Chapter 161 - There Is a Voice Calling in the Darkness (3)

SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK-SQUEAK!

Someone once said the dawn before sunrise was the darkest hour.

And now, in the city of Moshiam, there were two men cutting through heavy fog at that darkest hour.

Along with an utterly frivolous sound.

"How long do I have to keep pulling this?"

"Until we find it."

"And when do we find it?"

"When we can see it, I suppose?"

"..."

A small vein had already risen on Vlad's forehead as he pulled the handle without pause.

It looked like an ordinary smoker on the outside, but it was so terribly stiff that even with Vlad's grip strength, it was hard to hold for long.

"Anyway, we need to find it quickly. We look incredibly suspicious right now."

"I agree."

Just as Vlad said, the two of them were dressed so suspiciously that if a guard caught them, they would not dare make an excuse.

Nibelun wore a bizarre crow mask, and Vlad had a mask covering his mouth.

Anyone who saw them now would startle in fright, but the two of them had their reasons for dressing this way.

"I will tell you one more time, but you must not remove the mask. What is inside the smoker is poisonous herbs."

"I said I know."

A sharp warning flew at Vlad as he tried to slyly remove his mask.

To burn away falsehood, something more vicious was needed.

The smoker that burned away the false fog was filled with poisonous herb powder specially made by Nibelun.

'That damned cat bastard.'

He cursed inwardly, but he could not bring himself to say it out loud.

Because in an unfamiliar situation like this, even Vlad needed a guide.

And Nibelun, being a mage, was someone with more than enough ability to serve as one.

"One moment."

"Did you find it?"

At Nibelun's words telling him to stop for a moment, Vlad could not hide his delight.

His pride as a knight kept him from saying it, but pulling the strangely stiff smoker was exhausting enough even for Vlad.

"... Yes. I believe I have found it."

Nibelun looked down at his own palm with tense eyes.

A tiny stuffed doll was dancing on top of his palm.

The maker's handiwork was not very good, so its button eyes were dangling loose, but the way it danced made it seem almost alive.

"It is over there."

"Hmm."

The place the dancing doll was pointing to.

Pressed close against the wall of an alley, Vlad and Nibelun looked in the direction indicated by the doll's blunt fingertip.

"... Looks like we came to the right place."

"So it seems."

The outskirts of the city, without a single person in sight.

Where the two men were looking, there was a sign swaying slowly in the wind with a creak.

-Saint Focus Public Cemetery-

The place they had reached by burning away the false fog and following the doll's guidance was the public cemetery prepared in the city of Moshiam.

"Why are you not going in?"

"You've been leading the way this whole time."

"We have found the destination, so that is enough. Please lead the way."

"... Now that I think about it, I think I hated cats."

With a grumble that dogs really were the best after all, Vlad and Nibelun switched places.

As they looked at the cemetery, the sound of dry swallowing came from both their mouths at once.

* * *

The strange curse that had spread among the children of Moshiam was accompanied by the following symptoms.

Deep sleep, the same dream, and a gradually dropping body temperature.

And here, the same symptoms were appearing in the young acolyte who had just woken up.

"Are you cold? Shall I bring you another blanket?"

"Uuuuh... Yes."

Seeing Jean shiver as soon as he woke from sleep, the holy knights around him could only make bitter faces.

Moshiam was full of parents who had lost children, and the final appearances of the children they described as if vomiting the words out matched exactly with the behavior Jean was showing now.

"Did you sense anything suspicious in the dream?"

Justia wrapped her arms around Jean's trembling shoulders and did her best not to frighten the boy, but too much had already been shown for that.

The holy knights surrounding the bed, and the people writing down every word he said without omission.

No matter how dull a child was, in a situation like this, he would have no choice but to realize something had gone wrong.

"... Um, well."

"Please tell us."

Justia's voice was warm, but Jean's lips only mumbled.

