The Western Mountain (4)
I told the lizardfolk to wait, and Franc and I shifted to a slope on a hill from which Mt. Veltical could not be seen.
Franc had listened in silence while I drew what I could out of Agureum and Gekuk. Now she turned a rather grave face on me and asked.
"What do you mean to do, Seoha?"
"There's only one conclusion, isn't there? Leave Baekcheong as it is, and the moment it fully recovers it'll come hunting to kill me. That bastard... was it that bitch? Anyway, that it bears a grudge against me is something the Lord of the Great Sea himself confirmed, so that much is certain. Assume a Transcendent-grade hits me first, and I'm genuinely screwed. So I go and kill it before it recovers."
"Then we should come to fight the Sabi... Your power, Seoha, would not fall short of exterminating the Sabi clan entire, yet the Lord of the Great Sea would scarcely look on in silence while a people who serve him die away."
"...That's the problem."
I raked hard at the back of my head and sighed over a problem that was tangling my thoughts into knots.
From Agureum's account, the Sabi numbered about ninety thousand — a reptilian race of the order Squamata, lizards and snakes and chameleons alike — and every one of them lived gathered on Mt. Veltical. Their society was a class order of five strata. At the very top, the first stratum, the priest class, numbered twelve, and the race's important matters were settled in councils of that priestly stratum, led by Ahumrek and Kalka-kum. Twelve priests, in other words, leading ninety thousand Sabi.
The second stratum was the warrior class, specialists in combat, some three thousand strong. The third was the artisan class, tied to craft and making, eight thousand. The fourth, the producer class that raised livestock and cultivated crops, came to twelve thousand. The remaining seventy thousand or so were the labor class, filling out the workforce each stratum needed and supplying raw numbers when it came to battle. Class, she said, was divided by the intellect and intelligence one possessed, and the untouchables without sentience — things that were simply beasts — were not counted, so she did not know their number. Even now, apparently, they were hollowing out the inside of Mt. Veltical and expanding the city.
That a single race could number ninety thousand surprised both me and Franc, but I wasn't greatly worried. If they worshipped that Transcendent-grade lowlife Baekcheong as a hero, then the twelve of the priest class were Highest Tier, no need to even look. Franc was... well, a slightly different matter. I, though, had long since passed the stage of fretting over enemy numbers.
While Franc bought time against the twelve priests known as the Mane, I could sweep the small fry and then join her. Or pick them off one by one. Either would do.
Gekuk and Agureum were of the warrior class, and the five High Grades were labor class; the two had said they'd led them out to hunt. The surprising part was that Agureum was female, Gekuk male, and the pair were married to each other... Ordinarily an opposing faction would be little better than a blood enemy, but if those two had married, perhaps it was less a matter of factions and more a difference of opinion within a single group.
In any case, both Agureum and Gekuk were Peak-Rank Variants without Phase Stones. If the warrior class that bore the Sabi's martial strength included Peak-Rank Variants that had not even formed Phase Stones, I could guess the rest of their forces well enough without looking.
Franc gave a slight shake of her head, face earnest, and pointed out the hole in my thinking.
"Seoha? Even if a Peak-Rank Variant is not a grade that threatens you, there are three thousand of them. How would you know whether an anomaly lies among that number? They could become a threat. Underestimating them is forbidden."
"Even so..."
Even so, it didn't feel difficult. The numbers were a little high, but if I meant to sweep the Sabi away, I had plenty of means. The problem was only the one they worshipped, wasn't it?
I went back and asked Agureum how likely it was that the Lord of the Great Sea would step in if I wiped their race out entirely. Her eyes flew wide, and in a trembling voice she answered.
"There is a legend that when the Sabi are placed in danger, He appears and brings the Sabi unto salvation."
I looked at those trembling eyes, quietly flared Mana Vision, Mana Voice, and Mana Aura besides, and threatened that if this was a lie I would see to it they never received the Lord of the Great Sea's protection again. Agureum, of course, and the others too, flung themselves flat and begged with both hands rubbed raw, swearing it was absolutely not a lie, and please, forgive them.
"A legend is only a legend, but where the Phase World is concerned — and the way aberrants see their world — hasty judgment by human beings is a thing to be avoided."
