A Horrible Revenge (1)
"...It wasn't a dream, was it."
The bloodstains from my nosebleed. The lingering throb in my skull. The marks beneath the bandages wrapped around Evan's body. All of them were still right where they belonged.
An unreal sensation still clung to me, but this was no dream. Of that, I was certain.
"If I can return his soul... what am I supposed to do about his body?"
The blade that had cleanly pierced his heart flashed unbidden through my mind, and I squeezed my eyes shut. Evan's eyes, gazing up at me so pitifully. His face, whispering nothing but apologies to me until the very end.
"...Evan. I miss you so much. They say I have to kill someone to get you back. So why does that sound so... so easy? Is it because I've already seen far too much of what this world that killed you has done to us?"
I took the hand that could no longer hold me and laced our fingers together, gripping tight. If I did this before, he would flush and try to turn his head away...
"You can't even pull away anymore, can you. You can't even make that foolish face of yours. You're not going to try to stop me, are you? Right?"
With no answer, he simply lay there in silence, eyes closed. I pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.
"I'll be back, Evan. Stay well until then. I can't... let you see me looking ugly."
The screams that had come from beyond the curtain. The blood and flesh that had spilled. I had to obey those words — that I must inflict pain so terrible they would wish for death.
And if Evan saw me like that, he would surely hate me. He had always regarded necromancers and fallen priests alike with pure contempt. To him, taking another's life for one's own desires was the height of immorality. What I was about to do would not look good in his eyes either.
I left the room and picked up the staff that had fallen to the ground. One of its blades was broken, but the remaining edge would be more than enough to hurt someone.
...Having performed surgery so many times, I knew perfectly well which places on a body inflicted the most horrific pain. So I held onto a faint hope that this would be easier than I imagined, and prepared to leave the house where he lay.
"Gloves, and protective clothing... should I use a priest's?"
They had been exposed to corpse toxin. If I wounded them and blood splattered, it would surely affect my body as well. So it was right to prepare something that could cover me completely.
But the thought of wearing the vestments of those who served a god that offered me no protection — using them to ward off the plague — was a contradiction in itself. So I opened the next wardrobe, searching for other clothes, and in that instant found exactly the garments I had been imagining.
"Why is this... here?"
It was far too perfect to call a coincidence. Hanging there were robes far cleaner and more beautiful than anything I had ever worn — as if they wanted me to put them on. Gloves. The boots I would wear. Even a white mask for keeping out the plague. All of it gathered in one place.
And at the center of it all, a pendant hung neatly arranged.
"Doing something like this won't make me go back."
There was no reason for such things to be in an ordinary person's home. In other words, this was someone's scheme. Thinking it the work of my old god — the one I had come to despise — I was about to shut the door when—
A voice that shook through my skull seized my hand. Once again — this was no hallucination, no single night's dream. The promise I had received. The future I dreamed of. All of it could be made real.
"...Chaos... is that you?"
Tears pricked at my eyes for reasons I couldn't name. This time, of all times, I had opened my mouth to offer thanks — that the god I served was watching over me, helping me — and yet the words that spilled out came trembling and broken.
The inside of the wardrobe flickered faintly with violet light and whispered to me.
"Yes — yes...! Of course. I will obey."
Once more, the light vanished without a trace. When he appeared, he had flaunted a majesty that seemed ready to swallow the entire world; when he left, he erased his presence completely. As if he were there, and as if he were not. It was a truly strange sensation.
And the being I had newly come to follow seemed to pour immense interest upon his new devotee — as if trying to compensate for the false faith of days past.
Wearing the mask, I walked out along the path.
I hadn't noticed it while walking among the corpses, but now I could see — the sunlight fell generously, and the forest was lush enough to make this a truly beautiful place. A path good for settling the heart and sorting one's thoughts... and a place good for leaning against the one you love and gently setting one foot in front of the other.
Was it truly a coincidence that I had come here?
If I could bring him back, say nothing to him, and simply keep living together. If I could hide the things I was about to do from him, and simply live together in this peaceful village. Then everything I was about to do would be nothing more than a small sacrifice.
I knew how much harder it was to offer up a life than to take one.
Clutching the staff tight, I kept walking, and before long I could see them — groaning in agony, propping each other up. I could also see those loathsome faces, the ones that had dared try to harass me, now twisted in pain.
"Ghhhk — ghhhrrrk...!!"
Corpse toxin had soaked evenly into their wounds, and every one of them was thrashing about, oozing pus and discharge. From every wound and every hole in their faces, they spewed a greenish-yellow fluid, crying out in every direction:
"Save... me!! Please, save me!!"
...I myself didn't even know where this place was, and yet they were shouting in every direction with terrified voices, without so much as a thought of caution. That had to stop. Drawing unnecessary attention was good for no one.
I pulled the hood over my ears and hair. If they saw that one of my ears had been cut off, they would surely recognize me. Then I stepped out from the shadows cast by the trees and slowly walked toward them — without opening my mouth.
