The Uninvited Guest
[It has no internal organs.]
Urnil, who had examined the corpse in a short span of time, spoke.
“What happened to it?”
[It was eaten by an animal, that much is certain. Taking the entrails of a hunted beast is the privilege of a predator. They are packed with the nutrients a creature’s body needs.]
Urnil examined it a little longer and added.
[Seeing as the blood on the surface is frozen, it’s been a few days. The ground is impossible to see because of the snow nearby. Can you clear a small patch near the carcass?]
“Yes.”
Akasa immediately snapped off an evergreen branch at a suitable height and swept the ground. Before the temperature had plummeted, the ground must have held the warmth and moisture of the forest, and the predator’s tracks were clearly revealed.
“This is……”
Akasa looked down at the ground, or more precisely, at his own feet, with a hardened expression.
The leather shoes Akasa wore were often compared to the paws of a Taung. A round footprint, several times larger than those feet, was clearly imprinted there.
[……It’s a Taung’s track.]
Urnil’s voice seeped into his mind, chilling and grim.
“A Taung? This?”
Akasa’s voice stiffened. He was someone who had even fought against wolves. He possessed a toughness that belied his age. But the owner of the tracks before his eyes made even that toughness feel meaningless.
[This isn’t good. Since the forest stretches across the entire world, it seems their habitat and territorial radius have expanded far beyond what I once knew. They were originally creatures that lived near the border crossing into Penbas.]
“How long ago was that, Urnil?”
[Eight hundred years ago?]
Akasa decided to drop the subject.
The difference in the perception of time between a god and himself was uselessly vast in these moments.
Instead, Akasa examined the surrounding trees. Territorial animals left behind excrement, secretions for scent, and claw marks as their own signs. But no such marks were visible anywhere.
[I don’t know if it’s prowling this vicinity or just passing through.]
“Do they just pass through sometimes?”
[It could be because it’s winter. Taungs are hibernating animals. Unlike their massive size, their stamina is lower than a Ho’s. So, they consume as much nutrition as possible and sleep. Until spring comes.]
Akasa wore a surprised expression. It was the first time he had heard of a creature that ate a meal and then slept for an entire season.
However, his face soon turned perplexed. He had discovered an error in the god’s words.
“But it’s winter right now. Then why is this thing moving?”
[Perhaps it didn’t consume enough nutrients, or it’s a sensitive creature and woke up. Or maybe, it couldn’t find a suitable place to live before winter set in. This is also why I’m worried.]
“Yes?”
[A Taung that wakes from its slumber is extremely ferocious. If this thing is still roaming nearby, and if, by any chance, it follows your scent all the way back to the cave……]
Urnil’s words ended on a chilling note.
[We will be cast out into this bitter cold.]
Akasa immediately used Firmo to reinforce his blade even more firmly. It was the only way to cleanly process the frozen meat of the deer carcass.
[If it were summer, I would have strictly forbidden you from doing this……]
But now, it was the time of the cold, stern season. The deer meat, frozen by nature’s chill before it could even begin to rot, was fresh enough that not a single fly had gathered.
[Hurry. The snowfall is getting heavier.]
“Yes!”
Even with the danger of the Taung, leaving behind such a windfall in this season would be foolish.
Bewildered by the surprisingly sharp edge of his blade, Akasa processed the head, back, and the parts easiest to carry, taking only as much meat as he could manage.
[You’re getting good at this, it being only your second time.]
At those words, Akasa thought back to when he had hunted a large beast for the first time. Akasa had mostly set traps with small animals in mind, but Urnil had advised him to make all his hunting traps sturdy.
Perhaps by luck, the first thing caught in that sturdy snare was a doe. He hadn’t been able to drag the carcass, so he had dismantled it as quickly as possible and made many trips back and forth. If he hadn’t caught it near the cave, half the meat would have likely rotted and been wasted.
Recalling that memory, Akasa smiled awkwardly.
“There’s a good side to winter, too.”
[Everything is good except for the cold. Oh, by the way. You must take the antlers.]
