Magnitude Negative: Earth

Translator: Barnabism and Bri

A canary having no spirit of sharing will kill time ​

1

It was at the time that evening had faded well into night, the various sounds of chatter, hustle and bustle meshing and melting into each other in a sort of basin. Through the overwhelmingly stagnant air of the tavern’s dining hall, a cool autumn’s breeze drifted in. And between the intoxication of dreams and alcohol, Aadah’s consciousness was lost. The sound of her name being called was what brought her to lift her heavy head, shaking it several times to wake herself up — Aadah glanced around her surroundings in confusion.

The ceiling that had separated the tavern from the outside world was nothing more than a single wood-coloured bannister — a few cheap rugs, piled atop of one another, were also visible. Drunk people sprawled across the ground. The din surrounded her with a flood of noise. Among those drunk, some were motionless, while others giggled and waved their limbs as if swimming across the ground. Others sang three different songs randomly at the same time, staring blankly into the stars with their mouths agape as if looking at a butterfly that wasn’t there. The fishy, bloody stench of some creature coiled around the air.

The remnants of the dream she had seen up to that point still lingered deep within her, and a sour stench was left behind.

She couldn’t remember her dream anymore. As soon as the details had begun to fade, the fragments left incomplete had simply disappeared without a trace. All she felt was the faint stir of night in the tent village.

The sight of the figure of a young boy tiptoeing nimbly through the crowded den of people had caught her eye — Seere, having noticed Aadah’s gaze, waved his hand. After a moment Aadah raised a hand up to her shoulder and dropped it down weakly. Fixing her eyes ahead, before her was the sight of a man on the table, the flames of a nearby bonfire glimmering against a puddle of drool.

“Aadaaaah!” Seere called her name again, his face freezing in shock at the projection of the dancing flames on the table. “Wow, isn’t that neat? It’s like a whole flood of fire!”

“That’s what it feels like, to dream…” Aadah signalled with her eyes at the edge of the other table, rousing herself from her seat made of piled rubble.

As she stood, a feeling of hunger began to dawn on Aadah. She allowed for Seere to sit down before making her way to the counter, stepping on those who rolled drunkenly on the ground without a care. Dull cries and yelps of pain erupted from under her feet one after another.

Customers were lined up around the counter, the air filled with gossip — most likely the early morning soldiers. The talk and gossip fell quiet as soon as they lay eyes upon the large woman with a bag over her head approaching them. One man’s voice remained, breaking above those who had already gone quiet before he could even realise it.

……That goddamned dragon had attacked a band of Empire soldiers.Aadah called out to the barkeeper, a man with a strange style of hair that seemed as if it were a circle atop his head.

“Oi, you with the bald spot. Give me some bean porridge.” Aadah looked back at Seere, who peered over at her from the table. “Make it two.”

“Yes, yes…” The small barkeeper mumbled miserably. “We’ve horse’s broth available. Gives you plenty of strength.”

“That’s fine. Fill it up.” Taking the copper coins from her breast pocket, Aadah dumped them onto the counter. But while she had believed herself to be at least somewhat accurate, her aim had been bad enough that near a third had fallen to the ground.

“Dear oh dear…” The barkeeper’s thick eyebrows raised. “That certainly looks bad. How I sigh at the sight of the lot of you all. When the priests began making a fit about abstaining from the drink, I was wondering what would happen…”

“The Empire is the divine retribution against mankind, sent by the Gods… Or something of that nature, perhaps. It was only a matter of time before those priests went pale and said something.”

“...A new line is being drawn. A line between people, and the world. That is the reason for why the Empire was created — humankind has grown old. This could be our one chance… A chance for us to be born anew. I suppose… An opportunity we have to improve upon ourselves.”

“I thought that human history still had more to go, the young thing that it is. …Well, the younger the cancer, the faster it grows…”

Aadah picked up the sparse change and glanced around the tavern. The customers, who had arrived at the tavern and drank in separate groups, were now completely smashed and mixed together. The autumn breeze rustled through. Part of the tent had fallen off its pole and flapped wildly in the wind. Bonfires dotted the mountains that surrounded the basin left nestled between the crevices, and the night sky was filled with torn clouds and sparse flashes of shooting stars.

The remnants of the sun formed a line that bordered the horizon. One by one, the lights from the tents faded until the town was dyed in black.

Throughout the basin nestled between the two mountains, there came the echo of a dragon’s roar. Everything fell immediately silent. As the deep unease began to make its way to their faces, everyone exchanged glances with each other. The small fire that had been lit atop of the counter swallowed a moth, a popping noise resounding as the sparks flew up into the tent, and soon disappeared. From the sky, separated by only a single cloth, Aadah could hear the roar of the wind. All that was clearly audible to anyone were the sounds of flapping and growling.

Aadah shuddered, both from awe and the cold.

…Could she really trust it? That dragon. She had heard rumours that the Castle of the Goddess had been burned to the ground with both friend and foe alike.

After all, it was a monster… Wasn’t it?

She didn’t know what it was, exactly, but what she was certain of was that at it’s core, that dragon was no different than the Imperial Army. But even with that knowledge, that power was still necessary to stand up against the Empire.

The usual argument.

Since the day she had seen that dragon again, standing atop the towering eminence of the Castle of the Goddess, Aadah had vowed to never again approach it and its rider; the flawless hero who threw the jumble of both calamity and hope into the pot. Flawless… Except for his heart. Like a moth to the flame, she could feel the draw in which he pulled people along to their own dark fate. That and their combination of forces was by no means any accident.

He was the head of the parade, the master of the herd — But not a soul knew to where they were headed.

What they held was the power to change the very structure of this world. The ashes of the world would be shaped by them, and, whether they liked it or not, those associated with them as well. It was a force impossible to oppose; a force of creation and destruction, of primordial flame and mythic rage. As far as the thought of their own fates had reached, they would probably have been better off dead. If she were by some chance unable to bear witness to that herself, that was fine. She would return to the manor she had taken from her former mistress, and whether humankind perished or survived, whether the Empire won or the Union won, she would keep drowning herself in wine, and everything else would be their problem to solve. That’s what she thought.

…Even so, Aadah had still been dragged along into this great adventure, and there she remained under the protection of those red wings. Surely the soldiers and masses that had gathered under the Union’s banner held some instinctive knowledge of the dangers that kind of existence had posed to them. No one had the willpower to simply break themselves away from it at all. That's what herds were like.

The barkeeper handed Aadah two wooden bowls, the dark brown liquid swaying before coming to a prompt halt. The shape of the agglomeration of boiled beans quickly fell into disarray. With one more sway, it liquified.

“...Hey. This looks like just the usual bean porridge…”

“It contains thinly chopped horse bowels.”

“Hoh, is that it? I see.” She finally understood what strange thing was always getting caught in her teeth.

As she peered down at the wooden bowl, a pungent, indescribable scent rose up. Aadah threw in an ample amount of the condiments herbs that were offered to her, the herbs swaying in the dish before her.

“That’s some good horse. It has some good gallop left in it, eh?” Aadah said. “...Too much gallop.” Dejectedly, the barkeeper dropped an egg yolk into a bowl.

“What is that for?” Aadah asked suspiciously.

“It’s a Seed of Resurrection!” The barkeeper laughed. “For that boy. You’re the only podgy woman here, and that boy looks like he’s gotten too thin. He could not really be your child, could he?”

Aadah shrugged, taking the two bowls in both hands and trampling over the screaming keyboard that lay on the ground towards the table where Seere was waiting for her. A pandemonium of agonised shrieking rang out from under her feet.

Two months had passed since the battle at the Castle of the Goddess. Over those past two months, the state of the war between the Empire and the Union had taken a dramatic turn. The Union had completely reorganised itself and its plans, with Caim and the dragon at its centre. Having incorporated troops from the various lords of the land, the Union’s numbers swelled greatly, and currently their power had exceeded two hundred-thousand.

Having ridden on those high spirits, the Union’s army captured what had been used as an Empire outpost, freeing its prisoners and setting up camp there. The basin, formerly a holiday home belonging to a nobleman, had been filled up with not just Union troops and those who had been left over as prisoners of war, but later on was met with an influx of refugees seeking shelter — All had gathered together to construct a large campground.

During the day, the basin was filled with a rush of life and colour. It could only be described as an impromptu city, built up from tents on the ground by the soldiers of the Union and refugees that had gathered as if drawn by the power of the dragon.

Here, the oppressive framework of feudal society had been momentarily lifted. The sight of both noble knights and common soldiers sharing lighthearted conversation around a pot of stew was something unimaginable before. If one were to walk down the street, they would be met with the sight of women carrying the children of strangers on their backs, conversing and chatting along with each other in dialects that sounded so familiar yet foreign, those from other territories had trouble communicating all the same. If one listened carefully enough, they would hear that murmur of life beneath the dragon’s terrifying roar.

That said, it was hard to tell the case — Did humans regain their spark of life? Or did the Union simply seem to be gaining the upper hand? After the destruction of the Castle of the Goddess and the Elf Village, the Empire had gone on to plunder the seals in various locations, making steady progress in its objectives:

The Seeds of Resurrection.

According to the prophecy handed down by generations of priests, if all the seals were to be broken, then something by that name would descend upon the world… And bring about the end of all known history of humankind. Rumours of this apocalypse grew both large and small among the general populace, took on various forms, and eventually, even the dark wishes and desires of what nature the end times would take had begun to bud among them.

With the exception of the Goddess Furiae, the final, human seal, the only one which remained was the “Ocean Seal”. It had seemed that the loss of the seals up to this point had proved a heavy burden on the Goddess and, because of it, she was left repeatedly falling in and out of comatose states. At this point, it felt as if it were only a matter of time before the Seeds of Resurrection would appear.

As Aadah had gone to sit down at the table, she had noticed an acquaintance sharing friendly conversation next to Seere. The two seemed to be on good terms with each other. With dull blond hair, slightly tangled, and a cloak somewhat dirted with green, it was easy to tell he had been fatigued by travel.

