Guidance of Faith (2)
Guidance of Faith — (2)
01.
Though it was a small city of fewer than ten thousand souls, Rieli was a proper territory in its own right. It possessed all the essential infrastructure, from a Teleportation Hub to an adventurers' guild and a variety of shops. The same held true for the walls that protected it. Rieli's fortifications were no mere wooden palisade ringing a village. They had been raised from rough, thick stone, and the gates themselves were forged from the finest steel imported from the dwarven cities.
Only siege engines, fire mages, or a massive horde of monsters would have any real chance of forcing a breach.
"…"
And yet the maid zombie below was walking toward those gates alone. The greatsword resting across her shoulder gave her the air of someone with all the time in the world.
"Huh…?"
Chris's expression froze as he watched her. The zombie had no siege weapon. She carried no staff for casting magic. All she possessed was a single greatsword that looked unlikely to so much as scratch dwarven steel.
Even so, a wave of dread washed over him. She had nothing that could smash their gates — and still his instincts screamed that she must not be allowed anywhere near them.
"S-Stop her! Don't let her get close to the gate!"
Snapping back to his senses, Chris barked the order at the archers on the wall. They nocked fresh arrows and took aim at the zombie maid once more.
Thwang.
The bowstrings sang, and dozens of shafts streaked toward the zombie. It was a hell of arrows no one should have been able to escape.
"Loose! Keep loosing!"
Determined not to give her any opening to dodge or deflect, they followed with volley after volley. Hundreds of razor-tipped arrows filled the air, all of them racing toward the zombie maid.
"…"
This time the girl zombie did not even glance at them. She swung her sword through empty air with casual indifference. The massive blade carved the sky, and once again a tremendous wind howled forth.
No matter how many there were, arrows were still only arrows. Everything the archers had loosed was scattered in every direction by the pressure of the gale the maid zombie had unleashed.
"Guh…!!"
The wind reached Chris on the battlements. He had to clutch the railing beside him just to keep his footing.
"Th-This can't be…"
When the gale finally died, his vision cleared to reveal the maid zombie still standing, completely unharmed. Not a single scratch marred her. Chris's face went deathly pale.
She had not even been trying. Twice now she had swatted aside their arrows as if they were a child's toys. Goosebumps prickled along Chris's arms at the sheer power of this undead whose true nature he still could not grasp.
E-Even so, opening the gate will take time. If we use that window to fire the catapults…
The maid zombie had reached the gate at last. Anxiety coiled through every inch of Chris's body, but even with a greatsword it should take her a fair while to break through. In that time, he told himself, they would hurl stones too heavy for any wind to scatter.
"…Thick."
Contrary to everything Chris expected, the maid zombie raised not her greatsword but her bare right hand and set it against the gate. Then she simply pushed, driving pressure through her palm.
Krrrnnnkk.
To everyone's horror, the gate of dwarven steel — locked tight — began to warp and twist open in a grotesque fashion.
She had forced it before the soldiers could even ready the catapults.
No siege engines. No fire magic.
With nothing but her bare hand.
"What did I just see…?"
Chris murmured the words in a daze. Rieli's gate was the sort of barrier that dozens of grown men with siege weapons might hammer for hours without success — and this zombie had flung it open as casually as an ordinary door. The locking mechanisms hung in tatters. The layered plates of the gate had nearly torn free. It was an impossible, unbelievable display of raw strength.
N-No…
Chris had gone blank for a moment, but the sight of the maid zombie stepping into his territory snapped him back to himself. An out-of-spec monster that could deflect arrows and open a gate with one hand — if she got inside, catastrophe was certain.
"S-Stop her! Don't let her set another foot into the territory!"
Remembering the orc raid that had burned Rieli twenty years earlier, Chris screamed the order.
"Stop the monster!"
"Drive it out somehow! Protect the territory!"
Hearing his cry, Edmund and the soldiers rushed to bar the maid zombie's path. They leveled their long spears at the creature and, just as they had drilled, closed in to encircle her.
"Get out of here, you damned monster!"
"This is no place for the likes of you!"
"If you value your life, get lost!"
Now that they knew the zombie could speak human language, the soldiers hurled their curses with savage force. Among them, Chris spotted several men gripping necklaces of a distinctive design.
Those are…!
His eyes went wide at the familiar shapes.
Right. He had almost forgotten.
They still had a weapon that was practically a trump card against monsters.
"The Seal Necklace…"
Developed and exported by the Holy Empire Serion, the Seal Necklace was a sacred implement anyone who believed in Astyra, Goddess of Earth and Sky, could use. When activated, chains laced with powerful holy magic burst forth and bound the targeted monster like a cocoon. The drawback was that the user had to believe in the faith of Astyra — by force if necessary — but against a truly dangerous monster, converting a hundred times over was a small price to pay.
