Vol 1 Chapter 16 (2/2)

Following the sound of stone walls collapsing, an odd noise rang out.

Piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii……

From the black smoke that was now rising up from the other side of the wall, a single plume of white smoke rose up into the sky. That sharp, flute-like sound wasn’t anything that Touya had ever heard or learned about before.

“…Eh… Hey!”

After briefly looking up at the trail of smoke while standing there dumbfounded, Touya came back to his senses and started running towards the armory.

Fuuuuuoooooo……

In response to the smoke signal that had been launched, bone-chilling howls answered back from the forest below the castle. Touya felt his hairs stand on end.

While running past the baggage placed alongside the wall, Touya swiftly picked up his personal swords.

Black smoke that had sparks mixed in completely filled the armory.

Pieces of rubble were scattered everywhere, and there were still reverberations left from the explosion’s force.

In the midst of blocks of wood that had once served as weapon racks, now turned to charcoal, and swords and protectors that were scattered everywhere, Homura and Misasagi lay piled on each other on the floor while partially buried by the debris.

“——”

Misasagi-senpai carefully lifted herself up and moved her lips to say something.

“…Sen… pai…”

As Homura lay there in a stupor, hearing finally returned to her ears.

“—Are you hurt?”

“…Senpai, did you s.h.i.+eld us with magic…?”

“It’s a specialty spell of mine.”

Misasagi’s smile made Homura forget the pain.

That flash of explosion that she had seen over Misasagi’s shoulder when she had moved to cover Homura—it was still burned into her retinas. That s.h.i.+eld of water had briefly turned into a mirror that blocked the light and seemed to withstand it for an instant, before immediately foaming up and being blown away. Hit by the shock wave, the two of them had been thrown to the other end of the room and slammed against the wall.

“……Kuh…”

“…Senpai?”

The smile disappeared from senpai’s face, which now twisted in pain.

“Senpai! Hinooka!”

Touya shouted as he came running into the armory.

“It’s bad. This was a trap. They’re coming right now… eh…”

“Touya-kun, senpai is—!”

When he saw Misasagi leaning on Homura with her head limp, Touya’s breath caught in his throat.

Touya feebly walked forward and went down to one knee.

“Senpai…?”

With Homura’s help, Touya held half of senpai’s body and raised her up.

There was no response from her. Even with her hair disheveled and sticking to her face, she was still beautiful, looking as if she were just taking a doze.

At the end of her arm that was stretched out limply, her magic ring was glowing.

“Emergency… withdrawal…!”

Looking first at the unconscious senpai and then Homura who looked back at him in sorrow, Touya resolved himself and spoke.

“Hinooka, you activate the Transport Ring in place of senpai. Just do it exactly as you were taught.”

Homura nodded stiffly.

“I-It’s true that’s the only option right now, but senpai said that the transport’s chances of success are halved when a person is unconscious—we’ll have to leave senpai behind if we go.”

“……”

The two of them stared at senpai, and then looked at each other, having come to the same answer at the same time.

“I see.”

“Hinooka, you bring senpai to the bas.e.m.e.nt. You should be safe there.”

“Yeah—wait, what about you, Touya-kun!?”

“I…”

The two of them could clearly hear several howls in the distance.

The two of them supported each of senpai’s shoulders and carried her out of the armory.

Senpai’s unthinkable lightness truly made them viscerally feel the strengthening effects of Nutella on their bodies.

According to what they’d been told, the base camp’s bas.e.m.e.nt was a place with an orbit established to connect with the Transport Room in the club building on Earth, which would minimize the chances of a transport’s failure. If they went there, even the inexperienced Homura and Touya could manage the transport—so was their thinking.

“Senpai! Senpai, wake up!”

Homura desperately called out to her.

She shuddered at the wet sensation that touched her fingers.

Blood, oozing from senpai’s uniform, was trickling down along her arm.

“……d.a.m.n…”

Touya glared ahead with a grim expression—grey shadows had jumped out from the forest one after another and were now running up the gentle meadow slope.

They were majestic beasts whose size far surpa.s.sed what Homura had imagined. Long, burly legs that kicked off the ground. Sharp eyes. And there were a roughly fifteen of the beasts—

Even as they hurried towards the bas.e.m.e.nt, Homura and Touya couldn’t take their eyes away from a certain thing.

“…What?”

“There’s someone with them.”

Their eyes were caught on—

—a young girl wearing blue clothing, who was riding upon the back of one of the wolves.

