#008 Night Raid
#008 Night Raid
The law of the jungle.
It is the basic principle by which wild beasts live, but it is a theory that applies just as easily to Magic Beasts and Demonfolk.
Survival of the fittest.
The strong survive, and the weak are culled or fall under the strong—that is the natural order.
No race embodied the law of the jungle and survival of the fittest better than goblins.
Though they form groups, if their group is stronger than another group, they bite into and devour the other.
Naturally, if they are the weaker ones, they avoid the others and bow their heads low.
That is how the goblin race has survived on the continent.
They are weak, but because they can use their heads at least a little better than other Demonfolk, they put their shallow wits together and found ways and means to survive.
"Grrr."
The goblins gathered in one place.
The elder goblin and the tribe's strongest warrior-class goblins gathered inside his dugout hut.
The reason they gathered was one thing alone.
"Delicious smell. Can't resist. Krrk."
A delicious smell that made their mouths water.
The smell carried on the air from afar could not be ignored, no matter how hard they tried not to notice it.
"Smell of Demonfolk. Grrr."
"One of the Demonfolk, weakened."
"A powerful being must have been summoned to the Middle Realm, possessed a human body for some reason, and lost all its mana. Krrk."
"""That's not it."""
The scent of this "weakened powerhouse" left the goblins conflicted.
No matter how strong a beast was, if it lay bleeding one step from death and the goblins could creep close enough to slip a knife into its throat, there was no reason they could not take it as prey.
Goblins are weak, and precisely because of that, they only go after opponents they can defeat.
"Can we beat it?"
"If we fight now, we can win."
"The Demonfolk isn't much of a fighting force anymore. Grrr."
The weakened Demonfolk wasn't the problem.
The real problem was the human village where that Demonfolk was presumed to be hiding.
"The Hero Village—are we really going to attack it?"
"Isn't it a village without a Hero anyway? Today is the chance. Let's go down right now and attack."
"How?"
"We sneak up on the village with the Holy Sword, set it on fire in the dead of night so no one can escape, then eat the nicely roasted humans. Krrk."
"""Don't talk nonsense. Krrk."""
The risk was too great for the goblins.
Even if no one took Hero Village seriously, it was still a settlement full of humans.
A single tribe of only a few dozen goblins did not have nearly enough strength to raid the village.
"What do we do?"
"I can't hold back. Let's just capture that Demonfolk and drag it off."
"I can't hold back either. We kill all the humans, find the Demonfolk, and split it among ourselves. Krrk."
"No, we sneak up in the dead of night while they're fast asleep, set a ring of fire so they can't get out, then just throw rocks inside. Right?"
"""Yeah, let's attack right now. Krrrk."""
In the end, the goblins could not hold back.
Whether the opponent was human or anything else, they simply could not endure the smell of delicious prey.
"If we eat the Demonfolk, we can rise in status. Krrrk."
Even fallen greatness was still greatness, as the saying went.
Even if one of the Demonfolk was on the verge of vanishing after exhausting its mana, a goblin that consumed its "core" could evolve into a stronger form.
Like the legendary Goblin Chieftain said to exist in the Demon Realm, a goblin could transform into a muscular, powerful form that rivaled an orc.
"Elder, what should we do?"
"We all gather together and attack in the dead of night. Done."
"Oooh! A perfect tactic. Krrk."
The goblins clapped and all set about preparing for battle.
What they were after was one thing alone.
The Demonfolk's heart.
Focusing on the smell that stung their noses, the goblins began to move stealthily through the darkness, one by one.
* * *
Something was approaching.
There were several presences—not just one or two.
"......."
Lucius was asleep.
He had given up the bed and was currently lying on the floor with a hide spread beneath him, and the people outside began to enter with quick steps, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The house door....
Creeeak.
It was not locked.
There had been no lock in the first place.
In a good-natured rural village, I had thought people might live generously with one another, but the sensation flowing from these people entering like thieves now set my nerves on edge.
They were after me.
They were after my body.
'What do I do?'
Should I scream and wake Lucius?
No, even if I do, there are many of them.
The soft rustling sounds surely meant they had even brought tools of some kind.
There was only one way to deal with the situation.
'I have to use a Mana Stone.'
I had to use the Mana Stone Lucius had obtained from hunting a Magic Beast.
I had already absorbed all its mana, so I would have to use the empty Mana Stone itself to drive them off.
'Should I kill them?'
Killing them was another option.
