Chapter 73 - Master of Venomous Things

“This armor is actually a failure.”

Sherin had said that with a look of regret when she gave Shan the finished armor a short while ago.

“A failure?”

“Yes. Quite apart from the quality of the armor itself, I still haven’t devised a formula that weaves several enchantments together harmoniously.”

Yet sending him off unprotected to hunt a hydra was out of the question. Despite her misgivings, Sherin had enchanted it into something reasonably useful within the limits of what she could currently make, vowing to extract and rework the magic stones later to create something worthy of them.

“The power contained in a magic stone isn’t directly proportional to the performance of the magical device it goes into. A dish doesn’t taste dozens of times better just because its ingredients and preparation cost dozens of times more.”

By that analogy, Shan’s armor was a stew into which an astonishing assortment of ingredients had been carelessly thrown, then painstakingly simmered. Without a recipe that properly brought out their flavors, a skilled cook had somehow managed to salvage something barely palatable.

Listening to her disparaging explanation, Shan tilted his head and looked down at the armor he was wearing.

“Honestly, even this is incredible. I’m not sure I’d ever need anything better...”

His will became a faint pulse of spirit and passed into the armor. With a metallic rattle, the full suit covering his body withdrew into the breastplate. At another command, it unfolded again, encasing him as securely as before.

Considering how much trouble it took to put on and remove a full suit of armor, that feature alone would have been the envy of every knight. Wearing it even noticeably improved his physical abilities.

Despite the tens of kilograms of armor on his body, he could leap high enough to bring his feet above his own head, just as he could without it. The armor also dispersed some of the impact when he landed. He reckoned he could jump from a castle wall under ten meters high and come away reasonably unscathed.

“Yes, it’s impressive. But you know that isn’t the extent of my ambitions.”

Instinctively understanding the look in her eyes, Shan transformed A Thousand Forms from a bracelet into a sword and showed it to her. Sherin gazed at the silver blade as though entranced and murmured,

“Honestly, no matter how many times I look, I can’t understand it. How does it maintain such an immense amount of magical power so steadily without a single magic stone? How can such complex formulas function without a problem? Why... did the people who possessed this technology vanish without leaving so much as a trace? Did the Goddess truly curse them out of existence?”

“You don’t really believe that, big sister Sherin.”

“No. I could never say this in public, but there is no Goddess. Or even if she does exist, she certainly isn’t the creator the priests claim she is.”

Those close to Sherin had some inkling of her doubts about the Goddess’s existence and the faith. But she only ever spoke this openly in Shan’s presence.

“Anyway, my point is that I’m still far from my true goal. I can only call it a success once I make something to rival this relic. So finish your hunt and come back safely. The finest armor needs the finest knight.”

Knowing that this was her way of expressing concern, Shan answered with a broad grin. By now, that alone was enough for them to convey their feelings to each other.

* * *

The hydra-hunting expedition set out from Pales Castle exactly one month after the cave’s discovery. Following the same route as the earlier survey party, the force of roughly a hundred traveled by boat and reached the hydra’s former cave in a single day.

They had brought no horses this time. Horses were too heavy to traverse the mud and mire of the wetlands and tired too quickly. Having to carry supplies themselves would limit their supply capacity somewhat, of course, but trips back and forth through the cave would suffice to address that.

“You’ve arrived, Lord Guardian. We’ve been expecting you.”

Yurk, Baron Rugen, greeted him with a courteous bow.

Since its discovery, troops had guarded the cave entrance on weekly rotations, and it happened to be his turn. Returning the greeting, Shan turned his gaze to the guard post behind him.

“This place has come along nicely since I last saw it.”

“Yes. Much of the credit goes to the local residents.”

Where a lone cave had once stood in an otherwise empty stretch of ground, there was now a palisaded outpost. Large quantities of timber had been transported downriver from the capital, and hundreds of laborers had been mobilized to build it.

A wooden palisade could never stop the hydra, of course, but it gave the defenders an overwhelming advantage against the assorted lesser monsters that were their main concern. Some did swim around it through the river alongside, however.

“It’s a shame I can’t join you.”

“Someone has to guard this place. Knowing you’re here is reassuring, Baron Rugen.”

“Ha ha...”

Yurk laughed awkwardly and cast a sidelong glance at Ravana, who stood behind Shan.

Ever since she became Sherin’s knight, Yurk had openly regarded her as a rival. Shan had taken his former title as the strongest knight in Pales, but Yurk had still considered himself second. Now he felt that a renowned mercenary-turned-knight from elsewhere was threatening that position.

Of course, the dreadful lessons he had received in the past kept him from obstinately demanding a contest of strength. Though the teaching methods had been rather brutal, they could be said to have succeeded in instilling proper morals.

“Then I’ll leave things in your hands while I’m away.”

“Safe travels.”

