The Sage's Story
"Sage!!"
…He had been about to do it.
He would have, if not for the presence he sensed approaching from far off.
"Please help us! Please, please help us!! Sage!"
For the first time in a long while, someone was climbing Mount Ebih.
Ever since Inanna had issued her decree, no one had set foot on the mountain — until now. And more than that, the voice of the person seeking Sunya was raw with desperation.
Sunya halted the activation of his time travel mid-cast and set off at once in the direction of the sound.
"Sage!!"
Before long he found a face he knew.
It was Enede, Kubatum's older sister.
But she was in a terrible state.
That her entire body was soaked in blood went without saying. Her left arm had been severed; tears and snot streaked her face. She was barely holding her side closed, where her entrails threatened to spill free.
No one looking at that wreck of a figure would have easily recalled the greatest beauty of the village below the mountain.
"Please, calm yourself."
When Sunya suddenly appeared before her, Enede started so badly she nearly lost her footing. He caught her, steadied her, and eased her down to sit. Only then did she recognize the man she had been searching for, and a shuddering breath of relief left her.
"I—I'm so sorry, Sage. You were the only person I could think of to ask for help…"
"It's all right. Take a moment, then tell me what happened."
Even as he supported her, Sunya poured divinity into her body. The wound in her side sealed shut, and slowly — slowly — her left arm began to grow back. Enede herself was far too agitated to notice what was happening to her own flesh.
"H-help us, Sage! Raiders have attacked the village! They took my sister, and the village chief is badly hurt. Please help us — please, save them!"
"…I believe I understand the situation well enough."
As if on cue, two unfamiliar figures emerged from the brush behind them. Men Sunya had never seen in the village below — men marked with strange tattoos across their bodies.
"So this is where you ran off to?"
"And who's the pretty boy?"
They did not look like good men. Even for Sunya, it was hard to look kindly on people who wore necklaces strung with human fingers and carried spears fashioned from human bone.
"No… they've already come this far…"
Despair flooded Enede's eyes.
"…I don't believe we've met. What brings you gentlemen to this place?"
"Heh. You hear that? What brings you gentlemen?"
"Looks like a smug little bastard who can't read a room."
"We're hunters. And that woman in your arms? She's the deer."
Whatever private joke amused them, the two men cackled among themselves.
"Th-those men are raiders. They stormed into the village without warning and slaughtered people at random. I…"
Enede began to explain the situation in detail, but Sunya cut her gently short.
"Rest for now. I'll hear the rest later."
"You can't! The village is still—"
"What Miss Enede needs is rest. I'll have a word with these gentlemen. Don't worry yourself."
The raiders, overhearing the exchange, burst into howling laughter.
"You catch that? He'll have a word with us!"
"What a goddamn saint!!"
They cackled and cackled.
Listening to that laughter, Enede felt less anger than pure fear.
"Sage…"
"It's all right. Nothing will happen."
No.
The Sage only says that because he doesn't know how terrifying they are. He doesn't know what those monsters wearing human skins did to her village.
It hadn't stopped at killing the men and violating the women. They were beasts who committed, without a second thought, every atrocity a human being must never commit.
There was so much she wanted to say, but the words would not come. Enede stammered like a fool — yet Sunya, whether he understood her heart or not, only offered her a gentle smile.
Strangely, looking at that smile eased her fear, if only a little.
But… why aren't they coming closer?
A sudden question rose in her mind. Only then did Enede realize something was wrong with the raiders' behavior.
Knowing their nature, they should have charged the Sage and attacked him already.
But they hadn't. Why?
A moment later, she understood.
Their bodies were trembling — faintly, but unmistakably. They were only putting on a show of strength. They were too afraid of Sunya to rush him.
The raiders of this age were not mere bands of thieves. They were closer to packs of superhuman predators. They hunted people with senses so transcendent they made the frail humanity of later ages look like nothing at all.
And precisely because of that, they knew. Their minds might not grasp it, but their wild instincts screamed at them without cease.