“Well, well, well. You seem like a familiar face.” Aadah called out to him from behind.

Leonard didn’t turn around, but still replied.

“...I have failed to speak with him for far too long.”

Aadah circled around so that she was in front of the two, knocked one person out from their seat, and sat down. A spoon and porridge was thrown in front of Seere.

“Go on, eat up. That yellow thing right there is a top-of-the-line treat. I want to see you with more meat on your bones, now go on.”

The barkeeper waved his hand with an uncanny, forced smile. Seere returned the gesture, stirring the porridge with a spoon — The eggs, herbs, and soup all mixed together to create some strange colour. Seere blew on it before taking a sip. Leonard’s nose crinkled up from his grimace as he gulped down from the bottle in his hand.

“As long as you keep on living, there are a number of fine and curious things for you to come across… I don’t understand why you continue to drown yourself in alcohol. Day in, day out…” Aadah said, stirring her own porridge. Leonard didn’t answer, drinking in silence.

“I was under the assumption that you played an active role alongside those couple of dragonic lovebirds. This place, long a hotbed for the Union, has finally met its liberation. It was a battle so fierce your blind eyes wouldn’t have been able to even imagine, and now has become legend among the soldiers of the Union. Wouldn’t you say that makes you some kind of hero? Mister Leonard, bearer of the pact.”

“......I only do what I must. That is all.”

“What a crude thing to say, Leonard. What are you so desperate for? What are you struggling against? This hunger of yours is quite the desperate fight for you, isn’t it?”

“......If you truly are the Dream Eater, then you are bound to know of the blight of desires that I hold. One day, it will be my fate that will remedy the foul imperfection I have borne for so long… So I hope. The hatred and loathing I feel towards this curse — It is… A labyrinth, never-ending. The human heart is…”

“By the Gods, what could have happened to you? Is that why you’ve missed the boy so?”

‘You know, this one just can’t help but have the nerve to cry and weep to himself all through the night!! How annoying! And when he can’t cry, he drowns himself in another liquid entirely. No matter how gallantly you fight, you’ll still be the same disgusting pervert you are at heart!’ The faerie brought itself down on the table, bringing it’s face closer to the porridge and crinkling it’s nose in disgust. ‘Kegh! You really eat something as stinky as this? Unthinkable! Absolutely, unthinkably, preposterous! You’re no different than that elf!!’

With a yellow circle bordering around his mouth, Seere glanced between Leonard and Aadah.

“Leonard…? What’s wrong?”

“……For a moment’s time, there have been a number of children gone missing. I had gone to investigate. A woman had reported an elf of suspicious character that had been residing in the ruins of a nearby camp, and so… Once we arrived, there was—” Leonard took a drink from his alcohol.

“We had found the children… It was a terrible sight. That elf had… Devoured those children. The remnants of those bodies had been scattered everywhere.”

Aadah let out a breath in surprise, loudly slurping her porridge through the hole in her bag. Sure enough, another piece of shredded bowels had gotten caught in her back teeth. “How many children had been devoured?”

“Those patrolling the area had come across a bottle in one of the tents. Within it… It had been filled with such small nails. That elf, that Arioch, had been collecting the nails of the children she devoured. I will never forget what was seen that day. Those nails… Within that tent, there must have been at least thirty-eight children devoured by that monster.”

“What a wasteful thing for her to do. Children are worth more being handled alive.”

Uninterested, Aadah held her spoon in her mouth. As expected, the young Seere’s face had fallen pale and he dropped the spoon he had been holding in his hand. “What could have happened to her…?”

“We had managed to apprehend her. Yet, it was a laborious task… She had formed a pact, that Arioch had. Two spirits by the names of Undine and Salamander… The elf woman had lost her womb in exchange for this pact.”

‘Ahaha! What a disgusting freak!’

“What evil could that woman seek to satisfy with the lives of children?” Aadah asked. Leonard calmed his trembling lips with another sip of alcohol.

“Her pact-beasts had said that Arioch was trapped within some solitude, for all eternity… They had said that she had lost her way after the massacre of her family at the hands of the Empire. She has a desire, a strong desire for a child, and devours them in some attempt to fulfil this desire.

Devouring them only murders the child… And so, she searches for another, one more… It is a never-ending cycle; A chain shackling her to this madness. It was by Hierarch Verdelet’s magic that her mind has been kept calm.”

“Verdelet? That man would have thought as much. As long as they’ve been consigned to a pact, as far as he sees it, even cannibals are a worthy force of being dragged into this war. So goes the spirit of the age, I suppose… It’s a story I hear often about cannibals. People starve, growing far too hungry for far too long, and soon feast themselves upon the corpses of their relatives.”

Nowadays, a dark joke has been whispered, passed on from person to person.

⸻ What is the difference between people and white cabbage?

⸻ I don’t know, what?

⸻ What order you fry them in.

It could never be said for certain which of the two was standard human nature: Was it by default for people to act as if in a state of emergency? Or was it normal for it to be calm, and act as if all was well? At the very least, if hell ran rampant, human desire would only acclimate alongside it. Even the cannibalism brought on as a result of starvation had become a joke.

At the end of the tavern, a lone, wandering traveller had begun to sing a ballad. Hoots and cheers of joy soared across the vicinity. Leonard spoke in a small voice.

“Arioch is a different case. It was no crime committed by mere starvation, rather… The pig that had been smoked within her dwelling was left untouched. Whether it was a habit or only some exception, I do not know — Both the meat and the children had been cooked the same way...” Leonard shook his head. “I… Surely I am just as beyond that hope of change.” He tapped a hand over his chest repeatedly.

“Here, here within me lies an undispersable darkness. It is this darkness that has cost the lives of my brothers, and even now… It is no use. I am— This sin I have borne beneath it all is… Unclean. It would be better that I die in battle.” With an expression of sheer bewilderment slapped across his face, Seere outstretched his hand and tugged at Leonard's sleeve, staring at Aadah. Aadah spoke.

“You certainly have quite the nerve being so selfish, torturing yourself like that. Since the emergence of the Empire, desires of each and every kind have burst forth continuously, incessantly. These days, people often say that a new line is being drawn between the world and humankind. Each and every person is imprisoned within a private room of their own desire. That dragon’s pact-partner, the Goddess of the Seal, that elf woman, you, and even your dear little Seere over there. I don’t know about me, but the existence of this Empire has clearly fueled humans’ desires.”

Aadah surveyed the surrounding commotion around them.

“Take a look at these ones. They gather together and start forming groups. In order to survive, humans entangle themselves within their tents that they themselves had stood up. They indulge themselves in rumours, adding more water to the mix of their already thinned out lives. Even this, in a way, is proof of the vice and immorality that has and keeps growing rampant throughout our world. That this place appears ‘Liberating’ is nothing more than an illusion. Humans are folding in on themselves. Society will lose their path from their inner grounding, soar into the sky, and drift aimlessly through the heavens with nothing but the wind to carry them.”

……It was the reason why they couldn't resist the flapping of the dragon’s wings. It was the reason why they allowed themselves to be engulfed.

Even if humans had allowed themselves to be dragged along and caught under the influence of something, they would never admit to it themselves. They created an objective within their head, and followed it with their heart. The tapir within her continued to eat a countless number of those dreams, and even then, it seemed far from getting bored of them.

The term “Cult of the Watchers” was something she heard a lot these days. Just as common was the angel-like portrait that bore two-faces in some enigmatic display — It vaguely resembled those twins she saw in the forest in her dream.

Longing for a conclusion to something that’s very nature was left a mystery, Aadah looked up towards the heavens. It wasn’t just the children that vanished within the stomach of that elf woman who had disappeared. One by one, people were gradually growing absent from under the shade of their tents, the colour of red flashing in their eyes.

She wondered if Verdelet and those other higher-ups knew something. That said, Aadah didn’t really want to know herself.

…It was all about the money. That way, she could grow heavier and heavier. Grow safer and more secure. Life was all about the money. It was all about reaching even larger heights. Aadah snatched up her bowl, and with enough force to keep back the vomit, slurped up the remaining porridge. Though she had felt the stringy feel of intestines caressing her throat, the herbs remained in the bowl. It seemed they put in too much.

Leonard began to speak.

“...Following tomorrow, it seems that Caim and the Hierarch will depart with the army. The Union has already finished much of its advance. The goal is the Imperial Capital, the rumoured stronghold of the Empire. Could this mean that the Union plans to take control with some great battle…?”

“So I see. It may just be that they intend to settle the matter before all the seals have been broken. If it hesitates now, their weakened Goddess will die.”

“And what are your plans with Seere? …Do you choose to stay?”

Leonard knocked over his bottle with his drunken hands, and the faerie flew over it. Aadah set her bowl back on the table and looked to the tent above her.

“Seere, what do you plan to do? What about Manah, do you have even the slightest clue about her?” Still holding the spoon in his hand, Seere shook his head.

Every day, a huge, bustling marketplace opened its doors in the tent village’s centre. It became a melting pot of people, teeming with both refugees and soldiers alike. If you could find something in a normal town, you could usually get it there. Every day, Seere went to this marketplace and walked among its people, the chance on his mind that Manah might appear there. If he found that sister of his, Aadah would move out from the land with the intention of finding two buyers. If the chance ever arrived, she would take a number of other children with her as well.

…However, Seere’s search continued to be in vain, and somehow, Aadah found herself unable to find the resolve to put her foot down. The tapir was likely seeking some way to accompany the dragon. Both partner and pact-beast had shared a considerable amount of each other’s mental plane, and occasionally invoked desires that were difficult to resist.

“What is it you want to do after this?” She asked Seere. Seere tilted his head in thought, and after a brief pause, gave a nod of affirmation to himself.

“I… Want to go with the dragon,” he said. “Manah doesn’t seem to be here.”

“I suppose we both share that habit of chasing after war, wherever it goes… But the odds of getting another child will be higher if we stay here.” She had grown beyond fed up with this. The tapir laughed incessantly from within her.

