Ch.56Hunting #6

“You’ll be sixteen after your birthday, right?”

Late at night. While warming ourselves by the campfire, Helena suddenly asked about my age.

“That’s right. But why do you ask?”

“I was wondering… when we might get married.”

I responded with a question, and Helena answered it.

Marriage. Marriage, huh. I had always thought we would marry someday, and she had asked about my intentions a few times before.

Each time, I had postponed my answer, saying we should wait until later, until I was a bit older.

The idea of getting married at fifteen, or even younger, was difficult for me to accept emotionally.

It was a disconnect between thought and reality.

“Come to think of it, Helena, you’ll be twenty-four soon, right? I’m sorry. I’ve been too focused on myself.”

“No, no! Zion has nothing to apologize for! And I feel even more sorry for seeming to rush you! Oh, what should I do…!”

Helena’s voice broke through the dark, quiet night air, echoing through the forest. In the darkness, her voice carried like thunder, and her flustered movements were as clear as if it were broad daylight.

Helena’s hand, which had been flailing wildly in the air, grabbed mine.

Her eyes were desperate like a puppy that had been abandoned or was about to be. Her lips, pressed into a thin line, trembled slightly.

Even her head was bowed deeply, as if she felt terribly guilty for going against my feelings.

I inwardly snickered, feeling like the roles had been reversed—I was now the one comforting a sulking woman.

I hadn’t watched much TV lately, but scenes from dramas I’d seen in the past came to mind.

Perhaps somewhat exaggerated, but those moments that pulled illusions from gray screens into reality.

“Then, shall we get married on my sixteenth birthday?”

“…Huh?”

Helena’s mouth fell open at my unexpected question.

Her reaction was as if her mind had gone completely blank, like someone who had been ambushed by someone they never expected.

Judging by her suddenly lifeless eyes and expression, that’s exactly how she felt.

She almost looked hypnotized.

“Why? Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Even as I chuckled and teased her, I readjusted my mindset.

She had become a woman I could confidently call precious, not just in work but emotionally as well, but that didn’t change what I needed to do.

Preventing Helena from going mad and neutralizing other potential dangers. That was my job.

I had been postponing marriage simply because getting married at such a young age felt uncomfortable, but thinking about it, Helena was already twenty-three.

In modern times, even being over thirty would be dismissed with a “So what?” as still being young, but not here.

Considering that the average marriage age was 18, twenty-three was well past the typical age for marriage.

The reason no one had said anything about it was because Helena and I were engaged.

Moreover, from an outside perspective, our engagement seemed so solid that it was practically like marriage already, with no chance of breaking apart.

That’s why adults, including Ise, were simply waiting patiently without saying much.

“Y-yes, I want to! No, please let me marry you…!”

Helena clung to my arm, not as a master but as someone in a subordinate position.

It would be difficult to say definitively who usually held the upper hand in our relationship, but I believed I could take control if I wanted to.

Her pleading with me now, speaking formally, was proof of that.

Feeling as if I could sense the warm skin and heat pressing against my arm and torso through my leather armor, I gently stroked Helena’s chin.

This was only possible because everyone else was asleep, leaving just the two of us.

If anyone else had been awake, I probably wouldn’t have done this.

“Alright. Then this year, I’ll receive Helena as my birthday gift.”

“Oh, Zion…!”

Helena called my name with a dreamy look in her eyes.

She seemed to be gazing at something far away, or as if she were lost in a dream she couldn’t wake from.

That’s how sweet the word “marriage” must have been to her.

A man who caught himself a good woman, or perhaps one full of ambition to wield power through her.

Someone looking at me now might judge me that way, and I couldn’t completely deny that assessment.

“I love you. More than anyone else…”

Helena fell into my arms, freely saying words that would make her parents shudder with disappointment.

I felt a pang of conscience, like I had become a truly terrible con man.

Even though I had been doing similar things all along, it was still…

◎◎◎

My goodness.

I stood with my mouth agape at the monster I was seeing for the first time in my life.

While not enough to shake my mental fortitude completely, I was still astonished beyond measure.

I had thought magic items were moderately impressive, but the monster lumbering in the distance had a different kind of vivid presence.

It was truly the kind of being that made fantasy feel like fantasy.

“So orcs are the most commonly encountered monsters…”

Pig head, green skin, large build. The creature before us, forming a group with others of its kind, was the very definition of an orc.

I wasn’t sure what they were doing, but to my eyes, they looked like they were setting out to hunt.

The crude wooden clubs and other weapons in their hands, and their menacing appearance that needed no translation, gave me that impression.

Come to think of it, elves and orcs, female knights and orcs—those were classic fantasy combinations.

“As I said. They have the highest reproduction rate, making them the most commonly encountered type. They typically form groups of three to five, quite troublesome.”

“With them moving in groups, normal hunting methods won’t work.”

“That’s right. If a large army comes in, we could attack one at a time with multiple people, as in normal hunting. But otherwise, one person often has to face one monster.”

Ellen lay prone under the snow-covered shade of a tree, aiming her bow with an arrow nocked.

Her sharp, focused gaze was intense enough to pierce through the orcs, and a fierce wind began to gather around her arrow.

She looked like a sniper lying in wait for a long time at a great distance.

And she wasn’t the only sniper.

All the dark elves were in the same prone position, drawing their bows.

