Xia Ya finished packing his gear, and the wretch beside him stared, dumbstruck.
The fellow loaded every last scrap of his "loot" onto his back — one enormous bundle, bound round with rope more times than anyone could count. With that huge pack on him, Xia Ya looked like a human snail.
"Hey." The wretch really couldn't hold it in any longer. "We're going after treasure here... mountains of gold and silver! What do you want with this junk for?"
The other things were one matter, but that armor, already split clean open — the fellow had stowed it away like a prize.
"Mountains of gold and silver? We don't have them yet. We might trek all that way and come back empty-handed." Xia Ya showed the classic caution of a mountain man. "Carrying these, at least I won't come home with nothing if there's no treasure. And if we do find treasure, I'll just throw them away then."
In his heart, the wretch revised his opinion of Xia Ya all over again.
Though he was a little moved, too.
At least Xia Ya had handed over the white-rhino hide armor he'd stripped off that Masha, and made the wretch put it on!
Of all the spoils, this rhino-hide armor is the only piece of protection that came through in one piece! And that bumpkin actually gave it to me!
Unfortunately, that hard-won flicker of gratitude in the wretch's heart lasted only a short while before it was scattered to the winds.
"This hide armor is only lent to you. I hear dragons love shiny things — if we run into a dragon, that silvery-white armor of yours will do a fine job of catching its eye."
...Fine! He's a bastard, that's all!
The wretch gnashed his teeth in hatred: grr, grr...
Xia Ya had no attention to spare for the fellow's feelings. He took out the map Bidar Duo had drawn, gave it a careful look or two, chuckled coldly twice, and casually tore it up.
"Hey! What are you doing?" The wretch was stunned. "Why did you tear up the map..."
"It's fake." Xia Ya answered without a thought, then gave the wretch a long, deep look. "You didn't really think that map was real, did you?"
"But..."
"Hmph. That map points west!" Xia Ya's tone was full of certainty. "But I remember, when we were hiding up in the tree, that mage took out a compass and studied the terrain, and then he pointed his companions northeast! At the time I thought he was a muddlehead who'd got the direction wrong. Now it looks like he's the only one of those four with a brain — so he didn't get it wrong at all, he deliberately sent his friends the wrong way... The direction he pointed is where the dragon is!"
The wretch stared blankly at Xia Ya...
This bumpkin looks crude, but who'd have thought he'd tuck details like that away in his head? A detail that seemed so unimportant at the time — and now that I think about it, it really does add up! The man may be coarse, but he's no fool.
"Then — so then we ought to head northeast?"
Xia Ya thought for a moment, hitched his belt tighter, and straightened the fire fork tucked at his waist — worn just the way the mercenaries of Wildfire Town wore their swords at their hips.
Then Xia Ya winked at the wretch. "Northeast is right enough... but I've got a question for you."
"What?"
"Have you ever seen a goblin in your life?"
The wretch's face went white on the spot! Out on the Wildfire Plain, goblins were a breed folks feared more than dwarves! Because dwarves, bad-tempered as they were, at least didn't eat people!
Goblins, now — numberless, filthy and vile, more loathsome than rats, and worse still, they not only ate human flesh, they ground your bones to powder... Even the fat on your body would be rendered down into grease and packed into clay jars as their winter stores!
"No..." The wretch shook his head in a hurry.
"Then congratulations." Xia Ya sighed. "If our luck's bad, you'll be meeting these 'lovely' fellows soon enough." He pointed east. "That direction there is goblin country."
Traveling northeast, Xia Ya didn't treat the wretch badly — in fact, the wretch got rather considerate treatment.
Because of the wound on his leg, Xia Ya didn't make him walk; instead he hoisted that giant shield onto his shoulder and let the wretch sit on it.
The wretch was not in the least touched... he knew perfectly well that the bumpkin was looking after him the way an angler looks after the bait he's brought along. Besides, the fellow's strength was frightening, like some prehistoric monster — no one would guess it to look at him. His build was only somewhat sturdy, yet that frame held such astonishing power!