The young acolyte, anxious among unfamiliar surroundings and people, turned his gaze toward a familiar head of blond hair.

At the boy's eyes, as if asking for help, Vlad quietly moved to the bedside.

"Please tell us, acolyte. If you do not speak, we cannot help you."

"But..."

"Do not worry."

Vlad took hold of Jean's trembling shoulders and looked straight at the young acolyte.

"Look. I still have not let you go."

A guide who had stayed with him until now at Andreas's request.

At Vlad's words, telling him that he was still under his care, Jean's wavering eyes slowly began to settle.

"I do not know about any wicked aura..."

"Yes."

"But there was something I definitely felt."

Not an ordinary child, but an acolyte directly under Bishop Andreas.

The boy who had long grown up in God's embrace was testifying.

"The campfire I saw in the dream... I definitely felt holiness from within it."

"... Pardon?"

At Jean's sudden answer, both Justia, who had been asking the question, and Gunther, who had been standing behind with his arms crossed, stopped what they were doing.

A campfire that had been as warm and peaceful as a mother's embrace.

The young acolyte said he had felt a holy aura from within it.

"... A holy aura?"

"What in the world is this?"

A holy aura mixed into an ominous dream.

As everyone grew agitated by Jean's completely unexpected answer, there was one man moving quickly on his own.

"Eek!"

"Thank you for your efforts."

Jean let out a shrill scream at the sudden prickling sensation he felt at the back of his head, but Vlad, who had his arms around Jean, merely stroked his hair as if nothing had happened.

"Do not worry. Rest a little now."

"... Yes."

Watching Jean scratch the back of his head in confusion, Vlad quickly covered him with the blanket.

At the fingertips of Vlad's hand that had been stroking the young acolyte were a few strands of hair, damp before anyone knew it.

They were Jean's hairs.

* * *

"The place indicated by the curse I cast is certain. Please lead the way."

"I said I got it."

Jean's hair was tied to the doll that was still dancing even now.

An ominous mage, a plague doctor chasing death.

The method Nibelun had chosen to identify the source of the curse transmitted through dreams was to cast a curse on Jean himself.

"We do not have time. Dawn will break soon."

"I said I know."

Having tied his own thread to the end of the unknown dream, Nibelun had splendidly accomplished the task Vlad wanted.

And from now on, as Nibelun had just said, it was time for Vlad to take the lead.

'We cannot call for support either...'

The problem was not affiliation, but time.

The curse drifting through Moshiam was hidden in the fog, floating here and there like faint bubbles.

It meant that if not now, even this place they had gone to such pains to find would soon become useless.

"I cannot climb over the wall, though?"

"Aren't you a cat?"

"I am not a cat. I am Beastfolk."

"... Bullshit. Seriously."

Vlad had nimbly climbed onto the wall of the public cemetery, but Nibelun below was merely standing still, blinking his eyes.

"Keek!"

"You're a lot of work."

Vlad practically slung Nibelun over his shoulder and crossed the wall, then quickly scanned his surroundings as soon as they entered.

The atmosphere of the public cemetery instantly sank even the irritation from moments before.

Beneath the thickly settled fog, countless names of the dead were packed tightly together.

'The fog has grown thicker.'

At the ominousness growing thicker and thicker, even Nibelun, who always seemed to be missing some part of his mind, was tense, his ears pricked sharply.

Perhaps it was just his imagination, but he even felt a small vibration from beneath the ground he was standing on.

-There is a voice calling in the darkness; when I turn my head toward that place...

The sound of an incantation reached the two, who were hiding between tombstones and holding their breath.

The suspicious incantation, which anyone would find strange, was coming from the innermost part of the cemetery.

"Let's go."

"Yes."

The knight who wanted to break the curse and the mage who wanted to see death both had their eyes gleam at the same time.

The closer they followed the incantation, the more violent the doll's dance became.

-If I am with You, I believe I will not be led astray even by those eyes watching in the darkness.

