36. Into the Depths of the Story

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/39/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

After the meeting, Ashera did a light bout of combat training with David at the training grounds.
It had gone a long way toward relieving her stress—but on her way to the showers to wash off the sweat, she came face to face with the last person she wanted to meet.

“Geh…”
“Oh my, what a coincidence, Ashera. Were you training with David?”
“None of your business. Leave me alone.”
“Is it so strange to take an interest in the movements of one’s fellow members of the knighthood?”

Fellow members or not, they had never once acted as a group.
To begin with, opportunities for the members to be clustered in the same place like this were so rare it was doubtful they had even happened once.

“By the way, Ashera, I am in a terrible bind.”
“Good for you. Stay in a bind forever.”

Ashera had no intention of listening to anyone’s troubles; she fluttered a hand and tried to leave.
But Lalilalai, at her own pace, put a question to her.

“There is not a man to be seen anywhere in this castle. At this rate I cannot fulfill my duties as a holy woman.”
“Then Madis or Narkil would do, wouldn’t they? Or why don’t you seduce the king and drag him out yourself?”
“I did try, but no matter how provocatively, how sensually I spoke to him, there was no response. I had been confident I could arouse sexual excitement in any man, so I have been a little depressed.”

So she actually tried, Ashera retorted inwardly.
But perhaps that, too, was very like Lalilalai.
She did not choose to whom she offered her body.
Ally or enemy, noble or vagrant—if she was wanted, she gladly let herself be taken.
“That is my own form of love,” she would say, without once doubting her ethics.

“If there’s nobody around, that’s fine, isn’t it? It’s a rare holiday. Rest your body, literally.”
“Oh my, you are concerned for my body. How happy I am to hear you say such a thing, Ashera. I cannot help but… ahh, my body is growing hot.”
“… You really don’t pick your partners. What are you, a rabbit in heat?”
“How charming. A rabbit.”
“Yeah, sure. Below a rabbit, if you mean you’ve got no charm. Even they don’t go around casually aborting kids.”
“Casually? Did you just say I abort them casually, Ashera!”

A shadow fell across the smile that had not broken once until now.
The subject of abortion was a land mine for her.
Ashera, for her part, grinned at the sight—in other words, she had understood it was taboo and brought it up on purpose.
Lalilalai closed the distance by a step and set her hand on the hem of her coat.
Then, as if to show Ashera her skin, she rolled it up and bared herself.

“My eldest son, Edge; my second son, Lugrade; my third son, Alphaus—”

One by one, she pointed to the tattoos of fetuses carved into her torso.

“My eldest daughter, Muse; my fourth son, Sein; my second daughter, Norn; my third daughter, Room; my fourth daughter, Kiria; my fifth son, Jess; and my sixth son, Bardon!”

There were ten in all.
A body marked with the tattoos of ten fetuses was, needless to say, bizarre and uncanny.
Having finished introducing her entire “family,” Lalilalai glared at Ashera once more.

“The greatest misfortune for a family is to be parted. And so I vowed to release these children from the yoke of flesh before they were born, that we might live together for all eternity. The tattoos carved into my body are the proof! And you—to call this, this splendid form of love, ‘casual’—how dare you!”
“It’s disgusting and filthy. To me it just sounds like a sex maniac’s ravings.”
“What is wrong with sex!? I learned from my blood family that it is the ultimate and proper way for those who love one another to be—and I received my eldest, Edge, from my father, and my second, Lugrade, from my elder brother!”
“Ahahaha, what’s that? That’s just incest! To your old man and your big brother you were nothing but a hole, a meat toilet! There wasn’t any love there! You were just a tool for getting off, so don’t try to pretty it up!”
“Will you insult me to the end, Aaaasheraaaaa!”

With a face like a wrathful hannya, Lalilalai lunged at Ashera.
Her body looked soft at a glance, but it possessed a strength beyond the human, as befit a knight.
Ashera, of equal ability, was not shaken in the least by the Madonna’s killing intent.
If anything, she looked satisfied at having provoked her opponent.

“Heh. No need to get that angry. But if you really can’t accept it… shall we?”
“I shall take you up on that, and I shall prove that my love is right!”
“Nice, nice. Fighting David wasn’t enough; I was still pent up. If you’re in the mood, bring your weapon to the training grounds. We’ll settle there which of us is right.”

If Lalilalai was a nymphomaniac, Ashera was a battle maniac.
Having neatly obtained a pretext for a fight to the death, she headed for the training grounds in high spirits, her tied-back red hair swaying.

 

◇◇◇

 

A huge blade ran along the ground and scythed upward from a low stance, meant to reap the enemy’s neck.
But at the last instant the other caught the sickle’s blow on the greatsword in her left hand.

