5

THE INSECURITIES OF THUNDER SONIA

Seven days had passed since Bash arrived at the Shiwanashi Forest.

Shiwanashi. The great tree.

High up on its penthouse floor, in a lavish suite, a sole elf looked down on the town.

Her long golden hair fell to her waist. She wore a dark-green robe and had a broad-brimmed hat on her head.

She sat on the window seat, gazing out with unseeing, troubled eyes.

The whole of Shiwanashi Forest Town was laid out glittering beneath her. The magical lamps of the town were just strong enough to illuminate the town for its residents but not so strong as to carry into the deep forest. To the elf, the mellow glow of the lights themselves was a symbol of peace.

During the war, it was always either far too bright or pitch-dark instead.

But the elf woman was not feeling peaceful as she gazed out the window.

Nor was she admiring her own beautiful reflection in the glass.

During the war, the elf race had always made it through by focusing only on what would happen tomorrow. But what troubled her now was what would happen the day after tomorrow. Or in other words, she was pondering the course of the rest of her entire life.

“Hah…”

Her name was Thunder Sonia.

But everyone called her Lady Sonia out of affection and respect.

She was one of the great Heroes who had slain the Demon Lord, and she was one of the most powerful sorceresses of the entire elf race.

And she was the greatest Hero the elf country had ever known.

She had status, prestige, lands, a peerage…everything a person could want. But she also had a massive, crippling insecurity.

“I can’t believe I got rejected again…”

Yes. She was single.

“You expected too much, Granny. To thrust yourself at a human aristocrat who only came to foster ties between our countries… What were you thinking?”

So spoke the male elf standing in the doorway of her room.

His name was Aconitum.

Named after the poisonous genus of flowers, he was a captain in the elf army, as well as being Sonia’s grandnephew. In other words, he was the grandson of one of her siblings.

Officially a captain in the army, he had duties that mostly involved serving as a bodyguard for Sonia, the greatest warrior the elf country had ever known.

Technically, he was her “personal guard,” but what this civil servant actually did all day involved mostly being Sonia’s errand boy and squire.

“Well, what do you suggest?! None of the elven men will give me the time of day! I’m out of options! And how many times have I told you not to call me Granny?!”

Thunder Sonia.

This year, she would be turning 1,200 years old.

She was the oldest of all elves.

Elves usually lived to around five hundred.

Well, there was a reason why Thunder Sonia seemed to have such an unusually long life span.

It happened around nine hundred years ago.

The elf country was in a terrible bind, the worst spot in all of elven history.

The forest was ablaze, their land had been seized, and the soldiers had been almost entirely wiped out. The sound of children’s laughter had left their dwellings.

At the time, Sonia, the daughter of the village chief, felt sure that she was witnessing the end of the elf race.

But Sonia was a prodigy, a genius.

Blessed by the god of thunder, the elves all knew she was special. They looked to her to save them.

Indeed, no one had ever faced Thunder Sonia on the battlefield and lived to tell the tale.

Her thunder and lightning magical attacks crisped her enemies instantly, leaving only ashes behind. With her strength, she could hold entire armies at bay.

It was Sonia who held the front line of the battlefield.

But she was already three hundred years old.

An elf is said to be at his or her peak between the ages of one to two hundred years.

Then their skills decrease rapidly until they reach their fourth century of life. Anything past four hundred years was considered very old for elves.

Sonia’s prime was already behind her.

She could feel age beginning to take its toll on her. Before too long, the front line protecting the elf country would fall.

Then all that awaited the elves would be their own annihilation.

And so Sonia turned to the dark arts.

She used an ancient curse, passed down in elven folklore.

She performed this curse on…herself.

The result? Sonia’s physical age reverted to her late one hundreds and remained fixed there forevermore.

With rejuvenated magical abilities, Sonia became the leader of the failing elf army and within two hundred years had managed to reverse the fates of the elf race by rebuilding the army and repelling their enemies.

