With a start, Yukinari collapsed. Something had trapped his leg. What?
He looked around, and was astonished to see what appeared to be a tree root. It hadn’t been there a moment ago, but now it was popping out of the ground and had wrapped itself around Yukinari’s leg. His momentum thwarted, he had no choice but to fall.
Still holding Dasa, he landed smack on his behind. Ulrike brought her branch down as she landed. At first glance, it looked thin enough to break between two fingers, but—
Sitting there on the ground, Yukinari somehow managed to bring Durandall up with his right hand, catching the branch with its blade.
“Hrgh!” The impact that ran down his arm felt as if he had intercepted an iron rod, not a twig. It was so heavy. Much heavier than such a waifish little girl should have been able to hold, much heavier than any branch of that size should have been. It felt as if he had blocked a blow from a powerful xenobeast.
“Yuki...!” Dasa brought up Red Chili and opened fire on Ulrike.
But the shots didn’t hit. In the blink of an eye, trees and branches and vines and ivies sprouted up, weaving themselves together to form an impenetrable wall between the familiar and her quarry. The softer tips on Dasa’s .44 Magnum bullets couldn’t get through the multi-layered defensive wall.
“Aw, that’s not even fair!” Yukinari groaned. He freed his leg from the root, grabbed up Dasa, and resumed running.
Apparently Yggdra—and his familiars—were capable of controlling any kind of plant life around Rostruch. He didn’t know how, but they could make the plants grow with preternatural speed, or move normally immobile branches and vines to form walls or set traps.
Meaning as long as we’re in Rostruch, we’re in the belly of the beast!
Any advantage they might have would be as good as negated by that fact. And what was more...
“What’s going on?”
“Lord Yggdra’s familiars!”
“Hey! Look! It’s Lady Ulrike!”
“Are they chasing that man?”
“Wonder if he did something to earn himself some divine punishment?”
“Hey, you two, wait!”
So far from being afraid of Ulrike and the others, the townspeople seemed to be showing her great respect as she chased Yukinari and Dasa through the city. Then, sporadically, the villagers began standing in front of Yukinari, trying to block his way.
This was bad. He was already at a disadvantage here—if everyone in town decided he was an enemy, he would be completely trapped.
“Yuki... The people here adore... their erdgod...”
“Sure looks that way!”
He kept running, dodging root after root that burst through the ground and threatened to trip him. As an angel, he was endowed with exceptional nimbleness and endurance that allowed him to keep this up, but a normal person would have long ago been captured.
They’re definitely not like the erdgod-worshippers in Friedland.
In his village, there had been profound awe of the local deity, but no sense of closeness. It was only natural. The people were dealing with a creature that may have assured good harvests, but also ate human beings. There was no rat that felt intimacy with any cat.
By contrast, the people of Rostruch apparently felt something like affection for their erdgod, Yggdra. For example, the young man they had talked to at the procession earlier hadn’t shown any terror or disgust at the notion of making these sacrifices to his god.
Which presumably meant...
“Yuki... There aren’t as many familiars chasing us now.”
“Huh...?”
He glanced back, just for a second, and saw Dasa was right: where ten familiars had been after them before, now there were only three. Ulrike was still charging at the front, but...
“If... we’re careful, we might lose... them.”
“Do you figure each familiar has a different level of ability?”
“That’s... certainly possible.”
They might be connected to the erdgod, but if the sacrificed humans’ bodies remained in any capacity, then of course they would eventually reach their physical limit. Hobbling old people and tiny children could still only run so fast or jump so far, even if they shared some of the power of the erdgod.
If we can somehow lose the three that are still chasing us, we might be able to get away...
Yukinari replaced Durandall across his back, instead pulling out the several .44 Magnum bullets he had in his pocket.
“Sorry, Dasa. Gonna have to set you down.”
“I understand.”
He stopped just long enough to put her on her feet, and then the two of them resumed running. Yukinari placed the cartridges between his palms and focused his attention.
