Chapter 1: Deer and the Town of Tibar

Chapter 1:
Deer and the Town of Tibar

 

WAS IT MY IMAGINATION? The faint scent of an animal drifted in on the headwind. I had been walking with my eyes cast down, so I slowly closed them as I raised my face and tried to ascertain the unknown source of that momentary scent.

Rolling hills and open plains stretched before me, interrupted only by a long, straight road and the gentle beds of sparse flora I’d seen throughout my journey. At that moment, I noticed something moving around the hill up ahead. I turned toward it, and my eyes widened.

“That’s…”

A deer. A giant deer was standing there. You know, one of those hoofed animals with the horns. The familiar herbivores you can meet in Nara Park. Yeah, those deer.

In Nara, deer will swarm humans carrying special rice crackers meant to feed them, but rather than chewing on the crackers, the deer prefer nomming on people’s clothes. The victims of such deer swarms soon find themselves drenched in drool. You really can’t let your guard down around those gentle beasts. Their sweet round eyes should be feared.

“Hey, it’s a deer! There really is a deer over there!” I shouted excitedly and turned to my partner who, as ever, stood next to me. “Hey, Gol, look over there! I guess deer exist in this world, too.”

When I called out to the white golem known as Gol, she quickly brought her face close to mine. With long ears on either side of her head, this golem resembled an elf. She tilted her lovely face, and her gentle crimson eyes gleamed faintly. This beautiful elf golem continued to look not at the deer, but at me, and she didn’t show any sign of turning away.

“Um, Gol…not me, the deer…”

As I said that, Gol finally threw a glance at the deer, but she soon lost interest and turned back to me. It appeared Gol didn’t care much about deer. She was far more interested in my smiling, excited face.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, my heart throbbed keenly. Several days had passed since I was summoned to this unfamiliar world as the Sorcerer King. However, throughout my journey, the only vertebrates I had encountered were monkeys; a dinosaur; and a wonderful, bespectacled man. And now, suddenly, this deer.

Compared to the aforementioned lineup, the deer was far and away the most soothing presence. This was a wonderful encounter. How very pleasant.

“Still, that’s a pretty big species of deer…” I stopped on the road. Shading my eyes with my hand, I squinted to focus on this titan of an herbivore. “A deer, huh…? Is ‘deer’ the word I’m looking for?”

It was such a large animal that I was compelled to wonder aloud. Its physique was more akin to that of a reindeer or moose than a Japanese deer. Judging by the height of the shrub beside it, it was two meters tall at the shoulders. Not the size of a normal deer. In fact, including its massive horns, it was closer to four meters in total. Anyway, it was humongous.

On top of that, this otherworldly deer had this strange, intimidating aura. Its bright half-moon eyes seemed to be glaring at me. Its ominous, twisted, deep scarlet horns were like lethal weapons. Truthfully, some might consider its appearance to be both terrifying and eerie.

But I wasn’t a man who judged animals by their appearance, not like those more superficial humans. After all, any animal’s appearance was simply an artifact of nature. All shapes were the shape of life.

“How can I put it…? It’s beautiful. I might even be falling in love,” I murmured, spellbound by this gallant and elegant deer.

However, in the next moment, my eyes widened. Gol was suddenly standing in front of the deer. For some reason, a dangerous bloodlust emitted from her lovely elven back. She and the giant horned animal glared at one another from only a hair’s breadth apart.

“H-hey, Gol…” I said. Gol, what are you doing? You’re scaring the deer. Hurry up and come back.

But there was no time for me to voice such thoughts. Gol unleashed a lightning-speed high kick, an explosive flash from the white goddess of death. Her target was the giant deer’s forehead.

One hit. That was all it took to smash the deer’s head in, flinging bone shards and gray matter into the air.

 

***

 

“Listen, Gol. Listen real close now. It’s not normal to act with such indiscriminate violence toward animals.” As I walked along the road, I explained how the world worked.

Gol’s long ears twitched slightly. This was how she indicated happiness, and she often did so whenever I talked to her.

