Slayers - Volume 4 - Chapter 2

2: Why Are They After Me?! What Did I Do?

I turned back, but all I could see both before me and behind me was an empty corridor. No sign at all of the temple we’d come from or the palace where we were headed. Space had warped... At least, so it seemed.

But was that possible? Summoning magic worked by altering spatial relationships to transport a distant creature to the caster’s location, so it should theoretically be doable... Either way, I’d have to run a few tests.

There was no wall or railing on either side of the breezeway. The ceiling was held up by evenly-spaced marble pillars, beyond which lay the green grass of the lawn. I decided to try moving into the courtyard to see what would happen. I was hoping the corridor wouldn’t disappear entirely and dump me out into the middle of an empty field, but...

“Here goes nothing,” I said to no one in particular.

With that, I stepped out onto the lawn... A feeling like vertigo washed over me, then I found myself right back in the middle of the corridor.

“...Ah. Thought so.”

What’s the next step, then? There’s probably nothing extraordinary about the original architecture, so...

As I organized my thoughts, I began to hear heavy footsteps approaching from a good distance down the corridor. Yes, of course... Whoever had so kindly brought me here surely meant for me to face off with whatever was thundering this way.

I couldn’t see what it was yet, but given that it sounded like a galloping herd of horses, it was pretty clear they weren’t coming for a nice chat over tea. Apologies to my “host,” but I was gonna bow out if I could.

The question, then, was... could I? I began chanting a basic summoning-type spell. It was meant for gargoyles, but by altering the incantation a little, you could call all kinds of things. A person could alter spells in all kinds of ways if they really understood the incantation’s structure and meaning.

The heavy footsteps drew nearer as I chanted... I unleashed my spell as soon as I finished it. A small, white bird appeared before my eyes and flapped its wings, flying up into the blue sky outside the corridor.

“Hey, a dove,” Gourry remarked.

I was suddenly back in the original breezeway with Gourry and Kanzel just a bit ahead of me.

“Looks like it worked,” I said, hastily running to join them.

“What did?” Gourry asked.

“Nothing,” I responded.

I can tell you what really happened, but bear with me, because it’s a little hard to explain. By summoning a completely normal dove, I brought temporal reality into contact with the illusory world where I’d been stranded. And lo and behold, the stability of reality—in other words, its ability to assert itself over distorted versions of itself—won out in the fight for dominance.

At least, I think that’s what happened. In simpler terms, the spell was unstable and popped like a bubble when I connected it to the real world.

“That was very impressive, Master Kanzel,” I said in a discordantly chipper tone.

“What are you talking about?” he asked impassively.

And thus began our stay at the royal palace.

I lay restlessly on the bed, listening to the sounds of insects on the night wind. I’d been given accommodations not far from Sir Phil’s personal quarters, and Gourry was staying in the guest room right next to mine. If anything happened to Sir Phil, we’d be the first to know and could respond right away.

Officially, though, that was the royal guards’ job. We were Sir Phil’s hired bodyguards and all, but even if only for appearances’ sake, we were still guests at the palace. At night, the guards ran security and I should theoretically be able to relax and get a proper night’s sleep, but...

For some reason, despite the exhaustion of the day, the sandman just wasn’t coming. My bed was perfectly comfortable, however, which meant it was my usual instinct for trouble flaring up. Would there be a night raid? Most likely...

While casually dreaming of danger, I gazed over the sliver of moonlight coming in from between the blinds. Then I quietly bolted upright. Something was blocking the moonlight, and it wasn’t a cloud. No, someone was standing outside my window—my veranda-less, third-story window.

The next moment, two things happened simultaneously: I grabbed my sword and flew out of bed, and a blade tore through the window slit, splitting the bar holding it closed. Whoosh! The window blew wide open and the night air rushed in. A figure hovered just outside in midair, like a swath of black against the starry sky beyond.

“Wrong room, maybe?” I muttered to myself while formulating a plan in my head.

The assassin slipped through the window and soundlessly planted his feet on the floor. Everything except his eyes was cloaked in black, preventing me from reading his expression. I could barely sense his presence, either. He had to be pretty skilled...

“Sneaking into a woman’s room in the middle of the night... You should at least introduce yourself first, you know?” I snarked.

“Zuma,” he replied readily.

I was a little surprised. It left me at something of a loss as for how to respond at first.

“Wouldja look at that... he actually gave his name. Such a polite assassin!”

“I always give my name. To my employers... and to my soon-to-be victims.”

He followed up his threat with a dash into action. I had a wall directly behind me and a nightstand immediately to my left. This guy probably already knew my only path of escape was to the right, and I didn’t have time to finish hashing out a proper plan. My only recourse was jumping into my bed like a diver into water. I then quickly righted myself and began speed-chanting a spell. The moment Zuma saw me move, he flipped through the air, kicked off the wall, and sailed toward me.

I managed to dodge him, but I realized in the process that he was chanting too. Based on the meter, it didn’t sound like an attack spell... I’d have the upper hand in a spellcasting shootout, but this guy was clearly my better in close-quarters combat.

