The Boundary (3)
"Mana exhaustion. The injuries themselves are light."
Harad diagnosed his own condition, then turned his gaze to Ellen.
"Mine's worse."
She had no aura left, and her right collarbone was broken. Beyond that, she bore a scattering of smaller wounds; blood still seeped from her thigh where the fangs had punched through.
"Let's rest a while."
"Are we allowed to do that?"
Rest. The word felt strange to Ellen. Taking a break in the Boundary? While injured, no less?
"Wouldn't it be better to rest in the tunnel?"
"Right now, this is the safest place there is."
Harad pointed at the beast lying collapsed beside him.
"It tried to manifest its Origin before it died. It failed, but the mana was released all the same. A balloon swelling until it bursts—that is what it was."
The beasts terrified by that mana would not come anywhere near this place.
Harad lowered himself to the ground. It was carpeted with grotesque mushrooms that looked like nothing anyone should touch, but he paid them no mind.
Ellen stared at him for a moment, then flopped onto her back. The truth was, even standing had become an effort.
The distance between them was quite close—close enough to touch with an outstretched hand. That had been Ellen's choice. The Boundary's chill and winds never encroached upon the space around Harad.
He sat with his back to her.
Ellen studied that back for a long moment, then opened her mouth.
"It was real. The beast's Circle, I mean."
The 5th Circle. In a knight's terms, a Sword Master—a transcendent being of whom the entire continent held barely ten.
"It really was 5th Circle."
Beasts equal to or surpassing the transcendent belonged only to legend, yet Ellen believed him.
"So you believe me now?"
"Because I lost."
It sounded arrogant at first blush, but it was a coldly honest appraisal. Ellen did have skill and talent to that degree.
"You think highly of yourself."
"Because it's the truth."
Ellen said it flatly. She looked rather angry, too.
"If it weren't for you, I would have died."
They had achieved something, but she wasn't stupid enough to be satisfied with that alone. It had been her first defeat.
"Same here. If not for you, I'd have been the one to die first."
Instead of answering, Ellen simply stared at him. Harad understood what that look meant—she wanted to be taught.
"Do you know why the Circle system applies to beasts as well?"
The Outlands had codified the strength of beasts into Circles, too.
"Because there were beasts that could not be explained any other way."
The Outlands had 6th Circle magicians. And somewhere in this world, there were 6th Circle beasts as well.
"The higher the Circle, the further a beast evolves. Its form may be human—or a monster beyond even that."
"……"
"That is why the great beasts survive only as legends. They either never show themselves to the world, or they carry an overwhelming majesty."
Either so human they couldn't be told apart from men—or such monsters that they passed into legend. The great beasts were always one or the other.
In his past life, Harad had seen a beast that human imagination—which could stretch at most to a beast wearing a person's face—could never have dared to picture.
"……Where did you learn things like that?"
"Any magician would know."
A lie. Ellen was certain of it, but there was no way to prove it.
The first magician she had ever spoken with was the Harad before her eyes. There was no reason to distrust him, either.
She might not know the man called Harad, but she had no intention of rejecting what he taught her. She had followed him in the first place precisely to experience such things.
Seen anew, Harad's back was not particularly broad. It even curved slightly—proof that he neglected his physical training.
With a body like that, Harad had killed a magical beast. To borrow his own phrasing, it was thanks to his becoming a 3rd Circle like a 4th.
Of course, Ellen, ignorant of magic, had no way of knowing what level his magic actually stood at. But she knew the sword better than anyone.
"The sword—where did you learn it?"
The magic he had turned against the beast had been a sword at the same time. Considerable skill, and nothing to fault. There had been shortcomings, but they were not faults of his swordsmanship—the body was what lacked.
That was what surprised her. No matter which knight she watched, Ellen could always find something to criticize.
"I learned from someone great."
Someone great. It was a courteous way to put it, yet for some reason it rang sarcastic in Ellen's ears.
"You had a master? There was no report that Iagar had invited any knights."
