by Akira Kareno
“Whatever he says, he’s still an honest guy. Even if he doesn’t want to do it, he’ll always look for the best way to deal with the situation in front of him. So the best way to get him to do something is to add value to another option. So if I make the request to look after Chtholly via the Guard, then he’ll probably say yes. I don’t think he’ll pass up on an opportunity to get me to owe him.”
“…What? Wait, don’t tell me you’re actually old friends?”
“Well, the real problem is how Chtholly’s been a little off and what our fighting power will be like once she’s gotten through all this. It’d be a huge burden to just have Ithea and Nephren attacking alone.” He hesitated slightly before continuing. “And it’s still early, but Tiat will need to mature, too.”
“Well, about that, actually.” Nygglatho raised her hand briefly, her expression darkening. “I received contact from Orlandry this morning. The surface research team was attacked by a large-scale Beast, and the airship Saxifraga was shot down.”
“Huh?”
“Mm…” Limeskin’s expression clouded over…or at least, that’s what it felt like it did. “Did the warriorsss fight well?”
“The attack happened in the evening, just before takeoff. The pushback was a success. The good news is that the two were unhurt, though a bit exhausted. That being said, they have no choice but to stay on land overnight, and they have no way to get home, so the situation is quite grave.”
“I sssee. Then ssssurely you ssshall sssend them the wingss of ressscue?”
“Most likely. But it is not that easy to arrange for an airship big enough to land on the surface. It might take a little time.”
“Like piercssing a dragon’sss sssscaless with a needle, hmm? I hope it all goess sssmoothly.”
Willem didn’t know why they started talking about this all of a sudden.
He was pretty sure they were talking about all the battle-ready faeries still left in the warehouse. So why’d they change the subject to a “surface research team”—probably literally a group of people sent out by the Alliance to research the surface—that didn’t have anything to do with that? He didn’t get it.
“Uh, hold on a second, guys. I need an explanation.”
The troll and the lizardfolk both turned to look at him.
“An explanation for what?”
“Why’d you wait until now to start talking about the surface? Even if finding another Carillon is the happiest news of the day, it’s not gonna change the faeries’ burden.”
“What do you mean why?”
She looked at him blankly, then gazed at the ceiling in thought.
“Ah-ha!”
Suddenly, she gave a short burst of laughter.
It wasn’t entirely unusual for Nygglatho to act eccentrically, and Willem was used to it. But he still wished she had a bit more tact about it.
“Oh, right, that’s right. It’s only been a month since you’ve come, hasn’t it?” She chuckled delightedly. “I was so used to your desperate and awkward dad act that it doesn’t feel like that anymore.”
“Shaddup. Desperate and awkward are too much.”
“So you’re aware you act like a dad, then?”
“Just tell me. Who on earth have you been talking about?”
“Um, well… Right now, how many mature faerie soldiers do you think there are in the warehouse?”
“Three, not counting Chtholly. And if not counting Tiat, since she hasn’t been assigned a sword yet, then two.”
“Sorry, but the correct answer is five. Ithea, Nopht, Nephren, Rhantolk, and finally Tiat.”
Willem looked up to the ceiling.
“There are two names I haven’t heard before. Where’d you hide them?”
“Can’t you tell where I’m going with this? It’s there, over there.”
Nygglatho pointed downward.
There was nothing on the table. There wouldn’t be anything on the floor. What Nygglatho was gesturing to was much, much farther away.
Willem snagged a piece of the bacon sandwich that sat before Nygglatho, tossed it into his mouth, chewed and swallowed it, then let the first word he thought of roll right out of his mouth without a filter.
“Seriously?”
Seriously.
The troll and the lizardfolk nodded in unison.
4. Gray Days atop the Gray
Now, this is the story of what happened on the surface.
The general turn of events went just as Nygglatho described. The surface observation airship Saxifraga was attacked by a Beast and was shot down.
It appeared from a fierce sandstorm.
Its silhouette didn’t look entirely unhumanoid. It had a torso with a head and arms and legs growing out of it. But getting any closer would completely knock that image off the table. A reddish-brown shell covered its mansion-size body, and peeking out from the gaps in the shell were thousands of eyeballs.
It was Beast Number Four, the One who Twists and Swallows—Legitimitate.
The same could be said for all the Beasts identified as yet, but their behavioral principles remained unknown.
In both the stricter and wider senses of the word, all living things naturally existed to survive. In the stricter sense, it was for the individual’s survival. In the wider sense, it was to keep one’s species alive in the world for as long as possible. Eating and sleeping and looking for a mate—everything could be logically concluded as either type of survival. Every form of life was born, lived, and died with these goals ingrained in their very being. That was the way it should be.
But it was apparently different for them.
How they handled reproduction was unknown, but at the very least it was evident that each individual was not particularly thinking about how to survive. Though they didn’t easily die, they acted in a way that put their lives on the line as they went after the beings of Regule Aire.
