Nymphs and Greco-Roman Mythology # 5
"Wow, that thing really holds a lot."
Squirrel Storage—the new skill Keongkeongi had just picked up. Inside those cheek pouches, enough luggage had vanished to fill three or four backpacks.
"Now I can pull out different fruits and snacks mid-battle and munch away."
Keongkeongi had always been blessed with stamina; eating berries, almonds, and the like was enough to patch up injuries and wounds in a hurry. And now that he had a way to stockpile food on top of that, his staying power in a fight had improved by leaps and bounds. That was the general idea, anyway.
With that thought in mind, we returned to the Parthenon Temple. Kalinoi, who had been waiting for me, came trotting over at a clip and pressed her head against my body.
━Hoo, hoo…!
Our journey to Zagori Village had taken about a day, and during that time Kalinoi had been left in the care of the Parthenon. The reason was simple: she just really liked the place. For the record, we'd left Kwang-kwangi and Ang-ang-i there too.
"Have you all been good?"
Swish, swish—.
I stroked the heads and backs of Kalinoi, Ang-ang-i, and Kwang-kwangi in turn. Everyone seemed to have fared well, and judging by their calm demeanor, there'd been no trouble while I was away.
"Such a well-behaved owl! And the ant and the spider were absolute sweethearts too!"
Erato, the bard of the Muse guild, had clearly grown rather attached to my animal companions over the day she'd spent minding them. Before long, she turned to me with news.
"Have you heard? Word is you safely subjugated the Ancient Species of Zagori Village! That leaves only the Chimera Ant! They say S-Ranker Hex has already finished taking down the Emperor Lobster without a hitch!"
S-Ranker Hex, huh. Greece's second S-Ranker, they called him Hex the Gale. A wind-wielding aeromancer, was it? By the latest rankings, Hex was a heavyweight too—thirteenth among the world's S-Ranks.
"Impressive."
The capture of the Ancient Species was proceeding more smoothly than I'd expected. All that remained was the Chimera Ant, which was said to have fled into the waters off the coast of Chios Island.
Flap—.
I showed Erato the slip of paper bearing the prophecy I'd found in Zagori Village.
"When the beasts of old once more breathe their breath upon the world, a typhoon awakened from the deep sea may raise a great wind and turn the world upside down…!"
Erato frowned as she read the words. "What is this?"
"A prophecy left by a nymph long, long ago. It has an uncanny way of matching our current situation. The 'beasts of old' seem to refer to the Ancient Species—and the typhoon…"
I looked up at the sky. Far in the distance, I could see Typhoon No. 35 bearing down on Greece, fierce and unrelenting. The largest storm in three hundred years. In preparation, people were nailing boards over their windows, bolting down signs that might take flight, or hauling them indoors altogether.
"This Coris's friend Zagoriol was a nymph gifted at reading the weather with her short, pointed ears, that's what she was…! She must surely have foreseen that a great typhoon would come in the far-distant future too, that's what she must have done…!"
The typhoon was scheduled to make landfall on Greek soil sometime this evening or tomorrow morning. It seemed only right to evacuate people to safety before then.
But the storm reached Greece faster than any of us had anticipated.
Whoooooooosh—!
A truly monstrous wind came howling down, and all we could do was sit inside the solidly buttressed Parthenon, frozen in place, staring out the window.
"It's like the last day of the world, that's what it is…!"
Oinoi trembled violently. Before long, Coris and Illinoi were burrowed under a blanket, shivering right alongside her. To think nymphs feared typhoons this much.
"That wind is something else, isn't it?"
Half to lighten the mood, I tossed a joke toward Achilles, who sat beside me. But he gave no answer. When I tilted my head toward him, I found him gazing out the window with a terribly grave expression.
"Did you say something, Mr. Ildo?"
Perhaps he felt my gaze; only then did Achilles let his expression soften. Before I could find the words to repeat myself, he scratched his chin awkwardly and spoke.
"I'm not particularly fond of typhoons. They bring all sorts of things to mind."
"Is that why you didn't join the Typhoon of Space-Time operation?"
