Episode 11

Unlike the other dwellings, the discussion began in a slightly larger meeting hall.

“Thank you very much for coming from so far away. I am Klock, the village chief.”

“I’m Simon, the detachment leader. And this is Zeke Lagias-sama, the son of Fool Lagias-sama.”

Hiroto thought they did not need to introduce him at all. The villagers went stiff with nerves, and the mood turned uncomfortable.

“Let’s get right to it—tell me about the monster that attacked you. Is it this ‘Breeze Weasel’ in the bestiary, am I correct?”

“…Yes, that’s the monster. The village youths barely managed to take down a single one. —However, many were injured.”

The Breeze Weasel was a small monster about thirty centimeters long. Its appearance was no different from a small animal, but it was dangerous because it used magic.

“You should already understand how dangerous monsters are. Do you have any idea why it escalated into an attack?”

“We were transporting harvested crops. To a hungry monster, I suppose they looked like ideal food.”

By nature it had a docile temperament and would not approach human settlements. Perhaps the monsters were starving, or perhaps there was some other reason.

“We’ll have you guide us to the attack site later. Aside from that, did anything else unusual happen?”

He looked around at the other villagers and asked. Suggestions came up—food shortages due to prolonged bad weather, simple hunger, a den nearby—but none could be judged on the spot.

After everyone had their say, one villager muttered:

“A curse…”

“A curse?”

“…Don’t. Not in front of our guests.”

The village chief admonished the speaker, and the air in the room changed.

“It’s that brat’s curse, obviously! Things that never happened for years have been happening one after another these last ten or so years. It has to be the accursed child’s fault!”

“Accursed child.”

Simon reacted to the word that piqued his interest.

“Chief, what do you mean by ‘accursed child’ and ‘curse’? …If this is a tangled village affair, we won’t pry too deep.”

“…My apologies for the outburst. We have no proof, but it is true that talk like that has been circulating in the village.”

According to Klock, about twelve years ago, a baby girl was born. The couple had a good reputation, and when they were blessed with a child, the surrounding congratulations were great.

Time passed, and the girl turned five. That was when an incident struck the village: the storehouse of reserves caught fire and burned.

Fortunately, no one was killed or injured, but half of the stored crops—the village’s savings—were lost. Everyone understood the importance of the storehouse, and since fire was strictly forbidden inside, questions remained about this blaze.

Most of all, the strangest point was that the girl in question was found inside the building.

The door was usually kept locked, so no one could come and go; even though there should have been flames and smoke from the fire, the girl had been sleeping unharmed.

Naturally, they asked the awakened girl what had happened, but she insisted she did not remember anything.

There were many suspicious points, but a child could not have forced the lock or started a fire. In the end, the matter was closed as an accident born of coincidence and misfortune overlapping.

—However, from that point on, strange occurrences began to plague the village.

Only specific crops completely failed to grow.

The village well ran dry.

Houses collapsed.

Livestock died under suspicious circumstances.

Abnormal weather.

Monsters became ferocious.

Each phenomenon should have had its own reason, but what they had in common was the girl’s presence.

She had been near the fields or the well, had visited the house that later collapsed, had tended the livestock…

It all sounded like sophistry, but as suspicious events continued, the association grew stronger.

Then a decisive event occurred. The girl’s parents both died suddenly at the same time.

Until the day before, they had lived as usual; by the next morning, they had passed away. Even the physician found no external injuries and could not determine a cause, yet only the girl survived unharmed.

Since then, she came to be called an accursed child who brought a curse, and the villagers began to keep their distance.

“That brat was there during the transport job this time too! That’s why I said I wanted no part of it!”

A villager grew agitated. Some tried to calm him, some agreed with him, and some kept out of it. They were supposed to be discussing monster damage, but the topic had swerved wildly, and the place grew noisy.

“Why would two normal parents give birth to a brat with snow-white hair⁉︎ That’s not right!”

From Hiroto’s perspective, people with green, gray, or pink hair were plenty “not right” themselves.

(An accursed child, huh… In the main game there were characters called children of calamity too, so I guess this sort of thing was common.)

“Chief, what is that child doing now?”

“She usually works the fields at the edge of the village. …And, to avoid misunderstanding, let me be clear: we do provide her with proper food, clothing, and shelter.”

Simon was worried the child might be treated unfairly. …Then again, he thought wryly, given that they had come as the lackeys of an unjust lord, they might not be in any position to speak.

“…In any case, we won’t know until we go on site. We plan to conduct our first reconnaissance tomorrow.”

“Understood. We’ll send several young men from the village.”

Just as they were about to adjourn with tomorrow’s plan decided, one villager spoke up:

“Soldier-sama. Could you take that accursed child to the site?”

“—! What exactly do you mean by that?”

“Fool! What are you thinking?”

Simon and Klock both reacted.

“We were never attacked by monsters before. The bestiary says they’re usually gentle. Then maybe the monsters won’t show up unless the accursed child goes there, right?”

“You would send a child to a place where adults were injured⁉︎”

“That’s right—most of the people on site were hurt. She was there at the time, so she should be perfect to guide you.”

As the villager said, most of the youths who had been on site were injured. If it was only to guide them, the logic that a child could do it had a certain surface appeal.

“…It isn’t for us to decide that. Let the soldiers decide.”

“Zeke-sama. What will you do?”

Zeke (Hiroto) stood up without a word and left the meeting hall.

“This is a waste of time. Talking about someone who isn’t even here gets us nowhere.”

The adults were left dumbfounded. None of them could answer Zeke’s barbed retort.