Omen
Given its sheer scale and the number of people stationed there, Afterglow Fortress scattered most of its facilities across the entire stronghold, aside from a few key ones like the kitchen, the audience hall, and the margrave's office.
The herbarium was one of them.
As the fortress herbalist, Rowan had lived alone in a herbarium that required a long descent of stairs from the kitchen.
But this was an emergency. There was no time to leisurely climb up and down flights of stairs.
With a heavy clank and a drawn-out grinding of metal, the chamber Wallace led them into began to descend, the whole spacious room sinking to the rattle of chains.
"An elevator?"
Feeling the vibration through the floor and a faint sense of weightlessness, Catherine muttered as she looked down at the boards beneath her feet.
"A mana-stone-powered lift," Wallace confirmed with a nod.
Afterglow Fortress was simply too tall. Supplying materials all the way to the upper levels often left the porters collapsing long before the goods arrived.
"According to the records, there was an invasion several centuries ago. Delayed supply runs allowed monsters onto the ramparts. Elevators were installed throughout the fortress to prevent that from ever happening again."
"Powered by mana stones? That can't have been cheap."
Gordon's doubt was only natural. The lift they were riding was large enough to send at least a hundred people to the upper fortress in a single trip. And it was meant to climb all the way to the summit of a stronghold that looked as if it had been carved from an entire mountain—driven by mana stones, no less. Who could have afforded that?
"Originally, of course, it ran on animal power."
"Then the mana stones…"
"They were comprehensively renovated after His Grace the Duke took power."
Iceland was wealthy now. Everyone in the party except Wallace and the soldiers and knights nodded in understanding, having shared the same question.
After that, the elevator filled only with the loud metallic racket of its many chains.
The moment it stopped, the group headed straight for Rowan's herbarium.
"We've arrived."
"Steward. The door is locked."
"Ah—there's a key on him."
Gordon, who was carrying Rowan's effects, produced a key from a pocket and unlocked the door. It opened with a solid click.
The instant the door swung wide, a thick scent of greenery washed over them. The place more than lived up to its name: flowers, stems, leaves, seeds, and mushrooms of countless plants were carefully sorted and stored in jars and glass bottles lining the shelves along the ceiling and walls, and among the books.
It doubled as living quarters, but it was clearly more workplace than home. The only sign of a residence was a single bed; everything else belonged to an herbalist.
Wallace posted the troops he had brought to secure the perimeter, then led the party inside.
"Shall we search everything?"
"Obviously."
At Catherine's word, the group scattered through the herbarium without waiting for further orders.
Karem moved as well—specifically toward the shelves crowded with glass bottles and jars that had been nagging at him since they first walked in.
Faint as it was, I smelled coffee. Over this way, maybe?
Finding evidence mattered, of course. But for Karem, finding dried alraune byproduct mattered almost as much.
Because it was coffee.
The soulmate he had completely given up on after reincarnating. A modern essential born of equal parts free will and quiet coercion. Whether it still had any awakening effect remained to be seen.
Not that he had forgotten their real purpose. Right now he was searching for the crucial evidence that would decide whether the dead Rowan had been a traitor—or whether someone else had been wearing Rowan's face.
He rummaged through a jar full of unidentifiable seeds, replaced the lid, and shoved the checked jars toward a cleared section of shelf.
"Karem. Find anything?"
"Nothing but seeds and mushrooms."
"Hmm. Guess I should check this side too."
"Weren't you over by the herb bundles?"
"The mage told me to stop being a nuisance and come over here instead."
Karem glanced toward Catherine. Mary was unhooking herb bundles from the ceiling; Catherine was checking and sorting them at speed, and Mary was hauling the finished piles out of the room.
"So. What do you make of him?"
"Of what?"
"That herbalist, Rowan."
"Hard to say. I saw him once at the makeshift shrine before the kitchen, but only once."
Karem scratched his head.