"Th-That's it! With those…!"
Hope flared in Chris's eyes. There were recorded cases of the necklaces sealing even S-rank monsters. With them, capturing this maid zombie was not impossible.
He held his breath and watched the scene at the gate.
"Get the hell out!"
"You zombie — looking to become a permanent corpse, are you?!"
"Hmph. Come on, then!"
"…Oh?"
Surrounded on all sides, the maid zombie showed not the slightest trace of intimidation. If anything, she regarded the soldiers with open interest. There was no fear or terror anywhere in her expression.
Once more, human speech left her lips.
"…Humans. Can you back those words up?"
The voice was chilling, enough to raise the hair on every neck. The killing intent it carried, combined with the sheer wrongness of a monster speaking their tongue, made every person near the gate flinch.
"Urgh…"
"Kh…"
Faced with the monster's mad little smile, the soldiers who had been so full of confidence shrank back almost at once. Deep down, every one of them knew the truth. A creature that could bat away entire volleys of arrows and open a gate with one hand — what chance did they really have?
They had forced themselves to stand their ground on the strength of duty and superior numbers alone. A single taunt from her was already cracking every resolve they had mustered.
At this rate, fear would break them before the fight even began.
"W-What are you doing?! Don't be afraid! Throw the Seal Necklaces, now!"
"…!!"
The only one who kept his head and shouted through the panic was Captain of the Guard Edmund. He ordered his men to activate Serion's sacred implements at once.
"Urgh…!!"
"Take this! We'll show you the pride of Rieli!"
"Be bound for eternity, monster!"
Edmund's cry snapped the soldiers back to themselves. As one, they hurled the Seal Necklaces they had been clutching. Nearly a dozen of them clattered at the zombie's feet in an instant.
"Hm?"
The zombie maid tilted her head and peered down at them with genuine curiosity. The moment she picked one up for a closer look, a blinding flash erupted.
"Oh…"
She continued to study it with mild interest. Even knowing full well it was a threat, she neither threw it aside nor stepped away. She simply stood there, staring.
"…"
Then silver chains burst from the necklaces like plant roots erupting from the earth. Saturated with powerful holy magic, they sensed the presence of a monster and immediately began to coil around the zombie maid.
The silver chains wound from her feet toward her head, binding her the way a snake coils around its prey. Still she offered no resistance, surrendering her body to the chains without a struggle.
The zombie maid's total lack of reaction was unnerving, but the soldiers had nothing else they could do. They held their breath and watched.
"Kh…"
"Please…"
In that moment they became the most devout believers of Astyra imaginable, praying with everything they had that the goddess's power would seal this out-of-spec monster.
And perhaps those prayers and that faith were answered — for the chains that had erupted from the Seal Necklaces succeeded, without any great difficulty, in wrapping the zombie maid into a cocoon.
"…"
Her form vanished completely beneath the chains. Smiles began to creep across the soldiers' faces.
"D-Did we get her?!"
"It worked!"
The zombie of impossible strength had not resisted even once. She had not made a sound. The cocoon of sealing chains stood utterly still.
The Seal Necklaces had worked perfectly.
S-See?!
Watching from the wall, Chris clenched his fist. Of course. No monster could overcome holy magic. That truth applied even to this zombie of unknown origin and unknown nature.
Their powerful faith and trust in their goddess had shone through. Spending a fortune on sealing tools had been the right decision after all. That zombie would remain bound in those chains for eternity.
"Serves you right, zombie."
Chris Evergrit, lord of Rieli, allowed himself a smirk. The cocoon of chains stood proudly before the gate. The monster inside would never again see the light of day. All that remained was to sink the cocoon in a lake or seal it deep in a cave.
They had been briefly shaken by the zombie's unimaginable power, but in the end the victors were humanity — the strongest race on the surface of the world.
…Or so he believed.
"Ah."
"…?!"
"W-What?! A voice?!"
Less than a minute after the chains had bound the zombie, a sharp voice rang out from inside them.
"W-What is that?!"
"It came from inside the seal!"
Every soldier who had begun to relax jolted upright and snatched up the weapons they had set down.
"A sound?"
"I-Is it still alive? Doesn't sealing strip away all senses and knock them unconscious?"
The noise from within the cocoon set every nerve on edge. The soldiers leveled their weapons at the chains and reformed their encirclement.
Thud.
The cocoon shuddered. Like a butterfly preparing to emerge, the construct of holy magic began to writhe and twist.