Giin, goooohhh!

A fierce clash of metal.
The impact of the collision became a blast of wind and kicked up dust all around.
In that instant, Ashera did not miss the faint narrowing of Lalilalai’s eyes.
She brought the greatsword in her right hand down as if to smash.
The mass of iron came dropping through empty air, meant to turn her into scraps of meat; Lalilalai caught it on the sickle’s haft at once.
An ordinary weapon would have bent and been finished.
But that sickle, which was said to use part of her aborted children, withstood Ashera’s furious assault.

“Still using that creepy weapon, huh!”
“Love protects me. It is because you cannot understand that that you always, always—!”

Two knights hurled at each other, at a speed the eye could not follow, heavy equipment no ordinary human could even lift.
Narkil and Madis watched them from a distance.

“Those girls are at it again. Didn’t they do something similar the last time they met?”
“Ashera, always looking to pick a fight, is one thing, but Lalilalai, always taking the bait, is at fault too.”
“Our knighthood does seem to be full of hot-blooded people. Madis, you once flew into a rage when someone mocked your drugs, didn’t you?”
“And you, Narkil, fly into a fury just from looking at a beautiful girl.”
“Oh my, the way you put it, I sound like a beautiful queen with no patience at all. I am exercising considerable restraint, you know. For example, right now—look, every soldier we pass is a pretty girl, aren’t they? And I am holding back from violating and defiling them.”
“… I see.”
“You really have no interest in girls, do you? That’s why you’re still a virgin.”

Narkil said it in exasperation, but Madis did not seem to care what was said to him.
He had, as a rule, no interest in human emotion.
And so he never came to like others, and felt not the slightest guilt when he hurt them.
Hence he could repeat human experiments without a shred of shame.
Madis tended to be taken at a glance for an intellectual, sensible man, but he was a member of the knighthood all the same; he harbored his share of distortion.

“… Those two are at it again.”

Noticing the noise, Lily arrived late, clutched her head, and sighed.

“Yes, they’re at it again, as usual. Shouldn’t the captain stop them?”
“…”
“Oh, I’m sorry. You haven’t the strength to stop them, have you? But if we leave them like this, the training grounds will probably be destroyed. Won’t the important people be angry with you again?”
“… I know.”
“Then come on! You’ll have to put your body on the line and stop them. You should be able to, shouldn’t you? You’re the captain, the highest-ranking knight in the knighthood. It wouldn’t make sense if you weren’t the strongest!”
“Haa… Narkil, you aren’t a spiteful mother-in-law. Leave her alone. There’s no way she could do that, a captain who got there by connections.”
“Oh, that’s right. I’m sorry, Lily dear.”

Throughout, Lily said nothing.
She had no words with which to talk back.
Strong in her sense of duty, she went on blaming herself—“it is my own fault for having no strength”—even when she was spoken to as freely as this.

“Haa… heheh. A good match, isn’t it, Lalilalai.”
“Hmph. You are the more spent. Allow me to settle this shortly!”
“No, not yet. Not yet. I’ve still got an ace up my sleeve—aaaaaaaah!”

Ashera screamed, her face twisting with pain.
Then something began to move uncannily on her back.
The movement grew more violent, until at last it burst through her clothes and revealed itself.

“Guh… haaah… aaaaaah… h-how’s that… Lalilalai…!”
“You—that body…”
“If it makes me stronger, I don’t care how. That’s me!”

Sweat beading over her whole body, Ashera declared it as if in pain, and yet laughing.
From her back two enormous green arms had grown, each gripping a greatsword of about the same size as the ones she held in her own hands.
Clearly not human: a pair of grotesque arms.
Seeing them, Madis, who had been spectating, put a hand to his chin.

“The transplanted arms seem to be functioning well.”
“Uwah, you did that?”
“Yes. According to Ashera, if she had more arms she ought to be that much stronger. She asked me, so I embedded a monster’s arms in her back.”
“… That’s absurd.”
“Ashera is a fool, just as the captain says, but it appears to have been effective.”

Now four-armed, Ashera pressed Lalilalai harder with attacks of still greater ferocity.
Handling four blades with a single sickle—difficult enough against two—was hard.
That Lalilalai, no longer blocking and concentrating on evasion, was driven onto the back foot was only reasonable.

“Feels good, doesn’t it! This is the best, Lalilalai! To think the day would come when I could toy with you one-sided like this!”
“Guh—I—my being in the right—!”
“That’s where you’re wrong! Lose to me and admit it!”

Four arms came down at once, meaning to crush Lalilalai.
She tried to take them on her sickle, but she could not match the power—

“Kyaaaaaah!”

