An Island Full of Ghosts (4)
It was a quiet night. At least, to the naked eye.
Tiria possessed a special gift known as the Holy Spirit Eyes — a power granted only to those chosen by the Goddess. Through them, she could perceive spiritual beings and understand their voices.
"AAH, FMKHTN LU."
"BASHA EM O'PEMHIL."
The language of demons reached her ears.
Tiria drew up her holy power and opened the eyes the Goddess had bestowed upon her in advance.
"Ah… how bitter."
"I cannot find a place of rest."
Words she had not been able to understand began to take shape in her ears.
Souls drowning in grief — ten, twenty, thirty of them.
Easily more than a hundred.
"Give us a place to dwell."
"I died unjustly. Killed by a shell fired by those Holy Kingdom bastards."
"A disciple of the Goddess. Kill this woman and we may earn Her favor. We might even return to our original bodies."
"Aaaah…"
Rrrrumble.
The ground shook. Pitch-black wraiths began poking their heads up one by one. The moment the malice-filled ghosts sensed Tiria and Rachel's presence, they charged as one.
Whooosh!
Tiria swung her baculus.
A single strike scattered three or four souls. Though she was cutting through empty air, the sensation of impact was vivid and real.
Any one ghost alone was not particularly strong. The problem was that they came in swarms — and that even after being crushed, they rose again.
After swinging her staff several more times, she felt it.
These things were different from ordinary evil spirits.
"…They won't be banished."
It was strange. Any normal evil spirit should have vanished the instant it touched her baculus.
"Don't let her sleep. Keep her awake until she dies."
"The one lying over there looks delicious too."
"Let's devour them."
A few of the evil spirits slipped past Tiria and headed for Rachel — an attempt to interfere with Rachel's soul and shatter her mind. Tiria pressed her lips together.
"———."
The language of the heavens: Hyeongon.
It stood in direct opposition to Whieon, the language every mage learned. But unlike Whieon, only the chosen could wield it — the heroes and high priests of past ages, the Grand Archbishops and Saintesses of each generation.
Where Whieon held the power to trigger magic, Hyeongon possessed the power to call down the Goddess's authority itself.
Just as it did now.
"Gyaaaaah!"
Grains of light burst from empty air and struck the black spiritual forms of the evil spirits. The vengeful souls popped like balloons. Radiance flooded outward, lighting the area around the lifeboat as bright as midday.
Startled shadows sank back into the earth.
"…Did I get them?"
Just as she felt she had finally succeeded in banishing them—
Whooom.
The light snuffed out at terrifying speed.
In the darkness that reclaimed its dominion, a new ghost appeared.
"How bitter."
"How bitter."
"How bitter."
No — not a new ghost. The evil spirits she had been fighting moments ago had fused together, coalescing into a single vast grudge.
The sooty form had an oversized head and arms. It held a human shape, but nothing existed below the waist. It was the size of a three-story house.
From the place where a head should be, a single eye bulged open. A blood-red pupil. Black fluid, thick as oil, streamed down from the solitary eye like tears.
"What…"
"Mana. We need mana."
The monster babbled nonsense.
Whatever it was, she had never seen a creature like it. Not a single similar description existed in the scriptures.
The unknown breeds terror. The hand gripping the baculus trembled, just slightly.
She briefly considered waking Rachel — then dismissed the thought. The Goddess who had chosen Rachel governed only physical combat. Against a monster that was pure soul, Rachel would be powerless.
Wooooom.
The souls resonated as one.
"How bitter beyond measure!"
"What exactly is so bitter about it?!"
"How dare you!"
"You don't know?!"
"It is because of you — you who don't even know — that our bitterness runs deeper still!"
Three voices drove into her ears at once.
The giant monster raised its hand to strike. The palm was so vast that dodging was impossible — and she still had to protect Major Rachel.
She had to take it head-on.
Tiria drew her Sephiron to its absolute maximum and invoked a holy art. The hand came crashing down from above. She met it with her baculus.
Light and darkness collided.
"Urgh!"
The force was heavier than she had imagined — a measure of how deep the grudge ran. It was all she could do to hold it back.
"Kh…"
"Be crushed."
Thoom.
The monster's words became a curse that pressed down on Tiria's spine. Without her vast reserves of divine power, the killing intent alone would have been enough to end her life.
Both arms bracing against the monster's hand began to shake violently.
Is this how it ends?
Really?
We've barely been on this deserted island…
"Goddess… I am truly sorry that I could not fulfill my missi—"
In the instant she began to think of despair—
"Whoa. An earthbound spirit?"
A voice of pure admiration floated up from behind her.
"How did you manage to fix it to the horizontal coordinate system?"
"…Huh?"
I had ringed the area with alarm stones against the possibility of monsters and was sleeping like a rock when it happened.
Battalion Commander, please wake up.
Some kind of hallucination.
Fine. I was dreaming — anything was possible.
