The Lord of the Rust Mountains

by Kanata Yanagino

  The only question remaining was whether we could make our way to the back side of the mountain range through the other route unnoticed while the demons’ eyes were on our diversion. Or so I thought; Al seemed to have something else on his mind.

  Menel gently slapped his shoulder a couple times. “You’ll get used to it. He makes moves like this from time to time. It’s like it’s nothing to him.”

  “I, I’d heard that he was a man of wisdom and courage, but to think he had military talent as well...”

  “I don’t think it’s that much of a big deal,” I said, a little confused.

  Al shook his head. “If we go even farther south than Torch Port, we’ll be heading straight into the danger area that even includes that lakeside city where the High King fell! I heard it’s shrouded in a swirling magic fog that even seasoned adventurers can’t do anything about! If you’re suggesting that we deliberately choose that place to pass through—what an amazing, courageous idea!”

  After hearing those words, I scratched my cheek, kind of lost for a reaction, and then said, “Uh... actually... that’s where I grew up.”

  Every one of them gawked at me.

  Under the morning sun, the invisible boat moved without sound and yet at remarkable speed. To get this result, I had cast the Word of Invisibility on the boat, and Menel had called to the fairies of wind to cast the spells Tailwind and Mute.

  There was a chance that the demons plotting the resurrection of the High King were also keeping watch for people going upstream. It would be stupid if they detected us out of the blue and our attempt to outwit them was ruined, so I’d decided to take all possible measures to prevent it. We were also using a host of other techniques to hide the existence of the boat going upstream. Unless they were keeping multiple opposing factors active including the Word “See Invisibility,” they wouldn’t be able to perceive us.

  Additionally, thinking about things from the demons’ point of view, keeping watch over the upstream areas of the river was probably not worth spending that many resources on. And even when we actually traveled upstream, I couldn’t sense any unusual presences or eyes upon us. It was probably safe to assume that we hadn’t been found by the demons. If we actually had been discovered and a circle of demons was already waiting to close in on us somewhere up ahead, we were just going to have to say, “Well played,” and cut our way through them.

  Anticipating the enemy’s moves in a situation like this is like moving around in thick fog. It’s not like a game like chess or shogi where you can perceive all your opponent’s moves. All you can do is consider as many possibilities as you can, choose the path that leaves you with the broadest set of options, and have faith in your own decisions as you move through the haze.

  “Tricky,” I muttered into the fog. The boat was currently surrounded by it.

  After taking out the boat, I had given everyone a brief explanation of my birth. They were surprised, but they didn’t doubt my story. We had that much trust in each other, and the fact that everyone treated me like a hero probably made it easier to accept the unique circumstances of my background. Menel in particular listened to me talk without batting so much as an eye. Conversely, the one who showed the biggest reaction was probably Al. Though Reystov and Ghelreis had looked at me in horror at first, they listened to me calmly as I explained things in the proper order.

  When I got to talking about the god of undeath, however, everything flipped. Al knew that Stagnate had his eye on me, so he listened calmly and even chipped in extra information; the other three who didn’t know reacted with considerable surprise, and when I explained to them that I was a marked man and that Stagnate might interfere with this journey of ours as well, they grimaced. Demons and a dragon—that would be more than enough for anyone. I felt the same way they did.

  Well, as far as the god of undeath Stagnate was concerned, I did think that he probably wouldn’t proactively attack us. As much as I might have wished otherwise (and I greatly wished otherwise), he seemed to have taken to me. Though, again, I greatly wished he hadn’t!

  Just thinking about it was starting to give me the feeling that that red-eyed raven was about to fly in from somewhere. I shook my head to chase the unwanted thoughts from my mind and focused my gaze on the fog in front of me.

  “Is this Maze Fog, by any chance?” Ghelreis asked.

  “Yes.” I nodded.

  “A magic higher than Maze Alley that protects the sorcerers’ Academy. I’d heard rumors, but never seen it before.” This encounter with the unknown was making Reystov a little more talkative than normal.

