“...Erm, Yuki.”
“...Hm?”
“Let go of... No, don’t, but please... take it easy...”
Yukinari realized that in his joy at this new idea, he had nearly crushed Dasa with his hug.
●
At the exact moment Yukinari was giving Dasa that joyous hug, Arlen and several of the other knights of the Missionary Order of the True Church of Harris were in the building where the priests lived. Several of the missionaries had balked at the idea of meeting with representatives of the local faith against which they were supposed to be fighting, but Arlen was more than ready to hear the priests out. He had had just about all he could take of being worked like a slave. He would do anything if it might change his situation.
The conversation had circled several times, the two parties sounding each other out with polite greetings and empty formalities. Finally, after a brief silence, one priest said:
“Let me come to the point. That erdgod—no, that demon, ‘Yukinari.’ We wish to help you destroy him.”
This set the missionaries murmuring. Most of them probably couldn’t believe what they were hearing. Arlen doubted the sanity of the man in front of him. Perhaps losing their power had driven these native cultists over the brink.
But the priests appeared to expect this reaction. They smiled as if this were just what they wanted. “We follow different teachings, but we are alike in that this ‘Yukinari’ has left us all in a most untenable position. Hence, we have resolved to end him.”
Their logic was simple enough. Yukinari had felled the erdgod, meaning the priests, who relied on the deity for their position, had lost their authority. They meant to kill Yukinari in turn, making room for a new erdgod to come to Friedland. They might call Yukinari a demon in deference to the Harris Church, but what they meant was that he was in their way, and they intended to be rid of him.
“You’re taking this too lightly!” Arlen exclaimed. “He’s an actual angel! A monster! Even the statue of our guardian saint could not stand against him—what do you have that is more powerful than that?”
Arlen reviled Yukinari’s very existence. As he toiled away at his chores each day, he spent his time repeating to himself that one day he would make Yukinari—the cause of it all—pay. But it was as much a way of getting himself through the day as it was a genuine resolution. He didn’t really believe there was any way of defeating Yukinari.
“And that bastard is—”
He swallowed his words before he said something he shouldn’t.
The Blue Angel. Yukinari had murdered the former Dominus Doctrinae. It had happened right in the capital, in the midst of thousands of missionary knights and tens of thousands of believers. And afterward, they hadn’t even been able to catch him. He had escaped.
In a one-on-one battle, Yukinari was probably invincible. If they had a whole army of guardian statues, they might manage something—but the knights themselves, however well trained and armored, were still only human, and had no hope of defeating this enemy. They would die, and die instantly.
“Whatever the case, this is no laughing matter,” Arlen shouted. “We refuse!” Two of the other knights were nodding, expressions of terror on their faces.
“Pathetic!” The voice of another man tore through the discussion, as if to overpower the quailing warriors. “And you call yourselves members of the Missionary Order of the glorious True Church of Harris?!” One of the other knights had risen from his chair, and was looking down at Arlen and the others.
“A-Arnold...?”
The man’s name was Clifton Arnold. His marks in training had put him below Arlen in the ranks of the Missionary Order—but the noble family he came from was just as prestigious as Arlen’s. Arlen held their respective ranks in the Order as reason enough to look down on Clifton, but the latter took this poorly, and they had clashed more than once.
Their superiors had quickly tired of this, and endeavored to keep Arlen and Clifton as far away from each other as possible, even when they were assigned to the same unit. Hence on their visit to Friedland, Arlen had been part of the group tasked with bringing down the erdgod, whereas Clifton had stayed in town to help with the edification of the villagers—that is, to help with putting collars around their necks.
This meant Clifton hadn’t seen it with his own eyes—hadn’t seen Yukinari casually annihilate the statue of the guardian saint, which was supposed to be the missionaries’ ultimate weapon. Clifton’s reflexive disgust for Arlen no doubt led him to believe that it was Arlen and his knights who had failed to properly utilize the statue. His viewpoint, in other words, was not so much that Yukinari was powerful as that Arlen was incompetent.
“This is an angel we’re dealing with!” Arlen said.
“And that has you cowering in your boots? An angel—pfah.” Clifton’s voice was even. “If it looks like a man, it will bleed like a man, and if you cut off its head it will die like a man.”
“If you think it’s as simple as that, why haven’t you done it yet?” Arlen felt as if he were about to vomit at Clifton’s sheer idiocy. This from a man who had never had a novel idea, never tried a bold move in his life, but only followed orders happily. No doubt he would paint his impetuousness as a willingness to seize opportunity. “We cannot win against that,” Arlen went on. “You are a fool, Clifton Arnold, an utter fool! There is nothing further we can do to resist that thing! You truly know nothing, you—”
“You are the fool, Arlen Lansdowne. Can you not see these men are attempting to offer us a way to do exactly what you say cannot be done?” Clifton snorted.
“Just so, sir,” the priest said, that knowing smile still on his face.
“If it helps us destroy that demon, I would join hands even with these native priests,” Clifton said. He looked each of the other missionaries in the face. “Is there no other man here who would do likewise?”
