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Yukinari was Friedland’s god.
Fiona and the residents of the town had looked to him to replace their erdgod, whom Yukinari, as it happened, had killed. And part of being their deity was protecting the town and its environs.
An erdgod was an animal who, for one reason or another, had become intelligent and begun to raise its spiritual power, finally forming a spiritual bond with the land that was its territory. As a result, erdgods were immensely powerful and effectively immortal, and they could manipulate the land they were bonded to almost like a part of themselves.
Even a relatively fallow place could be made somewhat more fertile, less prone to disaster, by being joined with an erdgod. That was why humans worshipped these creatures as “gods of the land,” or erdgods. These entities did things that were beyond human power. An erdgod could make an area habitable for humans.
However, being joined to the land also meant that an erdgod would be absorbed by its territory. In order to control its own massive “body,” an erdgod’s consciousness gradually got spread thinner and thinner, becoming a part of the land. Eventually its own existence began to fade as the erdgod became unable to hold onto the thoughts and feelings that made it itself.
In order to prevent this dissipation, erdgods sought to preserve their spiritual power, their intelligence. There were several ways to do this, but the simplest and most effective was to eat another intelligent creature. And there was one creature with both the most innate spiritual power and the largest numbers: humans.
For this reason, erdgods would demand living sacrifices from those who lived in their territory. And in order to ensure a steady supply of these sacrifices, the deity would protect its humans from attacks by other monsters, specifically xenobeasts and the demigods. It would attack any such creature that got near its land.
Yukinari had killed one of these erdgods.
The natural result was that all the xenobeasts and demigods that had previously been kept out by the erdgod now flooded Friedland. If a xenobeast ate enough humans and increased its spiritual power enough, it could become one of the more powerful demigods; after reaching the status of demigod, it could seek to become an erdgod.
But there were no guarantees that the next erdgod would be anything like the previous one. Maybe it would have a more voracious appetite, demand five or ten times as many sacrifices as the old deity. Rather than make such a dangerous gamble, Fiona and the townspeople considered it wiser to worship Yukinari as their new god and ask him to assume the role of erdgod.
So it was that Yukinari guarded Friedland and drove away or destroyed any xenobeasts or demigods that dared to attack.
“Why, you—!”
Yukinari made a sideward sweep with Durandall—his Winchester M92 Randall Custom, a carbine modified to include a sword. But his opponent was quicker and nimbler than they appeared, dodging his attack. The enemy leaped backward, opening up space.
“Looks like this is a bigger fish than I realized,” Yukinari muttered, glancing down at where his shirt had been torn by the creature’s claws.
At the moment, Yukinari was at a bit of a distance from Friedland. He was patrolling around the outside of the fields, which ran around the outskirts of the town. He was riding on the two-wheeled—or rather, four-wheeled vehicle he had created, Sleipnir.
Despite its large size, Sleipnir was really modeled on a motorcycle and could not seat more than two people, so only Dasa was with Yukinari.
And on this patrol, the two of them had discovered a xenobeast.
It was a four-legged creature covered in black fur. Perhaps it had been a wolf at one point. It was hard to tell now, because it was close to twice the size of an ordinary wolf. In addition, its head was no longer wolf-like, having become something that would allow it to open its mouth wider, perhaps so it could eat more prey more efficiently. Snakes sometimes eat things many times larger than themselves; in the same way, this monster looked like it could swallow a small human whole.
Yet despite how bizarre it was, it also somehow looked... almost human. Not quite the way a werewolf did; it was a sort of man-beast.
A more hideous creature could hardly have been found. Anybody in their right mind who saw it might well have fainted clean away. But this did not mean that Yukinari necessarily found it an intimidating opponent.
Durandall was chambered with .44 Magnum rounds with special heads designed for hunting. He could also have used overloaded shells for extra piercing power, but only if he was prepared to damage the gun in the process. Long-distance sniping was of course impossible, but he did have a way of attacking the beast without having to go toe-to-toe with it.
