The Blacksmith Who Forges Starlight
"Hah..."
The party that had survived the Quicksand Whale's attack looked down at the bubbling, boiling sand and heaved a collective sigh.
Even after swallowing three camels and one human whole, the creature still seemed hungry — it circled endlessly around the base of the rock outcrop. Moving through the sand as freely as if it were swimming through open ocean, it would occasionally lash out with its massive tail and hurl waves of sand up toward the rocks.
"This is bad..."
It was a relief that the Quicksand Whale couldn't climb onto the rock, but that hardly solved their problems. The scorching sun had baked the entire outcrop until it was blistering hot. Stay too long on this shade-less rock and they would all collapse from dehydration — that much was certain.
Faced with that grim and all-too-vivid future, everyone but me slumped in silence. As time dragged on, the party wore down fast. Sweat dripped from their brows onto the heated stone and evaporated in an instant. Below, the boiling sand continued its restless circling. The Quicksand Whale had not given up on them.
I let out a breath, drew my sword, and rose to my feet.
Shiiing—
At the sudden draw of steel, every gaze snapped toward me. I met their stares of pure bewilderment with calm indifference and began to descend slowly toward the base of the rock. Shahkan, who had been sprawled out in exhaustion, bolted upright and shouted after me.
"Ce-Ceris? What in the world do you think you're doing?"
"Trying something. Anything."
"Stop! That thing isn't something you can face with a single sword!"
I knew that. My meager swordsmanship would never be enough to take it on. So I intended to use a different kind of power — a technique that demanded such intense concentration I had never been able to cast it while riding Nightmare.
I called to mind the most powerful magic currently at my disposal, and also the one that took the longest to prepare. My rapidly spinning Mana Circles began drawing two kinds of mana at once, and those twin streams transformed into searing heat and biting cold that raced down into both of my hands. Scorching heat into the sword gripped in my right. Freezing cold into my left.
I brought both hands together around the hilt. The two opposing attributes of mana fused into one and began to whip up a violent storm.
KRAAAAAH—!
"Ce-Ceris... that is..."
The party's voices vanished beneath the roar of the storm. In that moment, the only sounds I could hear were my own heartbeat and the whir of the Mana Circles wrapped around it. The blade, coiled in the raging tempest, trembled pitifully.
I sprinted forward and drove the sword into the boiling sand. The instant the tip sank home, the violent storm erupted along the length of the extended blade.
BOOOOM—!
As if a massive explosion had gone off, the churning sand rocketed skyward on the back of the storm. Sand rained down like a cloudburst, and the shockwave of the Polar Convergence stripped the base of the rock bare. The Quicksand Whale thrashed within the exposed hollow. Its thick hide still gleamed, slick and unmarred, but its once-round, enormous eyes were twisted in agony as it let out a pained groan.
I sighed at the sight of a body without so much as a scratch. Still, this was the result I had expected. The magic I had used was nothing more than a pale imitation that had merely borrowed a famous name. I could not reproduce the original's devastating power. I could not blow a mountain sky-high, nor overturn the desert for miles around. It was simply proof that my skill was still pitifully lacking.
And yet even that meager magic seemed to have done the job. The Quicksand Whale, thrashing where it had been driven into the sand, abruptly twisted its body and began to flee. Apparently the unexpectedly fierce resistance had convinced it to abandon the hunt. With a violent thrash of its enormous tail fluke, the creature vanished into the sand.
"Haa..."
I exhaled hard and sank to the ground. That single strike had burned through most of the mana in my body. Fatigue I hadn't felt before, along with the desert's heat, began seeping into me.
"Ceris! A-are you all right?"
"Magic...?"
At the voices behind me I managed a small smile, showing them I was still in one piece. My arms and legs hung limp, but not so badly that I couldn't move.
"To think the Quicksand Whale would run..."
Just as Shahkan said, the Quicksand Whale had fled. Perhaps because the creature was gone, the sand that had been boiling and churning around them had settled back to normal.
While we waited for my mana to recover, the party held a council. The Quicksand Whale's attack had cost everyone but me their mounts and their supplies. After some discussion they reached a grim conclusion: trying to cross this scorching desert on foot with no food left was little better than suicide.
Of course, that was never going to stop Shahkan. He declared that even if it killed him, he would press on toward Star Forge. Then he held out the emergency signal flare he had packed and offered it to the others.
"I'm going. Even if death is waiting at the end of the road."
"Mm..."
Shan and Sarja seemed to have made up their minds to turn back; they accepted the signal flare from Shahkan. From their perspective it was the only sensible choice. There was no one to blame. Things had simply turned out this way.
