Spear Saint Asel (4)
"Another ill-omened day."
Ardel tipped his face to the sky and let out a long, weary sigh.
He was posted at the gates today rather than on patrol — not that an apprentice knight's duties amounted to much either way. The city guard handled nearly all the real work.
The sky hung dark. A clear sun ought to have been pouring light across the earth, but heavy clouds had gathered in its place, drowning everything in gloom. As if to prove the point, the mood on the ground was just as foul. The senior knight in charge of the apprentices had been riding them without mercy, and all manner of ugly rumors were circulating through the guard.
The missing persons had piled up. Corpses had been found as well, their remains so ruined they were barely recognizable. The priests who examined them claimed traces of Magi clung to the bodies.
With omens this grim stacking one atop another, the knights charged with protecting Antoni had gone on full alert. They had debated whether to send a report to the Capital, but the trouble was still too recent. For now they had chosen to wait. It might yet blow over as nothing more than a grim coincidence.
Ardel did not believe that. Something was going to break. An incident in which a great many people would die or be maimed. There was little he could do about it, though. He had no intention of abandoning the city on the strength of a hunch alone.
"Carriage approaching!"
One was rolling toward them even as he brooded. Antoni was a vast city, and even under circumstances this unsettling, the stream of people seeking entry had not dried up. Most days you saw merchant caravans, or commoners who had hired a coach for the journey.
"That's… a lot fancier than usual."
This one was unmistakably a noble's carriage. The guards drew themselves up, taut with nerves, and Ardel quietly took a position nearby, curious to see who it was. Then the crest on the approaching coach resolved into clarity, and the tension among the guards detonated like a powder keg.
"…Russelmani?"
Someone breathed the name of the ducal house. That emblem was stamped on the carriage for all to see; it was no wonder every man present felt the ground tilt under him. Fortunately, it was not the Duke himself. Had His Grace come in person, the senior knights and the city's mayor would already have been standing at attention before the main gate. The entire situation would have been different.
Which meant that whoever sat inside was, at the very least, of Russelmani blood. That alone was no small matter. Why on earth would a child of the Duke be coming here?
The carriage groaned to a halt. The guard formed ranks, every spine rigid. The captain himself stepped forward, inspected the coach, and spoke with practiced deference.
"If I may inquire which honored personage graces us with their presence?"
The honored personage did not so much as lean into view. A maid showed her face instead.
"It is Young Master Reinhardt."
"Ah — of course. Please, come through at once!"
They were about to wave the carriage through when someone stepped down from inside. A young lady with hair the color of pink blossom. Ardel knew exactly who she was, and the recognition left him flustered. How could he not know the girl arranged as Argal's marriage prospect?
Laeli, for her part, had met Ardel once before. Her face lit up the moment she saw him.
"Brother Ardel! It's been so long!"
"G-good to see you."
Running into a familiar face in the middle of a shift — and under circumstances this delicate — was the last thing he needed. The one mercy was that Laeli had just stepped out of a Russelmani carriage, so not a soul dared to reprimand him for the exchange. The whispers that sprang up instead were of an entirely different kind.
"Does that apprentice have some connection to the Russelmani?"
"I thought he was just some nobody from a minor baronial house. Looks like he's got backing after all."
Ardel was still trying to figure out what to do with the misunderstanding blooming around him when a far greater personage descended from the carriage.
Hair like a waterfall of blue. Green eyes — the living emblem of House Russelmani.
"Are you Argal's brother?"
"I am."
"Would you join us in the carriage for a moment?"
Ardel was still reeling, trying to make sense of what was happening, when Fran swung a book at Reinhardt — who stood there wearing the air of a man for whom being deferred to was as natural as breathing.
Thwack.
Not that it landed. Reinhardt's physical senses were far too sharp for a mere book to get through.
"Reinhardt! What kind of manners is that toward Argal's brother?!"
"…Even so, one must consider matters of station, Fran."
"Ah. Wait — is that brother…?"
Fran, who had launched herself at him without a second thought, took in the situation and gave a small nod. She had clocked Ardel's uniform and realized he was an apprentice of the Golden Knights. If a young master of House Russelmani started addressing a mere apprentice with honorifics, the one who would suffer for it was Ardel.
Reinhardt exhaled a long breath and turned to the guard captain.
"Are you the highest-ranking officer here?"
"Y-yes! That's correct!"
"I shall borrow that one for a time. You have no objection?"
"None at all, Young Master!"
The decision was never going to be Ardel's to make. Reinhardt had every intention of taking him, and that was that. Ardel found himself more or less frog-marched into the carriage, and the coach rolled on into the city.
Even with his head still spinning, one word cut through the noise. His younger brother. He thought of Argal, and spoke.
"…Young Master. If I may ask — what is your relationship with Argal?"
Reinhardt considered the question for a moment before answering.
A single word. Ardel felt his mind come unmoored. What in the world did a person have to do to become friends with a Duke's son?
Fran watched his expression and grinned, mischief dancing in her voice.
"Oh, come on. Friends? To Reinhardt he's more like a comrade-in-arms, don't you think? And you can drop the formalities with him, it's fine."
"And you are?"
"I'm Fran! A future Archmage, I'll have you know!"
Her utterly shameless introduction only made Ardel dizzier. What the hell have you been getting yourself into, Argal…
He ground his teeth at his little brother in the privacy of his own skull, then nodded and managed a reply.
"Argal has made some fine friends."
Laeli let out a quiet little laugh.
"Are they really just good friends, I wonder?"
