“Uwah… Yeah, I can’t do it. I can’t eat any more…”
With that, Ryner Lute went limp on the table. His hair was no better than usual, and neither was his posture. His eyes also reflected his usual sleepiness.
It was lunchtime in a restaurant. He’d just cleared his tenth plate and was now experiencing the blissful pain of overeating after breaking his too-poor-to-eat fast.
An unbelievable beauty sat across from him, eating with a refined hold on her knife and fork. She too was finishing her tenth plate…
When she finished, she called out to the owner. “We’ll have the tri-colored dango set for dessert.”
The owner balked. “Y-you’re still not done? Are you guys sure that your wallets can take this…?”
Ferris whipped some cash out of her pocket. “The tri-colored dango set.”
“C-coming right up.”
Ryner sighed. “You’ve already eaten a ton. You’re not done yet?”
“I have a second stomach for dango.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Hmm. Then I’ll have the tri-colored dango set too.”
They had their relaxed conversation while living out their relaxed day.
After proving their supremacy over the entire menu, they began to talk again.
“Aah… I’m so happy,” Ryner said. “I didn’t realize that food was this delicious until now…”
“Mm. Breaking that safe last night was the correct decision,” Ferris casually replied.
“Well… I dunno how I feel about stealing, but it’s better than starving to death…”
What on earth had they done…?
“So anyway, what’re we gonna do now?” Ryner asked. “I don’t really want to stay in Runa now, since we’ve become burglars here and all. There’s only one Heroic Relic left here. Let’s grab it and go. We have money now, after all.”
Ferris nodded. “What kind of relic is it this time?”
“It’s from this Runan legend about Karlwade’s Seven Generations Arms.”
Ryner explained to Ferris what he’d learned when researching all of this.
According to the texts he’d read, Runa wasn’t always one country. It used to be two, one being the Ruid Empire, and the other being the Nast Empire. Those two countries fought many a harsh battle over many years, one that spanned their entire countries. Then a knight by the name of Karlwade rose up, and he alone put an end to the war.
Despite Karlwade’s unheard of skills on the battlefield, he was able to end the conflict between Ruid and Nast without spilling any more blood. The two countries listened to what Karlwade had to say, then joined together to form the Runa Empire.
“Apparently that’s how it all happened,” Ryner finished. “What do you think? The legend’s a lot more substantial than the other ones, and not only that, but it sounds like the relic’s pretty amazing, right? We’re talking about something that could overwhelm two separate countries. Power that could end a war without fighting it. And that relic was known as the Seven Generations Arms.”
“I see… It’d be bad if that fell into someone else’s hands. Let’s hurry and steal it. Where is it now?”
Ryner grimaced, just a little. “That’s the problem this time… See, a few years after uniting Runa, he dropped because of food poisoning, and his arms of war were buried with him.”
“Hm. So what’s the problem? We can just rob his grave.”
“…You say things that you could get punished for very easily… I mean, you’re not wrong, but… that’s not really what I was going for. Karlwade was a monstrously strong guy, right? One who could overwhelm both countries and unite them? But he died of food poisoning? Something just feels off about that part…”
Just then, the voices of several men entering the restaurant drowned out Ryner’s voice. They looked from Ryner to the money in his hands.
“F-found you! You’re the sex fiend with the dark hair and eyes and slouch that stole Roland’s armor…! You bastard! You stole from Kailaru’s safe, didn’t you!?”
All that Ryner could do was make some dumb noises. “Huh? What?”
The men looked to Ferris. “And that makes you the Captured Angel, doesn’t it? You’ve lived through so much as his hostage. You’ll be alright now that we’re here, miss!” Then they were back to glaring at Ryner. “Now, you perverted kidnapper! Hand the Captured Angel over and surrender!”
“………”
Ryner finally understood the entirety of the situation. He looked to Ferris, tired. “Come on, Ferris… This again?”
“Mm.” Her voice was clear. “It’d be bad if rumors of Rolanders stealing from other countries appeared, after all. That’s why I left a note detailing the truth at the scene of the safe burglary.”
“…What’s this ‘truth’ you speak of… I mean, whatever, but, what about that ‘captured angel’ crap?”
“It’s just as I said - I left a note detailing the truth—”
“Yes yes I get it I’m wrong for speaking up,” Ryner quickly said. “So what do we do now?”
“Mm… We make a loud and flashy show of a struggle, then leave without paying,” the Captured Angel said, as if it was a perfectly normal and natural suggestion to make.
Ryner let out a long sigh. “I feel like I’m always reaching new lows when I’m with you… like as a human being, you know?”
Ferris nodded. “I believe in your ability to become a true demon from all of the kidnapping children and assaulting women that you do—”
“Not do! Ugh, if this is what we’re doing, then let’s do it. Let’s send these guys flying and get out of here.”
And so the two quickly defeated the men surrounding them and made a run for it.
---
It was a dark, moonless night. Not a single light lit the surroundings, leaving it truly dark.
And, taking steps into that darkness—
“Camping, camping, barbeque, yaay!”
—was Milk Callaud, cheerfully moving through the pitch black.
She was a cute girl of sixteen, with big eyes and a flaxen ponytail. Despite her appearance, she’d already made it as the chief of a group of Taboo Hunters - she was a true elite.
That being said, she should have no trouble sensing the presence of obstacles in the darkness…
Then she tripped on a tree branch and began to fall forward.
“Gyah?!”
“Ch-chief!”
A hand quickly reached out from beside her to prevent her from falling on her face.
Despite being an elite, she was clearly walking without paying any attention to her surroundings.
The person who stopped her from falling spoke in a fatherly tone. “Please be careful, Chief. Fun things won’t be as fun if you get injured, okay?”
“Uuh… I’m sorry, Luke. But, but, this’ll be my first time camping, so I’m really excited!” Milk said, then began to skip about again, her face shining with excitement, as if she didn’t hear Luke at all.
Luke couldn’t help but smile.
Milk’s subordinates spoke, one after another.
“We really made the right choice in buying camping gear. There won’t be any towns or even villages for a while, and besides, look how happy the chief is…”
“But she was adopted into a noble family, so you’d think that this wouldn’t be her first time.”
