MHHC Chapter 135

Bait

"It's actually for the best, Adele."

"For the best……"

"Even if I had kept absorbing the divine power flowing from you, this future was always going to arrive. The only question was whether to delay it or hasten it."

As though trying to soothe the stunned Adelheid, Valentin gently brushed her cheek with careful fingers.

The cold touch of his gauntlet made her flinch without thinking, and he withdrew his hand. He bent his torso slightly forward, exhaustion in every line of his frame. Their eyes met at almost nothing's distance.

"Why that expression? We'll be living a human life together, just as you wished."

Yet the face of the man speaking of a human life was itself pale as a corpse.

Veins stood raised at his temples and throat—as though something strained to break free and he was barely holding it in place.

Adelheid looked at him with trembling eyes, then wrapped both arms around the back of his neck and drew him close.

"You're still…… holding back even now, aren't you? You don't have to. Take as much as you need. No—please, take the divine power back. I truly don't mind dying……. I would rather die than have things be like this."

Guilt and shame poured over her in waves. Everything she had deliberately looked away from spilled out now, like rotting viscera.

The days of pretending not to know, of drawing comfort from his reassurances while sustaining herself by gnawing on his blood and flesh—those days rose before her in all their horror.

"You are sacrificing far too much for someone as insignificant as me. I want you to see reality. I'm just this worthless a woman—I truly don't have the value to warrant……"

"How far I will go for you, and what worth you hold in my eyes—those are mine to determine, and mine alone."

His voice was warm to the point of heartbreak, and yet Adelheid could tell he was angry.

Perhaps from the very moment she had spoken of death so lightly.

Valentin placed his hand gently against the small of her back and whispered with renewed tenderness. His labored trembling passed through his skin directly into hers.

"I will simply have to learn to endure the lethargy and helplessness that press down upon me now. Without you, I will soon become nothing at all."

"……"

"Even so—there are times I find I don't entirely mind, being reduced to a mere human."

A laugh like an exhaled breath spread against her neck.

"You don't mind it. How could that possibly……"

"Because it helps me understand you, even a little."

"……"

"So this is what it was like—such a fragile body, yours……"

It sounded like a lament, or perhaps only wonder. After that, a tangle of wordless, purposeless things passed between them.

Whenever she told him she wished he wouldn't sacrifice so much, Valentin returned the same answer again and again—that all of this was what he had willingly chosen. He even found it a shame.

That she might have been born just a little more selfish……

"Please don't cry, Adelheid. We can continue to be together."

Valentin spoke of the future as he always had. But now Adelheid believed less than half of what he said.

Even as she wept with her arms around him, a chill was spreading through one corner of her mind and heart.

Apart from wanting to love and trust him, the words he gave her were not the whole truth. He never told her everything—and whenever circumstances shifted, the 'truth' he conveyed would shift along with them, little by little.

The premonition that rose from all of this was savage. That Valentin was hiding something from her. That perhaps a terrible future had already been foretold.

And…… that no one—not either of them—could ever be happy, if things continued this way.

The closer they drew to the northern wall, the more signs of human life drained from the world around them.

Abandoned ruins lay scattered here and there, and what remained of the residents who could not flee had bolted their shutters and pressed themselves into silence. Everywhere the expedition passed, blessings and curses clung to them in equal measure—desperate pleas to kill the monsters and drive them from the land, and counsel that it was better to take one's own life than let a monster claim your body. However one chose to hear them, both were horrifying.

All the more so because not one word of it was anything less than sincere.

"Somehow it just keeps getting eerier. I wish someone would do something about those damned clouds."

Adelheid nodded in agreement with Lena's words. The ominous portents had shown themselves first in the sky.

The sun had vanished, and day and night alike the heavens lay smothered in a dense, dim overcast—ideal conditions, simply put, for monsters to operate. The attacks, which had once come only in lightless nights, had grown progressively bolder, the intervals between them shortening with each passing day.

The common wisdom that monsters lacked the capacity to learn, that they were simply stupid, had proven itself nothing but prejudice. Most appeared driven by instinct alone—but a rare few had demonstrated the ability to wield magic with real effectiveness, to conceal traps where none should have been.

"Your Grace. Please return to the carriage now. The atmosphere doesn't feel right."

As a desolate wind shook the nearby branches, sending leaves rustling down, Lena drew her shoulders in and urged her back.

While the maidservant scanned their surroundings with anxious eyes, Adelheid gently stroked the neck of the restless mare.

