Chapter 4
The thing Chaika held was certainly very strange.
You could even go as far to say that the piece of flesh looked demonic. It was the disembodied left hand of a human.
To be honest, the thing floating inside the transparent cylinder more closely resembled a spider with legs extending from its body in all directions. The hand was somewhere in between being an open palm and a clenched fist. It looked like it had been right in the middle of trying to grab something and was frozen there.
“This is your ‘important thing?'” Tohru said what immediately came to his mind.
She had gone out of her way to employ and pay them, and they had crept into the mansion and in the end come face to face with the count himself (though that had just been the consequence), and for all that this was the object she had been trying to obtain? Tohru hadn’t had much to go on, but he had figured that it at least had to be some kind of treasure or work of art.
“Yes.” Chaika gave an enthusiastic nod.
Then it seemed there was no doubt. Chaika lowered the coffin that had been on her back, opened it up, and placed the cylinder inside on the left near the middle, in other words, exactly where a left hand would go if a body had been lying in there. Then she tied it secure with a piece of string.
“This was what you brought the coffin for, huh?”
“Yes.” Chaika nodded again.
Her expression showed no traces of uncertainty or doubt, only true elation.
But…
“What in the hell are you going to use that for? Actually, maybe I should first ask, is that hand from a genuine dead human body?”
“…”
“And if it is someone’s actual hand, then whose?”
“Tohru.”
A small smile appeared on her lips.
“Akari.”
“Hm?”
Akari tilted her head at her name being called as well.
“Grateful. All that’s left, payment.”
Rummaging around in her coffin, Chaika grabbed a few coins and held them out to Tohru and Akari. They were silver coins, and that wasn’t all…they were Bohdan coins, which were in circulation primarily in the countries up north. Silver had always been quite common, so it was the type of currency that could be easily used anywhere in the continent.
“Here? Now?”
Tohru was shocked.
Sure, they weren’t in the middle of their journey or anything, but he certainly didn’t imagine that he would be given his pay on the way back home, out here in the open, so suddenly.
“What I mean to say is, are you…?”
“…”
Chaika kept smiling and held out the coins, silent and still.
Tohru understood what she was trying to convey through that behavior.
She doesn’t want anything to do with us anymore.
When he thought about it, he realized that that was probably the reason why the details on the job had been so scant.
He didn’t know anything about her circumstances, but to Chaika, Tohru and Akari were probably just temporary hires, nothing more than passing acquaintances…no more, no less.
Most likely because of the unicorn battle, Tohru had just unconsciously harbored feelings of camaraderie and affinity.
From the start, he had been a stranger.
Therefore, once the job was done of course they would part ways. It was just that simple.
He didn’t know if there were other things she was looking for, or, if so, where they were, but if she wanted them she would most certainly have to leave Del Solant.
“Grateful!”
Once more, Chaika held out the coins in both her hands.
As if to say, What’s wrong? Hurry up and take them!
But for a brief moment, Tohru hesitated to do so.
He could feel Akari’s questioning gaze next to him, but even so he didn’t take the money.
Once he took it, that would be the end of their relationship.
It should have been the end.
However…
“!?”
Tohru and Akari’s reactions were almost simultaneous.
Akari had been a little faster, which reminded Tohru all too well that his period of inactivity and lack of regular training really had taken its toll. At any rate, Tohru had pushed Chaika out of the way, and Akari had grabbed her from behind and pulled her backwards.
This sudden action had caused Chaika to drop the coins she was holding, which bounced as they hit the road.
There was a noise like very thin, very flat objects rushing past, and…
Ching!
With a sharp noise, one of those objects had pierced through a coin.
They were…
Throwing needles!
The petite Chaika had just about been sent flying by Tohru’s push, so when Akari had caught her she had to take a step backward, and, continuing to go with that momentum, had leapt into the shadows of a nearby building, dragging Chaika along with her.
All this had happened within the span of a moment.
With his swords at the ready, Tohru kicked off the ground and also took cover, leaping into the shadow of a large garbage bin.
Then…
“…Vivi!”
A voice that sounded half-panicked, half-annoyed came from the road.
“Really? Now?”
“Gillette-sama, I know it’s unbecoming, but—”
It was the voice of a young man…and what sounded like a young girl.
As the darkness gradually parted, out came the figures of three people.
They were…
“They’re saboteurs, so they probably won’t want to talk it out normally.”
“…”
Tohru knitted his brows. He didn’t know who these people were, but they sure seemed to know that he was a saboteur. Of course, he doubted they had seen how Tohru and Akari had responded to the attack…they had known beforehand. That needle had unquestionably been thrown with pure killing intent. Tohru and Akari wouldn’t have reacted the way they did otherwise.
“Who in the hell…?”
For better or for worse, both Tohru and Akari were completely separated from each other.
What’s more, Chaika’s coffin was still lying right there in the road. Tohru saw from his position that Akari was trying to hold down Chaika, who was kicking and struggling. She seemed to be quite bothered by leaving the coffin there.
…Akari.
Tohru quickly communicated to Akari through sign language.
Saboteurs had many special techniques for being able to communicate and understand one another. From chaotic battlefields to silent enemy camps, they had to have a way to communicate effectively in any situation.
Take Chaika and run. I’ll meet you on the back hill. Tell Chaika that I’ll grab her coffin.
Understood, Nii-sama. I’ll take Chaika and run, and meet up with you on the back hill. You’ll take care of the coffin.
Akari nodded.
With that successfully communicated, Tohru took a smoke bomb out of his handbag. He would use it to create a diversion.
If he struck it on something, it would ignite and smoke would come pouring out. However, if it was thrown hard enough it would explode, emitting a flash of light and a bang. He held it in both hands and threw it in the direction of the approaching three.
Bang!
There was a dull explosion and a white flash that lit up the night, and the dark scenery temporarily dispersed. Anyone whose eyes had been adjusted to the darkness would be blinded all the same.
Carrying Chaika, Akari dashed off at lightning speed.
At the same time, Tohru kicked off and leapt toward the coffin that had been left behind.
He grabbed the coffin’s handle, hoisted it up on his back, and kicked off the ground again. He didn’t forget to throw his last smoke bomb against the ground to make doubly sure he was clear.
However…
“!?”
The smoke bomb didn’t explode.
During that instant, someone, most likely one of the three, had skewered it with their sword.Since the bomb received an attack like that, it hadn’t exploded.
In other words…
It’s him…!
He glared at the man who had approached him in an instant.
Quite an opponent.
It was a blond-haired, blue eyed young man.
This was probably the guy that had raised such a bewildered tone of voice toward his comrade.
But he hadn’t been affected by the light from the smoke bomb, nor the smoke that came from it. Furthermore, Tohru felt that he had closed the distance between them in a mere moment with his sword, and the attack had been sharp enough to pierce right through the smoke bomb as if there had been no impact at all.
Someone with half-baked techniques couldn’t do that.
“You.”
The young man addressed the on-guard Tohru easily.
He didn’t seem to have any intention of boasting about what he did. On the contrary, he seemed awfully reserved. That stab that he had executed just now was probably nothing but a normal attack to him.
“What is your relationship with that silver-haired girl that was here just now?”
“Huh?”
“Vivi, my subordinate here, told me that you are a saboteur. If by chance your relationship is purely employee and employer, it’d be best to not get involved with her any further. It’s for your own good.”
“…”
Tohru’s eyes narrowed.
This guy…was probably being completely genuine.
He didn’t seem to be harboring any ill will or harmful intent toward Tohru. Those words hadn’t had even a hint of provocation or insult in them. In fact, they seemed more like well-intentioned advice.
His stature and skill might have given the slight impression that he would look down on Tohru, yet he could feel that the man’s expression was cool and calm. He had a face that looked confident about what he had to do, and what he had to do to achieve it.
But…
“You’re the ones that raided Count Abarth’s mansion, aren’t you?”
“…”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not chastising you for it. Though by no means will I praise you for it either. All I’m saying is that you should just entrust us with the coffin and get out of here. If you do so, we will not pursue you. The only things we need are the girl, and what’s inside that coffin.”
“You mean the Gundo?”
“Did you not see what that girl took from Count Abarth’s mansion?”
The young man tilted his head.
It seemed like he wasn’t talking about Chaika’s Gundo. After all, as far as Tohru could tell, that Gundo was a relic of the past. He had a feeling that they wanted something more than just to collect antiques.
So that meant…
“What are you talking about?”
Tohru played dumb.
He decided that here it would be better to let this good-intentioned intruder do the talking.
“What the hell is in there?”
“…”
The young man stayed silent.
So that meant he couldn’t say? Tohru highly doubted that he didn’t know.
“Gillette-sama.”
Suddenly, with a movement that felt like it had to be nearly weightless, a single girl stepped up to the young man’s left.
She had a small build, so she only came up to the young man’s shoulders. She looked to be about the same age as Chaika—in other words, she couldn’t be any older than in her middle teens. She had an especially cute face.
However, her dark-grey eyes flashed with the sharpness of a blade.
Judging from how the conversation had gone up until now, this girl was probably the one who had thrown the needles with killing intent just a bit ago.
It would have been different if the needles had bounced off the coins, but they had pierced right through them…that was definitely an incredible display of skill.
“It’s a wasted effort to try and talk with a saboteur. When they open their mouths it’s all deception and trickery,” said the girl, who was probably Vivi.
Furthermore…
“I agree.”
The last one of the three, another young man, had stepped up to his right.
This man had a low, rusty voice, wide shoulders, and was gigantic…about a head taller than a typical young man, in fact. Compared to the petite Vivi, this guy was like a boulder. Just at a glance he looked grim. He gave off the feeling that his footsteps would resound with every step he walked, and that just by walking he was disturbing the atmosphere around him. He had his arms crossed, and that gesture alone was wholly intimidating.
And what’s more, on his back was a large sword.
It was…
A comblade.
The same type of weapon as Tohru’s.
“The values a cavalier holds and the values a saboteur holds are almost completely opposite. Negotiations won’t work on—”
“Give me a break,” Tohru groaned. “That sounds real rich coming from a mercenary and an assassin.”
“…”
“…”
Vivi and the giant only flinched a bit at that.
But most likely, Tohru had been right on the mark.
This “Gillette-sama” in the center was no doubt a cavalier.
This girl named Vivi on the left was an assassin.
And this guy on the right, whose name he didn’t know, had to be a mercenary.
Clearly they were from many different walks of life, but what could have brought them all together?
“Nikolai, Vivi. Whoever he is, our main goal is the girl. He’s just a hired hand who got roped into this without knowing the circumstances.”
“…”
Tohru was put off by the words of this cavalier Gillette.
What the hell was that? It was like he was looking down on him.
Though he hadn’t chosen his words to specifically make fun of him, either. Most likely, this guy was as genuine as he appeared to be. He probably didn’t even realize he was looking down on Tohru. If he’d been brought up as a cavalier and a noble, looking down upon people who weren’t nobility was probably just something that came naturally to him.
Moreover, there was that thing he had said, “a hired hand who got roped into this without knowing the circumstances.”
Tohru stole a glance at the coins lying on the ground.
Indeed. Truthfully, the cavalier Gillette was correct. He was just someone whom she happened to pass by. Merely a hired hand. The job was over, which meant their relationship was, too. Chaika’s behavior clearly indicated to Tohru that she wanted no more out of him.
But having that pointed out to him by a complete stranger…really ticked him off.
Sure,where battles were concerned, a saboteur would not hesitate to execute inhumane, cold-blooded tactics, even though they understood that what they were doing wasn’t exactly moral. If necessary, they would take hostages. They would attack from behind under the cover of darkness. They would tell lies like it was nothing. They would trick their targets into walking into traps they set up beforehand. On the battlefield, cavaliers and soldiers played the lead roles, where they fought for just causes. There was no way they would resort to such cowardly and cruel tactics…those sorts of dirty deeds were all left up to the saboteurs.
But…
That’s why…
He had wanted to accomplish something.
