Chapter 39
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 39
Chapter Title: The Inheritor from the Pass
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#
The rain fell for five days before it stopped. The black clouds scattered as if fleeing, revealing a blue sky, and the sun dried the land. Ulrich stood in the shade of the forest, breathing in the humid summer air.
He was walking through the woods. They had to pass through the forest to get to Eisleburg, but the sun began to set before they could exit. While the rest of the party prepared to make camp, he announced he would add to their meal and went to search the woods.
Roberta followed him. Her excuse was to hunt with him, but her true reason was different. Once they were far enough that the dwarf, Toruhel, couldn't hear them, she spoke.
“Toruhel… he doesn't seem to know at all.”
She was referring to Ulrich.
“It seems so.”
The dwarf had said that a human named Selim had saved his ancestors from slavery and freed them in a distant southern mountain range. However, he didn't know that Selim was still alive, nor that Selim was Ulrich.
It was the complete opposite of the elf, Yudebora, who had come searching for Ulrich. The elves of the Kuiania Jungle remembered him and knew he was alive, but the dwarf’s lineage had been broken.
Toruhel had mentioned a clan that revered Selim more than their creator, the earth goddess Keme. Roberta figured they must have been the dwarves who, like the elves, knew the truth. The secret history must have been forgotten when their line died out.
“Aren't you disappointed?”
“Disappointed? Why do you think that?”
When Roberta hesitated, Ulrich continued.
“This is better for me. It’s more comfortable to be forgotten. If I wanted to be remembered and acknowledged, I wouldn't have changed my name in the first place. Don't you agree?”
“Well… yes, that’s true.”
“Instead, try to guess why Toruhel came.”
The reason he came? She tilted her head.
“Hasn't he already told us the reason?”
Wasn’t he here to check on the crown? she thought, looking at Ulrich. The dwarf had said there was a problem with the crown he and his brother had made. He had hinted that someone had tampered with it.
Every dwarf was a master craftsman, and their pride in their work was as great as their skill. They were a race that utterly despised it when someone they hadn't approved of tampered with their creations.
Moreover, that crown was modeled after the emperor's crown, and he himself had called it special. She thought it was only natural for him to travel to a distant foreign land, drawn by the rumors.
“Roberta, think carefully. Are dwarves only found in the Esta-Mauneto Mountains? How many dwarves are there in the world? Why, out of all of them, do you think they chose the Toruhel brothers?”
Hearing that, she realized it was true.
There were many dwarves more famous than Toruhel. In fact, she had never even heard the name Toruhel, nor his hometown, Peira Pass. She only knew of the Esta-Mauneto Mountains from what she had read.
Upon reflection, entrusting the crown for a man who would usher in a new era to an unknown dwarf was strange.
“...It’s also strange that he heard the story. I don't know where or how someone who attended the Osnover coronation could have met him.”
“Yes. If you dig deeper, there are many things that can't be dismissed as coincidence.”
It meant someone had intervened.
And as far as she knew, there was only one entity capable of such a thing.
“You believe the Pantheon intervened.”
“So far, those children have been the most active.”
“However,” Ulrich said, stopping in his tracks.
The bushes in front of them rustled, and a deer suddenly emerged. The creature stood with its wet, brown fur glistening, and began to graze, not yet having noticed the two of them.
He gripped his short spear in his right hand and raised it to head height. Then he threw it. With a soft thud, the deer’s head was pierced by the spear.
“It's too early to say for sure. As you know, there are too many children entangled with me. It wouldn't be strange for any of them to have had a hand in this.”
#
When the two returned to the campsite with the deer, three people greeted them: Fritz, Toruhel, and a man lying face down with an injury on his back.
Was there an attack? Roberta scanned the area, but there were no signs of a struggle. If a beast or bandits had appeared, there would have been footprints or bodies, but there was only an injured man, collapsed and breathing heavily.
“What happened?”
“Monsters. He says monsters appeared in the village ahead.”
Monsters?
Roberta put her questions aside for the moment and examined the injured man. The skin on his back was torn. There were four long gashes, as if he had been raked by a beast’s claws. The wounds hadn't clotted, and blood mixed with sweat was streaming down in a crimson tide.
“Fritz, there should be a medicine kit in my pack. Can you check?”
“Ah, yes!”
While Fritz searched for the kit, she prayed to Ganymea and moved the mana within her body. Soon, mana gathered at the tips of her left fingers, and she touched the wounds with it.
The man groaned and shuddered. She pressed down on his shoulder with her right hand to keep him still. The wounds her left hand touched began to heal. As the mana enveloped the gashes, it erased them like wind sweeping away dust.
“Is this what you were looking for?”
Fritz brought a small, rectangular wooden box. When opened, it revealed several compartments, each containing a glass vial. Roberta picked out the one filled with gray pills.
They were the size of a pinky nail. She had the injured man take one with some water, and color returned to his face.
“Th-thank you, Priest.”
Roberta humbly replied that she had only done her duty.
“More importantly, you said this wound was from a monster? Could you explain in detail? What happened?”
“Yes… It was so sudden, I don’t know the exact situation. I just heard screams early in the morning, and when I went out, monsters were rampaging through the village.”
He recalled how the villagers were hunted down without a chance to resist. He said he only survived because he happened to be on the outskirts of the village, and because he had run all day.
“What did the monsters look like? And how many were there?”
“They looked similar to wolves, but bigger, with something like horns on their heads and bodies. As for the number… I don't know. I got the sense there were many, but I didn't have the chance to count them…”
He lowered his head dejectedly and wiped his face with his hands.
‘Bigger than a wolf, has horns, travels in a pack.’
A few monsters came to mind.
But as far as she knew, there were no monster lairs nearby. For monsters to appear, a lair had to be close, yet they were near Eisleburg, the capital of the Osnover Kingdom. A lair forming near the capital was impossible.
