“Didn’t you get the notice from the military? They’re going to redesign the Forest Maze’s transfer gate so it can send a reasonably large capacity each time. Until work is done, the gate is closed.”
“Is it now? Was there a notice like that?” asked the bundle of bandages in a tone of honest surprise. It angled its head a little and began quivering. Apparently, it was trying to tilt its head in a gesture of uncertainty, but its stocky shape, made worse by all the bandages wrapped around it, was making the feat rather difficult.
I let out an exasperated breath, earnestly wishing I could stop talking to the bizarre figure in front of me and return to my research.
“There was. If you think I’m lying, go home and check for yourself.”
“Now, now, I didn’t say you were lying.”
It started flapping its appendages around again. I rolled my eyes and decided that it was time to wrap up this conversation.
“Is that all the business you have? If so, could I ask you to leave?”
“Oh, not yet. I’ll leave when I’m done here.”
Apparently, it still wasn’t done. What else did it want? I opened my mouth to ask, but the words didn’t come. Instead, I felt a slight shock to my chest. Something warm welled up in my throat. A viscous fluid oozed out from my lips.
I looked down. I saw the familiar sight of my own chest, and the unfamiliar sight of a crude metal rod protruding from it. It occurred to me that the substance filling my throat and mouth was thick clumps of my own blood. Then, the pain came.
“Nngh… What… are you doing…”
“It’s a problem for me, you see, when you make such a scene in that area. The next time I’m there, what if I get greeted with a sword through my neck? How am I supposed to have a nice chat then?”
A closer look revealed the object in me to be a pointed metal rod with a screw thread running down its length. Its other end was jutting out from a gap between the bandages. By some mysterious principle, every time the rod rotated, it dug further into my body.
Being stabbed by a single rod, though, was far from fatal. I endured the painful discomfort of having a foreign object thrust into my body and looked for ways to escape. That was when many more rods struck me, twisting their way deep into my body. The pain was too much, and I let out a cry of agony. The bundle of bandages stood up.
“We’ll start by having you die for me. Also, as a warning to others, I have to make your death as horrifying as possible. Needless amounts of gore and all that. Just so you know. Oh, and I’ll carve out all the useful bits for later use, so don’t worry about that.”
I yelled for help. My voice never came. In its place, I felt the stifling sensation of metal in my throat. Blood bubbled out of my mouth. Unable to make a sound, I struggled in silence as the figure slowly approached me, blocking out more and more of my view.
“Now then. Shall we start with your eyes?”
In the guild hall, the figure of Fritz could be seen in his office, hunched over and holding his head. On the desk before him were mountains of documents, most of which were reports. Twenty-three parties were dead — a total of exactly 100 adventurers. That was almost every single adventurer who accepted the mission from the guild. Only one party of three people came back alive. It was, of course, the party led by Renya Kunugi.
In truth, however, Fritz couldn’t care less about all that. He hadn’t expected Renya’s party to participate, so he had panicked a little when he first heard the news. Their eventual safe return, though, put that concern to rest.
The complete annihilation of twenty-three parties was also a trivial matter; replenishing their numbers was never a problem. From clueless nobles who had no chance to be heirs to impoverished farmers desperate for money, there were always plenty of young boys willing to become adventurers.
Veteran adventurers, of course, were not so easily replaced, but they would never have bothered with a mission like this in the first place. The way the mission was worded practically screamed “this is fishy as hell.” Had Shion been leader, it was certainly possible that she would have fallen for the trick. With Renya at the lead, though, he had thought they’d easily dodge the bait. Perhaps he had overestimated the boy.
Still, none of these was what troubled him. There were, in fact, three causes for his distress. The first was the report from the investigation squad. The new type of monster discovered in the forest had no fixed shape. Some of them resembled beasts while others resembled humans. Some even looked like dragons. Their appearance was all over the place. All, however, had the gruesome habit of feeding on humans and using their bodies to reproduce. These conclusions had been made after the autopsy of a monster corpse brought back by the investigation squad, which were then further corroborated by the discovery of a couple more monsters in the middle of that very act. How were they discovered in the middle of the act? The answer to that led to the second problem Fritz faced.
Problem two: the forest in question had basically been wiped off the map. According to Renya, the sole eyewitness, he had seen some white string-like things fall from the sky and thrust themselves into the forest. Sensing danger, he’d barely managed to put up a barrier before everything went white. The next thing he knew, the world seemed to have frozen over. Fritz had tried to verify the claim through gracecraft, but gave up after Renya adamantly demanded to be paid for it.
After all, truth or not, it was an undeniable fact that a vast expanse of forest had turned to ice. The investigation squad claimed that about seventy to eighty percent of the forest was frozen, and most of the trees had been flattened. The place would never look the same again. According to mages who accompanied the investigation squad, in order for humans to attempt the same feat, they would need to grab a couple hundred mages and run them dry of mana. Only then might the spell they produce be destructive enough to rival the damage they saw. As a result, the incident report included the line, “Due to the aforementioned reasons, this incident is believed to be a sudden natural disaster brought on by the will of the gods.”
If that was true, Fritz had a mind to curse the gods that did this. Adventurer casualties aside, the loss of the forest meant a loss of natural resources. The townspeople would suffer. Disaster relief was the Crown’s responsibility, so there would be no direct penalty to Fritz, but they were definitely going to demand his aid in implementing whatever plan they came up with. More work for him was guaranteed.
As for the third problem, she was currently standing right in front of him.
“Well, Fritz? I assume you have a very good explanation for this, so let’s hear it,” said Rona in a perfectly placid voice. Her smile chilled him to the bone. He could almost see an aura of dark flames enveloping her. Clothed in a priest robe, her shapely figure was pleasantly familiar. The mace, however, was not. She held it in her right hand, which trembled slightly from its white-knuckled grip. There was a silent pressure emanating from her. Fritz shifted uncomfortably on the spot.
“Okay, it’s true that the guild acted alone in this incident. But I thought for sure that man wouldn’t fall for it…”
“Shall I consider those to be your last words, Fritz?”
“Huh? No, I… What?”
“Allow me to send you on your way then. Be glad that I’ll do it with only one hit. You won’t suffer.”
“Wait, what? Huh?!”
The deathly scream of a man echoed throughout the guild hall. The staff members spared a quick glance at each other before returning to their duties as if nothing ever happened.