Chapter 35

Chapter Four Erdelia “We’ve got our next job,” I said to my party members at the tavern table. “West of here, there’s a country that got occupied by the Demon Lord’s army. There’s this merchant stranded there ’cause he bit off more than he could chew. He wants us to get him and his three family members out. If we get a hundred gold coins for each person, that means four hundred in the bag.” “They’re stuck in the Demon Lord’s territory? Doesn’t that sound dangerous?” Nina said anxiously. The areas under the control of the Demon Lord’s army had bigger monster populations, and they were more active, too. A bit tricky for humans to get around. “It only got occupied recently, so it shouldn’t be too bad yet. It is hard to slip out, though. If we go help them out, we’ll be angels as far as they’re concerned.” “I didn’t know angels these days were strapped for cash,” Sophia quipped with a wry chuckle. “But of course. Even God’s gonna prioritize saving people who have money.” I shrugged. If faith alone could get God to save you, we’d have world peace by now. “Anyway, we’ll need a horse and cart to get four people out. Do we have to arrange it? Or do they?” Sophia asked, pushing up her glasses. Her experience as an apothecary meant she was even finickier about income and expenditure than I was. “We arrange it. They’ll reimburse the cost.” “I see. Well, since the client’s paying, let’s have him travel in style. He’ll have a carriage fit for a king.” Sophia sneered like a witch. She was clearly itching for an expensive carriage on the house. “We’re not going to a ballroom at a castle,” I said. “We need a sturdy horse, not a fancy one.” “You just don’t get it, Leonard. Those good-looking horses that cater to the nobility are plenty sturdy, you know? The priority is appearances and safety.” Despite coming from nobility herself, Sophia apparently held a lot of disdain for her former company. “If you say so. But we don’t want to stand out, or else the monsters will crash our ballroom. Best to keep things plain and simple.” “Fine. We’ll get a magnificently average horse, the comfiest mount you could ask for. You’ll feel just like a load of cargo inside the wagon.” “Hey, we’re looking for safety over comfort. We’re not fancy escorts. We’ll get things over with quicker if we do treat the merchant and his family like cargo.” Our job was to help the merchant’s family escape with their lives intact. Service came second. “If we’re going, then I suppose we should be quick about it. I expect they are hoping for a rescue,” Nina said in a benign tone. She was genuinely anxious for the merchant and his family. “Mm-hmm. Our job isn’t slaying monsters. Their corpses won’t pay our commission. It won’t hurt to pick up the pace.” Nina frowned at my dark joke, but she stood up, prompting the others to follow suit. Evsei finished his drink and reluctantly rose to his feet. “We leave tomorrow, then. Pack your bags for a pleasant journey,” I said. And with that, we went our separate ways. That night, after I bought stuff for my travels, I found someone waiting in my room at the inn. The Prophet. The person who heralded the Hero whenever the Demon Lord appeared. “You again? Sorry, I ain’t the age for bed-sharing anymore. Go pick someone else to baby.” The Prophet showed no reaction to my quip. They said just one thing: “Do not head west.” “Nothing gets past you, huh, Prophet? Think you’d be better off as an info broker?” I had no idea where they’d heard it from, but apparently this weirdo knew where we were headed before we’d even left. Kinda creepy. “Go east. Fulfill your calling as the Hero.” Compared with the invaded lands of the west, the east didn’t have it so bad. Basically, she was telling me to head east, where there was still some hope, instead of west, which was beyond help. Sure, there was some logic to that. However… “East or west, it doesn’t matter to me. I go where the coin is. Oh, but don’t get me wrong. I’m not about to work for the kingdom or the world or whatever, no matter how much money’s in it. You have to be crazy to work for a larger cause.” I tapped a finger against my temple. “Sure, people might respect a self-sacrificing personality. Not that it does a dead person much good. The Hero is the epitome of that mindset. Flatter someone, call them a ‘Hero,’ and they’ll go and fight the Demon Lord for you. You’re so grateful you could cry. And when the Hero’s dead, do you think it’s enough to just put up a statue in his honor? My ass. If you want to save the world, fight the Demon Lord yourself.” I took the finger I’d pressed against my temple and pointed it at the Prophet. “You’re exactly the same, Prophet. Before you make people into Heroes, you should go out there and fight. Don’t just sit on the sidelines giving orders like a smug bastard. The way you only think about using people, I’d bet my life you’re a noble or a member of the royalty. Gives me hives.” The Prophet looked slightly shaken by my words. Maybe I was