Part 3 — God of the Valley

22

Maybe this thing called rice is made by boiling wheat grains...

In front of him was an open sack that was packed with wheat grains ready to be sown in the fields. Kai scooped up a handful of the grains while he was thinking.

I guess not... I need rice grains... but I don’t know what those are.

If he had rice grains, he could boil them to make edible rice, which could then be salted and would harden into this thing called an onigiri. Then there was a black thing called nori that looked a little like black cloth. Wrapping that around the onigiri would make it even better. But the knowledge inside his mind suggested that he’d never find anything like that anywhere in a region like the borderlands.

Kai hoped that someday he could try this delicious “onigiri” for himself. He knew nothing about life outside of the borderlands, but there was a place people called the center of the country, and it was possible that rice and nori existed there.

Having delicacies delivered from somewhere so far away was the height of extravagance. Kai could perhaps ask a traveling merchant to bring him that type of food, and after many months of waiting he might have it. But of course, a merchant would want to be paid for the trouble, and Kai would need an absurd amount of money.

The only people with that kind of money in the borderlands were lords and their families. For anyone who wasn’t in a position to gather wealth from large numbers of villagers, getting rich was an impossible dream. Kai was just a villager, and the only money he’d ever handled in his life were copper coins worth one measly shechem.

After thinking it over for a while, Kai simply gave up on the idea.

Society worked in such a way that your fate was already decided from birth, and for powerless villagers there was no way out. The one faint hope was to marry someone like a baron’s daughter, but for a penniless villager, the idea of becoming betrothed to someone like Lady White felt so disconnected from reality that it wasn’t worth thinking about.

Then again, maybe I’m a big deal now that I’m blessed by the god of the valley...

“Kai,” a fellow soldier asked. “Do your wounds from fighting the baron still hurt?”

“The nosebleed he gave me was pretty bad, but the pain is gone now.”

“Oh, that’s good... Now maybe you can stop standing around and pick up that sack!”

“Oh... right.”

Kai tied the sack of wheat closed and carried it over his shoulder.

Here and there, other men were busy moving sacks of wheat, gourds, and root vegetables still in their skins. They were in a storage room in one of the castle’s kitchens, where precious seeds that weren’t to be eaten were usually stored.

In ordinary circumstances, the wheat grain would be sown on the fields very soon, and the seed potatoes would have been allowed to sprout, but today, absolutely everything had to be carried down into this secret room to be hidden underground.

“We need everything hidden before the inspector arrives!”

The day had come for the village of Lag to face a troublesome event that happened once each year.

**

Inspector. That was the title given to the high-ranking officials from the capital who would periodically visit the borderlands.

They would enter the scattered domains of the borderlands to assess them. They’d determine how successful their crops had been that year and what stockpiles they had accumulated, and then they’d determine the tribute that the domain owed to the center of the country. This task would be carried out by the inspector, along with four other officials serving as the inspector’s assistants.

An inspector was supposed to be a representative who’d do no more than learn the circumstances of a domain and recommend a certain tribute be paid. But the government had become weak. Officials were increasingly doing whatever they pleased in recent times, making the inspector an uninvited guest who’d become a huge burden by demanding extravagant meals and large bribes.

“Father, a herald has arrived to inform us that the inspector will soon reach our village.”

This report was given to the baron in his study on the top floor of the castle by his eldest son, Olha.

Baron Vezin turned away from the small window where he’d quickly glanced at the situation below. “Very well,” he said briefly. He turned to the maids waiting in an adjoining room and commanded, “Make preparations!” in a voice that reverberated in one’s stomach.

As this group of women began dressing him in new clothes, he turned to Olha and asked, “Which inspector is it? Did the herald give us a name?”

“Yes. It was not the same name as last year.”

“Changed the inspector again, have they? What a pain.”

“I heard from Count Balta himself that much has changed in the palace. The herald has informed us that our inspector will be Lord Severo Gandal, a cinquesta sigil who is head of House Gandal.”

“A cinquesta sigil? So he has more power than our house?”

“The powerful member of House Moloch is yourself, Father, and the god of our village has made you a quart sigil. I’m afraid we rank below him.”

“Back in the days when House Moloch ruled the three villages, many of our ancestors reached the rank of cinquesta sigil. Our domain might have been reduced to a single village, but I hone my combat abilities through hard training, and some day my sigil may increase. Perhaps this inspector would accept an invitation to a bout. The standing of our house may have fallen, but the blessings of our village god are only strengthened through repeated battles. I’ll show them we are every bit as powerful as those lords from the center.”

“Father, I beg you not to invite Count Balta’s displeasure again. Count Balta was quite clear that we must show more respect this time.”

“Gah...” Vezin grunted angrily.

Olha knitted his brows just slightly and gave orders to the maids. His father prioritized comfort over appearance, so his clothes were usually worn loosely. He ordered the maids to make his robe tight so that it wouldn’t fall open.

The robe he dressed in was the same type of robe worn by lords from the center to indicate their rank in the world of nobility. The robe hid the bold frame of the Iron Taurus completely, making him look like a well-mannered soldier of high rank.

Olha followed behind his father as he left for the room where he’d entertain the inspector. The baron’s wives and other children were also waiting in the corridor, and they knew to follow behind the two of them without needing to be told.

Today’s guest was so important that the whole family needed to be there to welcome him.

As they walked, Olha and his father continued their conversation.

“What of the stockpiles? Was everything moved, Olha?”

“I believe that was more or less finished a short while ago. The villagers were dragging their heels, but I gave them stern warnings.”

“Very well... We need to take great care so they don’t learn about our surplus food. I don’t want to think about what’ll happen if they find out. We’ll need that queijo ready to give to the next passing merchant. The goat’s milk is thin this year, and we don’t have much in stock. Manage what we have carefully.”

“Queijo aside, I don’t think it would be such a great loss if some grain was taken from us. We’d merely reduce how much we give to the commoners. Hiding it seems so unnecessarily troublesome that—”

“Olha...”

A cold glance was enough to silence Olha, though he still frowned slightly.

Vezin’s body was host to Lag’s god, giving him both authority and the power to fight; he had great power over the other members of his family.

But Olha’s rebellious nature wasn’t so easily fixed. He stared back at his father and resumed his protest. “In fact, it stands to reason that small gifts given to our guests will earn us friends in the center. There would be a loss in the short term, but—”

“You’re naive. With that thinking, the gluttons in the center would rob you of everything down to the hair growing from your ass.”

“But, Father...”

“The villagers are children of House Moloch. They are not worthless.”

Olha was silent, but he still wasn’t satisfied.

“If people don’t eat, they become weak,” Vezin told him. “If our villagers are weak, Lag’s defenses become weak. But you are the heir to House Moloch. If you’d do things differently, then do so once I’m dead. There’ll be no one to stop you.”

No other member of the family attempted to interject in this discussion between father and son.

Though the white face of the other guardian bearer, Jose, looked increasingly fierce as she stared at her brother’s back.

**

“Here he comes! Let’s see this year’s inspector.”

After they’d finished moving the food supplies, Kai and the other soldiers left the castle as ordered and moved nearer to the main village gate. There was already a large gathering there as if a festival had started. It looked like almost every one of the 1,000 or so villagers had gathered there.

The soldiers were told to line up at the side of the road like honor guards with their spears in hand. The aim was to show off their war potential so that the officials from the capital wouldn’t look down on their village.

Shortly after, a squad who’d gone out to meet the guests gave the announcement by blowing a horn. The villagers forced themselves to smile and began to cheer.

After a short time, a carriage drawn by four horses rushed through the crowd, sending up a cloud of dirt behind it. The carriage came rushing into the village with enough speed to surprise everyone, but the reason for their haste became clear when they saw the arrows protruding from their fancy carriage in multiple places and the damage that suggested that the carriage had been rammed into.

“Looks like the demi-humans had a go at them.”

“Ah, they’re with people from the next village over. I guess they needed escorts.”

Several soldiers on horseback came galloping in shortly after the carriage. Horses were in short supply, and lords generally had just a small number for use when hunting, making them a precious resource in the borderlands. The riders were probably the most skilled horsemen in the neighboring village, but the ride had left them exhausted. Some women of the village then screamed as one of the riders fell from his horse.

“Someone has to carry him! He’s injured!”

It was the quick-witted soldiers who acted first in situations like this. Manso immediately abandoned his position and ran toward the soldier who’d fallen from his horse. This of course led to Manso’s squad, Kai included, all coming to the soldier’s aid.

Kai took on the job of keeping the riderless horse under control, grabbing the reins as it looked ready to bolt off. Kai had no experience taking care of animals, so he had no idea how to calm the nervous horse, and he was making it even more agitated.

Calm down.

The horse tried to break Kai’s grip on the reins by throwing its head to the side, but Kai quietly used his incredible strength to hold the horse fixed in place. He held the reins firmly and kept the horse immobile, causing it to cower in submission.

Anyone who worked with animals probably would have been enraged to see a horse treated this way, but there were bigger things happening, and no one was watching Kai.

The carriage that had passed them by finally came to a stop in front of the gate to the castle, and someone inside had begun to vomit. The gold-plated frame of the carriage glistened in the sunlight. Three people climbed out from inside, and the baron greeted the man dressed in the finest clothing.

Kai could guess that this was the inspector everyone was talking about.

“Demi-humans are attacking the roads now?”

“We’ll need to dispatch a company to subdue them.”

Nearby, the senior soldiers were talking to one another in hushed voices.

One woman was whispering something about likely damage to the fields.

Someone else angrily asked no one in particular how many people had died this time.

The villagers directed their cold stares toward their guests, as if the carriage had carried death itself to their village.

23

“This is quite the reception...”

“I am Moloch Vezin, baron of Lag. I am honored to receive you, Inspector.”

The inspector had been dispatched in the name of the king who ruled over the Unified Kingdom. When two lords met, it was normal for both lords to show each other respect regardless of differences in rank, but in this case the higher-ranking lord was a government official wearing the royal colors, so the baron had to appear self-effacing and subservient.

“You have traveled far and must surely be tired, Inspector. We have made preparations in anticipation of your visit, and if you’d allow me to lead you inside...”

“Lord Moloch. Your domain is swarming with demi-humans, isn’t it?”

“The borderlands do lie close to the nation’s border, Inspector.”

“As long as there are many grotesque demons targeting the kingdom, every lord has a responsibility to patrol their domain and spread the glory of His Majesty the King. I do not intend to level accusations at House Moloch, but I am sure you agree that it would not do to be negligent in your duty to exterminate demon-kind?”

“You are quite right...”

The inspector, Severo Gandal, was a man who looked like a fat toad. The difference in height meant that he was glaring up at Vezin, who was forcing a smile while his temple twitched ever so slightly.

As the inspector was led into the castle, instructions were given to women in waiting. They were to prepare one of the finest luxuries of the borderlands for their guests: a hot bath.

Jugs filled with hot water were prepared, and women waited on them with fragrant oils and rough cloths to remove dirt. When Severo saw the group of fairly young girls and the rising steam, he glanced at the officials serving as his entourage with a much more placid expression.

The guests enjoyed a carefree conversation as their skin was scrubbed by cloths soaked in hot water. Vezin breathed a sigh of relief when he heard his guests sounding cheerful, but then he noticed that one of them was still standing by the entrance unattended, and he hurried over to him.

“How terribly rude of me. Allow me to guide you.”

“That’s quite all right. You needn’t concern yourself with me.”

The man held a light gray staff and was dressed in a long priest’s garb. His hood concealed a pattern that resembled the sigil of a guardian bearer.

When his eyes met the baron’s, he drew back the hood for a moment as a display of respect.

“I am a mere apprentice who just recently joined the great monastery of Maas. It would be improper for me to be touched by a woman’s hand. Please, do not concern yourself with me.”

“You’re... from the monastery...”

Vezin traced a holy sign over his chest as a show of respect.

The man was a priest of Manu, the state religion of the Unified Kingdom. The Manu monastery trained many holy men known as imilk. The imilk obtained power far beyond ordinary humans not through the blessings of a land god, but through training and the consumption of godstones. Vezin knew that such people had secret ways of influencing the royal household.

This priest was still young. He looked up with strong eyes, filled with willpower.

“If you’ve already obtained a sigil...”

“I’m ashamed to say that I’ve just barely obtained a doi sigil. I’m told that godstones are easily obtained here in the borderlands. The grand monastery has had much trouble procuring godstones. If it were possible, I would be most grateful if you had some you could provide to me as a donation before we depart.”

“I will see to it that some are prepared.”

“My sincere thanks.”

The priest introduced himself as a truthseeker dispatched from Maas. He gave his name as Nada. His kumadori appeared clearly on his face to prove that he spoke truthfully. He had not been mistaken when he called himself a doi sigil. Two sigil lines ran across his brow.

Theologians had found many rules describing the number of sigil lines that could appear between one’s eyebrows and the way the pattern would vary for each land god. Naturally, a greater number of sigil lines indicated a higher level of status. Priests who obtained sigils without the aid of a land god were deeply admired by most guardian bearers.

“A new land god has appeared somewhere within the kingdom.”

Nada explained that he was dispatched as a truthseeker with the task of locating this mysterious land god.

“It is the belief of the high priests that the divine spirit we are seeking is one close to the source, and that it would spell untold disaster if such power were to fall into the hands of profane demons.”

“The high priests... have they made a prophecy?”

“Indeed. The grand monastery is making every effort to find this new arch-god of prophecy, so its name might be listed alongside the others of the mausoleum. But in every region, the kingdom continues to lose the very land gods that form the fabric. We cannot allow the blessings of a newly discovered and powerful land god to be stolen by demi-humans... by profane demons. Other truthseekers have been dispatched all across the kingdom under similar orders so that we might quickly locate this new god spoken of in the prophecy. The inspector was kind enough to allow me to ride in his carriage, and we travel the same course.”

“Perhaps I could hear more of this prophecy.”

“I can share it with you, of course. Though I was not given permission to bring a written copy, so you must forgive me for reciting it orally. There are high priests in the grand monastery who hear the resonance of the realm of gods clearly. This is where the words of prophecy came from.”

A disobedient spirit awakens in the borderlands.

Its power reaching to the very heavens like a soaring bird.

Its nature, a shadow that brings light, evil that is virtuous. To be feared and revered. A god of miraculous change.

The priest must have recited the same words in every region he visited. He recited it clearly and rhythmically, without a single stutter.

“The Council of Priests have ordered that the gravesite of this new land god must be found as soon as possible, and its name must be enshrined in the mausoleum where it belongs, so that it might become one with the fabric. We have been granted full authority by His Majesty the King to search within the kingdom without restriction.”

With his face hidden under his hood once more, Nada dropped to his knees in his formal priest garb, and traced a holy sign across his chest while bowing. This bow was how priests expressed the greatest degree of subservience.

“I beg your assistance in our survey of this land.”

“Please, rise. You’ll dirty your clothing.”

“I beg of you.”

“Of course,” Vezin replied without hesitation. “Whatever I can do to aid you, I will do.”

Nada dropped his head low in response.

The inspector was watching their conversation as his body was being cleaned. He scoffed with disinterest and said, “And of course, you’ll also be expected to cooperate with my assessments.” His drooping gut wobbled as his hand slowly creeped up the arm of the woman beside him, coming to a stop on her shoulder.

“Let me give you some advice. If you’re planning on a search of the forest, send a good number of men out. We approached the forest at the suggestion of our dear priest not long ago, and we had quite a time of it. We were attacked so quickly that one might think the forest is well-within the demons’ territory.”

“I beg your pardon, Inspector,” said Vezin. “What were these demons that attacked?”

“They were gray baboons.”

It was a clear sign that macaques were active in the area once again.

Vezin shot a glance at Olha who was standing by the entrance, and Olha immediately left the room. He’d gone to gather soldiers to drive back the macaques, which was likely to help the truthseeker’s survey. It was also important to beat back demi-humans regularly to prevent them from attacking in large numbers later.

“I will demonstrate the ferocity with which soldiers serving under House Moloch fight day after day. Please let us make this first step toward the survey while you all rest comfortably.”

“Very well,” the inspector replied. “I’ll ask to see it for myself some time later.”

A dining table for guests was set up in a dedicated room, and the table was already set with a meal so extravagant that it would have made the color drain from the villagers’ faces if they saw it. Although each dish was made from the typical food of this rundown village, the table was packed with dozens of dishes that made every possible use of the ingredients they had available.

Needless to say, this wasteful use of food would have to be compensated for by providing less to the villagers, but their baron took great care to ensure that this extravagant meal was served in a separate room where it would never be seen by the adversely affected.

**

A company of soldiers was quickly assembled and put under Olha’s command. Their task was to hunt for demi-humans near the forests where the inspector’s party had been attacked.

The company was made up of 30 soldiers. Kai was among their number. They expected that they’d have to fight in the forests where group tactics were difficult to use, so rather than selecting squads of soldiers, the soldiers had been selected according to their skill in combat. The weapons they carried were short spears, which were easier to use in tight spaces, and several of the men were carrying bows.

The invading demi-humans were likely macaques, and their numbers had been increasing in this region.

Every soldier knew the enemy they faced and was prepared for the battle ahead, but many wore unhappy expressions.

No matter how many times they were driven back, the macaques would always come back and attempt another surprise attack on Lag’s land. As expected, they soon found signs of the creatures in the forest.

