The Scary Thing Descends (3)
The demand was brutally simple.
“Bring me Nathan Maia, you worthless scum crawling around this sewer. This old man needs to see that bastard’s face. Do that, and I’ll leave quietly.”
The Graveyard Valley Eleim were left utterly dumbfounded.
“How the hell are we supposed to know where some Sapiens is?!”
“Is he even in the Graveyard Valley to begin with? He might’ve already slipped out!”
On top of the makeshift barricade of junk piled along the ramp, the gang leaders screamed at the top of their lungs. But the leader of the berserkers simply ignored them as if dogs were barking.
“Then there’s no negotiation. If you can’t bring him, we’ll all have our heads chopped off by His Majesty’s hand anyway. Kill them all.”
In response to that command came a low, rumbling growl from the massive yetis. No one knew how the hell the same group had managed to drag these things all the way here. Four-meter-tall mountains of muscle waddled forward. The barricade’s remaining lifespan could probably be measured in seconds—right up until one of those arms swung.
Empato, proud officer of the Celestial Guard, wiped the blood dripping down his eyebrow. He smeared his sticky hand on his pants and stuck a cigarette between his lips.
“So this is it, huh.”
“Goddamn it. If you were gonna flip the whole Graveyard Valley upside down looking for a Sapiens, you could’ve at least found him first. None of this would’ve happened.”
“We figured you bastards were hiding him since he never showed up. Well, looks like this day finally came. Never thought I’d be fighting on the same side as you lot.”
“Got a problem with that, copper?”
The gang boss with the rat-like whiskers muttered gloomily, aiming his homemade crossbow at the berserkers. They stood shoulder to shoulder along the defensive line. A few desperate Celestial Guard officers who realized there was nowhere left to run, along with the slum gangs from the sewer district, had thrown together this pathetic pile of scrap for a barricade. Of course they couldn’t win. The mismatch started with combat experience. These lunatics regularly slaughtered entire Sapiens villages on the border under the excuse of “war practice” just to taste blood. The Celestial Guard, who mostly dealt with junkies and runaway slaves, were nowhere near their level. The starving Graveyard Valley gangs were in the same boat. If someone took bets, even they would put their money on the northern bastards.
But they couldn’t just sit down and die either.
“Ready—aim!”
At Empato’s command, a row of illegal priest-made weapons rose in unison. For the first time in his life, Empato had become the one giving orders. The realization almost brought tears to his eyes. The boy who had once dreamed of becoming captain of the Celestial Guard and protecting the Eleim had, after hundreds of years, finally achieved that dream. Even if the form it took was a little… less than ideal.
“If we somehow make it out alive, Mister Whiskers, tell my daughter this for me!”
Before giving the order to fire, Empato shouted. The words were honestly too embarrassing to even whisper. But with the northerners’ jeers and war cries so loud, he had to raise his voice just to be heard.
“Sorry your father was such a pathetic loser who never got promoted for over two hundred years. Don’t live like me—!”
“…Hey? You hearing me?”
The rat-whiskered gang boss wasn’t listening. The thug was staring over Empato’s shoulder with a completely dazed expression.
“Hey, buddy.”
“Just tell her yourself. Actually, on second thought, maybe it’s better if you don’t say anything that pathetic. What’s there to be ashamed of?”
A familiar voice came from behind them. Empato turned his head.
“If you’re going to hold the line, at least lift your head. Not just anyone can do that.”
Scrrrtch.
Silently, the monster moved. Atop its back sat a knight whose armor clanked noisily. His helmet was off and tucked under one arm. The face revealed beneath it was… the very same Sapiens Empato had nearly captured once before.
“Long time no see. Thanks for the bread. You called it a donut, right?”
“You…”
“It’d be shameless to forget to pay for the bread, but I don’t have a single coin on me. Honestly, I don’t even know what people use for money up here in the Heavens. You elves don’t seriously use fallen leaves or pebbles as currency, do you?”
Only after the words left his mouth did Nathan reflect. If Hrozka had heard that, he might have flown into a rage about racial stereotyping.
“So instead, I’ll provide my services.”
