Chapter 287
Chapter 287: Water and Fire (6)
What did Harad want?
From Pira, he wanted information.
From Eiga Akker, he wanted grounds. Grounds to trust him.
'And then?'
Harad was a man with far more thoughts than he let on. That's why I'm in this state. Ellen smiled bitterly. Though, in truth, she owed it to that as well.
Regarding the Otherworld.
Harad was cruelly dispassionate. That was why he couldn't trust Eiga Akker, and why he'd tested Pira.
Why was he so dispassionate?
'Because of that other world.'
In that world, Harad must have made enemies of the Otherworld. Perhaps even worse than that.
The Boundary was a stretch of land grown vaguely vast.
Even the sky was like that. If one looked far enough, at the sky's edge hung a white-blue rift. Pulsing with light like a beating heart, ceaselessly warping its surroundings.
The Otherworld lay beneath that sky.
'Your Highness, can you tear the sky apart?'
About that rift, Harad had once asked her that.
Back then, Ellen had laughed without thinking. What a dull joke, she'd said.
'They did.'
But Harad had been utterly serious.
What Serzila couldn't do, the Otherworld had done.
It must have been so in that other world.
What Serzila couldn't do, the Otherworld had done.
'If you grow complacent, something terrible will inevitably happen.'
Serzila had been complacent.
Something terrible had happened because of the Otherworld.
That was why Harad, having crossed over to this world, was so dispassionate about the Otherworld.......
Desert though it was, her feet were damp.
Water from the channel was soaking the desert.
It had already risen to ankle height.
Only that?
The thought crossed her mind. Borrowing Pira's words, the channel was both a trap and preparation. Even incomplete, the desert should have been far deeper.
"The Torch has appeared!"
Someone bellowed.
That was why the water had stopped at the ankles. The water in the incomplete channel had split into two streams.
The dead Torch had appeared.
How would Harad react? He'd started dreaming recently, but at his core he was a realist. He'd witnessed Aten's death with his own eyes. So that shout wouldn't concern him much.
'I should be the same.'
Behind Ellen, a new snow shelter had appeared.
Pira had gathered the falling snow and hardened the surface with droplets. Harad and Pira were inside.
In there, Harad would be extracting information from Pira.
He would obtain intelligence on the Otherworld mage called Eiga Akker, and decide whether to trust him.
And he'd be worrying about me.
Ellen giggled. That worry made her happy. And dissatisfied. She didn't want worry -- she wanted him to lean on her. She wanted to stand side by side.
She wanted to make him happier still.
Gifts were always better in abundance.
Aquins's subjugation force -- the Otherworld's fighting strength -- stood before her.
If she cleared them out, Harad would be very pleased.
"The Toooorch!"
That booming voice shook the desert again.
It had to be magic. Ellen found that voice deeply grating.
-Well, I believe that's everything.
Because it drowned out the voice she wanted to hear.
-Is there anything on your end, Your Highness?
Inside her head, a dream -- magic -- spoke.
The voice was quite different, yet it was Harad. The Harad of that other world.
-A few things.
And that woman.
Elaine.
-The Enverque should have been driven out. That bloodline was incompetent. So thoroughly incompetent that one would suspect they'd been threatened into it -- that they'd be killed if they ever showed otherwise.
The water at her ankles was growing colder.
Ellen was dreaming while feeling reality.
Perhaps she had good affinity with Aquins.
The dream was layered over reality again, just like this.
-The Enverque is the Imperial bloodline, Your Highness.
-I know.
Crazy bitch.
Ellen cursed Elaine.
-The Church was bottom-tier as well. For all their bluster, they turned out to be fools who'd lost the divine relics.
The more she dreamed, the more she realized that woman was not right in the head.
That's supposed to be me?
-I should have rejected only the Otherworld, not magic itself. There were certainly continental mages who were good, or useful. I should not have blindly trusted a Church that couldn't even tell them apart.
Crazy bitch.
Ellen could only call Elaine that much. She was merely mad -- not a mess. Surprisingly lucid. Though not as much as me.
-Is that everything?
Harad asked.
Ellen felt the strength draining from his voice. She realized it then. He was dying.
-What I see before me is the north rising.
Elaine said.
What kind of sight was that? Ellen couldn't see it. Even with her eyes closed, there was nothing to see. Because this was a dream she could only hear.
-I knew. That it wouldn't be strange if the Otherworld invaded at any moment.
Arrogance was permitted.
Because this was Serzila.
But the price of arrogance was paid not by Serzila but by the north.
Harad had once warned her so.
-I loved it, yet I could not devote myself to it. I regret that I failed to notice the Otherworld creeping into the north.
......If you grow complacent, something terrible will inevitably happen.
-There was certainly a chance to make amends. But I could not seize it. I was lacking. I should have lived more fiercely.
That arrogant Elaine had regrets.
How complacent had she been? How terrible had the consequences been?
-......When I return.
Elaine said.
Her voice was not smooth. It was muddied, as if heard in the middle of a marketplace.
-When I return.......
...return, return, return.......
The voice echoed. It could go no further. Ellen felt as though it was blocked.
No -- it had been blocked.
-It is too soon.
The dream shifted.
-So resist.
Just like when she'd encountered Extinguished Torch Aten.
Elaine's will surged forth.
-If you refuse to let it be taken from you.
Ellen scoffed.
"What nonsense."
I'm winning.
***
This was different from when she'd met Extinguished Torch Aten.
Back then, her body had been taken and she'd clung to her mind.
This time, she held both body and mind.
Only an uninvited guest had settled into her head.
-So this is the Boundary.