First, ten or so of the fastest soldiers charged in to ensure a given area of land was secure, and then the soldiers would move through the forest side-by-side, like beaters on a hunt.

Before long a soldier whistled through his fingers.

“Over there!”

Movement through the forest was slow, so it was most efficient for beaters to spread out over a broad area, and then the main force would charge in to meet any enemies in close-range combat.

When a beater found an enemy, they would turn and run without attempting to fight. Naturally, they would run toward the main force.

“There were five or six!”

“Don’t let them get away!”

Helping the survey was a secondary goal. Their true intention was to kill as many enemies as they could, because with every kill, the safety of their land would be ensured for a little longer. These enemies would die before they had a chance to attack the village.

They killed this other species so that members of their own kind might live.

The futile cycle of life and death in the borderlands continued that day, just like it did every other.

24

It came as a surprise to no one to learn that this strangely dressed man from the capital was an esteemed priest.

Olha and even the baron himself showed great respect for him. When, through some strange turn of events, the man agreed to spar with Olha on the training ground, their bout ended in a tie. Despite being a guardian bearer, Olha struggled to withstand his attacks.

“That priest’s not a guardian bearer, but it looks like he’s got the markings.”

“It’s like the wandering priests we see out here are nothing compared to priests from the capital.”

The borderlands was a place that valued raw strength, so visitors to villages in the borderlands would often be pestered with invitations to spar for the sake of comparing strengths.

The inspector was a cinquesta sigil, so the baron himself offered to spar with him. However, the fat, toad-like inspector brushed off the request and offered up the priest instead.

But the baron’s sigil was far higher in status than the priest’s, and it would have been rude to give him such a badly matched sparring partner. The baron was left frustrated as he was forced to send Olha in his place. After the bout between Olha and the priest took place, it was only the priest who was left unscathed, so the outcome was essentially a loss for Lag.

The god offering its protection to Olha was the land god of the ruined village of Elg, which gave him a tres sigil. The priest had a mere doi sigil, but was somehow able to force him into a tie. Olha looked less than pleased by this outcome.

“Your fighting style... It must be something taught in the capital...”

“How astute of you, Lord Olha. I’m well-versed in all aspects of the staff techniques of Raksha-ryu. I’ve gathered from your footwork that you’re trained in Zula-ryu.”

“You have keen eyes. I lost to you... even though I’m the one with the higher ranking sigil.”

“The priests of the monastery have long said that there is more to combat than one’s sigil.”

The conversation between the two was a friendly one. The priest explained that he’d walked a dangerous path, pushing his body to its limits through godstones and harsh training, with no land god to rely upon.

The soldiers had watched the fight while imagining that someday it might be them standing where the priest stood, and they argued passionately about the details of the fight afterward. If they could just get close in terms of physical strength and speed, they could sharpen their arts through hard work to close the gap and stand abreast the guardian bearers. They had just seen it happen with their own eyes.

The soldiers around Kai were all trying to analyze the fight.

“What do you think, Kai? How would you fight the priest?”

“Well, he moves his weapon so fast that he can parry any attack from Olha... But Olha was using a wooden sword, so he should have tried thrusting more instead of just cutting...”

“Good point. A good thrust might’ve found some gap in his defense.”

“Manso, how would you attack him?”

“Well I’m a spear bearer at heart, so I’d just thrust, thrust, thrust like mad. Not that it’s going to work on someone with the markings. He’s basically half-guardian bearer. But I suppose you could follow it up with a Zula-ryu grapple to break his stance.”

“Right? There’s no other way.”

Kai folded his arms and thought carefully about Manso’s analysis. Kai thought the real problem was that the priest’s eyes were too sharp. But since no one else had noticed the shine in his eyes, Kai kept quiet about it. It was barely noticeable, but the priest’s eyes had given off a faint light, like a torch burning in the distance. If that light was his spiritual energy, then Kai would be forced to conclude that he was using magic.

Priests can come up with prophecies, so maybe they have something like... a precognition ability?

He wondered how he’d fight against someone who could predict his every move.

Kai had also been imagining himself fighting in Olha’s bout, and he absentmindedly went through simulations in his mind. Most of the spectating soldiers were still sitting while gesturing wildly with their arms. The scene would have looked comical to an outsider.

“Soon they’re gonna start sending some of us out with the priest so he can explore the forest during training time. There’ll be another selection contest, I bet.”

Many of the soldiers wanted a chance to learn more from the priest, so it was likely that a lot of volunteers would step forward. Normally, no one would want the job of patrolling the forest and possibly fighting demi-humans, but this time the job had some real appeal.

“I’ll go ask...”

Kai got up and looked for Basco, one of the top-ranking soldiers. He spotted Basco discussing something with Setta over in the corner of the training ground, so he walked over. Having to deal with little tasks like this was a responsibility that came with being a squad leader.

In a serious bout, it turned out that Kai’s rapid growth had made him powerful enough to smash Manso’s weapon apart, and Manso had actually looked relieved to give up his position as squad leader. Deep down, Manso was probably glad to be free from all the little responsibilities that came with leading a squad.

Kai, on the other hand, was now one of the ten highest ranked soldiers and often had to spend his time on small tasks.

Being in a position of responsibility also meant that he found himself on night watch more often while there were guests in the village, leaving him with fewer opportunities to visit the valley.

In most years, an inspector’s party would leave after about a week.

Kai concentrated on the tasks at hand, feeling sure that this year would be no different.

**

“I see no sign of those ghastly baboons today.”

Truthseeker Nada had climbed to the top of a high rock in the forest, where he could see his surroundings clearly.

Olha had waited on the ground, but it wasn’t long before the truthseeker climbed back down. Nada spread out the map of the region, which was an item passed down through many generations of House Moloch, and pointed to various parts of the map while describing things he’d seen and making notes.

“I see some rather large inconsistencies from what’s drawn here.”

“This map was drawn by one of my ancestors, almost 100 years ago. The forests have been spreading ever since.”

The population of the borderlands had been dropping with each passing year, reducing the demand for wood and giving the forests a chance to expand. Places where the trees were once thinned out before they could grow tall were now left untouched because of the demi-human threat. Once the trees were allowed to mature, it was no easy task to cut them back.

“Can all members of Maas use the art of a hundred eyes with such skill?”

“I have sharpened my arts as part of my daily training. Those with particularly good eyes were deliberately chosen to be dispatched as truthseekers. This is a necessity, otherwise we might overlook subtle signs.”

“And in our bout earlier?”

“The art of Raksha-ryu staff fighting was developed to give traveling priests a means to defend themselves. The art allows us to sense and then deflect an arrow in flight. For that purpose, we learn to use the eye, and then the same principles are easily transferable to other techniques.”

“It’s most impressive. Perhaps you could teach me...”

“Do you mean to tell me you wish to join the priesthood, Lord Olha?” Nada asked, still smiling.

Olha turned to look at him and realized that the priest wasn’t smiling with his eyes.

“I see you are wondering why you must join the priesthood.”

“...”

“These are secret arts not taught to outsiders. Even members of the royal family must join the priesthood for a time before they can learn our arts. They do so merely for the sake of appearances, but still, the monastery demands it.”

“I see...”

Olha asked no further questions.

Once someone gained a land god as their guardian, they couldn’t be away from that god’s land for long periods of time. This was the cost of receiving a land god’s blessings, often known as the curse of the land.

It was standard practice to join the priesthood and enter the monastery while not carrying a guardian. This was one reason that priests would go to great pains to gain power without a guardian.

Even for those with the same level of sigil, the cost they paid for it was different. A guardian bearer was bound to the land, meanwhile those who gained their power from the blessings of godstones alone would go through great hardships to gain power, but wouldn’t be tied down by strange fixations, and kept their freedom to travel from one area to another.

“Perhaps there’s a monastery nearby where I could...”

“I’m afraid there are none.” Nada breathed a deep sigh and then corrected himself. “More precisely, there are none that I see.”

Even with the secret art of a hundred eyes, he couldn’t easily see beneath the ground or into the depths of bodies of water. As useful as the technique appeared, it was not all-powerful.

“There were four baboons exterminated yesterday by my count. How many would you say you kill per year?”

“I would estimate around one hundred.”

To kill so many macaques had cost Lag fifty of their soldiers, and they’d also lost a few dozen women and children. It was only because they had aid from neighboring villages that they’d kept their losses so low. But the number of casualties was still significantly higher than the number of births, and there was less activity in the village with each passing year.

Nada pointed to the northeast and calmly said, “I’ve seen a large dwelling of the baboons in this direction.”

Olha looked into those still, silent eyes, and a shiver ran down his spine.

“There are many of them. This group looks to have several times the population of your village. I cannot say whether there were always so many, or if they all came to gather from other places.”

“That can’t be!”

“I have seen it for myself. There is no mistake.”

A large macaque dwelling. Those were the words that Olha had least expected to hear.

“I suspect it’s only a matter of time before they invade in great numbers,” the truthseeker said softly.

25

“Welcome home, My God.”

The night had already grown late when Kai arrived in the valley.

Aruwe appeared to have been sleeping inside the cabin, but the soft sound of Kai’s footsteps was enough to wake her up, and she greeted him happily. She then tried to throw herself down on the ground before Kai, but he grabbed a hold of her and forced her to stop.

The small koror girl’s body was very light. Kai’s method of forcing her to stop was to grab the back of her clothing and lift her into the air with a small amount of strength.

“A quick bow will do.”

“But...”

“Otherwise it’s annoying.”

He put Aruwe down and for a moment she was unsure what to do, but then she breathed a deep breath and said, “If that’s your request, My God,” before bowing her head politely.

Kai also wanted to tell her to stop calling him God, but he wasn’t ready to tell her his real name. He had no choice but to accept it until he was ready to open his heart to her.

The starry sky was reduced to a circle by the edges of the valley around him, but some of the light found its way down to light the area around them. Something much more interesting then grabbed Kai’s attention.

“T-The cabin...”

Aruwe smiled triumphantly when she heard the surprise in Kai’s voice.

“I wanted to surprise My God. Straightened it up as best I could.”

It had been several days since Kai’s last visit to the valley. Less than half a month since he’d taken in Aruwe, she was already more or less fluent in the human tongue, suggesting that Porek had been giving her lessons.

Kai’s eyes lit up as he examined his transformed cabin. It’d been a makeshift thing that he felt wasn’t quite worthy of being called a building, and he’d preferred to think of it as a child’s secret base. But now it had been reborn as an impressive cabin.

Kai saw the proud look on Aruwe’s face and soon became suspicious about the whole thing.

“Did some of the other koror come down into the valley?”

The color drained from Aruwe’s face when she noticed the change in Kai’s attitude, but she adamantly denied it while holding up her hands for Kai to see.

Her small hands were covered in painful looking scrapes and cuts.

“They only lowered down tools. My people build their village at top of the cliff. They give me materials, but no one enters.”

Kai could see that there were several pieces of wood in the corner of the cabin that were still being worked on, and there were various tools left lying here and there. Kai knew that the koror were good with their hands, and now he realized that Aruwe was no exception.

“That’s all right then. You’re amazing, Aruwe.”

“T-Thank you!”

“How’d you get rid of all the gaps between the planks?”

“My people call it collard. They use it in the same way. It forms at the bottom of a pot when boiling down leaves. It’s waterproof, so we use it as coating for unglazed pots.”

“The entrance has steps now.”

“They took me half a day to make.”

When he entered the cabin, he was surprised to find that the floor had been adjusted to make it perfectly level. Aruwe had used what she called levers to lift up one side, and then she’d placed pebbles underneath to adjust the incline of the surface. The planks that Kai had cut were unusually thick, so they didn’t warp in the center.

Around the edges of the floor, gaps at the ends of planks had been filled in with black collard, just like on the walls.

He looked at the ceiling and saw that it still looked the same.

“Using land god’s gravesite to support roof is disrespectful.”

“...”

“The walls made by My God are strong enough to support the roof. I can’t do it myself. I hoped My God would help.”

That kind of small modification was something Kai could easily handle by himself. Following Aruwe’s instructions, he cut the roofing planks to the right length and placed them down so that they sloped down toward the cabin’s edges. The upper edges of the wall planks that the roof rested on were cut and made even by Aruwe, so they matched the incline correctly.

Then Kai dug up some exposed rocks from near the waterside and broke them apart to form weight stones, which he placed on the top of the planks. The roof needed to have gaps for ventilation, so those were left as they were.

This is amazing!

He never thought he’d see the day when he had a dwelling that was all his own.

Inside the cabin, a bed had been prepared by putting cloth over a pile of straw against the back wall. His plans for the night were decided right then.

“My God, if you wish... I-I am inexperienced... but!”

“...?”

For some reason Aruwe had thrown herself down on the ground again despite having just been told to stop, but Kai didn’t stop her this time because he was too busy finding out how comfortable the bed was.

When he jumped onto the bed, he could smell the scent of straw that had been dried just right.

The bed was perfect.

“I-I’m inexperienced, but...”

“...”

Although Kai had no great need for sleep, the day had left him mentally tired and he was a prisoner to the comfortable bed. Before he could put up a fight, he was already asleep.

Aruwe unleashed a flurry of hits against his back as he slept, but Kai’s toughened body was immune to that kind of attack.

Kai probably hadn’t slept for very long.

He got up, feeling some sort of presence. His drowsiness was gone in an instant.

Kai could hear Aruwe’s breathing as she slept soundly, almost buried in the straw by his side.

She showed no signs of waking up, and Kai guessed that she must have been trying hard to match her daily rhythm to his night-time visits to the valley.

Something... doesn’t feel right.

Kai left the cabin.

For some reason the soft sounds of insects that he could usually hear had fallen silent. For now, he didn’t know what to make of it, so he simply washed his face in the water of the lake and then began cleaning the gravesite as he always did during his visits to the valley. But then the cry of a bird in the distance caught his attention.

As if urged on by his intuition, Kai quickly clambered up the roots of the great tree and looked in the direction of the bird call. He concentrated on what he saw and trusted in his visual ability as a guardian bearer to allow him to see clearly through the darkness.

He could feel a battle going on in the area where the koror had been building their temporary settlement. And although he couldn’t hear them clearly, the air carried the sound of distant screams.

Then several lights appeared.

At first, he thought that the koror must have lit their torches, but the light of the fire revealed a huge figure several times larger than a koror. The figure was an org swinging an axe, as if trying to cut back the grass, while its great, wrinkled snout twitched.

Then he heard a voice many times louder.

“God of the Valley!”

Kai heard it clearly. It was a clear voice speaking the human tongue.

The koror were the victims of an org night raid.

The cry must have caused Aruwe to wake up. She came leaping out of the cabin and stared, wide-eyed in shock at her people’s settlement. Then she turned to look at Kai. Aruwe said nothing.

Kai had only ever given the koror permission to live by the edge of the valley. He had never said anything about giving them his protection.

But there was something in her eyes that ate away at him.

The whole time, they could still hear cries of “God of the Valley!” coming from the other side of the valley.

“The orgs come to steal the guardian.”

Aruwe’s words made the whole situation clear to Kai.

The orgs who’d stolen the land and gravesite from the koror wanted to kill Porek so that he’d lose the blessings of his god, and then the orgs could take it for themselves.

The orgs suddenly reminded Kai of the macaques that were always attacking Lag’s land.

Now I get why the macaques never give up on attacking our village.

Their intention wasn’t to take away their land. Stealing a gravesite had no meaning if it was missing its original power to provide blessings. The goal of the macaques was to cause the divine spirit of the land gods to return to their gravesites so that members of their own could claim them as guardians.

Since Kai’s birth, they had taken two villages from them, one of which was Eda. But House Moloch had snatched away the blessings of the land gods. The reason that the macaques were so fixated on the village of Lag should have been obvious.

Kai had only realized it now after having visited other lands.

“They really piss me off.”

“My God...?”

“They think they can come into my valley whenever they like?”

Kai began to run.

26

Kai scaled the cliffs of the valley like an upward rush of wind.

When he reached the scene, he found the koror were being maimed and killed around him. Right in front of him was an org about to bring its axe down on a koror woman who was begging for her life.

It wasn’t a warrior-class org; it looked more like their equivalent of a foot soldier.

“God of the Valley...”

The koror woman’s voice was filled with joy when she saw Kai had put himself between her and the axe.

The org looked surprised to see Kai suddenly appear and get in the way, but then it realized that Kai was unarmed and it howled with laughter.

It swung the axe once more, this time aimed at Kai himself.

Too slow...

Kai had learned to follow the quick movements of Moloch Vezin, the warrior known as the Iron Taurus. Avoiding an attack from this org was mere child’s play in comparison.

He followed the path of the weapon until the last possible moment and then deflected it with the smallest possible movement. When the axe struck the ground, Kai stomped on it, forcing it deeper into the dirt.

Now that he had a moment to spare, his hand went to his waist and found the knife.

The org felt Kai’s gaze move across its body and realized that he was looking for a vulnerable spot. It gave up on the axe and tried to back away.

But there was no escape.

Kai watched as the org soldier turned around to run and then he aimed his knife at the spot where the back of the neck met the head. He mercilessly drove the knife deep into the creature’s brainstem.

The org’s body shuddered for just a moment, and then its huge mass stood up bolt straight. As Kai withdrew his knife, the org’s body fell forward, no longer obscuring his view of the assault. His eyes searched, hoping to find the next target as quickly as possible.