  Al was even more entranced. His eyes were sparkling and he let out a gasp of wonder.

  “That’s top-level magic,” Menel said. “I know there was something like that in the deepest parts of my old home, the Great Forest, and I think the Eldest of Elders could use it, but a human? Not an elder of the elves who’s lived a thousand years, but a human whose lifespan is only a few decades learned this and put it to practical use? You serious?”

  I nodded. You bet I’m serious, I thought. If you think this is something, just wait until you find out he lets rip with stuff like the Word of Entity Obliteration during actual battles.

  “I’ll open up a way through. Give me a moment.” I focused my concentration. I read the Words within the mana of the flowing mist, analyzed their structure, and deciphered the context.

  I only realized this after entering society, but Gus’s way of writing was incredibly idiosyncratic. While he was teaching me, I just assumed that that was the way it was, but after setting out and meeting a few orthodox sorcerers, I had been astonished by the difference in their style, which was neat and emphasized readability.

  How could I describe Gus’s writing? It wasn’t quite like dirty code in programming. In fact, it was more like the opposite: terrifically efficient and concise, but taken too far. It was compressed to the extreme for the sake of Gus the genius’s convenience, and that was exactly what made it difficult to read. Gus probably had no desire to enable anyone other than himself to understand the meaning of the Words he wrote. I had no doubt that if I brought a sorcerer of even considerable skill here, this mist of Gus’s would have them burying their head in their hands.

  “Hmm... This Word is placed here, and this one over here, so...”

  Of course, that obstacle meant nothing to me.

  “Knowing Gus, he’ll have set up this here... and this will be this way... and of course the obvious answer means that right here is a trap...” I made my fingers dance and cast Words into the appropriate places within the mist. The mist smoothly receded, leaving a tunnel-shaped passage. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  It was like unlocking the door to my house. It didn’t require any real effort.

  ◆

  Once we escaped the long tunnel of mist, scenery unfolded all at once before us. A refreshing wind blew past. Having come all the way up the river, we saw a city of stone spread out before us, built up to the edge of a vast lake. It felt medieval, or even older. I could see tall towers and an aqueduct built with a series of beautiful arches.

  All of it was aged and in ruins. Many of the buildings’ roofs had collapsed, and the plaster on the walls had fallen off, leaving the buildings in a state of pitiful disrepair. Grass grew through gaps in the streets’ stone paving, and green vines and moss clung to the buildings. The city was wasting away among the greenery as though it was enjoying a quiet doze after all of the activity that must once have taken place here, and the light of the sun shone softly over it all.

  A shiver ran up my spine. This sight brought back memories. It brought back so many memories. How many times had I dreamed of returning here?

  The sleek boat glided soundlessly up the river and arrived at the lake, which was filled with clear water and glittering brightly in the sunlight. I saw a small hill. On the top of that hill stood the ancient remains of a temple, unchanged, just the way I had always known it. A quiet gasp escaped my lips, and tears came t
o my eyes. A flood of powerful emotions tore at my heart.

  “Hey.” Someone clapped me on the back.

  “Menel?”

  “Get going. We’ll tie the boat and catch up.”

  After that comment, I couldn’t resist any longer. “Thank you!” I shouted, and I leaped from the boat towards the shore in a single bound of several meters. I was in such a rush that I almost fell over as I landed, but I hastily regained my balance and ran through the nostalgic ruined city.

  As I sprinted, the scenery flew by me on both sides at a terrific speed. Jumping over anything that was in my way, I ran breathlessly like a child. The temple drew closer.

  I ran up the hill. “Blood, Mary, I’m back! I’ll fill you in later!” I gave a hurried greeting to their graves and performed a short prayer, then flung open the door to the temple. “Gus, I’m back!”

  What I had returned to was silence. Those nostalgic sculptures of the gods looked just as they always had, bathed in the sun’s rays streaming from the skylight. The temple was very quiet.

