Suteko Ni Narimashita Chapter 6
I broke bones for my self-satisfaction
I was the reason why Kisch lost.
As I continued to fly through the forest, I reflected on the situation.
What if Kisch had won?
First, he could have taught Kasok a lesson and maybe prove to the adults that their training was lacking. It might have boosted morale. The fact that they were defeated by a child might have raised some awareness of the danger. This may have made them take the training more seriously. And with their improved skills, they may have been able to reduce the damage caused by the wild animals.
If damage due to animal attacks is reduced, then fewer crops will be lost. It was just a matter of reducing the negative to zero. Those crops were meant to be enjoyed by people. However, because of their incompetence, those people were being unreasonably deprived of food.
But he lost. He lost because of me.
This was no different from the past. The men would only train for the sake of alcohol, be incompetent guards, and the crops would end up getting stolen. Nothing has changed even now.
Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way. Even if he wins, he may not change a single thing. But I ruined that chance. Even though I wasn’t aware of it, I did.
I could see the watchtower in the east. I could see the houses and fields lined up. Low fences lined the road, and the dark forest stretched out in the back.
I had to take responsibility. I could see the disgusting faces of the adults in my mind. I hated those faces with all my heart. They were content to get a drink and go home in a good mood, not thinking about their responsibilities. I hated the way they looked. Most of all, I hated myself for ruining Kisch’s chance to make a difference.
I stood on top of one of the fences.
I spread my magic out. It was already dark, but it didn’t matter. It was hard to see the whole vicinity, but if I limited the range to the eastern fence, there won’t be much of a problem.
I had to take responsibility. I relaxed my body as much as I could but kept my eyes on the forest.
They came at midnight, when the moonlight had disappeared and when plants and trees were still. To be honest, I never expected them to come today, but through some stroke of luck or misfortune, they came.
The boars came.
The biggest boar dug a hole under the fence. And after the huge boar dug a tunnel, a smaller one approached the field.
Were they buddies? Friends? It didn’t matter to me.
They began tinkering with the soil in the field, and I could hear small grunts as they moved about.
It was them.
They didn’t just happen to wander in. They came to eat the crops. They were the ones destroying the fields.
I glanced at the watchtower. It was a tall wooden building, and all I could hear was snoring. I turned around, feeling a little angry at the sight of them sleeping.
I focused my power as I looked at the boars.
I didn’t want to damage the fields, so I pushed the boars back to the fence. The boars were strong, but I could handle them with my telekinesis.
Then, I produced some wind blades. They were bigger and sharper than the ones I used for hunting. I wasn’t intending to eat them. I was going to kill them because I wanted to. Because killing them would make me feel better. I didn’t care about magic efficiency, nor did I care about their edible parts or their appearance.
I fired an invisible blade that cleanly cut the boars crosswise without making a sound.
I looked at the bloody ground and the lumps of flesh lying there.
Normally, there was no need for me to act in such an extreme way. This was just for show. It would be good if they saw something abnormal every once in a while.
The situation I had created with this in mind seemed to have attracted a certain amount of attention. At dawn, a crowd of people had gathered.
As expected, the first person to discover it was the watchman. Just before dawn, he was awakened by the sound of birds and found the bodies.
What he did from then on was quite hilarious.
At first, he didn’t know what it was, so he came closer and poked it with a spear. Then, when he felt something squishy beneath the fur, he shuddered and ran away screaming.
In response to his voice, the farmers who were awake and preparing for work in the fields gathered around, but the impatient sentry was unable to give a good explanation and was left dumbfounded as he slumped in front of everyone.
Then, many farmers gathered around the boars, which were divided into two halves.
And among those gathered were Shium and Kisch.
“Umm… This is…”
“Hmm…”
Shium inspected the boars’ corpses. He examined the wounds, the amount of blood, and whether there were any external injuries other than the fatal one.
“There were no other wounds and no signs of being transported here either. There are signs of a struggle, but this is more of a struggle than a fightback… They were restrained by something, but it wasn’t done with a rope…”
“Could it be magic?”
Kisch responded to Shium’s muttering. He probably remembered yesterday’s match.
“That’s right. This was probably done with magic. The wild boars were probably restrained and cut by wind magic at the same time.”
“How did you know that?”
“The boars seem to have been entangled in something. Look, if you align the halves, they become one.”
