The Salvation Ninja (6)
“We’re already here! Whoa, this is the biggest hive I’ve ever seen!”
Beldergard wiped the sweat streaming down his face as he stood beside Sword King Yu.
A colossal beehive loomed before them.
“How do you want to handle this? Go in right away? Personally, I think we should rest a bit—”
“There might be captives. We enter immediately. I’ll clear the path—follow with the Rehabilitation Corps. Haaah~!”
— Heeheeheeheeing!
Sword King Yu cut Beldergard off as naturally as breathing and charged ahead first.
“…Must be nice being a muscle-brained idiot who can survive without a single thought. I’m jealous.”
The moment Sword King Yu was out of earshot, Beldergard’s eyes turned cold. He muttered the words low, thick with contempt.
“I’ll wait here. Go comb every corner of that hive. If you find a golden glowing orb, bring it straight to me.”
The Rehabilitation Corps nodded lightly at the order and spurred their horses forward.
Beldergard watched the silent, expressionless riders in quiet appraisal—then snagged the orange-haired woman among them as she brushed past.
“Still got vocabulary left?”
She tilted her head slightly at the odd question.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Stay and keep me company.”
“Understood.”
“Name?”
“Eva.”
“Don’t answer in single syllables. What did you do in society?”
“Understood. I was with the White Dolphin resistance.”
“White Dolphin!”
Beldergard clapped his hands and laughed heartily.
“This is going to be an entertaining story! Excellent! Why join the White Dolphin?”
“The Red Whale Magic Tower sent poisoned black tea and assassinated my parents. More precisely… I ‘believed’ they had.”
“Right. As if the Tower would ever do such a thing. Everyone knows that. Hypothetically… if your parents really were murdered in a Tower conspiracy, what do you suppose the reason was?”
“My parents were mages of the Transparent Lizard Magic Tower. They harbored the absurd delusion that the Red Whale Magic Tower was conducting unethical human experiments.”
Boom!
— Beeeeee!
— Hornettttttt!
The Birixes’ screams carried all the way outside the hive. Scouts that had been circling overhead dove through hexagonal openings into the nest.
“Looks like it’s started. Where were we? Ah, yes—delusions! Your parents were third-rate mages nursing an inferiority complex toward the Red Whale Magic Tower! Clearly mentally ill!”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the daughter inherited the same mental disease! Only the inferior scatter filthy blood, after all. Our Tower’s ‘Superior Gene Theory’ has never been wrong!”
“The Red Whale Magic Tower is always right.”
Even with her parents being spat on right in front of her, Eva showed no reaction. Her sunken eyes were as still and murky as water at the bottom of a well.
“What work did you do for the White Dolphin?”
“I posed as a merchant and gathered intelligence on the Tower.”
“Ever kill anyone? Before joining the Rehabilitation Corps, I mean.”
“About five people. They were trying to dig up my identity.”
Beldergard shook his head in exaggerated dismay.
“Truly dreadful. Any family left?”
“I have a younger sister.”
“How old?”
“She’ll be thirteen soon.”
“Left alone far too young. What’s her name?”
“Mina. They said the Tower would protect her until she came of age.”
The moment the name left her lips, Eva’s pupils trembled ever so slightly.
“They told me if I performed well here, I would see her again someday.”
Beldergard caught that tiny tremor and raised an eyebrow.
“Do you know where the child was placed?”
“A mage named Joseph Mangrove is looking after her. They said he was a very renowned and kind man…”
“Joseph? Joseph, you say! Whoo!”
Beldergard let out a long, sharp whistle. The Joseph Mangrove he knew was one of the most “enthusiastic” mages even among the freaks of the Red Whale Magic Tower.
“Good heavens, Joseph! Yes, you’ll definitely get to see her. I guarantee it!”
“Thank you. I believe that as well.”
“Just keep in mind that Mina might look quite different after all this time! Children grow so fast, you know! Hahaha!”
Tears of laughter welled in Beldergard’s eyes as he nearly choked on his own mirth.
Thud!
“Hm?!”
A thunderous crash rang out, and a crowd of people burst from a collapsed section of the hive wall.
“What? They already found the Mountain Spirit’s essence?”
Startled, Beldergard muttered to himself and spurred his horse forward.
The ones who had smashed through the wall were twelve Rehabilitation Corps members and thirty people completely coated in Birix slime.
The sour stench unique to the mucus made Beldergard wrinkle his nose. He called the lead Corps member to a halt.
“Who the hell are these extras? Did you find the orb?”
“Rescued civilians, sir. No orb yet.”
“You useless bastards—who told you to waste time on that crap?!”
Enraged, Beldergard drove his fist into the lead Corps member’s face. The man’s head snapped halfway around; blood poured from his mouth.
“Ghk!”
Teeth clattered to the ground along with the blood.
“It was Sword King Yu.”
The Corps member beside the one clutching his mouth spoke up in his place.
