Kuze felt like he had met her somewhere before—hadn’t the young girl he came across after the sixth match, sitting in the recesses of the night as if trying to hide from someone, looked like this, too? “Y-you’re…” She was like the Wordmaker themself. “…Kia the World Word?” “Who’re you? Did we meet somewhere? Sorry, but I’m not going to remember some random Aureatia soldier’s face.” Kuze had been told what happened in the fourth match. He also knew that Aureatia was pursuing Kia to take her down. Still this girl was who they had been talking about? On that day, Kuze had felt a loneliness in Kia. Now she was angry. Profoundly angry. “Get in my way, and I’ll kill you.” Kia glanced at Mestelexil. “Crumble.” Kuze’s great shield fell on the spot. At the same time, a wave of some substance suddenly pushed against Kuze’s shoes. Sand! Though he had seen the entire process play out in front of him, he needed to take a beat to understand the situation. Right before Kuze’s eyes, Mestelexil had been disintegrated into an equal mass of sand. “You’re in the way, too.” “Kia! What’re you doing?!” For some reason, Kia’s supposed ally, Tu, was upset. “How could you really kill someone like that?! Our goal here’s to rescue Uhak!!” “It’s fine… Killing him’s fine.” The oscillations of the train made the mountain of sand pour down through the holes in the floor, soon vanishing entirely. It was strange that Mestelexil didn’t regenerate like he had when Kuze fought him, but perhaps Kia had managed to kill that ability of his along with the rest of him. Whatever the case, Mestelexil had died. That horrible monstrous golem, gone like that. “He tried to kill me first.” They were the words of a young girl Kuze knew almost nothing about. And yet they made him feel as if his intestines were being squeezed tight. —It was completely fine to kill those who tried to kill you. Mestelexil had been a threat. As far as Kuze’s own objective was concerned, he might have been an outright enemy. However, Kia killed that monster with ease. No. She had successfully wanted to kill him. “Minister Yaniegiz… Er, no, Yaniegiz. Should I put a stop to this girl…?” “…Can that power of yours kill her?” “That’s not what I meant. I…I already let it slip.” After the fungal labyrinth was destroyed, Kuze had said something to the Aureatia soldiers to let Uhak go free. With Uhak the Silent’s ability to nullify Word Arts. He might be able to defeat Kia the World Word. “Please…is there any way I can prevent Uhak from having to kill…?” Judging from what he had just witnessed, Kuze thought his chances of stopping the girl were close to zero. Omnipotence and instant death. Would he be destroyed before he even had a chance to talk to her, or would Nastique sense that intent to kill Kuze and take Kia’s life—those were the only possible results. Even then, Kuze couldn’t bear it. Letting the girl who he might’ve been able to help on that fateful day…die. By the hands of his junior disciple, who he might’ve been able to stop in time… All because of the words he had let slip on that fateful day—the sin would have crushed him. “Lord Yaniegiz! Are you all right?! We’ve brought Uhak the Silent here!” an Aureatia soldier shouted from outside. Kuze heard banging on the door, but the passenger car was likely warped from all the destruction. If Uhak’s here, then maybe…we might be able to get through this without anyone dying. He looked outside the window. Nastique’s figure was nowhere to be seen. Uhak’s vicinity was the one place she never treaded. Kuze would never forget. When the almshouse was attacked, Kuze had gotten through it without killing anyone because Uhak was watching over him. At the same time, it also meant that Kuze was robbed of the only thing that made him invincible. “…So Uhak’s here, then?” “C-can…can we chat a second here, Kia the World Word?” He needed to summon up his courage before Uhak and Kia were forced against each other. “See, I’m actually Kuze the Passing Disaster. I’m not an Aureatia soldier but a paladin with the Order…” “Okay, and? You don’t know the first thing about me; what is there to talk about?” “Right, you’re right. I don’t know anything about you, and you know just as much about me…” Kuze’s career as a warrior was peculiar and distorted. He had only ever focused on training himself to avoid danger, in order to stop himself from killing his enemies. That ability to sense danger was telling him that this young girl could kill him with only a thought. Could he get through to her without killing or making anyone else kill? Kuze’s life was no longer his own life to do with as he saw fit. He was responsible for the hope of the Order. He was doing something foolish. “But…but look. When it comes to Uhak and Tu, I know a little bit about them.” Tu was looking toward him. She