Crimson Lament (1)
"Erinn."
Erinn, who had come to the imperial palace, lifted her head at the voice calling her name. There weren't many people who would summon her personally when she had left her companions outside and come alone.
"...What is it?"
The one who had called Erinn was none other than her direct supervisor, Left General Salisius.
"What do you mean, 'what'? I called you because you're not keeping your head on straight."
Salisius said.
"No matter how much you hate it, observe proper etiquette. This is that kind of occasion."
"..."
Erinn looked around her. She was currently at a banquet. It was none other than a gathering arranged by the Emperor of the Dern Empire himself, Gnaeus Licinius.
The purpose was to commend Erinn for the excellent achievements she had accomplished even while abroad, and to firmly announce those deeds to the ministers so as to flaunt the solidity of imperial authority.
Erinn said,
"Hate it? This is a gathering for me, isn't it?"
"For something like that, you seemed to be staring off into space quite a bit..."
"You're just imagining things, Uncle~♡"
When she acted as playfully as usual, Salisius decided he must have been mistaken and backed off. But just as he had said, Erinn truly was not keeping her head on straight.
...This isn't good.
To be honest, she felt like throwing everything aside and walking out.
She had thought she had sent them off casually, with a reasonably rational face... but all of that had been her own delusion. For something she had supposedly sent off cleanly, the aftereffects were lasting far too long.
The duration was one thing, but the real problem was that she could not control her emotions. Every single day when she woke up, the pain was unbearable, and she could not even sleep properly.
She kept thinking of the one she had sent away. Even after accepting that he was not Allen but someone else, even so, she kept...
This is ridiculous...
Even she herself could not understand it. Allen's existence had certainly been precious to Erinn, but after living through two lifetimes, if someone asked whether she loved him enough to die for him, it was hard to say that was the case.
It was only natural, if one thought about it. In her first life it might well have been true, but Erinn had already endured Allen's disgraceful behavior twice.
She was a person who felt expectation and disappointment like anyone else, so the fact that her feelings for him were no longer what they once had been was simply the truth.
Of course he was still precious, but if someone asked whether she loved him so much that she could not rationally accept the reality that had come to this, so much that she could not master her own emotions... she absolutely could not answer yes.
No—perhaps the point at which she had stopped looking at him as a romantic partner had already been quite some time ago. Allen had been precious because there had been many good memories and recollections of him... but the truth was that even after she had given him chances, watching him start behaving the exact same way again had made her feelings for him cool more than once.
And so, naturally, the love had faded. He was still a precious childhood friend, someone she wanted to protect... but if someone asked whether she still loved him, she had no confidence she could give a firm answer.
Perhaps she had only been consciously telling herself that loving him was still the natural thing to do.
The fact that she could reach even that conclusion on her own made it clear her heart was no longer what it used to be.
Which made it all the stranger. Then why was it so hard? Why did she keep thinking that if she could go back to that day, she would want to give a different answer?
Maybe it was because of Clara. Clara, who had left with him, had certainly been a precious comrade of Erinn's.
But to say that was all there was to it... the emotional toll was far more severe than she could have imagined.
"Haa..."
In the end she could not hold it in and let out a deep sigh. At the sight of it, several of the ministers glanced around cautiously. Part of it was fear of Erinn, who ranked among the strongest even among the current Heroes, but more than that...
"To sigh so openly in a place like this, without even trying to hide it—you truly know nothing of etiquette."
"..."
It was the Military Minister of the Dern Empire, Yureinia Achilles. She had always kept Erinn in check, so there was no way she would let something like this pass. Salisius, who had advised Erinn to pull herself together out of concern for exactly this, could only shake his head as if to say it had come to this after all.
"Did you think that just because you are a commoner-born Hero, everyone would understand even if you failed to observe such basic manners? No. Precisely because you are of common birth, you ought to put in that much more effort, don't you think?"
Yureinia said.
"At the very least, if you are going to set foot in the imperial palace itself."
Ordinarily Erinn would have simply let it go in one ear and out the other. This was hardly the first or second time Yureinia had acted this way, and although Erinn was the Empire's only Hero, she still needed to solidify her position. There was not the slightest need to pick a fight with the heir of the Achilles ducal house over something so trivial.
