The Hand Lurking on the Island (4)
Black Wind slung the fallen Chester over his shoulder and raced across the island at a blistering pace.
He moved so fast it truly seemed he had become a single streak of wind, just as his name promised.
Chester’s heartbeat was faint. Even Black Wind, who possessed little medical knowledge, could tell at once that this was serious.
When the heart stops, life ends.
So Black Wind ran like a madman, ran and ran again, covering the distance from the island’s lower levels all the way to the Summit at an impossible speed.
“Shaman! Shaman! Come out, shaman! Shaman!”
The moment he reached the Summit, Black Wind frantically searched for the cave where the shaman lived.
Late at night, the shaman had been training hard, gazing at the small sun in hopes of spiritual insight. He scowled at the voice that interrupted him—until Black Wind arrived carrying Chester in such a dire state. Then he straightened at once.
“Is this one of those new family members? What happened?”
“I don’t know. I went to give him the Grace of the Summit and found him like this.”
“You went at this hour? Most people would be asleep.”
“Better to give it sooner, right?”
“You ignorant, mannerless fool.”
Yet this time that ignorant, mannerless impulse proved a great help.
The shaman checked that Chester’s breath was growing shallower, nodded, and called for his disciple.
“Bring the Grace.”
The disciple nodded and, even at this late hour, waded into the softly glowing lake. He tore free a portion of the blue ore growing within the water and brought it out.
“Will he be all right?”
Black Wind asked, fretting. The shaman, still watching Chester, answered,
“He’s not the same kind of life as us, so I can’t say for certain. But according to you, he was already treated in the lake that holds a portion of the Grace, wasn’t he?”
“That’s right. He sought it out to heal his injuries.”
“Then it will work. I’m sure of it.”
A short while later the disciple returned with the ore. The shaman took it and set it against Chester’s chest with a fingernail.
“No open wounds visible…”
With his carefully honed nails the shaman tore open Chester’s chest. Dark, dead blood welled up at once, and he frowned.
“Truly small. Smaller than our infants.”
Yet even though he looked ready to die, that heart was still beating.
It struggled desperately to cling to life for one more minute, one more second.
Chester himself, unconscious, clenched his teeth and fought against death.
The shaman dipped his hand into the chest wound, coating it with blood, and began painting every manner of ritual mark across Chester’s body.
From the crown of his head to the tips of his toes he worked with all possible speed. Then he crushed the Grace of the Summit in his fist, grinding it to powder between both palms.
Carefully he began to pour that powder into the wound he had opened in Chester’s chest.
The powder flowed into the punctures left by broken ribs, entered the bloodstream, reached the heart, and with every beat raced fiercely through the entire body.
“…Why isn’t it working?”
To Black Wind the sight was puzzling.
Normally the wounds would close in an instant once this ritual was performed, yet Chester showed little reaction.
“His life force has weakened, so of course it takes longer.”
“We heal wounds like this in no time.”
“Our lives and theirs differ in scale. It’s only natural.”
The shaman began to chant the ritual softly. His disciple and Black Wind sat around Chester and joined the chant.
Of course it held no true mystical power.
The ritual was like any religion people believe in—merely a ceremony of “spiritual communion with the ancestors” that offered mental calm and uplift.
“……Aagh…!”
The Grace of the Summit that had entered Chester’s heart and now coursed through his body diligently did its work.
The People of the Summit did not truly understand the Grace they received. They had never approached it scientifically, never analyzed or studied it, so they knew only its rough effects.
The visible power of the Grace of the Summit was rapid wound recovery. Both the People of the Summit and Chester himself knew only that much.
The essential power of the Grace of the Summit was to mend life itself.
If cancer cells existed in the body, it destroyed them. If cells had aged and were dying, it restored youth.
If joints were ruined beyond recovery, it returned them to supple, healthy condition. If some factor had prevented proper growth of height that should have developed fully, it completed that growth.
The striking effect of wound healing was merely a secondary result of that deeper work.
The abnormal physical prowess of the People of the Summit, their enormous frames, their constitutions that never fell ill—all of it stemmed from this.
But Chester was different.
He had grown up poor as a child. During his growth years he had entered the butler academy and endured harsh training. Once grown he had worked himself to the bone as butler to the Duke’s household.
Born naturally robust, he had developed more sturdily than most people, yet if one looked inside, Chester had been forced to kill off physical gifts that should have blossomed fully.
Chester was dying right now.
Yet the Grace of the Summit, before concerning itself with “that sort of thing,” first set about correcting the interior of Chester’s body into its proper form.
“…Bring more Grace of the Summit.”
The shaman, who had long used the Grace to treat his family, instinctively realized that what they had was not enough.
