Chapter 11: Where the Miracle of Life Squirms Free

Chapter 11:
Where the Miracle of Life Squirms Free

 

THE GROUP LEFT the capital at the very crack of dawn the next day, traces of night still lingering in the sky, and arrived at the forest four hours later. They spent a while going up and down the tree line, looking for a path where a carriage could pass.

“They’re faint, but I think I see some wheel tracks over there,” their driver finally said. “It’ll be a tight fit but doable.”

Welcy was fulsome in her praise. “Good job, Rent! You’re the best driver out there!”

Though he was technically employed by a carriage company, he was one of Welcy’s coworkers. Carriages were widely-used in the capital, including by the royal family and high-ranking members of the clergy, making there few better places to gather information than from a cabbie’s seat. It was Rent who had uncovered where Satils’ carts had been heading.

“Whoa, it’s getting buummmpy!” Ink’s voice shook as she rattled along with the carriage.

Obviously, no one bothered to pave a lone forest path, making for an incredibly rocky ride. The only saving grace was that no one in the cart succumbed to motion sickness.

“Bleeeugh!”

Except, that was, for Welcy.

After traveling a little further, the ground finally smoothed out.

“Huh, it looks like the rest of the way’s much better taken care of. It’s far from a paved road, but it’s well worn.”

“Seems like they tried to camouflage the entrance.”

“Curiouser and curiouser.”

Flum was almost certain there was a research facility nearby—meaning they could be subject to attack at any moment. But even after pressing on for another twenty minutes, she noticed no appreciable change.

“Don’t be so tense,” Eterna said.

“What makes you say that?”

“I didn’t get the sense Dafydd was looking for a fight. Even when I didn’t show up for our meeting yesterday, he didn’t bother to come looking for me. It’s possible team Necromancy has little in the way of combat power.”

“So, no undead army?”

“Might be wishful thinking, I suppose.”

“If it means Gadhio’s safe and sound, I’m down with that.”

Flum had prayed Gadhio would return before they left.

Life hardly goes the way we want it to. Now we’re missing him and Sara…

As the carriage continued deeper into the forest, Flum’s mind went back to her missing friend. She knew Sara was with Neigass, but was she really safe and sound?

She heard a sound up ahead. “Huh?”

Rent seemed to have picked up on something from the driver’s seat. “There are tracks up ahead, but they definitely aren’t from horses.”

“Some kind of wild animals?”

“No, this is way bigger than that. Must be some kind of monster.”

Even assuming none of the spiral creatures were about, they risked being attacked by other, normal but still dangerous woodland creatures. There were untold perils in this forest—of that much Flum was certain.

Ink spoke up a few moments later. “I hear footsteps.”

Everyone else could only hear the rattling of the carriage wheels.

“What direction are they coming from, Ink?”

“Back and to the right. They’re closing in fast. I hear two feet, like a human, but bigger.”

Eterna couldn’t see anything from the carriage window, but when she closed her eyes and focused in on her hearing, she could hear the footsteps. Just like Ink said, they were heavy and intimidating.

“Could it be…”

Flum had heard something like this before.

The sound reminded her of the spiral ogre under Anichidey.

A few moments later, her premonition turned out to be right on the mark. From Eterna’s window, she could see a dead ringer for the beast from Flum’s story. Blood spattered in all directions as the whorl of exposed flesh and muscle spasmed. Its fist was already up in the air.

“Get down!”

No sooner had the words left Eterna’s mouth than a powerful tornado made contact with the carriage. The trunk was nearly completely blown away, the rear quarter of the carriage reduced to splinters on contact.

“Hey, calm down… It’s okay, it’s okay!” Rent was doing his best to calm the horses.

“That’s one of those spiral creatures?” This was the first time Milkit had seen one. The blood drained from her face.

“Just the sight’s enough to turn your blood to ice…” As Welcy spoke, she hurriedly scribbled down a record of the events using her burn projection.

Flum drew her Souleater and leveled the blade at the oncoming enemy. She cast Scan.

 

Chimera Prototype: O

Affinity: Earth

Strength: 2552

Magic: 584

Endurance: 2831

Agility: 1259

Perception: 499

 

So this ogre is different from the other one. They may look the same, but this one’s core has been suppressed to keep its power from getting out of hand.

