Chapter 3: The Battle Ended and It Was Clean-Up Time, or So It Was Told

The sun rose at a lazy pace. Slowly, the veil of night lifted and the sky began to glow with reddened hues. Shion watched it with a mystified expression, feeling as if she were seeing it for the first time. Mornings tended to be a refreshing time for her. This morning, however, she felt terribly stuffy, her emotions welling up in a convoluted jumble that defied even her own understanding. It was definitely not refreshing.

Her whole body felt heavy. She had been running around all night, and she had swung her weapon more times than she had ever done before. Fatigue from exertion was half of the cause. The other half was the blood loss from the various wounds that were draining her stamina. Nothing was fatal, though a couple of wounds ran fairly deep. Even she was not quite sure how she was still alive. Had it not been for Rona’s restorative grace, she probably would have dropped dead from sheer exhaustion. In the miraculous case that she somehow managed to survive till the end, she doubtlessly would still be lying on a bed or the ground, wrapped from head to toe in a patchwork of bandages and cloth.

The wounds themselves had already been healed, but restorative gracecraft could not replenish the blood that was lost. In addition, they consumed the stamina of the affected to perform the healing, so the fatigue came two-fold.

She was also feeling rather blue. The sight of hordes of raving monsters running toward her had burned itself into her mind. Whenever she closed her eyes, it resurfaced, every bit as vivid as before. She could not even remember how many of them she slew. She faintly recalled keeping count for the first few, but soon gave up after losing track. In a chaotic melee where every swing was more likely to hit something than not, she had little attention left to devote to other matters.

The villagers had also sustained heavy casualties. A meager dozen of them were ultimately unable to repel the onslaught of the horde, and the goblins made their way into the village. Some of those who could not fight locked their doors and stayed in their rooms. Others hid in basements where they kept their crops. Many of them survived, but those who fortune sneered upon, along with those who lost their cool and rushed out in a desperate fit, did not. They accounted for about a dozen or so deaths. The battle also took the lives of almost all the villagers who fought to the defend the village. Only two of them survived, one less an arm, and the other with a wounded eye. Gone were their hopes of ever returning to a normal life.

It was likely that this village would be shuttered for some time. The thought was depressing. Having lost almost all their workers, the remaining villagers had no way of keeping the village afloat. Naturally, the guild would consider them to have failed their quest, as well. While she was aware that she should be thankful to have even survived the encounter in one piece, when she turned her thoughts to the subsequent clean-up process, she could not help but feel her already-gloomy mood grow worse.

Apparently, the total number of monsters that had swarmed out of the forest reached three digits in the end. As she slowly gazed across the stretch of open space that led from the village to the forest, she found that there was almost no ground to be seen. Instead, it was blanketed by dead monsters, their corpses strewn across the earth. Wading through the gaps between the bodies was the figure of a person.

It was Renya.

Thick, black-red liquid dripped from the knife in his left hand. In his right, he held the corpse of one of the monsters, dragging it behind him. He was, in fact, still busy at work salvaging manastones from the bodies of fallen monsters. Once the precious stone was removed, the now-unwanted bodies were then collected in a pile.

Manastones were crystals formed inside the bodies of monsters. They usually existed either right above the heart or inside the head, and the stronger the monster, the larger their size. Goblins tended to have a fairly small manastone above the heart. These crystals were charged with mana, which could be used in cities as energy sources for instruments known as mana crafts. In addition, the guild could examine manastones to determine from what kind of monster they were excavated, thereby providing proof of the monster’s death for missions. In other words, they were worth money when brought back. Having heard about manastones from Shion, once the battle ended, Renya borrowed a knife from her and wordlessly busied himself with the task of rummaging through corpses and performing makeshift autopsies.

Renya flung the corpse in his right hand into the air. It landed in the ever-growing pile of monster bodies that had already been dismantled. Around the cadaverous hill lay plenty more that were untouched, and he immediately began walking toward his next body. Shion sighed, wondering where he found the stamina to keep it up.

When he had returned to them at dawn after the battle ended, he was an appalling sight to behold: the leather armor he wore was completely gone, and he was naked from the waist up. His pants were nearly in tatters, having been ripped in numerous places. His body was covered in small wounds, sanguine streaks speaking to the amount of blood he had lost. Splashed on top was a motley layer of monster blood and visceral remains, the exact identities of which were too gruesome for close examination. It was a macabre sight, as if chunks of blood-stained flesh had converged into the shape of a man.

