WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Order

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◈ Paladin of a Ruined Order

Chapter 77

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Third Try

"...What?"

What Niserath had just said left Elbridge and the others stunned.

Niserath spoke on proudly.

"Do you know what grafting is?"

"...I think I've heard of it."

"You shave a bit off the stems of two plants and hold them together just right, and you get something in between the two. It's similar to that. About four or five hundred years ago, I saw a demonic beast that looked like a wild boar and thought, with a little luck, I could graft this."

Bireone's guess that the wild boar was a hybrid of beast and demonic beast had been exactly right.

The problem was that it hadn't happened naturally. The elf standing in front of them had made it happen.

"So first I subdued the demonic beast and tied it up good and tight. I was wondering what to do next, but the boar sow showed interest first, surprisingly enough. And the result... ta-da! The very first wild boars were born!"

Niserath told the story as if expecting some kind of reaction from Elbridge and the others.

But their faces had gone rigid.

Not long ago, they might have been impressed.

The three of them had seen the devastation the wild boars had wrought.

They had seen wild boars tear down castles and cities and trample people underfoot, had seen countless people die.

They had seen the God of Flowing Water descend to protect people from the stampede, and turn into a demon in the process.

Bireone had said it himself. Of all the demonic beasts in the south, none had killed more people than the wild boar.

That much, they could understand.

But that so many people had died over the past several hundred years because of one deranged elf's whim was something they simply couldn't accept.

Elbridge rose to his feet and gripped his sword's hilt.

"What in the world are you..."

Elbridge believed a paladin's role was to fight demons, and he rarely pointed a weapon at a person.

But even by his own standards, what Niserath had done was a crime that death itself couldn't wash clean.

Marcus and Rombel reacted just as harshly. Both of them gripped their weapons too.

But at that moment, the Goddess of the Rusted Shield issued an oracle.

- Elbridge. Wait.

Elbridge froze at the sudden oracle, and Niserath let out a regretful sigh.

"Right. Well... I figured as much."

Clap.

Niserath's hands clapped together. Complex sigils lit up across the floor and walls of the cabin, glowing with light.

Wrapped in that light, Elbridge's body began to go stiff.

'A trap!'

Unlike ordinary spells, which take time to activate, a magic circle triggers instantly the moment its trigger condition is met. From the moment they'd stepped into this cabin, they'd already been caught.

"Godd... Goddess!"

His life was in danger. As Elbridge struggled to pray to his goddess, Niserath scooped him up and carried him toward the door.

Creak—

Niserath opened the door and threw Elbridge outside.

Thud—

Elbridge tumbled across the ground, stiff as a plank of wood. Rombel and Marcus were thrown out after him.

That was all. Niserath didn't kill the three of them, simply turning to go back inside the cabin.

Rombel, apparently stung with pride, forced his stiffened tongue to move and managed to speak.

"You're not... going to kill us?"

Niserath answered with a bitter smile.

"A host isn't supposed to harm her guests."

Thump.

The door closed.

"..."

The three of them waited for the spell to wear off, then struggled to their feet.

Countless wild boars surrounded them, but none attacked. They only wandered close now and then to sniff at them before wandering off again.

Rombel worked his jaw slowly, still speaking with a slight slur.

"So. What now?"

Go back inside and try to subdue Niserath, or turn back as they were?

Elbridge thought it over for a moment, then shook his head.

Whatever her intentions, Niserath had spared them when she could easily have killed them.

And the fact that the Goddess of the Rusted Shield had issued an oracle weighed on his mind. Careless as she could be, the goddess never held Elbridge back without a reason.

"...Let's head back for now."

That night, Elbridge lay in bed and prayed to his goddess.

"Goddess. Why did you stop me?"

Truthfully, even without her intervention, the odds had been against them.

How could they hope to subdue a mage while already caught in that mage's web? But Elbridge didn't want to admit that. And the fact remained, her intervention was the reason he hadn't managed to do anything at all.

- Elbridge. Niserath is not simply an eccentric.

"You know her?"

- Few gods in heaven don't know of Niserath.

"Goddess. Is creating the wild boars really that great an achievement?"

- That is not the reason. But I do not know if I am permitted to speak of Niserath's history...

The Goddess of the Rusted Shield wouldn't say anything precise about Niserath.

But Elbridge didn't miss that the goddess's very reticence was a clue in itself.

Gods couldn't freely spread stories of heaven to beings on the ground.

But there was no particular restriction on passing along stories from the ground to other beings on the ground.

'So Niserath is connected to heaven somehow, then...'

The Goddess of the Rusted Shield gave Elbridge one last oracle.

- Whatever else, I would strongly advise against clashing with Niserath. Elbridge.

"Understood, Goddess."

But Elbridge felt a small flicker of curiosity stir at her oracle.

The next morning, at dawn, Elbridge woke and stepped outside right away.

Under the still-dim sky, he looked toward the direction where the cabin had stood the day before.

'Huh?'

And he noticed something.

The wild boars, which had simply been milling around the day before, were now moving, very slowly, in one direction.

He remembered what Rombel had said the previous day.

'She said she'd send the wild boars somewhere else once the sun rose today. That would wrap up the job in one stroke.'

As Elbridge stood watching the wild boars blankly, Masa came over and spoke to him.

"You're up early. The bed wasn't uncomfortable, was it?"

"No. I slept fine."

"The wild boars seem to be moving, just now... Did you solve the problem yesterday?"

Elbridge and the others hadn't told Masa what had happened with Niserath the day before.

But it wasn't really a situation he could confidently call solved.

'Well... Rombel did talk with Niserath, so maybe the problem is handled, in a sense...'

Elbridge let out a long sigh.

"...Who knows."

