Hellhest
The corrupted world tree Mirrkdrasil was said to stand in the western depths, in a place known as Westmarch—a region infamous for its bizarre terrain.
Westmarch had once been a settlement of the elves, that forgotten race, but after the world tree’s corruption, it vanished from human memory.
There was only one reason I still remembered it.
In the original story, the protagonist wandered the world in search of a fateful encounter, eventually setting foot in Westmarch, where he discovered a great tree exuding deathly aura.
The tree’s name was Mirrkdrasil.
It had fed on elven blood as it grew, and in the original work it was called the corrupted world tree—the tree of the apocalypse.
I remembered Mirrkdrasil’s existence because, in the novel, it was described as the only way to control Rudine’s Heavenly Slaughter Star.
From the office at the edge of Blackmore to Westmarch.
Of course it was a tremendous distance, which meant it would take a long time to get there.
The terrain wasn’t suited to carriages, so there was no choice but to keep walking until my feet gave out.
And now—
“Luke.”
“…”
“I think we’ve been here before.”
“…Yeah.”
Rudine and I were lost.
Or rather, I didn’t even know where here was anymore.
Staring at the compass pointing west, I muttered under my breath.
“I’m pretty sure we’re heading the right way…”
I’d expected this much. Even if I knew where Westmarch was, I’d never been confident I could find it without wandering around for a while.
After all, this world was a novel.
There was a gulf wider than imagination between reading about a place in print and actually trying to reach it.
And in a region as absurdly vast as Blackmore, that gulf was only deeper.
Above all, the original story simply skipped the process of finding the place.
It used the convenient trick of a viewpoint change.
Since the entire search had been omitted, getting lost like this was almost inevitable.
I turned my head and surveyed our surroundings.
Dense undergrowth, fading light, withered black trees, soil turned ashen gray…
It matched the descriptions to a certain extent.
The direction indicated by the compass matched as well.
But the forest of this cursed land was immense.
Was it really possible to find our way through such a wilderness using only fragments of information?
I’d marked our route at every junction on the way here, so getting back wouldn’t be a problem, but to be honest, I was a little uneasy.
And then—
Rustle.
Something moved through the bushes.
Grrrrr—!
A monster.
It resembled a bear, but its body was far too enormous, and its forepaws curved out like razor-sharp sickles.
Its eyes glimmered in the dark, fixed on us.
Hungry, it seemed—black saliva dripped from the fangs exposed between its jaws.
…That startled me.
Ahem!
I turned my head away, trying my best to look calm.
In the next instant, I saw Rudine’s Red Eye open.
“Rudine.”
“Mm.”
Shhk—!
In the blink of an eye, all I’d done was call her name, but her dagger sliced through the air, and the monster’s body was split clean in two.
“…Good work.”
At least there was one thing to be thankful for.
We wouldn’t have to worry about monsters while we traveled.
The deeper we went, the more frequently monsters appeared.
As expected of a cursed land, every monster that showed itself was at least a beast-class creature.
Monster species were classified into five ranks according to their threat level: feral, beast, demon, calamity, and extinction.
The later the rank, the more dangerous they became. Once you reached beast-class, they could wield demonic energy, and their threat level jumped exponentially.
Beast-class is nothing to worry about.
I nodded as I looked at Rudine, who was walking ahead.
Her Heavenly Slaughter Star hadn’t even fully awakened yet, but she was a natural-born killing machine.
She could slaughter beast-class monsters without much trouble at all.
Calamity-class would be a problem, though.
Still, that wasn’t particularly important.
Calamity-class monsters weren’t exactly common, and I didn’t remember any information about one appearing on the road to Westmarch.
Shhk! Shhk! Shhk!
Monsters kept leaping out from nowhere, only to be butchered by the sword aura Rudine swung with effortless precision.
It was a one-sided massacre.
All because of the unique power of Red Eye, which was specialized for crushing the weak.
“Luke.”
“Hmm?”
“I like this place.”
“…You do?”
She smiled brightly, her face splattered with blood.
This was a place where she could slaughter to her heart’s content without anyone telling her to mind her manners.
…Who else would it be but someone with the Heavenly Slaughter Star?
The mountain journey went smoothly after that.
At first we’d been wandering in circles, but as we pressed onward, new paths began to appear.
We walked by day and made camp when night fell; when the sun rose, we started walking again.
Whenever a monster jumped us, we cut it down, and whenever we got hungry, we stopped for a while to fill our stomachs first.
We had more than enough supplies, and there was nothing urgent to worry about.
It was during one of those leisurely stretches of travel that—
“From here on, it’s a cliff.”
Rudine stopped and said as much.
Just as she’d said, there was a cliff ahead.
“We made it.”
“Huh? It’s a cliff.”
“Exactly. That means we’re in the right place.”
All we had to do was descend that dizzying precipice, and we’d be in Westmarch.
We were effectively there already. The problem was how we were supposed to get down.
“It’s really high.”
“I know.”
“There isn’t even anywhere to put your feet.”
“Yeah.”
“…If we just jump, we’ll die.”
Yes, we would.
If we fell like that with nothing to protect us, we’d die.
