Chapter 4: The Fool Had Company, or So It Was Told

“Just to be sure, let me ask you this.”

When Renya finally spoke, his tone was calm. It was an unexpected calmness that Shion instead found unsettling, and she wilted a little in fear. Her eyes unwittingly drifted toward the katana that hung from his waist. Noticing the direction of her gaze, Renya followed it to its target. He sighed.

“We haven’t known each other for long, but you know what kind of person I am and how I think, right?”

His voice bore no emotion, as though he were simply confirming facts. Shion nodded.

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure I do.”

“So, you know… and you still want to make that request?”

His gaze turned the slightest bit harsh. It was a very small gesture — a simple narrowing of the eyes — but it was enough for Shion to feel like a bucket of freezing water had been poured down through her body, chilling her from head to toe. A part of Shion screamed at her to apologize and take back everything she said. In that moment, she desperately wanted say sorry. To claim it was a joke. To say “No.”

But she didn’t.

“Yes, I do. I want you to help me, Renya.”

Never had her own voice sounded so powerless to her. Her words rang hollow; they were the preachings of a fanciful idealist. She was not only flaunting virtuousness, but she was also keeping Renya and Rona from moving. She was putting all of them in grave danger. Still, she couldn’t relent. There were reasons for her insistence, but she couldn’t decide if she should tell them to Renya. A glance of appeal for help at Rona earned her little more than a troubled frown.

Rona was conflicted. Her status and position required her to stand with Shion, but her prudence pushed her to avoid putting Shion in danger. She couldn’t even go with her heart, because her heart was split evenly between the two choices. In a way, she hoped that Renya would reject the idea outright. For him, that should seem like the surest method to bring Shion in line.

Shion knew this, too. In fact, it was all the more vexing, because she could see Renya’s thought process and still had no way of arguing back. She could, of course, reveal her identity, but even she knew that would have almost no effect on Renya’s decision. Currently, nothing she could say would change the fact that what she was proposing seemed like utter nonsense — the blind wish of a fool. Frustration and discouragement bubbled up to her throat, choking her to the point of tears. She angrily chided herself in her mind. Shedding tears made her a fool, but to use tears against a man was even worse. If nothing else, she wanted him to know that she was being earnest. She looked Renya in the eyes, hoping to convey at least the sincerity of her plea.

Were Shion able to read Renya’s thoughts at this moment, though, she would find them utterly disconnected from her own. The truth was that Renya saw Shion as nothing more than a babe in the woods, her head filled with rainbows and butterflies. He deemed her incapable of correctly analyzing a situation, and for whatever reason, she was reluctant to abandon people in need. It might be idealism, but in all honesty, he didn’t mind. If anything, he far preferred the active idealist to the passive cynic. Whatever their true intentions, at least the former tried to do some objective good. Compared to the armchair experts who spent all day extolling the virtues of things they’ve never done, he’d take the idealist every time.

He thought of the young girl who sent him to this world. In that sense, that damn loli-god could stand to learn a thing or two from Shion. Due to these factors, nothing about their current situation was unexpected for Renya. It was, however, a little disappointing that Shion had caught on to the need for investigation and the possibility of rescue. He tsked. So much for taking advantage of all the confusion to keep everyone running.

Now that the topic had been brought up, he had two options.

One, he could turn her down flat. Even with Rona’s help, there was very little that their three-person makeshift rescue party could do. Chances were, they’d simply have the privilege of experiencing the process of being ripped apart from the inside out for themselves.

Two, he could agree to her request. He didn’t consider himself to be all that amazing, but so long as he was with the two girls, he did feel confident in his ability to keep them safe. For some reason, though, it felt very unlike him to be doing that.

He could do it, but he didn’t need to do it.

With a sigh, he conceded that he wasn’t suited to deal with these kinds of situations. This wasn’t a fairy tale, and he wasn’t the knight in shining armor here to swear fealty to his beloved princess. It simply wasn’t him. The thought made him a little depressed. Nevertheless, he knew he wasn’t the protagonist type, so he wasn’t going to be doing cool, protagonist-y things. Instead, he focused his thoughts on what he — regular old Renya — should be doing.

