“They’re not letting up!”
“Keep fighting! Hold the line!”
Our outnumbered knights have been fighting the cult for a while now, but there’s just no end to them. I went from being in reserve to fighting alongside with the knights; but even my massive swings, cutting down dozens of them at a time, doesn’t seem to put a dent in their swarm. It was when Arciel returned from her small pursuit run, that the cult suddenly stopped attacking. All of the cultists, at the same time, suddenly just stopped their aggression and backed off a few meters. They’re now just sitting there, staring at us. We took the opportunity to regroup.
“Arciel, how did it go?”
“Mm. No good, we managed to deal with the orc, but Alisson and his apprentice escaped through the nearby mountain range, they’re in the tunnels. We collapsed the entrance, so there’s no turning back for them.”
“Damnit. If they’re in the tunnels, there’s no way we can find them, we’ll just have to assume they’ll come out on the other side then.”
Freudlin has since regained consciousness and he’s been able to get to his feet. It’s amazing that he’s just a normal guy, but still survived a direct hit of Arciel’s spell, even factoring in his Diamond-quality armor. He’s still in bad shape though, but it’s better than having Arciel in command.
Our tense moment of staring down the cult from our defensive circle came to a head when a dozen huge monsters revealed themselves through the fog and joined in the cult’s ranks. They were about half the size of a tree, and they looked like chained-up ogres. Arciel said that she’d seen ogres before, and that the massive monsters are not ogres. If that’s the case, then what the hell are they?
The 153rd and I were anxious to say the least. The cultists were enough of a handful, but these massive ogres would tear through our formation, we’d lose our perimeter and our cohesion; and every single 153rd knew that. Even if we wanted to escape, our only magician is out of mana, and the knights are all out of mana too. We can’t make a break through with spells, we have only our swords.
It’s already enough of a problem that we lost Alisson, but now we’re surrounded like this. I’ve been trying to suppress my anger, but I still have the inclination to go barging through the cult and take out my anger on some of these ogre things. Arciel was eyeing my sword hand with worry out of the corner of my eye, which was about to break the hilt of my sword due to how hard I was clenching it.
As Freudlin and some Knights were starting to draw up some plans to handle the ogres, I saw a few cultists suddenly move in my vision. They were all standing still, so it was easy to pick them out. They had parted way for someone behind them. At first I couldn’t see anything, and thought the motion was pointless, until I averted my gaze lower.
“…The hell?” I mutter.
At this point everyone was staring where I was, and they all had the same confusion.
“You have my salutations, Platinum Knights of Andestine. How do you do?”
The high pitched and soft voice was hard to take seriously. I couldn’t tell if it was a little girl or a little boy. They had blonde hair and sharp red eyes dressed in some sort of black and red uniform, or dress, I really couldn’t tell.
Freudlin, being the commander and thus voice of the force, replied for us.
“Who are you?”
Freudlin growled. The child didn’t move an inch, and simply kept their arms crossed in front of their waist. They were smiling, but it was off, there was something very wrong with that child’s smile; it looked conniving and demonic, even though she was so small.
“I am the 98th Basket Maiden of the Lord. Unfortunately, my predecessor was gravely injured, so for the time being I’ve had to step up prematurely in her stead until she recovers.”
Basket ‘Maiden’. So, then it’s a girl. She certainly stands out from the rest of the faceless cultists surrounding us.
“I have come to broker a deal.”
There was a moment of silence from Freudlin.
“…We don’t make deals with cultists.”
He spat out in response. The Basket Maiden furrowed her lips and her brow.
“That is…unfortunate. And here we had such a strong bargaining chip.”
Freudlin stared coldly at the girl, and didn’t respond.
“…You are…after that boy correct? That much is evident from your actions and travel path through our land.”
Freudlin didn’t respond.
“Mm…You see, we have a way to find out exactly where that boy is on demand, and we’re willing to give that power to you.”
That made Freudlin perk his head up.
“What do you mean you can find out where he is?”
The girl's smiled deeper for a moment.
“We have placed upon him a curse. Once a week, if one were to recite the holy words, then they’d be able to point to a map and tell exactly the location of him.”
Freudlin looked to Arciel, and she understood immediately.
“‘Recite holy words’ it must be some sort of spell that’s been attached to Alisson. Just where he got it and how the cult managed to place it on him, I don’t know though.” Arciel said with a shrug.
Freudlin stared at Arciel with some scrutiny.
“Is it possible? That sort of spell?”
Arciel smirked.
“Anything is possible when it comes to magic, commander.”
Freudlin gave a glance at Arciel before resting his gaze back on the ‘Basket Maiden’.
“And what would you have us do in return?”
The girl smiled deeply again.
“We’d like to have that boy…alive.”
Freudlin stared for a moment, before shaking his head solemnly.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Our orders say that we kill him. I’ll have to deny your offer.”
The girl frowned.
“Surely you can reconsider, good commander.”
She lifted her hands, and jolted a step forward. The cultists all took one step forward, mimicking her body exactly like puppets. The ogre monsters in the back moved too, they all created one large and intimidating footfall that resonated through the ground.
The message was clear, no was not an answer.
“Hmm…please give me and my men a second to consider it.”
“Of course, tinman.”
She added that last bit on smugly. The 153rd reluctantly dropped their defensive formation and gathered around together along with me, Arciel, Freudlin, and Kana.
“I don’t appreciate making deals with devils.”
I say immediately, and everyone seems to agree. Freudlin though shook his head gravely.
“It’s not the deal I’m worried about. We have wounded and I’m in bad shape myself.”
Everyone stared at him silently.
