How a Reincarnated Warlock Lives – Chapter 25

Chapter 25: Movement (3)

There are a few things that are precious beyond compare, but utterly useless if obtained by taking them from others.

“So it was you who did such a thing.”

Human teeth are one of them.

It is clear that teeth are indispensable and precious to humans. However, because of that, it was absurd and bizarre to say that they were stealing the teeth of the dead.

Or rather, was it that they killed to steal teeth, not that they stole the teeth of the dead?

Thud!

A white shining spear pierced through the bodies of two bandits.

Divine spell, Sericria’s Spear. An extremely effective attack spell when dealing with those who possess Demonic Energy.

It’s not very efficient to use against ordinary humans who don’t have any Demonic Energy in their bodies, but it’s not completely unusable either.

“Hmm.”

I nodded while looking at the magic that melted into the air after piercing through the abdomens of the two. It doesn’t have enough physical force to penetrate three adult men wearing leather armor.

“……!”

I moved my steps nonchalantly towards the bandits who were stepping back, unable to dare to attack, with expressions filled with terror.

Clang!

By my side, Jerit, who had rushed over at some point, was swinging his sword with his lips tightly shut. Although his swordsmanship couldn’t be considered outstanding, it was sufficient to deal with bandits roaming the fields.

Slash!

Bloodstains were scattered everywhere, and corpses were lying around. Blood splattered in the air once again, and another corpse was added to the ground.

The bandits were no match for Jerit and me, and the battle was one-sided. It didn’t even take a few minutes for all the bandits to fall.

Except for one.

“P, Please, s, spare me……”

One bandit pleaded while kneeling. The only one who survived the short battle was the one who had shot the crossbow at me first.

He seemed to have survived till the end because he had retreated alone to the back when the battle started.

Jerit was looking at the blood dripping from his sword with a somewhat heavy expression.

Judging from the fact that he didn’t hesitate in swinging his sword, it seemed like it wasn’t his first time killing, but it didn’t seem like he was so used to cutting down people that he was indifferent to it either.

Drip.

I tore off a part of the bandit’s clothes that wasn’t stained with blood and threw it to Jerit, who was slightly lowering his head.

Whoosh.

Jerit looked up at the piece of cloth I threw.

“Wipe off the blood before it dries.”

“……Yes.”

Turning my gaze away from Jerit, who was wiping the blood off his sword with a dark expression, I looked at the one bandit who was trembling among the corpses of his former comrades.

The bandit, who was trembling with a fearful face due to the unimaginable gap in strength, closed his eyes tightly.

Slide.

I passed him and examined the bodies of those who had been victims of the bandits.

As expected, all of them had their teeth pulled out, just like what I had seen a few days ago.

“……Such cruelty.”

Jerit, who slowly approached behind me, clenched his fist as he saw the gruesome sight.

Putting a coin in the mouth of the deceased is a common practice in most regions, regardless of religious beliefs, as a minimal courtesy to the deceased.

Therefore, mutilating their mouths and pulling out all their teeth, making it impossible to even do that, was a rather inhumane act.

Minimal courtesy.

“……”

Come to think of it, I didn’t receive such courtesy either. Those damn cultists.

“Why on earth did you do this! Were you ordered by heretics!”

Jerit shouted angrily, grabbing the last surviving bandit by the collar. So he knew how to get angry too.

“Th, Th, That’s……”

The bandit stammered with a terrified face.

“W, Will you spare me if I t, tell you?”

“You bastard!”

The enraged Jerit gripped the bandit’s collar tightly.

“Gack……!”

Even while being grabbed by the collar, the bandit was rolling his eyes and observing our expressions. It was quite a brazen reaction for someone who had shot a crossbow at my head without hesitation to kill me.

“Will you spare him if he tells you?”

I gestured to Jerit to let go of the bandit and chuckled softly. It’s a question I’ve been asked quite a lot.

Clang.

And my answer was always the same.

“No.”

Whoosh!

The sword I swung in an instant sliced through the bandit’s neck.

Thud.

The bandit’s head, with its expression of shock and despair still lingering, fell off at once.

Jerit seemed a bit surprised by the sudden movement. But he soon nodded with a somewhat heavy expression, as if agreeing with my intentions.

“Could this be related to black mages or witches?”

A cautious question.

It was a reasonable guess. Those who became bandits to make a living usually rob people of their money. Tooth bandits are definitely not a common occurrence.

And if a strange kind of incident occurs, it’s highly likely that it’s related to heretics.

“No, I don’t think so.”

But I shook my head. At least not this time.

Slide.

I picked up a small pouch that seemed to have been collected separately by the bandits. Inside the blood-stained small leather pouch were teeth that appeared to belong to the victims.

It wasn’t a pleasant sight, but I examined them closely.

Rough traces, not caring if the teeth were somewhat broken.

At least, it wasn’t something done under the orders of black mages or witches from the Catacombs. If they were to be used as a medium for strange spells or rituals, they would have been handled with a bit more care.

My gaze swept around. On the side of the path we were supposed to take were steep cliffs leading up the mountain.

“……”

The field we were currently standing on was located at a fairly high altitude.

My gaze turned forward. Clouds were thick around the middle of the high mountain.

The hazy clouds were formed not at the top of the mountain, but on the mountainside.

It wasn’t a difficult guess for me.

Teeth collected as if to exchange for something. And the abnormally formed clouds, not at the top of the mountain, but below it.

