Chapter 228. Path Forward (3)
Emerging from the corridor of the ancient fortress, the sunlight slanting down through the massive trees grew stronger.
Without thinking, Enoch glanced back once at the fallen castle.
Under the dim light of midday shining through gathering clouds, the old fortress still stood there, tall.
Built so solidly that its age-old form remained fully intact even now — yet, with not a single person left behind, it had become little more than a great heap of stones sleeping through the passage of time. A ruined fortress.
And above all else, the place that had forcibly begun Enoch's Inner World inheritance. Enoch gazed up at the enormous structure without a word.
Questions remained. What, exactly, had this ancient fortress been?
The fact that the inheritance had been triggered so forcefully here clearly meant there was some connection between this place and the Sword Saint of the Waves.
If so, how had this ruin of long-abandoned old Victoria been linked to the Sword Saint of the Waves, who had lived so far away in Rhodes?
Enoch's thoughts were cut short by a pair of pale blue eyes gazing up at him from beside him.
"……"
At some point, Alicia had come up beside him with a puzzled look. She brushed her long hair back with a worried expression.
"Um, Direct Lineage? Is something the matter?"
"No, it's nothing."
Without quite meeting her eyes, Enoch shook his head and resumed walking.
All his questions had not been resolved, but that didn't mean he had to solve them right this moment. There was something more urgent right in front of them.
And so, leaving the castle perched on the high ground and descending along the slope for tens of minutes.
When he looked up, the clear sky had at some point turned gray, and his view was filled with leaden, dreary clouds.
Stepping out from the fortress ruin, Enoch realized the whole forest's scenery had changed and looked around.
Before them, incongruous structures lined up through the forest caught his eye at once.
Alicia, walking just ahead, took a step back and murmured.
"That's…"
Massive iron scaffolding, clearly artificial, wound upward in spirals around the trunks of trees tens of meters tall, climbing into the sky.
Some of the scaffolding was rusted and broken in places, but to anyone's eye these were unmistakably man-made structures. And of considerable scale.
As though an entire factory had been fused onto a natural forest — that was the impression. Gazing up at that sight, Enoch spoke.
"A watchtower or administrative zone for this forest, maybe?"
"Yes. It's definitely been touched by human hands. And unlike the ruins from before, these are modern structures…"
She lowered her head with a thoughtful expression.
"This probably isn't unrelated to the alarm that went off at the abandoned factory zone before."
"Yeah. But it's strange."
"Huh? What is?"
"I've already memorized the map. By all rights, there shouldn't be anything unusual around here."
"What?! You already memorized all the surrounding terrain? There were so many symbols around the map too…"
With a surprised expression, Alicia covered her mouth with a hand and looked at him.
Instead of answering, Enoch drew the map out of his inner pocket and handed it to her.
Alicia took the map, unfolded it, and alternated her gaze between the map and their surroundings in amazement.
"Y, you're right. Maybe it wasn't there when the treasure hunters were exploring, but there isn't even a symbol for this area. But…"
Alicia's thoughts seemed to have drifted elsewhere, and with a half-believing expression she looked around once more.
"But it'd still be strange to think the treasure hunters made this equipment themselves."
"Right, impossible. The scale is too big."
Enoch said so as he turned his head.
"A top-tier mage would have no reason to set up factory-style equipment like this, and for an ordinary mage, installing it in the first place wouldn't be easy. So it had to be an organization with large-scale manpower."
"That… makes sense."
Just then, a few magical beasts were seen prowling across an open clearing in the forest only a few hundred meters away, and everyone halted where they stood.
The enemy's main force was indeed close.
Everyone lowered themselves soundlessly among the underbrush. After watching the situation for a while, Alicia whispered right beside him at his ear.
"Hmm, we'll have to wait until the enemies pass."
"Yeah."
As Alicia continued to watch the magical beasts passing through the area beside Enoch, she lightly scratched her cheek and tilted her head.
"I've been fighting these magical beasts for a while now, but watching them like this has me a little curious."
"Curious? About what?"
"Well. Even if they're Black Mages of 10th Rank or higher, I really don't understand how they made so many of these magical beasts."
"What…?"
Enoch stopped in spite of himself and looked at her. Don't tell him the Dragoons hadn't given any information about the true identity of the magical beasts they were fighting?
"Alicia, do you really not know what they are?"
"Huh? What they are?"
Seeing Alicia asking back with her characteristic innocent expression, Enoch was briefly at a loss for words.
Just how much did Alicia know about the full picture of this war?
