Ishura - Volume 5 - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Kuta Silver City

The terror of the True Demon King, originating from the ruins of the True Northern Kingdom, swept across the world and was an omen that every city would meet its end in madness. That had been just as true for Kuta Silver City.

Three years earlier. Following the True Northern Kingdom, the suzerain of the United Western Kingdom fell to ruin, bringing extreme turmoil to the political landscape of Kuta Silver City, the largest metropolis on Western Kingdom soil. The middle-class citizens craved long-awaited peace, while in contrast, the armed conflict between Kuta Silver City and other powers, including the Central Kingdom, ceaselessly repeated itself… Thus, it wasn’t rare for some person’s mangled corpse to pop up somewhere.

This corpse had been stuffed into multiple hemp bags and dumped into the river, so in order to identify the bodies, Obsidian Eyes needed to retrieve the remains from the bags and attempt to piece them together. The damage to the whole body was horrible, and it was clear that most of the injuries has been inflicted while the victim was still alive.

A residential basement on the outskirts of the city. By this point, Obsidian Eyes needed to hide themselves from the city’s army.

“…Is this Rehem? Where’d everything from the nose to the chin go? This iron… It’s been melted down and coiled around the bones—what kind of torture did they put her through?”

The one charged with autopsying the body was a lycan and the ninth-formation vanguard in Obsidian Eyes, Harutoru the Light Grip. He was an assassin who utilized his superb muscular strength as a weapon, but he also had a physician’s understanding of Life Arts.

“I-I’m sorry, sh-she was the only one I found… Hyne got his face burned, and it’s unsure if he’ll regain consciousness…” Fourth-formation vanguard, Hyakrai the Tower replied, struggling to force the words out. After retrieving the hemp bags filled with the corpse and carrying them to this basement, he seemed to lack the mental willpower to even stand up from his chair.

“I think Teeks is dead, too. His corpse has yet to turn up, though…”

There was one another among them.

“Rehem! J-just look…at what a handy partner you’ve become now! After all, see, look! Now I’ll be able to easily carry you around with me from here on out! What do you say, Rehem?! Will you lend me your face? Ah-hya-hya-hya-hya!”

“……”

“……”

She returned Rehem’s head back to its original position, perfectly straight-faced.

“…Ah, well…you see…I was just trying to find a bright side to all this.”

A zmeu woman. Her name was Zeljirga the Abyss Web, fifth-formation vanguard. Rehem the Fog Hand and Zeljirga had been partners for many years of life-and-death danger.

“Don’t clown around in a situation like this,” said Harutoru. “We already know the one who got the three of them. Shinji the Piece Column, the right army staff officer for the city army.”

“…Piece Column. B-but our contract with Kuta Silver City shouldn’t be over yet. How could they betray us without any prior counsel like this?”

“They must’ve planned on using a surprise attack to get rid of us from the very start! Those three were the ones in charge of dealing with Shinji the Piece Column! From the very start, they planned on using us…on using Obsidian Eyes and throwing us away once they were done!”

“…A scorched-earth slaughter. Even during the previous campaign against Miluzi the Coffin Edict, i-it was nothing but dirty work for us… To ensure that the Central Kingdom and Kuta had an excuse to give to their governments…th-they were scheming to make us take the blame for carrying it all out. Heh-heh-heh… V-very rational. With the characteristic depravity of a visitor.”

Shinji the Piece Column was a visitor staff officer employed by the Kuta government. Feeling cornered by the rampant terror of the True Demon King, Kuta Silver City needed to suppress any sort of resistance, even if it meant using a visitor of uncertain origins to do so—and regardless of whatever sort of methods that visitor, bereft of this world’s common sense and morals, may have tried to use.

“Oh, look, you two! If I do this to this part of Rehem right here, I can just pull this out here, and…she’s making a super-funny face, don’t you think?!”

“……”

“……”

Zeljirga timidly took both of her hands off Rehem’s corpse.

The other two continued their conversation, still harshly seething with murderous rage.