The pack moved in formation with the wolf that the girl rode at the head, and closed the distance between them in the blink of an eye.

Suddenly, the girl kicked off the back of the wolf and rolled through the gra.s.s before swiftly righting herself, and then began running towards Homura and the others with leg strength that was in no way inferior to the wolves.

Touya’s fingers moved for the handles of his swords.

“Go, go on ahead!” Touya shouted.

As Homura was left to carry senpai on her own and involuntarily stood petrified in place, not knowing what to do, Touya gave her a push to keep moving before turning around to face the wolves.

Even while running towards the old castle, the blue-clothed girl skillfully slipped her arms into her sleeves without breaking her balance.

“Tekerettsunooooo—”

The instant she stopped and braced her bare feet on the ground, she swung her arms in a wide arc.

“—pa1!”

With a vigorous shout, she threw something from her hands.

Two yellow lights flew through the air towards Touya, leaving two faint tracks in their wake.

The wolves immediately stopped where they were all at once.

Homura widened her eyes and shouted at Touya.

“Touya-kun—run!”

“—!”

Touya perceived the meaning of those words and the danger approaching him.

With no time to pull his long sword out, he brought it forward with the sheath still attached in a defensive stance and stared straight ahead.

Ka—kaa.

Instead of avoiding the lights, he ran forward to meet them. With flowing movements, he used the sword to deflect one aside, while the other one was sent shooting high up back in the direction it came.

“Get down—!”

Touya shouted that without taking his eyes away from the enemy.

Homura immediately flopped to the ground, covering senpai as she did so.

The stones, their trajectory having greatly diverged from their impact target, became fireb.a.l.l.s and exploded in mid-air one after another.

Kyuu… Voooo——

Homura was once again hit by a shock wave that seemed to crush her lungs.

“…Uhyaaah~… Oh?”

The girl, having huddled on the ground while holding down her head, cautiously raised her head back up.

The wolves were also lying face down.

The girl got up into a crouch and reached for a pouch hanging from her waist, but it seemed to be empty, so she discarded it to the ground.

“Go at them, I’m all out!”

It was at that instant—

“Iyaaaaaaaah—!”

The girl raised her head in shock at that piercing fighting yell.

Touya was right before her.

He stepped into range boldly and swung the sheathed sword horizontally with one hand, seeming to graze the side of her face.

But he only managed to hit her hair ornament.

The girl dodged the sword by a literal hair’s breadth and jumped backwards, her agility too fast for even Touya’s eyes to keep up with.

The girl alighted on the ground on all fours and glared at Touya while taking a low stance that was two swords’ lengths away from him.

“Ruuuu…!”

The girl growled, almost like a beast herself.

Touya persistently tried to chase after her without a moment’s pause, but he was blocked by the wolves snarling and cutting around towards him.

“You plunged in too far, Touya-kun…! What is he even thinking…!?”

While dragging along senpai by supporting her with her shoulder, Homura walked up to the slope of rubble that led down into the bas.e.m.e.nt.

When Homura tried to adjust her stance and wrap her arm around senpai’s back, senpai groaned in pain.

Even tears fell from her eyes, Homura desperately lifted up senpai in her arms and moved down on her b.u.t.t to slide down the slope without minding getting dirty.

The furious howls of the wolves and Touya’s menacing yells, which reached Homura’s ears no matter how far away she got, made her heart freeze.

After setting senpai down on the floor in the bas.e.m.e.nt, Homura looked back.

The one who appeared from beyond the wall and nimbly jumped over it was not Touya, but that girl. She rested her hands and feet on the broken wall and looked down at Homura and Misasagi.

“—That one’s… injured, huh?”

When she noticed the blood which dyed senpai’s clothing, the girl’s face, the very picture of innocence, clouded over.

Not caring that she was facing an unknown enemy, Homura shouted back angrily with an expression that threatened to break into tears.

“…Kuh… It’s your fault!”

The girl was overwhelmed by Homura’s anger.

“Well, it’s true that I was an idiot for falling for the trap, but… What’s with you guys, suddenly attacking us out of nowhere!? You did all this to our camp!”

After despondently ducking back her head, the girl shook her head like a dog and once more turned to glare at Homura.

“…S-Shut up, you d.a.m.n thief!”

Cursing at Homura, the girl put strength in her legs and bent forward in preparation to leap straight down at Homura.