"Yeah. Wiping the Sabi out clean is troublesome in more ways than one, so let's set that aside for now."
I'd thought it earlier, too, but means of sweeping the Sabi away? There were truly many. If I had to pick only a few... There was capturing the aberrants around Mt. Veltical, evolving them into Highest-Rank subspecies, and dropping them on Hebult, the Sabi's city. Force-evolve an ordinary aberrant without sentience and most go mad and rampage, so evolve a few to Highest Tier, drop them on the city, and the place would be a slaughterhouse in moments. I could also just hurl Mana Cannon mk1 from the sky at maximum spread, again and again. Its area was narrower than a mana barrage, and its disintegrating power weaker than Mana Cannon mk2, but it wasn't a force anything below Superior grade could endure — most of whatever the blast swept over would be annihilated. There was churning Mt. Veltical apart from the inside with the amber Space Wall until the mountain came down. And there was doing as I was now: snatching every Sabi I laid eyes on, laying mental control on them, sending them back in, and ordering assassinations of the priest or warrior class, or sabotage, to sow chaos. Stir that chaos up, and in the gap Franc and I would slip onto the summit of Mt. Veltical and take Baekcheong's head.
But every one of these would blow away not only the Sabi but Mt. Veltical itself, so if things went as the legend said, the chance of the Lord of the Great Sea intervening was a hundred percent. Legends handed down on Earth were mostly frauds, but I honestly didn't know how it would be in the Phase World, so I couldn't act rashly. If someone raised hell in my own territory, even I would be pissed enough not to let it go. The last of them — stirring chaos by attempting assassination through mental control — would at least do less damage, but...
"Thinking of the temperament of someone who'd given me this warning and that and tried to make a deal, I have a feeling underhanded tricks would only make them angrier."
I was turning it over and over, wondering how I might lower the chance of the Lord of the Great Sea appearing, when Franc brought out another approach.
"Since whether the Dragon God intervenes is what matters most, might we not begin by using those two — Agureum and Gekuk — to gather intelligence from inside the Sabi? I think it would be best to set massacre aside as a last resort and look to see whether some other means exists. We might even find a way to win the Sabi's friendship."
"Come on. Those things are aberrants, and I'm human. I'm not even the same kind of reptile, and ones that haven't been mentally controlled have no reason to take a liking to me."
But Franc's expression grew a little cautious, and she looked at me as if caught between speaking and keeping silent.
"...Ah. You're thinking they'll take a liking to me because of the Phase Stone in my heart?"
"Yes..."
"It's not without reason. Even so, that's not it. Even if they came to me in friendship, my goal is killing Baekcheong, and neither faction is going to cooperate in killing their master's apostle. Especially that one called Ahumrek — I have a feeling he'd foam at the mouth and come at me the moment he learned what I was after."
Franc's brow drew faintly together. Lost in thought, she murmured.
"True... even if we grew close, it would be a problem. If things went well and Ahumrek raised you up as a hero in Baekcheong's place, a justification for putting Baekcheong down would appear — and yet I do not think Kalka-kum would allow it. Still, seeing that Agureum and Gekuk are married, it may not be like a quarrel between parties. Handled well, it might even work."
I watched her murmuring, then looked for a way forward of my own.
"For now, like you said, I should gather information first."
"Yes."
They'd said Baekcheong's injuries would not heal quickly, so there ought to be some time.
Finished talking it through with Franc, I went back to where the lizardfolk were, and found them sitting like street punks, lazily swishing their tails. They blinked, and when they noticed me coming they scrambled up and looked at me with obedient eyes. I took hold of them and asked first about the difference in aberrant grade between the classes. At first they floundered, unable to grasp what a grade even was, so I caught a few aberrants, set them in front of the group, and told them the grades. They nodded as if they understood, and answered.
"Adults of the labor class are High Grade. The artisans and the producer class are a mix of Superior grade and High Grade, and the priests, we believe, are Highest Tier. And Ahumrek and Kalka-kum are stronger still than the priests, so they may be Transcendent-grade."
Two Transcendent-grades...
"Do you know what sort of abilities those two have?"