Back in that stormy world ravaged by war, he hadn’t wanted to be a mere weakling who died being led around the nose. He felt like a life where one didn’t have something to live and die for couldn’t be called a “life” at all.
Back then, when he was young.
Back when she had died.
Tohru had been—
“You are a saboteur, right?”
“So what if I am?”
The cavalier’s question was asked as if trying to confirm it, and Tohru responded with a scowl.
At any rate, this was a bad situation.
He was out of smoke bombs with which to escape, and furthermore the coffin he was carrying made it impossible to do so anyway. Perhaps he could just ditch the coffin and the severed hand inside—maybe that way he’d be able to make a run for it…but…
That girl.
Chaika.
Even though she wasn’t good enough with words to articulate it.
Even though she had no one to depend on.
Despite all that, without any hesitation, she had still desired that hand. She had done the best she could, inching closer to her goal one step at a time. It was quite likely that she knew the danger she was putting herself in. In the first place, it was amazing that this girl who didn’t even have the basics of combat down even managed to survive this long all by herself. Even though it was the post-war period, no, precisely because the world was in a post-war period, there was no shortage of night burglars and wannabe-soldier bandits. Perhaps the girl had faced many more hardships that he wasn’t aware of.
Even so, he wasn’t letting his feelings take over or anything.
But…if this was the thing she wanted so earnestly…
Then I can’t just leave it behind.
He was aware how strange this way of thinking was for a saboteur such as himself. The reason his superiors never let him participate in his first battle probably wasn’t because he lacked the ability. It was more likely that they had seen in him that side of his personality.
However…
“I hear that saboteurs are pragmatists, through and through. Whether you do or don’t still call that girl your master, I don’t think you’re obligated to protect that thing. I am a cavalier, but it’s precisely because I am one that I’d like to avoid meaningless conflict.”
“Why, thank you very much,” Tohru snapped back to the cavalier’s calm words.
He was being made fun of.
Basically, Gillette was saying “you should just bend your knee to me since you can’t win. Looking at it logically, you should realize that handing over the coffin and leaving is the right thing to do here.”
I still can’t use “Iron-Blood Transformation” for a while.
Not even two hours had passed since the raid on the count’s mansion. If he didn’t wait at least half a day, using it would be risky in all sorts of ways.
Can I even beat these three in this situation?
It would be extremely difficult.
So what could he do?
“Now, hand over the coffin,” the cavalier Gillette said.
Think, Tohru Acura. Think.
While urging himself on, Tohru grasped the handles of the coffin tightly.
“No good! Cannot happen! Must turn back!”
“Shut up.” Akari continued to run with Chaika struggling under her arm. “Don’t make me go through the trouble of knocking you out.”
“Mu—”
Chaika stopped struggling and shouting. She probably realized that Akari was dead serious.
“Besides…”
Akari stopped running and let Chaika down.
After raising her voice to those three earlier, it was only the two of them moving around here. In this area there were a few shops lined up on the road, which meant it was common for it to be busy here during the daytime. At night, however, it was unsettlingly deserted, which made it easy to notice anyone’s presence, even if they were hiding.
This wasn’t a good situation to be in.
“Nii-sama said he would retrieve your precious coffin for you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” she nodded, frowning. “Though…you really should be more worried about him.”
“Mui?”
“Those three might not all be using the same techniques, but if they’re all as skilled as the one throwing the needles, then it’ll be difficult for Nii-sama to escape from there. That’s not even taking into account the baggage he has…”
“Baggage?”
“Your coffin.” The crease in Akari’s brow deepened.
“…Understand.” Chaika nodded.
“Nii-sama…why on earth did you…?” she muttered. Though her expression was as stagnant as ever, her behavior was that of someone who refused to accept the situation in front of her.
She turned her head away like she was trying to avoid looking at her troubles, but eventually she faced Chaika again and spoke.
“You stay here.”
“…”
“I’ll go back to help Nii-sama.”
“I, go with.”
“No. You’ll just be a burden.”
Akari said without hesitation.
“But—”
“Our job is already over. You’re no longer our client. Us continuing to travel with you up till now has all just been an extra service.”
“…”
Chaika looked like she had nothing to say to that.
It was understandable. Just a bit ago she herself had suggested the termination of their working relationship. What Akari was saying made sense.
But…
Chaika pointed to Akari.
“Akari, retrieve Tohru. Me, retrieve coffin.”
“Like I said, that won’t work…”
“Helping Tohru, impossible for me. For you, possible.”
“…”This time it was Akari’s turn to be speechless.
Basically, what Chaika was suggesting was that she would take back the coffin, whereas Akari would take back Tohru. Though they would be accompanying each other, their objectives would be different.
And of course, if she was captured or even killed on the way back from retrieving her coffin, that would be Chaika’s problem and not Akari’s.
With that clear divide between the two, the saboteur Akari felt that it might not be impossible after all.
No, in fact, it was…
“We’ll have to resort to some dirty tactics.”Akari crossed her arms. “They would never expect us to go back there…”
Those three should have realized that Tohru had deliberately thrown that smoke bomb precisely to allow Chaika and Akari to make their escape.
But looking at it from the other side, that meant that they probably wouldn’t be counting on Chaika and Akari to come back. So if they went back there and did something like circling and sneaking around the back, they might actually be able to pull this off.
“Understood. We’ll do it.”
“Grateful.”
Chaika beamed at the nodding Akari.
* * *
The confrontation ended with Tohru being apprehended quickly.
As soon as he was about to make a run for it with the coffin, the cavalier Gillette and the giant had brandished their swords on both sides of Tohru, crossing them. The sensation of the blade on the nape of his neck told him that it would be futile to do anything but stay put.
Not to mention…
“Your swords appear to be comblades,” the giant said. He was easily keeping his massive sword in place with just one hand. “I’m also a comblade user.”
Comblade users were a pain to fight.
The blades communicated with their user through shared senses that would then be fed into energy, allowing the comblade to become a part of the user. Just by holding the sword, the highest equilibrium was achieved. In other words, in that moment the user and the sword became one living entity.
It was widely viewed as “the sword becoming part of the user”; however, you could also look at it from the reverse.
Namely, that “the user became part of the sword”.
Comblade users had no concept of “swinging a sword.”
That was because every one of their movements was a sword technique.
“Just give up. No matter how good you are with that comblade, you won’t be able to escape us three.”
“…”
Tohru glared at the giant for a bit, but then…
“Hmph.”
He lowered his shoulders and dropped his stance. Yet he did not let go of the coffin’s handles.
“I’ll ask you again,” Gillette began, his sword still thrust out.
Gillette’s sword didn’t seem to be a comblade, but that actually made it even more terrifying. It meant that he could use a regular sword at a comblade user’s level. He had heard that military-bred cavaliers learned how to grip a sword before they could even walk on their own two feet, and seeing this guy he certainly believed it.
“What is your connection to that girl?”
“…”
“Is she someone you know?”
“Right back at you. Is she someone you know?”
Tohru deliberately craned his neck to meet Gillette’s eyes.
The blade ever so slightly cut into his skin, and blood came trickling from his neck.
“That ‘someone’ you’re talking about is Chaika, right?”
“Of course,” Gillette nodded. “We are here for a just cause. We act because of a request from various nations across the world. Our actions are derived from an understanding of who we’re chasing after, and what that girl is chasing after.”
“We’re way different from you,” Vivi chimed in. “We uphold justice.”
“…An assassin upholding justice, huh?”
At Tohru’s words, Vivi’s glare became sharp, but she didn’t say anything further.
“Ah, whatever. I get it already. In this situation, there’s no way I can win. I’ll comply and hand it over. Okay?”
Slowly, Tohru bent downward and set Chaika’s coffin on the ground.
“Take your hands off it,” the giant ordered.
“Are you sure you want me to do that?” Tohru said. “This coffin has been rigged with an explosive. If you were to force it open, it could blow up. Carelessness could cause all of you to get blown sky-high. Do you really want that?”
“…”
The cavalier Gillette and the giant exchanged glances.
For a brief moment, they seemed to be pondering the situation. But then…
“All right then,” Gillette nodded. “Disarm whatever traps you have on it. Then, hand the object of our concern, the ‘remains’.”
“…”
Tohru thought hard.
So these guys knew that what Chaika wanted were those “remains”. Which meant that someone had told them for what purpose she was collecting them, and whose remains they actually were. Of course, if they were also being employed by someone, then it was possible they didn’t know the circumstances either—that would be the much more favorable outcome for Tohru.
Because that would mean they didn’t have the whole picture.
With his back to everyone’s stares, Tohru made a show of disarming the “trap” within the coffin. It went without saying that the stuff about the explosion had been a complete fabrication. However, to have something like that set up wasn’t an unusual tactic, especially for saboteurs. Tohru had already shown them that he used smoke bombs, so he thought explosives and such would probably be believable to them.
And so…
“This is what you guys are talking about, right?”
Tohru opened Chaika’s coffin, undid the string tying the thing in question to the inside, and took it out.
Inside the clear cylinder was a severed hand.
Tohru displayed it to the three, as if telling them to take a good look at it.
“Yes, that’s it exactly,” said Gillette, nodding enthusiastically.
After confirming that, Tohru broke into a wide grin.
“Oh. So this is it, huh?”
And then he threw it.
He threw the clear cylinder with the severed hand in the opposite direction, into the darkness of the night.
“!”
Instinctively, all three pairs of eyes went away from Tohru. Of course, neither of the men made any move to withdraw their swords, but their attention had been diverted while they were wielding them, and so they might as well have. On the backs of the gloves Tohru was wearing there was iron installed to repel blades. He knocked away the swords at his left and right and sunk downward, grabbed the coffin, and dashed away at lightning speed.
“W—”
“Forget him! Grab the remains!” shouted the cavalier, chasing after the hand that Tohru had thrown. Vivi quickly followed him.
Then…
“You’re not going to go chase it?”
Tohru asked as he glared at the one person remaining, who went not in the direction of the severed hand, but in the other direction…namely, towards Tohru.
“Saboteurs aren’t careless,” said the giant, who was directly behind him. “You probably just threw a fake.”
“I’m not that skilled.”
“At any rate…” the giant said, “I’m not as nice as Gillette-dono.”
In the next instant, with a force that rent the sky, the giant’s comblade flew at him.
Tohru sank to the ground and was just barely able to dodge, but some of his hair was ripped off with the attack and it scattered through the air.
“To kill an enemy, you just need to get rid of their means of attack. I know how you fight.”
“What sound logic.”
Seeing that the comblade was about to make another overhead chop, Tohru forcefully lifted up the coffin he was holding and swung.
“Nuoo!?”
The giant couldn’t have expected Tohru to use the coffin as a weapon. Of course, he had dodged the attack, but such an unnatural dodge did disrupt his stance slightly.
“—Agh!”
With a sharp cry, Tohru threw the coffin just like that.
After all, he had no hope of winning if he continued to lug around extra baggage.
It was certainly true that to kill an enemy, you just needed to limit their means. With the cavalier Gillette and assassin Vivi away, it was just the giant left. Tohru probably had a fighting chance.
He heard a clunk behind him, and he knew that the coffin must have hit the wall or something. But he didn’t care about that…he unsheathed both swords and confronted the giant ahead of him.
“Hm.” A bold smile crossed the giant’s face. “Not bad for a brat.”
“Oh, really?”
Tohru licked his lips.
In the next instant, the two of them moved almost simultaneously.
“Hnn!”
The giant swung first.
Tohru just barely defended by dodging it.
No matter how good the giant was with his sword, no matter how much arm strength he possessed, it didn’t change how heavy his sword actually was. And in addition to it being heavy, it was also rather long and wide, which made it especially hard to swing around.
So his trajectory was limited to begin with.
As long as all of his attacks were direct swings, then even without “Iron-Blood Transformation” Tohru would be able to dodge them easily.
The blade uselessly sailed over Tohru’s head.
Then…
“Huh!?”
