FSFSLU 43

chapter 43

Hymns are generally divided into two kinds.

Songs that praise the gods. Or songs that spread the gods’ words.

If you asked an undead what is most deadly to them, they would all, without exception, raise their rotten arms and point to the latter.

Divine words carry power in themselves, and hymns are songs crafted by clergy to transmit those words using the most effective melodies and structures.

That’s why in the southwestern continent, where undead frequently appear naturally, hymn training for fighting undead often begins in childhood.

Fortunately, the song Isabel was singing wasn’t that kind. Songs that praise the gods are used more for social purposes than strictly religious ones. They’re the ceremonial songs for events organized by the church or educational pieces for young clergy, and on their own they can’t drive undead away.

Even so—

“Ugh…”

Because of the hymn Isabel was singing, Tio felt as if his insides had been twisted.

The song itself carried no power. The problem was the singer.

Divine power is the kind of force influenced by the mind. Just singing a beloved hymn with joy deeply attunes Isabel’s faith, and that mixes divine power into her voice as it spreads.

For an undead like Tio, merely hearing that made his strength drain and his body grow heavy.

The path they were on was meant for wagons, so it wasn’t comfortable for walking. Because it was a mountain trail that twisted every which way, Tio couldn’t help feeling irritated.

He was annoyed that Isabel’s singing wasn’t bad enough to be unbearable.

He was even more annoyed when she, perhaps uncertain of the lyrics, slid through a few lines with a hum.

But what could he do? Now that Tio was playing an ordinary human coachman, he had to grit his teeth and endure.

Every hardship has an end, however.

“Sis!”

At Isabel’s bright cry, Tio snapped his head up. Far ahead on the roadside stood a tall, broad-shouldered woman, and Tio felt like cheering.

The owner of the demon sword was there. She had even stopped the runaway horse and wagon beside her.

Only then did Tio understand the true meaning of the phrase “his chest swelled” — he felt it in his bones.

She was reassuring. From her imposing presence, to the boldness of having chased down and halted the wagon mid-flight, she was more than fit to be a military captain.

Tio muttered to himself: no matter how much Isabel tormented him, he could endure it. If only he could bring that woman to Lady Dorothea, he would bear it all.

She was certainly someone worth it.

In truth, Tio was coated from head to toe in a huge wave of divine power he had never experienced before; exhaustion and anxiety had congealed together inside him.

Put simply, he was not in his right mind.

Isabel didn’t even look back at Tio and ran straight toward Liz. If Isabel hadn’t started running first, Tio might have been the one to run.

“Sis—!”

Isabel ran, brandishing her staff, as if prepared for a tearful reunion.

Liz herself wore an indifferent expression.

No—more precisely, Liz wasn’t looking at Isabel at all.

Instead—

“Huh…?”

She was staring fixedly at Tio.

A hundred thoughts flashed through his weary mind.

It wasn’t strange. If the deputy commander of the Demon King’s army was glaring at you, anyone with ties to the Demon King’s forces would be frightened.

But the closer Tio came to Liz, the more he felt he had misread something.

Liz wasn’t the only one there by the wagon.

There were several people, and all of them, like Liz, were staring at him.

Isabel threw herself into Liz’s arms.

“Sis, you caught the wagon?”

“Thanks to you.”

“But who are all these people? Hello!”

“They’re from the neighboring village…”

Liz said this while pointing to the horse still trembling at her side.

“You say he’s the owner?”

“What? The owner of the blind-eyed one?”

“He’s not a blind-eyed—he’s Emma! Did that thief call her blind-eyed?”

A middle-aged man shouted angrily. Isabel tried to greet each of them with a bright smile, but the villagers had been up since dawn, searching the countryside for the stolen horse and wagon — they weren’t exactly pleased by cheeriness.

Yet a single gesture from Isabel seemed to wipe away their exhaustion, and they couldn’t help smiling back.

“Miraculous. Did the young lady do it?”

“My sleep’s gone!”

“It’s temporary. When you get home, you’ll have to sleep!”

Isabel smiled and then turned with a start.

“A thief? You mean Yudit?”

Hearing that, Tio went pale.

