“So this is the place.”
“I saw it last time, but it’s still amazing.”
We entered the forest where the witch—no, where Malay was.
Perhaps because it was so deep in, I had barely taken a few steps before sweat was already beading on me.
…Of course, my diminished stamina probably had something to do with it.
I had sent Sylon off separately to buy additional supplies in preparation for a long journey.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to buy them properly.
Still, he was the one among us who had spent the longest time as a mercenary, so surely there was something to trust in.
At the very least, he had to prove his worth in places like that to earn his keep.
“Wait here.”
I said to Aileen, who was following behind me.
After all, Malay had told me to “bring her,” not to bring her inside with me.
Even if she wanted to go in, she probably wouldn’t be able to.
Together with Baldik, I crossed the boundary and headed toward Malay’s hut.
A familiar sight.
The unique, silent air of the forest, where not even a small beast dared draw near, touched my skin once again.
“Is she inside?”
“Probably.”
Knock, knock.
“We’re here.”
We went up to the door of the hut and knocked carefully.
Come to think of it, this was the first time I had properly knocked on the door like this.
Last time, I had gone in through the window.
A quiet time passed without even a hint of presence, and just as I wondered if I should knock again—
Click, creeeak.
The door opened by itself.
It was dark inside.
Even though it was broad daylight, thick cloths were draped over every window, and only a few flickering candles dimly lit the interior.
It was a familiar sight, but the atmosphere felt somewhat different.
“Come in.”
A familiar voice rang out from the darkness.
It was Malay.
She was half-perched on a chair, working on something with her hands.
Looking closer, it was a root of well-dried medicinal herb.
Judging by the way its rough roots jutted out unevenly, I had no idea what she intended to use it for, but it didn’t seem ordinary.
“The girl you were bringing.”
Without even lifting her gaze, she spoke as if tossing the words out.
“I brought her. She’s waiting outside.”
As soon as I finished speaking, her hands stopped moving.
“Then bring her in. Tell her to wear this.”
Clunk, clatter.
Along with those short, firm words, she rolled something toward me.
The object that stopped with a tap was a round bracelet slightly larger than the palm of my hand.
Looking closely, it was densely engraved with tiny patterns, and a strange energy seemed to seep from it.
I nodded and picked up the bracelet.
At that moment, she glanced at Baldik, who was about to follow me out, and threw out a brief word.
“You stay. There’s something that needs moving.”
“Huh?”
Leaving Baldik behind with an oddly wronged expression on his face, I exited the hut alone.
Under the shade by the entrance, Aileen was standing quietly.
When she saw me, she instinctively straightened up.
“Can I go in now?”
“Yeah. She says you just need to wear this.”
I held out the bracelet to her.
She seemed to hesitate for a moment, then carefully slipped it onto her wrist.
I thought the size might be awkward, but it fit perfectly, as if it had been measured for her.
Click.
At the sound of the bracelet locking, a foreign sensation brushed past me, as though the flow in the air had changed.
“Wow!”
“Can you see it now?”
“Yes! So this is what it looked like…”
Aileen’s eyes widened as she gazed in awe at the hut that had appeared in the distance.
The moment she put on the bracelet, the previously invisible hut revealed itself clearly, as if an illusion had been lifted.
How fascinating.
So a single bracelet granted the right to enter?
It made me wonder if it was like a modern security card. Or perhaps this, too, was a kind of magic tool.
I led her back inside the boundary of the hut.
The moment we crossed it, I heard another small exclamation of wonder from beside me.
It was understandable. All she had done was put on a bracelet, and a hidden space had unfolded before her eyes.
In the yard in front of the hut, something was already in full swing.
Baldik was groaning as he moved large wooden planks, and Malay was drawing something on the ground again.
A sticky liquid, whether blood or red dye, dripped from her fingertips, and with it, she connected clear lines across the ground.
At first glance, it looked like scribbling, but it was a magic circle with a definite structure.
Without lifting her head, she muttered.
“You’re here. Is that the wench?”
“…Yes.”
“W-wench…”
Aileen seemed momentarily flustered by Malay’s particular way of speaking.
Adapting to expressions like that was impossible from the start.