Which could only mean someone had intentionally sent it after them. What’s more, its name suggested it was team Chimera’s and had nothing to do with team Necromancy.

I’ve gotta say, they really outdid themselves, lining up a copy of the creature Sara and I fought before. Its face is an absolute wreck, too. But…

She decided to put aside Dafydd’s potential involvement for the moment. What was most important was stopping this thing before it unleashed another attack.

“Don’t write me off as the same weak girl I was before! Prana Sting!!”

FWOOOSH! All of her prana coalesced at the tip of her blade before lancing outward.

The ogre shot a spiral blast from its fist at exactly the same time. What the attack lacked in grace, it made up for in power.

The two blasts slammed into each other in midair, though the ogre’s attack was no match for Flum’s reversal-powered spear. It pierced straight through the spiral and right into the ogre’s core. The beast collapsed to the forest floor like a puppet with its strings cut.

Milkit cried out almost immediately after the ogre dropped. “There’s another one coming up behind us!”

“Another one?!” Flum turned too late, seeing the second ogre punching its fist into the air over and over.

“Ice Shield!”

Eterna came to the rescue. Her shield blocked the blows from hitting Flum—though only just. Ice cracked and splintered as the spiral energy chipped away at it, but her magic was more than enough to handle it.

“Water Shot!”

Standing behind the safety of her ice shield—and out of sight of the oncoming ogre—Eterna let off a volley of bullets at the enemy that spat through the ice shield and found their mark in the ogre’s head and limbs. Pwah pwah pwah! Each bullet tore a hole in the oncoming creature and sent it crashing to the ground.

“Looks like we can kill them even without destroying their cores.”

“There are still more…and a huge group of them this time, too!”

“What a pain…”

A pack of ogres approached from the carriage’s rear. Their heavy footfalls shook the ground beneath them and carried up through their bodies, reminding Flum of a wild stampede.

“Good luck! We’re counting on you!” Rent urged the horses into a full gallop, but the ogres were still gaining on them.

“Whatta scoop! Pity this image isn’t really suitable for print…”

“I’ve never seen anything like this before…”

Both Welcy and Milkit were stunned at the horrifying scene playing out before them. The pack of ogres ran with unnatural agility—backs straight, knees lunging high with each step, and arms swaying in perfect time at their sides. The bloody messes of their faces wriggled, spewing gore with each balletic stride.

The pack stopped and raised their fists in unison. They looked like they were readying another spiral blast. Even Flum and Eterna wouldn’t be of much use in the face of this many attacking all at once.

Eterna leaned in and whispered something into Flum’s ear. After thinking it over, Flum whispered back.

Welcy was starting to worry. “H-hey, everything okay? That looks like it’s going to be a real humdinger!”

Flum and Eterna turned to face the enemy, their expressions composed. Even across this distance, the pulse and splatter of the ogres’ cratered heads carried, until they were drowned out by the roar of the nascent cyclone forming from their combined energy. The cyclone grew exponentially, its outer edge nipping at the carriage.

Eterna climbed atop the carriage. “Ice Shield!!”

It was slightly larger than the one she cast previously, but she didn’t seem like she planned any further beyond that.

Welcy started to lose her cool. “Whoa! It’s coming…it’s coming!!!”

Ink and Milkit, meanwhile, had faith in their friends. All they had to do was hope and pray.

Flum put her hand on the back of the ice shield and began to feed her magic into it. “Enchantment Reversion!”

This wasn’t a special technique, exactly. Rather, she was using the same method as her Souleater blade or Cavalier Arts techniques to channel the unique power of Reversion into Eterna’s ice shield.

The tornado tore a deep trench in the ground and sent fragments of trees in every direction as it closed in on them, but—the gale dissipated the moment it touched the shield. With its spiral power reversed, the attack lost all of its momentum.

“Time to take the fight to them.”

“I’m going, too!”

The two women hopped down from the speeding carriage and landed on the soft ground below.

Eterna pressed her hand into the dirt.

“Frozen Ground!”

The earth beneath them froze over. A moment later, the frost slithered along the ground as it zeroed in on the ogre pack. The moment the frost touched the ogres’ feet, it spread up their legs and locked them in place.

It was Flum’s turn. She held her sword at the ready. “Hit me.”