didn’t interrupt to say anything, but she seemed anxious. Once again, she was showing concern for a murderer like Kuze. Kuze did his utmost to ensure his inner distress and despair didn’t show on his face. It resulted in an awfully vapid and unreliable smile. “…Kia, are you worried about Uhak, too?” “Shut up.” Kuze fell to his knees. Both hands involuntarily pressed down on his throat. He mistakenly felt for a second that he was being choked, but he realized he was still allowed to breathe and nothing else. What rose within in him a moment later was a feeling of helplessness and terror. “Going to all this hassle… Stop trying to trick me any more than you already have.” “Kia! This isn’t right! You don’t have to get Kuze wrapped up in all this, too!” “Fall down.” Tu rushed over and supported Kuze’s body. He was unable to lift himself up. All he could do was watch. It was agonizing. “Kuze’s a good guy, okay?!” “That’s got nothing to do with me.” Her icy cold eyes then shifted toward Yaniegiz. “You.” Totally robbed of control of his body, Kuze thought he was an utter buffoon. Right from the very start, Kia hadn’t been looking at Kuze, but Yaniegiz behind him. “You’re the one who tricked me with those documents.” “Yes. That’s right, Kia the World Word. Uhak the Silent’s location is the one thing even you can’t detect. You weren’t able to directly draw him to you…or allow him to escape, were you? The only way you could interfere here was if you boarded the train yourself. You can’t directly affect Uhak with any Word Arts, after all.” Yaniegiz forced himself onto the Orange Thirty-Six train despite having no authority to actually do so. The man’s composure when he interacted with Kuze signaled it hadn’t been an impulsive act but a calmly calculated move. “The fact that you appeared in this car instead of the one carrying Uhak proves that. After you rescued Tu the Magic, the next thing you detected were those conversing about Uhak the Silent’s whereabouts. About Mestelexil’s whereabouts after he attacked you. Where I, the one who lured you into that trap, was…” This had been the reason behind making Mestelexil assemble at this location even though he had hadn’t been included among the force sent to conquer Kia the World Word’s omnipotence. However, Yaniegiz had taken into account that he would potentially be tracked down as another target of Kia’s revenge. Thus, he had sneaked onto the train knowing full well it was illegal. Hatred lay at Yaniegiz’s core. “Or perhaps…” He couldn’t stop himself from hate. Just as he couldn’t stop harming the object of his hatred. “…the whereabouts of Elea the Red Tag’s killer.” “………What?” Kia reeled backward. Her tempestuous rage at times resembled fear. “Wh-what…did you just…say?” “…I see you won’t tell me to shut up, will you?” Yaniegiz flashed a smile that seemed to bludgeon her with his malice. “I mean exactly what I said. If Elea the Red Tag was executed, then obviously that means there has to be someone who killed her. Hee, hee-hee… D-don’t tell me—you never even thought about it? That somewhere out there…was the person who did something so hateful, so unforgivable—” Tu shouted. “Kia! Don’t listen to him!” “All of you—you—!” Kia went to say something. Words that would have brought ruin to Kuze and Yaniegiz, perhaps even Aureatia itself. “Lord Yaniegiz!” It was at that moment. The sound of a door to the hallway breaking apart. They resolutely jumped into the passenger car, even knowing Kia the World Word was within. “We’re glad you’re all right! Uhak the Silent has arrived!” “Not yet!” Outside in the hall lingered the ogre with gray skin. With serene eyes, Uhak the Silent stared at the chaos within the passenger car. “I never said that Uhak would actually neutralize Kia for us! From here on out, all we can do is leave it up to his own will!” The logic was obvious—Uhak couldn’t give the slightest words of promise to anyone. Though he should have learned the Order’s script from Cunodey the Ring Seat, he had never once tried to express his will to another. He couldn’t be ordered by anyone else, nor manipulated. If there was anything that could be done, it was to simply hope he would save everyone. …Uhak. Still unable to speak, Kuze stared at Uhak. He hadn’t erased Words Art yet. Just like when he didn’t erase Nectegio, he was going to bring ruin to everything while Tu was in front of him. Or perhaps, was this prediction nothing more than Kuze’s wish that Uhak would do that for him? If Kuze had been able to speak, what would he have wished for? Yaniegiz wore a nihilistic smile. “See… That’s why Hidow’s grand strategy was too naive. He constructed a plan where, in the final stroke, the end result rested entirely in Uhak’s will… Honestly, if there was no guarantee that Uhak’s Word Arts erasure would