The Eminence in Shadow

“Uhhh…yup. That is definitely a thing that I did.”

“Incredible! I’ll have to work harder so I can learn to figure things out that quickly.”

“…Best of luck with that.”

“Thank you!”

Beta’s smile is downright dazzling.

“Out of curiosity, why do you keep picking such revealing outfits?”

“Well, it’s so rare I get an opportunity like this…”

What’s so rare about it?

Is she talking about getting to try out clothes made of unfamiliar materials? Their unfamiliar designs? Their unfamiliar features? All of the above?

“C’mon, go pick out some

normal

clothes.”

“Yes, sir…”

Beta begrudgingly trudges out of the room.

By the time all’s said and done, it takes us another full hour to leave the Tanaka residence.

“So, where are we going?” Beta asks.

She’s all done changing, and we just left the house.

The getup she settled on was a baggy knitted sweater, jeans, a pair of sneakers, and a hat to hide her ears and hair. I was able to sell her on it by emphasizing how easy the whole thing was to move in.

I also have a thirty-liter backpack I grabbed, which I filled with empty bottles and our spare clothes.

“We’ll start by finding a river to get water from. Then, we’ll gather more information on this world.”

I wanna find out if this really is the same Japan I’m from, and if it is, why it’s fallen into ruin.

“I agree, that’s a good plan. This world seems to be full of fascinating technology.”

And so, we set off in search of water.

If I conserve my energy, I can function for at least a month without food, and I assume Beta can do the same.

Water, though—water’ll getcha. I’ve never tested how long I can go without it, but even I’d probably hit my limit at around ten days.

“I wonder what these pillars are for? It looks like they’re made of concrete, but why do they have them at such regular intervals? Are they used in some sort of religious ritual?”

As we walk, Beta’s eager gaze lands on the telephone poles. She’s armed with a pen and notepad, and she’s sketching at a blistering pace.

“Heh. Turn your gaze to the black wires running between the pillars. See that metal in their cross sections? From that, you can deduce that they’re used to deliver electricity to each of the residences.”

“Oh, you’re right. The wires

are

connected to the houses. This world must use electricity in really sophisticated ways. I can’t believe you found the answer so easily from so few clues.”

“Heh-heh-heh…”

“But…if that’s the case, then why don’t they just bury the wires underground?”

“Huh? Well, that’s, errr…”

I dunno.

“…for c-cost performance reasons? A-a-and it would make it harder to perform maintenance. Oh yeah, and earthquakes—underground wires would run into big problems if they ever had an earthquake.”

“But wouldn’t an earthquake knock the pillars over, too?”

“They, uhhhhhhh, they’re really sturdy pillars.”

Beta nods. “You’re absolutely right. Burying the wires underground

would

be time-consuming, so if hanging them up is inexpensive, it’s probably a viable alternative.”

“For sure, for sure, for sure.”

“But then, if this ‘Jappan’ had all this advanced technology, how did it fall into such ruin? I don’t see any signs of drought or flooding, so I find it hard to imagine this all having been caused by a natural disaster.”

“Your confusion is reasonable, but…I have a pretty good idea of what happened here.”

That part’s true, actually.

“Wh… You’ve already deduced the cause?!”

“Indeed…,” I say with a meaningful smile.

I have a solid theory, although I’m not quite certain of anything yet.

I don’t wanna say it out loud in case I end up being wrong, but the cause is probably related to the magic wafting through the air.

To the best of my knowledge, nobody ever actually found magic in my old world aside from those two lights I saw right before I died. Now, though, this place is brimming with the stuff.

In other words, Japan probably fell victim to some sort of magical incident.

When that happened, all the sudden changes caused a massive panic.

That’s what I’ve got my money on, at least.

Beta’s nose twitches. “I smell water in that direction.”

“You’re right.”

I used to live here, so I already know where the river is, but that’s neither here nor there.

