“Krylancelo... Krylancelo...”
Someone was shaking him and calling his name. His mind snapped into alertness at the agitation of the voice. Orphen shook his head as he woke from a rest too short for him to say whether he’d had a dream or not.
“Ugh... Time to switch already?” He squinted up at a darkened sky.
Orphen sensed a hand on his shoulder. He felt it trembling with unease as it attempted to lift him up.
“No. I’m sorry for waking you up early, but something’s weird.”
It was Isabella. The night sky didn’t illuminate much, but even in the low light, Orphen could tell she was pale. Obviously, there was no way she would be wearing makeup in a place like this, but it wasn’t just that—her face was unnaturally pale.
Orphen sat up and there was a sudden flash of light. Probably a sorcerous explosion some distance away from him. He felt vibrations in the earth.
“Another attack?” Orphen asked without waiting for Isabella to speak up.
But it was too quiet for that to be the case. Orphen looked around, a deep sense of strangeness settling in his chest. The wasteland looked the same as it always did, the darkness of night still present all around them.
While the sporadic attacks every day had left the black sorcerers sleeping lightly, they’d somehow managed to avoid suffering casualties yet. Though they were exhausted, the Thirteen Apostles were starting to get used to the situation they found themselves in; with Isabella this uneasy, Orphen knew something significant had changed, which made him uneasy. Maybe they’d finally taken some casualties, Orphen thought, remembering Pluto’s warning that their morale would really collapse in that event.
But Isabella’s words betrayed his expectations. “No... Though we’re always getting attacked. But the location’s a little off.”
“The location?” He looked around from where he’d been sleeping.
Orphen slipped out of his blanket, checking through his combat gear to see if he could move his stiffened body. There was nothing wrong with him. He’d like to think so, at least. There was nothing wrong with his surroundings either. The scenery nearby seemed to be the same as it always was. This resting spot had tents for the off-duty black sorcerers to sleep as well as spaces set up for the injured. Though Orphen was sleeping curled up in a blanket slightly outside of it, unwilling to stay with the Thirteen Apostles for whatever reason.
But there was an enormous black wolf lying on the ground protecting them... He blinked.
“Leki’s gone.”
“It’s not just the Deep Dragon. There are more missing.” Isabella was finally getting to the point now. She took several deep breaths to try to quell her confusion. “Master Pluto, Miss Maria...the Numbers are gone too. It’s only about half the Thirteen Apostles who are left, including the injured...”
“What?”
It was hard to comprehend, but Orphen wiped his face with his hand, trying to keep calm. He tried to list off what exactly he needed to verify first. His thoughts were frighteningly sluggish, as if the brief rest had actually left him more tired rather than less.
“What about Claiomh and Majic?”
“I’m right here,” came a nearby voice.
Orphen focused and finally spotted Majic standing behind Isabella. He was hunched over like he had been dragging his foot.
“...Are you hurt?” Orphen asked him, but he shook his head.
“No, I just...twisted my ankle.”
“Oh.” Not feeling any particular way about that, Orphen turned back to Isabella. “What about Claiomh?”
“She’s gone,” Isabella said darkly, but frankly. At times like these, she always spoke plainly.
Orphen pretty much expected that answer after hearing that Leki was gone. Punching one hand, he continued down the list. “The dwarves and the lord?”
“The lord is gone. The dwarves are still here. They’re with the group going back to the capital. Though they haven’t left yet...”
Orphen was surprised to hear that. “Pluto allowed a group to leave?”
Last night—only a few hours ago, really—he had said the same thing he’d been saying about it this whole time, that he’d think about it. And if that meant the same thing that it had meant previously, it was the same as saying no.
Isabella, who worked for Pluto, seemed to be just as surprised about it. She frowned solemnly and said, “Yes. I thought it was strange at the time.”
“Where did everyone who disappeared go?” He asked the question because Isabella was still so dependable even at times like these, but he knew it was stupid even as he said it.