“No matter how large the war, no matter how long it may drag on for, its end is ultimately decided by what scraps remain in the human heart. Nothing else. A change in heart, and perhaps the fate of the world will change as well…”

Aadah snatched up Leonard’s drink, and lifted it to her mouth.

Countless blue flags flew through the air, the crowds cheering with great acclimation as the Union set off. In the distance, Aadah could make out the figures of Leonard and Seere among the soldiers, Seere’s blond hair swaying against Leonard’s chest. Aadah rode right behind them, the reins held leisurely in her hands. From the lower right corner in the group, she could see Verdelet’s turned back. Next to him was Arioch, the child-eating elf that Leonard had apprehended the other day. No matter how she looked at her, she looked like nothing more than a young woman with a nonchalant expression on her face — Compared to what she had heard beforehand, Aadah couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. She wondered if some kind of magic had been placed on her; Aadah watched as she swayed along with her horse with vacant eyes.

As the Union’s forces had gone to exit the market, a commotion suddenly erupted.

From the wall of spectators that had gathered, a lone woman desperately broke through and attempted to jump straight into the Union’s advance.

“You must kill that elf! Please, I beg of you…! She killed and devoured my child!”

Five soldiers were quick to seize the woman, but even so, her rage had grown ferocious enough to the point there still weren't enough men. Hysterically banging her head against the ground and tearing at her hair, the surrounding spectators only shrugged their shoulders and quickly moved on from the tragic display. Emotions of various shapes and colours speckled the crowd before them.

The gentle, lulled smile remained on the face of the elf, Arioch, perhaps knowing or not knowing that she was the focus of this turmoil.

Aadah rode up beside Leonard.

“Do you see it? This is how hatred spreads. Still… I still cannot fathom the idea that a mother like her would turn into a cannibal. People are neither as content or uncontent as they think they are. It’s a common sentiment.”

Arioch looked over towards Seere. With that lull of a smile still on her face, Aadah could have sworn she saw her lips move to say “How sweet.”

2

The sky was as cloudy as ever. The dragon circled right below the clouds. Yellow, rocky mountains were piled up as far as the eye could see, and from the cracks in the rocks around them, stiff, grotesque leaves of some nameless plant could be seen growing out from them. The soldiers, having split into columns of three, marched across the land without so much as a word. They marched on single-mindedly, with only one goal set in their heart: The Imperial Capital.

The troupe of wagons, what with all their canopies and layers (from carrying all sorts of food and materials, no doubt), didn’t function as well as it once had. It was the large army before them that would decide the fates of those who dared spearhead the movement. Seere’s head swung down as he felt the earth beneath him begin to vibrate. He could see Golem’s figure walking with long strides on the lower regions of the rock ledges in the distance. As its large body bounded from rock to rock in prompt movements, it had made a thunderous roar of a sound that had astonished the Union soldiers with each step.

……He wondered if Golem had intentions to return home, too. Seere stretched out over the front of Leonard’s lap, and let out a saddened sigh at the sight of all the scenery that stretched as far as his eyes could see — He thought back to the nostalgic village of the rock-wielders. That village, hidden among the mountains, where he was born and raised… The most precise way to describe the scenery there was “Unfriendly”. No matter how much rock had been chipped and cut into, it had never exhausted itself. There was always more. He had always wondered — What new thing would be born from that rock? Infinite myths. Infinite myths and stories were what came from rocks.

…But there was no one anymore, they all died under attack from the Empire. That village was no place of sadness for Seere, but instead a home filled with happy memories. A picture had drawn itself within Seere’s heart, a memory of the days spent with his father and mother, of his twin sister Manah, endlessly glorifying itself within his head. Spellbound, Seere stared at the large masses of rock before him. He remembered the warm feeling of the rock that warmed itself under the sun’s rays in his palm, and, remembering the cool dampness of the shade under those rocks, smiled.

"Seere, it seems that you are of a good temperament today." Leonard said.

Seere nodded, leaning against his stomach — Leonard tensed. To Seere, he had enjoyed the rock-like feeling.

"I used to live in a place like this... With mother and father. And then there was Manah..."

"...I see. I have heard tell of this before — From your lands dwelled the clan of the rock-wielders..."

"That’s right. Mother always wondered about how I could have used them. Our whole house was made of stone... Everything. The tables, the chairs, the shelves, plates and cups... Even our windows were made from stretching crystals. Even our beds were made out of stone..."

"It sounds that they would have been very firm beds."

"They were. They felt really nice... They were cold at first, but as you slept they would get warmer and warmer..." Seere leaned against the cradle of Leonard's strong arms and closed his eyes.

"......It was so peaceful, all of the time. I was so... Happy. And then... The Empire came."

Suddenly, a chill ran down Seere's spine. He wondered if it was the same for the dragon he had encountered in those marshlands... In that moment, a strange sensation washed over him — Seere felt as if he was close to his sister; like something was repeatedly being whispered inside his head. The image of Manah, dancing in the sun, wafted through his mind — The words that left her lips.

"It was wrong..."

In a daze, Seere's eyes opened.

…The sight of Manah, covered in bruises.

Manah lifts her head. Her tangled, unwashed hair covers her eyes, black and blue bruises littered beneath them. Her mouth opens.

…“Seere, why don’t you help me?”

The dragon roared in the distance. Seere clung tight onto Leonard’s arm and trembled into it.

“A… Ah… What is wrong, Seere? Are you hurt?”

“...I was scared. I was…”

…Mother loved only me.

“I…” Seere let go of his arm. His head lowered, and he bit his lip.

“What… Could I have even done?” Leonard heard him speak.

With a shake of his head, Seere took the bag which hung from around his shoulder and held it in his arms.

“I wonder why it is we met that dragon… It’s just like Aadah had told me. I must be losing my mind... The Empire came, and now I’m going insane. Ever since that dragon appeared, everything has been so… Odd… Leonard, what am I going to do?”

Leonard’s expression grew sombre alongside Seere’s.

“...Perhaps it is only by chance that these things have happened. You mustn’t worry yourself so deeply over mere coincidence. No matter how much we may focus our attention on things such as fate, what circumstances we face will not change. It is only by chance that you are you. To simply be yourself, and live by your own heart is all that you need… It may be selfish, but I would like for you to live with that thought.”

‘Ahahaha! Maybe the minds and bodies of humans are more capable than I thought~ You know, if humans get too far ahead of themselves they do make quite the blunder! Human desire is quick to stir, and changes ever so quickly~! You like to play yourself off like some kind of dullard, even if your real desires aren’t like any normal human’s. Give in!! Only then will you fools see how ugly you really are!’

It was such a terrible sight, the hate-filled expression that filled his mother’s face whenever she flew into a rage. How Manah would be pushed over, kicked at, pinched and burned, plunged into cold water… Seere and his father had seen it, but they always looked the other way. The air of the stone house grew thick and solidified, and eventually, even their souls had turned to stone. All that moved were the flames of the cauldron. Like a flame, all that moved was Manah and their mother, as if they were doves trapped in a birdcage. The feathers danced, and again, time would begin to move — Manah didn’t even cry.

“I have to find Manah. Back then, I couldn’t do anything to help her… So I have to find her!”

“You said that your sister… Had been taken by the Empire.” Seere nodded.

One day, a long time ago, Manah had gone out with her mother… Yet only their mother had returned.

…“That girl must have been taken by the Empire. Such a carefree child…”

His mother had said, stifling a laugh. Seere looked out the window. His father sat in front of the cauldron, again having turned cold like stone. The time that Seere had waited in the house for Manah to return had frozen until the Empire had arrived, abducting the villagers of his hometown and slaughtering the rest. The villagers had all held little interest in each other, so no one had spoken a word when one of the children had disappeared.

In the chance that Manah truly had died that day, then it would have meant that Seere would have been chasing ghosts this entire time. The time he would be in Aadah’s care would be half a year. After that time would finish, with no questions and no answers, Seere would be sold to someone. Even if Aadah probably wouldn’t just forgive it and move on, Seere didn’t mind the thought of it.

He had endless time. If he had Golem’s help at just the right time, he could run away and look for his sister again… And in the meantime, he could keep all those different things stored away in his heart.

The mountain path began to fade, and gradually the landscape became greener. Though it was still only small shrubs and undergrowth, the wind had begun to grow progressively more damp. While the desolate scenery of the rocklands had been left far behind them, a thick uneasiness had spread among the soldiers — It was said that once you passed those lands of rocky mountains, you were within the domain of the Empire. Even if the dragon flying ahead was always scouting and looking ahead for any threats to their advance, the fear of being attacked at any moment cast a dark shadow over the minds of the various soldiers. There were many among them who had lost their homelands to the Empire, had their families killed at their hands, but their fear always ran stronger than anger. From time to time, Verdelet and the other generals went around the soldiers to try and preserve morale, but their spirits weren’t as easy to cheer as they would have hoped.

Like a stone rolling across a hill, the Union march began to slow as the slope smoothed and grew flat. The generals had taken the chance to begin voicing their propositions to Verdelet, the spearhead leading the front of the army.

“Today would be best for us to stop our march and set up camp.”

Not only for the soldier’s sakes, but for the health of the Goddess as well. So far, Furiae seemed to be holding onto what seemed to be a conscious state, but was frail to the point it seemed as if she was ready to fall down the slope of the hill given nothing more than a gust of wind — She wouldn’t be able to endure this forced march onwards any longer. In the end, Verdelet accepted the generals’ proposition and declared to the troops that a camp would be set up that day in order to secure the line of communications. Having descended from the mountains and laying foot upon sudden grass as far as the eye could see, a campsite as large as its great army was set up in those plains. By the time the sun had set to the west, a countless number of tents, somewhat on the larger side, had been hurriedly constructed, and the grasslands were filled with the bustle of people.

Seere walked aimlessly around this new area, his golem at his side. As he passed through the mountain valleys, it was as if some great cover holding the memories he had remained a stranger to had suddenly broken loose; with each step he took it felt as if his mind would overflow, and Seere felt hardly capable of composing himself. He knew that the moment he stopped walking, his heart would collapse immediately under that weight.

