All Tied Up in Chains
Chains bound me tight, and there was nothing I could do about it.
To me, the Witch had always been an even trickier opponent than the Saintess.
Body heat synced to her surroundings. The current of air stirred by her breathing. The mana seeping in, quiet and unobtrusive. The heartbeat suppressed to its absolute minimum. A witch who could read every one of those signs was, quite literally, an assassin's natural predator.
So what I'm saying is — getting caught in her spell while launching a surprise attack of my own was, honestly, nobody's fault but mine.
"Look how big you've gotten, our little runt. How old are you now?"
"……Let go."
"And if I do?"
"……Dunno."
"Then let's cool that head of yours first. I'll release you when the time feels right. Or what, want me to splash some cold water on you too?"
"Let me g— ack."
"Yep. That's the spirit. Here it comes. Let's have some fun water play, shall we?"
Shhhhhhaaaaa—.
The Witch waved her hand as if she couldn't be bothered to listen, and cold water began pouring over my head like a waterfall.
"Hurp. Hurk."
I wanted to spit out some defiant remark, but talking wasn't even an option — I could barely manage to open my mouth, so I gave up.
Standing under that roaring cascade, the fever that had crept into my head began, unmistakably, to cool.
And once reason returned and my mind cleared, what filled it wasn't anger. It was disgust — disgust at myself.
I'd been brainwashing myself into believing that thing was definitely a fake, but there was no glossing over it anymore. The rusted holy sword was one thing, I could let that slide — but the real proof was that this frail, flimsy body had survived one of my attacks.
True, I'd struck with every intention of killing her even if she were real. But now that the killing intent had burned itself out, my own behavior struck me as utterly sordid.
No — wait. No. Thinking it over, I'd been wronged.
I mean, who was it who'd been sealed away for over a thousand years, clinging to the hope that they might come back for me someday, while they got to laze around being hailed as heroes in a peaceful modern society?
Cold, rational assessment and all, isn't that enough to want somebody dead?
And yet over there she is, releasing me without a fuss and making small talk.
"Hetchu. Khek. Ahem."
So my head had gotten hot, and I'd opened my mouth to protest only to sneeze mid-breath — but a professional assassin can read lips even under a waterfall that won't quit.
'So what did you do this time? She wouldn't have lunged at you for no reason. Did you grope her chest or something?'
So to the Witch, I was just someone throwing a tantrum over something trivial?
Says the woman who's far more emotional and hot-headed herself — while the other side let me go without so much as a lecture.
'Still, don't you think that's not really joke material?'
'I don't joke about this. You must've strung along a woman or two yourself, no?'
'……Am I really that type?'
'Wow. Look at this guy. Maybe I should've just let her kill you.'
The two of them, mid-pointless-banter, locked eyes with me as I blinked up at them blearily — then turned their backs on me.
……So. What now.
When you've spent most of your life in a seal, you develop a strange sense of comfort that only restraint can provide. I'd go so far as to say I could fall asleep right here, if not for the water drumming down on my head.
Revenge, heroes — none of it mattered anymore. All I wanted was to climb onto some sunny rooftop and kill time thinking about absolutely nothing.
I wasn't the Saintess, and if the Hero and the Witch were at least alive, well. Wasn't that enough?
The moment I decided it was all getting tiresome and wished they'd just hurry up and let me go, the water stopped falling.
……Damp. And cold.
"Runt. You calm now?"
"Yeah."
"Gonna fight again?"
"……"
Still, I'd like to land at least one solid hit on her. Just avoid the vitals and it'd be fine, right?
"Honestly. Want another bath?"
"No."
"Good. Then sit still."
"……"
"Answer me?"
"……Yeah."
I don't know how much water I ended up swallowing, but it was definitely more than two dwarf-sized beer mugs' worth. Getting another waterfall dumped on me in a situation already reeking of water from every direction — thanks, but no.
……So, when exactly was she planning to let me go?
My clothes were torn. The holster strapped to my thigh had snapped. My daggers were scattered every which way. To sum it up in one word: a mess.
Staring at the studio, now churned into a mud pit, I sloshed my way over and resigned myself to abandoning my scattered weapons. Rather than maintaining them one by one from scratch, I'd just make new ones.
"Wolf. Asleep?"
[Woof.]
"How are you answering if you're asleep? Whatever. Try undoing this."
