"Should I call this the return of the prodigal?"

The chieftain welcomed Rem warmly. He knew how skilled Rem was. At a time like this, a man talented enough to be called a Hero had returned.

That did not mean he could simply breathe easy. No, even with Rem here, he could not speak of hope. That was the truth.

'Even Rem would struggle to fight those two monsters at once.'

The chieftain recalled the two Giants threatening his tribe. His bright expression darkened in an instant, then brightened again. A good thing was still a good thing, after all. Even if the pressure had him pissing blood, what was the point of living if he could not enjoy the here and now?

"It's good to have you back."

The tent had a rounded roof of stiff fabric and enough room for a fire in its center. The fire was small, but regularly burning firewood was a luxury only a chieftain could enjoy.

Flat pieces of meat were roasting on a pole over the flames. The field rats had been drained of blood, skinned, gutted, then pressed flat to roast. Their entrails were poisonous and inedible, so this was the best way to prepare them. It had been a long time since Rem had seen western-style roast rat.

Seated in a fur-covered chair, the chieftain welcomed Rem, darkened again, then brightened once more before glancing at Ayul and clearing his throat.

He had not become chieftain because of exceptional fighting ability. He was well loved, not a skilled fighter. That made the present crisis feel all the more difficult. Was it encouraging that he was holding up well despite that? In any case, the situation in the West was complicated.

"I've come to receive my spell."

Rem went straight to the point.

The chieftain blinked a few times and thought. He had always known this bastard cared only about himself. That was why he had abandoned his tribe and run off.

"That won't be possible right now."

The chieftain shook his head.

"Why not?"

"Another tribe took the sacred grounds from us."

"... They took what?"

The sacred grounds were land protected by every tribe gathered here. In the narrower sense, they were where people received spells and guardian spirits. In the broader sense, they were a place imbued with their traditions and their souls.

The peoples of the West were often buried on the sacred grounds when they died. The place served as a cemetery as well. In short, this was land they had to defend with their lives.

And they had lost it?

Come to think of it, things had been strange, from the Giants occupying a settlement to the situation here.

The western peoples normally wandered in search of pasture. Why were they all gathered together? Assemblies of this size were rare. Twice a year at most? One had to wait until autumn, when food was plentiful and they gathered to share it.

The other gathering came before spring. Then, conversely, they gathered because food was desperately scarce. Once in plenty, once in scarcity. Neither applied now. They should have enough to get by at this time of year. In other words, trouble had brought them together.

"Nothing has gone right since you left."

Ayul, who had followed him inside, seized her opening to throw a dagger of reproach.

She would not listen to anything he said right now, so Rem left her feelings for later. If that earned him an axe blow, there was nothing to be done.

'It's my fault.'

It really was all his fault. Encrid and Luagarne had not been wrong. Dunbachel had probably spoken without knowing anything, though.

"That's how things stand."

The chieftain's expression darkened again.

Problems far beyond his ability to solve had struck one after another. He was not pissing blood and losing sleep for nothing. The markings hid the dark circles beneath his eyes, but at this rate, he might drop dead from the pressure one day rather than a curse or a blade.

Where should he begin? The chieftain thought for a moment, then spoke.

"You know the cannibals, of course?"

How could Rem not know that blight upon the West? No matter how many of the man-eating bastards they killed, the survivors nested somewhere and kept their line going. They were a warlike people and good fighters, too.

Before leaving, Rem had split the skull of the one said to be their strongest. He had expected them to collapse and disappear without their leader. Had they survived?

The chieftain dispensed with all preamble.

"One day, cannibal Giants suddenly appeared."

Westerners valued practicality over etiquette. That disposition had given rise to a number of words that precisely defined ambiguous situations. Urkiora and Dusky Sky were prime examples.

Dusky Sky, spelled out, meant the predawn sky: something that would soon fulfill its role, but had not yet done so. That same habit had surfaced now. How had cannibals become Giants?

"What's the connection?"

"I wondered if you'd sent them from the continent."

Rem let Ayul's words pass through one ear and looked at the chieftain, who continued.

"The cannibals vanished without a trace, and Giants appeared where they'd been."

Was there no real connection? Or had something happened on that side as well? There was no way to know yet.

"Those bastards have destroyed two tribes in their raids."

The chieftain picked up a thin stick of firewood and tapped it against his palm as he spoke.

"And you don't know where they came from?"

"We don't."

So did he just need to kill the cannibal Giants for now? As Rem thought, the chieftain spoke again.

"And I don't know what the hell they ate, but the fortune-teller tribe has gone completely mad."

Every member of the fortune-teller tribe was a shaman. Individually, they were nothing special, but together, they were bound to be a considerable nuisance. They specialized in collective spells.

