Chapter 5 (1/2)
Izumi had a headache.
Left in the changing room, the alarm clock with the broken bell indicated that the time was 1 in the afternoon.
Izumi sluggishly removed her clothes, before opening the door to the bathroom.
After inhaling the white steam, like a receding wave, for a moment the pain seemed to recede, but then it immediately returned.
Izumi was in the middle of a hangover.
She had overcome the peak when it felt like her head was going to split, but the dull pain still remained. It was like a ma.s.sive temple bell was being struck inside her head.
She twisted the tap and turned on a hot shower.
Usually the hot droplets would feel gentle, but today they felt like a shower of pebbles.
Frowning and reaching out to her facial cleanser, Izumi spotted something that shone silver, and withdrew her hand in a panic.
That was dangerous.
A mist seemed to clear from her hazy head. Now that her head was thinking properly, the headache became sharper too, but quite a lot of the fault might have been because of that silver object.
Izumi looked at the silver thing――――the sword with the sharp blade, stuck in the bucket, and let out a huge sigh.
It was last night that they had appeared outside the bathroom; the woman on the verge of suicide, and the stern man who you could tell was thick-headed at a glance.
Without catching up to what was going on, she had just saved the two, and through some strange turn of events, they had ended up having a drinking party in the bathroom.
The man whose head seemed as thick as reinforced concrete, Sentoor, had broken into sobs after just one cup, and the woman who had already emptied three of them, Yunoha, had begun lecturing Sentoor.
Apparently, “It’s all well and fine to be loyal, but there are limits to everything in the world.” “Why do you think that I’m still single at this age?” “I’ve been waiting forever for a certain someone.” “Yes, it’s the person right in front of me, you know.” “But when it comes to you, all you talk about is swords and my brother.”
Before anyone knew it, the lecture had turned into a confession, and Izumi watched this scene that unfolded thanks to the alcohol.
With Sentoor being told this much, and still having no signs of realising Yunoha’s feelings, even Izumi was beginning to feel irritated, when a cheer came from beyond the window.
“Setsugen-sama has returned!”
The moment that they heard that voice, Sentoor who had been on the verge of falling asleep immediately sprung up, and cried “Setsugen-sama~!” as he left through the window.
After cleaning up the cups, empty sake bottle, and the towels and cus.h.i.+ons that had been sprawled across the floor, Yunoha bowed with her fingers on the floor. The whole time, she had been silent. That silent rage had given Izumi a cold sweat.
“Mystic-sama, the favour that you have shown us on this occasion, I will remember my whole life. We have been in your care.”
After giving a bow so deep that her forehead almost touched the floor, she waved the sleeves of her long clothes, and leapt through the window frame with surprising agility, leaving just like Sentoor had.
At first, Izumi had thought that Yunoha wanted to quickly check that her younger brother Setsugen was all right, but she immediately got the feeling that Yunoha had gone off to give the dullard Sentoor a good kick in the back.
Closing the window while listening to the distant cheers, Izumi only then noticed the thing that they had left behind.
It was the sword that was currently stuck through the bucket on the floor.
“What do I do.”
If she brought the sword through the door, it would probably disappear.
But the hole in the bucket wouldn’t.
The sword was sharp enough that it had stabbed through the bucket in one thrust. Would it really be alright for such a sword to vanish because she felt it was a nuisance?
Izumi looked at the window.
Would it link to Sentoor again? Or would it linked to somebody who needed the sword?
Crossing her arms in thought, outside the window became dyed in red like the setting sun.
A red light swayed before the wide-eyed Izumi. She had seen something like this before.
It was the red of a dancing blaze.
“A fire!?”
Forgetting the pain in her head, Izumi opened the window.
There was a set of western armour, dirtied with soot and ash.
“…Ahhh, so that’s what happened.”
Feeling tired, she placed a hand to the window frame.
The place with the western armour was a dim place covered in earthen walls. Apparently this was the inside of a cave.
“I do not know what it is you are a.s.senting to on your own, but would you not happen to have a weapon of some sort, O Angel?”
“Huh?”
Izumi raised her face and looked at the armour.
“As you can see, my spear is being used as a fence, and won’t be of any use.”
Izumi bent forward through the window, and looked in the direction that the armour had indicated.
