The Refugee Couple (2)
"We should put some clothes on before we go."
Harad said this to Ellen.
It was a word to himself as much as to her.
They were both a sorry sight. Their wounds had healed, but the clothes ruined alongside them stood no chance of repair.
It was bad enough that shedding everything might have been the more presentable option — Harad had gotten off easy. His clothes were simply drenched through with blood.
Ellen was draped in rags.
More of her bare skin showed than fabric.
Only then seeming to notice, Ellen flushed scarlet and covered herself with her arms.
"...Did you see?"
"You were the one showing."
So he said — though it hadn't quite looked that way.
Even in rags, she had everything that needed covering, covered.
"I wasn't showing you anything."
"And truthfully, I didn't look."
Harad handed a robe to Ellen, who was eyeing him through slitted lids.
It was the blue robe Avery Aquins had worn.
The color of the Deep Sea Tower, no doubt.
"This is warm?"
"Avery Aquins was a Star. He'd have been given special treatment."
Avery Aquins's robe was fine outerwear.
It offered considerable warmth and was as tough as magical beast hide.
Harad threw on Aroshu's robe.
It was red, befitting a man of the Red Tower.
"What about that one?"
"No star quality to it, I'm afraid."
Aroshu's robe was ordinary.
Because he was Fourth Tier? That may have played a part, but it seemed more the Red Tower's doing.
For a mage of fire to lug around outerwear that radiated warmth would have looked absurd.
"It really doesn't suit you."
Ellen remarked to Harad in his red robe.
Harad looked himself over.
To his eye, it suited him fine. Not because he was a mage — he simply had a knack for carrying off whatever he wore.
"I'd say it suits you even less."
The Outlands robes looked awkward on Ellen.
"Well, I'm not a mage."
"I am one, though?"
"And it still doesn't suit you."
Saying something he couldn't begin to parse, Ellen strode on ahead.
"By the way — how was it?"
"How was what?"
"My body."
"...?"
Was she out of her mind?
"It was a joke."
The place Ellen led him to, having said that, was a cave.
A strangely formed one, as though violet rock and yellow rock had been braided together, melted down, and frozen mid-flow.
It sat at quite an altitude.
Chosen with Avery Aquins's River in mind, no doubt.
In that sliver of time, Ellen had somehow turned up so safe a refuge. Keen eyes, sound judgment.
A cave a magical beast once lived in, then.
The interior was unexpectedly comfortable. And spacious. He could roughly gauge the bulk of a beast that had, at some point, fallen on hard times here.
The cave ran deeper than expected. The shape of the walls was curious.
It was as if some colossal claw had gouged out the den.
How far in had they come? Ellen, walking at his side, suddenly thrust out an arm and barred Harad's path.
A sword swept through the space before his eyes.
Had she not stopped him, the crown of his head would have been cleaved open.
The arc of that blade was impressive indeed.
The strength behind it, however, was wretched.
"You're spent."
The man who had flattened himself against the wall in hiding before lunging was now heaving for breath.
He looked barely capable of holding his breath for the ambush, let alone swinging a sword even once.
"Get out of here, mage."
But his fire was formidable.
The man was resolved to die if he must.
Ellen had covered him, though.
The man seemed not to recognize her.
Ah. He'd only ever seen her back.
Earlier, Ellen had stepped in front of the River in that man's stead, shielding him and the collapsed woman.
He could never have seen her face.
In the end, it came down to the clothes.
Harad and Ellen had donned robes — Aroshu's and Avery's.
To the man, the two of them looked like mages of the Outlands.
"Come any closer and I'll kill you."
The man said, wheezing between words.
"Doesn't look like you could."
Harad spoke with a flick of his eyes past the man's shoulder. The woman was still down.
Neither dead nor unconscious. Her breathing came ragged. Awake, by the look of her — simply unable to move.
"Hand over the woman. Do that, and I'll let you live."
The man's eyes bulged.
His answer was to swing his sword. It whipped toward Harad's throat — whereupon an uninvited hand seized the blade and hurled it to the ground.
At the abrupt sight of his weapon discarded, the man's eyes went round.
Caught barehanded, and yet Ellen's palm bore not a single cut.
"Were you serious?"
"No. I wanted to hear that answer."
Harad smiled, easy and bright.
The man stared, dumbstruck.