If someone who didn’t know saw it, they might have just looked at it curiously and passed by.

“Um…… Inquisitor-nim? Do you perhaps know why they did this?”

Jerit called out to me, who was lost in thought for a moment.

“Yes.”

I answered shortly. There was no need to hear the bandit’s answer.

“As expected, it’s heretics……!”

“No.”

I said slowly to Jerit.

“The cause of this is a different race.”

“A, A different race?”

Doubt filled Jerit’s face at my answer. What kind of different race would target people’s teeth through bandits?

“You’re not talking about common races like elves, beastmen, or dwarves……”

After pondering for a moment at my words, he opened his mouth with an anxious expression.

“Are you perhaps talking about monsters? If it’s monsters in this high altitude…… Are you talking about orcs or goblins? Or flying monsters like wyverns or gargoyles?”

I shook my head as I looked at Jerit, who was speaking anxiously while looking at the high mountain ahead. They eat human flesh. There’s no reason for them to target teeth, which are part of the bones.

I slowly told Jerit, who had a completely clueless expression, the answer.

“No. I’m talking about Pixies.”

“……What? What did you say?”

Jerit looked bewildered.

Pixies.

Small gray fairies about a handspan in size. It must be them.

Although there is a formal name, Pixie, I called them something a little different.

“Tooth Fairies.”

🔹🔹🔹

Although we had dealt with all the bandits, a little more investigation was needed for a definitive conclusion. As long as the cause remained, such incidents could happen again at any time.

Besides, it wouldn’t take much time. At most, half a day. It was time we could afford now that we were almost at our destination, Sitdria.

Of course, all of that was a superficial reason. I readily accepted Jerit’s cautious suggestion because I had a slight doubt.

Tooth fairies, or Pixies, are monsters that live in the eastern highlands. As their nickname suggests, they mainly feed on the bones of animals, big and small, especially teeth.

‘It’s definitely strange.’

Pixies originally live in the eastern highlands. Among them, the Cloud Mountains.

Could it be that their habitat has changed a little over the five hundred years?

“……”

I stopped thinking and looked around. The faint fog around us was getting thicker. It was unnatural for it to have formed naturally.

This is quite a dangerous phenomenon on such a steep mountain path. If it were an ordinary person, they might have missed their footing and fallen off the cliff.

I thought to myself that it was the right decision to leave Jerit at the foot of the mountain.

‘Y, Yes? Me, alone here?’

My answer to him, who looked at me with a bewildered and slightly pleading expression, was simple.

‘Someone has to stay here and watch the horses, don’t they?’

The mountain path was too narrow and steep to climb with horses. Therefore, one of us, Jerit or me, had to stay at the foot of the mountain to watch the horses.

Of course, well-trained horses wouldn’t run away on their own, as they did when we destroyed the Bergecia Cult before.

However, this is not Mount Pehern where people don’t approach, but a highland where travelers and shifting cultivators occasionally pass by.

It was a wise choice for someone to stay and guard the horses. That someone was naturally Jerit.

Slide.

And that was a rational decision for both me and him.

‘Vision Field.’

Crackle.

The Artifact of the Rift, which appeared through the crack that opened above my head, started to emit Demonic Energy.

And a shadow slowly began to form above my head.

Swoosh.

Soon, what appeared was an eyeball emitting an ominous green light, flashing with crimson pupils.

It was bigger and more sinister than the one in Mount Pehern, where I couldn’t handle Demonic Energy without the Orb.

It was a natural result.

A spell using Demonic Energy as it was originally intended was much more efficient than forcibly twisting the circuits that made up the magic and activating it with Holy Power.

The eyeball, which started to blink while emitting darkness, began to pierce through the fog.

‘There it is.’

Pixies create a thick fog that has the effect of making people lose their way. This fog, different from the usual, doesn’t disperse even when the wind blows and distorts a person’s sense of direction.

But of course, it wasn’t enough to deceive the Vision Field that I cast.

Swoosh.

I followed the exact path that the blinking eyeball, emitting darkness in the hazy fog, pierced through.

🔹🔹🔹

This nameless mountain, located halfway to Sitdria, our next destination for the mission, was quite rugged, but it was nothing compared to the vast Cloud Mountains where the Pixies originally live.

Of course, it would be better than the desolate places where blizzards rage all year round, like the Northern Kingdom or the habitat of the Frost Giants, but this place was too far away from the eastern Cloud Mountains where the Tooth Fairies mainly live.

Moreover, the Skull Trees, where the berries that are their staple food grow, are a species that only grows in the Cloud Mountains.

As I climbed the mountain and observed the surroundings, I became certain once again. This is not a suitable place for them to stay.

It wasn’t that their habitat had changed over the five hundred years. The Pixies staying here.

‘They were driven out of the Cloud Mountains by something.’

Flutter.

Midway up the mountain. A small sound could be heard through the still thick fog.

Flutter.

A moth? No, something a little bigger than that.

Flutter!

The sound of wings coming from somewhere was getting louder and louder on the mountainside filled with thick fog.

‘I came to the right place.’

The fog obscured my vision, and the sound of wings began to fill my ears.

I turned off Vision Field. Then I stopped walking, closed my eyes, and quietly listened.

Amidst the buzzing sounds coming from all directions, small voices began to mix in.

“Human! A human!”

“How did it get through the fog?”

“Food!”

“If you give us teeth, we’ll give you something shiny!”

Small voices buzzing, indistinguishable by gender.

They were Tooth Fairies.

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