v1c2 - 2
……
The man stood before the corpse of the abandoned beast.
His body was smeared with green and brown pigments, or draped in cloths of those colors, blending seamlessly into the surrounding scenery. Even his cleanly shaved bald head was meticulously coated with some dye, a testament to his thoroughness. With his eyes closed, it would indeed be difficult to recognize him as human from a distance.
“Oh……”
The man’s face contorted sharply.
Though the camouflage pattern made his expression hard to discern as given the torrents of tears streaming down his face in the next moment, it might have been one of sorrow.
“Ohhh……”
The man slumped to his knees, clinging to the abandoned beast’s remains with his entire body.
Lying on the ground was a carcass that looked as if it had been sliced in two by a massive blade, cleaved from head to tail. The blood that had poured from its black bulk was absorbed into the forest’s moldering soil, making the magical monster, feared by all, seem almost shrunken.
“It must have hurt……It must have suffered……Oh……Oh…Poor thing, poor little thing…!”
The man let out a series of sobbing cries over the abandoned beast’s body. It was as if he were grieving the death of his own family.
And then suddenly—
“…But it makes no sense.”
As if his very personality had cleanly switched, the man muttered in a calm tone.
“For a Unicorn to be killed by a mage in these mountains, and while it was the aggressor, no less. By all accounts, this was the Unicorn’s ideal terrain. The opponent was a young girl mage burdened with luggage. There shouldn’t have been the slightest chance of defeat.”
The man rose, detaching himself from the Unicorn’s corpse, and tilted his head.
“If this was going to happen, I should’ve borrowed the ‘Eye’ and ‘Ear,’ even if it meant some trouble. Was there some factor I overlooked…?”
He scanned his surroundings, and in the next instant, as if transforming into a beast himself, he crouched low crawling on all fours, prowling the area.
Narrowing his eyes, twitching his nose, he lingered near the abandoned beast’s corpse for a while—
“…Someone else must have been here besides the target.”
He muttered with certainty.
His eyes were fixed on crushed dry leaves and snapped twigs.
To an ordinary human, they would likely appear as nothing more than that, but—
“Footprints…Besides the target’s, there’s one set belonging to what seems an adult male. Oh. Oh, oh! This stride suggests a skilled fighter. Who the hell is he? But that girl was supposed to have been alone until now or did she meet someone here? Well but…”
The man tilted his head.
“Hm. Looks like acting alone was a mistake, wasn’t it? If she has an ally, this might be beyond my reach. Waiting for Gillette-dono’s arrival might be the best course.”
The man stood there and turned to face a certain direction muttering.
“At any rate, there’s no doubt she entered that town.”
The direction he stared in.
There—lay the town of Del Solant.
With a dull hum, a mechanized vehicle rolled along the highway.
In recent years the magical engines powered by mana have gradually begun to spread among common folk, but large mechanized vehicles like this one remain a rare sight. They’re typically owned by nobles, royalty, or wealthy merchants. In the long run, they’re far more convenient and cost-effective than horse-drawn carriages or ox carts, but the initial investment—the vehicle itself—is exorbitantly expensive. Thus, only a select few can afford them.
Hence, this vehicle stood out.
Its pristine, white-based paint scheme was all the more conspicuous on rural roads.
It was only natural that people on passing carriages or ox carts, from driver’s seats or cargo beds, would turn with wide eyes to watch it go by.
“—Perhaps we should’ve avoided traveling by day.”
Inside the vehicle, a young man spoke with a sigh.
This vehicle—the April—was spacious. Already a large mechanized vehicle, its interior was even more expansive than its exterior suggested to onlookers. It was akin to a small house on the move. Beyond the driver’s compartment that operated the April, there were four private rooms, two cargo holds, and a central lounge where all occupants could gather face-to-face.
The young man was in that lounge.
Besides him, several men and women sat around a round table.
Their features, hair, eye and skin colors, and clothing were all varied completely lacking uniformity. They gave the impression of a mercenary band, yet the young man was unmistakably refined and elegant, every inch a noble.
“Matthäus’s scout report confirms it’s definitely that girl. If we let her slip here, who knows when we’ll catch her again.”
The person sitting across from the young man shrugged as he spoke.
A broad-shouldered middle-aged man, clearly older than the young man—but his slightly deferential posture suggested a difference in status or rank.
“But we’re drawing way too much attention.”
“Well, I agree.”
The middle-aged man gave a wry smile.