Come to think of it, Enoch had never considered how much either Alicia or Aslin — her fellow Dragoon — knew about these magical beasts.
A little puzzled, Enoch tilted his head.
"Alicia. Do you really have no information about the magical beasts we're fighting here?"
"Ah! Yes! I only know they're magical beasts made by Black Mages."
"And how they were made?"
When he asked again, Alicia actually seemed to take it as a real question this time and sank into deep thought, poking at her lower lip with one finger.
"Ah! Umm, I think they're something like a special servitor, like a golem made by high-ranking mages. In the Victoria Kazimieśi Domain, the main magic is gem magic, and there are quite a few famous mages in that school!"
"……"
Enoch looked at Alicia quietly. Her guess was somewhat off the mark, but there were elements of it that weren't unreasonable.
The experimental magical beasts here did, in fact, have appearances that barely resembled living creatures — close enough to a golem that the comparison had some weight.
But even so, that wasn't the truth.
He already knew it all too well — how ugly the truth behind what was happening here really was. And when Alicia realized that truth, the shock she'd sustain might be…
Just as Enoch was thinking that far, Alicia spoke up abruptly, as if something had just occurred to her.
"Oh right! Come to think of it, the Dragoons said they relayed the detailed operational information through the terminal, but I couldn't figure out where that communication even went!"
"What?"
At this Dragoon girl — planting both hands on her hips with needlessly proud defiance — Enoch shot a sour look briefly and let out a sigh.
"That… I'd heard roughly about that. Are you really that bad with machines?"
Alicia puffed out her chest and lifted her chin.
"Ah! I'll have you know, I'm good at operating other kinds of machines! Tractors, combines, even cultivators! You can leave anything like that to me! I'm confident!"
"Those are all farm equipment. What about the terminal?"
"Umm, well. Ahaha, the truth is, small electronic devices like terminals are jusst a bit… whenever I touch one, they all break down without exception."
When Enoch pressed her, Alicia lowered her head immediately as if caught, fidgeting with her fingers and laughing awkwardly.
"……"
Even Lien, walking alongside them, was watching Alicia with a slightly puzzled expression — quite the sight.
Enoch turned his head back and, while keeping an eye on the pack of magical beasts passing by in the distance, continued his train of thought.
Even accounting for her not having received the detailed operational brief through her terminal, the outcome would likely be the same.
If the details had included the fact that the magical beasts here were non-mages, Alicia would have caught on through other squad members' conversations.
Which meant the Victoria upper echelons may well have been concealing the truth from most of the Dragoon troops.
In that case, there was no need to go out of his way to tell Alicia something that might shake her mental state now.
Most likely, this place was part of an outdoor experimental facility where non-mages from the Outsourcing District were abducted and transformed into magical beasts─.
Swallowing such words back into his throat, Enoch silently took in the surroundings once more.
Rusted iron scaffolding climbing up the trunks of tall great trees, iron columns resembling the bodies of tower cranes, and terrain laid out with rows of unidentifiable machines.
It was enough to fool one into thinking the middle of a natural forest had been turned into an enormous factory.
It was clear that this area had been the subject of thorough preparation for a long time, enough to warrant installing such large-scale facilities.
Just then, a single droplet struck his cheek.
A moment later, with the patter of water droplets falling onto leaves and the ground, the faint earthy smell of rain began tickling his nose once more.
Beside him, Alicia lifted her left hand slightly to feel the rain, and murmured softly.
"Ah! It's… raining."
Drawn by her words, Enoch too looked up at the sky. It had been clear just before they entered the ruins, but now, with the sudden gloom, a shower seemed about to sweep through.
"When it rains, sound carries further."
Beside him, Alicia turned a concerned gaze to her own lance.
"At the military academy, they taught us it's because humidity increases the moisture in the air. I did prepare special rounds for the lance, but if I use one, the blast…"
It wasn't hard to understand Alicia's concern.
In short, the blast of the Lance's bombardment would be heard by every magical beast resting anywhere in the vicinity.
That would immediately summon the pursuit of the gathered experimental army two thousand strong.
As if on cue, the moment her anxious words ended, a low rumble of thunder rolled across the sky.
Looking up at it with her, Enoch spoke.
"We make noise only during the engagement, then retreat quickly. After that, all we have to do is escape."
Regardless, rain was an opportunity.
Given that the current squad accompanying Enoch had no member specialized in distraction or deception, rain actually counted as good fortune. With the sound of falling rain to mask their movements, detection of their footsteps would be difficult.
