Do You Know the Blade?
Izdi sobbed in Lupin's arms for a long, long time. Klein had gone to fetch a broad cloth to use as a sling and come back at an utterly unhurried pace, and even then she had to stand beside Lupin and wait a good while.
Only when Lupin's chest had gone sticky, soaked through with tears and snot, did the child finally wear herself out and go limp. Lupin didn't miss the opening. She settled Izdi on her back and whipped the cloth around her — flick, flick, flick. It wasn't as though she'd only seen the younger kids at the orphanage bundled up once or twice. The wrap came together in an instant.
They were nearly all the way down the mountain before Izdi woke again and started chattering. The trouble with the little thing was that she understood her own situation entirely too well.
"Sintu, why did you save me...?"
It was the kind of thing you said when you were afraid of being thrown away. Lupin knew it. After her own first few days at the orphanage, she had muttered that she was a worm worth less than a pet. That she had no value in being alive.
"You should've just left me to die in the heat...."
At that, Lupin raised her voice good and loud.
"Tek!"
And was her hand going to sit still? With the girl on her back the angle was all wrong, so the swing was a rough one — and the back of Lupin's hand still caught Izdi's backside without mercy.
Pap! Pap! Pap!
...The sling was thick, of course, so only the noise was impressive.
"You talk like that and I turn into the dumbass who saved some girl that was gonna die anyway. Can't have that."
"......"
"Right? Like you said, you're free now. What's all this dying talk? From here on, you live it up. Think of that man as a worm that was eating your life. Me, I don't wonder for one second where the parents who dumped me are, or what they're up to."
Izdi swallowed, startled.
"Sorry... I didn't know."
"Of course you didn't. I never told you. The one walking next to us didn't know either."
In the heavy quiet, Klein — who had been doing nothing but read the room — nodded. She truly hadn't known. So Lupin had a past like that. Was that why she'd mistaken her for something the Cult had optimized? The thought stayed hers alone.
"Anyway, thinking about the person who abandoned you doesn't make life one bit more fun. Find something that runs straight through your life, like I did, and after that you can't even see the rest. You live looking at that one thing only."
Remembering Lupin as she'd been when they met at the stronghold, Izdi murmured.
"You mean treasure chests? ...That's kind of dumb."
"Excuse me?! This little speck has the nerve to call me dumb."
Lupin bent both arms at a grotesque angle and pinched Izdi's cheeks, stretching them long.
"Bwuh—!"
"Treasure chests hold infinite possibility. A senior of mine in life told me that, so carve it into your heart and don't you dare forget. Laugh at a treasure chest in front of me one more time and I won't forgive you either. Got it?"
"Okay... Sis..."
The air eased a little, and the walk down the mountain went on. Only after they'd come a long way down the slope and the path widened did a realization hit Lupin, late.
"Wait a second. You're a girl?"
"Huh? Oh. I never said, did I."
No wonder she'd seemed awfully pretty for a boy. A disguise to stay alive — something like that, Lupin muttered to herself. Izdi, having apparently finished sorting her thoughts in the meantime, introduced herself all over again.
"My real name is Izdi Airfrid Snohaim. My Cheonghwa name is Seol Baekhwa."
Right. Seol Baekhwa. Lupin wiped the long name out of her head on the spot.
"Baekhwa. Pretty name."
"Some grandfather who didn't really know me gave it to me. Said my skin was white, just like a lily."
So Baekhwa was that lily. A very particular thought flickered through Lupin's head and was shaken off at once. Hearing "lily" and immediately taking it that way was a modern habit — and only if the modern person in question was fluent in subculture.
"Anyway, Seol Baekhwa. Listen carefully. The man who was looking after you is perfectly alive, and right now he's off suffering like a dog, all right? He's going to build a flying castle of Snohaim."
"....Are you brushing me off because I'm a kid? How would anyone even make something like that?"
"A music box keeper who dreams of reviving a kingdom can do anything, I'll have you know."
Add the potential of the crazy bitch who wanted to become Lupin's companion, and the result was impossible to predict. Something — something — was definitely going to happen.
