Part 2 — A Small Paradise

13

Thus began Kai’s secret visits to the valley.

Kai couldn’t bear to be away from the place for a single day, so he’d slip out of the village when it got dark each night, and then he’d travel 50 yulds to his beautiful valley.

“This valley is the best.”

Each time he visited the valley, he never grew tired of cleaning the gravestone of the land god, and he would pray to it passionately after he’d cleaned away any dirt. Then he’d enjoy relaxing in the quiet atmosphere of the valley for a while before starting work on one of his personal projects.

Kai’s current fixation was the search for an area of land where he could build his dream house. Over the past few days he had been exploring every inch of the base of the valley.

The inside of the valley was a circular space that was 300 yules in diameter. It wasn’t particularly wide, but Kai had it all to himself, and to him it felt like a vast area.

He’d already found several spots here and there that were to his liking.

Fresh water came from the surface of the rocks in a small cave. Lots of tiny crabs were hiding in a narrow stream. An angular rock that jutted from the ground formed a rugged hill.

He named the cave “Western Water Cave,” the stream “Crab Stream,” and the hill “Rock Hopping Hill.” To put it bluntly, he was really bad at coming up with names.

That island thing looks kinda interesting.

Some distance from the shore of the lake that filled a third of the valley, there was a spot where grass and trees grew from something like a shoal. It looked like it was just wide enough to fit a small hut on it.

The wetness of the area would be a problem, but that could be worked around by building the hut from wood and giving it a raised floor.

After walking around the forest once and returning back to the grave of the land god, the “harvest” that Kai had gathered was so much that it was almost spilling from his hands. Further from the walls of the cliff, he’d found fruits and vegetables and an incredible variety of mushrooms. When he found a collection of small red fruit known as maca, he felt guilty for keeping them all to himself. Ever since demi-humans had started to invade, the villagers had rarely had a chance to eat maca, making it a treasured desert.

Kai sat down in front of the gravestone while he ate the maca and messily slurped the juice from it.

Wherever I decide to build my cabin, I need some wood before I can start.

While searching the forest, he’d been on the lookout for good wood, but unfortunately nothing he found looked like it would make good timber. The trees at the bottom of the valley were your typical broad-leafs.

Looks like I’ll never find good timber with all these broad-leafs around.

Based on his past life memories, he’d had to accept that the unusual plant life here at the bottom of the valley would make it hard to find materials.

Kai still didn’t understand all the complicated reasoning behind it, but the trees that grew in this area of the borderlands were generally needle-leaf trees because the winters here were harsh. And yet the base of the valley was like another world that had its own climate for some reason.

But Kai wasn’t pessimistic about collecting trees for timber. He could find much more suitable trees growing outside of the valley.

The trees in the vast forests of the borderlands included large balen cedars that grew everywhere and were a good source of timber, and it was common for humans to cut down these trees for the sake of building houses in their settlements.

I could just go up top and cut a tree down so it falls into the lake.

Kai looked up at the cloudless starry sky and saw the Milky Way. In this world those stars were known as Ispi Rio, meaning river of souls. He could judge how long he had until morning from the angle of these stars in the western sky.

Knowing that there was no time like the present, Kai made his way up the cliff to look for good trees on the bank where he’d almost been killed by the org. At first, he figured that it would take the least effort to drop the tree into the valley if it was already close to the cliff, but some piece of knowledge within him warned, “That’ll make the valley walls crumble.” Instead, he looked for trees further from the valley’s edge.

It felt strange to think that the roots of a tree could grip the soil to prevent a cliff from collapsing.

At the top of the bank he found a thicket of trees surrounded by dense undergrowth that looked untouched. He only had to look at the area for a few moments before he found several beautiful balen cedars.

“All right. You can be the first.”

He didn’t want to choose a tree that was too broad. Not just because it would take too long to cut through; it felt wrong somehow to cut down elder trees unceremoniously.

Kai didn’t have any tools of course. He had brought his knife, but that obviously wasn’t going to be useful for cutting down a tree.

Let’s see if there’s a way to do it with magic.

He carefully considered what approach to take.

He had a lot more spiritual energy now that he’d gained a guardian, so he didn’t have to be so careful about how he used his magic. He searched through the knowledge that came to mind from his past life memories.

The idea of using water or air to cut through an object came to him, but he would have to try those ideas out to find out whether they could work.

His first idea was that he might create cutting power using wind, and the word that came to his mind was “kamaitachi.” His first attempt at creating some sort of magic “wind cutter” failed because it was too difficult to mentally picture a whirlwind. The idea of pushing the air to create wind was easier to work with, but it used up a surprising amount of spiritual energy just to create a slight breeze.

He considered applying pressure by creating a forceful flow of water in some sort of magic “water cutter,” but the whole idea of a massive amount of water appearing from nowhere was absurd.

Kai considered fire magic his specialty, but his initial attempt to cut through a branch with his “heat cutter” set the branch on fire. After briefly panicking, he put the fire out and gave up on the idea of using fire completely.

Kai thought about it for a while and concluded that fire magic didn’t work according to basic laws of physics. Based on that, he theorized that magic was the power to take pure concepts and turn them into reality, making conceptual weapons a possibility.

What he imagined next was a sword. But the sword he imagined was a magic sword that embodied the very concept of “cutting.”

To cut through the tree... if I had an invisible blade that could slip between the “molecules.”

Plants and animals were aggregated organic matter. And organic matter was nothing more than a substance formed by collections of molecules.

Those molecules were mostly joined together by electrostatic bonds between positive and negative charges.

In a bond caused by what’s known as a Van der Waals interaction, an attraction between a positive and negative charge would cause the molecules to stick together, and if like charges were brought into contact, this would cause a repulsion interaction that moved the charges apart.

Kai was just a boy who’d had no education during his life in the village, so he obviously didn’t have enough fundamental knowledge to fully understand this kind of high-level science, but some part of his brain was wired up to accept seemingly ridiculous ideas.

Whatever these bonds are, I’ll split them apart when I cut!

The blade edge in this concept would easily penetrate the molecular-scale crystals within the wood, and would use force to break apart the powerful electrostatic bonds that held them together.

The object he applied this magic to was the edge of his hand. He decided on a time limit of three seconds for using this “invisible sword” after trying out several cutting motions. Kai had become comfortable with the concept of seconds by this point.

He imagined a blade capable of cutting through molecular bonds.

He held up his arm and applied the mental image to it.

He quickly swung his arm down while the effect was still active.

Immediately after swinging his arm, he closed the floodgate to stop the flow of magic.

He performed these actions as part of a smooth series of motions.

Kai put his strength as a guardian bearer behind his hand movement and didn’t worry for a moment about injuring his hand if his magic failed. As soon as he could feel the heat that came with using magic around his hand, he swung his hand downward and chopped.

With barely any resistance, his hand sunk to about the center of the tree trunk. In fact, the straight edge of his hand had sunk into the tree like it was a lump of dirt.

Ugh...?

The gloopy sensation he felt was unpleasant, and he quickly pulled his hand away. An indentation the shape of his hand was left behind in the cedar tree, and although it had stood under its own strength until now, it wasn’t long before the tree began falling in the direction of the cut. There was a great cracking sound as it collapsed under its own weight.

Kai had intended to choose one of the younger trees, but it was still one of the larger trees in the forest, and the sound of it falling was not an everyday sound.

It caused the branches in trees around it to break as it fell, and the ground shook when it landed.

Sleeping birds woke up and squawked as they took to the air, and then after a short delay there was the sound of howling from the residents of the forest. It was unusual for such a disturbance of the peace to happen so late at night.

Now that Kai had gotten the hang of it, he cut down another two and then another three trees, which he threw down into the valley, without any concern about the noise he was making. But then his work was brought to a standstill.

“Buhshururu!”

Before he knew it, he’d been surrounded by demi-humans. Kai’s excellent night vision made it possible for him to identify them.

They’re lagarto...!

The residents of the forest’s marshland were an amphibious species with long tails, sharp teeth, and a hide that was tough like stone.

The marshland in which the lagarto lived was spread out fairly broadly around the valley, and Kai had to be careful to avoid straying into their territory. He had been careful up to now when traveling to and from the valley, but he’d been so absorbed in felling trees that he’d been slow to realize that he was being a neighborhood nuisance.

The unique sounds coming from the long faces of the creatures were probably a conversation between them, but Kai understood none of it.

What he did understand was that they weren’t very happy.

The area where Kai was cutting down trees wasn’t in the marshland, of course. Which meant it was the lagarto who had left the water to approach him after hearing the noise.

“Sorry. Was I annoying you?”

“Gurururu...”

They were both intelligent species, so they could communicate to some extent as long as they paid careful attention to each other’s behavior.

Kai was clearly a human, but the lagarto didn’t seem concerned about that, and they didn’t appear to be looking for a fight.

One of the larger members of the group slowly made its way to the front, and then switched from crawling on all fours to standing on its hind legs. In terms of body size, orgs looked bigger, but the lagarto had much more powerful looking muscles. The sight of the tough hide that could protect them against any ordinary weapon would have caused an ordinary human to wet themselves in fear.

This was clearly a lagarto guardian bearer.

The spikes on its back looked sharper than the spikes of the others, and its teeth also looked bigger. Most importantly, the skin around its neck was colored like the striped pattern on a red snake, and Kai quickly recognized that this was what humans would call a kumadori.

“I do not know you, but can see, you powerful warrior. You look like human.”

“I didn’t mean any harm. I’ll try to keep it down.”

“You often seen in this place.”

“Yeah, I’m going to live in the valley.”

“You say... the valley?”

Hearing this, the lagarto suddenly lost their calm and made agitated-sounding noises to each other. Kai guessed they were saying things like, “He lives in the valley?” and “But that can’t be right.”

“Fearsome god live in the valley,” the lagarto guardian bearer said. “All who go near be killed.”

Something didn’t seem quite right, and Kai didn’t trust them. He started by asking a question he already knew the answer to.

“A god? There’s a god in the valley?”

