Chapter 63
Chapter 63
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 63
Chapter Title: Trap
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No matter that they had braved the desert sandstorm to get here, walking the grasslands at night was no easy task.
They had left in such a hurry that they had no horse to ride. With no map and no path, they couldn't even gauge how much farther they had to go.
But above all else, there was the problem of these mystery assassins chasing after them.
Jade started looking back over his shoulder, just like he had when leaving Rom.
When he turned, he saw Saf walking right behind him. Jade forced a smile to hide his anxiety, and Saf spoke up.
"It's confusing, Father."
Jade hoped it wasn't about the assassins and asked,
"What is?"
Saf's voice flowed on after the wind through the grasslands and the chirping of grasshoppers, soft and musical.
"I've always been taught that faithless unbelievers are demons. No matter how much Father Danel taught me otherwise, and no matter how hard I tried to follow that teaching, the sisters around me always said it, so it never quite stuck."
"You're talking about Ruby."
"Ruby reads the scriptures like some history book and treats the words of God like legal decrees. She even thinks angels are something she'll duel someday. But that doesn't make Ruby a demon. If anything..."
Saf continued reluctantly, like a scholar forced to admit an unwelcome truth.
"...she's closer to an angel."
"Was that why you made her read the scriptures? To give her faith?"
"Not exactly, but... maybe. I don't know."
Saf bowed her head in confusion.
"Ruby was already adventuring the whole world before the Lotican Empire was even founded. And she read a mountain of books from before the scriptures. It's not like seeing the Bible once now will make her adopt the faith as we know it."
"I know that. Still, I was glad. She read it because I nagged her to. If we keep talking about it steadily from here on, maybe she'll come around to faith."
Jade looked at Saf's expressionless face and spoke expressionlessly.
"Saf, we're not on this adventure to spread faith right now."
Unthinkingly, Jade grasped the star-shaped cross of Danel hanging around his neck.
'I don't even have faith myself. Just like my parents can never return, my own faith won't come back either...'
Jade nearly said that to Saf. He stopped, afraid it might sound like it was her fault.
"But if Ruby gains faith now..."
Saf hesitated before continuing.
"...maybe she'll get along with the angel if they meet again someday?"
Jade asked in surprise at the unexpected words.
"Was that the reason? So Ruby wouldn't fight the angel?"
Saf nodded slowly in response.
"Yeah. I thought that would be nice."
Just then, Ruby called from ahead.
"Hey! Whoever I fight is my business, so cut the debate and come learn the rules of travel."
"That girl's got good ears."
Jade grumbled as he caught up to Ruby up ahead, and Saf followed right away.
Ruby pointed to somewhere on the grasslands bathed in moonlight.
"Look over there."
"I don't see anything."
"You've got bad eyes too."
"It's only you who can see it. Saf can't either, right?"
When Jade asked, Saf hesitated to answer.
Jade asked again.
"Can you see it by any chance?"
"...Yeah. I can."
"Hmm, just me who can't see it, then. Let's go a bit farther."
Jade walked ahead with Ruby. Then he saw it: a wooden stake driven into the middle of the grasslands, nothing but grass around it.
About the length of two adults, with a thickness of a handspan, and beneath the stake sat two people. By moonlight alone, it was impossible to tell what state they were in.
"What's going on over there?"
Jade asked.
"Looks like Kun tribesmen nomads. Tied to the stake with rope, and injured. Their breathing's shallow—they're about to die."
Ruby explained.
"Oh no! Then we have to go help."
As Jade moved to approach, Ruby yanked his clothes. Suddenly pulled back, Jade fell flat on his butt.
"Didn't think you'd go down that easy."
"You're too strong."
"Shh. Voice too loud."
Ruby put a finger to her lips and explained quietly.
"This is what I mean for you to learn. There's no way a stake should be there. But people are tied to it. So it's one of two things. Could be some local custom unique to the area..."
"Some custom like that exists in the world?"
Jade asked in surprise.
"I don't know. The world has all sorts of customs."