I could recall it clearly—not so long ago, Achilles had sat out Argonaut, the joint operation of the S-Rank awakeners.
KA-BOOM—!
At that moment, a savage bolt of lightning struck down. It felt as though it had slammed directly into the peak of this temple, perched so high above the city.
━Ing-ing-ya-ing.
Boing-boing—.
Ing-ing-i, the typhoon cloud Oinoi always carried with her, went rubbing her fluffy body against the window with abandon. Was that her way of saying she wanted to go outside?
Of course, Oinoi moved her trembling, blanket-buried hand just enough to grab hold of Ing-ing-i.
"If we go out in weather like this, something terrible will happen, that's what will happen…!"
Sound advice, as it turned out.
Riiiiiing—.
Just then, Achilles's phone went off with a harsh, grating ringtone. As he answered it, his expression shifted from moment to moment.
"A rift… inside the typhoon? Overloaded…?"
So that was how it was. I had a pretty good idea of what was going on. A rift had actually opened inside the typhoon, and the thing had gone into overload—meaning it could spit out one crisis after another. Could the ancient beasts—the Giant Dog-Squirrel, the Chimera Ant, the Emperor Lobster—have all poured out of that overloaded rift in the storm? It was only a guess, but it felt like it held water.
Click—.
Achilles hung up and let out a long, slow breath. "Mr. Ildo. Hex, the S-Ranker of the Pantheon guild, set out to subjugate the rift inside Typhoon No. 35—and all contact with him has been lost. We've received a request for a search-and-rescue operation, along with the subjugation itself…."
KA-BOOM—.
Lightning kept slamming down, one violent bolt after another. It was five in the afternoon, the coastal alarm wailing—weeeooong—shrilly over the roar of surging waves. The world lay smothered under pitch-black storm clouds, dark as the dead of night, and nothing but the howl of wind and sea battering the eardrums without mercy.
Achilles remembered a distant day long past. The weather had been exactly like this—precisely like this—on the day his father dove into the sea to save a stranger and vanished forever. To be out wandering in a storm like this was, quite simply, an act of suicide.
"That damn Hex."
Hex the Gale. Greece's second-in-command, a man who harbored a strange tangle of rivalry and defiance toward Achilles. He had been the first to hurl himself into the typhoon to subjugate the rift discovered at its heart—and the result was a severed connection and a missing-persons report. And so the mission had landed in Achilles's lap: rescue Hex, and close the overloaded rift inside the storm.
Still, Achilles balked at the thought of walking into that typhoon. Call it fear quietly budding in a corner of his heart, if you liked. In truth, everyone else had dragged their feet for much the same reason, and the request had bounced from hand to hand until, inevitably, it was handed down to Achilles, an S-Ranker.
Shff—.
Just then, Ha Ildo, who had been staring out the window, rose from his seat. "Where would I need to go?"
Every line of him said he intended to walk straight out into the typhoon.
Achilles Legion was deeply shaken. "Mr. Ildo, this mission is far too dangerous to ask of an awakener from another country…! No one would ever ask such a thing of you…! And no one would blame you for refusing…!"
"But if we leave the overloaded rift as it is, something far worse could happen…! This might be the fastest chance we'll ever get…! We may have to finish this before it's too late…!"
I see.
Achilles felt, all at once, that he understood the man called Ha Ildo a little better. He was like Achilles's father—a man who could throw himself into a storm-lashed sea for the sake of what simply had to be done. And the way such men were usually remembered… hailed as heroes, no doubt. People would lay flowers at their graves and weep for the brave souls who never came home.
"Mr. Ildo, I understand well enough by now that you chase glory, the way a man might chafe at the bit for something. But if you die chasing it, what possible meaning do wealth and honor have left?"
"……"
Ha Ildo fell silent. Had his point landed?
Just as Achilles allowed himself that thought, Ha Ildo spoke. "Mr. Legion, you said no one would ask me to do something dangerous, and no one would blame me if I refused. You're wrong on both counts. If I crouch here in this typhoon like a coward, there is one person who will hold it against me for the rest of my life."
"Who on earth—?"
