That Which Falls Has No Wings
That Which Falls Has No Wings
The first to notice the anomaly was the wyvern pilot.
Just as I was starting to worry about the toll on his back and neck from constantly turning his head to chat with me behind him, his head—meant to swing back forward with a hearty laugh—hesitated and fixed on something behind me. If he had been the silent type, like the second wyvern pilot I had met in my life, I would have noticed far later.
"Sir! I think an unexpected situation has arisen!"
I couldn't see his expression because of the goggles and all the cold-weather gear wrapped around him, but his voice, which had been cheerful just a moment ago, had lost all its playfulness and was filled with nothing but gravity. Startled by the sudden shift in his demeanor, I turned to look back and saw three wyverns rising slowly from below, dotting the sky like specks.
"Are they wild wyverns?"
There was no reason for wyvern pilots to suddenly pop out of a place like that, far from any city. I wondered if there was a wyvern habitat nearby, but the answer that came back was far from pleasant.
"No! Someone's riding them! The problem is they aren't wearing official gear! They could be hunters illegally capturing wyverns to sell to local nobles!"
Come to think of it, I had heard that in the provinces, there were nobles who secretly captured wyverns and learned to ride them for the wyvern knight exam. Of course it was illegal, but if they could produce a wyvern knight without getting caught, the family's reputation skyrocketed, so it was basically a form of private tutoring. Even if the knight left the family as soon as they became a wyvern knight, the difference between having the ability to train a wyvern knight and not having it was huge. From their perspective, they'd want to use every trick in the book.
Be that as it may, could he really see that? My own eyesight wasn't bad, but it wasn't easy to make out what was on the back of a wyvern climbing vertically. Gies was like that too—maybe the baseline requirement for being a wyvern pilot was extremely healthy eyes.
But when the wyverns stopped ascending, leveled out, and began chasing us, I saw that indeed, as the wyvern pilot had said, there were two people riding each of them.
"Haah... If I ever let myself think that nothing's going to happen from now on, I'm a goddamn idiot."
The problem was that the riders weren't members of the Human Race; they were Demonfolk. Unless they were wearing Viking horned helmets or something. I used Magic Sight hoping for a one-in-a-thousand chance, but the Magic Power I could clearly sense from afar cleanly smashed my hopes.
"They're Demonfolk!"
"De—?! ... Oh, shit! Hold on tight, sir!"
Perhaps because it was a profession directly managed by the royal family, the wyvern pilot didn't panic and instead crouched low and accelerated. The speed hadn't been slow a moment ago, but once he committed to full speed, the distance between us and the Demonfolk's wyverns, which had seemed about to catch up, began to widen.
I inwardly admired, thinking it was the difference in skill, but seeing the wyvern pilot not let up on his tension even as the distance widened, it didn't look like this would be resolved easily.
And sure enough, as soon as the Demonfolk member at the very front looked back and gestured, their speed also increased, making my worries a reality. Because of that, the situation turned quite urgent, but I couldn't suppress the question that came to mind.
"Where the hell did they get wyverns in Itisel?"
"I heard a few years ago that the Demon King's Army, having been burned by wyvern knights, started breeding wyverns! Maybe they smuggled them in when Mandeli Port was attacked!"
So they had been lying in wait with those smuggled wyverns and revealed themselves to ambush a passing wyvern pilot? These people had been meticulous enough to hide their traces even from Seneran, who went around with specialized tools for tracking Magic Power, all just to catch a single wyvern pilot?
Of course, there was no way that was the case. Unless the ones who'd been looking for me and these ones were separate groups, their target was clearly me. This cheerful fellow just had the bad luck to get caught up in it.
The distance was gradually shrinking, likely because they had attempted some kind of magical enhancement, and the possibility of shaking them off and escaping converged infinitely toward zero. So I let out a deep sigh and asked the wyvern pilot, "Do you know how to fly inverted?"
◈
Mash, who had served as a captain in the Demon King's Army's special forces for a long time, smiled as she watched the target rapidly closing in.
The moment he chose to flee, the outcome had already been decided. Unless he turned this into a chaotic melee, at this speed, the distance would close in an instant the moment he so much as veered slightly, and he wouldn't be able to mount a proper response.
The moment he hesitated to try swinging his sword, the wyvern she was riding would tear into some part of that wyvern's body. Still, carelessness was forbidden, so she gave an order to Yawel, who was riding behind her.
