The Sacred Spring of Lizard Den (1)

Walking where roads end was nothing new to them.

Three years of life as an adventurer meant trekking through trackless wilderness had long since become routine, and so Alec and Yona pushed their way up the mountain path through the thick undergrowth.

Alec led from the front, sweeping his brush machete through grass that rose to a man's waist, while Yona followed a step behind.

Birdsong echoed through the mountains at every moment, mingling with the cries of unseen beasts whose origin no one could guess.

Every fresh sound layered another degree of tension onto their nerves, but so far, nothing had gone wrong.

"Tired? Want to take a break?"

"No, I'm fine. We can keep going."

When Alec glanced back, Yona answered as if nothing were wrong at all.

But the fat beads of sweat rolling down that face were proof enough that Yona was exhausted too — not that Alec pressed the point. He simply swung his machete in silence, cutting a path forward.

"We could still turn back now, you know."

They'd only been climbing for two or three hours at most.

The sun still hung at its zenith, and they were well within easy range of the trail home. Alec found himself hoping Yona would give up this stubbornness already.

There was nothing to gain from ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it — if anything, the whole excursion might only get more dangerous.

"...It's Kayak's homeland, that's why. I can't just walk past it."

"Yeah. Figured you'd say that."

And what was he supposed to do with that? Alec swung his machete and walked on in silence.

They had been at it for quite some time when it happened — about an hour after their last exchange of words, the two of them stopped dead in their tracks, as if on cue.

"That... that's water, isn't it?"

"Sounds like it."

The rush of sound pouring through the trees was unmistakably the roar of water — loud enough, in fact, that there had to be a waterfall somewhere ahead.

"Guess we came the right way after all."

"Nobody said anything about a waterfall, though."

"Yeah, true."

Had they come the right way, or hadn't they? It was hard to say.

Yona's position was that since they could hear water, they might as well go look, and Alec, who had long since learned to trust Yona's instincts, followed along without objection.

The waist-high brush thinned out before they knew it, and the gravel crunching underfoot grew scarcer as well.

Meanwhile, the air began to fill with a drifting mist of water vapor — and from that point on, something about the mood turned distinctly strange.

"Gwahk!"

With a strange strangled sound, Alec stumbled backward.

His nose had flared bright red at the tip, as though he'd slammed face-first into a wall at full speed.

Yona hurried over and pressed a finger to the end of his nose, and the blood that had been trickling from his nostrils quickly stopped.

"What? What's wrong with you?"

"I don't — it's just, right in front of me there's... huh? Why is there nothing there?"

Bewildered, Alec thrust his war hammer forward.

Thonk. With a dull clang, the hammer stopped dead, as though it had struck something solid.

There was clearly nothing in front of him — yet as if an invisible wall stood across the path, the hammer was blocked and could go no farther.

"What? What is this?"

Alec jabbed his fist forward in confusion.

The fist, too, halted abruptly, as though it had slammed into solid stone.

"...Ah. I think I know ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what this is."

After hammering around at the air for a good long while, Alec smacked his palms together as the thought struck him.

The answer was buried somewhere in that conversation he'd overheard back at the inn, among the other adventurers.

"No human can enter—"

Alec turned to say it to Yona's face — and never finished the sentence.

Yona had already stepped straight through the very transparent wall that had stopped him, and was standing on the other side, looking back at him.

The flustered look on Yona's face was plain as day, and she stared at Alec, completely at a loss for what to do.

"Wha — what? Why can *I* get in...?"

"Uh, that's... no, what the hell *is* that?"

Watching Yona's face crumple on the verge of tears, Alec racked his brain desperately.

The sanctuary no human could enter — and that adventurer from the inn had probably managed to slip inside somehow, one way or another. Then he'd been exposed as human, and knocked out and thrown out for it — that must have been how the story went.

So it made sense that Alec himself would be blocked like this, unable to go any farther, just as if he'd hit a wall.

Then why could Yona walk through it as if it were nothing?

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Alec's brain began spinning at full speed.

And before long, it handed him the answer.

Maybe it was because Yona was already half human, and half not.

Tattoos etched across both arms, and a demon nesting outright in one of them. Because of that, maybe she was no longer considered fully human — and so the sanctuary let her pass.

That was roughly the right answer, he judged. But whether he could say any of that to Yona's face was another matter entirely.

Alec looked at Yona — who truly did look about ready to cry — and wracked his brain once more.

"...Maybe it's because I'm bald."

"...What does baldness have to do with anything?"

Yona glared at him with an expression of pure disbelief.

"...Ugh, fine. It means that once you took a demon into you, you stopped counting as human. That's the story, isn't it?"

"You knew, so why did you even ask?"

"Because I didn't want to be the one to say it out loud..."

Yona let out a long, long sigh.

She wasn't the only one who'd heard the adventurers' tale at the inn — setting aside the question of why this was even happening, there was only one reason she could think of for why Yona could pass where Alec could not.

That didn't mean she wanted to say it with her own mouth.

It was a complicated, strange sort of feeling — not something she wanted delivered through Alec's lips, either.

"Well, we've come all this way. It'd be weirder not to look at all, right?"

