Tell Me (7)
I swallowed my breath the instant a heavy presence snagged at the edge of my senses.
Even the little insect bastards are moving?
No. This wasn’t something I had discovered first. It was something that side had deliberately revealed. I’m here, it announced. I have descended upon this place.
Now that I’ve come, focus on me at once.
Looks like the Exile has drawn his blade.
Was that frightening? If someone asked, I would have to say… not really. For reasons I couldn’t name, I truly wasn’t afraid.
I had no proof, no evidence, yet an endless confidence swelled inside me that even if that thing closed the distance right to my nose, I would be fine.
So what are you going to do now?
Yet another certainty rose with it.
If I stayed like this, I might be all right—but Mr. Licha would not.
At this rate your hometown is going to be destroyed.
…Munmunt would not be all right.
“It might make you a little dizzy… sorry in advance.”
Ignoring the body that had begun to burn as if it were on fire, I hoisted Mr. Licha onto my back and put strength into my legs. I still had to keep up the act of being a mage. That premise remained firmly in mind.
“We’re going.”
But honestly? Having to act like a mage just meant that as long as it looked like magic to other people, that was enough, right?
I dyed every direction pitch-black with threads of mana and, in that state, began tearing through the forest at high speed.
Anyway, it was magic.
Emerald rested a hand on her suddenly hollow stomach. Her throat was as parched and hard as if decades of drought had settled there.
“How absurd.”
Yet all of it was nothing more than an illusion.
Emerald swung her sword at the orc that had charged her. The moment a blade roughly the size of an average adult cleaved the air, several lives flickered out and blood sprayed wildly.
Chwaak! Crimson painted the stones of the wall. The dawn sunlight was already laying a golden veil over everything, as if determined to cover it all once more.
“Lower the ropes.”
“Y-yes!”
“Jardin, climb up first.”
“…Yes!”
In the meantime those atop the wall hurriedly dropped the ropes. Jardin, who had abandoned every piece of baggage, seized one and began to climb.
Thanks to the projecting battlements on either side, the only direction he needed to worry about was the rear—or the front, depending on one’s perspective.
Kruwaaaaah!!
Naturally the demons would never let a fleeing human go quietly. Orcs and other demons began charging toward Jardin.
“I shall pray for you, lowly things.”
But in the present situation, the only one clinging to a rope and ascending was Jardin.
“In the next life, may you at least know your place.”
The mages unleashed a barrage that slaughtered the demons to the rear. In that same instant Emerald reversed her grip on Bernstein’s hilt, letting the blade hang as if dangling. The amber-colored edge that matched its name drank in mana and glowed like molten lava.
A bluish aura began to rise from her entire mana-reinforced body.
One step. Her waist twisted sideways; the right arm holding Bernstein bent inward. The blade that had spun counterclockwise along her arm knocked the orc’s axe-head aside.
Seogeok! Before a full second had passed, Emerald’s practiced fingers changed grip and the sword flashed. The perfectly held blade severed the orc’s neck clean through.
Two steps. The flying orc’s head was still to her left as her sword swept right to meet another demon.
A goblin. Matching the short stature of the creature, the blade carved a diagonal line. Half the goblin’s forearm and head were sliced away.
Three steps. The hand that had pulled Bernstein’s hilt leftward now thrust the arm right again. Peok! The second orc’s skull was pierced.
Still in that position Emerald drew the sword upward. The blade that split the skull from the inside shoved aside the weapon the orc had been about to drop and described a circle.
Three-and-a-half steps. Through perfect control of force the weapon, neither cut free nor allowed to fall, hung on the blade and followed it, smashing into the space directly in front of Emerald’s left side. The victim was the three-eyed fiend that had been standing there.
While the three-eyed fiend was struck by the falling axe, Emerald’s heel rose.
Four steps. Her body spun like a dancer’s; the longsword, a little longer than most of its kind, bloomed like a flower. Chwaaaak! The blood spraying outward became the paint decorating the flower she had created.
Sareureuk. The skirts that had flared in a perfect circle with her motion settled softly. Not a single drop of that grotesque red stained her pure white garments.
“If that were not the case, the breath you take and spit would hardly be worth the air.”
Chak. A single flick of her hand shook every drop of blood from the blade. With one light back-jump her body, which had advanced four paces, returned to its original position.
“Burn them!”
“Die!”
At the same time the mages breathed fire once more. Demons that had tried to close on her either burned or abandoned the chase to save their lives.
The magic could not incinerate every demon, yet as a delaying action it had done its duty.
“……!”
But the moment the magic forced the demons back, Emerald’s face hardened instead. As her head turned, her blue hair billowed like water.
“This Demon Energy is…!”
The priests atop the wall screamed in the same instant.
“Priest?”
“We must ring the bells at once—!”
Yet Emerald paid the priests’ cries no mind. She tightened her grip on the sword and corrected her stance.
