[654] The Air of Life (3)
"Ra Enemi?"
Shirone couldn't understand how the man before him knew Ra Enemi.
No—more than that, hadn't he just said he'd met someone Shirone himself hadn't even met yet?
"How do you know that?"
Every time Shagal cocked his upper body, Rian flinched without realizing it.
'No question—he's dangerous.'
Shagal: one of the world's hundred most dangerous people.
He came from the Märchen Kingdom, west of the Mediterranean—born as if the bastard child of a fairy-tale resort.
Some murderers are born without feeling, but Shagal had been made into a killer.
"Huh. Sniff sniff."
What Shagal smelled on Shirone wasn't molecules of scent so much as the perfume of an incident.
Just as a particular smell can call up a memory, Shagal could smell the memory of the event itself.
And that meant Shagal had met Ra Enemi at least once.
If Shagal's memory was accurate, he'd killed Ra Enemi more than seven times.
If Shagal's memory was accurate.
"Where is Ra Enemi?"
His already hoarse voice echoed through the underground canal tunnel and sounded even more chilling.
"I don't know. We're here on Mr. Brooks' request."
There was a grim lethality to him that made Rian not even want to get involved, regardless of skill.
"Brooks?"
Hired three months ago, Brooks had been working almost as if trapped in the canals, taking out countless demi-humans.
It had been satisfying work for Shagal, but delivering Brooks' letter still left a bad taste in his mouth.
After all, they'd been hired because Brooks said there was evidence of Ra Enemi in Vashka.
Shagal erased the job from his mind.
"If you won't tell me, I'll just ask your body."
"Ugh!"
The air in the canal—already thick with murderous intent—expanded in an instant, and it felt as if thousands of blades had pierced them.
'Here it comes.'
Shagal's side-to-side motion quickened, then, as if severed, both his arms vanished.
At the thudding vibration of air, Shirone and Rian both leapt down the stairs.
Bang! Shagal's two daggers struck Rian's greatsword with a vertical impact.
'It's fine. I can hold—'
Just then the air trembled again, and afterimages of countless blades surged in from all sides.
"Huuuu!"
Blood sprayed from his arms and legs, but Rian paid it no mind and swung the greatsword in a wide arc.
His technique controlled the entire span of the canal and sent Shagal bouncing back like a rubber ball.
'He gives off no scent to me.'
Slipping past Rian with a ghostlike shift in trajectory, Shirone prepared to fight and attuned his magic.
In that instant, as Shirone sensed the odd twitch of Shagal's upper body, Rian suddenly closed the distance and blocked Shirone's path.
A roaring noise echoed through the canal and Shagal's eyes flickered with confusion.
'What is this?'
It wasn't a response that could be explained by speed alone, and Shagal's nose flared.
'Something I've experienced before.'
The memory of killing Ra Enemi resurfaced.
"Shirone, go up."
The murderous nature in Rian's bearing was too strong to see him as a mere mercenary, so Rian chose to send Shirone away.
"But—"
"It's fine. The job comes first."
Knowing Rian's skill, Shirone met Shagal's gaze over Rian's shoulder.
Could they break through that man and escape the canals?
'Now!'
As Shirone moved sideways, Shagal's gaze tracked him precisely.
His body seemed to dissolve like smoke, and Shagal's dagger thrust straight for Shirone's brow.
'What the—?'
But the dagger cut only empty air; Shirone had vanished.
Shirone slipped away in the opposite direction with a Sibulsangpokmae, then smashed the canal's iron gate with a Photon Cannon and climbed up.
Even then, Shagal stood dumbfounded, watching the departing Shirone, unable to make sense of it.
Rian slung the greatsword over his shoulder and said, "Alright, shall we get serious?"
With Shirone no longer needing protection, Rian felt as if the last restraint on him had been cast off.
"Kkk. Kkkkk."
Shagal chuckled, his shoulders trembling.
He couldn't yet identify them, but it was obvious these people had gone through something similar to him.
"I'll kill you properly, one by one."
Wherever Shirone had fled, Shagal's nose would find him and butcher him.
"How about you try killing me before you start that kind of boasting?"
Shagal's laugh cut off.
Having committed murders into the four digits, his only criterion for identifying humans was simple:
Kill or don't kill.
And in that moment, by that single standard, Shagal judged the man named Rian.
"You die."
As Shagal's form vanished, Rian seized the greatsword with both hands and charged.
The impact rocked the canal.
* * *
'Hurry! Hurry!'
Having entered the mansion, Shirone made full use of the voracious spirit Kuzen's metabolism to scour the house quickly.
Many guards were posted, but the mansion's internal security wasn't especially tight.
Probably because the only entrance to the mansion was being watched by the man they'd met in the canals.
'He's truly strange. Who is he?'
All the more reason to worry about Rian.
'Where are you?'
Shirone could extend his Spirit Zone to sense people without entering rooms, but the mansion was enormous with hundreds of chambers.
Bark! Bark!
As Shirone ran down the corridor by the windows, the patrol dogs outside turned and barked in unison.
'Damn!'
You could avoid human eyes, but not a dog's nose.