Lear shook his head. “What are you saying, Lach? Our chief wasn’t a normal adopted child. She was adopted in order to be put through harsh military training, day after day…”
Her subordinates’ expressions darkened.
“That’s why we have to make lots and lots of good memories with her! Alright! Let’s put our passion into this barbeque!” Moe said, then raced up to Milk.
Luke nodded a few times, then spoke. “Lach, Moe, you two go play with her.”
“Okay!”
“Lach, could you search for somewhere suitable for us to set up the tent?”
“Of course.”
With that, everyone ran to complete their duties on Luke’s orders. “Mm, this should do,” Luke said and held a wooden instrument. “We’ll have a campfire and a tent, and we even have this guitar I bought. Chief Milk will surely be happy. Heheh. Now we just need her to forget about that Ryner guy and… and this will become a fun journey…”
Such were the worries of someone who was not unlike the father of a daughter who was approaching adulthood.
---
A graveyard stood under the dark, moonless sky.
Countless bodies slept under crosses. Unlike Roland, which customarily cremated their dead, bodies in Runa were exclusively buried under the cross. That meant that under each and every cross here lay the full, uncremated body of a human…
The wind was strong enough to shake the trees, and everything bundled together gave the graveyard a terribly ominous feeling. To add to that, the air was lukewarm at best…
Ryner stood in the center of the graveyard in the pitch black night, a shovel resting on his shoulder. “Hey, Ferris. There’s this problem…”
“Mm? What is it?”
“So I said that the hero’s grave would be a little different from a commoner’s, right? So we won’t find it digging here in the dead of night? Why not wait until noon to search for the proper grave?”
“You did say that. So?”
“So…? What I’m trying to say is that I don’t get why we have to do this in the middle of the night, when not even the moon is out? Don’t you think it’d be best to wait until morning?”
“What are you saying, Ryner?” Ferris said, as if she genuinely didn’t understand. “You think of nighttime when you think of graveyards, don’t you? I saw them in a picture book long ago. A mysterious light appeared in the dark rainy night, and the many bodies of the graveyard rose up to eat flesh and drink blood… If that’s true, then you want to see it, don’t you?”
“Don’t I…? Even if I did, you know that’s not true, right? Sure, I read about how mages used to revive the dead to get them to do their dirty work back in the olden days… I think they called them skeletons or zombies or something? But a ‘mysterious light’? The hell’s that? Where did that even come from?”
Ferris ignored his question. “I’ve heard other tales of this, too. They say that the dead rise up as ghosts to attack humans due to their deep-seated grudges. They don’t follow the laws of nature. They’re cases such as abandoned women standing at your bedside crying or constantly whispering about their grudges in your ears.”
“Uwah… Th-that’s pretty scary.”
“Mm. Conversations like this must make your ears hurt, since you’re a sex maniac and the enemy of all women.”
“I don’t know about that one… I mean, aren’t you more of a—”
“I’m not.”
But Ryner didn’t back down. “No, you’re—”
“I’m not.”
“I’m telling you—”
“I’m not,” Ferris repeated. This time, she unsheathed her sword and swung it towards Ryner’s neck. “Another word and I’m decapitating you. If I say no, then it’s not true. What would you do if a ghost began to haunt me?”
“…Ferris, don’t tell me that you’re afraid of ghosts?”
Ferris was silent for a moment before responding. “Are you not? Ghosts won’t die even if you slash through them with a sword, will they? I endured relentless training from my brother in order to learn how to kill the unkillable. You will never understand just how strict that training was.”
“…So you even want to cut ghosts up,” Ryner said, defeated.
All of this made him want to become a ghost to haunt Ferris by standing over her pillow after death… but it was probably best to stop that thought before it really got going. He didn’t really want to die for that, after all.
But anyway.
They walked through the graveyard with their shovels over their shoulders, confident in their steps despite their dark surroundings, as they could perceive their surroundings fairly well even without light.
They finally stopped in front of the hero’s grave, where a conspicuously large cross marked his eternal resting place. That meant that the arms ought to be under the cross, too.
“This cross will get in the way of digging him up,” Ferris said. “Let’s cut it up.”
Her hands moved faster than Ryner could see, and she unsheathed her sword and swung it through the cross before he could get a word in.
The cross collapsed with ease…
Ryner just stared. “You’re pretty amazing, you know that?”
“Mm. That was as easy as it gets.”
“No, that’s not what I meant… I meant to say that it’s amazing that you could destroy someone’s headstone without batting an eye. Your tolerance for divine punishment never ceases to amaze me… but anyway. So we’re excavating this grave now, right? What a pain…”
And so the two of them began to shovel away.
But then, just as soon as they started, Ferris quickly moved as if noticing something.
“What was that?” She asked.
“Hm? What was what?”
“That sound. Didn’t you hear it? It was like singing… or screaming…”
“Hm? I didn’t hear anything.”
Ferris continued to stare over her shoulder. “No, it’s faint, but I can feel a presence. We are not alone.”
“Seriously? I really think that we’re the only ones who’d come to a graveyard in the middle of the night like this, though…”
“I agree. However, in all likelihood…”
“Hm?”
“The dead have risen from their tombs and are now singing.”
“……”
Ryner was at a loss for words at Ferris’ sudden declaration. But Ferris continued, completely unperturbed by his silence.
“This is bad,” she said. “This means that, night after night, Runa’s dead have risen by the command of their mages from the olden days. This is a major threat to Roland.”
“Hey… there’s no way that you’re serious, right? It would be a threat if that was true, but… I don’t think that’s the case. That kind of magic is way too serious to become mainstream, don’t you think?”
“I will only say this one more time, Ryner. The dead will come to your bedside and sing. What do you think of that?”
“Uuh… I do think that’s pretty scary…”
“It’s a joke with a strong basis in reality.”
“Huh? That was a joke?”
“It was a joke,” Ferris said before continuing. “In any case, we have a duty to alert Roland of anything that could be a threat to our country. If Runa is developing military-grade magic, then it doesn’t matter if we are in an alliance or not - we cannot ignore it. We’re investigating this.”
“W-wait, wait,” Ryner said, flustered. “It’s really, really dark tonight. We won’t be able to see if they’re raising the dead until they’re right in front of our faces. So isn’t it actually really bad if the thing that’s around here is going to attack us?”
