When the three visitors had each failed in their purpose and all vanished, Enkrid's gaze turned upward.
Strictly speaking, Rem and Dunbakel also flicked their eyes skyward.
Dunbakel because of her nose, Rem because of the divine power that had briefly lodged within him giving a signal.
So—what was in the sky? Nothing.
Nothing visible to the naked eye. Yet faintly, they caught sight of something long-tailed, gliding away.
Knights are disasters, cleaving the heavens alone, but they have no talent for snatching shapeless things that fly in the sky.
'No, if I had noticed a bit sooner, it might have been possible.'
So thought Enkrid, and his mind went on to his sword's singularity.
Was it strange, or was it natural?
At dawn there is power to purge the impure. If an intangible force, born of truth and flowing along his blade in response to Will, then perhaps it could indeed cut such things.
'Well, it seems the chance isn't here now.'
Even a knight cannot fly.
Rem frowned, then smoothed it away.
"If it comes again, I'll knock it down then."
At that, Dunbakel spoke.
"Wouldn't it be better to deal with it before that?"
Rem answered in his usual bored way.
"Means if you miss, I'll catch it. You furry beast."
Dunbakel pointed out his mistake.
"For a beastkin, fur is not shame but pride."
"Then shall I pluck it all out?"
"Ha, try it."
Her time in the East had tempered her. The old Dunbakel was gone. Now she could talk back to Rem just fine.
Kraiss cut in between them.
"Why did a demon's servant come here?"
With a light question, he defused Rem and Dunbakel's sparring. Even for them, the topic of demon underlings was one worth an ear.
They needed to know why those things had come.
Why had they come offering Enkrid immortality, land, the promise of making him a demi-god?
Kraiss, his large eyes sweeping the group, continued.
"Shall we start from there?"
If you don't know, you suffer. Even if you know, you suffer.
That was why Kraiss, the coward, always imagined the worst. His innate unease drove him to ceaseless speculation and delusion.
He clenched both fists and knocked them together before his chest. A sharp crack sounded.
"Maybe they're fighting among themselves."
His forearms, bared in short sleeves, bulged with muscle. He pushed against them, and they did not yield either way. In that pose, he went on.
"If the scales hang even, with only the slightest difference left?"
Kraiss was a genius. And demons were arrogant, so arrogant they did not even perceive that a human could glimpse their intent.
And if he did—what of it? What will you do? That was their attitude.
"But if one side must be tipped?"
Balrog had been the variable. All kinds of offers must have been made to draw that variable to their side.
But a being that had wandered this land its whole existence, living only for battle, rejected them all.
'And then that Balrog was slain by a human.'
An easier target appeared than enticing Balrog.
'Then were there never other temptations offered to knights?'
Of course there were. Those who fell became Death Knights, stood with the Demon Realm, and transformed into special monsters or true demonic beings.
That fairy, said to be tainted in Thorn Fortress, was such a case.
Enkrid had told him as much. With little thought, only a handful of clues, Kraiss grasped Enkrid's place and value.
He might be wrong in all of it, but assuming the worst was his habit.
'Too tasty a prey.'
Wouldn't Enkrid look like that to demons coiled in the Demon Realm?
Kraiss opened his left hand and clasped his right fist within.
"Or maybe this is what they want."
One devouring the other. Tip the scale, shatter it, swallow the rival power whole.
Did those three servants come because their demons were allies? Or did they band together on their own?
Speculation left too many questions unresolved.
"Why do demons fight each other anyway?"
Rem had a sharp mind. He struck the weak point in Kraiss's thought.
Dunbakel blinked several times. She wondered what exactly he meant.
"No idea."
Kraiss shrugged. What he didn't know, he didn't know.
Like powers vying for dominion across the continent, demons too fought each other. That was his premise.
Reason? Unknown. Purpose? Unknown.
One thing seemed certain: even if you heard it, it would not be in terms humans could understand.
To guess at the intent of demons was nearly impossible. That applied to all of them, including Esther, resting now in Enkrid's arms.
While pondering dinner, Dunbakel spoke.
"Maybe they're just hungry?"
In the deep East, fights over food were common.
"Your thoughts are something else."
Rem chided her. In the end, the two traded blows.
***
The Companion of Heat began as a parasitic demon, left behind monstrosity, and rose to a true demon.
Perhaps by nature, it could split its thought into dozens, even hundreds.
Balrog's soul-splitting had been learned by watching and stealing the Companion of Heat's talent. Its source was here.
At any rate, one ideation passed over a mountain range. The will carved into it was clear.
'If I cannot eat, no one will.'
Then the right thing was to crush it here. The ideation turned into a snake tinged red and fell to the earth.
***
"Damn bitch."
The mage once called the Guide of Black Waves gained new wrinkles as a clone was lost. A clone forged by sacrificing life and youth was gone.
"Gather, all of you."
He summoned his disciples and slaves. A slave came to bow its head and hear his words.
Mages and witches are reclusive, but when needed, they help or hinder each other.
"Tell the beast pack that a Child of Stars has appeared, the prey they crave."
Without clear orders, slaves could not act. That was why he spoke the message and its recipient precisely.
After giving the order, the mage pressed his thumb to each finger in turn, from index to little, while brooding.
Mages are not those who adapt to the world's order. No—they dream of a world opposed to heaven's will, to the celestial order.
"Only truth deserves to be called god."
So they say openly.
Thus their stance differed from merchants and warriors. Even as servants of demons, they did not hand everything over.
And the world is not simple. Human relations are the same.
'But to think a Child of Stars was there…'
That, if anything, might be of use.
So he tried to reach the one he claimed as his master with mental communion.
"We failed, but there is still room to act."
