Sortie (5)

The problem was that dozens of lizard monsters had gathered into a single swarm.

All through the open air of the hall, lizard monsters of every color and feature drifted about in swarms.

Alicia rode her monkey bat and swept through the lizard monsters.

The lizards looked as if they were peacefully swimming through the air, but they lashed out at Alicia with their long tongues.

Thump. Thud. Snap!

Every time Alicia’s spear swept through the air, the lizards’ tongues, as thick as a human torso, were sliced off and fell.

The lizards’ tongues held a poison that gleamed blue and sickly yellow.

Alicia swung her spear like mad, shaking off every last trace of lizard from the blade.

Reichardt cut down the swarm of lizards that came at him around his waist.

He did not forget to dodge the venom spat at him or the poison raining down from above his head.

By the time Alicia and Reichardt had taken out about half of the lizards drifting through the hall.

Cr-crack!

From the center of the hall, ice crystals quickly formed and it began to freeze over.

And it was the height of summer.

It was not natural ice.

What the ice was targeting was obvious.

Alicia, still astride the monkey bat, cut off the monster’s head and leaped down.

The moment she landed on the floor, Alicia rolled to the side and headed for the stairs leading up to the dais.

Reichardt took the opposite staircase that was closest to him.

The stairs led up to the second floor.

The second-floor railing was built so that it overlooked the circular hall.

“So it was you? The ones who woke me.”

On a terrace-like protruding space stood a snow-white girl.

She had white hair and red eyes.

Alicia swung her spear at the child who spoke in that innocent voice.

The girl’s body split into several copies as she scattered to avoid the spear.

Reichardt turned translucent and pursued every one of those scattered bodies with his axe.

Slash!

The axe sliced across the child’s shoulder.

“Kyaaaah!”

The white-haired girl let out a shrill scream.

“Quit whining.”

Alicia showed no mercy to the screaming little girl and thrust her spear in.

Fwoosh!

White vapor gathered around the girl’s hands, and then flames flared up in every direction.

While Alicia drew back to avoid the fire, the girl bolted away.

The wound on her shoulder that Reichardt had cut open healed over at a frightening speed.

Reichardt saw that and hesitated for a moment.

“O acolyte! Why do you help the clan that dumped their penance on you?”

The white-haired girl bared her jagged black teeth and shouted savagely.

It was nothing like the innocent voice from before.

A thick, rough voice, as if it had risen from the Abyss, boomed and echoed.

“I just realized something. Is your name perhaps Kaya? Kaya of the North.”

“That is correct.”

The girl, her voice back to that innocent tone, answered.

At the same time, she snapped her fingers and hurled herself down from the terrace.

“Rei!”

Alicia also threw herself off the terrace.

Reichardt hurled his axe at Kaya as she split apart and appeared in several places at once.

Soon after, he too leaped down from the terrace.

Boom!

Something condensed and then burst, and the entire second floor exploded.

“Kyaaaah!”

Kaya’s shoulder was skewered by the flying axe and pinned to the wall.

Seeing Alicia approach, she screamed with all her might.

At the bizarre howl that made the very air vibrate, the monsters clinging to the hall walls had their breath cut off and tumbled down in droves.

Even after falling from the second floor, Alicia walked without the slightest difficulty.

Her face did not show the slightest sign of being affected by a shriek fierce enough to make monsters burst.

Kaya, white-haired yet with the frail appearance of a young girl, looked at Alicia with tears brimming in her eyes.

Her damp red eyes shone like gemstones.

“Good-bye, Kaya.”

Alicia offered the farewell brightly and swung her spear.

“O acolyte! How could—this cannot be— Aaagh!”

Kaya once again cried out in a wicked voice befitting a beast from hell.

Her red eyes, watching her own body being pierced by the spear, were filled with shock and confusion.

“Sure it can.”

Alicia replied calmly as she pulled out Reichardt’s axe and her own spear.

Kaya’s body, which had been fixed in place by the axe, dropped down with a thud.

All of this was the fruit of her efforts.

For this moment, she had desperately gathered magic stones, ignoring the suspicious looks people gave her.

She had consumed those magic stones evenly and trained diligently.

“Then why isn’t it turning to dust…?”

“Alicia!”

Reichardt, who had been taking back his axe, shoved Alicia to the side.

The limp white girl opened her red eyes once more.

“Just how many lives do you have?”

Kaya whispered as she drove her hand into Reichardt’s side.

Her hand, red as fire, pierced lightly through his skin.

“…!”

As the girl opened her eyes, the monsters in the hall that had been frozen like fossils opened theirs all at once and began to drift again.

“Rei…!”

Seeing Reichardt under Kaya’s attack, Alicia screamed.

She twisted the direction of her body, which had been shoved aside, and sprinted back.

Kaya, who had been about to inflict the agony of fire and ice on Reichardt, shoved him away and hurled flames at the approaching Alicia instead.

Alicia whirled her spear swiftly.

Kaya rose to her feet as she saw Alicia using her spinning spear like a shield.

Her small white body fed the flames and grew steadily redder and larger.

“O acolyte!”

“Die!”

Alicia swung her spear without rest at Kaya as her form changed.

The body, bright red like the very flames, was pounded by the spear and reeled.

“Your life ends with this.”

Alicia drove her spear toward the black characters written on the nape of Kaya’s neck as Kaya staggered.

“Aaagh!”

The instant the spear struck, the swollen red body shattered into pieces.

As the body crumbled and scattered into dust, Alicia snatched up the magic stone from within and ran to Reichardt.

“Rei!”

Alicia went to Reichardt, who was slumped against the wall, shuffling forward on her knees as tears poured down.

Tears fell like rain down her bloodless cheeks.

Alicia cast aside her spear and smashed the magic stone in her hand against the floor, breaking its outer shell.

