[523] A New Contract (2)
Kashan.
A powerful empire that occupied a third of the human realm.
Aganos, the vast palace where Kashan's ruler Teraze lived, was a military and cultural fortress—its defenses against magic, law, and physical assault complete, its own autonomous quarters forming a city within a city.
"Wow, it's been a while."
Miro and her party stepped into Kashan's capital and stood by the fountain in the city square, staring up at Aganos's spires.
Hundreds of towers thrust skyward as if trying to pierce the heavens. The sight was dazzling.
'Teraze….'
During the year since she'd been chosen as humanity's shield, Miro had traveled the world and met countless people.
The most memorable of them had been Kashan's empress, Teraze Mistra.
It was the first time in her life she'd officially thought someone was utterly bizarre.
Unofficially there had been others—Geohin, for example—but they'd long since been erased from her mind.
"Auntie, how much is this?"
Bored while waiting for their appointment, Miro wandered among the shops around the square.
Armin and Kuan stayed planted by the fountain, and Arius trailed behind Miro carrying Shirone wrapped in black cloth.
"That? Two gold."
"What? How is that two gold?"
Miro had picked out a bracelet braided from three kinds of leather.
"Cow, horse, and camel hide, braided together. Even at that, you're getting it cheap."
"Oh—cow, horse, camel."
Miro put a gold coin on the stall.
"Give it for one gold. For leather, it's tiny."
The merchant woman stared, incredulous.
"What? Leather's rare in Kashan and you expect half price? Are you some kind of thief?"
Miro forced a coquettish smile.
"Auntie, do you know who I am?"
"Who are you, miss?"
"I'm here to see Teraze. You know—the empress. I'm an imperial guest. Can't you give me just this one thing for cheap?"
The woman's eyes widened.
"You brat! How dare you speak of the empress's palace like that! Even if you're foreign, this is Kashan's capital! Get out now! I'll call the patrol!"
When the name Teraze didn't work, Miro tried a last-ditch tactic.
"Listen, auntie. Empress or not, I've been guarding the world alone for twenty years! If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be doing business here!"
Shock and fear drained the color from the merchant's face.
"Isn't she crazy? Someone call the patrol! A madwoman has appeared!"
"Madwoman? This woman is really—!"
The commotion drew everyone's attention to the stall.
Kuan and Armin at the fountain only wished she were just some stranger.
"What a reckless fool."
Kuan said, and Armin gave a wry smile.
"I heard she was an eccentric even in school. People don't change that easily."
"...But is this okay? I thought things concerning Miro were a global secret."
"Well... if you can buy local goods for half price, what can I say."
At Kuan's offhand joke, Armin shrugged awkwardly.
"What can we do if she insists she is who she is?"
Kuan sighed and turned to look at Miro just as soldiers clanking with iron marched in from the square entrance.
They were all heavy-armored, each wearing an amber emblem that gleamed like gold at the waist.
Aganos's palace guard—Far, Mid, and Near.
The empress's guard was divided into three units—Near, Mid, and Far—denoting the range at which they protected Teraze.
The Far unit guarded from the greatest distance, but for residents who'd never even seen the palace guard deployed, the sight of them was unnerving.
"Hey, miss! If you've been drinking since noon, be a good girl and go to sleep! Don't make a scene in a humble merchant's stall!"
"No, why won't you believe me? I'm Adrias Miro! The empress called me here!"
The captain of the palace guard, arriving at the square, sighed when he found the woman squabbling with the merchant.
"You said there was no need to find her…."
Teraze's order, transmitted down the chain of command, had been simple: "Bring me the loudest woman in the market."
As the guard approached the stall, the belatedly lucid merchant went pale.
"Th-the palace guard…?"
Not the patrol, but Aganos's palace guard.
More startlingly, the captain stepped forward and treated Miro with the utmost courtesy.
"You've arrived. I have orders to escort you to the empress with proper respect. I will guide you."
"Hmm."
Miro regarded the captain with half-lidded eyes, then suddenly grinned and turned back to the merchant.
The startled woman's lips trembled.
The three-colored braided leather bracelet fit Miro's slender wrist perfectly.
There was nothing to stop Miro and her party as they followed the captain into Aganos.
Servants and attendants parted like fleeing shadows; gates opened without a knock.
For those who had spent their lives in the imperial palace, watching supposedly impregnable portals fling themselves open was an electrifying shock.
The captain could not ascend to the twentieth floor—the guards bearing the amber emblem did not go that high—so he fell back there.
They climbed a narrow staircase to the twentieth floor and met Aganos's Mid guard, their emblems diamond-shaped.
The Mid guard captain, in white plate, approached Kuan and spoke, holding out both hands in a polite gesture.
"From here on, no weapons may be carried. Swords—"
Kuan ignored him.
As Miro's party turned the corner and walked down the corridor, the captain fell in behind them without further intervention.
On the twenty-third spire, ten of Pungjang's men stood guard at the corridor's end wearing owl masks.
The other ninety had already been dispatched across the world in search of Anke Ra's incarnation.
But the ten who remained were Pungjang's executives, and their collective aura of lethal intent filled the corridor so thickly that even a skilled warrior might feel choked by it.
"Wow, terrifying. Did they gas this place?"
Miro, joking to defuse it, approached the leader and said, "Move aside, please. Who blocks the way after inviting a guest?"