After that, she made many appearances on the front line and fought in countless battles until finally she and several other Heroes from foreign lands successfully assassinated the Demon Lord.

She was a true Hero.

But she was still a woman, with a woman’s needs. After the war ended, and everyone was getting married left and right, she couldn’t help thinking…

“Well, we’ve got peace at last. Maybe I should find myself a partner, too!”

But she was already 1,200 years old.

And she was a Hero, the pride of the elf race. Everyone knew her name.

No elf man would even think of dating her. It would be too much pressure. She was far too great and important. And far too old.

And so Sonia missed the boat on the marriage boom.

Now there wasn’t a single man remaining in the elf country whom Thunder Sonia might have had a chance to snag.

And that wasn’t all, either.

To be perfectly honest, there was another major reason why Thunder Sonia couldn’t get a man.

“Dammit! It’s all his fault…”

“Are you referring to whom I think you’re referring? The Nightmare of the Shiwanashi Forest…?”

“Yes! Who else?! It’s all because of that wretched orc!!!”

The Nightmare of the Shiwanashi Forest.

It was an incident no elf would ever forget, for as long as living memory remained.

After the slaying of the Demon Lord, Geddigs, the elf army and the human army had teamed up to deal with the dissenting orcs, coming at them in a coordinated pincer movement.

But the elf army had been thwarted by a single warrior.

The Orc Hero Bash.

Just as Sonia had done, Bash preserved the front line of the orc territory and crushed the attacking elf and human soldiers.

But the elves knew that Shiwanashi Forest would never be theirs unless they could take down this orc.

Bash was just too strong, though. Ninety percent of the army that went up against him perished. The other 10 percent managed to flee, but they remained deeply traumatized.

It seemed like no one would be able to defeat him.

That’s when Thunder Sonia, the Great Sorceress of the elves, stepped up and challenged Bash to a duel. Who better to fight a Hero than another Hero, after all?

Their battle raged for three days and three nights.

Sonia’s lightning magic set the forest ablaze, and thunderbolts cracked the heavens above.

Bash’s mighty sword ate its way through the trunks of thick, sturdy trees, sending them crashing to the ground, and his roars caused the very earth to shake.

Their battle had the kind of ferocity only ever seen during a natural disaster.

One elf officer saw it all. He was posted to observe the battle, you see.

Finally, what he saw filled his heart with terror.

At the apex of the battle…

After the thunder and roaring had ceased…

…Only Bash remained standing.

Sonia was crumpled at Bash’s feet, knocked out.

Now, what happens when a female elf falls at an orc’s feet in defeat?

What always happens, of course. She is dragged away, defiled, and forced to birth babies until her body gives out.

The great Thunder Sonia would be captured.

The Hero of the elves. Their figurehead, their champion. Reduced to an orc’s breeding tool.

This could not be allowed to happen.

If the elf troops ever saw their Hero, Sonia, as an orc slave…eyes glazed, belly bulging with an orc child…it would destroy their morale.

The elf army might lose the will to go on, and the chain of command might collapse.

Seeing this tragic fate ahead, the officer was about to leap in to attempt to rescue the Elf Hero, when he saw something extremely shocking.

It was the orc. He was…walking away.

Without even glancing in the direction of Thunder Sonia.

And it wasn’t just the officer who saw it. All the soldiers on the scene were watching, too.

They were at a loss as to how to explain what had happened. Nonetheless, they retrieved the fallen Thunder Sonia and reported what they had seen to their commanders.

The commanders, in turn, attempted to cover up the fact that Thunder Sonia had been defeated.

But it was to no avail. Too many soldiers had witnessed it. Before long, the truth got out.

Soon, Thunder Sonia’s defeat was known throughout the entire elf army.

The Nightmare of the Shiwanashi Forest. The defeat of the Great Sorceress, Thunder Sonia.

This tale filled the other soldiers with despair.

How could Thunder Sonia have been defeated?

Their heroine, dragged away to become an orc’s sex slave…

Such an ending, after all her great deeds… What a nightmare!

