Chapter 40: The Bear Exterminates the Snake

Chapter 40:
The Bear Exterminates the Snake

 

A FEW HOURS AFTER we’d switched to Kumakyu, we switched over to Kumayuru again and picked up where we left off. We caught sight of the village as the sun started to set. Kumayuru slowed down as we crossed its outer limits. It was quiet inside. There wasn’t a single sound—it was like a ghost town.

The phrase total annihilation came to mind. I felt a little ill.

Kai got off of Kumayuru and ran into the village.

“Everyone, are you here?! It’s me. It’s Kai. I came back!” Kai shouted. No-one answered for a long while. The door of a nearby house crept open.

“Is it you, Kai?”

A man came out of the house.

“Dad! Where’s Mom? Where’s the rest of the village?”

“Your mom is fine, but she can’t do much. We haven’t had a decent meal for several days.”

“What about everyone else in the village?”

“They won’t come out.”

“Why not?”

“It reacts to sound. The Ermina family tried to run and all got eaten. Londo got eaten when he went to get water from the well. No one goes outside anymore, since we might end up eaten.”

“In that case, wouldn’t talking here be dangerous, too?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Then, Dad…”

“But someone has to do it. For Domgol’s sake.”

“Domgol?”

“When we got you on the horse in order to get help, Domgol acted as a decoy and died.”

“Domgol was…”

“So, we need to hear from you and figure out what to do now. That’s what we can do for Domgol’s sake.”

“Dad…”

“What’s with the bear?”

Kai’s dad looked at me.

“This girl is an adventurer who came ahead to gather information.”

His expression turned downcast and bitter.

“A girl in a bear outfit, like that’s gonna…”

“Dad, the Guildmaster is coming after us. They said they’re sending C-rank adventurers after that.”

Kai’s dad looked relieved. Well, I guess anyone would be when they found out that their fate was entrusted to more than a girl in a bear suit—professionals, even!

“When is the Guildmaster getting here?”

“We were able to get to the village from the town in half a day because we used her summons, but the Guildmaster said it would take him until tomorrow.”

“I see, so what are you going to do, miss?”

“First I’ll gather information, then if I can, I’ll slay it.”

“Jokes are only funny if you can laugh at them. If you can slay it? There’s no way,” he spat, clearly needing to vent.

“You’re not the one who decides that. That’s me. Tell me everything about this black viper.”

“We don’t know much. Just that it comes into the village to eat first thing in the morning. It destroys a house, and after it eats everyone inside, it leaves. Then, if anyone tries to run, it eats them. If you make any noise, you end up the first thing it wants to eat.”

“In that case, I’ll head out to see the black viper.”

“This late at night?”

In about an hour, give or take, the sun would drop completely behind the horizon.

“I’m going because it’s late. If I find it and it turns into a battle, you can use me as a decoy and run away. You can run away as long as you have a horse, right?”

“No, I don’t think anyone would run anymore. Everyone believes they’ll be eaten if they run. And we don’t have enough horses for everyone in the village to get away.”

“Anyway, I’m going.”

“Miss, please be careful.”

I patted Kai’s head, jumped onto Kumayuru, and took off.

My bear detection picked up something a slight ways off. It would probably only take me a few minutes to get there at Kumayuru’s pace.

We ran through empty plains. The black viper we were looking for was sure to turn up soon. In the dim evening light, I made out a dark shape ahead; I thought it was a boulder until I noticed the heaped, winding coils, big around as a bus.

It was huge and apparently asleep. Well, I thought, victory comes to those who strike first.

I dismounted and recalled Kumayuru. When I looked back at the black viper, its head had perked up. Its eyes were fixed on me; its tongue flicked out, tasting the air. Seeing it awake, with the whole terrible mass of it in motion, I didn’t feel quite so tough anymore.

The viper whipped out, narrowing the distance between us in an instant. Before I could blink, its mouth took up my whole field of vision.

I leapt to the right. Its gigantic body grazed me as it went by. For a second I thought I was safe, but its body swept around for another pass. I immediately guarded with my white bear hand, but it sent me tumbling back along the ground.

For as far as it threw me, I expected to feel more of an impact. Maybe the suit soaked it up? The viper didn’t give me any time to speculate; it reared up to strike again.

I couldn’t jump out of its reach. I juked left and right, but even when I dodged it, its coils and tail would lash out at me two, three times in a row. When it moved, its body threw up a cloud of dust that stung my eyes and turned everything murky. It was coming up on full dark, too; it was hard to make out its black body against the night.

It reacted to sounds. Maybe coming in the evening was a mistake.

I blew away the cloud of dust with a wind spell.

