The Lord of the Rust Mountains (Complete)

by Kanata Yanagino

  It was a flowery Elvish song.

  “That is?”

  “A song about a journey. Passed down in my old home.”

  “A nostalgic song. Yes, and quite correct.”

  Lothdor was a garden of many colors beyond the Rainbow Bridge, where petals from the trees scattered over chalk houses, and the babbling of the river harmonized with the sound of elven music.

  Ghelreis muttered, “The elves of Lothdor didn’t get on well with the Iron Country.”

  “Ahh... Because of how much they were cutting down?”

  “You’re well-informed.”

  “Nah, I never heard about that. Just, we had the same kind of problem where I used to live.”

  Menel explained that this was a common cause of arguments between elves and dwarves. Elves, who lived in the forests, built their lifestyles around hunting, gathering, and forest farming, and they gained a multitude of blessings by living in harmony with the fae. Meanwhile, dwarves, who lived in the mountains, chopped down trees and used fire to make charcoal, refined iron, and produced a multitude of tools. Elves preferred the trees and large open spaces in the forest, where light filtered in, while the dwarves preferred the darkness of deep caves.

  “We fight all the time. Our lifestyles and cultures are too different.”

  “Mm...”

  This was probably a topic they both had a lot of opinions on as a half-elf and a dwarf.

  “As you say, Sir Meneldor, there was fierce contention between us at times, and plenty of hatred as well. If I had a copper coin for every insult that was traded, every bitter word spoken, I would be rich. Still, they were our neighbors. We bought the grain, leather, and salt produced in the forest of elves, and we sold them mithril, iron tools, and other crafted items.”

  The boat entered the wide branch of the river. To our left and right were thick expanses of forest. We let the current take us gently down the water’s path.

  “The Remmirath folk were skilled in poetry and fairy techniques, and were both proud and hard to please. Just like us, in fact.” Ghelreis was being unusually talkative. “We had respect for them—and they for us, I imagine.”

  As I listened to his story of elves and dwarves, I imagined what it was like two hundred years ago, during the age in which Blood and Mary lived. “And what happened to them in the Great Collapse?” I asked.

  “I know at least that they remained holed up in the forest and stubbornly resisted. They never gave up. As the demons’ assault intensified, the Western Gate was closed, and the Rainbow Bridge was sealed.” Then, the unusually talkative Ghelreis spoke in a murmur. “It’s possible... It’s possible that they survived.” His words sounded like a prayer. “Elves live long lives. It’s possible that—”

  He stopped abruptly. I followed his line of sight, and I too went silent. He let out a small groan.

  The garden of many colors beyond the Rainbow Bridge, where petals from the trees scattered over chalk houses and the babbling of the river harmonized with the sound of elven music, wasn’t there. Ahead of our boat, the water was dark, stagnant, and turbid, and there were rows of pitifully withered trees.

  ◆

  For a while, no one spoke.

  “Is... no one left? No one?” The words fell weakly from Ghelreis’s lips. He opened his mouth as if to shout something, then closed it tight without a sound. After spending a little while like that taking it in, he said, “It’s hard to let go.”

  “Ghelreis...” Al sounded concerned for him.

  But Ghelreis shook his head. “Don’t mind me, young master.”

  Silence fell on the boat for a while, and an awkward atmosphere developed.

  Reystov changed the subject. “Hmm. Looks like the river’s path changed over the last two hundred years.” The river was flowing through and around the large, withered trees that used to be a forest.

  “Hold on,” Menel said, scrunching his face up. “I’ve seen this kind of thing before.”

  After he said it, I realized as well. The dying trees, the stagnant water—this was—

  “A Taboo Word...”

  “Yeah,” Menel said hatefully. “If an elven lineage with a Branch name gets serious about holing themselves up in their home forest, no enemy can touch them. The enemy’s numbers or weapons don’t even matter. They’ll be misled, divided, surrounded, and picked off again and again.”

