Prologue

Magnitude Negative: Prologue

A fruit of evil begs for love and it grows

The dense fog swirled around the wagon as it was carried with the wind. The last rays of the autumn sun had already been completely dispersed by the time they reached the ground, and the foggy mass collided and entwined itself with the coachman’s stand on which Seere and Aadah sat. If one were to breathe it in, their throat would be met with an air cooler than any peppermint. The jumbled scent of vegetables and children was crowded into the canopy-covered luggage carrier — It was a sour smell.

Aadah’s caved in nose twitched from inside her bag to sniff the scent. Hidden in the midst of the hazy fog were the full-bloomed tips of flowers and plants that surrounded them from both sides of the marshlands; A red colour with dampened lustre. Every time they lay eyes upon it, it seemed as if they were taking a peek at the internal organs of the world, and Aadah’s chest stirred with a particular kind of burning feeling. The grey muddy road continued, and through the red gap they sewed their way.

The pair was surrounded by the backend of a line of soldiers, Union Logistics Officers and other low-status commanders who had found themselves greatly separated from the central unit. The soldiers, who were hunchbacked and dressed in crooked armour, swam around in the milky white fog. Their shoes made a damp noise against the ground in what was neither a march nor a parade, and while it was more appropriate for them to instead find a place to gather and take shelter, the soldiers pressed on anyway, kicking the mud from beneath their feet.

In front of Aadah, the thin haunches of the three horses that were pulling the carriage were trembling. Pale, pitiful backsides. Castrated male horses. The three rows of manes were wet with fog, and stuck to their neck...They were well-behaved, foolish beasts. How much farther would they go? Aadah gazed at the black whip she rarely got a chance to use. How she wished to be done with this job so she could return them to their favourite pile of crap… The thought, of course, was nothing more than mere projection. The ruthless child kidnapper and Midgard’s most infamous slave trader, “Dream Eater” Aadah Cabrera, sometimes missed her home. Seere, who sat next to Aadah on the coach’s pedestal, was following the pages of a fairytale book with frustrated fingertips. The wet paper sometimes made a noise like that of a blade’s.

“……And so, the world became filled with life once more…”

Mesmerised, the young blond boy read aloud before closing the book. The fog between its pages escaped in all directions. Stirring the milky fog that clung to his tight-covered legs, Seere’s eyes closed shut. Horse-drawn wagons, belonging to a military’s musical band, could be seen clouded ahead in the dense fog. With a bare luggage bed that had no roof and each respective musical instrument in hand, the wagons went in a line, side-by-side, and as Aadah looked upon their green uniforms, she was reminded of matching liquor bottles packed into a box.

One man was holding a tuba like a cannon and blowing etude, the tone monotonous. Yet, being shaken by the bumpy road, that monotony had repeatedly hiccuped. Everyone seemed to be overwhelmed and drunk off the surrounding fog; back when humans were still frightened by hell and the devil, they used to call these sorts of fogs “Devil’s Breath” or “Devil’s Seed.” Aadah herself had always been terrified of the dream she had of a demon appearing in its depths. That dream was always foolishly regarded as a symbol of corruption in a person’s heart, like an incubus or succubus — demons who fondled lovingly such lustful hearts.

The times when humans still believed the depths of their hearts were pure… They haven’t fallen as far as they could fall. There was still much further below them.

…Nowadays, those delusions were no more than a joke. There was such a thing as a true Hell. Mankind, engulfed in their fear of death, had fallen and crashed into it. Workers taken by the army, fields left to devastation, and town markets shut down and closed. The famished people could make nothing of their fields, and roamed with no place to go. Murder, theft, and rape had become common day occurrences. Since the emergence of a group known as “The Empire'', humankind had been steadily losing its heart.

As they made their way to their destination, she often saw corpses rotting and falling apart. By this point she was well exhausted, having sipped on muddied water, taken hold of wild grass, and gone up to this point — but it was either push on, or be killed and abandoned just like them. And she had no time to look back. They were just meat.

There was no way to fall any deeper into Hell.

Aadah let out a burp — something within her stomach like a tapir. A dozen or so years ago… When she was still a thin slavegirl, Aadah had formed a “Pact” with this magical creature. She had lost her face in turn, and since then she had spent most her time wearing a bag with holes in the eyes and mouth, both in public and alone.

