Twenty-seven years ago. In an age before the appearance of the True Demon King.
The terrors of this era were wyverns, the monstrous races, plagues, and those who claimed to be demon kings.
Occasionally, there were also enchanted swords and magic items from parts unknown that threatened order, as well.
There was no minian settlement at the base of the Kizaya Volcano.
The river that flowed from the lake at the summit was unusual, an unsettling, sticky mudslide continuously flowing down it. There were even rumors of some grotesque, never-seen-before creatures inhabiting the area around the crater lake. However, in order to reach Kizaya Crater Lake, one must traverse dangerous terrain filled with noxious fumes and miry swamps, while carefully watching
one's step over the muddy rock surface. A natural labyrinth.
Occasionally adventurers and scholars had gone to investigate the crater, but most of them were never heard from again.
Much like the Yamagah Barrens and the Particle Storm that raged there, Kizaya Crater Lake was generally recognized as a hostile region, and there were very few people who thought it contained anything that made trespassing worth it.
Alus the Star Runner was at the base of Kizaya Volcano. "…I want to ask what you saw up at the crater."
"Who are…you…?"
A dwarf adventurer lay collapsed below the precipitous bluff.
Perhaps he had slipped down the craggy mountain. The dwarf's arms and legs were broken and twisted in directions they shouldn't have been. But owing to his dwarven tenacity, he clung to life.
"Three arms… N-no, it can't be…" "It can."
Alus nodded slightly. He thought this would make the conversation go
smoother.
The dwarven adventurer smiled in pain.
"I…don't have anything to my name. Hell, that's why I'm stuck with an awful occupation…like adventurer…"
"I think it's good work."
"Because you're strong…? The rumors of the three-armed wyvern…have made it all the way to the kingdom."
"…Okay," Alus replied briefly. He wasn't particularly interested.
After he gave the dwarf some water from a throwaway canteen, the dwarf struggled to speak.
"Up on top of the Crater Lake…there's some type of monster up there… There's always been those types of rumors… We were trying to see if they were true… Thinking it might be profitable."
"Profitable? Are ogres and goblins really that profitable…?"
"A new species. You don't know…the minian legends, do you? For example, that abominations coming here from the Beyond…establish themselves in our world, and…koff! Turn into a race with a new name… If we did discover something like that, even a carcass would be worth a whole lotta money…!"
"Hmmm… I don't really want anything like that…"
Alus the Star Runner continued to amass the world's treasures, but he only took interest in items that had some sort of combat utility. He would often see people like this dwarf who would refer to rare carcasses, beautiful stones, scenery, or pictures as treasure, but he didn't understand their sense of value.
He also felt in part that any treasure he couldn't use to protect himself or steal from others would be nothing but dead weight that'd get stolen no matter how much he amassed together. But the minia must have had their reasons for finding value in such things.
"...But right before we reached the lake…two people were shot. By mud…mud arrows."
"You…were shot in the leg and fell back down all this way, then."
Unlike the other lacerations carved into the dwarf's body, the wound on his right shin had come from something sharp. Alus could tell it had been cut into him by some type of weapon.
On top of that, the dirt around the wound had the same characteristics as the strange mud and rock flow that flooded the whole region. The dwarf's testimony was worth considering.
"…I want to hear about this new species. It's fine if you want to keep it
secret, though…"
"It's all right. It's not like any help's coming for me in a place like this… I'll never get to sell off this information, either. They had the same appearance as ogres, but…koff! I definitely saw them… Not one or two, but several, up at the Crater Lake…"
The dwarf's breathing continued to grow weaker, but his voice was trembling with excitement.
"The one-eyed monsters were really up there." "..."
Alus scratched at the rocky area near his feet in boredom. Just as he had expected, the information didn't interest him.
"…The mud in this area…has the same smell as the Matouk Coalfields that I saw a long time ago. The soil around here…is totally different from how it originally used to be…"
"Huh…?"
"…I'm heading out now… Bye." "Huh?! Y-you're not…going to eat me?"
"…? Is there something I'll get out of eating you?"
"B-but…isn't that what wyverns do? I figured I was about to die, so…"
"Is it? I've never really…had much of an appetite… Instead of minian flesh, I can just eat the food I brought with me…"
Alus, with his sprouted arms, may have become far more detached from the wilds than his wyvern brethren.
He had been able to survive off the same prepackaged foods that the minia ate without any problem, and the impulse normal wyverns had to attack other races wasn't particularly strong enough that he couldn't hold it back.
