chap 14 12

However, this guy only resembled one. He wasn’t a logok. He was closer to being human. He was a creature that was like a human with bark for skin.
“Blade of Shadow!” Ranta shouted.
Landing behind the guy, he then jumped with Leap Out. If the enemy was behind him, he’d get behind them and launch an ambush. That was his personal skill, Blade of Shadow.
Ranta’s blade closed in on the guy. The guy turned around, but didn’t avoid it.
Why? Why wasn’t he trying to dodge?
Because he didn’t have to.
Some branch-like, tentacle-like things grew out of the guy’s body, and wrapped around the guy in an instant.
The hell? How was that even fair?
Ranta’s katana went, Boing, and bounced off those tentacle-y things. They weren’t hard. They were highly elastic.
“Whoa...?!”
And that wasn’t all. They didn’t just defend; they wrapped around Ranta’s katana like snakes. The cheeky things were trying to ensnare him, were they?
“Damn it!” Ranta immediately used Exhaust to jump back.
Tens of those branch tentacles stretched towards him.
Ranta backed away further, striking away the branch tentacles with his katana. But, as expected, he couldn’t cut them. All he could do was bat them away.
This was no good. It would only let him buy time. In which case...
“Personal Skill, Lightning...”
Ranta jumped to the right, then after shaking off the branch tentacles, he went forward, then left. Moving in the shape of a square bracket at high speed, he sprang at the guy.
“...Fast-strike!”
“...!” The guy jumped to the side, evading Ranta’s slash.
Well, wasn’t he speedy.
The guy rolled and got up, then gathered the branch tentacles at the end of each of his arms to form swords. He then came in slashing with both branch tentacle swords.
“Just what I wanted!” Ranta shouted.
Katana and branch tentacle sword violently collided. The guy’s branch tentacle swords were highly elastic, and the knockback on them was insane. Each time it struck a branch tentacle sword, Ranta’s katana was pushed back hard. It felt like it was jumping around. Ranta was a battle-hardened veteran, but he couldn’t control that recoil easily.
“This’s... hard! But...!”
Ranta switched from slashes to thrusts. Not just ordinary thrusts, though.
“Personal Skill, Evil Spiral Stab!”
It was a twist. He used quick, twisting thrusts, one after another.
Those repeated twisting thrusts couldn’t pierce through the guy’s branch tentacle swords, either.
However, the twisting thrusts didn’t get knocked back as badly as the slashes had, so his katana didn’t go astray, and he could keep attacking.
The guy was forced onto the defensive.
He was pushed back by Ranta’s vigor, got overwhelmed, and would eventually be forced into a corner.
“Koh...!” The guy let out a sound like the cork being pulled from a bottle, and countless branch tentacles grew from his body at once.
It was done in an instant. The guy was wrapped in branch tentacles. His defense was perfect now, or so he must have thought.
Ranta smirked beneath his mask. “O Darkness! O Lord of Vice! Demon Call!”
Something like a blackish purple cloud appeared. The cloud rapidly formed a vortex. The maelstrom solidified as he watched, taking on a familiar form.
It looked like it was wearing a suit of armor made of dark purple bone, there didn’t seem to be even a single gap in it. The blade with the long grip that it held in both hands was awfully long and curved. “Extremely threatening” was the only way to describe it. If a child saw it, they would cry and scream and collapse on the spot.
The design of the armor, the shape of the weapon—nothing could be more shocking. It looked like a grim reaper, with a scythe to harvest lives.
“Sic ’em, Zodie!” Ranta shouted.
With that simple command as its master, the demon Zodie held its great scythe aloft. “Ehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe...!”
The guy must have determined the scythe was a threat. The branch tentacles he unleashed swarmed towards Zodie. A number of them did reach Zodie, but not enough to restrain the demon.
Zodie swung its scythe down. “Hehe... Ehehehehehehehehehe... Ehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe...”
Zodie’s scythe split the tentacles, and the guy, in half.
The branch tentacles split by the scythe, as well as the ones left unscathed, all lost their strength at once.
The guy collapsed.
He’d been impressively bisected.
