Bone and Ash
I was moving forward only because I’d been shoved into it.
Clinging to the hope that if I kept falling like this, I’d eventually escape somehow.
Even if I was plunging into hell instead of climbing toward heaven, in the end I’d still be able to get out of this world.
Besides, by tomorrow the rumor that I’d killed a student would have spread all over the academy.
So it was better to move now.
For whatever reason, if some bastard who’d murdered a student on campus called for help, I had a feeling nobody would want to cooperate.
There were seven students listed on the roster.
One of them was dead, and two of the others didn’t seem to be much of a problem.
At least, that was my impression.
As for the remaining four, after asking around, I found out they were taking the same class.
Apparently they’d formed a group in the swordsmanship department and were training together; they seemed to be fairly close, too.
Well, when you were forced to live among nothing but humans, while being discriminated against and told you could never become a knight or anything like it, of course you’d end up getting close.
It had been the same on the front lines.
In a place where there was nothing but things to kill, the bastard at your side was everything.
I waited until class ended.
Smoking a couple of cigarettes, I sat on a stone bench near the training grounds and looked up at the drifting clouds.
The afternoon sun lay long and warm across the stone.
Eventually the bell rang, and the students came out wiping sweat from their brows or chattering with friends as they headed off somewhere.
A few stayed behind and kept training.
Either way, I walked up to the four of them and called each name one by one.
At first they looked at me like I was some unpleasant human nobody wanted to deal with, but once I introduced myself as Rihen Grayan, newly appointed, they seemed to recognize who I was and flinched.
"What brings the professor all the way out here?"
The student who seemed to be the leader stepped forward and spoke, while the others hung back behind him.
He had a calm voice, at least on the surface, but his eyes were clearly shaking.
He looked scared.
"Don’t you know?"
"...Know what?"
"The Church sent me. Well, I thought we might have a little chat, so come along."
The four exchanged looks, then finally followed me.
I’d half expected them to tell me to go fuck myself and walk away, but they didn’t.
As we walked down the corridor, I could hear their footsteps behind me.
They were muttering to one another in low voices, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Didn’t care to hear it, either.
Anyway, when I opened the door to the professor’s office and stepped inside, the stink of blood hit me all at once.
Right. I’d left the corpse in there.
I kept walking without caring, but the students coming in behind me stopped dead.
One of them let out a scream when he saw the body on the floor, its head split open.
The blood had already turned dark and congealed.
I went over to the student who had collapsed and grabbed his arm, pulling him to his feet.
His trembling arm was cold in my hand.
"There aren’t many chairs, but for now, come in and sit down."
The one who seemed to be the leader looked at me with taut, wary eyes and opened his mouth.
"Th-that thing…"
"A heretic."
I jerked my chin toward the corpse.
I’d still had the cigarette in my mouth when I spoke, so the smoke slipped out with the words.
"I didn’t exactly want to go this far, but His Holiness wanted it done, so what choice did I have?"
"......We heard. That some among our kind were causing trouble, worshipping old gods. I suppose that’s why you brought us here, too. Because we’re not human."
"How would I know whether you’re a heretic or not? Still, if you know anything, I’d appreciate you telling me. You wouldn’t want to go through something unfortunate like that friend of yours, would you?"
The student’s eyes held no fear at all.
"We know how the Empire sees us. I don’t really know anything, but... if you doubt us, please know that I’m willing to show you whatever you want."
His voice was trembling badly, but he was more composed than I’d expected, so I didn’t answer.
Maybe he really was innocent.
He looked a hell of a lot better than the humans who’d happily cut down an innocent man like me.
Living as Rihen Grayan, and yet wanting nothing to do with Rihen while killing girls left and right—yeah, that wasn’t normal.
No, it wasn’t normal.
Maybe in a fucked-up world like this, being a fuck-up was the most reasonable thing there was.
Anyway, while I was still thinking about how to answer him, a dagger came flying in from the doorway.
I blocked it, though it pierced my palm.
The one who’d thrown the blade at me was the demi-human who’d been hesitating behind the student now standing proudly in front of me.
One of them looked startled and backed into a corner, while the bastard who’d thrown the dagger drew the weapon at his waist.
And the last one pulled out a staff and began chanting under his breath.
The sensation of the blade ripping through flesh spread hot and delayed through my hand.
Blood ran down between my fingers and dripped to the floor, forming a fresh stain.
The student who’d just said he wasn’t afraid looked utterly stunned by the dagger attack, which made me think he probably wasn’t a heretic after all.
