§
Shindzha’s map couldn’t have been more helpful. And Shindzha made her presence known in other ways, despite remaining out of sight.
I never expected everyone to be friendly and accepting of a hellspawn, which is why I never proposed that she join up with us. That turned out to be a smart move, not because I think anyone would have attacked her, but because she herself had turned her isolation into an advantage.
As we moved closer to Mother’s resting place, we repeatedly encountered dead demons. Their wounds looked like animal attacks, but they matched the claw-like nails on Shindzha’s hands, and the mages and fairies could see traces of aether attacks with which she had probably stunned her enemies. This could certainly still be evidence of some dangerous monstrous or magical beast, but I saw no reason to think so when the more obvious suspect was nearby.
“Miss Hiléa,” Serera greeted me just before I switched to Stage Two. She’d begun doing that in order to alert others that I was about to appear. Our system was perfect. I sent her the warning, she greeted me, and I appeared.
As my feet touched the ground next to her, I responded with a nod, “Lady Serera.”
In an ideal situation, it would have been ideal for us just to ascend the mountain, but because we had to make certain arrangements first, we were resting for a moment within a hollow with guards stationed on the spurs above us that formed it. The shape was like someone had taken a giant scoop from the side of the mountain.
Ever since I learned how the Upper Hart valley and the Kasarene Pass came to be, I had begun suspecting such formations to be the result of some devastating attack during the Ancient Fairy Age. Everything was well-worn and sufficient soil had accumulated to allow moss to grow, but this shape did in fact look like evidence of some ancient titanic battle.
Above us, the two spurs merged into a slope that went a short distance higher before flattening into a shoulder. A fairy warrior currently guarded that slope while seated on an outcropping with a grand view.
This hollow would be the last point we could walk rather than a climb, and therefore we would leave the animals and our supplies here, along with a detachment to guard them while the rest of us ascended. We stopped in this place to finalize that plan. I would be going no matter what anyone said, so I had gone scouting rather than hang around for the conversation.
The feared ambush had yet to come, and I suspected it wouldn’t until after we arrived at our destination at the summit. Thanks to Shindzha’s map though, we had already proactively eliminated many potential ambushers. Even now, a pyre of demon corpses lay burning on the scree downhill from us, where the fairies had forcibly set them alight after Melione purified them. These were, in fact, the former occupants of this hollow, which Diur, the fairies and I had gone forward to deal with.
“Did you meet up with her again?” Lady Ceria wondered.
“I only checked on her,” I said, since of course she meant Shindzha. “It wasn’t a good time to talk. She was stalking another enemy when I found her.”
“Why don’t you just tell her to hide and stay out of sight?” Lady Chiara fretted. “She’s out there all by herself!”
“She herself doesn’t want that,” I answered. “And she’s happy to have a role in which she can help us.”
Chiara’s lips bunched up, and she looked away. Melione and Ceria were also troubled, but they too didn’t speak up. Melione simply patted Chiara’s back.
I wondered about the sense of sisterhood these Servants demonstrated with this demon-related girl whom they had never once met. They only knew that they shared the same mistress as her. Was it a result of the blood bond, or just the mortal instinct to empathize with those they shared some common identity with?
<I suspect a combination of the two,> Sen answered. <They sense a spiritual connection to you and each other through the blood bond, but they also have natural emotions that arise in connection with it.>
Hearing that, my mixed feelings regarding the bond rose returned. The unnatural way that the bond bends its recipients felt worse than the bondage into which I was born. The way they couldn’t even resent how it changed them grated on me.
<You aren’t wrong, and I have come to feel the same way,> Sen agreed. <The Immortals who created the system had evolved too far away from their mortal beginnings to even comprehend the problem with their creation, but I believe I’ve recovered enough mortal sensibility that I understand now.>
<Why would they even create a system like that?> I demanded.
<For the most beneficial of reasons, child,> Sen replied with a chuckle. <That’s the terrible irony of it all. The bond they created assists the Servant so much, advancing their cultivation farther than a dozen mortal lifetimes could normally advance it, that Immortals see it as granting Servants a blessing. It’s difficult to explain to them that, from a mortal perspective, it’s wrong to fetter a mind so powerfully that the target can’t even resent it. We can’t truly see inside the hearts of our Servants, only their surface thoughts, so it may be arrogant to speak for them, but I still believe they would despise it if they could.>
I didn’t respond. Well, I wasn’t sure how to respond, anyway. I turned and spoke to Lady Serera instead.
“I don’t see any discussion anymore. Does that mean everyone has settled on the plan?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “The Hero’s Party will go up, along with Princess Amana, Lady Ceria, Bruna, Matthias and myself. Three fairies will stay, guarding Terese and the animals. The other three fairies, plus Diur and Pasrue, will head to flanking positions, to stand by as reserve support and eliminate demon parties. And what will you do?”
I smiled. “I’ll be with you, mostly. But, except for you, the group will be unable to see me.”
“Hm.” Serera gave a speculative look. “I already have a suspicion that Diur has something up his sleeve, but what do you have?”
An old man named Durandal, and several oh-so-strong big sisters in reserve, I almost told her. But instead, I gave her a cryptic smile and shrugged.
As promised, I didn’t let them see me. As we headed across toward the spur where the shoulder narrowed to a point, I was not only in [Vampire Cloak] but using my Stage One pixie form. Perhaps the pixie attitude infected me a bit when I was in this form, but I was unable to resist riding at the front of the column, on Graham’s shoulder. The big lunk showed no sign of noticing. I doubt he could feel my doll-sized weight through his armor. I did hear Serera snort when she noticed me, but she didn’t say anything.
Speaking of pixies, the Nanas had disappeared. But before we started out, I asked Sen to find out if Rhea could explain to Kiki and the Nanas somehow what we were doing. Her odd reply was that Lady Tiana would pass the message.
