The Hero Menace

by Hyougetsu

  “What’s all this?”

  Crap, I totally forgot people don’t measure things in meters in this world. However, that wasn’t what Fahn was confused about.

  “I can’t read all that.”

  Oh yeah... I’d grown so used to living with Master’s disciples, who could all read, that I’d forgotten most werewolves didn’t bother to learn. At most, they learned how to read and write numbers and the few basic phrases they needed in day to day life. The only things Fahn could read was the names of vegetables and animals. Relieved, I pointed to the picture on the next page, then to the tree behind me.

  “Do they look like this, are about that big, and move around in groups?”

  “Oh yeah, that’s them for sure.” Fahn looked down at the picture and nodded emphatically. “They’ve been causing us no end of trouble recently. Plus they stink, so they make everything worse. Oh, just leave the bear there. I’ll cut it up here.”

  I dumped the carcass onto the ground and looked around. It felt as though the village had declined in the half-year I’d be gone. Fahn unsheathed a ridiculously long knife and started cutting up the bear with practiced movements. She’d already drained the blood beforehand it seemed, and she got right to skinning it.

  “Those, uh... What did you say those monsters were called?”

  “The fang lizards?”

  “Yeah, those things. A herd of them moved in next to the village, and they’re hunting all the deer and rabbits in the area.”

  “What about the wildeboars?”

  “They’ve all been wiped out.”

  To think they were strong enough to kill even those crazed wildeboars. No wonder they’d become a problem. As she skinned the bear, Fahn sighed again.

  “The only things left to hunt around here are hibernating bears, but even those are nearly gone...”

  The bears around here were tough, plus their meat stank and tasted gamey. But werewolves needed meat to survive, so if that was all there was left to eat, we’d still eat it gladly.

  “It won’t be long before we run out of bears too, though. Since both us and those fang lizards are hunting them down.”

  That sounded like a pretty desperate situation.

  “There’s too many carnivores at the top of the food chain...”

  “Food chain?”

  “Basically, there’s too many meat-eaters living in this forest now.”

  I gave Fahn a rough explanation, then ducked inside the town hall. It was the village’s only government building, and one of the elders was always on duty there. It appeared today it was Vodd’s turn to hold down the fort. Since he was a former mercenary, he was also in charge of the village’s security.

  “Good afternoon, Vodd.”

  “Is that you, Veight? Welcome back. Hmm? Did you grow taller?”

  Why is everyone asking that? I sat down in an open chair and told Vodd everything I’d been up to while I was gone.

  “I’ve been working as a mage in the demon army’s third regiment. This is the pay I got for that.”

  I unwrapped a bundle full of monster fangs, pelts, a few lumps of iron, and some silver coins. Vodd’s wrinkly face lit up.

  “That’s quite the haul you brought in, young man. However, these are riches you earned. It wouldn’t sit right with me to take ‘em. It’d feel like I was taking from my own grandson.”

  Vodd was a bachelor, but he’d treated all of the village’s children like his grandchildren. It was a custom among werewolves to raise children as a pack. Still, it was a little embarrassing to be told that to my face.

  “I’m working for the Demon Lord as a representative of this village, on behalf of all werewolves. So this belongs to all of us. Besides, you all protected my mom while I was gone.”

  “If anything, Vanessa protected us. She’s always had a fiery spirit, she has.”

  Vodd made no move to take the treasures I’d put out in front of him, but I continued pushing them on him anyway. Considering the state the village was in, I knew this was no time to be hoarding money.

  “I have a few silver coins I stole from humans as well. Couldn’t we use them to buy up the supplies we need from human villages?”

  “Hmm... Well, if you insist on giving us this money, then I suppose we could. There’s a lot we need, so we’ll have to decide as a village what to buy.” Vodd grinned at me as he swept up the money. “Everyone will be relieved to hear you’re back, kid.”

  Relieved, huh? Those fang lizards must really be weighing on everyone’s minds.

  “I heard from Fahn. A group of fang lizards have made their nest around here, right?”

  “That they have... And they’re a right pain in the arse.” Vodd’s voice lowered in pitch by a few octaves. “Twenty years ago we had the same problem. They killed ten of our people before we were able to get rid of them. We don’t got many fighters left in the village, so I’m glad to have you back.”

  Twenty years ago... I thought back to my first memory after being reincarnated. A funeral service for my dead father.

  “Vodd, was that when...”

  The old man nodded silently. I knew it.

  There was a lot more I wanted to talk to him about, but I decided to go back home first. I wanted to see how my eternally 27 (according to her) mother was holding up.

  “I’m home, mom! Have you finally turned twenty-eight?”

  “Did you forget again, Veight? I’m turning twenty-six next year.”

  Since when did you start aging backwards? My mother was my only living relative, so I was glad to see she was doing well.

  “I heard about the fang lizards, mom. They’re the ones who killed dad, aren’t they?”

  “That’s right...”

  Her usually cheery expression clouded over as she thought back to her dead husband.

  “Your dad was the strongest fighter in the village. But after the fighting was over he suddenly grew sick. None of the antidotes we tried worked, and he died a few days later.”