"You saw me protecting you back there."
Ellen asked.
She wasn't calling him out — she seemed genuinely curious.
"It's different. Back then he still had strength."
Earlier, when the man had stood against Avery, aura had remained in him.
Now there was none.
No aura had laced the sword he'd swung.
Which meant that merely keeping the Boundary's chill out of his body had already spent him to the bone.
"True resolve is what leaps out when you have nothing left."
The man had chosen the woman.
That, surely, was his true heart.
"So what's the verdict?"
"I've decided I'd like to talk, at least."
"But you don't trust them?"
Ellen seemed to want to believe the man.
Because he was a knight, most likely.
But Harad shook his head.
"I stay wary. They're asylum seekers."
Refugees, the pair of them.
Had their petition only been granted, they would already belong to the Outlands.
He understood the plight of the continent's mages — but that didn't mean he could simply take them at their word.
"And this isn't a problem for me to weigh. It's yours."
Harad looked at Ellen.
These were people who had slipped over the Great Wall in secret.
For Serzilla, it was not a matter to be waved through.
"...I'm sorry."
Only then did Ellen seem to realize how lightly she'd been taking it all.
"I didn't say it to hear an apology. I said it so you'd keep it in mind. And it's understandable — it's the first time you've handled something like this."
Harad spoke gently.
"Deciding how they are treated is your burden as well. There's no Grand Duke or Grand Duchess here."
Ellen nodded slowly.
As Grand Duchess, she would have understood.
"...A knight? You're a knight?"
The man finally seemed to collect himself and asked.
Evidently he had spent all this time chewing on Ellen's identity.
Not the sharpest, this one.
He'd heard every word of the exchange, yet still couldn't seem to fathom who Ellen was.
It was then that the woman lying behind him pushed herself upright.
"We greet the Great Wall, Serzilla."
The woman bowed deeply toward Ellen.
Watching her, Harad's eyes gleamed.
"A mage, indeed."
The woman looked sharp.
Sword Masters were the treasure of the continent.
In this era, only ten were known to exist.
A count that excluded the North.
They shared a single landmass, yet the "continent" of common speech meant the land with the North carved away.
This was no shunning of Serzilla — it was a mark of respect.
For the North's strength lacked nothing when set beside the continent's.
Of course, that was talk of old. The North could no longer defeat the continent.
It could still deal it grievous harm, granted.
With good reason — Serzilla currently held five Sword Masters.
Half the continent's number.
Count Kalinos and it makes six... ah. No — five.
Harad had absentmindedly counted Cassion among them, and a hollow laugh slipped out.
The man was a mage.
Five Sword Masters.
And even that was the count excluding Cassion and the great Elain.
It was no idle greed that made the Empire covet Serzilla.
The continent had ten Sword Masters. The Empire had only five.
Ten on the continent, five of them the Empire's own.
Such was this era.
But that figure was not quite accurate.
Those ten were merely the most famous; the strong who hid themselves surfaced now and again.
They were powers of the awkward middle ground.
"First Knight Order Commander of Gildein Border Count, Balvebron Aport... no."
Balvebron was one such in-between power.
"Balvebron."
He had recited his family name along with the rest, then thought better of it and introduced himself anew without it.
"I'm Alena."
The woman said, between coughs.
Blood smeared the hand over her mouth.
"You can stay lying down."
"Are you... sparing us?"
"Lying down or standing up, it makes no difference."
At that, Alena smiled, thin and bitter, and lowered herself again.
With no telling how the conversation would end, she was no doubt hoarding every ounce of strength she had. A clever woman.
"So the Church caught you?"
"The Church's luck held good."
Balvebron wasn't saying their own luck had been bad. He was saying the Church's had been good.
"You. You were never a believer of the Sun and Moon, were you."
"That's right."
"I meant to kill you regardless. Then I caught onto you."
Balvebron nodded, heavy and slow.
It was why the in-between Sword Masters never announced their existence to the world.
Otherwise, they might well become targets.
"What do you mean by that?"
Ellen — country girl of the North — seemed lost.
"The continent's Sword Masters are counted at ten. In truth, there are more."
Ellen nodded.
Balvebron was the proof of it.
"Then why do you think the rest go unknown?"
Harad asked, in the manner of a tutor.
