Because of this weakness, Nobles feared and cursed the water, and they hid themselves in mountain strongholds far from the shore. The Nobles who’d ruled this village were among the notable exceptions. And it seemed that of all of them, Meinster alone through his frantic efforts had achieved the results he desired and overcome this defect.
D felt the water around him leisurely forming a circle. While he realized it was due to Meinster’s superhuman abilities, there was nothing the Hunter could do while his foe remained out of sight.
“Very well—here we go!” Meinster cried.
The normal movements of the sea were disrupted as a high wave assailed the Hunter from behind. A mass of water came down over D’s head to swallow him. Or so it appeared for a second, and then he was leaping toward dry land with watery spray trailing behind him.
But look. Wasn’t that fresh blood gushing from his abdomen like a stream? It was a wound from a short spear that’d shot up from underwater.
Attempting to stand up straight again, D thrust his blade into the sea to support his weight.
“That was actually aimed at your heart—but you’re as good as I expected,” the voice said again. “But not this time—”
When the last syllable came out with a faint tremble, a black shape zipped through the same spot where the Noble had disappeared. Its propeller churning water and sand, the boat was turned sideways to shield D from the waves, but its hull rolled almost immediately. Just before it did, Dwight jumped off.
“You okay?” the fisherman stammered, the color draining from his face as he rushed over.
“Get up there,” D said with a toss of his chin toward land as he turned his eyes toward the sea’s black surface. A dozen seconds passed. Breaking his stance, D returned to the beach.
Dwight was grimacing. He’d found the bodies of those who’d been slaughtered. But one look at D’s abdomen left him pale, and he said, “Hey—you need a doctor!”
“It’s not as bad as all that.”
Grabbing the spear tip where it protruded from him, D pulled it forward. There was the sound of flesh tearing. Dwight alone grimaced, while the Hunter only crinkled his brow ever so slightly.
“I’ll be damned if everyone around me’s not some sort of freak,” Dwight spat, his shock swinging a tad toward hatred. Turning to the sea, he said, “That bastard—he ran off!” His words carried the implication that slamming his whole boat into the Noble had proved effective.
D didn’t reply. It would’ve taken more than that to make this foe forgo a chance to slay D. The way he’d sounded shaken with the last thing he’d said probably held the answer to that question. Some sort of change had taken place within the Noble—the last word he’d uttered had been in someone else’s voice. “Su-In,” he’d said.
D looked over at the embankment and said, “Su-In and Ban’gyoh were here.”
“What?!” Dwight shouted as he jumped up. He turned toward the embankment with great haste. “They’re not here now,” he said. He seemed relieved, and the tension drained from his shoulders.
“She was headed the wrong way,” D muttered.
Su-In would never go toward the village instead of her own house.
.
From quite some distance offshore, icy eyes watched as the two men went from the edge of the surf to the embankment.
With the demure laugh of a woman, a man’s voice then said, “I’ve found his weakness! And the sea, of all places, is my home. I eagerly await our next meeting.”
.
Samon entered the hut. It was a little building used for storing nets and fishing tackle. As the Nobles’ road ran into the village, a narrow strip of shore continued along the edge of it. This was one of three such huts that stood by the edge of the beach.
Closing a wooden door with a broken lock, she heard a low voice from the floor of the fairly spacious room ask, “Did you see him?”
“No,” Samon replied, shaking her head as she approached the shadowy figure who lay there. “How are you doing?”
“I don’t have much longer.”
Crinkling her brow at his self-deprecating tone, Samon pulled bandages and a jar of medicine from the paper bag she was clutching and set them down on the floor. “I’ll change your dressings,” she said.
“What’s the point? Just leave them be.” The voice was that of Glen.
Caught in Egbert’s spell, the swordsman had fallen from the cliff to where the man-eating fish waited below, but he seemed to have barely escaped with his life. Barely—because while he’d said he didn’t approve of what Samon was doing now, he didn’t seem able to push her hands away as she reached for him, either.