“It’s evident we’re going to need more troops to kill Alisson, mages especially, we’d have more options.”
“But if we pull back for reinforcements, then Alisson will slip through our fingers. There’s no telling if we could get back on his track.”
Arciel refuted, and Freudlin nodded in response.
“That’s why I’m considering sending a small detachment to continue to follow Alisson while the main force stays back and recuperates.”
The men nod in understanding.
“If that detachment does their job, then we won’t need that spell of theirs.”
Arciel said, and everyone agreed, but again Freudlin shook his head.
“Even if the forward party did keep tabs on him, they’d have to stay at a distance, or else they’d meet Alisson in an unfavorable battle. I’m not suggesting the scouting party follow Alisson so that we can kill him, but rather, so that we can find out his objective; remember, our mission is two-fold.”
Freudlin paused eyeing everyone, he was about to start when I interjected.
“I’ll go then.” I stared him dead in the slits of his helmet.
Everyone was silent for a moment before Freudlin responded.
“As much as I hate to say it, it’s better to have an adaptable summoner-pair work alone on this.” He looked to Kana. “And perhaps an adventurer as well.”
The men murmur in agreement.
“Alright then, it’s settled. Arciel, you’ll take your summon and Kana and continue on Alisson’s breadcrumb trail, the 153rd will rendezvous with you once we’ve been reinforced. Ideally, you find out about whatever Alisson’s trying to do up here, and then we’ll join forces to kill him once and for all.”
“And what about the cult’s spell?”
Arciel asked.
“It’s a powerful tool that’d I’d like to have against Alisson. Let me do the talking, we’ll see what happens.”
The knights nod sternly, and with that, they fanned out back to their defensive circle, and Freudlin and I walked closer to the cult’s speaking piece.
“We have reached a conclusion.”
Freudlin said, and the cultist girl looked on with an expectant smile.
“We will deny your offer. Go to hell.”
He said without hesitation.
“Why thank you, you seem to be a man of charm as well.”
I couldn’t tell if the girl was being sarcastic.
“But, that is something I am appalled to hear. That boy is none of your business. This is not your fight, why should you have any qualms about his life?”
“You try and kill us and then tell us that this isn’t our fight? That’s fuzzy math.”
I interject on instinct. Freudlin gave a wry glance at me before bringing a heavy gaze to the girl.
“Yes, it’s as the Hero says. You may not understand our intentions, but believe me when I say that we will stand by them. I’ll put it this way, you can either try to fight us, and have the entirety of Andestine collapse on you as a result, without having caught the boy, or, you can let us go, and the boy will die. I sense a bit of a grudge you have with him, so why would you rather let him live? Wouldn’t it be better to at least have your revenge on him?”
Freudlin said sternly, but it was plain that he was hedging his bets. There was no way Andestine would declare war on the cult and waste unnecessary resources; and there were no armies in position to ‘collapse’ on the cult either. He was bluffing. But maybe, this cult doesn’t know too well of the outside world, and that’s what Freudlin is betting on.
The girl furrowed her mouth into a frown and her brow clenched in a perturbed thought. It seemed she was genuinely taken back by Freudlin’s boldness. I desperately fought back a smirk of victory.
She swallowed hard. For that brief moment, seeing her uncertain expression of worry, she looked like a normal child.
“I…see.” She cleared her throat as her face steeled. “…The Lord has come to a decision.”
All at once, every single cultists, not including the ogres, turned to the Basket Maiden. It was unnerving, seeing that unanimous movement. Their heads all turning at once made an audible whoosh.
“…The Lord will let these trespassers go, and endow them with the means to hunt down the inheritor.”
The cultists kept staring; their eyes looked to intensify in red.
…It might just be me but…they don’t seem happy.
But, contrary to the silent stares of the cultists, a loud noise overtakes the area, like someone exhaling. With the exhale, the cultists, the girl and the ‘ogres’ included, seemed to vanish before our eyes. No, like, they seriously just disappeared without a trace. I didn’t blink, I saw it happen right in front of me. The only thing left was a small piece of parchment that was left under where the girl had been standing.
The sight left some of the 153rd distraught and they kept staring at where the cultists had been, dumbfounded. Freudlin breaks their frozen surprise with a loud holler, trying to snap his men out of it.
“Hey! They’re gone; let’s get the hell out of here!”
He said, and the knights slowly eased back into motion, as if hesitant to continue on having seen such an unexplainable sight. Me and Arciel, pushing aside the knights, approached the parchment that was left behind.
“So? What does it say?”
Freudlin asked, his hands crossed expectantly. Arciel read the parchment over for a second. Arciel shook her head.
“It doesn’t make any sense, the runes, they shouldn’t equate to anything…it’s like somebody smashed together a bunch of random runes from different trees…It doesn’t look to be dangerous…but, the only way to know for sure of any of that is to give it a try.”
Freudlin nodded, and waved over a knight, who promptly spread a map out across the ground.
“Better to test it now, we know that Alisson has to be pretty nearby, we don’t want to find out that he’s suddenly on the other side of the world or something stupid according to this spell.”
Arciel hesitantly looked over the parchment a last time.
“Alright…here goes nothing…Mostra’t ketser, montre-toi.”
…That last part, it was dead-on French, the ‘Twah’ pronounciation…the rest though, didn’t sound familiar at all, like some jumble.
Apparently, runes all have short syllable correspondents which act as their names. The last few runes of a spell, or the most prominent, or some sort of unique combination within the sequence, is what people use to name a spell. Apparently, you don’t need to say out the spell’s incantation, but most mages do so anyway so that they can remember and picture in their head the hundreds of the runes that go into the spell, like jogging their memory or following a routine remembrance. At least, that’s all hearsay from Arciel.
