IBTRFL Chapter 18

The children lifted their heads, timid and afraid. Aer's expression, without a trace of a smile, was fixed on the thing in the boy's arms.

"S-sis? Why? Why are you—"

"Put it down right now. That's a monster."

"A m-monster?"

The startled child's arms went slack. The glans, not missing its chance, escaped and rolled around the children's feet as though furious.

Tears, round as marbles, welled up in the shoulders-hunched children's eyes.

Aer stared into the darkness between the dense trees.

A strange, rumbling sound, like the labored breath of someone with a lung disease. Trees far off began to fall, and a heavy vibration traveled up through the ground.

"S-sis."

Aer got down on one knee and met the children's eyes. Then, her expression serious, without a trace of a smile, she spoke.

"Listen to me now. Run, no matter what. Don't look back, just run."

The vibration was closing in fast.

"Run. Never turn back."

"B-but then, what about you, sis."

"Yeah, what happens to you, sis?"

Tears streamed down the terrified children's faces like heavy raindrops.

Though they were too young to understand any of it, they understood that the situation right now was dangerous.

Aer looked at the crying children. Then she wrapped them, each in turn, in a tight, all-encompassing hug, and gave them one instruction.

"Swear it to the goddess. Never—never look back. And don't come back either."

"S-sis..."

"Go, now!"

At Aer's shout, the sniffling children broke into a run on reflex. Their shapes vanished into the dark of the forest.

Aer straightened the knee she'd bent and turned her gaze to the glans still rolling around nearby.

She couldn't sense the children anymore. Gripped by fear as they were, they wouldn't be able to hear anything else either.

"Annoying."

Aer's face was expressionless as she kicked the glans away.

The acorn-shaped monster went flying off, struck a rock, and shattered into pieces.

Aer watched the monster approaching, felling trees as it came. Its bark twisted like an old man's face, and it moved on thick roots that served it as legs.

The roots dangled and writhed like the tentacles of some octopus she'd once seen, and it was deeply unpleasant.

"Ugh."

Aer scratched the back of her neck and looked at the remains of the glans scattered across the ground.

The reason she killed every glans she came across, easy prey even for an eight-year-old, was that the monster closing in right now was what a glans became when it grew up.

Glanst. A grown glans became a vicious tree monster.

Unlike the seed, which lived off nothing more than water and sunlight, a Glanst fed on living things. Its appetite was tremendous, too—it shoved anything it could catch straight into its mouth. Humans were no exception.

The Glanst made cunning use of its glans, spreading its seeds while simultaneously searching out prey.

"Well, too bad for you—there's no one left but me now."

Aer kicked off the ground and charged the Glanst head-on.

The Glanst, rushing eagerly toward her, grinned wide and set its branches into motion.

No predator turns away prey that comes walking, of its own will, straight into its jaws, begging to be eaten. Its roots writhed like tentacles and shot toward the prey with lethal precision.

As if she'd been waiting for it, Aer shifted direction and swung herself up onto a branch. Fire abruptly caught the roots flailing in the empty air.

Black smoke, acrid and thick, spread along with the foul stench of burning sap.

The Glanst, having hurriedly beaten its roots against the ground to put out the fire, glared at Aer. Deep in a hollow gouged into the wood, a red light rippled and flared.

Leaving the monster shrieking and raging behind her, Aer headed deeper into the forest.

Behind her, a furious roar followed, along with a heavy, rapid tremor.

Everything was going according to plan.

Aer lightly cleared a stone wall. The Glanst, right on her heels, smashed the wall apart with a swing of its roots.

Fragments of the wall came flying toward Aer. Clicking her tongue faintly, Aer drew up the power of water.

Thick icicles struck down every stone flying at her without exception. The Glanst only grew wilder, chasing its prey with even greater fury.

"This should about do it."

The deepest part of the forest. Sunlight barely reached here, and it was damp and dark.

Aer drew in a breath. The smell of humid moss was so thick her lungs felt like they might start growing mold.

"..."

Aer turned back without a word.

Perhaps thinking its prey had worn itself out, the Glanst was grinning unpleasantly. The bark, curved into a grotesque arc, stirred a wave of revulsion.

Dozens of strands of root shot out with murderous force. The strands, hurtling toward Aer as though about to pulp her on the spot, froze solid before they could land.

The Glanst, its face twisted, swung its roots and shattered the ice.

Aer smiled, thin and cold.

Break it and break it again, the roots simply froze over once more. The clear ice, alive as any living creature, crept steadily wider, claiming more ground.

The Glanst screamed and thrashed its roots violently. All it accomplished was speeding up the encroachment.

Before long, every part of it but its face had frozen solid. Unable to bear the fear any longer, the Glanst began to wail.

Inside its eye-sockets, the red light that had glinted so ominously flickered, unsteady, as though about to go out.

Aer walked slowly toward the repulsive tree.

"Bigger than I thought."

Aer moved her fingers, gauging its size.

She'd run into Glanst a handful of times on jobs before, but an individual this large was rare. It might, in fact, be the largest one she'd ever seen.

"Anyway, I never liked you guys."

Aer crossed her arms and went on.

"You're not worth shit except as firewood."

Murderous purple eyes flashed. Ferocious flame surged upward as though to pierce the sky.

The heat, hot enough to melt flesh, dissolved the ice instantly. It had gotten what it wanted—freedom—but there was nothing a monster half-burnt to charcoal could possibly do with it.

