Episode 4 - Can You Swim?
The demon realm Blackmore.
It was the place where the Empire’s most vicious fugitives hid out, along with monsters cut off from society and left to rot in isolation. A place so unforgiving that once you stepped inside, you were said never to come back out alive; in truth, it was little different from a grave.
Because the territory itself was so vast and dependable information so scarce, all manner of absurd rumors about Blackmore drifted through the Empire by word of mouth, growing larger and wilder with every retelling.
Some said forgotten beings from myth and legend made their home there. Some said hideous aberrations too vile to speak of were slowly devouring Blackmore from within. Others claimed that miraculous encounters and hidden treasures were buried all over the place.
Every last rumor was crafted to poke at human curiosity.
And in truth, it really was a place worthy of the name “demon realm.”
That was why Blackmore had always been a headache for the Imperial family. Leave it alone, and the Empire’s honor was at stake; try to intervene, and the risks and costs stacked up into a mountain of trouble.
Then, just in time, the Emperor made his position clear.
With a single declaration, he announced that Blackmore would be formally recognized as Imperial territory.
In other words, the Imperial family had no intention of leaving Blackmore untouched any longer.
But.
“I truly don’t understand.”
“What is it now?”
In the imperial office, two men sat across from each other, sipping tea as they talked. The man in military dress let out a short sigh and went on.
“I heard you dispatched a single administrator.”
“....”
“Luke Richter. A boy who had only just entered government service, from what I hear.”
The chancellor, who had been listening in silence, nodded. He was the one who had personally sent Luke to Blackmore, so that reaction was only natural.
“This is Blackmore we’re talking about.”
“I know.”
“It’s a place even the Special Task Force or the knights of the Holy Order can’t handle.”
“Quite so.”
Thud.
The man set down his teacup.
His expression had turned rather intense by then.
“Then you should withdraw him at once.”
“And why do you think that?”
“What on earth can one man do in a place that would barely be manageable even with a full-scale deployment? Especially if you send in a rookie who’s only just been brought into court service?”
It was a fair question.
Blackmore was a place the Imperial family had abandoned long ago. To assign a low-ranking official to manage it was, in effect, no different from sending a healthy young man into a death trap.
But the chancellor answered without hesitation.
“He wouldn’t be able to do anything, no. Not if he were an ordinary junior officer.”
Luke Richter was the second son of the Richter ducal family, born out of wedlock. He had graduated from the Academy with excellent marks, but beyond that there was nothing especially remarkable about him.
And yet the chancellor’s expression was deadly serious. He looked like a man who had not the slightest doubt about his own judgment.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
“He’s just an ordinary noble young master, isn’t he?”
So he asked.
He couldn’t help it. He cast another look at the chancellor’s face, but the older man only sipped his tea as if nothing were amiss.
Then, slowly—very slowly—he nodded.
Without offering the slightest explanation, he only nodded, as though anything more would be impossible to say.
“...Hah.”
And that was the end of it.
I sat there blankly, staring out the window.
Beyond it, a doll-like girl was hunting monsters with a dagger in one hand, smiling as brightly as a child who had just discovered a new toy.
...Could you even call that hunting?
Well. Probably not.
It was more like a one-sided slaughter. Or outright massacre.
Today made it two days, hadn’t it?
Two days.
It had already been two days since I first met Rudine.
I slowly ran back through my memories. She had called me her benefactor and followed me around with such terrifying persistence that it was almost endearing. No matter how many times I tried to turn her back, she kept trailing after me until she finally followed me all the way into the office.
And this was the result.
Having accepted this place as her home, Rudine had started hunting down every monster that approached it from that moment on—no, slaughtering them.
“……”
Our eyes met.
Her face and hands were smeared with blood, and yet she looked at me with a radiant smile, bright and eager, as if waiting to be praised.
She was like...
...a guard dog, if I’d ever seen one.
I looked away from her beaming face and thought it over.
Honestly, it was convenient.
She didn’t cross the line, didn’t show any hostility, and she kept the house secure without complaint. I still had no idea what she wanted, but so far I hadn’t found a single thing about her that annoyed me.
Now what was I supposed to do with this?
Rudine, born under the Heavenly Slaughter Star, possessed a nature that craved blood. That meant she satisfied her hunger and thirst by tearing, splitting, and cutting apart living things.
