The Puppet Beast (1)
According to Paulo, Baron Manfred had requested that wine be sent along with the reinforcements.
The baron had established his base in Muranan Village, and it seemed he had already drunk the place dry.
"You there! Do not load any wine!"
Under Lady Manfred's direction, the baron's men were loading the supply wagons. As the daughter of a merchant house, management of the territory's goods fell almost entirely under her authority. Naturally, she had no desire to see her husband drinking in the middle of a campaign, and so she barred the men from loading any liquor.
I stood before the carriage, chewing on jerky as I waited for departure. By now the carriage might as well have been mine. Lady Manfred had once used it most often, but these days I was the one who rode it more — my stamina no longer allowed me to sit a horse.
"Karl! Riding the carriage again this time, are you?"
"Yes, Brother."
Cain Manfred. My elder brother, and the firstborn son of House Manfred. A young man who looked exactly like the baron. He came toward me carrying a jar as massive as his own frame.
"Then take this along as your fellow passenger!"
"That wouldn't happen to be wine, would it?"
"Wahahaha!"
He only laughed, his gold eyes — the same as mine — sparkling with good humor. Every time he laughed, the jar swayed and sloshed. He was clearly smuggling it for Father.
"Aigoo. Young Master Cain. If we get caught, Lady Manfred will have my head!"
Brenden, who had been checking over the carriage, shouted in protest.
"Then make sure we don't get caught! Besides, Father's terrifying whether he's had a drop or not, isn't he?"
"Well, that's true enough…"
Cain glanced around carefully to make sure Lady Manfred wasn't watching, then loaded the jar into the carriage. Once he'd shut the door, he clapped me hard on the back.
"Karl! This brother of yours is truly glad! To think the day would come when I'd ride to battle alongside my little brother!"
"Ugh… Brother… I feel the same, but… gently…"
His strength was so immense it felt as though every bone in my spine might shatter. A different kind of pain entirely from when Clara hit me.
"Someday I want us riding side by side on horseback! We'll manage that, won't we?"
"I'll do my best…"
"Good!"
Everything seemed ready. Cain turned and swung up onto his own horse.
"We march!!!!"
Roaring with his battle-axe raised high, Cain looked every bit the red lion.
Inside the rattling carriage, I chewed steadily on jerky and looked out the window. An ordinary sky. White clouds drifting by — nothing remarkable. Today I had not seen a single illusion.
Name: Karl Manfred
Race: Human
Sex: Male
Age: 16
House: Barony of Manfred (Second Son)
Traits: Ark of Curses, Heretic's Offering
Status: Curse of Illusion (Altered), Curse of Obsession (Altered), Curse of Emotionlessness
Ark of Curses.
…Hard to talk to myself with jerky in my mouth.
A trait that lessened the suffering of the Curse of Illusion the more acquired curses the host carried. Ever since I had gained the Curse of Obsession, the frequency of the illusions had dropped noticeably.
But it was not all advantage. Bearing three curses at once, I could feel the rate at which my life force was being consumed. It was literally as though the vitality were being sucked out of me. That was why I kept chewing jerky — even a little caloric intake helped.
Heretic's Offering.
A trait that deferred the consumption of life force, forcing some other living thing to burn it in my place. If I could put that trait to use, it would be ideal. But finding someone willing to burn their own life for me would not be easy.
That was why my eyes had gone wild the moment I heard about a werewolf. If I could strip a curse from a werewolf, I might solve the life-force problem entirely.
"Ugh…"
I looked at Sophie, my maid, sitting across from me. Since Cain was leading this expedition, Clara had not come along, and the empty seat in the carriage had allowed Sophie to join us. She was clinging to the wine jar Cain had loaded, trying to keep it from toppling. It was a terribly unstable posture for a swaying carriage.
"Sophie. Shall we switch?"
"Wh-wh-what? N-no! H-how could I let Young Master—!"
"You'll hurt your back like that."
"I-I'm fine, Young Master!"
"You do not look fine at all."
I was about to force the issue and switch places when the interior of the carriage suddenly went dark. Looking out the window, I saw trees packed tight on every side. We were passing through a forest. Just the shade, then?
…Shade?
"Brenden! Tell everyone to stop!"
I shouted through the window toward the driver's seat. At my cry, Sophie flinched and hugged the wine jar tighter. Brenden looked back at me, bewildered.
"Huh? All of a sudden?"
"Hurry!"
"For crying out loud. Young Master Cain!! Young Master Karl says to halt!!"
"All hands, stop!!!!"
Cain's voice, from the very front of the formation, was louder even than Brenden's right beside me. At Cain's bellow, the baron's men reined in their horses as one.
