Chapter Six: Along the Way
Paladin, Ray Starling
Riding our carriage as it left tracks on the dirt path below, we gradually made our way towards Torne Village.
Well, calling it “our carriage” wasn’t exactly appropriate, considering the fact that it belonged B3 alone. Still, it was being drawn by my Silver, so that term wasn’t entirely wrong.
B3 and I were in the coachman’s seat, while Louie sat inside the actual carriage.
The vehicle was very well-designed. Its base was high enough for me to pass under it by simply bending forward, and it had tires akin to those on old off-road cars, letting it easily handle uneven terrain. It was also imbued with various magics, giving it functions such as air conditioning, impact reduction, interior space expansion, and a defensive barrier.
All in all, the carriage was the Dendro equivalent of an armored vehicle that VIPs would use. That made me all the more curious as to why B3 had only the carriage. After all, what good was a horse-drawn vehicle without a horse to pull it?
“So, why do you have just the carriage?” I let my curiosity take over and asked directly.
In response, B3 placed her hand over her mouth again and took a moment to think before matter-of-factly saying, “This carriage was the common property of my clan.”
“You were the leader of a clan?”
“Yes. It’s disbanded now, though,” she said as she cast down her eyes, looking somewhat lonely. “It had many members who had busy real lives, you see. There were people with children or work to attend to, people in middle management, job-hunting students, police officers, college professors... they were all so busy, they made a college student’s life seem easy.”
She spoke with her eyes fixed upon the scenery directly ahead, but I felt as though what she was actually seeing were visions of the good old days.
“Despite their harsh schedules, we were able to get together and kill monsters, clear quests... go on hunts, have parties, and do lots of other fun stuff.” The look on her face bore not a hint of dishonesty. She really had enjoyed her time with her clan.
...Wait, why are “kill monsters” and “go on hunts” separate? I wondered.
“Maybe she means scavenger hunts?” Nemesis suggested telepathically. “They would be different here than in your world, after all.”
Well... that makes sense.
“But a short while ago, we were dealt a really hard blow. Many of us, myself included, lost gear and other items,” she said before closing her eyes in a regretful manner and cracking a wry smile. “Because of that and the changes in our lives that came with spring, we decided that we’d had enough fun and decided to disband the clan.”
“I see...”
Apparently, no matter how realistic it was, Infinite Dendrogram wasn’t safe from normal MMO-like happenings such as the ending of clans.
“With the disbanding, the clan’s shared items were distributed among the players that would continue playing,” she said. “I can still remember the members offering this carriage to me while saying ‘This slick ride should be yours, boss.’ I appreciated their sentiment and gladly accepted it, but... eheheh.” She giggled as she remembered something—
...Wait, “boss?”
“I accepted the carriage, but didn’t have any monsters for it,” she continued. “It slipped my mind because I always had clan members with tamed creatures that could pull it. Because of that, I haven’t been able to use it once ever since the clan disbanded...”
Suddenly, as I held the reins, she turned to look at me with eyes that looked both slightly lonely and happy.
“It’s nice that we got to use it today.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Thanks again, B3.”
About three hours had passed since we left the capital. We were currently on a road called the “Fadl Mountain Pass.”
Honestly, I felt that “Mountain Pass” was a bit of a misnomer, considering we were passing only hills, rather than mountains.
Anyway, according to Louie, we were about halfway there by now. We’d left before noon, so, at this rate, we ought to reach Torne Village before sundown.
That aside, I couldn’t help but notice that this road was unusually active. Just like us, there were quite a lot of people heading northward, on foot and by carriage alike.
Many even had children with them, making it highly unlikely that they were going on hunting or trading trips.
“Is there something I don’t know about?” I asked.
“The Windstar Festival is happening soon,” said Louie as he stuck his face out through the carriage’s window.
“Windstar Festival?” According to him, the Windstar Festival was an event held by a group of villages situated in the north of the capital, with Torne being the focus.
The festival was a long-running tradition by now, and it was renowned for the many pinwheel-like decorations all over the villages and the fireworks lighting up the night sky, attracting many tourists from both the local villages and the capital, who, in turn, attracted merchants aiming to profit from them.
“Well, that definitely sounds like a festival,” I commented.
“It is!” Louie said excitedly. “Until last year, we would go there with Dad every year, and it was very fun! But now...”