  Even Blood had said to avoid fighting with an elf in the forest. That was why—

  “They must’ve brought out a Taboo Word, gathered together high-level Word users, and done a ritual to rot the whole fig forest, those no-moral demon shits.”

  People often think that people or groups who take an “anything goes” attitude toward fighting are strong. Some even claim that if nothing is off-limits to you when you fight, you can beat virtually anyone. In one aspect, that’s correct, and in another, it’s wrong. An “anything goes” approach to fighting is very strong in the short term, but in the long term, it’s weak. Once you use a banned move, the ban on that move is also lifted for your opponent, and their response will be ferocious. And once others perceive you as someone who will ignore both morality and good faith for the sake of your objective, you won’t even be able to form alliances with them. In fact, it can even provide them with a good excuse to join forces against you. Used improperly, “anything goes” is weak, resulting in victory and glory that is short-lived and downfall that is inevitable.

  High-level goblins and high-level undead understood this logic, and despite being minions of evil gods (those gods being Illtreat—who ruled over tyranny—and Stagnate, respectively), they even had a kind of morality. That was because, when it came down to it, they lived in the same world as the rest of us.

  However, this logic didn’t work on the demons, who were the minions of Dyrhygma, god of dimensions. Maybe their minds worked differently, or maybe they had different goals; whatever the case, they saw no benefit in abiding by these moral principles. They were simply monsters from another world who aimed to invade and control.

  As I looked at the withered forest of the elves, I thought: This can’t stand. We can’t let beings who think nothing of doing something like this run rampant any longer.

  “We have to destroy them.”

  “Heh. What’s this now? You sound fired up.”

  “What about you? Your face is like ‘now it’s on.’”

  “You bet. Can’t let ’em live.” He grinned fiercely like a wild animal. It caused Al to clench a fist, and Reystov and Ghelreis to smirk slightly.

  “But before that—”

  “Ya.” Menel responded at once, and Reystov and Ghelreis nodded, too.

  Al tilted his head to the side and looked around, puzzled. The boat was advancing through the stagnant water between withered trees. It didn’t look as though there was anything unusual at a glance.

  I took Pale Moon in my hand.

  “There.”

  I thrust it into the water. At the same time, the water’s surface swelled and burst. The shining blade of my spear had pierced straight through the head of a giant serpent.

  ◆

  “A water serpent?!” Al cried out in surprise.

  “Get over it, there’s more coming!” As Menel shouted at him, another large serpent burst out of the water on our port side. Almost simultaneously, Reystov’s sword ran through the air like a bolt of lightning. But the water heaved, and the boat lurched. It was enough for even Reystov the Penetrator to marginally miss his mark. He failed to deliver a lethal blow—

  There was an almighty grunt. Ghelreis’s mace shattered the serpent’s head.

  “Not good,” Menel muttered, looking around. I watched Al do the same—then draw a sharp intake of breath. Several—no, dozens of long, thick shapes were wavering on the surface of the murky water around us.

  “Menel! Full speed!”

  “On it!”

  No sooner had I given the instruction than Menel was calling to the elementals to summon a powerful current
and strong tailwind to move the boat. However—

  “Feck, not much reply! The fairies are weak here!”

  It was probably the result of this entire piece of land being cursed by the Taboo Word. The spirits of nature seemed to be slow to respond. If this was how things were, there was a good chance that Menel’s spells for use around water, like Waterwalk and Waterbreathing, wouldn’t work very well, either. If our boat sank or we were knocked off it, we’d be in danger.

  “Keep your focus on the spells! Reystov and Ghelreis, port side! Al, back Menel up!” I shouted out orders as I struck out with Pale Moon, then swept it sideways into another one of the serpents that had burst out of the water to starboard.

  This wasn’t a great situation to be in. The serpents were bleeding into the water. It was possible that the blood would draw even more of them here, and maybe other aquatic monsters as well. There was no time to hesitate. It was risky, but I decided to turn to an attack Word. I would make the blast go off underwater and take them all out in one fell swoop by the same principle as blast fishing. With my course of action decided, I chose the shortest and most powerful attack Word in my arsenal.

