New WorldShadow - 425 (Patreon)

Chapter 425: Failure Is Treason; Success Is Revolution

Darkness, dampness, and oppressive stillness. Yet the air was bitterly cold. That was how Yukina Himeragi felt right now.

“I really want to know, just who did you people piss off? How did you end up getting beaten this badly?”

A familiar but indistinct voice reached her ears. Yukina desperately wanted to sit up, but her body was so weak and drained that she barely had the strength to move her eyelids.

“God knows what those old fools among the Three Saints are thinking, and there’s no way you can blame us for those Self-Defense Force bastards suddenly stabbing us in the back... Yukina!?”

Sayaka Kirasaka had been casually responding to Cid’s jabs, even throwing a few back at him, when her voice abruptly caught. A moment later, she shouted her partner’s name in delight.

“Hey, Cid, look! I think Yukina’s eyes just moved!”

“I guess they did.”

Cid looked at Yukina Himeragi, who was still lying motionless on the ground, and gave the strangely excited Sayaka Kirasaka a half-hearted reply. He certainly hadn’t seen Yukina move. Sayaka had probably imagined it...

“Cough, cough, cough...”

“Yukina’s awake! Yukina’s awake!”

“That’s great. Little Yuki finally woke up too.”

Okay, so I just didn’t notice.

Cid leaned down with the rest of the chattering group and looked at Yukina Himeragi. She had managed to sit up and was clutching her forehead in pain, apparently still not fully conscious.

“Sorry. My skills still aren’t quite good enough. How do you feel? Is anything wrong?”

“Senpai? Sayaka? Yuiri-chan? And everyone else...”

Forcing herself upright despite the stabbing pain in her head, Yukina gradually made out the people surrounding her and the place she was in.

Peering through the gaps between them, she saw nothing but yellowish-black earth all around. Even the ground beneath her supporting hands was covered in coarse, gritty sand.

Besides Yukina herself, many of the Senpai and juniors she had known from the Lion King Organization Training School were leaning against the earthen walls. Every one of her colleagues from the Lion King Organization bore injuries of varying severity and sat there with pained expressions.

Compared to them, Yukina was in much better condition. Her body felt weak and she could barely muster any strength, but that was all. A little rest should be enough, and there seemed to be nothing seriously wrong with her otherwise.

“Why is everyone here? Did something go wrong with the mission?”

Yukina turned in confusion to the two people she trusted most.

Trying to remember how she had ended up here, the last thing she could recall was being chased by a horde of bee-snakes. She had stumbled, pushed herself past her limits to kill more than a dozen of them, and tried to escape, only to fail. Just as the bee-snakes were about to devour her, a familiar figure had appeared in front of her.

And then...

Everything had gone black.

“Well... I’ll explain.”

After thinking for a moment, Cid told Yukina what had happened.

There really wasn’t much to explain. Cid had spotted Yukina, risked his life to drag her underground and save her, then brought her back to this makeshift underground cavern. As for everyone else around them, he had simply rescued them along the way.

“Senpai saved me? Ah! What happened to that girl?”

Yukina was puzzled because Cid-senpai’s account didn’t quite match what she remembered seeing, but her attention was quickly drawn back to the girl she had found.

“You mean her?”

After thinking for a moment, Cid pointed toward a lively little silver-gray-haired girl nearby, wrapped in a coat.

“That’s her. Senpai, Sayaka, do you know what exactly happened? An icy mist suddenly appeared while Nagisa-chan and I were performing the ritual. Then I couldn’t contact either of you, and Nagisa-chan disappeared too.”

Yukina spoke urgently. From her perspective, she had merely been carrying out the Lion King Organization’s routine assignment to protect Nagisa Akatsuki, only to suddenly find herself isolated, helpless, and hunted down for no apparent reason. She was still completely in the dark about what was going on.

“Nagisa? She’s over there. I ran into her in the mountains and brought her back with me.”

“Huh?”

Following the direction of Cid’s finger, Yukina saw Nagisa Akatsuki, who had previously vanished without a trace, sleeping peacefully on the ground beneath a coat. Her breathing was steady, and she appeared to be fine.

“As for what exactly happened, based on the information we have so far, it looks like something went wrong with your secret operation. The Self-Defense Forces turned on you at the last moment, joined forces with outsiders to blow up your main command headquarters, and most of the survivors fled into the mountains.”

“The Self-Defense Forces mutinied!?”

“Only if they failed. If they succeeded, it’s a revolution. And judging by the current situation, you’re the ones who count as the rebels.”

