Chapter 385 - Esther and Rem

"Stand aside. Do that much, and I will give you everything." Esther looked at the figure appearing before her as an illusion. She had come to find out what they were up to. If they attacked, she intended to show them that they were nowhere near her level. Their response was unexpected. They did not pick a fight. Instead, they cast a spell over a magic circle they had drawn, projecting the image of someone far away. An illusion. 'Quite an elaborate trick, then.'

The thought crossed her mind. A spell that brought an illusion here would require considerable resources. It was effectively bridging a vast distance through spellwork. Creating an illusion and projecting something real were different matters. There were said to be mages who did it through water mirrors and the like, but they were uncommon. It was not Esther's specialty, nor had she ever seen it done. Despite her thoughts, she stood composed, without so much as blinking. A breeze blew past. She had left the capital and reached a nearby forest. The two mages who had made the illusion's magic circle stood to one side, hands respectfully clasped. That was when the other party had appeared as an illusion: Count Molsen, whom she had seen at Encrid's side. "What matters most to a mage is their own world, and a world where their will can prevail. What I offer is clear. What do you say?" He exuded confidence, his manner suggesting there was no reason to refuse such an offer. He was not asking her to help him, or betray anyone, or plot anything against Encrid. He wanted just one thing: for her to take a step back and watch. There was no need even to weigh the two sides. The man before her commanded quite advanced magic. The artifacts, research materials, and other things he offered were precious. Valuable. What he wanted in return, on the other hand, was no great matter. That man knew well what mattered to a mage. The two mages beside her assumed she would naturally agree. Count Molsen had counted on that too. Esther had stayed beside Encrid to remove her curse, but she no longer strictly needed him. She had now used part of the curse to open a new path. That was how things stood. So the offer was indeed attractive. Those resources would let her expand her world and advance further. There was no reason not to accept. Count Molsen looked as though he knew that too, which irritated her, but that hardly mattered. Even if he had planted some trick in it, she had the power to disregard it. Everything she had experienced while suffering under this curse remained intact within her world. Without answering, Esther calmly stared back into the eyes watching her. The illusion had no color. As she met its monochrome gaze, she felt laughter rising. She smiled, then laughed aloud. Both mages beside her turned their eyes toward her. She sensed them flinch. They were ready to try something if matters went awry. As she raised her arm, her coat fell open, revealing the close-fitting clothes beneath. Lust showed in the two mages' eyes. Looking at the illusion and the two mages who obeyed another man's words like his hands and feet, Esther reminded herself who she was. A witch who wielded the fire of a black world. A witch who fought and struggled to forge a world. A witch born to pursue truth through fire. Thus, she would not do something as foolish as let another's will sway her. Thus, this was absolutely not for Encrid's sake. "Oh dear," the count said first.

Something like flames appeared in Esther's eyes. "I will burn you all the same."

With those words, she drew fire from her world for the first time since falling under the curse. Coming this far out had taken time; the sun was nearly setting. "A pity," the count said just before his illusion disappeared.

His tone was so matter-of-fact that she could not tell whether he truly regretted it. "Do you think that man will still be alive?" he asked.

Who else could he mean by "that man"? Esther scoffed at him. "If something like this could kill him, he'd have died long ago."

Was he the sort to die merely because a single mage was absent? 'Merely?'

But was that really the right word to use about herself? Esther considered it briefly, but her body moved of its own accord. Flames rose. The two mages cast spells to resist. It was futile. Meaningless resistance. Their level, what they possessed, and the paths they had traveled were all different from hers.

* * *

Rem thought as he ran. That bastard had something up his sleeve. Should he simply let it happen? That would be fun, but turning the tables on him might be even more entertaining. He decided to do both. Still running, he pulled out a sling. He placed a stone carved into a sphere in its leather pouch, raised the attached cords above his head, and began to whirl it. WHIR, WHIR, WHIR. The light whirling quickly became a shrill whine as it tore through the air. It was as though he ran with a disc above his head. The Ageless Madman darted into an alley without looking back. Rather than follow him in, Rem stepped onto the jutting eaves of a nearby shop and leaped upward. His body soared. He landed on the roof and ran, the disc overhead following him much as his opponent's spears did. The moment he had a clear view from the rooftop, he loosed the stone. Hitting a target with a sling was difficult enough standing still, yet he did it on the run. But Rem was Rem. The stone flew so fast its trajectory was barely visible and struck the back of his opponent's thigh. BANG! But that was not the sound Rem had expected. Why did it sound like a drum bursting? He saw that one of the spear shafts behind his opponent had broken. 'A spell?'

