GRP Chapter 22

"Ha, this isn't something we do for just anyone. We really showed our generosity today."

"Want to play the hunting game? You drop someone and see who catches them first."

"Only one mistake in ten. That one time was because we'd been drinking, so it's fine now. Probably."

"The kid who fell didn't die, either. Their memory got a bit worse after, but they turned cheerful—positive, even."

Insane. Utterly mad. They were definitely out of their minds. Mariaeks shook her head with all the desperate force she possessed to avoid dying.

"Well... now's not the time for that. We got a bit too excited over a newcomer."

"Hey—refusing your seniors with 'no' and 'I don't want to' must take some doing. Very principled of you?"

"I like you, kid. You're going to amount to something."

The women laughed heartily. Mariaeks tore her plans to explore the inside of the fortress into shreds. At this point she almost thought the room with Garthe in it would be preferable. Dangerous people like this walking around without restraint. What a terrifying...!

Fierce wind swept past her ears in continuous gusts. Before long the fortress walls came into view. Above them, enormous siege engines stood in a row, and armor-clad humans moved busily about, maintaining an iron-wall defensive posture.

The women landed lightly atop the fortress wall. Only then, freed from Ryaia's side, Mariaeks leaned half against the battlements and worked to steady her trembling legs. In the meantime, a man of advanced years came running breathlessly.

"Paldoa, you're here!"

"Yeah."

"When the bell rang, you were—"

"In battle, you strike first. No question. Honestly, always slacking..."

Following their gazes, Mariaeks looked beyond the fortress wall as well. A giant, snow-white yak god was staring at the fortress, freezing the surrounding ground solid in all directions. The man who had been on the receiving end of the women's lecture also hardened his expression. She could understand the tension surrounding them and the women's agitation. Though a full-scale battle hadn't broken out, the yak god possessed a power that felt threatening even simply by standing still.

"When did it arrive?"

"About fifteen minutes ago."

"And it's been standing like that the whole time?"

"Yes."

"Better not to provoke it first. We can catch it if we need to, but our affinities aren't favorable with this one—so holding out until the Anir returns would minimize casualties. Pass the word to the others. Don't go starting things needlessly."

As the yak god opened its mouth and looked up at the fortress wall, the sound of a howling blizzard spread outward. Not the sound of a beast—the voice of a god. It was clearly trying to say something, but the problem was that no one available could understand it.

"Good heavens, Your Divinity! Northern dialect would be just fine—please, speak to us in a language we can actually understand!"

There were certainly gods who knew human language, or who could transmit meaning directly. But most gods spoke in a strange, mysterious voice resembling the sounds of the natural world. Ordinary humans could not understand it—though occasionally, someone was born who could hear a god's voice. These people were given the weighty duty of communicating with gods, and were called shrine maidens, priests, or divine interpreters.

But this was a sparsely populated fortress. The likelihood of someone who could understand the yak god appearing by good fortune was vanishingly small. When the yak spoke again, ice crystals generated around its two elongated horns began falling drip by drip through the air. Assuming the god was about to attack, the human warriors sharpened their alertness once more.

But only Mariaeks could feel what the god was trying to say. An emotion entered her as if raking roughly through her chest. It was grieving.

Mariaeks gripped the place near her chest where another's emotion had begun to stir, and looked at the women standing on the battlements. The playfulness from earlier was nowhere to be seen. Clear wariness was set hard in their eyes. They appeared to understand the god's intent not at all.

"Paldoa."

When she called the name she'd heard earlier, all three women turned to face her at once. It was only then she realized they were all Paldoa.

"Kid... so impatient. I understand the urge to leap out and slice its throat this very moment, but wait first."

"Newcomers always have this problem. Too hot-blooded."

She couldn't understand in the slightest what it was they thought they understood. The Paldoa sisters went on about how, honestly, she’s at exactly the age for blood and battle—so cute, so cute—which only made the feeling of suffocation worse. Mariaeks pushed back the hood that had been covering even her eyes. Her silver hair scattered on the wind, shimmering in five colors depending on the angle. The Paldoa sisters' eyes went wide.

"Find the child."

"...Child?"

Ryaia answered belatedly.

"It's asking to have the child inside the fortress returned."

"You can make sense of that garbled nonsense? Were you a shrine maiden, newcomer?"

She didn't know what a shrine maiden was, but that wasn't what mattered right now. Ever since she'd heard the god's words, she couldn't shake a feeling of urgency. It was because the god's feelings had been transmitted to her completely intact. Her chest felt stifled and tight, aching with a steady throb.

"It could end without a fight."

Ryaia looked down at Mariaeks without answering, arms folded. After a moment she shrugged and opened her mouth.