  “Huh...?” I looked left and right. As I glanced around the temple, I called out several times. “Gus? Gus?”

  Where was he? Gus...?

  “Gus? Are you here? Gus?”

  I was suddenly seized with anxiety. My chest tightened with panic.

  Gus? Don’t tell me—

  “BAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!” The loud shout from behind me caused me to nearly jump out of my skin. I turned around as the shout was replaced by gleeful cackling. “Unpreparedness is the greatest enemy of all!”

  Pale and half-transparent, with unfriendly eyes and a hooked nose that made him look as crotchety as he was, wearing a robe and generally looking exactly as I’d been remembering him for years—

  “Welcome home, Will.”

  Old Grandpa Gus was there.

  ◆

  Something warm filled my heart. Once the fact that I had finally returned home hit me, I no longer knew what to say.

  Gus pretended to place his hands slowly on my shoulders. Of course, Gus’s spectral body and mine could never touch, but even though it might have been my imagination, I thought I could feel warmth.

  “Will.” Gus looked me in the eyes, and with the most serious of expressions, he said, “Have you made money?!”

  “That’s the first thing out of your mouth?!” As usual, he came out with something that was all kinds of awful. “How about, you know, ‘You’re okay,’ or something like that?!”

  “Oh, shut up! You were trained by Mary, Blood, and myself, lest you forget! The idea that you could die that easily is preposterous! I wasn’t the least bit worried about your safety! Not the least bit, you hear me?!” He repeated it for emphasis.

  I know that! You don’t need to say it!

  “Ugh. Okay, fine! Yes, I’ve got the money changing hands and making itself useful.”

  “Oh?! Specifically?!”

  “I understand the strong interest, but why do you look a bit surprised?”

  “Well, with you being such a kind soul, I’d been considering the possibility of you getting fleeced.”

  That was mean. Though, okay, yeah, I guess it could have happened.

  “Umm, off the top of my head: a trading company, a port, warehouses for rent, a lumber mill, a tannery, a smithy, ceramic kilns...” I also had arrangements with each of the settlements to lend them the money to buy farming tools and livestock, and I’d put money into public infrastructure as well. I wasn’t running everything perfectly in the black, but the money I spent was definitely ‘living’ like Gus said, so as I listed off everything on my fingers, I figured he’d be pleased enough. But his mouth was agape for some reason. “What is it?”

  “What are you involved in right now?”

  “Umm, I’m the feudal lord of the area down the river.”

  “Feu—?!”

  “Heheh. Surprised?”

  Gus hummed. “I see.” His face turned sympathetic. “So some dowager’s sunk her claws into you. You poor child.”

  “Why are you assuming I’ve had... claws sunk into me?!”

  “If you haven’t, I suggest the second daughter of a declining aristocratic family who’s about one step away from missing the boat. Ripe and luscious.”

  “Oh my god, stop, you’re disgusting!”

  That was horrible! So horrible! I mean, sure, it wasn’t like I’d figured out how to approach women and stuff, but even so... horrible!

  “I won my territory and my title on my own by skill! I’m a respected paladin now, so there!” I stuck my chest out. I’d done so much in the past two years. I thought I should be allowed to brag to Gus at least.

  He grunted in approval. “Yes, you have done well for your age in such a short amount of time without any prior connections.”

  “See?”

  “And what about love?”

  I looked away.

  Well, you know, I thought. Yeah. It’s like, I’m devoting my life to God, and my destiny is to fight and I might die at any moment, so, I mean, having a family and stuff like that, I’m not sure if it’s really...

  “So if I understand correctly, you’re wussing out and you don’t know anyone in the first place.”

  That cut deep.

  “Ohhh, how I long to gaze upon the face of my great-grandchild before I move on to the next life...”

  “Will you stop being so deliberately annoying?!”

  “So my grandchild turns out to be a wuss who can’t score with a single woman.”