"Then it was left out. It isn't necessary information."
Ellen pouted, but nodded all the same. It was a fair point—what Serzilla wanted was Harad's magic, not anything else he could do.
"Gulp."
There it was—the sound of something being swallowed.
"What are you eating?"
"Nothing."
Gulp. It came again. From how light it was, it had to be saliva. A sound she had heard somewhere before.
"……Don't tell me you're drooling?"
"I'm swallowing blood. As expected of a 5th Circle. Without my noticing, it got me in the innards."
Ellen's eyes narrowed as she watched his back. She rolled over where she lay, toward Harad's side—and found him dripping with drool. His gaze was pinned to a single spot. Steam was rising from the dead beast's heart.
"Didn't that burst earlier?"
"A high-Circle heart is tougher than bone. Hoo…"
"……"
Both eyes fixed on that heart were bloodshot scarlet. Even in that state, Harad somehow held himself in check, wiping the drool trailing down his chin with the back of his hand.
"Eat it. Don't stand on ceremony for nothing."
Ellen said it as though it were nothing at all. "It's just a beast, after all."
The North had little aversion to beasts. Serzilla's knights ate them in the field whenever rations ran dry.
"How reassuring."
"I'm telling you to eat. You've already eaten one—what is there to hesitate over?"
Harad had already eaten a heart. And not a beast's—a magician's.
It did not strike him as all that horrifying. Perhaps because it was what had let him survive. And because the man had been a magician of the Outlands, not a human being.
Somehow, watching him wrestle down the urge, Ellen found him a little pitiable.
"You weren't watching earlier, were you?"
"Want me to turn around, then?"
"That is not what I mean."
"Then what? Oh—you're worried I'll go tell someone? I won't say a word."
"I don't doubt you, either."
Then what was the problem?
"Is this about that person who supposedly hates heart-eating? I don't know who they are, but they'll never find out. Not as long as you keep your mouth shut."
Harad turned his head. Bloodshot eyes settled on Ellen.
"……Perhaps they will."
"No—I'm telling you, I'm the only one who knows."
The Harad Ellen had known was a cold-blooded magician. And a rational one. If he had not taken the magician's heart, the ones lying dead in its place would have been the two of them.
"And you've already eaten once."
Once or twice—what difference did it make.
Ellen couldn't understand why Harad, once so rational, had turned sentimental now.
"You ate once, and that's why I'm alive. It's hardly my place to complain."
"Now that you mention it……"
"Shut up and eat. Keep talking and I'll kill you."
Ellen gagged. The "side dishes" she had eaten at Flowerbed's Flesh came rushing back to her.
"……You consented to it too, if you'll recall."
Harad's hand moved to the beast's heart. He lifted it and brought it to his mouth.
Ellen quietly watched.
……He didn't look like a devil.
It was hot.
Even in the freezing Boundary, the beast's heart would not cool. The heat was vivid. Perhaps it had begun in his own hands—it was impossible to say where it started.
Such was a magician on the verge of Predation. There was no staying calm whatsoever.
Crunch.
The taste was atrocious. A taste no one could ever like. And yet Harad's mouth moved greedily.
Taste was not what mattered. His mouth brimmed with heat, and when he swallowed the chewed heart, it slid down his throat along with everything else.
The heat swept through Harad's whole body in one scorching pass, then made for his heart. The vast space within his mind. The Sun's dwelling.
Drawn by the Sun, the heat reached that inner depth.
Just as the heat was drawn to it, so too was the Sun drawn to the heat. The flames across its surface roiled like waves and devoured it whole.
The flames swelled. They surged like breakers striking a cliff, then seeped into the Sun. And so it grew, ever larger.
When he had first regressed, the Sun had hung at Harad's eye level, its center directly before him. He had devoured a magician, and its center had climbed to the height of his crown. And now, the Sun rose past the edge of his sight.
What had been no larger than a hut upon his regression was now as big as the annex where they were staying.
Such was the might of mana.
