Chapter 83: The Path of the Castle Lord (2)
Chapter 83: The Path of the Castle Lord (2)
Eugene and Varda pressed their palms against the stone wall.
"As Varda-nim described it, this castle is like one enormous fish."
The two mages could feel Otherworldly energy flowing like blood beneath its stone skin. Varda looked around in wonder.
"A living castle..."
"There is nothing particularly strange about it. Consider holy relics."
The belongings carried in life by saints who performed great miracles could retain powerful mystic force.
"A saint is still only one human being, yet even they can turn an ordinary object into a holy relic."
Eugene looked up at the ceiling, or rather, at the sky that lay beyond it.
"Then how much mystic force might dwell in a castle that sailed through the world beyond—the place from which monks and ascetics receive the power of miracles—and returned?"
"Do not speak such words before priests. They would surely take great offense."
Eugene's hypothesis came from the knowledge of witches, and from the sort that profaned the sanctity of faith.
Faithless mages might accept it as an academic curiosity, but priests would erupt like volcanoes the moment they heard it.
"Still, it's a plausible hypothesis. The underlying principle should be much the same. Thinking of it that way really is a shame, though."
"What do you mean?"
"If it had to go somewhere, it would have been better if it had visited a place like heaven. Then it might have returned as something capable of blessing the whole world."
"..."
The words Varda spoke with a wry smile were far too weighty to dismiss as a mere joke.
THUMP!
At that moment, the castle's pulse traveled through Eugene's palm and linked with his heart.
The two merged without the slightest discord, as though a severed circuit had finally been reconnected.
Was it because Eugene wielded the power of the Otherworld more intensely than anyone else?
Just as Marbas had been drawn to the Wandering Castle as if bewitched, the castle itself yearned for Eugene.
"Let's get moving. It's time to find whoever dragged us in here without permission and demand an explanation."
"Can you find the way?"
"No problem."
With only a little concentration, Eugene could trace the wellspring of the mystic force flowing through the castle. Following it was easy.
"If it could bring us in, it should be able to send us back out. It seems capable of conversation, so I'll negotiate with it."
"Your opponent is an immense mystical being inhabiting a castle of this scale, yet you don't seem afraid at all."
"What would be the point of asking whether I'm afraid when it has to be done?"
Charging into what had to be done and facing the fear of death along the way—those were things Eugene had trained for all his life, across both of his lives.
Eugene grasped the opening mechanism beside the stone door. There was no reason to conceal it from the inside, so it stood plainly exposed.
CLICK.
When he pulled the mechanism, the massive stone door opened with a surprisingly quiet sound, revealing the corridor beyond.
Ssssh.
Eugene drew Last Autumn and took the lead beside Homi, who carried her military hammer.
At the front, Eugene strode forward without hesitation. Everything felt familiar, as though he had lived here for decades.
Whenever he touched the castle wall, he could sense what occupied the nearby spaces as if he had become part of the castle itself.
"This way."
Thanks to that, he could choose the best route while avoiding potential enemies roaming inside.
Of course, no matter how well the route was planned, moving without a single battle was impossible.
Grrrk—!
Grrrrr—.
The enemies they encountered were not monsters of any kind normally seen on the surface. They were far more sinister than undead such as the living armor they had fought when they first arrived.
They were roughly human-sized and walked on two legs, but had no body hair. Horns sprouted from their foreheads and scalps, and their skin was as dry as a mummy's.
Their faces were best compared to skulls. Their sunken eyes gleamed with pure evil, and each of the dozens of irregular teeth crowding their mouths resembled a wolf's fang.
"Demons."
Varda spoke with a trembling voice.
No matter how dangerous or evil goblins, orcs, trolls, ogres, and other monsters were, they were still creatures of the mortal world—beings that embodied the world's darkness without rejecting the order of nature.
Demons, by contrast, were born and lived in the Otherworld, rejecting even the natural order. They were enemies of everything belonging to the mortal world, crystallizations of pure evil.
They were probably stowaways from the Wandering Castle's long voyage, which had pierced even through hell.
"Are they more dangerous than a wendigo?"
"No. Their evil is purer and denser, but their combat strength doesn't come close to a wendigo's."
"Then that's fine."
Eugene kicked off the ground and charged.
A lightning-fast assault!
As Last Autumn's Etherje blade traced a silver arc, the lead demon's head flew off and black blood erupted.
Another demon leaped over its slowly collapsing kin and lunged at Eugene.
SHNK!
The point of Eugene's thrust pierced straight through the demon's forehead.
He kicked the dead demon in the abdomen. With a wet burst, the corpse flew backward into another demon and sent both tumbling.
GRRRRR—!
The demons did not flinch in the face of such overwhelming destructive violence.
For the living, death and the afterlife waiting beyond it were the ultimate terror. To demons, both were as familiar as home.
Fortunately, Eugene's party was capable of handling enemies that attacked with no regard for their own survival.
CRACK!
A demon collapsed with its skull shattered by Homi's military hammer.
Homi could not quite match Eugene in brute strength, but she still stood well beyond ordinary human limits. Even vicious demons had no way to withstand her blows.
This time, Varda also fought as a combatant rather than someone who needed protection.
"You don't need to protect me. I'll stand beside you and fight too."
She drew the wooden sword that hung at her waist.
Fighting demons with a wooden sword might have looked ridiculous, but in truth it was a terrifying weapon.
Dozens of small thorny vines were twined around Varda's wooden sword.
"To those who do not fear death, pain worse than death!"
When Varda thrust the wooden sword, one of the coiled thorny vines grew at tremendous speed and shot out like a net.
The demon that had been about to lunge at Homi was caught completely off guard and bound from head to toe.
