Chapter Three: A God’s Homecoming

The metal wheel began to turn, kicking up a cloud of leaf mold.

“There you go, good job.”

Sleipnir—despite being a prototype designed by an amateur, with jury-rigged parts, and never tested for durability—started running with no problem. Not that any of this was due to the gentle praise Yukinari gave it.

They were riding along a narrow mountain pass, the same road the procession had been traveling down. Thankfully, perhaps because the entire crowd had gone out and then come back, ruts and footprints marked the way clearly, and helped Sleipnir’s four wheels bite into the dirt. Where were they going? They would know when they found wherever it was the tracks led to.

But as they drove...

“Yuki.”

“I know.”

Dasa hadn’t needed to warn him—Yukinari had already noticed it. Yggdra’s familiars were pursuing them.

Shadowy figures appeared and disappeared among the trees that lined both sides of the road. They had no trouble keeping up despite the motorcycle’s speed. Granted, Yukinari had to slow the bike down because of the badly pitted path, but even so, he was going faster than walking speed.

The figures didn’t move along the ground, but much higher up. Most likely, they were jumping from branch to branch. Or perhaps they were using vines like ropes, swinging like pendulums in order to move. Whatever the case, just as they had seen in town, every bit of plant life in this area, from the smallest blade of grass to the tallest tree, seemed to be under Yggdra’s control.

Talk about your home-field advantage.

Maybe the barrier of massive trees that surrounded Rostruch was Yggdra’s doing as well. It couldn’t be random, but there was no way it had been made by human hands, either.

“Yggdra is probably—”

“Yuki!”

At Dasa’s cry, Yukinari immediately looked to both sides. Branches were extending from the left and the right, as if to block off the road. They were just plants—they shouldn’t have even possessed the ability to move—but they were advancing so quickly that it was visible to the naked eye. And they were trying to stop Yukinari and Dasa.

Wait. They weren’t moving.

They’re growing at an incredible pace!

Trees simply lack the biological capacity to move the way animals do. They have no joints, no muscles. A very small percentage of them—mimosas, and carnivorous plants like Venus fly traps, for example—certainly do move, but that’s due to changes in cellular pressure as their cells absorb and release water. They can only mechanically repeat the same motions over and over; complex action is still impossible for them.

Anyway, if the plants could have moved freely, then presumably there would have been no need to use familiars like Ulrike. Since the plants couldn’t move, Yggdra was causing them to grow very, very fast, straight into Yukinari and Dasa’s way. That was why it looked to them like the plants were moving.

“I get it now...!”

If the plants could have moved on their own, they would surely have been an easier way to stop the two travelers. But so far, Sleipnir had been able to evade its botanical pursuers, if only just. That meant the trees couldn’t grow as fast as Yukinari could drive.

“...!”

One of the familiars pushed off a branch and jumped at the motorcycle.

The creature was met with a boom.

But the .44 Magnum bullet Yukinari had fired simply passed by, failing to hit the opponent.

“Dammit...”

If he hadn’t fired, they would have been in danger. Or, perhaps Yukinari wouldn’t have. But Dasa, certainly. Yet at the same time, Yukinari still had qualms about shooting the familiars, many of which were women, children, and the elderly. This familiar had the form of an old woman, and she grabbed hold of the two of them.

Yukinari beat her back with Durandall. The woman tumbled away, bouncing across the leaf mold—within the next instant, she grabbed onto a vine that had dropped seemingly out of nowhere, took a great swing, and was kicking against a tree branch to make another pass.

It was an incredible display of physical prowess. And even granting that she had landed on the leaf mold, it was bizarre that she didn’t appear to feel so much as discomfort from her fall from a moving vehicle. Maybe Yggdra’s divine power had strengthened her body...

“Maybe I’ve got no choice but to kill them...”

The familiars launched one attack after another. Yukinari tried his best to shoot at them, but it was hard enough while trying to drive Sleipnir, and combined with his compunctions about the issue, he never so much as grazed his opponents. The familiars, for their part, showed no real fear of his weapon, perhaps because they hadn’t been harmed by it.

Yukinari almost jumped as one of the familiars finally landed in a heap on Sleipnir’s handlebars. She was a small girl with a round face. Maybe it was a trick of the dying light that made her hair, which should have been green, appear black.

There was a moment of near-silence as Yukinari hesitated for an instant. It was only because of a passing resemblance to his sister Hatsune. Then he spat out a breath and, with it, swept away his indecision. But that was all the time the familiar needed to grab his throat.

“Hrrg...?!”

“Yuki!” Dasa cried, almost a scream.

The familiar possessed inhuman strength. Yukinari immediately threw away Durandall, scrabbling at the hands around his neck, but it was as if they were attached to him—had become a part of him. He couldn’t tear them away. The fingers dug deeper and deeper into his flesh, as if they might tear his head clean off. His vision was turning red. But then...

“Yuki!!”

There was a gunshot right next to Yukinari’s ear. The impact was like a gentle slap on the cheek, and his mind cleared immediately. Someone firing a .44 Magnum right next to your head will do that.

The girl—the familiar—who had been clutching Yukinari’s neck thrashed. At the edge of his vision, he could see her hit the ground. He presumed she’d been shot, probably with Red Chili.

“Dasa...!”

“I’m on your... side, Yuki!” Dasa nearly shouted. “Your... enemy is my... enemy!” In other words, there would be no mercy for anyone who attacked him. Even those he himself hesitated to shoot.

Damn. I’m pathetic...

Dasa’s hands were dirty now because he had foolishly hesitated. Of course, Dasa had shot people before, but only in situations when it had been absolutely necessary, a matter of life and death. It was no sin. Or anyway, so Yukinari thought, and Dasa probably felt the same way.

So it wasn’t the fact that Dasa had done it that was the problem, but rather that, in his mind, he had made her do it.

I’m no better than the people who offer living sacrifices or commit euthanasia!

He was making someone else do what he couldn’t. Just like those who left the priests to handle their sacrifices, or who asked doctors to pull the plug for no other reason than because they couldn’t stand to watch the suffering of a loved one anymore.

“Yuki, you... focus on... Sleipnir.” Dasa fired Red Chili again.

“Are there fewer attacks now?” Yukinari asked. The frequency of the familiars’ attacks had clearly lessened. They still kept pace in the trees, but they had stopped flinging themselves at the motorcycle.

“Look there...”

Among the familiars trailing them through the trees was the girl Dasa had shot. Yukinari didn’t know where she had been hit, but she obviously wasn’t dead.

One of the “horns” on her head was broken. Maybe that was where the bullet had landed. Dasa had probably aimed at the creature’s forehead, but Sleipnir’s rumbling would have made it difficult to shoot precisely.

“I get it. They’ve learned that it hurts to get shot.”

It wasn’t clear whether the familiars actually felt pain, but Yggdra’s supporters had learned what it meant to take a bullet at point-blank range.

Yukinari had another fright as a single familiar dropped down out of the branches and stood in their path.

It was Ulrike.

She must have taken a shortcut to get ahead of them. It wouldn’t have taken very long to figure out where Yukinari and Dasa were headed.

Silently, Ulrike shook her branch. In an instant, roots and branches ensnared Sleipnir. Yukinari tried to plow through them by sheer force...

“Hrn?!”

Sleipnir was lifted up by the rapidly growing tree limbs, its wheels clawing at the sky. It no longer mattered how much horsepower the motorcycle had.

The vehicle hung upside down in the air; Yukinari and Dasa were thrown to the ground. Yukinari grabbed his companion in midair, clutching her to himself. He didn’t quite land neatly on his feet, but at least he could protect her as they came down. He rolled several times, then came to a stop.

Right in front of Ulrike, who stood calmly.

Neither said anything. Yukinari came to one knee, keeping Dasa behind him as he faced down the familiar. But the next second, something stole his attention away from the girl—the huge thing that loomed up behind her.

“So... This must be Yggdra’s true form.” It looked roughly the way he’d imagined it might based on everything that had happened, but it was still staggering to see it for himself.

It was a vast tree, surely more than a thousand years old. The hugeness of it evoked less a living being than a feature of the terrain, like a mountain or a river. It must have been ten meters around and more than a hundred tall. Its branches spread across more than fifty meters from one end to the other. This must be why there was so little plant life around here, even though they were in the mountains—the layers of branches and leaves prevented light from reaching the floor, meaning only groundcover could survive beneath them.

This was an erdgod who had literally put down roots in its land. And it made sense why the creature would use sacrifices as familiars. Its main body couldn’t move from this spot.

“...Yuki, look.” Dasa pointed to the roots of the great tree. A very strange-looking creature, perhaps a xenobeast, had been strangled by the roots. No—with a hard sound, the creature’s neck broke, turning in a disturbing direction. Roots and branches probed into the eyes and nose and ears of the twitching body, sucking it dry in an instant. In this way, not only did Yggdra kill xenobeasts and demigods foolish enough to challenge it, but turned them into nutrition for itself as well.

“Have you given up yet, Godslayer?” Ulrike said haughtily, looking down at Yukinari where he knelt in the dust. The other familiars were keeping their distance. It looked like there really was something special about this one called Ulrike. None of the others even spoke.

Only Ulrike spoke a human language. Maybe she was the only one with anything resembling human thought. That would make her, in effect, Yggdra’s representative. Plants couldn’t talk any more than they could move. The familiars, connected directly to Yggdra as they were, acted as its intermediaries with humanity.

Wordlessly, Yukinari set down Dasa, giving her a significant look. He had no guarantee that she understood what he meant by it, but Dasa, the sister and apprentice of the alchemist Jirina Urban, instantly understood what Yukinari had in mind. With things as they stood, the only choice was to fight with all their strength. This wasn’t an opponent they were going to survive if they held back in the slightest.

“Given up? Yeah... I guess you could say that.” As he spoke, Yukinari made a fist with his right hand and drove it into the earth. At the same time, Dasa moved to one side, opening up a distance from Yukinari.

