Chapter 5
After Wolfram, Saralegui and I escaped from the dining room, we follow Hazel to the lakeside. In order to hide from the equestrian tribes, we advance with our backs bent. As for places without buildings, we creep forward.
When we come across houses facing the lake, we knock on the windows and doors, if there are residents inside we advise them to leave, even helping children escape through the windows. But Wolfram and I can’t speak the Seisakoku language, and we don’t think Saralegui will help, so the only one in charge of talking is Hazel.
There are also families who refuse to escape, that’s when she gets to flaunt her speaking skills.
After all she has plenty of life experience, so naturally her powers of persuasion are exceptional. As a veteran adventurer cum treasure hunter, Hazel Graves was once trapped in the royal tombs, and attacked by crocodiles and tigers in the forest, and surrounded by armed forces, and even had a gun pointed at her head.
She just has to tell those townspeople how dangerous and scary it is to be surrounded by soldiers, and most of them would immediately run out.
But thankfully the north-north-west equestrian tribe and the north-east equestrian tribe (what a mess) don’t start fighting on the bank of the lake, the main warzone is in the large streets and small alleys. Mostly they’ll fight one round with their archenemies first, then only break open the doors and threaten the residents.
In other words, “we can do whatever we want to the defenseless townspeople later, the important thing now is beating the enemy”.
We tell the townspeople not to exit through the door, and escape from the windows facing the lake instead, and then skirt around the lakeside to leave town from the south. That route has a lower chance of bumping into the equestrian tribes.
There isn’t a moon or stars tonight, so although they won’t be noticed by the enemy, it’s also very hard to advance without a light. Especially since my eyes are completely useless, it’s no different from being in the darkness, but at this moment ‘Eyes Wide Open-kun’ surprisingly comes in handy.
Saralegui has night vision several times better than most people.
“Oh, yeah, come to think of it Yuuri can’t see.”
“That’s right, come to think of it you can see, huh—”
“There’s no need to be that jealous, sheesh.”
He laughs like a bird from deep within his throat,
“In that case, I’ll always hold your hand.”
“No need, I mean I politely refuse!”
“Okotowarishimasu[1]? Are you talking about the days where only men have a privilege when watching the performances? But compared to having a special price, I’d rather have softer and more comfortable seats. But now isn’t time to watch the show… Alright, don’t be shy with me.”
Before he finishes his words, Saralegui is already grabbing my right hand forcefully, and I instantly feel a cutting pain.
“…Ow!”
The wound under the cloth in place of a bandage hasn’t healed and starts hurting now, I can only clench my teeth and bear with it. Because my pride doesn’t allow me to cry out in any way in front of Saralegui.
Instead it’s Wolfram behind me that growls. If it were the normal him, he’d have let his fists do the talking ages ago. Although he really wants to, right now all he can do is bear with it.
When it comes to Saralegui, as well as the temporary truce with Conrad—which means with the Dai Shimaron ambassador, I’ve told Wolf everything without hiding a thing, and he knows what kind of a person the Shou Shimaron king is too. But since it’s safer to let Saralegui hold my hand, he can only open one eye and close the other now.
Although his personality is very emotional, recently when it comes to any critical moments, he will show the bravery to resist his impulses. After all, he’s a man more suited than me to be the Maou.
“Yuuri, stop.”
“Wait a sec.”
At the same time Sara stops me, Hazel, who is walking in front, gets us to stop too, tsking bitterly,
“Those fellas are fighting not far away, there’s about seven or eight of them. There aren’t any more buildings to hide behind up ahead, we’ll definitely get discovered.”
“What do we do now?”
“Be more careful, let’s take a short detour. After a while we can meet up with Lord Weller and the rest.”
Hazel asks everyone to purposely choose an area with many buildings and that’s hard to notice from the streets, and advance through there. Because the space between houses is narrow, they can’t rush immediately at us even if they notice us.
“You said there are at least fifty riders?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s at least a hundred people trying to kill each other… How did it get to this?”
“Because the north-east equestrian people couldn’t resist anymore and went for the first strike. They probably want to monopolize the water source, that’s why they sent people over so hurriedly, right? Thank goodness it’s only the scouting group, if it were their main forces, it wouldn’t be this sort of little scuffle here.”
“Something of this degree is still called a little scuffle, huh.”
Although right now I can only rely on my hearing, I can still hear the cries, curses, and clashes of weapons from our surroundings. Since the fighting and killing is happening on the other end of the civilian residences, they can’t hear the sounds from nearby, and instead we hear most of the noises. This is the same principle as how it’s easier to see the whole picture if you take one step back.
When I’m listening to all the voices, I suddenly have the sensation of turning around in circles on the spot. But the one turning isn’t my body, but the air around me, spinning 360 degrees like a donut, when in fact I haven’t moved at all.
Tragic cries pierce my ears through the spinning. That’s not weak weeping, but desperate shouts for help, probably from the houses nearby.
“Someone’s crying… It’s a child, a child is crying.”
“Because crying is what they do.”
“Not like that!”