"Besides…I've got a friend. If I harm any minia, then maybe…at some point, it could interfere with his success…"
"S-Star Runner…has a friend…? Ha-ha… I can't believe it… It sounds like a joke…"
"…I'm not lying."
"Yeah, I believe you. Sheesh…that little tidbit'll be a good souvenir to bring along with me to hell…"
"…I don't think you're going to die." Alus looked far off from atop the rock.
They were still a ways off, but he could tell that five minia were approaching this area. A kingdom anti-wyvern task squad, following Star Runner after he was
witnessed near Kizaya Volcano.
There may not have been any value in surveying Kizaya Crater Lake itself, but there was enough value in getting visual confirmation of the wyvern adventurer and his multitude of magic items for them to dispatch a squad.
"…You were lucky to slip down this far. I wouldn't mention…that stuff about the new species."
"Koff! If I had known I would've been able to return alive, I never would've mentioned it anyhow…dammit!"
By the time the dwarf cursed, Alus had already lifted off from his rocky perch.
A one-eyed monster, huh…
He looked over the rock face, mud continuing to flow down it.
No matter how difficult a labyrinth it may have been to traverse, in the sky, there was nothing to get in Alus's way.
The adventurer's story had also managed to confirm it for him—there was treasure worth stealing here.
…My treasure.
His name, Zelad the Glaring, was one he had given himself.
He believed he did have parents of his own. He had always acquired the knowledge and skills to survive in the harsh environment of Kizaya Volcano on his own.
Unlike the minian races or goblins he occasionally caught sight of, he possessed only a single eye in the center of his head.
"You have to understand where I'm coming from, Alus. I never thought there were any other people like me out there."
"......"
The scenery of Kizaya Crater Lake looked almost like flatland, smoothly leveled off in black.
The endlessly bubbling muck had completely filled in the lake that had originally been there. In between the residences, connected by planks for footing, was a field growing crops that used the mud as soil.
The monsters that lived there all had only one eye like Zelad.
"I…found other monstrous people like me here in Kizaya. Right now, there are six of us, including myself. There are more and more like me starting to be
born. This is the domain of the cyclopes. Without Rotting Soil Sun here, the minian races would intrude on our lands."
Even now, mud ceaselessly bubbled up from the porous sphere Zelad held in his hands.
Zelad had come up with the name Rotting Soil Sun himself as well. The magic item allowed the wielder to control the shape and pressure of the mud flow by touching it and communicating their will with it.
For a wielder as skilled as Zelad, he could fire the mud off like blades or bullets, and it was easy to kill the small number of adventurers that came to find him—but most of all, he could maintain Kizaya Volcano's present state as an impregnable labyrinth that defied all minian civilization.
"So I can't hand this thing over. Even if it means a fight with you to the death."
"…I'm not so sure about that. I think…it'd be better for you to hand it over." "I don't know about that. Do you have some reason not to forcibly steal it
away?"
"Not really… If it's a hassle, I'm fine with that, too, really…"
Alus the Star Runner's scrawny body wasn't even half as tall as a cyclops's, but even so, Zelad likely had no hope of victory.
Up until Alus stood in front of him like this, Zelad's tribe had tried every method at their disposal, including shots from Rotting Soil Sun, to shoot him out of the sky, but it was no use.
I don't get what this guy's aim is here. But I want to leave behind my cyclops blood, no matter the cost.
This was the reason why he had forbidden the others from getting involved, and Zelad alone was engaging in this negotiating farce.
"…When I came here…I had a dwarf ask me why I don't eat people…" Alus turned around to the small shack on the eastern side of the pier.
The wyvern appeared to know what was hung up inside. "…You ate the adventurers."
"It's valuable minian meat from people who trespass into our domain. A wyvern like you can't possibly have come here to get revenge for some no-name adventurers. It's natural for the monstrous races to eat minia."
"That's why."
"What?"
"…If you want to eat people…all you have to do is descend the mountain to a town nearby. You're all being dishonest about your desires… It's not natural."
"It's to protect our species. We still haven't grown our numbers nearly enough. If the six of us and the four children all ended up dead, that'd be the end of us. The closer we get to minian settlements, the greater the risk."
They had a craving for minia flesh. But the cyclopes needed numbers to confront the power the minian races commanded. Until they could increase their number, Zelad had to keep protecting this Crater Lake.
Yet Alus said something he hadn't anticipated. "…Why's it risky?"
"Excuse me?"