“Alicia.”

Reichardt’s face was even paler than usual.

“This…”

Alicia spoke through lips that trembled violently.

“It’s no use on me.”

Reichardt put the magic stone, which gave off a luxurious red glow, back into Alicia’s hand.

“This time… this time, we don’t know that.”

Alicia shook her head like a stubborn child.

Her knitted brows twisted with anxiety.

Her voice, thick with tears, was full of fear.

Reichardt gently stroked the face that was trying to swallow back its sobs.

He carefully wiped away the tears that fell like rain.

“No. Don’t cry, Alicia. It upsets me.”

“Rey…”

Alicia’s face trembled precariously.

It was an expression tangled with sorrow, fear, and anguish.

Reichardt watched her tear-streaked face, then hesitated and finally opened his mouth.

“…I’m all healed now.”

The skin around Alicia’s eyes was red from crying.

Alicia, tears beaded on her lashes like a fringe of a canopy, looked up at Reichardt.

“Huh…?”

Alicia spoke, letting the tears continue to fall in heavy drops.

The tears that had started from sheer terror of death were hard to stop, as if they could not simply be cut off.

Reichardt closed his mouth for a moment.

Then he took Alicia’s trembling hand and guided it to touch the upper garment where it was torn open in a round hole.

The cloth at his side was charred and ragged from the fire, but his skin beneath was smooth, without so much as a scratch.

“Do I seem like a demon to you?”

Reichardt whispered in a low voice.

His face was so beautiful it was dangerous.

“No.”

Alicia denied it at once.

“I’m not a demon?”

“No. Do you have any idea how ugly the things in hell are?”

To Reichardt’s question, Alicia answered without hesitation.

There was absolutely no way that could be true of him.

Alicia was nothing if not firm.

“All right.”

Reichardt quietly agreed with her.

The monsters in the castle that had begun to move when Kaya revived were once again frozen like fossils after she died and turned to dust.

Reichardt cast a steady gaze their way, but they did not so much as twitch.

“Did your wounds heal even when it wasn’t the Rua cycle?”

“Originally, no.”

Reichardt thought of one hypothesis.

At some point, he had begun to suffer in agony even outside the Rua cycle.

Whenever Alicia touched him then, the pain disappeared.

Now his pain might be something that continued regardless of any particular time.

As Alicia absorbed magic stones, he stopped feeling pain even without touching her.

Reichardt could live on the strength of Alicia’s mere existence.

Conversely, if Alicia did not exist, it might be difficult for Reichardt to go on living at all.

That did not matter.

Even now, it was just as unbearable whenever Alicia was not by his side.

“Then…”

Alicia let her words trail off.

“As long as you’re not a demon, that’s enough.”

Reichardt stood up, brushing at his badly scorched clothes with his hand.

“You absolutely aren’t.”

Alicia refuted him with all her might at his side.

Her violet eyes darted sidelong at Reichardt in displeasure at how he kept bringing up ominous things.

At the same time, her fingers toyed with the large magic stone that radiated a mysterious, splendid red light.

This magic stone was even larger than the last one.

She looked as if she were wondering whether she really deserved to keep it.

If Reichardt’s hypothesis was correct, the more and the larger magic stones Alicia had, the more it would benefit him.

Even if that were not the case, if what Alicia wanted was magic stones, he wanted to give her bigger ones, and more of them.

“It belongs to you, Alicia.”

Reichardt spoke as he glanced at the red magic stone and walked on.

“Huh? Y-yes…”

Alicia looked at Reichardt with a moved expression, as if she had just received the first confession of her life.

She really seemed delighted.

The two of them descended Mount Kaip.

There were traces of monsters here and there, but since they would not increase any further, they would be able to finish things off before long.

While they were coming down the mountain, the endless misty rain finally ceased.

When they reached the grasslands, the summer they had briefly forgotten greeted them both.

It was summer again.

Since ancient times, the Grand Duke of Tessen had been known as a demon.

A demon, or devil.

The army of Tessen was regarded as a clan of demons.

Tessen’s western border was opened once more.

Countless outsiders, who had come believing Tessen to be a land of death, were struck with terror.

Mount Kaip, newly annexed into Tessen, truly was a land of death.

The Regi Grasslands and the Severy Desert were no different.

Wherever one went, the threat of monsters lurked.

The tales of the clans that had made their homes on Mount Kaip, the Regi Grasslands, and the Severy Desert brought only sorrow and fear.

The Free Cities of the desert had abandoned all but the small stretches of land around their oases.

In the desert, where land was money itself, the Free Cities’ decision sent many clans into shock.

Outsiders who had reasons that forced them to cross the border fell silent at a situation far more serious than they had imagined.

All they wished was to visit the Empire and return home alive and in one piece.

The outsiders, who had seen countless deaths and horrors on their way through the desert, felt an even greater terror than ever before at the entrance to the grasslands.

-My God.

-Good heavens.

-Th-that thing…

Stricken by dreadful fear, people forgot how to speak out loud.

Their lips merely worked soundlessly as they tried to spit out their terror.

A new border checkpoint of Tessen had been set up at the entrance to the Regi Grasslands.

The makeshift checkpoint was surrounded by a flimsy wall built from stacked sandbags.

Yet none of the outsiders took Tessen’s new checkpoint lightly.

The Demon Knights.

Rumor had it in the desert Free Cities that a new order of Demon Knights had been formed in Tessen.

One frank visitor said to the person who had told him the rumor,

“Wasn’t Tessen already an army of demons?”

“This time they’re real demons.”

Rumors were always bound to be exaggerated from the truth.

That was why no one believed them.

But this rumor was real.

If anything, it had been watered down.

The reality before their eyes was far more horrifying and merciless than the rumor.