The Protagonist and the Saintess (2)
How many months had it been since she last set foot here? Isis caught the briny tang of the sea breeze blowing from afar. A summer sea. The daytime wind blowing from the ocean to the land was muggy and stifling.
As they reached the edge of the forest, the carriage gradually slowed to a crawl. Vaktins was a port city nestled in a deep bay carved out by a narrow channel. They said glaciers sliding down in the ancient past had shaped the terrain.
"We are almost at Vaktins, Saintess," the coachman's voice called out.
Isis turned away from the window and looked at Aryen, who was sitting across from her. The mercenary had not looked particularly pleased throughout the entire journey. Isis thought about calling out to Aryen, who remained lost in thought, but decided against it and looked back out the window.
Whoosh. A tree flashed past. It was broken—no, completely shattered. Beside it lay a massive boulder. The scars left by flying debris from the battle were only the beginning.
Although they were still a long distance from the harbor, the debris had already devastated everything in their path. There were boulders of a weight that seemed impossible to have flown all the way from the harbor, yet they had completely obliterated the forest, leaving massive craters in their wake.
"...How terrible," Isis murmured.
Her words were swept away by the oncoming sea breeze. Though it was a battlefield she herself had stood upon, returning here brought back nothing but unpleasant memories. How did I end up coming back here? Isis rested her elbow on the window frame and propped up her chin. The conversation she had shared with Bishop Andre in a restaurant a few weeks ago slowly drifted back into her mind.
"Where are you trying to take Isis?" Bishop Andre sighed as he looked at the mercenary blocking his path. Although the bishop was usually all smiles, he couldn't help but stiffen his expression at Aryen's persistent attitude. If Aryen had been someone he could easily ignore, it would have been one thing, but with a powerhouse he couldn't afford to overlook openly interfering, the bishop had no choice but to be wary.
"I do not understand why you are asking that. As I have already told you, you are now a complete outsider." Bishop Andre cut Aryen off firmly. "We are not trying to hinder you, nor are we trying to punish you, so please stop this. What does a mere mercenary like you hope to achieve by meddling in the affairs between the Holy Kingdom and the Kairos Kingdom?"
Aryen's face contorted. Isis watched them anxiously, her gaze darting back and forth between the two.
"...It's not like I wanted to become an outsider. When you kick me out so unilaterally and then act like this, don't think I don't have a few things to say."
"No, I believe you have nothing to say. Let me make this clear, Mr. Aryen. If you interfere any further, the Kairos Kingdom and the Holy Kingdom may cooperate to have you arrested. Please recognize your position. And recognize the weight of the power you possess." Through the bishop's squinted eyes, his ash-grey pupils gleamed sharply.
"You are not someone I can simply persuade and send on your way. Do you wish to make this matter even larger?"
"Is that so? If that's how you're going to play it, you must have thought I'd just back down quietly."
"Stop it." Unable to bear it any longer, Isis reached out and pushed the two apart. She took a slow, deep breath. It felt as if a vortex of thoughts was raging inside her head. Letting out a heavy sigh, Isis turned toward Bishop Andre.
"Please let Aryen come with us as well."
"Isis. We cannot always smile and indulge your stubbornness," Bishop Andre replied, prompting Isis to raise her voice.
"He is a mercenary I hired personally for my protection. Please allow it."
"..." The bishop stared at Isis in silence before finally letting go of his sharp aura and sighing. Aryen, seemingly realizing at last that pushing any further would only put Isis in a difficult position, shut his mouth.
"Well, very well. I suppose there is no harm in you listening." Bishop Andre permitted Aryen to accompany them and turned around. "Both of you, follow me."
The place they arrived at, following the bishop, was a mundane-looking restaurant. Aryen remained constantly on guard, and Bishop Andre shook his head as he glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. The bishop casually ordered a bean salad and then met Isis's eyes.
"...What is this task I am to undertake?"
"Go back to Vaktins."
Vaktins? Isis's eyes widened in surprise, and then her brow furrowed. "Why Vaktins all of a sudden...?"
At Isis's bewildered reaction, Bishop Andre let out a long sigh. "Do you truly not know, Isis?"