For monsters to truly appear here, they would have had to travel from a distant lair. But how? Could a pack bold enough to attack a village avoid being subjugated along the way?
‘Even if the effects of the civil war still linger, this is hard to believe.’
An incomprehensible anxiety began to creep up on her.
“What will you do?”
Toruhel asked.
He was asking whether they would go now or wait until morning.
‘It’ll be night soon.’
She looked up at the sky. The sun was setting.
She had asked the villager how long it would take to get to the village, and he had replied that it would take at least half a day, even on horseback. They would arrive at dawn.
To go to a place likely infested with monsters at dawn? It was a dangerous proposition. But after a moment of consideration, she looked up at Ulrich.
Her gaze asked what he thought. He nodded.
“Let’s go now.”
“Are you sure? If we leave now, we’ll arrive in the middle of the night.”
“I know. But we have to go now if we want to find any survivors or the monsters. If we arrive in the morning, neither will be left.”
Roberta mounted her horse, following Ulrich.
#
After a long ride, they arrived at the village.
As expected, it was deep in the night. Upon reaching the village entrance, they immediately saw the bodies of what appeared to be villagers. All of them had collapsed facing away from the village.
Ulrich dismounted and inspected the bodies. Not a single one was intact. They were covered in bite marks, tears, and puncture wounds. It was clear these were not inflicted by weapons.
“A typical monster attack.”
Roberta silently agreed with Toruhel’s muttered words. She had often seen such sights when pursuing monsters outside their lairs.
“Ugh…”
Fritz let out a pained groan.
The group drew their weapons and entered the village.
Though it was night, the moonlight was bright enough to clearly illuminate the scene. It was not a small village. While not a city, it was large for a village. There were even multi-story buildings and high walls surrounding the outskirts.
Monsters had attacked a place like this? It wouldn’t have been easy even for a pack, yet they had succeeded. Inside the village, there was nothing but death.
“Why did something like this happen…”
She looked at the man who had accompanied them, likely the sole survivor. He stared at his lifeless hometown with a pained expression, then covered his face with his hands and collapsed.
“Strange. There are signs of monsters, but no monsters.”
Toruhel narrowed his eyes as he looked at the bodies. As he said, corpses were everywhere, but there were no monsters among them. Only people. The beings that had brought them to their deaths were nowhere to be found.
“Did they move on to another place?”
Fritz asked.
“I doubt it. I don't think they would have left so quickly.”
“Then should we check inside the houses? You never know.”
Just then, Ulrich began to walk away from the group.
“Where are you going?”
Roberta asked.
“There’s something I need to check.”
He told Roberta and the other three to check the nearby houses, then entered a different building alone.
“…”
Inside the house, the scene was even more gruesome than outside.
The bodies scattered outside looked as though they had been hunted, but the ones inside had been devoured. Of course they would feast after the hunt; they hadn't attacked the village for sport.
What the party saw was the aftermath of that feast.
“Dammit, this is why I hate monsters.”
Toruhel sighed as he examined a half-eaten corpse. It looked as if this had happened not long ago; the saliva on it had not yet dried. He gestured for Roberta to look at it.
“It seems they’re still in the village.”
“For them, there’s food everywhere. They'd be reluctant to leave right away. Everyone, be careful. You never know where they’ll pop out from.”
And just then, a loud clattering sound erupted.
“What was that?”
The four of them rushed out of the house. The noise had come from the building across the street. It was a two-story building, the one Ulrich had entered alone.
The sounds of things falling, crashing, and breaking came from the upper floor. The four of them rushed through the wide-open door. But the moment they set foot on the stairs, the noise stopped abruptly.
“Ul… Lord Armin?”
Fritz called out cautiously as he climbed the stairs.
“I’m coming down.”
A reply came back.
Footsteps followed, along with a dragging sound. Ulrich appeared before the four who were climbing the stairs. His shirt was soaked in crimson.
“Are you alright, lad?”
Toruhel’s eyes widened, assuming the blood was Ulrich’s.
Instead of answering, Ulrich held up what was in his hands. They were the culprits that had hunted this village—wolf-like creatures with horns.
In his right and left hands, he held a monster each. One was just a head; the other was intact but its neck was broken, its tongue lolling out. He came down the stairs and threw the two corpses onto the floor.
“So they were Canipus.”
Roberta clicked her tongue as she looked at the monster’s body.
It was a common monster found in many lairs.
As mentioned, their appearance was similar to wolves, but they had horns and spines on their heads and bodies. A full-grown adult, on all fours, stood about as high as a man’s waist.
But the two Canipus Ulrich had caught were only a little bigger than half the size of an adult. Toruhel noticed this and spoke.
“Judging by their size, they’re pups. There can't be only two.”
“That’s right.”
Roberta nodded. Though they were monsters and stronger than most beasts, considering the size of the village, two would not have been enough, just as he said. The village militia would not have been so easily overwhelmed.
“Besides, Canipus are monsters with strong maternal instincts. I've never seen pups separated from the pack. The rest are probably nearby—”
She abruptly cut herself off. She heard a sound. The only living people in the village were the five of them. And they were all standing still in one place, so the sound was not theirs.
It was the sound of an approaching pack of beasts, the ones called monsters.
“Well, they’re certainly noisy.”
Toruhel took his double-bladed axe off his shoulder and gripped it with both hands.
“…Ganymea.”
Roberta infused her blade with the mana from her body. The blade began to emit a faint glow. Fritz took a deep breath to steady himself and stood beside Roberta. The terrified survivor hid behind them.
Ulrich held nothing in his hands. He simply stared silently past the doorway of the house. In the moonlit street, bright yellow eyes glittered, dozens of them. Then, with a collective growl, they bared their teeth.