Explosion (5)

Ahin was a man whose very nature had never been suited to a support role. How was someone so hot-blooded, so impulsive, so utterly without a plan supposed to carry out a healer's duties? A wide field of vision was a thing he would never possess, and composure was a quality you could hunt for in him until the end of time without turning up a scrap.

The fact that I've held back this much is already something to be proud of.

So a certain man praised himself.

"Ahin!"

"You idiot, what are you doing?!"

Contrary to that generous self-assessment, there were people watching him step forward who very nearly had heart attacks — namely his companions, Er and Jina. The two of them knew his nature well enough that, to their eyes, what he was doing looked like nothing short of suicide.

He snatched a sword off the floor and let a wash of gold bleed down the blade.

"What does it look like? I'm gonna catch that bastard and beat the hell out of him."

"What the hell are you talking about all of a sudden?! You—"

"Look at that fat bastard. Mana's pouring off him like stink off a hog. It's soaked all the way into his body — you can't peel it off. Hit him from the outside and the mana'll just tank it. So…"

In a voice of reason that did not remotely suit him, Ahin laid out the method he had come up with.

"You've got to drive it in. Straight into his body."

"What kind of nonsense is that even supposed to—"

"A-Ahin?! You can't mean…"

Jina's brow furrowed in incomprehension. Er, on the other hand, seemed to have already guessed, and the color drained from her face.

"You're going to fight him yourself? That's insane — have you lost your mind?!"

"You two already lost your weapons! If you fight him like that, your bodies will break before his does. So…!"

"Ahin!!"

In that instant he cut the argument short, tossing her the shield he had been handed earlier.

"Bare skin can't touch him. The mana will eat you alive and rot you where you stand! So… I'll do it!"

That was when it happened.

The bandit boss, having gathered back the black aura that Ahin's light had burned away, let out a monstrous howl and came charging.

"—That ■■measly ■■power■■!!!"

A simple but devastating downward smash. The rust-eaten saber slammed into the floor in a motion that had been repeated countless times, and in that same instant Ahin stepped back. The margin was a single, precarious pace. Having slipped a blow that would have split his skull clean in two by that hair's breadth, Ahin dropped his stance at once and swept his sword in a clean, straight line — or so it seemed.

Thud!

A dull, heavy impact. The blade failed to pierce the boss's leg and stopped dead.

It was not that the strike lacked force. Just as Ahin had said, the light he had poured into the sword glittered razor-sharp and opened a wound in the man's skin. The reason the blade went no further was painfully clear.

He simply did not have the strength.

He had never skipped physical training, or so he had believed. Physical conditioning and the completeness of one's swordsmanship, it turned out, had nothing to do with each other.

"You've barely picked up a sword in years. Of course that wasn't going to work…"

Jina's muttered assessment carried easily to Er beside her.

"Th-then isn't that dangerous?!"

"That's what I'm saying! That idiot's gotten himself all worked up again with no plan whatsoever…! The swagger's soaked all the way into his bones!!"

They should have known. Ahin's idea of "having a plan" converged, asymptotically, on having no plan at all. The problem was that they had been briefly taken in by the combination of his fury and that insufferable self-confidence.

"Krahhh■■aa■■!"

"This bastard… is he laughing at me?"

The boss had realized the attack was no true threat. His eyes flushed red and a laugh tore out of him, and that was more than enough to set Ahin's temper on fire. A single exchange had been enough for Ahin to feel just how dull he had become — but that was not what mattered to him now.

All that mattered was the rage that did not care what happened to his own body, the raw resolve to take that son of a bitch's head no matter what it cost. It showed in the way he moved: violent, and without a single glance back.

"Eat this, you bastard…!!"

Having accepted that the sword would do him no good as a sword, Ahin crammed it full of divine power and hurled it. It was a simple throw, unrelated to any swordsmanship, and for that reason it flew faster and truer than expected, streaking straight for the boss's brow. But his opponent was not so obliging as to simply stand there and take it. The saber swept up lightly — and the instant it smashed the flying blade aside, the divine power Ahin had poured into the sword with everything he had detonated.

The sword shattered into fragments that punched into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the walls and the floor. For a single heartbeat the boss threw up an arm to shield himself from the shrapnel.

WHAM!!!