"Three, four?"

"From what I can see, four."

The public cemetery at the darkest dawn before daybreak.

There, a magic circle was giving off a faint light.

It was a magic circle drawn by unidentified men circling the land of the dead.

"They are completing the formation through the incantation. I do not know exactly what they are trying to do."

"In any case, you're saying we should stop it before it is complete."

The more the faint incantation continued, the brighter the magic circle drawn on the ground became.

The brighter that magic circle became, the more urgency began to settle in Vlad's heart.

'Still!'

Still, he had to know the enemy and understand the situation in order to resolve the crisis.

Auguste's teaching that cleaved through darkness was showing Vlad the way.

There were four men wandering the cemetery.

Among them, two were inside the formation.

And there was one unidentified jar placed within the magic circle.

"Can you break that jar?"

"If it is just the jar."

"Good."

At Vlad's words, Nibelun rummaged through his backpack this time and took out a slingshot.

Looking at him as he pricked his ears as if ready, Vlad quietly closed his left eye.

'Make the first strike flashy.'

Within a deep breath, a piece of advice the old voice had given him before rose in Vlad's mind.

In Vlad's closed left eye dwelled a golden light more brilliant than any color.

* * *

"...!"

"Who goes there!"

One golden streak that did not belong here at all.

The strike Vlad revealed at last was so fast the men dared not react to it.

"Gah!"

'One!'

He cut down one of the two outside the formation.

The man had not even noticed Vlad coming.

"Stop him!"

"No! Protect the bishop first!"

He could see the man inside the formation hurriedly drawing his sword.

But it was too late.

CRACK!

'Two!'

The second man saw Vlad coming, but he could not draw his sword in time.

He had been bewitched by Vlad's brilliant color.

"Protect the sacred vessel!"

SCREEEEAM!

The man who seemed to be the leader of the group hurriedly pointed at the jar, but the suspicious jar was Nibelun's share.

From the slingshot he fired, a sharp, unknowable wail of a ghost rang out.

SHATTER!

The jar broke with a sound like a woman wailing.

The scent spreading from within it was the clear fragrance of herbs.

"I was wondering who it was!"

In an instant, Vlad had cut down two of the four and even broken the suspicious jar.

Standing before the man who seemed to be the leader of the group, Vlad confirmed his face and showed him a fierce smile.

The man, unable to hide his flustered expression at the sword aimed at him, was also someone Vlad knew well.

"What brings you here, Bishop Pierre!"

"Damn it!"

It had truly been in the blink of an eye.

The only man who had not been subdued tried to approach, but Nibelun's slingshot was already aimed at him.

"Were you the one spreading the curse here?"

"I am a faithful servant of God and a bishop of the Vatican! Do you think I would commit such an act!"

"Then why are you here!"

The broken jar and the subdued men.

And the triangular formation that was slowly losing its light.

Bishop Pierre burst with anger at Vlad, who had ruined everything he had planned.

"I came here to dispel the curse! You stupid brat!"

"As if I would..."

Believe that.

You are the man who sold false indulgences and pinned that sin on me.

RUMBLE...

However, Vlad could not bring himself to say the words that had reached his lips.

"Now everything is ruined! This is because of you!"

"...!"

Beneath the darkest sky, the triangular formation was gradually losing its light.

The vibration coming from below it grew larger and larger, until it finally began to throw Vlad off balance.

"What the hell were you doing here!"

"Aaaaargh!"

A vibration so enormous it even swallowed Vlad's voice.

But there was a scream from someone that even cut through that vibration.

"Help me!"

The man Nibelun's slingshot had been aimed at.

He was now dangling in midair.

At the tips of his feet clung something like a mass of unidentifiable tentacles.

"It is the Tree of Qliphoth! The will of God speaking in reverse!"

The massive body had finally burst through the land of the dead.

Branches toward the earth, roots toward the sky.

And leaves that ate darkness instead of light.

