The recluse village shared what they had rather than keeping private property.
And because no one knew when something might happen, they had quite a lot stashed away like squirrels hiding acorns.
Storage burrows covered with planks and soil at the entrance, and spaces under tree roots, were revealed.
'It must be good for storage, being able to keep cool even in summer.'
They dug burrows in shaded places where sunlight didn't reach and stored things there.
If you couldn't afford the luxury of keeping things cold with magic tools, you had to squeeze out wisdom.
Even so, summer was approaching, so perishable items were limited.
So, while not as much as in winter, smoked meat and dried fruits he'd never seen before came up plentifully onto the table.
"If we do this, there won't be anything left to eat later."
One of the villagers muttered. Even with things as they were, he had a strong compulsion not to waste.
They had never starved. Call it half luck, but they had been able to gather useful fruits and herbs in the place they settled, and they had opened dealings with traveling merchants.
They hunted animals as needed, and when there was truly nothing else to eat, they refined the meat of magical beasts and ate that.
If you removed the miasma from magical beast meat and didn't care about taste, it still had enough nutrition to survive.
"Do as he says."
The timid man spoke, watching for reactions.
Harkvent, who had been their mouthpiece, kept his lips clamped tight and focused on filling the table.
Their activity level was several times higher than usual.
They had been eating more already, but today was more still.
On the bountiful table, the children's hands moved first. Then everyone else busied themselves eating.
Whatever—just eat first and see. If you die after eating, at least it won't feel unfair.
Well, some had thoughts like that.
And for reasons they didn't know, there was also a vague hope that things would somehow work out.
It was vague only because they didn't know the reason.
Look a little closer and you'd see it was because of Enkrid's attitude.
Unless a man was the sort to lack sense and fill his own belly before worrying about his child going hungry, he could roughly pick up on it.
Harkvent put a piece of smoked pork tenderloin in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. It was so salty it prickled his tongue, so he gulped down water.
'What we did was training.'
What was it in preparation for?
'Training to prepare for fighting magical beasts.'
Of course, someone with a bit of a head might have this doubt:
'Will we be able to fight magical beasts just by doing this?'
Would anything change just because they stood back to back and thrust spears?
Some had given up thinking at some point, but many hadn't.
Harkvent had gotten past the stage where his stomach twinged with anxiety, but that didn't mean he was at ease.
It felt like lying under a roof stacked together with clumsy earth.
If it didn't collapse, it would be a blessing.
It felt like it could cave in any time and bury them alive—but even so, when he saw Enkrid over there, chewing with a child sitting beside him, some of the anxiety lifted.
'An unusual fellow.'
That man had a knack for putting everyone around him at ease.
A single word, a single action, the attitude he showed day to day—those did that.
You could feel a hazy hope because he sat among the villagers, a child at his side, chewing on something.
[* * *]
Enkrid popped a fruit into his mouth, rolled his tongue, and spat the pit with a flick.
The spit-wet pit rolled any which way along the floor.
The fruit's skin was wrinkled and the flesh chewy, with a seed about the size of a thumbnail inside. The taste was sour, sweet, and astringent, yet once you had a bite your hand kept reaching for more.
They were tree fruits aged by some special method.
"It's good, right?"
A child sitting beside him asked. Right next to that child sat Brunhild, sporting a bump in place of a third eye on her forehead.
"It's like plums."
Another bright-looking boy chimed in. When Enkrid stopped Brunhild's rush with a single finger, that boy muttered "that idiot," then stepped up to defend Brunhild.
"She's good with her body, but she hates using her head. And she's so stubborn she can't change direction once she's settled on it. That's the genius Brunhild's flaw. So it's all a misunderstanding."
At most thirteen or fourteen? He had a small frame and thin limbs. He didn't look like he could fight.
"Your name?"
"Eirik."
Enkrid had shoved them into pits and behaved like Krais.
Not a short, decisive battle, but anticipating what lay ahead and preparing for it.