“Indeed.”

“Well, I didn’t see him, and I’ve walked around the whole thing.”

“You walk in valley?!”

The lagarto were becoming increasingly agitated.

Kai couldn’t understand why, but the lagarto guardian bearer stretched its body upward in shock, as if this was some sort of great revelation. It blinked with shutter-like eyelids and then muttered a few broken words.

“Cannot be... ***** has died?”

A shudder ran through the red lagarto’s body.

14

The lagarto showed no hostility towards Kai despite the fact that he was obviously a human. In the past, when human soldiers had strayed into their territory, the lagarto had killed them without warning, so the current situation was surprising to Kai.

He looked into the strange yellow reptilian eyes of the lagarto, and he became curious about the world that they saw through their vertical narrow pupils.

“You say you are next master of valley?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The lagarto turned to leave as if it had learned all it wanted to know, so Kai had to move quickly to stop it.

When they’d seen Kai acting as though the valley belonged to him, they had decided that some creature with the hard to understand name of “*****” had died. The lagarto knew something that might explain why Kai had suddenly become fixated on the valley.

Even though their two species had been engaged in a bloody battle with each other not long before, Kai was calm and fearless as he looked at the lagarto guardian bearer.

The lagarto seemed unwilling to stop, so to prevent it from escaping he quickly moved in front to block its way. Kai could feel something like killing intent from the lagarto now.

“What?”

“Who is *****?”

The name was difficult to pronounce, but when he pronounced it right, it had a clear effect on the lagarto, and they understood his question.

The lagarto guardian bearer went from standing on its two hindlegs to resting on four legs like a lizard, and it swung its long tail to clear any undergrowth that might get in its way. Kai didn’t know it then, but this was something the lagarto did to make themselves comfortable when they wanted to rest in the same spot for a long time. The guardian bearer shook its head at the other members of its tribe, so they left and went back to their beds.

Kai and the lagarto guardian bearer were left face-to-face with each other.

Without either needing to ask, they naturally knew to exchange names.

“My name’s Kai.”

“Mngoleh.

“That’s a little hard to say. Can I call you Goleh?”

“...”

Humans always regarded demi-humans as their enemy, and for a human to communicate with another species like this was more unusual than Kai would have guessed.

As long as Kai was the occupant of the valley and Goleh lived in the nearby marshlands, the two would be neighbors. As a show of friendship, Kai took out one of the maca that were hidden in his pocket and offered it to the lagarto. He then took out another and took a bite from it.

Goleh quickly realized that Kai was trying to show him that they weren’t poisoned, and it threw the red maca back into its throat with a single peck with its big mouth. It gulped the fruit down without needing to chew.

“Who is *****?” Kai asked for a second time.

Goleh blinked its shutter-like eyelids as if the question needed some thought.

“For long time, we live in fear of *****,” Goleh began calmly.

The pronunciation was difficult to understand, but Kai quickly got used to it and listened carefully to what Goleh had to say. He guessed that the lagarto were more comfortable when resting on four legs, so he followed Goleh’s example by sitting down in the grass and crossing his legs.

Now the nature of “*****” was revealed to him.

“Well, he sounds like a real monster to me.”

“He was survivor of the old ones who lived in the forest. Very proud warrior who give fierce punishment to ones who abandon faith.”

Lagarto lived long lives, but even they didn’t know how long the valley had been ruled by the survivor of the old ones known as *****.

Goleh was head of the lagarto’s Unega tribe, and even he didn’t know the original name of the “old ones.” Goleh claimed to have lived in the marshlands for over 200 years.

It wasn’t just the lagarto; the orgs and the few remaining koror also refused to go near the valley in fear of *****. Goleh claimed that no one had seen ***** for many years, but the lagarto still feared him so much that they wouldn’t even approach the valley.

The orgs were also unaware that the occupant of the valley was missing. The being known as ***** had used fear as a means of keeping intruders away, and the valley had become something of a sacred place that no one dared enter.

Through his connection with the land god of the valley, Kai knew it was true that ***** had died. A land god’s blessings could only ever be given to one person. As a guardian bearer, Kai knew this instinctively, and it was beyond all doubt.

Had ***** died in the valley, or in some foreign land? For some reason, Kai felt sure that ***** had died isolated and alone.

“None knew ***** was dead. It is by chance that you receive god of land as your guardian. That is all.”

The lagarto’s reasoning was calm and straightforward.

It was Kai’s first time talking to a demi-human, and he was surprised to learn that they could speak so rationally.

But surprised as he was, he had no trouble accepting that this was just how the world was. The humans of this world weren’t vain enough to think that man was the lord of all creation.

When they were done talking, Goleh thanked Kai for the maca and then slowly turned to leave.

Kai had learned that lagarto also enjoyed maca. He decided that next time he visited, he’d bring many more as gifts.

Although Kai didn’t realize it, the lagarto had now formally accepted him as the occupant of the valley. As long as everyone kept to their own territory, the lagarto were an incredibly peaceful species.

In the end, he’d been given the go-ahead to cut down trees and carry them away. The trees had no value to the lagarto, so he was told to take as many as he pleased. But Kai had lost enthusiasm for tonight, so he decided that he should also return to his own territory.

After descending into the valley, he gathered up the trees that he’d dropped down, cleanly stripped them of their branches, and lined them up on the lakeshore. Between now and his next visit, he’d have to think carefully about how he’d cut them into timber.

“Am I really good enough for you, my god?” Kai asked, after finishing his prayers.

He’d made it a habit to put his hands together in prayer in front of the land god’s gravestone before returning to the village.

He’d merely been lucky. If *****’s previous guardian bearer had still been alive, he’d have been slaughtered the moment he set foot in the valley. The thought of everything being pure luck gave him a lot to consider.

But Kai wasn’t the sort of person to dwell on things that had already happened for too long. He didn’t doubt that he’d just been lucky, so he decided he should set his mind to thinking about the peaceful life he could enjoy here in the valley.

The sky was beginning to glow with a dull light that softly illuminated the gravestone. His time spent enjoying the valley had come to an end. Kai climbed to his feet and hurried back to Lag, and back to his everyday life.

As he ran like the wind through the natural landscape of the borderlands, all of Kai’s lingering doubts were quickly and easily forgotten.

**

After agilely crossing over the defensive walls of the village, Kai would normally have sneaked back to his bed in the barracks, but today he was feeling thirsty, so he decided to make a detour to one of the castle’s deep wells.

The buildings in the village were already colored with the faint purple light of the morning sun. Kai cast a long shadow on the ground as he stood pulling up the bucket from the well. Then he heard the voice of someone he wasn’t expecting.

“You’re up awfully early this morning.”

He turned to see Lady White, who had broken a light sweat. In her hand she held one of the long training staffs that soldiers used on the training ground. Lady White skillfully spun the staff in her hand and then stuck it into the ground beside her.

The women in the village were not trained to fight under ordinary circumstances. They were given the important task of bearing children and raising them so that the population of the village would increase, and sending women out to die on the battlefield was considered unthinkable. This attitude was common to all villages in the borderlands. Fighting was a man’s job.

“You’ve been training?”

“I enjoy the exercise,” Lady White said with a slight smile before telling him that she wanted to drink some water.

He quickly drew the cold water from the well and held out the full bucket to Lady White.

Lady White showed no signs of being humble enough to let Kai go first; she took the bucket without a second thought and appeared to savor the water as she drank. When she was finished, she wiped her mouth with her sleeve like a man.

“You’ve no need for training, My Lady,” Kai said without thinking. “You don’t have to fight, so it’s a waste of time.”

This appeared to put Lady White in a bad mood. “Even if I’m a woman, I’m still a guardian bearer, so I should fight.”

Now that he remembered she was a guardian bearer, Kai couldn’t help but think she might be right.

“They didn’t just make me a guardian bearer because it improved my marriage prospects...” she muttered.

Lady White used the remaining water to clean the part her mouth had touched and then gave the bucket back.

Although she’d said it quietly, Kai had heard her very clearly when she mentioned marriage prospects, but he wasn’t mature enough to grasp the nuance behind what she said, so he just ignored her.

“You won’t tell anyone about this, will you?” she asked him.

“...”

“It’s hard to know what to do when training alone. Why don’t you join me tomorrow?”

Lady White had kept the conversation going while taking Kai’s silence as a sign that he was interested. But Kai had absolutely no sense of the subtleties of conversations between men and women, and he was just ignoring her questions. Dealing with her just felt like a lot of trouble to him.

The only thing he wanted to spend his time on was the valley, so none of this was worth thinking about.

“Listen to me,” Lady White said, sounding slightly annoyed.

As usual, Kai gave no indication of whether he was actually listening or not as he drew more water from the well. He drank heartily before letting out a sigh of satisfaction.

Kai was about to just walk away, but Lady White called after him.

“Don’t ignore me!”

For some reason, Kai then received a long lecture and somehow found himself agreeing to meet her the following morning for training.

15

Lately, hunger pains hadn’t been such a problem for Kai, and he no longer stared enviously at the baron’s table during mealtimes.

The fruits of the trees in the valley were rich with nutrition, and after many years of Kai being an underfed child, the effect was visible on his skin. His entire body radiated energy, and his pained expression of hunger was long gone from his face.

It was the women rather than the men who were most sensitive to that sort of change; not being hungry was a sign that he wasn’t having any problems when it came to being served his meals.

It was proof that there were multiple women who had started showing favoritism towards him, and the women were particularly sensitive to subtle signals from the members of the same sex. If many other women had seen promise in him, it could only mean that he was worth paying attention to. Most of the women didn’t think deeply about this, they just tended to go along with it based on their intuition.

“Oh, come on... That’s a bit much,” another soldier said to Kai.

Kai looked in surprise at the mountain of food that had been piled into his bowl as if he’d only just noticed himself.

When someone wasn’t hungry, that resulted in them being given more food. Such was the unfair nature of the world.

Up until now, Kai had only had to deal with banter from slightly jealous soldiers, but today it was outright hatred, and he didn’t have a comeback.