The gate in the middle of the palisade rattled open, revealing the cave. Carrying magical lamps, the hydra hunters headed inside along the route the survey party had explored.

After they had walked for some time, the mountain of bones bound together by hydra poison came into view.

“Oh, so that’s...?”

“Truly an imposing sight.”

Those who had not joined the previous expedition stared at it with a mixture of awe and fear. Fortunately, they had no need to take antidotes to avoid being poisoned as the previous party had been. Over the past month, mages from the Society had come and doused it liberally with a neutralizing agent.

They were already harvesting material around the edges for various uses. Hadn’t Sherin said it might one day become a specialty of Pales? If they truly could have tamed the hydra, they would have kept it shut up here and made it keep producing the stuff.

“Let’s go.”

At Shan’s command, the hunters passed the mountain of purple bones and ventured into the darkness beyond.

The passage twisted and turned, but it was generally broad and level, presenting little difficulty. That was only natural, given that an enormous hydra could pass through it.

Before long, monsters lurking throughout the cave came to investigate the noise. Their first visitors were lizardmen—bipedal lizards covered in scales. Wet and gleaming, those scales scattered the magical lamplight in a dazzling array.

“One squad at the front, attack.”

At Shan’s command, the five soldiers in the lead swallowed hard and advanced toward the lizardmen.

The creatures had flinched in fear at the sight of nearly a hundred humans. When only a handful approached, however, they hesitated briefly before charging with vicious shrieks.

The lizardmen, as thickset as crocodiles, slammed into the soldiers’ shields with a tremendous crash. Yet not one soldier was forced back by their strength.

“Whoa, this...”

“This is amazing!”

The experienced monster hunters exclaimed at the difference they felt. The recoil from the blows was clearly weaker than before.

The same held true of their counterattack. Thrusting with the hands not holding their shields, they pierced the lizardmen’s scales and tore into their bodies with relative ease. That was an enormous improvement, considering that ordinary soldiers needed to grip their weapons in both hands to inflict serious wounds on a lizardman.

After about a minute of fierce fighting, the five soldiers in the lead had easily dispatched the seven lizardmen outnumbering them. Perhaps “easily” was not quite the word, given that all five were panting with exhaustion. Still, it was remarkable when one considered that a single heavily armed soldier was normally a match for one lizardman.

Watching them, the soldiers behind began to look eager for a fight as well. Weren’t warriors the sort who could hardly wait to try out good new equipment on anything they could find?

As they continued, Shan had the soldiers and squires take turns hunting the monsters that appeared along their route. This conserved the knights’ strength, but more importantly, it let the others use their new magical devices in actual combat and experience their power firsthand.

Shan’s two squires, Biko and Tavera, were delighted after cutting down poisonous frogs with the magical devices issued to them. Roden declined an invitation to try his ogre-bone war flail, perhaps wishing to save it for a more fitting occasion.

After several more such encounters, something enormous burst with a splash from the river beside their route. A soldier at the front screamed and fell backward.

“Aaah!”

The creature that had suddenly appeared was a giant crocodile nearly ten meters long. It was not a monster, but at that size, it was more dangerous than most monsters. By a riverbank, it could probably make easy prey of even a small troll.

Shan, who happened to be nearby, swiftly hauled the soldier clear of being eaten and shouted,

“Soldiers, fall back! Knights!”

The soldiers quickly withdrew at his command, and the knights moved to the front. Ravana took the lead with a shout.

“Out of the way! This one’s mine!”

Unlike the leather and mail armor she had worn before, now that she was a knight, she wore plate like the others. Its only unusual feature was the pair of holes in the top of her helmet, through which her rabbit ears poked.

Stepping to the front, Ravana brought down her two-handed axe with a roar that echoed through the cave. Her treasured Altoan relic, Rabbit’s Foot, cleanly severed the crocodile’s long snout.

“I’m joining in!”

The other knights followed, hacking at the crocodile from every direction with their newly issued magical devices.

As it thrashed in agony, its long, thick tail lashed like a whip, hammering the cave around it.

“Gah!”

“Ugh...”

While several knights who had failed to dodge lay groaning on the ground, the others kept driving their weapons into the crocodile until it died.

The fallen knights got up and exchanged impressions.

“Whew... This really is sturdy. I thought I might end up with a broken bone or two.”

“Indeed it is.”

Despite being struck by the tail of a crocodile that must have weighed several tons, their plate armor was only slightly dented. Given that a nearby rock struck by the same tail had been chipped, its protective power was truly astonishing.

There was the minor issue that the armor’s enchantments would have to be dispelled before the dents could be hammered out, so repairs could not be made on the spot. But that was a tolerable inconvenience.

Everyone was brimming with confidence, saying that equipment like this would make the hydra hunt easy. Watching them, Shan instead felt a peculiar unease. He had not seen all that much of the world, but his experience had taught him that trouble tended to strike precisely when people felt confident or let their guard down.