When we arrive at the river, it’s way clearer than I remember it being. I guess that’s what happens when all the humans disappear.

“It looks potable, at least,” Beta says.

I divvy up the empty bottles and begin filling mine with water.

We’re not boiling the water, but thanks to magic tempering, our stomachs are like steel, so we’ll be fine.

“I see fish, so we should be all right as far as food goes, too,” Beta notes. “Shall we catch some?”

“Nah, let’s worry about that later. We can just go hunting if we get hungry.”

“Ah, you’re right. There are birds in the sky as well, so we have plenty of options.”

“Ayup.”

I load the bottles into my backpack and hoist it onto my back.

“Here, let me take that,” Beta offers.

“Nah, I got it. In this nation’s culture, it’s the custom for men to carry the luggage.”

“I see… I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you’ve already mastered this world’s customs.”

“Of course not. Now, as for our next destination…”

“I’d like to go to some sort of communal building. We might be able to find some documents or impressive feats of engineering there.”

“Hmm. In that case, maybe the library…? Oh, we can go to Nishino University!”

Nishino Zaibatsu is crazy rich, and one of the things they did with their money is build a ridiculously fancy, high-tech university atop a nearby mountain. It’s a school for pampered rich kids, and an enemy of the masses. I once swore to take a crowbar and smash every window on the campus, but I ended up getting reincarnated before I could make good on that vow.

“What’s that?” Beta asks.

“According to some reliable intel, a bunch of rich scoundrels dumped a boatload of cash into building a fancy research institution. They probably used it to perform illegal human experimentation.”

“I see this world is no stranger to evil.”

“Wherever there is light, so too is there darkness. Such is the way of the world…”

“Wise words, my lord.”

And so, we set off.

We stop by my old house on the way there and find that there’s nothing left of it but rubble.

Mom, Dad, and my dog, John, had to move to America because of a job relocation, though, so they’re probably fine.

The sun begins setting, and honestly, the vermilion autumn sky is super pretty.

We could’ve made it to the university in no time if we’d just dashed there at full speed, but Beta was having so much fun sightseeing, and I was having so much fun giving her exposition that we ended up taking it fairly slow.

It’s fine, though. Either way, we’ll get there by the end of the day.

As we walk, a serious expression crosses Beta’s face. “After seeing all this, I got to thinking…”

“Oh yeah?”

“The alphabet this ‘Jappan’ uses looks oddly familiar.”

“It does…?”

Beta’s from a whole different world, so there’s no way she’s ever seen written Japanese before, unless—ah!

Now that she mentions it, I used Japanese in that coded message I gave her, didn’t I?

Wait, does that mean she actually deciphered it?!

No, no. Let’s think about this rationally.

There’s no way a fifteen-year-old elf could possibly have done that. She probably just subconsciously noticed the similarities between the characters, that’s all.

“Y-you’re probably just imagining things.”

“Am I? I wonder…”

This could be bad.

If Beta figures out how to read Japanese, she’ll figure out that all my Shadow Wisdom is actually just from here.

When I told her and the others about chocolate and paper money and banks and literature, I told them that it was all stuff I invented on my own.

I gotta get her back to her original world, pron…to?

Then, I finally realize something.

How

are

we supposed to get back?

“What’s wrong, Master Shadow? It looks like you’ve broken out into a cold sweat.”

“I’m, uhhh…doing thermoregulation training.”

All I wanted to do was pull off a badass exit, but now I’m in a giant mess!

How could I, of all people, forget to plan out an escape route?

“Master Shadow, you’re shivering.”

“I’m, uhhh…experimenting with a technique where I vibrate my body to generate sonic waves.”

“That’s my Master Shadow—always striving to better himself!”

C’mon, settle down.

I got to this world by jumping in a black hole, so if I find another black hole to jump in, it should shoot me right back.

It’s gonna be okay. Everything’s gonna work out.

For starters, I just need to look for a powerful source of magic…

Before I can finish my thought, however, I catch a whiff of the breeze.