Ulrike glanced at Dasa, but didn’t seem to see her as a threat; the familiar made no move to stop her.

“And... In what way could one say you have given up?” Ulrike—Yggdra—asked.

Yukinari exhaled.

“I’ve given up... On this ending peacefully!”

Even as he answered, he had already begun to transform.

●

The town of Friedland was basically peaceful. There was the concern that a xenobeast or demigod might show up during Yukinari’s absence, but at the moment, there was no sign of any such danger. Guards had been posted at Yukinari’s “sanctuary,” which was the place any would-be challenger was likely to attack first. It was easy enough, as there were already observation platforms around it that had once been used to confirm whether the erdgod had eaten its sacrifice. If anything showed up, the guards would see it immediately.

“I wonder if things are going all right for Yukinari...” Fiona murmured, pausing in her work. Several pieces of paper lay in front of her. Paper was a valuable resource, but it was also the most convenient way to keep the detailed records necessary to administer a town. Sheepskin didn’t last long enough, and wooden scrolls took up too much room. So Fiona bought as much paper as she could when merchants came by.

“I wonder... I don’t know how fast the iron horse Lord Yukinari made can travel.”

Fiona hadn’t been speaking to anyone in particular, but Berta, standing in a corner of the room, answered anyway. Yukinari had asked Berta to help Fiona while he was away with the multitude of little jobs that hounded the deputy mayor, so the girl—aware of her status as Yukinari’s shrine maiden and property—dutifully waited by Fiona’s side to be given some sort of work.

“But Lord Yukinari did say he would be back as soon as he could. Oh, would you like more tea?”

“No, thank you,” Fiona said with a grim smile and a shake of her head. Berta was there to help Fiona, but with no knowledge or experience in administration, there wasn’t much she could do. She could make tea, pick up objects that fell off the desk, and rub Fiona’s tense shoulders—but that was it. Yukinari hadn’t really left Berta to help so much as he was putting her in Fiona’s care. The girl would have been in much greater danger of being attacked if he had left her alone in the sanctuary.

“She’s not a kitten...” Fiona muttered.

“I’m sorry? A kitten? Do you need a—”

“It’s nothing, I was just talking to myself,” Fiona said with a sigh.

“Um... Lady Fiona?” Berta began to speak as though something had suddenly occurred to her. “Is it possible... You know...” But hesitation soon swallowed up the words that might have followed. “Um... Could it be... Oh, I—I’m sorry, never mind.”

“Don’t trail off. You know I hate that.” Fiona frowned, and Berta, almost fearfully, resumed:

“I thought maybe... without Lord Yukinari here... maybe you’re lonely?”

“Huh? What makes you think that?”

“Well, every time you stop writing, you whisper his name...”

This left Fiona to furrow her brow in silence.

“You’re very much in love with Lord Yukinari, aren’t you, Lady Fiona?”

“I only act like that to tease him. I do it because it’s funny. He’s got those godlike powers, but inside he’s just a regular boy... even if he does have some decent ideas from time to time.”

So the things she said to him were simply in jest; she wasn’t especially interested in him as a member of the opposite sex. He had messed with her at one point—something about wanting to get into bed with a cultivated young woman and making her squeal—and she had been paying him back for it ever since.

Truth be told, Yukinari was too over the top for her in a number of ways, and she couldn’t see him as an object of romantic interest at the moment. She felt friendly toward him, certainly, and if he genuinely came seeking her body, she wouldn’t hesitate to respond—but it would be largely out of her duty as deputy mayor.

“Lord Yukinari’s powers aren’t godlike, he is a god.” Berta looked questioningly at her.

“That’s not my point... Berta? You’re way more—I mean, talk about being in love with Yukinari.”

“Yes, of course I am,” Berta said with no detectable embarrassment.

“Yukinari said you don’t have to force yourself to be his shrine maiden or anything, but you still keep following him around... Hey, has he ever actually, y’know, done it with you?”

Berta and Yukinari had been living in the same house together for quite some time now, but as far as Fiona had seen, Yukinari had never laid a finger on her.

Berta provided the final proof: “No, not yet. Since I’m not really capable of anything else, I feel it’s the least I can do for him, but...” She looked down, almost sadly.

“I mean, it’s not your fault...”

Berta was an orphan who had been raised to be a living sacrifice. She barely knew how to do housekeeping or any of the other things that a normal girl might have learned from her parents to help her in the future. She seemed to be good with young children, perhaps because she’d helped raise her younger sisters at the orphanage, but that skill wasn’t much use now that she was serving Yukinari. And needless to say, the priests hadn’t gone out of their way to ensure she had any other particular abilities. Shrine maidens existed for one purpose and one purpose only: to offer up their bodies.

Perhaps that explained Berta’s fixation on giving herself to Yukinari. Since he wasn’t a monster who ate people, the only other thing she could really do was to offer herself to him as a woman.

“Lady Dasa is... You know... Always...” Berta said with her usual hesitation. She seemed to mean that Dasa got in the way, or that Yukinari held back because he was conscious of Dasa being there. From Fiona’s perspective, it was obvious that Dasa was also infatuated with Yukinari, but Yukinari seemed to view her as some kind of younger sister. Sometimes the two of them seemed to be at cross-purposes.

“And now the two of them are off by themselves...”

Now that she thought about it, supposedly they had been traveling together before they arrived in Friedland, as well. If their love had been growing that entire time, Berta couldn’t easily break in now. Perhaps it was the way Berta had been attached at the hip to Yukinari since he arrived in Friedland that somehow seemed to fire Dasa’s emotions, even though Berta herself didn’t realize it.

For better or for worse, Fiona had a pretty good grasp of how others were feeling. But it seemed that she didn’t always bring the same clarity to her own emotions.

“Okay, break’s over,” she said, shaking her head. “You know what? I would like some more tea.”

But at that moment...

Fiona paused and frowned. Had she just heard a voice calling out? She looked at Berta. The other girl seemed to have heard it, too; she was looking dubiously out the window. Fiona stood up from her desk and went over to the window herself. The shutters were open.

She peered out. Everything looked normal in town. She wondered if a fire had broken out, or if maybe a carriage had run over a child, but...

“Berta. What was that just now...?”

“It sounded like a scream, but—”

Before she could finish, the bellow came again—this time clearly. Fiona leaned out the window to try to see what was going on, when suddenly, she was covered in shadow.

She was shocked; something massive had blocked out the sun. In the next instant it had passed over her head, wheeling around far away in the sky. It was a bizarre flying life form with four wings.

“It’s that—”

“—demigod!”

It was the monstrous bird Yukinari had failed to kill several days before.

●

Yukinari’s body was enveloped in a bluish-white light. A miraculous light, the proof that his very body itself was a miracle.

“What is this...?” Even Ulrike—probably even Yggdra, who controlled her—was surprised.

A god created by human hands was about to challenge a god born of nature.

“You uncanny thing...!” Ulrike shouted, and lunged at Yukinari, waving her branch. She sensed that his transformation wasn’t complete yet. She may not have known the details, but she was objectively correct.

“I won’t let you.”

There was a murmur and a gunshot, and then Ulrike was thrown backward. But the second after that, she rolled forward again as if launched by a spring.

“Do you seek to interfere, girl?” There was no blood on Ulrike’s face as she called out. But she was slightly off-balance, staggering just a little. Dasa had aimed at her head—specifically, at one of the “horns” that grew there. It was the same place she’d happened to shoot the other familiar who had attacked them; she had seen that creature blanch and withdraw.

The horns might amount to kill shots for the familiars. Or perhaps they were what connected the familiars to Yggdra, much like how the missionaries had used tuning forks to control the statue of the guardian saint. If she could damage the horns, maybe Ulrike wouldn’t be able to move.

“......Erk.”

Ulrike waved her branch. She was stumbling, but a mass of branches from the trees nearby stretched out toward Yukinari and Dasa, while vines and ivies came flying like ropes.

In the face of them—

“I won’t let... you stop Yuki.” Dasa sniped from a prone position. Five bullets flew at Ulrike, but a wall of roots broke through the earth to shield her. Even Magnum bullets didn’t have the penetrating power to get through it.

Dasa gave a start as, at the same moment, a vine wrapped itself around her right hand. She couldn’t move her gun anymore; she collapsed, and the other familiars, who had kept their distance until that moment, began to approach. They reached for her from every direction...

“Hands off.”

All at once, the familiars went flying.

Ulrike steadied herself, amazed. Standing next to Dasa was a strange-looking knight in blue-black armor. Blue mail over a black foundation. This armor wasn’t just for show: it seemed to fit the figure exactly, almost as if he had been born that way.

But the most striking thing about this knight had nothing to do with his body or his armor. It was the black-crystal wings that grew on his back. They opened and closed gently, almost as though they were breathing, and they must have contained a good deal of heat, because a slight haze rose from them.

The Bluesteel Blasphemer.

This was the “Blue Angel” that had killed the Dominus Doctrinae, the head of the Missionary Order, and a host of other high-ranking Church officials in the capital, practically in their own home, and then escaped. This was the form that allowed him to make the best use of his power.

“Don’t touch Dasa,” the Bluesteel Blasphemer—the so-called Godslayer—growled. “Don’t hurt her. Don’t cause her any pain. I may forgive anything else, but not that. Even if I’m facing a god.”

Yukinari put his hands together as if in prayer. A bluish-white light flowed between them, and a second later, he pulled a Durandall from each hand, as though extracting them from his own arms.

“Mere hubris, Godslayer,” Ulrike said, slowly backing away. “What you forgive or do not forgive is of no consequence. Do you think you can kill me with those toys?”

“Wanna find out?” Yukinari moved forward, as if pursuing Ulrike.

In the next instant, bullets flew at him from every direction.

