Volume 3, Chapter 2 – Beginning of an Adventure Part 3
The giant creature that Yasuo had arbitrarily named 『scelephant』 had left a rough trail of sorts in its wake, and Yasuo was carefully following its tracks while pulling Shouko along by her hand.
Against the heavy rains that fell in the woodlands, both Yasuo’s compact folding umbrella and Shouko’s emergency waterproof poncho were barely of any use.
Both Yasuo and Shouko had decided to quickly change into clothes that would not stand out, so they were wearing regular sneakers, and shirts and sweatshirts made of thin cloth.
It did not seem to be winter in this region, but their sodden clothes weighed them down and were unpleasantly cold.
“Ah, woah!”
“Yasu-kun!”
Yasuo accidentally stepped into a puddle formed in one of the footsteps of the scelephant, and sank down to his ankle in the mud.
“Ah, geez, this is depressing.”
“Be more careful, okay?”
The two of them smiled wryly at each other, but they still had plenty of stamina left.
“This was probably a good thing. After walking so much, I had started to let my guard down… Oof.”
Yasuo pulled his foot out of the mud with a dull sound.
“How long has it been since we started walking?”
“I dunno, probably an hour and a half, I think.”
Luckily for them, the ground had been fairly even so far.
At the very least, since they were not in a mountainous region with large differences in elevation, they did not need to watch out for avalanches or landslides, and walking up and down hills would be far more tiring than walking on even ground.
Even when they had to relieve themselves, on even ground it was possible to avoid getting into a situation where they lost track of where the other person was, and since they were unable to find any more vines to lengthen the one they already had, they had to go behind a tree that was just barely out of sight from the other person.
“Really… this is just the worst…”
Shouko didn’t really want to grumble, but as a person who lived in modern day Japan, she had absolutely no interest in having the experience of relieving herself in the open and moreover having to dispose of the waste herself, unless she was staying at a secured campsite or something.
“How much longer do you want to follow this game trail for?”
“I would like to keep following it until we discover a clue of some sort, or run into an obstacle.”
“Or unless we find a safe place to hide, right, I wonder if Scelephant-kun is really not dangerous.”
“There’s no such thing as a wild animal that is not dangerous. By the way, I remember hearing about this in biology class a long time ago, but do you know which mammal in the wild is known for causing the most harm to humans?”
“I remember hearing about that. Hippos, right?”
“Correct.”
The hippopotamus was popular among the Japanese for it’s comical and endearing appearance, but the personality of hippos in the wild could be summed up in a single word: ferocious.
They would not forgive any intruder in their territory, even if it happened to be another hippo.
On land, they could reach speeds of up to forty kilometers per hour. Not only could they also swim fast enough to catch up to mediocre motorboats, they were also capable of crushing intruders in their symbolic jaws or just squashing them using their enormous bodies. It was said that nearly three thousand people were killed each year in Africa by hippo attacks.
Even elephants that were said to like humans and have a gentle personality were starting to become a problem in Southeast Asia, where the number of wild elephant attacks on vehicles and settlements had increased in recent years, and that alone served as a perfect example of why it was better to quickly abandon thoughts such as 『herbivores are harmless』.
“That being the case, I’d rather not get too close, and I think it would be dangerous if there’s a whole herd of those things out there.”
“What are you planning to do if that thing just goes back to its lair or something?”
“……We would have no choice but to turn back, I guess.”
Yasuo looked back at the game trail that they had been following until now.
“As long as it keeps raining, I think we can run away and avoid being discovered even if we run into a herd of them.”
“I hope we can make it out of the forest before it stops raining.”
“That’s right… But I’d rather find a place where we can sleep safely for a while.”
Feline carnivores like lions and tigers were better at climbing trees than most people would think, and large herbivores like giraffes and wildebeest were very territorial and aggressive.
Moreover, sleeping out in the open in another world where they didn’t have any idea of what the ecosystem was like was tantamount to suicide.
“I get it now, though. I thought that if the weather was clear, we would be able to tell the direction from the sun, and be able to judge the distance once we get out of the forest, but it looks like rain has its uses as well.”
