It took about four hours to walk from Shan's hut to Leaf Village. Considering how much farther apart all the other villages in the area were, the two could practically be called neighbors. That was also why the militia had gone to investigate the tragedy next door. Many of the murdered people of Mountainshade Village had been their friends or relatives.

Having set off early that morning, Shan reached Leaf Village without incident around noon.

"Oh."

The wheat fields surrounding the village were still green, perhaps because harvest time had yet to come. But Shan could easily imagine the sight of them turning gold. He had never properly learned to farm, but every year he had sown seeds, plowed fields, and harvested crops as instructed.

Curious how well the local wheat had filled out, he cut a few stalks to inspect them. An irritable shout came from some distance away.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing? You're trampling good wheat!"

A young man who looked five or six years older than Shan, just on the cusp of manhood, approached with a scowl. A moment later, he froze as he got a clear look at Shan, who had been partly hidden by the wheat.

A young boy armed with a sword, a mace, leather armor torn in several places, and a short spear...

"Hello. I need some foo—"

"Aaaah!"

Screaming, "It's the little devil!" the man fled toward the village, no longer caring in the slightest about trampling the wheat.

Shan didn't think he had seen that face during their last fight. Apparently, the people who had returned had spread his notoriety far and wide.

Feeling awkward, he scratched the side of his face, then approached the village palisade.

Perhaps the young man who had fled ahead had warned them. The villagers had gathered with anything that could serve as a weapon, men and women, young and old alike.

'Still, this wouldn't be difficult...'

Shan could see the deep fear in the eyes watching him. Cut down a few at the front, and the rest would probably run screaming. That had happened even with a group made up entirely of sturdy men, let alone one with women, children, and the elderly mixed in.

Even those who had never experienced his skill firsthand were terrified. To justify their own fear, the returning survivors had exaggerated his strength even further.

Shan stopped where he would not be surrounded too deeply and dipped his head to Chief Orgo, who stood at the front.

"Hello."

"It has been some time, Sir Knight."

The villagers murmured as their Chief bowed low, but Orgo paid them no mind. Whatever had brought the boy here, he knew perfectly well that if Shan took offense, he could kill everyone present with strength to spare.

"May I ask what brings you to our village?"

"I need food."

"I'll have it brought at once."

Shan had been about to explain that he had a few valuables if they wanted payment, but Orgo's reply stopped him short with a startled "Oh."

Did this mean it wasn't robbery, since he hadn't threatened anyone yet?

Then again, the man didn't seem to be offering simply because he liked him.

Still, insisting on paying when they were offering it for free felt like taking a loss. After a moment's thought, Shan nodded.

Well, why spoil a good thing? It was a big village. They were probably giving him food because they had plenty to spare.

Before long, several villagers brought over enough provisions to fill several sacks: barley, flour, dried meat, cheese and butter, vegetables, fruit, salt, and assorted spices...

Shan stood watching, then pointed at the grains.

"I don't know how to make bread, so please bake these into bread instead of giving me flour and barley. And does anyone here know how to start a fire?"

"A... fire?"

"Yes. I've been trying, but I can't get it to work."

How to start a fire? Surely anyone who wasn't an animal knew that.

Several people stared at him in disbelief, thinking exactly that, only to flinch and lower their eyes when they met his green gaze. Though it was still midday, thick clouds darkened the sky, and Shan's eyes glowed faintly.

Orgo was just as bewildered, though he did not show it.

"Well, it isn't difficult..."

A short while later, Shan learned that he couldn't use just any stones to start a fire. He needed to strike iron against a firestone such as quartz, and he also needed tinder to catch the resulting sparks.

An ordinary village child would have learned this from their parents long ago. For an Altoan orphan, however, it was knowledge he had no way of acquiring.

"Oh, now I can cook the meat I hunt. Thank you."

"Not at all."

"But this is so much food, it'll be hard to carry it all back."

