[702] God of the Desert (1)
"Wow, this is really fun."
Kido, clinging to Kaidra's sharp talons, watched with fascination as the city unfurled a kilometer below.
"Kido, you're going to fall. You're scared of heights, remember?"
"Heh heh, you can catch me."
Everything was new to Kido, but Shirone's eyes kept fluttering shut.
"Kido, I want to sleep. Come down now."
Kido, who climbed Kaidra's body with skill surpassing a rock climber, settled into the cockpit Shirone had been using.
"Already going to sleep?"
"We have to fly all day. Watching isn't that fun anymore. Just a little nap."
When Shirone lay along Kaidra's spine, Kido took over the seat.
"Where are we…?"
Shading his eyes with the back of his hand, Shirone felt the vistas stretching to the horizon take his breath away.
"The world really is vast."
He wanted, someday, to see the edge of the earth.
When Shirone woke from his nap, Kido was still in the cockpit, gazing out at the view.
"You still looking?"
"Just… you don't see this every day."
As Rian stretched and rose, Shirone crawled along the spine.
"How far are we?"
"We've left the city. For the past thirty minutes it's been nothing but desert."
They were over the sprawling Akkad Desert.
"Look there. People."
A group of about two hundred was racing over a sand dune.
When the perceptive Latusa lowered altitude, traders in black robes and turbans became visible.
"They're moving fast for a desert. What are they riding?"
The beasts were furry, with unnaturally long legs, and they showed no sign of tiring as they climbed the dunes.
"They're called Baltan. They're adapted to desert life—can go seven days without water."
"Even so, can they really cross the desert on those?"
"There are many tribes in the Akkad. They'd know where the oases are."
The traders spotted Kaidra and all looked up, drawing curved, sickle-like blades.
"Watch out! Monster bird!"
Kaidra sometimes descended on desert tribes when hungry, so the traders braced for attack.
"Faster! Run faster!"
As over two hundred Baltan surged in speed, a cloud of sand rose like a storm.
Kido cocked his head. "Why are they flipping out like that?"
"They're afraid of us. Let's go up."
Unless someone was on par with an archmage, Kaidra was a terrifying Tier-3 monster.
"We can't just let this go! Attack!"
Panicked, the traders loosed arrows, but the volleys fell short of Kaidra in graceful arcs.
"Oh? They're attacking us?"
Kido stood and yanked Latusa's reins.
"What are you doing? Just go up."
"You seen goblins ever just let things slide? They threw a punch, so we'll show them we can fight."
"You won't hit anything anyway."
"Don't worry. We're just going to tease them a bit. Come on, Latusa! Let's show them how fast we are!"
Kido gave the order, but the great bird that flew seven thousand kilometers a day found ground quarrels tedious.
"Hey! Move! Can't you hear me?"
A bright idea lit in Kido's head.
"Aha! Afraid of getting hit by arrows?"
Kaidra's eyes narrowed.
"Heh heh heh, you called us monster birds, but you're just cowards. In the end we're only a fast bird, right?"
Kraaah!
Latusa shrieked and dove vertically, skating across the sea of sand.
The startled traders raised their bows at once.
"It's coming! Shoot!"
Among the rain of arrows, mages' Ice Dagger spells were mixed in, but not a single wound marred Kaidra's hide.
"Kido! Be careful!"
Seeing the ground streaming by, they finally grasped how fast Kaidra was.
"Waaaah! Dodge!"
Just before impact, Kaidra rose up and the traders were buried in a cloud of sand.
"Ugh! Ugh! Damn it! What—?"
Kido thrust his fist toward the sky where the traders stared up in stunned confusion.
"Puhahaha! How's that? Watch yourself next time!"
Shirone sighed. "I've wondered—why do goblins like tormenting others so much?"
"Heh heh heh! Because it's fun. Goblins don't live complicated lives like humans. Dying isn't such a big deal to them. So someone else being a little miserable? Who cares?"
"But you understand humans."
"Of course. Still, if it doesn't feel serious, there's nothing to be done."
Kido shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe if we eat enough humans someday we'll grow a human heart."
It was the least human thing Shirone had ever heard.
Two more hours of flight passed before Shirone rubbed his empty stomach. "I'm hungry. Let's land and eat."
They could eat while flying, but the long hours in the sky had left him queasy.
"Latusa, let's stop over there for a bit."
When Shirone pointed to an oasis four kilometers away, Kaidra arced widely and scanned the area for danger.
'They're well trained.'
As they reached the wasteland and walked toward the shade, a half-destroyed wagon lay toppled behind a cactus.
"What's this?"
It looked like it had been abandoned a long time.
Rian walked over casually and pulled back the wagon's tarp to peer inside.
"…Shirone, you should come see this."
A corpse that looked as if it had been dead for ages lay slumped inside, its neck bent unnaturally.
Kido looked around the other side. "There's someone here too. Dead, of course."
A woman's body had collapsed against the wagon, and at her knees a girl's corpse lay with her head in the woman's lap.
When Kido turned the emaciated girl's jaw, her face popped free and rolled away.
