Variables (1)
December — the month when the train called a year drew near its final stop. A fresh snowfall the night before had left the air bitingly cold, while downtown, a lavish party was in full swing.
Even at the serene estate of the Hoover family, kilometers away from the city center, that festive atmosphere made itself plainly felt. Boom! Bang! Boom-boom-boom! The sound of fireworks bursting over the forest of skyscrapers in downtown Varan carried all the way out here.
"The security cameras?"
"We've shut them down."
Omar, head of the Omar Mercenary Office, glanced down at his wristwatch as he listened to his subordinate's report. 10:00:23. A perfect start.
"You have five hours. Steal the encrypted data within that time."
"Yes, sir!"
Varan City had no lords, and even the nobility were strictly forbidden from keeping private soldiers. In other words, every time armed conflict broke out — as it had tonight — they had no choice but to hire mercenaries. Marc Sweet had scraped together no fewer than a hundred and fifty-two of them for this day alone. Most were 1st or 2nd level, but thirty were 3rd level, and an impressive ten had reached 4th.
The problem is…
…that the mercenaries hired today weren't his alone. Omar turned his head and frowned.
"Samuel. Where do you think you're going?"
"You said the cameras are down, didn't you? What's with all the dithering?"
"I've drawn up an operation. I'd like you to follow it."
"Tch. Talking like you're already the commander. We're moving on our own — remember that."
"Then it seems the decision's been made. The Jackson Mercenary Office will act independently as well."
"…"
It was chaos bordering on shambles — the inevitable result of hiring several mercenary offices all at once. His nearby subordinates glared at the other leaders and pressed him.
"We're the ones who shut down the cameras, and they dare move before us?"
"Director, shouldn't we whip this rabble into shape first?"
"…No. Forget it."
Omar let out a heavy sigh and shook his head. He had expected this from the very beginning.
"If the two sides' forces were anywhere near equal, I'd have stepped in. But the gap is simply too wide."
The enemy's entire strength amounted to four 4th-level mercenaries and two mages from the White Tower. Because Marc Sweet had leaned on every mercenary office in the city, none of them had been able to hire properly.
And the employer's daughter has even put a bounty of 300,000 bells per head on the mages…
Competition like this had perhaps been written in the stars from the start. A subordinate beside him urged him on.
"Director, let's move before we fall behind. At this rate, all we'll do is clear the road for someone else."
"…Right. Let's go."
What greeted the mercenaries who breached the Hoover family's private grounds was a forest blanketed in deep snow.
"Run for the estate, and kill every trace of noise as you go."
The other mercenary leaders seemed to be thinking along the same lines. More than a hundred mercenaries raced silently through the darkness-drenched woods. For a while, the only sounds were the wind and the dry rustle of winter leaves.
Click.
"…Huh?"
The mercenary named Bill, convinced he'd just stepped on some kind of bug, turned to look back — and at that instant, a searing heat flared around his ankle.
Huh? Huh?
The world tilted diagonally, and his body pitched forward. Thud! Humiliation seized him before the question of why he'd fallen ever did. Ears burning crimson, Bill slapped his palms against the frozen ground and tried to push himself up —
"Aaaaaaagh!"
An agony beyond the reach of words came screaming up from his ankle. Only then did Bill realize his own foot had been severed clean off, and he vomited out a howl.
That was the beginning.
"My—my ankle! My ankle!"
"It hurts, it hurts so much…!"
"Goddammit! The forest is mined!"
Mercenaries with severed ankles writhed across the ground, each screaming their own agony. Cold sweat ran down the backs of the men who watched it happen mere steps away — because if they had walked just a few paces farther, they would be the ones lying there.
This mood is bad.
Morale's cratering before the fight's even begun.
The sharper-eyed mercenary directors were quick to open their mouths.
"Everyone, watch the ground as you move! Do that and you'll be perfectly fine!"
"If you step on a mine, hold still until one of your comrades disarms it. They're nothing-special magic traps."
"There's no need to rush in the first place. We have time to spare — all we have to do is reach the estate slow and…"
Twang!
At that moment, Director Jackson — the loudest voice of them all — dropped like a snapped string.
"…Director? Director!"
