Episode 31
The mercenary gives up on picking the lock and pulls out the lockpick. At his actions, the mercenaries beside him frowned and shook him roughly.
“What the hell! What’s wrong with you? Can’t you pick it quickly?!”
“…I don’t want to.”
“Huh? Why all of a sudden? Are you scared?”
“Because she told me not to.”
“What nonsense are you spouting now of all ti—”
In that instant, one of the mercenaries was struck.
It was the mercenary with glazed eyes who had knocked his comrade down.
“……!”
“She told me not to. I’m just obeying.”
The mercenary’s eyes were completely vacant as he spoke with a wide grin.
Terrified by that sight, the other mercenaries stepped back.
“Wh-what the hell?! This guy! He’s lost his mind!”
“I-isn’t he cursed?!”
“I-I knew it! Dark Elves really are of the demon race!”
The mercenaries looked at Sallet, and Sallet opened her mouth while looking at them without changing her expression in the slightest.
“Everyone… fight.”
In that instant, they looked at one another. And they began punching each other. The punching continued until they lost consciousness.
At her words, which seemed to flow with a frigid chill, the humans faithfully carried out her command like marionettes.
Sallet watched the marionettes—humans—moving on the stage, and, as if bored, buried her face between her legs again and muttered softly.
“See, Ifrit? So you and Father really lost to these kinds of humans? To such weaklings?”
—You say that because you’ve never seen a truly strong one. Those guys were anything but human.
Unlike Sallet, Ifrit seemed to find the mercenaries’ fight entertaining; he sat cross-legged on the floor, arms folded, watching with an arrogant posture.
Blood splattered as they punched and fought each other.
Some hard, white things—perhaps broken teeth—flew from one man’s mouth, while another’s face was crushed beyond recognition.
Someone had already lost consciousness, while another continued punching even though his fists were completely mangled.
Ifrit was watching the men, caught in a powerful hypnotic spell, with delight when they were sent flying by a single blow.
At the heavy *thud!* Sallet gently raised her head.
“……”
There was a strange man wearing an odd crow mask that she had never seen before in her life.
Loki knocked out the charging mercenaries with a single blow each. He struck their necks with his fists or hammered their torsos. Under his ruthless attacks, the mercenaries fell like dolls.
“Sigh… I tried to handle this quietly… No, does this count as handling it quietly?”
He gathered the unconscious mercenaries in one spot, then took a liquor bottle from his coat and sprinkled it on them. He also tossed the empty bottle nearby.
“This should pass as disinfection for their wounds and as them having had a drunken brawl. These guys won’t be able to open their mouths and say they touched a slave, after all. Even if they spout nonsense about demon races or whatever, nobody’s going to believe the word of men who were drinking.”
After tidying up to some extent, Loki looked at Sallet.
“…That’s quite the nasty prank.”
Sallet was sitting in a prison cell converted from a wagon, while Loki was standing, so their eye levels were different.
Sallet frowned, looking at his red eyes visible beneath the crow mask.
Her pride was strangely wounded. It was a gaze that looked down at her as if she were a child. And from a mere human, at that.
“What. A human man.”
“Human man?”
What an odd way of speaking.
Sallet raised her head proudly. And spoke as though displeased.
“A mere human shouldn’t look down on me. Lower your eye level.”
“Why should I?”
Sallet spoke to Ifrit as though amused.
“Ifrit. Watch closely. See how I make that human submit…?”
Sallet tilted her head, looking at Ifrit before her.
Right now, Ifrit was breaking out in a cold sweat despite being a spirit of flame.
He sat stiffly in a formal seated position with an extremely nervous expression.
And he had his head lowered to avoid making eye contact with the crow man as much as possible.
It was exactly like facing a boss far above him in rank.
“What’s wrong with you?”
—……
When Ifrit said nothing, Sallet snorted.
“Hmph, it doesn’t matter. Watch closely. I’ll show you any human submitting to me!”
Shouting confidently, she reached her hand toward Loki. And pointed her long finger at the ground.
“Kneel.”
“……”
Loki looked down at Sallet. And slightly bowed his head.
Thinking things were going her way, a slight reaction appeared on her ice-like expression.
The corners of her lips rose, forming a faint smile. However, she couldn’t help but widen her eyes at the intense pain she felt next.
*Thud!*
Loki had bowed his head while reaching his hand into the prison to deliver a smack to the crown of Sallet’s head.
Sallet clutched her head at the intense shock.
On her expressionless face appeared a look of surprise, like a scolded child, as she looked at Loki.
“Wha…t? Why is the human man…?! I—I didn’t tell you to hit me….”
*Thud!*
“Kyaaah?!”
The surprised Sallet screamed but also shed a few tears from her stinging head.
“…Youngsters these days have no manners.”
“…How…? K-kneel!”
*Thud!*
“Uwaah!”
“Use honorifics when speaking to your elders.”
“Wh-why…?! Why won’t you kneel….”
Seeing Loki quietly raise his fist again, Sallet flinched and unwittingly began speaking politely.
“…Yes….”
Sallet was bewildered beyond confusion.
Because this was the first time her innate ability, [Charm], hadn’t worked.
Completely ignoring Sallet instead of answering, Loki lifted up the fallen mercenaries. Hoisting two men in one hand and two on his shoulder was a feat of strength impossible for an ordinary person.
“Sorry for the trouble. We’re strangers, but these guys have caused you trouble.”
“……”
“You should get some sleep too. Seems we’ll be leaving again starting tomorrow. You’ll be tired if you don’t sleep.”
