Delphine's Story (1)
The Knight of Steel.
The Sword of the Empire.
Delphine Lionheart.
"I'm going to lose my mind."
She was clutching at her hair again today. A full year had already passed since the grueling hunt for the Demonic Dragon, and in that time Delphine's fame had only climbed higher. She had even acquired a new epithet.
Hero.
The adversary destined to vanquish every evil that walked the earth. A noble soul who would bring peace to the world.
History had granted the name of Hero to only six souls, and every last one of them had been a legend who accomplished extraordinary deeds — great figures worthy of the title. And now it looked as though her own name was about to fill that final empty space.
Some called it an honor. Delphine felt nothing of the sort.
They slap the title of Hero on you without even asking the person it belongs to.
"Burdensome" did not begin to cover it. The name was too heavy to bear, too crushing to carry forward.
Whenever she voiced such complaints, people always answered the same way. Was she not the Knight of Steel, who had struck down evil beyond counting? Was she not the dragonslayer who had felled even that vicious Demonic Dragon?
The hunt for the Demonic Dragon. Yes. That was precisely the problem — the very reason people were tripping over themselves to declare her worthy of a Hero's name, and the decisive cause of the headaches she kept clutching at her temples over.
Delphine, Luciel, and every member of the hunting party had given the same testimony. It was true that they had pursued the Demonic Dragon and caught up to it on the northern plains. But they were not the ones who had brought it down in the end. It had been a being they had never seen before — they still did not know precisely what it was. The only certainties were these: that it was stronger than the Demonic Dragon, and that the mere act of looking upon it had left them unable even to think of resistance.
And the answer that came back was a masterpiece.
Word had already gone out across the land that the Demonic Dragon had fallen by the hunting party's hand. They had proclaimed that the Knight of Steel had won a great victory — and this at a time when she herself had not even reached the Imperial Capital yet.
She could not understand it. When she asked why they had done such a thing, the reply that came back made her grab the back of her neck in disbelief. They had not killed the Demonic Dragon, no — but they had been planning to kill it anyway, had they not? Therefore it was perfectly acceptable to record that the hunting party had brought it down. That was the conclusion.
A gag order was issued to every member of the expedition. They had arbitrarily decided that the Demonic Dragon would be treated as the party's kill, and Delphine had ultimately been left with no choice but to agree, half by force.
"...Just what was that thing?"
A year had passed, and still it was burned into her mind, refusing to fade. The world dyed in crimson. The feast of flame that had embroidered the sky. It had been beautiful enough to send a shiver through her. It had been intense enough to raise gooseflesh. She had not seen it clearly, but the presence alone had been enough to know. A being against which resistance was unthinkable. A being you would die simply by facing. It existed on a plane apart from every creature she had ever encountered. Comparison was impossible.
She had reported that being to her superiors as well. What came back was the absurd reply that Sir Delphine would surely be able to defeat it. It was so far beyond ridiculous that she had nearly shouted in anger.
Delphine. Luciel. Every last member of the hunting party. All of them had fallen to their knees. Their chests had swelled with something vast, and at the same time they had shuddered with a fear that had no name. It was not a matter of winning or losing. Opposition itself could not even be established.
"Sir Delphine."
A knock, and the door opened. A knight stepped inside.
"You are summoned to the palace. His Majesty the Emperor requests your presence."
To others she might have looked like the Sword of the Empire, basking in the Emperor's favor. In truth, she was a workhorse who had to come running the moment anything went wrong. With a sigh, Delphine headed straight for the Imperial Palace.
"I present myself before His Majesty the Emperor."
"Come forward, Sir Delphine. Shall we get straight to the point?"
At the Emperor's gesture, the chamberlain unrolled a map across the table. Delphine's eyebrows shot upward the instant she saw it.
"Your Majesty. This is—"
"Looks familiar, I expect. A map of the north. Nosland."
"Why this, all of a sudden...?"
"A strange rumor has been circulating of late."
A strange rumor. The moment she heard those words, Delphine bit her lip. What rose first in her mind was, of course, that crimson world. That burning sky. The unidentified being that had erased the Demonic Dragon in a single stroke.
"Around a certain village, stories have been spreading of a gigantic red bird."
"A gigantic... red bird, Your Majesty?"
"For now we are treating it as a monster, but there are those who see it differently."
Something about that sat oddly with her. Delphine tilted her head. If it was a monster, it was a monster. There should have been no room for other opinions. And yet even the Emperor was acknowledging those other views, speaking of "those who see it differently."
"According to the rumors, that red bird saved the village and its people from bandits."
"Is that true?"
"So the rumors claim, at least. But the possibility that they are false is considerable."
"You, of all people, will understand what We mean."
Delphine nodded heavily at the Emperor's words.
A rumor that some unidentified something had come to humanity's aid. Such cases had arisen from time to time. Delphine and the Emperor had lived through a few of them themselves. But every last one had turned out to be the trick of some malevolent being. They would cast illusions over people, making it seem as though salvation had arrived. They would have themselves worshipped and live like spirits among their devotees. Then, once they grew bored, they would devour everyone in an instant and vanish. It was an act of unmatched cruelty and wickedness — worse, even, than simply attacking people outright.
"The Order has concluded that some evil born from the remnants of the Demonic Dragon is beguiling the entire village."
"They will be dispatching a subjugation force before long, then."
"Or it may be an investigation team."
The Emperor rummaged for something and held it out to Delphine. Several sheets of a report. The word written at the very head of the first page was this:
"A phoenix?"
