A Three-Day Patient
The second explosion thundered through the mountains. It was definitely closer than the first.
Blackie, who had been lying in front of the house, sprang to his feet. All three heads turned toward the forest below at once. A low growl rolled out of him, and the air around us grew heavy and still. Adelia gripped her half-broken sword.
"They're already this close…"
I looked at her hand.
"Let go."
Adelia turned to me.
"Pardon?"
"Don't hold the sword."
"But those people came here to kill me."
"So?"
"I have to go out there."
"What did I just tell you?"
Adelia's mouth snapped shut.
"I'll only use the sword."
"Sure, sure. Go ahead. Swing the sword. Then wrap mana around it while you're at it."
There was no answer. Knights weren't the type to swing a blade with nothing but their own two hands. When I'd asked her just a moment ago, hadn't she said she'd coated it in mana?
I held out my hand.
"Give it here."
"Give you what?"
"The sword."
Adelia looked at me like I'd lost my mind. She handed it over anyway. I took the blade and leaned it against the wall of the house.
"That's enough."
"Kyle, I…"
"If you go out there now and collapse, everything I said becomes meaningless."
Adelia froze. I sighed and scratched my head.
"I said I'd take a look at you, so stay put for three days."
"You too, old man."
Beside us, the red-haired knight who'd been reaching for his sword stopped.
"I can still fight."
"Those wounds look like they're just waiting to split open again."
"Even so, protecting Her Highness is my duty."
"Then protect her from here."
"Pardon?"
I pointed at Blackie.
"With him."
All three heads looked at the knight at once. The middle-aged knight's face went a shade paler.
"…With that magic beast?"
"What, not reassuring enough?"
Blackie growled as if in agreement. The knight's face said he did not agree in the slightest.
I tapped Blackie's front leg.
"These people. Don't let them leave."
Grr?
"Especially her."
I pointed at Adelia.
"…You're ordering it to watch me?"
"Yep."
"I am a princess."
"Blackie doesn't know what that is."
The three heads tilted in unison.
"And even if he did, he wouldn't care."
With that, I started down the mountain. Behind me, Adelia called out.
"You're going alone?"
"Who else would I go with?"
"We don't even know how many there are."
"I'll find out when I get there."
"It could be dangerous."
I didn't bother answering that. I had lived on this mountain for fifteen years. I had been chased by wolves bigger than a man. That wasn't even the half of it. I had been bitten by a giant snake that spat poison, and the first time I met Blackie I had run for my life trying to figure out which of the three heads was the real one.
I had survived fifteen years of that. Why would I start being afraid now just because a few people had come up the mountain with weapons?
More than anything else—
"I said I'd look after her first."
I muttered it under my breath. Leaving someone I had arbitrarily decided to look after to die right in front of me would leave a bad taste in my mouth. Three days from now, maybe. Until then, it was a problem.
The place where the second explosion had gone off wasn't far. A little ways down the mountain path, several trees had been snapped in half. One boulder was cracked through, and the dirt was blackened with scorch marks.
People were coming up through the wreckage. All of them wore clothes in shades of black. There were four of them, and they weren't dressed for mountain climbing—close-fitting clothes for ease of movement, weapons strapped to their waists and thighs, cloth covering the lower half of their faces. Anyone could tell they hadn't come to gather herbs.
They spotted me too. The man in the lead raised a hand, and the rest of the group stopped as one.
"Who are you?"
His opening line was already a pain in the ass.
"I was about to ask you the same thing."
I pointed at the broken trees.
"Did you do this?"
The man's gaze flicked to the trees, then back to me.
"Has a silver-haired woman and a red-haired man passed this way?"
Of course. I sighed inwardly.
"They passed through, yeah."
The atmosphere changed instantly. Several hands dropped to their belts.
"Where did they go?"
"Mind if I ask why you want to know?"
"You don't need to know."
"Then I don't need to tell you, either."
A brief silence fell. The man in the lead spoke in a low voice.
"I'll ask one last time."
He snarled it like a growl.
"Where is that woman?"
"I'll answer one last time."
I shook my head.
"I'm not telling you."
They drew their swords. Just as expected.
The man closed the distance in an instant. The two beside him moved almost at the same time. They were fast—much faster, at least, than the mercenaries who'd wandered onto this mountain years ago and gotten lost.
But the sword flying at my throat bounced off empty air with a sharp clang. More precisely, it struck the barrier of mana I had spread in front of my body. The man's eyes went wide. The second blade coming in at my side met the same fate.
I moved my fingers slightly. The barrier, which had been stretched taut, suddenly went soft. Mana bent like cloth and wrapped around the blade.
"What—!"
