中空の生き物
Chūkū no ikimono
A short novel by Carel Beneke
Introdution...
As the human era was entering the 8th century of warless existence with nothing but peace and a feeling of harmony known to them, mysterious creatures that prey on the spiritual energy of humans interrupted this idealistic world...
Man called it: "Kūdō".
In an effort to eliminate the existence of these beings, man gathered all the forces from around the world! An army so large that its marching alone could crumble mountains to the ground and caused canyons to form. It was called: "The Global Imperial Force" or "GIF" in short.
But their efforts weren't enough and the Kūdō succeeded in killing over 90% of the world's population…
The GIF was mostly destroyed and mere groups of soldiers remained.
Scene 1 Appearance of the hollows
The beautiful countryside of the Maiti Kingdom, ruled by Kyōryokuna. He ruled with authority and respect as core values in a land where the citizens knew their place. Still there was a mutual respect between people from different classes of civilization.
Local villagers going about their ordinary daily routine are suddenly brought to a halt when, out of thin air on this particularly hot yet cloudy day, a flash of lightning bolts down and frozen with fear and yet some amusement, the locals notice shadowy tinted transparent figures with torn robes and purple flames emerging from the robes, standing in what seems to be a magical blue circle engraved with ancient language on the ground.
Glowing with a pearl blue color the circle from which the shadows emerged, starts to collect energy and every living thing around the circle in a certain range gets the life sucked out of it and falls to the ground. Leaving only a brownish-black corps behind. Then with a high pitched sound it starts spinning and vanishes into the air like a lightning bolt revolting and heading back up into the now stormy thunderclouds above.
The villagers notice that the figures that was left behind had vanished, still shocked by the happenings before them they are hesitant but yet in a way seem to feel some type of relieve for the shadows have vanished and they seem to be out of any immediate danger, but it merely seemed that way...
For no person could ever have come to think or predict, not even in the slightest of faint memories of any mere mortal being, the destruction and chaos that lay latent deep within these beings!
But they would soon enough come to realize that these beings held destructive capabilities far beyond imagination's borders...
Scene 2 Murder
Yūkanna, a young girl (12), runs home as quickly as her legs could carry her, trying to get as far away from the central marketplace where she had just witnessed this unbelievable appearance of beings out of thin air and to warn her parents about what she had just seen.
Her muscles cramping and stitching, her lungs sucking like they were taking their last grasps of this earthly air...
She finally arrives at their home, a small wooden shack-like house with very little and short in counting windows, a bean shaped pond in front of the front door with a half circled wooden bridge with ancient carvings, arcing over it. Stone slabs overgrown with bright green moss supported the windows and the roof was made from the finest tiles around, molded by a master crafts-man and good friend of Yūkanna's father, a great scientist, glowing in a dull orange-red distinctive color.
Yūkanna bursts through the front door and sees her mother busy preparing lunch in the kitchen, her father was in the study-room busy with research, like he usually was.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Trying to catch her breath she takes a sip of water that her mother had just handed to her with her beautiful, friendly smile, a ray of light from the only kitchen window, illuminating her cherry-red hair from behind, making her look like an angel saving Yūkanna from her deprived thirst.
"Now calm down and then calmly explain yourself" her mother tells her as she almost chokes on the water as she tries to speak and drink at the same time, her father, professor Yutamo Shuragashi, also enters the kitchen and helps himself to a chopped tomato slice his wife was preparing.
Just as Yūkanna starts to explain why she is in such a panic, a knock is heard on the front door. Mister Yutamo quickly swallows the slice of tomato and walks towards the door but when he opens it, a flood of darkness streams into the house and chaos erupts like a grumbling volcano bursting fourth with all the mighty power of mother nature.
Mister Yutamo drops to the ground and Yūkanna sees her father as he thumps down and lays motionless. As she turns her head and channels her eyes to where her mother is standing, she is greeted with a pair of pale blue eyes and the sight of the kitchen knife driven through her mother's chest from behind by this shadowy figure! Shapeless and constantly changing but yet a little larger than an average male human being, it stands there with her mother lifted from the ground.
Yūkanna wants to help her mother but her body won't respond, brought to a halt by the fear inside her she cannot do anything except stand and watch as her mother mumbles her last words in a whisper: "I LOVE YOU!"
Suddenly a flash followed by an explosion ignites the house into blistering flames. Yūkanna notices a barrier around her and sees her father standing between her and the Kūdō with his hand stretched out towards her. He stables himself and then with extreme force chants a spell by screaming:"Ignito Dissapearento". He then falls to the ground again and the Kūdō is pulled into a blackhole-fortex. The barrier around her dismantles and she drops to her knees with her parents on the ground before her. Her father reaches out to her and just as she reaches to take his hand, his hand drops to the ground.
