Leviathan Island
In the dream, Kiera lay in a sickbed.
She was deathly pale, and Maru sat at her side, caring for her. His face, smiling so tenderly, looked even younger than it did now.
"Kiera, it won't hurt anymore. And it'll never hurt again. Just trust me."
"You're lying. I'm going to die soon. I know it…"
"It's not a lie. You're going to get healthier than I am. I promise."
"Really…?"
"Yeah, really. Will you close your eyes for a moment?"
"My eyes? Okay…"
"Give me your hand, too."
"Mm-hmm…"
The moment she closed her eyes, Lucy's voice broke through.
"Open your eyes, please! Kiera!"
Kiera slowly opened them. Sunlight streamed into the room. Lucy was looking down at her from the head of the bed.
"Oh, she's awake! Kiera's come around!"
"I… was lying down?"
"You were! The monster smacked you good and knocked you cold. Remember?"
As Lucy spoke, the memory flashed through Kiera's mind — the operation to capture the Duke of Toledo's monster.
"You've been out for a full four days, you know."
Yoris stood at the foot of the bed, a book still in his hand as if he'd only just put it down.
"Four whole days? That's impossible…"
"We can hardly believe it either. The Hero of the age collapsing like that — it's unheard of."
"Give me some water."
"Thirsty?"
Lucy poured water from the pitcher into a cup and used magic to chill it. Kiera snatched the cup and gulped it down.
The water was cold. Far too cold, in fact. When she finished it, she shivered from head to toe.
"I'm cold."
As Kiera hugged herself, Lucy and Yoris exchanged astonished looks.
"The Hero… feeling a chill…?"
"Good heavens. I'm afraid something truly has gone wrong."
An island rising out of the middle of the sea came into view.
"Here's your third payment. One last installment left — I'll give you that on the way back."
"Yeah, thanks."
The tattooed young man showed the money to his companions and tucked it into his pouch. As he tied the strings, he glanced over at Maru.
"You really think you'll make it back alive? That place is incredibly dangerous."
"Well, I'll have to come back alive if I want you to pay me the rest."
The young man grinned at that.
"We'll be back by sunset. If you're not there, we're leaving without you."
At his signal, the young men rose as one, heaved up the little rowboat that had been sitting upside down on the deck, and hurled it out into the sea.
They'd refused to bring the ship any closer to shore — too dangerous, they said — so the remaining distance was Maru's to cover alone.
"You do know how to row, right?"
"Never done it, but there's a first time for everything."
Maru leapt lightly over to the rowboat. The young man tossed the oars, and Maru snatched them out of the air.
"You're not gonna follow us instead of heading to the island, are you?"
"Honestly, we might."
Maru and the young men burst out laughing. Afterward, the crew sped off quickly, afraid of running into a monster, while Maru rowed slowly and steadily toward the island.
"At last, my lord Belkhran."
As the shore gradually drew near, his memory of facing the god resurfaced.
— Leviathan Island has become the breeding ground of every grotesque monster imaginable. For you, robbed of your power by your own foolishness, it will be a burden far too heavy to bear. —
"And if I die?"
The mouth of the colossal stone face gaped wide open.
— Strip off your clothes and crawl inside. —
"In-in your mouth?"
— Now. —
Maru hurriedly stripped off his clothes and crawled, buck naked, into the god's mouth. The jaws closed behind him, and after about five minutes they opened again.
Maru emerged with his face twisted in disgust. It didn't smell like anything, but his whole body was slick and sticky with a translucent liquid.
— Spread it evenly over every inch of your body. —
"What is this stuff?"
— My saliva. —
"Ugh."
— So long as you do not wash it off, nothing that is not human will be able to see you. —
Reaching the shore at last, Maru dragged the rowboat up onto the land, then fished the Mirror of Truth out from the back of his waistband.
Thanks to Carlyle's crew making off with his backpack, all he had to his name now were the mirror and his wallet.
"It's like a jungle in here…"
The island was blanketed in dense, tangled foliage. He doubted there'd be any proper paths, but fortunately the monsters had worn trails of their own.
Checking his surroundings with the mirror as he went, Maru pushed deeper into the forest. Partway in, he came face to face with a four-legged beast, but it seemed unable to perceive him at all — it simply ambled on its way.
Maru let out a sigh of relief and pressed on. The forest was rough going, so he had to watch his footing every step of the way. If he stepped on one of the small monsters bristling with sharp spines, the bleeding might give him away.
As it happened, fortune was on his side: he found the Essence of Leviathan without any trouble at all. When he reflected the boulder beside the cool, rushing waterfall with the Mirror of Truth, a golden sphere came floating into view.
Carefully, step by careful step, Maru edged across the nearby rocks and closed his hand around the sphere. The instant he did, he felt a violent power flooding into his body.
"Ghh—!"
At the same moment, his heart pounded wildly, and a sharp pain seized his chest.
"Wh-what's happening? Why does it hurt?!"
As if that weren't enough, a massive earthquake suddenly began. The ground shook — and along with it came that stomach-lurching, butt-clenching drop, like an elevator plummeting at full speed.
In an instant, Maru realized the island was sinking.
"Oh, my Lord! You never said anything about the island collapsing!"
