Chapter 4 – Otogi Fantasia
Merlin’s Perspective
“Yes. My little sister, and Ephthal’s wife—Bridget.”
Those words were the cue, and what began was a long telling. For all the harrowing matter of it, the Fire God Emperor’s tone as he spoke stayed flat and even, as though I stood before some high priest come into enlightenment. And when he had told the whole of it, the throne room settled into a heavy, heavy silence.
“So, to protect Bridget, I need to raise destruction at set intervals. By whatever method does the least harm, naturally.”
“And now… where is Ephthal-sama’s lady wife…?”
“The truth is I’d like to let her live an ordinary life… but for now I’ve had her sleeping, in a certain place. Until I’ve put my house in order I have my hands full, you see. In any case, are you satisfied now, with my reasons?”
“And yet, to guard a single person, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands… over the long run the toll comes to a number past all reckoning. I cannot for the life of me see how the accounts are meant to balance.”
“Then, care to stop me by force?”
“No… that is not it. I am asking whether there truly is no other road. Laying the matter before Ephthal-sama, say, and seeking some other manner of solution together with him.”
“Ephthal would say to look for another road, no question. But because nothing can be done, I have given up and set to my preparations.”
There was reason in that, right enough. The Fire God Emperor had known Ephthal-sama long ago as well, and was surely speaking only after long thought. That laying it before Ephthal-sama would end in nothing but a clash, I could not claim the feeling was lost on me.
“…I’ll not deny it. No, beyond a doubt, that is exactly what he would say.”
“Which is precisely why I never sat down to talk it over with Ephthal. Because it is Bridget we speak of, there is no chance that fellow would ever hear me out.”
The Fire God Emperor and Ephthal-sama both, it seemed, threw all appearances to the wind the moment the matter turned to Bridget-sama. That they held her dearer than anything, one need only look at their faces to know it, and that too was the same in them. And that I felt the smallest touch of envy for Bridget-sama, was that because the discipline of my heart was yet wanting? This dark feeling, however much time went by, was never a pleasant thing to carry.
“Tell me, Fire God Emperor. Supposing I bend the knee to you, what, precisely, would you have me do?”
The Fire God Emperor raised two fingers.
“What I ask is two things. The first: when Bridget’s destructive urge reaches its critical point, to secure a place for that power to vent itself.”
He said it without a flicker crossing his face, but it meant a great many lives would be lost. Did this man understand as much? No, it was because he understood that he kept his face so deliberately still. That he had no choice but to be studiedly calm, and coldly so, he himself understood better than anyone.
“The second: a show of force, to guard Bridget, who carries within her the seed of becoming the world’s enemy.”
“Hm… let me hear it in full.”
“As with the Demon Lord of old, should a subjugation force be raised the world over to stand against her heedless violence, that becomes a nuisance. Which is why I am bowing my head and asking your cooperation.”
“You do not look, to my eye, like a man bowing his head.”
“Now that’s harsh. I am, in my own fashion, doing my level and sincere best here… Well. In all things the opening move is what counts. I want the demonstration to come off without fail.”
“A demonstration… you say?”
“Just so,” the Fire God Emperor nodded. “Every preparation is nearly in place. A few days hence, one region of this country is set to be destroyed. With that as the opening move, we show the world our might, in many places at once. And that is why I need pieces, and numbers of them. To speak plainly: once I have dealt a heavy blow to the capitals of the continent’s principal nations, I will declare this country sealed off from the world.”
What is this man saying… A faint ache started up behind my brow.
“A heavy blow? Sealing off the country? And razing a region of this land besides? Have you taken leave of your senses, Fire God Emperor?”
“First, with the Scarlet of Hades I have already secured, I raise a great outbreak of undead near this country’s borders. The outbreak swallows the neighboring lands too, and the world at large takes it for the onset of a great calamity. And at that same moment, with my elite mages for pieces—I bombard the world’s cities, one and all, with area magic.”
“You…! Have you truly gone mad?”
“Considered in cold, practical terms, it is the best answer there is. My own magic is not limitless; set against the whole world, my strength would run dry sooner or later. So I settle everything in the first stroke. In short, I want the world to take us for ‘lunatics you must never, ever lay a finger on.’”
“As a matter of plain fact, you look every inch the lunatic to me.”
“Your name has weight, and Svetlana’s, and Sasha’s, that matters. Add to it the appearance of the first-generation Fire God Emperor and Ice God Emperor. The lost Level 10 bombardment… and the unveiling of the second-generation Four Emperors, and a catastrophe striking the world over all at once. Do the whole of it together, in one connected sweep, and the world falls into a vast panic, a vast confusion. And if, without missing a beat, I proclaim a closed country of mutual non-interference, what do you suppose comes of it?”
“A blade in a madman’s hand, near enough, as the saying goes. No one would wish to have any dealings with such people.”
“Just so, the closed country, complete. Then, free at last of interference from any other nation, I can make this land the outlet for Bridget’s destructive urge. Well, that is the whole of my plan.”