Taken aback, Kido examined the woman.
"Hmm."
He ripped at the flesh still clinging to the skull and popped it into his mouth.
"Ugh. Ugh."
It wasn't edible.
He rummaged the woman's clothing and found a coin pouch; when he shook it open, two copper coins clinked out.
"…."
After a moment's inspection he slipped them into his back pocket, and Shirone approached.
"Find anything? Anything at all?"
"Not much. No meat, and only two copper pieces."
When humans search a corpse they look for cause and evidence; when goblins do it's for food and coin.
"I found a notebook inside the wagon."
Shirone opened it; Rian and Kido leaned in from either side.
The script was Kashan; it looked like a diary.
"Rian, can you read it?"
Most nobles learned one of the Tri-Imperial languages—Kashan, Gustaf, or Jincheon—as part of their education.
"I can speak it conversationally, but I can't read the script."
"Really? I thought in Tormia most people chose Kashan as their cultured language."
"Me too."
"…."
It was time to use his Ultima System.
"I'll decode it. So…"
When he opened the Ultima System, the rough impression of the writing flowed into his head.
"It seems to be a family fleeing a tribal war. I can't get an exact date, but it says the daughter caught heatstroke."
"Heatstroke's common in the desert. But a desert tribe would at least have antipyretics, right?"
"Maybe they didn't pack them while fleeing."
Rian examined the wagon again. "There are no signs of an attack. Could it really be heatstroke?"
"There's a line here."
Shirone pointed to the last page. "The Desert God comes, swallowing the void."
Kido gaped. "What the hell does that mean? Did they die of emptiness?"
"It could be suicide."
At Rian's suggestion, Shirone nodded.
"What bothers me is the mother and daughter lying side by side. Maybe the husband went mad, or it's a complication from the heatstroke…"
Kido's head turned toward the outer edge of the oasis.
"Shirone, something's coming."
Because he was attuned to the Law of the land, he felt it; Kaidra rose in a hostile stance.
"There's a huge number of them! They're really fast!"
As Kido finished, the far desert shimmered and sand began to stir like a mirage until a tide of king scorpions filled the view.
"Waaah! What is that!"
Seeing desert-colored scorpions two meters long swarming made their hearts seize.
"They're not aiming at us. It's a migration. Did an earthquake hit somewhere?"
Kido turned to Kaidra. "What does it matter? Let's get out of here!"
"No! We have to stop them here!"
"Why?"
Shirone's face turned serious. "If they keep going they could collide with those traders."
Given the scale of the migration, the traders would very likely be unable to avoid the scorpion swarm.
"Damn it!"
Kido grabbed a spear and joined Shirone's side. "You want to kill them all? There's so many!"
"Exactly, Kido."
Shirone pushed off the ground and leapt forward. "Humans are complicated."
When Rian followed, Kido—who had been watching dumbfounded—darted between them.
"Screw it, whatever!"
He dove into the swarm of king scorpions and curled his body.
"Time to get some meat!"
Two hours later.
The corpses of over a thousand king scorpions, grotesque and bloated, littered the ring around the oasis.
"Wah! Wah!"
A band of forty thieves halted their Omek at the scene where Shirone's group had just finished fighting.
If Baltan were the desert's horses, Omek were its hyenas—long manes, wolf-like faces, and needle teeth.
They were limited by food scarcity, but their mobility outclassed the Baltan.
"…Has a god descended or something?"
Even the Mara band, recently famed as the most powerful band in the Akkad Desert, found the scene abnormal.
"Deputy, the king scorpions are moving north…that means—"
"Right. Noskarta is coming."
The Desert God: Noskarta.
Because the Akkad Desert runs across the equator, temperature-driven pressure differences are enormous.
Noskarta is the rare equatorial wind phenomenon—a desert tidal wave accompanied by an immense sandstorm.
"There's no trace of migration on the northern dunes. Looks like they headed south."
"This is insane. The only ones who could get somewhere before the Desert God are the vanguard at best."
The appearance of king scorpions this far meant Noskarta was already passing the equator.
"Should we worry? Let's move north quickly."
As he turned, the deputy spotted someone racing toward them on an Omek.
"The chief! Everyone, stand!"
Those examining the scorpion carcasses stiffened; the chief's Omek came to a halt.
"Chief."
A woman who had joined the band a month ago and, within an hour, pushed aside the deputy to take the chief's post.
No one had objected.
If not for her, they wouldn't even dream of ruling this wide Akkad Desert.
- Not human. A beast. No— a beast god.
That had been the deputy's resignation after kneeling to one strike from the new chief.
"…So someone's come."
It was surprising that she—someone who had reached the peak of animal instinct—would bother to speak in words.
"Yes. They were all killed in a short time."
She dismounted and slung a short blade over her shoulder; her torn shirt left her breasts exposed.
Though the band were men who normally couldn't keep their hands off a woman, no one dared meet her gaze.
"There's the scent of yaksha."
Park-nyeo, ninth in the Ten Elders.
She was currently acting under orders from Ra Enemi, leading the Mara band on some mission.
"And two of them, too."