Blooming
Blooming
The "Tunnels," the few sanctuaries for the outlaws who made their living traveling between Itisel and the Demonfolk Territory, were, contrary to the name, nothing more than a back-alley world existing inside a thoroughly ordinary port city.
The only distinguishing features were that such spaces existed in both Itisel and the Demonfolk Territory, and that magic communication tools were used so extensively to facilitate smooth smuggling and communication between the two that it would be unimaginable in any other city.
There was a story that the mages, who found it difficult to work properly because of their criminal reputations, gathered regardless of whether they were Human Race or Demonfolk and, in the process of watching for chances to cross the border, naturally formed the cliques that became the Tunnels' predecessors... but by now, it was nothing more than a dusty old tale no one cared about anymore.
However, separate from those old stories, the system and their own set of rules they had built up became the pillars that maintained and supported the Tunnels, so violating them was considered a clear taboo.
No matter how much crime and lawlessness was the daily norm, they still needed ground to stand on. The rule was that anyone who threatened that scarce ground would have the entire Tunnels rise up and collect their life's price.
"Heh heh, what the fuck do you bastards think this is right now! You understand me, you fucking horn-headed little shits?"
One of those rules was poaching contracts. The next was pulling a blade on someone inside the Tunnels.
Kwansala's shout was tinged with blood. He had lived his whole life in the Tunnels, scavenging through trash and driving blades into the backs of his competitors' heads, enduring and enduring until he reached his forties, finally seizing a decent smuggling immigration route and scraping out a living. There was a faint trace of tears mixed in too, but it wasn't from pain; it was closer to the bitter resentment of someone who had what was theirs taken from them.
"You crazy bastards. If you were gonna lose your minds, you should've done it quietly while eating dirt in the inland kingdoms, but you mess with the Tunnels? You even cross over into Itisel for this? You bastards will never get out of here. You and that high-and-mighty backer who tried to dig up the Tunnels will all fucking die and disappear into fish food!"
It wasn't a threat. Nor a warning.
With all his limbs already gone, what he screamed at his attackers as he burned the last of his life was simply a 'future.' Kwansala remembered the countless outlaws who had looked down on the Tunnels and met gruesome deaths.
The beastman mercenary band called the 'Thirty Wildcats'? Ignored the warnings and did as they pleased—ended up getting poisoned. The Demonfolk warrior who wandered around looking for strong opponents, committed murder, and ran away, but couldn't fix his habits? Fell asleep at the bottom of the sea with a hunk of metal even his proud strength couldn't break.
These bastards would be no different. It was a regret he couldn't see it himself, but Kwansala held a firm conviction and sneered in advance. That was the venom of a so-called 'Ground Bug' who had lived nailed to the Tunnels.
"This little shit is annoyingly loud."
But the Demonfolk he'd called a horn-head scowled, not at the words Kwansala spat while laughing and spraying blood and spit, but at the volume of that noisy voice, and kicked the stump of his severed leg.
The laughter turned into a scream, and naturally, the Demonfolk member's brow furrowed further.
"The shit I see as I live my life. Getting threatened by a damn criminal brat. You sons of bitches! Hurry up and find it! If you can't see it, then say you can't see it! You don't know why this little shit's being kept alive? You want to keep sniveling like a mutt that got kicked in the balls?"
Turning his head from Kwansala, the Demonfolk shouted at around fifteen burly men who were practically turning the wide, stale room—barren of even a single window—upside down, but their actions didn't change.
"Found it. The Order. The Saintess. And the western edge of Itisel."
Regardless, the Demonfolk member, who was merely abusing a superior's privilege to his heart's content, brightened at his subordinate's report and shouted as the man picked up a document.
"Ha, finally!"
And without a shred of hesitation, he buried a hand axe into the head of Kwansala, who had worn himself out screaming and was now gasping. Then he spat on the face of Kwansala, who had met death without any warning.
"Should've straightened up your shit while you were alive, making people bother with this mess."
Watching this, his subordinates sighed deeply and shook their heads, but that was the extent of it. Their captain acting like a lunatic was nothing new, and his overbearing arrogance was just daily routine.
Unable to wait for his subordinate to approach with the document, the Demonfolk left the hand axe behind and closed the distance in a single stride, snatching the papers with a satisfied smile and beginning to read.
"Let's see... temple, temple... Ha! Lucky us!"
Soon after, at the reaction he showed, the other subordinates' faces also lit up.
"It wasn't the worst?"
"Yeah. There was an investigation by the Itisel royal family a long time ago, and it was a guess based on that that the temple was the goal."
Normally, he would've just thrown out an answer like 'What do you care?', but relieved that the worst-case scenario had been avoided, the Demonfolk answered his subordinate's question with a slightly more generous heart than usual.