The blade cut deeply into the wall of a nearby building with a dull sound.
It stuck in there!
Once he saw that, he was convinced. After something like that, the sword wouldn’t be able to be pulled out right away. The giant’s crude destructive power had turned against him. If it had been a weaker attack the sword would have just bounced off the wall.
Taking a single step forward, Tohru sent a double-bladed attack towards the giant’s chest. The pointed end of the right comblade was heading right for a vital spot. This would surely be the killing blow.
But…
“!?”
The attack didn’t pierce his flank. Instead, it only stabbed the air.
It was hard to believe that someone of the giant’s stature could have moved in such a way to actually dodge it, especially as quickly as he did.
He would have had to pull a frighteningly unnatural stance in the air.
It was impossible. Keeping in mind the giant’s position and the stance he was in, Tohru determined that there was no way he could have avoided his attack. No matter how flexible he was, that kind of movement was beyond the limits of what the human body could do. It was impossible for a human in a normal stance to turn his head all the way around, and in the first place he wouldn’t be able to jump immediately after that massive swing.
And yet…
“Haha!”
With a sharp laugh, the giant sent the heel of his boot down at Tohru from up above with all the force of a hammer.
For Tohru, whose posture was already compromised from dodging that last attack, it was impossible to avoid. He immediately used his left sword to block the heel, but that didn’t nullify the impact. The sword went flying from his hand and stuck into the wall of a nearby building.
“…!”
Rather than stubbornly trying to stand back up, Tohru rolled away. He had to get some distance between him and the giant.
“…Wait, you didn’t…”
“I did.” The giant gave him a big grin.
The giant’s comblade was still stuck in the wall.
No, it wasn’t that it was stuck in the wall. The giant had made it get stuck in the wall.
Tohru could tell just by looking at it that that huge comblade was sturdy. Sturdy enough that it wouldn’t break even if the giant put his whole weight on it. In other words, he had stuck his sword into the wall to fix it in place, so that he could use it as leverage to launch himself into the air.
It wasn’t a technique a cavalier or a swordsman would use.
It didn’t fit the orthodox style of either of them.
This blunt way of using anything and everything in the area in combat was more in line with a mercenary…much closer in nature to a saboteur technique Tohru or Akari would use. It was a method of combat that any textbook cavalier would ridicule, calling it “cowardly and unfair” or “heresy.”
However…
“Surely you, a saboteur, aren’t going to call that unfair?” the giant laughed as he pulled his sword out from the wall.
“I won’t,” Tohru said.
Unfairness was fine. Foul play was fine.
A saboteur’s pride was to bring victory to their client regardless of the methods used. In battle, there was no such thing as right or wrong.
“Well, then…”
Bam! The giant rushed towards Tohru, emitting a ground-rending sound as he kicked off.
It was a direct, sudden attack from the front.
This attack would have the force of his running speed combined with the giant’s muscle strength and the mass of his sword, not to mention the sheer force of his running speed made it difficult to judge the distance between them. On top of that, every fiber of his being was concentrated on this assault, and the amount of zeal he was pouring into it made it nothing less than deadly.
Simple though the trajectory might be, a sideways sweep from the front meant that it was impossible to dodge left, right, or down. And if he jumped without thinking, he would leave himself completely open.
Put simply, this attack was one to be feared.
However…
“Surely you aren’t going to say that this is unfair!” Tohru shouted as he leapt into the air while spinning around. The giant’s slash went right under him.
Of course, if evading left, right, or down wasn’t an option, then obviously the only choice was up.
“Hah!”
Letting out a short cry, Tohru brought his sword down on the giant’s head.
It was a technique that could split boulders in half, plus the fact that he had spun around his entire body meant that even more acceleration force would be applied, doubling the power of his attack.
But…
“Foolish!” the giant yelled.
Sure, Tohru had avoided the sideways sweep. But that was all he had done. He had left himself in the air with nowhere to go, and so the giant, attacking from a different angle, released a vertical sweep upward. Regardless of the circumstances the giant’s straight swipe up was a shorter motion, and so it reached Tohru first.
Or at least, it should have.
“!?”
The giant crumpled.
And it was in that moment that he probably finally realized what had happened.
A thin black string was tangled around his legs. The string led to the pommel of a sword—Tohru’s sword which had been knocked away earlier. The reason Tohru had deliberately spun in the air as he jumped was not to accelerate his attack, but to pull the string wound along the ground tight around the giant.
“Got you!”
Tohru released an attack from overhead meant to knock down his opponent.
But for some reason, the giant raised his own left arm to block it.
…There was the unnatural sound of steel hitting against something.
Tohru’s attack hadn’t severed his arm; on the contrary it had been stopped at his thick muscles. The giant was probably wearing chain mail on the inside of his clothing. It was a common thing on the battlefield; it wasn’t like it was unfair.
“Tch…!”
Instead of following up any further, Tohru sent a kick at his chest to get some distance.
At the same time, he pulled in the rope, and the sword stuck in the wall came back to him.
However…
“Ungh…ugh…”
The giant groaned as his left arm hung down loosely.
He was bleeding…probably because his muscles had been cut so deeply, he didn’t have any strength left in his arms. Both arms were stained red, and bright red blood was dripping from his fingers.
“Now then,” Tohru said, crossing his swords in a scissor-like shape. “You said that to kill an enemy you needed to get rid of their means, right?”
It was probably impossible for the giant to swing that huge comblade efficiently with only one arm.
Not to mention the quantity of blood he was losing—if Tohru didn’t give him an opportunity to stop the bleeding, even if he decided to spare him it was Tohru’s win.
“…”
The giant frowned, but he unconcernedly picked up his sword and assumed his stance.
“You’re still going to fight?”
“Of course. That’s the pride of a mercenary. Something a saboteur would know nothing of.”
“…”
With a sigh, Tohru lowered his blades.
And in the next moment…
“!?”
There was a dull sound, and then the giant’s head wobbled.
He sunk down and hit the ground with an earth-shaking crash. Behind him were…
“Are you hurt, Nii-sama?”
“Tohru, came to rescue.”
It was Akari with her hammer in hand, with Chaika beside her.
Alberic Gillette and Vivi were easily able to secure the severed hand. They figured it would be somewhat difficult to find since it was night, but they were able to spot it unexpectedly well. The candle street lamps placed along the road at fixed intervals gave off a dim glow, and the clear container gleamed in the light.
“Do you think this is it?” Vivi stared at the severed hand with great interest.
“Probably, although I can’t tell for sure. We’re going to have to consult with Mattheus or Zita,” Alberic said. He took a cloth out of his bag, covered the hand with it and then tied it to the side of his waist not occupied by his sword.
“Come to think of it, where’s Nikolay?”
“It looks like he stayed behind to take care of that saboteur,” Vivi said.
“‘Take care of’, huh…”
Alberic frowned.
“Gillette-sama. Even though that guy looked young, don’t forget he’s a saboteur. He’s definitely capable of throwing out a fake to deceive us.”
“That’s definitely a possibility,” Alberic said with a sigh.
Alberic had made it a point to try to not involve any unrelated people in this matter. That boy might have been a saboteur or whatever, but it seemed to him like he was merely being employed by someone and thus didn’t have the whole picture.
“Let’s go back for now. If all goes well, I’ll be able to stop Nikolay.”
“Gillette-sama…”Now it was Vivi’s turn to sigh. The bona fide assassin looked put out with Alberic’s amiability.
But the truth was that neither one of them had even an inkling of doubt that Nikolay would win. This was Nikolay of the comblade, whose strength had no equal. With his comblade he specialized in mercenary sword skills utilizing his entire body, and executed them with the utmost precision. Against him, even Alberic wasn’t confident he’d be able to win.
And so…
“…Huh?”
They had returned to the place where the saboteur boy had been captured a bit ago.
“Nikolay!?” Alberic shouted, shocked. Vivi ever so slightly stood at the ready.
Their strong comrade, who they thought could never possibly lose to anyone, was lying on the ground. His legs were tied together, and the saboteur boy was sitting on top of him.
“You—you defeated Nikolay?”
“Well, more or less.” The saboteur boy looked largely unconcerned. “For your information, he’s still alive.”
“…” Alberic’s eyebrows went up.
Saboteurs weren’t choosy about their methods to achieve victory. Of course, that meant that murder was definitely within their vocabulary. The saboteur boy had defeated Nikolay, so of course he could snuff out his life just like that.
Which meant…
“It’s this you want.”
Alberic undid the tie attaching the severed hand to his waist and held the hand out.
“You got it. Sorry to have you go through the trouble of finding it and bringing it back to me,” the saboteur boy said. He continued to scowl as he said it, so no doubt it was intended to be sarcasm. “If you consider that thing to be more important than the life of your comrade over here, then by all means, keep it, and I’ll kill this guy. It might be a pain, but to be completely honest, if it came right down to it it’d be easier than twisting a baby’s neck.”
“…”
Alberic heard Vivi emit a brief moan.
But this boy was—
“You don’t understand,” Alberic said, choosing his words carefully.
“What do you mean by that?”
“About that girl. The girl who hired you. Right now, you don’t even know her name, do you?”
“…” The saboteur’s eyes narrowed as he looked at each of them.
“I don’t know how much that girl told you, but let’s stop with the ridiculous facade. Nothing good can come from working with that girl. Do you want to make an enemy of the entire world?”
“You say that, but you’re just spouting vague, abstract bullshit. How about coming right out and saying it?”
“…”
“…”
Alberic and Vivi looked at each other. This saboteur boy really had no idea.
This was confidential information of the highest degree…however.
“The Gaz Empire,” Alberic said. “This severed hand belongs to the one and only Emperor Gaz. ‘The Demon King’, the ‘Taboo Emperor’, he has many names, but he was the strongest wizard of them all. Arthur Gaz.”
“…”
Atop the saboteur’s scowling face, his eyebrows went up.
He probably didn’t believe him.
Arthur Gaz was an incredibly powerful man. None of the legends, tales, or achievements attributed to that man were any exaggeration. There were many who even said he was inhuman. At any rate, his was an existence so incredibly large that to the average person, he would seem unreal.
But…
“And that silver-haired girl you’re working for is…”
As he continued, Alberic tried to get a feel for the boy’s reaction.
“Chaika Gaz—the Emperor Gaz’s daughter.”
* * *
Arthur Gaz.
The man was called many things: “Taboo Emperor”, “Demon King”, “Immortal King”, “monster”, “Great Sage”, “Ultra Emperor”, “Lunatic of War”…the list went on.
They were all correct ways to describe him, but at the same time they were all wrong. That was because summing up such a large and complex existence in several words was impossible. He was the likes of which the continent of Verbist had never seen before throughout its entire history, and to tell the truth, it could even be said that based on his astoundingly long life and overwhelming strength, to describe the man as an “individual” was wrong; he was simply “the king of the Gaz Empire.”
During his iron-fisted rule over the northern countries he invented a great number of magical arts and techniques as a great sage, and all throughout the long,constant maelstrom of the warring period, he was a tactician who continued to lead the major powers of the continent around by the nose.
In particular…there was no question that Arthur Gaz was the one to lay the groundwork for the existence of magic, and taking into account the fact that magic was prevalent in many fields, there were many scholars and sages who said that without the Gaz Empire, civilization would be at least a hundred years behind. They also said that the Empire would be what guided humanity forward.
But on the other hand, there were no records whatsoever of Arthur Gaz before he built the Gaz Empire…he was a complete enigma. So there were also those who said that the whole Gaz Empire was just one big swindle.
At any rate, that was just how much influence Emperor Gaz had on the continent of Verbist, and the records alone show that for almost three hundred years the man continued to have a profound influence on the world.
However…with the advent of freely accessible magic rituals, the immortal “Demon King” who had ruled over the Gaz Empire for nearly three hundred years was rumored to not be so immortal after all.
And during the battle at the Empire’s imperial capital, Arthur Gaz was killed. His men soon followed, and it brought an end to the chaos in Verbist at last.
