Ulvaniero (1)
“Did you just have an insulting thought about me?”
“Well, I don’t know. Anyone who tells a stranger she’s pretty is a little suspicious.”
Lawrence answered honestly.
Just because she was a woman, did that make her any different?
If anything, women were the ones he had to be more wary of than men.
“What? Don’t tell me you’re not into that sort of thing. This is the first time I’ve gotten this reaction, so I don’t even know what to say.”
“In case you don’t know, I’m a pilgrim of the Church. I’d rather not get involved with women if I can help it.”
That, too, was part of the Church’s doctrine.
It was best to stay away from gambling, alcohol, and women whenever possible.
The only exceptions were the goddess herself, and the sisters of the Church who served her.
“……”
Lawrence didn’t give an inch.
Isolde fell silent for a moment, then turned to the others.
“That one was your fault.”
“Honestly, she’s not even that pretty.”
“And she reeks.”
“Hey! Like I wanted to stink or something!”
She flushed at the others’ offhand remarks.
She hated being called smelly.
Lawrence quietly took a step away from Isolde.
“That really hurt, you know.”
Her voice turned sulky.
“Then it’s my turn.”
He changed the subject.
It was time to show them his magic.
These were the comrades who would be watching his back on a long-term commission.
The least he could do was show them the weapons and skills he possessed.
The area went quiet in an instant.
Expectant eyes turned toward Lawrence.
This wasn’t the first time he’d had everyone looking at him like this.
It had been the same when he used magic against the Forest Spider.
“I already showed Fire, so I’ll skip that one.”
Shadow probably didn’t need to be shown at all.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t even an attack spell, and in the dim darkness it likely wouldn’t be easy to see anyway.
Considering its visual impact, there was one spell that would be best here.
“Fire Tail.”
A trail of flame unfurled into the shape of a whip.
No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t a whip.
Fire Tail rose in the form of something that reminded him of a snake.
At the end of the whip, a forked serpent’s tongue writhed.
“……”
This was the first time he’d used Fire Tail since leaving Dragon Valley.
After seeing how Shadow and Fire had grown, he’d suspected Fire Tail might have changed too, but he hadn’t imagined it would change this much.
He flicked it lightly.
A clear whip-mark split the ground.
Where the forked tongue had touched, tiny flames sprang up from the earth.
It was as if he’d used Fire at the very tip of Fire Tail.
After giving the flame whip a single sweep, Lawrence drew Fire Tail back.
“How….”
“That’s impossible!”
“Holy shit. So this is what magic really is?”
“Seriously? If this is all it takes, jaguars won’t even be able to get close.”
Excited voices burst out all at once.
It was nothing like the barrage of questions from before.
The mercenaries crowded in close, talking over one another.
“How many times can you use it? No, wait—how long can you keep it up?”
“That’s….”
“You’ve got other spells too, right? So this is what makes mages different. No wonder nobles lose their heads the second they see one.”
“But didn’t you say you were with the Church? If you’re a cleric, then isn’t this supposed to be a miracle, not magic? Or—wait. Could this actually be a miracle?”
They wouldn’t settle down.
Lawrence’s head spun as the questions kept coming.
“All right, enough. Our mage is getting flustered.”
It was Balick who stepped in to calm things down.
At the leader’s thick, steady voice, the others clicked their tongues in disappointment.
“You’ve got another spell too, Lawrence?”
“Two more.”
“Two?”
“Only one of them is an attack spell. That one’s more my specialty, actually.”
But showing it here would be a little difficult.
Lawrence knew exactly how powerful Shadow Spear was.
Maybe outside the village, but using it here would be dangerous.
“It’s a spell for hitting distant targets. It’s a little too dangerous to demonstrate here. But the power is real. If we run into monsters during the commission, I’ll show you then.”
“Fair enough. So it’s your trump card, then. If possible, I’d just as soon never see the situation that forces you to use it.”
Balick nodded as if safety came first.
“Wow. This commission’s going to be easy money.”
“Guess we can just trust Lawrence and relax.”
“But why’s he only a Wood Plate? I’ve never even heard of a mercenary mage. Wouldn’t he at least need to be Silver Plate?”
“It’s not easy becoming a Silver Plate mercenary.”
“I know that. But rarity counts for something, doesn’t it?”
The chatter kept rolling on without pause.
“You need results. He’s with the Church, so he probably hasn’t taken many commissions yet, right?”
“That’s right. This is my third commission.”
“See? Told you.”
Arms folded, Isolde looked smug.
The others, irritated by her expression, turned away in silence.
“Hey! You guys!”
Lawrence walked along with them too.