"So choose. Now. Take the fox — no, the Spirit King — become Queen of Snohaim again, and later make that man grind his forehead into the floor. Or throw Snohaim away and let it become whatever it becomes."
For Seol Baekhwa, it was the first mercy anyone had ever shown her, and the first kindness. As the sole bloodline of fallen Snohaim she had carried nothing but responsibilities, plastered on thick, so a pure kindness like this could only taste sweet.
Never show tears, no matter what happens. As royalty of a ruined kingdom, give everything to rebuilding the nation. As the Spirit King's vessel, keep your purity until the day you are sacrificed. Those demands of Dharma Protector Cheong — she didn't have to keep them anymore, did she?
She could live however she pleased. She could do whatever she wanted. Any which way. Carelessly. However.
Seol Baekhwa smiled, small and bright, but strapped to Lupin's back, that smile never reached her.
"Ahem. Young miss? If this humble one isn't given a word, she has no way of knowing. There aren't eyes on the back of my head."
"Ah. Right. Sorry."
With a long, drawn-out sigh, Seol Baekhwa shook the past off. She clenched both hands, closed her eyes, and drew the future.
"Knew you'd say that."
"Do whatever you want with that man. He's a stranger to me now."
Lupin snickered and patted the sling.
"His head's probably about to explode right about now. Shall we go eat something good? You hungry?"
"A little?"
"Heh. I've got a whole lot of money, so you'd better brace yourself. Main dish, dessert, drinks — I'm sending that stomach straight to paradise—"
Mid-boast, she rummaged through the harness hidden inside her martial robes, and the words died in her throat. The sack of gold bars had, for quite some time now, been sitting in the pack of Yegor, from whom she'd long since parted. Looking awkward, Lupin slowly turned her head back toward Seol Baekhwa and smiled.
"Sorry. I left my money somewhere, so I'm broke for the moment.... Guess the good food has to wait until tomorrow."
Seol Baekhwa let out a short laugh and pointed at the mountainside.
"Are you dumb, Sis? We can just take what we stockpiled at the stronghold."
Oh. The stuff Dharma Protector Cheong handed over? This kid was way smarter than her. Lupin muttered it with the round eyes of someone beholding a child who had started talking the moment they were born.
"I knew it. Losing a puzzle match to a kid your size was no accident."
On a distant mountainside, silence hung between Lupin's two voluntary slaves, who had resumed their bandit cleanup. Dharma Protector Cheong had things to think about. Ekaterina was in shock at having an absurd task dumped on her out of nowhere.
They had wordlessly cleaned out yet another bandit stronghold when he spoke.
"Just what, exactly, is Her Majesty's true identity?"
No matter how he turned it over, there was something he could not understand. How in the world had Lupin made Frederica submit? Ordinarily, the limit of what someone holding Master-level aura could handle was an intermediate spirit. Only a Grand Master could command a greater spirit, and even then a Spirit King was something you barely managed to beg a favor from. Spirits were that proud, that willful; anyone who tried to lead them suffered for it. Even Snohaim, familiar with spirits as it was, had only succeeded in calling a Spirit King down through a special relic — the music box — and the sacrifice of royalty.
"Why ask that now? Getting cold feet about why you'd serve a sovereign like this?"
"No. That isn't it."
Lupin had definitely gone into the ice cocoon and come back out. It was the same process as a chrysalis becoming a butterfly. Once begun, it was irreversible. The person who had been there before could not simply pop back out intact.
"Far from offering her body to the Spirit King, she emerged perfectly whole. And yet she wields the Spirit King's power as if it were her own. I cannot begin to predict the realm of her strength."
Ekaterina grinned crookedly and pointed at her own shoulder. A single surveillance pigeon was still perched there, snug as anything.
"Lupin stuck it on me. To watch me."
"...It was a spirit? May I touch it?"
"Suit yourself. Don't get bitten."
Coo. Coo.
Dharma Protector Cheong reached toward the softly vocal creature. Among humans he was second only to elves in familiarity with spirits. He stroked along the feathers this way and that — then flinched and snatched his hand back from the pigeon.
"This is... light?"
"Lupin handles hundreds of pigeons like this. Surprised?"