Arciel’s hand shot for the map, the spot she pointed to was very nearby.
“There. I don’t know how, but, I just know, it’s that place.”
“That should be in or around the nearby mountain range, it’s not off by a continent, that’s good. In the meantime though…”
Freudlin snatched the parchment from Arciel’s hands. She looked up to Freudlin surprised and clenching and unclenching her hands beggingly.
“…I’ll hold onto the spell.”
“But, but-!”
“Yeah yeah, of course I’ll let you study and send copies to the academy, but for now, this a mission asset. I’ll hold onto it.”
Arciel pouted as she stood up, dusting off her robes.
“Remember what that little girl said, one week. I don’t want to find out what happens if you break that rule.”
Freudlin nodded.
“We’ll give it a week and day then to be safe. Hopefully we can find out how it works with some future study.”
In theory, a magician should be able to sit down and look at any spell and find out what it does, especially simpler and less powerful spells. The more powerful and complex a spell, the more runes it has, and thus it’s harder for a mage to wrap their heads around it, but they should still be able to grasp the intent with enough study. That parchment…it was filled to the brim with those little hieroglyphics, they were small too…there had to be at least a thousand of them, how the hell did Arciel…?
Well, no, she didn’t remember all of them, she had the damn spell right in front of her, but I don’t know, if I looked at a sheet with a thousand minuscule characters, and was told to grasp each one in my head at the same time…yeah, no way. I guess mages are good for something…
“For now, let’s retreat and re-arm. We lost a lot of good men today. We’ll be back.”
Freudlin said, rounding up the 153rd.
…
Both Alisson’s mind and his vision were hazy.
He rose a shaking hand in front of him. He saw his gauntlet, covered in red. He’d been clenching his abdomen.
He saw in front of him, his apprentice. She was right before him, blocking attack after attack from the Hero. Alisson tried to move, to stand, to get up and fight, but not a single muscle of his would respond, it was like he wasn’t inside his body, and he was rather watching through his own eyes as a disembodied third party.
What the hell am I doing! I, I need to get up!
An intense rage filled him suddenly, and he got up to his elbows. An excruciating amount of pain was assailing him, and he looked down, and realized why that was. A massive gash was in his abdomen. He had trouble breathing, and seeing the non-stop flow of blood did little to slow his heart rate and thus his bleeding.
To be, to be beaten down by someone so weak!
Again, a flurry of rage filled him. But, this time, his willpower and adrenaline did little to move him very much at all. He moved but a centimeter, but if felt like the world’s length to him under the pressure of his pain and of his ragged breath. His mind filled solely with trying to move, and he almost didn’t notice when his apprentice was sent off her feet. There was no one standing in between Alisson and the Hero now. Alisson still tried with all his might, every fiber of his being to move, but the best he could manage was to shake intensely and barely move but an inch.
The Hero rose his sword, and all Alisson could do was watch, watch as it plunged into his stomach. Like some sort of miracle, the strike suddenly brought life to Alisson, and his muscles were loosened so that he could move. He screamed out in pain on instinct, but he tried to get to his feet nonetheless. With a sword pinning him to the ground, he couldn’t exactly move, though. The Hero twisted the blade in Alisson, and his eyes fluttered in pain, his body suddenly feeling weak and reduced to his prior state.
His eyes soon fluttered to a close, and he didn’t remember anything after that as his body relaxed, and he fell unconscious. What happened next were simple flashes and hazy images. He mostly saw Celis, looking down concernedly at him. Then suddenly he saw his stomach, and that Enhérejär was wrapped around it, like trying to clot his wounds.
He smiled in spite of himself, though in reality he didn’t do a thing.
Don’t…waste your strength, on me…Enhérejär.
For a while, everything was dark, until a bright light assaulted the lids of his eyes and he couldn’t see a thing. He slowly started to awaken, and he felt a cool sensation at his stomach.
“Alisson, Alisson, Alisson…don’t die, please!”
When he came to, he saw his apprentice overlooking him. She was terrified as she healed him.
He’d been set up against a tree. Their horses were nearby, though they were not grazing. The grass was white around him, and so were the trees’ leaves. Above and around him, it was nothing but white grass and white leaved concrete looking trees. There was some sort of bright light in the sky, though it was hardly seen through a layer of mist, like the sun being blotted over by clouds. Other than the white grass and stone trees, there was what looked to be a white bush about fifty meters away. It had no leaves, and could more aptly be described as a large skeletal tumbleweed.
Slowly, he started to remember of what had happened. Alisson noticed Dereleg ‘Bol was nowhere nearby in this mysterious white-scape, and he looked around, trying to search for the orc but his head was heavy, and his eyes hurt to move.
“The orc…what happened…?”
Alisson asked, and found it hard to even open his mouth. Celis stared at Alisson for a moment, before shaking her head.
“…He, he didn’t make it. We managed to escape the cult and Andestine, but, we got separated before we entered the mountain range. We’re in the mountain’s tunnels, I found some sort of side path from the tunnel that was well lit, and it turned out to be some sort of underground forest.”
The horses were not grazing on the grass, and rather they seemed miffed with it; it was evident the grass here was not real grass, the same could be said for the tree’s, they looked less organic and more like they were made of stone. The area screamed bleakness, but the bright lighting from above shone off the white surfaces and oddly illuminated the silent area.
“So then…”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Alisson began to realize the implications of what Celis was saying. She nodded slowly.
“…T-this is…the last of my mana.”
