Childhood (3)
“—Lia!”
My left hand shot out on its own. Somewhere between my wrist and palm, something sharp and stinging dug into me with sudden force.
Instinctively, I snapped my gaze over. What had flown in from who knew where and lodged itself in my left wrist was none other than a thin black needle.
I drew my sword at once, keeping my guard up as I cautiously plucked the needle free. The tip had turned pale white, which meant it wasn’t just an ordinary black needle.
“K-Kain! What was that just now, wha—!”
Lia grabbed my sleeve. One glance at her face told me she was thoroughly shocked, but in a situation like this, moving carelessly was dangerous.
I raised my left hand, signaling her to stay still as a mouse.
“Lia, shh. Stay quiet for now….”
…No, that was what I’d meant to do. I would’ve, if my left arm hadn’t suddenly felt much heavier than usual.
Only then did I notice something was wrong. I flexed the index finger of my left hand.
“……”
The response was sluggish. Very sluggish.
It was almost exactly like trying to force your body to move after being hit with an anesthetic needle….
“Hah. To think you can still move your body after taking that needle.”
That was when it happened. Down the slope of the hill, beneath the thick shade of a pear tree heavy with leaves, a suspicious man wearing a mask slowly stepped out.
His face was hidden behind the mask, so I couldn’t see below his eyes, but I could tell one thing: his face had gone unnaturally bloodless.
“I coated it with enough to put down most mountain beasts, and even the vicious silver-maned wolf. Impressive. Who are you?”
“……And who are you?”
I gently pried Lia’s hand off me and stepped forward.
The masked man, devoid of even the faintest trace of color in his face, looked at me with empty, emotionless eyes.
“Not siblings… no, that doesn’t seem right. Her lover, perhaps? Lia von Elleves’s man? If not that, then her valet?”
I had no interest in exchanging words with some suspicious bastard like this, but right now recovering the sensation in my numbed left arm came first.
I’d trained against body-numbing tricks like this before. Given about five minutes, I’d probably be back to normal.
So until then, I’d keep him talking and stall for time.
“I’m neither her lover nor her valet. I’m her escort knight.”
“……Her escort knight?”
The man muttered in surprise and looked me up and down.
“You’re barely out of childhood, and you’re Lia von Elleves’s escort knight?”
“That’s right. Is there a problem?”
“Heh. No problem at all. Still, it seems the head of the Elleves family has finally lost his mind. To think he’d assign a brat who can’t even properly hold himself together as an escort for his precious daughter.”
“You know the head of the Elleves family?”
“Of course I do.”
For a moment, a piercing blue light flared in the man’s eyes.
“……How could I ever forget the man who turned my life upside down and dumped it into the gutter? That hateful human being?”
At the man’s words, thick with what sounded like deep-seated rancor, my mind began to spin at once.
This was probably some hidden backstory I didn’t know about—something that hadn’t appeared in the original novel.
I couldn’t be sure yet, since I only had fragments of information, but my guess was… this man held some kind of grudge against Lia’s father, the head of the Elleves family, for some reason. And to vent that grudge, he was planning to kidnap Lia and hurt her.
Once I’d reached that conclusion, I spoke to test him.
“So, in other words, this is just petty vengeance? You don’t have the courage or the power to confront the head of the Elleves family directly, so instead you’re going to kidnap his daughter and satisfy your twisted revenge. Am I wrong?”
“Hah, revenge. Well, at one time I did belong to the cult for such a pitiful little purpose.”
The man pulled his mask down.
……All the features on his face except his eyes were grotesquely distorted, to the point where he no longer looked human at all.
“Ka, Kain……!”
Apparently frightened by the man’s face, Lia shuffled close to me with a look almost on the verge of tears, clutching my sleeve as if she never intended to let go.
Even if a wolf monster with silver mane and red eyes wasn’t scary to her, a suspicious masked man with a hideous face apparently was.
“……Not any longer. My flesh and soul have already been offered to that person.”
“That person? I don’t know who you’re talking about, but… if revenge isn’t the point, then why did you attack us?”
“Because the woman behind you—Lia von Elleves—is the one that person has chosen….”
Something that might have been the man’s mouth twisted horribly.
I couldn’t say for certain, because its shape was too unclear.
“—a sacrificial offering.”
It looked like he was smiling.
“……Eep!”
Lia let out a breathy little squeak and hid behind my back in one swift motion.
She didn’t even think about grabbing my sleeve anymore; she could only cling to the hem of my clothes, trembling all over, and she seemed genuinely shocked by the man’s words about sacrificing her.
To reassure her, I reached my left hand behind me and patted the back of her hand.
“Lia, calm down. Nothing’s going to happen.”
“B-But, Kain. He just said he was going to make me a sacrificial offering….”
“Look at me, Lia.”
Lia slowly raised her head.
Without her boots on, her sky-blue eyes sat a little higher than usual as they took me in.
“I always told you, didn’t I? No matter what happens, I’ll protect you, so don’t ever stray from my side.”
“Mm-hm, I know. I know, but….”
“Lia. Trust me.”
Fighting with my attention divided in front of an enemy was insane, but I still reached out with my left hand and stroked Lia’s hair.
……Truth be told, I was confident.
