WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Wandering Knight and the Moving Castle ◈
Chapter 46: Monsters and Pirates (3)
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The next morning, as Eugene busied himself with preparations to depart, the guard captain who had scouted the area gave his report.
“The road is safe, but when we visited the site of the battle with the Gnolls, there was nothing left but bones. And it’s only been a day.”
“Village chief, tell the villagers what you just heard. No matter how much we warn them, some will still try to go in. This should make them reconsider.”
“I’ll make sure nothing like yesterday happens again.”
The village chief bowed deeply.
“I also asked around among the villagers who entered the forest, but none of them saw any medium-sized monsters worth noting.”
“That figures. If they had gone farther than the outskirts, they wouldn’t have returned alive.”
Eugene had ordered the village chief to gather information, but he did not expect much.
“The pirates will attack again soon. They’ll want to plunder as many villages as possible during the autumn harvest.”
“And the monsters will grow even more vicious from hunger once winter comes. We can’t fight in winter, so this is our only chance.”
The knights seemed eager to deal with the monsters quickly, then prepare for the pirates.
Eugene felt the same. If they wandered the forest in winter, people would start losing fingers and toes to frostbite.
* * *
The expedition force set out in grand fashion, including numerous heavily armored soldiers and hunters to guide them through the forest.
“Even with magic, it’ll be faster to spread out like a net and search.”
At Varda’s request, Eugene divided the force into three groups.
The first group consisted of Eugene’s original party. The two Richwood knights, along with mercenaries sent by House Morad, formed the second and third groups.
“The moment you find any monster, sound the horn. Do not forget that this subjugation campaign is only a preliminary battle. We must also prepare for pirates coming down the river, so conserve your forces.”
“Leave it to us! We’ll make this subjugation campaign a success!”
“We won’t disappoint you, sir!”
The knights’ booming answers made Eugene’s stomach ache. Not one of them said they would sound the horn. All they spoke of was success and not disappointing him.
Their faces burned with the desire for glory, and their determination to achieve something was plain to see. As knights, this was separate from their admiration for Eugene.
“Will they be all right? Their desire for glory may lead them into a reckless fight.”
Perhaps she had seen it many times before, Varda watched the place where the knights had disappeared with concern.
“They’ll manage. We can’t tighten the reins any further when knights are setting out honorably to protect their fief.”
Eugene had been given authority over the subjugation campaign, but he had not even sworn loyalty. Trying to control them any more than this would violate the courtesy expected between knights.
“What do you think we’re dealing with, Lady Varda?”
“The possibilities are too broad to say. It could be one powerful monster, or several moderately dangerous monsters moving as a pack.”
“Moderately dangerous?”
“Like a pack of wolves led by a Warg, such as the one you encountered.”
A single Warg was not enough to threaten the entire forest. But if a truly powerful one led several wolf packs, it might barely be possible.
“Sometimes, when two or three are born in the same litter, the siblings form an alliance and travel together.”
“You mean Wargs?!”
“I don’t even want to imagine it.”
The mercenaries shuddered as if they had heard something horrible.
There had never been any trolls or ogres found in this forest. The records mentioned only monsters between small and medium-sized, creatures a knight could kill while commanding a number of mercenaries.
Eugene’s group drove off a pack of wolves they encountered and destroyed a small Orc settlement.
“How are we supposed to search all of this?”
“At least it isn’t a mountain. Walking through a forest is better than climbing one, right? It’s neither hot nor cold in autumn.”
Around then, Varda’s magical skill and a stroke of luck came together. She found the tyrant disturbing the forest.
Snort!
Pffft!
A peach-colored medium-sized monster moved below them, snorting roughly.
“Bugbear...”
Unlike the startled mercenary captain, Eugene looked intrigued.
“So that’s what one looks like. I was curious after receiving a letter from some noble asking me to kill one.”
“A request like that would suit a knight of your skill. Did you refuse it?”
“It was a debt-ridden baron who commissioned the job, intending to stiff me. I nearly worked for free, then got chased away afterward.”
“Pfft. So even you can be taken in if you’re not careful.”
Despite the battle ahead, the mercenaries let out quiet laughs at their shared misfortune.
Snort!
The Bugbear stood two heads taller than an ordinary person, and its arms and legs were thicker than the Wendigo’s. Yet unlike the muscular Wendigo, it looked sluggish beneath all the excess fat covering its body.
“Is it strong?”
