Gaius scratched his chin with thick fingers, faced once again with his own thoughtlessness. His top priority had been to get as far away from the capital as he could, so his homecoming was quite unplanned. In fact, he’d been warned against leaping before he looked many, many times—by the former king, the princess, his upperclassmen and subordinates. But, as the saying goes, old habits die hard.
“You completely lack foresight, so you’d do well to heed the advice of those under your command,” the king had once advised him.
“Do you have more muscles where your brains should be, dear?” The princess, who had at one point been his wife, used to tease him.
A knight who had once stayed in Gaius’s home had always chided him with “Sir Gaius, you are a reckless one, without a doubt.”
Despite all this, Gaius had enjoyed his days as the princess’s guard, and his time as just another knight. He hadn’t wanted it all to end. But ever since he’d been given a station he was unqualified for—and especially since the current king had taken the throne—Gaius had been drawn into political bickering and personal bodyguard duties. His head and stomach had ached more and more each day.
In his own way, he really had taken care not to do or say anything out of line. But the freeloading knight living with him gave him advice to do just the opposite: “Sir Gaius, you ought to be more selfish! Live life as you want to live it!” At that, he truly felt he never should have taken on a title.
As Gaius heaved a sigh and sat back down in his wagon—
“Eeeeyaaahhh!” he heard a shrill voice cry out.
A woman’s scream...? No, a child’s?! Gaius stood up in a flash, his hands already seeking out a weapon from inside the wagon, a thick, cleaver-like sword known as a faussar. He scanned his surroundings to try and find from where the voice had come. It had been close, but it was difficult to discern the source of the scream.
He took a deep, sharp breath and shouted, “Where are you?!” in a booming voice. Straining his ears, he made out the sound of startled birds taking flight before the same voice called out once again. “Uwaaah!”
It had come from his left, deeper in the woods. Gaius took off as soon as he determined the direction of the sound, his massive frame hurtling forward with ferocious speed.
Who, or what, could be over there? What kind of situation was he charging into? He moved without thinking, as though forgetting the way he had cursed his own lack of forethought just a moment ago. Gaius heard screams, and so he ran. That was all the reason he needed.
If his former subordinates could see him now, their response would no doubt be a snide “He’s hopeless, that man.” Snide, but with a hint of pride.
That’s the sort of man Gaius Beldarus was.
＊
He plunged into the forest, racing toward the voice he’d heard. As he ran, weaving through the foliage like a rolling boulder, something came into view:
The back of a beast. A beast standing upright, at least eight feet tall.
The gigantic creature reared back on two hind legs, spreading four forelegs wide. Gaius had seen its like before. It was a bugbear, one of the many magical beasts that roamed the woods. Just as the name implied, it had six legs like an insect and hatched from an egg.
Even an ordinary bear was far too much of a threat for a lone human. One blow from those arms with their knifelike claws would instantly turn a man into mincemeat. Its thick fur and flesh provided a natural armor.
But bears, wary creatures by nature, didn’t generally go after humans. When people and bears crossed paths, it was typically an unfortunate coincidence, or when a bear had developed a taste for human flesh.
Bugbears, however, were different. They did hunt humans. Perhaps they had lost that sense of caution, but just as bears would reach into a beehive for honey, bugbears would attack human habitats. Ones just like the frontier village where Gaius had grown up.
“Oi!” Gaius bellowed. He traded away the element of surprise in an attempt to draw the bugbear’s attention away from the child.
He quickly took in his surroundings, but he couldn’t see a child anywhere. Maybe they were hiding behind a tree...or maybe he was too late, and they already lay dead or dying somewhere. The search would have to wait until he dealt with the threat before him. He raised his sword over his head with both hands in an advanced sword-wielding posture called the “roof stance.”
“Grrr...” The beast turned slowly toward him in response to his voice. The beast’s center of gravity was unstable while it stood on just its two hind legs, and it was unable to change its direction easily. For a moment, it lowered itself onto all six legs to turn towards Gaius, growling menacingly.
It began its fierce charge.
＊
The monster trembled in delight at discovering the source of the noise. To think that it would meet a “land-monkey” here, of all places... And here it had just been thinking that the prey it had cornered would be too small for a meal. Land-monkeys. They were a rare sight in the forest, so sometimes it would go looking for them. They were slow. Weak. Easy meals.
Sometimes they would have shells, but that only made them a little less easy to eat. And the meat inside would still be just as soft.
The bugbear had eaten a land-monkey like that two autumns ago. The land-monkey had hit it on the head with a stick, but that was all. The stick had barely hurt, and all the bugbear had had to do was run into it to send the land-monkey flying. After that, all it had done was pet the land-monkey with its front paws until it stopped moving.
This new land-monkey wanted to hit it, too.
Stupid land-monkeys. That stupid stick won’t even—
＊
—before it could even finish its thought, its skull was dashed to pieces.
When the bugbear charged, Gaius rushed forward as well, even faster than the monster. The bugbear ran low to the ground, and Gaius’s height advantage added to the force of his blow.
With his towering height and the great strength behind that heavy blade, Gaius’s downward swing was as devastating as the namesake of his roof stance: “like a roof falling on your head.” The violent blow smashed the creature’s skull, crushing its brains and cutting short whatever thoughts it might have had.
The rest of the bugbear’s body pitched forward and collapsed. As Gaius slashed, he’d swiftly dodged to the side at the same time to avoid the massive beast’s charge.
Its body crashed into a tree with a great thud! Gaius quickly approached it and brought his sword down on its head three more times. By then, its head was severed from its neck and its skull smashed to a pulp, bits of brain scattered all around.
Larger monsters, especially magical ones, were able to survive far more damage than humans. Best to make sure you’ve finished the job. Gaius had learned that from his mother, who had lived and died as one of the settlement’s warriors.