As his subordinate rushed over and shone a flashlight, a face with a hole drilled through the forehead stared back.
"He's— he's dead."
Before the death of the 4th-level mercenary Jackson could even register with the others — click, click! — magic mines sprang from the ground one after another and began hurling Wind Cutters in every direction.
"Damn it! What lunatic is moving in a situation like this?!"
"I said don't lift your foot even if you step on one—! Aaaaargh!"
"No, no — this isn't from us stepping on them!"
Traps they hadn't come anywhere near were rising out of the ground and detonating on their own. Which meant the enemy could trigger the mines remotely. The moment the mercenary directors grasped that fact, they screamed in unison.
"Run, you bastards! Get the hell out of this shit-filled forest, fast!"
"Keep cover between you and wherever the shots come from! That way they can't pin down our posi— ghk!"
Wind Mine after Wind Mine detonated relentlessly on all sides — and threading through the chaos, one long-range shot at a time, came sniping from far beyond the trees. Panicked, the mercenaries stopped looking back at anything and simply bolted toward the distant mansion, a pinprick of light in the dark.
"…Running that recklessly through a forest."
And the thing that clung to their heads like a ghost was —
"That's basically asking me to kill you."
— the warrior of the forest, Kilian Lockwood.
"Hah… hnngh."
Crouched behind a massive tree, the 3rd-level mercenary Woody clamped both hands over his mouth. He was bitterly regretting the day he'd taken this contract, lured in by promises of a fat payday.
Goddammit — what happened to overwhelming superiority?
He'd heard the mercenaries bragging about it before the operation and believed every word. But once the lid came off, what did he find? His side was dying one by one without ever landing a real fight. Because this forest was haunted.
"Aaaaaaaaagh!"
BOOM!
At a scream from just a few paces away, Woody simply stopped breathing altogether. The pitiful last words of a dying man circled his ears and chilled him to the marrow. Eyes rolling in terror, he held his breath for what felt like an eternity.
"HAAAH!"
Even after exhaling the air he'd been strangling, he was too paranoid to relax. He clutched his gun tight and darted his eyes around. Did it leave? It must have left, right? He'd held his breath for a solid minute — there was no way the thing was still guarding this spot. Woody worked the problem through, scrounged up a sliver of courage, and slowly rose from his crouch. If he slipped out through the wall while there was a gap, he could be gone before anyone noticed.
Drip. Drip.
Then, several drops of some unknown liquid struck his face. Water? Melted snow dripping down? But no snow could melt in cold like this. Instinct tipped Woody's head back — and he screamed.
"AAAAAAAAGH!"
A ghost, crouched atop a bare tree branch directly above him. Its beast-like red eyes flared wide as it glanced down at its own glove — blood dripping from it in slow, fat beads — and murmured.
"Ah, don't worry. It's not my blood."
"Who the hell is worried about that — DIE, you damn ghost!"
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Woody's machine gun roared fire, and the ghost did not dodge. No — it would be more accurate to say it never found a reason to. The storm of bullets he unleashed couldn't punch through so much as the mana-reinforced fabric of the man's coat.
"You know what I personally can't stand?"
Ting-ting! Tititing!
"The smell of gunpowder in a sacred forest."
That was the last thing Woody ever heard.
His eyes burning hot, Oscar shut them for a moment and rested. It was the toll of casting Thermal Detection on his own eyes to pick out the enemies hiding in the forest.
Man, this thing devours mana like there's no tomorrow.
Wind Bullet, hastily adapted for ultra-long-range sniping — Wind Sniping. Its effectiveness was beyond question; the single flaw was that each shot burned through five percent of his mana. In its current state it lacked practicality, though it would be worth revisiting after some proper refinement later. Still, all things considered…
For a combat debut, this performance was more than satisfying. Wind Mine — the trap that had once earned him the name "Ankle Collector" in his past life — and Wind Sniping, between them. Those two techniques alone had neutralized a staggering sixty-seven enemies.
And three of them were 4th-level mercenaries, no less.
Perched on a convenient boulder, Oscar wet his lips. "Scan."
At once an overhead map of the forest bloomed before him, marking the enemy positions in painstaking detail. So that's Kilian, and those are our allied mercenaries. They were sweeping up every exhausted, terror-driven enemy they came across. At last, the dwindled force — down to fifty in what felt like the blink of an eye — turned and began fleeing in the opposite direction.