He suddenly became downcast again. That was only natural, considering that the dad he so adored might not be there for the festival.
“We’ll find your dad, so don’t you worry,” I said.
“Okay. Please find him, mister.”
Chatting more about this and that, we continued following the road north. Eventually, we went up a gently-sloping hill.
“Ah...” Louie gasped, apparently realizing something.
“What is it?” I asked.
“This place...” he said as he looked around with nostalgia in his eyes. “This is where Mom and I met Dad.”
Four years ago, Fadl Mountain Pass
It had happened four years ago, in Infinite Dendrogram time.
Louie and his mother, Farica, were at the Fadl Mountain Pass, riding a stagecoach to the village of Torne. The aged Needleworker of the village had passed away, and Farica — bearing the same job herself — had been dispatched there by the Needleworker guild as the replacement.
It wasn’t unusual for job guilds to transfer their members to the surrounding towns and villages, but such agreements were never forced, and Farica had volunteered for this role.
Her primary reasons for this were monetary. A year ago, she’d lost her husband, Louie’s biological father, to an accident, and the money he’d left behind was beginning to run dry.
Though she herself had a career as a Needleworker, it wasn’t quite enough for a single mother with a child as young as Louie, especially with the recent increase of skilled Needleworkers... the Masters.
Because of them, supply had started to outpace demand, and tian-made clothes, which were generally lower quality than those made by Masters, had gotten harder to sell. The drop in available work had made it difficult for Farica to get by, and though her situation wasn’t dire, it was definitely getting there, so she’d chosen to take the transfer to Torne.
Since it was a guild assignment, she would receive both the payment for her work and financial aid from the guild, not to mention that distancing herself from the oversupplied cities would greatly increase the demand for her products. Spurred by the wish to have her son grow up healthy, away from the ails of poverty, she’d resolved to take him and move to the village of Torne, and that was no mistake.
Their small household would receive the money to get by, her son would grow up properly, and Torne would have a Needleworker. Everyone involved would benefit from this.
Indeed, Farica’s decision wasn’t a mistake... but alas, Lady Luck, capricious as ever, didn’t favor her on the day of the move. The stagecoach she was on was attacked by over a hundred monsters.
From just over several hundred of metels away, they were charging straight towards the stagecoach, leaving a thick cloud of dust behind them.
It was a horde of “Violent Fanged Boars.” True to their name, they were a brutal, carnivorous type of monster known to vehemently chase the smell of blood.
Though they were native to the area, it was rare for them to hunt in such great numbers. However, this was a world in which the spontaneous appearance of UBMs could greatly alter monster habitats, sometimes forcing them to form large groups. Thus, the boars’ attack on the stagecoach was merely an unfortunate turn of events — one that greatly endangered those without the power to stand up to them.
The coachman hastily tried to turn the vehicle around and escape the boars, but the menacing horde scared the horses into rearing up, panicking, and making the carriage fall on its side.
Passengers and baggage alike dropped out of vehicle, and though nobody died from that, it didn’t change the fact that the situation was nothing short of hopeless.
“Hurry! Stand up and run!” roared one the tian adventurers tasked with defending the stagecoach.
Faced with this threat, they had completely abandoned their roles.
Some tried to be the rear guard, protecting the passengers as they ran, but the experienced adventurers suggested against it, telling them that it was suicide.
Not many could fault them for that. Even if those adventurers had battle jobs, that number of boars was just too great for only a few sub-level 100 tians.
Escaping along with the passengers while avoiding encounters with monsters was the sound thing to do... the right thing to do.
Alas, doing the right thing was never easy, and this time, it came at the cost of sacrificing two lives — a boy and his mother.
After the carriage fell, Farica was still inside, and her leg was caught under the baggage, while Louie was crying at her side. He begged for someone to help her, but everyone else had already ran away.
It was only natural. The situation was dire, and every second counted. Anyone who tried to save them could easily end up as sustenance for the boars, and even if they were successful, Farica’s bleeding and all the blood that had gotten on Louie would definitely attract the monsters. There was no viable escape plan that included the pair.
Their deaths were definitely unavoidable and perhaps even necessary, so the rest of the people ran while closing their ears to the boy’s tearful pleas.
The cruel inevitability would soon spell the death of the mother and child, and the two had no means of overturning this harsh fate.
However, they did.
