Ch.38Corpse Collecting (5)

# Collecting Corpses

Despite the ominous name, after hearing her explanation, it wasn’t actually that strange.

This forest, teeming with dangerous magical beasts and still permeated by the poisonous energy near the Demon King’s castle, was extremely dangerous yet contained no valuable resources or rare materials worth harvesting.

Therefore, there weren’t many people crazy enough to venture into this forest just to make a few coins.

However, even though this forest had long been devoid of regular human traffic, there were still some who risked their lives to pass through it.

Some couldn’t afford to take the long way around, others desperately needed firewood but couldn’t afford to buy it.

Or, like me, they needed to escape from someone’s pursuit.

For various reasons, brave—and foolish—humans did occasionally enter this hellish place, though they were rare.

And most of these humans were adventurers.

“Adventurers are mostly bottom-feeders.”

Silvia sneered, saying many people had illusions about the adventurer profession.

There were many fools who thought gold coins would jingle out whenever they killed a magical beast.

Sure, there was the privilege of traveling the world and taking in indescribable scenic views, but Silvia slowly explained how great the price was for those insignificant landscape appreciations.

Of course, being an adventurer wasn’t a job about hunting magical beasts for money.

True to their name, adventurers had to travel the world on adventures, collect valuable resources or materials, and then “sell” them to finally receive rewards worthy of their life-risking journeys.

Naturally, the money that ended up in their hands was usually just a pittance, too meager to be called compensation for risking their lives, but that was to be expected.

Materials from magical beasts weren’t in high demand, and extermination requests only came in once every few years when the magical beast population significantly increased.

Therefore, most adventurers made their living by traveling from place to place, buying goods in one region and selling them in another.

Come to think of it, during harvest festivals in the Goldfield domain, I often saw adventurers with large backpacks spreading cloths on the ground and selling strange items I’d never seen or heard of before.

In other words, the adventurer profession was basically that of a peddler who knew how to fight magical beasts.

What Silvia called “collecting corpses” meant gathering useful items from the backpacks of adventurers or people who had lost their lives trying to pass through this forest.

She said she usually went corpse collecting about once every six months.

The wine we drank yesterday and the tea leaves that Silvia treasured and only drank on special occasions were also items taken from dead adventurers’ backpacks.

At first, I was horrified at the thought of rummaging through a deceased person’s belongings, but no one would enter this forest specifically to retrieve corpses or possessions, and if these items would otherwise be abandoned, wouldn’t it be better for her to use them? I couldn’t help but nod at Silvia’s reasoning.

It was too harsh to judge the morality of it when life in this forest was so deprived compared to the civilized comforts I was used to.

We lacked even simple brass cups, making drinking water inconvenient, couldn’t fix a broken door without a single nail, and didn’t even have a scrap of cloth to make clothes.

The clothing shortage was especially serious.

Silvia only had a cloak, a robe, nightwear, and one thin tunic.

I had no change of clothes either, wearing one of Silvia’s spare tunics and my torn jacket and pants that had been roughly patched up.

Silvia’s clothes were worn from her long life in the forest, and mine were in terrible condition from the carriage accident to begin with.

Even the clothes we had were in such poor shape that if they wore out completely, we’d truly have to make clothes from leaves and grass like primitive humans.

“Ready?”

Silvia asked, tying an empty large sack around her waist.

Our plan was for me to gather burial items for Laila from the carriage while Silvia went around collecting corpses.

I nodded, checking that the dagger at my waist was secure.

“It’s farther than you think. Prepare yourself for sore legs.”

“Ha… You forgot I walked that distance with a broken leg?”

“…That’s truly a bizarre thing no matter how I think about it, Ash. It’s not about mental strength or anything—it can only be called a miracle.”

“Haha…”

“…Well, watch out for bears. Let’s go.”

Though we exchanged light jokes, the tension didn’t dissipate.

I gulped and wiped away the cold sweat already forming on my forehead.

Now, it was time to enter the forest.

*

Silvia advised me to prepare something to drink, saying it would take quite a long time for us to finish our business and return to the cabin.

Following her advice, I diluted the leftover wine from yesterday with water and filled two leather flasks.

One for me, and one for Silvia.

Honestly, at the time, I thought she meant that corpse collecting would take a long time.

Since so few people entered this forest and it was so vast, I thought it wouldn’t be easy to find one or two corpses.

However, that wasn’t what her advice meant.

“Huff… huff… Are we still far?”

“Hmm… I think we’re about halfway there.”

“…Insane.”

“…I’d like to say let’s rest a bit, but then we won’t make it back home today.”

“Huff… hah… Let’s hurry then.”

It felt like we’d been walking for over two hours already, and we still hadn’t arrived.

This was completely unexpected.

On the night of the carriage accident, how did I manage to walk to the cabin?

Did I really walk this path with my broken body, a journey that takes nearly 4 hours one way?

And my pace then must have been much slower than now!

