The three returned to the carriage in uncomfortable silence. Yuto's expression was grief-stricken, and Flokiro quietly held his hand.
Levian did not ask either of them any needless questions. She wondered what expression she ought to wear, then voiced a question that was no longer needless but necessary.
“So, Yuto. Why did you come to Belkain?”
Yuto turned his head as he sat down on the coachman's seat. His eyes, dark even at ordinary times, were darker than ever.
“I believe I told you I had something to find.”
Yuto's voice came out hoarse. Levian let out a short sigh and shook her head.
“Yes, something you have to find. That's what I heard. But you still haven't told me exactly where it is or what it is.”
“A sword.”
“A sword......?”
Confusion clouded Levian's eyes as she repeated the answer. She found it difficult to accept that a single weapon was all that had driven him to venture into the deadly ruins of a fallen kingdom.
“It's kept deep within the royal palace. I have to retrieve it.”
Without offering any further details, Yuto gripped the carriage reins tightly.
That sword, ‘Belkain's Treasured Sword,’ was no mere piece of sharpened metal. It was the cherished sword Yuto had wielded before his regression and a keepsake left by his royal father, Luke Belkain.
‘Father...... knew the Constellations would kill him.’
Yuto bit his lip.
Yuto had been too young at the time to understand the truth his father had uncovered or inherit the treasured sword. Rather than tell his young son the truth directly, his father had therefore left behind a book so Yuto could carry on his will.
‘Belkain's Treasured Sword was sealed in a hidden room along the underground passage.’
But that had been in the world before his regression, where Yuto had existed as a prince of Belkain. In truth, even Yuto could not be certain the treasured sword had been sealed in the same place in this world.
Even without that certainty.
Yuto had to see for himself. He had to see the ruins of fallen Belkain and discover whether the treasured sword existed.
‘Perhaps...... Father sealed the treasured sword in this world as well.’
Even in a world without Yuto, his father had seen through at least part of the truth about the Constellations. He must also have foreseen that the Constellations would kill him as the price for learning too much.
If so, there was a chance his father had sealed away the treasured sword. With that thought, Yuto raised his head.
Belkain's castle was visible beyond the dense purple fog.
It was now difficult to find even a trace of the once beautiful and majestic silver-white fortress. Half its walls had collapsed, exposing a bare skeleton, while the spires that had once seemed to pierce the sky were snapped halfway up and stared down at the earth from grotesque angles.
Belkain. The place that had once symbolized the glory embodied by that name was now little more than a colossal gravestone. Feeling as if his heart were being torn apart, Yuto tugged the reins.
*
The deeper they entered Belkain's city, the more Yuto felt a pulsing deep within his chest. It was different from the beating of his heart. The Void aether lodged deep within him had sensed something and was resonating on its own.
‘What is this......?’
Yuto's brow furrowed as he held the carriage reins. This was a place haunted by the vengeful spirits of countless citizens buried in the Great Cataclysm. No― that was not all. Besides the pulsing in his chest, Yuto now felt a nauseating sense of revulsion.
“Urgh.......”
Yuto was not the only one who felt it. Levian, who had been looking around with a tense expression, covered her mouth as her face turned pale.
“What...... is this? Something different from poison...... is polluting the air.......”
Yuto looked away from Levian and toward Flokiro, who sat to his left. Flokiro's nose wrinkled and its face twisted into a scowl as well.
“Aether.”
Flokiro sniffed the air before speaking.
“The aether is contaminated. And I mean severely.”
“Aether......?”
Aether was the energy that composed this world. Places rich in nature were filled with pure aether, while battlefields piled with corpses were filled with contaminated aether.
Before his regression, Yuto had traveled across countless battlefields with Flokiro, so he was quite familiar with contaminated aether. Yet no battlefield had ever filled him with revulsion like this.
‘Most of Belkain's people died, so naturally the aether would be badly contaminated, but.......’
His instincts told him that was not the only reason. The revulsion growing stronger as they approached the city center, the scream of his heart. This ominous aether felt not merely contaminated, but refined into something deadlier and more evil.
―ZAP.
A current rising from his chest jolted Yuto's mind. Gripped by an instinctive realization, he turned his head. Purple fog drifted in every direction. Poison rose from patches all over the ground. Evil, refined aether permeated the air.
Beyond all of that, Yuto's instincts pointed ‘somewhere.’ The Iron Horses that had been heading toward the royal palace turned to follow the movement of the reins.
“Yuto? Where are we going now?”
Covering her mouth with one hand, Levian had been rummaging for an herb that might ease her nausea when she asked the question in surprise.
“I don't know either.”
Yuto answered honestly.
“But...... we have to go that way. There's something over there.”
Yuto did not ignore that instinct.
This place had once been the Kingdom of Belkain, and Yuto was Belkain's last king. If some horrific, unforgivable sin was writhing within this tragic land.
He had to crush it. When Yuto's gaze turned savage, Levian could not ask anything more.
“Haa.......”
What a secretive and complicated man in so many ways, Levian thought as she heaved a deep sigh.
At that moment.
“Stop!”
A booming voice rang through the fog.
Five people carrying crossbows appeared atop the ruins of a collapsed building, while ten more armed with swords and spears emerged from behind the structure below.
