III
Olivia, sword in hand, led a flying column made up of a hundred soldiers. It was the sixteenth day since the dawn of the battle with the Azure Knights when a heartrending cry reached her.
“General Olivia! It’s Lieutenant Gauss, he’s suffered a mortal wound!”
She turned in the direction of the voice and saw a large figure borne on a wooden plank by several soldiers. A moment later, seizing on her distraction, a sword came swinging down behind her. Olivia shifted her weight ever so slightly to one side to dodge the blow, then turned, and as she did so cleaved the head off the surprised Azure Knight. Blood spurted as head and body bid one another farewell, but Olivia was already running to Gauss’s side.
“S-Sorry, Captain,” he said. “I went and flubbed it when I was only just getting started.”
The first thing her eyes went to was a deep gash extending from Gauss’s right shoulder across to his left side. His face was smeared with blood and mud, and his chest rose and fell irregularly. Olivia ordered that his armor be removed, then reached into the bag at her waist.
“This might hurt a bit, but hold on, okay?” After washing off the mud and grass smeared over the wound with water from her canteen, she scooped out an amber-colored salve with her fingertips and applied it.
Gauss’s brow furrowed. “That... Did you make that wound salve, Captain?”
Olivia nodded, continuing to rub in the salve.
“Then I’ll be back on the front lines again in no time...” Gauss arranged his face into a smile even Olivia could tell was forced. Going off the state of his wound, there was no hope of his returning to the battle. Even this salve, based on the methods of concoction Z had taught her, didn’t have anything like the power to instantly heal this wound, and Olivia was sure Gauss was well aware of that. As such, she said nothing and only smiled at him.
Sweat beading on his forehead, Gauss gave a laugh as though the air were scraping in his throat. “I bet I’d be the envy of all the others...if they could see me now... If Ellis knew...she’d be grinding her teeth in frustration...”
No one could possibly look at Gauss with this mortal wound and be envious, Olivia thought, growing anxious. She laid a hand on Gauss’s brow and found, as she had expected, that he was burning hot. His mind must be muddled. He doesn’t know what he’s saying... She stroked his head comfortingly.
“I’m... Right now, I’m...the luckiest man alive...”
“I’ve finished first aid for Gauss, so you can take him,” Olivia said.
“Yes, ser!”
“By the way, who’s in command of Gauss’s unit now?”
“His aide, Second Lieutenant Slash,” supplied one of the soldiers. Another told her that they were struggling to withstand the Azure Knights—so much so that Gauss had been wounded. Without a doubt, the situation was even more dire than they said.
“Tell Slash to rendezvous with Claudia’s unit.”
“Understood, ser!”
After accepting Olivia’s orders, they loaded Gauss back onto the plank, then moved off. Olivia immediately applied her mind to the next issue, calling over one of the runners she had brought with her, one Sergeant Melissa.
“I’m going to stay here for a while and draw the enemy’s attention. Could you tell Ashton I’m fighting here?”
“Is that all, ser?”
“Yep, that’ll be enough for Ashton.”
“Understood, ser! I’ll go at once!” Olivia had gathered up all the fastest runners. Melissa utilized a unique running method by which she raced like the wind across the battlefield.
Olivia returned her gaze to the battle.
“Cut down the Death God!” Before her was another group of Azure Knights, bearing down on her like a raging torrent. Olivia used Swift Step, cutting a path of disarray through the Azure Knights until at last, the corpses in her wake passed a hundred. That was when it happened. Though she felt no trace of a human presence, from behind her there came a sudden crushing pressure. At once, she kicked off the ground, shooting upward. She traced an arc through the air only to be met by a cloud of brightly colored butterflies that brushed by her as it passed.
Hold on... Olivia hit the ground, then a moment later, she found herself on her knees. Her breathing grew uneven, and her vision clouded as though in a fog. It was clear something was physically wrong with her.
“Aren’t they just like a fairy tale? Did you take a shine to my sweet little butterflies?” One of the Azure Knights walked leisurely toward her, the mound of corpses at her back. As Olivia watched, she felt yet again that abnormal pressure without any human presence. Somehow, she managed to kick off again and leap to the left just as another Azure Knight appeared, seeming to slide along the ground as he stabbed out with his sword. There was a dim glow about the blade in his hand, and it vibrated ever so slightly, letting off a faint buzzing that Olivia’s ears only just picked up. A look of surprise flashed across his face, but his body moved straight into position for another attack.