In other words, Arthur Gaz was the very symbol of the warring period itself.
It goes without saying that his influence is still widespread today.
And so…
* * *
“The Demon King’s…daughter?” Tohru raised his eyebrows.
This was not what he had expected to hear at all.
It had definitely caught him off guard. He feared that he actually let the surprise show on his face, which was an incredibly poor way for a saboteur to conduct himself. The cavalier Gillette nodded at Tohru’s reaction and continued.
“That’s right. And five years ago, during the battle at the imperial capital where Arthur Gaz himself was killed, his daughter was the only one to survive.”
“…Wait, the only one?”
Any way you looked at her, Chaika had to be in her mid-teens, which meant that during that battle five years ago she would have been about ten. It was hard to imagine a girl of that age being able to escape a scene like the death of the monster Gaz all by herself. But if she had the help of her retainers or something, then why weren’t they by her side now?
Perhaps they had died after using up all their strength.
Perhaps they had abandoned Chaika and ran away.
Or perhaps…
‘Impossible! Y-You’re supposed to be dead!’
Come to think of it, the count had said something like that upon seeing her, which meant that it was probably due to some miraculous coincidence that she was still alive.
“The exact circumstances elude us as well,” the cavalier said. “But regardless, we cannot simply let this girl do as she pleases.”
“Why not?” Tohru asked.
As far as he could tell, Chaika was nothing more than a dim-witted girl who was able to use a sparse bit of magic. She definitely didn’t seem like the kind of presence that would warrant the likes of a cavalier, mercenary and assassin to track her down as a group.
But apparently, there was more to her than Tohru thought.
“The emperor Gaz still has many loyal to him, even now. The alliance formed to storm the Gaz Empire’s capital was nothing short of a miracle to begin with.”
Technically speaking, the powers of the world being able to form a temporary alliance against the Gaz Empire was due to many things lining up at the right time, which had led to the attack on the capital. Even if the Gaz Empire was somehow resurrected, that alliance would probably never happen again. That was what the cavalier Gillette said, anyway.
“At any rate, the Taboo Emperor’s influence is still widespread, even after his death. There are even people that want his daughter, Chaika Gaz, to take over and restore the Gaz Empire.”
“…”
“At the same time,” Gillette said, turning his gaze to the clear cylinder in his hand, “it is doubtless that the remains of this monster said to have lived three hundred, no, even five hundred years, came to possess incredibly potent fuel for magic. As a matter of fact, the quantity of magic contained within is immeasurable. Combine that kind of magic with a Gundo and you have a weapon of absolutely no equal.”
The driving force behind magic, in other words ‘magical power,’ came from a person’s thoughts.The corpses of intelligent lifeforms housed the residual thoughts accumulated throughout their lives. As long as the appropriate steps were followed, it was possible to extract these thoughts and turn them into magical power. Many magic institutions would use methods like fossilization or covering the corpse with grey wax to give the thoughts physical form. This was a commonplace way to extract magical power, and metaphorically speaking, using a wizard’s thoughts as an ember would create quite the explosion.
In many cases, the fossils of Feyra were used—however, through preservation techniques it was also possible to use human body parts.
Like, for instance, that severed hand.
“…I see now.”
That Gundo back at the count’s mansion had been large enough to cover the entire range of the building because it was being powered by the severed hand of the powerful wizard, the “Taboo Emperor,” not because the Gundo itself was so large.
That meant that the remains of Arthur Gaz had been divided, and most likely scattered all over the place. What kind of magical weapon could be created if all the parts were to be brought back together…no, what would happen if those that wished for the revival of the Gaz Empire were to get their hands on it? No doubt, that was what had the people behind the cavalier Gillette so scared.
“You understand now, don’t you?” Gillette said. Tohru could sense the slightest hint of impatience in his voice. “Chaika Gaz is a calamity waiting to happen—an existence that will jeopardize the peace we’ve attained at last, and will throw us back into chaos once more. We absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, let that girl collect her dead father’s remains!”
* * *
“Chaika Gaz is a calamity waiting to happen—an existence that will jeopardize the peace we’ve attained at last, and will throw us back into chaos once more. We absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, let that girl collect her dead father’s remains!”
The cavalier’s raised voice reached Akari’s ears, who was hiding with Chaika a bit further away.
“…”
Devoid of expression, Akari turned and looked at Chaika.
The daughter of the “Taboo Emperor” bit her lip and hung her head slightly.
“Is what he’s saying true?”
“…”
Chaika didn’t respond.
But her fingers around her Gundo’s grip, the Gundo that she had set up on the roof of this house in order to protect Tohru, had turned a sickening shade of white.
That basically confirmed it.
“The daughter of the “Demon King”…”
“I—”
That was all Chaika uttered.
Her speech was not in the main language of the continent, but in Laike, the language used up north where the Gaz Empire had been.
“I just…all I want to do is…gather the remains of my father…and give him a proper burial…that’s all…just that…it’s something I have to do…”
“…”
Akari was silent.
But she couldn’t imagine that Chaika was affiliated with any survivors or supporters of the Gaz Empire. There wouldn’t have been any reason to hire her and Tohru otherwise.
Akari was an orphan. In the Acura village, there were quite a few who had never known their family. For them it was traditional to pick up orphans,raising them to be saboteurs.
So Akari couldn’t understand how Chaika felt. She could only imagine.
However…
“…Nii-sama.”
How did Tohru feel about this?
Narrowing her eyes, Akari waited for her honorable brother’s response.
* * *
“That’s fine with me.”
Tohru muttered it. But even so, it seemed like Gillette and Vivi behind him were both able to hear. Both of them looked puzzled.
“Throwing the world back into chaos? Sounds good.”
Tohru smiled, showing his teeth.
Gillette’s eyes went wide, and he groaned. Vivi glared at Tohru like she was looking at a despicable lowlife.
Tohru didn’t care, and continued on. He was a saboteur and a jobless deadbeat, so he was used to abuse and scorn.
“Chaos? Bring it on. With that, we can go back to the warring period once more.”
“You…!” Gillette’s expression warped, like he had just seen a monster belt out an incomprehensible chant.
“I’m a saboteur. This peaceful world can just go to hell! Not being able to do anything, not able to leave anything behind, just dying pointlessly and not being able to change anything—I don’t need any of that!”
The memories of his youth passed through the back of his mind.
Jasmine, whose life had ended while she was holding her child.
He had wanted to change the world.
He had wanted to etch his own existence into it.
Not just be born to simply die, but for there to be a meaning to why he was here. That was what he wanted. A reason for his birth, and a reason for his death. That was what he wished for with every fiber of his being.
And so…
“Then…you wish for chaos!?”
“You’re damn right I do!” Tohru flashed a vehement smile.
Though to be honest, that wasn’t the whole reason. There was something else.
So that’s her purpose for living…
Chaika. The daughter of the “Taboo Emperor.”
The lonely princess carrying around her coffin…running around trying to collect her father’s remains.
All by herself, in the center of this despairing world, with everyone her enemy.
But even so, she continued to move, heading straight for her goal.
No matter how fruitless it was, the girl never wavered from her path…to her, it was the meaning of her life.
And that was…
I want to grant her wish.
Tohru thought from the bottom of his heart.
She was different from him. Even if the world changed, no, precisely because the world changed, she had a will that would not bend.
And for Tohru, that was something incredibly dazzling to witness.
Therefore—
“Chaika!”
As he shouted her name, he jumped.
As he charged at them with incredible force, he closed his eyes.
“!?”
The cavalier and the assassin went on guard.
Both were skilled in their respective fields. There was no way that Tohru as he was now could win against them, even rushing straight at them.
But…
Shoom!
An intense light ripped through the air between Gillette and Tohru.
It was magic that Chaika had prepared beforehand.
“The Blinder.” A spell that used luminescent illusion magic to an extreme degree.
Naturally, anyone exposed to this defenseless would be blinded within seconds.
On top of that, moving in the cover of the night was a saboteur’s specialty. Moving silently without a trace in the darkness, Tohru had techniques available to him that did not require being able to see, using reflexive sounds and going with the flow of the atmosphere instead.
Of course, though his opponents were blinded they wasted no time in attacking.
“Ugh!?”
Gillette unsheathed his sword and swung, but the light of Chaika’s magic had already removed his ability to see, and so his movements were all over the place. It was the same for Vivi. As an assassin, she probably had some of the same techniques for moving around in the dark that Tohru had, but since the light had come without any warning, she hadn’t had any way of shielding her eyes.
Even so, both of their attacks were still dangerous.
Gillette’s sword made a wide circle and Vivi’s needles went flying towards him.
But, since their sight had been compromised, both their techniques were a far cry from being flawless. Tohru raised his comblades and blocked both attacks in an instant.
“Ku…!?” Gillette groaned.
Tohru hurled himself at him.
“I’ll be taking that back.”
Tohru forcefully snatched the severed hand out of Gillette’s grasp.
“W-Wait!?” Gillette looked left and right as he shouted, confused. Vivi reflexively prepared another needle—but she didn’t throw it. She was probably afraid that without being able to see she might accidentally hit her comrade.
“Wait, you—”
Gillette continued to shout, but Tohru, looking straight ahead, was already behind them, running.
* * *
Right now, he was carrying almost nothing with him.
He had his favored weapon and his tools. Other than that, he had the clothes he was wearing, and just a little bit of money. It was no exaggeration that everything could be put in a bag and carried, save for Chaika’s coffin.
“Akari?”
“I’m all done packing on my end.”
Akari had packed her things in much the same way.
His non-blood-related sister nodded at him, and Tohru once again checked just to make sure.
“I’m going to ask this just in case, but you do know you don’t necessarily need to come with me, right?”
“What a ridiculous question, Nii-sama.” Akari shook her head. “I will go wherever you go.”
“…Akari…”
“Nii-sama ,” Akari said quietly, with a carefully stoic face, “if you go and die in some unfamiliar place, how else am I going to be able to stuff you?”
“Then I hope I die in a grand explosion,” Tohru groaned. He gave a sigh, and left the house.
Dawn had not broken yet, so it was still quite a dark morning. The girl with a coffin on her back stepped out into the chilly air, all by herself.
“Well then, shall we go?”
“Mu?”
Chaika turned around, bewildered.
“Tohru. Akari. Why?”
“Well…I got my face seen by the count here.” Tohru shrugged his shoulders. “So that means I can’t be in this town anymore.”
Not only had he snuck into the count’s mansion, he had actually fought him. And in the end, he had even squared off against a group of people that had received a special task from the major powers of the world. It wasn’t impossible to stay in Del Solant after all that, he supposed, but he had no reason to.
“So I figured I would join you on this journey, and help you out with your ‘work.’ That’s reasonable, right?”
He didn’t have anywhere else to go anyway, so he didn’t mind going in the same direction as Chaika.
Also, it seemed like she was somewhat loaded…he also had the selfish ulterior motive of “if he went with her, at the very least he wouldn’t have to worry about going hungry.”
And also—
“But. I.” Chaika hung her head.
As he thought, she was still worried about her lineage.
“‘Taboo Emperor, daugh–”
“I told you already,” Tohru said in a chiding tone. “War is fine with me.”
“…”
“If we go with you, the world will probably change. I don’t want this worthless peace to keep up, I want something that will change the whole world. That’s what I wish for.”
It was a lot better than dying pointlessly.
Even if he was called a demon or continuously insulted.
He wanted to carve some kind of proof that he lived into the world—
“Chaika.”
He turned to the silver-haired girl and extended his hand.
“I’m going to move forward. What about you?”
“…”
Chaika looked at Tohru. Then she looked at Akari.
“Hm.” Akari nodded.
And then—
“Yes!”
Smiling brightly, she took Tohru’s hand.
The daughter of the “Taboo Emperor”—Chaika Gaz.
The saboteur siblings, Tohru and Akari Acura.
That day, they left Del Solant at the break of dawn.
On their journey to plunge the world once again into chaos.