“I’ll share some of it...”

“Yeah, all right.”

Manso had always been good to Kai, so Kai shared enough food to give Manso his usual sized serving. His fellow soldiers didn’t react with gratitude, and it was an awkward meal.

The women who’d served the food were standing together near the baron’s table.

Some of them were giving Kai meaningful glances, and others tried to get his attention by waving at him. There was no denying Kai’s newfound popularity.

“They could at least spare a thought for the rest of us.”

“I hear you’re even talking to Lady White now. Whatever trick you’ve pulled, you need to cut that shit out.”

The other soldiers nodded in agreement.

The time for Kai to stop his tricks came when breakfast was finished and some of the soldiers gathered for what they called “cleaning duty selection.”

House Moloch, the rulers of Lag, made it a rule that gravesite cleaning would take place once a month. There were three guardian bearers in House Moloch: the baron, Olha, and Lady White. Accordingly, there were three gravesites where their land gods rested.

The baron’s gravesite was of course the gravesite of Lagdara, which was in the center of the village, beneath the castle. Lag was a settlement that had grown up around the land god’s gravesite at its center, and every child in the village was taught that the castle had been built for the sole purpose of protecting that gravesite.

The gravesites of the land gods that served as Olha and Lady White’s guardians were in different places, of course. House Moloch had controlled two other settlements that were now left in ruin after repeated attacks from demi-humans.

One of these was the village of Elg, which at one point had a population half the size of Lag. The other was a small village known as Eda, which had been half the size of Elg. Both had been in ruin for over 10 years now. They were covered by overgrown weeds and would soon be swallowed by the ever-expanding forests.

House Moloch had once been known as “The Lords of the Three Colonies,” and had been one of the great powers of the borderlands.

Although the settlements themselves had been lost, House Moloch had stubbornly held on to the gravesites of the land gods. The shrines had been built to cover the gravesites, and those had then been disguised as mounds of earth so that demi-humans wouldn’t find them.

It goes without saying that the blessings of those land gods were weakened after their gravesites had been treated with such disrespect. To prevent the favor of these land gods from being lost entirely, House Moloch had continued to make regular offerings at the gravesites after the villages were lost.

“The competition’s fierce for Lady White’s party.”

“You’d best keep out of it and leave a place for someone else.”

“...”

The gravesite of the land god that protected Lady White was in the village of Eda.

Offerings could only be presented by the person receiving the blessings of that god, so it was necessary for Lady White to visit Eda herself. For men shunned by the women, the chance to serve as one of Lady White’s guards was a simple dream.

Kai didn’t care about that, of course, so he agreed to keep out of it.

He’d promised not to take part in the “selection battle” that secretly took place between the soldiers after breakfast. Indeed, Kai didn’t raise his hand when there was a request for volunteers who would guard Lady White.

How’d it come to this? Kai asked himself as Lady White walked alongside him, talking incessantly.

It was true that he hadn’t raised his hand to volunteer for guard duty. But no one could ever have guessed that Lady White herself would still ask for him as a guard.

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Uh, yeah...”

“They really don’t need to give me so many guards, but Father is always treating me like I’m a child. I do know how to make proper use of my guardian. That’s why I’ve been training. Suppose we were attacked by macaques; don’t you think I could handle that myself? I’ve gotten rather good with the spear, haven’t I? You’ve seen it for yourself, so you must agree.”

“You rely on brute force too much.”

“Ugh...” Blood ran to her pale face, and Lady White puffed out her cheeks in dissatisfaction.

From a distance, she looked how you’d expect a refined lady of the baron’s household to look, but up close, you could see she was actually a very expressive girl who wore her heart on her sleeve.

The wind that passed through her white hair carried a pleasant scent with it, and the young soldiers following behind were thoroughly mesmerized. Her red eyes, with pupils like beautiful rubies, were fixed on the way ahead, and every so often the guards in front would flare their nostrils as they sneaked glances at her.

The soldiers to the front and rear would also look at Kai, and then their stares would become cold and full of envy.

“But I move with such agility, and I do have strength. More strength and agility than you, Kai. So why...”

“It doesn’t matter how agile you are, you’ll still die if you jump onto your opponent’s weapon. And even the baron says that if none of your attacks actually hit your opponent, then no matter how strong you are, you’re little more than a fool.”

“...”

“You can make up for a little difference in strength by being more skilled. All of our soldiers are trained in Zula-ryu, and I think about half of them could beat you without needing a guardian’s power.”

“But...”

“And the strength of your protection is nothing compared to the baron or Lord Olha’s. That’s not your fault, My Lady. Everyone knows there’s a big difference in the power of the protection that different land gods provide.”

“...” Lady White was annoyed, but lost for words.

The protection she was given by the land god she carried had been weakening with each passing year. People said that the blessings of her land god were fading because House Moloch no longer had full control of its land.

“I know. You don’t need to tell me.”

The baron knew this too, which was why he included many guards in Lady White’s party. It was about more than protecting her; if a greater number of people were sent out, there were more hands to work on purifying the gravesite, and they could better demonstrate their continued faith.

As offerings, they’d brought potatoes and turnips that had been harvested that year, along with some valuable ale that had been brewed in the village. Brewing ale required a lot of grain, making it a delicacy that the majority of villagers had never even tasted.

As they walked, the ruined village slowly came into view.

This deserted settlement covered by tall plants was the village of Eda.

Lady White’s land god resided here, and it was the true birthplace of Kai, who had lived here with his parents while still a baby 12 years ago. After a demi-human raid had left the village in ruin, the village was lost to the dirt along with the many lives of the people who’d lived there. It had been the baron who ordered people to gather in the main village of Lag where they could hold out against demi-human attacks.

Kai’s parents were buried somewhere in this village. But the passage of time had made the graves of his parents unrecognizable. The graves of the villagers were little more than mounds of dirt, and the wind and ice of the borderlands would cause them to crumble during the winter so that they became unrecognizable. When the people of the borderlands saw their world return to its natural state like this, they accepted it as a part of life.

Kai felt no particular emotional attachment to a ruined village that he had no memories of. Regardless, he picked flowers from the roadside and left them at the foundations of the crumbling village gate, alongside offerings made by the other soldiers.

“All right,” said one of the soldiers while gesturing to the others. “I don’t want to see a single speck of dirt left on that gravesite!” The one giving the order was a man who walked with a bent back named Flynn. Similar to Manso, he was a squad leader.

The roof of every house had been pulled down and the walls demolished so that demi-humans wouldn’t take up residence in the village. The party moved through the ruins to the center of the village where the foundation stones of a large building were exposed. This had once been a temple where the people of the village would gather. The worship of land gods had taken the form of religion for humans. In most temples, villages would put their hands together in prayer before framed relief prints depicting the god of their land and the three powerful gods of the capital, which blessed the royal family. Occasionally, a traveling priest would visit and host a simple service.

A similar temple existed in Lag, but theirs was a little grander and even had rooms where traveling priests could stay, so strictly speaking, it was a monastery rather than a temple.

Clearing away some of the soil in the center of the ruins of this building revealed a large stone slab. With the strength of several people, the slab could be lifted up to reveal an underground passageway that led to Eda’s gravesite.

This was how the land god of Eda had been concealed underground.

When the slab was lifted, a strong smell of mold was released, causing Kai to wince. He couldn’t help but feel pity for the land god within.

16

The gravesite in Eda village was hidden at the end of the underground passageway.

When House Moloch gave the order to desert the village, they’d had to construct a hiding place for the gravesite very quickly. It was nothing elaborate, just a narrow underground passageway about 10 yules long, and at the end, hidden in the darkness, was the perfectly square rock that formed the gravestone.

“It’s not exactly underground, is it? It’s more like a half basement.”

Once someone knew the location of the gravesite, it was surprisingly easy to see through the attempts made to hide it. It made no sense for there to be a round dirt hill in the middle of the temple ruins, but that’s how they hid the gravesite of the land god. At some point, one of the stone walls of the temple had been pulled down so that the large pieces of debris could be used to cover it, but that hadn’t made it a whole lot less obvious.

“There’re no signs of anything besides us coming in here that I can see. But if anyone sees anything out of place, inform me immediately.”

“We need several people to stand watch around the village. Those picked last in the selection battle, stay where you are as lookouts. Everyone else, you’re cleaning the gravesite.”

The group leader, Flynn, went down into the passageway first as a precaution. Lady White picked up a bucket and followed after him once he’d assured her it was safe. This of course led to a very quiet argument over who got to follow behind her.

“Kai, stay near me.”

“...”

Kai had known that the best thing to do was to wait behind everyone else, but regardless, he now had to apologize to the other soldiers as he moved to the front of the line. Special treatment from Lady White was the last thing he wanted in this situation. It came with no benefits, but it made everyone else jealous. Someone even muttered that he should rip it off, though he wasn’t sure exactly what they wanted him to rip off.

The cleaning team crowded around the gravesite and waited for Lady White to finish saying her prayers. Then everyone began to polish the gravestone using pieces of rough cloth.

Lady White looked particularly serious about cleaning the grave. She was especially concerned about cleaning the grooves of the inscription, as if she believed the dirt in the inscription was what weakened her guardian.

Although Kai knew nothing about that, he started moving toward the inscribed side of the stone to help Lady White clean it. But before he could get near it, he felt cold stares from the other men who were gathering around Lady White, and he immediately turned back.

Now that Kai had his own gravestone to take care of, grave cleaning had a new significance to him. He was polishing the stone with almost as much enthusiasm as Lady White herself, when he happened to notice an inscription alongside some sort of pattern representing Eda.

This gravestone was roughly the same shape as the one in the valley, and just as large. The inscription was different of course. Inscriptions were written in a complex form of writing known as God Era Script, and besides the theologians in the capital and the high priests of their monastery, no one could read them. Kai learned nothing by looking at it.

This god’s getting weak. That was Kai’s feeling as he polished the gravestone.

As he touched the stone he felt a physical sensation on his palm.