Light was infamous as the hardest element to handle, and the most finicky. And she was mobilizing those spirits for the high-level task of watching a single person? Not even one bird — hundreds, summoned and put to work.
This is beyond a Spirit King. She's leapt clean past anything a human can imagine...!
If someone this tremendous was their sovereign, a restored Snohaim would surely remain in history as a magnificent nation. But a sovereign that great would draw no small amount of wariness from the surrounding states. Snohaim had a record, after all, of betraying humanity and siding with the Demon King. Try to seize territory ruled by other nations on top of that, and what would happen? One misstep, and Snohaim might become an enemy of all mankind, just like the Cult.
Has she even accounted for the chance of colliding with other countries...?
If that was why she meant to raise a kingdom in the sky, where no one else could reach, then Dharma Protector Cheong could not help but marvel at the insight. She was someone who truly thought of Snohaim. For her sake, he really would have to give his life.
"...There is one last thing I wish to ask. You are of the Rounds. Why do you submit to Her Majesty?"
Ekaterina stared at Dharma Protector Cheong blankly, then said,
"Because she's someone I want to serve. That's all."
A member of the Rounds could do anything, so long as it didn't harm the Imperial Alliance. Thought of that way, what Ekaterina had said held water. After all, the kingdom Lupin was about to raise would leave the mere ground behind and belong to the great sky.
"A way to set a castle afloat in the heavens — I will find it, whatever it takes."
Ekaterina stared straight at him. Future or no future, putting out the fire in front of her came first.
"Quit messing around and help me crack the greenwood forts. Those bandit bastards need to be wiped out, seed and all."
It was quite a while later that Lupin's party reached a renowned inn on the outskirts of Beijing. Darkness had settled, and the first floor was a noisy crush of drunks. They'd gone all the way back to the stronghold and come down again; of course a lot of time had passed.
She'd considered paying extra for a seat on the second floor, but apparently some distinguished guest had shown up and every spot was taken, or something to that effect. Well. She'd come intending to eat the inn into the ground, and there was no dish you couldn't get on the first floor. Lupin simply braced herself and waited for the food to come.
The opening move was Beijing duck. Klein had suggested starting with something light, but to Lupin every dish was light. More than that — once you'd come to Beijing, you obviously began with the signature dish. She still hadn't forgotten the texture from that high-end Chinese restaurant: crackling crisp, then a sticky, chewy give.
The problem was that the wait was long. Far too long. But they'd said these were the last two birds left. How was she supposed to let that go?
"Does one dish really take an hour...?"
"Look at the crowd. An hour's still getting off easy. The impressive part is the cook pushing every one of these orders through alone."
And the two ducks that finally arrived after that long wait were past merely handsome — glossy, almost luminous. Set a savory-smelling dish in front of someone, and the number of people who can stay angry is vanishingly small. Lupin's mood lifted at once. She seized a single chopstick in each hand and raised them high.
"Baekhwa, eat lots!"
"Yeah!"
"Klein, you too!"
"...How very kind of you to think of me, however late."
Lupin and Seol Baekhwa had each taken a leg, Klein a wing, and they were just about to take a huge bite.
"You son of a—!"
Crash! Clang!
With the racket, something came flying and slammed into the table where the three of them sat.
—BANG!
"Eek!"
Lupin caught Seol Baekhwa, who had nearly toppled backward in surprise, and looked. What rolled groaning beneath the table was nothing other than a person. Two ducks — short two legs and one wing — were plastered flat against his back and flopped to the floor with him. The precious grains of rice that had been inside the birds scattered in every direction.
Klein sighed and shook her head.
"Even when something comes flying, it just had to be our table...."
She reacted with that much familiarity because fights inside the inns of Cheonghwa were simply daily life. Lupin, of course, was not used to this at all. It wasn't the sort of situation that only cleared if she grabbed someone and killed them, the way being cheated of a treasure chest did — but losing a meal you'd waited an hour for was obviously infuriating. These had been the last ducks of the day. And she'd put away a serious amount of liquor while she waited.
"Which bastard.... Which bastard did that to my duck...."