“Look here… Are you actually reflecting on your actions?”

Although I sighed deeply at my troublesome partner, I couldn’t be too stern with her. I understood why Gol was nervous around wild animals. Since her creation, she had only encountered hostile wildlife. Those awful monkeys and that giant earthen dinosaur had attacked us as soon as we encountered them.

Those creatures were known as mana beasts, so they were probably outside the norm, animal-wise. However, I admittedly had zero applicable knowledge about this world’s basic ecology. It was entirely possible Gol’s decision to exterminate the deer had been the wisest option. I couldn’t scold her irresponsibly.

“In any case, we’ve finally started seeing wild animals other than monkeys…” I mused and returned my gaze forward.

The wide, straight road stretching beneath my feet continued from east to west, just as its name on our map—“East-West Highway”—implied.

Today was the third day since our lucky victory over the ancient Earth Dragon/dinosaur/whatever-it-was and we parted ways with our traveling companion, Master Speria. He had gone north, while Gol and I headed westward on this road.

We appeared to be clear of the miasma-infested region. The scenery could no longer be called a barren wasteland. Grass, short trees, shrubs, and all sorts of greenery grew on the sides of the road and on the slopes of hills. It had also been a while since I’d seen a monkey.

Just as the features of the landscape were changing, so too was the wildlife. The deer was surely another one of those signs we had entered new territory. I expected that soon, we might even see other humans on the road to the next settlement.

I rummaged through my black shoulder bag and pulled out our map, which I unfolded to study. “Um, the next settlement is…Tibar, right? Ah, I think it’s this relatively big one.”

We’d passed numerous abandoned and uninhabited settlements along the way. The further west we went, the shorter the distance between the ruins. Given this trend in settlement distribution, I assumed the center of civilization lay to the west. That meant the east was considered relatively remote. In fact, Master Speria had said the center of this nation, the imperial capital, was further west on this very road.

The past few days of our journey had been fairly comfortable. I hadn’t needed to worry about camping out at night because between the frequency of empty settlements and our ability to pace ourselves with the map, we had been able to time it so we could borrow uninhabited houses to sleep in.

Still, in the end, I wanted to reach a human settlement soon. I missed soft beds, and while the preserved food in my possession didn’t taste bad, I wanted to try a proper meal in this world. If the map was correct, it wouldn’t be long until we reached the town of Tibar.

I might even be able to see something once we’re over that hill. With this modest hope, I stepped onto the green grass and climbed up the slope. At the top of the hill, I looked down in anticipation and gasped. “Oh! Are there people here?!”

Up ahead was a cluster of buildings packed into dense rows of houses and other structures. Had I finally reached my destination? Could I dare hope that Tibar still had people living in it?

As I strained my eyes, I saw something that looked like chimney smoke rising above the rooftops. Furthermore, there were tons of buildings. The town was much larger than any of the other settlements I had passed thus far. In fact, its true size exceeded its scale on the map—it didn’t feel like a mere farming village so much as an actual town.

Hooray! Civilization! My heart was filled with unutterable relief. At the very least, I would no longer need to worry about running out of food or water in no-man’s-land and ending up a skeleton.

At that moment, I had a uniquely physical epiphany brought on by the unusual conditions of my situation: No longer having to fear starvation leads to profound peace of mind and significant psychological improvement.

In any case, if possible, I hoped that in this town I could exchange a few items for money and acquire the basic means of truly surviving in this world. Only after that could I decide on my next course of action.

We soon arrived at the town’s eastern gate, which was large, wooden, and tightly closed. Also, there was no one around. While it was a fairly fine gate, it didn’t appear to have been used in a long time.

But…Tibar wasn’t a ghost town. After seeing smoke from that nearby hill, I was convinced there were people inside. I folded my arms and racked my brain in front of the unmanned, locked gate.

“Ah, right. Come to think of it, it’s probably because only monkeys come from this direction… If this town has another entrance, there wouldn’t be any need to open this gate. Let’s look for another way in.”