“Now see here. That’s the second time that strike you’re so very proud of has been dodged now. Just what is the meaning of it? I’d like an explanation.”
“If you’re going to be like that, aren’t those butterfly scales supposed to render anyone they touch immobile without exception? This isn’t what we discussed at all.”
“They are. Those special scales disrupt Odh, and yet the Deep Folk girl is still moving even after being bathed in them. It’s truly a mystery...”
“Well, that’s all very well, just don’t let your guard down.”
“What foolishness. I am incapable of such a thing.”
Listening to this exchange, Olivia ascertained that these two were no Azure Knights, but the allies of the man who had called himself an “Asura.” So that’s why it stank of rats, Olivia thought, smiling sweetly. The information source she’d been waiting for had arrived faster than she had expected.
“I don’t like her. Death is bearing down on her, so why is she smiling as though she doesn’t care? The Deep Folk really are incomprehensible.”
“You don’t need to comprehend. We Asura follow the ancient precepts and fulfill our contracts. That is all.”
The two of them moved around Olivia to hem her in from the front and rear. Then, they bent low to the ground and sprinted at her.
First things first, I need to do something about my body. Olivia took a deep breath, then slowly closed her eyes. Finally, she honed her awareness fine as a sword’s edge and forced the Odh that flowed through her body to stop. Her eyes snapped open. She quickly cast her gaze around at the two approaching figures. The man’s sword has longer reach. His strike will hit first. With a minimum of movement she perceived the man’s blade, which was thrust toward her with incredible speed, then seized his right arm and collar to slip in close to him and, using the momentum, slammed his head into the ground. There was a sound like a ripe fruit splitting open. Blood and brain matter flew everywhere. The man’s body twitched a few times, then fell still. Olivia reached out toward the woman, who was now right at her side.
“How...?!” the woman gasped. A split second before Olivia’s fingers could close around her arm, the woman leapt to one side, putting distance between them. From her cloak, an even greater cloud of butterflies came fluttering forth.
“That’s not going to work anymore,” Olivia told her. “That triumphant speech earlier was a mistake.” Olivia faced the cloud of butterflies that came at her like a whirlwind and, without flinching, ran straight ahead. There was a distortion in the woman’s movement. It lasted less than a moment, but that was more than long enough for Olivia. It was no trouble for her to dodge the wild stab of the woman’s knife. Olivia stepped lightly around and behind her, drawing the ebony blade, and slashed twice, three times. A moment passed, then blood erupted from all four of the woman’s limbs as she folded at the knees, her face twisted in agony. Olivia crouched in front of her.
“Why?! How can you still move?!”
“You don’t need to yell. I’m right in front of you. That was the first time for me, so it threw me a little, but that technique of yours incapacitates the victim by forcing the flow of their Odh out of balance, right? So if you stop your Odh once, then release it again, the flow returns to normal. That’s all.”
“You stopped your Odh to restore the normal flow? Are you serious? As if you could do something that ridiculous!”
“Well, what am I supposed to say to that? I can’t help that I did it, can I? But anyway, I let you live because there’s some questions I’d like you to answer for me. Oh, right, you probably already know, but it’s useless trying to attack. I severed your tendons and the flow of your Odh.”
The woman was silent.
“I suppose that means you understand? Okay, getting right to the point, you are one of those humans that call themselves ‘Asura,’ right? You feel just like that man in the black mask I killed.”
The woman’s mouth stayed shut.
“I’ll take your silence as a ‘yes.’ Now for the real questions. You all seem to know a lot about me, but I want to know exactly what you know.” When the woman still didn’t respond, Olivia added, “This time, I won’t accept silence.” Gripping one of the woman’s fingers, she bent it back in the wrong direction. A crack rang out across the battlefield as Olivia reached for another finger. “It’s handy that you have ten fingers, don’t you think?”
She smiled at the woman, who blurted out, “What do you want to know?!”
“Why do you call me ‘Deep Folk’? Why won’t the Asura let the Deep Folk be? Could we start from there?”
“There is a contract from ancient times,” the woman replied at length. What followed was a tale of fates intertwined, stretching back unbroken since time immemorial. A king had made a contract with the league of assassins known as the Asura for the extermination of the Deep Folk. This was the origin of the war between them. She explained that the people known as the Deep Folk possessed Odh in abundance, and that Olivia was their descendant. By killing her, the last of the Deep Folk, they would fulfill their centuries-old contract.
