Teogonia: Volume 1 (Premium) Read online

  As Lady White left the punishment room, leaving a pleasant scent behind her, Kai’s reckless mind was set on other ideas the moment he saw she was gone.

  He felt he was already getting the hang of it. And now he had an actual estimate of how little spiritual energy he had to use. Now that he knew his limits, he intended to find a way for someone like himself to make use of this new ability.

  I’ll claw my way up and get myself a good meal.

  When a child is left to go hungry, their longing for food shouldn’t be underestimated.

  The best thing I can do in this situation is...

  He started wondering whether it was possible to cut the rope around his body, and that was the start of his experiments with the “techniques.”

  Kai swallowed and winced as he tasted blood and felt pain caused by a wound in his mouth.

  This changed his mind. First, he decided, he should try using magic to do something about the pain in his mouth. In a world as cruel as this one, having some sort of “healing magic” would be a big help.

  He began to think about how he was actually going to test out that kind of magic.

  I have one candle’s worth of spiritual energy...

  If he was going to try a lot of things out, he was going to need some sort of safety measure in place so that it didn’t kill him.

  He needed to decide how long he could use magic for without there being any risk, then sticking to that time limit would be a fundamental rule while trying different approaches.

  Firstly, his previous experience had taught him that he could use magic for about ten seconds before reaching his limit. A second was a short period of time that lasted for just a moment. He knew about that now.

  Secondly, he had to carefully manage the “floodgate” that controlled his spiritual energy. He had to make sure that he could reliably open and close the floodgate, just like controlling the flow of a waterway.

  And thirdly, he had to think carefully about the theory behind the mental image that would result in a “healing” effect.

  Kai looked about the spare storeroom of the castle that was currently serving as his punishment room. During the harvest, this storeroom would be full, but in the run up to the harvest it was completely empty, so it was used for this kind of punishment.

  There was water dripping somewhere outside a window above him that led out to the open air. Someone above must have thrown away dirty water outside.

  1, 2, 3, 4...

  The drips fell about two seconds apart, so he decided he’d forcefully stop his magic after hearing five drips. Even if ten seconds became twenty, he didn’t think that would kill him, but there was no need to take risks when still learning.

  After five drips, I stop no matter what.

  He drew a deep breath of air into his lungs and then started his dangerous experimentation with magic. It was fortunate that he was bound to a pillar, because it meant that he wouldn’t fall down if the strength left his limbs.

  Kai waited for a first drop of water, then focused his attention on his godstone.

  First, the small amount of spiritual energy inside him had to be drawn from his whole body. This extraction process started automatically as soon as he called on his godstone.

  His arms and legs suddenly lost their color and became alarmingly cold as he directed the heat from his godstone over to the part of his mouth he wanted to heal.

  By this time, two drops of water had fallen.

  Wounds, heal yourselves...

  He wished.

  And he wished.

  And he wished.

  But it didn’t work.

  He tried another mental image.

  Flesh, regain your shape...

  He wished.

  And he wished.

  But it didn’t work.

  Another two drops of water fell.

  His next attempt would be the last. He narrowed down his focus.

  Cells, activate...

  He wished.

  He wished with everything he had.

  And then a soothing heat filled the inside of his mouth.

  He wasn’t able to take his time and enjoy the sensation. The fifth drop of water fell outside the window, and it was time to forcefully cut off the experiment. The mental image he used was the closing of the gate, which had already been effective in stopping his magic before. The lines of heat flow coming from his godstone were cut off as if they’d been squeezed shut.

  “Haah, haah...” His breathing was so heavy that his shoulders shook.

  Ten seconds had been enough to leave him feeling exhausted, as if all of his strength had just been used up. As the heat gradually returned to his limbs, Kai came to his senses.

  The wound in my mouth... Has it gotten better?

  He probed it with his tongue and then winced at the dull pain this caused. But it wasn’t the sharp needlelike pain that it had been before.

  Had it healed or had it not? He wouldn’t be able to judge for sure until he was released from this room.

  Exhausted, Kai fell into a deep sleep as if he’d fainted.

  6

  The borderlands were vast.

  Far north from the central plain that was the cornerstone of the unified kingdom, a nation of humans that had endured for 1,000 years, there lay a wasteland that was not quite grassland but not quite desert, stretching 1,000 yulds north-south and 2,000 yulds east-west.

  The power of humans had grown as their numbers increased, and the masses of humans extended their reach to even this barren land. But that happy era was long past. The humans clung desperately to their inherited land as their power faded, and they were soon preyed upon incessantly by nonhuman species that came at them in droves.

  If the fighting died down in the east, some new trouble would break out in the west. If the trouble in the west ended, next it would be the north. There was no reason to think that the conflict would ever end.

  By working together, the people of Lag had repaired the damage to their farmland caused by the macaque invasion, but sure enough the cycle repeated itself, and some new trouble broke out to the west of the village.