Humans die from a single ice spike driven into the heart, and no matter how strong the villagers here are, they are nothing but farmers who would not even match a low-ranking soldier.
However.
'A witch who set out to seal the Demon King shouldn't go around killing humans recklessly, right?'
It seemed I'd set up the character wrong.
Before going to sleep, I should have threatened that this witch could eliminate anything that interfered with the Demon King's sealing, but Lucius was such a pushover that I missed the timing.
If I got up and killed them, and Lucius ended up seeing the villagers' corpses, what would he think of me?
—How could you kill people?!
He might very well lose his temper like that.
'Let's hold back.'
I’d finally found myself a top-tier pushover.
In poker terms, it was like holding three aces and two kings—a full house, aces over kings.
In this situation, would I trade in the kings to try for four of a kind?
I did not have enough chips for that kind of gamble.
'So let's hold back for now.'
Those humans probably just came secretly at night to leave a gift.
Thinking that, I quietly made my presence known and drew their attention....
"Hey, he's asleep, right?"
"Yeah. Tie this bastard up."
"Where's the woman?"
"Acting all nice, he probably told her to sleep in the bed."
What a shame.
They were robbers.
Just as I had first thought, they had indeed come with malicious intent.
'What now?'
I spread out my senses and counted two people inside the house.
And outside, there were two more.
One of the presences carried familiar mana. It had to be the village chief.
'That damn old man really went through with it!'
He was clearly planning to do something filthy after seeing this body.
No wonder he had stared at me with the same face as Zepar despite being a mere human—he intends to commit a depraved act against me!
'Should I change bodies?'
If I possessed some beast like a dog or cat, I would not suffer this kind of humiliation.
I felt a surge of anger for no good reason, but I had already steeled myself, so I was about to cast magic at them—
"Hey, careful, if this bastard messes up—"
WHAM!!
A clean strike.
Lucius kicked the man who had thrust a rope toward him, his instep catching the young man squarely in the jaw and sending him reeling.
CRASH!!
Household items fell, and I took this as my chance and rose to my feet.
Carefully pulling up the blanket, I opened my eyes as wide as I could and shouted.
"Wh-what is this?!"
"Damn it!!"
One of the robbers swung something at Lucius.
Swish!
He swung wildly with a dagger sharpened enough to reflect the moonlight, but it did not reach Lucius.
'Oh.'
So he really had not simply picked up that Mana Stone off the ground.
Lucius dodged the young man's swinging dagger and positioned himself as if protecting me, then soon grabbed a wooden staff leaning against the wall like a practice sword.
"What are you doing!"
"Ngh...!"
"What the hell are you doing in the middle of the night?! We're from the same village!"
So that was what Lucius sounded like when he was angry.
At the first sound of Lucius's angry voice, I recalled how the Cerberus that was gentle in front of me used to snarl at the Demon Kings.
"C-calm down, Arthur. We're not here to fight."
"Then what?!"
"We're here to capture that woman!"
"...Why?"
Lucius shifted his stance again, as if protecting me.
The man Lucius had kicked staggered up and spat a gob of blood onto the floor.
"Obviously because she's an outsider! I don't know where she came from, but we can't just leave her be!"
"You came here with a knife because of that? Say something that makes sense!!"
"If we said something that made sense, would you back off quietly?"
Creeeak.
The door opened and the village chief entered the house.
At the chief's appearance, Lucius's body stiffened, and the chief grinned as he pointed at me.
"Beware the red-haired witch who comes to the Hero Village. The red-haired witch will bring about this village's end."
"...What is that?"
"It is one of the legends passed down in this village since long ago. I too would have forgotten it had I not dug through old books."
"This is the first time I've heard such a story!!"
"Of course it is the first time you've heard it. It is a secret passed down through the chief's family for generations. What meaning would there be in telling the village of a disaster to come?"
"...So it's a made-up story."
I rose from the bed.
"Don't be fooled, Lucius. These people are making up a legend that doesn't exist to confuse us."
"Shut up, red-haired witch! You're the woman who'll bring disaster to our village! You are nothing but disaster!"
"This old man...."
If it came down to it, I might have to fight.
If so....
"Surrender quietly!!"
The village chief pulled something from inside his clothes.
The object, which seemed to be made of metal, was like a giant finger, and the hole inside it was aimed at me.
"Y-you coward!!"
Lucius turned pale and shielded me with his body.
"Pulling out a gun like a coward!!"
"......?"
A gun?