●

A vast shadow passed overhead. The huge body turned, quickly enough to set the air spinning, its four wings stirring up little clouds of dust. The monstrous bird of a demigod watched the people below it fleeing in panic, and let out a great cry as if specifically to frighten them.

“Where... Where IS he? Where IS THAT man? I shAll eAT hIM!”

The creature was clearly after Yukinari. But Yukinari had gone to Rostruch, and hadn’t yet come back.

Fiona rushed out into town, calling at the top of her lungs: “Get inside! Whatever you do, don’t come out!” Since their erdgod was out of town, it fell to the deputy mayor to keep the people safe. “Nice sentiment, anyway,” Fiona muttered. In her right hand, she could feel the weight of the weapon she had grabbed as she left the mansion.

It was a Durandall. One of the god-slaying armaments Yukinari had made before he left. And he had indeed felled their previous erdgod with one of these; he hadn’t used his powers as an angel.

“But a weapon’s no good if you don’t know how to use it.”

Truth be told, Durandall was about as much use to Fiona as a good luck charm. Yukinari had technically taught her how to use the gun, and a bullet was already chambered, but she didn’t really believe she could wield the thing effectively.

“Lady Fiona!” Berta came running up behind her—holding, of course, another Durandall.

“Berta, you need to stay inside!”

“B-But...”

“Just do it!” And then Fiona was running again.

At the moment, the demigod was still obsessed with finding Yukinari, so it hadn’t tried to attack any of the townspeople yet. But demigods increased their power by eating people. This monster would think about that soon enough, and once the rampage began there would be no stopping it. She had to get as many people as possible indoors before that happened.

“Where iS HE?”

Suddenly, the demigod did something new. Perhaps incensed at Yukinari’s failure to appear, it started rising into the sky.

Apparently, it was ready to start eating.

Thankfully, though, Fiona’s shouting had had some effect; most of the townspeople had evacuated inside. The demigod could, of course, crash through the roofs of the buildings if it wanted to, but that would take some time. Perhaps enough for her to come up with an idea.

“Berta, get indoors! Anywhere!” As she shouted, Fiona let loose with Durandall. There was a roar, and the recoil made the gun jump in her hand. The bullet didn’t hit the bird, of course, but the demigod changed course. It dug its claws into a building, tearing up a wall as it forcibly changed direction.

The demigod settled to the ground and looked at Fiona.

“so thAt’s whERE yOu WErE!”

“...Huh?”

“i shAll PAy yOu bACK for tHE WoUNDS yoU gavE mE! FoR the Pain! ThE suFFERing!”

The gunshots seemed to have confused the demigod into thinking that Fiona was Yukinari. Setting aside the fact that she was a woman and he was a man, they also had completely different heights and faces... Maybe it was just as hard for the demigod to tell humans apart as it was for humans to tell at a glance which birds were male and which female, or what the subtle differences between their bodies were.

Fiona felt herself freeze. Until a moment ago, there had been a healthy distance between her and the demigod, and the creature hadn’t been personally focused on her. So the fear hadn’t hit her. But now... Now the demigod thought Fiona was the one it had come to eat. Its hatred was immediate and intense. Fiona had been able to ignore the fear until that moment, but now it grabbed her, threatening to strangle her from the inside out.

It’s gonna eat me. No...

It was the most primal fear, the atavistic terror native to every living thing.

“nOW I shALl feAST!”

The demigod kicked the ground and flew at Fiona.

Distantly, she knew she had to get inside, but her body wouldn’t move. The huge beak opened wide as if to swallow her whole.

“Lady Fiona!”

“Graaaaaaahhh!”

Berta’s shout became one with—was that a roar?

The next second, Fiona was shoved to the side. “What...?” She blinked in confusion even as she tumbled to the ground. Thanks to the shove, she hadn’t been eaten. But who had pushed her?

“Gwah?!” There was a screeching sound of impact, and a second later, someone else came flying to the ground beside Fiona. “Eeyow!” the figure cried. “That hurts! That is surpassingly painful!”

She realized, to her astonishment, that it was Arlen Lansdowne. He wasn’t wearing armor, but he was carrying a long cavalry spear, and at the moment he was rolling through the dirt, repeating, “Yow! Ouch!” He must have used the spear to deflect the blow from the demigod’s beak.

“Lansdowne?! Why in the world would you—”

“What are you just lying there for?!” Arlen shouted at her. He managed to stop exclaiming in pain long enough to jump up. “You really are an unutterable fool, aren’t you!”

“Who’s a fool?! Wait—where’d you get a weapon, anyway?!” The missionary knights of the True Church of Harris were supposed to be forbidden weapons, all of which had been locked up in the armory.

“Arnold broke into the armory and—but now’s not the time!” He grabbed Fiona’s hand. “You ran all over town getting everyone else inside, but you couldn’t take your own advice? Truly foolish!”

“H-How dare you...”

“Just get inside! You’re in the way!”

These words came not from Arlen, but from yet another voice. Fiona saw three more knights—without armor, but carrying swords and spears—trying to make a stand against the demigod. It must have been one of them who had shouted.

The demigod was truly massive, so large that even out on the main street, its movements were constrained by the buildings to either side. Its overwhelming size gave it a much greater range than the missionaries; their swords and spears would be of no real use. But they might be enough to buy some time.

“Lady Fiona!” Berta, who had already evacuated to a nearby building, leaned out and called to her. Fiona couldn’t yet make the strength come into her muscles, so Arlen half-carried, half-dragged her to where Berta was.

“Tell me why!”

“Why? Why what?”

“I mean, why did you help me?” It simply didn’t make sense to her.

“I don’t understand a thing you’re saying, woman.” Arlen appeared to sincerely mean it. “We’re knights of the Missionary Order. Holy warriors charged with felling demons and bringing precious salvation to the unenlightened people of the frontier. When faced with a demon, we fight it. If there’s any chance, however small, that the people here, bumpkins though they are, might one day come to the teachings of the True Church, then it’s only natural that we would protect them. They can’t convert if they’re dead!”

“You......”

The words he spoke were arrogant and dismissive, utterly without regard for the people he was talking about—this was unmistakably the Arlen Lansdowne she knew. And yet...

“It’s our duty to destroy the demons in these remote regions. The ‘Blue Angel’ is one thing—but this is just a monster, and an ugly one at that. Why should we be afraid?”

And yet he was different, too. Somewhere between the time they had parted ways in the capital and the time they had met again in Friedland, he had become a knight.

●

Yukinari had his hands full just trying to cover Dasa. The “bullets” struck his armored body from all sides. They didn’t seem to have much penetrating power, but they came like a storm, keeping him pinned.

“What the...?!”

Because he was lying prone, trying to keep Dasa safe, it was hard to get a sense of what was going on. All he knew for sure was that this was some kind of attack by Yggdra.

Guns? Are they spraying bullets at me? How did an erdgod...

This world had had no concept of firearms until Yukinari brought it here. Even in the capital, which was relatively more advanced than the frontier regions, there were no explosives suitable for combat use. It was possible someone had thought of the idea of a gun, but as far as Yukinari knew, projectile weapons and artillery were represented, at best, by bows and arrows.

Or was there some genius in Rostruch who had invented this revolutionary weapon?

But I don’t hear any gunshots...

There had been plenty of noise when the bullets bounced off him, but no sound of a major explosion. So how on earth were they firing them? Pressurized gas, maybe. Springs. Or else...

“Hrk...”

His consciousness wavered with the next round of impacts. He had no idea how long his enemies’ ammunition might last, but he wasn’t going to get anywhere at this rate. If he got too dizzy, he might not even be able to protect Dasa.

“Dasa—”

“Yuki?”

“I’m going to make a shield. Stay hidden under it.”

“...Okay.”

Once he had Dasa’s agreement, Yukinari began the process of physical reconstitution. In this form as an armored knight, Yukinari could transform anything that was touching any part of his body. He broke down the earth immediately beneath his knees and elbows, making a half-sphere-shaped shield to cover Dasa.

“There.” After he was sure the chrome molybdenum-steel blockade was in place, Yukinari rolled to one side and grabbed Durandall, which he had cast aside when he first threw himself on Dasa. He jumped up, then darted to the side again. He was banking on the hope that if his opponents were using anything like guns, they wouldn’t be able to aim as quickly as he could move.

But he was shocked as he realized, for the first time, what the “bullets” were that had struck him.

“Is this... a seed?”

Yes. A seed, fired with incredible force.

Flowers had grown up around him and Dasa, flowers so large they confused his sense of distance. They had shed their petals, launching their seeds from swollen fruits.

“Snapweeds?!”

Some flowers spread their seeds by firing them a great distance. Snapweeds are the major example, but several other such species have been confirmed—when the fruit ripens, the difference in cellular pressure inside and outside the skin of the fruit stores up energy, and needs only a slight stimulus to send the seeds flying. They’re essentially natural claymores.

Of course, normal snapweeds can’t cause injury with their seeds, but these plants, caused to grow very quickly by Yggdra, had exceptionally large seeds launched with immense power. They couldn’t get through Yukinari’s armor, but if a barrage of seeds, tens or hundreds of them, were to impact an unarmored person, they would quickly be reduced to a pile of bones.

“Damn overgrown weeds...!”

Yukinari rushed toward the “plant mines” and cut them down one by one. His enemies were not, it turned out, specifically targeting him, but were simply following the natural process for spreading their seeds, something they could only do once—so they had no way to respond to his assault.

But Ulrike waved her branch. “Know that your struggle is futile.” The next second, Yukinari found himself brought to a standstill by a root that burst through the ground and wrapped itself around his leg. More of the plant mines quickly came growing up, ten, then twenty of them surrounding him, ready to annihilate him with their seeds.

“Many a xenobeast and demigod has come to this land to challenge me, but none yet has made me their feast. Neither shall you be an exception, Godslayer. You shall die, and rot, and nourish me.”

