Editing Rakuin no Monshou:Volume8 Chapter4 (section)

=== Part 3 ===

Aks, who belonged to the Dawnlight Wings Division, looked down on an area located in the western corner of Apta Fortress with a complicated expression.

It was there, at a section on the ground floor level where the fortress faced the cliff, that the former Imperial Guards, Pashir included, were currently being detained.

Among the winged dragon officers, Aks easily had the most outstanding physique. Yet the other day when he had exchanged blows with Pashir, the runner-up in the Gladiatorial competition, he had been sent sprawling right at the start. He could still feel the throbbing pain from where a fist like a stone had slammed into his jaw. He rubbed at it but in his heart there was anger and resentment.

He loved and respected the grey-haired general Rogue Saian. Because the general had supported the prince, who had opposed the emperor, his position had been downgraded; but Aks thought that action truly was “just like Father”. However, when he heard that the Prince's Imperial Guards were to become their colleagues, he had felt strong antipathy.

Those who belonged to an army corps that is mainly deployed in airborne battles were all on the same "boat" and had a stronger bond than typical land soldiers. They were comrades who shared the same destiny since, in such an environment, if a mistake was made in even just one of the posts they were assigned, they might all fall plummeting from the sky.

And a bunch of outsiders were coming into their midst. They were subordinates of the prince who could be said to be the reason why Rogue Saian was kept away from the capital; and on top of that, Pashir was the heinous criminal who had once tried to rise in rebellion against Mephius. Naturally, he could not welcome them with open arms.

And so, he picked a quarrel with Pashir. As for why he had chosen him, his intention had been to thrash the brawniest of them as a warning. 

But the tables had been turned on him. Pashir’s title of runner-up at the gladiatorial tournament, and his history as a former sword slave, were apparently not just for show.

But now, Pashir and the others were being detained on suspicion of being connected to the west.

Aks certainly had not been happy about Pashir, but he found it hard to believe that the newcomer had again been intending to harm Mephius or that he was connected to the west.

Most of the Imperial Guards were people who had been taken out of slavery by Crown Prince Gil. It was unthinkable that they would have been involved in the prince’s assassination. Even if the west had called out to him seductively or approached him with a scheme, it was more natural to suppose that a man like Pashir would reject it outright.

With the war against Taúlia being at a stalemate, Rogue’s mood was not good. Since he knew ‘Father’s’ personality well. Aks realized, of course, that he had no enthusiasm for this war. Quite the opposite, in fact the balance of his emotions were being tipped in an unusual direction, and it was said that he had done everything he could to stop the fighting.

And, infected by his superior officer’s feelings, Aks too was disgusted with it.

''This is a stupid war'' – he sighed and started walking. But before he had taken even a few steps, a woman called to him to stop from a passageway to the side. He recognised her face, she was a servant at Apta. Unbecoming of her youthful and quiet appearance, she gripped Aks’ hand and tried to invite him to her room.

“Oi oi, it’s still broad daylight!” He protested but she looked desperately determined and would not let go of his hand.

Aks figured that fooling about for a change wasn’t so bad, but when the door to the room was opened and he saw that there was another woman waiting on the bed, he was, as could be expected, surprised.

Furthermore, she was a strangely alluring beauty, so pale it was as if all colour had been drained from her.

Aks gulped reflexively. Feelings of anticipation whirled in his chest, but then, the woman spoke.
 



Half a day later, Aks came running up to General Rogue Saian.

“What’s this, you have something to discuss? That’s rare.”

“Actually, there is something that I really want to ask of you, General.”

With that preface, Aks led the general to the same room that the servant girl had invited him to.

“The airship unit got into some trouble with General Narbal’s men. It would have been fine if it had just been an ordinary fight, but the unit and Nabarl’s men were detained in the same room. The other side pulled out swords and guns, there is going to be a murder the way things are. General, won’t you please come and give the guys from the unit a good talking to?”

As soon as he heard that, Rogue raced down the passageways with a speed that did not match his age. The ruckus between Aks and Pashir was one thing but an uproar like this one was, in a manner of speaking, his own fault for not having been able to pull the men together.

When Rogue opened the door, for a moment, his expression was the same as Aks’ had been half a day earlier.

There were two women on the bed. One was the servant who had invited Aks. The other had a face that was unknown to him. Her features were so beautiful that even Rogue was taken aback. Her complexion was as pale as a dove’s and her lips, which were highlighted with rouge, glistened all the more seductively because of it.

“It has been a long time, General.” Yet when the beauty spoke, it was in the voice of a man.