“Distance?”
“Yeah. Even though Ante Lande is a different world, neither Diana-san nor Khalija-san said anything about finding it noticeably easier or harder to move after coming to Japan, right?”
“Yeah, I guess so…”
“So I thought that Ante Lande might be a planet with a mass similar to that of Earth.”
“Planet?”
“What, did you think it was a flat disk supported on the backs of elephants and a turtle?”
“Where did that idea originate from, again?”
“Indian mythology.”
Shouko’s sigh was visible as a white mist, and she wiped the water dripping down her bangs and looked up at the sky.
“I noticed the surroundings slowly getting darker after I met up with you, Yasu-kun. That means that there is a sun in the sky that is moving, right? Or rather, it is the planet that we are standing on that is moving. Moreover, the soil, trees, rain, and gravity feel basically the same as what you would find on Earth, and the differences, if any, are negligible. Which means that we can safely assume that the planet’s diameter, mass, composition, distance from the sun, main components of the atmosphere, and speed of revolution are not very different from the Earth. Actually, it makes me think that this other world might be just one of several dimensions that overlap on top of the planet Earth. Ah, when I say ‘dimension,’ I don’t mean like 3D or 4D, but in the context of parallel worlds, okay?”
“R-Right…”
Although Yasuo said that he understood, in truth he was struggling to keep up and didn’t really get what Shouko was talking about.
“I’m 152 centimeters tall, and my eyesight is probably at around 142 centimeters above the ground. If we assume that the radius of Ante Lande is the same as that of the Earth, which is, umm, about 6370 kilometers… Let’s see, it’s like this, and this, and that, so… If we were standing at a spot that was close to sea level and could see the horizon, that means that whatever is on the other side of the horizon is hidden by the curvature of the planet, right? So we can conclude that everything around us which is visible must be within 4.5 kilometers from where we are standing.”
“U-Umm, why is that?”
“It’s a simple application of the Pythagorean theorem. This is like middle school math, you know?”
“Ugh.”
For Yasuo, who had decided a long time ago that he would be taking exams for the liberal arts course, this was a phrase that he had not heard for a while.
Of course, even Yasuo remembered that it was a formula by which you could find the length of one of the sides of a right-angled triangle if you knew the lengths of the other two sides.
However, his memories on how exactly to apply that formula had become fairly vague, and besides, there was too much difference in the units used to measure Shouko’s height and the radius of the planet, and he had not memorized the value of the Earth’s radius in the first place.
“Well, it would depend on the elevation of the area that we are in right now, but even after walking for so long I am not particularly out of breath and my head is clear, so I assume that this place is pretty close to sea level.”
Shouko was probably talking about how neither of them were exhibiting signs of altitude sickness.
If they were at a high altitude, then the amount of oxygen carried by the bloodstream to the body would be reduced, which would cause problems in various parts of the body.
“In my case, this thing might be be affecting me in some way, but that’s not the same for you, right, Yasu-kun?”
Shouko smiled while pointing to the flames of the Shii in her left eye.
“Besides, it would be nice to know what direction we are traveling in as well.”
“My wristwatch is analog, so can’t we use that find out?”
“Ah, that thing about aligning the short hand with the sun?”
“Yeah, that.”
Yasuo remembered reading in a detective novel that there was a method to tell which way was north without using a magnetic compass, but Shouko shook her head.
“I don’t think it’ll work. We don’t know if we are in the northern hemisphere or the southern hemisphere. If we are in the southern hemisphere, the method to do that is different, you know.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Also, there are very few places where that method will show the true north, because of differences in seasons or latitude. There’s also the method of using the Big Dipper and the Pole Star, but even that depends upon your current location. In the first place, it is necessary for the sun to cross the meridian at noon to use that method, but even in Japan, the further you get from Akashi in the Hyogo Prefecture where the sun accurately crosses the meridian at noon, the more your results will be skewed.”
“Wow, you really know your stuff.”
“I heard about it in Earth Sciences class.”
