The Parasite's Sting
In the damp forest, I stood alone. “Maybe I’ll rest here.”
It had already been quite some time since I left Inis Madun. Dusk was falling. Though I couldn’t see the sun and couldn’t judge the exact hour by the sky alone, the deepening darkness made it clear enough. Even this far south of the Empire, winter was still winter.
I had my precious pocket watch, so I could tell the time without looking at the sky.
I set my leather pack—nearly as large as I was—down on the ground and stopped walking. The bundle settled onto a flat rock so thickly covered in moss I couldn’t even guess its depth.
I didn’t sit. There wasn’t a single dry spot where I could lower myself without soaking my robe, my traveling dress, the bandages wrapped around me in place of underclothes, and the skin beneath. After a long, grueling journey, I had no desire to add a wet backside to my troubles. My entire body was already drenched anyway.
I had long since stopped counting how many times I had set my pack down to rest that day. I only knew this would be the last.
Traveling through this humid air and clinging fog—air so thick it felt as though water were filling my lungs with every breath—was truly exhausting. Even without the heavy pack, walking for thirty minutes at a stretch felt like hard labor. Though it was winter, my whole body was soaked in liquid I couldn’t tell was sweat or water.
“I’ll have to lay out a bed… but the ground is so wet I can’t sleep standing up. I suppose I’ll have to burn a space for the bedroll with Peri’s Igniter, dry it out, and then sleep.”
While thinking this, I looked around the forest. The fog was so dense I couldn’t see beyond a few scattered trees. It was a desolate wood, the kind from which ghosts might leap at any moment. This, too, was part of the land of death—Riaska—so the priests who managed the souls of the dead better than anywhere else would surely keep actual ghosts from appearing. Still…
“…Skeletons or walking corpses might show up, though.”
Even if the restless dead appeared, it wouldn’t be a problem. On the contrary, it would mean a priest of the God of Rest was nearby, keeping watch over the land—a sign of safety. No priest would harm travelers. Though it was strange to feel reassured by the sight of such ominous beings.
What was truly dangerous were the wild creatures mentioned in the letter Karik had given me. What sort of beings lived here that he had felt the need to warn me?
I tested several spots near the path with my foot. The ground was tangled with shrubs, grass, mushrooms, and ferns—unsettling and sodden—but solid enough. If I strayed too far from the path I might sink into the swamp, so this would do.
Carefully controlling the range of the magic, I used Peri’s Igniter to burn a patch of ground a little wider than my bedroll. It wouldn’t dry completely just by burning everything, but it was better than sleeping on plants bloated with moisture and crawling with insects.
The acrid smoke mingled with the evening fog. It smelled of death, of living things being slaughtered. Plants had no hearts, but they had life.
“I wonder if the priests of the God of Rest would disapprove of this. Still, it’s better than a soaked bedroll, so there’s no helping it.”
While thinking this, I used Mervin’s sword and the shovel from my pack to scrape together branches, grass, mushrooms, and mossy soil from the surroundings. I planned to keep a fire burning in a circle around the bedroll all night to ward off insects and animals and keep the bedding dry.
With Peri’s Igniter I could adjust the flame to burn steadily for about ten hours. Being a mage certainly had its conveniences.
Just as the space for the bedroll had burned down to black ash and slightly drier earth, a rustling sound reached me.
“Huh?”
It came from behind a tree about twenty paces to my left. I carefully set the shovel down and gripped Mervin’s sword. I considered casting Veltara’s Transparent Shield on my left arm, but… I had to save magic for when I truly needed it.
“Is anyone there?”
If it was a small animal, the sound of my voice would send it fleeing. If it was a person, they would respond. I asked loudly on purpose, but there was no reply from the other side.
…No, there was a response.
Having heard my voice, something stepped out from the shadow of the trees and turned straight toward me. Even with the fog, the distance was close enough that I could make out its silhouette.
“A deer…?”
It was a deer. A creature no larger than a big dog was walking slowly toward me. It showed no wariness toward humans at all—either it had never seen one before, or it was very young.
I loosened my grip on the sword and lowered my arm into a relaxed position so the deer could approach without fear.
“Maybe I’ll pet it.”
I watched the deer coming toward me. When it drew close enough that I could have touched it if I stretched out my arm, I froze, startled, and pulled my hand back.
“Hic…!!”
I took three steps backward.
“This… is a deer, right…?”
It was a deer—at least in silhouette. But the head beneath the deer’s hide was not a deer’s head.
Even in the dim light, I could see at a glance that its face was covered in tumors or something similar. Swollen blisters and pus made it impossible to tell where its eyes were, or even whether it still had a skull.
The blisters did not stay still; they pulsed irregularly and unsteadily. The sight was nauseating, repulsive.
“What… is that? Some kind of disease?”
I remembered scenes I had seen occasionally in savanna documentaries—herbivores driven mad by parasites that had reached their brains, spinning in circles until they died.
The deer stood facing me with its invisible eyes, neither fleeing nor showing any sign of attacking or doing anything else. Perhaps the disease had dulled its fear and wariness by invading its brain.
I reached out and gently stroked the deer’s back. I would have preferred to pet its head, but I had no desire to touch that deformed skull.
I concentrated for a moment, wondering if I could turn back time and heal it, but time did not rewind.
