A Night by the Roaring Fire
Whether the problem lay with me or with her, Clara clasped her hands together and murmured a prayer to her god, then bowed her head so deeply that she seemed unable to summon the courage to raise it and face me.
I had seen plenty of people like this in Murim, but this was the first such sight since I came to the modern era... What was it they used to say back then, again? Ah, right. Was I truly forced to sit through that preposterous ceremony — "This humble one dares address the Son of Heaven!"
Looking back on it now, it was nothing short of absurd. All because a man fallen from the sky happened to possess the aptitude of the Heavenly Martial Body and senses that reached to the very heavens... hm, come to think of it, perhaps it was warranted after all.
In any case, the way she fidgeted the entire time, unable to hold her head upright, reminded me of the people of Eunbigok in those days.
"You may raise your head now. And if you cannot, then at least tell me the reason you cannot."
We would be seeing each other for who knew how long yet; there was no call to sit there so stiffly.
"Have you, by any chance... ever seen a letter in Everston?"
"Quite the abrupt question, asking whether I've seen a letter."
It was true that I had found a letter. But what did she mean by bringing it up so suddenly?
"The truth is... that was a letter we left behind when we departed the village."
"Clara, we've already spent far too much time here. It's time we departed."
What Ms. Johanna said to me was not wrong in the slightest.
"Ms. Johanna... but the divine power hasn't gathered enough yet. If we leave now..."
But even if we took back the blessings we had laid upon the village, we would almost certainly be surrounded by monsters and meet a horrific end before ever reaching the rendezvous point...
"But, Clara."
"Johanna. We're still holding up fine, so don't rush things."
"Mr. Jake..."
Mr. Jake's expression as he calmed Ms. Johanna and then turned to speak to me looked grave. I could count on one hand the times I'd seen him wear such a look — whatever could have happened?
"Still, Johanna has a point. Clara, we don't have the luxury of sitting still and waiting for the divine power to gather. We received urgent word from the Sanctuary not long ago... apparently its divine power is fading fast."
"What?! The Sanctuary's divine power?!"
I had guessed things were serious, but this was beyond anything I could have imagined. The Sanctuary's divine power, fading! Could something have happened to Lady Aria? No... that couldn't be.
"We don't know the details yet, but if this keeps up, we might not make it to the rendezvous in time before disaster strikes. I think we need to hurry."
"That can't be..."
What shattered the mood — me sinking into despair at the ill news from the Sanctuary, my party members urgent as they were — was this:
"Kyeeeeek!"
The cry of a blade spider, ringing out clear and loud even beneath the onslaught of that hated winter.
"Is it already too late...?"
Clack! The door swung open, and every gaze in the room turned toward it. The culprit behind all the noise, Mr. Kan, looked at us calmly and said,
"It is not too late yet. Leave. Now."
Not too late? Blade spiders never scream unless they've been provoked. And this was Everston — a place all but forbidden to set foot in. The odds of anyone else being here were vanishingly small. Which meant the ones provoking those spiders... were us.
And yet he says it is not too late?
"Kan, I think you owe us an explanation."
Then again, Mr. Kan was so stoically blunt at the best of times that I couldn't imagine him saying anything idle.
"There is an outsider."
"What?!"
Oh dear, I got far too worked up. But this is Everston! A forbidden zone at the edge of the frontier! Aside from us, out here scouting for the expedition, there are other people here?!
"Kan, this is Everston. What kind of idiots besides us would come walking in here on purpose?"
Ms. Johanna's language is a bit coarse, but she's never actually wrong. Still, just because Everston really is dangerous, please don't go calling us idiots...
"Johanna."
Mr. Jake stepped in to calm her yet again.
"Clara, pack your things. Quickly."
"Huh?"
"We're leaving. Now."
Leaving now... don't tell me—!
"... Yes."
One hear of Mr. Jake's firm voice and I understood at once. He meant to run while that outsider held the spiders' attention. It was a thing we should never do, and yet...
"Brace yourself. We can't afford to die along with them."
Where the spiders, worked into a frenzy by the outsider, would ultimately turn...
"... Yes."
O Aria, Goddess of Prosperity — please, grant that person your blessing.
I pray that they survive to read this letter. And this sword...
"Why are you leaving the sword behind?"
"It's just... it doesn't feel right to take it."
"Ha. We waited around so you could leave a letter, and now you want to abandon the sword too?"