Gol and I headed south to circle clockwise around the town. As we circled the perimeter, I took the chance to study Tibar. All the settlements I had encountered before had rotten wooden fences—they were practically defenseless farming villages. However, this town was surrounded by an earthen wall, though it was a bit simple. There also appeared to be some kind of tall structure inside the walls that I assumed was a watchtower. But there didn’t seem to be anyone stationed in it. I didn’t think a single person in Tibar was aware of our approach.

What a carefree and idyllic town. Perhaps these simple walls staved off all local threats. Although, well, I couldn’t imagine them holding against an assault by one of this world’s deadliest animals: the monkey. One hit from one of those wretched creature’s killer rugby balls would no doubt pierce several of these earthen walls.

I took note of some relatively new roofs while we walked, but from what I had seen earlier, most of the local buildings were quite aged. I wondered if some people had moved to Tibar to escape the Earth miasma to the east. If that were the case, it might explain why the town was bigger than its depiction on the map.

I arrived at the southern side of the city, but there was no entrance there, either. However, I wasn’t about to stress out over such a small setback. Gol and I continued walking toward the western side. However, at this rate I was beginning to feel like we were going to walk nearly the entire circumference of the town before we got inside.

As we went, I saw a vast field to my left. I wondered what kind of field it was. Maybe wheat? From this distance, the vegetation seemed too short for that, so perhaps it was some kind of grass. As we got closer, I confirmed that it was a proper and well-constructed agricultural field. Several shadows moved on the far side of it. People. Farming.

“Oh, people…”

They weren’t monkeys. There were people—real people here.

Ah, there’s also a girl! I wonder if she’s helping her parents.

She was an ordinary, dime-a-dozen country girl, but that didn’t mean she was particularly plain or anything. Actually, she was too far away for me to really see her face. In fact, she might have been a short old lady.

Nevertheless, I was trembling with emotion. In my life of skeletons, old men, and awful monkeys, a woman had finally appeared. It was like…how can I put it? Like the gods had bestowed something precious and charming upon me.

As I offered a prayer to these great gods, I increased my pace along the wheat field. Then I stopped. Something had caught my eye.

“Oh, it’s a gate.” It looked just like the one on the other side of the walls. This was probably the town’s entrance. I had already circled to the opposite side of Tibar. In other words, this was Tibar’s western gate, and it was wide open.

A road from inside the town flowed out of the open gate and led straight westward. I suspected the road that ran from east to west cut through the center of this circular town. However, due to the threat of the Earth miasma, no one could travel eastward at present. As such, the eastern gate was closed and this town was something of a dead end.

As I gazed at the gate, I became distracted by the shapes of people going in and out of the town.

“People. More people!” I was perhaps getting too excited at the mere sight of other people. I couldn’t help it. I mean, all the primates I had met thus far—aside from Master Speria—had been either monkeys or bones.

Even though I was trembling with emotion, I slid over to hide in the nearby shadows to observe the situation around the gate. Upon closer inspection, there were quite a lot of people. This town seemed to have a more than decent amount of traffic. People in traveling clothes and packed wagons lined the road.

Wagons, huh? So this world had horses, too. Well, of course it did—after all, monkeys and deer existed, too. As for the people, their clothes were somewhat unique, and they looked to be of all sorts of unfamiliar ethnicities.

“Wait… I thought there would only be Western-looking people, but…doesn’t that person look slightly Japanese?”

A woman in her fifties was carrying a large basket on her back as she entered the town, and she had an East Asian-looking face.

Ah, right. Master Speria hadn’t been particularly surprised to see someone like me. In fact, he had mistaken me for someone who’d drifted in this direction from the strife-ridden east.

“That means it’s highly possible other East Asian-looking people are already mixed in with the general population…”

That would be helpful. It lessened the possibility that I would be immediately flagged as suspicious based on my appearance. As a person from another world of unidentifiable origin, I could only be grateful for that.

