IBTRFL Chapter 36

A parching thirst woke Djite.

His head didn't ache the way it usually did. His body didn't drag with its usual weight.

The blur cleared slowly from his eyes. A dark, grey sky. Far off, the sun was beginning to come up.

“Well. Slept right through it, didn’t I.” He groaned, pushing himself upright.

Sleep-heavy eyes moved this way and that, searching for one person.

"……Rana?"

His searching gaze wandered through the people around him. He looked again and again. The face he was looking for wasn't there.

Djite urged his cold-stiff knees forward and lurched upright.

The noise stirred a few sharp-eared sleepers; they turned and settled again. Djite stood staring at an empty pile of cloth with a blank expression.

Where the child had last slept. She'd left long before—it had gone cold.

An inexplicable chill seized him around the spine. Instincts sharpened by decades of hard experience repeated their warning.

Djite anxiously turned over the memories of the night before. The drink after so long had fogged his mind; not much remained.

So—do you remember what it looked like? The magic beast?

Course I remember. How could I forget a thing like that.

Tell me more. Describe it.

He forced himself back through it. Memories that had sunk beneath the drink began to surface.

While he’d been soaking in the wine, the child had questioned him about the beast, one thing after another. The stupid old man, drunk as he was, had answered everything without holding a single thing back.

A child secretive enough to hide even her name. He didn't know what she was, or why she'd come here.

What he knew for certain was this: she was far stronger than any child her age had a right to be. And righteous on top of it.

A child like that had spent the night asking pointed questions about the beast that had attacked the village—and then slipped away while everyone slept.

Which meant where the child was right now—

His bloodshot eyes found the direction of the village.

It felt as though every drop of blood in him were evaporating like water under the sun.

Djite lurched and caught himself, clutching at his chest. His stomach heaved, twisting with a wringing pain.

"Ah—no. Not—not this time……"

Must go. To the village.

Teeth clenched, Djite broke into a run.

The body that had been struck by the tail flew clear and hit the wall with nothing left to give.

Hot, wet liquid soaked the back of her head and ran down.

Her vision flickered wildly. She couldn't move a finger. The ringing in her skull made it impossible to think.

Through the terrible confusion, Aer fought to straighten her neck.

She'd bitten her tongue somewhere along the way—her mouth was filled with the slick iron taste of blood. The smell of it coming through her nose was thick enough to choke on.

How long had it been? Her vision cleared. Through the drifting haze of dust, she could see Ertorix raging.

Watching the way it was thrashing, whatever was left of the sword lodged in it must have been doing the job.

'Serves you right.'

She tried to get up, but lost her center and went down. She reached out to brace herself—her body didn't cooperate.

She flinched and turned her head to look at her right arm. Through the torn fabric, flesh gone dark red with bruising. She tried to put weight on her shoulder, the one part still more or less intact—the arm just hung there, useless.

Completely broken. She couldn't grip a sword with this.

"……Damn."

Across a run of genuinely wretched situations, Aer was choosing to stay positive. She'd given up the right arm, but she'd somehow survived.

If she hadn't made the ice wall in that split second, hadn't twisted her body—she wouldn't exist in the world anymore.

The problem was that she now had to face Ertorix at the peak of its rage.

The furious yellow eyes locked onto her. Aer answered by spitting a mouthful of blood onto the ground.

Ertorix, roused to fury, brought its tail down against the floor and came at her. With every heavy strike, the ground shook, and her useless body shook with it.

'There's only one option left.'

“…Please. Just this once. Listen.”

Aer fixed her eyes on her own shadow, something desperate in them.

The power that had been held down so completely found a sliver of freedom. The dark force erupted—reckless, almost gleeful, drunk on being let out.

The shadow flickered ominously and rolled outward like a wave.

Ertorix balked, backing away from the unnatural dark spreading across everything around it. The damp, clinging force began to swallow the beast, mocking its fear.

The shadow coiled up Ertorix's legs like a snake.

Ertorix stamped and thrashed—but the dark force only pressed in closer, thick and adhesive.

