The Amphisbaena (14 page)

“Even if it cannot be helped that you’d peek because it is your nature, senpai, I do trust you are not someone who’d make up such a meaningless lie…”

“I-I see…”

An expression of displeasure came over Kojou, not having any idea whether that meant Yukina trusted him or not.

The complexity of the terrain made it feel farther, but it hadn’t been a large spring to begin with. Kojou and Yukina arrived right away at the place he’d seen the silver-haired girl.

Just as Yukina had said, there was a path leading from under the shade of some boulders all the way to the back side of the island. At the other end of the long downward slope spread forth the dark nighttime ocean.

Just as Kojou and Yukina moved to walk down the hill path, they suddenly stopped. They noticed a powerful-sounding rumble from the coast.

“That sound…”

As Kojou climbed up the nearest boulder, his eyes froze. His view was poor, obstructed by the branches of dense, overgrown trees. But he could see something on the surface of the water, immersed in the dark of night, kicking up white spray as it advanced.

“A boat?! Someone came to rescue us…?!”

“Please wait, senpai. That’s…!”

Yukina moved to check Kojou as he seemed ready to rush off, anticipating the arrival of a rescue party.

As the craft drew nearer, Kojou realized why Yukina had stopped him.

It was clear from the approaching craft’s silhouette that something wasn’t right.

There was the strange sound and heavy water spray and how the black hull seemed to melt into the darkness. A skirtlike air cushion made the craft float on the surface of the water; a large fan mounted on the rear made it move with unbelievable speed. As it came toward the island, paying the reef no concern whatsoever, Kojou realized he’d seen a craft of this type in a war movie.

It was an amphibious hovercraft used to land marines on enemy shores.

“Magus Craft…!” Yukina murmured as she noticed the corporate logo emblazoned on the containers it carried.

Multiple searchlights mounted upon the deck converged on a single spot.

The beam of light, bright enough to blind the eyes, slowly swept across the deserted island, driving away the night. It moved with the persistence of a hunter searching for big game.

Finally, the light, bright enough to dazzle night-adjusted eyes, illuminated the forest Kojou and Yukina were hiding in.

“Senpai!”

In response to Yukina’s scolding voice, Kojou hastily got down into the grass.

“Did they…spot us?”

The searchlight, having passed over them already, returned once more.

New searchlights came on one after another, enveloping the forest in light as bright as the midday sun.

As it came ashore, the landing party gate opened.

Soldiers wearing suits of black armor over their entire bodies disembarked. Realizing in shock that their hands were gripping large-caliber military rifles, Kojou and Yukina’s eyes met.

“What’s a Magus Craft unit doing here
now
?! They weren’t happy with just leaving us to rot?!”

Kojou cursed his ill fortune as they fled deeper into the woods.

Since inheriting the power of the Fourth Primogenitor, Kojou had gotten wrapped up into different kinds of trouble, but being attacked by an armed platoon was a first for him. It was the type of experience he’d had rather gone through life without.

“Get down!”

Yukina thrust Kojou forward and leaped on top of him.

As Kojou and Yukina became entangled and fell forward, a hail of machine-gun bullets sailed over their heads. The air cried out as the bullets ripped through it, making slivers of the trees they passed through fall like rain.

The thin parka conveyed the feel of Yukina’s softness, but Kojou had no time to take notice. Both of them rolled among the large tree roots side by side.

“Not even a warning?! They just shot out of the blue…!”

“Live rounds, too…meaning, they have no intention of leaving either of us alive.”

The expression on Yukina’s face changed as she regripped her spear.

Even though they were clad in thick, full-plate armor, the Magus Craft soldiers moved swiftly.

They were quickly catching up with Yukina and Kojou despite the uncertain footing in the forest.

Judging that they would not be able to shake their pursuers off, Yukina turned decisively.

“Senpai, please hold on for fifteen seconds.”

Leaving those words behind for Kojou, she suddenly ran upon the ground, leaping into the dimly lit forest.

“Himeragi?! Whoa?!”

Perhaps detecting his location because of Yukina’s running off, bullet strikes grouped closer to where Kojou was hiding. A cloud of dust floated into the air, with sparks thrown off where bullets struck nearby boulders. Kojou couldn’t give Yukina any support; he couldn’t even lift his head up.

But the silver-colored light that twinkled from her made the gunfire, which he was starting to think would last forever, disappear.

“…Thunderclap!”

Yukina, swooping down from the treetops like a bird of prey, sent one of the armor-clad soldiers flying with a barefoot kick to the back of the head. Even the protection of thick armor did not alter in any way what the cervical vertebrae could bear, especially against a spell-enhanced blunt attack from Yukina that was capable of destroying the interior of a human body even through armor.

