The Hidden Presence in the Lake
"So this is the lake. I've heard the stories, but this is my first time coming here in person. I had no idea it was this big."
"It's large enough that several neighboring estates besides ours use it. Not just for fishing — people gather here for meetings as well."
Once again I stood before the vast lake, trading small talk with Elaine. The crowds were still sparse.
In their place, soldiers and knights from other estates were visible here and there — no doubt dispatched to deal with the recent incidents.
"Halt! Who goes there! Identify yourself!"
"I am Reus, Lord of Crow's Head Valley. The person beside me is—"
"Proof? Do you have any?"
"Er... proof?"
Proof? What on earth was he talking about? The moment he said it, I paused to think — and realized I didn't actually have a single thing on me to prove I was a lord.
"Well... I mean, there isn't exactly anything I can show you, but—"
"Terrible things keep happening at this lake of late. Do you know anything about them?"
"N-no? I don't know anyth—anything at all, about, uh, anything of that sort!"
The soldier's glare and scowling expression completely steamrolled me. And when he asked whether I knew something, my mage's guilty conscience pricked me so hard that I stammered through my denial.
"Your manner, your dress... you reek of suspicion no matter how I look at you. Come with me! We'll see about this!"
"No, wait, you see — hold on just a moment—"
Huh? Why did this look exactly like a suspect being hauled off by the police? Until now, Laura had always accompanied me whenever I went out, so I'd never once needed to think about proving who I was... What a disaster!
"One moment."
It was right then, as I awkwardly shuffled after the soldier with no idea what to do. Elaine stretched out her arm to stop me and stepped forward.
"And who might you be?"
"I am Elaine, an inspector dispatched to this place by order of Count Jorden."
As she spoke, she produced a corded metal seal from inside her coat. Engraved upon it was a single hawk, wings spread, soaring upward.
"Th-that's the Count's family seal...! My sincerest apologies!!"
"And I can personally vouch that this man is indeed Reus, Lord of Crow's Head Valley, in the flesh. Should any lingering doubt remain in your heart..."
"N-not at all!! Suspecting him? The very idea is absurd!"
"Good. The more turbulent the times, the more we must trust one another."
The soldier, whose attitude had flipped to deference the instant he saw the seal, bowed deeply at the waist, paid his respects, and swiftly departed.
"In situations like these, you must carry yourself with composure, my lord."
"Thank you. My mind went completely blank for a moment there, and, well..."
"You should prepare at least one means of proving who you are. In a backwater like this it may not matter, but in crowded places, situations like this are an everyday occurrence."
"Should I just start wearing a fertilizer sack everywhere I go?"
Pfft! Elaine burst out laughing at my lone complaint. Having quickly recovered, she gave a small bow of her head.
"F-forgive me for laughing. It's just... the customary thing would be to have a crest made, and instead you went straight to wearing a sack..."
Was it really that funny? Well, laughter's good for you! For the rest of the day we made a slow circuit of the lakeshore, meeting all manner of people, and thanks to Elaine, no further clashes broke out.
"This place never used to feel like this."
The anglers and fishermen who once frequented the lakeshore were nowhere to be seen. All that remained were armed soldiers and knights, endlessly circling.
Hans had mentioned it had been a long while since he'd been able to take his son to the lake. It was plain that the incidents there had cast a pall over the entire region.
I hugged the waterline closely and made a full circuit, but still there was no reaction. The culprit behind all this apparently lived in the water — and at a considerable depth, at that.
Does it only surface to ambush its prey? I suppose I'd better go pump someone for information.
I doubled back the way I'd come and peppered one of the knights with every question I could think of. Once again, thanks to Elaine, getting answers was easy. The authority of a Count was absolutely terrifying.
"The incidents all seem to have occurred during the night. Not a single person who visited during the day came to harm."
"Only at night, then... Is it avoiding human eyes?"
"That would be my guess. A mad thing committing such atrocities has no reason to prowl about in broad daylight."
"So there have been no further casualties since then, I take it?"
