Chương 28: Talk Later

A beast larger than the ones from the previous night was driving two hunters back in front of the broken cart, and bony protrusions rose from its body, which looked like a mix between a wolf and a boar. Kichan squinted briefly at the horn. Dry-root-like strands were tangled over its surface, and a faint metallic sheen showed through them. Dust reacted first on the back of his hand. Its tiny legs stretched toward the horn and tugged at Kichan's finger. Kichan immediately grimaced.

"This is not the time to think about that." The two hunters were already exhausted. Bundles of herbs lay mixed with mud and blood where the cart had fallen, and one wheel had come half loose and tilted to the side. The surrounding grass had been flattened by huge feet, and dried roots had spilled from a torn leather pouch. One man held a broken bow. Dirt clung to his face, and his lips were dry and cracked white.

The other was dragging one leg while gripping a knife, his eyes forced wide in that particular way frightened people had. The hunter shouted again.

"Rak! Dra, dra!" Kichan looked at the hunters' gestures first. One hand pointed toward the forest, while the other kept waving as if pushing Kichan away. Danger. Run. Are you insane? Probably one of those three.

"I get it, so quiet down a little."

"Move aside." The beast scraped the ground. The tip of its horn pointed toward Kichan. It was the short pause before a charge. Kichan drew in a breath. Just don't make any singing sound. Kichan shut his mouth and gripped the wake-up rod short.

'I'll hit you gently, so you figure out whether to run or pass out.' Kichan loosened the fingers around the wake-up rod one by one, then wrapped them back around it. The image of one beast smashing through two trees last night was still in his eyes. He could not swing the same way in front of people. The beast charged. Kichan did not dodge. If he dodged, the hunters behind him would die. Instead, he struck the side of the horn with the end of the wake-up rod. Not hard. More like pushing it away. Tap.

The sound was smaller than he expected. The horn broke. The broken cross section was even stranger. At the center was a white core like bone, and around it were brown wood-grain lines and fine silver threads. The blood spread slowly, more like dark red sap than red blood. Kichan mentally smacked himself in the head. Do not think about weapon upgrades while saving people. The beast's head twisted to the side, and its huge body was shoved beside the cart.

Dirt flew, and the cartwheel creaked as it sagged farther down. The two hunters' mouths fell open. The man with the broken bow froze while inhaling, and the injured one could not even lower the point of his knife, only trembling at the wrist. The beast staggered, then raised its head again. Black blood ran from the place where the horn had broken. Its throat shook as if in rage, and this time it lifted a front leg to stamp down on Kichan.

"Right. Since we're here, let's see that horn you wanted so badly. Dust." This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Dust shot off the back of his hand. Kichan raised the wake-up rod in a short motion from below. There was a sound of bone turning. Too hard. He grimaced.

"Ah, sorry. No, you did come at me first, but still." He pressed the end of the wake-up rod's handle under the beast's jaw and twisted his body to take its weight off balance. The beast lost its footing and toppled sideways. The ground shook. Then it stopped moving. Kichan waited for a while. It was hard to tell whether it was dead or unconscious. When he felt around with his fingertips, an organ like a heart was still trembling slowly. It was still breathing. Kichan exhaled.

It made no sense. The two hunters looked at Kichan and spoke rapidly. One had gone pale because of his injured leg, and the other kept looking back and forth between Kichan and the fallen beast. Kichan raised his hands.

"Calm down. Calm down." They grew more tense.

"Ah, maybe that doesn't mean calm down here." Kichan slowly set the wake-up rod on the ground. Only then did one hunter manage to breathe a little. But the injured one did not let go of his knife. His hand shook, and the shaking made more blood flow from the wound. Kichan pointed at his leg.

"Treatment." Kichan pointed to his own arm and mimed pressing a wound. Only then did the hunter sit down beside the cart.

"Medicine. Treatment. Ah, this is frustrating." The injured hunter gripped the knife even tighter. His companion stopped him. A short, rough exchange passed between the two. The hand holding the knife still did not come down, and his gaze moved between Kichan and the wound. Kichan raised both hands higher.

