The Flower That Bears a Sword - Chapter 33

Translation: godsn

Alice. Fatima. They had emerged outside the camp alongside junior knights and full knights. At least they were safe.

Teresa dragged Mihail out before unceremoniously tossing the boy outside the camp and immediately reentering. She was going back to help others. Vice Commander Baron was combing through tents near the spatial node, checking for any remaining people. Baraha followed closely behind him, assisting in the effort.

And there, in the vicinity, Ian Pelletro appeared.

The distance was considerable. Eki pushed against the tide of people fleeing the camp, making her way toward them. Someone tried to grab and stop her, but she slipped past their hand like flowing water. The sheer press of escaping cadets made it impossible to pick up speed. Using mana to leap forward would have been simple, but that would have drawn far too much attention.

At the edge of the node—that distorted, glass-bead-like phenomenon—the warped space was gradually expanding. Baron had nearly finished checking the nearby tents and was moving away. Baraha followed after him when Ian suddenly called him to a halt.

Even across the distance, Eki's heightened senses caught their conversation with perfect clarity.

"What is it, Cadet Representative?"

"I thought we'd checked all the cadet tents, but there's one in the freshman barracks that hasn't been cleared yet."

"A freshman? Who?"

"Echinacea Roaz. Her tent is separate from the others..."

Why was her name coming up here? Eki was dumbfounded. She raised her voice to call out to Baraha, but between the blaring emergency bells and the clamor of cadets, her voice was drowned out entirely.

'Should I just use mana? No, I can't...'

A storm of indecision raged within her. Yurien was surely testing whether she was the Demon of the Magic Sword or simply the eccentric genius Echinacea Roaz—she couldn't afford to reveal her mana usage now. That would be far too abnormal.

While she hesitated, Baraha turned and began heading toward her tent. Ian ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠followed close behind. Panic surged. Eki shoved through the obstructing cadets, pushing forward. She discarded the cumbersome umbrella. When her cloak snagged—likely caught on another cadet's scabbard—she tore it off and flung it aside.

The pouring rain, the damp stench, her soaked clothes and hair, the intermittent lightning strikes, the thunder that sounded like the sky itself was being crushed, the emergency bells ringing loud enough to split eardrums, the frantic shouts, the faces twisted with anxiety.

Beyond it all, she saw Baraha reach her tent and push aside the entrance flap. Her tent was near the center—directly beneath the expanding distortion in space. One more step to the right, and he would be swallowed by that node.

Ian moved in behind Baraha. Eki nearly bowled over a junior knight in her path as she sprinted toward them.

"Senior Baraha!"

Finally, her voice reached him. Baraha pulled his head out of the tent and turned toward her. His expression softened slightly in visible relief upon seeing her. At the same moment, his body staggered. Not enough to fall—just a small imbalance, the kind that could be corrected with a single step back. But that step landed within the node.

Beyond the warped space, Baraha's body was swallowed whole and vanished.

Eki, arriving too late, stared at the spot with a face drained of color. Where Baraha had disappeared, Ian now stood. He expertly concealed his hands, letting out a shocked groan as if horrified.

"My God, Baraha..."

Eki stood frozen in the drenching rain, staring at him. Baraha's bulk had blocked most of her view, but even the fleeting glimpse she'd caught hadn't escaped her notice. The situation had demanded absolute focus—she hadn't missed a thing.

Ian Pelletro had just slipped a dagger back into his sleeve. A crude, small blade—barely more than a razor. And on its tip, a smear of red blood. He had stabbed Baraha in the back and pushed, sending him stumbling into the node. The wound itself might have been minor, but the lost balance had been fatal.

Ian stared at the node that had swallowed Baraha with a flustered expression, then hurriedly approached Eki. He grabbed her shoulder and pulled as he spoke.

"Echinacea, cadet! What are you doing here? It's dangerous. Let's get out."

Eki turned to look at him. Ian wore an expression smeared with worry and terror. She was utterly dumbfounded by how docile and kind-hearted his face appeared. She muttered under her breath.

"You should've joined a theater troupe instead of the military ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠academy, senior."

"Huh? What are you talking about? Let's just go. We'll talk outside."

Eki glanced sideways at the surroundings. Most of the unit members had already evacuated. Vice Captain Baron was belatedly realizing Baraha, who had been following him, had disappeared and was now turning back. He was an even more massive, muscle-bound man than Baraha. Panic flickered across his blunt features as he spotted them right before the node.

"You two! What are you doing there? Get out!"

Over Baron's mountainous shoulders, beyond the gathered unit members, Eki could see a white-clad man sprinting toward the camp. Yurien. The distance was too great to make out his face clearly. Eki's gaze returned to the approaching Baron.

"Don't go outside. Stay here. Die with me."

In the erased past, amidst the corpses of fallen knights, a blood-soaked Baron had spoken those words. Behind him stood firmly shut castle gates. The knights, junior knights, and cadets Baron had sent out had evacuated the citizens. Screams had carried over the walls to reach her.

Echinacea approached him with a smile. Baron raised his sword. The mad blade Saligiosa. Forged from human rage and madness, the sword jutted out unevenly like beastly fangs, massive enough to match his towering frame.