I have never been this high up before. This mountain still had traces of its snow cap, although our group was walking on stony ground where it had melted. Only low spreading plants and scraggly juniper shrubs grew from the occasional patches of soil, and they were the thinnest excuses for vegetation I had ever seen.
Arken and Ceria fired off detection spells frequently, even though Princess Amana and Lady Serera probably had their [Fairy Sense] going at full strength. We had eliminated a large number of demons, but my gut feeling was, the demons destroyed so far were disposable decoys in the first place. If the enemy had any inkling what sort of firepower we had brought, we would be facing more than ghouls supported by occasional drudes and hags.
We soon drew near the first spot where we might be surprised, a rise in the rocky ground beyond which we couldn’t see over.
“I should take to the air and get a better view up ahead,” Serera noted. “Your Highness, would you be troubled if I left your side?”
She had to ask, after all. As the only fairy knight immediately on hand, and a royal knight of Faerie to boot, she was technically Princess Amana’s bodyguard. Elhàn and Dilorè were elsewhere, leading the flanking groups.
Amana shook her head. “My Lady, I feel quite secure among these good people.”
She nodded and caught my eye as she grew her wings and ascended.
Taking the hint, I followed her.
“You seem rather small, Miss Hiléa,” she commented with a playful smile, once we were out of earshot.
She stopped rising once she could see everything on the other side of the rise, a sort of low-lying rocky knoll forming a knee on the spur.
As she hovered, I reduced the strength of [Vampire Cloak] to allow her to hear my voice and replied, “It’s my Stage One form. The others turn into birds.”
“Ah,” she nodded. “I saw this strange construct of yours turn into a flock of sparrows once. Is that what you mean?”
“That must have been Fan Li,” I answered. “She uses sparrows. Each Incarnation has their own preference. My form is a pixie.”
She let out light o-hohoho. “That’s what I thought I was seeing, but I wasn’t certain. Your stealth is quite difficult to see through, so I only see a faint shape.”
Looking down at the column, she projected to them, <The way is clear. Proceed past the knoll.>
Ryuu waved back, to show that he had heard.
Serera looked ahead to the peak and let out a sigh. That enigmatic mirrored sphere surrounding the object of our quest was now barely a half-mile distant.
“I’ve seen it from the inside and the outside, and I still can’t decode Deharè’s magic at all. I can’t even tell what mana it’s made from.”
“It’s literally every kind of mana except Demonic,” I answered. “There’s even Healing mana in it.”
She gaped at me. “You can see that?”
“I’m more surprised that you can’t?” I retorted.
“Can you see through it?”
“No. Sorry. I just can read the mana content itself.”
She shook her head and returned her gaze to the dome.
“Deharè would brag to me that Tiana had incredibly skillful [Fairy Sight],” she noted. “She was stupidly proud of her daughter about it. Does that carry over to you?”
Sen confirmed in my head, <It does, more or less. Our strength isn’t equal and our range is shorter, but we have all of Tiana’s sensitivity.>
I simplified that to, “It does.”
Another shake of the head. “I thought she was just being an obnoxiously cocky mother. I should have known better. Her daughters have always been extraordinary in some positive way or another.”
I could feel Sen’s conflicting emotions well up inside me. Both the regret that Tiana had never heard that praise from her mother directly and the pride of knowing she’d bragged about her. The twin emotions were strong enough that I had to focus on remaining myself while her emotions nearly overwhelmed me. I projected a wordless annoyed protest in response.
<Sorry,> Sen muttered.
We stayed airborne as the column proceeded along the spur… actually, more of a ridge now, as it was nearly as high as the peak itself.
“The attack is going to be after we open Dehare’s shield,” I predicted.
Her lips curled slightly. “Given all your other powers, I would wonder if you are also clairvoyant, but I assume you just have the same suspicion as I.”
“It feels pretty obvious. I’m going ahead now. It’s time to have a final look.”
“Alright,” she agreed.
I went immaterial and zipped ahead, dropping down to hover directly above the sphere of mana. I couldn’t sense anything through it.
<What if it’s a ruse?> I worried. <What if the Demon God already took the bodies away and this is booby-trapped somehow?>
<Fan Li already considered it and used her cosmic deduction technique. We’re confident that Deharè and Owen still lie inside, and the trap is outside, somewhere.>
So that I could see properly, I returned to pixie form, again using [Vampire Cloak], then began circling all around the mirror-like field. I couldn’t see anything, via any sense.
<Don’t touch it,> Sen warned.
<Yes,> I agreed. Not even Fan Li knew what the field could do to the [Blood Effigy]. Besides, our aura might shut id down prematurely. It was designed to open for any of her daughters, so we might trigger it.
Now that I was close, I could sense strange mana fluctuations in the rock surrounding the dome though.
<Looks like someone has mostly erased the effects of mana attacks on the dome,> Sen mused. <They tried to brute force the field open, then scrubbed the surroundings clean of the evidence of the attempt.>
The wind blew cold, carrying the sound of approaching adventurers in the opposite direction, leaving me in utter silence over Mother’s resting spot as we waited. I could feel the churning emotions from my big sister Sen again, and fought not to tear up in response to her feelings.
<I’ll behave myself,> she promised.
<It’s okay,> I assured her. <You’re not wrong.>
She paused for several seconds before she gave a quiet reply.
<Thank you.>
And finally, the expedition arrived. Spreading all around the strange structure, they discussed their plan before proceeding. Finally, with Lady Serera watching from above, Lady Ceria performed her cylindrical [Wind Wall] spell, surrounding everyone in a defensive barrier, while Arken maintained his detection spell, Matthias recorded and Princess Amana reached out to touch the sphere.