“If that’s the case, I don’t have to awkwardly sneak around. In fact, it seems like a better plan to act casual. Hey, Gol, what do you think?” I thought I should ask for my partner’s opinion, so I turned to look behind me.

Whoa! As usual, Gol’s face was super close to mine. She peered at me with bright eyes. It didn’t seem like she was arguing against my proposed strategy. However, the tips of her fingers gripped the hem of my robe.

“Oh…? How long have you been doing that? You don’t have to. I’m not gonna run away or anything.”

I realized then that ever since I had noticed that girl in the fields, Gol had been close behind me, clutching my robe. Also, when I studied the East Asian-looking middle-aged woman, Gol had upped her clinginess to a two-handed robe-clutch. To be fair, her grip was gentle and calm, so I couldn’t complain.

Still, having a golem holding my robe seemed a bit shameful. I had to put a stop to this as her responsible owner. I lightly touched Gol’s hand. “Huh? Y-your hand…”

It was faintly trembling.

“What? Eh? Are you okay?” As I inspected Gol more thoroughly, I found her pupils were slightly cloudy. What was up with her? I stroked Gol’s quivering knuckles. “Gol, are you feeling unwell?”

And thus did a man continue to stroke a golem’s hand in the shadow of a town’s entrance while the golem leaned against him, weakly shivering. What a surreal scene.

“Relax. Everything’s all right. I’m here for you.” As I desperately reassured and pet Gol, her trembling gradually decreased. Before long, she began to rub her face against mine like a pampered child. “Th-thank goodness. She’s better…”

What exactly was all that shaking about? Was this possibly some kind of golem malfunction? I certainly hoped not.

As I wiped the sheen of sweat off my brow, I turned my attention back to the entrance of Tibar. Fortunately, the people at the gate hadn’t noticed our presence.

This western gate was just like the eastern one: old and wooden, but fairly elegant. A man standing nearby carried a long spear, so there at least appeared to be some kind of gatekeeper. But to tell you the truth, he didn’t appear to be particularly strong. He wore cheap-looking brown armor and seemed like an ordinary, unmotivated old man.

I observed him for some time, but the gatekeeper was just standing around. The travelers and their vehicles passed through the gate unchallenged. “Doesn’t look like they’re going to ask for my papers or anything.”

All right, I guess even a homeless rando unwillingly employed as the Sorcerer King can enter. In that case, time to go.

I summoned my resolve and walked forward with Gol. In order to not raise suspicion, I strode with confidence and grace.

I did feel a bit nervous when we passed the gatekeeper, but he paid much more attention to Gol than me. It reminded me of how, whenever a person takes their beautiful dog on a walk, people notice the dog more than the person with them. Thanks to that, I managed to avoid drawing attention and sashayed past without being called out.

You’re a big help, partner. Your very existence is a boon.

Inside the walls, the town of Tibar was lively. There were rows and rows of houses and all manner of people walking through the streets as children ran about. Some folks looked like herders with livestock. Were those sheep accompanying them? I also saw what looked like a gray mannequin unloading something from a wagon on the other side of the road. Could that be a golem?

As I walked, I found many of the buildings on the main road that cut through the center of Tibar were shops of one kind or another. I slowed in front of what seemed like a grocery store, which had unfamiliar vegetables and fruits on display in front. A purple lotus root-looking thing was hung above the rest, and I wondered what it was. Was it edible? There was some more familiar produce like pumpkins and carrots, too, though honestly, I suspected they were still a different variety than the ones on Earth.

The surrounding skyline was quite tidy. However, there weren’t many large structures. The only thing that stuck out in terms of height was that watchtower I had spotted back on the eastern side of the town. The rest of the buildings were largely one-story tall and made of wood.

Between the summoner Luvel Zairein’s hideout and the empty houses in the abandoned villages I had passed on my journey, it seemed to me that this world’s civilization was a bit old-fashioned compared to the modernity I was used to.

Then again, this world had spells. Given how inexperienced I was with spells and their impact, I couldn’t make many—if any—assumptions about how different this world was from my home.