She had subdued him as he surrendered to madness and rampaged like a beast. Severed his head and opened the gates. In the end, Baron hadn't stopped her, but the time he'd bought had undoubtedly saved many lives.

"We'll leave now, Vice Captain. But Cadet Baraha—"

Ian took a step forward, voice trembling. Right now, to that Baron, you're going to say his squire was swallowed by the node? After you're the one who did it? Eki laughed. The laughter came unbidden.

'Those who should die live, and those who should live die. I hate this.'

Her hand touched Ian's back as he stepped forward. No great force was needed. The node pressed close behind them. She relaxed her legs and fell backward, simultaneously clutching Ian's sleeve as if unwilling to fall.

The node swallowed them as smoothly as a bubble. Vice Captain Baron's wide-eyed, outstretched hand receded into the distorted edges of her vision.

"Damn it—!"

Baron's hand slashed through empty air. What he saw was Echinacea falling, Ian staggering, then both being sucked into the node.

Baron stared at the node, his face drained of color. The swollen node shuddered irregularly. It's going to burst. That thing's about to burst. With intense foreboding, Baron instinctively channeled mana and dove flat.

His premonition was correct. The node suddenly ballooned outward. Like an overinflated balloon, it expanded until it had nearly swallowed the entire camp before vanishing without a trace. Every last tent in the camp disappeared. Only churned earth remained.

He stood frozen in place. Behind him came ragged breathing and approaching footsteps.

"Baron."

"Captain."

"What... just happened here?"

Baron turned his creaking neck to look back. As he opened his mouth to report, he unconsciously closed it upon seeing Yurien's face.

Baron was over forty. As a Giosa Owner since the previous captain's era, he had the longest tenure. And Yurien had been the first squire he ever took under his wing.

Baron had taken Yurien as his squire when the young man was a nineteen-year-old second-year cadet ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at the military academy. Their relationship had naturally dissolved when Yurien became a Master and an official knight at twenty-three, and their positions had reversed entirely when he became the youngest Captain in history.

Though he now served under the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠very man who had once been his squire, Baron had never resented the fact. From the moment he first took Yurien under his wing, he had known it wouldn't be long before the boy surpassed him.

And so, Baron had watched Yurien for nearly nine years—from his days as a cadet to his current position as Captain. Their relationship had shifted from squire and lord to vice-captain and captain, but the years of observation remained.

Yet the expression Yurien wore now was one even Baron had never seen before.

"...Echinacea Roaz. What happened to her?"

His voice sounded wrung out. Baron nearly stepped back without realizing it. The Yurien he knew always walked the straight path—a man so composed and detached he seemed devoid of human desire. At times, Baron had wondered if the man even had a boiling point to begin with.

But now, that same man radiated a murderous fury so palpable it seemed he might tear someone apart with his bare hands—yet at the same time, he looked so brittle he might shatter at any moment. As if he had boiled over and was now evaporating. It was terrifyingly unfamiliar. Baron hesitated before answering.

"She... seems to have been swallowed by the node."

"Where did the node go? Has it already separated?"

"Yes. It just detached."

Once Rakia-giosa completely severed space and the node separated from this world, there was no way to track it or enter it. Not until time passed and its remnants spilled back out on their own.

Yurien stared at the empty space where the node had been. His pallid face looked as though it might crumble away.

Inside the node was the same space as outside—or rather, the same yet different. The same barracks, the same camp, but governed by different laws.

Instead of a rainy night, an ominous twilight draped over the evening. The ground squelched underfoot, saturated with a liquid so dark red it appeared black, spreading like a swamp. Shadow soldiers in military uniforms swarmed through it, stabbing at one another endlessly. Yet being shadows, none of them ever fell.

Monsters surged from the liquid pooling on the ground, oozing out of the blood-like dusk. They lapped up the shadow soldiers one by one, growing larger with each swallow. The shadows paid no heed as their comrades were devoured right beside them, continuing to stab only at each other. The scene was unreal—like watching the birth of hell itself.

Echinacea stumbled backward as she felt something like froth brush against her, then quickly regained her balance. Her high-heeled ankle boots sank into the swamp with a sickening squelch. The shoes were beyond saving now. Straightening up, she released the grip she still had on Ian's sleeve.

"What the hell...?"

Ian hadn't yet grasped the situation. Eki left him be and quickly scanned their surroundings. Though she had only entered a node once before, that still made her more experienced than most. After her first disastrous encounter, she had done her fair share of research on nodes.

[Wow, what is this place? I'm feeling really good here!]

Valdergiosa chirped in an unusually cheerful voice.

'Must be a space overflowing with bloodlust. Makes sense, since it was a battlefield.'

After assessing the shadow soldiers and monsters locked in combat, Eki swiftly ducked into a nearby barracks—her own, coincidentally, which had been swallowed along with her. Ian, still dazed, followed her inside. Leaving him be, she peered back outside. Finding Baraha was her top priority now.

"...You."

A voice, heavy and low, came from behind her. Eki answered without turning around.

"Are you going to ask if I dragged you into the node on purpose? Yes. I did."