Chapter 1 – The Fairy Realm of the Land of Otogi
Ephthal’s Perspective
In the middle of a forest. On the shore of a lake, sunlight glittering off it. Birdsong came down from the trees, and the early-afternoon breeze felt good.
I’d caught a snake a little while back, lopped off its head, seared the meat with fire magic, and was tearing straight into it. Maybe from losing too much blood, my head felt light and floaty… I’m not in great shape. The wound itself had healed clean once the curse lifted with time and I ran recovery magic over it. But at bottom I was just short on blood, plain and simple. Getting back to full looked like it would take a few days.
“Still, where in the world is this?”
Forest at my back, lake in front. And past the lake, maybe two hundred meters off, a sea of clouds spread across the space straight ahead. Islands hung floating in it, here and there… and around that point my head started to ache. For one thing, I’ve never once heard of islands that float. And what’s more, from what I’d checked earlier, it seemed the ground I was standing on was itself one of the floating islands.
I finished eating and started to get up, meaning to go on surveying the place. Just then, a shrill, blithe little voice came out of the forest.
“Yep-yep, yep-yep~♪”
There, sure enough, was a winged fairy girl small enough to sit in your palm. This is the species called a Pixie. So feeble they’re feared to be going extinct, a rare fairy, and few in number. Their strength is such a woeful thing that they’ve been known to come off worse against a common praying mantis. By the way, she didn’t seem to have noticed me.
“Gonna lick some honey~♪”
The Pixie shoved her face into a flower in bloom and cried out in delight, ‘So yummy~♪’ Just then, a rank, rotten-fishy smell drifted from deep in the woods.
“There’s a weird smell?”
She glanced around, on fairly high alert, it looked like. But she hadn’t noticed that the owner of that smell was a fishman, blended into the scenery over there like a chameleon. From the look of it, the fishman was mid-hunt, and the Pixie was the prey. Nothing for it, so I started toward her, and just then.
“W-w-whoaaaa! Wh-wh-what the heck is thaaat!”
It was a low, gravelly, menacing shriek, about as un-fairy-like as they come. The scream was so awful I laughed in spite of myself, but this was bad. Now that the Pixie had spotted it, the panicked fishman closed the distance in a rush, out to bag its prey.
I leapt sideways, level with the ground, and drew my katana. Then, one stroke. The blade flashed with a glint of light, and the fishman crumpled with a heavy thud. Riding the momentum, I kicked off the ground a few times and closed right up in front of the Pixie.
“You ought to watch your surroundings a little better… otherwise you end up like that.”
“Like that?”
Where I pointed, the fishman, cut clean in two, was being devoured by a giant frog that had lifted its head out of the lake. A long tongue lashed out, wound around the fishman’s body, and reeled it into the frog’s mouth. Then, from the sky… another giant appeared, this time a monstrous bird.
“Gr, graaawwk!”
The bird seized the frog’s head and beat up into the air with a heavy flap of its wings. And just as it made to fly off into the distance, a boulder about the size of a person came flying out of the forest.
“Grgyok!”
Taking the rock dead-on, the bird let out a weird cry and dropped into the lake with a splash.
“One after another after another… what is this place!”
I looked toward where the rock had come from, and out of the forest stepped a golem some five meters tall. It held a boulder in its left hand, so there was no mistaking that this was what had killed the bird.
“Please don’t worry! That one’s okay! That’s a Spriggan~♪”
The fairy said to guard the treasures of Lodoss, huh. On the fairy connection, I suppose it’s a friend of the Pixie’s?
“Meaning it came to protect you?”
“That’s right~♪ That one’s a guardian of good fairies like us~♪ The natural enemy of harm-spirits, an unbeatable, dependable copper on the beat~♪”
Seemed safe enough to relax for the moment, so I sheathed the katana. Just then, I hurriedly ducked. In the next instant the boulder the Spriggan had thrown whistled past a hair’s breadth over my head. Then, behind me, a pillar of water went up in the lake with a great crash. Well, if I hadn’t dodged, that was a direct hit. I turned a flat stare on the Pixie.
“Doesn’t feel remotely safe to me, though?”
“Huh? Huh? That’s wrong, that’s so wrong~! Oh, I know! You’ve gotta show him you mean no harm to fairies!”
Put that way, there was no help for it. To show I meant no ill, I raised both hands toward the Spriggan.
“I’m not your enemy, I’d like you to stop attacking.”
“That’s the way~♪ Mister Spriggan, no more mix-ups~♪ This big brother’s a good person~”
The Spriggan stopped moving; only the light in its eyes stirred. It was observing me, it seemed, taking my measure.
“Now it’s really, truly okay~♪”
The moment the Pixie said so, beaming, the Spriggan hauled back a great fist. And, just as you’d expect, brought it swinging straight down at me.
“Ahh, no good, no good! Looks like you’re marked as an enemy! Run for it, right now! If you can get away, it’ll all work out somehow~!”
