A long, long time ago, hunting a sabertooth tiger was a rather difficult thing.
All right — even now it's rather difficult, but plainly not so difficult as before. In the old days, to hunt a single sabertooth without a mage's help took at least ten-some warriors ringing the beast and hurling spears in turns to wear the brute down.
But as the war wore on, the Ignis people's combat skills grew ever more masterful — like this young Ignis man, a fine hunter back from the front, who had the confidence to challenge a sabertooth with a single spear.
"Just wait for the sabertooth to pounce, drop into a low slide, prop the spear upright on the way down, and the sabertooth's own weight will run it straight through."
So the young Ignis man thought.
This was no idle fancy, either. On the northern battlefield, fighting the tundra giants, he had used this very feint-of-weakness trick more than once to kill off giants who'd thought victory already theirs.
And now, what he faced was no more than a lone sabertooth.
The instant he saw the sabertooth's belly split open on his spear, the young Ignis man felt all the pent-up grievance of these days spent dodging and hiding ease, a good deal, out of him.
"I can still get a few things done."
Letting out a long, foul breath, the young Ignis man unbound the bone knife from his spear, ready to dress the kill and take its plumpest cuts for an offering to the Snake God.
But just then, his hands froze.
For around the neck of this fallen sabertooth was fitted a collar — a collar of bone.
This was no wild sabertooth. This was plainly one that had gotten loose from the mages' pastures!
"Wha—"
The young Ignis man turned on his heel and ran on the spot.
The sabertooths the mages reared all bore their owners' marks at the throat; now that the sabertooth was dead, those mages would surely come after him at once!
But the young Ignis man had still underestimated the mages' speed. He hadn't even run far before a searing fireball came crashing down from the treetops.
"Heard there was a deserter who'd slipped into the sacred mountain...... you can run, I'll give you that, kid."
On the treetop, a mage wrapped in a hide cloak gave a scornful laugh.
"Since you've gone and popped out on your own, you'll do nicely for testing how far my arts have come."
"I......"
The young Ignis man drew a deep breath.
Unlike before, when he'd been hunted, there was only one mage before him now — but at this moment he was fully exposed within the man's sight.
And now the mage's two palms had already risen.
Palms together, fireball out — however good his footwork, there was no surviving this.
The one thing that might yet keep him alive now was, perhaps......
"The Snake God has awakened! I'm gathering offerings for the Snake God!"
The young Ignis man drew a deep breath, then bellowed at the top of his lungs.
"Hold up the Snake God's feast and aren't you afraid He'll hold it against you?!"
Recalling the Snake God's matchless bulk, recalling the terror of a Snake God who'd felled several mages on the spot just by rising, the young Ignis man felt a faint hope of living kindle in his heart.
Yes — if it was that Snake God, with a reason like this, surely these men wouldn't dare—
"Heh. The Snake God?"
At these words, the mage on the treetop only laughed.
"Even if it is the Snake God — what of it?"
"You......"
The young Ignis man was struck dumb.
He couldn't believe what he'd just heard.
The mages wielded the power of a god — yet here, right before him, this mage sneered at the Snake God?
Could it be the man thought the Snake God hadn't yet awakened?
Yes, that had to be it. Because the Snake God had gone so long without waking, many had come to think He never would wake again — even he himself had thought it impossible for the Snake God to wake, or he'd never have had the nerve to charge into the sacred mountain looking for a way to live.
But now, the Snake God truly had awakened.
"The Snake God really has awakened. Go into the mountains and look, and you'll see the marks."
Recalling the trails the Snake God left when it moved through the mountains — far broader than any road in the city — the young Ignis man steadied himself once more.
"If you lay a hand on me and hold up the Snake God's sacrifice, He will surely strike you down! Do you know what that means?!"
"Of course I know."
To his surprise, the mage on the treetop only sneered the harder.
"The Snake God's awakened — a commotion that size, and my pasture sits right at the foot of the sacred mountain; how could I not have seen it...... but even if the Snake God has awakened, what of it?"
The mage on the treetop looked down at the young Ignis man beneath his feet as one might look at an ant.
"You're only a mortal. You've never wielded this divine power, so of course you can't understand any of it...... perhaps in your eyes that snake can pass for a god; perhaps, a very long time ago, that snake could pass for a god.
"But here and now, it's nothing more than a snake."
......
At these words, the young Ignis man's face changed utterly.
The men who used the Snake God's power — these lofty, untouchable mages — held the Snake God Himself in contempt?
What were these mages trying to do?
"What we're trying to do — that's something you ought to be able to work out for yourself."
The mage on the treetop narrowed his eyes.
"Come to think of it — you don't really suppose you poachers slipped so easily into the sacred mountain on your own, do you? What makes you think we of the royal house, so far stronger than you, never caught the faintest trace of where you went?"
"You......"
The young Ignis man paled with shock.
What the man said was too staggering to take in; for a moment the young Ignis man couldn't even think — for all this while, he'd believed he had fled into the sacred mountain and found his road to life by his own skill alone.
But now......
This road to life had been part of the royal house's plan all along?
These mages, this royal house...... what in the world were they trying to do?
"So you see, you know nothing."
The mage on the treetop shook his head with a sigh.
Before a man who knew nothing of power, he could scarcely even manage to gloat.
"The importance of information, eh...... the words the old Sage King left behind were right after all."
Thinking this, the mage had already turned his head to gaze into the distance.
There — in the direction where this generation's Sage King was.
"Still, our King ought to be ready by now.
"Ready to devour the god."