Swamp Girl! Chapter 66

“But what will you do? You can’t exactly hide out here forever, and if our opponent is Prince Lucien, it’ll get out sooner or later, won’t it? My home? It’s only a matter of time before my connection with the Second Division gets leaked.”

Frowning, Irene suddenly took the opportunity to interrupt the conversation.
In short, ‘you guys are troublesome, could you hurry up and leave?’ No, that’s just my imagination, right? But on the other hand, she wasn’t wrong.

“If I had to choose the most pressing issue, I suppose it would be escaping from the Imperial Capital. It was for that reason that I had Miss Aira come here as well. However…”

“The problem is Tetra’s Heart, is it not?”

Arc’s words were sensible, but he hesitated to say that last bit. Regnum took over and did it for him.

Tetra’s Heart.

When I thought back, my understanding of it was vaguer than I expected.
The magus sealed by the imperial capital, Tetra. Earlier, Arc said that Lucien was trying to make me into a vessel. And Lucien said that he would use me to deal with the seal’s imminent dissolution.
After that,

“Lucien said that at this rate, the Imperial Capital is sure to be blown to kingdom come.”

“What!?”

Irene leapt to her feet with a shocked cry. It was probably her first time hearing about it.
Though Aira didn’t get up, she looked over at me with an astonished expression. It certainly was shocking to hear.

“What’s that all about!? What are you talking about!?”

Irene glared at me. Even so, nothing more came out of my mouth. I’d only heard that much in the first place, after all.
Seeing my perplexed expression, Irene s.h.i.+fted her sights to Arc.
I suppose she went with Arc, and not Regnum, because of their master-disciple relations.h.i.+p.

“…Once you hear it, there’s no going back, but you could say that that s.h.i.+p has sailed… Though what I can tell you will turn out to be fairly ambiguous. I’ll explain it simply. First, about Tetra. What do you know about her, Irene?”

“…Eh, um… The legendary magus who laid the foundations for magic roughly a thousand years ago?”

“Well, that’s true. That magus is sealed underground, below the capital. The seal is the issue here, you see, and there are a variety of rumors about it. She was far too dangerous. She became something inhuman. She became a human sacrifice. And so on.”

The talk, which had started with Tetra’s relations.h.i.+p with this whole business, was incredibly disturbing. Even the agitated Irene had to sit down, for the third time.

“It was around that time that the ancient dynasty fell, as you know, so even the literature isn’t definite on this. Anyway, as eras pa.s.sed, we came to construct the Imperial Capital on top of that seal. At first, of course, no one knew how inappropriate it was to build here. That, we learned fairly recently.”

“Recently?”

“That’s right. It was maybe twenty, thirty years ago. In any case, when the seal was discovered, it as already at its limit. There was an enormous magical power ama.s.sed inside the thing we call the Heart, and it was just short of going on a rampage. No one knows when that will happen, either. It might be now, it might be a little later down the line. And so, we began the search for some way to deal with it with all haste.”

When he said ‘Might be now’, everyone aside from Regnum inhaled sharply.

Sure, there weren’t that many who could keep their cool after hearing something like that. It was like standing next to a volcano on the verge of erupting.

“What I learned from ransacking the literature was, the Tetra-like thing inside continuously emits magical power. That’s why it would be better to take Tetra out and put her inside something else. But the question was, what container, and what method? Setting aside the method, the container is already here — ”

Arc looked at me.
It matched up with the bits and pieces Lucien said.
When I gave him a tiny nod of understanding, Irene and Aira looked at me in shock.
Regnum picked up where Arc left off.

“That is how it is. I say this with full knowledge of how awfully selfish it is, but a.s.suming you fled the capital like this, eventually the capital would be in danger.”

Of course, he stopped short of saying ‘So, what will you do?’
Still, saying that much, he’d as good as told me to ‘do something about it’.

