The Hawk Chasing the Stars (1)
Grespara. Her injuries consisted of nothing more than arrows lodged in her flesh, aside from the beating she had taken. As long as they weren’t forcibly yanked out, there was little chance she would die from blood loss. So in the end, Hawk—convinced by my words—calmly swept a hand through his hair and bound the trembling girl.
“These ropes have demon-absorbing stones embedded at intervals. Bind a mage with them, and they collapse like a fish dragged onto dry land, nothing but a limp sack of meat.”
“…I-I see.”
“Then why the startled expression? You look like you’ve witnessed something unspeakable. This is simply how one secures a prisoner, is it not?”
“No, tying her up is fine. But did you really have to truss her in the tortoise-shell position?”
He clicked his tongue. “Spoken like someone who knows nothing. This is the most effective restraint. The more she struggles, the deeper the cords bite. It leaves no room for idle thoughts.”
“…Whatever. Do it your way.”
At my words, Hawk worked with the ease of long practice, binding Grespara’s arms and legs behind her back until she resembled a dried fish. The gag forced between her chattering teeth was merely an added courtesy. He crouched before her, voice low and venomous.
“You were blessed with luck enough to keep your life, Grespara. But if you fail to offer information useful to the Lord of Steel, you will soon wish death were a mercy….”
“Mmph—! Mmmph—!”
“I shouldn’t have to repeat myself, you bitch.”
I turned to him then, a few questions burning in my mind.
“By the way, Hawk.”
“…Yes, my lord.”
“I was under the impression you spent your days hunting Vincent himself, not his insignificant satellites. Yet here you are in this remote village, despite being consumed by that pursuit. Don’t tell me you simply happened to be passing by?”
“Something like that. I had stopped in the capital for resupply when an unnatural meteor streaked across the sky. Naturally, I took notice.”
He removed the mask he wore and met my gaze. Sharp, raptor-like eyes. Deep blue hair utterly unlike his sister’s, yet the overall impression was strangely similar when his face was still. He was impossibly handsome—until the large, ugly scar crossing the bridge of his nose turned those features savage. A face like that walking freely among people ought to be illegal. Not that I was one to talk.
At any rate, he continued explaining how the falling star had led him here.
“It was the same omen that appeared when Vincent visited my own village. One could dismiss it as a trivial sign, but the unease it left behind forced me to investigate.”
“Impressive eye for detail. You still remember every moment of that day.”
“How could I forget the day everyone around me died and my life was destroyed? I can still paint the entire scene vividly, even now.”
Then, a touch awkwardly, he asked me in return.
“…In truth, my lord, I wanted to ask you the same question. How did you come to be here?”
“This entire region belongs to my master. I need no special reason to visit my own lands.”
“No, my lord. I mean Mihelrn, not Fralbert. You only stopped briefly in the capital, yet you arrived like a ghost—before me, as though you already knew their movements….”
“…A coincidence. I possess a certain sense for these things.”
In reality I had simply pieced it together from my regression knowledge, but explaining that would have been endlessly complicated, so I left it vague. Yet Hawk’s eyes suddenly flashed.
“………Just as I suspected!”
“Suspected?”
His next words left me stunned.
“So the one who slew a Six Sword truly does perceive things differently….”
“What—?! How could you possibly know that?”
Was the rumor already spreading this far north? The overland distance should have slowed any news considerably. I had even asked Babalk—now my sponsor—to suppress the story of my killing a Six Sword as thoroughly as possible. Sigmund Academy was a closed environment; I had assumed the secret would hold for some time. So how did Hawk know?
“The rumor hasn’t circulated widely in the North, but the demons have heard enough. I learned it by interrogating them. Since it concerns the disappearance of the sun they live and die for, it’s only natural they would know.”
“I see… That does make sense.”
As if the matter were trivial, he murmured, “By the way… are the villagers unharmed?”
“Unfortunately, many died. A few survived.”
“Then it was you, my lord, who reduced this wretch to a bloody pulp for what she did?”
“Correct.”
“…I see.”
Suddenly he bowed his head in a respectful nod.
“…It pains me that you prevented me from killing her, but I must speak my thanks. Thank you for holding Grespara at bay in my absence. From what I’ve heard, without your intervention I would surely have been too late once again.”
“Don’t call it holding her back. The village hardly ‘survived’ in any meaningful sense.”
