The trade caravan had set out from Aureatia for the New Principality of Lithia, moving along a roundabout route through smaller-size cities in an attempt to hide from the New Principality's defense network. They had a minimal bodyguard presence as well, with only a select few among the traders even aware of what was being transported in the massive wagon besides the colossal food provisions necessary to keep the gigant wagon pullers fed.
The Twentieth Minister, Hidow the Clamp, was tasked with overseeing the entire caravan operation. Thus, he had numerous similar heavy carriages traveling parallel along different routes, each with a varying number of guards and goods being transported. The plan was to buy time for the true caravan by making the New Principality guard against any sudden attacks.
The transportation operation was large-scale but fell far short of a true military undertaking. None of the other officials was involved with these operations, either. He needed to make Taren's assassination succeed and prevent all-out war through his efforts alone.
They were in a small mountainside city. By the time the final wagon had arrived, the sun had begun to dip, and a light rain was falling. In the tiny city, the problematic heavy carriage could only be lined up with the other carriages in the town plaza, with a guard posted on watch.
"This heavy cargo's really slowing us down. At this rate, it'll take about a day and a half to get there. Hmm. Kuze, are there enough beds for the whole unit?"
Opening up his umbrella, Hidow posed the question to the man behind him.
"Well, I've been told there's an Order poorhouse that has empty beds. As for food, well…I'm sure you understand the difficulties there, Minister Hidow."
The man named Kuze had the second name of the Passing Disaster. Approaching his late thirties, he was a man with little light left in his eyes.
He was a paladin of the Order, which once had territorial claims all over the world, and his long black vestments stuck out among the other merchants' dress.
Belief in the Order, which worshipped the creator of the world, the Word- Maker, along with its unifying presence, were both further casualties of the True Demon King calamity. Charged with teaching simple literacy and giving aid to the poor, adherents of the Order now suffered harsh discrimination and persecution within most territories.
"Like hell are any of my soldiers pitiful enough to beg for scraps from the Order. The foodstuff included in the cargo will cover it. It'll delay us a bit, but I'm going to have those merchants' sheets washed, too."
"Bweh-heh-heh. Thankful for that. If there were more people like yourself back in Aureatia, Minister Hidow, then our future would look much brighter, I believe."
"You think that flattery will get anywhere with me?" "Oh, whoops, sorry if that's how it came across."
Even without the Aureatia government's trend toward full expulsion of the Order, Hidow's impression of this paladin was very poor. Someone with a seat among Aureatia's highest authoritative power directly working with a man like Kuze meant Hidow had considerable trust in his skills. Kuze the Passing Disaster was one of the Order's few military assets, having no large martial force of their own, and was also an immortal cleaner for the organization, extremely powerful both within and outside the Order.
"Let me be clear—I only came to you out of necessity. The thing we're escorting here is a lot more dangerous than it looks. On the record, we need strong people unaffiliated with Aureatia on this project. Given our detour, I wanted to have a connection with the Order to secure places to camp."
"That's what the merchant camouflage is about, then. So this escort target is worth going to all this effort to keep hidden, then?"
"You just need to keep that in mind—that's it. So…how about yourself, then?"
Hidow kept his umbrella open, fixing Kuze with his sharp stare.
"If there's anything else you're after outside of your reward for this escort mission, then now's the time to talk about it, one-on-one, right here, far from Aureatia. What ulterior motives are at play here?"
"…Aren't you worried about getting assassinated? I'm a cleaner for the Order, you know."
"As if I hadn't already made plenty sure you're not the type to do anything that stupid. Otherwise, I wouldn't have even brought you along."
In truth, the move by the member of the Twenty-Nine Officials to set off with this favored trade caravan strategy was to contain any danger of being discovered by the forces of the New Principality. However, given the fact that the man had agreed to cooperate in a scheme from the country persecuting his organization, Hidow didn't plan on slighting him.
"Bweh-heh-heh. How kind of you. Oh, no flattery there, either."
Kuze let out a wretched, dry chuckle. The roadway visible from the town was lit up by the lights of the trade caravan, lined up together.
Blankly staring out at the view, he spoke—
"Can you give the children something tasty to eat?" "…Huh?"
"I know it'd be an absurd request, given the current state of affairs, to stand on my side…with the Order. But…the orphans staying in town, at the very least, deserve some happy memories, don't they? It's been a while since I've stopped by this church. Can you let this old man play the hero?"