Ulrike spoke without pride or ridicule; her tone was sober. No doubt this was how Yggdra’s rule had gone for centuries. As they had seen earlier, even if a xenobeast did manage to reach Yggdra’s body, there was simply nothing it could do to a tree of this size. It would be captured, killed, and turned into nutrients.

“Hrrg...”

A fresh hail of bullets, even more potent than before, struck Yukinari. He used his powers to physically reconstitute the seeds as they slammed into him, but even so, his armor took the better part of the impact, which was transmitted to his body. He felt his “angel” body groaning with the repeated shocks.

“Yuki!” Dasa’s pained shout was accompanied by a gunshot. It had come from Red Chili, which was peeking out from under the shield. Despite being a pistol, the weapon was equipped with a scope for precise aiming, and that shot had been aimed at Ulrike.

Of course, the familiar was essentially a puppet of Yggdra, but it was likely to be she who was directing the aim of the plant mines. If she could be brought down, the attacks might stop, however temporarily—that was presumably Dasa’s thinking.

And indeed, the incoming fire did relent. But...

“I told you, your struggle is futile.”

The bullet had been stopped by a wall of tree roots that burst through the ground. At some point, other familiars had come to stand to either side of Ulrike. She wasn’t the erdgod’s only set of eyes. A plant like Yggdra probably had no blind spot. She could have dozens of eyes if she wanted. Her guard, like a plant’s, was never down. Meaning...

“Godslayer. Silver-haired girl. If you do not struggle, there will be no pain.”

“Shut up and take our divine punishment, huh? Just lie down and die?” Yukinari said, getting to his feet. “Is the big bad weed trying to show a little compassion? Well—”

Just for second, Ulrike cocked her head. She, or perhaps Yggdra, might have noticed something. Noticed that the earth beneath where Yukinari had been lying had changed color, in a wide circle about ten meters in diameter, centered on him. There had been black leaf mold there—and while it was still dark, the color seemed to have averaged out.

“You ever heard of black powder?”

“What?”

“Gotta be honest, this is actually the first time I’ve transmuted so much material. But you were kind enough to just keep shooting ‘ingredients’ at me.”

Nitroglycerin, nitrocellulose, and nitroguanidine. Yukinari had continually broken down the hail of seeds for information in order to produce these substances. And then he had reconstituted the ground directly beneath him.

It appeared to be a ten-meter-wide circle, but the smokeless gunpowder he’d produced went ten meters deep, too. He had essentially planted a gigantic bomb in Yggdra’s mountain.

“Get it yet?” Yukinari fired a single .44 Magnum bullet at Ulrike’s feet. “The logic is the same as that. But think of a scale tens of thousands—maybe millions—of times larger. Lots of noise, a huge shock, and fire. What do you think will happen to this mountain? I know living trees don’t burn easy, but you think you can stand up to a forest fire?”

Yukinari pointed Durandall at his feet.

Ulrike cast a silent, doubtful look at the Magnum bullet.

Yukinari didn’t know how well Yggdra understood things like gunpowder or explosions, but if the erdgod grasped that Yukinari held its life in his hands, that would be enough.

A new and heavy silence sat upon the field.

At length, Ulrike spoke, as though she had had her fill of the stillness. “Why do you not set fire to it, Godslayer?”

“Why do you think?”

Ulrike was quiet another moment, then said, “What are you? You are no human, yet neither are you any god. What are you?”

“You let those priests lead you by the nose—trees don’t even have noses! Godslayer this and Godslayer that. And now you want to know what I am?” There was venom in his words, but inwardly he sighed with relief. It looked like Yggdra was ready to talk.

“It’s true that I killed Friedland’s erdgod. It was just kind of the way things turned out—well, that thing took me for a sacrifice and was going to eat me.” Yukinari spared a glance at the dried-up xenobeasts littering Yggdra’s roots.

“The way things turned out...?”

“Yeah. It’s not my hobby to go around killing erdgods, or my job. I don’t know what the priests from Friedland told you, but... I didn’t come here to kill you. All I want is to establish trade between Rostruch and Friedland. My town lost the blessings of the land, and it’s my fault for killing that god. I thought maybe we could share some of Rostruch’s wealth.”

“...So you claim that you feel no hostility toward Rostruch, or me?”

“Yeah,” he said, but then he narrowed his eyes. “Yggdra, right? You’re cut from a different cloth than the erdgod I killed in Friedland. When we first got here, we saw a parade of sacrifices being brought out to you, so I thought maybe you were some human-eating monster, too...”

“I aver that I consume humans. Those citizens who are offered up to me become part of me,” Ulrike said calmly. The words didn’t seem to mean quite the same thing to Yggdra as they did to Yukinari. Perhaps it was because the erdgod was, ultimately, a plant that its perceptions were slightly askew to human thought.

“Right. And it seemed like bad news, but...” Yukinari thought of the sick man he’d met. “I saw that the people of Rostruch aren’t angry at being offered to you. They actually seem to think it’s a blessing. And those who become offerings are elderly people on the verge of death or the terminally ill. For them, being offered to you must be a kind of salvation. What I’m saying is, things are very different here than in Friedland.”

Ulrike was left silent.

“Look, here’s the question I want to ask. Do you demand these sacrifices? Or do you just accept the dying people who are brought to you? How did you become an erdgod?”

Ulrike kept quiet a moment more, as though in thought.

“My beginning was with this Ulrike.”

Ulrike—or rather, Yggdra, the erdgod to whom she was attached—slowly began to talk.

●

Erdgods, in essence, ruled over certain areas. They formed spiritual bonds with the land that allowed them to exert influence over it. Thus humans came to worship erdgods as beings with the ability to bestow abundance. And the erdgods, with their near-human intelligence, were able to respond to this worship.

But how, ultimately, was an erdgod born? Basically, erdgods possessed and were supported by a high spiritual level. This was the essence of what made them erdgods and unlike other living things. There was a simple way to obtain spiritual level and intelligence: get it from those who already had it. In other words, become a man-eater.

Eat a living human, imbibe the flesh and the soul that gave them their spiritual power and their intelligence. That was the easiest way of all. Thus, for erdgods and xenobeasts, eating humans was less a matter of sustenance than preference. A preference for becoming smarter and stronger.

But when an erdgod had been connected to the land for a very long time, although it would not age or weaken, its spiritual power and intelligence would begin to disperse into the earth. It would become less a living thing and more a feature of the land, like a mountain or river. Put another way, the whole place would become its body, and the erdgod’s consciousness, spread too thin, would slip away.

Erdgods needed spiritual power and intelligence to prevent this from happening. The provision of living sacrifices was a systematic way of obtaining these elements through their contracts with humans.

Sometimes, however, an erdgod was capable of gaining what it needed from something other than humans. Say, demigods or xenobeasts that came into its territory, challenging the erdgod for its position. Then it would be not a man-eater, but a god-eater.

And sometimes, an erdgod might begin when, entirely by accident, a new bud found nutrients in a little girl, and over a vast span of years, became a huge tree and gained sentience.

“Ulrike and I were joined, and I gained intelligence and spiritual capacity. It of course took many long years before I was able to be completely unified with Ulrike.”

And in an even greater happenstance, a nearby town—Rostruch, say—might have a tradition of taking the elderly and the ill who could no longer be cared for to the mountains, where they, too, nurtured this nameless tree, and so it quickly approached godhood.

And when this intelligent tree became known to the people of Rostruch, they asked it to become their erdgod. This tree already had great roots in the earth, its spreading branches already covered the creatures that crawled on the ground, and played nest to the birds that flew in the sky. What should it object to protecting humans as well?

Thus this anonymous tree was given the name Yggdra, and became the god that protected Rostruch.

As we’ve said, erdgods are prone to losing their intellects and spirits, and finally their sense of self. To prevent this, Yggdra accepted those Rostruch left on the mountain. Ultimately, Yggdra was able to use its roots to connect with the brains of Ulrike and the other familiars, and it was all because the erdgod felt no resentment and no revulsion at letting go of those who were near death.

No. The humanity that Yggdra used to speak through Ulrike was something it had gleaned from the sacrifices. A sacrifice was someone Yggdra could add to its collective intelligence, and there was no reason it should object to that.

“I think I get it, more or less,” Yukinari said, raising one hand. The sacrificial systems of Rostruch and Friedland were fundamentally different, as he’d suspected. He couldn’t entirely endorse the idea of offering up living people, no matter how short their time might be or how beyond help they were—but at least this wasn’t a merciless enemy, an evil he had to destroy.

Yukinari had already dispersed his armor and returned to his usual appearance. They were just going to talk, and he knew Yggdra would be more receptive if he put down his weapons.

“So let me ask.” He glanced at Dasa, who was keeping the hammer of Red Chili cocked. “Do you still see me as an enemy?”

But all the same, he kept his finger on Durandall’s trigger. They were talking to an erdgod—a tree, at that. There was no telling how far human logic would go with it. He didn’t want to let down his guard prematurely.

With all the gunpowder at his feet, mistakenly pulling that trigger would be suicide. Dasa was no doubt well aware of the same thing. It wouldn’t necessarily ignite with a single shot, but if they started firing, it would have to be a very grave situation.

“You...” Ulrike cast her eyes at the ground as she spoke, as though she had just thought of something. “Before you thought of your own wounds, before you fought back against me, you protected that girl.”

Behind her glasses, Dasa blinked. Perhaps she had been surprised by Ulrike’s suddenly bringing her into the conversation.

“And you speak of the ‘happiness’ and ‘salvation’ of my offspring. And again, though you say you could burn me to ashes, you did not do so, but first sought to talk. Your words and actions differ somewhat from those demigods and xenobeasts who come seeking only to slay me.”

“...I guess so.”

“I am prepared to recognize that you are not my enemy. I am not versed in the nuances of human interaction. I believe a moment like this may require an apology. Am I wrong?”

