If There Is a God (4)
Was this right? The Inquisitor could not bring herself to speak, leaving the old sage waiting.
The people of the Yabad Region had never asked for this. Was it truly just for them to march out all the same? Her thoughts churned without end.
“Forty years ago, the Yabad Region withdrew every temple and forbade the Order from setting foot there.”
She rolled the price they would have to pay across her tongue, grounding it in history.
“Yet we cannot simply watch the demons that have appeared there. If we leave them be, every soul in that land will fall into ruin. As a priestess, as a Hero, I cannot stand by and allow it.”
And so she murmured her mission.
“That is why I… why I…”
What remained was only confusion. Two absolute principles collided and left her heart in disarray.
She ought to annihilate the demons according to the word of God—yet the teaching that one must always kneel before those who had suffered under self-righteousness caught and snagged inside her.
Of course the word of God came first. Of course reducing the people’s suffering mattered more. And still.
“Inquisitor.”
As though he understood, the old sage carefully laid his hand atop the back of hers. The fluffy hand of a Shagi was soft, and warm.
“Is it right to save those who hate the Order, or is it right to understand their hearts and stay away? There is no correct answer to that dilemma. No right or wrong either.”
“But…”
“The only ones who can judge the result of a choice are not those who make it, but those who survive it. Only the people who accept the outcome and live through it may criticize our decision.”
“Then what am I—what are we—supposed to do?”
“Follow wherever your heart leads.”
“…What?”
“When a problem has no correct answer, that is the only way to find one, is it not?”
“And if the path I choose turns out to be wrong—what then?”
“If there is no correct answer, how can there be an incorrect one? There may well be choices that later generations would deem better. But that is the view of posterity. We who cannot see even an inch ahead have no way of knowing how the future will judge us.”
The Archmage patted the back of her hand, lightly, lightly. The smile upon the sage’s lips was deeply gentle and mild—hard to believe he was a man who, upon waking, had already settled every affair that had piled up while he lay abed.
“So, Inquisitor. Choose the best that you yourself can see. Whether that means saving people even while facing hatred and contempt, or reading their hearts and standing aside—or any other path among all the rest.”
“…Will the people of Yabad welcome us?”
“Who can say. To my mind, not wishing for that welcome at all should come first. Separately—yes, I do think the odds they will meet us with hostility are high.”
“I see.”
So there was no clear answer after all. The Inquisitor flexed her fist over a problem even the sage had not resolved.
“We cannot simply stand down like this.”
Yet her choice had already been made. She had only lacked conviction.
“Is that so.”
“Yes.”
But conviction had never been hers. She hesitated a little, and at the same time answered without hesitation.
“I cannot overlook them.”
According to the Magic Tower’s investigation, the dragon’s corruption had been caused by a large-scale unholy ritual. When the temple traced the cause further, they learned that the ritual’s point of origin lay in the Yabad Region.
In short: no one yet knew what was unfolding in Yabad, but one misstep and the entire region could fall into the grasp of demon-contractors.
She—she could never permit that.
“Blame may fly at you. They may resent you. They may even attack. And still you will go to save them?”
“…That is the price of the sins we committed in the past, is it not? I do not believe it is reason enough to turn our backs on them.”
The corners of the Archmage’s eyes deepened. Even to the still-green Inquisitor, the expression read clearly as a good sign.
“Then, Inquisitor, take this to heart. You must never repeat what was done in the past.”
“That goes without saying.”
Whether this was truly the right choice, she did not know. But it was the best one. Holding that conviction, the Inquisitor rose to her feet.
The moment the sun rose tomorrow, they would march.
After beheading seven ships, I finished off one more at dawn.
Only a single vessel came in the early hours. With none of the others returning, they had probably sent one more to assess the situation. Only the ones now sunk at the bottom of the sea would know for certain.
“You asleep?”
I had been sitting atop the ramparts with my eyes closed so I could leap the moment a ship was sighted on the water. Baramson approached me.
Dev was dozing right beside me as well; the man’s stamina was steel-grade. He had been busy reporting to the lord and getting a handle on the situation, yet I had barely seen him sleep.
“I’m awake.”
Because of you, I added silently, swallowing the complaint as I watched him settle near me. With a little grunt of effort, Baramson took his seat.
“More importantly—didn’t they give you a blanket or anything? This may be the south, but nights still get chilly.”
Then, catching sight of me without so much as a single wrap, Baramson’s eyes went round.
“These crazy bastards. Outsiders or not, they can’t even spare a blanket for the people helping the city? Honestly.”
No—that was a misunderstanding. I had received something to cover myself with. I just hadn’t been cold, so I gave it to someone else.
“If you’re going to make a fuss, get lost.”
“…I can never tell whether you’ve got pride or none at all. Damn it. After everything you’ve done, the least you could do is take a little comfort.”
I already got one, I said.
I fixed Baramson with a mild glare. In the end he sighed and backed off a step. At least he seemed done protesting on that point. Whew. Good.
“…Here. Take this at least. If they didn’t give you a blanket, they probably didn’t feed you either. Tch.”
