Dream

'... Why am I holding this?'

Since taking it from the Treasury, he had swung the Holy Sword a few times to get used to its feel, but he had never used it in battle.

The reason was simple: the Holy Sword was far too conspicuous. The pointlessly ornate ceremonial sword drew attention simply by being held, and when infused with mana, it even emitted a brilliant light.

Samar's savage tribes were violent and greedy. And they were hardly the only dangerous people in Samar. Eugene was confident he could protect himself anywhere outside Helmuth, but he did not want to attract attention before he had even made a move.

That was why he had used forged identification and magically turned his gray hair black. Altair was the only Holy Sword in the world, but Eugene had no intention of drawing it in Samar.

He had kept it shoved inside his cloak the entire time, without taking it out. So why was Altair in his hand now? Had it fallen out of his cloak while he tossed and turned in his sleep? Or did he have some sleepwalking habit or compulsion he had never noticed, making him unconsciously draw a weapon and grasp it while sleeping in dangerous territory?

That couldn't be right. With a jumble of emotions stirring inside him, Eugene wiped the corners of his eyes with his fingertips. Thankfully, there were no tears. Perhaps that was because he had already cried his eyes out over the tomb last time.

Yet even without tears, his heart sank. He had already awakened, but the memory of the dream—the scenes he had witnessed there—would not fade. It was as though he had been with them at that moment long ago.

'... Technically, I was there.'

He had been there as a corpse.

'But my body was inside the coffin. What I saw in that dream... was it just my imagination?'

It had been far too real for that. Senya, Moron, Anise, Vermouth—all of them had looked exactly as Eugene remembered them, and their actions had differed little from what he had imagined upon first seeing the statue and memorial in the tomb.

'... Actually, that makes it even more... Maybe my imagination just turned into a dream.'

But if this dream wasn't imagined—if those things had really happened three hundred years ago—why had they appeared in his dreams?

"Was it you?"

Eugene glared at Altair as he spoke. That dream had not been an attack by a dream demon. Dream demons did not create dreams like that to attack people. If it had been a dream demon's attack, he would have recognized it while dreaming.

Yes.

Eugene had already realized that. The dream was not an attack meant to break his mind. It had merely shown him a moment when Eugene—when Hamel—had been dead and no longer present.

And when he woke, Altair had been in his hand.

"... Is this a revelation?"

Eugene raised Altair. The Holy Sword gave no answer to his question.

"I don't believe in God. Would he still send a revelation to someone like me?"

It was also unlike what people usually imagined a revelation to be. Wasn't a divine revelation supposed to be something extraordinary, offering some hint about the uncertain future? Yet the dream he had just experienced had shown him not the future, but the past—a past from a distant three hundred years ago.

"I can't make sense of it. What are you trying to tell me..."

["Senya. That necklace..."]

["I'll take it with me."]

["It goes against the natural order."]

["Everyone agreed to it."]

["After I've made the world Hamel wanted."]

["Grant that we may one day be reunited in the same place."]

["Someday, we can meet again in the world you wanted."]

["We will surely be reunited in paradise."]

["And if we cannot..."]

["Then God does not exist."]

Eugene gripped the necklace tightly. Senya had taken this necklace. Anise had called that an act against the natural order. Senya had replied that everyone had agreed to it.

Yet the necklace had left Senya's possession and been found in the Lionheart Treasury.

["Found you."]

What the hell had happened? If he was going to be shown something, then show it properly.

'Show me something I haven't already encountered.'

What had happened between Senya and Vermouth? What promise had Vermouth made with the Demon King? And what had become of everyone? Were Vermouth, Senya, Anise, and Moron all still alive? Seething inside, Eugene put Altair into his cloak and stepped out of the tent.

Something was bubbling outside, too: a clear soup packed with mushrooms and vegetables, cooked by Narissa. Normally Kristina, who took the last watch, was responsible for breakfast. Instead, she had left Narissa to make the soup and was sitting in a patch of warm sunlight, offering her morning prayers.

"Was it you?"

"... What brought that on?"

"Did you come into my tent while I was asleep?"

"How shameless... Eugene, just what do you take me for? Why would I go into your tent?"

Kristina turned to Eugene with a frown. Of course she hadn't. If she had really entered his tent and reached inside his cloak, there was no way he would have failed to notice.

"... You're on breakfast duty."