“Get embraced by Skullhell,” Ranta smirked.
“You, too... Ehehehehe...” “Shut up, Zodie. Get lost.”
“Ehehehehehehehehe... No way...”
“This is the last time I’ll say it. Get lost right now, Zodie.”
“He... Eheheh... You’re just a Ranta... Stupid... Stoooopid... Ehehehehehe...”
Even though the demon complained, Zodie turned into a dark purple cloud and vanished.
The dawn was about to break.
“Ruwintimroti...” Wezel finally began chanting.
“Ruwingwinbodoichiewiris... Yeruwifi... Imatebuimugaruwado...
Machedowig... Yerah’ishinruiwodorezukoedowigod... Yendangosimiyefod... Tiwigodwigwafifihan...” The forest filled with noise.
Despite there being no real wind, there was still a rustling in the leaves and grass.
Wezel looked up to the heavens, raising his hands up high. Moth scales rained down from somewhere, as if he had called them to him.
The scales shone and sparkled. Their glimmering drifted deeper and deeper into the forest.
“Don’t tell me...” Ranta was shocked. “They’re showing us the way? Through the forest, to Arnotu...”
“I used the Secret Art of the Forest,” Wezel murmured.
The elf looked emaciated, and his breathing was ragged. He was trying to lift his pack, but he was stumbling, and his hands were unsteady.
“It is an old technique, handed down in the Shadow Forest. I overstretched a bit. Normally, one such as I... could never use it.”
“Overstretched?” Ranta asked. “Man, what did you do?”
“Used secret drugs... to enhance my power.”
“You were doping, or something? There aren’t side effects or something, are there?”
“My life... will be shortened somewhat, that is all.” “Good work,” Ranta said.
“Tch, tch, tch...” Wezel’s shoulders heaved with laughter. Was it anything to laugh about? Well, maybe it was so rough, all he could do was laugh.
Wezel crouched next to his luggage, then his eyes went to the guy’s corpse. “A treant? ...When?”
“You didn’t notice,” Ranta said. “I just murdered him. Maybe he was trying to eat us or something. He kept targeting us. You called him a treant, huh?”
“They say their race is older than the elves. That treant was likely...
not young. The older they grow, the stronger they become.”
“Not strong enough to take me on, apparently,” Ranta smirked. “Should we bury him?”
“Either way, he will return to the earth... to this forest.”
“Oh, yeah?” Ranta easily hoisted Wezel’s luggage. “I’m getting pretty tired of the scenery around here. Let’s go sightseeing in Arnotu.”
 
9. Blood
Even if the forest itself was guiding them, that didn’t make the road any shorter. A day and a night passed, and they still had yet to reach anything resembling a forest city.
On top of that, Wezel went into the bushes to take a piss or something, and he didn’t come back.
“...The hell, man?” Ranta grumbled. “I’ll go on without you, you know? Uh, not that there’d be much point. I don’t really have any business there...”
There was nothing else for it. Ranta plopped himself down on top of Wezel’s luggage, which was lying on the ground.
The fact was, the phosphorescent trail showing them the way had vanished a little earlier. If Ranta tried to get to Arnotu alone like this, he probably wouldn’t make it.
Something’s weird, he thought.
Honestly, Ranta had detected what was going on, and it wasn’t as vague as a mere “something.”
“I’m surrounded again,” he muttered. “Of course. More treants?
No... that’s not it.”
Sighing, he scratched his head. Okay, what now? There’s a number of options. First, let’s try this.
Ranta got down off the luggage and jogged towards the bushes where Wezel had gone.
“Gotta piss, gotta piss...”
There was a sound of something cutting through the air, and Ranta stopped short of the bushes.
There was an arrow standing in the ground a little in front of his feet.
Ranta clicked his tongue, and put his hand on the hilt of his katana. “I told you, I’ve gotta piss!”
The arrow had come in from the left. When he turned that way, there was another arrow.
The second arrow was coming at Ranta’s chest.
“...!”
Ranta drew his katana and struck the arrow.
What is this sound? Footsteps? How many are there?
Turning back, there were pointy-eared men with swords leveled at him.