After a long moment, two of the others raised their hands. Neither of them had witnessed the destruction of the statue, either. In contrast, the remaining three knights, including Arlen, kept silent.
“I see a craven wind has blown through our ranks,” Clifton said, gazing down at Arlen and the others. “Let it carry you away from here. We will deal with that devil. You, Arlen Lansdowne, are a coward not worthy to be called a knight. Perhaps you should go to the barbarians and beg to be their manservant.” There was no hitch in Clifton’s voice, even though those very “barbarians,” the priests, sat directly across from him.
Arlen and the two other knights stood. “You will regret this.” They headed for the door, resolved to have nothing more to do with the matter. Clifton’s amused laughter followed them out of the room.
Chapter Two: Another Land’s God
“Run! Go! Don’t look back!”
Five men dashed as fast as they could through the gray morning light. Two of them wore priests’ vestments, the other three the armor of knights. Kicking up dirt, stumbling at times, they tried to keep to the last patches of night’s darkness.
“Ruuuun!”
The knights were armored, but there were so few of them. Traveling the roads between cities at night was immensely dangerous. The merchants who made the rounds on the frontier always traveled with at least twenty fully armed guards, and even then they moved only during daylight. When night travel was unavoidable, the entire company carried torches, sang songs, and played musical instruments in hopes of scaring off any wild animals.
All this was simple common sense to those who lived in these remote regions. And yet these men seemed to be doing exactly the opposite. They had been on horseback at first, but with no fire, breathing as quietly as they could. And they hadn’t taken one of the main roads, but a branch path some distance away. They wanted no one to see when they left town, no one to guess where they might be going.
But they paid a steep price for their audacious refusal to heed accepted practice. They had been ten when they set out—three priests, and seven knights to guard them.
They had ridden on seven horses the knights brought. The priests, having no experience in horsemanship, rode with the three physically smallest knights.
But between the setting of the sun and its rising, their number had been cut in half. Less than half, including the horses. The animals had all met their ends early, leaving the men no choice but to flee on foot. Leave the horses behind. Leave comrades who still had breath in their lungs. It was the only alternative to letting the entire party be devoured.
“Hrgh...!” One of the knights suddenly stopped running. He turned around, back the way they’d come. Perhaps he’d foreseen that he would eventually be eaten when he fell, exhausted, and he’d decided that it was better to die with his sword in his hand, to strike even a single blow... But behind him, there was no sign of the bizarre creature they had been sure was chasing them.
“Wh-Where are you?!” the knight demanded, bloodshot eyes darting right, then left. “Come out and face me! Xenobeast?! You’re just an overgrown animal! One good slice and you’ll—eeeyaarrrgh!”
It came from above him: a shadow from a tree branch over his head grabbed him like a hawk swooping on a mouse. Sharp claws seemed to dig into his throat. Then the shadow gave a half-twist, using its downward momentum to tear off the man’s head.
The headless corpse collapsed to the ground with a geyser of blood. Beside it, a grotesque creature, something like a mountain dog with exceptionally long limbs, took the man’s head, his face still frozen in an expression of horror, and slammed it against the ground.
Once, twice, three times... With the fourth blow, the back of the head split open and the skull shattered, its contents dribbling out. A long tongue unrolled from the creature’s jaws and began gently lapping up the brains.
A xenobeast. That was what these things were called. The word didn’t refer to a specific species or organism. Xeno-: strange, other. An animal that was no longer an animal. Many were violent, indeed evil, and loved to eat humans, especially their brains. Xenobeasts understood that that was where intelligence and spiritual power resided, and that the more of it they consumed, the sooner they themselves would grow in spiritual ability.
Therefore, a xenobeast who spotted a human could be expected to attack. Not out of hunger, but to become more intelligent. It wasn’t the motivation of an average beast.
“Benjamin...” one of the knights moaned, speaking the name of the man whose head had just been torn off.
“Look what we’ve been reduced to already...!” another knight, Clifton Arnold, said ruefully.
“We cannot give up yet.”
“Milord Bartok?”
“Do we not say that a knight’s greatest honor is at the vanguard and at the rear guard? To protect others is our duty! Go, Arnold, look after the priests!” Then the knight called Bartok stood and drew his sword.
His words might have been more convincing if he had spoken them at the beginning, before they had left their comrades to die. But no one at that scene was likely to point this out. Freakishly formed animals loomed to the left and right of the roadway.
Three of them in total. There was no hope of beating them. Even a single such monster would overwhelm a normal human, let alone three that had already eaten several knights and priests. It would make them that much more intelligent, that much more of a threat. The spiritual power a xenobeast gained by eating a person made it all the tougher.
“Milord Bartok—I wish you success in battle!”
Once he was sure Clifton and the priests were running again, the knight Bartok readied his sword. He would buy them time. Perhaps he could even take one of the monsters with him. Xenobeasts had flesh like other living beings. If you cut them, they would be wounded; stab them in the right place and they could be killed. But...
What?
Bartok furrowed his brow. The beasts weren’t attacking. In fact, one of them seemed to be slowly backing away. Could the overwhelming force of Bartok’s resolution have intimidated them?