“We will get our revenge, no matter what. I’m going to teach them a lesson, Hyakrai. No matter what command may say…these hands are going to take Shinji’s head!”

“Th-this is clearly a challenge. That’s why they let us find the bodies! They’re trying to use our retaliation a-as an excuse to hunt us down!”

“Um, guys…?” queried Zeljirga.

“Hyakrai! We may be sinners, strayed from the correct path. But even then, we became Obsidian Eyes precisely because we didn’t want to be thrown out like genuine trash! I’ll talk with our leader!”

“W-wait a second, Harutoru!”

“……”

Left behind by herself, Zeljirga fiddled with her partner’s hand. It was on the only arm still connected to her torso.

She held its hand, shook it, and let go. The wrist limply drooped down.

Rehem the Fog Hand wouldn’t ever cook again, nor would she say another straight-faced joke. Zeljirga would no longer need to pull out all the stops to try and get her to burst into laughter, either.

To the public, Rehem was nothing more than a convenient sacrificial pawn, easily disposed of and whose identity would never come to light. Those who operated in secrecy and lived in darkness were never going to be trusted.

“…Everyone is so frightening, aren’t they, Rehem? It’d be much better if they’d just laughed instead.”

Zeljirga let slip a whisper that fell on the deaf underground walls.

For the rest of that day, she did exactly as her own words dictated.

She tried to mellow out her comrades as they grew restless with bloodlust and plunged toward their ruin.

She cheerfully sparked up a conversation with her compatriots as they had their meal.

When she made her report to Rehart the Obsidian, as always, she mixed in an all-too-obvious tall tale as well.

The young lady Linaris considerately reached out to Zeljirga, but the zmeu used sleight of hand to surprise her with a flower, just as usual.

…The sun rose. Zeljirga shut herself away in her room and didn’t come out until late the following evening.

“…Ah-hya-hya.”

Facing the dark window, she forced out a hollow laugh.

“Ah-hya-hya-hya… Everyone is just so angry. It really is exhausting, isn’t it, Rehem?”

Harutoru and the others’ claims were rejected. In order to avoid full-scale conflict with Shinji the Piece Column, their alliance was unilaterally discontinued. Obsidian Eyes would most likely be departing from Kuta Silver City soon.

Staying locked up in her room while everyone else was working could have earned Zeljirga some sort of punishment. However, at the moment, she couldn’t show any concern toward it.

Zeljirga the Abyss Web was from the True Northern Kingdom, which was annihilated shortly after the True Demon King appeared.

While the zmeu, with their reptilian outward appearances, were defined as one of the minian races, they had markedly different origins from the others. Therefore, when the orphan Zeljirga was bought as a slave, her intended use was not for labor, but as foodstuff to satisfy a noble’s sick curiosity.

The reason Zeljirga had survived until division among the slavers led to them killing one another was because she had a bit more needlecraft knowledge than the other zmeu. Her work meant her turn to be eaten had been postponed later than the other slaves.

She didn’t gain her freedom. Next, she was bought by a bandit group and given the dirty task of disposing of people’s bodies.

Zeljirga was highly praised for her unmatched dissection skills, but the right to refuse the bloodstained work was never there for her. There was some instances where she disposed of the children whom she had been bought with. That bandit group was also wiped out in a few years’ time.

It happened again and again.

Throughout Zeljirga’s life, death would rapidly close in on her, then be replaced by fresh terror right before it could seal her fate. The exceptional dexterity in her fingertips was always postponing Zeljirga’s demise—like a tightly tangled string, it kept her tethered to the abyss and would never let her go.

Zeljirga’s smile never once faded.

It wasn’t that she was emotionally broken. Or though that may have been the case, Zeljirga didn’t see it that way herself. Ever since she had lost her homeland, she had been placed in environments that would steal these emotions and her smile…which made her believe all the more that she needed to keep practicing them both, or else she’d lose her way to return to a decent world, like the days long ago spent with family and friends.

She believed that for those who had nothing, a smile was the most valuable thing of all.