It looked like an uncomfortable posture, holding the bow horizontally, but these were masters of archery, so they were unlikely to miss their targets by much.

Helena and I were acting as guards, protecting the mercenary group who were the main hunters.

While none of Ellen’s mercenaries were so unskilled that they couldn’t protect themselves, they were currently focused on sniping.

This meant their attention was divided differently than usual, so we were there to ensure no one exploited that vulnerability.

Above all, since sniping was the main strategy, there was no reason to engage in close combat. That’s why the roles were distributed this way.

“Now then… shoot.”

Ellen released her bowstring with that brief command.

The motion was as light as plucking a string on a stringed instrument, yet it carried definite power.

It was the power needed to adjust the angle of the bow and the force of the arrow to pierce an orc’s throat or head with certainty.

The other dark elves also released their arrows, as if they had been waiting for this moment.

A total of six arrows flew through the air to pierce three orcs.

There were five orcs in total, but they aimed two arrows at each of three orcs to ensure they were dealt with decisively.

—Kuooo…!

A sharp sound of bone and muscle being pierced was followed by a deep, guttural scream that seemed to scrape against vocal cords.

It was the death cry of creatures who, while hunting their own prey, suddenly had their throats and heads pierced by unexpected arrows.

And with arrows empowered by wind spirits, the holes were impressively clean.

“Looks like they’ve noticed. But they can’t figure out where the arrows came from…”

“It’s natural they can’t immediately tell where the arrows came from. Even humans would struggle with that.”

Ellen answered my observation casually, quickly drawing another arrow from the quiver on her back and nocking it.

Though it looked very uncomfortable in her prone position, each movement was incredibly swift.

“Shoot.”

After quickly loading the next arrow, she fired without hesitation.

With three of their group dead, the orcs were on high alert, grinding their teeth and looking around, but unfortunately for them, the arrows were much faster.

The hypothetical “if they had noticed sooner” was useless.

The arrows had already torn through the air and cut off their breath, sending them across a river from which there was no return.

“Now it’s time for the real work.”

Helena sighed, glancing back over her shoulder.

While hunting was easy enough, moving the carcasses was the problem.

An inventory or subspace would have been nice, but unfortunately, such convenient features didn’t exist.

There wasn’t even a useful magic spell for moving loads. It had to be done purely through physical effort.

After looking around, Helena and I immediately ran to where the orc bodies lay.

Since they had done the hunting, it was our job to move the bodies. And now, in a reversal of roles, they were guarding us.

“Given the cart’s capacity, we can probably take at most two of them.”

“I think so too. What should we do with the rest?”

“We’ll have to leave them for other monsters to eat. Ah, but we should collect some blood. Orc blood is an ingredient for high-quality aphrodisiacs.”

Aphrodisiacs. The moment I heard that word, I felt as if my face was flushing, but when I touched my cheek, it was still cold.

It might have been warm from the cold, but not from embarrassment. That time had long passed.

Helena, however, blushed as she looked back and forth between the orc and me.

The contrast was striking—her flushed face while effortlessly carrying the massive body like a sack of rice.

Aphrodisiacs. As a man, it would be a lie to say I had no interest in virility, but I wondered if it was really necessary.

I might need it later, but for now, I had youth—the best aphrodisiac of all.

“Phew…!”

Thud!

After loading the orc’s body onto the cart, I let out a sigh.

It was lighter than a log, making it possible to move, but its large size gave it a considerable weight that took quite a bit of strength.

In contrast, Helena set down the body with apparent ease, looking completely untroubled.

I knew it was foolish to compare my physical abilities with a Sword Master’s, but it still hurt my pride.

Especially since she looked so delicate on the outside.

“Since it’s cold winter, the bodies won’t rot for a day or two, but we should still dispose of them as quickly as possible.”

“Yes. After we finish hunting, we should hand them over to the local craftsman.”

Since making money from monsters wasn’t our goal, I didn’t feel particularly attached to them.

The dark elves made hunting look so easy that one might mistakenly think orcs were pushovers, but the reality was far from it.

Orcs were strong, matching their size, and as mentioned earlier, they were troublesome because they moved in groups.

It was just that the abilities of the women here, excluding myself, were so extraordinary that it looked like hunting ordinary wild animals.

“Ah. If I had known we would be collecting blood, I would have brought the proper tools. I’m sorry.”

I bowed my head, apologizing for my lack of preparation.

I had thought we would simply be hunting and hadn’t considered the idea of efficiently collecting blood.

It was a mistake that was both minor and significant at the same time.

“What is there to be sorry about? It’s not like we’re leaving today. We can just buy the proper tools when we return.”

“That’s right. Don’t worry too much. This is your first encounter with monsters and your first hunt. Getting back safely is success enough.”

Helena and Ellen took my hands as if they had been waiting to comfort me.

That much I could have expected, but I hadn’t anticipated Ellen showing signs of disappointment.

Even the corners of her eyes drooped, clearly showing her regret.

—Hey! Watch the back! Stop getting excited and rushing ahead!

Just as an awkward atmosphere was beginning to settle, I heard a commotion nearby.

It was clearly other humans focused on monster hunting in the vicinity.

Hearing this, I clapped my hands together, thinking this was a fortunate turn of events.

This thought was possible because our goal wasn’t to earn money.

“What do you think about giving these orc carcasses to them?”