right on the money. Their body turned hazy like a ghost, and then it melted into the darkness of the room. “I’m no goddamn Hero. Your Hero ain’t here,” I muttered at the spot where the Prophet no longer was. Evsei and I drove the horses. We were taking it in turns with Sophia and Nina to hold the wagon reins. There weren’t any weirdo drivers around willing to escort us into occupied territory. The group we were meant to rescue was hiding out in a village not too far from here, but life’s not so easy that I completed the job without a single hitch. When I spotted an obstacle in the path slightly up ahead, I signaled to my party members to slow the horses. “A giant, huh?” Evsei said as he brought the horses in. Giants were as stereotypically “monster” as you could get. Although they looked pretty hopeless with their bald heads, stooped backs, and sloped shoulders, they were absolutely massive both height-wise and lengthwise. About as big as a decent-size house. Their sluggish movements meant they were weaker than their size made them seem, but it always sucked when they were used to block roads. “There’s goblins by its feet, too,” I noted. There were thirty damn goblins where I was pointing, dancing around in an obvious attempt to provoke us. Being with the giant must have emboldened them. They were a bunch of wimps, normally. “Hey, Sophia, burn ’em down,” I called out to our bespectacled mage just as she had stepped out of the carriage and was stretching. “Don’t you mean, ‘Please burn them down’? You’re not one for people, are you, dear leader?” she grumbled as she readied her staff and closed her eyes. “Flaming red beacon, O spirit of fire, heed my chant. I call upon thee, roaring flames, and the secret wisdom of the ancients…” Sophia’s purple-streaked black hair fluttered in the wind as she chanted her spell. She was speaking in the ancient language. It was a very difficult language to decipher, and I obviously had no clue what she was saying. A person’s talent for magic was determined by how well they could understand the language, and I had no desire to learn. The tip of Sophia’s staff glowed. The goblins didn’t seem to have caught on yet. They were pretty unfazed about the fact that they were guaranteed to roast nicely. The next moment, a tornado of crimson flames swirled around the giant and the goblins. The latter didn’t even have time to scream before they got burnt to smithereens. The giant didn’t die in one shot, predictably, but the burns left it in pain all over. “All right, you finish it off, Evsei,” I said. Evsei nodded silently. Then he and I kicked the horses into high gear. The giant noticed us approaching and started swinging its club. It wasn’t fast, but you could kiss this world good-bye if you got a faceful of one of those. I dismounted my horse and drew in close. As I dodged the club, I gave the wielder a bunch of small cuts with my sword. Evsei watched from a short distance away, but as soon as he saw that the giant’s attention was completely directed at me, he sprang into action. Leaping into the sky was one of Evsei’s special moves. Meanwhile, he was defenseless in the air, so he needed me to be a distraction. Evsei rose just above the giant’s head at the peak of his jump and plunged his spear down. Gravity did the rest. Any humanoid creature—giant, demon, you name it—had the same weakness. A spear through the head settles fights quickly, if you can believe that. The giant was dead. It didn’t even twitch. “Are you hurt?” Nina promptly came running over to us, concern written across her face. I gave her a thumbs-up. “Nah. It was a cinch.” Meanwhile, Evsei pulled his spear out of the giant, using the momentum to twirl around in midair and land on his feet. There wasn’t a scratch on him. Man, I wish I could do that, I found myself thinking every time. With the giant done and dusted, we reached our destination without any further drama. The residents of this village had escaped to other countries after the Demon Lord’s army invaded, leaving the place a ghost town. We soon got in touch with the merchant’s family hiding in town. So far, so good. One problem did spring up, though. The merchant said he wanted us to help a village child escape. “One child isn’t much extra fuss, right?” was his argument. “What, you think the kid’s life is worth so little?” I shrugged. “We risked our skins to save you guys. Imagine you fell down a valley. We’re the ones helping you up. If we take on more than we can handle, we could fall right down with you. Sure, it’s dangerous, but hey, you’re paying us, so I guess we can put in the effort. But now you’re adding a kid on top of everything. You don’t think he could drag us down?” “But he’s just a little boy! I thought you were skilled adventurers,” our client insisted. He seemed like a compassionate guy, as far as merchants went. Nina had a look on her face that said she wanted to help. Evsei and Sophia each shot me a glance to signal, “It’s up to you.” This was