Samar

Bakan wolves. These wolf monsters of the Great Forest were agile despite their enormous size. Moreover, inside their long claws were venom glands that secreted a paralytic poison.

A Bakan wolf hunted by first raking its prey with its claws, then biting it to death as its movements stiffened.

The natives of the Great Forest knew how to tame monsters. The Garung tribe was no exception. Bakan wolves raised from birth had no qualms about carrying native warriors on their backs.

Once tamed, they raced through the tangled forest as though it were flat ground, sinking their claws and teeth into whatever prey their riders targeted.

As the wolves lunged, Eugene rose from the rock. The wolf in the lead leaped up at him, swinging its claws before trying to bite.

CRUNCH!

Blood rained from the air. A stone spike thrust up from the ground and impaled the wolf. It howled in agony. The warrior riding it kicked off the dying wolf's back and leaped at Eugene.

“Kyaaah!”

With a piercing yell, he drove his spear down at Eugene. Eugene still had not drawn a weapon. He thrust out his bare hand and caught the spear in midair.

He pulled the warrior in and slammed a fist into his face. There was no scream. A single punch caved in the man's face. Ignoring the warrior as he tumbled away, Eugene took the stolen spear in both hands.

The spearhead gleamed, but not with the sheen of metal. It had been coated with a Bakan wolf's paralytic poison. Eugene smirked and hopped down from the rock.

The wolves had stopped rather than charge again.

CRASH!

The stone spike crumbled into dirt, and the impaled wolf sprawled on the ground. It was still breathing, but it would soon die.

“Mage?”

Apparently, only one of the warriors could speak the common tongue. He narrowed his eyes and glared at Eugene.

“You. Killed. Garung warrior.”

“He's still alive, you know?”

That was true. Though his face had been caved in, the native was still alive. He crawled across the ground, making incomprehensible groans.

“No. Killed. Cannot fight anymore.”

Speaking in halting common tongue, the man signaled to the other warriors with his eyes. They dismounted from their wolves. Eugene felt the mana in the air surge.

The Garung tribe. Being native warriors did not make them opponents to be taken lightly. They attacked merchant caravans and nobles with ample guards, and their warriors were highly skilled.

WOOO...

WOOOO...

An ominous sound. The ground writhed. The warriors lowered their bodies. Eugene glanced at the earth.

'Earth spirits.'

The natives of Samar were adept at sorcery and commanding spirits. Born and raised in the dense forest, they enjoyed its love.

Manipulating the earth with magic as he had done earlier would now be a nuisance. The earth listened more readily to spirits than to spells cast with mana.

'... No. It's not just earth spirits.'

Something else was mixed in. It wasn't mana... Eugene's lips twisted.

“You're making me sick.”

The sensation resembled black magic, but its essence was different. These men did not use demonic energy like demons or black mages.

Sorcery.

The wolves went limp. The monsters' souls entered the warriors. Their bodies writhed, and the ominous sound grew louder. Eugene spat and leveled his spear.

PAK! The warriors kicked off the ground. They moved like humans with monsters mixed halfway into them. Overlaying their souls was disgusting enough, but those movements brought an unpleasant memory back to Eugene.

The death knight made by stuffing a lycanthrope's soul into Hamel's corpse.

BOOM!

The air tore apart.

The spear Eugene threw flew in a straight line and blasted apart the body of an oncoming warrior.

* * *

When he returned to the riverbank, Narissa was folding Kristina's clothes for her.

“Why are you making her do that?”

“I did not ask her to. She started of her own accord, saying she wished to repay our kindness.”

“If she did it on her own, you could just tell her not to.”

“She volunteered because she wished to repay us. If I told her to stop, it would put her in an awkward position.”

Kristina was sitting in the chair Eugene had set out. She looked over his spotless appearance and smiled brightly.

“Which tribe was it?”

“Garung.”

Listening to their exchange, Narissa flinched.

“The Garung are not a small tribe. Did you kill them all?”

“What, should I have killed just a few? Warned them that I'm strong, so they shouldn't come after us unless they want more of their men dead?”

“They would not have listened to a warning.”

“Probably not.”

Eugene disliked unnecessary trouble, too. If possible, he would have preferred to settle things amicably without a fight. But these native warriors were not people who could be reasoned with. If he offered to pay for the elf's freedom, the Garung would rob him of all his money, then ransom him and sell him off as well.