Ferris patted Ryner’s shoulder, a solution already in mind. “Good luck.”
“…I’m not even gonna say it this time… I’m way too used to this…”
And so they embarked on a trip to confirm if the presence was truly a monster or not, irregardless of how disheartened Ryner was.
---
A while later, Ryner and Ferris were hiding in an overgrown thicket when they saw something unbelievable.
It was in a small clearing in the graveyard. Whether for magic or some other means, branches were piled up on one another, with a fire burning through them.
Several people were around the fire, moving in an eerie, inhuman way.
“Seriously…?” Was all that Ryner could say.
“Just as I thought,” Ferris said, her voice lacking intonation. “The dead have risen.”
“What part even makes you think…”
Ryner’s words trailed off.
One of the guys, who’d been wriggling around awkwardly, stepped on the girl’s (who’d also been wriggling about awkwardly) foot.
“Oww! Moe, your foot!”
“Huh? Ah, oh, s-sorry, Chief Milk! I… it’s my first time trying folk dancing,” he said as he quickly moved his foot away.
The girl smiled. “Ahaha. Don’t worry about it! Copy what I’m doing, okay?”
They began to sway eerily once more. Forget folk dancing, it looked way more like kids playing around…
“Amazing!” One of the men said. “You really can do anything, Chief Milk!”
“Eheheh! ♪ Of course I can!”
Then the man with the white hair began to play the guitar in tune with Milk’s movements. “Alright, it’s time for the next song!”
“Alright! Okay, everyone, copy what I’m doing!”
““Okaay!””
They began their eerie sway once more.
That was the kind of dreadful scene that they were watching.
Ryner let out a long, lamenting sigh. “How do these guys always know where we are? I feel like that’s the real paranormal phenomenon here… There’s absolutely no way for them to have guessed that we were here…”
It was all that he could do to watch the Taboo Hunters who’d been persistently following them, dumbstruck. They were always chasing him around and showing up when he least expected it.
“It’s simple,” Ferris said. “They’re ghosts. The girl committed suicide after you threw her away, and now she’s engaged in this strange dance of malice in order to exact revenge on you. There’s no point in running from ghosts. She’ll be doing that strange dance at your bedside from now on.”
“No matter how I look at it, she’s not a ghost… Anyway, jokes aside, what now? Things’ll get real annoying real fast if they see us.”
“Mm. We must not get possessed. We’ll ignore them, get the relic, and leave.”
“Right?”
The two made to leave the area… but suddenly!? The campfire went out!
“Huh?”
“Mm?”
Ryner turned back towards the campground. “Don’t tell me Milk noticed…”
The campground was absolutely pitch black. Because their eyes had adjusted to the light, Ryner couldn’t see anything at all, not even Ferris beside him. Though they could sense their surroundings, even if only a little…
“Huh? What?” Milk said. “Why’d you put the fire out, Luke? Are we done with the campfire already? Can’t we keep going for just a little longer?”
Luke, unlike Milk, had some tension in his voice. “No, I wouldn’t do that. What about you guys? Lach, Lear, Moe?”
A calmer man’s voice followed. “The fact that the fire went out so quickly means… that it was almost certainly magic. Lach, Moe, and I did not use any magic.”
“I see. Then that means… that something else is…”
A ghoulish, almost death-like voice rang through the dark. “Who dares disturb our resting place?”
“Huh? Huh!? What’s happening?” Milk asked, her voice shrill. “What’s going on!?”
A similarly creepy voice to the first spoke. “You, who plan to open the grave of the hero…”
“Grave? What do you mean, grave?”
“Grave?” Luke repeated, nervous. “Lear, don’t tell me…”
The man with the calm voice - Lear, apparently - responded. “This is my bad. I apologize. This was the most suitable area to make a campground—”
“You insolent fools, who’d make a game out of playing with other peoples’ souls… You’d be better off dead from our curse.”
““Lear, you idiot!””
Then some kind of fight broke out.
“…Huh? No way, what’s th… kyaaaa, it’s a monster! They’re monsteeeers…!! Auh…”
“Wha!? What’s wrong? Chief Milk’s fainted, Luke—uwagh!?”
“Moe!? Are you okay? Shit, what are these skulls!? At this rate, guogh!?”
They couldn’t see what was happening due to the darkness, but judging by the sounds and the general feel of things, Milk… promptly fainted, and then her subordinates seemed to have been hit on the heads, collapsing from something completely different from Milk.
“Hey, one really appeared,” Ryner said.
“Mm. Just as I predicted. One really does think of night when they think of graveyards.”
“Dunno that that has anything to do with this, but anyway, what should we do now?”
“We’ll capture them. According to the girl from your past, what attacked them was monsters, not ghosts, and as long as it’s not ghosts, this is a non-issue. We’ll capture and inspect them.”
“I was more of asking what we should do about Milk and the others, since they got attacked and all…”
Ferris’ expression turned sad. “I wish them happiness in their next life.”
“No, they’re not dead…”
The sounds of battle had completely faded. Apparently all of Milk’s men had fainted.
“Hmph. These guys were pretty strong,” someone said from the clearing.
“Yeah. But no matter how much of a threat they might be in battle, it’s clear to me that these guys weren’t thinking of graverobbing in the slightest.”
“You’re right. There’s absolutely no way that these guys knew the truth about Runa’s relics…”
Ryner and Ferris exchanged a look.
“What do you think?” Ryner asked. “Seems to me that they’re not monsters…”
“Mm. It also appears that they have information about the Heroic Relics. This doesn’t change our plan, though. We’re capturing them.”
“Okaaay.”
Now that their eyes were adjusting ever so slightly to the darkness, they began to move.
A few seconds later, and Ryner had relit the fire pit, illuminating the monsters - or rather, the men wearing skull masks. Ferris unsheathed her sword and swung it up against one of their necks.
“I’ll give you choices,” she said. “I could cut your head off and send it flying. I could cut your stomachs open and spill your organs all over the campgrounds. Or you can do as I say. What’s your choice?”
That was probably obvious.
---
They left Milk and the others at their campground and made their way through the graveyard proper, in the direction of the hero’s grave.
