Chapter 29: Legion

「Hey, why are you so shocked?」

Sig said it to me, half exasperated, when I was too stunned to speak.

「But—you—why…?」
「Talk later. We have to deal with them first.」

The rats were nearly half‑destroyed by Sig and the others’ earlier attacks, but reinforcements were bubbling up from who‑knows‑where. How many tens of thousands were there?

「Sensei, can you give me some fire? One verse is enough.」
「O fire… will this do?」
「Thanks.」

As told, I floated a flame above my palm—and Sig suddenly thrust his hand into it.

「Sig!?」
「O red and searing flame that burns all—obey my hand and become a sword.」

With a slick pull, Sig dragged the fire out. Smoothing it with his other hand into a rod, it settled in his grasp shaped exactly like the sword he had named.

「Here. Yuuki, you help too.」
「Eh—w-uh, y-yeah!」

He handed the sword to Yuuki, then turned on his heel to face the rats.

「Then… Onii-chan. Um, I’d be happy if you could let go of me.」
「Huh? Ah—s-sorry!」

Realizing I’d been holding Yuuki tight, I hastily let my arms fall open.

「I’ll be right back, okay?」

Yuuki flashed me a smile, then tightened her expression and dashed toward the rats with the flaming sword in hand.

「Hey, Sig—on this, which side is the cutting edge!?」
「Fire doesn’t have one. Swing it however you like.」
「That doesn’t help…!」

Just then, a rat leapt high at Yuuki; she reflexively swung to cut it down.

At once the sword stretched like a whip, licked along the ground like a giant snake, and burned away every rat along its extension.

「Whoa, that’s Sensei’s fire all right. What power.」
「I can’t use a weapon this dangerous!?」

At the flame that had, for a moment, stretched off to the horizon, Yuuki let out a scream.

「You can. It’s a sword made from Sensei’s fire, and you’re of the Sword Clan.」

But Sig answered as if it were obvious. Yuuki stared at the blade, then gave a firm nod.

「Good. Watch my back. …Rin!」
「Okay okay, here we go—big fire, kaboom!」

With that lively shout, a massive blast of flame shot from the mermaid’s fingertips.

「Become my spear and strike that one down!」

He snatched it out of the air, then, as if it were clay, balled and stretched it into a single spear and hurled it. When it pierced the heart of the rat horde it warped, regained the nature of flame, and scattered searing destruction all around.

「You are me, and I am you. Bark, run, and drive them—time to work, Shadow Double!」

Luka’s shadow, lit by the flames, thickened and several stood up at her spell. They scattered, then with four legs chased down the rats trying to flee the fire and herded them to one spot. When those jet‑black figures flung their arms wide, they became a maw with ten fangs that skewered the rats. Like a true wolf—no, like something even fiercer.

「I cannot allow you to go that way.」

To the rats slipping through gaps in the encirclement, Violet-san extended a supple hand. Thorned bramble vines shot from her fingertips and stabbed into the ground; then, from beneath the rats’ feet, more brambles burst forth and shredded their bodies. Even with their quickness, the rats could not dodge vines that erupted from the earth and lashed out like tentacles.

「Yeah, I’m getting the hang of this!」

Yuuki’s flaming sword freely changed length, unfailingly catching and burning rats near or far. Standing at the center of the fray, she let none of the rats aiming for her comrades—who were concentrating on controlling their magic—near, cutting them all down.

Luka set the field, Rin created the openings, Sig shaped and wielded them. Violet-san watched over everything, adding fine support, and Yuuki backed each of them up.
—It was a scene that called to mind our old classroom.

「At this rate, it looks like we don’t need to help. Works for me.」

Taking a deep breath, Nina said that.

「Isn’t it more that you can’t help?」
「Shut up.」

When I couldn’t help cracking a joke, Nina answered sullenly.
It wasn’t that she was slacking by staying out of the fight—she had been treating Amaga. Healing magic is extremely difficult, needing both powerful force and delicate control, and Nina was about the only one who could use it practically.
Even for her, after healing wounds as bad as Amaga’s, she wouldn’t be able to muster even a spark of flame for a while.

「Thank you, Nina-sensei.」
「Yeah, yeah—just make sure you protect us properly.」

At Amata’s deep bow, Nina waved a hand as if it were a bother.
A man with a broken leg and a woman out of mana—there was no way the rats would overlook prey that obvious.

Yet Amata lopped every last one of them down with his stone sword while still bent at the waist. How he was doing it I couldn’t tell even as it happened right before me. He must have been exhausted, and still his technique was that sharp. Truly, worthy of the Sword Clan of our day.

「Wait!」

Perhaps judging the tide against them, the White Rat shouted.

「Have you for-got-ten? That we keep your kin as stock-pile.」
「Stockpile…?」

Sensing the import of that ominous word, Sig froze.