Rogue’s eyes started, and not because Aks had quietly closed the door behind him. He remembered that voice and looking at it again, he recognised the man before him as someone he knew.

“You’re Shique!?”

“General, please, your voice,” Shique, disguised as a woman, put a finger to his red lips.

Rogue hurriedly shut his mouth and turned around to Aks, who was standing at the ready behind him. The large winged dragon officer wore an embarrassed-looking expression.

When he had been an Imperial Guard, Shique had only spoken with the man a little. Remembering that, Shique had first asked a servant girl that he had previously been familiar with – since Orba had asked him to gather information on the fort, he had no choice but to become close with her – to call Aks over, and had then asked him to fetch the general.

“I-I’m sure I heard that you went missing after the fight with the Black Armoured Division. You were alive? Then what have you been doing up until now? Your companions are currently imprisoned here in Apta. Oh, was it because you learned of that that you deliberately disguised yourself and snuck in here? Don’t tell me you plan to save them. What splendid spirit to have done so without worrying about the danger to your own life, however in the current circumstances…”
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“General, General, please calm down,” Shique interrupted Rogue’s words with a smile. Then immediately after, he was wracked by a violent coughing fit. His back and shoulders shook for some time because of it.

“I am of course worried about them, but I have a different reason for coming especially to see you, General.”

“I-I see,” as though embarrassed at having lost his calm, Rogue took a deep breath. An irrepressible emotion was welling up from the depths of his heart. Deliberately preventing himself from thinking about what it was, he stared at Shique once more. “But that is an impressive disguise. No, if I remember rightly, you also masqueraded as a beautiful slave woman at the time of Zaat Quark’s rebellion.”

“You have a good memory.”

Shique was occasionally scrunching up his face and rounding his back as though he was in poor physical shape. Each time he did so, the servant girl rubbed his back anxiously.

Rogue was aware of a throbbing palpitation. “That time... it would have been on the prince’s orders. What about this time? You went missing after the fight with the Black Armoured Division, why did you risk coming back to Apta?”

Shique wordlessly took a letter from his breast and handed it to the general.

Rogue read through it at a stroke.

“Impossible,” he said in a voice like a whisper. Then he read it again from the beginning. Finding it funny how those actions mirrored his own, Shique almost laughed but started coughing again.

Rogue’s breathing gradually grew rough. Finally, after taking another quick look at the entire document, he asked, “is it true?” perhaps because his emotions were struggling from every angle, his face was rather expressionless.

“It is all written there.”

''In three days?'' Rogue murmured in his heart. In three days, the prince would proceed towards the border and reveal himself. Yes... Prince Gil Mephius. If the contents of this letter were true, he had learned of General Oubary’s plan to assassinate him and had deliberately used the timing of that plan to throw himself into the river.

The intention had been to bring Oubary’s plan to light and hopefully catch the unit tasked with carrying it out, but the prince had sensed that there was ‘an even darker shadow’ behind them and hid himself for a time in the west by feigning his own death.

His breathing still rough, Rogue repeatedly shut his eyes then opened them wide.

''The prince is alive.''

Why was it that simply by thinking that, he felt that it was as though a bright ray of light was shining both on himself, who had felt cast in darkness, and on Mephius’ future? Imperial Prince Gil was a hero who had soared to fame in the space of less than a year, nevertheless it was still unknown whether he had any political resourcefulness.

''However, he is the Crown Prince''.

Right now, that was the most important thing as far as Rogue was concerned. What was paramount above all else was the fact that a legitimate member of the imperial family was openly criticizing the emperor’s current course.

His face pale, Shique watched Rogue’s conflicted demeanour. After a short while, the veteran general spoke.

“Understood.”

That was all. He did not state whether he believed the contents of the letter or not. Nor did he talk about what he intended to do. On the contrary, he asked, “what are you going to do from here on?”

“I,” Shique interrupted himself to clear his throat, “I will return to the west. Actually, there was a commotion when I left and I’m worried about the situation over there. I should go back for now to check th…”

“You cannot,” Rogue declared.

“General…”

“Whatever the details, we are currently at war with Taúlia. That is undeniable. I cannot simply send back, to the enemy forces, a person who has been inside our own camp.”

“I am not fit to be a spy. I attract too much attention.”

“How dare you say that when you’ve disguised yourself to this extent. Anyway, you’re staying in Apta. I’ll find some reason or another to provide you with a room. Lie low there.”

“General,” Shique shook his pale face. Having fled like a deserter, he did not believe that he would be able to return to Taúlia as things were. But he was afraid that the situation might have become complicated for Orba. He also needed to report that he had been able to safely leave Taúlia with the letter, but – “General, I…”

As Shique tried to get up, Rogue forcefully pulled his arm. As the servant girl screamed, Shique’s body slumped forward. Rogue looked intently at the area of his back and said –

“You’ve been shot.” 

