Log Horizon - Volume 8 - Chapter 5.6

6 
The graceful woman walked calmly through the streets, just as if she were moving through the fading light of an Indian summer. 
Sometimes she’d stop and think about something, looking up at the sky, only to begin walking again. 
Black, burned-smelling smoke mingled with the air, and her surroundings were noisy. Magic flames generally didn’t give off smoke, so this probably meant that something somewhere had caught fire. After all, Saphir was currently at war. 
Possibly because it had decided that the beautiful woman with long hair the color of dried grass plumes was prey, a circling wyvern plunged into a sudden dive. Its undulating tail lent it a ferocious mobility, and its steel claws could probably pierce a Person of the Earth’s soft flesh with ease. 
Dariella didn’t even look up at it. She raised her left hand and sighed out a spell—Astral Hypno. With only that, the dragon froze, mind and body, as though it had been tangled in an invisible net. 
The wyvern fell in a tailspin, disappearing into a cloud of dust and rubble. With this at her back, the white woman’s figure blurred, as though she’d been enveloped in a flutter of ebony wings. Phantom tails that held vast magical power waved seductively, as if they were caressing the air, and a beautiful, jet-black woman with fox ears appeared in her place. 
Astral Hypno was an Enchanter spell that plunged its target into a deep sleep and froze its spirit. Even though it was a spell with no offensive power, and thus usually used defensively, it had caused massive destruction. 
It wasn’t just the wyvern. An Odysseia Knights Druid who’d been caught up in its fall had died due to the extensive damage as well. 
Glancing at the damage with a dismissive sigh, Nureha began to walk again, just as before. 
She passed between buildings, crossed through the shade of leafy green trees, and walked over the sunset battlefield. 
Strangely, no one seemed able to see her. Not the Nightshade Servants and wyverns; not even the People of the Earth or the Odysseia Knights. 
She swept away the sparks that flew toward her like it was a game, stopping them with small spells. And stopping them was all she did; she still scattered destruction and death across the battlefield. 
The Enchanter build that specialized in motion obstruction spells was called Freezer. They’d acquired the nickname for their ability to “freeze” all enemies around them like an intensely cold blizzard. 
Nureha walked as though she were the embodiment of that word. She moved through the town, sometimes stopping, sometimes muttering. 
Melancholy clouded Nureha’s expression slightly. 
She’d only meant to slip away from her stuffy duties at Plant Hwyaden and take a little stroll around western Yamato, but she’d had a chance encounter. 
She hadn’t had any malice or ill will toward them. The thought that they were Shiroe’s guild members had made her meddle with them, that was all… And then she’d gotten hurt. 
Nureha had to admit that she’d been looking down on them, making fun of them. Shiroe was special, but she’d assumed it couldn’t possibly extend to his companions. She’d thought that if she smiled her usual ingratiating smile and projected consideration for them through little details of attitude and gesture, she’d be able to blend with their group easily. 
As a matter of fact, the girls—Minori, Serara, and Isuzu—hadn’t noticed a thing. That was probably true of Rundelhaus, the former Person of the Earth, as well. 
She didn’t think she’d been careless. It was true that she’d tried to close the distance a bit, but that was because she’d given into the temptation of wanting to see what Shiroe saw. 
She didn’t know what the boy called Touya had seen in Dariella, the Person of the Earth travel writer. She didn’t think he’d uncovered her true identity, but he’d clearly seen through something about Dariella with some sort of special ability. 
That young boy had pitied her. 
He’d rejected the fingertips that stroked his hair with a cross look: 
I hate when you’re like that. 
That single comment—trivial, silly words—had become a thorn that dug into Nureha. The pain wasn’t so great she couldn’t ignore it, but it was too sharp and new to forget. 
It was a fact that she’d mischievously wondered what would happen if she invited Touya to Minami. She’d only wanted Shiroe to pay attention to her. In other words, she’d meant to make him a substitute for Shiroe. 
However, the boy hadn’t simply been in Shiroe’s guild, just part of the background. Even though he was young, he’d had claws to dig into Nureha. The look of the atmosphere on the battlefield had told her the same thing. The People of the Earth who’d fled, holding their wounds—hadn’t their eyes been shining? Hadn’t the air held the faint tones of a lute? 
Shiroe really was special. The boys and girls who carried echoes of him were keeping the atmosphere in this miserable town in check, one step away from the worst it could be. 
Seen through his eyes, this dingy dump of a world might look different. Imagining it, Nureha smiled as if it pained her. Shiroe’s teachings were probably that boy’s blade. If she thought of the little pain as a tie that bound her to Shiroe, there was an edge of sweetness to it. 
At the same time, she felt envy. Shiroe had that boy. He had younger guild members. Shiroe had people he could pass his achievements down to. Nureha did not. The idea stirred up something black like jealousy inside of her. If the scales had tipped ever so slightly, she might have shut Touya up in a sealed temple that would have made death look mild by comparison… But it hadn’t happened. In the morning mist, that straightforward boy’s serenity had left her with a sympathy that was not unpleasant. 
It was envy that gave rise to jealousy, but Nureha managed to accept that envy calmly. Its destination might overlap with the one and only person she wanted. 