  “I, I’m, I’m not a wuss!”

  “What are you, then?”

  “P-Pure!”

  Gus breathed a deliberately drawn-out sigh. Damn him.

  “You don’t take after Blood here, I see. Before he met Mary, Blood had acquired a huge reputation for this sort of thing.”

  “So Blood was a popular guy.”

  “His love affairs make for quite the topic, you know.”

  “Okay, stop right there. Hearing about my dad’s love life makes me feel uncomfortable.”

  The worst part was that unlike with the stories I heard from Bee, Gus had actually been there, so I didn’t have any get-outs like “but it’s just a legend” to hide behind. That said, I did think Blood having a reputation where women were concerned sounded a lot like him.

  “He knew exactly where to draw the line. He’d only ever lay hands on women who knew what they were getting into. When it came to starry-eyed maidens, he would simply show off a bit and give them a glimpse of a beautiful dream before going on his way. You should follow in his footsteps.”

  “I said I don’t want to hear about my dad’s love life! God!”

  Gus cackled. “How fun it is to irritate other people.”

  “You’re supposed to be a sage, an intellectual! How is it that this conversation has been nothing but money, women, and ways to irritate your grandson?!”

  Our verbal spar paused there for a moment, and we stared at each other. We both snickered, and then broke into full-blown laughter. Two years had passed, but Gus was still Gus. Somehow I felt so happy for that, and Gus probably thought the same.

  “On a more serious note, is there really no one? There’s normally something when you go adventuring. You know, like rescuing a strong-minded woman captured by bandits, or gallantly saving a merchant adventurer who lost her bodyguards, or recruiting a dependable swordswoman, or protecting a polite and proper lady of a fallen kingdom. Any number of things. Why are you giving me that look?”

  “All of those were guys.”

  He laughed his head off.

  ◆

  As I was talking with Gus, all the others caught up, presumably after tying the boat somewhere or having found a place to dock it. I waved to them from the top of the hill and beckoned them to the temple. I’d already told everyone about Gus, so Menel, Al, and Reystov just looked at him with faces that said, “Ah, so this must be him.”

  Ghelreis, however, changed color upon seeing him.

  Gus inclined h
is head quizzically. “How odd. Have we met somewhere?”

  “I was a wounded soldier who escaped those mountains two hundred years ago, traveling sorcerer. I would never have guessed that you were the infamous Wandering Sage...”

  “Ahh, that callow soldier. You’ve aged.”

  “Indeed I have. I never expected the day to come when I would be able to see you again...”

  I asked them to explain.

  Just before the attack on the High King, Blood, Mary, and Gus had come across a group of refugees from the Iron Country. They were suffering from injury and disease and gave no names in particular. Mary gave them the best treatment she could, and Gus and Blood assisted her.

  Ghelreis and Grendir, who due to being young and inexperienced had not been permitted to be part of the king’s battle array, were heading north protecting the refugees at that time. They told me that Mary healed the wounds the refugees had suffered during repeated encounters with demons. It sounded very much like her. I could see Mary’s face in my mind.

  “It is thanks to you and your group that I have lived to this ripe old age and now look up to a new lord and indeed am able to travel alongside your grandson, Sir William.”

  “Mm. A marvelous coincidence. How wonderful.”

  “Even in the face of a dragon, I will show no fear. I swear it...”

  “Hm?”

  “Hm?”

  Ghelreis and Gus sounded equally confused. There was a pause.

  “Dragon?” Gus prompted.

  Ghelreis nodded. Gus started shaking.

  “Dragon?” Gus slowly turned his head towards me.

  “Yeah.” I nodded.

  “Why wasn’t that the first thing you said?!”

  “Because you were all ‘money, money, money’ as soon as we started talking!”

  It immediately turned into an argument.

  “A dragon. A dragon?! You aren’t talking about Calamity’s Sickle that’s been roaring recently?!”