Not even a few steps away from the armour was a crack in the cave through which bright line was s.h.i.+ning in from. And as though blocking off this entrance, a spear was stabbed into the ground. No, it wasn’t just a spear; even arrows and a bow had been used to form a barrier. Beyond the barricade in the light, was some kind of creature that dragged its heavy-looking body along the ground as it slowly walked. Seeing this caused Izumi to widen her eyes.
“What the heck is that…?”
“A trangorn; a type of dragon.”
Izumi stared straight at the grey creature that crawled along the ground. After getting the feeling that she had seen something similar before, Izumi realised that it was just like a Komodo monitor.
“More than a dragon, it’s more like a monitor lizard, isn’t it.”
“Can a lizard breathe fire?”
Izumi was shocked. So the flames she had seen through the gla.s.s were blown by that lizard?
“Wow, that thing can breathe fire? …Seems like you’d get forest fires all the time.”
There was nothing in the cave but mud, but she could see trees growing thickly behind the trangorn.
“Only the males breathe fire, and they can only do it once in their lifetime when their life is being threatened. Forest fires will not happen so casually.”
So that’s how it was.
The trangorn that was prowling slowly around the cave entrance suddenly turned its back to them. Izumi was wondering what it planned to do, but the answer immediately came.
The trangorn whipped its long tail against the weapons that served as a barricade.
It made a worrying sound.
“It seems that it will not hold for long.”
The armour was probably right.
With just the one strike, the bow had cracked, and a number of arrows had broken.
“At this point, anything will do. If you have anything that seems like I could use to oppose the trangorn, could you not lend it to me?”
Hearing the armour’s tense words, Izumi looked about the bathroom in a panic.
What came into her sight was Sentoor’s sword. It was stuck through a bucket, but it could probably be used.
“If you’re fine with the Keropii Sword, then…”
Seeing the sword that was being timidly offered, “What a creative design.” commented the armour.
When the armoured hand reached for the sword, the armour clicked his tongue.
“The spear has broken.”
The armour that had been sitting on the ground stood up, and holding the sword in a grip, he charged out.
A high-pitched sound resounded. The armour had used the Keropii Sword to deflect the sharp claws of the trangorn.
The armour flashed the sword in his hand, and raised it overhead, before bringing it down upon the trangorn’s neck with fluid movements.
-zakku-
A nimble sound, like a fork entering a cake.
The trangorn had thrown its head back due to the slash it had received on its back, and the sword thrust into its neck. After throwing up blood just once, the monitor-like dragon stopped moving.
When the armour gave the withdrawn sword a swing, it made the sound of cutting through wind.
Just a single swing had cleaned the blade of its blood, and the Keropii Sword returned to its original gleam.
With the sword in hand, the armour returned.
“What terrifying sharpness. Because of that, I narrowly escaped death.”
The armour sat heavily onto the cave floor.
“Angel. I apologise, but may I borrow this sword for a while longer?”
“If you’re fine with it, I’ll give it to you.”
Although the blood had been flung off, Izumi still didn’t want to touch the sword.
The armour raised his face. The blue eyes widened in joy.
“To be bestowed a sword by an angel. What fortune.”
Seeing the armour tremble in joy, Izumi knit her eyebrows before speaking.
“Umm, if you still need the sword, does it mean there are moretrangorns?”
The armour crossed his arms.
“Indeed. There is one more. They hold territory in pairs after all. The female will probably come due to the scent of the male’s blood.”
Izumi ran her eyes over the soot-covered armour.
“But only the male breathes fire, right?”
As if she could stand fire outside her window again.
The armour nodded.
“But the truly troublesome one is the female.”
“Why?”
“The cries of the female entice humans into sleep. In accordance to the books say, I brought an orchestra so that we won’t heart the cries.”
Izumi looked here and there.
“There’s no one here you know?”
The armour let out a deep sigh.
“On the way here, there was a suspension bridge you see.”
Izumi brought her palm to her forehead. Without hearing anything else, she knew why the orchestra wasn’t here.
“The bridge couldn’t withstand the weight of the instruments, and fell.”
Just as she thought. A silence filled the dark cave.
“…So what are you going to do now? Wouldn’t it be better to escape before the female comes?”
The armour shook his head at Izumi’s suggestion.
“I was ordered by the King to bring back the heart of a femaletrangorn. Even if I lose my life, I cannot run.”