The One Who Targets the King (4)
「Big Adult」
The one who had been rubbing her head-horns against my body suddenly pulled away, calling out to me with a psychic wave.
[Zzzzzzzz(Are you hurt somewhere?)]
「Deny」「Pain」「None at all」「None」
For a moment I wondered if she'd noticed some injury I'd missed, but that didn't seem to be it. The little one stumbled backward, putting distance between us.
Only moments ago she had been overjoyed to see me, and now her whole manner was strangely stiff. It wasn't just her posture, either. Negative emotions were bleeding out of her in a steady stream of psychic energy.
What's gotten into her all of a sudden?
As if to answer my question, she fired off another wave.
「I」「Apologize」「Necessary」
[Zzzzzzzzz(Apologize? For what?)]
「I」「Ham Ort」「Followed」「Big Adult」「Abandoned」「Sorry」
What she was bringing up was the time she'd gone off with Ham Ort when we'd first met her. I had known full well what her intentions were when she left, but apparently the memory had been gnawing at her ever since.
「I」「Big Adult」「Packmate」「Again」「Want」「Please」
She lowered her forelegs and bowed her head. It was a courtesy so formal I had never once seen it from her before.
Hm.
For my part, I had always intended to take her back. That was why I'd treated our reunion as nothing remarkable.
But from her perspective, things looked very different. Adhai had been cast out of her own pack once before — deemed weak because of her small body.
Come to think of it, she was being excessively cautious even before we came here.
After guiding us to the nest, she'd asked whether she could stay with us. I had naturally assumed she would, but she hadn't. She had been fretting that now that she was no longer needed, she ought to leave.
And now this. Worse, this time she had abandoned us to save her own skin. From where she stood, coming back had every reason to feel like an imposition.
...This isn't a problem a long speech is going to fix.
I knew better than anyone how the wounds of the past can shackle a life. The body lives in the present while the mind remains trapped back there — that particular agony.
So I decided to do the very thing I had most wanted when I was the one hurting.
I caught her lightly with my wing-arms and pulled her into a tight embrace.
[Zzzzzzzzz Zzzz(You came back. That's all that matters)]
「Big Adult」「I」「Forgive?」
Trembling with anxiety, she asked the question, and I shook my head in denial.
[Zzzzzzzz Zzzzzz Zzzzzz Zzzzzz Zzzzzzzz(You did nothing wrong, so there's nothing to forgive)]
「I」「Packmate」「Abandon」「Wrong」
[Zzzz Zzzzzzzz Zzzzzz Zzzzzz Zzzzzz Zzzz Zzzzzzzz(You chose it to protect me. If anything, I'm the one at fault)]
「Deny!」「Big Adult」「Wrong」「None」
[Zzzzzzzz Zzzz Zzzz Zzzz Zzzzzzzz(Let's call it even, then — neither of us did anything wrong)]
「I」「Again」「Packmate」「Possible?」
[Zzzzzz Zzzzzzzz Zzzzz(You never left in the first place)]
I let the wave out with all the firmness I could muster. Reading the sincerity in it, Adhai finally let the tension drain from her body.
With the small arms on my chest, I gently stroked her head. She tilted it as if it tickled, then turned her gaze to my wing-arms.
「Wings」「First time seeing」
[Zzzzzzz(Is that so?)]
She'd seen my wings when we first met, but not in this form. Back then they'd folded over my back like a beetle's shell — and even those I'd barely been able to use, thanks to the Transcendence penalty.
「Cool!」「Cool!」「Very」「Cool!」
Tapping at them with her forepaws, Adhai bobbed her head enthusiastically. She seemed very taken with my transformation.
[Zzzz Zzzzzzzz Zzzzzzzz Zzzzzzzz(Then let's head back. The others will be waiting)]
「Small Adult」「Ugly friend」「Weak child」「There?」
[Zzzz(Yep)]
At my answer, Adhai scrambled out of my embrace and climbed onto my back.
Carrying her, I returned to the place where I had left the others.
「What happened?」
The Mother of the Sky asked the moment she saw me arrive with Adhai in tow.
[Zzzz Zzzzzz(I got played)]
「...Yeah, looks like it.」
「Little Baby!」
"Confirmed as Sub-Controller 2, 'Little Baby.' It is a pleasure to see you again."
「Everyone」「Glad」
By their lore, Gallagons do not lie. A species modeled on the dragons of legend and myth prize their contracts above all else. If that lore hadn't existed, I never would have taken Adhai at her word when we made our pact.
Which is exactly why I'd believed everything Ham Ort had told me — and who would have imagined a Gallagon would actually lie?
...Well, at least Adhai's all right. I should probably be grateful for that.
