Chapter 2

Chapter 2. These Evil Child-Abusing Bastards
Half a year had already passed since Balun cleared the Trial of the Fang and became a full-fledged tribal warrior.
Considering that he had spent two months unconscious right after passing the trial, a full eight months had gone by.
Eight months.
Six, if you excluded the time he had spent unconscious.
That was plenty of time to accomplish something.
With enough effort, it was more than enough time to achieve a goal.
More than that, if a person struggled with blood and sweat, it could even become a precious stretch of time that changed the course of a life.
And yet Balun had failed to change his life with that precious time.
Even though summer was drawing to a close, he still had not escaped. He remained trapped within the bounds of the Red Fang Tribe.
Why was that?
Has escaping been too difficult?
Was the road too long and harsh? Was it because dangerous beasts swarmed everywhere? Because venomous creatures infested the land? Because monsters lived there?
Or had the tribe opposed him too fiercely? Had they watched him day and night so he could not flee?
No.
In the first place, he did not even know whether any of that was true.
Because he had never once attempted to escape.
It was, without question, an absurd reason, but Balun had his excuses.
He simply had far too little information.
Think about it. His life was on the line.
If he got it wrong, he was fucked.
How could anyone attempt something so dangerously reckless, something that might cost him his life, without knowing anything at all?
He wanted to escape in order to live, and he was supposed to charge blindly into something that might get him killed?
'That would be insane.'
It really was a ridiculous idea.
He could not wager his life on something uncertain. All the more so when that thing was obviously going to be terribly difficult.
He did not know how other people might think, but Balun thought exactly that way.
'Gambling is not something you should do. Life is supposed to be lived steadily.'
That said, it was not as though he had simply sat around doing nothing.
On the contrary, he had prepared very diligently.
His only problem was that he had focused too much on preparation.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Balun swung his axe with fierce dedication. Sweat poured down his broad upper body like rain. Feeling the heat rising from his entire body, Balun thought to himself,
'Instead of doing nothing but training like this, I ought to be gathering information. Otherwise, how am I supposed to come up with any kind of plan?'
For the past half year, Balun had trained with relentless dedication.
It was because of his anxiety.
During his last battle against the Rock-Cleft Troll, he had hovered on the brink of death, and that had made one thing painfully clear to him: he needed to become stronger. At his current level, he would not even make it over the Great Mountain Range. He would probably die halfway up, fighting the monsters that were said to live there.
At the very least, he needed enough strength to pass through the mountains.
With that mindset, he devoted himself tirelessly to training, but the problem was that training was all he had been doing.
'I really ought to at least gather some information... but there is no way to find any.'
It could not be helped.
These damned barbarians had absolutely no interest in civilized society, so they knew very little about anything connected to it.
At most, they were aware that beyond the Great Mountain Range there lived people clad in iron.
Even so, he was fortunate that the tribe had a shaman. If not for the shaman, the brain of the Red Fang Tribe, he would not have been able to obtain even the little information he had.
"Balun. So this is where you were."
At the sudden voice, Balun's axe froze in midair. He turned his head and saw an old man with a full head of white hair approaching him. It was Ulan, the shaman of the Red Fang Tribe.
"Ah, Lord Ulan."
"Why did you not come to your lesson today? Has your heart for learning finally cooled?"
"Huh? What do you mean, my heart has cooled...?"
Balun looked around absentmindedly, then started in surprise. At some point, the shadows of the houses and the people had stretched long across the ground.
When has so much time passed?
"It seems you have fallen into your training trance again. Tsk, tsk."
"Yes. I suppose I got too focused..."
Balun scratched the back of his head, and Ulan chuckled softly as he walked over and patted him on the shoulder.
"Excellent. Truly excellent. It pleases me greatly to see you work so hard. It makes me feel that the future of the Red Fang shines bright indeed. Heh heh."
Ulan looked Balun up and down. His gaze lingered again and again on Balun's broad, powerful body, and he smiled as though deeply pleased.
To Balun, that look was unbearably burdensome.