Varda shook her head at Eugene’s question.
“It is near the bottom among medium-sized monsters. It is strong but slow, and its fat makes blades and arrows hard to drive in. But unlike a troll, it has no regenerative ability.”
The mercenaries were tense, but they did not look frightened.
“The mage is right. If things go badly, we can always run away from it. Still, quite a few knights die fighting Bugbears head-on.”
There was one more trait of the Bugbear that could not be ignored.
“You must be careful, sir. They are fairly intelligent and tend to pick up tree trunks that can serve as shields.”
The Bugbear they had found was holding a shield as well. Despite its low standing among medium-sized monsters, that shield was why knights could not afford to lower their guard.
“So we only need to manage the distance. We’ll deal with it immediately. I’ll face it from the front, while the rest of you stay back and harass it from range.”
It was the back of a knight who always stepped forward to reduce his subordinates’ losses. Though they were all older than Eugene, they felt the same sense of security they had once felt from their fathers as children.
The feeling of being protected.
It was far too unfamiliar for mercenaries.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
A village hunter asked Eugene as he prepared to go out alone.
“Bugbears are monsters knights hate. If you fight one alone, all your favorite weapons will end up covered in lard.”
A Bugbear offered nothing worth taking from its corpse, yet the fight was dirty and dangerous.
“It’s fine. I plan to beat it to death.”
“Pardon?”
The hunter asked again with a baffled expression. The mercenaries, on the other hand, looked at the Bugbear with pity, as if they could already foresee its future.
* * *
Pwooo!
At the horn sounding in the distance, the Richwood knights who had spread out to search were impressed.
‘As expected of such a great mage. She’s found something already.’
‘So it was no rumor that she sees a vast forest as clearly as the palm of her hand.’
Nobles sought mages for many reasons, but the greatest reason was war.
Yet powerful destructive magic came with severe backlash and was difficult to control. At times, magic that ran wild even harmed a lord’s own army.
That was why forest magic was always in demand. It carried no risk of running wild, benefited the operation of an army, and had many uses in peacetime as well.
“I admit Sir Eugene is impressive, but we can’t just sit back and watch!”
“Everyone, follow me!”
By the time the two knights arrived from their respective directions, the situation had unfortunately already ended.
“A Bugbear!”
“So that was the culprit.”
The mercenaries shouted at the dead medium-sized monster lying there with its eyes rolled back.
“Sir Eugene left in that direction.”
The hunter, who had tracked the group’s trail, pointed out where they should go.
“I’ve never seen a Bugbear before.”
“Neither have I.”
The two knights were now in their late twenties and had spent their lives in Richwood, so they lacked experience of the wider world. The older mercenaries knew more about monsters.
“Are these things normally blue? I heard they were peach-colored.”
One knight asked an old mercenary.
The Bugbear before them was bluish all over, as if someone had painted its body blue.
“There are regional differences, but they are normally peach-colored. In places with strong sunlight, their skin tans brown. This one is simply...”
The mercenary hesitated before speaking.
“I think it was hit so many times that its whole body is bruised.”
“What?”
Both the mercenary who said it and the knight who heard it stood there with blank expressions.
* * *
The most vivid memory Eugene’s mercenaries had was of the fight against the Wendigo. They could never forget him severing its thick arm in one blow, or skewering two bandits with a thrown spear.
But the longer they followed Eugene, the more those memories of swords and spears faded into the background.
“We found another one. Good work, Homi.”
Eugene praised his Squire as he spotted a second Bugbear in the distance. Her sense of smell had been a great help, apart from the guidance of magic.
Bugbears marked their territory with urine and had a powerful body odor. After magic narrowed down the area, Homi’s nose reduced the search range in no time.
He wanted to pat adorable Homi on the head, but she was now a proper Squire. He had to preserve her dignity in front of the mercenaries.
Clank.
Eugene raised his long-handled flail and charged, with the mercenaries following behind him.
“Just use ranged attacks as before. Those with melee weapons should keep a wide encirclement and only harass it. If it charges, you may retreat from your positions.”
“Yes, sir!”
Even in the face of a sudden ambush, the Bugbear calmly picked up its shield and club. It smiled hungrily, without the slightest sign of panic.
“Horse meat. Woman meat. Delicious...”
Boom!
The clumsy words it spoke while swallowing drool immediately turned into a scream.
Thump!
Boom!
The sound of leather sacks bursting rang loudly through the forest.
“Th-th-that!”