In any case, I was aware that on top of being a tragic dud, my beloved Earth attribute hadn’t been able to contribute anything to the development of civil engineering. Now I’m getting sad, so let’s stop thinking about it.

Another thing that interested me about this town was, hmm…right. I’d seen them at the gate as well. People who looked like travelers littered the streets. Their luggage and equipment was uniformly more appropriate and substantial than my single shoulder bag. However, because of the adverse effects of the Earth miasma, no one in Tibar could possibly be heading further east. Did that make this town the end of the road? Now that I thought about it, Gol and I hadn’t encountered anyone on our way in from the east. Also, the city’s eastern gate was closed.

So where were these travelers heading?

The flood of questions and my insatiable curiosity surely made me look like a country bumpkin as I gawked at everything in sight. However, some instinct made me suddenly worried about Gol, and I turned toward her.

She was standing quietly just behind me. That strange shivering that had overtaken her outside the town had vanished, and she no longer gripped my robe. Gol was back to normal.

Wait, was it right to call her present attitude “normal”? Even though we’d finally arrived in a town, Gol didn’t look the least bit happy. Actually, her attitude toward the town and its people was strangely cold.

Although her bearing now was calm, I kind of preferred how she’d been when she first encountered those monkeys or that deer. At least in those moments, she’d felt like she was with me as I got excited over the animals, even if she didn’t agree about how lovely they were. But now, Gol didn’t show the least interest in the people walking the streets in their vibrant clothes, or the strange townscape that oozed the feeling of another world.

I think this is a little different from just being bad with crowds. How can I put it…? It’s like she doesn’t have any interest in human civilization whatsoever.

For a while now, Gol’s crimson eyes had been staring at me, though I wasn’t sure if she was aware of my unease. As usual, the look on her face was very kind. However, I couldn’t shrug this odd anxiety.

Let’s just check in with Gol one more time. After all, confirmation is important.

“Listen, Gol… You can’t attack the people or golems in this town. You can only attack someone if I give you permission or if they make a move on us first. Can you be a good girl and promise me this?” I reiterated the bare minimum rule for living and functioning in society.

In the past, when we’d visited the shrine on the way to Tibar, I’d given Gol insufficient instruction along the lines of “Don’t punch anyone.” This had resulted in a tragedy wherein Gol simply kicked her opponents to smithereens.

The blame for this incident fell on me, her incompetent owner. My innocent Gol was not at fault. Nevertheless, we could not repeat the same mistake.

Gol leaned in as I addressed her in my most serious tone, her crimson eyes sparkling. With each word I spoke at this close distance, her lovely long ears moved faintly, tickling me. Hmm, was she actually listening?

I gradually grew more nervous. In my mind, I once more saw the sight of the busty shrine golems being violently trampled, one after another, by Gol’s overwhelming brute strength and destructive power.

No. If I don’t believe in Gol, what am I going to do? I’m sure she’s fine. I mean, Gol was just having a bit of a panic attack at the time.

That tragedy lay squarely on me. Gol had misread my interest in the one golem’s remains as perverted, and this had wounded her pure and innocent heart. It was my obligation to take responsibility for this incident; no one else should cut open their stomach over it.

My beloved partner Gol was the picture of consideration, always sincere and unceasingly gentle. She understood other people’s pain, though I feared she was forever too hesitant to assert her own needs. There was no way I could or would ever do anything to hurt her. In any case, Gol would never do anything bad to people who stood by my side.

So, why? Why was I feeling such anxiety?

In order to dispel the doubt in my heart, I offered my pinky finger to Gol. “Gol, stick your pinky out like this.”

Gol obeyed and mimicked my action by slowly sticking out her pinky, though she did so a bit hesitantly. I entwined my finger around hers and performed a pinky promise.

“All right. This is a promise, partner,” I said, smiling.

Maybe pinky promises were rare; Gol kept her pinky entwined with mine. Although she usually showed no resistance to my actions, this was a bit of a concern.

It just felt…weird.