A high-level spell, at that. Where had he picked up something like that? He must have gained it all by murdering his own people. "You're really dead now."

Rem made the vow aloud to himself. That he bothered saying it when his opponent could not hear him showed how firmly he meant it. He fired several more stone bullets, and all four spears following behind his opponent shattered as though bursting apart. Broken pieces of wood scattered through the air. The Ageless Madman kept running, twisting and turning through alleys until he reached an open space. The back-alley crowd called it a square. It was not particularly large, roughly a quarter the size of the capital's central square. There was a square with a fountain at the center of Nauril, but the atmosphere of this clearing was its polar opposite. Still, it had enough room for some twenty grown men to brawl. THUD! This bullet struck the ground. Stone dust rose, and broken fragments flew in every direction. Having lost his spears, the Ageless Madman had rolled across the ground to avoid it. Even so, the next stone bullet finally struck the back of his thigh. Without his specially made, multilayered leather guards, it would have punched a hole through his leg or blown the flesh apart. Neither happened. Instead, he suppressed a groan and stood, limping briefly. Rem discarded the sling with its snapped leather cord and surveyed the people clustered below. With him on the roof, they naturally looked up while he looked down. "Wow. A little hometown reunion, is it?" he said admiringly. Looking them over, he could tell they all came from the West. He recognized no faces, but their air alone told him. Every last one was on the run. The Ageless Madman clutched his thigh for a while before straightening up. It seemed to hurt quite badly. "You bastard. You're not getting out alive." To the Ageless Madman, Rem's very existence was a threat. Left alone, the bastard would keep coming to kill him. That was why he had gotten involved in this affair. His sole objective was to kill Rem. To that end, he had gathered fugitives from the West. Some were men he had taken as disciples; others were mercenary sorts who had come purely for payment. What they shared was that all twenty had been candidates to become Heroes in the West. "That's the one?"

"You gathered all of us to catch one bastard?"

"I feel like I've seen him somewhere."

"They call him Rem the Undying. He's famous around Border Guard."

"Famous? What a fucking joke. If he's hiding out on the frontier, that tells you everything. Undying? What is this bullshit about Velopters shedding scales?" Velopters were a type of reptile used as mounts in the West. Since the scales covering their bodies almost never fell out, talk of shedding scales meant utter nonsense. The gathered men each had something to say. Their voices overlapped, but Rem had no trouble making them out. Several kept their mouths shut, only their eyes gleaming. Every one of those men was "ready." Ready to fire the blowguns and such at their waists. "Exiles always have the biggest mouths."

Muttering, Rem bent his knees and crouched on the roof, surveying the gathered men. Nothing but trash. After watching them, he took a sling from inside his clothes and loaded it securely. Then he reached inside again, drew another sling, and wedged it between his thighs. Using his legs in place of the extra hand he needed, he loaded another bullet. As he moved, the rounded stone bullets clattered against one another in the pouches tied to either side of his waist. Now he held a sling in each hand. He rose and began to whirl them. WHIIIIIR! With the sunlight at his back, two circular discs formed in Rem's hands. They spread diagonally to either side like wings. As he kicked off the roof and leaped, those two discs seemed to hold him in the air like wings. Of course, they did nothing of the sort. It was only an illusion. He flicked both hands, and bullets too fast for the eye to follow began their work with a pair of heavy impacts. WHOOSH! WHOOSH! Half the western fugitives raised shields. Some were thickly padded with leather; others were small shields mounted over the wrist. Those with small shields trusted their own skill. Their knack for deflecting impacts was why they carried shields barely large enough to cover their faces. The heads of two men carrying those light shields burst like smashed pumpkins. BANG! BANG! The sounds were crisp. Blood and brains sprayed through the air. Blood flowed like paint across the canvas of the ground, stained dark gray with filth. The bullets were far faster than expected, twice as fast as the ones that had struck the Ageless Madman who had gathered them here, and correspondingly more powerful. Two western fugitives croaked without even putting up a fight. THUD. THUD.

The two fell backward. Rem landed on the ground and spun his slings again. WHOOSH, WHOOSH, WHIIIIIR! "Block them!" the Ageless Madman shouted. 'Like hell.'