Cid said it as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world. The Shrine Maids he had rescued were all denouncing the Self-Defense Forces as traitors, but Cid wasn’t stupid. Once he stripped away their subjective perspective and looked at the situation as a neutral third party, that was the conclusion he reached.

“Whose side are you on?”

Unsurprisingly, his cold splash of reality earned him several displeased looks. Yuiri Haba even nudged his arm with hers, irritation written across her face.

“I’m just stating the facts. Helping you doesn’t mean I agree with absolutely everything you say.”

“Mm-hmm. Cid’s right.”

At some point, the silver-gray-haired girl Yukina had rescued had wandered over to them. Beaming happily, she wrapped her arms around Cid and enthusiastically agreed with him.

“Glenda, stop fooling around.”

Yukina stared at the scene in stunned disbelief.

“Uh... What is she doing? Why is she so close to Senpai!?”

Once she finally recovered from the shock, Yukina somehow found the strength to grab Sayaka Kirasaka by the collar and demand an explanation.

“Yukina, calm down. We don’t know who this girl is either. All we know is that after she woke up, she suddenly became strangely attached to Cid for no apparent reason, and she keeps saying...”

“Cid carries a contract with one of my kind.”

Glenda’s soft voice supplied the answer before Sayaka could finish. The mysterious girl rubbed herself affectionately against Cid while looking around at everyone. The moment her eyes landed on Yukina, they lit up, and she promptly pounced on her.

“Yukina, I like you. Yukina, I like you...”

“Gwah! Who even is she!?”

Yukina pushed against Glenda with all her strength, but perhaps because she was still so weak, she couldn’t budge the delicate-looking girl at all. Instead, Glenda pushed her flat onto the ground, leaving Yukina able to do nothing but groan in distress.

“No idea. That’s what we should be asking you, Yukina Himeragi. Where did you pick up this member of the Dragon race?”

Cid shook his head. He was still wondering where Glenda had even come from.

“I found her in the frozen lake... Wait, the Dragon race?”

“Mm.”

Cid stroked Glenda’s long silver-gray hair as though petting a dog while she sat astride Yukina. Glenda let out a cute purr, and a pair of dragon horns emerged through her hair.

“A dragon... Then that ‘blessing’ she mentioned must be...”

“I do know a few dragons, but none of them are particularly impressive. She probably misunderstood because of that.”

Cid casually brushed the matter aside. Other than Sayaka Kirasaka, who gave him a suspicious look for a moment, no one paid it much attention. After all, the Dragon race was mainly notable for its rarity. There were plenty of powerful dragons, but plenty of weak ones as well. If Glenda was still a minor, she might not even be able to beat them.

“Stop touching me already! How is everyone doing right now?”

Unable to escape Glenda no matter how hard she struggled, Yukina finally gave up and focused on the important matter instead.

“Things aren’t too bad. The horde of magical beasts in the sky is still hunting us, but the Self-Defense Forces’ ground combat unit has been wiped out, and we’ve managed to find most of our people.”

Sayaka Kirasaka’s explanation left Yukina staring at her in shock.

“Wiped out!?”

Yukina couldn’t understand the contradiction. If she remembered correctly, Sayaka and Senpai had said that everyone who fled deep into the mountains to escape the Self-Defense Forces had suffered serious injuries and lost their ability to fight. Yet somehow, in that condition, they had managed to turn around and wipe out an entire combat unit?

Had she heard that correctly?

“We didn’t do it. Shadow did.”

“Shadow!?”

Yukina began wondering just how much she had missed while unconscious. Ever since waking up, every piece of news she heard seemed more shocking than the last.

“Yeah. We really have to thank him. Without him, the magical beast army probably would’ve wiped all of us out with the Self-Defense Forces providing reconnaissance and support.”

Sayaka cast a subtle glance toward Cid and spoke with a pointed double meaning.

Cid, who was clearly the target of her remark, failed to notice it entirely. Instead, he put on an innocent expression and exclaimed in amazement.

“Who would’ve thought that Shadow, that evildoer who’s tried to destroy the world several times, would actually save people someday? Truly unbelievable!”

“Guh... Then why didn’t Shadow deal with the magical beasts while he was at it? Do you know what he’s planning?”

“Well... that is certainly a question worth pondering. But I think Shadow must have some magnificent, far-reaching plan that takes both past and future into account. Perhaps he believes that after dealing with the Self-Defense Forces, you’ll be able to defeat the magical beast army yourselves.”