The thing that finally revealed itself was a single tree, hanging all the laws of the world upside down.

"Bishop-!"

SPLAAAT!

The man who had been crying pitifully in midair was finally torn in half along the roots.

The innards that poured down with a wet patter fell over the broken jar.

"What the hell is that..."

"Now we cannot even run!"

The land of the dead, where only Vlad, Nibelun, and Pierre stood.

The triangular formation drawn beneath them was only giving off a faint light.

"If you want to survive, help me! We must complete the formation!"

"Lord Vlad! Hurry! This old man is right!"

At Pierre's shout that they had to complete the formation, Nibelun, grasping the situation, hurriedly placed Vlad at one of the vertices of the triangle.

"What do you want me to do!"

"Pour out your aura!"

Nibelun quickly moved into the place where the broken jar had been.

Vlad stood in the place of the man he had cut down.

"Call forth that world of your own you were so proud of!"

And Bishop Pierre recited the prayer.

Three men standing before the wicked tree.

-There is a voice calling in the darkness; even if I turn my head toward that place...

The voice had said it before.

That there were only three ways to break a wicked curse.

-If I am with You, I believe I will not be led astray even by those eyes watching me!

A knight with a world of his own.

A mage who went against the rules of the world.

And an exorcist priest who wielded the will of God.

The prayer shouted beneath the darkest sky rang out loudly along the fog of Moshiam.

Along with it, the triangular formation shone.

It was an exorcism formation that drove out wicked beings.

Worlds in Contact

There was a sad city with no rightful master.

A city where the flags of seven families flew, yet no one took responsibility.

It was a city where even parents who had lost children wept with bated breath, but there was one office there that kept its lights on even this late at night.

"... I cannot find it."

Gunther was frowning beneath the dim candlelight.

He had an old-looking tome open and was concentrating on finding something.

"There is absolutely nothing that fits."

The thick book he had open was called the Old Demon Compendium, a book that recorded every demon that had appeared in human history.

However, even while flipping through a book that was practically a treasure of the Church, Gunther's expression showed no sign of easing.

"... Is it a new demon?"

All wicked things leave traces behind.

They may change over long years, and they may be hidden by intention, but their source cannot be hidden.

However, only after turning the final page of the Old Demon Compendium was Gunther able to realize it.

That the wicked aura now drifting through Moshiam was a new being, unrecorded even in the Church's long history.

BOOOOM!

"Kuh!"

Gunther had just closed the book with a sigh when he staggered at the huge vibration he suddenly felt beneath his feet and grabbed hold of the desk.

"An earthquake?"

The furnishings in the office fell as though an earthquake had struck.

However, Gunther was even more shocked by the chilling aura spreading along the fog than by the vibration rumbling beneath his feet.

"...!"

Gunther hurriedly opened the window and looked outside.

The first thing that greeted him when he opened the window was the prickling sensation of fog clinging to him.

At that sharp-edged feeling, Gunther could tell something had gone wrong.

RUMBLE!

Gunther tried to hurry and wake the holy knights at the sudden situation, but the sight that soon unfolded was enough to make even him stand dumbstruck.

"Solemn... Exorcism?"

The darkest dawn before daybreak.

Far away on the outskirts of the city, there was a pillar of light piercing through that darkness.

Though still pale and thin, the pillar, clearly reaching the sky, was the only lighthouse shining in a sea made of fog.

* * *

"...!"

Though he was reciting the prayer ceaselessly with his mouth, Pierre's eyes never left the two men.

The lowly Beastfolk mage and the blond brat he would not be satisfied with even if he chewed him up.

Yet in Pierre's eyes as he looked at the two, there was not anger, but only a peculiar gleam.

'This makes absolutely no sense...'

Even to Pierre, the current situation was a series of events he could not understand at all.

The wicked tree that had suddenly burst from beneath the ground was one thing, but what surprised Pierre even more than that was the pillar of light touching the sky.