Cutting through the tough hide of the countless orgs with his short knife was going to be hard work.

Let’s use this instead.

He reached for the axe that the org had left embedded in the ground and jerked it free. It wasn’t the first time he’d held an org’s axe, so it didn’t feel too unnatural in his hand.

The axe he’d recovered from the body of the org in the valley had been taken away from him and carried back to the village as one of the spoils of the battle. The iron weapons that orgs often carried were of reasonable quality, so they made fairly valuable prizes here in the borderlands. The fact that orgs could give iron weapons to every foot soldier suggested that metalwork was prevalent in the orgish country.

“The god of the valley has come to us!”

“****, ****, **!”

The koror were speaking in a mixture of their own language and the human tongue.

Kai guessed from the atmosphere that they were throwing defiant taunts at the orgs. Faced with such a dire situation, the koror needed to maintain their morale somehow, so their reaction to Kai’s appearance was understandable.

Several koror corpses were already scattered on the ground. The orgs had clearly intended to wipe out every last one. And then Kai realized why.

They wanted to end the bloodline that might try to cling on to the land god.

House Moloch of Lag were the same. Even after losing a village, they stubbornly refused to give up the land god and felt nothing but hatred toward those who’d taken control of the land. It wasn’t just humans who treated their gods as treasures to be passed down to their ancestors through countless generations. If the koror lost their land god, they would just as stubbornly try to claim it back for as long as they lived.

This really isn’t the right time to think about all that.

Kai had more pressing things to worry about.

He tried not to let his guard down as he searched for an enemy with the axe carried over his shoulder.

Although the orgs were driven by their desire to steal the guardian from the koror, it was still a problem that they’d dared approach the valley’s edge when the fear of the god of the valley was enough to keep other species away. Allowing them to return home unharmed would set an unacceptable precedent.

It may have been a mistake to allow the koror to build their temporary settlement here. When the orgs had seen the koror living peacefully at the valley’s edge, they’d lost their fear of the valley.

KILL THEM

Kai felt as though he’d heard a voice inside his head.

Then he felt a feeling of heat fill his entire body. Kai knew his kumadori was starting to show on his face.

PUNISH THEM WITH BLOOD

It dawned on Kai that this was the only way to ensure peace in the valley.

Now he understood the true reason why the previous master of the valley had needed to ward off outsiders so aggressively. The previous guy had loved the valley just as much.

Kai felt himself fill with power.

Although Kai knew that he was a guardian bearer, he’d never measured the full extent of the god of the valley’s power in any objective way. He was confident that he could handle just about any opponent who didn’t have a guardian, but if the orgs had brought their own guardian bearer to this fight, he wasn’t so confident that he’d be able to kill it.

But he had no time to sit and think about it.

I’ll kill every last one of them.

Kai quickly surveyed his surroundings and tried to keep the relative positions of the orgs in mind. Then he took action, moving in the sequence that he thought was most efficient and using his superior physical strength to leap from one place to the next. Orgs fell one after another, each from a single blow.

The sight of Kai brandishing the heavy axe as if it was a light tree branch struck fear into the hearts of the orgs. He reckoned that he’d taken down three or four orgs by the time he realized that the org soldiers were disappearing.

The orgs had come expecting to fight a weak species, and it was only now that they were running around and trying to arrange themselves into formations.

Behind them was the one giving out instructions to the scattered soldiers. This org was no doubt a guardian bearer who was in command of this org company.

“God of Arbitration!”

Porek approached, carrying a narrow sword.

His sword was already glistening with blood and fat after having taken several lives. Porek was the koror’s only guardian bearer, and he was in no way inferior to an org foot soldier.

“My sword and I are with you.”

“Don’t go thinking I showed up to save you.”

“Those who enter the sacred region of the valley without permission cannot be forgiven. This is my understanding.”

Porek grinned as he emphasized the words “without permission.”

The koror had permission to be here. The orgs, on the other hand, were trespassing and had incurred the wrath of the god of the valley. It was a simple way of looking at it, and Kai saw the logic.

“You think you can use me?”

Porek took up a position beside Kai with a clear look of discomfort on his face.

Porek shook his head. “This situation came about by chance,” the old koror said apologetically with his head bowed. “Everything was mere chance and coincidence.”

Kai had nothing to say in response, so Porek continued speaking.

“Unless we demonstrate our power here, the orgs won’t hesitate to enter the valley from now on. They are here to steal the wealth of the valley. Their greed knows no bounds.”

“And what about your people? Aren’t you after the valley?”

“Most certainly not. We are a small and powerless people. We know our place all too well.”

“You can swear you won’t enter the valley?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’ll believe you for now.”

“I am most grateful. On this day and at this moment, the koror of the village of Hacar swear their devotion to you.”

It was an easy oath to make when threatened by a stronger enemy. But when Kai heard the words, he felt a sharp feeling inside, like a tingling in his godstone. Without needing an explanation, he understood that a mysterious sort of pact had just been made.

The future could bring more than just orgs; demi-humans of all sorts might swarm the valley to seize the gravesite. It made sense to have someone act as the valley’s sentinel.

“Well then, we’ve got orgs to kill.”

“Your wish is my command.”

Kai slowly approached a group of org soldiers with his axe held low. The orgs were holding torches, and they must have clearly seen the enemy approaching.

A small human soldier with his kumadori visible.

The intricacy of the sigil on that face was enough to unnerve the orgs.

“***, *****, *!”

“**, ***!”

Kai didn’t understand what the orgs said, and nor did he care to. The only feeling that filled him was the desire to kill.

27

Kai had seen battles between guardian bearers before.

A meeting of two sources of power far beyond the reach of ordinary people was an extraordinary event, like a sacred ritual, and no one could watch those fights without feeling both fear and awe. But Kai had never seen one of these otherworldly fights reach a true conclusion.

“None of you are going home alive.”

This grim promise caused the org soldiers to huddle together, and they were visibly shaken. Behind them stood the stern-faced org leader, who was clearly the guardian bearer giving orders. The org leader let out a howl of rage.

To someone who didn’t understand the orgish tongue, it sounded like nothing more than a high-pitched screech. But it was as if the voice at their backs pushed the org soldiers forward, sending them charging toward Kai. The anger of their leader must have scared them more than the thought of taking on an unknown, human guardian bearer.

Kai remained still, and watched closely as the cluster of orgs charged toward him with their eyes bloodshot.

Needless to say, Kai had no doubts about his ability to hold them off. What Kai was worried about was what was to come next. He might make the fatal mistake of leaving himself open to attack while dealing with their frenzied assault, or they might deplete his strength enough to leave him tired while facing the real fight that followed.

“Please, leave the formalities to me.”

Porek stepped forward as if he’d read the concerns on Kai’s mind. Then, as if trying to demonstrate the devotion he’d just sworn to his master, Porek acted as his master’s shield and intercepted the attack.

The narrow, slightly curved blade he held was made to exploit the most vulnerable parts of an enemy’s huge body, and it allowed Porek to use his small koror body to his advantage.

Porek leaped at his opponents, moving to close the gap between them like a rush of wind. His narrow blade moved with each leap, licking at the bodies of his enemies and wearing them down.

Once Porek found an opportunity to get behind an opponent, in an instant, his sword would make cuts in the vital areas of their ankles and the backs of their knees. Porek left each opponent with blood spraying from their severed tendons, and before they knew what had happened, they found themselves unable to move.

It was clear now why Porek’s sword had been covered in blood. The orgs had nervously approached him to start with, but now that they’d clearly seen this koror guardian bearer make fools of them with his swordplay, they hastily fled to the left and right, causing a path to open.

“You are free to proceed, God of the Valley.”

Porek shook the blood and fat from his sword with a sharp flicking motion.

The old koror was far more skilled than Kai in terms of martial arts, but Kai still felt confident that he wouldn’t lose in a fight between the two of them. Such was the incredible power that the god of the valley’s blessings gave to him.

A path leading to the enemy’s leader was now open before Kai. Orgs took up positions at either side of their leader, but none of them were willing to sacrifice themselves to act as a shield.

The orgs instinctively knew that they were no match for Kai and the koror guardian bearer. The org soldiers were trying to hide behind their leader, knowing that a guardian bearer opponent could only be dealt with by another guardian bearer.

It has to die.

By this point, the org leader’s kumadori had appeared on its face. Kai couldn’t read the information carried by the pattern of rings that the kumadori formed around the org’s snout. If someone well-versed in theology had been there, they might have estimated that this org’s sigil was roughly a tres sigil. This rank of sigil was the most common for creatures with the blessings of a land god, and this level of divinity was about right for the god of a small dwelling such as a village.

As Porek hurried toward Kai and threatened the enemy foot soldiers, there was a doi sigil visible on his face, suggesting that the power of the blessing he received was slightly inferior. The blessings that both of them received might be considered appropriate for those living in a poor land such as the borderlands.

And on the face of Kai, who felt compelled to continue approaching his opponent, was a kumadori that was markedly different from the other two.

“***! ***.”

Porek yelled something incomprehensible at the org soldiers. Kai could tell from the enraged reaction of the org soldiers that Porek had said something crude and intimidating.

Not being able to understand what anyone was saying was a major inconvenience. He’d have to ask about it later.

The org leader had been whining shrilly at Porek in orgish, but now it fell quiet and assumed its stance while waiting for Kai to approach.

“Humans, no business here.” With some difficulty, the org managed to produce the sounds of the human tongue from its broad throat. It was hard to catch the words, but Kai understood. “This between koror and org. No business. Leave.”

“I do have business here.”

“Why?”

“You entered my valley without permission. So now I’m going to kill you.”

“Valley? But... Valley is yours?”

“Right. The valley’s mine.”

“...”

The org’s large, reddish body reared up in surprise.

“Valley... You say valley?!”

All three warriors had finally come to a shared understanding.

The org leader acted as though it was noticing Kai for the first time, and it looked at the kumadori on his face carefully. The change in its attitude was immediate.

“Stop...”

“I’m not stopping.”

“We leave. Yield... No need for—”

“If I let you get away, you’ll be back. So I have to kill you.”

“But please... I beg...”

“No buts.”

It was clear from this exchange that the org leader felt inferior, and the org soldiers were starting to become nervous. Then, when their leader took a step back, they threw themselves to the ground as if pleading for their leader’s life.

“***”

“**, ***!”

Kai couldn’t understand their words, but he understood their desperation.

But Kai’s resolve was firm. These invaders had come to murder every last koror, so it made no sense to forgive them if they threw themselves down and begged for their own lives. And then there were the koror who were under his protection. As long as he wanted to ensure their safety, there was no way he could allow these org soldiers to return home safely.

Kai gave himself to the anger that filled him and slammed the axe down against a rock by his feet. His strength was enough to split the rock in half and send out an explosion of large fragments that caused every org soldier to cower in fear.

Then Porek gave some command in the koror tongue to the koror who’d been watching everything.

“****!”

“**.”

There was an exchange of words between the many demi-humans, and then everything happened at once.

Every koror drew a bladed weapon that looked like a household tool, and they set upon the orgs who were unable to move because of their severed tendons. The fallen orgs tried to resist in the face of approaching death, but they could do little to delay the inevitable.

When the other orgs saw their fellow soldiers being slaughtered, they looked horrified to see the tables turned on them, but they continued to plead with Kai for the life for their precious guardian bearer.

But no matter how they pleaded, they were completely surrounded by the koror. The koror would never forgive the orgs for taking their village from them, or for the way they continued to kill so many of their people.

The koror moved in to torment and kill the prostrated orgs while their faces were still pressed to the ground.

Some orgs rose to their feet and ran to their leader, but they knew it was better to scatter and flee when they saw the koror draw bows.

At that point, even their leader decided to flee.

Kai gave chase.

Kai didn’t hesitate for a moment. He threw the only thing he had on hand, the axe, at the org leader in an attempt to prevent it from using its incredible speed to get away.

The org leader acted on instinct, using its own weapon to deflect the axe that flew toward it, and just barely escaped death.

“God of the Valley!” Porek yelled.

Kai was barely aware of the fact that he’d just left himself unarmed.

“You die!” the org laughed.

When Kai lost his weapon, the org felt confident that Kai could never overcome it using his physical strength alone, and it turned to face him. Even for a guardian bearer, throwing away the weapon they used to attack was foolish. No matter how strong Kai was, he wasn’t so much stronger than the org that he could land a killing blow in hand-to-hand combat.

The org’s two-handed axe was specially made to be used by a guardian bearer, and the blade was large enough that it could split apart a human head with the force of its weight alone. The powerful muscles of the org sent the blade cutting through the night air.

It came toward him like a gale of death, but Kai greeted it with a cool face.

Invisible sword...

Kai had done no more than throw away a weapon that he wasn’t used to using.

It took just a moment of concentration to coat his hand with spiritual energy, creating the blade he’d made for cutting through trees.

The magic that created this sword was probably limited in terms of the mass it could cut through. It had never seemed particularly powerful when used against broad trees, but the enemy’s weapon was much thinner, and the blade was more than up to the task.

Kai met the org’s weapon with a horizontal chop, cutting straight through the handle and sending the detached blade spinning through the air. He’d cut through the handle with virtually no resistance, so it was as if the org’s swing had hit nothing but air. Its bodyweight had been behind the swing, and it never doubted that it would land a hit, but now the org’s body was thrown off-balance.

The org must have realized it was defenseless now that its stance was broken. It began to shamelessly beg for its life again. But Kai was done listening.

“You’re the first guardian bearer I’ve killed.”

“Wait... wait.”

“****”

One of the few remaining org foot soldiers leaped at Kai, risking its life in a desperate attempt to stop their god’s blessings from being taken from its species. But Kai sent the org soldier flying back with a single punch.

He knew that a punch was more than enough to deal with a foot soldier. Sure enough, after being thrown back and rolling across the ground, the org foot soldier was left unable to move.

Org soldiers appeared to be every bit as protective of their land gods. Kai thought of the koror who’d met the invading orgs. This was justice.

“Wait...”

He used his hand sword to gouge into the org leader’s chest and cut open its heart. At the same time, his fingertip touched something hard, and Kai saw no reason not to rip it from the org’s chest right there and then.

There was a spray of blood as his hand emerged from the fat flesh of the org. A white mass was there in his grasp.

Kai realized that the godstone he was holding was larger than any he’d ever seen before.

SEAL IT!

Kai heard the voice inside his head again.

He followed its command.

28

In his hand he held a fearsomely large godstone.

The bone was rough and covered in protrusions, and there was something unfamiliar contained inside. Kai unconsciously brought his spiritual energy to his hand and spread his power across the godstone’s surface.

“You have the creature’s stone, I see.”

Porek’s face was difficult to read as he looked at the godstone in Kai’s hand, which was as big as a baby’s head.

This was what remained of the org soldier who had killed many of his fellow koror and had almost driven his tribe to extinction. The corpse of the creature was lying at their feet, but it was the godstone that symbolized the life of the org to both of them.

“Not long after death, divine spirits return to their rightful gravesites. If you’d take it into yourself, I’d urge you to do so quickly.”

“If I eat it, will I get the land god’s powers?”

“It is not possible for one to carry two guardians. But divine power can be absorbed many times. The spirit will return any moment. I urge you to consume it now.”

“I’ve sealed it so the god can’t get out. We’ve got time.”

Kai focused his spiritual energy and made sure it enclosed the godstone.

When its host died, the spiritual membrane around the divine spirit would be lost, exposing it to the outside world and triggering its return home. Kai didn’t know how he knew this, but as long as he kept the godstone completely surrounded with spiritual energy, the spirit of the land god inside it would not be lost.

Right... there’s no way I could have two or three guardians at once.

It was a little disappointing, but if it was so easy to have multiple land gods as guardians, someone else would have already done it a long time ago. For example, if the count of the borderlands had wanted to do so, he could have attacked all of the weaker guardian bearers around him and claimed their guardians for himself. Kai had never heard of such a thing happening, so he knew that Porek was telling the truth.

The voice inside Kai’s head had told him, “Seal it.” He guessed that there must be some other way to benefit from the godstone.

“God of the Valley?”

“Is there a way to use this thing besides eating it?” Kai asked Porek, feeling as though the old koror knew much more than himself.

Porek knew that Kai had only just inherited the god of the valley as his guardian. He appeared to think about it for a few moments before he replied.

“The higher gods, those closer to heaven, are able to choose loyal followers and grant them a land god as their guardian.” He gestured toward the koror standing around them. “The chosen follower gains the land god as their guardian and in exchange become subservient to you.”

By loyal followers, he meant the other koror around them. But Kai still didn’t have complete faith in them.

Porek must have judged from Kai’s reaction that there was no chance of a new koror guardian bearer being born today. He followed up by asking, “Are there none worthy among your own kind?”

The faces of Kai’s fellow soldiers from Lag came to his mind, but he shook his head. He had many friends who he trusted, but it would only lead to conflict in their peaceful community.

“No.”

“In that case, you may use it to increase your own power without hesitation. There are many powerful guardian bearers in this world. If you wish to protect the valley, you’d best gain power quickly so that you are a match for the six mighty orgs of the Rigdaros who lead the orgish armies.”

Porek had knowledge of parts of the demi-human world that were unknown to humans.