What services? Empato’s eyes twitched as he struggled to understand the situation. When Nathan stroked the creature’s back, the monstrous being casually climbed over the junk wall. Empato shook his head. You can’t go over there. They’re after you, you crazy Sapiens bastard. When you fell off that bridge, I thought you were suicidal. Don’t tell me you’re actually planning to face those monsters alone?
“You wanted to see my face, right? Here I am. I came on my own two feet.”
He really was facing them alone. Turning his back on the wounded and the weak, he leveled his blade at those who would harm them. The knight standing tall declared:
“Now that you’ve seen it, get lost.”
The berserker chieftain, having his own words thrown back in his face, snarled and yanked the leash of one of the yetis. The spikes inside the collar dug into the snowman’s flesh. The bipedal beast roared and charged forward with heavy strides. Its fur, like a field covered in thick snow, rippled wildly.
Nathan kicked Sweetie in the side. The creature responded like a perfectly trained warhorse. The only difference was its feline-like explosive leaping power.
“Sometimes words just aren’t enough.”
Right before impact, Sweetie leapt straight up, delivering Nathan directly in front of the yeti’s face. It wasn’t offering its rider as a snack, of course. Today, the one getting eaten was the yeti.
The moment the monster bared its terrifying fangs, the two-handed sword drew a massive arc. A clean circular path that passed straight through the arctic beast’s neck. The yeti, now food for the longsword’s fangs, toppled over the hill in two separate pieces—head and body. Whether the beast was happy to be freed from its chain collar, no one could say.
The berserkers screamed and threw themselves aside to avoid the tumbling corpse. Because of that, they completely missed the knight’s quiet declaration.
“Rest in peace. Next.”
Next?
The chieftain raised one eyebrow and looked around at his warriors. None of them would meet his eyes. It was strange. The fighting spirit that had burned so fiercely when facing worthy opponents seemed to have been washed away by the wind left in the wake of that blade.
“Cowardly bastards. Refusing to fight and pulling cheap tricks instead.”
The worst insult in the North. The tattooed faces twisted hideously as they stared at their leader.
If it looks that easy, you do it then.
After that silent exchange, the chieftain was practically shoved forward.
“I am Vjergson, the Baby Thrower.”
“I didn’t ask. With a nickname like that, I’d recommend not telling people.”
“Not bad. If you’d been born an Eleim in the northern Heavens, you might’ve amounted to something. It’s almost a shame you were born a Sapiens on the ground. Our King has always valued those who wield power—”
“I didn’t ask for compliments either. Standing around smelling each other’s breath is unpleasant for both of us, so choose. Either accept my generous suggestion to fuck off, or test your neck against my blade like that one did.”
Nathan slammed the pommel of his two-hander into the ground.
Thud.
“Either works for me.”
The chieftain fidgeted with the axe handle tucked in his belt, cleared his throat several times, and glanced behind him. What he chose to do next was…
“Wahahahaha—!”
A loud, goat-like laugh that shook his beard, followed by applause. He kept nodding vigorously, looking at each of his subordinates as if seeking agreement. The northern warriors, their faces still crusted with drying blood, immediately understood their leader’s intent. They laughed loudly in unison and cheered.
Like a man reuniting with an old friend, the chieftain spread his arms wide with a huge grin and approached.
“Ah, that courage and spirit! The North acknowledges y—”
Clang.
The chieftain collapsed with the smile still plastered on his face. A sleeping technique faster than counting sheep. Knocked out cold by a helmet to the crown of his head. He was so deeply asleep that he never realized how pathetic his posture looked. It was probably for the best that he didn’t know. Ass pointed skyward, face smashed into the concrete and grotesquely crumpled. Nathan shook his head.
“Next?”
A few of the northern Eleim shook their heads. Nathan nodded in satisfaction.
“You said you have to capture me alive or you all die, right? If what you want is me, then I have conditions. Stop all this pointless violence. No one else dies. And contact me on this channel.”
Nathan, who had put his helmet back on, tossed a business card onto the unconscious man’s head.
“The channel will tell you where to go. Bring everyone there. Every last one of your worthless underlings. If you don’t do exactly as I say, I’ll kill myself in some hidden corner where you’ll never find my body. At least I won’t be lonely on the way. You said if you fail to bring me back, you’ll all get your heads chopped off too, right?”
A bizarre kind of checkmate. As the berserkers stood there, unsure what to do, one of them cautiously spoke up.