“All right then, just as we planned. Ice Enchantment!”

A layer of frost formed over the Souleater.

Flum was going to try out an attack she witnessed in Gadhio’s battle with Nekt. She wouldn’t be able to replicate it exactly, since she lacked his brute strength, but she did have one thing he didn’t: regeneration. No matter how recklessly she fought, no matter how badly she got hurt, she would bounce back.

Flum let out a low growl and hefted her sword high. Wreathed in ice, it towered over the tree line. She could hear her bones and muscles popping. Her growl grew into a primal scream.

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!!”

The occupants of the carriage could still see the colossal blade as the ogres shrank into the distance.

Flum could feel her muscles tear and bones begin to deform under the weight, though they healed nearly instantaneously. Her only concern was the pain.

“Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaooooool!!”

She swung her newly minted Jötunn Blade toward the ogre pack.

The blade tore through the pack’s leading edge on first contact. When it hit the ground, the ice shattered in a massive shock wave that tore through the remaining ogres and leveled nearby trees.

The scene was drowned in fog and dust as the scattered ice sublimed, but it was clear that there were no ogres left standing. The reversal magic imbued in Flum’s strike shattered their cores instantly.

No trace remained of the surrounding trees. It was like some giant’s hand had reached down and carried away a fistful of the hills themselves.

“Haah…haah…haaaah…”

“We may have overdone it.”

Flum tried to laugh as she struggled to catch her breath. “N-no, I think that was just about perfect. They’re…they’re pretty stubborn…”

 

***

 

Their enemies destroyed, Flum and Eterna returned to the damaged carriage and continued on their way. After about five minutes or so, they came across a sign next to the road.

“Sheol, Village of Salvation…?” Flum tilted her head to the side in confusion.

“Is that the name of the village up ahead?”

“That’s strange. According to the map, there are no villages out here.”

“I guess we’ll just have to ask him.”

Flum looked at Eterna. “What do you mean ‘him?’”

Just as she asked that, the carriage came to a gentle stop.

“What is it, Rent?”

“There’s a man up ahead.”

A slender man in a white lab coat stood in the middle of the road. From Eterna’s tone of voice, it could only be…

“Dafydd Chalmas…”

The man who oversaw the Necromancy project.

A puzzled look came over Dafydd’s face at the sound of his own name as he turned toward Flum. “Our God truly is a cruel one. I never said that I was against this idea, but at least give me time to prepare…”

“Are you talking about me?” Flum hopped down from the carriage and approached Dafydd. She immediately drew her Souleater and brought the blade to his neck.

After all she’d been through with the Origin cores, it was a reasonable reaction, barbaric as it seemed. After the life-or-death battle she just finished, it was only reasonable to proceed with caution.

“Would you mind putting your sword away? I have no desire to fight you.”

“Don’t play dumb with me. We were just attacked by a pack of core mutants, you know.”

“You fought the Chimera? So that’s what that sound was. I’m sure this must sound like an excuse to you, but I assure you I had nothing to do with that.”

“You’re right; it does sound like an excuse.”

“Chimera and Necromancy are competitors, you see. You could even call us rivals. We have no reason to use any of Echidna’s pets! Besides, the focal cores we created here in Sheol don’t work well with the Chimera cores. If you let them get too close together, you might lose control over them entirely.”

“Rephrase that in normal person language.”

“Necromancy focal cores are used to control the Origin cores—otherwise known as Necromancy cores—used to bring back the dead. Put simply, they weaken the larger cores that are used to channel Origin’s power. Chimera cores are the ones created by the Chimera team.”

Flum eased up slightly at Dafydd’s explanation. Just as Eterna mentioned earlier, she didn’t sense anything threatening from him. She held his gaze the entire time and didn’t get the impression he was being dishonest.

“Where’s Gadhio?”

“He’s just fine. Spending some quality time with his wife. Would you like to see him? He’s expressed some concern over having left his friends back in the capital.”

Welcy called out from the carriage. “Why don’t you just put down your sword, Flum? I think it’s pretty clear he isn’t lying, and I think he’d be willing to answer a lot of our questions. There’s a lot I’m hoping to learn about the church, too.”

As for the rest of the party, Rent seemed to be in agreement with Welcy, while Milkit and Ink were both content to leave the decision up to Flum. Eterna, who had already met Dafydd before, said nothing.