"I know you're scared, but let's stop the bleeding first." The injured hunter's knife point lowered a little, then wavered again. In the meantime, Kichan examined the grass around them. A plant similar to the blue leaves he had seen by the valley was growing under the cart. When he felt it with his fingertips, he sensed something inside the stem like a wound tightening closed. At least it seemed usable for stopping blood. He rubbed the leaves in his hands and made juice.

Then he applied it to the back of his own hand first. It did not sting. After that, he lightly scratched his own arm until a little blood came out and even mimed applying it there. The two hunters watched. The companion nodded first. The injured hunter clenched his teeth and lowered the knife a little. Kichan approached slowly.

"Don't move. It'll hurt more if you move." The words did not reach him. Even so, Kichan's hands were careful. The wound was deep. It looked as if a beast's claw had scraped along the side of his thigh. Blood kept flowing, and mud was stuck inside the torn flesh. Kichan wiped away the blood, applied the herbal juice, and pressed the flow of the surrounding tissue with his fingertips. He did not try to heal it completely.

He did not want to do that in front of people he had just met, and he had no idea how wounds from another world would react. Stopping the blood, reducing the pain a little, and keeping the wound from festering would be enough. Even so, the blood stopped too quickly. The two hunters sucked in a breath. The knife point lowered a little more, and Ren looked at Kichan's hand before he looked at the injured hunter's leg. Kichan shook the grass juice from his hand.

"No. Don't look at me like that." He wiped his hands and stood. Then he pointed at his stomach.

"Food." The two hunters stared blankly. Kichan pointed at the fallen beast. He mimed tearing meat with his hands and putting it into his mouth.

"Can you eat this thing?" One hunter finally seemed to understand and blinked. He looked at the beast, looked at Kichan, then looked at the beast again. Very carefully, he nodded. Kichan breathed out in relief.

"Good. The most important thing got through."

By the time the sun tilted, Kichan came out of the forest with the two hunters. From the point where the shade of the trees ended, the color of the dirt changed. Instead of the black, wet soil inside the forest, a hardened path pressed by human and animal feet ran down below a low hill. Rather than saying they came out together, it was more accurate to say they led Kichan out from the front. Kichan did not know the road either, so he had no choice but to follow.

Along the way, the hunters spoke to him several times. It seemed like they were asking his name, or maybe where he came from. Kichan pointed at his chest.

"Han Kichan." The two hunters tried to repeat it.

"Ha, Kichan?"

"Han. Ki. Chan."

"Hakichan."

"Let's just go with Kichan." That did not reach them either, but the two of them roughly learned a sound close to Kichan's name. Kichan heard their names too. One was Ren. The other was hard to pin down--Tarok, Taruk, Taroq. Kichan decided to remember it as Tarok. When the forest ended, low hills, fields, and a village clinging below them came into view. The wooden fences were not straight, and the low roofs were topped with grass and mud, leaning in different directions.

Smoke rose from several chimneys, and children running under lines of drying grass stopped in place. Beasts that resembled goats but had three horns lifted their heads inside a pen. Kichan stopped walking. In the forest, there had still been room to insist that this was some unfamiliar mountain somewhere. Here, there was not. The clothes, the roofs, the fences, the smells--everything was different.

"Wow." This is really screwed. People poured out at the village entrance. Someone screamed when they saw the injured hunter. Children hid behind adults, and an old man stepped forward with a cane. The old man held a transparent crystal-like stone in his hand. He offered the stone to the hunter Ren first. When Ren touched it, a faint blue light turned inside the stone. When the injured Tarok touched it, the light was weak, but clearly remained. The old man looked at Kichan. Kichan looked at the stone.

"Is that like a thermometer?" He carefully touched it. Nothing happened. No reaction at all. The stone stayed transparent, cold, and quiet. The villagers murmured. Kichan looked at their gestures and stiff shoulders. Kichan slowly took his hand away.

"... Am I the only one it doesn't work on?"