Hardly... What... is going on...?
Bartok was forty-five years old, well past his prime as a knight. Practically an old man in the ranks. But that meant he had a great deal more experience of battle than youngbloods like Clifton Arnold. It had given him some ability to sense what was going on in situations like this.
But now, that sense was confused. There were three xenobeasts in front of him; that much was obvious. But what was this feeling that seemed to come so keenly from all around? Had he been surrounded by a pack of xenobeasts, or wild animals, without realizing it? But what he sensed now was... different from the aura of the creatures in front of him. It lacked a certain—reeking quality. Bartok didn’t have the words to express it. It was an aura, and yet not an aura, lying gently over everything around.
It’s almost like... being in the stomach of some... giant creature...
No sooner had he thought this than he gave a start as part of the aura began to cohere. Bartok, who had been standing anxiously at the ready, took an almost unconscious swing with his sword. He didn’t aim at the xenobeast in front of him, but swiped directly at where he’d felt the aura come together.
But nothing met his blade. Had he imagined it? No...
“What is this...?”
As he pulled his sword back, a thread came with it. On closer inspection, it was a vine.
What was going on here? Perhaps he had simply caught his sword on the plant.
Suddenly, he realized the scream he heard was coming from the xenobeast. Bartok looked forward again, and saw the creature entangled in vines, the same as the one that had been on his sword. He saw now that entangled was too kind a word for what was happening. The vines bit deep into the creature’s flesh, and he could hear the sharp crack of breaking bones.
“Milord Bartok!” The voice belonged to Clifton. He should have been gone by now. Bartok looked back to find the young missionary running up to him.
“Arnold! What happened to the priests?”
“They’re over there.” Bartok looked where Clifton indicated, and indeed, the two surviving priests were standing there. Their faces were obscured by the distance, but they seemed quite shocked. Clifton wore the same expression, one of astonishment mingled with horror.
And finally...
There was a sound of something breaking, and all three of the xenobeasts slumped over, their strength gone. A broken bone must have finally pierced some critical organ. Blood bubbled out of their mouths. And then the “absorption” began.
“They’re... They’re...” Clifton muttered, trembling, as if delirious.
And it was no wonder. Even Bartok had never seen such a disturbing sight. The vines and ivies moved like snakes, like earthworms, slowly digging into the bodies of the xenobeasts. Into their mouths, their ears, their noses. Then into their still-open eyes, pushing past their eyeballs. It almost seemed a kind of violation of the animals by the plants.
What was more, the creatures’ corpses withered before the knights’ eyes. Even the blood stopped frothing at their mouths, and they became desiccated, as though they had died of starvation. It was all being absorbed—the blood, the bodily fluids.
“We must... We must be dreaming,” Bartok groaned.
Finally, when the corpses had been sucked dry, reduced to less than half their original size, they were carried off somewhere, without a sound. The vines seemed to simply lift them away.
But something looked to be taking their place. Something emerging slowly from the depths of the darkness between the trees.
“Wh-Who are you?!”
She appeared to be a young girl. Her age, perhaps ten years. A face still innocent with youth. She looked sweet; if Bartok had seen her on the streets of town, it would have been hard not to smile at her.
But now he, Clifton, and the priests could only watch her with faces stiff with fear. Each of them knew that she was more than just a little girl.
She wore a white robe such as none of them had ever seen before; it was not an ordinary outfit, nor
clothing for farm work. The hem was long, as were the sleeves, and it wasn’t pulled tight anywhere, but hung loosely on her. Even more striking were the vermillion cords woven along the edges, as if for decoration. The robe had nothing in the way of buttons. It was very strange, but also, somehow, very beautiful.
Then there were the four “horns” growing out of the girl’s head. Two smaller horns budded on each side of her forehead, and just behind them, almost past her ears, grew two larger horns, twisted into branches like a stag’s antlers. It was possible they were simply ornaments made to look like horns, of course, but the hair they sank into was clearly not that of a human. It was the vivid green of fresh grass.
“Who are you? What are you?!” Bartok demanded. The girl blinked and looked at him as if she had only just realized he was there.
In a tranquil tone, she replied with her own question: “What manner of creature are you?” As she spoke, she pointed at Bartok with the stick she held in her right hand. It, too, was unique. Leaves grew at the tip, as though it had just been broken off some tree. But each of the leaves was a different color, a whole rainbow of them, and on the other end was a ring of gold.
“What do you mean in coming to my realm?” As she asked this second question, the girl began to approach them with steps that gave no sense of any weight.
Bartok and the others could say nothing, but only watch her with abject astonishment. As she walked, something bright appeared in her footprints. Flowers. Flowers of every hue, and already in bloom. They hadn’t existed the instant before, yet now they grew as naturally as if they had always been there. They sprouted behind her, a parade of flowers that blossomed with every step she took.
What in the world could be happening?
I—I hesitate to believe it, Bartok thought, but could this be...?
One of the priests kneeled and spoke: “W-We are men with cause to travel in haste through this land. Might you—even your honored self—be the erdgod of this place?”
Bluesteel Blasphemer Volume 2 Page 6