Chapter 23: Redbone (5)
Chapter 23
Redbone
Women’s dormitory within the grounds of Artheris Academy
At the topmost window—the one belonging to a member of the royal family—golden shutters were pried and slid open by pale hands.
Then Nora Ophilis’s beautiful face appeared, her blue eyes reflecting the starlight of the galaxy spread across the sky.
Tonight the sky is so lovely,
she thought.
How is Mr.Fury doing? Will the delivery reach him?
‘…’
Princess Nora kept her gaze on the sky while her thoughts turned.
Should I go check?
‘Right… it’s not like I’m going into Anfield.’
With that decided, Princess Nora planted one foot on the window ledge and sprang out.
The woods before the stargazing point
Nora Ophilis walked alone through the forest that led to Mr.Fury’s stargazing spot. Along the way she kept listening for sounds around her.
‘Hello… Mr.Fury? Are you nearby?’
No reply yet, which meant he wasn’t around here.
Nora guessed he’d seen that something had been delivered. If it was Mr.Fury, he would have dragged the wagons into the woods to eat. He wouldn’t eat out in the open where Nora had told the wagons to stop.
She finally broke through the trees.
And there she stood where the hill for stargazing came into view. No one was up there, but when she looked at the ground, Nora found wagon tracks.
Oh… so he found them.
She followed the tracks. They had been dragged into the forest on the other side.
Nora slowly walked after them,
until she stopped at a great boulder… where the wagon ruts vanished as if they’d been wiped away.
But Nora could guess how they had disappeared.
Mr.Fury must have used his true form to lift the wagons.
If Nora were Mr.Fury, she would do exactly that—erase the tracks so no one could trace them.
Which meant he had to be nearby.
‘Hello~ Can you hear me? It’s me.’
Nora passed the big rock, calling softly—
never realizing that atop that boulder she was walking past… a girl was sitting sharpening a blade. RAFINYA.
‘Evening, Princess.’
‘!!!!’
Rafinya looked at Nora with eyes sharp as knives, then jumped down from the rock. Princess Nora stepped back.
‘So this is your secret place… the one you come to every day?’
She followed me?!
‘Dan must be nearby… This is where you two train, isn’t it?’
‘This is my stargazing spot, that’s all.’
‘Mm… stargazing… sure.’
Rafinya’s face reflected in the knife under moonlight.
‘And to practice Diablo magic as well, right?’
!?
Nora’s eyes flew wide.
But before she could do anything, Rafinya leveled her blade at Nora’s throat.
‘That “secret art” doesn’t exist… It’s magic, isn’t it—magic tied to the power of the demons.’
At once, Nora’s ice speared up through the ground. Rafinya twisted aside, reversing her grip so the knife pointed downward.
‘Been staring each other down till you’re smitten, have you, Nora? Or did you just happen to witness it and ask him to teach you? A highborn princess selling her soul for demon power?’
Ice knit itself into a dagger in Nora’s clenched hand. She and Rafinya circled each other—yet Nora’s mind was nowhere near the fight…
This is bad… very bad… If Rafinya is around here, then Mr.Fury could be in his true form! She cannot be allowed to see!
‘What’s the matter, Princess? Did I hit every point?’
‘Pointing a knife at a princess like me—are you trying to start a diplomatic incident, Rafinya?’
‘Drop the deflection!’
Rafinya lunged, red fire trailing her body. Nora fought back even as she still thought:
For now we’re lucky that Lady Casca’s {Light Fortress} is cast over this whole forest; that’s why Rafinya can’t sense Mr.Fury. But Lady Casca’s been gone for more than a week… so how am I supposed to know when the veil’s power runs out?
Nora was right to think it.
And the truth the princess did not yet know was that Casca’s {Light Fortress} would expire in just a few minutes.
Rafinya’s knife met Nora’s ice blade midair. In that instant, Nora was kicked hard and staggered back.
‘Princess Nora, you have betrayed humanity.’
Rafinya’s boots squelched in the mud as she came on.
‘Royalty or anyone else—it doesn’t matter. Being involved with demons is reason enough to hang in Luminus.’
‘Save those stupid laws for your own house.’
In a flash, Nora drove straight into Rafinya and the two of them brawled—
And the sounds of that struggle
leaked to a place not far off, maybe a hundred meters away.
There, the wet sounds of chewing sinew and brains interwove as a whole pig disappeared into the mouth of a towering, black-and-red demon.
Beside it… the shadow of a wolf-demon fell across the moonlit ground.
‘Your Highness…’
Roma’s layered voice spoke as the wolf-demon lifted its head from the carcass.
‘I hear something…’
‘What?’
‘…I’m not sure, but the sound is piercing.’
‘Around midnight here, the dogs start howling. If you don’t want to—’
(( Awooooo~~~~~ ))
‘There you go… barely finished the sentence and they’re already howling. You should shift back into hu—’
Roma: ‘Awooooo~~~~!!!!!!!!’
‘Hey, hey! Keep it down!’
And because of Roma’s thunderous howl—
it carried to Rafinya as she fought.
Roma’s howl wasn’t the sort of wolf-cry one knew.
It was rougher… more terrifying, more like the scream of a victim burned alive than any dog’s voice.
That signature was enough to make Rafinya turn.
Nora: ! ! ! !
‘What was that sound?!’
Rafinya froze… her eyes blown wide.
‘Could it be…’
‘Rafinya! Wait!’
Nora reached to seize her, but the girl had already launched herself.
‘Damn it!’
Nora ran after her. Even if their speeds were close, Rafinya’s head start was bad news… because even a fingertip’s lead—
is still the lead.
‘Rafinya!!! Stop, now!!!’
Cut back to the wagons.
After Roma’s uncontrollable howl, he shifted back into Totti in a flash of blue lightning.
‘Urgh… my apologies, Your Highness…’
‘For heaven’s sake—good thing you only let one out.’
‘It’s strange, truly. As Totti, I hardly feel anything about the sound at all.’
((Awoooo~~~))
‘Your Highness, I’ll go track them.’
‘What were they howling?’
‘They declared themselves masters of this forest. I’ll go “talk” to them.’
‘Let it go for once.’
‘If you wish, Your Highness…’
‘Instead of getting serious about that, get serious about Thomasin, will you?’
‘A weak creature like that ought to keep her head down and comply, but instead she’s fussy. I don’t see why she needs coddling.’
‘Say that again and I’ll put you on three hundred thousand years.’
‘Daaaaan!!!!! Run!!!!!’
!?!?!?
Totti snapped his head right.
That voice… Nora?
But it came from within the forest,
which meant Nora herself hadn’t arrived yet.
So what had?
Rafinya, of course.
Roma had returned to Totti…
but Fury had not.
Which meant that what stood there now was…
the red-and-black demon, 3 meters tall.
RAFINYA stood there, eyes bulging, mouth agape…
Princess Nora, arriving second, broke into a sweat, eyes wide… her heart dropping to her feet.
‘No… it can’t be…’
She saw it.
The most dangerous demon in the world—the one she had sworn she would personally slay… was right here.
And at that same moment… Casca’s {Light Fortress} expired.
When the cloaking spell vanished,
everything that had been compressed and suppressed burst outward at once, surging in all directions—
like a dam giving way.
Rafinya was slammed by the pressure—a hurricane-force gust crashing into her small frame.
It would be a moment she remembered for the rest of her life.