“Get up—run!”
I heaved with both hands and shoved Nolan aside, then rolled to my feet and looked at the feral shape.
Why—why at a time like this—
No weapon on me. What do I do? Run first?
That was what I thought, but the restless urge to hunt made me step forward before I knew it. I pushed through the drifting smoke and dust and exposed myself to the jackal-were.
Awooo—
A howl that seemed to tear the air ripped from its raised throat. I saw the jackal-were’s muscles bunch, gathering to pounce.
No! The thought of running was ridiculous. There was never another road to begin with. I had to meet it head-on!
I thrust out my right hand and caught the gauze over the left palm, eyes locked on the monster before me.
Thump, thump— All the clamor, somehow, fell away. Only the sound of my heartbeat remained in my ears.
I truly was unarmed—yet I was not without a weapon.
Young lady, when you swing, drive from your legs, take the waist as your axis, coordinate the hands and eyes, feel the arm and the edge line up as one—
I remembered. The Nanny in the ducal house, instructing Clytia in swordplay. The first lesson was at eight. I listened to every word the Nanny spoke, and every swing Clytia made—what her muscles fed back—I kept it all.
Clytia—sweat never goes to waste.
I tore off the gauze. The scab on my palm ripped open, as if I were holding a blade of nothing. The jackal-were flung up its foreclaws and lunged; its chest, the vital point, opened to me.
“O cursed blood, become a blade—”
I murmured the chant like a whisper.
Then, taking the waist as my axis, I swung the blade in my hand. The blood that had been seeping quietly surged out in a spray.
A mist of blood drew a crimson arc and cut across the jackal-were’s opened chest.
Pff!
A crosswise gash burst in its chest; foul, blackened filth splattered out. And that wasn’t the end. The blood-mist from my palm wavered into scarlet flame and burned inward along the wound.
AOOO!!! A shrill wail split the air.
Got it! My skull wouldn’t stop buzzing. Double images flickered in my eyes—was the backlash this severe for magic of just this level?
“How is it still struggling—better hide first…” The jackal-were, hideously wounded and driven mad by pain—its whole chest cleaved open—still refused to fall.
I started to move, to back out to somewhere safe—
But my limbs wouldn’t obey. My foot slipped; I pitched to the floor, strengthless.
Bad!
A cornered beast will fight. The jackal-were rampaged through the granary, howling wetly through blood-froth. After it snapped a few posts, it whirled its claws and charged at me where I lay, limbs weak and useless.
“Awooo—ROAR!!”
Tch! I clenched my teeth and tried to drag my body into motion, but backlash from black magic isn’t something sheer will to live can wipe away. The crazed brute was about to crush me—
Suddenly a hand from behind hooked my shoulder and rolled us aside.
The world spun. My back slammed the wall with a soft body between. The frenzied jackal-were lurched past and crashed into the granary’s central wooden pillar.
Crack! BOOM!
The battered granary gave a groan as if it couldn’t bear it any longer and collapsed, burying the jackal-were, Nolan, and me under the wreckage.
……
The Seed of the Evil God went still. I lay quietly on the ground.
“What luck…” I thought, looking at the boy bracing over me on one arm, propped at my side. His flaxen hair was caked with dust, turned a sooty gray.
I was probably the same.
Call it basking in the protagonist’s glow? In novels the protagonist always gets lucky. The fallen ceiling and walls had formed a narrow slant; Nolan and I were jammed into that cramped pocket of safety.
“Cough—cough—are you all right?” Nolan choked on dust twice, then spoke to me.
“Watch it… a little. You’re spraying spit on my face.” I forced lightness into my voice through the dizziness.
“Ah—sorry!”
I looked at Nolan and felt the desire to hunt the monster fading quietly inside. I think that meant the jackal-were the Evil God had marked as a target was already dead.
The instant I realized it, an irresistible drowsiness surged up and took hold of my mind.