"And the other one?"
"A trap. To attack people like you who come to rescue them."
"So what do we do?"
When Jade asked, Ruby looked at him pitifully.
"I'm telling you to be careful, flower boy. This is for when you're 'alone' from now on!"
Ruby crossed her arms and said,
"For someone like me, a trap like that is no issue—it's just a choice! So, what'll it be? Save them, or leave them and go our way?"
Saf answered quickly.
"Of course we save them. Right, Father? They're injured—I can heal them."
Ruby glanced at Jade for confirmation, and Jade nodded.
"Save them."
"Getting tangled in stuff like this usually just makes things annoying. You know we're being chased, right?"
Ruby handed Jade a pouch with bread and cheese, then walked toward the stake.
Jade and Saf watched tensely as Ruby walked into the darkness.
When Ruby reached the stake, she suddenly whipped the surrounding ground a few times with her chain. Each swing brought a clanking of metal.
"Only three iron traps. I was hoping for something more impressive! You can come now."
Ruby beckoned.
Jade and Saf walked toward the stake.
Standing before it, Ruby showed them the traps caught on her chain. Massive iron jaws that could crush a bull's leg had clamped onto the chain. Ruby pried it open barehanded, freed the chain, and tossed it aside.
"Now, let's see why these guys are here."
Ruby squatted down in front of the stake.
The two men sat back-to-back around the stake, arms bound behind them. Their faces were so bruised and bloodied they were unrecognizable, blood trickling from their heads. Their eyelids were so swollen their pupils were barely visible.
Saf approached Ruby first.
"Shouldn't we treat them first?"
"They could be enemies. Wait."
Ruby boldly grabbed one man's chin, lifted his face, and asked,
"Hey, who are you guys? Kun nomads, right? What are you doing here?"
The Kun man seemed dazed for a moment, then cried out in surprise upon seeing Ruby. It was a language Jade couldn't understand.
Ruby patted his shoulder to calm him and spoke in his language.
Jade asked,
"Ruby, you speak Kun too?"
"I know pretty much all human languages."
As Ruby spoke, Saf said at the same time,
"I know it too. He says it's a trap, so run away."
Jade asked in surprise.
"You know it too, Saf? When did you learn?"
"In preparation for missionary work with Kun nomads someday."
Ruby spoke to the man in the Kun language. Pointing at the traps, she seemed to be saying they'd been disarmed. But the man shook his head and spoke in a warning tone.
Saf translated.
"He says this isn't the real trap."
Ruby suddenly looked back, and Jade turned too. But it was dark, and he couldn't tell exactly where she was looking.
To Jade's eyes, there was nothing but grassland.
"Saf. You can heal them now. These guys are bait."
Ruby said as she untied the ropes from the stake.
Jade asked tensely,
"Where? What's there?"
Ruby pointed to a hill about half a mile away. Against the moonlight, a horse stood faintly like a shadow.
Moments later, the horse charged toward them.
"Looking at its size, not your average wild horse. Figures."
Ruby stepped forward. The chain from her shackles trailed long behind.
"Shackles—want me to unlock them?"
Jade asked, pulling out his book and flipping to the page for unlocking shackles.
Ruby looked back with a grin.
"I don't usually make excuses, but to ease your pointless worrying: I'm just now loosening up, getting freer by the minute. It might take a few more days for five hundred years of binding to fully come undone, that's all."
The horse kicked up dust from the grasslands as it charged.
"Whoa, fast. Makes me wanna race it!"
Ruby exclaimed in admiration.
"Having time to say that means my worrying was pointless, huh."
Jade said, anxiously clutching his book, opening and closing it repeatedly.
Soon, even Jade could see the horse clearly. He could feel the ground shaking and the wind.
Then, a white light flashed from behind Jade. Saf was using healing light.
Jade kept his eyes fixed ahead.
The horse stopped about twenty paces away. It was so huge that all the horses he'd ridden looked like foals. In the darkness, its black silhouette was indistinguishable by coat color, but its eyes gleamed, giving it a terrifying air.
