Swamp Girl! Chapter 42

43: The Man Called ‘Ma.s.sacre Maddox’
Raws:

Confused as we were, we still made it down two floors.

Maybe because it was the princ.i.p.al section of the fortress, the construction varied from floor to floor. For a level-by-level defense, I guess. But screw invading, we wanted to escape — and this set-up was one huge pain in the a.s.s.

If someone was around, I could grab them and ask, but maybe because it was an upper floor, there wasn’t a single person in sight. For a fortress of this size, its population was really small.
Isn’t it awfully careless to leave all the posts unmanned in a situation like this?
Even so, we took the stairs down, and as I was trying to guess where the next flight might be, I spotted a familiar face.

“Lady Chris!”

It was the fortress’s adjutant, Percival. Once he saw us, he dashed toward us as he called out.
He was alone.
I didn’t know why the adjutant wasn’t with his commander at a time like this, but I was thankful anyway. He was the only one around who could act as our guide.

“We owe you one…”

Percival had been bent forward, panting and out of breath, but now he straightened up. I didn’t notice because there’d been too many people around me, but he was pretty tall.
I had to look up a bit to see his face.

“Well, I was searching for you as well,”

he said, smiling. A bit stiff, but it was a smile.

“Uff–”

In this situation, my relief only lasted a moment before the nth shock — I’ve already lost count — hit us.
The entire structure quaked and shook.

“Wh–What’s happening right now?”

Dragged all the way here without knowing why, a pallid Aira pressed Percival for answers.
Come to think of it, I said I’d explain things later and left it at that. That might’ve been a bit unkind to her.

“We haven’t been able to get a clear grasp of the situation either, but it’s a flying dragon. It seems to be launching an attack on this fortress. The shaking just now was the impact of the dragon’s direct hit on the control tower.”

Percival didn’t have time to finish before I felt a low rumbling in my bones, and the pa.s.sageway — the control tower shook again.

“What about L… uh, everyone else?”

I was about to ask ‘What about Leon?’, but I quickly fixed my wording. For some reason.

“Yes, well, right now, everyone should have been evacuated underground. Given the nature of our adversary, even requesting reinforcements will be a problem… For the time being, let’s evacuate. We’ll talk on the way.”

Percival urged us on.
Yeah, with the continuous roaring and rocking, this wasn’t the time for a relaxing chat. Running away came first.

With Percival taking the lead, we started to run down the hallway.

“Can you… defeat it? The dragon?”

Whether Palmira meant to ask if the fortress could withstand the attack, or if she intended to try killing it by herself at some point, I wasn’t sure. But she asked a pretty basic question.
If it’s the second, that’s some crazy self-denial right there.

“Given the nature of this area, the fortress is stocked with anti-dragon equipment. However, because it has never weathered combat in its capacity as a fortress until now, how effective it will be… we’re in the middle of testing that right now.”

“Its capacity as a fortress?”

“Yes, its potential in subduing dragons. I have no experience yet myself, but there certainly are records of the subjugation of stray dragons obstructing the highways. Therefore, it is possible to defeat them. However, this dragon is quite large for a stray… Whether we can defeat it remains to be seen.”

It was clear from his face that Percival was wracking his brains as he ran.
The truth is, like he said, the fortress had been prepared to oppose dragons up to this point.
And yet, now that it was forced into a bitter struggle that even had the control tower rocking on its foundations, now that a more-than-hypothetical dragon had come flying in, there was no choice but the evacuate. That had to be disappointing.

We ran down another flight of stairs. How many have we gone down by now, counting this one?
The lower we went, the more soldiers we pa.s.sed. Every one of them looked grim, some among them trailing blood as they desperately stayed on the move. From what I could see, everyone here was a part of the castle garrison, without any members of the Elite Guard. They might have finished evacuating underground as Percival said.

Leon got himself down there like he was supposed to, right? Suddenly, worry sprang up my heart.
That said, Leopard and Rupert should be there, so as long as they were with him, Leon wouldn’t be in any danger.
For a moment, I thought of Irene and Regnum. Sieg, too. But right now, no matter how worried I was for them, I couldn’t do anything. In any case, I was in the process of meeting up with them as soon as possible.

“Are we at the bottom yet?”

The control tower shook with increasing force. It was clear to those inside that it was starting to take damage.
Visible cracks ran along the walls and ceiling. Part of the latter already had all but caved in on itself. Now that it’d reached this point, it seemed that the entire tower’s collapse was only a matter of time.
Even so, why’s this dragon attacking the tower so relentlessly? I’m no dragon ecologist, but they’re creatures that rarely reveal themselves to humans in the first place –why is it so obsessed with this tower?

It was that shadow that called the dragon, I’m sure of it. Has it been manipulating the monster’s behavior since then, too?
If so, then what’s its objective?