"They haven't found confidence in their own strength yet?"
"And why would they lack it?"
"Perhaps they're still unsatisfied with themselves?"
Like me.
So said Ellen — not yet a Sword Master — scratching at her neck.
"Half the answer."
"And the other half?"
"Because they never know when death will find them."
"Death from whom?"
"The Church."
Ellen blinked.
She seemed to be picturing Ceria.
"Gildein Border Count. The Empire's western front. A fortress wall that meant nothing but headaches — from the Empire's seat, it must have grated."
The reason, no doubt, was Balvebron's very existence.
"Unknown or not, those who faced him knew. On a front line, such things cannot stay hidden."
"..."
"So the Church lent a hand. Or the Church, too, found him a thorn in its side."
It was why the Elain of his past life had called the Emperor a scarecrow.
"Once the Church agreed, everything after was easy. The Church holds the invincible justification that is the mage."
Balvebron had been felled by that justification — one where truth played no part at all.
"That is what I meant by the Church's luck being good."
The Church had taken the word demon onto its lips to sweep Balvebron away.
When, in truth, Balvebron's wife really was a mage.
"And so the Sword Masters beyond the known ten keep their true caliber to themselves."
Fall short in either strength or station, and one could become the Church's quarry at any hour.
Even those confident in both.
Once the Church took a disliking to you, nothing prevented that Sword Master from waking one day as a heretic bewitched by demons.
"The known ten are all devout believers."
That was why the continent's ten famed Sword Masters all stood alive and whole.
Strength and station — and faith besides.
"Well, I don't claim to know it all. They wouldn't kill every time. There would be coaxing. Threats, too."
"..."
"Those two likely carry more of a story they cannot tell. Something to do with the Church, I'd wager."
One thing was certain: Balvebron and Alena here had earned the Church's displeasure.
Or the Empire's.
"Don't go picturing Ceria. I told you, didn't I — she is the exception among priests. The Church of today brims with ambition."
"..."
"Since olden days, faith has presumed to meddle in everything."
The Church held power absolute and unchecked.
So long as a single mage drew breath, that power would never wane.
"Ambition in substance; evangelism in pretext. 'We went to Gildein to spread the faith — and lo, what horror. A demon lay coiled in wait.'"
Harad said this while gazing at Alena, lying behind Balvebron.
"And thus peace came to Gildein. Together with the Church."
Ellen's face was stricken.
Because Balvebron had denied none of it.
If anything, he wore an astonished look — as though to ask how on earth Harad could possibly know.
"Alive against all odds, the pair of you."
"We had at least the strength to flee."
In-between he may have been, but a superhuman was a superhuman.
Balvebron had possessed what it took to shake the Church's pursuit.
"What Tier are you?"
"Third Tier."
A towering achievement by continental standards — but nowhere near enough to slip the Church.
That the couple had made it this far at all was Balvebron's doing.
"How did you cross the Wall? A tunnel?"
Balvebron and Alena cocked their heads in unison.
They appeared to be hearing the word tunnel for the first time.
"We crossed the sea."
"The Western Sea."
A legend dwelled in the eastern waters.
The sea route into the Boundary existed only in the west.
"So you boarded a stowaway vessel."
Tunnels were not the only road to asylum.
There was the sea as well — one of the Outlands' routes of entry into the continent.
A poor means, all told.
Once a ship dropped anchor, its passengers had to cut a diagonal line across the Boundary. Only then did the Outlands appear.
That was why the Outlands of his past life had poured everything into tunnels.
Set against the sea, tunnels were unquestionably safer.
"A stowaway ship? There's such a thing?"
"...?"
Balvebron and Alena wore that heard-it-for-the-first-time look again.
This time it was Harad whose head tilted.
"Then however did you get here?"
Before long, Harad's eyes were gleaming.
Don't tell me there's yet another route of exile?
It was a fact unknown to him in his past life.
"We swam here."
"That is no ordinary sea. Your wife?"
Harad decided the man was lying.
Legend or no — 6th-Tier magical beast or none — the Western Sea was every bit as deadly.
Those waters were an environment little different from the Boundary itself.
"Carried her on my neck the whole way."
"...Truly?"
"On my neck's honor — truly."
Just then —
"Ooooh."
Ellen breathed, awestruck.
"..."
Honestly, these knights.