“Oh, so Sayamazawa high school has Earth sciences courses? Our school doesn’t. When it comes to sciences, at our school we basically have a choice between either Physics or Chemistry, and Biology isn’t given much importance at all.”
“Well, it’s true that a lot of people pick those subjects for their college entrance exams, after all.”
At that point, Yasuo suddenly showed a strange expression.
“……To think that we would be talking about exams even after coming to another world.”
“Well, we both have college entrance exams this year, after all. Strictly speaking, we shouldn’t have the free time to be worrying about things like Heros or the Shii. Even if you call it a hiking date, I wasn’t looking for this sort of thrill.”
“A hiking date? What the heck.”
“I can’t keep going if I don’t think of it in that way.”
Certainly, the current situation was that they were in another world that they knew nothing about, with no one to rely upon and insufficient preparations, and moreover they were risking their lives to secretly stalk a mysterious giant creature while being stranded in that place.
Despite having said that herself, Shouko suddenly looked embarrassed, and she strengthened her grip on Yasuo’s hand while slightly pressing down on her left eye.
“B-By the way, there’s that thing where people stuck in snowy mountains warm each other up with their body heat, right?”
“Huh!?”
“If you actually tried that, heat would escape from the portions of the bodies that were not in contact with each other and you would immediately get hypothermia, so don’t get any strange ideas, okay?”
“O-Of course I won’t! So you shouldn’t be saying strange things like that as well!”
“You have no right to talk, do you have any idea how many strange things you said to me before bringing me to Ante Lande?”
“Ugh… Umm, that is… Sorry, actually after that…”
“Diana-san got mad at you?”
“……Looks like you’ve seen through the whole thing.”
“If you ever give me a favourable answer, Yasu-kun, you should know that you will not be able to hide any cheating from me.”
“T-That is…”
Despite the current situation, or perhaps it was exactly because of their current situation.
Yasuo and Shouko were getting heated up while talking about the most commonplace topics.
It was true that they weren’t facing any trouble in tracking the scelephant, but more importantly, their own mental states were causing them to act that way.
They were both so anxious that they were desperate to encourage each other and be encouraged in turn by talking about commonplace things.
They had little food, and had no idea how large the forest was.
They were following the trail left by the scelephant because it was easier to walk and there was less chance of encountering danger, but it was possible that they were just headed deeper and deeper into the forest.
The fact that the surroundings were getting progressively darker only served to add to their anxiety.
In a forest at night, where the rain incessantly fell.
That darkness inspired an almost unimaginable level of fear in the two of them who had grown up in a world where every street corner had a lamp post like it was only natural.
The Shii were a different species that originated from darkness existing long before the advent of human civilization.
If light could be considered as a barrier that protected the human world, then this was someplace outside the human world.
And in that sort of place, humans were far too powerless.
When the two of them heard that sound, they stopped moving for the first time.
“Y-Yasu-kun, d-did you hear that?”
Shouko, who had been speaking in a bright and courageous manner until a moment ago, now said that in a trembling voice.
“……I-It should be fine. It s-s-sounded like it was still far away.”
His reply had no reassurance at all, perhaps because his tongue wasn’t working properly.
The sound of howling had reached their ears, through the trees surrounding them and over the sound of the raindrops.
For the people who lived in Japan, the word carnivore brought to mind the feline predators that ruled over the kingdom of the wild animals in jungles and savannas.
Lions, tigers, cheetahs, and leopards were the main representatives of that family.
Next in the list came bears, which had a recorded history of causing harm to humans.
These were animals that could be seen at a safari park or a zoo, and putting it another way, they were just that familiar to most people.
That is why the two of them had forgotten about sources of danger that they wouldn’t normally come into contact with.
Wolves.
There was no way for an unarmed person to resist if they were targeted by wolves inside a forest.
Wolves were highly social hunters with strong territorial instincts, and they hunted in packs with a high degree of coordination.
Had they perhaps been walking into the territory of wolves or whatever their equivalent was in this world?
“……Let’s hurry up a bit.”
It was not that they had a plan or any reason to hurry.
However, Shouko wordlessly nodded when Yasuo proposed that, and they started walking faster through the forest in the rain.