That's that.
Only three 4th-level mercenaries remained, and their once-teeming numbers had been cut to a third. There was no option in their heads for regrouping and coming back. Thinking the battle had ended far more easily than he'd anticipated, Oscar rose from his seat —
"…Hm?"
The mercenaries who had made it to the front gate were now sprinting back toward him at more than double the speed they'd fled. Straight toward the mansion he was standing in.
What on earth—?
They'd been through all that in the forest and their minds hadn't broken? Was the money truly that desperate? No — that's not even the issue. Men this exhausted simply could not run that fast. It defied reason.
"…"
Oscar's brow furrowed. He pulled his gaze from the overhead map and stared out toward the far entrance of the private estate. Something was lurking there — a variable he had failed to account for.
Kilian Lockwood closed his eyes and drew a slow breath. That alone was enough — information about the forest flooded in, detailed to the last root.
The smell of gunpowder's gone. They've all run, then.
It had been a long night, or a short one, depending on how you counted. Over two full hours of chasing and cutting down enemies.
"Mr. Kilian!"
"Ah. You two made it."
Two of the allied mercenaries who had been tightening the encirclement came running up. The other two were back at the mansion running close-protection duty for Jake, so they hadn't joined them here.
"We did it, sir!"
"Four of us driving off a hundred and fifty-plus enemies — this is a historic victory that'll go down in the record books!"
He could understand their excitement. He himself had braced for a genuinely punishing fight. If Oscar hadn't preempted everything with his traps, it would have been far uglier.
"Hm-hm."
Deciding the mood was rather pleasant just now, Kilian felt the corner of his mouth curl upward.
"That weapon of yours looks decent."
"Sh-shall I give it to you?"
"…Hm. No need."
He was definitely smiling that time… So what had gone wrong now? He was still pondering it in earnest when —
Sniff. Sniff-sniff.
His head snapped to one side. The acrid smell of gunpowder.
"…They got beaten that badly and still haven't learned their lesson?"
"Wh-what? You really want it?"
"Forget the weapon. Ready for combat — the enemy's coming back in force."
Kilian fixed his gaze on the darkness beyond the trees, where figures were approaching.
"Grrrrh… grrrrrrh."
"GRRAAAAAAH!"
They came on spitting groans and screams — and something in between. Eyes rolled back to show only whites, drool running freely from their mouths.
Are they on drugs or something?
Frowning, Kilian drove a low kick straight into the oncoming mercenary. The kick shattered one knee with force to spare, then smashed the other as well.
"GRAAAAAGH!"
"…?"
The collapsed mercenary clawed at the earth with broken fingernails and crawled forward — and finally seized Kilian by the ankle. Then it thrust its head toward his leg and tried to sink its teeth in.
"Remove yourself."
Crunch.
A kick to the jaw knocked it out cold, and yet the thing still came crawling after him across the ground, sluggish but relentless.
"…"
Kilian's face went rigid.
This was a technique that stripped its target of all reason and remade them into a madman who knew nothing but combat. The only way a third party could stop such creatures was to grant them eternal rest.
I'm certain. It's the same technique the traitor used on the tribe chief.
Deeply unpleasant scenes surfaced in his mind. The sight of Forest Tribe warriors weeping tears of blood, all at once. The memory of that night when he'd been forced to deliver a dishonorable death to the chief of the Forest Tribe — the bravest warrior of them all.
"GRAAAAGH! H-help! Help me!"
"Something's wrong with these— AAAAH!"
The allied mercenaries were calling for support. He was just about to break away and help them —
— when an indescribably chilling wave of mana washed over his back. And riding on top of it, a voice as cheerful as the dread was cold, and it pinned his feet in place.
"It's been a while. Four years or so, I'd say?"
It was a voice grown a little unfamiliar now, yet still vivid in his memory — a brand seared into him that had never faded. Kilian turned slowly, and with eyes simmering with fury, glared at the one who stood there.
"…Kaya Lockwood."
There she stood — the worst traitor in the history of the Forest Tribe, returning to him after four long years. His own sister.