Chapter 33
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Chapter 33
Alice, Fatima, and the others emerged from the camp alongside the cadets and instructors. For now, they were safe.
Teresa dragged Mikhail out and hurled the boy beyond the camp's perimeter before rushing back inside to aid the others. Vice-Commander Baron was rummaging through the tents near the Nodule, searching for any remaining survivors. Baraha Islaf followed close behind, assisting him.
And there—Ian Peletro appeared in that vicinity.
The distance was considerable. I pushed against the tide of fleeing cadets, moving toward him. Someone tried to grab me, to hold me back, but I slipped through their grasp like water. The press of evacuating unit members prevented me from moving faster. I could have used mana to leap forward—it would have been simple—but that would draw far too much attention.
At the edge of the Nodule, that distorted glass-bead-like thing expanded incrementally. Baron had nearly finished checking the nearby tents and was withdrawing. Baraha pursued him, but Ian called him to a halt.
Despite the distance, my senses caught their conversation with crystalline clarity.
"Why, Cadet Representative?"
"I thought we'd checked all the cadet tents, but there's one among the freshman barracks we haven't verified."
"A freshman? Who?"
"Echinacea Loaz. She has her own separate tent...."
Why was my name being mentioned here? I was dumbfounded. I called out to Baraha, raising my voice. But my words were swallowed by the blaring emergency bells and the chaos of the evacuating unit.
'Should I use mana? No, I can't....'
Conflict raged within me. Yurien de Harden Kirie was likely testing whether I was the demon inhabiting the Demonic Sword or merely an eccentric genius named Echinacea Loaz. I couldn't let him see me wielding mana. It would be far too abnormal.
While I deliberated, Baraha had already turned and was heading toward my tent. Ian followed in his wake. Urgency seized me. I shoved through the irritating cadets blocking my path. I discarded the troublesome umbrella. In the process, my cloak caught on another cadet's scabbard and was torn away, so I cast that aside as well.
Rain poured down in sheets. The damp smell hung thick in the air. My clothes and hair grew soaked. Lightning crackled intermittently across the sky. Thunder roared as if to shatter the heavens themselves. The emergency bell shrieked with ear-splitting intensity. Anxious shouts. Frightened faces.
Beyond it all, I saw Baraha reach my tent and pull back the cloth at the entrance. My tent stood near the center of the camp. Directly above it lay the refracting space, its boundaries expanding. One more step to the right, and he would be consumed by that Nodule.
Ian approached from behind Baraha. I nearly knocked over one of the junior cadets in front of me as I rushed toward them.
"Senior Baraha!"
At last, my voice reached him. Baraha withdrew his head from the tent and turned toward me. His expression softened with relief at the sight of me. In that same instant, his body lurched. It wasn't a fall—merely a small imbalance, one step backward would have steadied him. But that step carried him into the Nodule.
Baraha's body was swallowed by the refracting space and vanished.
I arrived too late, my face drained of color as I stared at the spot where he had been. Ian now stood where Baraha had disappeared. He skillfully concealed something in his sleeve while feigning shock, releasing a pained gasp.
"Good heavens, Baraha...."
I stood drenched in rain, watching him. Though Baraha's bulk had obscured much, I had not missed even the fleeting glimpse. My focus was absolute in that moment.
Ian Peletro had just hidden a dagger within his sleeve—a crude, small blade, barely more than a razor. Its tip was stained with fresh blood. He had stabbed Baraha from behind and pushed him, forcing him into contact with the Nodule. The wound itself would have been minor, but the loss of balance it caused proved fatal.
Ian looked at the Nodule that had consumed Baraha, then hurried toward me. He grabbed my shoulders and pulled, speaking urgently.
"Cadet Echinacea, what are you doing here! This place is dangerous. Let's go."
I turned to face him. Ian's expression was a mixture of concern and fear. How infuriatingly gentle and virtuous that face appeared. I muttered softly.
"You should have joined a theater troupe instead of the Military Academy, Senior."
"What? What are you talking about? Let's just go. We can discuss this outside."
I glanced outward. Most of the unit members had already evacuated. Vice-Commander Baron, realizing belatedly that Baraha—who had been following me—had vanished, was turning back. He was an even larger, more muscular man than Baraha. Confusion flickered across his stolid face as he spotted us standing mere steps from the Nodule.
"You two, what are you doing! Get out of here!"
Beyond Baron's massive shoulders, beyond the clustered cadets, a white-haired man came running toward the camp. Yurien de Harden Kirie. The distance was too great to see his face clearly. I looked back at the approaching Baron.
"Don't go outside. Stay here, and die with me."
In that erased past, surrounded by the corpses of other knights, Baron—drenched in blood—had spoken those words. Behind him stood the castle gate, firmly sealed. The knights and junior cadets he had sent out, along with the cadets, had evacuated the citizens. Screams had echoed over the castle walls and reached my ears.
I approached him with a smile. Baron drew his sword—the Berserker Blade Giosha. That weapon, forged from human rage and madness, bristled with jagged edges like a beast's teeth and was immense. A greatsword befitting his massive frame.
I surrendered myself to frenzy and subdued him as he raged like a wild animal. I severed his neck and opened the gate. In the end, Baron could not stop me, but the time he bought surely saved many lives.
"I'll leave now, Vice-Commander. But Cadet Baraha...."