A wave of defensiveness washed over Isis first. She couldn't understand why Bishop Andre was lamenting like that. But she soon realized that his sigh was not one of mockery or frustration, but a heavy sigh born of self-reproach and pity for her. Isis's face flushed with embarrassment.
"It is to clean up the aftermath of the war. The deep scars left by the Third Calamity."
At that moment, Isis's expression crumbled.
"Though this is the affair of the Kairos Kingdom, we cannot simply stand by and watch such a disaster. As followers of the Holy Church, it is only right that we comfort the wounded."
Aryen's face remained grim, but he kept his mouth shut.
"When you selfishly left the party to follow that mercenary, the Hero did not ask us to search for you. Instead, he wished for us to support the post-war reconstruction and heal the hearts of the wounded."
The Hero? Elroy? Isis recalled Elroy's face when she had declared her departure from the party. He had started to say something to stop her, but then his brow had furrowed as he fell into thought. And then, he had simply let her walk out of the building.
"...No. There's no way he actually thought that."
She had been the healer of that party. The one who quickly mended wounds sustained in battle, allowing them to fight once more. She had believed she could no longer remain under the dictator who went by the title of Hero.
"Whether he truly thought so or not, those were the Hero's words, Isis." The bishop picked up his red wine. "As for the mercenary over there... well, he may tag along. Surely he won't act recklessly even at a post-war reconstruction site."
"Sorry to burst your bubble, but the one acting recklessly wasn't me, it was the Hero."
"Do as you please. There is no longer anyone who will shield you under the pretext of being a member of the Hero's party. And all responsibility for your actions will fall upon your employer, Isis." Bishop Andre scoffed, clearly unwilling to deal with him any further, and drank his wine.
Isis stared down at the table, her eyes still clouded with confusion.
"I will have a carriage prepared for Vaktins, Isis. I will send a few priests from the Holy Kingdom with you, so go, see what you can do, and act accordingly."
As they reached the outskirts of Vaktins, the coachman brought the horses to a halt. *Clack.* The sliding door connecting the carriage to the driver's seat opened, and the wrinkled face of the coachman appeared through the gap.
"We can't go any further from here, Saintess."
"What's the matter?"
"The road is completely ruined; there's no way the carriage can pass. I think you'll have to get off here," the coachman said, gesturing forward with his chin.
Isis opened the carriage door, stepped down, and surveyed the road ahead. The coachman also secured the horses, climbed down from his seat, and shook his head with his hands on his hips.
"...It's a mess."
"A total mess, indeed. I don't know if anyone from the city will come to receive you, Saintess. What would you like to do?"
Isis looked back. The carriage carrying the priests who had accompanied her to assist with the post-war recovery had also stopped.
"Saintess, we will have to walk from here." At the priests' words, Isis nodded heavily.
Aryen slowly climbed down from the carriage she had been riding in and looked around. The expressionless eyes of the mercenary held no sentimentality whatsoever.
"It's fine. We've already passed all the dangerous paths anyway." Isis looked at Aryen. Aryen shrugged and walked over to her, his black hair fluttering in the wind.
"The road is rough, but it's not impassable on foot. I should be able to clear away any paths that look too difficult for you to cross, so let's head out," Aryen said, looking ahead.
The road leading to the center of Vaktins had literally vanished. Landslides and the debris of collapsed buildings—that was all that met Isis's eyes. She blinked, taking in the devastation, before hardening her expression and taking a step forward.
"Let's go." Aryen began to walk. Isis watched his retreating figure, her mind drifting back to the time they fought the Third Calamity.
Aryen and Elroy had never gotten along, but they had managed to maintain a precarious balance until the battle with the Third Calamity. Yes. The catalyst that truly drove them apart was that very battle. From that day on, Aryen and Elroy seemed to harbor a genuine, deep-seated hatred for each other.
"We must not let that monster reach the shore. The open sea is out of the question, of course. We have to confront it in the narrow strait. We can do it by utilizing the islands situated within the channel."
"Are you planning to waste the soldiers' lives for nothing, Elroy? Even if we fight it in the strait, the fact remains that we'll be facing it in the water. To truly kill the Kraken, we have to wait until it reaches the shore, then strike it from both land and sea simultaneously. There is no other way."
And the two of them had fought like wildfire. Their arguments, which usually ended in mere bickering, grew increasingly vicious. Even Georg, who normally tried to laugh things off, and Nella, who usually sided with the Hero to attack Aryen and Isis, kept their mouths shut that time.
