A breeze off the stream drifted past Luosaier. The smell of blood, and a sharp, acrid reek as of something scorched, clung at the tip of his nose, reminding him that the brief fight just now had been no hallucination of his own.
In the instant he met the monster that was eating a person, he had not even had time to be afraid. Drawing his gun, aiming, and firing had been pure reflex, and everything after that had been his body moving ahead of his mind. The racing heart and the surge of blood had even stirred a strange excitement in him, as if he had joined a game he had long been waiting for.
Only when the monster was cut by Xialuote—who had dodged a lethal strike by a hair—and then burned to death by a pillar of sunlight that appeared in the sky did Luosaier, too late, understand what had happened.
Not far off lay the monster's corpse, with extra eyes grown on its forehead and cheeks, and the servant it had gnawed, each covered by the clergy with a cloak. One arm, five-fingered, its joints malformed, stuck out.
That was the hand that had just torn a length of sleeve from Luosaier's hunting coat and nearly ripped him open from chest to belly. Had Xialuote not slammed into him and knocked him clear before that dark-green ray shot forth, he would likely already have become a lifeless corpse, the same as that patch of withered shrubbery.
Once he realized this, the excitement and thrill slowly drained from the bottom of Luosaier's heart, and a chill rose gradually up his back.
It was not that he had never seen the dead. Half a month ago, in his own family's residence, he had watched with his own eyes as Aidian Ma'ersuo was shot dead. But that time he had only thrown two vases down from the second floor. The one who truly fired was a manservant. He had not long passed through his transmigration then; his memories were in chaos, and all of him seemed not yet to have woken from a dream.
He had even been secretly smug that military training made him bolder than an ordinary young noble, and driving the attackers off together with Gelin at the printing plant had left him brimming with confidence. Only today did he see how fragile that little strength of his was before a true monster—weaker even than Xialuote, who was a woman.
Right. Xialuote... Luosaier drew his thoughts in and looked up at the young noblewoman who had fought at his side just now.
Mud and blood stained the cuffs of her riding habit. The three-cornered felt hat on her head had gone a little askew at some unnoticed moment, and her face was paler than usual. She stood beside three clergy wearing Sun Holy Emblems, as if explaining all that had just occurred, and from time to time she glanced this way.
He faintly caught a few words.
"Weiyefu... a believer in the God of Craftsmen... he still doesn't know... the attack before..."
He realized the talk was probably about himself, and that Xialuote did indeed hold some secret tied to the Church—that she was even part of that secret herself.
He thought of her sprint, faster even than his own; of the strange words she had cried out as the dark-green ray was about to strike her; of the way she had tamed the hounds at the hunting camp. Luosaier grew all the more certain.
More important, he was sure now that this world was not ordinary. It was not merely some backward society of nobles and the Church, a place that had not even invented the steam engine or the flush toilet. It was a world that hid true Extraordinary power.
A human-shaped monster grew three pairs of eyes. Believers of the Blazing Sun could call down pillars of light. Holy water could kill monsters. And Xialuote Suolun was plainly no mere young noblewoman.
Sure enough, I knew Xialuote Suolun was special. Of everyone I have met since my transmigration, she is the most special of all... Could this be what they call the main storyline, and did I just happen to trigger it... After the fear and the tension ebbed, a thread of excitement he could not hold down rose again in Luosaier's heart, and thoughts broke loose in his mind beyond his control.
A moment later Xialuote, done speaking with the men, turned and came toward him.
Luosaier at once ordered his thoughts. He meant first to thank her for saving him just now, then to take the chance and ask her plainly about the monster and the Church. She, clearly, had no mind to give him time to put his words together slowly. Grave in tone, and rather formal in her phrasing, she said:
"Mr. Gusitafu, I am afraid that you, too, must now make a choice of your own."
