Volume 4 Chapter 86 The Hollow Specter ①
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
”Rita, you absolutely must not die!”
”Eugenia… Yeah, I know.”
”Even if we are apart, our hearts are always together! Look-this is a collection of messages we all wrote for you! Please, take it!”
”Meimei… Everyone, thank you. I will cherish this.”
”Glub-glub… gurgle… splotch! Shred-rattle-hiss-nbobobo!”
”Haha… Shark, as always, I have no idea what you are trying to say.”
”Sha-Sha needs her water.”
”Glub… phew. Rita, do you remember the day we first met?”
(Whoa, this shark-woman suddenly started speaking fluent Azrael-speak!)
Kian watched with a look of disbelief as the shark-kin girl, who had just plunged her face into a bucket of water brought by the dwarven knight Meimei, spoke with sudden, chilling clarity. They were near the pier of Grass Island. To avoid getting in the way of the working sailors, the Order of the Lightning Knights¹ was holding Rita’s farewell party on a stretch of beach slightly to the north.
Kian wondered if he was truly heartless for feeling exasperated. Weren’t they supposed to have finished this over the last three days? Seeing Talia beside him with a soft, gentle expression, it seemed this was a scene to be watched with an emotional, somber mood. For Kian, however, it was someone else’s business, and he was more concerned with their departure time.
”I remember,” Rita said. “You doubted my skills because I joined through a connection. You and your friends tried to jump me and beat me down.”
”And we were easily counter-attacked, weren’t we?”
With her face still in the water, Shark let out a bubbling laugh (Kian wondered if she was actually laughing; it looked like she was drowning).
”You attacked me suddenly, so I could not hold back. I am sorry.”
”No, we were the ones who attacked. …To be honest, this whole situation is a shame. You really were someone with ties to Azraelⁿ in the past, weren’t you?”
”Yeah.”
”In that case, as a member of the Order of the Lightning Knights, I have no more use for you. I don’t want to see you again. But… as a friend, I hope we meet again somewhere.”
”Only you would say something like that to a spy, Shark.”
Mireia, a girl-knight with a short haircut, pushed Shark aside. She was the boyish knight who had been attached to Kian since their training days.
”Mireia…”
”We haven’t! We haven’t received a single decent explanation! What exactly did she do, Vice-Commander Medea?”
Medea, the dark elf witch, emerged from the crowd supported on both sides by knights. She was the only one not in uniform, wearing thin patient’s robes. The sweet, metallic scent of blood reached Kian’s nose. It seemed she had suffered spinal damage when Mansoor stabbed her in the stomach; her legs would not move properly. She would not be returning to the battlefield. Like Amora, she was a casualty who should have stayed in bed rather than attending a farewell party.
”During the interrogation using Elixirⁿ and mental suggestion, it was revealed she was summoned by a Shidarkanⁿ intelligence agent,” Medea said. “They had several secret meetings at Sandy Beach.”
”It seems she was being pressured to return to Azrael… to Malc Territoryⁿ. But Rita refused.”
”Then she didn’t betray us!” Mireia barked.
Medea shook her head. “She failed to report that the enemy had contacted her. They met five times, and she didn’t say a word. Not once.”
”Oh… I see.”
”Worse, during her ‘small talk’ with the agent, she leaked critical information that the Great Ocean Currentⁿ might have disappeared.”
”…”
”—-“
”…”
”Under Military Law, Article 99, Item 3, the penalty is the noose. However, considering her past achievements, her sentence was reduced under Article 12, Paragraph 1. It was limited to permanent exile from the military.”
‘I don’t know the exact wording of their laws, but that is an incredibly soft punishment,’ Talia sent telepathically.
(The Salon of Crete and the military are both run like a big family social club. This is typical,) Kian replied.
‘Even if that is the case, there must be precedents. This isn’t just “family vibes.”‘
”Medea. I am sorry.”
”Are you apologizing as my friend?” Medea’s voice rose. She bit her lip and took a step toward Rita. The knights on either side tried to hold her back, but she brushed them off roughly and grabbed Rita’s collar with both hands. “What happened to our promise to protect the Princess together? Why… why did you betray her trust?”
”My heart was never truly in Crete,” Rita said, her voice hollow. “That’s the kind of friend you are losing. By next week, just forget I ever existed.”
”…I will never forgive you.”
”That is fine. But know that I intend to protect you all until the very end. I will take as many of those enemy soldiers to hell with me as I can. Believe that, at least.”
”—!”
Medea’s eyes welled with tears. “Everyone just runs away from me!” she sobbed, retreating with a broken voice.
”Men run away because of your own issues, Medea. Good luck with the marriage hunting.”
”Bufo!? I told you, I am not marriage hunting! Don’t say such groundless things with Lord Kian standing right there!”
(The rumor mill is working overtime on that one, though,) Kian thought.
”Rita, I do not permit you to die.”
Guria, who had slipped away from the Kian Merchant Guildⁿ at some point, appeared in her full Order of the Lightning Knights uniform. She held out a black, curved blade.
”Ugh…”
Rita winced, clutching her white hair. One of her fox ears flopped down against her head.
”Do you recognize this?”