The fire died down, and one heavy lump of char lay sprawled atop a mound of black ash.

That was that. Aer, about to head for the cave, changed course on impulse and stepped on the charred lump.

One thing she'd learned from her years as a mercenary: treasure turned up, more often than not, in the filthiest places, or the ones you'd least expect to matter.

Sure enough, a familiar glimmer showed through the cracked charcoal.

"This came out of that?"

Her mouth kept twitching, curling up despite herself. Something in her chest filled up, and the world looked beautiful.

A pale green soul stone, fist-sized, its glow dim. Compared to the ones she'd swallowed before, the quality was noticeably lower.

But so what. What mattered was that she could gain new power from it.

Aer scooped up the soul stone at once and carefully brushed the ash away. Careful not to hurt it, even—that gentle touch of hers was pretty disgusting.

Aer cradled the soul stone close and headed for the cave. It was truly, finally, time to leave.

On a bright spring day, dark clouds settled thick over the orphanage.

Before dawn had even broken, three children came running in, weeping. The clerics, thinking at first the children must have had a nightmare, tried to soothe and comfort them—only to find, soon enough, that they couldn't trust their own ears.

Aer had been taken by a monster. That was the one line they could make out through the crying.

Cruel reality struck them across the back of the head. What kept the clerics holding onto their senses was the need to assemble a search party as fast as they possibly could.

Despite the early hour, more than a hundred people gathered. Those who'd come to feel goodwill toward the changed church, or who'd received its help, rolled up their sleeves and gave their time without hesitation.

May the goddess watch over her.

Everyone offered the same prayer, in one voice.

The desperate search stretched on for two full days. Cruel traces turned up, one after another, in the forest.

The last place the children had seen Aer. The spot was a wreck of fallen trees and shattered glans.

The seasoned captain of the guard identified the monster as a Glanst. And with that, the goal of the search changed—no longer to find Aer alive, but to recover some part of her remains.

The Director and the clerics broke down in grief right there on the spot. The children who'd heard the news held each other and wept without a sound.

In the end, they found no trace of her at all. Only a few testimonies from citizens who'd seen a pillar of fire shoot up toward the sky before dawn.

Weighing those testimonies, the search party arrived at a conclusion.

The Glanst that had eaten the child had, in turn, been killed by some unidentified monster that had settled deep in the forest.

The tragic news set the whole city stirring. A great many people across the city gathered to mourn the loss of a young life.

A gravestone bearing Aer's name was raised over a grave with no body in it, and people continued to leave white flowers there in remembrance.

The sad news reached even someone a fair distance away.

"How the hell is she dead?! I was writing her letters just days ago!"

The thunderous shout rattled the furnishings of the office.

Merka, who would normally have scolded him for making so much noise, kept her head bowed, uncharacteristically. She'd never once seen the child's face, but the death still ached.

More than anything, she'd never once seen her superior wear an expression like this, pouring out grief so raw.

Valor struck his own chest with his fist, over and over. His ribs, comparatively fragile, rang out in pain.

He knew it was misplaced anger. This wouldn't bring the dead child back to life. But if he didn't do something, anything, like this, he felt his head might split open.

Staggering, Valor collapsed heavily into his chair. The chair, straining to bear his considerable weight, creaked out its unsteady protest.

"Doesn't make sense. Doesn't."

Valor muttered, dazed, both hands pressed over his eyes.

Pressure kept coming from above. The stink and corruption in the church had all originated with them, after all, so it was no surprise they looked poorly on anyone unearthing their rot.

That was why he hadn't been able to go to Solbo. Threatening Valor's own life had never been on the table to begin with. Which meant that whatever blade they had, it always turned toward the people around him instead.

His subordinates, at least, had their families and old classmates behind them, so it hadn't mattered so much. But a threat against Aer, so far away, wasn't something he could respond to immediately.

The contents of the letter he'd sent just a few days ago surfaced in his mind, unbidden.

He'd said he was curious how much she'd grown, that he'd make time to visit soon. And what good was that now? The person meant to receive that letter was no longer in this world.

Sighing, Valor lowered his hand and opened the drawer. The letters they'd exchanged over more than a year sat there, arranged in careful order.

The outermost one, sitting right at the front, he still hadn't opened—too caught up in work to get to it.

The fist Valor rested on the desk trembled. Beneath it, drops of red blood began to fall, one after another.

Merka watched, silent, her expression fixed.

His upper body, wrapped in clerical robes, heaved roughly. Taking a deep breath, Valor called out to the subordinate who'd been watching him, careful of his mood, this whole time.

"Merka."

"Yes."

"I'm going to Solbo."

He couldn't accept it—not until he'd seen the gravestone with his own eyes. Getting up from his seat in one motion, Valor snatched up the coat he'd carelessly hung nearby.

Merka watched him move about, saying nothing, hurried and preoccupied.

No matter how hard she turned her sharp mind over it, there was no way to talk her superior out of this.

Resigned, Merka straightened her glasses and asked.

"Your Eminence."

"..."

"When will you be back?"

Valor answered as he stepped out into the hallway.

"Dunno."

Merka nodded, as if there was nothing else to be done.

The door closed, and silence settled over the office.

This is going to be a while, she thought.

Merka let her shoulders drop and worked at the stiffness in her neck.