  So their poison really was difficult to purge. What a troublesome monster. I pulled out Master’s encyclopedia again and explained their traits to my mom.

  “Since they form packs, I’m guessing they’re smarter than your average lizard. Whatever ones escaped twenty years ago probably bred and multiplied before coming back here. There’s a lot of animals here so it’s a good feeding ground.”

  “Oh my... you sure learned a lot.”

  “Well, I am studying under the Great Sage Gomoviroa,” I said with a hint of pride.

  From the looks of it, this fang lizard infestation was a serious problem. They were voracious enough to attack anything, and big eaters to boot. Almost all the nearby animals had been hunted to extinction by them. Once the bears were gone, the only other large animals left would be us and them. As I considered how to deal with them, I went to Jerrick’s place to give him the iron I’d been paid.

  “Yo, boss, thanks for the metal.”

  Jerrick looked up from the hoe he was repairing and wiped the sweat from his brow.

  “There’s nowhere to mine metal around here, so I can’t smith new things. Fortunately, this should keep me set for a while.”

  As I handed Jerrick the chunks of ore, I asked him about the fang lizard infestation.

  “How well is the village protected against the fang lizards?”

  “We’re doing fine for now. One wandered into the village a few days back, but we ganged up on it and killed it. Haven’t seen any of them come near the village since.”

  “Well, that’s good, at least.”

  Werewolves weren’t much stronger than regular humans in their human form, but they couldn’t stay transformed all the time. In that respect, they were pretty weak when it came to fighting on the defensive. We were hunters after all. Jerrick adjusted the heat coming from the bellows and muttered, “If we were just up against a single enemy like that Golden Brute you killed years ago, we could hunt it as a pack. But there’s more of them than there is us. If we try
to hunt them down we’d probably get mobbed.”

  Group combat was a specialty of fang lizards as well. It was one thing if we were out on an open plain, but in a dense forest like this, there was no telling who’d come out ahead in an all-out melee. Within the village, there were maybe 60 werewolves capable of fighting against monsters as powerful as fang lizards. The rest were either too young or too old to fight. Worse, we needed to dedicate some of our already small force to protecting them.

  “If we split everyone into two squads of thirty, maybe we could... No, that won’t work.”

  “What won’t work, boss?”

  “If fifty of those lizards attacked the village, half our fighters wouldn’t be able to protect them. And if all fifty of them were gathered in one place, half our fighters wouldn’t be able to hunt them all down without casualties. Unless we fight them where we hold the advantage, we can’t win.”

  “I see. So this is what they call tactics.”

  I felt like what I was saying was a bit too fundamental to be really called tactics.

  “I wish I knew more about their habits, but the encyclopedia doesn’t have anything about them.”

  According to Master, fang lizard hordes had attacked human villages before, but there were never any survivors to tell others about their traits. Now, most human villages had walls to prevent fang lizard invasions, so the monsters avoided populated areas. I wish we had walls. As I was agonizing over what to do, Vodd walked into Jerrick’s smithy.

  “Veight, could you come with me for a bit? The elders want to talk to you.”

  Is this gonna be about the fang lizards?

  As I expected, the elders wanted my help in dealing with the fang lizards. One of the elders ran his finger through his white hair and asked, “Veight, could you ask the demon army to send us reinforcements?”

  I considered the possibility, and made sure to choose my words before replying.

  “If we were to ask them for help, they would probably impose some conditions on us.”

  “Such as?”

  “Swearing fealty to the demon army.”

  “I see...”

  The village’s elders were all renowned hunters and respected by the rest of the town.

  “If we were to ask for aid, it would be admitting we’re weak. And it’s the law of nature that the weak obey the strong.”

  That was indeed an ironclad rule among demons. The elder’s face fell and he said, “The demon army would ask for troops or resources if we swore fealty to them. However, we have nothing to spare. Our hands are full just protecting this village.”

  “Don’t worry. If they want troops, I’ll just formally join the demon army.”

  I wasn’t sure what kind of person the new Demon Lord—Friedensrichter—was, but according to Master he was “a true hero,” and “a man among men.” Considering the fact that he’d paid me though I’d only temporarily been lending him my services, I assumed he was a magnanimous ruler. Granted, he’d paid me more in stuff than in money.

  “But even if they agree to help, it’ll take the demon army a few days to reach here. Right now they’re advancing toward the humans’ cities, so they have no squads stationed in the area.”

  As the Demon Lord was a dragonkin, most of his army was comprised of dragonkin as well. Their territory was in the mountains far from here, so none of his troops were close. On top of that, the demon army was quite small.

  The elder nodded and said, “Understood. We will try and hold our own during those few days. Please send the demon army a request for aid, Veight.”

  “Understood. I’ll send it right... Oh, wait, I just thought of something.”

  I grinned.

  “Master, could you please deliver this letter to the Demon Lord?”

  I handed the elder’s letter to Master, who’d teleported in. She’d been teleporting everywhere recently as a way to practice. Master flailed her limbs above me, attempting to extricate herself from the branches she’d gotten stuck in.

