A Puppet Show to Banish the Night
Raon approached the mansion's front door. Up close, there was no longer any room for doubt. The people inside were the maids of the Annex — Sylvia, Helen, and the others.
They weren't alone, though. Among them were the very people he had been hoping to find here.
I should go in.
If they'd been asleep, he might have left them undisturbed. But they were all awake, so he made up his mind to step inside.
The front door creaked as he opened it. A gentle warmth spilled out, as if he had walked into the Annex itself, and a soft light soothed his eyes.
The lobby was immaculate. He could feel the Annex maids' touch in every corner.
They're all over that way.
The presence of everyone in the mansion gathered in the largest room on the right. He eased the door open without a sound and slipped inside.
Unlike the lobby, the only light in the room fell upon a raised stage.
Behind a black desk set on that stage, Yua, Helen, and the other maids were working puppets. Below the stage, a cluster of small children sat with only the backs of their heads visible, watching with rapt attention.
"Those are the children from back then!"
Wrath shot forward, checking their faces, and let out a cheer.
"They're all alive and well! What a relief!"
Young ones ought to live long lives, he said, beaming with a smile so warm it was hard to believe it belonged to a Demon King.
"But what are those maids of yours doing right now?"
Looks like a puppet show.
Yua was working a puppet that looked like a blond knight, while the other maids operated soldier puppets and monster puppets.
"The monsters' assault grew fiercer and fiercer. At last the walls broke, and the soldiers tumbled down from the castle."
Sylvia was reading from something that looked like a script, standing a little apart from the stage as if she were the narrator.
"And in that moment of crisis, as vicious monsters closed in on the fallen soldiers—!"
As Sylvia narrated, Yua moved her hands and lowered the blond puppet beneath the walls.
"The hero Raon Zieghart leapt down from the ramparts and stood before the soldiers."
She went on with a bright, gentle smile.
"Before Raon Zieghart's peerless swordsmanship, the monsters fell one after another."
"Aaaaagh!"
The maids working the monsters screamed and flung the monster puppets to the floor.
"Gaaaaaah!"
Judiel, surprisingly, put on a performance so convincing it looked as if she'd actually been run through, collapsing her monster puppet in a heap.
"Without taking a single step back, Raon Zieghart stood beneath those walls and protected the people until the red moonlight faded and a golden sun rose."
Power gathered in Sylvia's voice, and the maids tipped every last monster puppet onto its side.
Julius crawled up to the desk, took down the moon model, and hung up a sun.
"What guards the freezing walls of the Frost Plateau is not a knight's sword..."
Yua began to sing as she worked Raon's puppet. Her voice, crystalline yet vivid, drew every gaze in the room.
Raon tapped his fingers in time with the song, a smile on his lips.
She's grown again.
Yua's voice and her feel for song had both taken another step forward. She had become, in the truest sense, a singer who could bewitch a crowd.
"Pineapple Girl! Pineapple Girl!"
Wrath pumped his round little fists wildly in Yua's direction. Frost bloomed from those fists and glittered like starlight.
"Raon."
While Raon was smiling along to Yua's song, Saint Pedrick approached from the side, dressed like a vagrant. Raon had known he was there, of course, but he'd been too absorbed in the performance to speak.
"It's been a long time, Saint."
"How does it feel, listening to tales of your own exploits?"
"Embarrassing, honestly."
Raon scratched his cheek and shook his head.
"They say it's all true. What's there to be embarrassed about?"
"It seems like there's been a bit of embellishment."
"That child over there insists it's a hundred percent a true story."
Pedrick looked at Yua working the Raon Zieghart puppet and smiled with genuine kindness.
Yua wrote it, of course.
She was the only one who would know that story properly. It was only natural that she'd written the script.
Raon watched the children concentrating below the stage, then turned back to Pedrick.
"Thank you for granting my request."
He straightened and bowed at the waist.
"No need for that."
Pedrick waved the thanks away, his hand moving as faintly as a wave rolling onto a beach.
"Even without your asking, it was something that had to be done. Don't give it another thought."
It was simply what a human being ought to do, he said, and smiled.
"But..."
Raon asked, still watching the puppet show unfold.
"Why a puppet show at this hour?"
The children were the right age to enjoy one, but putting it on at bedtime didn't make sense.