"You're actually planning to go in? I'd say staying out is the smarter call."

"Hey, I'm not human anymore anyway, apparently. So what's it matter? I'll just check whether the water's really turned pitch black and come right back."

'...Great. It's not like I can tell him there's a demon literally muttering in my head. But should I really go? I don't want to go alone.'

She didn't want to go alone.

That was Yona's honest heart. She didn't want to be apart from Alec — that was the plain truth of it. She couldn't bring herself to accept his feelings, but neither did she want to lose him. How selfish is that? How thoughtless — how unlike a cleric, how unlike a man, how utterly pathetic, Yona thought. But a thought was only a thought, and her honest heart remained what it was. What use was there in denying it now, at this late hour?

'Shut up, you damn snake.'

Cursing Berbaria out inside her own head, Yona waved at Alec.

"You — you don't move from this spot. Stay right here. Got it? If I call for you, you answer right away. Got it?"

"I've got it, so you watch yourself. I'd rather you didn't go at all, but you'd dig your heels in regardless."

"I'll be right back. Just a quick look, that's all."

Yona turned away from Alec and began to walk, refusing to let her steps falter.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

The closer she drew to the source of the waterfall's roar, the thicker the mist grew.

The humidity strengthened with every step, until she could feel her nun's habit dampening against her skin little by little as she walked.

'I — this...'

Yona's breathing was far too ragged to match such a composed remark.

Hoo, hoo, hooo— Each repetition of her breath carried a strange heat. Even before, when miasma had been near, she'd felt an odd flush rise in her — but this time it felt far, far worse.

Yona didn't know it, but her face had flushed a deep red. Her eyes had gone faintly hazy, shimmering with an almost sensual glaze, and her lips had grown moist enough that with every breath, a little saliva gathered between them.

'Shut up. None of your business.'

She'd been like this long before Berbaria ever took root in her.

It dated back to when the tattoo first appeared on her right arm — so it had nothing to do with the demon at all.

It felt worse now, maybe, but that was all it was.

"Huh...?"

Pushing through the brush, Yona took a step forward — and yanked her foot back in a hurry.

There was a downward slope before the brush that she hadn't seen at all — but it wasn't the slope that made her words die in her throat. It was the sight spread out beyond it.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

Kayak dodged the tail as it came crashing down from above, and in the same motion drove his spear straight into it.

Thuck. Black blood spurted up along with the sensation of the point splitting flesh — and a massive fist slammed down onto the spot where he'd stood.

Kayak flung himself clear of the blow, then bellowed an order to the lizardmen around him.

"Keep moving as fast as you can! Do not stand still after you strike!"

A monstrous change had overtaken the sacred spring.

And now Kayak, leading his warriors out to exterminate the monsters emerging from it, was having a hard fight of it.

The shaman who had been granting them the blessing of healing had taken a wound before long, and the young shaman-in-training who'd come along was doing her best to carry on — but it was woefully insufficient.

The monsters called Mermaidons were quite familiar to the lizardmen.

They appeared anywhere water ran deep, from the open sea on down, so in Lizard Den, sitting on the Cantasia River, they were a fairly common sight.

And since the monster that had appeared at this sacred spring wore the same shape as a Mermaidon, Kayak had assumed the hunt wouldn't be difficult. He'd been wrong.

Unlike the Mermaidons that swarmed in packs, this one had come alone — and its very appearance set it apart.

A catfish's face, six arms, and barbed spines spraying from the fan-like fins that jutted from its squat, muscular frame.

Its tail split into three whips it wielded with total freedom, and its sheer bulk was enormous — even Kayak, one of the strongest warriors among the lizardmen, had never seen a Mermaidon like this.

Even as he catalogued all this, Kayak drove his spear deep into the creature's tail-rooted hindquarters once more.

The instant he confirmed black blood welling from the wound, he yanked himself free — only to see a splayed palm flying straight at him.

"Tch!"

He turned his spear sideways; he only barely avoided taking the blow head-on.

With an impact nearly enough to snap the spear's haft, Kayak was sent sliding backward across the ground.

Was it time to prepare a withdrawal?

Kayak's eyes darted rapidly, sweeping the field.

The Mermaidon kept its body sunk in the sacred spring, refusing to come out of the water.

More than a dozen lizardmen still stood — most of them wounded, but still fit to fight.

Yet Kayak had seen this exact situation before.

The bear that had appeared in James's village, and the Sacred Tree entangled with it. The bear had gulped down the black sap overflowing from that tree, and its wounds had closed the moment it did.

No doubt about it — that Mermaidon was drawing its strength from the blackened sacred spring.

The bear had glutted itself on the tree's sap and perished for it, but that Mermaidon was a creature of the water from the very start.

Somehow, the spring itself had to be dealt with first.

But how? No solution would come to him, no matter how he turned it over.

And then—

Someone's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠touch landed somewhere on his wounded thigh, and almost before he could feel it, the wound was closing.

"Kayak, you okay?"

A voice he hadn't heard in far too long.

A healer so much smaller than him, yet always solid and dependable — her hair was a strange sight, but her skill and her character were beyond question.

It was Yona.