Chapter 17 - The Weeping Woman (3)

"Giving thanks to the Lord who watched over my day today as well..."

Late at night.

Priest Andreas, who was at the encampment, was ending his day with a prayer offered to God.

The young acolyte he always kept with him was also praying beside him, hands clasped together.

"So that I may always walk the righteous path, as a light, guide me..."

The young acolyte, busy repeating Andreas's words, gently opened the eyes he had closed when the prayer he had been hearing suddenly cut off.

"Priest?"

Even at the young acolyte's call, Andreas did not recite the prayer.

Instead, his eyes were wide open as he stared at the silver cup.

"God..."

Purified water had been held in the pure silver cup.

It was trembling, sending out tiny ripples.

As if trying to warn them of something.

A winter field as the sun went down.

A thick water mist, the sort one might see only along a riverbank, was spreading into the subjugation force's encampment.

Along with the voice of a woman desperately searching for something.

-My baby, my baby.

The thing that came with the dense fog had been made from someone's tears.

-Where is my baby?

* * *

RAAAAAH!

"Hup!"

Jager thought as he swung his sword.

This was a trap.

The surrounding circumstances had been arranged to make him decide to cross the river, and it had begun right as the sun was setting.

This trap had been meticulously designed.

"Everyone, look at me! Form a square around me!"

Jager closed his left eye, the one that no longer existed.

Then aura like a green galaxy began to ripple from the sword Jager held.

It was the only thing shining beneath the darkening sky.

"Gather! Bunch up here!"

"We have a knight with us!"

Following Jager's order, the mercenaries who had crossed the river formed a square.

The mercenaries, who had gathered around Jager following every instinct they possessed as human beings, were only then able to calmly examine the things threatening them.

RAAAAH...

Aaaaaah...

They were the dead.

And by coincidence, they all had black hair.

'We've been had.'

Looking at the black-haired dead, who called someone to mind, Jager let out an inward groan.

A trap was something with intent.

It arose from a wicked intent crafted to wound someone.

And though Jager did not know who had made this trap, he could tell who it had been aimed at.

'Lord Joseph!'

The river ice had collapsed, and he was isolated with the mercenaries.

These things were a trap meant to separate him from Joseph.

"Vlad! Can you hear me!"

Whoever's intent it had been, the trap had succeeded.

Even if he fought with all his might to get back from here, it would take half a day to reach Joseph.

RAAAAAH!

No, perhaps even longer.

"Sir Jager!"

The blond boy's shout came from across the river.

He was a boy swinging his sword at the dead between the ever-sinking rays of sunlight.

The boy's flying blond hair shone together with the setting sun.

'He will need even one more sword!'

In case of an emergency, he had left three knights behind with Priest Andreas.

And there were about fifty mercenaries waiting at the encampment, so if it was the clever Joseph, he should be able to hold out against any threat.

Jager hoped so.

"Vlad of Soara! Fulfill your contract!"

Even amid the ceaselessly approaching hands of death, Jager thought of the best he could do for Joseph.

"What should I do!"

"Return to the encampment at once! According to the contract made before God, protect Lord Joseph!"

The resounding shout mixed with aura crossed the river.

The arrogant boy beyond had dared to set conditions for his young master.

And now it was time for him to fulfill the contract he had dared to make without knowing his place.

"Right now!"

"... Understood!"

At the end of Jager's gaze, he saw Vlad and Got sheathe their swords and hurry back.

'God.'

Watching the two figures grow farther away, Jager prayed that God would save Joseph.

He could only pray that those carrying his will would return safely.

"Sir Knight! In the forest!"

And now it was time to look after himself.

"Grrrr..."

There was a group walking out of the forest.

They were not frozen, but they, too, were cold.

"Haa..."

With a bitter heart, Jager aimed his sword at those walking out of the forest.

At the one at the very front among them.

"I came too late, Roderick."

A knight stood there, with a crushed breastplate and viciously glaring whites of his eyes.

"Grrrr."

Though it was a cold winter day, no white breath leaked from Roderick's mouth.

* * *

"Hiiiiiik!"

"Hup!"