A dull crash of impact, and the boss's waist folded sharply. The reason was simple. Ahin, light coiled around his entire body, had driven his shoulder into the man, and the boss, his center of gravity stolen, staggered. An attack of that caliber would not normally have moved him an inch. The problem was the light wrapped around Ahin.

"■Aa■■■agh!!!"

"I knew it…!"

Black mana erupted from the bandit boss's body. It looked like a suit of black armor, and it could corrode and turn aside nearly anything under heaven — but there was one thing it could not stop.

The light a certain man poured out, a light that looked like sunlight. No darkness, however deep, could blot that light out.

Seizing the moment the man reeled, Ahin drove his heel into the boss's shin and snarled, his voice running hot.

"Just go down already…!!"

"■■■Aaaargh■■■■!"

A roar mottled with rage and pain, and the saber came whipping around. Ahin bent at the waist to let the blade hiss past his throat, then snapped a kick out in the same motion. Everything he was aiming for was around the man's legs. The foot he uncoiled with a flexible arch of his back smashed into the boss's shin, and Ahin's light poured in after it.

"Die■■■!!!"

"Bullshit. I'm not the one dying here!"

He shouted it and hammered the shin again. But the boss had no intention of simply standing there and taking it any longer. Perhaps he had realized that ordinary swings did nothing to someone as light on his feet as Ahin. The saber that had been carving a wide arc toward Ahin's neck changed direction with vicious suddenness and cut for his waist instead — a heavy blow that would have sheared him in half if his focus had slipped for even a heartbeat. Ahin threw himself aside, hit the ground, rolled twice, and was on his feet and charging again the instant he came up.

One clean hit would shatter Ahin. Several hits would barely scratch the bandit boss. And while the two of them tore at each other without pause, Er and Jina were watching, waiting for their opening.

"Ahin's at a disadvantage because of the weapons."

"He doesn't have the skill to close a range gap like that, so we have to help him with it."

Separate from how surprisingly well Ahin was holding his own, they needed to neutralize the saber in the bandit boss's hand. He was slipping the blows for now, quick and sharp — but there was no telling how long that would last. The fact that he was only holding on was the problem to begin with. He kept throwing attacks, and they barely did anything. His stamina would keep bleeding away, and the moment he could no longer even dodge properly…

"…Jina, let's work together. I'll block with the shield. You take the opening."

"Think you can block it?"

"…We'll have to try."

Er had given her shield to Ahin, which had made defending herself while facing an enemy no easy thing. She had no sword now, which made attacking difficult — but using the shield to catch the bandit boss's blade should still be possible. Jina, who fought with her body, would make up the missing offense. All they needed was to create a single opening.

"Ah, for crying out loud…!"

If they had not lost their weapons, this would have been something they could have finished cleanly, even if it took a little longer. If he had simply blessed them and given them enough divine power to punch through the mana wreathed around the enemy, they could have managed it, given time. Instead their weapons had broken, and that was how Ahin had ended up having to step forward himself.

"If we just wait for someone else to show up…!"

"…And expose every last one of Ahin's abilities?"

Er said it with a bitter look, her eyes on the fight.

"That's a separate issue. Ahin hasn't been able to do a single thing lately. He even went so far as to call himself dead weight."

"It couldn't be helped. That was the best we could do. Anything else would've been too dangerous."

"Even if it was the best option, that doesn't mean his heart went along with it. Especially this time… his family was taken. He must have been climbing the walls. In the end, there was nothing he could do."

The feeling of having your hands and feet cut off. If anyone in the world understood that, it was Er. Your family captured, and a reality in which you could do nothing at all. If anyone understood that — it was her, more than anyone.

"So we help him. Once Ahin's head cools down, he'll realize just how reckless this was."

"I swear, I can't live like this…!"

Jina said it and began cycling the mana through her body. With her gauntlets shattered, both her defense and her offense had dropped at once, which meant she had to handle her mana with far more precision. The white mana unique to a Holy Knight gathered in her fists, and Er wrapped mana around her shield as well.

Their mana was never going to finish this. Their role was to open the path. Creating a single window for Ahin to drive his divine power into the enemy's body — that was the whole of their purpose.

"■■■You this■■■!!"

The bandit boss's voice had thickened past human speech into something closer to a roar. He smashed the ground in the same breath, aiming for the instant Ahin's body left the earth to dodge. No matter how fast you were, you could not move with nothing to push off. Not unless you had wings — and Ahin did not have wings.

A cruel smile cut across the darkness-wreathed boss's mouth.