He didn’t know whether he’d end up building a good relationship with these people.
But at the very least, it seemed unlikely they’d end up shouting at one another.
* * *
At the gathering point, there were more cattle than Lawrence had ever seen in his life.
Dozens—no, nearly hundreds of cows were roaming freely.
He swore this was the first time he’d seen so many cattle at once.
The men managing the herd rode horses.
Dogs moved among them, while the men themselves carried ropes and whips.
“Ulvaniero. The warriors of the Ulbazar Swamp.”
Lawrence met the client together with Balick.
Mupola, the man who had hired them for this escort commission, was nearing fifty, yet still had a sharp, almost cutting face.
“So you’re the Church mage I’ve heard about.”
“Yes. I look forward to working with you.”
“I’ve already informed the Guild, but I’m afraid I can’t pay more than what we agreed on. Will you still take the job?”
“This is the first commission I’ve taken since arriving in the swamp. If there’s something I don’t know, I’d better learn it. The payment you offered is enough.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
The conversation ended quickly.
There were twenty mercenaries hired for this commission.
For the sake of the mercenaries still waiting their turn, they needed to clear out as quickly as possible.
“So? What do you think of our client?”
“He seems like a man with real weight to him.”
After the introductions were over, Isolde came up beside him.
“He’s pretty respected around here, in Ulvaniero country. On top of that, he keeps his word and he looks like a real man. Honestly, I don’t know why there aren’t more men like that around me.”
She always had a way of making a perfectly ordinary remark feel unnecessary.
“What kind of people are the Ulvaniero?”
“As you can see, they’re strange ones who live on horseback all day long. They make their living grazing cattle. Their work is to keep moving through the swamp in search of grass for the cows. You saw the cattle dogs around here too, right? They’re herding dogs—short tails, smart heads.”
Apparently their short tails were an adaptation so they wouldn’t get stepped on by cattle.
“Is there really that much grass for cows around here? It’s so dry I don’t see much of anything except dead brush and a few stunted trees.”
“That’s how it is right now. This is the dry season, when everything turns to dust. But there is still some grass. More accurately, there’d be grass if the cows hadn’t eaten it all.”
Just as she said.
There wasn’t a blade of grass left where the herd had passed.
“It’s easiest to think of the Ulvaniero as people who graze cattle while moving from ranch to ranch. There aren’t proper villages inside the swamp like Remington Village, but there are plenty of ranches you could call farms. It takes about a week to get from one ranch to another. They rest, sell off some cattle, and so on.”
In short, the commission was to provide security while the cattle were being grazed.
The wagon had been parked behind the herd.
Kaizle lanterns hung outside, driving away the darkness and insects.
Thanks to that, the wagon’s position wasn’t hard to spot.
“We’ll take the first watch.”
“Better to take the first hit than the later ones. Might as well get it over with.”
“Who’s on the other side?”
“Don’t worry about that. It’s Gaud’s group.”
“That’s a relief. They’re dependable.”
The mercenaries heading to the opposite side nodded to one another.
Just like Balick, a massive brute stood there too.
“From here on out, we’ll be walking a fair distance. If you feel like you’re about to drop, say so early. If one person falls behind, it makes things hard for everyone.”
“How long do we walk?”
“We rotate every two hours. Until then, assume we keep moving.”
Ulvaniero might travel on horseback.
Mercenaries couldn’t do the same. They couldn’t walk forever, so it seemed they took turns with the wagon, alternating rest and watch duty.
“Two hours… no problem.”
He might as well use this to build his stamina.
Lawrence was a man too. He didn’t want to start whining.
“For now, this isn’t a dangerous zone. The chance of a Bugbear appearing is extremely low, so you can relax your shoulders a bit.”
“Instead, there are a lot of jaguars.”
“Jaguars?”
“Never heard of them? Ulbazar Jaguars. If you travel with the Ulvaniero, you’ll see them so often you’ll get sick of them.”
Isolde shook her head as if the subject itself was enough to make her sick.
“Honestly, the Bugbear is just a story people use to scare newcomers. The real commission is protecting the cattle from the jaguars.”
“Are they dangerous? From what I’ve heard, they don’t sound like monsters.”
“They’re not exactly wild animals either; they’re closer to mana beasts. You know Under Wolves, right?”
“Yes. I’m familiar with them.”
“Think of these things as dozens of times craftier and twice as fast. They’re like a mix of cat and wolf. Clever little bastards too—they hunt the cattle and then vanish.”
Lawrence glanced unconsciously at Balick.
As if to confirm her words, Balick nodded.
“Why not intercept them the moment we spot them?”