Vlad's sword split apart the thing that had suddenly leaped out and blocked Got's path.

SPURT!

Perhaps because it had not been dead long, black, pitch-dark blood sprayed out.

"Boss!"

"Where's the horse!"

At Vlad's shout, Got hurriedly turned his head, trying to gauge its location.

Vlad and Got's situation might have been worse than that of the ones across the river with Jager.

At least there were more than ten of them gathered there, and they had a knight, a symbol of force, with them.

"There! Sir Jager tied it up over there!"

"Let's go!"

But the only one beside Vlad was Got.

'We have to run!'

For Vlad, there was no choice to agonize over.

The only method left was simply to flee toward the encampment with all his strength.

Dodging and cutting as they went.

Vlad and Got ran up along the riverbank toward the place where Jager had tied the horse.

NEIGH!

"There!"

Fortunately, the clutches of the dead had not yet reached Jager's horse.

"Untie the rope!"

Vlad turned back and cut down the approaching dead, buying Got time to untie the horse's rope.

"Hiiik! Heeek! Hey, you! Good boy!"

SNORT.

Horses were timid animals.

It was surely a fine horse, enough for a knight of the Bayezid Family to ride, but even so, it could not help being frightened by the ominous sounds coming from all around.

NEIGH!

"Hurry!"

"It's done! It's done, Vlad!"

Got, who had somehow managed to untie the rope from the stake, called Vlad.

"Calm down, please! Let's live together, damn it!"

But Got could not control the horse, which was thrashing wildly in fear.

"Get on!"

Not until Vlad's blue gaze reached the horse.

Vlad mounted the horse as if flying up onto its back, then hurriedly grabbed Got's hand and pulled him up.

"..."

"What are you doing, Boss! Go already!"

"... But how do you make this thing move?"

"You crazy bastard!"

At Vlad's deflated words, Got ended up tearing at his hair.

"You should've said from the start that you didn't know how to ride a horse!"

He was a boy born in the city who had lived his whole life in the back alleys.

The reality was that Vlad could not ride so much as a pack donkey, let alone a horse.

Was he supposed to pull the reins to make the horse move?

"Get down, you bastard!"

Looking at the dead drawing closer, Got shouted in a voice full of resentment.

"If I die, it's all your fault! You son of a bitch!"

As Got watched himself flounder and switch seats when they should already have left, tears welled in his eyes from some unknown sense of injustice.

"Hup!"

Vlad's sword swung once again at the dead approaching the horse.

"Get on! You idiot!"

"..."

Vlad could only pretend not to hear Got's spite-filled shout.

NEIGH!

Jager's horse, now with a proper rider seated on it at last, raised its front hooves high and shot forward.

Truly worthy of being a horse chosen by a knight, it made a path by trampling the things blocking the way.

RAAAAAH!

GRAAAAH!

Vlad's final swing flashed toward the dead lunging from every direction.

"Run!"

Together with Vlad's shout, the sun hanging beyond the mountain breathed its last sigh and went out.

RAAAAAH!

Vlad and Got were leaving the forest behind as they listened to the howls of the dead ringing out behind them.

The sun had set, but the moon had not yet reached the night.

The dusky evening chasing after the boy held death within it.

* * *

A strangely heavy night fog filled the spaces between the tents.

"Aaaaagh!"

"What is that!"

"It's the dead!"

And the men's screams pierced the night fog and rang throughout the encampment.

"...!"

Sensing that the situation was grave, Joseph hurriedly rose from his bed.

"Lord Joseph!"

"What is this commotion?"

"W-Well!"

Vordan, who had come into the tent panting, tried to say something as his plump cheeks trembled, but he could not find the words at all.

"Did you come to me without even grasping the situation?"

"Lord Joseph's safety comes first!"

"And yet someone like that came without even carrying a sword?"

At Joseph's rebuke, Vordan lowered his head and looked at his belt.

There, only an empty scabbard dangled pointlessly.

"I envy my brother. If it were him, he would have had your neck hanged at once."

"I-I'm sorry."

Joseph hurriedly pulled on his clothes and listened toward the outside of the tent.

An unidentified, grotesque resonance.

Screams and howls.