"Haaah!!!"

Er burst forward and swung her shield with everything she had.

When she put mana into a sword, she poured all of it into a single purpose: sharpness. What she needed now was the opposite — the solidity to stop a saber swollen with mana. Harder. Sturdier. The shield that had been covering her upper body drank her mana and swelled into a barrier that towered well over her own height. It was a desperate all-in, every last drop of mana she had left slammed into a single play. Even mana that could burn mana and rust weapons solid would not punch through that so easily.

She was right. The saber, caught in her mana, refused to move. The rusted blade hung as if it had been driven into a wall and simply stopped.

"Er…!"

"Jina, now!!"

Ahin's eyes went wide as he found himself shielded. Jina kicked off the wall in a rapid chain, leaving a white trail as she came screaming in. She did not get greedy. An attack of hers would not land properly anyway, and she could not pierce the mana. So she did the one thing she could do.

She would make a weakness.

A fist she had swung a hundred times, driven forward a hundred times. What it was aiming for was the wrist wrapped in black fog, the one locked around the saber. The boss saw her coming — kicking off the wall, then the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ceiling, her fist dropping in a straight line for his wrist — and he did not stand still. His empty hand swept up and caught her punch.

That was not the end of it. Jina had lost her gauntlets a long time ago. Her hands had no defense left.

"Krh■■■ugh, that ■■all■!!!"

A laugh thick with static. The instant her arm collided with the man's fist, the flesh of it burst open and blood sprayed. Bone shifted out of place. Muscle tore. The arm that had touched the black mana twisted at a grotesque angle and produced a pain beyond describing — and still she did not stop.

"Aaaagh…!!!"

A cry wrung out of agony, and Jina kept going. The punch had been a feint from the start. Using nothing but the snap of her hips, she whipped her lower body around through a full turn and drove both heels down.

CRACKKK!!

One person's full body weight, plus every last drop of mana she could wring out. Even wreathed in mana, it was more than enough to break a human wrist. A nauseating sound, and black blood fountained. A wrist ripped away while it was still locked on the saber's hilt should have been a fatal blow all by itself.

"I'll■■kill■■you!!!"

The bandit boss packed the stump with a mass of black fog and, with a roar that sounded like he was coughing up blood, threw a punch. His blackened, dying legs and his shredded arm were no longer doing their jobs. Which meant there was only one person who could save Jina now.

"Aaaah!!!"

Er planted herself in front of Jina with a raw shout, both hands on her shield. A blue barrier unfurled in a single breath. Mana erupted through the shield like an explosion and succeeded in stopping the fist of packed mana the enemy had thrown.

But that was all.

Without even managing a scream, Er's shield shattered. She barely managed to drag Jina into her arms as the two of them hit the ground and rolled.

That was their limit. The best play they could make to underwrite one man's recklessness. Taking that play and finishing it was his job.

Wreathed in mana or not, the boss had just smashed through both of their mana. In the brief stutter of rigidity that followed, Ahin kicked the man's legs out from under him and did not miss the instant the body tipped. He climbed onto the boss's shoulder with brute, ugly force. Scarlet light detonated in the thing's eyes as it tried to tear off whatever had perched on its head, and failed. It howled as the places where Ahin's body touched it began to burn — and through the howling came Ahin's voice, his teeth clenched.

"Damn it. God damn it…!"

He opened the hand he had been keeping closed until that moment. What it held was a fragment of the sword that had shattered against the mana only moments before. He had hidden the largest piece, and the sharp edges had stabbed and sliced his palm to ribbons.

The sight of the blood made what he had done suddenly, viscerally real. He had charged in on a paper-thin plan and gone berserk, and because of that the two of them were badly hurt. It was almost funny. It was not even his own blood — it was someone else's — and that was what finally cleared his head.

What good had charging in so boldly done? He could not even keep a single emotion in check, and he had made a mess of everyone around him.

You pathetic piece of shit.

The curse was aimed at himself. He poured divine power into the scrap of steel until it would take no more. His divine power could burn mana — but that was all it could do. It could burn the mana that hung over the bandit boss's skin like a fog. It could do nothing to the man underneath. So he would use the broken shard of the sword and drive it in himself.

Mana and his divine power were natural opposites. If that kind of energy punched into a body, even a powerful black magician would not be able to endure it. And if the one taking it was just some bandit trash who had been possessed by a bit of mana…

"AAAA■■■AA■■AGH!!!"