happen, he should’ve formed a plan out of a situation where he’d have to erase it.” “A-are you listening…? A-answer me.” Kia didn’t even appear to notice Uhak, despite the ogre being her original goal in coming here. She clenched down tightly on her chest. The colossal hatred she felt was too much for even her to control. “Who…killed Elea?” “Isn’t there something you should be asking before that?” That wasn’t the case with Yaniegiz’s hatred. His was boiled down into a sordid blade of spite, and for the moment he could stab it into Kia. “Why was Elea killed?” “Why…? L-like…like there’s—” “Any need to know that, you say? Since it’s just the excuse of murderers? That can’t be true, now can it? I don’t think you are that stupid. You passed the test we prepared for you, and you even learned how to read. Elea the Red Tag, then. What was she to you; how was she as a teacher?” “Elea was—” Kia hiccupped. “Elea was always nice! Sh-she…took me all the way here to Aureatia, and…because she was always there for me…I…w-was so happy! Why?! Why did you have to kill her?!” “…Elea the Red Tag was…” It wasn’t Yaniegiz who answered Kia’s wails. It was one of the soldiers who had rushed over to the passenger car with Uhak the Silent in tow. “…a traitor who schemed to usurp Aureatia governmental authority. She desired the hero’s position solely out of her lust for power… To do that, she murdered her own hero candidate, and intended to manipulate an ignorant child with powerful Word Arts to kill Rosclay.” “You’re lying!” Kia tearfully shouted. The fact that everything hadn’t been destroyed was either because Uhak was preventing her Word Arts, or perhaps Kia’s mind could no longer focus on such a thing. “If Elea was so precious to you, try thinking back carefully; go ahead. What was Elea doing? You realize she pretended to be a home tutor in order to survey Eta Sylvan Province for a potential invasion, right? Does truly nothing, anything at all, come to mind when I say all this?” “Liar! Liar! Elea always… She— I was her…” “She asked you to kill—” Yaniegiz’s voice was cold enough to make one shiver. “—didn’t she?” “Unnnnnnnngh!” There was a loud thud. Tu threw Yaniegiz to the ground. She must have held back as much as possible to make sure he wasn’t injured, but the moment he was slammed to the ground, Yaniegiz’s wiry left shoulder dislocated. “Enough already! We don’t have to talk about this anymore! Kia…! Let’s grab Uhak and go home!” “Hee, hee-hee, hee! Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee…!” Please, I’m begging you. Kuze was helpless. Kuze was invincible, yet always powerless, unable to do anything but wish and plead. Even those wishes never once came true. “Kia! You can’t kill people!” “I…!” The soldier from before barely managed to get his words out. Kuze didn’t even know his name, yet for the sake of the mission, this soldier summoned up all his courage to speak. “I was the one who killed Elea the Red Tag! To preserve order in the Kingdom!” At this one location, where all of fate converged together, everything… Yaniegiz’s ridiculing echoed. “Uhak is forced to use his power when—” “Y-you…you’re all lying… Elea didn’t…” “—everything breaks down.” Kia then said the decisive word… “Break!” In that moment, several things happened all at once. Kia’s omnipotent Word Arts—an indistinct something, its very effects obscure—tried to massacre the soldiers. The soldiers, to carry out their duty to Aureatia, fired at Kia. Tu jumped in between Kia and the soldiers. Uhak activated his Word Arts–canceling powers. Kuze simply watched. “Ah.” At some point, her vision, plastered pure white, had cleared, and she saw a blue sky. Up in the sky in front of her towered a brick overpass. Beside her head, something resembling a smushed steel plate was sticking out of the ground. She had fallen. She realized that, at that moment in the train, there had been a breakdown that defied imagination, whether from Word Arts or the fusillade of explosives and gunfire, and it had thrown her down below the overpass. Blood was flowing. It thickly clung to her forehead, and she wondered whose blood it was. “Oh…” Whatever the situation, she was never after some specific result. She simply didn’t want to look back on something and wish she had been able to save someone, ever again. Which was why she had jumped to protect Kia and the soldiers. She didn’t regret anything. Nevertheless, with her body that had maintained complete Word Arts homoeostasis from the moment she was born… “I get it… This is…” Tu the Magic walked off with staggered steps. No matter how many times she wiped the blood away from her forehead, for some reason, there was never any less of it. She shouldn’t have had any regrets at all, and yet somehow… “My blood…” She was scared.
Chapter 237
13 min read