Chapter 69: Chapter 69: Mark of Leviathan
Upon hearing the report, Aiyen scowled.
" ... ... You mean she's actually someone else?"
For the past two years, Morg Camus had been consistently scouting around the water's surface.
For the purpose of exterminating savages and exploring lands, no one knows what her true objective is.
Except for one person. Aiyen.
'Obvious.'
I didn't need to ask; I could connect with her motive.
She's searching for a man from two years back.
Vikir.
Aiyen recalled when she first met Vikir.
The young man who had saved her from dying in a cage. She hadn't forgotten his face since then.
However, when she saw him again, he had another woman in his arms.
The woman in his arms was Camus, and she had not forgotten the boy and had returned to this terrible watery place.
Determined to believe that he is alive, or perhaps to retrieve his body.
She searches for Vikir with a strand of hope, an assumption she can't let go of, and an unfulfilled regret.
Her perseverance and determination over the course of two years are something that makes Aiyen's heart ache.
"If you came for the rubies, you should go back for the rubies. You're an obvious nuisance."
Aiyen folded her arms and fell silent momentarily.
She was trying to decide if she should tell Vikir this story or not.
In the jungle, Aiyen retraced Vikir's steps.
She soon found him ahead of her, tracking his prey.
Aiyen rode up to Vikir on the back of the wolf Bakira.
Vikir was measuring the depth of the muddy tracks.
"Mushuhushu, the water snake. It's a very old and large one. If we catch it, it will feed the whole town for at least three days."
Vikir knew his prey's size, weight, direction of movement, location, age, health, and even its recent mood.
All of this he had learned from the hunters of Balak.
"...."
Aiyen stared at Vikir in disbelief.
Vikir had changed a lot in the past two years.
He still had his charming face, but his aura was much more telling.
Long ago, he might still pretend to do everything by himself, but now he was more capable than ever.
As such, the boy was certainly becoming a man.
'Indeed, the lady of Morg is special. What a man he is.'
Aiyen nodded.
As the future head of the hostile group, albeit a woman before that, she could relate to his sentiments.
Aiyen opened her mouth to speak.
She didn't know why, but there was a slight tremor at the end of her voice.
"... ... Look, slave."
She hadn't stopped calling Vikir that even after he'd been emancipated.
Vikir didn't care, so he answered without looking back.
"What?"
Aiyen asked, after a slight pause.
"How was it where you came from?"
"...?"
Vikir was silent for a moment at Aiyen's question.
Where I used to live.
Did he mean Baskerville, or the world before the regression?
Vikir responded by blending the two places together.
"Hell."
Aiyen scratched her head at that response.
Then she asked what she truly wanted to ask.
"Do you want to go back to where you came from?"
"...."
At that, Vikir paused and pondered.
Meanwhile, Bakira did a little shiver.
"Why do you ask that, and with such a strange look on your face?"
Aiyen felt a little embarrassed, not knowing what expression she was making.
Even now, she was hesitating, in fact.
Should she tell the story or not? Should she let him know that the Morgans were looking for Vikir?
She hesitated, then closed her eyes tightly.
She swallowed hard and said.
"I don't want to lie or hide anything."
"...?"
"'She' is looking for you."
I said it, finally.
Aiyen balled her fists into tight knots.
Concealing things, lying, and being watched were all her least favorite things.
And even more so, she didn't want to do it to Vikir.
As she uttered the words unabashedly, Aiyen felt a mix of relief and frustration.
What if Vikir told her he intended to leave her? Should he do it by the clan's rules? Was it even possible?
Thoughts raced through his mind.
Then.
Vikir's response came back.
"I'm not going back."
A brief response. With those words, Aiyen felt the tension that had been so tightly woven into his body suddenly loosen.
A warm glow filled every inch of his body as the tension drained away.
"... ... You, really?"
"Yes."
Vikir nodded.
How could he go back?
If he returned, he would have fully regained his former powers.
At least, it would have to be when he could conceal his powers perfectly from Hugo's notice.
"... ... And who is she?
Vikir scowled momentarily.
Was he referring to Morg's Camus?
If so, he should be grateful. She still remembers the kindness that saved her life.
'She's surprisingly loyal. Or is this a peace offering of some kind?'
Vikir closed his eyes and pondered it all.
If the Morg were looking for him, it meant they were still within Baskerville's territory.
If the Baskervilles were willing to allow Morg's search party to enter the depths, it would mean that he had not yet been forgotten by his recent family.
Furthermore, the alliance between Morg and Baskerville would have been strengthened.
Perhaps that's why they have an annual event where they find themselves, formally and so on.
He could sense that things outside were complicated and tense.
Ultimately, Vikir thought, he would have to escape the depths.
Suddenly, Aiyen spoke up, her voice sounding much lighter.
"Oh, by the way. I have something else for you."
