Chapter 47
In the middle of the grasslands.
The centaur stood on four legs, glaring at the humans’ fortress.
He was clad head to toe in heavy black armor, and his once-handsome face was covered in scars from blades.
His blue hair, too, had been burned and melted away in places, fluttering grotesquely.
A subordinate with dark gray hair hanging down his back approached him.
A rumble that shook the ground drew nearer, growing louder.
“We succeeded in driving them here, Captain.”
The centaur called Captain silently pulled the helmet at his waist over his head.
He picked up the enormous halberd standing on the ground and began walking toward the humans’ fortress.
At his sudden movement, his subordinates fell slightly behind and began following him.
The gray-haired centaur, ignored, gave a bitter little smile and looked at his dwindling tribesmen.
There were few of them left.
From the time they were driven out of the warm forest of divine grace and came to these frozen lands in the north, their numbers had steadily dwindled.
Their expedition had been doomed to be short-lived from the start, but at last, they had reached their goal.
There was only one thing they desired.
To defeat the Hero and take back their women, who were trapped in the forest.
The terrible shriek unique to monsters rang out in the distance, and the gray-haired centaur frowned.
He took the large horn slung over his back and brought it to his lips.
-Bwoooooo
A deep, immense sound that made one’s heart sink.
The centaurs guiding the monsters around the grasslands began gathering in one place.
They slowly converged on the human fortress, forming a huge line.
Behind the centaurs came a horde of monsters that swallowed up the horizon.
**
Even after her trembling shoulders had settled and she had stopped crying, Enya stayed in his arms for a long while.
When Tarmin patted her back, Enya rubbed her face against him and burrowed deeper into his embrace.
She was adorable, like a baby animal burrowing into its mother’s arms.
So much so that he wanted to devour her.
He turned his head away to avoid looking at her.
“Ugh.”
Feeling his patience nearing its limit, he turned his gaze toward the inside of the house.
Once his sympathy passed, he became aware of Enya’s soft body.
Her breasts pressed against Tarmin’s chest.
If he could have his way, he’d hold her all day.
No, not only hold her—he wanted to make her regret throwing herself into his arms of her own accord.
But they were inside his father’s house in Tariq.
He didn’t know when his father would return, and an unwelcome guest was waiting outside the door.
When the tear-soaked hem of her clothes began to dry, Tarmin carefully lowered the hand that had been patting her back.
Listening for footsteps, he slowly placed his hand on Enya’s shoulder.
“Enya, you’re feeling better now, right?”
“...”
Thinking that this was probably enough, he took her by the shoulders and tried to gently push her away.
But Enya didn’t move away easily.
Puzzled, he applied a little more force, and Enya started clinging to his clothes and resisting.
Her face remained buried against his chest.
Tarmin had expected her to pull away easily, but now that a struggle had begun, he panicked and cried out,
“N-No, that’s enough. Come on, let go. My father could come back any minute! Hey!”
It wasn’t as easy as he’d expected to pry someone clinging around his waist away.
After struggling for a long time, he finally managed to pry her hands off his clothes.
Just then, a plaintive little sound tickled his ear as it escaped Enya’s lips.
“Hieeeng...”
Both of them froze in place.
“Ah...”
A long, long silence followed.
Enya slowly pulled away.
She glanced at Tarmin, watching him cautiously.
“...”
Tarmin stopped moving and wondered if he’d heard correctly.
...Hieeeng?
Enya didn’t throw herself back into his arms.
He asked to make sure.
“Enya, what sound did you just make?”
“Ah, n-no, I didn’t! I don’t know! Maybe there’s a cat on the roof?”
Enya hurriedly made an excuse, but the more she thought about it, the more certain she became that she hadn’t misheard.
The smile at Tarmin’s lips grew wider and wider, and Enya’s face turned pale.
Unable to hold back his laughter, he said,
“I think there was! Enya, did you just—heehee—act all whiny? Hehehe!”
“N-No!”
Enya shouted in a fluster, horrified.
She was clearly denying something, but he really wondered what.
After snickering for a while, he finally managed to say,
“W-Wanna do it one more time? We should check if it was really a cat.”
“Kyaaa!”
Enya finally shrieked and grabbed Tarmin by the collar.
A sly remark slipped from Tarmin’s lips.
“Hieeeng, did our Enya want to cuddle up in my arms that badly?”
