Continuing from the corporal soldier’s perspective.

***

My name is Franz.
I serve as a corporal in the kingdom’s army.

Following military orders, I headed into the forest to track down a witch who had fled, only to stumble upon an Alraune, a plant-type monster.


The lower half of the girl’s body was a plant, and it looked like a carnivorous one at that.

She intended to use the form of a beautiful girl to lure men in, then devour anyone who approached with that enormous mouth.

What a terrifying plant.

Dangerous. So I nearly had been eaten by that girl.
Hard to believe something that cute could be so vicious. Then again, only her upper body was adorable. Her lower half was a pure monster.


Military regulations demand we exterminate all monsters.
With four subordinates behind me, weapons at the ready, we advanced toward the Alraune.

Then, the Alraune spoke to us.


“Please… listen. I don’t eat… humans.”

Wait a second.
Something about her was strange.

She genuinely seemed reluctant to fight.
It felt like she didn’t want any conflicts with us.

“I have no… intention of… fighting. Please, lower your… weapons.”

She said she didn’t want to be hostile.
Something about those words made me feel uneasy.

Now that I thought about it, she had been telling us from the start to stay away.
Maybe she wasn’t actually an evil monster.

It’s not too late, even now.
Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to at least hear her out.


But my subordinates clearly didn’t agree.
They insisted that letting a monster go would be a violation of military regulations.

This is why serving the kingdom is such a hassle.
I miss the freedom I had when I was a hunter.


If I let that monster escape here, my subordinates would definitely report me to my superiors.

In the best case I’d be discharged, and in the worst, severely punished.
It could even cause trouble for my family back home.

That I couldn’t allow.
Left with no other choice, I ordered my subordinates to attack the Alraune.


But that’s when everything went downhill.

The Alraune deftly blocked my subordinate’s arrows and counterattacked.
One man went down after being hit by some mysterious powder, and another was taken out when vines suddenly burst from the ground.
My men were defeated in the blink of an eye.

Seems like she wasn’t the kind of monster ordinary soldiers could handle.
I ordered my subordinates to fall back and decided to fight it alone.

Our elemental affinities were a good match.
I could only use fire magic, but that’s an Alraune’s natural enemy.

Against a plant monster, one shot should be enough.
I fused fire magic to my arrow and released it.

The Alraune deflected it with her vines, throwing it off its path.
Even so, the arrow pierced through the vines. Good. I could do this!


A third subordinate fell.

Another escaped with the wounded, but two were still left behind. As I feared, if I didn’t do something, my subordinates’ lives would be in danger.



I fired a second shot.

This time, the arrow struck her bulb.
If it catches fire, things would be simple.

Huh? What’s this?
The Alraune was reaching for something near her roots.

And then I saw something unbelievable.

She pulled out a water flask.
Then, with practiced movements, she opened it using her vines and started putting out the flames with the water inside.

——Impossible.
For a moment, I wondered if I was dreaming.

After all, who could have predicted that a plant monster would bring its own water bottle and start performing fire control?


I honestly couldn’t make sense of it.
What was this Alraune?
Was she even a monster? Something about her was definitely off.


I collected myself and fired a third arrow.

And once again, I witnessed the impossible.

The Alraune pulled out an axe.
And using that axe, she blocked the flaming arrow. What the hell?!


The axe the Alraune wielded was massive, the kind no ordinary human could swing.
Who would ever expect an Alraune to take out such a thing?

But I was about to experience the unexpected yet again.


She severed her burning vines with her axe.
The vines regenerated instantly, returning to their original state. Such unbelievable regenerative abilities. I had never heard of a monster like this.

And my shock continued.


She didn’t just have one giant axe.
She had three.


The Alraune effortlessly lifted all three giant axes with her vines.

What the hell! I’ve never even heard of a plant that uses axes!

It was terrifying.
Facing something so strange, so far beyond anything I could imagine, my body trembled.

Those axes couldn’t have belonged to her originally.
To have wielded such enormous axes, the owners must not have been human. She must have taken them from a demon.

So where had those demons gone?

The answer was obvious.
Look at that ominous carnivorous mouth. It had eaten them all.

Meaning if I were caught, I’d meet the same fate. Letting myself be fooled by that cute face would’ve doomed me. A truly dangerous plant.

That was when I realized.

I couldn’t defeat this Alraune.

Her scale was beyond me.
I couldn’t possibly fight something this absurd.


My thoughts proved themselves right almost immediately.

Suddenly, an endless number of vines burst from the ground around us.
And for some reason, man-eater flowers began to bloom from those vines.

She was probably preparing to release that strange pollen.
So this is what it feels like to have a blade pressed against my throat.


Was this it?
Was I about to be eaten by this monster wearing the face of a beautiful girl, just like whoever owned those axes?

Sorry… I might not be able to send money home after all.
I wished I could have seen my wife and daughter just one last time……


Just then, I heard something shoot up.
Beyond the trees, a great column of water gushed upwards into the sky.


That blast had been a water spell fired by the deputy chief court mage.