The hunter who had come with them stared in shock at the sight, one he could not get used to even the second time. The large peach-colored monster was being dyed blue in real time.
Groooar!
The Bugbear swung its club in terrible pain, but it meant nothing. Compared to Eugene’s massive long-handled flail, the difference in range and speed was far too great.
Whoosh!
Thunk!
Graaah!
Bolts fired by Homi and the mercenaries lodged in its wobbling chest and belly, causing yellowish fat to ooze out.
“Ugh! Gross.”
“Why is there no blood, only oil pouring out?”
“There’s blood where the Squire hit it.”
“Compared to her crossbow, ours are toys.”
The Bugbear could understand human speech, and it grew furious. Normally, these people would be sobbing and fleeing from its charge. Instead, they were joking around as they hurt it.
Yet it could not even lower the oak shield from over its head, let alone punish them.
Whoooosh!
It knew that if it exposed a vital point to the weapon swung by the monstrous knight before it, it would die instantly.
Eugene did not care. The Bugbear had so much flesh that there was no shortage of places to hit.
Boom!
“Come on! Lower your arm already!”
“Rather than suffer for nothing, why not let us put you out of your misery in one hit?”
The mercenaries shouted at the blue Bugbear as it wailed. It was mostly mockery, but there was a hint of sympathy mixed in.
Grrroooar!
The Bugbear was in so much pain, both physically and in wounded pride, that it felt ready to leap out of its skin.
Thoom!
The iron bar struck its abdomen, and its belly rippled in a circle, like a stone dropped into a still lake.
Unable to bear the pain any longer, it lowered the shield covering its head. Eugene reacted immediately.
Crack!
The long-handled flail shattered its forehead and brought death to the Bugbear.
“Perhaps because of all its fat, it takes hits better than I expected. It feels great to hit.”
Eugene spoke as he spun the iron bar in his grip.
He was not the type to enjoy killing, nor did he have any interest in hunting. Still, beating Bugbears to death gave him a strange sense of satisfaction.
“Bugbears are classified as dangerous monsters because of their shields and endurance.”
Varda looked as though she had witnessed something fascinating in Eugene’s crude but efficient hunting method.
“Sir Eugene! We came to support...”
“We’re late again.”
The knights who rushed over after hearing the horn had missed their chance to fight again. All they found was a Bugbear bruised blue, its head smashed open.
“There aren’t even any bloodstains, let alone mercenary corpses.”
“It looks like he just beat it to death and moved on.”
The mercenaries could not believe the battle site was so clean. Bugbears might be easy opponents among medium-sized monsters, but to mercenaries, they were no different from grim reapers.
If there was only one knight, mercenaries had to distract the monster from the sides and rear. In the process, there was no way some would not die or be injured.
Pwooo!
At the third horn blast, the knights set their faces with resolve. This time, they would definitely arrive in time.
Their wish came true.
“What is this...?”
Still, even though they joined the group midway, the knights could only watch blankly, unable to work up the nerve to intervene.
Boom!
Thump!
They watched a Bugbear’s whole body being crushed by Eugene’s joyous whirlwind of blows.
“Sorry I couldn’t share the honor. It charged at me so aggressively.”
“It’s all right, sir.”
The knights could not say anything to Eugene as he smiled with the long-handled flail resting on his shoulder.
“I’ll leave that one to you.”
“Oh!”
Eugene pointed at the Bugbear nest.
There was a female Bugbear there, her belly swollen with pregnancy. Skulls of every kind of beast and monster living in the forest lay scattered around her.
“Judging from the traces, it seems the Bugbears really were the ones disturbing the forest. They collected the skulls of everything that used to live in this area.”
The hunter spoke with certainty.
There were four Bugbears, and one of them was pregnant, so it made sense that they had been turning the forest upside down in search of food.
“She keeps three males. Do Bugbears have a one-wife, many-husbands society?”
“I don’t know that much. This is my first time seeing such a case as well. Perhaps that female was simply that attractive?”
“...”
While Eugene and Varda spoke, the knights charged. It was a matter of knightly pride that they could not let the subjugation campaign end without killing even one monster.
The female was smaller, and she was heavily pregnant. Unable to offer much resistance, she was attacked from all sides and turned into a lump of meat.
“There is nothing else within reach of my magic.”
At Varda’s words, the mercenaries cheered. They had expected a long, exhausting campaign, but it had ended far more easily than expected.
Footnotes:
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