Chapter 11: Girl, Manipulated

 

 

 

Chapter 11: Girl, Manipulated

 

THE next day, Nichika and Wolfie commenced their plan before the sun had fully risen. Relying on Oswald’s map they’d stealthily borrowed, they arrived at a forest located about ten minutes away from the port city.

“Found it. This is the place.” Standing in front of the cave marked on the map, they checked the surrounding area to confirm it was the right place.

“Do you think they’re really here?”

“Hm…” Back in wolf form, Wolfie angled his ears up like satellite dishes and reported what he heard. “I hear what sounds like deep, slow breathing coming from inside.”

“Let’s check it out then.”

With Wolfie brushing against her legs, Nichika felt her way along the dimly lit cave. Timidly, she tried calling out to whoever or whatever was inside. Her quiet, “hello?” bounced off the cave walls and vanished within. No response came back.

“Strange. Somebody is definitely here…”

Wolfie was about to step forward, when the sensation of bloodlust suddenly shuddered through his fur. Less than a second later, something whizzed by at high speed.

“Watch out!” He leapt, chomped on to the back of Nichika’s neckband, and dragged her down to the ground.

“AAH!”

An arrow flew within centimeters of her head and pierced into the tree behind her with a loud thunk. The color drained from her face when she looked up from where she sat, sprawled on the ground, and saw the still-shaking arrow lodged in the tree.

“Be careful! Somebody’s here!” Wolfie warned Nichika right as someone appeared from the dark depths of the cave. It was a girl of similar age to Nichika, and she was nocking an arrow in her bowgun.

“Who are you? What business do you have here?!” she demanded.

Her hair was chopped short; her eyes sharply angled. She didn’t look like she was playing around. Noticing the goggles hanging from her neck, Nichika guessed that she was the Whale’s helmswoman.

The girl set the next arrow with a click, without giving Nichika time to explain herself.

“Hurry up and scram! There’s nothing here!”

“Wh-Whoa! H-Hold on a minute… Eep!” Wolfie yelped, jumping away from the barrage of arrows she fired at him.

Still on the ground, Nichika mustered her courage and held up both hands in surrender, showing that she hadn’t come for a fight. Then, in a quivering voice, she called out, “Wait! We didn’t come here to capture Whale! We came here to warn you!”

The girl with the bowgun stopped firing at Wolfie and swung it towards Nichika as she eyed her skeptically. Without letting her guard down, she kept the bowgun’s muzzle trained on Nichika.

“Warn me about what?”

“A man worse than the devil is coming this way with a tranq filled with a brainwashing potion!”

“E-Ehhhh?!” Wolfie interjected, “Nichika, saying he’s worse than the devil is a bit—”

“It’s the truth!” Nichika immediately shot down the wolf’s loyal attempt to defend his master and looked straight into the helmswoman’s eyes. “He’s going to use a potion to screw with Whale’s mind. And that’s totally the wrong way to go about this! That’s why I beat him here!”

“You’re really asking me to believe that?”

“I understand it sounds like a made-up story, but please, at least believe me when I say that I want to save Whale. I’m on your side,” Nichika beseeched.

Silence fell between them for a long moment. Finally, the girl exhaled and lowered her bowgun. Then, beckoning Nichika with her free hand, she said, “Follow me. Let’s speak inside.”

***

THE inside of the cave was brighter than Nichika had expected. Dim green lights glowed off the cave walls.

“Luminous moss is native to this cave. You can see pretty well in here even at night,” explained the girl walking in front of them. The corners of her eyes softened slightly. “Sorry about suddenly attacking you like that. Now that I’ve thought it through, there’s no way the president’s henchmen would foolishly charge in from the front like you did.”

“Foolishly….”

“Aha, sorry. Forgive me if that offended you. I’ve never been good at making small talk. The name’s Mihm. I’m Whale’s partner and helmswoman.”

Nichika shook her head. “Don’t be sorry, I totally understand why you’re on edge. I’m Nichika.”

“I’m Wolfie!” Wolfie announced cheerily.

“Whale is farther down this way. She’s edgy right now, so keep quiet.”

Nichika swallowed the lump in her throat as they turned the corner. When she saw the gigantic body just around the bend, she found herself at a loss for words.

At first, she had thought it was a blue wall. But on closer inspection, she could see the wall inflating and deflating—no, it was breathing. Jerkily sweeping her gaze to the right filled her vision with the morning sunlight shimmering across a wide pond that spanned from one side of the cave’s huge clearing to the other.

The giant whale she had thought was a blue wall directed one glaring eye at her.

Mihm promptly stepped forward to placate her. “Maria, they aren’t the enemy. Don’t attack them.”