This man, did he truly mean to carry it that far? To guard a single woman? At the sheer derangement of the notion, dread shook me so that my knees began to tremble.
“But, Cliff-chan? Do you… do you really think us big sisters would lend a hand to a thing like that?”
At the glaring Svetlana, the Fire God Emperor shook his head, as if to say, ‘a pity.’
“It seems I have spent my time to no purpose… am I to understand it so?”
Smoothly, the Fire God Emperor turned his palm on us. At the same instant the first-generation Ice God Emperor and the second-generation Four Emperors brought their attack stances to bear on us as well. Neither side, it goes without saying, had let its spell-formulae unravel this whole while. The hair-trigger standoff between us had not shifted an inch.
“Wait, Svetlana.”
“Eh…? H-hold on, what’s got into you, Merlin-chan? Don’t tell me you mean to go along with him?”
Paying Svetlana no mind, I addressed the Fire God Emperor thus.
“I will do the work of two. That will serve, will it not, Fire God Emperor?”
“…Are you in earnest, Merlin-chan?”
“Enough, now, leave this to me, Svetlana. Fire God Emperor… strictly speaking, Svetlana is no disciple of Ephthal-sama’s; if anything, her allegiance lies with the Dragon Emperor’s bloodline. Should she wish it she could call upon the dragon-kin, no, those creatures… were Svetlana to take part in some folly, they would move of their own accord to guard the pride of the clan.”
The Fire God Emperor turned something over a while, then gave a small nod.
“Well, that is true enough.”
“To fasten dishonor upon Svetlana is one and the same as fouling the Dragon Emperor’s name. For you, on the point of making enemies on every side, to let your troubles multiply beyond this can hardly be sound policy, can it?”
“…Understood. Svetlana I will set aside, for the time being.”
And so I drew a slow breath and declared, in a voice pitched to reach every ear in the place without fail:
“Lay not a hand on anyone bound to Ephthal-sama. That is the absolute condition.”
“Good, we have our bargain. I am glad Ephthal’s stubbornness and his temper didn’t come down to you, Merlin.”
The moment the Fire God Emperor shaped a smile, I spat at him, ptooh.
“You seem to be laboring under a misapprehension. I too, of course, am stubborn and ill-tempered… see that you keep it in mind.”
He arched back and slipped the spittle, so I clicked my tongue at him, loud enough to be heard, tch.
“Ha. Then I shall take pains not to cross your line, either.”
⁂
“Such being the case, Ephthal-sama is inside Sasha-sama’s Otogi Fantasia spell.”
In a room of the ducal mansion, I laid it out so for Anastasia and the others. At which Maria, a vein standing at her temple, bawled:
“Sasha-sama… no, that old geezer… he betrayed us?! I held my tongue on account of him being Ephthal’s master, but he’s got that creepy, pervy air about him and I never took to the man from the start!”
She stamped about in a fury, a girl foul of mouth as ever. Still, that was Maria’s nature, able to put her anger out plainly where all could see it. In honesty, I could not swear I felt no envy of it.
Just then Anastasia tilted her head, as though puzzled, and asked:
“Whatever do you mean, Merlin-sama? There’s no way Master could lose.”
Anastasia was beaming away as if it were all some joke, and for that very reason, to speak the truth of it made my chest ache.
“I’m sorry to say it, but it is the truth.”
“…Eh? Truly? Could it be he’s, he’s gone and died?”
And as Anastasia’s face paled before my eyes—overcome by the shock of it, Sheryl toppled woozily where she stood.
“Why is it Sheryl who keels over, the way this talk is going?!”
Maria was shouting, but… this was ill. Sheryl’s color had passed clean through deep blue and turned the shade of clay. She seemed dead away, not stirring in the least.
“…”
“Rest easy, Sheryl. He is alive.”
At that instant, Sheryl’s eyes snapped open and she shot upright.
“…Of course. There is no way Ephthal would die.”
“Well, but, going by the circumstantial evidence alone… by any ordinary reckoning, he may in fact be dead.”
At that instant, Sheryl’s eyes rolled white and she fell over again.
“In any event, this is Ephthal-sama we speak of. Dying is not in it.”
“…Naturally. There is no way Ephthal would die.”
At that instant, Sheryl’s eyes snapped open and she shot upright.
“That said, by any ordinary reckoning there is, after all, the chance his life stands in danger…”
At that instant, sure enough, Sheryl’s eyes rolled white and she fell over once more.
It was diverting enough that I half thought to keep on a while longer, but this was truly no time for such play.
“At all events, as a practical matter Ephthal-sama’s life or death is unknown. But he is in no mortal peril, of that I hold my own quiet conviction.”
“Um, well… er… but even supposing Master came back, could he really do anything about the Fire God Emperor?”
“Sasha-sama himself has been beaten, so on the plain question of winning or losing, by ordinary reckoning it looks grim. But before a battle at the razor’s edge, Ephthal-sama always used to say this.”