The soldier’s energy had brought amusement to Seere’s heart in its own way, however. Though frightened by the sight of his golem, they still regarded Seere in a friendly manner, no matter their rank. As he wandered around the camp, they showed off their swords and lances, proving a great hindrance to the time that should have been spent setting up camp — But as night fell and all grew dark, that tension had returned to the soldiers, and Seere’s mind was filled with that heavy feeling once more.

Having found a forgotten and isolated corner of the camp, there was nothing left for Seere to do but sit and silently cry to himself.

Before he knew it, the sun had set. Nightfall had come, a night without a single star nor a moon in the sky. A deep darkness had fallen, and nothing but the distant light of bonfires could be seen flickering in the distance.

Golem, having become an immovable giant of stone and rock, stood silently beside Seere.

“...Golem. I always have such strange dreams. There are always these strange twins that I see. It has to be me and Manah. These dreams… That’s Manah calling to me, isn’t it? She has to be alive! …She just has to be. Isn’t that right, Golem?”

‘Groooah...?’

Golem twisted its massive head, pretending as if it were lost in thought.

Seere took it as a form of agreement and nodded in affirmation.

“Yes, she has to be. Manah is calling for me! I just know she is!”

His tears flowed without end. He didn’t know exactly what action was best to take — If he ever did find his sister, what would he do? What could he do? In such a situation, Seere had no intention of returning to Aadah. But if he had found out Manah was dead… He didn’t know what he would say.

Golem’s stone body creaked with a sudden tension. Seere froze at the sensation of something cool and soft placing itself upon dampened cheeks—his head lifted.

The elf woman stared back down, her cold hand caressing Seere’s cheek. Her face hid itself in the darkness, somewhat obscured from his vision—but her eyes. It was her eyes that shone bright within it, staring down directly onto Seere’s face.

“What a sweet, sweet child…” Arioch’s voice rang out.

Seere tried to speak, but his voice had stuck in his throat. Leonard’s words rang through his head.

What he had said about her — Her family, ruthlessly slaughtered by the Empire… And Arioch was left to wander lost.

With a loud noise, Golem stood. Seere scooted back against the grass, and in a quick movement, Arioch advanced on Seere, who could only sit in a frightened, paralysed daze.

……The magic that had kept her mind under locks. It worked!

Realising this, Seere stood as slowly as possible as possible as not to attract her attention. Two lights, both red and blue, flew to greet him, and almost immediately did Seere fall back to the grass in surprise. Both the red and blue light intersected and stopped in front of him: a man, wrapped in crimson flames, and a woman, dripping blue water, measuring near half the size of an adult.

‘Solitude and chaos, for all eternity.’

‘Her children were killed. Killed by the Imperial forces, and cast away into an ocean of blood.’

Without even the sound of footsteps to alert him, Arioch crept up once again. Seere threw a clod of dirt at the peculiar man and woman before him, and shouted angrily.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! It… It’s all your fault! It must be all your fault that Arioch has gone mad like this!”

Standing back up, Seere looked around at his surroundings. The bonfire felt so far away… The boy had begun to break into a sprint, yet suddenly felt himself being lifted up.

“Waaaah-!”

Seere swung his limbs frantically, and before he knew it, he had found himself sitting atop of something hard and firm — Golem’s shoulder. Until he had met Aadah, that shoulder had always been a familiar and special place for Seere.

‘Here safe. Sit, hold. Seere. Small. Warm.’

Seere eagerly nodded, clinging to the mighty golem’s neck and looking down. Arioch ran around at the golem’s feet, seeming to be chasing something small. Seere stared harder into the darkness — There weren’t any other children in the camp other than himself, but what Arioch had been chasing… Looked like a small child.

Finally, the little shadow had been caught. Relentlessly it swung down the odd knife it was holding in its hand, until a wet sound could be heard all the way to Golem’s shoulders. Seere let out a small scream.

“She killed them! Golem! She.. She killed them!”

‘Seere, no scared. Golem here.’

Seere timidly peered down at Arioch. With the light of the two elementals at her side, he could finally see what she was doing.

He saw the faint sheen of chopped up pieces of flesh. A head, large for a human’s. Strange, thin limbs… The strange silhouette bore familiar.

…It was a goblin.

Seere’s throat tightened. Goblins always came in groups.

Sub-human soldiers from the Empire.

The goosebumps that had formed all over his body only grew with the sound of Arioch’s shrill laughter.

“Oh no… Golem, there are sub-human soldiers hiding in the grasslands here…! I have to go and warn everyone!” A high-pitched, raspy sound rang out from something huddled within the darkness. “Come on! We have to get back to the camp!”

Arioch hummed an off-tune song to herself as she charged into the darkness — A darkness littered with specks of red, glowing eyes.

3

The crescent moon hung in the sky. With both the starry sky above and the blue sea of clouds within its sight, the dragon soared. Ten-Thousand years. It looked back on those days it spent in the past, those it had met in the past, the times it used to have… It looked back at itself today, and marvelled.

…It never thought it would have formed a pact with a human. The warmth it felt, was it merely the body temperature of the rider on its back? Or their heart?

‘What is man?’

Now, that was the question that occupied the red dragon’s mind.

Dragons once ruled the skies and looked down upon the Earth as nothing more than creatures of terror and reverence for all humans who saw them. In its earliest years, it had drowned itself in that power, even going so far as to mercilessly hunt down all humans within its reach.

…On the contrary, later on, it had grown so disgusted with the unsightly nature of mankind that it had completely shut itself away from those pitiable creatures on the ground. Yet, after all the ten-thousand years it spent living, the red dragon would have never thought it would be intermingling with humans, of all manner of creature. It was astonished with the sheer power it had obtained in the forming of this “Pact”.

To be a creature revered as the strongest in the world was a matter of great pride for the red dragon — Its existence, all other creatures looked up to.

When the numbers had overwhelmed it and sent it crashing into that castle on that day, even when its life had begun to fade and falter, the red dragon had no doubts that it was the strongest in the land. It thought of “Pacts” as lowly, vulgar acts. That “Pacts” were a form of leeching. An act of possession, taking advantage of another’s fragile mind, and sucking up all the strength and will hidden within them… Nothing more than vampirism.

But from the moment that it had met this “Caim,” from the moment their lives joined together as one, a change far greater than anything it could have ever imagined had occurred within the dragon.

The moment that it felt and heard that sound of Caim’s dark, cursed soul pouring itself into that chalice, the chalice called “Pact,” the dragon’s life had swelled far beyond what its body had ever been capable of.

And at the same time, with all the contempt it held for humankind, even if Caim was far from a “good quality” human… The red dragon thought to itself, ‘Let me be by his side’. It had found itself thinking ‘I will never leave this pact.’ It had tasted the bare essence of why non-human beasts so desired to form a pact with human beings.

As its wings flapped and cut through the wind, as it gazed at the dimly shining stars and felt the tickle of clouds against its scales, it had found that all these familiar acts had taken on a new feel entirely.

Just as Caim had shared those ten thousand years of life with the dragon in that moment, such as the dragon had shared in that tiny fraction of his own life, that had felt as if it were no more than the blink of an eye in comparison to its own. From the day of his birth, to the day his parents were killed, when he became a mercenary and fled his country, up to the days he spent finding his liberation in slaughter — The overwhelming noise from that life he had lived to that moment was intoxicating.

Since that moment, the dragon had embraced the life of this world with a heart born anew and power the likes that had never been seen.

‘Humans are…’

That one question.

If that one person’s heart was worth ten thousand years, then the last adversary for this dragon to overcome was none other than a weakling human.

A blanket of clouds rested below. Nothing stood between the path of the dragon and the heavens above — Even its own haughty soul was nothing more than a small fragment in the spacious expanse. Awakened with the night, the moon shone brightly overhead.

…For some reason, humans had always thought of the moon as a symbol of death. It was likely that the sharp, knife-like edges had fallen into accompaniment with some wish for death, some desire of suicide. To the dragon, humans seemed to be a rare type of being who, by contemplating and dwelling on such matters of death and suicide in their current moment, found the spiritual nourishment to live through tomorrow.

Death was the sun in the regard that it could never be seen directly.

When it had faced its own death in the Castle of the Goddess, the red dragon recalled feeling lost and disoriented, rather than accepting of it, and the sealing of the pact, as it was made, had also felt close to that.

From below it, clouds rose and fell, broke apart, joined and flowed. From time to time, it could see glimpses of pitch-black earth peering through the cracks in the clouds. At all angles, cool air brushed over the wings that waded steadily through the sky.

With one death, the dragon had been born anew. Was it because of that that it had found pleasure? That it had felt free?

It had never thought that flying could be so comfortable.

Suddenly… A strange scent had reached it’s nose. A shudder of tension ran through the body of the red dragon. It was a corrupt, evil surge from the ground, filled with hatred. The overwhelming surge caused the dragon’s muscles to grow tense in response. Was there a creature in the sky that could have such an inside effect on a creature as powerful as it in the world of today?

‘Something is approaching……’

The silhouettes of five shadows shone against the moonlit blue sea of clouds a dozen metres above the dragon’s head. Four creatures to pursue. Caim’s head tilted upwards.

With white feathered wings the four creatures glided through the air, the fur-wrapped quadrupedal bodies resembling that of a lion’s. With a head like that of a fierce eagle’s, the sharply curved beak was made visible from below.

‘Have you noticed them, Caim? It seems that they intend to attack. Do they truly think that their flight of such small stature can stand to tear my crimson wings?’

Griffons, the demons of the skies.A flock as large as that would be no threat to a dragon. Even so… The power of the evil that it had sensed earlier was accompanied by a far more vicious stench than the murderous intent emitted by these beasts of the Empire. That evil… Somewhere it lurked within the skies, gloated with eager anticipation. The four griffons flew in a diamond-shaped formation, the dragon trapped within its centre — In a sudden descent, the two on either side of the red dragon separated from their formation and made quick to approach.

‘Here they come! If this is how they wish to pull through in their attack, then my fire shall greet them! Hold on!’