[Whiiine……]
"……Scared? So I'M not scary, then?"
As I was busy scolding the wolf for spouting excuses that didn't hold water, the stare burning into the back of my head grew impossible to ignore.
"What are you looking at."
"Our little runt, rude as ever. Want a scolding?"
"What just now was a sneak attack. I won't fall for it twice."
"Right. Sure you won't."
The Witch shrugged and floated up into the air, drifting toward me.
When I hesitated, unsure whether I should attack her, she reached out her hand freely, placed both palms on my cheeks — and began kneading them without mercy.
"……?"
"This. And this."
"……Quit it."
"Checking whether you're real or fake. Why?"
Somehow the frightened wolf curling in on itself I could understand, but she clearly had no intention of doing anything to me right now.
"Ooh, clever little thing. Finding your way here all on your own."
"……?"
"And all you did was grow your body. Cheeky."
Those small palms kneaded all across my chain-bound body, squirming me this way and that.
My muscles, stiffened by the cold water, melted under her touch until they turned languid — the woman had a genuinely masterful massage technique.
The moment my body went slack, the chains binding me swayed gently, like a hammock.
"……Mmgh."
"What is it? Runt, you hurt somewhere?"
"Wasn't that you?"
"Me? All I did was tie you up."
I give up. On all of it.
A reunion a thousand years in the waiting, and it comes to this — while the two of them look at me with the same eyes you'd give a moody teenager.
I hadn't expected some grand revenge drama, but I'd at least thought it would feel better than this.
Life is hollow. I just wanted to sprawl out somewhere sunny and take a nap.
"Let go. I'm leaving."
"Leave? To where? You don't even have a place to stay."
"Never had one to begin with. I'm going."
"Little runt, you spent your whole life in that other world, so maybe you don't know this, but……"
Don't want to hear it. Partly because I couldn't be bothered to strain any harder against the chains, I hung there obediently — but I had no desire to listen to their voices right now.
Time to head out, then.
"Hk."
Crack. Crick-pop.
With a gruesome sound, the bones in my left arm twisted out of true.
The simplest way to escape a binding: if you can't break the chains, break yourself.
"Are you insane? Just say something, why would you—"
"Annoying. I'm leaving."
"Vivian, undo it, fast!"
"There, undone. So you can stop now too, little runt?"
Why all the fuss over a few broken bones?
I made plenty of mistakes as a child, sure, but apart from the nerve-dense areas like the cervical vertebrae and the spine, my bones reattached fairly easily.
Granted, it came with considerable pain — but I wasn't a child anymore, and I wasn't about to whine over this much.
"Wolf. Potion."
[Woof.]
"Feed me."
I held out my wobbly arm and opened my mouth, and a front paw shot out, flicking a potion jelly right into it.
Sweet and sour, modeled after a lemon candy. I'd borrowed others' official formulas for the potion's actual performance, but the texture and taste were tailored entirely to my own preferences.
Come to think of it — where was I supposed to source consumable ingredients?
In this industry, the injured always outnumbered the dead, so people rarely stockpiled large inventories of recovery items. A faint worry pricked at me.
"……Reattached."
As I moved around loosening up my stiff muscles, the expressions of the two watching me turned distinctly strange.
"What."
"Arte. One question."
"Not talking."
"That day — the day you were taken in the Saintess's place. Did you…… escape like this, too?"
Well, obviously.
What, did she think some courteous heretic loosened my bindings so I could stroll out?
It's not that I enjoy self-harm. I just had no choice.
Even with my tolerance for pain, I wasn't keen on being roughed up by an anonymous mob draped in black cloth.
When I glared at them with all of that packed into the look, the Hero gave an awkward smile and raised his thumb.
"Not judging. I think it's impressive, honestly."
"You, honestly…… No, never mind. Little runt. I won't restrain you, so leave whenever you like. Want me to dry you off?"
"Yeah. Dry me."
Snap—.
The Witch snapped her fingers, and in an instant my whole body was bone-dry.
The comfortable warmth of stepping straight out of a hot bath. Not bad at all, this. Time for a nap, definitely.
"Wolf. Let's go."
[Woof woof.]
"Anywhere's fine. Somewhere sunny."
I sprawled myself across the wolf's fluffy back and closed my eyes. Voices drifted from the studio entrance, people clamoring about something — I couldn't be bothered with any of it.