"Correct. No creature would have the gall to strike again in the face of this many soldiers. Unless it had a death wish."
Just as the knight said, the soldiers — operating on the assumption that the culprit was a deranged human — kept their distance from the water, merely patrolling the perimeter in a loose encirclement.
A sensible response. My thinking, however, was different.
This is bad. Very bad indeed.
Everyone else seemed to believe that with no new victims, the culprit must have simply given up. But from my perspective — from a mage's perspective — nothing could be further from the truth.
Setting aside special cases like the Jack-o'-Lantern, every monster I'd encountered so far had adhered to the basic laws of biology.
Eating, sleeping — they maintained the fundamental metabolism required of living things. The werewolf, after all, had stolen sheep time and again to feed itself, hadn't it?
And judging by the testimony that this incident's monster had devoured its victims' internal organs, it clearly needed to eat as well. Which meant...
This monster can only live in water — in this lake. That's why it preyed on the humans and animals that came to the shore. But now? The soldiers have the lake completely surrounded and under constant watch, so no person — no animal, even — can get anywhere near it.
For a creature that lived in a confined environment, hunted in a limited way, and survived on those catches alone, the act of hunting itself had been cut off at the source. In other words—
There's a very good chance that thing is starving right now.
A beast that tore out and devoured the guts of wild animals and humans alike wasn't about to fill its belly on lake fish. And if its disposition really was Ferocious? It was the worst possible combination.
If it can't overcome the hunger, there's no telling how it might go berserk. In the worst case, it might throw itself onto land in broad daylight, desperate to fill its stomach.
If that happened, not only the soldiers but the knights as well could be slaughtered en masse. The casualties that would follow... were unthinkable.
I felt pathetic for having hesitated all this time. This was an incident that needed resolving not a day, not an hour, but a moment sooner.
I'll carry out the execution today.
It all ends tonight.
"My lord?"
"Hm? Yes? Is something the matter, Inspector?"
"Are you perhaps troubled by something? You haven't answered a word I've said this whole while."
"Ah... it's nothing, really. I was just wondering what sort of wretched creature would commit atrocities like these."
Elaine had been watching Reus from beside him for some time before she finally spoke up, having observed him sunk deep in silent thought.
People do say a person looks different when concentrating, but this was enough to make him seem like an entirely different man.
The seriousness radiating from him just now made her wonder if this could really be the same Reus with his usual layabout air.
Frankly, he struck her as quite a decent man — enough that the thought crossed her mind unbidden. Still, her instincts as a professional ranked business first.
It had been like this when she first arrived, and it was the same today. He was displaying an uncannily sharp attitude toward this case.
He tends to handle other matters with all due diligence, but with this one, the weight is different. The way he's proceeding with such caution... it's as if he already knows the truth behind the incidents.
That was what Elaine's instincts, honed over years of work as an inspector, were telling her. Reus knew how these crimes were being committed — or knew the culprit. There was no doubt in her mind.
But beyond that, she couldn't see. If one knew the method, one only had to block it; if one knew the culprit, one only had to catch them. Simple as that.
In cases like this — a man wringing his hands alone in deep thought — it was most often because he knew the solution but couldn't put it into action.
She could have leveraged her position as inspector to press him, to demand what he knew... but she doubted that would yield the answer she wanted.
Perhaps it's time to dust off a few old habits?
Before she became an inspector, Elaine had served as an infiltration scout. She'd sought out lords hostile to Jorden and dug out their weaknesses — quite a glamorous chapter of her past, all things considered.
Judging from how Reus paced restlessly night after night, unable to sleep, it was certain he intended to do something at the lake after dark.
Nothing was surer than catching someone in the act. Whatever he was hiding, she need only seize him in the middle of it.
If it's nighttime activity you're planning, then night work happens to be something I'm rather good at myself, Lord Reus.
That same night, after returning from the lake, Elaine dressed in the lightest possible gear and a drab black outfit, and set out once more for the lakeshore.
During her stay here she had already mapped out which guard posts were lax, so slipping out unnoticed was simple enough.