"You will have heard of them, Sir Delphine."
"Yes, Your Majesty. The mystical creature that burns its own body and lives forever, is it not?"
Vicious beings like the Demonic Dragon. Monsters that delighted in slaughter from the moment of their birth. Compared to those, a phoenix was difficult to call evil. But to say it was close to humanity would have been a considerable stretch as well.
"I had heard that the last confirmed sighting was thirty years ago, in the south. Even that was unofficial, so people have been saying they are effectively extinct..."
"That phoenix may have appeared, Sir Delphine."
Impossible. Delphine nearly denied it on reflex. Why was a phoenix called a phoenix? Because it burned itself and rose again. Yes — it burned. It required flame. And so the cold was its natural enemy. Every last record of a phoenix sighting was concentrated in the south, without a single exception. It was conclusive evidence that their habitat was restricted to the southern lands.
"One never knows. That is why Our Empire intends to dispatch an investigation team."
The Order would send a subjugation force. The Empire would send investigators. She could smell it — the faint, unmistakable scent of conflict. The Empire and the Order had already been at odds since the campaign against the Demonic Dragon: over command authority, over where responsibility would fall, over who would bear the various costs. That Delphine and Luciel got along well was an entirely separate matter. This affair, too, was likely an extension of that same friction.
The Order had judged it a monster and was calling for its destruction. The Empire saw the possibility of a phoenix and was requesting an investigation.
In the end, our Empire took full command of the Demonic Dragon hunt. Thanks to that, the rumor that spread farthest was that the Empire had slain the dragon, and the Order's name was pushed relatively into the background.
You yielded last year, so this time the Empire should step aside. That was the spirit in which the Order had classified it as a monster and resolved to destroy it. The Empire, rather than accepting that arrangement, was digging in its heels.
"Sir Delphine. Go north once more."
"..."
"You look as though you have something to say. What is it?"
"Your Majesty. Do you remember what I told you after the Demonic Dragon hunt a year ago?"
We were not the ones who killed the Demonic Dragon. It was some unidentified being. The world had turned red, flames had roared, and the dragon had become ash. It had been a report shocking enough that the Emperor, of course, remembered it.
"We remember. But there was no mention of that being being a bird."
"I may not have seen it clearly enough, Your Majesty."
"Why would a being of such overwhelming power help a village in the first place?"
Delphine shook her head at the Emperor's words.
"A year ago as well, it vanished the moment the Demonic Dragon turned toward a village."
"That was fortune, nothing more. The moment it finished off a Demonic Dragon already wounded by your party simply happened to coincide with the dragon heading for a village, did it not?"
If it had been a fellow human, it might have acted out of compassion. But a being that was not even human had no reason to aid humanity. Faced with the Emperor's argument, Delphine held her silence. She herself could not be certain that the being had truly saved that village.
I do want to find out what it was I saw that day, though.
Curiosity as a human being. Information she wanted as a guardian of the Empire. Reasons stacked upon reasons, and in the end Delphine found herself heading north once more.
"Welcome, Knight of Steel, Sword of the Empire. Sir Delphine."
"Luciel isn't coming?"
"The High Priestess has departed on a pastoral circuit elsewhere."
Regrettably, she would not be traveling with Luciel this time. She would have to go with the Order's stiff, humorless priests. Delphine's prospects already looked bleak.
The Order, hoping to raise its prestige by slaying a monster. The Empire, intending to capture the creature if it proved to be a phoenix. The subtle conflict between the two groups continued the entire way north. Caught between them, Delphine honestly thought they were all being fools.
We don't even know if we'll encounter that being at all.
But they did say fate was always a mischievous thing.
"Ah?"
They had not been long inside Nosland, the Empire's north, when—
"A m-monster!"
"Is it truly a phoenix?!"
The Empire and the Order found themselves face to face with the rumored red bird. It was truly red. It was truly an enormous bird. If one called it a monster, it looked like a monster. If one called it a phoenix, it looked like a phoenix as well.
"It is plainly a monster! It must be dealt with at once!"
"Wait just a moment! If it is a phoenix, our Empire has the first claim!"
"What phoenix would be in the north?! It must be destroyed immediately!"
Perhaps it had sensed the commotion on their side. The red bird that had been watching them from afar suddenly took to the sky.
Ordinarily, it would have vanished without incident. Unfortunately for them, the timing could not have been worse. That red bird had, of all things, recently crossed paths with a god — and having gone so far as to argue, its temper was thoroughly foul.
The instant they beheld those things—
"O-O God, O God...!"
"Ahh... I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."
The priests of the Order. The investigators of the Empire.
I-I knew I shouldn't have come!
And Delphine as well.
There was nothing they could do. Their limbs were crushed beneath an invisible weight. Their lives flashed before their eyes. Death stood close enough to touch. Everyone flattened themselves to the earth, held their breath, and bowed their heads, begging for mercy before a being they dared not oppose. Please, take pity on us, and withdraw.
The presence thinned. Breath returned to normal. Those who had barely escaped the pressure opened their mouths, voices shaking, hands and feet still clutched tight.
"This— this is no mere monster. How could that thing..."
"It is not a simple phoenix. It is surely the progenitor of them all!"
They said as much, but in truth they had no idea. Not the faintest clue what the being they had just faced actually was.
On this one point, however, both the Order and the Empire were certain.
If that being should ever turn hostile...
We must prepare countermeasures. Good God. Something worse than the Demonic Dragon!
The unknown has always been an object of fear. Before long, the Empire and the Order would be clutching their heads over the crimson omen of the north.