Chapter 4
The thing Chaika held was certainly very strange.
You could even go as far to say that the piece of flesh looked demonic. It was the disembodied left hand of a human.
To be honest, the thing floating inside the transparent cylinder more closely resembled a spider with legs extending from its body in all directions. The hand was somewhere in between being an open palm and a clenched fist. It looked like it had been right in the middle of trying to grab something and was frozen there.
“This is your ‘important thing?'” Tohru said what immediately came to his mind.
She had gone out of her way to employ and pay them, and they had crept into the mansion and in the end come face to face with the count himself (though that had just been the consequence), and for all that this was the object she had been trying to obtain? Tohru hadn’t had much to go on, but he had figured that it at least had to be some kind of treasure or work of art.
“Yes.” Chaika gave an enthusiastic nod.
Then it seemed there was no doubt. Chaika lowered the coffin that had been on her back, opened it up, and placed the cylinder inside on the left near the middle, in other words, exactly where a left hand would go if a body had been lying in there. Then she tied it secure with a piece of string.
“This was what you brought the coffin for, huh?”
“Yes.” Chaika nodded again.
Her expression showed no traces of uncertainty or doubt, only true elation.
But…
“What in the hell are you going to use that for? Actually, maybe I should first ask, is that hand from a genuine dead human body?”
“…”
“And if it is someone’s actual hand, then whose?”
“Tohru.”
A small smile appeared on her lips.
“Akari.”
“Hm?”
Akari tilted her head at her name being called as well.
“Grateful. All that’s left, payment.”
Rummaging around in her coffin, Chaika grabbed a few coins and held them out to Tohru and Akari. They were silver coins, and that wasn’t all…they were Bohdan coins, which were in circulation primarily in the countries up north. Silver had always been quite common, so it was the type of currency that could be easily used anywhere in the continent.
“Here? Now?”
Tohru was shocked.
Sure, they weren’t in the middle of their journey or anything, but he certainly didn’t imagine that he would be given his pay on the way back home, out here in the open, so suddenly.
“What I mean to say is, are you…?”
“…”
Chaika kept smiling and held out the coins, silent and still.
Tohru understood what she was trying to convey through that behavior.
She doesn’t want anything to do with us anymore.
When he thought about it, he realized that that was probably the reason why the details on the job had been so scant.
He didn’t know anything about her circumstances, but to Chaika, Tohru and Akari were probably just temporary hires, nothing more than passing acquaintances…no more, no less.
Most likely because of the unicorn battle, Tohru had just unconsciously harbored feelings of camaraderie and affinity.
From the start, he had been a stranger.
Therefore, once the job was done of course they would part ways. It was just that simple.
He didn’t know if there were other things she was looking for, or, if so, where they were, but if she wanted them she would most certainly have to leave Del Solant.
“Grateful!”
Once more, Chaika held out the coins in both her hands.
As if to say, What’s wrong? Hurry up and take them!
But for a brief moment, Tohru hesitated to do so.
He could feel Akari’s questioning gaze next to him, but even so he didn’t take the money.
Once he took it, that would be the end of their relationship.
It should have been the end.
However…
“!?”
Tohru and Akari’s reactions were almost simultaneous.
Akari had been a little faster, which reminded Tohru all too well that his period of inactivity and lack of regular training really had taken its toll. At any rate, Tohru had pushed Chaika out of the way, and Akari had grabbed her from behind and pulled her backwards.
This sudden action had caused Chaika to drop the coins she was holding, which bounced as they hit the road.
There was a noise like very thin, very flat objects rushing past, and…
Ching!
With a sharp noise, one of those objects had pierced through a coin.
They were…
Throwing needles!
The petite Chaika had just about been sent flying by Tohru’s push, so when Akari had caught her she had to take a step backward, and, continuing to go with that momentum, had leapt into the shadows of a nearby building, dragging Chaika along with her.
All this had happened within the span of a moment.
With his swords at the ready, Tohru kicked off the ground and also took cover, leaping into the shadow of a large garbage bin.
Then…
“…Vivi!”
A voice that sounded half-panicked, half-annoyed came from the road.
“Really? Now?”
“Gillette-sama, I know it’s unbecoming, but—”
It was the voice of a young man…and what sounded like a young girl.
As the darkness gradually parted, out came the figures of three people.
They were…
“They’re saboteurs, so they probably won’t want to talk it out normally.”
“…”
Tohru knitted his brows. He didn’t know who these people were, but they sure seemed to know that he was a saboteur. Of course, he doubted they had seen how Tohru and Akari had responded to the attack…they had known beforehand. That needle had unquestionably been thrown with pure killing intent. Tohru and Akari wouldn’t have reacted the way they did otherwise.
“Who in the hell…?”
For better or for worse, both Tohru and Akari were completely separated from each other.
What’s more, Chaika’s coffin was still lying right there in the road. Tohru saw from his position that Akari was trying to hold down Chaika, who was kicking and struggling. She seemed to be quite bothered by leaving the coffin there.
…Akari.
Tohru quickly communicated to Akari through sign language.
Saboteurs had many special techniques for being able to communicate and understand one another. From chaotic battlefields to silent enemy camps, they had to have a way to communicate effectively in any situation.
Take Chaika and run. I’ll meet you on the back hill. Tell Chaika that I’ll grab her coffin.
Understood, Nii-sama. I’ll take Chaika and run, and meet up with you on the back hill. You’ll take care of the coffin.
Akari nodded.
With that successfully communicated, Tohru took a smoke bomb out of his handbag. He would use it to create a diversion.
If he struck it on something, it would ignite and smoke would come pouring out. However, if it was thrown hard enough it would explode, emitting a flash of light and a bang. He held it in both hands and threw it in the direction of the approaching three.
Bang!
There was a dull explosion and a white flash that lit up the night, and the dark scenery temporarily dispersed. Anyone whose eyes had been adjusted to the darkness would be blinded all the same.
Carrying Chaika, Akari dashed off at lightning speed.
At the same time, Tohru kicked off and leapt toward the coffin that had been left behind.
He grabbed the coffin’s handle, hoisted it up on his back, and kicked off the ground again. He didn’t forget to throw his last smoke bomb against the ground to make doubly sure he was clear.
However…
“!?”
The smoke bomb didn’t explode.
During that instant, someone, most likely one of the three, had skewered it with their sword.Since the bomb received an attack like that, it hadn’t exploded.
In other words…
It’s him…!
He glared at the man who had approached him in an instant.
Quite an opponent.
It was a blond-haired, blue eyed young man.
This was probably the guy that had raised such a bewildered tone of voice toward his comrade.
But he hadn’t been affected by the light from the smoke bomb, nor the smoke that came from it. Furthermore, Tohru felt that he had closed the distance between them in a mere moment with his sword, and the attack had been sharp enough to pierce right through the smoke bomb as if there had been no impact at all.
Someone with half-baked techniques couldn’t do that.
“You.”
The young man addressed the on-guard Tohru easily.
He didn’t seem to have any intention of boasting about what he did. On the contrary, he seemed awfully reserved. That stab that he had executed just now was probably nothing but a normal attack to him.
“What is your relationship with that silver-haired girl that was here just now?”
“Huh?”
“Vivi, my subordinate here, told me that you are a saboteur. If by chance your relationship is purely employee and employer, it’d be best to not get involved with her any further. It’s for your own good.”
“…”
Tohru’s eyes narrowed.
This guy…was probably being completely genuine.
He didn’t seem to be harboring any ill will or harmful intent toward Tohru. Those words hadn’t had even a hint of provocation or insult in them. In fact, they seemed more like well-intentioned advice.
His stature and skill might have given the slight impression that he would look down on Tohru, yet he could feel that the man’s expression was cool and calm. He had a face that looked confident about what he had to do, and what he had to do to achieve it.
But…
“You’re the ones that raided Count Abarth’s mansion, aren’t you?”
“…”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not chastising you for it. Though by no means will I praise you for it either. All I’m saying is that you should just entrust us with the coffin and get out of here. If you do so, we will not pursue you. The only things we need are the girl, and what’s inside that coffin.”
“You mean the Gundo?”
“Did you not see what that girl took from Count Abarth’s mansion?”
The young man tilted his head.
It seemed like he wasn’t talking about Chaika’s Gundo. After all, as far as Tohru could tell, that Gundo was a relic of the past. He had a feeling that they wanted something more than just to collect antiques.
So that meant…
“What are you talking about?”
Tohru played dumb.
He decided that here it would be better to let this good-intentioned intruder do the talking.
“What the hell is in there?”
“…”
The young man stayed silent.
So that meant he couldn’t say? Tohru highly doubted that he didn’t know.
“Gillette-sama.”
Suddenly, with a movement that felt like it had to be nearly weightless, a single girl stepped up to the young man’s left.
She had a small build, so she only came up to the young man’s shoulders. She looked to be about the same age as Chaika—in other words, she couldn’t be any older than in her middle teens. She had an especially cute face.
However, her dark-grey eyes flashed with the sharpness of a blade.
Judging from how the conversation had gone up until now, this girl was probably the one who had thrown the needles with killing intent just a bit ago.
It would have been different if the needles had bounced off the coins, but they had pierced right through them…that was definitely an incredible display of skill.
“It’s a wasted effort to try and talk with a saboteur. When they open their mouths it’s all deception and trickery,” said the girl, who was probably Vivi.
Furthermore…
“I agree.”
The last one of the three, another young man, had stepped up to his right.
This man had a low, rusty voice, wide shoulders, and was gigantic…about a head taller than a typical young man, in fact. Compared to the petite Vivi, this guy was like a boulder. Just at a glance he looked grim. He gave off the feeling that his footsteps would resound with every step he walked, and that just by walking he was disturbing the atmosphere around him. He had his arms crossed, and that gesture alone was wholly intimidating.
And what’s more, on his back was a large sword.
It was…
A comblade.
The same type of weapon as Tohru’s.
“The values a cavalier holds and the values a saboteur holds are almost completely opposite. Negotiations won’t work on—”
“Give me a break,” Tohru groaned. “That sounds real rich coming from a mercenary and an assassin.”
“…”
“…”
Vivi and the giant only flinched a bit at that.
But most likely, Tohru had been right on the mark.
This “Gillette-sama” in the center was no doubt a cavalier.
This girl named Vivi on the left was an assassin.
And this guy on the right, whose name he didn’t know, had to be a mercenary.
Clearly they were from many different walks of life, but what could have brought them all together?
“Nikolai, Vivi. Whoever he is, our main goal is the girl. He’s just a hired hand who got roped into this without knowing the circumstances.”
“…”
Tohru was put off by the words of this cavalier Gillette.
What the hell was that? It was like he was looking down on him.
Though he hadn’t chosen his words to specifically make fun of him, either. Most likely, this guy was as genuine as he appeared to be. He probably didn’t even realize he was looking down on Tohru. If he’d been brought up as a cavalier and a noble, looking down upon people who weren’t nobility was probably just something that came naturally to him.
Moreover, there was that thing he had said, “a hired hand who got roped into this without knowing the circumstances.”
Tohru stole a glance at the coins lying on the ground.
Indeed. Truthfully, the cavalier Gillette was correct. He was just someone whom she happened to pass by. Merely a hired hand. The job was over, which meant their relationship was, too. Chaika’s behavior clearly indicated to Tohru that she wanted no more out of him.
But having that pointed out to him by a complete stranger…really ticked him off.
Sure,where battles were concerned, a saboteur would not hesitate to execute inhumane, cold-blooded tactics, even though they understood that what they were doing wasn’t exactly moral. If necessary, they would take hostages. They would attack from behind under the cover of darkness. They would tell lies like it was nothing. They would trick their targets into walking into traps they set up beforehand. On the battlefield, cavaliers and soldiers played the lead roles, where they fought for just causes. There was no way they would resort to such cowardly and cruel tactics…those sorts of dirty deeds were all left up to the saboteurs.
But…
That’s why…
He had wanted to accomplish something.