But just as the elf soldiers were about to give up, they heard another key piece of info.

Somehow, Thunder Sonia had not been dragged off by the orc at all.

The soldiers couldn’t make sense of it.

What? She wasn’t taken? Why not? Did her bodyguards leap in and snatch her back from the orc’s clutches at the last moment?

No, they had not.

So then…how? An orc always drags off his prey. Either that or he befouls her right where she fell. Why, I was almost victim to one myself the other day. Luckily, backup came just in the nick of time.

I don’t know, but it appears he just walked off and left her alone.

Hmm, perhaps she smells older than she looks? You know…maybe she gives off…old-person smell?

Ha-ha! What an amusing thought.

Such gossip was going on all throughout the elf army. And eventually, the discourse regarding Thunder Sonia took on a mocking tone.

“Thunder Sonia may look young, but her old-person scent is so strong, it could even repel a horny orc!”

That was how Thunder Sonia gained her reputation as the Woman Whose Stink Would Make Even an Orc Rethink…

She was seen as damaged goods, a woman so unappealing that not even a foul orc would deign to lie with her.

Marry a woman like her? No, no, no.

So that was another big reason why Thunder Sonia couldn’t find a man to marry.

To circumvent these issues, Sonia had been going on trips outside of elf country lately, looking for a human partner.

Humans live for around eighty years on average.

She figured they wouldn’t really see the difference between a two-hundred-to-three-hundred-year-old elf and a twelve-hundred-to-thirteen-hundred-year-old one.

But all her attempts had been ending in failure.

The humans had heard about the Nightmare of the Shiwanashi Forest, too.

Whenever Sonia, with her bumbling inexperience around men, tried to turn the topic toward potential marriage, the human men always found a way to quickly deflect her.

Sonia blamed her lack of success with human men on the rumors that swirled around her, but there was actually another big reason why she kept striking out…

At any rate, Sonia hated the rumors and gossip with the fire of a thousand suns.

Still, she knew one thing.

The marriage boom among the elves…the rumors about what happened with the Nightmare of the Shiwanashi Forest…those things were transient, fleeting.

In her 1,200 years of life, she had gone through many eras, seen many changes occur.

She had been around through more generations than any short-lived human’s mind could even begin to fathom.

And as the times changed, so did memory.

Even during the long war, things had still gone in and out of vogue.

In another twenty years, the rumors around her would be forgotten. A new generation of humans would be born. Surely Sonia could find a suitable marriage candidate among their number.

And in another hundred years, a new generation of elves would be born and inherit the land. Maybe one of those would even be willing to marry her.

Due to the curse, Sonia would continue living indefinitely, unless someone killed her, that is. The time would pass in the blink of an eye.

Still, Sonia hated simply biding her time.

It felt like defeat. Like she was the loser. Like she was accepting the fact that she was entirely undesirable.

Like she was admitting that she stank. That she was, in the end, truly the Woman Whose Stink Would Make Even an Orc Rethink.

But it’s not true! It’s not! Come here! Take a sniff!

I haven’t even been wearing perfume lately, because of that stupid rumor! I don’t smell of anything!

Still, the facts didn’t matter. Whether she really smelled or not, the rumors were persistent and pervasive.

They wouldn’t just die out on their own.

This was all his fault. It was all the fault of that man. The Orc Hero Bash.

If he had only dragged her away like an orc should, then Thunder Sonia would not have to live under this stigma.

Of course, if he actually did drag her off and make her his sex slave, things would have been a whole lot worse for her…

Anyway, despite ruining her life, the orc hadn’t even done her the courtesy of acknowledging it!

The other day, the orc hadn’t even said hello or long time no see to her when they were reunited after all this time.

Hmm, under the circumstances, given what had transpired between them, perhaps a greeting of that sort would have been in poor taste, though.

Still, his manners were shocking. He looked her right in the face and didn’t even react.

According to Aconitum, Bash had simply watched their carriage roll past with a blank look on his orcish face.