The reason why the woman’s clothing he wore only bulged oddly on his back was because the bandages had been repeatedly wrapped around him there, while in the front the added padding was really made to look like the swelling of breasts.

“Have you had a doctor look at it?”

“The bullet seems to have gotten lodged,” Shique smiled, his face ashen.

“In your current situation, you couldn’t have gone to a proper doctor. It will have been an unlicensed doctor practicing illegally in some back alley.”

Rogue’s assertion was correct. When Shique had been leaving Taúlia, he had been shot from behind by one of the soldiers forming part of the net. The steel bullet had pierced through from his back to his lower chest. That he had not fallen from his horse indeed made him worthy of being a renowned former gladiator.

Although he had given himself some rudimentary medical treatment on the way, it had been hard to push down the fever and the pain that had been gnawing at him from within. In all honesty, it would not have surprised him if he had fainted upon coming in sight of Apta. However he had gritted his teeth and had snuck into the town, which had once been well known to him, and using everything that he had been able to carry out of Taúlia as payment, he had called on a back-alley doctor.

But as Rogue had said, he could not go for proper treatment. His festering wound had merely been wrapped in fresh bandages and he had only been given antipyretic medicine.

“That cough comes from your internal organs being damaged. It’s dangerous to leave it. I have seen over and over again people laughing one day only to drop dead the next. At any rate, you won’t make it to Taúlia in that state.”

“…”

“I’ll get you an army surgeon from the Dawnlight Wings Division. He’s a friend of mine so don’t worry.”

As he spoke, Rogue gently pushed Shique back down to the bed. Having used all of his physical strength just to lift himself up that much, Shique collapsed onto it without any resistance.
 



After that, Shique was moved to a room and received medical treatment from an army surgeon.

Lying alone on the snow-white bed, he found the situation irritating and strange.

There was a window high above him, and that cut-out square was his only point of contact with the outside world. The sun had risen then set, the shadows had deepened, then the day had dawned again
Except when he slept, Shique gazed at that view without growing tired of it.

''It’s been two days since then… no, has it been three?''

It was because of the medicine that his head was fuzzy, he decided. So that meant that Orba should be nearing the border around now. Or maybe, since he would have realised that a net had been laid out and surveillance had been reinforced, he had not yet left Taúlia.

There was nothing more that Shique could do. He could only bet on Orba’s ability and luck for what came next.

There didn’t appear to be any conspicuous movements here in Apta. The army still hadn’t stirred yet either. Rogue, who believed in the letter, must be restraining Nabarl, the commander-in-chief, by every means possible.

''But still, on the third day'' – If Orba was unable to appear as Gil Mephius, the general would not be able to hold Nabarl back any longer.

Remembering Rogue’s reaction upon reading the letter, Shique smiled weakly.

''You couldn’t have played the part of a prince for more than half a year''.

''Even so.''

''Isn’t it interesting? If it weren’t for the current state of Mephius, the general might not have seen your survival as a ray of light.''

''Right.''

''Isn’t it exactly as though everything, even the pain and suffering, was a path laid out for your sake?''

''I suppose that besides individual ability, above all else, the situations in which they are needed are what create heroes.''

''Yes, that was what was missing with me.''

Shique had grown up in a poor family. Both of his parents had worked by the sweat of their brow, yet even so it had been difficult to earn the day’s food. Still, even while living that life, Shique’s mother tried to ensure by all means that her son wouldn’t lose his pride. She bought books even when it meant going without meals, she gave him an education, and she taught him the basics of etiquette as well as the foreign words that she herself knew.

His mother claimed that, tracing her family line to the distant past, she was descended from an aristocratic lineage of the Magic Dynasty. It seemed that in its heyday it had even held the right to succession to the throne, although its rank in the order of precedence was low.

Whether that was true or not, he didn’t know. But at the very least, his mother believed it. Or maybe, in a life of sipping muddy water, she had found an emotional crutch by believing that mouldy old history.

But for the very young Shique, and also for his father, it became a burden.

His father had vanished as though running away from his mother, who was completely wrapped up in her pride in that very dubious lineage. From then on, his mother had lavished all her love on Shique. Even though she had to sell her own body to earn their daily income, she had made sure that he received an education, had bought him expensive clothes, and had him learn courtly dancing and the art of swordplay.