Shium places the boars side by side. The blood wasn’t dripping anymore, but the large boar’s corpse was probably disgusting. Kisch turned away after seeing the cut surfaces joined together.
“And then there’s the ground. It’s pretty rough from the boars’ hooves. Just running or walking doesn’t do this.”
“I-I see…”
It seems Kisch’s preparatory lesson for leaving the town had already started.
I was starting to get very sleepy. I wanted to listen in more, but I also wanted to sleep. I should go sleep in the forest.
In the end, I slept until noon on the tree where I usually sleep.
Staying up late is no good, after all.
When I returned to the village, the atmosphere was different from usual. There was something about the place.
There were a lot of farmers with weapons, though not most of them. If they were training to keep watch, there seemed to be too many of them.
Looking around from a little higher up, I saw that the farmers were gathered in the training square.
I had a hunch, but it could have been something else. I would have to go and listen in on them.
I walked with some excitement towards the training square.
“To put it simply, we are going on a mountain hunt!”
Shium announced in a loud voice. My prediction seemed to be correct.
According to him, the boars that were found today were clearly killed with magic, but there were no villagers who could use magic. If that were the case, then it meant that someone who could use magic had invaded the village and killed the boars. And because there was no further damage to the corpse, it seemed like it wasn’t killed for food. And although they didn’t know its purpose, it didn’t mean that the entity that killed the boars won’t attack people. So far, there hadn’t been any reported human casualties, but just in case, they needed to identify and eliminate it if it was dangerous.
And for that reason, the people in the village who could fight gathered with the intention of participating in a large-scale mountain hunt led by the hunters.
So it seems my killing those boars didn’t go to waste.
Kasok was even there. Compared to yesterday, he had a serious expression and was looking towards the forest.
At the Hunters’ orders, everybody moved out. The people were divided into groups according to the area where they lived. I’m going to follow Kasok’s group. It seems Shium was left to guard the village.
“Alright, first group! We’ll be in charge of the west side.”
The leader of the group was a young hunter named Denner, who was a thin man in his 30’s. I’ve seen him a few times in the forest. I thought he was pretty good since he never went home empty-handed.
“Let’s split up from here. We will go as quietly as possible, but this is not a hunt for prey. If you need anything, please call out loudly to someone nearby.”
Denner said as he carried his short bow. It seems that they are going to spread out and enter from the forest entrance.
“So, as per our agreement, I’ll go to the front of the line. When it’s time to go, or when I judge that it’s too dangerous to go any further, I’ll sound an arrow as a signal, so please gather around the sound. And then we will leave.”
Then, one of the farmers stepped forward.
“Ummm, I don’t normally go into the forest, but what kind of things should I look out for …?”
“Ah, it’s fine, you don’t need to worry about those.”
Denner responds, effectively killing the tempo and ending the conversation.
“Just like I told you earlier, this isn’t a normal hunt, so you don’t need to look for anything. As long as you can finish the sweep without getting hurt, then there’s no problem.”
“B-but what if it was a monster? In that case, we wouldn’t find anything.”
“That’s fine. In the first place, it doesn’t matter if you don’t find anything. In fact, it’s better if you don’t find anything at all.”
Denner’s friendly smile earlier turned serious, and the adults looked confused.
“Mr. Shium said that the goal is to identify and eliminate the cause, but we should gather hunters who are accustomed to the forest. Do you think that gathering people who aren’t used to fighting in the woods can fight monsters that can easily kill boars?”
“No, but…”
“Well, that’s why it’s better not to encounter it. For me, the goal of this mountain hunt is to keep it away instead.”
Denner smiled again, and the tension in the atmosphere loosened at once.
“The reason why a large number of adults entered the forest is to make it think that we ‘are looking for it’ and make it wary and keep it away from the village. It would be a problem if it runs away, but it’s also a problem if it doesn’t stay away since some poor bloke might find it lurking in the woods. That’s why it’s fine if we don’t find it. So please don’t get yourselves hurt, alright?”
“But what if we encounter it…”
“Then it’s better to give up and run because that thing is probably dangerous.”
No one could say anything back to Denner who said it with a pouty face.
The mountain hunt proceeded without a hitch.
Denner led the group just as he promised, checking ahead and keeping an eye on the surroundings. The way he made his way through the trees and glanced around the corners of the horizontal formation made him look like a competent hunter.