They heard the howls a few more times, and their surroundings also kept getting darker.
There was no trace of the leeway that they had earlier on their faces.
The only thing they could do was to desperately follow the trail left by the scelephant, as if they were being chased by something.
By Yasuo’s estimate, it was about one hour after they had heard the first howl when the situation changed suddenly.
“The trail is…”
The trail left by the scelephant had suddenly vanished.
They had reached a wide clearing in the forest, due to which the trail left by the scelephant had suddenly disappeared.
However, the forest still continued on all sides of the clearing as far as they could see.
“W-What should we do?”
As if to mock their fears, Shouko’s words were immediately followed by more howling.
“The river. Let’s get to the river.”
Yasuo’s quickly made that decision.
“I don’t see any other paths we can take. The rain is not so bad that we need to worry about landslides or flooding. As long as we’re careful, I think we’ll be fine even if we follow the river.”
Seeing as there were no other indications on where they should go, Shouko didn’t resist his idea either.
Had the scelephant’s path angled away from the river more than they had thought?
“I think we should go this way. The sound of running water from the river was always on our left side, after all”
“You’re right… but I think we should backtrack a little. The path to move in that direction from here looks a little complicated. Let’s go back along the game trail for a bit and find a place that looks easy to move through.”
“But the wolves… will it be okay?”
“I’m a little worried about that, but that doesn’t make it any easier to get through this place…”
“Can’t you do something about it with magic?”
“As pitiful as it sounds, the answer is no. I can’t use any attack magic. I’ll just keel over from mana depletion. Nodoka has more talent for that sort of thing. Although I seem to have talent when it comes to healing magic and the ability to send off the Shii.”
“That’s pretty amazing too, but I’d rather not fall into a situation where you have to use that power which requires someone to be injured.”
“But if things take a turn for the worse…”
Even if they were hurt, he could heal them. Just that fact alone was a big advantage.
Due to that, the two of them felt a momentary relief from the stress.
““Ugh!!””
However, as if to mock the two of them, the sound of howling could be heard from a spot overwhelmingly closer than before.
Shouko opened her eyes wide from fright, and Yasuo threw away the folding umbrella almost on reflex, grabbed her hand, and started backtracking along the game trail.
However, it was clear that that would not be enough for them to get away safely.
Close on the heels of that first howl, they could suddenly feel multiple presences popping up in their surroundings.
“S-So many!”
Just towards his right hand side that he was currently looking in, he saw more than ten creatures running parallel to them.
They looked similar to wolves, but Yasuo didn’t have any leeway to observe the specifics.
While moving back along the muddy game trail, Yasuo bitterly cursed his naive judgement.
From the moment they had heard that first howl, they had already become the targets of the predators in this land.
The moment he had lost the trail of the scelephant — which he assumed was a herbivore — he should have been on his guard.
“Yasu-kun!!”
Yasuo was not able to react to Shouko’s voice that was close to a scream.
Two of the creatures that had been running parallel to them had run far ahead, turned around suddenly, and were now running straight towards them.
On the heads of the creatures that came rushing in from both above and below like bullets, there were scales and and a horn that had a metallic sheen.
“Ugh!!”
He tried to activate his magic, but he wouldn’t make it in time.
The situation was completely different from the time when he had destroyed Marfik’s control bangle, and in the first place Yasuo was incapable of any magic that could hit a target at a distance.
Yasuo steeled his resolve and decided to use an electric attack at close range, even if it meant risking his arm getting bitten off. He spread his arms wide to protect Shouko who was behind him, and prepared to confront the creatures that had horns and scales.
“Haaaaaa!!”
In that instant, just as the creatures were about to sink their bared fangs into Yasuo’s flesh, he heard a battle cry from behind him and at the same time, the two creatures were sent flying to the right and left.
“……Eh”
Yasuo wasn’t able to believe what he was seeing with his own eyes.
“Fuuuuuu….!”
Rough breathing.
Gushing flames.
It was Shouko, with flames gushing out of both eyes, just like when she had saved him from the sandbar in the river.
However, as expected, it wasn’t just her eyes.
