I Became a Tin Knight
Chapter 121: The Witch and The Land of The Centaurs (1)

Dorothea had extensive knowledge about magic beasts.

No, not just knowledge—she had directly encountered many magic beasts throughout her life.

After all, her teacher, the Witch of the East, had thrown her into remote mountain villages for errands almost every day.

But even Dorothea was frozen like a statue at the sight of a creature with a horse’s lower body and head, but not quite a horse… anyway, a bizarrely shaped being, dressed in splendid knight’s armor, babbling about civilization.

It felt like her brain was complaining to her eyes and ears, saying, “Hey, I think you two are malfunctioning, please check again.”

While Dorothea stood frozen, the battle between the civilized horse—tentative name—and the humans continued unabated.

The result was an overwhelming victory for the civilized horse.

The humans’ crude stone axes and spears couldn’t penetrate the shining armor and barding, and their flimsy leather clothes were helplessly cut by the well-forged steel sword.

The humans, realizing they had no chance of winning, tried to flee, but even that wasn’t easy.

The civilized horse’s light trot was much faster than the humans’ full sprint, and it was intentionally crippling the humans’ legs.

Dorothea frowned.

It’s toying with them.

If it had fought with full force, the battle would have been over long ago, but the civilized horse was deliberately dragging out the fight and mocking the humans. It looked like it was enjoying it like some kind of sport.

While thinking this sight was quite displeasing, Dorothea didn’t immediately rush in.

She was a rational witch, and she wasn’t particularly inclined to pursue justice or goodness.

It wasn’t a wise action to suddenly side with one faction, especially the weaker side, in a situation where she still didn’t understand the surrounding circumstances well.

“Hmm?”

It was then that the civilized horse’s gaze turned to Dorothea.

After casually kicking away and incapacitating the nearby humans, it approached Dorothea.

Just as Dorothea was pondering what to say first, the civilized horse opened its mouth, “Hmm. Ugly.”

The surrounding temperature dropped a little with a hiss.

Unaware of this chill, the civilized horse continued its appraisal—no, insulation, “Judging by the craftsmanship of the clothes, it doesn’t seem to be made by these ignorant humans, did it escape from somewhere in our country? Tsk. To think they’d meticulously dress and dote on inferior species with custom-made clothes. What bizarre taste. No matter how much you forcibly dress up something that’s ugly from the start, how much better can it get…”

The civilized horse’s monologue showed no signs of stopping.

It didn’t seem to be speaking to deliberately provoke Dorothea. In fact, it looked as if it couldn’t even imagine that Dorothea could understand its words.

Dorothea didn’t bother to correct this misunderstanding.

She no longer had any will to converse with the creature before her eyes.

Thud.

Dorothea took out a small bone fragment from her pouch and threw it on the ground.

Then, she poured in mana a bit more violently than usual.

Creak, crackle, snap.

With grotesque and eerie sounds, the bone rapidly increased in size.

The civilized horse, which had been watching with eyes that seemed to say, “What trick is this animal trying to pull?” panicked when Dorothea first threw the bone, shouting as the bone arbitrarily swelled in size, “W-what is this!?”

《Grrrr…!》

The undead dog—no, dogs didn’t respond to the civilized horse’s question.

No matter how much the civilized horse wore clothes like a person and spoke words, it lacked the potency to overcome humanity’s domestication of dogs that had continued for over thousands of years.

The dogs bit into the civilized horse’s legs without hesitation.

If they were ordinary animals, their teeth would have been damaged by the barding, but the saliva of these special dogs from the garden had a strong corrosive effect.

Seeing the armor melt with a sizzle, the civilized horse panicked and tried to shake off the undead dogs, but whether it stomped on their heads or cut them with its sword, the dogs revived as if nothing had happened.

Moreover, when split into several pieces, their numbers increased by as many pieces as they were split into.

The civilized horse, realizing it had no chance of winning like this, had two choices.

To flee with all its might or to strike at Dorothea, who seemed to be the cause of this situation.

The civilized horse’s choice was the latter.

“This is all your doing!”

The civilized horse charged at Dorothea.

It had long since lost the sword it was holding to the dogs’ biting, but its front leg kick, raised with all its might, contained enough power to dent even iron plates.

Just as the civilized horse’s hoof was about to strike Dorothea’s head.

The staff Dorothea was holding let out a short cry.

Bang!

“What!?”

The civilized horse’s attack didn’t reach Dorothea. A circular barrier that had formed around her perfectly blocked its attack.

The civilized horse was shocked, and Dorothea was irritated.

Of course, she couldn’t help but be annoyed at having to use her trump card, prepared for use against Algind, in a place like this.

As if sensing their master’s anger, the undead dogs bit into the civilized horse with even more force.

From the moment it made the wrong final choice, there was no chance of recovery left for the civilized horse.

With its neck bitten, it rolled its eyes and perished.

Dorothea, looking down at the civilized horse’s corpse with cold eyes, quietly fell into thought.

The closest thing I know to this is probably a centaur? But there are too many strange points for it to be just that… Hmm?

Dorothea’s contemplation stopped. She turned to the humans who had somehow surrounded her and asked with an indifferent expression, “…What, you want to try to attack me, too?”

Once she finished speaking, the humans all knelt down at once and bowed their heads.

“※▽▼X(!@$!”

“※@&@&(##@*!”

Dorothea couldn’t understand their words.

However, it wasn’t difficult to guess their meaning just by seeing them raise both arms high in a banzai or bowing their waists several times with faces full of emotion.

《Grrrk?》

An undead dog looked at Dorothea and tilted its head to the side.

