A Little Trust (5)
Siren.
A creature half human, half fish. In the stories, a Siren was a mythical being said to lure people into the sea with a beautiful song.
Leslie, daughter of Count Parence, had come to her senses only to find herself transformed into one. Worse still, she was trapped alone on an island of unknown origin.
The one who spoke to her in that moment of confusion was a demon — an otherworldly monster she herself had summoned, now settled into her soul.
He told her this:
He had remade her dead self into a monster. That was the price of summoning a demon.
Leslie, however, could not have cared less.
What did it matter that she had called a demon? All she had wanted was a little talent and a little beauty — bought with a fraction of her lifespan — so that everyone would acknowledge her, so that the man she adored would finally look her way.
Even poison, taken in the right dose, becomes medicine. Could a demon not become a useful tool if handled well? Look at her. She had an inhuman body now, but she was still alive.
Being trapped on a deserted island, though — that she hated. It felt too much like actual exile.
Now a merfolk, Leslie set out into the sea to return home. Going back looking like this was out of the question; she only meant to scout the surroundings and find an inhabited island.
It was impossible.
An unknown force hung over the island and the entire stretch of sea around it. No matter how straight she swam, she always ended up back where she started. As she panicked, the demon whispered:
And then he added:
The terms were these:
One hundred people who came to this island. Kill them, scatter their blood across the gravel flats, grind their skulls to powder, gather it upon the totem at the altar in the center of the cave, and set it all alight at once. Then the fog encircling the island would lift, and she would be free to leave.
And that was not all. In exchange for those hundred lives, the demon promised to restore her human form — as an ageless beauty several times more exquisite than that commoner girl.
She was already beautiful enough, truth be told, but Leslie's greed had no end. Because before she died, her face had been nothing more than that commoner girl's features, cut off and stitched onto her own.
"What fine material, after so long. Heh-heh."
Humming a little tune, Leslie glided up beside the woman caught in her illusion magic.
"What a lovely expression. And that face — exquisite. Skin like white jade, a jawline carved from marble! You're several times prettier than that lowborn wretch, aren't you? Some noble's darling, perhaps?"
Only moments ago the black-haired, golden-eyed woman had been smiling in bliss. Now bitter tears streamed down her face. She could barely hold herself upright.
Mental collapse — the result of illusion magic. When a person's emotions are lifted to the highest peak and then dropped, the sheer fall overloads the brain and tears the nervous tissue apart in a rush.
"Oh my. After the happy memories, you're dredging up the tragic ones, are you? I know that feeling well. Like being given opium and having it snatched away. Still, don't be too sad. I'll make you comfortable soon enough."
Shring.
Leslie's nails sharpened to blades. She brought them to her own face and raked them across.
Rrrrip.
The face that had been unnaturally affixed split open, revealing the real one beneath — the face she had worn in her human days.
It had been plain enough, not objectively beautiful. And even that had twisted into something hideous when she became a monster.
"This one really is to my liking. Time to swap it out."
Just as she was about to drive her nails into the woman, Leslie suddenly realized something. The woman was sobbing aloud — but the man had been far too quiet for some time.
Curious, she glanced his way, and could not believe her eyes.
Huh?
Why are his eyes open?
Anyone under illusion magic should have their eyes shut or rolled back.
The thought had barely formed when —
"Pierce."
The man raised a magic stone and chanted.
A heat ray formed in an instant and punched straight through Leslie's heart. Ssshhhk! Flesh tore; violet blood sprayed. The first real shock she had felt in centuries made her vision swim.
"Aaaagh!"
It burned. She had never known pain like this.
Leslie, who had been swaying like a spring, steadied herself and sealed the hole in her chest. Bound to a demon, her body possessed a lifespan and regenerative power far beyond any ordinary human's.
"H-how did you break free of my illusion magic? No — more than that! You dare wound the precious body of a count's daughter?"
The man snorted a laugh.
"Precious body? If that carcass of yours is precious, her face is heliodor. A monster, putting its claws to a human's face? Hm?"
"…You — your tone just turned insolent. Can't you use honorifics again?"
"Pierce, if you please."
"Kyaaaah!"
A second heat ray tore through Leslie's lower half this time. Nerves seared and severed in whole bundles. It felt as if her brain itself were frying.
"You dare — you dare…!"
To humiliate me — twice in a row.
That man, at least, I will not kill cleanly.
Leslie gestured.
"My loyal servants — fall upon him like the rising tide!"
At her command, the merfolk monsters that had stood frozen like taxidermy charged as one.
"Fighting me alone with the kind of magic stone some Mana-starved commoner would use — you're centuries too early. A lowborn like you is perfect as a stepping stone for my escape. Ohoho!"
But Leslie was wrong about two things.
The first was time.
In the age she had lived, the uses of magic stones had been limited. In the modern era, with the science of magic stones advanced, they had developed enormously even in military applications.
In the Middle Ages, holy power had been the only means of opposing monsters. Now it was different.
"Pierce. Race like the wind and ravage them."
They could be scorched away with overwhelming physical force.
