8. Bianca del Castana - 02
8. Bianca del Castana - 02
And then she opened her eyes. The world around her remained dark. She turned her head to take in her surroundings, and Kain's sleeping form came into view beside her. Bianca looked at his closed eyes and tried to raise herself slightly, but the ache in her lower abdomen made her wince before she could stop herself.
'...Ah. Right.'
The memory returned. Last night, after she had slipped into bed beside him, they had joined. The act of passion between a man and a woman carried its own pain—perhaps because it was her first time—but far more than that, it had been blissful. No, it had been a joy. How could it not be? For a woman, what happiness could possibly surpass sharing love with the man she loved?
"...Ah, ngh..."
Bianca endured the soreness in her lower belly and slowly sat up. The blanket slid softly downward, revealing her bare form to the little cabin.
Yet Bianca, now naked beside the soundly sleeping Kain, gave the matter no particular thought. After all, she had just moments ago shown him every last corner of this body—what reason could there possibly be to feel shy now?
She glanced at the spot where she had lain and saw a vivid bloodstain left upon the bed sheet. Looking at that stain, Bianca felt an inexplicable joy. That bloodstain was, beyond any doubt, the indisputable proof that the woman called Bianca del Castana had given her first time to the man called Kain von Estel.
Bianca wrapped herself roughly in the dress that Kain had stripped from her body with such roughness just before they made love, and stepped outside the cabin. She looked up at the night sky. The moon and stars seemed to shine tonight with an especially bright light, as if seeing her off. The sky she gazed upon was surely the same night sky as before, and yet the landscape reflected in her eyes looked entirely different from anything she had ever seen.
...The reason was, most likely, that her own consciousness—the very self looking up at the night sky—had changed. Not long ago, she had found nothing in this world to her liking. But the deep emotion Bianca had felt while sharing love with Kain today had, if only a little, succeeded in shifting something within her.
Bitterness that had built up over thirty years could not possibly dissolve in a single moment, but it was undeniably true that in this instant, something inside the woman called Bianca del Castana had changed. With the quiet thought that perhaps this was what one might call "love," Bianca gently closed her eyes.
And that was when.
"...Hm?"
She felt something. The presence of intruders—unforgivably rude trespassers who had forcibly dismantled the barrier Bianca had erected to create a comfortable little nest with Kain, and who had trampled their filthy feet into this place, now entered her senses.
'...No, there were two of them.'
Concentrating her senses, she realized it was not one but two who had invaded the barrier. Moreover, the aura emanating from them was not to be dismissed lightly. There were few people on the continent who possessed the kind of strength that could arouse wariness in Bianca del Castana, whose martial power ranked within the top five. And the number of people who would track down her and Kain's whereabouts—ostensibly on a "honeymoon trip"—to this place could be counted on one hand.
"The Saintess, Ariel Tiere. And the Imperial Princess of the Empire, Iris El Debhart. It would be these two, I imagine."
At first, she had suspected one of the intruders might be Kirie El Denaris, but she soon realized the possibility of Kirie finding this place was exceedingly slim. This was because Bianca and Kirie had sworn several oaths upon the World Tree. Among them was a clause promising to keep each other's whereabouts secret from others, so it was safe to assume Kirie had almost no reason to seek out this place.
"In any case, those women really are something."
Bianca murmured that with a wry smile she couldn't help. It wasn't her place to talk, having kidnapped Kain and dragged him all the way out here, but the fact that they had lost their reason at the phrase "honeymoon trip" and chased them all the way here struck her as truly remarkable.
"...Now then, how shall I entertain these rude guests who've barged into someone else's nest in the dead of night?"
If they were ordinary late-night visitors, she would have gone out to greet them without a moment's hesitation. Unfortunately, the "guests" who had come to their nest tonight were heavyweights even Bianca could not treat lightly.
Their status was one thing, but their personal combat strength was also not to be underestimated—they were unquestionably formidable foes. Moreover, the fact that Ariel and Iris, whose relationship was so poor that "like cats and dogs" could only be described as cordial and amicable by comparison, had joined forces to come here suggested that the two of them were not merely furious with her but had gone utterly blind with rage. A powerful sense of crisis crept over her—strong enough to make her think that today, she might end up buried here.