Flum remained largely unconvinced, but she knew it was the best move for the time being. “Fine.” With a little reluctance, she dismissed her sword in a flash of light.

The tension drained from Dafydd’s posture. “Listen, I completely understand your grudge with the church. I appreciate your decision to stand down, really. Let me take you to Sheol. You can get back into your carriage, if you’d like. I’ll lead the way.”

Dafydd turned and set off.

Flum hopped back aboard the carriage, only to be met with a look of concern on Milkit’s face. Perhaps she was just concerned by Flum’s own annoyed expression. The thought warmed Flum’s heart, and she reached out to stroke Milkit’s hair.

 

***

 

After proceeding down the path for some distance, the forest opened up into a wide clearing enfolding a small village. Sheol, the Village of Salvation.

Flum had expected something stark and modern, but it looked just like any other settlement out in the sticks. People walked the streets, tended crops, and bought and sold wares; parents watched their children frolic. Only the great church at the village’s center was out of the ordinary.

The passengers disembarked at the town entrance, leaving Rent to tend to the horses. Inside the gates, it all felt completely and utterly…normal. The only thing that seemed out of place was their little group.

“Is that church over there your lab?” Flum asked.

Dafydd nodded cheerfully. “Yes. The facility sprawls out under the village.”

“I heard you were financially supported by Satils, and that this land was granted to you by another noble. Did the church build the facility?”

“My, my. You’re quite well informed, I see. It’s just as you say, I’m afraid.”

“Why did Satils finance your work?”

“I signed a contract to grant her preferential merchandising rights to the results of our Necromancy research, once perfected.”

Flum stopped in her tracks. “I knew I couldn’t trust you! Trying to sell technology that could bring back the dead?! Disgusting!”

Dafydd glanced back sadly at the young women. “Trust me, I wasn’t excited about the prospect of monetizing human lives, either. But I can’t carry out my research or provide the people I’ve brought back with a place to live without money. I had to make a tough choice if I wanted to see my dream come true.”

“A place for them to live? You mean everyone living here is…?”

“Correct, half of them are dead. The other half are those I have saved by returning their loved ones. What do you think? They certainly seem happy, no?” Dafydd smiled proudly.

Flum and the rest of her group looked around the village again. Try though she may, she couldn’t tell who was living and who had been revived. Milkit watched carefully, Eterna thought quietly, Ink listened, and Welcy took meticulous notes.

A woman with a rounded belly emerged from the church and ran straight to Dafydd.

“Susy, didn’t I tell you not to run?” he chided.

“But I was worried about you! There was that awful sound and then you went off into the forest on your own. I wish you’d at least take some bodyguards with you!”

“And this is…?” Flum queried.

Dafydd beamed. “This is my beloved wife, Susy. She was also brought back to life thanks to the core and, as you can see, we’re expecting a child soon. Next month, in fact.”

Susy smiled shyly at her introduction. If Dafydd hadn’t just told them who she was, Flum couldn’t have told them apart from any other couple deeply in love. However, the prouder he seemed about all of this, the more her suspicions grew.

“She got pregnant after you brought her back to life?”

“Flum, I understand what you’re feeling. You’re thinking the Origin cores only make it look like people are brought back to life. But I assure you, the child thriving inside Susy is a brand-new life. In fact, several other children have been born and raised here in this village. They’re completely normal humans, with completely normal bodies. Putting aside the cycle of life for a moment, I think you can put your suspicions to rest that these people are anything other than truly resurrected.”

The pride in Dafydd’s voice was clear—and not without reason. His was a confidence born not just of his research but also of the many years he’d spent with his revived wife and their new friends. Flum detected absolutely no doubt in his mind that these people had been completely brought back from the dead. Even if she continued to disbelieve him, it would be tantamount to condemning the hundreds of revived dead living in the village. If it was just a few people, maybe she could do it…but there were just way too many.

No matter how grave her doubts about the project, as long as it was impossible to distinguish the living from the dead, she couldn’t possibly bring herself to destroy the hundreds of cores active in the village.

So what could she do, then?

Before she could ponder this, Ink spoke up. “Oh, it’s Gadhio.”