However, as Regnum himself said, that’s too selfish. If I’m being cold about it, it’s not like I really knew what would become of the capital.

But — I looked at Aira, Palmira, and Irene in turn.

My feelings were complicated. Irene, of course, lives here.
Palmira despised the capital, but now, I don’t know. Aira will remain at the mansion, I’m sure.

“If so, then everyone should abandon the capital and flee.”

Perhaps because of my gaze, Palmira made a rather basic proposal.
But that wasn’t it. It was because Palmira’s feelings about the capital were mixed, to a certain degree, that she could make the suggestion.
Even I thought of that right away. I wasn’t surprised to see Regnum shaking his head.

“That cannot be done. Of course, it seems there were some in favor of the idea, but the Empire is already too big for such a plan to be feasible. It is impossible to abandon the capital, whatever the reason. At present, with the three superpowers in balance, that degree of weakness could quite possibly spark the worst war in history. Furthermore, it would be a difficult proposal to advance internally. Although it might have been workable when the seal was discovered, it probably is already too late, even if we were to use the relocation of the capital as a pretense.”

I had a hunch that there were probably various other reasons for it.
If I were to take a rough stab at summing it up, I’d say the Empire was just too big. And it would make too huge a mess to settle issues of that degree.

“Then what will we do? Don’t tell me you want to make Big Sister a sacrifice — ”

Knock-knock.

When Aira was about to say the words that everyone was thinking of and no one could say, she was interrupted by a knock at the dining room door.

Everyone turned in that direction.

“May I come in? Master, Lady Allie from the mansion is here.”

Miss Patsy entered the room.
The moment she came in, I felt as if there was something stiff about the expression that accompanied her report of Allie’s arrival.
Hey, what’s wrong?

“Did something happen?”

asked her master, Arc, with an uncharacteristic seriousness. Her state was probably odd enough for him to pick up on it.
Beside him, Regnum wordlessly stood from his chair.

“That is, she’s not in a normal state… she’s injured…”

“Pardon me.”

As Miss Patsy’s voice failed her, Allie pushed her way past her into the room.

Everyone present inhaled sharply at the sight of her.
The maid uniform she usually wore with perfect flair was frayed and torn in several places.
And what was most eye-catching was her hand, and how she had it pressed against her side. The fabric around it was stained the black of dried blood, clear as day. Despite maintaining her usual composure, it hurt to look at.
No, she wasn’t in normal condition at all.

“Head Maid!”

In the middle of this, Aira, whose a.s.sociation with her was as deep as mine, or deeper, screamed and ran over to her.
But Allie held her back with a hand and turned her firm gaze toward us.

“The mansion — was attacked. Right now, Lord Vyde and the First Platoon are engaged in battle.”

“What did you say!?”

Shocked by her brief report, I shot up from my seat.
Allie didn’t say anything. But there was no mistaking Lucien’s hand in this.
An army, or —

“What about Leon!? What happened to him?”

I thought of the worst-case scenario. An ordinary army would rely on numerical superiority, but Vyde and the Elite Guard seemed like they would manage somehow.
But if it were Maddox — . And if he came to claim Leon’s head, for sure this time — .

“Lord Leon — is…”

At that moment, Allie suddenly groaned and fell to her knees. Immediately, I dashed to her side. And accompanied by Aira, I knelt down to look into Allie’s eyes.

Allie turned her hanging head toward me. Our eyes met.

“Miss Chris! Please get away from her!”

It happened just as Regnum’s shout reached my ears.

That gaze sent a chill through my entire body. There was no mistaking it: those eyes didn’t belong to the Allie who’d been here just now.

Eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with a deep, deep, deep darkness.

Then her mouth curled in a grin.
Feeling an instinctive fear along with Regnum’s words, I immediately tried to distance myself from her.

“!”

“Kyaa–!”

Before I could, Allie’s hand shot out with surprising speed and grabbed me by the wrist. Immediately after, I heard Aira scream as she was thrown to the floor.