From the era five hundred years ago to now, they had only one goal—
Kill the living. Or maybe it was even to break the moving. There was probably no distinction between the two in their minds.
Of all the Beasts found on the surface, Legitimitate was one of the most commonly encountered. At the same time, however, it posed a rather low threat.
It relied on sound and movement to search for its prey.
First things first when encountering one was to shut your mouth and cease all movement. Then, if you moved so slowly that it didn’t take notice, you might be able to escape alive. That was the basis for its categorization as a “low” threat, and it was information that was considered common sense among salvagers, and that was an order that should have been thoroughly explained to the research team during the mission briefing.
But panic erupted almost immediately anyway.
As the researchers tried to escape the scene to preserve their own lives, the Beast chased them one after the other, a single swipe of its arm cutting them all cleanly at the waist. The final cries for help and pools of blood brought about another wave of panic, and the damages spread rapidly.
The worst part came afterward.
At the time, the research team’s supervisor, the first mechanics officer, was inside the Saxifraga as it rested on the sand. When he saw the tragedy unfolding outside his window, he immediately cried out and rushed to the control room. He unsheathed his ceremonial sword and threatened the operators, making them turn on the furnaces to begin takeoff.
It relied on sound and movement to search for its prey.
The Beast immediately heard the deep humming sound of the driving furnaces.
Its large body, close to a small mountain in sheer size, dashed along the sand with frightening speed and rammed its raised arms against its prey. There was a dreadful crushing sound. The simple but ironclad ship was sliced through as though it may as well have been thin linen, and all its ballast spilled out. With all its ballast gone, the ship tipped over, its body twisted, and began to tear apart.
Then—
The two leprechauns finally arrived on the scene and cut the Beast down, and the commotion immediately came to an end.
There were eighteen dead, almost half of the whole crew. All the horses brought for transport and other animals had perished as well.
And the airship Saxifraga, collapsed on the sand, was now no longer capable of flight.
The sun set.
Everyone was tired.
To make matters worse, the airship was already nothing more than a giant husk.
Without any other choice, half of the survivors crawled into tents, settling down to sleep in an attempt to rid themselves of consciousness. The rest each built their own fire and sat around it.
“—I’d say you girls did pretty well.” The boggard man spoke vacantly as he spun his stick of skewered meat.
The fire made a quiet cracking sound as it slowly roasted the horse meat.
“Usually this’d end up in total destruction, but the fact that we’ve got this many survivors is a miracle. We should be counting those people, not the dead.”
“You really think you can call this survival?” Nopht responded, wrapped in a blanket and staring at the flames. “The ship can’t fly, which means we can’t get back to Regule Aire, you know.”
“There’s a high-speed ship out there that’s got our status report. We just need to take it easy for a bit, and help will come before we know it.”
“Take it easy, huh?” The girl bit into the meat. “We can’t escape to the sky once night comes, and we’ll have to spend every single hour of the day on this sand. One or two of ’em should be fine, but if we get too many Visitors, I don’t think we can do much with just the two of us.”
“Eh, that probably won’t happen. We probably won’t see another Four, at least not for a while,” Glick said plainly as he began to roast a new skewer.
“Why’s that?”
“Legitimitate’s behavior is such that it won’t live near other Fours. I guess you could also think of it the other way around—you won’t find another Four after it’s appeared once.”
“First I’ve heard of that.” Nopht’s eyes widened.
“It’s a pretty well-known story among us salvagers. The other Beasts don’t run around actively, so as long as we stay put here, we should be able to keep the threats to a minimum. Even if we’re not optimistic about it.”
“Huh.” Impressed, Nopht turned to the other girl beside her. “Did ya know about this, Rhan?”
No answer.
Of course, the indigo-haired girl was wrapped in a blanket, staring silently at the wavering flames, not even moving a muscle.
“…What, she tired?”
“Nah, she’s not. This is what happens when she starts thinking. She enters her own world and can’t hear voices or any other stuff around her at all.”
She took a skewer in hand, made sure the meat was cooked all the way through, then shoved a piece into Rhantolk’s mouth.
“Mgh?!”
That brought the girl back.
“Mrh mrgh!”
Rhantolk’s eyes widened in bewilderment, and a moment later her cheeks turned bright red.
Hot, hot, hot, hot. Still wordlessly, she flailed her arms and legs about under her blanket, but even then, she didn’t spit out the food in her mouth.
“Don’t get too carried away in your thoughts when you’re eating. Show respect to the food by concentrating on what’s in front of you— Hasn’t Nygglatho scolded you like that plenty of times already?” Nopht said, mimicking a lecturing tone as she pierced new pieces of meat onto the skewer. “This girl, I swear. You’da spaced out until your meat turned to coal if I left you alone. This is our first helping of real food in a long time. You need to savor and enjoy the meat, otherwise it’d be rude to the horses!”
“B-but still, you don’t have to suddenly shove it in my mouth!”