The words that came next, Svetlana and I spoke as one.
“‘Who’s fool enough to brood on losing before he’s even started?’”
Word for word it fell together, and I could not help laughing. Truly, in the oddest corners, Svetlana and I are of a mind.
“It was Ephthal-sama’s byword. Words, so I hear, of a master he revered in his heart… So, it will be all right.”
“Mm. That’s how it’s come out right this far, and if it’s Junior, he’ll actually pull it off.”
Taking in our words, the three girls looked at one another.
“Still, we are no match for you… What you’re saying is outrageous, and yet the two of you talk as though things going well were a thing already decided… You couldn’t manage that without believing it from the very bottom of your hearts.”
“…This is what the long years make.”
“It’s not that I don’t believe in him either, only not without a single cloud, the way you two do… So, what’s our move, Merlin-sama?”
“Rest easy. The house of Duke Alcott included, while our master is away I shall stand at the front. You children need not trouble yourselves over a thing.”
Then I turned my words on the spiteful old man who, all this while, had kept himself unseen and only chuckled away.
“So, what is it you intend to do, Sasha-sama?”
“Ho. So you had noticed.”
Optical camouflage, presence-erasure, and a sound-sealing formula, unraveling all of them, Sasha-sama, who had sat in a chair the whole time and watched the entire affair, showed himself.
“Eh? Why is Sasha, no, why is the old geezer in a place like this?”
Instantaneous movement. By high-order teleportation magic, Sasha-sama planted himself, feet astride, directly before the seated Maria, and with no pause whatever drove a kick into her face.
“Who are you calling gramps, you little brat.”
“Gyoheb—!”
A clean high kick, and a filthy shriek. High-order magic for so trifling a reason, though… I nearly went limp.
“One’s elders are to be honored, girl.”
Maria had gone over backward, chair and all, under Sasha-sama’s high kick. He mounted her and threw a punch at her face, one, two. Yes, no mercy in it at all.
“Why, you…! I’m not so much the finished human being as to go honoring a traitor!”
“Ho. You have the look of a girl who dearly wants a hard time of it.”
Witnessing the scene, Anastasia was all of a fluster, ‘Uwawa…’ And yet she was, sure enough, taking up in both arms a huge vase that had stood as ornament in the corner of the room, and stealing up on Sasha-sama from behind. It seemed she meant, as chastisement for the traitor, to clout him from the rear with the vase. This girl truly does do the unforeseen… but let that pass.
“We are getting nowhere, Sasha-sama! Maria, quit egging him on! And Anastasia, if you have no wish to die, put that down!”
⁂
“To give you the conclusion first, by the end of the time I’ve relayed to Ephthal and Merlin—by the countdown’s close, we need every preparation on our side finished.”
“And by that you mean?”
As I heard him out, it proved just as I had read it: Sasha-sama had only been feigning to follow the Fire God Emperor. With Duke Alcott and the former knight-commander Moria, who had joined the talk partway through, the discussion seemed at last to be reaching its heart.
“Just as the brat said in the royal palace, his opening move is to wipe out a part of the country, this Alcott ducal domain, to be precise, root and branch.”
“Wipe out the ducal domain?”
“Mm. One piece of the demonstration to the other nations. The domain lies near the southern border, so by its geography the upheaval is easily marked from other lands… And there’s a further aim: it’s a loyalty test set for Merlin and me.”
“Whether we can serve as his pieces, a trial of that, you mean?”
“Say what you will, he’s spread himself too wide and is truly at his very limit. He’s laid his hands on the power of a skill that runs counter to magic aptitude, a thing he ought never to have come by, and the drawbacks of that are, naturally, without end. Were he hemmed round by an army of even a few thousand, his brain’s processing would be over its head in no time, and even sustaining the fight would come hard… A superman for a single instant, built for the ultra-short decisive battle, so I read him.”
“And that is why he seeks pieces to move.”
“Mm. And necromancy is one answer to it. His reckoning is to use the Scarlet of Hades, call up the undead by a large-scale formula, dye this land in blood, and so put his forces in order.”
At those words, Svetlana and I caught Sasha-sama’s drift and bit our lips.
“That would be bad indeed.”
“Mm,” Svetlana nodded too.
“Eh, bad? Bad how?”
At Maria’s question Sasha-sama let out a deep sigh.
“It isn’t merely to show off to other lands, nor merely to spite Merlin and me, that the Fire God Emperor means to do this.”
Then Sasha-sama took up a teacup from the table. It was Maria’s cup, so he was catching a look of protest for it, but such things Sasha-sama never minded. Free and easy as ever, he drained the tea in one draught and said:
“By wiping this land out, his forces swell enormously. Shall I lay out the steps… First, the undead hunt the living in great number. Then the field overflows with the souls that slip loose of the corpses. Using those corpses and those souls, the Fire God Emperor mass-produces more undead still. Then, lo and behold, the dead calling the dead, the undead breed like rats.”