He felt something like ripples of heat, or ripples of existence, from deep within the stone. If Kai hadn’t been a guardian bearer, he might not have felt the sensation.

He tried tracing the inscription with his finger, and a vague sense of the meaning came into his mind. With each character, an image came into his mind, and these formed words, and then meaning.

I, Eydalen, swear servitude.

He felt a sensation like foam forming in his head.

Kai was barely aware of his own actions; it was as if something was guiding his finger as he traced the next line of the inscription.

I obey the god Lagdaratohka.

It was a written contract.

Kai opened his eyes, and for a few moments, he felt completely unable to move. But then he saw that the inscription continued for another line, and he moved his trembling fingertip toward it.

His finger slid horizontally along the inscription.

Lagdaratohka ranks among Baalitoliga’s assembly of gods.

Eda’s land god was subservient to Lag’s land god, and Lag’s land god served some other god known as Baal-something-or-other... That was as much as Kai understood.

The inscription was on the surface opposite the side that Lady White and the others were cleaning.

Kai tried to remember the valley’s gravesite in detail and came to the conclusion that there was no inscription on the rear side of the gravestone. It was possible that it had just worn off, but he was certain that if there had been an inscription on the rear, it couldn’t have been very long.

He wasn’t sure why he was able to read God Era Script so suddenly, but it was a major discovery. In his excitement, he pretended to be cleaning as he moved around to the other side to read the inscription on the front face of the stone. And then...

“You’re too close. Give me some space.”

“Spread out, all of you!”

Flynn with the bent back waved a hand at the cluster of men, and they begrudgingly started spreading out.

The room wasn’t just cramped, it also got very hot. When a lot of sweat-covered men gathered in one spot, the heat wasn’t just physically tiring, it could also be mentally tiring.

With the men spread out to give her more space, Lady White recovered her enthusiasm and became absorbed in her work once more. Lady White wasn’t the type of person who becomes guarded around members of the opposite sex.

Fortunately for Kai, enough space had opened up for him to touch the inscription on the front while cleaning it.

Huh...?

He couldn’t understand the inscription on the front no matter where he touched it. He picked up meanings here and there, but when he tried to put the series of mental images together, they broke down and fell apart. The text was nothing more than a meaningless jumble of characters.

It’s like ciphertext, was the thought that came to Kai’s mind.

He wasn’t exactly sure what ciphertext was, but he guessed that it meant that the original meaning of the words had been obscured somehow. If he’d had more time and if there was no one watching, he could have studied the inscription to try and figure it out, but he would probably never get the chance.

Kai glanced over at Lady White, wondering whether she could read the text. He immediately noticed that Lady White’s clothing around her chest had started to come loose while she was cleaning, and he hastily averted his gaze.

It was causing the other men to move closer again. Kai struggled to think of some way to let Lady White know, but he never got the chance.

They were interrupted by shouting from the soldiers on lookout outside the gravesite.

“Get out, quick! Something’s coming!”

“Hide the gravesite!”

Everyone threw down the cleaning tools they were holding and scrambled out of the gravesite.

The stone cover standing by the entrance was pushed back into place, and then several soldiers began hastily covering it over with soil. Flynn was the first to grasp the situation.

“They’re headed directly for us,” he told Lady White, hoping to get her permission to act. “The enemy are macaques.”

The land around Eda was no longer under human control. Demi-humans had so much influence over the area that they’d had to abandon the village. It was fair to say that it was Kai and the others who were trespassing on another’s land.

From somewhere within the forest that lay close to the village ruins, they heard howling sounds. That was how macaques would call for more of their own kind to gather.

The fighting started quickly and things immediately went badly for the humans.

The macaques came at them yelling. Even without an understanding of their language, the message was clear to everyone: this is our land; humans aren’t welcome.

The human party had been assembled by a half-baked selection contest, so they could barely form squads to fight as groups. Flynn’s squad was able to put up a good fight, but the other soldiers were easily scattered and were almost ready to flee.

“Take the lady with you and run,” Flynn commanded three of the soldiers. But when they tried to escape with Lady White, she shook them off and ran toward the enemy, so they had no choice but to follow after her.

She boldly stated her name to her macaque opponents and several of them soon surrounded her. The soldiers defending her raised their spears to form a barrier, but they were already weak at the knees, and the situation looked grave.

“You can’t fight them, My Lady!”

“But I’m a guardian bearer! I don’t care how strong macaques are compared to humans. I can handle this!”

“Fighting is our job. Please, fall back and leave it to us.”

“But I’ve trained to fight...”

“My Lady!”

A warrior-class macaque leaped at Lady White’s back while she was still arguing with the soldiers. It leaped at her with great agility, perhaps wanting to capture this human with unusual hair. The soldiers swiftly raised their spears to greet it, but the tough, charcoal-colored fur of the macaque deflected every spearpoint.

Lady White had spoken bravely, but the attack left her paralyzed in fear, and despite all her training, all she could do was wave her spear around blindly as she stood there pigeon-toed.

Kai had already leaped into action the moment he saw that she was in trouble.

Fortunately for him, everyone’s attention was focused on Lady White and her attackers. No one noticed how powerfully Kai was able to leap, or how quickly he accelerated, as he rapidly closed in on the macaque soldier.

He put all of his might behind his spear and drove it into the defenseless back of the macaque soldier.

17

If the baron had been there, he probably could have used his overwhelming power to lift a macaque soldier off its feet and destroy its body like a toy.

If Olha had been there, the sharpness of the large sword he carried would probably have allowed him to effortlessly take a macaque’s head off.

Lady White’s in trouble.

The power of her land god itself had been continuously fading. And even if she was more powerful than an ordinary human, power had to be wielded correctly to be useful for anything more than brainless displays of strength. And if a guardian bearer left themselves exposed and defenseless, that was an invitation for a malicious enemy to put their toughened flesh to the test.

The threat posed by the hostile macaques had caused Lady White’s kumadori to appear. The sigil it formed looked basic compared to the baron’s, and the color was faint.

“I-I’m as strong as any other doi sigil!” Lady White yelled as she stood facing the macaques.

Doi? Kai didn’t know what that meant, but he guessed that the word described the rank of her land god. Regardless, yelling courageously at her opponents did little to hide the fact that her whole body was shaking, and the spear looked like it might slip from her grip. It was hard to believe that this young girl had any power at all.

Kai twisted his spear and drove it deeper into the macaque’s back, and he pulled it back out only once he felt confident that he’d completely destroyed its intestines. The body looked like it would collapse onto Lady White, but he changed its course with a kick.

Although Lady White was surprised when a macaque soldier in front of her collapsed, what left her wide-eyed in shock was the sight of the young soldier standing behind it with a spear in hand.

Now that death was far off after coming so close, her trembling knees gave way and she sat down on the ground. Perhaps it was because of the bright light behind him, but at first, she didn’t recognize the boy as Kai.

“Are you all right, My Lady?”

Lady White’s eyes teared up as if she’d just recognized Kai, but she quickly wiped the tears away with her sleeve. She still couldn’t stand up, but she spoke with feigned confidence to save face.

“Well, it was my first fight. I was a little surprised, that’s all... You’re quite strong, Kai, even for a soldier.”

“Lately, everyone keeps telling me I’ve gotten a lot stronger.”

Even though they were still surrounded by armed macaques, they’d started a carefree conversation and neither friend nor foe tried to get between them.

Kai was unexceptional in terms of his rank as a Lag soldier, but he was somewhere in the top 30 out of roughly 100 soldiers, so he could probably be called strong, relatively speaking.

The three guards who’d stood helplessly at Lady White’s side were all older than Kai, but they were still young compared to most soldiers.

It was only the younger soldiers who fought to be included in cleaning duty, but those chosen were still the soldiers considered competent enough to guard Lady White. They could be described as being in the upper-low ranks.

The guards were clearly annoyed that Kai had completely robbed them of a chance to prove themselves.

They all knew of course that Kai was a promising soldier who’d quickly climbed to the higher ranks, and they knew how important it was to stay on the good side of higher-ranking soldiers. But even so, they couldn’t stop their pubescent brains from running wild with thoughts of how they might impress Lady White.

“We’re still here with you!”

“We can handle a few macaques!”

“Quick, get yourself some place safe!”

Their bad tempers and jealous behavior made Kai scratch his head in confusion.

He couldn’t help but laugh when wondering if they were stupid enough to think they might actually have a chance with a baron’s daughter. To the soldiers, that came across as sneering from someone suddenly full of themselves after becoming popular, and it made the three of them so angry that they were almost in tears.

Kai took a quick look at the surroundings.

There were still several macaques facing Lady White, but they hadn’t moved since seeing Kai appear from out of nowhere and take down a warrior-class macaque. It was likely that they felt the aura of a strong warrior from him. When Kai looked a macaque in the eye, it was enough to make it back away.

Kai was still keeping his kumadori suppressed, of course. He hadn’t the slightest intention of showing that to his fellow soldiers.

As he turned his body, his spear whipped around with him, sending globs of blood flying and creating a whistling sound that was hard to ignore. It was proof of the high speed of his weapon’s movements.

“Kai...”

“My Lady, you should hide with the others. Guys, get her out of here.”

The other soldiers might have been older, but Kai ranked higher and had authority over them. More importantly, he’d just saved their lives, and it would have been shameful not to show at least some respect. The young soldiers understood that much at least, and although they looked angrily at Kai, they nodded and took Lady White away as ordered.

“You saved me,” Lady White said. “Thank you, Kai.”

Kai looked at her just briefly and nodded. At that moment, his stare was the only thing keeping the macaques fixed in place.

When the macaques saw the four others trying to leave, they finally came to their senses and moved forward with their weapons held ready. But their movements came to a stop just a moment later when Kai thrust his spear into the ground with a thud.

“Your opponent’s standing right here.”

Other soldiers were watching the backs of the motionless macaques and were using this opportunity to creep behind him.

Kai needed to wait for the right timing.

He wasn’t going to try to defeat these enemies alone. He didn’t need to keep all the credit to himself.