“Okay, okay, but eat your veggies before you complain. Sheesh, they’re burned to a crisp.”
“I—I know! Gosh!”
Her face red, Rhantolk reached out to a skewer by the fire.
“I wouldn’t take the skewers over here if I were you. Boggard seasoning won’t suit your tastes at all, ladies.”
“I know!”
“But now that you mention it, I do want to give it a shot.”
“Bad manners, Nopht!”
Glick chuckled with a low voice.
“…Ah, is something wrong, Glick?”
“Nah, nothing. I was just thinking about how you act more like teenagers than I thought. I heard an acquaintance of mine called you guys the ultimate weapons that were protecting Regule Aire. I thought you’d be more military-like or that you would be sulky because you’d given up on life. You’re kinda cute, somehow.”
“Huh. First time we’ve been called cute.” Nopht smiled, amused.
“I still plan on properly sulking, though,” Rhantolk added, blowing on her skewered vegetables.
Rhantolk thought as she munched on her burnt carrots.
The Beasts were full of mysteries.
In fact, they were nothing but mysteries.
Five hundred years ago, everyone gave up on learning about them. And in those five hundred years since, no one had risen up to try and learn about them again.
They were the ultimate calamity, unleashed upon the world by the cursed race, the emnetwiht. They were described in a way that was easy to understand yet explained nothing, and she hadn’t thought any more about them. But.
She remembered.
—The emnetwiht race should never have been started. This was the first and greatest sin of the Visitors, who created them.
That was a passage from the ancient text they had recently excavated, a phrase Rhantolk had just deciphered.
The people freed the Beasts, and the world filled with the gray truth—
That was probably a mistranslation.
After all, it wasn’t as though she’d studied the emnetwiht language. She just knew basic grammar and a few words here and there. She was trying to force her way through a difficult passage at her skill level, so of course she would make a mistake somewhere.
It had to be so, otherwise there were too many oddities.
The Beasts were supposed to have been created and freed upon the world by the emnetwiht.
But if she read it and interpreted it as it was in the text, then the Beasts were not created by an emnetwiht hand but instead—
“You can’t just start thinking again right after I told you not to—you’ll mess up your digestion!”
“Mgh?!”
This time, a nicely roasted potato was stuck into Rhantolk’s mouth. Hot, hot, hot, hot.
5. Island No. 49
How was one supposed to go down from the top of the sky?
Even an infant knew the easiest option, and that was to go to the nearest island rim, face outward, and take a step forward. After flying for literally over a thousand marmer, one may give the motherland a passionate, hard-core kiss. Passage that came at the simple cost of one life. Cheap stuff.
But if someone fancied a different way of going about it, then it became exponentially more difficult.
Adding the condition of being able to come back made it even more so.
They said Regule Aire was contained by a large barrier. If a regular airship that was typically used for going among islands tried to pass through this barrier, all of its gauges would lose control, and it would no longer be able to fly properly. To prevent that, all machines needed Wessex Bordering, a protective measure specifically for flying to the surface. But the work required to furnish that also took quite a bit of time and money, so it couldn’t be done at the snap of a finger.
It would take six days, even after pushing the timeline to its limit, to install the Bordering on the Plantaginesta, the semi-great whale-class transport airship that would retrieve the survivors of the research team and the results of their study from the surface.
<
br /> That was the explanation he got at the Winged Guard base on Island No. 49.
“Why d’ya need such a big ship, though?”
“Choose your words carefully, Second Officer. I am the first officer, you know? I’m more important than you.”
A gremian wearing a guard uniform screeched in displeasure.
The gremian only came up to Willem’s waist, and it was too easy to overlook his shoulders. And on his shoulders was a proud collection of badges with intricate designs on them.
Oh, right, military organizations are pretty strict with the hierarchy. The absent thought went through Willem’s mind a little too after-the-fact. He once fought alongside the armies of the Empire and the old kingdom five hundred years ago. But he had a feeling he didn’t actually belong to either of them. It was pretty new to him.
“My apologies, First Officer. This is a voyage into a new frontier for me, so please forgive me.”
“H-hmph. Very well—that’s good enough.” Though he appeared taken aback by the sudden change in demeanor, it seemed to have calmed his mood. “Now, you were asking why we needed such a large ship, yes? Very well. I shall explain it to you, since I am a very kind first officer. Because I am a very kind first officer, after all.”
Ugh, make him stop.
Willem hid his true feelings behind a smile and bowed his head. “I give you my thanks, very kind First Officer.”
“Very well.” The gremian, now in a much better mood, began to babble. “To put it simply, we have lots of cargo. This study originally stemmed from the discovery of an emnetwiht ruin whose original form was comparatively more well preserved. This was a long-term study for the very reason that we estimated there would be plenty of results to be taken home, and in reality, we received a report that they discovered an incredible number of relics that absolutely could not be left behind on the surface.”
“…The dangers to the research team grow greater every day we delay the rescue.”