Ian stepped forward, his voice trembling as he spoke. Now he would tell that Baron his squire had been consumed by the Nodule? After committing such an act with his own hands? I laughed. The laughter came unbidden.
'The ones who should die live. The ones who should live die. I hate this. I hate it.'
Her hand touched Ian Peletro's back as he stepped forward. She didn't need much force. The Nodule drew close behind them. She let her legs go limp and fell backward, yet in that same instant, she gripped his sleeve as though she had no intention of falling.
The Nodule swallowed them gently, like foam. The Deputy Commander's eyes widened as he reached out, his figure growing distant beyond her distorted vision.
"Damn it...!"
Baron Tillius's hand cut through empty air. What he witnessed was Echinacea Loaz falling, Ian Peletro stumbling, and both of them being sucked into the Nodule.
Baron Tillius stared at the Nodule with a ghastly pallor. The swollen Nodule trembled irregularly. It would burst. That thing was about to burst. Seized by an intense premonition, Baron Tillius instinctively channeled mana and bolted backward.
His premonition was correct. The Nodule swelled violently. It expanded like an inflated balloon, nearly consuming the entire Camp, then vanished without a trace. All the Barracks in the Camp disappeared. What remained was only excavated earth.
He stood rigid, staring into the distance. Behind him came the sound of rough, labored breathing and approaching footsteps.
"Baron Tillius."
"Commander."
"What... has happened here?"
Baron Tillius turned his stiff neck to look back. Just as he opened his mouth to report, the moment he saw Yurien de Harden Kirie's face, he involuntarily closed it again.
Baron Tillius was over forty years old. He had been a Giosa Owner since the previous Commander's tenure—the one with the longest service. And Yurien de Harden Kirie was his first Squire.
Baron Tillius had taken Yurien de Harden Kirie as his Squire when he was a second-year cadet at the Military Academy, nineteen years old. When Yurien de Harden Kirie became a Master at twenty-three and officially became a Knight, that relationship naturally dissolved. And once he became the youngest Commander, the hierarchy had reversed.
Though he now served under his former Squire as his superior, Baron Tillius harbored no resentment about it. Not long after first taking him as a Squire, he had anticipated that Yurien de Harden Kirie would surpass him.
So Baron Tillius had watched Yurien de Harden Kirie for nearly nine years—from his days as a Military Academy cadet to now as Commander. Though their relationship had changed from Squire and Lord to Deputy Commander and Commander.
Yurien de Harden Kirie wore an expression Baron Tillius had never seen before.
"...What of Echinacea Loaz? What has become of her?"
He asked as though wringing the words from his throat. Baron Tillius nearly stepped back involuntarily. The Yurien de Harden Kirie he knew always walked the righteous path, a man so devoid of human desire that he seemed quiet and cool. Whenever Baron Tillius saw him, he wondered if his boiling point was so high it didn't exist at all.
Yet now he displayed a murderous intent as though he would tear someone apart, and simultaneously a fragility as though he might shatter at any moment. It was as if he were vaporizing from boiling over. It was disturbingly unfamiliar. Baron Tillius answered, stammering slightly.
"She appears to have been swallowed by the Nodule."
"Where has the Nodule gone? Has it already separated?"
"Yes, it separated just now."
Once Lakia Giosha completely severed the space and the Nodule separated from this world, there would be no way to find it or enter it. Not until time passed and its remnants naturally spilled out on their own.
Yurien de Harden Kirie gazed at the empty space. His ashen face looked as though it might crumble.
* * *
Inside the Nodule was a space like the outside. Precisely—the same but different. The same Barracks, the same Camp, yet governed by different laws.
Instead of a rainy night, an ominous twilight hung over the evening. The ground was soggy. A dark red liquid, so deep it appeared black, filled the ground like a swamp. Through it, shadows dressed as soldiers swarmed about, stabbing at one another. Yet because they were shadows, none of them fell.
Demonic beasts surged from the liquid flowing across the ground and dripped from the blood-colored twilight. They licked up the soldier shadows, growing larger with each one consumed. The shadows paid no heed even as the soldier beside them was devoured by a Demonic beast, continuing only to stab at each other. The sight was as surreal as hell being born anew.
Echinacea Loaz fell backward, felt the foam-like sensation for a moment, then regained her balance. Her high-heeled ankle boots sank with a squelch into the swamp. The shoes were ruined beyond recovery. She stood upright and released Ian Peletro's sleeve that she had been gripping.
"What is this...?"
Ian Peletro hadn't yet grasped the situation. Echinacea Loaz left him be and surveyed her surroundings first. She had only entered a Nodule once before, but that was enough to set her apart from the inexperienced. After that one harrowing experience, she had conducted considerable research on Nodules.
[Wow, what is this place? I'm feeling amazing!]
Bardegiosa chattered excitedly.
'This space is absolutely overflowing with murderous intent. Well, it was a battlefield, so that's only natural.'
Echinacea Loaz confirmed the fighting shadow soldiers and Demonic beasts, then quickly hid inside the nearby Barracks. It happened to be her own Barracks that had been swallowed into the Nodule along with her. Ian Peletro, standing awkwardly, followed her inside. Echinacea Loaz paid him no mind and peered outside the Barracks. Finding Baraha Islaf was her most pressing concern.
"...You."
A calm voice came from behind. Echinacea Loaz answered without turning around.
"Did I deliberately pull you into the Nodule? Yes, that's right."
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