It rained for days as though a hole had been punched through the sky, and eventually a thick fog settled over the plains.
After collecting the commission advance, I had no choice but to hurry on my way.
In Shirn, already reduced to ruins, I had been unable to achieve my original goal of resupplying.
The face of the man who'd handed over the silver coin with lifeless eyes flickered through my mind, but I quickly erased him from my thoughts.
I had completed the commission, and he had paid the advance.
Our relationship ended there.
'......It's damp.'
I'd taken shelter from the rain under rocky crevices and trees, but that hadn't been enough to keep my leather armor from getting soaked.
To make matters worse, the fog blanketing the area left water dripping steadily from my fingertips.
'Surely mold or mushrooms won't start growing on me.'
I idly ran my hand over the breastplate, now sporting a gaping hole where the spear had punched through.
With no need to conserve body heat, I'd walked continuously without lighting a fire, but today I'd need to make camp if only to dry my clothes.
Unless I wanted to pluck mushrooms off my stomach for dinner.
The weather, thankfully, wasn't hot; if anything, it was a bit chilly.
Breathing in the cool, moisture-laden air, I walked for a long while until the hazy outline of a forest emerged through the fog.
'Good. I should be able to find something to eat.'
Not that I'd die from going hungry, of course.
I'd just be a bit peckish.
The forest was every bit as damp as I was.
Every time my body brushed against the foliage, water droplets clinging to the leaves drummed against my helm, and the waterlogged soil tugged at my boots with every step.
After several hours of wandering like that, I found not so much as an edible plant, let alone a small animal.
I had no choice but to gather a few relatively dry branches and settle at the base of a hill.
The sun was going down anyway, so I might as well make a fire.
Lucky to have found a decent spot to camp.
I piled up branches and grass, then drew out my flint.
It didn't take long for the fire to catch.
———FWOOSH!
Once the campfire steadied itself, I slumped down beside it.
'Warm.'
The flickering flames struck me as oddly unfamiliar.
From their passionate color to their gentle warmth, there was nothing about them that was not the opposite of me.
I had lived a life utterly unlike a campfire.
Somewhere in the memories crushed under the weight of years, I had been a citizen of the twenty-first century.
As best as I could recall, it had been an unremarkable life.
Got a job like everyone else, lived like everyone else, and died.
I had died single, with no family ties, while still young, in my thirties, but wasn't that sort of thing perfectly common in this world?
I'd opened my eyes and found myself here.
It was a harsh world for a modern person to survive in, but in the end, people lived here too.
I let myself drift on the slow current of passing time, and arrived at the present.
In all the long years across two lifetimes, had I never once burned like a campfire?
Looking back, that wasn't entirely true.
I'd had my blazing days, too.
I reminisced about that time briefly.
It had been blissful as a dream, and just as distant.
The eroded memories felt so fragile they might scatter at the slightest touch.
"I've gotten old, haven't I."
Getting sentimental was proof enough.
In the end, I buried those faint memories back in their deep resting place.
Memories were sometimes precious precisely because they belonged to the past.
Just then, the brush on the far side of the campfire rustled violently.
It was not the wind but a deliberate movement.
"......They won't let me rest."
I rose and took the sword I'd left resting against the boulder.
- GRRRRR
What emerged from the darkness was an enormous wolf.
'Drawn by the firelight?'
Or perhaps this had been its territory to begin with.
The spot where I'd made my fire was about the only place in the soaked forest fit to lie down, and that applied to wolves just as much as it did to me.
As proof, the wolf wasn't alone.
'Three of them. They're big, and they don't look particularly gaunt, so they must have been eating well. Are these the reason animals like rabbits were so hard to find?'
The lead wolf let out a bone-chilling growl and lowered itself into a pouncing stance.
'That one's got the biggest head. It could probably kill an average horse in a single bite.'
A wolf the size of a bull could hardly even be called a wolf anymore.
The beast didn't seem inclined to drag this out; slobber dripped from its jaws as though it intended to devour the intruder on its territory right here and now.
- HRUF!
They charged immediately.
The biggest one led the way, with the relatively smaller one following close behind.
In a split-second situation where my neck and shoulders were being targeted, I made my decision.
'Kill the leader first.'
Twist my body, put strength into my waist.
Grip the sword with both hands and drive it into the wolf's neck in one stroke.
Then bring the blade down and the wolf's shredded neck falls away.
That was how it should have gone.
———CRUNCH!
The lead wolf changed direction at the moment of its leap and lunged for my shoulder.
Because I'd twisted my body, its fangs sank into my waist instead.
'Abnormally fast for its size.'
To make matters worse, another one clamped down on my thigh.
Red blood seeped out, painting the wolf's face.
With a crunch, the big one tore away the chunk it had bitten from my side.
Before the one on my thigh could flee with its prize too, I clenched the muscle hard.
Gripping the sword in a reverse hold, I drove it deep into the neck of the beast locked onto my leg.
The sensation of cutting through tough hide and splintering bone traveled up the blade to my fingertips.
While I pulled the sword from the limp wolf's throat, the big one was chomping away on the chunk of my waist.
Judging by the fact that it didn't rush in again, it seemed to be considering how to deal with me.
"If you're not coming, I will."
I aimed low at its legs and swung the sword horizontally.
The beast vanished from my field of vision with lightning speed, and at that same instant the remaining wolf from behind charged at me.
I shoved my left hand into its open maw and thrust the sword in my right hand up through its jaw.
