Sherpa (2)
Once Pete’s laughter died away, Lawrence asked, “What kind of place is the Gangama Mountains?”
“Mountains that watch over us from the highest point in the world. Every year, countless Sherpas challenge the summit, but only a handful ever set foot on that land.”
From the way he told it, the Gangama Mountains where Saint Wall stood sounded fiercely rugged.
“Don’t worry. We’re not exactly climbing to the summit. The road to the Wall itself isn’t all that difficult.”
“That’s fortunate, I suppose. I don’t have much experience climbing mountains, though forests are another matter.”
At least as far as Lawrence could think of at once, there was Dragon Valley. And then there were small hills like the one behind Hilton Village.
“Now that we’ve unpacked your things, how about you come out and get some fresh air?”
“No, thank you. There’s no point in an outsider poking his face around for no reason. Everyone’s busy, aren’t they?”
He had heard that minority tribes tended to be wary of outsiders.
No matter what they called him—the traveler of the stars, or whatever—the Seer had been the only one to welcome him properly.
There was no reason to make the villagers uncomfortable.
“Busy, huh? Well… that’s true enough. We’ve finally come back to the village, so there’s plenty to prepare before we head back into the mountains. In that case, how about this? Since you’re staying with us, you could help out a little. We’re short-handed, see.”
Then I’ll feed you something tasty, Pete added.
Lawrence’s lips twitched at the man’s easygoing manner.
“If you’re feeding me, I can’t exactly refuse.”
“Aha! Good thinking. When a young man lends a hand, it lifts everyone’s spirits. As you can see, my hands are like this, so there’s more I can’t do than what I can.”
It was a joke that wasn’t really a joke at all.
With fingers missing from both hands, Pete still hadn’t lost his smile.
“Go on, then. They’ll welcome you.”
“Oh, and one more thing—what exactly does ‘traveler of the stars’ mean?”
Since the question had come to mind, he might as well ask.
“Traveler of the stars? Someone blessed by Lord Skarma.”
“Then let me rephrase the question. Who is Lord Skarma?”
It was the one question the Seer had never answered.
“Lord Skarma is Lord Skarma. He always watches over us from the sky.”
Standing outside the door, Pete pointed up at the darkened heavens.
In the clear night sky, a brilliant moon hung overhead.
“Do you mean the moon?”
Pete shook his head.
Then there was only one thing left.
The thing that drifted through the night sky with the moon.
The countless stars.
* * *
Lawrence stayed in Reindeer Village for five more days.
It took far longer than he had expected.
That was because, contrary to Pete’s claim, there had been quite a lot to prepare.
“Aha! Well, things like that happen, don’t they?”
As if telling him not to worry about it, Pete only laughed.
The time Lawrence spent in Reindeer Village turned out to be better than he had expected.
The rumor that the villagers disliked outsiders did not seem to apply here, at least not to their own people.
The residents who called Lawrence the traveler of the stars gladly welcomed him at their tables.
There were all kinds of ways to live off a barren land.
The villagers survived here on corn, barley, and wheat. Barley and wheat could only be grown in limited places, but corn had the tenacity to survive even in harsh country like this.
“Is this corn?”
“Corn porridge. This is what we mostly live on.”
Perhaps because he had eaten nothing but seal meat before, the fragrant porridge felt like a delicacy.
At first glance, it barely seemed any different from stew.
With its nutty aroma and satisfying texture, corn porridge was one of those dishes that went down easy.
Of course, meat was still the staple.
Among all meat, they especially favored seal.
Cold seawater flowed beneath the glacier.
Beyond the snowfields, the landscape was so strange it felt as though the sea itself had frozen solid.
At the seal hunting grounds they reached by dog sled, there were ice holes punched through the glacier here and there.
“That’s a seal breathing hole.”
“A breathing hole. Seals breathe through these?”
“That’s right. Seals live beneath the glacier. They make these holes, then poke their heads up to breathe.”
“Ah. So the seals make the holes themselves.”
“You’ve got it. How else would we keep drilling through thick ice like this day after day? And even if we did, there’d be no way to know whether a seal would use the hole.”
