The West was vast. Beyond the six tribes, there were others who lived by what might be called tradition, or perhaps sheer stubbornness. The person the short-haired blonde had met in Oara was one of them.

Rem knew just one such person himself. A wanderer who wielded spell-made poison—the very friend the short-haired blonde had mentioned.

["Didn't you say you'd be in deep shit if you got caught leaving traces everywhere? And you left spell-made poison behind?"]

He had picked flowers, tracked Giants, and in the process found his friend from one of the smaller tribes.

["How did you know?"]

The black-eyed figure asked with pure curiosity, without a trace of wariness. This friend had always been like that. Rem stood at the bottom of a mountainside, the other figure above him.

Shouldn't surprise at his return to the West have come first? Then again, this one wasn't the sort to care about that. Might not even know he had left.

["Just happened to."]

Rem answered casually.

The black eyes blinked a few times. He had no idea what was going through that head, but the personality and purpose in life probably hadn't changed. This friend had said it was fun to stand one step removed, like a ghost, and watch people. Nothing was more entertaining than watching people live, but getting involved was thoroughly unappealing.

Long, loose hair blew in the wind. Apparently finding it bothersome, Rem's friend took out a cord and tied it back tightly.

["Not like there's anyone else using spell-made poison. See someone using it, and it's pretty obvious."]

It had been a string of coincidences. The smaller tribes, including this friend's, wanted no contact with others. They maintained a tradition rooted in the belief that isolation was the only way to preserve a certain energy they possessed.

An oddball had been born among such people. Someone who had gone out to watch the stars at night, happened to observe another tribe, and eventually found her way to the frontier. This woman believed her tribe could not remain shut away forever. There was a greater cause behind that belief, mixed with desires of her own.

["Stagnant water rots."]

That was her argument. Beneath it lay an overwhelming desire to watch people.

Rem had once dismissed their so-called traditions as bullshit. They claimed that merely speaking to outsiders sullied some spirit of theirs. Exchange words and mingle thoughts, and they would lose their shamanic power. They also claimed only someone who had never held a man's hand in her life could become a priestess.

It was all bullshit. Spells didn't work that way. And yet, conversely, such practices might strengthen their spells. They would believe and pray accordingly. They would perform rituals founded on that belief.

They all worshipped the Sky God born from a birch tree, but their ways of life could scarcely have been more different. That was the sort of people they were.

Should he criticize them for it? Condemn them? Tell them to change their ways, curse at them, and drag them out into the world by force? There was no reason to. They weren't hurting anyone. They simply wanted to live well among themselves.

If anything, other tribes sometimes attacked them for their energy. They themselves wanted no contact at all. Which also meant they wanted no fighting.

Even this oddball bastard, who said her tribe would someday rot and sicken if it remained shut away, wasn't doing anything in particular about it. She just went out to see the world now and then.

["You went pretty far this time, huh?"]

Rem asked another question.

The black-eyed woman from the smaller tribe, whom Rem called an oddball, answered without needing to think. It was no secret, and the problem remained unresolved.

["Not three summers ago, some madman came after our tribe's offering. We lost part of it then, so I went out to find it."]

These wielders of spell-made poison were highly skilled. Even Rem couldn't fight their entire tribe alone. And what was this offering, anyway? A part of the god they worshipped. In continental terms, it could fairly be called a sacred relic.

Tradition, energy, spirit—none of that mattered if someone touched it. Then they would begin interacting with outsiders. Through fighting and battle.

But what lunatic had gone after it?

The oddball was an observer who watched from outside the world. She must have seen and heard things. Rem had thought she might know more than Wing or the other tribes that had suffered direct attacks. He hadn't come to ask for help fighting. Yet here they were, sharpening their blades after an attack of their own. No, it had begun here. They had been the first victims.

["An outsider from the continent. A mage."]

Rem pieced together what he knew. He gathered the fragments floating through his head into a single picture and examined who stood behind these events. Not that he had worked particularly hard at it. Rather than simply take it lying down, he had looked into it because he wanted to know which bastard was responsible.

He had roughly located the bastard and had some idea of his intentions.

["Want to go fuck up the bastard who came looking for your offering?"]

That was what had prompted the question.

["We know where he is too. But we will lose if we fight."]

They had already fought him once, and their priestess had lost an arm. That said it all. In this tribe, the priestess served as both chieftain and eldest shaman.