“Hmm. I know this smell…”

It’s one I’m well familiar with—the putrid stink of death.

It’s like the way the Tanaka house smelled, but way, way stronger. The odor is practically suffocating.

“I think the smell is coming from that building over there,” Beta says.

“Ah…the hospital.”

“You mean, like a large infirmary? I guess this society must not have developed magical healing techniques.”

“It would appear not.”

I mean, they weren’t supposed to have magic at all.

“It seems like the smell is coming from the top floor,” I say.

“So it does,” Beta replies.

“Shall we?”

“Yes, sir.”

“On my mark, jump.”

I can sense traces of magic coming from the hospital.

Hopefully, there’ll be a clue there that can lead me to the black hole.

The two of us jump in unison and go for a shortcut to the top floor. Glass shatters as we successfully make our dynamic entry.

The lights are off, so the room is dark. Fortunately, we could move around just fine even if it were pitch-black.

“It’s a sickroom,” I note.

“I see bloodstains.”

“And signs of a struggle.”

“No bodies, though.”

Still, it’s probably nearby. The same thing happens a lot when people get attacked by bandits. Once someone’s lost this much blood, they probably aren’t getting far.

We open the door and head out of the room.

“Bingo.”

When we do, we find a set of corpses scattered across the blood-soaked hallway.

Beta doesn’t so much as hesitate before going in and manually inspecting them.

“It looks like they were eaten by some kind of animal.”

“Makes sense.”

I don’t want to get my hands dirty or for the smell to get stuck to my clothes, so I leave the autopsy to Beta.

Considering the stage of their decomposition, I estimate that they probably died less than a week ago.

Oh hey, Beta made gloves out of her slime.

Slime gloves, huh? I never thought of that.

She’s a smart cookie, that Beta.

“I think it’s safe to say these were humans from this world. All told, there are three bodies: two men, one woman, all adults.” As Beta speaks, she lays out the three skulls with some hair still attached. “Based on the ambient temperature and humidity, I estimate the time of death at about five days ago.”

“In other words, there were people here at least that recently,” I muse.

“We might be able to find other survivors.”

Then, I sense it.

Something in the hospital is on the move.

“Beta.”

“Hmm…? Ah, we’re not alone.”

A moment later, Beta notices the same thing.

There’s a presence one floor down.

“Let’s go check it out.”

Without further ado, we barrel down the stairs to catch the creatures.

The creatures in question are some sort of darkish beasts.

I take two of them, and Beta takes a third.

We grab them by the hind legs and yank them onto the ground.

“Do you think these things are behind the crime scene up there?” Beta asks.

“Probably, yeah.”

We observe the beasts as they struggle and thrash about.

“You know,” she says, “they look a lot like the magical beasts that were laying waste to Oriana.”

“You’re right, they do.”

Now that she mentions it, they

do

kinda resemble the black creatures that got summoned alongside the big bat.

They have that same black fur, and their red eyes look similar, too. In terms of how much mana they have, though, the creatures in Oriana have these guys beat by a country mile.

They’re kind of like a cross between a lion and a bear, and between that and the admittedly meager amount of mana they have, an average human would have a pretty tough time dealing with one of these.

Compared to me and Beta, though…

“…They’re so weak.”

“They really are,” Beta agrees.

She plants her foot atop the raging beast’s neck and stomps down, pulverizing its throat and ending its life.

Blood goes spraying everywhere, so I have to use the beasts I’ve grabbed as shields to block it.

“Oh, I’m sorry, my lord.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

I have one creature in each hand, and I smash them together to kill them.

Y’know, looking at how big the fangs on these things are, I bet these are the same type of beasts as the ones behind the Tanaka house attack.

Looks like Japan’s discovery of magic did a real number on the environment.

Did the local fauna hit the gym or something?

“Master Shadow, are these the weak little pigs you mentioned earlier?”

“No, the pigs are even weaker than this.”

