Ren of Esras
Ahead, a supreme water spirit. Behind, a high-ranking wind spirit.
With whirlwinds raging all around, flying away to buy time was no longer an option. Frederica was too far to save the way I had before. Waiting for Huey's technique to finish would take more time than I had left.
So the choices left to me were two.
One: follow the voice echoing in my head, mesh the gears buried deep in my soul once more, and surrender to this body.
And the other…
…to die right here.
Which one to pick wasn't even worth thinking about.
Right? You've got to stay alive first if you want a next chapter.
Listening to that voice cheer with delight inside my skull, I kicked my leg up toward the massive water serpent that had already closed in on me.
Huh? W-wait! What are you doing right now!
"Haha. What a cute little struggle."
The serpent's head, which had briefly split apart as if scattering, snapped back together in an instant — and that was the signal. Water droplets poured in from every direction.
Grit.
Each droplet could punch straight through a human body without effort. As they came screaming in from all sides, I clenched my teeth and poured every scrap of firepower I could muster into my wings, then flung the flames out like a wall.
Fwoooosh!
Thud!
But of course — with the power I had now, stopping all of them was impossible. Droplets punched through the wall of fire and hammered into my body.
"…Ugh."
Still, they hadn't pierced clean through. That alone made it worth doing. I glanced at the blue bruises blooming across my exposed skin, then forced myself to move again.
What the hell are you doing!
Ah, shut up. Seriously.
You're actually going to die at this rate!
I shoved the voice screeching in my head off to the far edge of my consciousness and repeated the vow to myself like a mantra.
Yeah. I'll probably die.
But you know what?
If the alternative is slowly forgetting who I used to be and living out the rest of my days as this body…
"I'd rather die as myself…!"
That was me. That was how Ren lived.
"Hup!"
Crack.
I swept the surrounding terrain with a quick glance, then kicked hard off the building rubble under my feet and charged in a straight line toward Osmon.
Gurgle.
At the same moment, the whirlwinds thrashing around me scattered — and right in front of my face, a colossal wave rose up as if to swallow me whole.
And far beyond it, Osmon sat with arrogant ease, crooking a finger at me. As if to say that even getting that close was still nowhere near enough to reach him.
"Ugh. Getting hit by it myself… yeah, this really is the worst."
I smothered the rage boiling up in my head and steeled myself.
Gulp.
Sharp feet with almost no surface area. Reverse-jointed legs that still felt utterly alien. Fail, and I die on the spot.
But if I pull it off — I might land at least one solid hit.
Just thinking about it felt like a weight lifting off my chest. I couldn't find a single reason not to try.
Roooaaar…!
I lifted my leg toward the base of the wave that had already closed in, gritted through the pressure that felt like it could snap the limb any second, and drove it down.
"Hoo."
Barely avoiding being swept away, I stretched the stinging leg forward and —
Splash!
— kicked off the water's surface, hurling my body straight at Osmon, who was staring at me with a startled face.
"Just die already—!!"
Divine radiance, whatever — I was going to grab that throat and tear it out.
But.
"…Huh?"
The talons that should have closed around Osmon's neck in a single breath carved nothing but empty air.
Right after, a shadow fell across the top of my head.
Water spirits possess the ability to manipulate space… it says here.
I remembered reading Osmon's journal once, talking about water spirits with Huey and Lucy.
And the price for remembering that critical fact too late was —
Crack.
Pain exploding through my skull, and —
Wham!
— the sensation of being swatted away by something thick and heavy, like a serpent's tail lashing out.
KRAAAASH!
"Guh… hahk!"
And finally, the delayed agony of every bone in my body feeling like it had been crushed to powder.
Clack. Clatter.
"Kh… ugh."
I groaned as stone fragments rained down on me and looked around. Apparently I'd been slammed into the armory inside the lord's castle. Spears, swords, and axes lay scattered in a mess all around.
"Ptoo."
I managed to turn just my head, spat the blood pooling at the corner of my mouth, and stared out through the massive hole I must have come flying through.
"…Ha."
That made two times now that he could have killed me and chose not to. Pain so intense I couldn't even move radiated through my entire body — but the humiliation of facing that attitude, the one that said he could snuff me out whenever he felt like it, hurt far worse.
"He really does whatever the hell he wants."
Rumble.
I just lay there, so hollowed out I couldn't even bring myself to spark a flame for healing — when a familiar peal of thunder rolled down from the sky outside, which had once again filled with dark clouds.
Flash—!
"Ugh."
A blinding burst of light, and then a colossal bolt of lightning crashed down on the spot where Osmon had been.
