The Druid Who Devoured the Great Nature

“Kkeueueuk!”

A scream was heard from inside the overturned train. Lian broke through the cracked window and jumped out of the driver’s cabin. He had a tenacious hold on life. But that was the end of it. The train was engulfed in flames, and one of his legs was broken. There was no way for him to survive.

But his own thoughts seemed to be different. Lian plunged his blade into the ground and then, using the blade as a support, crawled forward. He didn’t look back even once. It meant that the smuggled goods packed in the container were no longer in his mind. If he had made the decision a little earlier, something might have been different. But regret is called regret because it’s already too late.

I slowly walked along the railway. The huge fire, large enough to burn down the railway station, split to both sides like an opening door as I walked forward. There was no need to hurry. He wouldn’t be able to escape this fire.

The overturned train gradually got closer. Perhaps because the fire was concentrated, the heat was intense even from here. I wiped away the sweat and arrived at the back of the train. The Guardian Hawk, having finished its reconnaissance, landed on my shoulder.

The place where the Guardian Hawk’s head was turned, not far away, was where Lian was. He was somehow standing on one foot, leaning on the hilt of his sword.

“……”

But he couldn’t go any further. The fire, which had swallowed the dry blades of grass, was now soaring beyond the height of a person, up to the height of a building. It was impossible to go any further in his battered state. I seemed to see despair in his eyes as he turned to look at me, realizing my arrival.

I aimed my gun at him.

“Like a pubescent brat, running away like that. I almost had a hard time.”

“……Kill me.”

“You’re quite composed. It would have been more convincing if you had said that before you ran away.”

“Then should I beg you to spare me! Stop teasing me and just kill me!”

“It’s not like I can’t spare you.”

“……?”

Lian quickly lifted his head.

“This offer is not much different from the one before. If you give me a satisfactory answer, I promise not to lay a single finger on you.”

Lian swallowed hard and asked.

“Really?”

“Whether you believe me or not is not for me to persuade, but your choice.”

“……”

“Well, just keep in mind that I was going to hand over all those smuggled goods to you as per our contract.”

He looked back and forth between my gun, his own sword, and the fire. Perhaps because he was cornered in a dead end with no way to escape, he didn’t hide his intentions in his actions. He probably didn’t have the luxury to.

I helped him make his choice. As the muzzle of the gun touched his forehead, his eyebrows trembled.

“……I’ll talk.”

“Go on.”

“Wait. Just wait a moment.”

Lian frowned and groaned, then opened his mouth.

“Underboss.”

“Underboss?”

“I definitely heard that word.”

“Hmm.”

Underboss… It wasn’t a name. To be precise, it was a kind of title used within the Brotherhood. In the organizational chart of the Brotherhood, which was divided into branch units and operated like a self-employed business, they belonged to the top tier.

Generally, it was a word used for the second-in-command of an organization. But since the scale of the Brotherhood was so large, there was more than one or two of these underbosses. To be specific, they were the top executives under the leader. An executive of the organization called ‘Brotherhood,’ not belonging to a single branch. That’s why their names were not widely known. There were even members of the Brotherhood who didn’t know them.

Even Lian, who had had contact with the Brotherhood, didn’t know the meaning of the word and just looked anxious.

‘This is quite a tangible result.’

It was enough as a clue to track the Brotherhood’s upper echelons who were behind Branch 52.

‘But that doesn’t mean I can uncover everything with just the keyword ‘underboss.’’

There was more than one person called an underboss within the Brotherhood. Since it was an organization divided into three factions and several cliques, the number of underbosses was more than you could count on two hands. Which of them was involved in this case was a homework I had to solve in the future.

“I-is this enough?”

Was my contemplation too long? Lian asked with a trembling voice.

“Yes.”

I returned the gun to its holster. I keep my promises. He was wary until the end, as if he couldn’t believe it. But as I just stood there staring at him, he relaxed and sat down with a thud.