The result was horrific.
SKREEEEE—!
Even a demon let out a hideous scream as the thorny net tore its entire body apart.
Meanwhile, Eugene charged into the middle of them and ran rampant, whipping up a storm of blood in every direction.
Homi and Varda stood shoulder to shoulder, dealing with the few demons that broke away from the main group.
Varda's movement and stance were excellent, suggesting she had received formal sword training at some point.
Naturally she was no match for a true knight, but she did not need to strike an opponent's body directly with her blade.
GRAB!
A demon grabbed the wooden sword Varda swung.
Thinking it had neutralized her weapon, the creature grinned viciously—then immediately began to scream.
The thorny vines around the wooden sword slithered up the demon's arm like snakes and spread across its body.
The demon tore away several vines with its beastlike grip, mangling its own hands in the process.
CRUNCH!
After writhing among the thorns, the creature took a kick from Homi that shattered its jaw, twisted its neck around, and killed it.
Varda took a seed from inside her clothes, pressed it against the wooden sword as though loading a weapon, and chanted a spell. New thorny vines grew over the blade.
At the sight, even demons that should have known no fear hesitated for an instant.
Pain.
The one law that held true across every race and every dimension. Even demons that laughed at death and fear could not disregard pain.
"Excellent."
The demons that had faltered in their charge were cut down in an instant by Eugene's rapidly approaching blade.
When the battle ended, the once-elegant corridor was a complete mess.
Even the magical lamps were so splattered with demon blood that their light had grown dim.
Once there was no sign of anything else approaching, Eugene led the group to a room farther away and locked the door.
"Is anyone injured?"
"Homi and I are fine. You're the one who overdid it."
Eugene slumped down and caught his breath.
Demons combined the cunning and toughness of monsters with the reckless disregard for life and death of the undead.
They attacked with sturdy bodies and a hunger for slaughter, yet never cowered or fled even before someone stronger.
Even for Eugene, killing most of such monsters while holding the front was exhausting.
"Have you learned swordsmanship before? Your form was very solid."
"Only as part of my education."
In Roman, it was not uncommon for noblewomen to choose the path of the knight.
As a result, there was nothing strange about noblewomen learning and practicing swordsmanship instead of embroidery as part of their education.
"I'm not skilled enough to fight with live steel. I don't have the resolve to carve into another person's flesh, either."
Real combat required not only strength and skill, but the resolve to kill.
A lack of that resolve was one reason kindhearted warriors died or were wounded in their first real battle.
Freezing after feeling your blade pierce another person, then losing your life because of that hesitation, was more common than one might think.
"Varda-nim, you don't really need to cross blades with someone directly anyway."
Eugene recalled the thorned vines that had displayed such fearsome power in the fight against the demons.
She could launch the vines at range with a thrust, and at close quarters an opponent could not safely bind weapons with her at all.
"I disliked the idea that a forest mage was helpless in close combat. There were people who tried to exploit that weakness, too. I needed some way to protect myself in an emergency."
"Is it a spell you developed yourself?"
"The thorn-vine spell itself has been passed down for generations. I'm the one who devised loading it into a weapon and triggering it quickly like this."
Varda paused for a moment and gauged Eugene's reaction.
"It's so cruel that I wanted to avoid using it if I could. But this isn't the time for such weak thoughts."
"Far from cruel. It was magnificent."
Homi nodded vigorously beside him as well.
Both knight and squire were thorough pragmatists. Varda's technique inspired awe in them, not the slightest disappointment.
"Thank you both for saying so."
Varda smiled as she stroked Homi's head.
"How about sparring with me from time to time?"
"You would teach me yourself?"
"For exercise. Wouldn't it be interesting to work together on a sword style designed specifically to get the most out of those thorny vines?"
"A specialized style suited to them certainly would be more efficient than ordinary swordsmanship."
Varda gladly accepted Eugene's suggestion.
They were still trapped in the Wandering Castle, undeniably in danger. Yet talking about their future like this did not feel fanciful at all.
They shared a strong belief that the three of them together could overcome any crisis.
After getting enough rest, Eugene's party moved forward again.
After several more battles, all easier than the one before, they finally reached their destination.
"I know this place."
Eugene stopped before a place he had seen once in his dream. It was the largest and most ornately decorated door he had seen yet.
"In my dream, I went through here and nearly ended up bound. Varda-nim saved me."
"The room with the vast hall and the resplendent throne you mentioned?"
"Yes."
The source of the mystic force flowing through the castle lay beyond that door.
Eugene gripped his sword tightly and looked at Varda and Homi. They nodded back at him.
When Eugene pushed the door, it opened without a sound.
The vast hall beyond, the throne at its far end, even the countless skulls scattered across the floor—everything was exactly as it had been in his dream.
And the moment Eugene stepped into the hall, he understood at once why the castle had yearned for him so desperately.
[The flesh shall require a soul.]
The throne whispered to Eugene.
At the end of a journey that transcended even time and space, the Wandering Castle had transformed into a single living being.
Yet even though it could fill itself with blood and flesh, it could not obtain a soul on its own.
That was why it yearned for a master who had undergone the same experience it had.
[I am filled with flesh, yet empty.]
The castle's words were not the will of a being that possessed a soul.
They were merely the instinctive echoes of a lump of flesh—a soulless body that did nothing more than pulse.
Like a stomach growling when hungry, an erection caused by sexual stimulation, or skin breaking out in goosebumps from the cold.
[I pulse, yet I grow cold.]
The castle wanted an equal soul, one that, like itself, had fought its way through hell.
By accepting such a master, it could finally become a complete being with both body and soul.
That was what the Wandering Castle yearned for.