Kai had set rules for himself when it came to how he should behave while on the battlefield. He knew that if he wanted to keep his current lifestyle in the village, he’d better not make waves for no reason.

Two of his enemies fell victim to surprise attacks from behind, and they screeched as they fell to the ground. Kai went for the remaining enemy while it was still distracted by the sudden screeching of the others. He drove his spear straight through its stomach, which was a hard target to miss.

Kai’s strength was beyond the strength of an ordinary human, and the hardness of the macaque’s fur wasn’t enough to stop him from driving his weapon deep into its flesh. When the spearhead was fully inside its body, he twisted the spear handle, and then ripped the spear back out.

Blood and entrails erupted from the macaque’s stomach like water gushing from a broken pot. A simple spear thrust alone wasn’t always enough to kill the enemy instantly, so humans throughout history had developed many techniques for increasing the damage done to an opponent’s internal organs.

As a species, macaques specialized in the use of violence, but even they were stunned to see Kai kill his opponent with a single blow. Flynn and his squadmates, who had banded together to kill just one macaque, were left speechless when they saw the effectiveness of Kai’s attack.

His combat abilities were clearly beyond what anyone expected from an upper-middle-ranked soldier. They unconsciously acknowledged that this boy would someday be one of their top-ranking soldiers, and he became more than just a “hatchling” in their eyes—he was a young dragon on the rise.

When the macaques realized that their enemy included a powerful warrior who was too much for them to handle, they had decided that the battle was not going their way and were already turning to flee. It was a common way for battles to end when only one side had a guardian bearer.

With the killing over, the soldiers could enjoy a festival of leveling up. They gathered around the enemies that they’d brought down to search for their godstones.

When weak soldiers could only take down an enemy while part of a group, the enemy’s godstone was generally shared between the group. It was hoped that this would help them grow.

But the superior fighters who stood out from the crowd and could take down an enemy single-handedly would keep the first godstone to themselves, and then would have to offer every godstone after that to their lord’s house as a rule.

Kai found the exact position of the godstone and had no trouble prying it out with his spearhead. He worked like an old veteran who’d gotten used to extracting godstones one after the other. He collected two godstones in this manner.

He placed one in his pocket to keep as an offering and used the butt of his spear to break open the bigger one that came from the warrior-class macaque. He swallowed the amber marrow that spilled from the opening in a single gulp. The lower-ranking soldiers watched enviously as Kai ate from his godstone like a man.

This was one reason why the gap in ability between soldiers only grew wider with time.

Marrow’s so damn good!

As he ate, he felt the heat caused by his development within his godstone.

Even now that he had the blessings of a land god, he felt no less grateful for this feeling. The reason that soldiers were required to offer godstones to the lord’s household was so the household could share in this growth. It was evidence that even guardian bearers had the potential for further growth.

The marrow probably tasted so rich because his body hungered for it and demanded more. Even though Kai wasn’t particularly hungry, he felt sure that nothing could ever taste better than the marrow of the godstones that gave him power.

It feels like the god of the valley is happy too.

He greedily scraped out and ate the marrow before dropping the round bone known as the godstone to the ground. He then moved away from it in consideration of the low-ranking soldiers who might want to feed on any scraps.

In front of him stood Lady White.

The macaques had run off quickly, so she’d probably given up on seeking refuge and had stood there waiting instead.

She looked at the scene of the battle with a vague smile, but the frustration she felt inside was still visible. For someone brought up on the lukewarm offerings presented to her household, it felt strange to watch soldiers win godstones by their own power and use them to further increase their strength.

Her gaze shifted to Kai for just a moment.

Then she suddenly gave up on trying to save face and let her frustration show clearly as she gestured to Kai to move closer.

Kai had a feeling that their early morning training sessions were going to be more intense from now on.

18

Rumors that Lady White’s party had been attacked by macaques spread quickly through the village.

And then, when it turned out that every single one of the few dozen soldiers escorting Lady White had returned safely, the rumor went from being bad news to a heroic tale of conquest over macaques.

The name on everyone’s lips when they talked about this conquest over macaques was Kai, the name of the youngest soldier in the village. Naturally, he became the center of attention.

“Which of you is the one named Kai?”

Kai knew that all of his fellow soldiers were talking about him, but he would never have imagined that the baron himself would come looking for him.

The baron took one look at Kai, and he could immediately tell that this boy was the youngest of the soldiers, but he was surprised to find he was so small and thin. The baron took hold of Kai’s collar and lifted him into the air to find out whether the boy was as light as he looked.

“You could do with a little more meat on you.”

The reason that the baron had come looking for Kai was not difficult to guess. He was there to give Kai a chance to take part in one of his farcical training sessions.

“I want to see it for myself. This spearwork that slaughters macaques one after another and can take them down with a single thrust.”

As usual, the soldiers were training in the village square in front of the castle.

It was Kai’s first time fighting the baron. As one of the highest-ranking soldiers, Basco pulled Kai over into the corner to give him a few words of advice.

“Listen. Whatever you do, it won’t work against him, but don’t get desperate. No dirty tricks. Making him angry is the last thing you want.”

“Got it.”

Kai was told that anything a powerless foot soldier might try against the overwhelmingly stronger baron wouldn’t work. You can throw constant attacks at him or focus solely on defense, but whatever you do, give him a good fight to win his approval. In most cases, the farce of a training session keeps on going until he’s satisfied. Expect to gain a fair few injuries, but keep your hands, joints, and other vital areas well protected so that you’re not left with anything long-term. And you should know this already, but don’t go for the eyes and don’t go for the balls. That’s the quickest way to gain the baron’s disapproval, so don’t even consider it.

Kai gained new respect for the amount of thought that this graying soldier put into each fight.

“Let’s get to it.”

To get Kai’s attention, the baron drove his staff into the dirt, which had been compacted by the feet of many soldiers. His grin was full of eagerness.

Kai looked courageous as he stepped forward, and the soldiers cheered for him as they watched. Manso and the rest of his squadmates were half-jokingly assuring him that they’d clean his remains from the training ground.

Kai searched for the source of their voices and found the faces of his fellow soldiers. When he looked toward them, they all gave him a thumbs-up.

Manso’s thumb then turned to point towards himself. “You’ll be fighting me next.”

Manso knew that Kai’s continued growth could trigger a change in the ranks within their squad. Contests of strength between high-ranking soldiers were an important way for the males to signal their strength to potential mates.

The men were always trying to become stronger for the simple reason that it gave them a better chance of winning over a woman they liked. The baron’s household and the women’s council also encouraged this behavior because it motivated the soldiers to further improve themselves.

Kai had only done what was necessary to rescue Lady White, so he was taken aback when he realized it had put him at odds with Manso. If he became leader of the squad, he wouldn’t just have to show leadership in battle, he’d also have all kinds of other unwanted tasks to deal with, such as coordinating the squad and giving out rewards and punishments. Relationships of power in this world were often easy to accept because older soldiers tended to rank higher, but for Kai, as the youngest soldier, these responsibilities would be nothing but a burden.

I’ve got to use this bout to set the record straight.

Kai decided he’d hold back and let everyone see him defeated spectacularly.

The baron’s staff cut through the air with an incredible whistling sound, so Kai brandished his staff likewise. The sharp whistling noises drew cheers from the spectators.

Kai still wasn’t used to controlling his power as a guardian bearer. He’d intended to suppress his power a lot more, but his staff had moved through the air with such speed that even Basco beside him was surprised.

He let the tip of his staff meet the tip of the staff that the baron held out. This signaled that the training session had started.

The baron’s eyes suddenly narrowed, and he began immediately with a thrust so quick it could barely be seen, aimed directly at Kai’s stomach. Kai followed the thrust with his keen eyes and tried to decide whether he should let himself be hit. The staff was coming at him so fast that he worried it would leave him in unbearable agony.

Hold up... If that hits me, I’ll be impaled through the stomach!

If the baron intended to stop at the last possible moment, then it wouldn’t be such a problem, but if he let the staff keep going, this bout would end in tragedy.

Kai thought about Basco and Setta, and he remembered the terrible injuries they often received during these bouts. He started to worry that the baron might not be very familiar with the idea of going easy on someone.

In the end, he decided not to take a direct hit.

But he’d been slow to react to the attack, so now he had limited options. He drew his left leg back some distance and twisted his body so that the staff would hit him at an angle. Then he leaned his upper body backward and let himself fall.

But it still wasn’t enough to evade the attack.

With no other options available, he raised the staff so that the part behind his grip that extended toward the butt grazed against the end of the baron’s thrusting staff. The sound of their weapons colliding was soft. The sound was so quiet that it was probably only heard by the two fighters. The thrust was knocked off course ever so slightly, causing it to cut through the air and miss Kai’s torso as he twisted and fell backward.

In that same moment, there was a wave of air pressure that tore through Kai’s clothing.

“So you can dodge!” The baron’s face broke into a broad grin.

Kai was left sitting on his backside in the dirt, but the baron immediately drew back his staff and shouted, “Get up!” before holding it ready to strike once again.

The fact that Kai had perfectly evaded the baron’s first strike would look like a miracle to any ordinary person. But everything had happened so fast that this miracle went unnoticed by everyone except the two fighters. To the spectators, it just looked as though Kai had randomly stumbled backward and gotten out of the path of the attack by pure luck.

But the baron’s keen vision missed nothing.

“Get to your feet.”

Kai reluctantly got to his feet and then assumed his stance. The two fighters began to move around each other, using the circle footwork of Zula-ryu. It was the same style seen in bouts with Basco.

This movement could only mean that the baron had recognized that Kai was worthy of his respect, and now there were sounds of disbelief among the spectators.

Kai had also started moving his legs according to his own clumsy version of circle footwork so that he could stay face-to-face with the baron. As soon as the baron saw that Kai was ready, he began a new attack.

Their weapons collided twice and then three times, and then the baron used an ensnaring technique to capture Kai’s staff. Kai felt his weapon being sharply pulled away from him, and his stance broke.