I ran through my usual set of combat spells over the handful of times it stopped moving, but they just rolled off its scales. It was too big for a pit. Bear magic would be overdoing it; I thought I could defeat it if I used the fire bear, but since the hide seemed like it’d be useful for a lot of things, I wanted to avoid burning it if possible.

In the game, it didn’t matter how I defeated things; they’d still turn into items. In real life, if you burned something, you couldn’t put it back to the way it was. If you cut it with a sword, it’d be scratched. If you attacked with magic, you’d damage the materials.

Fire was off the table, and wind didn’t look any more promising. When I thought my air cutters drew blood, the wound would heal over in seconds.

If I can’t attack the outside, I thought, how about the insides?

I jumped back to buy myself some distance. The viper slithered after me. I wove from side to side, waiting for it to open its mouth. All it did was charge at me, and it hadn’t gone in for a bite since its first attack. It wouldn’t open its mouth if I stuck with this approach. Maybe it would if I jumped?

I kicked the ground and leapt up high. When I escaped up into the sky, the black viper opened its mouth wide and struck. In that moment, I conjured ten fire bears about the same size as one of my bear puppets.

The mini fire bears assembled into a clean rank and file in front of me. The black viper’s mouth approached in a straight line. It was like it was practically asking for me to loose the bears into its mouth. They burned its long tongue on the way down.

The viper writhed in pain, its body collapsing with a mighty thud.

Its body thrashed, shaking the ground, but after a while its movements weakened, and in the end, it stopped moving.

Just between you and me: there was a smell like prime barbecue that wafted out of its mouth.

“Is it over?”

Bear detection couldn’t pick up its signal. It was dead, all right.

You definitely couldn’t defeat a monster with normal magic once it got to this class. Did that mean I had to think up more convenient bear magic? If I kept things up like this, I’d end up burning up all the materials I wanted.

I stowed the viper’s body in bear storage. Mission complete. I took out Kumakyu and decided to head back to the village. Kai was standing around at the outskirts.

“What’re you doing in a place like this?”

“I was waiting for you.”

“For me?”

“Yeah, I was thinking if you ran back here, then I’d let myself get eaten first and give you time to escape,” he told me with firm, straightforward eyes. He probably wasn’t joking.

“Why?”

“You brought information on how to defeat the viper, right? If you died, it wouldn’t help Domgol, who sacrificed himself so that I could go get help.”

What was with all these tenacious kids in this world? I gently patted Kai on the head.

“Miss?”

“It’s fine. I beat the viper,” I said, in order to make him feel better.

“Huh?”

“Could you call everyone in the village here? I’ll show them the proof.”

I smiled.

“Move back a little.”

Once he was standing at a safe distance, I pulled the proof out of bear storage.

“Is it dead?” he asked.

I beat on the corpse a little to buy him a little peace of mind. The body remained motionless.

“It really is…”

He slowly, slowly touched the viper’s cooling bulk.

“I’ll call everyone.”

He ran into the village.

After a while, the villagers came out of their houses and headed over to the corpse.

“Did you really defeat it?”

“It’s the black viper.”

“Is it really dead?”

There were people who burst out crying at the sight of it.

“Did the bear girl defeat it?”

“Th-thank you.”

“Thank you so very much.”

“Thanks, miss.”

No one minded how I looked. Kai’s dad came up to me from among them.

“Miss, sorry about earlier. Thank you. You saved the village.” He bowed his head.

“You don’t have to worry about that. No one would believe a girl like me could defeat it.”

“If you ever need anything, tell me. If it’s something I can do anything about, I will. You saved my life.”

“I don’t have anything I want. Just live for your clever boy here.”

While Kai’s father was apologizing, an elder appeared next to him. They just kept coming one after another. Who was it this time?

“I am the chief, Zun. Thank you so much for saving the village.” He lowered his head.

“But if I had been a little earlier…”

“No, we heard from Kai. You came here immediately after hearing him out once he reached the town. That you came within the day was more than fast enough. My expectation was that it would take several days. Do not trouble yourself with those who have already perished, miss.”

Really, what was I going to say to that?

The elder turned around and looked at all the villagers.

“You all likely haven’t had a decent meal. We are late in doing so, but let us have a feast.”

At his voice, the villagers responded with joy.

“We cannot offer you much hospitality, but please join us.”

The elder bowed again and went to start preparing the feast. The villagers each brought ingredients from their houses, made a fire in the middle of the village, and prepared a whole bunch of dishes. They danced, made a ruckus, ate, and made a big deal of that day for the sake of those who died and those still living.

While I was languidly watching the villagers, they came up to me one after another with food and more gratitude. I might have looked like a spectacle to the kids, since they couldn’t keep their hands off me. I kept seeing the parents stop them.

The feast continued late into the night, and I ended up staying at the elder’s house.