He slipped past a slash from my shortsword and moved in on me unarmed. Loathe as I am to admit it, if he’d had a blade in his hand—or if I hadn’t—that would’ve been the end of me.

There was only the pale moonlight from the window to illuminate the room, and it was hard to get any distance from my would-be assassin. I figured I’d nail him with the attack spell I was chanting, and if that didn’t drop him, I’d hit him with a Lighting. I’d get something to see by and maybe fry the guy’s retinas in a two-for-one special.

But first came a pounding at the door...

“Lina! What’s wrong?”

“Gourry!”

He must have realized something was wrong and come running. Too bad I’d locked the door from the inside. It was a personal habit—one that might cost me my life this time. I didn’t exactly have a free moment to walk over and unlock it. I’d just have to hold out until Gourry broke the door down and came to my rescue.

“Bram Blazer!”

I fired a blast of light, which Zuma easily dodged before it flew out the window and disappeared into the night.

“Dark Mist...” he then murmured.

Instantly—Fssst!—darkness consumed us.

“What?!” I shouted in panic.

All light had vanished from the room. I couldn’t see a thing. Still, I knew that I was better off not standing in place. I started moving and chanting.

“Lighting!”

I felt the spell spring from my outstretched palm... but that was it. No flash, no nothing. It seemed Zuma’s spell hadn’t just concealed the light in the room, but actually produced a thick, black mist—perhaps even darkness itself.

I couldn’t see or sense Zuma anywhere. He hadn’t withdrawn, though; he was probably just hiding. I was betting he couldn’t see me either under the circumstances... but he’d undoubtedly have an easier time sensing me than the other way around.

Suddenly, I felt a cold sensation run up my back. On instinct alone, I drew back and swung my sword. A hand seized my throat...

Crack! There was a wet sound, a shot of agony, and a wheeze from my throat. I then heard the door give way.

“Lina!” Gourry called. “Wh-What the—”

The pitch-black room had given him a moment’s pause, but he must have sensed my presence, because he was at my side in a flash, grabbing my arm.

“You okay, Lina?”

I said nothing. I just buried my face in his chest.

“Hey, it’s okay now. I think he ran away, so... Hey, Lina, you really okay?”

I couldn’t answer him. The pain from Zuma crushing my windpipe was finally catching up with me.

“Testing. One, two, three. Testing... Hello, hello there. I’m Lina Inverse.”

What? Don’t look at me like that. I haven’t lost my mind or anything. I was just making sure my voice was working.

After Zuma took off, Gourry reported the incident to one of the night watchmen, then escorted me to a magical doctor in the temple. The guy was a real trooper about being woken up at an ungodly hour for work, and he also did a great job fixing my throat. We thanked him and took our leave afterward.

“But... why’d an assassin come after you in the first place?” Gourry muttered as we walked the breezeway from the temple back to the palace.

“I wish I knew. You’d think they’d be after Sir Phil. I doubt it was a simple case of ‘wrong room,’ though...”

“Do you think it’s maybe... you know?”

“What?”

“A ‘birds of a feather’ kind of situation?”

“Yeah, sure. Maybe.”

“You know... when you blow off my teasing, it’s kind of a letdown.”

I blew that off too and continued: “It was probably meant to be a diversion of some kind. He could attack me, raise a ruckus, bring all the guards running... And then the real force could pounce on Sir Phil. Seems like the guards saw through it since none of them left their posts.”

“Hmm... I dunno,” Gourry said, looking skeptical.

“What?”

“When you were being attacked, I didn’t sense anyone else in the area.”

I hummed to myself thoughtfully. Gourry’s nigh-animalistic ability to sense other people’s presences had never led us astray. If he said it wasn’t a diversion, I had no choice but to believe him.

Looking ahead to the palace from the corridor, we could see that security was just as tight as it had been the night we’d first sneaked in. In order to infiltrate my room, Zuma would have had to take out a few of the night watchmen without the others noticing. But the question still remained... Why?

“Morning...” I called, waving lightly to Lord Clophel and Lady Amelia as they enjoyed their tea on the lawn.

I was ridiculously sleepy. After the attack last night, I’d gotten to wondering... if the enemy wasn’t really after me, was there something in my room they wanted? Gourry and I had thus stayed up until dawn scouring the place, but the joke was on us. We didn’t find squat.

In retrospect, that room I was staying in had been vacant until I arrived yesterday. Surely if someone was using it for something, they would’ve cleaned up before I settled in.

“Morning, Mistress Lina! Sounds like you had a rough night!” Lady Amelia waved as she gulped down her tea.

Apparently she’d heard the news already. She was friendly and cheerful almost to a fault, but she sure was on the ball when it counted.

“Come, come join us! Have a seat,” she beckoned. I obliged and took the chair across from her as Lord Clophel served me. “Is Master Gourry with my dad?”

“Yeah,” I responded, taking a sip of exceptionally sweet tea.

Gourry was doing the bodyguard thing, but I wasn’t just slacking off myself. I’d avoided assassination once, but I knew things wouldn’t be over until I cut the problem off at the source. I could always just hold my horses until the next attack, then catch my would-be assassin and make him talk... but I wasn’t really one to play the waiting game.