Shan could produce more strength than others by moving his body properly, but that didn't mean he possessed the strength of a hulking strongman. Taking home the supplies that several grown men had strained to set down would mean days of trips back and forth.

"Then we will help transport it as well."

"That would be too much work. Just give me a cart or something."

"A c-cart..."

A cart made by a proper carpenter was worth no small sum, and losing one would hurt. But Orgo did not dare say no. Even days later, the sight of that boy slaughtering the villagers with a ghastly smile remained vivid in his mind. How could he dare?

As Orgo nodded, inwardly weeping tears of blood, Shan considered asking for an animal to pull the cart, then decided against it. Even a donkey was a precious asset in a farming village, never mind a horse or an ox.

In truth, though, he simply wasn't confident he could look after an animal.

"Thank you! I'll enjoy the food!"

"May fortune favor you in battle, Sir Knight."

What he meant was, Please go get yourself fucking killed somewhere. Shan, knowing none of that, smiled brightly and waved.

With such fancy wording, surely it meant something nice.

* * *

With regular trips to Leaf Village for food, nothing remained to disturb Shan's peaceful daily life.

One of his new hobbies was practicing the fire-starting technique he had learned. It was surprisingly difficult and required considerable persistence.

"Whew. Hooo."

He had to scrape the metal with quartz and send the sparks precisely onto the tinder, then quickly feed in fuel before the flame went out to build up the fire...

Unlike fighting, he couldn't simply do whatever came to mind and have it work. That made it all the more entertaining.

Once he could start fires, he began hunting the forest's animals more actively. His continued practice with the bow had also made him fairly good at hitting moving targets. The forest animals died in droves, and Shan enjoyed freshly roasted meat.

"Wow..."

The day he first ate roasted rabbit, he was moved to tears. The taste was incomparable not only to the scraps he had scavenged while working in the village, but even to the dried meat from Leaf Village.

Of course, with tough game meat, haphazardly scattered spices, and terrible roasting, it was not objectively good cooking. But perhaps because it was the first meal he had cooked himself, to Shan it tasted like a delicacy without equal.

Naturally, his previous experience had not taught him the lesson that he ought to ration his food and plan ahead so it wouldn't run out. If he ran short, he could simply go back to the village for more.

Day after day, Shan gorged himself as he pleased, then ran all over the nearby hills and fields to digest it, as he always did. Most of what he ate was burned up as energy in the process, but what remained became part of his body and began to change it.

The skeletal frame he had possessed when he first settled here developed lean muscles, firm and tough as wire. His height, once half a head shorter than that of children his age, shot upward as well.

Naturally, this soon improved his physical abilities.

"Oh."

Clearing the stream in a single leap, Shan grinned as he realized how dramatically his abilities had improved. Not long ago, he had failed to make it across and splashed straight into the water.

His jumping ability wasn't the only thing that had changed. His stamina, which had never been particularly impressive despite his efficient movements, had multiplied several times over. Though he now weighed half again as much as before, his arms had grown strong enough that he could still bound through the trees like a monkey.

That meant he could swing his weapons harder and faster.

CRACK!

Shan felled a tree thicker than his thigh with one swing of his axe, then clicked his tongue when he realized the blade had shattered. To think it had broken already, when he had only recently brought it from the village.

"Too flimsy..."

He hadn't noticed when he was scrawny and weak, but iron weapons weren't nearly as sturdy as he had imagined. The bandit Captain's sword was about the only one that held up.

With a better weapon, he felt as though he could slice through a boulder in a single stroke. Then couldn't he chop those ironclad monsters called knights into chunks as well?

"Maybe I should ask the people of Leaf Village to find me one."

While Shan sat in the middle of the forest thinking of the bottomless pouch that produced anything he asked for, the villagers were discussing him as well.

"Chief, how much longer must we let him bleed us dry?"

"We can't keep absorbing losses like this."