A hazy thought hiding in plain sight in his head was finally revealed to Alisson. He was on the path to death. For some reason, he hadn’t wanted to think about it and he’d almost forgotten, contrary to the blood on his chest and the numb sensation from his apprentice’s healing.
For whatever reason, Alisson cracked a wry smile and a fussy sensation wafted into his mind.
“…Don’t waste your time.”
He shook his head with his smile.
“…I’ll be nothing but deadweight soon.”
He was on the brink of chuckling, but Celis’s eyes widened even further, and her dread became ever evident. Her face suddenly steeled, and she frowned.
“You’re delirious.”
Alisson closed his eyes.
“…And what if I am? It doesn’t change anything. Even I can see it, Celis. I’m bleeding out, there’s nothing-”
“D-don’t speak.”
She cut him off, and pushed her hands tighter into Alisson’s wound. She averted her gaze from him, like trying to deny it. Her dark and dull eyes made Alisson shut up for a while. Then, a minute later, Alisson’s stopped feeling the cooling sensation of the healing spell at his stomach, though Celis kept her hands there, and didn’t move a muscle.
…
What…what do I do? As soon as…As soon as I said I was in love…now…Gah-! If he’s going to die, then I might as well tell him that I…but…would it even matter?
My eyes suddenly darken.
Ah-! The spell ended and I didn’t notice! Stupid-! Stupid-!
I scramble to retrieve bandages and rubbing alcohol from a pouch on my mare. I’m not going to buy into Alisson’s delirium-! I know full well that everyone gets like this when they’re close to death – I need to just be optimistic-!
Like a machine, I switch to a medical mindset and I start bandaging Alisson.
His abdominal aorta is a complete mess, and his left popliteal artery is also in bad shape. He has gastrointestinal acid filling his body from his ruptured stomach, but that’s not an issue that future healing can’t deal with, right now, I just need to stop his bleeding.
The both of us have lost a liter of blood at the least from our wounds, Alisson probably much more, and for that I’ve felt lightheaded and dizzy, but it’s nothing adrenaline can’t help me forget. Despite my mind being clear, my hands are shaking as I bandage him. I try to forget that it’s Alisson I’m bandaging, but it’s not exactly working. By the time his abdomen was bandaged, all of the gauze was already soaked through with blood, so I applied another layer for my own comfort, and bandaged up his knee too. I put lots of pressure on the wound and poured lots of rubbing alcohol.
Contrary to Alisson’s steady rising and falling chest, I was on the brink of hyperventilating without realizing it, and I tried to calm myself. Alisson had been staring at me the whole time with a little smirk, though it was evident that his eyes were dulling and his smile was becoming less and less expressed. His fading energy and completely destroyed armour made my heart race in anxiety.
I quickly remember Alisson’s tonic, and dig around on his waist until I find it.
Before I’m able to give it to him, Alisson’s eyes suddenly widen and he grabs his throat with a hand. He starts coughing up a profuse amount of blood. It wasn’t like normal blood, it was thick and viscous, and very dark. He wiped the blood from his mouth with a bandage and then took a deep breath, the fit having ended.
Still holding his tonic, I pop the cork off of the small vial and offer it to him. He looked to the tonic, and then to me.
“Save it for yourself.”
I frowned, irate. Before he could close his mouth, I shoved the vial to his lips. At first his eyes widened but he begrudgingly drank the bitter tonic after a second of prodding. After he was finished, I put the vial back on his waist, and exhaled. There was nothing else I could do, except wait, and put pressure on Alisson’s wound.
Alisson was staring at me, on the brink of pouting. What, does he have a death wish or something? He’s never acted like this before. Then again he’s never been so close to death either. Images of Alisson slowly flood into my head as I sit there, staring at him. I remember Alisson’s face when he sleeps, and his dead expressions when he was in front of that campfire outside the Ipithid Plain and when I’d found him in Davy’s basement. Then, I thought of how he fell asleep on my shoulder in the Plain. The images of the past eventually force me to avert my eyes from Alisson.
A long few moments past before us before he broke the silence.
“You know…I’ve never had an apprentice nurse me.”
I didn’t respond, and a minute passed before he continued,
“…I don’t think any of my prior apprentices would be able to withstand all this.”
My curiosity gets the better of me and I tilt my head.
“…All the bloodshed. All the life-threatening experiences, hell, you’re watching your master glide between life and death and yet you can stay so composed and act so normally. You’re a blessed one for sure.”
‘Blessed’? That’s an odd way to call it…I reply without thinking.
“Blessed…You’re the same way, Alisson. Don’t sugarcoat it. If you were describing yourself, you’d call it a curse.”
Alisson looked dumbstruck for a minute, and a period of silence followed.
“I’ve never had an apprentice say such things of me, but, I suppose you’re correct…”
Another long few minutes passed in silence between us, when Alisson let out a hum. He looked to be in deep thought.
“What?”
I ask.
“Mm…It’s nothing, it’s just, I was thinking of all the things that we’ve done together. It’s a novelty no? – Having an apprentice watch you cry and sharing a bath with them?”
He seemed to be smiling in humiliation at himself.
“Alisson…have you ever shared a bath with anyone?”
He shook his head.
“No, you’re my first.” He said almost guiltily. “Why?” He tilted his head blankly.
So then…so then I was his…The sudden image of how embarrassed Alisson was that night floated into my mind and I remembered that I wanted to ask him about it.
“I was just wondering was all…You were so embarrassed then, why was that?”
He averted his eyes, obviously uncomfortable with the question.