“Gringham!” someone roared just as a Boar was about to charge into the carriage’s exposed base and break it open.
That word — no, that call...
“GROAAAAAHHHHHHH!”
...was answered by a giant beast that forced its fangs deep into the Boar’s neck and shattered its upper spine, instantly ending its life.
It was a lion, bearing a mane as thick as wool and a size rivaling that of an elephant. It pulverized the carnivorous boars, asserting its position as the true apex predator on the scene.
“Are you all right, boy?” asked one of the two people that jumped off the lion’s back.
The one who spoke was a bald warrior. He had the facial features of a person from Tenchi and a well-trained body covered in light armor.
The other was a girl with green hair. She glared at the Boar horde with a somewhat vague expression on her face.
The bald warrior ran over to Louie, who was too scared to stand at this point, and extended his left hand towards him. There was a blue crest on the back of the hand.
“That’s my mount, Gringham,” he said. “He’ll keep the monsters away, so you just run, and...”
“M-My mom! My mom is still in the carriage!” Louie shouted, making the bald warrior turn to the vehicle, where he saw Farica, her leg crushed by the baggage.
He hurried to her aid and said, “I’ll help you!”
“Don’t mind me! Just save my son, please!” she protested, urging the bald warrior to focus entirely on Louie. That would be the reasonable thing to do. After all, her damaged leg not only rendered her incapable of running, but also made her attract the violent boars. “Only a miracle can save me now... So please, help my son...”
“I don’t think so,” the bald warrior retorted. “You will be saved if I kill all the monsters.”
“But that’s—!”
“If that would be a miracle... If a miracle alone can save you, then I shall become a miracle-worker!” He stood up, then looked at the boar horde fighting his trusty lion mount.
“Juno!” he called the green-haired girl’s name, prompting her to become green and red particles of light that gathered in the man’s hands, taking the shape of a spear in his right and an elliptical shield in his left. “Come, monsters! This is the shield of miracles!”
The man tightened his grip on his weaponry, ran up to his mount and jumped on its back.
He faced the numerous boars and roared, “I am a Myth Rider, Ichiro Shijima! Face me now!” before charging the overwhelming odds.
The result of this battle was obvious.
Paladin, Ray Starling
“Dad was... awesome. He and Gringham killed all those monsters and saved me and Mom,” Louie finished.
“And that’s how you met him?” I asked.
“Yeah. He also protected us all the way to Torne and even brought someone who could use healing magic to fix mom’s leg.”
Louie then continued to tell us that Mr. Shijima, concerned with their well-being, had regularly visited them in the village. Eventually, he and Farica had fallen in love, gotten married, and made a child.
I silently processed the story.
One thing that I couldn’t help but note was the fact that Mr. Shijima was a Maiden’s Master. If the words Hugo had told me were to be believed, it meant that he, too, didn’t consider Infinite Dendrogram to be just a game.
The fact that such a person hadn’t visited his family for half a year of this world’s time made me picture scenarios I really didn’t want to consider. When we found him in real life and discovered that he’d simply quit, I would like to, at the very least, convince him to come here and give Louie and his wife a proper goodbye.
However, if the reason why he’d disappeared was one that rendered him incapable of ever meeting them again, then—
“...What?” I asked suddenly as my thoughts were cut short by a low, distant sound, much like the howling of the wind.
The noise was repeated again and again, and seemed to come from several locations. Upon hearing one that came from relatively close, I realized that it was the sound of a conch trumpet.
Soon enough, the entire area’s soundscape was dominated by the sound, and I had no idea if it was a warning, a message, or something else.
“B3, what is th—?” I tried to ask, but cut my words short upon noticing the drastic change in her expression.
If I had to summarize her face in just a word, I’d have probably used “fierce.”
However, once I blinked in surprise, B3’s expression was back to normal.
Did I just imagine that? I wondered as she looked into my eyes and began talking.
“Be alert, Ray. This conch is their signal.”
“‘Their’?” I asked, but before she could answer, a voice blared throughout the entire area.
“This is a message to all Masters passing through or hunting in Fadl Mountain Pass,” the voice said loudly. It was obviously passing through a voice-amplifying item, and it reminded me of a female announcer in Japanese baseball stadiums. “In ten minutes, the PK clan K&R will begin hunting in this area. Those who do not wish to fight must leave Fadl Mountain Pass within this time.”
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