my compromise: “I want fifty extra coins. That’s a half-price discount.” “You’ve already taken four hundred coins, and now you want more?!” I was trying to meet him in the middle here, but the client still looked pissed off. “Hey, it’s your funeral,” I told him. “We’re gonna head out. You never know when a demon’ll show up. If you don’t wanna come with us, whatever. The deal falls through, and we don’t get paid. You guys will probably die, and nobody’s happy. We can follow your original request and see your family out safely. Or you can pay extra, and the kid comes with us. So what’ll it be?” I wasn’t lying about there not being much time. The Demon Lord’s army was bound to notice straightaway that their big old giant was down for the count. If the demons came out in full force, we were toast. Sad as it is to say, the demons weren’t as brainless as humans. If the royalty and nobility learned a thing or two from them, the war would probably be going better right about now. “…I’ll pay the fifty coins.” The merchant said this with a huge scowl on his face, but hey, we’d gotten there in the end. “Excellent. You get what lives are worth. We have ourselves a deal. We’ll protect the kid with the understanding that he’s worth fifty gold coins. Now get in the wagon—time’s a-wasting. It’ll be a little cramped since there’s an extra person, but you should be good if you ditch the luggage. And hey, what’s any of that worth next to a human life?” I pushed for a quick departure. We squeezed the extra child into the wagon with the merchant’s family, and then we set off—not down the road we’d come from but farther west. The merchant was trying to get to Erdelia, which was a hub of commerce. The road we’d taken to get here was safer for obvious reasons, but this was the nature of the job. Not much you could do about it. Adventurers were drifters by trade. No one batted an eye when they crossed national borders. We would only backtrack to Arkand if I was taking a job in that direction. That all depended on us making it to Erdelia alive, of course. Not even an hour had passed when we saw a massive blockade of the road—the Demon Lord’s army. They sealed off the main roads in the lands they occupied to stop the humans from moving freely, which was the obvious thing to do in wartime. These guys were thorough. No surprise that the humans were struggling in the war. “What do we do? Go around them?” Evsei asked me as he approached the enemy squad on his horse. “Nah, there aren’t too many of them. Only one demon. The monsters will swarm us if we pick the wrong road to get on. We’ll go with a frontal assault. ’Sides, they might hear us out if we talk to them.” Demons could speak the human language. Some of them were surprisingly intellectual, despite their macho appearance. Actually, there was a nonzero number of times we’d resolved a conflict by talking, but the chances were pretty slim, admittedly. The commander of this outpost had assembled a motley crew of monsters: goblins, ogres, and other faces I knew better than my own parents’ at this point. I gave the signal to stop the carriage and called out “Get ready” to Sophia, who was in the driver’s seat. “On it.” No sooner had the words left her mouth than I hit the road alone on my horse. I got just close enough to the Demon Lord’s army that I could still slip away, and then I raised my voice: “Why, hello there, Mister Demon. Think we can put a rain check on this pointless fighting? We’re adventurers, you see. Pretty good ones, I’ll have you know. There’s only one way things’ll go down if we fight, and I reckon you won’t like the answer. But see, settling things that way is more time than it’s worth. Don’t you guys think that ‘eradicate every human that tries to pass through’ order was a bit overblown? Why not look the other way for a bit? Rest those weary eyes. Won’t take long, I promise. About as much time as you’d take for a piss. None of us get hurt, and nobody dies. It’ll be the fifth-best day of your life or thereabouts. What do you reckon?” The purple-skinned demon, who towered a full two heads over me, gave me a nasty glare and slowly pointed his finger at me. Then all the monsters under his command rushed at me in unison. The negotiations had failed. You saw stubborn pricks like this guy in all walks of life. I promptly turned my horse around and scampered back to my party members, where I saw Sophia camped in the middle of the road, chanting a spell. The same moment I galloped past her, the spell reached completion. A bolt of lightning streaked out of Sophia’s staff and zipped straight at the monsters pursuing me, burning them to smithereens. The negotiations might have failed, but the part where I served as a decoy had still worked. Sophia’s spell took out half the enemies right then and there. “All right, let’s do this thing.” I turned the horse’s head around one more time and drew my sword. Evsei readied his spear. This was where the warriors came in. I galloped at the