Battalion Commander. Battalion Commander.
Was this a lucid dream? David seemed to be right in front of me.
Battalion Commander?
Yeah, yeah. What is it.
Battalion Commander, help me! A monster is trying to take me! Aaaaaah!!
Huh?
"You little shit, what kind of gutter rat dares lay a hand on my precious pet rock—! Wait. You're fine."
You wouldn't wake up, so I used an alarm containing false information.
I collected myself and looked around. Middle of the night.
Unnaturally quiet.
I'd expected fishfolk or something to show up by now.
"So what's going on?"
Listen carefully. Whieon is coming from every direction.
I did as David said.
"How bitter. How bitter."
"Mana. We need mana."
"Those Holy Kingdom bastards — every last one of them should end up the same."
I held my breath and strained my ears. Sure enough, the mutterings of the demonic tongue were coming from everywhere.
Not one voice — many.
The only people here who could speak Whieon were me and that mysterious man. So what were these sounds?
"Monsters, maybe?"
For that, nothing is visible.
"You don't have eyes."
Hrk.
I couldn't see anything either. Just the voices.
Ghosts, maybe?
There had been attempts to interpret the existence of spirits through magical science. All of them had failed.
As a result, most mages didn't believe in ghosts — they weren't magically scientific enough. I was no exception.
Ghosts making these sounds? Ridiculous. Some physical being was clearly playing tricks somewhere.
The direction of the lifeboat is particularly noisy.
I grabbed a bundle of magic stones and climbed down from the rock.
And then I saw quite the spectacle.
"With your soul, I shall ease the grudges of my comrades."
"Urghhh!"
The Saintess with her staff was wrestling with empty air.
You know the kind of thing — an elementary school teacher making a misbehaving kid stand in the hallway holding a bucket of water over their head. It looked like she was doing that, except with a staff.
A laugh slipped out, but the Saintess herself looked like she was suffering. Her breathing was so ragged I could hear it from here.
She may genuinely be fighting souls.
I still couldn't see them.
But claiming something doesn't exist just because you can't see it is bad logic. The moon doesn't vanish from the sky simply because I haven't looked at it.
"Whoa. An earthbound spirit?"
I walked over to the panting Saintess.
"How did you manage to fix it to the horizontal coordinate system?"
"A— a mage?"
"Aren't you supposed to be on watch? What are you doing — upper-body exercises?"
"This is not the time for jokes— hrrk!"
In the light of the glowing grains, the Saintess's irises were purple. Terror. She was gripped by raw, overwhelming fear. From the color of her eyes alone, I understood this was no joke.
"There are evil souls! They're trying to crush me!"
What to do.
"Hello there."
I decided to try speaking in Whieon.
"Can you hear me?"
"Huh?"
The fiercely howling voices softened in an instant. At the same moment, the Saintess toppled backward.
"Wha— what?"
She was a mess. Her whole body was soaked in sweat. Her fine hair looked as though something had been pressing down on it — completely ruined.
She murmured blankly.
"Why did they suddenly stop attacking…?"
Her gaze shifted. I turned my head to follow the direction her eyes moved. Still nothing there that I could see.
But from that direction, the voices came.
"A soldier of the Magic Kingdom."
"A mage."
"Wait. I know this man."
Countless voices poured out at once.
"Battalion Commander Erihi Ronshstein!"
"Battalion Commander?"
"It's the Magic Stone Officer! Eighth Fleet, 269th Battalion!"
"Who?"
"He's a good man. He always looked after us."
"Battalion Commander, it's me! Me! I'm still alive!"
Among them were familiar ways of speaking.
I couldn't help but be rattled.
I could see nothing — yet from every direction, voices in Whieon called my name and recited my rank. Some even dropped familiar names and acted as though they knew me.
"Major, sir, it's me! Alan — from the Battle of Tatancour, same ship! The Valkyries killed me and left me like this! It's so… so unfair…!"
What is this. Actual hallucinations? Did I kill so many people with magic stones that a demon is trying to swallow my brain?
"Not hallucinations!"
"We're alive! Please let us live!"
At any rate, the voices were friendly toward me — a completely different reaction from the one they'd shown the Saintess moments ago.
I asked her.
"What's going on here?"
"I— I don't know. Why did they suddenly calm down? And just from seeing you? Mage, did you do something?"
"How would I know."
I scratched my head. I didn't believe in souls, but Whieon was audible, so I might as well work from that assumption.
"If they're souls, you should put them to rest. Didn't you say that staff of yours could do something about it?"
"That's the thing — I can't eliminate them."
"You mean banishing? Not banishing — putting them to rest. You know, grant a wish so they can leave satisfied, that kind of thing."
I asked the invisible souls in Whieon what it would take for them to stop harassing the Saintess and move on.
The answer that came back was something else.
"Kill that woman and the Valkyrie over there, scatter their bone ash into the sea, and console our spirits."
"…"
Okay. That was a bit extreme.