Pressing her hands together in apology, the Pixie bowed her head over and over.
“This isn’t a pure fairy, is it, it’s the lifeless sort of familiar? The kind it’s fine to break?”
“Eh, break? This is a high-ranking guardian Sasha-sama made, you know? It catches bad humans, drives off monsters that wander in… an ordinary human could never break it, no way, no, eh?!”
My opponent was a lump of stone. Against it, a katana with no magic riding it does little. I judged as much, and thrust my right palm out at the Spriggan. That said, golem types generally have strong magic resistance, so, now, what to do.
“No! You can’t fight it! No way, no way, no way, no way, no way, José~!”
José? It caught my ear, but we were mid-fight, so I set it aside for now.
“Level 9: Levia Cutting.”
What shot from my palm was superhigh-pressure water. On present-day Earth it’s a famous fact that water pressure can slice through even diamond. But the Spriggan was a good ten meters off, so of course the cutting edge falls away over the distance. Still, stone, at least, ought to be manageable.
“…No. No good, huh.”
Its surface had been reinforced with a magic enchantment, it seemed. Up close might be one thing, but as a long-range water-pressure strike the water had lost too much of its force. Now, the options open to me here were two: close in and loose a water blade, or—
“How about this, then!”
The instant I let the water fly, the Pixie’s cheer rang out.
“I-i-it’s a dismemberment case~!! Amaaazing!”
Just as she said, the golem had its limbs severed and had gone to pieces on the spot. What I did was simple enough, I aimed for the seams of its body, at the joints.
“Wowie, that was amazing. A-maize-ing~♪”
A-maize-ing…? I know Pixies are a cheerful, happy-go-lucky species. But this might be worse than the rumors. Her face is pretty and she looks like a tiny child, so it’s just barely bearable, but honestly, dad jokes…
“Right, let me hear the story. Where is this… no, what is this place?”
At my question the Pixie cocked her little head cutely and went, ‘Hmm?’
“Here? Here’s the Otogi Fantasia~♪”
The strong aura of Sasha’s magic hanging over this whole world. And the presence of phantom demons I felt from every direction, I’d been sure those were tied to that outrageous summoning spell. But to go a step further, and have this world itself be the Otogi Fantasia? That, I’ll admit, I hadn’t seen coming, and I caught my breath despite myself.
⁂
“I didn’t know you were Sasha-sama’s number-one disciple, Ephthal-sama~♪ Sorry for the rude way I talked~♪”
No, your way of talking hasn’t changed one bit. Still, pointing that out would only fluster her, so I let it go.
“There’s one thing I’d like to ask. Were you born here? Or did you come from the outside world?”
“I was singing and dancing and spinning around in a flower field out in the world outside, and then Sasha-sama caught me in a bug net~♪”
“I see. I’ve got the gist of it.”
Still, what nagged at me was why the Pixie kept tacking a -sama onto my name. Or, hadn’t word reached them that Sasha and I had parted ways? Setting that aside, let me put together what I’d heard from her so far.
First, this world sits midway between the underworld and the world of the living. So it’s a place that’s neither the next world nor this one, an in-between, a world in the seam. In fact, drop down off a floating island and you connect through to the underworld, apparently. And this space seemed to be Sasha’s inner world, given substance through sorcery. That’s because a boundary world is a place where the laws of the living world often don’t reach. Magic itself is, after all, the art of making the power of the mind bear on real natural phenomena. So the logic runs that here, the power of the spirit acts more readily upon matter. Meaning: into this place Sasha gathered the very best of the sorcery he had, and projected something like his own inner world.
That’s how I decided to make sense of it, though naturally there was no end of things it left me thinking. First, projecting an inner world and giving it substance: the sheer difficulty of that. Even Sasha had judged it impossible in the living world, they said, and this is the kind of thing that ordinarily can’t be done under any conditions. On top of that, he’s keeping creatures of the living world inside it, and given it an ecosystem that cycles, food chain and all.
“Still, to raise a boxed little world like this, all just to make a spell hold together…”
But this was, in a sense, convenient for cracking the riddle of the Otogi Fantasia’s formula, which had puzzled me for the longest time. What I’d always wondered was how the phantom demons, mental lifeforms utterly off the standard scale, were being preserved. And how energy was being supplied to them.
Phantom demons are supernatural existences of the order of high spirits, heroic souls, gods and the like. Most likely they’re beings formed by collective cognition, the collective unconscious of a span of worlds that includes present-day Earth. Hanuman, Sun Wukong, sages like Nezha or Jiang Ziya, the Four Sacred Beasts, those too. In short, they’re the power of thought made manifest as mental life, out of what humans imagined ‘ought to be.’ Which is why you could call them beings that are everywhere and nowhere. But there’s certainly something you could call a core, and Sasha stores those here. And the ones he keeps and manages, he can call out into the living world at any time to wield their power. That is the peerless summoning spell called the Otogi Fantasia.