He set the cup down, the saucer clicking. Then, gloomily, Sasha-sama went on.
“The name of that summoning rite is… Level 11: Carnival of Death. The birth of a great deathless host.”
At the words a leaden air settled over the room.
“As a byproduct… no, perhaps this is the true prize. With the overflowing death he means to produce yet more Scarlet of Hades. In fact, what he used to revive and bind the Ice God Emperor and the second-generation Four Emperors into his service was the Scarlet of Hades as well. And once he holds the orbs in quantity, where he makes for next is, beyond doubt—the Forbidden Labyrinth.”
“The Forbidden Labyrinth, you say?”
“Mm. Frozen Hell. By another name, the Mages’ Graveyard. A frozen labyrinth of fiendish difficulty that has stood these thousand years, where corpses lie abandoned and never once decay.”
A shudder ran through me, and sweat traced down my back.
“Surely not…?”
“Just so. The high mages of that age who braved the fiendish labyrinth and lost their lives… rise again in swarms. Picture a host that appears wielding Level 9 and, though few in number—even Level 10.”
“Should it come to that… no one could lay a hand on them any longer. Even with the whole of the world against them…”
The mere thought set my head to aching. Even four hundred years ago there had been no one able to do such a thing, and that the word ‘Level 11’ could be tossed out so easily, at the meaning of it, gooseflesh rose along my arms.
“But, Sasha-sama, you don’t mean to let him have it all his own way, surely?”
Nodding slowly, Sasha-sama laid down an orb he’d drawn from his breast.
“If they come at us with a great outbreak of undead, then we counter with a great outbreak of our own.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“The crux of it is simply that people mustn’t die. To guard a wide reach, you want a wide-ranging host. And so—we, too, will blanket this land with the undead.”
“One moment, Sasha-sama. Set aside the Level 11: Carnival of Death that breeds the undead like rats; the very first summoning of undead is itself a grand formula. It is precisely because the Fire God Emperor is versed in necromancy that he can do it, is it not?”
“Don’t take me lightly, girl. Who do you take me for—the Undead Emperor, no?”
Ah, now that she said it, so he was. The image of the man as combat-specialized had loomed so large, but he too was a necromancer without peer, one who had, far and far back, pulled off the sheer absurdity of rendering his own self undying.
“Well, I never let off a shred of that air in the ordinary run of things, so it’s no wonder you’d forget.”
“But even supposing the carnage here is prevented, that won’t reach the root of the matter, will it…?”
“In this case, what matters is that fighting be underway here. The Fire God Emperor is running his various reinforcements all in parallel, you see. His inner magic-circuits are packed to the brim, with next to no resources left over… and that is the point we strike.”
I thought a moment, then clapped my hands. ‘I see.’
“Just so. To keep his large-scale undead in hand, the Fire God Emperor must fix his whole focus there… is that it?”
“Mm. And many of his pieces, too, will be drawn off to shore up the formula. By the nature of the working the man himself won’t trouble to go in person, but he’ll need hands to run things on the ground.”
“So his stronghold is left all but stripped bare?”
“He’ll have his close aides packed about him, right enough, but the small-fry of his retinue will thin out for certain. And in the thick of the clash of outbreak against outbreak here, together with the returned Ephthal we storm the stronghold… Well, such is the shape of the plan.”
Sasha-sama turned his gaze on Anastasia and the others.
“Anastasia. Maria. Sheryl.”
Rounded on so abruptly, the three widened their eyes in surprise.
“You lot are small-fry. Small-fry through and through, the very picture of it.”
Then Sasha-sama drew a great, great breath and, sure enough, boomed in a great, great voice:
“That’s right—the mooost utterly hopeless small-fry there is.”
“Well, we’re aware of it, but isn’t that a rather harsh way to put it?”
Paying Anastasia’s protest not the slightest heed, Sasha-sama pressed on.
“In any case, to cut down the dead weight, from here on you lot will be shut up at my place. And, Merlin, Svetlana?”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Have you the resolve to throw your lives down for Ephthal? That we cannot win by fair means is plain. I have… a small notion.”
“On the contrary, not staking our lives isn’t an option that so much as exists.”
“Mm. I’m Junior’s wife, after all.”
Hearing our words, Sasha-sama gave a great, satisfied nod.
“Fraser… later I’ll be borrowing a room of the mansion. One that can weather magical drilling would do best… I’ll be laying an impromptu formula on Merlin and Svetlana.”
“A formula? Well, I’ve no objection, but…”
“And I’ve a word for Fraser and Moria besides, later on. There is a thing for the two of you to do as well.”
The Fire God Emperor’s Perspective
The throne room of the royal palace.
Sprawled beside the throne, propped on an elbow and running my eyes over a grimoire, I was joined by my aide Harold. Harold, like Joseph, whom I’ve set over the prison as warden, has been my disciple these four hundred years.
“Harold. How do things stand with Frozen Hell?”
