"So, Tsukuyo."
Narukami Koharu looked straight at her younger sister. "By your account, we—and those little girls you mentioned just now—were actually smuggled over here directly by that Kami-sama, using Divine Power?"
"..."
After hearing this, Inaba Tsukuyo slowly shook her head.
On her delicate face, which had shown almost no fluctuation of expression, the initial certainty slowly gave way to hesitation. In the end, it settled into a kind of caution.
"Yes and no."
"What? Is there some rule that keeps you from telling?" Narukami Koharu arched a brow.
"It's not that I can't say."
Inaba Tsukuyo spoke softly.
"It's that… I can't draw a conclusion."
Inaba Tsukuyo paused, then relayed to her sister the core iron law that Senior Tsubaki had mentioned in passing yesterday, during idle chatter, in the workshop of the [Hephaestus Familia].
"Because the Lower World is far too fragile, all the gods who descend from the Heavens must, the very moment they set foot in the Lower World, forge a contract known as the Oath of Rules."
Inaba Tsukuyo closed her eyes, recalling Tsubaki's grave expression at the time.
"The instant one uses Divine Power beyond the limit this mortal shell can bear, the contract is immediately violated."
"The only possible outcome is that the god will be forcibly deported back to the Heavens."
"And can never descend again."
Inaba Tsukuyo emphasized, "Senior Tsubaki said this rule is absolute."
"No god is an exception."
"Even a great god like Lord Ouranos, the Guild's highest administrator, must strictly obey it."
"That is why the gods of the Lower World completely seal away their Divine Power, and survive here in mortal form, living the way mortals live."
Having listened to all this, Narukami Koharu knitted her brows into a knot.
"But that's strange, then."
Narukami Koharu extended a finger, pointing toward the doorway where Haimer had just vanished.
"That glowing door Kami-sama used just now to pull us over, and then even walked back through… That thing—if it isn't Divine Power, then what is it?"
Inaba Tsukuyo fell silent.
In the hall, only the "tick, tock" of the wall clock's second hand remained.
"Tsukuyo cannot say for certain."
"Although Kami-sama has opened doors to other worlds many times."
"Yet every single time, Kami-sama was never deported—not even the slightest abnormal reaction of being backlashed by the rules."
Inaba Tsukuyo lowered her head slightly.
By the rules Senior Tsubaki had described, there were only two explanations for this situation.
Either the power Kami-sama uses does not, in the judgment of the laws, fall within the category of Divine Power.
Or… Kami-sama himself is no longer bound by the contract's rules at all.
Both. Clearly, both were possible.
In comparison, Inaba Tsukuyo recalled the fragment of Heavenly lore that the sage Fels, trembling, had confided to them not long ago, deep within the Dungeon.
The slaughter of the gods of the Heavens; the making of ten thousand years of emptiness.——
A fiend who could do such a thing in the Heavens—one who made every god in the Lower World today tremble at the mere mention of his name.
A mere oath of the Lower World was, perhaps for Kami-sama, from the very beginning, never a shackle capable of taking effect at all.
"You're… thinking about something very dangerous, aren't you?"
Seeing her sister's silence, Narukami Koharu suddenly cut in.
Inaba Tsukuyo drew a deep breath and pressed these speculations down into her heart.
She lifted her head again; though her eyes stayed closed, her bearing as she faced Narukami Koharu was extremely grave.
"Sister, no matter what the truth may be."
Inaba Tsukuyo's tone was iron-firm.
"About the fact that we—and they—come from another world… Sister must never reveal even half a word of it to any outsider."
"This concerns Kami-sama's plans."
Hearing her own little sister deliver this almost commanding admonishment, Narukami Koharu did not grow angry.
Instead she tilted her head, looking the sister across from her up and down.
Suddenly, she grinned. "Tsukuyo, you've changed a lot."
Narukami Koharu's shark teeth glinted with a cold, white light.
Inaba Tsukuyo was startled. "What do you mean?"
"In the past, you'd never have spoken to me in that tone."
"The you of now is like… someone desperately guarding something extremely precious—hiding your edge so carefully that even your breathing conceals it."
"As if afraid that one careless move might shatter it."
Inaba Tsukuyo seemed to have been struck in some soft spot.
The tips of her ears flushed with an almost invisible tinge of red.
"Sister is overthinking it. I'm merely stating the stakes." So saying, Inaba Tsukuyo turned her head aside, denying it stubbornly.
Narukami Koharu did not press on to expose her; she merely drew back her gaze and looked down at the long blade laid across her knees.
