White Hair Tribe (3)
I whipped my head around, scanning the area beyond the thick curtain of dust that hung in the air.
The Veil of Time I had thrown up in a hurry stopped every one of the onrushing attacks exactly as I expected.
It was only natural; a power that bent causality itself was never going to be stopped by little more than a spell made of condensed mana.
Rudine looked as if she was already used to it, but Adina still seemed unable to accept what she was seeing, staring with round, dazed eyes.
Arkan gave a dry laugh as she tapped the dozens of lightning spears suspended in midair with her fingertips.
She was muttering something under her breath, but her voice was too low to catch.
But that wasn't what mattered right now.
We'd blocked it for now, but...
The problem was what came next.
It wasn't impossible to crush all of them with the power of the rune, but unfortunately, I didn't have much Mental Image left.
From the moment I had tangled with the Fist Saint on the way here, to the point where I had wiped out a swarm of beasts on the road and then stopped the White Hair Tribe's full-force assault, I'd been burning through my reserves.
My Mental Image was starting to run on fumes.
Thanks to Rudine, it was replenishing little by little, but it would take a full day before it was completely recovered.
Now what?
If they recognized the gap in our strength and backed off, that would be ideal. But if they came at us as if their lives depended on it, we'd be the ones who lost in the end.
I might be able to squeeze out a win against one of them, but there were twenty of them over there.
It was a fight we had never had a chance of winning in the first place.
I had done my best to look as imposing as possible, but I couldn't drag this out any longer.
“...How did you do that?”
A voice, taut as a locked gate, reached me.
It was Arkaban, the chief of the White Hair Tribe, staring at me in a daze.
Her eyes, fixed on the uncanny scene before her, were shaking violently.
I slowly shifted my gaze to her.
And now.
“You're the one smearing filth across your clan's face.”
I tossed out the first thing that came to mind.
Of course, I had no proper plan; I was just running my mouth.
My Mental Image was already scraping the bottom, and if I squeezed every last drop out of it, I might be able to take one of them with me—but I wouldn't come out of it unscathed.
Honestly, I was terrified out of my mind, but my face never showed much of anything, so Arkaban only looked tenser the more she stared at me.
“As I said, the relic you seek has already been used by me. So even if I wanted to return it, I can't.”
“...”
“In the first place, it was never your clan's property. You know that, don't you? Your role was to protect it with everything you had until it returned to its original owner. In the end, that thing was always fated to slip out of your hands. Just like now.”
“Human, how do you know that...?”
How do I know?
Because you said so yourself in the original story.
“You were throwing attacks at me with the clear intent to kill.”
“...”
“You charge someone with no hostile intent, without even bothering to learn the circumstances? Your own kin, and a group that included children? You're the chief, and you're destroying the honor your ancestors built through ages long forgotten with your own hands. You should be ashamed.”
Once I made up my mind to rub salt in the wound, Arkaban clenched her teeth.
The way her tail had snapped upright, she looked thoroughly provoked.
“...Then does that mean you're the owner of that relic?”
“That's right.”
“How am I supposed to believe that? It's only your word. Without proof, it's nothing but empty boasting.”
Well, that was true enough.
No matter how much I talked like I knew everything, to them it was still only words.
If they were the sort to hand over the relic at the first sweet-talking lie, they never would have safeguarded the rune for all those years.
That was why even the protagonist of the original story had spoken lines like this when he was trying to win the White Hair Tribe's cooperation.
“Convergence of the circling gaze, submission to the flow of time.”
“...!!”
“The ancient script longs for eternity, causality waits for its master, and where the currents of heaven flow, the true ruler shall dwell.”
The moment those words left my mouth, Arkaban's expression grew more and more confused, and before long she was staring at me, drained white.
“If you're truly the chief of the White Hair Tribe, then you must know your ancestors' records by heart. Do you still resent me for taking your clan's relic?”
“How do you, a human, know that...”
“Only now do you find that interesting? You're the one who attacked with murder on your mind, and yet you still have demands to make.”
“...That is...”
I started walking forward slowly.
Her face, once full of nothing but venom, was now wavering before a vast and bewildering confusion.
I had stepped on the trigger deliberately, so she wouldn't attack me again.
Which was why I was closing the distance, planning to wring out a few favors in compensation for the attack.
“This is getting interesting.”
A voice laced with amusement drifted in from behind me.
Everyone's gaze turned there at once.
Standing there was Arkan, scratching her right cheek with a sheepish look on her face.
“Um, Sixth Lord?”
I stopped in my tracks for a moment and looked at Arkan.
But when the White Hair Tribe's chief heard her speak, she turned to me in shock.