Whatever was stuck inside her stomach was, in other words, an old relationship of hers — just like that bag. Aadah had fallen asleep with dreams eaten by that tapir. For the tapir, even if someone had dreams that were fairly limited in nature — even if they were daydreams — it would chew on them all day long. Aadah didn’t know if it was still eating someone’s dream, or pulling her most recent one out from her stomach and ruminating on it. Could it have been playing with the dreams of the soldiers?

Aadah pressed the tips of her fingers to her stomach. The creature had dived deep into the fat beneath, and this time, it had begun turning without hesitation.

The chenilles buzzed. Patches of fog were scattered above her head, leaving her unable to see the cloudy sky that swirled in with the grey. It looked like it was going to rain again… Distant thunder reverberated in the moist air. Seere stowed away his storybook in the large bag that sat in front of him.

“Are we still far away from it, Aadah? From the Elf Village…”

Listening to Seere’s question, Aadah gave a nod.

“Mhm, this direction and beyond even further that. The main unit won’t yet be there… Not to mention this lot here. One little thing and they come to a standstill, fall over and fuss over it. I ought to rip the heads off these cattails and chase them with it… Better they be hit over the head by a general of aristocracy than struck down by the likes of the Empire. …Well. I suppose I have my doubts, knowing how war goes. You arrive on the battlefield as late as you can and collect your results as soon as you can.”

In addition to the wagons which belonged to the military band, there were four wagons loaded with food, two with weapons, and thirty escort soldiers travelling along in the fog. This group was one that was formed to transport troops and reserve weapons — they did no participation in actual battles. As for the military musical band… She didn’t even know what that was for. Aadah wondered if they had intended to sway those gloomy elves with music. Seere let out a sigh.

“The weather is so bad… I think that I’ll end up dying if it stays like this.”

A hidden smile spread over Aadah’s face, and she stroked her chin.

“Oh, my… Just now, had a great mountain of new lives not been born into this world?”

“...I just have a bad feeling,” The blond boy turned his green eyes overhead, “I feel… Like the sky is angry at us.”

Aadah stared silently at Seere’s profile.

Seere… The eternal child, a boy who had lost his time in exchange for the loyalty of Golem. The light peach colour of his skin was damp and wet from the fog — he was only a young boy, and was still innocent in nature. And yet… Behind all that, she could see qualities in him that were far superior to her own as one who had formed a pact. Such a thing could only mean there was a deep-rooted darkness within the boy’s heart. It was the power of the pact, after all — it ate and grew fat from the darkness within one’s heart. But what darkness could have nested itself in the depths of such a young child?

Aadah looked up at the sky alongside Seere. Beyond the fog that was swept up in the wind, she could only see thick clouds. When she listened closely, she could just barely hear the deep bass that pervaded through that sea of clouds. It was a mechanical sound, similar to that of the weapons belonging to the Empire’s soldiers.

Suddenly, Aadah’s crushed-up face was pulled deeper into the bag — Seere had snagged down the sides with a scream.

“What’s wrong?” Aadah asked.

“The sky! Ice is falling from the sky!” Seere cried, all while internally cursing the heavens above them.

Something hit the head of Aadah’s bag, making a muffled noise.

“Ah…” Aadah sighed. “A rain of ice…”

“The Union can’t build flying machines, can they? Why does the Empire have a cannon that can fly in the sky? What can anyone use to fight against that??”

Aadah didn’t answer. His imagination had tied the image to his head, and in turn, a frightened heart rushed to distort it.

A demon whispered to her in a faint sigh.

…Death always comes without pause upon the heads of everyone. Such talk was no more than rubbish… But it was right. She didn’t understand the meaning of it — that there was no salvation.

The dirt road began to make a large turn, a gust of wind blowing away the fog. The military band members that had found Seere were smiling, waving their instruments and hands. Trumpet and cornet players began a joyous theme. The tuba players added a deep bass to their song, and the air had grown somewhat cheerful, mixed in with the faint, mechanical buzz of the sky.

…Aadah shrugged her shoulders while holding onto the reins.

“There are some things you just simply cannot make sense of — such as humans living in the sky.”

Seere looked back down and curled his hands into fists on his lap, a particularly strong gust of wind blowing over the party. Aadah heard a small, metallic-like sound. An unfamiliar shudder of fear had suddenly found itself running down her back. Seere’s body was stiff with anxiety. At the same time, both of them looked back up again — the small warm form that had pressed itself behind Aadah was trembling.

