IBMATG 48

I couldn’t protect them.

I tried my best to defend them in my own way, but my desire to save Yadgar made me miss the orc hiding inside the house.

As a result, I had to stand by and watch a whole family be wiped out.

But Mona protected someone.

Even though she was haunted by the anxiety that her family might be being threatened somewhere in the city, she embraced the child she saw for the first time that day and fought the orcs to the end.

At the same moment.

I couldn’t protect Mona’s family.

Mona protected my family.

“So….”

One memory after another flashed through my mind.

The night I’d stayed late with Yadgar.

How her face had darkened when I promised I would protect my family.

All of it was a shadow born of Mona’s trauma.

“I didn’t even know that… Is that why she scolded me so harshly?”

She hadn’t come to my house to look good for me, nor had she come thoughtlessly.

She had to, because otherwise she couldn’t bear it.

How lonely it must have been.

The family that would have greeted her warmly at home was gone, vanished without a trace.

Days alone in an empty house, passing time with no one.

Even I felt so lonely and crushed by the emptiness left by a single missing wife.

What must Mona have felt after losing five family members?

I had inflicted a wound on her that could never be washed away.

If only I had searched that house more thoroughly.

If only I had watched the situation more calmly.

Late regrets washed over me.

Knowing none of that would change anything, the images of that day still wouldn’t leave my head.

“I’m fine. I’ve already gotten past it.”

Even as she said that, shadow still lay over Mona’s face.

“You can’t predict things like that.”

Her words sounded like she was comforting me.

“Mona… I—”

I wanted, even now, to tell her what happened that day and beg her forgiveness.

“Let’s stop talking about this. I don’t want to think about it anymore.”

But Mona stopped me from saying anything more.

Yes — talking about it might only hurt her more.

Especially now, when her body and mind were tired.

So I closed my mouth.

It would be better to tell her when the time is right and she’s ready to accept it.

Then I would truly throw everything I had into apologizing.

{The Huntress watches your relationship with her with interest.}

Then, from Artemis — who had spoken almost nothing and had been silent since becoming a demigod — came a revelation.

{She asks whether you might have feelings for that woman.}

What an abrupt question.

The moment I saw the revelation, I answered immediately in my mind.

‘That’s not it. This is just—’

{She recollects that she once felt the same way.}

But the goddess seemed already decided in how she would take it.

She didn’t listen to me and began to tell her story.

{The goddess says she fell into a forbidden love with a human hunter named Orion.}

‘Forbidden love?’

{The love’s end was a tragedy where, by the arrow she shot herself, her lover died.}
{When she looks at you and the woman before you, that incident always comes to mind.}

Artemis started telling an ominous story out of the blue, and anger rose inside me before I realized it.

—So what’s that supposed to accomplish?

That thought nearly slipped out, right at the goddess.

Fortunately, even after becoming a demigod I could hide my true feelings and I tried not to lose my polite demeanor.

‘I only follow the will of the goddess.’

There must be an ulterior motive for telling me such a thing.

I shouldn’t needlessly offend a deity.

{The goddess is pleased by your obedience.}
{As a reward, she promises to protect you so you won’t suffer the same misfortune she did.}

‘Thank you.’

I felt somewhat toyed with.

But if by this I could protect myself and the things I cherish, I could endure even that.

I convinced myself I could.

The god who bestowed a blessing upon me was Artemis, the goddess of hunting and archery.

Her power naturally centered on the bow.

Kyuung!

A green beam shot forward from the translucent bow I held in my hand.

Kwaaaa!

The beam swept across its path and instantly laid waste to a wide area.

Trees filling the forest were uprooted; the piled snow soared into the sky, forming a blizzard.

And at the end of that trajectory, where the beam had aimed—

“Gaaah…!”

Dozens of orc soldiers were swept up and torn to shreds without understanding what had happened.

Artemis’s arrows.

The power given by the goddess of archery was, essentially, the ability to summon a magical bow that can fire endlessly even without physical arrows.

When mana was loaded into it, the synergy produced a ridiculous destructive force.

{The goddess is astonished by your skill.}
{She says no one else has ever wielded her power at such a level.}

I had only intended to combine the goddess’s power with my own to make it a bit more efficient and stronger.

So I applied the realization I gained last time to this bow, amplifying the power of the ability itself with the essence of mana.

Apparently others couldn’t do it to this degree.

If even capricious Artemis reacted like that, my weaponsmanship must have reached a fairly high level.

“Captain, here.”

Meanwhile, Mona, searching the bodies of the slain orcs, found a small metal piece and held it out to me.

It was an insignia proving they were soldiers of the Nord Kingdom.

“The scouts keep appearing. There must be something nearby that needs to be guarded with tight security.”

“Seems so.”