"Well... thank you for everything so far."
"I hope you find it..."
With those parting words, Shahkan turned to look at me. He was waiting for my decision.
"I'll go with you."
"Y-you will? Truly?"
"Yes."
I nodded. Unlike the others, my pack was still intact. How many people, in a situation like this, would simply give up and turn around? I wasn't ready to quit yet.
In the end, only Shahkan and I set out on the road. He edged closer as if hoping to share Nightmare's saddle, but a sharp whip of Nightmare's tail caught him square in the face and forced him to back off. The Quicksand Whale never showed itself again after that.
We made up for our dwindling food by hunting monsters. Wild monster meat was gamey and tough as leather — the worst thing I had ever tasted. Water, at least, was manageable. With magic I could produce clean drinking water whenever we needed it. And so, refusing to give up, we kept pushing deeper into the desert.
How many days passed like that? By the time the blazing sun had cooked my brain to the point that even the concept of dates had gone fuzzy, the guiding star came to a stop in the middle of the desert. The place where it halted was nothing but barren, empty sand.
"Here...?"
"Hmm..."
"This place? Truly this place?"
Shahkan bounded wildly around the glittering starlight, flailing at empty air as if trying to seize something invisible.
"C-could it be underneath us?"
He refused to give up. Dropping to his knees, he began clawing at the sand with his bare hands. The starlight simply shone on, clear and silent, from that same spot.
"Ceris! You too — hurry and help me! It's under here!"
He might have been right. I followed Shahkan's lead and started digging furiously, and we kept at it until the scorching sun vanished and the blue stars and moon rose overhead. We excavated a wide circle into the earth, but still found nothing.
"Th-this can't be..."
I climbed out of the sand pit and began preparing dinner. Shahkan still showed no sign of quitting; he made no move to leave the hole.
"Shahkan. Come eat first."
"It can't be... it just can't..."
I sighed as I looked at his back. He didn't seem to hear me at all. Chewing on a strip of dried jerky, I tipped my head back toward the sky. Countless stars embroidered the heavens, glowing faintly as they flowed past like a river. By now, even that beautiful night sky was starting to make me sick of the sight.
After finishing dinner I was about to rejoin Shahkan and dig some more when I suddenly realized how utterly silent the surroundings had become. Not even the usual whisper of wind could be heard — which was strange enough to put me on edge. At that moment, Nightmare, who had been sprawled belly-down on the soft sand, lurched to his feet. Then he began flicking his great ears back and forth, as if catching some distant sound approaching.
"What is it?"
Pruuuh—!
Nightmare's low, rumbling warning made me frown. He was staring hard in one direction, just as he had when he first spotted the Quicksand Whale. Curious, I peered that way for a long while — and from a far-off ridge, something like a murky wall was advancing toward us. It was vast, and it looked enormous. Drawing closer at a terrifying speed with every passing second, it could only be the phenomenon known as a sandstorm.
I called out urgently.
"Shahkan!"
But he was so absorbed in his frantic digging that he didn't even react. I spun around, scanning the area in a panic — yet on this endless sand plain, where could there possibly be shelter from a storm? Even as I scrambled for an answer, the sandstorm was closing in at a monstrous pace.
Then Nightmare shifted his back and set me down on the ground. He curled his massive body around me, shielding me as best he could.
"Nightmare?"
My voice scattered blankly into the air. And then the colossal sandstorm arrived. Up close it looked like a towering barrier, and from within it came a sound like the howling of beasts.
"Damn it...!"
I drove my sword into the ground and threw a thin barrier of mana over Nightmare and myself. In the next instant the sandstorm swallowed everything, and my vision went black.
WHOOOOSH—!
The raging wind was laden with fine grains of sand, and my mana barrier was shredded in moments. The sand-laden gusts stung as they lashed my skin. I curled up tight and pressed myself against Nightmare's body. I could barely breathe — sand was forcing its way in through my nose and mouth. Holding my breath, I waited for the storm to pass.
How long it lasted, I couldn't say. Then, all at once, I realized the sound of sand battering my body had gone silent. Carefully, I opened my eyes. The sandstorm had fully withdrawn, though its aftermath still left the air hazy and thick.
That was when it came.
CLANG—!
A clear, ringing sound of metal cut through the drifting haze of sand and drove straight into my ears.
CLANG—!
With each strike of metal, the sand began to settle. Nightmare and I both turned toward the source of the sound, and through the dust a small dwarf's silhouette took shape.
CLANG—!
The dwarf held a hammer in his hand and was pounding something glowing red-hot.
CLANG—!
It was starlight. With every blow of the hammer, the starlight shattered and scattered in every direction.