“Phew. It feels great when I get to make a mess. Though thinking about cleaning it up afterward is daunting.”
“What? You actually think about cleaning up afterward? I thought you never thought about anything, since you always just rush headlong into things.”
“I was much more methodical than you when it came to Ende!”
With everyone gathered in the open lot, Ende was experiencing something called tranquility. The regressor and I walked down unusually deserted streets, talking as we went.
“To be honest, I wouldn’t mind going to the principality. There’s no need to take Ende’s circumstances into consideration anymore.”
‘It was much easier to stop the Wolf King in the principality than in Ende. When Ende was destroyed, the principality gathered every available force and fought the Wolf King. Fighting the Wolf King in Ende is just my own stubbornness.’
That stubbornness of hers was ridiculously tenacious. Was it because she was a regressor? When she had no idea about the cause-and-effect involved, she was aggressively proactive to the point of recklessness, but once she had experienced something even once, she became quite meticulous. Seeing her establish connections with the merchant guilds in Ende, make contact with the upper echelons, and bring in the Beast Faction made me feel that she really had regressed.
…Though perhaps it was simply her routine. Either way, I understood that the regressor wanted to resolve Ende’s problems as favorably as possible.
“You’re not going to abandon Ende, are you?”
“Because you say you have a way. I don’t know what else might happen here, but I mean to include going to the principality among our options.”
“There’s no need for that. I’ve already done everything I needed to do with the pig beastmen. I told them that they, too, had once been human, so now that their wish has been fulfilled, they need to let it go.”
Primal desires were nothing to be ashamed of. It was strange that people couldn’t simply call the obvious obvious.
I want to live better. I want to make what they have mine. That’s only natural, isn’t it? And yet some people say humans are inherently superior to beastmen, while others say that since everyone is equal, it’s only natural to hand everything over in the first place. It was a complete spectacle.
All I wanted was to strip away the wrapping that concealed the desires of beasts. To tell them to return to being beasts, just a little.
The regressor looked at me suspiciously.
“…You use that in a way that subtly sounds like you’re disparaging humans.”
“If you think I’m disparaging them, then you’ve set your expectations for humans too high, Mr. Shay. I’ve always maintained the same attitude.”
“Well, even if we don’t go so far as to expect anything, we can still ask for a somewhat sensible reaction.”
“But even common sense differs from person to person.”
“That’s true, but it’s called common sense because there are parts we share.”
“The moment there are differences, something has already gone awry. In the end, someone will have to correct those differences. That’s what fighting is.”
The regressor, having been refuted, tried to say something more, then gave up with a groan.
“So? What do we have to do to knock some sense into those idiots?”
“For now, please keep making a mess the way you always have, Mr. Shay.”
“How should I do it?”
“There’s no need to think about it. Whatever you feel like doing is a mess when you do it.”
Wild and domesticated are different. No matter how much I wracked my brain, I could never keep up with the regressor. So do as you please.
The regressor narrowed her eyes and asked in return.
“You’ve been using words that subtly sound like you’re disparaging me, too.”
“Of course not. They’re here!”
No sooner had I shouted than several horse beastmen appeared before us. They really were fast. We had only just fled from the open lot on the wind, and they had already managed to find us.
“We found them! Here! They’re here!”
“That…!”
“Neigh? I’m only a scout!”
The moment the regressor released her fierce aura, the horse beastman fled with his tail between his legs. He had only learned the most basic qi technique and used it for running, but even that alone made him so fast that we lost all desire to pursue him.
“It’d be easier to kill them than capture them. Though I suppose there’s no need!”
Immediately after the horse beastman disappeared, several beastmen rushed into the area. A cloaked beastman who spotted the regressor and me shouted.
“Report to Chieftain Grul! We’ll hold them here!”
“The Beast Faction?”
There were few people in Ende who possessed power comparable to the regressor. The reason I said “few” was because he existed.
Grul. A pig beastman who had reached the Principle. The regressor gripped Cheon-aeng and tensed.
‘Why is the Beast Faction here? Have they decided to side with Ende this time?’
The regressor possessed an overflowing reserve of energy and had mastered an excellent qi technique, but even so, she was slightly inferior to a qi master who had reached the Principle. It was the difference in the split-second judgment and instinct that couldn’t be explained simply by strength or speed—in other words, a difference in talent.
She had Cheon-aeng and Jijan, along with countless treasures and various authorities. Fighting him did not guarantee defeat. But—
‘It’s a pain! Fighting someone when I don’t know whether I’ll win or lose!’
The regressor drew up her qi and shouted,
“Get out of my way!”
Heavenly Sword Qi, Meteor Shower.
YW9peUx5cktZYXhyU2hzY1VsMkQ0YWErekduM25NSGpXV1hEbXRXRUd5R1JTcmZXL3U2Zk45ckcyazVTK2pPZw
Broken debris and chunks of rock were swept up by the storm and lifted into the air. As the regressor wrapped herself in wind and brought her weapon sweeping down, hundreds and thousands of fragments rained toward the Beast Faction warriors.
She had intended to incapacitate them quickly, but the Beast Faction warriors were not so easy to deal with.
“Cloaks!”
At the sight of the falling debris, the Beast Faction warriors immediately covered themselves with the leather cloaks they wore.
Thud-thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud.
The leather cloaks sounded as though drums were being beaten. The fragments bounced off the counterforce qi technique and fell helplessly to the ground. Having deployed the counterforce qi technique, they easily withstood the regressor’s attack.
