The Ghoul's Altar (7)

Ghouls are a breed of man-eater. The more people they devour, the stronger they become.

They are not an innately powerful race, but after consuming humans by the hundreds, even a body already rotten and falling apart begins to change. Toughness and raw strength improve. Mana swells. The range of magic they can command grows wider.

Amalgam, a ghoul five hundred years old, was almost certainly the strongest of his kind left in the world.

As Amalgam stretched out his hand, the pillars of the altar resonated as one. They were magic stones condensed from the dregs left after human burnt offerings — each pillar a reservoir of mana Amalgam could draw upon whenever he needed it.

Saturated with power, Amalgam bared a flash of pure white teeth.

Spikes erupted from the ground, driving Erihi and Tiria farther apart. By then Erihi was already pulling magic stones from his hip pouch one after another, cycling them through his grip. His right hand never stopped moving.

Amalgam had known from the start that there was a gulf of class between himself and the opposing mage.

His own mana overflowed. His opponent's ran short.

There was no chance the man could steal the mana from the stone pillars. Amalgam had woven a special barrier so that only he could draw from them. Unlocking it would require unraveling a complex magic formula in a matter of moments.

Could this ordinary mage, already looking short on mana, manage that? Absolutely not.

And Amalgam's prediction held. The opposing mage was fully occupied just fending off the spells being hurled at him. A little more pressure, and he would collapse outright.

A rapid-fire chant that burned through a fair amount of mana — and still Amalgam felt not the slightest premonition of depletion. The power he had gained by devouring countless humans and offering up their souls as burnt offerings held him steady.

Then Amalgam glanced the other way. Tiria Caston — military chaplain of the Holy Kingdom, and its Saint — had slipped past his line of sight and entered the altar.

"Major! Major, snap out of it!"

"……Ugh. Colonel…?"

Had he been so focused on the mage that someone ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had slipped into his blind spot?

No.

A cunning creature like Amalgam would never have missed a Saint charging in with a halo blazing around her. He had sensed her presence and simply pretended not to notice.

In truth, the altar held more than the stone pillars. There was one additional barrier — a Sanctity-Breaking barrier formula, forged long ago by His grace.

Inside the Sanctity-Breaking barrier, the use of Sephiron was restricted. No matter how immense a holy power one possessed, sacred arts were nullified within its bounds.

A condition that extreme made the barrier costly to maintain and repair. Even so, moments like this made the effort worthwhile. Every cleric who had ever stepped inside it had failed to escape and perished without exception.

"Can you move?"

"Yes. I'm truly sorry for the trouble."

"Never mind that. Let's get out of here."

"I'll take the lead. Wait——there's a barrier here. Colonel, we can't get out!"

Getting in had been free. Getting out was not.

Amalgam's Whieon took root like a seed and struck the sky. Where the sun should have been, black clouds split down the middle, and a single thread of mana spilling through the rift announced that every preparation was complete.

An offering ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for Him.

It was nowhere near enough on its own — but step by step, if he kept advancing, it would do.

Then Amalgam would grow stronger still. In time he would become the foremost servant of His resurrection. Once the Age of Demons returned, he could leave this tedious deserted island behind and feast freely on human flesh.

"Two rabbits caught," Amalgam murmured, looking down at Erihi with a smile of absolute certainty. "The two girls are sealed inside the barrier, and your mana is nearly spent. Well then, human mage — what will you do now? How do you plan to claw your way out of this?"

"What will I do?"

The mage answered.

Not from in front of him — from behind.

"There's a barrier, so I'll smash it."

"……!"

Whieon was the language of demons — a tongue only those who had drawn close to magic could acquire naturally. It should never have come from the mouth of a cleric who followed the Holy Spirit Church.

Which meant——

Could it be?

Amalgam focused on the flow of particles drifting around him. There was a hairline flaw in their arrangement — proof that someone had interfered with his mind.

"……Illusion magic?!"

"Correct."

The disrupted flow of mana snapped back into place, and only then did the positions of the Holy Kingdom's chaplain and the mage reverse themselves before Amalgam's eyes.

The mage had been inside the barrier all along.

"You deceived me!"

"Concealment and arrogance. Virtues, weren't they?"

Amalgam was not the only one stunned. Rachel, who had believed the person in front of her was Tiria, went wide-eyed as the figure suddenly resolved into a man.

If the mage was inside the barrier, everything changed.

As a rule, barriers are weaker from within than from without.