“So, idiot, can you tell me what Shadow’s magnificent plan actually is?”

After knocking Yukina’s hand away from her collar, Sayaka grabbed Cid by his collar instead and began shaking him.

“You’re asking me? Who am I supposed to ask? Maybe even Shadow himself doesn’t know what he’s... How could an ordinary person like me possibly know about such a top-secret plan? Just believe in him. Shadow’s plan must be driven by some grand ideal. There’s no way it could be motivated by vulgar things like money or power. Maybe everything happening here is part of Shadow’s plan.”

“I think admiring Shadow has rotted your brain.”

After delivering that blunt retort, Sayaka released Cid’s collar.

The other three simply stared downward in silence and pretended they hadn’t heard any of it.

Glenda?

Glenda didn’t understand any of this.

“Sigh... I wonder when we’ll finally be able to get out of here.”

Shio Hikawa suddenly sighed, staring up at the earth above them with undisguised pessimism.

“We’re not actually going to get framed as traitors by the Self-Defense Forces, just like Cid said, and end up wanted throughout Japan, are we?”

What Cid had said earlier sounded ridiculous, and it really was funny. But fundamentally, it was the kind of dark joke that only people who weren’t directly involved could laugh at.

One of the Lion King Organization’s Three Saints was missing with their fate unknown, while the other two were gravely wounded. More than ninety percent of its upper leadership had lost contact and could effectively be presumed dead. Its lower ranks had suffered heavy losses, and most of the survivors were badly injured.

If the Self-Defense Forces’ plan succeeded and they secured overwhelming military backing, then they really could turn the entire situation on its head and declare the Lion King Organization the traitors instead.

Even Cid stopped trying to comfort them.

Making dark jokes behind someone’s back was one thing. Making them to the person’s face was a good way to get punched.

“How about... you consider going to the Kingdom of Midgar?”

After gathering his thoughts, Cid suddenly had an idea.

“Huh? Where’s that?”

“My homeland. My current boss, Christina, took power from her father and is reforming the Kingdom of Midgar right now. If you went to her for help, I’m sure she’d welcome you.”

“Huh? Senpai, you actually know someone that important?”

“She’s not really that important. Strictly speaking, Christina-san is still a student. But the world is full of strange coincidences.”

That was the truth.

The Lion King Organization might have looked embarrassingly weak throughout this whole affair, with its members getting killed or crippled left and right as though practically anyone could slap them around, but the real problem was simply that their opponents were absurdly overpowered.

If they were placed in a backwater like the Kingdom of Midgar, they would be a major force capable of competing with the strongest factions there.

“Uh... let’s talk about that later. Right now, our top priority is figuring out how to escape.”

“I was only joking anyway.”

Yuiri Haba gave an awkward smile and quickly moved past the subject, preventing the atmosphere from sliding any further toward an unspeakable abyss.

“But even if you say that, we still have no idea what to do. The Self-Defense Forces might even send more people to search for us. If they find this place before we can leave...”

Sayaka Kirasaka was still complaining when Glenda, who had been rubbing herself against Yukina, suddenly stiffened.

As though something had frightened her, she immediately threw herself onto Cid and began shouting.

“It’s coming! It’s coming! He’s coming! Save me, Cid...”

Despite how questionable those words sounded, no one misunderstood what she meant.

At that exact moment, the entire underground cavern began to shake violently.

Everyone looked around in alarm. The surrounding Shrine Maids woke with a start and forced themselves to their feet despite their injuries, trying to figure out what was happening.

But the source of the tremors wasn’t below them.

It was above.

“BOOM!”

The ceiling formed from thick layers of earth instantly collapsed.

Dozens of tons of soil and debris crashed to the ground with a deafening impact, throwing an enormous cloud of dust into the air. Through the haze, the vague outline of a colossal creature could be seen.

“Cough, cough, cough...”

“ROAR!”

Amid everyone’s coughing, the dust gradually cleared, revealing an enormous copper-red Dragon.

It opened its massive jaws, raised its head, and unleashed a thunderous Dragon’s roar.

Then...

“Quiet!”

The Dragon’s raised head was kicked straight into the ground.

Only then did everyone see the hulking figure atop its back. A man clad in armor that made him look almost mechanical sat astride the Dragon, chains in his hands wrapped tightly around its neck.

“Hey, Cid. Didn’t expect to run into you here.”

A golden figure leaped down from the Dragon’s back.

After sweeping his gaze across the cavern, he turned toward Cid with evident surprise.