Evening.
“And then, and then Kaito told him, ‘Don’t you dare mess with Oltea again!’”
“Ahhhh, that’s so cool!!!”
“He even gave up a really special ornament for me!” Oltea added.
“Wooow, he’s like a prince!”
“Right?! He’s my Prince Charming, white steed and all.”
“Except I don’t have a white horse,” I said.
“Little details like that don’t matter!” Oltea said.
“What matters is that you protect her.”
“Right! Exactly as Clié said.”
The room was filled with the sound of the women’s animated conversation. We were in Clié’s home. About four hours prior, we had met up with her friends, made our way to her place, and opened the wine bottles. After a few drinks had loosened everyone up, the occasion had quickly taken the shape of a girls’ night.
When first we encountered Clié in the morning, she’d come across very adult, mature. After four bottles of wine, however, she was completely plastered.
“Are you having fun, Kaitooo?” she asked, her sentence ending in a drawn-out, upturned vowel.
“Are you getting enough to drink?”
“It’s a waste not to enjoy life!”
“Please, don’t hold back! Drink up!”
They were leaning on me, shoulder to shoulder, getting friendlier. The turn of events had me losing my bearings a bit, but it was not at all unpleasant. Being in such a vibrant space and seeing my friends enjoy their conversation so much—which I always loved—had put me in a great mood.
It would be more fun if I were drunk too, but the responsibilities of my position as Sword Saint prevented me from indulging too much. The wine was rich yet light, delicious, and easy on the way down. Still, I had made myself stop after one glass.
“Hey Kaito, have some cheese! Say ‘aaaaahhhh,’” Oltea said.
“Oh, thanks... Mm, that’s delicious.”
“There’s crackers too! ‘Aaaaahhh.’”
“Ah, thank you... Mm-hmm, also delicious.”
“Oh, oh, I wanna feed him too!”
“Me too, me too!”
Eager hands put food into my mouth one bit after another. I felt like everyone’s plaything. I wondered what kind of faces they would make next time they saw me—if they even ended up remembering any of this. Apologetic? Embarrassed? Were they already drunk enough to forget all of this?
“I’m gonna head to the castle soon,” I said, putting aside the question. The evening glow of sunset had filled the sky. The time to fulfill my duty as Sword Saint drew near.
Concerning the schedule, I had been told that a messenger would come to my residence when the evening sun was obstructed by the city’s low walls. Given that time in this clockless world was measured only by the sun’s position, punctuality was defined less strictly. A little delay was always within the range of possibility. Still, keeping the king’s messenger waiting long would be inexcusable.
“Oltea, Frieze—you two want to stay here and keep drinking?” I asked.
“Mm-hmm. The feast is just beginning!” Frieze said.
“I have to drink a lot and reassure the ancestors!” Oltea said.
Overdrinking was bad for the body, but today was a special occasion. Hangovers were all but certain for those two, but they’d be fine after a Cure Beam treatment. At this point, it would be dangerous to get either of them onto Stick Beam, and even if we walked home, I wasn’t sure they’d make it. I wanted them to stay here and continue to enjoy the festival, making merry with the others.
“I’ll come back after I finish up, so just stay here and enjoy some more drinks until then. Is that all right with you too, Clié?” I asked.
“Of course. Oltea, Frieze, let’s have fun till the sun comes up!”
“Can’t wait!”
“Let’s keep going till every bottle’s empty! Cheers!”
At “cheers,” I left the group of high-spirited women behind and exited Clié’s home. Because I was alone, I could fly without using Stick Beam, instead returning home with just the propulsion of Jet Beam. I waited in the quiet of our neighborhood until a knock sounded on the door.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Kaito,” said the messenger who was standing at the threshold when I opened the door. I boarded the horse-drawn carriage and let him take me first to the castle and then, after arrival, into the audience chamber.
Large tapestries bearing the embroidered image of a lion hung in the spacious chamber. At the far end, atop a dais, was a throne in which sat a well-dressed elderly man. The king.
