Chapter 31
“The mage betrayed us!”
“They took the Holy Relic and ran!”
The sound of people shouting reached her through the chaos. The Supporters, with everyone except Sylvia among them, were pooling their mana to hold up a defensive barrier, but no spell could keep back the huge stones raining down from the ceiling, nor stop the tower from shaking on all sides as it slowly began to sink.
With nothing visible around her, Sylvia could hear only Owen’s heartbeat properly, and even in the middle of all that bedlam, his heart kept beating steadily: thud… thud… calm and strong.
Then came the sound of a blade slicing through the air. He seemed to be dealing with a monster that had burst through. An unpleasant sensation crawled over her back, but Owen soon kicked the creature away.
“Aren’t you scared? We’re about to get buried alive under this tower.”
Unable to stand it any longer, Sylvia asked. Owen hauled her higher against his shoulder and answered with maddening casualness.
“You don’t look scared either.”
“That’s because…”
That was for a different reason. Sylvia let out a sigh and pressed herself closer to Owen.
“Check my pocket.”
“Huh?”
“The one on the right.”
Owen, who had just driven his sword into the floor, slowly groped along Sylvia’s thigh. Even in the middle of this disaster, the touch made her body jerk stiffly; it felt oddly unsettling. His long fingers slid between the fabric and slipped into the pocket, and a moment later he pulled out a round orb.
It was palm-sized, made of gold, and covered edge to edge in intricate engraved patterns.
“What is this?”
“A treasure. Everyone seems to have forgotten, but I was granted one by His Majesty back then, too.”
“You brought it with you?”
“Yeah. Put me down and tell everyone to gather around. Have the Supporters make the barrier into a dome, nice and round.”
Owen obediently followed Sylvia’s instructions.
When Sylvia said she had a treasure, the others let out breaths of relief. Agils, the youngest among them, even burst into tears, wailing, “I thought we weren’t going to die, damn it!” Sylvia heard Owen in the distance saying, “There, there,” as he dragged the clingy, sobbing Agils off with visible indifference, and she smiled a little despite herself.
“It’s a teleportation spell. Not far, but we’ll probably end up in the forest.”
The treasure. A mysterious metal orb, ancient and charged with power taken in part from the gods, rolled coldly in Sylvia’s hand.
As Owen gathered everyone together, he suddenly felt something odd in his heart and pressed a hand to his chest, turning back to look at Sylvia. But Sylvia had her eyes closed, and for a fleeting moment she even looked peacefully asleep.
Had he misread it?
“Hurry and get us out. It feels like the whole thing’s about to come down. We might not be able to hold it.”
The golden-haired Supporter, looking more and more strained by the second, said, her face twisted with effort. Meanwhile, Agils stared through the barrier at the grotesque monster latched onto it with its mouth wide open, shuddering in disgust.
“Exactly. We’re all huddled together in one place, so that bastard’s practically drooling to swallow us whole.”
“Understood. I’ll do it now.”
Sylvia faced the others, gripping the treasure with both hands. She murmured a brief prayer, and then she heard herself begin to chant. Soon, a translucent membrane like lavender-tinted water burst from the orb and enveloped them all.
“Wow.”
“My goodness.”
It was a breathtaking sight, the kind that made gasps spill out even in the midst of such hellish chaos. Sylvia heard them and gave a bitter little smile, regretting it all at once.
Later, when I get my own treasure with my own strength, I’m going to use it right away. And then I’ll make sure to tell Heston what I saw!
She remembered the bright, excited voice she had had as a child. And then, one after another, came the memory of fifteen-year-old Heston’s gentle voice, reaching for her out of despair.
Don’t you want to know what happened the moment the treasure was used?
She had thought that maybe, this time, she would get to see it. She had planned to tell Heston afterward, after she’d seen it with her own eyes. She’d say she had done it—that among the dreams she had wished for as a child, at least one had come true because of him.
“Huh?”
But now she would never be able to do that again.
The transparent membrane spilling out from the orb thickened little by little and began swallowing people whole. By the time they realized Sylvia herself wasn’t included inside that barrier, it was already too late.
“Miss Appleton is—”
“Sylvia!”