"Me. Myself."
━Keong-keong…!
━Zzeuji…!
━Hio-ong…!
━Ing-ing-ya-ing.
The little beasts clambered onto Ha Ildo's shoulders, left and right, and onto his back. Before Achilles could manage another word of protest, they had already stepped out through the temple doors.
Whooooosh—.
The automatic door slid open, a furious gale rushed in—and was gone again just as quickly.
GRRAAAOOO—.
The wind howled like the roar of some great beast. The rain lashed down so savagely that when I turned my head, the droplets didn't fall toward the ground—they seemed to soar straight up into the sky.
"Which way am I supposed to go?"
Scowling against the storm, I scanned my surroundings, hunting for the overloaded rift buried in the typhoon. That was when Ing-ing-i, the strange little storm cloud clinging to my shoulder, suddenly lifted off with a whoosh.
━Ing-ing-ya-ing.
It looked for all the world like she was telling me to follow her. I sprinted after the little cloud for all I was worth, though the wind and rain came down so hard that even walking was a struggle.
Thwap—.
Something snatched me up by the back.
━Hoo, hoo…!
Bonbon Kalinoi. The Tiger Owl was a master of flight—one of those magnificent beings who could glide at ease even through the Typhoon of Space-Time itself. With Kalinoi gripping my back and following in Ing-ing-i's wake, I spotted it through the churning clouds: a rift entrance where the lightning struck down with singular fury.
Whooooooo—.
Only now did I realize it—the ferocity of this entire typhoon had been born from the wind and rain pouring out of that very rift!
Which meant that if we closed it, this monstrous storm would die with it—wouldn't it?
"Kalinoi! Let's go in there!"
━Hoo, hoo…!
Together with Kalinoi, I hurled my body with all my strength into the rift floating in the sky. Inside, we found a place like an empty field—marble columns shattered, structures reduced to little more than scattered traces.
The ruins of a collapsed temple. Relics of ages long past. That was probably the best way to describe it.
KA-BOOM, KA-RA-KOOM—.
Here too, rain lashed and lightning fell, no different from outside the rift.
━Hio-ong…!
Just then, Kwang-kwangi—blessed with a spider's uncanny instincts—raised a front leg and pointed somewhere, as if he'd caught onto something. There stood a man, dressed in the vestments of the Greek Orthodox Church, a great crucifix at his chest. His hair, grown out like a lion's mane, was emerald green, and he was tall—very tall.
"Hex! I've come to save you! You're all right!"
"…Ugh, n-no…! Why isn't Achilles here?! Someone must strike me down…! The only one in all of Greece who can strike me down is… is him…!"
Swoo—!
As I approached him, Hex flung out his hand.
WHUMP—! Whooooo—!
A violent gust erupted—and hurled my body a good ten meters through the air. I was still puzzling over the situation when—
"M-my consciousness is slipping…! Get out of here…! This rift is… this rift is different, somehow, from all the others I've ever seen…! It has control of my body…! I can't… hold on any longeeerrr…! Gyaaaah…!"
Crash—.
S-Ranker Hex collapsed, crumpling into the sodden muck as though he'd simply fallen over. Five seconds later, the man peeled himself up off the ground, limp and boneless—and then, heh-heh, his shoulders began to shake with laughter.
Hex's eyes blazed with a milky, otherworldly glow. Something told me this was no ordinary situation.
WHUUUUNG—.
Whipped up by the raging gusts, Hex rose into the air like a balloon cut loose. He was making for the entrance of the overloaded rift, intent on escaping into the world outside.
Instinct screamed at me: that man could not be allowed to leave this place. I have to draw his attention—pull it onto me!
"Keongkeongi! Time for the new technique! Seed Gunfire!"
Keongkeongi loaded the seeds he'd stashed in his Squirrel Storage into his mouth, then spat them out in a relentless barrage—tududududududu—
━Grrrung…!
Tududadadadada—.
The principle looked simple enough, but the punch behind it was every bit the equal of live ammunition. The seeds punched straight through Hex Pascal's Wind Barrier and battered his body without mercy.
"AAAAARGH~"