Chapter 172

[…The form of [Origin Mana: Abyss] changes from {[Bonding]}(#6t2yi41xqt2r) to [Restoration].]

Mikhail let out a groan, lying where he'd fallen.

By the time the message before his eyes dissolved into scattering motes, the gnawing scratch that had blanketed his consciousness had also gone completely still.

"……"

Yet what arrived in its place wasn't total calm. Rising like a tide into the space left by the nerve-grating noise was a sound he'd unmistakably heard before.

It's… crying again.

Mikhail blinked inside the empty wagon.

The image taking shape on its own across his dazed mind was the form of a whale gliding through deep ocean.

The creature he'd encountered twice… no, maybe three times now.

The whale drifted through a seabed like a night sky. Its wing-shaped fins sweeping the water, it sounded a horn-like call.

Wooo─. Wooooo─.

Layered atop the resonance was the feel of hard wooden boards.

Mikhail, sprawled in every direction, turned his head to the side.

What came into view was his own fingertips. Drained of color, limp and lifeless.

"……"

Mikhail furrowed his brow. He pictured the whale's fins moving up and down, then put strength into his hand.

Twitch.

His fingertips creaked like rusted parts, but they moved as he willed them.

Mikhail moved his arm the same way, gathered every bit of strength into his upper body, and barely managed to pull himself up.

"Ngh."

Each time he moved, an encouraging cry hummed back at him like an echo.

Mikhail brought his hand up to cover his unfocused eyes and parted his dry lips.

"Stop… crying. My head hurts."

Wooooong─.

Mikhail held still for a moment. But before long, he let the hand drop from his eyes and tipped his head back toward the empty air, muttering.

"I know. My head hurts… don't talk to me."

His voice cut through nothing but vacant air.

If anyone had caught the sight, calling him a madman wouldn't have been out of line.

But Mikhail didn't seem aware of his own state. He blinked his hollow eyes and continued.

"Yeah, I know…. You're not trying to give me a hard time. I know that. But it hurts, all right…."

Mikhail finally stopped speaking. Mouth closed, he pulled his knees up, drew them in, and buried his face.

The truth was, the longer the conversation went on, the harder it got. The dark blue sea… no, the mana was pouring endlessly into his veins.

It was too much to carry. He really had reached his limit….

Grrrrr.

A sharp growl brushed his ear. Mikhail moved his head and turned his eyes toward outside.

A sound signaling an actual threat. The moment it lodged in his mind, his sinking consciousness began to float back up bit by bit.

"─Please, snap out of it! Hey! All of you!"

What he heard next was Sally's shout. Mikhail took the tearing cry into his ears and pulled his knees up.

The goal he'd nearly forgotten was hazily coming back to him.

What he'd resolved to do after pushing the dark purple mana out. The promise he'd made to the people in danger….

Right. I was going to save them. Those people….

As the whale's cry slowly faded, Mikhail shook his head and forced down the welling mana.

He stood, his whole body swaying like it might collapse at any moment, and stepped toward the outside of the wagon.

---

─Damn it all!

It was on the mountain road, blanketed in faint mist. Sally muttered curses under his breath as he swung his club.

Crack!

The magical beast that had lunged within arm's reach of him went sailing the other way, scattering shards of gold.

Sally pulled in ragged breaths and steadied his trembling arms. He tightened his grip on the weapon.

Damn it. Why did this go sideways so suddenly?

Until just a little while ago, things had been going well enough. People were shaken and scared, but they'd been holding their own against the sudden attack.

But after the blue smoke started spreading… things began to drift in a strange direction.

Arms and legs grew heavy as if weighted with sandbags. The ones complaining of headaches slowly lost their speech and their wits.

And in the middle of all that, why am I the only one still fine?

The breath crossing his tongue tasted bitter. Sally couldn't hide the unease as he bit his lip, then looked around and raised his voice.

"Everybody, pull it together! How long are you going to just stand there? Can't you see the magical beasts piling up? You'll get hurt!"

"……"

"Please, snap out of it! Hey! All of you!"

A few of the people nearby twitched their shoulders, as if responding to the shout. But that was it.

Whoosh.

Everyone moved again in the same dull rhythm. Their arms swung sideways, listlessly batting away the magical beasts that lunged in.

Only blank expressions hung across their faces.

It wouldn't have been strange if casualties broke out at any moment, in any form, or if their formation collapsed entirely.

Sally stared at the profile of the laborer who'd tossed those cutting words at Maxwell and muttered.

"Please… hey. Can't you hear me? Snap out of it."

It was a plea that wouldn't reach anyone. The laborer was just moving in a daze.

"……"

Sally let his head drop in the end. His unsteady gaze moved next to the road stretching out of the mountain range.

Hadn't they said reinforcements were coming? He'd heard the escort mention that they'd sent the call for help. So surely.

Surely….

What he saw was empty air. Not a single sign of anyone—not even the sound of hooves striking the ground.

"Hh… hhh."

A dry laugh slipped out of Sally. But he soon clenched his fist and swallowed the breath, glared wide-eyed at the snarling magical beasts, and let out a roar.

"Come on, you bastards! Come at me! Let's settle this—either you go down first or I do…!"

Tap.

The presence came from behind, not in front. Sally flinched, cut off his shout, and turned around.

The slow-seeming traveling companion, the boy. He was stepping down from the wagon with his head hanging low.

"Maxwell?"

When Sally called his name, Maxwell trembled and raised a hand to cover his face.

Sally hurried over to the staggering boy and grabbed him by the forearm.

"Hey, kid. Why'd you come out here? Go back in. Now. At least you've got to stay—"

"Sally."

Sally stopped mid-sentence. Was it because the body heat against his fingertips felt unreal in how cold it was? Or because the voice in his ear carried a different cadence than before?