The instant the scrap of steel in Ahin's hand punched into the back of the man's skull, the black fog covering the boss's entire body burst apart. It went up in explosions large and small, turning to flame and vanishing, and what was left in its place was only a human being whose skin was rotting off his bones. The presence that had been smashing walls and punching holes in the floor was gone. All that remained was a man howling, blood running off him in sheets.

He began to thrash, unable to bear the pain, and holding that frenzy down with nothing but the strength in Ahin's legs was impossible. The impact of the fall tore a ragged cough out of him. He threw both hands out to catch the mana that came lashing out in every direction. His companions were behind him — the ones he had gotten hurt. He could not give ground.

Red blood dripped from his torn hands. His body, wrung out by the successive use of divine power, would no longer listen. But he had to hold, somehow. So he wrung out his heart and put himself in the way.

Darkness, bursting. A single thin thread of light standing against it. Their struggle ended a little while later.

"Kh…"

The darkness that had been lashing out at random finally receded. The moment he confirmed it, Ahin sat down without meaning to. The bandit boss had been carrying more mana than he had expected. He had meant to set off a tidy little explosion inside the man's body and be done with it. The problem was that it had not stayed inside — it had spilled out into the surroundings. In the end, for all his confident talk, he had not managed to do a single thing properly on his own. How was he supposed to look his companions in the face after—

"Jina! Er!!"

This was no time to drown in pointless self-loathing. The people who had been hurt by his stupidity were lying behind him. He did not have the luxury of wasting himself on that.

He spun around, urgent, and found ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his companions down. Er, who had taken the hit as the mana sheathed around her shield shattered to pieces, had one arm clutched to her and her mouth stained red as if she had coughed up blood. Her face, already fair, looked unnaturally pale — the flow of her mana had been forcibly broken — but Ahin had no choice but to pull his eyes off her and look to the side.

An arm and a leg were dying black. The fist and the hand that had taken the collision directly still had a clump of mana clinging to them, gnawing at Jina's own. Her limbs were withering at a terrifying speed; the only reason they were intact at all was that she was a cleric. If Jina had not had a cleric's resistance to mana, the Er watching her might have had to cut off a companion's arm and leg all over again.

Whether his heart burst or withered down to nothing did not matter. Ahin gathered every last scrap of divine power left in his body and poured it into Jina. His effort was not wasted. Jina, who had been pouring cold sweat and failing to hold onto consciousness, opened her mouth in a voice so small it was barely there.

"A…hin…"

"Don't talk! Save your strength!"

He snapped it in a frantic rush — and Jina, her hand having recovered even a little of its color, reached up, caught him by the nape of the neck, and pulled him down.

"A…hin…"

"…I'm sorry. You can yell at me all you want later, just let me focus on treating—"

"You're not… hurt?"

She had nearly died, and even now she was checking on him. The words died in Ahin's throat. Er, watching his face, spoke carefully.

"Jina, that is not what matters right now. You came close enough that we might have had to take the arm or the leg."

"…I won't let it get that far."

The light flowing from Ahin's body flared brighter. Healing the wounds mattered, but what mattered more was purifying the mana that had soaked into Jina. Perhaps that will of his was what did it.

"…You've got to be kidding me. This isn't the time for jokes."

Ahin bared his teeth at the window describing the skill and reached out. He set his hands on Jina and poured divine power into her. Divine power that would normally have been dumped in as a violent flood followed the path the skill laid down and spread through her body. Jina's expression eased, little by little. As the mana that had been running wild inside her was wiped away, she felt the hideous pain in her hands and feet begin to ebb, and she spoke in a voice wrung dry.

"…I did good though, right? I… gave it everything?"

"What are you even saying right now…"

"You're not going to praise me? I put my life on the line to play along with your stupid stunt."

How was he supposed to tell her no? Jina noticed his hands trembling where they held her arm, his head bowed low, and she smiled, faint and spent.

"…You'll fix them, right? My arm, and my leg."

"Of course… I will. Whatever it takes… I'll…"

"Okay. Then… I'm just going to sleep for a bit…"

Her head tipped, strengthless. Ahin caught it in a rush and shouted.

"Jina! Jina!"

"Calm down, Ahin. She fainted. She must have been in so much pain… it's a miracle she held on this long."