Given how complete this one was, the odds were slim — but if the mage managed to dismantle even one of them, either the Sanctity-Breaking barrier or the restriction on the stone pillars, victory would no longer be assured.

And the mage——

"What is this antique arcane formula."

——dismantled both of them in a single stroke.

"Impossible! This can't be! Do you have any idea how carefully I built those construction formulas?!"

"What, are you from five hundred years ago? Still sitting around using junk like this."

Erihi gave a dry little smile. Then he stretched out his hand.

The mana stored in the pillars flowed into Erihi. It was the product of centuries of patient accumulation, set aside by Amalgam for a special purpose — and in an instant, it was gone.

People say that when rage grows extreme enough, it turns cold instead.

Ghouls are not so different.

Amalgam's blood boiled with a frigid fury.

But it would not work.

The flow of mana within the altar already belonged to Erihi. Unless he himself invoked a burnt offering, Rachel's life would not be forfeit.

"The barrier's down, and your mana is nearly spent. Well then, ghoul mage — what will you do now? How do you plan to claw your way out of this?"

Erihi sneered, throwing Amalgam's own words straight back at him.

Amalgam clenched his teeth hard enough to grind them and swung his shoulders wide.

"I'll finish this."

Meanwhile, Rachel had already pieced the situation together.

By the time she had come to, the battle was already underway.

The Saint who had rushed in to save her had, in truth, been the mage disguised by illusion magic. Why he could use illusion magic at all was a question for another time — this was not the moment to dig into it.

Now that she was conscious, she had to join the fight.

Erihi held a spear out toward Rachel. No words were needed between them. Body language alone could skip most of a conversation.

"Take it."

As always, he was asking her to take the front line.

"Of course."

The moment Rachel reached for the spear, a long iron spike punched clean through Erihi's wrist. The spear slipped from his grip and went tumbling down the slope of the altar.

"Ghh——!"

Erihi bit down hard, strangling the scream.

It did not end there.

The next spike was already flying toward Rachel. This time, the ghoul's reaction speed outstripped hers.

And Erihi's reaction speed outstripped the ghoul's.

Thud.

The second spike buried itself in Erihi's abdomen. His balance gone, he crumpled without resistance and rolled down the slope, coming to rest a short distance from the fallen spear.

"Ah……"

"Still green. Letting your attention wander mid-battle."

The ghoul chuckled and charged the man. Four pairs of iron spikes still remained on his hands. Drive all of them into Erihi, and he would bleed out for certain.

She had to act before that happened.

The problem was her position.

The Goddess of Battle granted a blessing that let her anoint any weapon with holy power. Rachel was a being who had received that goddess's oracle.

So what weapon did Rachel have right now?

Her fists.

Nothing but her bare, intact limbs.

Her body was in wretched condition — she had only just lost a fight against this same ghoul — but no matter what, she had to save the mage. She had to save Erihi.

It was a reflexive motion. There was a person in danger right in front of her, so she saved him. How their relationship had begun did not matter.

No — perhaps it mattered more precisely because they were enemies. At the very least, the one who decided a mage's fate could not be allowed to be some mere ghoul.

"Don't you dare touch him——!!"

She launched herself off the altar with everything she had and barreled toward the monster at full speed. There was no time to go after the spear.

Rachel, skilled in close combat as well, deflected the ghoul's knife-hand strike and drove a clenched fist up into his jaw. Crack! The ghoul's head snapped sideways. She followed immediately with a straight punch packed full of holy power into the still-unhealed pit of his stomach.

Thud. Thud-thud!

The monster reeled under the consecutive blows. Holy power really was poison to monsters, it seemed.

The ghoul, however, did not simply take it.

Amalgam's toughness, tempered by devouring countless clerics over the years, had reached the absolute limit of his species. In exchange for absorbing Rachel's holy power, he managed to shove her down hard.

"Ugh!"

"Insolent bitch!"

Both of them were finished.

In the instant Amalgam, seething with rage, prepared to drive an iron spike into the forehead of the fallen Rachel——

"———."

A sacred utterance rang out, and a heavy impact shook his skull.

"Gahk!"

Amalgam's head snapped sideways once more.

The physical force was not particularly strong, but the holy power behind the blow struck with a ferocity beyond comparison.

He felt it as he took the hit.

In his sudden fury, he had forgotten one of them.

Tiria, who had been carefully calculating the angle of his blind spot for some time now, had brought her baculus down on the ghoul's head. The soul-rattling shock nearly made him lose his grip on consciousness, but he clung on by a thread.

