Chapter 53 - Stalker vs. Stalker (8)

PITTER, PAT.

Summer rain begins to fall. Rain that thickens the darkness of night and cools the hot air.

Ivan stood in the rain, looking at the unlit house. The patter of rain muddied his perception considerably, but he was certain. There was no one inside.

“Tsk.”

He remembered Daionar. In fact, he had memorized most of the closest aides to every nation's ruler. He had met quite a few of Einar's longtime Huscarls in person.

Several Huscarls, Morde among them, had also been under close observation by the United Kingdoms. Reserves. Promising candidates expected to fill any vacancies in the Hero's Party.

Reserves had been prepared for each role, including Ivan himself. Among the potential replacements for Einar, Daionar had been one of the strongest—a select handful.

Had he already made his move? Ivan considered this briefly, then shook his head. Probably not.

Low-level Counterintelligence Command operatives were assigned to Prizhenkaya's “distinguished guests,” Esidisi included. Surveillance wasn't particularly intensive, but they were under protection nonetheless.

Besides, Counterintelligence Command currently regarded the “Droan rebels” as the prime suspects in the terrorist attacks. However flawlessly Daionar might have slipped into the country, he was from Droan. The moment he appeared beside Esidisi, the surveillance network would pick him up.

Which meant the house was empty because... she had willingly gone somewhere with Morde. He couldn't imagine where, but well, suppose they had gone for a nighttime walk.

'That would actually make her less safe.'

Ivan immediately turned and ran. The rain was growing heavier.

* * *

Enrique frowned as she wiped her bloodied blade on her sleeve.

“I told you to stay behind me.”

“But, Master! Shouldn't I do something too?”

“Watch closely and learn well. That's your job.”

Scarlet eyes blazed in the darkness. The eyes of a vampire driven mad by the scent of blood.

Prizhenkaya's underground waterways. Older than the country itself, the city had expanded its ancient waterways into a tangled labyrinth. Small shadows burst out through the gaps, one after another.

GRRRR!!

In the scant light of the waterways, faintly gray skin came into view. Cave goblins. The miner type.

Enrique frowned and muttered, “I should have seen this coming when the Dwarves appeared on the outskirts.”

Dwarves infiltrated by digging underground passages. Their primary objectives were rear-area infiltration and disruption at the enemy front.

Wherever there was earth, Dwarves could infiltrate. That was the common belief. Naturally, supply lines and maintenance costs meant it wasn't always true, but still.

And once Dwarves had infiltrated an area, one had to assume their passages ran beneath it. In other words, the incident should never have been dismissed as a terrorist attack by a few Dwarven stragglers.

This country had grown soft on peace in a mere four years.

No. That wasn't it. She was no different herself. It simply meant humanity was beginning to forget the war.

Everyone instinctively tried to avoid negative memories. That was human nature. The war had been something akin to a historical trauma, and humanity was overwriting its history with positive memories as quickly as possible.

Thanks to that, civilization was rebuilding at an astonishing speed. It wasn't entirely a bad thing. But she should never have let herself do the same.

Not her. Once known as the ruler of Prizhenkaya's underground waterways, once the rogue of the Hero's Party. And before that—the one who had slaughtered the Elder herself and become king of Prizhenkaya's vampires.

“Lucia. Watch closely.”

Enrique whispered, gripping a dagger in each hand, blades reversed.

Grotesque growls echoed through the entire waterway.

Miner goblins were a race enslaved by the Dwarves. Their appearance on the front lines meant a Dwarven special-operations team was hiding somewhere in that darkness.

She would end it here. So that not a single demon would dare invade the city above.

Enrique drew a breath and shot forward like lightning. Into the countless red eyes blinking in the darkness. Into the countless demons packed like a forest, writhing like insects.

GRRR...

SHING.

The charging goblins suddenly froze. What followed was the sound of blades shearing through bone.

CRRRAAACK!!

The heads of the goblin horde filling the space ahead burst apart all at once.

The lightning that alone had flashed through frozen time finally returned to the world's flow. A delicate artist's single brushstroke. Death woven from light flowed in one seamless line and slipped into its sheaths.

As blood poured down like rain, Enrique walked out through it, loosening her shoulders.

“Because this is the battlefield of the Hero's Party.”

“I could watch closely if I could actually see anything...”

“If you couldn't see it, just feel it. You'll get there someday.”

Enrique patted her disciple's shoulder and set off again.

* * *

RRRRUMBLE...

The street rattles. In this era, roads paved for carriage traffic were made of shaped brick blocks. Those bricks are vibrating, grinding against each other. Cracks spread across roads and building walls alike.

An earthquake? No. No, it wasn't.

That was the sound of excavation. Ivan frowned and immediately kicked off the ground.

He kicked off a wall, flung himself the other way to kick off the next, then back again. Rising like lightning, he was hanging from the rooftop railing of the tallest building in moments.

RRRRUMBLE...

Dust rose, clearly visible even in the falling rain. Buildings shook and the ground twisted. The road writhed like a snake.

Excavation. An assault on a major city. The main force.

Dwarves.

“How...?”

During the last war against the demons, the Dwarves' “main excavation force” had been utterly crushed. It had been one of the demon army's most threatening formations. Wyvern assault battalions in the skies; Dwarven reconnaissance units underground. Forces that imposed an entirely different dimension on tactics.

Consequently, not a single one of the Dwarves' “Earthweb Excavators” remained. Ivan vividly remembered the mission in which they had destroyed the last one.

