“Did you just say…?”
“He said a boy who bears the power of a dragon. Ah — you’ve heard of it?”
The boy asked with a look that said, I knew it.
Hamel simply nodded, blank.
“I’ve heard of it. Where did you hear that?”
“Where—hmm, that’s a bit hard to answer.”
The boy opened his mouth triumphantly.
“Because I wrote the book.”
“……!”
Hamel flinched sharply.
The tale in that book traced the story of the dragonian.
And the one in front of him now was the author of that novel. He even seemed to actually know the protagonist.
“Do you know about that first dragonian?”
“Hmm? Of course I do. That is precisely….”
─He froze.
He was about to continue, but the boy abruptly stopped and stared at Hamel.
For a moment.
─Pahhat!
He suddenly burst into loud laughter.
After roaring, the boy chuckled for a long while and shook his head.
“Ah, sorry. That would be difficult.”
“…What do you mean?”
The boy smiled faintly at Hamel’s question, then extended a finger and pointed at him as he spoke.
“Your god is angry.”
“……!”
Only then did Hamel notice an odd brightness around him.
A wavering blue aura, like heat haze, clung to his body.
It resembled the Azure Flame’s aura, but this one was charged with Divine power.
“……Ehurshika.”
His patron deity — the one who had granted him the Azure Flame and set him on the path of a priest.
He had never felt her presence so close before.
Why would she react to his attempt to learn about the dragon?
─Springing up!
The boy leapt out of the box.
“Anyway, it was a pleasure to meet you. I have business to attend to, so I must be off.”
“Wait a moment.”
“Hm?”
Hamel stopped him immediately.
The boy turned back with a look that asked why.
“Is there something more you’re curious about? Though your god might not like it.”
“No. It’s another matter.”
Hamel answered coldly, turned the tip of his sword to the ground, and pointed at the corpse of the guard Anton.
“Did you do that?”
“Oh, that one?”
The boy glanced where Hamel pointed, smiled, and nodded.
“I did.”
“…….”
Hamel could not form a word.
The boy’s expression and movements were so casual, as if offering a morning greeting.
─Grinding teeth
Hamel unconsciously clenched his molars.
He had killed a child’s father — and in front of the child’s eyes, leaving not even a trace of form.
Hamel spoke again, his voice cold as ice.
“Then were you also responsible for the murders in the village?”
“I did kill quite a few in this village. Roughly nine, I think. Ah — including that guard, ten.”
His head cleared sharply.
In that instant, thoughts of the dragon and how ancient his opponent might be were pushed aside.
Revenge for the dead. Judgment upon the guilty.
Hamel gripped his sword with one hand and reached for his flask with the other.
At that moment.
“It would be best if you stopped right there.”
─Silence.
All the sounds of the world ceased: the chirping of insects, the laps of the waves, even the wind.
It was a silence like death.
Hamel couldn’t even breathe.
“If you continue, you will die.”
He couldn’t see the boy’s face; black streaks clustered across the air, obscuring it as if someone had carelessly scribbled over the sight.
Yet the boy’s expression was somehow ‘felt’. There was no emotion — he was only stating a fact.
Hamel asked in a trembling voice.
“You… what is your identity?”
“Identity….”
The boy rolled the word around his mouth like a toy, amused, then spat it out.
“A snake reborn.”
His voice hummed and echoed like a cavern, accompanied by a strange, crackling ringing.
Hamel struggled against it and managed to speak.
“…Is that your nam—”
“A being that must not be given a name.”
“……?”
“An insultor. An immortal being. A spitting snake. Black Death.”
“Surely that’s not all of your—”
“It’s a part.”
The ringing in Hamel’s ears intensified. The world darkened until only he and the boy remained.
The boy shook his head and spoke calmly.
“There are hundreds, thousands of such names. But there is one name most commonly used.”
Hamel had never heard of any being with so many epithets — not even among the gods.
Meeting Hamel’s trembling gaze, the boy pointed to himself.
“Enemy of the world. Apophis.”
─A sharp pain.
A violent headache surged the moment the name left the boy’s lips. Hamel’s eyes reddened; blood ran from his nose. The world itself seemed to twist.
It felt like encountering a malevolent god.
Hamel fought to steady his breathing.
“Feeling a bit calmer now?”
Apophis chuckled.
─Whoosh
In the next instant, the oppressive pressure vanished. The darkness lifted and the distorted scenery returned to normal.
“Guh… chuk.”
Hamel coughed out a breath with difficulty; the air tasted sweet. Only then did he realize how immense the pressure had been. The ringing faded.
He shivered without realizing it — a helplessness he hadn’t felt in ages.
The boy who called himself Apophis clicked his tongue.
“You truly know nothing. You must have realized by now that I am not human.”
“…Aren’t you a malevolent god?”
At Hamel’s sharp question, Apophis snorted with laughter.
“A malevolent god… that’s half right.”