“The moment the Carnival of Death concludes, all is arranged to begin the search. But, is it well to leave Sasha on a long leash? His disloyalty is surely past the need of confirming by now.”
“That he made off with an orb means he too intends a great outbreak, I should think. Well, it’s likely his only move, and I call it a fine plan… provided he can truly bring it off.”
“And by that you mean?”
“Against the off chance, I’ve worked the orb so that no one but me can handle it.”
“…I see. Cautious indeed.”
To Harold, nodding as though impressed, I answered him lightly.
“Ha. Having settled on keeping Sasha and Merlin close, to go careless at my own feet… that would be no sane man’s doing. Well, those two are a genuine loss, truly. I don’t think I’ve ever, in all my life, so resented my own want of a following.”
“Pay your popularity no mind. Genius, at times, is taken for nothing more than eccentricity.”
“As irony it wants for wit; as a joke it fails to raise a laugh. In any event, whichever way it falls, thanks to the last trap I’ve laid, Ephthal, that hope of theirs, won’t be able to come back either.”
At that, Harold knit his brows, dubious.
“The last trap? I’ve heard of no such thing myself.”
“Because I never told you. Ephthal and the rest, thinking to outfox me, will aim to escape not by breaking the barrier but by collapsing the world itself. And Joseph, whom I’ve set as warden, has that temperament of his… Against an Ephthal who shows no mercy to the vile, ninety-nine times in a hundred he’ll be killed. And the formula that fires from that… Ephthal and his people will get a surprise, I think.”
“A formula…?”
“Just so. A second dimensional barrier, formed and set off with the warden’s death-cry serving in place of an incantation.”
“Premised on a disciple’s death… you’ve used Joseph as a sacrificial pawn?”
With a nod, I declared it flatly.
“I do not choose my means.”
“…Am I, too, to be discarded one day?”
“I won’t discard you. It’s merely a matter of putting you to meaningful use.”
“…Quite so. You are that sort of man.”
“And yet…” I looked up at the ceiling. “For a thing to be called victory, it is far too hollow. To raise my hand against a friend of old, to kill the guiltless, to guard a single woman… even I can’t find anything productive in it.”
“Do you regret having chosen this road?”
“The road I chose is the road of carnage. There is no turning back from it. These blood-wet hands of mine… are not permitted so much as the luxury of regret.”
Merlin’s Perspective
“Now then, hereabouts should do.”
Riding the back of a dragon-turned Svetlana, we set down upon a grassland of the ducal domain. To the south of the grassland stretched a great forest running off toward the distant elf village, a fine enough spot for a picnic, I daresay.
“Sasha-sama, what is this place?”
“An old battlefield of five years back. For mass-producing undead there’s no want of material. There are several conditions to the making of undead, you see… and by the lay of the land it’s a certainty the other side will use this place too.”
Then Sasha-sama drew an orb from his breast and set to building up the formula for large-scale undead-making. He had the practiced air of one who’s earned the name Undead Emperor, right enough, but a shadow crossed his face at once.
“Nn…? The orb, I cannot… draw the power out of it.”
“What can this mean?”
Sasha-sama shrugged, as if to say his hands were tied.
“No mystery to it, the orb’s been tampered with, by the look of things.”
“You were read, then?”
“Mm. This is as far as it goes. Before long this land overflows with the undead the Fire God Emperor has made; the great outbreak of death, spreading far and wide, is past stopping—and the Carnival of Death that comes after, there’s no means to halt it.”
Having said so much, Sasha-sama let a merry smile rise to his lips.
“Or so, I should think, is how the Fire God Emperor has it reckoned.”
Turning over what he meant by that, I quickly produced the parcel Svetlana had entrusted into my keeping.
“You mean to use the orb we took before from the foreign tribe? Since Svetlana kept it in hand, there’d have been no tampering with this one… is that your thought?”
“No, no need of it. That one’s set aside for use when it comes to that business of yours and Svetlana’s.”
“…Then how will you proceed?”
At that Sasha-sama laid a forefinger to his lips and smiled mischievously.
“The policy doesn’t change. Outbreak we meet with outbreak.”
“…Eh?”
“Slow, aren’t you… There’s one more connection to hand, no? Or rather, once before, an outbreak very nearly broke loose in the elf forest, did it not? It’s merely that the scale of that gets a whole lot bigger.”
From his breast Sasha-sama drew out a metal tube. It had the look of a magic-tool for summoning, but… what in the world could this be about?
“Such being the case, it’s over to you, Cerberus.”
A thread of light loosed from the tube. It struck the ground, and what appeared there was a monster-beast of the very highest order—no, a monster crowned with the name of divine beast.
“Is this… the divine beast that Sasha-sama is said to have laid to rest, back when Ephthal-sama subjugated Fenrir?”
“No, laid it to rest I never did. This too is of the kind of gods and phantom demons. It’s a bow-wow to look at, all fluff and cuddle and cute, so, well, I thought I’d, ah… add it to the collection.”