Elves, huh?
“Too close...!” he muttered.
The elves’ swords had come to a stop just short of nicking his throat.
He’d never have thought they’d get this close.
If it was just one, that would be one thing, but there were three of them. He should have noticed, normally. He didn’t think he’d gotten lax, but he must have let his guard down.
Still, these elves were skilled.
In particular, one of the three, the middle-aged elf in the middle, looked pretty capable.
“Human,” the middle-aged elf spoke. “What are you doing in our forest?”
Ranta chuckled. “How do you know I’m human? I could be an ogre or a demon, couldn’t I?”
“If you are such a vile being, let us end you here.”
“Whoa! Stop!” Ranta pushed up his mask with his left hand, allowing them to see his face. “Good guess. I’m not an ogre or demon. I’m human. What? I’m on, uh, a vacation? No, I’ve got business here... Well, I don’t. There’s a guy with me. I’m along for the ride...” “You would appear to be alone,” the elf said coldly.
“H-He went off somewhere, okay?”
“You expect us to believe you?”
“Think about it. This is the Shadow Forest, right? I’m preaching to the squire here... No, that’s not it, how did it go? Well, anyway, I don’t have to tell you this, because you elves already know, but this place is nowhere a single human could wander into on their own. Right?”
“That is indeed true.”
“Right? I was led here with the Secret Art of the Forest.”

 

“Why would a human know the secret arts practiced by us forest elves?”
“No, that’s just it! Obviously, I don’t know anything about them. It wasn’t me, it was my traveling companion... Whuh?!”
He felt something wrap around his ankles. Looking down, some sort of ivy-like plant had grown and wrapped around both Ranta’s legs.
“Wh-Wh-What is this?!” he shouted.
“We will hear your excuses after this.”
“After...?”
There was another elf, behind the other three.
This elf was a woman.
Elves were generally on the slim side, but she looked thin even by their standards. He’d had a vague image of elves, especially the women, all having long hair, too. However, her silver hair was cut short.
What was the female elf doing, down on one knee, with both hands touching the ground?
“A shaman!” Ranta gasped.
In an instant, more vines than he could possibly count wrapped themselves around Ranta. They even forced themselves into his mouth and nose, instantly rendering him unable to breathe.
Whoa. I said, whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa. This isn’t funny! I’m gonna die here... seriously!
Ranta passed out.
When he came to, he found he had been forced to sit in an incredibly tight place.
At least let me lie down, he wanted to gripe. They should have been able to afford him that much kindness, at least.
But, no, it was physically impossible. The ceiling was low, after all. It couldn’t get much lower than this. The breadth and depth of the room were short, too, each less than a meter. There was no space for him to lie down.
He had been stripped of his mask and relieved of his possessions, katana included.
The walls behind and on either side of him seemed rock hard, but they were apparently wood. The entire front side was a barred door. Was it made not of iron, or any other such metal, but of wood, too?
The barred door was wrapped with thorny plants, and they would definitely prick him if he touched them.
On the other side of the door was a corridor. It seemed there was light not far away, and some of it reached him here.
Was there no one in the corridor? He didn’t sense anyone.
“They were saying they’d hear my excuses later,” Ranta muttered. “Meh, someone’ll come eventually, I’m sure.”
However, wait as he might, not one person—no, maybe he should say not one elf—though either was fine, really, it didn’t make a difference, because no one showed any sign of coming.
“How about some food?” Ranta murmured. “Or some water? None? There is none? No, really? Man, no one warned me about this. You never told me about this. What the hell? Is this some kind of abandonment play? I’m going to sleep... or I would. But I can’t lie down...”
He couldn’t help but be disheartened by this.
In times like this, he ought to get worked up and keep his fighting spirit going, but that was no good. No, no. Absolutely not. He couldn’t do that.
People’s spirits go up and down. Even if he could control his temporarily, there would be side effects somewhere along the line. It wasn’t good to overthink things and get depressed, or to carelessly work himself up. He had to accept things as they were. His spirits would rise and fall, until they ultimately settled somewhere in the middle.
Through his mind flashed faces, faces, faces...
