Chapter 10
MIRA RETURNED to the white scenery, like a winter wonderland decorated with a conspicuously bloody casket. Just as she resumed pondering how she would move it, she heard two incongruous voices behind her.
“Oh, it’s Mira!”
“There ya are, Boss!”
Mira turned to see Scorpion running over with light steps. Cat Sith was clinging to her shoulder, raising a sign that read, TOUCHING REUNION! APART FROM…ALL THIS.
“Aha, Scorpion. And Cat Sith… So, you survived?”
Mira’s words shot a hole through Cat Sith’s heart. He fell from Scorpion’s shoulder into the ash-covered ground to form a cat-shaped silhouette, his black fur now dusted white.
“Don’t be so harsh to me-ow, Ringmeowstress!”
“You dealt with the tornado, I see.” Mira picked the cat up by the scruff of his neck and lifted him from the ash.
Cat Sith shook the debris off and, as if raising an enemy’s decapitated head, raised up a placard saying, HUGE SUCCESS! “Whacked ’em good, boss!” he said before coughing violently.
Mira patted his back and said, “Thank you. You’ve done well.” Then she dismissed him.
Cat Sith held up his sign, which now read, GIVE ME MORE CHANCES TO SHINE! His eyes were expectant, but Mira didn’t notice; she was busy welcoming the rest of the Isuzu gang. Cat Sith’s lonely mewls echoed sadly through the area.
As the Isuzu Alliance members surveyed the damage and the snow-white ashes that now covered the Ancient Ring Gate, Scorpion asked, “So, Mira, what’s the situation like?”
“It’s been a busy day.”
Mira gave them a quick summary of what happened: the Chimera Clausen knight, the spirit-devouring black fog, the theft of the Spirit King’s power, and the spirit bomb and escape.
***
When Mira finished her story, Scorpion was the first to speak.
“A bomb! Are you okay?”
It was a good question. A single look at their ash-covered environs would tell anyone just how powerful the explosion had been. It would be unnatural for anyone to come out unscathed from that destruction.
“I’m fine. As you can see.”
Despite Scorpion’s worries, Mira was as proud and energetic as ever. She never changed. Scorpion turned her eyes to their surroundings. All that remained on the burned ground were the striking right pillar and broken staircase of the Ancient Ring Gate.
“F-fine…?” Scorpion murmured, amazed. The white world around them was pretty at a glance, but the white of it was eerie; the longer one looked, the more uneasy one became.
“By the way, are those the swords you mentioned?” Aaron poked his head from behind Scorpion and gestured toward the man from Chimera’s two swords, which still lay next to the casket. Sinister black fog curled around them.
“Right. One is a spirit blade, and the other is a sword cursed to destroy spirits.”
“Destroy spirits, huh? So, those bastards aren’t happy with merely harassing them?” Aaron spat as he squatted before the sword and glared at the black fog from inches away.
“Oh, by the way. The casket contains a golem corpse with similar power, but it’s locked. I’d like to take it home to be examined, but I can’t lift it myself. Mind giving me a hand?” Mira’s physical strength was…that of a mage. She gazed enviously at Aaron’s impressive biceps.
“A golem that destroys spirits, huh? Weird.” Aaron sprang to his feet, seized the handle of the casket, and pulled up. He lifted it without difficulty. “Lighter than it looks. I think I can handle this just fine.”
“Well done! Those muscles aren’t just for show!” Mira patted Aaron’s bulging arm proudly.
“’Course not,” he said with a smile as he hoisted the casket over his shoulder and struck a pose. It seemed he was proud of his many years of training.
“Huh? This is just a sword.” Scorpion picked up the spirit blade at Aaron’s feet and swung it around a little. Normally, spirit blades would leave visible signs of their status in their arc when swung. Yet the sword Scorpion picked up merely cut through the air.
“What?” Mira stared at the sword in confusion. She had witnessed the billowing flames that had erupted from it before.