They heard the sound of thunder. The hail that had begun to rain from the sky pierced the mud before them, over and over. The fog was blown away, and before they knew it, their platoon of more than thirty people could be visible beneath the dark sky. From all around them, the blood-coloured stretches of land fluttered in the wind. Horses reared far back in anxiety, and the loud metallic sound continued. In the cart ahead of them, an instrument was struck by ice. The sound of the soldiers' sparse armour echoed throughout the marshlands. Their march came to a halt, as did the music — everyone had their eyes directed up to the dark sky that the hail rained from. Thunder sounded once more ⸺ …No. That wasn’t thunder.

It was the roar of a beast.

Breaking the clouds overhead, some round objects were shot down. There came a flash in the distance, and after a moment, an explosion reverberated through the sky. Though it was clouded between the fog, hail and the overall distance, she had seen that artificial orange colour before ⸺ the Empire’s balloon turret.

Something else had spread its crimson wings, cutting through the wind and flying in the air. From where she had stood, Aadah had no idea how large it was. Orange and crimson scattered fire throughout the sky, and though it was only one creature fighting against the turret, it seemed a large number of them had already lost control.

The fire shot from the fortresses had caught the crimson creature, shells fired in such quick succession that it had lost its shape. A voice, teeming with anger, echoed through the sky.

‘You humans…’

The voice sounded directly to her head. For one reason or another, a feeling of both deep sorrow and awe arose within Aadah. To see such magnificent life, visibly plagued — such a sight was overwhelmingly tragic. A piercing cry rang out; like a groan she couldn’t explain. The cry had started something in the others, and similar sounds welled from here and there, all around them.

…The law of the world that shouldn’t have been broken, was broken there.

With a powerful shout, Aadah clenched her fist and stared at the sky. Cannoballs rained down, greatly demolishing the creature overhead — and they could see it. They could see it as it fell. As the dragon was crushed, it proved to be still safe to carry on — however, no one could find it in them to move.

The huge mass of crimson crashed into the ground before her. Mud scattered. The creature skidded on the ground a couple times, slamming against the mud, and the whole of the the military band’s wagon lay crushed beneath it. The unpleasant sound of both an instrument and a person being crushed beneath the creature sounded at the same time.

And within the blink of an eye… The balloons crashed into the sea of chenilles, and a huge pillar of fire rose with a roaring noise. The fire was extinguished by the hail — the balloon burned, the flames diminished, and again did it began to burn. A mutilated corpse was left on the muddy road, and alongside it were the remains of the wagon. Limbs grew out from inside of the tuba. A trumpet took the place of its head, and the horn that had lodged itself in its abdomen made for metal intestinal organs. The instruments all shone red with flame.

The pitiful military band had turned into nothing more than parts of percussion instruments, and the hail made a metallic rhythm like their last cheerful polka.

The mass of crimson, covered in mud, slowly rose up. From the creature’s head was a pair of pure white, petal-like horns that stood and sprouted up towards the sky, and in its mouth lay a row of sharp fangs. The top of its skin was a brilliant red, and the creature’s throat and stomach coloured ivory. There was a great twist from its thigh to its heel, and the creature’s fierce claws grasped tightly onto the earth. The wings, splayed out from its sides, were now spread to their fullest, and with its neck hung low, the dragon let out another roar that seemed to envelop the stunned, wingless humans.

That roar… It was as if it was jeering at them. Another sounded. Such an ancient dragon… Among dragonkind, this kind was the absolute pinnacle of the world. The dragon’s cries leapt towards the sky, and the stone dragons of the Empire formed a flock which slowly swirled directly above them. Drops of blood spewed from its scales, a string dripping down the heads of the red cattails. It was then that Aadah, who had only been looking over the situation in a state of numbed shock, had returned to her senses.

An arrow stuck out of the bottom of a horse in front of her. Their own horses stood in a ditch, and each of the three hurried to escape in different directions, causing the wagon to shake and tilt. The children in the luggage carrier looked on from shaken perspectives, their expressions, frozen in fear and gradually tilting with the cart. The visage reflected in Aadah’s eyes for a moment as she heard the high-pitched shrieks from the luggage carrier, and the two coachmen were thrown onto the mud.

Aadah had fallen on her hip, and let out a groan of deep pain. Through upside down vision, she saw the horses’ faces sandwiched between the wagon and the ground before her. Her body spasmed frailly, her mouth began to foam with blood.