”Th-that is…”
”It was lying near you in the mud of that back alley, the day I picked you up.”
”…ngh!”
Guria pressed the sword toward Rita with a solemn expression. “You said you didn’t remember your past, but… someone who carries a blade like this was surely a master Apostle.”
”Princess, you really have a thing for picking up dangerous strays,” Eugenia muttered. When the group’s gaze turned to her, she waved her hands frantically. “Ohoho! It is nothing! Just a joke-desuwa!”
”Regardless, Rita has saved us countless times,” Mireia said. “I would have been killed by those pirates a year ago if it wasn’t for her.”
”You are exaggerating. You would have been fine, Mireia.”
”With a poison arrow in my thigh and fifty raiders closing in?”
”Me, Mireia, and Meimei were prepared for death,” Shark bubbled from her bucket. “You ignored Eugenia’s orders to stay back and charged alone to rescue us. Whether you are a traitor or not, you are our lifesaver.”
”We owe our lives to you, Rita. We were fated to die back then.”
”And this time, you saved me, Medea, and Amora from Mansoor’s clutches,” Guria said.
Rita reluctantly accepted the black curved blade-the signature weapon of a Warrior Monk of Azraelⁿ.
”No one here wishes for your death. …So, live.”
”Princess…”
”No more suicide charges. Don’t fight with a short spear you cannot use; fight with the weapon you were born to carry.”
”—-“
”Please, Rita…”
”Princess…. Everyone…”
”And this. We all chipped in to buy you this coat.” Meimei held out a thick, white hooded garment. “It is made from Kelpie-hideⁿ, so it is waterproof. It repels blood and grease, too. It is going to be cold in the Underworld Islands, so stay warm-nanodesu!”
”It was Ms. Amora’s idea! You had better be grateful, Rita! Ohohoho!”
”Eugenia even took an advance on her salary to help pay for it. Even though she is poor.”
”Hey! Don’t tell her that, Meimei-desuwa!”
”Thank you. I… I feel bad just receiving things. I have nothing left to give you in return.”
”We aren’t expecting anything back. Glub-glub-splosh-nbobobo!” Shark rose from the bucket and gave Rita a soaking-wet embrace.
Finally, Guria stepped forward, her face set in the cold mask of a royal. “Go, my brave warrior. Protect our seas. Slaughter the barbarians to the last man, and offer their heads to Zeus.”
”As you command, my Princess.”
* * *
The contract with Rita was finalized aboard the Chin-Chin¹³.
Rita would provide combat labor for the duration of the war, and in exchange, the Kian Merchant Guild would pay her one Franz Kingdom copper coinⁿ per day. Food and baths were fully covered by Kian. He also established a bounty: ten heads for a silver coin, a hundred for a gold.
If she managed a hundred kills, she would earn as much as a mid-rank adventurer in the East End made in a year. Kian would also cover all medical expenses. While a lost limb would require Lincaⁿ, he planned to visit Izerland Fortress anyway, so that was manageable.
Rita claimed she only needed food and replacement weapons, but Kian insisted on the formal terms to avoid any future complaints from Guria or the Knights.
”May I ask a few questions regarding your background, Lady Rita?” Talia asked, raising her voice over the wind. The dome over the Chin-Chin’s back had small windows for light, but it was still drafty. Rita, wrapped in a blanket, nodded to Talia.
(A flaxen-haired beauty of twenty-two and a white-haired fox-girl of seventeen…)
Inside the Chin-Chin, it smelled incredible. The sweet, floral scent of Talia mixed with the exotic, oriental incense radiating from Rita. Kian felt like a wolf in a flower garden-the vampiric influence made him feel aggressively masculine, his internal instincts surging.
”I am from Phoenicia, in the Malc Territory,” Rita said. “My mother sold me when I was a child. I was raised by a man with a… very distinct beard. Ugh!” She clutched her head as a migraine flared.
”The memories cause pain?”
”Yeah. Medea tried to use magic to read my dreams, but it was useless.”
”Maybe you have buried the trauma,” Kian said, trying to sound intellectual while fighting his own basic instincts. “Was it a tiger-beard?”
Rita’s ears twitched. “Yes… a tiger-beard. I was… his property.”
”Where do your memories actually begin?” Talia asked.
”In the mud,” Rita said. “I was in a back alley, filthy and starving. I had that curved sword with me. I remember wanting to die. I thought a beastman like me didn’t deserve to live.”
She explained that even after Guria took her in, the tiger-beard kept contact. Notes hidden in date bags at the market or left in toilet stalls. ‘Stay with the Princess. Gain her trust.’ “I grew to love my life with Guria,” Rita whispered. “I wanted to keep it. So, one day, I killed the man who was leaving the notes.”
”That is new,” Kian noted. “You didn’t tell Guria?”
”No. I handled it myself. I knew I could kill them easily. I never felt like I would lose.”
”And then?”
”I killed twenty-three more assassins. Then the notes stopped. The tiger-beard went silent.”
Kian leaned against the window. “I will look into it after the war. If twenty-three of Old Man Nizaam’s guests went missing three years ago, we will know it was him.”