I didn't know anymore. Let whatever happens, happen.
"First time seeing each other in a thousand years, and she opens with a knife attack. Truly remarkable."
Left behind on the training grounds Arte had abandoned, Baek Siwu forced a smile, doing his best to ignore the contempt dripping from Vivian's words.
"Haha. I have nothing to say to that."
"So? What's your impression?"
"Hmm."
"I'll go first — she's definitely grown heavier, more substantial. She's bigger than I expected, which surprised me, but still wonderfully firm. Lovely."
"……Right."
"And you?"
The Baek Siwu of any ordinary day would have deflected with a smooth joke, but the man standing here now couldn't afford to waste energy on pointless theatrics.
"Hard to say. It's…… complicated."
"She threw a tantrum, that's all. What's got you bothered? You her father?"
"A tantrum? Arte is……"
"Well then it WAS a tantrum, wasn't it? You have any idea how much she humored us, showing up through the front door like some assassin announcing 'I'll come in on the count of three, get ready!'? If she'd actually meant it, I'd have been cut down before I could even get moving."
Baek Siwu had no rebuttal to offer.
Back in the other world, with his nerves honed razor-sharp, things might have been different — but as Vivian said, the soft, rusted version of himself standing here now couldn't have endured Arte's full-force ambush in a hundred years.
And that was precisely why his heart grew more tangled still.
"We returned three years ago, didn't we."
"So?"
"A thousand years have passed, they say. In Arcadia."
"A thousand? Isn't that an exaggeration?"
"I don't think so. Probably."
If HE said it wasn't, then it wasn't. When it came to matters involving their comrades, the Hero's instincts had been wrong so few times he could count them on one hand.
Granted, the speculative little disclaimers he tacked on afterward were still infuriating as ever.
"If you've got something to say, say it. Conclusion first."
"I don't really know."
"Oh my. Don't you know what 'conclusion first' means? Did I use another one of my terribly difficult words? Fine, whatever. What is it you want to say?"
"……How I'm supposed to treat Arte."
Baek Siwu shared with Vivian what he'd pieced together from his brief exchange with Arte: that on the day of their 'Return,' their deaths on the far side had apparently left Arte's mind badly shaken; and that while she didn't refuse conversation outright, she had no idea how to untangle the knotted ball of feelings she carried toward them.
"Treat her how? What's to treat? You make her an identity, you see to her food, clothing, shelter. That's it."
"……What?"
"Look at it objectively — a supremely talented freelancer just fell out of the sky, leagues beyond those hacks strutting around on mediocre skills and inflated egos. What choice is there besides taming her all over again?"
Only a woman who regarded every existence but her own as beneath notice could say something like that — and yet, she wasn't entirely wrong.
"Objectively speaking, she's better than when we first met. Back then, if it wasn't coming out of that woman's mouth, she wouldn't even pretend to listen."
"Fair point."
"Take her out of the picture, and I'm confident I can win Arte over."
Wearing a smile that bordered on arrogance, Vivian spread both arms wide in a showy declaration.
"Keep standing there like a statue, and Arte's coming home with our Round Table. I'm a greedy woman, you see. Authenticity, pedigree — who cares? We just add one more seat, don't we?"
"Is that how it works?"
"Why not? It's all children's games anyway. And besides — I'm Merlin. What are you going to do about it? So stop scheming in the corner and start moving. Win over the Saintess, and isn't it practically game over?"
"Hmm. If only it were that easy."
"Anyway. I'm off — you clean up here."
"Right. Thanks."
If you want Arte, bring her face to face with the Saintess.
Having offered her own brand of advice, Vivian vanished in a brief flash of light.
With everyone else gone, in the middle of the training grounds gone almost entirely to mud, Baek Siwu stood frozen in thought for a long while before finally, laboriously, pulling out his phone.
"……She's not picking up."
Should he have kept in touch more often, all this time?
"Hunter Baek Siwu, sir. Um…… Ms. Merlin told me to come back and take a look, so…… ah."
The floor churned to mud. Cracked walls and pillars here and there. Arte's weapons scattered across every surface, and clean, sharp sword-scores carved deep into the stone.
If this wasn't a disaster zone, nothing was.
"……Don't worry, sir. I'll cover the damages."
Out of his own pocket, of course. Every last coin.