If anything, this was a case where the lie had been a mercy. Not that being deceived by a Gallagon sat any better with me for it.
Just then, having finished greeting everyone, Adhai scampered over to me.
「King of the Sky」「Big Adult」「Hunt?」
[Zzzzzzzz(King of the Sky?)]
She pointed her head-horn at the Skywhale, its body split open from end to end.
Come to think of it, why did the two of them even come here?
Ham Ort was one thing, but Adhai had a terribly bad matchup against the Skywhale. Psychic techniques were sealed off against it, and her body was far too small to land a meaningful blow.
Conversely, for the Skywhale, killing her would be effortless. A single blast of its photon cannon, or one swipe of its wings, and Adhai would be dead on the spot.
It's not as if she wouldn't know that.
As if to dispel my doubts, Adhai sent another wave.
「Ham Ort」「Says」「King of the Sky」「Necessary」「I」「Say」「Big Adult」「Already」「Hunt」「Finished」「King of the Sky」「Hunt」「Pointless」
She spread her wings, looking proud. Going by her account, Ham Ort had been after the Skywhale — until she learned I was here, and Adhai told her that hunting it was no longer possible.
[Zzzzzzzz Zzzzzzzzz Zzzzzzz Zzzz Zzzzz Zzzz(I get why you'd need the King of the Sky, but why did you come along?)]
「Ham Ort」「Says」「I」「King of the Sky」「Must eat」「Savior」「Condition」
[Zzzzzzzz Zzzzz Zzzzzz(I have to eat the King of the Sky?)]
Now that I looked, Adhai's appearance had changed from before, wings spread wide as they were. I'd skimmed over it earlier just checking for injuries, but looking again, it was unmistakable.
She's got spots on her wings?
Clusters of white specks, like grains of sand, studded the membrane near her wings. It didn't look like any kind of symptom — it looked as natural as a coat taking on new markings.
White, though.
A thought occurred to me. Could Ham Ort be trying to evolve Adhai?
Nobody knew the conditions for a Gallagon's growth. I certainly didn't know how Adhai had grown. While she'd been shedding into her green scales, I had been a long way off.
「Ham Ort」「Snake King」「Brought」「Big Adult」「Hunt」「Snake King」「Much」「Bigger」
Snake King? She says I gave it to her? No way... oh.
Now that I thought about it, something did come to mind. The Ice Horror — the first Apex Creature I'd hunted on this planet. Going by its bulk and its shape, it absolutely deserved to be called a Snake King.
So to become a White Gallagon, you have to eat Apex Creatures?
In their Blue Gallagon, hatchling stage, they grow by absorbing the natural psychic power rising from the Dragon's Nest. Once they become Green Gallagons, they begin hunting wild game in earnest.
Planets bearing a Dragon's Nest typically host numerous Apex Creatures, so clashes with them are inevitable.
And Apex Creatures are almost all packed with nutrition.
The Ice Horror, the Glacier Fiend, the Crystalwing — every one of them a vessel of staggering energy. Devour such monsters, bank that energy within the body, and grow into a White Gallagon. That had to be the way of it.
Though I can't be certain...
If my reasoning were true, the Dragon's Nest ought to hold far more White Gallagons than it did. Since it didn't, there was a good chance something else was at play — something I didn't know about.
Maybe Adhai is the unusual one.
Ham Ort had said she took Adhai precisely because she was special. That she was needed to fight the Black Gallagon pack.
Though it remained a mystery why she'd hand over someone that important to me now, of all times.
[Zzzzzzzz Zzzzz Zzzzzzzzz(You change when you eat the King of the Sky?)]
「Ham Ort」「Says」「Change」「Possible」「I」「Snake King」「Absorb」「Change」「Happened」「Strength」「Grows」
She pointed a forepaw at the spots on her wings.
Testing it will tell us for sure.
If what she said was true, then something would happen once Adhai ate the Skywhale's flesh.
Not that it matters — Ham Ort and her Gallagons are already in my hands.
Adhai would know where they roost. For anything uncertain, I could simply catch one of them and ask directly.
I approached the Skywhale's corpse.
Above the gore and viscera smeared thick across the ground, I activated the Paragon of the Hunt.
A head crowned in a carapace that sheathed even my eyes; scythe-arms of bone bursting from my torn back-membrane; small centipede-like claws studding my lower body and scattered across my frame.
Every change matched those from the last time I'd used the Paragon of the Hunt — with two differences.
Perhaps thanks to the Berserk Synapse, which slashed my energy consumption to an extreme degree, my body no longer stretched out to its previous magnitude. My current length was roughly forty-five meters. Considering that the Paragon of the Hunt normally grew me at least twofold, that was a drastic cut.
Size-wise I have no complaints. If anything, it's a gain.