"…If not that, then what?"
Laeli did not answer. She only thought. Setting Reinhardt aside, the rest of them were rivals, weren't they? Even by her own reckoning, the field was crowded. The girl sleeping quietly in the back — Besia — was no exception.
Still. The one who would win in the end, Laeli was certain, was herself.
Yoas watched them vanish like the wind, and his thoughts turned cold.
The Hero was still in the Capital. She already distrusted the Church. If those fugitives reached her and confessed that the Church had acted unjustly, the weight of it would be considerable. The Church had to walk beside the Hero until the world itself came to an end.
"…Everything may yet come undone."
That boy — the one he suspected of ruining everything — had slipped through his fingers. The investigation had not even been finished. Yoas had intended to hold him at the Church and pass judgment later. He had not expected them to force an escape outright.
"Your Eminence. What are your orders?"
"…Block the roads leading to the royal palace."
"At once!"
Yoas was certain they would go to the Hero. She was the only one who could still salvage this. Outwardly, those fugitives had made themselves enemies of the Church, and Cardinal Yoas had all the justification he needed. He could order them cut down. If they feared that, they would have no choice but to run to the Hero.
A thin smile touched his lips. Thrash about all you like. You are still in the palm of my hand.
He watched the Holy Knights peel away from the Church and turn toward the royal palace, and murmured to himself.
"Even if things have gone awry, we are still heading in the right direction."
No matter what variables arose. The Holy Power he carried was intact. So long as he sat as Cardinal, the Church of the Capital rested in his grasp. The only ones who could check him were the Saintess candidate and the Pope — and both of them were abroad.
Even if those near-Transcendent beings noticed the Magi inside his body, excuses were plentiful. Magi and Holy Power could not coexist, so he could claim he had been tainted in a clash with a black mage, or affected while purifying demons. The justifications practically wrote themselves.
The smile on his face deepened. However the pieces fell, the only ending that remained was his victory. As though the heavens themselves had been painted over with Holy Power, the sky above him was dazzlingly bright. It seemed to bless the future that awaited him.
…And in the room they had all left behind, a being who had been drifting in and out of death opened his eyes, perfectly whole.
Splitting the demon's curse in half had been nothing more than a smokescreen — a ploy to make the Cardinal drop his guard. The curse had already become something close to meaningless.
The bishop smiled faintly, and spoke to the empty air.
As a bishop. As a Transcendent. He had calculated without rest, turning every variable over until he arrived at the finest possible result. The plan was already in motion. The die had been cast. All that remained was the conclusion.
The sole variable was the advice he had given Argal. To keep the boy from dying too much. To keep him from an ending of ruin. He had wrapped the truth in something close to a lie — uncertain enough, even to himself, that Argal would not resign himself to death.
He believed in Argal. Believed that the boy would fall to corruption, and in falling, bring everything down with him. He must not surrender to the temptation of immortality.
The bishop turned his head. Having reached the Transcendent realm, he could see what had been hidden from him before. Across the way, the Cardinal sat wreathed in Holy Power. And among them, there was a spy.
If the Black Tower Master was a catastrophe of the present moment, that one was an incurable disease — a sickness that would, in the end, collapse the entire body from within.
The Church had to be the hope of all people. Even if every soul alive were dancing on the Demon King's strings. Even if every soul alive had waded into the tide of corruption. The Church had to offer a faith that would not be shaken. He would not stand by and watch it be destroyed.
Bishop Revega swore it before God. Or perhaps God had chosen him.
A mind that had already reached Transcendence, and now a body drawing near that same threshold. The wrinkles that had lingered on his face were vanishing. Hair that had gone white as snow was recovering its color. Even the demon's curse — the sole thing that had stood in the way — he had split and taken upon himself.
He would repay his benefactor in equal measure. In a world that held nothing but despair, he would gladly become a seed of salvation.
"All of this is thanks to you."
If Besia had died that day and never come back, Bishop Revega would have broken. But she had been pulled out of despair, and so he still believed in God. He still believed in hope. That faith had overcome the curse. A spirit that would not yield had reached Transcendence. And now the completeness of the flesh itself was drawing close behind.
"Hah—!"
We hit the ground beyond the Capital's walls, the impact driving the air from my lungs. I had burned through every last reserve I had. My body was coming apart again, and the demon's curse began to press down on what was left of it.
Fortunately I still had Elixir. If I was genuinely about to collapse, I could swallow it. Dying once and coming back was an option too. Asel was right beside me, though, and I wasn't sure I needed to put on that particular show.
With her, it probably wouldn't even matter. She was strange enough that she'd believe me even if I told her I couldn't die.
I went down, and Asel forced herself up with visible effort, looking at me.
"Were you always this much of a weakling…? Wait. No. You actually were."
"That's right. So you carry me."
"Ugh — I don't have the strength to move either."
Even so, using the One-Point Thrust and still having stamina left was apparently too much to ask. When she'd used it this time there had been no killing intent, and the speed had been extraordinary — I'd thought it might have broken through to the next level. It hadn't quite.
Fine. We'd rest a moment, then move. Unlike me, Asel would actually recover if she sat still.
That was the plan, at least, as I lay there. Asel was still twitching faintly against the dirt, looking about as threatening as a crushed insect.
…And then, far in the distance, Magi surged up with such violence that my entire body shuddered.
"…No time to rest."
It had begun. The catastrophe the Black Tower Master was raising. His final leap — the last desperate climb toward Transcendence, bought with the burning of his own life.
It had started.