“…When I said it was a matter of respect when Tsuhara asked, that was only half of the truth. The truth is…for the future, I…the both of you…”
He evidently didn’t know what to say. The way he was acting, it was defensive in nature. Thinking like that, he was…trying to protect himself? He just said the words ‘For the future’ so putting it together quickly, he was protecting himself for the future? What? What’s that supposed to mean about being in a bath?
“…Mm…It’s like…Well, everyone is going to find a mate at some point in the future, and I’d rather be…pure…for their sake.”
He finally found the right words and said to me.
He was trying to preserve his purity for his future mate? Oh brother, he’s a guy and he’s saying such sensitive things like that. After thinking about how girl-like his words sounded, I find them admirable in a weird sort of way. I didn’t think he’d be so fussed about so small a thing, I thought he was just being embarrassed. If he really thinks that far and abstractly into everything else, then…Alisson’s a lot more aware than I thought he was. He probably knows more of my personality than I’m aware of. I don’t know whether to be scared and try to push him away from my own little zone, or to take solace in his company. Thinking the ladder sends a shiver of warmth down my spine, a wave of reassuring goosebumps. It’s that same feeling whenever Alisson pats me on the head.
I remember once again that he hasn’t done that in a long time and my fears of Alisson having some sort of grudge with me creep up again. I know Alisson, and spending this much time with him, I haven’t seen anything else in him change, it’s just that he hasn’t been patting me anymore.
“Hey…Alisson…”
I meekly ask, preparing my self-absorbed question. Alisson piqued his eyes at me, and I remembered again that he was mortally wounded by how dull his eyes and face were.
“…How come you haven’t p-patted my head…f-for a while…?”
My shame from asking such an awkward question made me stutter. Alisson closed his eyes for a moment. I surprised myself by even being able to ask such a childish and revealing question in the first place.
“…Call it like before…A matter of respect as I realized it was, I don’t think I should be going around touching my subordinates for my own stupid whims.” A small amused smile crept onto Alisson as he looked up to me, “Why are you asking anyway?”
I averted my eyes, probably with a blush on my face.
In response, Alisson broke into an intrigued smile.
His hand made the slightest motion to move to my head, and I seized the opportunity like a predator pouncing on prey. I grabbed his hand with both of my own and placed it right to my head. I tightly held it there with my eyes closed, relishing the wave of warmth rolling down my body from my head.
Now’s the time, right? To tell him that I…that I’m in love with him. I mean, he could die…I, I should tell him now…
“Alisson I…I…”
I struggle to find the right words and open my eyes to see him blankly tilting his head at me. His innocent and plain stare hurries me and I’m rushed to blurt out whatever had come to me.
“I…l-like it…when you do this…”
Ah! You stupid idiot! Not only did I say like instead of love, I didn’t even say that I liked him! So stupid!
Alisson broke into a slight smile.
“I do this with the 51st all the time, and they never reacted but here it looks like they’ve enjoyed it all this time.”
A sudden shock goes through me when I remember that Alisson does this with other people. I saw for myself how he patted Alieri’s head when her company returned. My eyes darken and I loosen my grip on his hand. Alisson pulls his hand away still with a smile; the both of us sit in silence for moment. I suddenly realize my own crestfallen face and I rush to act like nothing had happened.
“I-I’m going to scope out the area…you should rest.”
Alisson bobbed his head at me, and I stood up, and reluctantly left him alone against the tree along with the horses.
I know Alisson might be mentally displaced due to his current condition but…I don’t know what to think. At first, he was acting like I was going to just abandon him and leave him for dead, that’s not Alisson at all, he doesn’t just give up like that. It’s a good thing I realized he was delirious too, because I was actually buying into his words…I could’ve really just left him to die if I hadn’t thought of him being impaired…
Once he started talking of the past, I knew again that he was still under some notion of death, he was suddenly acting like everything was set in stone. But, when he raised his hand, that was…that was just me acting impulsively. I guess…I guess I just wanted to feel the normal Alisson again…
That part he said at the end, about how he treated his 51st the same as me…
I stopped walking a few dozen meters from Alisson, and pushed my back against one of the stone trees, out of Alisson’s view.
…He, Alisson…It’s completely passed my head that Alisson is so kind and nice to other Nekomata all the same compared to me. I’m just a…another comrade in his eyes…
I slide down to the ground against the tree, and I stare up into the endless white of the mystery sky.
Have I really just been at fault for being so socially inexperienced that I took his kindness so to heart?
…N-no…that can’t be. Mm! I, I know Alisson! That time outside my room…I still remember his words, he said he ‘felt a kinship’ with me. Maybe he’s the inexperienced one, maybe he just doesn’t know what to do! Y-yeah…That has to be it!
…For now…That’s what I’ll have to believe. I don’t want to think that Alisson thinks of me as just an apprentice…and that I’m barely on his mind and that he thinks everything that’s happened between us has just been ‘normal’ and that I’ve been the one out of the loop.
I took a deep breath, and my heartrate slowed and I felt calm again. Now I’m left with a thin wall in my mind. A thin wall of self-imposed confidence that separates me from being someone, and me just being no one. Even now, my paranoia causes me to slip between the two camps of thought, on one end Alisson is a shadowy overlooking figure who thinks nothing of me, and on the other he’s a flowery soft friend. My two mental depictions vary immensely for being the same person: One a tall unnerving presence not looking in my direction in a bleak black world; and the other a cute boy smiling in a field of flowers.
I get to my feet, taking another deep breath. I walked back over to Alisson to find that he’d fallen unconscious again. His body is probably weak, and he’s probably super tired too. We can’t stay here to sleep, that’s stupid. For now, I’ll let Alisson rest, we’ll move when he can actually stand on his own – One of his kneecaps is shattered after all.
