Chapter 25 - Attack (2)

Katya Heinkel Craven was quite notorious even within military headquarters. A stubborn lone wolf who thought the world revolved around her, with a terrifying propensity for charging headlong into action.

If she wanted something, she shut everyone else out until she got it. Anyone who interfered would not be forgiven. Above all, she stuck her nose into absolutely everything involving the Lionhearted’s husband.

It wasn’t that she disliked people; she simply didn’t care about them. Her personality drove that distinction home with excruciating clarity.

So it would be fair to say that anyone seeing her now was experiencing cosmic horror. The sight of Katya trotting down the corridor with a bright, sunny smile was alien enough to warrant that description.

“Oh, good morning!”

Apparently, one servant who received that greeting even backed away without thinking. Normally, the mere act of making eye contact prompted her to grill people for information about Aiden, badgering them with demands that this be done one way and that another. Anyone would have reacted much the same way to such a change.

“Hee-hee.”

And when she wandered about making silly noises like that, the fear only doubled. This wasn’t the usual smile that somehow made anyone looking at it uneasy. She looked genuinely so delighted she hardly knew what to do with herself.

As she carried that confusion through military headquarters, Katya clutched the hip flask Aiden had given her recently to her chest.

‘Friends!’

Really, she couldn’t help it. Every time that word happened to cross her mind, she reacted like this without meaning to. What was she supposed to do?

“Hee-hee-hee...”

Making another sound that inflicted metaphysical terror on someone, Katya headed outside. Even she wasn’t sure where she was going or why. She simply felt so full of life that she couldn’t sit still for a moment.

That distraction was probably why she reacted a little slower than usual to the “something” that suddenly came hurtling toward her.

“—!”

It ripped through the peaceful scene in an instant, an act of violence extreme enough to be called terrorism. Even distracted, her abilities were undiminished: she managed to jerk her head back and dodge it. Preventing collateral damage, however, was another matter.

Screams erupted all around as a massive iron bar shattered the headquarters windows. There were four in all—long iron bars plastered with talismans of every description, almost wrapped in them. They came crashing through the building one after another and embedded themselves in a square around Katya.

‘A barrier?’

Suppression Pillars. Made in the Far East, these sacred objects were lavishly imbued with shamans’ power to control ferocious mountain gods. Designed to restrain savage beasts said to overturn mountainsides with a roar, they were among the most efficient tools available for “suppressing” a target.

‘They’re using these on me?’

Such objects were rare even in their homeland, whose borders lay an entire continent away. Seeing them in the Empire was no easy matter. Anyone capable of acquiring them was likely to possess very, very, very considerable power or connections.

Using them to single out Katya for an attack was strange, too. Who was behind this, and why?

Before she could even finish sorting through those questions—

VMMM!!

VMMMMM!!

The four Suppression Pillars embedded around her resonated with one another. Then the talismans covering the iron bars flew at her, adhering to her body until she was practically wrapped in them.

Her divinity was being whittled away. True to their purpose of draining an opponent’s strength, they weakened her supernatural power fast enough for her to feel it happening.

Then the talismans resonated with the pillars, “tearing out” the entire surrounding space. Her surroundings changed in an instant. Clearly, they had transported her elsewhere, barrier and all.

She blinked once and took in the new scenery piece by piece. A broad clearing. She didn’t know how far she had traveled from headquarters, but she could tell they had chosen an isolated place without a soul in sight. They didn’t want anyone witnessing what was about to happen here.

Sure enough, several armed men were waiting around her.

“Who are you people?” Katya asked, tilting her head.

“You kidnap me out of nowhere in broad daylight, and now you’re going to gang up on me?”

“...”

“Are you sure you can handle the consequences?”

Instead of answering, everyone surrounding her erupted with multicolored energy. Katya’s eyes narrowed slightly.

‘Knights?’

The colors into which their energy divided were condensed into three or four at most. They handled energy of a density ordinary people could scarcely imagine. Anyone who had developed their energy training this far had to be a knight—and a reasonably skilled one at that.

They were plainly in a different league from Noel, whose pure-white energy emerged as a single color. Still, this many of them together posed an enormous threat in their own right. And now, every one of those knights charged her at once.

But even so...

‘Do they know what they’re picking a fight with?’

Katya tilted her head and intertwined her fingers in a hand sign symbolizing Sier, the god of purification. An immense amount of divine power poured from her body. Despite the Suppression Pillars’ influence and the suppression talismans plastered all over her, she still had more than enough supernatural power at her disposal.

Wasn’t picking a fight with someone like her far too reckless? Born with so much of it that she struggled even to “shed” it herself, she unleashed those flames in a destructive eruption.

Or, to be precise, she was just about to.

“...”

Poised to lash out with her divinity, Katya hesitated and stopped. As though only now had she finally “remembered” something. In that interval, the slash flying toward her cut through her body.

“... She’s not fighting back?”

“...”

At the bewildered voice nearby, Sir Levant frowned behind his visor. This was certainly baffling. Given whom they were facing, they had weakened her twice over and brought several additional “countermeasures” besides. Yet their opponent seemed to have little intention of resisting.

‘... That bastard said this wouldn’t be easy.’

Remembering the minister of administration’s obnoxious face, Sir Levant sighed inwardly.

“... All the better.”

But instead of speculating about the cause, he raised his sword again, steeling his resolve. In any case...