Cutting swiftly through a small wood along the shortest route, Elaine arrived at the lake and scanned her surroundings.
If Lord Reus is coming to the lake, he'll most likely approach from this direction. It's the side with the fewest people.
Luckily, it being late in the night, the soldiers were fewer than they had been in daylight. The moonlight, too, was smothered by clouds, leaving everything dark — there could be no better night for the job.
Moving toward the emptiest stretch of shore, she concealed herself in the reed beds close to the water. Detecting the presence of approaching people was her specialty; if anyone came, she need only dive.
Time slipped by. She spotted a soldier or two passing in the distance, but the Reus she was waiting for never appeared.
What is this? Was my instinct wrong? Was that display in the daytime really nothing more than a man lost in worry?
Combining everything she had observed of Reus's behavior and character, she had been confident he would act tonight — and now impatience began to seep into that certainty.
Tch. I have to be back before sunrise, at the very least...!
If word got out that a supposed inspector had snuck out in the dead of night without so much as a by-your-leave, there was no telling what it would do to Jorden's reputation.
Just as Elaine, nerves frayed, began to wonder if she should give up for tonight and try again another day—
Chak.
"Ehk?!"
Someone had seized her ankle. Seized was almost too gentle a word — it clamped down hard enough to be called a shackle.
Before the startled woman could even glimpse her attacker's identity, her body was wrenched into the water with tremendous force.
Water flooded into Elaine's mouth, entirely unprepared as she was. Where a scream should have been, only bubbles surged upward.
Unable to breathe, she had no presence of mind even to glance at whoever was dragging her down.
Wh-who...?! N-no...!! I... I can't... brea— kgh!!
In the space of an instant she was hauled down into the black depths of the lake. She thrashed to swim for the surface, but it only receded faster.
I... I have to... live... I ha— have to... live...
The more air fled her lungs, the slower her thoughts became. Her body, wrapped in the frigid water, was going numb with cold.
I'm going to die.
That was Elaine's final thought. Her limp body drifted feebly, and the moment her eyelids began to droop—
With a small splash somewhere nearby, a human silhouette loomed suddenly into her dimming vision.
Lord... Reus...?
The face of the man hastily grasping her hand and hauling her upward was unmistakably Reus's. That was the last thing Elaine managed to register before she lost consciousness.
PWAH!! Bursting through the surface, I scooped Elaine into my arms and hurried out of the lake, immediately beginning CPR.
"Wake! Up! If! You! Die! What! Am! I! Supposed! To! Tell! The! Count! HUH?!"
Slipping out as usual to hunt down the monster was all well and good — but spotting Elaine wandering the area and cowardly hiding myself away had proven to be the root of the disaster.
A little later, and she would surely have become the seventh victim. I pumped her chest desperately until she finally lurched and spewed up a mouthful of water.
Her eyes fluttered open briefly before she passed out again. I checked her pulse — slow, but beating, and beating with certainty.
I carried Elaine to a nearby thicket and laid her down, then returned to the lake. Mercifully, there was no sign of anyone coming.
Trying to kill a man right in front of his face? A flash of pure fury shot through me as I swept my soaked hair back.
"Hey, you rotten bastard. Been your whole little world up until now, hasn't it?"
Beneath the ink-black surface, I could feel something glaring up at me with murderous eyes — a gaze brimming with hatred.
"Fine. It's not as though we could brawl noisily out of the water anyway... so I'll humor you in your home ground. Gladly."
Just as enraged as the thing below, I gathered the surrounding air into one great bubble and clamped it over my head. There — breathing problem solved.
The instant my resolve was set, I threw myself in with all my strength and dove into the depths of the lake. And there, the culprit that had been lurking revealed itself.
Fish from the waist down, horse from the waist up. The two halves weren't crudely stitched together — they blended seamlessly, as though it had been born that way.
Pale, dark-scaled skin so close in color to the water it was nearly indistinguishable from it, and where a horse's mane should have been, seaweed grew in thick tangles. One look was enough to name it a monster.
[Mod: Kelpie] has appeared.