Artifact
Artifact.
"An artifact?"
"That's right. Commonly known as [Thousand Faces]. It came off a Mirror Spider. The efficiency's pretty good, too."
'We got an artifact off a monster?'
Could it be, like in games, that monsters dropped items when they died? I'd have to ask Granny Ryu about that later.
But why hand us something like this of all things?
"I'm a beastman myself, mind you, but I'd like to think I've got a decent eye for human aesthetics. The pair of you stand out far too much. Now, a man can get away with it, but for a woman, it's a problem."
"Ah…"
"If you'd rather not get dragged into needless commotion, hiding your face would be for the best, and there's nothing better for that than this. Go on, give it a try."
With a smooth flourish, Noah raised the mask up to her face.
No separate mechanism required—the thing simply clung to her skin as if slathered with adhesive.
Presently the features blurred, and the shape of a new face began to emerge.
And that shape was…
"Yikes."
"…We'll be needing a mirror. Hold on, I'll go grab one."
"Is it that strange?"
"Strange isn't quite the word. It's more like… terrifying."
In an instant, Noah's face had turned into the kind of ghost you'd see in a nightmare. Her features squirmed of their own accord, enough to stir the primal dread buried at the base of every human instinct.
But as Noah focused her mind, the face gradually began settling into a normal shape.
"That's better."
"Mm, an ordinary face. Just right."
Peering into a hand mirror, Noah delicately fine-tuned her new features. What she settled on was an unremarkable look, based on her original face with a few adjustments. Her figure was another matter entirely, but this much would do nicely.
"It's a bit awkward saying this about my own gift, but this is quite a valuable item. As you can see, the flow of mana is barely detectable, so the risk of it being noticed is dramatically lower. Unless you plan on sneaking into the Imperial Palace, you should be fine."
"This is amazing. You'd never know unless you touched the face directly."
"You'll need to recharge it with a magic stone, but once a month is plenty. …So? Are you satisfied with your payment?"
"It's the best."
"Glad you like it."
The artifact Alta had given us was, truly and genuinely, exactly what we needed.
Even outside the village, all eyes drifted toward Noah whenever we went out, and it had been getting on my nerves.
If this was what a small village was like… what would it be like in a city?
'Only Sophia and Gunter have seen Noah's real face so far, so a quick word to keep them quiet and we should be fine.'
"If you're happy, then good. In that case, may I count on you to help with the village's defense? See the job through without incident, and I'll throw in something else as well."
"I can't say what might happen… but I'll do everything I can to hold the line."
"Excellent! Then let me show you to your house. As it happens, there's an empty one sitting vacant."
"Already?"
It had been barely a few hours since we'd met Granny Ryu.
For a house to already be arranged—well, at most I'd expected something like a tent—
But against all expectations, the house we were given was quite respectable.
"Whoa… this is a nice place."
"Right? It used to belong to a hunter, but these days it's, er… well, whatever the case, it's vacant for now!"
A single-story brick house, built as tidily as the well-off homes near the village center, with a small, untended garden attached.
Noah, apparently intrigued, went straight inside.
"It's out on the edge of the village, which isn't ideal. But the ones with real power tend to live on the outskirts anyway. If trouble comes, someone has to protect the village."
"Ah, I see."
Tremendously rational. The sense of community in this village seemed remarkably tight-knit.
Most places, the people in charge would be living in the comfortable part of town.
"Well then, I'll be off. If you need anything, just tell Sophia."
"Understood."
After rattling off this and that about precautions, Alta said he'd call on us if anything came up, and vanished off somewhere.
'Well, either way, having a house is nice.'
I stood gazing at the modest country home, so unlike anything from my past life's cities.
A house that had landed in our laps without warning. True, we'd have to give it back after some time… but I couldn't stop a certain warmth from settling in my chest anyway.
One of these days, I'd get a real home of my own.