  The news was carried through the sky by tamed honks, the fastest messengers in the borderlands. The crest affixed to the bird’s leg to indicate its owner was that of Count Balta. He was the lord of a large territory to whom many barons in the borderlands swore their loyalty.

  It wasn’t merely a call for reinforcements; it was a formal order to congregate, with the weight of a higher lord behind it.

  Many of Lag’s soldiers still had unhealed wounds, but Baron Vezin didn’t hesitate to assemble a company of soldiers to send to Count Balta’s aid. The village was left defended by a minimum number of soldiers as the company hastily set out, taking with them fifty foot soldiers and a single guardian bearer who was the core of their strength.

  The company was of course led by their guardian bearer, the baron’s eldest son Olha. Among those fifty foot soldiers, there was a Kai.

  “Make haste! I can’t afford to be late to the council!”

  The soldiers wordlessly quickened their pace while Olha was yelling at them.

  Soldiers who regularly fought in the constant battles of the borderlands had been fortunate enough to “level up” with the power of godstones from enemies they’d killed, and most had powerful legs.

  Olha looked satisfied by the way the soldiers reacted, but they had their own reasons for being eager.

  Several days earlier, reinforcements from neighboring villages had come to their rescue, and custom had demanded that they express their gratitude with gifts. In the borderlands where food was scarce, the most sought-after gift was grain that could be stored for a long time. Lag had therefore given the other villages more than a little of their wheat.

  It was only natural to expect similar treatment when the situation was reversed.

  Brave warriors who would rush to help an ally in need could expect to receive a substantial amount of food in return. The “ex
penses” they’d had to pay several days ago had left their village with barely enough food for everyone, so it felt worthwhile for them to risk their lives in combat for the chance to obtain a few sacks of wheat.

  The village under threat was Banya, a settlement whose land was half covered by crops and half by livestock, and the request for aid had been made in the name of Count Balta, who was the leader of the allied lords of the borderlands. Count Balta’s domain was a walled town and seven surrounding villages in an area of the borderlands known as Baltavia.

  When the request was made in his name, it suggested that the threat posed by the invading demi-humans was particularly great. It was likely that all of the lower lords in the northern stretch of the borderlands were being gathered together.

  There was also the possibility that Count Balta would consider the speed at which others came to his aid as a measure of their loyalty.

  The attending lords would all drink together as part of a council ceremony to build solidarity, and for lords attending for the first time, this was an opportunity to improve their standing with their peers.

  “Kai, don’t overdo it if it’s hurting. You’re not healed yet.”

  “I know. Don’t worry about me.”

  Kai smiled wryly at the soldier showing him concern and shook his head to tell him to stop worrying.

  Kai’s broken bones weren’t fully healed, of course; he was going into battle with ragged cloth bandages covering his entire chest.

  Why would they choose a wounded soldier to send into battle? He was trying not to think about it, but it wouldn’t surprise him to learn that he was being thrown into battle so that there’d be one less useless mouth to feed.

  The quick pace was enough to cause Kai a lot of pain, but his injuries were no longer as serious as the people around him thought. It’d been ten days since he was punished for the disturbance he’d caused, and Kai had continued his experiments with “healing magic” the whole time. As a result, he’d successfully managed to repair several of his broken ribs.

  Kai had decided that most of the pain he still felt was all in his head, and was caused by worrying that he might not be fully healed.

  After half a day’s forced march, the Lag soldiers had traveled roughly fifty yulds west. Their destination was a broad stretch of land near Banya that lay between a forest and the village.

  “Uhh... Don’t tell me this was all crop fields...”

  The cleared land had once been fields cultivated over the course of many years by the people of Banya.

  This precious land had been torn up by uncaring feet, with corpses left to rot here and there, as if there’d already been intense fighting.

  The various fluids that leaked from the corpses were of course rich with fat and salt that were like a poison to the soil. Once the fighting ended, that poison would need to be removed in some hellish restoration effort. Just the thought was enough to make the soldiers grimace.

  When the company of 50 approaching soldiers was sighted, a soldier from Banya, where there was a rendezvous point established for the council of allies, came running to them. The soldier immediately identified Olha as their leader and guided him to the rendezvous point.

  Naturally, the foot soldiers silently followed behind.

  They soon reached the top of a gently sloping hill where they found the main camp surrounded by a wooden fence. Only Olha was summoned to the gathering of tents in the center, while the 50 foot soldiers were left outside the fence.

  Groups of soldiers from other villages could also be seen waiting idly in the same area.

  “There must be about 500 people here in total...”

  “Something big’s happening, I know it.”

  “Did you see all the corpses? Looks like the enemy really is orgs.”

  With no one high-ranking around, rumors soon began to spread among the foot soldiers.

  “I’ll go ask what’s up,” one soldier said, before running over to a group from another village.

