The Two Ways to Anger a Person
The contract was sealed.
Where the blue flame sigil had once taken root in his heart, a pristine white fire now moved in to stay. From this moment on, any act that violated the contract would set Akron's heart ablaze on the spot — utterly, without even the mercy of regeneration.
"Don't worry. I have no intention of burning you."
As long as you don't try anything strange, that is.
["...My sincere thanks, then."]
As a new power shoved aside the one that had been suppressing him and wedged itself into his domain, his seal began to tremble. The chains binding him shuddered, and the many Blue-Red Stones woven into the seal sensed the crisis and vented their mana in response.
Shraaaak! The chains whipped around Akron once more.
["...This is outrageous. Even after seventeen hundred years, you still hold me down."]
Seventeen hundred years.
That was longer than I'd expected. Which meant Karuns had lived for more than seventeen hundred years, then?
...?
That felt a little much, even for a long-lived race…
["Now I shall tell you how to undo the seal. It's an exceedingly intricate array, so you'd best listen carefully. First, the short-haired man in the mural at the far wall—"]
Clang!
The chains came loose.
The shackles that had bound him for a full seventeen hundred years fell away in a single instant, and the man planted both feet on the ground.
"...You."
"Why are you making it so complicated?"
You could just undo it.
At my words, Akron stared downward with a dumbfounded expression. He felt around near his own heart for a moment, then looked back up at me.
The blue flame was gone entirely.
He let out a hollow laugh.
"Seventeen hundred years I spent studying that seal, analyzing it over and over again…"
And it had all meant nothing.
His deep, weighty voice rolled through the chamber. Akron was a man with long red hair, looking to be in his early thirties. Unlike the stocky Venetus, his frame was lean and agile, and his crimson eyes were set slightly narrow. The odd thing was that he wore clothes of red leather instead of a fur coat.
"It was hardly meaningless. A man needs a goal to keep his sanity across so long a time."
No matter how perfectly balanced a mind might be, one more shock on top of everything will break it in the end. It's always better to fixate on a single thing — be it vengeance against someone, a burning will to escape this place…
Or…
"A goal. Yes. I suppose that's true."
He turned to look at the mural, now stripped of its purpose. Within his gaze, a man and a woman stood hand in hand — a man who looked like Akron himself, and a woman with a short bob, smiling without a blemish of sorrow.
"There's somewhere I need to go."
"This place…"
The place Akron and I arrived at was a grave. Blue undergrowth sprang up in wild, untamed tangles, as though no one had ever tended it. An ordinary passerby would have walked right past without realizing it was a grave at all. Before it, a single red flower had been planted — a bright, cheerful thing that seemed utterly out of place here.
Akron walked slowly up to the grave and stopped in front of the flower.
"It remains as it was."
I wasn't sure whether that could be called a mercy…
He sank to one knee, murmuring the words as he gently caressed the petals. I watched in silence.
After stroking it for a long while, he rose quietly and turned to face me. All of the playful air from earlier had vanished; a heavy stillness hung about him as he looked my way.
"Have you heard the story, by chance? Of what happened in the past?"
"To some extent."
I recounted the brief history Karuns had given me. When I finished, he shook his head with a dry, humorless laugh.
"A great deal is missing. Though I suppose that's only natural — the victors were them."
They must have scrubbed away every ugly trace of themselves.
Thud.
"The wicked blues oppressed us. They demanded tribute at every turn and put even children barely old enough to walk to work."
They were arrogant, committing atrocity upon atrocity, until at the very end they moved to erase the source of our very existence.
"And so we raged. Red or blue, all who were born beneath this primordial land are equal. No one may stand above another."
Even if strength and weakness gave each their different roles, no one could claim superiority as a being.
Akron, who had been the de facto chief of the Rutilus at the time, rose against them — and awakened the ability that had been hidden longest of all.
The Venetus, whose mana flooded in as if it were infinite.
And in perfect opposition, the Rutilus…
"When our mana is spent completely, our bodies are transformed — into flesh modeled after the primordial god."