The warriors personally trained by Grul were not inferior even when compared to the Obelisk. They had formed Heaven and Earth with qi, and though they had failed to grasp Kan, they had instead tempered the powerful bodies of beastmen. In comparison, they were at the level of military generals. Their qi cultivation might have been lower than that of a general, but unless they were fighting other humans, the perfection of their technique was not a factor that needed much consideration.
That was true now as well. The regressor was the type to rely on strength rather than qi.
“Tch! It would’ve made things easier if that had knocked them down!”
The Beast Faction warriors shouted through gritted teeth as they endured the heavy impact.
“Don’t cross blades with her! She’s an expert. Push and pull with the buffalo-hunting formation!”
“Thanks for acknowledging my expertise!”
Though no one had ordered her to, the regressor immediately sprang forward. Watching her make a mess exactly as I had told her to, I quietly glanced at Aji.
“Aji. Shall we go?”
“…Woof.”
Aji nodded listlessly. He seemed deeply hurt by what had happened earlier.
The plan was as follows. No, perhaps it would be more accurate to call it my state of mind rather than a plan.
I had granted Okma’s wish. They had gained the right to ruin something themselves, just like humans, and were abusing it to their heart’s content. They said they would handle things themselves, so why should I interfere?
I simply wanted to check on the other wish now. If I granted that wish, I might be able to protect the city as well.
“Huh? You!”
The moment one of the pig beastmen recognized me and pointed, I seized and twisted his finger. I grabbed him as he screamed from the sudden pain and slammed him into the wall.
My strength alone wasn’t enough to break through a stone wall, but earth sorcery made it possible. The wall sank in precisely as much as I pressed him against it. The pig beastman was embedded perfectly, as though he had been one with the wall from the very beginning.
I looked around for my next victim.
“Next.”
“W-Wait… Spit!”
Before he could say anything about an intruder, I flung a card.
Whoosh. The electrically charged card lodged in the pig beastman’s shoulder. Blood spurted out. For a beastman of Ende, accustomed to a harsh life, it was no more than a scratch. The problem was the braid of lightning flowing through the blood. The pig beastman convulsed as the electricity ran along his nerves, then collapsed where he stood.
“My hand is faster than the eye. Though this probably isn’t the situation where people use that saying.”
I shook out my hand and opened Obelli’s gates.
With Obelli’s leading officials temporarily away and the regressor making a mess in the very heart of Ende, Obelli’s defenses were weaker than ever. And Obelli possessed a plump, tempting prize that anyone would covet.
“Woof woof woof woof!”
“Rescue the gongin!”
Taking advantage of the opportunity, the dog beastmen, including Obelli’s guard dogs, launched an assault on Obelli. The lofty and immaculate Obelli suffered the humiliation of being conquered twice in a short span of time. Obelli itself probably felt nothing about it.
The dog-men attacked the pig-men as though venting all the resentment they had accumulated. The pig-men, who had merely been hastily brought in to fill out the numbers, fell helplessly.
A coup that occurred at a remarkably convenient time. It hadn’t been planned in particular. It was simply something that would happen someday anyway. Even being subjected to a coup was the same. They were humans to the very end—even in their downfall.
“Magician… It’s not that I forgive you! I’m only letting you off because you’re with the king!”
“…Woof.”
“No, King. I wasn’t shouting at Your Majesty… Tch, whatever! See you next time!”
A human shouted and led the others onward. Riding the momentum, the humans ran through Obelli’s orderly streets, flinging open the gates of every house. If they found gongin, they rescued them; if they found humans, they swung their fists. Those fists showed no regard for age or sex. They cared only whether someone had pig ears.
Either screams or cheers rang out. Judging solely by the blood flowing, there was even more than last time. Before, only the gongin had been targets, and the humans who staged the coup had not used violence against them.
But they showed no such restraint against humans with different ears. Instead, they carried out an even more brutal act of revenge.
“…Awoo, awoo.”
Aji squeezed his eyes shut. From Aji’s perspective, last time had surely been much better. At least back then, no humans had suffered.
Well, I felt much the same way. Hadn’t they gotten a little too carried away?
The people who actually possessed power were elsewhere, after all.
“Yelp-yelp-yelp!”
The desperate cries of the dog beastmen rang out. In front of Obelli’s prison, in an alley where a considerable number of gongin were confined, the dog beastmen who had gathered to free them were swept away like fallen leaves in an autumn wind. Seeing their comrades collapse, covered in blood, Obelli’s guard dogs retreated step by step.
“What’s wrong? Didn’t you say this was no place for the likes of piggies?”
A gigantic pig beastman calmly strode out before them. The dog beastmen tucked their tails beneath them, and one of them shouted desperately under the pressure of his overwhelming presence.
“S-Stop! Didn’t you hear what I said earlier? If you continue resisting, it will be considered treason against the principality…!”
“Go ahead.”
The Beast Faction referred to the nomads wandering the Enger Plains. Composed of all sorts of tribes, races, and origins, they belonged to no nation. Screaming about treason in another country posed no real threat to them.
From the start, invoking treason as a threat against a powerful being who had reached the Principle was utterly insignificant. Grul snorted and raised his fist.
“A frightened beast does nothing but make noise. Stop barking like a dog and show me what you can do with your strength.”
“Ugh…!”
Because all the surrounding dog beastmen were retreating step by step, I, who had been standing still, was relatively pushed to the front. Grul spotted me amid the confusion and spoke as though he had been waiting for me.
“I’ve been waiting for you, magician.”