The moment I stepped inside, I felt like I had entered a different world.
A rotten, sour smell attacked my nose.
My legs bumped into something with what felt like every step I took, making me start to sweat.
Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I looked down at the thing in my hands, relying on the moonlight to see anything.
“…This… should be it…” I muttered to myself, but I couldn’t shake off the feeling of unease gripping at me.
But, that was to be expected. I had never once been to the place indicated on the map I was following. I had heard of it though.
“…This, the promised land…?”
As I stared at the sight in front of me, I felt like that hope-filled name embodied the exact opposite of the place.
The only light was the full moon up in the night sky.
I used its light to keep an eye on my surroundings.
On either side of me were wooden houses, built next to each other seemingly almost at random.
The smell of something rotten and that of rust wafted over from my surroundings, accompanied by a constant buzz of small things flying about.
But what unsettled me more than even all that were the gazes of mixed hostility, malice, and interest aimed at me.
The feeling that an attack could come flying out of the darkness was rather hard to bear, and thus it was only natural that my walking speed had increased.
“Why does it… have to be here… Lloyd-senpai…” I couldn’t help but mutter to myself.
It was a sinister place for someone from a kingdom where gods were said to be supreme.
The place was known as the City of Kanna, and ‘Kanna’ was apparently a contraction of ‘without any gods’.
I couldn’t help but nod in agreement with the name after having seen the place myself.
It was only a city in name too; anywhere I looked appeared run-down.
As for its location, it was on the very outskirts of the outskirts of the kingdom.
It was still barely within the country’s territory though, and to someone born and raised in the royal capital like me, it was unbelievable that both places were in the same country.
However, the place was still rather famous, or infamous, even with it not being on any maps of the kingdom.
The dark side of the country. The city of the poor. The godless city.
It was a city that wasn’t supposed to be.
According to some, a famous god died a tragic death here… was a rumour I had heard once––
“Anyway…”
I had been walking through the city for quite a while now.
The map in my hands was one of the whole kingdom, with one black dot added on it.
Apart from the fact that it pointed to this city, nothing else was written on it.
In other words––
“…I’m lost.”
But, I don’t have any information apart from the fact that this city is my destination, so it’s only natural.
Although, I can’t just turn back empty-handed after having come this far.
I walked along, trying to ignore the darkness.
◆
After wandering around the city for a while, I found a slightly more open place than the rest.
I also noticed a different change.
“…”
The gazes of people I had felt everywhere I went had disappeared.
As if to support that thought, I couldn’t hear the sounds of people that indicated their presences anymore.
Perhaps it was just wishful thinking, but I felt like I had arrived where I needed to be.
“…Is this it?”
Nobody answered my question to myself, of course.
Well, although there was nobody there, something else certainly was––
I immediately twisted my body out of the way of it as it flew at me from in front of me, dodging it.
I figured out what it was as it passed by me.
‘––A knife? And one probably used for assassinations and such,’ I mused as I observed its blade that had been painted black.
At the same time, I felt a number of gazes from in front of me.
One, two… three.
All three of them were overflowing with hostility.
It seems like I have arrived after all.
“Ermm…” I tried to initiate conversation, then stopped.
I felt the presences of living beings closing in on me.
It seems like I’ll have to fight after all.
“…Ha!”
A pale arm flew at me from the darkness.
I grabbed it, then yanked it towards the ground.
“Ugh…!” the person let out a grunt as they fell over forwards, their posture broken.
…A girl? And she’s not even an adult yet, with that pitch of voice.
The person gave me a sharp glare from beneath her black robes that covered her entire body.
No, I, umm…
“Why did you att––”
“Oraaaaaaa!”
With that shout, a sword almost as long as I was tall swung at me from behind.
I let go of the arm I was holding and jumped away.
The strength of the wind that batted against my cheek told me of just how violently that sword had been swung.
With the loud thud of the sword hitting the ground, a cloud of dust blocked the already bad visibility even further.
There was so much dust in the air that the visibility had turned to zero.
However, I could still see the movements of the two black shadows lit up by the light of the moon.
They ran at me, the wind created by them doing so partially clearing the dust cloud away.
It only took a moment until they were in range.
A palm strike and sword flew at me.
Unhesitatingly, I repelled both of them with a kick from my right foot.
““!?”” came two voices of surprise, which, making their ways to my ears, prompted me to put an end to the fight.
My intentions of continuing this pointless fight––
“––are none.”
I sprang up into the air.
My enemies were still looking straight forward.
Having jumped behind the two, I grabbed the neck of the man on the right and pushed him forwards and down.
“…Gah…!”
That’s one.
Still crouching from my previous attack, I kicked the other person’s feet out from under them.
“…Nyu!?”
…Nyu?