Isabella fixed him with a look and then asked, “Do you think they ran?”
“Pluto, Miss Maria, and the elite of the Thirteen Apostles, huh...? If it were anyone else, yeah, I would think they had run.”
“The Deep Dragon too.”
“It’s hard to believe they were all killed in an instant before anyone realized it too. Especially if Leki’s among them.”
Hitting upon the only remaining possibility, Orphen looked up at it. The starry sky stretched out over the vast wasteland, and the black forest far in the distance... Before it stood the spirit sorcery barrier, though it wasn’t as if it was visible to him.
“If they went past the barrier...” he heard Isabella whisper. “Pluto explained that if they managed to get through it, the spirits would instantly teleport them to the sanctuary. Maybe they got through it somehow and all went to the sanctuary before we noticed...”
“Not somehow...” Orphen said with a sigh. “The list of missing persons is too perfect. This was intentional. Pluto left behind just the injured and the bare minimum of people who can fight to protect them.”
The winds blowing during the day and at night were coming from different directions and they were different temperatures, but they were both heavy with the dry sand they brought with them. Orphen stood still, glaring in the direction of Fenrir’s Forest as he felt like the harsh wind was scraping away at his skin. He had let his guard down—he thought back to Claiomh’s halting words, the words that she’d almost said to him. The repetition of pure exhaustion and short bursts of rest had paused his thinking entirely.
Is it all over now? He felt goosebumps forming under his clothes.
If Pluto and the rest were already at the sanctuary, then the fighting had probably already started. Since he’d taken the lord, he most likely was going along with the lord’s plan to capture the Second World-Seeing Tower. Orphen had brought up the lord’s plan with him as a point of negotiation, but he might have just pushed Pluto to further action.
Swallowing spit hard with sand, Orphen turned back to Isabella. “How many people are still here? Who’s in charge at this point?”
“It’s mostly young people. I guess Dick’s taken charge since he’s the oldest. He’s also leading the group who were going back to the capital. We’ve got the wounded, those who can no longer fight...and just a few people who still can.”
“Including us?”
“Yes. Including us.”
There was another explosion, and a rumbling underneath his feet that shook his stomach. It was trying to get him to remember something. Whoever Dick was, he was probably fighting off Doppel X somewhere at a slight distance from them right now. The sounds of fighting he’d been able to hear for a while now were sporadic, and he hadn’t yet decided whether that was a good thing or not. But now that Leki was gone, they were more or less cornered.
Orphen pulled his shortsword from its sheath, gave it a look, and put it back. “Can we fight off the attack?”
“I don’t know. If Miss Maria had at least stayed behind...” Her voice had remained firm until now, but it shook for the first time when she said that.
Orphen looked around out of the corner of his eye—the wounded were still in their tents, but in the quiet of night, those with sharp ears had probably heard their conversation. A panic might start soon.
He gave Isabella a pat on the shoulder and asked her, “Miss Maria went with Pluto?”
“...Yes,” she said weakly.
He gave her another pat on the shoulder, harder this time. “Then it was for something more important than staying here and protecting you. She’ll be able to keep Pluto from doing anything too rash.”
He saw another explosion somewhere far off. Pointing at it, he added, “So let’s just leave that to her and not think about it. I’m sure she left you here because she trusts you. We should prioritize what we need to be doing right now—for the time being, we need to make sure as many people as possible live through this.”
“You’re right.” Isabella nodded.
Before making eye contact with her, Orphen shifted his gaze, beckoning Majic forward. “Team up with Isabella and protect the tents of the wounded. I’ll go check on the attack—”
“I disagree,” Majic said before Orphen could finish. While Orphen was taken aback for a moment, he continued, “You’ll be in trouble acting on your own, won’t you? You’re the one who needs help, Orphen.”
“No, I—” Orphen started, but he cut himself off when he felt someone touch him on the arm.