Instead, I’d decided to go around asking questions in the open. That should put pressure on the enemy, and maybe even net me some useful intel. There was also the possibility that it might paint a giant target on my back, but if it came to that, I could always fall back on the capture-and-question plan with whoever dared to come at me next. Granted, it’d be a little tricky if it turned out to be that Zuma guy again...

Nevertheless, protecting Sir Phil was still our first priority. Gourry and I couldn’t both leave him to go around scouting information, which was why I’d left guard duty to the blond lug while I got to work.

“I am curious what’s really going on here,” Lady Amelia mused as she dumped more sugar into her teacup after Lord Clophel refilled it for her. “The attack on your room last night came up at breakfast, and Uncle Christopher looked pretty shaken.”

“Chris— Sir Christopher did? Really?” I found myself scowling. If he was the one pulling the strings, why would he be surprised to hear I was attacked? “You don’t think he was just faking it?”

“Nah. I know a performance when I see one, and this was no act. He stopped eating and stormed off and everything.”

“I see...” I replied, taking another sip of tea.

Was last night the handiwork of one of Christopher’s subordinates (most likely Kanzel) acting out of turn, then? If the enemy’s chain of command was breaking down, this could be a ripe opportunity for us. Christopher’s son was worth investigating too. I still wasn’t sure where he stood in all of this, but I had to wonder if I could get some information out of him.

“So, Lady Amelia, can you tell me about your cousin Alfred?”

“You want to know about Alfred?” she asked with an impish grin. “Why don’t you just ask him yourself?”

“Indeed. I’d be happy to answer any of your questions,” spoke a voice from behind me.

I turned around in surprise to find Alfred standing right there. When had he shown up?

“May I join you?” he asked, even as he took the seat to my left. He then brushed his hair back in a theatrical fashion as he turned to me. “Now, what is it, my dear? What did you want to know about me?”

I had to say, it felt like a line. And okay, maybe five out of ten women on the street would fall for a pass from a guy like this, but my evaluation of his type was simple: chronically self-obsessed. Male or female, I was never a fan. It’d be one thing in a superficial relationship or if matters around the castle weren’t so grim... But whenever there’s trouble, his type tend to see themselves as the lead of some tragedy and blame things on “cruel fate” rather than engage in meaningful self-reflection about how they got there.

Such people quickly became despots when given authority. Granted, with a little indulgence, they were also easy to manipulate...

“I was hoping I might ask your take on the situation,” I inquired politely.

“You’re a direct little thing, aren’t you?” He looked around casually, a wry smile on his lips. “To be honest, I’m not a fan of what’s been going on, even though it is my own father’s doing...”

Whoa, dude! Are you sure you should just be blurting that out?! It was such a shocking statement that Lord Clophel and I both looked around in a panic. It seemed we were the only ones who’d heard it, but still...

“Anyone with any common sense at all knows that. What of it?” Lady Amelia asked, smoothly moving things along.

“I’m hardly the type to make excuses, but I’ve tried to talk my father out of this nonsense numerous times. But no matter what I say, he insists it’s ‘for the nation!’ He may truly be thinking of the kingdom in his own way, but... I simply don’t approve of his methods. Of course, I can’t exactly denounce my own father... Amelia!” Alfred exclaimed, suddenly seizing her hands. “I need to ask you the favor of a lifetime! Please... Can you arrange for Uncle Phil and my father to talk things out? I’m sure if they could have a heart-to-heart without any interference, my father would see the light!”

Alfred stared earnestly into her eyes. It didn’t seem like an act, but I couldn’t be sure...

Well? What’s your take, Lady Amelia?

“Let me think...” she said after a long pause. “Okay. I’ll talk to my dad.”

“Oh, thank you, Amelia!” He stood up and embraced her gently. “I’ll propose the idea to my father at once!”

With that, he ran straight back to the palace. Silence hung over the tea table for a while.

“So, what do you think that was all about, Lady Amelia?” I finally asked.

“I don’t exactly know,” she answered with a vague smile. “At the very least, it means something’s about to happen.”

That was a rather detached statement...

“But still,” she said, her expression unchanged. “I really hate not being able to trust my own family.”

She said those words lightly, but... I felt sure I saw a terrible sadness in her eyes.

“Ahh, I’m exhausted,” I said as I flopped onto the bed.

“Hey, Lina, no sleeping yet.”

“I know.”

I sat up again and dangled my legs off the side, facing Gourry as he sat on the nightstand. We were in my room for a strategy meeting. A refreshing bath, a filling dinner, and a long night’s sleep would be so awesome right now... but that would all have to wait until I touched base with Gourry.

“You do seem pretty worn out though, Lina.”

“Guess I am. It’s hard to relax around all these stuffed shirts.”

“Interesting,” Gourry hummed with a knowing nod. “Usually you play by your own rules, no matter who you’re dealing with.”

“You got a problem with that?”

“Several.”

“Too bad.”

That shut him up.

“Look, we’re in the royal palace here. You have to watch everything you do around these bigwigs. As long as I’m dealing with normal people, I can carry on however I like—no harm done. But if I behaved like that here, they’d throw me right out on my ear.”