“Rudine, come here.”
“…Huh?”
“Come here and let me carry you.”
“What?”
Rudine narrowed her eyes at me, as if to say, What kind of ridiculous thing is that?
“You don’t trust me?”
“…”
“At this height, it’s dangerous even if we wrap ourselves in mana before jumping. So stop being stubborn and get on my back already.”
Rudine hesitated, then slowly shuffled over.
She looked almost adorably reluctant.
I lowered myself by bending one knee.
“Hurry up.”
Rudine approached at a crawl and leaned her body against my back.
A soft touch brushed against me.
Her arms wrapped around me with such careful hesitation that she almost seemed like a kitten.
“…Am I heavy?”
Why was she suddenly acting shy?
“No.”
I answered briefly and took hold of her legs.
She was lighter than I expected.
For someone born under the Heavenly Slaughter Star and destined to become a killer, she was absurdly light.
And then—
“Hold on tight.”
Whoosh!
It happened in an instant.
Fwoooosh—!
The wind tore at my ears and wrapped itself around my entire body.
As our speed increased, the world ahead began to blur rapidly.
The cliff face flashed past in streaks.
The brown and gray of the rock wall smeared together like wet paint.
…!
I could feel Rudine’s breathing.
She was trying to remain calm, but the body pressed against my back trembled ever so slightly.
Far below, the ground looked impossibly distant.
We were plunging down at terrifying speed, but there was no real problem yet.
Not yet.
In the distance, beyond the dead trees, I could see ruins.
Westmarch.
One hundred meters to the ground.
My heart thudded violently.
Fifty meters.
Rudine’s arms tightened around my neck.
Thirty meters.
“Acceleration.”
The tattoo below my right eye glowed blue.
The haze blooming all over my body spread out and wrapped around Rudine and me in a circle.
The pressure of time crushed everything it enveloped.
And then—
Ten meters.
“Reverse.”
In that instant, everything around us stopped.
The air, gravity, time.
And even Rudine and I, hurtling downward at tremendous speed.
BOOOOM.
The aftershock of our fall swept through the surroundings.
Gray dust billowed and settled in all directions.
Whew, my heart.
I really almost dropped my heart back there.
I let out a silent breath and released the ability.
Only after I landed lightly on my feet did Rudine climb down from my back.
“……”
Rudine stood there dazed, staring at something.
I followed her gaze, but I couldn’t see anything unusual.
Then Rudine spoke in a tiny voice.
“…There’s something here.”
Her voice sounded strangely muffled, as if it were sinking into something.
Then she suddenly started walking.
What’s wrong with her?
Was she that shocked?
Still, I didn’t think much of it.
We’d finally arrived at the destination I’d been searching for.
Where is she going?
I followed leisurely behind Rudine.
There was no way a girl with senses as sharp as hers would react like that for no reason.
Just as I started to feel uneasy—
I lost the ability to speak at the overwhelming sight before me.
“…Holy crap.”
It was a horse.
Its body was as thin as if only bones remained, with skin barely hanging over the frame, and even that skin was clearly rotting.
I knew this thing.
A nightmare that had crawled out of the underworld; a curse that dragged lost lives behind it.
The plague horse, Hellhest.
A calamity-class monster.
What is that?
Rudine’s frozen pupils trembled.
Her Red Eye saw through the essence of living things.
And yet she could feel nothing from the creature before her.
Not through her sixth sense, and not through her own eyes either.
I’d experienced something like this before.
It was the same when I first met that woman Arkan.
The gap was so overwhelming that you couldn’t even sense her aura.
Even after grinding her teeth and opening the mana of her Red Eye, all that pressure from the dominating space only made blood spill from her nose.
…This is dangerous.
Rudine was cunning.
That was why she knew instinctively.
That thing was a monster.
It was on an entirely different level from everything she’d dealt with so far.
The aura was so vast and so concentrated it was impossible to measure.
What the hell is this…
The monster’s gaze turned toward her.
They’d only met eyes for a moment, but the sheer pressure made her knees wobble.
She didn’t even feel like attacking.
Rudine liked hunting, but that thing wasn’t her prey.
Running away would be the best option, and yet her feet seemed glued to the ground.
And then—
“Luke?”
Luke, who had been standing still, slowly extended his right arm.
At the same time, he muttered a familiar activation word.
“Acceleration.”
Woom.
A blue haze spilled from the tips of his fingers.
The aura, rippling like waves, surged forward in a spiral toward the monster.
“Cycle.”
The shards of light embroidered across the air aligned themselves as if they had wills of their own.
Light joined with light to form lines, and lines connected to create surfaces.
Before long, a pure white sphere, spitting light by the second, had caged the monster within it.
“Time.”
The shards of brilliance carved through space at random.
Between those gaps, an overwhelming flow of time roiled wildly.
Space and time adhered together.
And then Luke’s mouth curled upward.
“End.”
SKREEEECH!
Space twisted.
The pressure of the fused time ripped through space and compressed everything into a single point.
And then—
“!!!”
It happened in a single instant.
The monster’s enormous body withered like a mummy, then scattered into ashes that the wind carried away.