Yuto glared at the fifteen people who had appeared without warning. They were too properly equipped to be mere graverobbers or bandits who scavenged the ruins of Belkain. Their gear could have passed for that of a city's regular army. The crossbows aimed from the roof were not even single-shot weapons, but repeating crossbows.
“Heh-heh. What brings the young lady of Marigold to this fucking city?”
One of the men aiming a crossbow down at the carriage sneered. He appeared to have guessed Levian's identity from Marigold's crest engraved on the carriage.
“You don't even have an escort. Don't tell me that little bastard and one Evomon are supposed to protect you?”
“Ah, don't worry. We're not the kind of bastards who go completely off the rails. Put down your weapons and kneel where you are. Then we can talk.”
While they snickered, Yuto continued to study them. The group did not even consist solely of humans. Several of those below wielding spears and axes were orcs, hulking figures with green skin who stood well over two meters tall.
‘What is going on......?’
Yuto had often heard that orcs had crept into Belkain's ruins alongside the graverobbers and bandits. Still, he found it strange that orcs had formed a group with humans. Most other races, such as elves, did not particularly like humans, but orcs went beyond dislike and regarded humans as enemies.
Orcs would not band together with humans without some special reason, yet they were standing beside humans with spears in hand merely to commit robbery? It made no sense according to anything Yuto knew.
“Hey, are you deaf? I said put down your weapons and kneel on the ground!”
One of the men on the roof roared, and Yuto opened his mouth.
“Flokiro. Protect Levian.”
He did not wait for an answer. Yuto immediately used Void Step. WHOOSH—! Black fog swallowed him as he leaped through space several times in succession and arrived on the roof in an instant.
“Huh?”
Not one of the five men aiming crossbows had perceived Yuto's movement. Far from turning their weapons toward him, they did not even realize he had appeared above their heads.
Pitch-black haze erupted behind Yuto and became two hands. CRUNCH—! The hands slammed downward and quite literally crushed two people flat. SPLAT—! Blood burst from them like exploding balloons and sprayed in every direction.
“AARGH!?”
The remaining three screamed and tried to turn their crossbows, but once again, Yuto was far faster. In an instant, he slipped beneath the crossbows, an obsidian dagger already in his hand. THUD-THUD-THUD—! Yuto drove the dagger three times into a man's stomach, chest, and throat before ripping it free.
“GURK!”
The man thrashed as he clutched the wound in his throat, but he could not stop the blood gushing from his stomach and chest. As he staggered, the two remaining men were seized by the Void Hands and torn in half at the waist by nothing but their grip strength.
“Wh― what?!”
The men below shouted at the screams erupting overhead. They, too, could not understand ‘how’ Yuto had appeared on the roof, but unlike the men above, they did not hesitate indecisively.
“Grab the bitch!”
Someone bellowed. Three men with spears charged toward the carriage with battle cries, and Flokiro sprang from the coachman's seat.
BOOM—! The two flames Flokiro hurled struck the bandits and exploded. Flokiro immediately moved to confront the one who remained, but before it could, vines writhed up from the ground and wrapped around the man's legs.
“AARGH?!”
It was Levian's magic. The man fell flat on the ground and struggled, but the more he fought, the tighter the writhing vines constricted around his body.
“Urgh......!”
Levian gritted her teeth. Unlike the Blood Wolf she had killed the day before, the being before her now was a human just like her. Having spent her entire life as the daughter of a noble family, she had certainly never killed a person with her own hands.
“Don't kill him!”
Yuto roared.
“Keep holding him like that! I have questions to ask!”
Seven bandits still remained, so there was no particular need to keep that one alive, but Yuto did not want Levian to commit ‘murder’ for something like this.
“O-okay!”
Hearing Levian shout her answer, Yuto leaped down from the roof. Void Step was one of the Void Skills that consumed an enormous amount of aether. He still did not know what was happening in this city, so he intended to minimize any unnecessary waste of aether.
“You fucking bastard! What the hell are you?!”
The bandits shouted as they watched Yuto jump from the roof. One of them thrust a spear at him, but before it could come close, a Void Hand smashed the man into the ground.
CRUNCH—! The man burst against the ground like a fly. The wet splat of spraying blood sent the two remaining humans into a screaming panic, but the eyes of the three orcs instead became bloodshot.
Orcs were a race with bodies superior to those of humans. Violent by nature, they did not fear battle. One of the orcs charged at Yuto with a savage roar.
THUD—!
An arrow buried itself in the charging orc's eye. Yuto was now holding one of the crossbows he had taken from the roof. THUD, THUD—! He worked the string skillfully and fired more arrows.
The crossbow's draw weight was far beyond what a fourteen-year-old boy could handle, but it posed no problem for Yuto, and his aim was chillingly precise. In moments, arrows had pierced both of the orc's eyes, and another lodged in its unarmored throat.
“GRRRAAGH!”
The orc lost control of its charging body, crashed to the ground, and rolled. The sight made the two other orcs release enraged howls. Wary of Yuto's crossbow, they charged while shielding their heads with thick arms.
At the sight, Yuto tossed the crossbow aside and picked up the spear that had fallen near the man he had just smashed like a fly.
‘This brings back old memories.’
Yuto gave a cold grin as he leveled the spear. Before his regression, he had won on countless battlefields even without Void Skills.
The sword was not the only weapon he wielded well.