But unexpectedly, she recovered quickly, and her gaze fixed on the magic circle Malay was drawing and the red liquid on her hand.
Soon, with eyes full of curiosity, she took a step closer and opened her mouth.
“What are you… doing right now?”
Malay continued her silence without even raising her head.
“…”
Aileen, reading the mood, glanced back at me and met my eyes.
Her expression was plainly awkward.
I gave a small laugh and shrugged.
That’s just how she is.
“Kuh!”
Baldik finished moving all the wooden planks and plopped down where he stood, wiping away his sweat.
In the meantime, quite a pile of wooden planks, large and small, had accumulated on one side of the yard.
Looking closely, each plank was slightly different in size.
Meaning they hadn’t been cut to any fixed standard.
Only after confirming that all the planks had been stacked did Malay stop what she was drawing on the ground.
Slowly rising, she stood before the planks and immediately called Aileen over.
“This should be enough. You, come here.”
“Me?”
Slightly taken aback, Aileen carefully moved according to Malay’s instruction.
I wondered if she was going to make her stand on the magic circle again, but today, something was different.
In fact, the magic circle drawn on the ground was clearly different in shape from the last one.
A strange diagram that seemed somehow familiar, as though it had been drawn following the shape of a human body.
After confirming that Aileen stood in front of the wooden planks, Malay immediately began chanting.
Magical words poured rapidly from her mouth, and an unfamiliar resonance spread through the air, enveloping the yard.
For a while, the spell burst out like a rapid volley, without even giving anyone time to breathe, until at last, the final phrase dropped from her lips.
“Vefanir School · Spirit Invocation Rite, [Dancing Puppet].”
The magic circle drawn on the ground shimmered and took on light, then began seeping into the wooden planks.
As if engraving tattoos, the patterns crawled up over the planks, and soon everything stopped.
Clatter.
Just as everyone was silently watching the situation, the sound of a wooden plank shifting slightly came from somewhere.
At first, I thought I had imagined it.
Clatter, clatter.
One plank truly began to creak and slowly raise itself.
Following it, the other planks began moving one by one.
As if invisible hands were pulling strings, the wooden planks shifted into fixed positions and fitted themselves together.
And before long, a bizarre structure in the shape of a human was completed in the middle of the yard.
Its arms and legs moved stiffly like squared timbers, and instead of joints, knots engraved with magic circles were fitted into place.
“…It’s moving.”
Aileen murmured under her breath.
Malay nodded as if it were only natural and tapped her staff down.
“It’s nothing but an ornament, with neither spirit nor soul. But if ordered, it’ll do anything.”
The moment she finished speaking, the wooden doll creaked and slowly turned the plank that seemed to be its head.
It faced Aileen, as though waiting for her command.
“Does it obey me?”
“What? Ha, as if.”
The wooden doll still had its head tilted, its gaze fixed on Aileen.
That sightless gaze was strangely unpleasant.
It wasn’t trying to see anything. It was simply fixed at a predetermined angle, a sort of “indifferent stare.”
“But why did you bring this out—”
Tap, tap.
Malay tapped the ground with her staff.
As if that were the signal, the wooden doll suddenly raised its right arm and swung it roughly toward Aileen.
Whoooosh!
“Kyaa!”
Fortunately, Aileen quickly dodged, so the attack missed.
Startled, she stepped back and shouted.
“What are you doing!”
Flustered, I stepped forward to stop Malay.
“I’m seeing whether she’s useful as an assistant.”
“An assistant? Don’t tell me you’re checking that by—”
“Then what, am I supposed to keep around someone with no ability whatsoever?”
At that, I couldn’t really argue.
Even so, this was a bit… wasn’t this method not just rough, but dangerous?
“Still, doing it like this—”
“You have to know the foundation before teaching. You want me to protect a girl who can’t even endure this? That would be a luxury.”
Malay spoke without lifting her eyes, and tapped her staff against the ground once more.
At that moment, the wooden doll stirred again and lowered its stance.
“What are you trying to check?”
I asked back, but Malay answered without even looking at me.
“She looks like a wench who handles a sword at a glance. Might as well secure a sample while I’m at it.”
“A sample?”