“Even when it comes to dealing with ‘normal people,’ that ‘no harm done’ assertion doesn’t really hold water...”

“Sure it does. Anyhoo, you got anything to report?”

“Nope,” Gourry said with a shake of his head.

“Okay, anything grab your attention? New rumors, et cetera?”

“Nothing,” he said, still shaking his head.

Well... it’s not like I had my hopes up. I let out a long sigh.

“Well, something interesting did happen on my end...” I gave Gourry the rundown on Amelia and Alfred’s little exchange this morning. “What do you make of that, Gourry?”

“In what sense?”

“You know! Is it a trap?”

“Could it not be a trap?”

Shame on me for asking.

“A-Anyway, Gourry... I’m thinking that even if it is a trap, we should help facilitate this supposed ‘talk.’ It should move things along, if nothing else.”

“You’re saying we should stand back and just let the cards fall as they may?”

Well, yes, but... there were better ways to phrase it. Why’d he have to be so indelicate?

The next day, it was the same old security, same old routine—on the surface, at least. Underneath, things were astir.

“Looks like they reached an agreement.”

We were currently in the middle of having lunch in the guest dining hall, meaning it was just me, Gourry, and our server. The royal family was dining together privately (sans the bedridden king, most likely), as was apparently their tradition outside of grand balls and such. Just imagining the tense atmosphere over that table made me shudder. I’d heard a server even passed out from anxiety once.

Anyway, back to me and Gourry...

Gourry finished chewing and swallowing his food, then said, “Agreement? About what?”

Plop! I unwittingly dropped my spoon into my stew bowl.

“You... are really something else,” I said in a low voice to keep the server from hearing as I tried to restrain my trembling. “Did you already forget about yesterday? I’m saying they reached an agreement to talk!”

“Oh, that,” Gourry said casually. “Why didn’t you just say so? Then I would’ve remembered immediately...”

So he really had forgotten...

“They haven’t set a date and time yet, but it seems like it’ll be soon,” I added before returning my attention to my meal.

The spoon I’d dropped had vanished into my soup without a trace. “Darn it...” I grumbled, trying to fish around with my fork. Aha! Just as I thought I’d found it...

Bloosh! The stew erupted out of the dish. No, wait...

“Graaaaah!”

Gourry and I both reeled back. It wasn’t actually the stew that burst out of the bowl, but dozens of long, sticky, stew-colored tentacles!

“L-L-Lina! This isn’t funny!” Gourry shouted.

“I’m not the one doing it!” I shouted right back.

In the meantime, one of the skinny tentacles had stuck itself to the table and was now straining, apparently trying to pull whatever it was attached to out of the bowl. And beside it, a roast chicken had split down the middle as a pair of hands reached up from out of it.

“Is this what you guys serve around here?! I wanna talk to the chef!” I declared, but when I turned back to the server... I saw he’d slumped weakly to the ground and turned into salt. No discipline at all!

I had bigger things to worry about than the staff, though! The tentacles’ main body had now appeared and planted itself on the table. It was a bouncy round sphere about the size of my arm span with a few dozen long, stringy tentacles sprouting from it. It was honestly a little silly-looking, but I was in no state to appreciate that in the moment.

The thing coming out of the roast chicken was also now halfway emerged. It looked like a big clump of seaweed in the shape of a human, with childlike proportions.

“What do we do?” Gourry asked.

“What do you think? We run!” I answered.

I then rushed to open the nearer of the two doors... But as I looked through it, I fell silent in shock.

“What is it, Li—” Gourry called, rushing to my side before falling similarly silent.

For beyond the door was a room just like this one. There was a table lined with food, complete with two bizarre monsters... And in the far back of the room stood an open door flanked by two familiar figures staring dumbly into it.

That’s right. It was us.

“Gourry, behind you!”

“What?!” he exclaimed, whipping around so that the “other” Gourry was now facing me.

“Hi!” I said, waving to him.

“Quit playing around!” my Gourry shouted, slamming the door shut. “What’s going on here?!”

“An infinity mirror.”

“What are you talking about?!”

“It’s a phenomenon... Looks like we have no choice but to fight Mr. Roly-Poly over there—somehow or other!”

I began chanting a spell. Gourry drew his sword from his belt and sliced at the squiggly tentacle-sphere. Bwom! With a rather silly noise, the blade passed through its body.

“What?!”

The momentum of his attack carried the surprised Gourry stumbling past the blob. It then fired some kind of black clump at him from... somewhere, not sure where.

“Move!” I screamed, but he’d already dodged it.

The black lump hit the floor with an underwhelming sploosh, and while I was curious what it might have done if it had made contact with flesh, I was in no mood to find out. I’d had to call off my chant to warn Gourry, but the spell I’d been working on was a Flare Arrow—the efficacy of which I now doubted against our strange little opponents.

To make matters worse, a third creature had just crawled out of the stew bowl.

“Gourry! The light!” I called.

“Right!” he called back, sheathing his sword.

This wasn’t a misunderstanding on his part. He purposefully drew a pin from his pocket, released the blade of his sword from its hilt, and then cried...

“Light, come forth!”

