Spirit Migration - Chapter 14

On the mountain road along the cliffs full with boulders, there is a slightly bigger spot on the road with Gaviik’s party. They were taking a break while taking care of the injured and performing repairs on the carriage. Most of the injured were the escorts and the servants of the merchant nobles.

“Captain, there isn’t enough medicine for the injured.”

“I have healed those with the worst injures, but my magic power is hitting rock bottom.”

“What about the reserve medicine?”

“All the reserves have been depleted… according to Franch there aren’t any herbs that can be used to make medicine in this area, we can only resupply when we reach a city…”

Gaviik sighed as he was scratching his head while hearing the report from his subordinates about how the situation is worse than he had expected. If they passed this mountain then it would only be half a day of traveling before they reach the next town, but taking in the facts that the servants’ carriage had been destroyed, it means they would have to walk. Moreover, thinking about the injured, it would at least take a whole day before they got there.

Even so, compared to a normal road it’s still faster. But the problem is that they could be attacked by a group of animals or bandits on the way.

“We can’t really protect anything in this condition.”

“If we handle this poorly there could be more injured or even deaths.”

Gaviik nods solemnly to the vice-captain’s words. At that moment, Dis, one of the magicians who was on lookout duty up on the carriage, gives his report with a puzzled look.

“Umm, captain… that.”

“Hm?”

“What is it?’

When he looked towards the mountain road where Dis was pointing, bulging a little from behind a boulder, something possessing white body hair with a black horn on its wolf-like head could be seen. It was sending fleeting glances their way while glimpsing from behind the boulder.

Thinking it was another attack from mutated wolves he began to sense his surroundings in a hurry, but there didn’t seem to be any presences like that around. Captain Gaviik gathered his subordinates of who he knew could kill the Hornbear.

“Rippa, get over here! Mandel assist Rippa, Karen back both of them up.”

“Oooh? What is what is it, is it an enemy?”

“Behind that boulder over there, those damn dogs may be hiding in the surrounding so be careful.”

“Ah, it’s the Bear-chan that brawled a little while ago.”

The pale looking swordsman Rippa began rush over while drawing his sword, Mandel gave out precise advise about the target. Karen was going in her own pace like always. When the three of them get closer for the kill, the monster Hornbear ran away.

‘Did he come for reconnaissance or something’, is what they thought while tilting their heads, but when they looked behind the boulder he was hiding they found a mountain of medicine lined up.

“The heck is this?”

“Oh, there’s a lot of medicine.”

“Don’t touch it Karen, Rippa be aware of the surroundings. Captain! Please send Franch over.”

The result of the Healer’s appraisal, they found out that out was just some normal medicine. Including magic water and medicine, there are about fifty of them. When they looked at it again, they saw a monster glancing their way while peeking from behind another boulder. Though it was suspicious beyond doubt, they couldn’t mistake that figure.

“……. I don’t get what’s happening but let’s pick it up.”

Thanks to the medicine that the monster seemingly left behind they could heal the rest of the injured and they could also recover the magicians’ magic power with the magic water, so they began to make preparations to leave. For now they made a simple cart from the spare carriage and materials. When they were finished they connected it to the carriage and loaded the luggage on it.

The nobles’ carriage, where the protecting target was in and Gaviik’s armored carriage, and together with the cart they were able to get everyone on it. They start moving out at a speed that was at least faster than walking. When they looked back they could see the Hornbear from just now following them from a set distance.

“What do we do about that?”

“For now just keep your guard up.”

Leaving behind the rocky area, the side of the road began to change to greenery when they had finally finished traversing the mountain road and reached the highway. At the entrance of the mountain road the party decided to take a break.

While they were making preparations to cook, they heard rustling sounds in the direction of the mountain road. The Hornbear from a while ago was jumping in and out of the trees and bushes. A bird that was perched on a nearby tree chirped and flew away scared.

“What’s there?”

“A flowing river if I’m not wrong. Since we need to cross over to the highway we need to go over the bridge.”

The skillful vice-captain Mandel showed his knowledge of topography. Gaviik, who doesn’t understand what the Hornbear is trying to do, told everyone that they should keep their guard up, then he returned to checking how the carriages were doing.

Meanwhile, the Hornbear Kou who was nearby the resting place for the carriages was looking for food for the Hornbear while going through the bushes and trees.

Having obtained what is edible and what isn’t from the Hornbear’s mind, he looked for the ‘meat’ it preferred. After searching for a while, he found a flowing river. He got that this Hornbear’s favorite food is fish.