There were many famous human lords who had two names, and it sounded as though the orgs also had powerful guardian bearers who were famous among members of their species. It seemed as though orgs had power over a nearby region, so the most direct threat to the valley was the powerful guardian bearers of the orgs.

Rigdaros? Kai wondered if any of them had been there at the battle of Banya.

Kai looked at the godstone in his hand and made his decision quickly.

He had no way to preserve it, and the marrow was best consumed while it was fresh and would have the most effect. He wouldn’t be able to win a new ally, but if he could gain much of the nourishment of the marrow while the spirit of the land god was still trapped inside, there would still be some meaning in following the strange instruction that had come to him.

The godstone of the guardian bearer was incredibly tough. The rough surface of the bony substance was an indication of its hardness. When Kai found that he couldn’t break it against the rocks on the ground, he quickly lost his patience and created his invisible sword at his fingertip so that he could slice the bone open.

The part that was sliced off flew right into the hands of Porek, who was impressed by Kai’s method of opening the godstone.

“Take it. That part’s yours.”

“Y-You are sure...?”

“You helped.”

Through the round opening in the godstone, the rich, amber-colored marrow packed inside was visible. Even in terms of mass, it looked like it contained ten times as much as a normal godstone, and large amounts of rich juice dripped from it, making Kai’s stomach growl with impatience.

First, he took a bite. Then he violently thrust his mouth at the opening, gnawing and slurping. Before long that small opening wasn’t enough and he cut the whole thing in two using his sword. He continued to eat greedily.

Kai’s feast was a mouth-watering sight for the koror. Even though many of their people had just died, some of them couldn’t help but growl hungrily as they watched.

The koror were just like humans in that they collected every godstone except those of their own kind. Kai suspected that if he tried ordering them to eat those godstones, they’d only become sick and start vomiting. Kai had no knowledge of the ceremonies in which a retired lord’s godstone would be eaten by their successor.

The marrow from the guardian bearer had tasted frightfully good. As he ate it, he felt a strange sensation as if the spirit of the org soldier was being absorbed into himself.

Then when he had almost finished eating, there was a strange feeling inside him, as if a violent struggle was going on inside his stomach. Kai intuitively knew that this was the spirit of the land god, and for a few seconds he fought back, holding his breath so that he might absorb a little more from it. Finally, its feeble existence escaped like a gas leaking from every pore of his body.

It seemed it wasn’t possible to completely consume a land god.

Kai’s heart suddenly skipped a beat.

Hot...

His godstone inside him was burning up, and it felt as though his blood would boil as the heat spread. Then came a terrible sensation that felt like his body was being rearranged while leaving his human skin in its original shape.

I can barely stand...

Kai put the still unfinished godstone into his pocket and walked towards the valley on unsteady feet. Porek had also sat down as if his share of the godstone had made him drunk, but he was alert enough to notice Kai’s strange behavior. He ordered his people to help him.

Kai brushed off their attempts to support him and said, “I’m going back.”

He shook the koror off completely by using the last of his strength to run to the valley’s edge where he made a calculated jump from the cliff. He intended to let the lake break his fall.

As his body sailed lightly through the air, he caught sight of Aruwe who had been left in tears at the bottom of the valley. She’d been crying against the god of the valley’s grave.

While her people were being attacked, she hadn’t tried to go to them. Instead, she’s stayed there and prayed. Kai realized that she was sincere in her promise to serve him.

He wondered if she was someone he could put his faith in. He felt as though she was.

The lake caught him, and he struggled to put his racing thoughts in order as he swam to the surface.

As the water dripped from his body, he began to feel as though there was no great difference between the beautiful scenery of the valley and the figure of the girl who was running towards him.

29

“The hell is this? I need more.”

“Don’t give her a hard time.”

“I’ve been breaking my back all day. I can’t live on this. I need a little more at least.”

“I’m sorry... If we don’t reduce the servings there won’t be enough for everyone.”

The girl serving dinner had to bow her head and apologize each time a soldier asked for more.

Today’s dinner was half the usual amount of watery soup with some hard bread. Most of the soldiers ignored the little arguments that resulted.

Just like last year...

Kai’s squad had already gotten their food and was sitting at the table. Despite the favoritism the women had been showing him lately, even Kai was sitting with a half empty plate. The food situation in the village had really grown serious.

“How long’s that fucking toad going to stay in our village?”

“Till he’s done with his inspection or whatever.”

“I heard that the toad said he didn’t like the soup, and what we’re eating now are his leftovers, watered down. He doesn’t eat even half of the meals he gets given, but when they gave him less he went mad and slapped one of the girls waiting on him.”

“He’s not much nicer to the women they send him at night. You see them crying in the shadows sometimes.”

“...”

When guests who were used to the comforts of the capital visited the borderlands, they would often make demands without any care for the scarcity of food. This was especially true in recent times because the royal household’s power over the region was fading, and their unreasonable requests were caused by their lack of confidence in their own authority.

The inspector and his party that were visiting this year were just as heartless as any other. The whole village was put at risk by their attempts to indulge a small number of people, and the situation had gone beyond a joke.

“Women...?”

“Do you even know what we’re talking about, Kai?”

“Leave him alone. Kai’s still a kid; he doesn’t need to hear it.”

Kai’s squadmates were all older than him, so they had a tendency to talk down to him. He knew that it was half in jest, but it was still more than he was willing to put up with.

“Just you wait until tomorrow,” Kai told them.

That made them go quiet.

“You guys are dead,” Manso said. “Nice knowing you.”

Manso was looking smug with his arms folded, and the other squad members couldn’t help but smile. Then they started to laugh, and their shoulders shook as they tried to hold it in.

As unhappy as they were about the reduced amount of food, the soldiers accepted the situation for what it was. As far as the soldiers were concerned, the reduced quantity of food was something they would just have to endure until the next harvest. It was something they could deal with through individual stoicism.

The same could not be said for the women of the village. If they were to carry the child of a guest from another land, it would be nothing short of a disaster. All the more so if the guest was of such high social standing that they could treat women as objects to be used for their own pleasure. The women would be cast aside and quickly forgotten.

There were herbal concoctions that could prevent a child from being born, but those came with lingering side effects. The women wanted to avoid carrying the child of any man who wasn’t willing to stay with them as a lifetime partner.

There was an awkward look in the eyes of the girl who served Kai his food. Her eyes seemed to say, please don’t be suspicious, he hasn’t touched me.

The serving staff stood close to the baron’s table, near the baron’s children who received slightly better portions of food than soldiers. Lady White was there looking deep in troubled thought.

The baron, Olha, and the baron’s wives were nowhere to be seen. They were all dining elsewhere together with the guests and were probably trying hard to win back their favor. One of the main reasons that Lady White was not dining with them was to keep her out of sight from the guests.

Few guests would be so bold as to ask for a lord’s daughter to be sent to his chambers at night, but she still needed to be protected from them.

“Someone told me Lady White tried to argue with the inspector.”

“I heard about that... you think it’s true?”

“Well, Lady Carolina can’t say no to the guests, so it was Lady White who stood up to them... Turns out the toad was asking for pure girls.”

“Widows not good enough for him?”

There were many widows in the village whose husbands had died an early death. They were often selected for unpleasant duties because it was thought that the harm it caused them compared to other women was not as great. But there were many widows who would cry and protest despite the women’s council leaving no room for argument when they made their selections.

Naturally, those women would have preferred to find themselves new husbands, and these unpleasant duties were damaging to their reputations.

“And we give thanks to the brave spirit of the land god...” Lady White started the prayer before the meal.

Her clear voice carried through the whole dining hall, and there was an awkward feeling in the air as everyone recited the prayer with her.

**

With the food situation in the village looking dire, the soldiers were assigned a new task. Everyone suspected that the order had been given as a means of quickly reducing the number of mouths to feed. The baron had announced that they would help with the survey being carried out by Truthseeker Nada, the priest staying in the village with the inspector’s party.

“You’ll be headed deep into the forest. People will be chosen by drawing straws.”

No one relished the thought of visiting the forest’s depths.

When humans faced demi-humans with superior physical strength, they compensated for this disadvantage by using group tactics, just barely making themselves a good match to their opponent. But group tactics weren’t well suited for use in the forest.

This was one reason why humans rarely ventured deep into the forests, and would instead gather on cleared land, which they were better able to defend. The depths that could be reached within a single toki were the limits of ordinary human activity.

The leaders of 20 or so squads had gathered to draw straws made from narrow pieces of wood, some of which had colored tips. Kai’s squad members were superior to most in terms of combat ability, but Kai was still an inexperienced leader, so he was the last to draw a straw.

Unsurprisingly, the final straw that was left for Kai resulted in his squad being selected with no room for argument. In reality, the pieces of wood used when drawing straws had been used so many times that some soldiers could tell which ones were the short straws just by looking. In effect, it provided an easy get-out for senior soldiers looking to avoid dangerous missions. The result was that the dangerous tasks would always fall upon the least experienced squad leaders.

The upside was that those being sent to perform dangerous work would receive slightly more generous servings at mealtimes, and there was always the possibility that they would find sources of food here and there in the forest. Nuts and fruits were in season, so there was a good chance that they could enjoy nuts, wild vegetables, and wild game rich with fat. Whether this benefit was worth it when weighed against the risk of dying in the depths depended on who you asked.

“Good news, lads. We’re going to have all the maca we can eat.”

It was Manso who broke the bad news when he saw that Kai was struggling to find the words. The rest of the squad must have half expected this outcome. They pretended to be pleased. Kai felt glad that they were his squadmates.

The squad noisily got their gear ready for the trip and put special attention into maintaining their weapons. They’d been urged to retire to their beds early to prepare for their departure the next morning, but the high chance of dying left everyone feeling tense, and no one wanted to sleep.

Manso told Kai to snatch up some food that they could take on the expedition, so he headed for the food stores. They would have been supplied with food the next morning without needing to ask, but they wanted to first pick the least rotten supplies and Manso said there was a chance of getting a little something extra.

That kind of knowledge was essential for any leader. There were already several visitors to the food stores beside the kitchen, and a large, redheaded woman was arguing with them angrily.

This redheaded woman was Adelia, a fierce woman who was considered one of the three highest-ranking members of the women’s council. She had been known to throw punches at adults and children alike in the name of discipline, and people knew to choose their words carefully around her. She was in charge of food in the village and was married to Basco, one of the highest-ranking soldiers.

“Three dried potatoes are all the extras you’re getting! Nothing more.”

“Give us something that’ll last longer! Ten at least!”

“I don’t think so. I’ve given you your fair share. If you don’t like it, well tough luck!”

“Hah... this old bitch...”

“You’ve got something to say?”

Adelia moved her ear closer to the man being rude, as if daring him to say it again. When he remained silent, she gave him a sharp head-butt and shouted, “Get lost! I’m done with you!”

Her control over the village food put her in a strong position. The scene had made everyone watching laugh.

Then Adelia noticed Kai.

She appeared to be thinking something over for a moment, but then she smiled as if she’d thought of something amusing and beckoned Kai over.

Kai didn’t dare do anything to upset her, so he hurried over. She beckoned him closer still and then whispered in his ear.

“There’re some dried potatoes in it for you if you can stick around and help us with our work here in the stores.”

“I’ve got things to—”

“Help us out, Kai. Go on, head on in.”

Kai was forced to help out without any chance to argue.

Kai’s rapid development had garnered a lot of attention, so everyone in the village knew how strong he was. He walked into the food stores expecting to be given some heavy sacks to carry. Inside were a number of girls who must have worked for Adelia, busy at work.

The moment they noticed Kai, they all came rushing over to him.

“This way.”

“Why...?”

“Just come this way!”

The food store room was quite spacious, but it was divided up into stalls like a stable. Some of the stalls towards the rear were so dimly lit that it was hard to see.

Kai was led to a stall at the very back of the room. It was dark, but there were torches burning, so there was enough light to work in.

In the stall he found the girl who had once piled his plate high with food when serving him his dinner. Kai realized that it had been some time since he last saw her. When she looked up at Kai, there were tears streaming down her face.

Kai was surprised when she then threw her arms around him and held herself tightly to his chest.

The girl said nothing, so one of the girls who had led Kai spoke for her.

“Kai, Elsa needs you right now.”

“...”

Kai had no idea what that meant.

The softness of her body and her indescribable scent made him feel light-headed.

“Elsa was chosen,” the girl continued.

It took Kai a few moments to realize what that meant.

The girl’s grip on Kai’s clothing then tightened. Then everything made sense in Kai’s confused mind.

“You mean he wants her?”

It was so unexpected that Kai didn’t know how to react.

30

Not this girl...

Kai remembered the horrible things he’d heard about the inspector wanting “pure girls.” It had felt like something unpleasant happening somewhere far away, but now the reality hit him like a slap in the face.

The warmth of the girl in his arms made the reality hard to ignore.

Kai turned when he heard the sound of soft footsteps approaching, and there he saw Adelia guiding the other women out of the food stores.

He wanted to ask why they’d forced her onto him, but before he could find the words, Adelia silenced him with an awkward wink before leaving the room.

Somehow, he knew that the wink had meant, “Take care of her.”

Kai and the girl were left alone together in the storeroom late at night. The girl moved so she could look up at him. She was several years older than Kai, but Elsa’s expression reminded him of a small, frightened child. Kai felt a strong urge to protect her.

“I want it to be you, Kai.”

“...”

Until then, no member of the opposite sex had ever shown Kai affection so openly.

He was unsure how to react, but his instincts triggered passionate feelings. Rational thoughts vanished, and they followed their instincts as a man and a woman. The dizzying atmosphere of the room must have been prepared specially to make it happen.

Kai had been holding Elsa tight, unsure what he should do next. It was Elsa who took the lead.

Kai saw her face quickly move closer, and then their lips met. Then his legs gave way, and he landed awkwardly on his rear at the edge of the room.

Her body was entwined with his.

And then the two were one with the other in the darkness, in the clumsy fashion of two inexperienced lovers.

**

The expedition force left the village the next morning and headed for the forest.

The party was made up of Truthseeker Nada, who would lead the survey, together with the 20 soldiers of the four selected squads who were there to escort him. Many villagers turned out to see them off when they left the village, and Kai’s squad were among those who looked back and waved to them many times.

“Something happened, didn’t it?”

When Kai had returned to the barracks covered in dust, there wasn’t a single man there who didn’t immediately guess where he’d been.

Manso patted him on the back and asked, “How was it?”

In the end, none of them had gotten any sleep, so Kai was never given an opportunity to hide the evidence.

Manso was apparently “experienced” himself, and when he teased the other members of the squad they couldn’t help but get angry at his taunts.

Regardless, Kai refused to tell them anything. Not just because it was embarrassing, but also because he felt he’d lose his sense of self-worth as a man if he brought shame on the girl.

“Will she be all right?”

“Yeah. She’s probably fine now. Everyone said so.”

If she’d wanted, Kai had been ready to fight with the loathsome inspector that very night. But she told him no. Kai’s feelings were still eating away at him when he left the village with the deep forest expedition party as scheduled.

The women’s council had promised to protect her, and they told him that the guest would lose interest in her now that she was Kai’s. But Kai still couldn’t help but be angry with himself for not doing more.

His focus now was on finishing their task so that he could return to the village. He decided that once he returned, he’d take the girl with him to the valley.

The closest edge of the forest was roughly one yuld from Lag.

The hooded priest spread out a piece of parchment that looked like a map and carefully adjusted the direction in which the party were headed. At first, it was the priest who walked in front, but that wasn’t possible once they entered the forest. Instead, the four squads surrounded him for protection.

Kai’s squad was considered the most capable of the four, so they took the lead.

As the most skilled soldier in the expedition party, Kai’s position was by the side of the priest. This meant that the priest spoke to Kai when he wanted someone to talk to, and he had many questions to ask about their destination and the forest. Kai was constantly annoyed by the priest’s attempts to start a conversation.

“These scent bags smell quite awful, don’t they?”

“We use them to hide our scents. It’s best to wear them when you’re in the forest.”

“I see. The demi-humans must have a keen sense of smell. This smell of herbs makes our scent much more difficult to identify, I’m sure... But the smell really is quite awful.”

“You just have to deal with it.”

“I shall certainly try to do so... Now tell me, do the people of your village often enter this forest?”

“Yeah. But only people who know how to fight. And we never go this far in.”

“Whereabouts would you say the macaques’ area of activity begins? Would you say that they are the species we are most likely to encounter on this expedition?”

“Well, there’re a lot of them around.”

“I have had a brief encounter with them myself. They are rather aggressive, aren’t they? The moment they saw us, they came charging over. Do they always approach humans with such hostility?”

“When we see each other, we kill each other. You don’t take chances with macaques.”

“I have heard that there are demi-humans who live in harmony with humans...”

“The koror, maybe.”

“These koror, do you suppose we might encounter them in this region?”

“...”

“What other demi-humans have you encountered yourself?”

There was no end to his questions.

Even when Kai decided to start ignoring him, the priest continued talking for a long time, and only stopped when they spotted the first macaque.

In all likelihood, with such a large group so deep into the forest, the macaques had probably sensed the human presence and avoided approaching them carelessly. But now they were finally entering into an area that was true macaque territory.

“Will there be fighting now?”

“We’re just here to look around. We’ll avoid fights if we can.” Manso had started answering the priest’s questions after realizing that Kai was avoiding conversation.

If they were to start a fight here, they might kill several macaques, but then others would come seeking revenge.

