Chapter 2 — 흉의 일족
Part 2, Chapter 16
The Scourge Clan
The hills near Hueillan.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
A heavy cadence of boots came steadily on.
As the sound drew closer, nearly a thousand soldiers crested the hill, kicking up a fine haze of dust.
They held a perfect formation without a hair out of place.
Proof of relentless drilling.
At their head rode a cold-eyed man on a black stallion.
The Purple Lion.
Among the Eight Lions who guard the Golden Lion, he was said to be the most ruthless.
Bel Bahamut.
And the troops following him were the Purple Lion Corps, infamous for leaving nothing but a storm of blood in their wake.
The detachment from the imperial court had finally arrived in Hueillan.
Bel raised a fist.
As if a single body, every soldier halted on the spot.
….
Silence fell in an instant.
Bel lowered his hand and, expressionless, looked down at Hueillan.
From the high ground, the whole of Hueillan lay in a single sweep of the gaze.
Nothing but trash.
Only one emotion flickered across his slightly furrowed eyes.
Undisguised contempt.
The face of a man looking at filth.
His first impression of Hueillan was neither more nor less than that.
Trash that not only colluded with a demon, but even dragged in the Free Revolutionary Army? A deed worthy of death.
There were retired soldiers, orphans, and other ordinary lower folk in Hueillan, but such details meant nothing to Bel.
If it’s in the trash bin, it’s trash.
With the Scourge clan and the Free Revolutionary Army thrown into the mix, there were more heaps to take out—but that didn’t make it a bad situation.
If anything, he was pleased.
A chance to sweep away the kingdom’s problem children in one go.
Once I clear them out…!
He would rid this place of refuse and set the man he served, Cromhel, on the throne as crown prince.
If he could become a man of founding merits, he would be that much closer to the “dream” he so desperately craved.
Unlike the fool Zeraitz, Cromhel never threw away his own.
Patriarch-brother. This time I’ll make you see, clear as day, who has the makings to be the true head of Neresta.
Killing intent seeped from Bel’s whole body.
At last, his silent mouth opened.
“Erase it.”
At that curt order, the soldiers moved at once.
In unison they drew their bows, nocked fire-arrows, and leveled them at Hueillan.
Without the slightest hesitation, they loosed.
Thrum-thrum-thrum!
Arrows traced parabolas and came down on Hueillan like rain.
Fires sprang up all across the town.
Whoosh!
In an instant the village was swallowed in a sea of flame.
“Kyaaaa!”
“Uaaagh! Help!”
“F-fire! Fire!”
Horrible screams rose from below, but Bel paid them no mind.
Only—
“Burns nicely.”
He looked down on Hueillan with an indifferent face.
* * *
Meanwhile, at that very moment—
The standoff dragged on.
A chill current flowed between them.
No one could move—not Taihol, not anyone.
One wrong twitch and the clash would erupt. A hair-trigger moment.
If that happened, Zen’s life—and everyone else’s—would be in danger.
Cold sweat slicked Taihol’s palm.
Damn it! What do I do?
No matter how he racked his brain, he couldn’t see a way out.
While Taihol agonized, time kept slipping away.
Every second counted.
[Taihol! What are you doing!]
Forment’s urgent voice-transmission pressed at his ear.
[Say something! We’re out of time!]
It wasn’t just Forment hurrying him.
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
Outside, the Free Revolutionary Army’s signals kept coming.
Hurry. The enemy’s at the door.
[Taihol! Now!]
[I know! I know!]
It wasn’t that Taihol didn’t grasp the situation. He knew it better than anyone.
In his heart he wanted to do something—evacuate, respond—anything before the Suppression Force arrived.
But, but…!
All the more for that—
His eyes kept landing on his son Zen, shaking like a leaf.
He couldn’t lose Zen, dearest of all to him.
If he left Zen behind to fight the Suppression Force?
Even if he won, would that be victory? He’d spend the rest of his life crushed under guilt.
And yet he could not, for the sake of one child, abandon his whole clan.
[Taihol!]
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
His chest tightened; his head felt like it would split.
What in the world am I supposed to…!
Just then, as Taihol stared at Zen with shaken eyes—
Sss—
The ice arrow aimed at Zen’s head melted away into the air.
…!?
Startled, Taihol’s gaze snapped to Elric.
Elric let out a thin chuckle.
“That’s enough.”
At the same time, the oppressive pressure around them drew back into his body.
He gave Zen, still shivering, a light push between the shoulders.
Zen bolted toward Taihol like a shot.
“D-dad!”
Taihol gathered Zen in one arm and glared at Elric, suspicion filling his eyes.
“I don’t know what you’re playing at, but—!”
“Oh, for crying out loud.”
Elric cut him off, digging at his ear with his ring finger as if annoyed.
“You said the Suppression Force is here, right? Get your people out. I’ll handle that side for now.”
“How did you know…! No, more importantly, why—?”
Elric looked at the now-bewildered Taihol as if he were pathetic.
“I can’t be a thug like you, can I?”
Elric, too, had felt the Purple Lion Corps’ aura.
If this dragged on, not only Trang’s clan but everyone in Hueillan would die.
He couldn’t allow that.
“Save the fight for later. Right now, think about staying alive.”
With that, Elric flared his aura and vanished.
“…Why?”
Taihol stared blankly at the place Elric had been.
He couldn’t make sense of it.
He had tried to kill Elric.
Yet Elric, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, offered help and went to face a Purple Lion.
I can’t be a thug like you?