"I was going to make it, but Narissa offered to help."

"That's not helping. She's doing everything herself."

"I provided the ingredients and utensils."

"I brought those, too... And I picked the mushrooms."

"Eugene, please don't quibble over trivial matters. What has gotten into you so early in the morning? First you accuse me out of nowhere, and then entertain such shameless thoughts... Did you perhaps see me in your dreams?"

Kristina asked with a faint smile. Seeing her like that reminded Eugene of Anise in his dream. The problem was that they looked far too alike.

"No."

Even so, he answered without hesitation. Anise and Kristina were different people. Still, it bothered him. They were indeed different people, but perhaps Kristina was Anise's descendant.

Perhaps because he had seen Anise shedding tears in his dream, Eugene decided he ought to be a little kinder to Kristina. He used magic to block their voices so Narissa could not hear, then spoke.

"... Hey. About the Holy Sword. Does it ever move around on its own?"

But before that, he decided to ask a few questions about the Holy Sword. As far as Eugene knew, it had never moved of its own accord in his previous life.

"What are you suddenly talking about... Oh."

Kristina began her reply with a bewildered expression, then her eyes lit up. She clasped her hands before her chest and gazed up at Eugene with reverent eyes.

"Eugene, have you received a revelation?"

"No... I think I just had some stupid dream..."

"The Holy Sword conveyed God's voice to you."

"It wasn't God's voice..."

"Eugene, do not ignore the pure sincerity of your soul. You say you do not believe in God, but in truth, you too possess faith. Stop deceiving yourself, and do not be ashamed."

"I've never been ashamed..."

"It is only natural for humans to fear the darkness and be wary of it. Though you are always rude and obnoxious, Eugene, you are still young and immature, so it is only natural that you fear the darkness... Our benevolent God glimpsed your heart and came to you so you would no longer fear it."

"..."

"And so, you wished for it unconsciously. I do not fear the darkness. I can overcome the darkness. That wish led you to grasp the Holy Sword, a manifestation of God's mercy and miracles. Thus you fell asleep within the Holy Sword's warm light and received God's revelation in your dream."

"That's right. I received a revelation. God appeared in my dream. Do you know what he said?"

Kristina's face brightened, and she clasped her hands.

"Ah! I knew it! Eugene, what did God tell you?"

"He told you to shut up."

"..."

"About that god in my dream—he was fucking ugly. No, ugly doesn't even begin to describe it. He was a hideous monstrosity. He looked like a mixture of cockroaches, centipedes, and maggots, with something like an orc's head rotting away from burns attached to it, squealing and squealing."

"Eugene."

"Kristina always talks too much... Oink... She talks so much, yet there's no logic to it... Do not use faith as a rhetorical tool... Oink... Do not dress up your own arguments by invoking God's name... Oiiink..."

"Please shut up."

He had decided to be kind to her from now on because she resembled Anise, but that proved impossible.

"The soup is ready."

"Thank you."

"Isn't there any meat?"

Narissa's soup was reasonably edible.

* * *

"It's about time the pursuers showed up."

Three days had passed since they joined up with Narissa.

"It should be."

The place where they had encountered the Garung warriors was slightly outside the tribe's territory. But with ten warriors failing to return from a hunt—and their quarry being an elf with a high sale value—the tribe was hardly going to let it go.

"What did you do with the bodies?"

"Burned them."

Of course he had. Leaving corpses behind would only make it easier to track them. Eugene had burned all the slain warriors and Bakan wolves with magic, leaving not even a fragment of bone.

"Still, if they haven't come after three days, they must be having trouble tracking us."

The forest was vast. Its size meant many dangers, and complex interests bound the tribes that lived there. The Garung were a violent tribe, but that did not mean they could casually invade territory that was not their own. Such were the laws among the tribes.

If they wanted to remain a 'tribe of Samar,' they had to obey those laws.

Ujicha, the Garung's great warrior, had no such intention. The fearsome bald man had ambitions as enormous as his muscles.

Born in the forest and raised in the forest, a man would only end up dying in the forest.

Like most tribes, the Garung maintained ongoing dealings with an outside trading company.

Its owner was Count Cobal of the maritime kingdom of Shimuin.

The Garung owned a small mine, and a few years ago, it had begun yielding mithril.

Count Cobal coveted the high-quality mithril extracted from the Garung's mine. He wanted more than a supply of mithril; he wanted to buy the mine itself. A mine that yielded mithril might also harbor other precious ores.

