The Crown Prince In Hiding

Chapter 27

Diablo

District One: The Human Industrial Zone.

It was the first biome they encountered. A flat, dry stretch of land surrounded by trees in the most unremarkable way nature could manage. Humans were permitted to establish factories and industrial estates in this remote outskirt. The guardian of this district they had already met: Bognor, the massive stone Diablo.

"I hope Your Highness enjoys the sights of Diablo on this visit."

The deep, bass-heavy voice of the stone demon Bognor addressed Princess Nora Ophilis while he and the Diablo under his command bowed in respect. It made Nora feel impossibly small, and she bowed back out of sheer courtesy.

The airship rose slowly as its fuel ignited. It drifted past the dim, stifling industrial zone, and the moment it cleared the mountain...

The view ahead transformed into something wondrous. A black sand coastline that seized both young women's gazes and held them still.

It struck them full force. The breathtaking beauty of nature that had been hidden behind that great mountain.

This was no ordinary beach of the kind humans were accustomed to.

The sand along the shore was a pure, smooth, fine-grained black, set against an intensely blue sea whose color was amplified by the reflection of light and the underwater biome.

The charcoal-colored grains of sand caught the sunlight and glittered like dark gemstone flakes. The rock formations surrounding the beach had not been shaped by aimless erosion. Instead, they had naturally formed into hexagonal basalt columns, crowded together in intricate, staggered rows stretching out as low cliff walls, like a sculptural cavern.

The vista had transformed into the splendor of a charcoal-black natural coastline.

The sound of waves crashing against the shore. Aquatic plants and coastal coral pulsed with a luminous lime-green glow that flickered in rhythm with the rolling waves, mesmerizing to behold.

Dan leaned against the railing of the airship, his eyes looking at images from the past.

"This is where Casca came ashore."

District Two: The Black Sand Beach.

He spread his hand out along the coastline.

"This is where my relationship with my wife began. This beach runs along the entire length of the country. I like to spend time here. This sea leads straight to Luminus, so getting home wouldn't be hard for you, Rafinya."

"How long does it take from here to Luminus, Mr. Fury?"

"Time isn't the issue."

Rafinya didn't understand what Fury was getting at.

"District Two is prettier when you come at night. Let's skip past it for now."

Dan turned and signaled. The Diablo soldier manning the fuel nodded and steered the airship over the black sand beach.

A pressure differential made itself felt as the airship floated past the coconut palm zone and the coastal terrain. Warm wind struck their faces along with the sight of the forest below, a land that connected to the next district.

Nora tried to make out what lay beneath them, but it was blanketed by towering green trees in the style of a tropical rainforest. On their world, the closest comparison would be the Amazon. It covered a staggeringly vast area.

Without the airship, it would have taken weeks to find a safe way out of here.

"Don't think too hard about what's down there. It's just forest."

Dan explained,

"It's our hunting zone."

"Hunting zone?"

"For hunting animals to eat."

"You mean there are a lot of wild animals down there?"

Dan turned to Rafinya.

"Yes. But you have to be careful. There are ordinary animals mixed in with monster beasts. You never know what you'll run into. Some of them can kill us."

"Kill Diablo like you...?"

"I think..."

Dan's fingertips tapped against the railing of the airship.

"They evolved to coexist with us."

He wasn't saying it carelessly, Nora thought. The Prince had come to understand the concept of evolution to a considerable degree by now. He had studied quite a lot.

"And nature trained us to hunt them in return."

"Would you take me down there to hunt one, Mr. Fury?"

"Rafinya, sure. But you? I'd rather not start an incident with Snowhaven."

Even so,

"I'm planning to have Thomasin and her team study this forest as well. The animals in the hunting zone could serve as a mirror reflecting what we came from."

"Mr. Fury... do you really think you'll find ancient animal bones in terrain like this?"

Rafinya asked,

"In a tropical rainforest, the chances of a specimen being preserved are practically zero, aren't they?"

Dan stared at his second student for a long moment. He paused. Then the corner of his mouth slowly curved into a smile.

"You've been reading up on the side, haven't you, Rafinya?"

"...I saw it in your books."

She answered softly, a touch bashful.

She was the one who had hand-copied the forbidden book for Fury. It was a certainty that she had read all of its contents herself as well.

They talked and discussed for a good twenty minutes or so. With the airship moving swiftly through the air, they could already see the edge of this biome. The airship was heading toward the western reaches of the land, and what appeared at the seam where the hunting zone ended was...

District Three: The Desert.

A vast expanse of brick-red sand stretching as far as the eye could see. By day it may have looked scorching and barren, but its secret lay hidden beneath the thick sand and layers of rock, for buried there were mana crystals in great abundance.

The sea breeze that once carried warm moisture was swallowed whole by the dry, parching desert winds.

When the sky began to darken, this desert would gradually emit a faint, warm orange glow from the mana crystals releasing their energy at night.

Ripples of sand would shimmer and sway with the wind, producing a light so beautiful that travelers had once given it the name "Aurora of the Sands."