"Because for those children, night is a time of terror."
"Ah..."
"I was told the hours they spent in assassin training were always at night. They were tortured at the hour they should have been sleeping. They were taught how to kill. Of course the night frightens them."
Pedrick's tone was even, but his hand trembled — he was furious.
"So those children couldn't sleep at night. And if they did drift off, they woke at once from nightmares and tried to strangle themselves."
"I see..."
Raon bit his lip.
I knew it.
He couldn't not know. He had lived it as the Raon of his previous life. Night had been hell — the most hideous hours of all.
"This puppet show is psychological treatment, meant to turn the children's fear of the night into joy. I thought it would be hard on them, but those people offered to help without a second thought."
Pedrick smiled as he watched Sylvia and the maids putting their whole hearts into the performance.
"Is it working?"
"It's late into the dawn, but they sleep now without waking, all the way until the sun comes up."
"Then... can the brainwashing be undone as well?"
"Yes."
Pedrick nodded without the slightest hesitation.
"We rescued the children before the brainwashing was complete. That's why they can be treated."
"...Thank you."
Raon closed his eyes and pressed a hand to his chest. He had worried endlessly over whether it would even be possible. Hearing Pedrick's certainty, his heart finally eased.
"Haaaaah..."
Wrath let out a long breath, just as relieved.
"What a relief! No matter the race, the young must be raised with care!"
Once again he said something that didn't sound remotely like a Demon King, snorting with feeling.
"And once their treatment is finished, what do you intend to do with them?"
"I want to let them do whatever they wish."
Raon looked at the children and spoke from the heart. He wanted them to live the ordinary lives that the Raon of his previous life — and No. 9, who had already left this world — had never been allowed to have.
"I didn't even need to ask, did I."
Pedrick clapped him on the shoulder, clearly pleased.
"Anyone would have done the same. It isn't anything remarkable."
Raon waved it off as nothing. Pedrick looked at that hand, and the smile at the corners of his mouth faded.
"I hate to spoil the mood, but I think I should pass on some bad news as well."
"Bad news?"
"Besides these children... those whose brainwashing has already been completed perfectly likely cannot be saved."
Pedrick looked up into the darkened air and bit his lip.
"The brainwashing laid on the children works by wrapping hundreds of meters of wire around the brain, building a barbed-wire fence that can never be taken down. Once it's finished, undoing it is all but impossible. Unless a near-fatal wound is taken and survival instinct seizes the body, it will never come undone."
"A wound that could kill..."
So that's how I broke free of the brainwashing.
A brush with death on a mission had loosened the brainwashing's hold, and in that gap he had been able to learn the Ring of Fire.
Luck piled on luck — that was how he had escaped Derus's brainwashing.
"Even if you caught the person who created this brainwashing, there's no guarantee it could be undone. If you encounter people under its hold... I believe the kindest thing would be to let them go peacefully."
Pedrick bowed his head, apologizing that he could not help them.
"No. The ones who planted the brainwashing are the trash."
Raon let out a breath. In the end, it seemed this hellish fight would only end when Derus was dead.
I have to grow even faster.
He was already getting stronger faster than anyone alive, but he wanted to grow faster still — to put an end to that man's time.
"I've given you the bad news, so now I'll give you the good."
Pedrick raised a finger and pointed near his own heart.
"I couldn't do anything about the brainwashing, but I believe the Rage Worm can be dealt with."
"Is that true?"
"It will take some time, but it seems a method of removing the insect lodged in the heart can be made."
For him to put it that way meant he was all but certain.
Those with Rage Worms in them were Derus's confidants. If their mouths could be opened, finding Derus's weaknesses would no longer be impossible.
"Spend as much as you need. I'm counting on you."
"Looks like you've been making money out there."
"Yes. As it happens..."
Raon nodded lightly and mentioned that he had secured the Sepia Merchant Guild's cooperation.
"What! The Sepia Merchant Guild?"
Pedrick's jaw dropped, as if he had never imagined Sepia would side with Zieghart. At his cry the puppet show stopped, and everyone turned around.
"Saint, all of a sudden... wait? Raon!"
"Young Master?"
"When did you get here!"
"The Young Master is here!"
