Short Flashback, Long Flashback (3)
Watching Armed mutter incessantly about whatever was pissing her off, Kriel tilted his head in confusion. They hadn't parted on truly bad terms, so why was she acting like this? For now, he decided to get to the point. It was time for an expert opinion.
"What I need your help with is this guy."
"This guy?"
Kriel drew the horn dagger and turned the hilt toward Armed before handing it over. The curved blade with its reddish glow felt ominously vicious, but Armed was already used to Kriel. This level of foreboding was nothing.
'Besides...' Focusing, she sensed an extraordinary holy power. A holy relic in this kind of shape? Absurd, but she'd accept it. After all, Kriel looked like some abyss-crawling Dark Knight, yet underneath, he was more like a protagonist straight out of a chivalric novel.
"You really carry around a sword just like you."
It was praise twisted with embarrassment. Like you, it might look fearsome and dignified on the outside, but its true nature is more noble than anyone's.
It reminded her of Kriel's rambling words about Orishin. At least on the surface, he'd worked so hard to become a "noble knight."
"No way. How can you say that."
"Grraaah! Just because she's a count's daughter doesn't make her all that! How can you say she looks like the person who lopped off my head?!"
"What?"
Armed's brain froze at the spirit's absurd outburst. Kriel responded nonchalantly, as if it were nothing.
"She totally deserved the beheading."
"Yeah, fair enough."
It was a bizarre conversation. Orishin seemed to have half-jokingly thrown out the comment from the start and readily accepted Kriel's reply before launching into a lengthy rant along the lines of "but the blade's design is pretty cool, right?"
Kriel let Orishin's chatter flow in one ear and out the other. That headless nag must've been pretty bored waiting.
"This guy's core is currently contaminated by the abyss."
Armed cast a detection spell in surprise. A structure sealed layer upon layer with holy power. No trace of the abyss. But that "seal" felt oddly excessive somehow. The holy power was interwoven more complexly and sturdily than necessary.
"Some kind of curse, apparently. It's got an auto-purification function temporarily installed on the blade, so it cleanses periodically. But at its root, it's still the same."
Armed tossed out a "hold on" and spent a long while observing the horn dagger. Beyond the sturdy barrier of holy power, something definitely not holy was creeping up, growing slowly.
The source of the contamination seemed extremely high-dimensional and vicious at a glance. Even as the holy power constantly diminished the curse's influence every moment, it relentlessly multiplied, making the curse's core untouchable.
"This won't be solvable in a day or two..."
"Yeah? Guess there's no helping it, then."
Kriel murmured softly. That flat tone triggered phantom pains from Armed's past. The same nonchalant, indefinite farewell as back then. She wanted no part of that.
"Wait!"
She slammed her hands on the table and stood. The items on the table rattled from the force. Armed instantly forged a confident demeanor and declared,
"H-ha! Even if not a day or two, three days will be enough! I can pinpoint the curse's origin in that time!"
The stuttered first syllable betrayed her hidden anxiety. Kriel replied with his usual blank expression.
"No need for that."
Now, and back then too. It felt like a declaration that she was useless to him. Armed felt a choking sensation, as if someone had gripped her heart with a cold hand.
But Kriel's words weren't finished.
"I was just saying since we've got plenty of time anyway, take as long as you need to investigate. I've got no other appointments right now."
"...Really?"
"Or is your schedule an issue? If so, tell me the next conference location, and I'll drop by then."
Armed felt the tension that had stiffened her whole body suddenly melt away. She slumped back into her chair like jelly and said hollowly,
"No. I've got nothing going on either. I'll tell you the inn I'm staying at, so come by around noon tomorrow. I'll be in the duchy for about a week."
"Not taking the blade right now?"
"I came here originally just for an academic exchange. I didn't prepare any reagents or anything. Gotta give a mage time to prep, right?"
Kriel nodded readily. Preparing conversation-blocking magic normally required long hours and expensive reagents. It wasn't combat, but complex research would consume similar resources.