Now, any typical orc, upon laying eyes on a beauty like Sonia, would immediately pitch a tent in his pants and lick his lips with desire.

Ah, but it had been a long time since that had happened.

The last time an orc had reacted to Sonia that way, it had been before the elf nation had turned it around in the war, when they were being battered on all sides by the orc forces. Back when Sonia was still young.

At some point, their interest in her ceased. Then, whenever an orc caught sight of Sonia, he would simply shudder—or else run at her, prepared to fight to the death.

No orc had lusted after Sonia in several hundred years.

That said, the war was over now.

And the orcs were known to have become almost civilized these days.

So then why hadn’t Bash pitched a tent in his pants or given her a lustful look at all?

Could it be that her age really had caught up with her…?!

Bash’s indifference toward her had sent Sonia into a self-conscious spiral.

Not that she would ever let it show outwardly, of course. After all, she was the Great Elf Sorceress, the Elf Hero herself. A woman so exalted that she could never afford to show weakness or doubt in front of her subordinates.

“Anyway, what I want to know is what that orc is doing in our land! You’re having him monitored, right? Well? What’s he doing?”

“His first day here, he seemed to be gathering info. Ever since, he’s been seen zombie hunting in the forest.”

“Zombie hunting? What for?”

“I don’t know. Probably gathering funds to move on to the next town.”

“Nonsense! I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous! He said he came here to see me, didn’t he?!”

“Well, whatever he said, he’s done nothing but hunt zombies.”

Seven days had passed since Bash came to town.

His first day there, he was reported to be sniffing around town for some reason. But these days, all he did was go back and forth between his inn and the forest.

He was being suspiciously unsuspicious.

Causing no trouble. Keeping his nose clean.

Almost as if he wasn’t really an orc at all.

“But you know, he’s been the talk of the town. Everyone’s talking about the orc who showed up out of nowhere and started slaying zombies all over the place, saying how the orcs are surprisingly pretty amazing. Actually, thanks to him, the number of zombie sightings has plummeted over the past seven days. We’re thinking about sending the army in to mop up what’s left and put this thing to bed once and for all. Wouldn’t have been possible without the orc’s efforts.”

“All right, all right, you don’t have to suck up to him, you know.”

“It’s what his fans have been saying, not me.”

“Fools! All this glorification of murder! Remember what that little twerp Leucanthemum always says? We must remember the dead but forget the ones who slayed them. No keeping score.”

The current Elf King, Leucanthemum, had issued a decree to all elves, in the name of peace.

To bear no grudge against those who had been their enemies during the war.

Ill feelings only led to future wars. And so Leucanthemum’s words would often be quoted whenever there was any talk of who had killed whom.

Blood had been shed on both sides. All was fair in love and war, after all.

Of course, it was difficult not to hold grudges. But they had to break this age-old tradition.

The marriage boom between elves and other races, that played a part in it, too. But Leucanthemum’s decree was key in changing the minds of the xenophobic elves and in helping them to open up and accept other races in general.

And it was the decree that meant Bash had such an easy time entering the elf town, compared to the hostile reception he was met with at the gates of Krassel.

Still, maybe that was more due to the fact that most of the soldiers in this town had been busy fighting other races than the orcs during the war. So their prejudices weren’t so strong.

“Lady Thunder Sonia. You’re contradicting yourself. Are you saying it’s a bad thing that the orc has been assisting with the zombie-culling effort?”

“Oh, hush. I know I’m just being…churlish.”

Sonia heaved an exaggerated sigh.

Well, there was no sense in dwelling on things that couldn’t be changed.

“Hmm, well anyway. The orc can stay. When I really think about it, if he was actually planning something nefarious, he probably wouldn’t have approached me and acted so outwardly suspicious.”

Sonia had been panicked when Bash first came to town and felt the icy grip of fear around her heart when he told her he would “be back to see her again,” whatever that meant. But nothing had happened. She was going to be okay…probably. She still felt a small knot of nerves deep in her stomach, but as long as the orc made no sudden moves, there was no reason to suspect him.