「Yes. If you strike us fur-ther, we will con-sume all of our stock-piled food—」
「This “stockpile” you speak of—do you mean this?」

The White Rat’s shrill voice was cut off by a voice that was its opposite—deep and low.

「—Beor-san!? Why are you here!?」

Bearing villagers slung over each of his four bulging arms, standing proud though covered in wounds, was Beor-san, chieftain of the lizardmen.

「I can’t say all of them… but these ones are safe. Be at ease, Sensei.」

Tauro, Luka’s father, was pulling a handcart loaded with the sick and injured, a cheerful smile on his face.

「Show me the wounds. I’ll treat them now.」

Even Yellow-Green of the elves came, wrapping my leg with yellow‑green leaves.

It wasn’t just them. Lizardmen clansmen, Luka’s younger siblings, even elves I didn’t know kept arriving one after another. All bore wounds to some degree, making it clear they had been fighting the rats for us.

「Why… all of you?」
「Why, you ask?」

Sig answered proudly to my dazed murmur.

「Obviously I’m the one who brought them!」
「But… how?」

Come to think of it, Rin being here was clearly odd.
I had flown almost straight here after parting from her. Unless you could move at about the same speed as my wings, you couldn’t possibly have arrived now.

「I’ll show you the trick right now.」

He said that, then turned to face the White Rat.

「Let’s make a deal.」
「What manner of deal?」

At Sig’s abrupt proposal, the White Rat asked.

「A spear‑bearing king offered his right eye and gained wisdom.」
「…What are you talk-ing about?」

Along with the rat, I cocked my head inwardly.

「A mermaid princess offered her voice and gained legs.」

But hearing the next verse, I realized it.
No—this wasn’t an address to the rats.

「What I offer are two arms. They have no fingers, no elbows—but in exchange for these proud arms of mine—」

—It was an incantation.

「Grant me the power to race freely through the sky!」

Sig’s upper arms, missing from the elbows, spread with a heavy flap.

They were wings. Not feathered like a bird—more like a bat’s—
No. They were unmistakably a dragon’s wings!

He snapped them wide and shot through the air like an arrow.
He dove into the rat swarm, snatched up the White Rat with raptor‑like precision, and returned to us.

He looked less like a lizardman than what you’d call a dragonewt.

「So, Sensei—what do we do with this one?」

The White Rat, trapped in Sig’s hand, simply fixed me with those red eyes without even struggling, as if resigned.

「…Right.」

After a brief consideration, I answered.

「Answer my questions and promise you’ll never lay a hand on this village again, and I’ll let you go.」
「At this point you’re still…!」

I stayed Nina with an arm and signaled with my eyes. She glared at me, displeased, but for the time being lowered her weapon. Her face all but said, If you hand down a lenient sentence I won’t forgive you.

「Under-stood.」
「Then, my questions.」

Seeing the White Rat nod in Sig’s hand, I asked:

「Algernon said he alone could speak. Was that true?」
「Affirma-tive.」
「Then, at present, is there any rat besides you who can speak?」
「None.」

That was probably not a lie. Or rather, the rats do not lie.
Because lies are told to deceive the other party.

To deceive someone, you must understand what they’re thinking.
The rats can likely predict what we’re thinking, but they cannot truly understand it.
Just as we cannot understand how they think.
The same way we cannot grasp their minds.

「After you die, how many speaking rats will there be among you?」
「One.」

—As I thought.

「What do you mean?」

Nina furrowed her brow at the White Rat’s contradictory answer. No rat besides the White Rat could speak, yet after he died there would still be one speaking rat. On the face of it, that made no sense.
But I had arrived at a possibility by which it could hold true.

「They’re a superorganism. All of them together are a single creature.」

That’s why they don’t fear death, and why a single speaking rat is enough.
Just as people don’t fear cutting their hair, and just as we have only one mouth for speaking.

「Affirma-tive.」

Even if we killed this White Rat, another would simply be born. That was surely all it meant.
So even if it is the sole rat of its kind, it is not a leader.

「Which means… even if we kill every rat here, it’s pointless.」
「Affirma-tive.」

If we truly wished to defeat these rats, we would have to exterminate them all. …But that hardly seemed possible.

They aren’t fools.
They’ll have left a minimum breeding stock in some other place entirely.

To some extent, they share memories.
In this battle they analyzed our strength.
Next time they will stockpile power until they can surely win—and then strike.

「I’ve heard enough. At least let me cull your numbers… so the day of reprisal is pushed as far off as possible.」

I formed a lump of flame and let it hover over the remaining rats.

「You said you would let me go.」
「Yeah. I did. There are still a few left somewhere, aren’t there? Those I’ll let go.」

Strictly speaking, I had no choice. Hunting down a few scattered, hidden rats we didn’t even know the location of was impossible.

「Ah.」

The White Rat neither raised its voice nor accused me—merely murmured.

「I see.」

Leaving behind a resonance far more ominous than shouts or curses—the rats all burned to ash.