Run.
Don't look back. Get away from this place.
"I already have a fair idea, but I'll ask just in case. Who are you? What business brought you here?"
"…"
Strangely, the men found themselves unable to speak. The trembling in their bodies only grew worse.
"Aaaargh!!"
One of them could no longer bear the fear and hurled his spear.
It flew in a straight line, not an arc — packed with enough raw force to shatter a boulder the size of a house.
Sunya plucked it from the air and sent it back the way it had come.
The spear punched through the man's shin, and the entire leg burst apart.
"Ghk—!!"
The pain was so absolute he could not even scream. His companion, watching him collapse, spun around in terror to flee.
"Don't move."
But Sunya was already behind him. A hand settled on the man's shoulder, and his knees hit the ground.
"I'll ask once more. Who are you? What business brought you here?"
"Wahaha!"
"Drink up, drink!"
"The ones we grabbed this time are nice and tight inside, eh?"
The raiders sang songs of triumph as they gorged on plundered meat and wine. They were rootless wanderers, roaming hyenas — a people who formed no households, only loose packs, and lived like animals.
"Hell of a haul this time."
"That's all thanks to the boss being the strongest, ain't it? Hahaha!!"
Having seized food and women for the first time in a long while, the raiders were in high spirits. And with the luck of a decent store of liquor on top of it, the day could only be called a fortunate one.
"You bastards deserve to die a hundred times over!!"
Nibar roared through tears of blood. He had torn into the raiders who attacked the village — and paid for it with both arms severed and stakes driven through his legs.
Among the other villagers, every man capable of fighting had either been crippled by the loss of limbs or had his throat cut so he would never move again. The treatment the women received was no better.
"Why does this goddamn dog keep barking?"
One of the raiders kicked Nibar square in the face. His features caved in; teeth scattered across the ground.
"Grrhh! The Goddess will not spare you!!"
"Ah, for fuck's sake…"
One of the raiders, thoroughly irritated, moved to kill him — but the chieftain, still seated, raised a hand and stopped him.
The raiders' leader was a man of enormous bulk. Village Chief Nibar was a giant himself, yet the chieftain was nearly twice his size. A massive scar ran diagonally across his face, and his teeth were as sharp as a hyena's. In truth, he was a demigod born of a hyena god and a human woman.
"Killing him like this would be a waste. Hey — bring the woman."
At the chieftain's order, a subordinate dragged a woman forward. She was Nibar's wife.
"D-darling…"
Seeing his wife already marked with the signs of every kind of violence, Nibar thrashed to reach her — but the men beside him pinned him down.
"Watch carefully. I'm going to take your woman right in front of your eyes. Heh heh heh! And when I'm done… you know the rest, don't you?"
The chieftain sneered at Nibar and seized the woman's left breast in a brutal grip. The surrounding raiders erupted in the same savage laughter.
"You son of a bitch, lower than a dog!!"
"A loser's screams really are the sweetest sound."
He was about to drive himself into the woman then and there when—
"…"
"…"
A heavy silence fell over them all.
Along with a bone-deep stillness, every person present — raider and villager alike — went rigid where they stood.
What is this?
The chieftain could not understand it. Why his body was shaking. Why cold sweat kept pouring down him. Above all, why he was so afraid — he could not begin to name the reason.
"…"
And then, in the next moment, the chieftain saw a stranger standing in the center of the village.
A young man with silver hair, almost girlish in the face — though the hard, sculpted muscle of his body left no room to mistake his sex. His eyes glowed a blood-dark crimson, fixed in quiet regard on something laid out in the middle of the square.
"…"
What Sunya was looking at were heads.
Severed human heads, scattered carelessly across the center of the village.
And for a long time, staring at them, Sunya said nothing at all.
Only after a while did he quietly kneel, and speak the name the owner of one of those heads had answered to in life.
"…Miss Kubatum."
The head of the girl who had said she liked him — bright, lively, so eager to grow up — was twisted into a face of pure agony.