In actuality, he had long given up on saying no to Shion’s request. There were various reasons, but the most important one was that he knew they were mutually dependent. Just as Shion relied on him, so did he on her.

A stranger in strange lands, he was utterly alone in this new world. This fact troubled him on a daily basis. Being reborn in an alternate world might sound fun on paper, but in practice, it was nothing more than an exercise in loneliness. He had no family, no kin, not even the eighteen years of life his bodily age suggested. He was ninety-four on the inside, but he had left his ninety-four years worth of memories and bonds in a distant grave of a faraway world. In other words, he was a spectre; an empty soul. No matter where he went, the being known as Renya Kunugi would remain alien to this world.

When he wallowed in such thoughts, only the presence of Shion and Rona offered him some relief. He had, of course, slowly gained more ties in the form of friends and a maid. The first people to extend their hands and ask for his friendship, however, were these two girls. Undoubtedly, they had their motives for doing so; they were human, after all. Asking strangers for their unconditional charity was mere greed.

Besides, he thought wryly, if I laugh at Shion for being a fool who has far more compassion than competence, what does that make me?

He was the one who had listened while the young girl mourned the impending destruction of a world and the deaths of its countless inhabitants. He was the one who had been talked into crossing its boundary to save the strangers of this strange new world. It was true that refusal meant certain death, and it was true that the promise of delicious food was appealing, but in the end, there was a simple truth: the girl had asked for his help, and he couldn’t say no. Knowing the reason why he had become a Wanderer, he couldn’t mock Shion for refusing to turn a blind eye. If Shion was a fool, he was one thrice over.

“Renya…”

He heard the soft whisper of Shion’s voice. Pulling himself out of his thoughts, he found her peeking gingerly up at him. With a frustrated sigh, he crossed his arms and looked up at the night sky.

I could sure use a smoke right now…

He didn’t know if he used to smoke. He also didn’t know if he was old enough here to smoke. He didn’t even know if this world had cigarettes for him to smoke. But he did know one thing: he’d much rather puff out a thick wisp of tobacco than the dull forest air. It was often said that smoking did nothing but harm, but Renya begged to disagree. Smoking calmed the mind. Surely, that meant it did something that wasn’t harm. And that not-harm it did sounded really good to him at this moment in time.

“Let’s assume I say yes…”

Renya kept his eyes on the sky. He wasn’t sure if he could look at Shion and still keep his composure. Even so, he could imagine the expressions of the two girls. Rona probably looked like she just saw a ghost, and Shion probably looked like a puppy who was just given food. If Shion had a tail, she’d be wagging it as hard as she could.

“In that case, I’m calling all the shots, and you follow orders. Agreed?”

“But… That’s…” Shion frowned, her enthusiasm waning dramatically.

Renya had some sympathy for her. She probably realized that he was going to propose a compromise. She simply had to accept that, though. He had his limits, and one of them was risking the lives of people he knew for people he didn’t.

“We’re not going to start combing through this forest. That might have been a possibility if either of you could move and fight at night like me, but you can’t. You’d just be two deadweights. Our lives are on the line here, so I’m going to be very blunt about this.”

“Nnngh…”

Shion had no comeback, and he didn’t intend to give her any time to think of one.

“It’s hard to even walk properly in a forest, never mind swinging weapons around. Meanwhile, our opponent’s mobility is apparently unaffected. The terrain is not on our side. Fighting in disadvantageous terrain is equal to suicide.”

“Mmm…”

“And even if we ignore all that, there’s still the fact that you’re just plain weak. With the whole getup you’ve got going, you look like you can swing a sword, but let’s face it. You’re a wimp. You can’t think, and you can’t fight, and honestly I’m not even sure what you can do. Sexiness? Rona’s miles ahead of you there. Cuteness? Don’t bother. Frau’s got that covered. Seriously. You’re not even cut out for party mascot.”

