Holy Hands in the Dark
The battle was over.
Every last gang member had been knocked to the ground, patched up just enough to keep them from dying, and lashed to tree stumps alongside the ones who had surrendered on the spot. Once the team made it back and contacted Vengeance or the Neutral Zone's self-defense militia, they'd be handled one way or another.
"Hiii~"
Meilin stepped forward and waved at Sasha, wearing the most dazzling smile she could manage.
But apparently a stranger's attention was too much for her — Sasha whirled around and burrowed straight into Camibarez's arms.
Meilin straightened back up with a wounded look on her face.
She doesn't let her guard down easily, huh.
Sasha barely said a word to anyone besides Camibarez. Like a wary little animal, she did nothing but glance nervously around at her surroundings.
"Hahaha! Excellent work, everyone!"
It was then, with a clap, clap, that Seywir appeared, applauding.
While everyone else was caked in sand from their robes, smeared with blood, and in absolute disarray, he alone was perfectly pristine.
"Thank you all for following my command so well, agents."
"Your command?!"
Meilin exploded.
"Where were you, showing up only now? Things got pretty dangerous in the middle of the fight — why didn't you help?!"
"Now, now, no need for such hurtful words."
Seywir gave a careless shrug.
"I was in a pitched battle for my life as well. I was facing more than thirty men at once."
"There were barely thirty guys in that gang to begin with — what are you even saying!"
"Agent Meilin, that sort of sniping attitude does nothing but harm teamwork. Keep it up and you might see points docked from your teamwork score."
At the mention of points, Meilin trembled with fury.
…This slimy little piece of work, actually holding scores over our heads!
"Ah, there they are now."
Dick and Simon, dressed in rags, were on their way back from interrogating the prisoners.
Dick had used the same method as when he'd questioned the gang member they'd caught back in the village.
"They really don't know anything, from the looks of it," Dick reported. "Apparently clients hiding their identity is par for the course in the Neutral Zone. They got paid a pile of money and just did what they were told."
Simon nodded in agreement.
"Indeed. Outstanding work, agents."
Seywir looked around at all of them.
"Seeing how far you've all come under my map and my guidance fills my heart with pride."
"……"
Simon gave a hollow inward laugh.
"Oh yes, yes! It's all thanks to you, Agent!"
Dick chimed in with his usual agreeable social grace, but the old energy was slowly draining from his voice too. The praise sounded hollow — like complimenting on autopilot. Dick, too, had begun to suspect Seywir's absence from the battle.
"Then, next up!"
Seywir pointed grandly at Simon.
"Let's hear your proposal for what we should do from here, Agent Simon!"
"……"
When Simon made no effort to hide his bored expression, Seywir studied his face for a moment before adding hastily:
"And if your answer is close to the one I have in mind! I'll award you tactical points!"
Points didn't mean a thing to him anymore.
Simon let out a light sigh and turned his head. A hillside, sunken in darkness, met his eyes.
"We don't know who the client is, but we learned the meeting point from the Sentinel gang's leader. It's twenty minutes from here — I wanted to go straight there and catch the client ourselves."
Simon turned his head again and looked over the aftermath of the battle: the wrecked carriage, the blood sprayed across the ground.
"But the fight happened far too close. They must have heard the commotion. Chasing them now would be pointless."
"Exactly! That's what I thought too!"
Seywir cut in, as if on cue.
"Sasha's leg is injured as well, so before night falls any deeper, I think we should get out of here and head back to the first village where Vengeance Headquarters is. How about we search the area for transport?"
Seywir agreed, and everyone scattered to search.
"Oh, look at this, Simon! There's one carriage still mostly in one piece!"
Dick rapped his knuckles on the carriage body.
"One of the wheels looks like it came off — can you fix it?"
"Obviously! We just swap in a good one from one of the wrecks!"
While Dick set about repairing the carriage, Simon went looking for horses to pull it. Most of them had either bolted in the chaos or been caught up in the fighting and killed.
I won't be able to make a Skeleton Horse out of these.
Simon crouched in front of one of the dead horses and examined it.
On this continent, carriages were pulled almost exclusively by a species called the Hanobred, a crossbreed between horses and monsters. And only the corpse of a pure horse monster could be made into a Skeleton Horse.
Yeah, this one's a Hanobred too.
As Simon stood and scanned the surroundings, he spotted a single horse lying on its side, still breathing in ragged gasps.
He sprinted over at once.
Ah, no.