"If you were an ogre, you wouldn't worry about that. You're all weak… Your aim from your attacks earlier—you missed because you only have one eye. You even failed to finish off that dwarf…"
"..."
With only one eye, cyclopes didn't have the same stereoscopic vision of other monstrous or minian races. Needless to say, this had a great effect on their marksmanship precision.
Not even Zelad understood why a species like theirs, bestowed only with defects, had been born.
"Are you saying we're trying to increase our number because we're weak?" This was an inconsistency that Zelad was fully aware of himself.
The cyclopes were weak. The fact that, if nature was left to take its course, their species was destined to die off was all the more reason he felt they needed to live on—even if they had to rely on the power of a magic item to do so.
Thus, Alus's next words pointed to something truly terrifying.
"The children you mentioned. There's been…more than four of them, hasn't there?"
"Wh—"
Zelad's blood ran cold. "Why…would you say that…?!"
"Huh…? If you cared about your species so much, it'd be weird…for you not to raise more of them."
"We just haven't had that many healthy births, that's all! Birth defects are something any species has to contend with…!"
"When you say birth defects…"
Alus peered at Zelad with passionless pupils. "You mean they were born with two eyes, right?" "No, that's not it…!"
Cyclopes, just like Zelad the Glaring, were supposed to be a species that had newly appeared in this world.
In that case, why didn't their children look like them? "…The mud here."
Alus scooped up the muck spreading out at his feet.
"Smells like the Matouk Coalfields. In the river there…the poison from the mine made the fish's eyes merge together…and the fished-up ones had mutated into hideous monsters…"
"Th-that…that can't be…"
"…This is a volcano. The heat of the volcano is vaporizing the material inside the mud into the air…and the effects of that smoke are what made you like this."
Zelad didn't know his parents' faces. It was the same for all five of the other cyclopes he had taken in.
That was why they had believed they must have been a new species sent to this world from the Beyond.
"For example, near the volcano…there's an ogre habitat—" "…Shut up, Alus the Star Runner!"
Zelad tried to break Alus's neck, but his swings didn't connect.
Alus had evaded with far too much ease. The cyclops was weaker than a normal ogre.
"…W-why…why are we…?! I killed them… The children with two eyes, they aren't a part of our species!"
"You're an ogre."
All the inconsistencies that Zelad had disregarded pointed toward this truth. The creatures he had considered to be cyclopes up until now were just ogres,
and the rare ones that hadn't been born with the one-eyed deformity from the effects of the Rotting Soil Sun had simply been abandoned on the mountain.
He considered the Rotting Soil Sun a magic item for them. However, this cursed magic item was, in fact, what was creating creatures like them in the first place.
"Wh-what…what am I supposed to do…?"
"…You occasionally get small earthquakes here, don't you? Earlier, I also heard…a sound like gunpowder exploding."
Alus the Star Runner continued to speak, without paying any mind to Zelad's current state.
"…If you don't get rid of Rotting Soil Sun, everyone here is gonna die."
"No, that can't be…"
"Earthquakes and those sounds…are signs of an impending eruption. So much mud's flowing underground…it's building up the pressure… You'd be better off going down the mountain and living life like an ogre instead…"
The mud generation, more than enough to completely cover an entire mountain, was clearly abnormal. Nevertheless, such abnormalities could be found all over this world, and most adventurers didn't try to inspect each one and try conquering them for themselves.
Alus, however, traveling across the horizon enough to earn the name Star Runner, had honed his powers of observation through a great amount of trial and error. Was every phenomenon the result of a treasure, or not? If not, then what was the source behind it?
…This is a true adventurer.
Zelad had heard stories about the outside world from the adventurers they had captured. Many of them spoke about the strongest rogue adventurer of all.
For some reason—when they spoke about the wyvern named Alus the Star Runner, supposedly just an indifferent plunderer, they talked of him like he was a champion.
Though it was far faster for Alus to kill all his enemies and plunder their treasure, there were times when he didn't.
"Why…? You're supposed to be the same sort of aberration like me…so why…?"
"I'm just me. There's not much difference between us, really…" Zelad crouched down.
He couldn't continue to keep Rotting Soil Sun in his possession any longer. "I wanted to be free. I just wanted freedom…"
"...…You can still do just that, can't you?"
From that day forward, the mud on Kizaya Volcano stopped.
Two years later, rumors spread throughout the United Western Kingdom about sightings of a group of one-eyed abominations, but such topics were soon left behind.