  Their lives could depend on any information they could gather, so no one tried to stop him. While everything was being explained to Olha in the main tent, the foot soldiers had their own ways of learning more about the situation.

  They learned that the invading demi-humans were orgs.

  This species had a massive body that was over two yules tall and weighed several times as much as a human. They could come charging with enough force to reduce even a hardened veteran to tears, and dealing with them was never fun.

  The size of the invading force was somewhere between 150 and 200. Even as one of the larger settlements in the borderlands, Lag had only 120 soldiers, so for a medium-sized village like Banya, it was more than they could handle. When the fighting started, the invaders had been met with little resistance and took the lives of roughly 10 soldiers and roughly 20 farmhands.

  After the first strike they’d managed to take refuge behind the strong defenses of the village where they were able to hold out against the invaders. Count Balta’s reinforcements had arrived just in time.

  However, for the victims it was horrific.

  Orgs detested humans. Anyone familiar with them could guess what had happened. Orgs liked to kidnap young girls and would delight in tormenting them. Although they couldn’t produce children with them, they seemed to enjoy the sound of a human female screaming in distress. Lag’s soldiers learned that several girls from the village had been abducted. Needless to say, the survivors from Banya were passionate in their hatred for the orgs.

  “We’re fighting damned pigs? They should be more like farm pigs, then we could at least eat the bastards.”

  Although they resembled pigs, orgs were similar in shape to a human from the neck down, only with more muscle. They walked on two legs, so the arrangement of their muscles was similar to that of a human. The pigs humans raised for their meat were smaller and had hooved legs.

  “Has anyone actually tried eating one?”

  “I’ve heard they’re not that bad.”

  “So they taste all right?”

  As you’d expect, soldiers from Lag were always hungry.

  There was a rumbling sound from someone’s stomach, and then a wrinkled old man named Setta, who was their second-in-command, told the men to start preparing to cook food.

  It wasn’t long since the rainy season, so it wasn’t too cold to sleep without a tent, but a stove for cooking was still necessary.

  The alliance forces eventually grew to 700 soldiers. Count Balta had brought 200 soldiers, and the lesser lords of more than 20 houses in the northern region of the borderlands had brought together another 500 soldiers. It took them two days to gather and organize themselves.

  The orgs must have been scared by the sudden increase in the strength of the human forces, for they didn’t even attempt a night raid, nor was there any visible activity from them the next day.

  Deep down, members of the alliance waiting in the camp felt relieved, but the soldiers from Banya couldn’t bear to sit and wait.

  Several women from their village were still held captive, and they were eager to strike as soon as they were ready for battle.

  “We know how you all feel.”

  “They’re not attacking. Maybe they ran off when they saw how many of us there are?”

  There were few members of the alliance who thought it would be sensible to charge into battle if the enemy didn’t attack first. This was not their land after all, and none of the lords wanted to lose the valuable workers under their command.

  It wasn’t clear what sort of debate went on at the center of the camp, but when Olha returned to his own company, he sighed a great sigh and then ordered them to prepare to depart for battle. Somehow, Banya’s baron had been able to persuade Count Balta, who was in the command of the forces overall.

  “The orgs are watching our movements from the forest. They haven’t run from us yet.”

  Olha began to don his armor as soon as he finished speaking, making it clear that he meant
what he said and that there was no time for wishful thinking.

  Banya had sent out their own scout who claimed to be keeping watch over the org’s camp. The people of the village were growing more concerned because they couldn’t hear the voices of the abducted girls.

  For Count Balta, members of the alliance were like his children, and he refused to abandon a lord in need. Orgs were a constant source of trouble, so there was some meaning in pushing them back. He made the decision that they would rely on their superior numbers in a frontal assault.

  When fighting against demi-humans with superior physical strength, an environment full of obstacles such as a forest would put humans at a serious disadvantage. The foot soldiers were visibly unhappy because they’d been prepared for a defensive battle on open ground to defend Banya’s land. In a forest, the spear formations that were their forte would be mostly useless.

  “Seriously? We can’t just go home?” someone grumbled, as several others tutted with frustration.

  The people of Banya would be offended to hear it, but the soldiers didn’t want to attempt to save a handful of lives while putting ten times as many at risk. What’s more, the people they were trying to rescue weren’t even from their own village. For Lag’s soldiers, the target of their anger was going from being the orgs to the people of Banya themselves.

  The human forces quietly began to move out from the rendezvous point. Flags bearing emblems of each lord were held high across a broad stretch of land. Despite the disadvantageous conditions, they still had far superior numbers, and no one thought they could lose.

  Their rows of silver spears glistened with the reflected light of the early summer sun. Lag’s soldiers were among those who kept their spears as their main weapons, but each soldier nervously checked that their knife was in its rightful position. Everyone knew roughly what to expect from the battle in a forest full of obstacles.

  The fight against the orgs turned out to be just as gruesome as they’d feared.