was with the troll's stone pillar, taking a direct hit would send the guard flying — so the trick was to deflect the swing off its trajectory or let it slide past. Which was anything but easy.
"Alec!"
At Kayak's shout, Alec drove in low with his shield leading, cutting into the space at Kayak's side. The pillar slid down the angled shield with a grinding shriek of stone and smashed into bare earth.
"You idiot!"
By the time Kayak had already repositioned for his next exchange, Yona saw Alec's shield arm go slack and limp — and her hands were already wrapping around it.
"Ghhaa—…!"
Alec bit through his lip to choke back the scream. The wrist was broken, no doubt about it, and Yona had grabbed it without a shred of mercy. The pain was beyond imagining.
"Alec!"
Kayak's roar rang out again.
"Watch before you move, you damn lizard!"
Yona finally shrieked it herself. Yes, Kayak was an exceptional warrior — but that was precisely the problem. His baseline was set far too high.
"Yona, enough. I just have to move more, that's all. Let's go."
Alec hefted his shield again and rose to his feet. Yona didn't say another word to him. She only glared at him with a face that was just slightly displeased.
The weight of that stone pillar defied imagination. Every time Alec swung the thing — clearly ripped from some collapsed ruin — a fresh wound opened up on him, and every time it did, Yona's hands grew that much busier.
"What do you think you're doing?! Get in here and fight, all of you!"
Even with Kayak fighting single-handedly, the villagers just stood in a ring around them, staring blankly. With Kayak as their only warrior, things were growing desperate — and since he was exactly the type not to care much about guarding, both Alec and Yona were wearing themselves down to nothing.
"Yona! Tell them to topple it! There's got to be rope somewhere!"
Kayak bellowed at the top of his lungs. Dodging the pillar wasn't so difficult — but the troll was a humanoid monster, which meant two arms, and in the gaps between pillar-swings it was mixing in swipes of its free hand at Kayak, small attacks scattered among the big ones. And Kayak's stamina had limits like anyone else's.
"What the hell are you all doing?! Are you just going to stand there and watch?!"
Yona screamed over her shoulder. She didn't realize it herself, but with her eyes rimmed red with blood, the sight of her whirling around was genuinely fearsome.
"Wh-what are we supposed to do…?!"
"Rope— ah, for fuck's—!"
Alec broke into a run, and Yona had no choice but to sprint after him. Even so, she kept sneaking glances at the villagers out of the corner of her eye. A few people were shouting something back and forth, and finally she saw them hauling rope out — so they'd understood, more or less. But would it actually help? That part she genuinely doubted.
To take down a troll with a small number of people — no, to take down almost any large humanoid monster — rope was essential equipment. Tie a weighted pivot to the end of the line, snare its legs, yank all at once to bring it down, and take its head off in one stroke. That was the most basic tactic there was.
But pulling it off with only four of them was a stretch, and they didn't even have rope — the villagers' cooperation was absolutely required, and the villagers themselves were standing there gawking. It made her blood boil.
She understood the fear. But they were the ones fighting for these people's sake — shouldn't they at least do something?
"Wh-what must we do?!"
A graybeard who looked to be the village head shouted to James at the top of his voice. The healer who'd exploded at them earlier was far away — and, frankly, a little terrifying — so he was asking the one figure who seemed mildly approachable: the Orc archer.
"Got anything that could serve as a weighted pivot?"
James drew two daggers from his belt, then glanced at the old man. He needed to keep resupplying arrows and couldn't, so an archer without arrows had to double as a nimble knife-hand. That was simply how it went.
"A-a pivot? What's a pivot?"
"Hm. Then hand that over here, will you?"
When James held out his hand, the old man gestured behind him. A man hurried over with rope; James passed one end back to him and knotted the dagger's hilt tight to the other.
"Hold this, and hold it well. When I give the signal, every man in the village grabs on and pulls. Understood?"
James blew out a deliberate, heavy snort through his nostrils. When that Orc face huffed out a gust of air, an already unhandsome countenance turned downright frightful — the villagers flinched and shuddered.
"We're not fighting for your sake for nothing, you understand? If you botch this, we leave the troll right where it stands and walk away. Cleaning up after that will be your problem."
"U-understood, sir! We'll do it!"
As the old man and the men nodded with stiff faces, James took up the rope and began swinging it in slow circles. The dagger-weighted end had a satisfying heft to it.
"Pull!"
The rope-bound dagger James hurled wrapped itself around the troll's legs, coil after coil, the dagger serving as its pivot. The moment James confirmed several layers of line had wound tight and thundered out his cry, the village men hauled on the rope with a great shout.
"Kayak! Ready yourself!"
Confirming the setup, Kayak scrambled clear of the spot where the troll was expected to fall. Alec and Yona hurriedly put a little distance between themselves and him too, stepping out of the way so that nothing would obstruct Kayak the instant he needed to lop off the troll's head.
"Pull harder! Harder!"
Every time the troll thrashed to snap the lines binding its legs, Kayak lunged in and harried it with his axes. The rope drew taut, and the men straining to topple the beast locked into sharp opposition with the beast straining not to fall.
The troll's raw strength was tremendous, to be sure — but the combined pull of more than ten grown men throwing themselves into the line was not something it could simply ignore.
After teetering on the brink of losing its balance once already, the troll windmilled its arms at last — and let go of the stone pillar. The pillar flew with a thunderous roar, crashed down onto the roof of one of the village houses, and crushed the home flat beneath it.
"Yona, stay still."
"Wh-what are you— hey, HEY! Alec! Aleeee—!"
Alec had suddenly charged the troll head-on. Seeing him do it, Yona bolted too, a scream tearing out of her — but she was slower than Alec.
Shield leading, Alec hurled himself at the troll. With every ounce of acceleration his body could build, he crashed shield-first into the troll's front — and the already tottering beast began to sway all the more violently.
Flailing desperately for balance, the troll's arm whipped around and clobbered Alec with brutal force.
"Guaaaaaaah—!"
With the scream, Alec lost his grip on his shield and went flying backward — and slammed head-on into Yona, who had been sprinting straight for him. The two of them, tangled together in a heap, rolled over and over and over across the ground.
— WHUMP…!
The sound of the troll hitting the earth rolled across the village.
"Well done, Alec!"
Kayak's shout rang out right along with it.