The fact that much of the splattered blood and sinew on him came from monsters had a further unpleasant implication; the stench was foul. Following a futile attempt to wipe him off with cloth, Shion had taken Renya’s hand and pulled him to the village well. After dumping multiple buckets of water over him, she had finally managed to restore him to some semblance of cleanliness. Unfortunately, removing the filth from him revealed the full extent of his damage. The sheer number of cuts and gashes on him elicited a scream from Rona, and she hysterically layered grace after grace on him to heal his wounds while spraying him down with her personal perfume to stave off the odor. Renya himself maintained a look of profound annoyance throughout the entire process.

Even in the face of it all, Shion still thought Renya was crazy. The reckless audacity of his lone assault was bewildering enough, but not only did he come back alive, but a good half of the corpses that littered the battlefield were his doing. Furthermore, after being treated for his wounds, he immediately began moving the bodies of deceased villagers. Once that was done, he started dealing with the collection of manastones and the disposal of dead monsters.

The bodies of dead monsters had the troublesome property of turning undead when left alone. Those undead would then go on to harm humans. Truly, the nuisance of monsters knew no bounds. They endangered humans while alive, and continued to do so when dead. Nevertheless, that was their nature, and there was little use in complaining about it. The rule, therefore, was the immediate and on-site disposal of their bodies. In terms of methods, fire was preferred.

When the number of corpses was vast, which was the case for them, undeadification could occur while they were still collecting manastones. The undead could be disabled by crushing their heads, though, so Renya made sure to do so for each body while he salvaged the crystals. The result was the reversal of their cleaning efforts; he was filthy again.

His state of undress also bothered Shion. There was something not okay about a half-naked man wading through a sea of corpses, so she asked a villager to prepare a set of men’s clothing. However he refused to wear them, saying it was not worth making those dirty as well. Then, he went back to work, maintaining his rather shabby getup of shredded pants with nonexistent shirt.

Judging by how dirty he currently was, he probably made the right call. Shion firmly decided that once he was done, she would give him a proper makeover with water, her own perfume, and a decent set of clothes. She watched him hold up a monster’s dead body, gouge at its chest with his knife, and finally smash the skull with the hilt. His toughness impressed her. Even in the whole guild, there were probably no more than a handful of adventurers who could fight such a battle and then keep on working like that. Shion was pretty sure that she, at least, was not going to muster the will to take even a step away from where she stood.

He claimed to be a Wanderer, and it was the first time she ever saw one for herself. Prior to meeting him, her understanding was that Wanderers were people who knew little of the world, yet were aware of very odd bits of information, and they tended to be skilled swordsmen, mages, or artisans. Most of them were good-natured, and few ever did bad deeds. Their frequency of appearance was unpredictable. While they showed no increased propensity to show up as heroes when calamity befell the world, a number of individuals who left their mark on history were said to be Wanderers. Basically, their advent was a most ambiguous matter — an omen of neither fortune nor catastrophe.

Renya, however, seemed to deviate slightly from the hearsay image of Wanderers. According to the rumors, coming here from some other world was indeed something that Wanderers had in common, but that was usually made clear after hearing their accounts of what happened. As far as she knew, there had never been a case of someone immediately proclaiming to be a Wanderer. First of all, how were they even supposed to know the term? They were the ones who’d strayed from their original world and ended up here, after all. Following that line of logic, someone must have told Renya about the idea of Wanderers, but he said he came from that forest. Shion did not think he was lying. They had only known each other for a short time, but he did not seem like the type who could lie with a straight face, and he showed no hint of hesitation when he claimed to be a Wanderer after telling them his name. She was certain that nothing in that forest could have told him about such things. That left the question of who and where in the world he gained that knowledge from.

“I guess there’s no point thinking about it…” said Shion, figuring she was not going to arrive at an answer. He might tell her if she asked, but she was not sure if it was okay to pry. Instead, she chose to leave those questions alone and keep watching his laboring form.

Enough time had passed for some of the last remaining bodies to begin turning undead, but Renya continued to dispose of them in truly casual manner, kicking and stomping on them, all the while maintaining a look of annoyance on his face. Even if one were to ignore the rather baffling parts about him, his sheer fortitude and skill in battle would have made an impression. There was also the fact that Rona judged him to be a good person. That was important. In addition, he mentioned that he knew little about this world, so he would appreciate it if they taught him a few things. The ordeal with the warriors from the Mercenary Kingdom had been a rather thorough lesson in the various problems of having a party comprised of only two females. She had decided to recruit a few more party members after returning to town, but a most promising candidate was staring her in the face. She would be insane to let this chance go.

