Valley of Death (1)
Among ordinary Eleim, the royal family and scions of great houses are no different from gods beneath the Celestial Gods. Their reach extends to every corner of the cramped Heavens, and their surveillance is inescapable. They are the eternal, untouchable rulers. Yet a royal heir has died. A being who had lived at least five hundred years perished without even a chance to resist. The shock of a mere Graveyard Valley gang leader dying was already immense, but for that terrifying figure to fall so meaninglessly? Was he even a creature capable of death in the first place?
The stunned gang members flinched as Nathan approached with steady steps.
“If you have no business here, get lost. If you do, settle it quickly. Is there anyone brave enough to avenge your boss?”
“I am.”
Crack.
Nathan had heard that sound before. The chilling noise of blood vessels bursting from cold. It was the same sound frozen meat made when a freshly severed deer leg was thrown into the northern winds piled with snow.
“My body belongs to me. Who else would avenge me but myself?”
Nathan whirled around, eyes wide. The earless one he had just beaten to death was standing up again, perfectly intact. Nathan had severed several tendons, yet the creature showed no sign of discomfort. Damn it. No wonder the blade had felt oddly soft when it struck. Frost had formed like sherbet in every gash left by the sword, knitting the flesh back together. The wounds from the two-hander were rapidly vanishing.
Mornid stretched ostentatiously and let out a satisfied sigh. White frost poured from his mouth.
“Everyone out. I have business with this one.”
From the shadows throughout the ruined building, hooded heads emerged one by one. Nathan, who had sensed nothing, startled.
“That will not do, Your Highness.”
“The King of the Frozen Wastes commanded us never to take our eyes off you—”
Mornid bared his teeth. The exaggerated composure on his face peeled away.
“Is Father here?”
“However…”
“Then shut up and leave. Do you want me to remember you when I become Protector Lord? If any of you are still in my sight after one minute, your names will be at the very top of the exile list.”
The gang members, not northerners, fled without hesitation. They had already lost their boss and had no desire to stay. The earless ones scurried away as fast as their legs could carry them without actually running. The cloaked figures followed. None of them met Nathan’s eyes, their hoods pulled low.
Soon only three remained on the upper floor of the ruined building: the knight, the royal heir, and Nili trapped in ice.
Ice turning into flesh. While Nathan struggled to comprehend what he had just witnessed, Mornid suddenly closed the distance. The giant’s kick slammed into Nathan’s midsection.
“They were already in enough trouble. Stay out of family matters, Sapiens.”
Nathan could not fully disperse the impact. He was driven backward and nearly tumbled out of the building where the wall was missing. He barely managed to jam the two-hander into the floor to stop himself. His toes, dangling over the edge, sent pebbles tumbling into the fog-shrouded abyss below. Gritting his teeth, Nathan hauled himself back up. It had been a long time since he had faced an opponent whose strength so vastly outclassed his own.
“Siblings are allowed to quarrel. I fail to see why you insist on interfering in family affairs. Has Evnilly acquired some short-lived lover in the meantime?”
“If you must ask about my relationship with your sister, we are comrades-in-arms,” Nathan replied, regaining his stance and watching the elf warily. “And on the surface, we do not call those who point blades at their own blood ‘family.’”
The chosen-blooded elf chuckled lazily.
“Then what do you call them?”
“I already told you. Bastard. Why don’t you clean the wax out of your ears with your hind leg?”
Mornid’s face remained serene, but the psychological jab had landed. The elf lashed out again, this time with far more force than before. Attacks born of lost composure were easy to read. Nathan dropped low and charged. Considering the elf’s weight and that grotesque durability, it was reasonable to treat him like an opponent in full plate. He would trip him and finish it.
Grabbing Mornid in a ricasso grip, Nathan hooked the long haft of the two-hander behind the elf’s neck like a pickaxe. He seized the kicking left leg with his right arm and tried to drive him down. But Mornid planted his hands on the ground and withstood the charge. Nathan felt a hand seize the back of his neck and hurl him away. He sailed through the air and crashed loudly onto a pile of scrap.