The baron didn’t overlook this opportunity, of course.

While Kai was exposed with his body off-balance, the baron moved close, ready to deliver another devastating blow to Kai’s abdomen. Kai quickly moved his body to the side, but the thrust still connected lightly, and Kai’s face contorted. Then the baron unleashed a flurry of hits that came one after the other.

Such a fearsome attack would normally be enough to make someone collapse in agony.

You’ve gotta be kidding me.

It turned out that the baron was pulling back each strike at the last possible moment after all, but that didn’t mean that his weapon stopped the moment before it hit Kai, it meant that his weapon stopped at the last possible moment after hitting Kai without worrying whether he broke Kai’s skin. This was why Basco had told him to be careful.

As powerful as each thrust was, these were hits from a training staff with a rounded end, and Kai had become too tough to be injured easily. However, this was an important opportunity for Kai to make a display of weakness, and he wanted to put on a good show of losing. He wanted to bleed.

He blocked an attack with his arm, and it broke the skin as it grazed him. He kept any bones that might break out of harm’s way while meeting the staff with his flesh.

One moment he’d be leaning forward, and the next his back would bend backward so as to dodge the next thrust.

If Kai wanted a beating, this was the perfect opportunity. The baron had gotten carried away in his excitement, and there was no sign that his attacks would stop.

After being hit so many times, Kai had started to feel pain.

There was a sudden feeling of heat in his godstone as it was reacting to the danger he was in. Power began to flow to every part of his body, and then he felt that his kumadori was about to appear.

Not here!

Enduring the baron’s attack was one thing, but he couldn’t let his kumadori be revealed here.

Kai sighed. Then, with a feeling of desperation, he aimed a thrust at the baron while allowing himself to be hit. As a result of Kai’s desperate attack, the baron’s staff stopped just short of hitting Kai’s throat, where a hit might have been fatal.

“All right!”

The baron drew back his staff happily. He had no intention of killing Kai.

The baron’s concern for Kai created an opening, and Kai’s staff seized it with a strike at the baron’s chest.

Just as Kai thought he was about to land a hit, the tip of his staff was repelled.

The baron had swiftly moved his other hand forward to defend himself.

Kai’s attack was parried leaving him off-balance, but in an attempt to force the bout to come to an end, he stomped a foot down on the ground with gritted teeth to steady himself, and then put his full weight behind a lunge attack as his toenails dug into the dirt beneath him.

That power behind his attack was the same incredible power that had allowed a young boy like Kai to ascend to the higher ranks. His attack was a fierce tackle powered by his incredible muscular strength, and it struck the undefended and exposed leg of the baron. As his shoulder collided with the thigh, he grabbed the ankle and pulled it forward. This throwing technique was designed to sweep an opponent off their feet.

It looked as though a small child was attempting to turn over a giant boulder, but the power hidden within Kai’s body was enough to create miracles. The baron’s huge frame swayed.

The cheering from the spectators lasted only a moment.

The baron stood up straight on his free leg and straightened his body to regain his balance. Then he grabbed Kai, who was still clinging on to his leg, by the head and smashed Kai’s face against his bent knee.

Kai was launched off the baron’s leg and then he fell to the ground and rolled, with red blood spraying from his nose. There was a unanimous feeling that this was a new and acceptable way to lose a bout. When Basco stopped spectating to rush to Kai’s aid, that was when the fight truly ended.

Kai was on the ground clutching his nose in agony when the baron came over and roughly pet Kai’s head.

“Good! Good!”

Kai looked up with his bloody hand still clutching his nose. The baron had come to give him praise.

“I like you, boy!” the baron said, sounding pleased down to his core. “I’d never have imagined anyone would attempt a throw when fighting me! I’ve decided. From tomorrow onward, I’m going to train you personally!”

Hah? Wha-?

There was a commotion from the watching soldiers standing behind Kai as they struggled to understand what it meant.

The baron had just declared Kai his new favorite toy. If he thought Kai was good enough for his farcical training, it could only mean that the baron had recognized Kai as a skilled fighter. More importantly, this meant that in terms of rank, Kai was now up there with Lag’s elite soldiers such as Basco.

Far from setting the record straight, Kai had just distinguished himself even further.

19

The other soldiers crowded around Kai, and everyone wanted to strike his shoulders.

Many were happy for this youngster who’d climbed high enough to rank alongside the baron’s favorites. But there was also envy from those Kai had left so far behind, and their words of congratulations carried an awkward feeling, as if there was more they left unsaid. Others congratulated Kai on becoming the baron’s new favorite training dummy, and they weren’t entirely joking.

His squad were among those hitting his shoulders to congratulate him, and the last of them was Manso, who was still smiling when he announced their upcoming fight: “We’ll do it tomorrow.” Whether he liked it or not, Kai’s status in the village kept on changing.

Kai felt happy when those around him recognized his potential, but at the same time he wished he could escape from it all.

Someday, I’ll live in the valley...

He’d find a girl he liked, they’d have children together, and then they’d move to the valley. The valley was so rich with food that it would be enough to feed Kai and the rest of his family.

It felt like a betrayal to think of leaving behind the community that had raised him, especially when they were at risk from the macaques that were becoming increasingly active in the nearby forest, but he allowed himself to dream.

That night, he planned to visit the valley.

He’d been wounded fairly badly, but that wouldn’t stop him because he could secretly heal himself with magic. The thought of the sweet taste of the maca in the valley made his mouth water.

As a valued soldier wounded in combat, Kai was given treatment from an old woman who was one of the village healers. He was ordered to spend the evening resting, but Kai had managed to close all of his bleeding wounds using his healing magic and didn’t want to wait any longer.

He removed his bandages and hid them in his bed and then slipped out of the barracks after the other soldiers had fallen asleep. He had no need to use the gates to the village when he was able to leap over the walls under the cover of darkness.

On the other side of those walls was the path to his beautiful valley.

His emotions spurred him on, and he traveled across 50 yulds in no time at all. The ruined settlement of Banya served as his usual landmark when deciding where to enter the forest.

The manner in which he’d make his way into the forest would vary day by day, but now that there was an understanding between him and his lagarto neighbors, he no longer felt the need to avoid their territory.

He wanted to establish the shortest possible route into the valley.

Well, the valley’s in that direction, but...

Kai usually reached the valley by entering the forest from a point one yuld beyond Banya, and then altered his course slightly toward the east and headed five yulds further in.

The valley wasn’t very deep into the forest, but its existence was unknown to humans because the ground was covered by rough black rocks that made for poor footing, and heading there via a straight path was too dangerous. The scattered areas of marshland inhabited by the lagarto was another likely factor.

Orgs lived deeper into the forest than lagarto, and there seemed to be some pact that allowed them to move freely through the lagarto’s territory. The lagarto wouldn’t normally turn aggressive if the areas of water they inhabited weren’t approached. Kai knew that from experience.

The rough black rocks were solidified lava. That was something Kai knew from his internal knowledge. Subterranean water was plentiful enough in this area to rise up and create many small brooks that fed into the marshland.

I want to find a good place to drop down into the valley, so I guess I’ll explore around the outside first.

He already had a good idea of how the lagarto land was arranged, so he could imagine the shortest route that went through gaps in their territory.

They were fond of water, so those gaps were the screes and outcrops of rock that didn’t retain water.

Here and there he could see rocks jutting out from the ground to form miniature mountains, breaking up the gentle, rolling hills of the vast forest. Kai checked their positions by eye and thought about how to proceed.

Okay, here goes.

As his starting point, Kai had chosen somewhere just outside of Banya village, thinking that no one would be there to see him. After a short run up, he leaped powerfully and raced past their defensive walls like a gust of wind as he reached his top speed, causing shrieks of surprise from the settlement.

There were loud cries of “It’s the monster!” and “That’s what’s making holes in our fields!” Kai knew exactly what they were talking about, and he knew he was showing disrespect toward their village, but their problems weren’t his problems, so he ignored them.

Kai counted to himself as he leaped into the forest.

This is the first step!

He leaped from a small rocky cliff, and his body flew through the air.

The high air pressure made his breathing erratic as he scoured for the next foothold. He jumped toward one of the larger old balen cedars, one with many particularly large branches.

The way the branch of the tree bent added to the force propelling Kai forward.

This is awesome! The branches are giving my jumps more power!

There were also rock surfaces here and there, but they were far outnumbered by the tall balen cedar trees that grew wild in the forests of the borderlands. He continuously searched for new footing, knowing that it was most efficient to seek out the larger of the balen cedar tree branches as much as possible. With each jump he searched for a new tree.

The word that came to mind was “ninja.” Though Kai obviously didn’t know exactly what that meant. But whether he knew it or not, he’d actually achieved their legendary technique of traveling through the treetops, which had been a near impossibility for them. He reached the edge of the valley with surprising speed.

From afar, the rising edge of the valley looked just like a range of low mountains.

Then, atop a tree at the valley’s edge that would serve as his final stop, he stared in wonder at the beauty of the valley. No matter how many times he saw it, he could never get enough. But then he spotted something out of place, something he wasn’t used to seeing at the opposite side of the valley. His mood soured in an instant.

Whatever it was, it was too small to see clearly, but he could tell at a glance that it was a living creature. In fact, it looked more like a group of living creatures.

There were countless types of wild animals living in the forests of the borderlands, but very few of them moved in groups. The fact that these creatures were in a group made it much more likely that these were no ordinary animals.

The creatures that most commonly formed groups were intelligent creatures with social structures, which in the borderlands meant humans or demi-humans.

Intruders!

Kai became enraged. The thought of his valley being soiled by others while he was away made him irrationally angry.

You’ll regret this. You’ll all regret this.

Kai used his full power to rush toward them.

When a guardian bearer unleashed their full power, that was fearsome enough in itself. He became a rushing wind of wild rage, hurtling toward the opposite side of the valley with greater speed than a hunter’s arrow.