“Our boss probably didn’t hear that.”
Nathan gave the idiot a withering glare. The man stammered and corrected himself.
“…sir.”
“You didn’t hear me either? You got no ears?”
“I… I heard you.”
“Then when this idiot wakes up, tell him I said that, you stupid bastard. Pass the same message to the rest of your kind lurking in the other alleys. Now take him and disappear. I’ll give you three minutes.”
Sweetie bared its shark-like teeth and let out a low growl beside Nathan. The berserkers, who only minutes ago had acted like the most vicious things in the world, obediently did exactly as Nathan ordered.
That’s what she had said to him last night, wasn’t it, Nathan?
I might not be the knight you want.
All I’ve ever learned is violence, so violence is all I know.
What nonsense. He had never been so certain of anything in his life.
Beni, who had been watching through a telescope, let out a cheer.
“Those old thugs are on a completely different level, obviously!”
“Whoa, that was seriously impressive. Okay, I get all that, but what the hell is this plan? Provoking those savage bastards and deliberately dragging them all the way to the Graveyard House?”
In response to Hrozka’s grumbling, Beni answered.
“The treaty that divides the border into east, west, south, and north wasn’t established by the Heavenly God himself. It was made by those priests.”
“Is that related to what I asked?”
“It is, so open those clipped ears of yours and listen.”
“You really have a foul mouth.”
“Says the guy who practically shoved a noose in my hands and begged me to hang him.”
The Winter King was an ancient being. He had been present when the Heavenly God first shaped these Heavens. As such, he often showed open contempt for regulations created by those younger than himself. Some of the ways he expressed that contempt made the other monarchs extremely uncomfortable. Things like military provocation, for example.
Every territory in the Heavens touched the river that flowed down from the relatively high northern region. That meant every nation was vulnerable to invasion by boat-borne warriors.
“That madman has no intention of respecting the border. That’s why northern Eleim have occasionally crossed into other countries to pillage before. Of course, this is the first time they’ve come this deep into unimportant territory like this.”
“So that’s why the other regions’ Eleim hate them and call them lunatics. And?”
“This is where it gets really interesting. No matter how fierce the northern Eleim are—”
“They look fierce, but they don’t look that strong. They couldn’t even fight back once.”
Beni narrowed her eyes at the distant chieftain. The pathetic sight of him being supported as he staggered. Now that their masks had been stripped away by Nathan, they no longer seemed ferocious. Though that might change once they forgot about Nathan and regained their courage in a few minutes.
“—even if they’re relatively fierce, they can’t win every fight. Sometimes even wolves trip over a rock and become weasel food. Sometimes they get beaten half to death by a bear. But once you’ve already sent them out, the Winter King has his pride to consider.”
“You send troops to show off your power and they end up in danger instead? That can happen. So does the Winter King send reinforcements?”
“No. He draws a clear line and says it was just some drunkards causing trouble. Claims they aren’t citizens of the Winter Lands.”
If the ones who caused the incident weren’t Winter Land soldiers, then the Winter Lands never officially lost. A rather childish form of mental victory. Hrozka’s jaw dropped.
“He sends them himself and then says ‘I don’t know those kids’? Then what kind of idiots would go out and pillage?”
“Of course, if they win and come back, they’re treated like heroes. They even send a gilded boat to welcome them and hold a triumphal parade like they’ve become generals.”
Beni shook her head as if it were utterly pathetic.
“But if they lose, they have to find their own way back. If they don’t want to be captured and punished by the locals, they’d better swim upstream. The Winter Lands pretends not to know about battles that end in total defeat. They don’t even retaliate because they don’t want to acknowledge it. So, what do you think we should do?”
Instead of Hrozka, who was scratching his head in disbelief, Ramkaf energetically raised his hand.
“Correct answer! Beat them to a pulp so badly that it never happened?”
“Correct. The prize will be paid in the form of your salary.”
“That’s what you were going to pay me anyway, you pink-haired lunatic! Give me back my stocks—!”
Ramkaf wailed. This morning on the communication channel Beni had restored, Ramkaf had failed to get the first insult in.
Hrozka stammered.
“But…”
“But what?”
“The Graveyard House… it’s a hospital.”
“Not anymore.”
Beni grinned.
“You guys turned it into a weapon, remember?”