“Making me resort to such undignified tactics. And you call yourself royalty.”
Mornid brushed frost from the hand he had frozen to the floor.
“Stop rolling around like a fool and fight on your feet. I happen to like this coat and have no desire to grind it into the dust.”
Nathan shook off the tarp covering him and suddenly felt cold at the nape of his neck. Frost had formed at the joints of his backplate. How? The moment he cleared the tarp, a palm rushed toward his face. A slap. Simple, without malice, and not particularly fast. Yet every nerve in his body screamed to dodge.
Nathan spun the two-hander in front of his chest to strike the elf’s wrist and barely jerked his head back. The visor of his black helmet was torn away by the terrifying force. Rolling aside, Nathan touched his cheek. Ice clung to the crushed surface of the helmet.
“Not what I expected. Even a graze should have shattered metal.”
Mornid examined the soot on his hand. The wrist that should have been cut bore only a small wound.
“The thing you are wearing is not iron armor.”
It was not solid metal. What Nathan wore could barely be called armor at all: layers of insulating rubber, synthetic steel plates, and mineral compounds. The twins had called it an anti-magic composite protective suit. Their gift had saved him once again. Had he been in plate or unarmored, he would be dead or gravely injured.
Perhaps this was the first time Nathan had encountered an elf who truly matched the mythical beings he had imagined. His clenched teeth ground together. He was certain this was the moment to pour out every ounce of skill he possessed.
Yet the elf’s next move defied all common sense.
Typical earless scum.
“This is what happens when you come all this way for one little sister, Sapiens.”
Mornid lifted Nili’s ice barrier high, preparing to hurl it at Nathan.
“Block it and you will probably die. Dodge, and Nili will fall outside the building and sink into the deep mud. Choose.”
“I think the choice is yours. Are you going to drop her or hold on?”
Mornid looked at his hand. Cold leaking from Nili’s barrier had grown into icicles that bound his fingers. Growling, he flung the cube against a nearby pillar.
Thud.
The building shook with the heavy impact. Inside the cube, Nili’s body jerked violently, still wrapped in the Nightmare Pocket. She probably had not noticed her surroundings. She would be trapped in hideous dreams woven by the demon’s knot. The barrier had likely been an instinctive act of self-preservation.
Rage surged in Nathan’s chest.
“Damn it, Evnilly. If you were awake you could have said something. You scared me!”
Mornid roared at the cube, equally furious. When things did not go his way, his childish temper surfaced immediately. He must have been truly enraged to turn his back on the battlefield.
A long, metallic glint flew toward the back of his head. Without looking, Mornid ducked. The attack the Sapiens had used to tear Kada apart was burned too vividly into his memory to forget. Mornid smiled leisurely. Thanks to his clever evasion, the Sapiens had just lost his weapon. Recycling a move that was obviously readable was foolish.
The prince’s expression said as much.
Still smiling, Mornid raised his head only to find Nathan driving a scrap pipe into his eye socket like a spear. The fool was Mornid.
“Graaaah—!”
The long piece of scrap metal Nathan had pulled from the junk pile sank deep into the orbital bone. If the elf survived this, he would have to worry about infection. Nathan kept driving the pipe into the elf’s skull, intending to use the momentum to hurl him into the river outside the building.
For an instant Mornid lost strength and staggered back several steps. But the shock lasted only a moment. The monstrously durable royal body recovered and counterattacked at once. Nathan retreated to avoid the flailing hands, then drew the two-hander from his back and slashed at the elf’s body. The upper strike failed to penetrate. He struck the midsection’s liver with the pommel. No feedback. He dodged a toe thrust. Even the shoes were as hard as blocks of ice. Chunks of flesh tore away in places, yet unlike before, the elf did not so much as flinch.
Damn it.
What about this, then? Nathan swung the two-hander behind his back, lowered his grip to dodge, and used his other hand to yank the pipe from the eye socket.
“—!”