“Try anything funny, and things could get ugly, you know,” Glen told her. “It was one of your colleagues that did this to me.”
“We’ll settle with Egbert sooner or later,” Samon said in an eerie tone as she unwrapped the discolored bandages around the man’s upper body.
After parting company with Glen in the afternoon up on the cliff, she’d gone back to the hideout to wait for Shin and Egbert, but when neither of them came back, she’d paid a visit to Glen’s room. Realizing that he hadn’t been back, she was plagued by an ominous feeling as she searched the area around the cliffs where she’d left him, finally finding Glen laid out on the beach. She’d heard all about what’d transpired from the barely breathing swordsman.
What a sight he was. Not only did he have wounds from Egbert, but he’d also been attacked by the monstrous fish below the cliff. His body could be seen beneath the bandages, where his shoulders and chest were chewed up and bare bone was exposed. By the time Samon found him, he’d already lost nearly two-thirds of the blood in his body. After that, it was a miracle he was still alive at all. The only things that’d kept Glen going this long were Samon’s careful nursing and the almost vindictive way he clung to life. Nonetheless, death was drawing ever closer.
“ . . . see him . . . ?” Glen asked once again. He was slipping in and out of consciousness.
“I’ll find him. You just have to hang on a little longer,” Samon said.
As she changed his dressings, her hands were heavy. Yellow pus seeped from his wounds.
The person she was promising to find was the Noble. Rumors were already spreading through the village that he had appeared the previous night. And only the man who came from the sea could grant Glen’s two wishes—life without end, and the power of the Nobility. In her search for him, Samon had been walking the beaches.
Come to think of it, there couldn’t be any more absurd hope than this. When would she find him? Even if she did encounter the Noble, how exactly was she supposed to make him grant Glen’s wishes? Still, Samon was determined. She wasn’t sure she could even get the Noble to listen to her, let alone convince him to do what she asked. And she didn’t even know whether or not her own power could affect the Nobility. Yet she continued to look for the Noble on behalf of the tortured young seeker of knowledge before her.
This was the same hateful man who’d saved her, violated her, and then continued to seek her out for carnal pursuits as he would a common whore—and yet Samon, fearsome sorceress though she was, felt a fascination for Glen she couldn’t explain, almost as if anything she could do for him would give her life meaning.
Glen was already half-dead. His body was nearly drained of blood, and the flame of life that sheer tenacity alone would not allow to go out was now guttering in the wind. When Samon looked at him, there was certainly a cruel and satisfied spark in her eyes. But despite that gleam, her actions weren’t prompted by some desire to see Glen’s suffering prolonged, but rather because the woman wanted him to live, and wanted to help keep him alive.
Suddenly, Glen turned around. Samon looked down at the floor. Was that really the face of the handsome young seeker of knowledge? Surely he must’ve hit something as he fell from the cliff, because the left side of his face was caved in, and his eye remained sealed beneath a swollen eyelid. His cruelly swollen upper
lip revealed his teeth and gums, although half of the former were now missing, leaving him looking like some hideous old man. A chance meeting with him in the middle of the night would’ve undoubtedly made even a fairly bold man faint dead away, let alone a woman.
“Again . . . ,” Glen groaned in a voice as thin as a thread. It was the tone of a dead man, and even Samon’s keen hearing barely managed to catch it. “Go . . . look for him . . . again . . .”
Samon nodded. “Understood. I won’t be long. Just hold on until I get back.”
“Go . . . ,” Glen said, the word slipping from him like a brief gasp before he turned his face toward the floor.
Checking to make sure he hadn’t breathed his last, Samon then got back up and left the hut. If anyone had been there to see her as she did so, they would’ve been utterly paralyzed. A lurid aura welled from every inch of the woman.