She was sure that convincing him would not be too hard, but the string of events following the mercenaries and their “dinky” quip about his bamboo sword perhaps implied a somewhat difficult personality. Or, at least, that he had a stubborn side and there were some things he absolutely refused to relent on. A wrong method of approach could very well rub him the wrong way and lead to a botched recruitment attempt. Though well aware of her own lack of social skills, she figured that with Rona’s flawless support, things would work out just fine. She looked at Rona, who was busy heaping firewood, oil, and all sorts of things onto Renya’s pile of monster bodies. It occurred to Shion that she should be helping them, so she walked over.

Seeing her friend approach, Rona said, “The smell is getting pretty strong. Shall we start the fire?”

Shion nodded. As she neared the mountain of corpses, the smell did indeed grow more and more unbearable.

“Sure, provided we keep adding fuel to make sure we burn absolutely everything. It’s probably time.”

“Would you like to do the honors?”

Shion nodded again in response. Though she was an apprentice, Rona possessed a fair amount of skill in gracecraft. Perhaps due to that, she was hopelessly incompetent at magecraft. While capable of casting some basic water spells, her incompatibility with fire spells was of legendary proportions. She could not even use a basic “Ignite.” Being no mage herself, Shion was not exactly a master of magecraft either, but she was proficient with the basic spells of everyday life. When they made camp, starting campfires and making water was mostly her responsibility.

“By my power, I command thee. Dance, small men of red!”

Her words, infused with her power, caused a part of the mountainous heap to burst into flame.

“Ignite,” being the most basic of basic fire spells, did little more than produce a small spark of flame, but it saw widespread use among both adventurers and regular townspeople due to its great utility. Excluding people with a crippling ineptitude for magecraft like Rona, almost everyone could learn the spell, and it could be learned from any teacher in a reasonably large town for a couple of silver coins.

Considering its popularity, it would not be surprising for townspeople to teach each other, but for some mysterious reason, it did not work unless taught by a mage.

As the burgeoning flame licked at the oiled firewood and grew in size, Shion quietly thought to herself that she must introduce Renya to a mage when they arrived back in town.

***

In the end, their spoils amounted to 116 manastones. Most of the crystals were the size of a nail of the little finger, but according to Shion, if they sold them at three silver coins a piece, the whole lot of them was worth 348 coins in total. The value of currency in this world was completely foreign to Renya, so he asked Shion, who explained that the coinage in circulation consisted of copper, great-copper, silver, gold, and platinum, and that these were accepted as currency throughout the continent. Their conversion rate was as follows: 10 copper to 1 great-copper, 10 great-copper to 1 silver, 100 silver to 1 gold, and 100 gold to 1 platinum. When asked about their value, Shion hummed and hawed before coming up with an explanation. For the most part, a piece of bread or a drink was worth about ten copper coins. Hearing that, Renya just went on to assume that one copper coin was more or less the equivalent of ten cents in his original world. In other words, a great-copper coin was a dollar, a silver coin was ten dollars, a gold coin was a thousand dollars, and a platinum coin was a hundred thousand dollars.

The values of the larger denominations felt rather high to Renya, but Shion soon told him that daily living rarely saw the use of anything more than silver coins. Gold and platinum coins only came up when stocking up on supplies or purchasing expensive tools or equipment used by adventurers. Applying the conversion rate to their rewards gave them three gold coins and 48 silver coins, which was worth about $3480. It seemed like an extremely small amount of money for putting their lives on the line, but the reward for successful elimination of the goblins was apparently extra. That was calculated as two great-copper coins per goblin. A 116 dead goblins netted them 232 great-copper, which was about $232. Not at all worth it, in Renya’s opinion.

Nevertheless, considering a decent meal was five great-copper and a night at an inn with lunch and dinner was three silver, they could live for over three months on the spoils from this battle alone. With that thought in mind, Renya figured that maybe it was not such a bad deal. Club a goblin over the head and he would get three silver for the manastone and two great-copper for the dead body. That was food for a day and just short of a room for the night. In a way, it did seem reasonable. Running into a horde that numbered in the hundreds was a rare occurrence to begin with. Since this was a rare case, he told himself that it should be expected for the effort to reward ratio to be a tad off-kilter.

He checked his wallet, a.k.a. inventory, and found ten gold coins inside. Some rough calculations told him that was enough money to live for ten months. Surprised at how generous God was with her purse strings, he decided that he would return the favor by being a little nicer to her the next time they met.