The pad of her finger gently rubbed the rough texture of the scabbard.
Then she muttered under her breath, "Whoever can turn you into someone so utterly devoted…"
"I really do want to get a look at him soon."
Hearing this, Inaba Tsukuyo's fingers unconsciously clenched the hem of her skirt.
These words half reassured her.
For a martial fanatic like her sister to say such a thing meant she had acknowledged, from the bottom of her heart, Haimer's worth as someone to follow.
But the other half made Tsukuyo feel a faint unease.
After all, Narukami Koharu's craving for the strong was, just like Amou Kirukiru's, one that had never known any bounds.
Meanwhile. On North Tenth Street, in Orario's Rakuhoku smiths' quarter.
Haimer strolled leisurely along the broad flagstone road.
As a district where the various forging factions gathered, the temperature here was clearly several notches higher than in other quarters. The air was thick with a heavy, scorched-metal smell and the scent of flying charcoal sparks.
The "clang" of dwarven and human swordsmiths of every Familia swinging their heavy hammers rose one after another, as though it would never cease in this place.
Just like his usual strolls through the streets.
Haimer had only just stepped into this area.
Even though he wore nothing but an utterly ordinary black formal coat, hands tucked into his pockets—
the passersby ahead, like the sea parting before Moses, seemed to sense a tangible aura and swiftly retreated to either side.
Especially when he passed a half-open shop.
Several young apprentices squatting on the threshold, diligently grinding swords, caught that figure in the corners of their eyes.
At once, several of them went rigid, as if cast under a binding spell, saluting with their eyes; the sound of grinding cut off abruptly.
One dwarf apprentice's hand even trembled, and the broad-bladed sword he was half-polishing, together with the whetstone, crashed straight down onto the top of his foot with a "clang"—yet he gritted his teeth and did not dare cry out.
Haimer paid no mind to these little episodes.
He walked straight into the depths and stopped before a familiar workshop.
[Hephaestus Familia]
Haimer pushed the door open.
Hephaestus was not there; it seemed she had gone early to supervise the work in the outer ring.
However. Inside the workshop.
Tsubaki, one arm bared, stood before the anvil, a delicate little hammer in hand, carefully refining the body of a longsword, her forehead beaded with sweat.
Hearing the door open.
Tsubaki wiped the sweat from her forehead and looked back.
When she saw clearly that the newcomer was Haimer, a habitual smile appeared naturally on her spirited, valiant face. Then she set down the little hammer.
"Yo, Lord Haimer."
Tsubaki casually grabbed the towel draped around her neck and wiped her hands, her tone thoroughly familiar.
"Here to see Lady Hephaestus?"
Haimer walked in, a touch helpless.
"Not today, Miss Tsubaki."
Haimer shook his head and stated his purpose directly.
"It's just that another newcomer has joined the Familia, so I came to borrow a handy weapon from you, Miss Tsubaki."
"Clang." Tsubaki's hand, which had just reached for the blueprints she wanted to tidy up, slipped, and the blueprints fell onto the anvil.
Her movements froze.
Her single eye went wide, and she turned her head with some astonishment.
"Another… another new member?"
After all, just a few days ago, Haimer had brought a batch of new faces over.
And the commotion those four kicked up in the Dungeon after getting their gear had nearly stuffed the Guild's report papers full over these past days.
By any reckoning, they were on the elite path.
How, now, after so little time, was there another one already?
"Mm." Haimer picked up the thread very amiably.
"It's Tsukuyo's older sister."
Tsubaki froze.
"Oh… Tsukuyo's older sister."
Tsubaki first repeated it blankly.
But then. Two seconds later.
Tsubaki's pupils contracted sharply. After all. She had personally led the members of the [Haimer Familia] to conquer the Dungeon.
If, among that pack of little monsters in the [Haimer Familia], the impression Amou Kirukiru had left on her was that of a monster comparable to Lv.3—
then the killing ability Inaba Tsukuyo had displayed in the Dungeon sent a chill down even her spine.
And now, the one coming was that girl's… older sister?
Tsubaki swallowed hard, forcibly suppressing that bad premonition rising in her heart, and asked cautiously, in a somewhat probing tone:
"Um… Lord Haimer."
"That little Tsukuyo—she's among the very top for swordsmanship talent in your whole batch…"
"So this older sister of hers? What sort of… level is her talent at, roughly?"
Haimer leaned back against the chair.
He smiled faintly and tossed out a single line lightly.