“…Cute?”
Granting the fluff for argument’s sake, but cute…? It has three heads, and looks, for all the world to see, ferocious and vicious, yet…
“In any case, it’s a touch too full of spirit, so before I put it into that world of ours I was in the very midst of taking my time to teach it its manners and break it in.”
“So on our side we raise a great outbreak not with the undead but with monster-beasts… is that it?”
“Just so. Already a pack of monster-beasts makes its way from the southern forest. Even so… at this rate it comes out near enough an even match. We may lose, and even winning there’ll be some that slip the net. So, I’ve contrived this little touch as well,” and Sasha-sama pointed away to the north.
“An army, from over there… not the kingdom’s banner, but Duke Alcott’s…?”
“The national army’s been gutted, so those are the forces that were quartered in the domains of the noble lords. Under the Thunder God’s protection… and with that lesson you lot dealt out a while back taking its effect too, every decent noble has come over to our side.”
“So this was what you’d been directing Duke Alcott to do.”
Truly, this man is a canny brawler, or say rather thorough to a fault. I, who have walked the single road of magic, could never hope to ape such sidelong stratagems.
Then, as if to say the talk was done, Sasha-sama rose up on flight magic and settled onto Svetlana’s back.
“…Before long the undead will start being raised from the very clods of this plain. But I’ve laid the table this thoroughly… so there’ll be no harm coming to civilians, not on any account.”
“And after the undead are scattered, is it arranged for Duke Alcott to join up with us?”
“No, I’ve told him to remain here.”
“Why is that?”
“Because from here on lies a realm no one ought to set foot in while still clothed in human flesh.”
And so we mounted Svetlana’s back and took wing for the royal capital.
⁂
“To be blunt, it’s a play-it-by-ear gamble. Even should Ephthal come back, the strength of the Otogi Fantasia will come to something like half its prime.”
On the back of the jade-silver dragon, wheeling through the upper air, I gazed down at the palace below us. Hair streaming in the wind, Sasha-sama went on with a grave look.
“It’s a poor bet we’re making. If you would back out, you may. From here on there’s no turning back any longer, you see.”
At that I said, ‘With respect…,’ and declared to Sasha-sama:
“If there is so much as a single percent of a chance, that is one and the same as a hundred percent.”
“Hn? What do you mean by that?”
“If Ephthal-sama is there, he pries the one-percent gap wide open and makes it a hundred. Always, at every turn, in every hour, that is how he has ever been.”
Sasha-sama cast an exasperated look my way, thought a little, and let slip a chuckle.
“…That blind faith of yours in your master… it’s very near a sickness. And yet… it’s strangely bracing.”
Slapping Svetlana’s back with a light pat, Sasha-sama said to all of us in a great voice:
“The hour I fixed with Ephthal is nearly upon us—the instant the Otogi Fantasia fires, we launch our assault straight down from the sky, just as we are.”
Looking to the back of my hand, the countdown had closed to its last few dozen seconds. As one we fell silent, and only waited for the moment.
—Twenty seconds. Fifteen. Ten.
But—
Even granting Ephthal-sama were there, the Fire God Emperor’s power was too vast by far. There was the first-generation Ice God Emperor, and the second-generation Four Emperors besides. And more, the preternatural ones who wield these so-called reincarnator skills; against them, on our side, even Sasha-sama could hardly be called at full strength.
It would be a hard battle.
And yet, even so, I was certain of our victory. For in whatever straits, Ephthal-sama had always, with that fearless smile, blown the whole of it sky-high. And the countdown ran on, until five seconds remained.
—Four.
—Three.
—Two.
—One.
The number risen on the back of my hand showed zero.
“…”
“…”
“…”
Sasha-sama’s brow drew taut, and a single line of sweat ran down it.
“Wha…?”
“What is the matter?”
“Try as I might to call him out… I can catch neither Ephthal’s presence nor the phantom demons’. That fool disciple… he’s gone and botched it.”
As if to say his hands were tied, Sasha-sama threw up both arms.
“Ha… this, I’ll grant, is more than I foresaw. To think he’d bungle it in the opening skirmish…”
Slowly, and broadly, Sasha-sama shook his head. ‘We can’t win,’ he muttered, low. In that moment, the body of Svetlana, in flight through the sky, lurched hard.
“Kyaaaah!”
Clinging on for dear life, all but thrown clear, Maria screamed. I caught Sheryl up in my arms, and Sasha-sama reached out to Anastasia and Maria and had them cling to either side of him.
“Gravity magic, from the palace, those wretches… they mean to drag us down. Svetlana, how do things stand?!”
I can’t… fight it…!
A voice lower than her usual. The dragon-form voice was one I wasn’t used to hearing, but ours was a long acquaintance; from the tone alone I knew at once she was badly rattled.
“Don’t lean on your wings! Use flight magic, Svetlana!”
Already doing it!