And then, as if to confirm the accuracy of her judgment, a vicious and ferocious roar reverberated in all directions.
"...An invitation, I take it."
The alien killing intent that had just shaken the interior of the barrier was unmistakably a signal summoning her. It was also a blatant enticement—whispering for her not to hide beside Kain like a little rat, but to come this way and engage in a life-or-death struggle.
"...Hmph."
She clicked her tongue scornfully, but she obediently turned her steps toward the source from which that immense killing intent had just erupted. She had planned to go on the offensive if they did not come to her anyway. The last thing she wanted was to brawl with other women near Kain and have sparks fly onto him. It was Bianca's personal philosophy that a wife's "support" was not limited to merely managing the household.
Crossing the open meadow in front of the cabin and moving toward the entrance of the barrier that had guarded the little nest she shared with Kain, her eyes fell upon a woman—standing right in front of a spot where space itself had cracked like a biscuit, directing a terrifying killing intent toward Bianca.
"...Huh?"
The moment she registered the woman's appearance, a perplexed sound escaped Bianca's lips. Not only had this person shattered the barrier Bianca had installed as a cozy nest with Kain—crushing it like a biscuit—but the figure now directing such a chilling killing intent at her was someone entirely different from whom she had expected.
The woman now standing before Bianca's eyes was neither the Saintess Ariel Tiere—the Goddess's first servant and shield, who boasted the mortal world's greatest defensive power through the Radiance of Protection—nor was she Iris El Debhart, the sharpest sword humanity could claim, who wielded the Sword of Heaven. Her identity was someone Bianca had not included in her calculations for even a single moment.
Looking at the girl with the pure white hair and violet eyes, a dumbfounded voice escaped Bianca's lips.
"...The witch?"
****
Roughly fifteen minutes before Aria and Bianca came face-to-face.
"Found it. This is unquestionably the stronghold where Bianca del Castana is hiding like a rat."
With a face like ice, Aria pointed a finger at the middle of a desolate, empty plain. In Aria's left hand was the World Tree branch she had received from Kirie; in her right, she held a splendid white-gold necktie pin.
The necktie pin Aria held was, needless to say, one of the gifts Bianca del Castana had offered to Duke Estel, claiming it was a mere token. At the time she had given it to the Duke, Bianca del Castana had enchanted the necktie pin with preservation magic, cleansing magic, and various other spells as a gift for her future father-in-law. She had layered so many enchantments upon it that residual traces of her Magic Power remained in the necktie pin even after months had passed.
Aria, who had sensed Bianca del Castana's cunning the moment she first saw that necktie pin, had immediately thought to use it the instant she heard from Kirie about the World Tree branch's properties. It had already been grating on her to see that woman fawn over Duke Estel with every trick in the book. And aside from that pin, there was no other object in which Bianca del Castana's Magic Power still lingered so vividly.
By reverse-tracing the residual Magic Power Bianca had left inside the necktie pin, Aria and Iris had at last succeeded in seizing Bianca del Castana by the scruff of the neck.
"...Hoh, now this is something. Truly audacious. Nothing short of audacious."
Iris clicked her tongue repeatedly as she realized just where Bianca del Castana had hidden herself after kidnapping Kain. Astoundingly, the place where Bianca del Castana had concealed herself like a little rat was in the middle of a quiet plain, not even a few kilometers from the main castle of the Estel Duchy.
They say a criminal always returns to the scene of the crime, but to pull off such a brazen kidnapping and then hole up right under the nose of Castle Estel—things had reached the point where Iris could no longer tell whether Bianca was simply brimming with nerve or had genuinely lost her mind.
"...Hmph. That gloomy woman obviously just wanted to play house with Sir Kain. I've felt it since the first time I saw her—she's nothing more than a woman who reeks of the gutter, like a rotten fish."
"....."
Iris silently stared at Aria as she poured out all manner of curses and slander at Bianca. When Iris had first met Aria in Lumentium, the girl had been a cute young thing overflowing with innocence. Now, over just these few months, her tongue seemed to have grown remarkably sharp. On top of that, those bright, innocent eyes were now filled with nothing but venom and killing intent. It seemed the saying that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned was not so far from the truth.
