MTM 16

“Hey, Zed.”

Harto was climbing along the river stream toward the mountain, and he called out to Zed who was walking ahead of him. Zed slowed his steps so Harto could catch his breath, and he looked back.

“Where can we go to meet Hartiros?”

It could be a very shameless question, but he was curious where the well-known Hartiros was said to be.

“Ruinebelt.”

“Ruinebelt?”

“Yes. It’s a small island at the far north. They say hundreds of years ago it had a civilization that can’t be compared to now, but after the war it became nothing but ruins where no plants or animals live.”

Zed added that it was such a gloomy place that even orcs and goblins who liked filth never went there.

“I see. He’s alone in a place like that.”

Why was Hartiros alone in such a frightening place? Was it simply because he was cursed? Harto started to feel heavy at the thought that he had lived in seclusion all alone for three hundred years.

“But it’s not certain that he’s really in Ruinebelt. I heard people can hardly keep their lives after finding him. Everyone only guesses. They say Hartiros liked damp and dark places.”

Twitch.

“Like me?”

Harto asked timidly because his own feet tingled. As expected, Zed laughed.

“What are you saying? You like warm places.”

“Ah.”

That was true. When he thought about it, he liked the bright and warm place inside Zed’s arms far more than damp and dark ones.

Harto smiled as he imagined Zed’s warm embrace.

Zed patted his hair once and started walking again.

“Hmm. Is it around here?”

How much time had passed? Zed suddenly stopped walking. They still had a long way to the mountain top, but he was looking toward another direction and measuring the distance.

“Harto.”

“Yes?”

“There’s something you need to know before we join the mercenary group.”

“Yes.”

Harto nodded with a nervous expression.

Zed had even decided to take him, a monster, into the mercenary group. He guessed there would be a lot of cautions. Maybe he should never show his monster form, or he should hide his ability to control fire.

Maybe there was some kind of rite to be accepted as Zed’s companion. Maybe he would have to take a test of strength. He didn’t have much confidence, but if he could stay with Zed, he felt he could try anything.

“This.”

While Harto was clenching his fist alone, Zed took out the axe tied with a strap. Its blade shone bluish as if it had been well honed and polished. He adjusted his grip and pointed down the mountain path.

“If we go down that road, there will be a village. It’ll be much safer to go down to the village and circle around than to climb straight north from the mountainside.”

Even in Harto’s eyes, that seemed true. The northern mountain looked steep and rough from the outside. Crossing it bare-handed without any preparation would be dangerous.

“Have you ever gone down to a village?”

“Yes, only once.”

At Zed’s question, Harto answered in a slightly sunken voice.

He started to recall the faces of the people in the village who treated him like a beggar when he had gone down there because he was lonely and desolate. It was never a good memory.

He had promised himself that he would never go down again after that day. Yet now, it didn’t feel so burdensome. The people who sang and laughed together in a circle when they held the ritual were also villagers.

And unlike that time, Zed was by his side now.

“You’ve gone down to a village before? Then there may be someone who remembers your face.”

When Zed thought with a serious expression, Harto became confused.

“Me? I don’t think so. It was a few months ago when I went down there, so I think no one would remember.”

“No way. You’ve a face that’s hard to forget.”

Harto was flustered by Zed’s confident words.

‘Is my face that strange?’

He still thought he looked decent enough.

He didn’t seem to have any ability to change his appearance, but his pale skin and big eyes looked similar to his original self, so they were familiar. Well, in his original world too, he had never once been praised for his looks. It felt like he was living the same kind of life here too.

“Ahem, anyway. If we go straight down to the village, the villagers will know that we came down from the mountain, so they will probably suspect that we are hunters.”

Zed said that there had been such an incident recently, so their wariness toward hunters must have grown.

“Then can’t we just say we’re mercenaries? You’re a mercenary, Zed.”

At Harto’s innocent question, Zed shook his head.

“Even if I say that I’m a mercenary, they probably won’t believe it. Mercenaries don’t usually travel alone.”

Besides, people with keen eyes will know by looking at the axe. They can tell right away whether it’s a hunting axe or a battle axe. As Zed calmly explained these points, Harto nodded.

“So,”

When Zed judged that Harto understood enough, he raised the axe high above his head and then brought it down with a loud thud.

“Uwah!”

Harto jumped up in surprise because Zed swung the axe without warning.

The axe broke the branch of the tree right next to Harto. The tree was a Tieran tree, which didn’t burn easily and had a white bark.

“Ze, Zed!”

Harto, startled too late, looked at him as if asking what he was doing. Zed began to pick up the fallen branches one by one and said,

“You said that wanderers sometimes stay in the cabin for a while, right? So I’m going to use bark like this,”

Zed scratched the bark with his fingernail and tore it off in a long strip,

“and gather wild herbs,”

He grabbed a red wild herb growing nearby and pulled it out by hand.

“I’m a wanderer roaming the mountains.”

Phew. Zed blew the dirt off the tangled roots of the wild herb with his mouth. Then he tied the Tieran bark and the wild herbs he had just gathered tightly with a string and fastened them firmly to his leather bag.

“Now, the axe is useless.”

Zed threw the axe into the bushes and smiled at Harto, who was still standing there blankly.

“This way they won’t suspect anything, right?”

Harto, seeing Zed raise both hands confidently and ask that, finally exclaimed in awe and jumped up.

“Wow! As expected, Zed always has a plan!”

As expected of Zed. Even though they were the same age, he had much more experience and was smarter, so his ability to deal with difficult situations seemed far better.

‘And I became Zed’s companion!’

Harto felt his chest swell with excitement.

“…Ah.”

But at that moment, something passed through his mind, and he stopped. Everything was perfect, but there was one thing that bothered him.

“Why?”

When Harto’s happy expression disappeared, Zed raised his eyebrow.

Harto hesitated and spoke carefully.

“Well… Zed, don’t wanderers usually travel alone?”

Zed opened his eyes wide and nodded as if he had expected that question.

“Yes. That’s it.”

“Huh? That?”

Harto blinked with a clueless look, but Zed only grinned.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Tap. Tap.

Zed was going down the mountain alone with a brisk gait. Harto, who had been with him when they were climbing up, was nowhere to be seen. A leather bag with gathered branches and herbs hung at his side, and on his shoulder was a large pack covered by Harto’s cloak.

“Ha. Around here, the village should be visible.”

He wiped the sweat running down his forehead with the back of his hand and looked around. He saw baby mountain goats jumping between the trees.

“There it is.”

When Zed finally confirmed that he had reached the village entrance, he was glad and was about to take a step forward.

Shhh. Shaaa.

The pack covered with the cloak suddenly moved. Zed stopped right where he stood.

“What’s wrong, Harto?”

Zed called Harto’s name and turned his head back. Then the pack wriggled, and teary blue eyes and a small hand peeked out from between the cloak.

“Zed…”

The pack’s real content was the soot monster, Harto.