[750] Holy War (1)
The Kingdom of Tormia.
Go south from the capital Bashka and you reach the Mapal region, known for its mines.
It accounted for forty-five percent of the kingdom's iron ore, so it was strategically important, but it was also backward and neglected.
In short, it had taken the worst of the demon-race damage. Mapal was home to hundreds of war orphans, many on the brink of starvation.
"Here, here."
Where a shaft had collapsed into an abandoned mine stood a small shack where the workers once lived.
Seven children from the Dorkin Orphanage opened the door to find a gaunt woman with hair in disarray waiting inside.
"You've come."
Now wandering with nowhere to lean on, she had once been the head of Radum's Spectrum.
Plarino of the Flower clan.
When the ancient weapon Saenghwa broke, the shock had battered her mind, but she had survived.
As the former leader of Radum she'd been an enemy of the kingdom, and this ruined Mapal mine was where she'd gone into hiding.
"Hi. Hungry? Here, eat this."
The orphans handed over bundles of leftover food.
Plarino shoved the food into her stomach and, feeling the children's stares, bowed her head.
"Thank you for always looking after us."
Her extreme submissiveness made even the children wary of treating her roughly, and they found that strange.
"It's okay. Even our orphanage dogs eat this stuff."
The flower folk's fatal delusion—that if they were beautiful and obedient, others would give their lives to protect them—had been the clan's greatest failing.
"So, what should we do now?"
"Let's play hide-and-seek. Plarino, you find us."
Because the children were innocent, Plarino could stay here for a while yet.
"All right. I'll count."
The kids took Plarino's hand and tried to step outside the shack, but the door burst open and a boy a head taller than the others strode in.
"Hey, you lot!"
The orphanage accepted children up to twelve, but his face looked at least sixteen.
Lying about age was common, and Director Dorkin needed someone who could keep the others in line.
"Ugh! Wh–what is this?"
He'd never cared about who stayed in the shack and didn't know why the boy suddenly pulled such a grim face.
"Everyone come with me. Director wants you to bring that woman in."
The Dorkin Orphanage.
A newly opened orphanage with a small altar; its director was a man named Dorkin, well into his sixties.
'Children are truly awful.'
A man who'd lived through a lot, he'd started the orphanage for the subsidies the crown provided.
'But it's profitable.'
Opportunity is often born from crisis.
"Director, I brought the woman."
Rumor said she was a bit dim and would do whatever the kids told her. Dorkin had ignored it, but a report from someone who looked sixteen was not so easily dismissed.
"Let her in."
He spoke kindly; the door opened and Plarino stepped inside with an awkward expression.
"Hoho?"
Dorkin's eyes changed instantly.
If she'd truly been a fool he'd have kept her in the orphanage to do chores, but beauty like hers was rare even among nobles.
'A woman who sold her body, or just insane?'
Watching Plarino lower her gaze in fear, he rose from his seat.
"So you stole our orphanage food, did you?"
To be precise, it had been dog food.
"Yes. Thank you for helping us."
She submitted meekly, and Dorkin, revealing emotion he'd kept hidden, raised a hand.
"So you know what's expected of you, then."
"...."
Plarino had no choice but to accept a new master, but a commotion erupted outside.
"Wh–what's going on, sir?"
When the man burst through the door, Plarino's shoulders shook.
The full shock of the Saenghwa breaking flooded back to her.
"W-what are you doing here?"
He was Rupist, chairman of the Tormia Magic Association.
"What are you doing here? From the start I knew where you were and what you were doing."
He'd only been laying low to avoid attracting the attention of the ivory tower.
"Where did you put the seed of Saenghwa? Have you already planted it?"
To Plarino he was sheer terror. As she edged backward, Dorkin stepped forward.
"Hey, you—what are you? You some kind of pimp for this woman?"
Given his scarred face and the overheard conversation, it was an easy—and convenient—misunderstanding.
"Shut up. This woman is coming with me."
Dorkin, a man who'd once ruled the back alleys, refused to hand her over quietly.
"Look at the nerve on this greenhorn! Do you even know where you are? This place is directly funded by the palace—"
When Rupist flicked his hand, a sickening thud announced Dorkin's head hitting the wall.
"Auuuu…!"
Ignoring the trembling old man, Rupist strode up to Plarino.
"Are you… here to kill me?"
"Kill you? Why would I kill you? Someone as valuable as you is a treasure."
For the Dragon Thunder project to succeed, the more Flower clan members they gathered, the better.
"Hand over the seed of Saenghwa. If you obey quietly, I'll guarantee your safety as head of the Magic Association."
Dorkin, forgetting his own pain, turned his head.
"C-chairman of the Magic Association?"
It was surprising enough that the head of the Association had come to this ruined village; that he'd come because of a woman was staggering.
'Who on earth is she?'
Plarino muttered through clenched teeth.
"You're just going to break them again anyway…"
To her, Rupist was pure terror.