Keureureureu.
Sensing that her gaze had turned elsewhere, the hesitant demons let out useless growls. Whether they foolishly believed whatever approached was an ally, or whether they simply did not understand fear, was impossible to say.
“Lowly things…”
It was merely ridiculous and irritating.
Watching such worthless creatures try to borrow a tiger’s might, Emerald’s lovely brows twisted.
Kuung!
“……!”
“An earthquake…?!”
Then an intangible wave rolled out from the forest. Too lacking in ground vibration to be an earthquake, too empty of bursting light or flying shards to be called an explosion.
If one had to name it: pure pressure—an intentional oppression like a dragon’s roar.
“…Gone again.”
And yet it had not lingered. The threat that had been sharp enough to numb her fingertips vanished in an instant.
The demons flinched and shrank; Emerald’s fingers around the sword relaxed.
“…Ill omen.”
“W-what on earth just happened…?”
“Everyone quiet…! Hold your useless tongues!”
“Sir Emerald, now!”
Terrified by the vanished Demon Energy, the demons showed no further will to attack. Emerald therefore seized the lowered rope firmly. The knot fashioned below allowed her to stand upon it.
The sword that had not returned to its scabbard kept the demons under wary watch, just in case.
“It seems hunger and thirst are not the only business that brings them to Munmunt.”
If Emerald herself climbed the rope, there would be no one to block the attacks pouring from behind.
So the soldiers hauled the rope, and Emerald, without moving a step, simply held on and was slowly drawn upward.
Hiiiiiing!
Keheong!
Of course the price was that the packhorses left without her or Jardin’s protection were immediately torn apart by the three-eyed fiends. A loss that simply had to be endured.
“Welcome back to Munmunt…!”
“Yes.”
Still, she reached the top of the wall safely. That alone made the horses’ lives worth the sacrifice.
With that, Emerald buried the deaths of the beasts.
“Emerald!!!”
Instead a new presence came racing toward her.
Emerald thrust Bernstein’s blade forward. Brilliant gold hair that had just begun to catch the rising sun skidded to an abrupt halt before the edge.
“Ack, what the hell is this!”
“What else would it be, Topaz?”
“It’s been a whole year and you’re still like this?”
“Even if a hundred years pass I’ll still be like this, so don’t worry.”
“So cold… you’re so cold!”
How had something like that ever been granted the name of a jewel and made a knight…
Emerald ignored the whining knight and tossed Bernstein. The squire waiting for her—Jardin—hurriedly caught it.
A few droplets flew from the waterskin he had been drinking from.
“Soldier, where is the Lord?”
“On the wall by the Stern Tower, my lady.”
“Understood.”
Breaking through the demon encirclement had left her considerably fatigued, yet a knight could not postpone a report. Especially after confirming, on the way here, that the demons’ cordon was now complete.
Emerald left the still-whining Topaz behind and headed for the Stern Tower.
“I’m starving…”
“My throat’s so dry…”
Several soldiers passed her, complaining of hunger and thirst.
“Your treatment of the sword is still rather rough.”
“…Young Lord.”
She also encountered the Young Lord of Munmunt—the man who, by the fortress’s customs, would one day be her direct superior.
Well, if she left this place before then, that would never come to pass.
“Even if it is a sword you took up by chance, it saddens me to see it handled so carelessly.”
“…I shall correct it.”
“Please do.”
In any case, Emerald narrowed her eyes at the reprimand that greeted her the moment she returned.
“If it pains you so much that a dear friend’s sword rests in another’s hand, you need only ask for it yourself…”
“Sir Knight…”
“Let’s go.”
The one silver lining was that she would never have to serve someone like him as her superior.
Emerald’s teal eyes, which had flicked toward the Demon Realm beyond the demon lines, glittered with cold light.
“That knight always has such an unpleasant look on her face.”
“Young Lord…”
“Ah, ah. No need to say it. I already know one mustn’t speak that way to a knight—especially a Chief Knight.”
Meanwhile Gunter, the Young Lord of Munmunt who had just sent Emerald off, scratched his head. Dark-blue hair—rare across the entire continent—swayed between his fingers.
“But what am I supposed to do when her expression is that unpleasant?”
“Not letting it show is basic courtesy.”
“Damn it, I’m perfectly polite to everyone else.”
“What good is that when you’re coldest to the very talent you ought to treasure most?”
Gunter scratched his head again at his escort knight’s words. “That’s also an unsightly habit. It makes you look undignified,” the escort—stricter even than Gunter’s own father—delivered another jab.
“Damn it, doesn’t it make you angry? Bernstein is not a sword that deserves that kind of treatment!”
“What treatment does a sword need? A sword is just a sword. As long as it can cut the enemy, that’s the end of it.”
“Even so!”
“Young Lord, be honest. What bothers you isn’t that the sword named Bernstein is being treated like cold stew—it’s that Lord Amber’s keepsake is being treated like cold stew.”