And at the same time, something hit the floor with a solid, metallic clink.
When I turned my eyes to look, I spotted two knives. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Regnum in the follow-through pose of a knife throw. He was the one who had thrown them.
They’d been released in a instant, only to be thwarted by something and knocked to the floor.

“Wah–!”

Then Allie stood, dangling me in the air by my wrist.
What unbelievable strength.
I didn’t have any idea what the h.e.l.l was going on. Allie’s dark eyes were oozing some kind of black mist.
That obviously wasn’t normal. Intuition told me that something was manipulating her.

“Who… are you!”

Enduring the pain from my wrist, which was in a grip so tight that the bones were grinding against each other, I glared at the thing that wasn’t Allie.
Though it had her face, it lifted the corners of its mouth into a smile that could only be described as evil, and opened its mouth.
A gurgling darkness leaked out from that maw.

“I — cAME — to welCOme yOu”

A hideous, grating voice spewed forth along with the darkness.

“…Tetra…!?”

Arc’s strangled voice came from behind me.
This — is Tetra? The seal —

“‘Tetra’… Wasn’t she supposed to be sealed!?”

“The seal is at its limit. All bets are off…! And earlier, Chris, you got too close to the Heart — to Tetra… She noticed you…!”

“What are you planning to do with me…!”

I glared back at those eyes. Simply by being under their steady regard, my heart threatened to give out.
If I didn’t do something, it seemed like I wouldn’t be able to speak directly to her. The sinister pressure radiated by the being before me was eating that deeply into my heart.

“I’ll haVE yOUr bodY”

Tetra said, and chills raced down my spine.
Because that was certainly also what Lucien wanted. And for it to coincide with Tetra’s desires, it couldn’t help but stir up disgusting speculation.

“…! I won’t let that happen!”

Behind me, I heard Arc’s voice calling the magic invocation, [ジ].
That’s right, magic.
I strained my eyes. Blue flames flickered at the edges of my vision.

“iT’S fUtiLE”

Apparently having been activated behind me just now, a beam of light rocketed past me, closing in on Allie/Tetra.
But as if repelled by the darkness oozing from Tetra’s body, its trajectory swerved right into the ceiling, which it utterly decimated.

“Wha…!”

“ジ — ”

Seeing that, I screamed out the single-syllable incantation.
Before my eyes, blue flames traced the maze’s rings, centered on Tetra. It began to turn.

“Ughk–!?”

But before it could gather power and fire, the darkness leaking from Tetra’s mouth, accompanied by a ghastly sensation of substance, invaded mine. My mind thrown into chaos, the pattern dispersed.

“Ughmm–!”

“fUTile, futile, iT’S already MIne”

As I drowned painfully in the darkness forcing its way in deeper and deeper inside me, the blue pattern appeared around Tetra’s face and began to rotate. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

It was the same as my magic.

In my vision, blurred by agony, the pattern grew larger.
I didn’t know what magic she was activating. But I could tell that it was dangerous.

And yet I couldn’t do a thing. Now that even my magic had been sealed, I was helpless.

— Leon!

“Let go of Chris!”

I could see Palmira slash at Tetra with her sword, but even that was stopped by the darkness around her, so dense that it was clearly tangible.

“aHAHAhaHA”

“No! It’s a teleport!”

Behind the laughing Tetra, a golden wall sprang into being, apparently the result of the magic she invoked.

I didn’t need to hear Arc’s scream. That couldn’t be anything but a teleportation spell. It was clear that she intended to take me somewhere.
Backing up, Tetra disappeared into the golden wall. It swallowed me up the same way. I twisted my body, trying to fight it, but zuun, zuun, my feet, my lower body, my arms sank into it.

Along with a powerful horror, it engulfed me whole.

“Ugghhmphh!”

— Leon, help me. Leon!

As I screamed soundlessly, my entire vision eventually turned gold, and I fell unconscious.