XIII. Unleash the Dogs (2)
XIII. Unleash the Dogs (2)
Keldric bore the demon no particular ill will.
That said, he had certainly kept his guard up until now. Was a demon not a being that seduced people down wicked paths?
But with every meeting, that wariness faded. By now, he had learned something whether he wanted to or not.
The wolf-shaped demon before him had either lost its power, as it claimed, or could not use it for some other reason.
"This place never changes."
[ Change is unnecessary. Only what is bound to the present has meaning. ]
Keldric sat astride the broken statue as always.
The Black Wolf likewise approached and stood before him.
The two faced each other for a long while. Keldric waited for the wolf to speak; the wolf seemed to have nothing on its mind at all.
In the end, Keldric spoke first.
"...So if I am here again..."
[ Yes, warrior. It must mean you have touched it once more. ]
"I don't recall anything."
[ Think carefully. Do you truly have no memory of contact? ]
"Even if you say that..."
Keldric sank into thought.
But no matter how much he turned it over, he had never come into contact with that flame emblem.
If he had to name something, it would be the disc he always kept buried deep in his baggage. But he had not taken even that out to look at before falling asleep.
"I don't know."
[ Honestly... ]
The wolf let out a dry cackle.
From the demon's perspective, an uninvited guest kept barging in without knowing why. No wonder it found the situation absurd.
Keldric felt rather wronged himself; nothing at all came to mind.
"I must have killed a Wizard during the battle."
[ Do all scholars who pursue truth practice idol worship? Think again. ]
"One of them might have been a Wizard bearing the flame emblem."
[ If even you cannot be certain, I would have no way of knowing either. ]
The point was sound, so Keldric shut his mouth sourly. The demon never let him have the last word.
[ Hmm... Perhaps. ]
The wolf padded closer. Its fluffy black fur tickled the bridge of Keldric's nose.
A faint beast-stench rose from the fur; Keldric's nose twitched once and his brow furrowed.
[ ...What are you doing? ]
"You reek. If you're going to get that close, could you at least wash?"
[ You insolent wretch... ]
Hisss! Hsss!
The wolf's tail was made of serpents. The dozen-odd snakes hissed menacingly at Keldric.
[ In any case, warrior. Perhaps the one you captured holds the answer. ]
"Are you speaking of Baron Gofrit?"
[ Yes. Humans are ever so fond of attaching titles that are little more than illusions. ]
Baron Gofrit held the answer? Keldric chewed over those words for a moment.
It was true that Keldric had taken Baron Gofrit alive. Yet the man had shown no trace of any demon.
"Are you saying mere traces left by contact can produce an effect like this?"
[ That would not be the case. He gives off a most familiar scent. ]
The wolf's nose twitched and its fangs bared.
Its breath burst out as hot flame, and saliva mixed with the acrid stench of sulfur dripped from its sharp fangs.
[ The primordial flame of sin worshiped by fools... It bears that idol's scent. ]
"A demon, then?"
[ Expressed in your tongue, yes. ]
That Baron Gofrit was connected to the organization bearing that flame emblem was no great surprise.
Had they not killed a flame-marked Wizard from Baron Gofrit's army at the Battle of Schaffendorf?
Thinking along those lines, one thought led to another, link by link.
'Perhaps Jamash and Jacober too...'
Both of them had borne flame emblems on their bodies. So had the Wizard killed at Schaffendorf.
If Baron Gofrit had hired Jamash and Jacober... then the pieces roughly fit.
"I'll have to look into it separately."
[ Wise. Do not carelessly overlook a small threat. ]
The wolf cackled and nodded in satisfaction. Keldric scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.
"So then, is that all you had to say?"
Keldric had lately realized that meeting the demon before him was not an everyday occurrence.
Moreover, since it offered him help whenever they met, he intended to milk it for all it was worth.
As though it had already noticed Keldric's naked greed, the wolf exhaled a long tongue of flame.
[ I can see your greed. I do not dislike it. ]
"I thought you'd be offended. That's a surprise."
[ Why? What could be better than you craving my power? Better still if you would make a contract and be done with it. ]
Keldric flinched. Put that way, he really was beginning to rely on the demon's strange abilities.
When Keldric hastily retreated two paces, the wolf cackled again and lolled out its tongue.
[ There is no need to be wary. I no longer have the power to do such a thing. ]
"...Right."
That was true. If it meant to lead Keldric by the nose, it would have done so long ago.
The wolf drew close again. Black fur curled unexpectedly around the nape of his neck, and Keldric was seized by an odd feeling.
The beast-stench had grown familiar and scarcely bothered him anymore; he felt only the soft, plush texture of the fur.
[ This place is cold and silent. It is a wretched domain, yet I do not leave it. ]
"I seem to recall you saying you were imprisoned here."
[ Both statements are true. I was imprisoned here, and by now I have given up after failing to find a way out. ]
The Wolf Demon must have been confined here for a very long time.
It would not have spent all that time idly. It had likely sought means to recover its power, or busied itself with one thing or another.
[ And in the midst of all that, Warrior, did you not suddenly appear here? ]
The demon seemed to have passed at least several hundred years in this place.
However transcendent a being, spending that much time with only statues for company could not be pleasant.
And then Keldric had appeared. He had inadvertently become the demon's conversation partner.
Keldric found the situation deeply awkward. Visiting now and then merely to keep it company made him feel as though he were tending to an old man.
[ You are thinking something nasty again. Do you truly wish for a thrashing? ]
"It's not exactly wrong. Why be so petty about it?"
[ A wily warrior. But I do not dislike it. ]
The wolf circled slowly around Keldric's body.