The hunters who had come with them scattered across the glacier.
Each took charge of a breathing hole, spear in hand, and waited.
“But how do the seals melt the glacier?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but I reckon it’s their breath. They go ‘whoo, whoo’ and slowly melt it through.”
“You mean… seals can melt glacier ice with their breath?”
“If it melts, then the hole appears. But as you can see, it’s cold enough that it doesn’t last long. That’s how we know. If a seal’s using the hole, that means it hasn’t frozen over.”
It was a remarkable story.
Did Ralph hunt seals this way too?
Lawrence decided he would have to ask him the next time he got the chance.
“Actually, we didn’t come up with the method ourselves. Winter Bears watch for seal holes like this and hunt them, and we just learned from them.”
“Hmm… so bears fish seals out the way people fish for fish in a river.”
“Of course, you can’t catch them every time. Still, once you do, they’re easy to store, so you can eat them when you need to.”
They had hunted two seals that day.
There were so many breathing holes that many hunts ended in vain.
Even so, the villagers were overjoyed just to have caught two. On normal days, they said, they could wait all day and still come home with only one, if that.
“This is all thanks to the traveler of the stars.”
“I doubt that.”
They didn’t bring the seals straight back to the village.
At a distance not far from home, Pete and the villagers butchered the seals out on the bitterly cold snowfield and stored them beneath the snow.
“It’ll still be edible like this?”
“That’s one of the good things about this land. It’ll stay that way for years without a problem. You just take it out when you need it. Want to try some?”
Pete held out a slab of freshly cut seal liver.
Seeing the raw meat dripping blood, Lawrence grimaced.
“You’re not seriously asking me to eat that raw, are you?”
“Why wouldn’t I? It’s a delicacy in its own right. It’ll also warm your body.”
As if to demonstrate, Pete brought the liver to his mouth.
To Lawrence’s shock, he really did tear into it raw.
The other hunters did the same.
They passed around chunks of liver cut into easy bites.
“Traveler of the stars, you should try some too.”
“You can’t leave the guest out, can you? This is the hunt Lord Skarma blessed you with today.”
“……”
Holding the blood-dripping meat, Lawrence hesitated.
Were they mocking him?
No. The way they ate the raw liver held no trace of deception.
“I’ll just try a little.”
If that was part of this minority tribe’s culture, then the proper thing was to respect it.
With his eyes squeezed shut, Lawrence brought the liver to his mouth.
“Ugh.”
“Wahaha!”
“Well? Isn’t it delicious?”
As expected, he’d expected too much.
Lawrence swore he would never eat raw meat again.
* * *
“Usually we hunt seals, but on a lucky day, we might even go after a narwhal.”
On the way back to the village, Pete spoke cheerfully from the dog sled.
He seemed to have taken a liking to Lawrence, who had at least tried to eat the seal liver even if he hadn’t managed it.
“A narwhal… I’ve never seen one, so I wouldn’t know.”
“They call it the unicorn of the sea. Just like its name, it’s got one huge horn sticking out. You’ll know it the moment you see one. They’re so big that even if the entire village gathered for a feast, we still couldn’t eat it all.”
From the sound of it, they looked something like seals.
But apparently their size was almost dozens of times greater.
“We’ve come this far north already. It would be nice if I got to see one.”
No matter how he tried, Lawrence still couldn’t picture it clearly.
According to Pete, it wasn’t so much a fish as a monster of nearly that scale.
“If you’re lucky, we might spot one on the way to the Wall. Narwhals can be seen in the sea, but they sometimes show up on the ice roads between the glaciers too.”
They didn’t encounter any monsters.
This region was one the hunters knew inside and out.
The dog sled was avoiding dangerous places and making its way back to the village.
“What’s the road to the Gangama Mountains like?”
“I’ll pick the safest route I can, but I can’t promise it won’t be dangerous.”
“So there are still things to worry about, I see.”
When he had traveled with Ralph, he had seen trolls from time to time.
