The Omen
A full week had passed since Huey, Lucy, and I had settled on our next destination.
Shhk.
"There's no end to these things!"
It had only been yesterday that we'd climbed down from the merchant caravan, after being told Ennis was roughly two days away on foot.
Crunch!
"It wasn't like this the last time I came through here," Huey muttered, flicking green blood from his blade, while Lucy swung her coffin and crushed the skull of a goblin that had lunged at her, then let out a quiet sigh.
"This isn't even uncharted wilderness. Monsters swarming like this doesn't make any sense." I scowled at the green spatters freckling my legs and spoke up. "And look at their eyes. Every last one of them is completely unhinged."
"Indeed."
"What on earth is going on?"
From the moment we'd left the caravan yesterday right up until now, the attacks had come without pause—so relentlessly it felt as if the creatures were boiling up out of the ground itself. They were only small fry, goblins and hounds and the like, but when dozens of them poured in four or five times a day, even small fry got on your nerves.
"I've never even heard of a situation like this."
Even in unsettled wilds where no one lived, things didn't keep erupting out of nowhere at this rate. The closest comparison I could think of was the western Demon Realm Huey had once mentioned living in.
"…Ren. Lucy."
"What."
"Yes, Master."
I'd been roughly gauging the time by the angle of the sun when Huey called us, staring into the forest the goblin pack had just come boiling out of as if he'd spotted something.
"Over there. Do you see that?"
He pointed at a clear, bright blue sky that held absolutely nothing, and for some reason his voice was trembling.
"I don't see anything, Master."
"Neither do I."
No matter how many times I looked, the sky was nothing but blue.
"What are you seeing?"
When I asked what was going on, Huey kept staring hard in the direction his hand was pointing, his face grave. He swallowed once, then spoke.
"Black energy is surging up into the sky."
At that, I looked at the sky again and met Lucy's eyes.
She shook her head.
No matter how many times we checked, all either of us saw was blue sky. I wanted to ask if he might be mistaken—but Huey's expression was far too serious for that. So I decided to search the surroundings in earnest.
The moment I pushed my senses to their limit—
A chill.
A sensation I was sure I had felt before. Something seeping up from beneath my feet, crawling slowly toward the surface.
"You're right. There is something out there."
Still nothing visible to the eye—but my instincts were ringing every alarm they had. Whatever it was, we could not ignore it.
Humm.
A sudden resonant hum made me turn.
"…This has never happened before," Lucy said.
The coffin in her hands was trembling, giving off a soft, pale light.
"What do we do?" Huey asked, looking at us.
As if there was any real question.
"In a situation like this, is there any option other than going to check it out?"
"You were going to go even if we told you not to, so why bother asking?" Lucy added dryly.
There had never been any need to ask in the first place.
"Right. Let's go."
And so we did.
"…I wish I could attack from range already," Lucy grumbled, clearly fed up with always having to take the lead.
"Can't be helped," Huey soothed from behind her, talismans already in hand. "When we get to town, I'll buy you as many sweets as you want."
I watched the two of them as we pushed deeper into the forest for a while.
"Both of you—stop."
From deeper in, something of unknown nature was approaching.
"It's coming. Get ready."
Moments later, the ground itself began to shudder under the weight of distant, pounding footfalls. Huey and Lucy sensed the enemy closing in as well; both of them set their faces and prepared for a fight.
"KRAAAAAH!!"
Not long after, a roar tore through the air, and the trees ahead of us vanished as if something had simply swept them aside. Then the enemy revealed itself.
A massive, heavily muscled bulk nearly five meters tall. An upper body and arms swollen to grotesque proportions.
"Ha. Now it's an ogre. The Adventurers' Guild and the kingdom would just love to hear about this."
It swung enormous arms armored in hide as hard as plate, bellowing in our faces. The blue skin instead of the usual green was unsettling—but what stood before us was unmistakably an ogre, an A-grade subjugation target of the Adventurers' Guild.
"Why is an ogre even out here?"
"We can figure that out after we kill it, Master."
The moment the ogre appeared, that unidentified energy surged stronger than ever.
"Huey. That energy you saw earlier—still in the same direction?"
"…For now."
Deal with this first, then think.
"It's coming!"
The ogre's arm came around in a massive sweep aimed straight at Lucy.
"Hyaaah!!"
She stepped hard into the blow and swung her coffin to meet it.
KRAAAANG—!!
The instant the ogre's arm and Lucy's coffin collided, a shockwave exploded outward with a deafening crash. I watched Lucy get driven back by the rebound—
Whoosh!
—then unfurled my wings, called the wind, and lifted myself into the air. I planted my feet against a nearby tree and waited for the right moment.