And as I was busy nursing that particular dream, Noah reappeared from inside the house.
"We'll need to clean, won't we? It seems it's been quite a while since anyone lived here."
"Ugh. What a chore."
"If you'd like to live in a dust-caked hovel, I won't stop you. It makes no difference to me, after all."
"…"
We set to work tidying the dust-thick interior with meticulous care. It was a proper deep clean, but it was only a cozy one-story house, so in three or four hours we'd gotten it roughly livable.
"Ooh, jerky."
As it turned out, the previous owner hadn't been gone all that long—the cleaning turned up a stash of food. Dried rations like the jerky were perfectly fine, and some of the vegetables and flour-like goods were just barely edible.
Thanks to that, we didn't have to impose on Sophia's household for lunch.
"…This tastes terrible."
Noah's first attempt at cooking, however, was an unmitigated disaster.
It was better than green juice, granted, but that was about the only compliment it deserved. No data on cooking, apparently?
"…With a few more attempts, it should improve. I can't taste anything, so it is rather inconvenient."
"I know we're living off your generosity here, but that lunch was rough. How do you even manage to make soup spicy…"
"There must have been an ingredient like a pepper. Probably."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Before we knew it, three months had passed since we settled in the village.
At first I'd worried about insular village folk and their tight cliques… but we'd adapted to life here splendidly—far better than I'd expected.
And that was due entirely to the hulking young man currently swinging an axe at me.
"Hrraaagh!"
WHOOOOM!
A man carved from pure muscle brought his axe around with tremendous force. That massive two-hander, which would have most people struggling just to lift it, let out a ferocious whistle of wind at every swing. Put a shield in its way, and it'd be the shield that broke.
But none of that applied to me.
CLANG!
"Still lacking in strength."
"That's because you're too strong, Hyung-nim!"
I caught the axe as it came flying in a perfectly honest, dead-straight arc. The blade, fully repaired with Gunter's help, absorbed the heavy blow without wavering a hair's breadth.
Though, to be fair, my strength had something to do with it too.
"It's not just the difference in power… technique matters too—now!"
"Wha—!?"
WHISH!
Wrenching my body into a hard rotation, I broke the balance of his axe grip—and the blade slewed sideways as if by magic, leaving the young man wide open. I leveled the point of my sword at his exposed torso.
In the space of a heartbeat, the match was decided.
"Aw, dang it… I lose."
The young man who so readily admitted defeat was Ivan.
Around these parts, he'd built up a fair bit of notoriety with his wild temperament and monstrous strength. Despite his baby-faced features, he stood two meters tall, his muscles bulging as if he'd been mainlining steroids. It went without saying that nobody had ever been around to rein him in when he acted on his impulses.
"You've been causing less trouble lately, I hear? Your reputation's improved a lot."
"Yes, sir… Once I burn off all this strength, I don't even get those urges anymore."
"Was it restlessness all this time? Why didn't you ever ask Master Alta for a spar?"
"…I tried picking a fight with him once and he broke both my arms. I honestly thought I was going to die. The only person alive who could spar with someone like that is you, Hyung-nim."
"Alta doesn't pull his punches, that's for sure… I've nearly taken some serious hits from him myself."
The oblivious Alta had been slowly steering clear of the menace, while Ivan roamed the village stirring up trouble wherever he went. He'd tried picking fights with me and Noah too, but after I'd gently roughed him up (?) a few times under the pretense of sparring, he'd transformed into a docile country lad. Naturally, the villagers threw their arms wide in welcome, proclaiming that we'd turned a beast into a man.
Well… judging by how he begged me for a sparring match every single day, it didn't seem to be a bad deal for him either.
"Rested up enough? Want to go another round?"
"N-no, I'm good."
"Hm? What's this? You're usually the one clinging to my leg begging for a match."
"Well, it's… Sophia's gathering everyone to head into the forest today. Come to think of it, she said she wanted you to come too, Hyung-nim."
