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Madan no Ou to Vanadis - Volume 17 - Chapter 3.1




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Chapter 3 – Goddess Advent

The man liked to be deep in the mountains and forests. After all, he could hear and see the non-human beings loitering about when he was alone in such places. The bird fairy Sirene who loved to sing, the wolf spirit Loup, and the mischievous midget Lutin. Coming in contact with such beings allowed the man to feel a peaceful gratification. Wanting to get close to the beings referred to as gods was the secret desire harbored by that man.

Of course it didn’t mean that he refused to deal with people. Whenever he showed up in a human settlement on a whim, he examined and cured the ailments of the villagers, left behind bundles of medicinal plants, and similar. Because he never gave others his name, the people started to call him Sage. And because he had a fairly small build, some also called him the Tiny Sage.

Naturally he also encountered interaction he didn’t desire. Some people would attack him, believing that he was an eyesore. The hunters and lumberjacks who feared that he might lay waste to their forests and mountains, priests who arbitrarily decided him to be a shady witch doctor, and villagers who didn’t want a strange man to get close to their village.

At times the Sage dealt with all of them, and at other times he ran away, searching for places where he could get in contact with non-human beings.

One day, the Sage was sitting on the ground as usual, carefully listening to the sound of nature while surrounded by trees. The sunlight weaving its ways through the leaf canopy created specks of light on the man’s overcoat. Noon was just around the corner.

It was at that time when the Sage heard the footsteps of a human.

“You the man famous as the Sage around here?”

It was a tone completely missing any hint of reservation or politeness. The Sage twisted around, and looked at the origin of the voice with eyes full of reproach.

A man. Probably somewhere in the middle of his twenties. He wore crude leather armor, a sword and quiver were hanging at his waist, and he was shouldering a bow. In his hand, a somewhat large machete.

His hair was short, his eyes, ears, and nose were big, and his lips were thick. Or to summarize it with a few words, he had a sketchy face. But, a boldness to the extent of being brazen oozed out of the man’s eyes.

“I think you’re mistaking me for someone else.” The Sage answered, obviously unwilling to deal with the man any longer.

However, without minding the Sage’s attitude, the man simply asked what he wanted to know, “Say, do you know where to find the den of the evil heretics causing trouble in this area?”

For an instant the Sage hesitated. Leaving aside whether they were heretics or not, he knew the location of that group’s base. Also, they were hostile towards the Sage and had attacked him on many occasions. For them the Sage was a nuisance.

“As long as it’s limited to guiding you there, I’ll lead the way.” With those words, the Sage stood up.

 

◆◇◆

 

It wasn’t limited to just guiding the man. The Sage was forced into fighting against the group worshiping pagan gods. Once this came to an end, the man dragged the Sage into town, and fully involved him in various incidents, battles, and intrigues.

When the Sage reflected on all of this later on, the meeting with that man had completely changed his life.

The man was endowed with an aura enticing anyone into supporting him. The gleam dwelling in his eyes, and the voice spilling out of his mouth possessed a might that would strongly shake anyone’s emotions.

Given that the man was a mercenary, battlefields were his main work place.

Understandably, the Sage never went out on the battlefield himself, but he racked his brain and came up with plans for the man. Sometimes the Sage was charmed by the man’s way of fighting, sometimes astonished by the man’s steadfast attitude of never losing heart, and at other times he sighed when the man embarrassed himself after becoming dead drunk. Encouraged by that man, the sage even took a liking to apple cider.

The man was outstanding, as a warrior and as a commander. He slew nearby enemies with his sword, and brought distant enemies down with his bow. Commanding hundreds and even thousands of soldiers, he repeatedly routed enemies outnumbering them by two-fold or more.

After going through another number of incidents and wars, the man founded a country, and when he planted his butt on the throne, the Sage stood at the man’s side as his oldest subordinate and the king’s most trusted confidant.

Shouldn’t I leave this place? It was around the time he started wondering about that when he had gradually begun to lose his humanity after fighting a demon called Koschei to the death and devouring that demon as result.