She softly starts to cry. Then out of the scorching flames, another Kūdō approaches, but Yūkanna doesn't move a muscle, for everything that she loved dearly and cherished in this world has already been taken from her.
The Kūdō slowly starts moving towards her. Just as it was about an arm length away from her it suddenly retracted and took a few steps back, again it tried to move closer to her but the exact same thing happened. The Kūdō then picked up a sharp piece of glass from one of the broken windows and it again started moving towards her. The Kūdō then lifted its arm and just as it is about to stab her, its head is decapitated and its limbs are severed!
Yūkanna starts to lose consciousness and as she does she sees a man standing on a tower through the hole in the roof with his cape blowing in the wind and the moon starting to rise behind him…
Scene 3 Battle-Strategy
Yūkanna was saved from her burning home by a general from the GIF. General Führer raised her to the best of his abilities being aware of the fact that she was the sole survivor of her village…
The Kūdō was defeated in the battle of Heiwana village, the small town Yūkanna used to live in. But the town lay in ruins and more of the Kūdō were approaching, therefore the northern-flank of the GIF had to withdraw from the battlefield and couldn't savage anything from this battle except this little girl, but general Führer saw potential in her and knew that she might carry the key to the future with her, whilst being the first human to ever come face to face with not one but two Kūdō and live to tell the tale.
He nurtured her and taught her battle strategies from a young age in the hopes of having a worthy predecessor to continue in his footsteps for the day when he might not be there anymore. She excelled in his teachings and before long she surpassed him mentally, although not lacking in physical abilities she just wasn't on par with him yet, but she was getting there with only 3 people in the entire GIF, excluding general Führer, being able to beat her in hand to hand combat.
6 Years later…
Yūkanna now 18 years old, will join the Southern Legion of the GIF in its efforts to capture a Kūdō to determine the secrets of its existence and to try and establish a barrier around the last known human inhabited town of the capital.
After her briefing she mounts her noble horse and is given her sacred weapon and shield. Her armour made from dragon scales and Ferronite (A nearly indestructible metal with extreme shock and heat resistance, while not wearing down its wearer by being incredibly light weighted.).
She is followed by an elite squad of hand-picked soldiers trained by the most elite members of the remaining GIF and known to carry out any and every order with no hesitation whatsoever. A genuinely unique squad used for infiltration and gathering information from areas where the waves of Kūdō are too dense for large groups of the battalion to be able to move through unnoticed or without stirring up a fight. Known as: "Osore no nai 6", meaning the fearless six. The group consists of six members including Yūkanna. They are: Mizure Namura (a water mage); Kuzako Izuna (a master in battle with any type of weapon); Jinkaku Yumaru (a top notch strategist); Aria Russel (a mastermind in the art of deception and trickery).
The last member is a man who previously was a member of the Old-Order (an organization created to protect the Capital from the Kūdō) his name, one known far and wide: Hazukin Matu also known as 'Kuroikazuchi' meaning: Black Lightning. He earned himself this name in the Great Battle of the Grasslands, where he is said to have single-handedly taken down 400 Kūdō with a single spell that lets black lightning rain down on your enemy from the sky in an attempt to save the Capital from complete destruction. But of course the use of a spell of that destructive power and magnitude cannot come without cost! He sustained several severe injuries and lost his right arm, he also almost depleted his Magnita (the source of energy a wizard uses to conjure a spell) completely! Placing him in a coma for two months and resulting that he has to take special medication every day to stabilize his Concepto Kernito (the core in the human body to control changing levels of Magnura (magical power). If he failed in taking his medicine, his Concepto Kernito would disrupt the flow of Magnura in his body, causing an unstable balance and resulting in the atomic dismantling of his body, in other words, his body will become a magical bomb, with destructive capabilities equal to that of an atomic bomb!
The Capital wanted to execute Hazukin out of fear that he might lose control of his power and flatten the whole city by exploding, but they didn't do so because of the uncertainty that he would explode if he died because of the instability of his Magnura.
Anyway, the Osore no nai 6 are to exit the protection of the Capital and go to the most Eastern part of the city, there lies a forest and they are to escort a group of ten mages who specialize in barrier magic to establish a barrier to protect the Capital from any attacks while they try to capture a Kūdō.
Scene 4 Barrier at the Forest of Death
The Fearless Six together with the ten mages arrive at the forest known as the forest of death on the eastern side of the city. As they dismount their horses they hear movement from the forest and ready themselves.
Yūkanna orders them to be on guard and to expect the worst. She then heads into the forest alone after telling them to cover her with long ranged weapons and spells if something were to happen…
As she brushes away the thick undergrowth of the forest she hears the rattling of bushes about 15 steps to her left. She responds by using an anti-gravity spell and leaps to the side of a large tree next to her to get a better view of what she might be hearing.
