Chapter 94: Madame Eight Legs (1)
When Balak's warriors, including Vikir, returned, they found their village in terrible ruins.
The tall trees on which the houses were built were broken and bent.
Naturally, the house itself was also broken, lying low to the ground in a pool of water.
Broken boards, wood chips, and other debris floated in the water.
All of the floating houses that had been built for the rainy season had been destroyed.
The warehouses where weapons, prisoners, and other tools were stored were also destroyed. All that was inside was left outside, useless.
Only the food warehouses, where the dry goods were stored, lay shattered and empty.
" ... What is this?"
Chieftain Aquila looked around in disbelief.
There was no way the village could have been destroyed like this without casualties.
There were bodies floating around everywhere.
Almost all of the warriors had gone to watch the Iliad, so those left in town were mostly children, the elderly, the sick and women who couldn't fight.
There was a minimal guard force left, but they, too, were mostly dead and lying around.
"...."
Vikir came to his senses faster than anyone else, and soon began to realize what had happened.
The first thing that caught Vikir's attention was the air.
A foul, polluted aura hovered over the entire forest beyond Balak's village.
Vikir followed the ominous scent with his hound's keen sense of smell.
Now there were signs of something more sinister.
The muddy water was nearly up to his ankles, making it difficult to see, but when he dipped his hand under the water, he could feel the ugly scars on the ground.
Deep scars in the ground. As if a giant log had once drummed and scraped across them.
There were not one or two of these deep furrows under the water, but a very complex and irregular pattern.
'... at least 80 centimeters wide. Maybe 3 meters long.
What kind of creature could leave tracks this big in a flood?
Vikir could name three or four suspects in his head.
And he keeps finding clues that narrow it down even further.
Goo...
The mucus that hangs over his head.
When Vikir tilted his head, it dripped down past his body and onto the surface.
When he looked up, he saw the sticky, slime hanging like a thread from the half-collapsed, tilted floating house.
Black fur and blackened flesh clung to it with a disgusting odor.
The wood around it was blackened and splintered where it had touched.
It seemed to exude a powerful poison.
Then.
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
A louse approached, breaking through the waters up to my ankles.
Ahhhh. She appeared, gasping for air.
She had managed to hide in a jar of spices during the commotion, and as soon as she saw Vikir, she burst into tears and ran to embrace him.
Vikir patted her back wordlessly, and Ahul sobbed into his neck.
"Madam was here."
At those words, all the warriors behind Vikir stood and froze.
Madame Eight Legs! Terror of the water. The nightmare of enemies and Black Mountain.
Why would she attack a Balak village?
To these questions, Ahul stretched out a finger and answered.
"As soon as Madame reached the village, she destroyed it from there, and then, as if she was taking out her anger on us..."
She pointed to a tall building that was unusually badly broken. It was a house carved out of stone, perched high on a rocky outcropping.
Ahheman's temple.
The moment she pointed to it, the warriors realized.
"You will regret this! You will regret leaving me like this...! ...! ...!"
Ahheman's last words before he died, and the reason he chose to stare at the distant village in his final moments.
Vikir climbed up onto the rocky outcropping and searched through the rubble of a shattered stone building.
It was the temple where Ahheman usually performed his rituals, and unlike the exterior, which was unusually badly damaged, the interior was relatively intact.
Vikir pushed aside the rubble and peered inside.
There was a strange assortment of herbs he didn't recognize, burned to a crisp over time.
The scorched remains of the herbs emitted a strange odor, and tiny insects the size of pinky fingernails swarmed around them, apparently intoxicated by the scent.
Aiyen gritted his teeth.
" It must be the grass that attracts bugs."
"...."
Vikir nodded.
Ahheman had arranged for Madame Eight Legs to come here if he was away for an extended period of time.
Normally, the fire is controlled so that the smell of the burning herbs doesn't spread beyond a certain area, but when there's no one to tend to it, the fire continues to burn the herbs and the strange odor spreads endlessly.