He didn’t dwell on any of them. He let them appear, then fade and vanish on their own.
The same with arms.
And chests.
Yeah. They were appealing to him, sure. Super appealing. But he didn’t dwell on them.
Not on thighs.
Not even on butts.
Even that blindingly bright smile—
“...Urgh!”
Ranta gritted his teeth. For some reason, that cheerful and soft smile, filled with innocence, and without ulterior motives, refused to vanish.
Gotta dispel it. Forget it. Forget it. Forget it already.
He knew.
He could never forget. There was no way he could. If that weren’t the case, Ranta wouldn’t be here now.
Why was he trying to get back to Alterna?
Because I want to see her.
Maybe she’d never speak to him again. That was fine. He just needed to see that face.
It’s stupid. I’ll see her face, and then what?
There’s nothing I can do now.
It’s meaningless.
I mean... she’s not going to smile at me anymore, right?
He heard footsteps. He wasn’t imagining them. They were approaching.
Ranta shut his eyes tight, breathing slowly.
“...Finally.”
His eyes opened.
“Hwhuh?” he let out in a strange voice.
There was a child standing in front of the bars. An elf, of course. They were longer-lived than humans, and their development was slower, but a child was a child. This one would be six in human years, seven or eight at most. Though her hair was cut short, judging by her face, it looked like she was a girl. She was holding something like a short staff.
Suddenly, it occurred to him that she resembled someone. That was odd, because he didn’t know many elves.
Oh. It was her. The silver-haired elf woman who had captured Ranta with that vine technique. This girl looked like that shaman. Though maybe he only thought that because they both had silver hair that was cut short for a girl.
The elf girl was staring at Ranta through the thorn covered bars. Her eyes were red as blood.
Ranta gulped. “You—”
“Human. If you want out, I will let you out.”
“...Huh?”
“Which will it be?” the elf girl asked.
“Well... if I said I don’t want out, I’d be lying.”
“Which will it be?”
“I want out.”
“Then you should have said so from the beginning. You disgust me.”
“I disgust you?” Ranta grumbled. “Listen...”
“I am Leaya.”
The girl who gave her name as Leaya knocked on the bars three times with her short staff.
Then—oh, whoa, what was this? The thorny branches that were wrapped tight around the bars came undone and slithered away.
Leaya pulled a key from her pocket, inserted it in the keyhole, and turned it. There was a clack, and it unlocked.
He felt like he was being tricked somehow, but Ranta opened the bar door and went out into the corridor. His waist hurt, his back hurt, his knees hurt—he hurt all over—so he knew it wasn’t an illusion. Ranta did some stretches, rotated his hips, and shook his wrists and ankles.
“Here I was, ready to be tortured, too,” he said.
“We have bigger problems now.”
“...What do you mean?”
“The forest is under attack,” Leaya stated calmly.
“Hmm,” Ranta said. “Well, ain’t that a shame. The forest is... wait, under attack?!”
“That is what I said, yes.”
“I heard you. But, under attack...? Oh, by the allied forces, huh? That’s gotta be it. They’re already attacking?”
“That’s why we no longer have time to waste on some suspicious human.”
“You forest elves sure are soft,” Ranta scoffed.
“Why?”
“It’s possible that a suspicious human could be an enemy spy, right?”
“Are you?”
“Well, no, I’m not, but still.”
“I know.” Leaya was expressionless, and awfully calm, too.
This was just Ranta’s imagination, but she probably had not come from a privileged household, or been raised with love from all around her. Besides, Leaya’s mature, unswerving eyes were red as blood.
“Leaya,” Ranta said. “Did an old man ask you to come let me out of this cage?”
“My mother did.”
“She’s the shaman with silver hair, like yours.”
“Yes. My mother’s name is Alorya. But...” Leaya lowered her eyes, biting her lip a little. “It was a strange old man who asked my mother to do it. I’ve never seen him before. It was a strange old man I’ve never met.”
“I see.” Ranta put his hand on top of Leaya’s head. Unconsciously. It didn’t suit him, but he didn’t feel like he’d messed up.
