Encounter
Encounter
It had happened a while back.
Aslan, who had been with them as a temporary hire, had already left; shortly after, the Warrior Monk arrived at the mercenary company's encampment, as if in pursuit.
Standing nearly three meters tall, with six arms—three bearing an enormous shield, the other three a spear.
The Warrior Monk, his hulking frame clad in a gleaming carapace befitting such bulk, approached and made an offer.
If they captured Aslan and handed him over, he would spare the mercenary company, make one of them a priest, and reward them with a bounty.
But if they refused, he would kill them all.
The mercenary captain, Yones Tail, did not refuse.
More precisely, knowing the Warrior Monk's fearsome nature, he simply could not.
If the Warrior Monk had wished, he could have dealt with a company of forty-odd mercenaries easily.
And Yones Tail realized the truth of his judgment amid the corpses of his entire company.
"...So I told you, didn't I? Capture him, and you'll live."
The one standing tall among the bodies spoke.
A faint, subtly inhuman noise lingered in that voice, unsettling anyone who heard it.
But none dared to point that out. Or rather, none could.
There was no telling a three-meter-tall, six-armed Bug monstrosity that his voice was unpleasant.
And since Yones Tail was the only one left alive, there was no one left to do so anyway.
As the six-armed Bug monster swung the spear held in three of his hands, the bits of flesh clinging to its blade scattered feebly.
"You promised you'd capture him. You may not have imagined you'd fail, but consider it all a good thing. To be gathered into the embrace of the God of War—what an honor is that?"
The Warrior Monk's lower jaw clacked as he spoke, but Yones Tail offered no reply.
The Warrior Monk had already revealed enough to teach him the cold truth behind the phrase 'the embrace of the God of War.'
In any case, the Warrior Monk let his words trail off, and his spear began to move.
"Make an offering of him."
Without a sound, the spear blade swept through. The mercenary captain's head flew off. A moment later, his body collapsed, lifeless, as his head landed.
All around where the mercenary captain's body lay, headless corpses were strewn about.
Every one of those heads was tucked into the bundle hanging at the Warrior Monk's waist.
*
Aslan fled.
He had escaped from Frost Tree Valley, where he had fought a bloody battle against the mercenary company, and made his way southeast.
The reason was simple.
Aslan did not want to encounter the Warrior Monk—the priest of the God of War—while he was unprepared.
The Warrior Monk and the God of War were not ordinary priests and gods.
Although, to be fair, all gods and priests in this world of Geladrion were like that, more or less.
In this world, there were two kinds of gods.
The first were the Ancient Gods: the old gods who had been defeated, slain, and were once worshipped in Geladrion.
The second were the Transcendents who had torn those Ancient Gods apart and killed them.
When the ancient empire that had worshipped the Ancient Gods and ruled the world fell, and the Transcendents came to be worshipped, people began to call them gods.
The Warrior Monk was one who served the God of War among them.
That monstrous god, with an appearance blending a gigantic insect and an octopus covered with countless eyes, was originally an entity without reason or desire.
When that being first descended upon Geladrion, it killed the God of War and Knowledge, who was the king of the Ancient Gods.
As soon as that Ancient God died, the War God, as though it had been waiting, consumed the god's skull and soul and thereby became the God of War.
Afterward, the God of War developed an endless hunger for human skill.
He would devour those who had reached the pinnacle of training, those masters, and thus increase his Knowledge, then display their favorite weapons in his armory.
The Warrior Monks existed solely for this purpose, and they faithfully received the God of War's blessings.
A body resembling an insect's—resilient, powerful—and techniques and equipment optimized for that body, all granted by the God of War.
These monsters, imbued with the techniques of masters, dutifully struck down masters, taking their heads and offering them to their lord.
Those masters were called 'Masters'—and even among those on the kill list, few knew the truth.
And Aslan, being one who knew, had no intention of fighting a Warrior Monk unprepared.
That was the reason Aslan hadn't faced the main mercenary force but instead ran.
If he spent time and stamina dealing with the main force, he couldn't guarantee victory against a Warrior Monk who might later appear.
'Sure, with luck I might win, but I don't want to gamble with my life.'
In Aslan's judgment, he wasn't ready to face a Warrior Monk.
He didn't have many weapons, and his magic needed replenishment.
If the odds weren't a hundred percent, he had no wish to fight.
He wasn't the type to enjoy fighting in the first place.
For Aslan, there were two potential places to fall back to.
Tegar, the city in the Barony of Tegar, east of Frost Tree Valley.
And the other was the Prison City Olpasbet, far to the southeast, in a mountainous region.
To Aslan, Tegar was not a good choice.
The road to Tegar was mostly forest, well-maintained, and quicker to travel compared to Olpasbet, which was largely mountainous.