This was the second time today.

Until now, the hostile beings we’d encountered on the road were monsters or bands of orc brigands.

We were moving on an abnormal route that crossed the forest, so naturally that’s what we would meet.

But here, for some reason, regular orc forces had set up pickets deep in a forest where no one passed.

“Maybe we’re almost there.”

Rustle.

At those words, a clear trace caught my eye.

It was a footprint.

I immediately approached it and examined it closely.

“Footprints…?”

Mona seemed to recognize what I’d found.

But to her it didn’t seem to mean much.

“Wouldn’t it be hard to follow that? The snow has already covered the path.”

As she said, the place she pointed to was thickly layered with white snow.

Because of that, only a few dozen prints were visible to the naked eye.

To me it was more than just prints.

“I can sense it. The warmth of someone who passed.”

“…Huh? What do you mean…?”

“The sense given by the Huntress. I can feel it.”

In keeping with her epithet, Artemis had endowed me not only with archery but with tracking abilities.

Thanks to that, I could find minute traces that ordinary people couldn’t detect.

The warmth left on the path by someone who passed, scents, and the information implied by crushed grass and broken branches.

Right now I was like a predator chasing fleeing prey.

“Our target isn’t far. Follow me.”

“You can see what’s at the end from here?”

“Yes.”

With this sense I could track not only a target’s movement and behavior but even faintly read their intentions.

It was a gut feeling close to precognition.

‘A large marching guard… scouts split off from them.’

Those lying dead before us were orc troops who had been kidnapping city people and moving them towards “Bifrost.”

The time of battle had come.

Clack. Clack.

The wheels of the wagons hit stones under the snow with a rattle that echoed through the whole valley.

There weren’t just one or two wagons — there were nearly hundreds, loudening the quiet mountain.

A long procession stretching almost beyond the horizon.

Inside the wagons, surrounded by wooden slats, humans were tied up; orcs were driving those wagons.

We had finally found the kidnapped people we were looking for.

“There are more forces than I expected. Can the two of us rescue all those people?”

Mona asked with worried eyes.

As she said, the armed regulars in that procession likely numbered over two thousand.

“The number alone is a problem… and the individual strength of the high-ranking ones isn’t something to take lightly.”

Moreover, many accomplished fighters were mixed among them.

Each of them was about a match for Mona standing beside me.

“If we confront them head-on, there’d surely be many casualties.”

Above all, I was worried about the civilians being held there.

They might be caught in the crossfire or, worse, the enemies might touch them to use as human shields.

That must never happen.

‘Yadgar….’

Yadgar was among them.

Seeing my son in front of me intensified my concern.

“So what should we do? We can’t just stand by…”

“We take them out one by one, secretly.”

“Ambush all those enemies?”

“No — we snipe them.”

I immediately summoned the magic bow, drew the string, and focused mana at the tip of an arrow.

Then I aimed at a high-ranking orc warrior standing in the rear.

Artemis’s bow tuned down to kill a single person.

If I used the kind of wide-area devastation I’d used earlier, the people we needed to rescue could be killed too, so I planned to snipe and kill one by one.

‘I can’t kill all those soldiers with this alone. So I’ll eliminate the strong ones first. At least I can prevent it from turning into a firefight.’

Before they realized they were under attack, we had to reduce their strength as much as possible in a short time.

Pewng!

An arrow shot from the magic bow sliced through the air.

It pierced the temple of the target.

At the same time, I gave Mona an order.

“Mona. You move to the front of the procession. When I shoot an arrow into the sky as a signal, you ambush the enemy.”

“…Yes!”

She understood my intent without long explanations.

She nodded at once and ran in the direction I indicated.

Pewng! Pewng! Pewng!

I then fired repeatedly at the strong fighters scattered through the procession.

With the goddess-given heightened senses, it was easy to identify which enemies were strong from this distance, and quickly aim and snipe them without pause.

‘The Huntress’s blessing… It’s the power we most need right now!’

Ordinary humans cannot face a wild beast head-on and win.

But hunters can take down that beast without special power.

By hiding, tracking, luring, and sniping.

For us humans facing the massive beast that is the orc army, the power of the hunting goddess fit perfectly.

Buuuuu-!

As the orcs in the rear began to die one by one, confusion gradually spread forward.

When the orcs finally realized they were under attack, they blew horns and prepared for battle.

Pewng! Kwak!

But by then, all the high-ranking warriors had already been sniped and killed.

Shiiik! Jjeorang!

The next arrow I fired was not at an enemy but into the sky.

It detonated in midair from the ridge and made a thunderous noise.

Kugugugu.

“Mona. Now.”

The confusion, which had spread forward from the rear, reversed the direction of the procession’s boundaries.

Now where Mona stood was the enemy’s rear.