"Oh dear...... this is bad."
The second day of the search.
Another pack of monsters dealt with, and while the rest of the party rested, Howard had the map spread out and a communication device in his hand.
"It seems there's something jamming communications from this area onward. I've been trying to reach the nearby team and getting nothing at all."
Howard tapped at the device over and over as he spoke.
Grave worry sat on his face.
"Or whoever's supposed to answer is dead."
Howard's eyes went wide at how offhandedly Ran said it.
"Common sense says a live— mmph..."
Moor clamped a hand over Ran's mouth from behind to stop him going any further.
"Ahh, my apologies. Our boy still hasn't grown up."
Ran thrashed a while trying to pry Moor's hand off, then went still. Once Moor confirmed the will to resist was gone, he let go.
"Moor, if you don't mind — could you send your familiars out as far as the point marked here on the map?"
"Hmm... that's quite a distance. It could leave our own side thin. Is that acceptable?"
Howard thought about that last question for a moment.
"No. Let's proceed as we are. I can't put all of you at risk over something so uncertain. They're professionals too......"
Everyone nodded in agreement, and they set off again toward their target position.
They walked a long stretch without a word. It was Galan who first broke the silence.
"How does the war actually stand right now? Could you tell us honestly?"
Howard held his silence a moment at the sudden question. He seemed to be weighing how much he was allowed to say.
"To be honest with you, the situation is not good."
Howard's face turned serious as he went on.
"The Imperial Army's interior is chaos itself right now. Word of two junior generals' deaths — battalion commanders — has shaken the whole territory."
"What?"
The words out of Howard's mouth were shocking enough that Galan lost control of his expression.
Of some two million imperial soldiers, only about a hundred were junior generals. There was even a running joke that it was the highest point an ordinary human could reach.
"On top of that, there are rumors of undying soldiers appearing on battlefields all over. Because of it, a situation we had been winning has reversed; the cultists' attacks have intensified and the front has fallen back. We're so absurdly short of manpower that we decided to borrow the strength of the adventurer guilds."
"That's......"
Galan had asked lightly, and the answer he got left him unable to ask anything more.
After that they kept running into monsters of much the same grade as before, so the conversation couldn't go on for long. Fortunately, Ran's outsized performance each time let the search proceed without serious losses.
"I don't like it."
"Like what?"
Ran grumbled it low and quiet. Only Moor, walking closest to him, could hear.
"Those guys are holding back. That old man especially — he's deliberately funneling the fighting to me. When he's damn strong himself."
Ran glared at Galan as he said it. Moor listened and nodded.
"Agreed. How's your condition? Feeling worn down, or hurt anywhere?"
"Nothing wrong with me, it's just irritating."
Ran grumbled on, and Moor smiled and set a cigarette between his lips.
"It's here. Once we pass this we should be— ah..."
Howard, leading the way with a compass in hand, broke off his guidance and let out a groan.
The rest of the party moved fast to reach him and see what he was seeing.
"Ah..."
"Oh, no."
The view before them was a base camp reduced to ruin.
Here and there lay imperial corpses, dead not long at all. There was no sign of a living soul.
Before entering the camp, Moor recalled some of the familiars in the area and had them scout the perimeter and interior.
"...No monsters, and no survivors by the look of it. Let's go in."
Once Moor confirmed it was safe, the others fanned out across the camp.
Galan and Ariel checked the fallen bodies for leads and clues; Howard ran straight for the camp's central area.
"You know, this really might be a fault in the comms equipment."
Moor spoke after checking the condition of one of his crows. Ran, who had been examining the corpses and the site of the fighting, turned at his words.
"Why?"
"My familiars have been unstable from a certain point onward. It's likely the mana of the Great Wild."
The Great Wild.
Places overflowing with life, energy, and mana beyond any ordinary region. Mountain ranges, great rivers, great lakes, vast plains, and the like are the standard examples.
Working mana in such places is generally difficult. It's why crossing a mountain or a river by flight magic is such a challenge.
"What? I thought you couldn't use sorcery at all in a Great Wild."
"Ah, that's the usual understanding, yes. But to be precise, it's difficult, not impossible. It takes a knack. What about you? Find anything?"
Moor released the crow in his hand and asked.
"Ah, nothing much. The imperial soldiers here weren't killed by monsters."
"I see... so there was an engagement with the cultists."
Moor nodded as he answered, and looked around to see what the others were doing.
Howard was coming back from a distance, loaded down with armfuls of something. Galan and Ariel were talking not far off, their faces grave.
"That part I can't tell you. What's certain is that the way they were killed is identical. As if all of them were killed by one person... the shape of the cuts is exactly the same."
"What?"
The answer wasn't what Moor had expected, and he turned his head to look at Ran.
"?!"
"...?!"
In that instant a chill hit both of them at once. Killing intent unlike anything they had felt before.
Ran and Moor turned toward Galan and Ariel at the same time.
The first thing to meet their eyes was Galan, sword half-drawn. The one slightly unusual detail was that his head had already been separated from his body.