“Ah-hya… Hya-hya-hya…”

Rehem the Fog Hand had been her only partner.

These were the times she had to be sure to laugh, faced with such an enormous loss.

“Hya-hya, honestly, what am I going to do? The laughs won’t stop…”

“…Miss Zeljirga.”

She heard a faint voice through the door.

“Miss Zeljirga. Are you crying?”

“My lady.”

It was Linaris’s voice. She was the beautiful young daughter of Obsidian Eyes, turning fourteen that year.

Currently, this manor was filled with anger and hatred. Zeljirga needed to be there to make her laugh at a time like this, and yet she was making the young lady worry about her instead.

“Please, my lady, don’t let yourself worry about me! These past two days, I haven’t given any water to the house plants, you see… Ah-hya-hya-hya! I need to have a full two days of water—for the plants, of course! I think we’ll get a great harvest from our green potted friends—just you wait!”

“……”

“…Umm, what’s wrong? I’ll admit that joke may have lacked some of my usual luster, but…”

“Um, Miss Zeljirga, please allow me to apologize for that. I hope you’re able to cheer up.”

“Oh, please! I am the absolute definition of cheer! What do you say, my lady? If you’d like to see some rope tricks, I can show you quite a cheerful sight indeed!”

In complete contrast to her words, Zeljirga was leaning up against the door, holding her knees to her chest.

It seemed as though there wasn’t a single way to soothe this sadness and indignation.

“Miss Zeljirga? We might have to leave Kuta.”

“…Yes, I understand. I assumed that would be the case.”

“Is there anything you still wanted to do? Anywhere you wanted to go?”

“Ah-hya-hya…and what exactly would you be implying by that?”

“…I myself never even imagined…that we would be leaving here so soon.”

Zeljirga could tell that Linaris was sitting in the hallway, leaning her back up against the door.

Linaris was a frail young girl, much more so than the average vampire. The pheromones that allowed her to command thralls should have manifested when she entered puberty, but she couldn’t wield that power, either.

Always being protected inside the manor’s walls, Linaris would have only walked the dazzling nighttime streets of Kuta Silver City a handful of times.

“…The steam train.”

Zeljirga unexpectedly vocalized her wish.

She was sure that destruction was on its way for this city as well. Fear and despair were sneaking near, and eventually, it would all end. Even the bright and beautifully developed city landscape was already just a surface-level facade.

Nevertheless, the nighttime scenery had been truly beautiful.

“My lady, did you know? A steam train like those that run in the Central Kingdom passed through this city just four days ago. It went through the noble quarter, traveling over the connector bridge from the commercial district…crossing the canal into the industrial district.”

“…Is that so?”

“I heard that it moved with such force and made a huuuuuge noise along the way! It’s a truly wonderful invention, and a very rare sight indeed! I would have loved the opportunity to ride in one even once…is what Rehem told me! Did I trick you into thinking I was talking about myself? Ah-hya-hya!”

“Miss Zeljirga.”

Linaris spoke with a gentle tone from the other side of the door.

“Let us go board it together. Right now.”

“Ah-hya-hya, oh, please, my lady! Surely you jest.”

“I suddenly have the desire to see this steam train for myself. Don’t you think it would be much more reassuring to have someone accompany me?”

“…Even if that someone is a clown with only rope tricks to her name?”

“I was told that you would perform them for me if I so desired.”

“Even if I’m a good-for-nothing who wasn’t able to protect her partner?”

“You’ll be good for something, I’m sure of it. After all, there isn’t anyone else who will play with me.”

Zeljirga scrubbed her face roughly.

A clown couldn’t show their grief-stricken face to anyone else.

She believed that for those who had nothing, a smile was the most valuable thing of all.

The lamplights lit up the night like a starry sky.

Even when Linaris was wrapped up in a modest overcoat the color of dead leaves, her countenance, like a moon lowered from the heavens, did not fail to capture the attention of everyone they passed on the street.

