COARV Chapter 29

By now, Lesche had already put on a lightweight suit of celestium armor.

In this world, celestium armor was practically a necessity for knights, on par with a horse. Demonic beasts were the shared enemy of the entire continent. Thanks to endless rounds of refinement across every nation, celestium armor had become far easier to wear than older armors—though naturally, the price soared to match.

The armor Lesche currently wore was among the lightest and simplest to put on and take off. More than enough to block the demonic energy of one or two beasts, if it came to that right now.

Reassuring as it was, I still couldn't quite make sense of the situation. Why had a demonic beast appeared at all?

Because I haven't been to the glacier in a few days?

I hadn't gone out for the glacier inspection today, having spent it getting Abigail out of the dungeon. I'd skipped yesterday, too. But that was only a couple of days. Ordinarily, even a full week without inspection almost never brought demonic beasts down this far.

Rare, not impossible.

There was a very low chance—but a chance nonetheless—of a demonic beast appearing. Just then, a light knock came at the carriage door, and it swung open. It was Linon.

"Lady Seria! Are you all right? Hff—it's warm in here. Like heaven."

Linon dropped into the seat across from me at once, looking like he might burst into tears any moment, and curled himself up small. I looked at his blue-white cheeks and asked:

"Were you riding a horse?"

"No. I was in the supply cart."

"Why not this carriage?"

"I do have some sense of tact, you know—no, no. We left in such a rush there was something I needed to check on…."

Trailing off, Linon suddenly went "Oh, right!" and said,

"My lady. You know we'll be arriving at Laurel Manor shortly? Once you're inside, myself included, all the knights, all the staff—none of them can be addressed with formal speech. Otherwise, we'll die. There are devils living in that house."

Delivering this so gravely, Linon's expression was deeply serious. Faintly frightened, even. Whatever these "devils" were, it seemed connected to the very thing Lesche had looked so awkward about earlier. I was just about to start asking questions one at a time when—

"Oh, my lady. Quickly, get behind me—"

"What?"

"Hh—"

Linon's breath caught with an audible sound. His gaze had already shifted toward the window, and I turned reflexively to look outside as well.

"……"

For a moment, my own breathing seized completely.

The demonic beast was there, like something out of a lie. It was far more grotesque than anything I'd seen in illustrations. Its whole hide was pitch black, black like all the light had been gouged clean out of it, and its gums and teeth showed through garish red—stirring up a raw, sharp disgust and revulsion. As a Stern, I'd inspected the glacier often enough, but this was the first time I'd ever seen a demonic beast this close in person. Its two eyes, each a different color, seemed unable to hold focus, rolling and darting wildly in every direction with a wet gleam.

Above all else.

The demonic beast had a fully human shape.

That was the most grotesque part. Unlike an ordinary human, it was enormous, its arms far too long, dragging along the ground, and it looked to be a good three meters tall. But because that basic form was so unmistakably human, it made for a far worse nightmare. People said that seeing a demonic beast for the first time either left you with nightmares afterward, at best, or drove you out of your mind entirely, at worst—and now, seeing it directly, I understood exactly why.

But this creature—right now, was it just standing there in front of the carriage window, watching us in perfect stillness?

Just as the instinct hit me that we needed to jump out of the carriage—

The demonic beast opened its mouth wide and—CRUNCH—bit clean into the carriage.

"My lady!"

At Linon's shout, the carriage lurched violently. The horses shrieked and the whole carriage tipped, listing to one side. I curled up and screamed.

"My lady!"

"There's another one!"

"The carriage has been attacked!"

A knight's voice rang out, urgent.

"Linon!"

Having managed to scramble out through the broken gap in the carriage, I grabbed hold of Linon's arm and pulled hard. Thankfully, he wasn't unconscious.

"My lady! We—we need to run for the supply cart, quickly—!"

Linon's sentence never made it to the end. A black stain had bloomed across his cheek. The reason a human couldn't afford to be near a demonic beast.

Demonic energy.

"……"

A chill ran down my spine. Slowly, I turned around. It was the demonic beast. It had seized Linon's ankle with one of its long arms.

"Linon!"

I screamed at once and pulled Linon's face against my chest, pinning it there. Unlike celestium, which could deflect demonic energy entirely, a Stern could purify it to some degree, or so I'd been told. Seria's inherited gift for purification was on the weaker side, but I thought I could probably manage to purify this much, one way or another.

"Get down!"

A knight surged forward at once, sword raised, and lunged at the beast. A sharp CLANG split the air, and the knight's body went flying. My eyes widened. I already knew. That a demonic beast's body was as hard as metal. I knew it from the original novel, and I knew it through the knowledge Seria's body retained as a Stern. But living through it directly, right in front of me, was an entirely different order of experience.

The demonic beast's mouth opened wide. Its other hand reached toward me.

