Chapter 39

The pressure disappeared.

Quilbion rolled across the floor while scanning his surroundings. Geron’s tail, which had been constricting his body, lay cleanly severed and scattered about.

Crash!

The wall shattered and fell. Geron had hurled his body outside the house.

What the hell just happened?

A cold light pierced through the ceiling, and Geron’s tail was cut. Quilbion raised his head.

He saw the blue sky. There was a gaping hole in the ceiling.

At the sound of coughing, he shifted his gaze. Drich, having regained consciousness, was coughing continuously.

Quilbion put force into both arms. He couldn’t feel the nark that had been coiling around the ropes.

If it’s now.

When he twisted his wrists with all his might, a gap appeared between the ropes. The sorcery that had restrained his body didn’t activate.

With his freed hands, he untied the ropes binding his ankles as well.

“Noble one! I’ve finally come to know my karma!”

Geron’s voice reached him.

Quilbion hurriedly approached Drich.

“Hey, hey!”

He slapped Drich’s cheeks several times as the latter stared blankly.

“If you don’t want to die, get up quickly.”

Drich flinched and turned his body.

“Father, I’m sorry! I really didn’t want to kill you. Really. You know how much I respect you, right?”

Spouting nonsense again.

Had his memories returned and driven him completely insane, just as Lil said?

He grabbed Drich by the collar and shook him. The limp pupils showed no sign of returning. Drich just kept calling for his father.

Crash!

A tremendous sound came from outside. It was like thunder striking the ground.

He flinched and hunched his shoulders. If they stayed here, they’d surely die.

“You really…”

Quilbion was left speechless. Drich was wetting himself.

“You’re something else.”

He formed a hand seal. He recalled the sorcery he could use without a talisman.

‘The art for moving fairly heavy objects’

It was sorcery written in the Sitpin Yellow Form book. He didn’t know how heavy ‘fairly heavy’ was, or whether people counted as objects, but he tried using it anyway.

The nark that left his fingertips wrapped around Drich. He saw mana gathering sluggishly.

He grabbed Drich’s wrist as he lay sprawled and pulled.

It was disgustingly heavy.

The sorcery had activated successfully, but there was no effect. Was it because he was a person?

He looked at Drich.

Even if his life under brainwashing had been like that, could someone he’d considered a friend for years betray him so easily?

He’d said he understood, but he hadn’t forgiven.

Could he really treat this piece of trash as a person?

Thinking in that way, Drich’s body became considerably lighter.

“You’re so damn arbitrary.”

Al Terua had said sorcery was systematic, but it wasn’t at all.

Come to think of it, ‘the art for hanging pictures in midair’ was ridiculous too. Just scribbling some doodles on a talisman and it became a picture.

Sorcery was whatever he perceived it to be.

What mattered wasn’t what was visible, but how he accepted it.

What an absurd power.

He dragged Drich outside the house.

Neither Geron nor the unidentified something that had pierced the ceiling was visible.

Where had they gone?

He needed to get as far away from those bastards as possible.

Quilbion, who’d been looking around, faced east.

Something was there.

An ominous something difficult to describe in words was in that place.

There wasn’t much to deliberate. Quilbion pulled Drich along and headed west.

He had to escape from here.

“Aaaaah! Don’t come! Father, please!”

Drich struggled.

It was already hard enough dragging him, and now he was throwing a fit. Quilbion grabbed Drich’s head with both hands.

“Look me straight in the eyes and tell me. Do you want to live? Or do you just want to die? I’ll do whichever you want.”

Drich’s eyes, which had been wandering without focus, fixed on center.

“I, I want to live.”

“Then walk.”

“But my father’s over there with a knife, coming at me…”

“You idiot! You stabbed him first, didn’t you? So now you can take turns and trade blows.”

He untied the ropes wrapped tightly around him. He told Drich, who was sitting there, to get up quickly.

“My legs won’t hold me up.”

“This bastard, seriously.”

“Quil! Don’t leave me. You really can’t leave me. My father’s glaring at me from over there. If you leave, he’ll stab me right away.”

Drich grabbed Quilbion’s ankle and begged.

A long sigh escaped.

“I’ll support you, so try to walk as much as you can.”

He offered his shoulder. Drich leaned his body against it and took steps while groaning. Thanks to the sorcery, moving wasn’t difficult.

Drich flinched and looked behind every few steps. His father was apparently still visible.

“If you’re going to tremble like that, why did you stab him in the first place?”

Light flashed in the distance. At the same time, a fierce wind blew and clawed at his back.

His body tilted and pitched forward. A typhoon struck the windless space.

“Save me, save me!”

Drich, now face-down, flailed his limbs and screamed. His body was gradually floating upward.

Quilbion grabbed a tree root with his left hand and caught Drich’s collar with his right.

“Quil! Don’t let go, never let go!”

“I won’t let go, so shut that mouth!”

Whoosh!

It was wind that spread while sweeping across the ground. Strength gradually drained from the hand gripping the root.

His body lurched.

This wasn’t wind he could withstand.

“Grab onto something!”

“There’s nothing to grab!”

A tingling taste filled his mouth. His gums felt crushed.

Snap—the tree root made an ominous sound and lifted upward.

Quilbion looked back and forth between Drich and the root. If he let go of Drich, he’d be able to hold on.