He turned his back and spoke slowly.
“You should widen your perspective. See the forest, not just the trees.”
“What do you mean…?”
“Well then, I shall be on my way.”
The boy began to walk off as if he had nothing more to say, but after a few steps he paused, sighed, and added one more thing.
“This is too unsettling. To tell you one thing: most of those I killed were already mere shells.”
“Shells?”
“Enough. If I interfere more, it will only make things harder for you.”
Apophis turned away decisively, as if further talk were impossible.
“Well, until next time.”
And then he vanished.
“…….”
The moment the boy disappeared, Hamel staggered violently as the tension released.
Ono had been unconscious for quite some time — perhaps during the moment Apophis revealed his epithets.
“…….”
He had thought he had grown stronger. He had faced a malevolent god and fought a revived dragon and survived.
How arrogant that thought had been.
Hamel let his sword drop with a clatter; at the moment he had no strength to move.
The scent of the harbor sea drifted in on the dawn mist. The fog-shrouded harbor lay silent, as if nothing had happened.
“Shells… you say.”
Ono wore a strange expression and tilted his head when he heard Hamel’s words.
“As expected, isn’t it literal? They must have been without their own selves.”
“I think so as well.”
Hamel agreed.
Anton — the guard who had vanished on that foggy night — seemed to have returned briefly, then suddenly disappeared with his child, leaving his dead wife behind.
That meant…
“Then Anton himself must have killed his wife.”
“…Probably.”
Strictly speaking, it would have been something wearing that shell.
Hamel swallowed the rest of his words.
Anton’s child still slept deeply. They would hear the answer after the child woke.
A red glow shimmered beyond the horizon; morning had arrived before he knew it.
It had been a long night. Hamel, who hadn’t slept a wink, washed his face in the cold dawn; fatigue clung to him like a second skin. He felt as drained as he had after three days and nights without sleep. Time had never dragged so slowly.
“It seems it was peaceful for a while.”
“……?”
Ono looked at Hamel as if he’d gone mad.
“Have you finally lost your mind? Weren’t you rolling around up north just this spring?”
“Wasn’t that a few months ago already?”
“Ah. My bad.”
“?”
“I forgot again that you’re the sort of man who wants to die; you always need some monthly brush with death, huh?”
“It’s a misunderstanding.”
“Not a misunderstanding — obsession, probably.”
“……?”
Just then, as Hamel looked puzzled,
“Uhm….”
The child who had been sleeping in the box rustled and squinted at the sunlight seeping through the crack.
“…Where am I?”
The child rose, looked around, and muttered softly.
Hamel knelt and met the child’s gaze. He removed his glove, placed a hand on the child’s head, and spoke calmly.
“Good morning.”
“Y-Yes. Go… good morning.”
The boy looked to be about twelve. He slowly nodded, flustered but emotionless, as if he remembered nothing.
Hamel had to ask the cruel question.
“Are you a child of Anton, a hunter of the Blue Mane clan?”
“…Yes.”
“Good. Then can you tell me what happened yesterday?”
“Yesterday….”
The child’s vacant gaze gradually regained color, but soon his eyes filled with a dull, hollow despair. Unable to watch, Ono reached toward Hamel.
“Hamel, stop…!”
But —
─(slap)
Hamel brushed the hand away without hesitation and spoke.
“Two more boys from the village have gone missing. The night before last.”
“……?”
Only then did the child’s hollow gaze fix on Hamel.
Hamel continued calmly. “They were all younger than you. I must save those children. And that means….”
When he paused, the child’s body trembled.
Hamel met his eyes and spoke firmly: “It depends on one word from you right now.”
“……!”
Life returned to the child’s eyes bit by bit. His pupils fluttered; he bit his lip so hard blood seeped out. A cracked, hoarse voice came from him.
“…My father used to tell me: If he disappeared, I’d be the only man in the house. I must protect my mother.”
“…….”
“But, if father… and mother are gone now, what am I supposed to do…?”
Hamel had no immediate answer. He lowered his hand and gripped the child’s shoulder firmly.
The child lifted his head and looked at Hamel again.
Hamel spoke with resolve.
“Become an adult.”
“…An adult?”
“Protect yourself from the world. Moreover, protect those weaker than you. Do not yield to evil; resist enemies you cannot yet defeat.”
The child was thrown into confusion. He had expected comfort, but received only words demanding strength — to protect himself when he needed someone to lean on.
There was no way he could do that…
─Upright
The child clenched his mouth shut the moment he met Hamel’s eyes.
Hamel looked at the child, yet he was not truly seeing him; he was seeing his own past reflected there. Instinctively, the child understood that Hamel’s words had once been the very support that sustained him.
The child opened his mouth in a trembling voice.
“Can… I do it?”
“Of course. You are already an adult.”
Hamel answered and offered a faint smile.
Then clear tears began to flow from the child’s eyes, like a dam breaking — endless.