Rem had envisioned the fight from beginning to end. He would start with slings and finish with axes. The Ageless Madman would die here without fail. It was only natural. Time had passed since Rem's encounter with the Ageless Madman. In that time, he had lost to the crazy bastard called Ragna. Even Encrid did not know how deeply that had spurred him on. That spur had made Rem diligent. It made him swing his axes and train. He had even secretly watched Encrid's Isolation Technique, picked up portions he could apply to himself, and incorporated them into his training. This was no time to be picky about cold stew or hot. Rather than worry whether what went into his mouth had been made by a Ghoul or a human, he was busy filling his belly. 'That fucker Ragna.'

Even now, didn't the mere thought of that bastard fill him with strength? He unleashed that anger-fueled power on his enemies. He loosed two more stone bullets at the charging men, and those carrying large shields closed the distance. BANG! BANG! Made from dozens of layers of leather over a tough rubberwood core, the shields withstood the bullets' force. The stones lodged in them without punching through. "Crazy bastard."

One of the shield bearers spoke, his face deathly pale. The stones were far more threatening than he had imagined. But could he afford to lose his nerve here? No. If his resolve broke, neither his spells nor his martial skills would work properly. Whether his opponent steeled himself or not made no difference. Watching the men close in, Rem let go of both slings, though neither had broken, and lowered his hands to his waist. He gripped his axe handles. One of the men who saw the long-handled axe sprang forward. His speed was impossible to dismiss. In the blink of an eye, he was right in front of Rem. It was the Lightning Step spell. As though he had expected it, Rem drew an axe from his waist and thrust it straight out. He was not as fast as the man using Lightning Step, but his timing was perfect. It looked as though his opponent had charged forward expressly to be struck. The man accelerating into the charge became the first victim of his axe blade. THUNK. The upright blade turned the man's head into two. Naturally, a man with his head split in two could not live. His body, however, kept going toward Rem, unaware that it was dead. His hands seized Rem's thigh. Closing in to wrench and break things had been his specialty. He died clutching Rem's thigh. With the man hanging off him, Rem began swinging his axes. WHOOSH, CRACK, CRASH, THUD! Every last one of them was inferior even to Encrid. The Ageless Madman was the only one who posed any real threat. He threw spears that imitated ancestral weapons and attacked with a spear in his own hands. Threatening, certainly, but... 'Nowhere near that fucker Ragna.'

After dancing to that bastard's sword, this much was laughable. Rem's axes split five heads in an instant, then cut off the sixth and seventh men's limbs. The mood turned. They had never been prepared to stake their lives in the first place. That was why they had become fugitives. "The bastard's a monster!"

One man shouted it. The Ageless Madman had just realized the same thing. The instant escape crossed his mind, he hurled every spare spear he had prepared, then grabbed the forearm of a man he called his disciple and threw him too. He did it with a spell that sent a bear's strength surging through him. "Masteeeer!"

The flung disciple's cry was pitiful. Rem swung an axe at the human projectile flying toward him. WHOOSH! THUNK! The Heart of the Superhuman pounded, giving his arm the strength of a Giant. He held his breath, braced, and swung his axe diagonally. A precise slash traced across the approaching human projectile. Through the blade, he distinctly felt flesh, muscle, and bone being severed. The body's weight pressed through his arm. He endured and overcame it, and then, all at once, came a feeling of release. The axe blade had passed through the human body. With a heavy thud, one split human became two, the halves brushing past Rem's shoulders as they fell. The blood spilling between them drenched his entire body. Rem's gray eyes gleamed in his blood-red figure. He could see the fleeing bastard's back. If anyone asked what he had trained hardest since meeting the Ageless Madman, he would answer confidently: his legs. That was why he had even stolen a look at the Isolation Technique to learn it. "If I lose him again, my mother's a Ghoul."

Muttering the turn of phrase he had picked up thanks to Encrid, Rem kicked off the ground. The Ageless Madman bolted, and Rem gave chase without hesitation. There were survivors, but they could only blink. They had survived by luck alone. Their eyes followed Rem and the Ageless Madman. Earlier, it had been a chase too, but one side had laid a trap, and the other had knowingly walked into it. This time was different. There was no trap, and the pursuer meant business. He would be caught and killed in less than half a day at most. Seeing the Ageless Madman's future, they began to move. Staying would only get them killed for nothing.