HPV 17

We purified the mountain and returned to the village. Normally, we would have resumed our journey, but the gravity of the situation made us postpone our schedule. Yurichen declared he would personally take responsibility for resolving the monster incident.

“If something disgraceful happens in a place blessed by the god Gaioh, we can’t just overlook it.”

He intended to uncover the origin of the monster that had seemingly fallen from the sky. As the de facto leader, Yurichen went to speak with the village chief, while Penzey and Paronai—skilled in dealing with people—split up to gather information from the villagers.

I was left standing alone in the center of the village, with Banwes, who was visibly present, and Bzhan, who was invisibly clinging to me.

Once again, I have no assigned role.

I already knew Yurichen didn’t consider me a real member of the group. To him, I was just a post stuck in the ground to keep Banwes and Bzhan tied down. He was blatantly dismissive, but I didn’t really feel much about it.

Guess I’ll look around the village. I wonder how free people live?

The only downside was the veil—its haze made the village’s clear, vibrant colors look murky. Whenever I tried to slip it off to admire the scenery, Banwes would snap at me harshly.

“I thought I told you I didn’t want to see your face.”

The veil hadn’t even been Yurichen’s idea; it was Banwes who insisted I wear it in the village. He had even offered it himself, surprisingly.

If my face is that unpleasant to you, then fine, I’ll wear it.

In a spacious pasture, cows with mottled coats grazed leisurely in the breeze. I hung onto the fence with both hands, mesmerized by the scene.

Nearby, a farmhand raking manure caught sight of me and panicked.

“Ah! Young master, that stinks—please, step back!”

“It smells nice to me.”

Manure is like medicine for the soil, enriching it. Sure, it might not be a pleasing scent to the nose, but the earth loves it. So I didn’t mind the stench either.

Letting the fresh wind tousle my hair, I suddenly turned around—at the edge of my vision, sand-colored hair swayed. I caught Banwes just as he adjusted his mask and subtly tried to pinch his nose.

“You just wrinkled your nose at the manure smell, didn’t you? And I was totally fine with it.”

“My mask was crooked. I was fixing it. And weren’t you the one who almost fainted at the stench of some low-grade monster’s blood?”

“So you’re saying monster blood smells pleasant?”

Pointless conversation. Honestly, I didn’t even know why I kept ending up in these back-and-forths with Banwes.

Sure, I was the one picking fights, but the reason they never stopped midway was probably because Banwes always took the bait.

As we passed a mill, I noticed some village kids hiding behind the building.

But the moment Banwes glanced their way, they bolted in terror—despite not wearing any monster hide. They screamed for their mothers as they fled. It was probably because of his size, too large to seem human. Even the adults he passed either turned pale or hiccuped.

“Everyone’s running because of you. I wanted to talk to them…”

I let out a dramatic sigh.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to do anything.”

Banwes took the bait again, like a fish biting a hook. His behavior was so unlike the game, it still surprised me.

“Of course I wasn’t going to do anything. I was just curious what kind of games kids play these days… Did you seriously think I’d talk to them about monsters or something?”

Another verbal victory for me. Banwes wasn’t exactly skilled with words.

I was about to climb a hill when my legs suddenly gave out and I pitched backward. I squeezed my eyes shut—

Thud. A warm wall caught my back. Banwes had stepped forward just enough for his thigh to brace me.

Thanks to that, I didn’t crack the back of my head open, and I made it to the top. The village spread out in full view.

A farmer with a plow slung over his shoulder passed by a woman with a basket, and the two exchanged greetings in the quiet main street.

I was drawn into the peaceful, warm scene when—

“Humans can’t even stop trying to devour each other.”

A flash went off in my mind—I froze.

That line… I knew it. That line wasn’t meant for me. It was meant for Paronai.

In the story, Penzey and Yurichen bicker. Yurichen is wary of Paronai. Bzhan, though human himself, despises everyone.

The tension among the group members is something Banwes can vaguely sense. Paronai wants to get closer to Yurichen but fails, ends up brooding on a rooftop thinking “Did I do something wrong?”—and then Banwes mutters that line under his breath.