The farmers participating in the search didn’t seem accustomed to the forest, and I could see them getting their feet caught in tree roots or struggling to get over bushes.
However, surprisingly, there seemed to be a farmer accustomed to the forest. It was Kasok.
Though his movements weren’t as smooth as Denner’s, he moved silently through the forest, occasionally using his machete to cut the grass and keep his eyes open to his surroundings. It’s hard to believe he’s a regular drunk.
Occasionally, Denner would crouch and examine the ground. He seems to be following the tracks of a boar. Then, Kasok spoke to him.
“Hey, those footprints belong to wild boars, doesn’t it? It doesn’t seem like they’re resisting or anything.”
“So it seems. Normally, they would just pass through here. Ah, I’m just wiping their tracks though… After all, the attack happened on the fields.”
Denner, who was looking at the footprints, faced Kasok.
“Where did the thing that attacked the boar start following it? If it were tailing the boars through the forest, I thought there might be traces of running tracks alongside the boar’s, but it seems there is no such thing.”
“Then you’re saying it’s not from the forest.”
“Yes, it might seem that it came from the village and headed into the forest. Or it might have been eating something in the fields, something like that… Or maybe it was watching the fields.”
I froze and looked back at the village in astonishment. I was supposed to be invisible, but it seemed like he saw through me.
“What do you want to do? Should we go back?”
“We’ll continue for a little while longer. After all, we might find something new.”
“Alright.”
Their conversation ended there, and after a while, the high-pitched sound of an arrow echoed through the forest.
In the end, nobody found anything on the mountain search. In the first place, I was the one they were looking for. They might find some animals or monsters on the mountain, but they probably wouldn’t find anything that could be the cause of the attack.
The same applied to the 2nd and 3rd groups who explored the forests in different directions. The adults were grumbling that nothing had happened, but they kept their mouths shut when Shium, who was waiting in the village, glared at them.
While nothing was found on the mountain, it seems the mountain hunts would go on for a while.
Among the people who came back, Kasok absentmindedly stood while looking at the forest. I wonder what he was doing.
Shium called out to Kasok just as I was about to approach him.
“Good work out there.”
“I didn’t do nothin’ out there though.”
Sighing, Kasok looks back. The tiredness was visible on his face.
“Haha, well it’s been a while since you’ve marched, and you went out there with high spirits, didn’t you?”
“Yeah… And I’m tired. It’s been years since I went into the forest, after all.”
Kasok let out another sigh as he kicked the ground.
I was a little surprised. Were they old friends?
“… So are you admitting your defeat yesterday?”
“That’s ridiculous. I won that match. Weren’t you the referee?”
“That’s right. But you knew, didn’t you? If you hadn’t attacked sideways, you could have lost.”
“…”
“I’m glad you’re motivated, but take it easy.”
Kasok silently responded by raising his hand and left. Staring at his friend’s retreating figure, Shium relaxed a little and laughed.
“Wrong! Twist your hips more and don’t let your elbows leave your body! Aaah, didn’t I just say it!?”
The next day, I heard an unfamiliar, loud voice as I went to the training square after lunch. I rushed to the square to see what was going on, and found that Kisch was earnestly training as usual, so I thought, ‘Oh, it’s just the usual training,’ but something felt off. Nay, something was off.
He seemed to be in more pain than usual. And it seemed that Kisch was the only one training.
Confusion overwhelmed me, but I soon realized what was wrong.
Kasok was teaching, and it seemed like he was pretty strict about it.
“Eh? … Eh?”
I couldn’t help but wonder. I was so confused. Kasok, who was always drunk and ditching his responsibilities, was teaching Kisch like a demon sergeant.
Meanwhile, Shium was watching them from behind, but he was merely smiling and didn’t seem like he was going to put a stop to it any time soon.
“Alright, take a break. We’ll resume as soon as I catch my breath.”
“Eh, wait, are you… serious…”
Kisch sat down. He let out a rare sigh, and the spear he was swinging fell to the ground without any force.
Then I remembered the conversation yesterday.
That’s right, Kasok began to change because of the mock battle he had with Kisch the other day. Kisch’s actions certainly motivated Kasok.
So even if I hadn’t done anything, things would have turned out for the better.
I started running just as Kasok gave Kisch a sidelong glance and made him go again.
And while my actions might have seemed like a fool’s errand, I felt good for some reason.