Conversely, Zeljirga had carefully hidden her face with her scarf. She also carried a large duffel bag in one hand. While Linaris rarely traveled outside the manor, there was a chance that Zeljirga’s appearance was already known to the man in control of the city army, Shinji the Piece Column.

She was fully aware that what she was doing right now was an act of foolishness unbecoming of Obsidian Eyes.

…I won’t do anything uncalled for. I’ll board the steam train with my lady and then return to the manor. As long as nothing happens until we’re back, that’ll be it.

Night stalls lined each side of the street on the way to the station, and the row of lamps suspended outside the shops lit up the streets in a myriad of colors. Like a cluster of hazy balls of light, the focal points of the scenery were blurred.

“Oh, Miss Zeljirga, look here!”

The young porcelain noblewoman shone vividly in the Kuta night, all the many things she was seeing for the first time sparkling in her eyes.

“Look at all these candies and their strange colors…! How do you think they turn them that color? It’s unbelievable… I never imagined candy could look so pretty on display like this!”

“Hmmm! My lady, it pains me to say this, but I do not have any acquaintances who specialize in candy, so nothing comes to mind at all! Ah-hya-hya!”

After she replied, Zeljirga paid the owner of the street stall in silver coins.

“In that case, how about we purchase these candies for ourselves?! Please, my lady, pick out any number of colors you’d like.”

“What? No… Tee-hee! I shouldn’t!”

“As long as you keep it a secret, no one will be the wiser! If you fear the candies will spill your secrets, then pop them in your mouth—that will work to keep them quiet!”

Linaris picked out a white-and-green colored candy. Zeljirga’s was pink.

There was likely no difference in flavor between any of the colors. They were just pleasing to the eyes.

Candy was a wondrous thing because it could effortlessly bring smiles to people’s faces.

“…Oh, this is simply too much. I can’t even take two steps without stopping… Miss Zeljirga, what’s that over there?”

“Please, my lady, feel free to pause as much as you like. That’s a street performance using light-up balls. As you can see, they’ve lit a fire inside a spherical cage. They use celestine powder to kindle the fire, and that’s what gives the flame its magenta hue.”

“Thank you! Everywhere I turn, there’s something I’ve never seen before…and I let my good spirits get the best of me. Still… Hee-hee. Their tricks may be quite pretty, but your sleight of hand is far more brilliant, Miss Zeljirga.”

“Oh, please, my lady, you flatter me… Ah-hya-hya! Though perhaps you’re right!”

The two enjoyed the nighttime sights on their way to the station.

They ate sweets baked with flour and sugar.

The two laughed together at the illustrated fortunes they received, because they were so terribly far off the mark.

They looked out at the ships traveling up and down the canal, which were coming to dock in the harbor one by one.

The pair ended up at the lamplit station, where the final train of the night was getting ready to depart; it would bring the laborers of the industrial district who worked the latest hours of all back home. There were very few passengers purposely boarding here from the commercial district for the outbound train.

Linaris stood on the sparsely populated platform, waiting for the train.

Zeljirga narrowed her eyes and looked at her beautiful figure.

“Hey, Miss Zeljirga?”

Velvety black hair, and reflectively ivory skin. Her long skirt swayed in the wind and loosely billowed.

“Ah-hya-hya! What is it, my lady?”

“Were you able to smile for me?”

That’s right. Zeljirga had realized for herself.

Just as Zeljirga herself wished to always be her usual self…Linaris, too, wished the same of Zeljirga. Linaris simply wanted her to smile, not for someone else’s sake nor by forcing herself.

Clutching her bag tight to her chest, Zeljirga answered:

“Of course. I’m smiling right now.”

“I’d like to see you smile more. Even more.”

“……”

From before she awakened to her terrifying superpower as a mutant vampire, Linaris already possessed a similar power. The gift to penetrate a person’s heart and perceive their deepest emotions.

The steam whistle shook the air, signaling the train’s imminent departure.

“Time to board, my lady.”

“…So it is.”

Going inside the night train, the pair sat down side by side.