"Ahumrek commands water and wind, and Kalka-kum commands water and earth. The toughness of their bodies surpasses even the warriors."
Huh? They were actually Transcendent-grade?
Startled, I pressed for more detail, and learned they were not. It was simply a matter of combat experience far beyond the ordinary, born of long years, and bodies trained to a formidable hardness. Even so, they used two attributes. If it came to a fight, I would have to be careful.
"From the priest class down through the warrior class, all of them elemental types, with neither recovery types nor physical reinforcement types among them — a considerable imbalance."
"It's a class structure like a primitive tribe, so attributes tied to the Lord of the Great Sea probably get preferential treatment. Even among the old tribes of our world, the leaders were more often people who served shamanism and that sort of superstition, weren't they?"
Before I knew it the sun was about to rise, so I asked Agureum's group when they had to return, and the answer came back that they wanted to go back right now. They added that they would not return if I wished it, so for the time being I told them to go home, gather rumors concerning Baekcheong in such a way that their own people would not grow suspicious, and come out on the next hunt to tell me what they had learned.
Then I took the corpses of Peak-Rank Variants out of Subspace Storage and told them to take as much as they usually brought back from a hunt. They hissed, flicking their tongues in excitement and thumping the ground with their tails.
"Ah, not that one. I need this, too."
I stopped Gekuk, who was making for the Toxin Black Alligator without a moment's hesitation, and put the thirteen-meter crocodile back into Subspace Storage. Disappointment flooded his face — and then he found the golden frog that had been hidden behind it, and his mouth fell wide open. Agureum, who had been looking over the other aberrants, swelled her irises until they covered two-thirds of her eyes, then dashed over in a flurry and examined a golden frog easily three times her own size this way and that, beside herself.
It was a five-meter frog, gold along the back, the belly repeating black and green. Gekuk and Agureum tugged stealthily at its hind legs while watching my reaction, and when I didn't stop them a pleased flush colored their sleek lizard faces and they began to cry out in gecko-gecko calls.
"Ssk— Leuven. Khondor!"
"Cheh de ghwarah... Leuven, ssah— gadon!"
The labor-class lizardfolk were drooling a thick liquid that looked like saliva as well. Was this aberrant really that delicious? Seeing me look puzzled, Darky translated what Agureum and Gekuk were saying.
"Looks like they're callin' that frog Leuven, boss. Sayin' it's delicious — and goin' on about how amazin' it is you caught a Leuven too, sir."
"...That thing tastes good?"
Just looking at it, it seemed to be packing poison nasty enough that a bite would kill you. The golden frog had been a Peak-Rank Variant, and the moment it spotted me it had shown physical ability close to Highest Tier and tried to flee. The instant it entered the water it grew faster still than a Highest-Rank Variant, which startled me a little, and I split its head with the amber Space Wall. At a speed like that, the Sabi would have had a hard time catching it.
"Which part is the most delicious?"
I'd only asked because they'd said it was tasty and I was curious, but the two of them seemed to take it that Franc meant to snatch Leuven back. Thoroughly crestfallen, they said all of it was good, but the heart and the brain were the best. There were two more Leuven in Subspace Storage. One was nothing. So I told them I wasn't taking it, and they could have it. The pleased color came back at once, and they whipped their tails around and around. They must have liked this frog called Leuven an awful lot.
"There's no poison or anything?"
"There is poison in Leuven's blood. Consume a great quantity, and the breath grows short, the muscles stiffen, and in the end one dies. To eat the heart, one must change the purifying water every hour for ten days, steeping the heart together with medicinal herbs, until all the blood has drained and it becomes fit to eat. Meat of a Leuven that retains a proper measure of blood lends the heart a savory chew, and so the other parts are eaten after only a rough washing of the blood."
Pufferfish, huh... No. Pufferfish poison isn't the sort of thing that washes out just because you soak it in water. It reminded me of those strange people who set one or two grains of pufferfish roe on a slice of pufferfish sashimi, the better to enjoy the thrill of the toxin. I'd heard of folks eating too much of that roe and dying of heart failure. So I asked, and sure enough, even among them, ones who ate Leuven wrong and died turned up from time to time.
