Chapter 2
AS MIRA DISMISSED the Dark Lord, Alfail fell onto the training ground, arms and legs splayed. He had been thoroughly trounced, but he heaved one breath after another as a look of satisfaction swept across his face.
“Aww, man,” he said, panting. “I couldn’t even make a dent. Phew… That was great. Say, um… Damn. I don’t think I asked for your name.”
“Mira.”
“Mistress Mira, eh? So, how was I?” The title of respect seemed to come naturally to Alfail. After all, he’d finally found someone who could best him in combat.
On the other hand, Mira was slightly taken aback by the sudden honorific. She decided to pay it no mind, squatting down next to Alfail to hand him an apple au lait. “You put up quite the fight against one of my best, so I would say you have some talent. Still, you will have to remain diligent.”
“I see… You think I can still get stronger?” Alfail meditated on her words for a moment, side-eyeing Mira. He hadn’t lost a fight in five years. He’d never been able to truly measure his best against someone.
“Hrmm. I’m no swordsman, so I can’t answer that for sure. But, if pressed, I would say that…it depends on your effort. I know a fool who’s quite like you, and he has felled my Dark Lord many times now. If you’re just as stubborn, then it may be possible.”
Back when this world was still a game, and Mira was a player, she had many other friends beyond the Alcait gang. Among them was a swordsman who loved fighting just as much as Alfail. She smiled nostalgically, remembering how they would spar.
“He defeated…that? Multiple times?” Alfail chuckled at his performance moments ago and gazed off into the sky. “Do you think I can be like him too?”
“Again, that all depends on your effort.”
“Huh… Yeah, you’re right. Y’know, effort’s kind of my forte. Trust me when I say that I will be able to overcome that creature someday.” Determination and passion swirled in his eyes as he looked up at Mira. They were the heroic eyes of a man who had hope for the future. “When that day comes, will you fight me again?”
“Of course. I look forward to seeing your growth.”
“Ha ha! I’ll blow your mind!” Alfail laughed in satisfaction. As he looked appraisingly at the small mage who had bested him, his eyes wandered to the hem of her skirt…and he noticed how high it had ridden as she knelt beside him. He abruptly jumped to his feet and sheathed his sword, as if covering something up.
“What’s the matter?” Mira raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, n-nothing! Thanks a lot for today. I’m gonna go swing my sword around a bit, then head home. And thanks for this too!” Alfail picked up the apple au lait and downed it in one swig. For some reason, his cheeks were a little flushed.
Mira thought that was a tad sudden, but she had to admire his devotion to the sword.
At the very least, he seemed more confident with it than he did with the ladies.
***
Heedless of the remaining spectators, Mira left Alfail at the training ground and headed back to the inn.
The restaurant was starting to empty out, and the proprietor sat at the counter. Mira ordered herbal tea and a honey tart.
“You two took an awfully long time. Everything go okay?” The proprietor asked, glancing at Mira as he poured herbal tea into a cup for her.
“I thought he was just a fan of magic, but that man’s a full-on fool for fighting. He wanted to spar as soon as I summoned my Dark Knight.” Mira shrugged, but the smile on her face showed that she’d enjoyed herself. After all, Alfail reminded her of a friend she once had who was always direct about the things he adored. She recalled how he’d loved the katana.
“Oh, so that’s what happened?” The man at the counter placed the herbal tea and a honey tart in front of Mira. “You know, I think Alfail’s love of magic started when a mage beat him in a one-sided fight.”
That couldn’t have been any normal mage, since Alfail was confident in his swordplay. Even accounting for his skill growth since then, the mage must have been quite strong.
“Now, that is interesting.” Mira urged the proprietor to continue, poking at her tart all the while.
The proprietor thought to himself, arranging the story in his mind. “That mage came through about five years ago. Big rumors were spreading around these parts. Some forager collecting medicinal herbs in the mountains said they’d run into a humanoid monster that nobody had ever seen before. A real nasty one too. The forager thought they’d die that day. But suddenly, a woman dressed in a cheongsam with a long slit up the thigh jumped from atop a mountain and blew it away with a single strike. According to the forager, she was a sage with a funny dialect. As for the monster… Well, her attack burned it to a crisp.”
Alfail must have fought that woman and lost. If she’d trounced him, as this man claimed, then one could assume they had a significant difference in power.
“Indeed? She sounds like quite a sage.”
“Right? When he heard that rumor, Alfail up and grabbed his things and left. Back then, he was arrogant and willing to challenge anyone strong. About a month later, he returned a new man—a swordsman who admires mages, as you saw. I have to wonder what the fight was like.”