Sonia hated the rumors about her, but she didn’t wish Bash any ill will in particular.

It was all her fault for losing their battle, really.

Rather than blaming him, Sonia wanted to find a way to squash the rumors for good.

That was what Sonia desired most in the whole world, at least right now.

But how to do that? Challenging Bash to a grudge match and emerging victorious this time around…wouldn’t be enough to get rid of the rumors.

And she could hardly beg the orc to capture and ravish her in front of loose-tongued witnesses, just to prove she was desirable. No, that was crazy talk.

“Damn those humans!”

And so Sonia turned her ire irrationally on the human race.

“They’re irresponsible, flighty cads, but for some reason, they handle us elves with kid gloves! I wish that, just once, one of them would throw caution to the wind and at least try to date me! That would get rid of the rumors of my…old-person smell…in an instant! And I’d make sure the guy was set up for life in exchange! I’d wait on him hand and foot for the rest of his days! Why, I’ve already devoted twelve hundred years of my life to the elf kingdom! I could spend fifty or sixty years pleasing a man! I mean, human men love having a woman by their side, doting on them, don’t they? And I’m a beauty, aren’t I? What more do these people want?!?!”

“It’s immodest to call yourself a beauty.”

“Are you saying I’m not?! All right, I may be twelve hundred years old, but physically, I don’t look a day over one hundred! I can use pretty much any magical spell, and I’m smart! I’m practically a genius! I have significant knowledge of politics, and I even know my way around business consulting! All that on top of a pretty face! All right, so I’ve never actually done the deed, but human men love that, don’t they?! Why, six hundred years ago, a human general stopped at our elf encampment once, since we were allies and all, and he bedded all the elven virgins, one right after another! I’ll never forget that!”

Unable to do anything about the Bash situation, Sonia had decided to rant about the human men who had rejected her advances instead.

Aconitum could do nothing but listen to her carrying on, a small smile playing about his lips.

He was sure that at least one human man would be willing to date his great-aunt if only she put as much fervor into asking one as she did into complaining about them in private.

But during a face-to-face interaction with a human male, Sonia would never carry on this way.

Not only was she shy and a late bloomer, but she always tried to comport herself with the dignity and poise befitting her status as the Great Elf Sorceress, Thunder Sonia.

In other words…she always acted far too cool.

And no human man would be foolish enough to come on to a woman who was clearly someone of great importance, someone who behaved as a dignified hero of her race.

If they said the wrong thing and upset her, it could lead to a major diplomatic incident between the elf and human countries.

When she visited the human country, she came as an honored guest and was treated like royalty. Even a one-night stand with a random man would be completely unfeasible.

Thunder Sonia was convinced that rumors of her alleged old-person smell had reached human ears, but this was not so at all.

“Hmm, come to think of it, Tum-Tum…how about you do the honors? Keep the bloodline pure, y’know?”

Aconitum’s cheeks stiffened. His great-aunt’s suggestion made his blood run cold.

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

Aconitum’s earliest memories were of Thunder Sonia changing his diapers.

And while she was changing them, Sonia would be smugly telling his mother: “Just leave this to me. I changed your diapers—and your mom’s diapers, too, you know. I’m like…the family wet nurse! Ha-ha!”

Yes, Thunder Sonia had been almost like a nanny to Aconitum growing up, as she was to all the kids in the family.

Naturally, he had never once even thought about his great-aunt that way. Nor would he ever. Lady Sonia was just that desperate.

“I’ll have you know, there’s already someone I’ve set my heart upon.”

“What?! You’ve got yourself a sweetheart?! You could have told me! So who is it? What family does she belong to? Are there any impediments between you two? Are you star-crossed lovers?! If so, I’ll swoop in and have a word! Wait, she’s not a succubus, is she? That’s one thing I won’t allow! I’ll use my influence to have you disinherited, mark my words! No, I’ll have you driven out of elf country and banished altogether! But don’t worry, you can tell me. I’m a reasonable woman! Go on, then!”