“Um, Ferris… No matter how I look at this, it’s weird as hell…”
“Mm? What part?”
“Well… I get why you’re having them dig this grave up,” Ryner said. He looked to the poor men who Ferris was threatening with death. They were digging with everything they had.
“Hm. And?”
“And?” Ryner repeated. He moved his shovel just a little, as if to push the sword that was presently aimed at him away. “Why am I being threatened too?” He glared at Ferris, who played the part of their cruel supervisor.
Ferris moved her sword to his neck. “I’ll give you choices. I could cut your head off and—”
“See!? Isn’t that weird!? Augh, uh, no, sorry… I’ll dig without complaining anymore, so please stop moving your sword closer… I’ll die, you know… Uuh, shit… I’ll definitely turn the tables on you one of these days!”
Ryner returned to work, grumbling all the while.
Why did these men do what they did? And what did they mean when they said ‘the truth about the relics?’ Ryner and Ferris asked, but…
“P-please, forgive us…”
“W-we’ve been keeping that secret for generations… It’s what we live for…”
Ferris’ sword glistened.
“Hih!? U-understood, ma’am… aah, this is the end for us… Our ancestors will never forgive us… A-ah, yes, we’ll talk, so please don’t kill us…”
Then they began to speak, shaking in fear as they faced the great enemy known as Ferris’ sword.
They said that Karlwade wasn’t really a hero. That the kings of the Ruid Empire and the Nast Empire were terrible tyrants, who seemed to delight in the deaths of others. They mercilessly executed their own and fought meaningless wars for the fun of it.
Amidst all of that death, Ruid’s prince and Nast’s princess met and fell in love and tried to patch things up. They frequently met in secret with a restaurant as their rendezvous point. They took interest in the skillful chef there, a man by the name of Karlwade. They invited him to their castles and ordered him to poison the kings’ meals.
It never even occurred to the kings that their own children would think to kill them with poison, so they ate the chef’s food without a second thought, and peace was eternally restored to their lands.
The prince and princess ascended to their countries’ thrones, then married, and joined their two countries, Ruid and Nast, into Runa.
It wasn’t a suitable founding tale for a country, though. No one really had to know that patricide was the answer to ending many generations of war, so they needed a suitable legend to cover it up… One that the common people could get behind…
Ultimately, they ended up raising the chef into the Legendary Hero Karlwade. His legendary arms - his knife, cutting board, frying pan, and more - were nothing but kitchen utensils.
It was a secret that was known only to the prince and princess themselves, and Karlwade and his apprentices…
“We’re descended from his apprentices,” one of the men said. “That’s why we’re destined to protect his secret! It’s so top-secret that not even the king of this country knows about it!”
He said so with such pride… that he began to cry.
“But this is the end, isn’t it!? Soon everyone will know the truth!”
“What did we leave our lives for if not for that secret’s sake!?”
Ryner watched them cry in agony for a while before speaking. “I’m really doubting the fact that a secret like that was left to descendants of his apprentices, but whatever.” Then he looked up at Ferris from where he stood in the hole they’d dug. “Um, so us digging this up is pretty useless then, right? They’re the seven kitchen utensils, for crying out loud… Haah… And like, we dug a really deep hole for this and everything…”
“What would you do if they were lying?” Ferris asked.
“Huh?” Ryner looked at the men, who were crying their eyes out. “There’s no way… Let’s just forget about it, okay? We’ll keep our mouths shut and keep your secret.”
The men clung to Ryner. “R-really!? You’ll keep our secret!?”
Then Ferris swung her sword close to them again. “No. Hurry up and dig. The sun will rise soon.”
In that moment, Ryner was sure that he saw a demon.
Anyway.
They continued to dig until they finally, finally hit the casket. Then they opened it, and inside were countless kitchen utensils.
There was a frying pan in the dead center, then a kitchen knife, and a pot… Just as expected, there were seven utensils in total.
“This is terrible… Our secret is no more. The struggles of our ancestors are now nothing but bubbles in the water…”
So they said, then collapsed in a pile of tears. Ryner watched them, a pained look on his face, then turned to Ferris with a glare. “Hey… Don’t you think you were a little too mean this time, Ferris?”
But, just like always, she ignored him as if she never heard what he said in the first place. Instead, she picked the kitchen knife out of the casket.
Then she raised the knife… and cut the casket in two.
““What!?””
That was all that the men could say. The rest of their thoughts were lost to shock. Ryner already knew damn well how good she was with a sword, though, so he wasn’t surprised at all…
Then she nodded and spoke, as if to answer the shock that the men were experiencing. “Mm. This is exactly what I expect from a Heroic Relic. It cuts incredibly. I cannot possibly believe that any regular chef would own a knife such as this… But you may grieve if you must.”
With that, she tossed the knife.
“Let’s go, Ryner,” she said and briskly walked away.
One of the men picked the knife up, confused. “C-could it be that Karlwade was a true hero…? But if that’s true, then aren’t we free? We don’t need to keep our secret anymore… We don’t need to bear the burden of the world anymore!”
“I can hardly believe it, but it must be true. That makes us descendants of the hero’s apprentices!”
And so their tears of lament turned to cries of joy.
Ryner watched them for a moment before catching up to Ferris. “Is this why you made us finish digging it up? You were pretty nice today, then.”
Ferris shook her head, then spoke as if it had nothing to do with her. “What are you talking about? I was only fulfilling my duties. Runa is Roland’s ally, after all. Destroying one of Runa’s heroic legends would not be in our nation’s interests.”
Ryner smiled. “Hmm. Well, that’s fine too… To think that Ferris of all people was secretly a good person.”
Just then, Ryner noticed a glimmer in Ferris’ hand. He looked down to see a number of gaudy golden skewers.
She followed his line of sight. “Oh, these? They say that these skewers were a present to the chef from the royal court… Are you jealous? Heheh. I’ll have fun using these for dango.”
“I can’t believe you,” Ryner said, but stopped there, too tired to argue. He just sighed. “Anyway, we’re done with Runa now. Next up is neighboring Iyet, right?”
“Right. I wonder what kind of dango awaits us in Iyet.”
“It’s always about dango, isn’t it!”
They walked into the horizon as the first rays of dawn lit the sky.