An unease he couldn't place gripped Sally's whole body. At the edge of his vision, as he looked down at Maxwell, he caught sight of black ash drifting through the air.

"I… I… can't… control… my ability."

"What? Ability? What are you even—"

"So… I have a favor… to ask you. Ju-just one… just one."

Sally slowly released Maxwell's arm. Instead of trying to hold the boy up, he stood and faced him squarely.

At that, Maxwell… no, the boy in front of him, fumbled out a shaking hand and grabbed Sally's sleeve.

Sally looked at the fingers crumpling against his sleeve as though pleading. Then he answered in a low, settled voice.

"Yeah. Go on."

"Shout it out… if they want to live… get down. Then you… get down too, right away."

Sally nodded. The sudden instruction wasn't without its strangeness. But his instinct told him, just for this moment, listening to Maxwell was the right call.

"Got it. Now?"

"…Yes."

Instead of saying he understood, Sally pushed the boy's hand off his sleeve.

The boy let his shoulders drop and walked forward.

He moved toward the front, where the faint smell of blood mingled with sharpened growls.

"……"

Sally stared at the boy's retreating back and swallowed.

Then he drove a breath down to the bottom of his chest and let it explode out of him at full force.

"If you want to live—! Get down—!"

The ringing shout shook the air. The instant Sally hurled himself forward along with the words, the people around him went down all at once.

The wounded, those still squared off—every last one.

Sally winced as he sucked in dust. His cheek and elbow stung where they'd scraped against the dirt….

"!"

A spine-chilling cold shot up his back. Sally lifted his head and tracked the source of the sensation.

Among the crouched figures, one boy stood alone.

The boy stood completely defenseless, facing dozens of magical beasts charging in.

"Max─!"

Sally started to shout in alarm, then froze. Across his wide-open pupils, an impossible scene was being etched.

Crack!

In a heartbeat. Diagonal lines, each about the length of a palm, were being inscribed across the air like falling rain.

Diagonal lines—dozens of them, easily.

The slashes that had appeared in an instant began to spread apart, like wounds opening.

"Haaa…."

White breath rose from the boy's mouth, and a black aura began pressing slowly through the opened gaps.

The black, welling up like droplets of blood, soon took shape as sharp crystals of ice.

Whrrrrr─.

The air rang with resonance and trembled. The black shards sliced through the wind and shot outward in every direction. Their keen points pierced the bodies of the magical beasts all at once.

Thuk─!

There wasn't even a brief cry. The magical beasts struck through with the wounds had their breath cut off in a single instant and crumbled away into ash.

The gold shards that should have dropped to the ground in the wake of their deaths didn't remain either. Vanished without a trace.

Then what was left on the now-quiet mountain road was a single thread of dry wind.

The lingering mist was carried off by the breeze and gone.

"Haaa… hh."

The silence stretched as deep as a night sky. Sally stared at the back struggling to force its uneven breathing into rhythm, his expression slack with disbelief.

The boy with dark blue hair, standing a few paces away.

He had been Maxwell only a few dozen minutes ago—the boy who'd felt like a little brother to Sally.

A clumsy companion, but not a bad one.

He couldn't see him that way now.

The figure across from him wasn't a companion he needed to look after. Even less was he some dim-witted laborer boy.

Beyond the unknown power he'd just used, even the atmosphere coming off him head-on felt different.

So who, exactly, had Sally been facing all this time….

"…Haah."

That was when it happened. The boy, who'd forced his breathing under control, raised a hand to cover his face, then turned and met his eyes.

Behind a remarkably pale complexion, there wasn't a trace of the clumsiness or slowness he'd shown during their travels.

Even the trembling he'd displayed only moments ago was slowly settling.

"……"

Sally pulled his upper body back at the abrupt sense of distance, then let out a deep breath and asked the boy.

"Your name. It's not really Maxwell, is it?"

The boy held Sally's gaze for a moment, then lowered his eyes and nodded slowly.

"No."

"And the part about it being hard to find work?"

"That was… a lie."

"What about the story of the sick sister?"

"That… no, that too… was a lie."

The more the dry exchange went on, the more the boy's voice shrank inward, stumbling along.

But this voice too… was clearly different from the way Maxwell had spoken.

Sally stood there silently and looked at the boy across from him.

Then he pressed an unsteady breath deep into his chest and closed his eyes.

"Then. I'm supposed to…."

Weight pressed down on the words he was bringing out. Sally clenched the hand at his side once, then opened his eyes and gave the boy a small smile.

"What am I supposed to call the person who saved my life."

The dark blue eyes fixed on Sally went wide.

The boy let out a startled breath and stared straight ahead, then dropped his head and moved his lips.

"…I am. My name."

A brief moment passed. The boy who'd been standing still walked unsteadily forward and came up close to Sally.

"……"

From somewhere far off, the sound of hoofbeats came drifting closer.

But Sally didn't rush him. He just watched.

The boy drew a low, deep breath, then slowly lowered the hand covering his face and lifted his head.

Hm?

Sally blinked his wide eyes and tilted his head slightly. If you were looking for a resemblance to the Maxwell of moments ago, sure, there was something there, but the face in front of him couldn't really be called similar. In the good sense, of course.

"Well, look at that. What is this? That disguise was airtight."

When Sally rolled his shoulders and tossed it off lightly, the boy stopped studying his expression and let a faint smile rise to his lips.

Then he extended a hand. The gesture seemed half-apologetic, half-sheepish—an offer of a handshake.

Sally clasped the hand without hesitation. The boy cleared his voice and spoke.

"Sorry for the late introduction. My name is Mikhail Senit. It's an honor to meet you, Mr. Sally Argo."