The sounds spreading through the air filled Joseph's ears.

"Lord Joseph!"

"Priest Andreas."

Just as Joseph was about to step outside the tent to grasp the situation, Andreas and his young acolyte came in before him.

"Do you perhaps know what is happening..."

"It is something evil."

Rather than explain in words, Andreas opened the Bible he was holding and showed it to Joseph.

"Hmm."

Priests of Andreas's caliber were often given various holy relics.

One of them was a Bible written in holy ink.

'I've never seen anything like this before.'

Under the light cast by the candle, the letters written in the Bible were trembling like aspen leaves.

Though they were nothing more than letters, they looked as if they were frightened of something.

"It is no ordinary powerful being."

"Priest, you are a man of strong faith. Is there no way?"

Even without seeing it directly, he could tell.

Joseph realized that some wicked thing with intent was now invading his encampment.

The remaining two knights entered the tent, panting for breath.

Unlike Vordan, fortunately, they seemed to have brought their swords and armor.

Priest Andreas answered the man with the deep shadows under his eyes.

"I am not an exorcist priest."

God's will was one, but there were many branches of the road leading to God.

That depended on one's innate aptitude and the talent that manifested.

"If it were blessing and healing, I would be confident, but in a situation like this..."

Andreas was an excellent priest, but in a situation where such an evil being had come, he was not someone who could display great power.

He was one who accompanied monster subjugations and enacted God's will himself, and for a priest like Andreas, what mattered most was likely the ability to heal the wounded and bolster the strength of warriors.

"I will spread my divine power as much as possible, but against an evil being of this level, it may not be of much help."

"Understood."

Joseph met the eyes of Andreas and the knights who followed him.

"Let's move."

The moment the group, having steeled themselves, stepped out of the tent, what they saw was...

"Gra... graaah!"

"No! I'm not your child!"

Dense night fog.

And within it, the sight of mercenaries choking on fear and collapsing.

"Is it a fog that causes delirium?"

"At the very least, it is not a natural phenomenon."

As soon as he heard those words, Joseph quickly took out a handkerchief and covered his mouth.

Because the least trustworthy thing in this world was his own frail body.

At least a few mercenaries of firm spirit were not bewitched by the voice uttered by the unknown woman and were running here and there to avoid the fog.

'We've been had.'

Looking at the encampment falling into chaos without any control, Joseph was certain.

Someone's wicked intent was ensnaring him.

-Baby. My baby.

The moment Joseph felt the setback and bit his lip, there was a being slowly approaching through the mercenaries' screams and the dark night fog.

"God..."

It was a faint silhouette.

But its presence alone was intense.

ROUND... ROUND...

Each time it took a step forward, the group felt a tingling chill at the backs of their necks.

-Are you there?

There was a woman walking silently toward the group with a pale face.

Black tears flowed endlessly from the corners of the woman's eyes.

-I finally found you. My baby.

But in the places where those tears flowed, there was only empty darkness.

"..."

Joseph could feel it.

The darkness in the woman's eyes was looking precisely at him.

A World of White

The place where the encampment stood was half a day away on foot, but on horseback, it was not even a few hours.

"Hyah! Hyah!"

Though they were running along an uneven mountain road in pitch-black darkness, Jager's horse did not lose its way.

As if it understood its master's wish, it did its utmost to guide the sword-bearing boy and the cowardly swindler to the encampment.

"What is that?"

And at last, below a hill near the encampment where they had arrived.

The place reflected under the moonlight was trapped in a dense fog that made it impossible to see even an inch ahead.

"I told you it was like that! That day was exactly like this!"

"..."

Vlad got down from the horse and looked down at the fog-filled place.

The fog was so thick that only whitish shapes could be seen, and it was impossible to make out what was happening inside.

"Let's run now! You're not thinking of going in there, are you?"

"Quiet."

Vlad raised a finger to stop Got's words and listened still.

Vlad's keen hearing, which grasped his surroundings, had already been acknowledged by Jorge.

'Screams.'

The mercenaries' screams were reaching Vlad's ears.

Along with disordered sounds of weapons and meaningless shouts.

