"All right, now it's my turn to send you all back."
Nanoda admitted that she had underestimated this band of Shadow Warriors. After all, they were the very squad that, some twenty or thirty years from now, would beat humanity's last three remaining great Mages down to only two.
Rumor had it that when Levi was young, serving as the commander of the Shadow Warriors, he defeated Minus—who had fallen from a great Mage into a witch—and made his name known throughout the world. That happened around this very time.
Whether the current commander was Levi or not, she couldn't say; the timing didn't quite line up. The Levi of now was probably still only a child or a youth.
By her reckoning, by the time Levi truly became famous, Himmel would likely already be dead.
Many of the terrible things concerning humanity also seemed to happen after Himmel's death.
"Walked the gates of death once again, eh."
His mood settling, Glück lit himself a cigarette. The flame flickered to life, and beneath the moonlight the smoke curled upward. A man already half a step into his sixties, when he let his guard down, he looked somewhat forlorn and disheveled.
"Boo-hoo-hoo..."
Lektire had once again dissolved into tears. What had begun as a happy day had become the worst day of her life. It was a blow that surpassed even her time bedridden with illness—a loneliness more terrifying than the demon of sickness, the fear of nearly losing her loved ones.
"Mother, it's all right now."
Denn's voice was a little choked. He had always known that his mother, who seemed so strong in everyday life, was in truth as fragile as her own body.
"Um... thank you."
To Nanoda's surprise, this kid she didn't much care for had unexpectedly turned honest—or perhaps it was the filial devotion he held toward Lektire.
"Stop crying. Do you still remember when we first met? Give us a smile. Just like your son said, everything's all right now."
Nanoda's comforting tone was rather flat. Then she added, "Besides, I'm in a hurry to get back for dinner."
"Pfft." Seemingly tickled by Nanoda's somewhat nonsensical words, Lektire pulled herself together a little.
"Then let's set out at once. This isn't a place to linger."
Glück tossed away his cigarette butt and once again took up his sword. "Their target should be me. None of you need to blame yourselves. It seems we owe Gaderia a great favor."
His expression turning cold and stern, he became once more the aloof lord he usually was. Glück did not ask after the reason for Nanoda's appearance; he merely walked to the very front of the group. "I'll lead the way. I leave their protection to you, Lord Nanoda."
"Rest assured, I've already dealt with all the shadows in this area," she said—then halfway through, Nanoda's tone shifted abruptly. "Glück, fall back. A new one has come."
It was a speed beyond that of an ordinary person, faster than a sprinting cheetah, charging into her Mana Perception range without any concealment whatsoever, along with a presence that could be felt even from some distance away.
A powerful one.
There was no vast Mana to him—he was a super-soldier who had broken through the limits of humankind.
"I mean no harm. I've only come to deliver a message."
His drooping, bushy beard fluttered every which way now that the rushing wind had stopped, and a few strands of silver were mixed into his uncut long hair.
He was a short man of late middle age, wrapped in a tattered black robe, looking somewhat shabby.
"See, I haven't even brought a weapon."
His voice carried a touch of weariness as the half-aged man raised both of his calloused hands, making no move to advance and attack.
"I didn't expect you to still be alive, Waros."
Glück recognized this once-renowned warrior—the vanguard general of the Empire, who together with the Empire army's other commanders had in one breath reclaimed a third of the lands invaded by the Demon Race, and who had then vanished without a trace: a warrior of legend.
"Heh heh, you must be mistaken. I'm just an ordinary vagrant."
Waros shook his head in denial. In truth he was several years older than Glück, yet perhaps because of a top warrior's physique, his appearance looked younger still.
"So then, what is it you want to say?"
Nanoda planted herself in front of Glück, observing the man's slightest movements. He was a presence that warranted a measure of caution.
If she let Glück face this fellow head-on, Glück might well be dead in the very next second.
"Looks like there's no way I could win at all." The moment he finished, Waros hastily corrected himself. "Sorry, sorry, old age. That's the line I'm supposed to say—no, not the line I'm supposed to say."
"?" Nanoda couldn't make out what the man was even talking about.
"What I mean to say is, if you are the supreme commander of the Shadow Warriors, then I choose to compromise. From this moment on I will absolutely never make a move against Weise again, and I will likewise put pressure on the Empire's royal family and nobility, making them abandon their designs on Gaderia."
"The gist of it is: we attacked you, and you killed every Shadow Warrior who came. As an apology, we'll help reduce the Empire's harassment of you. From now on we'll have nothing to do with one another, and both sides can live in peace."
Seemingly afraid Nanoda wouldn't understand, Waros restated it as if translating.
"Do you take me for an idiot? Wouldn't a deal like this be worse than my just hunting down your commander, killing him, and making an example of him to scare the Empire straight?"
Nanoda suddenly took on a manner that was none too easy to bargain with.
"Heh heh heh, you underestimate us. The shadows are everywhere—whether in Weise or in Gaderia."
"Shadows who've lost their commander don't have much of a goal left, do they."
"Can you even find them?"
"That's not what you should be worried about. What you should worry about is how quickly I'll cut you down."
"I am, after all, one of the very finest of the Shadow Warriors—"
Before he could finish, Nanoda lunged straight in. Empowered by Paradox Magic, a single sweep of the broken horn in her hand sheared off a lock of the man's beard.
"Hah!"
In that moment of mortal danger, by near instinct, Waros leapt back several meters in a single bound.
Having more or less guessed it was some special magic, Waros looked at his severed beard. Had she struck to kill just then, he—not fully braced for battle—would surely have died on the spot.
"All right, all right, let's talk this over properly."
Seeing the man thoroughly cowed, Nanoda held back her hand.
"Go back and tell your supreme commander: if I see Shadow Warriors again, or any harassment from the Northern Empire, I'll bring the squad under my command and wipe out either side—or all of them!"
Gaderia's current military strength could not sustain such a war. That meant going head-to-head against the Demon King and his army of Great Demons—against the Empire that stood unshaken along the first line of defense in the north, near the Demon King's Castle.
Nanoda felt that she, a single demon, might be able to topple the Empire, but she did not have the energy to spare to protect all of Gaderia.
This was Nanoda's one and only weakness now, as well as the ideal place she had found for a peaceful life.
Too lazy to bother with roundabout schemes, Nanoda still chose to coerce with a hard-line attitude.
To create dread in her opponent.
The Shadow Warriors and their commander were better at enduring than any side—it was their specialty; before a powerful enemy they would lie dormant.
"I'll convey it. Rest easy and go back. We likely won't meet again."
Waros, who felt no fear even when facing the Demon King's Army, for the first time felt a fear that made his heart tremble.
It was as though he had laid eyes on the Demon King himself.
____
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