Encounter (2)
Encounter (2)
The reason I kept running into faces I had never seen in the original was, after all, because I had warped the original story that much.
Honestly, it felt a little unfair.
Sure, I had done a few things from behind the scenes, but I hadn't twisted the narrative to the point where the protagonist himself got replaced, like in other possession stories, and I hadn't gone after the heroines either.
No, well, fine. I could accept the emperor showing up. I had come off as somewhat competent, and if the emperor personally moved to support that competent daughter of his, I could understand it.
As for Lena, well, it made a certain amount of sense that Riklant sent her to keep an eye on me, given the chaos I had kicked up on the northern front.
But her?
No matter how sharp the Holy State's intelligence was, they couldn't have instantly realized that Berati had been captured and was spilling every secret she knew. Northwood was a territory deep inside the Empire, nowhere near a position from which you could reach the Holy State overnight.
Even by automobile, the roads leading to the Holy State weren't perfectly paved and maintained, and there was no way a train was running to the Holy State in the middle of the night.
Even if they had caught wind of the leak, it would take reinforcements a long time to reach this place... and to even get inside, they would need a Divine Treasure.
Yet no bright light was seeping from the opponent's clothing.
"As a matter of fact, I have been attempting what one might call a conversation for some time now. But the other party remains utterly motionless."
The emperor spoke with an unhurried air.
"......"
I shot the emperor a sidelong glare, but whether he had no information himself or simply had no desire to share it with me, he merely gave a shrug of his shoulders.
"There is, however, one thing that is certain."
The emperor stared steadily at the unidentified woman.
"The Divine Treasure that ought to have been inside these ruins has already passed into that person's hands. Unless we defeat her and take it, I doubt it will ever come into ours."
Was that why she had been waiting for me to get here? Blocking the door?
If her goal was to abscond with the ruins' Divine Treasure, she could have simply fled without facing the emperor.
... But if that were the case, the fact that she had simply stood there the whole time until we arrived left me deeply uneasy.
"......"
I took one step forward.
The figure still did not stir, still looking this way. She remained so completely still that I half-wondered whether she was even alive or whether the emperor had simply set up a statue to toy with us.
The moment I stepped forward, the others behind me also advanced a step each. They spread slightly wider, fanning out to envelop the opponent, advancing as if to encircle her. Though even then, the gaps between us remained fairly large.
The first to move was Bella.
In an instant, she transformed the long, trailing Whip Sword into its whip form and swung it as if striking down a condemned criminal. A whip itself was a punishment weapon that inflicted horrific agony, but this thing was worse than any ordinary whip. A blade would not merely leave a slash; it would tear flesh and expose bone.
And then, the opponent, who until that moment had not stirred, moved.
Straight ahead.
Toward me, directly facing her.
"Sylvia—!"
Alice cried out reflexively. The sound of running footsteps came from where Claire had been standing.
But I wasn't exactly standing still either—
—or I would have acted, except—
I couldn't.
The instant I shouldered the shotgun and leveled it at the opponent, a sound like a warning rang inside my head.
No, it wasn't a sound I actually heard. It was closer to my instincts seizing my movements and stopping me dead.
I mustn't shoot.
If I shot that person, I would most certainly—
regret it.
"......!"
A chill shot down my spine. The finger resting on the trigger spasmed, twitching forward as if someone had grabbed only my finger and was pulling it in the opposite direction.
A sensation as if the motion itself was being rejected.
"Sis, don't—!"
Seeing the opponent rush at me, Claire swung her sword. I could see the sword aura trailing behind it like a whip. About half a beat behind Claire's blade, the sword aura—
toward the black-robed figure—
was supposed to rea■ch○hit¿have hit her?
*
What on earth had just happened?
Claire had definitely swung her sword, and her signature sword aura had touched the figure's arm.
It should have struck her. There had been no time to dodge. Even I had seen it clearly.
And yet, the sword aura hadn't connected.
"Huh...?"
I heard Claire's startled voice.
I felt my shotgun being pushed backward. The muzzle was pressed against the figure's abdomen. It was not merely touching; the belly of this nameless person, who kept advancing relentlessly, was slightly indented in the shape of the muzzle.
