The terror of the True Demon King, originating from the ruins of the True Northern Kingdom, swept across the world and was an omen that every city would meet its end in madness. That had been just as true for Kuta Silver City.
Three years earlier. Following the True Northern Kingdom, the suzerain of the United Western Kingdom fell to ruin, bringing extreme turmoil to the political landscape of Kuta Silver City, the largest metropolis on Western Kingdom soil. The middle-class citizens craved long-awaited peace, while in contrast, the armed conflict between Kuta Silver City and other powers, including the Central Kingdom, ceaselessly repeated itself… Thus, it wasn't rare for some person's mangled corpse to pop up somewhere.
This corpse had been stuffed into multiple hemp bags and dumped into the river, so in order to identify the bodies, Obsidian Eyes needed to retrieve the remains from the bags and attempt to piece them together. The damage to the whole body was horrible, and it was clear that most of the injuries has been inflicted while the victim was still alive.
A residential basement on the outskirts of the city. By this point, Obsidian Eyes needed to hide themselves from the city's army.
"…Is this Rehem? Where'd everything from the nose to the chin go? This iron… It's been melted down and coiled around the bones—what kind of torture did they put her through?"
The one charged with autopsying the body was a lycan and the ninth- formation vanguard in Obsidian Eyes, Harutoru the Light Grip. He was an assassin who utilized his superb muscular strength as a weapon, but he also had a physician's understanding of Life Arts.
"I-I'm sorry, sh-she was the only one I found… Hyne got his face burned, and it's unsure if he'll regain consciousness…" Fourth-formation vanguard, Hyakrai the Tower replied, struggling to force the words out. After retrieving the hemp bags filled with the corpse and carrying them to this basement, he seemed to lack the mental willpower to even stand up from his chair.
"I think Teeks is dead, too. His corpse has yet to turn up, though…"
There was one another among them.
"Rehem! J-just look…at what a handy partner you've become now! After all, see, look! Now I'll be able to easily carry you around with me from here on out! What do you say, Rehem?! Will you lend me your face? Ah-hya-hya-hya-hya!"
"..."
"..."
She returned Rehem's head back to its original position, perfectly straight- faced.
"…Ah, well…you see…I was just trying to find a bright side to all this."
A zmeu woman. Her name was Zeljirga the Abyss Web, fifth-formation vanguard. Rehem the Fog Hand and Zeljirga had been partners for many years of life-and-death danger.
"Don't clown around in a situation like this," said Harutoru. "We already know the one who got the three of them. Shinji the Piece Column, the right army staff officer for the city army."
"…Piece Column. B-but our contract with Kuta Silver City shouldn't be over yet. How could they betray us without any prior counsel like this?"
"They must've planned on using a surprise attack to get rid of us from the very start! Those three were the ones in charge of dealing with Shinji the Piece Column! From the very start, they planned on using us…on using Obsidian Eyes and throwing us away once they were done!"
"…A scorched-earth slaughter. Even during the previous campaign against Miluzi the Coffin Edict, i-it was nothing but dirty work for us… To ensure that the Central Kingdom and Kuta had an excuse to give to their governments…th- they were scheming to make us take the blame for carrying it all out. Heh-heh- heh… V-very rational. With the characteristic depravity of a visitor."
Shinji the Piece Column was a visitor staff officer employed by the Kuta government. Feeling cornered by the rampant terror of the True Demon King, Kuta Silver City needed to suppress any sort of resistance, even if it meant using a visitor of uncertain origins to do so—and regardless of whatever sort of methods that visitor, bereft of this world's common sense and morals, may have tried to use.
"Oh, look, you two! If I do this to this part of Rehem right here, I can just pull this out here, and…she's making a super-funny face, don't you think?!"
"..."
"..."
Zeljirga timidly took both of her hands off Rehem's corpse.
The other two continued their conversation, still harshly seething with murderous rage.
"We will get our revenge, no matter what. I'm going to teach them a lesson, Hyakrai. No matter what command may say…these hands are going to take Shinji's head!"
"Th-this is clearly a challenge. That's why they let us find the bodies!
They're trying to use our retaliation a-as an excuse to hunt us down!" "Um, guys…?" queried Zeljirga.
"Hyakrai! We may be sinners, strayed from the correct path. But even then, we became Obsidian Eyes precisely because we didn't want to be thrown out like genuine trash! I'll talk with our leader!"
"W-wait a second, Harutoru!" "..."
Left behind by herself, Zeljirga fiddled with her partner's hand. It was on the only arm still connected to her torso.
She held its hand, shook it, and let go. The wrist limply drooped down.
Rehem the Fog Hand wouldn't ever cook again, nor would she say another straight-faced joke. Zeljirga would no longer need to pull out all the stops to try and get her to burst into laughter, either.
To the public, Rehem was nothing more than a convenient sacrificial pawn, easily disposed of and whose identity would never come to light. Those who operated in secrecy and lived in darkness were never going to be trusted.
"…Everyone is so frightening, aren't they, Rehem? It'd be much better if they'd just laughed instead."
Zeljirga let slip a whisper that fell on the deaf underground walls.
For the rest of that day, she did exactly as her own words dictated.
She tried to mellow out her comrades as they grew restless with bloodlust and plunged toward their ruin.
She cheerfully sparked up a conversation with her compatriots as they had their meal.
When she made her report to Rehart the Obsidian, as always, she mixed in an all-too-obvious tall tale as well.
The young lady Linaris considerately reached out to Zeljirga, but the zmeu used sleight of hand to surprise her with a flower, just as usual.
…The sun rose. Zeljirga shut herself away in her room and didn't come out until late the following evening.
"…Ah-hya-hya."