“Uwah… Yeah, I can’t do it. I can’t eat any more…”
With that, Ryner Lute went limp on the table. His hair was no better than usual, and neither was his posture. His eyes also reflected his usual sleepiness.
It was lunchtime in a restaurant. He’d just cleared his tenth plate and was now experiencing the blissful pain of overeating after breaking his too-poor-to-eat fast.
An unbelievable beauty sat across from him, eating with a refined hold on her knife and fork. She too was finishing her tenth plate…
When she finished, she called out to the owner. “We’ll have the tri-colored dango set for dessert.”
The owner balked. “Y-you’re still not done? Are you guys sure that your wallets can take this…?”
Ferris whipped some cash out of her pocket. “The tri-colored dango set.”
“C-coming right up.”
Ryner sighed. “You’ve already eaten a ton. You’re not done yet?”
“I have a second stomach for dango.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Hmm. Then I’ll have the tri-colored dango set too.”
They had their relaxed conversation while living out their relaxed day.
After proving their supremacy over the entire menu, they began to talk again.
“Aah… I’m so happy,” Ryner said. “I didn’t realize that food was this delicious until now…”
“Mm. Breaking that safe last night was the correct decision,” Ferris casually replied.
“Well… I dunno how I feel about stealing, but it’s better than starving to death…”
What on earth had they done…?
“So anyway, what’re we gonna do now?” Ryner asked. “I don’t really want to stay in Runa now, since we’ve become burglars here and all. There’s only one Heroic Relic left here. Let’s grab it and go. We have money now, after all.”
Ferris nodded. “What kind of relic is it this time?”
“It’s from this Runan legend about Karlwade’s Seven Generations Arms.”
Ryner explained to Ferris what he’d learned when researching all of this.
According to the texts he’d read, Runa wasn’t always one country. It used to be two, one being the Ruid Empire, and the other being the Nast Empire. Those two countries fought many a harsh battle over many years, one that spanned their entire countries. Then a knight by the name of Karlwade rose up, and he alone put an end to the war.
Despite Karlwade’s unheard of skills on the battlefield, he was able to end the conflict between Ruid and Nast without spilling any more blood. The two countries listened to what Karlwade had to say, then joined together to form the Runa Empire.
“Apparently that’s how it all happened,” Ryner finished. “What do you think? The legend’s a lot more substantial than the other ones, and not only that, but it sounds like the relic’s pretty amazing, right? We’re talking about something that could overwhelm two separate countries. Power that could end a war without fighting it. And that relic was known as the Seven Generations Arms.”
“I see… It’d be bad if that fell into someone else’s hands. Let’s hurry and steal it. Where is it now?”
Ryner grimaced, just a little. “That’s the problem this time… See, a few years after uniting Runa, he dropped because of food poisoning, and his arms of war were buried with him.”
“Hm. So what’s the problem? We can just rob his grave.”
“…You say things that you could get punished for very easily… I mean, you’re not wrong, but… that’s not really what I was going for. Karlwade was a monstrously strong guy, right? One who could overwhelm both countries and unite them? But he died of food poisoning? Something just feels off about that part…”
Just then, the voices of several men entering the restaurant drowned out Ryner’s voice. They looked from Ryner to the money in his hands.
“F-found you! You’re the sex fiend with the dark hair and eyes and slouch that stole Roland’s armor…! You bastard! You stole from Kailaru’s safe, didn’t you!?”
All that Ryner could do was make some dumb noises. “Huh? What?”
The men looked to Ferris. “And that makes you the Captured Angel, doesn’t it? You’ve lived through so much as his hostage. You’ll be alright now that we’re here, miss!” Then they were back to glaring at Ryner. “Now, you perverted kidnapper! Hand the Captured Angel over and surrender!”
“………”
Ryner finally understood the entirety of the situation. He looked to Ferris, tired. “Come on, Ferris… This again?”
“Mm.” Her voice was clear. “It’d be bad if rumors of Rolanders stealing from other countries appeared, after all. That’s why I left a note detailing the truth at the scene of the safe burglary.”
“…What’s this ‘truth’ you speak of… I mean, whatever, but, what about that ‘captured angel’ crap?”
“It’s just as I said - I left a note detailing the truth—”
“Yes yes I get it I’m wrong for speaking up,” Ryner quickly said. “So what do we do now?”
“Mm… We make a loud and flashy show of a struggle, then leave without paying,” the Captured Angel said, as if it was a perfectly normal and natural suggestion to make.
Ryner let out a long sigh. “I feel like I’m always reaching new lows when I’m with you… like as a human being, you know?”
Ferris nodded. “I believe in your ability to become a true demon from all of the kidnapping children and assaulting women that you do—”
“Not do! Ugh, if this is what we’re doing, then let’s do it. Let’s send these guys flying and get out of here.”
And so the two quickly defeated the men surrounding them and made a run for it.
---
It was a dark, moonless night. Not a single light lit the surroundings, leaving it truly dark.
And, taking steps into that darkness—
“Camping, camping, barbeque, yaay!”
—was Milk Callaud, cheerfully moving through the pitch black.
She was a cute girl of sixteen, with big eyes and a flaxen ponytail. Despite her appearance, she’d already made it as the chief of a group of Taboo Hunters - she was a true elite.
That being said, she should have no trouble sensing the presence of obstacles in the darkness…
Then she tripped on a tree branch and began to fall forward.
“Gyah?!”
“Ch-chief!”
A hand quickly reached out from beside her to prevent her from falling on her face.
Despite being an elite, she was clearly walking without paying any attention to her surroundings.
The person who stopped her from falling spoke in a fatherly tone. “Please be careful, Chief. Fun things won’t be as fun if you get injured, okay?”
“Uuh… I’m sorry, Luke. But, but, this’ll be my first time camping, so I’m really excited!” Milk said, then began to skip about again, her face shining with excitement, as if she didn’t hear Luke at all.
Luke couldn’t help but smile.
Milk’s subordinates spoke, one after another.
“We really made the right choice in buying camping gear. There won’t be any towns or even villages for a while, and besides, look how happy the chief is…”
“But she was adopted into a noble family, so you’d think that this wouldn’t be her first time.”