After delivering his words, the mage pondered.
'Madman indeed.'
Immortality, land, truth.
If he desires none, then what does he desire?
A question he would never answer.
***
The demon of the Demon Realm received the report. Unable to move itself, it dispatched many servants. Among them, the one with the strongest servant—'Purewhite'—took action.
At that moment, the relic of mental communion quivered and asked:
"May I do as I wish?"
Purewhite had spoken its own words, promising land. Promised that, should it 'rise,' it would make the demon the final ruler of this land.
So the demon nodded.
Do as you will.
At Purewhite's words, the servant nodded.
***
"Let's begin."
The South is called a great power. The Great King of Rihinstetten heard the news that the parasite gnawing at his nation's strength along the border for over ten years had finally vanished. There was no longer any reason to hesitate.
Over his shoulders hung the hide-cloak of a beast once nicknamed the master of this land.
A crown completed the look—the Great King's usual attire.
There exists a tree spoken of as a relic in and of itself. Its name is Yggdrasil.
They say it grants wisdom, lets one escape death, and opens the way to carve out fate.
A relic from the age of myth and legend.
In truth, the tree's single practical value was this:
Complete nullification of all mind-striking spells, and nullification of all curses.
His emblem was a coronet framed with branches of that Yggdrasil and thorns wrought in gold.
It was something he kept at his side even in sleep.
"I'll skewer the tightfisted lords of the continent by their backsides and fly them as banners."
He and Naurill had long skirmished in local clashes. There was no need for formal notice.
It wouldn't be all-out war at once, but it was time to thrust in the blade they had honed for so long. The Great King was convinced.
***
Child of Stars.
There was a time she was called that. The byname Witch of Strife came a little later.
"You've got talent."
Those were the words when she first touched magic. Her master was a person without scent—in truth, a person who desired nothing in particular.
"Some folks find joy in good food. Me, I'm content with each day I spend gazing at the stars."
Rather than a witch, her master was someone who read the heavens and tracked the movements of the stars, detached from worldly affairs.
Witch or not, now and then she tended wounded hunters and helped people lost in their worries.
Good fortune, or blessing—or perhaps merely a strand of coincidence.
To Esther, her master was such a being.
"A dream."
Esther knew she was facing a piece of her past. Time whipped by, casting light on her childhood.
The days when she grasped principles and learned, bit by bit, how to seek truth.
"Is it fun?"
Her master asked, and she—sweat beading on bridge and tip of her nose—answered:
"Hm?"
As if to say, why ask something so obvious. The look in her master's eyes then held a trace of worry. As a child, Esther did not see it.
Time passed, and with it came a meeting like misfortune—or a curse.
"Child of Stars."
A sobriquet. A phrase praising one born with magical power as marvelous as the stars in the sky.
That talent was a most luscious prize to certain seekers of magic, and was also called the essence of mana.
Refined, it became a living elixir surpassing any legendary draught.
That was the reason and meaning of calling one a Child of Stars.
"You hid it well, but you can't fool my eyes."
She can never forget him. A mage who, in the course of his studies, had erred and lost both expression and emotion.
Master of the epithet: the Blade Without Affect.
His intuition was keen, and he pierced the layered veils her master had laid to peek at Esther's secret.
And then he struck, ambushing her master.
A seeker of truth who merely savored each day, her master burned everything she had to protect Esther.
"Live. Esther—live doing what you want."
Those words became shackles. Esther did not know what it was she wanted to do.
"Truth."
To seek spells—that was what she desired.
Means became ends. To broaden the world of spells, she thought anything was permissible.
She was becoming not her master, but the one who killed her master.
Only, she sacrificed no one else; she merely exposed herself to danger while she pursued magic.
"Been a while."
In the midst of that, she chased down the mage who killed her master and fought him. How glad he looked at her greeting—
"Came to be eaten!"
—so she tore his jaws apart, left and right. With the very spell he prized.
Drumuller's Scythe was the man's specialty.
That was when they began to call her the Witch of Strife.
"Child of Stars!"
She fought those who recognized her, learned to fight by fighting, and explored spells in the hours between.
She did not know what lay at the end of this road. She walked not knowing. There was a road, but no destination.
And then she was devoured by a spell, trapped by a curse in the body of a leopard.
At the time she took it for another misfortune, but looking back now, it seems that was fortune instead.
"What I want is—"
She did not know. She walked not knowing. She only wished to become a star in the sky—the star her master longed for—the master who had saved her from a life dying in the street selling her body.
But that was not her life; it was her master's. She had merely continued the life her master led.
And now?
"You're awake."
Like the sound dew might make as it slides across a leaf.
A fairy's voice was truly lovely.
She was naked, steeped in hot water. The fairies' springs were not one but many. This was the Warm Spring, the best for mending the body.
Stones were stacked around the pool, making for a tranquil scene. From within that scene, a fairy's green eyes looked upon Esther.
Esther's mouth opened.
"Mm."
The fairy asked:
"You got carried again, didn't you?"
Esther found the question very amusing.
"Mm."
When she answered, the fairy nodded without changing her expression. A face that betrayed no thoughts. Then, without preamble, she asked:
"You wear the look of many worries."
The fairy went on.
"You need not insist on solving them alone."
The counsel of a long-lived fairy was of help.
Vaguely, Esther now knew what kind of life she desired. She understood her master's wish, too.
"Peace."
And to that, she would add her own.
"Joy."
Remove discomforts. If useless experiments costing human lives are a discomfort, she would clear them away. If demons of the Demon Realm meddled and that, too, was a discomfort, she would clear them away.
And also—
"Even if a mob that covets the hollow come charging—"
She would clear them away.