With slight resistance, the blade pierced through its brain and punched out through the top of the skull.
- GRRRL!
The big one clamped onto my left shoulder in a flash.
If it was fast, all I had to do was make it unable to move.
While it tore at my shoulder, I freed my left hand and wrapped it around its neck.
I dropped low, almost toppling, and began sawing open its belly.
The sword wedged into dense muscle, but I struck upward with my fist like driving a nail, and the blade sank all the way in.
The beast paid no heed and shredded my shoulder to pieces.
I, too, worked in silence, carving open its gut.
The wolf's resistance was fierce.
But once its entrails had all spilled out, it could move no more.
Its bite force was so tremendous that no matter how hard I pried at its jaws, the teeth wouldn't come free. When I finally wrenched them open by force, my left arm came away with them.
The beast had managed, even in death, to take an arm from me.
"......."
No strength left in my body.
Just because I couldn't die didn't mean fatigue didn't build. I dragged myself back to the campfire and collapsed.
Even for me, when a limb was torn off, it took time to grow back.
I watched vacantly as my left arm slowly regenerated, taking what meager comfort I could from the warmth of the fire.
First the bones set themselves in place, then nerves and muscle layered over them.
It was a sight that would make anyone grimace.
That was why the Undying was more rightly called a curse.
"......Eladin."
Yes, it was a curse.
The final curse my god alone had laid upon me.
"Those days feel so vivid."
She was an unusual god.
More human than any human I'd ever known.
She had appeared in my life one day like an unannounced shooting star.
'Roan, my dear Roan.'
This world was a land of religions and gods.
There were more than ten gods, and again as many orders to worship them.
But she was different.
Eladin was a small god with not a soul to serve her.
A god without an order of her own, wasn't that laughable?
'Become my follower. Live for me. Give thanks to me, and pray to me.'
So I decided to build her order.
The only follower, of course, was me. I was her sole bishop and her paladin.
'Then I, too, shall live for you.'
And her only lover.
They were days like a dream.
So sweet and blissful that I trembled with the fear of when it would all end.
'Roan.'
What I'd feared came to pass.
'Eladin, don't say it.'
The fated moment arrived with heartbreaking indifference.
'I am frightened.'
'Please, please don't.'
'I am afraid that you, too, might hurt as I do, that you might die feeling such pain.'
'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Eladin.'
'It is I who should apologize. I have left a great wound upon your heart. Had I known it would come to this, I would never have appeared before you. I am sorry.'
She was dying.
Cradled in my arms, she apologized to me.
I hated it so unbearably that I wept.
'So do not die. Not until every one of those wounds has healed. As your god, I bestow this blessing upon you.'
That day, I received the Undying, a curse that was also a blessing.
I scoured every corner of the continent.
Neither eating nor sleeping, I searched only for the reason she had appeared before me, drenched in blood.
There were few things that could wound a god.
I had implicitly concluded that another god had killed her, and that conclusion was sound.
It took decades after that to find a lead.
I spent decades more following that lead, gathering information, and uncovering the name of the god who had killed her. Then I poured several more decades into annihilating that god's order.
It was truly a life ablaze.
'Luxeon.'
More decades still passed after that, bringing me to the present.
I had slaughtered every group that worshipped Luxeon, yet Eladin did not return, and the emptiness remained.
As for killing Luxeon himself, he was too far away, somewhere no human hand could reach.
As any god in any world would be.
The dregs left after everything had been burned away at such length.
Cinders without any value.
Was there a better phrase to describe what I was now?
Why am I alive?
Living on with no purpose, how am I any different from a corpse?
That question, worn so thin by now that only the faintest outline remained, I erased from my mind.
My left arm had grown back entirely at some point.
***
Any village of decent size would have walls and guards as a matter of course, and Brüs was no exception.
The fog hadn't fully cleared, but at least I could make out what was ahead.
I watched the procession filing into Brüs for a while.
Walls, not high but sturdy-looking, and guards clutching iron weapons and glaring at the line stood watch over Brüs's gate.
'The inspection doesn't take long.'
Getting held up at the gate and losing time would be a disaster.
After a brief deliberation, I decided to forgo any disguise and simply blend into the crowd to enter Brüs.
"......."
The moment I approached, everyone around me clamped their hands over their noses.
I put on a face of iron and pretended not to notice. Then again, I really was wearing an iron helm.
The soldiers weren't exactly inspecting with any great devotion, so the line moved quickly.
"Next!"
Before long it was my turn, and I stepped before the guard without fanfare.
"The smell......."
The guard staggered.
Was it really that bad?
"......I got doused in filth a few days ago. That's actually why I'm visiting Brüs."
The guard's gaze swept over my leather armor, which by now was indistinguishable from burlap rags.
"......Looks like it. Show me your identification."
"Identification? Is that required?"
The soldier pointed his spear shaft at my hip.
"You're carrying a sword. Judging by the state of you, you're no central army. Looks like some drifter mercenary. We can't just let people like you waltz in."
It must have been around a hundred years ago.
I'd had a mercenary license issued in the capital long ago.
I couldn't even remember where it was or when I'd lost it.
Once your age crosses two centuries, you tend to forget the small things.
As I stood there vacantly, the guards' expressions turned hostile in a heartbeat.
"No ID, then get lost."
I let out a short sigh and brought my hand down to my hip.
"I didn't want to resort to this...... What a shame."