In other words, she had been born evil.
It wasn’t something that could be cured.
It was written into her soul as an innate nature. She wasn’t sick, so how could there possibly be a cure?
Some called it a curse.
But was it really a curse?
No. It was talent.
Her nature was specialized for slaughter. Not a curse, but a gift. At least here in Blackmore, that was true.
It wasn’t for nothing that the original novel’s protagonist had risked his life to come all the way to Blackmore and recruit her.
Come to think of it, even if I had become the administrator here, that didn’t mean I was condemned to rot in this place for the rest of my life.
The Empire reassigned its regional administrators every five years.
Five years.
It was a long time, sure, but not so long that I couldn’t endure it.
Besides, it was already too late to kick her out now. She wasn’t the kind of person who would listen if I asked a few times, and she certainly wasn’t someone I could throw out by force.
That left only one option.
Win her over.
Honestly, it wasn’t even that difficult.
She already thought of me as her benefactor.
Not bad.
She kept the house secure. She made the workforce larger. And if I had her help, exploring the labyrinth wouldn’t be difficult either.
Wasn’t there a saying that if you couldn’t avoid something, you should enjoy it?
Yes. I should enjoy it.
It really wasn’t a problem worth agonizing over.
A little while later,
“Luke?”
Rudine came back to the office after roughly washing up.
She looked at me with her round eyes and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Work. Help me out.”
“I’m hungry.”
“I’ll get you food when I’m done.”
Her pale gray eyes sparkled like jewels.
She was interested in my offer.
Rudine sat down neatly and asked in an excited voice, “What kind of work?”
“Making signs.”
“...?”
She tilted her head, looking completely lost.
“Signs?”
“Yes.”
“Why are we making signs?”
“I told you. It’s work.”
“???”
She blinked at my answer, still failing to understand what I meant.
“As you know, this place is a famous suicide spot, right?”
“Yes.”
“And this is my workplace.”
“Yes.”
“So if people keep killing themselves in my workplace all the time, how do you think that makes me look?”
The answer was simple.
It would be a gigantic pain in the ass.
Especially if one of them happened to be a noble.
“You can read Imperial language, can’t you?”
“...Don’t underestimate me.”
“Good. Then take this brush and just copy the words I say onto the sign. Easy, right?”
I quickly handed her a signboard and brush.
The preparations were complete.
“Now, write exactly what I say.”
“Okay.”
I spoke, and Rudine wrote it down after me.
It was such a simple piece of repetitive work.
And yet...
As she copied the words, a question mark seemed to bloom over Rudine’s face.
She looked utterly flustered.
Clomp, clomp.
Rustle.
“So quiet,” the girl muttered.
As she walked, she found no sign of human life anywhere. Blackmore was every bit the wilderness she had expected it to be.
She kept going.
She had no destination and no direction. After all, she had come here to die. What use would either of those be?
Her steps grew heavier, and her breathing started to come short. She almost tripped over a rock once, but her expression never changed as she moved forward, one step at a time.
A faint stench crawled into her nose.
Dead, withered trees stood packed together all around her.
It was bleak and desolate, as though the whole place had been arranged to resemble her future.
Then she noticed a sign in the distance.
You are not alone.
“What?”
What did that mean? Was someone nearby?
She swept her gaze around, but there wasn’t a single trace of anyone.
And that wasn’t all.
As if measured with a ruler, more signs had been planted at regular intervals farther along the path.
“What is this?”
She couldn’t fight down her curiosity, so she started walking toward the signs. She wanted to check every line written on them with her own eyes.
Stop!
She stopped short.
Was that talking to her?
Where do you think you’re going?
What.
That was creepy.
You are precious.
“...?”
Why, all of a sudden?
Her mood soured.
She was already feeling miserable, and now these ridiculous signs kept irritating her for no reason at all. Even so, she still couldn’t suppress her curiosity.
How long had she been walking?
Far ahead, a sheer cliff slowly came into view.
The surf hissed somewhere far below, and beyond the edge stretched an endless, open sea.
And there, at the very edge of the cliff, stood the final sign.
Can you swim?
Crack—!
The sign shattered beneath the girl’s kick.