It was so ridiculous Olivia was almost impressed. These Asura were desperately trying to murder her for the sake of a contract with a king whose bones had probably long since crumbled to dust. She couldn’t help but feel a little dazed, but she pressed on to her next question.
“Now, if you knew me as a baby, that means you know about my parents too, right?” Olivia did not, in fact, care very much about her parents. Parent or no, the fact was that she couldn’t find a way to be interested in people whose faces she didn’t even know. Still, they had brought her into the world, so she felt she had to know how they lived and died.
The woman deliberately averted her eyes. “Your mother was Deep Folk...” she said. “I am told my comrades killed her.”
“Huh. And my father?”
Surprise flashed through the woman’s eyes as she stared at Olivia.
“Your father took you and disappeared into the Forest of No Return.”
“What’s that?”
“You don’t know the infamous forest where all fear to tread?”
“Where is it?”
From the woman’s description, Olivia understood that this Forest of No Return was one and the same as where she had lived with Z.
“So why didn’t you kill me and my father? You shouldn’t have had any trouble killing a baby, at least.”
“None who step foot in the Forest of No Return ever return. Many years ago, comrades of mine skilled in investigation set out to investigate, but in the end, they never made it back. The moment you and your father entered the forest, we considered you dead. That is why we did not give chase—there was no need to risk lives to do so. In any case, your father was badly wounded, so he was sure to die without our interference, and what hope did a baby have of surviving in that dread forest? I myself would like to know how it is that you not only survived, but even made it out of the forest again despite its reputation.” The woman spat out the last words. Olivia looked down at her own chest.
Z did say it put a boundary around the forest to stop any humans getting near the Gateway to the Land of the Dead. Even after living in the forest, I’m not sure if I’d have been able to leave without this gem. I guess that would mean once you go in, you can never come out. Deciding that the woman was telling the truth, Olivia at last asked what she really wanted to know.
“Now, do you know of Z?”
“Z?” the woman repeated blankly.
“Right, Z. The God of Death.” She waved her arms around to aid her description of Z’s defining characteristics. Back when she had asked the man in the black mask about Z she had neglected to do so, and Olivia thought that might have been why he hadn’t known.
But the woman said, “I can only assume you’re not going to start making things up now, so I’ll answer you straight. I can say with confidence that I know nothing about any such outlandish creature.”
Olivia saw a hint of confusion behind the woman’s mask of agony, which told her that the woman’s ignorance was genuine. Just in case, she asked if there weren’t any other Asura who might know something, but the woman only gave her a bitter smile and an answer that dashed her hopes. Her search for Z had run into yet another dead end. Still, she had learned about her origins, and that was something.
“Thanks for telling me all that. I feel like I know myself a tiny bit better now.”
“I’m...so glad.” The woman’s voice was strained. Olivia moved on to her final question.
“Okay, so. How many more of your comrades are there who’ll be trying to kill me?”
“Nngh!”
Olivia snapped another finger, saying calmly, “I told you I won’t accept silence, didn’t I?” The woman curled in on herself like a turtle, wailing that there were seven Asura left.
For all that she’d asked the questions, Olivia observed idly, the woman had started talking pretty quickly for someone who called herself an assassin.
“All right, then tell those seven that if they want to try to kill me, they’re welcome to—I won’t stop them. But you’ve already told me everything I want to know, so the next time I see one of you, I’ll kill you on the spot. Okay?”
The woman looked up at Olivia, then, her lips trembling, she gave a tiny nod.
Olivia nodded back, then jumped to her feet. “Right, make sure they get the message, okay? Bye, now.”
Once she was sure she could no longer see Olivia, Krishna realized she had forgotten to breathe and took a desperate gulp of air.
“What a...” she murmured between gasps. “What a smile...” Even Krishna, an assassin of uncommon talents, had felt a chill in her soul at that smile. No human, she thought, should ever be able to smile like that.
Right at the end, you found yourself a real monster, she thought mockingly, then looked ahead of her. Krishna had been spared to serve as a messenger, but there was no doubt in her mind that if her own strike had arrived earlier than Mirage’s, it would be her sprawled over there on the ground now. At that moment, her frustration at her defeat at the hands of the Deep Folk girl was overwhelmed by the fear that clung to her. How did one even raise such a monster?
To hell with the Deep Folk. Krishna knew she couldn’t stand against Olivia. The girl was an apex predator. All she could do now was take Olivia’s words and her threat and convey them to the letter to her comrades. Even that would not stop the Asura, not when a contract was on the line, but Krishna, picturing what lay in wait for them, only twisted her bloodless lips.
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