The Herb Gatherer of Benuda
Leto of Benuda Village was a herb gatherer.
The words "herb gatherer" typically conjure a picture of backbreaking, dirty, dangerous work—trudging up mountains and combing through forests day after day. But slap "thirty-year veteran" in front of it, and the picture changes. Even a man who had spent his entire life sweeping the same stretch of floor would, after three decades, be someone no one in that place could afford to ignore.
And if that thirty-year herb gatherer had settled in Benuda Village—the settlement closest to the Outer Forest—and lived there ever since, the story was different still. Every source of income the village had came from the Outer Forest. A herb gatherer with three decades under his belt knew that forest better than anyone, and the coin he brought in was a boon to the whole settlement. His word carried a weight no one could dismiss. He had long since risen to village representative, wielding power equal to the Village Chief himself.
So three years ago, on a day when the sky far beyond the Outer Forest had turned a deep and bloody red, an outsider had come to the village. Leto had accepted the man's settlement there, and not a single villager had dared overturn that decision.
Save for the Village Chief, that is.
"I say, Leto. Where'd that fellow get off to?"
"......?"
Leto the herb gatherer cocked his head, as if he'd just heard something peculiar. In three years, he had never once seen the old man go looking for "that fellow." The Chief had always done it on purpose—a petty protest against Leto's decision.
"Gone deaf, have you? Why aren't you answering? I'm talking about Messi."
"It's just that I've never seen you looking for Messi before, Chief. Does this have something to do with the party behind you?"
He hadn't taken his eyes off the herbs he was preparing, yet he already knew a sizable group had gathered behind the Chief. To treat the forest like your own front yard meant you had an exceptional talent for sensing hidden dangers. Leto's extraordinary hearing was one such gift.
"These are distinguished guests from far away. They say they wish to enter the forest."
Only then did Leto raise his head and take a careful look at the party. Swords. Plate armor. Shields. Bows. Cloaks. Fine warhorses. A clean, disciplined bearing. Bodies forged by training.
Knights.
"Greetings, sir knights. I am Leto, herb gatherer and representative of Benuda Village. Thank you for honoring our humble settlement with your visit."
It would have been a different matter if he hadn't known who they were. But once you'd taken their measure, there was no point in putting on airs. He'd heard the hoofbeats and the snorting of horses drawing closer and thought, surely not—but a real knight appearing in a remote village like this was a bolt from a clear blue sky.
Knights in this age came in two varieties, broadly speaking. Bandits dressed for the part, and the genuine article. Leto sincerely hoped these ones were the latter.
"Knight Ramang. That's enough greetings. Stop dragging this out and help us accomplish what we came for, would you?"
They hadn't drawn their swords first. That made them the latter. Or close enough, at any rate. Leto felt a measure of relief.
"...You said you wished to enter the forest. Do you mean the Outer Forest?"
"You think we'd come looking for a guide just to go into that forest? We mean to go beyond it—into the Forest of Resentment. The Chief here tells us there's an outlander from those parts."
"An outlander? Ah..."
Leto was briefly thrown. He had come to think of the young man named Messi as family. He had never considered him in those terms. It was a strange thing to call him.
"Messi is out hunting. He likely won't be back until around sundown."
"Messi? That's the outlander's name? Heh. A vulgar name, perfectly fitting for an outlander."
A snicker rose from somewhere behind the knight. No one piled on with a follow-up, but the corners of every mouth had curled upward. It wouldn't have been strange if the mockery had continued then and there. That everyone stayed silent meant the knights' discipline and military bearing were well in hand.
Though there seemed to be one exception...
"We'll wait here, then. Sundown doesn't seem far off. And we have some wounded with us—injuries. If you work with herbs, you should be of some help. Would you take a look?"
"Of course."
Leto gathered herbs effective for treating wounds, his mind elsewhere.
The Forest of Resentment...
Deep in the Sea of Trees. A danger zone beyond the Outer Forest. Even the Woodcutters had abandoned their efforts to tame it and retreated—thirty years ago now. And the villagers had been left behind, as if discarded.
The roots of Benuda Village were convicts, gypsies, wandering peddlers, washed-up mercenaries, and prostitutes—dragged along to provision the Woodcutters with food, clothing, and entertainment. That was how Benuda Village had come to be. The abandoned had resented the Woodcutters. They had resented the kingdom. They had resented the unknown forest. And the forest that had so firmly refused humanity's attempts to tame it was soon given a name: the Forest of Resentment.
They want to go in there? For what? What business do they have in a forest even the Woodcutters gave up on?
Truth be told, their purpose was none of Leto's concern. If they wanted to turn themselves into a well-trained suicide squad, that was hardly his place to stop them. But dragging one of his own family in with them like a drowning spirit clutching at the living—that was something he would not stand by and watch.
"Wipe that look off your face, will you? We've got big spenders in town for once, the whole village's buzzing, and you're going around with a mug like that—trying to scare someone to death?"
"Did you call these people here, Chief?"
"Me? Have I gone mad?"
"I was wondering if you had."
The Chief clicked his tongue at Leto's tone, then leaned in close to his ear and whispered.
"Just hand Messi over quietly. I don't know what they want in the Forest of Resentment, but they asked for a guide the moment they arrived."
"You could've just claimed nobody goes near the place and you don't know a thing. You're usually so good at that. Why not this time...?"
"At my age, you can tell just by looking a man in the eye. These are the sort who'll do anything to get what they want. If I'd answered like that, they'd have put a sword to my throat on the spot and gathered every last soul in the village for interrogation. They'd have learned about Messi in a heartbeat. Now, you tell me. Is it better for our safety to cooperate and provide a guide—or to have one forcibly conscripted with blood on their blades?"