Anyway, that’s two.
And now––
The third shadow flew at me.
I stabbed out the dagger Luna had given me behind me with a reverse grip, stopping them.
At the same time, something cold and sharp touched my neck.
However, I could feel that my stab had also landed.
The cloud of dust cleared away.
The moonlight shone down on two black shapes lying on the ground, and the two of us pointing blades at each other.
“…I see. So it seems like Vier and the others weren’t lying after all,” came the whispered voice of a man from behind me.
I roughly understood what had happened upon hearing that.
It seemed like there had been people who were rather averse to me.
They had probably just been trying to test me.
While all that was going through my mind, another shadow appeared.
“That’s enough already.”
That voice…
I knew the girl it belonged to.
“Vier-san.”
The elf girl, Vier, turned to look at me.
“…Follow me. Lloyd-sama called for you.”
The knife disappeared from next to my neck.
I turned around to check who it had belonged to, but––
“…”
The man was nowhere to be seen, just the dark, heavy cityscape.
◆
I followed Vier-san for a while.
Perhaps she was on edge, as she occasionally glanced at me, her face tensing up and legs stopping whenever she did, although it didn’t bother me much.
It was only natural to be suspicious of me to the very end, what with her profession.
“We’re here.”
Vier-san stopped.
“…Here?” I asked, staring at the run-down house in front of us. It looked smaller than my room in the Flame mansion.
I knew I was being rash, judging it based on its looks, but… it really didn’t look like somewhere people could live.
“You’ll see once you enter. Go on,” she said, looking at me.
“Just me…?” I asked, and the elf girl frowned, then sighed.
“We received orders to be on standby outside. …I don’t get it. Are you that special to Lloyd-sama…” Vier-san said, her hand on her chin as if deep in thought.
I walked up to the only door the building had.
“…”
But it seemed like it was still too soon for me to enter.
“Zwei!” came Vier-san’s panicked voice.
I wondered where this ‘Zwei’ had been hiding.
I girl suddenly appeared in front of me, her hair, which had been tied back, swaying as she knocked me over and held me to the ground.
Something silver flashed in front of me.
I dodged it by twisting my head out of the way.
It stabbed at the ground, having left a small cut on my cheek.
I hear a metallic clink next to my left ear.
At the same time, the dagger in my right hand touched her neck.
Why does this keep happening.
“…Was this also a part of your test?” I asked, turning my head towards Vier-san.
“…Yes. Right. All according to plan…” said Vier-san holding her forehead and nodding vigorously.
––That’s definitely a lie.
Deciding not to say anything, I turned back to the girl sitting on top of me.
The corners of her mouth arched up.
Well doesn’t she look happy.
“Erm… could you please get off me?”
“Don’t wanna.”
Come on, get off me.
The moment I tried to get up and shove her off me, I was pressed down even stronger.
Her eyes peeked out from underneath her black robe, looking into my eyes from rather close up.
I became self-aware of the sweat covering my body as we stared at each other so close that we could hear each other’s breaths.
I shuddered.
A darkness far exceeding that of my surroundings lurked in the girls eyes.
Even I don’t know why I thought so, but it felt like her eyes were completely devoid of light, of hope.
…What must she have gone through for her eyes to shine so darkly?
“Welcome, Yuno-kun. I’ve been waiting,” she said, getting off me, putting her hands together behind her back and smiling.
She was a beautiful, pretty girl.
Her age was probably not far from mine either.
That was exactly why I found her scary.
Vier-san called her Zwei.
“Come iiin,” the girl –– Zwei said, stepping aside from the door with a childish skip.
It seemed like I had been permitted to proceed.
I gulped.
Shaking off Zwei’s cheerful smile and Vier-san’s gaze on me, I grabbed the rusted doorknob.
I momentarily felt the presence of really weak magic.
Before I was able to figure out what it did though, the door opened.
◆
“…Eh?”
I couldn’t hide my surprise at the sight that greeted my eyes.
The inside of the shack I had glared at suspiciously was exactly as cramped and dirty as I had expected from its outer appearance.
“…Yup, makes sense,” I muttered.
The door behind me closed with a squeak.
The room turned pitch black.
The already dark room had turned pitch black.
“…”
I had this strange feeling of floating.
At the same time, a thick magical power spread out throughout the room, covering me.
Then, before I had even noticed it––
“…Amazing.”
––I was standing in a spacious, somehow majestic-feeling room filled with bookshelves.
Candles flickered in the four corners of the room.
“…”
A gaze bored into my back.
I turned around.
Our gazes met.
He was sitting in a chair, his elbows resting on the desk in front of him, a faint smile on his face.
“…Welcome to the März home, Yuno Astario,” Lloyd März, the person who had invited me there, said to me with a smile.
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