Night Parade of a Hundred Demons
Six years had slipped by before I knew it.
In that time, I had turned fourteen, and Aria had turned fifteen.
Soon she would hold her coming-of-age ceremony and enroll at the Academy, which meant we would be apart for a little while.
Watching Aria grow into someone almost beyond recognition, I had to admit that at fifteen she looked far too mature for her age — the word "girl" no longer suited her; "young woman" fit far better.
Which was why we no longer shared a bed. It had grown awkward, and besides, a brother and sister as grown as we were couldn't very well keep sleeping side by side. I was the one who brought it up first.
For some reason, that cold gaze Aria had given me all those years ago still lingered vividly in my mind.
A little more, and it should be finished.
Thanks to the effects of rapid advancement, I had expected the growth of my limit-breaking body to slow as time passed — but that wasn't the case at all.
If anything, as I aged and my second growth spurt set in, my skeleton shifted and my frame stretched taller, and the pace of my development only accelerated.
As for scholarship, it would be no exaggeration to say that the talents I had absorbed as an all-around prodigy had almost fully bloomed.
All that remained was to absorb deeper, more specialized knowledge in each field — something I could pick up later at the Academy as a minor course of study.
Thanks to that, my daily life had finally opened up with a great deal of free time.
Now all that remained was to use that spare time to secure funds before performing the Initialization.
As for that matter, I'll think about it after attending Lapis's birthday banquet.
Roughly six years ago, I had received an invitation to Lapis's birthday banquet — and no letter had arrived for me since.
To be precise, the Asis Duchy simply hadn't held a separate birthday banquet for Lapis since that day.
The travel distance was simply so long that holding one every year would honestly have been a considerable imposition on everyone involved.
Just as I was making my way back to my quarters, I ran headlong into Aria — my elder sister — passing by.
Her long, graceful legs came to a halt.
That platinum blonde hair and those crimson eyes fixed themselves on me.
"I heard you're heading down to the Asis Duchy."
「 I was invited. 」
"You've been invited before. It's not even your coming-of-age ceremony — you're really going all that way?"
「 Well, she is my fiancée, after all. 」
Truthfully, setting aside any number of excuses, there was something I wanted to test in a variety of ways in the Barren Lands that bordered the Asis Duchy.
The capital had been terribly peaceful of late, leaving me no opportunity to flex the power I carried.
「 Furrowing your brow like that is a bad habit. 」
I reached out and gently smoothed the space just below Aria's forehead.
"Worrying about nothing."
Even as she said it, she didn't swat my hand away.
「 It's a lovely face, after all. And besides — Lapis is the same age as you, so you might well run into each other at the Academy someday. I'll be counting on you then. 」
"You can barely take care of yourself, and you want someone else looking after her?"
「 I'm just asking you to be friendly, that's all. 」
"She's your fiancée. You look after her."
「 I enroll at the Academy a year late, remember? I can't exactly marry her right away either. 」
At that, Aria shot me a disgruntled look and brushed past me without another word.
We had been getting along so well. I had no idea what had gotten into her today.
Should I just go to sleep?
Tomorrow I had to depart for the Asis Duchy.
For Aria, whose birthday fell on the same day as Lapis's, I had asked the maids to deliver a present separately on the day itself — so there would be no reason for her to resent me for leaving.
With my heart settled, I resolved to make the round trip to the Asis Duchy with an easy mind and drifted into sleep. The next day, I left the capital behind.
After some sixteen days of travel, I arrived at the Asis Duchy and stepped down from the carriage.
At once, a blue-haired young woman darted up to me and threw herself into my arms.
Perhaps because she stood a little taller than me now, the embrace looked rather ungraceful — but as her figure, like Aria's, shed the last traces of girlhood and drew closer to that of a young woman, the warmth of her in my arms was not at all unpleasant.
"I missed you!"
"I missed you too."
Was I truly worthy of taking such a remarkable young woman as my wife?
I already knew well that she possessed a wide array of talents, a true prodigy in every field.
So much time had passed that some of those talents must have already bloomed — or stood on the verge of it.
"Have you learned to dance well enough now that you won't step on my feet?"
"H-how long ago do you think that was?"