Wrapping up the story, the proprietor started washing dishes. Mira savored the sweetness of the honey tart and occasionally wet her lips with the herbal tea, all the while recalling the very familiar mage from the proprietor’s story: Meilin the Controlling Fist.
What is she up to? Mira agonized over the question of how she would catch this friend of hers, a woman hellbent on training against strong opponents all over the world.
After that, Mira changed the subject and enjoyed a bit of small talk with the proprietor. She learned that this village had been built by hunters who made a living in the Forest of the Devout. Powerful monsters didn’t appear except in the deeper areas, so skillful adventurers could earn their keep comfortably.
Those who desired even more money used a fortress deep in the forest as a base. Excluding Alfail—who wasn’t always around—the proprietor’s own son was the strongest warrior in the village.
Pondering that lifestyle in admiration, Mira finished her meal and headed up to her room. She made her plans for the morning and went to bed.
***
The next morning, Mira rushed to get ready and down to the restaurant before breakfast ended. After buying additional pastries and stuffing them into her Item Box, she departed from Hunters’ Village.
An endless sky hung over the Forest of the Devout. Far ahead, the clear blue heavens became clouds and fog that seethed on the horizon. They were only disrupted by an enormous tree that pierced through the clouds.
That was the Elder Tree.
Wriggling on Pegasus’s back, Mira busily adjusted her clothes. She had been in such a rush that morning that the garment around her chest was far too loose.
With great displeasure, she fought the garment desperately for a while using the tactics Mariana had taught her. Eventually, she settled on a fit that provided reasonable support, yet didn’t reveal too much. She sighed, disappointed that she had so little to hide.
What’s the big deal, anyway?
Satisfied with her now-fitting bra, she turned to face the awe-inspiring nature stretched out before her and mumbled something about it being perfect. She was filled with strange satisfaction.
***
Mira had been flying for over two hours directly toward the Elder Tree, but it felt like she hadn’t approached it much at all. She constantly changed positions atop Pegasus to cope with the inevitable chafing from riding bareback. She rode cross-legged, on her knees, hugging her knees to her chest, on her stomach, slumped across Pegasus’s back… After some brutal trial and error, she finally settled on lying forward, head against Pegasus’s neck.
Just past noon, as the sun was at its brightest, Mira caught sight of a clearing in the woods. She squinted at it and saw a small fortress.
That must be the place the proprietor at the inn mentioned, Mira assumed. Out of curiosity, she approached slowly from above.
“Hrmm? Well, that doesn’t look good…”
It was hard to make out from afar, but on closer inspection, she realized the fortress was falling apart. The stone structure’s exterior wall was shattered in some spots, with the interior wall just managing to stay upright. The surrounding walls, marred with gaping holes, were unable to defend the fortress as intended. To say it was in poor shape would’ve been an understatement.
Something didn’t feel quite right to Mira.
As she got closer, she spotted a group of hunters. The men and women were gathered near a large hole in the outer walls, doing…something. At first, they seemed to be holding weapons, so Mira assumed they were a hunting expedition setting off into the woods. However, that assumption soon proved false.
Are they repairing the holes?
The hunters were gathering debris and timber pieces to patch up the walls. Mira looked back up; it was a clear day, perfect for hunting. That meant things at the fortress were bad enough that repairs now took priority over adventuring.
Is there some sort of emergency?
Led by curiosity with a pinch of officiousness, Mira descended into the middle of the fortress courtyard to find out just what the problem was.
“Hey! Reinforcements?!” one hunter called as he noticed Pegasus touch down. The other hunters turned at once and looked at Mira with eyes full of hope and astonishment. Unfortunately, the sudden attention and approach of the crowd spooked Pegasus.
“They pose no danger, friend,” Mira said, soothing her angry mount before dismissing it. “The name is Mira; I’m just an adventurer.” She pulled a cute card case from her coat pocket and flashed her adventurer’s license.
“Oh. An adventurer, huh?” One man checked her license and noted the rank listed, then sighed dejectedly. Every other hunter seemed just as exhausted, despair evident on their faces.
“Tell me more of the reinforcements you expected. I stopped by because this place seems, er, rather damaged. Is something wrong?” Mira surveyed the collapsing fortress, crumbling walls, and despairing hunters.
“Well, y’see…” As pain clouded his face further, the man explained. Rare monsters—ones not from the Forest of the Devout—had begun appearing two weeks prior. At first, the hunters had rejoiced at the potential profit, but things took a turn for the worse only a few days later.