Our altitude was dropping fast. In the next instant—a blast of sound. It was attack magic flying up all at once from below, colliding with the defensive wall Sasha-sama had thrown up. Bolstered by Sasha-sama’s defense, gliding as she went, Svetlana slipped the magic aside. But she could not slip the whole of the barrage that came flying, wave upon wave—and took a hit.
“At this rate you’re a sitting mark, Svetlana! Don’t fight the gravity, use the speed of the fall, and make for the ground instead! We regroup once we’re down!”
There, feeling an overwhelming weight of magic from directly below, in that same instant Sasha-sama shouted, a click of the tongue behind it:
“No good! Out of the blind spot… the Ice God Emperor!”
Sasha-sama had thrown up a barrier on the instant. But it was torn through like paper-craft, and right after came the ringing crack of an ice-pillar striking home in Svetlana’s belly. A blizzard raged across the whole of our surroundings. Merely to bare ourselves a moment to the backwash of cold left frost settling over our skin, or near enough. Just how great, then, was the damage to Svetlana, who had taken the blow head-on?
At that, every face among us froze, in the literal sense.
Svetlana’s wings were sheathed in ice, and their beating had stopped. The free fall that must inevitably come, no, with the gravity magic on us, we began to plunge downward at an acceleration far beyond it. And so we fell at a furious speed, and were dashed against the ground.
⁂
“No great harm. She’s only frozen at the surface and lost her senses.”
Her dragon-form undone, half her body frozen as she slept, Svetlana was bathed by Sasha-sama in fire magic. A rough remedy indeed, but his control, for all that, was flawless; without so much as a burn, the ice seemed to melt clean away in an instant. Then he looked round about, and his face clouded further and further. He seemed to be taking the measure of the number and quality of those who ringed us in, and in the end he shrugged, as though at a loss.
“Well, this is about where the tide turns, I’d say.”
The place we’d fallen was a plaza of the sort where the knights hold their parade ceremonies. In it stood the Ice God Emperor, the second-generation Four Emperors, and upward of a hundred high mages, watching us from a wide circle. Every one of them, needless to say, a champion you could tell at a glance was formidable, and nearly all of them undead.
“Every last stratagem is spent. To flee, all of us together, is past possibility now. I cannot drag you into this any further… I’ll take it on myself, so you lot withdraw.”
“Sasha-sama, what is this you say at this late hour? My resolve was settled long, long ago.”
“Know when to bow out. One heeds what one’s elders say, no?”
And then Sasha-sama began to speak, in a gentle, admonishing tone.
“To begin with, I was not strong at all. Cast off by my parents in my childhood, I came near to dying for want of anything to eat.”
“At a time like this… an old story?”
“Just listen. I grew up in the slums; I was set upon by mobs, and once, for a theft, I was beaten half to death.”
“…”
“It was wretched. It was galling. I bewailed my own helplessness, and then I thought, I want to be strong. So, having sought strength beyond any other soul, I came by the self I am now, and here I stand.”
Then Sasha-sama laid his palm on my shoulder with a pat.
“Do you know why it is I always carry myself so high and mighty?”
“…I cannot say I do.”
“Because, in fact, I am high and mighty. Because, in fact, I am strong. Overbearing? That I am, for it was because I wished to bear myself so that I grew strong in the first place. So, before that very self of mine—‘a stronger fellow has turned up,’ oh, is that so, terribly sorry…”
Laughing his ha-ha-ha, Sasha-sama threw out his chest.
“As if I could ever do such a thing, eh? Well, let me at least strike a fine pose, girls.”
“Sasha-sama…”
“Besides, I’ve not the least intention of losing. This is the power I forged to force my will through. To mow the enemy down, and press on and on, shouldering my way clear—that is my way of things.”
Then Sasha-sama glared off at the distant Ice God Emperor. Gathering his hair in both hands, he tied it back with a scrunchie drawn from his breast.
“Don’t imagine I’ll be stopped so easily, Ice God Emperor. The whole of this place—I’ll bull my way through, reckless and knowing it, and go straight on to tear out the Fire God Emperor’s throat.”
In that moment, Svetlana, who had been out cold, spoke up to me.
“Even when he tells us that, well… eh, Merlin-chan?”
“Ah, quite so, Svetlana. Tell me, Sasha-sama, no intention of losing; meaning, if you’ve reckoned on some chance to win, then we do not withdraw. There’s no fool who wouldn’t back the winning horse.”
In this pass there could be no chance of winning. Both Svetlana and I knew it full well. And precisely for that, Svetlana and I looked at each other and laughed. There was nothing left to do but laugh, and so laugh we did.
“…Fools, the pair of you.”
“Your back… leave it to us.”
“If you’ll not listen for all my telling, then do as you please.”
Then Sasha-sama threw his voice to Anastasia and the others.
“You lot, do nothing. Just stay put here. The Fire God Emperor is no ogre… so long as you don’t stand against him, he shouldn’t take issue with a handful of children.”