"Don't tell me..."

Rem tilted his head.

"I wondered if you'd filled their heads with nonsense on your way past, too."

Ignoring Ayul's nonsense...

"Yes."

The chieftain ignored her for a moment as well and nodded. They had cast a collective spell.

"An invocation or a ritual?"

Both were collective spells, but there was a difference. An invocation was relatively small in scale. A ritual was large-scale spellwork. An attack of that kind would have been a serious problem. More than a problem; stopping it at all would have been remarkable.

"Over a hundred have died from a spell that changes their blood. Even more are bedridden, hanging on."

Oh, wonderful. A bumper crop of bullshit.

Rem blinked. So what exactly was the situation? The Giants and the fortune-teller tribe had joined forces? Why? Were those two even compatible?

He had seen the Giants on his way here. He had also seen that the people who should have been there were gone. Where the Wing tribe should have stood guard, there had been a huge cauldron and a broken palisade.

"Did Mura's people get hit?"

"Them too. Some survived and sought refuge with our tribe."

That much was good, but...

"There are outsiders among them, too. There have been reports of a Fairy and some strange sorcerer."

"I thought you might have talked them into coming here."

Rem continued letting Ayul's words enter his left ear and fly out his right. The village chief had shut his ears entirely.

Had someone discovered a gold mine in the West while he was away? What was here for all these bastards to gain, that they kept crawling in? The sacred grounds mattered to these tribes, but not to anyone else.

Rem had no choice: he had left and sealed away the ritual he was to receive, his weapons, and his spell medium there. But that did not apply to the others. So what was it? Why was everyone raising hell here?

He had come home after a long absence to find sons of bitches inside, tearing the place apart. Three different kinds of sons of bitches, no less.

"If you didn't send them, what business is it of yours?"

Still sulking, Ayul kept hurling daggers of reproach. What right did he have to show up so late and demand answers?

"That's enough, Ayul."

The chieftain scolded her, but she did not even pretend to listen.

Juol stepped in with a few further details. Several smaller Wing tribes had fallen, along with the Maru and Garam tribes, for instance.

"Two of the Giants are far too strong."

There were two monsters of overwhelming strength.

"The eldest shaman collapsed while taking on the misfortune to block that curse. Now the curse may kill them."

On top of that, the eldest shaman who would perform the work needed for Rem to receive his spell had fallen. In continental terms, that meant the person most skilled in spells.

Was this for real?

For a moment, Rem wondered whether he had brought misfortune home instead of warding it off. Then he replied.

"Those two Giants won't be a problem."

All he had to do was kill the bastards. He was confident he was good enough for that.

"... Even you might struggle. If you're counting on the Frog you brought, I should tell you that won't work either," Juol said.

The chieftain tossed the stick he was holding into the fire. It resisted the flames for a while, then caught. As it burned, the fire flared, stretching the shadows across the ceiling.

"I said it's fine. It's only two Giants," Rem repeated.

"Those two are a problem, but there are plenty of others."

"How many times have you fought them?"

"Twice."

They had lost both times, and with those losses had lost the approach to the sacred grounds.

"Even with guardian spirits behind you?"

Rem asked Juol a few more questions about the two fearsome Giants. He could not judge from an account alone, but they probably did not fight like knights. He had heard that several skilled warriors had managed to hold them off before succumbing to the curse.

"What about the continentals on the frontier?"

He asked because some people had been talking about building a frontier city in the West.

"They're no help. They didn't seem inclined to get involved, either."

The West was broadly divided into the frontier and native lands. Though called a frontier, there was no land fit for farming, only the sites of several outposts the Empire had built. Apparently, even those frontier settlements had emptied of people recently.

'What's going on?'

As Rem listened, something kept nagging at him. Outsiders or Giants, they needed something to gain before they moved. Why work all day if there was no pay? They had to be after something.

A hazy picture formed in his mind. He almost understood it, yet could make no sense of it at all. Well, what he had to do right now was clear. He needed to kill the Giants.

"Oh, look. The greatest Hero in the West has graced us with his presence."

Ayul's remarks kept coming.

'Maybe I should soothe Ayul's feelings first.'

At this rate, an axe would come flying at the back of his head. In any case, it was clear he would have to do a great deal of fighting to set this land right.

'I suppose I really did ward off misfortune.'

Otherwise, Ayul and everyone else would have been dead by the time he arrived. From what the chieftain said, this was not merely a crisis. They were on the verge of collapse.

'And yet they'll still take it too lightly.'

Would the chieftain, Ayul, Juol, and Hira at least take action? He had run into the fortune-teller Hira on the way and left Encrid in her care.