“H-Huh?”

“On top of that, you have poor situational awareness and you’re terrible at planning. Do you even understand what we’re about to do? An investigation. Even a kid knows you need skills to do that. Do you see any professionals here? Because I sure don’t. You think a bunch of amateurs can handle a search and rescue operation? Are the three of us going to protect a bunch of injured people while escorting them to safety? You don’t even have the brains to realize what an impossible task this is, so the least you can do is to shut up, listen, and take orders. If I say turn right, you damned well better turn right.”

“U-Um… Renya?”

“Now, of course, that’s my personal opinion. But I think it’s a very good opinion,” said Renya as he leaned in toward his bewildered victim with a menacing glare. “Don’t you?”

Shion panicked.

“Y-Yeah, I do. Totally.” Shion nodded, not entirely sure what she was agreeing to.

Renya smiled.

You said it, not me. We all heard you.

He secretly reveled in his victory as he began barking orders at her. It was best not to give her time to recover.

“All right. First, we get the hell out of this forest, pronto. Everything else comes later.”

Shion nodded in an almost mechanical fashion. He looked to Rona, who had been patiently watching their exchange, and gave her a quick pat on the back. Then, they resumed their escape.

“Renya! What’re we going to do after we get out of the forest?” asked Shion as they ran.

Apparently, she still had enough wits about her to ask questions.

“The two of you will keep running until you’re back in the city. Once you get there, go to the guild and explain the situation. Tell them a bunch of crazy monsters popped up and a lot of the parties that went on the mission are dead. Then get them to put together an investigation and extermination squad.”

“You think they’ll listen?” asked Shion worriedly.

She wasn’t wrong to worry. It was hard to imagine the higher-ups in the guild rushing to put together an investigation squad just because two fledgling adventurers told them to. This was assuming, of course, that Shion and Rona were actually just fledgling adventurers. He wasn’t sure about Shion, but he knew for a fact that Rona, being a knight, should have ways to make people listen.

“Rona, do something about it.”

“Understood.”

As expected, she immediately nodded.

“Renya, you said the two of us, right? What about you, then?”

It peeved him that for all her denseness, she was quick to notice the things he didn’t want her to notice.

“If I went back to town with you, then all three of us would have effectively run away, right?”

“Huh? But…”

He couldn’t risk the lives of people he knew for people he didn’t. The only life he could risk was that of the one who chose the risk— his own.

“I’ll stand guard at the entrance to the forest. I doubt it’ll happen, but if those monsters come out of the forest and head for the city, someone needs to hold them back.”

“Renya! You can’t—”

He didn’t let the wide-eyed Shion finish her sentence, speaking right over her protests.

“Shion, remember this. If you insist on doing something you can’t handle, you’ll just force that burden onto someone else. In the end, that burden may very well end up killing him. I don’t know what’s behind your obsession with saving others, but if you keep doing things this way, things’ll keep playing out the same way again and again.”

“Renya… I…”

“Don’t bother explaining. I don’t need to hear it. You agreed to listen to what I say, so do it.”

He stopped Shion from speaking. They kept running as he glanced back to find her looking at him. He smiled.

“Cheer up. We’ll say this time is an exception. If you’re really worried, hurry up and reach the city so you can send me some reinforcements,” he said jokingly. He had hoped to change the way Shion thought, but his string of harsh words left him feeling a little sorry for her, so he decided to end things on a lighter tone.

A strong gust blew past Renya, leaving his hair in disarray. It failed to move him. Standing perfectly still in the midst of surging gales, he stared straight at the silent forest. Aside from the windy ambience of the woods, silence surrounded him. In the absence of noise, even a leaf’s flutter sounded unnaturally harsh to his ears, leaving him on edge. On occasion, a scream would echo through the trees — a sign that whatever lurked there continued to terrorize the straggling adventurers. Renya tried not to imagine what was happening to them.