It seemed he was planning to wait for the fire to die down. He would probably try to recover in the meantime. A human who can handle mana is close to a superhuman. By the time the fire went out, he would have recovered enough strength to leave this place.

If he could leave.

“Hey.”

Lian just rolled his eyes at me, as if to save even the energy to answer.

“Do you have time to be so relaxed?”

“……Didn’t you say you wouldn’t lay a single finger on me?”

“I’ll stay put, but the others won’t.”

“The ones after the smuggled goods? Not a few of them must have seen the train depart, so there will be pursuers. It’s fine, by then I’ll have recovered enough strength to handle them.” Google seaʀᴄh novel·fıre·net

“I wasn’t talking about them.”

I nodded my head towards the overturned train. Lian followed my chin and looked at the train.

From there, the howls of beasts were heard. Lian’s complexion turned pale. He had realized what was loaded on the train along with the smuggled goods.

“How…!”

Although the train had overturned, the impact was not enough to break the cages.

The Guardian Hawk, which had briefly left my side, was flapping its wings in the midst of them. It puffed out its feathers stiffly, as if it were the leader of the pack. It was the one who had opened the cages, so it was understandable that it was a little proud.

“The smuggled goods can burn like this, but living creatures are different. I can’t just let them burn to death. Anyway, good luck.”

Even if it wasn’t the spirit beast I was looking for, I had no intention of letting them burn to death. They might attack someone while running away in a frenzy, but that was none of my business.

“Kkeuaaaaak!”

He was an indecisive guy until the end.

***

A low growl that rumbled from deep within the throat. It is said that beasts, especially those called predators, can subdue their prey with just their roar. Does the low frequency paralyze the opponent?

The beasts of FP took it a step further. It was similar to Earth, but different. Creatures that had evolved to survive in the extreme environment of the borderlands between cities. The animals traded in the shadows through poaching and smuggling were usually of that kind. They were so ferocious that they were not easily tamed by human hands.

That’s why, even though I had released them from their cages, I did not let my guard down. They were beasts, after all. The reason Lian was attacked first was because of the beast’s instinct to aim for the injured first. The next target could have been me. So I was about to leave right away. Because it would leave a bad taste in my mouth to kill them with my own hands after having gone to the trouble of releasing them from their cages.

“Yes, I’ll pet you, so be still.”

It was a needless worry. The beasts stuck to me like glue. The direction was different from what I had worried about. They stuck to my feet and passionately rubbed their bodies against me. Since they were large, only a few could stick to me, so they were even competing.

It was a situation where I had to worry about how to get them off me.

‘It must be the effect of nature affinity.’

The instinctive favor that the race of Mother Nature feels for me. It didn’t just apply to elves, spirit beasts, and spirits. Even these ferocious beasts were acting friendly to me, like animals that had been tamed by human hands. It was a little creepy that the guys with human blood on their mouths were acting like pets.

The Guardian Hawk, as if completely engrossed in playing the leader, was proactively disciplining the beasts. It even pecked at the ones that resisted. The tired and hungry guys couldn’t resist the Guardian Hawk and obeyed. No matter how ferocious they were, it was impossible for them to stand up to a spirit beast.

“You can go now.”

No matter how huge the fire was, it wouldn’t burn for a thousand years. The dry blades of grass burned well and burned out quickly. It was time to let them go. Releasing animals into the wild is not something to be decided so easily, but District 20 was close to the borderlands. Since it was close to their original habitat, they would probably live well on their own.

“……”

But these guys, they’re not leaving. It was unlikely that their wild nature had disappeared just because I had petted them for a while. Even if that were the case, it would be difficult for me to take them back with me. Food wouldn’t be a problem, but my house was not large enough to accommodate them.

‘They say that when you release animals, you deliberately act mean to them to break the bond.’

As I was thinking about whether I should do that too, the beasts started to growl. I also felt a presence and lifted my head.

“Ah.”