  “Vasta—”

  At that instant, the boat shook violently. My Word was disrupted. I was forced to shift my concentration to a desperate attempt to control the Word and prevent it from exploding.

  The moment I did, one of the largest water serpents burst out of the water and sunk its teeth into my side.

  I grunted in surprise and confusion. The boat lurched. I lost my balance. Digging my feet in didn’t work. I was pulled forward. The murky surface of the water suddenly got a lot closer.

  “Will?!”

  There was a huge splash and I was pulled under the stagnant water.

  ◆

  The instant before I fell into the water, I took a deep breath and filled my lungs with air. Many people in this world couldn’t swim, but fortunately, I’d been taught the basics of swimming both in this world and my previous one.

  The serpent that had bitten into my side twisted in confusion. Its curved fangs didn’t have the power to puncture my mithril mail; nor did its jaw have the bite force to pressure my abdominal muscles and crush my internal organs. Muscles win again. That said, of course, if the serpent squeezed me tight and dragged me into the depths, I would definitely drown.

  Bubbles rose toward the surface. In the stagnant water, opening my eyes only resulted in its muddiness filling my vision. I couldn’t see. Of course, I couldn’t utter any Words, either. So as I tensed up my stomach to prevent myself from being crushed, I prayed instead.

  What I pictured in my mind was light and purity. In the next moment, there was a flash, and the murkiness vanished about sixty meters in every direction, transforming into water that was pure and clear.

  It was the Prayer of Purification.

  Having secured a usable view, I opened my eyes. The water was teeming with giant serpents, and I could see them all clearly as they swam. Several of them were gunning right for me now that I’d fallen into the water. As one aimed for my foot, I drew in my leg to dodge it and swung my arm at another trying to wrap itself around my chest, knocking it away.

  It was difficult to move, like the water itself was constricting me. If I continued fighting in the water like this, sooner or later, I was going to lose. But I had already seen a way out.

  As one of the snakes darted straight at me, aiming for my throat, I grabbed both its top and bottom jaws and used brute strength to tear both flesh and skin away. The giant serpent threw itself around in my hands, and its blood flowed into the purified water.

  With one hand, I grabbed the one attached to my mail and held it still, drew my dagger from my belt, and sliced open its neck. More and more blood poured out into the water, turning it a cloudy red.

  Then, the other serpents started to sink their teeth into the two that were shedding blood. These were not beasts; they were merely large water snakes. In other words, they were attacking me not because of the overaggressive nature characteristic of beasts and other monsters, but purely because they were predators and I was their prey. In which case, I didn’t need to fight them to the death; I just needed to provide them weaker prey, prey that was easier to attack.

  A few more of them came at me separately. I killed them as well.

  I’d been moving around underwater for a while, and the need to breathe was becoming hard to ignore. I endured it, hanging on until the serpents’ attention had turned from me to their weakened brothers, and then I started to swim for the surface. My clothes had absorbed water and clung to me, feeling incredibly heavy. I desperately thrashed upward.

  Finally, my head broke the surface next to the boat. I gasped loudly for air. How many minutes had I been fighting underwater? The air tasted so good.

  “Sir Will!” Al immediately threw me a rope.

  I grabbed onto it and somehow made it back onto the boat, water dripping from every part of me. I breathed hard with both my hands flat against the deck. My entire body craved oxygen.

  “Will!”

  “You okay?”

  I managed a nod back at everyone calling to me. I spotted Pale Moon, which I’d let go of just before falling in. As I thought about how glad I was that I hadn’t dropped it into the water, I got my breathing together, faced the water, and—

  “Vastare.” I blasted an attack spell into it with all my might.

  This time, my aim was true. A vortex of destruction formed under the highly conductive water. The blast swept through it and slammed into the serpents, turning their flesh to mush and crushing their bones. The boat rocked badly.