The wind changed. It began to blow from the forest, bringing with it the scent of flora, along with the stink of rust and rot. Renya’s nose twitched. His expression contorted in displeasure. What was supposed to be the pleasant, calming smell of trees and greenery only served to accentuate the foul odors that mingled with it.

He didn’t like the smell. That was all. He just wanted to get rid of the smell. After repeating the excuse a few times, he found that he started to believe it himself. Then, he took a step forward.

Airblast.

He pumped as much mana as he could into the spell, quickcasting it at the forest. A massive gale surged forward. It met the forest wind head-on, overpowered it, and sent the pungent forest air right back into the trees. With the smell problem solved, he let out a breath.

His true motive was, of course, different. As far as he could tell, Shion never did realize that Renya could only watch a very small part of the forest. There was no way he could stop monsters from coming out of other places along the perimeter. Normally, it should have been fairly obvious, but it didn’t seem to occur to her. Maybe she was too busy feeling guilty about leaving Renya by himself.

As for Rona… to be honest, Renya wasn’t really sure. She could have realized and kept her mouth shut. It was also possible that she simply didn’t care. Perhaps it was both. Or neither. Pondering the issue seemed fruitless, so he stopped. Anyway, the point was that he couldn’t cover such a wide area by himself. Realistically, it was an impossible proposition.

In that case, how could he stop the mystery monsters from leaving the forest and heading for the city? For him, the answer was actually quite simple. It wasn’t a surefire solution, but he could lure all the monsters that might come out of the forest toward him. By blowing wind into the forest, he was sending his own scent toward the monsters and telling them he was there. From what he could tell, the monsters were pretty enthusiastic about attacking humans, what with the whole chasing people and appropriating their stomachs. If it was their nature to prey on humans, once they hunted down all the adventurers in the forest, they were almost guaranteed to go after whoever was nearby. He’d just made it extremely clear that he was their next closest target. It was, in a way, a provocation.

“Well, turns out… I’m a fool too, I guess,” he said mockingly.

Shion and Rona were probably making a mad dash toward town right now, trying to get back as quickly as possible. They had left behind almost all their belongings to lighten their load, taking nothing but their weapons. Figuring it would be a waste to throw so much away, he waited for them to disappear into the distance before shoving everything into his inventory. He didn’t look through their belongings; there were probably things in there he wasn’t supposed to see. In their mostly-unburdened state, it should take them a little over an hour to reach town. No more than two. Then, they had to go to the guild, slap the sleepy counter staff awake, and get them to report to the higher-ups. The higher-ups would then have to select some reasonably skilled members to send out as an investigation squad. The extermination squad would depart even later, following a frantic scramble to assemble enough capable fighters.

Renya had a feeling he was in for one hell of a wait.

Assuming the higher-ups in the guild weren’t complete idiots, though, they would probably send out an advance party. In that case, they could probably put together the necessary people and equipment in three or four hours. If they properly understood the urgency of the situation, they should be coming here either on horseback or by horse wagon. Once they started moving, the trip would take them about an hour. Factoring in various delays and issues, he figured that optimistically, he would be relieved from his post after standing guard for maybe eight hours. The extra time was to account for the fact that rarely if ever did anything go as people intended. There was bound to be some friction as the higher-ups tried to avoid responsibility and play the blame game. Particularly stubborn ones might not even listen to Shion and Rona’s report. It was likely that even the very logistics of gathering people and equipment would face difficulties, considering it was still the middle of the night.

In fact, he wasn’t even sure if there were enough adventurers left in town to begin with. They needed a good number of adventurers to form an extermination squad, and right now, a whole lot of them were busy being exterminated in the forest.

“Then again… I actually wouldn’t be surprised if an extermination squad showed up pretty soon,” murmured Renya at the sky.

This whole mission had seemed weird to him from the start. Why was the guild paying people to go to a forest and randomly kill monsters? Normally, an extermination mission had a very clear purpose. If goblins were having a particularly fertile year, the guild might ask people to thin out their numbers. Or maybe orcs were kidnapping too many women from a nearby village, in which case the guild might put out a mission to kill the orcs and rescue the women. Therefore, this mission made no sense. It boiled down to “Just go out and kill some stuff. We don’t really care what.”