From both her wrists, both her ankes, and her waist, the flames of the Shii were gushing forth, looking like fashion accessories.
“T-Tatewa—”
“Haaaaaaaaa!”
However, the voice was still Shouko’s.
It was certainly not the kind of repulsive voice that had issued from her mouth when she had been completely taken over by the Shii back in Tokorozawa, the kind of voice that had chilled his blood and sent shudders down his spine.
Shouko looked like she was wearing the Shii around her instead of being taken over by it, and boldy rushed towards the pack of creatures that had not stopped attempting to corner them despite being surprised by the unexpected resistance from their prey.
The dirt on the game trail scattered greatly beneath her feet as she ran.
That was a sign of just how much her leg strength had increased, and she used that strength to kick one of the creatures that happened to appear before her up to a terrifying height.
The enemy was also formidable and it spun around once in mid-air, but it still failed the landing and fell heavily onto the soft mud; it didn’t get up again.
At that point, the pack of creatures stopped hiding their presences, surrounded Shouko and Yasuo, and started to observe them.
It looked like they were hesitating, thinking about whether they would be able to kill the intruders who had entered their territory or not.
As if to prove that, a number of the creatures bared their fangs and advanced menacingly towards them while growling.
They had ash-gray fur tinged with green that would allow them to blend into the dark forest, and their heads were covered by a scale-like carapace.They also had a horn on their head.
The scale-like carapace was probably meant to reduce the impact of a hit from the front or the rear, but seeing as how they had attacked with fangs bared, it was not apparent what purpose the horn served.
The question that momentarily flashed through Yasuo’s head was immediately answered in the form of a new threat.
A small flame started to gather at the tips of the creatures’ horns.
“N-No way…”
That was magic.
Were the wild animals of this world capable of using magic?
Although the flame initially appeared to be small, it seemed to be slowly growing larger at the tip of the horn.
The creatures were attempting to kill them from a distance, perhaps because they judged that they were safe from Shouko as long as they didn’t get close to her.
Yasuo had been told that there were methods of defending against attacks from magic and sorcery, but since he could not even produce a satisfactory flame with magic, he had no idea what those methods might be.
A number of flames were turned towards Shouko and Yasuo, resembling nothing so much as will o’ wisps which existed to kill living creatures that had lost their way inside the forest.
Shouko’s increased strength that could send one of those creatures flying with a single hit obviously came from the Shii’s flames, or rather, the change in Shouko’s body after she had merged with the Shii.
However, since the flames only covered Shouko’s eyes, wrists, and ankles, if the creatures’ magical attacks scored a direct hit on her, she would probably not get away unscathed.
It wasn’t as simple as just healing her wounds afterwards.
Yasuo still had a slight scar on his side where Khalija’s attack had pierced him.
Since they had promised Shouko’s parents that her safety was guaranteed on this trip, Yasuo could not allow so much as a hair on her head to be hurt.
Yasuo took a deep breath, steeled his resolve, and prepared to once again jump in front of Shouko to protect her.
“Yasu-kun. Cover your ears.”
However, Shouko said that in a soft, yet determined voice.
Yasuo reflexively obeyed her, and in the next instant, he felt like he was about to get blown away.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”
Shouko let out a shout.
Yasuo felt like he had been struck by a wall of sound and fell on his backside, and the creatures that were surrounding them backed away while whining.
The trees and plants were shaken violently by the force of that shout, the raindrops that had collected on the branches and leaves were shaken off and cascaded down like a waterfall on their surroundings, and the magical flames that the creatures had been preparing abruptly went out.
“Once more!”
Hearing Shouko once again take a deep breath, Yasuo pressed his hands hard against his ears and prepared his body for the shockwave.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”
“Ugh!!”
The impact from the shockwave was too much, even considering that he was hearing it at close range, and Yasuo let out a groan.
Along with reverberating heavily throughout Yasuo’s body, the shockwave from Shouko’s shout and the air pressure sent a ripple through the dirt at Shouko’s feet.
The creatures closest to her were unable to resist, and were blown away.