"…"

Ahin closed his mouth at Er's words. He said nothing more after that, silently feeding divine power into Jina, and only stopped the treatment once her hands and feet had returned to a normal color.

He had already been at the limit of his divine power, and on top of that he had treated Jina's critical wounds. The exhaustion rolling over him was enough that collapsing on the spot would not have been strange. But it was not yet time to fall.

"Er, you too…"

"Ahin, could you look at me for a moment?"

He lifted his head at her voice without thinking.

Whump!

"Oof…!"

Er drove her fist into his stomach with everything she had left, then looked down at him as he folded, gagging.

"Don't do reckless things like that. Do you have any idea how terrified Jina and I were?"

"Kh— kack…"

"I understand you had every reason to be furious. But… I need you to understand something. When you're in danger, there are people whose hearts stop in their chests."

"Urgh…"

"…Are you listening, Ahin?"

He was in no condition to listen. Fatigue and impact had stacked in his body to the breaking point, and then he had been punched in the stomach; there was no way he was in his right mind. Even so, clinging to the single conviction that he must not pass out now, he held onto consciousness through the choking and managed to speak.

"S-sor…"

"…We'll talk properly later. First, we deal with that man. Is he dead?"

Er gestured at the fallen figure. Ahin shook his head.

"No. I don't think he's dead. There's a piece of steel stuck in the back of his skull, though, so…"

"Frankly, whether he's alive or dead doesn't matter. What I want to check has nothing to do with that."

"…Check?"

"We should find out where the mana came from, shouldn't we?"

Only when Er said it did Ahin remember what he had briefly forgotten, and his mouth closed. The ones who had granted mana to a bandit boss who had been nothing more than a washed-up failed adventurer. Recalling what the vice-boss they had subdued and sent off in Haru's hands had said, Ahin spoke in a low voice.

"…Do we have to dissect him?"

"Don't say things that sound like something Haru would come up with… Let's just look him over on the outside first."

Er started to stand. Ahin called after her.

"Er, you rest too. I'll do the checking."

"What kind of disaster are you planning to cause now…"

"I'm not causing anything. Besides, you're hurt."

"…I'm not hurt. I just twisted something a little."

"Same difference."

He shaped a faint thread of light and passed it to her, then pushed himself to his feet. For a moment he lost his balance and swayed, but he caught himself on the pitted cave wall, steadied, and began to examine the bandit boss lying huge on the floor.

The man whose wrist had been torn off was unconscious, his eyes rolled back. Left like this he would certainly die, so Ahin gathered some of the vine-like growths scattered around and used them to bind the stump and stop the bleeding. The man would live the rest of his life a cripple, but that was irrelevant. He had killed who knew how many people, and once he was handed over to the knight order he would lose his head on the block anyway. The only reason Ahin would not let him die here was that the people who had lost family to this man would have things they wanted to do. Keeping him alive was nothing more than that. Naturally, he used no divine power. He kept the man this side of death, and that was all.

The simple treatment finished, Ahin picked up a scrap of steel and began cutting away the clothes the man was wearing. The garments were already a ruined mess, contaminated by mana; he probably could have torn them off without cutting. Still, just in case, he checked the man's body over — and in an unexpected place, he found something that did not sit right.

The left side of the man's chest, hidden under his clothes. There was a hole there the size of a fist, a hole no human being should have had. And left in that hole were fragments of stone, radiating a black and ominous energy.

"…A mana stone?"

Stone fragments that gave off an aura similar to what he had found on the skeletons in the Underground ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Mausoleum outside Carpe. Ahin's eyes went wide as he confirmed it — and then he saw something he could not believe.

The place where the man's heart should have been was empty. As if the mana stone had taken the heart's place, there was nothing left but black bloodstains. And yet the man was alive. His breathing was faint, but it was there, and his rolled-back eyelids were trembling. He should have been dead. He was not. He looked, in that moment, almost like an undead—

"Ahin, this is…"

Er had followed him and was looking over the man's condition. She started to ask, and Ahin answered.

"…I don't know what those black magician bastards are trying to do. But I know this much."

"What?"

Ahin looked down at the man with eyes full of killing intent, and spat the words as if he were chewing them.

In the end, it was the black magicians. What had appeared before Ahin once again were people who lived in the dark. Why they kept showing up in front of him, he could not begin to guess.

"God damn it…"

And so Ahin could only clench his blood-soaked fist, hard enough to hurt.