It signalled, ‘the witch had been captured, assemble immediately.’


This was my chance.
While the Alraune was distracted by the pillar of water, I’ll slip away.

My subordinate seemed to have the same idea, for a knife flew out from the thicket.
It didn’t reach the Alraune, but it created an opening.

I pulled out all my arrows and stabbed them into the ground.
Using them as conduits, I casted a fire spell and raised a wall of flames.

While the Alraune’s vision was blocked by the flames, I slung my two fallen subordinates over my shoulders and ran as fast as I could.

Behind me, I heard the sound of the mysterious powder being sprayed.

Still carrying the two soldiers, I pushed through the thicket where the others had been waiting.
I made it out alive.


That was close.
If I had hesitated even a moment longer, I would have become prey to the powder.

After regrouping, I immediately ordered my unit to withdraw to the village.




What a terrifying Alraune she was.

Even so, despite facing a monster with that much power, we came out surprisingly unscathed.
Some of us were paralyzed and unable to move, and a few were put to sleep, but that was all.

It almost felt like she had been holding back.
Maybe that Alraune truly wasn’t an evil monster after all.


Although she was a monster and not good at speaking, but… it almost felt like she was desperately trying to say, ‘I really am human.’

Though terrifying in both appearance and strength, that Alraune was also incredibly beautiful.

Ignoring the plant parts, she looked like nothing more than a lovely young girl.
If we hadn’t taken hostile actions, maybe she wouldn’t have attacked us?

Thinking back, a normal Alraune would beckon prey closer.
Yet she had been pleading for us to stay away.


Maybe I made a mistake.
Maybe she was a friendly Alraune with no intention of fighting humans.

If I ever run into her again, I might try talking to her a little more.



The witch was captured once again.

How on earth did they manage to catch a witch who can fly through the sky on a broom?

Apparently the deputy chief court mage had marked her the moment he arrived in the village.

Thanks to that, even when she ran, they were able to track her location with search magic, surround her with a water spell, and bring her back.
first-rate mages really are something else.



But even a first-rate mage couldn’t stand up against that thing.


We were suddenly attacked by an enormous monster that descended from the sky.
What the hell was that impossible creature?

That was what a true monster looks like.
Compared to that, the Alraune we encountered earlier seemed cute.

That was not something a human could ever defeat.
All of my comrades except me were wiped out.
The other court mages as well.

He, the deputy chief court mage, fought it until the very end, but I doubt he could’ve won.

The only one who might stand a chance would be the Hero, said to be the strongest in the kingdom.
Maybe the Great Sage could put up a decent fight. His strength was unfathomable, and honestly, someone like me can’t really gauge it.


Either way, against a foe of that caliber, no one could survive.

As for the witch we had captured, I have no idea what became of her.

The only reason I survived was because I disobeyed orders.
Everyone else followed commands and fought, and not a single one returned.

This was the first time I’d ever been given an order that might as well have said die. Everyone else obeyed, but it was obvious that death awaited them.
But I’m a hunter. I don’t possess the spirit to follow military orders straight into the grave.

I felt bad for the soldiers, but I can’t die yet. My wife and daughter are waiting back home.

“When I get home, I’ll bring back a hefty sum,” I’d told them.

“As long as you come back safe, that’s enough,” my beloved wife replied.

“Do your best,” my adorable daughter said, seeing me off.

I couldn’t leave this world with those two behind.
I have to survive, no matter what it takes!


So I deserted in the face of the enemy and quit being a soldier.

There’s no going back now.

I doubt any soldier survived in that village, so no one will ever know I fled.

But this job had put me in dangerous situations over and over again in such a short time. I’m done being a soldier.

Still, I can’t go home like this.

How could I show my face in the village?
I couldn’t look my wife in the eye.
At the very least, I need to earn some money before I return. After all, I left saying I’d go make us rich.

——That’s it. I’ll become an adventurer.

I once overheard an adventurer in a tavern bragging about striking it rich.
He paid for everyone’s drinks that night.

If there’s a chance to earn that kind of money, then it’s worth trying. I could already picture my wife’s happy face.

Alright. It’s decided. I’m going to be an adventurer.

No more being tied down by the kingdom. I’ll live freely and earn what I can.

If that’s the plan, I need to go to a nearby town.
The Tower City was nearby, one of the biggest around. A place that large is bound to have a good Adventurer’s Guild. There should be plenty of jobs.


I can’t look back.
I have family waiting for me.

Once I’ve settled in, I’ll come back someday to pay my respects to everyone who died.
And I’m also curious about what happened to that Alraune, so I’ll go there to see too.

But until then, I’ll only look forward.


And so I started a new life in a new city, earning money to send back home.

***

Author’s Note:

Thank you very much for reading.
It’s been almost a month since I made my first post. I’ve made it this far thanks entirely to your support. I’m truly grateful.

As a small thank-you and in celebration of the one-month milestone, I plan to post two updates tomorrow. I hope you enjoy them.

Next Time: The UFO That Brings Destruction