Its tether had been caught on the carriage, which was why it hadn't been able to run. And caught up in the fighting as it was, blood was seeping from its belly as it lay dying.
"That horse is finished. Best to end it and put it out of its misery."
Seywir, who had sidled over at some point, offered his unsolicited opinion.
"Let me take a look at the wound."
Simon pulled a potion out of his subspace dimension.
"Told you it's no use."
Seywir shook his head and wandered off to lecture Meilin instead.
Simon opened the potion and, pretending to pour it over the wound, checked behind him several times.
Nobody's watching, right?
Everyone was off in the distance. In that gap, Simon brought his two hands together respectfully in front of the horse's wound.
Where no one could see.
As fast as he could manage.
⟨ Heal ⟩
Vwwooom!
White divinity spilled from Simon's palms and began to wrap around the wound.
Focus, focus.
The results of his systematic study of white magic under Farahan, the Divine Defense professor, were showing. The wound began to close at a rapid pace. Soon the horse's breathing evened out, and perhaps sensing that it was being helped, it lay still and calm.
There we go.
The wound sealed shut cleanly. Simon finished the treatment, dabbed the potion on carelessly as if it had done the work, and rose to his feet.
"I think this horse can still run."
Dick and Meilin rushed over, shouting, "Seriously?!"
Seywir joined them too — and froze, mouth agape, at the sight of the genuinely healed wound.
"Ahem, well done, Agent Simon! In fact, telling you to end its suffering earlier was all part of my plan to stimulate you and draw out your true—"
"Yeah, yeah."
Next, Simon went to check on Sasha.
At that moment, Meilin fell into step beside him and asked in a hushed voice.
"Hey, Simon. Seywir over there is pretty suspicious, isn't he?"
Simon answered with a faint smile.
"Very. And everything you're thinking is probably right."
"Huh?"
Simon offered no further explanation.
Ahead, Sasha was being looked after by Camibarez, her leg already wrapped in tight coils of bandages after some emergency treatment.
"Hi there."
When Simon spoke to her, Sasha flinched violently and tried to bolt.
"Easy now."
Before she could, Simon quickly stepped back a few paces.
Sasha burrowed deep into Camibarez's arms, and Camibarez gathered her up warmly, stroking her hair.
Meilin crouched down at a slight distance, knees drawn together.
"Thank goodness she took to Kami, at least."
Then, cupping her hands around her mouth like a flower bud, she gazed quietly at Camibarez and Sasha — at the two of them clinging to each other, nuzzling affectionately — with a smile melting soft around the edges.
"Cuteness plus cuteness equals EXTRA cuteness!"
…What is she even saying.
Simon crouched down beside Meilin as well and signaled to Camibarez.
Camibarez caught the signal, nodded slightly, and spoke to Sasha.
"It might not be safe to stay here — someone could attack us again. Would you like to come with us?"
At those words, Sasha nodded quickly.
"…If I can stay with you, I'll go anywhere."
Thankfully, Sasha came along without any fuss.
Soon the five of them boarded the carriage. Dick would drive from the front, with Simon and Seywir in the front seat and Meilin, Sasha, and Camibarez lined up in the back.
While Simon and Seywir worked out their route, Camibarez kept up a steady stream of gentle chatter so Sasha wouldn't grow anxious.
"Are your parents in the village?"
Sasha shook her head, her face expressionless.
"I've never even seen Mom and Dad."
She was an orphan.
"Then… would you like to go back to the village, Sasha?"
"No! The village is scary!"
Her reaction was surprisingly strong.
"Who's scaring you?"
"…The people in the village."
Her shoulders began to tremble, and leaves started fluttering down around her, one by one.
Camibarez hastily pulled her into a tight hug and soothed her.
"Okay, okay. We won't go to the village."
As she said it, Camibarez glanced toward Simon. Simon nodded back.
The people of Kelso definitely called Sasha a 'monster.'
A child born with an ability.
To ordinary people, such a child could look like nothing short of a monster — practically indistinguishable from the things they feared. All the more so for someone like Sasha, who couldn't properly control her power.
This time it was Meilin who asked.
"If you don't have a mom or dad, did you live in the village all by yourself?"
Sasha shook her head.
"My godfather visits sometimes."
"Godfather?"
"Mmhm."
"Who is he?"
"I don't really know either. But he helped me when I was sick. He made the hurting stop."
Simon recalled the traces of a visitor that had been left in Sasha's house. The syringes, the medicinal supplies.
