Chapter 236
Chapter 236
Life in Aislard was lived on the road.
More precisely, it was lived on the land itself.
"Looks like the animals nearby have gone into hibernation. Time to move."
"The fruit's all fallen from the trees around here. Time to move."
"The temperature's dropping. Monsters are coming. Time to move."
They used tents instead of houses, and in ice-covered regions they built igloos.
Therein lay the irony.
Building shelter quickly and gathering enough food required manpower.
But in terrain this harsh, feeding a large group was impossible.
So they kept the efficient, capable people and discarded those who weren't needed.
They raised animals that ate less grass yet grew large.
That was how life was lived in Aislard.
How life had been lived.
"......Looks like they've made it this far south. We need to relocate immediately."
Starting a year ago, life in Aislard had changed.
The criterion for migration was now singular.
Monsters.
"I heard Keltu's group that moved north is dead. Three owlbears came down on their camp in the night."
"Owlbears...... aren't those monsters we've never even seen around here?"
"Never mind around here—I didn't even know they existed in Aislard. In forty years, I've never once laid eyes on one."
Deep fatigue was etched into the father's face.
"We need to move, fast. The monsters...... must be starving too."
"Damn it...... can't we just stand and fight?"
The sons, worn down by months of migration, asked with faces as exhausted as their father's.
"We're dead either way! At this rate, the youngest will die!"
"......Pity. I should've sent her off when the caravan came through last time."
"Father!"
The eldest son shouted as if he couldn't believe what he'd heard.
"We've already sent three! Are you going to sell the rest of us too? You've heard what they do to them!"
The father had heard the rumors too.
No—he'd heard far more than his son.
Among Aislard's nomads, exchanging information through all-night conversations between family heads whenever they crossed paths was an essential survival practice.
But.
"This is the life we have...... leaving would be better."
"Don't say that, Father. Let's leave this country. We go south!"
"It'll be no different there."
"It'll be much warmer, so there'll be more food! The monsters will be more under control too."
At his son's words, the father silently stroked his axe.
From his own father, and his father's father, all the way down to his own children.
A tool that had kept them alive in this place for generations.
"What's so great about people who live on soft, easy land? We are spirits who sweep across this frozen, windswept expanse. Are there warriors more valiant than us in those warm fields?"
The harshest land in the world.
The valiant spirits who lived upon it.
That was the pride of those who survived in Aislard.
"If we struggle this much, then the soft, naked folk down south must all be dead by now. So don't think about fleeing—think about how to survive here. There is no paradise at the end of an escape."
At the father's firm words, the son hung his head low.
If the head of the family decided, you followed.
That was the first rule of Aislard's nomadic people.
"Sleep. We'll need to move at first light."
***
A thick blanket of clouds hid even the moon's shadow.
The sky was pitch dark, and in the shadowless land, the faint chirping of insects filled the silence.
Crackle, crackle.
At least near the crude camp, the sound of a fire burning proved that life still existed.
The son, standing watch by the firelight, felt the heat on his face and thought.
Perhaps this campfire, slowly dying as it consumed wooden logs, was a mirror of their own lives.
They kept feeding it endlessly, trying to keep the embers alive, but what that really meant was that they could only cling to existence by consuming and burning something.
Once the fuel was gone, they would die.
After death, what value would their lives have held?
While he was thinking that, the call of an owl drifted from the distance.
'The night's grown deep.'
Since he could hear insects chirping, the owl must have stirred to hunt them.
'Right. Don't think so negatively.'
This place wasn't home to humans alone.
Countless plants and animals shared this space.
Even in this moment of their despair, animals were flying through the night for the sake of living.
'Right, the owl is flying at this hour, hunting the insects......'
That was when the son noticed something wrong.
The insect chorus that had filled the forest moments ago had gone silent.
Had they gone quiet because the owl appeared?
Impossible.
The owl's call had been soft, quiet.
A single cry that faint couldn't have silenced all the insects blanketing the field.
The son snatched several pieces of wood from the campfire and hurled them in every direction.
Flames traced orange arcs through the air, and—
For just an instant, the massive form of a monstrous bear appeared and vanished.
An owlbear.
"Father!"
— HOOOOONG!
Realizing its concealment was blown, the owlbear let out a howl that was neither bear nor owl and spread its body wide.
Trees around it snapped and toppled.
The ground shook with a thud, and from the tent, siblings and parents came running with taut faces.
"Dammit! Already here?!"
"Run!"
"Mama! Mama!"
Pandemonium.