“This is guesswork, but phantom demons feed on the power of human belief. Which means quite a number of humans must live in this world, right?”
The number of phantom demons the Otogi Fantasia handles is vast. If, say, I were the one feeding them magic to keep them in existence, I’d be wrung dry in a few hours. And Sasha, of course, couldn’t possibly sustain them all either. So on any sensible reckoning, the power that keeps them in existence is being supplied from somewhere else. That much is certain. Since phantom demons arose from the power of human imagination, the very business of human living becomes their feed. And that’s what’s being supplied here, in this world… probably.
“There’s human towns on lots of the floating islands~♪ Everybody farms, and drinks every day, and lives happy~♪ We help the humans in their daily lives~♪”
“Help humans live?”
“We bless the land to make the harvests fat, and the wine fairies make the wine tastier, and the food fairies keep food from spoiling~♪”
It’s nothing but food with her. Well, food is important to living happily, I suppose.
“That’s the kind of thing us lowly little fairies do, helping out with Sasha-sama’s recommended ’Be Fruitful and Multiply Plan’~♪”
“If everyone’s living happily, then that’s a good thing.”
“But-but! Bad people get punished in the prison!”
“Prison?”
“There’s a place called the floating prison island~♪ Ones like that Mister Spriggan from before really earn their keep there~♪”
From what I could gather… this place seemed, somehow, to have a pastoral air to it. The scenery was easygoing, and the Pixie was as vacant as they come. In which case, my guess was that even ‘punishment’ here would be a pretty gentle affair.
“Just out of curiosity, punishment meaning?”
“Whipping, salting, branding, the water wheel, all sorts~♪”
Surprisingly hard-core. Well, it’s a world Sasha made, so, no wonder, I suppose. That man is thorough to the bone when he decides to be strict.
“And-and, the one that works best is the water-drop torture, they say~♪ They fix you so you can’t move, and for days and weeks, at the same interval, they drip water onto your forehead over and over~♪”
“A drop of water becomes torture?”
“When you drip nothing but water, slow, slow, and endless~♪ before long the human loses their mind, they say~♪”
Picturing it a little, I saw at once that yes, that would be terrifying enough, mentally. In fact, didn’t the intelligence services of Earth’s early modern age have exactly that as a torture, right down to the letter? At any rate, that’s Sasha for you. No mercy.
“The goal’s always correction~♪ So long as they don’t die, a little harshness can’t be helped~♪ Anyway, the story is it started as a place to catch death-row convicts from the real world and set them straight~♪”
“In any case, I understand your fairies are performing all sorts of services for the humans.”
From what I heard, Sasha had built the governing system in fairly earnest good faith. The power of the mind. Energy generated from the doings of human life, supplied to the phantom demons. That’s the aim this world serves. It isn’t hard to imagine that trouble arises unless the humans are, to some degree, mentally settled. And well, since they start as death-row convicts, you could even see it as a perfectly win-win arrangement.
“But those monsters from before? Given the nature of the formula, I can’t see Sasha permitting beings that harm humans or your kind.”
“That’s just it. Lately this world’s gone strange. Ever since that day, the day the red death-god danced across the sky, the phantom demons vanished, and instead the monsters that slip in from the underworld shot up all of a sudden~♪”
Come to think of it, Sasha had said something about the phantom demons being devoured by the Fire God Emperor, and taking them back. And just then… a faint numbness ran through my right hand.
“Ow!”
In the next instant, numbers surfaced on the back of my hand. Displayed as 168:00:00, and in the next instant they were—
—167:59:59.
—167:59:58.
“Is this… a countdown?”
Hmm… What on earth was this supposed to mean. No, I know what it is. I am that man’s disciple, after all. But why now, in this situation…? Nothing for it, so I put the question to the Pixie.
“Do you know where the Fairy King is? As far as I know, he’s the being closest to Sasha in this place…”
“I know, but, what are you suddenly on about~?”
“If none of this makes sense, then I’ve got to talk with someone it makes sense to.”
There, I felt the presence of the strong at my back. I drew, snatched up the Pixie, sprang forward, and looked back once I’d put distance between us.
“There’s no need to call.”
“Yes, there is no need to call.”
What appeared was a man and a woman in their twenties with faces like twins, dressed in gaudy noble finery. Beautiful as sculpture, and carrying a certain bewitching air besides… no, that stands to reason. A fairy, when you come down to it, is a bewitching spirit, and the one who rules over them is the Fairy King.
“My name is Oberon. Fairy King… primordial phantom demon.”
“My name is Titania. Fairy Queen… phantom demon of the beginning.”
It had been a while since I’d seen them. Sasha really does keep some outrageous things, I thought, with a wry smile. After all, these two had closed to within arm’s reach of me without my catching a whiff of their presence. Right up to where you could stretch out a hand and touch them… yes.