Her strength exceeded mine. Enough that my arm was being forced backward, enough that the arm holding the gun was being pushed downward.
And yet, through all of it, my finger didn't move.
No, as if even that was too dangerous, my index finger, then middle finger, ring finger, and little finger peeled away from the grip in sequence.
I lost my hold on the gun entirely. The figure kept pressing close as if going in for an embrace, though the posture was far too strange to call it that.
The white mask drew near my face.
Inside the dark holes, eyes.
Sweep—the sound of air being cut. Was that Alice's blade? Or Bella's whip-like sword? I wanted to check, but my head wouldn't turn.
The color of those eyes, obscured by shadow, was hard to make out. But what gleamed inside them was unmistakably a pair of human eyes.
"S y l v i a."
Like running a game on a low-spec computer and forcing it to work, the sound came out stretched, as if the audio frames had been lengthened.
As if this person and I occupied different positions in time.
That moment.
Before the figure's words could finish, Claire hurled herself at me.
Claire drove her shoulder straight into the figure—
*
Just like before, as if the frames had been snipped in the middle, my perspective snapped.
I was facing a different direction than before. I was still close enough that the figure's voice came through clearly beyond the mask.
Claire had charged into empty air. She didn't lose her balance and fall, but her feet scraped the floor with a gritting sound, and she let out an unmistakably flustered noise.
"—absolutely—"
Absolutely... what?
But before I could hear the rest of it,
"——!"
The figure was slammed sideways by Alice's shoulder and sent flying.
"Are you all right!?"
Before I could even grasp what was happening, Alice's face filled my vision. It seemed I had been about to topple sideways after the figure. Alice had caught me mid-fall and was now holding me up.
"I'm fi—"
But behind Alice, the figure reappeared at once. As if she had risen out of thin air. The two-handed sword she had been holding was already gone.
In its place, in her hand, was a revolver.
The same model as mine.
The finish bore scars from the last battle, where it had scraped against the ground several times, with several fresh scratches layered over them.
But...
I hadn't brought that one with me today—
Before I could react, a sword aura so long it nearly reached the high ceiling of this chamber descended like an executioner's blade beheading a criminal.
A ghastly grinding noise scraped across ceiling, wall, and floor. Naturally, ■□■□ hand that had been in the sword aura's path dropped away to the floor.
But as if the phenomenon itself had been erased, the hand still held the gun.
I clenched my teeth.
Again!
*
Crack—the sound of space fracturing.
My head rang with a low hum.
As if I had slammed into a wall at tremendous speed, a high-pitched ringing—peeng—spun through my ears, and my head ached as if my brain had been shaken, fit to split.
My vision blurred. Perhaps from the tears seeping from my eyes.
Something was gripping my collar. As if determined not to let me go any deeper.
Like being hauled up by the collar, the hand dragging me from beyond the fractured space was white.
The edges of the broken space were sharp, like shattered glass.
Not caring that the glass was cutting into it, the arm pulled at me even as it bled—
But, as it turned out, I was apparently far too heavy for that arm to hold.
Rrrip—the collar the hand had been gripping tore away.
I plummeted straight down.
*
"—via!"
I sucked in a great breath. Fresh air flooded lungs that had been cut off from oxygen for a stretch, and my vision snapped wide open.
I was lying across someone's lap.
I blinked several times, and my blurred vision cleared. That was thanks to the fluid that had pooled in my eyes spilling sideways.
The people looking down at me with obvious worry were Alice and Claire.
Without realizing it, I lifted a hand and touched my collar.
The irregular surface of the torn fabric met my fingers—ripped away as if wrenched off by force.
... It really happened. It wasn't a nightmare.
I tried to force my body upright, but Claire clamped both my shoulders and pressed me back down onto Alice's lap.
"That person?"
"It vanished."
The Emperor’s voice rang out.
"The moment you collapsed."
"The fight?"
"A fight, you say."
The emperor's voice held a note of dark amusement.
"Did we even fight her?"
"......"
At the emperor's question, I had no answer.