Like a kite, the dragon’s wings spread wide and allowed for the wind to accumulate enough to slow it in its glide. Both griffons, keeping their same momentum, crossed paths and shot up into the sky, feathers fluttering and dancing before the dragon that rose up in pursuit of the one. The griffon was engulfed within the mass of fire and flame. Flame devoured feathers in a fiery inferno, and the griffon fell down into the clouds with a shrill shriek heard by both the birds and beast alike.

The deep feeling of having taken a life crosses clearly over to Caim, his lips distorting with a familiar glee. The deep-sated pleasure flowed into the dragon, its wings roared with this renewed sense of satisfaction. Now on-guard, the remaining three beasts began to circle around the dragon that only calmly flapped its wings.

‘Will you fight? Or will you take flee? Your answer, Empire crows!’

The dragon chuckled. Slowly it grew close to one of the surrounding monsters and released a bout of flames that ran through the night sky, finding place and crashing against their target as if having been sucked in.

Before it could even scream, the griffon blew up into flame and disappeared into the clouds.

‘Such slow wings could never stand a chance against a dragon’s!’

The two remaining griffons split and flew off. Yet even as fervently as the dragon willed to leave them alone, Caim’s desire to fight drove it in pursuit. With a roar of final protest, the red dragon hurried in chase. It soared above the sea of clouds, the backs of the griffons shook with fear. A bellow of flames erupted, causing the surrounding clouds to slightly evaporate. The griffon, engulfed in bright crimson, let out a sorrowful cry.

Its wings fluttered weakly several times, and eventually, having lost its strength, plummeted to the ground below in its flame-wrapped body.

‘Surely, to go so far……’

The dragon addressed Caim, who’s rush to kill only grew all the stronger.

‘Do you truly intend to kill even the last one? Humans may have a word for reason, but there is none I have seen who truly possess it.’

…Even despite its protests, the power that flowed from within was unstoppable — Again, the dragon writhed with mirrored delight. Its head turned restlessly in search of the griffon that had escaped into the sea of clouds until a movement — Something powerfully unfurling its wings — Had stopped the red dragon dead in its tracks.

‘That smell… It has come!’

A shrill roar pierced the sky; a roar higher and far less filled with the life possessed by the red dragon. Filled throughout the sky was a distinct, pungent stench that could have only been akin to the smell of charred corpses.

Slowly,it reverberated through the wind.

The sound of unfurling wings hits Caim’s ears.

Black wings.

The body is slim in comparison to the red dragon. Jet black, it’s back lined with scales like sharpened thorns. All the white that shone was the white of the skull on its head. A curved horn protruded out towards the back of it; nightmarish lines of fang jut out from its mouth, giving the impression of a cruel, sardonic smile that it flashed towards Caim and the red dragon. The dragon’s jaw lowered, the squinted, glaring red eyes filled with a cold and hardened malice.

It was a dark mire of existence that warped and twisted all the land, and yet still harboured a mighty flame from within: A black dragon.

With his mind finally processing the sudden weight that had found itself on his shoulders, Caim’s eyes grew wide with shock — There was another man who straddled the neck of the black dragon. Red hair danced in the wind, and a pair of shining, crimson-coloured eyes shone clear through the darkness of the night.

“It is a fine night tonight. The wind is splendid, isn’t it? Yet on such a wonderful night, I see that you’ve still fallen into your usual boorish tact… Caim.”

Caim couldn’t move. The two dragons glared, speaking silently between each other the mutual hatred and contempt in their hearts. Both red and black in the sky, Inuart spread his hands wide.

“I had heard about you, Caim. You had played your role in the defence of the Castle of the Goddess, no? But now, it doesn’t matter anymore! I have grown just as strong. I made a pact with a dragon, see? I’m strong now!”

Caim remained silent.

“...What? Say something! Did you think you were the only one that could make a pact with a dragon? I can too, Caim. I was chosen—!”

Inuart fell quiet, a perplexed look crossing his features. His lips parted.

“...You lost your words? That was the price of your pact?”

The black dragon’s wings beat against the wind that bellowed as its dark tail cut through.

‘That Caim... The person your heart fights for— No… Is there someone else? Your heart has turned in on itself as if it were a coiled snake…! I know not a soul with such a heart. It is closer in nature to the ravenous soldiers of the Empire!’

Caim shook his head. The gruesome look on his face disappeared, warping into something childish and naive. Inuart only burst into laughter.

“Ahahahahaha! I see now, a heavy price indeed to pay for your pact. I hadn’t heard as far as that. Even so… You had always been the quiet sort, Caim. To lose your voice would hardly be too heavy a burden for you to bear. What luck… I had lost my songs. They were taken from me in my own pact. My one and only pride… But for this power, there is nothing more for me to say.”

‘Something is wrong with Inuart. Take care, Caim. Calm your trembling!’

As the black dragon quickly closed the distance between the two, Caim caught sight of Inuart’s expression—it was a sneer. A sneer just like that black dragon’s. The two pact-partners stared at Caim and the red dragon.

“Care for a short duel? We can spar like old times!” Inuart raised his sword and pointed it out towards Caim.

“I had always lost to you, back in those days. But now… I have strength! We’ll see which of us is stronger now. Let us test our power, and see which prevails! It will be akin to a chat between long-time friends.”

The sneer worn on the black dragon’s maw grew deeper and deeper, and gradually opened wide…

‘It is no use! Inuart cannot be reasoned with!’

The red dragon’s wings spread wide and took a sharp turn, just as a black-coloured flame shot out from the black dragon’s mouth towards its back. Narrowly it had avoided a direct blast, but it let out a roar of pain as it grazed across its abdomen.

‘Caim, let not your heart be thrown into disorder! As pact partners, we are bound in our feelings to each other!’

Caim’s mind was thrown into a horrible state of disarray. Inuart’s voice yelled over the chaos.

“It was then that I had learned the meaning of true regret! Do you remember? That day of our usual sword practice. I had grown stronger… And caused you injury. At that time, I felt remorse… But again, it occurred the next day as well. By then, remorse was no longer what I felt! But for a long time, I found myself unable to forget…”

Countless flames spewed from the black dragon’s mouth, and though the red dragon shook left and right in a frenzied attempt at escape, several shots had still slammed into its scales. The skin died in the areas that it hit.

‘Inuart, the fool! He has grown drunk on his own power!’

The red dragon flipped through the air and hit hard against it to remain afloat, facing the black dragon before it. Suddenly, a vivid image had appeared in Caim’s mind — A memory of that birthday.

Now, the memories came rushing back to him. He remembered the fangs that crushed his father, the king. He remembered the claws that tore his mother’s body into bits. The sneer that it gave to his helpless self.

Caim’s vision turned a bright red.

“Each and every day Furiae is tormented by the burden placed upon her by the seal. The people of this land do nothing but wring her of her energy and throw her away as if she were nothing more than rubbish! Why must you be complicit in that as well? Caim!”

Caim’s face stiffened into a distorted look of pure fury and malice. From a half open mouth, he let out a silent scream. Standing open the dragon’s neck, he drew his sword, his sights set dead on the black dragon as he measured up the distance.

‘Caim, what are you doing!? Be aware of the situation at hand! Surely you cannot hope to attack it like this…!’

Not bothering to hear the end of its words, Caim sprinted over the dragon’s red body. There it was… Caim slashed at the black dragon in the air, raising it up and swinging it down towards its head. The black dragon’s neck shook with irritation, and mowed down on Caim’s body from the side.

At the same time, he swung.

A crack appeared in the black dragon’s skull, black smoke and blood gushed out. As if he were in a trance, Caim continued swinging. He clutched onto something with his hands — Something protruding with hard, fine thorns: The tail of the raging black dragon. Blood flowed like a river from the hand that grabbed it.

‘Caim! You must not let go!’

The dragon spoke to Caim. Inuart yelled out, his voice grown hoarse and tired.

“Caim! I’ve surpassed you. Now, I’ll be able to protect Furiae!”

Desperately Caim clung to the wildly swinging tail. The black dragon’s tail flexed in the wind and swung downwards — And just like that, Caim’s hand slipped away.

With a swift plummet downwards from the sky, the mercenary was swallowed by the mire of clouds below.

But just before his vision became swallowed in white, Caim saw a flash of red headed towards him. His world became one of silence in the purple of the nighttime clouds. They swirled around him. Inuart’s yelling voice rang within his head. Having felt himself growing faint, Caim struggled to concentrate. The image of a dragon floated within his head.

Caim heard the flapping of the crimson wings that pierced the clouds surrounding them.

The earth spread out before him. Air rushed between his legs, the wind seeming to tear off his ears and rip away his limbs.

It was then that Caim saw the light from far below. The Union camp had been set ablaze.

4

The ground grew closer. The tents below burned, and even the dragon could see the sub-humans give chase after the soldiers that fled and ran about.

Caim flailed his limbs — The ground grew all the more closer.

The dragon managed to barely dive beneath him just in time, Caim clinging desperately to its back.

‘Fool! Are you injured!?’

Caim shook his head in response.

The camp below had become a sea of fire. In its midst, a particularly large shadow raged about: The shadow of an imperfect giant created from earth and stone. It was a large and towering golem, one in accompaniment with a child by the name of Seere. The golem’s large form surrounded and towered over the burnt down camp, its weighty arms and legs swinging down to crush the sub-humans one after another. Countless goblins clung to its body, but their attacks held no bearing against a being incapable of feeling pain to begin with. The golem continued on as if completely unconcerned with the goblins that hung and fell like drops of rain from its stone body.

Verdelet’s voice reached Caim’s head through the pact.

‘This tragedy is a clear warning to we of the Union. A divine retribution to rain down as punishment for our pride…!’

‘Your kind is a creature forever shrouded in mystery,’ The dragon replied coldly, ‘Do you truly detest the blessings you have been given and accept this humiliation with open arms? You try to run from both the duty that comes with your blessings and the reprimand of disgrace at the same time. Is this what you would call ‘happiness’?’