She must’ve heard his voice off in the distance. Flum looked around for a bit before she finally spotted him walking over from a shop. Tia had her arm around his and a soft smile on her face.

“Gadhio…!”

“I’m glad he’s doing well. Aren’t you, Master?”

“…Yeah.”

There was something about the relaxed look on his face that kept Flum from being truly happy for her friend. She’d never seen him like that before.

Gadhio’s eyes went wide in surprise at the sight of his friends. A moment later, a scowl crossed his face, like a child caught doing something they knew they shouldn’t. “What brings you here?”

“Well, you just kind of disappeared, Gadhio. Kleyna and Hallom are worried about you.”

“Sorry. I…I didn’t know what to say to them.”

Tia finally broke her silence, looking deeply apologetic. She kept her arm tightly wrapped around Gadhio’s. “Don’t blame Gaddy. I really should have explained things to them.”

It was clear which direction the scales had tipped for him.

“I’m guessing you have no plan to come back?” Flum asked.

“Tia can’t live outside this village. I could commute between the capital and here, but I don’t think I could bring myself to do that.”

“What do you mean, she can’t live outside of here?”

“Allow me to answer that,” Dafydd said.

“I’d love to live with Gaddy in the capital. I hate keeping him tied up here with me like this, but…”

“Tia, Gadhio, perhaps you can all catch up later on. I’d like to take them on a tour of the lab now.”

“You’re right, I think that would be best. Sorry for the interruption.”

“Wait, don’t go!” Flum called out to Gadhio as he began to walk away.

“You should go check out the lab,” he called back to her over his shoulder. “It’ll answer your questions.”

With that, he and Tia disappeared into the crowd.

Ink mumbled under her breath. “He’s like a completely different person.”

She was right. Nothing about this Gadhio bore any resemblance to the person Flum knew. She hated to say it, but it felt almost like the weakness he’d hidden for all these years was now on display for all to see. He seemed like a fool.

Like…a coward.

“Please don’t blame Gadhio,” Dafydd said. “Tia is a vivacious and beautiful woman. I can only imagine how much he must have suffered from the loss of such a light from his life.”

“How can you talk about this so dispassionately? Tia was killed by a Chimera! The fact that you raided Kindah and Claudia’s graves tells me that an Origin core alone isn’t enough to bring someone back from the dead. So how did you get Tia’s body, huh??”

Eterna tensed up slightly at the mention of Kindah and Claudia’s names, though Dafydd didn’t seem to notice.

“Though we may be rivals, that doesn’t mean we don’t interact with the Chimera team. The last time I visited Echidna’s lab, she showed me some preserved corpses, and Tia was among them.” He chewed on his lip, seeming to think back on that moment. “My best guess is that Chimera was getting ready to use it as raw material. Once the transformation was complete, they would use her against Gadhio.”

“Throwing out some unfounded accusations there, aren’t you?” Eterna’s voice turned harsh, though Dafydd didn’t even seem to notice.

Hardly surprising, considering how casually he went about digging up people’s loved ones. After all, Necromancy’s research had to require a constant supply of corpses. Desecrating graves was probably just another day’s work to his team.

“That’s just the kind of woman Echidna Ipeila is,” he said. “I imagine she was also the one who fielded those ogres. If you died at their hands, that would be one less person to bother her, but if you didn’t, it would drive a wedge between you and me. She’s a cold-blooded, dreadful woman. Always has been.”

Dafydd’s loathing for her was readily apparent. It was the first time Flum had seen him angry.

Susy took one look at her husband and offered up an embarrassed smile. “I’m so sorry. I assure you he’s really a great, caring man. It’s just that whenever he starts to talk about Echidna, well…”

Flum had no doubt there was something fundamentally wrong with the leader of the Chimera team. Besides, it was hard for her to believe the founder of this idyllic village could also be the creator of such awful creatures. It seemed clear to her that Dafydd was telling the truth.

Even if he is here to be with his wife, I know Gadhio must be investigating the village on his own. At the very least, this must mean he isn’t actively hostile toward Dafydd and that his wife is the same person she was before. It’s probably safe to assume at least that much.

Something nagged at Flum as they walked through the peaceful village. Though she usually didn’t pick up on such small details when walking hand in hand with Milkit, this was impossible to ignore.

Everyone in the village was watching her.