From the railroad track, which had been built in an elevated position, they could look down over Kuta Silver City as the lights began to go out. The vast cityscape spread out before them like a starry night sky. They drank in the sight of the thriving city they would be departing soon.

The sheer tranquility made the scenes of brutality seem a world away.

“…Thank you, my lady.”

“I just insisted you join me on my self-indulgent little outing, nothing more.”

“Even then… Ahhh, it was fun.”

The nights inhabited by those who dwelled in darkness were scenes of carnage, filled with blood and conspiracy.

Even if it was for only one night. Zeljirga had never even imagined that she would be able to spend such a peaceful, beautiful night free from fear.

“Perhaps… In my lady’s case, she could—”

There was no need to finish the thought. Linaris adored Rehart the Obsidian more than anyone else. Zeljirga knew that she would never leave the Obsidian Eyes of her own accord.

But because she lacked the conventional strength of a vampire and had yet to develop the ability of vampiric subjugation, there was a chance that unlike Zeljirga, she could live outside this world of darkness.

Zeljirga wanted her to enjoy a life of happiness and genuine smiles, not the ephemeral ones bestowed by a clown’s camaraderie.

“Miss Zeljirga, the train’s leaving.”

“So it is.”

“…Ohhh. So we’re going over to the town, then.”

“Indeed. We’re crossing over a very long bridge, high above the city. It’s almost like we’re flying, isn’t it?”

The steam train swayed, and the sounds of the wheels rang out. Light streamed below them.

Zeljirga closed her eyes… She always wanted to have a smile on her face. She wanted to make Linaris laugh.

“Why, that reminds me, my lady! This is a rare opportunity, after all! Why don’t we go have ourselves a peek into the head car? You won’t be able to see a steam engine like this very often—I guarantee it! After all, perhaps there isn’t any steam engine, and they just have a whole bunch of leprechauns pedaling for dear life!”

“Yes, absolutely! Come, Miss Zeljirga, let’s us—”

“Ah, yes, well… I beg your pardon! I am experiencing a slight physiological phenomenon. You might say I have a disposition toward carriage sickness, and this is, well… I hesitate to describe it aloud, truth be told…”

“…Right here, on the train?”

“Yes! I’m afraid it will be quite an unsightly thing to witness, indeed! If you could, perhaps, take your leave for a short while! Ah-hya-hya-hya!”

“……”

Linaris anxiously took Zeljirga’s hand and looked quietly into her eyes.

Zeljirga didn’t say anything more and gave a troubled smile.

A sharp young girl. Any and all clumsy lies were seen through completely when placed before these golden pupils.

“In that case, I’ll be off.”

“Yes, yes. Please take your time and enjoy!”

Linaris quietly disappeared, heading toward the head car.

There were no other passengers left in the car besides Zeljirga.

She spoke up without turning around.

“Well, now.”

Just then, there was a new group, stepping in from the train car behind her own.

The several dozen men in ordinary clothes were Shinji the Piece Column’s personal soldiers.

“…You didn’t think I hadn’t noticed, did you? The eyes of the land’s greatest spies? The fifth-formation vanguard of Obsidian Eyes… Me, Zeljirga the Abyss Web?”

All of them unsheathed their weapons—a mix of short swords and small crossbows, all small items in order to disguise themselves as passengers when boarding the train.

“Announcing yourself, eh, Zeljirga? Quite the resolve you have. Those other Obsidian Eyes bastards could learn a thing or two from you,” the head of the group replied.

He wore an insidious smile, the edges of his lips twisted upward.

“We’re gonna give you a great opportunity to prove to us if that resolve of yours is the real deal or not. You should be happy. You’ll get to live a bit longer.”

“Were you the ones who tortured Rehem?”

“We’re asking the questions. Who’s that other girl with you? Whoever she is, with a body that tiny, I’m worried she’ll kick off after just two or three bouts of fun.”

A few of the soldiers let out a stifled chuckle.

“So it is you all, then.”

She was aware her ice-cold tone sounded as if it were coming from someone else.