Wondering if a gourmet's greed simply didn't care what species you were, I let out a snort of a laugh, and Agureum's group said they would come again in three days, clasped their hands together, and bobbed their heads at me. So that croaking and bowing earlier had been a greeting.
"Absolutely do not tell your kin about me, and be careful gathering information so you don't draw suspicion. Especially you, Gekuk. You make me uneasy, so you be extra careful."
"Ah. I know. I have no talent for conversation. I leave it to Agureum."
"Worry not. I shall proceed with a tread-upon-thin-ice frame of mind."
Agureum's group left carrying one Leuven and an iguana that was red all over, blue and green dabbed across its limbs like a pointillist painting, the pair of them borne like bundles of luggage.
"...Tread upon thin ice? What does that mean?"
"I... I am hardly familiar with those old four-character sayings either..."
Tch. The thought that I'd been outclassed in intellect by a reptile sent a wave of defeat washing over me.
After they had gone, loafing about to pass the time didn't sit right either, so — partly to make some money as well — I started catching the High-Rank Variants around Mt. Veltical, force-evolving them, and pulling Blue Stones out of them. An aberrant caught in Franc's hands couldn't even think of resisting; it only trembled, so injecting TP was exceedingly easy. Evolve one into a Peak-Rank subspecies and it was torn apart in her hands on the spot; I picked up the Blue Stone, put the torn corpse into Subspace Storage, and Franc went and caught another. Blue Stones gathered this way could be sold, and eating them restored TP as well, so they amounted to a stand-in for MP potions. Aberrant numbers might thin until the Sabi hunters had nothing left to catch, but that was not my problem.
Anyway, that was how it went. By day I moved with Franc and collected Blue Stones; by night I sought out the hunters coming out of Hebult. I caught the Sabi hunters on their hunts, laid mental control on them, and tried to dig for information, but the majority seemed to have language centers as undeveloped as Gekuk's, and of course nothing useful came of it. They didn't seem the sort to be of help in any other work either, but kill them rashly just because they weren't useful and I didn't know what regret might come of it later. So I gave them a few pieces of prey as gifts, ordered them to live as usual, as if they had never met me, until I called, and sent them off.
All together it came to six Peak-Rank and eighteen of High Grade, but they didn't take up much mental-control capacity. Ever since the Phase Stone had formed in my chest, that capacity had grown considerably — enough that I could dominate dozens, if they were Superior grade — so I simply left them as they were.
The night after that, I found six Sabi hunters. From a distance something white kept flickering, and when I looked more closely I saw a spotlessly white one, shaped like a wingless dragon, its body wrapped round and round in something like white cords. A bizarre sight. It was the first Sabi I'd seen bearing anything like ornaments, so I studied it more carefully, and at every joint of the body white scales jutted up like dragon scales. The eyes, especially, black as pitch, stood in such contrast to scales white as snow that they were insanely striking. An albino dragon, you might have called it.
"Looks a lot like a species called the girdle-tailed armadillo lizard."
Of the six hunters, only that white one held a wooden staff with a white jewel set into the tip. The other five gripped spears and swords in both hands. Going by the information I'd gathered so far, only the white one with the staff would be warrior class, and the ones with weapons labor class.
"Bearing something like ornaments, and leading five of the labor class alone... Might that Sabi be of the priest class?"
"Hm? I thought it'd be warrior class, but looking again, something is different. The warriors I've seen so far, their only 'ornaments' were red and white dye painted under the eyes or on the head."
The white one had tree roots woven like a net and draped over its body, and it wore bracelets and anklets besides. On top of that, the ones that came out to hunt had been taking two or three of the warrior class per party and leading somewhere between five and nine of the labor class, but this white one was alone, with five laborers in tow. Something was definitely different.
"This time I won't lay mental control on them. I want to see how they react. If they won't listen and start thrashing, then I'll just slap mental control on them."
"Is there truly a need, when you have mental control?"
"Just a check. Before I wreck Baekcheong, I want to go through as many kinds of situation as I can."