For a while, they were followed by macaque scouts, but then they entered into marshland controlled by the lagarto and were able to shake them off.

The party trekked further into the forest and reached a region shrouded in fine mist that made their bodies shiver, where very few humans had ever ventured. What lay before them were the depths of the forest that demi-humans considered their garden.

The party were trying not to draw attention to themselves as long as they were in the forest, but they’d already seen several crude huts in the treetops that suggested there were macaque dwellings here. They also saw ash-covered clearings that looked like evidence of slash-and-burn farming.

It was common knowledge in this world that wherever there’s a village, there’s probably a land god, and probably a guardian bearer receiving that god’s blessings. All were left speechless to see signs of macaque activity so close up and the obvious poverty in which they lived.

“Let us stop here for today,” the priest said.

Kai gave the order to start setting up camp using a simple hand gesture. The first day of the survey had come to an end.

They were setting up camp in macaque territory. They cut deep into a thicket where they’d be less noticeable and tried to make space for themselves to lie down. They all had nothing other than their cloaks to lie on, so no one was particularly comfortable. They couldn’t light a fire. The smoke would have given them away.

“We’ve made good progress towards the destination. I expect we might reach it with just one more day of travel.”

“Two days one way? These depths aren’t so hard to reach if you know how to use lagarto territory.”

Kai admired the unfamiliar forest scenery as he bit into hard baked bread.

It was the same old vegetation with many balen cedars, but the trees were so much bigger and there were many more creeping plants that grew low on the ground.

Someone tried picking and eating some of the thumb-sized berries that grew on the creeping vines and found they were actually edible and not so different from potatoes. This naturally led to all of the soldiers gathering up these berries for themselves.

The priest was normally very talkative, but now he had become quiet and meditative. Now and then, he seemed to come to his senses and he would write something on the map.

“Quite a large number have gathered...”

He wanted to tell his escorts more about the situation. He gathered up the soldiers who had nothing to do after their modest meal other than lie down, and he shared all the information he’d been able to gather that day, leaving nothing out.

He told them that roughly 1,000 macaques had gathered up ahead.

An equal number of another bulky species of demi-human had also gathered, as if they were preparing to fight them. Those were most likely orgs.

The priest had also looked at the area between the two armies and found what appeared to be the gravesite of a land god.

“The dwelling surrounding it was completely burned to the ground just yesterday. It was attacked by those pig-like demi-humans.”

“So they’re attacking macaque villages to steal from them?”

“That may be the case. Or perhaps not. What I can be certain of is that there have been many deaths on both sides. There were many souls lighting the path to Samsara.”

Demi-humans weren’t limited to attacks on humans.

Even in this area beyond human eyes, bloody battles would take place between other species. Humans were declining in number, but that problem wasn’t necessarily unique to humanity.

“I do wonder what type of land god these two species want so badly that they’re willing to accept so many deaths among their own kind.” The priest laughed to himself. “I must say I’m quite intrigued.”

Although the priest spoke calmly, the soldiers all caught a brief glimpse of something troubling within him that made them avert their eyes. No one doubted that the priest was mad.

Kai felt that only a madman would be willing to come to a place like this, but then he remembered and it made him think about how different his valley was. Unlike the other soldiers, Kai himself was in the habit of visiting a region controlled by demi-humans each night.

His thoughts then turned to the girl in the village, and he tried to imagine how her face would look when he took her to the valley. That thought made him restless.

Then he remembered that there was already another girl in the valley who he’d left to take care of it in his absence. “Ah,” he muttered to himself.

31

After reaching the end of a lagarto marshland, the party continued to walk in a straight line.

They were getting farther and farther away from the plains ruled by humans. The terrain was noticeably more treacherous, and they had to navigate mountains and valleys several times.

They climbed a rocky scree that had been blocking their view of the landscape beyond, and finally their view was unimpeded. At the edge of the forest there was a broad plain that very few humans could ever have laid eyes upon.

This was a fertile land unknown to humankind. For humans who lived in the plains, it was a comforting and familiar landscape, so much so they worried that they might have gotten turned around and approached the village once more.

The plain was uncultivated, and lonely trees could be seen growing here and there. They even spotted a small stream. It was enough to make a human clench their fists in frustration at the sight of this land going to waste at a time when food was so scarce.

And on this vast uncultivated land, there were countless demi-humans engaged in a chaotic battle. The fighting appeared to be at its peak.

The two species fighting were macaques and orgs. They screeched at one another and took each other’s lives. Though the battle was happening far away, so much blood stained the soil that it was clear to see.

“How the hell do you expect to get through that?”

The priest had been calm and ready to rush straight through the chaos of the battlefield. He believed the enemy would be most careless while the fighting was at its peak, but as rational as he sounded, not a single soldier was convinced. The priest had strength comparable to a guardian bearer, and it was possible he might survive the battle, but any ordinary soldier would be massacred. Although the soldiers were ready to risk their lives, they weren’t ready to let their lives be treated with such disregard.

“Well, this is quite a problem...” the priest said while scratching his head through the fabric of his hood.

Then, he used the power of his doi sigil in an attempt to charge toward the battlefield. It took every one of the soldiers to hold him back.

No one wanted to imagine the wrath they’d face from the baron if they were to abandon their responsibility to protect the priest after coming this far.

“Let’s at least wait for the battle to end... Once the winning side starts hunting for survivors, we’ll have a chance to slip through.”

“Yes, let’s wait for that!”

A fierce battle could never continue indefinitely.

Although they had to wait, the wait might be over after just a few toki if they were fortunate. And if not, Kai thought that they’d be wise to lie low and wait for a few days at least.

Hundred eyes is amazing...

This mysterious gravesite was probably dozens of yulds from Lag. The fact that the priest had found it from that distance suggested his eyesight was incredible.

Somewhat below them, they could see three towers made from sun-dried bricks, standing side-by-side. These short, round towers resembled upside-down bowls.

Scattered around the towers were the burnt remains of the settlement, and it was clear to everyone at a glance that these towers marked the gravesite they were looking for. It appeared that every species preferred to cover their gravesites with buildings.

There were several orgs standing guard around the towers as if they’d taken up positions to defend it. The settlement was occupied by the orgs while the macaques were attacking them in an attempt to take it back.

“Very well,” the priest said. “We can watch the course of the battle for the next few toki and then sneak in when the time is right. As for who goes, we can’t move quickly with too many people, so I’d like to take just Kai’s squad.”

The soldiers were assigned roles quickly and began to prepare in silence.

Everyone understood that their lives were on the line, and they quietly accepted the fact that their lives were being used for the sake of a single priest’s survey. They were unsure whether any of them would return to the village alive. After living through many situations in which they had killed and watched others be killed, something may have been broken inside all of them.

Kai quietly concentrated and listened for signs of life in the surroundings. He used as much of his power as he could without showing his kumadori, but he couldn’t help but feel uneasy with the perceptive priest at his side.

The battle between macaques and orgs had finally been decided in favor of the orgs, the macaques had begun to scatter, and the orgs had naturally transitioned to hunting for surviving macaques.

The orgs were led by a massive armored soldier whose body shook with each quick movement it made. It ran with power that seemed to mismatch its heavy body as it chased down and killed macaques. A terrible reddish black snout was visible beneath its large horned helmet.

The armored soldier was very clearly a guardian bearer. And it was clear that this soldier was far more powerful than an ordinary guardian bearer.

A single word came to Kai’s mind.

Rigdaros... Maybe he’s one of them.

Although it was far away, this soldier clearly looked like a worthy commander of an army of 1,000.

The only human in the borderlands capable of gathering so many soldiers was Count Balta. It seemed reasonable to expect that this was a similarly strong guardian bearer with equal authority.

The excited orgs were relentlessly chasing down every last one of the fleeing macaques to claim their godstones. The hunt for godstones was a standard part of any battle. It meant that the soldiers pursuing the losers had no reason to let their enemy escape. The same had been true for the org soldier that chased Kai to the edge of the valley. Every species hungered for godstones and the growth they caused.

They didn’t have to wait long before almost all signs of life were gone from the battlefield.

The priest was blessed with good luck.

“Let us make haste,” he said.

The priest began to run, and Kai and his squad followed.

“Godspeed.”

“Don’t get yourselves killed!”

The other soldiers wished them luck as they set out.

Although those soldiers were staying behind, they had been given the task of supporting Kai and the others if they needed to retreat, which was a dangerous task in itself. They needed to secure their path of retreat and if necessary, provide a diversion to draw the enemy away. They had no guardian bearer with them, so they may have been the ones in the greatest danger.

Kai and the others ran out from the forest and used the landscape as cover so that they could move toward the settlement without the org soldiers noticing them. The orgs’ hunger for macaque godstones was so great that it left them unconscious of their surroundings.

A single org did notice them, but the priest leaped at it quickly while it was feeding and broke its neck with his staff before it could make a sound.

When the human soldiers hesitated for a moment to consider taking its godstone, the priest scolded them and urged them to keep moving. He advised them that the task at hand was more important and that death awaits those whose greed prevents them from seeing beyond what lies at their feet.

Then they came to a place where they could see the land around the brick towers that they’d seen earlier. Up close, it looked similar to the monastery in Lag. There were incense burners that looked fitting for a temple and beside them was a wooden door leading into a tower.

The wooden door had been left wide open. Needless to say, there were guards standing by the entrance on the lookout for would-be intruders.

At the feet of the guards lay several bodies that must have belonged to the residents of this dwelling. Strewn across the ground were the corpses of deer-like demi-humans with horns like tree branches growing from their heads. Although Kai had never seen them before, he knew these were uzelle, a species just as rare as the koror.

The copious amounts of blood pooled around the corpses suggested that their godstones had already been extracted. Their horns were highly prized among humans as ingredients for healing remedies, but those had been left as if they had no significance to the org soldiers.

Kai and the others studied the area and stayed alert for any signs of enemy approach. Then the priest, with power equivalent to a guardian bearer, charged at the org guards.

The first was probably dead before it knew what was happening. The priest extracted a hidden blade from the top the staff that he used like a cane while walking. The blade pierced straight through the guard’s brainstem.

The group tactics that followed were as natural to the soldiers as breathing. Kai and the others had leaped from the shadows the moment the first guard fell. This drew the attention of the other guards and left them unable to deal with the priest who emerged from behind the collapsing body of the guard he’d just killed.

A great shudder ran through the second guard’s body as the blade entered from below its jaw and pierced through to its brain, and then the org’s back hit the wall as it collapsed.

The priest was deadly.

Kai had no time to be awestruck if he wanted to keep up with the priest advancing into the tower.

Inside the tower there was a pungent smell of blood and entrails. The tower had no windows to provide ventilation, so the strange stink of the dead lingered.

Everyone followed the priest deeper into the darkness while holding their noses.

“Fire, I call upon you,” the priest muttered, causing a blue flame to appear above his hand.

This was undoubtedly the same fire magic that Kai used himself.

The priest didn’t seem to notice that Kai was watching him closely. He took a small booklet from his pocket and began to read the engraved words that were in front of him.

At first, Kai wondered why the priest needed to go to the trouble of using the booklet, but then he remembered that this priest wasn’t a guardian bearer. If he’d been blessed by a land god, he probably could have read the inscription on the grave simply by touching it with his finger.

Kai managed to touch the inscription with his finger while the priest was still examining it.

As expected, the text on the front was a jumble of words that Kai couldn’t understand. He tried moving to the rear of the grave instead and there he found a short piece of text.

I am Nazelkazeel.

That was the entirety of the inscription.

There were no names of gods that this god served. This god must have existed in this land in isolation.

Kai checked that no one was watching him and then he softly put his hands together. With the land in chaos, this god must have been weakened. He felt sincere pity for the god.

Then he felt some sort of presence.

Kai looked up, thinking he heard the priest walking towards him. That wasn’t surprising. If he simply wanted to know the name of the grave’s owner it was quickest to read the rear face.

Kai didn’t realize that those footsteps were too soft to be those of the priest.

32

As Kai moved toward the rest of the group, he pretended to be searching the area so that the priest wouldn’t notice that he’d been reading the inscription.

Huh...?

Something seemed wrong, but rather than dwell on it further, he strained to hear the priest’s muttering.

“It seems the land god who lies in this grave is named Nazelkazeel. The monastery has developed means for deciphering these inscriptions. It would appear that the guardian bearer blessed by this god still lives. It is an ancient, founding god, but alas, this is not the god spoken of in the prophecy.”

The priest had deliberately spoken his thoughts aloud for the soldiers to hear. Now that he knew this was not the gravesite he was looking for, he made his next decision quickly.

The party moved toward the exit with the priest leading the way. They had spent roughly a quarter of a toki by the gravesite, and the org forces were likely to return before long.

Their only wish now was for a swift return home. In their haste, they made enough noise to attract the attention of some org soldiers, but they concentrated on running and hoped to shake them off.

Now that they knew the uzelle guardian bearer was still alive, the gravesite was not so important. It explained why it hadn’t been well secured. Kai simply saw this as good luck.

They hid themselves in the undergrowth at the edge of the forest and met up with the other soldiers. The group of humans then hastily set out on the return journey. Their first task was to reach the safe zone provided by the lagarto marshland, and they hurried there frantically without looking back.

The party crossed through the marshes and over rivers, hoping that the lagarto marshland had obscured their tracks, and they made it back to the macaque-controlled region of the forest in just over half a day.

The battle between two demi-human species had drawn the macaque forces out of the forest, making it likely that this was a safe place for the time being. This was where they finally rested and made preparations to set up camp. Night had already fallen, and their surroundings were dark.

“Some of our party haven’t caught up yet.”

“Ganz and El aren’t with us.”

In a world where godstones could be harvested to increase one’s power, physical ability varied greatly between individuals. While they waited, the slower soldiers gradually caught up, but it had been some time since the last soldier had arrived, and there were still two others missing.

The soldiers from Lag were silently exchanging glances, and it was the four squad leaders who gathered together to talk where the priest couldn’t see them.

Naturally they were talking about sending someone out to search for the missing men. The squad that the missing men belonged to was led by a soldier named Carick.

“My squad’s going to go look for them,” Carick said apologetically while rubbing at his hairy arms. “I know it’s asking a lot, but we need more men with us.”

The priest knew that the soldiers were having this discussion, but he pretended not to notice. Although the priest was the most powerful fighter of the group, it made no sense for the soldiers to ask for help from the person they were there to protect.

“I’ll go...”

Kai was the first to volunteer. Two other soldiers, each from different squads, were also chosen.

Carick smiled with relief when he heard that they’d be joined by Kai, the highest-ranking soldier. “I owe you one,” he told Kai with a nod of his head. The nervous-looking soldiers who would guard the rear also nodded to one another and began making preparations to set out.

Kai returned to his squadmates and told Manso to take care of things while he was gone. Kai then collected up his belongings. His squadmates were sitting on the ground exhausted.

“I don’t know how you’re not tired,” Manso said with a wry smile. “Good luck.”

The two bumped fists. “We’re lucky,” Manso said. “It’s a bright night.”

Kai looked up at the sky.

There wasn’t a single cloud in the night sky, and the stars were shining like a million jewels. The brightest body in the sky, Ispi Rio, shone brightly above his head.

The giant body known as the moon didn’t exist in this world. The nights were lightest when Ispi Rio was shining overhead.

It’s so much like the Milky Way, Kai thought absentmindedly.

It was a strange feeling when the knowledge drawn from his previous life was slightly off the mark.

The lights in the river of souls would slowly move together with the flow of the whole. One way it differed from his past life memories was that these shining jewels overhead were not exactly stars. The constellations that appeared in the night sky of this world were slowly and continuously changing as if floating on water.

It was a beautiful scene, and Kai felt as though his soul was being drawn in as he stared into it. But he looked away from it with a wave of his hand. He had never seen the night sky as bright as it was tonight.

“Let’s go.”

Kai and the rest of the search party headed back the way they came.

With just over a toki having gone by after leaving the camp ground, they had traveled back a long way.

They’d spent the entire day running, so the members of the party were fatigued and walked with heavy footsteps. With the journey back to camp still to consider, Kai and everyone else were no doubt wondering if they were approaching their limit. But Carick’s squad weren’t going to say anything because it would mean giving up on their squadmates, and the search continued.

As usual, there was no sign of lagarto in the lagarto territory, but they found danger waiting in the territory just beyond that, which was now controlled by the orgs.

The orgs had formed a group that was hunting through the mountains.

Kai and the others hid in the grass at the edge of the lagarto territory and watched the org hunters, who were communicating using their inhuman voices.

Carick and his squadmates gulped and broke into a cold sweat. The situation looked bleak for the missing soldiers.

All of the humans, Kai included, jumped to the conclusion that the orgs were there to search for the humans they’d sighted. It was easy to imagine how the hunters might have been enraged after returning to the gravesite and finding that outsiders had tried to defile it.

“Looks like the search ends here.”

“But Ganz and El...”

“We shouldn’t have to die just because they’re both too slow. I say we head back. Anyone who says otherwise can go on without me.”

“Wait, there’s one pointing this way,” someone whispered, causing the others to instinctively get ready to run.

Even though they were hidden in lagarto territory, the orgs could choose to trespass there for a little while just as easily.

Then things went from bad to worse. At the worst possible timing, they heard shouting that sounded like a human voice from within the forest.