He followed his heart, blazing his own trail. That was his rule. If he wanted to pat a kid on the head, he was gonna do it whether it suited him or not.
“Either way, you’re the one who saved me,” Ranta said. “I owe you one. I swear I’ll pay you back. If there’s anything I can do, name it.”
“For a start, get your dirty hand off me.” “Oh?” Ranta pulled his hand back.
Hesitantly, he looked at his own hand. Certainly, it was hard to call it clean. Actually, it was pretty damn filthy.
“You got anything to wipe it with?” he asked. “Uh, sorry about that...”
 
10. Myself
Leaya brought Ranta his confiscated katana and mask. Wezel’s luggage and his other things were too heavy for her to lug out of storage, she said.
Ranta put on the mask, and hung the katana diagonally over his back. Then, with Leaya leading the way, he went outside.
As he’d kind of suspected, the jail had been carved out of an oversized tree and built inside.
“This is Arnotu, huh?” Ranta murmured. “What a city...”
To describe it simply, it was a treetop city. There were giant trees with a diameter of over ten meters growing here and there, and platforms had been built out of logs in their boughs, with planks to create floors, and houses and whatnot built on top. It seemed there were bigger buildings that used the tree trunks as supporting pillars, too.
There were what looked like elevators set up here and there. No, they didn’t just look like elevators; they were. They went up and down between Arnotu and the surface.
There were bridges from one giant tree to the next, allowing travel from one to another.
The majority of the bridges weren’t straight. Was there some engineering reason for that? Or was it out of concern for how they looked? They formed awfully beautiful arches.
There were baskets filled with luminous mushrooms hanging from the buildings and bridges, and they swayed in the wind. It seemed every basket had a bell attached. When the basket swayed, there was a clear ring. The sound of ringing bells overlapped and echoed. It was like music.
There were many colored flowers used in a variety of decorations, too. They were fragrant if he brought his nose close to them, but the most intense smell in this city right now was the smell of something burning.
There was a dim smoke throughout the treetop city. Was there a fire somewhere? He couldn’t spot the flames.
The smoke was likely drifting in from outside Arnotu.
“They’re attacking with fire, huh?” Ranta muttered. “Do they plan to burn the whole Shadow Forest to the ground?”
Armed elves busily ran across the bridges. Ten or so elves were riding an elevator down to the ground. Arnotu was preparing for battle. No, there were signs the battle had already begun.
Leaya and Ranta eventually reached a deserted corner. The bridge here was old, and the giant tree they crossed over to had cracks in it. The boards that made up the floor were slanted, or in some places rotted through, and they creaked no matter where he stepped. It seemed like it could collapse at any moment.
This was a dangerous area that should have been off limits, but Leaya’s mother, the shaman Alorya, was waiting for them. So was Wezel.
“Hmph,” Ranta snorted when he reached them. “Nice of you to use me as a decoy, Wezel.”
“I will not make excuses,” the gray elf shrugged. “From the beginning... I intended to use you. If I had not, I doubt I could have entered Arnotu.”
“Well, it’s fine,” Ranta said. “I’m out of jail now.” He patted Leaya on the head again despite himself.
His hand was immediately swatted away.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Whoops. Uh, sorry. You’re just too darn cute.”
“I am not cute,” Leaya snapped. “I’m contrary and unsociable. Everyone hates me. I know that much. My father’s not even a forest elf.”
Wezel turned his eyes downward. It wasn’t like him, but he looked disheartened.
Alorya, who was standing close to Wezel, was hanging her head, perhaps unable to look at her daughter.
“When you two split up, she was pregnant with Leaya?” Ranta assumed.
“...Yes,” Wezel said in a groaning voice. “I... was not aware. That Alorya... was with child.”
“If you’d known, would things have been different?”
“I don’t know. I am not a man who is cut out to be a father. I am a killer... to the core. For as far back as I remember, I have been using drugs.”
“That job of yours, where you euthanize people who are already dying, is it a family thing?” Ranta asked.
“You... could call it that. It is one school of shamanism which has been handed down in my family. My younger brother Weldrund refused to inherit it, and ran away. I left the Broken Valley after that, so I cannot speak ill of my brother for it, though.”