She pulled an object from her chest.
It was the blade left behind by the mysterious intruders mentioned in the last report.
"Do you have much knowledge about this sigil?"
It was a blade with a symbol, a large snake on it.
Bikir's eyes narrowed upon seeing it.
"I know of it. It's a famous emblem."
It was the symbol of a particular family in the Realm.
"Leviathan, the Radical."
One of the historical, seven great houses of the Realm, alongside the Ironblades of Baskerville, the Mages of Morg, the Quavadis, the Common of Magnate, and others.
But how could it be found here in the depths during this season?
Vikir's head began to spin rapidly.
"Would you mind if I keep this?"
"Yes, do as you please."
Aiyen nodded immediately.
Vikir took the knife with the snake on it.
Suddenly.
[sputtering... ... gurgling!]
An unpleasant cry came from somewhere.
Vikir and Aiyen turned to find themselves in a muddy mangrove forest.
A massive creature was crawling through the twisted roots.
A lungfish, a fish that breathed with two lungs.
It slithered through the mud, its sleek, scale-less body oozing sticky mucus.
It was a fish that wasn't even considered food due to its large size, over eight meters long, unpleasant appearance, and cries.
Aiyen grimaced in disgust.
"It's definitely the rainy season, with everything stirring around."
"If there are big ones around, it must mean... ... that this rainy season is long."
Vikir nodded in agreement.
The muddy ground bore the unmistakable tracks of giant lungfish.
Aiyen pointed to a decaying, fallen tree.
Many meters above the ground, the tree's branches hung with dried aquatic vegetation.
"Last year, during the rainy season, the water was up there."
"It could be higher this time."
When it rains, the water rises immensely fast.
The lungfish know this and crawl out of the mud in advance.
The event.
"...!"
The very observant Aiyen had spotted something.
She could see something protruding from the body of the giant lungfish she had just crawled over.
It was a spear.
"Check that out?"
Aiyen moved swiftly.
She shot an arrow through its head, killing it, and then drew a knife and cut open its stomach.
A half-digested human figure emerged from its stomach.
Aiyen's expression froze.
"They're Ornate."
Bold men who live on the blood and milk of bears.
They were adversaries to the Balak and the second most powerful clan in the depths.
They had a primitive culture, and every clan in the jungle feared them.
Except for the Balak.
Bikir spoke bluntly.
"Does the fact that they have intruded into Balak's territory mean... ... war?"
"Yes, I think not."
Aiyen glanced at the spear embedded in the lungfish's body.
The spear hadn't been thrust in from the outside, but had protruded from the inside out.
In other words, the Ornate tracker wasn't trying to hunt the lungfish, but the lungfish was trying to hunt the Ornate tracker.
As it swallowed the tracker, the spear the tracker was holding pierced the lungfish's stomach wall and protruded outside its body.
But one question remains.
Lungfish are large, but they're also thin and slow, so they could never have eaten the Ornate's carefully prepared tracker.
Furthermore, the shape of the skeleton suggested that the tracker was a young man, perhaps in his twenties.
Aiyen set her jaw.
"I wonder, why was this person eaten by a lungfish? Lungfish are basically dumb creatures that scavenge dead things and eat them."
"He must have been weak enough to be eaten by a lungfish."
"What kind of person goes out hunting when they're that weak?"
Aiyen's questions were valid.
Vikir had a short answer.
"If the clan's situation is so bad that a man that weak needs to go hunting."
It could be a desperate situation.
It might be that the tracker was simply debilitated by external factors at the wrong time.
However, the skeleton showed no signs of injury.
Scratches on the inside of its throat and stomach wall suggest that it had struggled, but with little force.
"I don't feel right."
Aiyen intuitively sensed that something was wrong.
Vikir and Aiyen began to search the area.
Given the extent to which the body had been digested, and the speed at which lungfish travel, there should still be traces of it around.
Soon, they began to find traces of the tracker's life.
When he was alive, he had moved around with an unsteady gait.
He had no idea that this was Balak's territory, only that he was moving about in a frenzy of activity.
There were signs that he was searching for a small, weak creature, or perhaps a tree fruit.
This was in stark contrast to the typically fearless Ornate trackers, who usually hunted large creatures.
What could have turned the Ornate's aggressive trackers into this?
Vikir and Aiyen continued to retrace their steps.
Eventually, they approached Rokoko's territory.
"...!?"
They both spotted something.
Several of Rokoko's trackers were gathered in a makeshift camp.
With ancient dark elf blood in their veins, each member of their clan is known for their beauty.
They are skilled in dark magic, sorcery, curses, and control, and their uncanny beauty gives them a unique and sinister aura.
As such, they were an unusually vulnerable clan to slave hunting.
However, it wasn't their appearance or aura that struck Vikir and Aiyen.
...It was the fact that the Ornate trackers were all dead.
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