"So what the hell am I supposed to do!"

This was not an exorcism formation he had expected to extend this far.

But the pillar of Solemn Exorcism now rising above the exorcism formation was taller and more brilliant than Pierre could have imagined.

"The formation we are standing in is a kind of amplification formation! It gathers power to the person standing at the corner!"

Nibelun was equally flustered, but as a mage who chased mysteries, he could at least recognize what the formation he was standing on meant.

"And?"

"You are to cut! That thing!"

The light of Solemn Exorcism grew clearer as Pierre's prayer grew louder.

Looking at the broken jar and quick-wittedly realizing his role, Nibelun hurriedly formed hand seals, connecting the light of holiness with lines of mystery.

"You simply need to do what you have always done!"

A triangle where points and lines touched, and lines and points connected.

And at the final corner where they connected stood none other than Vlad.

'Grrrrgh!'

The sword of the World Tree in his grip grew hot.

But that heat was not pain, only the cry of a shell about to break.

It was not only the city of Moshiam that was rumbling with a great vibration.

Vlad's world, which had come into contact with a new boundary, was now shaking along with it.

'Isn't this going to turn into something terrible?'

Faced with a situation both within and without, Vlad suddenly felt afraid, but that did not mean he could let go of the sword in his hand.

GRRRRRAAAAAAH!

Because the upside-down tree, having noticed the anomaly, began to roar.

With fog as clouds and earth as sky, the Tree of Qliphoth raised its sharp roots toward the pillar of light rising in the proper direction.

"Lord Vlad!"

"You stupid brat! Hurry up and swing!"

Between prayer and spell formula, Pierre and Nibelun's urgent voices reached him.

The worlds of holiness and mystery were within, and the approaching threat was in reality, so the only being that could strike it down now was Vlad's sword, glowing blue with heat.

"Damn it!"

The shadow of roots darker than darkness.

Seeing the beginning of destruction cast over his head, Vlad had no choice but to grit his teeth and raise his sword.

The pitch-black world bearing down on him was not something that would wait until he was ready.

["...!"]

That was why it was needed.

Even for me, who believed I had become an adult but was still awkward.

["Fold the boundary of the world! Make them lean on one another!"]

"...!"

Thanks to the holiness and mystery touching its boundary, Vlad's world was being shaken wildly.

A single bubble hidden deep within that world finally began to rise to the surface.

The name of that world, of which only traces remained, was none other than voice.

["Add height to your world!"]

My world is a point.

What touched you is a line.

And what was made from that was a plane.

When those lean together, what is made is another world.

The boy's world had always been looking up at the sky.

"Kuh!"

Following the advice of the voice that rang through his soul, Vlad's world slowly began to take shape.

Along the folded planes, he folded holiness, folded mystery, and folded his own world to create a triangular pyramid.

And Vlad's world, rising toward the sky that way, had a shape almost like that of a tree.

RAAAAAH!

The light of Solemn Exorcism that had touched the sky began to narrow rapidly.

Like a cluster of light forming at the highest point of a triangular pyramid.

However, the light that had grown sharper by being narrowed still hung from the tip of Vlad's sword.

"Grrrrgh!"

Bearing a light heavier than a great mountain, Vlad swung his sword with all his might.

What we need is only a very small piece of advice and encouragement.

If we are where we should be, anyone can swing correctly.

"Uaaaaaah!"

A thin line moved along the trajectory of the sword.

The light that had touched the sky crossed over the city of Moshiam and vigorously formed a single semicircle.

RAAAAAAAH!

A trajectory that began from holiness, was led by mystery, and was drawn by possibility.

The tree, inverted in every way, could only stretch out its pitiful roots toward the sword approaching it.

SLASH!

Above the cemetery of the city where dawn was breaking.

There, dark-red rain was falling now.

Though it had been inverted in every way, at least the blood that flowed from it fell properly toward the earth.

* * *

"... What in the world is this?"