The goblin leader he defeated produced a manastone that was somewhat larger than the rest; it was about the size of a thumbnail. In this case, the reward for killing it was five silver, and the manastone itself was worth ten silver. At first, he was of the opinion that the sudden jump in value was silly, but he was forced to capitulate after Shion and Rona insisted that the goblin leader was dangerous enough to be worth it.

Setting aside the issue of rewards for a minute, there was also the problem of how they were going to get back to town. They were, after all, not going to get much done otherwise. The regularly scheduled horse wagon had already arrived — that was not the problem. The problem was that the wagon could not possibly fit all the villagers. After losing all their abled-bodied fighters to the goblin attack, the village was now a sitting duck. They could not possibly turn a blind eye to the villagers’ plight and return to town by themselves. Their solution was to write a letter to the guild requesting the dispatch of soldiers to escort the villagers back to town and send it off with the horse wagon.

The process turned out to be unexpectedly difficult. By the time three empty horse wagons arrived at the village with about a dozen escorting soldiers, ten days had passed since they sent the letter. Renya had no idea what was going on, but according to Shion, chances were that after the letter reached the guild, they went to speak with the city mayor only to realize the mayor did not have the authority to dispatch enough soldiers. The mayor then had to go to the local lord, who had to keep passing the baton to the Crown. In the end, the Crown probably said no.

While that might sound terribly cruel, when seen from the scope of the whole kingdom, this was probably too trivial a matter for them to care. Presumably, their attitude could have been summed up as “that’s your problem, you fix it.” As a result, the lord and mayor were forced to put together enough soldiers and wagons by themselves. Finally, after a grueling and time-consuming slog through bureaucracy, they managed to send off a retinue to the village, which led to the current state of affairs.

“The number of soldiers they sent is way too little to match the amount of damage I reported. There aren’t nearly enough horse wagons, either. I guess this was the most they could do,” said a grimacing Shion.

Despite losing almost half of its villagers, there were still close to thirty people in the village. They were going to need much more than three horse wagons to move all their belongings. Once the wagons were full, everything that could not be carried by hand would have to be thrown away. The villagers’ belongings were valuable to them, so it was understandable that telling them to dump their stuff in the village would be met with some friction.

Unsurprisingly, arguments ensued between villagers. The tension eventually boiled over to the soldiers, as well. After seeing the villagers cling to the soldiers and beg only to be coldly brushed off, Shion approached Renya with a request, but was turned down. Renya had been expecting this kind of trouble, and at that point, he had already placed all of Shion’s and Rona’s belongings in his inventory. There was still a little space left inside, but it was literally just a little. He was not going to be able to satisfy all of the villagers’ demands.

“All that’s going to happen is we manage to fit in a little more luggage and the villagers’ anger gets redirected to us.”

The storage capability of the inventory was undeniably convenient, but when it got full, there was no way to show people. Under the current circumstances, if he told the villagers that he could not fit any more stuff inside, Renya was pretty sure they were not going to be very understanding. They would think he could always fit a little more inside, and when he refused, he and his two companions would soon find themselves on the receiving end of the villagers’ frustration. However, the cold tone he used to turn down Shion, which even he admitted was perhaps a tad harsh, did not convince her to yield.

“You can leave our luggage behind, then.”

“All that’ll do is free up a bit of room. It won’t solve the fundamental problem. Plus, I’d rather prioritize the two of you over a bunch of people I don’t know.”

“Oh… Um, thank you, but still…”

“Shion, just let it go,” interrupted Rona. Renya was surprised to find that she took his side. Judging from both her appearance and profession, he had expected her to back Shion up. Instead, she placed a hand on Shion’s shoulder and, with a calm expression and a gentle tone, stopped her from pushing the issue any further.

“If it was possible for Renya to carry everyone’s belongings, I’m sure he would have already agreed to do so. However, he can’t. So long as we can’t save everyone, any action on our part will force us to choose. Choosing will create inequality, and therein lies the risk. Renya is worried about the possibility of us being harmed in the process. That’s why he decided that inaction is our best course of action.”

“Are you okay with that, Rona?” demanded Shion. For her, understanding the logic did not seem to equate with accepting it.

“I realize,” said a wryly smiling Rona, “that I’m one of the priesthood. I’d certainly help them if I could. But right now, we can’t. Priests must never speak of help that they cannot offer.”