It was possible that the guild’s manastone stock was running low, or perhaps it was meant to help out beginners by sending them to a forest that didn’t see many strong monsters. As far as he knew, though, neither of those cases applied.

If he read between the lines, this mission actually seemed like it was using adventurers — those not sharp enough to realize how weird this mission was, anyway — as lures in a large-scale baiting operation.

It was, of course, pure conjecture on his part, and even he hadn’t had the foresight to see it in advance; he was too busy looking for forest octopuses at the time. Only after the monsters showed up did the possibility occur to him. Assuming he was correct about the mission’s true purpose, investigation and extermination squads were probably already in place. Furthermore, news of this might reach the guild before Shion and Rona even got there. Bait would be meaningless, after all, if it wasn’t complemented with a line and hook. That was how fishing worked.

“I don’t know… It sort of feels like the fish are chewing up even the hooks in there…”

There were probably a few parties of hooks mixed in with the unwitting ones used as bait. The forest, however, was growing more and more quiet. Eventually, it fell completely silent. Despite that, he didn’t see any other parties come out from the trees.

“If I’m right about this… then things are going exactly as intended for whoever came up with this plan. And that annoys me.”

Renya felt a strong urge to throw a wrench into the works. Somewhere, someone was feeling rather good about themselves, and that was stirring up his mischievous side. He wanted to do something that would cause their jaw to drop to the ground. The problem was that he couldn’t come up with an effective method. Had he wielded the forces of fire or ice, he could have pumped the entirety of his apparently-very-big mana pool into one massive spell that froze everything over or even turned the whole forest into ash. His aptitude was wind, though. The most he could do with wind was probably uproot some trees. While that was certainly a sight to see, it lacked the flashiness he craved. As he gazed at the sky, an idea popped into his mind.

According to the young girl who sent him here, this world was like a miniature garden that sat on top of a big round tub. Below the tub was nothingness. What, then, was above the tub? Surely, a world like this was home to a mountain or two that were a few thousand meters high. If there were mountains, then the atmosphere should reach at least their peaks, if not higher up. Furthermore, ever since coming here, he never felt like water was boiling earlier than he was used to. In other words, the atmospheric pressure here should be close to his previous world, and the atmosphere itself should be organized in a similar fashion, with layers of increasingly thinner air at higher elevations.

“By my power, I devote thee. Fill the open air…”

Having recently purchased a secret magecraft compendium from Caryl, Renya had laid eyes on every single wind spell that was known to exist. As for the usage restrictions, after removing the one for basic level spells, he immediately used the same method as non-elemental spells to remove all the remaining restrictions as well. Currently, he was reciting the incantation for an advanced level wind spell, but with a slight modification added in. Normally, the spell was meant to suck things upward, but he visualized it in reverse, rushing downward.

He also decided to put up a barrier of wind around him; he didn’t want to end up as collateral damage to his own spell. As he pictured the imminent convectional phenomenon in his mind, he simulcast a number of solid, windy walls in the shape of an expansive cocoon around him. Once the barrier was in place, he thrust his right arm up toward the sky and, as though he were trying to grasp the very heavens overhead, curled his hand firmly into a fist and continued his incantation.

“Raging tempests high above, heed my call and smash this earth!”

The original incantation was “heed my call and pierce the sky,” but since he was reversing the direction, he adapted the words too.

Figuring he’d recover his mana soon after anyway, he withheld just enough to maintain the barrier and poured almost all of his remaining mana into the spell. When mana was infused into the circuitry of his words, the spell came to life.

In an instant, smoke enveloped everything around him. The noise was deafening. If there were a pair of eyes far, far above Renya, it might have seen that a gigantic funnel was reaching into the sky. Usually, tornadoes were natural phenomena that sucked things up from the ground and sent them flying into the air. This tornado, however, worked the other way; it sucked in everything from the surrounding air and smashed it down onto the ground. It was, in effect, not a tornado at all. The effect was probably better imagined as a whirlpool spiraling into the ocean depths, except transplanted into the sky.