The more the Rutilus drew on their mana, the faster it drained away. They had believed themselves cursed, denied by their own god — but in truth it was the exact opposite. By being unable to use mana, they drew closer to their deity. An endless flood of mana was a realm the Venetus could never, ever reach.
The blessing had been fair to all.
"So that was the first time he ever realized it?"
Draining your mana down to the very last drop isn't easy, but it's hardly impossible if you set your mind to it. Pour out mana until exhaustion takes you, and it can be done.
"It seems like it should have happened before, honestly."
"It does not simply end with depletion. Only by fully accepting the primordial being into yourself can you claim a portion of its greatness."
The unshakable faith that the primordial being had never abandoned them. And the iron will to merge one's own body wholly with their god. Those two things transformed Akron — and the war turned on its head in an instant.
With his body drenched in blood, Akron felled that era's Four Divine Generals in droves, then returned to his own kind and preached the way of transformation. And he told them:
They had not been abandoned.
The primordial being had granted its power fairly, to every one of them.
"The primordial flesh was mighty. The boundless water we so feared became mere streams to us, and in a contest of bodies, no one could stand against us."
The Rutilus pushed the Venetus back and claimed roughly half the island. Then they declared they would no longer live under Venetus rule, and drew a line across the island's center — so that no one would ever cross beyond it again. The island was divided once more into two equal halves.
"But then… why?"
There had certainly been blood spilled, yet according to Akron, no enemy had ever been killed. Just as they had done to him, they only beat their foes within an inch of their lives — made sure they could never rise again — and let them live. And when they'd claimed half the island, they drew their line and went no further.
Looked at one way, it had all ended peacefully. When I asked him why, Akron's expression darkened, as though he were seeing that day again.
"That is… something I'd rather not speak of."
"Sorry?"
"Think for yourself."
He turned his head away as he said it. I followed his gaze.
At the end of it stood a single flower. A red bloom that held its ground, unyielding, against every orchid around it.
……
I could more or less guess. But I made no move to say it out loud. Everyone involved was already dead, and those who remained had nothing at all to do with what had happened. There was no sense in picking at a wound for no reason.
"...I've talked longer than I meant to. What is it you want? I'd like to see this finished quickly, if possible."
"Hmm… three things, actually. First, I'd like to visit the volcanic island to—"
Rustle!
"...!"
"?"
The undergrowth ringing the grave shuddered. Someone was coming this way. But I'd been told no one at all could enter this place…
Thwack!
"Ugh, move fast— huh?"
What pushed through the brush was Kal — the indigo-haired brat who'd taken a hit to the gut and gotten properly wrecked for it. The birdcage was gone from his forehead; I'd removed it myself before slipping inside the seal.
"Wh-what?! Why are you here?!"
"That's my question to ask."
The Venetus had sealed this place off as forbidden ground — there was no way in. So why on earth was he here? At my words, Kal tilted his head.
"This is our playground though? What forbidden ground?"
"Forbidden?"
En followed close behind, glancing back and forth between me, Redberry, and Akron. Akron's brow furrowed. Contract or no contract, he couldn't hide his loathing for the Venetus. And yet he didn't lash out blindly, and—
…!
"Akron?"
Akron's entire demeanor changed in a heartbeat, flame wreathing his fists on pure instinct as killing intent poured off him. As if he wanted to tear the children apart then and there, the brush nearby caught fire and burned, and the two children hissed and scrambled backward.
Just before his fist came down on them─
"Stop."
KWAAM!
The white divinity seized his heart a heartbeat faster. Unable to advance another step, Akron sank to one knee. He flinched, struggling to vent his mana despite it — useless. If the contract were something that flimsy, I'd never have made it in the first place.
"You haven't forgotten our contract, have you?"
"...Vile. How do you still draw breath? Lise died as she did, and yet your kind—"
……
Had he simply lost his mind already? The Akron who had seemed sane — who had looked sane — transformed the instant he laid eyes on the Venetus children. That was far too violent a shift to explain away as mere old hatred. These children weren't the Venetus of his era, and they'd done nothing to earn his grudge.
So the cause had to be one of two things. Either the influence of the seal still hadn't fully worn off…
Or someone new was exerting their influence on him right now.