Eventually, the smell is noticed by a madam who lives deep within the jungle.
Ahun pounded his fist on the stone wall.
"Damn it! You've arranged for everyone to die when you're gone! You're insane!"
It's a testament to Ahheman's need for recognition within the Balak tribe.
But his need for recognition was perverse and eventually led to terrible destruction.
Ahun gained a deeper understanding of his grandfather, but also a stronger hatred for him.
But it was too late.
Balak's village was devastated and almost impossible to rebuild.
The good news was that most of the population had gone out to watch the Iliad, and of those who remained in town, most had gone out to gather berries and roots.
This was due to Aiyen's instructions.
To prepare a feast for Vikir if he won the Iliad.
Aquila clenched her fists so tightly that they bled.
"The good news is that there were no casualties. We'll just have to rebuild the village and gather food. These are just floating houses that were hastily built for the rainy season anyway."
Balak's warriors worked diligently to collect the remains of the dead and rescue survivors still in hiding.
Madame consoled herself with the fact that the damage had been so light as to be nothing short of a miracle, considering she had visited the village herself.
Meanwhile.
"...."
Ahun had his head down, deep in frustration.
Vikir tapped him on the shoulder.
Ahun looked back at Vikir and sobbed.
"Vikir. I should have listened to you."
He spoke with anger and understanding.
"If only I had listened to you, when you asked me to finish off Ahheman, if only I had really listened to you..."
" ... It's not your fault."
Vikir turned his head and spoke to all the warriors nearby.
"The real fault lies with the Empire, or more precisely, the Baskervilles."
At that, all the warriors turned their heads.
They all knew that Vikir was originally from the Baskervilles, let alone that the Baskervilles were to blame.
But Vikir had no qualms about speaking.
"The Baskervilles are to blame for the reason that Madame has expanded her living quarters here, and for the reason that she raided Balak's village in a frenzy of hunger."
The Baskervilles had been so aggressive in slaying demons that Madame's prey had become scarce, and she had expanded her hunting grounds.
The natives of Balak were forced to move to the lowlands of the mountains to escape her hunger.
Vikir pinpointed the hatred of the natives of Balak for the Empire.
And the warriors of Balak took a strong liking to Vikir's clear-eyed condemnation of the misdeeds of their former home.
But there was one thing Vikir didn't say.
"It's also because of a policy I set when I was in Baskerville."
At the age of 8, Vikir presented a united front with Morgue and a grand subjugation plan against the enemy and the Black Mountain.
Of course, this was just Hugo's pre-regression knowledge of the plan that was already in place, but it still gives Vikir some responsibility.
So Vikir took this opportunity to repay the Balak warriors for their many favors.
He had fully restored his health, gained strength away from Hugo's watchful eye, gained access to the skills of various magical creatures, learned the archery of the Bowmaster, learned and experienced firsthand the mysterious culture of unknown barbarians, mastered the art of tracking and stalking, and learned various survival skills in the jungle.
What's more, all the barbarian tribes of the Jungle have come to support Vikir, giving him great political influence.
For all this, Vikir looked around for a way to repay them.
Aquila, the Night Fox. The chieftain of the Balak, she was battered and bruised from the fierce war against Adonai.
Aiyen had stepped forward to help Vikir, but a poisoned arrow in his leg had left him with an unnatural gait.
Vikir said.
"The warriors of Balak have never treated Madame poorly."
Everyone turned to look at Vikir's face.
Vikir continued.
"We even honored her just a week ago, and made offerings to her."
Indeed. The Balak have always taken the best parts of their prey and offered them to the Madame's domain.
The same was true for prisoners of war.
"But she raided our lands and killed innocent children, old men, and wolves."
Balak's warriors listened with bated breath.
Finally, Vikir finished, his eyes glowing with dark blood.
"I must now confront her and judge her."
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