You could say he pressed like Rem and thought like Krais.
"You grouped people of similar builds among those who already lived close together to form formations, right? The goal is to keep them from dying easily. To make them endure, right?"
Eirik had seen through it. A cool breeze blew for summer, ruffling the boy's hair.
His blond was light in tone, reflecting white light.
An interesting kid. Enkrid found the smoked meat too salty, so he tucked it into bread mixed with herbs and chewed, then asked:
"And making them stick with a circular formation with spears instead of shields?"
"Because you want to make them keep distance, since they're to face magical beasts and buy time. A few strong people in between can carry shields. We can name the formation Frightened Hedgehog. Not giving any distance at all is to keep anyone from dying, but if we can't hold, then we'll all die."
"Wouldn't bows or slings be better for that?"
"No. After loosing an arrow, there's a gap while you reload. If stones or arrows were enough to stop them, it wouldn't be this dangerous in the first place."
It was the same blazing light he'd seen in Brunhild's eyes. Water-colored eyes looked straight at Enkrid.
It was like two lakes side by side, gleaming as they reflected the midday sun.
If Enkrid's eyes were a deep blue, these were pale even in color.
Before he could say anything, the child asked:
"Am I wrong?"
He wasn't among the children Brunhild led, and he hadn't stood out among the adults training either.
"You're right."
"I'm relieved."
He'd asked with conviction and then said he was relieved.
No—no, that wasn't it.
He would have truly doubted his own thoughts. Enkrid could tell from having known the man named Krais so long.
'And he was anxious.'
He'd also been worried about the outsider's intentions.
'This is the process of confirming.'
Brunhild stepping forward, and defending the child, would be part of that process too.
It was like seeing Krais in his boyhood. A child whose mind turned differently.
Talent was lopsided. It wasn't fair; it tipped the scales.
So such coincidences occurred.
If Brunhild was born with the talent to use her body, this child's gift was in using his head.
"Memorize the formation by shape. If that wavers, everyone dies."
He had chosen the tactic of not giving distance because giving distance meant it was over.
"What will you do next?"
No matter how clever, a child couldn't imagine what lay beyond his world, so he couldn't even imagine Enkrid's next step.
"Predict and infer. Think it through with your head. Also sort what's necessary."
"If you're thinking of taking us with you—"
The child gauged Enkrid's goodwill. In some ways, such cheekiness could be grating, but Enkrid's vessel wasn't that small.
He hadn't envied Brunhild; he wouldn't harbor malice toward Eirik.
Eirik tried to size up Enkrid's goodwill.
Had he calculated this too?
'No.'
From here on, these were words thrown like a gamble. Words spoken for the village, even at the cost of his own life.
"It won't work. We came all this way saying we'd rather die together than live under someone. We can't abandon what we've built up until now."
They would rather die than live as slaves under a city.
That was their will.
A base, a foundation, a footing, a homestead, a home.
All the same word: their home was here.
For no particular reason, words he'd heard before leaving Zaun surfaced.
"I'm sorry. I'd like to follow, but where I belong is here. That's certain."
"If you asked me to follow as a slave, I would. But if you told me to live as a Riley of Zaun, I wouldn't leave Zaun."
"Can we at least visit later?"
Or had they told him to remain in Zaun instead? Ridiculous fellows.
He understood this child's concern, and he also understood why the man named Harkvent kept glancing at him.
It wasn't because either of them had fallen for him.
Was he trying to make them leave their home? What did he want?
Questions would spin in their heads, linked one to the next; if a single word could have reassured them, he would have gathered the whole village long ago for a speech.
Since it wouldn't, he left it be. Even if it would, it had no meaning and would be a waste of time.
Enkrid patted the boy's head and said:
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
"...Seventeen?"
"Yeah, I'm small for my age, right? The source of my inferiority complex. I've been frail since I was young, so I'm not strong."
"But you're smart."
The last line came from Brunhild.
"I can tell without you saying it. You should listen to her more."