"Former priest, current herbalist. With most of the clergy deployed, he was holding down the shrine. Wait a second—"
"Right. We heard that in the mage's room."
"Ah. So that smell I caught when we passed each other must have been dried alraune."
"He said he used it as a preservative, didn't he?"
Even so, that alone was hardly suspicious. Deadly poison or not, drying and roasting had long since neutralized the toxin, and the scent was pleasant—he might simply have carried it like a sachet. While chatting and inspecting jars, Karem suddenly whipped his head around.
Coffee.
Dried and roasted alraune byproduct.
"It was in the back."
"…Did you come over here just for that?"
"Please. As if I would."
"You look way too happy for that to be true."
Karem hauled a large jar from the rear of the shelf. The moment he cracked the lid, a thick coffee aroma bloomed from alraune fragments packed right up to the neck.
He nearly blacked out inhaling that seductive scent, then forced himself to focus and thrust his hand in to search.
Rustle-rustle-rustle—
"Hm?"
Something caught.
A slick, strange fabric—leather-like and jellyfish-like all at once, a texture he had never felt in either of his lives.
"You froze solid all of a sudden. Find something?"
"I don't know what it is, but I think so."
"Right, of cour—wait. You actually found something?"
"Yes."
He pulled the object free of the jar, and alraune fragments cascaded onto the floor in a noisy cascade. Karem's heart twinged for a second at the waste—then he forgot it entirely.
"…What is this?"
What emerged was a thin, leather-like sheet, transparent enough to show a cloudy outline through it, wrinkled and slick to the touch.
"Ugh, what is that smell?"
Gordon clapped a hand over his nose on instinct. Beneath the roasted alraune aroma they had enjoyed as dessert not long ago, an unmistakable reek of rotting meat hung in the air—exactly the same stench that had risen from the puddle where Rowan had melted. Concentrated.
"This is… hold on. Why is this here?"
"Mage? You know what it is?"
"Shapeshifter."
Catherine held out her hand. Without a word, Karem shook the scraps free and carefully handed the skin over.
"I've seen one before. This texture, this translucence—and the mana especially. This is definitely a shapeshifter's hide."
"Uh. You sound serious. Is this bad?"
"Yes. Whatever else may be true, this is bad."
"Why?"
Catherine looked up at Karem as if astonished he didn't know—then saw Gordon and even Mary, who had been heading for the bed, looking equally blank. She let out a small sigh.
"Because shapeshifters are demons."
Wallace, dusting off a notebook he had pulled from a shelf, supplied the explanation.
"Demons? As in—"
"The main force of the Demon King's army that nearly burned the world, until the Demon King himself was assassinated by a hero's party. Records state that shapeshifters were their finest spies and assassins."
A history lesson had dropped out of nowhere. What had once been vague legend suddenly felt uncomfortably real; Karem stared at the hide he had given Catherine with a distant expression.
"If this is a shapeshifter's skin, why is it here?"
"Shapeshifter hide can be used for transformation cloaks and invisibility cloaks. But it is not something a mere herbalist would possess."
Catherine shook her head.
"Shapeshifters molt once a season."
Her face hardened as she stared at the skin.
"And because of their form-shifting nature, they are extraordinarily sensitive to divine power. Contact with it makes them melt like low-grade undead."
She wrinkled her nose at the smell rising from the hide. It was identical to what she had smelled in the kitchen—and to the reek coming off the effects Gordon carried.
"The bed is strange as well."
Every head turned toward Mary. She had flipped the heavy bedding, stripped the covers without hesitation, and was digging into the mattress itself.
"As I thought."
Mary thrust her arm deep into the bedding, rummaged, and pulled it free. In her hand was a large leather pouch. Something inside rattled loudly—exactly like the fragments that had just spilled across the floor.
Karem and the others exchanged looks at the same instant.
The leather sack was not especially large. But a thing like that hidden inside a mattress? Suspicious by any measure.
"All right, all right. Let's open the treasure chest, shall we?"