Back in that stormy world ravaged by war, he hadn’t wanted to be a mere weakling who died being led around the nose. He felt like a life where one didn’t have something to live and die for couldn’t be called a “life” at all.
Back then, when he was young.
Back when she had died.
Tohru had been—
“You are a saboteur, right?”
“So what if I am?”
The cavalier’s question was asked as if trying to confirm it, and Tohru responded with a scowl.
At any rate, this was a bad situation.
He was out of smoke bombs with which to escape, and furthermore the coffin he was carrying made it impossible to do so anyway. Perhaps he could just ditch the coffin and the severed hand inside—maybe that way he’d be able to make a run for it…but…
That girl.
Chaika.
Even though she wasn’t good enough with words to articulate it.
Even though she had no one to depend on.
Despite all that, without any hesitation, she had still desired that hand. She had done the best she could, inching closer to her goal one step at a time. It was quite likely that she knew the danger she was putting herself in. In the first place, it was amazing that this girl who didn’t even have the basics of combat down even managed to survive this long all by herself. Even though it was the post-war period, no, precisely because the world was in a post-war period, there was no shortage of night burglars and wannabe-soldier bandits. Perhaps the girl had faced many more hardships that he wasn’t aware of.
Even so, he wasn’t letting his feelings take over or anything.
But…if this was the thing she wanted so earnestly…
Then I can’t just leave it behind.
He was aware how strange this way of thinking was for a saboteur such as himself. The reason his superiors never let him participate in his first battle probably wasn’t because he lacked the ability. It was more likely that they had seen in him that side of his personality.
However…
“I hear that saboteurs are pragmatists, through and through. Whether you do or don’t still call that girl your master, I don’t think you’re obligated to protect that thing. I am a cavalier, but it’s precisely because I am one that I’d like to avoid meaningless conflict.”
“Why, thank you very much,” Tohru snapped back to the cavalier’s calm words.
He was being made fun of.
Basically, Gillette was saying “you should just bend your knee to me since you can’t win. Looking at it logically, you should realize that handing over the coffin and leaving is the right thing to do here.”
I still can’t use “Iron-Blood Transformation” for a while.
Not even two hours had passed since the raid on the count’s mansion. If he didn’t wait at least half a day, using it would be risky in all sorts of ways.
Can I even beat these three in this situation?
It would be extremely difficult.
So what could he do?
“Now, hand over the coffin,” the cavalier Gillette said.
Think, Tohru Acura. Think.
While urging himself on, Tohru grasped the handles of the coffin tightly.
“No good! Cannot happen! Must turn back!”
“Shut up.” Akari continued to run with Chaika struggling under her arm. “Don’t make me go through the trouble of knocking you out.”
“Mu—”
Chaika stopped struggling and shouting. She probably realized that Akari was dead serious.
“Besides…”
Akari stopped running and let Chaika down.
After raising her voice to those three earlier, it was only the two of them moving around here. In this area there were a few shops lined up on the road, which meant it was common for it to be busy here during the daytime. At night, however, it was unsettlingly deserted, which made it easy to notice anyone’s presence, even if they were hiding.
This wasn’t a good situation to be in.
“Nii-sama said he would retrieve your precious coffin for you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” she nodded, frowning. “Though…you really should be more worried about him.”
“Mui?”
“Those three might not all be using the same techniques, but if they’re all as skilled as the one throwing the needles, then it’ll be difficult for Nii-sama to escape from there. That’s not even taking into account the baggage he has…”
“Baggage?”
“Your coffin.” The crease in Akari’s brow deepened.
“…Understand.” Chaika nodded.
“Nii-sama…why on earth did you…?” she muttered. Though her expression was as stagnant as ever, her behavior was that of someone who refused to accept the situation in front of her.
She turned her head away like she was trying to avoid looking at her troubles, but eventually she faced Chaika again and spoke.
“You stay here.”
“…”
“I’ll go back to help Nii-sama.”
“I, go with.”
“No. You’ll just be a burden.”
Akari said without hesitation.
“But—”
“Our job is already over. You’re no longer our client. Us continuing to travel with you up till now has all just been an extra service.”
“…”
Chaika looked like she had nothing to say to that.
It was understandable. Just a bit ago she herself had suggested the termination of their working relationship. What Akari was saying made sense.
But…
Chaika pointed to Akari.
“Akari, retrieve Tohru. Me, retrieve coffin.”
“Like I said, that won’t work…”
“Helping Tohru, impossible for me. For you, possible.”
“…”This time it was Akari’s turn to be speechless.
Basically, what Chaika was suggesting was that she would take back the coffin, whereas Akari would take back Tohru. Though they would be accompanying each other, their objectives would be different.
And of course, if she was captured or even killed on the way back from retrieving her coffin, that would be Chaika’s problem and not Akari’s.
With that clear divide between the two, the saboteur Akari felt that it might not be impossible after all.
No, in fact, it was…
“We’ll have to resort to some dirty tactics.”Akari crossed her arms. “They would never expect us to go back there…”
Those three should have realized that Tohru had deliberately thrown that smoke bomb precisely to allow Chaika and Akari to make their escape.
But looking at it from the other side, that meant that they probably wouldn’t be counting on Chaika and Akari to come back. So if they went back there and did something like circling and sneaking around the back, they might actually be able to pull this off.
“Understood. We’ll do it.”
“Grateful.”
Chaika beamed at the nodding Akari.
* * *
The confrontation ended with Tohru being apprehended quickly.
As soon as he was about to make a run for it with the coffin, the cavalier Gillette and the giant had brandished their swords on both sides of Tohru, crossing them. The sensation of the blade on the nape of his neck told him that it would be futile to do anything but stay put.
Not to mention…
“Your swords appear to be comblades,” the giant said. He was easily keeping his massive sword in place with just one hand. “I’m also a comblade user.”
Comblade users were a pain to fight.
The blades communicated with their user through shared senses that would then be fed into energy, allowing the comblade to become a part of the user. Just by holding the sword, the highest equilibrium was achieved. In other words, in that moment the user and the sword became one living entity.
It was widely viewed as “the sword becoming part of the user”; however, you could also look at it from the reverse.
Namely, that “the user became part of the sword”.
Comblade users had no concept of “swinging a sword.”
That was because every one of their movements was a sword technique.
“Just give up. No matter how good you are with that comblade, you won’t be able to escape us three.”
“…”
Tohru glared at the giant for a bit, but then…
“Hmph.”
He lowered his shoulders and dropped his stance. Yet he did not let go of the coffin’s handles.
“I’ll ask you again,” Gillette began, his sword still thrust out.
Gillette’s sword didn’t seem to be a comblade, but that actually made it even more terrifying. It meant that he could use a regular sword at a comblade user’s level. He had heard that military-bred cavaliers learned how to grip a sword before they could even walk on their own two feet, and seeing this guy he certainly believed it.
“What is your connection to that girl?”
“…”
“Is she someone you know?”
“Right back at you. Is she someone you know?”
Tohru deliberately craned his neck to meet Gillette’s eyes.
The blade ever so slightly cut into his skin, and blood came trickling from his neck.
“That ‘someone’ you’re talking about is Chaika, right?”
“Of course,” Gillette nodded. “We are here for a just cause. We act because of a request from various nations across the world. Our actions are derived from an understanding of who we’re chasing after, and what that girl is chasing after.”
“We’re way different from you,” Vivi chimed in. “We uphold justice.”
“…An assassin upholding justice, huh?”
At Tohru’s words, Vivi’s glare became sharp, but she didn’t say anything further.
“Ah, whatever. I get it already. In this situation, there’s no way I can win. I’ll comply and hand it over. Okay?”
Slowly, Tohru bent downward and set Chaika’s coffin on the ground.
“Take your hands off it,” the giant ordered.
“Are you sure you want me to do that?” Tohru said. “This coffin has been rigged with an explosive. If you were to force it open, it could blow up. Carelessness could cause all of you to get blown sky-high. Do you really want that?”
“…”
The cavalier Gillette and the giant exchanged glances.
For a brief moment, they seemed to be pondering the situation. But then…
“All right then,” Gillette nodded. “Disarm whatever traps you have on it. Then, hand the object of our concern, the ‘remains’.”
“…”
Tohru thought hard.
So these guys knew that what Chaika wanted were those “remains”. Which meant that someone had told them for what purpose she was collecting them, and whose remains they actually were. Of course, if they were also being employed by someone, then it was possible they didn’t know the circumstances either—that would be the much more favorable outcome for Tohru.
Because that would mean they didn’t have the whole picture.
With his back to everyone’s stares, Tohru made a show of disarming the “trap” within the coffin. It went without saying that the stuff about the explosion had been a complete fabrication. However, to have something like that set up wasn’t an unusual tactic, especially for saboteurs. Tohru had already shown them that he used smoke bombs, so he thought explosives and such would probably be believable to them.
And so…
“This is what you guys are talking about, right?”
Tohru opened Chaika’s coffin, undid the string tying the thing in question to the inside, and took it out.
Inside the clear cylinder was a severed hand.
Tohru displayed it to the three, as if telling them to take a good look at it.
“Yes, that’s it exactly,” said Gillette, nodding enthusiastically.
After confirming that, Tohru broke into a wide grin.
“Oh. So this is it, huh?”
And then he threw it.
He threw the clear cylinder with the severed hand in the opposite direction, into the darkness of the night.
“!”
Instinctively, all three pairs of eyes went away from Tohru. Of course, neither of the men made any move to withdraw their swords, but their attention had been diverted while they were wielding them, and so they might as well have. On the backs of the gloves Tohru was wearing there was iron installed to repel blades. He knocked away the swords at his left and right and sunk downward, grabbed the coffin, and dashed away at lightning speed.
“W—”
“Forget him! Grab the remains!” shouted the cavalier, chasing after the hand that Tohru had thrown. Vivi quickly followed him.
Then…
“You’re not going to go chase it?”
Tohru asked as he glared at the one person remaining, who went not in the direction of the severed hand, but in the other direction…namely, towards Tohru.
“Saboteurs aren’t careless,” said the giant, who was directly behind him. “You probably just threw a fake.”
“I’m not that skilled.”
“At any rate…” the giant said, “I’m not as nice as Gillette-dono.”
In the next instant, with a force that rent the sky, the giant’s comblade flew at him.
Tohru sank to the ground and was just barely able to dodge, but some of his hair was ripped off with the attack and it scattered through the air.
“To kill an enemy, you just need to get rid of their means of attack. I know how you fight.”
“What sound logic.”
Seeing that the comblade was about to make another overhead chop, Tohru forcefully lifted up the coffin he was holding and swung.
“Nuoo!?”
The giant couldn’t have expected Tohru to use the coffin as a weapon. Of course, he had dodged the attack, but such an unnatural dodge did disrupt his stance slightly.
“—Agh!”
With a sharp cry, Tohru threw the coffin just like that.
After all, he had no hope of winning if he continued to lug around extra baggage.
It was certainly true that to kill an enemy, you just needed to limit their means. With the cavalier Gillette and assassin Vivi away, it was just the giant left. Tohru probably had a fighting chance.
He heard a clunk behind him, and he knew that the coffin must have hit the wall or something. But he didn’t care about that…he unsheathed both swords and confronted the giant ahead of him.
“Hm.” A bold smile crossed the giant’s face. “Not bad for a brat.”
“Oh, really?”
Tohru licked his lips.
In the next instant, the two of them moved almost simultaneously.
“Hnn!”
The giant swung first.
Tohru just barely defended by dodging it.
No matter how good the giant was with his sword, no matter how much arm strength he possessed, it didn’t change how heavy his sword actually was. And in addition to it being heavy, it was also rather long and wide, which made it especially hard to swing around.
So his trajectory was limited to begin with.
As long as all of his attacks were direct swings, then even without “Iron-Blood Transformation” Tohru would be able to dodge them easily.
The blade uselessly sailed over Tohru’s head.
Then…
“Huh!?”