Instead Baramson stretched out an arm and offered me something. In his hand was an object with a glossy surface.
“Gwamegi. Not sure if you’ve ever tried it.”
…What? Gwamegi? I would kill for some!
“It’s dried fish… Won’t fill you up, but it’ll do as a snack.”
Who the hell eats gwamegi as a mere snack. With gestures that did not break character, I accepted it and put it in my mouth.
The fishy smell was a bit strong, but it was chewy and clung stickily to the tongue.
If only there were garlic, green onion, chili, and napa cabbage to go with it. Wrapping it in laver or seaweed would have been perfect too.
I barely swallowed the regret and tore into the long fish. Hunger was the best seasoning. The gwamegi I had always liked tasted especially good. Nom nom. Excellent.
“Well, look at you go. Most landfolk can’t stand the smell.”
Baramson cackled and handed over his own share. I did not refuse. I had been given food along with the blanket earlier, but I still wasn’t fully full.
“….”
More than anything, the gwamegi was delicious.
I crushed and tore the oily, springy flesh between my teeth and swallowed. Grease slicked my gauntlets, but it would clean itself, so I paid it no mind.
“Well… thanks. For a lot of things.”
Once I had swallowed every scrap of fish in my mouth, Baramson—who had been fidgeting—spoke up awkwardly.
“…Separately. Mind if I tweak the commission a little? I’ll still pay for the changed part.”
A change of commission. What exactly did he want to alter?
“Nothing major. I want to add the protection of Zakrati on top of what we originally proposed.”
“Be specific.”
“First, clear out every demon left inside the city. Then, like earlier—sink the ships that come, or do whatever it takes so they can’t reach Zakrati… and once Zakrati feels completely safe, we go back to the original plan.”
The proposal left me with a strange feeling.
I had been going to do that even without being asked. More than that—now that we were in Zakrati, wasn’t this the lord’s responsibility rather than Baramson’s?
The one under contract with me was Baramson, true, but strictly speaking he had only drawn me in as the lord’s proxy.
“And all of this now is of your own free will.”
Oh… so it wasn’t that Baramson had been assigned to handle me. This was simply his own initiative.
“I’m not actually asking you to do it of your own free will, so don’t get the wrong idea. Just pretend for the lord’s sake. I’ll cover the pay from my end.”
Now my feelings turned strange for a different reason.
He had sung endlessly of brothers, brothers—yet once we got here he never mentioned them at all. And here was a privateer captain ready to foot the bill himself in place of the lord.
“Understood.”
However curious I was about the circumstances, what could a man who played the role of caring for no one possibly do? I decided to leave it alone. Pay me and we’re fine.
“Good.”
An awkward air began to settle again.
“…You wouldn’t happen to have any more Demon Energy antidote left?”
“None.”
“Right.”
So, once more.
Thump, thump.
Then the sound of boot heels came in succession, and a group climbed onto the ramparts.
Looking over faces plastered with exhaustion, I found among them the lord I had met when we rescued her and had not seen since.
“We searched everywhere and you never showed your face—so this is where you were.”
The lord flicked a glance toward Baramson—Baramson rolled his eyes and looked away—then fixed her gaze on me.
“On your feet at on—”
“Enough. What discourtesy is this toward Zakrati’s benefactor.”
For the record, I was currently leaning against the battlements in a rather insolent posture. That I had watched the lord approach and still not risen was an added bonus.
Baramson? He had scrambled to his feet and shot me a pleading look, but he did not try to cue me the way the knight just had. Of course not. Anyone who had endured my temper for a few days would never dare.
“Earlier I was too flustered to greet you properly. Allow me to introduce myself again. I am Piuon. Inadequate as I am, I am the one who leads this land.”
Lord Piuon wisely stopped at a distance that did not require me to crane my neck much. In other words, she halted where I could catch her eye with only a slight lift of my pupils even while seated.
Thanks to that, I could face her without any sense of looking up.
“There is much I wish to say, but what must come first is this.”
And then the lord slowly sank to one knee. “My lord!” The knight, the soldiers, everyone present gasped—but none of them managed to stop her knee from touching the cold stone floor.
“On behalf of all of us, I offer our thanks. Truly, thank you.”
…Suddenly I felt like an enormous sinner. She looked older than my original body, and not only was she kneeling before me—I was receiving the gesture in this crooked posture…! Separate from the roleplay, the Confucian man inside me was going berserk!
“Thanks are unnecessary. I merely moved according to the commission.”
But life comes before Confucianism.
I rolled up courtesy and ate it wrapped in rudeness. Tasted worse than the gwamegi.
“Even so, how could I withhold gratitude? Without your devotion and labor, far greater harm would already have fallen.”
Separately, I was starting to regret this. If I had known we would end up having this needle-cushion of a conversation, I would just have gone hunting zombies.
Sweeping the city districts, killing zombies and the gargoyles that hid among them, the number of survivors we secured kept growing.
I had suffered like hell from fatigue more than once, so I had figured I would drop people off, check for ships, sleep two hours, and leave—only to end up in this situation.