"In any case, this means that wench Bianca has Kain imprisoned here behind a barrier, does it not?"
"Yes, it does. Although she's constructed a barrier that refracts the atmosphere around it, giving it non-visible elasticity so it won't catch other people's eyes, at the moment."
"...To put it simply, Bianca del Castana has installed an invisible barrier around this area. Can I take it that way?"
"Yes, that's right."
As Aria agreed with Iris's words and nodded, Iris furrowed her brow slightly, as though something was troubling her.
"Hmm, dismantling barriers isn't my specialty... and an invisible barrier at that. Troublesome to no end."
The Sword of Heaven that Iris wielded possessed a mighty power capable of severing every substance that existed in the present world. It was a truly underhanded divine authority, one that forcibly imposed her own law upon all matter within the range of her slash by having her will—given form as an embodiment of her very mental image—interfere, if only for a moment, with the world itself.
Yet paradoxically, the power Iris wielded was so immense that delicate work, such as dismantling a barrier, fell into the complete opposite domain of her specialty. If she made a careless swing of her sword and ended up cleaving even Kain, who was inside the barrier, into two pieces, would that not be the very definition of putting the cart before the horse?
"Dismantling barriers is Bianca del Castana's specialty, in fact. But this time the wench herself has installed this barrier and is buried inside it like a grub. The sight of it is utterly ridiculous."
Iris was thus deep in thought, trying to figure out by what means she could possibly break through this barrier, when—
Crack—
From somewhere, the sound of something breaking could be heard. Perhaps it was akin to the sound made when one applies too much force to a biscuit and crushes it. Iris turned her eyes toward the source of the sound. Before Aria, as if a glass window had shattered, space itself was fractured.
"...Hah, for a little trick like this, you've set it up rather solidly, haven't you?"
Aria murmured in a tone that dripped with mockery, then struck the fractured space with her fist as though she were swatting a fly.
Crash—!
The moment Aria's fist connected, a sound like shattering glass scattered outward, and space itself was smashed to pieces. Consequently, a portion of the barrier collapsed on its own, and an opening large enough for a single person to pass through materialized.
"...This is, utterly absurd..."
Iris let out a moan as she witnessed the phenomenon unfolding before her eyes. Iris was not terribly knowledgeable about magic, but she understood full well just how outrageous what Aria had just done truly was.
A barrier was an exquisitely delicate magical construct. Inflicting a massive shock to bring down a barrier as a whole was perhaps possible, but the act of damaging only a portion of it, as Aria had just done, was an unheard-of anomaly beyond anything she had seen or read about. Not even Bianca del Castana—who, ten years from now, would be called the strongest sorceress of the mortal world—could have partially damaged a barrier like this!
"Imperial Princess. It's done now. Let us enter at once."
Utterly indifferent to whatever expression Iris was directing at her, Aria beckoned to her with a tone that seemed to exude a wintry chill. Iris had a great deal she wanted to say, but in the current circumstances, such things were of little importance. She said nothing and obediently followed Aria into the barrier's interior.
As Aria and Iris stepped inside, an open meadow spread out before them, entirely unlike the world outside the barrier. Apparently, Bianca del Castana had put a great deal of effort into crafting this barrier so that she and Kain could live together.
"The space inside the barrier seems to span well over ten kilometers. From this point on, would it not be more efficient to split up and each prioritize our own objectives?"
At those blatant words—declaring now that she had achieved what she set out to do and no longer needed the Imperial Princess's help—Iris could only manage a bitter smile. That said, she herself no longer needed Aria's help either, so it cut both ways.
"Indeed. Your words are sound. In that case, I shall make it my first priority to track down Kain's whereabouts. Aria, what is your plan?"
"There are exactly two things for me to do here. One is to rescue Sir Kain from this place and escort him to safety. And as for the other..."
A fearsome demonic light blazed in Aria's eyes, and soon a chilling killing intent, so ghastly it seemed it could freeze the air itself, shook the entire barrier.
"Taking out the trash."