Chapter 5

Oh, right, Teacher cast that protection spell on me. She’d completely forgotten in the heat of the moment, but her life was never actually at risk. But if it weren’t for his spell, that attack from behind would surely have… Rather than simply knocking her over, it might have taken her life immediately. A shiver ran up her spine at the thought. Then she managed to extract herself from under the headless goblin and stand. She glanced into the cave and noticed a number of goblins running out toward her. How many are there…? How many more times can I use Fireball? She tried to think things through, but her body felt heavy and her mind slow, perhaps because she’d used too much magic. She did her best to raise her staff before two goblins leaped at her at the same time, and she— “You did very well,” came the sound of warm praise, along with two hands of bone that shot from behind and grabbed the leaping goblins by their necks to raise them higher. “Teacher!” “Defeating two goblins is plenty for your first fight. Let’s wrap up today’s battle practice with that,” said Terios. “Aw, you’re too soft on her. She could probably do another three if she thought she was going to die.” The black cat sighed as Terios squeezed his hands. That was all it took to produce a dull crack, and the two goblins hanging by their necks fell limp like rag dolls. “Gyah?!” The other three goblins that emerged from behind those two seemed to sense they were no match for the robed skeleton. They turned and tried to flee, but their decision came too late. “Stone Spike.” When he muttered the incantation, a spear of stone thrust from the ground directly below the feet of each goblin, skewering them from bottom to top. They expired before they even knew what was happening. “Humanoid creatures have a high point of view, so they tend to neglect caution for what’s around their feet. Hitting a moving opponent like this is somewhat difficult, but it’s an invaluable strategy for surprise attacks. Make sure to remember that,” said Terios. “Yes, Teacher.” She replied simply as Terios calmly lectured her in front of the grotesque shish-kebabbed corpses, spurring a thought. I’ve become a cruel girl. While she had been blinded with rage, she did kill two goblins with her own hands, but the guilt she had expected wasn’t coming. Not to mention the scattered bodies of the goblins that Terios had slain. She didn’t feel nauseous, despite the smell of blood hanging so thick in the air, you could choke on it. “Teacher, I—” I’m not really a normal girl. Before she could choke out that admission of defeat, Terios gently patted her head. “You’ve eliminated one threat to the village. Let’s do another job to protect everyone’s peace.” There was no lie in his words. But instinctually, Mira knew it was a lie to distract from the fundamental problem at hand. Nonetheless— “Okay, I’ll do my best.” Mira nodded energetically. She and Terios turned toward the entrance of the cave to defeat the remaining goblins. In front of the cave, which gradually sloped down into the ground, Terios asked a question of the girl who stood next to him. “How do you think we should defeat the goblins hiding inside?” “Uh… Can’t we just go in and beat them when we find them?” “Nope. Unfortunately, that’s only two points for you.” “Huh?!” Though Mira was upset at receiving a failing grade, Terios went on to thoroughly explain. “The goblins know the inside of this cave like the backs of their hands. Not only are they inevitably hiding in the shadows to surprise attack us, but they’ve probably also set up traps, like pitfalls. It wouldn’t be wise to just waltz into their home base.” “Oh, I see.” Mira realized how thoughtless she’d been and reflected on her answer. Happy to see her reconsidering, Terios asked her again. “So knowing that, how do you think we should defeat the goblins?” “Ummm, if we can’t go inside, then what about waiting for them to come out?” “Good, that’s not a bad idea.” If you had enough power, that was probably the safest strategy. He didn’t think the goblins had stores of food and water in the cave, so they could crush the goblins when starvation forced them out. “However,” noted Terios, “we lack the manpower to take shifts watching the cave, and it will take time for the goblins to run out of food. That strategy isn’t ideal when you’re short on numbers or in a hurry.” “Okay, then we’ll need to think of a way to make the goblins come out quickly…” Taking in Terios’s points, Mira immediately started thinking of a better strategy. She is a wonderful student, thought Terios, suddenly feeling very much like a real teacher. Then he proposed a strategy of his own. “The quickest option would be collapsing the entrance and sealing the cave.” “Ah, we can do that?!” “Indeed. It’s not like we particularly want to investigate inside the cave. We can easily destroy the goblins by burying them alive.” This strategy minimized the most risk and spilled the most enemy blood with the least amount of work on their part. He was trying to instill in Mira that it was essential to always think outside the box. “However,” said Terios, “that strategy also has its flaws. If