But today, Yukinari’s response had been too late; the monster had jumped on him from the treetops. Hence he had found his shirt torn and scratches left on his shoulder before he could even get off a shot.
“Yuki...!” Dasa exclaimed, shocked.
Yukinari stopped Sleipnir and dismounted.
“Stay there,” he ordered. Dasa gave a small nod.
Perhaps the xenobeast intended to use hit-and-run tactics, because it had already distanced itself from Yukinari and Dasa, hiding once more amongst the vegetation. But that didn’t mean it had run away. The sound of crunching leaves was still close.
It hadn’t given up on eating them.
Yukinari moved forward, Durandall in hand.
“Come on out. I’m right here,” he said to the bushes.
An instant later—
Rrroowr!
There was a sharp, short howl, and the xenobeast jumped out of the underbrush. Yukinari brought up his empty left hand. The xenobeast opened its gaping maw to eat him. Its fangs tore his sleeve; it swallowed his fist, then his elbow, and then its jaws were about to close...
“...Hey.”
They never got the chance.
Yukinari’s hand, now deep down the monster’s throat, had a firm grip on something inside the beast. The monster shook with surprise and went stiff.
They say that if you stick your arm in a dog’s mouth and grab its tongue, its whole body becomes unable to move. The xenobeast was rather doglike. Yukinari didn’t know whether that meant it would have a similar weak point, but he figured it wouldn’t enjoy having someone’s arm down its gullet, grabbing some internal organ in any case.
In general, xenobeasts were formed of animals that had been drawn to a single core creature. Thus, like worms and some reptiles, they could split themselves apart; this meant the xenobeast could break itself up in order to run from Yukinari.
Yukinari, of course, was not about to let it do that.
Yukinari brought Durandall to bear, stabbing it into the creature. When he was sure it was mostly buried in the xenobeast, he fired again.
There was a roar.
A .44 Magnum round hit the xenobeast from closer than point-blank range. But one shot wasn’t enough. Yukinari let go of Durandall’s grip for a moment, pulling the loading lever and firing five more rounds into his enemy.
Vrrahhh!
This evidently had some effect, or perhaps he had landed a lucky shot on the core creature. The xenobeast lost strength and began to twitch. Yukinari pulled his left arm out of the creature’s mouth—but then frowned.
“Yuki, are you... okay?”
Dasa had Red Chili in one hand. She must have meant to back him up if the need arose.
“Sure. I guess I don’t smell so great now,” he said, looking down at his arm.
“Yuki, you mustn’t let... down your guard.”
“Yeah, maybe I was a little rash,” he said with a grimace.
It was more than six months now since he’d come to Friedland. Maybe it was the fact that he went on these patrols every day, but he couldn’t deny he had relaxed a little too much.
Suddenly, though, Yukinari went quiet.
“Yuki? What’s wrong?”
“Hang on a second.” He was studying the xenobeast intently where it lay on the ground. This was itself a matter of not letting his guard down. Wild animals’ survival instinct sometimes outdo human intelligence. Some animals are known to play dead, making it hard to tell at a glance whether they are really gone or not.
Yukinari stabbed Durandall into his opponent again, but there was no response. He doubted even an animal pretending to be dead could dampen its reactions that much. He scratched the monster’s skin, but the blood was slow to come out. Proof the heart had stopped.
“Oh...” Dasa said.
The source of her surprise was the gentle wumph as the body collapsed. With the spiritual bond broken, it divided back into its constituent animals. Yukinari jabbed each one with Durandall, to be sure the core animal was really dead, but there was no reaction from any of them.
Only then did Yukinari finally set his weapon on top of Sleipnir. He kneeled down by the largest corpse and used both hands to pry its jaws open.
“I thought so,” he nodded. He pulled out whatever it was he had apparently expected.
“An armband...?” Dasa looked at it. It was covered in the xenobeast’s saliva. Made of pebbles and metal, it had been stuck between the monster’s teeth.
“I felt it when I had my arm in there,” Yukinari said.