"I cannot allow that, Aryen. Follow my orders."
"Do you not want to defeat the Calamity? Wake up, Hero! This isn't a fight you can win with mere bravado. You aren't even strong enough to defeat that Calamity on your own, so what kind of fight are you trying to pick?"
"Then wait for the monster on land by yourself. I will go tell the Commander-in-Chief that I am heading out to sea with the rest of the party."
As Elroy tried to stand up, ignoring Aryen, Aryen grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Don't give me that bullshit, Elroy. If you want to commit suicide, do it alone, you son of a bitch."
"If you want everyone in Vaktins to die, then go ahead and do that."
"An evacuation order was issued for Vaktins three days ago, Elroy. There is no one left in this land."
Elroy ground his teeth as he spoke.
"Do you think only the Kraken will land when it reaches the shore? Its minions will flood into Vaktins right behind it. They are faster than horses. Needless to say, they are far faster than tens of thousands of people fleeing this land on foot. They will catch up to the evacuees within two days. And those people will be slaughtered by the monsters without a single soul to protect them."
Elroy took a step forward.
"And the soldiers who step forward to stop them will die in even greater numbers. The soldiers you claim are being 'wasted for nothing' will all perish then."
Elroy reached out and grabbed Aryen by the collar.
"Let's say we let the Kraken land, bind its body to the shore, and defeat the Calamity. What about those left behind? Who will take responsibility for the lives sacrificed during that landing?"
"If we don't step up and kill that monster, the result will be the same anyway, you idiot!" Aryen shook off Elroy's arm, his face contorting. He drew his sword and pointed it at Elroy.
Elroy drew his sword as well, and they clashed. However, there was no way Elroy could defeat Aryen in pure swordsmanship. Aryen struck Elroy down, pushed forward with his own plan, and reported it to the Commander-in-Chief, who trusted the mercenary more than the Hero.
And so—the Kraken landed in Vaktins.
They were lucky. Incredibly lucky. Mages and knights threw away their lives to bind the Kraken's movements. As its path was blocked, the thrashing Kraken swept away everything in its sight, making no distinction between ally and foe. In the wake of the Kraken's rampage, a vast number of its own minions attempting to land were crushed to death.
The survivors targeted the Kraken's main body. Aryen led the charge, and Elroy, with great difficulty, delivered the killing blow with the Holy Sword.
That was the right way. Because they had allowed the Kraken to land, they were able to defeat it—so said those who had slain the Calamity. Isis, who had only been focused on defeating the Kraken at the time, had also believed it was the right choice.
The Hero's party was escorted away as soon as the battle ended. The joy of having defeated a Calamity had acted like a blindfold, obscuring Isis's vision.
Isis breathed heavily as she stared at the coast of Vaktins, now submerged under the sea. The geography had completely changed. What once was a city was now a ruin. The areas close to the sea were entirely flooded, leaving no trace that land had ever existed there. The entire coastline had been hollowed out into a massive, sunken bay.
Was this place always like this? As Isis stared blankly at the sea, the local governor of Vaktins approached her.
"Welcome, Saintess. I heard you have come to Vaktins to support our recovery efforts."
"...It is a pleasure to meet you."
Observing Isis's dazed expression, the governor spoke in a bitter tone.
"With the Kraken's landing, Vaktins has essentially ceased to exist as a city. Had its destructive rampage continued even a little longer, this entire province would have been laid waste or submerged underwater."
The governor offered words of gratitude, but nothing registered in Isis's ears.
"The residents..."
"Many of the residents who refused to evacuate, claiming they would support the expeditionary force, perished. Needless to say, the military forces stationed in Vaktins were decimated."
The governor sighed, looking down at the rubble scattered at his feet.
"The evacuees have been returning one by one, but... quite a few were lost during the evacuation itself. Some were ambushed by monsters that managed to escape the battlefield, and many were killed by flying debris. I do not know how the Royal Palace views this matter, but..."
Isis followed the governor, trying her best to ignore a splitting headache. Far from the city center, a temporary settlement had been established.
"Please, show mercy to the wounded, Saintess."
The painful groans echoing from all corners of the settlement rang hollowly in Isis's ears.