I felt that I was only a few minutes away from being able to use another healing spell. Healing is one of those spells that scales with mana consumption, meaning that you can heal indefinitely as long as you have the mana, but if you don’t have enough to kickstart the process though, it doesn’t really do much.
So, after dumping another healing spell into Alisson, I was left to sit and watch him. His abdominal aorta is in much better shape thanks to the healing from before and now, I can tell that much from his slowed blood loss. Though, that might be because Alisson has little blood left in him. He is ghostly pale. For all I know, Alisson will never wake up after this. I sigh.
My mind finally starts to take note of the abnormal area now that Alisson seems to be safe. I thought this place would just be nicer to rest in and easier to treat Alisson than in a pitch black tunnel; And I’m right on that end…but it’s still an unnerving place now that I take it in. White grass, stone-like trees, the sky is really fogged and misty but really bright. The forest seems to go on indefinitely until a fog obscures the far reaches of my vision. There’s also some sort of bush, or white tumbleweed that’s about thirty meters away. Near us is where we exited the tunnel, I can still see the tunnel opening, the stone wall of the underground is also white like the trees. It looks like the tunnel wall collapsed open recently. Well, it makes sense, it’s a man-made tunnel and I’ve heard nothing about a underground forest of white, so me and Alisson might actually be the first living things to set foot here.
After all the things I’ve seen, I’m not surprised to find myself desensitized to such an abnormal and ‘off’ environment. If I were on my first day as an apprentice, right from the Capital, I’d be cowering in fear next to Alisson. I’m proud of myself that being alone in such an unsettling place doesn’t make me so much as flinch now. Well, it’s easy to be this way; I have someone I need to protect, and the combat prowess to do so.
I realized that I’d been staring blankly at Alisson for the better part of ten minutes, and I decided to do something. I thought that maybe I should drill but…I think I’ve gotten in my days’ worth of practice already…and I’d be lying if I said that the thought of drilling made my muscles even more sore.
I decided to go to my mare and retrieve the only personal item I’d brought from home. It was a journal with a buttoned-up cover and had an attached pencil. The pencil and journal were evidently worn down by years of use, but they were still in good condition. It was my drawing journal. I’d doodle in this whenever I was bored back home and I thought that it’d be imperative to bring something to occupy my time along for a months long journey.
Fortunately for me though, I’ve been far too occupied to even give it a look, and I had almost forgotten about it. As I opened the journal and bit the end of pencil thinking about what to draw, a lecherous smile crosses my face and I blush when I remember what’s in front of me.
About half an hour passed with the only noise in the vicinity being my scribbling. Every now and then, I’d look up to my reference, and see out of the corner of my eye the white looking bush. It was white and blended in very well with the rest of the surroundings, so I didn’t notice it immediately. The problem was, there wasn’t a single other white bush like that in my vision. Eventually, it creeped into my head this realization, and I put my pencil down with a sigh. I looked at it again, and sure enough,
It was a foot closer than it had been the last time I saw it.
I frown. I’m not stupid. That’s no bush. I stand, and walk a few meters away from Alisson for his own safety. I draw a baselard, and prepare to throw it. Holding my baselard by the tip of its blade, I give it a skilled throw, and it spins through the air to the suspicious white bush.
The baselard lands dead-on, and plunges into one of the branches of the white tumbleweed-looking bush. As soon as it did, I heard a crack, and the bush’s stony wall broke in dozens of different places. As the stone cracked, the bush suddenly started to surge for me, its branches reaching out and impaling the ground in front of it. It became apparent that it was some sort of creature, as a head formed out of a few of the stony branches, looking like the skull of a horse or avian creature. It was completely silent except for it’s appendages propelling itself forward toward me.
I draw my remaining baselard and a stiletto and sink into form.
I don’t know what it is, but it’s fast, highly mobile, and has a plethora of limbs to attack or bind me with. I don’t have any mana, but even if I did, I’d probably miss with how thin the damn thing is; it looks like if a dozen spiders were slammed together, you’d get this. Evasion is stupid when it’s so agile and has so many attack lanes, I’ll just go through it then.
I dash forward, and to my surprise I actually outpace the creature from my speed. I aim for its center mass, which is really just a branch that’s in the middle, it doesn’t actually have any abdomen or amalgamations. Ignoring the appendages about to impale me from every side, I focus purely on moving forward, and I slice through the branch I was aiming for. My baselard initially met a tough wall, the stone, but it managed to break through, and the creature’s stony branch shattered like it was nothing. With a leap like a tiger’s pounce, my body easily weaves through the creature.
From behind, the creature doesn’t look too different. I don’t waste any time and immediately jump back toward it as soon as I land with a single leg. This time, I jump vertically above the creature; Since all its appendages were soaring for me the moment before, they’re all collected in the center of its body now that they’d missed their target. That’s a center mass I can do some real damage on now. I turn and twist my body midair into my baselard, putting my whole body into my downward strike. My baselard easily crushes through some branches that were floating in vicinity above the mass. My baselard gets to the bundle of branches, and it smashes through about half of them before its power ran out. Using the last of my height and momentum, I twist my body, and follow up my baselard with the same attack but with my stiletto in a downward thrust. It broke through a little more of the mass, but didn’t do as much as the baselard.
Having substantially severed a good half of its limbs within a second, I break off, smashing my way through a few more branches in a quick retreat. I turn back toward the creature, my boots sliding across the ground and slowing me in an instant.