Lear shook his head. “What are you saying, Lach? Our chief wasn’t a normal adopted child. She was adopted in order to be put through harsh military training, day after day…”
Her subordinates’ expressions darkened.
“That’s why we have to make lots and lots of good memories with her! Alright! Let’s put our passion into this barbeque!” Moe said, then raced up to Milk.
Luke nodded a few times, then spoke. “Lach, Moe, you two go play with her.”
“Okay!”
“Lach, could you search for somewhere suitable for us to set up the tent?”
“Of course.”
With that, everyone ran to complete their duties on Luke’s orders. “Mm, this should do,” Luke said and held a wooden instrument. “We’ll have a campfire and a tent, and we even have this guitar I bought. Chief Milk will surely be happy. Heheh. Now we just need her to forget about that Ryner guy and… and this will become a fun journey…”
Such were the worries of someone who was not unlike the father of a daughter who was approaching adulthood.
---
A graveyard stood under the dark, moonless sky.
Countless bodies slept under crosses. Unlike Roland, which customarily cremated their dead, bodies in Runa were exclusively buried under the cross. That meant that under each and every cross here lay the full, uncremated body of a human…
The wind was strong enough to shake the trees, and everything bundled together gave the graveyard a terribly ominous feeling. To add to that, the air was lukewarm at best…
Ryner stood in the center of the graveyard in the pitch black night, a shovel resting on his shoulder. “Hey, Ferris. There’s this problem…”
“Mm? What is it?”
“So I said that the hero’s grave would be a little different from a commoner’s, right? So we won’t find it digging here in the dead of night? Why not wait until noon to search for the proper grave?”
“You did say that. So?”
“So…? What I’m trying to say is that I don’t get why we have to do this in the middle of the night, when not even the moon is out? Don’t you think it’d be best to wait until morning?”
“What are you saying, Ryner?” Ferris said, as if she genuinely didn’t understand. “You think of nighttime when you think of graveyards, don’t you? I saw them in a picture book long ago. A mysterious light appeared in the dark rainy night, and the many bodies of the graveyard rose up to eat flesh and drink blood… If that’s true, then you want to see it, don’t you?”
“Don’t I…? Even if I did, you know that’s not true, right? Sure, I read about how mages used to revive the dead to get them to do their dirty work back in the olden days… I think they called them skeletons or zombies or something? But a ‘mysterious light’? The hell’s that? Where did that even come from?”
Ferris ignored his question. “I’ve heard other tales of this, too. They say that the dead rise up as ghosts to attack humans due to their deep-seated grudges. They don’t follow the laws of nature. They’re cases such as abandoned women standing at your bedside crying or constantly whispering about their grudges in your ears.”
“Uwah… Th-that’s pretty scary.”
“Mm. Conversations like this must make your ears hurt, since you’re a sex maniac and the enemy of all women.”
“I don’t know about that one… I mean, aren’t you more of a—”
“I’m not.”
But Ryner didn’t back down. “No, you’re—”
“I’m not.”
“I’m telling you—”
“I’m not,” Ferris repeated. This time, she unsheathed her sword and swung it towards Ryner’s neck. “Another word and I’m decapitating you. If I say no, then it’s not true. What would you do if a ghost began to haunt me?”
“…Ferris, don’t tell me that you’re afraid of ghosts?”
Ferris was silent for a moment before responding. “Are you not? Ghosts won’t die even if you slash through them with a sword, will they? I endured relentless training from my brother in order to learn how to kill the unkillable. You will never understand just how strict that training was.”
“…So you even want to cut ghosts up,” Ryner said, defeated.
All of this made him want to become a ghost to haunt Ferris by standing over her pillow after death… but it was probably best to stop that thought before it really got going. He didn’t really want to die for that, after all.
But anyway.
They walked through the graveyard with their shovels over their shoulders, confident in their steps despite their dark surroundings, as they could perceive their surroundings fairly well even without light.
They finally stopped in front of the hero’s grave, where a conspicuously large cross marked his eternal resting place. That meant that the arms ought to be under the cross, too.
“This cross will get in the way of digging him up,” Ferris said. “Let’s cut it up.”
Her hands moved faster than Ryner could see, and she unsheathed her sword and swung it through the cross before he could get a word in.
The cross collapsed with ease…
Ryner just stared. “You’re pretty amazing, you know that?”
“Mm. That was as easy as it gets.”
“No, that’s not what I meant… I meant to say that it’s amazing that you could destroy someone’s headstone without batting an eye. Your tolerance for divine punishment never ceases to amaze me… but anyway. So we’re excavating this grave now, right? What a pain…”
And so the two of them began to shovel away.
But then, just as soon as they started, Ferris quickly moved as if noticing something.
“What was that?” She asked.
“Hm? What was what?”
“That sound. Didn’t you hear it? It was like singing… or screaming…”
“Hm? I didn’t hear anything.”
Ferris continued to stare over her shoulder. “No, it’s faint, but I can feel a presence. We are not alone.”
“Seriously? I really think that we’re the only ones who’d come to a graveyard in the middle of the night like this, though…”
“I agree. However, in all likelihood…”
“Hm?”
“The dead have risen from their tombs and are now singing.”
“……”
Ryner was at a loss for words at Ferris’ sudden declaration. But Ferris continued, completely unperturbed by his silence.
“This is bad,” she said. “This means that, night after night, Runa’s dead have risen by the command of their mages from the olden days. This is a major threat to Roland.”
“Hey… there’s no way that you’re serious, right? It would be a threat if that was true, but… I don’t think that’s the case. That kind of magic is way too serious to become mainstream, don’t you think?”
“I will only say this one more time, Ryner. The dead will come to your bedside and sing. What do you think of that?”
“Uuh… I do think that’s pretty scary…”
“It’s a joke with a strong basis in reality.”
“Huh? That was a joke?”
“It was a joke,” Ferris said before continuing. “In any case, we have a duty to alert Roland of anything that could be a threat to our country. If Runa is developing military-grade magic, then it doesn’t matter if we are in an alliance or not - we cannot ignore it. We’re investigating this.”
“W-wait, wait,” Ryner said, flustered. “It’s really, really dark tonight. We won’t be able to see if they’re raising the dead until they’re right in front of our faces. So isn’t it actually really bad if the thing that’s around here is going to attack us?”