So that was the technique that had roasted that mutant sandworm.
A high-pitched ringing filled my ears for a moment. Then, beneath a sky slowly clearing to blue, I saw the spirit coiled protectively around Osmon.
And beyond that — Huey, black scales and razor-sharp claws sprouting from his arms, charging straight at him.
"…Just run already."
Watching Huey's face, visible even from this distance, twisted with pure fury — for some reason, something stirred deep in my chest.
Rustle.
Right after, a small sound from the corner of the armory. A soft, fluffy sound, like a cotton ball shifting. Before long, a familiar shape carefully poked itself into view, glancing around.
"That's…"
A brown teddy bear about knee-high on an adult. One of Frederica's dolls.
…If you've got the energy left to pilot that thing, how about helping me instead, you damn witch.
I was about to click my tongue in disbelief when —
"Huh?"
— a tiny glint caught my eye, and I realized the doll was cradling something carefully against its chest.
"Kyuu."
"……."
The doll's eyes sparkled as it spotted me, its whole body trembling.
…It is being controlled, right? More importantly — did that thing just make a sound? It's a doll.
I just sat there with my mouth hanging open at a sight so absurd it made the pain in my body vanish — and then:
"Kyuu! Kyuu!"
As if to prove I hadn't imagined it, the doll hopped over to me. Once it reached me, it opened the lid of the small vial it had been holding so carefully — a transparent potion glowing red — and, with a little grunt of effort, tipped the contents into my mouth.
"Kyuuu!"
"…Elixir."
Before I could even register my shock at the pain vanishing from my entire body in an instant —
"Kyut!"
Rip!
— the doll tore open its own belly with both hands. And when I saw what came out from between the split seams…
"Hah."
I laughed without meaning to.
Because inside the doll's opened stomach was a prototype of the medicine Beatrice had made to restore my body to its original form.
KRAAAASH!
"Guh!"
"Master!"
Huey, white lightning wreathing his entire body as he moved at blistering speed, raised both arms — now covered in black scales — to block a surging column of water, then —
"Damn it!"
— roughly tore off what was left of his shredded, rag-like sleeves and spat a curse.
"Hoo… hoo…"
"Master. Are you all right?"
Luciella approached him with clear concern as he gasped for breath, cold sweat pouring down like a waterfall.
And then —
"Kh… kheh."
— Osmon, half his face already swallowed by black energy, let out a grotesque laugh.
"I never thought that wouldn't work…!"
Clinging desperately to his fraying sanity, Huey clutched his chest in frustration.
"Master. At this rate…"
Even after playing his strongest card, he hadn't managed so much as a scratch. The fact that his opponent stood on a level so far above him must have burned him raw.
Grit.
Huey clenched his teeth and gathered lightning into his right hand.
"Manifest — Spear of Thunder Judgment—!!"
He hurled the spear of lightning he'd forged, this time aimed straight at Osmon's heart — but
Crack. Crrrack.
A black fissure opened in front of Osmon with a sound like something shattering, and the Spear of Thunder Judgment was sucked into it and vanished.
"…Ha."
Watching the spear reappear far from Osmon and fly off in a completely random direction, Huey let out a hollow breath.
In the end —
"Any more than this is impossible. Even if it's just you, Master — please escape somehow."
Even in a state already torn to shreds from forcing herself through unfavorable terrain, Luciella was still worrying about him first.
"Damn it. Like I'd ever run off alone and leave you and Ren behind."
Huey seized the fraying thread of his reason and took a deep breath.
And it was right then, as Huey and Luciella steeled themselves for the final moment —
"Hey—!! Over here—!!"
A familiar voice rang out from far away.
"Ren! You're okay!?"
"That idiot! What on earth does she think she's doi—"
Luciella had been about to yell that if she was alive she should be hiding, not doing something so reckless — when she stopped.
"…Huh?"
Like someone who had just seen the impossible, she raised a hand and pointed blankly in the direction Ren's voice had come from.
"Lucy. What is it?"
"Master. Over there…"
Only after noticing that Osmon, too, was staring at Ren as if entranced did Huey look in that direction.
"…Ren?"
It was definitely Ren standing there. But she looked nothing like the Ren they knew.
Not the hard, metallic bird legs — but the pale, fragile white legs of a human girl.
And though it was only one arm — a slender white left arm with delicate fingers, set against the red wing of her right.
With her one remaining wing, she cradled a sword she'd taken from the armory. She looked down for a moment at the fingers that now moved by her own will… then quietly closed her hand around the hilt.
"I'll show you."
"Who I am."