Proofreader: Xemul
Departing from the south gate of Kapha around midday, Loren’s party headed south in the wagon without much of a hurry.
Idly watching Lapis steering the horse, Loren spoke to her to confirm something that had just popped into his mind.
“Hey, Lapis, between a place that takes two days to reach on foot and a place that takes one day to reach by wagon, the latter is farther, right?”
“It’s a fine line.”
Lapis, who had nothing to do except hold the reins and steer the horse, answered Loren’s question while looking forward.
“It would be about the same, or maybe the latter is a little bit farther.”
“So that means we can stop over there, right?”
“There?”
Loren’s words came out of nowhere, and Lapis tilted her head. The movement caused a slight diagonal shift in the path of the wagon, but Lapis quickly corrected it and then asked Loren again.
“Where do you mean?”
“Dia’s place.”
“Ah, you mean the place of that Elder, who only has the head now?”
There was a loud clang and a light jolt as the wagon shook lightly, and Loren looked back over his shoulder to see Nim toppling and lying on her back. Given the elf’s clothes and her rather majestic tumble, he should have seen something he shouldn’t from his position. But the fact that there was nothing obstructing his line of view and he could see her face properly despite her lying on her back made Loren unconsciously pinched his nose bridge.
“Loren, explain your action.”
“Something got into my eye. And what’s with tumbling so dramatically?”
Loren replied with an excuse to Nim, who was still lying on her back and only raised her head to glare at him. She rolled to the side from that position and got down on all fours.
“Did you just say ‘Elder’?”
“I did. What’s wrong?”
Nim’s face, which carried the characteristic elegance of elves, twitched. As Loren wondered what was so surprising, Lapis elbowed him from the side. When he looked over to see what that was for, Lapis, still holding the reins and looking forward, whispered in a volume that only Loren, who was sitting next to her, could hear.
“It’s nothing strange to be surprised. She is an Elder, ELDER. You’re a bit dull so you don’t feel anything, but when people hear that they are going to see an Elder, they normally will react like Nim.”
“You say so, but…”
Loren was about to say that no one else was surprised, but he closed his mouth when he remembered that the other members of this party, besides himself and Nim, were a demon and an Evil God, and that they were very far from the word ‘normal’.
“Ah, Nim, it’s understandable for you to be worried, but this Elder is our acquaintance and has never attacked us, so you don’t have to worry so much.”
“That explanation doesn’t reassure me one bit.”
“I have something I want to ask her, so I thought we should drop by while we’re on the way.”
The Elder named Dia, whom they had met during a previous job, had told Loren’s party to visit her if they needed anything as she had no intention of changing base for a while. After that, however, they did not visit her again because they did not have any business to, as well as did not go anywhere in the vicinity of her base. In addition to thinking that it might be polite to at least show up if they were going to go nearby anyway, Loren had a small business to attend to with the Elder.
“An Elder isn’t the type of being you go to see just for the sake of it.”
“I know it’s a bit of a detour, but it’s been a while, and it might be a good opportunity.”
Nim was giving off an air of ‘I don’t want to go if I can help it’, but Lapis, as if oblivious to it, drove the wagon on while saying.
Although such conversation happened, the trip itself was going very well.
If Lapis and Gula let out even just a hint of the aura of a demon or an Evil God, beasts and monsters with a bit of senses would not come close to them. But as long as they were moving along a street used also by ordinary travelers, they could not afford to give off such auras, and both of them were trying to keep their presence as low as possible. Some still noticed, but those who did not were, from the eyes of those who knew what was going on, very reckless in their attempts to attack Lorens’ wagon.
But this time, on top of the wagon, was a skilled elf hunter named Nim. She had eyes that could see farther than humans and ears that could pick up even the smallest of sounds. Added her skill as a hunter to the mix, and no single creature could escape from there was no single entity that could escape once targeted within the range of her bow.
“She’s very skilled.”
Loren let out these words in admiration as he watched a group of goblins that were hiding in the sparse bushes along the road and trying to approach their wagon being shot through one after another by Nim’s arrows as if she could see them through the bushes. The goblins probably died without knowing how they had been sent to their deaths until the very last moments.
Seeing how their comrades fell, the other goblins became desperate and charged at them, only to be immediately shot down and followed their friends.
Under Nim’s attacks, the group of goblins could not get close enough, but also couldn’t escape backward. They continued to fall one by one until all of them ended up as corpses on the plain.
“The only part of the body that proves the kill is the ear, right? Do you want me to retrieve them?”
“No need. It’s not worth anything anyway. It’s a waste of time to collect it.”
Looking around to make sure there was nothing else moving, Nim put away her bow and took off the quiver hanging at her waist. It seemed like there had been quite a few goblins lurking around; the arrows in the quiver had been reduced in number, but there was still a large inventory of arrows left in their luggage.