["Recovering the offering matters, but we couldn't sacrifice the entire tribe for it."]

A fierce glint flickered in her eyes as she spoke.

Repay whatever you received in kind. Most westerners lived that way, and the smaller tribes were no exception. If anything, they were more exacting, not less.

["Fine. Then come when we fight. Take your offering back."]

That was what he had told her.

* * *

As he reflected, Rem knocked a club aside with his left-hand axe and swept his right-hand axe horizontally.

THUD! CHUNK!

His left axe sent the Giant's club bouncing away. His right cut into the middle of its shin, splitting the flesh wide and drawing a spurt of purple blood.

'Could probably have found it and brought it back myself.'

With that thought, Rem leaped sideways.

BOOM!

A club fell. Stone chips flew. The ground before the canyon was covered in gravel, rocks, and sand. Struck with a Giant's strength, it caved into a deep dent.

Giants were strong. But strength was useless if they couldn't land a hit. Honestly, he could have met the blow head-on.

'Just deflect it.'

From outside, it looked like one crisis after another. Charging alone into the midst of Giants? Even for Rem, even for a candidate to become a Hero, it was far too reckless. It looked like walking naked into a raging storm.

Yet Rem himself was calm. Compared with fighting ten thousand wraiths, this was easy.

WHOOSH!

A Giant's club descended over his head. Whoever had made them, every club was the same blackish brown. Equipping a force with uniform weapons cost more Krona than one might think. In other words, someone had made these weapons for them.

Rem raised his left-hand axe toward the falling club, bent his knees just enough, and lowered his torso.

CRASH!

The impact thundered. It looked as though Rem would be crushed into a bloody pulp. Naturally, nothing of the sort happened. The Giant's club stopped partway down.

Drawing on the Heart of the Superhuman, Rem braced his left forearm and held firm. More precisely, beginning with his knees, he used the spring of his entire body to redirect the Giant's strength. He received it softly, as though channeling it into the ground.

Elbow, shoulder, waist, knee, ankle—each part, wrapped in supple, flexible muscle, distributed and dispersed its share of the force. Once, he would have simply met it with brute strength. Not anymore.

He had grown seasoned and proficient. His technique had plainly improved. His thinking had broadened, too. In any case, he was far more skilled than when he had left the West.

CRRRAACK!

A lengthwise crack spread through the club from where his axe blade met it. Rem charged forward without breaking contact.

CRRRRRACK!

The club split along the axe in his left hand. Startled, the Giant kicked at him. Rem pushed his right-hand axe forward to meet it and flowed into his next move.

He flicked the club away with his left hand, set his axe blade against the ankle—which was painfully slow compared with Encrid's sword—and spun in a full circle.

CRRUNCH.

A Giant's hide was tough enough to shrug off most sword cuts, but Rem's axe sliced through it without trouble. Purple blood gushed out. With its half-severed ankle dangling, the Giant fell with a thud, and a pool of blood swiftly spread across the ground.

"GRAAAAGH!"

The Giant howled like a beast.

Yet its eyes hadn't changed. The pupils remained unfocused. They had looked strange from the start. There was no thought in those eyes. These creatures looked drugged.

They were different from the ones he had faced on entering the West. Or were they the same? Those bastards hadn't seemed normal either. Really, what did it matter?

Even as the Giant shrieked in pain, it swung its hand. Rem struck the hand reaching for him with his left axe again.

CLANG!

The axe blade couldn't withstand the impact and broke. Without hesitation, Rem hurled it like a javelin. The broken blade had left a sharp point, but that would struggle to pierce a Giant's skin. An eyeball, however, it could gouge out. So he aimed for the eye.

The broken axe haft shot through the air and stabbed into the Giant's eye.

"GRAAAGH!"

The Giant screamed again. Clear fluid mingled with purple blood and spattered the ground.

"Give me an axe."

Rem reached a hand behind him.

A warrior had come covered in dangling axes for this purpose alone. The equivalent of a squire in a knight order, responsible for chores and support in battle. Here, they called such a person a junior warrior.

At first, the junior warrior had wondered why he had been told to bring so many axes. Now he understood. Weapons that could withstand Rem's strength were hardly common.

"Hup!"

With a shout, the junior warrior threw an axe. It spun through the air straight into Rem's hand.

SMACK.

Axe in hand, Rem tilted his neck from side to side.

"Try keeping your fucking eyes open."