“...Erm, well, no, you’re not.”

Yukinari sighed. He was dealing with a god. A giant tree, at that. He didn’t expect such a creature to talk quite normally, but Yggdra was being so roundabout that Yukinari couldn’t tell how the erdgod really felt—or more to the point, whether it was safe to relax.

“At times like that, we just say ‘Sorry.’”

“...‘Sorry,’” Ulrike murmured, as though she were testing out a foreign word she’d heard for the first time. “‘Sorry.’ I recognize this word.”

“Huh?”

“It is in Ulrike’s memory. Yes... ‘I am sorry.’”

Yggdra’s oldest familiar stood muttering for a moment. Then, suddenly, she looked up and said, “Sorry! Bye!” And she laughed. Happily, like a little girl.

Yukinari was startled; it seemed she’d suddenly become a different person. But then she repeated, “Yes, sorry. Bye. I’m sorry,” like a child happy to burble its first words.

“I sense it will be easiest to talk if you are ‘closer’ Ulrike, so this is how I shall proceed. You have no objection?”

As we’ve mentioned, Yggdra’s consciousness seemed to be composed of the collective intelligence of those who had been sacrificed to her. In most cases, the erdgod seemed to work with an “average” of those intellects, but it seemed that, when the need arose, it could bring one particular personality to the fore.

Perhaps these facial expressions, this way of speaking, belonged to the girl Ulrike. She sounded strangely formal or elderly; was it simply because she was several centuries old, or was it the personality of some of the elderly sacrifices mingling with hers? Yukinari didn’t know for certain, but it didn’t matter.

“There’s a lot of things I’d like to talk about now that we’ve cleared up our misunderstanding. That was what I came here for, anyway. I should probably talk to the mayor of Rostruch, but it looks like things would be simpler if I talked to you first. Is that all right?”

“If that shall pass for my apology, I shall certainly speak with you,” Ulrike said with a nod.

Yukinari looked at both her and the massive tree that rose behind her, and then, sighing, held out his right hand. “I guess I can’t really shake hands with Yggdra, so I’ll shake with you, Ulrike.”

“Hm...?”

“Here’s to a bright future for us.”

“Yes, a bright future, my small...” Ulrike cocked her head. “This is new. You are not my offspring. Nor my enemy. Nor a nutrient. What then are you to me?”

“How about we just say friend?”

“...Friend.”

Ulrike tried the word out with a blank look. After a moment, her face shone and she nodded several times.

“Friend. Friend. Yes, it had been so long, I’d nearly forgotten. Though it is within my familiars, it is a concept that I, Yggdra, do not have.”

She still sounded old and formal, but Ulrike seemed to be genuinely pleased, and it made her look adorable.

“Let me speak anew, then. Here’s to a brighter future, my small friend.”

Ulrike took Yukinari’s outstretched hand in her own tiny fingers. He thought her skin felt a bit cold—but soft.

●

The bizarre screech filled the sky above the town.

It was high-pitched, like a bird’s cry—but it spoke human words. It had something of the quality of a ventriloquist’s voice, and someone who didn’t know better might have found it funny. But it belonged to a bird the size of a building, and there was nothing funny about it.

The birdlike demigod circled again and again in the sky over Friedland. It seemed to resent the pain Yukinari had caused it, and it had no intent of leaving until it found him. But Yukinari wasn’t in Friedland at that moment.

They could try to explain this to the giant bird, but there was no telling whether the demigod would understand. After all, it didn’t seem able to tell individual humans apart. It had even mistaken Fiona for Yukinari when she fired at it with Durandall.

The one silver lining was that this demigod seemed, surprisingly, to be weaker than it looked. Its size had suggested that it might just crush the human houses underfoot, but while it showed itself able to scatter some roof tiles and break some tree branches, it simply lacked the strength to destroy the sturdily built brick and stone houses. Perhaps it just had less body weight than first appeared—it was capable of flight, after all.

As long as everyone stayed inside, it didn’t look like anyone was going to get eaten. But then again, as things stood, they were at an impasse.

It was always possible the demigod might get impatient and try to force its way into one of the buildings. Most demigods were composed of a living organism that made up their “core” or nucleus, along with a collection of other animals that had been attracted by the core’s nascent divinity. These other animals were its familiars, and the spiritual link between all of them allowed them to act effectively as a single huge organism. By the same token, however, a demigod could release some of its familiars, on the understanding that it would lose some spirit and intelligence, in order to make itself smaller.

In other words, they couldn’t just stay inside and wait for the threat to pass. They had to call Yukinari back. He was the only one who could fight the demigod.

“Well, gosh, that sounds useful!” Fiona was saying. “You couldn’t have told me a little sooner?”

“Told you?” Arlen shot back. “Could you be any more selfish and arbitrary? As I recall, it was you and the Blue Angel who took all our tools from us to begin with!”

“Lady Fiona, Mr. Lansdowne... You’re both making a bit of a racket...”

The two stopped their bickering. Fiona was leading Berta and Arlen toward the town’s communal storehouse, moving from shadow to shadow so as not to be noticed by the demigod.

The storehouse had been built to hold the village’s crops and everything else they had in common, as well as goods that were bought in bulk from visiting merchants. It had plenty of space, so the weapons and equipment that had been confiscated from the missionary knights had been stored there as well. And according to Arlen, that equipment included something that would allow them to contact Yukinari.

Its original purpose had been to allow communications between the capital and units of the Missionary Order that had been sent to remote regions. In the past, messenger birds had been often used for this purpose, but a bird could always find itself picked off by a predator, including xenobeasts or demigods. So the birds had largely been replaced...

“Okay... We’re here,” Fiona said, leading them up to a back entrance. As soon as they were inside—meaning under a roof and away from immediate danger of being attacked by the demigod—Arlen stretched out his back and took on the haughty attitude Fiona knew so well.

“All right, start looking! We don’t have any time to lose! It’s a wooden box, about yea big, with red and white lettering on the side and—”

“Don’t you order us around!” Fiona said. “Anyway, you’re the one who should be looking!”

“I’ll be trying to find a vial of holy oil!”

They took up shouting at each other as they searched.

“Haven’t you already been in here? When you broke in to steal the weapons and armor?” She was referring to the weapon he had wielded during the fight with the demigod, one of the arms the knights had brought with them when they came to Friedland.

“I told you, Arnold and his sympathizer Bartok did that on their own—we just made use of what they left behind... Those weapons belonged to us in the first place, anyway! What’s wrong with taking back what’s already ours?!”

“You had to give them to Yukinari after he beat you, so they aren’t yours anymore!”

“U-Um, Lady Fiona...”

“What?!”

“I think I found it...” Berta pointed hesitantly to a box that looked just like Arlen had described: made of wood, with the name of the Harris Church written in red and white letters on the side along with the inscription “Messenger Bird.”

“This is it, right?” she asked.

“Right. A mechanical bird—just like the guardian saint, a product of the Church’s unparalleled craftsmen. It’s beyond even the imagining of you country rubes, moving with the help of the Church’s miraculous holy oil—”

“Why do you always have to be so high and mighty?” Fiona demanded, even as she opened the box. And indeed, inside rested a metal bird with a body of struts and cogs, and wings that seemed real. She took it gently in hand; it was lighter than it looked.

“Is this how you control it?” Several tuning forks were in the box with the bird.

“Don’t touch it!” Arlen exclaimed. “It’s delicate!” He grabbed the messenger bird from Fiona.

It appeared the device was controlled through the use of notes, and by attaching small vials of holy oil, one could determine the melody and create a series of actions for the bird to execute. In that respect, it was much the same as the statue of the guardian saint.

“Okay, Schillings, come here.” Arlen finished fiddling with the device and beckoned to Fiona.

“Well, do you want me not to touch it or do you want me to come help you?”

“I don’t want you to touch it. But with this messenger bird, you don’t write your message—you use your voice. You tell it your message, then it’ll go to its destination and repeat it.”

“You use your voice...?”

“Yes. Call the Blue Angel with your voice. It repeats a woman’s voice better. But it can’t remember much, so keep it simple.”

After a long pause, Fiona said, “Okay.” Arlen held the artificial bird out toward her, and Fiona spent a moment collecting her thoughts, deciding what to say. Then she took a deep breath.

●

Riding on Sleipnir, which had been returned to them, Yukinari and Dasa came back to the village of Rostruch—and to their surprise, found the townspeople greeting them en masse, heads bowed respectfully.

“I let them know that our misunderstanding has been resolved,” Ulrike, who had come with them, said with a hint of pride. Apparently, another familiar had been sent to the town to let everyone know that Yukinari and Dasa were not enemies of Yggdra, or of Rostruch.

The familiars acted as Yggdra’s intermediaries, and the erdgod was able to communicate with them from quite a distance. Because the people offered up as living sacrifices became familiars, there was no need for priests to mediate between the people and the god. If anything, the familiars filled that role.

If nothing else, it was certainly nice that the message had spread so quickly.

Yukinari and the others were shown directly to the mayor’s residence and taken to something like a parlor. Yukinari would be explaining for the second time why he had come to Rostruch. If he hadn’t run into the priests, they could have had this conversation long ago.

“Trade, you say?” the mayor asked, looking a bit surprised.

He was a short but broad-shouldered man just entering old age. His square jaw and large nose stood out in an honest-looking face; he seemed like someone who might have been more comfortable hoeing a field than sitting at a desk doing government work.

“It’s true that Rostruch is rather rich in crops,” he said, “but... We’ve had very little contact with the outside world. Forgive me for being blunt, but I’m not sure we have much to gain by trade.”

“I see...”

Certainly, Rostruch, which had the air of a hidden village, looked largely self-sufficient. This was part of what had contributed to its unique culture: not just people’s dress, but the architecture and even the religious rituals.

“I haven’t seen the whole town, so I can’t say for sure,” Yukinari said, watching the mayor closely. “But do you have enough medicine? Are there any doctors here?”