"…!!"
"What…?"
The faces of Rieli's soldiers hardened. Something was wrong. The fear that they had been too quick to celebrate squeezed their hearts.
CRASH!
After only two convulsions, a thunderous boom split the air — and every last chain snapped as if they were nothing.
Dust billowed outward in thick clouds. And through that haze, the zombie maid they had worked so hard to seal stood perfectly unharmed, her greatsword raised high.
Her eyes burned a fierce red as she fixed the soldiers of Rieli with a merciless glare.
"…Boring, humans."
Whether her mood had soured or not, the killing intent in her voice had grown even thicker. The hands of the soldiers gripping their weapons trembled with tension.
H-How? Why is she fine?!
Lord Chris Evergrit's face went rigid. In theory, Serion's Seal Necklace could bind even an S-rank monster. So why had the chains broken?
Defective products? Insufficient faith on their part?
Or…
"An S-rank or higher…?"
Perhaps this monster possessed power beyond S-rank.
"…"
Chris's words failed him. His thoughts stalled. Simply understanding the situation — simply keeping up with it — was already more than he could manage. An S-rank or higher? Where in the world had a monster like that come from?
Nothing stronger than A-rank even lived in this region. So how had something like this wandered in? What business could it possibly have in a city this small?
C-Could it be connected to the Progenitor Vampire?
"Damn it…"
Chris furrowed his brow. He turned the possibilities over and over, but none of them made sense. The flood of thoughts brought on a vicious headache.
And in the middle of it, the zombie maid moved.
"What a piece of trash magic tool."
She snorted and kicked aside the chains that had, for a brief moment, bound her. Judging by her contemptuous attitude, it would have been more accurate to say she had allowed herself to be sealed rather than that she had been sealed at all.
Then, with a smile full of madness, the zombie maid leveled her greatsword at the soldiers of Rieli.
As always, she spoke to them in the language of humans.
"…Humans. Two volleys of arrows and one magic tool. That's three free hits I've given you."
The sharp voice drove itself into every ear.
"…Now it's my turn. You're ready, I hope?"
The beautiful light of dusk caught in her eyes. Her maid uniform fluttered in the wind — and then the vicious greatsword began its dance through the air.
"Ah… aah…"
It took less than ten seconds for every head to leave its shoulders.
02.
"Th-Thank goodness…"
There was no other way to describe it. She had simply been lucky.
Moments before the Progenitor Vampire's assault shut down every Teleportation Hub, the archmage Derin had miraculously boarded one as its final passenger.
"At last…"
What spread before her as she stepped off the hub was a colossal fortress of seven layered walls. Staring up at those unshakable ramparts whose height she could not even guess, Derin felt tears well in her eyes.
"At last… at last I'm safe…"
The Dungeon of Immortality and Elmaile. She had been caught in the Progenitor Vampire's attacks at both places in succession. She had witnessed massacres. Blood had sprayed everywhere. Amid countless deaths, she alone had barely clawed her way out alive — twice.
"…Never again. I'll never get involved with that again."
Twice she had felt the bone-freezing terror of death, and the utter helplessness of standing before true power with nothing she could do. And each time, the guilt of knowing she was the cause of it all had tightened around her heart.
She never wanted to feel those emotions again. She never wanted to experience any of it again.
That was why she had come here — to the fortress city of Nebirtol, famed for its seven walls. Situated at the kingdom's far northern edge, bordering demon territory, it was a place the Progenitor Vampire had no reason to seek out. And even if she did, Derin could not imagine her breaking through those enormous sevenfold walls.
She believed without a shred of doubt that nowhere on the continent was safer.
"Really… I'm so, so glad…"
Looking at the solid walls surrounding her on every side, Derin felt as if she had been gathered into her father's arms. All the anxiety and tension she had been carrying drained away at once. She exhaled in relief again and again.
"…First things first — find an inn."
She intended to stay here until the kingdom dealt with the Progenitor Vampire, so securing lodging was the priority. Years as an S-rank adventurer meant she had plenty of coin on hand. Imagining a warm bowl of soup and a hot bath to wash away the exhaustion, she set off toward the street lined with inns, her heart considerably lighter.
"Hm?"
As she walked, a booming voice reached her ears.
"Her Excellency the Great Prime Minister of the Abilia Kingdom! Lady Lilianel Greenfield has arrived! Welcome her with joyous hearts, one and all!"
"Prime Minister…?"
A voice announcing that Lilianel Greenfield, Prime Minister of the Abilia Kingdom, had come to Nebirtol.
"Uh…?"
An inexplicable unease brushed across Derin's body.