Yet mounting an assault on this scale—large enough to engulf an entire city—required an Earthweb Excavator.

That was impossible. First, the technology for manufacturing Dwarven excavators had been lost. Second, there was no way an attacking force that large could have tunneled all the way here without anyone noticing.

Counterintelligence Command wasn't incompetent. Besides, Krasilof wasn't even on the front lines. How many countries and cities would they have to cross to reach it? There was no reason to go out of their way to attack this city.

“No.”

None except the Hero's Party. Ivan nodded. So they did have a reason.

But that still didn't answer “how.”

As for the other countries—well, this was a premodern era. Suppose the Dwarves had managed to slip through the countryside, avoiding military encampments and major cities. Fair enough; they might have escaped detection. However extraordinary this world's intelligence units were, how were they supposed to catch moles tunneling underground?

But his own country was different. Krasilof should have known.

A Dwarven terrorist attack had taken place right beside the capital only days ago. With that warning, there was no way the military—especially the capital's Guards Division—wouldn't have probed underground.

The military had known about this. Absolutely. Without question.

“The Central Bank, the amphitheater, Jansk University, St. Chereta Cathedral, North Prachenko Central Police Headquarters...”

Ivan swiftly scanned the trembling city center. Assuming tunnels ran underground and excavation relics were operating beneath the surface, he could pinpoint the quake's centers by tracing back the marks on the ground and the varying intensity of the tremors spreading like a spiderweb.

In other words, those five locations were the centers of this terrorist attack. And all of it was probably a diversion.

The real targets were the Hero's Party's children.

“Lucia should be with Enrique. Exclude her.”

“Isabelle and Oscar are in the same district. Defer them.”

“Elpihera is in the elven residential area. Exclude her.”

“And Esidisi.”

Given where they lived and their individual circumstances, the other children of the Hero's Party had ways of buying at least a little time, whether Dwarves or rebels came for them. That brief window would be enough for Counterintelligence Command to respond.

So, Esidisi. This little girl was in the most danger right now.

TAP.

Ivan kicked off the wall and leaped down.

He didn't know Esidisi's scent. But assuming Morde was with her, he remembered Morde's.

He remembered fighting that fellow at least twice, shedding blood and sweat. Besides, Droan men hardly ever washed. The rain would only delay him; it couldn't throw off his senses.

* * *

“Why... why, brother... why...?”

“Haven't you ever thought it strange?”

Daionar smiled, the unconscious Esidisi slung over his shoulder.

Morde lay on the ground, a sword driven into his belly like a nail. Gasping, he reached out. He couldn't reach his fallen axe. Still, he didn't stop.

He had to protect his niece.

She was his brother's daughter.

And I am his brother.

That was the only reason he needed. That was a Huscarl's duty. Panting, he struggled to reach the distant axe with his trembling hand.

“If the right of kings and rulers to govern others is a divine right bestowed by the Heavenly Father, why does the rule of those who possess it differ so greatly from the heaven described in Scripture?”

“What does that...?”

“I'm joking.”

Daionar looked down at Morde's blank face and chuckled.

Those who neither understood nor even thought to try were nothing but cattle and sheep. Imbeciles who would willingly go to the slaughterhouse, so long as they could eat their fodder despite the herdsman's whip.

“What other reason would I need? My father was a Jarl. There's no law saying I can't be one too.”

“Our brother will never...”

“Forgive me? No, he won't. Ah, good. I don't intend to forgive him either.”

Daionar shrugged and walked toward the mouth of the alley, carrying Esidisi on his back.

RRRRUMBLE...

The tremors continued. Morde lamented his failure as he felt his blood cooling in the rain.

He had failed to protect Esidisi. Caught by surprise, he was dying without even a proper fight.

He would not be worthy of joining heaven's eternal struggle. He would fall to the bottom of hell and dwell there. This was... yes. A fitting punishment.

“Relax.”

“...?”

A low voice sounded above his head. Raising his clouded gaze, he saw a man's rain-soaked face beneath the dark night sky.

“M-my last words...”

“Those are for when you're dying.”

The man reached out and firmly gripped the sword embedded in his belly. With a hideous grinding sound, the blade came free.

Blood welled up in spurts, mingling with the puddles and flowing away. The man looked down at Morde's wound and laid a hand on it.

“This will hurt.”

“Ivan...”

“Yes.”

“My niece, my niece...”

“I'll protect her.”

Ivan tore the cap off a healing potion. Even as he poured it directly into the wound through Morde's abdomen, Morde endured it without a single scream, his eyes bloodshot.

When the first aid was finally done, the exhausted Morde whispered hoarsely, “I'll... trust you.”

Ivan dragged the unconscious Morde beneath an eave out of the rain, propped him up, and covered him with his own coat. So long as the mana within them remained intact, a superhuman whose wounds had closed and who had received enough healing potion would not die of hypothermia.

He pried a scrap of sleeve from Morde's clenched hand. He must have grabbed it reflexively when Daionar attacked. A fortunate break.

He inhaled deeply.

Scent memorized.

Ivan closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, then turned and sprinted into the city's darkness.

RRRRUMBLE...!!

The tremors continued.

* * *

“Today, I will empty the throne of Krasilof. Make your preparations, sir.”

“Yes, Your Excellency. No...”

Dmitry bowed deeply toward the rain-lashed terrace. Three times he struck his forehead against the floor in obeisance, then corrected his slip.

“Your Majesty. I obey your royal command.”

Rain-soaked silver hair shone brilliantly beneath the terrace lights.