“You’ve all heard the information already.”

Here was a chance to earn an imperial prince’s protection and screw over the people around that insufferable Lionhearted, all for doing a little dirty work.

“She doesn’t die easily, so don’t hold back. We brought her here with shamanic magic. It’ll take any search party a while to find us.”

Whatever state their opponent was in, they would simply do what they had come to do.

▣

Naturally, military headquarters was engulfed in unprecedented chaos. How could it not be, after what amounted to a terrorist attack in broad daylight? But what made the confusion worse was the question of where on earth Katya had been “transported.”

No one could track a person transported through shamanic magic. Naturally enough, no one had any experience wielding that power. Except for one person, who had rushed straight out of headquarters saying he would find her somehow.

[“Mr. Aiden, have you found her?”]

“Somehow, yes!”

[“How in the world did you manage that?!”]

Dame Noel sounded appalled. It was a natural reaction, considering he had casually accomplished alone what even headquarters, with all its elites, hadn’t dared attempt. Even Aiden hadn’t been certain it would work.

‘Come to think of it!’

When Katya first met him, hadn’t she seemed to come looking for him as though she “knew” he was there? She had even seen through his disguise. Wondering whether she had an ability related to that, he had searched her skill window—and hit the jackpot.

-System Message

▶ Copying ‘Divinity Manipulation: Resonance.’

-Skill Info

◆ Divinity Manipulation: Resonance (Sacred Body)

Wielders of divinity are highly sensitive to one another’s presence. Easily track a target’s whereabouts!

Thank goodness he had two opportunities to copy Katya’s skills. He had no reason to begrudge using one immediately in an emergency like this!

“I’ll give you the location, so send backup right away! I’m going ahead!”

[“Wait, Mr. Aiden! It’s dangerous to go alone—”]

Before she could finish, Aiden dashed toward the divinity he could sense. It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for.

Explosions. Air swept aside. Trails of energy everywhere. Several knights were relentlessly raining attacks on the lone figure at their center.

“A search party? This soon—”

He saw someone point a sword toward him as they spoke, energy condensing at its tip. Then someone else hurriedly caught the knight’s wrist to stop them.

“That’s the Lionhearted’s husband. If you attack him directly, we won’t be able to contain the fallout!”

“... Tch!”

While everyone faltered at those words, Aiden pushed straight past them and ran to Katya without a moment’s hesitation.

“...”

Their attacks might have been halted midway, but all these knights were still openly hostile. Yet Aiden seemed utterly indifferent to their presence.

“Katya, are you all ri—”

His words stopped short. Katya was battered beyond recognition.

She was curled up, as though cradling something between her knees. Her clothes were in tatters. Horrific cuts covered her body, along with countless dark bruises. Just how long had she been taking this beating? She wasn’t even regenerating properly; the wounds remained.

“Why...”

Aiden took off his coat and draped it around her, gritting his teeth.

“Why did you just let them beat you until you were like this? You’re more than capable of defending yourself.”

“It’s nothing. You know me. It doesn’t even hurt.”

Her reply was so quiet it was almost a whisper, barely rising from the ground.

“That’s not the point—!”

“You told me not to fight.”

... Aiden froze. Certainly, Katya was not someone who would ever stand there blankly taking a beating until she ended up like this.

[“Don’t go picking pointless fights with people. And try not to hurt anyone if you can help it.”]

... And she wouldn’t have, had she not remembered that someone had recently asked her to do just that. Aiden’s thoughts raced on.

‘If they’re knights...’

Knights belonging to an order were public faces of the imperial military, each with an established standing. Politically and militarily, they were considered personnel of the highest caliber. If this many of them had something “unfortunate” happen to them at her hands, that could cause trouble for Aiden.

So, even though this woman was perfectly capable of subduing her opponents, she had simply stayed where she was and let them beat her until she was like this.

“...”

As he struggled to find anything to say, his hand brushed against her body while wrapping the coat around her. She flinched as though an electric shock had run through her. Then she curled up even tighter, as if she absolutely refused to show him the front of her hunched body.

“Are you hurt? Let me see.”

“W-wait, th-this—”

Katya’s voice was uncharacteristically flustered, but Aiden ignored it and pulled her arms apart. There, inside her embrace, he saw the object she had kept clutched tightly to her throughout the beating.

The hip flask. The thing he had recently given her as a “token of friendship.” Despite keeping it so carefully sheltered, she had apparently failed to protect it in the end. It was mangled and broken in two.

“...”

As Aiden stood speechless, Katya spoke in a faintly trembling voice.

“Are we...”

Only then did he really look at her face for the first time. She was desperately trying to wear her usual smile. But its edges trembled in a way even Aiden could recognize at a glance, taut with unmistakable anxiety.

“Are we still friends?”

“—”

“I, I c-couldn’t protect it any better than this—”

Was that why she had stayed here, taking the beating without even running away, until she ended up like this? Because she feared it would be damaged even more? Because she was afraid that if the “token” broke, they wouldn’t be friends anymore?

“—”

Aiden closed his eyes briefly and drew a deep breath. Some time passed before he managed to speak rationally.

“Yes. Of course we are.”

“... Really?”

“So, would you wait just a moment?”

He turned his gaze toward the surrounding knights, their swords still raised.

“As your friend, I need to make these bastards pay for what they did to you.”

Then, all at once, supernatural power erupted around his body.