“Well, we're not staying in this area anyway. So, what did she say?”

“Why not ask her yourself?”

“She can barely look me in the eye.”

“That must be because elven ears hear too much.”

Kristina smiled as she rose from her chair. Narissa stood as well and bowed repeatedly to Eugene.

“I'm s-sorry, sorry. Strong and wonderful sir. I... I'm just so s-scared. I'm sorry. My ears heard things they shouldn't have...”

“What things shouldn't you have heard? Did I say something I shouldn't over there?”

Grumbling, Eugene approached the tent. The large tent was an artifact made convenient through magic: a single press of a button on a pole folded it up neatly.

It was bulky, but that posed no problem for Eugene. He put it inside his cloak and turned to Narissa.

“So. What did you hear?”

“Sc... Screams... and begging for mercy...”

[“S-spare me.”]

[“You were putting on every tough-guy act you could think of earlier. Why are you suddenly begging for your life? Not very impressive.”]

[“I am... Garung warrior. If I do not return. Pursuers... will come. And our comrades are not far.”]

[“They'll come after me even if I let you go. I took your prey, after all. So killing you now means one less man coming to catch me. Better to kill you now, right? Don't you agree?”]

“I... I'm sorry for... causing you trouble.”

“It's more annoying than troubling. And did you ask me to help? I fished you out of the river on my own, and I killed them because I felt like it, before you even asked.”

As he spoke, Eugene put the clothes Narissa had been folding into his cloak as well.

“Will you carry her on your back, Sir Eugene?”

“Carry her? What kind of nonsense—”

Eugene broke off and looked at Narissa. Her left foot had been severed clean off. She stood up, shrinking under his gaze.

“I-I'm fine. I can hop quite well on one foot. If w-we find a suitable fallen branch along the way, I'll use it as a crutch. So please... please...”

“Look, please, could you please stop saying that damned word 'please' to me? Please?”

“E... Eek... I'm s-sorry—”

“I'm sorry, but please, could you please stop saying you're sorry, too?”

Grumbling, Eugene summoned a wind spirit. When a sudden wind lifted her body into the air, Narissa flailed in alarm.

“Tell me if you need to go to the bathroom along the way. Don't try to hold it and end up shitting yourself.”

“Y... Yes.”

Narissa swallowed after answering. Like any elf, she knew a little spirit magic and magic.

However, elves were a race whose peace-loving nature led them to waste their innate gifts. Despite having lived a long 130 years, Narissa's spirit magic and magic were only slightly above a beginner's level.

That was what elves were like. They lived long lives, but spent most of those years in the forest, chirping with birds and tending flowers and trees.

Still, age did count for something. Elven archmages who had lived for centuries were powerful enough to look down on human archmages.

“Um... Sir... Sir Eugene... how old are you?”

“In elf years, about two hundred.”

“Pardon...? Oh... Oh. Yes, I see. You're truly remarkable. To command spirits so freely at such a young age... and be strong enough to terrify those ferocious warriors... I a-admire you.”

Her trembling had eased a little. Narissa gazed at Eugene with admiration. Watching her, Kristina gave a derisive snort and shook her head.

“A face so handsome and splendid that even elves cannot compare... and now admiration, too? It seems you are receiving a lifetime's worth of compliments today, Sir Eugene.”

“Not really. I've heard plenty of compliments like that since I was little. People have told me I'm handsome lots of times, too.”

He had rarely heard it with Hamel's face in his previous life, but he really had heard it many times with his reincarnated face. Even Eugene himself sometimes had that thought when he saw his reflection in a mirror or on the water.

Handsome bastard.

“Surely you are not planning to abandon Lady Narissa along the way because she is a hindrance? I do not believe your character is quite that depraved.”

“If I was going to abandon her, I wouldn't have picked her up. It's a good justification, isn't it? Protecting a wandering elf and escorting her to the elven village. However shitty that guardian's personality might be, they wouldn't turn away one of their own.”

Narissa suppressed a sigh of relief at his answer.

“By the way, Narissa.”

“Y-yes?”

“Did you come here looking for the elven domain where the World Tree is?”

“That was part of it... but I thought it would be better to hide in the Great Forest than in a city. I was also worried about d-demonic sickness...”

