Tilia (1)
A woman sat in a chair that was unpleasantly, glaringly red—only the armrests plated in gold. That woman was Tilia.
Inside the vanity-choked castle, ornate chandeliers and decorations of every kind covered every surface.
"Ah~ whatever. Who cares if they find out a demon's involved."
"I'm sick of all of it."
She idly twirled her reddish-purple hair around a finger and spoke with bored indifference. The moment the words left her mouth, she kicked back her chair and stood.
"I'll just do whatever I want!"
A spine-chilling laugh rang through Tilia's empty castle.
At the break of dawn, as morning light crept in. The moon was setting, and the top of the sun gradually came into view.
As the newborn sunlight fell, the faces beneath the surrounding soldiers' helmets began to show.
Every face was one of despair. Faces that had seen something unbelievable. Haggard, worn faces.
There was nothing but the sound of feet walking toward Horn, without a word.
Victory had never even been a dream. Sepia was a considerably strong nation—it wasn't that they couldn't win. But no one had expected a one-sided massacre like this.
Even the survivors were full of resentment toward Horn. Why attack Sepia?
Sepia's mages were of an extraordinarily high level. No—they were monsters. It felt as if the sun itself were falling from the sky, and soldiers fell one after another to some unknown black something.
If only this fight had never started in the first place.
Horn's soldiers had died meaninglessly. Even I, a commander, couldn't understand it. Why on earth did we have to attack Sepia?
It must all be because the king went strange.
A few years ago, the king started acting oddly.
Horn had never been a nation with an aggressive foreign policy, yet the king gradually began issuing orders to attack small villages.
Why? We of Horn had always been the ones to repel fights. We never struck first. Part of that was that Horn's military wasn't particularly strong compared to other countries.
Horpe's orders were, no matter how you looked at them, pure loss.
The regions we occupied brought no national benefit whatsoever, and if other countries learned that Horn was attacking tiny villages, our reputation would suffer.
Indeed, once-active trade had ground to a halt, and adventurers' footsteps gradually grew fewer.
Horpe's instructions were nothing but incomprehensible commands, as if from someone running a country for the first time.
Why had the king become strange? It wasn't that I had no idea.
There was a soldier who had overheard Horpe speaking alone at night with a certain woman.
That soldier never saw the woman's face, but said she had a sharp voice and a playful way of speaking.
Horpe had fallen for a woman and was doing this?
Who on earth was that woman?
She was certainly no ordinary woman.
Rather, that woman may have done something to Horpe. I believe in Horn's king, Horpe. At first he was never this foolish.
He was a man of upright spirit, who chose defense over offense, who always thought of Horn's people—a magnificent man.
What in the world happened to Horpe?
When we reach Horn, the first thing I'll do is see Horpe. I can't endure this any longer.
Beyond this door is the king—Horpe.
An inexplicable sense of wrongness. The air in the room. No—the wrongness in the air that I could feel even from the corridor.
Even if it was the king's chambers, my sixth sense was screaming. Something was wrong.
I hurriedly opened the door and went in. Inside the room was a woman.
A woman with purple hair tinged with red—she was bathed entirely in the red of the evening glow reflected in the window.
Even though I had flung the door open roughly and made a loud noise, she continued staring out the window.
A woman in Horpe's room. Perhaps the woman from the rumors.
I gripped my sword, ready for any possible combat. No—I felt certain combat would break out.
"Where has His Majesty Horpe gone, and what is the likes of you doing here?"
Instead of answering, the woman slowly turned her face.
Blood-red eyes the color of blood. A mouth smiling as if something were terribly amusing.
If this place weren't here, I would surely have thought her beautiful.
"I'll say it again. Who are you?"
Strength entered the hand gripping my sword. Something might come.
The woman who had merely been looking at me and smiling slowly opened her mouth.
"Hold on, I've got a question too~ Who are you?"
As that sharp voice, just as the rumors said, flowed into my ear, I became certain. This woman had done something to the king.
"I am Horn's supreme commander—"
The moment she heard the word commander, before I could finish, the woman cut me off and continued with her own words.