"Not inferior to Tsukuyo, I'd say."
Inside the workshop, a deathly silence fell.
Only the leftover furnace fire beneath the anvil gave off a faint crackle.
Tsubaki stood where she was, silent for several seconds.
After a long while. Tsubaki finally let out a heavy sigh. "Phew."
"A monster… another monster has come." Tsubaki shook her head over and over with a bitter smile.
This bunch that came rolling out from under Haimer really weren't human.
With this word from Haimer, Tsubaki had no doubt that within a few days another record-breaking sheet of sheepskin would probably be added to the Guild's wall.
But sighing aside. The work still had to be done.
Tsubaki turned and strode straight past the racks displaying the common-grade wares up front, heading directly toward the deepest part of the workshop.
"Since it's Tsukuyo's sister, then she should use bladed weapons, right?"
"That's right." Haimer nodded lightly.
"And I hope this blade…"
"can be worthy of her—as a sharp edge in the hand of my newly appointed Constable."
At this, Tsubaki's hand, searching through the weapons, paused.
The corner of her mouth couldn't help twitching. After all.
These past days' newspaper headlines flashed through her mind.
"Specially Licensed Constable! The Haimer Familia Seizes the City's Right of Martial Judgment!"
Now Tsubaki understood, too.
So Haimer had come rushing over today to borrow a blade—
in order to use it, up on the surface, for cutting off human heads. A blade to establish authority.
Thinking of this, Tsubaki reined in the somewhat lax attitude she'd had a moment ago, her expression turning focused.
She rummaged for a while in the corner where the finest blueprints and prototypes were stored.
At last she reached out and drew forth a weapon wrapped layer upon layer in thick black cloth strips.
When the scabbard was fully revealed, the air all around seemed to grow a little colder. The scabbard was pure black,
its surface wound with intricate dark-red silk cords.
Tsubaki gripped the hilt. "This blade…" "Lord Haimer."
Tsubaki turned and held the weapon out before Haimer with both hands.
"Its name is 『Bloodcry』."
"It's a prototype I forged half a year ago, on a sudden whim."
Tsubaki explained, "Because the forging method was rather unorthodox, this blade… never found a suitable master."
"Extremely sharp, extremely durable. And most crucial of all—"
Tsubaki tapped the dark-red scabbard with her finger. "Because I made it back then on a sudden whim, using special materials, this sword—the more blood it's stained with, the higher the blade's temperature climbs, and the more terrifying the cutting force it produces."
"It's a truly, genuinely blood-drinking murderous weapon that only reaches full performance by feeding."
Haimer reached out and gripped the scabbard.
He took it from Tsubaki's hands.
He examined it closely. "Very good." Haimer nodded with satisfaction. "Tsubaki's craftsmanship is excellent."
Watching Haimer accept the murderous weapon, Tsubaki suddenly felt her scalp tighten a little.
In the end, she couldn't hold back after all.
Tsubaki pointed at the blade in Haimer's hand and asked one last question. "If I may be so bold, Lord Haimer…"
"That little girl of yours… when do you plan for her to need this blade?"
Haimer carried 『Bloodcry』 naturally in one hand at his side. "She'll need it this afternoon." "..."
The corner of Tsubaki's mouth twitched violently.
This afternoon?! Not even giving her time to get used to the weapon—the moment she gets the blade, she's going straight out to kill and offer heads to the heavens? The Constable's sharp edge is to taste blood this soon.
It seems the paving stones of Orario are truly going to get a thorough washing today.
"…Fine, then. You're the customer; as long as you're happy." Fortunately, Tsubaki, as a swordsmith, held to the principle of not asking too many questions, and she shrugged.
She turned, pulled over a large piece of thick, waterproof oilcloth, and carefully wrapped the blade for Haimer, together with a set of lightweight, high-grade leather protective gear.
At the same time.
On Orario's Southwest Avenue, at the base of the [Apollo Familia].
—The Hall of the Sun.
Compared to the usual scene here, where strings and pipes played without end and laughter and chatter always filled the air—
at this moment, the interior of the base
was so quiet you could almost hear a pin drop.
In a study of extreme opulence, velvet tapestries hanging all around,
the oppressive atmosphere was so thick it made breathing difficult.
—The patron god of the [Apollo Familia]. Apollo.
The sun god, who normally paid the utmost attention to his own bearing and demanded that his every gesture be absolutely elegant and graceful—
was at this moment clutching his own head tightly, his face full of anxiety.
____
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