◇In a Forest◇
In a narrow mountain pass, a horse-drawn carriage sped along in an
incredible hurry. The man in the driver's seat—an enormous figure—
clicked his tongue in irritation as he turned to glance behind him. "Tch!
Persistent bastard..." he grumbled as he caught sight of the dark shadow that
had been pursuing him.
The shadow kept up with the carriage, quickly running alongside its left
flank and swinging the great scythe it carried in a low arc at the axles of the
carriage's wheels, splitting them into pieces. The vehicle collapsed on its
side with a tremendous sound. The horses, who had come free in the crash,
ran on ahead and vanished, leaving the carriage stuck where it was.
"Y-You!" the man shouted as he took to his feet. "How dare you get in
our way?!" Swinging his arms in circles, he charged straight towards the
shadow that had wrecked his carriage. As a golem, his arms were oversized,
even in comparison to the rest of his body, and made for powerful weapons
when spun around like that.
"Shut up, you damned demon-napper!" the shadow snapped, swinging
its scythe to meet the golem's fists. A beam of moonlight shone through the
clouds, and the shadow was revealed to be a woman, slight of frame. Her
body was clearly much smaller than her opponent's, but her scythe stopped
his oncoming fists dead in their tracks.
"N-No way!" the golem exclaimed, baffled. "How could a shrimp like
you block my mighty fists?!"
"Hah!" the woman laughed. "That's what you get for underestimating
the damned Infernal Four!"
"Th-The Infernal Four?!" the golem balked in surprise. The woman took
advantage of the opening to deliver a series of strikes with her scythe, the
blade cutting through his stone body effortlessly and carving him into bits.
He crumbled to the ground, and, after a moment, stopped moving
altogether.
"That was a damned handful..." the woman complained. "I'll need
Rolindeim to repair the damned thing later so we can get a proper damned
confession..." She shouldered her scythe and set to work digging through
the wreckage of the carriage. Before long, she uncovered something that
seemed to be a container of some sort—a transparent cube, holding two
women cowering in each other's arms. They were clinging to each other,
protecting their heads from the impact of the crash.
The woman with the scythe breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that
the two of them were unhurt. Silhouetted by the moon, she swung her
scythe and split apart the cage. "Just to make damned sure," she said, "are
you two the missing fable folk we've been searching for, Gansel and
Hretel?"
The two women—Gansel and Hretel—nodded.
"The name's Belianna, of the Infernal Four," the woman with the scythe
said, grinning cockily with her weapon slung over her shoulder. "I've come
to find you under the damned orders of the Dark One Dawkson. To be
honest, I'm just damned relieved to see you both unharmed."