The next thing was a figure whose fluttering sleeves made the strongest impression — dressed in something like a shrine maiden's robes, or a martial robe.
The figure was Ran's height, and wore a mask pierced with holes like the six-face of a die. From the head down, the outfit gave the impression of being draped in a white wolf's hide.
"Insane—!"
"Moor! Save them first!"
With those few words Ran took off at the unknown figure, drawing his sword as he went.
In that moment Ran saw the sleeve flutter. And in the same breath — invisible, but unmistakable to his senses — he felt something sharp go for his throat.
CLANG—! CLANG—!
Ran snapped his sword in toward his body and blocked. The impact rolled him backward.
"Huh? You're both still alive?"
A clear, bright voice came through the holes in the mask.
'I didn't see it...'
Ran felt the sting of failure at not having identified what had come at him. If he had missed that sleeve moving, he would have ended up like Galan.
Keeping his sword leveled at the enemy, Ran checked on Ariel and Howard.
He could see that Moor had shielded them both with wards. Ariel's ward, he noted, had taken a fair amount of damage.
"Galan!"
Ariel, catching up to the situation at last, screamed. The enemy moved a hand toward her.
CLANG—!
Ran dove between them at once and caught the attack on his sword.
'That time I saw it.'
The corpses, the marks on each building. And two attacks in the same style. When he pushed his focus higher, the enemy's attacks — invisible a moment ago — came into view.
"Not bad at all?"
The enemy seemed to find Ran interesting, and charged him, whipping both arms in a blur.
Sharp slashes came pouring out of the sleeves and rushed at Ran.
Silver energy — deploy.
Ran detonated the silver energy in his body in an instant, then poured it into his blade.
He swung fast and blocked every incoming slash.
"Aaaaaargh!"
Just then Ariel, off to the side, raised her swords and charged the enemy.
The masked figure answered by sending a slash at her.
CRASH—!
Ariel failed to react to this attack too, but Moor's ward kept her from being cut in half. Instead the impact flung her a long way.
Ran didn't waste the opening; in a heartbeat he had closed to within arm's reach.
"Got you!"
"Huh?"
Ran drove his sword straight down with everything he had. But the enemy vanished from his sight in an instant, and his blade struck the ground.
"Over heeere!"
Having taken Ran's back, the enemy raised a hand to strike at once.
BANG—!
Before that arm could swing at all, Moor landed a shot from Jaka.
"Aagh!"
The impact flung the figure a considerable distance. The head must have hurt where the mana round hit, because both arms went around it and stayed there, thrashing.
"Ran, you all right?"
"Yeah. Thanks to you."
The two exchanged those few words and turned their attention straight back to the enemy.
The figure who had been writhing in pain a moment ago was already standing, perfectly fine.
"Unbelievable. That was a single shot."
A Depth 5 round had landed square on the temple, and the enemy looked untouched apart from a little blood.
"Ow, ow, owww!"
Shrieking like a toddler who had taken a fall, the enemy charged at Ran and Moor.
Click.
Moor flipped Jaka from single fire to rapid.
And in the same motion he laid a binding spell on the enemy.
BRRRRRRT
Moor fired Jaka at the target his sorcery had pinned. Depth 4 mana rounds poured toward the enemy.
But before those rounds could touch the body, the figure twisted aside and immediately sent a slash back at Moor.
CLANG—!
Ran blocked it with his blade, once again.
"Ran — can you see that thing's attacks?"
Rattled at having nearly died a second ago, Moor cast on himself the defensive sorcery he had put on Ariel and Howard.
"Yeah. It's got daggers in both hands. Moor, you look after those two. I'll take this one for now."
"Wasn't it sorcerers for you and everything else for me?"
"We're in a Great Wild — you can't even work binding magic properly! And when have we ever done the whole fair-and-square, one-on-one thing?"
"Fair point. We've always played it as the situation demanded."
Moor nodded at Ran's answer.
Ran immediately squared up against the masked figure again. In the gap that gave him, Moor moved off toward Howard, who stood some distance away with his sword drawn.
Silver energy — release.
Once he confirmed every ally was clear of him, Ran let the silver energy out.
The masked figure charged him without a care for it.
What followed was an exchange of raw, elemental sword blows, fast enough that an ordinary person's eyes could not have tracked it.
'I won't win on speed.'
One near-miss after another, any of which could have opened him up. Ran eased back a step and set himself for a full-power swing.
The enemy read the intent and moved to close the distance fast.
Seeing it, Ran swung before the figure could get any nearer.
A wide, committed attack. The masked figure moved to slip it with room to spare and counter — and in the instant before Ran's blade came in, felt its own body refuse to move. In that same moment, Moor came into view, cigarette between his lips.
Ran's technique landed. It did not kill.
Flung backward, the enemy's stance had already collapsed, and a long diagonal wound had opened across the body.
"Damn, that thing is tough."
Ran grumbled and moved in to attack again.
"That's far enough."
CRASH—!
A man dropped out of the sky, landing between Ran and the masked figure. And with the guard braced on his forearm, he blocked Ran's sword.