* * *

It took nearly a day and a half to emerge from the hydra’s cave. Though the mountain range was not particularly wide, they had still passed all the way through it, so that could hardly be called a long time.

Coming out on the other side, the hunters murmured in wonder at the sight of water flowing out of the mountains and soaking into the ground to form a vast wetland.

“So this is what the place looks like...”

Geographically, it was right next door to Pales, but reaching it required crossing the river and taking a long detour around the mountains. Few had ever come here themselves. Otherwise, they would have simply disembarked on the far bank and crossed the plains instead of bothering with the cave.

“Who was the lord here again?”

“The Kanzen Wetlands belong to Viscount Treva.”

Roden answered Shan’s question at once.

Viscount Treva’s domain, at the northeastern tip of Pendia, was fairly large but offered little of substance. Most of it was wetland, and its immediate proximity to the Demonlands meant it teemed with monsters.

At least the Shedil region to the south consisted of ordinary plains, allowing a city to develop as a base for exploring the Demonlands. Even that was difficult here, leaving the region quite literally half abandoned. Its only real significance was that it offered a quick route through the Demonlands to the Kingdom of Ajun, and a place to rest for expeditions that ventured too far north from Shedil.

Shan himself had once considered stopping in this region on his return from hunting the cockatrice.

“Come to think of it, that city must be closer to here than I thought.”

“Indeed it must.”

When Shan voiced the thought that had occurred to him, Roden immediately agreed. He seemed to have been thinking much the same thing: that the nameless city the Kingdom of Ajun’s crusaders had presumably burned lay relatively nearby.

Their brief chat over, Shan began issuing orders for the hydra hunt in earnest. Their first task was to find signs of its passage.

“The hydra is most likely not far from the water flowing out of this cave. Stay alert and search the area for its trail.”

The surroundings were ill suited to tracking. With winter drawing closer, the cooling air met the relatively warm water of the wetlands and formed a thick fog. Even Shan’s glowing eyes were useless here. They could pierce darkness, not mist.

Fortunately, even under those conditions, signs of the hydra soon appeared. Strictly speaking, “found” was hardly the word for it. The marks it had left were so obvious that anyone who was not blind was bound to notice them.

“Th-this... Surely not?”

“Is it really this big?”

Each footprint, seemingly made by one of four feet, was large enough for a person to lie down inside. The long furrow left by its body was some four meters wide. Even that ogre horde lord had not been this large. At this scale, it was less a living creature than a walking building.

Was the legendary Lagrissa of the Scarlet Wings, who had brought down the Arman Empire, this large?

“Can we really fight something like this and win...?”

A soldier muttered the words, then hastily clapped a hand over his mouth. It was the sort of remark that could easily earn him a flogging for daring to undermine morale.

Yet none of the knights tried to punish him. Inwardly, they were all thinking much the same thing.

After a brief silence, everyone’s eyes turned in one direction. Shan Barendil, the lead wolf who was meant to guide them, was studying the tracks with an expressionless face and shining green eyes.

‘Oh...’

‘Can we kill it, then?’

‘He looks confident.’

Shan’s complete lack of disquiet inspired such faith in the soldiers. A flock of sheep led by a lion was stronger than a pride of lions led by a sheep, after all. His apparently fearless attitude proved infectious, and before long, baseless confidence spread through their ranks.

Really, what did it matter if the damned hydra was a little big? They had Pendia’s strongest knight beside them. And their new magical devices were incredible!

While the hunters lost heart and then rebuilt their confidence all on their own, Shan finished his inspection and gave a quiet order.

“We follow the trail. Knights, keep your antidotes ready to take. Priests, prepare your blessings as well.”

“Yes, sir!”

Their thunderous answer traveled through the damp mist and out across the marsh.

For all the vigor of their reply, however, their march was rather slow. Few of them were accustomed to traveling through wetlands. Their fine metal armor only made them sink deep into the mire and did nothing to help them walk.

“Ugh...”

“Grab the spear shaft and pull yourself out!”

After repeatedly escaping the danger of sinking to their deaths, the light gradually faded from the hunters’ eyes. They would rather have wandered through caves for days. Half a day of travel through this marsh seemed to drain every last bit of strength from them.

It was only this manageable because Shan and Roden, both former explorers, shared their knowledge of traversing the Demonlands’ swamps. Without it, several people really would have sunk and died. Some of the less fit soldiers were panting with their tongues hanging out as though on the verge of death.

“C-can we fight the hydra in this state?”

“I don’t think I can manage it...”

They could not simply bestow the blessing of vitality on every member of the expedition. That would exhaust the priests, leaving them unable to grant poison resistance when it was needed.

After several hours of struggling through the wetlands, the hunters finally discovered something other than earth that the hydra had torn apart.

“This is...”

One knight’s stunned murmur drifted into the air.

Amid the thick fog, the ruins of a city greeted them, an entire section of its walls melted away.