Zeljirga had understood the answer for a long time—the reason why she hadn’t ever once been able to experience such a peaceful night like this before. She had long become a creature of darkness.

Between the commercial district and now, she hadn’t dropped her guard for a single second.

She faced her lady with a smile.

“I know everything. Rehem didn’t cough up any information, did she? In order for that prick Piece Column to get to the base of operations, the only option he had was to wait until one of us appeared out in the open. Irredeemable fool. Not a single one of us will say a peep, you know. We’re Obsidian Eyes, after all.”

“That’s your answer, then. In that case, we’ll start by cutting off your left—”

“I’ll say it one more time.”

A sound of vibrations through the air.

Two of the soldier’s heads were severed at once, something reflective wrapping around them and suspending the heads in midair.

Zeljirga wasn’t even looking toward the soldiers. She didn’t wield any obvious weapon in her hands.

The reflection of the nighttime lights dimly made the wire, like a spider’s web, stand out.

“Hopeless fool. Let me tell you the name of the one who bestowed Hyne the Swaying Indigolite with his chain techniques. Let me teach your folly in challenging a master of thread to battle in an enclosed space like this. And finally—”

The soldiers fired their arrows.

The horizontal sweep of Zeljirga’s arm was faster.

The crossbows, seconds before firing, had their aim manipulated, as if they were living creatures, and shot the soldiers next to them.

There was one who moved to attack her with his short sword. Zeljirga bent her thumb slightly.

The thread suspended in various places snapped, and in a flash, it instantly strangled all the soldiers in its path.

“Ugh, hrnk!”

“Gaugh!”

“Gwahak!”

“—more than anything, I’ll teach you the price of trampling over my lady’s moment of respite with those filthy boots of yours.”

Before any of them could blink three times, all the soldiers had been neutralized. As soon as the enemies had stepped into the train car, now transformed into a spider’s web, they had already lost the fight.

“Ngh…hrk… I-impossible…!”

Zeljirga turned her eyes to her enemy. It was an icy glare she would never direct toward Linaris.

“Be sure to learn from this pain. All of you. Each and every one of you deserve to die a thousand deaths.”

The warp threads, extracted from tarantula webs, boasted a tenacity that even an ogre’s abominable strength couldn’t cut, while the weft possessed a crossedge sharp enough to slice through a wyvern, bones and all.

Zeljirga’s monstrous ability to dynamically control their trajectory and speed exhibited a high level of technique that even a tarantula couldn’t replicate.

“First, I’ll weave threads around the cavity in your thyroid cartilage.”

She wrapped the end of the thread digging into the soldiers on a metal umbrella hanger. She was pulling out a new thread.

From the very start, this wasn’t a fight. To Zeljirga, this was an execution.

“If I constrict you at an angle, the thread will wrap around the cartilage covering your windpipe, ensuring your suffocation is as agonizing as possible.”

She described in gruesome detail what was happening to the soldiers as she paced alongside them.

This sadistic practice served no other purpose than to sow fear in the soldiers as they breathed their last.

“Even when the tongue is pulled backward from within and moves down your throat, blocking the windpipe completely, blood will still pass through the carotid artery. That will ensure your brains will maintain consciousness while you savor the anguish of your final moments.”

The soldiers were still alive; however, with their entire bodies bound and unable to move, they weren’t even allowed to scream. One, then another—she strangled them all. And all the while, the look on her face was complete indifference.

“U-unh.”

“Help—”

As they flailed their arms like dying insects, their eyes bulged in their sockets, almost ready to burst from their skulls. The soldiers convulsed in haunting unison as they died one after the other.

The sounds and movements were not minian at all, but rather resembled some sort of creepy, unsettling creature.

“…”

Zeljirga didn’t smile. She simply watched.

She had decided whom she would leave for last. She had already identified the commander of this unit.

His equipment and position within their formation. The slight look he sent to the soldiers who’d been attacked. To Zeljirga—or to anyone else within Obsidian Eyes—that information alone was more than enough.