Sweat trickled awkwardly down Nichika’s back under the piercing gaze of the gong-sized eye. But Maria heaved a long, drawn-out sigh and closed her enormous eyes. Mihm gestured for Nichika to sit down on the glowing moss as she took a seat next to Maria. From their spot they could look out over the massive pond, and the giant hole in the cave ceiling that let the morning sunlight seep in.

“She’s high-strung because she’ll be giving birth soon.”

“Giving birth…?”

Nichika thought back to the information she had gathered on how the night before Maria had disappeared, Mihm had clung to the whale’s body and said, “At this rate, all three of us are done for.”

“So that’s why you said the three of you were done for on the night before you vanished!” Nichika impulsively exclaimed, right as the pieces fit together for her. Her loud voice echoed through the cavern, and she quickly clasped her hands over her mouth. Continuing in a whisper, she asked, “Three, as in: you, Maria, and the baby in her belly, right?”

“Y-Yeah, but how do you know about that?”

Nichika explained how she had been investigating Mihm and Maria’s disappearance in Seaside Blue and let them know that all the other vessels were worried about them since they had absconded without telling anyone.

“They’re all worried about you. Why did you leave without saying anything?”

“Because…!” Mihm gritted her teeth and balled her hands. “Gollum—that wretched president—it’s all his fault!”

The story went something like this: Gollum, the current company president, had committed horrible acts several years ago in order to boot the former president of the company out of power. He had stolen the position he now enjoyed, and continued to exploit others while treating his employees like disposable tools.

“Among all the employees he’s horribly mistreated, Maria got it the worst because she’s our only large aerial vessel. He forced her to work from the wee hours of the morning until the late hours of the night. He barely gave her any breaks for rest and has almost worked her to death more than once!”

“How horrible…” Nichika sympathized.

One day at work, Mihm had realized Maria was pregnant. The discovery had sent not joy, but dread running through her veins. Instead of being able to rejoice for the coming life, she had been filled with fear for her partner’s safety.

“Whales have huge bodies, but they are very sensitive creatures. Working or moving too much during this critical time is dangerous for not only the baby, but Maria too.”

“Did you tell Mr. President that?” Wolfie asked, pawing at some of the glowing moss on the slick ground.

Mihm silently shook her head. “I can’t tell him. It’s a given he’d take away the child if he knew about it. I plan to send the calf away as soon as Maria gives birth.”

“Right away? Is it okay to separate the baby from the mother that fast?” Nichika inquired, concerned.

“…I believe that’s better than subjecting a child to slavery under that tyrannical president.” Mihm wore the gloomy expression of someone who had completely given up hope. She stood and moved to the water’s edge to lovingly stroke her partner’s face. “Maria told me she was forced to work as an aerial transport vessel since the day she was born, so she doesn’t know any other way of life. Her only wish is for her child to have what she didn’t—the ability to go out and see the world.”

Entrusting her unachieved hopes and dreams to her child… The choice struck a deep chord within Nichika. Her own mother had given up so much to raise her and her younger sister as well.

Hopping to her feet, Nichika earnestly offered, “If that’s the case, I’ll help out too! When is she going to give birth?”

“She’s at the point it wouldn’t be unusual for her to go into labor anytime now. But it’s my first time seeing a Whale give birth, so I can’t say what will happen for sure…”

“Okay! Just you wait. I’ll do whatever it takes to persuade the devil!” Nichika sprung around to take a big step forward, about to burst into a run, when a frigid voice echoed through cavern.

“You should pray that the devil you speak of isn’t me.”

Nichika’s raised foot hit the ground, and she skidded to a halt, feeling dread wash over her as she connected the voice to its owner. Her sour-faced master appeared from the shadows of a boulder.

“O-Oswald. What a coincidence…meeting you…here…ahaha.”

“What’s coincidental about this, stupid apprentice? Who’s the devil? Hmm?”

Nichika retreated several steps, cold sweat chilling her fingertips. Since when had he begun listening from?

Ignoring his statue of an apprentice, Oswald took a good look at the massive whale and scoffed, “So you really were here. Stop deserting your job and get back to work. If you don’t hop to it, I’ll tranq you with some special medicine.”

“Wait!” Nichika said frantically, rushing to explain what she had discovered since arriving at the cave, “The Whale is pregnant! She went into hiding to protect her baby!”

But the man simply leveled her with an icy glare.

“What’s that to me?” Oswald asked indifferently.

“How could y—”

“Whether she gives birth to the child or loses it, she has a duty as an aerial vessel to complete her job.”

“I dare you to say that again!” Mihm burst in furiously, rising protectively in front of Maria.