“Aadah! There are Empire soldiers! Those soldiers from the Empire are here!!”

Seere’s voice met her ears.

Her vision remained upside down. She saw the moving armour of the Empire’s soldiers — flames that shone against silver, hale that shattered upon contact, and together had created a rhythm of madness.

Aadah desperately hurried to get up despite the pain which still rang deep into her hip. When she raised her eyes to look, she saw only one horse remaining that was pulling the cart. It prodded at the mud with its front legs, even given the overturned, slowly-spinning cart it dragged behind it. The cart was out of place, peaceful and slow-moving, and even the screams of the children from inside seemed to be quieted.

Crimson light flashed through her vision, that ray of light grew into a circular wave of heat that spread through the area, and the armour — whether it belonged to soldiers of the Union or the Empire, she didn’t know — was wrapped in flames and blown away in a powerful gust. White clouds of smoke rose. Countless, pale trails of light emitted by the stone dragons bullet through the sky.

The dragons roared, and the humans let out frightened screams and bellows. From where did they come? She couldn’t tell anymore. The grasslands swayed to the point it seemed as if they’d be torn to pieces. Smoke rose, her eyes grew wet with tears, and her surroundings were nothing more than red.

With a slight stagger, Aadah stood up.

“Seere! You have to run away, now!!”

Seere clung to the hem of her clothes.

“My golem! He can help us, and—”

Aadah shook her head.

“The attention of the dragon nor that of the Empire’s soldiers should be drawn. They only need fight each other. This is their battle!”

One of the children crawled out from the slowly spinning luggage carrier, scratching and slapping at the mud. An arrow stuck out from their throat. Aadah crouched down, taking a cabbage that had spilled from the loading platform. With a click of her tongue, she stared at the hood of the cart… The other children were nowhere to be seen. Had most of them fainted, or were they already dead?

Several soldiers from the Empire rushed over the cattails. One more click of the tongue at the handful of silver that was dumped from that wagon.

“If they survived, then I know I can find and bring them back again myself!”

Aadash rushed to the remaining horse, her thick fingers moving skillfully. In the blink of an eye, the harness was off, and the horse was freed from the cart. Keeping her pace with the horse’s excitement, Aadah held the reins in one hand and took the chance to jump on its back.

“Seere, you stay here!” She yelled.

Seere stood in front of a child holding a cabbage, an Empire soldier drawing near to him. A reflection of red shone off a sword drawn from its hilt, both the soldier’s eyes glowing red.

“Seere!” Aadah rushed to reach Seere while on the horse, outstretching her arms as Seere took a few steps back, staring wide-eyed at the Empire soldier — an arm caught him by the back, and with the reins in one hand and Seere in the other, Aadah directed the horse in quick evasion of the sword’s attack.

She could see the figure of the dragon through the fog and smoke — spurting out blood, writhing, choking out random bits of flame — Aadah lowered herself from the horse, plunging into the swampy grounds below. A sharp spike of pain rang through the tapir within her as she pressed Seere firmly against her stomach — the fierce battle between the Empire and the red dragon were far away, and the world was wrapped within the red chenille.

The vibration of the ground could be felt along the horse’s muscles, a probable result of the stone golem which followed after its master.

…Damn. Everything was always ruined one way or another, wasn’t it? Someone must have been cursed by the heavens, and it certainly wasn’t the red dragon or the Empire. Aadah’s attention diverted to the warmth in her arms — the only product left was the one she was holding. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. This one was a lump. This entire happening had to be the biggest loss in a slave trader’s life.

Her head, which should have been the same pitch black it always had been, was now muddied with both confusion and humiliation — Aadah recited over her usual complaints she made when cursing out her poor luck. Those children were supposed to be an accumulated sum of payment for her… Fortunately, however, there was still just one left over. The last product — a product born into this world.

That day of payment had always arrived suddenly, when it reached the time of year that humans started settling their accounts in order — the children brought into a line with their lives, a line that placed them side by side, rather than vertically. Which of them would fall next?

The horse that carried the pair dug up the few droplets of mud that had absorbed the water, the tops of the chenille waving in the wind blown aside and smashed to a pulp in its march onwards. The red meadows where it rained was a rustling, screaming, dazzling red. The terrifying flames rushed through her heart.

The cattails that were forever wrapped in that “Devil’s Breath”, or that “Devil’s Seed”... It was suffocating.

Aadah’s body felt cold, with only the gasping breath of Seere there to warm her heart.