“We’re almost there — it’s just up ahead.”

I had no idea how many stairs we’d already taken. We ran down a hallway littered with debris falling from the ceiling. When I checked behind me, Aira, her face pale and desperate, seemed to be lagging behind a bit.

“Aira!”

“B–Big Sister — !”

I slowed down and grabbed her hand.
Palmira, on the other hand, was running in front. Like a herald.
Anyhow, we were all running for dear life. Since when did things turn this desperate?

I’m gonna be honest.
Being in a pinch — and this was definitely a pinch — I was just a tiny bit excited.

“Here it is!”

shouted Percival as he opened the large door at the end of the hallway. Palmira went through. Then Aira and I leapt inside.

“Oof!”

It was pitch-black. I had Aira’s hand in mine, but I could only vaguely make out the figure of Palmira, who should have entered before me.
Where the h.e.l.l are we?

“Percival! Where is everyone!?”

I turned around, calling Percival’s name, only to meet his eyes as he shut the door we came through. His face was completely devoid of emotion.
What’s he playing at?
Before my suspicions could take shape, the door shut completely, and the room was plunged into total darkness.

“Palmira! Palmira!?”

“It’s okay, I’m here.”

When I called out for Palmira, who I’d completely lost sight of, Palmira’s voice came from nearby. It was calmer than I thought. She was probably okay for now.

“B–Big Sisteeeer~”

“Aira, it’s okay. Don’t let go of my hand.”

” — ! I — I won’t!”

I couldn’t see her, but I squeezed her hand a bit more tightly.
h.e.l.l if I know what’s going on, but at any rate, all three of us are in one piece.
So calm down, me.
I sat down cautiously, then slowly took a deep breath.

Alright, what is all this?
Percival said he was taking us to join the others, he definitely did. But this was obviously somewhere else.
Then there was his expression as he shut the door.
Putting the pieces together, I came to the logical conclusion.

“…He betrayed us, huh?”

As for what he wanted to achieve by doing so, where do I even start looking?
However, I do know that his goal was to lead us here. Then, isn’t it possible that his intention was to separate us from the Elite Guard by bringing us here?

Then there must be something here…
I strained my eyes.
Perhaps because my eyes were adjusting, our surroundings slowly but steadily began to come into view. I could see Palmira’s back a few steps ahead of me. She already had her sword at the ready. That was rea.s.suring.

I couldn’t see enough to figure out what this place was.
But at least the door we came through should be behind us. Getting out of here was priority number one, so I slowly backed towards it. However, Percival’s objective most likely was to shut us in here. That door probably wouldn’t open.
I knew that, but without being able to see anything else, it was all I had.

“Palmira, don’t get too far away from me…”

I called out to her back.
At that moment, that sensation attacked me again. An unsettling tingle at the back of my neck. I already knew exactly what it was. That presence.

“Palmira! Be careful! Something’s… in here with us!”

What, I couldn’t say. But there was something in this room. And it was watching us.
I called for Palmira as I searched for the presence. At least, she was the only one in here who could fight. All I could do was count on her.

“Oh? Lookin’ for me…?”

“!!!”

Before I could find it, it spoke.
I faced the direction of the voice, but I couldn’t see anything. But at the same time, I heard the sound of something heavy falling to the floor.

I unconsciously pulled Aira closer to me.

It was a man’s voice. One I’d never heard before.
But I did know a little something about its owner. Even now, the back of my neck tingled painfully.
I had no basis for it. But I knew for a fact that he was the shadow I saw earlier.

Whump!

“Kya!”

In the middle of things, another tremor rocked the tower. This one was quite strong. As it faded away, the walls cracked here and there, letting light stream in. It was dim, but I could now see the entire room.

A storehouse? I could see swords and armor and sacks packed with something or another piled up in the corners of the room. It was pretty roomy.
And there he was, dead center.

” — !”

In front of me, Palmira dropped into a stance, the tip of her sword pointing at it.

I took a sharp breath, stiffening.

A giant, more than two meters tall. He had a ma.s.sive single-edged blade in his hands. His hair gathered up in back, a bold grin on his heavily scarred face — I know him.

And I don’t mean that vague stuff about ‘the shadow’.
This was from my memories as an adventurer, when I was still a man.
The scarred figure that left terror in its wake.

“…Maddox…!”

I squeezed out the name I could never forget.
It was the stuff of nightmares. My body wouldn’t move. And at the same time, my mind fled from reality, screaming ‘He can’t possibly be here!’
It can’t be… it can’t be!

“What, you know me?”

Picking up what should’ve been a whisper, that man — the man nicknamed ‘Ma.s.sacre Maddox’ — confirmed my fears.
My body wouldn’t move. And my voice was already gone.

Author’s Note
Sorry, it was a little short.
I decided to cut it here.
I’m going to post one more chapter today.