“I’m sorry...?”

“It looks like you guys mostly have traditional treatments...”

Medical science didn’t seem to have developed very far in Rostruch. The man they’d met in the seemingly abandoned building had gone blind because of an illness, and it wasn’t clear if it could have been prevented.

For example, there’s something called nyctalopia, or “night blindness,” which was known as far back as the Edo period in Japan. It’s a condition of the eyes in which vision is more limited than it should be in dark places. Most people’s eyes can get used to the dark, but those with night blindness are unable to do so.

Night blindness was supposed to be caused by a vitamin A deficiency. Folk wisdom in the Edo era held that one could stave off night blindness by eating eel, a common food in Japan and one rich in vitamin A. Did Rostruch have the same kind of knowledge?

This wasn’t the only such connection that could be made. It’s common for deficiencies in diet to develop in isolated societies. The result is illnesses relatively unique to that society, some of which can be fatal. A lack of vitamin A, for example, can lead not just to night blindness, but can stunt children’s growth and produce learning disabilities.

Of course, such problems can be resolved through long years of trial and error. But for better and for worse, Rostruch had the system of living sacrifices to provide relief. It was possible the people of the town had never developed the technologies that might allow them to cling to life.

And another thing...

“When someone is slowly wasting away, that’s one thing. But what about major, sudden injuries, like from a severe accident, or a fast-moving illness? Say the person won’t even last three days. Are there cases like that, where they aren’t in time to receive Yggdra’s salvation?”

“Well...” The mayor looked troubled. It seemed Yukinari was on the mark.

“Dasa was born blind,” Yukinari said, indicating the girl sitting beside him.

This seemed to take both Ulrike and the mayor by surprise.

“...What?”

“But that girl...”

“Yeah. She can see now. I cured her.”

The mayor went silent, studying Dasa. She must have found it a bit awkward, because she turned her head aside ever so slightly and pulled close to Yukinari.

“Now, I can’t cure everything, of course. But this isn’t just about medical science. You guys seem very ready to give up on people here. Maybe we’ve figured out how to solve that in Friedland. I’ll bet if we looked, we could find meaningful knowledge and products that we could exchange.”

He saw almost no tools made of metal in Rostruch. It was always possible that they were using stone tools, not even bronze ones. Metal objects might be very pricey. But for medicine, metal items would be indispensable: tools capable of delicate work, not liable to change shape or lose their edge in humidity or heat. They might not be dealing with surgical scalpels, but even suturing a wound required a needle.

“It’s possible...”

“I know people near death here consider it a joy and an honor to be offered to Yggdra. But if they could live instead, wouldn’t that be even better? And some people endure non-fatal illnesses and injuries. There’s a chance we could help them, too.”

The mayor said nothing, but looked to Ulrike as if to discover what Yggdra thought about this. But the familiar showed no particular reaction. The mayor sighed and said, “I grant that your suggestion is attractive in some ways. But if we do what you’re saying, then... Lord Yggdra’s power...”

He stumbled over his words a bit, but he was right. If the erdgod didn’t keep up its spiritual power and intelligence in some way, its consciousness would gradually spread thin and meld into the surrounding environment. Rostruch’s tradition of giving up its old and weak was not just a way of avoiding trouble, nor was it merely a useless superstition.

Ulrike, who had been silent, opened her mouth. “As to that point, though I know not precisely to what extent, I can maintain myself by eating captured xenobeasts and demigods.”

“But... Lord Yggdra...” The mayor looked distraught; no doubt he thought this wouldn’t be enough to support the erdgod.

Yggdra was a massive plant, and its influence was strong and wide-ranging. Its consciousness might thin out quicker than that of other erdgods.

“When Ulrike and I were first connected,” Ulrike began with a certain seriousness, “her head was full of the wish to see her mother or her father, and how lonely she was without them. She had come to the mountains in the first place because she wished to feed them mushroom soup. Before, when I was only a tree, I did not understand such feelings. But after watching over you, my offspring, for so long, and after being offered many sacrifices, I believe I understand, roughly.”

She gave a gentle smile. She looked like such a young girl, but the smile was almost like that of a mother. “If there is a way for you to survive, try it. The desire to avoid death is common to all living things—to the beasts and the birds, yes, even the grass and the trees. There is no need to defy your own emotions out of consideration for me. When one of you feels they have had their fill of life, then let them come to me.”

Ulrike stretched slightly to pat the mayor on the head. The impression was of a ten-year-old girl comforting her father, or even grandfather, and watching the scene, it was strangely difficult not to smile.

“Lord Yggdra...”

“On that note,” Yukinari said, glancing at Dasa, “it’s possible you might not need living sacrifices at all.”

“...What do you speak of?”

It was Dasa who answered. “Holy... oil. What the Harris Church... uses... for their ‘miracles.’”

“Miracles...?”

“A liquid... produced by alchemy. It can store up heat and power. Including spiritual power. At least... that was its original... purpose.”

Dasa, who had been an assistant to her alchemist sister despite being blind, was in a better position than Yukinari to offer a simple and accurate explanation of this subject.

“At the Great... Cathedral of the True Church of Harris, they circulate... holy oil to capture the spiritual power of the... believers’ prayers. The oil can also be used... to perform various ‘miracles.’”

To the average believer, who knew nothing of any of this, it seemed miraculous that something like the statue of the guardian saint could move. And it was furthermore amazing that the devices were driven by a red liquid that looked like blood.

“Demigods and xenobeasts want to eat humans... eat their brains... because of the wealth of spiritual power there. Spiritual power is the basis of intelligence, and humans have more of it than any other creature. Call us the top of the spiritual food chain. By... using the medium of prayer to gather spiritual power from people, and... holy oil to hold it, it’s possible to store up... spiritual power for use at another time...”

Suddenly, Dasa stopped, blinking as if she had just realized something. “...You understand?”

“Eh, more or less,” Yukinari said with a half-smile. He glanced at the mayor and Ulrike—or rather, Yggdra—who both nodded.

The mayor said, “So... Instead of offering living sacrifices, we could offer our prayers, and then use the holy oil...”

“As a substitute, yes.” Dasa nodded. “As long as we have the ingredients, I can make... holy oil. Yuki can... too. We can also teach... anyone who wants to learn. Though we’ll need... tools.”

The mayor made a sound of wonder.

Tradition is an important link between the present and the past, but keeping to it too slavishly can prevent the introduction of new ideas. Because the system of living sacrifices had never been a real issue over the course of hundreds of years, the people of Rostruch had never considered replacing it with something else.

“We’re not saying you need to change everything right away,” Yukinari said, feeling relieved that things seemed to be going well. “But it might be good to have some options available.”

What types of goods the two towns might trade, including holy oil, was something they would have to work out in more detail. But since Rostruch seemed open to the idea, Friedland stood to become a more prosperous place. Then, maybe the Friedlanders would feel they had enough excess to support the children at the orphanage.

“Now that I think of it,” Ulrike said, “there were those priests and knights from Friedland...”

“...Er...” Yukinari and Dasa were suddenly reminded of the people who had gotten them into this mess to begin with.

“The question remains of what to do with them,” the familiar said. “There is no doubt they deceived me. But they came to Rostruch despite attacks by xenobeasts that ate several of their companions. They must have had a reason for doing so. I cannot say they deserve death, but neither can they be left alone.”

“I suspect—”

Yukinari was about to explain what he thought they were there for when they were interrupted by a sound as loud as thunder:

Yuuuukiiiinaaaaaaariiiiii!

They all jumped at the noise, which called Yukinari’s name from directly overhead.

Heeeellllllllpppp uuuuuussssss!

“Wh-What the hell?!”

“A sound from outside, it would seem.”

“I think it came from over here.” The mayor walked to the window and opened the shutter. Yukinari and Dasa thanked him, then rushed over to look out.

“Yuki, there.” Dasa pointed to the sky. Something white flew through the cloudless blue. It was flapping its wings like a bird, but he had never heard of a bird that could shout “Yukinari, help us!” loudly enough to be heard all over Rostruch. And although the voice had been somewhat distorted—by the volume or the altitude, he wasn’t sure—it had sounded an awful lot like Fiona’s.

The bird, or whatever it was, circled in the sky over the town, repeating “Yukinari”—“help us”—“the demigod from earlier...”

“The demigod? No way...”

She couldn’t mean the four-winged monster. Yukinari had left it on the brink of death, but just as Dasa had said, it didn’t seem to have left any particular impression in that bird-like head. Or maybe it wanted revenge, or a rematch with Yukinari. Whatever the reason, it had attacked Friedland.

He didn’t know how quickly the birdlike object could fly, but it was unlikely that it could transport itself instantaneously from Friedland to Rostruch. That meant a fair amount of time had probably passed since the town had been attacked.

“Right when I leave for a few days...!”

He’d left three Durandalls and about a hundred bullets behind, and while that might have been one thing against a normal land-bound demigod, the short-range pistol rounds Durandall used would be much harder to aim at an enemy that could fly in the sky. All the worse if the person with the gun wasn’t used to shooting. Meaning...

“Damn! It’ll take at least half a day to get back, even on Sleipnir!”

Who knew if Fiona and the others could hold out that long? In the worst-case scenario, it was even possible the demigod had already wreaked havoc on Friedland. People might be dead—dozens, hundreds.

“We’ve got to get home as quick as we can,” Yukinari said, his voice starting to strain with panic. He was about to dash from the mayor’s house when someone took his hand.

“Ulrike...?” It was Yggdra’s familiar who had reached out to him.

“I do not understand exactly what’s going on, but I gather you must return to Friedland with haste, correct?”

“Yeah, I—”

“Then I may be able to lend you my aid.”

“Huh...?” Yukinari furrowed his brow.

What could Ulrike—no, Yggdra—do to help him get back to Friedland faster? Yggdra was a giant tree who couldn’t go anywhere at any speed. And while Ulrike and the other familiars had stupendous mobility, that was all they had.