I climbed down from the carriage, and Cain strode toward me in long steps.
"Little brother! What's going on?"
"Brother. There may be an ambush."
"Of course there might! That's why we sent scouts ahead to check!"
I shook my head. Having never faced a dark mage, he simply wouldn't know.
"With dark magic, one can hide in the shadows. Shade like th… is…"
"Little brother?"
Beyond Cain. Farther forward even than the place at the head of the formation where he had been riding. Something enormous, wreathed in shadow, was visible there.
The moment I saw it, my body began to tremble. The same illusion that appeared around cursed beings — the kind I had seen on Maria, and on the ghost of Grat Village.
Which meant that thing was almost certainly—
"Were… wolf…!"
I pointed with a shaking finger, forcing the words past lips that were locking up. Cain did not panic. He simply raised his battle-axe.
"All hands!!!! Prepare for battle!!!!"
Every one of the baron's men drew their weapons. And in the same instant, as though surfacing from underwater, a pack of beastmen emerged from the shade. Bodies covered in fur, tusks like wild boars. In a heartbeat the clash of steel on steel and the smell of blood filled the air on every side.
"Karl! Get back in the carriage! Brenden! With me, to the front!"
"Got it!"
I did as Cain said and hid myself in the carriage, watching through the window to the driver's seat. At the place where the shadow-wreathed presence stood, something stepped out of the gloom. Even hidden by dark magic, the Curse of Illusion could apparently still pierce such a being.
As expected, what appeared ahead was a werewolf. Its body must have stretched well past three meters, and it wore armor besides. The fur cloak draped over its shoulders streamed like a lion's mane. Its eyes held nothing but unfocused madness, and yellow drool ran from a long snout packed with fangs. Its forelimbs — or arms — were far longer than its hind legs. In one hand it gripped a sword. At a glance it looked like a short blade, but it was a greatsword no ordinary man could lift with both hands. Only the werewolf's bulk made it seem small.
— Grrrrr…
With a low, vibrating growl, the werewolf began to swing its sword. Its overwhelming strength was such that a few sweeps alone carved several of the men into pieces.
"Hup!"
With an agility hard to believe from that massive frame, Cain ducked beneath the werewolf's blade, then brought his battle-axe around in a great arc and buried it in the creature's belly. But the hide of a cursed being was not something that could be pierced so easily. Without a weapon consecrated by a priest, dealing real damage would be difficult.
The werewolf swung again to cut Cain down, and Brenden caught the blow on his own sword. In the opening that created, Cain slipped free and pressed another attack. Between the two of them, they looked capable of pinning the werewolf down.
The problem was elsewhere.
"The dark mage."
"Y-yes?"
Sophie, still clutching the wine jar and trembling, reacted to my mutter.
"I don't see the dark mage. He has to be here somewhere."
Anyone who could hide a force of this size in the forest shade would certainly be nearby. Yet he had not shown himself. Our two strongest fighters were tied up with the werewolf, and the rest of the men were struggling against thick-hided beastmen. If the dark mage joined the fray on top of that, it would be hopeless. That one, at least, I would have to deal with myself somehow.
"Th-th-that man — isn't that him?"
Where Sophie pointed, someone was emerging from the shade. So he had been hiding all along. A figure in a black robe — dressed as though advertising to the world that he was a dark mage.
"Well spotted."
The dark mage stretched a hand toward Cain and Brenden, locked in combat with the werewolf. He was drawing up his magic, preparing to strike them from behind.
"Curse of Obsession."
In its simplest form, a curse that created ghosts. More precisely, it was a curse that took residual thoughts left behind by powerful emotion, gave them a shape suited to a purpose, and anchored them in reality. I had Altered that structure, believing I could use it together with the Curse of Illusion.
An illusion forced terror into its target. I would revive that terror as residual thought, give it a form drawn from the illusions I had seen, and fix it in the real world. A process that complex required the expenditure of magic. And since I could not use much magic, I could only manifest fragments of the illusions I had witnessed.
Black energy poured from my hand, swelling massively outside the carriage into a solid shape. Its bulk was nearly a match for the werewolf's — a black mass with tentacled legs, a vast maw, razor teeth, and dozens of eyes.
"Go."
— Gurrrrrk.
The monster born of illusion moved according to my will. It tore its mouth open wide and shot forward like a cannonball.
"…What. What just went past? Why isn't the spell— huh…? Uh… uhh… uwaaaaaaaaaaaagh!"
The dark mage, baffled that his magic had failed to fire, realized a moment too late that the arm he had stretched out no longer existed. In its place, only a fountain of blood sprayed into the air.