Interlude 2 – A Choice as the Third Camp
Having fled the fight with the Chosen in a hurry, I called the White Serpent up out of the ground somewhere a long way from the site.
“Haa… that was close.”
A Divine Beast draws the eye. Let a body more than ten meters long travel above ground and it would be spotted from the air almost at once, so I put the White Serpent back under the soil and moved myself to safe ground by a transfer working. It deceives any pursuit and spares me taking risks I need not take. A perfect plan for a withdrawal, if I say so myself.
“…The Kingdom’s army was beginning to come apart as well, and they were supposed to be putting on such a show. The only thing troubling me is whether the Black Serpent managed to recover Prince Euris.”
I stroked the White Serpent, which had put only its head up out of the earth, and quietly let my chest settle. It must have felt the killing intent from above as well; by the time I gave the order to run it was thoroughly frightened.
“Fufufu. Well, when you feel killing intent on that scale, running is all one can do, isn’t it?”
Honestly, had I stayed and fought, I would not have lost. Princess Valtrune’s magic was entirely spent, and the black knight boy had had his ability blown apart completely and was worn down to the point of not being able to move.
—So in truth I would have liked to observe a little longer. What those two truly have is nothing like what they showed me. A little more pressure and I could have drawn out the next stage of their real strength.
But that was refused me by the appalling killing intent that came drifting down from above. Had I ignored it and stayed absorbed in the two of them, the White Serpent, badly wounded and behind me, would have been killed without any difficulty. That would be very inconvenient for me.
“I wonder what that one was. It looked as though it were riding a dragon mount, and it moved like something thoroughly used to fighting.”
What poured water on an enjoyable fight was a Chosen other than Princess Valtrune and the black knight. Fierce killing intent directed at me and at nothing else. One of the people who had come to help those two, surely.
The last Chosen was outside my calculations, and an unexpected harvest as well.
“Unlike the incomplete pair, the last one had command of its power… perhaps its memories came back a long time ago. I shall have to identify who it is quickly.”
When I felt the killing intent and turned my eyes upward, the shape I glimpsed for an instant was wrapped in black miasma, and I could not so much as see it.
“Fufu. Was that concealment done knowingly, I wonder… how very interesting.”
It was carried out by someone who understands my particular nature very well. I can see the flow of miasma and of magic, and a place where thick pooled magic or miasma drifts is precisely the place I cannot make out what is in it. I may know that something is there without ever grasping accurately what it is.
Someone knew that weakness of mine, and wore thick miasma to conceal what they were.
…Still, I did get one hint about the Chosen.
“Hiding your identity with miasma would mean not having much magic… or perhaps a child who cannot use magic at all. Although if the miasma was worn precisely so that I would read it that way, then whoever did it is cleverer than anything I can hope to see through.”
—Three of the Chosen, gathered in the Empire. My interest is thoroughly awake now.
How far they will grow, and whether they can, in the end, break the hopelessly cruel fate that waits for them.
“I look forward to the day we meet again… ah.”
While I was standing beside the White Serpent thinking about the Chosen, I saw Order soldiers who had run from the battle in the distance. They had numbers and very little experience of fighting, so their formation had collapsed and they were scattering away at a jog.
“…I had forgotten. So they weren’t all destroyed.”
I looked hard at the ones running toward me. Their coordination was entirely gone, and mixed in among them were several of the priests who had been commanding the Order’s army.
“How convenient. All that fighting must have made you very hungry.”
I spoke to it gently, and the White Serpent opened its mouth wide and showed its fangs.
“Fufufu. Yes, of course… then let us fill you up as much as you like.”
The Order’s soldiers must have caught sight of me and the White Serpent, because they came running with relief on their faces.
Ah, you poor things, with no idea at all what is about to become of you.
“Now. Eat your fill of them.”
The White Serpent went back under the ground and crawled toward the soldiers, then split the earth open and came up from beneath to swallow them whole, one after another, without mercy. With each soldier it took down, its wounds closed a little further.
“Wh-why is the White Serpent attacking u—!”
“H-help me!”
Relief was painted over with terror, and men frightened of being eaten alive were eaten without resisting.
—What was left at the end was one priest, an arm torn off him, broken all over.