I stared long and hard. But what I saw was not an illusion. The creature could barely move, it was struggling and flailing, but the majority of its stone appendages were either unmoving on the ground or but shattered rocks concealed by the tall grass. Its ‘head’ was still intact, and was writhing back and forth through the air, like a snake trying to make itself look big. I scoffed, and started to stride to the vulnerable creature. With one hand, I grabbed onto its head, and with my other hand I held its ‘neck’. With a twist and a hard pull, stone shattered, and I ripped the skull from its socket. The writhing appendage holding up the neck fell limply to the ground, and so did the other few remaining branches.
I stared at the oddly shaped skull for a moment. My grip was close to caving in its skull to my surprise. I dropped the skull and crushed it underfoot with a boot. Under my boot, came a slithering sensation, and I eased off the pressure a little. What looked to be a black millipede slithered away from the shattered skull, disappearing into the white grass.
I continued staring for a moment, until I let out a curt sigh and strode back to Alisson’s side after retrieving my baselard that I’d thrown. I sink down to where I’d been sitting, and return to drawing like nothing had happened.
It finally donned on me as I was drawing what I had done. I broke into a self-satisfied smirk as pride welled in my heart. Unflinching, serene, calm, I remained expressionless and dealt with a threat like it was nothing.
I couldn’t stop myself from smirking. I really have gotten magnitudes stronger since I was back home in all aspects, tactics, physical strength, speed and dexterity, everything. I mean, I was able to break that stone looking material with my hands alone-!
I was so prideful that I even broke out into humming a song without realizing it.
After a few minutes, Alisson started to stir so I shut up and buttoned up my journal, and slipped it within my cloak for the time being.
“Mm…Good morning…”
He said, and I knew immediately that the real Alisson was back.
“You only slept an hour.”
I say with a wry smile.
“Do you feel better? Can you stand? We need to get moving.”
I’d rather not stay here, not after seeing that there was something hostile here; who knows what else is in this white cavern. Alisson put a hand to his head and then to his abdomen.
“Mm…Yes, I think I can.”
He lifted his hand toward me and I pulled him up. Despite him saying he could stand, his legs were wobbly, and he clenched my hand tightly. I almost fell into a fit of ecstasy realizing that Alisson was holding my hand.
“Mm…don’t talk like an old man on his death bed recalling his life, Alisson. It makes me nervous.”
I said in response to his earlier delirium. He closed his eyes for a moment.
“…As you get older, it’s far easier to die. Your life becomes more and more filled up, and you feel like it doesn’t matter anymore…Though,” He broke into a small smile. “I’m far too young to die just yet.” And he let go of my hand and held his abdomen.
I smiled at him softly.
I only realized recently that without you, Alisson, I’m just a nobody. I’ve never had a drive in my life, something to strive for, something that makes me motivated, and something to love.
***
Addendum
Within a dark city, only a few souls stirred. Darting through the streets were blacked robed figures, they moved with intent, and not a single one spoke or was idle. They all had something to do, the majority of the ones moving were carrying supplies and luggage. Off in a secluded area, there was the only keep in the city. In the courtyard of the keep, in the black of endless night, were the only figures that seemed to be idle.
“I see you’ve returned, sister.”
The woman who spoke had a half red-charred face, it looked like she was half-undead, but it didn’t discourage any of the surrounding robed figures or the girl standing before her.
“I’m glad you’re getting along well with your injuries…it’s only been a day and you’re already up and about.”
The girl responded, an entourage of black robed figures behind her. The older women clenched a fist when the girl spoke of her injuries. Yesterday, a very peculiar folly had taken place. The 97th Basket Maiden had been overjoyed at the time, someone who smelled so compatible with the Lord had waltzed right into the heart of the Lord’s territory. She was on the brink of breaking him too, when he suddenly flashed effulgently with blue, and he had some sort of ears and tails. Then he used some kind of magic item, it released a noxious gas that nearly burned the 97th Basket Maiden alive. No normal human would be able to survive such a weapon, the burns alone plagued the 97th Basket Maiden’s body except on one place, where she’d placed her hands to protect her face when she was in the middle of the cloud. The gas was also deadly in that anyone that inhaled it would either die within minutes or die a slow and painful death in the coming years, though those sorts of things didn’t affect anybody in the service of the Lord. She was left with an insatiable mix of hatred and want for that boy, but she calmed herself being so near the Lord.
She eyed her would-be successor and stand in, the 98th Basket Maiden. She knew very well that her successor had made a grave mistake, but it seemed the naïve child truly didn’t know judging by the fact she hadn’t fallen over herself apologizing. The 97th Maiden had only recently heard of the events of the pursual force, and she regretted that she wasn’t able to take part in the battle. Her younger counterpart was not yet ready for combat, and she had zero experience in commanding peons.
“So, tell me sister, how did your first encounter with humans turn out? They weren’t too scary no?”
The child bobbed her head.
“The lot of them were boring and stupid. I knew right away who you were talking about however, I, I couldn’t take my eyes off them…”
The 98th Maiden said with a guilty blush.
“That’s good, that means you have a good scent. Both that blue haired girl and that boy were ripe with Veil.”
There were four things that made up a good Maiden, they’d been drilled into the 97th’s head for years by the late 96th, just as the 97th was doing to the 98th. One needed to have a sense of smell, to identify; a good mouth, to give orders and communicate; hearing, to listen to the Lord’s orders; and combat prowess, to execute any who got in the way.
“Now, tell me why in the Lord’s name did all trespassers manage to escape?”
The 98th immediately froze up in terror.
“We, we didn’t have the power to kill any of them…They were doing more damage to each other than the peons could-”
The 98th spoke quickly but she was interrupted by the 97th.
“Not enough power? You had three whole cannons with you – I’ll ask again – Why are they still alive?”
