Regarding Those Peculiar Companions (1)
Life needs a goal.
A life without one is dull, tedious, and drains away all its vitality—or so Dieta had once read in a book, and she agreed with the words completely.
A clear goal makes life more beautiful.
Walking with her eyes fixed on that high place above, Dieta found every day a pleasure. Even under a crushing load of work she felt joy rather than exhaustion, and whenever she saw the trading company’s stock price break yet another record she felt a quiet swell of pride.
Yet nothing was more enjoyable than this.
“You promised back then, didn’t you?”
Dieta reached out. Her slender fingers hooked the chain of Najin’s necklace like a ring and pulled.
“That we would meet again up there.”
The pendant that had been hidden beneath his clothes—the ring hanging from the chain—slid free. Dieta brushed it with her fingertips.
“You’re so fast, climbing so high that catching up isn’t exactly easy.”
She looked up at him, the corner of her mouth curling.
“But I have no intention of just lagging behind.”
It was a mischievous smile, a challenging one.
Najin shrugged.
“Quite a few people have said they’ll follow me.”
“So I have competition. Well, you do have to be a little special. Still…”
Dieta stepped back, raised a finger to half-cover her face, and snorted.
“I’m the first, aren’t I?”
The one who recognized you. The one who said she would follow. The one who became your friend. And the one who confessed.
I was first in every one of them.
In eyes that glittered with a greedy light like gold coins, Najin could only laugh. How could he deny it? The girl in front of him was proving her claim not with words alone but with every action she took.
“Well then.”
“Yes. Well then.”
No grand farewell was required. They simply nodded to each other and that was enough.
“See you next time.”
Next time, a little higher up.
Before returning to the Outer Land, Najin stopped briefly at the Unicorn Tower. There was still information he needed to share with Gerd. Gerd himself was absent, however; waiting for Najin was Gerd’s adjutant.
“You are…?”
“Ah, we meet again, Lord Najin.”
Soles—that was her name. She was the woman who had once sought him out in the Outer Land to deliver a letter from Gerd.
“Lord Gerd?”
“Lord Gerd is away from his post. Detailed information is normally confidential, but he left orders that if Lord Najin came looking, the information was to be shared…”
She straightened her posture.
“Lord Gerd is currently engaged in the subjugation of the Demon King of Grief, Carpediem. He has headed for the Blue Forest, believed to be Carpediem’s domain, and at present… he is moving north.”
She was said to possess the ability to sense another’s location. Closing her eyes with a soft hum, she nodded as though she could see Gerd’s position clearly.
Carpediem…
Najin recalled the intelligence he had received earlier.
The Revelry Emperor kept four apostles known as Court Jesters, and the Forbidden Territories those four had created guarded her domain. Only two of them had so far been identified: the Demon King of Grief, Carpediem, and the Star of Contempt, Quixote. Gerd had declared at the time, “I’ll handle the Demon King of Grief,” and it seemed he was doing exactly that.
“The force participating in the subjugation consists of four: Lord Gerd, Lord Enticles of the Annihilation Pillar, Lord Akut of the Praise Pillar, and Lord Caron, master of the Sword Church.”
The Empire’s first pillar, Gerd.
The Empire’s second pillar, Enticles of the Annihilation Pillar.
The Empire’s third pillar, Akut of the Praise Pillar.
Master of the Sword Church, Sword Saint Caron.
Only four names, yet looking at who those four were, one could hardly call the force insufficient.
“That is all the information. Ah—Lord Gerd did leave a message when he departed… but it would be best to hear the purpose of your visit first. What brings you here, Lord Najin?”
Najin explained the information he had uncovered: that he had located intelligence on La Mancha and intended to head there at once.
“I see.”
Soles nodded and continued.
“Lord Gerd said that if you came while he was away and brought information on La Mancha, I was to convey the following.”
“Which is?”
“Take this and go to the Holy Blood and Holy Body Churches. The talks have already been concluded.”
She handed him a badge stamped with the emblem of the Empire’s First Pillar.
“He said they will cooperate. I will send an official notice ahead of you. Wait a moment and I will have a carriage brought.”
Najin boarded the carriage that arrived shortly afterward.
It delivered him to the steps of the Holy Blood Church’s main cathedral. High-ranking priests of the cathedral came scrambling out as though to greet him.
In principle the churches and the Empire did not interfere with one another and respected each other’s spheres—yet principle always bowed to circumstance. Though church branches were scattered across the continent, the greatest concentration of them lay inside the Empire; even a church of considerable prestige could not entirely ignore the Empire’s gaze. Half the transcendents belonging to the churches, the Lighthouse Keepers excepted, were themselves bound to the Empire in some fashion.
Under the priests’ guidance Najin walked deeper into the cathedral.
“If you wait here a little while, she will arrive shortly. Just a moment…”
Who was arriving? The question was unnecessary; Najin already had a fair idea. Before long footsteps sounded beyond the door—calm, measured steps, and with them a chilling presence that no amount of effort could conceal.
The door opened and someone entered the reception room: a woman with cascading snow-white hair and blood-red eyes. In the Empire she competed for first or second place in beauty, yet her notoriety was wholly at odds with that face.
“Oh. How do you do.”
The church’s Executioner, the killer Yuel Razian, waved at him with a blank expression.
“Three months? Five? I no longer remember the exact span, but roughly that much time seems to have passed. From my point of view it is not so very long.”
She stared at him hard.