So the Warrior Monk could easily guess Aslan would go to Tegar.
If the Warrior Monk acted on that assumption, Aslan would be quickly caught.
Worst case: facing a Warrior Monk in the forest, or even encountering two or more. Survival would become distinctly unlikely.
Aslan wanted to eliminate that possibility entirely.
Even if it meant more effort, taking an unexpected route to Olpasbet seemed the better option.
For that reason, after crossing mountains and traversing forests, a week after leaving Frost Tree Valley, he entered the Prison City Olpasbet.
The Prison City Olpasbet was a city that existed inside a mountain.
Carved out of the mountain itself and perpetually shrouded in gloom, the city exuded a somber, dingy atmosphere, its countless hanging lanterns casting a faint light.
There were many nicknames for Olpasbet.
City of Sin, City of Decadence, City of Pleasure—titles far too grand for a city that was barely two centuries old.
Indeed, Olpasbet's short history was drenched in such infamy.
Aslan could feel it as he stepped into the city, which flickered with vermilion light.
For the city's true nature began to reveal itself before long.
Women throwing flirtatious glances at passersby.
Men loitering at the mouths of alleys, eyeing travelers as if sizing them up.
Even small children gawking at travelers' bags, eyes gleaming.
All of them wore faintly glowing restraint collars around their necks and were clad in little more than rags.
That was the nature of Olpasbet.
A city where most of its inhabitants were prisoners and slaves, a city with a bubbling poison swamp and nests of monsters in its belly, holding mine tunnels that yielded unique metals.
That was the Prison City of Olpasbet.
Aslan sighed at the sight of the city.
He didn't want to come, but with the Warrior Monk on his trail, he didn't have the luxury of choice—resupply was necessary.
He needed to acquire scrolls to replace the spells he'd used, sell his spoils, and buy necessary supplies.
He was running out of food and needed to buy preserved rations. In that state, he couldn't just leave the city.
He had no intention of staying long. Hefting his pack, he strode forward, ignoring the leering gazes of the prisoners that seemed to lick at him.
His first thought was to find a smithy, so he pressed deeper into the city.
It wasn't long before Aslan, pushing past passersby, came to a halt.
A few overturned stalls and a gathered crowd. Beyond them, a loud commotion was underway.
Though one gained nothing from getting tangled in such trouble, the crowd was laughing and shouting loudly, seemingly entertained by the spectacle beyond.
Hearing what they were shouting, Aslan naturally joined the throng.
"Look at that bitch! Moving like a little rat!"
"Can't even catch her? Use some muscle, you idiots!"
There were other shouts, but they didn't differ much. The men were cheering and insulting whoever was on the other side.
Aslan pushed through with his robust frame. The crowd, mostly prisoners, readily made way at the sight of his build, weapons, and armor.
Upon breaking through and reaching the front, Aslan saw.
Thwack!
"Urk···."
A girl with vermilion hair, the color of the city's lights, had just kicked a man square in the groin.
As the man who'd been kicked in the groin collapsed and convulsed slightly, the girl stomped on his shaved head.
"Y-you cowardly bitch! How dare you!"
Another man cried out in shock, but the girl only flashed a fierce grin and yelled back,
"You're the cowards!"
She jabbed a finger accusingly. The man ground his teeth.
"Three of you ganged up to beat one of me, and I'm the coward?"
As she said, there were two more, likely the downed man's comrades.
And among them was a distinctive figure.
"And with a 'noble' Dragon-kin personally joining in, I'm supposed to be the coward?"
A Demi-human with blood-red scales, a thick, large tail, forearms as thick as his tail, towering height, and bulging muscle—his face resembling a lizard.
A Dragon-kin.
The Dragon-kin scowled at the insult and gestured with his chin. Undaunted, the girl snatched up a rock from the ground.
"Spout some decent bullshit, you shameless bastards!"
She snarled, clutching the stone. The Dragon-kin's underling glared and slowly approached. Even as he closed in, she didn't flinch, her hand still raised with the rock.
She was more than plucky; she was wild.
Aslan was reminded of a beast's ferocity, watching this girl who, even against larger men outnumbering her, showed no sign of backing down.
But even that ferocity didn't seem capable of overturning the reality of size and numbers.
That was the shared understanding of the crowd Aslan had joined. Though Aslan's own thoughts carried an additional element.
'Should I help?'
However raw the fight, it was an ugly sight: several men beating a girl who was still a child.
Aslan hesitated, knowing that what was about to happen would be hard to accept back on Earth, where he'd lived.
While he hesitated, the distance between the girl and the man slowly closed.
And the moment they were within striking distance.
[Main Quest in Progress]
[ ! Escape from Prison with Angela Tail]