The soldiers below were trapped in a chaotic frenzy, the horde of goblins pouncing on those who tried to run away. The ape-like monsters, only about half the height of a normal human, attacked them in packs, thrusting their daggers in unison and hanging from the limbs of their victims. The camp was full of the soldiers with goblins hanging all over their bodies, the fact that the inflicted wounds were only far from fatal made it even more painful for those attacked. Even more sub-humans had entered the camp—among them, orcs and ogres. Each wielded their own vicious weapon and went in pursuit of the scattered army.

Caim’s murderous intent swelled looking at the sight below them, only to be met with harsh reprimand from the dragon.

‘If we attack from the sky, our allies will also be among those seared in the fire.’

…But if he were to jump off and start fighting, there wouldn’t be enough time. Right now, Caim knew, the first and most important priority was to destroy the black dragon. From beyond the burning flames, he could see the dark figure descending towards the ground.

Verdelet’s inner thoughts spoke to him:

‘Caim, hurry!! The black dragon has attacked the Goddess!’

From where he stood, Verdelet could feel the feeling of impatience and unease that rushed over Caim with those words.

‘This is no time to worry, Caim. A lowly black dragon like that is far inferior in comparison to my own crimson wings! I will scorch him with my fire until no more than ashes remain!’

The sight of the flaming camp was quick to grow distant as the dragon sped through the air like a stone being skipped across water, back towards the place that the black dragon had landed.

Towards the end of the camp was a red, sandy area, three people, and one dragon. Verdelet, in defence of Furiae, held his staff defensively towards the smirking Inuart that stood before him. The black dragon grinned from the background.

Caim stared fixedly at the black dragon. Again, the flashes of that birthday slaughter played through his mind. His face twisted into an expression of rage. The rage that had spread only a little since having made the pact with the red dragon now found itself gathering into one point and target alone: The black dragon. With the inside of his head dyed in red, Caim leapt off the dragon. His lips were moistened with foam as he broke into a mad dash towards the black dragon before him.

…But with just one swing of its tail, Caim’s body was flung off its feet and his writhing body sent rolling across the ground — He immediately leapt back up. His anger flared, his sword readying itself as he once again looked back at the black dragon. The dragon’s smile grew, a mass of black flame boiled from the back of its throat.

Fierce flames spewed out in attack towards Caim — With only a mass of red to suddenly interfere.

A pair of wings, made a translucent blood red as they were illuminated by flames, spread out in order to protect Caim. An explosion followed. The red dragon’s giant body scattered the earth and sand surrounding it as it collapsed and rolled on the ground, a cloud of dust rising from where it lay.

Caim gasped in the searing pain that mirrored throughout his own body, thrusting his sword into the ground. Two lives, connected as one—their pain was equal in measure.

Beyond the rising dust and sand, the red dragon did not move. There came a smell of burning flesh. The sound of footsteps crossing over sand. The taste of blood.

From the edge of his sight, he could see the figure of Inuart slowly walking towards him. Caim managed to move his tangled legs apart left and right and braced himself on the ground. With both hands, his sword rose level to his chest, the tip trembling unsteadily. Inuart leisurely raised his sword with a single hand towards Caim, the dragon’s roar of protest meeting his ears.

Caim’s eyes squeezed shut with pain, the corners of Inuart’s lips twisted up into a grin.

Hit with a flash of white light, Caim was knocked back down to the ground. With his sword pointed downwards, Inuart held his head even higher and plunged it into Caim’s stomach with a gush of blood. A sharp pain exploded throughout him, like cold, burning arms clawing at his stomach.

Caim lost consciousness. Furiae let out a horrified scream.

With his body lodged within the earth and a stream of black blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth, Caim fought. Hard. Rage still boiled from the deepest recesses of his mind, and he clung to the edge of the life found within it. He searched and explored through his life, each individual memory that recovered itself so that spark could grow, and he could live. So he could survive.

…But that ever-revolving light was promptly shot down, and Caim’s vision went black.

The seed of that flame in his heart panted on with slight fever. Caim saw the image of maple leaves from the mountainside float inside his head — They turned to geometric patterns, drawn only with straight lines, and rotated aimlessly around within his consciousness.

…Welcome back, Caim. How have you been in the past moments?

“Even now, can Caim truly be dead…? It is to be expected that there come things made possible only by joining one’s life with a dragon’s,” came Inuart’s nonchalant voice. As Inuart pulled his sword from his stomach, Caim cast his weak gaze onto him. Ignoring it, Inuart turned his attention to watch the dragons’ fight.

The victor had already been determined.

The black dragon bore its weight upon the red dragon and bit down upon its neck. The red dragon, beaten down and laying spread grotesquely across the ground, convulsed uncontrollably within its grasp.

“Inuart! What has the cult done to you!? What has happened to the Inuart we once knew? And to bring this dragon alongside you…! Inuart, why!?” Cried Verdelet.

Inuart let out a loud laugh. His red eyes shone brightly. Pointing at the silk cloth that was wrapped around his throat, he spoke…

“I had offered up my songs. It was a necessary sacrifice I made in order to form a pact.”

…And stared at Furiae. His calm voice was slightly shrill.

“...Furiae... Forgive me. It was sudden how I left your side. But, it’s alright now! The call to power had beckoned me. I have strength! With this, I can protect you! Do you remember, Furiae? That promise I made to you in the garden. The pears, the boxwoods, the hawthorns and hyacinths — The nature that was dyed with green at the peak of its season. I promised to you there that I would always protect you. I love you, Furiae… You don’t have to be the Goddess anymore.”

Caim collected his clouded thoughts and focused solely on Inuart. With one hand on his head, Inuart staggered over the red sand.

“Wha.. Furi.. ae.. Fu… riae…?”

His voice was hoarse. Inuart staggered closer to Furiae.

Frightened, Furiae could only back away and shake her head in earnest protest. Standing between them was Verdelet, his wand raised and the mythic spell beginning to be chanted.

“Hom gallech ne’allay fray natila… Hom gallech ne’allay frey natila…”

A spiral of light begins to circle and revolve around the dumbfounded Inuart.

…Until a mischievous grin, almost like that of a child’s, began to grow on his face.

Verdelet was thrown down to the ground, who let out a groan and fearfully raised his left arm — And in a single swing from Inuart’s sword, it was cut from the elbow down. Blood spurt from the remaining stump.

“Do you see, Caim? This is a show of true strength!”

Inuart strided towards Furiae, coiling a hand around her thin waist. The two bodies writhed obscenely as his lips crashed roughly against her own, the sloppy, damp sound seeming to reach Caim from where he lay.

Caim let out a muted roar of rage, standing, and then staggering. Caim crumpled to one knee. From the distance, Furiae rampaged in a desperate struggle. Yet even despite her efforts, Inuart didn’t move. He kept holding Furiae, starting to walk and drag her away. Furiae’s stretched heels left two trails that meander on the ground after them, the shoes that fell off from her feet on the way left discarded on the ground. The black dragon released the red dragon and raised its head.

“Caim!!”

Furiae’s desperate screams were in vain. The red dragon lay unmoving.

Verdelet lay like a fish caught on land, flailing fruitlessly in a pool of his own blood.

Finally, Caim stood up. His sword dragged behind him as he dragged himself step by step towards the black dragon. The blood that gushed out from his stomach left a string behind him that stained and soaked into the earth, drawing a pattern of shaking lines into the sand beneath him.

Inuart was swift as cotton in the breeze as he jumped onto the black dragon while holding Furiae within his grasp, so apt in his movements it was as if it were staged. He looked down at Caim from where he sat with those eyes—those red eyes. Indifference wore his features. A deep-pitted feeling of terror rang out with the hollow gaze as it peered down upon them.

…He wasn’t angry, Caim. Those days they spent together in the courts, no matter how fierce the argument may have been, Inuart would always look at Caim with those eyes by the end.

Red eyes. The eyes of the soldiers of the Empire. Perhaps they really didn’t possess feelings. Perhaps they were frightened. Just lifeless things, jealous of the life that others possessed. Just an insurrection of minerals that had lost their innocence. Their eyes upturned towards the heavens, with armour equipped, and swords flew.

It was by grace of the Empire that the world was alive, vivid with vigour and life. Yet as a great cost to that newfound rejuvenation, the humans had been run exhausted.

…Were they still alive, humankind?

The voice of an unfamiliar girl echoed within Caim’s head. The sword is dropped. Caim falls to his knees.

Spreading its wings, the black dragon beat against the wind; soaring nonchalantly off into the sky until nothing but a black hole remained to spot his vision.

5

By the time the battle was done and the grey of morning had come to rise, Aadah had collapsed asleep with a feeling of exhaustion that bore down upon her entire body. After finishing the full course of nightmares dreamt by those soldiers left devastated in the wake of the war, it was the familiar dream of those twins that she had for dessert. Something about ‘Speak not the Watchers’ or whatnot…

The sight and voices within that dream had been growing more vivid as of late. Aadah had grown to realise that particular dream had belonged to Seere, who always slept curled up by her side. It seemed to be the tapir’s favourite, often Aadah had sensed it had bringing it in from within her. Had it not been for the tapir, Seere would have had that dream every night.

This was peculiar—people never had the exact same dream more than once. They were a reconstruction of daily life, based in what the body had gone through that day. The reason people had similar dreams so incessantly was due to the fact that after waking, their sense and reason would merely remake the old dream into a similar shape. For Aadah, who was a dream expert and connoisseur, it was only a natural conclusion. Seeing the same dream, however, was undoubtedly a supernatural event.

Something was haunting Seere’s mind. Something was trying to drag him into a dark pit. And Aadah, by devouring it, was about to be dragged in his place.

Like an addict, the tapir eagerly dug into the dream.

The last shaking, nimble feather fell from the wings worn on the backs of the twins.

And with both hands, the tapir picked and slurped it up, with nothing more than a satisfied belch to leave behind the mark of that feather.

Throughout Aadah’s whole body, the feel of that melting sweetness spread.

…She couldn’t believe she had grown addicted to those tastes so enjoyed by children.