“For you, it appears to have been rather longer.”
A transcendent’s eyes see a great deal. After studying him carefully, the corner of Yuel’s mouth twitched—just a fraction—into a thin smile, and she nodded.
“It will be soon, then. I shall wait for that day.”
“……What day?”
“The day you challenge me to a duel. Have you forgotten? You yourself said that once you grew strong enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with me, you would challenge me to a life-or-death duel.”
Did I say that? Najin looked at her with genuine doubt. He did not recall ever bluffing in quite those terms.
“I don’t remember saying any such thing.”
“……”
“……”
“First, regarding the matter conveyed by Lord Gerd, allow me to state the church’s position—”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Public and private affairs must be kept separate. The personal conversation has already run long. Whatever remains can wait until official business is finished.”
Her skill at deflecting was nothing ordinary.
The arrangement Gerd had reached with the Holy Blood and Holy Body Churches was simple: they would cooperate in the hunt for the Revelry Emperor and lend active support to every matter connected with her subjugation.
Because the Revelry Emperor was the enemy of humanity itself, not merely of the Empire, the demand had been delivered with considerable arrogance—yet while the Holy Body Church might have bristled, the Holy Blood Church felt no resentment at all.
“The Holy Blood Church exists to hunt demons.”
Yuel Razian, Executioner and spokeswoman of the church, spoke calmly.
“My lord, the Martyr of the Bramble, will not hesitate to join hands even with the most heinous of criminals if it means demons can be slain. He would hardly take offense merely because the Empire adopted a high-handed tone. On the contrary, he is pleased.”
Demons were creatures that had to be killed by any means necessary. And among the demons still walking the Outer Land, the Revelry Emperor was the strongest—and the center around which the others gathered.
“The subjugation of the Revelry Emperor has long been one of our church’s goals. Therefore we accept the request for cooperation.”
She laid a hand over her heart.
“I, Yuel Razian, Executioner of the Holy Blood Church and Grand Champion of the Martyr of the Bramble, promise you our cooperation.”
The path to La Mancha—the place believed to hold the weakness of the Star of Contempt, Quixote—would of course be treacherous. The Revelry Emperor was no fool who left her vulnerabilities unguarded.
“I will assist you on the road to La Mancha. If possible, I will also take part in the assault on the place that bears that name.”
Breaking through those defenses alone would not be easy; Gerd had clearly prepared allies for Najin in advance. The Executioner of the Holy Blood Church was one of them.
“And an identical official notice will of course have reached the Holy Body Church. Do you intend to go there now?”
“I plan to leave at once.”
“Then I shall accompany you.”
Not long afterward Najin arrived at the main cathedral of the Holy Body Church with Yuel at his side. A similar reception unfolded there. While they waited in the reception room, a figure of considerable stature within the church soon appeared.
The door opened to admit a woman with cascading golden hair. She looked roughly the same age as Yuel—early to mid-twenties. The moment Najin’s eyes met her blue ones, he felt a quiet certainty.
This one will not be easy.
Having met every sort of person in the underground city, Najin could usually read character from a face, a gaze, a posture. The woman before him, however, radiated difficulty at every level.
An arrogant stride that declared she was the finest creature alive. A haughty gaze that looked down on everything under the sun. Even her eyebrows were drawn sharply upward, as though the mere fact of being summoned irritated her; dissatisfaction rolled off her in waves.
“Huu.”
And then a deliberate sigh for good measure. With every fiber of her body she was advertising that she was in a foul mood and thoroughly disliked the present situation.
Anyone who could show such open contempt to a free knight backed by the Empire’s First Pillar had to be a giant among giants—essentially the church’s representative.
The highest existence of the Holy Body Church.
Counted, alongside the Lighthouse Keeper of the Holy Light Church and the Executioner of the Holy Blood Church, as one of the three churches’ asymmetric powers.
Seongyuksin opened her mouth.
“I find this situation extremely, thoroughly disagreeable. To put it bluntly, it is unpleasant. Such a high-handed attitude? Originally every church is independent—”
She was still scowling and snapping when her gaze dropped and she realized Najin was not alone in the room. The instant she recognized her companion’s face, her eyes flew wide.
“Inde… indepen… independently…”
She began to stammer. Every trace of dissatisfaction vanished; her pupils started to shake wildly.
“Huk—!”
She sucked in a sharp breath and stumbled backward.
“W-why are you here?”
Seongyuksin flung out a trembling finger and pointed straight at Yuel.
Anyone with eyes could see she was terrified of the white-haired woman. A person with ordinary social sense would never have spoken familiarly to someone who so clearly wished to avoid them…
“How do you do, Seongyuksin. It has been seventeen years.”
Yuel, however, was not that person. She possessed neither tact nor any interest in other people’s feelings; her own mood always came first. And right now she was genuinely glad to see Seongyuksin—not for show, but sincerely.
While Yuel waved cheerfully, Seongyuksin trembled like a herbivore before a predator.
“It is difficult to catch a glimpse of you. Seeing you after so long is truly a pleasure. Have you been well?”
Yuel rose and took a step forward. Seongyuksin flinched and stepped back. The same exchange repeated several times until Seongyuksin’s back pressed against the wall.
Hiccup.
With nowhere left to retreat, she began to hiccup. Pressed flat against the wall, she let out a piercing shriek.
“D-don’t come any closer! Stay right there! Talk from there! From there!”
Her face was pure terror.