As he got closer, he saw what was happening more clearly. As he’d thought, these life forms were humanoid. But they weren’t orgs; they were even smaller than humans. This demi-human species was only as tall as a human child. Kai had never seen them firsthand before, but he had heard tales of the species, and he recognized them as the koror.

Their white clothing with its fine embroidery was clear to see even in the darkness, and he remembered that this species was said to excel in their artisanship.

The koror were a species known to exist in the forest in vanishingly small numbers.

They were looking over the edge of the cliff at the rim of the valley and were shouting down at the valley’s base. Kai didn’t understand their words, but he could easily guess that someone had fallen down and they were shouting their name.

There’s been an accident?

Their sad cries echoed through the darkness of the night.

Their pained cries brought Kai to a shocked standstill. Several of the koror noticed Kai’s presence when they heard the grass rustle at his feet.

“***!”

“*****!”

No sooner than they had begun looking at him and shouting, every one of them threw themselves down on the ground, prostrated before him, and began to mutter words of prayer.

Their reaction was so strange that Kai decided to ignore them and walk away. However...

“O revered god in human form.”

One of the eldest of the koror stepped forward from the group and began to speak in the human tongue. Kai felt the opportunity to leave had passed.

The elder koror held an object like a rosary, made from nuts and string, and he used his thumb to shift beads one after another as he stepped forward as a representative of his group. He shook the rosary before Kai and then fell to the ground, prostrated once more.

“I hope that my words are understandable to you.” The voice of the elder carried a hint of anxiety.

“I understand you,” Kai replied.

Some of the other koror raised their heads and looked at each other with relief.

“First, I must beg your mercy, for we have been so impudent as to intrude upon this sacred land.”

After the koror had apologized over and over, Kai’s anger faded, and his usual calmness returned. He’d decided that he’d better hear their explanation, and was sitting down cross-legged before them.

“What are you doing here?” Kai didn’t enjoy long discussions. He was blunt, simply asking them to state their business.

The elder koror introduced himself as the head of the tribe.

He went on to explain that his tribe had been driven out of the land on which they’d lived for many years and now they had no place to call home. Their land had been invaded, taken from them by the Geha tribe of orgs.

None of this had anything to do with Kai. As long as they weren’t going to ask permission to live in the valley, their problems were irrelevant to him.

As expected, the koror knew nothing of the richness of the valley’s floor. They had simply gathered here as part of their efforts to reclaim the land that was taken from them.

They said something about an “offering” that they’d made to the valley.

An offering?

The koror pressed their faces against the ground once again.

“O ancient god of arbitration,” said the elder.

Kai remained silent.

“***** has long been the protector of the forest. And the koror have long been devout followers of *****. We came to make an offering.”

“...”

“Now is the time for us to reclaim the land of our ancestors. We beg you to provide mediation.”

They had come seeking his services.

20

The koror tribe’s leader was named Porek. Even he had forgotten how long he’d lived, but his people were certain that he was over 100 years old and the eldest member of their tribe.

Porek repeatedly addressed Kai as the “God of Arbitration.”

“What’s this arbitration thing that you think I’m the god of?”

“You are the avatar of the revered god who dwells in the valley, are you not?”

“How’d you figure?”

“In the past, I have had the honor of your presence many times. You once punished this foolish old man for a past transgression. I cannot forget you for as long as I remember that pain.”

“You were hurt?”

Although Porek had met Kai’s eyes several times, Porek’s eyes had barely been open. Kai realized that this old koror was blind. Looking more closely, he noticed an old scar that ran horizontally through both of his eyes.

“That punishment... was it your eyes?”

“This was my punishment for straying into the valley unpermitted and disturbing the gravesite of my revered god,” the blind koror spoke as if this was merely an old story of youthful folly and continued to meet Kai’s gaze as he responded.

“My parents wept and told me I’d been shown great mercy when my life was spared. But this was long ago.”

When Kai looked very closely, he saw faint kumadori markings around Porek’s eyes. Somehow, the power of his guardian was compensating for his blindness.

It stood to reason that the leader of the tribe would be a guardian bearer. Porek must have been young and greatly strengthened by his guardian when the previous resident of the valley made him yield and then didn’t hesitate to cut his precious eyes as punishment. This vicious behavior was consistent with what he’d heard from Goleh the lagarto.

“Although I lost the eyes that saw with the light of the sun, I instead gained the ability to see the light of spiritual energy that lies in all natural things. Your aura is no exception. It shines blue, as if you drew the light from the sky itself.”

“I’m... blue?”

“There are many colors worn by living creatures, but blue is seldom seen. Blue is the color that lies between white and black. In ancient times it was known as the sacred color.”

Kai knew his guardian’s blessings amplified his spiritual energy, causing it to radiate from every part of his body. And now he knew that this spiritual energy had a color. Though he did suspect that the color found between white and black was actually gray. Kai put this minor issue to one side and returned to the main topic. He shared his thoughts very frankly.

“I don’t care whether I’m the god of arbitration or not. All I know is that you should solve your own problems yourselves.”

His rejection of them was blunt. This caused distress not just to Porek, but to all of the tribe members who had prostrated themselves before him.

“I-I beg you, wait!”

“I’m going back to my valley. Don’t follow me.”

“O great god! Great god of the valley!”

“Don’t abandon us!”

Kai didn’t feel like he was abandoning them because he’d never cared about them in the first place.

Whatever offerings they might have made in the past, none of those had been given to Kai, and whatever Kai’s “predecessor” might have said in the past, that had nothing to do with Kai.

The koror spoke the human tongue surprisingly well. The rest of the tribe also pleaded with him in the human tongue.

“But we gave you Aruwe!”

“Give Aruwe back!”

Kai didn’t want their offering and didn’t care if they took it back. When he put this to them bluntly, the koror let out screeches that didn’t even resemble voices. To them, the valley was a terrible place where their tribe leader, who was a guardian bearer, had once had his eyes torn out just for entering it. Despite Kai telling them to recover their offering, none had the courage to even enter the valley.

Kai also felt that he didn’t want strangers entering the valley, so he decided that he should at least do something to avoid that.

“Okay, fine. I’ll bring it back up myself.”

With that, Kai agilely dropped down into the valley as he’d done many times before.

Kai acted casually as if their offering was a mere object, causing the koror to be more confused than angry, and their shouts were becoming nonsensical.

Don’t tell me they threw one of their own into the valley?

Kai tried not to think about it, but he couldn’t help but worry.

If I find a corpse down at the bottom... That’s the last thing I want.

Kai dropped down to the area directly below where the koror were standing and searched for the offering at the bottom of the valley in the darkness of the night.

They could have thrown it down from above the lake, but instead they’d chosen a place where the ground was hard earth. Even if the treetops had miraculously acted like a cushion, there was no surviving a fall like this.

Kai prepared himself for the worst as he searched, and in the shadow of a rocky area directly below the cliff, he found something white. Even in the darkness, he could see it clearly. It was a bare, white foot.

Oh, man. I hope they’re in one piece at least...

Kai started to pray as he walked around the rock to see what was behind it.

The body of the white foot’s owner slowly came into view. He was relieved when he saw that the scene was not as gruesome as he’d feared, but then the corpse sat up and made eye contact with him, causing him to fall backwards in surprise and land on his rear.

“***...**...”

What lay before him was a young girl, covered in blood.

The traditions of the koror may have demanded that any sacrifice had to be a beautiful young girl. At any rate, she was shorter than most members of her species. Even Kai, who wasn’t yet an adult himself, thought she wasn’t just a young girl, but a little girl. And now this little girl had come back to life, standing unsteadily on her feet with blood gushing from her forehead. Her legs gave way and she fell down once more, but she continued to struggle. The sight was so horrible that Kai felt his gut clench.

He was frozen in shock for only a moment.

He knew that this young girl was in a critical, half-broken state.

The girl named Aruwe still had a straw rope tied around her waist, which had probably served as her lifeline when she started climbing down the cliff. The rope must have broken at some point as she fell. The short piece of straw rope lying beside her told the story.

My healing magic!

Kai had never imagined that he’d ever use that magic on anyone besides himself.

His healing magic wasn’t effective if applied too broadly, so he dealt with each of the wounds he found in turn.

Then he looked for broken bones and made some makeshift fixes for the broken parts of her spine. He also put right the things known as “nerves” that ran through it.

Once that treatment was finished, the girl’s expression lost its grim appearance as if her agony had been lifted. She stared up blankly at Kai who was continuing to treat her.

“***...”

“Don’t move. Your bones haven’t bonded together yet.” Kai scolded the girl for trying to move and then went back to concentrating on his work.

When the girl saw the kumadori on his face, she began to cry anxiously. “Please save... ***, ****... k-koror.”

The girl had realized that Kai didn’t understand her and had started to speak in the human tongue. It was more evidence that many koror spoke the human language.

Kai remembered that the exquisite handiwork made by the koror was often sold by merchants here and there across the borderlands. Porek and others may have had the chance to learn the human tongue through their dealings with humans somewhere.

“Please save, koror.”

“Nope. Just sounds like trouble.”

“Me, not enough? Then...”

“Do your people really think I’m going to be happy if they give me dead bodies?”

“Do not know...”

Kai focused his power and made sure the bones were at least adhered together.

Kai had seen firsthand how injuries like these might not kill someone, but could leave them unable to live a normal life. He’d seen several of his fellow soldiers lose the ability to move their arms and legs, and they’d die without someone to take care of them. In a village where people struggled to find enough food, no one was allowed to continue living if they’d simply eat without working. As soon as recovery looked unlikely, either someone would have to promise to spend their life caring for the person, or they’d be sent to the monastery under the guise of being sent for care. Their lives were ended in the monastery as part of what was known as a clearing ceremony.

Now that Kai had found a way to heal that type of injury, he could spare this girl from a living hell.

“Can you stand?” Kai asked her.

The girl moved her fingers to check that they worked, and then she sat up while twisting her body. She looked at Kai in surprise when she found that it didn’t hurt. Her face, which had looked lifeless before, now had a reddish tinge to it.