With that, he drew the handle of his sword again—this time with a brilliant blade streaming from it. This was the legendary Sword of Light, capable of producing a demon-slaying blade made of sheer human will!

I could sense a jolt of tension seize the weird creatures (not sure what else to call them) when they saw the sword, and they proceeded to fire a series of more black lumps at Gourry in a panic. He dodged through the barrage to slice through Seaweed Boy, who slumped over with a dull thud and began to evaporate before our eyes.

Obviously, I wasn’t just gonna sit back and let Gourry steal the show. While Tentacle Ball, Seaweed Boy (now out of the picture), and the newly-arrived tomato-looking creature with lots of arms and tails were all focused on Gourry, I had been focused on the source of our troubles: the table. A fourth monstrosity—now half emerged from the roast chicken—fired a black lump at me but only caught my cape. Now it was my turn.

“Elemekia Lance!”

My spell hit the thing dead on, tearing open a large hole in its body. I thought as much... We were fighting creatures from the astral plane. The spell I’d just used was meant to do spiritual damage rather than physical, so the gaping hole in the creature suggested it was a being made of pure spirit. Which meant I just had to cut them off at the source!

The monstrosity I’d nailed with my Elemekia Lance had already disintegrated and disappeared. My stew bowl was eerily frothing, but I shattered it with the butt of my shortsword, then sliced the roast chicken in half on the backswing! Okay, not exactly a brag-worthy feat when I stopped to think about it...

I had to wonder for a minute what might have happened if an ordinary weapon hadn’t worked on the bowl and chicken that were spawning the creatures, but luckily, it had. If nothing else, I’d effectively stopped more from appearing.

I cast a glance Gourry’s way. He seemed to have destroyed Tentacle Ball, but was getting some real guff from Tomato-with-Tails.

“What are you doing?!”

“Be careful! This one’s pretty tough!”

Ugh! I started a quick incantation. Only spells that dealt direct spiritual damage—like black magic and astral magic—were effective against these little dudes. Not being able to use cantrips to keep them in check made this kind of a pain.

The creepy tomato used twisty, unsettling movements to dodge Gourry’s sword strikes before suddenly firing one of its tails in my direction. Vzz! It burst apart mid-flight, sending countless black clumps flying at me. I immediately hit the deck and rolled behind the table, using it like a shield. Little jerk... I then popped out from cover and shot a spell at the creepy tomato while it was occupied with Gourry!

“Dark Claw!”

A blast of magic resembling a swarm of black winged insects zoomed at its back. (If the thing had one, that is!) But without any warning, it bent unceremoniously to the side... sending my spell streaking toward poor Gourry behind it!

“Waaah?!”

With a wail, he batted my spell away with the Sword of Light in just the nick of time. I wasn’t sure if he’d meant to do it or if he just got lucky, but he sent my ball of magic speeding right into the tomato creature.

And with that, the fight was finally over.

“Whew! No one beats teamwork like ours!” I declared, holding my fingers up in a “V” for victory!

“Teamwork, shmeamwork! You scared the hell out of me!”

“C’mon, now. All’s well that ends well...”

“Still, though...” Gourry wearily slumped into his chair. “Those guys were exhausting...”

“Despite the goofy appearances, yeah,” I said, joining him at the table.

And just then...

“Excuse me... is there some kind of problem?”

Gourry and I jerked upright when we heard someone address us out of the blue. It was our server, who was looking at us worriedly. How long had he been there? We were apparently back in our proper dimension now...

“Some kind of problem?!” Gourry huffed.

“Gourry,” I stopped him. “That wasn’t his fault. Besides, I don’t think any time has passed here.”

The room looked exactly as it had before all the trouble started, with our bowls of stew and roast chicken intact upon the table. The only evidence of the recent incident was my cape, where one of the black clumps had left a hole. It wasn’t like acid corrosion. The threads of the cape itself were falling apart, turned brittle as though weathered.

Of course... so that’s what they do. Dang, I just bought this cape, too...

Gourry was sitting there in stony silence while I was scowling and scrutinizing my cape... Our poor server just watched us, baffled and clueless as to what was going on. Thinking I should do something to dispel the awkwardness, I turned to Gourry and asked an extremely pertinent question.

“You want seconds on stew?”

“Absolutely not!” he said, all force.

That night...

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Alfred said nervously, remaining on his feet.

We were presently in a stand-alone building some distance from the main palace. It was the size of a normal house, and all five of us were gathered there together: me, Gourry, Lady Amelia, Sir Phil, and Alfred. Sir Phil’s guard detail was just outside the room, which was brightly lit by some kind of sphere hanging from the ceiling. It was probably a magic item that released a light similar to a Lighting spell.

“I’m sure you’ve already heard, but Master Gourry and Mistress Lina were attacked by some strange spell this afternoon,” Alfred said, brushing his hair back anxiously.

“I have heard! Just what is Chris thinking?!” Sir Phil said, arms folded.

“Actually, Uncle... I don’t think my father was behind this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s not like I could ask him outright, but he was unspeakably shocked when I informed him of what happened.”

“I guess he would be...” I whispered.

“What do you mean?” Sir Phil asked.