Could I take the two of them at once and win? There was no doubt they were spiritual beings a rank above Fenrir or the Azure Dragon. It’s not for nothing they call themselves the foremost of Sasha’s treasured phantom demons; their strength is beyond question, and I knew it. As I braced, the Fairy King and his consort smiled at me, beaming. No sign of a spell-formula being built for any attack, either. At the least, they didn’t seem inclined to strike right away.
“Thank you for saving our child, Ephthal. You’re welcome here.”
“Thank you for saving our child, Ephthal. You are welcome here.”
Thanks? In the plainest sense, these two, Sasha’s servants, are thanking me? The Pixie tacked a -sama onto my name too. All sorts of things are off, sure enough.
“So, why the welcome party for me? No… why is it the Fire God Emperor’s done nothing to you?”
“In the beginning, there was the Fairy King.”
“In the beginning, there was the Fairy Queen.”
“We are the root of this world; the Fairy King governs abundance—”
“We are the root of this world; the Fairy Queen governs the waters. The maintenance system of this world is us ourselves—”
“And we ourselves are the maintenance system. Should we vanish, this world collapses; it cannot stand. The Fire God Emperor understands that well.”
“The reason the Fire God Emperor took Sasha into himself is that he wants the system called the Otogi Fantasia.”
“Or rather, he wishes to make the system that is the Otogi Fantasia his own, independent of Sasha.”
Then, voices in unison, the two declared:
“So, we cannot be harmed.”
“Thus, we are inviolable.”
Hand to my chin, I thought a moment about what they were driving at. There, arriving at the fact of it, I clicked my tongue, damn.
I should have taken the one move of running the instant these two appeared out of nowhere. I already had an offensive formula built and ready to fire at any time. But… against this many, would it be enough? A little while ago, the phantom demons of this world had been dealt catastrophic damage by the Fire God Emperor. That much is certain. Yet the Fairy King and Queen had come through unscathed. To borrow Sasha’s words, where some were devoured by the Fire God Emperor, others were not. So the ten-odd phantom demons hemming me in completely right now had, at least, survived.
“I was told this was a welcome. Setting this many to surround me is hardly peaceable.”
Still, I don’t notice until I’m ringed by more than ten of them? There, spotting the shape of a Kurama Tengu in the woods, I clicked my tongue again. A tengu’s cloak of invisibility, well named. That one’s plainly skilled in the arts of concealment, just as the legends say.
“It’s an emergency, you see.”
“Yes, an emergency.”
Checking the exact number and placement of them, I asked the two:
“I’ll ask you straight. Why did Sasha pull me into this world? No… what is he trying to make me do here?”
I genuinely couldn’t read his intent. If the other side meant to, I’d be beaten down under a massed barrage. Yet so far there was no sign of it. There was that countdown that had shown up on the back of my hand. Because of it, I’d let my guard down more than a little, truth be told. But, would Sasha really flash a countdown just to make me drop my guard? No. That’s not it. Given his character, he wouldn’t go in for anything so roundabout.
Then, at my question, the smiles never leaving their faces, the Oberon couple said:
“Off to the prison, Ephthal.”
“Yes, the prison is what we have in mind.”
Having said it, the fairy husband and wife went right on smiling, beaming as ever.
Merlin’s Perspective
After the incident that blew the royal-capital council chamber to pieces, I returned to the ducal manor. The members of the ducal house had all come through without serious harm, and Anastasia and the others were untouched as well. The upheaval within the country was over, and had things simply gone on from there, that would have been the end of the matter.
But it did not go that way. Ephthal-sama, who had gone to the foreign tribe’s king, had not returned even now, three days on. It’s hard to imagine that man coming off worse against a mere foreign tribe, so the odds were extremely high the Fire God Emperor was involved. Judging as much, I threw myself into the work of compiling what records I had on him, leaning on my memory and the ducal house’s archive.
– Imperial Year 582: at twenty-eight, slays the Demon Lord, is granted the title of Four Emperor.
– Imperial Year 615: the Magia Burst breaks out. The Ice God Emperor dies.
– Imperial Year 672: the Nightmare of the Mireine Plateau. The highlands are swallowed in a great fire; a hundred thousand dead.
– Imperial Year 672: a saint appears who heals the gravely burned in the blink of an eye.
– Imperial Year 712: the city-state of Matarito falls in a single night. All slaughtered, so the details are unknown.
– Imperial Year 713: an anonymous magnate provides a vast sum toward Matarito’s reconstruction.
– Thereafter, on a fifty-year cycle, great destruction and reconstruction aid repeat.
The witness accounts common to both the destruction and the salvation point to a red-haired boy. It’s beyond doubt the Fire God Emperor’s doing, but why perform salvation for the very ones he set out to destroy? The reason he killed the first Ice God Emperor, the reason he loosed the Magia Burst that is the cause of magic’s present decline, his purpose in any of it, from beginning to end, I could not grasp. There’s no consistency to his actions; it verges, even, on the haphazard.
