kscans

Chapter 62 - Past and Future (Part 2)

"A field this large must attract birds and beasts. What do you do about them?"

The old man’s question was a natural one. Yuri could hardly say he had a secret pact with the birds and mice, so instead he fudged the issue by talking about the pests that had previously invaded his fields.

"You're right. Before the fence was finished, stray dogs and boars would often come by, which gave me a lot of trouble."

"Boars, I can understand, but... stray dogs?"

"Yes. They'd come in packs of five to ten. They were pretty big and fast, so even chasing them off with a water gun was a real chore."

Stray dogs this deep in the mountains was an odd story, but if they could be chased off with a water gun, then perhaps they really were just stray dogs. If they were the Ulvacs he secretly feared, a mere water gun would not have driven them away. Perhaps it was nighttime, and the boy had simply misjudged their size.

Though a few doubts lingered, Old Man Audel was about to accept this explanation, but his granddaughter beside him was not so easily convinced.

"Wait, Yuri-kun. How big were they?"

"Let's see, about... well, from head to the base of the tail, I think they were about a meter. A meter and a half... no, I don't think they were that big."

Could that really be dismissed as just "pretty big?"

"A meter and a half..."

"No, I said they weren't quite that big."

"If they were a meter long to the base of their tail, that's abnormally large for a dog..."

Both of them knew of a canine creature of that size that formed packs.

"Could that be... the monster called an Ulvac? A couple of them might be one thing, but they say a pack is dangerous even for the knightly order..."

"Is that so? But they ran away from my water gun."

"Hmm...?" the two murmured.

They fell into thought, wondering if perhaps he had misjudged the length after all. For the record, Yuri was speaking from his visual measurement of the ones he had killed, so there was no misjudgment. The misunderstanding arose from Yuri’s vague explanation, or rather, his omission of the finer details. He called it a water gun, but it was in fact Aqua Lance, a mid-tier water magic spell that, depending on the magic imbued, could bore a hole through rock. On that occasion, they had not simply fled. The truth was that after about six of them had been slain, the rest had escaped for their lives.

"And the boars?"

"Oh, they came a few times. Their size and color varied, but this is one of them."

Yuri, having finished the tour of the fields and returned to the room, pointed to the fur pelt at his feet and said this nonchalantly. At a glance, its body length, excluding the head, was easily over two meters.

"How did you manage to defeat such a monster..."

"Oh. You just have to make it fall into a pit trap. If you can get just its front legs to fall in, it's easy to hunt it once it can't move."

The answer he gave was difficult to judge, both understandable and hard to believe.

"A pit trap... that's not something you can just dig so easily, is it?"

"And that stone wall... Yuri-kun, could it be that you..."

"Oh, I can use a little Earth Magic and Water Magic."

He figured it was safe to come out with this much. In fact, if he did not mention Earth Magic, explaining the stone wall would be all the more difficult. In that case, there should be no problem talking about his Water Magic as well. If he remembered correctly, having multiple elemental affinities was not supposed to be unusual in this world. Yuri decided to reveal only his Earth and Water Magic. He had enough sense to know it was best to keep the fact that he possessed all elemental affinities a secret, but he judged that having just two would not cause any major issues.

If it were merely a matter of being able to use two types of elemental magic, Yuri’s judgment would not have been far off. However, when it came to Water Magic powerful enough to repel a pack of Ulvacs and Earth Magic capable of constructing a stone wall to encircle an entire village...

"That stone wall... did it take you a long time to build?"

"Of course. It's not something that can be built overnight."

It was during that time that the boars got in, he added. The two nodded, finding his answer plausible. However, there was a vast gap between the "construction periods" each side was imagining at that moment.

The two of them were thinking that for a stone wall of that scale, construction must have taken more than a month or two. A single child building it in his spare time from farming. It would not be strange if it had taken years. Yuri, on the other hand, was making his "it took time" comment in comparison to the stone wall around his own house, which had been completed almost instantly. The actual time required was about ten days, partly because Yuri had been careful not to exhaust his magic power in the beginning.

Thus, although there was a great disparity in their perceptions, the conversation proceeded with neither side noticing. Ignorance is bliss.

"I see. If you can use magic of that caliber, it's no wonder you're able to live alone in a place like this."

Finding the old man’s "place like this" comment odd, Yuri inquired further. He learned that the area around the abandoned village where he lived was so overrun with monsters that it was a place where ordinary villagers could never hope to reside.

"Um, but there were people who lived here before me..."

"We were always amazed that they would live in such a place."

"It wasn't the work of a sane mind, was it?"

It seemed he would not have to worry about the possibility of this village being taken over. Just as he was thinking this, Old Man Audel spoke up, his voice tinged with hesitation.

"Now then, Yuri-kun, there's something I'd like to ask of you..."

"Yes?"