Realizing that the two soldiers were still alive, Carick and his two squadmates broke away from the rest of the party.

“That’s them!”

“Wait!”

“Forget about them!”

Kai and the others couldn’t stop Carick and his squadmates from running out toward the voices they’d heard. The shouting had given away their position to the enemy. The nearby orgs were already gathering together and heading in their direction.

Kai gritted his teeth.

He knew that if he wanted to, he could drive away a few orgs no problem. But he didn’t want to do it if it meant revealing to everyone that he was a guardian bearer.

Maybe I’m heartless...

If he was ready to give up on his current life, he could save everyone. But there’d be no place for him in the village afterward. These men were fellow soldiers, but they weren’t close friends, and he had to ask himself whether he was willing to throw away his current lifestyle to save them from a mess of their own making. The answer was a definite no. He wasn’t willing to give up so much for the sake of two soldiers from another squad, or for Carick and the others who’d just ran out.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“Forget those idiots.”

Kai got ready to run while thinking about which direction the other two soldiers were likely to head off in.

The gathering of orgs headed straight for Carick and the other two careless soldiers, and the remains of the three of them were unrecognizable just a few moments later. Their screams stopped just a few moments after they’d started.

Human lives were fragile. The orgs began to fight over the godstones of Carick and the other two, reducing the number of orgs heading in Kai’s direction.

“Don’t go...”

“Help us!”

The slow soldiers who’d caused Carick and the others to die were still shouting from some distance away, but no one paid them any attention.

Kai and the two soldiers with him were all chosen for their physical fitness. They ran as fast as they could without looking back, believing that they’d survive somehow if they just kept going. But then something unexpected happened.

The orgs began to call for more of their kind with high-pitched cries, and within an instant something came flying toward Kai and the others before colliding with a tree on their path to escape.

The object embedded itself deep into the middle of the tree trunk with a sound that caused the soldiers to stop and cower. It was one of the familiar iron axes that orgs would often carry.

“...”

Then the undergrowth in front of the three frozen soldiers parted, and there appeared a massive figure that towered above them.

No one knew how long it had been there. No one knew how it had gotten there.

As it moved, its armor made grinding sounds and shone with the reflected faint light of the night sky.

The guardian bearer!

It was the massive armored org that had led the orgish army.

33

Kai stared dumbstruck at the armored soldier that stood in their path.

It was easily three yules tall. It was more than a head taller than an ordinary org.

Its mass wasn’t ordinary either. They had never seen a muscular org before, but this stout armored soldier looked to be hiding great amounts of muscle beneath its skin, rather than fat.

The proof was in the fact that every time the armored soldier took a step, the thick, exposed skin of its arms and legs would shake, and broad, vine-like muscle tissue would be visible for just a moment deep within.

The armored org effortlessly pulled the axe from out of the tree and used it to point in the direction of the humans.

Its strained cry was much deeper than the cries of other orgs. It may have said something to them in orgish, but Kai and the others had no way of knowing.

Maybe this one can speak the human tongue too, thought Kai.

Demi-humans were more intelligent than he’d once thought. He’d heard of negotiations happening between humans and certain types of demi-humans in the west, and Kai’s experience suggested that all of those negotiations were carried out in the human tongue. Humans were an important species that ruled over vast territories, so the demi-humans in neighboring territories must have been forced to learn their language, but Kai had never encountered a human who could understand the words of the demi-humans around them. He wondered if creatures able to learn the language of other species might actually be more intelligent than humans.

But the armored soldier said nothing in the human tongue. Instead, it regarded the humans as mere foot soldiers who weren’t worth the time.

It was as if it had stumbled across some weak creatures while moving through the forest and had decided to kill them for fun. The armored soldier’s first act was to swing its weapon straight down at the humans to see how they reacted.

“Spread out.”

If the guardian bearer had come at them seriously, they’d have had little chance to dodge its attack. The org was reddish black, like the color of inflamed skin, and it hadn’t yet shown its kumadori. It was obvious that it saw no need to get serious.

Its first target was the soldier named Chito, who had been running ahead of the others. He was a quick-witted man, more skilled with knives and short spears than with the long spear. He acted more or less instinctively. Times like these were the only times that the soldiers benefited from having watched those training bouts where the baron demonstrated how a guardian bearer fights.

He raised his short spear in time and its handle slid across the blade allowing him to just barely escape that first attack. But the incredible strength of the armored soldier was more than Chito could withstand. The wrist of the hand that held the spear was now bent at an unnatural angle.

Chito quickly realized that he’d just lost the ability to fight. He dropped to the ground and rolled out of the path of the armored soldier. At this point, the other soldier, Nail, was alone and fleeing the scene as quickly as he could. His back could be seen bobbing up and down as he ran through the grass.

Kai wanted to run off just as badly, but he knew that the armored soldier could catch up easily if he simply ran, so he needed to think of something that would give him a better chance of survival.

If we just scatter in all directions like always, we won’t get far enough away without doing something to buy more time.

When human soldiers encountered an enemy beyond their abilities, this was always the way that they’d attempt to escape. To ensure that the maximum number of soldiers would survive, everyone would signal which direction they’d head off in, and then they’d spread out 360 degrees like a firework exploding.

They’d been taught that regardless of how fast the pursuer could move, it would take them more than three times as long to catch two targets running in opposite directions, and about ten times as long to catch three targets.

In this case, there were three people.

Nail was already running.

Chito had noticed this, and was running in the opposite direction.

If Kai followed their example and ran, he would be able to keep running for about ten times longer than the first person to get caught, if he was lucky. With his life in peril, time that could be spent putting distance between himself and the org was incredibly valuable.

But that was wisdom that applied to someone facing defeat in the face of an overwhelmingly more powerful soldier with no means to fight back.

I don’t want to run...

Kai’s chest filled up with emotion.

He looked at the armored org and then assessed the situation around him. In this situation, Kai would somehow have to get behind the armored soldier. Behind his enemy lay the sprawling marshlands of the lagarto territory.

If there were a way to leap over the soldier, the shortest path to escape would be found behind its back. Chito and Nail had run to the left and right of the armored soldier, which meant they couldn’t escape into the forest.

It’s off its guard right now.

It made Kai want to deal a decisive blow, crushing his opponent with the first attack.

Similarly to Chito, the weapon Kai was holding was the same short spear that the village gave to all soldiers. He was left behind, pretending to shake with fear and retreating while pointing his trembling spearhead toward the enemy.

Now that he could see the armor close-up, he noticed it was stained a reddish black with the blood of the soldier’s enemies. The breastplate and torso section appeared to have been forged from iron and were bound together by cords made from tanned hide. The pelt of some creature was wrapped around its waist, but that had become stiff with the hardened patches of blood that covered it.

The armored soldier grunted and watched Chito and Nail as they ran in opposite directions.

Kai realized that his opponent’s attention was distracted and began turning his back to it to show that he was also about to run. It was a glaring invitation.

The armored soldier came at him with its axe in a heartbeat. The strike would have shattered his skull if it had hit, but it was such a straightforward swing that it left the org wide open.

Now!

Kai continued to turn and in an instant he’d turned a full circle, leaving him facing his enemy once again. Though the enemy was a guardian bearer, its attack was half-hearted and easy for another guardian bearer to follow.

Kai kept his eyes wide and followed the movement of the attack with his keen vision to determine the trajectory of the axe. He then moved forward while thrusting out his short spear. The areas that were vulnerable to attack by short spear were small, so Kai needed to get in close. He slipped past the axe while watching it in the side of his vision and considered his actions calmly during this crucial moment.

Tanned hide provided surprisingly tough protection, so the joints of the armor were no good. He had to aim for exposed skin. The face, below the jaw, the armpits, the thighs, or the wrists. If he was feeling greedy, he’d go for the face or below the jaw, but that might fail if he’d underestimated the armored soldier’s ability to dodge.

The gap between the two fighters disappeared in an instant that felt longer due to Kai’s well-honed nerves.

Kai knew that the armored soldier was caught off guard by his sudden leap forward.

You’re mine!

He immediately gave up on the idea of attacking the head when the org held out its left arm, which was as thick as a tree trunk, to defend itself. Instead, he drove his short spear into its inner thigh where enough flesh was exposed for him to thrust at with confidence. But despite his confidence, Kai was hit from the side and sent flying.

His vision shook violently.

He rolled through the grass, turning somersaults and watching the sky spin through his vision. There was blood at the back of his nose, and it felt hot as it spread to his throat.

For a moment, Kai couldn’t understand what had just happened.

Then in the corner of his vision he caught sight of the axe flying off in an unexpected direction and he noticed that the empty right hand of the armored soldier was balled into a fist.

Now he realized that the armored soldier had been unable to stop the axe and had simply released it into the air before striking Kai with its empty right fist. Kai found it hard to believe that his opponent could have such reflexes.

The shrill cry of the armored soldier filled the air. Although Kai didn’t understand the words, he felt the malice coming from the armored soldier. The fact that Kai was a guardian bearer had now been given away.

Kai climbed to his feet amid the grass and brushed away the dirt from his clothing. Besides a bloodied nose, his body seemed to be more or less undamaged.

In terms of toughness, Kai’s body too was beyond any ordinary human.

“You might be pretty strong.”

Kai blocked one nostril with his hand and blew blood from the other.

“***”

“I’ve got no idea what you just said, but let me tell you, I’m pretty strong too.”

Kai hadn’t been able to cause any damage to the armored soldier’s body with his first attack, but he had caused his enemy to lose its weapon.

Even guardian bearers lost much of their offensive capability when they were unarmed. In a fight between two guardian bearers, it was difficult for one to make the other yield without a weapon, because both would have such tough skin.

Kai’s kumadori started to appear on his face.

When the armored soldier saw the unusual sigil that was showing on Kai’s face, it fell silent for a moment.

Kai somehow knew that this huge, reddish-black org soldier was familiar with the god of the valley. The sigil that began to appear on its snout was pure black.

The org’s sigil was one of the most intricate Kai had ever seen. It was even more detailed than that of Moloch Vezin, Lag’s baron. The baron was a quarto sigil, which meant that this armored soldier had to be a cinquesta sigil, or perhaps something even higher.

“You’re insanely strong, aren’t you?”

“...”

“Are you part of that Rigdaros thing?”

The armored soldier was clearly affected by Kai’s question. It moved as if correcting its posture to show Kai respect after recognizing him as a worthy opponent. The mouth beneath its large snout opened wide, and it laughed as if pleased down to its core. Its unusually large canine teeth gave it the appearance of a dangerous predator.

“Now I see... He has died.”

Its laughter seemed to shake the ground beneath Kai’s feet.

When it was done laughing, the armored soldier stared piercingly at Kai.

“You grow weak, valley god.”

34

Kai felt he was being mocked. It triggered a feeling of heat deep within his heart.

“I’m new to all this.”

Even if he hadn’t said it, it was obvious enough that he was inexperienced as a guardian bearer.

Kai felt as though his god from the valley was watching to see how he reacted. His god wouldn’t allow him to walk away from this fight in disgrace.

“Do you think you’re actually stronger than me?”

Kai watched his opponent’s movements closely as he tried to think of some way he might win. In terms of power as a guardian bearer, it was definitely possible that Kai was actually inferior because of his lack of experience.

Kai knew just by looking at the sigil on the armored soldier’s face that his opponent was fairly high-level. Deep down, Kai believed that he was capable of winning against an opponent stronger than the baron, but he had never actually tried fighting seriously against the baron because of his self-imposed restrictions.

The one thing that was surely in Kai’s favor right now was the fact that his opponent was unarmed, and there was also the possibility of surprising it with magic.

He tightened his grip on his spear and focused his thoughts on this dependable weapon.

The thing that made his spear such a strong weapon was its sharp iron spearhead. Iron was hard. The flesh of living creatures, however, was soft. Based on this easily-understood principle, iron could be used to cut through flesh.

Even the flesh of the guardian bearer standing before Kai was probably softer than iron. Or maybe not. Without actually putting it to the test, it was impossible to say for sure. Kai knew from the way his own skin felt to the touch that it didn’t feel any different from the skin of an ordinary human. It had left him wondering how the bodies of guardian bearers could be unusually tough.

The armored soldier was unarmed, so it simply waited. Kai began to move using the circle footwork of Zula-ryu, and the armored soldier began rotating to face him. As Kai’s position constantly changed, the armored soldier had to constantly move with him, preventing it from relaxing. One of the most fundamental principles of circle footwork was exploitation of the opening created when the opponent was forced to move their feet.

Kai aimed a quick thrust at the tip of the armored soldier’s jaw.

If that was enough to cause his opponent to move its upper body backward, its posture would break when it let its center of mass shift.

But the armored soldier easily brushed the spearpoint away using the iron plate covering the back of its hand, and its center of mass remained firm and unyielding.

Kai made several attempts before accepting that cheap tricks wouldn’t be enough to create an opening.

Kai held his breath and looked for another opening as their fight and its circular motion continued. While watching the movement of his opponent’s feet, he tried to follow the rhythm of its breathing and then tried to match his own breathing to it. Doing this allowed him to influence his opponent through the natural entrainment phenomenon it caused. Then Kai abruptly switched from circular to linear movement. This was a means of deception developed by the mercenary Zula, the creator of this form of martial arts. The knack was to continue the circular footwork with one’s eyes only, tricking the opponent.

As Kai suddenly moved closer, the armored soldier stepped forward itself, unfazed. It used the plate of armor on its right hand to brush away Kai’s charging thrust with devastating skill, and simultaneously it roared as it attacked with its clenched left fist.

Kai felt an instinctive sense of fear as its fist approached, carrying death with it. But still, he couldn’t imagine a single fist being enough to deal a fatal blow to a guardian bearer’s toughened body. Kai was ready to exchange blows, but his first priority was to find out how effective the iron weapon in his hand was against a guardian bearer.

Kai’s eyes followed the movement of the approaching fist closely. All of his physical abilities were remarkably enhanced thanks to being a guardian bearer, but the enhancement to Kai’s vision that his blessings gave him was exceptional. That said, Kai had no way to objectively compare his vision to that of anyone else.

He put his strength into his forward leg. His entire body leaned forward and then he pushed off, causing his foot to dig into the ground. His speed increased along with his degree of forward incline, and the fist grazed the side of Kai’s face and his hair as it traveled past his head.

His target was his opponent’s large stomach.

There were fine gaps in the defense provided by the armor where the pieces of hide between the plates were sewn together. Kai suddenly realized what living creature those blood-soaked pieces of hide had been collected from. This foul species delighted in the torture of women and children. Although he had no evidence to prove it, Kai felt sure that this hide was tanned human skin.

The spearhead found its way into one of the gaps.

As expected, even with the power of his reckless charge behind it, the spear met resistance. He could feel the skin of the armored soldier holding back his weapon.

I’m not done yet!

Kai clenched his right fist and slammed it into the metal butt of his short spear. The extra force was transmitted down the spear handle, and the moment it reached the spearhead, the spear suddenly felt as though it was penetrating something soft, as if it had broken through a hard shell.

The body of a guardian bearer was softer than iron. That answered one question.

“****!” The armored soldier howled.

The short spear broke from Kai’s grasp and was left protruding from the stomach of the armored soldier. Kai was confident that he’d damaged its intestines. But he’d also been careless.

There was an explosion of heat within Kai’s stomach. The burning sensation filled him first, and then came the pain.

The armored soldier hadn’t so much as flinched in response to its injury. Instead, it had knocked Kai back with a front kick using the sole of its foot. The toes of its lace-up boots must have contained iron parts that had pierced the area below Kai’s ribs.

The armored soldier had never been unarmed.

Kai briefly flew through the air and then hit the grassy ground rolling before his back slammed against the rough roots of a balen cedar tree, bringing him to a stop. All of the air in his lungs was expelled at once, and he was left unable to move. Before he could even inhale again, bloody vomit erupted from his mouth.

It hurts!

It hurts! It really hurts!

When he was done vomiting, he was finally able to fill his lungs with air once more.

He felt as though his internal organs were all out of place. As Kai lay on the ground curled up and trying to endure the heavy, pulsating pain in his guts, the armored soldier approached with its gaze fixed on Kai. It paid no attention to the spear that was still embedded in its stomach.

Is this thing immortal? No... it must feel pain.

Just like Kai, the creature was nothing more than a guardian bearer. The fine layer of skin that covered its body was comparable to iron, but not the rest.

Skin was the toughest part of the body besides bones, and the divine will of the land god could reinforce it beyond ordinary levels, which was one reason that guardian bearers were so robust. Beneath that skin, the flesh and blood were not so hard.

Kai could guess that since bones were harder than skin, those probably became harder than iron. The bones of a guardian bearer were unlikely to break easily.

Kai rolled away from the sound of approaching footsteps and clenched his teeth as he tried to rise. The waves of pain were becoming further apart.

The internal organs of a guardian bearer were not so hard, but they were still more durable than common sense would suggest. The pain was not enough to leave Kai paralyzed, and he was gradually healing. His body’s ability to recover to its original state was beyond what was normal.

Kai’s questions about guardian bearer’s bodies were all now more or less answered.

To reliably kill an opponent, it was necessary to deliver fatal wounds quickly enough to outpace their healing abilities. For example, just a few days ago, he’d been able to kill the org guardian bearer attacking the koror settlement with a single blow. Destroying the heart, which was essential for supporting life, was no doubt the most efficient and reliable method for killing a guardian bearer.