Her kick, which could fell even a stout beast man with one blow, easily sent the soldier flying. Furthermore, Yukina flashed her spear out before touching the ground. She severed the soldiers’ rifles in two, using the butt of her spear to beat them down. It had all happened in an instant; Kojou hadn’t even had time to blink.

“You okay, Himeragi?!” Finally freed from the concentrated gunfire, Kojou ran over to Yukina and the four fallen soldiers.

But Yukina leaped back with a look of shock on her face. “Senpai, it’s not over yet!”

“…Eh?!”

A soldier clad in black full-plate armor rose up before Kojou’s eyes. Its neck, broken by Yukina’s kick, remained at an impossibly bent angle. Even so, it showed no sign of registering pain.

“Grounded Lightning!” Yukina slammed an elbow strike into the flank of another soldier rising in the same fashion.

It was a blunt attack directly at a gap in the armor. The soldier’s flank collapsed, with its body bending sharply.

The blow should certainly have broken a number of ribs and inflicted damage to the internal organs. In spite of that, the soldier did not collapse. It grabbed Yukina’s legs and proceeded to hoist her upside down.

“Eeek?!”

Holding down the parka as best she could, Yukina whirled her spear and smashed the soldier in the chest with it. Like a cat, she spun around and landed without a sound. Then…

“Daaaa—!”

Kojou sent both of them flying with his fist. It was a brute force blow
making use of all his vampiric strength. The soldiers easily went flying, crashing into the boulders behind them. But…

“…You’re kidding?! I wasn’t holding back!!”

Even with their full-plate armor warped and twisted, the soldiers calmly rose back up. This time it was Kojou’s face that turned pale.

He didn’t sense any magical energy from them. They didn’t seem to be beast men, vampires, or some kind of sorcery-created zombies. But this inhuman damage resistance and combat power…

Given that Magus Craft had sent them, he’d been on his guard, but these were even more difficult enemies than he’d expected.

Furthermore…

“Guo—?!”

“Senpai?!”

Kojou sustained gunfire from behind and fell down on the spot. The bullet had merely grazed the tip of his shoulder. To a vampire with high-regenerative capabilities, it was no more than a scratch, but pain was still pain, immortal or not.

“I’m sorry, senpai… We’re surrounded.”

Returning seemingly to cover the wounded Kojou, a grave expression came over Yukina as she murmured.

Kojou felt desperation as he sensed the echoes of footsteps from all sides. Other soldiers had apparently surrounded Yukina and Kojou while they’d been struggling with the first ones they’d encountered.

Of course, if Kojou released his Beast Vassals, even thousands of gun-wielding troops were no threat. Kojou’s Beast Vassals could wipe them from the face of the earth in an instant.

But Kojou’s Beast Vassals didn’t know the meaning of restraint. Holding back its strength
a little bit
was meaningless. The overpowered Beast Vassals were identical to bombs; they would destroy the area they were summoned to without discriminating between friend and foe. The destructiveness of the Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals was not something to be directed at human opponents.

Even if his enemies were gun-toting troops, Kojou couldn’t do that unless he was prepared to massacre all of them—

“What should I do?” went Kojou as he hesitated.

The next moment.

“…?!”

With a thunderous roar, a ray of light came flying, impaling the black-armored troops right before Kojou’s and Yukina’s eyes.

A second ray of light came flying, likewise cutting down the soldiers surrounding them all at once.

The beams were actually gunshots. Two bullets fired, and the tenacious soldiers surrounding them had been destroyed, saving Kojou and Yukina from their predicament.

“Are both of you safe?”

From atop a nearby boulder, they heard a voice completely devoid of any sense of tension.

Calmly standing there was a beautiful silver-haired woman. It was the girl who Kojou had seen at the spring, the one whose face resembled that of Kanon Kanase.

She did not look like a soldier, but she wore a blazer that resembled a military dress uniform and laced boots. Her arms held within them an oversized, beautifully decorated pistol resembling a brass musical instrument.

She fired a gold cartridge from the single-shot pistol at the soldiers pursuing her without any hint of indecision. The barrel let loose an incredible beam of light, blowing the black-armored troops away.

“A spell gun…?!” Yukina cried out in shock as she realized the true nature of the pistol.

“Come here while you have the chance. Quickly.”

The silver-haired girl made an elegant smile as she beckoned both of them with her hand.

Kojou and Yukina nodded to each other and approached the silver-haired girl. Her shooting the soldiers without hesitation made Kojou disinclined to trust her, but they had no other option.

“Who are…?”

“I am La Folia Rihavein. So we meet again, Kojou Akatsuki.” The silver-haired girl made an elegant smile as she replied to Kojou’s half-posed question.