the cave has other entrances, they could escape through those. Additionally, if a monster more powerful than a goblin were inside the cave, it might be able to dig through the wall to escape.” “So what should we do?” asked Mira, seemingly unable to come up with any other ideas. As if he were waiting for that moment, Terios brought out the other strategy he’d set aside. “There are a few options available, but I’ve got just the thing this time,” he said, casting a spell to pull out a large rucksack. “Inside this bag is dried smokeweed that was soaked in the paralytic toxin of a poisonous toad.” The base ingredient of smokeweed was tobacco. When lit, it produced large amounts of smoke, which carried the component it was soaked in. “If we use that…” “We can suffocate them with poisonous fumes.” Mira paled, while Terios was all smiles. “I don’t believe the cave is that large,” he said. “The smoke should be able to fill all the cracks and crevices and leave no goblin behind. Plus, if there are other entrances to the cave, we can easily locate them from where the smoke exits.” He turned to the corpse of one of the goblins whose neck he’d crushed and quietly cast a spell. “Empty body devoid of life, take this makeshift soul and become my servant—Create Flesh Golem.” This was the same magic he’d used to create the bone golems, though the fresh body of a recently killed creature served as its medium instead of cremated bones. With its makeshift soul, the goblin body stood, its neck bent irregularly, and shouldered the rucksack of poisonous smokeweed. Terios lit the sack, and the corpse walked into the cave, trailing smoke. “And with that, we’re done. Sure, preparing smokeweed in advance took labor, but the most important thing in combat isn’t what you do on the battlefield; it’s what preparations you make before you head there. You must always anticipate a variety of scenarios and do your best to prepare for them.” He gazed at Mira, quite satisfied that he had taught such a valuable lesson, but the smile on her face betrayed not admiration but confusion. “Um, I sort of felt like this before, but you’re kind of, um…” “The kind of rotten person who will do whatever it takes to achieve their goal? Yeah, you shouldn’t imitate him,” jeered the cat, who had been silent up until now, bluntly airing what Mira struggled to put into words. “How rude. I don’t have anything left to rot on my body. I’m smooth—clean as bone!” “Y-yeah,” said Mira, but her perplexed smile only deepened at Terios’s attempt to subtly change the subject with a bone joke. “What kind of adult needs a child to be so careful with his feelings? Aren’t you embarrassed?” asserted the cat. “Please, no more. You’ll kill my soul. Give me a break.” Terios winced, shaking his head at the cat’s merciless jab. He couldn’t feel physical pain as an undead, but emotional pain was fair game. In stark contrast to them joking around, goblin screams began to ring out from inside the cave. “Grah, grah?!” “Gack, gaaah…” The goblins must have breathed in the smoke laced with paralytic poison while being distracted by the body of their companion racing toward them, spewing fire and ash. With their bodies paralyzed, they couldn’t even run. Soon, they wouldn’t be able to breathe and would suffocate. Mira’s innocent face clouded over as she listened to their death rattles. “We had no other options,” she muttered, almost to herself, and Terios nodded firmly. “You’re right. Building a peaceful world and eliminating things that undermine peace are the same thing. That’s why I will destroy anything that harms humans, be it disease or monster.” As he’d told Mira on a number of occasions, he’d decided never to kill another human being. But he also had no intention of saving the life of anything that wasn’t human. The possibility of building a paradise where all creatures could live harmoniously vanished the moment life evolved to eat. The process of killing and consuming another being to efficiently gain energy made an equal utopia impossible. “Are you disappointed?” he asked. While his goal to create a peaceful world was beautiful, the path toward it was dyed red with blood. If Mira continued working with him, she would likely end up seeing even more horrific things in the future. Despite Terios’s question implying that she should limit her involvement with him if she were disappointed, she shook her head. “No. I want to see the peaceful world you’ll make, too.” “Thank you, Mira.” Her brilliant, carefree smile made him feel guilty, but he grinned back. With the screams from the cave having cut off, Terios stepped toward the entrance, intending to check it just in case. As he did, his sharp senses picked up the presence of a powerful monster. “Mira, please fall back behind me,” he said. “O-okay.” Likely sensing the urgency of the situation, Mira and the black cat retreated a significant distance. “The fact that the goblins came to spy on the village did make me think they had a boss ordering them around,” murmured Terios, the monster in question slowly appearing from the depths of the cave. Though it looked small because it was hunched over, it was as tall as