A fiend and a demon, or a saving child of the gods. What in the whole wide world… is the Fire God Emperor thinking?
And as I sat there with my head in my hands, a servant of the manor came to tell me that Svetlana had arrived. Svetlana had been due to head back from the royal capital to the Dragon’s Treasure Vault for a time. But with Ephthal-sama not returning to the ducal manor, I had summoned her in haste.
“So, what’s going on, Merlin-chan?”
“What do you think is going on. As the letter I sent by express rider said, Ephthal-sama has not returned.”
“Not returned… what’s that supposed to mean?! There is no way he of all people comes off worse against a mere foreign tribe!”
“Calm yourself a little, Svetlana. I want to shout every bit as much as you do.”
Table between us, we faced one another across the sofa. After a spell of silence, one or the other of us put our lips to the black tea a maid had laid out for guests.
“Good leaves, Merlin-chan.”
“Yes. The service isn’t showy, but… it has a certain grace. Duke Alcott would seem to have good taste.”
Gazing at the tea things, the phrase unadorned and sturdy came to mind. Come to think of it, the furnishings throughout the manor placed more weight on usefulness than on looks. I could get along with the current Duke Alcott, I thought, and the corners of my mouth loosened a touch. And perhaps steadied a little by the scent of the tea, Svetlana asked with a grave face:
“So, not returning. What’s the situation?”
“Moria, the former knight-commander, flew an express rider himself and scouted the state of the foreign tribe’s stronghold. But… all that was found was the corpse of the War-Maiden of Aegis and the foreign king’s hideout, wrecked and abandoned.”
“Mm. And?”
“The hideout was a cave in the mountains, sprawling and complex as an ant’s nest, apparently. Since remnants of the foreign tribe might still be lurking there, he came back without going in deep. Well, I’d worn my throat raw telling him not to go in deep, so there’s that too.”
“Meaning Ephthal-chan got caught up in something unforeseen somewhere around there, doesn’t it.”
“How many times must I tell you not to tack a -chan onto Ephthal-sama’s name.”
“Come to think of it, Ephthal-chan said the same thing. Fine, then, I’ll settle for Junior, as a favor.”
Talking with this one gives me a headache, as always. In my case, my feeling toward Ephthal-sama runs mainly in the direction of reverence, but Svetlana is another matter. She took a childhood promise at face value and is genuinely playing the wife, there’s a whiff of her regarding them as married, as full equals. Still, Maria’s the same, but isn’t Ephthal-sama a little too soft on his disciples? I can’t help thinking so. No, come to think of it, with the lady of the house, Bridget-sama, he was usually kept under her thumb. Which makes me think perhaps that man has always been weak to women.
“So, why are you lazing about in a place like this? There’s no mistaking Junior’s gotten himself into some kind of trouble, is there?”
“I was waiting to raise the odds. If I move carelessly, the odds are very high I merely become the mummy-hunter turned mummy.”
And Svetlana and I stood at the same moment, each of us cracking our knuckles.
“Unusual for you, Merlin-chan… waiting for Big Sis was the wise call. Since Junior can’t handle it, there’s no way you handle it alone. Big Sis’s power is a must, I should think.”
“Sasha-sama’s power, more like.”
We gave each other a firm nod. I tossed Svetlana the rucksack I’d stashed in the corner of the room, packed with travel rations and water.
“In any case, a survey on the ground.”
“Yes, there’s nothing else for it.”
With that we set off in a straight line for the manor’s front entrance.
“Do you know the exact distance?”
“Four hours one way by express rider. An hour or so by flight magic, I’d say.”
“No telling what happens. Better to avoid burning magic ahead of time.”
“In which case, the means is a horse after all…”
Out into the inner courtyard, and just as we’d started walking toward the stables, Svetlana laughed under her breath.
“Say, Merlin-chan? Were you really planning to go by horse?”
And with the words, Svetlana turned dragon. A vast body glittering jade-silver, so huge it made the ducal house’s sprawling garden look small. Even to me, who knew her, it drew a sigh of wonder, she’s beautiful. That grand, unhurried bearing is a magnificent thing. Emerald Dragon is well said; formed like a jewel, the sight of her forces awe, dread, and wonder on every soul who beholds her, no leave asked.
“On an ordinary day, I might have left it at that.”
“You really do hate asking me for anything, don’t you.”
“But time is pressing. Had you not done it of your own accord, I’d have been ready to bow my head.”
“Oh? Even though you’d started walking to the stables?”
“Because I knew you’d cave first soon enough… how many years do you think we’ve known each other?”
At that we both snorted a laugh and cracked up.
“Merlin-chan. But this once, I don’t think that snipe-at-each-other, drag-each-other-down mood is a good idea.”
“Yes. You and I… let’s set our usual grudges aside, just for this.”