There was no change to his outward appearance. However, he definitely sensed a difference between his current self and his former self.

The Sage stepped in front of the man, now king, and announced that he’d leave. In response, the king inquired about his reason.

The Sage was surprised by that question. Up until now many people had left the man. Some saw a conflict of interests, others simply stopped following the man. Yet, the man had never asked for their reasons, as far as the Sage knew, always letting them go without a single word.

“I believe it’s unwise for a being that’s not human to remain at the king’s side.”

Once the Sage gave that reply, the man looked shocked.

“You’re a human though, right?”

After becoming stumped, the Sage added, “It’s bad for a witch doctor to stay at your side.”

Without giving the impression that he had actually considered the Sage’s response, the man simply answered, “I guess we’ll just call you priest then.”


In the end, it resulted in the Sage remaining at the king’s side.

 

◆◇◆

 

“I’ll give you territory.”

One day the king summoned the Sage, and informed him of this. The Sage reacted by frowning.

“It has to do with my own circumstances, so feel free to pick any place you like. Apparently it’s bad for a king to have rumors about him not rewarding his most distinguished and trusted retainer going around.” The king supplemented.

The Sage sighed. Until now he had wielded his resourcefulness in various matters for the king’s sake. And because he could understand what the king was saying, he had no room to decline. After making the king wait for five breaths, the Sage brought up the name of a place.

“Give me Lutetia.”

This was the land where the man and the Sage had met. But, the Sage didn’t choose that place just out of sentimental reasons. He had another reason.

“I’ll rule over Artishem. So──” The Sage continued, “──run as far as your feet take you without minding them.”

Afterwards, as if making use of the good opportunity, the Sage proposed to the king to abandon the bow.

“It will be more than plenty as long as you have Durandal. The bow is bad news.”

Without answering right away, the king looked straight into the eyes of the Sage for a while, and then sharply asked, “Is that the reason why you instructed the statue of me to only hold the sword?”

The Sage nodded without a sliver of hesitation. This time it was the king’s turn to sigh.

“Very well. But, I don’t think it’s going to have much of an effect, even if I discard the bow.” And then the king threw a bottle towards the Sage, “It’s apple cider. Come to think of it, I’ve heard you can harvest fine apples in Lutetia.”

The Sage bowed, and left with the cider.

 

◆◇◆

 

Maximilian Bennusa Ganelon woke up within darkness.

“A dream, huh…?” Ganelon muttered, faint surprise dyeing his voice.

After he had talked with Valentina Glinka Estes in Silesia, he had stopped requiring sleep. He suspected this to be a side effect from having devoured the demons.

Ganelon closed his eyes, as if trying to project a part of his dream on the back of his eyelids.

As the king he had served grew older, he died of age just like any human. Ganelon appreciated the fact that the king hadn’t asked him to take care of his children or anything like that, because he didn’t possess any emotional bond towards the king’s children whatsoever.

Ever since devouring Koschei, Ganelon had stopped aging himself. Old legends often referred to demons as 『Immortals』, and those demons seemed to possess abilities appropriate to that alias. Ganelon couldn’t even begin to imagine when his own body would rot away.

Should I go back into the mountains and forests?

He suddenly wondered. The decades he spent together with the man were the very definition of heresy for his own life. He pondered whether he should return to his solitary days of carefully listening to the voices of fairies and spirits.

“What am I thinking…?”

Breathing out miasma, Ganelon laughed at himself. He wasn’t sure whether he was still dreaming of a distant past.

I’m here to become a god. And I’ll achieve that goal by devouring the goddess.

What are you going to do once you’ve become a god? When Valentina had confronted him with this question in Silesia, Ganelon had replied that becoming a god was his objective in itself.

That was no lie. While listening and observing the non-human, Ganelon had desired to become even closer to the gods. However, there was one thing he wanted to try once he became a god himself. Something that would be impossible with a human body, but would become possible as a god.

 

——————– End of Part 1 ——————–





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