The knights finally arrived at the rear of the stone mountain.
“This place is… different from what I expected.”
At the senior knight’s words, another knight replied.
“I know. I thought it would be full of rocks… but to think there’d be such a dense coniferous forest…”
As the knights climbed up behind the stone mountain, they found bones piled high in one place.
“So many bighorns…?”
Bighorns were wild cattle that even beasts had a hard time bringing down. Of course, they were hunted in winter when food was scarce, but… it was strange for so many to be piled up like this.
They did not know it, but these bones were the carcasses of bighorns that Dawi had thrown away.
Wild beasts had come and stripped them clean.
Awooooo—!
A wolf’s howl sounded in the distance.
“This must be wolf territory.”
The senior knight thought so as he moved on. In truth, these wolves had been a pack from elsewhere, but because Dawi kept dumping spoiled meat and bighorn carcasses here, they had moved into the area.
From the wolves’ point of view, some wild man was delivering food to them every few days.
After passing that place and climbing farther up the mountain, the knights found a clump of bear fur fallen on the ground.
On a nearby tree were claw marks, as if a bear had marked its territory.
“From here on, it seems to be bear territory…”
At the senior knight’s words, a junior knight flinched and asked back.
“A bear?!”
A bear was a beast that even knights found difficult to face.
“It was hard enough fighting wolves and snow leopards on the way here…”
Just as the knight said, they were covered in traces of battles with beasts. Bloodstained leather clothes, weary eyes, and iron swords with chipped teeth were proof of that.
“Everyone, stay alert. Circulate your mana in advance and follow me.”
Sssaaaa—
A blue haze rose around the knights as they circulated their mana.
(*Mages store the mana of nature within their bodies, while knights circulate the mana of nature so that it flows through them. While mana is circulating, their physical abilities are temporarily strengthened, and the more abundant and pure the circulating mana is, the greater the effect.)
The knights maintained their tension and carefully climbed the mountain.
“This is…!”
And there, they found something grotesque.
The carcass of a bear, dead with its hide stripped off.
Nearby was a rocky cave that seemed to be the bear’s den.
“What on earth happened here…?”
What could possibly have done this to a bear?
“Is there an animal that skins bears…?”
“Isn’t skinning something only humans do…?”
“Then are you saying a person did this? You’d need at least five knights to take down a bear.”
Were there really five people of knightly caliber hiding and living on this rugged mountain?
That was absurd. If they had that level of skill, they would rather become territory knights and live without worrying about food.
“Everyone, quiet.”
The senior knight stopped the knights’ conversation and examined the bear’s carcass closely.
“They aimed for its hibernation. They killed it when its body was at its most sluggish. The hide must have been stripped after it died…”
Then the senior knight saw the shattered skull.
“They broke a bear’s skull…?”
A bear’s head was famous for its thickness; even a knight would have to strike it with all his might using a hammer to barely break it.
The bear’s skull had two holes in it, as if something had pierced through and shattered it.
“What in the world is this…”
The senior knight examined the bear’s carcass further, and soon discovered two more holes in its shoulder and side.
They were clearly traces of something having dug in, but there was nothing embedded in the bear’s body.
(*The bullets and casings fired by Dawi disappear after some time passes. Bullets discarded without being loaded also disappeared after a while.)
“Could it be… magic?”
Materials created by magic disperse into mana and vanish after some time passes.
“The sound of thunder… Did someone use lightning magic?”
If so, did that mean a mage was living hidden somewhere on this mountain?
“Magic powerful enough to pierce a bear’s skull…”
At minimum, it was a mage of the Third Circle or higher.
The senior knight reached a conclusion.
“It seems there is a mage here.”
“Pardon? Why would a mage be in a mountain like this…”
“If they came to our territory instead, they’d receive tremendous treatment…”
“They must not know our territory exists. It can’t even be seen until one crosses this mountain range… They probably entered this mountain range to avoid the zombies and settled somewhere around here.”
“If that’s the case…!”
“Yes. We must persuade them properly and bring them to our territory.”
“Ooh…!”
If there was a mage, life in their territory would become much more comfortable.
The knights moved on, looking forward to meeting the mage.
And then they were startled out of their wits by the appearance of some wild man.
“A m-monster!”
“Everyone, draw your swords!”
***
As Dawi was digging the ground with an axe, a thought suddenly occurred to him.
“Wouldn’t it be fine if I just used the cave the bear lived in?”
If he blocked off the entrance properly and put ice inside, wouldn’t it become a natural stone icehouse?
Dawi went down the mountain to inspect the bear cave.
“Malmal, let’s go!”
Just in case, Dawi always brought along Malmal, his reliable reinforcement and friend.
After descending the mountain for quite a while, Dawi saw things moving near the bear cave.
Even from afar, they were clearly walking on two legs, so…
“N-no way…!”
Dawi hurriedly ran down the mountain.
Dududududu!
And at last, Dawi was able to face civilization.
