Chapter 31: Heaven’s Way (5)

Mosla was now but ten paces away, but still his words were lost in the ruckus of the monsters. That didn’t matter, though. Lucid would hear it once they met.

“Go back! Run!”

He had run nonstop from the mountains to the plain, and his breath was severely lacking, but still he screamed his throat raw. Surely enough, blood spurted out his mouth. His breath hitched, and his sight grew dark. Mosla had blacked out in the middle of running. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, and his ankle gave away. Mosla fell.

Lucid saw Mosla tumble, then fall. And with him, the boy’s world fell, too.

“Mosla!”

As Mosla came closer to view, so did the monsters behind him. Lucid could see the blood vessels on their snouts, and his skin prickled, his instinct kicking in as the predators’ eyes latched onto him, their prey. It was as if their dark tusks could slam into him at any moment, piercing through his body like a rag doll.

Lucid quickly calculated their relative distances. Though he was physically closer to Mosla, at the rate they were charging, the scrofa would reach him much faster. But he couldn’t think about that. He had to save Mosla first and foremost. It wasn’t even a matter of shielding him from the monsters.

“Go away!” He shouted. He focused his mind and cast Praete. The frontmost scrofa slipped and fell face first into the ground. The scrofa behind it slammed against it and fell in turn. The other scrofa tried to either run around the two or also fell on top of them, and some even trampled over them to get through. Still, it didn’t take long for the fallen scrofa to get back on their feet and rejoin the stampede, which was heading straight towards Mosla.

Lucid continued to cast Praete to slow their approach, and everywhere his eyes went, scrofa fell and rolled to the ground. This was the right time to show the results of all his magic training, though it was short lived. There were simply too many scrofa around.

Mosla came to, though he was still on the ground. Though he had only been out for a moment, the danger it had caused was irreversible. The ground rumbled from the stampede, and his body seized, shaken by the reverberations. Though he tried to stand, he had no strength in his legs. He had overworked them, running such a long distance at full speed. All he could do was raise his head, and through foggy eyes, he saw Lucid’s face. The boy, who had run so fiercely into the open field, was shouting something at him, but the hunter couldn’t make out the words.

Lucid also saw Mosla lift his head off the ground. He was still face down on the ground.

“Get up! Please, you have to get up!” Though the boy shouted and shouted, Mosla showed no signs of hearing him at all. The shock of falling must have gotten to him. The boy bit his lip, though he hardly felt the pain. Blood trickled down. This wasn’t enough.

Lucid quickly conjured up an image. He constructed a figura and quickly added conditions onto it.

Chapter 1. Selecting a target.

“All of you, running about…”

Chapter 2. Choosing an area of effect.

“… As far as the eye can see…”

Chapter 3. Adding special conditions. The limits of the imagination…!

“… Scram!”

Suddenly, a flash of light exploded in the middle of the plains.

The sun fell. That’s what people atop the castle walls first thought when they saw what happened.

Just as suddenly as it appeared, the light faded, though people could hardly see after the blinding flash. When a few people, blinking furiously, regained their sight, they turned back to face the plains. What they saw was an enormous wall of fire, white as snow, blocking off the stampede of scrofa.

When the frontmost scrofa ran into the wall, a thundering shriek rang out in the field, shaking the very wind. As soon as they made contact with the wall, their bodies burned, melting away from the heat. Their oily fur caught fire, emitting an acrid smell. Some of the scrofa running behind tried to stop or run around the flaming wall, but not many succeeded. They were pushed into the fire by other scrofa who had not stopped in time, and their very fat became the fuel that killed them.

Even their wails and shrieks were swallowed up by the wall, burning ever tall, ever fierce, as it stopped the scrofa in their tracks. The few that made it past the fire were nothing more than a pile of charcoal. The citizens could hardly believe their eyes. None of them could make sense of this sudden wall of fire, appearing out of nowhere into the plains.