That required properly developing the mine, which could not be done by blindly swinging pickaxes. The natives, born in the forest and accustomed to hunting, lacked the knowledge to develop a mine. All they could manage was extracting iron to make weapons and tools.

Count Cobal was even willing to bring in dwarven artisans to develop the mine. But no matter how eager he was, the Garung had no intention of selling it, nor of allowing outsiders to develop a mine held by their forebears.

That was the Garung chief's stubborn position.

The chief was old. Ujicha intended to seize an opportunity to oust him and become chief himself. Then he would sell the mine for a fortune. What outsiders did to develop it was none of his concern.

He had no intention of staying cooped up in the forest and growing old as a tribal chief. Strength diminished with age, but money did not. Ujicha wanted to use his connection to Count Cobal to leave the forest. He wanted to cross the vast sea and live in luxury in a magnificent city.

With that future in mind, Ujicha was indulging this fat brat's depraved tastes. He could neither respect nor understand them, but he did not refuse or dismiss them.

When Ujicha informed Count Cobal that he intended to oust the chief and sell the mine, the count sent one of his knights and his son here.

Dazarang Coral. The count's son, that little pig. Ujicha wanted to win Dazarang's favor and use him as wings to rise toward a glittering future.

Dazarang wanted the one-footed elf. He had been furious that the hunt had failed, mocking the so-called warriors for being unable to catch a single crippled elf. Then he had declared that he couldn't trust them and followed them all the way here.

Part of the reason they had failed to catch up with the elf after three days was that little pig's tantrums. He whined about the heat after walking even a short distance. When they put him on a wolf's back, he bitched about the smell. When they ran a little faster, he shouted that he felt sick.

If he hadn't been the count's son, Ujicha would have killed him. Whenever the urge to murder him rose, his escort knight, Blon, soothed Ujicha.

"Just be patient a little longer. I'll be sure to tell the count how hard you've worked."

"You'd better mean that."

"Of course I do. The count is exceedingly generous to talented men. Your prowess as a great warrior, your thoughtful gift for the young master... Haha! The count will certainly entrust you with an important position."

Blon gave a mischievous smile as he spoke.

"Yes, let's do this. Come to Shimuin before selling the mine. I'll introduce you to some ladies I'm close to. They're all from noble families. A man like you should appeal to them, and if things develop favorably... you could become a noble yourself."

Such reassurances calmed Ujicha's anger. Yes, he only needed to hold out a little longer. The pursuit had fallen behind schedule, but they had found traces of someone they suspected was among the thieves who had dared steal the tribe's prey.

"Lord Ujicha."

A warrior returning from scouting called to him.

"There's some stranger sitting up ahead."

"From the Yabang tribe?"

This was Yabang territory. With dozens of another tribe's warriors invading it, it was only natural for the Yabang warriors to come out on guard. The Yabang were hardly inferior to the Garung. In other words, if the two clashed, both sides would suffer similarly heavy losses.

So they would stand aside once the situation was explained. The tribe's warriors had been murdered, and their prey stolen. They would be angry that no messenger had been sent ahead to request permission, but that was none of Ujicha's concern. To a man envisioning a future outside the forest, its laws and intertribal affairs were of little importance.

"He's not a Yabang warrior."

"Could he be one of the thief's companions?"

Perhaps they had noticed the pursuit and left a companion behind to block the way. Ujicha climbed onto his wolf with a cruel smile.

"Killing a few warriors must have made them arrogant."

It didn't matter if the stranger was not the thief's companion. If he wasn't a Yabang warrior, there was no need to show mercy. If he blocked their path, they could simply clear him out of the way.

"When are we going to catch the elf?"

Dazarang, the little pig, whined. Ujicha turned to him, his mouth twitching.

"It looks like there's a companion of the thief who stole the elf up ahead. Come along, young master."

"Why? I don't want to. I'll stay in the shade..."

"We're all going, young master. If we capture him, we can catch the elf sooner. The longer you rest here, the longer it will take to catch her."

"Aw, shit..."

At last, Dazarang stood up. Ujicha intended to brutally kill the man blocking their path and make Dazarang watch, terrifying him. That ought to curb the attitude that kept making Ujicha want to murder him.

"Hya!"

Dozens of wolves raced through the forest.