As her foot touches the side of the tree and she tries to activate her mounting spell which allows her to walk inverted to any object, she feels her body becoming numb as she starts to fall to the ground, a paralyzation-spell she thinks to herself…
When she wakes up she is lying of the ground facing upwards on the spot where they dismounted before she entered the forest. Her team of soldiers are standing above her looking at her, while shaking his head Jinkaku tells her that it wasn't an enemy they had heard and that she should be more cautious when entering a potential battle without knowing what she is facing.
As she sits up she sees the person Jinkaku had just talked about, an old man wearing a long white robe, with a white beard reaching to his belly. She feels stupid for falling into an old coward's trap as she refers to the old man.
The man responds by calling her an inadequate leader for a squad as elite as hers and tells her that she lacks patience and that she should not enter a battle alone if she doesn't know what she is up against…
Before she could respond the old man notifies her that he doesn't want to interfere with their mission and that he was only gathering some herbs from the forest. He then tells her that he is an alchemist that lives by himself in the depths of the forest and that he only came to the edge of the forest to collect these highly rare and needed herbs for a special type of research he was conducting by himself.
She then accepts his explanation and returns to wanting to order the ten barrier wizards to start setting up the barrier they came to set up.
Aria then informs her that the barrier has been set up two days ago and she was unconscious for three days in total!
Struck with surprise she takes another look at the old man, amused by the incredible spell of paralyzation that she stepped on, she asks his name.
When he responds by telling her that he is but a mere humble old man studying herbs for a living and that his name isn't of any importance to a noble soldier and leader as herself, she becomes irritated and grabs him by the collar.
Her team steps in and tries to stop her. They separate her from the old man and calm her down. They then also inform her that if it wasn't for a special potion they got from the old man, that she would not have come too at all.
Yes, she would have remained in a state of sleep for the rest of her days! A state this old man calls: "Mugen no suimin" meaning endless sleep.
Realizing that this certainly isn't any ordinary old man she decides to not bother him any further and reminds her team that they have only completed half of their objective and that they still needed to capture a Kūdō.
After hearing this the old man answers that he has a great method and that he could help them in completing their mission, but there would be a price to his help…
Scene 5 Fortress of the Great Wizard
The old man's price…Yes a great one it was indeed, especially for a commander with trust issues and towards an old man who possesses some astonishing and mind-blowing abilities.
The man wanted to place her and her team under a spell so that they would not be able to know where his hideout was. The man wanted it done this way in order for the capital not to know about his whereabouts.
After thinking about the deal for quite some time, Yūkanna comes to a point where she decides to send the ten barrier mages back to the capital with one of her men while she and the other four members of her team will be placed under the old man's spell to be taken to his hideout in the forest.
She chose Mizure to accompany them back to the capital because of her skills as a water mage and because she is a great tracker who would be able to find the path that the old man would have taken them through the forest by using her water magic to fuse with the soil in the ground infusing it with her nerve-system she would then be able to retrace the route taken through the forest with backup from the capital should something go wrong with the rest of the team.
Yūkanna also told Mizure that if she didn't hear anything from Aria telepathically in the next three days, that she needed to bring a five-man squad to find them and while doing so also capture the old man, as he would most probably be responsible for their disappearance.
With that said she sent Mizure off to the capital and told the old man that they were ready to be taken with him.
The old man then pulled out a bottle from his robe. One by one the remaining five each took a sip of the potion.
After a while they all started to feel dizzy and passed out. Mizure and the ten barrier wizards were gone and the old man decided that the time was right.
He pulled out a scroll from his robe and rolled it open before him on the ground. He then took a knife out and blew over it. The knife then started glowing and he drove it into the scroll. A huge cloud of smoke poured out of the scroll and suddenly a carriage-like vehicle stood before him. He then cast a levitation spell on the five soldiers and loaded them onto the carriage-like vehicle.
After an hour of traveling through the forest he stopped at a waterfall and after saying a passphrase the waterfall started rumbling and a huge boulder emerged from it. The boulder spilt the waterfall in two and a ramp descending into the ground was at the bottom of this boulder.
The old man entered this boulder in the waterfall, it retracted and the waterfall went back to normal.
Once inside, the old man deactivated several traps and magical circuits intended to keep intruders out. He then placed the five on the ground and retracted his summoned carriage. He then reactivated all the traps and gave the five a potion to wake them up.
Amazed by this incredible place they found themselves the five soldiers firstly spent some time admiring and exploring the cave with the old man.
While doing so, something caught Yūkanna's eye…
It was a wooden door at the end of a passage that wasn't part of the main tunneling system that the old man led them through. She only noticed the door because of an awful sound that came from the other side of the door. She asked the old man about the door and she wanted to know what the man was keeping in there.
The man answered that it was his experimentation room and that the sound that she heard was that of the exact same thing they were searching to capture…
A live Kūdō!