“You’ve come, Kaito. Did you enjoy the spirit festival?”
“I did. I had an excellent time,” I said. I hadn’t seen much of the charmingly decorated downtown, instead deriving most of my fun from the heightened excitement I’d felt while drinking at Clié’s, but that kind of thing was true to the spirit of the festival anyways. The Spirit Festival was about gathering to ease the hearts of the ancestors. Surely seeing people act so joyfully, regardless of the particulars, brought them relief. I, too, had been uplifted by the vibrant atmosphere. Everything that happened after noon could be more aptly described as a drinking meet-up than a day at the festival, but I had spent my time having fun with friends.
“That is what is most important,” said the king. “That we could enjoy this momentous day in peace is thanks to you for protecting the royal capital from Vlad. As thanks for your service, supplies will be disbursed to the hybrid population starting tomorrow.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Mm-hmm,” said the King, nodding. “To begin with, it will only be within the city. We will gradually extend services to other towns one at a time.”
“I see,” I said, pausing to take it in. “Thank you, truly!”
Oltea and Frieze now led lives in which food was no concern, but there were a great many hybrid people. With my earnings, I could not afford to distribute supplies to all of them. For that reason, I had vowed to become the Sword Saint. Upon being appointed to the position, one received any reward one asked of the king. I had requested the introduction of a system to ameliorate the poverty of the kingdom’s hybrid population. That way, I could help those suffering under the burden of poverty.
The king smiled warmly at my expression of gratitude. Soon, though, his expression was clouded with concern.
“Right now, we enjoy a surplus of food, but if there were to be a stampede, maintaining the new system would become difficult. That is the only thing you must bear in mind,” he said.
“Stampede...?” I asked. I had general knowledge of the word. A stampede was when a mass of animals or people suddenly began to run in the same direction. That knowledge, though, was from my previous life. The word was the same, but the meaning may not have been.
The king looked at me with surprise, as though I lacked common knowledge.
“Kaito, how old are you?”
“I’ll turn thirty this year.”
“Hmm. At that age, it isn’t so strange you would lack knowledge of the stampede. To explain in brief, the stampede is a mass migration of devil flies.”
“Devil flies...”
“Think of them as normal flies but much larger. Devil flies are classified as danger level C monsters. This may sound strange coming from a man such as I—one useless in a fight—but they are no great threat by themselves,” he said.
“So when a stampede occurs...how many devil flies migrate?”
“It’s impossible to get an accurate count, but...enough to wholly blot out the sky. Ten thousand, perhaps.”
“Ten thousand...?” I repeated. It was an abnormal number. The king’s description made it sound like a plague of locusts except that the descending horde was made up of monsters rather than insects. Wouldn’t it just be crops that were damaged, then? I thought to myself.
“We’ve suffered many stampedes in this country. Once, long ago, an entire village was reduced to a wasteland in just one night.”
“Were there survivors?”
“None.”
In just one night, not only every building but every person in a town, wiped from existence. Vlad’s plan had been awful, but the stampede sounded even more threatening.
“There hasn’t been a stampede, then, these past thirty years?” I asked. When the king had asked my age, my response had led him to say it wasn’t strange that I should be ignorant of the stampede. That meant it had been at least three decades since the kingdom had been hit.
“It last occurred thirty years ago. That time, though, the stampede’s advance was halted by the actions of one young man.”
“So it can be stopped.”
“I was surprised too. There was no precedent for it, and the person who did it was so lost in the action that he later reported that he could not recall how he drove off the horde.”
“I see. And where are the devil flies now?”
“They’ve remained in a dense forest along the nation’s border,” he said.
So the devil flies had not descended on any town in the past thirty years. It was likely they were slowly devouring nature out where they lurked, but at least no stampede had occurred in that time.
“That being said, we don’t know when next they may come. I’d like to see the Lord of the Flies exterminated before the end of my reign if such a thing is even possible.”
“The...Lord of the Flies?”