EP.10.5 Aftermath -1
EP.10.5 Aftermath -1
We succeeded in defeating Hati, but there were far too many problems left to solve.
First, we had to erase all traces of our presence from the scene, and we also had to preemptively block anything that might lead to secondary damage later on.
After that, I needed to report that I was still alive to the agents who had come with me, and then next...
"My head's gonna crack open!"
Anyway, there was way too much to worry about and way too many things to stress over.
The part that worried me most of all was the possibility of invasion by other Divine Beasts, and chief among them was Fenrir—known as Hati's father.
A wolf that had nearly wiped out humanity once before, six hundred years ago.
According to the information recorded in history books, I knew him to be a wolf more than fifty times the size of the ice wolf I had met.
How were we supposed to fight a wolf that looked like it could casually chew up and swallow even the meteor I had just created...?
"Uh, hey, Yata?"
"What is it~?"
"So... could you tell me when Fenrir might attack?"
"Fenrir? Ah-ha! You mean that gluttonous wolf bastard?"
"Yeah..."
Wasn't it a little problematic to call Fenrir a glutton?
He'd been an object of terror for humanity for six hundred years...
"He won't come here for the next thousand years."
"F-for real?"
"Yep! He's such a pig of a wolf who hates moving around, so unless a world-ending crisis shows up, there won't be any reason for him to come."
"Even though we killed Fenrir's offspring...?"
"Aha~! So that's why you've been so restless and fidgety this whole time?"
"It's an important issue! I just can't even imagine us pulling off a win against Fenrir."
"Hmm! For a dear husband like that, I've got one piece of good news and one piece of bad news—which do you want to hear first?"
Good news and bad news. The order hardly seemed to matter...
"There's also a way to hear both at the same time. Want me to do that?"
"Let's go with that, then."
"Alright, I'll tell you. First off, the Hati we thought we'd killed isn't actually dead. Which means that pig of a wolf won't be coming to take revenge on us."
"What...?"
That ice wolf was alive?!
"Honestly, I was going to hide it because I didn't want to spoil the mood, but if you're that worried, I've got no choice but to tell you."
"She's really alive? How?!"
"Well, because the wolf we just killed was a fake. The real one has a moon-shaped mark on its back."
"How do you know that in such detail?"
"That dumb wolf came looking for me once before to ask whether she could swallow the moon. I got to see the real wolf then, so of course I'd know."
So that's what happened in the past...
But there were still plenty of questions that hadn't been answered.
"If that thing was a fake, then what was the blood the fake was shedding? That wasn't ice."
"Hati's ability isn't just being an ice machine that only creates ice. He also possesses the ability to breathe new life and flesh into ice."
"Breathing life and flesh into ice—don't tell me...?!"
"Yes. She can create anything from ice, so long as it's a living creature—Divine Beasts excluded."
A creation ability of an entirely different concept from Miho's.
The real ability was so absurd that it left me bewildered, but thinking about it, every Divine Beast was said to possess world-shaking powers, so it felt fitting enough.
To be honest, the old ice wolf that only created and shot ice had always felt a little undignified for a Divine Beast.
"Then what is that fake Hati? He still used Divine Beast-like abilities, didn't he?"
"He was made by copying himself, so even if he turned out to be a degraded version, making one would've been possible."
"So all this time, I've been fighting with everything I had against a fake...?"
"Most likely, yeah. If it had been the real thing, I'd have had to come rescue you right away—meteor prep and all be damned."
"To think the gap between the real one and the fake was that huge."
"Then I'll give you one more choice. A happy dream or a hellish reality. Which one do you pick?"
...Another choice?
But this time, it seemed like I could only hear one of the two, so I figured I had to choose carefully.
"Then give me reality."
"If we assumed you stood toe-to-toe one-on-one with every Divine Beast in this world, I can state with absolute certainty that you wouldn't last more than ten seconds."
"In other words..."
"It means that if it had been the real Hati, he'd have frozen you dead on the spot without any fuss."
So this was the painful reality...
It was true that there had never once been a case in history of a human defeating a Divine Beast.
That meant that the beings called Divine Beasts were just that overwhelmingly powerful.
To put it bluntly, it was the same even if I thought about my own companions right now.
If I fought Tia, I'd get obliterated without a word, and the same went for Miho.
"Then why did Hati send a clone? If he'd come himself, I'm pretty sure he could've killed me outright...?"
"If I had to guess, it was meant as a warning, or to gauge what kind of fighting strength we had. Could easily be both."
"Hmm..."
A Divine Beast of immense power, and yet the cautious type.
A being who could kill me in an instant in a one-on-one situation, and yet...
"Hey, check it out. Just a thought that popped into my head, but even if the wolf bastard's out of the question, if it were a Divine Beast with a non-combat-specialized ability like you, wouldn't I stand a chance of lasting ten seconds?"
"Hmm~? Do you really think so, dear husband?"
"Looking at the odds, I kind of thought that might be—whoa?!"
Yata suddenly pounced on me, and I hurried into a defensive stance and tried to hold out, but my body toppled straight backward—probably due to the overwhelming difference in raw strength.
The place we were in had a snowy floor, so the fall came with almost no pain, but I was still considerably shocked by the feeling of being instantly overpowered in a contest of strength and forcibly laid flat.
And I'd been using my full strength, too...!
"I'll admit what you said to a point. If there were lots of people, they could probably last ten seconds against me. But one-on-one is different, dear husband."
Yata had climbed on top of me after I fell and was looking down at my face.
Her face wore a smile tinged with both disappointment and mischief at the same time.
"You know it well enough too, don't you? That Divine Beasts and humans are fundamentally different in basic ability from the start. Which is why a Divine Beast like me can do this—pounce on you, then poke right here, and it's over."