And what was that comment supposed to be?
The future of the Red Fang was bright? What a horrifying thing to say.
He was working this hard precisely so he would not become that future.
"Well, if I do not want to die, I have to work hard."
"Balun. I have watched you since you were an infant. That is why I know you very well."
Ulan continued,
"You always say that you are not warrior-like, but that is not true at all. In truth, you are more warrior-like, and more manly, than anyone."
"Come on. That is not true."
"No, it is. Look carefully. You have always stepped forward bravely in every hunt. You have also never missed a war, and you have brought honor to the tribe. Even after all that, will you still say you are not warrior-like?"
'That is because you people forced me to...'
Apparently, he had completely forgotten the time they had pressed an axe blade to the neck of a ten-year-old child and told him to go kill a bear immediately.
"Think back on the last six years. How many prey animals have you brought back? How many wars have you distinguished yourself in? Truly, there are too many to count."
And then, sure enough, Ulan launched into a tale of Balun's glorious deeds. Which prey he had hunted, what feats he had accomplished in which war—he recounted it all vividly, almost like a heroic folktale.
It was the sort of story that would make the hearts of men and women, old and young alike, tremble with excitement.
But to the man in question, it was nothing more than a collection of memories he would rather forget.
Desperate struggles with his life on the line!
A brutal fight for survival!
How hard had he worked just to avoid being pierced by the fangs of beasts and the blades of enemies? Just remembering those frenzied struggles made his teeth clench.
These evil child-abusing bastards.
After rambling on and on about Balun's heroic exploits, Ulan finally finished his long speech.
"See? You have achieved so much. Among the tribes of the eastern great grasslands, there is no one who does not know your name. Is that not so?"
"Well, that is true."
'That is exactly the problem, old man.'
The name Balun was already famous throughout these lands.
There were even people who ground their teeth in fury just hearing it.
"There, you see? If a man like you is not warrior-like and manly, then who in this world could possibly be called warrior-like and manly? Is that not so?"
"Well, I suppose..."
"Haha. Good, good. As long as you understand."
It was not that he understood. He had merely nodded because he had no choice.
If he argued, the old man would just keep lecturing him until he admitted he was a warrior.
"Balun. You are an exceptional warrior. You are the future of our tribe. At the council of senior warriors, there was even a proposal to name you a future candidate for chieftain."
"What?"
'No, what the hell is that supposed to mean?'
That was a truly chilling thing to hear.
"Haha. You are very pleased, I see. Of course you are. I know exactly how you feel. How could you not be delighted at the thought of sitting in the honored seat that leads the Red Fang?"
'I am not delighted at all.'
Balun wanted to dissect the old man's brain.
It was not as though he were hard of hearing. If so, was the part of his brain that processed sound somehow defective?
"That has not been adopted as a formal proposal, right?"
"What kind of foolish question is that? Of course it has been adopted."
"Ah."
Balun felt as though darkness had suddenly swallowed his vision.
'I'm fucked. I am absolutely fucked.'
If things kept going like this, he was going to end up becoming chieftain whether he liked it or not.
It sounded grand, but the position of chieftain was really a seat of death, the place where one always stood at the very front of every battle.
These people were trying to push him toward death.
As expected, they were dreadful child abusers with neither blood nor tears.
'And there are already plenty of bastards gunning for me as it is...'
Lately, whenever war broke out, an awful lot of arrows seemed to fly in his direction.
That probably was not his imagination.
"Now, just think about it. Your future is so bright. Your martial strength already ranks among the best in the tribe. If you continue to grow, you may truly become the greatest warrior. Is that not so?"
"Yes. I suppose."
Balun nodded. He hated to admit it, but it was not wrong. At this rate, he really might become the greatest warrior.
For the record, every warrior from the Red Fang Tribe who had once been called the greatest ended up getting stabbed to death.
"Now imagine this. What if, on top of that strength of yours, you also gained great intellect?"
"Great intellect? Well, I guess I would be even more impressed."
"Exactly! That is precisely why you must learn the language of the Ironclads!"