“...Sixth Lord? You were a Lord?”
She was muttering something under her breath, but I ignored it and kept my eyes on Arkan.
Then I asked her in a cold voice, “What is it?”
“That woman—are you planning to kill her?”
“...?”
For a moment, I didn't understand the question.
Kill her? Who was killing whom?
Following Arkan's gaze, I figured she meant the White Hair Tribe's chief, and it seemed she had interpreted all my swaggering, threatening approach as an intent to take revenge.
I was about to tell her that wasn't the case, but curiosity struck me all at once.
So I let my expression harden and said in a low voice, “Then?”
After hearing my answer, the Great Lord let out a thoughtful hum.
She scratched the back of her head, looking troubled, and then made me an odd proposal.
“Could you let this one slide just this once?”
“...What?”
“I have some history with the White Hair Tribe. Or rather, to be precise, with the previous chief.”
Ah. I see, more or less.
She'd been watching because it was interesting, but now that I was really acting like I meant to kill her, she was stepping in to stop me?
So they did know each other from the start. In that case, she could've just stepped in and stopped me from the beginning, couldn't she?
How obnoxious.
Honestly, I was a little irritated.
First she dumped the Lord's seat on me out of nowhere, and now she was only stepping in after watching the whole thing unfold.
Without realizing it, there was an edge to my voice.
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Could you let it pass, for my sake?”
“I'm asking you again. What does that have to do with me?”
“Mm... what if I step in and stop you?”
At the hint of intent woven into her question, I gave a faint snort.
“I'll ask you once more. What does that have to do with me?”
“...”
I knew perfectly well she couldn't step in.
Besides, I had no intention of killing her anyway, so I had no reason to interfere.
Since I was the Lord now, this seemed like the perfect chance to draw a clear line.
In fact, this worked out nicely. I had already been planning to use that attack as an excuse to squeeze a few things out of the White Hair Tribe, and now I could just squeeze something out of the Great Lord too.
Arkaban, who had been watching all this unfold, swallowed hard.
Her face was marked with open shock at the way I was treating a Great Lord-level powerhouse, someone among the strongest on the continent.
If Arkaban, the chief of the White Hair Tribe, was a Lord-class powerhouse, Arkan was a true monster—one who could not be beaten even if three Lords gathered together.
Seeing me show not the slightest weakness before such a monster must have left her feeling complicated in more ways than one.
Beastfolk might be a warlike race, but even they didn't have the nerve to act bold in front of a Great Lord.
“Haah... now that's a problem.”
Arkan scratched her head, then broke into a grin.
“All right. Let's do this.”
“What is it?”
“Tell me what you want. I'll grant whatever I can. Ah! But I absolutely won't let you quit being a Lord.”
“...”
Dammit.
She's quick on the uptake.
“Anything, then?”
“Yep, as long as it's within reason—within the bounds of what I can actually do. You know what I mean.”
I clicked my tongue.
So she was saying she wouldn't accept anything too outrageous after all.
I slowly turned it over in my head.
What was the highest-priority favor I could ask of her in this situation?
And what came to mind was none other than...
“The Scripture.”
“Huh?”
“If you happen to find the Scripture, I'd like you to hand it over to me.”
The Scripture.
It was the Space Rune.
I stayed in the office until dawn.
The Great Lord urged me to leave immediately, but I used the excuse that I needed to rest and spent the entire day sticking close to Rudine.
The reason was simple: I needed to replenish my depleted Mental Image.
Arkaban, who had been practically frothing at the mouth and demanding that I hand over the clan's relic, eventually left the office with her group.
She offered a brief apology and promised compensation in the near future, and to be honest, I was surprised by how readily she gave in.
It seemed she'd been hit hard by the lines the protagonist of the original story had spoken.
A human who had ignored them, even attacked them with intent to kill, not only knew their ancestors' records but was also the owner of the relic named in those records. Her fighting spirit must have taken a serious blow.
Adina had gone through some kind of change of heart, too; the girl who had snapped at every opportunity now blushed whenever she looked at me.
Her attitude had become noticeably more obedient as well, and I felt like saving her life had been worth it.
Anyway, the situation had been more or less settled.
And so, now.
By the time we reached the headquarters hall, the entrance to the boundary, so we could cross Kalmash...
“...What is this?”
“Hm? What do you mean? The distance is too far to travel by carriage like last time.”
“That's not what I mean. I'm asking what this is.”
“Can't you tell by looking? It's a griffon.”
...I'm actually supposed to ride that?
I stood there in a daze, staring at the griffon as it beat its wings and whipped up a fierce gale.