Though it was happening within a fog where he could not see an inch ahead, Vlad was grasping the situation through sound.

'Before you move blindly, first confirm where you are standing right now.'

The knight who resembled blue moonlight had said so.

["Do not panic. Before you move, decide the direction you will advance."]

The voice dwelling within him had said the same.

Vlad quietly took a deep breath and thought.

Where he was now, what he could do, and what he had to do from here on.

"Got, you go."

"Huh?"

Everything in life was a matter of direction.

Only those who knew the right direction could seize their goal.

"Boss? You're going down?"

"..."

And Vlad found his goal.

Somewhere in the fog, there was the sound of someone singing faintly.

It seemed as if it would cut off, yet did not, but it was so fragile that it seemed it might collapse at any moment.

"I don't suppose it means much, but anyway, I'm sorry about this."

"... Huh?"

Vlad had promised.

He had work he needed to do, so in place of loyalty, he would offer faith.

The boy stepped into the fog that even moonlight could not brighten.

Though the boy did not know it, the step he took that night was the brightest of all the steps he had ever taken.

To keep a contract and fulfill faith.

Because that was an act of pursuing what was honorable.

That night, the contract he made with Joseph remained in Vlad's heart as a shining star.

"I'm going."

["Yes."]

Vlad's blue eyes shone as he walked toward the precariously twinkling star.

* * *

"It seems it has become meaningless that we barely managed to gather the mercenaries."

Even through Andreas's labored, halting explanation, Joseph was able to grasp the situation perfectly.

"In the end, you are saying there is no way to face it unless it is Sir Jager."

Behind Andreas, who knelt in prayer, the young acolyte was singing through his tears.

It was a hymn.

Though his voice was stained with fear, that radiant melody calling upon God mixed with Andreas's divine power and was pushing back the dense fog.

-My baby! My baby!

Along with the woman desperately reaching her pitch-black hands toward him.

Joseph lowered his head and looked down at his knights, who were foaming at the mouth and gasping.

'Is there no way?'

Running away would have been the best method, but the damned fog held them fast and would not let them go.

It was a fog that made them arrive before the woman no matter where they advanced.

That was why the knights had no choice but to use themselves as shields and protect Joseph until Priest Andreas prepared a way.

Though they had charged in after receiving Priest Andreas's outstanding blessing, they did not have the qualifications.

The qualifications to strike down the cursed thing with their own world.

This was the result.

The mercenaries, devoured by fear, had fallen apart, and the knights who had been protecting him lay there, collapsed and foaming at the mouth.

Before long, they would die.

And he might end up the same way.

'Is this as far as I go?'

No matter how clever Joseph was, he could not create something from nothing.

He could not see any way to break through this situation.

"Hold on, Lord Joseph. Tomorrow's sun will surely come."

"... Though it is far too distant now."

Though the woman could not approach, pushed back by Andreas's divine power, she was staring persistently at Joseph.

Joseph could tell.

If he met the empty darkness in that woman's eyes, he too would end up in the same state as the knights rolling on the ground.

No, perhaps it would be even worse.

'So she is targeting me after all.'

In the hand of the woman shedding black tears was a wooden comb.

That wooden comb, which she held as if it were terribly precious, was one Joseph had once used.

'Who are you?'

This was a curse.

A vicious curse that had made him its target.

But there was no one here who would answer Joseph's question.

There were no longer any knights to protect Joseph, and the pitiful young acolyte's voice was growing more and more cracked.

Tonight was too arduous to wait for tomorrow's sun.

Guessing the result that would come, Joseph closed his eyes.

The moment the young acolyte's hymn ended, death would rush in.

When he could not find a way through no matter how much he thought, Joseph bit his lip.

"..."

With a grim expression, Joseph opened his eyes, steeling himself in his heart.

"Hm?"

At that moment, there was a single streak of light in his eyes.

SCREEEEAM!

It was a light that began behind the woman shedding black tears.

"You are..."

A single Sword Path cleaved the woman's body in half as it came toward him.

At the end of that Sword Path stood a blond boy who shone even without moonlight.

Vlad was there, his right eye closed.

["Hraaaap!"]