If Enoch's squad could take the enemy out with a single ambush and escape successfully, it might even be possible to shake off the pursuit.
Timing their movement with the magical beasts disappearing between the trees, they set out.
Checking the compass, they continued to advance steadily north.
Partway through, they veered off the riverbank and plunged into the dense forest. Compared to the towering forest where Enoch's party had spent the previous night, the height itself wasn't as impressive, but the density of vegetation was incomparable.
Alicia and Lien followed Enoch, who now led the way.
Keeping his body low as he advanced, Enoch gently gripped the strap of the cloth bag. In the event of close-quarters combat, even without drawing the sword, swinging it still in its scabbard would serve as an immediate response.
The Sword Saint's forms Enoch could employ carried the risk of producing unnecessary noise due to their power — in this situation, with them having drawn close to territory heavily concentrated with enemies, using them was strictly forbidden.
Ferns grew thickly at his feet, and unfamiliar trees and vines were also visible.
The instant he pushed aside a branch with his hand, enduring the clear rain falling into his eyes, his view suddenly opened up.
And at the peculiar sight before his eyes, he signaled those behind him to halt.
"Wh, what is it? The enemy base must be close by!"
Watching Alicia grip her lance tightly with clear tension, Enoch silently gestured forward with his eyes.
To Alicia, who had come closer, Enoch pointed at something in front of the trees.
With an expression as if she'd nearly dropped her lance, she looked that way with wide eyes.
"Ah…!!"
A sort of tent-like makeshift structure, built from heavily rusted iron beams and iron plates laid over them.
From its entrance, inside he could see desks and folding chairs. And beyond them, large cylindrical glass cases — resembling test tubes big enough to hold a person — were arrayed in a long row that extended deep into the back.
The interiors of the glass cases were empty, but various complex piping ran every which way between them.
A scene Enoch had seen too many times in the course of tracking Tantalus, and was all too familiar with.
Nor was it a sight one would expect to find in the middle of a serious forest like this.
"Is this place a… research facility?"
"Most likely. It wasn't on the map."
Following the trail of blood, with no lights inside, the interior of the tent fell into heavy darkness despite being midday.
Entering with combat-ready stance, what came into view was walls of exposed gray iron framework lined with metal cabinets, and a row of wooden desks.
A place that was, in effect, a field laboratory.
Glancing to the side, he saw that across from the desks, a large number of gray files — vacuum-sealed in plastic — were stored in a half-open metal cabinet.
Enoch walked over and tilted out one of the files, removed its plastic packaging, and opened it.
And the moment he saw it, Enoch's eyes narrowed slightly.
"This is…"
Inside the file, along with a few documents, were photographs of people.
Shining his flashlight on them cast a bright white circle of light on the pictures.
The photographs, framed in white, appeared to have been printed on the spot with a camera rather than produced through a separate printing device.
Perhaps because they were taken hastily in the middle of the forest.
With that assumption in mind, Enoch scanned the photos and documents with cool eyes — then, without thinking, covered his mouth with his hand out of habit.
Inside the documents were photos of the test subjects.
A young woman holding a child who clutched a small teddy bear in its grip.
A boy, apparently an older brother, holding the hand of a young girl.
Beyond them, silhouettes of girls in school uniforms could be seen in the photos.
But due to the dark crimson bloodstains spattered across the photos, their faces could not be seen clearly.
And in those documents, the progression of non-mages losing their human forms was recorded in detail, in dry, matter-of-fact language.
Having already seen documents similar to these in Leopold during his previous mission, Enoch could identify what they were.
─Progress Records of the Magical Beastification Experiments.
Suddenly, the brutally bloody stains he had seen just before the abandoned factory zone had collapsed flashed through his mind.
What had happened inside that factory — he could now vaguely piece together.
Vendetta had been conducting experiments here. Using Tantalus's legacy, large-scale experiments to transform people into magical beasts, in this forest and the surrounding regions.
Just then, the faint rustle of a uniform's collar beside him caused Enoch to glance over.
There stood Alicia, right up against his arm, looking at the documents in his hand.
Her body had frozen stiff, as though she had been shot.
"D, Direct Lineage. Don't tell me."
Alicia lowered her lance limply to the ground. Staring at the photos inside the file, she covered her mouth with one hand, her eyes wide.
"Alicia?"
"Direct Lineage, don't tell me. These people, all of them. Are they the magical beasts here…!!"
Seeing Alicia stagger back a few steps, seemingly in panic, Enoch gritted his teeth. The thing he had feared had come to pass.