“Easy to say. How good do you think a jaguar’s night vision is? Say we do see them. Do you think that means we’re just really good at keeping watch? No. They let us see them on purpose.”
“She’s right,” Balick said. “The moment your attention gets dragged over there, another jaguar makes its move. Once they start pulling you around, you won’t just fail to catch them—you’ll end up losing cattle. That’s a mistake first-time mercenaries make all the time.”
“Just hearing this makes me wonder what kind of creatures these are.”
“That’s exactly why they hired us. The Ulvaniero alone can’t handle it.”
Lawrence took the left side with the others.
On the right was Gaud’s group. As before, the dozens of Ulvaniero spread out to cover the entire surroundings.
The party dispersed to their assigned positions and took up watch.
But only Isolde, with her bow slung over her back, kept drifting near Lawrence.
“Any more questions? About me, maybe?”
“Not interested.”
To be honest, she was a nuisance.
He was on a commission after a long time, and without realizing it, his nerves were already tightening.
Now and then he could feel her gaze on him, and he couldn’t focus at all.
“You’re cold. The others are all scrambling to strike up a conversation with me, but you’re different, huh? Guess mages really are another breed.”
“Have you ever met another mage besides me?”
“Nope.”
Isolde laughed, as if to say that was obvious.
No, wait.
It was a good opportunity.
Since they were already here, he might as well ask the swamp-born woman about a few things.
“Is there anything else I should know? I haven’t been here long, so I don’t know much.”
“Hmm… well, if we’re talking general knowledge, you should definitely know the climate. From November to April is the dry season. Not only does the water level in the swamp drop, but it hardly rains at all, so the whole region goes through a terrible drought.”
“So the climate changes when the dry season ends?”
“Right. More specifically, June through October is called the wet season. It rains almost every day without stopping, so that’s why they call it the wet season. There’s so much rain that the swamp overflows and turns almost into a marsh. You can think of it as swallowing everything—villages and all.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
It rained that much?
So far, the Ulbazar Swamp he had seen had done nothing but kick up dust.
The only place with much water had been the river where he’d faced the Bugbear.
“You remember the Mercenary Guild, right? The guild building is weirdly raised off the ground. That’s because if it were planted directly on the earth, it would get flooded. Other buildings in town are fine because they’re built the traditional way, but the guild isn’t.”
Apparently there had been a reason for building it that way after all.
“There’s a saying here in the Ulbazar Swamp: by morning, your feet are already submerged in water. Just think of all life being controlled by the water. Especially during the wet season, there are Eligators and the water itself is dangerous, so nobody goes deep into the swamp. If they absolutely have to, they make small boats and push them along.”
“You ride in boats. You don’t push them along.”
His voice hardened a little, as if she’d taken him for some backwater fool who didn’t even know what a boat was.
“That’s true elsewhere. But not here. In shallow water, you have to push small boats by hand. There’s too much aquatic weed for anything else. On the other hand, the places you’re thinking of—where people ride boats—are called flowing rivers. They’re rivers that only appear during the wet season.”
“If that’s true, then the Ulbazar Swamp is really an amazing place.”
It wasn’t just polite talk.
Apparently she enjoyed hearing someone take interest in her homeland, because Isolde’s voice brightened too.
“People around here call the Bugbear the king of the swamp. But the Ulvaniero are different. They aren’t afraid of Bugbears. Strong swamp warriors know every corner of this place. I’ve even heard some say they know safe paths that lead all the way to the deepest parts.”
“That’s different from what I heard. I was told Bugbears are very dangerous monsters.”
The ones he’d actually seen had carried a dangerous air to them indeed.
“The thing is, they usually stay in the swamp’s deepest parts. They rarely come out as long as their territory isn’t invaded. The people who live here know those boundaries perfectly. So the rumors you heard were probably spread by outsiders.”
She went on, as if asking whether he understood.
“The people here respect the swamp and live in a kind of peace with it. From their point of view, outsiders are the real problem. They keep coming here blinded by money, provoking Eligators and Bugbears over and over.”
“……”
He’d heard a story like this somewhere before.
On a small scale, it was like the hill behind Hilton Village and the Under Wolves who lived there.
On a larger scale, it was like Horos Village and the Forest Spider’s Spider Forest.
People and monsters coexisted by respecting each other’s territory.
“That said, during the dry season the monsters’ territory gets disrupted a lot more often. That’s when people sometimes get killed. So everyone’s careful, but that makes cattle grazing a bit difficult.”
“So that’s what you meant about the chance of running into a Bugbear.”
“The odds are low. We avoid them, and they avoid us too. Pointless clashes are just a nuisance for everyone.”