.
.
.
“A m-monster!”
“Everyone, draw your swords!”
The people were startled out of their wits when they saw Dawi’s bizarre attire.
Thanks to the knowledge the archmage had forcibly injected into him, Dawi could understand their words.
Dawi spoke in a trembling voice. Of course, it was in their language—in other words, the Imperial tongue.
“A-are you people human?”
After hearing Dawi’s words, the knights uttered something similar.
“Looks like… he’s human.”
“We misunderstood because of his clothes.”
The knights looked over Dawi, who had wrapped his whole body in fur hides and wore a cowboy hat.
At Dawi’s question, the senior knight thought Dawi was trying to confirm whether they were zombies or not. After all, this was an age when the continent was full of zombies.
The senior knight ordered the knights to lower their swords.
“Everyone, lower your swords!”
Then he cautiously examined Dawi and asked.
“…Do you live around here? This bear… you were the one who dealt with it, weren’t you?”
The senior knight recognized Dawi’s bear-hide cloak.
“Ah… Ah! Yes! My ranch is up by the small lake!”
“A ranch? You said a ranch?”
How on earth could there be a ranch in a rugged mountain like this?
As the senior knight tilted his head, Dawi said,
“Yes. Though my only crop is corn, and my only livestock is one horse… Ah, there it comes. That’s my horse.”
Dawi pointed at Malmal, who had appeared behind him.
“What kind of horse…!”
“Those muscles, and even its mane… It’s an incredible steed!”
“Ah, for now, please come to my ranch!”
It was the first day guests had ever visited Dawi’s ranch.
.
.
.
“Hmm… So this is a ranch…”
“Hmm…”
After seeing the state of Dawi’s ranch, the knights held their tongues.
“This here is the stable…”
A strange stable made from a leather tent.
“And this is the field where I grow corn…”
Dawi excitedly explained his little ranch.
“This is corn?”
“What kind of stalk is…”
The knights knew what corn was, too.
It was not a crop that grew well in the Snowhill territory, though.
Just then, the knights saw piles of corn stacked high on one side.
“Is all of that corn?”
“Ah! Yes. Corn comes out every day, but I can’t eat it all by myself, so it’s been piling up like that.”
“It comes out every day? Did you perhaps use magic?”
“Ah! I’m not a mage. I came here from another world…”
After that, Dawi’s long story continued. Dawi even personally showed the knights his special ability. But the knights could not properly understand either guns or Dawi’s ability.
They could not understand Dawi’s words at all, and in the end, they arrived at a conclusion completely different from the truth.
.
.
.
“You’re saying there was a mage with mental problems?”
“Yes. We couldn’t properly identify the magic he uses, but judging by the thunderous sound it makes, it seems to be magic related to lightning. He appears to have forgotten all knowledge of magic, but uses it instinctively.”
“And its power is quite strong?”
“Yes. Also… it seemed he could use magic related to plants as well… though he seems to have forgotten that knowledge now. However, the corn modified by magic remains…”
After receiving the knight’s report, the baroness thought for a moment before speaking.
“What do you think about bringing him to our territory?”
“Well… aside from the lightning magic he uses instinctively, he seems to have forgotten all knowledge of magic, so I don’t think he would be of much help to the territory. Rather, his mental state is… We don’t know what kind of chaos he might cause inside the territory with that lightning magic…”
“You mean he might instead cause harm to the territory. Did his mind seem that unsound?”
“Yes. He pitches some tent and calls it a stable, claims he came from another world, and even says he met the archmage Merlin, who vanished without a trace…”
“Hmm… Are you certain he’s a mage?”
“Yes. We saw him personally summon his magic staff and hunt bighorns with lightning magic. He didn’t even seem to be trying to hide it from us. Well, to begin with, he doesn’t even know he’s using magic… Ah, the clearest proof is his knowledge of languages. As befits a mage, he seems to have studied every language in the world; he even understood the Dwarven tongue that we use among ourselves as slang.”
“Hmm… This is ambiguous. That corn and that martial power both seem like they could be useful…”
“If you see the state of him and the tent he calls a ‘ranch,’ your thoughts will change. He is completely insane.”
“Hmm…”
After pondering, the baroness took out a map of the Snowhill territory and a document.
“Realistically, our territory consists only of this small basin, but…”
The baroness pointed at the map with her finger and continued.
“According to Imperial documents, even the mountain range beyond it is part of our territory. The stone mountain where the dwarves live is also included in our territory on paper.”
Of course, now that the Empire had collapsed, Imperial documents had no effect whatsoever.
Realistically, too, the administrative power of the Snowhill barony reached no farther than the basin. To begin with, there was no one living outside the basin.
“Then what you mean is…”
“Yes. That place he calls a ‘ranch’ is also within our territory on paper. We never granted any permit for a ranch, and he has never paid taxes to us, has he?”
“Surely…”
“First, I will have to meet him once. Bring him to me.”