Apparently unable to break her attachment to the swordsman, Samon headed off without hesitation toward the sea from which the Noble was rumored to come. Roughly twenty minutes had passed since D and the Noble’s deadly battle on the beach had ended. Once Samon was in up to her waist, she drew her dagger. And what she did next would make anyone wonder what manner of woman she was. Putting the keen blade against her own pale neck, the beautiful warrior woman slashed through the carotid artery with one firm stroke. Something inky spread through the water.
“That should do it. If I die, he dies. The rest is up to fate . . .” Laughing, she added, “A life in hell with him will prove interesting.”
And with that disturbing remark, the woman’s pale figure slowly toppled over into the darkening water. Her now completely motionless body seemed to spread out and dissolve into the sea, while the trail of fresh blood that gushed from her swayed with the approaching waves like a length of cloth.
.
Glen heard the footsteps of approaching death. The footsteps of a shadowy figure.
His strength was pushed to the limit now as his consciousness threatened to fade away. With all his might, he tried to recall a certain face—the face of a young man far more handsome than himself. Doing so had been the only thing that’d allowed him to survive these last few hours. Hatred roused his consciousness, and curses brought his senses back to life. He couldn’t lose. He couldn’t let himself die without winning. If anyone was going to die, it would be his opponent in battle, as always.
The gorgeous features didn’t appear before him. The footsteps of the shadowy figure didn’t fade away in the distance. They were steadily approaching. And they stopped right by his ear.
Something cool touched Glen’s neck, but he couldn’t even feel the chill anymore.
This is the end, he thought.
Someone called out, “Glen.”
By some miracle, this stimulated his cerebrum, setting his nerves trembling and giving him back his sight.
“Glen.”
He opened his eyes. The face of a woman he recognized was looking down at him from above. For some reason, she had one hand pressed against the nape of her neck.
“You’re . . .”
“You’re going to get your wish,” Samon said, her voice like frost as it rained down on his shattered beauty.
He was going to get his wish? Then she must’ve found the Noble. But how had she ever convinced him to come here? No, that wasn’t it.
“Just as I was about to expire . . . I met him,” said Samon. As she bent over Glen, her eyes were strangely red, and her skin was unusually pale. “I couldn’t get him to bite you. But drinking my blood was another matter . . .”
Samon opened her mouth. Two teeth jutted from those pearly white rows like beastly fangs.
“And now,” she said. “I can drink your blood . . .”
Glen’s eyes sparkled. They shone not with fear or loathing, but with immeasurable delight.
What manner of man was this? And what manner of woman?
Before Samon’s hands even touched him, Glen had pulled his own collar aside to expose his throat.
Fangs as white as snow sank into his pallid flesh.
.
III
.
Having been struck lightly on the cheek, Su-In woke up. A shudder ran down her spine. From an oddly high place, a monstrous visage was peering down at her. She soon realized it was only a picture. Suddenly, she knew where she had to be. It was a deserted temple on the southern fringe of the village. The monster on the ceiling was an illustration of a guardian of Hell she’d seen more times than she could count as a child. It was devouring people.
“Pretty disturbing picture, isn’t it?” said a voice above her head.
Su-In tried to get up, but her body wouldn’t move. Although she was completely consciousness, her nerves remained fast asleep.
“Sorry, but I had to dope you. This stuff doesn’t have any side effects, but you’re not gonna be able to move again until tomorrow night.”
The face of a man she’d never seen before was looking down at her from above. He was smiling. And although Su-In knew she should hate him, she actually felt the waves of turbulence fading within herself.
“Are you Ban’gyoh?” Even the way she asked this was composed.
“You could say that. My real name is Toto. Nice to meet you. As you can see, I’m a complete gentleman. If you don’t try anything funny, I’ll deliver you home safe and sound.”
“And a gentleman kicks a woman in the gut out of the blue while she’s seeing to his wounds?! Don’t make me laugh!”
That was precisely what he’d done in order to bring Su-In there from the embankment. The woman’s voice held a tinge of rage.