“Weaker that

this

? It boggles the mind. How did they survive out in the wild?”

“It’s a mystery, for sure.”

“Mysteries upon mysteries…”

“Oh, whoop.”

I quickly conjure a slime sword and slash behind myself, cleaving in two the beast that was coming after me.

“Splendid work,” Beta says. She makes a sword as well and swings it downward.

A beast is charging at her head-on, but although her attack splits it clean down the middle, more and more of the black creatures are gathering by the moment.

“Looks like this place is their nest,” I comment.

“It does, doesn’t it? I suspect they start their day around sundown.”

That would explain why the magic I sensed earlier was so faint.

We spend the next little while cleaning up the magical beasts as they try to attack us.

All in all, we end up killing about fifty of ’em.

Throughout the battle, I make sure to use my slime to shield myself so I don’t get any blood on my clothes.

“It feels silly to even suggest, but… Is there a chance that here in Jappan, these creatures rule the ecosystem from atop the food chain?” Beta asks.

“It’s…a definite possibility.”

Trying to beat these bad boys without magic would be an uphill battle.

Even if you manage to wound them with conventional attacks, they can regenerate the damage in barely any time at all.

These magical beasts are hella weak, so a thousand rounds from a machine gun would probably be enough to leave them too wounded to regenerate, but at that point, it’d almost be more efficient to just try to get them to attack each other.

Over in our world, dealing with powerful magical beasts is a job for dark knights, and while regular knights do take on weaker magical beasts, they do it with magically enchanted swords.

Although these beasts are pretty feeble by our standards, it’d be no surprise if they were able to reign supreme over a world that hadn’t developed magic.

“Master Shadow, I assume you’ve already noticed, but…”

“Hmm?”

“…I sense people.”

Oh hey, yeah, someone just came into the hospital.

“Should we make contact?” Beta asks me.

“Good question… Let’s stay flexible and play it by ear.”

Akane Nishino arrives in the abandoned hospital with four teammates in tow.

Her black hair is elegant and tidy, and her eyes are a striking shade of red.

“This is where the three of them were searching before they went missing.”

“By all accounts, yes.”

Five days ago, three of their knights headed to this dilapidated hospital to investigate the beasts that had taken up nesting there.

The hospital is close to their base, Nishino University. A nest there could grow too large for them to handle if they didn’t deal with it.

The thing is, the knights never returned.

Akane pushed to launch a rescue mission, but her request was vetoed from on high. The base already had its hands full from investigating the other incident from the previous week, and they didn’t have the knights to spare. In the end, the hospital situation got put on the back burner.

Akane knows how slim the odds are that any of the knights are still alive.

At the same time, though, she can’t bring herself to abandon the people she’s fought shoulder to shoulder with.

The look in her eyes hardens. “Was that investigation really more important than people’s lives…?”

The person who opposed the rescue mission was a man researching magic—as well as Akane’s own brother.

“Akane…”

“Sorry, it’s nothing,” she replies. “We should hurry.”

For now, their top priority is confirming whether those three are alive or dead.

She would have liked to help earlier, but the security in the afternoons is too tight, so the only chance she has to act is at night.

Not even her brother would expect her to go out this late.

After all, night is when the beasts reign…

“Get ready for a fight. They’re here.”

When they walk through the hospital’s entrance, they’re hit with the cloying reek of death.

None of them waste a moment before drawing their weapons.

Most of them are armed with little more than kitchen knives, but Akane is equipped with a long katana.

Her weapon shines as she runs magic through it.

The most efficient way to kill a beast is by slashing it with a bladed weapon imbued with magic, as projectile weapons lose their magical charge too quickly as they fly away from the user’s body.

“Let’s go.”

Night is when beasts are at their strongest. A single one of them is enough to give an average knight a run for their money.

The group proceeds with utmost caution.

Their footsteps echo through the ruined hospital’s flashlight-illuminated hallways.