“Well, I can’t see what he’d stand to gain by ordering an attack on me and Gourry. If anything, it undermines his position. So unless this was some kind of misunderstanding of orders...”

“Then Kanzel’s gone rogue,” Alfred said, finishing my sentence for me. Pacing back and forth, he then continued, “When I told my father the news, he panicked and asked someone to summon Kanzel. That must have been why... Dammit! And with so much at stake! Is he trying to ruin everything?!”

For a dramatic end to his monologue, he pounded his fist on the wall. Lady Amelia picked up from there.

“Just who is Kanzel, anyway? He’s so snooty. I’ve never liked him,” she asked casually.

“I don’t know. My father just brought him here one day out of the blue. All he told me was that he was an old friend... That’s all I know,” Alfred explained.

“It doesn’t matter who he is so long as we can put an end to the conflict,” said Sir Phil.

“True. But...” Gourry began.

“Even so...” Lady Amelia continued.

“That’s not looking likely...” I concluded.

“Wh-What do you mean?” Alfred asked, panicking.

The presences of the guards stationed around the building, which I’d been keeping a corner of my attention on, had disappeared abruptly. The prickling sensation of hostile presences encroaching took their place.

“We’ve got assassins,” I said simply.

“Assassins?!” Alfred exclaimed, nearly dumbfounded. “You... You can’t be serious! I’m here with you! Why would he send assassins now?!”

“Dunno. Just gotta deal with ’em for the time being,” I said bluntly as I tried to feel out our enemy.

There were multiple presences, all of which were fairly strong. Sir Phil had had five guards outside, after all—and they’d all been taken out without so much as a peep. If Zuma was among this group, we might be in real trouble.

If some guards from the palace noticed something was amiss and came to investigate, that might be enough to send him running, but... The room we were currently in was basically designed for secret talks. It had no windows and only one door. There were louvers near the ceiling, but they weren’t wide enough for a person to fit through.

Still, we couldn’t just stay holed up in here. A Fireball tossed through the louvers would roast us all alive on the spot. The only proper way out of the room was the door, but our attackers were undoubtedly lying in wait for us there.

“We’ll just have to fight our way through,” Gourry declared.

“Hang on, man. First, barricade the door from the inside with the table,” I said, picturing the layout of the building in my head.

“You want a barricade? We’ll be trapped in here like rats!”

“Just do it! Lady Amelia, the courtyard is this way, right?” I asked, knocking on the wall opposite the door.

“It is,” she responded with impressive calm. It seemed she had her father’s presence of mind in times of crisis.

“I’m gonna break through,” I said simply and began chanting a spell.

While I did that, Gourry and Sir Phil managed to move the eight-person table we’d been using up against the door. The door opened inward, so that should hold it shut. And they weren’t done with their handiwork a moment too soon—the door started to rattle just after the table was in place. I then pressed my hands against the far wall and unleashed the spell I’d been working on.

“Blast Wave!”

Ker-pow! With an ear-splitting explosion, part of the wall caved in, leaving a hole big enough for a person to walk through. Blast Wave really packed a destructive punch; the catch was that you could only use it against something you touched with both hands.

The night-cloaked courtyard opened up beyond the drifting dust cloud. The palace was in the other direction, but the guards should have heard a blast like that loud and clear.

“This way!” I called out, coughing my way through the dust as I leaped out into the garden ahead of everyone. The instant I did, a flash of hostility came from above. “Tch!”

I moved into a dodge, and with a soft zinging sound, something impaled itself into the ground at my feet. It was a knife about the length of my palm that glistened blue in the light leaking out from the room—most likely coated in poison.

Gourry barreled out of the house behind me, snatched up the knife, rolled, and threw it back at its source. A black-clad figure on the roof dodged it easily, then leaped down at Gourry.

“Gotcha!” Gourry cried as he swung his sword at his incoming attacker...

But what should have been a killing blow caught nothing, for the assassin had stopped their descent midair!

Levitation?!

Still floating in the air, the assassin kicked at Gourry. The toe of their boot glinted with the silver of a hidden blade, but thankfully Gourry managed to dodge it.

“Flare Arrow!” I cried, firing the spell as soon as it was ready.

Levitation didn’t allow for much maneuverability, so the black-clad assassin should be a sitting duck. And as predicted, a few of the dozen arrows I launched hit the poor sucker head-on, sending them tumbling to earth. That was one down.

And as that was unfolding, the other three members of our party emerged from the house. I figured my fiery spell would be enough to signal the guards and bring them running, but we’d have to hold out until then. Just then—Whom!—there was a massive explosion at the door to the room and two figures came tumbling in. While rolling over the table, they each tossed two flashes of silver—four of them in total—all aimed right at Sir Phil!

“Look out!” I shouted.

The next second, something white flitted through the air. Three knives fell harmlessly to the ground; Lady Amelia had knocked them out of the air with her cape. The final knife was in Phil’s hand—he’d grabbed it out of the air!

“Whaaaat?!” the assassins shouted incredulously.

I couldn’t blame them, really. Any normal person would’ve just tried to dodge it.

