[676] The Secret of Radum (4)
"What is that guy?"
Members of Speedkiller and Gwangjong glared at Shirone with disgust.
How many times were they going to have their meal interrupted?
If it hadn't been the mage who'd taken a Pidu's head off in one strike, they would already have lost their composure.
"Joshua, Kargin. You two okay?"
With enemies so close, both of them quickly nodded.
Shirone checked Joshua's twisted ankle and met Marta's eyes.
'Of course it's him….'
He was the strongest Ain here.
"Back off."
"What? Back off? Are you out of your mind?"
Goblin fear thresholds are far higher than humans', so they don't spook easily.
"Why would we give up food this delicious?"
Once, Shirone had asked Plu if a peaceful solution might be possible. At the time her reply—that he shouldn't force his ideals on others—had felt harsh. Now he understood.
"You're the same kind of life as us."
Marta scowled as if insulted.
"I don't want pointless killing. But I don't know how to free my comrades without fighting."
"So what, then? Beg us to spare you?"
"Run."
A photon cannon rose above Shirone's palm.
"That'll make it fair."
"Kuk kuk kuk kuk!"
Marta's shoulders shook.
"Hey, human. You ever done anything like this before?"
Shirone didn't answer.
"You think you're some kind of dragon? How many races can bargain with goblins? Just fight. Live or die—we'll handle it."
Marta bared her fangs.
"Be the goblins' shit."
As members of Speedkiller and Gwangjong surged forward, Kargin—who had been holding Joshua—squeezed his eyes shut.
"Yaaaaahp!"
A shout came from above the buildings, then a thud as Rian defied gravity with bare feet and swung his greatsword.
Four Pidu were sliced clean away. Marta clicked her tongue and charged.
"What the hell is that now?"
A goblin-style tactic—rolling on the ground to aim for the ankles—unfolded, and Rian scrambled to step back.
'Fast, indeed. So this is a goblin.'
In pure speed, they could overwhelm a schema.
"Taha! Taha! Taha!"
They flipped forward, slashing in succession; Rian countered, flicking the greatsword with his wrist.
"Ke-ke! Slow, idiot!"
Marta rolled under the horizontally swinging blade and aimed for Rian's ankle—
"Hmm?"
The sword's trajectory bent as if common sense had been broken; the greatsword Rian reverse-gripped came down and struck Marta squarely in the torso.
"Kraaak!"
Pinned to the ground like an insect, she still didn't understand.
'How…?'
He'd never imagined swordplay whose arc changed mid-swing.
"Hard to swat a cockroach."
Rian, having forced the blade's flow to reverse with divine transcendence, muttered as a dull ache spread through his arms.
"Maaaaarta!"
Normally goblins would panic if their leader fell, but their ferocity only spiked further.
"I'll stab you hundreds of times!"
They cried bravely, but the goblins surging from every direction abruptly stopped.
Their green faces drained of color, turning to a corpse-like pale violet.
"W-what is that?"
Around Shirone, who had his hand out, the scenery began to redden like hell.
Inside that landscape, which formed a clear boundary with the real world, buildings pulsed like hearts.
"Come out, Igor."
From that infernal world the Lord of Terror Igor, astride a dead horse, strode forward with his spear lowered.
"Raktas saga'ar bero dem."
He intoned his peculiar phrase. When he planted a spear of azure flame into the ground, blue lightning rippled outward in concentric rings.
"Kuaaaaah!"
A panorama of memories born inside their retinas streamed through the goblins and the Pidu.
Being a belligerent race, their traumas were on an entirely different scale from humans'.
"Uwaaaah! Kill me instead! Kill me!"
Memories of the leader torturing them as a kid—done as a joke—flashed into real pain.
"Damn it! Why is this showing up!"
One goblin clawed at his own eyelids with his sharp nails until blood gushed down his face.
They were a race that amused themselves with the cruelest acts; imagining what could make them gouge their eyes out was terrifying.
To them it was an eternity, but in reality it was a fleeting hallucination of trauma.
Ultimately the Ains succumbed to fear; they screamed and scattered in every direction.
"N-no way."
Kargin and Joshua gaped, dumbfounded.
They couldn't believe the things that had treated them like food and laughed were now terrified, howling in pain.
"Told you—run."
Homing photon cannons rose around Shirone.
As the black beams' lasers scanned and locked targets one by one, they bent inward with terrifying speed.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Is the light bending?"
Kargin bit his lip, watching goblins and Pidu collapse as if their skulls had been crushed.
'Different dimension. This isn't a battleground streetborns can fight on.'
He understood why it had cost a hundred thousand gold—there's no such thing as a free lunch in this world.
Igor, looking down over the battlefield strewn with dead enemies, turned to Shirone.
"You call often."
Even if it was an otherworld, spatial domains worked the same as in the real world; once they left Radum it would be hard to meet again.
"Go in. I'm not in the mood to joke."
A mage whose Kar gauge read ninety percent left no mercy in his magic, but his emotions were still human.