The blade cut deeply into the wall of a nearby building with a dull sound.
It stuck in there!
Once he saw that, he was convinced. After something like that, the sword wouldn’t be able to be pulled out right away. The giant’s crude destructive power had turned against him. If it had been a weaker attack the sword would have just bounced off the wall.
Taking a single step forward, Tohru sent a double-bladed attack towards the giant’s chest. The pointed end of the right comblade was heading right for a vital spot. This would surely be the killing blow.
But…
“!?”
The attack didn’t pierce his flank. Instead, it only stabbed the air.
It was hard to believe that someone of the giant’s stature could have moved in such a way to actually dodge it, especially as quickly as he did.
He would have had to pull a frighteningly unnatural stance in the air.
It was impossible. Keeping in mind the giant’s position and the stance he was in, Tohru determined that there was no way he could have avoided his attack. No matter how flexible he was, that kind of movement was beyond the limits of what the human body could do. It was impossible for a human in a normal stance to turn his head all the way around, and in the first place he wouldn’t be able to jump immediately after that massive swing.
And yet…
“Haha!”
With a sharp laugh, the giant sent the heel of his boot down at Tohru from up above with all the force of a hammer.
For Tohru, whose posture was already compromised from dodging that last attack, it was impossible to avoid. He immediately used his left sword to block the heel, but that didn’t nullify the impact. The sword went flying from his hand and stuck into the wall of a nearby building.
“…!”
Rather than stubbornly trying to stand back up, Tohru rolled away. He had to get some distance between him and the giant.
“…Wait, you didn’t…”
“I did.” The giant gave him a big grin.
The giant’s comblade was still stuck in the wall.
No, it wasn’t that it was stuck in the wall. The giant had made it get stuck in the wall.
Tohru could tell just by looking at it that that huge comblade was sturdy. Sturdy enough that it wouldn’t break even if the giant put his whole weight on it. In other words, he had stuck his sword into the wall to fix it in place, so that he could use it as leverage to launch himself into the air.
It wasn’t a technique a cavalier or a swordsman would use.
It didn’t fit the orthodox style of either of them.
This blunt way of using anything and everything in the area in combat was more in line with a mercenary…much closer in nature to a saboteur technique Tohru or Akari would use. It was a method of combat that any textbook cavalier would ridicule, calling it “cowardly and unfair” or “heresy.”
However…
“Surely you, a saboteur, aren’t going to call that unfair?” the giant laughed as he pulled his sword out from the wall.
“I won’t,” Tohru said.
Unfairness was fine. Foul play was fine.
A saboteur’s pride was to bring victory to their client regardless of the methods used. In battle, there was no such thing as right or wrong.
“Well, then…”
Bam! The giant rushed towards Tohru, emitting a ground-rending sound as he kicked off.
It was a direct, sudden attack from the front.
This attack would have the force of his running speed combined with the giant’s muscle strength and the mass of his sword, not to mention the sheer force of his running speed made it difficult to judge the distance between them. On top of that, every fiber of his being was concentrated on this assault, and the amount of zeal he was pouring into it made it nothing less than deadly.
Simple though the trajectory might be, a sideways sweep from the front meant that it was impossible to dodge left, right, or down. And if he jumped without thinking, he would leave himself completely open.
Put simply, this attack was one to be feared.
However…
“Surely you aren’t going to say that this is unfair!” Tohru shouted as he leapt into the air while spinning around. The giant’s slash went right under him.
Of course, if evading left, right, or down wasn’t an option, then obviously the only choice was up.
“Hah!”
Letting out a short cry, Tohru brought his sword down on the giant’s head.
It was a technique that could split boulders in half, plus the fact that he had spun around his entire body meant that even more acceleration force would be applied, doubling the power of his attack.
But…
“Foolish!” the giant yelled.
Sure, Tohru had avoided the sideways sweep. But that was all he had done. He had left himself in the air with nowhere to go, and so the giant, attacking from a different angle, released a vertical sweep upward. Regardless of the circumstances the giant’s straight swipe up was a shorter motion, and so it reached Tohru first.
Or at least, it should have.
“!?”
The giant crumpled.
And it was in that moment that he probably finally realized what had happened.
A thin black string was tangled around his legs. The string led to the pommel of a sword—Tohru’s sword which had been knocked away earlier. The reason Tohru had deliberately spun in the air as he jumped was not to accelerate his attack, but to pull the string wound along the ground tight around the giant.
“Got you!”
Tohru released an attack from overhead meant to knock down his opponent.
But for some reason, the giant raised his own left arm to block it.
…There was the unnatural sound of steel hitting against something.
Tohru’s attack hadn’t severed his arm; on the contrary it had been stopped at his thick muscles. The giant was probably wearing chain mail on the inside of his clothing. It was a common thing on the battlefield; it wasn’t like it was unfair.
“Tch…!”
Instead of following up any further, Tohru sent a kick at his chest to get some distance.
At the same time, he pulled in the rope, and the sword stuck in the wall came back to him.
However…
“Ungh…ugh…”
The giant groaned as his left arm hung down loosely.
He was bleeding…probably because his muscles had been cut so deeply, he didn’t have any strength left in his arms. Both arms were stained red, and bright red blood was dripping from his fingers.
“Now then,” Tohru said, crossing his swords in a scissor-like shape. “You said that to kill an enemy you needed to get rid of their means, right?”
It was probably impossible for the giant to swing that huge comblade efficiently with only one arm.
Not to mention the quantity of blood he was losing—if Tohru didn’t give him an opportunity to stop the bleeding, even if he decided to spare him it was Tohru’s win.
“…”
The giant frowned, but he unconcernedly picked up his sword and assumed his stance.
“You’re still going to fight?”
“Of course. That’s the pride of a mercenary. Something a saboteur would know nothing of.”
“…”
With a sigh, Tohru lowered his blades.
And in the next moment…
“!?”
There was a dull sound, and then the giant’s head wobbled.
He sunk down and hit the ground with an earth-shaking crash. Behind him were…
“Are you hurt, Nii-sama?”
“Tohru, came to rescue.”
It was Akari with her hammer in hand, with Chaika beside her.
Alberic Gillette and Vivi were easily able to secure the severed hand. They figured it would be somewhat difficult to find since it was night, but they were able to spot it unexpectedly well. The candle street lamps placed along the road at fixed intervals gave off a dim glow, and the clear container gleamed in the light.
“Do you think this is it?” Vivi stared at the severed hand with great interest.
“Probably, although I can’t tell for sure. We’re going to have to consult with Mattheus or Zita,” Alberic said. He took a cloth out of his bag, covered the hand with it and then tied it to the side of his waist not occupied by his sword.
“Come to think of it, where’s Nikolay?”
“It looks like he stayed behind to take care of that saboteur,” Vivi said.
“‘Take care of’, huh…”
Alberic frowned.
“Gillette-sama. Even though that guy looked young, don’t forget he’s a saboteur. He’s definitely capable of throwing out a fake to deceive us.”
“That’s definitely a possibility,” Alberic said with a sigh.
Alberic had made it a point to try to not involve any unrelated people in this matter. That boy might have been a saboteur or whatever, but it seemed to him like he was merely being employed by someone and thus didn’t have the whole picture.
“Let’s go back for now. If all goes well, I’ll be able to stop Nikolay.”
“Gillette-sama…”Now it was Vivi’s turn to sigh. The bona fide assassin looked put out with Alberic’s amiability.
But the truth was that neither one of them had even an inkling of doubt that Nikolay would win. This was Nikolay of the comblade, whose strength had no equal. With his comblade he specialized in mercenary sword skills utilizing his entire body, and executed them with the utmost precision. Against him, even Alberic wasn’t confident he’d be able to win.
And so…
“…Huh?”
They had returned to the place where the saboteur boy had been captured a bit ago.
“Nikolay!?” Alberic shouted, shocked. Vivi ever so slightly stood at the ready.
Their strong comrade, who they thought could never possibly lose to anyone, was lying on the ground. His legs were tied together, and the saboteur boy was sitting on top of him.
“You—you defeated Nikolay?”
“Well, more or less.” The saboteur boy looked largely unconcerned. “For your information, he’s still alive.”
“…” Alberic’s eyebrows went up.
Saboteurs weren’t choosy about their methods to achieve victory. Of course, that meant that murder was definitely within their vocabulary. The saboteur boy had defeated Nikolay, so of course he could snuff out his life just like that.
Which meant…
“It’s this you want.”
Alberic undid the tie attaching the severed hand to his waist and held the hand out.
“You got it. Sorry to have you go through the trouble of finding it and bringing it back to me,” the saboteur boy said. He continued to scowl as he said it, so no doubt it was intended to be sarcasm. “If you consider that thing to be more important than the life of your comrade over here, then by all means, keep it, and I’ll kill this guy. It might be a pain, but to be completely honest, if it came right down to it it’d be easier than twisting a baby’s neck.”
“…”
Alberic heard Vivi emit a brief moan.
But this boy was—
“You don’t understand,” Alberic said, choosing his words carefully.
“What do you mean by that?”
“About that girl. The girl who hired you. Right now, you don’t even know her name, do you?”
“…” The saboteur’s eyes narrowed as he looked at each of them.
“I don’t know how much that girl told you, but let’s stop with the ridiculous facade. Nothing good can come from working with that girl. Do you want to make an enemy of the entire world?”
“You say that, but you’re just spouting vague, abstract bullshit. How about coming right out and saying it?”
“…”
“…”
Alberic and Vivi looked at each other. This saboteur boy really had no idea.
This was confidential information of the highest degree…however.
“The Gaz Empire,” Alberic said. “This severed hand belongs to the one and only Emperor Gaz. ‘The Demon King’, the ‘Taboo Emperor’, he has many names, but he was the strongest wizard of them all. Arthur Gaz.”
“…”
Atop the saboteur’s scowling face, his eyebrows went up.
He probably didn’t believe him.
Arthur Gaz was an incredibly powerful man. None of the legends, tales, or achievements attributed to that man were any exaggeration. There were many who even said he was inhuman. At any rate, his was an existence so incredibly large that to the average person, he would seem unreal.
But…
“And that silver-haired girl you’re working for is…”
As he continued, Alberic tried to get a feel for the boy’s reaction.
“Chaika Gaz—the Emperor Gaz’s daughter.”
* * *
Arthur Gaz.
The man was called many things: “Taboo Emperor”, “Demon King”, “Immortal King”, “monster”, “Great Sage”, “Ultra Emperor”, “Lunatic of War”…the list went on.
They were all correct ways to describe him, but at the same time they were all wrong. That was because summing up such a large and complex existence in several words was impossible. He was the likes of which the continent of Verbist had never seen before throughout its entire history, and to tell the truth, it could even be said that based on his astoundingly long life and overwhelming strength, to describe the man as an “individual” was wrong; he was simply “the king of the Gaz Empire.”
During his iron-fisted rule over the northern countries he invented a great number of magical arts and techniques as a great sage, and all throughout the long,constant maelstrom of the warring period, he was a tactician who continued to lead the major powers of the continent around by the nose.
In particular…there was no question that Arthur Gaz was the one to lay the groundwork for the existence of magic, and taking into account the fact that magic was prevalent in many fields, there were many scholars and sages who said that without the Gaz Empire, civilization would be at least a hundred years behind. They also said that the Empire would be what guided humanity forward.
But on the other hand, there were no records whatsoever of Arthur Gaz before he built the Gaz Empire…he was a complete enigma. So there were also those who said that the whole Gaz Empire was just one big swindle.
At any rate, that was just how much influence Emperor Gaz had on the continent of Verbist, and the records alone show that for almost three hundred years the man continued to have a profound influence on the world.
However…with the advent of freely accessible magic rituals, the immortal “Demon King” who had ruled over the Gaz Empire for nearly three hundred years was rumored to not be so immortal after all.
And during the battle at the Empire’s imperial capital, Arthur Gaz was killed. His men soon followed, and it brought an end to the chaos in Verbist at last.