“Come,” Ulrike said. “I shall explain on the way.”

●

Seeing the thing up close brought home how absurdly large it was. Yggdra was a gigantic tree, and her control extended to almost all the vegetation in the area. If necessary, she could even accelerate the breakdown of cells in order to rebuild plants in another place or in the required shape.

Perhaps what was happening now was an application of that ability.

Two huge trees—smaller than Yggdra, but appearing centuries old nonetheless—shot out thick branches from which dangled a vine large enough to be a rope. And on that rope—no, that vine—all the familiars were pulling.

The familiars had human form, but their strength exceeded that of a person. It was a wonder the branches supporting the vine didn’t break; the vine itself could be heard creaking. It was basically...

“A slingshot? No, more like a bow...”

Even Yukinari was wide-eyed. The apparatus was like a bow, but dozens of times the size of any bow any human had ever used.

“Yes,” said Ulrike, “so it is. But it does not shoot arrows.”

“You mean to launch me out of this thing all the way back to Friedland.”

“I do.” She nodded and smiled. She had the look of a child who had thought up a fun prank—and in fact, if Yggdra was to be believed, this might really be the personality of the girl Ulrike showing through.

“You’ve gotta be nuts...”

“This from the man who thought he would simply blow away a mountain.”

“Well, you’ve got me there.”

Yukinari had already turned the gunpowder under Yggdra’s mountain back into earth. Although given how damp the area was, it probably wouldn’t have exploded even if he’d just left it there.

“The form you assumed in our battle—it had a beautiful set of wings. I don’t suppose they’re only for decoration?”

“I don’t know if I’d call them decoration, but they’re not exactly made for flapping...”

The real purpose of the wings was to help disperse the huge amounts of waste heat that could quickly be generated by physical reconstitution. This was why everything around Yukinari seemed to be enveloped in a haze when he assumed the form of the Bluesteel Blasphemer.

“But you can move them of your own volition.” For gliding, at least, they would probably fit the bill. “That is all you need do. Now, then—Yukinari.”

Ulrike indicated the vine that the other familiars were pulling on. To his surprise, Yukinari saw that the half-globe he had created to protect Dasa was already attached to it. That was what they would use to hold him.

“Young girl. Dasa, is it not?” Ulrike, who herself looked hardly older than ten, turned to Dasa, who stood beside Yukinari. “You should remain here. This will prove dangerous for a normal person.”

“I... won’t,” she replied immediately. This response seemed to flummox even Ulrike.

“H-Hang on a second, Dasa. I know how you feel, but—”

“Yuki.” Dasa held fast to his sleeve and shook her head. “I won’t let you... go alone.”

“But—”

“I’m on your... side, remember.”

Yukinari said nothing.

“I’ll always be... with you.” And then she stretched out her hand and touched his cheek. “I’ll go... anywhere with you. Otherwise, I... can’t be there for you, Yuki.”

“......All right.” He heaved a sigh, gave a small shrug. “She can be pretty stubborn. And I don’t have time to try to talk her out of it right now. I’ll take responsibility for whatever happens—so send the two of us together.”

“So I shall. Only be careful not to drop your cherished ally.”

“Sure thing.”

Ulrike nodded, and Yukinari focused his consciousness. A bluish-white light enveloped him, melding with the black that rose up to cover him. Soon his body was encased in blue and black armor, and then his wings emerged, looking like they were made of pieces of glass.

“Here goes.” Yukinari took Dasa in his arms and then climbed into the half-globe. Dasa, for her part, wrapped her arms around his neck. And then...

“Fire.”

There was no countdown, just that single word. The next instant, the familiars let go all at once, the vine propelling Yukinari and Dasa into the air with tremendous force.

Yukinari’s vision dimmed, presumably the result of all the fluids in his body—especially his head—being forced into his lower body by the acceleration. He was blacking out—or in this case, graying out. It was the sort of thing fighter pilots experienced at 3 or 4 g.

“Hrgg... gg...” In his arms, Dasa groaned with the pain of it. He couldn’t blame her—Dasa had never so much as ridden in an airplane, let alone been flung through the sky. They had no windscreen, and in fact, they were very lucky they hadn’t fainted clean away.

It’s all right. We’re all right...

He couldn’t say the words as they flew, so he hugged Dasa tighter instead.

And then, when he judged they had gone as high as they could, Yukinari spread his angel wings. Man-made wings that sparkled in the sunlight as he drifted on the wind. He and Dasa danced through the air; they could see everything spread out below them. Yukinari caught a tailwind and steered them toward Friedland. He did everything he could to control their descent, his wings jingling and groaning.

“...We’re going to make it.” He hugged Dasa tighter still as the conviction welled up within him. The Bluesteel Blasphemer glided through the sky, heading for where Friedland waited to be rescued.

●

There was a screech, and the wall of the building caved in. The birdlike demigod had finally gotten tired of waiting. Enraged at being unable to find Yukinari, it began attacking any structure within reach.

As strong as it was, its birdlike body was light, meaning the demigod didn’t have the power to destroy the sturdy brick and stone buildings. But wooden doors and shutters were vulnerable, especially around their hinges. The demigod seemed to have figured this out.

It stuck its head into a broken window. “Brains! GIVE ME your brains! I shall eAt thEM, and grOw stroNger...!”

The townspeople had followed Fiona’s evacuation order. They’d thought they were safe inside the buildings. Now they screamed and fled to inner rooms. The giant beak pecked away, seeming large enough to swallow a child whole, and all anyone could do was tremble at the sparks.

And then...

“Brains! Braaains, slurp slurp! EaT ThEM, groW smaRTer...!”

Suddenly, the silhouette of the face in the window seemed to shudder, and then several more monstrous birds, considerably smaller than the demigod, sprang from its head. They ranged from hawks and falcons, large birds of prey, to smaller avians—with a shiver, they separated from the demigod’s head and entered the room.

Familiars.

A demigod’s body was formed from a core whose divinity attracted other creatures, which then became spiritually bound to it. It was like a whole flock moving as a single organism. If it wanted, the demigod could command its familiars as if they were arms or legs.

In a panic, the townspeople tried to shut their doors and go farther into their houses, but even interiors were no longer really safe. Houses or shops with basements might still manage, but hiding in a wooden shed would be no use. Not with the demigod breaking off pieces of itself, sending its familiars through doors and windows and cracks in walls.

“Over here...!”

Berta had been slow to run. Or more precisely, she had been gathering up the orphans, who had been wandering around with no idea where to go, and now they were crouching in a half-wrecked shed. It was only a matter of time.

Just across the way, she could see a tough-looking brick storehouse. On the floor just past the entrance was a way into the basement. If they could just get over there, they would be saved—probably. But she could also see the demigod’s familiars coming toward them.

By herself, she might have made it, but running with two or three of her “little sisters” in tow would be impossible.

“Big Sis Berta, I’m so scared...”

She patted the little girl who clung to her on the back. “It’s all right. I’ll stay with you.”

“Are we going to be eaten? Is that bird gonna eat us?”

“That’s not the honored erdgod, is it?”

Berta bit her lip. The girls at the orphanage had been indoctrinated by the priests to believe that being offered to the erdgod was an honor, so they had comparatively little fear of being eaten by the deity. But by the same token, this meant that if some other creature got to them first, it could undo their whole reason for living.

“Big Sis Berta...”

The time for assurances had passed. The demigod and its familiars would notice them soon. Berta had fled here in such a hurry that she had left behind the Durandall Yukinari had given her. Not that she would have really known how to use it if she’d had it.

In the end, she was just a helpless little girl. Still no use to anyone. Still not fit for anything but to be eaten by a god.

In that case...

“Listen.” Berta pried the girls off her one by one and looked each of them in the face. “You see the brick building over there? When I say ‘run,’ you run to it as fast as you can. There’s a big square door just inside, kind of a lid. Open it, and go in. If you fall, don’t cry, just get up and keep running. You understand? Can you do that?”

None of the girls said anything, but as Berta looked at each of them, they nodded at her with fearful faces.

“Okay, then. Here we go.”

Berta stepped away from her little sisters and looked down the street from the shadows of the rubble. There was the demigod, many of its familiars alongside, heading right for them.

“Run!”

As she shouted the order, Berta began walking toward the demigod and its pack of familiars. She held her arms out so they could see her clearly, as if to say, Here I am!

If she deliberately went to the demigod, it would eat her first; that would buy them some time.

Or so she’d thought.

To Berta’s astonishment, several of the familiars flew past her at high speed.

“Wait! Huh...?”

Before she could stop herself, Berta spun around to see where the creatures were going, and she realized her own stupidity.

The girls were running, just as she’d told them to do. One fell down, but instead of crying, she got up again. But the motion had actually drawn the attention of the sharp-eyed demigod and its familiars.

Birds can catch bugs in their beaks in midair, or pick out prey on the ground while flying at high speed. When it comes to spotting moving objects, their vision is vastly superior to a human’s. If something attempts to run away, a bird will go for it almost instinctively.

“No...! Stop...!”

Several of the familiars were homing in on the girl who had fallen. Even at a run, Berta wouldn’t reach her in time.

At the same moment, she heard the demigod screeching behind her. “Grey matter! I shAll sip sip sip iT!”

The whole area was thrown into shadow. She realized she was directly beneath the demigod.

There was no hope anymore. Not for her sisters. Not for her.

But just as Berta was about to give in to despair...

A gunshot.

“You moron! Run already!”

There was Fiona, leaning halfway out of the open door of the storehouse, brandishing Durandall.

Of course, she had had no more training with the weapon than Berta; her chances of hitting the flying demigod or its familiars were vanishingly small. Fiona worked the lever and fired again, but there was no sign that she’d hit anything.

“Screee?!”

“Gyaaa!”