As pact-partners, the tapir’s pleasure was Aadah’s pleasure, and Aadah felt endangered whenever that mutual sense was exchanged. She had to stay away from that child. She had to leave before she could be drawn too deep into that pit.

Like a bubble that floated, then disappeared. Before long, Aadah’s own body would turn into those bubbles just the same, and dissolve into a coloured array of rainbows; a light which shone into the world of dreams.

Aadah awoke, squinting at the sunlight that streamed into the tent overhead. She heard the sound of something flapping — The torn cloth fluttered noisily. Through the open gap, Aadah could catch sight of the blue sky about to fall from the evening.

Leonard sat by her side. Scars littered his body. His clothing was smeared black with soot. On his face, he wore a stiff expression.

“...Leonard. Good morning.”

Aadah got up, feeling rather pleasant as the soft rays of sunlight warmed the bag on her face. Though, even as she got up, she found her body still felt tired. Aadah rolled up her blanket and sat atop it, her back slouched and her hands placed atop both her cross-legged knees. Her knees cracked as they folded.

A small smile spread across Leonard’s face.

“Good morning to you as well… Seere. Is he unharmed?”

“Ahh, let me see…” As she spoke, Aadah struck the air with one hand.

“Seere’s fine. Sleeping without a care in the world.”

Seere, with a blanket wrapped around his small body, let out a faint breath. The thought of that nightmare trailed back to Aadah’s mind — Though truly, she couldn’t tell whether it was a good or bad dream. Even so… It felt likely to her that that dream had been rooted in something horrible and ominous for Seere.

Leonard reached out his hand to touch Seere’s sleeping face, but his fingertips stopped just before he could touch it. With a look trapped somewhere between smiling pleasantries and deep anguish, his face froze into an oddly strained expression.

Aadah looked away from his face, unable to help but feel a tinge of annoyance with the prospect of subtlety in other people’s emotions—most of the time, she couldn’t really understand them herself. The face was a sensory organ that showed other people’s feelings; but, ever since she had lost her own in her pact, Aadah’s ability to understand those feelings went along with it. Like hopscotch, she went from dream to dream, desire to desire, from one extreme to another. Aadah lived her life leaping and jumping, without a single story there to patch it all together.

If she were to hold her own life in just that one hand, it would do no more than break and shatter into a million pieces beyond repair.

“How is the Union faring?”

Leonard nodded his head. “...It seems that the confusion has finally subsided. But, much of the camp had been set aflame. They believe that there are tens of thousands of soldiers who have been killed in the conflict.

Perhaps there was held some faint hope for a victory, but… None is to be had anymore. It seems that our world’s final hope has left completely into the sky.”

‘It’s really, truly terrible!! Just horrible! Sheesh, every last human out there has turned into nothing more than a pile of charred meat!’ Even the faerie seemed to be left exhausted. It sat down upon Leonard’s shoulder and placed a tiny hand upon its pact-partner’s cheek.

Aadah could only shake her head. The smell of dirt and sweat mixed together within her bag — Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t washed it in a while.

“That blaze was horrible. Was it the work of the sub-humans?”

“It is uncertain, yet. There have been told rumours that it was by the maddened hands of our own allies... There has also been talk of red eyes among the soldiers. All men in this camp live in fear of their own comrades, now. As my own blind eyes are forever shut to the world, I feel as if I have been left null to the spread of such ill speak behind others backs…”

Leonard’s eyes opened into thin slits. In place of where the pupils would be, the crest of his pact stood in place in the whites of the clouded golden eyes.

“That the fire had coincided with an invasion of Empire soldiers, it is almost certain that the Empire must have been involved in some way… Could they have sought the Goddess? …It must be…”

“Has the Goddess truly been captured…!?” Aadah was shocked. “Even under the protection of that dragon…”

‘Ugh, that cranky old dragon was nothing more than a nasty preaching lizard! Always talking, yap yap yap!! That noisy bastard should have just gone and dropped dead! Dead!!’

“The dragon had been defeated. It would appear that the Empire has also made a pact with their own dragon. Inuart, the man we had met in the forest… He…”

“Bloody hell…” Aadah grumbled with shock once again.

What could have happened to that man after he disappeared in the forest that day? Aadah thought back to that dark dream of envy from that redhead she had met in the woods.

“What happened to the dragon and that madman it had with it? Don’t tell me they were killed…”

“They were not. By some miracle they had saved their lives. …But their wounds are grave. It will be long before the dragon will be capable of flying again.”

Aadah groaned. It seemed that the whole of the situation had played out poorly. Ever since the dragon had formed a pact with Caim, it did its job well in keeping the Empire’s army at bay with a power that overwhelmed its surroundings… She never would have fathomed that it would be defeated.

As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she couldn’t help but think her sense of perception had been falling loose recently. Or, perhaps it wasn’t so much that her intuition hadn’t been working as much as she carried the thought that there was nothing she could do? More and more, the outlook for the Union and the future of the world was looking bad. As far as Aadah could see it, what would be the turning point in all their lives had finally arrived.

Leonard spoke.

“The soldiers have rose to voice their discontent. The bodies of those who had lost their lives in last night’s battle will be among the things left here. A declaration has been made… That the army will go on to advance so soon as all is in order.”

With little consideration to be had, Aadah waved him off.

“I don’t care about the bodies. The Hierarch Verdelet wishes to hasten the decisive battle with the Empire—because the Goddess has been captured, I suppose that is the only option left by now… The Union must press forward and go ahead. As for me… I’m turning back.”

Leonard’s face became clouded with a bitter look. “So I see… I myself have decided to continue to serve under the Union.”

“You just can’t help but be used by other people, can you, Leonard? It’s but a small part in the cluster of joy you get from your suffering at being starved and denied the way you have. As someone who has made a pact, you are powerful. You are also just as expected to act as that fighting force against the Empire. Really, I’m certain that Verdelet would be overjoyed to hear your decision. …So go, do as you will. I have no reason to stop you.”

“We are both bearers of our pacts. Seere had done a great deal alongside the others that previous night… It was only then that everyone had come to know the strength of this child. Had it not been for golem, I fear that the damage would have been far worse. And though he may be left hidden by his age, I am aware of the Hierarch’s eye on him as well. My only wish is to keep this child close; so that I may watch and assure that no harm may befall him...” Leonard curled his index finger and stroked Seere’s cheek.

“He has no power to fight. I’ve grown fed up with this… What use do you have for him? Does your army intend to use this child to fight in the war or not?”

“By no means could I ever allow such horrors…! It is often that children such as him are sold only as slaves or products… Seere lives free from that knowledge. Should he go with you, I am certain that he will be made unhappy…” Leonard faltered. “...Between the two of us, it would be in best interests for Seere to make his decision whether he will stay with the Union or not.”

“I had found that boy first. It was I who had fed and cared for him. It’s simple enough: That boy is mine. Unless, you wish to buy him from me…?”

Aadah laughed at him.

“You… How could you be so blind to the value of children beyond mere currency…!?”

The faerie happily flew around Leonard’s head.

‘Ahahah! You really haven't put much thought into it, have you? You and her; you’re just alike! There’s no difference between who he goes with at all~! With what a well-behaved child that Seere is, that discipline ought to give him a good lack of perspective of the dangers the brat really faces! Ahahahaha! Fools!’

“...I don’t know, Leonard.” Aadah promptly turned the other way. Seere, who had been woken up from their argument, rubbed at his eyes.

“......Oh, Leonard, you came. Good morning!”

“Ah- Forgive me, Seere. Have I caused you to awake?”

“Hah, always sleeping, aren’t you? And the world continues to turn…”

Seere stood and took a deep breath.

“Wow… The weather is really nice today!” He said, looking over to Leonard with still drowsy eyes. “I’m so glad that you both are safe. You don’t have any injuries, do you?”

“I am well. Thank you, Seere.” As Leonard offered a smile, a strong wind rang through the wreckage of the scorched camp.

“Seere-” Aadah began to say something, but trailed off in her words. A vague look of apprehension ran over Seere’s face as he grasped the corner of his fluffy blanket. Aadah felt a sudden pressure weighing itself on her heart, one which had wrung her soul like a rag. The dragon’s voice. The three of them looked up to the clear blue sky from the large hole in the top of the tent.

‘Brave souls of the Union, listen well. Hear my voice!’

Aadah and the others hurried out of the tent. The sky was perfectly clear, not a piece or hint of a cloud to be seen anywhere… Yet the dragon would not be flying in it today. As Leonard had said, it had suffered from incredible wounds.

One by one, soldiers came out from the tents that remained in the grasslands. Each hand and mouth froze dead in their tracks at the sight of the sky without a dragon.

‘Future instructions have been decided following examination between the Hierarch Verdelet, and Caim — He who has formed a pact with a dragon. Our central forces shall begin their advance towards the border against the Empire; who’s assault has considerably grown. The Goddess grows weak; now that she is within the Empire’s grasp, our future remains uncertain — A new plight is placed before us with each passing second... It is we who must stand tall against the Empire, should we hope to survive. Not only must we overcome this seemingly unyielding force, the Empire has grown only more in its power with the use of monsters and subhumans at the core of its army. Should we continue to battle as a test of mere endurance, we shall fall. …If the Union should fail, it will mean the end of humankind.’

A buzz began to spread among the soldiers. Aadah merely clicked her tongue.

“What well-spun garble of words is this? Whether humanity lives, whether humanity is destroyed, it doesn’t matter. I’m full of it. Bring on the tides!”

“Oil for the fire… Water for chrysanthemums… Love for the people… A string of words, never-ending…” A reminiscent smile spread across Seere’s lips as he spoke. Leonard frowned.

“Seere…?”

‘Do you all remember? The mountains and rivers of your hometowns. The alleys… Your home. Remember the people who lived there. Families, lovers, friends, all people of different relations. Remember the loneliness carried within. Now is the time for all of you to recall the things that you love, that you hate! Recall what stirs the feelings inside you! Ask yourselves whether you would allow that to be weathered and lost forever. Everyone—it is only now that we can march forward and crush the Empire’s army! To win means that we shall be allowed to survive… But to lose would mean to perish. The task that has been entrusted to your hands is of great and unprecedented scale… So it need not be said: We will win.’