'The Captain came with me, too.'

They would not be outmatched in a fight. A handful of monsters would not wipe them out.

"Those two Giants? I can take care of them," Rem said again.

"I'll say it again. If you're counting on that Frog, change your thinking. Honestly, I'd rather you didn't get involved either. This is no Dusky Sky we're facing."

Juol tried to dissuade him. This was the man who had known Rem's abilities best.

"Why don't you want me involved either?"

Newly curious, Rem asked.

"Because if we lose you too, there's no hope left."

Those were bleak words. Juol had been an optimistic man. For him to say something like that showed how desperate things had become.

"It'll be fine. You think I've spent all this time loafing around?"

"Plenty have already fallen to those two Giants. Arae's father, too."

Rem's eyebrow twitched. Arae of the Maru tribe was his friend, and Arae's father was the master who had taught him to wield an axe. Until Rem left, he had also been the only opponent who could give him a proper fight. In a fight to the death, neither could have predicted who would win.

"He didn't even last long."

At Juol's words, Rem looked at the chieftain. Reading the question in his eyes, the chieftain nodded.

"We're short of warriors as it is. We can't scatter, either. They'll get everyone if we do. But if we hold out here, we'll have to do it on empty stomachs as our food runs short."

The chieftain laid out the reality. He was no fool. He simply had nowhere to retreat.

"All right. For now..."

Rem broke off and looked up at the shadows the flickering fire cast on the ceiling. Then he continued.

"Let's have a look at this curse."

"You can't even use spells."

Despite her words, Ayul moved at once.

Her words were barbed, but she would do anything for her tribe. She would also know that Rem's arrival at a time like this was nothing short of good fortune. Otherwise, she might have kept swinging her axe to the bitter end, ready to take him down with her.

'A crisis is an opportunity?' Rem wondered.

If this situation was what had made Ayul restrain her temper, perhaps it was. At least it had bought him time to explain.

Rem set off. He wanted to see the people ravaged by the curse. Understanding the situation came first.

As he left the tent, the chieftain spoke behind him.

"Yes, go and have a look first. And it truly is good to have you back, new son."

New son was their term for a daughter's husband. He was Ayul's father, and a father to them all. That was why he had become chieftain.

"I'm a little late."

At Rem's reply, Ayul added from beside him,

"Very late."

He knew. He knew very well. That was why he had nothing to say. Rem walked in silence. Ayul led, and Juol followed.

'Things seem very, very, very bad.'

Coming from outside, Rem felt the danger more keenly than those who had been trapped here, holding on. As he sorted his thoughts while walking, he concluded that they could not even stop the Giants alone. Not without him.

'The longer this goes on, the weaker the curse will make the tribe.'

If the enemy then attacked with the Giants at the front, breaking the tribe apart would be easier than twisting a child's wrist. All it would take was a little cruelty. And cruelty would come very easily to Giants, especially man-eating ones.

'But why?'

What if the point was to force these nomadic herders, who had no permanent home, to gather in one place? What if that was the objective itself? What was there to take from the West?

As he thought, Rem felt he might understand what those he could call enemies wanted.

'People?'

Outsiders, Giants, a curse. Put those three together, and a picture might emerge. But he still had far too little information.

'What a headache.'

Ayul's occasional glares were weighing on him, too. They had just reached the tent billowing acrid fumes and smoke when a voice rang out.

"A swoon—no, a miracle!"

Someone was so astonished that they stumbled over their words as they shouted.

* * *

Encrid was a little surprised. What had he just done? Nothing. He had only held a hand. Yet a little child had suddenly opened his eyes.

"Huh?"

The boy opened his mouth and uttered a one-word question. His eyes shone vividly, like starlight.

"Who are you?" the child asked.

Encrid answered,

"Encrid. Call me Enkie. I hear long names are hard to pronounce."

"Oh, an outsider," the boy said.

A woman with a certain venom in her bearing was burning herbs nearby. She was the woman who had passed in front of the three girls when they first entered the village. Her eyes grew wide. Enormously wide.

It was understandable. The marks of the curse spreading through the boy's body had stopped, and he had opened his eyes. The woman lifted his covering and examined his body, then turned her gaze to Encrid.

"... What?" she murmured.

She seemed profoundly shocked, as though she did not know what she was saying.

A brief silence passed. Her strangely unfocused gaze sharpened. She could not take her eyes off the child.

"He's getting better," Hira said from beside them.

The exhausted twins, who had been sitting to one side massaging their calves, approached.

"It's true," they said together.

Overcome with astonishment, Hira cried,

"A swoon—no, a miracle!"

Encrid found their conversation hard to follow.