The other difference beyond the length: crimson patterns had bloomed across my arms and wing membranes.
The red markings spread like veins from the inner surfaces of my combat arms and wing-arms, tracing the grain of muscle all the way out to the wing membrane. My wings had been striking in black before, but this had a ferocious beauty of its own.
「Big Adult」「Wings」「Cool」
「Yeah. They are.」
「?」
「What? Why?」
Transformation complete, I bit into the Skywhale's head, its contents spilling out in a steady pour. The others came crowding in as well, and began to taste the flesh of the space whale.
—
It was Oude Grad's pack that was the aberration; Gallagons by nature treasure their young. The species cannot lay many eggs, and even those hard-won eggs often fail to hatch in their harsh environment.
Every hatchling that emerged at all was one of a precious few, so it was only natural that the entire pack would be fanatical about protecting them.
Any member that wasn't out hunting — male or female alike — stood guard over the hatchlings at the nest. Since only a small number were ever away on a hunt at any given time, most of the pack could be considered nest-guardians.
There were only two circumstances in which hatchlings died in a nest guarded by the whole pack: when a natural predator like the Skywhale appeared, or when a stronger Gallagon pack mounted an attack.
And now.
The pack that followed Ham Ort had been driven to the brink of annihilation.
The forest surrounding the nest burned fiercely, as though it had been carpet-bombed. Within the fire-storm's licking tongues lay Gallagons of every scale color, felled where they fell.
The cave that served as the hatchlings' cradle had its ceiling torn away entirely, and inside, Gallagon corpses were heaped like mountains.
Most of the dead were blue hatchlings.
Ham Ort, matriarch of the nest, stood watching the horrific carnage. Not because she was cold-blooded, nor because she lacked love for her kin.
Her body was, quite simply, wrecked. Her white wings — beautiful as a bride's gown — had been torn off whole, and her tail was severed, barely a third of it remaining.
Three of her four graceful horns were broken, and half of the tendrils at her mouth had been ripped away. It was hard to find a single unbroken bone in her body.
The author of her wretched state floated serenely in the sky above.
Six horns, scales black as the night sky, and a bulk that dwarfed even Ham Ort.
The mightiest Gallagon on this planet — the Great Oude Grad.
Clutched in his forepaws was a Blue Gallagon, whose fluids he was slurping down.
His purple cluster of tendrils tore into the body of a hatchling mere days out of its shell. It was the very sight Ham Ort had fought desperately to prevent.
Having devoured the hatchling in an instant, he flung the withered corpse down before her.
「Wicked Oude Grad!」「Young kin」「Killed!」「Kin of our own pack」「Killed!」
A psychic wave seething with rage erupted from Ham Ort at the hatchling's miserable death. Yes, the two packs were at war — but there was no reason to slaughter hatchlings who knew nothing of it.
Worse, Oude Grad's pack had already split in two when she raised her banner against him. With every returning defector precious, wiping them all out was the height of folly.
「Young kin」「Guilt」「None!」「Cruelty!」
To her primal, furious cry, Oude Grad answered with perfect calm.
「Oude Grad」「Declares」「Traitors'」「Seeds」「Must be eradicated」
「!」
「However」
He landed on top of her. When a creature far vaster than herself pinned her whole body down, she shrieked.
「Traitor」「Will not kill」
「Ham Ort」「Will not submit!」
「Irrelevant」「Traitor's」「Pain」「Needed far more」
With his forepaws, he crushed each of her legs in turn, snapping them one by one. The agony was so extreme that no scream would come — only low, broken moans.
「Oude Grad」「Commands」「Traitor」「Drag her away」
「Confirmed」
「Mates」「Fleeing traitors」「Find them」「Kill them」
At his psychic command, the other Gallagons seized Ham Ort.
Dragged away with her mind dissolving into haze, she thought only this:
That at least the last remaining hope had not fallen into his hands.
She had never told the Daughter of the Shooting Star — but for her to become the savior, one final offering remained.
The devouring of a white kin.
Originally, she had intended to shoulder that burden and sacrifice herself. But before she could act, Oude Grad had struck her nest, and the plan had come apart.
So she had been left with no choice but to ask another of her kin — Nel Germa.
Nel Germa, too, was a female who had risen against Oude Grad. Even in that desperate hour, she had heard Ham Ort's plea and moved at once.
While Ham Ort drew every eye, the other white kin — Nel Germa — had led the survivors safely out. To fulfill the final task she had been given.
There was nothing left for Ham Ort to do now.
All that remained was what choice her daughter would make.
She herself had made nothing but wrong choices all this time. There were only two she could name with confidence as right.
But her daughter — for her daughter alone, she prayed she would choose wisely. Until consciousness abandoned her, Ham Ort kept on praying.