It didn’t have to be complicated. And the internals could be recycled. A tube packed with black gunpowder and a detonator, capped with an explosive to start things burning. Around this, a mixture of magnesium and metaldehyde powders, commonly used as a fire-starter at campsites. The fuse could be the same as in a gun. A length of wire could run from the trigger so it wouldn’t go off in his hand.
He could only manage a crude version of the weapon, but it would have to do. With his powers of physical reconstitution, Yukinari produced a metal cylinder just a little bit larger than a 350mL bottle of juice.
“And now...” Yukinari picked a large building nearby and kicked down the door. “Sorry for inviting myself in!” he said as he entered, but there was no response. It looked like he had judged correctly: this wasn’t a house, but a storage space. There were only one or two small windows, probably to help change the air, up near the ceiling; the interior was dark, and there were several piles of wooden chests.
Perfect.
Yukinari looked back—and flung the cylinder he was holding. It tumbled through the air, trailing what looked like a thread, until it was just above Ulrike and the other pursuing familiars.
“Dasa, close your eyes!” Yukinari shouted, and pulled on the thread.
The fuse did its job, and a second later, the flashbang he had created in such a hurry went off.
For an instant, the inside of the storehouse was filled with a light so bright as to blot out everything else. Anyone who looked directly at it would be briefly blinded. And all the worse if your eyes had started to become accustomed to the darkness.
“...All right.”
When he opened his eyes, he found Ulrike and the other two familiars standing there, evidently unable to see. At least, they weren’t running directly toward him and Dasa.
This was his chance. Yukinari made for the nearest wall and slapped his right hand against it.
Physical reconstitution.
In the next instant, there was a bluish-white flash and part of the wall turned to dust, leaving a hole big enough for a person to walk through. When he didn’t have to create anything, but was simply absorbing structural information, he was capable of this sort of tactic.
“Dasa.”
“...Mn.”
He took her under his left arm again. For the moment, when he looked back, he didn’t see any of Yggdra’s familiars.
●
Justin Chambers ordered everyone out of his office, where he proceeded to shut himself in. He allowed only one person to remain: the alchemist—and his rumored lover—Jaroslava Vernak. They had frequently been alone in his rooms together even before he had become Dominus Doctrinae, leaving many to make base insinuations about their relationship.
But if any had had both the opportunity and the audacity to peek into Justin’s chambers at that moment, they would have been disappointed. And then they would have been shocked by what they heard.
Jaroslava sat on the bench facing Justin’s work desk. “About the new angel,” she said. She sounded almost bored. “How’s the Church feeling these days?”
“It’s a touchy subject. There’s been a good deal of resistance to the creation of new angels ever since the incident with the Blue Angel. There are fea
rs that another new one might escape, too. There are even those who believe we should get rid of all of our angels,” Justin said, running his eyes over some papers on his desk.
“They’re afraid.” Jaroslava seemed to be enjoying herself. “They thought those things were nothing but tools. Now they lie awake at night wondering when the next one is going to turn and bite them. It’s adorable. Although it’ll never happen.”
The event had shaken the Church so badly that it had given rise to a number of misunderstandings—specifically, misapprehensions about cause and effect in the case. The “Blue Angel” had killed the previous Dominus, along with five other high-ranking members of the Church and no less than thirty of the knights of the Holy Order who guarded them. But this creature—this “Bluesteel Blasphemer,” as he was also known—was a special case.
Angels were never meant to be self-aware. They were intended to be living dolls. The alchemists used a human “soul”—or something they called by this name—to control the spiritual power that allowed these living alchemical devices to function. But because the Church could hardly abide their tools, the angels, acting of their own accord, everything that might make the creature human was stripped away before an angel was awakened. This was the case with all twelve of the examples created before the Bluesteel Blasphemer.