“Fools!” Amelia cried thunderously as she pointed a finger at the assassins. “You’ve turned your backs on sacred law to do evil’s bidding! But can your sullied blades truly slay the will of justice?! Come and find out if you dare!”

Sounds like someone’s a fan of heroic sagas...

But as she struck a cool pose, her body rose weightlessly into the air. Sir Phil, who was standing next to her, had grabbed her by the collar and lifted her up like a kitten by the scruff of the neck.

“Out of the way, Amelia!”

He then tossed her to me and Gourry. She landed skillfully, still posing.

“Don’t underestimate me!” she cried angrily as one of the assassins made a break for Sir Phil.

Gourry and I moved at once to intervene, but...

“What mighty fools!”

Before we could do a thing, Sir Phil slammed his fist into the charging assassin! Crack! The poor guy went flying and crashed right into an internal wall, which he slid down and collapsed onto the floor.

“I don’t know what possesses you to engage in these petty schemes,” Sir Phil pronounced, pointing at the assassin (now immobile, his neck bent at a strange angle) as he began his lecture. “But I implore you to reconsider! Have you no family who cares for you? Regardless of your purpose, however righteous you believe it to be... you must not do anything to debase yourself or bring sorrow to your loved ones! I don’t believe in pointless fighting. If you repent your actions and leave here at once, I shall let you go in peace!”

There, the other assassin moved. But it wasn’t toward Sir Phil. Instead, he walked over to the assassin on the floor and took his pulse. He then cast a glance our way, broke into a run, and disappeared through the door he’d broken down to get in.

“Chose to flee, eh?” Sir Phil said with a weighty sigh.

Then, at last, we could hear soldiers approaching.

“Guess we made it through another one,” Gourry said, glancing at the assassin collapsed on the floor.

Just then, something occurred to me...

“Get down!” I shouted, and everyone instinctively ducked.

Bwooom! The body of the fallen assassin exploded into pieces.

“What happened?”

“Are you all right?”

With that, the soldiers finally arrived. It was about dang time... We all managed to pick ourselves up. Nobody was seriously hurt.

“Ah...” Sir Phil groaned with great emotion as he righted himself. “It seems my rebuke caused him such shame that he exploded... I wish they wouldn’t take these things so hard.”

Yeah, uh... I don’t think that’s what happened, actually...

See, I’d thought something was strange about the assassin checking his fallen comrade’s pulse. The dude was clearly, painfully, and obviously dead (to Sir Phil’s apparent ignorance), so why bother? It dawned on me that it might be a ruse, meaning his real intention was to do something with the body. There was also the way they’d blown in the door. It just all kind of screamed “bomb.” He must’ve been hoping one of us would try to check the body right away and get caught in the blast.

“Highness! What’s going on here?” one of the soldiers asked Sir Phil.

“We were attacked by ruffians, but all is well,” he explained, sending the guards into a flurry.

“Ruffians?!” one screeched.

“Teams one and two, remain here! Team three, search the building! Team four, the surrounding area! Find and capture the intruders at all cost! And you there, report this to the palace,” ordered the captain I’d met the other night when we first infiltrated the palace.

I had a feeling they’d never find anything, though. The assassins were long gone by now.

“But...” I muttered as I watched the panicking soldiers. “That Zuma guy didn’t show up this time.”

“Yeah...” Gourry muttered in response.

“Why?!” Alfred shouted at excessive volume. “Why would he attack me too? Don’t tell me... Don’t tell me!”

Dude was turning paler by the minute.

“Was this the real purpose of the attack this afternoon?” he whispered, his face now as white as a sheet.

Ah!

“‘This’?” Sir Phil inquired.

But instead of answering, Alfred just said, “Dad... I’m going to ask Dad!” and ran off toward the palace.

“What’s he on about?” Sir Phil then asked, turning to me.

“How should I know?” I responded, conspicuously glancing around.

I had a pretty good idea what Alfred was thinking, but I couldn’t exactly say it in front of the soldiers. Catching the meaning of my coy antics, Sir Phil nodded deeply.

“I see. Then let us go elsewhere.”

“I think he was the one who ordered the attack on me and Gourry this afternoon,” I explained.

Obviously, I was referring to Christopher. We still had no proof he was the one behind everything, but it was basically an open secret in the palace at this point.

Our group had now moved to Sir Phil’s personal quarters in the main palace. There were guards posted outside the door, of course, so we had to keep our voices down. That kind of inconvenience was why we’d chosen the stand-alone building to have our secret little chat in the first place, but...

“What are you talking about?” Gourry asked this time.

“There was no point in attacking us over lunch. So, naturally, we were all left wondering what was going on. Lord Alfred approached his father about it, realized Kanzel had gone rogue, and then came to us...”

“I see. He wanted us all together,” Lady Amelia said with a nod.

“Yup. To polish us all off at once. And the easiest way to ensure we’d all be in one place was under the auspices of a strategy meeting after a failed attack on me and Gourry.”

“Hmm...” Sir Phil rumbled, arms folded. “Absurd! It’s simply too malicious! Even if Chris did want to get us all in one place, to involve his own son and risk his life in the process? I can’t abide this one minute longer!”