Gordon took the pouch, spread it wide, and dumped the contents.
Alraune byproduct rained down in a noisy shower.
Then came a wet, slick slap.
Several more sheets of the same slimy, translucent hide as the one in Catherine's hands tumbled into view.
"So. Random thought."
Karem scratched his forehead, still eyeing the dark-brown grains with regret.
"A shapeshifter was disguised as Rowan. Am I the only one thinking that?"
"Oh. I was thinking the same thing."
Gordon raised a hand slightly.
"The diary makes it certain."
Wallace flipped through the notebook, then shut it with a decisive snap.
"The entries begin a few years ago, when Rowan retired from the priesthood. From last summer onward, the pages are blank."
"So the former priest Rowan was replaced around then."
"Given the circumstances, that seems correct."
A single shapeshifter hide might have been forced into some innocent explanation. But several sheets?
"Once a season. From last summer—five sheets in total."
"The numbers match perfectly."
"That also explains why it melted so thoroughly in holy water. Shapeshifters are said to react fatally even to low-grade holy water."
The herbarium fell silent. Every piece of evidence lined up.
"Steward! Steward!"
The door burst open and a knight rushed in. Before Wallace could speak, the man shouted urgently.
"Undead in Present!"
"Another undead anomaly?"
"No, sir! They're surrounding Present! Nearby residents are fleeing to the walls!"
Wallace closed his eyes for a moment at the report—then bolted from the herbarium. The others followed at once.
The knight had not exaggerated. As Karem hurried after Wallace with the rest of the party, he could see the undead mass advancing on the walls that encircled the fortress town of Present.
No—not merely a mass.
A black tide blotting out the pure white snowfield was closing on the walls, like an army of ants drawn by the scent of honey.
"They look oddly used to this, though."
"Used to what?!"
"Present. Their response seems pretty sharp."
Even at a glance, the town visible through the windows was in chaos—yet people were evacuating and preparing for battle with crisp coordination.
"Undead and monster assaults are not uncommon, so yes, they are practiced. But undead activity in autumn…"
Wallace fell silent after that.
They rode the elevator to the summit, where a fierce wind immediately slammed into them. Karem lost his balance for a second; only after Catherine caught him could he look down at Present.
The countless, varied undead slowly blackening the white snowfield as they pressed toward the walls looked like a scene from a film. What had been exciting at first became something else entirely once Karem pictured that black swarm overrunning the village beyond the walls. He revised his thoughts on the spot.
"Well. Talk about 'may winter protect us.'"
"Lord Atanitas? All of a sudden?"
"Look over there. Don't you see it?"
At that, Karem looked beyond the walls again—and understood.
"None of them are running."
"Exactly. That's the one good piece of news. We've bought time."
Catherine was right. Whether based on humans, beasts, or monsters, every undead in the horde was advancing at a consistent pace—slower than a living person walking. The larger ones closed distance faster simply by virtue of their stride, but still.
"The expedition beyond the mountains is returning! His Lordship the Margrave is back!"
At the cry, everyone on the wall turned as one. Karem squeezed into the group and peered toward the mountains as well.
The returning expedition was kicking up a blizzard as they raced in. At the very front—alongside riders on warhorses, snowrunners, boars, and every other kind of mount—rode those who made the strongest statement of all.
Hundreds of heavily armed, powerfully built barbarian warriors were charging toward them, their skirts flapping in the wind.
"Gyaaaaaaah—!!!"
"Kraaaaaaah—!"
Karem clapped both hands over his eyes and slammed his forehead into the battlement. Gordon, who had been wondering what the fuss was about, saw the same sight a moment later and let out a death-rattle of his own.
"Open the gate! Open it!"
"Open the goddamn gate! Faster! Faster!"
Reality, however, did not change.
The barbarian warriors flanking the riders drew ever closer to the fortress. The closer they came, the more violently their checkered knee-length kilts flared and snapped—proudly displaying a lethal stretch of absolute territory in every direction.