“Lady Reshia… why…”
He walked toward me on unsteady feet with his eyes asking for help, and I turned my face away from him. Behind him the White Serpent was closing, drooling. When the enormous shadow fell over him he wept and stretched a hand out toward me.
“P-please, help me…”
—Ah, this really is a masterpiece.
I put a hand at my mouth and smiled at the voice asking to be saved.
“Priest. Thank you for everything up to now. Goodbye.”
“—Hgk?!”
Immediately after that short scream the White Serpent bit him at the head, and no end of blood ran out onto the ground, and he stopped moving. What remained was meat cut cruelly into pieces.
“That’s the end of it…”
On a road running toward Kingdom territory, nowhere near any battlefield, many bodies had been produced. Some with parts missing, some with faces damaged badly enough to make identification difficult. I put my hands together as though offering a prayer over corpses with no determinable cause of death.
“…I never intended to send any of you back alive. I am sorry.”
Only the White Serpent and I were left there. Apart from me the Order’s army was entirely destroyed, and a great many of the priests, who are the Order’s executive officers, had lost their lives in this fight. For the Order this defeat will be a considerable blow.
“Fufufu. You did well… now go and sleep a while somewhere quiet.”
I saw the White Serpent dig its way down into the earth, and started for home. I wiped the blood that had spattered onto my cheek away with my hand, and returned to the church as the single survivor.
My purpose in the Dyrst region was accomplished: to find the Chosen and measure their strength, and to remove every one of the priests who were in my way.
—The Archbishop will be furious about the failure of this invasion, no doubt. But it will never occur to him that I killed the last of the Order’s soldiers myself. Today was a perfect opportunity to bring every one of the Archbishop’s people to their deaths without anything seeming out of place.
“…To imagine you could use me to satisfy your own appetites. Your thinking is far too soft, Archbishop.”
The recovery of the Svell Order’s holy land in the Dyrst region. That is the reason on the surface, and the Archbishop’s aim lies elsewhere: he sent so many priests to Dyrst in order to lay hands on the ‘Divine Demon Orb’ sleeping in that ground.
Before I went backward through time I thought no further than that the Archbishop was scheming a shallow invasion for money. Now I already know that he means to misuse the Divine Demon Orb and bring about a catastrophe severe enough to collapse the order of the world.
“I have nothing to do but accomplish my own purpose… and the tiresome little villains obstructing my plan will have to make an early exit.”
Before ever facing the Chosen who keep defying fate in the Empire, I have an enemy that must be removed.
—The rotten upper leadership of the Svell Order.
The Archbishop misuses Lord Svell’s name, and being of the privileged class, waves his authority about without limit. The greedy priests who attach themselves behind him and gorge on the benefits are equally guilty. I will never leave ugly monsters wearing the shape of people at liberty.
One day I will accomplish the mission I received from Lord Svell, and to do it I remove the obstacles one at a time, and thoroughly.
“…Now then.”
First, let us inform the Archbishop of the Order’s defeat. He will be irritated at the failure, and he will heap abuse on me, but for my part, simply being permitted to observe him losing his composure will be a sufficient result.
The road home was a solitary walk. The quiet all around was hard to reconcile with having just come from a battlefield that stank of blood.
Now. What excuse shall I make when I arrive? I thought hard about how to deceive the Archbishop, and then it came to me.
—Ah. What about a script along these lines.
‘The frail Saint, sole survivor of the Dyrst invasion, lived through a hellish battlefield of blood and screaming by a miracle. She fled back to the church with her life and no more, and, having lost so many companions, is sunk in grief. The burden on her heart has left her unable to perform a Saint’s duties, and she will be away from the church for some time, recuperating.’
That way I slip out from under the church’s watch and move about freely. And if the Archbishop judges me to be of no further use, he will cut me loose easily enough.
“…Which means I shall have to act the part of a woman who is unwell.”
There is a great deal of time before I reach the church, and I must use it to get ready to play the tragic Saint.
“Ah, that only I should survive, how could such a thing be… no, that is a little theatrical.”
“I can’t bear it. I don’t want to watch anyone be hurt… no. There’s no feeling in that.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. …Ah, with that one, might they read a mind that has broken into it even if my face stays quite blank?”
I kept trying and discarding, and searching for the very best performance of a woman coming apart.