The Formula Written in Blood (2)
“What do you mean by using my position?”
Yuel tilted her head.
Her position? Granted, her social standing was lofty. Now that the Holy Light Church had collapsed and most of its faithful had been absorbed into the Holy Blood Church, it stood higher still.
But what possible connection did that have to the subjugation of Hermann? While Yuel blinked, unable to grasp Merlin’s meaning, the mage began sketching on the ground.
“First I ought to explain how one steals a constellation’s authority. I’ve already gone over it with this one—how much do you know?”
“That the Revelry Emperor primarily practiced the plunder of authorities, and that a few demons have swallowed constellations and stolen their stars. That is roughly the extent of the Church’s records.”
“Right. Demons simply devour existence itself, so set them aside. Shall we talk about the Revelry Emperor’s case?”
Merlin drew seven stars upon the earth.
It was the constellation of Dalso, long familiar to Najin.
“Authority or power—where does the root of it all lie? In the star. And what is a star? The story you have lived.”
She pressed the tip of a twig hard against the star that corresponded to Dalso—Laughter and Chatter.
“The Revelry Emperor parasitizes stories. She fabricates the claim that she was a crucial figure in that tale, insists she holds a share of the star, then coaxes it until she can swallow it whole.”
“I see.”
“Of course, swallowing it does not mean one can use everything. Authority requires perfect comprehension of the star. Still, she could at least borrow the starlight.”
In that fashion the Revelry Emperor had succeeded in plundering hundreds of stars. Merlin dragged the twig in a long stroke and sketched a new constellation beside the first.
A constellation of nine stars.
Najin’s own.
Poking those stars one by one, Merlin continued.
“This, by contrast, is not plunder but a highly special case… though ones like him do exist. Call it the transfer of a star. Rarely, someone will bestow their star upon another who has achieved a similar feat.”
Several of the stars Najin possessed were exactly such examples.
Unyielding, Dalso, Adventure.
Each had been transferred from Alderan, Don Quixote, and Icarus respectively.
“More precisely it is closer to aiding the birth of a star. In any case one must first accomplish a comparable deed. But that is beside the point… What matters?”
Merlin smiled.
“That stars can be stolen or transferred in this manner. And while that boy received his stars in a rather peaceful fashion, it was not so in my day.”
She snapped her fingers. Eleven stars began to revolve above her palm; she lifted one of them.
“This is the Star of Sinking. Originally it belonged to the Witch of Sinking. Once I submerged that bitch’s entire sanctuary, lo and behold—her star came to me.”
She sank the Witch of Sinking.
Merlin uttered the single-line sentence.
“When the concept a star holds is overwhelmed by the same concept, it functions much like a transfer. In truth, plunder and transfer share more than a few similarities.”
She raised three fingers.
“One: deep involvement in the story.”
The condition for plunder.
“Two: overwhelm it with the same concept, or else receive recognition and have the star transferred outright.”
The method that went beyond mere plunder and allowed one to seize even the star’s authority. She folded two fingers, leaving only the index, and pointed it straight at Yuel.
“Using the position you hold—that is precisely the story.”
The position Yuel occupied.
Not her social prestige, but her place as a constellation.
“You are the sole successful specimen of the experiments Hermann conducted in her pursuit of perfection, of greater omniscience. Hermann is intimately bound to the process of your birth, and your patron deity is surely aware of that fact…”
Merlin narrowed her eyes. Her gaze fixed upon the constellation linked to Yuel’s mind. The Martyr of the Bramble, her old comrade-in-arms, answered that look.
“Ah. My patron speaks. He confirms that your conjecture is correct.”
“Yes. You are an apostle of the Martyr of the Bramble, and simultaneously an apostle of the Star of Omniscience.”
Hermann’s plan to make a Calamity Star her apostle had failed, yet the channel she had created then still remained.
“We will exploit that channel. The narrative of intimate involvement in the story, your position as Hermann’s apostle, the connection between you and her—we will use every last one of them.”
With a sharp thrust Merlin drove the twig into the earth.
Where it stuck lay Hermann’s constellation.
“We will steal Hermann’s star.”
That was the objective of this subjugation.
Crackling flames of the campfire.
Merlin had temporarily released her materialization, so only Yuel and Najin sat before the fire. Nothing but the soft snap of burning embers filled the air.
“Mm.”
Yuel, who had kept silent, chewed her lip.
“Najin?”
“What is it?”
“There are a few things I wish to ask.”
Najin looked at her. Unlike the Yuel who ordinarily spoke without the least reservation, the present Yuel fretted at her lip and seemed to hesitate.