"...This is your world's business."
Shirone ignored the tug on his heart, and as the otherworld closed, Igor's figure vanished.
Shirone steadied himself with the breathing method of an unmoving mind, leaped from the building, and checked on Kargin and Joshua.
A new realization hit him: this was the first time since the fight began that Shirone had moved from his spot.
"How's your leg?"
"Ah… I'm fine."
It did not look fine at all.
"Hold on a bit. Let's find the other team members first. Then we'll treat you."
They didn't know when the enemies might return. As Shirone turned, Kargin's eyes darted anxiously.
"Um… Captain."
When Shirone looked back, Kargin dropped to his knees and smashed his forehead into the ground.
"Please! Let us go back!"
Joshua made a baffled face.
"What are you talking about all of a sudden…?"
But seeing Kargin's tearful, pleading expression, she fell silent. The desperate wish to come along was plain.
'They want to live.'
They wanted to live with all their might.
"I'll cough up every coin I got! I'll pay a penalty! Please, send Joshua and me!"
After all, the mercenary company had been organized to smuggle the Lupist unofficially into Radum. Still, the mercenaries had joined knowing death was possible—backing out now would breach their contract.
"I thought once you betray a mercenary, you can't set foot in this business again. How are you going to pay the penalty?"
"That's…."
Did they think their benefactor would just let them go because he'd saved their lives?
As Shirone's cold reply drained the color from them, Joshua crawled over with her broken ankle and lay flat.
"If there's anything I can do to repay you, I'll do it. Please have mercy. I want to live."
'Hmm, there might even be fraud issues.'
The thought flickered through Rian's head, but judgement was Shirone's to make.
'I'll just keep fighting anyway.'
In a way, the life of a swordsman who needs only to think of one thing might be a blessed one.
Rian stepped aside to give them space. Shirone exhaled heavily, then said,
"Go."
When he consented, Kargin and Joshua snapped their heads up and stared at Shirone.
It wasn't the kindly face they'd hoped for, but it wasn't loaded with reproach either.
"If you make it out of Radum alive, go find Mr. Brooks and rewrite the contract. Return the fee as well."
Kargin bowed repeatedly, his heart full simply because they might not die here.
"Thank you! Thank you so much!"
Shirone turned away deliberately cold, flew over the building, and to Rian said,
"Let's go."
Rian ran up the wall to follow the quickly departing Shirone and landed on the roof.
"You going to look for the other team members?"
"Of course."
They might also want to leave Radum like Kargin and Joshua, but for now they were still Shirone's squad.
Leaping silently across buildings, Shirone asked,
"...What do you think?"
"You know. A sword doesn't judge."
"Not as a sword—answer me as my friend, Rian. Do you think sending those two away was foolish?"
Rian was silent for a moment, then snorted.
"No way, you idiot."
Someone who doesn't see the value of one life wouldn't be able to care for ten thousand. Shirone was Shirone after all.
* * *
"What the hell? What's going on?!"
Brooks hurried down the corridor after hearing his subordinates' reports.
Screams from the room at the end of the hall—Venezia of the three-brained race—spilled out.
"Stop! Please, stop it!"
Brooks arrived to find Venezia's eyes drowned in madness, and his face went pale.
"Hey! Snap out of it! What's happening?!"
Brooks's time was the present.
"—Isn't this what you wanted?"
Ra Enemi, who spoke to Venezia, belonged to the past.
When Ra Enemi had come to Brooks's mansion, Venezia had resolved to look him in the eye.
"What are you plotting?"
She thought that, having given up the leadership of Spectrum, he could no longer use her.
"Want to see it for yourself?"
Ra Enemi's memory began to stream into the parts of Venezia's brain that held her past.
'This is….'
An incident.
Not even history—an episode from a long, distant past about Ra Enemi.
"Kyaaaah!"
Venezia's eyes wept blood.
'How—how could this happen!'
Was it a disaster or a blessing?
One thing was clear: it was a singularity so peculiar that even the three-brained race's minds couldn't analyze or predict it.
"Ah, ah…."
Venezia's agonized face suddenly softened into a trance as if in rapture.
'I see. God. This is….'
The shocking truth the gods had hidden.
'We can't win. No matter what means we employ, we will never beat Ra.'
Ra Enemi approached with a sad smile.
"Right."
He slowly reached out, lowered Venezia's eyelids, and she felt her life ebbing away little by little.
"That is me."
Venezia prayed desperately.
'Please come out of there, Shirone.'
Her body collapsed forward, and her three brains shut down one after another.
'Do not meet Ra Enemi.'
No one must try to save humanity.
"Hey, Venezia! Wake up!"
Brooks flipped Venezia over and shook her shoulders, but her body was already cold.
"Damn it! How much is this worth?! Get a doctor! Now!"
The Ra Enemi who existed in the past looked at Venezia's body, then slowly turned and left the room.
Brooks shouted again, frantic.
"Damn it! How much is this worth?! Get a doctor! Now!"