“The antlers?”
[They’re called velvet antlers; if you boil them and drink the broth, they have a tonic effect. They aren’t as good as the antlers of a freshly grown deer, but you don’t live in abundance and your activity levels are high. You can’t afford to pass up even one thing like this.]
“So it’s medicinal.”
Akasa looked down at the deer’s head for a moment, then focused his Essence without hesitation. His concentration and the amount of Essence he could manage were reaching their limits after the continuous dismantling work.
After breaking the antlers with a few strikes, Akasa packed as much meat as he could. The antlers were awkward to carry, so he tucked them roughly into the gap of the leather lining his poncho.
As Urnil had said, he decided to leave the remaining meat behind. After moving the meat to a hollow terrain where the cold gathered even more intensely, Akasa turned his steps back toward his nest.
The snowfall grew even heavier.
He had to hurry back, or he feared he would be isolated, so Akasa quickened his pace. Yet, there was no fear. He had a guide who would never let him lose his way.
However, Akasa did have a small, lingering anxiety.
“What on earth was it?”
[What?]
“That arrow.”
The arrow stuck in the back of the deer’s neck. Urnil had judged it wasn’t a poisoned arrow after seeing the state of the wound where it had been embedded. If it had been poisoned, he would have had to discard all the meat he had gathered today.
But Akasa was more interested in the person who had fired it than the arrow itself.
“Why did the hunter kill the deer and not take it?”
[I have no leads. Though it’s easy enough to make assumptions.]
“What are they?”
Akasa lifted his left hand slightly to look at the Karmatio. Urnil spoke.
[The most rational inference is that the Taung discovered this creature at the same time the hunter caught it. Or perhaps, it discovered both.]
“But there was no human corpse nearby.”
[Because there was already a tempting meal right in front of it. It wouldn’t have needed to set its eyes on anything else moving.]
Hearing that, Akasa stopped walking, struck by a sudden realization.
“Wait a minute. Then are you saying the Taung and the hunter are both in this territory?”
[I would hope so.]
“Yes?”
[Because then the Taung’s attention would be divided.]
Akasa swallowed hard. The mention of divided attention meant that while someone else was drawing its gaze, there was a role for him to play regarding the Taung. This wasn’t a remark made on the premise that he wouldn’t be dragged into the hunt.
“Are you telling me to catch the Taung?”
[You have to catch it. I can help you escape, but there is no such thing as an eternal flight against a wild predator. Especially in this season, you have no way to survive outside.]
The overcast sky seemed to reflect his inner state. After walking in silence for a moment, Akasa nodded at Urnil’s words. He was right.
Once he had decided to survive, he had to step into the opaque adventures that came his way at any given moment.
“But where could that hunter have appeared from?”
[Does it need a reason for an Exile to exist outside the Sovereign’s land?]
“That…… is true.”
Akasa caught his breath and adjusted his grip on the meat. His aching arm muscles screamed in protest.
Meanwhile, Urnil checked Akasa’s tracks.
[The footprints will be erased soon.]
Unlike those who would worry about being tracked, or ordinary people who would fear getting lost in the midwinter forest, Akasa strode across the woods without a single worry.
That was the privilege of a boy.
And finally, having returned to his nest, the boy opened the cold stone cairn he had placed outside the cave and stacked the frozen meat inside, layer by layer.
[Stop quietly.]
Akasa reacted instantly to Urnil’s words. He hadn’t made a sound because he had been told to be quiet first.
[Look below.]
The edge of the cave floor, right in front of the door Akasa had made. There was a strange trace there. A trajectory made by hands and feet passing by. Considering the snow that had been piling up, there was no way the snow in this position should look like this.
Akasa slowly swept away the snow piled at the entrance with his hand and was able to confirm the tracks of another person left on the stone.
[Someone is here.]
Akasa quickly tightened his grip on his staff. And with a fierce gaze, he began to glare at the door leading into his nest.
An Exile? Or a hunter who came seeking a place to avoid the Taung?