Arms filled with rage seized the iron pipe. The supercooled metal exploded, shards flying in every direction. Nathan released the pipe in time and stared into the blast without turning away. Fragments peppered his rubber armor, but he kept his eyes fixed on the target. The moment the elf’s mouth opened in limitless pain and fury, Nathan drove the two-hander in. Through the scattering metal shards. The target was deep inside the brain.
“I,” the elf snarled.
Black muscle and fur bulged from the gash torn by the two-hander. Mornid no longer resembled an elf at all. A beast-like snout twisted with malice.
“I told you I would not fall for the same trick twice.”
The jaw had thickened, fangs jutting out. Mornid clamped the two-hander between his jaws. Nathan’s eyes widened. A hand the size of a human torso struck him.
Benny was not the type to enjoy such things. Especially not when she knew exactly who was fighting.
When Nathan slammed into the ceiling, the concrete floor above shuddered. The impact must have been comparable to a car crash. Considering the freezing magic the prince likely carried in his hands, survival was impossible to hope for…
Benny dropped the tablet beneath her seat.
“No.”
Nathan had said it clearly. Every earless one who thought he would die had been wrong.
Biting her nails in agitation, Benny finally lost patience and shouted toward the driver’s seat.
“Can’t you drive any faster?”
“Weren’t you the one who said you wouldn’t treat anyone who crawls into the junkyard on their own? Didn’t you decide years ago that the abandoned pipe district where the ant brats live isn’t covered by Graveyard Valley’s code of honor? That you shouldn’t oppose the royal family, so just forget about Nathan? That you wouldn’t put the hospital in danger? How many days have you even known him that you’re willing to risk your life?”
Ramkaf, the skeleton focused on driving, shot back indifferently. Every word was correct. The other patients, their faces wrapped in bandages, spoke up in Benny’s place.
“Weren’t you part of the hospital family? The director told you to drive faster! Floor it until the accelerator becomes the brake!”
“We only met him a few days ago, but we have a fellow patient we must protect!”
These people, who had volunteered to die because life had become unbearable, were warriors dragged from the surface for reasons similar to Nathan’s. Perhaps they had planned to wage war on each other once their bodies healed. They kept weapons fashioned from hospital scrap hidden beneath their beds. Normally Benny would have gladly carved memories into their joints that would extend their hospital stays, but right now she was profoundly grateful for their recklessness.
Inspired, Ramkaf’s attitude flipped like a switch.
“Damn it! I like you lot, soldiers! Let’s go! If that half-baked knight is already dead, we at least have to clean up the body!”
“No.”
At Benny’s icy tone, Ramkaf retracted his words.
“Right. No. Sorry.”
An extremely uncomfortable silence filled the car. The patients glanced at one another.
“He’s not dead.”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
The hospital vehicle sped onward, carrying the awkward conversation.
[Nathan Maia. Endured hardships from his adoptive father without reason.]
‘Adoptive father?’
A convincing claim. After all, if he had been a beloved biological child, would he have been beaten so enthusiastically all the time?
An unknown space. Strange visions crawled through the rippling surroundings like a dream. Nathan stared blankly at them.
[After forming a sense of self, he learned only how to fight. He was praised as a knight who saves people. Yet before long he grew weary of battle.]
Drifting between the words, Nathan could not even squirm. He finally became aware of his own powerlessness. The moment the intense cold pierced his flesh, his head cooled and he understood. The recovery agent injected by the Great Arena master was not a panacea. Three days of rest would not mend a missing ankle or broken bones on their own.
Here. This is where I die. There is nothing more.
[Just before his eighteenth birthday, he suffers heartbreak. He dies after being wronged by the Eleim.]
A grotesque shadow, as though several people had merged, finished recording before Nathan. Though his own record contained only a few lines, the turned pages were thick. Hundreds, thousands of records must have been written together.
Closing the massive book, the existence pronounced judgment.
[This is the end of your journey.]
Nathan, who had been blinking sleepily, sank endlessly into darkness.