Ashes and Kingdoms

3-1. Hunger

Chapter Three

Deep... deep everywhere, sinking into the deep beyond the reach of light.

The elaborate darkness sags quietly and slowly. Bottomless vortex that swallows ambiguous things. Light, sound, even time sinks into it.

If the abyss is nothingness, it is not. Intense enough to be touched, angry and hateful, hungry for revenge - already, darkened and forced into darkness.

Standing outside Quanos, Marquis Senato inhaled deep as the incense of flowers, the bloody signs of rising from beneath the earth.

(Mousgda)

Soon, we'll be able to sweep away the parasites that devour inebriation. I can finally clear up the humiliation that has plagued him for years.

A woman's gate, an indolent lord who can't get out of her mother's shadow, and a nobleman who slapped her in the pussy. A damned mother who became the culprit whose voice was shredded, and a father who remained so.

It was still a good time to be a part of the Dragon Horse Conference, despite all the humiliation. When Hate Genus dissolved the meeting, he learned of the true humiliation of being deprived of his power. that the dialogue thrown at the phrase

"If you become a councillor after an election, the gates of the council are open"

- and so on.

(Emperor!

Are you going to stand alone at the top of everything? Therefore, the owners of the righteous and noble Dragon Hou family are told to take the same seats as the merchants who are in a nasty mood for elephants!?

Repeatedly, the anger, which has been re-tasted and densified several times, is now another black drip, falling into the vortex.

What is the election and what is the councillor? Both fools prefer rotten liquor that fills their greedy stomachs.

(Rotten)

And the city, and its corrupt, lazy, foolish bastards.

(annihilation biteshimae)

We should perish.

You can no longer expect anything from anyone, you can't hope for it now. Closing his eyes and pointing his consciousness towards the bottom of the earth, blurred some sights emerged in the swirling darkness.

Senato, a grandson who gets used to emperor Varys. Senators and merchants working out measures in Parliament to maintain trade and convenience with the West. All are the sights of his followers, who vowed to obey his will and his gold.

Senato turned his consciousness to one vision. Sitting opposite my grandson, calling me my daughter is also an angry woman figure. I'm not even proud of the visions, I'm trying to impress the emperor...

(Speak of my grandchildren, are they the weak ones raised by those women?)

Even the angry samurai, who sat down pushing every servant and guardian she tried to put on her first grandson, is joining the conspiracy scene in a plot. The woman emitted a sharp voice, her vision blurred and she went far.

Senato bites his teeth and leaves his sight to sink into the darkness.

(Abominable)

I didn't know Fernena would use the ladies' handouts to take in and tie those grandchildren.

When a boy of his own name is manipulated by his mother's demon hand and he still thinks it's in the Imperial Capital and hidden behind the samurai, so much so that the core of his head is paralysed by anger.

With trembling, he regained consciousness in his vision of reality. In a slightly distant tree, the darkness is elaborate. I could feel the gaze of what I was looking at from there.

"... and a little more..."

Blurred voice whispers. Senato nodded as well.

"We're almost there. Wait."

The darkness waves to respond, shuddering. There was a grin on Senato's gruesome lips.

- And then.

Father-in-law.

Following the noise of stepping apart from the gutter and the grass, a call was made. Signs of darkness fade and Senato turns around slowly, turning away his grin as well. Rufus was about to come with one of his men.

"What are you doing here? Here comes the blacksmith you called for."

Senato did not answer the query and poured cold eyes on his daughter's son-in-law.

He's a boring man, too.

He didn't know what his wife was doing, and he used it so that he could expose himself to dumb surfaces. The only thing I've ever done is give birth to a boy's inheritance.

Senato snorted, silently passing beside Rufus back to the barracks.

Rufus, meanwhile, dropped off his stepfather's back and shuddered small when he was struck by an inexplicable chill. My men who followed me also frown anxiously.

"Dragon Marquis seems to be in a diagonal mood these days."

"You're in a diagonal mood," Rufus grinned bitterly. "I hope it's just a matter of mood."

Turn your gaze toward the tree as you answer. Unconsciously wondering what bothered you.

He captured the remnants of the drifting darkness, and his grey golden eyes became more rugged.

"Lord Rufus?

Control his men's inquiries with his eyes, and he approaches the tree carefully with his hands on the sword pattern.

"Is anyone there?"

Whispering sharply, he stepped further - shortly afterwards, he collapsed greatly.