Ferris patted Ryner’s shoulder, a solution already in mind. “Good luck.”
“…I’m not even gonna say it this time… I’m way too used to this…”
And so they embarked on a trip to confirm if the presence was truly a monster or not, irregardless of how disheartened Ryner was.
---
A while later, Ryner and Ferris were hiding in an overgrown thicket when they saw something unbelievable.
It was in a small clearing in the graveyard. Whether for magic or some other means, branches were piled up on one another, with a fire burning through them.
Several people were around the fire, moving in an eerie, inhuman way.
“Seriously…?” Was all that Ryner could say.
“Just as I thought,” Ferris said, her voice lacking intonation. “The dead have risen.”
“What part even makes you think…”
Ryner’s words trailed off.
One of the guys, who’d been wriggling around awkwardly, stepped on the girl’s (who’d also been wriggling about awkwardly) foot.
“Oww! Moe, your foot!”
“Huh? Ah, oh, s-sorry, Chief Milk! I… it’s my first time trying folk dancing,” he said as he quickly moved his foot away.
The girl smiled. “Ahaha. Don’t worry about it! Copy what I’m doing, okay?”
They began to sway eerily once more. Forget folk dancing, it looked way more like kids playing around…
“Amazing!” One of the men said. “You really can do anything, Chief Milk!”
“Eheheh! ♪ Of course I can!”
Then the man with the white hair began to play the guitar in tune with Milk’s movements. “Alright, it’s time for the next song!”
“Alright! Okay, everyone, copy what I’m doing!”
““Okaay!””
They began their eerie sway once more.
That was the kind of dreadful scene that they were watching.
Ryner let out a long, lamenting sigh. “How do these guys always know where we are? I feel like that’s the real paranormal phenomenon here… There’s absolutely no way for them to have guessed that we were here…”
It was all that he could do to watch the Taboo Hunters who’d been persistently following them, dumbstruck. They were always chasing him around and showing up when he least expected it.
“It’s simple,” Ferris said. “They’re ghosts. The girl committed suicide after you threw her away, and now she’s engaged in this strange dance of malice in order to exact revenge on you. There’s no point in running from ghosts. She’ll be doing that strange dance at your bedside from now on.”
“No matter how I look at it, she’s not a ghost… Anyway, jokes aside, what now? Things’ll get real annoying real fast if they see us.”
“Mm. We must not get possessed. We’ll ignore them, get the relic, and leave.”
“Right?”
The two made to leave the area… but suddenly!? The campfire went out!
“Huh?”
“Mm?”
Ryner turned back towards the campground. “Don’t tell me Milk noticed…”
The campground was absolutely pitch black. Because their eyes had adjusted to the light, Ryner couldn’t see anything at all, not even Ferris beside him. Though they could sense their surroundings, even if only a little…
“Huh? What?” Milk said. “Why’d you put the fire out, Luke? Are we done with the campfire already? Can’t we keep going for just a little longer?”
Luke, unlike Milk, had some tension in his voice. “No, I wouldn’t do that. What about you guys? Lach, Lear, Moe?”
A calmer man’s voice followed. “The fact that the fire went out so quickly means… that it was almost certainly magic. Lach, Moe, and I did not use any magic.”
“I see. Then that means… that something else is…”
A ghoulish, almost death-like voice rang through the dark. “Who dares disturb our resting place?”
“Huh? Huh!? What’s happening?” Milk asked, her voice shrill. “What’s going on!?”
A similarly creepy voice to the first spoke. “You, who plan to open the grave of the hero…”
“Grave? What do you mean, grave?”
“Grave?” Luke repeated, nervous. “Lear, don’t tell me…”
The man with the calm voice - Lear, apparently - responded. “This is my bad. I apologize. This was the most suitable area to make a campground—”
“You insolent fools, who’d make a game out of playing with other peoples’ souls… You’d be better off dead from our curse.”
““Lear, you idiot!””
Then some kind of fight broke out.
“…Huh? No way, what’s th… kyaaaa, it’s a monster! They’re monsteeeers…!! Auh…”
“Wha!? What’s wrong? Chief Milk’s fainted, Luke—uwagh!?”
“Moe!? Are you okay? Shit, what are these skulls!? At this rate, guogh!?”
They couldn’t see what was happening due to the darkness, but judging by the sounds and the general feel of things, Milk… promptly fainted, and then her subordinates seemed to have been hit on the heads, collapsing from something completely different from Milk.
“Hey, one really appeared,” Ryner said.
“Mm. Just as I predicted. One really does think of night when they think of graveyards.”
“Dunno that that has anything to do with this, but anyway, what should we do now?”
“We’ll capture them. According to the girl from your past, what attacked them was monsters, not ghosts, and as long as it’s not ghosts, this is a non-issue. We’ll capture and inspect them.”
“I was more of asking what we should do about Milk and the others, since they got attacked and all…”
Ferris’ expression turned sad. “I wish them happiness in their next life.”
“No, they’re not dead…”
The sounds of battle had completely faded. Apparently all of Milk’s men had fainted.
“Hmph. These guys were pretty strong,” someone said from the clearing.
“Yeah. But no matter how much of a threat they might be in battle, it’s clear to me that these guys weren’t thinking of graverobbing in the slightest.”
“You’re right. There’s absolutely no way that these guys knew the truth about Runa’s relics…”
Ryner and Ferris exchanged a look.
“What do you think?” Ryner asked. “Seems to me that they’re not monsters…”
“Mm. It also appears that they have information about the Heroic Relics. This doesn’t change our plan, though. We’re capturing them.”
“Okaaay.”
Now that their eyes were adjusting ever so slightly to the darkness, they began to move.
A few seconds later, and Ryner had relit the fire pit, illuminating the monsters - or rather, the men wearing skull masks. Ferris unsheathed her sword and swung it up against one of their necks.
“I’ll give you choices,” she said. “I could cut your head off and send it flying. I could cut your stomachs open and spill your organs all over the campgrounds. Or you can do as I say. What’s your choice?”
That was probably obvious.
---
They left Milk and the others at their campground and made their way through the graveyard proper, in the direction of the hero’s grave.