Grinning sheepishly, Toto said, “In my line of work, you can’t exactly lay all your cards on the table. You just accept that sometimes you have to get a little rough. Of course, I had a hell of a time after I knocked you out. You ever consider going on a diet?”
“No one asked for your opinion!” Su-In snarled, turning her eyes away indignantly. She then pondered her predicament and an escape route. This was the main building of the temple. Judging by the height and width of the ceiling and the illustrations on it, she was certain that’s where she was. Off to the right side, there should be a row of statues sculpted to match the images on the ceiling. And at the end of that row was a door. From there, it was a straight shot to the front door.
“What did you plan on doing to me?” asked Su-In.
“Nothing. Relax. It’s not you that I was after.”
“It’s the bead, isn’t it?”
“Right you are,” said the man. “Where is it?”
“You think I’d tell you even if I knew?” Su-In retorted, thrusting her tongue out at him.
“No, I figured you wouldn’t. Which is why I’d have to get him to tell me.”
“By ‘him,’ do you mean D?”
“Who else? See, I’ll trade you for it. As soon as day breaks, I’ll write up my demands and go deliver them.”
Su-In let out a sigh. This was exactly the thing that concerned D when he took her to hide deep in the ruins. However, there wasn’t anything she could do about it now. Moving only her eyes as she scanned her surroundings, Su-In noticed a bag sitting about a foot and a half from her head. The clasp was undone—he must’ve already gone through it. Noticing something else, Su-In said, “Excuse me.”
“What is it? You hungry or something?”
“That’s my bag, right?”
“Yep,” Toto replied.
“And you’ve already rifled through the contents, haven’t you?” said Su-In.
“You bet I have.”
“How come you put everything back neatly?”
“Huh?” Toto exclaimed, knitting his brow.
“An ordinary thief would just dump everything out and check it that way. After all, it’s a lot less trouble that way. And a thief with a bit more manners might pull things out one by one, but then they’d obviously just leave them there.” With amusement in her eyes, Su-In gazed at the Frontier’s greates
t thief. “When you were dressed like a priest,” she continued, “I didn’t have the faintest idea you were one of the bad guys. You’re not connected to the group D’s fighting now, right?”
“No, not really.”
“Did it look to you like that bag was really valuable to me?”
Toto didn’t reply.
“What would you do if I told you I knew where the bead was?”
“Do you really know?”
“Are you seriously gonna take everything everyone tells you at face value? You have to be the dumbest thief ever.”
“No doubt,” Toto said with a grin. It was a manly smile, the kind that might’ve drawn a coquettish cry from most girls. It brimmed with self-confidence. Though Su-In didn’t know it, “Backwards Toto” was one of the Frontier’s most prominent thieves. “But dumb as I am,” he added, “I like to think I read people pretty well. Now, I don’t know whether or not you know where the bead is, but it’s clear to me you’d die before you’d ever tell me. Which is why I’ve got no choice but to leave a note with my demands.”
“Why don’t you try torturing me to death?”
“As a rule, I don’t like to waste time or energy. You know, torture’s a pretty tiring business for the person doling it out, too.” Toto paused, his expression becoming so frightening he looked like someone else entirely as he said, “If you keep needling me like that, though—”
Shrugging her shoulders, Su-In redirected her gaze to the bag. “Huh?!” she cried.
Toto turned, too. He’d noticed the look on Su-In’s face. “What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing. It’s just that what looked like a big rat came out from behind one of the pillars and ran off. Maybe I was just seeing things.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing. There’s no danger here in this temple,” Toto said. Yawning once, he laid down right where he was. “Get some rest already,” he told the woman. “We don’t want to be cutting into your beauty sleep.”
“While you were disguised as a priest and had the run of my house, didn’t you ever think of trying to grab me?”
Mysterious Journey to the North Sea, Part 2 Page 14