"An ogre in front and a troll behind, then."
It was a dilemma with no good answer. Leto understood the Chief's position. Still, it rankled a little. Every villager knew Messi would be out hunting around this time. If they'd all had the will, they could have timed it well enough to hide his existence.
As if he'd read Leto's thoughts, the Chief hurried to add:
"Even if we'd lucked out and hidden Messi, you'd have been next. They may not know the Forest of Resentment, but you walk the Outer Forest like it's your own front yard. You think they'd leave you be? I don't like you all that much, but if I had to choose between a man who's toiled for this village for thirty years and some outlander who showed up out of nowhere, I wouldn't think twice. I'd save you."
"...I'm grateful for the sentiment. But Messi is no different from family to me now. I can't send family into a death trap."
"Have you lost your mind? I thought all that 'family' talk was just words, but you actually mean it. Still, what can you do? The arrow's already left the string."
The moment the Chief finished speaking, a commotion erupted as if it had been waiting for its cue. A loud cry had gone up from the cluster of knights and the mercenaries they'd hired, some distance away. The Chief ran to see what was happening. Leto quickly finished gathering his herbs and tools and headed that way as well.
Mercenaries milled around a horse-drawn wagon, murmuring among themselves. A little ways off, the knights watched and snickered. Inside the wagon were several bleeding wounded. A woman clutching one of them was screaming.
"Someone help! Gaston's bleeding won't stop! Get the healer! Hurry!"
At the woman mercenary's cry, a pale, scrawny man was dragged over by the mercenaries. He shook his head violently.
"I-I'm just a healer! How am I supposed to touch a wound that severe? Y-you of all people should know better than anyone! If I use Heal on an injury like that, I'll only earn myself a curse!"
"Then do something, unless you want to die. If you were good enough to get hired by the knights, you've got to have a trick or two stashed away, right?"
"That's absurd... You're mercenaries. You know the side effects of Heal better than anyone, and you're still...! Heal uses mana and will to fill in a wound. It isn't regeneration—it doesn't restore the body to how it was before the injury, like a priest's miracle!"
"That so? That's a roundabout way of saying you want to die. We'll keep it simple, mercenary-style. If Gaston dies? You die too."
"This is insane...."
The mercenaries surrounding the wagon had no intention of listening, healer's words be damned. The healer stamped his feet in desperation. Then the wounded man—Gaston—coughed up blood, and the mercenaries reached for their swords... only to stop.
Leto had stepped in.
"You'd best stop. That healer isn't wrong."
"And who are you supposed to be?"
"The village herb gatherer. I'll look at the patient's wound. Don't draw your swords."
The mercenaries parted to let them through. Leto and the Chief quickly took positions beside Gaston. The woman watched Leto examine the wound, then asked:
"Can you save him?"
"I'm not a healer, so I couldn't say. But I know we need to stop the bleeding first."
Leto pulled out herbs for stanching blood, dropped them into a mortar, and began to grind. In moments the crushed herbs were plastered thick over the wound—but the blood pouring from the abdomen mixed with them, making it nearly impossible for the poultice to take hold.
"This doesn't look promising at all. Could be his guts are torn up."
"Chief. Do you really have to say that in front of a dying man and his comrades?"
"What, did I say something wrong? A wound like this, even Messi couldn't save him if he showed up. Or... wait. Could he?"
The woman holding Gaston asked urgently:
"Messi? Who's that?"
"The village hunter. He can use Heal, too."
"Heal? But that's..."
The woman trailed off, glancing sideways at the healer outside the wagon.
"Ah, of course, that healer's right. Using Heal on a wound like this would be a death sentence, more like. But Messi's Heal is, how should I put it... a bit....."
"Exceptional."
The Chief finished the sentence Leto couldn't complete. Hope and bewilderment flickered across the woman's face. She cried out urgently:
"Then what are you waiting for?! Go get him right now!"
"He's out hunting. If you think you can find him, go ahead and try."
What Leto was pointing at was the Outer Forest. The people who lived here might treat the Outer Forest like a backyard, but to outsiders it was a vast, dense jungle. Finding a single person in there was like looking for a needle in a haystack. The knights weren't waiting around for nothing.
The woman's face crumpled. She looked from the treeline of the Outer Forest beyond the village to the dying Gaston, then shouted toward the outside of the wagon:
"All of you, search that forest and find this Messi, now! He's a healer... no, a hunter!"
"And how do you plan to find him? Going to shout his name through the woods? That's a good way to draw monsters and nothing else. You going to put the rest of your comrades in danger just to save one man?"
As if in answer to Leto's question, the woman led the chant:
The mercenaries' voices rose in a roar behind her. Villagers came running out in surprise. It was an answer Leto couldn't argue with. He conceded.
"Does not abandon family... That's a fine mercenary company."
Meanwhile, Ramang, who had been watching the scene at the wagon, was puzzled to hear the name he'd been looking for once again.
Messi...? I thought he was just a hunter. He's learned healing arts as well?
But a wound like this was beyond what a healing art like Heal could handle. As the overseer of this party, responsible for every problem that arose, Ramang already knew the nature of the mercenary's injury. One of the orcs had hurled a javelin as a signal flare for the ambush, and one unlucky mercenary had taken it in the gut. His armor had been sturdy enough that the blade hadn't buried itself to the hilt, but it had punched through all the same and turned his insides to pulp. Judging by the blood loss, the organs had been damaged as well.
"He's going to die anyway... Well, at least the mercenaries will bring the guide back themselves. Not a complete waste."
He snorted a laugh and shook his head. Then something strange caught Ramang's eye.
A black-haired human was coming toward them, something slung over his shoulder.