As the voice echoed through their heads, the hearts of the soldiers began to intertwine. Somehow, it was then that everyone came to an understanding. The once skewered and disjointed impulses had joined together in creation of one desire:

…They would defeat the mighty Empire.

That’s right—theywould be the fall of the Empire. Almost compulsively, those words had swayed something within Aadah’s heart, hurrying to pull it apart. It stuck like gum, adhesive to the threads that pulled it along. Seere’s solitude in this world was nothing. It was nothing, she had told herself. Air filled the freshly-awakened lungs of Aadah’s body. With a jump she had turned, and awkwardly snuck away.

All the soldiers cheered at once. However, Seere could only focus on Aadah, who nodded vaguely towards the empty sky. Leonard didn’t move. His expression remained unchanging, and he was eerily quiet.

‘Our march shall begin at the appointed time of six in the following morning. Your instructions are as follows: You are to go and see each regimental commander. That is all.’

(I have difficulty believing that a dragon would be so genuinely mindful of things such as human destiny… No. It is only an intermediary. But if that’s the case, then… Could this be the will of that loon? It couldn’t be… That cowering hierarch? Impossible. …So then. Whose hope is this? Who’s really uplifting all these people? Whose will is this?)

Aadah looked back to the soldiers, their hearts inspired. Their disappointment was completely overwritten by the will to fight, a will so apparent it had turned to a fine smoke that rose straight to the clear blue sky.

…Could a dragon’s ability to speak from the heart truly be used in such a way?

The tapir from within her was ruthless in its greed, swallowing down the gathering salivation as if a great mountain of a feast had been placed before it. How much hold did that speech have over her? It said enough, how she had shuddered at the sight of the flame that burst from the hearts of the people of Midgard. Aadah walked up to Seere and placed a hand on that little head, and with his attention promptly grabbed, his hollow gaze finally came into focus. As Seere looked up at Aadah, he saw she looked… Sad.

“Aadah, we’re going to see her soon. Manah is waiting for us! Does that make you upset…? …Are you sad? I can’t tell… Are the Gods angry? Could they be sad?”

Words without coherency — But she was sure that, among children, it would have made sense; a tightrope walk between such acrobatic mutterings. Time stopped; words left eternally unfinished. A child the start of many desires… Yet no compassion came to Aadah’s heart. Those desires of many different people had stirred and wished to connect with that boy for all sorts of reasons, but she had a job to do. This perception of him was too repulsive for her own bearing.

(Even if he is such a pitiable little thing… Is it really a necessity that I keep company with him like this?)

“Do you really think that your side can win this, Leonard?”

Leonard didn’t answer.

“What if the Empire really was an army whose sole purpose was the destruction of humankind? The more you resist, the stronger they become.”

“...Even if such a thing should be the case for us… We must not give up.”

“The end of humankind…? If we fight them, do you think that we… Will be forgiven?” Seere began to fret with his hands.

“...Seere, listen to me. I’m going to tell you something good.” Aadah smiled from underneath her bag.

“There are no Gods.”

Seere peered up at Aadah.

“No Gods…?”

“That’s right, Seere…” Aadah stared at Leonard’s blind eyes. “Any relationship is, for the most part, based on personal interest. You can admit the same for your own self, can’t you? Your love for your friends, your love for your neighbours, your love for people, all of that has some intention behind it. To have power or appearance, authority over others — You could just simply have a lustful mind. People’s love for ‘The Gods’ is just the same. The overarching, absolute merit of bringing these interests under control—that is the role that humans have assigned to ‘The Gods’. The concept of Gods is the first and most successful kind of counterfeit scheme for currency in the history of humankind.”

Seere gazed vacantly up at Aadah. “The Gods… Are like fake money?”

“That’s right. Gods are nothing more than digestive organs soaking up the excess of what can’t be equally exchanged. Everything is thrown to the Gods — You don’t even need to pay for it. Lives, dignity, freedom… What happens is that humans throw all those shapeless concepts together in a convenient little box to keep up with the state of society’s crosses and ends, and that ‘convenient box’ is called God. Well — Life, dignity and freedom just happen to be what I sell. Whether I exchange that for money or someone else does for the Gods, it’s essentially all the same.”

“Well… Don’t you think that’s a little strange? The Gods save people! Money only causes pain…”

“You run a parallel path from Leonard, Seere. Money saves people just as much as the Gods do. It is for that reason that the Empire is the one who has completely gone on to ignore all concept of the equivalent exchange that makes up this world... There have been rumours that they will be resurrected, and come back from the dead — That is why those humans want to to exchange and give up everything for the Gods: So that they may speak the same drivel they always have been. To excuse nonsense like punishments, and retribution. To justify their rubbish lessons and warnings.”

“Aadah, I… I don’t… Understand…”

“...Ah, well. It’s nothing, Seere. That’s the last of it. I have nothing more to say.”

“The last of it…?”

“The last as far as I am willing to put up with. I’m turning back from the Union. You can head further east in your search for Manah.”

“But… You promised that you would find Manah with me, that way you could sell me! She’ll be here soon, Aadah, I know she will!”

“People make promises because they have expectations to be met, Seere. The word is kept because of the unease that it will not be carried out. Do you understand? Promises can easily be broken with greater anxieties and expectations. I am not going to war against the Empire. I’ve done enough as it is; I’ve worked too hard for your sake. Any more than that will result in a deficit. …Ahh, well — You already ran yourself out long ago, but…”

Seere hung his head low.

“But… I can’t do it by myself. Aadah, please…! You have to lend me your strength!”

“What it is you’re lacking is not the strength; but the will. That is all. You certainly are a cowardly little boy, Seere,” Aadah said, a hint of fondness in her tone, “Only with a good excuse will things go your way.”

“...Do you not like me anymore, Aadah? Why?”

“I never liked or hated you from the beginning. I have no sense for feelings like that.”

Aadah’s tone was cold and indifferent towards Seere, her head turning towards Leonard. He remained silent, seemingly left puzzled by the sudden turn of events.

“Behind you is someone you like, Leonard. You know, I don’t agree on a single thing with you. Our dissension with each other — Conceit and vanity, is the whole of our true character not just part of life? Everyone, every single person in this world has their grievances. There are as many stories within it as there are people. Such is a normal and natural part of life, but one left often forgotten. All overlapping, all happening and repeating themselves all at once… Currently, I’m trying to make sense of the heart of a man who’s lived as a hermit.”

Leonard shook his head, as if to ward off the slave trader’s parting words.

“...Hm.” Aadah stood up. “Well then, I’ll just talk to the soldiers.”

“Aadah… We can go together…!” Seere spoke softly.

“I don’t want you to. You aren’t mine to deal with anymore.”

Seere’s head bowed in understanding, his small hands raising to wipe the gathering tears in his eyes.

“I… I understand... Goodbye.”

As Caim and the red dragon were transferred to the tent base to rest for treatment, they came bearing more bad news. In the end, the remaining Ocean Seal had been destroyed. With all the seals of the land destroyed, only the human seal—The Goddess—Remained. Whether or not she was safe remained utterly and completely unknown. With the Union and the rest of the world set front and centre to this predicament, the 200,000 Union army hoisted high their blue flag and began to march. They were headed towards “The Blue Mountains”, a vast and wide area of green hills that lay near to the Imperial Capital. Aadah bought a simple dressed military cart to head along on, deciding to see off the march on one of the horses.

As she laid sight upon what seemed like Verdelet left in a corner, Aadah rode up until she was directly beside him. On closer inspection, the man seemed to be ageing with each passing second—the skin around his eyes sagged, and the corners of his mouth seemed as if they would fall loose any second. The waxy white tone of his skin had grown even paler.

Undoubtedly, the shock of having had the Goddess stolen from him must have left a greater impact than even the loss of his arm. With his head lowered, Verdelet grasped the reins of his horse with a lone hand.

“Bloody hell, have you gone old… You look pathetic. Oi, Hierarch—do you really think that you can beat the Empire like that?”

Verdelet quietly lifted his head and looked to Aadah.

“Ahh, you…? What is it? Is there something you need…?”

“Mm, well—I’ve decided to head home. I just wanted to send my greetings.”

“I see…”

Verdelet’s head lowered again, seeming to have little interest in her words. Grateful that she was safe and sound from the fields of war, Aadah was quick to find herself in a talkative enough mood to where she had gone on to speak with little thought or regard to be had. She spoke restlessly of the residence she had inherited from her former mistress, how she had admired the lakeshore and forests on which it was constructed, going nonstop about how beautiful it was... The two remained side by side on their horses for a while like that.

“Wonderful… Ah, and how was your business here? After all, if I am not mistaken, I had heard you were of the assent that you would retire from your life as a slave trader…”

“Mhmm, it would seem so… Well, I got my hands on that one, at least.”

On the horse’s rear there were two sacks of gold coins, a heavy noise emitting from them as they moved about.

“That child was left to your army to fight. Hmph… He’s far less than one would expect for a soldier, but in today’s world, I suppose this is what’s considered reasonable.”

Aadah began to turn the horse back from there.

“There are no such things like tailors and dressmakers in heaven. Do not forget that, Hierarch.”

“......Farewell, O Godless Dream Eater…”

Aadah could feel Verdelet’s lethargic gaze on her back as she galloped back to the cart. The tapir rolled and growled deeply from within her stomach.

‘Going so soon? I shan’t tolerate you taking your leave halfway through. We were born for this.’

The tapir was in the bottom of her stomach. As she gently brushed her hand across the sunken face from beneath the bag, she felt a faint shiver pass through her.

(What the hell kind of animal have I been keeping in there? Where does it think it’s going!?)

Through unbalanced vision, Aadah saw a trio of four-wheeled carts. A suffocating scent rose from the fresh grass seedlings as they were trampled underfoot by the passing Union soldiers. The arrival of spring was drawing near.

The day of the decisive battle between the Anti-Imperial Union of Nations and the Empire was fast approaching. ​

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