And so we three, leaving Anastasia and the rest behind, advanced toward the center of the plaza.
“You lot… there’s no line of retreat left now, you know?”
“Indeed. And the Fire God Emperor has come out, besides.”
True to the words, walking toward us from the far side were six, the Fire God Emperor at their head. The Fire God Emperor, the Ice God Emperor, and behind them the second-generation Four Emperors. And once we’d come near enough to read one another’s faces, Sasha-sama opened his mouth toward the Fire God Emperor.
“About the girls at my back, surely one who calls himself the Fire God Emperor would never lay a hand on unresisting children?”
“My apologies. It sits very ill with me, but I make it my rule to crush the worm within. There’s the saying about a single ant-hole, after all, and so as to leave behind no grudge of any kind, hereafter.”
Now this was a fix. This, it seemed, was more than even Sasha-sama had bargained for, and he put a hand to his chin, wondering what to do.
“This really does have me stumped.”
The Fire God Emperor turned his right palm on us and began to build an attack formula. We too readied our attack and our defense, but the fight would hold its shape for perhaps the first few minutes… no, a few dozen seconds, more likely. In quality we were not outmatched, but the numbers told another tale. To be driven back one-sidedly and simply trampled, that much was plain to see. Yes, all of that I knew perfectly well.
—Well, then. It seemed my life, too, was to end here.
A fine job of it… it had been, perhaps, I thought.
Four hundred years ago, Ephthal-sama died. My senior disciple-brothers came to the ends of their lives, too, and at some point there was no one left who had known Ephthal-sama in the flesh. As those who had lived in that age vanished, the colors were lost from my sight, little by little, little by little. How strongly Ephthal-sama, and the people who had passed that time at my side, had filled my heart, it took no great while to realize it. On I lived, in a world drained of color. It came to where I no longer even rightly knew to what end I was living, and just then… a miracle came to pass. I met Ephthal-sama again; I gained new little sisters who shared the same master; and, brief though it was, we could laugh together. To the scene before my eyes, color returned.
So perhaps this was well enough. For me, who as a babe had been fated to die at the Demon Lord’s castle, this life was a fine thing… and there I shook my head.
—No. What was there in it that was well?
Bitter… a bitter thing, past all question. Unable to protect my juniors, unable to protect the irreplaceable place I had at last won back, this powerlessness of mine… was bitter beyond all measure.
“Now then, shall we begin?”
The Fire God Emperor’s preparations, it seemed, were done. The magic was that byword of his, the Level 10 fire-strike. A supreme magic that raises a limited, small-scale nuclear blast and burns all to ash, and just as it was about to be loosed—
“Caught… yoooou!”
Svetlana’s arm and mine were seized. A furious backward acceleration, worked by wind magic. That is to say, even as he cried out, Sasha-sama had shot away backward at full speed. Startled at the sudden scream, I saw on his face a joy fit to overflow. In the next instant, Sasha-sama was building up a summoning formula at a furious speed. The moment I saw the flow of that magic’s structure, a smile spilled to Svetlana’s lips and to mine as well.
“It can’t be…”
The rest of my words, Svetlana carried on.
“Could it possibly…”
The rest of those words, Anastasia carried on further.
“Could it possibly be…?”
The formula Sasha-sama was making to wield was one I knew well. No, a summoning formula that puts forth magic on so absurd a scale by one man alone, without so much as an orb or any other aid, without even being ritual magic, no other do I know of. A thing like that, save in that one man’s hands… had no business existing at all.
“Fire God Emperor, and you half-dead wretches, crawled back from the land of the dead… you’ve well and truly had me swallowing bitter dregs on and on, haven’t you?”
Then, at Sasha-sama’s back, there appeared a lattice of light that called a beehive to mind.
“Sally forth, phantom demons and fool disciple!”
It was the fairy-tale of the gods, the fairy realm that brims over this world; the concerto of the underlings, played by a sorcerer-king absolute and undying of body. Its name—
“—Level 11! Otogi Fantasia!”
A flare of light. Light gushing forth. Amid an all-enveloping white, like shooting stars, lights came bursting out from within the lattice.
—Cú Chulainn.
—Hanuman.
—Unicorn.
—Kresnik.
Phantom demon after phantom demon manifested, and for the first time a shade of surprise crept into the Fire God Emperor’s face. Then, the instant every last phantom demon had appeared, at the very last a single boy, black hair streaming, emerged from within the lattice.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, everyone.”
“You’re truly late… turning up tardy, of all the, it’s unthinkable, isn’t it?!”
“Don’t be unreasonable. There was all manner of trouble at the very, very last. Even so, I came tearing over here at full tilt.”
“Now then,” and Ephthal-sama took stock of the situation about him and turned to face the Fire God Emperor.
“Our reinforcements, the phantom demons number thirty-three in all.”
“With that last trap I’d laid, I thought there’d be no getting you out of there—but splendidly done, Ephthal.”
So saying, the Fire God Emperor grinned.