"KRAAAAAAAH!!"
Rumble!
White lightning streaked toward the ogre as it roared in fury and hauled its arm back for another strike. At the same time, Huey flung four talismans into the air and shouted.
"Ren! Now!"
Lightning wedges slammed down over the ogre's head, pinning its movement—
Crack!
"Uryaaa—!"
I kicked off the tree I'd been gripping and launched myself, fully intending to smash that skull in a single blow.
That was the moment I thought we had it.
Crrrk.
In a span of time that couldn't have been a full second, a small, ominous red horn punched up through the creature's forehead.
And then—
Fwoosh.
Before Huey or Lucy could even react, black flames bloomed from both of the ogre's arms, and Huey's binding Taoist arts simply vanished.
The very next instant—
CLANG!!
The kick meant to shatter the ogre's skull was stopped cold by an arm it had raised to block.
"Kh—!"
"Ren!"
"Look out!"
Huey frantically pulled fresh talismans from his robes. Lucy reset her stance and kicked off the ground, ready to swing her coffin at the ogre again. I tried to use the rebound of the flying kick to throw myself clear—
Thud.
—but the ogre was faster. It seized my leg.
A nasty grin spread across its face as it held me. Then, as if toying with a plaything—
BOOM!
—it slammed me into the ground.
"Ghk… hah!"
I twisted somehow as I was thrown and managed to keep my head from being crushed, but the impact that tore up through my back felt like every organ in my body was being wrenched out of place.
"Ren!"
"Lucy! Ahead of you!"
Crash!
"Kh—!"
I barely held on to consciousness after taking a hit I hadn't been ready for at all.
"Sss… haah…"
A white barrier bloomed around me, wrapping me protectively. I closed my eyes and focused.
That's what you get for letting your guard down.
I ignored the snide, mocking voice that rose right on cue and—
Fwoosh.
Yes. Just like that.
—kindled flame and healed myself.
"Damn it. If I still had hands, something like this would be—"
Nyah-nyah. If you'd just used my power properly, something like this wouldn't even be worth mentioning.
"…Please. Just shut up for once."
I shoved the noisy voice in my head—the one that kept sneering pathetic, pathetic—down deep, and looked at the ogre. Black flames wreathed both its arms as it pressed the attack on Lucy.
Crack!
Behind her, Huey was supporting Lucy with Taoist arts and keeping the creature in check—but the moment Huey tried to use anything large, the ogre would unerringly rip a nearby tree free and hurl it, or charge straight in.
"What a pain."
It was acting with something close to real intelligence.
KRAAAANG!
I burned away the barrier Huey had cast around me, then turned toward the ogre—which had already put a fair amount of distance between us, as if to keep me from getting caught in the fight while I was down.
Whoosh!
I spread my wings again and took to the air.
"Ren! Are you okay!?"
Huey's shout, and Lucy glancing my way even as she dodged the ogre's blows. Both of them looked genuinely worried, so instead of answering I simply nodded and shot Huey a look.
He caught my meaning at once. He opened a wide gap and pulled more talismans from his robes.
"KRAAAH!"
The ogre noticed Huey's movement and started to react. I launched myself, planted both feet hard on its shoulders from behind, and covered its eyes with my wings.
"That was a nice little stunt earlier."
"Uwoh!?"
I poured out every scrap of firepower I could muster.
FWOOOOSH—!
The instant my flames blasted the black fire off its body, I beat my wings and lifted clear—
Whoosh.
"Hyaaaaah—!"
KRAAAANG!!
"Kr… ooo…"
—just as Lucy launched herself and drove her coffin into the ogre's jaw. The moment the blow sent the creature toppling backward—
"Manifest. Spear of Thunder Judgment."
Crackle-snap!
With a sound of spitting lightning, Huey formed the thunder spear I had seen once before in his hand—and without a second's hesitation, loosed it straight into the ogre's head.
BOOM!
The ogre collapsed, headless at last.
"Haa… all that trouble for a single ogre…"
Exhaustion crashed over me as my stamina bottomed out all at once. I brushed the dirt from my clothes, sat down hard, and looked up as Lucy approached with a worried face.
"More importantly—are you all right, Ren?"
I nodded.
"I'm fine."
"If you say so, then I'm glad, but…"
"That impact was no joke. Seriously."
We were still trading notes on the fight when—
Sizzle…
—a sound like something boiling rose from the ogre's corpse as it began to melt away.
"What the hell is that?"
"The body is…"
"It's disappearing."
Where the ogre's corpse had been, only a single small horn remained—the one that had sprouted from its forehead—glittering alone on the ground.
A horn that glowed a deep, thoroughly ominous red.