His mother’s voice as she hugged his shoulders and whispered “The blood of the Aeland family runs in you”, the unsteady gleam in her eyes, the way she touched him, her very existence, so to speak, was oppressive for Shique.

''Mother...''

Shique mentally called out while still looking out through the high window.

''I couldn’t be the son you hoped for me to be. But that cause for pride that you saw in me, I’ve found it somewhere else''.

''So I…''
 



It was two days after Shique had managed to reach Apta’s fortress.

Of course, Gowen, Pashir and the rest did not know that he was close by. In that narrow and confined space, their impatience and irritation were only growing stronger.

For them, it was another day that saw no improvement from the previous one.

But around dusk, distant screams were heard that would completely change the fate of the former Imperial Guards.

Gowen, once an overseer of sword slaves, had a bad premonition from the start. The screams were coming from the direction of the dragon pen.

That day as well, Hou Ran had spent all her time looking after the dragons. It happened at the time that she was returning them to their cages after having them out for a walk.

As the last dragon was going back to its cage, and before she could properly turn the key, she was seized from behind.

Her mouth was blocked and she was dragged to a patch of grass.

Usually a number of slaves would assist for large-scale tasks like cleaning the dragons’ cages, but when it came to the dragons themselves, because Hou Ran took care of them alone, there was not the shadow of a person in the area.

Hou Ran was pinned down by several men.

She could not make a sound but she stared at them sharply. As for the men, their lustful gazes openly drank up the sight of Ran’s body, on which the red rays of the sun and the shadows of the cages cast a mottled pattern.

They were the same soldiers who were always vulgarly calling out to her and were probably Nabarl’s men.

“Anyway, she’s a woman from the west. No one’s gonna blame us even if we do what we like with her.”

“We’ll take care of you like Zerdian men couldn’t.”

The men’s hands crawled over Ran’s dark skin.

And she could not move to resist against them. Ran’s furious breathing escaped ineffectively from the gap between her mouth and the hands.

Just as the men had begun to strip her of her clothes, a large silhouette suddenly blocked the light from the setting sun.

The big shadow that also engulfed Ran’s limbs belonged to the Baian – a medium-sized dragon – that had just been let into its cage.

Its eyes had become bloodshot. It had burst out of its cage with enough force to break it.

Faster than the men could scream, its mouth gaped open, pulling with it strings of saliva. Fangs like swords pierced through the back of a man’s neck and vivid red blood splashed freely. Screams and angry bellowing erupted, but the dragon’s roars drowned them out.

By the time soldiers who had heard the uproar arrived, swords and guns drawn, the men who had pinned Ran down had all lost their lives.

“I-In position!”

When a man who seemed to be captain issued the order, soldiers fell to one knee and readied their guns. Before he could give the order to fire, a human figure quickly interposed itself between the guns and the flesh-devouring dragon.

Ran was covered in blood and her eyes were watery with tears.

“I’ll calm him down. Put your guns away.”

“Move from there. If you don’t move, we’ll shoot you.”

“This child is waiting for him to come back. I promised I would protect him until then.”

As soon as she had spoken, Ran turned her back to the row of gun muzzles and clung to the Baian’s neck. The dragon roared, a bloody froth spewing from its maw. It shook its neck as though irritated and Ran’s body was flung to the ground. The Baian bared its fangs menacingly. The blood had gotten it excited. When things got to this point, even tamers who had known a dragon for years might end up being eaten.

But Ran did not give up and tackled the Baian again and again. Even when its tail smashed into her and its fangs drew right before her, she desperately hugged its neck, stroked its scales and whispered something to it. Her whole body was already covered in cuts and bruises from being sent flying time after time, and because her skin tore when it scraped against the dragon’s hard scales.

With her cheeks torn to shreds, it was no longer the men’s blood she was covered in but her own.

Watching the way she pressed herself against the dragon even so, the soldiers were utterly dumbfounded. As they stood there stock still, the Baian’s voice gradually grew calmer. As it stopped stamping its feet and waving its tail, head drooping limply, Ran seemed to lean against the dragon and sunk slowly down.

She had lost consciousness.
 



When Nabarl received the news, for a moment his face held neither surprise nor joy.

That only Hou Ran had been less strictly confined was because he had judged that if even a single disturbance arose around the woman from the west, he would be able to make good use of the situation, but he certainly had not expected it to go as far as having all the soldiers assigned to monitor her being eaten by a dragon.

But anyway –

“That accursed western woman. So she’s revealed her true colours.” Nabarl kicked himself out of his chair as though he were truly enraged. “She must have been aiming to destroy this camp from the inside. Throw those bastards in a cage! As an example, and as retaliation, they’re to be executed by firing squad.”





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