I pulled. The sword tore free of the man's hand and buried itself in the ground. In that same instant, the third man lunged into the opening. I twisted the mana that had been wrapping the sword, drawing it fine as a thread. It whispered past the man's throat. He took a few more running steps, then crumpled to the ground.
On the other side, flames erupted. The last one had used magic, apparently. A fireball came flying straight at me. I widened the shape of my mana again, spreading it like a barrier, and this time I made the nature of it soft. The flames sank into the mana. The barrier gathered like a cloth wrapping the fire whole. The fire writhed a few times inside. I clenched my fist, and the flames died.
"Don't you know you're not supposed to play with fire in the mountains?"
If it spreads, who's supposed to put it out?
There was no answer. Instead the man backed up and threw a dagger. This time I drew my mana out long—one thread, then two, then three. Mana thinned to threads sliced through the air. The dagger caught on a thread and bounced aside.
I swung one of those threads as it was. A red line opened across the man's chest. He toppled backward and didn't move.
I rolled my wrist. The remaining threads whispered between the trees. The mana threads wrapped around the arms and ankles of the two who were still standing. The ones who'd been charging froze.
"Kh!"
One of them tried to force his arm to move. All that did was pull the thread taut. Something in the joint ground and cracked.
"Guh…!"
"Don't struggle."
I loosened my fingers a little.
"If you put any strength into it, you'll be the one that snaps."
The man's movements stopped. I looked around. Two were down. Two were bound. It had gone quiet. It had ended faster than I expected.
Dealing with people is a lot easier.
If I'd used threads on a magic beast, I couldn't have made them this thin. Even a little too fine and they'd snap them with brute force, so I usually made them as thick as chains, or wove several layers together. People, though—bind a few joints and they couldn't move. It used far less mana, too.
Having finished subduing them, I crouched in front of the man who'd been in the lead.
"Let's talk."
The man clenched his teeth and glared at me.
"Who the hell are you?"
"I feel like I already heard that question."
"What's your relationship with that woman?"
Relationship. I thought about it for a moment. It certainly wasn't a master-and-disciple relationship. That was only the relationship Adelia wanted. We weren't friends, either, and we'd only just met, so we weren't even acquaintances, really.
"Patient?"
"…What?"
"A three-day one, at that."
The man's expression went strange.
"What are you talking about?"
"I don't feel like explaining."
I stood up.
"Anyway, not for three days."
"Not what?"
"Killing that woman."
This time the eyes of both bound men changed at once. I added, watching them.
"I agreed to look after her condition for three days."
"I said I'd do it first. If she dies in the middle, it'd leave a bad taste."
The man in the lead was silent for a moment. An emotion I couldn't quite understand crossed his face—confusion, wariness, and a faint trace of fear. I paid it no mind and tugged on the mana threads. The two bound men staggered at the same time.
"So."
I jerked my chin toward the mountain above.
"Let's go up."
"…Where?"
"My house."
The man's face hardened.
"I'll hear why you're chasing that woman there."
"And if we don't talk?"
I thought about it for a second. I didn't know how to torture anyone, and I had no intention of trying. So I answered roughly.
"Then I'll just keep you tied up for three days."
"After that, do whatever you want."
That was when it happened. For the first time, the man in the lead looked visibly flustered.
"You're saying you'll let us go after three days?"
"Probably?"
"Us?"
What a weird question. I tilted my head.
"You that eager to die?"
The man's mouth closed. Everything around us went quiet. It seemed I was going to need a little time to get used to talking to people from down the mountain again. I sighed and pulled on the threads.
"Let's go."
The two captured assassins came stumbling after me in a line. As the house came into view, Blackie lifted his heads first.
Grrrng?
The three heads looked back and forth between me and the two people being dragged along behind.
"They're not food."
Grr.
Why did he sound disappointed.
After that, Adelia and the middle-aged knight appeared. The two of them stiffened once at the sight of me returning unharmed, and again at the assassins behind me.
"…You subdued all of them?"
the middle-aged knight asked.
"Yeah."
"By yourself?"
"I went by myself."
Why ask the obvious. Adelia's gaze went to the assassins, then back to me. Her expression was strangely complicated. I ignored that look and pointed at the thick tree in front of the house.
"Let's tie them up over there for now."
"You left two of them alive?"
"I have questions."
This time even Adelia fell silent.
"No—these guys are these guys."
I pointed at her neck.
"You worry about yourself first. I told you not to use mana for three days."
Adelia looked at me for a moment, then slowly nodded.
"Understood, Master."
"Who's your master."
"You personally stepped forward and even protected my life."
"I just said I'd look because your condition was interesting. I didn't do it to save you."
"Yes. I understand."
She didn't look like she understood at all. My head was already starting to hurt. This one might turn out to be more of a pain than the assassins.