None of the Giants answered. They knew no fear, and so they knew no hesitation. That was how this band of Giants was.

Round irises, mostly dark brown, sat within the whites of their eyes, hazy and unfocused. All that showed was a blind determination to slaughter. Their eyes held nothing but bloodlust. Looking straight into them might have made another man's knees shake. Not Rem's.

His lips twisted.

"These fucking bastards."

He rested an axe on his shoulder. He felt no danger at all, leaving him entirely at ease.

Meanwhile, Encrid kept cutting the mage down, again and again.

"You—"

"Y-you..."

"Wai..."

"You bas..."

The mage might as well have been cursed to silence. Encrid paid him no mind, relentlessly pursuing and attacking him. His slashes were unyielding—and as uninterrupted as Oara's had been.

The others nearby tried to intervene. They joined hands to cast a spell.

CRACK!

A whip lashed down over their heads. It belonged to the Frog.

"So you're all Cultists."

The Frog's voice was level, but a cold flame burned within it. Quiet anger.

"Letir, your enemies are everywhere here."

Muttering words no one else could make sense of, Luagarne plunged among the humans with whip and sword.

Even as he fought, Rem flicked his gaze around to keep track of the situation. He saw Luagarne's fight too. The faces around her were familiar. A few Fairies were mixed in, but apart from them, he more or less recognized the lot.

Bastards with an insane tradition: eat human flesh, and the victim's strength would pass to you. Cannibals. He had happily split their skulls right up until he left. Now they had sided with the enemy, which hardly surprised him.

No, honestly, perhaps they hadn't had a choice. The one who should have become their tribe's Hero had had his skull split by Rem's axe. After that, they must have been battered from every side. What if the Cultists had approached them at just that moment? Perhaps all this was Rem's doing.

That didn't mean he would feel guilty. You could attach a reason to anything that happened in the world. Conversely, things could simply happen, making it difficult to assign them any particular reason. It all depended on your mind. On how you thought about it. So he had no need to take responsibility for everything that happened.

It was a melee, yet not a melee. So few people were actually taking part. While Luagarne, half-crazed at the sight of some Cultists, fought with her cheeks puffed out, a Beastman ran wild to Rem's right.

She slashed at a Giant's wrists and forearms with two curved swords, then, for some reason, darted close and cut vertically beneath its jaw. She struck and withdrew. A quick step in, a splitting slash, and back out. A long trail of purple blood followed Dunbachel's movement. Her feet seemed distinctly faster than before.

"Cultists!"

Luagarne's shout rang out.

"I've realized it! Just as I swing my sword each day, if I kill you one by one, someday there will be an end!"

That shout, too, brimmed with determination steeped in hatred. Rem wondered what had suddenly gotten into the Frog. Still, as long as she fought well, that was enough.

CLINK.

He struck his axe blades together and let them rebound. Rem started to rouse his determination, then stopped. Well, there had to be some danger, or these bastards had to be formidable, for him to call this a fight for his life.

Even so, these were the creatures who had threatened his wife and family standing behind him. If Ayul had died, he would have lost control and rampaged.

"Not one of you is getting past me."

Normally, he would have said that, but Rem kept his mouth shut. The situation simply didn't call for it.

The Giants had lost their reason. Normally, they would have needed some sort of orders, but circumstances didn't allow for that. So they focused solely on the one human and one Beastman who had attacked them.

Geomnarae stopped just as he was about to step in. From his perspective, the beginning had been abrupt, and everything afterward was, well, calm. Incomprehensible, but true. Reckless, yet calm. The words didn't belong together, but that was how it was. That was how the battlefield unfolded.

Encrid fighting the mage. Luagarne running wild among the crowd gathered beside him. And Rem's performance was astonishing merely to watch. Geomnarae had known he was a good fighter. He was a candidate to become a Hero, after all. But had he always been that good? Geomnarae was dumbfounded.

Still, he had his own work to do. He raised his hand.

"Are you just going to watch?"

Addressing the tribal alliance behind him, Geomnarae took out a totem: a piece of wood carved into a wolf's head, worn black from handling. Holding it, he prayed.

'Wolf God, Wolf God.'

Descend here and tear them all to death.

White ears, black eyes, friend of the dawn bird.

Purple veins bulged along Geomnarae's forearms. Pain raced through his entire body. He gritted his teeth, endured it, and cast his spell. The art was called Spirit Divine Possession.