The youngest children panicked, paralyzed and screaming with terror, while their mother and older sisters barely managed to grab them and run.
The father and his sons clutched axes and spears and stood before the owlbear.
— HOOOOONG!
A single high-pitched howl and their legs buckled, strength draining away.
Fear.
A word denoting the primal energy innate to monsters—the killing intent embedded in their roars.
Frail humans who'd never faced a monster would faint from Fear alone.
No matter how long they'd survived in Aislard, young men couldn't withstand the Fear of a mid-to-large class monster.
All except one.
"HRAAAAGH!"
Only the father—who'd lived as both patriarch and warrior.
With a CRACK, the father's axe bit into the owlbear's shoulder.
— HOOOORGH!
The owlbear staggered back a step, blood gushing from its shoulder.
Had he done it?
The thought lasted only an instant.
CRACK.
With humiliating ease, a casual swipe sent the father flying two meters to land beside his son.
He tumbled across the ground and lay still.
"D-Daddy! DADDYYYYY!"
The panicked children screamed.
One of the sisters went deathly white at the horrific scene and fainted on the spot.
The bear, dripping the father's blood from its claws, bellowed.
— HOOOORGH!
This was the end.
Just as that thought blackened his world—
"Whew."
The sound of a long, measured exhalation.
It resonated through the space so clearly that, impossible as it seemed in a moment like this, the trembling in his heart stilled and his mind grew calm.
"Huh?"
A soft SHAAAA— followed, and then.
THUD.
The owlbear's upper half slid cleanly off and fell to the ground.
All that remained were the creature's hindquarters, still firmly planted.
"Wh-what......"
"Are you all right?"
A person.
A figure with a delicate appearance, looking more like a scholar, stood with a sword hanging long at his side.
The sky had been devoid of even faint moonlight behind the clouds.
Yet the dim orange glow of the dying campfire on the ground was enough—he seemed to shine.
His blade bore not a single drop of blood.
"Wh-who......"
"Let me tend to the injured first."
The injured—Father!
He whipped his head around, and there stood a girl who'd arrived without anyone noticing.
A girl cloaked entirely in pure white.
No matter how harsh life in Aislard was, he knew that vestment.
"The Holy Kingdom?"
A violet radiance, bright as daylight, descended over his father.
And moments later.
"Ngh...... ugh......"
"Darling!"
A faint groan escaped the lips of the father they'd believed dead.
The siblings who'd been standing in shock behind them all rushed toward him.
"Dad! Are you okay?!"
"Wh-what is......"
The wound, when they turned him over, was grievous.
Three claw marks scored his chest, each as thick as two fingers, in a dangerously placed trio.
They must have completely shredded his internal organs.
"Fortunately, we arrived in time. Otherwise, he would have died. I hope you cherish this second life."
Yuria's blunt debriefing conveyed the gravity of the night's events.
The son, having regained his composure, thanked Cassian.
"Thank you."
"This area is dangerous. Our party is nearby—please relocate there."
"Relocate...... at this hour of the night?"
Terror gripped him instantly.
He understood that this man was skilled enough to kill an owlbear.
But one swordsman being formidable was an entirely different matter from an eight-person family traveling through the night.
No matter how exceptional the swordsman, if they stumbled into the territory of a pack of ten or more monsters......
"Don't worry. I cleared out the dangerous elements on the way here."
The son swallowed hard at Cassian's words.
He felt, instinctively, that he was standing at the crossroads of his life.
He glanced at his father.
The old man's gaze was still unfocused, unable to fully process the situation.
When the father couldn't lead, the eldest son was the head of the family.
"We'll go."
"N-no. Moving recklessly at a time like this......"
The father hurriedly gathered himself and tried to stop him, but the son was resolute.
"Father. You said it yourself. Whether we die going south or die here, it's all the same."
Then.
"Whether we die here or die going south, it'll be all the same."
The father couldn't muster a reply to his son's resolve.
Then Cassian placed a hand on the son's shoulder and spoke.
"You'll live."
And from the distance, the sound of voices, the stir of people, and footsteps began to approach.
The forest, dark until moments ago, was being bathed in light as bright as day.
The mage-lights Sihan had crafted shone with a brilliance no torch could match.
They even had auto-hover and target-tracking functions, floating in midair and casting bright light—leaving hands free and never glaring into the owner's eyes.
It looked as though small moons had descended to earth.
Thanks to that, the son and his family could see.
"We came here to save you."
It wasn't just one.
Along the path from the bustling crowd to this spot.
More than ten owlbears lay felled across the ground.
This was happening all across Aislard.