Though my memories are blurred by pain, I clearly remember arriving at the cabin in the middle of the night.

It was because it was nighttime that I could walk toward the faint light of the cabin.

Breathing heavily, I slowly turned around, but the cabin was already completely out of sight.

“Huff… haah… It really was… huff… a miracle…”

I muttered.

Silvia seemed to be thinking the same thing, as she agreed with my words.

“I told you. It was bizarre.”

The truly bizarre thing is that you’re not even out of breath after walking this far.

I wanted to say that, but I lacked the air in my lungs to do so.

“Ha… damn it.”

Fear-induced tension and fatigue from extreme aerobic exercise.

My entire body was completely soaked in sweat as if I’d jumped into a river.

Silvia hadn’t shed a single drop of sweat yet.

She was probably walking slowly now because of me; normally, she would move much faster.

Did Maria and Silvia’s other companions move at her pace?

I suddenly realized that the Demon King subjugation party truly was a collection of monsters.

And simultaneously, I realized what an absurd disaster the Demon King who annihilated such a party must have been.

Not wanting to lose more energy by keeping track of time, I just stared at the ground and walked silently.

I had no idea how much time had passed already.

My legs, especially my left leg that had been badly damaged, were creaking.

Just as the thought “Wow, shit, how am I going to get back?” crossed my mind—

“Ash, it’s over there.”

Silvia pointed somewhere.

Following the direction of her finger, I saw an overturned carriage.

*

I rushed to the wreckage of the overturned carriage, leaned my back against it, and sat down. Silvia looked at me and smiled.

“Good job. Drink some water quickly.”

I hastily opened my water pouch and poured it into my mouth.

What had been a cool and sweet cheap wine yesterday now tasted like a lukewarm, sour, unidentifiable liquid.

But I was so thirsty that even that felt incredibly welcome.

The slightly sticky liquid slowly moistening my dry lips and throat felt absolutely blissful.

“Whew! Huff, I’m alive.”

“Ahaha, looks like it was tough for you.”

“Ha… I thought I was going to die.”

“You walked this same path with bones sticking through your skin, and you’re complaining?”

“…That really is strange, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I think so too.”

Silvia leisurely sipped the liquid from her water pouch while looking around.

Could she find corpses as easily as spotting a distant deer?

I rested my head against the carriage and slowly caught my breath.

The carriage floor against my head felt oddly soft, and when I looked back, I saw the carriage was completely covered in moss.

It wasn’t strange for moss to grow since the carriage had been abandoned for well over a month, but did moss normally grow this quickly?

Well, I’d rarely seen moss in my life, so I couldn’t answer that question.

After catching my breath and waiting for my pounding heartbeat to slow down, I slowly looked up at Silvia.

She was staring quietly at something in the distance.

Her expression was completely rigid.

“Silvia? What’s wrong?”

When I called out to her, Silvia slowly turned to me and smiled once.

Though she often smiled, today her smile seemed a bit awkward.

Perhaps she had found a corpse?

“It’s nothing.”

“…Really?”

“Yes. Oh, that’s right, Ash.”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to explore around here to look for corpses. You gather what you need from the carriage.”

I responded with alarm.

“What, you’re leaving me behind?”

“With your pace, you’ll never find anything. I need to search alone to find them properly.”

My breathing had calmed down, and as I started feeling better, fear began to creep in again.

After all, this place was nothing short of a nightmare for me.

But Silvia’s words made sense.

To put it bluntly, I was in her way.

If Silvia had been alone, she might have arrived here much earlier.

“B-but…”

“Don’t worry. If anything happens, shout and get inside the carriage wreckage. Cast a protection spell and hold out.”

“That bear’s paws would break through that protection spell in less than a minute…”

“That’s enough.”

Silvia slowly approached me and bent down.

She placed her hand on my trembling shoulder and answered with a face devoid of any smile.

“One minute is all I need to get back to you.”

“…”

“I will never let you die. Trust me, Ash.”

Silvia spoke in a resolute tone.

It didn’t make logical sense that she could return within a minute when I didn’t even know how far she would go.

But her tone was so confident that I found myself nodding.

“Good boy, good.”

Silvia smiled and patted my head lightly.

Then suddenly, she brushed my bangs aside and planted a light kiss on my forehead.

“Wah!”

“It’s the curse of the undying hero.”

She said with a grin.

I clutched my forehead and grumbled with a bright red face.

“…You should call it a spell or blessing at times like this. Or something that gives courage.”

“Ah, you’re right. Hehe, I’m just too used to curses.”

After our silly banter, she slowly straightened up.

Shaking both legs lightly and jumping in place, she disappeared from my sight in an instant.

For a moment, I thought it was teleportation magic, but then I remembered she said she could only use basic magic.

Only after feeling the dust rise and lightly move my bangs did I realize she had simply run away.

“…One minute would indeed be enough.”

I closed the cap of my water bottle and slowly got up.

To find the burial items for my little sister and the keepsakes my parents left behind.

.