But the quailing of the familiars was obvious even to Berta. They remembered. They remembered the pain Yukinari’s gun had inflicted on them when they had been part of the demigod’s body. The familiars knew that when the humans used that thunderclap-loud device, they could be hurt.

And then—

“You all truly are useless, aren’t you!”

To Berta’s surprise, Arlen came jumping out past Fiona. He wore no armor and carried no spear, but instead he, too, had a Durandall in hand. He dashed for Berta’s little sisters.

“You little country shits are trouble! Did you even think about what would happen when you ran out here?!”

Berta watched, amazed, as he all but flung them into the storehouse. He didn’t exactly throw them so much as sort of slide them, but what Berta saw was her little sisters giving a shout as they bounced once and then rolled into the storehouse.

Knights were used to wearing full body armor and carrying long spears and heavy shields; it wasn’t a difficult matter for one of them to pitch a few undernourished little girls into a doorway.

“I, Arlen Lansdowne, a knight of the Missionary Order, will be more than a match for some familiars!”

He leaped at the enemies, using Durandall to cut them down. “Don’t just stand there, girl!” he shouted. “Run!”

“Berta!”

Arlen’s and Fiona’s voices brought her back to herself.

“Brains!”

But as she made to run, Berta was thrown to the ground by a powerful gust of wind that struck her on the back. The demigod above must have given one great flap of its wings.

“Ow...”

She landed faceup, staring into the sky. A massive body hung above her, like a lid over the heavens. Slowly, so slowly, it descended. Several familiars surrounded it. The massive talons that were its weapons stretched toward Berta’s head...

“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!”

The next second, Berta couldn’t see the demigod anymore. A trailing scream cast it out of the way.

“...Huh?” she asked dumbly.

It wasn’t only the demigod she’d lost track of; its familiars were also flopping around on the ground. Perhaps things that happened to the main body had an effect on the familiars as well.

The demigod let out a bellow of rage. “Graaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!” It tumbled through the air as if it had been struck with a giant steel staff, colliding with a nearby building. The demigod wobbled back through the sky, shedding feathers, blood, and the bodies of destroyed familiars.

“L... Lord Y-Yukinari...?”

She could see him on the demigod’s back. A weird knight in blue and black armor, with wings of dark crystal.

The one she worshipped. Friedland’s protector god.

“The Blue Angel...!”

“Yukinari!”

Arlen and Fiona sounded as surprised as Berta.

They could make out Dasa up there with Yukinari atop the demigod. The two of them had something like a dark-gray rope, which they had wrapped around the demigod’s huge body and were twisting tight.

“Graaaaahhhhhh!”

The demigod struggled, trying to throw off Yukinari and Dasa, but they held tight to the rope and were never in danger of falling off. Instead, there was another roar from their guns, and more blood and feathers and familiars fell from the monster.

“Lord Yukinari is—!”

“The honored erdgod has returned!”

Perhaps drawn by the demigod’s scream, people were looking out from doors and windows. Several missionaries also appeared, weapons in hand. They had known they couldn’t stand against the demigod, but the familiars that came plummeting down? Those they could handle.

“Stay alert, one blow could be the end of you!”

“As if a few familiars could—!”

The knights had come to Friedland as invaders, but just as Arlen had said, they were always enemies of erdgods, demigods, and xenobeasts. The people of Friedland were potential converts, future believers. It was practically the knights’ duty to fight in this battle.

“Lord Yukinari...!”

Berta sat up, looking at the savior who had single-handedly turned the tide. How many times had he now saved her when she had been on the cusp of death?

“Oh...”

How foolish she was. She belonged to Yukinari, and yet she had been about to offer herself up to the demigod of her own volition. Yes, she had been trying to save her little sisters from the orphanage. But didn’t it also show her failure to trust Yukinari? She should have had faith, to the last moment, that he would arrive and save them. She was his, a shrine maiden whose first duty was to serve him.

“My... Our... god.”

A fate too awful for humans to bear is called despair. And one who can lift humans out of despair, they call a god.

Hope is the light that cuts through the frozen darkness of wretchedness.

The black and blue armor, almost dizzying to behold, looked to Berta like the shining of hope itself.

●

“You sonuva—!” Yukinari pulled hard on the wire as he fired Durandall. “This time I’m gonna turn you into roast chicken for real, so just—die—already!”

But the unsteady footing meant his bullets had no hope of reaching the core, the kill shot. Yukinari, still holding Dasa under his left arm, bounced on the demigod’s back like he was at some sort of otherworldly rodeo.

“Dasa, are you okay?”

“I’m o...kay...!”

After Yggdra had launched them into the air, they’d flown clear to Friedland, where Yukinari had spotted the demigod attacking the town and delivered a body blow on the way down. Once it had figured out that it only needed two wings to control its position in the air, the demigod seemed to get distracted by something on the ground.

Yukinari also succeeded at using physical reconstitution to create the metal wire. But that was when the problems started.

“Where’s its core? It’s not in its head...!”

During their previous battle, Yukinari had worked on the assumption that the core was located in the demigod’s head, but that had clearly been a mistake. That was how the creature had escaped right when he’d thought it was dead.

The demigod was also unmistakably larger than before. Presumably, after it had fled, it had attacked humans, or at least other demigods and xenobeasts, increasing its spiritual power and attracting more birds and animals as familiars. It was possible that someone somewhere had become its victim, all because Yukinari failed to finish it off last time.

All the more reason to find the core now.

But where was it? Even Durandall lacked the power to pierce all the way through the massive body, and a “cannon” like the one he had used against the statue of the guardian saint would be for nothing if he mistook the location of the crucial shot. He didn’t have it in him to make more than one of something that large in quick succession.

“Maybe I could use physical reconstitution to break up its body a bit?”

“Yuki—don’t get distracted,” Dasa said, firing Red Chili repeatedly from where he held her under his arm. Her shots took down a familiar that had detached itself from the demigod’s body and tried to attack them.

“I know that!” He used Durandall to cut down an attacker here, shoot one there. But he still couldn’t figure out where his real goal, the core, was. Of course, it wasn’t impossible to just go on chipping away at the demigod’s body like this...

“Gyyyahhhh!”

The monster howled with frustration. It seemed to be starting to panic at its inability to shake off its tormentors.

“YoU! yOu! ImpERTinenT earth-CrawlErs!”

“Strong words from a birdbrain like you,” Yukinari said, giving the wire another tug. “You lost the minute we got this wire on you. You can’t fly away, and with your body, you can’t exactly reach up to scratch where it itches, can you? You’ll never get rid of us.”

“Graahh...” The demigod gave a low moan, and in the next instant:

“YOU daMNable fools!!”

The wire sank deep into the massive body. It hadn’t bitten into the flesh—it was being passed through.

“Yuki...!”

Yukinari didn’t reply; he and Dasa were thrown through the air.

The demigod had been able to pass the wire through its body by temporarily detaching familiars from itself and turning them back into a flock of birds. Perhaps it had gotten the idea when Yukinari had said “get rid of us.” Whatever bizarre forms they might take, gods were gods; they were more intelligent than regular birds and animals.

“Fall To Your Doom!” the demigod—or rather, the flock of strange birds—cackled in midair.

It was only an instant later that a gunshot rang out in the direction of the flock.

“I knew you were a birdbrain,” Yukinari laughed as he plummeted down. “Revealing your own weak point!”

Shocked, the demigod rushed to recompose itself, but Dasa fired one round after another from Red Chili, taking down members of its flock. Finally, the core in the center of the great mass was visible. Yukinari pointed Durandall at it, and the weapon belched flame.

“Graaahh...!”

The core bird took a direct hit from a .44 Magnum bullet and plunged out of the sky.

“Hrk!”

In contrast, Yukinari opened his wings to blunt the speed of their descent. Even with Dasa in his arms, he somehow managed to land on his feet. The impact produced a crater almost two meters deep, but miraculously didn’t break his legs.

“...Gah!” he gasped. “Ten meters is a long drop, even with a reinforced body.” He let Dasa down and rose up.

He had used his wings to kill their downward velocity, but of course, this was only possible because he was in the form of the Bluesteel Blasphemer. If this had happened to any normal person, even if they had managed to land on their feet, every bone in their lower body would have been instantly vaporized.

“Graahh...”

A lone crow lay on the ground just in front of Yukinari. This must have been the core of that demigod. It looked basically like any other crow, but its eyes were too large, more like those of a human, and its beak looked almost like a pair of lips. Its head was a disturbing shape, like a half-formed human cranium.

“Here I thought you’d be a bird of prey,” Yukinari said, hefting Durandall. “But you’re just some crow. Enjoyed yourself in my garden? Well, the fun’s over now.”

“Grah!”

The first gunshot had entirely broken its spiritual connection with its familiars—all the other birds had returned to their normal bodies and scattered, making no effort to protect the core.

“See you in hell,” Yukinari said, and pulled the trigger.

Explosive gases propelled the bullet—a soft-point hunting round—down the barrel. The .44 Magnum round entered the body of the bizarre bird faster than the speed of sound, and all that kinetic energy had nowhere to go but through the creature’s flesh. The core was sent flying, torn clean in two, leaving only a cloud of black feathers.

“They say crows are smart,” Yukinari muttered, “but I guess when they get too smart, they turn ugly.” Then he and Dasa looked over their shoulders.

Berta and Fiona had come running up and were there. Behind them, the townspeople were looking at Yukinari in a sort of befuddled astonishment. He saw Arlen and some of the other knights, too, carrying weapons.

As far as he could see, there were no dead townspeople around. Small blessings.

“Oh...!”

“Lord Yukinari...”

Some who saw him fell to their knees in prayer. Others raised shouts of acclamation. Still others simply wept to know they were alive. Everyone had a different reaction.

“I... I guess we made it in time, huh?”

“...Mn.”

That single syllable, a sigh, and a nod were Dasa’s answer.