“…Damn it, you know that and still take Sir Emerald’s side?”
“Public and private are separate matters.”
Yet the escort knight had never been wrong. That was the problem. Gunter himself knew perfectly well how foolish he was being.
“…That was the sword Atya was supposed to inherit.”
“Yes, it was.”
“If Lord Amber is gone, then of course Atya, or if not Atya then Alya—no, Alya doesn’t use a sword, so Pasha should have inherited it instead.”
“Under ordinary circumstances, yes.”
“But… but, damn it all…”
“…Young Lord.”
What was so strange about a sword whose original owner and rightful heirs had all vanished going to the person who could use it best? What was so wrong with a keepsake that had lost its path ending up in the hands of those who still fought for others instead of being buried in the ground?
Moreover Sir Emerald, like Lord Amber, possessed abundant mana and was still a knight who could fight superbly. In other words, she was the person best able to draw out Bernstein’s unique traits.
Therefore her inheritance of Bernstein had been only proper. Truly, only proper.
Truly… truly…
“…Do you think they’re really dead?”
“Who can say.”
“Sir Sapphire, answer me. Do you believe they are dead?”
“…….”
Gunter pressed his escort knight. After a long silence the man opened his mouth, expression grave.
The long blue hair that had earned him the name Sapphire hung like cascading tears.
“If they were not, there is no way they would fail to appear here.”
Gunter’s face crumbled.
“Right… of course. If they were truly alive they would have shown themselves by now.”
“…I know there are many unresolved points about their disappearance. Even so, Young Lord. You are not a man who can cling to one or two dead people. It is time to think of the future.”
“…Yes.”
Yet he was the Young Lord, and the man who would one day become the commander protecting this land. Gunter let the hollowness show as he carefully took in the wall with his eyes.
The wall from which his idol, his friend, and his sworn younger siblings had vanished was still packed with people.
“…The soldiers are complaining of hunger and thirst more than usual.”
But if one looked carefully at their complexions, the situation was far from good.
Gunter knitted his brows over the hunger and thirst that had plagued him as well. No matter how he thought about it, this many people—including himself—feeling the same thing at the same time was not normal.
“You too?”
“…Yes. It has been bearable until now, so I said nothing, but… Young Lord, is it the same for you?”
“It may be a curse.”
“I shall investigate.”
It was merely something that had never occurred in Munmunt before; if one turned one’s gaze elsewhere, finding the cause was surprisingly easy.
“…I hope it isn’t.”
“It is still too early to jump to conclusions.”
“But you’re already half-convinced yourself, aren’t you?”
“…….”
One of the two Great Demons currently on the northern front: the scavenger that lies beneath lotus leaves and sleeps in the shade of reed beds, devouring corpses. Or the beast that swallows rivers and withers the land, bringing famine.
The Plague Courier, Erysichthon.
“We’ll have to post men on the granaries and wells.”
Whenever Erysichthon appeared on a front, the people of that region suffered reasonless thirst and hunger. Feeding them and giving them water changed nothing.
An insatiable craving no matter how much was filled, an endless longing, eternal gluttony. That was Erysichthon’s curse.
“It seems we must.”
“Well, if it were Father he would already have given the order.”
Even when bathed in Holy Power, Erysichthon’s curse was relieved only for that brief moment; the instant a priest’s hand left, the hunger returned.
Thus the only way to resolve it was to endure until Erysichthon left the battlefield. Until then the granaries and wells would become the highest-priority objects of protection.
Gunter pressed hard at his temples.
“…I just hope the guards themselves don’t lose their reason and rush them.”
“It can’t be helped. We can only select those with strong patience.”
“Damn it. When the north sends reinforcements I’ll have to ask them to send veterans who’ve dealt with this.”
“Why not take the watch yourself, Young Lord?”
“Do you think I could? I probably couldn’t.”
Gunter knew himself well. If he were assigned the watch, he would eventually lose his reason and either race for the well or ransack a granary. Even by his own standards his mental fortitude was not outstanding.
“P-person!”
“……?”
While he was mocking himself, one section of the wall grew noisy. It was the uproar of the soldiers on watch.
“What’s going on?”
Gunter ordered the escort knight who tried to follow—“Go confirm whether it really is the curse”—and headed alone toward the commotion. The soldiers looked flustered at the sudden appearance of their superior.
“W-well…”
“…The scouting party has returned.”
“What?”
What had he just said? The scouting party had returned? Through that demon encirclement that even a Chief Knight had barely managed to pierce?
Gunter pushed through the soldiers with an indescribable feeling. The survival of scouts was good news, yet the idea that they had broken through that swarm of demons and come back alive was hard to believe.
“…Atya?”
But the moment he craned his neck past the soldiers’ screen, he doubted his eyes even more. Beside the returned scout, the face he had yearned for so desperately was slumped in a heap.