Gunther, who had hurriedly led the holy knights to the public cemetery, lost his words at the sight before him.

A public cemetery entirely filled with dark-red blood.

The ground he stepped on and the tombstones he saw were all painted scarlet, and on that land, there was only one thing Gunther could say.

"What in the world happened here, Sir Vlad?"

"Ugh."

The breaking dawn shone on the exorcism formation that still faintly remained.

And there, three people lay collapsed and panting.

Among those three, Vlad, who had borne the greatest burden, greeted Gunther while lying down with a truly subtle expression.

"We found the culprit."

"What culprit?"

"The culprit who took the children."

Gunther turned his head in the direction Vlad's fingertip pointed.

Then what he saw there was a single tree split halfway open.

It was a huge tree that looked as if it had grown for a hundred years.

"... It is breathing?"

However, Gunther had no choice but to frown as he looked at that tree.

Because the tree, which was still spitting out blood even now, was giving off an eerie aura that every holy knight here could feel.

"Cough... Hah. You stupid brat."

While all the holy knights had their attention fixed on the Tree of Qliphoth, Bishop Pierre dragged his exhausted body over as if crawling and quietly whispered into Vlad's ear.

"They say the Swordmaster of old swung his sword bearing the will of God, yet you could not even handle the holiness of a single bishop."

"..."

He was happy that he had split the tree, and relieved that he had survived, but Vlad could not help wearing a subtle expression.

"It hid away again, so this time it will not be easy to drag it out. What will you do now?"

"Would you shut up?"

Beside the root that was still vomiting blood, there was one thick bloodstain.

At the end of the bloodstain, stretched long as if something had been dragged away, there was a hole whose depth could not be measured.

That deep hole, which he feared even to look at, was also the place the completely inverted tree had crawled up from.

"... Hoo."

Looking at the hole of unease, Vlad closed his eyes as if he had no choice.

The tree had escaped, and Pierre beside him was sneering, but even so, Vlad decided not to grow impatient.

["Well done. For your first time, this is more than enough."]

The voice could not be heard again now, but the encouragement still lingering in his ears had clearly told him he had done well.

Quietly mulling over that sound, Vlad nodded and rose to his feet.

The morning sun rising today lingered in Vlad's blond hair.

* * *

There was a forest older than the history of the Empire itself.

To be precise, it was a forest bordering the northern Barony of Uthman and the central frontier region where Dobrechiti lay.

The forest, which divided the two regions as precisely as if someone had scratched a line with a fingernail, was so vast and deep that even adventurers were reluctant to enter it.

"Ah..."

From a crumbling mansion in the middle of that place came a woman's deep sigh.

The woman, who was looking north with the rising morning sun, was clasping her hands together without even wiping the tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.

"Who in the world tormented my children? Children who have not even been born yet."

They were seeds she had barely managed to sow through a fair transaction.

Her eyes, directed north, were filled with helpless sorrow.

It was like the gaze of a mother looking at her wounded child.

"This will not do. I must go see for myself."

Though she was clearly standing, the tips of her feet dangled without touching the ground.

The tips of her feet, floating in the air as if tied somewhere, refused the existence of the ground that all living things had to pass over.

"You will come with me, won't you? There in the north, not only are my children there, but there is also what you want."

Inside the crumbling mansion were many who were dead yet not dead.

But among them, there was one she cherished most of all.

"There is a dragon there. The dragon you tried to kill."

"..."

At her words, delivered like a whisper, the man slowly opened his eyes.

However, the reason he opened his eyes was probably because of one word he heard beside his ear, rather than her words asking him to come with her.

"... Dragon."

"Yes. A dragon."

The man's voice was terribly cracked, as if he had not used it in a long time.

But though it was unpleasant to hear, the word he uttered was clear.

The man who had opened his eyes at the word dragon.

In those eyes, hidden beneath pure white hair, lay ash-gray pupils that held no light at all.