The sword in Scorpion’s hands was clearly a fine item of excellent craftsmanship. She was certain it was the same sword she saw earlier. But now that she looked closer, the particles of spirit power had totally disappeared from the sword.
“Indeed, it looks like any other sword now. What happened?” Mira muttered in confusion. Then her eyes turned to the black fog at her feet. It was the sword with the spirit-devouring fog.
The spirit blade and fogged sword had lain side by side until just now. Could it be that the black fog had eaten all of the spirit power inside the sword? Now that Mira thought about it, she remembered how the man had fought. Whenever he used the fogged sword, he always returned it directly to its sheath. He must have known it would affect the rest of his equipment.
“Perhaps it’s because of this thing.” Mira kicked the fogged sword angrily away. Spider jumped out of its path, as if trying to avoid a tainted item.
Spider glared at Mira, who responded, “Sorry, sorry.” Although really, she didn’t look very guilty at all.
Aaron followed the fogged sword with his eyes, looked back to the former spirit blade, and muttered in disappointment, “So, it ate the spirit blade’s power?”
Yin or yang, he would use any items that he could. Hell, as far as Aaron was concerned, it would be a form of justice to use it against Chimera Clausen.
“Hmm, mind if I hold it?” Then, apparently realizing something, Aaron put the casket down and requested the sword from Scorpion. Deep creases appeared on his brow as he ran his eyes up and down the sword.
“What’s the matter, Aaron?” Scorpion watched as he dismantled the former spirit blade into hilt, guard, and blade. “Whoa! Cool!”
Aaron shoved the hilt and guard into her hands while he surveyed the base of the blade.
“This is… Heh. I see,” Aaron murmured with a hint of pleased surprise.
He turned around with a look of understanding and showed the group the blade. The sword that had served as foundation for the spirit blade was a one-of-a-kind special item. Unlike mass-produced, cookie-cutter swords, it had clearly been a special order crafted with care by an artisan’s hands.
Bespoke swords like this could sell for dozens of times the price of mass-produced swords. They were by no means easy to obtain. Depending on the weapon, even the hilt and guard might be made by the artisan. The most famous swords often had dozens of artisans working on a single weapon. Most one-of-a-kind swords had the artisan’s name engraved on the base of the blade.
And there was one smith who stood head and shoulders above the rest.
Aaron had discovered exactly that on the blade of this sword. The artisan’s name engraved on this blade was Gregor.
“They say nobody can make elemental demonic swords like this guy. And I hear he’s working in a studio in Sentopoli these days. There’s no way we can call that a coincidence, right?”
The Skyfolk man at the Citadel of Scales had claimed that Chimera’s headquarters were in Sentopoli. The sword wielded by their elite member was likewise a sword made in Sentopoli. Something was definitely going on there.
“If an elite from Chimera had that sword, then…does that mean Gregor gave it to them?” Scorpion asked.
The problem was the position of that blacksmith. Was he working with Chimera, or had he simply sold it to them? If he was working with them, then Chimera Clausen’s weapons would both be those of a master artisan and imbued with the power of spirits. In other words, their headquarters might very well be full of warriors just as powerful as the one Mira had fought.
“I think it’d be fastest to ask the man himself,” Aaron answered, gazing at the sword enviously. “They say Gregor forges swords to fit the user, and he only works for his closest friends.”
It wasn’t easy to earn recognition and a sword from Gregor. Many warriors dreamed of getting a sword with his name on it.
“I see… So, this Gregor might be a close friend of the man I just fought.” After looking again at the signature on the sword, Mira turned her eyes to the sky, as if following the trail of the Chimera man who’d been blown away by the bomb.
If the bespoke sword in Aaron’s hands had been made for the man she had just fought, that meant that, if they traced the sword back to its maker, they might get inside info on a Chimera Clausen elite.
“I sense an impending mission…” Mira murmured to herself.
The Chimera man might have escaped, but they had secured a vital clue. Perhaps it would even be enough to drag Chimera Clausen out of the shadows. Indeed, that was everyone’s hope.
Thus the Isuzu Alliance’s current mission ended in success.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login