She loosened the bindings on the commanding officer, the sole assailant left alive, just enough for him to barely get his words out.

“You’re the one in charge, aren’t you?”

“…Wh-what’re…you going to do with me? Will you have your revenge by…t-torturing me?”

“No. You’re going to deliver a message for me.”

Zeljirga had carried a large bag with her when she went into town with Linaris.

She opened it up and passed her eyes over its contents.

The commander was terrified.

“E-eek… Huh?!”

“‘We’ll have our revenge, no matter what.’”

It was Rehem’s head.

“Now I’ll be able to easily carry you around with me from here on out.”

“…Remember? We’re Obsidian Eyes. ‘We’ll have our revenge, no matter what.’ Shinji the Piece Column likely believes that his wretched methods are the best tactics of all. So we’ll take a page out of his book. We’ll drag you into a hellish nightmare that will make what you just witnessed like paradise in comparison. Pass that message along.”

“U-ungh… Aaaugh!”

The steam train was approaching the canal. Inside the car, filled with what were now silent marionettes dangling from deadly strings, Zeljirga opened up the door of the moving train car.

“You all didn’t board this train. Your presence is totally unnecessary in my lady’s memories of tonight.”

She pulled a thread. The carcasses spilled out into the night. There was no one to witness the horrible scene over the starlit canal.

The commanding officer trembled at the ruthless barbarity, far surpassing anything he could imagine, and with any dignity he had now gone and surrendered.

“O-okay, I—I get it…Zeljirga. I’ll tell him. I’ll tell right army staff officer Shinji…to wash our hands of anything to do with Obsidian Eye—”

“You misunderstand me.”

In the next moment, the commanding officer was thrown out into the darkness.

With his screams of terror drowned out by the din of the steam train, his four limbs were all severed in midair. Left with only his head and torso, he sank into the waters of the canal, still conscious.

“You’re passing that message on to Rehem.”

Witnessing his final moments, she closed the door. The only thing left behind inside the train car was a small splatter of blood.

Completely ignorant of the massacre that had occurred in the rear passenger car, the steam train chugged along.

“Miss Zeljirga! They let me see inside the head train car! The train conductor was so friendly!”

“Oh! Is that right? How wonderful! Machines are exciting, aren’t they? Ah-hya-hya-hya! Pagireshe and Rook love those sorts of things as well!”

Listening to Linaris regale her upon returning, Zeljirga just smiled as always.

It wasn’t a lie. She wasn’t pretending to smile.

Now, with Rehem dead, Zeljirga was sure this would be her final night. Zeljirga felt true heartfelt gratitude to the young girl for giving her this pleasant memory.

“Ahhh… I’m relieved. I’m very glad I was able to make you smile, my lady.”

“…Miss Zeljirga.”

She had been able to protect Linaris. However, Rehart the Obsidian was a cruel man. Simply exposing his one and only daughter to meaningless danger was enough of a reason for him to dispose of Zeljirga.

“Well…I know it’s a bit too late to say so, but this wasn’t exactly a good idea, now was it?! Given how dangerous things are right now… Bringing the commander’s young daughter outside, and for what? Just to have a bit of nighttime fun in town?! Laughter that could invite danger… Why, as a clown, I should avoid that most of all! Ah-hya-hya—”

“Hey, Miss Zeljirga.”

Interrupting her laughter, the girl’s small, delicate hand took Zeljirga’s.

Her golden, jewellike eyes were right in front of the zmeu’s.

“Let me tell you something nice.”

“Something nice, you say? Well, if there is anything in this world better than your beauty, my lady, that would be quite the discovery! And what might that nice thing be?”

Putting a finger up to her lips, Linaris smiled.

“If we keep this a secret, no one will ever know.”

Linaris had always known the danger behind what she was doing.

Even if she had, though, just how much had this night done to save Zeljirga’s heart?

No matter how much time passed…the beautiful smile she saw in that steam train would never lose its luster.

