The Knight Of Prophecy (1)

In the past, the Hubris Continent had been occupied by the Nether’s apostles.

In response, the Kurt God Clan waged war against the Nether apostles; later, with the aid of the Yaegas God tribe who joined the fight, they succeeded in driving the Nether’s minions from the Hubris Continent. (The Kurt claim they alone defeated the Nether, while the Yaegas claim their aid was decisive—thus the dispute between the two sides.)

Yet the Nether’s minions possessed a power that polluted reality by their language alone, and so the gods felt the need to isolate them completely.

What they chose then was the Netherstorm.

It was a colossal sea vortex where the Arangian Inland Sea met the Hubris Peninsula.

They poured the corpses and blood of the Nether’s minions into the endlessly churning depths and sealed them in the abyss, and only then did the Hubris Continent become safe from the Nether’s threat.

But when Jupiter’s pull grew strong, the waters of the Netherstorm weakened and the Nether’s blood began to seethe….

Whenever the world fell under Jupiter’s influence, the Nether’s monsters appeared on the Hubris Peninsula and inflicted horrific damage. Hence, in Hubris, people called the era of destruction “the Age of Jupiter.”

For now, Jupiter’s pull only weakened the current briefly, but if it ever grew stronger than it is now, the seal of the Netherstorm would break entirely, and the Nether’s apostles would once again rule this land.

Whether this was the fulfillment of that apocalypse or merely the usual cycle of a weakening seal, no one knew—but the situation was dire.

“The Aragasa will be blamed for all of it.”

Dimia sighed, imagining their ruined state—and the persecution that would only intensify.

It was already widely known that the Messenger Clan, in league with the Nagas and using Nether magic, had attacked Coral Sahar and Vthuma.

What would people think if, after learning that, the Age of Jupiter began to open? Would they not assume the disasters to follow were caused by the corrupted Messenger Clan’s wicked magic?

The Messenger Clan were already persecuted; from now on, they would be seen as monstrous public enemies—fiends to be slain on sight.

“More than that—we have to fight now. The sailors alone can’t handle this.”

Seraph pointed to the sea.

Sirens were surfacing. Appearing in the forms of beautiful women, they sang to entice humans. Sailors, bewitched, leapt into the sea—where sirens rushed them, tore them to pieces, and devoured their flesh and blood.

“You two aren’t in good shape, right? Just shoot. I’ll go.”

Indim grabbed Wendigo’s dagger—Arael’s keepsake (originally Azadine’s)—and leapt from the rail.

The moment the sirens charged, thinking Indim a helpless prey ensnared by their glamour, Indim unleashed magic.

—Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon—Mistletoe!

Using a technique that teleported her above the enemy’s head, Indim shifted positions and appeared high behind the sirens.

—Swaek!

Indim swung an Azure Steel hand-axe and Wendigo’s dagger, carving the sirens apart before alighting on the surface.

“Showy skills, too.”

Dimia muttered in admiration at Indim’s dazzling performance.

Indim ran over the sea, scoring the surface with the hand-axe and Wendigo’s dagger and throwing up plumes of spray. The towering curtains of water shredded the sirens caught within.

Skidding to a stop from that high-speed dash, Indim spun, stabbed Wendigo’s dagger into the water, and the sea froze—forming a block of ice. She stood atop it and took a brief rest.

“Grk….”

“Aaaah—”

The sirens cried at Indim in beautiful voices. The surface was stained red, and countless siren corpses drifted.

“Hmph. Serves you right. Hm?”

Indim suddenly noticed a black shadow forming beneath the water.

“This is bad! A whale—no….”

A colossal crocodile-like beast rammed the ship from below. A whale-sized crocodile-drake heaved the full-rigged ship—nearly its own size—up from beneath.

The two-masted vessel—no small craft—lurched into the air. It rose nearly two meters into empty space, then crashed back down. The keel snapped, and sailors—the cargo within—were flung in every direction.

“Uwaagh!”

“Aaagh!”

Some died from the shock alone. A few, lucky enough to avoid planks and fall into the sea without taking the impact, were nonetheless dragged under by sirens moments later.

“Damn it!”

Dimia and Seraph stepped on flying debris to keep their balance and touched down on the sea, but Azadine did not—he fell into the water.

“Urk!”

“No! Lady Arael’s legacy!”

Seraph climbed onto a lifeboat that had splashed down upside-down nearby. As he tried to use it to rescue Azadine, other sailors grabbed on.

“W-wait!”

“Save me!”

“You bastards….”

Seraph wondered if he should cut the sailors down to take the boat—but before he could act, sirens swarmed and dragged the sailors away.

A siren lunged at Seraph as well, but he flicked a light punch and struck its heart. The siren spat blood and flew back; the recoil rocked the boat.

“Mm.”