"That's gonna be impossible. For starters, I'm leaving the city sometime tonight."
The young civil servant felt around in his pockets. Producing an expensive leather wallet, he disdainfully tossed it over to Kuze.
When Kuze's big hands caught the wallet, the heft of the coins stuffed inside rattled together.
"You do it."
Hidow the Clamp, still in his early twenties, was a genius, occupying a space among Aureatia's highest power of authority. His appointment came with vast power and riches, though he had no interest in either, so the money he'd just tossed didn't even amount to an expenditure to him.
However, it was the opposite for the children who Kuze the Passing Disaster looked to protect.
"…Thank you very much, Minister Hidow. May the Word-Maker keep
you."
"Save it. Forget bribes—this is the first time I've seen a priest extort money without any hint of shame. You know, talking to you directly has made me realize something…"
Hidow looked Kuze over. Kuze's long black robes seemed to stand out, despite the nighttime darkness.
Even a civil servant like Hidow could see Kuze was a superb and well- trained fighter, but he couldn't come up with any explanation as to how the man had single-handedly annihilated the number of Demon King Army and Order extremists on his résumé. Nor how he always fought alone. None had ever seen the truth behind his fighting abilities.
"…you really are strong, aren't you?" "Bweh-heh-heh. But of course."
Kuze the Passing Disaster laughed. In his eyes were neither flames of passion nor tinges of self-conceit. Instead, they reflected only fatigue and resignation, completely unbecoming of one confident in his absolute strength.
"I have an angel on my side, you see."
As the sounds of the rain grew louder, the leaves of the thick forest canopy grew damp.
After parting ways with Hidow, Kuze arrived in front of a building outside the town, cracks running through its walls. He'd heard that the priest solely in charge of the poorhouse had collapsed with pneumonia two small months earlier and was still in the middle of receiving treatment in a neighboring town.
Emerging to greet the visitors was an eighteen-year-old girl, a young priest-in-training.
"Mr. Kuze! How many years has it been?"
The girl appeared to have been doing chores late into the night, still dressed in her lightly dirtied work clothes. Kuze's big hand patted her shortly cropped hair, a difference from when he had last seen her six years ago.
"Bweh-heh-heh. I'm back, Ripel. How long has it been now…? Sorry for bringing so many guests."
"Oh, no need to apologize! Of course, Mr. Anida picks now of all times to be sick! He's always had the worst luck…"
"Believe me, I know. Can you put water on for tea? I'm fine, but I've got another with me."
"Another?"
Ripel repeated the word back to Kuze. A thin girl peeked her head out from behind Kuze's back. Her clothes exposed much of her skin, and several thin, stringlike appendages poked out along her spine through the open back of her shirt.
She was not a minia. At the very least, for some odd reason, hands had been artificially added to her body.
The young girl smiled, with one eye remaining covered by her bangs. "Good evening. It's nice to meet you. Um, Ripel, was it?"
"…Yes, my name's Ripel. My second name is Ripel the Frost Leaf. Um, you are…?"
"The Vortical Stampede."
She unreservedly took a seat in the entryway and removed her long socks, which were wet with rain. The clergy-in-training Ripel averted her eyes at the sight of the girl's exposed white legs stretching out from her shorts.
"Nihilo the Vortical Stampede. Kuze here is acting as my escort." "Her escort?"
"Basically, yeah. Lately, the donations haven't been enough to keep the kids fed. Bweh-heh-heh. I've been picking up these sorts of jobs, too, as long as they don't go against any of the teachings."
"Mr. Kuze. Is that the whole story? Traveling around with a girl like this…"
"Oh? Is there a hint of jealousy in your voice, Ripel? I'm touched." "That's not what's going on here, okay? Would you like me to show you
around, Nihilo?"
"Oh, no, don't mind me. I have some things to discuss with Mr. Kuze here."
Ripel's eyes flicked back and forth between Kuze standing in the entryway and the seated Nihilo. A dull middle-aged man and a pretty young girl, shrouded in an otherworldly aura. The age gap between them was more than a dozen years.
"I knew it…"
"It's just a joke, seriously! She really just asked me to be her bodyguard!" "I know, I know. After all, you had no luck at all with that sort of stuff
when you were living here."
"Bweh-heh-heh. A little sad to hear you put it like that, honestly." Ripel looked at the sleeve of her work shirt and sighed.