“Well… but, still…”

Shion refused to back down. It did imply an inherent kindness, which Renya recognized. He also noticed Rona, who was gazing at him with the look of someone who wanted to say something but chose to remain silent. He took it to mean that Rona thought there was something that needed to be said, but she would prefer it to be said by Renya. Though he remembered nothing about his past self, he had a creeping suspicion that he was pretty bad at figuring out what people were thinking through their gaze or expression. This was probably not the same as predicting an opponent’s next move by reading the motions of their eyes and body. It felt more like a kind of… soft skill. Something more tender. He figured that he was more of the heartless type, considering that the pleasure of battle brought a smile to his lips. It seemed unlikely that he had any kind of talent in such subtler skills. Still, he was sitting on 94 years of life experience, which he desperately sifted through, searching for some hints as to what Rona was trying to tell him. He was rewarded for his efforts by finally figuring out that she wanted him to say something.

But what?

Was he supposed to turn her down with an even harsher tone? Shion refused to yield despite Rona’s urging. What words would convince her to do so?

“The voidbox is invisible. Using that runs the risk of people second-guessing our sincerity,” he said, choosing his words carefully and glancing at Rona every few seconds for confirmation. “But, if we helped by carrying their things normally, there’d be no question as to how much we could handle.”

“…Huh?”

Shion looked puzzled at what he said. Rona continued to smile at him. He assumed that meant he was heading in the right direction.

“Fortunately, we already put our luggage in the voidbox, so our hands are free. Nobody in the village knows I have access to a voidbox.”

“Right.”

“Assuming we claim that we already shipped our stuff off with the wagon that had the letter, and we only carry whatever we can with our hands, I’d be okay with offering to help the villagers.”

“That’s…”

Before Shion could continue, Rona clapped her hands once before her chest.

“I see. That way, we won’t have to deal with impossible requests, and it’ll be easy for the villagers to see that we’re doing whatever we can to help.”

“It might seem underhanded, but it’s a compromise. That’s my suggestion. What do you think?”

Renya’s question was directed toward Shion, but at the same time, it was also meant for Rona. Rona’s smile remained unchanged, but Shion’s expression brightened immediately.

“R-Right. Then, they’ll believe us about what we can’t do, and we’ll still be able to help the villagers in some small way. Okay, I’ll go talk to the chief.”

Renya kept his eyes on Shion as she ran off, her steps quick and light. Seeing that she had finally cheered up, he spoke quietly without turning his head.

“So, how many points do I get?”

“Enough to pass with flying colors.”

There was the sound of clapping. He glanced at Rona. She beamed back, her hands applauding before her chest. Sensing that there was something more to her gesture than meets the eye, he decided to speak up.

“I sure didn’t expect you to agree with me.”

“Based on my appearance and profession, you thought I would be on Shion’s side?” she asked in the same casual, relaxed tone she had been using so far. Still, there now seemed to be a slightly different air to her. “Priests, you see, need to be quite the realists. Otherwise, they don’t last very long.”

“I thought priests were just people who chalk things up to God whenever it’s convenient.”

“Ahaha… I do believe we should have a nice chat sometime, Renya.”

There was a tinge of anger to her voice as if she had let his provocative tone get to her, but she soon returned to her usual placid expression.

“God does exist. His deeds are, of course, also real. Yet there remains much that cannot be done by the hands of man. We might have acquired the use of restorative graces, but we would be fools to think that we can save every life. Those that slip through our fingers are too numerous to count.” Rona’s expression became clouded. Suspecting that she was recalling some past experiences, Renya patiently waited for her to continue. “There’s a limit to how many people we can save. As priests, we first worship God. Then, we devote ourselves to His teachings. Finally, we must know how to draw the line between things we can and cannot do.”

“I feel like there’s a bit more to it than that,” said Renya as he scratched his cheek. Rona looked at him with an expression of mild surprise, which was almost immediately replaced by her usual placidity. Nevertheless, it was more than enough time for him to notice.

“Care to explain?”

“I’m not sure I should, actually, since it’s nothing more than a hunch. It’s also a little personal, and I have reservations about saying something intrusive without proof. If I tell you my guess, will you tell me if I’m right or not?”

“Hm, good question. Will I?”

“Besides,” Renya said, pausing to think for a moment before continuing in a joking tone, “I don’t know who said it, but I remember hearing that women are more beautiful when they have a secret or two.”

Apparently caught off-guard, Rona stared at him with a blank look for a while, but her expression soon burst into a radiant smile.

“I do believe you won’t need to concern yourself with that, seeing as Shion and I are perfectly beautiful even without secrets.”

“Touché. My apologies, then.”

As his cheeks flushed with color, Renya nodded at a beaming Rona, wondering if he perhaps lost a few points with that final remark.