A dazed voice. A guitar case that had fallen forward from her back because she was walking with her back bent. Her flowing hair was dirty at the ends with ash, as if it had been sweeping the floor.

“What are you?”

The Public Security Bureau’s security officer, Hazel Walnut. A person who shouldn’t be in this place was blinking her eyes.

“……Ehem!”

She let out a pointless cough, stopped her suspicious posture, and stood up straight.

“Train derailment, railway damage, depot destruction, what else was there… Ah, arson. Anyway, it’s all a crime. If you admit your guilt obediently, I’ll just put handcuffs on you.”

Hazel took out handcuffs from her pocket and held them out to me. For some reason, I had a sense of déjà vu. I could roughly guess why the security officer, the public face of the Public Security Bureau, was here, in a place where Public Security Bureau personnel were not allowed to enter.

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“……? You didn’t?”

“I just had a scuffle with a Brotherhood member and asked this guy a few things, that’s all.”

Surprisingly, that was true. The train derailment and railway damage were because of the fire, the depot destruction was the doing of the dead Lian, and even the arson was something that had happened because another gang that had attacked the Brotherhood had made a mistake in driving. Among the crimes that Hazel had listed, there was no crime that I had committed.

I pointed to the bloody corpse and said.

“First of all, one of them is this guy’s fault, so just take this guy.”

“He’s dead.”

“The rest are similar. So there’s no criminal for you to take.”

“……I see.”

Hazel kicked the ground with the tip of her foot. She seemed dejected.

“More importantly, why are you here?”

The Public Security Bureau couldn’t get involved in this deal, so I had moved on behalf of Councilor Giselle. The appearance of the security officer, Hazel, was not part of the plan.

“I heard there was going to be a deal here.”

“You must have also heard that the Public Security Bureau shouldn’t get involved.”

“Did I?”

“……It’s an important matter, so it’s unlikely they didn’t warn you. You must have just let it go in one ear and out the other. I thought so.”

This good-for-nothing. I clicked my tongue inwardly.

“Fortunately, it seems you didn’t remember the time of the deal.”

“Yeah, I came as soon as I got to work.”

“It would have been nice if you had listened to others with that diligence.”

Should I even count this as diligence? Whatever it was, it could have been a disaster if things had gone wrong.

“Anyway, this is over. You shouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place.”

“Don’t lie.”

“Then go back and ask. It’s not my fault if you get a good scolding.”

“The results… are not good?”

“On the contrary, it’s a minus.”

“……”

Was it because I had spoken so definitively? The guy who had been trying to be stubborn suddenly shut her mouth. Then, with her shoulders slumped, she walked behind me. To where the beasts were.

“Ah.”

As Hazel approached, they ran away like a shot. The guy, who had been chasing their backs with a forlorn look, fidgeted with her fingers and then stared at my hand. She approached cautiously, for some reason.

Was she envious of me petting the fur ball? She looked honestly a little pitiful. Even though she had done a good-for-nothing thing, she had tried to work hard. As a member of the Public Security Bureau, which was heavy-bottomed and high-nosed, her mindset was not bad.

“First, you report these.”

“……?”

“Say you found a train carrying smuggled goods. If you say you found it by chance, really by chance, they’ll reflect it in your performance.”

It could be a good thing for me too. The contractors who could have given false testimony, misunderstanding that the Public Security Bureau had intervened, were all dead. Wouldn’t the circumstance that a Public Security Bureau security officer had found smuggled goods in an overturned train be an excuse?

Councilor Sorbet might believe Hazel’s words that she had found it by chance. The Brotherhood would not.

‘This would be a win-win for both of us.’

Hazel builds up her performance, and I supplement the twisted plan. Let’s just think of it as a reward for getting the beasts that had been clinging to me off me, even if it was unintentional.

‘Now that I’ve done all I have to do, is it time to wait?’

The Brotherhood’s underboss. Whoever it was, they would soon reveal their identity.

(End of Chapter)