“Shameless as it is, I have more to ask of you. Please, the demons remaining in the city…”
No. Couldn’t I just leave now? Fatigue at 74 was still survivable!
If I wanted to drop the fatigue, I could duck into some house for a catnap. Hunger could be fixed by looting empty homes for food.
I felt a little bad for the homeowners, but odds were high they had already turned into zombies, so maybe I didn’t need to be that careful? Was that too seasoned an insult?
Still, the living have to live. If you haven’t turned yet, I’ll eat, regain my strength, and come save you.
At any rate I stood up sharply. The spread skirts of my coat rose with me, and the sword I had leaned against the battlements found my hand, serving for a moment as a prop.
“Prepare a ship.”
“…?”
“Tomorrow I will behead every last mongrel who dared join hands with demons.”
“…!”
Baramson seemed to understand; his back went ramrod straight. Or so I assumed. I would have been more certain if I had seen his face, but at present my body faced the battlements with Baramson at my back.
“Wait—”
Come to think of it, why do I jump down from here so often? Going back around would be too much of a bother, though. Jump shortcuts: god-tier game design.
Rustle.
“Does that man never get tired…”
Perhaps he had blanked for a moment at a scene that looked so much like the one from earlier. Baramson snapped back to himself at a voice that had grown familiar over the past few days. It belonged to the youth who had been curled up sleeping at the foot of the battlements.
“Yaaawn.”
Even in the south the nights were fairly cool. The youth who had slept soundly under a blanket stretched.
“…What’s with this blanket.”
Then a question mark for the extra blanket covering him on top of the one he had rolled himself in. A scratch of the head, a discovery of Baramson and a greeting. After that a look around, the discovery of the lord, and a sudden freeze.
“…Why is the lord here at dawn.”
The youth rose with a halfhearted voice. Better than the Demon Knight, but the amount of manners he had discarded was roughly the same.
Well, at least it eased Baramson’s tension.
“You heard him, my lord? The adventurer we hired says he’ll finish off the zombies by the end of today. So stop worrying and send word to the people.”
Before the knights could pick a fight with the youth, he cut in with easy chatter. Of course he never once met the lord’s eyes.
Of course. Why else would he have sent word through the brothers who had survived until now, if not because he had no confidence to face her head-on?
“As you’ve been informed, people are still holding a defensive line at the Ramchaban docks. Besides that…”
“Suriya.”
Baramson’s body gave a start.
The name that had been called so often long ago, and that he had not heard even once since becoming an adult, drove deep into his ear.
“You have worked hard. And… thank you.”
He stopped exactly as he was, body still turned away in a pretense of ease. He did not have the courage to look properly at the lord’s face—no, at Piuon’s face.
“Then, and now. Truly.”
If he looked now, the tears that had gathered thickly in his eyes would spill down.
“Wh-what’s a pirate bastard got to be thanked for. I only did it for the pay, obviously?”
He forced the cracking voice out. Beside him someone seemed to mutter, “That’s my line…,” but he paid it no mind.
“If this city falls, I lose my base of operations, so I helped. Got it? So go organize the city already. I’ll go deal with Bipurit’s lot as commissioned.”
In front of his subordinates or brothers it might have been different, but he had no intention of showing tears before the lord and her knights.
He grabbed the Cueoty youth—who felt even more prickly than usual—and hurried down the opposite stair from the wall. The youth looked thoroughly displeased, yet even so he did not protest while they remained in the lord’s line of sight. A welcome consideration.
“Ow, why’re you grabbing the back of my neck so hard.”
“Ah, sorry.”
Once they had scrambled far enough that the lord could no longer see them, he dropped into a crouch on the spot and buried his face in his hands. His palms grew damp almost at once.
“I’m sorry…”
“…Sheesh.”
He was truly sorry toward the youth. Yet what filled him as he cried now was less guilt than something close to joy.
“Ah, damn it. How embarrassing…”
You damn brothers. Big brother, big sister, little siblings who went ahead of me.
Did you just see that? Did you? Mother—who told us never to show our faces again once we became pirates—called my name. You saw that, right?
“What’s so embarrassing about crying.”
“Seafarers don’t cry… You’re a landlubber, so you wouldn’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
“Did you just swear at me?”
“You’re not the Demon Knight. Why should I watch my mouth with you?”
“Look at this discrimination.”
Baramson thought of the brothers who had sacrificed for him until now, who had died to save Zakrati. And he recalled those he had been too late to save.
Damnably sorry. And at the same time, not sorry at all.
“…I’m telling the Demon Knight.”
“What are you, a child? Going to go tattle?”
“Brat. A sailor never forgets something like this.”
“That’s just you being petty!”
The lord calling his name was no different from calling all of theirs.
The moment their names were spoken, the dead would have been more than satisfied.
“…Thanks.”
“Tell that to the knight, not me.”
“That guy doesn’t accept thanks.”
“So tell him and get rejected.”
Such was the unrequited love the brothers held for the lord of this damned city.