'So that is what this was really about.'
The language of the Ironclads meant the tongue spoken by the civilized people beyond the Great Mountain Range.
Only a tiny handful of people in the Red Fang Tribe knew that language, and one of them was the shaman Ulan.
"You already possess strength, so now all you need is intellect. Then the greatest warrior will truly be born. That is what I have been striving so hard for, so why do you not answer my efforts in kind?"
Put briefly, what he meant was: So why did you skip my lesson? Do you have a death wish?
That was what all this lengthy buildup had been for.
What a tiresome old man.
Feeling a savage stare fixed upon him, Balun answered,
"What are you talking about? You know very well that I have never missed your lessons, Lord Ulan."
"And yet you missed today."
"That is because I was training..."
Balun offered his excuse, but Ulan shook his head.
"You have trained enough. You are already strong."
Balun nearly let out a bitter laugh. What was he even saying?
'Already strong, my ass.'
The old man really was trying to get him killed.
He still needed to become far stronger, and yet this man was telling him to stop training. What kind of nonsense was that?
"What you must do now is acquire intellect."
Ulan's voice was firm as he continued.
"No chieftain until now has learned the language of the Ironclads. But if you learn it properly, then the first chieftain possessed of intellect will be born. Just imagine how stirring that would be."
At last, Balun understood Ulan's goal.
'He is trying to turn me into an all-purpose, perfect chieftain.'
Which meant moving even closer to death.
"Now then, what do you say? Even after hearing all this, do you still have no desire to learn the language of the Ironclads?"
"Of course I do. I was the one who said I wanted to learn it in the first place. You have not forgotten that, have you?"
That was true. Balun had been the one to ask to learn the foreign language in the first place.
Not because he wanted to become some perfect all-purpose chieftain, but because he needed it in order to escape.
"That is true. I know. So your heart for learning has not cooled after all. Heh heh heh."
"Of course not."
He needed to learn the language so he could use it once he reached the other side.
How frustrating would it be if he got there only to flail around in helpless body language because he could not speak?
"Haha. Good. Then let us go have our lesson at once!"
"Right now?"
"Why? Do you dislike the idea?"
"No. Let us go."
Balun stopped training, wiped himself down roughly, and strode off after Ulan.
And as he followed him, he thought,
'I am getting out of here somehow. No matter what.'
After speaking with the shaman, Balun's resolve had only grown firmer.
***
Another month passed. During that time, Balun lived much as he always had.
He went out hunting, and there were two more small-scale wars.
Whenever he had time to rest, he trained diligently. At sixteen, he was still growing rapidly, and with each passing day Balun's body became sturdier and more powerful.
He did not neglect his studies either. He applied himself to learning the language of the Ironclads just as seriously as he did to training.
For one hour each day, he received instruction from the shaman Ulan, and once he returned home, he always reviewed what he had learned.
Then one day, when summer had fully ended and the air had turned cool, Balun set out early in the morning for another hunt, just as usual.
"Anyone headed to the Moonrise Mountain Range? I am thinking of going after the leader of the sharp-horn deer."
"Five men for the Dark Forest. Move it."
"Hey, young warrior over there! Come with me!"
Early that morning, cries rang out here and there across the open ground before the entrance to the tribal village. The men were gathering companions for the hunt.
The Red Fang Tribe was a large tribe of roughly four to five hundred people, so naturally it had many warriors as well. Of course, the hunting parties had to divide up.
Usually, a warrior acknowledged as strong was given the authority to recruit others as a hunt leader. Each hunt leader selected the people he wanted and then set out.
Balun, too, was one of the warriors recognized as a hunt leader.
By any measure, it could be said that he was speeding down the road to success. A hunt leader at sixteen? Nothing like that had ever happened in the history of the Red Fang Tribe.
...Though Balun found no joy in that fact.
"Who wants to come with me?"
"I do! I will go!"
"If it is Balun, of course I am following him!"
Balun gathered a hunting party. Since he was a popular warrior, he had a full group in no time. People joined him without even needing to be asked.