————
The three clergy of the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun soon cleared the scene, took the monster's corpse, and carried it back to the church in the city for whatever was to follow. Count Fulaisi had servants bear away the remains of the poor soul the monster had killed, and gave it out that the victim had been attacked by a frightened beast, was gravely hurt, and had already been sent back to the city for treatment.
This landed noble, the most influential anywhere near Suxite, plainly knew a great many secrets. He settled everything at once and, before the guests could grow suspicious, announced the start of the hunt.
Such a hunt, long held by the royal family and copied by local nobles one after another, was in essence a respectable outing. Those who truly sought, tracked, and drove the quarry were the servants and the hounds. The young nobles followed on horseback behind them and gave chase from a safe distance; only when the quarry was brought to a halt, or ringed in by the pack, did they elegantly strike the final blow.
Still more of those who came along merely enjoyed the speed, the noise, and the company at the outer edge of the column, pretending they still possessed the art of hunting fox and deer.
Luosaier Gusitafu, changed for the moment into a spare coat, sat his horse and followed slowly at the rear of the crowd. The howls of hounds and gunshots far off came to his ears, yet his mind turned again and again over what Xialuote had said.
Drawn in, through no will of his own, to an Extraordinary incident, he now faced an important choice.
He might swear an oath, sign a confidentiality document, and pretend he knew nothing. When this hunt was over he would still be Baron Gusitafu's son, a young noble with a military education and bright prospects. The Church might watch him for a time, to be certain he would not let the secret slip, but in the end he could always go back to the life he had lived.
Or he might truly step into the hidden world and become, like Xialuote, a person who possessed wondrous power. But the price of knowing the truth was that he must be bound in earnest by the churches of the orthodox gods, and by every kind of contract. He could not remain as free as he was now. He would have further duties to meet and further dangers to face, and there would be no lack of scenes like today's, of standing face to face with a monster.
When Xialuote had spoken to that point, she had warned him:
"Don't be quick to answer. Best to calm yourself before you make the final decision."
Her face as she said it was composed, as though she had faced the same choice.
At first Luosaier thought the choice no difficult one. He had already come through transmigration and arrived in another world. Set before a chance to touch Extraordinary power so near to magic, what reason was there to let it go?
But he remembered the shock of that dark-green ray grazing past his side, remembered the strength with which the monster had blocked his hunting knife bare-handed, remembered the servant's mutilated corpse, and he hesitated.
The Gusitafu family was only minor nobility, yet it held a hereditary title, and land and properties enough. He himself carried advanced knowledge from another world. If he only managed the newspaper and the printing plant well, slowly turned the techniques in his head to money, and widened his influence a little at a time, he would sooner or later have the chance to write his own name into this world's history.
The Extraordinary hid in the dark of the world, and there had to be a reason for that. It was not power and knowledge alone. It meant danger and death as well.
Weighed with reason, the choice between achieving a great work by steady steps and stepping into a dangerous world whose way ahead could not be seen—the conclusion seemed to speak for itself.
But the next moment Luosaier remembered again his bitter unwillingness at never being able to catch the figure of Xialuote ahead of him, able only to watch her charge the monster one step before he could. He remembered his helplessness when she faced danger: he could only call a warning, and he could not stop it.
And why his transmigration had come, and whether he could return to Earth—these questions, very likely, touched Extraordinary power too. If he did not even dare seize the chance before him now, on what ground would he go seeking answers?
At that thought Luosaier, still in the saddle, suddenly let out a low laugh.
A normal person would of course take the first choice. But I'm a transmigrator... Once the thought rose, the heaviness in his chest all at once dispersed. He lifted his head and looked ahead.
Xialuote was riding past the hounds. Her sidesaddle posture was much more natural than when she had first arrived. Several hounds that had been restless grew plainly quieter as she went by. One even tucked its tail and whimpered low, and a baffled servant led it on to keep after the quarry.
Sure enough, she was baring her teeth at the hounds again, wasn't she... Luosaier gave the horse's belly a light squeeze of his legs and drove after her.
This time, he did not want only to stand at a distance and watch.
Chapter 28