"I don't know how this member of the Human Race named Seneran got interested in it, but it's clear they didn't move with direct knowledge about recovering the relic. The plan didn't leak."
Deep sighs of relief echoed through the blood-stained room, but no one paid it any mind. Having just narrowly avoided being killed by the higher-ups' hands, such a reaction was only natural.
"But the fact that a Saintess moved, and not just dragging along some Demon God Church religious freaks, is still a problem. After all those warnings, she was a Saintess who went blind and deaf with faith in the end."
'Looks like this is the end of the line for this Saintess.' Unlike the Demonfolk member who grumbled as if annoyed, the others' reactions were full of bitterness.
Even though they were steeped in murder and secret missions while serving the army, as Demonfolk, it was nearly impossible to have absolutely no faith, so it was only natural that the situation of having to point a blade at a Saintess was unwelcome.
"The issue is the distance. What's the quickest and safest way to get from the southeastern edge to the western edge?"
Everyone's gaze, including the captain's, focused on a single person.
The slender figure who, unlike the others who had thrown back their hoods to reveal their faces, kept theirs pressed down, had been stroking their chin and lost in thought for a long while, as if having anticipated this question immediately.
"Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick..."
Around the time the captain, who had been silently watching this while shifting his weight from one leg to the other, began mimicking the sound of a clock's hand with his mouth, the hand gripping the chin lowered, and uniquely pale lips parted.
"Gate."
Contrary to the physique, it was a surprisingly deep voice. The captain thought about it for a couple more seconds after hearing it, then concluded that pushing for an answer was better than continuing to agonize himself, and turned to retrieve the axe he'd buried in Kwansala.
"Every gate around here got completely wrecked. The one laid down to move Magic Power shells blew up, and the one they dug up to funnel those stinking orc bastards through, we don't even know its condition since those damn orc bastards took it over. Is there a gate I don't know about?"
"No, but the coordinates and Magic Power remain. If we reverse-calculate and move through space, we can fly straight to the vicinity of Itisel's capital in one leap."
It wasn't a respectful tone, but the captain didn't mind. It was more of an advisory relationship than a subordinate one.
If anything, it was a situation where he should be the one using honorifics, but he was a man who didn't bow his head to magic nerds.
"'Can' is one thing. What about the return?"
"I don't know about that yet."
At least this mage was a decent one. He'd been treated rudely constantly since their first meeting and hadn't cared one bit.
Pulling out his hand axe, the captain wiped the blood off on the relatively less filthy clothes of Kwansala, then casually threw a candle that had been quietly burning on the desk to set the room ablaze. It was an impulsive move driven entirely by mood, but instead of being startled, the subordinates swiftly moved and exited the room, and the captain, staring with dissatisfaction at the flames that caught rather poorly, opened his mouth.
"If it really doesn't work, we'll just have to cross the mountains. What about a way to get from the capital outskirts to Ogwen?"
"I already know those coordinates. I can't move in one jump, but... roughly one or two days of travel will cover the distance."
"...You know things in quite a bit of detail. Are you an operation participant?"
'I only knew him as some guy shoehorned in as an advisor...'
"Were you perhaps ordered to kill us all if the operation turns out to have leaked?"
Apparently not.
His mood instantly soured, and the captain was contemplating whether he needed to smear blood on his axe again, when the mage, who had been looking at him blankly, swept a hand toward the flames and murmured low. The candlelight that had been pathetic suddenly blazed up like a bonfire and began swallowing its surroundings.
"I was."
And then, as if it were the most natural thing, he turned and left the room.
The captain, who had been considering making a threat to hear the truth, couldn't even properly react to the immediate reply that came out with such utter nonchalance. He lost his direction like a dog chasing a chicken, then snapped to his senses at the intensifying flames and hurriedly followed after him.
"Fuck. I like the cool-headedness. How many people can go?"
"Ten."
"Too few."
"I didn't know you made such weak complaints."
"The target is the Order. What makes you think Epaga will just have a change of heart? We have to cut them off for sure."
At the cautious answer from the captain, who normally acted as if he'd barge in headfirst without a care for the world, the mage showed a surprised reaction, but only for a moment. Climbing the stairs, passing through the living room full of corpses and blood, the mage, who had been pondering until they left the building, looked at the distant morning sun rising and voiced the conclusion he had reached.
"Pick the elite. Even if I push myself to the limit, thirteen is the max."
"Damn, I'll have to pray the gods do nothing."
It was a truly blasphemous answer for someone about to slaughter a Saintess and Order members who had secretly entered enemy territory, but the mage didn't bother to point it out.
Since he himself had already committed far greater blasphemies, such a thing didn't really bother him.