Sylvia, Helen, and the other maids lit the lamps and jumped down from the stage.
"Kids! That man is Sir Raon! Raon Zieghart!"
Yua put aura into her voice as she told the children his name.
"Raon?"
"Th-the real hero?"
"Raon! Raon! Raon!"
"Wooooooaaaah!"
Even the children who had been sitting in their chairs came pouring out and rushed him like a swarm of bees.
"Did you really fight for a whole week to save people?"
"Is it true you defeated a Demon King?"
"Did you slay a dragon too?"
Wherever Yua's script had gone, it had gotten as far as Demon Kings and dragons.
"That's not... ah."
That child...
Raon had been about to shake his head when his eyes met those of the young girl who had told him her name was Fyne.
The eyes that had once been steeped in darkness were now full of hope and light, and she was holding hands with the friend she had once pointed a blade at, down in the underground.
Seeing a face so bright it couldn't even be compared to before, something deep in his soul melted away. It might have been the knot from his previous life. It might have been hope. It might have been the resentment No. 9 had left behind.
"That's right."
Raon let that unidentifiable feeling go, and nodded to the children.
"I caught the Demon King."
"Really?"
"You really caught a Demon King?"
"Yeah. He's a chump of a Demon King named Wrath."
"Wooooooaaaah!"
The children threw their hands in the air and cheered.
"A chump named Wrath..."
Wrath didn't understand at first. Then a blue fire of rage lit in his eyes.
"You little brat!"
Noon the next day.
Raon finished a leisurely lunch and headed for the cliff at Mount Bukmang.
He had sent word that morning, so every member of the Light Wind Squad was already at the foot of the cliff, loosening up. Unlike yesterday, their faces were remarkably fresh and clear as they warmed up below the rock face.
"Raon."
Runaan ran up first and tipped her head.
"You're only just getting here?"
Burren came up behind her, smiling.
"The old you would've been here since dawn. You've gotten lazy."
Marta clicked her tongue as if he were pathetic.
"I wanted a home-cooked meal for a change."
Wrath had been sulking since yesterday and had pestered him to eat lunch before they left, so he'd had no choice but to take both breakfast and lunch at the Annex.
"Most satisfactory."
In a much better mood, Wrath was hovering in midair as if doing the backstroke, grinning from ear to ear.
Raon walked over to Dokoe, who was leaning against the cliff with his back.
"Chief Manager. Thank you for all your hard work while I was away."
"You dumped every annoying job on me and only now you crawl back. I thought I'd die of boredom."
"For someone who says that, the squad's achievements have gone up quite a bit."
"I just couldn't leave them be. I was bored, that's all."
"Thank you."
Dokoe frowned and turned his head away. The Light Wind Squad had grown this much because of his training, and Raon bowed with genuine gratitude.
"Are we climbing the cliff again today?"
"Wasn't yesterday enough?"
"I fell like ten times..."
The Light Wind Squad members sighed, groaning that they had to do that again.
"Nngh... ah, h-hello."
A groan drew Raon's attention sideways. Dorian was there, wrapped in bandages from head to toe. Without the belly pouch, Raon might not have recognized him at all.
"What happened to you?"
"I-it's because of you, Vice-leader!"
"Me? What did I do?"
"You told me to throw the rocks and then left! Everyone thought I was the one throwing them from the start!"
Dorian pointed at the Light Wind Squad, begging him to clear things up already.
"Ah..."
Raon looked from Dorian to the squad and let out a short laugh.
So that's what happened.
Now he understood the state Dorian was in. Instead of slipping away at the right moment, Dorian had kept throwing rocks to the bitter end, gotten caught by Burren, Marta, and Runaan, and been beaten black and blue.
"I told you to do it once and then duck out."
Raon waved a hand as if he had no idea what Dorian was talking about.
"V-Vice-leader, when did you ever..."
Dorian's mouth fell open wide enough to fit a toad.
"No, I'm sure..."
"I knew it!"
"You little—!"
"You're dead later!"
The Light Wind Squad glared at Dorian with bloodshot eyes, and Dorian's lips, gone pale, began to tremble.
"Everyone here?"
A drained voice came from the right. Raon turned. Rimer was walking up, his red hair scorched black, both eyes swollen with dark bruises.