"Commander? You came walking right up to me on your own without me even having to go find you? I was just about to go looking, too~"
After saying that, the woman flew at me at tremendous speed, purple smoke coiling around her right hand.
My whole body was tensed, so I managed to dodge by a hair.
"Ha! You—you dodged mine?"
The woman said from behind me, sounding a little flustered.
She was the one who attacked first. Without hesitation, I swung my sword.
"Aah—aah— this is so annoying, seriously! Why does everyone only do this to me!"
But all I could cut was the tip of her fluttering hair.
"--E-R-D--"
The language of demons?
I had fought demons a few times before, so the familiar resonance reached my ears.
A purple-tinged fireball would probably come flying.
As expected, a small purple flame formed in the woman's hand, then a fireball a little larger than a fist was cast.
I remembered other demons casting them at considerably larger sizes—had she reduced it because we were indoors?
Using fire magic inside a building... she isn't thinking at all.
The fireball left the woman's hand and flew at high speed. My sword had magic resistance, so I could bat it away.
The deflected fireball flew out through the open door and exploded in the corridor.
With this much commotion, soldiers would be coming soon.
Whether that would help or only get in the way, I didn't know.
"Tch, this is really annoying."
"Who are you? This is the third—"
The agitated woman kept flying at me with purple flame still coiled in her right hand. Why was she fighting in close quarters like this?
Given that she had just used a fireball, she could use other magic as well.
There was no need for her to fight a warrior like me at close range.
Looking closer, despite being a demon, she had no horns. Not a strong demon, then.
"For a demon, you're on the weak side."
At those words, one of her blood-red eyes twitched. I'd struck a nerve properly.
"I—I'm not so weak that a human gets to say that to me! Just a little longer!"
Properly agitated, the woman endlessly rushed at me trying to land that unknown magic. Simple.
"W-what's going on!"
At that moment two soldiers rushed in in a panic.
Seeing the soldiers, the woman's lips curved up, and she charged not at me but at them.
"K-khuh...!"
From where the woman's hand touched, the soldier's skin slowly turned purple. His eyes lost focus, and repulsive purple veins bulged all over his body.
"Wh-what—ghhk...!"
In an instant the other soldier also failed to dodge her attack and took a direct hit. I was somehow managing to evade, but for ordinary soldiers the attacks were quite fast, so they had no choice but to take them helplessly.
The two soldiers stood still, making strange gurgling sounds.
She didn't kill them—she transformed them into something else...?
"Kihi, now it's really starting~?"
Suddenly the woman recovered her composure and spoke with a smile. She twirled her hair around one finger, the earlier frenzied charging nowhere to be seen.
Seeing her regain this much composure, this must be her specialty.
It would have been easier if the soldiers hadn't come.
Is this what war is like? Three days after the fighting ended, there had been no word.
Redrago might simply not have told me.
Right after the war ended, when we returned to Sepia, a lively town welcomed us as if nothing had happened at all.
It seemed the people had been told it was large-scale training, almost like the real thing.
I had wondered if the adventurers hired for this war might spread rumors, but that never happened.
Well, it wasn't as if this was the first or second time.
Hwia was sulking at me and Hugo. We'd left her alone even knowing it was a war.
Hugo explained to Hwia that it had been training like the real thing, but well, she didn't seem to believe it.
I wanted to meet Lena once and talk properly.
I was also very curious about beastman magic.
"Can I... go outside... alone?"
As if they'd never expected those words to come out of my mouth, Hugo and Hwia, who had been arguing with each other, both turned their faces toward me at the same time.
"Huh?"
"Eh?"
They really were siblings. Even their reactions were similar.
"No way!"
"Huh? Isn't it fine? Tiable's been here a long time now."
"But Tiable is still a kid."
If you added up my previous life, I was probably older, actually.
"When I was Tiable's age, I went outside alone all the time?"
"Even back then I told you not to wander around outside!"
"Ah, right. Back then too—"
"What are you talking about, back then—"
Suddenly the two of them started fighting.
This is... what siblings are like?
They probably wouldn't notice if I quietly slipped out.
I quietly slipped out of the house.
Well, one of them said it was fine to go out, so I'd go with that!