At any rate, Nureha was the sort of being who might as well not have been there at all. 
The magic in Astral Hypno had revealed her original shape, but when the recast time ran out, she’d retake Dariella’s name and figure. Even Dariella was a false form. After all, so was Nureha. 
There was no “real” her anywhere. 
She was like a ghost. The idea struck her as funny, and she smiled a little. 
She’d felt oppressed by the form she’d chosen because she wanted people and wanted them to want her; she’d fled from that form, had gained another that was beautiful and bewitching, but had fled from it as well. Wearying of being spoken to, Nureha had disappeared from the train, and now she’d changed her form yet again. 
Even she found it incoherent, and she nearly had to avert her eyes from its misery and absurdity. 

Nureha felt as though she’d been cursed: No matter what she obtained, it slipped through her fingers like sand. She’d thrown away far too much, and now she didn’t even know what she should try to take. Even if something she’d thrown away had been valuable, she’d already discarded her regrets as well. 
The only thing that illuminated her ignorance was Shiroe. In Nureha’s mind, he was always in profile, looking at something far away. It was probably because her impression of him on the raid where they’d first met had been a vivid one. Even now, after she’d managed to speak with him, when she visualized Shiroe, the expressions he wore always seemed to be looking into the distance. 
Nureha clasped her small, white hands in front of her chest, as if embracing that memory. 
“Lady Nureha!” 
A knight came running up to her and bowed so low he practically knelt. Nureha glanced at him. 
Roreil Dawn. His blond hair, which was normally trimmed evenly and looked rather affected, was in disarray, and even his holy knight’s armor was dingy. He’d probably run all over the countryside like a dog searching for her after she’d disappeared. Nureha felt contempt for his wretched appearance, and she said nothing. 
She had no words to waste on the group—imperial guards in name only—who had tried to confine her. 
However, Roreil seemed to have interpreted her silence differently. 
“Lady Nureha, it’s rather dangerous here. With your stasis spells, it may be of no consequence to you, but could I trouble you to evacuate?” 
“Explain the situation surrounding this town. What is Mizufa doing?” Nureha asked. 
Conditions in the town were abnormal. The fact that Nightshade Servants had appeared in such numbers probably meant that Mizufa had dispatched her Crimson Night troops here. She couldn’t imagine that the outbreak of wyverns was unrelated, either. 
“From what I’m told, the town has been chosen as a battlefield on Lady Mizufa’s orders.” 
“I see.” 
Nureha walked. 
She gazed at the ground, quietly murmuring Shiroe’s name. 
She had no particular feelings about this. 
She’d approved Mizufa’s plan because she simply hadn’t cared. 
She’d inspected the troops because she’d been asked to. 
She understood Mizufa’s dream. Everyone, without exception, wanted a world of their own. In their own kingdom, people became king. The kingdom Mizufa dreamed of was a sacrificial sheep that lay under the sword she brandished. She wanted to confirm the fact of her conquest through the choking smell of blood 
That dream was close to Nureha’s own. Nureha also wanted to live in her kingdom, surrounded by happiness. All people were like that. They simply wanted their own kingdoms. 
However, that cross-looking boy was in this town. 
The boy who’d insulted Nureha mercilessly. Even if you’re not smiling, your face is weird. 
If she asked herself whether it was all right to smash the town where he was staying, the answer would probably appear on its own. 
Nureha was the master of Yamato, and this place was her garden. 
It might be the kingdom Mizufa wanted, but it was Nureha’s kingdom now. If Mizufa wanted to make her enemies lie in a pool of blood for the sake of her kingdom, then there was no reason Nureha couldn’t interrupt Mizufa’s ambition for the sake of her own kingdom. 
When they’d passed through the area where the fighting was fiercest, Nureha issued an order to Roreil Dawn, who trailed behind her like a slave. 
“Destroy as many wyverns and Nightshade Servants as possible.” 
“Yes, milady… Are you sure that’s all right?” 
“It’s an order from the State Councilor of the West.” 
Those words affected Roreil like a high-voltage electrical current. 
Still prostrating himself on one knee, he leapt back without another word and sprinted toward the town. 
Looking over her shoulder at Roreil’s armor, Nureha knew the time had come. Her own shadow hazily changed its shape, and her nine tails transformed as well, caressing the air. She’d paused the effect of Overlay, but now it had reactivated and was forming a new shape. 
Nureha’s time had ended, and Dariella was returning. 
The vague boundary made Nureha smile. Surprised that it was a real smile instead of her usual careless one, she resolved to exercise her right to issue orders as guild master for the first time in a long while. 
“Master Shiro. I’ll assist those children, too, just a little. Our days together were short, but they treated me as a traveling companion. Will you notice, Master Shiro? Will you think I’m a nuisance? …Or will you tell me I’ve done well? I’ll make the Nightshade Servants withdraw. This is merely a whim, not a present. And so, hurry… I want to hear your voice, Master Shiro.” 
After nine tails stretched away from the shadow, then flew away in an effect like crow feathers, the figure that stood there belonged to a solitary, gentle-featured Person of the Earth writer. 
In the midst of the white phosphorescence that streamed down over the battlefield, she began to hum softly. 
It was a pop song from Earth, one the People of the Earth didn’t know.