Oswald glanced at her with disdain. “You’re the Whale Rider? Are you aware of who is filling in the hole that megafish left? The small vessels are being pushed to the limit to transport what was originally the bigger vessel’s responsibility. They get no sleep at night. From morning till night, they’re being worked to the bone. The other vessels are starting to collapse from overworking.”

“……”

“If this keeps up, some will die. And it’ll be all your fault for prioritizing an unborn life you can’t even guarantee will survive—”

“STOP IT!” Nichika screamed in an ear-piercing cry, unable to take his crap any longer. Why is this man only ever capable of saying cruel things?! “You’re horrible,” she denounced, “What’s wrong with respecting the soon-to-be born?”

“Ha! The very ignorance you excel at is rearing its ugly head again, Nichika. Humans can choose to increase the number of aerial vessels by however much they want, whenever they want. That whale’s baby was manufactured from nothing more than this sorry girl’s ego.”

“……”

“Wh-What does that mean?”

Nichika looked back at Mihm—her eyes were downcast, and she was fidgeting uncomfortably.

Oswald went on with a cynical smile, “Dissatisfied with her poor working conditions, the rider cooked up this whole thing. She had the Whale impregnated so she could have a ‘just’ cause to rationalize her escape. She’s just using it to make people sympathize with her and think, ‘She had no choice but to flee.’ And you fell for it, perfectly.”

“…You’re wrong,” Mihm demurred.

“Good for you, rider. You got a nice little vacation.”

“You’re WRONG!” Her hysteric shriek bounced off the walls and echoed down the cavern tunnels until it vanished. Her eyes were blazing with the raging fury of her exploding emotions. “It was really just a coincidence that Maria conceived a child! I didn’t make it happen!”

“……” He stared at her, unimpressed.

Unable to withstand the weight of his burrowing eyes, Mihm gradually began to tremble, tears spilling from her yellow eyes. “…But…you might be…right about one thing… I thought I could escape if I…used this as the reason.” She fell to her knees. In a ghost of a voice, she cried, “I’m sorry, Maria. I’m a horrible person…”

“Mihm…”

No one said anything more. Even the normally talkative wolf sat perfectly still without twitching a single whisker.

The stillness of the cavern was interrupted by a sudden outbreak of movement as a gang of men clothed in all black charged inside.

“She’s here!”

“Mr. Gollum, she’s this way. Please watch your step.”

“Wh-What’s going on?” Nichika asked, surprised, as yet another man walked into the cave’s clearing.

He looked familiar, this man who had stuffed his burly body inside a yellow-striped suit of poor taste. The seams of his suit bulged. He panted heavily as he kicked a rock with the tip of his leather shoe.

“I’ve finally found you, after all the trouble you put me through. You’ve forced me to hire bodyguards and travel to this miserable place.”

Mihm was shocked to see President Gollum—the root of her problems—show up in person.

Oswald spread his arms wide in a warm welcome for his client. “My utmost apologies for troubling you with coming all this way. I thought it would be best if you confirmed the situation with your own eyes, Mr. President. Is there no mistake that this Whale belongs to your company?”

His sudden change in attitude infuriated Nichika so much that she marched right over to his rotten face and yelled, “You called them here?! Heartless jerk! If you know the situation, then—mmph!”

Her angry yells were stifled by Oswald’s hand. As she struggled, he flashed her a wicked smirk. “You might find yourself thinking you can hear the incompetent sounds of a fledgling attempting to speak the human language, but please pay it no mind.”

“Mmph! Mmphhh!”

“Oswald, you are an exceptional witch. That is most certainly our Whale indeed. Make it return right back to work.”

“As you wish.”

“MMMGH!”

Nichika waited for a moment when Oswald let down his guard to counterattack, but her freedom was swiftly stolen by a black string he pulled from his pocket. With her neatly wrapped up in the magic string, he lowered her to the ground.

“Watch how things play out from there,” he commanded, “This is how a witch works.”

Nichika begged Wolfie for help with her eyes, but he sadly shook his head. He couldn’t move against his master’s wishes.

“S-Stop. Don’t come near me!” Mihm shrunk away as the shadow-dressed man came for her. Oswald held what looked like a syringe.

Please! Maria truly cares for her child. Let her give birth! Please! Nichika begged in muffled noises.

“……” Oswald didn’t reply.

I’m begging you with all my heart!

“What? What’s she moaning over?” Gollum interrupted, unaware of Maria’s pregnancy.

Oswald’s eyes narrowed to crinkled slits. “Who knows? I can’t understand her,” he curtly replied in a voice devoid of emotion.