"Then I can look forward to tomorrow, can't I?"
It wasn't to be a grand, ostentatious birthday banquet.
At most, only the nobility from the lands near the Asis Duchy would attend.
Which meant less of a burden on Lapis as well.
"You may look forward to it."
Lapis stepped back from my arms and smiled brightly — though, to my regret, a man's instincts made my gaze wander before I could stop it. She noticed at once, and with a natural, flustered motion raised both hands to cover herself. Realizing my rudeness, I hastily turned my head away — but Lapis, seemingly more sorry than I was for having caught me out, stepped close and quietly slipped her arm through mine.
"Ahem!"
Though even that was broken apart by the pointed cough of Duke Asis, watching from a careful distance.
The lingering warmth on my arm refused to fade. Even after I made my way to the bathhouse to wash off my travel fatigue, a faint wistfulness kept circling me.
Knock, knock.
Bathed and refreshed, I came once more to Lapis's room, gave a soft knock, and stepped inside.
"What business could you possibly have with me at this hour?"
「 I'd like you to show me around the Asis Duchy. 」
The last time I had come for Lapis's birthday banquet, there had been no time for leisure at all.
Which was why I wanted to learn the lay of the nearby land.
During my stay here, I intended to venture out into the Barren Lands and put the Hundred Ghosts to the test.
"Just... the two of us?"
「 Yes. Just the two of us — call it a date, if you like. That's what I'm asking for. 」
At my words, Lapis flushed crimson, told me to wait just a moment, ushered the maids out of the room, and shut the door behind them.
No doubt to make herself up.
There was really no need — but Lapis was a girl too, so I decided to be understanding.
"I'm so sorry to keep you waiting."
「 I didn't wait long at all. 」
Even in my past life, I had remembered that a woman's promise to be right out held precious little credibility.
And since she had come out after only the most minimal of touches, this practically made her a saint.
And so, with an escort knight in tow, Lapis and I began to wander the Asis Duchy together.
Whether it was the pleasure of being at my side, I couldn't say — but Lapis never once let her smile slip as she graciously introduced me to the duchy.
Watching her so buoyant, my own mood lifted along with hers.
As I thought...
Because the Asis Duchy bordered the Barren Lands and served as the central hub for magic stone distribution, it was full of shops selling artifacts.
Their chief customers were the mercenaries who hunted monsters, and so the forges and smithies lined the streets in equal numbers.
"This is near the Mercenary Guild hall. When mercenaries bring in magic stones from the monsters they've slain, the guild buys them, issues mercenary licenses, and helps with founding new guilds as well."
One could fairly call it the heart of the Asis Duchy.
"Please...! I'll pay you back however I can — just help us!"
"Our comrade is trapped out there right now!"
「 Who are those people? 」
Deeper into the district, we came upon people begging the surrounding mercenaries, tears streaming down their faces.
Judging by their dress, they were mercenaries themselves — but the bloodstains caked all over their bodies told of something gone badly wrong.
"It looks like they went out hunting at night and ran into trouble."
「 Don't they usually go out in the morning or midday? 」
"The monster population keeps dwindling, so daytime hunts are fiercely contested. That's why more and more people have started going out at night. Naturally, the greater the risk, the worse the outcome — and most of them end up like those poor souls over there."
The quality of the mercenaries, frankly, was not high.
If the money in magic stones had been truly lucrative, the finest manpower — the knights — would never have joined knightly orders; they would have settled here for good.
Proof of that lay in the way the surrounding mercenaries, valuing their own necks, coldly turned a blind eye to the desperate pleas and walked on their way.
They carry consonants.
Four people in all.
Three of them held consonants within their bodies.
I could test the Hundred Ghosts on this outing, and claim consonants besides — truly a case of killing two birds with one stone.
"No! You mustn't!"
Just as I moved to step forward, Lapis seized my arm and held me back.
"You have no need to throw yourself into danger, Rohen — none at all!"
So unlike the frail, naive girl I had always known — her face was full of unexpected resolve.
The Lapis I had watched all this time would, if anything, have reached out a helping hand out of pure sympathy.
"They brought that danger on themselves."