a large bear. The red of blood, the black of mud, and a green that resembled mold dyed the fur covering the entirety of its body, making it impossible to determine its original color. A fat, whiplike tail lashed behind it, the ears on its head twitched, and its bloodshot eyes locked onto Terios. That creature was— “A wererat? How unusual.” “Kya-ha-ha.” It almost seemed to take Terios’s words as a compliment. The wererat, a human warped into a half-beast by some curse or disease, bared its long front teeth and laughed. Although the creature was a fair distance from her, the stench coming from its body was so horrible, it caused Mira to clamp a hand over her mouth, a wave of nausea hitting her. “Sewer rats are cleaner than this thing,” spat the black cat, screwing up her face in discomfort as she waved a paw to fan away the smell. Terios kept an eye on the two behind him but secretly sighed in frustration. And so, my lie has turned to truth. When he’d told Mira the goblins were likely the source of the green-rot infection, he was really just lying to spur her into action. It was true that people suspected they were the source of the disease due to their skin color, which had caused a large-scale effort to eliminate them in the past. However, experiments conducted at that time revealed that goblins were incapable of carrying the green rot, no matter the situation. One other thing he’d told Mira was also true—that while the green rot typically only infected humans, there were some exceptions among monsters. Goblins, like the majority of other monsters, couldn’t become infected. Half-human beasts like the wererat in front of him now were the very rare exception, as they could carry the green rot because they were originally human. These monsters developed a constitution so strong that even poison wouldn’t work on them, meaning they could coexist with the disease instead of dying from it. “You’re the fiend that brought the green rot to Krio Village, aren’t you?” Terios didn’t need to ask, considering the green patches across the creature’s fur, but he wanted to confirm at least. At that, the wererat chattered its teeth in another laugh and nodded. “Kya-ha-ha.” “This is who made Momma and everyone else—!” Though Mira still suffered from the horrific smell, her face turned bright red with rage. Terios didn’t need to turn back to know what was happening. He tried to verify one last thing before Mira exploded in anger. “May I ask why?” But no response ever came. “Kya-haaaa!” Perhaps having tired of the pointless conversation, the wererat let out a strange cry and leaped into the air as it attacked Terios. “Teacher?!” screamed Mira. She had no way of knowing this, but wererats were among the most specialized in killing humans of all the monsters. Their physical abilities weren’t that powerful, probably only equivalent to a seasoned warrior’s. But if it scratched a human just once with its sharp claws or spat on them or even just breathed on them, it could infect them with all sorts of deadly diseases. This mass of horrific diseases could kill even a demigod hero, assuming they didn’t have any medicine on hand. That’s what made the wererats so dangerous. However— “I do apologize. You see, I’m just a skeleton,” said Terios. He had already died long ago, and diseases meant nothing to an undead. As such, he calmly caught the wererat by the arm as it tried to attack him. He quietly voiced a spell to eliminate this diseased mass that brought nothing but misfortune to humans. “Cremation.” A blazing scarlet hellfire engulfed the wererat’s whole body, along with Terios’s hand as he held it. “Kyaaa!” The scorching column of fire burned the wererat’s screaming, disease-ridden body from this world. When the flames died down, only a black burn remained. “Phew…” Terios cracked his neck, a habit he’d had since he was alive, then slowly turned to look back at Mira and bowed his head. “Mira, I’ve stolen your revenge from you, and for that, I apologize.” “Uh, no, you don’t have to apologize for that!” Mira lost her composure, wildly waving her hands at the unexpected apology. She trotted up to Terios, took his still-warm hand of bone, and smiled a smile that could make flowers bloom. “Thank you for avenging everyone,” she said. “Mira, I was only—” He tried to clarify that he was only doing it to achieve a peaceful world, that he wasn’t trying to avenge anyone, but Mira shook her head to stop him. “You saved us and avenged Momma, no matter the reason. Thank you. I really mean it.” “…You’re welcome.” Feeling a sense of discomfort that he’d long since forgotten, Terios scratched his cheek in embarrassment but accepted Mira’s thanks regardless. The black cat’s whiskers quivered as she laughed and mocked them. “Seems like vengeance pairs best with hypocrisy! It’s more fun for me to watch that way!” “That’s the worst reason possible,” snarled Terios, glaring at the cat for being a selfish bystander. “I like that Ms. Cat never lies,” added Mira, a wry smile accompanying her clumsy compliment. After checking the cave to confirm there were no remaining monsters alive, they returned to Krio Village, where everyone waited.