Ms. Johanna came at me, her displeasure plain on her face. But this I could not yield. A small blessing, and the sword — that was everything I had to give.
"Enough. There's no time to argue. Move!"
From there we fled Everston and ran for the midpoint outpost. We ran for roughly half an hour.
"Wait, Jake. Something about this feels wrong, doesn't it?"
Ms. Johanna's sudden question bought us a brief moment to catch our breath — a small mercy for the weakest member of the party. Me.
"What's wrong with it? We're getting away just fine. No time to chat."
"There are no spiders at all. Nothing's chasing us."
"No spiders?"
Come to think of it, not a single pursuing spider was in sight. Even if this winter muffled their presence, that shrill, grating shriek of theirs had been ringing in our ears the whole way.
And then, one fact lit up in my mind.
"Don't tell me..."
Was that outsider... still fighting?
"Kyeeeeek!!!"
From somewhere beyond the forest we had left behind, a ferocious roar split the air. That was the cry of blade spiders driven into a frenzy...!
"I have to go."
"You can't!"
"Then at least let me go."
In the middle of a fairly spacious cave, Clara — who had been tending the campfire while murmuring some prayer or other — spoke up again.
Well, look at that. The temperature around us had climbed a fair ways. So a blessing truly did hold the power to hold back that blizzard. Though I did have to wonder whether this spot, too, might end up overheating... I shifted the Queen behind me and drew closer to the fire.
"You may well think I'm just getting in your way, but rescuing humans is the Empire's number one priority right now. And every member of our party is a follower of Lady Aria."
"I wasn't thinking anything of the sort."
"Well, Ms. Johanna snaps and grumbles like crazy, but she always takes such good care of us! It's like she plays the doting act completely in reverse, you know?"
"And Mr. Jake is a total leader type of person."
A leader type of person. If one is a leader, one is a leader — what in the world is a leader type?
"Mr. Kan is really blunt, but he's an incredibly diligent person."
This woman talked. A great deal, in fact. She had seemed, from the outset, hardly the talkative sort. More than that, she had spoken of the Sanctuary's situation, and perhaps of things that ought not to be spoken aloud... but since the others held their silence, I supposed it was fine.
"So when we finally reached Everston, the whole place was slathered in spider blood and carcasses! What a shock that was. I've even been to the capital, and I never saw a single drop of red there."
So the red she measured by was her own wounds, and the blue, the spiders' corpses. A curious way to take stock of things.
"We followed the faint blue footprints all the way here... I never dreamed the person they led to would be strong enough to slay the Queen herself."
Having talked so very much, Clara at last seemed to run out of things to say, and a quiet settled over us for a while.
Now even the viewers had begun to chatter away. There was never a moment's quiet, it seemed.
Staring into the campfire, the scout by the name of Johanna opened her mouth.
"Honestly, I know I'm late in saying this, but when I first laid eyes on you, I genuinely thought you were a complete lunatic."
Because of the corpse, no doubt... I had, for a moment there, entirely forgotten that I was even carrying a corpse. An unmistakable oversight on my part.
"Uh, who just hauls a corpse around?! And then you had the nerve to tell us not to be nervous. I figured you meant, oh, being nervous hurts, does it? Then I'll kill you painlessly."
"Well, I'm sure you had your reasons."
"I suppose that must be true... but then, why do you carry the corpse with you?"
It was, perhaps, a small mercy that they did not take me for a madman who lugged a corpse about for no reason at all.
"I intend to carry this woman back to the land she came from and bury her there."
"Oh... so that was your purpose. Then, did you happen to hear where her homeland was?"
"She called herself the Queen of Amsia. And so I mean to bury her in a place called Amsia."
"Wha—?! Did you just say Amsia?!"
"Amsia...?"
At the word Amsia, Clara leapt to her feet, startled out of her wits, while the others went still, quietly reeling.
"I did say Amsia. Now calm yourself a little."
"Ah! Yes! Whew... hnn—khhk!"
To strangle herself halfway through a deep breath... there was a first time for everything, it seemed. She had claimed to be a sacrifice, so I had pictured someone rather more solemn.
"Whew... yes. I'm calm now."
A bit of a klutz, then. No — a hopeless airhead, through and through. But what in the world was this Amsia, that the very name startled them so?
"What is this Amsia you speak of, that it moves you all so?"
"Amsia is... a kingdom that has already fallen."
A fallen kingdom? How on earth had the queen of a fallen kingdom come to be a spider...?