Their voices were swallowed from within as well. It was as though people, along with a scatter of light, were being drawn into a tiny point and disappearing. The golden orb that had floated up into the air trembled as if it had eaten until it was full, then dropped with a dull plop. After that, it turned pitch black and crumbled into ash, which fell to the ground.
With the people gone, the defensive spell vanished too, and the rumbling sound of the tower collapsing in the distance and the monsters howling came clearly into earshot, as if they were right in front of her now. Sylvia refused to give up hope and summoned every last bit of strength she had to cast one final defensive spell. But because she couldn’t see properly and likely misjudged the range, a stone the size of a fist fell straight toward her head.
Then someone yanked her hard.
Warmth closed tightly around her wrist. Sylvia’s mouth fell open.
“If I’d given up, I would’ve left you to get eaten.”
It was Owen.
Sylvia stared, dumbfounded. What was he doing here? She’d sent him away—why was he here? But she couldn’t say a word, because Owen had wrapped her up so tightly it almost crushed the breath from her lungs.
Sylvia frowned, wondering if he had only now realized how precious she was to him, but the truth was far less tender than that. It was simply that Owen could see the immense ceiling coming down on top of their heads, while she could not.
And then—boom.
Dust exploded upward in a pale cloud, and they fell straight down.
Catherine was frowning like someone who had been handed a headache and told to call it a duty.
The knight order she had sent out arrived after sunset, when the light had already faded into dusk. Contrary to everyone’s expectations that they would come back having dealt with the matter easily, they returned battered and bleeding—and with three people missing.
The captain knight reported with an expression of utter ruin.
The mage had suddenly vanished with the Holy Relic. Even after the relic disappeared, the tower had not returned to its proper place and had soon begun to collapse. Fortunately, Appleton had used a treasure to teleport the others into the forest, but Owen and Sylvia seemed not to have made it out with them, and after that the monsters began attacking madly, like parents who had lost their child.
The moment Catherine heard that, she couldn’t help looking at Heston’s face. A mage from Alzen had run off with the Holy Relic—an unprecedented incident had occurred under her watch—and yet for some reason, Sylvia Appleton’s disappearance pressed more heavily on her chest.
That was probably because of the man standing there, rigid as a nail driven into place.
Is he going to lose it completely?
Knowing what Sylvia Appleton meant to Heston, Catherine could hardly blame him if he lost his reason. And yet when she looked at him, Heston was more expressionless than he had been when he’d said, “Why do you keep testing me?” It was a relief that he hadn’t gone mad—but that only made her more uneasy.
“First we need to detain Vaila, who sent Courtney Merino there.”
After a long silence, Catherine’s tightly restrained voice emerged, and her aide added cautiously, “But Vaila is a major asset. If we remove her now, what will happen to tonight’s battle…? When the knights returned from the expedition, they were asking why Merino hadn’t come back. From the look on their faces, they didn’t seem to suspect anything about the situation at all.”
“Losing Vaila won’t make much difference to our force. I’m here. Detain her for now. If she runs, it’ll become a disaster. As for the missing people… we’ll begin the search tomorrow. I’ll go myself and find them. In the meantime, Sir Lockwood, interrogate Vaila and track down Courtney Merino for me.”
Catherine didn’t actually think Vaila was deeply entangled with Courtney Merino. The reason she wanted Vaila restrained was simply to throw Heston at least some unsatisfying prey. Otherwise he might just explode.
“……”
Heston’s fist, resting on his knee, was visibly trembling. He had read Catherine’s intent exactly—to keep him away from Sylvia’s disappearance—but there was no other choice available to him.
Clenching his jaw so hard it seemed he might split the inside of his mouth, Heston spat out a mouthful of blood instead of answering. Catherine’s aide gasped and stumbled back at the sight of the dark red clot, thinking for a moment that Heston had bitten off his own tongue.
“Yes. Understood.”
But his voice came out smooth enough that no one would have guessed his tongue had been cut. Heston rose neatly to his feet and lowered his head toward Catherine.
Had he not spat out that blood, there would have been nothing at all to hint at what he was feeling inside. Catherine felt a rare pang of guilt over the situation and reached out to stop him as he turned away.
“She’ll be alive. No matter what happens, I’ll bring her here myself.”
It was also a promise she felt she had to force out. Heston turned to look at her without replying. His dark, deep-blue eyes were calm and still, as though he were hearing something obvious.