Taihol turned the words over.
But he didn’t have long to mull it.
“Taihol! What are you thinking so hard about!”
“Ah…!”
Forment was shaking his shoulder, shouting.
Snapped back to himself, Taihol opened his mouth.
He still didn’t understand Elric’s words, but that wasn’t the point.
Right now—
At least for now, as Elric said, getting the townsfolk to safety came first.
More than anything, their lives mattered most.
Having gathered himself, Taihol barked orders to his soldiers.
“Those inside, with me. Tell the outer pickets to evacuate the townspeople as fast as possible!”
“Yes, sir!”
As soon as he finished, Taihol rushed out with his men.
And in that moment—
…So that’s what he meant.
Taihol thought he might finally understand a little why Elric had said what he did.
* * *
That way?
Elric was sprinting toward the source of the Purple Lion’s overwhelming aura.
Even from a fair distance, he could tell things were bad.
Thick smoke was rising far off.
Not just thick—blackening the sky.
And all around it, a sea of fire lit the world.
I have to hurry!
As the flames spread, Elric pushed harder.
Screee—
Beside him, Mephisto watched with a sour look.
“What now.”
‘I simply cannot make sense of you.’
“What about?”
‘Why release a hostage after you’ve taken one.’
So that was it—he didn’t like that Elric had let Zen go.
‘Helping the clan of a man who tried to kill you? If anything you should round them up and wipe them out. What in blazes are you doing.’
What a soft touch.
Even after spilling his mind, Mephisto kept grumbling at his side.
Elric laughed under his breath.
Strictly speaking, Mephisto wasn’t wrong.
Helping someone who’d clearly tried to kill you—on any other day, unthinkable.
But today was different.
For one, Lord Gility used to be with the Free Revolutionary Army.
And he’d made a promise with Trang—
He would save Trang’s clan.
There were conditions, yes, but with all of Hueillan in danger there was no time to fuss over them.
More than anything—
“I don’t like watching common folk become sacrifices to political squabbles.”
Elric’s resolve was firmer than ever.
These people had done nothing wrong.
He refused to accept that they should be dragged into noble and royal politicking and made to suffer.
“It makes no sense.”
He let out a disbelieving laugh.
There were criminals and runaways among them, sure—but they were a small minority.
Most were ordinary people.
A people who had nearly been exterminated by misunderstanding.
And he would not kill such people for the sake of a tidy “achievement.”
They had taken the hand of a Demon King? That was a choice forced on them to survive—and even then they’d been swindled.
They took help from the Free Revolutionary Army, the empire’s enemy?
So what? You need strength, right now, if you’re to run from Lilith.
People who had nowhere to ask for salvation.
People who had nowhere to lean, nowhere to lie down, nowhere even to sleep in peace.
If he didn’t protect people like that—
If he, grandson of Usden Mervinger and the Assenting Duke, didn’t take them in—who would?
‘There’s a word the world uses for men like you.’
Mephisto’s eyes were quieter than ever as he watched Elric.
‘What word?’
‘Hero.’
Mephisto said it flatly.
‘The world calls that a hero.’
Elric was about to answer when—
Whoom!
Up above!
A killing intent pressed down on his whole body.
He snapped his head up.
A distant line of hills—the long ridge whose end you couldn’t see.
There.
There was only one person here who could exude killing intent that strong.
The Purple Lion.
Elric was just about to head that way when—
Thrum-thrum-thrum!
Arrows loosed by the Purple Lion Corps blotted out the sky.
Elric’s face tightened.
He’d noticed the fire on their arrowheads wasn’t ordinary.
Special alchemical treatment… and even magic?
Unlike ordinary flames, which burn red and yellow, the treated arrowheads burned a deeper, richer red.
In short, they wouldn’t go out easily.
Bel Bahamut was of House Neresta. Of course he’d have a grounding not only in magic but in alchemy as well.
Elric’s eyes flashed.
“Rage!”
Vwoooom—
Ssshhh!
A fierce blizzard rose, spinning through the air.
He was invoking the Authority: Hanseol, which could cover a wide swath, to fend off the storm of fire-arrows overhead.
Rumble—
The winter storm lashed the arrows viciously.
As Elric anticipated, the arrows caught in the gale lost their center, swerved up into the air, and many guttered out as they hit pockets of vacuum.
But—
Damn it!
The volley’s spread was too wide.
He blocked most of them, but even Elric couldn’t cover the entire town at once.
He was just about to expand the blizzard to catch the rest when—
Ki-yi-yi!
The three dragons that had been following burst forward.
“What are they doing?”
Elric reached out, worried they’d get hurt—but realized he didn’t need to.
They threw their jaws wide and drew a great breath.
Then the scattered flames began to gather, all at once, into their mouths.
…!
‘…What trick is that now.’
A sight so staggering it stunned even to watch.
Even Mephisto was impressed.
When they’d gathered enough fire in their maws, the three dragons gave a collective “blech” and hurled a massive fireball toward the ridge.
Kwoooom!
The fireball slammed into the ridge and exploded with a roar.
Screaming, scores of enemies tumbled down the slope, bodies wreathed in flame.
“Aaaagh!”
“W-what is this!”
“Why is our fire—!”
“Khak!”
The fire clinging to them didn’t go out for a long time, even after they died.
….
….
Terrifying power.
Elric and Mephisto stared, eyes wide, at the hatchlings.
Kii!
Kii-yi, kii!
The three dragons puffed out their bellies, preening.
The Mage Who Devoured Talents