Lost in rapture, Harad smacked his lips, swallowing every last shred of heart and blood left in his mouth without spilling a drop.
"You're like a beast."
A voice came to him, unbidden.
"I turned a blind eye when I was the Grand Duke's heir, but I can't anymore."
A familiar voice.
"You didn't let me eat even back then."
"From now on, you will not eat—even if you are dying."
"And what if I die because of it?"
"I will see that you don't."
He—no, she—had hated Harad's predation of hearts. It had been closer to loathing.
"I want you to remain human, for as long as you live."
Perhaps that was because she had grown that close to him.
"It is the command of your lord."
Only then did the mouth savoring the aftertaste fall still.
His eyes opened. Ellen was watching him with interest.
"Is it really that good?"
The same person. But a voice unlike the one from back then.
Unlike the Elain of his memories, Ellen's voice held nothing but curiosity.
"What does it taste like?"
It felt as though she had just granted him leave for heart predation. His achievements would now outpace his plans. And yet Harad could not simply rejoice.
"It tastes like a nightmare."
His feelings were tangled.
The way back proved smoother than expected. It wasn't that there were no beasts, but after a 5th Circle, every last one of them seemed trivial.
"You really are nothing like an intelligence agent."
"Intelligence agents can fight too."
It struck the mark, but Ellen didn't let it show. She had expected suspicion from the moment she resolved to fight. It was a minor suspicion. At worst, he would never connect her to the Grand Duke's heir.
"That was more than passing knowledge, though."
"I'm a special agent. That's why."
"I see."
"Really."
"That is what I'll believe."
Contrary to her fears, the suspicion stayed shallow. He doubted her, certainly, but showed no interest in digging any deeper. For some reason, that grated on Ellen.
"How's the body?"
"Fine, aside from being a little low on aura."
The broken collarbone had knitted together, and the hole in her thigh had healed before she knew it. Her innate Heavenly Might had granted Ellen more than strength—an exceptional power of regeneration came with it.
"You're sturdy, too."
"Because I'm special."
Ellen answered shamelessly.
'So she thinks she won't be found out anyway.' It was a welcome shamelessness. Her acting this way made things easier on Harad as well. For Ellen's part, being free to show her strength would make her that much more secure in the Boundary.
"So are you 4th Circle now?" Ellen asked in front of the tunnel.
"Still 3rd Circle."
"Why? It was a 5th Circle's heart."
Harad stared blankly at her innocent question. Was Elain really this ignorant at this age?
"You take magic far too lightly."
"It's easier than aura, isn't it?"
"Quite the opposite. It is because it is harder that the shortcut called predation exists."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Ellen couldn't make sense of it. Harad moved to explain, then stopped. An explanation of magic would take days on end and still fall short, and she wouldn't understand it anyway. But if he left it there, her pride would smart.
"The benefits of predation are mana recovery and expansion, nothing more. And devouring a heart is merely efficient—it does not absorb all of the mana its owner held in life."
Even had the ragged beast been whole, Harad would not have reached the 4th Circle.
"Predation alone has its limits. Mana alone does not make one great."
Circles were not so easily climbed.
"Is it easy for knights, then?"
"Of course not."
Ellen scowled. A mountain of aura did not make a person great. Experience and talent had to fill the rest.
"It is the same for magicians. If a high-Circle heart meant instant advancement, every disciple with a great master would have flourished in no time."
The Outlands had only seven 6th Circle magicians. Circles could not be climbed simply by eating enough hearts.
"So you're still a 3rd Circle like a 4th?"
"Once in a great while, perhaps even a 5th. The details would take a full accounting of my mana."
Of course, for the regressed Harad, that logic was largely beside the point. What mattered to him was not experience or enlightenment. He had already lived through all of it. With enough mana, Harad could wield 5th Circle magic this very moment.
"So being a magician is easy, then?"
"Don't misunderstand. It is I who am special."
"……"
Ellen was irritated. More so at herself, for being unable to fire back at those words on the spot.