[Can I get some fish?]

Just what should he do while he didn’t possess any tools to get some fish. Kou tried to search through his memories about the techniques he learned from Elmel and the others about how to obtain food, but he only knew methods where he needed to posses some kind of tool. It’s hard to find a tool that could be used by the rugged paws of a Hornbear.

[Hmm? This method… is it knowledge from another world?]

Since he had a memory with an unclear origin about ‘the technique of bird catching fish’ he decided to try it out. Walking along the river for awhile he looked around for a bulging boulder. When he found a boulder where fish seemed to gather, he pulled out a sturdy-looking hammer from his dimensional pocket.

[One two~tsu.]

Easily wielding a two-handed steel hammer with one paw he hit the boulder with the Hornbear’s brute strength. With a resounding loud bang sound, cracks began to run through the boulder. In a moment the fish that were stunned by the shockwave flew up out of the water. Like that he safely secured his food by grabbing all of the fish.

“Yeah, should I just eat it raw?”

Answering to the Hornbear’s will about how it quickly wants to eat, Kou loosened a little of his control and began to eat. I don’t know if other monsters are the same, but it seems this one feels fear in regard with the desire to eat. The Hornbear was eating in a daze while Kou felt it was giving an atrophied feeling.

After that, the Hornbear went to other places and used to same method to catch fish and filled its stomach, since it was satisfied with its feeling of fullness his conscious went back to being dormant.

[So it’s a monster that just eats and sleeps…]

Not knowing if he could store the fish he tried, but it didn’t seem to work. It seems like he can’t put anything with a soul in his dimensional pocket.

Perishing and then having its soul depart, the fish that had died could now be put into the dimensional pocket. Since he didn’t know if it would spoil, he would check it out from time to time, since Kou finished his resupplying he went back to see how the others were doing.

After going the way he came he made it to the entrance of the mountain road, it was just in time since the others were preparing to leave.

“Captain.”

“Yeah, he noticed. I wonder how long he plans to follow us.”

Captain Gaviik just shrugged when he saw the face of the Hornbear that was glancing at them from behind a boulder and decided that they should just move out for now. At that moment the young magician Dis came over with a troubled expression.

“Umm captain….. I can’t seem to see Karen anywhere though.”

“Hm? Karen should have gone up on the carriage.”

When looking at Gaviik and the others carriage, on the guardrails Karen’s quiver and bow could be seen, but not their owner.

Karen is a genius female archer, a young seventeen year old woman with a cat-like loveliness with a charming appearance and a glamorous body, but she was a troublesome girl who got compensated by being an idiot on the inside.

“Where the heck is she prowling around this time?”

At that time, while they were looking around, something had climbed up on a tree or something.

“Ei, I got yo~u!”

“Guee?” [Eh?]

“H- Hey Karen!”

“Dis, call Triton and the others!”

Karen could be seen hanging from the Hornbear’s neck, which was hiding behind a boulder. The Hornbear Kou stood up because he got surprised when he didn’t sense her coming close at all. Naturally, Gaviik drew his weapon in a hurry and rushed out. Mandel ordered Dis to call the healers and went after captain Gaviik.

“Karen! get away.”

“It’s m’kay captain~. This one’s tame y’know?”

Karen, who totally ignored captain Gaviik’s tension when he tried to intimidate the Hornbear with his beloved sword the magic sword ‘Kazekiri’, she told him that while nonchalantly hanging on the Hornbear’s neck which was at least twice her size. Gaviik’s head began to hurt from this, but he decided to consider Karen’s words.

Though it isn’t because she comes from the land of spiritualists and technique users Eioa, but unlike how she acts she has a very sharp sense when it comes to sensing someone’s true nature. It’s as if she could discern whether she could trust someone or not on instinct.

No matter what kind of deal you’d want to make with her, as long as you aren’t someone she trusts (doesn’t like) then it would never be possible and if you showed an opening you would just fall into a trap. In fact, at times when there are disputes between nations, Karen’s ‘instinct to see who she can trust’ has saved them many times.

To Karen, who began to climb on the Hornbear with her hands and feet, the Hornbear looked as if he was making sure she didn’t fall and supported her with his paw. Gaviik who saw this began to seriously think ‘Karen’s discerning eyes can even work on monster?’

“Captain! what’s happening?”

“Oh? The heck’s that girl Karen doin now?”

“It’s as you can see, it took a liking to Karen. Ref, I want to hear your opinion about this.”

“… I’ll go investigate it.”