“Strictly speaking… Clytia should have woken up by now…” I thought groggily. Could it be that when fulfilling the Abyss’s contract, Clytia’s own consciousness is forcibly suppressed?
I fought to open my eyes and check outside, but my vision kept dimming and blacking out.
“Much obliged…” I mumbled.
“What do you mean—wait, hey, wake up! Hold on!”
Nolan’s voice was the last thing I heard by my ear. My head lolled—and I lost consciousness.
……
Bare feet on soft, red sand.
I walked along the edge of the Abyss.
Looking down, no end in sight. Looking up, no shore beyond. Only a dark-red Gobi stretching to the sky, and on the horizon a black sun—half floating, half sinking—rimmed with gold like a total eclipse.
A tiny individual, set in a world so boundless—how could one not feel something? Perhaps heroes can feel a surge to conquer the universe. I had no such grand ambition. Only a faint loneliness.
I raised my eyes. Ahead stood an ornate full-length mirror. Black wood with scattered burl-ring “eyes” banded the oval glass; brass grapevines and laurel leaves climbed symmetrically on either side of the frame.
As I drew near, the quicksilver surface cast back a figure.
A cute girl with silver-gray hair. A small nose and mouth. Eyes like emeralds. A weightless black nightdress on her, fluttering at the shins in the light wind.
No… Who did it reflect? It was me, yes—but she wasn’t me—
Clarity dropped into place. I jolted to awareness:
“Wasn’t I just… fighting that jackal-were? Where is this?”
“Looks like… I’m still the one controlling the body.” I lowered my head to take stock of the familiar girl’s body—then caught the anomaly.
The one in the mirror wore a black gauze nightdress. I, however, wore a blue-and-white striped hospital gown hanging to my knees, my bare legs exposed.
“Why… why is this Clytia’s body, yet it’s wearing the hospital clothes from my previous life…” The strangeness made panic prickle up. Even facing the savage jackal-were, I hadn’t flustered like this.
Just then, I heard the girl in the mirror speak:
“I… finally get to see you.”
Normally a mirror only moves with its owner. The moment the girl spoke, I understood—she was Clytia—the real Clytia.
I lifted my head to meet her gaze and felt like a cockroach or a mouse at home, suddenly discovered.
“You—”
I started, with no idea how to explain myself to Clytia—but I saw urgency flare in her eyes:
“Don’t stand there—run!”
Run? What do you mean?
Her eyes went past me, looking behind. I remembered only barren knolls there. I turned—and from the Abyss at the side came a rustle, like a swarm of insects.
One by one, deformed monsters climbed out of the Abyss and trod onto the blood-red sand.
I can’t describe it. The sight stunned me stiff. On them I saw traits of beasts, plants, humans, elves, dwarves, demons, and dragons—and yet a haze lay over them so I couldn’t piece any concrete shape in my mind, only make out twisted, misshapen outlines.
One exception: the one in the lead—the jackal-were I had just dealt with. Its chest gaped, slick with blood. Like a reaping specter it loosed a piercing howl.
Ah—You tried to kill me first. Don’t howl like that. I thought as I lifted a hand and, through the mirror, covered Clytia’s eyes.
Mm… I have a feeling what comes next is not for children.
As I expected, the mass of monsters merged into a press of black and charged me. All manner of roars and howls blended together, like a song from the Abyss.
“Run! Run! Come over here!”
I kept Clytia’s view covered. She had dropped to her knees and was pounding the mirror with everything she had. Behind her seemed to be that room in the ducal castle that was hers alone—and very familiar to me.
But—it was only a mirror. Not a window. Not a door that opens anywhere in the world.
I had nowhere to run.
Shadow swallowed me. The misshapen monsters swarmed. Fangs and claws cut into muscle, churned my organs, slit my throat, smashed my skull. In an instant they tore me to pieces.
Indescribable pain filled every nerve.
Then, from pain, I woke.