“One moment.”
Najin, who had been sitting at ease, straightened his posture. He circulated the mana within his body in a swift cycle, clearing his mind. Ready to listen, he nodded.
“I am aware that the past I cannot remember is entangled with the Star of Omniscience. I also know that I sought out the Star of Forgetting in order to erase that incident.”
Yuel continued slowly.
“Originally I felt no attachment whatever to my past. It was worth discarding, so I discarded it. The memories held no value. The present was enjoyable, so it was fine. That was how I thought. Because it was the ‘rational’ judgment.”
Rational, she said.
“Rather than a past whose contents are unknown, one lives the present whose pleasure is certain. One calculates for the things that seem enjoyable now, and for the pleasures yet to come. An utterly rational judgment. I lived roughly a hundred and fifty years that way.”
Yuel stared steadily at Najin.
“Until that day, I did.”
Her pupils narrowed slightly.
“That day, I changed. I still neither regret nor cling to the past. But the reason is entirely different. Not because I am certain the memories are worthless, but because someone else…”
In short.
“Because you will remember them for me. And so it is all right—that is what I find myself thinking.”
“And so?”
“And so, I suppose, a rather strange emotion arises. I wish to converse with you. I wish to close the distance. When I am with you—who know me better and understand me better than I do myself—I can feel myself with certainty.”
The existence she had once been able to sense only through murder, the very outline of her soul, she could feel completely when she was with Najin. Yuel pressed a hand firmly against her chest.
“…If we subjugate the Star of Omniscience and reach even the Star of Forgetting, and if I become involved in that process, I will surely recall my past.”
“You will.”
“And when that happens, the direction of the emotions I now possess will change as well.”
Yuel lowered her gaze.
“I find this emotion I have come to hold for the first time beautiful. Because it is the first thing I have ever grasped, yes. I think I regard it as precious.”
She spoke.
“I am a little afraid of losing it—afraid that recalling the past will alter it.”
“It will change.”
“Is that so?”
“After all, the you of the past…”
A sharp glance.
“Yuel was rather different from the way you are now.”
“…What was I like in the past?”
Najin considered the question for a moment.
“A foul-mouthed person?”
“Pardon?”
“She would yell ‘fuck’ at the drop of a hat and grab people by the collar. Even when praised she would snap, ‘Are you saying that to embarrass me? Fuck, I’ll show you what real embarrassment looks like.’ That sort of person.”
“….”
“Yet her heart was soft; she would tear up at the slightest thing. Get a drink in her and she would sob, cling to my sleeve, and refuse to let go—‘Where are you going? Stay here. Don’t vanish from my sight.’ That was the person she was.”
Yuel’s pupils trembled. Shame and embarrassment did not yet exist within her. Even so, for some reason her fingers itched. She felt an urge to clap a hand over that mouth at once.
“Capricious. She would explode in anger, then the moment I left her side even briefly she would mumble, ‘I… may have spoken a bit harshly. I apologize,’ and watch my face carefully. Hard to pin down, yet somehow easy as well.”
“You seem to know me… in considerable detail.”
“How could I not?”
Najin shrugged.
“It was the first time I had ever stayed with one person for so long.”
Though time had accelerated in the middle, even by Najin’s own sense of it they had lived together for at least several years. A certain closeness comes from time like that.
Even now, if he closed his eyes the images rose without effort.
The first thing Yuel would do upon waking, raking her messy hair, was turn her head and look for Najin; only after greeting him would she begin her day.
“Najin? Are you there?”
“Ah, you are.”
“I simply called.”
The memory of Yuel meeting his eyes, still half-asleep, and exhaling a soft breath made Najin huff a quiet laugh. Yuel, who had listened in silence, wore a complicated expression.
“I do not feel as though that person and I are the same. Though I lack empathy for others, even I recognize that a minimal degree of consideration is an essential element for society to function.”
And, she added with a faintly disapproving look,
“Consideration arises from respecting another’s space and life. When I challenged the Sword Saint or you to a duel in the past, the challenges were usually issued when the other party had leisure. Disregarding another’s work is socially undesirable.”
She reached her conclusion.
“If I may be frank, it seems the me of the past lacked consideration. Judging by the repeated violations of social norms, she was not a model member of society.”
“Is that so?”
“Pardon?”
“Toward other people she was quite considerate. She kept her distance, rarely interfered, and was an exemplary figure of authority.”
To Yuel’s complicated expression Najin said,
“That she showed me no consideration and spoke so roughly… I believe that was her way of marking something. ‘You are the only one I treat rudely. With you I will hide nothing and deal with you exactly as I am.’ That sort of mark.”