“Then do the deed already! Fuhyahyahyahya! Now we can reopen for business!” Gollum brayed with laughter, reveling in his avarice. His disgusting smirk bared his yellow teeth, giving Nichika an uncontrollable urge to look away. “You filthy animals created a hell of a lot of problems for me. You’ll be paying me back until the day you die!”

“No…please don’t…” Mihm wrung out.

Oswald’s brainwashing syringe was a few centimeters away from Mihm’s skin. Nichika thrashed violently until she tore her mouth free from the gag held in place by the magic string and let out a piercing scream—

“DON’T DO IT!”

ZAP!

“?!”

A tiny electric current surged through Oswald’s hand, shocking him into dropping the syringe. Swerving around, he aimed a chilling glare at his apprentice writhing on the ground.

“Are you trying to get in my way?” he challenged.

Nichika stared right back into his icy eyes. Her own bold, daring eyes had turned gold. Holding his glare, she stubbornly countered him, “While you have a horrible way with words and a sick personality, you were the one who rescued me when I knew nothing about what was going on.”

“……”

Her eyes were burning brightly. “Am I wrong for wanting to believe in you?”

“…That thought process of yours is what they call naiveté.” Oswald shifted his gaze away from her and picked up the syringe. Confirming that it hadn’t broken, he answered in an unimpassioned tone, “A job is a job. Saving you amounts to nothing more than a temporary whim on my part. But you’re going to make me wish I never saved you by interfering with my work.”

“…But I—”

“Shut your trap.”

She didn’t cry but lowered her eyes in a withered look. Oswald brought the syringe near Mihm again, but—

“……”

He lowered his arm and stood motionless for what felt like forever before exhaling the loudest, longest sigh. As everyone watched intently to see what he was going to do next, he muttered in a rather casual voice, “Oh yeah. That reminds me, I forgot to tell you something, Miss Mihm.”

“Err? Um, me?” Mihm fumbled for words as the conversation suddenly turned to her. Oswald snapped his fingers and pushed the folder of papers that appeared into her hands.

“I forgot to give you the results of the investigation you hired me to do. Here it is.”

“I haven’t requested anything of—”

“I forgot to deliver the investigation results to you.”

“Like I said—”

“I’m telling you that I forgot to give it to you. Zip your lips and accept it, you little punk.”

Mihm flinched from the scathing words uttered by Oswald’s true abrasive personality and dropped her gaze to the papers crumpled in her hand. Her expression steadily grew more severe as her eyes scanned the paragraphs of tiny print.

“H-How can this be?”

“Eh? What is it? What is it?” Curiosity piqued, Wolfie put his forepaws on Mihm’s trembling arm and pulled himself up to see. Reading the investigation results aloud in his carefree, bubbly voice in her stead, he announced, “The results of the investigation into the frequent appearance of kraken in the seas around Seaside Blue Port is as follows: there is a very high chance someone is importing red kraken, which are not normally found in this region, from the southern continent of Sandny, and are intentionally releasing them into the water—”

“Wha-?! Stop that! Don’t read it!” President Gollum clumsily dashed over to snatch up the report papers, but he slipped on the moss and fell.

Mihm stared down at him, contempt sweeping over her face as a certain thought suddenly struck her. “What’s going on? …Importing krakens? Do you mean he’s—”

“As you’ve guessed, President Gollum seems to be the one importing kraken. Boy, it caught me by surprise,” Oswald declared with theatric pomp. He shrugged. “Travelers will naturally prefer to travel by air if dangerous monsters are attacking along the sea route. Case in point, Whale Aviation Company’s business has increased exponentially since the krakens started showing up. It’s the natural result, since you practically blockaded your rival’s route.”

“Shut up! I’ve done no such thing! Do you have proof?!” Gollum seethed, his face bright-red.

“Sure,” Oswald coolly asserted, “I have copies of a great deal of purchase orders, invoices, receipts, and accounting books. The accounting girl readily supplied me access when I asked. You may have things officially labeled as business expenses, but do bridge girders normally break three times a month?”

“Grr…” Gollum was at a loss for words. Then, abruptly, he swiped the folder of papers from Mihm and began shredding them. Elated with his vicious success, he convulsed as laughter shook his potbelly. “How d’ya like that?! Truth is a load of crap if the evidence is destroyed!”

“In other words, you admit to it,” Oswald noted. “Obviously, that was just one copy. I have the originals stashed away at my inn, naturally.”

“You witch! I’ll crush you along with the evidence, and it’ll all turn out the same! GET ‘EM!”

At Gollum’s signal, the ten or so mercenaries closed in on them with their weapons drawn.