  I let out a puff of air. “That should do it.”

  Not a moment later, the remains of many serpents floated to the surface.

  “God. No mercy from you,” Menel muttered, astounded.

  Well, sure, I thought. I can’t exactly leave enemies that are actively attacking our boat alive.

  “Menel, let’s move out of here. Also, I think we’ve mostly gotten rid of them, but everyone be on your guard.”

  “Got it.”

  “Understood.”

  “U-Um... The water turned very clean all of a sudden.”

  “Huh? It’s just the Prayer of Purification.”

  “Huh?” Al looked as if he was totally confused, and so was I. “Umm, the Prayer of Purification is normally for one bottle of water or a pond at most...”

  “Oh...” So the power was the problem.

  Menel slapped Al on the shoulder as the latter looked at me, bewildered. “It’s just brute force. Get used to it.”

  “Wha?”

  “It’s his standard battle tactic: do everything with a barbaric level of force. He doesn’t even think anything of it. Better get used to it.”

  Al hesitated.

  “That’s what I did,” Menel added with an expression as if he’d attained some higher understanding.

  “A barbaric level of force?” I said. “Come on, that’s a bit mean.”

  “What do you call it, then?”

  “I have more power and moves than a barbarian, so it’s more than a barbaric level of force.” I gave him a smug grin. Menel shook his head without a word, and Al nodded at him with a complicated expression. “J-... What’s that face supposed to be?!”

  “Disbelief, Sir Even Barbarianer.”

  As we joked around with each other like that—

  “This change in landscape’s the problem.” Reystov’s muttered words cut our idle chatter short.

  ◆

  He was right—this area was very different from our map and the information we had, both of which were two centuries out of date. The stagnant river had changed its course and completely swallowed up the forest that used to be here. The river banks were now sopping wetlands, and I couldn’t see a single place where it would be easy to land our boat. On top of that, this place was home to many dangerous creatures, like those water serpents. It provided a stark reminder why these were d
ark regions that mankind hadn’t ventured into for the past two hundred years.

  “Ghelreis, do you see anything you recognize here?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “This is all just too...”

  “Oh!” Al suddenly exclaimed. “What about those, Ghelreis?”

  Everyone looked in the direction Al was pointing: down at the water made clear by the Prayer of Purification. I looked down, and under the shimmering surface I could see the remnants of a line of buildings.

  “Hmm.” Ghelreis looked at those ruins and started to think.

  “What do you think?” Al prompted after a pause.

  “The architecture of these buildings...” Ghelreis said slowly. “They’re of elven construction. I’m sure of it.”

  “Ohh, nice, brother!”

  “Good eye.”

  “Yeah. Good going, Al.”

  “I really didn’t do anything,” Al said with some embarrassment as we all praised him.

  “Which would that be on the map, then?”

  “Probably this...”

  While allowing our boat to drift slowly away from the serpent carcasses, we all investigated the map together. Once we’d pinned down our rough location, we started moving again.

  However, because this whole area was polluted by the Taboo Word, steering with the spell Tailwind wasn’t working out very well. Even if I used the Prayer of Purification to clean the air and water surrounding us, it wasn’t as if that would immediately do something about the weakened fae. Some improvement could be expected if I factored in Menel’s skills as an elementalist and his power as a future Lord of the Woods; however, Reystov correctly pointed out that if we made large changes, there was a chance that the demons would notice.

  Because of that, we decided to turn to more primitive methods. We stopped relying on the sail and decided to drop oars and row. Menel stood at the boat’s stern, gripping the tiller and calling out to us. We fell into rhythm with his voice and rowed forward as two teams on the port and starboard sides.

  The water was dark and stagnant. There were lines of trees withered white, all large and hundreds of years old, and they made me think of the corridors of columns called stoas within ancient temples. It was a forest where even sound had died, except for the occasional unsettling noise from aquatic creatures. At some point a thin white haze had covered the area. We could only see a vague outline of the Rust Mountains.