Seeing the siren he’d sent flying hadn’t died instantly, Seraph clicked his tongue. He was too weak.

To those who didn’t know his usual strength, punching a siren away with a single blow would be shocking—but Seraph himself was dissatisfied.

Just moving hurt. Fighting sirens on open water, in this state?

Let alone that colossal crocodile-drake….

“Indim! I’ll rescue Azadine and send him to land! Take down the crocodile-drake!”

“Is he really worth saving that much?”

“Do it, and I’ll keep quiet about you comforting yourself by sucking on a bundle of Arael-nim’s hair.”

“Y-you—!”

Indim gaped at Seraph’s words, grinding her teeth.

“If you say it out loud, it isn’t a secret anymore.”

As Dimia hauled Azadine onto an upturned hull, she chided Seraph.

“Keep mouthing off like that and one day Indim will actually kill you.”

Ignoring Dimia’s warning, Seraph cast a spell on the boat bearing Azadine—an enchantment of drift that would, come what may, carry it along until it reached land.

Just casting that spell exhausted all his mana. Spent, Seraph toppled into the water; Dimia scooped him up and moved to another boat.

“Then we’ll have to draw the drake’s attention.”

A boat bearing the drift enchantment would never capsize from ordinary storms; it would even gain speed and reach the nearest shore. But if the crocodile-drake or other monsters attacked and flipped it, that was another matter.

Dimia shrouded the boat in a Mist of Bewilderment to make it harder to spot, and decided—with Seraph—that they themselves would be bait to lure the monsters away.

“…Is this really worth it?!”

Indim asked as the crocodile-drake lunged, jaws yawning toward her.

“Because Aleph admired her. If Aleph were alive, he’d surely want to carry out her last will.”

Seraph spoke the name of the brother who had been absorbed into him.

“You feel the same. Don’t sell Aleph short.”

With a bitter smile, Dimia raised her bow and took aim at the drake.

Arael might well have betrayed them. But from the beginning, the four of Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon had gathered because they liked Arael; wealth and power meant nothing to them.

If only she’d told them—confided in them. What stung was not that Arael chose alone—but that she had not trusted them.

Still… fulfilling the wish of the one you loved—wasn’t that the joy of love?

With her weakened body, Dimia loosed an arrow.

At the southern edge of the Arangi Kingdom, on a field overlooking the Arangian Inland Sea, a death knight wandered.

Plank of Wisdom.

Once a captain of the Rescue Knights Order and, in life, called a Knight of Wisdom, this death knight spread his fearsome name—and his swordplay—by cutting down those who disturbed his rest.

In Koksahal, a coastal city on the Arangian Inland Sea, a staggering bounty was posted: twenty gold coins and a knighthood to whoever could defeat this death knight. Yet no one dared challenge him.

As for the subject of the rumors himself—Death Knight Plank Martensias—he was dragging his sword and rummaging through an old house.

“I am bored. I never knew, in life, that boredom could be such agony.”

Unable to die, wandering fields and wastes, he felt only tedium. He longed to speak with someone, but ordinary folk fled in terror at the mere sight of him.

Even adventurers who came to slay him, upon stepping within ten paces of him, felt their blood run cold, soiled themselves, and fled.

At this rate, he could speak with no one.

If only he could read books—but the Arangians esteemed manliness over learning, and books were as scarce as fruit in a drought.

“Ah, nothing of substance. And why would the literate be found in a woodcutter’s shed… hm?”

Rummaging through an old woodcutter’s hut, Death Knight Plank found something etched into a pillar: likely marks for measuring a child’s height—worn scratches, carved again and again as the child grew.

Touching them, Sir Plank imagined the lives of the humans who had lived here. Without books and mad with boredom, even these small nicks offered a little diversion.

“…I would rather sleep. Sweet oblivion—why have you abandoned me?”

A wraith’s body could not sleep. He thought he’d go mad with boredom, but there was nothing he could do.

Even when he tried to leave, walking without thinking, he found himself always returning to where he had started. It seemed he could not stray beyond a certain distance from the place he had died.

“If I could meet someone, I’d even part with my beloved sword. Huh?”

Then Sir Plank’s eyes fell upon a strange bird.

Ordinary birds feared a death knight and would never come near—but this one was different.

For on its breast bulged a grotesque eye, glistening wetly.

“Who are you? Hm?”

In response to the death knight’s question, the bird merely stared at one spot.

There, the hazy afterimage of a human woman hung.

A woman with beautiful black hair raised a graceful hand and pointed down the hill, toward a brook.

“If you seek rescue, you’ve erred. I belong to death already, and nothing good comes to the living from me. And yet… having seen it, I cannot endure this boredom—I shall interfere.”

Whether from sheer weariness or a sense of fate, Sir Plank set off in the direction the woman indicated.