"Ah — aah! At last! Thank the gods! Over here! Over here!"
I was the one who should be grateful. To the god called Chaos, who was letting me personally execute with my own hands the three who had insulted the Evan I loved — I could thank him a hundred times and it still wouldn't be enough.
Drawing closer and looking at them properly, their condition was clearly dire. It was only because they were elves — because they had lived so long at the heart of the forest — that their bodies could push back the foul toxin to some degree. Had they possessed ordinary bodies, they would already have lost their reason and gone berserk.
"You're a priest, right? Right? Help me — it hurts so much!"
The one who looked most savagely clawed had eyes that were already swelling shut. He stretched out a hand with eyes that could barely open, trying to come toward me — and I casually struck him back with the tip of my staff.
"Aaagh!"
"What — what the hell are you doing, you bitch!"
Was it right to open my mouth to them? Might they recognize my voice? But then it occurred to me that the mask I wore would make my voice echo and sound muffled. And especially given that, on the operating table, people distinguished one another by colored cloth on their arms —
I found the courage to speak. They had been interested in my body, after all. There was no way they would recognize my voice.
"...Contact with infected patients must be kept to a minimum. If the corpse toxin spreads to me as well, I won't be able to give you the treatment you need."
"So that gives you the right to swing a staff at elves? You bitch —"
Fortunately, they hadn't recognized me, and were only objecting to my measures. Even the one who looked most intact — the one who had been shouting for help — still had enough energy to clench his fists.
But what stopped him was the one leaning against the cave entrance, barely managing to breathe.
"Treatment — just treat us already. It hurts. I feel like I'm going to die...!"
Thick groans began to fill the air. The veins turning green showed that the situation was growing worse.
"I will. But I need your cooperation. First, shall we get away from that den? Follow me."
"Are you insane? We barely managed to crawl out of that cave, and you're telling us to walk again?!"
Ah. I was starting to get irritated, bit by bit. Even if I had truly intended to treat them, they needed to get away from this place quickly. Treating them near a cave full of zombie fluids would only contaminate the wounds further. And yet they kept carping at me with that arrogant attitude.
I wanted to stab them to death with the staff right then and there, but...
"We need to put even a little distance between you and the source of contamination so I can purify what has soaked into your wounds. I know it's hard, but please try to muster a little strength."
"I — I... can't move. Just a moment... ghhhk..."
The elf who looked worst off — the one with the injured eyes — breathed in thin gasps and leaned his full weight against the wall. Even at a glance, he looked ready to turn at any moment. I thought he would need to be kept far away.
"Stay with us. You'll be able to get treatment soon. Khh... I... I could use a little help, priest. I can limp, but if you had a crutch, or something I could use as a makeshift cane..."
The one less wounded than that still had a large injury on his leg. A puncture wound, as if from a pickaxe or a spear, stood out clearly. And whether out of camaraderie or something else, he kept talking, trying somehow to keep the other conscious.
"Damn it, I'll move. I'm still better off than the rest of you."
Was the difference in their conditions a matter of skill, or simply luck? Looking at them now, the one who had been grumbling that something was off and scanning the surroundings was the most intact — and the one who had harassed me first was the most severe. Coincidence? Or had one been hurt badly because his mind was elsewhere, and the other less so because he had been on guard?
Either way, I gestured for the one who could still move to follow me.
How long had we walked? At the entrance leading into the forest, the one who had been glancing around suddenly threw a question at me.
"Hey... Sister? Are you one of the short-lived races?"
Had I been found out? Had he seen my ear?
I turned to face him, and it didn't seem to be that. That slimy look in his eyes. That filthy energy I had faced countless times. Of course. The degree of their injuries had just been coincidence after all.
"Whatever race I may be, the fact that I came here to help you remains clear."
But I needed to put a little more distance between us. Only by putting him off his guard could I inflict a serious wound.
"No, that's not what I —"
His hand stretched out slightly, reaching to touch my robes, and I struck it away at once.
"Aaagh, that hurts! What's wrong with you!"
"I clearly warned you earlier not to touch me with infected hands."
"Ha. I'm starting to get angry. How bad do you think I'm hurt, that you're pulling away like that? Hmm? I'll have you know I'm an elf. If it weren't for the wounds, I'd look a lot better than this."
Could he not even grasp the situation? His eyes looked a little off — perhaps the symptoms were starting to rise in him as well. Babbling without a clear hold on his mind... then slowly losing his reason.
"So come here. Let's have a little fun. Treatment can wait, can't it?"
Once again he reached out an arm and came toward me. I took soft steps backward, drawing him gradually deeper in — and sure enough. His ability to tell right from wrong was clearly growing difficult.
"What, you want to play tag? Fine by me. If I catch you, I won't —"
I needed to hurry before it was too late. The condition He had spoken of was a state in which they desired death. If he lost his reason entirely, the mission would fail.
With a wet thrust, I drove the sharp tip of the staff straight through his foot.