The airship touched down at the center, where clusters of desert-hardy trees grew in patches, providing a fair amount of relief from the midday sun's punishing rays. That, along with the cooling aura from Princess Nora, helped considerably.

Nora looked left and right. There was nothing but sand. And more sand.

"Mr. Fury, does nobody live in this biome?"

"They just don't live above ground."

The moment he finished speaking, the earth around them trembled faintly, sending ripples across the surface.

Dozens of figures rose in unison from beneath the red sand.

They were soldiers of the southern frontier guard unit, with physiology that had developed specifically for survival and hunting beneath the arid desert.

Nora and Rafinya stared at their strange forms.

The unit leader who stepped forward and knelt in respect before Fury was tall and lean, with thick skin of a rough, reddish-brown texture like fired clay, designed to camouflage with the landscape. Her face bore no protruding ears like a human's, but instead had panels of low-frequency receptors along the temples, specialized organs that could detect the vibrations of living things across the sand for kilometers, even while buried deep underground.

What caught the eye most were the eyes themselves.

They had a translucent second eyelid, a nictitating membrane, that slid over their actual eyes as an extra layer of protection against the fine, sharp grains of sand. When they moved, their elbows and knees bore thick overlapping scale plates resembling a pangolin's, allowing them to burrow and dive beneath the sand at speed without making a sound.

Nora sketched her in her notebook with swift strokes. Though the figure still followed the humanoid Diablo concept, she couldn't think of any way to define her other than a creature likely based on a "centipede."

"Princess Nora, welcome to my domain. May Your Highness have long life and prosperity."

Nora had guessed wrong. This was not a "he" but a "she."

She was a female Diablo, though there was no way to tell from appearance alone. She had none of the curves or chest that Freya possessed. Not even a hint.

You could not determine a Diablo's sex from outward appearance alone.

"I am Genoa, Guardian of the Desert. I know every nook and cranny of this land."

News of Nora's arrival had spread remarkably fast. In no time at all, she guessed the entire island must have already known that a foreign princess had come to visit.

And with Fury personally watching over her like this, it went without saying that they were practically rolling out the red carpet.

"It glows at night here too."

Dan told them,

"This is Livramento's birthplace. You'll notice that most of the Diablo in this biome are completely blind and mute."

Setting aside Genoa, who had the membrane covering her eyes, the other Diablo had no eyes on their faces at all. And only a handful could speak.

"But don't underestimate them. In this environment, eyes are not a necessity."

They saw through the vibrations of underground waves, a special ability that Livramento also possessed.

Though neither girl had ever seen Livramento's true form, they could reasonably guess that he was a Diablo with the same burrowing mechanisms as Genoa.

If anything, it might even be superior to eyesight.

"Our desert covers roughly one-third of the kingdom. Beneath the surface, mana crystals of Grade C to Grade B are scattered throughout. To extract them, our workers must be the burrowing type, capable of withstanding extreme heat."

Genoa led both young women around, introducing them to the district under her protection.

"This desert biome has a climate that remains nearly constant year-round. During the day, it gets extremely hot before cooling to moderate levels at night."

"Do you get sandstorms here?"

Nora asked,

"Like in Zentinel?"

"We don't have sandstorms. But we do get rain toward the end of the year. Our people use that window to store water inside their bodies to last through the following year."

"You mean you barely need to drink water at all?"

"That is correct."

Nora nodded and jotted down a note.

Meanwhile, Rafinya wiped the sweat from her face with the back of her hand, flushed from the damp heat.

Unlike Nora, who cast an ice spell to keep herself cool like a walking air conditioner, Rafinya had no such luxury. She had to endure the full force of the desert heat with the sun directly overhead.

"Here, take this."

"Is this... a tiny fan?"

"Turn it on. It'll keep you cool."

Dan said,

"It's got a mana crystal the size of a pinky fingernail for power. When the blades spin, it produces a cool breeze. I bought it on the sly from Mathema."

"You really do love gadgets, just like Nora said... thank you."

But just then, the ground shook violently.

"!"

Looking out toward the sand dunes stretching to the horizon, they saw an enormous mass of sand erupting from the earth. It began advancing toward them steadily, as though something tremendously large was moving in their direction.

"Mr. Fury!"

"Don't panic."

Dan said calmly.

"Someone wants to come out and welcome you."

"Who?"

Before the question was even finished, a colossal sand worm burst from underground, launching over their heads. Its body was larger than the airship. Its tremendous length passed over them like a living bridge.

Nora and Rafinya stood frozen, eyes wide.

Its voice was deep and muffled, resonating like a whale in the ocean.

Its body eclipsed the sunlight, casting a shadow over the ground below. It was a giant worm encased from head to tail in hard, scale-like plating.

Its arrival sent clouds of sand billowing across the entire area, but Genoa's soldiers spread their armor wide to shield the honored guests from the dirty sand, keeping them safe.

"That is one of our island's monster beasts."

Genoa said.

"A servant of Prince Fury. Yormungon."