But for reasons no one could fathom, an alchemist—Jirina Urban was her name—charged with creating the thirteenth angel under the authority of the previous Dominus, failed to remove the sense of self attached to the soul. In other words, she had skipped a step of the process and created an angel with self-consciousness.
She was put to death for that—and it was only upon learning of this that the Bluesteel Blasphemer went insane. Meaning the “Blue Angel” had not run amok for no reason, but had been exacting revenge for the murder of its “mother,” Jirina. The chance of the other angels going berserk was, for all intents and purposes, zero. And yet...
“Even so, I don’t believe their caution is entirely unwarranted.” Finally, Justin looked up at Jaroslava. “You recommended that a fourteenth angel—one with a sense of self, just like the Blasphemer—should be created, yes?”
“I did. And I stand by that.” Jaroslava smiled and nodded. “Tools and puppets are well and good for the missionaries. More than enough to put on a few miracles. But killing your Bluesteel Blasphemer? The angels we have will be less than useless. Puppets are only puppets; they can’t move any faster than the person pulling their strings.” She spoke casually, as if what she was saying was completely obvious. “A puppet that needs precise instructions from its puppeteer has no hope of defeating the Bluesteel Blasphemer. Even just in terms of how quickly it can accomplish physical reconstitution, there will be no contest.”
The incident with the Bluesteel Blasphemer could safely be called the worst in the Church’s history. The public absolutely had to be prevented from learning that one of the angels had gone on a rampage and killed almost forty people, including the leader of the Church and several of his closest associates. If the rank-and-file believers found out, their faith in the Church would be deeply shaken.
Naturally, an event of this magnitude was known to many in the Church. But publicly, they announced that the previous Dominus Doctrinae had been killed when a new church building he was inspecting collapsed. The true details were kept tightly under wraps.
This also meant it was impossible to form a large, and therefore obvious, group to hunt down and destroy the Bluesteel Blasphemer. If they were going to kill it, they would have to do so quietly. They would have to assassinate it.
Even the Bluesteel Blasphemer was not immortal; there had to be a way to kill it. Perhaps several ways. But in a one-on-one fight, it was almost impossible that a human could prevail over this self-aware angel. And while their own angels might have similar abilities, the puppet could never win.
What they needed was a small group of individuals who had the powers of angels and could use them autonomously. The smaller the number of people involved, the better, as it would help prevent the story from becoming public.
Justin drummed his fingers. “I’ll handle the internal opposition somehow.” His fingers tapped the hard surface of his desk, as if he were keeping time or counting something. It was his habit whenever he was considering a problem. “And you, Jaroslava Vernak. The question is whether you can create an angel on a par with that produced by Jirina Urban. I’m given to understand that she was by far the most accomplished among our alchemists who specialize in homunculi.”
Jaroslava shrugged. “I’d like to give you my unqualified reassurance,” she said. “But Jirina Urban was an extremely capable alchemist. She had the accumulated knowledge of generations of the Urban family, and I’m sure she was a better crafter of homunculi than I am. But she left quite a few notes. I doubt it will be that hard to use them to create something that can do battle with the Bluesteel Blasphemer.”
“And the soul for the spiritual-power control apparatus?”
“I have an idea, of course.”
“Very well.” Justin looked back down at his papers. “In that case, I want you to be prepared, so you can create our angel at any time.”
“Yes, Your Holiness.”
“I have no special interest in anything so noble as revenge for my predecessor.” Justin’s fingers started tapping again. “But this is a creature that hates us, whose very existence is a blight upon the Church, and that furthermore is all but invincible in battle. Such a creature’s continued existence can only ever be a threat to us. We must pull this problem out by the roots.”
“As you say, O most holy Dominus Doctrinae.” Jaroslava made a theatrical gesture with one hand, as if she were making a solemn vow—but she almost seemed amused.