"Got it. Noon?"
"Yeah. Skip lunch."
Kriel found the inn among the local ones that advertised itself as the cheapest and checked in. Cheap inns were usually nests of filth and unsanitary conditions, but thanks to the duchy's wealth, even at a bargain price, the facilities were decent enough—average, at least. Of course, that "bargain" was by duchy standards; compared to a real rural inn, it wasn't cheap at all.
Still, it had a roof and blankets, so no complaints.
The moment he entered the room, Tuon shifted into humanoid form.
"Master. The blade."
"Here."
Her speech was getting shorter and shorter lately. Tuon insisted it wasn't rudeness but efficient compressed communication.
Kriel handed the horn dagger to Tuon. Orishin had no complaints about getting a clean new body and simply watched as Tuon pulled out oil and a cloth.
"By the way. You're pretty conscious about money, huh?"
She wasn't watching the blade maintenance; she must've been mulling something else. Kriel lightly affirmed Orishin's question.
"Who hates money?"
"Master. Truly important things aren't money, but honor. Wealth and glory are enough if honorably extorted from the abyss."
"That's when you get wordy."
"And one more thing. A Dark Knight—"
"Watch your words in places where others might overhear."
Everyday banter between Tuon and Kriel. Orishin, ignoring the idle chatter, bobbed his head.
"A guy who likes money blocks the Wild Hunt all by himself and takes just one coin?"
Kriel rubbed his chin. It was a rather complicated story.
"I don't always take just one coin as payment. When working as a mercenary, I get paid properly."
"What? So you weren't in Ket County for mercenary work—you just happened to stop by?"
"No. I went to the Ket territory specifically for the monster subjugation request posted by the count's family."
"Uh... and?"
Orishin had sensed something off from the start of the conversation. Didn't he take a monster subjugation request and fight a vicious monster? And got nothing for it? He'd heard Morgina call him a "knight-obsessed lunatic" now and then, but...
"But the situation back then was a bit weird. The Ket Count, who was supposed to lead the subjugation, suddenly collapsed mid-expedition. The monsters around the territory were just goblins or beastified wild animals at worst. Even with the employer down, the subjugation ended successfully."
The mercenaries got paid, and those who'd pocketed lodging fees started splurging in the bustling city.
Two days later, in the evening—that was when the ominous events began, Kriel recalled.
Banshees wailing from the communal graveyard. Plants withering despite it not being winter. Above all, the unnaturally intensifying winds. Gale-force gusts defying nature's laws amid the spirits' silence.
All of it foreshadowed the arrival of the Wild Hunt.
"The Ket family wanted to renew the contract, but it was already fulfilled. They'd probably exhausted their war supplies too. Most mercenary bands took their subjugation fees and left. I did the same."
Just in the opposite direction.
The Wild Hunt normally approached from the west, beyond the sunset horizon. While other mercenaries headed east toward the sunrise, Kriel started walking west toward the sunset.
"Why the hell would you do that?!"
"A knight can't look like he's 'fleeing' to others, right? I calculated that even heading west, I'd escape the county before midnight at my pace."
Kriel sighed. What he'd just said wasn't entirely a lie. But it was mixed with some unspoken truths.
Kriel, who had been about to leave the county outright, paused his steps thinking, "In Tirnanog RPG terms, maybe I could win considering the matchup?"
The Wraith King was one of the rare boss monsters leading an army that allowed one-on-one duels.
"But nope."
"...Are you a fucking moron?!"
"What can you do? No allies around. Too many to break through the encirclement. The highest survival odds were just holding out till dawn."
As a mercenary, he'd already settled his pay, and since the clash with the Wild Hunt wasn't commissioned but his own choice, he had no right to demand more, Kriel added.
"They insisted on paying even when I said no, so I took just one coin."
Hearing this, Orishin thought: In summary, he fought the Wild Hunt and then, purely out of his convictions, took just one coin?
'This bastard. The part about heading west to escape the territory—wasn't that a lie from the start?'