"We'll gather Flower clan members. We'll provide villages for you to live in. And there will be work to do."
"Work…?"
The offer sounded extravagant, and she assumed the price would be cruel, but Rupist spoke plainly.
"We'll build flower fields."
Of course, what would be planted there would not be beautiful flowers but ancient weapons forged of steel.
"...."
"Think about it. It's an alliance. It might be your clan's only—and last—chance to survive."
Plarino didn't answer, but Rupist read her expression and turned away.
"Come with me. We're going to the capital."
As the two headed for the door, Dorkin scrambled to his feet.
"Um, Chairman?"
If today's events reached the higher-ups, the orphanage would be shut down and he would be thrown in prison.
Rupist paused at the doorway.
"These are sensitive times. Whatever trash you are, don't make trouble."
Dorkin understood the implication at once.
"Yes! I'm sorry! It won't happen again."
He would have been lying not to feel disgusted, but Rupist said nothing more and left.
'Every organization is short of people. Right now it doesn't matter if someone's trash or a criminal.'
In Rupist's systemic view, humans were like coin-operated machines: once you put the coin in, they'd work.
Even someone like Dorkin, once money was invested, would produce the labor society demanded.
'Orphans are future resources. It's better to have minimal controls ready to manage them.'
Even if the system was tainted, once money went in the kingdom could not simply destroy it.
'He'll never understand.'
Perhaps because the world was racing toward ruin, the face of a man he hated rose in his mind that day.
* * *
"Are you really all right?"
Gangnan, who had clung to Gaold and sobbed for a long time, suddenly sat up as if she'd remembered something.
"If I weren't all right, would you want me to die?"
Gaold's body still writhed in pain.
"There was no sign you'd wake at all… how could you come back?"
"The door opened."
He couldn't recall the Under Coder's memories, but when he returned to the world his senses supplied an explanation.
He'd probably kept walking until he crossed the border of the dead and entered hell.
Amid intolerable heat, with countless souls around him melting in hellfire…
"I just kept walking."
Gaold's soul, clinging to life by a thread, refused to melt and endured endless suffering.
"Then I opened the door and came out."
When the altar opened and a spiritual field formed, that point had marked the end of hell for Gaold.
"You shouldn't be saying that now."
Despite having endured an unimaginable journey, his calm voice left Gangnan dumbfounded.
"But it's the truth."
Gaold inhaled deeply on his cigarette and snapped the ember out with his fingers.
"There was no need to pile on more pain."
"Pain…"
Gaold glanced at his fingertips with indifference, then looked back at Gangnan.
"My pain threshold has risen."
Hearing that, Gangnan's heart dropped—because even before falling into deep sleep, the pain had been unbearable.
"How—how could you live through that…?"
Gangnan began to sob again, but Gaold only gave a bitter smile.
"Pain is the only proof of life. No one in this world is living as intensely as I am."
"But in that condition—"
Before Gangnan could finish, the screams of the dead carried up from the lowest level of the pyramid.
"…Looks like Zulu finished them."
Gaold recognized the sound instantly. Zulu entered the room a moment later.
"The demon race has been annihilated."
Gangnan was about to explain how Gaold had awakened, but Zulu had already felt it through the pyramid's tremors.
"…You returned."
"Thanks to you. I owe you again this time."
"Wandering in hell. It wasn't wasted for you, I suppose. What did you bring back?"
After torments beyond human imagining, had he learned anything of Nane, Shirone, or someone else?
"Nothing special."
Gaold clenched his palm.
"I only got stronger."
Zulu nodded and pulled a chair to sit beside Gaold's bed.
"If that's the case, we must decide where to use that strength."
Zulu spoke calmly about what had happened after Gaold fell into deep sleep.
Gaold hardly reacted, but when Zulu mentioned the Sion Project his brows twitched.
"It's chaos. Nothing's fixed. Only conflicting beliefs collide."
"Nane is right."
Gaold's words made Gangnan tremble.
"If everything could vanish without leaving a single trace, that would be the true happy ending for this world."
No one would be wronged; no one could feel grievance.
"Then we should side with Nane."
Gaold had suffered more pain than anyone in the universe; siding with Nane's idea was natural.
"But… Ms. Miro is opposing Nane."
Gaold's face twisted.
'Obsession.'
Even though he knew closing his eyes would free him from pain, he had kept walking through hell's flames.
'Nane is salvation.'
For Gaold, the void where everything was erased would be the only way to break the chain of obsession.
"Haa…"
A reckless, arrogant woman who treated men's hearts like dung—a filly who thought she knew everything.
"Ha ha. Hahahahaha."
The more he thought about it, the more pathetic it all seemed, and he let out a hollow laugh.
"I might actually go mad."
Gaold snapped his head up, his decision made.
"So we just crush that Nane?"
Zulu and Gangnan said nothing, but they knew he would not turn back.
Gaold's resolve was vaster than the universe.