Alicia had, before, seen with her own eyes Victoria's infantrymen being transformed into magical beasts.
But even so, that 'over two thousand non-mages had been abducted and transformed en masse into experimental magical beasts' — such cruelty beyond comprehension — she had clearly not imagined.
The air in the dark-filled laboratory around them pressed heavily against the skin.
Magic that overturned the laws of the world, and the ugly malice of a Black Mage who transcended even that, lay here.
The scene before them — all but a mass slaughter confirmed with their own eyes — was brutal enough that even Enoch felt a chill of revulsion.
"A lie, it has to be a lie…"
"No way."
Though Alicia had already grasped the truth, she was acting as if she hadn't. The shock seemed even greater than Enoch had expected.
"Direct Lineage, this is…"
Weakly shaking her head, she stepped back with vacant eyes, covering her mouth with her hand.
She only stopped when her back bumped against the wall. Still with her hand over her mouth, Alicia parted her lips faintly.
"I knew — I knew it was the work of Black Mages. But this, truly this, all these innocent people, every single one…"
Just then, a sharp, shrieking metallic screech rang at their ears.
At the same moment, the side of the wall of the makeshift lab she was leaning against abruptly gave way, punctured clean through and collapsing inward.
The iron reinforcements of the wall shattered completely and fell clattering down, sending dust scattering in every direction. All eyes turned that way at once.
A massive form revealed itself, silhouetted against the backlight.
An ordinary experimental magical beast in a form resembling a human — spikes jutting from both arms, rocky carapace covering its body.
But its physique was somewhat strange.
Barely a head taller than Alicia herself. Compared to the magical beasts they had encountered in this forest up to now, it was a notably small enemy.
"Uggh!!"
Alicia — who had been standing close to the wall where it burst through — locked eyes with the beast and stumbled back a few steps.
Sensing something oddly off about her reaction, Enoch glanced at her — now retreated right beside him — and spoke in the lowest voice he could.
"Alicia. We fight. We have to handle it quietly."
"B, but that magical beast. The people…!"
She pointed with a trembling finger at the beast now bearing down on her.
In that fleeting instant that seemed like eternity, meeting eyes with Alicia, Enoch saw her gaze wavering in a way he had never seen before.
Following her gaze, he suddenly noticed it,
The carapace of the small-framed magical beast's left arm. In the cracks of its shell, the worn, frayed strap of a small teddy bear was caught, dangling and swaying in midair.
And at the same moment. The photo in the file she had just seen — of the mother holding the child in her arms — flashed through his mind.
The child captured in that photo had likewise been clutching a teddy bear just like that one.
"Direct Lineage. Th, that magical beast…"
Beside him, with a mixed expression of rage and confusion, Alicia was desperately staring at the enemy.
Though they were experimental magical beasts she had continued to fight this whole time, realizing right before her eyes the truth that they had been non-mages victimized to become these — the shock caused her to falter.
Just a few seconds of that brief opening in her heart created an instant that could not be undone.
"……!!"
Just as Alicia began to step back, her beautiful pale-blue eyes widened at the beast bearing down on her.
In an instant it had closed the distance, charging at her nose with the ground breaking under its feet.
- KRRIIIRIRIRRIK!!
Scattering green light from between the cracks of its carapace, an unfeeling, no-longer-living thing radiating hostility thrust its sharp carapace-lance forward.
In response, Alicia hastily stepped back and tried to raise her lance, but the magical beast, aimed at her momentary hesitation, was far faster.
"Ah, ugh…!!"
Alicia shut her eyes tight before the carapace lance rushing at her, dripping green light.
But in the next moment, a thin, shimmering metallic friction sound rang out all around them.
And in an instant, the upper half of the enemy's neck, severed by a wire shedding silver-white light, was sent flying.
The enemy's head, launched several meters into the air, was cleaved into dozens of diagonal sections, disassembled in midair, and fell scattered across the ground.
Robbed of its head, the body collapsed to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, with a resounding THUD. It immediately began crumbling into fine black ash.
"My apologies for the intrusion, amid your busy moment."
Lien passed beside them, swinging her arm to retrieve the wires she had deployed into the air.
Utterly unconcerned that the voluptuous thighs beneath her maid-dress skirt were openly exposed, Lien raised her foot and stepped on the collapsed corpse with the sole of her shoe.
With icy eyes, she looked down at the fallen magical beast.
"Whoever it may be. I will not tolerate anyone attempting to bring harm to the Young Master's body."