While directing his magic sword to the ground he began to ask the opinion of the gathered members. Just like Karen she’s someone from Eioa, she has been entrusted with being the staff officer the attack specialist Refitia, and she was now preparing to use analysis type magic while stroking the top of her wand.

The wand she has is a special wand called the ‘Hand of the flow’ which lets her control the flow of magic power; it’s a high class wand that helps with controlling all kinds of magic. Even though she specializes in attack type magic she is also able to use the basics of technique type magic and healing type magic. Though the quality may drop since she doesn’t specialize in it, but Ref’s analysis was able to find out that there is another existence within the Hornbear.

“… That Hornbear is strange; the body’s conscious isn’t on the surface.”

“What does that mean?”

“… Another existence that possesses a strong force has dominated and controls its body.”

“Another existence? Isn’t it under the some kind of spell that makes it obedient or charms it?”

To captain Gaviik’s question staff officer Ref relates the Hornbear’s state to the existence that was in Barass’ dungeon ‘possession by an intelligent existence other than the collective conscious’ which was made her think about the state of this Hornbear.

“Barass’s intelligent existence you say?”

“Possessing a monster……”

Vice-captain Mandel and captain Gaviik involuntarily faced each other. They thought about a bitter memory which left them in red. The fake monster that was used to call customers to the town which they killed, the demon dog and the ‘intelligent existence’ which controlled it which was still a hard to believe story to them.

“Hm? I dun really get it, but it’s alright to think of it as an ally?”

“What! That’s a monster among monsters you know.”

“Well, it might be a monster, but it is liked by Karen and the staff officer says it’s intelligent so it must be, right?”

When Triton said that he couldn’t believe that a monster would ally itself with humans, Rippa who didn’t think about the hard stuff made a decision based on the facts. While they were doing things like that, Karen had climbed up the Hornbear Kou’s shoulder and began to wave at them, then she said something unbelievable.

“Hey hey, let’s take this one along, I’m gonna ride on him.”

“… It can be a ward against animals.”

“Yeah.”

What they gained from all this was that since this Hornbear was being obedient, letting Karen ride his shoulder which showed that it was likely that Ref’s hypothesis about how it was controlled by the ‘intelligent existence’ was correct, also, since it’s a powerful monster, small fry monsters wouldn’t come close which is a merit.

“There may be some that oppose this, but certainly at the moment the merits are good.”

When they arrive at the next town it would probably be past evening and be midnight. Even if it’s the highway, it’s dangerous to receive attacks from a herd of animals or a group of bandits. It’s good enough if the Hornbear just scared off the small animals in the surroundings.

“Are we going to take it along?”

“Ah, yeah, because it looks troublesome to take Karen off it and there’s also Ref’s analysis. Also, it’d be bad if we didn’t start moving out soon.”

The one who hired them and who they need to protect, lord Kizewashi asked what they were doing while talking in front of a monster.

Anyway, from what they’ve seen on the mountain road it’s highly likely that it would just follow them even if they left it behind. Then it would be better for them to keep it where they could see it so they could subdue it easier if they need to.

“But do you think that story about the demon dog that allied itself with the adventurers of Barass was actually real?”

“Who knows?”

If a fake monster was used as an attraction to get customers like that really exists, then it would’ve been better to tell this to a perverted scientist in the capital, Gaviik muttered this while thinking about the magic tool seller he usually frequented.

“Rippa and Daido sit in the front carriage. Dis, give Karen her bow and quiver. Ref, go up on the carriage. We’re moving out.”

Snappily giving out orders, captain Gaviik’s commands resound. In order to let Karen receive her bow, the Hornbear Kou that was sitting stood up. When he did, he was able to easily reach the roof of the carriage with his physique, seeing that, Dis shrieked and moved back.

“Kuma-chan, helloo~.”

“Guuuu~uuu.” [hello.]

In no time he got dragged in their group and let a girl called Karen ride on his shoulder, the Hornbear Kou followed behind the rough-looking carriage in a really happy mood. At the time when he went to the training camp’s camping grounds with Elmel and the others, or the time when he was carried to the town while he was a snake, even when he was traveling with Alice and the others for two days he felt that something was missing.

Looking at the adventurers’ journeys, until now it was just being carried around in a vehicle, but this time he was firmly traveling about the planet’s soil, though it may be borrowed, he could walk around and travel with his own feet.

[I’m sort of getting excited.]

The nobles’ carriage and the cart attached to it, the armored carriage and adding up the Hornbear in the rear the group began to move out on the highway of the forest.