  “Is that really the only thing you have to say to me after seeing me like this?”

  “I’m sure someone of your skill can get down by herself.”

  As I said that, the branch supporting her weight bent down. She slid down it, landing safely on the ground.

  “Fufu, what do you think of my plant manipulation magic?”

  It appeared she’d learned some new spells in the short time I hadn’t seen her. She was as enthusiastic about her research as ever.

  “See, I knew you could do it, Master... I’m sure you’ll figure out teleportation magic eventually too.”

  “How many times must I tell you? Teleportation magic is far more complex than the other branches.”

  “It looks like you got the location right this time, just misjudged the height.”

  “Indeed it appears my precision is lacking when it comes to vertical coordinates.”

  Master brushed the leaves off her dress and looked up at me.

  “So, what happened to your village?”

  “Well, you see...”

  I summarized everything I’d learned so far. Master took off her hat and brushed some leaves off of it as she nodded.

  “I suspect it is the same horde that had inhabited the woods at the foot of the mountains earlier. The demon army chased them away not long ago, so it is no surprise they wandered here.”

  So first the werewolves had driven them out of here, then the dragonkin drove them away from their home and they came back here. The timing fit, at least.

  “This is a serious problem, Master. If they end up destroying my village, then what point was there in me helping the demon army?”

  “I know, I know. Disrupting the ecosystem is a matter of great concern.”

  Master had done some studies on the food chain in her spare time, and she had a deep understanding of how ecosystems worked.

  “Vice-Commander Baltze has just returned to Grenschtat with four hundred of his Azure Knights. I will request that he send them to your aid. If they leave now, they should arrive the day after tomorrow.”

  The army’s most elite unit shouldn’t have any trouble taking care of a group of fang lizards.

  “The situation seems urgent, so I shall return to the castle right away. If the Azure Knights are occupied, I have eight hundred skeleton soldiers I can lend to you. You still remember how to control them, right?”

  “Yes, Master. Thank you very much.”

  Master took the elder’s letter from me and carefully placed it into her pouch. She then started scratching a magic circle in the dirt with her staff. For teleportation, her circle also needed to incorporate geometric formulas.

  “I need to go northeast... no, north by northeast... So these will be the variables I need for direction, and then this will be for... No, wait, if I do that, I’ll seal off my exit and be crushed between dimensions...”

  “Master, are you sure you’ll be alright?”

  I knew she was a genius when it came to magic, but I couldn’t help but worry when she started saying stuff like that. She scratched out a few more calculations next to the magic circle, then nodded to herself. Even for a genius, it took some time to incorporate the complex calculations needed for teleportation magic.

  “Perfect,” she exclaimed after a few minutes, and puffed out her tiny chest, which had remained unchanged for centuries.

  “I should most likely be fine.”

  “You’re not exactly inspiring confidence here.”

  “I trust things shall sort themselves out somehow. At any rate, I’ll be going now.”

  Is she really going to be okay? I watched with a mild sense of foreboding as Master vanished in a whirlpool of light. The fate of my village depended on her having calculated her coordinates correctly.

  While we waited for reinforcements to come, Monza and the other hunters went out to scout the forest.

  “There’s around a hundred fang lizards. They’ve made their nest around the watering hole. Also, there’s
bear corpses everywhere.”

  As they were reptiles, fang lizards didn’t need to feed more than once every few weeks. Cold-blooded creatures like them had slow metabolisms. If they’d killed and eaten all the hibernating bears, then they’d likely stay put until they got hungry again. This was a good opportunity to strike a preemptive blow against them, but I’d rather not attack them at the watering hole. Fang lizards were good swimmers, and if they dragged us into the water, we’d be at a disadvantage.

  Monza shrugged and asked, “What should we do?”

  “Now that all the bears are gone, we’re going to be their next prey.”

  We were the only decently large-sized animals left in the area. Most creatures were too terrified of werewolves to attack us, but fang lizards possessed their deadly poison. All they had to do was injure most of us, then retreat until the poison had killed us.

  “Fang lizard poison’s deadly even to us, isn’t it? I heard there’s no antidote...” Monza muttered worriedly.

  I gave her a smile and said, “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure my magic can heal it.”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot we’ll be fine as long as you’re here. Ehehe.”

  My chest swelled with pride. It felt like all the effort I’d put into studying magic had been worth it.

  However, that didn’t change the fact that we didn’t have enough fighting power. Sure, I could heal anyone who got hurt during the battle, but that was only if we survived the battle in the first place.

  “I went around the village, and it looks like we only got fifty-six people fit enough to fight in the village.” Scratching the back of his head apologetically, Vodd walked over to me. “Slipped my mind that Vosco died last year. Can’t believe he kicked the bucket already when he’s three years younger than me.”

  “You’re the weird one for lasting this long, old man.”

  He handed me a list of names, with his at the top. How long does this guy plan to keep fighting?

  “Stelina’s pregnant, and Weshka’s got a newborn babe, so they’re off the list.”

  “Yeah, we wouldn’t want them fighting.”