The disciple went back and forth between the lake and the shaman’s cave again and again, ferrying Grace of the Summit. Each time the shaman introduced more into Chester.
Bacteria entered through the open wound and attacked the body. The Grace of the Summit healed them in an instant.
A weakened immune system. Twisted joints. Diminished sight and hearing. The physical toll of psychological stress—
There was much to repair. Even so, Chester ranked among those who needed relatively little correction.
The psychological stress from his years as a butler, his parents’ deaths, and the loss of Monia had been severe, yet aside from that he required less mending than ordinary people.
Once the Grace of the Summit had perfectly restored the body, it finally began to heal Chester’s injuries.
It knit broken bones, sealed torn blood vessels, repaired ruined muscle, and covered the wounds with fresh, living flesh and skin.
That process took a truly long, long time.
Chester, carried to the Summit in the dead of night and placed under the shaman’s care, opened his eyes only after the sun had risen once, the moon had risen once, and the sun had risen again.
“Logically speaking,”
Having lost consciousness, then regained enough awareness midway to notice the changes occurring in his body, Chester spoke without thinking, utterly incredulous.
“Shouldn’t the wounds be the first thing you heal…?”
In a thin, trembling voice, like a newborn struggling to cry and draw breath, Chester managed the words and quietly opened his eyes.
Enormous fatigue had crashed over him from the sudden transformation of his body, yet the form the Grace of the Summit had perfectly restored simply blew that fatigue away in an instant.
His heart beat. It pounded with explosive strength, powerfully, heavily, without equal.
Blood raced through his entire body in time with that pulse, dissolving the Grace of the Summit still remaining within him and carrying it to every place, every single cell.
Chester’s body was now perfect; there was nothing left to touch. So the remaining Grace of the Summit began to work on the mental side.
The moment Chester’s spirit was healthiest. The moment it grew strongest.
Naturally, certain skin cells began to change. Like deep-sea creatures that generate their own light, faint blue tattoos of light rose across Chester’s skin.
“…….”
It was something utterly familiar to him.
Sometimes drawn with earth, sometimes with the blood of hunted beasts, sometimes with juice crushed from whatever lay nearby and smeared across the body.
A ritual to exalt the spirit and awaken the mighty warrior dwelling within.
War Paint.
The War Paint of light that had risen on his own body seemed to whisper to him: Fight.
Fight. Fight. Fight.
The terror of nearly losing his woman. The self-loathing of having failed to protect her. The revulsion at nearly forcing her to sacrifice herself for his life.
He smashed every negative emotion, and from deep in his chest boundless exaltation and excitement surged up.
Weak and negative feelings were blown away; only positive, powerful resolve welled forth.
Is this another effect of the Grace of the Summit?
Chester thought that, then turned his head to one side.
“……!”
There was Monia, who had cried so hard while he underwent the ritual that her voice was gone, who no longer even had the strength to approach him and could only keep weeping.
Chester smiled, went to her, and pulled her into a strong embrace.
“I’m sorry. I made you worry.”
“Che…s…ter… hwaaah…!”
He knew what she was trying to say.
That because she had gotten in the way he couldn’t escape, that he had nearly died fighting Urgo. Monia had been apologizing to Chester over and over.
“No.”
She had saved a life that could have been lost. That was the truth.
In that situation he would never have escaped Urgo and would have had to fight anyway—but from the way Urgo had acted, without Monia he would simply have killed Chester outright.
Because Monia was there he had hesitated to kill him; because Monia had tried to sacrifice herself he had stopped and returned to the ship.
“Thank you. Truly. For being by my side.”
Yet beneath those words of Chester’s there was no such calculation.
He loved her so much, so endlessly, that such thoughts never even occurred to him. Right after thanking her he kissed her without realizing it.
They shared a passionate, beast-like kiss, tongues and saliva mingling thickly. Then Chester, relieved, lifted the Monia who had fallen asleep as if fainting, cradling her like a princess, and looked at the benefactors who had saved him.
First he offered thanks to Black Wind and the shaman. Then he spoke to Black Wind.
“Brother, will you help me?”
“With what?”
“Revenge. Revenge for touching my woman.”
Black Wind’s expression grew serious. He had already guessed something had happened from Chester’s severe wounds and the enormous unknown object floating in the nearby sea.
“Understood. I’ll help you, brother.”
While Black Wind was speaking, a small elder who had entered the shaman’s cave during Chester’s treatment and watched the whole process spoke up.
“I’ll assign three young warriors.”
“Little Elder.”
“Make them understand what it means to lay hands on our family.”
“Understood.”
It was the hour when the ruling tribe that had long dominated this island bared its fangs at the invaders who had dared enter the island and touch their family.