“The enemy is the Fire God Emperor, and Sasha-sama’s gone missing too, yes?”
“Just so. Whatever else, there’s no chance of anything happening to Ephthal-sama of all people. But… this time the opponent is the Fire God Emperor.”
“I flatter myself I hold power enough to stand against the first-generation Four Emperors and Sasha-sama, but you’re another matter. Since the quality of our camp may be inferior, we’ve got to cooperate. If you understand that properly… shall we hurry?”
“Never have I envied the dragon race’s power that leans on no magic as much as I do now. Had I only not been caught up in the Magia Burst, perhaps I too could have somehow clawed my way up to the first-generation Four Emperors’ realm, the world of the heavens above.”
Just then, a voice came from the manor’s entrance. I looked, and there was Duke Alcott, running toward us with a pale face.
“P-please wait, both of you!”
“Oh? What’s the matter, Fraser-chan?”
“From the royal capital… an order of appearance has been issued against the two of you.”
At the words, Svetlana and I met each other’s eyes. ‘An order of appearance?’ And at once, the two of us snorted with laughter.
“An order of appearance, for Big Sis and company? Say, Fraser-chan? Even if whoever issued it is royalty, cart the whole lot off to the cells. If they still don’t understand after we thrashed them that thoroughly, there’s no treatment left but a truly rough time.”
My thoughts exactly. But even hearing Svetlana out, Duke Alcott’s face stayed stiff.
“The thing is… the situation is strange. And the reason for the appearance isn’t the matter of the earlier assault on the noble council, either.”
When I cocked my head with a ‘Hm?’ Duke Alcott showed us our order of appearance, more precisely, the signature at the foot of it. And seeing the names written there, we were struck dumb.
“You’ve got to be joking?!”
“Absurd… no, that’s impossible!”
It was no wonder Svetlana and I were shaken. Yes, the order of appearance bore two names, jointly. And those two names were—
—Fire God Emperor Cliff, and Undead Emperor Sasha.
⁂
We were floored from the very outset. The bridge spanning the moat around the palace. There, drawn up on either side to receive us, stood dozens of knights in formation. Now, that much is ordinary, nothing to be startled at. Whether toward me personally, or Svetlana personally, or the rank of Duke Alcott, each of us holds a weighty position, and grand receptions of that sort are nothing rare. But looking closely, the knights drawn up there were undead, corpse knights. There, the air finally turned to this is no ordinary business. To be precise: Svetlana and I went wide-eyed, and Duke Alcott’s face twitched.
After that, we were shown into the palace. There we came face to face with one horror after another, enough to make you cover your eyes. Passing through the entrance, we walked straight up the red carpet that led on toward the throne room, and the ones standing guard here and there were heavily armed undead infantry. Obliging as you please, even the maids working the castle were corpse-fiends, a sort of nightmare-breed, by the look of them.
“What… is this, Svetlana?”
“Don’t ask me.”
A grotesque state of affairs, the undead swaggering through the palace as if it were their own. And of course, the royals and their people had surely not gotten off lightly. So, all but retching at the sour reek of hell-knights and corpse-knights, we simply pressed on up the red carpet. After walking a while, we came out at last through a long, long corridor. And then the doors bound in gold and silver that led to the throne room reared up before us.
Whether an ogre comes out or a snake, then. Thinking as much, I pushed the doors open. The straight run of red carpet went on as before, and at its end I saw five tiered steps. Naturally, what stood atop them was the throne. Though the lord who ought to sit enthroned there was absent, of course. Beside the throne, seated cross-legged, a red-haired boy. And at the boy’s side, a silver-haired girl in gothic-lolita dress… no, an old man. There, confirming Sasha-sama’s presence, Svetlana and I bit our lips, guessing at a piece of the reason Ephthal-sama had vanished.
“The palace in this state… what manner of joke is this, Sasha-sama? And the first-generation Fire God Emperor from the order of appearance… borrowing a false name is poor taste.”
“Hn? Merlin. Had you no acquaintance with the first-generation Fire God Emperor?”
I’d meant to feign ignorance of the circumstances and lay on the irony. But the answer came back straight-faced, without a flicker of guilt, this is getting truly bad.
“I’m aware you’re fond of pranks, but this time it strikes me as going somewhat too far. Occupying the palace with armed undead…”
“Well, there’s no help for it.”
“No help for it?”
“I’ve no taste for people dying, you know… and even so, I’m holding it back, believe me. As far as I possibly can… yes.”
Sasha-sama gave a shrug, as if to say what a bother. And sent his gaze to the boy yawning boredly at his side.
“Er… you’d be Ephthal’s disciples, Merlin and Svetlana, is that right? Though whether the dragon princess counts as a disciple is a question that lingers.”
There, sensing danger, Svetlana and I caught up Duke Alcott and leapt back at the same instant.
“Yes, good instincts. Ephthal seems to have been an excellent teacher.”