"Wow!?

His feet were taken by an unexpected blur, and he nearly collapsed in danger. Barely pulls his leg out, takes it, and leaves. Looking back, the smudge that devoured one of his legs was a hole as open as a small mouth.

Zaza, and the sand falls into it. Rufus was attacked by an unnameable sensation and looked seriously at it. Beast nest hole or mogul passage? It would be normal to think so. But what happened to his brain more than three years ago.

(Same crack that almost devoured the general)

In the end, the crack at that time was that the ground would be loose, so that a fence was erected around the area to keep people away. The place is hundreds of steps away from here.

(No way, so far...?

My spine got cold. This place that stands now is also just a thin superficial layer, and if you stab the spear, it will push you through the Zuburi and the cavity below.

Such fear springs up, as if the enemy soldiers had already been digging a pit beneath the walls, no, a giant creature with no specialty was devouring beneath the earth.

Rufus was impulsively pulling out his sword and sticking it in his little smudge. With full strength.

"... Huh!

Gah, and the blade tip stops when it hits the stone. His hand was paralyzed by the unexpected shock, and Rufus glanced at him. Waiting for the pain to pull. Horrible. Looking closely at the hand again, the sword was eating up ahead was just, like, an unchanging blur. The sand on the edge rubbed against the blade collapses, making a light noise and piling it to the bottom.

Rufus exhaled deeply and long, pulling out his sword as he shook his head against something. Pay dirt and tuck it in your sheath while trying not to worry about your suspicious-faced men.

(What are you nervous about?)

Since when did you become like a child frightened by the shadows on the wall? I feel sorry for myself while I keep my legions.

As Rufus stood still, his men came by in fear. I guess he got anxious about his boss's unintelligible behavior, Rufus imagined replacing himself with us and laughed inside out.

"Nothing. I just hit eight on the ground."

I make excuses in a mild tone, trying to make it a joke. But his men raised their vague faces and looked alternately at Rufus and the ground.

"Really? I have the..."

Momogu says something, and shuts his mouth like he's embarrassed. Rufus blinked.

"What's up?"

"No, it's nothing. It was my fault."

"Just say it. What did you think it was?"

Strongly urged, his men answered reluctantly.

"To me, something seemed to have eaten up on the Legion Leader's feet. The hole also felt like a bottomless… I don't know what to say, it made me feel creepy. Before the Legion Leader stabbed his sword, the spilled sand seemed to suck in everywhere"

That's it, he can't stand the stare of Rufus and gets sick. Staring at my nail tips, but sometimes turning my gaze toward the hole.

To his men's words Rufus rebuffed his memory and lost his words. Indeed, at first, when I pulled my leg out and escaped, the fallen sand...

(No sound)

Even though some chunks fell with a few thin grasses growing, they didn't make any noise.

He kept his mouth shut forever, so his men couldn't wait to step back. Rufus returns to me and takes care of the calm in his mind.

"It doesn't seem like my memory is wrong. It certainly seemed that way to me, too"

――

My men get a little tight and look up. Rufus maintained his faceless expression and glanced at the blur that was already indistinguishable from the surrounding ground.

"Maybe it's a sign that something bad is happening. We must draw the attention of the soldiers. I don't really want to... stay away from this side."

Rufus said, vaguely showing a strip by hand. My men looked like they had said something, but I reconsidered, and I understood briefly. This side, that is, the side where there was supposedly a rift in the earth that sealed darkness. I guess I thought about what that meant. But if you talk about the murder, it's going to be real, and you must have stuck your mouth shut. Just like Rufus himself.

Unknowingly, Rufus was remembering the appearance of a giant dragon shining white. He stood dignified without being overwhelmed by his beauty, even the figure of a young dragon marquis.

They said they had fled fighting the dark family. Rufus was going to believe the story, but I guess he still had some other sense of HR. Now I realize that darkness may rave from my feet, and I'm blue.

(Do I have to call him)

I just rely on it when I'm in trouble, and how impudent.

Shamed of himself, he was thinking. Without that heavenly dragon, I don't feel like I can fight the dark. Things will be completely different from burning bonfires and patrolling every night.

(before it's too late...)

Rufus went back to the barracks, urging his men, who still cared about the ground, to answer the letter. There is no reason to know that the Dragon Marquis of the North is asked by the Emperor to vacate his headquarters, heading east, etc.