「 It's all right. The power of the Spoken Word can kill anything up to the level of ordinary monsters with ease. 」
"Then at the very least, let me summon the knights of our duchy!"
「 That would be a burden on everyone. And if your house steps in directly this once, every mercenary in trouble from now on may come demanding help as they please. 」
Come to think of it, I suspected this was exactly why Lapis never extended her hand, however much sympathy she felt.
「 There may be reasons aplenty when a man takes another man's life. 」
"...Rohen."
「 But when a man saves another man's life, there needs be no reason at all. 」
Truthfully, I hadn't spoken those words out of any lofty conviction — I had merely seized the chance, seeing it less as an opportunity to gain consonants and vowels than as a chance to test the Hundred Ghosts and taste real combat against monsters. Nothing more willful than that.
And I had no wish to be lectured any further, either.
「 You were saved by me in just the same way, Lapis. 」
"...I suppose I was."
The full circumstances of that rescue had been a transaction struck between Duke Asis and me — but she could hardly have known that.
In any case, seeing that Lapis no longer seemed inclined to stop me, I set my feet in motion.
"Please... anyone at all will do!"
"Someone, help us!"
Before the despairing men, a youth of unremarkable height and build — Rohen — came to a stop.
"What...?"
「 Would it be all right if I heard your request? 」
"You've picked the wrong people to toy with!"
A boy too young to understand even their own misery, spouting such idle nonsense before their eyes — their fury was on the verge of boiling over.
The other mercenaries brushed them off without a second glance, and the one hand finally extended to them belonged to a boy carrying not so much as a single weapon.
Drowning men will clutch at straws, yes — but even they were not so cruel as to shove a child into hell along with them.
「 I am speaking to you in complete earnest. 」
Rohen drew the cloth away from his face.
That silver hair of his caught the moonlight, rippling and swaying in the night breeze.
Only now, looking closely, did they realize his clothing was far too fine for any commoner.
Could he be — nobility?
Even they knew that the birthday banquet of Lapis, daughter of Duke Asis, would be held tomorrow.
The odds were slim — but if the child of some noble house that had just arrived in the territory had seen them and offered his help...
"We beg of you!"
"W-we'll reward you generously, I swear it — please, lend us your aid!"
"My brother is trapped out there!"
As they pleaded, Rohen scribbled something on a sheet of paper and held it up for them to see.
「 No reward is necessary. 」
What use would he have for their blood-and-mud money?
Far better that they spread word of today's deeds far and wide afterward — a good name would serve him far more.
「 I ask only that you guide the way. 」
A full moon adorned the night sky; a bleak wind moaned across the plain.
There could be no hour better suited for a hundred demons to take their stroll.
And the mercenaries walking at the head of the column, belatedly and dimly, began to piece together the identity of the boy following behind them.
It made sense, after all. A person of the highest standing — one who, moreover, could not speak aloud...
In all this empire, there was only one such person.
And when the memory surfaced that Rohen was betrothed to Lapis, daughter of the Asis Duchy, the theory only gained further weight.
And so, upon reaching the castle gates of the Asis estate — mere moments before they would pass through —
the mercenaries turned as one and bowed to Rohen with every ounce of reverence they possessed.
Rohen answered with a faint smile, walked past their bowed heads, and opened his mouth.
"Night Parade of a Hundred Demons."
The bitter wind was blowing hard enough that the words did not carry far — but as the castle gates swung shut behind him and a pure white mist sank down from above to devour the surroundings, the mercenaries stood frozen, turning their heads this way and that in a daze.
It was as if the clouds themselves had descended to wander among them.
Before long, countless presences stirred within the fog. One by one, shapes emerged from the mist in the wake of Rohen's forward stride — and began to walk.
At that mystical, awe-inspiring spectacle, the mercenaries kept their mouths firmly shut and said nothing at all.
Were they dreaming?
But the oppressive weight that radiated from those inhuman figures — beings of a rank utterly apart from any monster they had ever faced — made it undeniable that this moment, here and now, was reality.
And at the very front, at the head of the column—
the master of all chimeric horrors, enthroned above beings beyond mankind, strolled through the night beneath the risen full moon, his hundred demons at his side.