Lena had said there was no point giving a name to a mere horse, nor any reason to lavish such care upon it—but for Adelheid, it was less devotion than the desperate grip of someone clutching at any handhold within reach.

This was Valentin's gift—and at the same time, the companion through which she could practice her 'will.'

Adelheid drew a long, slow breath as she had during that first experience of resonance, gathering every thread of mind and attention to transmit her intent.

'It's all right. There's nothing to fear.'

Had her meaning reached the horse? The mare's dark eyes fixed straight on Adelheid's face. She allowed herself a brief flare of hope—but the horse began blowing nervous snorts once more.

When Adelheid nearly caught a hoof from the mare's renewed thrashing, Lena snatched the carrot basket from her arm in a flurry.

"Please get inside now. Stop fussing over Acorn or Almond or whatever her name is……"

Adelheid replied, a little crestfallen.

"It's Hazel."

"It's all the same for a horse's name."

Pushed along by Lena's persistence, Adelheid climbed back up into the supply wagon. In any case, walking alongside the carriage amounted to nearly the same speed—the expedition had long since slowed to a crawl to avoid ambushes, and with monsters liable to materialize from any shadow at any moment, everyone held themselves at the very edge of their nerves.

Adelheid sat resting her chin on the window ledge, watching Hazel, when a sudden sharp sound made her eyes go wide and she straightened her spine.

"What's the matter?"

Perhaps it was the abrupt movement—Lena caught the change in her expression and asked at once.

Adelheid pressed a finger to her lips and listened again.

Muffled beneath the rumble of carriage wheels and the march of soldiers' boots, it was difficult to make out—but it had unmistakably been a long, high whistle. One that seemed to carry some kind of signal pattern.

Again in a moment, and then once more. Adelheid whipped her head toward the sound, then back again.

"Your Grace. Whatever on earth are you doing……"

"That sound. Can't you hear it?"

Lena furrowed her brow as though she had said something entirely out of nowhere. The maidservant fell silent, listening—then wore the bewildered expression of someone who could not hear what the other person was hearing.

"What sound?"

Instead of answering, Adelheid pressed every bit of her attention to the air. She strained every nerve.

But this time, nothing came. Only the desolate whisper of wind through branches, and the small sounds of creatures startled to flight by the expedition's passing……

Perhaps she had simply misheard—some bird's cry that her exhausted mind had twisted into pattern.

"……"

She let out a quiet breath. Days without proper sleep had drawn her nerves to such a pitch of over-sensitivity that they had finally betrayed her. She was about to reply that it was nothing, that she must have imagined it—

Whoosh. Something split the air close by.

"Am—ambush……!"

The soldier who had been first to notice and shout had his throat pierced clean through by a flying spear before the word was fully out of his mouth.

He clutched at his own throat, eyes rolling back, body convulsing in agony—then collapsed with a froth of blood on his lips.

"……!"

The convulsions were brief. The man went limp at once. There had been no time—no time to do anything, no way to act.

Even as a precious life was extinguished before her very eyes, Adelheid found she could not move at all, as though her entire body had been frozen in place.

"We're under attack!"

Simultaneous with the single shout from whoever had gathered their wits first, the urgent blare of a war horn split the air. As though that had been the signal the monsters were waiting for, the attack began in earnest—and however long they had lain in wait, their numbers were staggering, blanketing every slope of the low forested hills like a tide.

"Form a defensive position!"

"Don't let them take the supplies!"

"Hold the line! Don't let the wall break!"

In an instant, with seamless discipline, soldiers formed a shield wall—and between the gaps, long spear shafts slid into place. The monsters that had charged headlong into them were ground apart against shield and spear.

It had been, for one suspended breath, the kind of moment when victory seemed certain.

Then grotesque monsters launched themselves over the soldiers' heads, long talons slashing the air. They moved with a keen, searching purpose—as though they were hunting for something specific.

"……!"

She locked eyes with one of them.

The monster swept its talons wide and hurled itself directly at her.

Just as those blade-like fingers reached out to seize her by force, a cloud of dirt erupted—and in the same instant a sword appeared from nowhere and sheared the monster's arm clean away.

Hot monster blood splattered across her stunned, frozen face along with a foul stench.

It was Valentin. He was breathless, as though he had ridden at desperate speed from the forward position. He shook the monster's blood from his blade and gave the order to Lena.

"Keep your mistress safe."