"Well, well! My carefully laid trap caught cheap fish."
The horse said.
Jade pondered what kind of demon it was while thinking,
'I've gotten used to this now. A horse suddenly speaking human language, and it doesn't even surprise me.'
Ruby laughed back.
"To someone who can't recognize jewels, they're just cheap stones. In the desert, a bucket of water's worth more than a bucket of jewels. Do I look cheap to you? You're gonna have to reassess the value of cheap real soon, flower boy."
The horse flinched for a moment, as if not understanding.
Ruby continued leisurely,
"You switched to Romish the second you saw me, so you think we came from Rim, huh?"
The horse regained its composure and said,
"Those Kun hunters headed to Rom and Parens for help. I caught two easily, but stupidly let one slip. So I dug this trap to catch the one that got away. They never abandon their comrades."
"Ah, so that's why you think we came from Rom? So, what's your name?"
"As for me, I'm a subordinate of the King of the Grasslands, Gottking, the hunter who races across the plains! 'Tyrant.' When I roar, all the beasts of the grasslands hide in holes, nomads cower in tents and don't come out, and when I breathe, all living things have nightmares. And who are you?"
"As for me, I'm the companion of a certain faithless priest, and the blue-haired saint keeps picking fights about my identity..., Ruby."
Mid-sentence, Ruby suddenly snapped at Jade.
"You two ruined my intro!"
"No, how's that my fault?"
Jade was baffled, but the horse called Tyrant was even more baffled.
"You don't look like reinforcements from Rom—just unlucky travelers. So you have no business with me."
"I do."
"You don't get it. I'm saying you're gonna die here!"
"You're the one who doesn't get it. You're the one dying."
"You bastard—others'll die easy, but not you! I'll chew you from fingertips to toes into jerky."
Tyrant bared sharp teeth that no herbivore should have.
"No thanks on your filthy teeth massage. And I won't torture you all nice and thorough like that."
Ruby pinched her thumb and forefinger together and continued,
"I'm gonna pop your flower bud like this!"
"Flower bud?"
Tyrant cocked its head, then snorted hard. White steam filled the air, and suddenly the moonlight dimmed.
"Enough wordplay! Time to show you what the nightmare of the grasslands is!"
As darkness enveloped everything, the Kun nomad shouted from behind. This time, it was in Romish that Jade understood.
"Run! If you're trapped in that darkness, you'll fall asleep in seconds and be lost to horrible nightmares, unable to do anything!"
"Nightmares are what that guy's gonna have from now on."
Ruby swung her hand. The chain whipped out long, wrapping around Tyrant's neck twenty paces away.
Tyrant saw the chain coil around its neck and sneered.
"Think this human weapon can even scratch me?"
"When did I say scratch...?"
Ruby yanked the chain as she spoke.
A horse three times a normal one's weight flew through the air and crashed before Ruby. The heavy impact shook the ground.
"...I said I'd pop your flower bud!"
Ruby pinched Tyrant's flower bud between thumb and forefinger and crushed it.
"Kwaaaack!"
Tyrant screamed and writhed in agony, but Ruby's chain had already bound its front and back legs.
It thrashed like livestock dragged to slaughter, unable to rise.
"Before I make it vanish, wanna pop the other one too?"
Ruby asked Jade as if seeking permission.
Jade grimaced and said,
"N-no need to go that far."
From behind, one of the Kun hunters approached with wide eyes.
"D-did you just... catch this thing?"
Ruby answered proudly.
"Can't you see? Caught it!"
"Th-this is the Tyrant I know...?"
He still looked incredulous.
"You know it?"
Jade asked.
"It's the monster that ate twenty of our nomads alive. I lost my brother..."
He nodded toward the other nomad still receiving Saf's treatment and continued.
"...that friend lost his father."
Jade nodded and said to Ruby,
"Ruby, go ahead and pop the other one too."
Ruby grinned, then popped it. Tyrant's scream echoed once more.
"Kwaaaack!"