“What happened tonight…will be our secret. I was in the manor the entire time, and you were as well, Miss Zeljirga. Nothing happened at all. Right?”

“Ah-hya…hya-hya-hya, my apologies, my lady, I’ve laughed so hard, some tears seemed to have slipped out…”

“…It’s okay. I can’t see your face if I do this.”

Linaris hugged Zeljirga close. Zeljirga could hear a frail, ephemeral heartbeat.

The nights inhabited by those who dwelled in darkness were scenes of carnage, filled with blood and conspiracy. Even then—

“My lady… Ahhh, it’s no use. I’m truly ashamed. No matter how much I try to laugh it off, this is how I am. Long ago…I knew nothing of war and fighting. But I just— I just don’t have any other path to walk…”

“I know. I, myself…wish to protect that path for you. Forever and ever…”

“…My lady, no, please…”

“Listen, Miss Zeljirga. Please keep smiling for me.”

The light of the steam train cut through the night.

Four small months after that night, Shinji the Piece Column suddenly disappeared, his whereabouts unknown.

From that point on, whatever happened to the military strategist was an utter mystery.

After the True Demon King’s death, in the middle of Sakaoe Great Bridge Town, where the then-Demon-King lurked, people discovered a brutally murdered body, weather-beaten and bound by thread, but the identity of the body was unknown.

Aureatia, with the Sixways Exhibition on the horizon. In a plaza facing the main avenue, there was a zmeu clown who put on street performances every day.

She was said to have betrayed Obsidian Eyes, once a threat to miniankind, and a key player who’d helped destroy it.

A spy guild draped in mystery—ruthless, wicked, mighty—an organization that people living a normal life would never be involved with. Much as Shinji the Piece Column had done, the butchery of allies that each country engaged in during the madness of the True Demon King’s era was attributed to the Obsidian Eyes.

For slaying this terrifying group, Zeljirga was said to have the qualifications of a champion.

“Now, now, gather round and take a look! These water bubbles are parading along in a perfectly straight line!”

Zeljirga presented her tricks in the plaza as if she was a true street performer.

She used threads to move a puppet. Surrounding them with water droplets, she then knit beautiful geometric patterns. Cheers rose from the children watching.

Even now, she still remembered the circus performance she saw so very long ago together with her family and how she had worn a truly heartfelt smile.

“Wonderful! It’s like it’s alive!”

“Zeljirga, what’re you gonna do next?”

“My, my, my, there is plenty of time—no need to get anxious! Next, how about I show you a car that flies through air? Or how does a duel between two puppets sound?! Ah-hya-hya-hya! Zeljirga the Abyss Web won’t hold back when delivering one of her spectacular performances!”

Surely none of the children, eyes sparkling in awe of her performance, would have imagined the possibility that an enigmatic creature like those in Obsidian Eyes was next to them at this very moment.

Or the fact that those who were constantly exposed to the terror of death, no matter how much they tried to put on a smile, had lost the ability to live out their life in public society.

There wasn’t a single person who thought about trying to save an outcast who’d fallen into that position.

Just as it was with Zeljirga, beasts that had tasted the blood of their own were entirely different species altogether.

After all, one day, she was bound to devour her own kind once more.

…The havoc of war will once again be brought to this world.

Right now, Zeljirga was able to make people laugh. Even if her technical mastery had come from staining her hands with blood and repeatedly butchering others.

Perhaps there may have been a chance for her to go on living without killing a single person.

However, the zmeu woman had now become an entirely different creature from the girl living in her homeland long ago. Although she would always remember the smiling face she wore that day, it was too late for her to ever go back to that again.

The only world we can find our way in…is a chaotic war where none of us will ever be cast aside.

The only thing awaiting Obsidian Eyes was annihilation.

In which case, hope for Zeljirga consisted of one thing only.

My lady.

The clown smiled, manipulating vividly colored fireworks with her strings.

The children let out cheers, and copper coins were thrown her way, dancing through the air.

No matter how much time passed, it would never lose its luster.

Please smile. I promise… For you, I will be victorious!