The distance had been too great for any real clash while they were riding the dog sled, but this time he couldn’t expect the same luck.
The dog sled could only take them as far as the foot of the mountains.
After that, they would have to climb on foot.
“Trolls? Aha! What would trolls be doing in the Gangama Mountains?”
As though he shouldn’t be making jokes, Pete laughed.
“No? I was told trolls are everywhere in the north.”
“That’s true enough. But the trolls in the Gangama Mountains have been wiped out.”
That was surprising.
Then there were other monsters there?
“Gangama means ‘Mother of Snow’ in your language.”
Mother of Snow.
It was a fine name indeed.
The scenery in the bowl of water they passed around didn’t shame the title.
“The Mother of Snow doesn’t permit monsters like trolls to live in her embrace. Instead, there are cunning monsters in the mountains that even trick her eyes.”
“Wendigo?”
“Wendigos are dangerous monsters. But they aren’t cunning. If I had to compare them, I’d say they’re more like Winter Bears.”
Lawrence nodded.
The giant figures known as snowmen, or creatures as large as Bugbears, didn’t seem very clever.
And since Pete had specifically used the word cunning, Lawrence wondered if he meant something like the quick-witted predators of the swamp—Ulbazar Jaguars.
“Then what kind of monster is it?”
“Ice Trolls.”
Of all things, that was the monster that came out of his mouth.
“Trolls? There are trolls in the north?”
He had never even heard of such a thing at the mercenary guild.
“They’re cunning enough to fool even the Mother of Snow’s eyes. The Gangama Mountains are full of trees. The ones who hide in them are more frightening hunters than we are. They emerge from the snow and vanish into it again. If they catch you, a Sherpa will disappear without a sound.”
“……”
“Think about it. A blizzard so fierce you can barely see what’s in front of you. Then suddenly an Ice Troll bursts out of the snow. Fighting it isn’t even the main problem. Half the time, you can’t even tell whether one is there. For us, it’s no different from a natural disaster.”
The danger wasn’t only the environment.
They also had to get through monsters that had adapted perfectly to that brutal world.
“What do you think? You said you’re a skilled mage, didn’t you? If you met an Ice Troll, could you win?”
“Hard to say. I’ve never fought one before.”
Of course, he knew the basics about trolls.
He couldn’t not know. If you picked out the most famous monsters in the world, one would be an orc and two would be a troll.
Trolls were usually monsters that roamed forests and mountains.
They were said to have such stubborn vitality that even if their heads were torn from their necks, they still wouldn’t die.
Lawrence had heard that troll blood was used as an ingredient in potions, perhaps because of their tremendous regenerative power, allowing them to recover even after losing their heads.
Since he had never actually faced one, he’d only taken it as something abstract.
If he’d known this would happen, he would have paid more attention whenever trolls were mentioned….
Still, if their regeneration was that high, fire should be their weakness.
But in this freezing northern land, fire magic didn’t perform with its usual strength.
Fire alone probably wouldn’t be enough.
Given trolls’ reputation, Fire Tail would be the one to use.
No. Did he even need to rely on fire magic at all?
Lawrence had his void magic.
Shadow Spear, which could even reach the throat of that Wendigo.
Not to mention Shadow Trap, whose power needed no explanation.
An Ice Troll wouldn’t stand a chance against his magic.
“Is that so? Hmm. Don’t worry about it. What I’m talking about is the worst possible case. The truth is, we almost never run into trolls. And if we did, without a dog sled, survival would be hard. They’re unbelievably fast.”
“Trolls are fast?”
“Naturally. They can run through the trees, of course. But they also race across snowfields like they’re in their own home. One step from them is like five or six steps from us. Honestly, your best shot at survival is to throw away anything you can’t eat and run.”
Lawrence’s face hardened.
Shadow Spear and Shadow Trap were powerful, yes.
But both spells required him to actually hit his target.
If Ice Trolls were as swift as Pete said, he wasn’t confident he could land a blow at all.
He wouldn’t be the first to spot one in a blizzard very often.
This was the north.
The frozen land of relentless cold was the Ice Troll’s own den.