"…I'll go change. Look at me—I'm filthy."
Watching the girl depart for the washroom, Nihilo spoke up suddenly. "She's a good girl."
"How'd you know that? You just met her." "She didn't ask about my body at all."
Nihilo willfully and systematically swayed the spider-silk-like appendages extending from her back.
"Kids from all walks of life come to the Order. Even I used to be an orphan with no relatives before they took me in. Everyone understands that, so they don't pry so long as you don't mention it yourself."
"Really? Now you talk like you do have relatives, though." "…Well, I do. The Order is my family."
"Hee-hee. I'm jealous."
The girl laughed, one eye still covered.
Nihilo the Vortical Stampede was not a minia.
There is a technique used by self-proclaimed Demon Kings that shares a resemblance to those used to breathe life into skeleton bones, where one
works with the leftover flesh and organs of a fresh corpse to revive it as something yet different from when it was alive. Nihilo was a race of constructs known as a revenant—imprisoned as a war criminal in Aureatia, she was a weapon of mass destruction.
"You haven't asked me about my origins, either, have you? Not once since we left Aureatia."
Nihilo took a seat in one of the chairs by the entryway, swinging her bare legs back and forth. Kuze faced toward the shoe rack and looked over the low number of shoes collected within.
"Where'd that come from? Do you want me to ask?" "What if I asked you to ask?"
The paladin scratched the back of his neck. Turning toward the girl, he bent down.
"Then naturally, I'd ask. I'm not officially a priest, but hearing confession is a duty of all who serve the Word-Maker."
"It's not that big a deal. I was just thinking that even though we're on this trip together, we haven't had a real opportunity to chat. If I said the cargo in the heavy carriage we brought from Aureatia was also me, would you believe me?"
Nihilo's eye narrowed, and she stared out from the entryway.
In the distance, there was the sound of a bird's wings flapping. The night in this frontier city was dark and very still.
"All I've heard is that you were kept prisoner back in Aureatia. I suppose you've paid for your crime if you're out like this."
"No."
Nihilo shook her head.
"I've just been released on the condition that I help out Hidow. I love the minia races, after all."
She was the weapon of a self-proclaimed Demon King who had perished long ago, once an enemy of Aureatia. A loser of the times, much in the same way Kuze of the Order was, she had negotiated with Hidow.
"Is that a joke?"
"Why do you say that? I was being perfectly honest."
Kuze sat himself down on the cold floorboards beside Nihilo's chair.
"All right, then, what if…there weren't any conditions placed on you?
What would you do?"
"I wonder. Tee-hee. I'd be fighting, probably. I was made to fight, after all, and it's what I'm best at. What about you, Kuze?"
"If I didn't need to fight anymore…I'd settle down at a church somewhere and maybe plant a vegetable garden. I'm really not cut out for this stuff…"
"No, you're not suited for it."
From atop her chair, Nihilo's single eye looked down on Kuze. Despite being a reanimated corpse, the revenant's highly refined eye was vibrant, clearer than any living creature's.
"You felt a bit guilty talking with Ripel just now, too, didn't you? I wonder if she knows that you go around disposing of the Order's enemies."
"Whoa, now…you're embarrassing me. The person listening to confession isn't supposed to be the one getting questioned."
"You don't carry any weapons, do you?"
The girl looked at Kuze's gear, plopped down on the floor. It was a large shield, close to Kuze's height in size, with an abstract angel design drawn on it. There were several nicks and scratches etched into its surface.
"…You seem like you're actually scared of hurting other people." "Hey, come on. Try not to tease this frail old man too much."
Kuze raised both his arms up in the air in a gesture of surrender as he remained seated on the floor.
"…That's how it is, huh…? I look like that much of a pushover? From a girl built to be a weapon, I probably look pretty half-hearted about it."
"Oh, no, not at all. Rather, I'm curious about the strength you must have had to survive this long with that mentality of yours. I mean, you also fought during the age of the True Demon King like I did, right? How many did you kill? How strong were the opponents you fought? What techniques did you use? Where did you learn them?"
"None of that stuff's…really anything worth boasting about."
Kuze gave a simple reply with a pallid, weak smile. He wasn't looking at Nihilo but instead fixated on some point in the space in front of him.
"I just have an angel on my side… The angel's watching me so I don't die. That's all… Really, that's all there is to it."