But of all times.
The problem was that right now Erinn had no emotional leeway whatsoever. She could not even control herself and was already having thoughts she did not want; when someone she already disliked started needling her, she simply could not muster the patience.
"...Yapping so noisily..."
"Ahem!! Military Minister, it seems the Hero is quite exhausted today. I ask that you show her the breadth of your magnanimity. Is not one of the virtues of House Achilles tolerance itself?"
Salisius stepped in with sharp timing and blocked Erinn's outburst.
"Hero, I know you are tired, but please bear with it a little longer. His Majesty will be arriving soon, and once the necessary formalities are finished, no one will say a word if you return and rest."
"..."
Erinn was not so foolish as to kick aside even Salisius's efforts. Of course, if it had been up to her heart she would have torn the Military Minister's mouth open right then and there, but she exercised every last scrap of patience out of consideration for Salisius.
"...I will be careful."
Seeing Erinn answer so briefly, Salisius felt relieved. With the Hero taking a low posture, Yureinia had no further grounds to pick at, and the atmosphere of the banquet hall soon recovered.
And before long, one of the attendants present in the banquet hall raised his voice to announce that the master of the Empire had at last arrived.
"His Imperial Majesty the Emperor enters!"
Every minister rose from their seats, and Erinn with them. The firmly closed doors opened, and a stern man wearing a brilliant golden crown stepped inside.
"My apologies, everyone. I was a little late in my preparations."
He was the master and the very sky of the Dern Empire—Gnaeus Licinius II.
"Not at all, Your Majesty."
"Please, come this way."
The ministers received the Emperor's apology with awed humility and welcomed him. The Emperor gestured for them to be seated and made his way to his place.
Once the Emperor sat first, the ministers finally took their seats as well, and the banquet began in earnest. Naturally enough, given the purpose of the gathering, the Emperor wished to hear Erinn's account first of all.
"Hero Erinn."
"...Yes, Your Majesty."
"I have already heard of your labors and achievements, but there will be ministers here who do not know of them, so I would like you to report them accurately once more."
In truth there was hardly anyone who did not know, but it was an utterly formal request. Contained within it was the Emperor's own desire to hear the account of those exploits directly.
"..."
Erinn opened her mouth, then closed it again. For some reason, it was hard to begin speaking.
She found it difficult to admit even to herself, but every report she was about to deliver now... consisted of memories she had shared with those who had already left her.
"Hero?"
At the Emperor's voice, colored with mild puzzlement, Erinn came back to herself a beat late. And burying an emotion that stung somewhere deep, she finally managed to part her lips and begin her report.
The carriage carrying us soon arrived at the outlying village. After paying the coachman in advance and booking the return trip as well, we stepped into the village.
It was a small village, but being one of the settlements around the capital Parvata, it did not give off that particularly rustic feel.
"Who goes there?"
Perhaps because outsiders had entered, the village elders came out and regarded us with wariness.
"Ah, hello. We've come after accepting a request from the Adventurers' Guild."
I said so and showed them the request form stamped by the guild. So that was why they stamped the form and handed it back for cases like this. I understood at once.
"A request? Oh my, so someone finally took it on."
The elder spoke with open delight.
"I am Amdook, the village chief. I am the one who put this request into the guild."
"Ah, so it was you, sir..."
"But whether it was because the rank was set low or the reward was weak... no one would take it for the longest time."
The elder said it with visible relief.
"Now I can finally sleep with my legs stretched out."
"Haha... Then, could you tell us exactly which mountain these locations appear on?"
"We haven't been able to confirm the precise locations ourselves either. For now, over there."
The elder pointed to the mountain behind the village as he spoke.
"We know they always stay somewhere around there."
It was not much different from what was written on the request form. I had hoped they might have learned something more, but it seemed we would have to find out for ourselves.
"Then we'll need to do some searching. Would it be all right if we looked around a bit?"
"By all means. I'll let the villagers know you've arrived."
"Thank you."
"But will you be all right? I know I shouldn't say this to the people who came to solve my request, but..."
The elder looked at me, Clara, and Caesius, then said,
"Your numbers seem a little low. The locations—those things—there are quite a few of them."
"Ah, we'll be fine. You don't need to worry."