A white lightning strike that began from the tip of the unadorned sword split the fog and lit the night sky.

* * *

["That thing moves as a curse. It cannot be cut with an ordinary sword."]

"Then what do we do?"

["Can you perhaps use aura right now?"]

"Are you joking?"

Looking at the woman staring at Joseph through the fog, the voice roughly saw through her identity.

["Only a mage who defies the laws of the world, an exorcist priest who wields God's will, or a knight who has formed a world of their own can break something made from a curse."]

"What about Priest Andreas?"

["He is devout, but he is not an exorcist priest. Rather, an ordinary inquisitor would be more helpful in the current situation."]

"Damn it."

Behind a tent, where the woman's eyes could not reach, Vlad had been watching for an opportunity, and at the voice's words that there was no way, he quietly burst out in frustration.

"Then what do we do?"

He had come through the fog for Joseph with solemn resolve, yet he could not even swing his sword.

This was not what he had come all this way for.

["... It is not as if there is no method at all."]

"What is it?"

At Vlad's question, the voice answered in a tone lacking confidence.

["I will borrow your body for a moment."]

"... Will that work?"

The voice had always borrowed Vlad's body as part of training.

But borrowing his body for a moment to show him the sensation and using that body to swing a sword filled with aura were matters on completely different levels.

"Can you use aura by borrowing my body? Even if it succeeds, I won't be able to move for a while."

["It is your body, so you decide. To be honest, I do not recommend it."]

The voice was aware that he was a being capable of using aura, but whether he could manifest it through Vlad's body was another matter.

He was merely telling him that if there was a way, this was the only one.

"If we don't kill her, we die."

["That, too, is the way of the sword."]

Vlad began to think for a moment.

There was only one chance.

If he failed, everything was over.

Did he have a reason to accept that?

"Let's do it."

["Are you certain?"]

Vlad spoke as he tightly tied the straps of his leather armor.

"The opportunity Joseph is giving me may be one that will never come again in my life. And..."

Vlad resolved himself.

He would not retreat anymore.

"If I run away here, I'll become Vlad of the back alleys all over again."

["..."]

More than the unknown woman before his eyes.

More than the fear that he might die if he failed.

There was something Vlad feared more than those things.

"I'm most afraid of being nothing at all."

For what had he been born, and for what would he live?

The boy did not yet possess the qualifications to answer any of them.

He did not want to meet the end of his life as nothing at all.

"Let's go."

["I respect your choice."]

Clenching his teeth, Vlad raised his head one last time and looked at the sky.

He could not see it because of the fog, but the moon would be there.

The blue moon he would one day have to break.

["Right in front of her."]

"Understood."

Raising the sword he had bought with a girl's tears, Vlad quietly took a deep breath and steadied himself.

The principle of killing in a single blow came from unexpectedness.

Unexpectedness came from movements that surpassed prediction and shattered expectations.

'She hasn't seen me.'

The woman shedding black tears had not noticed Vlad.

'Hup!'

And even if she did notice, she would not expect the blow he unleashed.

Vlad burst out, cutting through the fog.

Vlad's movement as he broke through without the slightest hesitation was like an arrow shot from a bow.

-Baby?

In that instant, hearing the sound of Vlad's footsteps, the woman's neck twisted back at a bizarre angle.

It was an angle no living person could turn.

["Now!"]

"Ugh!"

The woman's eyes, which he met for an instant, were so deep and dark that he could not breathe, as if he had been submerged in water.

Even so...

"Hrrrgh!"

In order to keep the contract he had made with the person to whom he had entrusted his faith, the boy did his utmost to close his right eye.

["Uaaaap!"]

And from now on, this was the world of the nameless one.

His world was storm and lightning.

And it was a world filled with a thunderstorm vast enough to swallow the world.

A single streak of lightning that escaped from his world split the black tears the woman shed.

A world of white split apart a world of black.

* * *

Though it was a flash that lasted only a single instant, it illuminated everything in the world.

Joseph truly thought so.

"Vlad!"

Together with the raging lightning, he split the weeping woman apart.

"Ghup!"

Vlad rolled across the ground as if collapsing.

He had braced himself for it, but the pain that came easily surpassed Vlad's expectations.