"I do listen. I do, but—"
Brunhild wasn't without sense. Seeing how things were going, the outsider who'd taught her spearwork wasn't acting out of malice.
The night of predation passed. Someone's anxiety and fear still coiled in hearts, but the kind of fear had changed a little.
"Magical beasts!"
Before the two moons vanished, just before dawn, more than fifty magical beasts—wild dogs mixed with wolves—came into the village.
Leaving the traps laid along the front alone, they stared out from within the forest with red eyes and stamped the ground with thick forelegs.
Those holding spears swallowed hard. Before, the murderous intent and the fishy, gamey reek would have made their knees buckle, but not now.
For the last half month, they had kept company with a blade more dangerous than magical beasts.
Enkrid hadn't neglected to jab the backs of those worn out from training, and he'd casually swung a blade right in their faces.
"If you fall, I'll cut you—anywhere. Hold."
To a stranger, it looked like he was set on tormenting people.
But in the end, everyone he did it to had hardened their guts.
Even facing magical beasts, their legs no longer trembled like before.
"Begin."
Seeing the pack, Harkvent shouted.
"Ha!"
With a kiai, they gathered by tens and drew circles. A ring of people in formation, spears leveled, faced the pack.
It was a circle wrapping the outside, with those who couldn't fight kept in the center.
Standing at that center, Eirik skimmed the surroundings.
'Hold.'
He understood the outsider's intent. But he didn't know the reason.
'A pervert?'
To watch people thrash and struggle and then die? To torment and kill them? To finish off the survivors with his own sword?
All sorts of imaginings came, but the weak had no options.
They could only struggle to survive.
The outsider had raised the power of the group, not of individuals.
'Not matching the exceptional, but setting the inferior as baseline and making them move as one.'
Eirik saw it exactly. He was right. An army exerted strength when the unit moved as one.
"Rotate!"
"Ha!"
They'd been driven to the limit and most suffered muscle aches, yet their minds were clearer than ever.
Bark!
Four wild dogs approached the ring.
Those holding spears knew exactly how to thrust.
Two hands on the shaft, marking the space the beasts came into like plotting points.
What they lacked, Brunhild went around and taught them more. Naturally, that was Enkrid's order.
Only now did the adults realize Brunhild had a different talent from other children.
Defense was done by the person next to you. They thrust out their long spears and blocked the beasts' approach. Extending left and right at precise intervals and speed, the spears became a hedgehog's spines.
Bark! Bark! Yelp!
Compared to magical creatures, the hides of magical beasts were soft. With a few exceptional specimens aside, they could handle them.
All the more if the goal was to endure rather than to kill—this was enough.
'All right, then.'
From atop a tree, Enkrid watched them hold. They wouldn't be dying easily anymore.
In midair, the Ferryman's phantom appeared and spoke.
"Cunning brat."
Cunning? This was called superior tactics.
The Valen-style Mercenary Sword—the tactical form of Feigning Defeat.
Feigning Defeat was a peculiar technique. While truly being pushed back, your ally smacked the back of the enemy in front of you.
Thinking of others' help was precisely the Valen-style Mercenary Sword.
Many belittled it for knowing only a few such techniques, but anyone who understood the meaning contained in the sword wouldn't do so.
'The phantom sword is practically tactical swordsmanship.'
Enkrid had already mastered the phantom sword to a high level.
The problem was that whatever the style, you needed power to use it.
A piece of iron only had meaning when someone gripped and swung it.
From the tree, Enkrid honed the edge of his senses.
Then, after a while, he leaped down and killed and drove the beasts away.
"Huaa, huaa, hu, hooo, oo."
Everyone's breathing was rough, but no one died. To be exact, not a single injury. They had held well.
"We rest today."
Enkrid said. It was practice like the real thing. With him watching, you could call it practice. Once was enough for real combat.
"Waaah!"
A cheer burst out that hadn't when they'd lived on another's hand.
A life held in one's own hands was this precious.