He didn’t know. But whoever was inside, they wouldn’t be a friendly presence. Akasa checked toward the ceiling of the cave.
Smoke was coming out. Since he had left the cave empty for quite a long time, there was no way smoke would be coming out unless someone had added dry grass to the embers to revive the fire.
[Don’t worry about your vision. Your eyes are exceptionally good.]
At Urnil’s words, Akasa reacted with a bit of bewilderment. That was exactly what Akasa had been worried about. Could an enemy be lying in ambush inside the dark, fireless cave?
But Akasa, who had been reborn by accepting Essence, had received the greatest benefit in his eyes.
[You know, right? The talk about—.]
“Take them down first. That’s the safest way. I remember.”
[Good.]
There was the precedent of Kizzel. One way or another, Akasa vowed not to leave those who would hurt him, or those who had the potential to do so, alone.
Urnil reacted with satisfaction. Akasa threw open the door and leaped inside.
“Hmm? The door…… Ugh!”
The opponent had their back turned to the fire. As the opponent turned their head, Essence imbued with a pale light struck the man’s side. The moment a brutal sound was heard from his right arm, Akasa swung his staff and aimed the tip at the throat of the man who had fallen in the direction of the swing.
The well-burning bonfire illuminated the faces of the one standing and the one fallen. Akasa quickly confirmed the target’s appearance.
It was an adult man. There were traces of a beard circling the silhouette of his face, and the sword at his waist and the bow on his back were impressive.
‘The equipment?’
Akasa glanced around the cave and discovered them laid out near the fire. Suddenly, Akasa thought the man before him might be a hunter. That thought was interrupted by the man’s subsequent words.
“Wh-what. You, suddenly—.”
“I am the owner of this cave.”
Striving not to look scared, Akasa said dryly. To be sufficiently vigilant. Akasa knew that would be the greatest terror to an enemy.
Akasa twisted his angle slightly, standing not directly at the man’s feet, but to the side of his arm. It was a subtle distance where the man’s arm couldn’t immediately reach, and a position where Akasa could pierce the man’s throat with the staff at any moment.
“Speak. Who are you? Are you an Exile?”
At Akasa’s words, the man’s eyes widened.
“Are there people who aren’t Exiles living outside the Sovereign’s land? If that’s a question, it’s a bit pathetic.”
“There could be practitioners. You don’t deny it.”
“But how old are you? I’m not at an age to be spoken to informally by a child.”
“Should I offer honorifics to someone who might threaten my life?”
The man nodded readily with a look of slight surprise. The throat area touching the tip of the staff moved with a gulp.
“A well-taught child. You seem to have your circumstances. To answer your question first…… Yes. I am an Exile. But I am not your enemy.”
“How can I trust that?”
“Look to your side.”
Akasa did not follow the man’s words.
“There’s an arrow within reach of your arm, and you tell me to look to the side?”
The staff dug a little deeper into the man’s throat.
“Don’t ignore me because I’m a child.”
Akasa pointed with his chin at the man’s weapons.
“The bow. The dagger. Take them out by the scabbard and throw them to the side. Move your hands slowly.”
The man sighed and accepted Akasa’s conditions, even in his uncomfortable position. Even after seeing the man disarmed, Akasa was not satisfied.
“Back away into the corner.”
As the man retreated, Akasa, who had cornered him with the fire between them, asked again.
“What is it you want me to look at?”
“The corner to the right of the cave. It’s straight ahead from where you’re standing.”
Akasa glanced sideways. Then, the items there caught his eye. They were well-dried jerky twisted into a rope.
The man, having confirmed Akasa’s gaze, parted his lips.
“That’s my food. When I go out hunting, I don’t return for a long time. I happened to find a cave to stay in, so I intended to share it with the owner.”
“How can I trust that?”
“Trusting or not is your freedom. However, I would appreciate it if you gave me a chance to prove I have no hostility in another way.”
“Prove it.”
The man did not hesitate for even a moment.
“I will entrust you with my weapons.”