At any rate, this was no time to linger. We had secured Grespara; the next step was returning to the capital. Yet I still didn’t know the full extent of the damage. Having come this far, I could not simply walk away.
“Then let us return to Mihelrn first, Hawk. Will you accompany me?”
“…Yes, my lord.”
The Mihelrn we returned to was far worse than I had imagined. Though it was a small village one could circle in mere hours, viewing the whole scene from high ground made the devastation instantly clear.
Roofs had been shredded and hurled away by iron shrapnel. The entire settlement looked as though a horde of beasts had rampaged through it. Charred corpses lay where fire had spread from unknown sources, but those were the lucky ones. Far more common were the horribly mangled, shredded lumps of meat scattered across streets, walls, trees, and stones—remains so ruined it was difficult to tell they had once been human.
“Aigoo—! Aigoo—!”
Damn it….
Above all, the sound of survivors wailing the names of the departed clawed at my heart. If covering my ears could have fixed anything, I would have done so. But nothing would change.
“Fuck… This doesn’t feel like someone else’s problem.”
Hawk, his own rage rekindled by the sight, kicked the bound Grespara he was dragging behind him.
Thud!
“Hngh—! Aaaagh—! Aaaah—!”
She was conscious despite being captured, so every breath brought grinding teeth, moans, and screams. Neither Hawk nor I regarded any of it as genuine emotion. The moment she committed such atrocities against civilians, she ceased to be a person and became a war criminal.
“…It’s finished.”
At this point the village was beyond repair. In the original story it had supposedly been restored after a wyvern attack, yet even those old wounds had never fully healed. With this many dead and the infrastructure collapsed, there was simply no money or manpower left to rebuild.
I clenched my trembling fists against the fury threatening to overtake me and, as if in a trance, pushed open the door of a nearby house. The frame was shattered, so I had to force it aside. Inside lay two bodies—fortunately not torn to pieces. Yet the way they embraced each other, staring with lifeless eyes, was the very image of tragedy. The man appeared to have tried desperately to shield his wife. A large iron shard had pierced his stomach and run her through as well; his protection had not been enough.
Hawk, gazing at the scene, spoke quietly.
“Lord of Steel… clearing the bodies will be a grim task. Could you summon help from the capital?”
“I will. The death toll is too high for a single mass funeral, but we must conduct the rites with every possible dignity.”
“…And the survivors?”
“I must take responsibility. I’ll bring them to the capital and prepare a lakeside settlement. Leaving them here would be the same as condemning them to death.”
“…Thank you, my lord.”
“You have nothing to thank me for….”
But at that moment—
“Mommy—! Daddy—!”
…Shit?!
A familiar voice rang from the distance. I knew at once who it belonged to. Before I had subdued Grespara, when she was on the verge of collapse from shock, I had found the village chief first and ordered him to protect the child at all costs. The small girl now running toward us was Anella.
This had to be her house. And the fate of the parents she sought lay right beside me. I could not let her see this.
Chief, I told you to watch her…!
I stepped outside. Far off, a disheveled blonde girl was sprinting forward, kicking up clouds of snow. Behind her the old chief struggled after, digging through the drifts with frozen hands. His failing body could never keep pace with a frantic child. The house still looked mostly intact from the outside, so Anella must have believed with all her heart that her parents were safe inside.
I knew better. I knew exactly how cruel the hope blazing in her eyes truly was.
Before I could speak, the tiny figure hurtled down the path and collided with my thigh.
Thump!
“L-Lord of Steel…!”
“…God damn it. God damn it all.”
“Where are Mommy and Daddy?! They’re still hiding inside, right? They’re in there, aren’t they?!”
Her eyes, bright with desperate words, began to drift toward the open doorway and the two corpses beyond it.
Even knowing the terror it would cause her, I could not stop the shout that tore from my throat.
“Don’t look!”
“Kyaa—?! Kyaaaah?!”
“Don’t look… Please, for my sake, don’t look, child.”
I lifted her as gently as I could—she was so small it felt like she might shatter—but Anella had already sensed something was terribly wrong. She thrashed wildly in my arms, striking me with all her feeble strength.
“Let me go! Let me go—! No, no—!”
“……….”
“Mommy and Daddy are— They’re right there…!”
“…I’m sorry.”
“Uwaaaah—!”
As I held the sobbing child to my chest, only one thought burned in my mind.
Ah, Grespara. This fucking bitch really does need to die.
For this girl’s sake. For the North. For the world… it was the only right thing to do.