“He teaches the ways of a brawl more than sorcery, that one. He’d be good at this sort of thing.”
The two of them laughed, well pleased, while Svetlana and I went teary-eyed, this is more than a person can take.
“What… is happening?”
Before I’d noticed, a man was standing just ahead of where we’d been standing a moment ago. His figure was one both Svetlana and I knew. A face familiar from childhood, when we’d both been in his care. The one who’d appeared there without a sound, all at once, was the one we revered—
—the first Ice God Emperor.
“Well, it’s like this. The whole tale about the Scarlet of Hades comes down, in the end, to right here.”
“Is this one the real thing? What… what is happening?”
“It’s a simple story. I kept the Ice God Emperor’s remains packed in ice, you see. Well, the Ice God Emperor, put on ice, quite literally.”
Finding whatever it was funny, the Fire God Emperor began to laugh under his breath.
“My apologies, Merlin. I did try to stop it, but the brat insisted it was absolutely necessary… he used the orb, and by necromancy brought the Ice God Emperor back as undead.”
“So, Ice God Emperor, if you would.”
Toward Svetlana and me, a Level-9-class water spell came flying from the Ice God Emperor. This is… a blade-spell by water pressure. Take it head-on and it would cleave your torso in two at a stroke, heavy armor or no.
“Level 7: Perfect Wall!”
My defensive magic was pierced by the Ice God Emperor’s water blade in the blink of an eye. But the water pressure felt to have weakened, if only slightly. And I set off the next defensive formula I’d built alongside it at the same time.
“One more, Level 7: Perfect Wall!”
The wall held a little better than before. But even so, it was on the verge of being slid through the way a heated knife goes through butter.
“Drag’s Field.”
The defensive wall Svetlana raised. My wall was reinforced by the dragon’s own battle-aura. There, at last, the water blade lost its cutting power and scattered to the four winds. There, I noticed my back had gone soaked through with a nasty sweat before I’d known it.
“The Ice God Emperor, beyond doubt. His magic is degraded by the undeath, but this perfection of formula… it’s not something anyone else could imitate.”
“Well, he’s the real thing.”
“But, Fire God Emperor, why launch an attack at us?”
“I’d no intention of hurting you. I was just a little curious how much the mages of the present age, you two, seated at the very peak, could manage.”
“Curious… you said?”
“Had you taken a wound, I’d have asked you to leave. At any rate… you pass. Though whether that’s fortune or misfortune for you, I couldn’t say.”
Pass…? I knit my brows in suspicion.
“The occupied palace, undead soldiers, and Ephthal-sama’s disappearance. Fire God Emperor… what is it you’re after?”
Nodding at the words, the Fire God Emperor pierced straight through to my eyes with a level gaze.
“Let me say it plainly, won’t you surrender to my command?”
“Surrender to your command… you say? And if I did, where lies the gain for me?”
“First, Ephthal is in our hands. Confined in the Otogi world Sasha built up, and in time he’ll turn corpse, Ephthal too is slated to become my puppet.”
“Wha… t?”
“Do as I say, and I’ll guarantee his person and his life until he dies a natural death. You’d be, in effect, the knight who guards him. Depending on the case, I might even do something so far as letting you meet Ephthal.”
Where Ephthal-sama was confined, I couldn’t know. But from this way of talking, the Fire God Emperor seemed to hold the power of life and death over him.
“Well, for my part, it’s a matter of adding a slightly useful pawn, no more. So, what will you do, mages without peer in the present age?”
“You’re a sorcerer who can even puppeteer the first Ice God Emperor. If it’s useful hands you want, why not dig up the graves of the world’s strong and make pawns of them? And surely you already hold, as pawns, a group that wields something called reincarnator skills.”
“Ah, that. The truth is I’m stretched to my limit.”
“Stretched to your limit?”
“As you’re aware, brainwashing is my specialty. But keeping several going at all times, watching and manipulating the insides of people’s heads in all sorts of places, even for me, that’s hard labor.”
Well, that’s true enough. That he’s achieving it at any real scale at all is itself a state of affairs beyond common sense.
“Besides, I don’t think I could brainwash mages of your level, and even if I could, it would eat too much of my resources. I really have my fingers in all kinds of things, you see… like so.”
The Fire God Emperor snapped his fingers. And, as before, four humans, no, undead, appeared all at once before our eyes. These, unlike the Ice God Emperor, were in the state of fleshless skeletons… but the presence of the strong was plain on them. Skeletons draped in black robes. The words high undead, a lich crossed my mind, but the air about them was nothing so mild.
“The second-generation Four Emperors. To put it bluntly, just controlling these four and the Ice God Emperor has me at my limit.”
A dry laugh spilled from my lungs despite myself. On the heels of the first Ice God Emperor, the second-generation Four Emperors…? Svetlana and I met each other’s eyes and shrugged at the same moment, as if to say hands up, we surrender. With Ephthal-sama gone… I couldn’t see us doing a thing about this.