"Squad Leader, why do you look like that?"
"Don't know. Just start already."
Rimer leaned his back against the cliff and muttered that life was just too hard.
What a bizarre bunch.
Raon let out a short laugh and stepped in front of the squad.
"Fall in."
At an order he hadn't given in some time, the Light Wind Squad members who had been scattered and unfocused gathered at once and formed ranks. Their eyes flashed sharp enough that they could have gone into battle then and there.
"Introductions first. Sir Mark."
At the name, Mark Goetten, who had been hanging back, stepped forward.
"You've already met, I take it?"
"Oh, we met all right. Shame the first meeting was a rescue, but..."
Burren looked at Mark Goetten and shook his chin as if he still couldn't believe it.
"He looks strong. Who is he?"
Marta rolled her black-pearl eyes, competitive interest stirring.
"Thanks for catching me."
Runaan dipped her head, as if the landing had been a comfortable one.
"This is Mark Goetten. He's a wandering bladesman of knightly origin. He's not a member of the Light Wind Squad yet, but you'll be working together often, so it'd be best to get along."
If Mark Goetten had wanted to join the Light Wind Squad, Raon would have taken him in. But the man wished to serve as a retainer, so for now Raon had placed him under the Annex.
"..."
Runaan stared blankly at Mark Goetten, apparently uninterested in names or titles.
"Never heard of him."
Marta muttered the name Mark Goetten a few times, as if she didn't know him.
"Mark Goetten? Don't tell me — the Falling Blossom Blade... hk!"
Burren started to say the epithet and then shut his mouth.
"That's correct."
Mark Goetten took a step forward and nodded.
"I am Mark Goetten, known as the Falling Blossom Blade — a warrior who has fallen."
He stated the meaning of his epithet without shame, and smiled.
"I had sunk even lower than rock bottom, but thanks to Sir Raon I was able to find enlightenment. I look forward to working with you."
Mark Goetten bowed with genuine courtesy to Light Wind Squad warriors far younger than himself.
"Welcome!"
Burren was the first to clap, laughing freely, as if he felt a kinship with the man.
"Let's have a match later!"
"Do you like bead ice cream?"
"We look forward to working with you!"
"Yeahhh!"
Marta and Runaan each said something entirely in character, and the rest of the Light Wind Squad cheered with open smiles.
Raon clapped his hands hard once Mark Goetten had finished exchanging names with the squad. The Light Wind Squad turned toward him at once, their expressions turning serious, as if they had been waiting for it.
"Introductions are over. We continue yesterday's cliff-climbing training. Everyone, take your positions."
He moved among the swordsmen, sealing off their mana circuits as he went.
"Right. The way I see it, you lot could use a little more suffering— huh?"
Raon pressed a hand to the giggling Rimer's throat and blocked his mana circuits too. Rimer's eyes flew wide and he spun around.
"R-Raon? I think you made a mistake? You blocked my aura too..."
"No mistake. You have to do it too, Squad Leader."
"Hey! I'm the Squad Lead—"
"You said you'd leave the training to me until your strength recovered, didn't you?"
Raon narrowed his eyes at Rimer.
"Even so, I can't train with these brats at my seniority!"
"Squad Leader. I can see the fat around your belly. You've been skipping physical training and only doing aura cultivation, haven't you?"
"Urgh, th-that's..."
Rimer's shoulders flinched, and his gaze dropped.
"Reach the top even once and I'll exempt you."
"You mean that?"
"Of course."
Raon nodded, then looked down over the entire Light Wind Squad.
"Same goes for the rest of you. Break through my interference and reach the top even once, and I'll let you out of this training."
"Ohh!"
"Yes!"
"We're used to it now! Let's finish this today!"
The Light Wind Squad members looked at one another and shouted that they could do it.
Listening to the swordsmen's cheers, Raon turned and bowed to Dokoe beside him.
"Chief Manager. I'll leave it to you."
"Good grief. The things I end up doing because of you."
He let out a disbelieving laugh and walked toward the cliff. Mark Goetten had to train as well, so Dokoe was today's safety officer.
"See you in a bit."
Raon gave a light wave and shot up the cliff in a single burst. At the summit, he shouted down.
"Training starts now!"
"Let's gooo!"
"This goddamn training ends today!"