In his prone position, if he gripped the root with both hands…

“Aaaaah! Father! Don’t come, don’t come, you son of a bitch!”

Drich shouted through glistening eyes.

Quilbion cursed inwardly and put strength into his right hand.

Crack—a fingernail on his left hand holding the root broke and flew away. Dizzying pain struck his head.

No good.

He couldn’t hold on any longer—the moment he felt certain of this, the wind stopped. The fierce gale that had been raging disappeared like a lie.

Drich’s body, which had been fluttering like laundry, plummeted to the ground.

Thud—Drich curled his body and let out a groan.

Quilbion put his middle finger, bleeding from the broken nail, into his mouth. When saliva touched it, dizzying pain arose, enough to turn his vision white.

He spat out the blood remaining in his mouth.

He wanted to wrap the wound with cloth, but there was no time for that.

“Get up. We’re all dead if we stay here.”

Drich, apparently able to stand on two feet now, shot upright.

“Your father? Can you still see him?”

“No. He disappeared.”

“At least that’s a relief.”

Drich looked at his own tattered clothes. It was where Quilbion had been holding.

“…I’m sorry.”

“One thing I don’t believe is that. Sorry. I’ve been burned by it a few times.”

“I’m sincere.”

“Sincerity can freeze to death. Anyway, let’s go. We both have to survive and see what happens.”

Drich suddenly shed tears in streams.

“I’ll really explain everything. Why I did that. I finally understand now. How precious you are to me as a person, what friendship really…”

Quilbion couldn’t listen to the end of Drich’s words.

“Drich!”

Because the dizzying sensation of the ground caving beneath his feet flashed through his head.

But faster than words, a black harpoon came flying.

Thwack!

The harpoon pierced precisely through Drich’s head. Drich’s body, pinned to the ground along with the harpoon, swayed pitifully.

Drich moved his half-open mouth, then soon went limp.

Quilbion immediately threw his body.

A harpoon embedded itself where he’d just been standing.

He couldn’t even tell where they were coming from. He just moved his body, dodging the ominous sensations.

That’s when he dodged the third harpoon.

“So it was you.”

A crushed face. The viscous substance dripping from their entire body gathered in their single hand and transformed into a black harpoon.

Ascetic Dohanna. Like Geron, a goblin who’d been acting separately.

“Your scent had faded, so I wondered, but I’m truly glad to meet you again.”

A thin line appeared on Dohanna’s flat face. The line curved gracefully. It was a smile.

At the same moment, Dohanna’s hand moved.

Thunk!

Quilbion looked at the harpoon embedded in his shoulder. He’d anticipated the attack, but his body hadn’t moved.

A speed impossible to match.

“It’s alright, it won’t hurt.”

Just as Dohanna said, though a hole had appeared in his shoulder, there was no pain. Rather, a warm energy arose and his tension eased.

“You’re very precious material. Your nark’s scent is different from the start. Geron—that one must have smuggled you out, right? Hehehehe, such greed.”

A sticky hand touched his body.

Drowsiness poured in. It felt like stone weights hung from the tips of his eyelashes. His eyes gradually closed.

“When you wake up, everything will be sorted out. Don’t worry. I’ll just cut off your legs slightly. Ah! I’ll have to block your mouth too.”

Was this a hell he couldn’t escape?

His body toppled sideways.

What entered his hazy vision was Drich, lying dead with blood streaming.

What had all that struggling been for?

Lil, who’d survived four years by offering humans, was dead. Drich, who’d tried to prolong his life by selling out a friend, was dead too.

He’d probably end up like that as well.

Would it be better to die instantly without feeling anything like that bastard?

“Quil.”

Someone’s voice reached him.

It was a voice he’d heard often.

His head was foggy, so he couldn’t recall the voice’s owner.

“Quil, just wait a little. It’s almost over.”

Ah.

He remembered.

Quilbion lifted his eyelids with difficulty.

Twella was before his eyes.

She was floating slightly above the ground, and something grotesque was grasped in her hand.

It took quite a while to realize it was Geron’s head.

“…Twella.”

“Speak.”

“Run.”

It was an answer his brain, unable to process the situation, had produced.

After speaking, the world turned black.

Please let Twella have escaped.

Quilbion prayed and prayed again.

*

He dreamed a very long dream.

He spent time inside it so long that everything became meaningless.

An endlessly spreading gray landscape.

And, and…

Quilbion opened his eyes. He saw rustling leaves. He stared vacantly at the leaves, then drew in a sharp breath and sat up.

“Twella!”

“Why?”

He was rather surprised by the bland response.

Twella was right beside him. Leaning against a tree with her eyes closed, she looked as carefree as if she’d come out for a picnic.

Was this a dream?

His head throbbed at the word ‘dream.’

He felt like he’d dreamed a long dream, but he couldn’t remember it. No, wait. Could you even dream within a dream?

His mind was a complete mess.

“It’s not a dream.”

Twella spoke as if reading his thoughts.

Quilbion grabbed his befuddled head and looked around.

Neither Drich’s corpse nor the trees felled by the fierce wind were visible.

“That goblin…”

Twella rose from her seat wearing a barely perceptible smile.

“Let’s go. I’ll tell you as we walk.”

A slender hand approached.

Quilbion stared at the hand for a moment, then gripped it lightly.