“A convert’s body will keep being repaired as long as its hexagrammic light cores exist. I ran an experiment once, a long time ago, on a piece of spine with one of these cores embedded in it. A body was able to regrow from it in about two days.”
“Yori.” Riyo gently placed her hand on Yori’s back.
Yori batted her hand away in annoyance. “What?”
“They’re not dead.”
“Huh? What do you mean, not dead?” Yori clicked her tongue without even looking for herself to check.
The divine soldiers and the captain that had been lying face down were rising again. The ones whose bodies were too damaged to stand were crawling.
“Finishing them all off is going to be a real pain,” Haru said, sighing behind his mask. “But there’s no sign of further reinforcements, so we probably should. Yori and Riyo, was it? You two don’t need to help. But we have someone with an injury here, so could I ask you to look after him?”
“Someone with an injury?” Manato echoed, pointing to himself. “Uhhh. I’m fine, actually.”
“As if. You were slashed across the back. It looks like you’ve been bleeding a lot too, so it’s not just a scratch.”
“Oh, I guess I am bleeding. It does hurt, but it should heal all on its own.”
“Don’t act tough. If we don’t treat it properly, your life could be at risk.”
“Nah, I’m okay. Seriously. What was it that Juntza said? My, uh, constitution is really good, so my injuries all heal real quick. Maybe I was just born this way?”
“Ah!”
There was someone behind him, and they let out a small cry.
“Huh?” Manato turned his head to look. It was Riyo. She was crouching to take a closer look at Manato’s back. Manato had no idea when she had moved. Riyo was quicker and more nimble than Haru, but she wasn’t just agile. She also moved in a unique way. There was something particularly fluid about it.
Riyo was wearing the same sort of glasses-like thing as Yori. She lowered them and let them rest beneath her chin. Though her hair was really long, her bangs were cut short. Probably to keep them out of her eyes, though they were actually even shorter than they needed to be for that.
“It’s closing up,” Riyo said before looking at Manato’s face with upturned eyes. If she hadn’t been bent over, she’d have been looking down at him instead. She really was tall. But her head was kind of on the small side.
“How?” she asked.
“How? You mean how is it closing?”
“Yeah.” Her voice was pretty quiet. She hadn’t been quite this quiet during the battle, but this was probably how she normally talked. She spoke like she was breathing out the words without trying to raise her volume too much.
“I dunno. Mom and dad weren’t like this. Juntza and the others weren’t either. Ah, Juntza and the others were my comrades. They aren’t here, though. Seems like I came to Grimgar alone. Not sure why, though.”
Riyo furrowed her brow. “I need time to process all this.”
“But first, let’s deal with them!” Yori said, pointing the sharp end of her red sword at the divine soldiers.
“The kid’s wounds seem fine, so let’s get to it, Riyo!”
“Okay.” Riyo stood up straight. As expected, she wasn’t quite a full head taller than Manato, but she was close.
“Teach us how to do it!”
At Yori’s urging, Haru said “Oh, sure,” and went over to a nearby divine soldier somewhat hastily. “The position of the hexagrammic light cores is more or less fixed, so—”
“And hold on, why are you wearing a mask? That seems pretty suspicious.”
“Does it? Well, sorry. Um...”
“It’s fine for now. We’ll take care of business first.”
“Good call. So, uh, the hexagrammic light core is in the deepest part of the brain, or rather the center of it, in a region called the thalamus—”
“The brain? So, inside the head? But decapitating them’s still not enough, huh? You were saying earlier that priests have three, or something like that, right?”
“They grow along the brain stem and spinal cord. The second is in the medulla oblongata.”
“And the way these guys look changes when they have more of these things?”
“Yeah, that’s right. With the second one, the converted gains a receptor—”
“That’s what the stuff covering its head is?”
“I’m glad you’re picking this up so quickly.”
“With the second hexagrammic light core, the head gets covered in a receptor, and with three it spreads to cover the whole body, huh? Got it. Riyo, were you listening? Do you get it too?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s get a move on, then.” Yori smashed a divine soldier’s head with her red sword, then pointed her weapon toward Manato. “You there!” she said. “If you can move, you should help too. Check to see if any of these things seem like they’re still dangerous and let us know.”
“Don’t push yourself, Manato,” Haru told him, but Manato felt like he could handle what Yori was asking him to do.
His wounds would heal soon enough, but it would take time, and he’d be in pain until then. Just sitting around and suffering through the process would be boring, though. So long as he didn’t move too quickly and reopen his wounds, he’d probably be fine.
“Got it!” Manato opened his eyes wide and looked for any divine soldiers that looked ready to get up.
“Manato?” Yori murmured.
Manato nodded without looking at her. “Yeah. What is it?”
“Manato...” Yori repeated, her voice low.
Apparently, she hadn’t been calling his name.
“That name... It came up in great-grandma’s stories...”