…It did not fail to rewind entirely. Slowly, very slowly—like an old man leaning on a cane—it crept backward at a pace that made me sigh. For every second that passed, perhaps five seconds rewound. The magic of time was probably leaking through the cracks in my sealed heart.
Since I wasn’t going to make camp here, I couldn’t heal the disease anyway.
“Then… maybe this will work.”
Once more I stopped stroking the deer’s back and focused my mind. I placed one hand over the pocket inside my robe, feeling the ticking of the clock hands and the clicking of the gears. I couldn’t turn back time, but perhaps I could read the time the deer had lived through.
I hadn’t tried to read the past since losing my power, so it was something I needed to check at least once.
“Ah. I can see something.”
The deer’s past flowed into my memories…
A small deer was running desperately through the foggy forest when a thick, buzzing sound reached its ears. It sounded like the wingbeats of a wasp—bzzzzzz—but it was nothing like an ordinary wasp’s wings.
At the edge of the terrified deer’s vision, something the length of a human arm flashed briefly—an ant-like creature with a jade-colored, gleaming exoskeleton—before vanishing again.
Then something stung the back of the deer’s neck. Its vision blurred. The fading buzz and the staggering of its own body stained the time the deer had lived like a nightmare.
“Hic?!”
I yanked my hand away and stared at the deer with trembling eyes. Suddenly deprived of my touch, the deer tilted its head in confusion.
“I… I have to leave. Even if I have to walk all night, I have to… get out of here…”
I immediately gathered the pack I had left on the rock. I had gone to the trouble of using magic to prepare a campsite, but this was no time to worry about that. The buzzing sound seemed to echo in my ears like a nightmare.
I had only glimpsed it at the edge of the deer’s vision, but I knew that creature. I couldn’t not know it. It had appeared in Professor Melissa’s class on herbs and poisons, but more than that…
“It is a refined non-lethal extract from the venom of a parasitic wasp that uses humans as hosts, mixed with the spores of the Borasong mushroom.”
Zophy’s words whirled inside my head. For a moment I felt dizzy, as though I were not in the lonely forest of the Great Swamp but back in the terrible basement of the Mitenburg mansion.
That grotesquely large insect was exactly that—a parasitic wasp that used humans and mammals as hosts. The very venom I had been forcibly injected with. The memory of my mind collapsing in ruin came rushing back.
“No… This place… ah, no… I shouldn’t have come here. Why… why did I…”
Half out of my mind from the assault of horrific memories, I muttered to myself and hurried along the forest path as night slowly fell, unable to see my feet clearly. I had no choice. Even in the dark, even if the ground was slippery, even if I fell and scraped my hands raw, I had to get out of this forest.
“Zophy… get out of my head, please…!! No, I mustn’t think of that woman… but I can’t forget… Father… Father… help me…”
After walking for dozens of minutes while muttering like a madwoman, night fully descended upon the forest.
A night in which neither moonlight nor starlight could pierce the clouds and fog, a night in which I could not see even a few steps ahead. Thanks to the small magical light I held in my left hand I could keep walking, but my concentration wavered with my shaken heart, and the light flickered with it.
I kept muttering as I forced my exhausted legs to move until they could go no further. Behind me came the steady sound of following footsteps. It was the deer. It seemed to be following me in the hope that I might do something for it.
When I walked, the deer walked. When I stopped, the deer stopped and pricked up its ruined ears. Unable to see, it appeared to be following me by sound and scent alone.
I walked for over an hour without rest, my pack heavy with fog, until my legs finally refused to move and I had no choice but to rest again. The deer followed me the entire time.
I set my pack down in the middle of a forest path and sat on it. The deer’s head was level with my eyes. Having found me after I suddenly stopped, the deer approached cautiously, sniffing.
“Yeah, I’m right here, my traveling companion.”
I spoke to let the deer know where I was. When it came almost close enough to touch, I grimaced at the still-twitching tumors on its face, but pity stirred in me as well.
“Poor thing…”
When I gently stroked its neck, the deer parted its lips slightly and licked my wrist. It seemed the pulsing masses had not yet invaded its nose or tongue. If they had, it would probably have suffocated and died already.
What could I do for the deer now that I could no longer properly turn back time? Should I simply draw my sword and end its suffering? I hesitated.
While I was thinking this, the deer took a few steps backward, then knelt on its forelegs, trembling. Alarmed by the sudden change in its condition, I stood up to examine the deer, whose mouth hung wide open as it shook violently.
The deer struggled to lift its head toward me, jaws stretched almost to their limit—as though it wanted to cry out but could not. Wondering if something was wrong, I shouldered my pack again and approached to calm it.
Between the deer’s open jaws, I saw something.
“What…?”
I brought the light I held in my left hand closer.
“That doesn’t look like its tongue. Vomit? It’s black… and shiny… and the size of a fist… Did it swallow a rock or something?”
I narrowed my eyes and brought the light a little closer still.
“No, it’s not a rock. That’s… an ant’s head…?”
Then that meant… Ah, no…!!
And the insect that had been hiding inside the deer’s mouth—having probably finished laying its eggs in the stomach—shot straight toward me.
“W-wait… ngh…”
Before I could react, I felt a sharp sting in my lower abdomen.
“Ah, no… I have to… get it off… me…”
I tried to steady my rapidly clouding mind and tear the insect away or kill it, but—
“Ah… my arms… they… won’t… move… my legs… either…”
I collapsed where I stood.