I feel impatient towards the calm demeanor of someone used to this, so I touch Hazel’s back, even grabbing her shoulder to make her stop walking.
“That’s not crying out of fear, it should be more dangerous… Ah~~ How should I describe this? They need help, someone is crying and shouting, they need the help of an adult.”
“Your Majesty, this isn’t an orphanage, there won’t be just kids, they should have their parents by their side.”
“Could it be their mother died?”
I tell Wolfram the same thing, that there’s a child crying, and we need to save them.
Hazel says, “What is it?” As though comforting me, Wolfram pats my neck gently, completely indulging my rash behavior.
“I’ll go look.”
“I’m coming too.”
“No, you stay here! If anything happens to you, I won’t be able to face His Majesty Shinou.”
After he breaks the window and charges in, there’s no reaction for a long time, while instead my heart beats so loudly even I can hear it. Suddenly there’s a loud explosion, numbing both my sense of sight and sound.
My previously dark vision instantly brightens, and it’s all orange. Not only can’t I feel the cold from before, my face and arms are enveloped by the approaching heat.
What on earth happened?
“Wolf! Wolfram!”
“I’m here!”
A body heavier than usual jumps out of the window, he’s probably carrying a child, followed tightly by a weeping woman.
“Is there no one else, Wolfram? It couldn’t be twins, could it!?”
“I want to save…”
After that there are two more explosions. This time it’s not just the heat, there are also small bits of sand flying everywhere.
“Flames…”
“As I was saying! It’s those guys setting things on fire, and the fire’s spreading very quickly. The houses nearby are all burning, I’m afraid we will be surrounded by the fire in no time.”
“But aren’t those brick houses? Technically they shouldn’t burn so quickly…”
“That’s right, your eyes can’t see…”
His voice suddenly lowers.
“Maybe that’s better for you.”
“What? What happened?”
I grab Wolfram’s hand, hoping to get an answer out of him. But there’s a warm body between us, and I know he’s carrying a quietly shaking child.
“What on earth happened? Don’t tell me it’s not a normal fire?”
“A fire is a fire, it’s not normal or abnormal. Anyway we have to leave here immediately, or it’s a matter of time before we’re forced into the boiling lake.”
Although Wolfram doesn’t elaborate, but using my ears and skin, I can also feel that this fire is different from normal. Not only do the piercing screams increase, the hot air in contact with my face and neck is rather intense as well, as though I’m standing under the high summer sun. The sounds of explosions in all directions tell me the fire is spreading everywhere.
“The streets are burning.”
Saralegui says happily,
“Since Yuuri can’t see, let me describe it to you. The streets are burning, and the fire is spreading at a very high speed. The flames are just like a snake of fire, continuously extending and moving. How wonderful~~ It’s my first time seeing this kind of fire, too, it’s very abnormal indeed.”
“When you say abnormal…”
Saralegui’s voice becomes two, crashing down on my eardrums.
“I mean this shouldn’t be a normal fire. Yuuri, you should know that a fire started by majutsu and houjutsu, is different from an average fire. Be it the strength, the spreading, or the method of putting out the fire, they’ll all be different. Did you know? Just a bit of water won’t be enough to stop this fire.”
I remember when there was a huge forest fire near the country borders, I heard something like this before. Gwendal and Wolfram even said, no matter how much water you use, you can’t put out a fire started by houjutsu.
“One of the equestrian tribes has quite a few shinzokus who can use offensive houjutsu, it must be they forced the shinzoku to do something so filthy.”
Hazel grits her teeth bitterly, but her words are eventually drowned out by a woman’s screams. But Saralegui is still clapping his hands, saying in a tone as though he discovered some rare flower,
“Goodness, even people are burning.”
“What did you say?”
“I said even people are burning.”
“People…”
Wolfram wants to grab me, now unresponsive, but maybe he misjudged the distance, because only his fingers brush past me, he couldn’t pull my body.
A wailing woman runs past me at a very close distance, quickly followed by a loud splash. After she passes, the screams and odor of burning hair still linger—that’s the odor of protein charred to a crisp.
My legs move faster than my brain, and I give chase. The woman runs into the lake and soaks her body in the water, trying to put out the fire in her hair, but even though the water is waist-deep, I can still hear her screams, I know the fire hasn’t been extinguished.
The fire hasn’t been extinguished.
My orange vision turn bright red, the depths of my nose hurts as though I breathed in seawater.
I feel dizzy.
It feels as though someone’s yelling my name, but the distance is too far for me to tell whose voice it is, and so I can’t answer.
At the same time I hear another murmuring voice. The bright red vision slowly fades, finally turning colorless, it’s practically like I’m surrounded by white, a world without darkness.
The murmurs slowly become words, the white space slowly become a figure.
That person is definitely angry, and for all I know, extremely upset.
What should I do? Should I stop here?
No, I won’t stop. I want to do what I should do, at the time I need to do it.
No matter the consequences.
My will… I hope you understand.
Because this is my life, I decide how to use it.
That’s right, this is my life.
I decide how to use it.
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