The Archer of Beast Woods
Content
Prologue
The overcast sky was thin enough to permit the western sun to filter through, but even with my head tilted towards it, I couldn’t feel its warmth. I didn’t think I needed to worry about frostbite, but the numbing chill of the air was hard to ignore.
This area’s climate rarely had snow even when it was cold. When it did snow, there would be a thin layer on the ground at most. I’d known this back when I was in the temple. Even now it was “just” freezing, and there was no sign whatsoever that snow was coming.
I pulled my cloak tighter around me and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. I was walking on the dirt by the side of a cobblestone road. Walking on the road would actually have been dangerous. It had already deteriorated with age and was full of holes. I’d be likely to trip unless I was very careful.
“Ugh... Too cold.” My breath came out as a white mist.
Setting out in winter had, I thought, been a bad move from a common-sense perspective.
I, William G. Maryblood, had left the temple only a few days after that final battle with the god of undeath where I fought to defend my parents’ souls. That final battle had been on the day of the winter solstice. That is to say, the middle of winter.
To be honest, even I thought it hadn’t been a very wise thing to do, but if I’d spent the winter at that cozy temple waiting for spring after I’d made graves for Mary and Blood and given them a funeral, I’d have wanted to stay forever. I’d protect their graves and persuade Gus to let me live my life as the protector of the seal that had long kept the demons’ High King imprisoned in that city. It was an attractive, almost irresistible idea, even though I knew it was wrong. However, the act of holing myself up and being spoiled by the gentle tolerance of my family would have been just the same as my previous life. If I stopped moving, if I didn’t take action, I could tell that this idea would grow and grow inside me. So I couldn’t hesitate. I had to believe in myself and step forward.
That said, I was making very sure I wasn’t going to collapse and die by the roadside in the cold weather. If worst came to worst, I was even considering turning around and heading back to the temple for the time being. Gus would probably laugh at me after the overly dramatic way I left, but there was no need to feel bad about turning back. I could just think of it as reconnaissance and set out again in the spring, having checked the condition of the roads and the places that could be used for camping out. Even that would be a much better use of time than just sitting inside and doing nothing. So I took little breaks from time to time, set up camp when night fell, and all the time in between I walked, just walked, with my gear on my back, enduring the cold.
I’d had several encounters with demons already. That city of the dead was where the High King was sealed, and some of them had probably been keeping watch over it. It wasn’t surprising that they were coming to attack me. A human had come out of that city, so they’d obviously want to capture me and make me tell them what I knew. But small fry like them were no match for me. I’d been trained by Blood, Mary, and Gus.
I had several surprise attacks launched against me by strange and misshapen demons that were a blend of animals and humans, but I sensed them coming, preempted them, and with the aid of my spear, Pale Moon, I systematically turned them to dust. It was my first time fighting against demons that hadn’t been turned undead, but they didn’t give me any real problems. I dispatched them swiftly and without hesitation, just as Blood and Gus had taught me to do. I’d fought with an immortal god; no-name demons weren’t going to get the better of me now. As for the city of the dead, Gus had told me he’d be strengthening its defenses with a grand magic called Maze Fog, so there was probably no need to worry about it.
My seemingly endless trek occasionally took me past some ruined stone buildings of various sizes. They had probably once been post stations or resting places along the highway. Many of them had either collapsed or been burned or destroyed, the victims of an old war. But there were still some left that retained much of their original structure and promised to make that night’s camp somewhat less of a hassle.
Looking at how there had been facilities like this available, I thought that Mary, Gus, and Blood must have lived in a pretty advanced civilization while they were alive. The ancient Roman Empire came to mind from memories of my past life.
“Which would currently put me at the fall of ancient Rome... no, after that. Except we were invaded by demons and not by barbarians...”
From what I could picture based on my previous world’s history, it didn’t seem likely that things were very good. I used to like history and stuff, enough that I didn’t just swallow all the talk about Rome being civilized and the Middle Ages being some kind of “Dark Ages,” but even so...
“It’s been a couple centuries since then, and people still haven’t come back here... That can’t be a good sign... can it?”
I was talking to myself again. This was what walking on your own for so long did to you, apparently. To keep from being bored I’d also been singing to myself, but even with two worlds’ worth of songs to draw from, I was fast running out of material. I’d already gotten sick of the landscape around here, too, but I looked around again just for the sake of it.
To the right and a reasonable distance from the main road, there was a pretty impressive river that must have been a few hundred meters wide. The area near it was an expanse of sparse shrubland. I could imagine that when the weather got warmer, those shrubs would grow taller, making it a lot more difficult to see across. The reason there were no big trees along the river was probably that they kept getting flooded out whenever the river swelled, so they weren’t able to grow uninterrupted.
Looking beyond the river, there was another expanse, this one of forest. Trees were covering the whole area. It was the same to my left: almost all trees. It was a completely virgin forest, dark and quiet, and pervaded by an atmosphere that felt... I don’t know, forbidding, like it demanded my respect. If I wandered carelessly into it, I would be constantly tripped up and forced to slow down, and if I lost my sense of direction inside, there would literally be no coming back. So I was avoiding it for now, only going in when I needed to search for firewood for camp, and even then only as far as I had to. I was lucky to have this road right next to a source of water; there was no reason to make things hard for myself. I just needed to follow the path.
I walked a while longer, and the sun started to set. The road was leading me up a hill, and I couldn’t tell what the situation was like beyond. I traipsed up it in silence.
When at last the scenery came into view, my breath was taken away.
“Wow...”
The ruins of a vast stone city were lit up by the glow of the setting sun. Streets of countless houses spread outwards in a circular fashion from both banks of the large river. Judging by how there were still traces of supports, a large bridge seemed to have once connected the two sides of the city. I could see facilities like a river port and warehouses. This would probably have been quite a prosperous place where traders gathered with their goods.
But now, all of it was horribly destroyed and reduced to ruins.
The wall surrounding the city was pitifully broken in numerous places, and the blackening still visible on the houses suggested they had been burned down, probably shot by flaming arrows. I could also see deep, bowl-shaped craters in various places. It must have been a pretty big spell they used to cause that. And finally, water from the river had flooded in through the destroyed structures, and the town was half-submerged.