“Please, stop!”
Even as Enya shook him around, making his head loll this way and that, Tarmin kept grinning.
Enya’s eyes were welling with tears for a different reason than before.
Clutching Tarmin’s collar and half-hanging off him, she begged him.
“Please, forget it...”
“I’d like to forget too, but still, a grown woman going ‘hieeeng’ is a bit much, isn’t it? Heh heh.”
“Hnnng...”
Enya’s voice trembled with tears.
A wicked thought welled up in him: he could probably make Enya cry again, and that might even be more fun—but he barely managed to hold himself back.
Regretting once more that they weren’t in Quaalid, Tarmin decided to start getting ready to wait for his father.
“Enya, should I stop and forget about it?”
“Y-Yeah! Please!”
A little hope filled Enya’s face.
Tarmin smiled and tapped his lips lightly with a finger.
Enya stared blankly, then realized what he meant a beat later and jumped in surprise.
“What? Are you crazy? Your father’s here!”
“You were clinging to me like crazy just a moment ago. What are you talking about?”
“B-But still...”
“Otherwise, I’ll tease you about it forever. It can be a quick one.”
“Uuuugh...”
Enya hurriedly glanced toward the hallway where his father had disappeared.
Then she let out a deep sigh, squeezed her eyes shut, and raised her chin.
He smiled at her and said,
“What are you doing?”
Enya opened her eyes and said, flustered,
“Uh, um? Aren’t we going to kiss?”
“We are, but you do it.”
“What?”
“I’m always the one who starts. So this time, you start.”
Enya’s face reddened. After hesitating for a long while, she pursed her lips and swallowed.
She didn’t forget to shoot him an accusing glare for a moment, either.
“Y-You... you jerk.”
Enya stood up and hesitantly brought her face closer.
As their lips drew near, Enya’s eyes gently closed.
Her slightly parted, moist lips made Tarmin’s head spin.
Their breaths tickled the space beneath their noses, and just as their lips were about to meet—
Thud, thud, thud.
“Tarmin, sorry to keep you waiting. I finally found the thing I’d put away and forgotten about.”
The footsteps echoing through the house drew closer.
**
His father placed the bow on the table and looked at Tarmin in puzzlement.
“Why were you scraping around the floor with your arms and legs earlier?”
“...Because the floor was really dusty?”
His father pointed at the broom in the corner with a look of concern for his son’s sanity.
Thanks to Enya reacting quickly and shoving him away, Tarmin had rolled around on the floor instead of showing his father an embarrassing sight.
While Tarmin grumbled and pretended to sweep the floor, Enya fanned her flushed face with her hand and glared at the bow on the table.
It was his father’s black-horn bow, which Tarmin had seen countless times in the past.
Their commotion hadn’t been caused by his father, the hunter, searching all over because he’d forgotten where he put the bow.
His father had gone and found an old, battered book somewhere in the house.
“This is the journal left by your great-great-grandfather. It should have the method for passing down the bow written in it.”
Tarmin put down the broom, sat down, and said,
“Sorry, but why do you say that as if you’re guessing? This is worrying.”
“Because your grandfather died young, so I inherited the bow without needing to do any kind of succession ritual.”
“What? Then you don’t know much about it either, do you? What happens if something goes wrong with this ritual?”
“Hm? I don’t know.”
“...”
Tarmin watched with concern as his father roughly flipped through the old journal.
He was worried the pages might tear, but his father’s hands moved without hesitation.
His father noticed his gaze and chuckled.
“Don’t worry so much. If the ritual’s treated this casually, how dangerous could it possibly be? If push comes to shove, I can die. Then it seems the inheritance will happen on its own.”
The grim joke about dying was so absurd that Tarmin couldn’t even laugh.
He sighed and turned his head, and saw Enya staring at the bow with a sharp gaze.
For the first time in a long while, Tarmin remembered that Enya had once been a Hero.
“Enya, what do you think? Does it look useful?”
As a Hero who had handled countless artifacts, how would she evaluate the bow passed down through his family—the Alchin bow?
“Tarmin, this is...”
Enya seemed to part her lips a little, then closed them again.
She ran her hand over the slender, smooth black bow.
Was it such an incredible weapon that words failed her?
But rather than amazement, her expression looked wary.
Enya bit her lip slightly, then finally said,
“...Tarmin, this is a monster’s horn.”
**