As the wolf vanished from his sight, the soft sensation of fur against his nape faded at some point as well.
"Reckless bravado, from a warrior's standpoint, could be seen as an act of courage."
And when it reappeared behind Keldric's back, it wore the form he had seen before: the bronze-skinned female warrior.
Keldric knew well what this warrior-woman appearance signified.
"Do you have something more to say?"
"Quick-witted, are you not? I could hardly earn your trust in any other form."
The demon extended slender fingers. The healthy bronze fingers slid seductively along the line of Keldric's jaw.
"The words I spoke to you before—do you remember?"
"You've said more than one thing to me."
"...That is true, but I mean the most important thing I told you, Warrior."
Keldric cast his mind back.
The important words the demon had spoken. Well, had there been any words from the demon that were not important?
That Jamash and Jacober served the flame emblem; that it represented a demon wandering the desert; that someone unknown had directed the two of them...
"Broaden the scope of your thoughts."
The demon's fingers suddenly cupped the point of his chin. With his head held in place, Keldric looked steadily into its eyes.
"Do not think only of what benefited you. Remember the matters you have yet to unravel as well."
Among the demon's words, those that had yet to yield Keldric any tangible profit.
There were many. But a single clear memory flickered through Keldric's mind.
"When you meet the one who incited that foolish apostate, you will surely defy fate."
The demon spoke. It was plainly speaking from half a pace away, yet strangely it seemed to whisper right in his ear.
"Did I not say so, clearly?"
"That is..."
Keldric turned those words over carefully. Defy fate—what in the world was that supposed to mean? He could not comprehend it.
It had been so the first time he heard it, and it remained so now, long afterward.
"Warrior. In this battle, you defied fate three times."
"What do you mean?"
"The young, reckless man you follow... was fated to die in this battle."
Sir Lothar. He, according to his original fate, should have died on the Rhamdus Plain.
Keldric, who had been silently pondering, nodded. Certainly, without Keldric, Sir Lothar would have died crushed under his horse.
"The old warrior was the same. He would have fought bravely, become fertilizer for the field, and been picked apart by crows."
Sir Rutger had been fated to die as well. But he had survived for all to see.
Though he had been wounded, he had tried to buy time alone, only for Keldric to drag him away by force and save his life.
"Lastly... brave warrior, you too were fated to die here."
The demon prodded Keldric's chest with a finger. At the strange sensation, Keldric lowered his gaze.
Each time he came, he had distinctly worn chain mail and breastplate, yet now he suddenly wore only the thin clothes he had donned before falling asleep.
"However valiant and wise a warrior you may be, the world does not run on strength alone, does it?"
"..."
"Yet valor and defying fate are not the same."
Defying fate.
Those words were far too weighty for Keldric to accept at face value.
Twisting a fate that demanded death and surviving instead—what could be more absurd?
Even setting aside whether Keldric possessed such power, there was no knowing whether it was achieved by one individual's strength at all.
The demon burst into hearty laughter when Keldric said that.
"Ahahaha! Are you not underestimating yourself?"
"I'm hardly that extraordinary."
"Indeed! You are right, Warrior. You are merely a brave and wise warrior, with strength equal to the ancient chieftain who bore the boulder."
"..."
"Even so, you are no remarkable being. Yet, you most certainly defied fate."
The demon's eyes glinted oddly. In those eyes, Keldric glimpsed a single emotion.
It was a deep, profound greed. The demon's eyes had become drenched in greed and now glistened.
"Warrior. The more you wander here and there, the more you stir my curiosity."
"So, what do you intend?"
"Nothing. I will do nothing, for I lack the power."
"I suppose so."
"Only, remember this one thing. I do not aid you out of simple goodwill."
Keldric's brows tilted. If it was not simple goodwill, he would eventually have to pay an appropriate price for it.
Yet Keldric had paid nothing worthy of the name all this while. At most, he had merely flashed the disc once.
Could that be counted as payment? It could not.
"What is the price?"
"The price of my goodwill..."
In that instant, Keldric's vision blurred slightly.
"Before that, warrior. What do you think of me?"
"A demon."
"No. That is too simple."
Keldric watched the demon smile broadly.
There was even anticipation in that smile. Its greed had grown so thick that Keldric could almost taste its cloying sweetness.
"I presided over the might and prosperity of a whole people. But I fell alongside the Morning Star. Scorching the heavens, trailing a long tail across the night sky."
The demon's voice droned. Keldric unwittingly knit his brows.
"The seething sulfur fires at the bottom of the abyss burned away my wings, and eternal torment and indelible sin shackled my ankles. Yet you, Warrior, are my opportunity."
The demon spoke, its smile deepening further.
"Do you not know the source of your great strength? In that strength, I glimpse my old might and glory."
"What does that..."
"As I said, you are my opportunity. You, warrior."
His gradually fading consciousness soon floated upward. Beyond his receding vision, he saw the demon, already returned to the form of a wolf.
[ Unleash the hounds. Follow the scent of sulfur. Hunt my compatriot, the one who once held power. Extinguish the fools' flame. I will help you. ]
"..."
[ Should you do so, I shall return. To the throne of heaven. To the place where I rightfully belong. ]
Is this not mutual benefit?
The demon's sardonic smile was the last thing Keldric saw before his consciousness sank.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
When he opened his eyes, Keldric's body was soaked in a cold sweat.
A chilly wind swept over him. Thanks to that, he was left shivering in the cold.
Amid it all, Keldric carefully considered the demon's words. His conclusion was simple.
'...What the hell did that mean?'
The words of a transcendent being were too difficult for Keldric to comprehend.