The evening dining table was filled with much more color than what was normally present in the poorhouse.
Meat was divided up among everyone's plates, and the bread wasn't the normal hard, preserved stuff but soft bread that had been freshly baked that afternoon.
"Wow!"
"This soup's clear like water! There's sheep's milk in it!" "I told you, it's because Mr. Kuze's here!"
"Can I grab tomorrow's portion, too?"
"Okay, everyone, quiet. If you keep being rowdy, this feast'll disappear, too!"
Trying to calm down the children, each shouting over the next, Ripel glanced apologetically to Kuze.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Kuze… We're poor, but you didn't need to go out of your way…"
"It's fine, it's fine. All the churches need to look out for one another right now. Besides, I was never able to really act like a mentor for you, either."
"..."
There was food left in front of Nihilo, but the undead girl called out to one of the surprised children and shared her bread.
"Here you go. Give the little girl there another piece, too. I ate something on our way here already."
"Th-thank you, miss!"
"Tee-hee, you're welcome."
The child smiled, and Kuze smiled, too, looking on. He appeared nonchalant, but the smile itself seemed to be from the heart, unlike his usual ones, drained of all vitality.
"Hey, Ripel. You sure you didn't need any help cleaning all the rooms for the merchants?"
"It was such a sudden request; you did a good job getting them prepared so quickly."
"Ahhh, well…a little while ago, we had this Aureatia army troop encamped around here."
Kuze's and Nihilo's ears both perked up at the mention of Aureatia. They had to make for the New Principality while disguised as having no association with Aureatia. However, there was coincidently another unit that
had passed through this city, moving independently of the trading caravan. "In that case, I'm sorry for piling more stress on you, then."
"No, it's fine. These merchants are much better behaved than the soldiers from Aureatia, and they don't loudly stomp around, either, so you're honestly doing me a big favor."
Though all a part of the same force, the temperaments of Aureatia soldiers were different depending on who commanded them. For example, Twentieth Minister Hidow's soldiers, disguised as merchants, were mostly from the upper class, like Hidow himself, and thus many were very well-mannered.
"What were those troops doing all the way out here? I'm intrigued." "Ummm…I'm not actually sure if this was true, but they mentioned
putting down a dragon."
"A dragon?" Nihilo reflexively echoed back.
Any dragon effortlessly dwarfed the average minia. And unlike wyverns, who evolved to form flocks, the term "Dragon" referred only to the progenitors—the true dragonkin. These transcendent beings were equipped with impenetrable dragon scales and Breath Word Arts of calamitous power." Naturally, they were not something that normally could be put down by the likes of a minia army.
"The troops were under the command of Sixth General Harghent, of Aureatia's Twenty-Nine Officials… I heard from the man himself they were going to kill the infamous Vikeon the Smoldering. Though I'm not sure if something like that's even possible."
"Kuze. Who's Vikeon?"
"A black dragon from the age of legends. He's reduced entire countries to ash."
"That's the one. I remembered him from one of the old stories you used to tell me, Mr. Kuze."
"…Did I tell you about that stuff? Either way, that Sixth General fellow's trying something absolutely absurd, isn't he?"
One of the children, playing after finishing their dinner, poked Kuze in the shoulder, laughing.
"Rawwwr! My name is Vikeon! Fear me!"
"Bweh-heh-heh. If we're playing pretend dragon slaying, then shouldn't this old man play Vikeon?"
"Then who am I?"
"How about Rosclay the Absolute? Here we go! Bwaaah! Burn beneath my black smoke!"
"Aaaah! I won't give up! Rosclay is here!"
Watching Kuze join in on the children's games, Ripel sighed, a twinge of loneliness in her breath.
"Mr. Kuze hasn't changed one bit…" "Hmm. He's always been like that?"
"Yeah… Laid-back, without any sense of dignity, and I've never seen him mad once. Even when shouldering the Order's troubles, he's always smiling…"
Ripel was unaware of what Kuze was going to be doing after he left—that he would try assassinating the New Principality's self-proclaimed Demon King, wielding his blade as a cleaner for the Order. Nor that now he was serving under Aureatia to give the orphans a passing flash of luxury in their lives.
Without saying a word, Nihilo decided to join Ripel and watch the black knight frolic about with the children.
The light of a candlestick flickered as if something passed it by, though no wind blew.
An angel, huh?
Suddenly, Kuze's words echoed in her mind.