Interlude: The Swordswoman’s Mistake

Interlude:
The Swordswoman’s Mistake

 

Meltia

 

WHEN YUNO AND I returned to the village with the others, we were stunned. The tall watchtower was gone, along with several other buildings. Craters and huge cracks in the earth had appeared all across town, too.

Apparently, something major had gone down in the village center.

“Hey, are we too late?” Daz, the archer, turned to us and whispered.

My hunch had clearly been wrong. The discovery of that bandit cave in the forest had prompted me to gather up my friends; I wanted to neutralize the bandits before they became a threat to the village. But this was very obviously not the work of humans.

I had made a severe miscalculation, and a surge of powerlessness accompanied that realization. Yuno and I should have been here. We could have managed the situation. We could have prevented deaths and injuries.

According to a passing villager, two dragons had appeared and used the center of town as their battleground. Everything we saw now was collateral damage.

The dragon who lost the fight had perished. The victor was gravely injured and fell into the chasm nearby.

Even more alarming was a supposedly dead man suddenly showing up and going berserk. Rumors about the cause spanned all the way from zombies to poisonous mushrooms.

I thought again about my nixed theory of necromancy. None of the town’s graves were disturbed, but if that guy really was a zombie, I couldn’t dismiss the theory.

Was that bandit group dabbling in necromancy? That was dangerous magic. But if they were already a bunch of lawless bandits, why would they care?

I took my three companions and headed to Marielle’s house. She’d be able to tell me what happened in town without floating some ridiculous theory. Despite her unassuming presence, she hadn’t stayed in this village so long just for show.

She wasn’t at home, so we went back into town to find her. We quickly located her in the town’s community center, which had been converted into a makeshift shelter for the people who lost their houses in the incident and a hospital to treat the wounded. Marielle walked around casting white magic on the injured villagers. We made eye contact, and she stopped.

“I’m Meltia. I’ve visited the village before.” I didn’t mention she was the one who’d hired me; she’d asked me to keep that bit of information a secret so as not to alarm the residents.

She took me back to her house, and I relayed my questions. Nothing she had to say differed greatly from the rumors around town. I could tell she was hiding something from me, but I doubted any persuasion could entice her to give up that information.

I told her about finding something I thought was a bandit hideout. Initially, I’d gotten her permission to explore the forest, but if anyone asked, we could tell them we’d entered on our own. Then she could explain the dragon incident as divine comeuppance for too many people tramping through the forest.

It would serve to put the villagers at ease and stop them from searching for a cause, and at the same time discourage others from entering the dangerous forest. Marielle could kill two birds with one stone.

Doz himself had ignored entreaties to stay out of the forest, setting off this strange chain of events in the first place. Marielle couldn’t let the villagers discover she had given us adventurers permission to enter.

We were standing up to leave when she stopped me. “Ah, there’s one more thing. Can I ask you a question?”

I hung back as she stood up from her seat.

“Do you remember Myria? The girl who was here with me last time we spoke.” I thought back on my last visit, conjuring up the image of a small woman with bobbed hair and skin as beautiful and clear as a porcelain doll’s.

“She says she wants to go on an adventure. I want you to look after her for a while. Just teach her the ways of the world outside this village, that’s all. I’ll pay you. If you need to consider my offer, you can give me your answer after your current job is done. Or you can talk to her first and then decide.”

I’d heard Myria was the only other person in town besides Marielle who could use white magic. Under normal circumstances I was sure she’d want to avoid losing her, so there must be a very good reason.

Myria was rumored to have let one of the dragons into town; I wondered if she was being chased out. But then I saw the look on Marielle’s face and knew that wasn’t it.

I didn’t mind taking care of some fledgling white mage, but I needed a better grasp on the situation. I wanted to speak to her first.

“Well, we’ll think about it while we’re searching the forest.” That was a safe and perfectly acceptable answer. We said goodbye and left Marielle’s house.

And now, with her blessing, we made our way towards Noah’s Forest.

We were set upon by wolves, spiders, some weird bear made of clay, and all kinds of other strange creatures, but four was much safer than two.

Daz acted as our vanguard. After his poisoned arrows stunned the monsters, Yuno charged in with her hammer. Then I attacked from close range with my sword or Light Magic. And when the battle was over, Romeena, our white mage, would heal us.

With those numbers, we could easily defeat that Young Plague Dragon we’d seen before.

“Hey, Meltia, you sure there was a bandit hideout all the way out here?” Daz asked skeptically after we trooped the long way around the chasm.

“Yes, I’ve seen it. We’re almost there. I have an exceptional sense of direction. Don’t worry.”

“I checked into it after you told me the story. I talked to the biggest merchant on this continent, and he didn’t know anything about it. If enough piperis to fill a huge pot disappeared, it would be a huge deal. You sure it was even piperis?”

“You never told me you were looking into it.”

“You sure the people in the cave didn’t flee from another continent? It’s possible they smuggled the piperis in—there’s a huge underground trade. Maybe that’s why nobody wanted to talk about it. But I don’t know, after looking around the forest, I’m finding it hard to believe.”

Daz was raised in an orphanage in a city filled with strife and did a stint working for organized crime. He certainly had far more experience in this area than I did. If he said something was off, that this area didn’t make sense for a hideout, I believed him.

He spoke lightheartedly, but he wasn’t the type of man to say things he didn’t mean. The world had taught him life was too short for idle chatter.

Still. I knew piperis when I saw it.

“It smelled exactly like piperis. Yuno saw it, too. Didn’t you?”

“Oh, Yuno couldn’t possibly comment on such expensive things. That was my first time seeing it. We were so poor growing up that I ran away from home so my mother couldn’t sell me. We once had to roast my father’s shoes and eat them. Although, they would have tasted better if we had piperis…” Yuno sounded oddly proud of the story, her ears twitching cheerfully. Still, it was a pretty effective mood-killer, and the rest of us were silent for a few moments.

I knew she took pride in how far she’d come from nothing, but that didn’t mean I liked hearing about it.

“Ah, oh…sorry. It’s not like Yuno’s never used anything expensive, or…anyway, we’re almost there! The cave should be right here…oh…”

I broke into a run and found…nothing. The mysterious statues were gone, along with the jerky-strung trees.

Was this the wrong place? No, I’m sure this is right…“What’s wrong, Meltia?”

“Yuno, there was a cave here before, right? Right?!”

“Hm, Yuno’s not super confident about her memory. Are you sure it wasn’t a bit farther?”

I didn’t think so, but if it really wasn’t here, then there was no other explanation.

“Are you sure you saw it? This story’s fishy all the way through. You sure you weren’t just dreamin’?” Daz seemed exasperated.

“No, I wasn’t dreaming! There were trees with meat strung up in them and statues…”

“Oh yeah? Well, why don’t we look somewhere else. No point in staying here.”

“Yuno will go first!” Yuno shouted. “It was farther into the forest anyway. Honestly, Lady Meltia, for someone so brave you can be so forgetful sometimes!”

Wow, was that really what Yuno thought of me? I guess this wasn’t the time to dwell on that.

“Hang on! It was around here! I swear it was here!”

“Hurry up and come along,” Yuno said gently. “Let’s keep going.”

Yuno started walking, and Daz followed her. Romeena glanced between us, conflicted, then quietly said “I’m sorry” and ran off after Yuno.

I wasn’t sure why she apologized, but there was no point staying here. Feeling a sudden sense of abandonment, I hurried after the rest of the group.