“You don't look like you have it.”

“No... I haven't caught it yet, but there's no knowing when it might develop.”

Narissa lowered her head and mumbled. Demonic sickness. An illness that afflicted only elves. It was also the reason Senya had left the elven domain to venture out into the world.

These days, elves rarely contracted demonic sickness, but three hundred years ago, when all five Demon Kings were alive, countless elves had died of it. Even those living in the domain had been no exception.

That was why Senya had stormed out of the elven domain: to kill all five Demon Kings and ensure elves would never suffer from demonic sickness again.

“... There is no cure for demonic sickness,” Kristina murmured.

“Even the light of divine magic cannot treat it. The Demon King of Incarceration also evades responsibility, calling it 'an unavoidable illness.'”

“Of course he does. To eliminate it, all the Demon Kings and demons would have to kill themselves.”

Eugene answered indifferently and turned to Narissa.

“Were your parents from outside the Great Forest, too?”

“Yes...”

That was no help. He could hardly say it aloud, but Eugene could not help thinking it.

* * *

Ujicha was a great warrior of the Garung tribe.

He was so enormous that he brought a statue to mind. His shaved head and muscular body were covered in scars and tattoos. Cold anger rose within him as he surveyed his surroundings.

“One-sided.”

There was no other way to describe it. The tribal warriors and Bakan wolves had all been slaughtered in a one-sided battle. Ujicha walked slowly among them, examining the corpses.

Soon, a strange gleam entered his eyes. They had been dead for days and monsters had damaged the bodies, but the wounds remaining on them were a bewildering assortment.

One had been punched to death, another cut down with a sword, another skewered with a spear. One had burst apart as though struck by a bomb, while another had been crushed as if squeezed by a giant monster.

Yet, unlike the marks on the corpses, the footprints in the ground told him there had been only one enemy.

“Just one.”

Ujicha was not the only one to reach that conclusion. A man wearing a large, breezy shirt approached him.

“So you're saying... the Garung warriors couldn't handle one person and lost their prey?”

“So it seems.”

Veins bulged on Ujicha's bald head. He glared at the man and spoke in a murderous voice.

“I will get her back.”

“Of course you will. Do you know how excited our young master was when he heard he'd be getting an elf as a gift?”

“If he wants an elf, I can give him another. The slave market opens soon. There will probably be one or two elves this time, too.”

The slave market drew not only the Garung but several neighboring tribes. Held twice a year, it traded in tribal criminals reduced to slavery, tamed monsters, and outsiders taken as slaves.

It was not only Samar's natives who attended. Foreign nobles and merchants with close ties to the tribes also came. Their purpose was not to buy slaves, but to watch the unusual spectacle held twice a year.

“Another elf won't do. Our young master... well... his tastes are a little unusual. He's obsessed with elves who've had some part of their body cut off.”

The man shrugged, looking embarrassed.

“You know what I mean? A sort of... amputee fetish? Something like that. A missing eye, a severed arm or leg...”

“If he wants, I will cut one off before giving her to him.”

“No, no, I told you that won't work. You think I haven't considered that? Artificial things like that don't excite him. It just has to be missing already. Of course, that one-footed elf wasn't born with only one foot, but the young master wants an elf whose foot is missing, not an elf whose foot was cut off on his account.”

“He is insane.”

Ujicha had no desire to understand the young master's grotesque tastes.

“Besides, we'd have to pay for an elf at the market. Why waste money? We can just catch the one-footed elf.”

“Blon. Do not rush me.”

“I'm not rushing... Did it sound like I was? Fine, let's call it that.”

Grumbling, Blon gave a corpse a casual kick.

“More importantly... he's very skilled. For starters, I don't think he's a former knight. A mercenary? What reason would a mercenary have to come this far in and wander around alone?”

“He must be a hunter.”

“If he's come this deep into the forest alone, he can't be an ordinary hunter.”

“They have been dead at least two days. We can still catch up.”

Ujicha ground his teeth after speaking.

“Perfect. I was getting bored. Let's go together. Oh, it won't be just the two of us, will it? Only one man killed your warriors, but he might have more companions.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Haha! Me, one of Shimuin's Twelve Champions?”

Blon laughed heartily and clapped Ujicha on the shoulder.

“I'm just saying it pays to be careful.”