Clutching his aching chest, he bolted for the shore as fast as his legs would carry him.
Damn it — before this whole thing goes under, MOVE!
It was pure, desperate flight. Path, no path — he smashed through and tore past everything in a blistering sprint. He was so far gone he was booting monsters out of his way left and right as he ran.
By the time he finally reached the shore, the beach was already completely submerged. By sheer miracle, he spotted the rowboat perched precariously above the waterline.
Maru sprinted for it and flung himself forward.
At that exact moment, a wave swept in and carried the boat away. Maru plunged into the sea with a great splash.
Blub.
"Mmph!"
The island was slowly vanishing beneath the waves. Maru tried to fight his way to the surface, but his strength drained away at once. And then the pain in his chest flared up like mad.
He sank, helpless, his consciousness growing hazy as the water closed over him.
Is this how I die…?
Looking up from below, the sunlit surface rippled and shimmered, almost beautiful. His life passed before his eyes like a lantern show.
The last thing he felt — the sensation of two hands with vaguely familiar, decadent manicured nails seizing him in a fierce embrace — was the end, and Maru lost consciousness.
Luciella cut through the current at full speed and burst up out of the water in a spray of foam. With her arms locked around Maru's waist, she spun through the air in great circles, shaking off the water.
"I told you, you're like a big baby. I can't take my eyes off you for a single second. What on earth did you come here for?"
Smiling, she flew straight for the mainland. A mischievous thought crossed her mind, too — she could carry the unconscious Maru straight back to her own lair while she had the chance. Stripping him bare and snapping a leash on him did sound rather fun.
"He'd be furious, of course."
A soft giggle escaped her.
Then, without warning, a searing heat bloomed behind her. A torrent of flame breath crashed down on her an instant later.
She killed her wingbeats and dropped, narrowly evading it. As she climbed again and glanced back, a wyvern was pursuing her.
It was enormous. A beast that size had to be at least a hundred years old.
Luciella bared her fangs and snarled fiercely.
"Grrr — Kyaaang! Krr…! (Get lost, you mangy wretch!)"
But she posed no real threat to the wyvern, and it kept coming, spitting gouts of flame as it flew. The gap between them shrank with every passing second, and Luciella could feel herself tiring.
Outrunning a monster capable of flying while carrying a grown man had always been beyond a succubus to begin with. Worse, the sky was closer to the sun than the ground, and the magic shielding her body from sunlight was steadily failing.
Smoke began to curl up from her arms and legs.
This won't do.
Flying above the forest canopy, Luciella frantically scanned her surroundings. As luck would have it, she spotted a band of humans racing along below in a horse-drawn wagon. She dove at once.
In the cargo bed of the speeding wagon sat a handsome blond man in nobleman's clothes, sulking miserably. His arms were bound behind his back, and bruises mottled his face.
The bandits on the driver's bench snickered among themselves.
"Today's a real jackpot."
"No kidding. Who'd have thought a prince would come rolling in on his own two feet?"
"If a dimwit like that gets to be a prince, why can't I?"
"Because you have to be born to the blood, you idiot. That's not something you just ask for."
"What's wrong with my family's bloodline, huh, you bastard?"
"You serious right now? You think prince's blood just drops out of the sky? Huh?"
That was when it happened.
A violet-haired succubus swooped down in a flash, laid the unconscious man in the cargo bed, and shot back up into the sky. The blond man, trussed up in the back, nearly had a heart attack.
"Gahk! A d-demon! A demon's been here!"
"A demon?"
"What the hell are you on about?"
The bandits on the bench turned around. Spotting the man lying in the cargo bed, they tilted their heads.
"Who's that?"
"What's with him?"
When they glanced up at the sky on a whim, they saw the succubus flying ahead — with a massive wyvern hot on her tail.
"Whoa, what in the holy hell is that……"
"Ooh… what a rare sight."
After hearing the whole story from the bound blond man, the bandits were delighted.
"Man~ that was a good succubus, huh."
"Never seen the like in my whole life. Maybe she's fallen for us?"
"Anyway, free money — jackpot! One more body to sell at the slave market tomorrow. Hahahaha!"
One of the bandits climbed over onto the cargo bed and slapped Maru's cheeks, smack smack.
"Hey, you alive? Oi? Hey? Hey?"
"Don't tell me he's dead?"
"Nah, he's breathing."
"Right. Check if the succubus drained him dry. If he's a wreck who's no good for anything, we toss him."
"And how do we check that?"
"Far as I know, guys who've had their yang milked clean by a succubus end up with a pair of berries shriveled smaller than beans."
"For real? Let's see here…"
The bandit gave Maru's crotch a good grope through his trousers.
"Ooh, sturdy little fella. No worries, then. Both berries accounted for. Snicker."
Before long, the bandits' wagon arrived at their mountain camp. The unconscious Maru was thrown into a cave-prison alongside the blond man.
By then, Maru's heart — which had been pounding furiously all day — had finally regained its steadiness, beating calm and slow. And more than that: the neck and back bent from long years as a packhorse for others had straightened, and muscle now flowed across his whole frame. His body had been remade into something far more beautiful than it had ever been before.