“Stay away!”

Homura shouldered senpai over her back and took out the knife on her waist.

“Hi (Hydrogen)——”

She pointed the knife straight at the girl and began to chant.

Making a suspicious face, the girl saw the small flame that appeared at the tip of the knife and realized what Homura was doing.

“—Sekkachimaru!”

The girl yelled as she jumped down off the wall in a flash.

While desperately maintaining her concentration so as not to shatter the pattern she had built up in her mind, Homura squared off against the girl as she landed close by.

The girl had black hair and seemed to be about twelve or thirteen years old. Having lost one of her two hair ornaments, her untied hair hung loosely over her cheek. Even with gra.s.s and twigs sticking all over her, her clothing was very high quality with a foreign design on it.

She was definitely the girl that Homura had encountered that night.

As she looked over the girl to gain further confirmation based on what she remembered of that brief chance meeting, Homura started in shock when her gaze turned to one of the girl’s wrists.

The bracelet attached was definitely—

“!”

A shadow that seemed to mask the Bagel in the sky above suddenly leaped over Homura.

It was a giant white wolf. Patches of grey fur were on its legs and on the bridge of its nose to its brow.

Not missing the opening Homura gave when she instinctively hunched back, the girl slipped past Homura and jumped at senpai who slept on her back.

The girl slipped her fingers around Misasagi-senpai’s harness belt and lifted her up, while she stretched out other arm to reach out to the shoulder of the white wolf and grab its fur.

“What—stop—!”

Homura abandoned the knife and clung to senpai.

The knife lightly bounced against the stone floor.

The fireball that had formerly been on its tip instantly contracted inwards upon itself, and immediately after, its line of fire became jabbed and disarrayed. Magical energy was immediately lost from the pattern, which had abandoned its rotational formation.

“….! Oh no…”

The flame dimmed and turned into thick smoke, which spread out explosively.

The white wolf cut through the smoke enshrouding the place and jumped. It leapt over the stone wall and reached outside the old castle, while three people rode on its back.

However, Homura couldn’t withstand the impact from landing and was thrown off to the ground.

While putting up the face-down Misasagi in front of her waist, the girl on the wolf turned to look back at Homura for an instant. But then she immediately clicked her tongue at the surroundings and began calling the other wolves.

“Wait! *Cough*… Wait, are you—”

Homura staggered to her feet and called out to the girl while choking on the regurgitated gastric fluid from her stomach.

However, the girl merely stuck out her tongue hatefully and left Homura in the dust behind.

—Elsewhere.

Touya had been continuing to fiercely hold back and repel the fangs and claws coming at him. In his right hand was his now unsheathed long sword and in his left hand was its sheath, which he was using in place of his usual short sword.

The wolves surrounding Touya began to pull away and withdraw one after another.

Though he found it strange, he still turned to run back to Homura.

“—Are you okay? Where’s Misasagi-senpai… Hey, Homura!?”

When he followed the blank gaze of Homura who was standing there dumbfounded, Touya’s facial color changed.

“Senpai was… taken away by them…?”

“…I’m sorry…!”

Homura nodded while gritting her teeth and barely keeping herself from sobbing as tears fell from her eyes.

“Let’s chase after them! We can’t let them get away!”

But even as he said that, the wolves got further and further away, until they disappeared in single file into the forest’s animal trails.

“That bracelet…”

“Hey, do you understand me? I’m saying we have to go save senpai!”

“No, that wasn’t a bracelet… that was a rattle…”

“What are you babbling about at a time like this…? By rattle, you mean one of those baby toys?”

Touya asked her while unable to hide his irritation.

“Yeah. It’s pretty worn out and broken, but I’m sure. I’ve seen it before—”

Homura grabbed Touya’s arm, which was covered in lacerations, and spoke urgently.

“That girl’s from Earth. She’s a missing child that was abducted three years ago.”

Chapter 16 END

Previous Page

Next Page

TRANSLATOR’S NOTES

(1) Tekerettsunopa: This is a word that has no equivalent in English, so it’s been left in its original j.a.panese. It comes from the tale “s.h.i.+nigami” (Grim Reaper/Death), a j.a.panese oral story believed to be partially based off the German fairy tale “G.o.dfather Death” by the Brothers Grimm. The word itself is nonsense and has no actual meaning, but it is part of a special charm or incantation that was given to a human man by Death in the story, most likely the reason for its usage as a spell chant here.

<script>