The situation had more or less wrapped up, but Elbridge's mind wasn't at ease.

Separate from whether the problem was solved, he felt he needed to know more about Niserath.

Elbridge asked Masa,

"Masa."

"Yes?"

"What do you think of the wild boars?"

"Just looking at them worries me. They cause no end of trouble."

"Was it like this before too? Before the wild boars gathered here?"

Masa shrugged.

"I've seen them since I was little, so I'm used to them and don't think much of it. But if you press me on it... it's not good. They make me uneasy, they stink. They keep digging up the ground and ruining the crops. The Great Forest would be a much nicer place to live without them."

"I see."

Just as expected. To the people of the south, the wild boars were a thorn in their side.

Just as Bireone, and every other southerner, had said.

"I'll go take a look around outside for a bit."

"Go ahead!"

Leaving the cheerful Masa behind, Elbridge crossed the palisade and walked through the wild boars, thinking.

'Why did Niserath make the wild boars in the first place?'

It was a question that hadn't occurred to him back in the cabin the day before.

Had Niserath made the wild boars out of simple whim, or for fun?

After passing tens of thousands of wild boars with his eyes, Elbridge spotted an elf riding atop one.

Niserath was there.

Elbridge tensed a little.

A magic circle wasn't likely to spring out this time, but as far as Elbridge could tell, Niserath was quite a skilled mage. What would happen if she showed hostility?

'I think I could handle Niserath alone. But if the wild boars turn hostile too...'

But Niserath, on spotting Elbridge, reacted differently than he expected.

"Sleep well?"

Even though they hadn't parted on the best terms the day before, Niserath looked at Elbridge with that same refreshing smile as always.

There was only one emotion in that voice. Gladness.

Elbridge thought.

When he'd woken from his seal, had he greeted people with a voice like that too?

Niserath spoke to him.

"Elbridge. I felt like I'd heard your name somewhere... it came back to me just now. You're the one sealed with the Archdemon, aren't you?"

"That's right."

Hearing himself called "the one" made him want to laugh, somehow.

It reminded him all over again just how old this elf really was.

"Elbridge. You must have gone through a lot too. In more ways than one."

"It wasn't easy."

The mood didn't feel like it was heading toward a fight.

Elbridge hopped up onto a wild boar next to Niserath's.

The boar's coarse bristles made for a rather uncomfortable ride.

"Niserath. There's a question that came to me last night."

"What is it?"

"Why did you make the wild boars?"

Niserath laughed at that.

"You know what? In the past three hundred-some years, you're the first person to ask me that."

"So you didn't just make them for fun, then."

"That's right. The south needed the wild boars, so I made them."

Niserath stroked the wild boar's fur, the way one might pet a dog.

"Elbridge. Why do you think there are no demons in the south?"

"...I couldn't say."

Even two hundred years ago, the Great Forest of the south had been famous as a land without demons.

But the absence of demons hadn't made life easy for the people of the south. Instead of demons, they'd had to fight demonic beasts, and the harsh wilderness itself.

"Actually, it's not that there were never demons in the south. These guys pushed every last one of them out."

"The wild boars pushed out the demons?"

That doesn't make sense, was his first thought.

But then he realized it was entirely possible. If tens or hundreds of thousands of wild boars charged at once, no demon without some special power could withstand that.

"Before you were even born. Long ago, the south was in far worse shape. People had to fight demonic beasts and nature and demons, all at the same time. Human strength alone couldn't overcome any of it. Watching that, I thought to myself. If people can't defeat demons, couldn't demonic beasts drive the demons out instead?"

It sounded like nonsense.

Demonic beasts were, in a sense, byproducts of demons, and obeyed them completely.

But a wild boar, a creature mixed from demonic beast and animal both...

Elbridge's eyes went wide, and Niserath smiled.

"Quick on the uptake. I decided to use the wild boars to drive the demons out. And the idea worked. It took decades for their numbers to grow enough, but it worked. Back in those days, people used to call the wild boars a blessing sent down by the Chief God."

Elbridge answered,

"Not exactly the case now, though."

"Of course not. People who don't even remember the demons anymore, why would they have any reason to be grateful to the wild boars, or to me?"

"..."

Something deep in his chest tightened, for some reason.

Wasn't that exactly why he couldn't tell people the whole truth, why he had to pass himself off as his own descendant?

The wild boars, once a blessing, now an eyesore in a world without demons.

And himself, the first to be suspected in a world where demons had vanished.

"Elbridge. Why do you think the wild boars follow me?"

"...Probably because you made the first ones."

Niserath shook her head, no.

"No. It's because I'm the only one who loves them. These creatures can tell, uncannily well, whether someone likes them or hates them. Try petting one of them gently."

Elbridge gently stroked the wild boar he was riding.

The boar let out a small, contented sound. Grrrk.

Elbridge murmured, almost without meaning to.

"So that's how it is..."

"Yeah. That's how it is."

Niserath murmured that, then wore an expression turned sad and wistful.

An elf's natural beauty meant that even an expression like that became a striking picture all on its own.

Even now, riding a wild boar of all things, Niserath somehow looked more impressive than a knight mounted on a white horse.

Niserath finished her story in a voice that sounded almost like singing, almost like reciting a poem.

"After being hated so unfairly, I was chosen by the Chief God three separate times, and I lost the vote in heaven all three times. That's why I never became a god. Can you imagine how unfair that feels, Elbridge?"

"..."

Niserath's story had suddenly leaped ahead.

Elbridge thought that Niserath had clearly left out a great deal that mattered.

Whatever she read into his reaction, Niserath laughed cheerfully.

"Ha. Don't worry. The Goddess of the Rusted Shield didn't vote against me."

Elbridge finally understood the meaning behind what Niserath had called "passing" the day before.

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