The whirling cyclone, twenty kilometers high, pulled in freezing cold currents from up in the sky, eating up moisture from nearby clouds in the process, and sent it all plunging down in a thunderous torrent of wind and water. It struck the forest in front of Renya.

“Uh oh. This might be a problem…”

Everything went white. From within the barrier’s protection, Renya stared blankly as the outside world disappeared in a violent storm of ice and vapor. He could feel the deafening rumbles with his body. His plan had been to reach into very upper layers of the atmosphere and pull down what he assumed would be extremely cold air. This part of the plan worked. Unfortunately, his thought process had stopped there. He entirely failed to consider what he would do with the cold air after it came down.

A more prudent mage might have set up a number of upward currents around the downward one, thereby creating a cycle of air that effectively restricted the spell’s area of effect. Renya was not a more prudent mage, and he set up no such system. Therefore, as soon as the cold air hit the ground, it immediately began to spread. A wave of intense frost swept through the surroundings, freezing everything it touched.

For a moment, he considered canceling the spell, but eventually shrugged in a “what’s done is done” manner and began to slowly move the massive funnel of wind toward the center of the forest. As the funnel drifted into the distance, the raging winds around him calmed. Nevertheless, he didn’t lower the barrier.

Assuming the knowledge he carried over from his previous world was applicable, he calculated the temperature of the air he pulled down to be around -70 degrees Celsius. Even accounting for some amount of heat gain as it came down, it was almost certainly cold enough to kill an unprotected human. The only reason Renya hadn’t turned into a human ice cube was because he was standing behind multiple walls of wind, which created separate layers of air. If he removed the walls, he was pretty sure he’d freeze to death instantly.

“I doubt people in this world know what a downburst is. Of course, a downburst this big and this powerful would blow plenty of minds in my previous world too…”

As the haze of vapor gradually faded, he caught a glimpse of the forest beyond the wall of white. Branches did not sway. Leaves did not rustle. The trees and grasses, and probably every animal and monster they sheltered, were frozen in place, locked into a motionless winter wonderland.

“Right, let’s just say calamity struck. This was a natural disaster. Definitely a natural disaster,” Renya muttered to himself. “No point telling the truth, after all. It’s not like anyone will believe me.”

It was probably easier to claim it was a whim of the gods, which still sounded more convincing than “Yeah, I did that.” He looked up at the sky — at the yet-unknown deities that ruled over this world — and decided that he would shift all the blame onto them. They were the ones fighting stupid turf wars, after all. It was their fault for playing games while on the clock. In fact, he felt fully entitled to fling mud at them, since it was their negligence that resulted in him being sent on this damned cross-world journey in the first place.

“Still…”

Once he canceled the spell, the massive funnel dispersed just as quickly as it appeared. All the cold air and moisture it held spilled out in a burst of white frost. It snowed that night over the forest — big, feathery flakes drifted down from the sky, gentle and quiet. He watched as they accumulated on the ground, and murmured,

“I sure suck at magecraft…”

Using it normally, he was barely even mediocre. At full strength, he was a disaster on two legs. At this rate, his magecraft was pointless; he had no way of using it. Wondering when he would be able to remove the barrier, he surveyed his surroundings. As the full scale of the devastation he just caused sank in, he couldn’t help but let out a deep sigh.

“…Oh?”

I removed the teacup from my mouth and looked up. On the table before me lay a small purple ball. The crack that ran through it caught my eye.

“Hm? What, now, seems to have piqued your interest?” asked the bundle of bandages in front of me. It sat on a sofa across the table, and it seemed to take on the shape of a person. However, it was thick. Very thick. Its silhouette probably would have resembled a plump teddy bear of some kind. For a moment, I found myself intrigued by the sheer amount of bandages required to create that appearance.