But that’s supposed to happen not in this episode, but the one after next…

Still, I quickly found my workaround. If Banwes says the same line to Paronai later, we’ll hear his thoughts too. So it doesn’t break the story.

Then all I have to do is answer in a way Paronai wouldn’t.

“Not much to it, is there? Humans, I mean.”

I gave a small kick to a pebble on the road. It rolled weakly a couple of times and bumped into another stone. Only my foot ached slightly.

“Even among humans, they endlessly divide themselves—by class, religion, hobbies, appearance. But if discrimination is human nature, so is understanding and acceptance.”

Banwes, and Bzhan who was surely hiding nearby and listening, would come to understand that in time. Even if it felt like things were progressing more slowly and roughly because I had gotten involved…

Since I was walking without any particular goal, it reminded me of that long walk in the forest when I first met Banwes. I sat down for a short rest in the field.

“Sorry, could you block the sunlight a bit? It’s a little too strong.”

Despite the words, my face was anything but apologetic as I said it with ease.

Through the eye holes in his mask, I could see an irritated crease forming under his eyes. He stepped forward a few paces. A generous shadow fell over me.

I nestled into the space between his chest and collarbone and asked softly,

“Nothing wrong with your body?”

Since Bzhan was nearby, I couldn’t directly mention the demon, so I took a long, roundabout approach.

“…You actually care about me? How cute.”

“If something happens to you and I lose my lifeline, I’ll be in trouble too, obviously.”

His mood grew darker, but I wasn’t particularly scared.

If something were really wrong, Banwes would have said so right away—or just blown up. He wasn’t the type to bottle it up and suffer through it.

“Try to hold out as long as you can. You’re sturdier than I am, so you should last much longer, right? Let’s keep ‘that’ to a minimum if we can.”

I said it cheerfully, like clanging metal, and quickly lifted my head. I intentionally avoided looking at Banwes’s scowling face to provoke him even more.

Our walk ended when Penzey came looking for me at the top of the hill. Paronai had met an old woman who lived in a remote house and gathered some information that tied everything together.

About an abandoned grave at the base of the mountain.

“A grave, huh.”

Though small, the village was harmonious and tightly-knit. If there was anything gloomy enough to summon monsters in this seemingly flawless place, it was that grave.

It had existed since before the village was founded, and no one knew who it belonged to. The only one with any knowledge of it now was that old woman.

Penzey cradled his chin with one hand and tapped his cheek with a finger, smiling faintly. The mention of a grave had him visibly excited. Yurichen let out a sigh.

“Are we sure it’s abandoned? No surviving family? No one tending it?”

“She said there wasn’t.”

We all went to see the grave for ourselves.

Unkempt and tangled with weeds and brush, it was a rounded grave clearly left unattended. We confirmed an ominous energy seeping from it.

Penzey placed an arm in front of my chest to keep me from getting closer, his gaze sharp as he stared at the grave.

“We need to dig it up. That’s the only way to find the root of the monster.”

But Penzey’s reasoning—that it was for the villagers’ safety—soon hit a wall made of ice.

“Shut your mouth. If you unearth that coffin, I won’t forgive you. The deceased’s resting place will be purified as is—no digging.”

Banwes crossed his thick, muscular arms. He’d been paying close attention to the argument.

“Blessings are great. Especially if it’s a blessing from Yurichen Viezlin—no higher honor for the people of this village. But even that won’t last forever. Do you think the blessing will hold after you die? After generations pass? As long as that grave remains, the chance it won’t is never zero.”

“None of the places I’ve purified have ever become a problem again. What do you take me for—a fake priest?”

The argument heated up. Paronai glanced anxiously between the two, as if trying to figure out where to step in and intervene.

But from my perspective, there was no need to worry. This conflict was part of the story. Even if something veered slightly off course, I could nudge it back into place.

“Yuri, you’re only twenty-nine. Maybe everything you’ve sanctified has held up so far, but who knows what’ll happen in thirty years?”

“And do you think you’re older than I am?”

…Though I hadn’t expected them to descend into such childish bickering.