Catastrophe (1)
Warhorses clad in gray barding drew up in ranks before the fortress gate. At the head of the knights sat a man conspicuously larger than any of the others — a giant.
The soldiers on the watchtower froze rigid at attention the instant they confirmed the giant's identity.
Drek Esterzy.
The strongest warrior of the duchy had appeared at their gates, his knight order at his back.
"Open the gates!"
Soldiers threw themselves onto the enormous winch. The gates of Stormrock Fortress were so massive you would have believed someone had stood a cliff face on its end, and the mechanism that moved them was a contraption of fiendish complexity — built, it was said, by grinding up production-class Awakeners.
Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank...
Slowly, the gates began to part. Once the gap between them had widened enough, the knights started filing into the fortress in double column.
From atop the wall, Vice-Commander Bernt watched the procession in silence.
"Should we not inform Lord Chris?"
His aide asked in an uneasy tone. Bernt said nothing for a moment, then gave a curt reply.
"There is no need."
"Sir? Then Lord Chris will..."
The aide faltered. He could not bear to imagine the state Chris would be in.
"It is already too late," Bernt said, his tone resolute. "This is a calamity of his own making."
Chris woke to a headache that felt like his skull was splitting. Still half-lost in sleep, he stretched his right hand out to his side. His fingers closed around a glass bottle of brown liquid, and he seized it and gulped the contents down.
"Gahk—! Kgh!"
He doubled over, coughing. The brown liquid soaked into the sheets, staining them red as blood.
"Hahh... hahh..."
He'd had his drink, so the headache should have dulled — but today, of all days, the throbbing was worse.
"Is it my death you're hoping for?"
"Do try not to give yourself another reason to go begging Father."
That insufferable bastard's words kept circling in his head. It had to be the ache of having failed to get rid of him when he could have. He should have strangled that whelp in his cradle, back when he couldn't so much as squirm.
He rolled his eyes toward the bed. The covers were bunched in disarray — the mark of someone who had lain down and gone.
The table was strewn haphazardly with narcotic poison herbs harvested from the Demonic Realm, the kind an ordinary man without mana could not so much as touch.
"Goddamn it... khagh!"
Chris bowed his head and coughed again. He barely gathered his wits and lifted it — and his father was standing right in front of him.
Drek said nothing.
Was this a dream?
Chris wiped the drool from his mouth with his sleeve. As the liquor was driven out by his mana, the stern set of his father's expression came into vivid, merciless focus.
This was no dream. It was reality.
"I had such hopes for you," Drek said. "There was a time when speaking your name was a joy to me. Back then, I believed without a shred of doubt that you would grow into a hero whom all men would look up to."
Chris tried to rise, but his legs gave out beneath him and he crumpled back down.
"F-Father. This is... a misunderstanding."
His tongue would not obey him.
Goddamn liquor. Goddamn Eden.
"Everyone passes through a wayward season as they grow. You must have had your own burdens. Surely you carried wounds of your own that no one else could see."
Chris clutched the bed and forced himself upright. The dread was enough to drive him out of his mind. Drek's suppressed voice felt like the hush before a storm.
"But this, Chris — this should never have come to pass," Drek said quietly. "Stormrock is the roof of humanity. I set you in its commander's seat hoping you would reflect on your past failings and mature — not so you could indulge yourself beyond the reach of my eyes."
"Father, it's a misunderstanding. I can explain everything."
"Situation report."
"...What?"
"Submit your report on the demons' movements, Commander."
Chris could not bring himself to meet Drek's eyes. A situation report — he couldn't even remember the last time he'd laid eyes on one.
"N-no problems, Father. The demons haven't dared come anywhere near. Isn't that right, Dirk?"
But Dirk, who should have answered, no longer existed.
"Ah — that's right, Father. Eden, that bastard, killed Dirk. You remember him, surely — my aide, Dirk... I attached him to Eden as a guide, and what did that bastard do? Killed Dirk and then played innocent, that's what."
The look in his father's eyes grew sharper by the moment — and the sharper it grew, the smaller Chris's voice became.
"Chris."
"Yes, Father."
"As of this moment, you are relieved of your command. Vice-Commander Bernt will take over Stormrock."
"Father—!"
"Confine yourself to your quarters until I return."
Drek turned away. Chris could only stare blankly at his father's back.
If only he had shouted at me like last time.
This quiet disappointment cut far deeper than open rage ever had — so deep that Chris could feel, with painful clarity, the last of his father's affection draining from those eyes.
Chris clutched the bedpost and wept. Slowly, the sorrow was carved out of his heart. Swelling in its place was rage.
What had he ever done wrong? Why was it always him? The fortress ran perfectly well whether he bothered to show his face or not!
No doubt about it — that bastard had tattled again. The moment he'd returned from the Demonic Realm, he must have reported everything to Father. 'Big Brother was lying dead drunk in his chambers.'
That was exactly why he'd sent Dirk along. A snitch was a weed to be pulled before it could spread.
But Dirk had been murdered by Eden, and the karma of failing to deal with the man when he'd had the chance had come back to collect its due.
A short while later, a soldier approached with measured, disciplined steps. It was Vice-Commander Bernt.