The campfire crackled and flared.
“You said you were afraid your emotions might change?”
Yuel gave a small nod. Najin exhaled and spoke in a light tone.
“I do not know whether my words will serve as an answer, but there is one thing I can promise.”
“A promise? Of what sort?”
“No matter how you change, I will not. I will look at you with the same eyes as always. Because however you change, it will still be Yuel.”
On that day long ago Najin had made a promise of his own to Yuel: look at me simply as myself. Even if I change, even if I forget myself, be the anchor that holds me fast.
“If you are afraid, you may ask. If something feels strange, do as the old you once did—grab me by the collar and whine for a few hours. That is fine.”
“That is…”
“You are allowed.”
Yuel closed her mouth on whatever she had been about to say.
After losing her emotions she had spent a full hundred and fifty to two hundred years alone. Throughout that time she had neither understood others nor been understood by them; she had lived solely by questioning herself.
“I can understand whatever you do. Besides, we have not known each other a day or two; I have a fair idea how you think.”
To that Yuel the man before her said:
Whatever you do, I can understand it.
For me it is not a difficult thing.
“….”
Yuel pressed her palm wordlessly against her chest. A small pulse beat beneath her hand. The same heartbeat she always heard, yet the rhythm was a little different now.
She still did not understand this emotion.
Yet at the same time she thought,
“Indeed.”
I want to understand it.
“That is… not bad.”
The feeling is not bad.
Yuel smiled.
It was a smile unfamiliar to her—and perhaps unfamiliar to Najin as well.
“Here it is.”
A few days later they arrived at the place believed to conceal Hermann’s sanctuary. Sheer white canyons rose in jagged ranks, and among them a path plunged unusually deep into the earth.
According to intelligence gathered by the Special Forces, Hermann’s starlight had last been detected in this vicinity. The survey had employed a Masterpiece, they had noted, and thus the probability was high.
More importantly, a constellation resides nearby. For at least two hundred years it has never left the canyon, standing guard over the path…
Gears were discovered within the canyon.
Traces of the ‘mechanical devices’ you previously ordered us to watch for. The constellation guarding the canyon is presumed to be Hermann’s apostle or collaborator.
Turning those words over in his mind, Najin walked on. It was a canyon lying at the farthest fringe of the Outer Land, in its deepest recesses. When he focused mana into his eyes he could see the vast barrier stretched across the canyon’s heart.
A constellation’s sanctuary.
The ways constellations marked the boundaries of their domains varied widely, yet those who drew their lines in this fashion were invariably the ones most sensitive about their territory.
A barrier that neither hid nor restrained itself, surging roughly.
In short, a warning that setting foot inside would prove unpleasant. Najin recognized the warning at a glance. He recognized it, yet he did not stop walking.
Step.
Najin crossed into the barrier. At that instant the entire sanctuary convulsed. Somewhere a metallic click sounded, followed by a rising chorus of click-click-clack! as gears meshed and turned.
Then Najin saw it.
An arrow flying toward him. Not so much an arrow as a harpoon the length of a grown man, loosed from what must have been a great-bow. The moment the shaft struck home, a thunderous roar exploded.
KRAAAAAAANG!
A single arrow brought down a cliff. With heavy, grinding crashes the rock face collapsed, raising a storm of dust. Dozens of kilometers away the master of the domain opened his mouth.
“A pup who has lost every scrap of fear.”
The voice resounded through the whole sanctuary.
“I drew a boundary line out of kindness for idiots like you, yet even after seeing it you failed to understand? You will not claim you had no idea what would happen once you stepped inside.”
He made no effort to hide his displeasure.
“If a warning cannot make itself understood, one is no better than a beast. No—even beasts, unless they have gone mad, instinctively refuse to set foot in dangerous places. What is the use of talking to a creature lower than a beast?”
He loosed another arrow.
WHHHHHSSSSH!
It split the air, crossed dozens of kilometers in a heartbeat, and detonated upon its target. He believed that would have severed the life cleanly—yet…
“….”
Contrary to his expectation, what emerged from the clearing dust was Najin, unharmed. In his hand he held the arrow.
He had caught, bare-handed, a shaft fired with that velocity and force.
Najin offered no reply to the constellation’s words. He simply gripped the harpoon like a spear, drew his arm back, and prepared. Lower than a beast, was it? Then it was time to show what a creature lower than a beast could do.
Javelin throw.
The harpoon left Najin’s hand and was wrapped in a storm. Rending the air by pure physical force alone, it flew back the way it had come.