The armored soldier finally plucked the short spear from its stomach and angrily cast it aside. It was likely that it hadn’t removed it immediately because it had been waiting for its recovery ability as a guardian bearer to reduce the size of its internal wounds.

Kai somehow got to his feet while praying that his own recovery would happen fast enough to keep pace.

The armored soldier also understood how this battle between guardian bearers needed to be fought. Put simply, it would be a mistake to give the opponent a chance to recover.

Kai’s last hope was his knife, but no sooner than he drew it, a series of blows from the armored soldier effortlessly sent it flying from his hand. Kai was left unarmed, and the armored soldier continued to deliver blow after blow, making it so that Kai couldn’t afford to let himself be knocked off his feet and he had no way to retreat. Then its huge hand grabbed Kai by his neck.

As a guardian bearer, Kai’s neck bones were harder than iron, but the armored soldier must have thought it could snap them in two with the power of its grip. Or perhaps it just intended to strangle him to death.

No matter how strong someone was, or how powerful their guardian, breathing was always a fundamental necessity for maintaining life.

The tissues in his neck were gradually being destroyed.

Kai knew this would kill him before long.

35

Kai needed to think of something. He needed some way to fight back against this enemy whose strength was far beyond his own.

The cells of his brain were screaming as their oxygen supply was cut off. Kai was barely conscious as he brought his hand up to touch the wrist of the armored soldier that was choking him.

Scratching at the hand with his fingernails did nothing to loosen its iron grip.

It’s not over. There’s one thing I didn’t try.

Even as he was being strangled with his airways cut off, the channels for his spiritual energy were still connected to the godstone in his chest as always.

Iron could destroy a guardian bearer’s flesh because it was harder than the protection offered by a land god. The unanswered question was what would happen if he used a power that didn’t follow the world’s natural laws.

I’ll roast you...

The godstone in his chest filled with heat. The heat moved with Kai’s will and began to gather in his hands, which were clinging to his opponent’s wrist. Then he unleashed his power.

“***!” The armored soldier’s reaction was dramatic.

Kai’s hands were suddenly coated by blue flames, and their heat burned at the hands that were clutching him and trying to kill him.

Fire magic. An otherworldly flame that burned persistently, even underwater.

“**”

“*****”

Kai hadn’t expected to hear the shouting around him.

At some point, a great number of orgs had gathered to watch the fight between two guardian bearers. Kai had no way to express his annoyance at having gathered a crowd as he poured more spiritual energy into his fire magic.

Kai could feel the heat of the flames burning near him, but the sensation must have been limited because he was the one controlling the magic. This was the fire magic that had generated enough heat to boil a bucket of water in an instant; it was beyond what the tough skin tissue of the armored soldier could withstand, even with a god to offer it protection.

Meat would always be meat. Once exposed to a flame, those tissues would soon start turning into lumps of protein. The armored soldier’s wrist was a region where the flesh was at its most thin. The heat concentrated in that area was so great that the tendons were instantly reduced to ash, causing the armored soldier to squeal and to throw Kai’s body away from itself.

As the armored soldier stepped backwards, its pose was a strange one. Its wrists appeared to be bound together, as if it was a prisoner in shackles. The intensity of the flame must have fused together the flesh at both of its wrists.

After briefly examining its wounds, the armored soldier forcefully ripped its wrists apart. Pieces of loose skin were left hanging and fluttering in the wind.

“How’d you... like that...?”

Kai had been released, but he still couldn’t stand up. His breathing was coarse, and he coughed many times. He looked up to see a drooling face glaring down at him.

It looked as though burning with fire was a highly-effective weapon against guardian bearers.

The reason that Kai had been willing to take on the armored soldier despite knowing it was stronger wasn’t because he held the short spear. He’d never put his faith in a weak weapon used by human foot soldiers. He’d stood his ground because he knew he could use magic if he needed.

But Kai still didn’t fully understand everything about guardian bearers. He’d received the blessings of the land god so suddenly that he’d never had the chance to learn from anyone with more experience. In some respects, ignorance had made him arrogant. Even when facing the armored soldier, this powerful warrior who had earned the title of Rigdaros, Kai had felt confident that it could do little to harm him.

“Curses...?”

It seemed that orgs referred to magic as curses.

Kai had done nothing more than channel his spiritual energy. Orgs were an intelligent species, so Kai should never have expected his magic to be unknown to them. His lack of knowledge was a persistent problem.

His fire magic had appeared to be highly effective against another guardian bearer, so Kai still felt sure he had the upper hand. But his illusions were about to be shattered.

Kai had allowed the flames to continue burning visibly around his hands as if trying to show off his advantage, but the armored soldier just looked at him and laughed mockingly.

It checked that its fingers were beginning to recover, and then it lumbered closer to Kai.

“You rely on curses? Pathetic.”

Perhaps it was his imagination, but Kai could feel an overwhelmingly strong aura of hate coming from the armored soldier. Kai thought it must be the hate that fills someone fighting with another for their very life.

Just as Kai was climbing to his feet and feeling as though victory was within his grasp, the armored soldier came running at him to deliver a kick intended to make him lose any hope he had left.

There was no particular cleverness to it, it was a plain old kick, but it was a kick that came at him like a storm, with enough power to take the life of an ordinary person.

I’m not done roasting you.

Kai steadied his breathing and smiled slightly as he positioned himself ready for the kick. He had to catch the org’s leg and burn it. That was his only thought.

He grabbed the iron-capped toe of the lace-up boot with both hands and channeled as much spiritual energy into it at once as possible in an attempt to burn away its leg completely. Kai had no trouble following the movement of the kick with his eyes and was able to grab its leg tightly.

He unleashed his fire magic with greater ferocity than ever before.

“Guh...”

The intensified fire magic created a roar as it consumed the armored soldier’s leg.

At first Kai felt triumphant, but then his body was scooped off the ground and launched high in the air. That was when the realization hit him.

The leg had slipped from his grasp. When he caught sight of his enemy’s leg, he found it completely unharmed.

The protection offered to a guardian bearer was controlled by the will of a land god. That power wasn’t something that came from the guardian bearer themselves.

“My god’s spirit is always inside,” the armored soldier said while pounding its chest with its fist.

It opened its mouth wide and laughed loudly at Kai’s inexperience.

“What gods give us... we vessels must protect.”

Kai was wide-eyed in shock.

The armored soldier was essentially saying that it was unharmed by the fire magic thanks to the protection that its god had provided against it. When the guardian bearer, the vessel, was at risk of dying, the god would respond by offering new protection that might nullify the threat faced by its vessel. The armored soldier’s god had realized that Kai’s fire magic posed a grave threat and had given a new form of protection to the armored soldier so it could withstand heat.

Though still in shock, Kai managed to orient himself in midair and he landed gracefully.

The only time magic would be effective was during that first strike when it might surprise the opponent.

No, not even then...

As Kai struggled to make sense of it all, he realized that his reasoning was still naive. Even the first strike wasn’t necessarily going to succeed. Once it was clear that the opponent was a magic user, even that first strike might not work. Kai had made a huge blunder by revealing his secret. If a god could immediately provide resistance to their hosts, then it was the height of foolishness to have faith in such cheap tricks.

This was the main reason why guardian bearers rarely used magic. Rather than wasting spiritual energy on magic that was unlikely to be effective, it was easier to overwhelm an opponent with physical attacks. The focus was always on causing damage to the opponent so quickly that their healing couldn’t keep pace.

Be it fire or lightning, the god would offer new resistance against magic whenever it was used. The armored soldier was currently enveloped in a strong protection against fire.

The rational part of Kai’s brain warned him that his chances of victory were now very slim.

Kai soon decided that he would try to run at the first opportunity. Up to now, he had almost never seen a guardian bearer easily slain while fleeing from the battlefield. If a guardian bearer focused on running, they wouldn’t be easily caught, even by a more powerful guardian bearer.

Kai glared at the armored soldier. If he were to escape, it would be best to head toward the region that lay behind this huge org soldier.

“Hand over your stone.”

His fire magic had been rendered ineffective, but it was still possible that some other type of magic might work against this opponent. No matter how tough a guardian bearer was, their body wasn’t as hard as iron and their endurance surely had its limits. For example, if a single point on their body was subjected to a high temperature, there was the possibility of breaking through the makeshift protection offered by the god.

Kai also had one more trick to rely on.

The invisible sword...

His conceptual sword with its supernatural cutting power had once taken down an org guardian bearer with ease. This new enemy’s skin was probably much tougher, but Kai had already proven that its body was softer than iron. He felt confident that he could cut through it.

His sword might just have the power to take this enemy’s life.

The armored soldier saw that the will to fight was still visible in Kai’s eyes and attacked him using a technique that was clearly some form of martial art. The armored soldier used all four limbs as it unleashed a barrage of blows that Kai’s keen eyesight just barely allowed him to parry. But it was clear to see that Kai was at his limit.

Every blow that came at him carried enough weight to shatter a boulder.

This huge difference in the power behind the two fighters’ blows came from the difference in their physical strength that existed before their guardians’ blessings were applied. In terms of the volume of muscle behind each blow, the firm body mass that carried the force of the attack to the opponent, and the endurance needed to deliver such attacks so relentlessly, orgs were already far beyond the level of humans.

The differences between the two fighters went beyond physical aspects. They were also far apart in terms of their combat experience. The armored soldier had honed its fighting technique and had learned how to use its incredible strength effectively.

As Kai parried each attack, he felt the vibrations within his bones, and it was gradually becoming painful.

Kai had underestimated the power of hand-to-hand combat when he’d thought that it was no way to settle a fight between guardian bearers. Now, he was slowly coming to realize just how wrong he’d been.

The armored soldier’s attacks became more and more ferocious as Kai began to groan in pain. Each strike carried with it enough force to be fatal.

“This time you die!”

“...Ngh.”

“Die! Valley God!”

The armored soldier was in a frenzy, and Kai was gradually being worn down.

36

Kai was finding it harder and harder to defend himself. The assault left him unable to do anything besides move backward until finally he was driven back against a tree. With nowhere left to go, the deadly barrage of blows continued.

It felt as though his body was burning fire and might burst apart.

His bones, though harder than steel, were beginning to give way.

His mind was overwhelmed by the agony being ceaselessly delivered to him.

The only thing that made Kai able to bear it was the single glimmer of hope that was left to him.

Not yet...

Even though his life was in peril, Kai never closed his eyes.

He could feel the killing intent in the arms and legs of the armored soldier as they struck him, but still he held his breath and waited for an opportunity.

The way that magic resistance worked meant that Kai might only get one chance.

He had to find some opportunity when he could reliably take his opponent’s life.

Kai’s determination and his will to fight were never gone from his eyes, which caused a mad smile to appear on the face of the armored soldier. It switched to backhanded blows, which allowed for attacks with the iron plates on its hands.

Kai’s eyes were good enough for him to see through the trick.

The armored soldier then straightened its fingers into a shape like a bird’s beak and thrust them at Kai’s body. Kai continued looking for an opportunity that might be created by the change in the nature of the attacks.

Contorting his body as each attack grazed him was the most he could do. Then there was an explosion of blood as an attack landed on his skin. As Kai watched the attack play out, his eyes went wide, more with surprise than pain.

“Fight back!”

While the people of the borderlands trained in the art of Zula-ryu, it appeared that the orgs had developed their own martial arts. The armored soldier’s blood-covered fingers held a lump of flesh.

Somehow, the armored soldier had been able to grab a piece of Kai’s flesh and rip it from his body with a twisting motion.

The armored soldier laughed loudly, sounding insane. It looked at the piece of Kai’s torn flesh as if nothing could be more amusing before placing it in its mouth and chewing. Kai clenched his teeth in an attempt to endure the pain it had caused him.

“This is your successor...? You’ll pay for your pride.”

As tough as the skin of a guardian bearer was, the armored soldier was somehow able to tear it away easily using its fingers.

Why? How?

Over the course of the battle, he’d worked hard to determine a set of principles he could follow that might make him a match for this strong enemy, but it had all been turned on its head in an instant.

The armored soldier was delighted by Kai’s confusion and continued the barrage of attacks. Kai was parrying each blow more or less unconsciously, but he couldn’t stop himself from losing more pieces of his flesh.

The org ate each piece.

Why? Why is my flesh so soft?

A storm of confusion raged in Kai’s mind. The strength of his defense had been something he’d taken for granted as a guardian bearer, but through martial arts or some other means, the org had easily broken through that defense with its bare hands.

The armored soldier laughed a deep laugh from deep within its broad throat.

“You are disgraced, Valley God!”

“...”

“Come on, fight.”

The taunting caused the god of the valley to scream with rage inside him. It went wild, demanding that Kai kill the org.

The superiority of the enemy’s attacks was understandable given the huge difference in physical strength between humans and orgs and their incomparable levels of actual combat experience. The only thing that had made it possible to endure being subjected to this devastating assault was Kai’s unquestioning faith that the god within him provided an equal level of defense.

However, he now had no choice but to accept the reality of the events unfolding.

Kai’s skin was weaker than the org’s. It meant that the armored soldier’s fingers could cut through Kai’s skin like scissors and tear it away.

It meant that even in unarmed combat, it could use its hand like a spear to cut into Kai, allowing its hand to pierce his body as if it was an iron weapon.

I’m no match for this thing... It was then that Kai realized that his death was approaching.

He decided he would run without hesitation when he got the chance.

He needed to find some opening, and if possible, fight back somehow.

“I’ll lay ruin to the valley myself,” the armored soldier muttered.

A shiver ran down Kai’s spine.

Now he remembered that his opponent knew about the valley.

If he ran now, the armored soldier would follow him all the way to the valley. And not alone. This thing would bring its army, and orgs would invade the valley in great numbers. Kai imagined how they would greedily take the wealth of the valley for themselves once they invaded it.

His god’s gravesite would be defiled, and the girl... Aruwe would be tortured and killed without doubt. The despicable nature of the orgs meant that they would never allow her to die an easy death.

Kai should never have challenged this opponent.

He should never have let it know that he was under the protection of the god of the valley.

I have to kill it somehow.

The valley would be defiled.

His beautiful valley would be trampled over by these disgusting creatures.

It has to die.

Everyone would know that the god of the valley’s successor lacked experience.

Those bent on claiming the god’s power for themselves would flock to the valley.

Kai’s decision to start a fight carelessly had left him backed into a corner with no way out.

I have to kill it!

He had to do it, live or die.

Even if it cost him his own life, he had to somehow kill the armored soldier.

If there was ever a next time, Kai would have to hide the fact that he was the god of the valley’s successor. His true form could never be revealed until the day that he amassed enough strength to be one the borderlands’ great powers.

Kai hid his right hand behind his back. He had to chance everything on the sword.

“Hiding another weapon? It won’t work on me.”

The armored soldier was clearly mocking Kai. It looked calm and posed itself to deal with whatever weapon Kai might pull out. It didn’t realize that Kai was forming his invisible sword around his hidden right hand with more power than ever before.

This thing’s fast... The sword needs to be long.

It was forming in the shape of the sword Kai held in his mind. As he made the sword narrower, it grew longer, and the tip reached down to the grass at his feet.

Just then, it cut through the grass at his feet, and he reacted by shortening the sword once more.

The change in the armored soldier’s expression made Kai worried that it might have noticed. He took a step back and placed a foot over the cut grass to hide what had happened.

Longer... It needs to be longer.

This time he bent his arm to give the blade more space to extend.

Kai fixed his eyes on the armored soldier and stepped forward by just half a step with his dominant left foot as if trying to show that he had no fear.

The distance between Kai and the armored soldier was roughly two yules.

Moving forward a half step would make it one and a half yules.

Another step forward would probably reduce it to just one yule.

Leaning forward at the waist would reduce the remainder to less than a yule.

I have spiritual energy left... I need to make the sword longer than one yule.

He gripped the grass with the toes of the left foot he’d just moved forward. He slowly began to shift his center of mass.

The armored soldier had recognized Kai’s movements as being part of his martial arts.

Kai gritted his teeth wishing his opponent would move toward him to close the gap even further. He watched the armored soldier who was standing ready to counter whatever trick Kai might have up his sleeve.

The fact that Kai still hadn’t lost the will to fight even in this situation must have made the armored soldier realize that Kai had another trick left. It was guarding all of its vital areas with both arms in a stance that made it look like a heavyweight boxer.

Heavyweight...?

The meaningless term that came to Kai from his past life memories made him smile as he began to move.

There’s nothing this sword can’t cut.

With his forward left foot as the starting point, Kai focused his power into an explosive forward charge. He could feel the blades of grass under the sole of his left foot being torn up. Those blades of grass had been held fast to the ground, so the power that Kai unleashed was efficiently converted into kinetic energy that drove him forward.

When Kai’s hand appeared from behind his back, the armored soldier looked surprised to see that it was still the same empty hand as before. The armored soldier prepared an iron defense to meet what appeared to be a bare-handed chop. It may have considered Kai inferior, but it didn’t take his attacks lightly.

To call the armored soldier’s stance an iron defense was a perfect metaphor. The two thick arms it had guarded itself with weren’t just covered in skin that was as tough as iron, they also contained broad bones that formed a core harder than iron.

Any ordinary attack with a weapon made from iron would have been stopped dead by those arms no matter how much power was behind it.

However, there was something the armored soldier didn’t know.