For a moment, I was at a loss for words.
Did she mean something like combat records by sample, or was she actually planning to make her into a test subject?
Because she had tossed out those words far too casually.
“…I’m not sure her skill is worth making a sample of.”
“That’s why I’m checking now, isn’t it?”
Tap, tap.
The staff tapped the ground a couple more times.
As if reacting to the sound, the wooden doll began lurching into motion again.
This time, it wasn’t a simple swing. It spread both arms wide and threw its entire body forward.
“Watch out!”
“Uwaah!”
Aileen tried to roughly push the trajectory away with her dagger, but because of the weight behind that bulky body, she barely managed to dodge.
The moment her feet wavered and she lost her balance, Malay’s voice flew out sharply.
“Your stance is falling apart. Open your eyes properly first.”
“You suddenly—!”
“Move instead of wasting time making excuses.”
“…!”
Aileen’s expression hardened.
Confusion, shock, resentment.
All of it mixed together in a complicated way, but at the same time… something faintly simmering began to rise in her eyes.
Only then did I feel a little relieved.
I felt like I understood why Malay was testing Aileen, even in such a way.
“Remember one thing. That thing doesn’t move without my command. Which means I’ve given you… more than enough time to rest.”
Malay leaned back in her chair, placed her staff across her knees, and twisted up the corner of her mouth.
“Let’s see just how long this wench lasts.”
Looking at that fierce expression, I quietly muttered inwardly.
‘Aileen, you’re in for it…’
***
Crash!
After a fierce clash with the wooden doll, Aileen ultimately won.
To be precise… the mana in the magic circle had run out, and the doll had stopped moving.
Either way, what mattered was that she survived.
Honestly, beating a hard wooden doll with a single blade had been absurd from the start.
“Hah… hah…”
Aileen collapsed face-down on the ground, drenched in sweat.
At a glance, she was completely exhausted.
…Poor thing.
I remembered the sight of her training back in Delhar Village.
The old man who trained her back then had been no joke either, but thinking about it now, he might have had a personality somewhat similar to Malay’s.
“Tsk. So that’s about it after all.”
Malay shook her head with her arms crossed.
Her tone sounded slightly disappointed.
“About it… as in how good is she?”
I was starting to get curious too.
I was hopeless when it came to swordsmanship, but honestly, to my eyes, it looked like she had fought pretty well.
If that was “nothing special,” I couldn’t even begin to guess what her standard was.
“She has the basics down, but it looks like she learned from someone strange to begin with.”
“Really?”
“The fundamentals are there. But when she tries to swing a sword based on them, everything becomes a mess.”
“…Is it that bad?”
Malay tapped her staff against the ground and snorted.
“Overall, rather than technique, it’s a method of stupidly pushing through with strength. You can tell at a glance she learned from the type whose arms move before their head does.”
In other words, she had learned from “the type who swings a sword relying only on strength.”
“Who the hell taught you like that?”
At those words, Aileen, who had been lying on the ground, shot her upper body upright.
“Don’t insult Sir Chad!”
“Chad?”
As if she had no interest whatsoever in Aileen’s anger, Malay focused only on the muttered name.
“Chad… Chad…”
After murmuring for quite a while, Malay soon let out an exclamation.
“Chad Cavalini! That bastard, right?”
“What? You know Sir Chad…?”
Aileen asked back in surprise, forgetting that she had been angry.
At that reaction, Malay twisted up the corner of her mouth and laughed.
“Well now, I never thought I’d hear that man’s name again here. What’s your relationship with him?”
“He was a knight of our territory—”
“Tsk. I thought he’d at least retired by now, but he was still doing that nonsense?”
She clicked her tongue, as though openly displeased.
“Do you actually know anything about that bastard?”
“What? What do you mean, actually…?”
“No, I mean, any sane territory wouldn’t have raised someone like him to knighthood.”
“What is that supposed to—”
Aileen frowned again and tried to protest, but Malay merely snorted.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
An irritated sigh seeped into her tone.
“…”
“Do you even know what that bastard’s nickname is…?”
Malay deliberately dragged it out, then tossed the words out in a low voice.
“Chad the Man-Eating Knight.”