Lawrence covered his mouth with one hand.
Should he be relieved they weren’t likely to collide with the Bugbears?
“So all we have to worry about are the jaguars. That’s what you mean?”
“No. Don’t get too fixated on the jaguars. The most dangerous thing in the swamp is always the water.”
Isolde’s voice sharpened, as if she wanted him to remember that well.
“Even if it’s the Bugbear, king of the swamp. Even if it’s the Ulbazar Jaguar, predator of the swamp. What decides everyone’s fate is always the water. Humans are no different. And tied to this water is the indigenous faith that serves the local spirits. I’m sorry to say it, as a cleric of the Church, but spirit worship has deep roots here.”
Spirits.
Come to think of it, Neil had said the same thing when they met in the swamp.
“Then it’s my turn now. You’ve asked me plenty already, so I’ll ask you something too.”
“You were planning that from the start.”
“Fair’s fair.”
She folded her hands in front of her.
“Do you have magic that can heal people? I mean, magic that can cure something like a long-term illness?”
“Well. Healing sickness isn’t magic. It’s a miracle.”
He’d thought she was about to ask something strange, but this was more normal than expected.
“From where I’m standing, that sounds like the same thing.”
“They’re very different. A miracle is the execution of the goddess’s great will.”
“You’re a cleric of the Church too, aren’t you? Then shouldn’t you be able to use miracles?”
“Why are you jumping to that conclusion?”
“Magic and miracles are basically the same thing.”
“……”
Lawrence brought a hand to his forehead and sighed.
“I can’t use miracles. The only people who can are high priests who preside over the temples.”
“Then let me change the question. Do you know any high priest in the Church?”
“Let me ask you instead. Are you suffering from some kind of illness?”
Was there some reason behind this?
For some reason, Isolde’s expression looked desperate.
“Jaguars!”
“Two jaguars appeared on the right!”
A shout rang out from the other side.
That was the end of the conversation.
Before he knew it, Isolde had already moved a hand to her back and drawn her bow.
Lawrence was just about to head toward the direction the jaguars had appeared from.
“Don’t worry about the other side. Trust Gaud’s group with it. Our first job is to hold our own area.”
“Now that you mention it, you said these beasts use feints too.”
“Glad you remembered. Just check the rear for now. The Ulvaniero are on watch too, so it’ll be fine. If things get bad, Garick and Ronan will move.”
As if to show him, she pointed at the comrades spreading out around them.
At Balick’s order, the two mercenaries moved in an instant.
And then he realized something.
Only two people were moving in the rear.
“Were you looking out for me?”
“Looking out for you? What are you talking about? This is just common sense. If you’re new, then act like it and adapt to the things right in front of you one by one. Mage or not, this place isn’t easy enough for you to become combat-ready overnight. Especially when you’re moving as part of a group.”
Lawrence was momentarily speechless.
She was looking after a new comrade?
And she was a mercenary, of all people, one who cared about nothing but herself?
The receptionist’s eye for people must have been sharp after all.
These people might be a little different from the mercenaries in Horos Village.
At the very least, they didn’t seem like the sort who would strip a dead comrade of everything they owned.
“Feeling a little less tense now, right? Ah, or maybe being with a beauty like me made you even more tense.”
She had been fine right up until the last line.
“……”
He couldn’t be bothered responding to every little thing.
Lawrence began scanning the darkness beyond the light.
Nothing was visible.
Thanks to the Kaizle lanterns, he could make out the shifting outline of the herd and the wagon’s position, but there was no way to tell where in the swamp the jaguars might be hiding.
“Shadow Light.”
The decision came quickly.
From the darkness, a pitch-black shadow formed into a small sphere.
The shadow painted in darkness soon gathered radiant light within it.
“Good heavens… magic really can do anything, can’t it?”
He started by checking the rear where the wagon stood.
Shadow Light, answering Lawrence’s will, pushed back the darkness.
It was nothing like the Kaizle lanterns.
Through the scattering blackness, the bare swamp was laid open to view.
Nothing behind them.
This time, the left side.
He moved at a distance so as not to startle the cattle, but he still kept his pace measured and careful.
Conditions here were worse than behind the wagon.
The problem was the uneven ground formed by sparsely growing trees and sediment deposits.
There were far too many places where something could hide.
But then something unexpected happened.
When Shadow Light illuminated a pitlike depression, a black beast hidden inside leaped out.
“Jaguar spotted on the left!”
Isolde’s voice rang out.
Her bow reacted before Lawrence did.
The instant Shadow Light exposed the beast’s position, her arrow cut through the wind.