Facing the dark window, she forced out a hollow laugh.
"Ah-hya-hya-hya… Everyone is just so angry. It really is exhausting, isn't it, Rehem?"
Harutoru and the others' claims were rejected. In order to avoid full-scale conflict with Shinji the Piece Column, their alliance was unilaterally discontinued. Obsidian Eyes would most likely be departing from Kuta Silver City soon.
Staying locked up in her room while everyone else was working could have earned Zeljirga some sort of punishment. However, at the moment, she couldn't show any concern toward it.
Zeljirga the Abyss Web was from the True Northern Kingdom, which was annihilated shortly after the True Demon King appeared.
While the zmeu, with their reptilian outward appearances, were defined as one of the minian races, they had markedly different origins from the others. Therefore, when the orphan Zeljirga was bought as a slave, her intended use was not for labor, but as foodstuff to satisfy a noble's sick curiosity.
The reason Zeljirga had survived until division among the slavers led to them killing one another was because she had a bit more needlecraft knowledge than the other zmeu. Her work meant her turn to be eaten had been postponed later than the other slaves.
She didn't gain her freedom. Next, she was bought by a bandit group and given the dirty task of disposing of people's bodies.
Zeljirga was highly praised for her unmatched dissection skills, but the right to refuse the bloodstained work was never there for her. There was some instances where she disposed of the children whom she had been bought with. That bandit group was also wiped out in a few years' time.
It happened again and again.
Throughout Zeljirga's life, death would rapidly close in on her, then be replaced by fresh terror right before it could seal her fate. The exceptional dexterity in her fingertips was always postponing Zeljirga's demise—like a tightly tangled string, it kept her tethered to the abyss and would never let her go.
Zeljirga's smile never once faded.
It wasn't that she was emotionally broken. Or though that may have been the case, Zeljirga didn't see it that way herself. Ever since she had lost her
homeland, she had been placed in environments that would steal these emotions and her smile…which made her believe all the more that she needed to keep practicing them both, or else she'd lose her way to return to a decent world, like the days long ago spent with family and friends.
She believed that for those who had nothing, a smile was the most valuable thing of all.
"Ah-hya… Hya-hya-hya…"
Rehem the Fog Hand had been her only partner.
These were the times she had to be sure to laugh, faced with such an enormous loss.
"Hya-hya, honestly, what am I going to do? The laughs won't stop…" "…Miss Zeljirga."
She heard a faint voice through the door. "Miss Zeljirga. Are you crying?"
"My lady."
It was Linaris's voice. She was the beautiful young daughter of Obsidian Eyes, turning fourteen that year.
Currently, this manor was filled with anger and hatred. Zeljirga needed to be there to make her laugh at a time like this, and yet she was making the young lady worry about her instead.
"Please, my lady, don't let yourself worry about me! These past two days, I haven't given any water to the house plants, you see… Ah-hya-hya-hya! I need to have a full two days of water—for the plants, of course! I think we'll get a great harvest from our green potted friends—just you wait!"
"..."
"…Umm, what's wrong? I'll admit that joke may have lacked some of my usual luster, but…"
"Um, Miss Zeljirga, please allow me to apologize for that. I hope you're able to cheer up."
"Oh, please! I am the absolute definition of cheer! What do you say, my lady? If you'd like to see some rope tricks, I can show you quite a cheerful sight indeed!"
In complete contrast to her words, Zeljirga was leaning up against the door, holding her knees to her chest.
It seemed as though there wasn't a single way to soothe this sadness and indignation.
"Miss Zeljirga? We might have to leave Kuta."
"…Yes, I understand. I assumed that would be the case."
"Is there anything you still wanted to do? Anywhere you wanted to go?" "Ah-hya-hya…and what exactly would you be implying by that?"
"…I myself never even imagined…that we would be leaving here so soon."
Zeljirga could tell that Linaris was sitting in the hallway, leaning her back up against the door.
Linaris was a frail young girl, much more so than the average vampire. The pheromones that allowed her to command thralls should have manifested when she entered puberty, but she couldn't wield that power, either.
Always being protected inside the manor's walls, Linaris would have only walked the dazzling nighttime streets of Kuta Silver City a handful of times.
"…The steam train."
Zeljirga unexpectedly vocalized her wish.
She was sure that destruction was on its way for this city as well. Fear and despair were sneaking near, and eventually, it would all end. Even the bright and beautifully developed city landscape was already just a surface-level facade.
Nevertheless, the nighttime scenery had been truly beautiful.
"My lady, did you know? A steam train like those that run in the Central Kingdom passed through this city just four days ago. It went through the noble quarter, traveling over the connector bridge from the commercial district… crossing the canal into the industrial district."
"…Is that so?"
"I heard that it moved with such force and made a huuuuuge noise along the way! It's a truly wonderful invention, and a very rare sight indeed! I would have loved the opportunity to ride in one even once…is what Rehem told me! Did I trick you into thinking I was talking about myself? Ah-hya-hya!"
"Miss Zeljirga."
Linaris spoke with a gentle tone from the other side of the door. "Let us go board it together. Right now."
"Ah-hya-hya, oh, please, my lady! Surely you jest."
"I suddenly have the desire to see this steam train for myself. Don't you think it would be much more reassuring to have someone accompany me?"
"…Even if that someone is a clown with only rope tricks to her name?" "I was told that you would perform them for me if I so desired."
"Even if I'm a good-for-nothing who wasn't able to protect her partner?" "You'll be good for something, I'm sure of it. After all, there isn't anyone
else who will play with me."
Zeljirga scrubbed her face roughly.
A clown couldn't show their grief-stricken face to anyone else.
She believed that for those who had nothing, a smile was the most valuable thing of all.