Section 26: The Sacred Forest (1)

Sanders rushed over and seized Frondier by the shoulder—no, the man who had looked like Frondier.

“Who the hell are you?!”

“Gah!”

The man dressed in Frondier’s clothes shrank back in fright. Sanders examined his face. He had never seen it before. This man was no knight. Sanders wasn’t even sure he was a soldier. His grimy face looked neglected, and a peculiar stench pierced Sanders’s nose despite the cold.

“I asked who you are!”

“G-Grobel, sir...”

“Grobel? What unit are you with?”

“I-I’m just a prisoner, sir.”

Sanders felt his vision swim at Grobel’s reply. A mere prisoner couldn’t be standing here in Frondier’s clothes without a reason. Frondier had planned this well in advance, so that when the time came, he could switch clothes and escape whenever he pleased. That was why he had changed into thick layers midway through his stay.

“I only did what I was told...”

“I know that! What is Frondier after?!”

“I don’t really know, sir...”

Sanders roughly shoved Grobel away by the shoulder. He was simply venting his anger, yet it did nothing to quell his fury. Come to think of it, Frondier was only a student. A half-grown boy who wasn’t even an adult, much less a knight. Expecting anything of a child like that had been a mistake.

‘It’s all right. We managed just fine without him before. The tactics haven’t changed.’

Even as Sanders thought this, his jaw clenched, the muscle bulging. Victory in this desperate battle had already been almost impossible, but Frondier’s flight had shattered that “almost.” Feeling as though he were coughing up blood, Sanders roared.

“Kill them! Don’t let them set a single foot on Teibeon’s soil!!”

* * *

“Wh-What? What’s happening?”

Saibel was bewildered by the commotion atop the wall. Sanders was shouting something at someone. Aten saw it too. She recognized that the person facing Sanders wore the same clothes as Frondier had up on the wall.

“... A stand-in.”

“Huh?”

“It looks like Frondier dressed someone in his clothes and left him there as a stand-in.”

“... What?”

Saibel looked up at the wall. Sure enough, Frondier was nowhere to be seen.

“... So Frondier isn’t up there?”

“No. Probably not.”

Both were briefly speechless at this absurd turn of events. Unlike Sanders, however, they weren’t consumed by rage. As they tried to make sense of the situation, the same realization struck them.

“... The Cassian.”

“Don’t tell me that’s why he asked to borrow it.”

They both looked in the same direction. Not toward Teibeon, but toward the wall. Strangely, neither imagined that Frondier had ridden the Cassian away to escape. A far more horrifying possibility occurred to them.

“Don’t tell me he went over the wall?”

“To enter the Outside.”

They climbed onto the wall, completely forgetting Sanders’s warning about the danger. Aten used her mana detection, while Saibel heightened her energy senses to their limit, searching for Frondier. Unfortunately, their guess proved correct. They spotted him almost simultaneously: Frondier, riding the Cassian at a gallop toward the Sacred Forest, with Selena seated behind him.

Saibel ground her molars. She was so furious that she felt she might smash the wall herself.

“You think you’re, so, clever...! Frondier...!!”

Her voice shook as she breathed hard with anger. The monsters weren’t even close yet, but Aura already rose all over her body.

Aten reached out and caught her wrist. Saibel flinched. Perhaps it was a Trait, but Aten’s body was usually a little cooler than other people’s. The hand gripping her wrist now, however, was utterly icy.

“... We need to hold the wall.”

Not even mist formed in Aten’s breath. Her body temperature had drawn close to that of the bitterly cold air. Her clear eyes now resembled carved pieces of ice. The angrier Aten became, the colder she grew. Saibel felt that truth keenly.

“... Right.”

Saibel agreed. Infuriating as Frondier was, they still had their own duty to fulfill.

* * *

I gritted my teeth as I raced toward the Sacred Forest. The Cassian’s speed sent a fierce headwind battering me, with more wind rushing in to fill every gap. The reason I was gritting my teeth was simple: I had never ridden a horse before. In other words, I was gritting my teeth and hanging on to the Cassian for dear life.

“I told you to let me handle the horse.”

Selena spoke calmly from her seat behind me.

“How can I trust you with the horse when I don’t know where you’ll take us?!”

“No trust at all. None.”

Of course not. We hadn’t even known each other a month. At first, even a light run from the Cassian had nearly sent me flying off on my own, but I seemed to have finally gotten the hang of it. That was partly thanks to the Cassian looking out for me even as it galloped at high speed.

“I, think, I’m, getting, used to it...!”

I had tied Penelope’s Cloth to the reins and held it in my hand. Apparently that alone provided warmth, because neither the Cassian nor I suffered from the cold. Ever since I had lent it the cloth for a day, the Cassian had become quite obedient. Maybe it thought staying in my good graces would keep it out of the cold, or perhaps simply owning such a cloth had raised my value in its eyes. Either way, it now followed my directions well enough for me to carry out my plan.

This plan was similar to the one I’d used during the Attack on Constel. While my allies held off the assault, I would strike at the enemy boss. The difference this time was the difficulty. I had far less time, and the enemy I would face was on a different level.