Seeing that, the creatures that were surrounding them broke formation, turned around, and disappeared into the darkness of the surrounding forest one by one.
Shouko, who had lowered her center of gravity and stood in a stance with her right hand in front of her and her left hand pulled back, stayed in that stance for a while even after the last creature had disappeared.
Yasuo also continued to cover his ears with his hands, and stayed alert for signs of the creatures returning by looking around.
They probably stayed that way for a full three minutes.
Shouko finally relaxed her stance after she heard the howls, which seemed to be trembling slightly, from far away.
“Yasu-kun, are you okay?”
“H-How about you, Tatewaki-san?”
“I… I’m… probably not okay.”
“Eh… Ah!!”
In the next instant, Shouko fell to her knees and was about to fall face down in the dirt.
Yasuo hurried to support her body, and in that instant, most of the black flames were extinguished.
“This is…..”
He wondered if his power that was specialized in healing and sending off the Shii had unconsciously activated and dispelled the flames, but he immediately rejected that.
The 『mysteries』 of Ante Lande could only be activated through force of will.
There was no way that such a convenient reaction could occur spontaneously, and there had to be a proper explanation for that phenomenon.
In the end, the black flames receded until they turned into a small flickering flame in Shouko’s left eye.
Once the flames had receded, Yasuo saw how pale and weak Shouko looked, and once again started to panic.
“My body really hurts. It feels like the toenails on the foot that I used to kick that creature are broken.”
“Ah, I’ll heal you. Tell me where it hurts…”
“Ah… No, it’s okay… It’s not like I’m dying, but I feel like I’ve used up all my strength… I think I’m falling asleep… Sorry…”
“Tatewaki-san!!”
Shouko’s head suddenly dropped while she was still leaning against Yasuo.
Yasuo felt his blood run cold for a second, but after he heard Shouko’s breathing even over the sound of the rain, he felt relieved.
Despite that, it couldn’t really be said that their situation had improved.
Night was getting closer, and the light had faded enough that he already couldn’t see for more than a few meters ahead.
He would not be able to walk very far while carrying the unconscious Shouko, and trying to find the river in the dark during bad weather would be the height of folly.
Even the pack of creatures might attack once again if they realized that Shouko, who was the source of danger, was out of commision.
“Dammit…!”
Not only had Yasuo been protected from the creatures by the unknown power of Shouko and the Shii, he didn’t have a single technique to protect Shouko in return.
He felt foolish for having confidently declared that he would become the Hero, with this kind of ability.
It was only natural that Khalija had been astounded by his lack of ability.
Although Yasuo had said that he understood the situation many times, the truth was that he didn’t understand anything.
He had gotten overconfident, just because he could use some half-baked healing ability and some ability to send off the Shii.
After experiencing it for himself like this, he finally started to understand what it meant to be 『powerless』.
Whether it was weapons, armor, magic, or comrades, they only had meaning when they were obtained by a person who had become strong after diligently devoting themselves to the basics.
The people who surrounded a powerless person were not comrades, but guardians, and weapons, armor, and magic were nothing more than pointless luggage when carried by a person who could not even defend themselves.
“Shit… Shit…!!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Yasuo noticed the umbrella that he had thrown away at the place where the game trail ended.
He had thought that they had run a fair distance from the pack of creatures that had attacked, but now he saw that they had not moved very far away at all.
“……”
The reason why Yasuo did not fruitlessly call out to his father or Diana for help in this situation might be because of the last bit of pride that he had left.
Or perhaps it was because of the depth of his despair.
“No way.”
He could see light from a fire slowly closing in on him from deep within the forest.
“Goddammit…!”
Yasuo put Shouko down on the dirt and forced himself to stand on shaking legs as he prepared to face the will o’ wisp.
If there was just one of them… If there was just one of them, he might be able to drive it away by hitting it with his electric attack, even if it meant that he would get taken out at the same time.
The solitary light that continued to get closer glowed like the eye of a Shii, or like the eye of William Bareig, as it seemed to be inviting him into the depths of hell.
And then.
With a slight sound of splattering mud, the will o’ wisp showed its true form in front of Yasuo.