“Shouldn’t we at least collect the arrows?”
“I don’t want to use arrows with goblin blood on them because of the smell.”
If there were only a few arrows left, Nim might consider reusing them; however, as an elf, she had a superior sense of smell compared to humans, and it would be intolerable for her to use arrows that had the scent of goblin blood on them.
“It’s a waste. It would be nice to just collect the arrowheads.”
The body of the arrow and the feathers were not difficult to replenish as they could be found in a small forest, but there was no way to replenish the arrowheads, which were made of metal, once they were lost.
“I still have plenty of arrows to spare, and I can still fight even if I run out of arrows.”
Nim tapped the hilt of the dagger she was wearing. However, her arm strength was somewhat questionable, and the idea of Nim, who was slender, engaging in close combat was a story that left Loren feeling uneasy. He felt like she should continue fighting with her best weapon, the bow, as long as she could. He didn’t know what Chuck would say if they let Nim fight in close combat and got any wounds on her body.
“I wonder if there are any arrows at Dia’s place. If there are any, it’ll be nice if she shares some with us.”
“Since she’s an Elder, I’m sure she can make plenty of arrows in no time. Shall we ask when we see her?”
“I don’t even want to understand what you two are talking about…”
It was beyond Nim’s imagination to visit a place where an Elder lived and ask her to replenish arrows. The sight of Loren and Lapis talking about it as if they were making small talk was something she could not understand.
When Nim looked at Gula, wondering if the other party member might be having the same thoughts as she was, she saw her nodding off while sitting still as if she had nothing to do with whatever was going on around her. Thinking that this one was also an unbelievable character, Nim shuddered once again.
And so, they continued southward along the road. The party spent a night by the roadside, then drove further south at dawn, leaving the road and proceeding to a ruin in a place where no one would go near.
The location was just before Mt. Fire Flute. The mountain in the distance must have been the place; neither Loren nor Lapis had paid attention to it the last time they had been here, since they had not gone any further then.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve been here.”
At first glance, it was hard to believe that anyone would be living in such a place. Of course, that was why it was a ruin.
However, Loren and his friends knew that an Elder named Dia resided under the ruin. Neither Loren nor Lapis knew how long the Elder had been there, but they thought she was probably still; not that many years had passed.
“An Elder, in a place like this?”
Nim, who was walking through the ruin after Loren and the others, muttered as she looked around. It was true that the ruin did not appear to be inhabited, but Loren thought as Elders were classified as vampires, a ruin was still more suitable than a human village.
“If she hasn’t moved her base, she should be here… Will she come out if I call her”
“I don’t like the idea of an Elder who comes out when you call her.”
Gula said with a wry smile as she sat down on a pile of rubble nearby. Watching her, Loren casually asked her about something that was bothering him.
“By the way, there’s something I sometimes hear being talked about in the Guild these days. Which is stronger, Evil Gods or Elders?”
Both had the character ‘God’ in their titles. From a human point of view, both must be beings beyond imagination, but he was curious to know what they themselves thought about it. Of course he couldn’t let Nim know about Gula’s true identity, so he was only talking to her as if he was asking a knowledgeable magician. Although little information about Evil Gods was disclosed, the fact that such a being was said to exist was reported to the Adventurers’ Guild by Loren and the others when they encountered Sloth and the others, so there was at least talk at a casual level.
“That’s a difficult question… If it were a simple contest of strength, the Evil Gods might win.”
“What do you mean?”
“It is said that Elders were beings brought forth by the world itself, and they just can’t die. You can’t cut off their heads. You can’t crush their heart. Burning them with fire or freezing them with ice does no good at all. Their only weakness is boiling water, that thing in the kitchen…”
“Whose weakness is hot water?”
At the same time as the voice was heard, Gula’s body flew through the air as if she had been pushed from behind. She crashed to the ground in a rather interesting posture, and another figure flopped onto the pile of rubble on which she had just perched.
“It’s been a long time, Loren and Lapis. And to the elf and that incomprehensible woman, nice to meet you, I guess?”
It was a girl who looked to be very young, with long, flowing blond hair and a pompous smile on her face. Dressed in a gorgeous dress that did not fit the scene of the ruin at all, she stood precariously on top of the rubble and flipped her long blond hair with a slightly exaggerated motion.
“I came out without being called. Short-lived one, long-lived ones, and incomprehensible one: I am the one born from the world, an Elder. For reasons I cannot give you my proper name, but you may call me Dia!”
The girl, with her chest puffed up, declared so in high spirits. Loren looked at her, then looked at Gula, who had probably been pushed by the girl. The Evil God had been thrown a considerable distance and was upside down as if she had plunged face first into the ground; she fell to the ground like a dead tree as soon as the girl finished saying her name.
Praying that Gula, who did not get up, was still alive, Loren turned his attention once again to the girl who was standing on a pile rubble.