"Where are we heading today?"
"The Valley of Death."
"Ohhh! The Valley of Death? You are choosing a difficult place again today!"
"There has been a lot of prey there lately."
"That is true enough. Then let us hurry!"
Balun set out with seven other warriors. Their destination was the Valley of Death.
It was a grim ravine southeast of the tribal village, a dreadful place crawling with venomous creatures.
As they headed toward the ravine, one of the warriors asked,
"Balun. You have been challenging difficult places a lot lately. Has your attitude changed?"
"Well, you have to roam around a lot if you want to find truly large prey, do you not?"
"Oh ho, I see!"
That was what Balun told the tribal warriors, but in truth he had another motive.
'There might be a road beyond the Valley of Death.'
Balun recalled what had happened during his coming-of-age ceremony, when he had fought the Rock-Cleft Troll deep within the Valley of Death.
Back then, he had been too busy fighting and fleeing at the same time to remember clearly, but thinking back on it now, he was almost certain he had glimpsed some kind of path leading beyond the ravine.
That was why he had been coming to the Valley of Death so often lately. He was searching for that path. Who knew? It might lead to the civilized world.
When he thought about it, that made perfect sense. Crossing the mountain range could not be the only route.
Land connected somehow, one way or another, and if he searched carefully enough, he might find a path that went around it.
These barbarian bastards insisted there was no road beyond the Valley of Death, but was that really true?
Balun could not believe them. These people did not even have a proper map, so how could he trust what they said?
'One day, I am going to settle this for good.'
Balun's eyes gleamed. If he could find a road, escape would no longer be some distant, impossible dream.
"All right, spread out."
"I will take the left."
"Then I will go right!"
Once they arrived, the hunt began at once.
Their hunting method was simple: all eight members each fulfilled their assigned role.
The scouts found the prey, the drivers herded it, and then the fighters killed what had been driven in.
For a barbarian tribe, it was surprisingly divided into roles, which made their hunting rather efficient.
Today, Balun was serving as a scout. He ranged all across the ravine, examining everything carefully. Officially, he was searching for prey, but his true goal was to see whether there was a route leading out of the ravine.
Squeeeeeal!
"It is a boar!"
"Waha!"
He had been roaming through the ravine for some time when he heard shouting from behind him. It seemed another scout had already found some prey.
"Balun! What are you doing?"
"I am looking!"
"We have already caught one! Try harder! Hahaha!"
"I will!"
Balun more or less ignored his comrades and continued scanning the surroundings. Judging by the signs, today would be another wasted trip.
'Tch. It cannot be helped. I guess I should just quietly look for prey.'
Still, it was not as though he had gained nothing. At least he had confirmed that this was not the right direction.
In the end, the ravine was a limited space. If he searched it bit by bit every day, then eventually he would have searched the whole place and would know for certain whether a real path existed or not.
'As long as I stay away from the deepest parts, I will not die here.'
He had studied hard for the past six months. By now, he already knew what lived in the Valley of Death.
Balun turned around. He intended to head back toward where his companions were.
Just as he was about to step forward, he suddenly heard a strange sound.
'Hm?'
It sounded like something rattling.
One thing was certain: it was not a natural sound.
It sounded almost like wheels.
'What is that?'
His curiosity stirred, and Balun moved toward the source of the noise. After about two minutes, he finally discovered what it was.
"There is a road here! This way!"
'People?'
There were people. Men riding in wagons, drivers, and others running alongside the wagons.
They were racing forward as though something was chasing them.
Balun stretched his head out and looked behind them, only to see men on horseback pursuing the wagon with swords in hand, gripping their reins tightly as they thundered after it.
Red headscarves, grotesque grins, ragged appearances. Anyone could tell at a glance that they were bandits.
Balun's eyes widened. This was real, right? Not fake?
'Civilized people!'
Balun's heart pounded violently. It did not matter what kind of story those people had. The only thing that mattered was that they were civilized people. Not those barbarian bastards who stripped their upper bodies bare every other day, but actual civilized people in proper clothes.