"The forest? Sounds good. I was getting antsy cooped up in the village all day anyway. I'll bring Noah along too."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
I'd assumed the land around the village was nothing but plains, but after crossing a few stretches of hilly terrain, a forest of considerable size spread out before us.
A place kept perpetually humid by the water-hoarding trees, its air thick with a phytoncide-laden forest fragrance that left the mind refreshed.
Sophia chattered away nonstop as she led the group from the front.
"The scenery's lovely, isn't it?"
"So this is what's out here… First time seeing it."
"There are monsters in the forest, you see. Even with the Suppression Device, you can never be too careful, so nobody comes out here on a whim. But with Jun Oppa and Noah Unnie along today… hehe. We might just be able to go deeper, hm? You'll keep us safe, won't you?"
"No need to trouble Hyung-nim! Whatever shows up, my axe will—!"
"You haven't even [Awakened] your mana yet. Don't go biting off more than you can chew."
"Urk."
The gathering party—out for gathering and hunting alike—came to roughly twenty souls in all. Everyone seemed in high spirits at the chance for fresh air after so long, and they chatted merrily as they picked their way around, harvesting the herbs and fruits scattered all about.
We tried to keep up our bodyguard duties, but according to Sophia, the outskirts were safe enough that Ivan was plenty, so we drifted from the group for a while to wander the nearby woods.
Walking beneath the dense canopy, I half-felt like I'd stepped into a storybook.
"Untouched by human hands, indeed—the bounty here is remarkable."
"Normally, a forest like this would belong to some noble. This is one place the pioneer villages have it good."
As Alta had explained to us before, the founding of a pioneer village took seven long years to complete.
In a world where monsters far more dangerous than any wild beast roamed the land… enduring that long was a monumental task. And so people built villages outright, settled in for the long haul, and guarded their Suppression Devices.
"It reminds me of the American Wild West. From what I've read, back then you could just plant a flag and the land was yours."
"There's a resemblance… except this is far more dangerous and far harder."
And naturally, completing that grueling settlement came with commensurate rewards. A full decade of total tax exemption, plus the enormous benefit of permanent, automatic rights to everything the surrounding land produced. Forests like this one would belong to the village outright, of course.
It was, for all intents and purposes, a policy for minting brand-new nobles.
"…That said, the odds of a settlement actually succeeding are vanishingly low. If I recall, something like one in a hundred? This one made it, probably thanks to having Alta and Granny Ryu around."
"The Village Chief is no ordinary man either. I had the chance to speak with him recently—he struck me as quite well educated. Then again, acquiring a Suppression Device takes money and connections…"
"I heard he was a merchant who made his name in the Imperial Capital? No idea why he'd build a pioneer village out in the middle of nowhere, though."
BANG—!
Just as our chatter hit its stride, a sudden gunshot rang out, shattering the stillness of the forest.
It had come from the direction of the villagers.
What now? They'd said the game animals were skittish about the smell of gunpowder, so they stuck to bows as much as possible. And I couldn't sense so much as a whiff of monster presence.
"Let's go, now!"
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
BANG! BANG!
"Oppa! It's a monster! Right now, Ivan he's—!"
"Hyung-nim! I'm gonna die! Save me!"
We hadn't strayed far from the group to begin with, so at a dead sprint it took all of five seconds to reach where Sophia and the others were.
But in that brief span, the peaceful forest scene had been turned to ruin.
"Ugh…"
Several of the village youths lay sprawled on the ground, bleeding. Their chests rose and fell—thankfully, they were still breathing. The fishy reek of spilled blood and the acrid bite of gunpowder stung my nose.
I glared at the culprit who had conjured this whole mess.
Huff?
An enormous bear, mid-chomp on Ivan's axe—casually gnawing it like a chew toy—paused and met my eyes.
One that could stand right in front of you and still give off almost no presence… that was no ordinary monster.