Back when they were hiding, the wretch had seen with his own eyes Xia Ya pull a great tree up roots and all. Not one of the skilled guards who had attended him before could have done that, surely.
And he had killed a savage, bloodthirsty giant wolf barehanded, too. This fellow was a warrior unlike any he had ever seen... If he weren't so coarse, and hadn't dared to treat him this way, then for the sake of saving his life, maybe once they got back, if he was in a good mood, he could even find a way to help the man get himself a decent standing.
But as things stand... hmph!
The wretch felt his teeth starting to itch again.
Once we're back, I'll have him seized. He's strong, isn't he? Perfect — I'll toss him into the workshop to turn a millstone! Heh heh...
Xia Ya naturally had no idea that the wretch sitting on his shoulder had already cast him as a mule in her household.
Traveling on northeast, the further north they went, the sparser the trees in the forest became, no longer dense, and the turf underfoot gradually turned sere and thin.
The ground beneath their feet grew harder and harder, and the coarse gravel more and more numerous.
Gradually the trees around them thinned further and the land began to flatten out — only what stretched before the eye, as far as it could see, was a barren wilderness.
Across that waste the ground seemed faintly red; there was little soil, most of it hard, coarse sand and stone, and hardly any green to be seen — only the odd thorn-studded plant of the wasteland, stubbornly growing in the cracks of the rocks, clumps of it laid bare on the surface.
"Go a bit further and you won't even see these thorns, I expect," Xia Ya said in a low voice. "See the red earth here?"
"Mm." The wretch nodded.
"Strictly speaking, this is the real 'Wildfire Plain,' you know." Xia Ya seemed to smile, and something strange hid in his eyes — but the wretch, sitting on his shoulder, couldn't see it.
"...Why? Why is this the real Wildfire Plain?" The wretch didn't understand. "Does that mean the forest we walked through before doesn't count?"
"It counts, and it doesn't." Xia Ya's answer was a little vague.
"But the real Wildfire Plain has a legend about it, from ancient times. They say that long, long ago, a rebel army was cornered here by the armies of the two great empires, Byzantium and Odin, and the leader of that rebel army was a terribly formidable general.
Seeing no hope of victory, he used some uncanny method or other and set the whole region ablaze — a vast stretch of land burned for a very long time, and every living soul in it was burned to death. Even the stones and the earth were burned red.
From that time on, this place has been called the Wildfire Plain."
The wretch froze for a moment; he looked around for a long while before he let out a breath. "What you said is true — the soil here really is all red. But... can earth be burned red?"
Xia Ya seemed to smile, his tone a little odd. "If... you add blood, it can be burned red, I'd say."
"..." The wretch stuck out his tongue. "Blood... how much blood would it take to dye a wilderness this big red?"
After a pause, the wretch couldn't help asking, "Who told you this legend? How come I've never heard it?"
"..." Xia Ya was silent for a moment, then said softly, in a tone that was almost calm, "My foster father. When I was small and sick, he'd sit at the head of my bed every time and tell me all these odds and ends of legends."
Xia Ya's tone was easy enough, but the wretch's ear caught something unusual in his voice. He hesitated, then said nothing more; somehow he sensed that asking anything further just now would be out of place.
Xia Ya stayed silent and carried the wretch on a while longer.
By now the two of them had come fully out into the wasteland; all around were great stretches of red sand and stone, and even the air seemed to carry a flavor of desolation and loneliness.
Just then the wretch suddenly shuddered and shot out a hand, pointing at a red rock in the distance. "Ah! There! There's something over there — it moved just now, and slipped behind! I think someone's spying on us!!"
Xia Ya's reaction was flat. "Mm, you only just noticed? They've had their eyes on us from the moment we walked into this wasteland... Don't make a fuss. Give them a wave and say hello, heh — this is a moment worth commemorating! You've finally seen a live goblin!"