Kai offered her a hand, and she climbed to her feet and stood there just looking at Kai. The girl did nothing but stare in awe at this person who had wrought the miracle that Kai called healing magic.

“Now go back to your group.”

“Aruwe go back?”

“Go back.”

“No help?”

“Exactly.”

“...”

Suddenly she was clinging to him in desperation.

“Go back!”

“Me, no good? Worthless?”

The girl was clinging desperately to Kai’s legs just like a child as tears streamed down her face. Because she was so short, her face pressed against Kai’s waist, and her tears and mucus were absorbed by his clothes, creating a damp feeling in that region.

“Me is offering! If no want, I die!”

“Hey... Ah, give that back!”

She suddenly took the knife that was hidden in the folds of Kai’s clothing and was about to drive it into her own throat. Kai grabbed the knife and took it away from her.

Then, with the girl hanging onto his shoulders and demanding he give the knife back, Kai climbed the cliff, carrying her like luggage.

She tried biting his shoulder but he felt no pain at all.

Kai wanted to return this offering right away and then start building his cabin. Kai was already absorbed in thoughts of how he was going to work with and assemble the wood that he’d collected during the previous visit.

Kai only had until morning, and all of this was a painful setback in his schedule.

21

I’ve wasted so much time.

Kai sighed as he stood, arms folded, looking at the balen cedar trees he’d cut down during his previous visit, which were now lying in front of him. Now the question was how to work with them.

These trees weren’t especially big, but balen cedars became impressively large trees as they grew old. Although Kai had chosen young trees, they were still broad enough that multiple adults standing around the trunk would just barely be able to join hands.

He could still hear commotion from the koror some distance away. They were calling to the god of the valley, and to the god of arbitration, but Kai didn’t care about their gods, and he knew very little about the land god resting in the valley’s gravesite, so he had no interest in the noise they were making.

Wow, they really are an annoying bunch.

Kai tried to ignore them while thinking about how he’d cut through the balen cedars to the right length. He wanted them to be roughly twice as long as he was tall. Then he would cut them lengthwise into long, thin pieces.

As for how to cut them, he could essentially use the same “invisible sword” method that he’d used to cut them down, but that only gave him a few moments of cutting power from the length of his fingertip to his shoulder, and he’d have to repeatedly apply the same magic before the cut with the blade. The balen cedars were so thick that just cutting them into two was enough to make Kai breathe heavily.

Over the course of roughly half a toki, Kai cut with the blade six times and created seven thick planks from a large tree.

Kai had never been taught any construction techniques, so he simply stuck the planks in the ground to create walls, giving the cabin its rough shape. His cuts weren’t exactly straight, so there were gaps between planks, but for the time being he didn’t worry about that because he knew he could fill in the gaps with scraps of wood from the balen cedars.

He soon finished making the walls by liberally using full planks. One face of the cabin was against the side of the gravesite, so seven planks was enough to create an enclosure.

Although it was an enclosed space, it was very different from the “cabin” that he’d had in mind. Then there was the question of how to make a floor and roof.

To start with, he cut another tree into planks, which he put on the top like a roof such that one end of each plank was resting on the top of the gravestone. The floor was already in place in terms of size, so he put down more planks as flooring.

This doesn’t look right.

The planks that he’d driven into the ground using his strength as a guardian bearer looked fairly sturdy, but he wasn’t so sure about the roof or floor, which both felt very makeshift. He’d have to learn some better approaches by asking someone more knowledgeable in the village. What he’d built himself could barely be called a cabin; it looked kind of pathetic. On the other hand, the rough construction did make it feel more like a secret base, so Kai couldn’t help but feel some level of affection for it. When he went inside, he found it was filled with the smell of freshly cut lumber.

He lay down to relax and felt his eyes closing, so he fell asleep where he lay. Ever since becoming a guardian bearer, he didn’t absolutely need to sleep, but at that moment he might have been tired from having used excessive amounts of spiritual energy to cut the wood.

When he slid his hand along the flooring planks, he could clearly feel warping and unevenness in the wood surface that wasn’t so easy to see at a glance. He still felt as though he needed to improve his invisible sword.

I suppose I’ll get some sleep...

Kai closed his eyes.

For the first time in a long while, he fell into a deep sleep.

He didn’t know how long he’d slept.

Kai suddenly woke up because his body didn’t feel right somehow.

He wasn’t in the habit of taking a long time to get up or complaining about feeling sleepy. Children of the village never had the luxury of sleeping late.

There was a feeling of warmth just below his armpit.

When Kai suddenly sat up, the movement caused the source of warmth at his armpit to detach, and there was a dull thud as something heavy landed on the wooden floor.

Kai couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the source of the sound.

“Why are you here?”

The little girl, the koror girl to be precise, named Aruwe was curled up in a ball with her face to the ground, trembling and holding her head.

She must have been holding onto Kai’s arm, and her head must have hit the floor when she fell. Aruwe sat up quickly while still holding her head, and Kai saw her tear-filled eyes for just a second before she pressed her forehead to the floor and bowed before him.

“I sent you back to your group. Why are you here?”

“I am offering to God. I am God’s.”

“Well, I don’t want you. Get out.”

“Aruwe no go back. Aruwe is God’s. Disaster happen to tribe if go back alive.”

“It won’t cause a disaster. Just go back.”

“Unwanted... Will die.”

“...”

The more Kai argued, the more determination he saw in Aruwe’s eyes. Those eyes made Kai feel as though there was a real danger that she might kill herself if he left her alone.

Aruwe seemed to be able to sense the change in Kai’s feelings, perhaps because she was a girl.

“Won’t go back,” Aruwe said with a sad smile. “Will stay here. Aruwe is God’s.”

Kai felt she was going to win by wearing him down.

Even though she had nothing to do with him, when she said that she would choose death if he didn’t accept her, it made him feel an irrational sense of responsibility for her. Also, it had been Kai who’d decided to save her life. It didn’t feel right to let her life be thrown away once again.

“Fine,” Kai told her, feeling cornered. “Do whatever you want.”

“Yes!” Aruwe replied happily.

Then she immediately used cords on her clothing to make her long sleeves shorter and said, “I look after God,” before running outside.

Kai stepped out of the cabin to see what she was doing and saw her waving to members of a tribe who were standing at the top of the cliff some distance away. It was as if she was trying to signal to them, “Negotiations successful!”

With that, the tribe members at the top of the cliff started lowering down a bundle of some sort using a rope.

“Wait. Will be quick,” Aruwe said before running off to the foot of the cliff.

Aruwe soon came back carrying something. In her arms were a mountain of household items. They included various high-quality tools created using koror craftwork.

She worked fast, gathering up firewood from the forest, building a simple stone stove, and lighting a fire. Then she drew water from the lake using a silver container that looked like the watering cans used in herb gardens, which she put over the fire of the stove.

By the time Kai realized that it was a tool for boiling water, Aruwe was already busy on a new piece of work. She created a dining table using scraps of wood and then served food on large leaves.

To Kai, it all looked like magic, and he was genuinely impressed.

Aruwe poured the hot water into earthenware cups she’d brought with her, and she sprinkled pieces of dry leaves over the water to turn it into a pleasant-smelling drink.

“God, finished.”

“Ah... yeah...” Kai was still spellbound as Aruwe led him to the table.

“Tastes bad cold.”

“Thank you...”

Without thinking too much, Kai recited the mealtime prayer that he’d known since a very young age, and then he moved his face closer to the curious steaming drink.

“Herb tea. Good for body.”

It was some sort of koror drink, and it almost smelled like something an old woman selling herbal remedies might brew up. But the scent was actually pleasant and drinking it left a warm feeling in Kai’s stomach. After drinking a few mouthfuls, he shifted his attention to the food on the table.

She hadn’t taken much time on the food, but it was clear to see that unseen work had gone into the food to preserve it without a loss of flavor.

There was dried meat that had been slowly flame-roasted with a gentle touch, powdery white slices of dried potato, and a small helping of sour, preserved figs.

Kai timidly reached for the food while Aruwe watched closely.

The dried meat was well-salted, despite the scarcity of salt in the borderlands, and it tasted delicious.

The dried potatoes were also surprisingly soft and sweet. They were almost as sweet as maca.

The figs were genuinely just sour and not at all tasty, but even the villagers knew that these were good for heath, so Kai swallowed each one without tasting it.

“...”

“Want more?” Aruwe asked.

Kai silently nodded.

Even though Kai had essentially taken in Aruwe, he still had no intention of acting as a mediator in disputes between koror and orgs.

He didn’t want to mislead them, so he went to the base of the cliff to tell this to Porek. The old koror simply nodded and said that it was good enough for now, as if he had something planned for later.

When Kai asked if there was anything he could do to make them take Aruwe back, Porek just shook his head. Kai started to think that Aruwe had told the truth when she said she had nowhere to return to.

Now that the koror had no safe place to go, they asked if they could stay near the edge of the valley, and Kai told them it was fine as long as they didn’t enter the valley itself. The koror immediately set to work creating an environment where they could live.

As tents sprang up one after another, Kai realized all too late, Oh, I could have used something like that.

If he had a tent, he could move around the valley with it as he pleased. The village had several tents that were used for expeditions, and Kai started wondering if there might be some way he could get his hands on one.

By that time, the first rays of the morning sun were falling on Kai’s closed eyelids. His time enjoying the valley had come to an end.

The sunlight was spreading across the ridge of the valley and lighting up the tents of the koror. With the arrival of a new day, they began their daily morning prayers.

Kai returned to his makeshift cabin in the valley where he found Aruwe sweeping up the wood shavings created when Kai had prepared the timber.

“I’ll be gone for a while,” Kai told her.

He told her that she could eat the fruit in the valley if she got hungry, and that she could sleep in the cabin. And he also told her that she was free to go back to her people any time.

The broom in Aruwe’s hands stopped moving, and her light purple eyes teared up with rage.

“Aruwe no go back.”

The long, beautiful, violet hair of the koror girl glistened in the morning sun.