Simon filed the mysterious godfather away in his mind as well.
Alright, let's put the pieces together…
Sasha was an orphan. Because of the ability she'd been born with, the people of Kelso treated her as a monster — which was why she feared returning to the village. And someone she called a godfather had been visiting to keep her power from running wild.
Roughly that far, anyway. For now, focus on getting back to Vengeance.
Simon unfolded his map.
"Agent Seywir, we'll move like this."
On the way in, their route had gone Vengeance Headquarters → Sasha's hometown of Kelso → the Haldun Mountains.
Now, however, they would descend directly from the Haldun Mountains to the village where Vengeance HQ was located.
A forest lay along the way, so there was some risk of monster attacks — but then again, there was no better terrain for slipping away from pursuit squads or ambushes by Efnel priests.
"And one more thing."
Simon looked at Seywir.
"Please contact Vengeance. Since there's no telling when Efnel will strike, we should request that they send a welcome party out as far as they can meet us."
At that, Seywir put on the face of a mute who'd been fed honey and stammered:
"Ha, haha! I'm, uh, not sure that's such a good idea, Agent Simon! Vengeance is busy too, so this is something we ought to handle among ourselv—!"
"Oh, don't tell me."
Meilin smiled, the cat that caught the canary.
"The ace agent of Vengeance isn't about to say he doesn't have his communication crystal — the one every agent uses to stay in contact with headquarters, is he?"
* * *
-GrrrOOOgh!
-Krruk! Krruk!
If hell existed in the real world, it would look something like this.
Inside a pond brimming with blood, monsters whose bodies had swollen grotesquely out of proportion let out agonized shrieks. There were nearly hundreds of them.
In this hell — a place where every monster in the mountain range had been dragged in and put to use — stood a tall man, orange hair whipping in the wind.
His face was ulcerated as though he'd been burned, and the pupil of one eye had gone faint and clouded.
Beneath the billowing priest's robe draped over his shoulders, an outfit lined with countless cases and utility pouches was visible. Inside them sat syringes, chemicals, and all manner of tools.
"I do hope this one works."
The man drove a syringe into a monster's body, his voice utterly flat, without a trace of feeling. One of the monster's fingers instantly swelled up, rock-hard and gnarled.
The monster twisted in agony, but the man rose to his feet as if pain were nothing he had ever known.
"You have a cruel hobby, don't you?"
At the voice that drifted out of the darkness, the man turned, then bent at the waist in a bow.
"Laus, my ladies."
Out of the shadows, four female students in the white uniforms of Efnel were approaching, each armed in her own distinct way.
One of them stepped forward and spoke.
"You're the one in command?"
"Yes. That would be me. I'm called Figaro."
"I'm Lirinet."
After exchanging light greetings, the two stood facing one another.
"Commander, what on earth have you done here?"
One of the girls behind Lirinet asked, pointing at the monsters' corpses.
"I've been generating profit from those cursed by the Goddess."
Figaro said it as if it were nothing. In the Holy Federation, monsters were regarded simply as wretched creatures under the Goddess's curse — and nothing more.
Lirinet had little interest in monsters either, so she moved things along.
"Let's just discuss business."
"Of course. First, allow me to brief you on the situation."
Lirinet shrugged at his formality.
"Is there even anything to brief? We're just abducting a Neutral Zone local with high holy aptitude. That's all."
"The situation has grown complicated. Kizen caught the scent and moved in."
At the word Kizen, Lirinet's eyes went wide. The girls behind her began whispering among themselves as well.
"Kizen was one step ahead. Your arrival was delayed, so I took the liberty of acting on my own. I hired a local gang and planned to have them bring the target here."
"Resourceful of you. Did it work?"
"It failed."
Figaro shook his head and continued.
"Kizen caught up in the end and took the girl. She'll have slipped away by now."
"…Ugh."
Lirinet's expression hardened. Figaro pressed on with his explanation.
"If Kizen considered her worth involving themselves, she's no ordinary holy-aptitude civilian. She possesses a unique ability, and she may very well be a true Saintess Candidate."
"Then we chase them right now."
Lirinet's voice burned with zeal.
"If Kizen attacked and took our target, then this time we attack Kizen and take her back. Simple as that."
Figaro smiled.
"That confident, are we? A mercenary band of over thirty men was wiped out completely."
"When it's Kizen versus Efnel, there's no outcome I refuse. And besides—"
Lirinet's lips curled upward.
"Necromancers from Kizen could never stand against us Efnel students."