●
It would be foolish to go straight back to where Sleipnir was parked. Yukinari didn’t know whether the participants in the procession had seen him and Dasa arrive on the motorized vehicle, but if they had, there could very well be an ambush there. If the townspeople had been mobilized, and the two of them ended up surrounded, there would be no escaping again—or perhaps there would, but it would involve killing some of the people of Rostruch, and certainly the familiar, Ulrike.
Yukinari very much wanted to avoid that if at all possible.
Admittedly, part of him thought the idea was naïve, that it was too late for a peaceful resolution, but—call him a fool for pacifism—he couldn’t shake his revulsion at the thought of shooting women and children. He had died and been reborn in this new world, and he believed the personality that underlay his identity as Yukinari was formed by a system of values he had been able to embrace because of his previous, peaceful life in modern Japan.
“Yuki...”
“Hush.” He put a finger to Dasa’s lips, then crept into the abandoned building he’d spotted. It was made of wood, just like all the others, but it was damaged in places; it didn’t seem anyone had been keeping it up.
He was considering hiding out in it until things with Ulrike had blown over.
“Who are you?”
Yukinari stiffened at the sudden question. This was bad. He had assumed the place was abandoned, but apparently there was someone here. If they shouted, they could easily bring the familiars or the townspeople back down on their heads. Should he run? Try to silence the resident of this house? But even in the instant he was trying to make up his mind –
“Ahh, the looks made you think this place was abandoned, didn’t they? I can’t do any repairs, so it just keeps getting worse. I’m so embarrassed.”
The voice was very thin, but kind; there was no hint of worry. Yukinari and Dasa proceeded cautiously inside, keeping a careful watch on their surroundings. And there, within, sat the owner of the voice. Or maybe sat up would be a more accurate way of putting it.
A man was propped up in bed. He had probably been lying down until a moment earlier. His voice was as frail as an elderly man’s, but his face—especially his eyes—suggested
he was still young. But his cheeks were thin, his hands skin and bones. He must be sick. And something serious, in its final stages. You could tell at a glance.
“Sorry,” Yukinari said. “We were kinda being chased...” If the man wasn’t going to shout, then it would certainly be better to deal peacefully with him.
“Chased?”
“Well, uh...”
“There’s no need to stand. Please, have a seat.” The man gestured to Yukinari, showing no sign of suspicion.
Yukinari didn’t respond immediately. He noticed that Dasa had pulled out her “ears” and put them on her head. These were a sound-gathering device shaped like animal ears. She had spent so long unable to see that she could use her ears almost as well as her eyes, and sometimes better, to grasp what was going on around her. This device capitalized on that ability.
Dasa, too, said nothing at first, but she nodded at him. As long as she was listening, the familiars wouldn’t be able to sneak up on them. But then she was already leaning in and whispering to Yukinari:
“Inside. Someone’s breathing.” Apparently the man wasn’t alone in this house.
“Okay, thanks,” Yukinari said, taking a seat on a wooden bench. Dasa sat next to him.
“Mother,” the man said. “Mother, we have visitors.” For some reason, he looked to the ceiling as he spoke.
This house, like the others, was just one story. He couldn’t be calling to the second floor. Which meant...
“They seem like they’re in a bit of trouble. I thought I might let them rest here for a while. Is that okay?”
There was no audible answer. Yukinari and Dasa watched silently. The man gave an awkward smile.
“My mother’s quite old already. And I’m sick, as you can see, and don’t have much longer. Lately I’ve become unable to see.”
“Unable... to... see...?”
That detail got a reaction from Dasa, probably because she herself had been born blind. She sounded nonchalant, but her words contained a note of sympathy—no, empathy. As ever, it was a hint so faint only Yukinari could detect it, but...
“Yes, more or less.” The man who said he was blind seemed to notice it as well. Perhaps, like Dasa, his hearing had improved in order to compensate for his lost vision. A soft smile floated on his face. “I admit it can be inconvenient, but I’m not scared. Because it means soon I can go to be with our Lord Yggdra.”
Bluesteel Blasphemer Volume 2 Page 10