"Gaaah... aaaaah."

Vlad was twisting his whole body at the excruciating pain that came belatedly.

Using aura with a borrowed body.

That was something that brought tremendous pain and strain to Vlad, the owner of the flesh.

"Damn it!"

Joseph realized that Vlad was now in no state to move his body at all.

What had just flashed was clearly a trace of aura, and though he did not know how Vlad had done it, it was obvious he had paid a great price.

"Lord Joseph!"

"Do not stop the hymn!"

-Baby, baby!

The cursed woman had been split apart, but she did not stop.

She was still crawling along the ground, wielding her empty gaze.

And the direction that woman was crawling and staring toward was where Vlad was.

"Grrrrgh!"

"Close your eyes! Don't look at that woman!"

Joseph risked the danger and ran toward Vlad, who was groaning.

It was worth doing.

The flash Vlad had just shown was far too precious a possibility to abandon now.

He could not leave that radiant thing before cold death.

"Grab me!"

He could feel the chill the woman exuded approaching right behind him, but Joseph did not stop.

"Gh!"

"Damn it!"

He lacked the strength to lift Vlad completely, but he had to somehow drag him into the range of the divine power.

"Ghhhhh!"

At that moment, the woman's pitch-black hand brushed past his ankle, but even through the burning agony, Joseph did not let go of the hand holding Vlad.

"Lord Joseph!"

Vordan, who had been stamping his feet as he watched Joseph suddenly rush out, quickly grabbed the two of them and pulled them inside.

"Gah! Damn it!"

"Keuh, keough!"

The two young men rolled across the ground, drenched in sweat.

-Aaaaaah!

Having lost the two of them, the woman spread both hands wide and began to wail violently, like a mother who had lost her child.

-Where are you! Where are you!

She was a woman whose body had been split in half, but perhaps because she was an existence born from the dead, she did not easily let go of her own existence.

-Baby. Please, please, please.

Perhaps there was a reason she could not do so.

-It hurts. My child. Find him. Please.

"Hic. Huuuuuh."

Startled by the crying coming from beside him, Joseph looked at Vlad, who was rolling next to him.

Vlad was sobbing mournfully as he listened to the woman's voice.

He shed tears like a child of only five or six years old.

'Has he been corrupted!'

At the behavior unlike his usual self, Joseph realized Vlad's condition.

"P-Priest."

"Vlad! Come to your senses!"

Perhaps fallen into a state of delirium, Vlad shook off Joseph's support and approached Andreas with his trembling body.

Then he knelt before him with difficulty.

"P-Please bless my sword. I have to send that woman on. I have to let her go."

"... Very well."

Priest Andreas also noticed Vlad's condition, but he nodded and said he would do so.

Though the boy's face was growing paler, the light in his eyes alone did not waver.

"Give me your sword."

Priest Andreas stopped praying and looked at Vlad's sword.

An unadorned sword.

He brought his hand to the blade of that sword.

"It is a certain blessing."

"... Thank you."

The blood of the devout priest ran down the unadorned sword.

The quiet night.

The young acolyte's hymn and the weeping woman's anguished cries had both died down in the night.

Only the labored footsteps made by the boy rang out here.

"I'm sorry."

-Find... him.

Though it had only been for a brief instant while he was charging in, Vlad had looked into the woman's empty eyes.

Within them lay horrific memories.

Women imprisoned beneath a dark prison.

Their young and fragile children dying one by one.

And the mother of the last remaining child cried out through her tears.

-My baby, my baby.

As she watched her child slowly dying on the cold floor beyond the bars.

"Haa... hrrr..."

With tears flowing, the boy knelt before the woman.

The boy raised his sword toward the mother searching for her child.

Though his body trembled from the excruciating pain and would not obey properly because of his tangled muscles, he had to do it.

Because at this moment, the one who understood her pain better than anyone else was him.

"Rest now."

THUNK.

The woman shed her final tear as she looked at the sword approaching her.

-Where are you?

The boy's sword pierced the weeping woman's head.

Her flowing tears wetted the cold ground and pooled there.

And so, the mother who never found her child came to a stop.