The young man’s point was valid.
A large white mechanized vehicle rolling endlessly down a rural road was bound to turn heads.
“It’s supposed to be a covert mission…”
“Well, it’s just that a noble’s vehicle on a country road catches eyes. Nobody knows why we’re out here.”
“That’s true, but...”
“More importantly.”
The middle-aged man ignored and glanced toward the driver’s compartment and said.
“Zita, when’ll we reach that Del Solant town?”
“...In about half an hour.” The voice that came from the driver’s compartment sounded like that of a young woman.
“…That’s what she says. The real issue comes after that.”
“Any contact with Count Abarth?”
The young man asked, and the voice, presumably Zita’s, answered.
“Made contact. But I didn’t share details.”
“That’s fine.”
The young man nodded.
“It won’t be straightforward, though…”
A trace of bitterness seeped into the young man’s muttering face.
Despite being neglected for so long—it was there, in exactly the same condition as when he last saw it.
In a corner of the dilapidated house, among stacked wooden crates, one held it alongside maintenance tools, as if waiting to be picked up again.
……
Toru grimaced as he pulled it out of the crate.
Two short swords which was attached, sheaths and all, to a leather belt. It wasn't as short as daggers, nor as long as longswords. Whether one saw them as half-baked or as conveniently blending the advantages of both dagger and longsword depended on the person.
But—
……
Toru set the two short swords, belt and all, on a nearby crate and removed the thin gloves covering his hands. Normally it's when anyone other than Akari was around, he wouldn’t take them off even to bathe—they were necessary for living as an ordinary commoner.
Toru gazed at his palms.
There, intricate emblems were etched with complex lines and the same were on the hilts of the short swords.
Toru fastened the belt around his waist again, resting his hand on the swords’ hilts.
As if the year-long gap had never existed, they fit naturally in his hands.
He lightly gripped and drew one.
“…Well.”
No sense of discomfort at all.
If anything, the machete he’d used that morning now seemed terribly crude. Even that had been a cherished tool since drifting to the town of Del Solant.
“No surprise, I guess.”
Toru muttered.
He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d suddenly felt the urge to take out these two short swords. Replacing the broken machete which was hardly an excuse. For living as an ordinary commoner, these were clearly useless.
Akari, unbothered, still used her favored weapon from the old days, but Toru’s short swords were unmistakably neither ceremonial nor practical, so they’d had no place in the peaceful life of Del Solant.
Though, to be fair, Akari’s iron hammer wasn’t exactly useful either, and she rarely took it outside the house.
“Somehow…”
Toru began to unfasten the belt without fully drawing the swords.
He moved to return his once-cherished weapons to the crate—
……
His hand stopped and stared at the two short swords for a while, then slung the belt over his shoulder with a quick motion and reached into the crate again, pulling out the maintenance tools. Blade powder, oil, a small hammer for peg removal, and other essentials were bundled together in a leather satchel.
Carrying these, Toru moved to the next room and arranged the swords and tools on an old, neglected dining table.
There—
“—Nii-sama?”Akari’s voice called from the doorway, its door long gone, as she passed by. “Those are…”
“Huh? Oh Yeah these...” Toru answered vaguely, sighing. “Just felt like it.”
……
Akari stepped into the room and peered at the two short swords from Toru’s side.
“Maintenance?”
“Well…yeah.”
It wasn’t as if he had any specific plans to use them.
But—
“Nothing else to do, right?”
……
Why Akari didn’t say something like Then why not work? like she always did was a mystery.
She merely nodded slightly and left the room again.
“Something to do—something I want to do.”
His own desires were no longer attainable.
The battlefield was the saboteur’s place to live and their reason for living. In a peaceful era, those skills were as useless as saw or kitchen knife and like short swords of an awkward length and size, they had no purpose.
But…
……
It was probably just a trivial incident.
Hardly even a fight, more like a clumsy affair.
An abandoned beast encountered in the mountains—teaming up with a chance-met mage to defeat it. That was all it was. It’d likely never happen again, and even if it did, he wasn’t sure he’d feel the same way.
Yet somehow—
“I—”
It wasn’t just because he’d used <Iron-Blood Transformation>.
On the razor’s edge between life and death, casting aside all extraneous thoughts, pushing his abilities to their limits to achieve something.
That was—
“Well, Whatever.”
What was actually fine, exactly?
Without fully understanding himself his own ideology, Toru began maintaining the short swords.
Comments
Post a Comment