I spoke with confidence.
"Even if there are a lot of them, it won't be a problem."
"Hmm, is that so?"
You wouldn't know, elder, but the ones here with me could handle hundreds of witches without any trouble.
They were essentially a very reliable insurance policy. If I just left it to them the way one leaves auto-hunting running, the witches would be wiped out on their own.
Even so, I intended to try solving this request with my own hands. That way, even if I took other requests later, I would actually be able to do something.
"I'll trust you and wait."
"Yes. We'll be back soon."
After parting with the village chief, we headed straight for the rear mountain. As we passed through, the villagers watched us with wary eyes reserved for strangers, but that would be gone by the time we returned.
Caesius looked around and said,
"It seems the witches do not come down as far as the village."
"Yeah. From what the chief said earlier, too, they haven't caused any direct damage to the village."
He had said they only stayed near the rear mountain. If they had come down into the village, there would have been no reason not to say so.
"They just seem to be living there... well, once their territory overlaps with where humans live, it can't be helped."
Even if they were not causing harm right now, there was no telling when they might come down into the village and do damage.
As we reached the rear mountain, I spoke to the two of them in advance.
"Clara, Caesius. For this request, I'm going to try handling it alone as much as possible."
"...Okay."
"Are you sure you'll be fine?"
"If it really looks dangerous, help me. I need to build up my skills a bit too."
Clara nodded and said,
"...You'll be able to do it."
"If that's how it looks to you, then good."
I took the Geumswaebong I had been carrying on my back into my hands. Witches were a troublesome type of monster that used mana and cast magic, but put the other way, once you stripped away the mana they were nothing special.
Their physical abilities were not much different from an ordinary woman's, and they were not particularly large either. Their overall height was not far from the female average.
In other words, if you could just deal with their magic, it was over. And as it happened, my power could completely nullify that kind of magic.
We had not gone far into the rear mountain when we heard the witches coming out to meet the ones who had invaded their territory.
"To come in here without even knowing fear..."
"These humans have some nerve."
The witches revealed themselves directly. Just as the village chief had said, there were quite a few of them. At a rough count it looked like at least a dozen or so.
I had thought it strange that the witches showed themselves so readily, but it seemed they had done so because they held the numerical advantage.
But perhaps because I had already seen their higher species, the Dark Witches, at the Obelisk...
I'm not even tense.
Naturally, Clara and Caesius also wore completely unbothered expressions. The witches seemed to interpret that differently—or simply thought whatever was convenient for them—and laughed cheerfully.
"What's with these humans? No reaction at all?"
"They must be frozen with fear~."
"They must have thought they could do something to us with that weapon. How cute."
They had human-like appearances, but in reality they were low-grade monsters. Unlike the image commonly held of them, witches were not particularly intelligent monsters. High intelligence belonged to higher monsters like Dark Witches.
So they were simply thinking whatever was convenient for them. Without the slightest idea of what was about to happen, the fools.
"Fufu, don't be too scared."
"We'll send you off comfortably."
If they had not revealed themselves and had instead resisted by hiding and firing magic, it would have taken quite some time. But since they had kindly shown themselves like this...
"Goodbye."
The Witch activates Mana Arrow
Mana rose from the witches' palms. That mana soon took the form of sharp arrowheads. It was not just one or two. Not a single witch, but every witch that had appeared was creating them at the same time.
But there was no problem at all. The witches' mana was nothing compared to the monsters I had met at the Obelisk, the creations of the Magic Legion Commander.
I raised my own mana.
And as if carving it apart, I divided it according to the number of witches. I had to erase every last one of those arrows pouring toward us.
Around then the witches' expressions shifted slightly. Since they themselves wielded mana, they would have felt mine. So of course their faces would change.
"Dispel."
Dispel activates
They would have realized it by now.
That they had made a mistake.
"Huh?"
"My mana..."
The arrows the witches had created vanished as if they had never existed from the start. Not only that—my mana now bound theirs so tightly that they could not even cast the magic they had been so proud of.
"Feeling a little more awake?"
Seeing the bewilderment rise on the witches' faces, a light laugh slipped out of me. I raised the Geumswaebong and informed them of their fate.
"You're fucked."