For the past several months, the people of Leaf Village had been exploited by a little devil living in Mountainshade Village to the south. Despite his small frame, the bastard stuffed himself with more food than three or four sturdy adults could eat, and only the finest quality at that. As all that food put meat on his bones and made him taller, he demanded even more.

Lately, he had also begun asking for tools such as axes and sickles. With ten of their able-bodied men already dead or crippled, Leaf Village could only buckle under the strain.

Chief Orgo sighed deeply at the complaints of the village's leading men.

"What can we do? It's not as though we can rise up and say we refuse to live like this. Nor can we call on the lord's troops."

A couple of months earlier, a couple of vagrants covered in wounds had appeared not far from Leaf Village. Half-mad, they had muttered, "The green-eyed devil is coming." Under questioning, they confessed that they were mercenaries commissioned by someone to wipe several nearby villages off the map without a trace.

Baron Mahsel, the lord who ruled the area, had them taken into custody, then shut himself away in his castle. Even when the villagers pleaded for troops to defeat the young Altoan bandit, his only reply was to exercise restraint.

They did not know the details, but the bandits' identity had clearly had some major effect on their lord.

What were the villagers supposed to do in such circumstances? Word of the "green-eyed devil" who had single-handedly slaughtered a powerful mercenary company had already spread far and wide. Even passing mercenaries and hired troubleshooters fled.

It was a natural reaction. Anyone capable of slaughtering more than a dozen properly armed mercenaries alone was a monster comparable to a competent knight, even allowing for exaggeration.

As the village's leading men sat heaving sighs, someone hurriedly opened the door and rushed inside.

"Ch-Chief!"

"What is it?"

"Th-there's someone willing to accept the job of getting rid of the devil...!"

The leading men of Leaf Village rushed to the village's sole inn and tavern.

"Where? Where is he?"

"Over there."

The man occupying one of the tavern's tables was plainly an accomplished warrior. Perhaps he was around thirty. Tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular, with a thick beard running from his sideburns over his chin and a rugged, roughly hewn face, he looked the very picture of a battle-hardened veteran.

He wore not the plate armor of a knight, but armor made from metal rings, along with metal gauntlets and boots. A mace hung at his waist, and a long staff with an oddly shaped end was strapped to his back.

Perhaps his lack of a bladed weapon reflected his confidence in his tremendous strength.

Orgo cleared his throat a few times, then sidled closer. Noticing him, the man frowned.

"What is it?"

"Pardon me. I am Orgo, the Chief of this village. I understand you're willing to accept the job of eliminating the bandit..."

"That's right."

"May I ask your name and house?"

"I don't know what the fellow who asked me earlier told you, but I'm no knight. Just a wanderer from Pendia. Call me Roden."

Pendia was a country east of the Kingdom of Libert, where they had been born and raised. They were in the northeast, so it wasn't terribly far away, but anyone who could travel alone through a foreign country and defend himself must be capable.

Besides, the quality of the metal and workmanship of his armor put it far beyond the means of some ordinary drifter. Given how perfectly it fit his massive frame, he could hardly have stolen it, either.

His expression brightening, Orgo smiled.

"Understood, Master Roden. Then you are... willing to accept our request?"

"I hear it's only a single child."

"As you must have heard, he is no ordinary child. He's an Altoan. And he wields such tremendous demonic power that he wiped out an entire mercenary company. Many of our villagers have suffered at his hands as well. Around here, he's called the green-eyed devil."

Downplaying the target's strength might have lowered the fee, but the Chief deliberately described his abilities without embellishment or understatement. Having faced him personally, Orgo knew that his appearance was more than enough to lull an opponent into carelessness—and that such carelessness would exact a terrible price.

What would become of the village if this wandering knight attacked, lost, and revealed who had hired him?

"Enough. This demonic power Altoans supposedly possess is all superstition. In any case, I'll take the job."

"Then, as for your reward..."

