Chapter 18
“AAAAH! W-What now?!”
Topu hugged his luggage and screamed along with the cry that broke the silence of the night.
But I didn’t have time to worry about him.
Zakan jumped up and ran outside first.
Malko and the other teenage warriors followed him with serious expressions.
I grabbed my axe and ran after them.
Did it finally return?
I assumed the wounded Varg had recovered enough to come finish off the prey it had been hunting.
But...
“...A human?”
A blood-covered man was sprinting toward our village through the darkness.
“AAAAAAAH! HELP! SOMEBODY SAVE MEEEE!”
He wore human clothing.
His face was twisted in absolute terror.
And directly behind him...
Cutting through the darkness...
Was the Varg we had been waiting for.
Why the hell is a human being chased by a monster through the frontier and leading it straight to us?!
There wasn’t even time to question it.
They were getting closer.
And the bigger problem...
Was the terrified idiot’s route.
“Uh... Izak? What do we do? That human is ruining everything!”
“Kill human?”
The children shouted anxiously.
I understood why.
The man was running blindly for his life.
And now...
He began kicking apart the barricade I had personally built by cutting logs and digging earth.
Crack! Crash!
“...That bastard...”
My home.
I had spent my entire old life moving between orphanages and living under other people’s roofs.
This was the first fence I had ever built around a place I could call my home.
“Stop! Stop, you bastard!”
The defensive line collapsed.
Just like that.
The man climbed over the fallen logs and rolled into the village.
Naturally...
The Varg used the broken barricade as a bridge.
It jumped cleanly over the trench.
BOOM!
The enormous monster landed in the middle of our village.
The bastard human had attracted the Varg while it was quietly recovering.
And now it had broken directly into the center of the village.
“...That crazy bastard.”
There wasn’t even time to properly curse him.
Our plan had been to trap the Varg in the trench.
Immobilize it.
Then finish it.
That plan was gone.
Now...
We had to fight the monster directly in the narrow center of the village.
Where the children were hiding.
“Do not panic! Throw what we prepared!”
Fortunately...
We had a Plan B.
At my shout, Malko and the children pulled pouches from their waists.
Our secret weapon for attacking the Varg’s respiratory weakness.
“Die, ugly monster!”
Dozens of ash pouches flew through the air.
POP! POP!
The pouches burst against the Varg’s face.
A thick gray cloud immediately covered the village center.
Nobody could see anything.
Malko swallowed.
“D-Did we get it?!”
Why would you say that?!
“Huh? Why is it so quiet?”
Then...
“Grrrrrrrr...”
A low growl came from inside the smoke.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Cold sweat ran down my back.
The Varg wasn’t a stupid stray dog.
Animals remembered pain.
Yesterday, it had almost died because of my ash attack.
It knew what those pouches were.
The moment it saw them coming...
It had completely closed the exposed membranes of its respiratory system.
Then waited.
Now the ash was disappearing.
And the furious monster charged.
WHAM!
“Ghk!”
“Malko!”
The Varg exploded from the smoke and swung its front paw.
Malko instinctively raised his spear.
The wooden shaft shattered instantly.
His entire body flew several meters through the air.
He crashed into the dirt.
“Cough!”
Dark blood burst from Malko’s mouth.
“I-Izak! Weakness not working!”
“ROOOOAR!”
The Varg swung its claws and tail wildly.
The crude spears and axes in the children’s hands shattered and flew away.
It learned.
When the ash completely failed, fear appeared in the eyes of the children who had bravely rushed forward to help their chief.
The Varg had tasted blood.
It lost itself in rage.
Rotten saliva dripped from its open jaws.
Then it charged toward the fallen Malko.
At that instant...
“BARBARIAAN!”
Zakan roared and stepped directly in front of the beast.
He raised his greatsword.
CLANG!
The monster’s claw collided with Zakan’s sword.
But this was the middle of the village.
Tents surrounded us.
There wasn’t enough space for Zakan’s usual wide, destructive swings.
Worse...
He had rushed in without taking a proper stance because he needed to protect Malko.
“Zakan...!”
The Varg’s claw slipped past his greatsword.
It tore across Zakan’s body from his shoulder down toward his side.
“Ghk...!”
Zakan absorbed the attack with his body.
Then he dropped to one knee, breathing roughly.
The children went pale.
Their chief.
The strongest warrior in the tribe.
Their hero.
Was covered in blood.
The Varg sensed victory.
It snorted heavily.
Then prepared to leap and tear out Zakan’s throat.
“C-Chief!”
“Protect him! Monster! BARBARIAAAAN!”
The injured Malko, the children, and even Huku desperately rushed forward.
But their damaged weapons couldn’t pierce the creature’s hide.
Zakan had fallen.
The moment I saw his blood spreading across the ground...
Something inside my head snapped.
Hey! That’s mine! Give it back!
You forgot your school supplies again? Haa...
Fragments of old memories flashed through my mind.
From the moment I was born...
Nothing had ever truly belonged to me.
My room.
My toys.
My clothes.
Even parents who would protect me.
Even my name.
I had grown used to having things taken from me.
Used to giving up.
But what about these stupid barbarians in front of me?
Zakan was a chief willing to throw away his own life to protect us.
And those children holding broken spears, trembling in fear but still standing between Zakan and the monster because they wanted to protect their chief...
They were...
My people.
My family.
“...How dare you.”
I clenched my teeth.
“Who the hell gave you permission to touch what belongs to me, you damn mutt?!”
Normally, I would never do something like this.
But I gripped my axe like a madman.
Then kicked off the ground and charged.
“Grrrr...”
“Izak! Dangerous! Get back! Ghk!”
Zakan saw me rush in front of him and screamed in panic.
I couldn’t hear him anymore.
The Varg looked furious that I had interrupted its kill.
Maybe...
It even remembered me from yesterday.
WHACK!
I grabbed a large rock from the ground.
I threw it straight into the creature’s face.
Then I turned around and ran.
“ROOOOOAR!”
Was chasing fleeing prey simply instinct?
I heard the ground tearing apart behind me.