"H-he took that and he's still standing……? Kyaaaah!"

Amalgam's arm, flung backward, raked across Tiria's vestments. Four long gashes opened from her lower abdomen up to just beneath her chest.

An opening.

Rachel moved fast, snatching up the spear that had come to rest a short distance away. At the same moment, Erihi — still pinned beneath the ghoul — pulled magic stones from his pocket and began combining them.

From front and back, holy power potent enough to tear a soul free.

From below, a thoroughly destructive piercing spell taking shape.

Amalgam's life flashed before his eyes.

Everything had gone according to plan. Everything except shielding the Valkyrie.

When the ghoul tried to fire an iron spike at her as well, I threw myself into its path without thinking and took the hit for her. God, that hurt like hell.

Still, for an improvised response in a sudden crisis, it was solid work. The Valkyrie was our only dedicated frontliner, and she was critical for both combat and hunting. She could not afford to get hurt if we could help it.

The Saint must have thought along similar lines — she bought the Valkyrie enough time to retrieve the spear, and took a wound of her own for it.

But the end of the battle was coming into view.

I had only just discovered here that a Siren's Brainstone could channel her abilities. So I tried it as an experiment. The result was a success. The ghoul had mistaken me and the Saint for each other.

Of course I knew illusion magic was forbidden. Even though I had manifested it indirectly through a magic stone, and at a weak intensity at that…… a taboo was still a taboo.

If word got out that I had used a forbidden technique, what kind of punishment would I face? If I claimed it had been necessary for survival, would there be any room for leniency?

I did not have the luxury of thinking that far right now. Back in the present, I finished charging the slate-stone cluster.

Charging the mana itself had been trivial. The ghoul had been storing power in the mana-stone pillars — a vault, essentially. The cipher had been easy enough that I cracked it in no time.

Thanks to that, my internal mana was overflowing. At this rate I could fire multiple slate stones at maximum output.

So I did.

The magic-stone cluster punched up between the ghoul's legs and tore out through his head. His body burst open in place after place, spraying blood. Pinned underneath him, I got thoroughly soaked. I scrambled to my feet.

Next, the Valkyrie drove her spear-blade into the regenerating ghoul's throat. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Saint did the same. Holy power stacked upon holy power until it hit oversaturation, triggering a Sephiroth-Ignition reaction. White flame roared up.

"Guhhhhaaaaargh——!!"

Even an undying monster could not hold its nature together under an overdose of holy power. The ghoul's body began to crumble.

Before long, nothing remained but ash — and still the ghoul's soul lingered. A tenacious bastard, truly.

"I-I can't die like this……"

But would he have time to hunt for a new body?

Not a chance.

The Saint's baculus cleaved the spirit form clean in two.

"As a demon, I only ever tried to do my best for His Majesty…… aah."

The ghoul's final words were something else.

"Five hundred years of labor, reduced to nothing."

On the way here, the Saint had said something like that — that ghouls were not particularly strong monsters, just cunning ones. Looking at this, I had wondered where exactly the "not strong" part was supposed to be, but five hundred years…… well.

At last, the mysterious man who had tormented us for an entire month was gone. His dying words had given us a great deal of information. I would have to pass that on to the Saint.

But first——

"Ugh."

"Ghh."

"Ow, ow……"

A little rest.

All three of us were in terrible shape. I had puncture wounds through my right wrist and the lower abdomen near the appendix; the Saint had lacerations; and the Valkyrie just looked rough all over.

Come to think of it, the iron spikes alone were the real problem. At this rate, tetanus was a genuine risk.

"Mage, over here. You too, Major."

Fortunately, the Saint brought her healing holy power to bear, so infection no longer seemed like a concern. She treated the Valkyrie and me first, then tended to her own wounds.

"Major, I've told you before — healing holy power is not all-powerful. After treatment, you absolutely must rest properly."

"And what about you, Colonel…… are those wounds all right?"

"I'm fine. The vestments are thick enough that the cuts didn't go deep."

There they went again, talking just between the two of them. I let out a sigh.

"We're out of water. Grab only what we need and let's get down the mountain."

There might still be more clues on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this mountain about how to escape the island, but we could not search any further right now. We needed to return to base and rest. The sky was already the color of sunset.

I fished a green-tinged magic stone out of the ghoul's ashes, and the three of us started the descent. Supporting one another, we made our way down the mountain slowly — and yet as quickly as we could manage.

"……Mage. Thanks for earlier."

The Valkyrie whispered just that one line, and I could not quite make out what she meant by it.