“NO!” Nichika screamed from where she laid tied up on the ground, “Don’t come near me!”

“This is why we should’ve kept the peace and stayed on Gollum’s side,” Oswald commented. “Well anyway, we’re going to fight back.”

“Remove this blasted magic string if you want me to fight!”

Oswald sighed and raised his hand, and the magic string melted away. Nichika immediately tried to make a run for it, but his hand shot out and clamped onto her head just as fast. Then he dragged her behind a boulder, while she helplessly watched Wolfie and Mihm prepare for the fight out of the corner of her eye.

“I told you we’re fighting back. Do your ears work?”

“But how?!”

Naturally, a normal high school girl like Nichika had no means of fighting armed men. Oswald didn’t seem suited for hand-to-hand combat either, and it was impossible for Mihm and Wolfie to take on so many mercenaries. To make the situation worse, they also had to defend the immobile Maria.

“I-I’m only going to get in the way.”

“I’ll use you.”

“Excuse me?!”

She braced herself for what was going to follow that absurd statement, but he only held out a hairclip with a beautiful blue gem attached to it in place of an answer. Before she could accept or examine his offering, he snapped it into her hair. Instantly, it let out a blaring beep and buzzed in her ears, which was followed by an inexplicable sensation rushing through every nerve in her body.

“What the—What did you do to me this time?!”

“…A compatibility of sixty percent, huh? Not bad numbers for the first time.”

“Won’t you please explain what this is now?!”

Oswald grabbed Nichika by the collar as she was shaking in her boots over what was about to happen to her and tossed her out of their hiding spot behind the boulder. Giving her back a big shove, he sent her stumbling into the middle of the battlefield. At her strange entrance, every person there turned their attention on her. That alone was enough to break the stiff tension in the cavern as if they had poked a hornet’s nest with a stick.

“Kill her!” Gollum shouted, commanding the mercenaries by raising and dropping his hand.

At his signal, the mercenaries charged her at once. Her thoughts dissipated upon seeing the dull glint reflecting off the knives they brandished. She recoiled back in fear, when Oswald barked an order at her.

“Thrust your hands out!”

“Uwaaaaaah!”

She thrust her hands outward, palms open. Some sort of schema flowed into her brain and she felt the distinct sensation of something turning inside, forming some kind of force in her hands as if it were the directly concentrated energy caused by the churning inside her. Once the force grew beyond what she could contain with her hands, it fired!

“FIRE!” she shouted involuntarily. An enormous fireball, large enough to swallow a person whole, shot from her hands. The recoil from firing it sent her flying back, and she skidded across the cave floor on her rump.

The mercenary who took the brunt of the fireball blew past Maria, slammed into the lake, and sunk. He resurfaced unconscious, the hair on his bobbing head clearly incinerated.

“Whoaaaa! What the heck?! What was that just now?!”

“We’ve got more to take down! Get on your feet, now!”

Nichika didn’t have time to spare for astonishment over the supernatural phenomena taking place in her body. Frenetically pushing herself off the ground, she launched another fireball at the next mercenary. Then she ran over to Mihm and Wolfie with Oswald behind her, and the four of them fought together to protect Maria.

***

USED like a marionette by her master, Nichika displayed tremendous fighting ability. They finished off the rest of the mercenaries over the next few minutes of the battle. The men who had only been hired as bodyguards were overwhelmed and laid piled in heaps on the cool cave floor. Gollum, the last man standing, fell to his knees and clasped his hands together in a last-ditch plea.

“Eeek! Please don’t hurt meeeee! I’m begging you! See? I’ll do anything you want. Just spare my life!”

“The only thing I want from you right now is to leave Whale Aviation Company for good!” Mihm demanded valiantly, her bowgun trained on his face. President Gollum tripped over his feet as he fled.

Oswald reached out after the back disappearing down the cavern tunnels at a speed far faster than one would expect from his plump exterior. “AH! WAIT, you cheapskate! What about my reward?!”

“Ahaha. Looks like he…ran away on you….”

Oswald was on the verge of chasing after his fleeing paycheck when he heard the weakness in the barely audible voice behind him. Nichika was bent forward with her hands on her knees, shuddering haphazardly and sweating beads.

“You—”

“You didn’t get your money…but wasn’t this a peaceful resolution? It’s my win this tim—”

She lost consciousness before she finished speaking and collapsed onto the ground. Oswald quickly came over to her and held her up in his arms. His eyes widened at the heat exuding from where he placed his hand on her forehead.

***

I feel like I was dreaming.

I’m embracing a soft kitten that’s warm like the sun.

Now then, it’s time to go back. There’s nothing scary here.

 

Nothing at all.