Above all, I had made almost no preparations to address the state of the wall and our forces. At most, I’d suggested the ice wall. That meant more variables, and a correspondingly greater chance of failure. But the very reason I had come all the way to Teibeon over break was that something here offered a return high enough to outweigh all those risks.

SKREEE!

A monstrous shriek cut through my thoughts. I glanced sideways and saw a batlike monster. Its appearance was remarkably straightforward. It was simply a bat—one as large as a bison.

“Cassian!”

I shouted and pulled on the reins. The Cassian understood me perfectly, dodging the bat’s teeth and even bringing it into my field of view at the same time.

Fabrication, Black River

Grade - Rare

Slave’s Eerie Dagger

I broke down Black River to form a dagger and threw it at the creature. My Throwing Technique had now risen to upper-intermediate level. I wouldn’t miss most targets. And something that big could be hit even with intermediate-level throwing.

SKREEE!

The bat swatted the dagger away with its wing as though it wasn’t worth a glance. Oh, dear. My Throwing Technique had become utterly pointless.

SKREE—

The bat lunged at me with its teeth again, only to tumble headfirst to the ground all on its own. Unaware of what had happened, it repeatedly lifted its head to try to take flight, then slammed back down. Finally, it shuddered and went still.

“What? Is it dead?”

Selena sounded surprised.

“No, not yet.”

Well, it wouldn’t die yet. That took twenty-four hours. But this was a land of bitter cold, and it was stuck motionless on the frozen ground. Would the paralysis finish it off first, or would it freeze to death? I had no way of knowing.

* * *

The closer we drew to the Sacred Forest, the more monsters blocked our path. That was only natural. The one controlling them was inside the forest.

‘Monsters can’t enter the forest, so monsters and the forest are incompatible, like oil and water.’

That assumption was firmly embedded in humanity’s mind. The one controlling the monsters attacking Teibeon couldn’t possibly be inside the forest. Everyone thought that way. It was a psychological trap.

‘... Just as I thought.’

But on the way here, I’d realized something. These monsters were clearly weak. All the powerful ones had been sent to the wall.

Naturally, the enemy also knew that humans wouldn’t suspect the forest. And so he had neglected his own defenses. He had fallen into the psychological trap himself.

“At this rate, we should be able to break through to the forest without trouble.”

“Well, I’m doing most of the work.”

“Quiet.”

I brushed her off, but Selena was right. Faithful to her role as my bodyguard, she dealt with the other monsters that interfered as we headed for the forest. It was truly astonishing to see them all collapsing after being struck by something as small and seemingly feeble as a needle.

After spending a few days with me, Selena seemed to have gotten a rough idea of my personality, and her irritating pretense was gradually fading. Not entirely, of course. You could say her politeness toward me had been cut in half, with insolence filling the gap. Ironically, I preferred this to the coy act she’d put on to seduce me.

‘An assassin from the Ten Thousand Capes.’

Selena had been sent by the Ten Thousand Capes, and her superior was Hagley, so I certainly couldn’t let my guard down. Still, her mission to protect me was surely genuine. She was protecting my ability to decipher the ancient language rather than me, but throughout my time playing this game, I had never found a human on any continent with such an ability. In other words, at least in this era, there was no substitute for Frondier’s ability. Of course they had to protect it. This mission probably took precedence over Selena’s own life.

“There’s the forest,” Selena said.

A tidy path led into it, as though inviting visitors in.

“So it is.”

I guided the Cassian through the entrance.

* * *

The moment we entered the forest, the monsters vanished as if by magic. Even the air inside felt fresh and invigorating.

“... I can’t sense any demonic energy at all. Is the monsters’ commander really here?”

“Yes. Though ‘commander’ isn’t quite the right word.”

“What?”

In truth, I was looking for a lake rather than the one controlling the monsters. If I found the lake before I found him, I wouldn’t have to bother with any of this nonsense. But naturally, he would have thought of that too.

[“Please stop.”]

He appeared, reciting those polite words.

I brought the Cassian to a halt, and the earth rose before our eyes. The soil that had surged up from the ground settled again, leaving a single figure in its place. The way he appeared truly made him seem like part of the forest. That was all, though. In appearance, he was an ordinary old man—a white-haired elder in a long robe, the sort you might find anywhere on the continent.

“... Is that man really the monsters’ commander?”

“Yes.”

Selena kept staring at him, apparently unconvinced. More than his appearance, it was probably the sacred energy emanating from him that she couldn’t understand.

I dismounted. A green forest, warm sunlight, and an old man radiating sacred energy before me. It was a scene straight out of a fairy tale. And with good reason.

“A pleasure to meet you. I believe this is our first meeting. My name is Frondier.”

[“... I see. Sir Frondier. An old man such as myself has no name worth giving.”]

“Mr. Merlin.”

[“...!”]

His name was Merlin. The great mage, prophet, and sage of Arthurian legend. King Arthur’s teacher and adviser. And above all, here in the game Etius, Merlin was a druid.