The man deployed the magic stones he had stockpiled one after another, each in the right place, striking only the creatures that directly threatened him. The rest he simply dodged with a sharp eye.
"Impossible…!"
And the second thing she was wrong about:
The man was not alone.
"Ra… Rachel."
Just as Leslie tried to put the man under illusion magic again, a heavy blow crashed into the back of her skull.
Different.
This pain was on another level entirely from the man's attacks.
The physical force was one thing, but the pure divine power that rode behind it slammed into Leslie's nervous system, saturated as it was with demonic energy. She toppled without even managing a scream.
"W-what insolent creature dares…"
Leslie sucked in a useless breath.
The one who had struck the back of her head was none other than the black-haired, golden-eyed woman. She scrubbed hard at her swollen eyes with her sleeve, then took a long grip on a spear forged of stalactite.
An immense holy power radiated from her.
For a monster, taking a direct hit of that magnitude meant death.
"D-don't come near me. Stay away from me!"
She tried casting healing magic on herself, but it would not take. Magic required Mana to use, and with every scrap of Mana in her body neutralized, even something as simple as internal bleeding would take time to mend.
In other words, Leslie's regenerative power was no better than a human's right now.
"Please, get away! Go! I—I don't want to die! I have to get back somehow — I was so close to filling a hundred…!"
Every castaway Leslie had ever encountered had been helpless before her illusion magic. No matter how strong their martial skill, no matter how exceptional their holy power.
So why, then, had a top-grade illusion shattered?
Step. Step.
The woman walked toward Leslie, who could barely keep herself upright after the sudden head trauma. Leslie's gaze flicked to the man. Had that mage… dispelled it?
"…Ah."
In a flash, Leslie saw the way the man modulated the Mana of his magic stones.
Extreme efficiency. Creative phase transformation. A gift for stabilizing Mana.
Absolute quantity of Mana was the only thing he lacked — otherwise, the man had the makings of a grandmaster of an entire school. He was not someone to be taken lightly.
By the time she understood that, it was far too late.
Thud! Thwack! Thwack!
"Die! You bitch! You goddamn bitch! Go to hell!"
Whoa. I've never seen a Valkyrie this vicious. She wasn't this bad even when she was fighting me.
The merfolk monster that had recovered almost instantly from the Chamcheongseok couldn't even react to a few swings of the Valkyrie's club and just went limp. Looking closer, she was pouring holy power into every blow at maximum output.
Come to think of it, monsters are said to be vulnerable to holy power.
Why would that be?
"Sephiron?"
Probably that.
Sephiron is the particle that mediates holy power. When it touches Mana — the particle that mediates magical force — the two neutralize each other and produce a neutral particle called Ekirel.
Ekirel converts easily back into Sephiron, but converting it into Mana is difficult. That was why the merfolk had been unable to respond properly from the moment the Valkyrie landed a single hit.
Thwack!
The Valkyrie let out a long, satisfied breath and tossed aside the broken spear.
Our eyes met.
And her reaction was… strange.
"…I really hate saying this, but — thanks for saving me."
She said it while twisting a lock of her own hair around her finger.
Illusion magic was one of the worst magics Rachel knew well.
And it was not something just anyone could break. Only mages who handled the same Mana — and among them, only the rare few exceptionally skilled at particle control — were known to be able to dispel illusion magic on their own.
Without that man, Rachel's brain would have melted and she would have died right there.
She was not ignorant of that fact, so she offered him a brief word of thanks. Thank you. Without you, I'd already be dead.
His face in response was indifferent.
No — a little bitter, too.
As far as she could guess, when the illusion magic had caught them both at once, their consciousnesses had briefly linked.
That was probably why they had been able to speak to each other inside the illusion — not in language, but with intent transmitted directly.
They had not had time for much conversation, but the fact remained that for a short while she had spoken with him free of any language barrier.
Honestly, he had not seemed like a bad person. The gestures he had shown then, the expressions, the tone… he was a man who possessed at least enough decency to earn a minimal measure of trust.
A quiet kindness, maybe.
Blunt on the outside, but the type who quietly looked after people behind the scenes?
"Hah."
Still, the fact that she had shown him her past did not change. It was a bone-deep memory she had meant to take to her grave without telling a soul.
She had even made a spectacle of herself crying. In front of an enemy, no less.
"Haa…"
It was a face she could never show a man outside her family. She found herself thinking, abruptly, that marriage was probably out of the question for her now. Twisting a strand of her hair in slow circles, she spoke to him.
"Let's find somewhere we can get out."
"Saintess… no — Colonel Caston. Orders from Supreme Command."
"What are they dumping on me this time. So what is it?"
"A mission to locate personnel of the White Lotus Battalion missing from the Battle of Tatancour. According to the investigation, abnormal Mana readings were observed upon scanning the area of disappearance. Should anything happen during the survey, they believe the Colonel will need to perform the purification personally…"
The silver-haired woman pressed a hand to her forehead. Her eyes, black as onyx, flushed red for an instant.
"…Ugh, for crying out loud."