“Now, wait just a minute,” I said, urging calm. “We don’t know anything for sure yet.”

“But what else could it be, Lina?”

“I don’t really know... but there’s one thing that doesn’t add up.”

“What is it?”

“If that was really what the enemy was after, he would’ve pulled out all the stops for that one attack. Yet this time, he held back. For instance, that assassin named Zuma who attacked me that first night—”

“What?!” Lady Amelia shouted out. “Did... Did you just say Zuma?!”

“Yeah... What about it?”

“Was it really Zuma?!”

“Well, that’s what he called himself.”

“So he’s here?” she whispered, her face ghostly pale.

“You know him?” Sir Phil asked.

“Just by rumor, but I’ve heard he’s a magic-wielding assassin who’s the best in the business,” she explained. “If what they say is true and he really is the one who attacked you, that means you’re his first mark... to ever survive.”

Erk... I found myself stunned into silence. If Gourry hadn’t shown up when he did, I might’ve been Zuma’s latest victim.

I managed to regain my composure and said, “Well, whatever this Zuma guy’s deal is, the fact remains that he wasn’t in on tonight’s raid. The guys who attacked us today weren’t bad, but they were still pretty standard.”

“Then what’s going on here?” Sir Phil asked.

I shook my head slightly and answered, “I don’t know. Maybe the attack this afternoon really was Kanzel going rogue, and you-know-who simply decided to capitalize on that. It’s also a possibility he was in a hurry and couldn’t get in touch with Zuma in time. But the real question here, now that this has happened, is whether or not you should still have your parley as planned...”

“We will,” Sir Phil said bluntly. “Even with all this—no, because of all this—I need to hash things out with Chris. Man to man.”

And so, the day of the supposed “talk” arrived. A serious tension had hung over the palace that morning. Everyone knew about the conflict between Sir Phil and Christopher.

After the attack in the stand-alone building, Alfred had apparently put the squeeze on Christopher and Kanzel but never got anything out of them.

Needless to say, the reigning sovereign, King Eldran, wasn’t just playing dead while all this went down. He’d entreated Christopher for the two of them to make up time and again, but the prince had remained elusive with his own father too. And as long as King Eldran had no hard proof of foul play, he couldn’t formally punish Chris either. Apparently, the anxiety of the situation was only making the old king’s condition worse...

That meant a lot was riding on this conference, which was being held in another standalone building. If Christopher genuinely had no intention of making peace with Sir Phil, today would be the day things really hit the fan.

Just after noon, the group left the palace. That meant Sir Phil and Christopher, obviously, but it also included me and Gourry, Lady Amelia, Alfred, and Mr. Suspicious himself, Kanzel. If only Zuma were with us, it would’ve been a real family reunion. Of course, we still couldn’t rule out that he’d show his face at some point.

As we walked, Kanzel cast a glance my way with a cold smile.

“You see the way Kanzel’s eyeing me?” I said, soft enough that only Gourry, who was walking beside me, could hear. “I think someone’s in love...”

“Yeah, right,” Gourry said with a wince. “Though you must be feeling confident if you’re making jokes like that...”

“For now, yeah.”

“What if that assassin guy shows up?”

“You take him.”

“Go figure...”

Still, Kanzel’s little “warped space” trick was pretty dangerous. The only ones directly involved in the talks would be Sir Phil and Christopher, meaning they’d enter the building alone while the royal guard and the rest of us waited outside. So what if Mr. Suspicious decided to pull a fast one on us and send Zuma inside or something? I’d have to keep an eye on him the whole time to make sure he didn’t cast any spells.

The warm sun danced on the green grass of the courtyard. I could only wonder what kind of mischief such a beautiful day would bring us.

We were about halfway to the negotiation house, when...

Nyeee! The very air around us seemed to scream.

“What’s that?!” someone shouted.

Then, a shadow passed over the sun.

“It’s overhead!” Gourry called out.

And sure enough, we all looked up to see... a giant black lump plummeting toward us!

“Whaaaat?!”

We scattered like flies to get out of the way.

Vwooom! It hit the ground with a dull shaking of the earth. Then came another ear-splitting cry as the thing began moving its feelers around. Nyeee!

It was a giant bug... Or so I would have said, but by the time it gets to be the size of a small dragon, calling it a bug just doesn’t feel right. This was a giant something that happened to resemble a bug.

It had the slick, black hide of a beetle and eight thick legs, four on each side. A pair of wings—large, though too small for it to fly—flanked its carapace, and its round body was dotted with shining ruby-colored half-spheres that resembled jeweled amulets.

The soldiers flew into a panic. None of them tried to run, however. Instead, they converged for an uncoordinated attack on the bug. There was no sense of real strategy here. They just hacked at it mindlessly.

Even with some proper leadership, however, I was seriously doubtful they’d be able to harm the thing. Their strikes were just bouncing helplessly off of its shell. One clever soldier actually tried digging his blade into its joints, but the bug ignored that as it continued to move its feelers around curiously.

Then suddenly, as though it had detected its real target, the giant creature changed directions with an agility belied by its eight spindly legs. As for its target...

Yeah. That would be me.