Yata was poking with her finger at a spot just slightly to the right of my left chest—exactly where my heart was.
Those words made every drop of blood in my body freeze.
Part of it was the simple fact that the place I was lying on was cold snow, but more than that, the image of my heart being pierced by Yata's hand and dying on the spot was the true culprit that chilled my blood cold.
"Of course! I haven't got the slightest intention of killing you, so I'll never pounce on you like this! If I ever did, well..."
"Hrk?!"
Yata casually lifted her skirt to show her panties.
On top of that, with the lewd smile she put on, she looked as though she was about to mate with me right here in this completely open space.
"It'd probably just be to pounce on you and devour you, dear husband...♡"
"Gah!!"
"Of course, I won't do it right now, though~! Ahaha!!"
Yata's mischievous prank. At this, the blood that had gone cold boiled back up, and I was so embarrassed that my face grew hot.
I knew Yata loved flustering me and savouring my reactions, yet I still fell for it every time...
"How about it? I pounced on you to show that even a Divine Beast like me can attack like this. Do you get it now?"
"Yeah. Sorry."
I hadn't meant it that way, but it was still my fault for essentially looking down on Yata.
So I honestly felt sorry toward her.
So truly sorry, in fact...
Could she please get off me now?
Miho's gaze from over there was getting darker and darker...?
So please, hurry!!
"Hmm! It seems you understand now, so I will let it slide this once!"
Whether my silent cry had gotten through or not, Yata got off me.
But it seemed Miho's temper had already been provoked way too much, because a single snowball was flying fast toward the back of Yata's head.
"Aht...!!"
"Doesn't bother me—stuff like this happens all the time, right?"
By tilting her head just slightly, Yata succeeded in dodging the snowball flying at her,
but the snowball, having lost its target, happened to strike a tree right behind us head-on, blasting a huge hole into it.
Huh...? How had a snowball punched a hole in a tree?
At the sudden flash of puzzlement, I examined the hole in the tree and found a hard, round object.
"Th-this is...!"
A rock. But not an ordinary rock—it was a meteor fragment from earlier, packed inside the snowball and thrown.
This made it crystal clear. Miho was out to kill Yata!
"Tia."
"Kkyu-i?"
"Shall I teach you a fun game we can play only here?"
"Kkyu-it!!"
"Watch closely. Like this, you gather up lots of snow, then shape it nice and round, then put a little rock just like this one inside and throw it...!!"
Miho, having finished crafting another weapon, casually hurled the freshly made instrument of murder straight at Yata.
And Yata dodged that one just as leisurely. Miho's face twisted for an instant, but she immediately swapped it back to a beaming smile and turned to Tia again.
"This is the game called a snowball fight! Shall Tia make lots too?"
"Kkyuu!!"
"S-stop it!! Don't go teaching Tia the wrong things!!"
"Dear husband? A snowball fight isn't exactly a wrong game, is it?"
Right. A snowball fight wasn't a wrong game, sure...
"But the way you're making the snowballs is wrong!!"
"No, dear husband. Us Divine Beasts are sturdy, you see. At least this much is needed for there to be any thrill."
Every single one of those snowballs was lethally dangerous, though...?
"That's right, I agree with that!"
"Yata...?!"
Pattering over and pulling a long leather pouch out from behind some tree, Yata wore a deeply meaningful smile.
A moment later, she opened the leather pouch and showed fully what was inside...
Countless snowballs.
Snowballs that looked like they'd been made in advance were packed inside the leather pouch.
"I knew this moment would come, so I had my followers prepare these ahead of time! For the record, every single one of these snowballs has a rock inside!"
"No, you're insane!! You had even something like this prepared in advance?!"
"Of course! If not now, when else am I going to get a chance to teach that damned fox a lesson?"
"You're making quite the amusing chicken noises. Did you fail to foresee the future where one of your wings is crippled today, leaving you unable to fly like a chicken?"
"There's no future like that. Though there is one where one of your tails gets put out of commission."
—Crrrunch!! Grrrind!!
The two of them each loosened up their bodies and glared at each other, even grinding their teeth.
This was bizarre. Until just a moment ago, we'd been talking about the ice wolf—so how had things ended up like this?
Why had the flow of the conversation shifted this way?
I had no idea. I didn't even want to think about it anymore.
The day had exhausted me so thoroughly that I had no energy left to think.
That was why, though I was normally the one who stopped their fights, I decided to be a complete bystander today.
If we were lucky, it'd probably end with nothing more than every tree in this place getting snapped in half.
I'd simply...
"Kkyu-it! Kkyu-it!"
I resolved to just relax while watching the adorable sight of Tia, who was beside Miho, fumbling and fiddling as she made a snowball.
"Kkyu-it!!"
Maybe she was happy about making her first snowball, because Tia cried out, Done!!
Ah! Truly, this was cleansing...!
"Kkyuu!"
Hm? She said she'd give it to me since it was her commemorative first snowball?
"Then I'll gratefully accept it."
"Kkyuu-it!!"
Tia giggled adorably, gurgling with laughter at my willingness to take it.
Then, as if she couldn't contain her happy feelings, the baby dragon prepared to throw the snowball she'd made at me.
...
...
...
...Huh?
"If you, a Divine Beast, throw that at me—ghk?!"
A dull thud came first, followed by intense, throbbing pain, and my vision shook as if the world itself was trembling.
The pain and symptoms were unlike anything I'd ever experienced, and even though I wanted to keep my wits about me, I couldn't.
"Ahh..."
At last, my fading consciousness began to be sucked into a deepening haze of darkness, my eyelids closing of their own accord.
I'd said my head was going to crack open, but I never thought it really would...