In other words, Arthur Gaz was the very symbol of the warring period itself.
It goes without saying that his influence is still widespread today.
And so…
* * *
“The Demon King’s…daughter?” Tohru raised his eyebrows.
This was not what he had expected to hear at all.
It had definitely caught him off guard. He feared that he actually let the surprise show on his face, which was an incredibly poor way for a saboteur to conduct himself. The cavalier Gillette nodded at Tohru’s reaction and continued.
“That’s right. And five years ago, during the battle at the imperial capital where Arthur Gaz himself was killed, his daughter was the only one to survive.”
“…Wait, the only one?”
Any way you looked at her, Chaika had to be in her mid-teens, which meant that during that battle five years ago she would have been about ten. It was hard to imagine a girl of that age being able to escape a scene like the death of the monster Gaz all by herself. But if she had the help of her retainers or something, then why weren’t they by her side now?
Perhaps they had died after using up all their strength.
Perhaps they had abandoned Chaika and ran away.
Or perhaps…
‘Impossible! Y-You’re supposed to be dead!’
Come to think of it, the count had said something like that upon seeing her, which meant that it was probably due to some miraculous coincidence that she was still alive.
“The exact circumstances elude us as well,” the cavalier said. “But regardless, we cannot simply let this girl do as she pleases.”
“Why not?” Tohru asked.
As far as he could tell, Chaika was nothing more than a dim-witted girl who was able to use a sparse bit of magic. She definitely didn’t seem like the kind of presence that would warrant the likes of a cavalier, mercenary and assassin to track her down as a group.
But apparently, there was more to her than Tohru thought.
“The emperor Gaz still has many loyal to him, even now. The alliance formed to storm the Gaz Empire’s capital was nothing short of a miracle to begin with.”
Technically speaking, the powers of the world being able to form a temporary alliance against the Gaz Empire was due to many things lining up at the right time, which had led to the attack on the capital. Even if the Gaz Empire was somehow resurrected, that alliance would probably never happen again. That was what the cavalier Gillette said, anyway.
“At any rate, the Taboo Emperor’s influence is still widespread, even after his death. There are even people that want his daughter, Chaika Gaz, to take over and restore the Gaz Empire.”
“…”
“At the same time,” Gillette said, turning his gaze to the clear cylinder in his hand, “it is doubtless that the remains of this monster said to have lived three hundred, no, even five hundred years, came to possess incredibly potent fuel for magic. As a matter of fact, the quantity of magic contained within is immeasurable. Combine that kind of magic with a Gundo and you have a weapon of absolutely no equal.”
The driving force behind magic, in other words ‘magical power,’ came from a person’s thoughts.The corpses of intelligent lifeforms housed the residual thoughts accumulated throughout their lives. As long as the appropriate steps were followed, it was possible to extract these thoughts and turn them into magical power. Many magic institutions would use methods like fossilization or covering the corpse with grey wax to give the thoughts physical form. This was a commonplace way to extract magical power, and metaphorically speaking, using a wizard’s thoughts as an ember would create quite the explosion.
In many cases, the fossils of Feyra were used—however, through preservation techniques it was also possible to use human body parts.
Like, for instance, that severed hand.
“…I see now.”
That Gundo back at the count’s mansion had been large enough to cover the entire range of the building because it was being powered by the severed hand of the powerful wizard, the “Taboo Emperor,” not because the Gundo itself was so large.
That meant that the remains of Arthur Gaz had been divided, and most likely scattered all over the place. What kind of magical weapon could be created if all the parts were to be brought back together…no, what would happen if those that wished for the revival of the Gaz Empire were to get their hands on it? No doubt, that was what had the people behind the cavalier Gillette so scared.
“You understand now, don’t you?” Gillette said. Tohru could sense the slightest hint of impatience in his voice. “Chaika Gaz is a calamity waiting to happen—an existence that will jeopardize the peace we’ve attained at last, and will throw us back into chaos once more. We absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, let that girl collect her dead father’s remains!”
* * *
“Chaika Gaz is a calamity waiting to happen—an existence that will jeopardize the peace we’ve attained at last, and will throw us back into chaos once more. We absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, let that girl collect her dead father’s remains!”
The cavalier’s raised voice reached Akari’s ears, who was hiding with Chaika a bit further away.
“…”
Devoid of expression, Akari turned and looked at Chaika.
The daughter of the “Taboo Emperor” bit her lip and hung her head slightly.
“Is what he’s saying true?”
“…”
Chaika didn’t respond.
But her fingers around her Gundo’s grip, the Gundo that she had set up on the roof of this house in order to protect Tohru, had turned a sickening shade of white.
That basically confirmed it.
“The daughter of the “Demon King”…”
“I—”
That was all Chaika uttered.
Her speech was not in the main language of the continent, but in Laike, the language used up north where the Gaz Empire had been.
“I just…all I want to do is…gather the remains of my father…and give him a proper burial…that’s all…just that…it’s something I have to do…”
“…”
Akari was silent.
But she couldn’t imagine that Chaika was affiliated with any survivors or supporters of the Gaz Empire. There wouldn’t have been any reason to hire her and Tohru otherwise.
Akari was an orphan. In the Acura village, there were quite a few who had never known their family. For them it was traditional to pick up orphans,raising them to be saboteurs.
So Akari couldn’t understand how Chaika felt. She could only imagine.
However…
“…Nii-sama.”
How did Tohru feel about this?
Narrowing her eyes, Akari waited for her honorable brother’s response.
* * *
“That’s fine with me.”
Tohru muttered it. But even so, it seemed like Gillette and Vivi behind him were both able to hear. Both of them looked puzzled.
“Throwing the world back into chaos? Sounds good.”
Tohru smiled, showing his teeth.
Gillette’s eyes went wide, and he groaned. Vivi glared at Tohru like she was looking at a despicable lowlife.
Tohru didn’t care, and continued on. He was a saboteur and a jobless deadbeat, so he was used to abuse and scorn.
“Chaos? Bring it on. With that, we can go back to the warring period once more.”
“You…!” Gillette’s expression warped, like he had just seen a monster belt out an incomprehensible chant.
“I’m a saboteur. This peaceful world can just go to hell! Not being able to do anything, not able to leave anything behind, just dying pointlessly and not being able to change anything—I don’t need any of that!”
The memories of his youth passed through the back of his mind.
Jasmine, whose life had ended while she was holding her child.
He had wanted to change the world.
He had wanted to etch his own existence into it.
Not just be born to simply die, but for there to be a meaning to why he was here. That was what he wanted. A reason for his birth, and a reason for his death. That was what he wished for with every fiber of his being.
And so…
“Then…you wish for chaos!?”
“You’re damn right I do!” Tohru flashed a vehement smile.
Though to be honest, that wasn’t the whole reason. There was something else.
So that’s her purpose for living…
Chaika. The daughter of the “Taboo Emperor.”
The lonely princess carrying around her coffin…running around trying to collect her father’s remains.
All by herself, in the center of this despairing world, with everyone her enemy.
But even so, she continued to move, heading straight for her goal.
No matter how fruitless it was, the girl never wavered from her path…to her, it was the meaning of her life.
And that was…
I want to grant her wish.
Tohru thought from the bottom of his heart.
She was different from him. Even if the world changed, no, precisely because the world changed, she had a will that would not bend.
And for Tohru, that was something incredibly dazzling to witness.
Therefore—
“Chaika!”
As he shouted her name, he jumped.
As he charged at them with incredible force, he closed his eyes.
“!?”
The cavalier and the assassin went on guard.
Both were skilled in their respective fields. There was no way that Tohru as he was now could win against them, even rushing straight at them.
But…
Shoom!
An intense light ripped through the air between Gillette and Tohru.
It was magic that Chaika had prepared beforehand.
“The Blinder.” A spell that used luminescent illusion magic to an extreme degree.
Naturally, anyone exposed to this defenseless would be blinded within seconds.
On top of that, moving in the cover of the night was a saboteur’s specialty. Moving silently without a trace in the darkness, Tohru had techniques available to him that did not require being able to see, using reflexive sounds and going with the flow of the atmosphere instead.
Of course, though his opponents were blinded they wasted no time in attacking.
“Ugh!?”
Gillette unsheathed his sword and swung, but the light of Chaika’s magic had already removed his ability to see, and so his movements were all over the place. It was the same for Vivi. As an assassin, she probably had some of the same techniques for moving around in the dark that Tohru had, but since the light had come without any warning, she hadn’t had any way of shielding her eyes.
Even so, both of their attacks were still dangerous.
Gillette’s sword made a wide circle and Vivi’s needles went flying towards him.
But, since their sight had been compromised, both their techniques were a far cry from being flawless. Tohru raised his comblades and blocked both attacks in an instant.
“Ku…!?” Gillette groaned.
Tohru hurled himself at him.
“I’ll be taking that back.”
Tohru forcefully snatched the severed hand out of Gillette’s grasp.
“W-Wait!?” Gillette looked left and right as he shouted, confused. Vivi reflexively prepared another needle—but she didn’t throw it. She was probably afraid that without being able to see she might accidentally hit her comrade.
“Wait, you—”
Gillette continued to shout, but Tohru, looking straight ahead, was already behind them, running.
* * *
Right now, he was carrying almost nothing with him.
He had his favored weapon and his tools. Other than that, he had the clothes he was wearing, and just a little bit of money. It was no exaggeration that everything could be put in a bag and carried, save for Chaika’s coffin.
“Akari?”
“I’m all done packing on my end.”
Akari had packed her things in much the same way.
His non-blood-related sister nodded at him, and Tohru once again checked just to make sure.
“I’m going to ask this just in case, but you do know you don’t necessarily need to come with me, right?”
“What a ridiculous question, Nii-sama.” Akari shook her head. “I will go wherever you go.”
“…Akari…”
“Nii-sama ,” Akari said quietly, with a carefully stoic face, “if you go and die in some unfamiliar place, how else am I going to be able to stuff you?”
“Then I hope I die in a grand explosion,” Tohru groaned. He gave a sigh, and left the house.
Dawn had not broken yet, so it was still quite a dark morning. The girl with a coffin on her back stepped out into the chilly air, all by herself.
“Well then, shall we go?”
“Mu?”
Chaika turned around, bewildered.
“Tohru. Akari. Why?”
“Well…I got my face seen by the count here.” Tohru shrugged his shoulders. “So that means I can’t be in this town anymore.”
Not only had he snuck into the count’s mansion, he had actually fought him. And in the end, he had even squared off against a group of people that had received a special task from the major powers of the world. It wasn’t impossible to stay in Del Solant after all that, he supposed, but he had no reason to.
“So I figured I would join you on this journey, and help you out with your ‘work.’ That’s reasonable, right?”
He didn’t have anywhere else to go anyway, so he didn’t mind going in the same direction as Chaika.
Also, it seemed like she was somewhat loaded…he also had the selfish ulterior motive of “if he went with her, at the very least he wouldn’t have to worry about going hungry.”
And also—
“But. I.” Chaika hung her head.
As he thought, she was still worried about her lineage.
“‘Taboo Emperor, daugh–”
“I told you already,” Tohru said in a chiding tone. “War is fine with me.”
“…”
“If we go with you, the world will probably change. I don’t want this worthless peace to keep up, I want something that will change the whole world. That’s what I wish for.”
It was a lot better than dying pointlessly.
Even if he was called a demon or continuously insulted.
He wanted to carve some kind of proof that he lived into the world—
“Chaika.”
He turned to the silver-haired girl and extended his hand.
“I’m going to move forward. What about you?”
“…”
Chaika looked at Tohru. Then she looked at Akari.
“Hm.” Akari nodded.
And then—
“Yes!”
Smiling brightly, she took Tohru’s hand.
The daughter of the “Taboo Emperor”—Chaika Gaz.
The saboteur siblings, Tohru and Akari Acura.
That day, they left Del Solant at the break of dawn.
On their journey to plunge the world once again into chaos.