Elaine spoke inside her head.
In other words, she'd advanced again.
This time, neither body nor mind had been taken. She'd merely lent a small corner of her head.
-You interpret things however the fuck you please.
"Am I wrong?"
-Let us say you are correct.
Elaine spoke through the mind, and Ellen answered with her mouth.
The opposite of when she'd met Aten. Ellen smirked. This time, I have the upper hand.
"I can hear you."
-What a dog's dream this is.
Elaine's voice sounded somehow displeased.
Probably because Harad wasn't here.
"You could hear last time too, right?"
-I could not. Your thoughts are simply that transparent.
"......"
Ellen didn't answer.
Perhaps because of her age, Elaine had a way with words. Must have been from clinging to Harad all that time.
-You should know. Harad learned by watching me.
In that other world, Elaine had raised Harad to her liking.
-Not to my liking. The man was fire incarnate.
Ellen snickered.
True enough. Elaine had succeeded, yet hadn't. In the dreams, Elaine had appeared as a man.
Meaning to the Harad of that other world, Elaine had been a man.
He'd only recently learned she was a woman.
-You dare pass judgment on my memories. From a mere handful of scenes.
"Then show me all of them."
Ellen said, half-mocking.
Half-sincere. She wanted to pore over every last memory. And then make memories that surpassed them.
-Why would I.
Elaine mocked back.
Sharing the same head, Ellen could tell. That crazy bitch was feeling superior.
"That kiss -- that was a crime."
Again: to the Harad of that other world, Elaine had been a man.
-It was lawful.
"Says who."
-My word is law.
Elaine had been a tyrant.
"Why didn't you approach him as Ellen?"
If she'd been that fond of him.
If she was going to send those signals to Harad, she should have just approached him as a woman.
-A battlefield. How I miss it.
Elaine changed the subject.
-Ellen, you are alone. On my battlefield, Harad was with me.
And naturally flaunted her memories.
"Harad's right over there."
Ellen scoffed, pointing at the snow shelter.
Harad was inside with Pira. By now he'd have finished explaining the situation and would be hearing about the Factory.
-Why are you not with him?
"I want to give him a gift."
Ellen kicked at the ankle-deep water.
-The Deep Sea.
Elaine murmured.
-What a praiseworthy thought.
And she was pleased.
Because it was a gift for Harad.
"Will you help?"
-I shall.
Elaine agreed readily.
Ellen found that strange.
"Why?"
From Elaine's standpoint, not helping was the correct answer.
The weaker Ellen was, the more it benefited her.
The weaker she was, the easier it would be to take her body.
-Because I love him.
"Me?"
-Crazy bitch.
Ellen cackled at that answer.
She couldn't have liked it more.
Her body lurched suddenly.
The water had risen to her knees without her noticing. A ripple from somewhere struck Ellen with tremendous force. At the ripple's edge were mages.
Aquins's subjugation force.
Roughly half of them. The channel water had split in two, after all. How many were there?
-Do not count.
Elaine interrupted.
"Why?"
She needed to know before she fought.
That was how Harad had always fought.
-What use is counting ants?
Elaine thought otherwise.
-You step on them and they die regardless.
So there was no need to know.
"That's how it is for you."
-You shall be the same.
Elaine was saying Ellen could do it too.
If there was a teacher, it should be Elaine, not Harad.
-Ellen, you shall be faster than I was. Unlike you, I was raised in a greenhouse.
A greenhouse.
Ellen nodded without realizing it.
Grand Heir Elaine had been unable to freely enter the Boundary. She was permitted to enter the patrol routes only on special occasions called Hunt Days.
Had it not been for Harad, Ellen wouldn't have been able to stand here at all.
In that other world, it must have been the same.
-A greenhouse with Harad in it, mind you.
Elaine pointed that out specifically.
"What are you even saying? You used to treat Harad like an idiot."
-It is all a memory now.
Shameless bitch.
"Stop showing off."
-I have never shown off.
She'd been doing it the whole time.
-I am not showing off. I am envying.
Elaine added.
-A greenhouse with Harad. A death's edge with Harad. Which is better is self-evident.
Ellen caught herself grinning.
Her rival was envious.
-What a hideous grin.
"......"
-As I thought, I am the more beautiful one.
A fearsome competitive streak.
Ellen didn't answer. She turned her gaze instead.
A tidal wave was approaching.
The mages were in front of it, above it, or behind it.
Ellen forced herself not to count.
Instead, she looked up at the tidal wave and gauged its height and force.
The mage who'd caused it would be standing atop it.
Shouldn't she find that mage first?
-Do not.
She couldn't.
-Do not raise your head.
Per Elaine's words, her head was forced down.
No matter how hard she strained her neck, her gaze wouldn't rise.
-Look down upon them.
......So it wasn't merely consciousness that had emerged.
Elaine was holding back. If she wished, that woman could seize Ellen's body right now.
"......Those bastards are up there."
Ellen growled.
That was the best she could manage -- defiance through voice alone. Her body wouldn't budge. The gulf between them. It exceeded anything Ellen had ever imagined.
-Then raise your chin as high as it will go.
"What?"
-So that it looks like you are looking down.
Was this bitch playing games right now?
-They come. A pitiful Manifestation. Cut it down in a single stroke.
That towering tidal wave -- the Manifestation -- in a single stroke?
-For the record, I could cut it with a finger.
So what.
-If you wish, I shall show you.
"Shut up. It's mine."
A greenhouse with Harad.
A death's edge with Harad.
Which was better was self-evident to Ellen as well.
-How easy you are.
Elaine murmured bitterly.
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