“Damn…”

The place where Tio had stolen the wagon the previous night was a small village nearby. He’d assumed there would be no worry about being found since they’d be passing by on the first day anyway.

He hadn’t imagined the hypnotized horse would find its own owner and come all the way here.

What’s worse—

“We’ll need an explanation, Yudit.”

Liz’s voice, low and grim, made him feel like his joints were freezing.

“You’re not the owner of this animal, right?”

“…”

What answer could he give to such a certain accusation?

Would they believe him if he said, “This whole village is conspiring to steal my wagon and horse”? That would only deceive Liz and Isabel; he’d become everyone’s public enemy.

Some city folk mistakenly think villagers are easy marks, but villagers bound together by the need to protect themselves from monsters and wild beasts are a force more frightening than a pack of undead.

And their opponent was the owner of the demon sword. They’d probably have to be allies someday; if he tried to deceive them and got caught, the results would be catastrophic.

There was no way to deny it.

Run away.

But he had no plausible way to escape this situation.

What if he ran for now, disguised himself another way, and approached again? They were heading to Grantina anyway—he could tail them quietly and nudge them toward Dorothea’s mansion when they neared it.

That would change the original plan and delay getting the woman to the mansion, but it seemed like his only option for now.

So first, he would run.

Tio took a deep breath.

Even standing before the villagers who threatened to beat him if he didn’t answer whether he had stolen the wagon, Tio felt no fear.

He had a means of escape.

Normally he would not use it lightly. But in front of these provincial fools, it was acceptable. Only learned men — mages or scholars — required caution.

Looking scornfully at those bound by the limits of their humanity, the ultimate undead Tio activated his power.

The ability that could traverse from Dorothea’s mansion to Tetina in a single day. The strange power to turn into shadow and melt into the ground.

But that ability failed.

“Huh?”

He couldn’t use it at all. It felt like his body temperature had dropped to nothing. Usually he would simply turn to shadow and escape.

He tried a few more times, but the same result.

This had never happened before. How could it be? Tio fumbled, tearing at his arms and across his body to check himself while the villagers — and Liz and Isabel — watched in bafflement.

“Uh…”

His hand, searching over his body, froze. Slowly, he raised his head and looked at Isabel.

Realizing the cause, Tio turned ashen.

“Because of the divine power…!”

He hadn’t known. He hadn’t imagined it could happen.

When he’d contacted Isabel, his abilities had been temporarily sealed.

It wasn’t only Isabel’s divine power. More accurately, it was the power of her stigmata.

Tio’s power exists at the extreme edge of profanity. When one who holds the stigmata — a power that blocks profanity — makes contact, his abilities are temporarily disabled.

Tio had powers other undead could not dream of. He was indistinguishable from a human and didn’t die from exposure to divine power.

But the price for true immortality was that he could not use the brute strength or contagion abilities other undead possessed.

Shadow-shifting was more powerful than brute strength or contagion, and because Tio could not use shadow-shifting, he was nothing more than an undying ordinary person.

In short, there was no way to escape.

“Enough. Let’s escort her. It seems this girl is the culprit.”

“She’s a young girl with her future ahead of her—why would she do such a thing…”

They bound Tio’s arms tightly with rope. They had carefully tied his hands behind his back so he couldn’t free himself by force.

This would surely be the most miserable day in Tio’s life as an undead.

What resistance could he now realistically offer?

Dragged along with the villagers, Tio’s slumped rear view looked pitiful; Isabel watched him go with a troubled expression.

“Why, Isabel?”

At Liz’s question, Isabel glanced to the side.

“Sis. Do you think Yudit is really a bad person?”

“Stealing is wrong. It’s a crime.”

“But you also committed crimes under Gerolt, didn’t you?”

“If you’re trying to pick a fight, you’re pretty bold, Isabel.”

“That’s not what I mean…”

Watching the villagers grow distant, Isabel murmured.

“Maybe she just wanted to ride a horse.”

“What do you mean?”

Liz asked, bewildered.

“If she stole a horse, rationally she’d ride it somewhere else and sell it. But she started working as a coachman the moment she stole the horse. Maybe she wanted to be a coachman and, not having a wagon, she stole one to do the job.”

Liz thought for a moment. Isabel’s “rationally” remark was oddly amusing, but there was something to it.