“What your aim is, I don’t know, but do you seriously believe I’d lend some manner of aid to you, who harmed Ephthal-sama?”
“The odds are about fifty-fifty, I’d say.”
“Fifty-fifty? Such a thing is out of the question, categorically.”
“The Alcott ducal domain. Ephthal’s family in this life, and the disciples he’s picked up as things went along, and the household growing larger. You, who once had no direct acquaintance with me, may not know it, but—”
And with an expression that froze you to the spine, the Fire God Emperor went on:
“—I don’t choose my means.”
“For the first-generation Fire God Emperor to threaten by taking women and children hostage… how far you’ve fallen.”
“Say what you like. Only, I take responsibility for my words, for good or ill. If I say I’ll do it, I do it without fail, and if I say I won’t, I won’t.”
At that, Svetlana, silent until now, opened her mouth.
“Hold on a moment, you? First-generation Fire God Emperor or whatever you are, who gave you leave to talk down to Merlin-chan?”
“Hm? What do you mean?”
“Since you don’t seem to know, let me teach you. The only ones allowed to talk down to my family are… Ephthal-chan and me.”
A deep sigh escaped me. This is why… I find Svetlana hard to deal with. This woman means it, sincerely, without a trace of sarcasm, and then she comes out and says it.
“Svetlana, leave it.”
“Going down in flames suits me fine. So long as I can take one of their arms with me, no complaints.”
If the foster parent is that sort, so is the child, I thought. And my own foster parent is cut from the same cloth as this one. It’s been so from the old days, spend time with Svetlana, and in the end I’m always swept along. That I’m the more level-headed of us is beyond doubt. But at the root, in the shaping of character in childhood, we’re… in truth, exactly the same.
And, well, the other side was fully aware the situation was a hair from ignition. The Fire God Emperor, the Ice God Emperor, and the second-generation Four Emperors began refining magic and building formulas. Of course I too was readying for battle in kind, but the sense of winning simply wouldn’t come. Yet if I’m to fall alongside Svetlana… there was certainly a part of me here that found even that a clean enough end.
So, as the two camps glared at each other, Sasha-sama shouted in a great voice.
“Both sides, cease! You blithering fools!”
At the midpoint between them and us, a defensive barrier appeared, one that seemed to be Sasha-sama’s work. At that, the Fire God Emperor, a touch surprised, spoke to Sasha-sama.
“Why stop them? Isn’t this sort of dust-up your favorite dish?”
“What in the world do you take me for… I’ve no taste for pointless deaths. And Merlin, Svetlana… the two of you, cool your heads a little too. You’re grand-disciples of a sort; I’ll weigh your circumstances to the fullest.”
What are you on about, you traitor, I thought, glaring at Sasha-sama. But receiving that glare of mine, Sasha-sama shut one eye for the barest instant. Hm? That was… a wink? In a situation like this?
“In any case, hear the man out properly, at least. You’ve scarcely heard a thing yet, have you?”
As he spoke, Sasha-sama tapped the back of his own right hand once with the fingers of his left. This is… he’s trying to convey something? Careful not to let the Fire God Emperor catch it, I stole a glance at the back of my own hand… and hid a mouth that threatened to loosen behind it.
The countdown has begun. I see… so that’s it. This is a signal-fire passed down in Sasha’s school. And of course, to me, of Ephthal’s school, the meaning of the sign is well understood. In short, what it means is, at the count of zero, the whole school storms the enemy’s stronghold together. Back when Ephthal-sama spent his days as Sasha-sama’s disciple, the countdown was run nearly every month, or so I’ve heard.
“Understood, Fire God Emperor. If it’s only talk, I’ll hear you out properly.”
“I’m glad, Merlin. Were you Ephthal, the fight would be well underway by now, Sasha’s words be damned. It does seem there’s room to talk with you after all.”
“Don’t mistake me, I only listen, no more. Before that, there’s one thing I’d ask.”
“Ask whatever you like. To win you over, I’m prepared to spend a fair bit of time.”
“Just what do you mean to do, going to these lengths for fighting strength? What is it you want? Do you mean to conquer the world?”
“Conquer the world? I’ve no interest in anything so small. It’s only that, to protect that child, this much deterrence is the bare minimum.”
“That child?”
“By rights, Ephthal and I ought to share the same aspiration and walk the same road. But even with the same goal in sight… were I to lay out the circumstances, Ephthal would beyond doubt refuse to agree to my methods.”
“What are you saying, Fire God Emperor.”
“I protect my little sister; Ephthal protects… his wife. Our aspirations are beyond doubt the same, and yet, a fated thing, isn’t it.”
“Wife? Little sister? Don’t tell me…”
The Fire God Emperor looked up at the ceiling with a melancholy face, and said, sighing:
“Yes. My little sister, and Ephthal’s wife, Bridget.”