I left Franc nodding, her body hidden in the huge pit I'd dug, and the moment I unfolded Space Leaping above their heads I raised a Blue Space Wall and bound them in a single stroke. The laborers were Physical Reinforcement types: bind arms, legs, and tail lightly, seal their movement, and that was the end of it. The white one, whom I suspected of being an Elemental type, I restrained entirely from the neck down, and at once the air filled with screams fit to tear a throat.
Kiiit. Kiik, kisshik!!
Whole torso bound, the white one thrashed its head and let out a metallic screech, and the other five lizardfolk heaved their bodies, lowered their heads, and bit at the Blue Space Wall binding their hands, struggling to break the restraint.
"It's no use, so how about you don't waste your strength?"
I showed myself before them and opened my mouth, and at once a scream that had jumped two octaves burst from the white one's maw.
Kyaaaak! Kyaaaaa!!
"That's a binding even the giant behind me can't undo. So if you'd just listen to what I'm—"
Kyaooook! Kshaaaaak!!
At my words Franc rose from where she sat, and the moment the white one saw her it thrashed even more insanely.
"So if you'd listen to me—"
Kiaaaa! Kyauoooo!!
"Just hear me out for a—"
Ugyaooook!! Kyagyak, kyashishik!! Bwaaaak!!
For fuck's sake... Whether it couldn't hear me or was ignoring me on purpose, the white one screamed without a pause, and Darky, meeting my look, offered no translation and only shook its head. Nothing but simple screaming. Annoyed at the thing that wouldn't listen to a word and only shrieked, I sealed its maw with the Blue Space Wall, and its eyes bulged as if they would be plucked out.
Sound at midnight carries a long way. Leave it to keep pitching a goddamn fit like that, and there was a chance some other hunter would notice, go back to the city, and return with troops.
Kugwuk?! Kwer... Ruuu.
The five lizardfolk bit the Space Wall restraining their limbs and shook their heads madly, but only their yellowish-white teeth ground and chipped away. The Space Wall didn't take a single scratch. I folded my arms and watched them rampage, and before long the five of the labor class seemed to realize that the Blue Space Wall binding their limbs was no ordinary thing. They gave up resisting and began to send me looks full of fear.
The white one, maw sealed, still glared at me as if it would chew me up and swallow me, even in that situation. A truly foul temper, I thought. It had a Phase Stone worth two million inside its body. A priest-in-training, maybe? Come to think of it, in the old stories, in places where station was divided by class, the higher the station the greater the chance of a vicious, nasty temper — and looking at that fit just now, it seemed that might be true.
Anyway, the surroundings seemed to have gone quiet, so I spoke to the white one.
I said as much and gestured to Franc behind me, and she brought over one Peak-Rank Variant we'd caught in advance and dropped it in front of the white one. It was a lizard with sharp spines, tips dyed green, jutting all over its body, cowed and shrunk by Franc's Phase Power.
The moment the Sabi saw that spined lizard, their eyes swelled large enough to fall out, and a moment later they were madly biting the Space Wall that held them and their own arms, thrashing their legs until the skin peeled and the flesh gouged. They were panicked enough that I wondered if this spined lizard was something like a natural enemy of the Sabi. Over two days of watching the hunters roaming the area, they had caught everything else, but every one of them had avoided the five-meter lizard now before my eyes, the one with spear-like spines jutting here and there from its body, so I had thrown it out as a threat. The effect seemed better than I'd expected.
The cowed spined lizard glanced at me and at Franc, then turned its head toward the five, who were half-mad and giving off the smell of blood. As if its mouth were watering, it flicked a green tongue and crept closer in stiff, angular movements. The nearer it came, the more wildly the five lizardfolk shook themselves, rough enough to break and tear their limbs, raving, and I thought that if I left them like this they might truly lose their minds. I unfolded the amber Space Wall and erased the spined lizard's pointed head.
"...!!"
Head gone, spraying red blood, the spined lizard sprawled its body across the earth, and at the sight the five lizardfolk stopped dead. They paid no mind to maws and limbs torn and broken this way and that, and began watching only my mood, faces full of fear. The white one, too, opened the eyes it had squeezed shut and looked at me with an expression a layer of spirit drained from it. Thinking the conditions for a conversation had finally been prepared, I grinned.