“Wel...” Ranta cocked his head to the side. “I feel like... I’ve heard that name somewhere... Weldrund? Oh, yeah, that was the name of the shaman who was in Forgan, wasn’t it?”
“Forgan.” Wezel’s eyes went wide. “My brother... in Forgan?” “You know Forgan?” Ranta asked.
“The Black Eagle Band, Forgan... led by the great Jumbo. I have heard of them, yes. They are at the center of the allied force currently attacking the Shadow Forest.”
“Whuh...” For an instant, Ranta’s mind went blank. “No.”
That word slipped from his lips, and then he burst into laughter.
“...No, no, no. No way. That can’t be right. I mean, it’s Forgan. You may not know this, but old man Takasagi’s in Forgan. There’re humans in the group. Birth, race, they don’t care about that. They’re a freewheeling bunch that’ve gathered around Jumbo. That’s the kind of group they are.”
“You speak almost... as if you know them, directly.”
“I don’t know them.” Ranta deliberately strengthened his tone. “I don’t know them... but why would Forgan do this? It makes no sense.”
“I do not know the details, either,” Wezel said. “But the rumors say... the orcish king Dif Gorgun took hostages, and forced Forgan to serve under him.”
“Jumbo’s supposed to be an orphan,” Ranta said slowly. “But I guess Forgan does have a lot of orcs in it.”
“This is how that king operates. I, too... was a tool of the king.”
“Yeah, and?” Leaya glared at Wezel. Her thin shoulders were tense, and her little hands were clenched tight. “The orcish king manipulated you, made you kill people. You’re a bad man. A horrible villain. My mother’s an utter moron who made the mistake of falling for you while she was traveling. It would have been better for her if she’d never met you, but her timing was bad. Worse yet, you’re heartless, irresponsible, and selfish, so you threw her away. Thanks to that, my mother had to drag herself back to Arnotu because she was pregnant. To give birth to me. She must have known she was pregnant, but my mother didn’t tell you. Because it’s rare to find someone as incredibly shitty as you. Because my mother’s a hopeless fool. She was born the eldest daughter of the House of Landurowal of the Six Spells, but she was a coward and ran away, unable to bear the pressure. Despite that, she came back to Arnotu, and gave birth to me alone, as everyone looked on in derision. With a mother like that, and with the blood of a gray elf, I am always, always, always bullied. I have no friends. No adults protect me. No one helps. I have the worst, most terrible life ever. That’s what it’s been so far, and what it will be from now on! Nothing good ever happens! I...!”
“Just go.” Ranta came close to patting Leaya on the head again, then caught himself and grabbed her by the shoulder instead. “Leaya. You have a mother. Maybe he’s a bum, but you’ve got a father, too. The three of you should go together. For now, yeah, you should flee to somewhere safe, and then you can live there, or you can set out on a journey once things settle down. You’ll have any number of friends in the future. I mean, seriously, you’re adorable. You’ll find yourself a lover, too, eventually. This city’s full of nothing but shitheads who bully you, right? Well, then there’s not one good reason for you to cling to the place. You’re alive, and you’re free. Now, quit moping. Go on, go!”
Ranta pushed Leaya towards the elevator.
“Wezel! And, uh, was it Alorya? You, too!”
The four of them got on the elevator together. It was an old type, not like the ones in use now, and the chain for raising and lowering it was red with rust.
Is this thing going to work properly? Ranta was worried, but when he pulled that chain, it did move. He worked with Wezel to lower the elevator.
The smoke on the ground was thinner than in Arnotu. When he looked upwards, he couldn’t see the sky, but he could make out the light shining through the branches. It was daytime.
The elevator had a number of luminous mushroom baskets on it, and there were towers in every direction, too. It wasn’t bright, but it wasn’t that dark, either. He couldn’t hear their voices or the sounds of battle, but he could see elven figures off in the distance. Nearly all of the elevators were moving, and elves were coming down one after another.
“Wezel, any idea where you’ll go?” Ranta asked.
“...Some.”

Chapter end