“Um, Ferris… No matter how I look at this, it’s weird as hell…”
“Mm? What part?”
“Well… I get why you’re having them dig this grave up,” Ryner said. He looked to the poor men who Ferris was threatening with death. They were digging with everything they had.
“Hm. And?”
“And?” Ryner repeated. He moved his shovel just a little, as if to push the sword that was presently aimed at him away. “Why am I being threatened too?” He glared at Ferris, who played the part of their cruel supervisor.
Ferris moved her sword to his neck. “I’ll give you choices. I could cut your head off and—”
“See!? Isn’t that weird!? Augh, uh, no, sorry… I’ll dig without complaining anymore, so please stop moving your sword closer… I’ll die, you know… Uuh, shit… I’ll definitely turn the tables on you one of these days!”
Ryner returned to work, grumbling all the while.
Why did these men do what they did? And what did they mean when they said ‘the truth about the relics?’ Ryner and Ferris asked, but…
“P-please, forgive us…”
“W-we’ve been keeping that secret for generations… It’s what we live for…”
Ferris’ sword glistened.
“Hih!? U-understood, ma’am… aah, this is the end for us… Our ancestors will never forgive us… A-ah, yes, we’ll talk, so please don’t kill us…”
Then they began to speak, shaking in fear as they faced the great enemy known as Ferris’ sword.
They said that Karlwade wasn’t really a hero. That the kings of the Ruid Empire and the Nast Empire were terrible tyrants, who seemed to delight in the deaths of others. They mercilessly executed their own and fought meaningless wars for the fun of it.
Amidst all of that death, Ruid’s prince and Nast’s princess met and fell in love and tried to patch things up. They frequently met in secret with a restaurant as their rendezvous point. They took interest in the skillful chef there, a man by the name of Karlwade. They invited him to their castles and ordered him to poison the kings’ meals.
It never even occurred to the kings that their own children would think to kill them with poison, so they ate the chef’s food without a second thought, and peace was eternally restored to their lands.
The prince and princess ascended to their countries’ thrones, then married, and joined their two countries, Ruid and Nast, into Runa.
It wasn’t a suitable founding tale for a country, though. No one really had to know that patricide was the answer to ending many generations of war, so they needed a suitable legend to cover it up… One that the common people could get behind…
Ultimately, they ended up raising the chef into the Legendary Hero Karlwade. His legendary arms - his knife, cutting board, frying pan, and more - were nothing but kitchen utensils.
It was a secret that was known only to the prince and princess themselves, and Karlwade and his apprentices…
“We’re descended from his apprentices,” one of the men said. “That’s why we’re destined to protect his secret! It’s so top-secret that not even the king of this country knows about it!”
He said so with such pride… that he began to cry.
“But this is the end, isn’t it!? Soon everyone will know the truth!”
“What did we leave our lives for if not for that secret’s sake!?”
Ryner watched them cry in agony for a while before speaking. “I’m really doubting the fact that a secret like that was left to descendants of his apprentices, but whatever.” Then he looked up at Ferris from where he stood in the hole they’d dug. “Um, so us digging this up is pretty useless then, right? They’re the seven kitchen utensils, for crying out loud… Haah… And like, we dug a really deep hole for this and everything…”
“What would you do if they were lying?” Ferris asked.
“Huh?” Ryner looked at the men, who were crying their eyes out. “There’s no way… Let’s just forget about it, okay? We’ll keep our mouths shut and keep your secret.”
The men clung to Ryner. “R-really!? You’ll keep our secret!?”
Then Ferris swung her sword close to them again. “No. Hurry up and dig. The sun will rise soon.”
In that moment, Ryner was sure that he saw a demon.
Anyway.
They continued to dig until they finally, finally hit the casket. Then they opened it, and inside were countless kitchen utensils.
There was a frying pan in the dead center, then a kitchen knife, and a pot… Just as expected, there were seven utensils in total.
“This is terrible… Our secret is no more. The struggles of our ancestors are now nothing but bubbles in the water…”
So they said, then collapsed in a pile of tears. Ryner watched them, a pained look on his face, then turned to Ferris with a glare. “Hey… Don’t you think you were a little too mean this time, Ferris?”
But, just like always, she ignored him as if she never heard what he said in the first place. Instead, she picked the kitchen knife out of the casket.
Then she raised the knife… and cut the casket in two.
““What!?””
That was all that the men could say. The rest of their thoughts were lost to shock. Ryner already knew damn well how good she was with a sword, though, so he wasn’t surprised at all…
Then she nodded and spoke, as if to answer the shock that the men were experiencing. “Mm. This is exactly what I expect from a Heroic Relic. It cuts incredibly. I cannot possibly believe that any regular chef would own a knife such as this… But you may grieve if you must.”
With that, she tossed the knife.
“Let’s go, Ryner,” she said and briskly walked away.
One of the men picked the knife up, confused. “C-could it be that Karlwade was a true hero…? But if that’s true, then aren’t we free? We don’t need to keep our secret anymore… We don’t need to bear the burden of the world anymore!”
“I can hardly believe it, but it must be true. That makes us descendants of the hero’s apprentices!”
And so their tears of lament turned to cries of joy.
Ryner watched them for a moment before catching up to Ferris. “Is this why you made us finish digging it up? You were pretty nice today, then.”
Ferris shook her head, then spoke as if it had nothing to do with her. “What are you talking about? I was only fulfilling my duties. Runa is Roland’s ally, after all. Destroying one of Runa’s heroic legends would not be in our nation’s interests.”
Ryner smiled. “Hmm. Well, that’s fine too… To think that Ferris of all people was secretly a good person.”
Just then, Ryner noticed a glimmer in Ferris’ hand. He looked down to see a number of gaudy golden skewers.
She followed his line of sight. “Oh, these? They say that these skewers were a present to the chef from the royal court… Are you jealous? Heheh. I’ll have fun using these for dango.”
“I can’t believe you,” Ryner said, but stopped there, too tired to argue. He just sighed. “Anyway, we’re done with Runa now. Next up is neighboring Iyet, right?”
“Right. I wonder what kind of dango awaits us in Iyet.”
“It’s always about dango, isn’t it!”
They walked into the horizon as the first rays of dawn lit the sky.