"What reward do I need for chasing off one child?"

Apparently, this knight was a true embodiment of chivalry, the likes of which they had not seen in years. Judging by his attire, he was tremendously wealthy, so perhaps he could simply afford to be generous.

Either way, it was a tremendous relief that they could save the thirty gold coins the impoverished villagers had painstakingly scraped together.

There was only one concern: he did not seem to take the devil's power seriously at all. Risking offense, Orgo repeatedly tried to impress the creature's strength upon him. Nothing could be more dreadful than this knight losing, surviving, and revealing that Leaf Village had hired him.

"I'll be off, then."

As Roden left, everyone in Leaf Village closed their eyes and clasped their hands in prayer.

O Goddess, please protect that knight and let him vanquish the wicked devil of Alto.

* * *

The hut in a corner of Mountainshade Village.

After playing to his heart's content as usual, Shan was lazing about at home when an unfamiliar sound in the distance brought him to his feet. He had never heard anything like it: a steady metallic clanking, as though pieces of metal were interlocking...

He discovered its source when he went outside. The powerfully built man clothed from head to toe in metal was unmistakably one of the knights he had only heard about.

Standing still and looking down at Shan, the knight spoke in a low voice.

"So you're the young Altoan who's been terrorizing and plundering the people around here."

"No."

Shan immediately denied the knight's accusation. It wasn't because he was frightened. He genuinely had no idea that he had plundered anyone.

"Honestly, I did think I'd have to become a bandit if I couldn't find a way to feed myself. But luckily, the people in a nearby village have been giving me food, so I've been getting by."

"Taking supplies without paying for them makes you a bandit."

"Does that make the church a bandit too?"

"Those are donations, so that's differ..."

The knight broke off with a sharp sigh.

"If you're trying to stall by talking nonsense, it won't work. I don't believe fanciful stories about Altoans having demonic powers. Disarm and come quietly, and I'll be lenient. If the villagers try to hurt you, I'll protect you. I can even find you somewhere to do honest work."

"I can't do that."

To Shan, laying down his weapons meant returning to his past: the life of someone weak, forced to endure every kind of humiliation and violence without even the barest dignity or freedom.

If anyone tried to cast him back into that pit, he would kill them without hesitation, even if they were his own parents returning to him.

He drew the sword at his waist. The knight's fierce face hardened, and he gripped the staff from his back tightly in both hands.

"So that's your choice... This is your last warning. Once I swing my war flail, I can't stop it halfway."

The knight's weapon resembled the threshing flails common on farms. A chain attached to the end of a long staff held a shorter, iron-reinforced rod. Apparently, he attacked by swinging it around.

This was Shan's first time learning that the weapon was called a war flail, but he could see how useful it would be in single combat. At the very least, its reach would far exceed that of his one-handed sword and axe. Judging by the build of the man wielding it, a blow would have enough power to break bones wherever it landed.

'This is nerve-racking...'

His first-ever fight against a knight. How powerful were these highest-ranking warriors appointed by kings and nobles? Shan felt anticipation mingling with his nerves.

Would his skills work against a knight?

As he sharpened his focus, his heightened senses picked up every tiny change in his opponent's body. A faint trembling traveled from the man's feet, up his legs, and through his entire body. Perhaps it heralded some secret technique known only to knights, something Shan had never encountered.

After a brief moment of intense tension, Shan studied his opponent's expressionless face. The knight's eyes were fixed not on Shan, but on the tip of his sword.

Testing a suspicion, Shan gave the blade a little wave. The man's gaze darted frantically after it. Those eyes, so fierce only moments ago, now looked like those of a rabbit facing a predator.

'Could it be...?'

One step. Two steps.

Shan quietly closed the distance, stopping just outside the war flail's reach. Then he stamped one foot and thrust his sword forward.

"Boo!"

"Gah!"

With a clatter, the knight flung away his war flail and landed flat on his backside.