monsters, which were standing bolt upright from the sudden spell, and cut them down. Evsei went wild with his spear, too. In times like these, it was important to have the momentum. It meant we were able to dispatch the monsters handily even with all the numbers on their side. We whittled them down pretty much straightaway, but then the demon at the back let out a shout—not in the human language, but a beast-like roar. Up until then, the monsters had been fearful, though at least they had been putting up a fight. At the demon’s shout, however, they instantly scattered. It must have been some kind of signal to retreat. It was a pain in the ass to readjust my stance, so I ruthlessly slashed the monsters when their backs were turned to me. I wanted to take out as many as I could while I had the chance, but it was actually pretty hard to inflict a fatal wound on a target that was running away. In the end, more than half the monsters that were still alive at that point got away. The demon came to the fore instead. His massive frame was covered in custom-made armor, and he had giant swords in both hands. I don’t know whether it was because he placed a lot of weight on his technique or because full body armor inhibited finer movements, but his joints weren’t covered, exposing his bare skin. So he was a dual blade wielder, huh? It was hard to use a greatsword with one hand if you had a human’s arm strength, but it was no sweat for a demon. This one was even bigger than the one at Arkand. He seemed plenty scary, but not unbeatable if Evsei and I tag-teamed. The demon seemed to account for that, though. He still had a lot of underlings left. He made them surround us, which meant their next move was either to attack our weak spots or target the wagon. Sophia and Nina weren’t experts at close-range combat, leaving the wagon in a tight spot. Either Evsei or I would have to back them up. Basically, one of us would be taking on that ripped, hulking demon without any help. My gaze darted to the side, making contact with Evsei’s. “This is where the leader comes in, right?” he asked. Dammit, he’s passing the buck to me. “Well, shit, I only just realized I’m not cut out for this. You know, I always thought you were a born leader, Evsei.” “Sorry, gotta honor my dead dad. ‘Never be a leader,’ he said. I’m leaving this one to you.” Evsei, whose dad was perfectly alive and well, backed away without even waiting for my response. To be fair, I’d seen that one coming. We had our roles: He kept the monsters at bay, while I dueled the demons. Seeing his opponents reduced to one single human, the demon smirked. He was probably thinking he had this battle in the bag. I readied my longsword. The blade gave off a light blue shine, a sign of the magic stored inside. It was a quality item, expensive enough to buy a house. My plan was to sell this off one day and earn myself a nice, laid-back retirement. Well, that all depended on whether I could beat this demon in front of me. “So you’re finally taking the stage, eh, Mister Demon? You’re not looking so hot. Are you okay? Maybe you should rest up at home till all that purple goes away.” A cheap taunt, but it seemed to work. The demon saw red and swung the greatsword in his right hand in a vicious arc. I did a light backstep to dodge it, but then he followed with a sweep of the sword in his left hand. I brought up my sword to block it, planting my feet firmly on the ground. The demon was just as strong as he looked; it left both my arms kind of numb. Having swung at full strength, the demon was now leaning heavily toward the ground. I hopped onto his greatsword and launched myself at my opponent’s neck, aiming to cut off his head in one fell swoop. The demon brought up the sword in his right hand to block, but my decapitation attempt was just a feint. I was actually aiming for his left arm. Twisting my body around, I brought my sword down on the arm joints left exposed by his armor. Blood gushed from the demon’s arm, the same red as a human’s. “Gaaaaaah!” With a startled cry, the demon sprang backward. Not about to let him off the hook, I delivered a few more swings. I didn’t make as much of a dent as you’d think thanks to his armor, but the slash wounds were nothing to sneeze at. His left arm hung limply down at his side, now useless. I wish I could say the battle ended right then and there, but life wasn’t so simple. The demon’s mouth gaped wide in fury—I could literally see the quivering inside his throat. I jumped to the side. The next moment, blue flames erupted from his throat, covering the spot where I had been just a split second ago. He’d brought out the breath attack. The effects were unknown, but they didn’t look great for your health, that’s for damn sure. I wasn’t about to give it a try. Then the demon started swinging the sword in his one good hand like a pole. Blocking that with my sword was bound to break my arm. I got out of range, but then he tried another breath attack. Yikes, couldn’t