If she were Yudit, and she had stolen a horse and a wagon, she wouldn’t work as a coachman. She’d find a buyer and sell them off to use the money for other things.

Pretending to be a coachman without any resources is reckless. The maintenance of a wagon and the hay for the horse cost far more than imagined.

It’s not something an ordinary petty thief would try.

“Also, she even prepared medicine for ‘Blind-Eye’—I mean, Emma—herself. Maybe she’s not such a bad person.”

But Liz found Isabel’s last line hard to accept. “Maybe she’s not a bad person?”

“She hated you whenever you came near.”

“If she truly hated me, she wouldn’t have let me sing!”

“…You sang?”

“Yes!”

“How many songs?”

“Five!”

Liz, thinking that singing five songs in front of someone who hated her and didn’t even want to be near her showed some nerve, stopped the thought and shook her head.

This was no time for such musings. They had to follow the angel’s orders and get to Grantina.

But how should they travel? It was fortunate Yudit had accepted their request in the first place. At least they’d have to walk to nearby Casteltina, but walking the whole way was too far.

Just then—

“Hey, ladies!”

The owner of Emma, who had been escorting Tio with the villagers, came running, out of breath.

He grabbed Liz’s hand and shook it up and down.

“Miss, thank you so much. Sorry we doubted you at first.”

“Oh, no—there’s nothing to apologize for.”

“If possible, we’d like to treat you somehow, but you said you’re in a hurry, so we didn’t want to delay you… was the wagon fare prepaid?”

“It was to be paid later. So this part of the ride was basically free.”

“That’s good. We have a coachman who’s been staying here. We’ll call him and you can give him the pay. He’ll take you to Grantina.”

Liz nodded. To them it was as if their coachman had vanished suddenly; they were grateful someone stepped in to lead the journey.

After the man left, they sat by the roadside to wait for the wagon.

“What a start to the trip.”

“The villagers are kind! What will happen to Yudit now?”

“What will happen? They’ll keep her in a cell until the city guards come through on patrol and take her away. Small village jails don’t hold prisoners long. She’ll probably be taken to nearby Tetina.”

“Ah! That’s too bad. She seemed like a good person…”

Liz felt conflicted. They didn’t know anything about Tio. But the fact that the first thing she did after getting a wagon was to work as a coachman struck Liz with sadness.

As Isabel had said: the most profitable way to profit from a stolen wagon is to sell it. It reminded Liz of when she saw children in Letina rummaging through the Tames Riverbed for boots and gloves to sell—her heart ached, and she couldn’t bring herself to condemn Tio completely.

Silence settled for a while.

They heard horses’ hooves from the direction of the village.

Isabel turned her head, then immediately leaped in delight, all gloom evaporated.

“Wah!”

Liz was about to ask if she knew someone, but she didn’t need to—Isabel answered before she could.

“Mohikaan!”

Indeed. The coachman the villagers had sent, who’d been staying in the village for a short while, was—

“Miss, we meet again.”

“Uncle Denk!”

It was Denk, the coachman who had taken Isabel from Sestina to Tetina.

“Sigh…”

Locked in a cell, Tio gazed through the bars at the guard.

True to the village’s small size, there was no one else in the tiny jail. It seemed the kind of makeshift lockup used when a village youth drank too much and caused a ruckus at the inn. The corner reeked faintly of vomit.

The guard, perhaps excited to have real work at last—or perhaps captivated by Tio’s long, beautiful white hair—stood duty before the cell with a solemn, earnest attitude.

What a disgrace. Tio sighed. He had never been so humiliated.

“Well, once I get my ability back I can leave soon. I’ll just hold on until then.”

His anxiety was temporary. As Isabel’s divine power faded into the distance, Tio quickly regained confidence.

He glared and thought of the guard and the villagers. They’d be boasting about capturing the thief, proud they’d secured a horse. But he would not worry: once he escaped, he’d feed his fluids to the local wild beasts and raze the whole village.

Tio passed the time with such pleasant imaginings.

He didn’t know that his power would return and he would be able to escape the cell only the next day.

By then, he would be so busy trying to catch up with the owner of the demon sword that he wouldn’t have time for such antics.