Especially after meeting a man who sniffed like a dog in the canal, Shirone's nerves frayed.
"Intruder! Find him!"
The mansion alarm blared and the sound of numerous guards' footsteps echoed as they rushed up.
Shirone swept the second floor and raced to the third, where one guard spotted tracks.
"Third floor! Pursue!"
Skima's experts closed the distance fast, but Shirone had already locked onto someone at the end of the corridor.
'Two people?'
They were so tangled together he wouldn't have noticed if his Spirit Zone were any less sharp.
"Protect the boss!"
Guards leapt out from the opposite corridor.
Dodging enemies attempting a pincer from both sides, Shirone reached a door and smashed through it with his torso just before their blades could strike.
Unlike the corridor, a bright light filled the room.
Shirone rolled to his feet as guards leveled polearms at the door.
"What's all the fuss?"
At the voice from the bed, Shirone turned and saw a man in his mid-forties stepping down naked from the bed.
On the bed sat a blonde beauty, wrapped in the blanket.
Brooks glanced at her, clicked his tongue in disappointment, and slipped on a robe.
"Who are you?"
Shirone stared at the close-cropped bearded man, thinking.
He could say he was there to deliver a letter, but with the subordinates present, he couldn't hand it over so easily.
"Uh, well, it's just—"
"Shirone?"
The woman on the bed asked in surprise, and Brooks turned with a puzzled look.
"What? You've got another lover?"
She didn't answer. Still wrapped in the blanket, she clumsily climbed out of bed and stepped forward.
"Shirone! You're really Shirone! Don't you remember me?"
Shirone looked at her face and, surprised himself, pointed.
"Oh? That time, that—"
"Yes! Aria! Aria, the one you saved!"
Tessia Aria.
Half a year ago, when Shirone first joined the Magic Association, she happened to ride in the same carriage—an open, outgoing woman.
Shirone had rescued her personally when the Black Revolutionary Group attacked the Gold Tower, so he remembered her.
'But why is she here?'
He'd heard she had two lovers back then, but Aria being with middle-aged Brooks was odd.
Brooks asked, "How long have you two known each other?"
"Oh my, you don't know Shirone? He's a very famous mage now. Remember that terror incident? He saved me then."
"Hmm."
Brooks made his decision, gestured to his men, and motioned for them to leave.
With the door closed and the three of them alone, Shirone—who knew the letter's contents—still couldn't reveal his true purpose.
"So, what brings you here? No reason to see Aria, I suppose."
"I'm here on a commission from the Silvering Guild."
"A letter? Let me see."
Even with Aria beside him, Brooks was blunt. Shirone finally handed over the letter.
Brooks read it and clicked his tongue; Aria, as if she'd already known, asked, "That's about her, right? She said she met him in the provinces."
"She says she's pregnant. If he doesn't come down quickly she'll press charges."
Aria laughed.
"Ah, well, be more careful. What a pity. Your bachelor life ends in turmoil today."
The letter had been sent by Brooks' lover; it said they'd reunited months ago and that Aria was pregnant.
Aria's bold laughter and Brooks' reaction said a lot.
'Aria…'
Daughter of a first-class diplomat of the Tormia Kingdom—Aria herself had passed the diplomatic exam. Shirone had thought of her as a noblewoman's reckless game and felt he was the one being played.
But now everything felt reversed.
Maybe it hadn't been Brooks who'd toyed with Aria—maybe Aria had toyed with Brooks.
'She's someone you don't want to lose.'
Brooks tucked the letter away and asked Shirone, "Why all the fuss? If you'd told Shagal, he'd have quietly taken her away."
Shirone snapped awake and shouted, "Oh, right! Rian!"
* * *
If anyone had been in the underground canal, the collision sounds—loud enough to burst eardrums—would have had them clutching their ears and screaming.
Two shadows tore through the maze-like passages, tangled together like a storm.
Defense and offense were almost instinctive, and as time passed Rian's wounds multiplied.
Smille. Smille.
His peculiar auditory hallucination rang, and his wounds began to knit, but every time that happened Rian felt a disgust as heavy as death.
'Strange.'
Shagal felt that same unease.
A massive greatsword against two daggers.
In close quarters, the edge in reaction ought to belong to Shagal.
But Rian's moves—defying inertia—were unlike any opponent Shagal had faced.
'Then…!'
Shagal's eyes flashed and he released his dagger.
Another dagger appeared from behind his back, and four daggers flew toward Rian at once.
'Is that even possible?'
Even in a life-or-death fight, the question formed, but there was no time for answers. Rian took a step toward Shagal's limbs.
Klang-klang-klang-ka-boom!
Sparks flew as steel met steel and their shadows shimmered like monsters against the canal walls.
In that flash, they both noticed another shadow.
"Ugh!"
Dozens of blades materialized before them, pierced through the space between Rian and Shagal, and slammed into the wall.
Kraaang!
The blades crumbled the wall and then vanished—revealing they were magic, not steel.
"So it was someone after all…"
The owner of the shadow approached, splashing water as he moved.
"A big player."
"You're…?"
A pale-faced man with a torn wound at the right corner of his mouth.
Lupist, head of the Tormia Magic Association.