The main street in Vulcan overflowed with a great many people. It wasn’t only soldiers who had marched with the support troops. The armies were accompanied by servants, merchants, and the soldiers’ own families. The main street, which faced the market, had been densely packed since early in the morning, enough that people had trouble picking each other out of the crowd. That was why the chain mail cloak that the woman wore was overlooked.
She was still a young woman of around twenty, and the right third of her face was covered by a patch as if she had sustained a significant wound there. She held a spear in her hand, leaning on it in place of a cane. It was very rare for women to be warriors, but she seemed to be very familiar with the spear.
The people who walked past her noticed an overpowering smell of perfume coming from her, as if she’d intended to mask something.
“Whoa. Amazing...there are—hic—so many people.”
“Mom, be careful.” A young man lent the staggering woman his shoulder. He was perhaps sixteen years old. He stood about as tall as the woman, and anyone could see there was not a large enough difference in age for them to be mother and child. Besides that, his hair was rust-colored, unlike the woman.
“You’re so kind, Dean. Just like your father...tee hee hee.”
“...That’s right, mom. We’ll be able to meet him soon...Dill Steel-Link. Now, hold on just a little longer. This is a nasty slope, isn’t it...”
Vulcan, no exception among the Eleven Cities of the North, grew slightly more elevated the closer one got to its center. This was not topography that was kind to the sick. As the young man took care not to bump into the other people on the street while supporting the woman, a feeling of nervous irritation built up inside of him.
“The time has come! Redguard is about to embark on her greatest battle, the likes of which have not been seen in her whole history. This will be a second Reconquista, to wrest back control of our ancestral lands from the hands of the Reincarnators!” All of a sudden, there resounded a man’s deep voice, which felt as if it shook the very foundations of the earth. The voice, sounding from multiple places throughout the city, layered echoes upon each other. The unnatural scratchiness in the voice was noise, introduced as it passed through the Reincarnators’ machines.
“Halberd...so you’re still alive. You’d have been better off dead—along with everyone else besides my senior,” muttered the woman, looking up at the hologram of the giant that appeared in the sky.
The people gathered around the hologram all looked up to listen to the speech, but they were not startled. This announcement device, commandeered from the Reincarnators and reproduced by the Ex Machina, had since been used in this fashion every day and no longer seemed unusual to them.
With exaggerated gestures, the one-armed giant continued his speech. “In the holy city of Vulcan, we have already amassed the greatest fighting force in the Eleven Cities, and we double in number every day! Furthermore—ladies and gentleman, let me inform you of this crucial fact! Thanks to the efforts of the hero Aegisthus, we have succeeded in acquiring some unexpected reinforcements! They go by the name...of Titans! Those ancient tribes, whom we battled against in the first Holy War, have answered the call of Aegisthus and have joined our war as allies! I am sure that, very soon, Aegisthus will take command of the Titans and bring them back here, to Vulcan...”
“...Say what? Then that means Dill Steel-Link...isn’t in Vulcan right now?! No way. Mom doesn’t have much time left!”
This fatal misunderstanding left the young man rooted to the spot in shock. The woman showed no interest in the speech, but instead seemed carefree, following a horsefly that flew nearby with her eyes. Eventually she staggered off by herself into an alleyway.
“Mom?!” The people lining the streets were in his way, so the distance between the young man and the woman widened before his eyes. On top of this, the woman moved swiftly. She slipped through the gaps between the people like a cat.
“Aha. Got you...” By the time the woman had come to a stop, she had long since lost sight of the young man. She found herself in a corner of Vulcan’s downtown that had once been under the control of the Reincarnators, having fallen entirely into their hands during the previous conflict.
In this dark, damp cul-de-sac, there was a swarm of horseflies that formed a column as they flew around in circles. Their sheer number was bizarre, and the buzzing of their wings was terribly loud. Taking a closer look, she saw the chewed-up corpses of several rats, dogs, and cats strewn upon the ground at her feet.
Undaunted, the woman started cackling. “Once upon a time, there was someone like that among the barbarians of the south...a sickening stalker of a woman who used bugs to sneak around and spy on others!”
As if understanding her words, the swarm of horseflies moved—and as if they had a common will, moving at someone else’s command, they assaulted the woman as a swarm. The woman flicked the tip of her spear with her finger, and held it at the ready. A flame ignited around the spearhead, and then she proceeded to plunge the flaming spear into the swarm! The flies burn and fled madly. One by one their fellows were caught up in the conflagration, burning up and falling to the ground.
“Ah ha...kya ha ha ha ha ha ha!” The fire burned for an unnaturally long time, though it didn’t take very long to annihilate the entire swarm.
Footsteps approached. Turning the corner, it was the young man who appeared. “Mom! You can’t go using your Skill in the middle of the streets...we don’t know who might be watching!”
“Don’t worry...no one’s watching...anymore! Tee hee hee.” The young man held the woman tight, and she remained unsteady, as if she were dreaming.
“They say that Aegisthus isn’t here. Until he comes back, you’ll need to hold on a while longer...” Sensing a presence, the young man looked up. “What was that just now? A Skill, but...something seems...”
Then, none other than Sid came into view. With the last remnants of Rei’s power, he had detected a distorting presence within the city and had run to investigate. Without thinking, he recoiled at the searing look of hostility the young man gave him upon their encounter.
The young man took up a weapon of his own and introduced himself. “My name is Dean West. Son of the hero Aegisthus...and I will protect my mom.”