”You’d spend that much to verify my story?” Rita asked.
”I am just checking the resume of a potential long-term employee,” Kian said.
”Lady Rita, he is doing this for you,” Talia added. “Wandering a battlefield as a ‘ghost’ without a past… that is not a healthy life. Princess Guria would not want that for you. You should fight with a purpose, not just because you are bored or seeking a place to die.”
”I… I suppose I am just a ghost of the battlefield.”
”Talia, that is enough. We should not pry so deep.”
”Oh? Then why are you looking into her past, Kian?”
”I am just… thinking of hiring her after the war,” Kian said, looking away.
”This is news to me,” both women said at once.
”Good warriors are hard to find. If Rita is willing, of course.”
”I will think about it,” Rita said. “If there is even a place for me in Crete after this.”
* * *
They arrived at Underworld Island by mid-afternoon. Aliona, Rou, Leprobus, and Leanan Sidhe were already fortifying the area.
The base camp Leprobus had built was impressive-a stone structure with a roaring bonfire that could withstand the cold island winds. Rita immediately went to the beach to meditate, looking every bit the lethal Warrior Monk.
”The strategy is simple,” Aliona explained. “We use turtle-golems to sabotage the enemy’s navigation. Azrael ships rely on precision clocks to calculate longitude; my turtles will swim underneath and desync them. They will sail right into the reefs.”
”The Mithril ship⁴s are top-heavy and armored on deck, but their hulls are unprotected,” Rou added. “If we sink their scout boats, the big ships will be blind. We will crush the enemy magicians when the hulls shatter on the rocks.”
”I will handle the southeast mountain,” Aliona said. “Talia, you take the southwest. We will rain magic on anything that survives the reefs.”
”And the north?” Talia asked.
”Unguarded,” Leprobus said. “If they land there, me and Kian will just squash them manually.”
”I am taking Rita to the northwest,” Kian said. “She will be on the front line. If she betrays us, I will be right behind her to finish it.”
Talia handed Kian a bundle of gear for Rita. “I have replicated some armor for her. If things go wrong, I can disarm her instantly.”
Kian found Rita on the beach and presented the gear: a tactical shirt, a miniskirt, and enchanted black tights.
”A skirt? You are joking.”
”Talia says it is cute.”
”Your witch is crazy. But fine. It looks like it will not restrict my movement. I will take it.”
Rita sighed, looking out at the cold ocean. “I can regulate my own temperature, Lord Kian. You do not need to worry about me.”
—
Summary:
Rita receives a tearful farewell from the Lightning Knights and is officially exiled for her past ties to Shidarkan. Princess Guria returns Rita’s original black curved blade, urging her to fight for her own life. Kian formally hires Rita for the upcoming war on a high-stakes bounty contract. The group arrives at Underworld Island and prepares a tactical defense using sabotage and magic against the Azrael fleet.
—
Character Insight:
Rita undergoes a shift from a ‘ghost’ seeking death to a warrior with at least a temporary purpose. Her reluctance to accept pay or kindness shows her deep-seated lack of self-worth, which Guria and Kian begin to dismantle. Kian’s vampiric instincts add a layer of primal aggression to his merchant pragmatism, complicating his dynamic with the female characters.
—
Behind the Scene:
The author uses the ‘farewell’ scene to contrast the lenient, family-like military culture of Crete with the cold, brutal background of Shidarkan’s intelligence training.
—
T/L:
Notes:
• Talia – A high-ranking vampire spirit currently possessing the body of Lyritisse. In this form, she has flaxen hair, blue eyes, and thick lips.
• Mireia – Girl-knight with a short haircut.
• Mansoor – Crimson-eyed elder monk and Azrael’s Divine General from the Shakerdoust domain near Dacia. Wielding mist form, blood-drinking, rapid healing. He ties to allies like Ryoma and Hanami Tsai. First appearing in Vol. 4 Ch. 25. Quick tag: vampiric red-eyed grandpa-general who mist-forms and drinks blood, obsessed with rescuing his captured son unlike other human monks.
• Amora – Scipio’s fiance, and the knight of crete.
• Shidarkan – Gloomy, bearded son-in-law of the Malc family (Flora’s clan); once a modest Malc magician, ordinary next to Shajar’s elites. Attends the Cyclops Island war council after losing his wife, Flora, and sisters-in-law in the northern base’s destruction. First appears Vol. 4 Ch. 45. Reminder: bereaved Malc son-in-law—sober, doubtful, and dim but dutiful.
• Linca – Jibril’s favorite girl. High-ranking warrior monk woman from Shin, with strong abilities like ignoring attacks and poisons.
• Nizaam – A former member of Azrael’s Twelve Divine Generals and the current head of the Malc family, though he has passed both titles to his daughter to return to the battlefield. He is a prominent warrior noble in Azrael, known for his love of beautiful boys and fierce battles.
• Leprobus – Rou’s comrade who sacrificed his chance to escape during a pirate raid by pushing Rou off in a small boat. He returned to the deck, sword in hand, to protect the others. Distinguished by his giant blood and burning red hair, marking him as more than human. He is released by Kian on Cyclops Island jail.【v4c23】.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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