“B-but sister if I used the cannons then I would have hit our most loyal peons-”
“And? So what if a few contingents were to perish? They were trespassers! The Lord wanted them all dead!”
Normally, trespassers were, if they could be handled by either the Maiden or peons, killed and their corpses used as nourishment to bring to life new peons, but if they were too troublesome, then the Lord has always said to just blow them away with the cannons. The cannons, and the city, were not made by the Lord, they were relics of a nation that had been here; but all the inhabitants of that nation had long been turned into nesting material. The cannons were one of the only things the Lord confiscated from them, the rest was discarded and broken down.
The 98th was silent for a long while.
“Tell me, I heard you spoke with them, what did you speak of?”
The 98th looked up with a bright face.
“Ah- Yes! I proposed that I impart the trespassers the means to track down and find the boy who wounded you yesterday and in return they would bring him back alive.”
The 97th smiled.
“So that’s why they’re all alive, you should’ve said so; I didn’t think you to be the schemer!”
The 98th frowned. The 97th picked up on the child’s hesitation.
“What? What is it?”
“Well…you see…the trespasser denied me…they said that they needed to kill the boy...And, I thought that it was better to have the boy dead then alive, so I let them go and gave them the spell.”
The 97th stared her successor dumbly for a moment.
“…You what?”
Her voice was deep and serious, and was filled with disgust and malignance.
“I gave them the-”
“I don’t need you to repeat it-! Just what in the Lord’s name were you thinking!”
The 97th finally exploded in outrage.
“I…I, I-I-”
The 97th strode to the 98th, and grabbed her off her feet by the collar of her dress.
“The Lord wouldn’t make such a stupid deal-! In fact, he’s telling me right now that he was screaming, bellowing, yelling at the top of his lungs to you, about what course of action to take! Do you know what that sounds like to me!?”
The 97th screamed at the 98th. It was the loudest noise in the surrounding few kilometers, and easily echoed through the silent city.
The 98th was about to open her mouth but she wasn’t allowed to explain herself.
“It sounds like you’re deaf! Is that true? Are you so troubled that you, as a Maiden, are unable to hear our Lord? You do realize that is one of your sole reasons for existing do you not!? Yes, the Lord is telling me now, you were persuaded, blinded, by humans! Of all the idiocy!”
The 97th tightened her red charred fist around the collar of the 98th.
“You’re, you’re lying, the Lord isn’t saying anything-”
The 97th’s eyes whipped up in another fury.
“It is true then! He speaks throughout all the Land of your fault and you can’t hear him while we’re so close? Despicable! You’re a waste of time and space if you can’t do such a simple thing in times like these!”
The 97th tossed the 98th back on her feet toward her escorting peons, who she stumbled backwards into. The peons surrounding her grabbed onto the 98th with their black gloves, and held her still. She noticed this and after a moment, started to struggle furiously.
“What the-!? My peons aren’t listening to me-!”
“Yes, that’s because I’ve taken control of them now. You’ve already lost your privilege, you failure. Now, this way, the Lord requests your presence in person.”
The 98th’s eyes widened and she struggled even more fiercely, but the peons beside her were more than double her height and didn’t budge.
The 97th Maiden turned and strode off to the keep that had been behind her. The 98th’s peons followed, dragging the 98th across the ground, paying no mind to her struggles and yelps.
They reached the inside of the keep, and kept on moving, toward the would be dungeon. They went down a long flight of stairs, still dragging the 98th, now bruised and cut on her face and body. They came to a large cavity, a stone floor stretched out for a few meters from the stair’s end, and then there was black. Nothing but empty black.
“Yes, the Lord is telling me now, you’re in need of re-education. It’s clear that you’re no family member of mine and most definitely clear that you’re no Basket Maiden if you cannot heed the Lord.”
The 97th motioned to the peons holding the 98th. The 98th was in pure terror from the moment the 97th had said ‘re-education’. The peons’ clothes burst, as in, they ripped apart as a swarm of large black millipedes revealed themselves. The 98th was engulfed, and within seconds they were crawling around on every inch of her body as the empty black robes had just hit the floor. The swarm moved across the floor toward the black drop off.
The 97th saw her successor, crying and with a face of pure terror, though that only left an opening for the peons’ innards to crawl within. The swarm of them, with the 98th in tow, leapt, more aptly they fell, off the stone walkway and into the unending black. The sound of the 98th hitting any sort of ground never sounded.
The 98th started screaming almost immediately, though her yells were quickly muffled and became almost silent within seconds. The 97th Maiden walked to the end of the stone walkway.
The black before the 97th, now that she was closer, could be barely made out through the darkness. It was a large black amalgamation of organic mass. It bubbled and rippled in areas, like it was breathing. It had already engulfed the 98th, and it was far worse than anything the peons could ever do to the 98th.
This was the Lord. Every time the 97th saw him, she was ticked off by the fact that one could only see but a small portion of the him from this place; but the Lord had already spoken to her himself and had explained that he wanted to stay safe from invaders, and that under the keep, it was far safer than being out in the open and above the ground.
The 97th turned and walked away, back up the steps. That was the last time the 97th ever did see the 98th, or at least, the last time she would see her personality. The 97th didn’t feel bothered, but still felt an inkling of her human core that was embedded deep within her. It wasn’t any conscious thought no, it was a primal instinct that was mad. The fact was that the 98th was both the 97th’s daughter and sister. That was because the Lord was the father of the both of them, and the husband as well. So was the fate of the Basket Maidens, for the family was one of the only beings in the service of the Lord that had human ancestors.
“I’ll be back…You so-called Alisson.”
The 97th muttered to herself, another remnant of her humanity showing itself.