“It’s Princess Innuella, the beastkin king’s third daughter. We’re still at the negotiation stage at the moment, so it’s being kept under wraps for now.”

“What?! That’s your type, is it? And what do you mean, ‘negotiations’? What, are they checking to see if you’re good enough for her, is that it?! Arranging to get you promoted so you’re suitable? Quibbling over the best date for the announcement? Why haven’t I heard about any of this?!”

“I asked Father to keep it from you, since you’re such a blabbermouth…”

“Then why just blurt it out now?! Foolish boy! Have you learned nothing thus far?! Don’t you understand the importance of withholding sensitive information?! Well?!”

Aconitum sighed and rolled his eyes with annoyance. Just then, an owl landed on the windowsill, hooted once, and began to peck the glass with its beak.

It had a scroll tied to its leg.

“Hmm? What’s this? A message?”

Sonia opened the window and held out her arm for the bird to perch on. Then she gently removed the scroll from its leg.

The scroll was a letter.

“Aw, it’s from Calendula. Cally.”

“…General Calendula, you mean?”

“Mm-hmm. Seems they’ve spotted a lich among the zombies…”

“A lich…really? So then, the cause of the zombie outbreak over the past few years has been…?”

“Yep. So that’s why they keep springing back up, and we can never quite manage to stamp ’em out.”

The appearance of undead has always been a largely natural phenomenon.

When a person dies, but their soul still harbors deep grudges or regrets, the body is reanimated and seeks to steal the souls of the living.

However, once a zombie was defeated in battle, that would be the end of it.

Also, it was said that the souls of those who become zombies were irredeemably cursed, such that they could never be revived again.

But if a lich was among them…then none of that applied.

The lichs were a superior class of undead who could use their macabre powers to gather together the shattered souls and reanimate the fallen zombies.

In other words, as long as a lich was lurking about, it would be next to impossible to stop the zombies from regenerating ad infinitum.

“They’re launching a major-scale cleanup operation five days from now, and they want my help. I’m to go and attend the strategy meeting at once.”

“But it’s the middle of the night.”

“Yes, yes, we’ll be burning the midnight oil, that’s for sure. But if there really is a lich out there, then there’s no time to waste.”

The elf army soldiers were highly skilled.

Three years had passed since the end of the war.

The knowledge that they had amassed over thousands of years of war was still with them. They were as sharp as ever.

When they went on the attack, they did so with their full force, in a highly coordinated effort.

The elf army had decided to mobilize the Shiwanashi Forest Division’s Second Battalion against the zombies. They were going all out and taking this very seriously, even though their enemy was nothing more than a horde of shambling corpses.

The Second Battalion’s unit had more magic soldiers than the rest of the army put together.

Fire magic proved particularly effective against zombies.

Now would be the best opportunity for them to eradicate the zombie threat once and for all.

“Hmm, although…with such a major-scale operation going on, I’m concerned about what that orc will get up to in the meantime. I mean, what if he acts while we’re all distracted?”

“Er… But he hasn’t done anything particularly suspicious. Let’s just leave him be. As I said, if he really did come here to do something sneaky, there’s no way he would have made himself conspicuous by accosting me on a dark street and making vague threats, now, is there?”

“Are you sure, Gran—Lady Sonia? You don’t want to, y’know…mess with the orc, just for the fun of it?”

“Hey! Who do you take me for? I’m not that petty! I wouldn’t mess with someone just because we were enemies in the past! Give me some credit! No, the orc shall go unharmed!”

The owl was watching both of them with round, staring eyes as they bickered back and forth like fools.

“Anyway, I’m off to see Cally-poo! So go and get ready!”

“Certainly.”

“Hmph! I need some time to prepare myself, as well. Come and collect me in…say…an hour’s time. Got that?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Aconitum bowed sharply before leaving the room as quickly as possible.