"...No one but you may enter."
Kuan frowned at the voice he could never forget, even after ten years.
Miro, too, did not act rashly this time.
Although Aganos was essentially a fortress, this room was special, and there was a reason Miro had to go in alone.
"Wait here. I'll go in first."
As the door opened and the space beyond expanded, Miro's expression grew colder.
The click of the door closing sounded, and there sat Uorin, legs crossed in a chair.
"Long time no see, Miro. Still the same as ever."
"I'm seeing you for the first time."
Miro knew Teraze was Mitochondria Eve.
That the woman before her wasn't Mistra's face but someone else's was only disappointing.
"Heh heh, sit. Tea? Or something stronger?"
"First, I want to speak alone. That's why you called me separately, isn't it?"
No one else was visible to Miro, but she could have guessed as much.
"Krauch, remain outside."
A brief silence.
"It's all right. Since I called you here, this isn't something you can handle alone."
With that, the window to Miro's right slammed open and shut with a snap.
"Better?"
Miro sat slowly in the chair across from Uorin, who'd been studying her. Uorin let out a soft chuckle.
"You look like you could use a slap."
"From the start... it was all part of your plan, wasn't it?"
Miro addressed the Teraze Mistra who still lived in Uorin's memories.
"Of course. Thanks to that, you escaped that cursed dimensional wall, didn't you? About twenty years, right? How does it feel to finally come back out into the world? Oh, that bracelet's nice."
"It's not bad. The world's fun after a long time. But…."
Whoosh!
The incarnation of the Panya of Transcendence flared from Miro like a blaze and lunged at Uorin.
Gwan-eum's face was benign, but dozens of arms formed varied seals and closed around Uorin as if to crush her.
"You should've left my friend alone."
She had tried to shoulder humanity's sins and walk alone, but had unwillingly drawn in Sein and Gaold.
Gaold, in particular, had been a devout believer and had become a demon, now wandering in hell even as they spoke.
No one could meet the murderous aura of humanity's strongest Panya without fear, but Uorin knew Miro too well.
"I understand what you're saying. So don't put on fake anger. I get how you feel…"
To the Panya of Immaterial Mind, anger was just another worldly emotion.
When the Gwan-eum incarnation vanished in an instant, Uorin looked down at the cubic she'd stuck to her nail that morning and spoke.
"It wasn't a sacrifice of Gaold. Only Gaold could have done it. Just as you were the only one who could be a sacrifice for humanity."
Miro puckered her lips.
As she'd expected, any outward display meant nothing to Mitochondria Eve.
Uorin adjusted the cubic on her nail and raised her head.
"So you didn't come to argue. Why did you want to see me?"
"You should know."
"Huh?"
Uorin tilted her head as if truly clueless.
'She's genuinely infuriating.'
If someone asks for help, they should at least take actions that match the request—a tacit rebuke.
"I remember."
The leader at Pungjang's front spoke up.
"Then it's that swordsman, isn't it?"
When she removed her owl mask, the face of the woman who'd haunted Kuan's nightmares was revealed.
A snow-white face, faint brows, heavy lids hiding sharp eyes—unchanged from ten years ago.
Kuan's life had been ruined when he'd refused her offer; his Achilles tendon had been cut, and everything about his life had been altered.
Facing such an enemy a few meters away, Kuan's blood boiled.
"You still carry a sword. I'll give you credit for tenacity."
The memory of the woman's mouth making that cutting sound—the moment the Achilles tendon was severed—made Kuan's eyes flash wide.
At the same time, the woman's gaze glittered as if she'd seen something grotesque.
'What is this...?'
The world began to tilt to the right.
Ten degrees, twenty, thirty. As it leaned, Kuan felt as if he might slip; his right foot tensed.
'I feel like I'm falling.'
Kuan whispered.
"Don't rile me. I'm holding myself back desperately."
Something had been realized.
But what kind of realization could twist a person's temperament so unnaturally?
'I acknowledged her talent back then...'
This was a different plane entirely.
The swordsman Kuan had been—whose Achilles tendon was cut ten years ago—no longer existed in this world.
'I'll have to catch her for now.'
The woman slowly shifted her center of gravity to the left.
As she did, the tilting world righted itself and returned perfectly level.
'This isn't easy.'
Even with revenge burning in him, Kuan refrained from drawing his sword not only out of duty but because the opponent was Pungjang.
'Wait. I'll cut off all her legs someday.'
While Kuan planned for that future vengeance, the woman's attention had been snagged by the strange, unsettling sensation she'd just felt.
'What on earth was that?'
Unable to contain her curiosity, she spoke.
"You—"
Miro cut her off.
"Arius, come in."
The woman scowled in disappointment, pulled her owl mask back over her face, and stepped aside.
When Arius entered, Uorin raised a hand.
"Long time no see, Arius."
They'd first met at Kazra Palace, but their stations had changed drastically since then.
Uorin, once a princess, had become a Tri-Emperor; the tomb raider from the Magic Seven had become the strongest Panya and Miro's faithful retainer.
"Lay him on the table."
Miro grabbed the edge of the cloak and flipped it back; Shirone, in Armand's robe, lay there with eyes closed as if asleep.
'Shirone….'
For a brief moment, Uorin's expression softened with warmth.