"Young Lord Chris."
Bernt did not salute.
"His Grace the Duke has appointed me acting commander. I will hold this for the time being."
He picked up the long rod lying on the floor — the commander's baton, emblem of the fortress's authority.
"His Grace has departed for the Demonic Realm with the Steel Guard. It seems Lord Eden's report of unrest among the demons was true."
Chris's breathing turned ragged — the instant Bernt so much as mentioned Eden.
"And... I will send attendants to clean up this mess. I trust you will compose yourself, my lord, before His Grace returns."
The moment Bernt withdrew, Chris kicked the table apart.
"Stanis."
Chris spoke to the bare wall.
"I know full well you're watching. Come out. Now!"
A black shadow slid soundlessly up the wall. From it rose a pitch-dark silhouette, which at once resolved into a black-haired boy.
"You called, my lord?"
The boy bowed to Chris with impeccable courtesy. A crow perched on his shoulder, and it did not flap its wings once through the whole bow.
"What is the meaning of this?" Chris demanded fiercely. "You promised me ten years ago! You swore Eden would never trouble me again!"
"Yes. I did promise that."
Chris seized Stanis by the collar.
"Then what do you call this? 'No trouble,' my ass. I'm finished. Because of that cunning bastard, Father is about to throw me away."
Fear slowly bled into Chris's eyes.
"How... how could Father abandon me?"
"How truly regrettable."
For all his words of regret, Stanis's expression did not change by a hair.
"That said, being cast off by His Grace the Duke does not mean your life is over."
"Shut your mouth, Stanis!"
Chris exploded.
"Contact your master."
"My master is you, Lord Chris."
A sneer curled across Chris's face.
"Did you think I didn't know what you are?"
His gaze shifted to the window. Beyond it, Drek's knights could be seen marching toward the gloomy expanse of the Demonic Realm.
"Contact them."
Chris released his collar. In his eyes burned a madness that transcended sorrow, rage, and fear alike.
"...Tell your true master this. The Shield of the North has set foot in his land."
Father was going to cast him aside. Cast him aside and name that rat of a brother his heir.
But it wasn't too late. If he was to be discarded — then he would simply be the one to discard first.
I went to see Lucian in the late afternoon. Ordinarily I would have summoned him to me, but if you asked who the busiest man in the duchy was right now, it was Lucian, hands down.
The Gray Company had relocated to a far larger building — Ravenshade's old headquarters, until very recently. The place was bursting at the seams with staff, like an anthill someone had prodded with a stick.
"Our apologies, my lord!"
"Good day to you, Lord Eden!"
"There's nothing to apologize for. Skip the greetings too. Just keep doing what you were doing."
The whole atmosphere made it plain that my very existence was a nuisance. I hurried my knights along to the company chairman's office.
Lucian sat at the chairman's desk performing the feat of dispatching two documents at once. Even at that pace, the papers still awaiting his review stood piled like mountains.
"Ah, Lord Eden."
He looked up and flashed me a refreshingly bright smile.
"You look busy. Shall I come back another time?"
"Not at all. We are in the middle of swallowing up a competitor's assets, but it's routine business — hardly worth calling busy."
He set down his pen.
"Oh — Adras has struck out on his own. I thought you'd want to know."
"Has he? What's he calling his company?"
"It seems he'll decide on a name after he's bought himself a title. With nobles facing utter ruin scattered all over the realm, now is the perfect time to purchase one."
"I see."
Adras would do fine on his own. He had, after all, been the one running a small trading company under Lucian from the start.
"And what brings the busiest man of all to my door, Lord Eden?"
I beckoned to a knight, who brought forward a huge egg and set it down on Lucian's desk.
"I was hoping you could appraise what creature's egg this is."
It was the egg we had found in the Subterranean World not long ago. The site of its discovery had been a magma dragon's nest — but I'd heard magma dragons don't lay eggs.
"This is..."
Lucian's eyes lit up — the peculiar gleam that came out whenever he laid eyes on something valuable.
"You have a remarkable talent for digging up things like this, every single time."
"You know something, don't you?"
"I haven't the faintest idea."
...Huh?
Lucian's tone was pure slyness.
"Even I don't know everything. That said, this ominous aura does bring to mind the names of a few creatures one should never, ever raise."
"What creatures?"
"Plenty. Vishap, Alber, Basilisk..."
"If we limit it to the Subterranean World?"
"The Subterranean World, is it."
Lucian sank into deep thought.
"In that case, there is a high probability that it is the egg of a Class 1 monster — a Hellcat."
"Hellcat?"
It wasn't a creature I'd ever seen in any bestiary.
"Hellcats are famous as the Demon King's pets. A ferocious magic beast, to put it mildly. They absorb mana and grow at a startling pace, and while their intelligence is exceptional, they are said to never communicate with any being weaker than themselves."
Lucian let the silence hang for a moment.
"Estimated grade: Class 1."
"A Class 1 monster... then nobody but the Demon King himself could hope to control it."
"Precisely."
Lucian tilted his head.
"Although..."
He pointed a finger at the egg.
"It appears the shell is cracked."