a man catch a break around here? Keep my distance and he spewed his breath, get in close and he whacks me with his greatsword… What a pain in my ass. He would have been nothing special if my party members were around, but I was going to break a bone by doing this solo. Taking out his left arm in my first attack had been the right call. Glancing to my rear, I saw the remaining monsters heading for the wagon. Even with Evsei there, my party members seemed like they were having trouble fighting and protecting the wagon at the same time. Sophia and Nina were keeping the monsters in check with their magic, but the wagon was almost completely surrounded. The merchant and his family were pale as ghosts. Things would probably go south if I didn’t swoop in to help. It’s about time to get rid of this purple freak, I thought, just as the demon started gearing up for another breath attack. I dodged to the side after drawing his focus… Nice. I was getting the hang of this. His right arm took a break whenever he launched his breath, which was just the opening I needed. I’d close in, the greatsword would come flying, I’d jump backward, and then he’d use the breath—that was the pattern. Which meant… I slashed at the demon. His sword bore down on me with pure brute force, no skill or finesse behind it. I waited until the very last second to dodge. Then, just as he was getting ready for his breath attack, I closed in. If I messed up the timing even slightly, those blue flames would roast me into a meal. At that moment, with his mouth still gaping wide, a dumbstruck look crossed the demon’s face. If he’d spewed his breath without caring about what I did, I might have gone down with him, but that moment of hesitation ensured his downfall. My sword cut right through the demon’s throat, freeing both red blood and blue flames from his flesh. His head caught fire from his flames, but I could tell from the way his mouth warped from his silent scream that he was still clinging to life. Humans were like squishy little bugs next to these guys. His greatsword did a violent sweep, just as I expected. It was a wild, artless swing, but getting hit with that was instant death regardless. They never made it easy, huh? I jumped out of the way, then closed in on the demon one more time. “Rest in peace. I barely knew ye.” I used up all the strength I’d reserved to relieve his head from his shoulders. The wagon’s luggage compartment was built to be sturdy. The hood of the roof was the sole broken part, which made it easy to see what was happening. However, the family inside refused to open their eyes. The merchant clutched his little daughter, and his wife held on to their even younger son. They were all frozen to the spot. The relentless roaring outside spoke eloquently to how dire their straits were. Only one passenger, a boy who appeared about ten years old, gazed vacantly out the back, his listless eyes taking in the monsters. At the front of the wagon, a female mage and priest were attempting to ward their enemies away, but they seemed to be multiplying if anything. “If these people give up and run away, we’re done for.” The boy was afraid of how his life was in the hands of other people. At that moment, his gaze made contact with that of a goblin, a bald-headed creature with skin that looked as if it were made of clumps of dirt. Its bloodshot yellow eyes exuded malice and cunning. There was a rusted shortsword in its hand. When it noticed the boy, the goblin let out a screech to its friends and pointed with its finger—as if to say, “Get him next.” Banding together, five goblins advanced, slowly and carefully so as to avoid attracting the spellcasters’ attention. Wicked grins crossed their faces. The boy held his breath and darted his eyes around, but there was nowhere to run. When he saw how the merchant and his wife sought only to shield their own children, a wave of sadness came over him. The goblins were coming. Peering out the front of the wagon, the boy saw the mages and the spearman were desperately fending off the monsters. They weren’t about to come to the boy’s aid anytime soon, and there was no way to escape, either. At last, the goblins reached the luggage compartment, their faces contorted in sadistic glee. The wagon creaked. The merchant and his family finally opened their eyes, trembling in fear. The boy’s eyes met with the merchant’s. There was a vague sense of reproach in the man’s gaze, as if he wanted to say, “Why don’t you go sacrifice yourself for us?” Before the boy knew it, a goblin was right there, raising its sword. The inevitable prelude to death. The next moment, however, a sword suddenly sprouted from the monster’s stomach. Then, slowly, the malicious dwarf of a man collapsed. “Whoa there, did you get a scare, Mister Fifty Gold Coins?” A swordsman emerged from behind the goblin. His lips were curled in a smile, but that smile didn’t reach his eyes. His whole body was covered in blood, and his breathing was ragged. It