Although it hadn’t taken the attack from the human guardian bearer lightly, the concept behind the invisible sword was something beyond its knowledge.

The armored soldier and the god that protected it were about to learn of the nature of this attack based on knowledge from another world.

37

The principles governing the microscopic world that humans could not see... How many of this world’s residents had ever turned their attention to the makeup of the matter that gives rise to the existence of solid objects?

“***!”

The armored soldier reverted back to its own language.

It must have been the result of it being overcome with disbelief.

The downward chop from Kai’s empty hand had not so much as grazed the armored soldier, and yet it had cut deep into its body.

Kai’s invisible sword had met the left arm that the armored soldier had held up to defend itself, and the blade had entered near the wrist with virtually no resistance, severing the hand from the arm. It wasn’t until the blade was embedded deep in the flesh of the armored soldier’s shoulder that the power forming the blade was fully spent.

The invisible sword had the power to interfere with intermolecular bonding, as Kai understood it, based on his past life memories.

This power known as magic that followed his will could easily break apart bonds between molecules that would otherwise be firm and unyielding, with spiritual energy being gradually consumed in exchange.

The principles that governed healing magic applied here too, meaning that the use of magic to affect a living creature without a well-defined objective was incredibly inefficient. Kai didn’t understand this, but he’d been able to make it work by brute force with all the energy at his disposal.

As a result, the invisible sword squandered energy reserves when it was used. Much like it had when he cut through balen cedars.

“**, ***!”

The armored soldier took half a step back in shock while Kai continued moving forward under the same momentum to continue his assault.

His magic might be ineffective next time he tried this same approach. This fear made Kai rush to deliver the next blow. While stepping forward he formed the sword once again at the tip of his right hand. He had to deal more damage to the armored soldier quickly.

Without spending any time on fine adjustments to the blade, he threw his whole body towards his opponent. Then he slashed horizontally as if delivering the second part of a double-slash.

The damage to the iron chest plate was minor, but the skin that bulged out from the gap was slashed open horizontally causing blood to spurt loudly from the flesh within.

The armored soldier’s reflexes caused it to counterattack by throwing a punch at the left side of Kai’s head with the heavy fist of its uninjured right arm. The force of the punch swept away Kai’s head and neck causing him to lose consciousness for a moment. While Kai was on the ground, the armored soldier stepped back as if it were about to run.

I’m not done. I can’t let it escape.

Kai got up and checked the position of his prey. He started running, urged on by the same desperation, without waiting for his vision to become steady. In the phenomenal fights between two guardian bearers, a distance of several steps was equivalent to nothing.

With a thud, Kai closed the distance like a dart shooting through the air, and the armored soldier tried to knock him back with a front kick. Kai cut away the skin from its leg as easily as peeling a potato.

The sword Kai had made was invisible, so it was the motion of the armored soldiers leg that brought it into contact with the blade. Kai gritted his teeth as the sword disappeared and tried to muster up enough spiritual energy to create it for a fourth time.

He realized that he’d been using energy more wastefully than when cutting the balen cedars. He no longer had spiritual energy to waste.

“How can you cut!?” the armored soldier howled.

It was enraged and hollering about the unfairness of the situation as it tried, but failed, to understand the paranormal phenomenon that Kai was using.

If the blessings of the land god protecting the armored soldier were going to offer resistance against Kai’s magic, it would have to provide that resistance soon.

But nothing was happening.

Or perhaps something had happened.

Perhaps the god had offered new forms of protection, but none of them worked.

It may have been that, despite being capable of changing the living tissue of the guardian bearer, the land god’s protection had no way to protect against a sword capable of cutting through intermolecular bonds.

The armored soldier had lost a large piece of flesh from the side of its leg, and now its stance was unbalanced. It had lost the muscle it needed to stand its ground.

Kai had no time to think about anything else. He lunged at the chest of the armored soldier while reforming his sword.

His sole target was the godstone. The godstone within the chest that was one of the vital areas of a guardian bearer.

The godstone that formed inside the bodies of living creatures was usually hidden somewhere in the chest, but that wasn’t always the case. Kai knew that its location varied enough that it was always necessary to search for it by hand. What he was doing was a gamble. If he couldn’t deal a hit to the godstone with a single strike, he’d try to remove the nearby heart instead.

When the opponent was a guardian bearer, even the destruction of the heart might not be enough to be fatal, but it was still the next best option.

The armored soldier’s crude helmet slipped back and fell to the ground.

The reddish black face of the org, covered in wounds and lit by the light of the stars, was now exposed.

“******”

“**, ***!”

“***, ****”

There were cries of dismay from the nearby orgs that had followed them.

They must have gathered around to watch the fight while thinking there was no way that this great warrior of their people could ever lose. No low-ranking soldier dared to approach the ground where two guardian bearers fought each other. The same custom existed in the village of Lag. Anyone who dared to interfere with such a fight would be made to regret it later.

Kai’s hand sank into the flesh of the armored soldier through the opening in its skin made by his invisible sword. The strength was gone from the armored soldier, and it was falling towards him, so Kai’s hand sank deeper and deeper.

Then when the reaction ended and the invisible sword disappeared, Kai’s bare hand touched against a rough lump. Kai had been in a frenzy, but this snapped him out of it. He used his shoulder to push against the body of the armored soldier as he gripped the lump tightly and pulled it out from within its body.

It was the armored soldier’s godstone.

The moment that the orgs gathered around them and knew that the armored soldier, a great warrior of their people, had been defeated, they threw their heads back and unleashed wild howls. Kai couldn’t tell whether they were howls of rage or howls of despair.

“***”

“****! ***, **!”

If he’d understood the orgish tongue, he might have understood the reasons for their strange behavior.

For the first time, one of them spoke in the human tongue.

“Won’t let you!” The org sprayed filthy saliva as it spoke shrilly.

Kai supposed that these might have been the blood relatives of the armored soldier.

“You leave it!” As it moved toward him, its words sounded as though they came from some deep hatred that burned within it like black flames.

The others then followed and began moving closer to Kai.

“You leave it!”

“You ****!”

“That belong us!”

Wild rage spread among the orgs. There must have been dozens of them. Great pigs burning with hatred closing in on him from every direction.

He was surrounded.

Their determination to stop their precious land god from being taken away from their people was enough to make them forget their fear of the strong and unknown guardian bearer known as Kai.

Although he had very little spiritual energy left, he was confident that his power as a guardian bearer was enough for him to scatter a crowd of foot soldiers using violence. But then, countless more orgs appeared from outside the circle they’d formed. With the entire army of orgs that had wiped out the macaques now charging toward Kai all at once, it was more than he felt he could handle.

Kai broke into a run, following what he’d determined was the shortest route back to the human country—the route that had previously been blocked by the armored soldier. Any orgs foolish enough to try to stop him were knocked away effortlessly by the incredible power that his guardian gave to him. Kai broke free from the circle, sending orgs flying backward as if they were barely an obstacle. However...

This is endless.

It was as if every org in the region was gathered in this one spot. Their army formed a swarm that tried to stand in his way in every direction.

Kai thought frantically for some way to escape this place as furious org soldiers attacked him from every side. He sent countless orgs flying back, but then one grabbed his leg. The org was already half dead, but it held tightly to Kai’s leg and tried to bring him down.

Kai cut off its head using the invisible sword without any thought for what would happen next and then struggled free from its body. The axes belonging to the org soldiers he’d failed to kill then came swinging down at him.

Kai rammed one of them with his shoulder and knocked its large body down while scattering the soldiers that flocked around him. Kai jumped straight back up and swung with an iron axe that had been dropped by a fallen org. He hoped to kill any orgs he was lucky enough to hit.

When blood and fat made the axe slip from his grasp, Kai struck another close-by enemy and stole its weapon. As the endless swarm of orgs continued their frenzied attack, Kai’s energy, which he had once thought was inexhaustible, began to run down. He’d already lost his chance to escape and was gradually climbing higher on the pile of org bodies forming at his feet. Before he knew it, Kai was covered in blood and standing on a pile made from the bodies of a hundred ordinary orgs.

He had lost the ability to think.

The ordeal was enough to leave Kai completely depleted of energy and wordlessly panting for breath.

The sight was enough to make the orgs that surrounded him hesitate, and now they simply surrounded the pile of corpses on which he stood.

I’m so hungry...

Kai remembered his empty stomach.

The food that he pictured in his mind was the black triangle known as onigiri. He began to salivate, but he didn’t have even a single slice of dried potato with him.

Then Kai absentmindedly looked at the white lump in his hand.

It turned out that he did have something to fill his stomach. The blood-soaked boy began to smile.

Ah...

Cries came from the orgs.

He heard many orgish words, none of which he understood.

Somehow, he knew they were saying things like, “please stop,” and “have mercy.”

Kai considered it.

Yeah, right.

On the small mountain of bodies, he took the armored soldier’s godstone in his hand and used his invisible sword to cut off the top.

From the opening he’d made, he scooped out the first mouthful. He quickly became impatient and used both hands, thrusting his fingers into it, to break the whole thing into two halves.

Liquid from inside flew out and was scattered in all directions.

“Aah!”

“***!”

“Dohd! Dohd Adohra-kahn!”

“Adohra-kahn!”

“***!”

“Ooh...”

No matter how much they pleaded, it was the victor’s right to feed on the godstone of the defeated. Kai was exercising that right.

Adohra-kahn must have been the name of the armored soldier. The orgs continued to cry that same word over and over.

He tilted his head back, poured the overflowing juice into his open mouth, and gulped it down. The flavor that filled his mouth seemed to be spreading through his body.

Once the rich juice was gone, he began to bite at the marrow. The godstone was as big as it was flavorful, and it was incredibly filling. The core had a deeper red color to it than the translucent, amber-colored parts at the outside, and this core tasted even better.

Kai could barely hear the cries of the orgs anymore. He was drunk on this sublime taste that was enjoyed by only the victors.

He bit and chewed at it in a daze. Then a certain feeling came as the marrow slid down his throat.

It’s all my power now.

Kai felt something inside him struggling to escape.

Before that sensation was over, he swallowed the remaining marrow. Then the land god of the armored soldier, with its divine power drained from it, left Kai like a fine mist.

In that instant, Kai’s own godstone filled with heat. It felt as though Kai’s own land god, the existence of the god the valley within him, was being renewed. It was the second time he’d felt this sensation, so he didn’t lose his sense of self this time, but he felt he wouldn’t be able to remain standing much longer as the heat within him grew.

It had been a mistake.

If he lost consciousness here, he’d certainly die.

Kai cursed his own lack of foresight as he looked down on the orgs who were still stunned by the loss of their land god. Then he suddenly felt the ground shake, and one of his feet slipped from under him.

Part of the pile of corpses crumbled without the whole thing collapsing, and Kai was left awkwardly clinging to one of the stable bodies. A moment later there was another great tremor.

As a resident of this world who was unfamiliar with the natural phenomenon of earthquakes, Kai’s mind was calm as if this was a familiar event, but his body couldn’t help but cower.

The orgs had a similar reaction.

“**!”

“***!”

The dense swarm of orgs was thrown into turmoil. They had stopped looking at Kai and were bumping into one another as their instincts made them fight to find some path to escape.

Then came a third tremor, which caused the orgs to scatter like a cluster of baby spiders.

Kai was lying on his stomach on the pile of bodies and couldn’t easily move. He watched the orgs run off into the unfamiliar landscape from high above.

Then it happened.

Countless sparkling lights appeared before Kai’s eyes.

It was like phosphorescence in the night sky, but the countless lights were being born from the ground and rising into the sky with a shimmering faint glow. Then, not long after it had appeared, each light would fade before melting away into the deep blue world of the night.

Kai wondered how many people had ever witnessed this ghostly phenomenon. He was lost for words as he gazed at the scene.

Something unusual was happening in the land of demi-humans.

Then came the most violent tremor yet.

The strong vibration caused the mountain made of flesh to shake like the jelly produced when boiling the fat of a wild beast, and then it collapsed in spectacular fashion.

Kai was thrown off his feet and became caught up in the avalanche of corpses.

Those... those lights...

That was his final thought before his thinking stopped. Kai’s thoughts were cut short as his consciousness slipped away from him.

The body of the young boy was an empty shell devoid of consciousness lying there defenseless as it became buried under a great number of corpses. For anyone else, it would have been a dangerous situation, but his breathing could soon be heard and it sounded like the healthy breathing of a sleeping boy.

The faint sound of the young boy’s breathing was the only sound in this otherwise silent field strewn with countless corpses.

**

All had gone quiet.

Silence filled the forest, and the soft sounds of insects that had held their breath until now were then heard once more. The silence across the night forest made it hard to imagine that this had been where the battle had reached its gruesome finale.

“***...” The low voice melted into the forest air.

She slowly climbed to her feet and brushed away the blades of grass that were still on her head.

“**, ***”

She tilted her head to the side to relieve the stiffness in her neck, and it caused a dry sound as she became caught in the branches of the low tree above her head. Her horns were her pride, but at times like this they could be a nuisance.

Nirun looked back at what had once been a village and clenched her fists.

There was no one there now. Even Nirun had come to accept that they had all been slaughtered.

It was more than likely that almost every uzelle had been killed.

The orgs had massacred the uzelle with the intention of completely stealing the blessings of their land god.

Nirun and her fellow uzelles had sought help from their masters, the macaques, on the basis of the ancient contract between them. They had resisted and fought to the death, but in the end, they had lost. The macaques had not been as dependable as their reputation had suggested.

The uzelles had sworn devotion to the macaque guardian bearer, making it their protector. However, the macaque guardian bearer had been no match for the fearsome armored soldier of the orgs.

Nirun had lost them all in her attempt to live on. Her mother, the head of the village, had protected the land god from the orgs by drawing the army away from the village and giving up her own life. She had ordered her daughter, Nirun, to remain hidden in the secret room by the gravesite. Nirun was told to claim the land god as her guardian and then run. It was a final act of revenge by a powerless species.

It was necessary for Nirun to evade capture if this plan of revenge was to be carried out successfully.

I can’t count on macaques anymore.

The macaques that should have honored the contract had run off in fear of the org army. Though the armored soldier may have been too strong for them to handle regardless.

And then there was their greed.

After being rescued from the orgs they were told to hand over 100 uzelle horns. Even the horns of uzelles killed in the battle with the orgs were cut off and carried away as an advance payment with no respect given to the dead.

Her own horns would no doubt be taken too.

More importantly...

Nirun grimaced at the rotten smell that hung in the air as she examined the pile of org corpses in front of her.

Within the gruesome pile of dead flesh slept the small warrior who had defeated the armored soldier.

He seemed as though he could be relied upon to enact vengeance on the mighty orgs.

He was likely one of the humans who had disturbed the gravesite and given Nirun a chance to escape. Nirun had jumped to the conclusion that this boy must be the leader of a powerful herd.

But she did find it unusual to see a human who could sleep so soundly while crushed beneath such an incredible amount of bodies.

She was deep in thought as she sat down on the ground nearby and left the boy to his rest.

38

“This is for you, Truthseeker.”

“...”

“Truthseeker?”

To Manso’s relief, the priest stirred when he heard Manso call him. Manso had brought him a wooden bowl filled with soup made from cured meat. He’d worried that he might be waking the priest from his sleep.

The priest broke his silence by politely saying, “Thank you very much,” and then he took the bowl.

He drew back his hood and put the bowl to his mouth, then he looked back at Manso. “Are you worried?” he asked Manso.

Manso knew exactly what the priest thought he was worrying about, so he simply said, “Yes” in response.

It was only natural to be worried about Kai’s safety while he was gone looking for the missing soldiers.

Although the soup was made from cured meat, it was a simple thing made by boiling a few pieces of meat in enough water to go around, so it was watery and far from delicious. The priest drank it without complaint and then gave back the bowl with a smile.

“If it’s Kai you’re worried about, I expect he’ll be just fine.”

The whole party knew now that this priest hadn’t just advanced to the level of doi sigil without needing the blessings of a land god, he’d also learned some secret art that allowed him to see things happening far away. Manso took this into consideration when he accepted the priest’s words.

“I see. Well, if you say so, Truthseeker, I won’t worry.”

“You’d be surprised to know Kai’s...”

“Truthseeker?”

Manso had been about to walk away when the priest’s unfinished sentence made him turn back. But the priest’s face had disappeared under his hood once again.

Manso looked at him curiously, but the priest said nothing more. The priest had sat up and was no longer looking at Manso, as if whatever he had started saying wasn’t important enough to be worth finishing. Manso thought no more of it.

The priest then looked back at Manso and told him, “We’re no longer being pursued. Let’s wait until tomorrow morning for the search party to return. I’m sure everyone is tired. Tell them it’s safe for them to sleep.”

With the four squad leaders absent, it was Manso who took charge of the soldiers.

He nodded and went to pass the message on to the soldiers who were gathered elsewhere. Now that the priest, with his mysterious abilities, had given them assurance, the soldiers were ready to start cheering in a way that was far from appropriate for the depths of the forest. Manso put a stop to that. The soldiers were exhausted and couldn’t have been more thankful for the permission to sleep.

Meanwhile, the priest continued to sit in silent meditation at the edge of the camp.

For a short time, Manso watched the priest as he meditated, but eventually fatigue caused him to sigh, and he let himself fall into a shallow sleep with his arms wrapped around his knees.