"Prepare your magic assuming you're going to blow off a limb or two! I'll handle the rest!"
"I'll prepare a freezing spell!"
Since Yawel had essentially done the work of an adjutant in a unit without the actual rank, he was quick to grasp her intent. Mash nodded in satisfaction and drew the mace and sword she had hung from the wyvern's saddle.
It was then that the target changed.
"He's... gaining altitude?"
The wyvern that had been fleeing straight ahead suddenly began a steep climb. It wasn't a sharp turn to change direction; instead, its response was to climb as if intent on reaching the edge of the sky. At this, the subordinates flying beside her shouted, unable to hide their bewilderment.
"Captain! What do we do?!"
"Shit, what do you mean what do we do?! Follow him!"
They couldn't use bows anyway, and if he had any magical means of counterattack, he would already have tried to keep them in check. Besides, wherever he went, all they could do was close the distance as much as possible and attack the wyvern or blast him with magic, so they couldn't simply sit back and watch because he had suddenly flown upward.
As soon as the decision was made, all three wyverns shot upward.
"Yawel! What about the magic?!"
"It's dangerous to fire like this! At least we need to be at the same altitude or closer...!"
"Damn, did he anticipate this too?! When you're ready, don't ask, just shoot!"
If his aim was to evade immediate attack, it wasn't a bad move, but in the end it was just a desperate struggle. As she climbed vertically, thinking she'd just ram him with her body if it came to that, Mash saw the target turning his head to look at her.
Unflustered, not trembling with fear, staring solely at his enemy—that was not the look of a coward abandoning hope and fleeing, but of a warrior seeking an opening.
"Ha! What a waste of a man!"
Had they met under different circumstances, she might have liked him quite a bit.
As she thought that and gauged the shrinking distance, the opponent made his next move. Despite her resolve to respond without hesitation to any kind of counterattack, that action brought Mash's thoughts to an abrupt halt.
It couldn't be helped. Falling from a wyvern that was rolling over was not within the scope of her predictions.
'Did he slip and fall? Or is he pulling some other trick? But what kind of trick can you pull in the sky?'
While her thoughts were still struggling to catch up with the unexpected situation, a hand extended from behind her. As soon as Yawel judged he could hit him, he had formed an ice arrow and cast his magic, faithfully executing the captain's order. Thanks to that, Mash was able to shake off her bewilderment and decide on her next move.
The altitude was high enough. Even if he was hit by that attack and fell, they'd be able to catch him long before he hit the ground and became unrecognizable. Right now, she had to focus on making sure that if he fell, he didn't collide with a wyvern and cause them to crash together.
No sooner had Mash judged that her task was no longer a 'battle' than something shot from the man's waist.
Even though she was on high alert, Mash couldn't see exactly what it was. All she saw was the scattering ice shards and Yawel's arm, which had extended past her ear, grotesquely twisting and then bursting like overripe fruit.
It was only much later that she realized that this was damage from some unidentified projectile the enemy had thrown, that the single blow had torn off not only Yawel's arm but his shoulder as well, and that Yawel, unable to withstand the intense pain and shock, had fallen off the wyvern's back.
Actually, it had only taken a few seconds, but it had felt like an eternity.
Instinctively, Mash almost turned her head to grasp the situation, but she exercised patience, kept her gaze fixed forward, crossed the weapons in both hands, and went into a defensive stance.
Because she couldn't help but understand, even if she didn't want to, what it meant when that crazy bastard, falling from the sky, didn't stop at throwing a single projectile but instead drew the axe he'd been carrying on his back.
He literally intended to wage an 'aerial battle'.
"You goddamn motherfucker, you crazy son of a bitch!"
The enemy who had seemed like a warrior with admirable resolve only moments ago now began to look like a madman consumed by insanity, stirring the fear inside her.
Feeling cold sweat trickle down her spine, Mash, to overcome the creeping fear, shouted the enemy's name with all her might, burning her fighting spirit.
"Eldmiaaaaa!"
If she didn't at least do that, she had no confidence she could face the reality that, after clashing with him, she might plummet endlessly with no bottom in sight. Dying in battle and dying from a fall of an abnormal height were completely different things, and that reality terrified her.
The answer she got was a brutal axe swing.