THWACK. The beast's grotesque arm was severed clean and dropped to the ground. I lifted my head. Lesche's back was right there in front of me.

It was over in an instant. Lesche had leapt and cut straight through the demonic beast's throat. I watched, blank, as it collapsed to the ground and as he closed the distance to me in a single stride.

Staring at Lesche in a daze, he dropped to one knee in front of me and asked, his voice urgent.

"Are you hurt?"

"No…. I'm not hurt."

He checked over my condition, carefully but quickly. Only once he'd confirmed I truly wasn't hurt did he let out a low breath. Lesche jerked his chin toward the back of Linon's head.

"Is he dead?"

"N—n' de'd et 'll (I'm not dead at all)…."

"You're not dead—then why are you doing that?"

"Ah, right. I was purifying the demonic energy…."

"How much longer do you plan on doing that."

"I'm just about done."

"Then let him go, at least."

Lesche grabbed Linon's shoulder and yanked him back with what struck me as near-brutal force. I obediently released my arms, and as I was moving to stand, my body was abruptly lifted again. Lesche had picked me up once more. Apparently I was the only one caught off guard by it, since he just went ahead and started calling for the knights while still holding me like that.

Meanwhile, Linon was checking his own ankle, eyes welling with tears.

"It's still attached…. I thought it had been ripped off when the beast grabbed it…."

"Let's see your face. Good, it's fine."

I let out a sigh of relief. The original novel had gone on at length about how weak Seria's gift for purification was, so I'd been worried, but Linon's face was thankfully clean. No trace of demonic energy left at all.

"Thank you, my lady. Thank you so much…."

Linon sniffled. It hadn't really been that difficult a task, honestly, but for the Grand Duke's chief aide to be crying gratitude toward me was, objectively, a favorable development.

Meanwhile, the demonic beasts' corpses were already burning black. If a thing that large hadn't even decomposed, disposing of the body would've been a headache on its own. More than that, the sight would've been thoroughly grotesque.

I had a feeling I'd end up having nightmares tonight, too.

"Your Highness. This carriage isn't usable anymore."

"Thoroughly done for."

Lesche clicked his tongue at the half-wrecked carriage and glanced up at the sky. A knight spoke, his voice edged with worry.

"It doesn't look like the snow's going to let up."

"How's the supply cart?"

"Undamaged, but it looks like it can only take one passenger."

"And slow, on top of it."

Because of the sudden blizzard, I hadn't even had time to change clothes before being all but abducted by Lesche. Worried the roads might get blocked, the procession had brought only two carriages in total. One, the supply cart. The other, the one that had just been chewed apart by the demonic beast, the one Lesche and I had been riding in.

"We'll need to ride horses. My lady."

"Ah, yes."

As I made to climb down from Lesche's arms, he asked:

"Where do you think you're going?"

"You said we're riding horses."

"In that outfit? There won't be time to dig out riding clothes from the supply cart."

"No. I can ride perfectly well just taking off this blanket."

Right now, admittedly, I was dressed as befit a noble lady—in a long, trailing nightgown. But that much I could manage to ride in regardless. This was a confidence I could only have because Seria happened to be an excellent rider.

The regrettable part was the blanket. Lined with blue silk on the outside, warm and light and even soft, this blanket was practically my favorite thing in the world.

"Planning to freeze to death, are you."

"What?"

Lesche jerked his chin toward the knight standing nearby and said:

"Undo my cloak. Lay it out on the ground as it is."

"Yes, Your Highness!"

The knight promptly unfastened Lesche's cloak and spread it out on the ground. Lesche set me down on top of it, then abruptly yanked the blanket that had been wound around my body free, and started winding it around me all over again, starting from my shoulders. The cloak he pulled up around me like wrapping paper, tying it snug below my waist. What exactly was happening right now?

"Seria Stern."

"…Yes?"

Lesche let out a breath—an exasperated exhale—and said, voice edged with anger:

"Your arms were frozen stiff. Were you trying to freeze to death?"

"No…."

I answered warily, but Lesche's expression didn't change.

"It's because of me, Your Highness. My lady had to purify me, so it couldn't be helped—"

Linon offered up an excuse on my behalf, his voice trailing off small. But as Lesche had said, I hadn't even noticed my arms had grown numb from the cold. Frozen stiff in front of the demonic beast, I hadn't been able to help it.

A fresh wave of admiration for Lesche struck me. How could he face a creature that horrifying without flinching in the slightest, let alone dispatch it in an instant like that?

I was still lost in that thought when suddenly my body was lifted again, and before I knew it I was seated on horseback. Even Lesche had mounted behind me. I found myself trapped in the bizarre predicament of becoming a blanket-wrapped grub, held in Lesche's arms.

"Your Highness…. Am I baggage?"

"If you were baggage, I'd have loaded you in the back."

"That's rather better treatment than cargo. Though right now I feel exactly like a cabbage roll…. No—a grub."