“What?”
“Sword King Yu, who went in first, ordered us to rescue them and left them in our care. He said if even one went missing, he would report the Tower.”
“Report? That lawless little brat dares—!”
As the commotion grew, the rescued people’s eyes turned toward the raving Beldergard. They only blinked, apparently unable to follow the conversation. Beldergard glared at them for a moment, then forced a smile.
“Ah, just a small misunderstanding! Please rest easy! We are the Red Whale Magic Tower! We came with Sword King Yu to rescue all of you!”
At those words, the people’s faces brightened.
“They say the Red Whale Magic Tower came to save us!”
“You can trust the Tower.”
“Was the one who gave Bob a sword also from the Tower?”
“The Carbon Ninja or Runaway Ninja or whatever?”
“Elder, it’s Runaway Ninja.”
Beldergard’s eyes went wide at the unexpected name.
“Runaway Ninja? Is Goldon’s guardian deity here?”
“Ah, yes! I saw him. When I asked who he was, he answered—looked exactly like the rumors. He bought us time so the rest of us could escape. Ugh, my head’s throbbing again.”
Bob gently touched the huge lump rising on his skull.
Runaway Ninja.
If Beldergard’s memory served, that was the one who had killed Sword King Yu’s disciple.
Two men with such deep bad blood, meeting in the same place.
Should I go reinforce him?
To the Tower, Sword King Yu was a minor headache, not a major threat. They regarded each other as thorns in the side, but they were not open enemies.
“What are you standing around for? Everyone back inside. Once you find the orb, assist Sword King Yu.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Corps members, who had been waiting only for the order, moved out again.
Just putting on a show.
The exaggerated nickname “guardian deity” grated a little, but there was no way someone of Sword King Yu’s caliber would lose to a newcomer whose fame had barely begun to spread. A few hundred frontier bandits? Nothing to one of the Seven Sword Kings.
Personally he would have preferred to sit it out, but Tower policy required him to aid Sword King Yu.
“Eva, guide these people to the nearest village.”
“Understood.”
Once even the villagers were gone, Beldergard let out a long sigh. Commoners’ gossip spread like plague—driving them off was the only sensible move. Wiping them all out would have been ideal, but doing so now risked a clash with Sword King Yu, so he restrained himself.
“Lord Beldergard.”
“Hm? Why are you two still here?”
A female Corps member with blood streaming down her head was leaning on a male Corps member’s shoulder.
“This one seems to have taken a severe head injury. She’s been saying strange things for a while.”
Beldergard approached. The woman was muttering without pause.
“There’s a wiretap spell planted in my ear… a wiretap spell in my ear… it’s whispering to me… I’m not a Rehabilitation Corps member—I’m Alice, a farmer from Telas…!”
“The suggestion’s broken. Looks like the frontal lobotomy didn’t take properly.”
Confirming her wavering pupils, Beldergard clicked his tongue.
The Rehabilitation Corps had to appear perfect even when it wasn’t. Evidence of imperfection could not be allowed to live.
“Drag her off and kill her quietly. Make it look like the Birixes did it. When you’re done, come back and keep me company.”
“Understood.”
Crash! Boom!
“Now what?!”
Exhausted by the endless racket, Beldergard looked up at the hive. Wingless Birixes were tumbling from shattered wax walls to the ground below.
“…That woman’s a monster.”
While I was briefly cloaked in Floating Shadow to scramble my trail, the aggro got pulled somewhere weird.
— Sawflyyyy!
Furious bee yokai rushed past without spotting me in my hiding place. The rest of them were sprinting in one direction like their feet were on fire.
Not toward Bob and his friends, who had been trapped in those Kinder Joy–style yokai eggs.
New warriors must have joined the fight.
Well, when yokai build a giant building, of course someone shows up to smash it. Same principle as the neighborhood bully who can’t leave a sandcastle alone when kids are whooping and hollering while they build it.
“Nin?”
I almost went to back them up—then remembered my primary objective for coming to the hive: the sacred relic.
Even now, Saserif and the wild tribesmen were probably shaking like vibration motors.
Judging by the endless yokai screams, the warriors seemed to be handling themselves fine.
Put out the nearest fire first. Grab the relic, then help.
Wooooong—
I fired off Ninja-Radar.
A little fatigue was creeping in; the limit was starting to show.
While countless life-signs bustled around the hive, only one spot held a dense cluster of green lights that weren’t moving.
When I’d scanned earlier, the yokai hadn’t been packed that tightly there.
Proof that something important—something that had to be protected in an emergency—was in that place.
The sacred relic was there.
I could bet Orphe, Diana, and Tribo on it.
No—just Tribo.
That bastard was an immortal underground national treasure anyway; dying a few times wouldn’t matter.
I switched between Ninja Short-Step and Naruto-run and headed straight for it.
The end of this battle was finally in sight.