He didn’t even look like he’d considered drawing a weapon.
Yeah. I’d figured there might be at least one like that.
Honestly, it was more satisfying when they came at me like this.
It was a damn sight easier than guessing wrong and accidentally killing the wrong person myself, while they were all trying to kill me too.
I yanked the dagger out of my palm and flung it to the floor.
Blood on the blade drew a single red line as it fell.
Then again, chanting... a spell, huh.
While I was wondering how to avoid it, the answer came fast enough.
It was what I always did.
I got to my feet, grabbed the friend in front of me by the hair, and shoved him out in front of me like a meat shield.
The other two, probably because they were from the same race, couldn’t bring themselves to attack recklessly.
They weren’t going to kill him, right? You weren’t humans, after all.
From an angle they couldn’t see well, I drew my knife and whispered to the student I was holding, “Just hold still and you won’t die.”
Then I stabbed him somewhere in the back that wouldn’t kill him, gave him a hard shove forward, and sent him flying.
The student screamed as he was hurled ahead, blood seeping through his back, but he wouldn’t die.
Instead of standing around fencing in here, if I’d studied medicine somewhere, I probably would’ve made a killing.
Thanks to these damn priests, there wasn’t even a need for surgeons.
I caught the student I’d thrown, then sprang toward the bastard who’d lost his sword.
I smashed his face with my knee, caught his head with both hands, and used the momentum as he fell to slam the back of his skull into the floor.
Something cracked wetly.
The vibration that traveled up through my palm ran all the way into my forearm.
Demi-humans were tough, so he wouldn’t die.
The ones I’d met on the front line had fought on even with their faces caved in and the backs of their heads crushed.
When I stood back up, the last one was aiming his staff at me, grinding his teeth as he spat, "You disgusting butcher, just die."
The spell was forming perfectly at the tip of the staff.
Didn’t they teach people here the common sense that you shouldn’t fire off a spell from that close?
I sliced his wrist and twisted the staff’s aim aside, then drove a kick into his solar plexus.
The condensed burst of light flew off somewhere, but at least it wasn’t flying at me.
After the one I’d sent flying ricocheted into the corridor along with the shattered door, I kicked him once more and stepped hard on his slashed wrist.
Blood spread across the floor, mixed with his scream.
And your number is— I started to say, then let the words trail off.
There were four of them. This wasn’t a battlefield.
I grabbed the hair of the elf mage sprawled on the floor and was about to cut his throat.
And then, just as the blade drew near—
"M-mom, ah, o-oh, m-mom... ah..."
At the sound, I stopped.
I stood there with the knife raised for a long moment, then finally dragged him by the hair and tossed him back into the professor’s office.
A long streak of blood was left across the corridor floor.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Without even thinking to wipe the blood from my body, I walked down the corridor.
The wound in my palm was still bleeding a little, but the pain had already gone dull.
My shadow stretched long against the wall.
For now, I headed toward where the priest was.
Today, too, the priest was tending herbs in a surprisingly peaceful mood.
I opened the door without knocking, walked over to the chair, and tossed out, "Pour me a cup of tea, will you?"
The priest startled when he saw the blood on my clothes and asked, "Y-you’re hurt?"
"Just nicked my hand."
I took the tea he brought me and drank it.
The warmth spreading over my lips strangely felt far away.
"There are two students in the professor’s office who are badly hurt. Those two are heretics, and the others... well, I suppose you can handle them however you like."
The priest stared at me like he’d lost the ability to speak, then treated the wound in my hand.
"And please tell His Holiness that I’ve finished everything he asked me to do. He’s far too busy for me to see him in person, isn’t he?"
The priest nodded, answered me, and then told me to rest here for a bit before leading the others away somewhere.
As for the corpse and whatever else, they’d handle all of it themselves.
That was what they’d been brought in to do in the first place.
Left alone in the room, I took another sip of the cooling tea.
Outside the window, the afternoon sun was already tilting low.
What had I wanted to do? What had I been trying to do?
What kind of life was a man supposed to live when he was alive only because he couldn’t die?
Why the hell... couldn’t I just die whenever I wanted?
The sound of the elf mage’s voice—the one calling for his mother when I’d held the knife to his throat—kept echoing in my ears.
I’d figured there was nothing to gain by planting myself in the capital any longer.
And the reason I’d come here in the first place had been cut apart by my own hand long ago, so I stood up.
I was just going to leave.
In the end, as long as I had a single sword, it wouldn’t matter where I went.