The scorching heat of the wall behind him made Mosla come to his senses. And when he turned his head to look at the source, he, too, couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Lucid made his way towards the hunter, struggling to walk. Each step he took felt like treading through thick mud.

“Are… Are you okay?”

Shocked as he was from witnessing a flaming wall as tall as the castle walls themselves, Mosla snapped to as he looked at Lucid. They were close now, close enough to look at each other eye to eye, and what the hunter saw in the child was fatigue and fear. Yet the hunter had no mind to think that Lucid was the one behind the strange phenomenon. All he could think about was that he was glad the boy had run out to save him, but also incredibly saddened.

“… I’m alright.” His voice hitched as he spoke, but he still pushed on. “A-and you? Are you alright?” There were tears in the boy’s eyes, and Mosla wanted nothing more to wipe them away.

“Yes.” Lucid knelt to help Mosla up, but the man could see that his small arm was trembling. The hunter shook his head and, with great effort, pulled himself up by his own strength. He could comfort the child now.

A shriek rang out.

A huge scrofa, as big as ten adult men put together, ran out of the wall of fire, angry and menacing. Lucid had let his guard down for just a moment, seeing that Mosla was alright, and the wall had weakened. The head scrofa had noticed this and gotten through at just the right time. Though small embers were burning throughout its body, it hardly seemed to mind. It only had eyes for Lucid.

Someone’s screams echoed through the walls.

The scrofa charged, its tusk outstretched as far as it could go. Lucid was much too tired, too tired to focus. All he could do was watch as the monster approached, but there had been enough time for Mosla to make a choice. Though only moments ago, he had struggled to get up, he pushed Lucid aside with all the strength he could muster.

Startled, the boy looked at Mosla, and Mosla looked back at him. His face was covered in blood, and his trademark beard was a mess, tangled in dirt and dried blood, but Lucid knew. Lucid could tell that Mosla was smiling.

Crash!

Mosla disappeared from his sight. When Lucid turned his eyes, searching frantically, he saw the hunter’s body flying up in the air. His torso was bent, unnaturally so.

The scrofa took a few more steps after slamming into Mosla, and slowly turned to face Lucid. Their eyes met. There was no way the boy could read the monster’s eyes, but somehow, he could feel anger behind them. Why?

“Why?”

Why… Why was it angry? Why? What does it think it is? He… He was the one who should be angry.

“You… You’re nothing!”

Lucid glared back at the scrofa. It was all he could see. Nothing else mattered. The scrofa charged. We’re thinking the same thing. At least, so Lucid thought. They were close, much too close. Their breaths were on each other.

“Die!!”

****

Once the stampede ended, the citizens came out into the plains, following after the city guard. The wall of fire had disappeared, and the scrofa who had avoided it ran right past the city, disappearing from their sights. Unable to resist curiosity, and believing things to be settled and safe, the people had come out to see the results, but all that was left were the burnt carcasses of scrofa and the remains of all the people who had been trampled.

Though everyone’s eyes had been fixed upon Mosla until the very last moment, Shapiro had been the first to reach him. Despite his age, he wept, his knees giving out as he fell to the ground. He lamented the loss of his friend, and remembering how he had died turned his blood cold in his veins. Shapiro turned his head and saw his daughter, standing around the carcass of the head scrofa along with everyone else. No one had seen for certain how it had died. All they knew was that it had stood in front of a child right before dying. Yet, strangely, no weapon was found near the boy. Erica had looked around everywhere, but nothing had turned up.

She cried late into the night. Not even her mother could comfort her, but Shapiro didn’t have the heart to tell her to stop. At least in part, he knew how his daughter must be feeling.

Lucid dreamt again, and he knew he was in a dream. This was the second time. And again, he heard something, something like a song, or a poem.

If humans are toys made by the gods,

Fate is but clockwork.

Coming loose once wound, once loose wound again.

Tightened when slack, broken when tightened.

If humans are toys,

This is but the beginning

Of playtime for the gods.

<Heaven’s Way (5)> End