Time bought. Aer got her left arm under her and forced herself upright. Eyes swallowed by the shadow, the beast went mad.

Every time the massive body crashed into something, cracks spiderwebbed across the ceiling and walls.

Stone fragments and clouds of dirt fell like a murky waterfall.

Aer gripped her useless right arm against her body and drove her legs forward with everything she had left.

With every step, it felt like every bone and muscle in her body was crumbling apart. She found it almost strange—this body of hers, that still hadn’t passed out.

Through her unsteady vision, the thick iron chain was pulled taut.

"That hurts……"

She stepped over the chain and kept moving. The geothermal heat that had cooked the air was gone now. A fresh wind carrying the smell of trees touched her face.

At the mouth of the abandoned mine, she could see the sky beginning to lighten.

Aer stood there a moment in the cool outside air, then turned quietly to look back.

The shadow that had stretched all the way into the dark of the cave swelled once, enormously—then pulled back to its own size.

The unruly force returning to its place wrung the broken body it lived in as it went.

'Huh. Listened pretty well after all.'

Her nose went hot, then blood came. Her stomach turned inside out and blood surged up her throat. She got it out. Then dragged her ruined sleeve across her mouth and wiped away what had soaked into it—the cloth coming away wet.

Behind her, the source of the vibration was getting closer. Dull and fast.

"……"

Through the dark of the mine's mouth, Ertorix came at full force, giving everything it had left.

Rage had blinded the exhausted beast to everything else. And so—the blunt foreleg caught the taut chain.

The stakes were torn out by the impact, but the beast went airborne as well, and came down hard against the ground.

Weight drives impact. An earthquake rang through the mountain, and a thick cloud of dirt rose up around it.

The abandoned mine, unable to hold against the accumulated punishment, came down—and the enormous debris landed on the beast without mercy.

Aer stared at the pile of rubble heaped up like a grave. The insufferable Ertorix dragged its upended body over and crawled out, staggering.

The armor that had seemed so absolute was shattered in places, exposing soft flesh underneath.

She squeezed out what remained of her soul.

The devil's-grip weed, growing sparse and thin across the ground, surged up and coiled around Ertorix's body.

The beast threw itself this way and that in a last effort, but it could not overcome the weed that demons had planted to hinder gods.

Aer staggered toward the pinned beast. It snarled and bared its teeth at her—which only proved how cornered it was.

She climbed onto the slumped body and stood on its back. Green-black fluid seeped from the wound where the sword fragment was buried.

Two silver coins I paid for that. Aer exhaled and reached into her coat, drawing out the long, heavy sword.

Too long and too heavy to swing one-handed. But it didn't matter. All she needed now was to drive it deep into the exposed weak point right in front of her.

"There was something I promised."

Aer worked the sword into the wound and leaned her weight onto it. The sharp blade parted through flesh and sank in deep.

All the way to the crossguard. Up to the base of the blade.

Ertorix let out a strange, strangled sound and shook its limbs.

The convulsions went fine, then stopped. The vast yellow eyes, which had been going dim, lost their light entirely and rolled back in a horrible fixed stare.

'Done.'

The strength went out of Aer and she slid down to the ground.

There was truly not enough left in her to move a single finger.

That she was still breathing was something close to a miracle. Aer looked down at herself.

The body smeared through with blood and dirt did not look like something that was alive.

"……What a mess."

The arm. The ribs, too. She'd be flat on her back for days before she could so much as walk.

Before that—if no one found her—she might die here just like this.

She tried to hold onto consciousness but her eyes kept sliding shut.

At the end of the fight, they closed completely. The last thread of awareness was drifting away into the distance when—

“Child!”

Something like a cry tore through to her. Some small part of her came back.

Aer let out a pained sound and tried to lift her head.

“Djite. Grandfather.”

Whether he was smiling, or crying, or furious—she couldn't tell. But if she had her preference—

Aer made herself sound light.

“Didn’t I say—I’d pour you—a drink. Didn’t I say.”

She’d wanted to say it better than that. But her mouth kept losing the sounds.

Darkness.