“How do you know my name?”

“You are Kojou Akatsuki, are you not? The Fourth Primogenitor who appeared in Japan?”

Looking at the surprised Kojou, the girl calling herself La Folia blinked curiously as she reflected his question back at him.

“Yeah… I am, but…”

“That was my last round.”

La Folia ignored the bewildered Kojou as she forced the conversation forward.

It felt less like she was disinclined to hear Kojou out so much as that she appeared to feel that dominating the conversation was simply the natural order of things. Thanks to that, she came off as higher-handed than her tone suggested on its own.

Given her elegant, aristocratic clothing and gleaming, golden pistol, she’d probably been raised as a lady.
She’s acting like a princess
, Kojou thought in mild amazement.

“And they are?”

“Magus Craft Automata, likely here to pursue me.”

“Automata? I see, that means…”

Kojou remembered how the soldiers shot by the spell gun had burst in a shower of metallic components. He could understand how machine soldiers could keep moving even after having their ribs smashed and their necks broken.

“That craft is unmanned. Surely your Beast Vassals can sink it, Kojou Akatsuki?” La Folia asked him as she pointed to the landing craft that remained on standby atop the coast.

“If I sink that boat, that means we can’t leave the island, either, doesn’t it?”

La Folia calmly answered Kojou’s doubts. “Even if we took the boat over, it cannot be operated except by remote control from its mothership. The greater danger is from the Automata still aboard the craft.”

He didn’t think she was lying, for the look on her face was full of aristocratic pride that left no room whatsoever for fraud or deceit.

“Senpai, they’re coming.”

Yukina gave her warning close to Kojou’s ear. He could see a new mass of troops in the direction she was pointing her spear in.

Geez
, thought Kojou, tilting his head as he exposed himself right in front of the soldiers.

Kojou walked forward completely unguarded as the soldiers opened fire.

However, the bullets never reached him, for his magic power trickled out, turning into pale lightning that enveloped Kojou’s entire body; the bullets simply bounced off.

“Sorry, but this is how it’s gonna be.”

That said, Kojou thrust out his right arm.

Even knowing his opponents were mere machines, he didn’t feel good about destroying anything with a human shape. But now that they’d fired first, he largely set that aside.

“…C’mon over, Regulus Aurum!”

A surge of enormous magical energy gushed out of Kojou’s arm. This turned into raging lightning, which then took the form of an enormous lion. Easily the size of a tank, it roared and mowed down the black-armored troops.

Before the Beast Vassal of a Primogenitor said to rival natural disasters, the stoutness of the full-plate protected Automata was meaningless.

Each blow from Regulus Aurum, itself a mass of explosive electrical energy, created a giant, super-high temperature shock wave, or alternatively, assailed them with lethal electromagnetic waves.

Unsatisfied with merely laying waste to the soldiers pursuing them, the lightning lion became a purple flash and moved to the coastline. It destroyed the moored craft, not leaving a single trace, and roared to the heavens.

Beholding his own Beast Vassal, Kojou clutched his own head in dismay.

It wasn’t just the Automata that had been destroyed. Along a line several hundred meters long, the beautiful forest had been burned to a crisp, the earth gouged, the very face of the terrain altered. Such were the vestiges left by Kojou’s Beast Vassal run rampant. It was like this even with Kojou having tried to restrain the damage as much as he could.

Beholding the might of the Beast Vassal of the Fourth Primogenitor, even Yukina was frozen in place, eyes wide.

The only one wearing a satisfied smile was La Folia.

“Splendid, Kojou Akatsuki. That was Regulus Aurum… Avrora Florestina’s fifth Beast Vassal, was it not?”

“Who are you…?”

Making a long sigh, Kojou stared straight at La Folia.

Yes. He should have made certain sooner.

For her to know not only Kojou’s true nature, but also the name of the previous Fourth Primogenitor, she was no ordinary little rich girl. On top of that, Magus Craft was after her.

La Folia calmly looked back at Kojou.

Her eyes were blue, like a glacier. The same color as Kanon Kanase’s eyes.

“As I said, I am La Folia Rihavein.”

She spoke with an expression full of majesty.

Yukina gasped as she looked La Folia over. It seemed she had some idea what the silver-haired girl really was.

Giving a mischievous look back at Yukina, La Folia smiled. It was a smiling face that suited her age.

“I am La Folia, oldest daughter of Lucas Rihavein, of the kingdom of Aldegia of Northern Europe. I thus bear the title of princess of Aldegia.”

Gently taking hold of the hem of her short skirt, La Folia elegantly curtsied.

Kojou could only gape at the girl who had declared herself princess.