"Raaaaah!"
The instant he called the start, the Light Wind Squad members sprang like grasshoppers and clung to the cliff. The sun was up, and they had already made the trip several times, so they climbed twice as fast as yesterday.
"Fast. Not that it'll matter..."
Raon chuckled and took out a wooden shard shaped like a throwing dagger. He pinched it between his index and middle fingers and fired it straight down.
With a piercing whistle, the wooden dagger slammed into the cheekbone of Crain, who had been climbing at the very front.
"Gwek! Why is it always me first?!"
Crain let out a thick scream and plummeted. Dokoe sighed — and still moved to catch him.
"That's not it."
Raon clicked his tongue and pulled a booklet from his coat. It was the martial manual for the White Lightning Flying Daggers he had received yesterday.
"Ah. My hand position was a little off."
"Y-you bastard, don't tell me..."
Wrath looked at Raon, his lips trembling.
"You mean to use those fellows as target practice for throwing daggers?"
That's right.
Raon nodded without a shred of shame.
I can't just leave targets that good unused.
The most important thing in dagger training was hitting a moving target. Thanks to the throwing arts he had learned in his previous life, he skipped stationary objects entirely and went straight after moving ones.
They train their senses and reflexes. I train my aim. Two birds with one stone.
"What kind of lunatic..."
Wrath shook his head, declaring that Raon had well and truly lost it.
This is what you call cost-effective training.
Raon chuckled and loosed a second dagger. It flew faster than the last and slammed into a Light Wind Squad member's armpit. Struck in a vital point, the swordsman yelped and peeled off the cliff.
"Still a little lacking."
Accuracy had improved, but the speed was still a touch short. He poured aura in a little harder and sent wooden daggers flying at the climbers.
Using the martial manual and the Ring of Fire to patch every shortcoming, the daggers grew faster and more precise, and began to bombard the Light Wind Squad in earnest.
"Hyaaaaah!"
He was merrily sending Light Wind Squad members plummeting when he realized Rimer had already climbed to the midpoint of the cliff. Instead of the aura inside him, Rimer was using the surrounding wind to pick up speed.
That's cheating.
Raon shook his head, packed a dagger full of aura, and fired it at Rimer. The dagger dropped like a thunderbolt, about to strike him in the forehead — and a green wind rose, turning its path and bleeding off its force.
"Raon! You're still wet behind the ears!"
Rimer grinned, as if this were precisely an adult's reflexes.
"Hrm..."
Raon threw several more, but Rimer used the wind to blunt each dagger's power, then hopped up the cliff like a camel cricket.
"Can't be helped."
Unruffled, Raon drew his sword. Along the blade of the Heavenly Sky Sword, he raised the Revolving Heaven of the Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames.
"Huh...?"
Wrath's jaw dropped at the sight.
"Y-you, don't tell me..."
That 'don't tell me' is exactly right.
Smiling, he fired the flames coiled around the blade at Rimer.
A blade spinning like a circular saw utterly shattered the cliff edge Rimer had been climbing.
"Gah!"
The wall under his hands and feet sheared away, and Rimer's eyes bulged as if they were about to burst.
"I never said I wouldn't use a sword."
"Raon, you insane bastard!"
Rimer couldn't use aura either, so he began to fall with the cliff.
"Uh..."
"W-why did he come back even crazier?"
"Dorian! What's wrong with him!"
"He's always been like that!"
Dorian waved a hand airily at Marta.
"That's cheating, though."
Raon chuckled and sheathed his sword. He was about to throw another dagger when a rustling came from behind, and someone walked up onto the summit.
"Vice-leader. It's been a while."
Raon turned. Chad, Master of the Flying Swallow Pavilion, was bowing, a sizable box in his arms.
Thwack!
Raon nailed Dorian in the forehead with the throwing dagger in his hand, then bowed to Chad.
"What brings you all the way out here?"
"I came in person because I have good news."
Chad set the box down and smiled.
"A gift has arrived from the Beast Palace."
"A gift from the Beast Palace..."
Raon looked from the box Chad had set down to the Light Wind Squad members still diligently climbing the cliff, and an excited smile spread across his face.
With this, I can raise the intensity of the training, can't I?
"...Are you actually trying to kill those kids?"