Monsters had ranks, much like adventurers, and it seemed there was a high-ranked monster among the creatures. Alone, the fortress hunters could hunt D-Rank monsters, and they could hunt C- to B-Rank monsters as a group. But one particular fiend in this group of newcomer monsters easily trounced the entire lot of them. They barely escaped with their lives, and only after losing five companions.
“That thing is a different sort of beast,” the hunter continued.
That was only the beginning of the nightmare. For some reason, the new beasts’ ferocity intensified at nighttime, and they began to assault the hunters’ fortress. The powerful one was, fortunately, the only of its kind, and it wasn’t able to jump over the stone walls…but with each passing night, its overwhelming strength crushed the fortress walls and wore down the defenses.
The hunters were unprepared to deal with this situation; monsters from the Forest of the Devout were never so strong.
Worse, the monsters roamed the area around the fortress, cutting off any hope of escape. All routes led to annihilation. The hunters had left their final hopes with one comrade, who took the fortress’s fastest horse to plead for reinforcements from the nearest village.
No one knew if he’d even made it. If he had, who could say whether the reinforcements would arrive in time? The man frowned at this part of the story before continuing.
Only a few days later, the monsters had begun to destroy the fortress walls. The hunters had managed to hold the fort so far, but it was clearly in untenable shape. It would fall soon. Therefore, the hunters were using materials from monsters they killed to reinforce the walls in a feeble attempt to buy time.
“When you landed, here I was, hoping you were reinforcements…” The man grinned joylessly as he concluded his story. Given Mira’s listed rank and lack of knowledge of the situation, she clearly was not what they’d hoped for.
Of course, the hunter who had gone to request reinforcements would have known that a C-Rank adventurer couldn’t handle these monsters. He also would’ve communicated the state of the fortress to the reinforcements, so the faint hope that Mira was a single reinforcement sent in advance was extinguished when she revealed that she knew nothing of the situation at the fortress. The hunters’ disappointment was palpable.
What they did not know was that Mira was far more powerful than any reinforcements a nearby village could scrounge up. More importantly, she was one heck of a busybody.
***
Now that she understood the hunters’ situation, Mira surveyed the walls and the fortress itself, judging that they would be lucky to survive one more assault. The walls were completely covered in damage, threatening to collapse with the next attack. Mira could probably have knocked them down with arm strength alone.
Many hunters busied themselves with repairs. One carpenter in particular was a fantastic artisan, putting wood together without a single nail or screw. He made supports to line the inside walls, reinforcing them against outside attack. He didn’t seem to take any measurements at all, yet as if by magic, everything he constructed was perfect down to the inch. His handiwork would serve as a decent bulwark.
As astonishing as his skill was, however, the hunters were still up against something that could smash stone walls. No doubt the carpenter’s wooden repairs would fall by the break of dawn.
After circling the fortress once, Mira gazed into the woods where the powerful monsters hid, a finger on her chin.
It bothers me that I don’t know what I’m up against, but… Nah, everything will work out fine.
Although she was technically the Elder of the Tower of Evocation, there were foes that Mira could not handle alone. Looking at the damage to the fortress, she decided that she could probably handle this monster. It clearly couldn’t shatter stone walls with a single blow. That meant it wouldn’t be able to break through her Holy Knight’s armor.
She couldn’t abandon these hunters. Eliminating the problem monster would be the fastest solution, and there was no better time than the present.
“Hey, you,” someone accosted her as she began to make her way out the gate. “You can fly on that horse, right? Mind if I ask you for a favor?”
The young man who’d explained the situation to Mira before now blocked her path. On his face were panic, unease, and the faintest hint of hope.
“Sure. Let’s hear it.”
“One of ours is badly hurt and needs to be taken to the Medical Guild in Hunter’s Village as quickly as possible.”
“Medical Guild?” Mira asked.
“You…you’ve never heard of the Medical Guild?”
The young man patiently explained that people with superb magic and healing skills belonged to the Medical Guild. It served mainly as the last resort for patients with terrible diseases; such high-level treatment cost large sums of money. Still, the results were worth the price. If someone paid the guild a monthly fee—essentially an insurance premium—they could receive treatment for a greatly discounted price.
The system was suspiciously like national health insurance. Mira smelled former players behind it, but regardless, she put a finger to her chin in thought. What mattered now was that the wounded hunter paid for insurance, so the Medical Guild would be sure to save her.
“Hrmm, I see. Perhaps I can help. But first, may I examine the wounded woman’s condition myself?” Mira asked, apparently having hit upon an idea.
“Y-yeah, of course. She’s not well, but she should still be able to travel.”
Until Mira knew that for sure, she wasn’t willing to take the risk. Still, the wounded hunter’s odds of surviving transport might be better than her odds of surviving here through the next attack.
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