She was blown away, screaming.
She would get up soon enough, but the match was already decided.
From here, Lalilalai would not turn it around.
Already—or rather, from the start—there had been nothing Lily could do, and there was no need to remain any longer.
She turned on her heel in silence and made to leave the training grounds.

“Oh my, one of your members is about to collapse injured, and you’re walking out without a word?”

Narkil provoked Lily, but she was unmoved.
She was used to it. From long ago, not only from Narkil, people of every kind had gone on saying such things.
That said, it would be a lie to claim Narkil’s words had no effect on her, and there was a reason he hated her this much.

Narkil was a person with absolute confidence in his own beauty, and at the same time he harbored a considerable complex toward women—especially beautiful women.
And when he was in a bad mood and saw such a woman, he would impulsively violate her and then strangle her to death with the whip that was his favored weapon.
But with Lily, his position meant he could neither violate her nor, of course, kill her.
And so he vented his desire by reviling her like this.

That did not make Narkil’s conduct right, but even so, Lily had no allies.
Even Madis only occasionally rebuked him with a half-smile; he made no move to stop him.
And Lily herself knew well that talking back to this sort of person was useless.
Without stopping, she left the training grounds behind.

 

◇◇◇

 

“Haa…”

Seeking a place where she could settle, Lily came to the mess hall in the barracks, sat in a chair, and heaved a long sigh.
Ever since the unprecedented incident in which poison had been put in the food, this place had been sealed for a time.
After a while the investigation had ended and it had been opened again, but no one was eager to use a place where dozens of soldiers had died.
As a result, the mess hall was deserted—an ideal rest spot, for Lily.

Lily leaned against the backrest and closed her eyes.
She was exhausted enough to want to sleep just like this.
No—rather, she would have preferred never to wake again—

“… N?”

Suddenly, Lily sensed someone’s presence and opened her eyes.
Near the mess-hall entrance stood a female soldier, apparently come to rest as she had.
Black hair and white skin: features not often seen in the royal capital.
She looked meek, but her features were regular and her limbs slender.
It was hardly the look of a soldier.

“Forgive me, Captain. Did I wake you?”
“It doesn’t matter… ah, sorry. I have yet to learn all the new soldiers’ names. May I ask yours?”
“Glass.”

Needless to say, it was an alias Chigusa had invented on the spot, but Lily showed no sign of suspicion.
Far from suspecting, she found, as she looked, a strange sense of familiarity welling up.
She had wanted to be alone, and yet before she knew it she was beckoning Chigusa over.

“You came to rest too, didn’t you? Then, if you like, sit in the seat across from me.”
“Is that all right? Someone like me?”
“I will not force you, but I would be glad if you did.”

Hesitant, yet prompted, Chigusa sat in the chair.
Lily gazed steadily at her.

“Um, is there something on my face?”
“No. I don’t know why, but looking at you calms me, somehow. It feels nostalgic.”
“… Captain, surely you aren’t trying to pick me up?”
“How did you arrive at that? I am a woman! Honestly… unlike your looks, you make jokes too.”

Chigusa herself was not especially good at that sort of exchange.
And yet, before she knew it, the words had come out.

“Perhaps it felt nostalgic because you resemble an acquaintance of mine. Of course your appearance is different, and your way of speaking doesn’t come close, but.”
“An acquaintance. If it’s someone the captain knows, she must have been a person of high standing.”
“She was a noble, after a fashion. But like just now, she often made jokes and teased me.”
“Then I think you ought to call her a friend.”
“… I hesitate to.”
“Why?”
“A great deal happened. Mostly my fault.”

Lily looked up at the ceiling, then closed her eyes, remembering that “acquaintance.”
The memories that returned were all happy ones, of a kind she could no longer have.
Or perhaps, if she had gone on associating with her—she would not have had to choose this suffocating way of living.

“She was important to you, Captain.”
“Important… important, is it. Yes. I suppose she was. When I realize how much I have been influenced, I have no choice but to admit it.”
“To have a friend you can feel that much for is a wonderful thing, I think.”
“Then, while we’re on the subject of wonderful things, would you listen to my reminiscences? I find I want to soak in them a little, as a change of mood. Of course, if it would bore you, you may refuse.”
“That’s unkind of you, Captain. A common soldier could hardly refuse. Besides… I am interested in that person’s story as well.”

That was Chigusa’s true feeling.
Strangely, she found herself curious about Lily.

“I see. I’m grateful. Then listen. The one I might call the only person who saw me as Lily, not as a daughter of the Clearlights house…”

It was less Chigusa’s own will than the will of something lodged inside her, added after the fact—

“My memories of Camilla Dilideed.”

The instant she heard that name, Chigusa knew the identity of the unease smoldering within her.