"Does it seem like that god will stay calm while we search for the child?"

Mariaeks looked beyond the fortress wall again. Through the long fur hanging down over the god's face, she could see eyes filled with pooled sorrow. She could find no hostility there.

"No."

"All right. That's how it is, then."

Ryaia leapt up and landed in a single stride on the opposite battlements, the ones facing the inside of the fortress.

"Oze! Oze!"

Following her, Mariaeks also moved to a new position. Below the fortress wall, a dark figure was wedged among the large-framed warriors. Oze raised his hand and waved it lazily.

"Hey, hey—yeah, Oze. Glad to see you too. Anyway, apparently there's a god's child somewhere in our fortress? Find it!"

Oze drew a circle in the air with his arm. Divine power soon began emanating from him. Like a lake where a leaf has fallen, a subtle ripple of sound spread outward from around him. It was the kind of sound ordinary humans could not hear. Only Mariaeks, the Paldoa sisters, and a few warriors winced as the sound wave rang sharply through their heads. After a time, the ripple subsided. The search was complete.

"Where is it?"

Oze raised both arms, crossed.

"It's not there?"

This time: a circle.

Mariaeks glanced sideways to gauge Ryaia's reaction. She had been ready to quickly make an excuse if pressed about whether her information was wrong. As if that worry were entirely unnecessary, Ryaia was simply staring into the distant air. The fingers of her folded arms twitched back and forth.

"One is an omnipotent god, one is an omnipotent Oze..."

Stop. The fingers went still. Ryaia's gaze turned ice-cold.

"These... vermin..."

Killing intent surged and spread. Cold pooled above the nape of Mariaeks's neck, and she hastily pulled her cloak tighter.

"Oze!"

At Ryaia's furious voice, Oze tilted his head quizzically.

"Change the search target! Not something living—it's dead! The target is a four-legged beast with horns. Search every last piece, even dismembered parts!"

The top of the fortress wall was instantly swallowed in heavy silence.

Now Mariaeks understood the reason for that piercing grief. It wasn't simply that a child had gone missing—the god already knew. She tried to release the feeling clenching tight around her heart by quickly parting her lips, but only a white, soundless breath dispersed into the air.

In the meantime, events moved swiftly. The moment Oze raised a circle above his head, Ryaia swept in and took him the same way she had taken Mariaeks.

Soon Ryaia appeared alone, cradling in her arms the body of a young yak god smaller than Mariaeks. Blood dripped steadily from its white belly, split open in a long vertical line. Ryaia's eyes burned, unable to conceal their feelings.

"Why does nothing ever seem to resolve itself easily?"

The Paldoa sisters scratched their heads with grave expressions.

"Ryaia, the moment we hand this back, it'll be all-out war with them."

"If worse comes to worst, we'd have to use the body as a hostage."

"What a wretched mess to put ourselves through over garbage like this!"

The area around them grew busy. Sharp sounds of weapons and the cold killing intent of people filled the still space that had been at rest. Everyone was taking full combat formation.

The god spoke again. With a fiercer blizzard sound than before, people's alertness deepened further. The Paldoa sisters simultaneously looked at Mariaeks. Their expressions said: aren't you going to interpret?

"Return the dead child. I'll leave quietly."

"Leave?"

Even Ryaia, who had trusted Mariaeks's ability when she first witnessed it, could not conceal her skepticism this time.

Despite the opposition of others, Ryaia crossed the fortress wall all the same. The commotion atop the wall subsided from the moment she set down the bleeding body of the young god directly before the great god. Though the space held many people, not even the sound of breathing could be heard.

Ryaia slowly stepped backward.

Contrary to everyone's expectation that it would fly into a rage and rampage, the yak god remained motionless for a long while. Time passed. Then the god lowered its head and licked the child. Very carefully, as if the child were precious beyond measure—until the blood that had begun to congeal disappeared. Soon the god pressed its face briefly against the child's face.

The god raised its head again and looked into Mariaeks's eyes. It spoke. Then it turned and left, leaving the body behind.

The defensive formation at the fortress wall came down only after the yak had passed out of sight—and then only after scanning once more with Oze's senses, because even then no one could quite believe it. Ryaia, who had been watching only the direction the yak god had gone, finally flew up to join them on the wall.

"Interpret!"

She found herself wondering when exactly her name had become Interpret. At the urgent question, Mariaeks recalled the sounds of snow and wind that had passed through her moments ago.

"White flame..."

"Flame?"

Mariaeks pressed her hand tight and gazed beyond where the god had disappeared.

Tell the master of this land: cremate the child with the white flame that lights the night.