Leaving those words behind, Loki left the room.
Sallet rubbed the crown of her head and looked at Ifrit with a blank expression.
“…What is that human? Why doesn’t my divine ability work on him?”
A low, emotionless voice. But within it dwelt confusion.
Ifrit trembled, unable to say anything.
Rather, he kept his mouth firmly shut and shook his head vigorously.
And he vanished through a reverse summon as if fleeing.
“……?”
Seeing the proud spirit flee like a scared puppy, Sallet blankly stared at the spot where Loki had disappeared.
***
“Is it true that you really witnessed a villager?”
The mercenary captain in charge of the village patrol had come down to investigate but couldn’t find anyone.
He too had seen the farmer waving his hand at Paul, so he had thought there would be people left in the village, but now he couldn’t even see a trace of anyone.
The rain continued to fall and the wind was fierce.
They had forced their exhausted bodies, clad in heavy gear, to come down here, but it was a fool’s errand.
“…Let’s check this one last house.”
At the mercenary captain’s words, two mercenaries nodded and stood before the house.
The walls were made of wood and the ceiling was covered with thin straw.
It looked like it would burn easily if raiders attacked and lit a fire.
But even such a house was utterly ordinary in a rural village like this.
“Sorry for the late hour! Is anyone there?”
The mercenary standing before a poorly maintained, rotting door knocked. But there was no response.
“…I don’t sense any presence?”
The two mercenaries looked at each other and pounded on the door harder.
*Thud! Thud!* The sound was loud enough to pierce through the rain, but still no response.
“…It seems certain. This village appears abandoned.”
“I wonder why? It doesn’t look that prosperous for the countryside, but the houses are intact and the crops seem properly tended… Could there have been a monster attack…?”
The mercenary captain couldn’t understand it either, listening to the two mercenaries.
Seeing that the fields were properly tended to and maintained meant there had been people here at least a few days ago. But now there was no one.
“It won’t be a monster attack. A raid is even less likely. There are no signs of an attack at all. If there had been an attack, there would be scorched traces in the village or at least corpses lying around. But seeing as there isn’t even a bloodstain…”
Had they simply abandoned it? This perfectly fine village…? But why?
As the mercenary captain was contemplating with his hand on his chin, a mercenary spoke.
“It can’t be helped. I think we should head back for now. I don’t think we’ll find anything else no matter how much more we investigate.”
“Well… no matter how much we knock, there’s no response.”
One mercenary knocked again just to be sure. And… this time, there was a reaction.
However, it wasn’t the door opening; the rotten door panel simply shattered, and ‘something’ roughly grabbed the mercenary’s head.
A hand. It writhed with muscle on red skin.
Even amid the pouring rain, a rotten stench wafted from it, and red earthworms wriggled through the gaping holes in the skin.
The fingers were long, and the nails were sharp, clearly not human.
That massive hand gripped the mercenary’s face and gradually applied pressure.
“…Uub?!”
Sensing danger, the mercenary quickly moved his sword toward the hand.
He brought his sword down on the hand.
But it only left a small gash in the skin; it couldn’t pierce or cut through.
His breath was suddenly cut off. With his mouth and nose completely blocked, he couldn’t breathe properly.
But more dangerous was the pressure the hand was applying, enough to crush his face.
“Uuuuub!”
The mercenary desperately continued swinging his sword, but there was no sign of the hand being severed.
So he changed his target and thrust his sword into the door panel, and as if reacting to that, it completely smashed the door and something walked out.
It was human. But it was not human.
Rotting skin and a hideously melted, twisted face.
Where eyes should have been were merely sunken holes writhing with worm-like things.
Its body was dressed in ordinary clothes worn by common village farmers.
“……?!”
The mercenary who saw that appearance gasped, his eyes widening—when his skull was completely crushed.
The mercenary’s body, nothing but a neck, collapsed, and the ‘monster’ in human form picks it up and throws it into the house.
In that instant, the house became noisy.
The sounds of tearing flesh, breaking bones, and something sucking and chewing could be heard.
Inside the house swarmed more things like ‘it.’
The monster in farmer’s garb began licking the blood from its hand with a long tongue.
It even seemed to find the blood being washed away by the rain too precious, so it lay flat on the ground and licked the floor.
“…….”
The mercenary captain and the other mercenary, failing to react in time, stared blankly at the existence that defied common sense.
And by the time they recognized it… a mercenary shouted.
“A zombie?!”
Zombies were the lowest-class monsters among the undead.
But at his subordinate’s cry, the mercenary captain’s face hardened in fear and he stepped back.
He wiped his mouth with his hand as if in disbelief and shook his head from side to side. Fear dominated his reason and clouded his judgment.
His body shook violently as if convulsing.
He was a man of great experience.
He had trembled in fear like this neither in war nor before an Ogre, the king of forest monsters.
But before the being now in front of his eyes, he had only one thought: to abandon everything and run.
His instinct screamed at him to flee, but his body… wouldn’t move.
Instead, only his mouth flapped, speaking the identity of the ‘monster’ before him that he knew.
“No, no… If only it were a zombie…,”
It would be better.
If it were a zombie, you could kill it, or kill the necromancer who summoned it, and it would be over.
The mercenary captain recalled it. He had witnessed it before.
“That is….”
An existence that called forth countless ‘deaths.’ A calamity that had plunged the continent into terror.
The ‘thing’ before his eyes was none other than….
“A Worm Pest… one of the dead created by the plague.”
Right behind the mercenary captain who had muttered those words, another monster stood.