At that sight, which seemed to say, “What should we do with these, Master? Shall we bite them?” Dorothea let out yet another sigh. At this point, she had lost count of how many times she had done so.

***

In a city’s square, many civilized horses gathered in one place, listening to the debate taking place in the center of the square.

A white horse on the podium opened its mouth, “Recently, many young ones have been engaging in indiscriminate slaughter against wild humans, enjoying it like a sport! Humans are also a form of life, and it’s not right for those who possess reason and intellect to treat killing them so lightly as mere entertainment!”

A red horse rebutted, “I cannot let those words pass! Humans are truly ugly, lazy, selfish, and violent creatures! They are inferior in their very existence, and just by breathing, they’re consuming this island’s resources! How can you scold those who are eliminating these parasitic pests, instead of encouraging them?”

A black horse also added its own thoughts, “I, too, cannot condone indiscriminate slaughter. While it’s true that humans are foolish and ignorant, isn’t it also our burden as civilized horses to ‘properly’ guide such beings?”

A yellow horse spoke loudly, “You all seem to be thinking too complicatedly. Shouldn’t we just reclaim all the valuable lands that humans are presumptuously occupying, use the obedient specimens for appropriate labor, and kill all the rebellious ones? This seems like a fairly good compromise, doesn’t it?”

The four horses each raised their voices to express their opinions, and the citizens watched while licking sugar cubes or gulping down beer.

“Why not just kill them all? What need is there to keep harmful creatures alive?”

“Tsk tsk, that’s too simple and crude. Aren’t they also part of nature created by Elphaba? Seeking harmony is more righteous than carelessly causing extinction.”

“It’s because of such dilly-dallying that human salvation projects repeatedly fail. If they were obedient dogs, it might be different, but do we need to extend mercy even to such creatures?”

“There have been several incidents of innocent and young horses being harmed by wild humans. It’s right to just get rid of them!”

“Oh my, these friends really…”

As always, public opinion leaned towards the radical side.

The argument was that for the comfortable and safe life of civilized horses, it was right to “drive out” the barbaric and ugly humans.

Of course, they weren’t concerned about how those expelled would survive. If they didn’t like it, they could work as labor under the horses.

Or be raised as pets by horse owners with rare tastes.

“B-big news!”

The shocking news was delivered to the city just as the debate was reaching its climax.

The city’s horses were shocked to hear that a young horse from a prestigious noble family had been brutally murdered by humans.

The youth was a devout believer who sincerely believed in and followed the great Elphaba, and was also knighted.

While there had been several incidents of ignorant foals losing their lives to evil humans before, this was the first time a knight equipped with powerful armaments had been brutally murdered.

The city’s atmosphere heated up in an instant.

The voices of the few moderates shrank before the enraged public opinion.

Hours later, a fully armed punitive force set out.

***

The attitude of the humans towards Dorothea could only be described as extremely devoted.

They willingly gave her the largest and most magnificent house in their settlement—thought it was still just a hut—and offered her various fruits and grain porridge—or something presumed to be as such.

Sitting on a stone chair made comfortable with lots of leather and straw coverings, Dorothea looked at her wrist.

There, the golden thread bracelet that Franka had given her was wrapped around, with four strands sticking out, each pointing in a different direction.

Did Franka do something? At least it seems they’re alive.

Her companions should be in the direction the bracelet strands were pointing.

The problem was how to regroup.

Recalling the coastline she had found after going straight in the direction one of the strands was pointing, Dorothea covered her eyes with her hand.

“No matter how big a workshop is, there’s a limit. Isn’t it too much to have a sea and islands inside?”

That was right.

The place where Dorothea had fallen was, surprisingly, an island.

Even so, they couldn’t have implemented a real sea, so compared to an actual sea it would be much smaller… probably about the size of an extra-large lake, but that wasn’t much consolation.

After all, the fact that she needed to set sail to regroup with her other companions didn’t change.

I’ve kept some of the Sea Serpent’s remains, but undead created by forcibly giving flesh to fragments as a core with mana have a short maintenance time. If they collapse during the voyage, there’s no answer. I need to get a ship somehow.

Even for the versatile Dorothea, the limit of the ship she could make was a raft.

Even if she tried to use necromancy, she would need a soul with shipbuilding-related skills to borrow that power, but judging by the state of the humans here, it was questionable if they could even make a dugout canoe.

“@#&@#$#*#!”

“…First, I need to make communication possible.”

Dorothea extended her left hand forward.

With her hand shaped as if grasping something, she rotated her wrist counterclockwise, round and round.

Seeing Dorothea’s chain ring transform into a birdcage, the humans made a fuss and directed gazes of awe.

Accepting this lukewarmly, Dorothea tapped the birdcage with her finger and said. “If there’s anyone who can speak, come here. In return, I will return sanity to you.”

It didn’t matter whether the souls understood Dorothea’s words or not.

The magic birdcage that Dorothea had received from the Witch of the East was an extremely powerful magic tool, and one of its effects was to mediate between the owner and souls.

As long as the other party was a soul, even if it wasn’t human but an animal, she could convey her will.

Sure enough, soon several souls gathered around Dorothea and entered the birdcage.

The souls, transformed into skeleton shapes, sang.

《Witch, Witch, Great Witch! Please command us!》

“Translate what these guys are saying.”

To Dorothea’s question, a skeleton answered.

《They’re calling you a goddess! The Crow Goddess who opposes the Golden Goddess Elphaba!》

“…”

Dorothea was silent.

She opened and closed her mouth for a while, then finally spat out some words, “This is really crazy.”

For some reason, she felt as if she could hear the Tin Knight’s mocking message echoing in her head.

***

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