was easy to see from his expression that he was tense. “You’re injured…,” said the boy. Some of the blood came from other sources, but it was clear as day that the swordsman himself was wounded. The boy hadn’t seen him until just this moment, which told him the man must have forced himself to sprint down here. “What, this? Nothing our priest can’t heal. She needs to earn her keep, too. So yeah, these wounds’ll get patched up straightaway. No biggie.” The boy could only nod repeatedly. There was no more trouble after that run-in with the Demon Lord’s army. We arrived safely at Erdelia—another job in the bag. The client seemed very unhappy about the whole thing, which I’m guessing was because the monsters had gotten all the way inside the wagon, although the kid who’d tagged along did thank us. But hey, you can’t eat gratitude, not in this economy. The kid was worth fifty gold coins, so of course I was going to rescue him. It wasn’t anything more complicated than that. Erdelia was a bustling town, even with the Demon Lord’s invasion of the country next door. To be fair, Erdelia’s economy was probably booming because of the invasion. It didn’t matter who you were fighting—there was always money to be made from war. I’d seen this happen enough times for it to get old. Anyway, me and my party members treated ourselves to the best grub in town, drank ourselves silly, and slept in the finest beds at the inn. After so many nights of camping outdoors, it was bliss. Then, after multiple days of R & R, we looked for our next job at the tavern’s noticeboard, the usual haunt for adventurers. It would have been nice to get something with decent pay in the direction we were headed and which happened to align with our own goals. But those things don’t just fall into your lap. As I was scouring the noticeboard from top to bottom, though, I happened to spot a certain job in the very corner. It was everything I wanted—was this what they meant when they said “heaven-sent”? Some of the smaller details were off, but all in all, it was the perfect gig. I ripped the notice off the board and made a beeline for the tavern owner. That night, the Prophet showed up again. “Why did you choose a job without pay?” The job I’d settled on would take me out farther west to a region called Gastan. Slaying monsters was the game. Apparently, the wagons supplying goods from Gastan were under attack. The war effort meant grain shortages, so soldiers had been hired to guard the supply chain, but they had all been wiped out. The rewards posted were low for the danger, which meant that, frankly, the job wasn’t worth the effort. For obvious reasons, not a single other adventurer had taken it on. “Oh, this will make money. Depends how you bargain for it. I’m guessing those folks in Gastan are in a spot of trouble. They’ll raise the reward if we push ’em.” “There were better-paying jobs for your trouble.” “Well, color me surprised. Are you picking our jobs for us now, Prophet? You gonna hook us up for work in our niche?” The Prophet was completely unmoved by my sarcasm. “Do not go west,” they said. “Where we go is our business.” “…What are you hiding?” “Hiding? Kinda rich coming from you, Prophet.” I pointed at their hooded face. “Are you really one to talk when you conceal your identity and manipulate people from the shadows?” “That is…” The Prophet’s form flickered. Did their mental state affect their magical projection (or whatever it was)? “Let me just say this, Prophet. I don’t trust you one bit. There’s nothing to prove that you’re even who you say you are. Got that? Now go on, scram. You want a Hero, go look somewhere else. There’s plenty of celebrities out there who fit the bill, you know. Leon the Sword Saint, Maria the Holy Maiden, Solon the Great Sage, you name ’em. Why won’t you choose them? Why me? Your decision-making is clearly out of whack.” I drew my sword and ran it through the Prophet. “Answer me, you son of a bitch. Who are you?” I was talking to a phantom, but my sword did have magical powers. If I cut it, that could have an effect on whoever was on the other side. The possibility wasn’t zero. Whether I was dealing with the real Prophet or a fake, I didn’t want them following me. Hopefully, if I gave them a real scare, they’d stop doing that thing where they vanished only to come back and haunt me all over again. “I am…no one.” To my surprise, the Prophet didn’t fade away. But they didn’t have their usual solemn tone. They sounded uneasy, somehow. “You’re no one? Not the Prophet?” “I am the Prophet. But I…” It was impossible to tell from the Prophet’s face whether they were a man or a woman. Nor could you figure out how old they were. But just from the vibes around them at that moment, I could tell you one thing: They were growing hesitant about something. The Prophet fell silent, not even reacting to the sword stuck in them. Then, after a while, their body disappeared. They were going to appear again. That much I knew for certain.