Confident that if I could move only my left hand freely like this, I could beat anyone who came at me.
“I’ll finish this quickly, so let’s go home and have dinner, okay?”
“……Okay. I’ll only trust you, Kain.”
Lia’s trembling stopped as if it had never happened.
The masked man, who had been watching our little exchange, let out a derisive chuckle.
“You seem to have some skill, if you can endure a paralyzing needle, but you’re still only a child. Do you really think you can beat me?”
“Sorry, but guys like you wouldn’t beat me even if there were ten of you.”
“……Heh. Is that so?”
Click.
The man snapped his fingers.
Then, from the shade of a different tree—not the one he was standing under—nine more masked assailants in similar clothing emerged.
“Brat, as you said. There are now ten assassins with skill on par with mine. What will you do now?”
“Ka, Kain…!”
“……”
He really did bring them out.
Honestly, I was speechless, but this was still within the realm of acceptable.
The paralyzing needle had only got me because I’d let my guard down for a second after Lia made me do something strange. As long as I didn’t let my guard down, I’d be fine.
……And really, think about it. Why was I, a ten-year-old child and not even an adult yet, able to serve as the escort knight for the daughter of a wealthy count’s family?
It was a little embarrassing to say it out loud, but the reason was simple.
“It won’t matter if ten come. Or a hundred.”
Strength that had nothing to do with age.
“I’m going to win.”
In other words, overwhelming force.
* * *
Somewhere tens of kilometers from the outskirts of the village where Cain and Lia were. Deep underground. The heart of Lirintos, the subterranean labyrinth that had not yet been revealed to the world.
In that eerie space, where there wasn’t even the slightest trace of a living presence, the demon woman Grace was in utter shock.
—Thunk!
Roll, roll, thud.
The man whose sight Grace was sharing—more precisely, what had been a man—had his neck severed and rolled pathetically across the floor.
Fourth one in ten seconds. No, fifth…?
The assassins whose sight Grace shared were souls mortgaged to the cult, beings who had gained tremendous power on the condition that they could never find salvation even in death.
It wasn’t exact, but if she were to compare them to the world’s standard measures, they were probably somewhere in the middle of the swordmaster ranks—between a Sword Expert and a Master. In other words, they were absolutely not mediocre trash.
And yet that little kid was cutting off their heads as easily as if he were harvesting crops. Five of them in just ten seconds. One every two seconds.
What in the world is this…?
The world was vast and strong people were plentiful, but was this really okay? Was it acceptable for that child, who hadn’t even gone through his coming-of-age ceremony yet, to be trampling the cult’s combat power so mercilessly?
Grace had been blankly watching Cain’s swordsmanship—rough, but surprisingly restrained, with even a hint of beauty to it—when, by the time the ninth man’s head rolled across the floor, she finally came to her senses.
This won’t do.
The boy’s swordplay was impressive, yes, but she couldn’t afford to stand there dazed. Kidnapping Lia von Elleves and using her as a sacrificial offering was the person’s oracle, their demand.
Grace planted the tip of her staff into the dirt floor. Then she funneled her mana into the man linked to her through the spell and dramatically amplified his physical abilities.
The high-level dark spell corresponding to the sixth tier out of the eight ranks of black magic: Physical Enhancement. It demanded a tremendous amount of the caster’s mana, but the results were just as substantial.
Through the physical enhancement, the remaining man’s bodily strength had increased by about threefold. Now he ought to be able to stand toe-to-toe with that boy.
After sharing vision with the last surviving man, Grace smiled thinly.
It seems you’ve got a few tricks, but this is the end for you, boy.
That was the moment.
—KRAAANG!
The man, strengthened by Grace’s spell, clashed with Cain’s sword. A terrifying blast rang out, like someone hammering a steel door with a sledgehammer, and the man’s blade snapped cleanly in two.
T-This is impossible……!
Grace was shocked once more. But something even more shocking happened a moment later.
[Huh. What’s this?]
After breaking the man’s sword in half and then cutting off his head just like that, the boy tilted his head.
Cain muttered as though something seemed suspicious—What, is this maybe…?—then squatted down directly in front of the severed head already rolling across the ground.
[Hey.]
…….
[Hey, you there. The mage behind this guy. Can you hear me?]
Wh-What?!
Cain, meeting the severed head’s eyes, directly addressed Grace—the one presence he should never have been able to detect…!
Grace had never imagined Cain would notice her existence, so she froze completely in place.
Cain stuck his index finger out at the severed head and began wagging it as if he were warning Grace herself.
[You said you’re from some cult, right? I don’t know who this person you keep talking about is, or what your cult’s trying to do, but…]
[……If you lay a hand on Lia even one more time after this moment,]
[Ka-Kain! Are you okay? You weren’t hurt, were you?!]
Lia came running up in her adorable little way and grabbed Cain by the sleeve. Cain looked down at her and told her he was fine, that she didn’t need to worry.
Then he jerked his head toward the severed man’s head and, so Lia couldn’t hear it, mouthed the words only with his lips.
[I’ll find you, and I’ll smash every last one of you to pieces.]
—A chill crawled up Grace’s spine.
“……H-Hrk—!”
Grace’s knees gave way.