“Well, it appears that the core I sent through the Forest Maze has been destroyed.”

The humans had yet to realize that the Forest Maze had been fully traversed by us demons. We had constructed a transfer gate between the opening to the human territories and the opening to the demon territories. With that said, only a limited amount of resources could be transported through the dungeon to build the human side’s gate, so it could only transfer one person at a time. On top of that, there was a limit to the number of times it could be used in a day and each use was prohibitively expensive, but such was the cost of doing business. Or, in this case, research.

“What were you doing there?”

“Field testing my new monsters. They’re wonderful little creatures that feed on humans, reproduce in their stomachs, and eventually fuse with their bodies.”

Before sending them on their way, I had embedded a core into one of them to control it. The fact that my control core on this end was broken meant the core-carrying monster had been destroyed as well. Barely any data had been collected. That made me annoyed. Annoyed, but not dejected. After all, doing experiments was about repetition, the goal of which was to extract necessary data from countless failures and the occasional success. It was akin to the process of trying to draw the one winning ticket from a vast lottery. A researcher who scowled at every losing ticket would have a very short career, not to mention end up with a lot of wrinkles.

“The experiment was meant to test just pure strength and reproductive speed, but…”

“It failed spectacularly, huh? I feel for you,” said the bundle of bandages lounging lazily on the sofa. It flapped its limb-like appendages around as it talked. My eye twitched. I resisted the urge to stab the utterly vexing creature, though I doubt anyone would have faulted me if I didn’t.

With that said, it was indeed a most perplexing lump of cloth. It possessed no features on its surface that even resembled an eye or mouth. Despite that, it acted as if it saw me, and it spoke clearly with an unmuffled voice. At some point, I would have to unravel those mysterious wrappings. In fact, I might just pop it open and take a look inside for myself. Whatever I found inside, I was sure it would satisfy my curiosity. As I entertained thoughts of exploring its mysteries, I glanced at the bundle of bandages. It twitched — ostensibly a gesture of discomfort at being stared at.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“Why, now, might I have just felt a chill… A cold, perhaps?”

“Do demons catch colds?”

“Don’t we? Well, considering how many of us are brainless machos, I doubt we’d notice even if we did.”

The bundle of bandages cackled loudly. As a demon, it was technically of a higher rank than me. As a researcher, it was also my senior. In spite of its experience and status, however, its insistence on behaving flippantly earned it the derision of its peers and the brand of an eccentric. Even I try— no, do my absolute best to not involve myself with it.

“I don’t see what’s so funny. First of all, I’m not the first one to fail an experiment there. Didn’t the experiment you just conducted in the same area also fail thanks to the intervention of a human?” I said, my voice slightly pointed.

It abruptly stopped laughing. Did it take offense at my slight? Peeking at what probably was its face revealed nothing. The bandages hid its expression. I wasn’t sure where its eyes were supposed to be, so I couldn’t even tell if it was looking at me.

“I wouldn’t say it failed,” said the bundle after a brief pause. It didn’t sound upset. “I took back what I needed. I was simply forced to terminate the experiment early.”

“I heard you also lost the manastone used for the experiment. That alone means you’ve lost a ton of money, and you still claim it’s not a failure?”

“Harsh critic, huh?”

Like a mummified teddy bear, the figure spread its two stumpy arms, flipped itself around on the sofa, and looked up at the ceiling. Every one of its gestures was so ridiculously exaggerated. It was strangely annoying. Had it been of lower, or even equal rank, I would have immediately shut it up for good. Unfortunately, it had me beat in both rank and experience. Make a brash move, and I might get myself killed.

“Either way, the experiment is stopping for a while.”

“Oh? Why, now, might that be?” asked the bundle of bandages perplexedly.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine how it was possible to ask that question. Granted, there were plenty of researchers who showed interest in literally nothing except their very specific interests, but even they should read the announcements from the higher-ups. These were not made in jest; one disobeyed them at their own mortal peril. Was the figure before me so eccentric as to ignore even that?

“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.