The beasts have already noticed their incursion, no doubt.

Any moment now, they’re going to leap out and—

Drip.

“Huh?”

Some sort of sticky liquid drips down on them.

“What is this stuff…?”

“Look out! Above you!”

It’s drool from the beast clinging to the ceiling.

“AHHHHHHHH!”

The beast descends, smothering the knight with its body.

“They’re behind us, too!”

“W-we’re surrounded!”

Another beast leaps out of the darkness at Akane, but she dodges to the side and brings her katana down on its back.

It lets out a horrid cry and writhes in pain.

Then, she whirls around and mows down the beast that landed on the knight.

“Are you okay?!”

“M-my shoulder… It’s b-bleeding pretty bad…”

He isn’t in immediate mortal danger, but the wound is deep.

“Everyone, be calm! Form up with the wall to your backs!”

Akane pushes the wounded soldier up against the wall and swings her katana while protecting him with her body.

Her panicking squadmates slowly begin getting back into formation.

Somehow or other, they manage to pull it together.

“HRAAAAAH!”

Then, Akane abandons cooperation and takes a big step forward.

Her blade glows bright as she pours huge amounts of magic into it.

That’s when—

“Wh-whoa.”

“Akane’s so amazing…”

Her slash bisects three beasts clean through, ending the fight right there and then.

She wipes the blood splatters off herself and inspects her defeated foes.

There are seven of them in all, five of which Akane downed herself.

She goes around and deals the coup de grâce to each of the beasts. They’re so resilient that average knights have to hack away at them for ages to actually kill one.

If things had gone even a little bit worse, she and her squad could have gotten wiped out. That just goes to show how terrifying beasts are at night.

Once she’s done killing them all, Akane breathes a sigh of relief. “Is everyone all right?”

“I-I’m good.”

“Me too. Just a few scratches.”

“They got a pretty good chunk outta my arm.”

“My shoulderrrrr…”

Even that short battle took quite a toll on them. Pressing on would be a dangerous ordeal.

“You—you’re in charge of first aid,” Akane says.

“Y-you got it.”

“But what about you, Akane?”

“I’m going to go check upstairs.”

Their fight just then should have left the ground floor clear of beasts.

If Akane leaves the others here, she’ll be free to explore the rest of the building and fight to her heart’s content.

“Y-you can’t! We can’t let you go alone!”

“Yeah! We’re not about to abandon the Savior!”

“Cut that out.” Akane silences them, her voice as cold as ice. “I’m… I’m no savior.”

“B-but you have that special power…”

“And

everyone

calls you the Savior! They say that you’re going to save us all!”

Akane averts her eyes, unable to endure her squadmates’ imploring gazes.

Sure, she has more magic than the average knight.

And sure, she’s used that power to kill tons of beasts and save tons of lives.

But that’s not why people call her that.

It’s all because of those rumors her brother started. He just wants to use her and her power as a means to manipulate the desperate.

She’s not strong enough to save the world.

However…Akane can’t bring herself to tell them that.

“I’m just doing what I can,” she says noncommittally.

“We know that. It’s why we follow you.”

“And we’re not gonna leave you on your own!”

“…Have it your way,” she replies.

Akane and the others carry their wounded and head toward the stairs.

Each step they take shaves away a little more of Akane’s resolve. Then, the thick smell of blood hits her, and she stops in her tracks.

“Wh-what is this…?”

Their flashlights reveal a pool of red blood down at the end of the corridor. The pool extends down past the bend in the hallway.

She can tell by the scent and the color that it isn’t human blood.

It’s beast blood.

And it’s not just one beast’s worth of blood, either. It would have taken tons of them to shed that much blood.

They shine their flashlights around the corner.

“Ahh!”

One of her squadmates lets out a noise halfway between a gasp and a scream, and even Akane can’t help but recoil a step.

It’s like looking at a lake of blood.

The ceiling and walls are dyed just as red as the floor, and the blood is accompanied by floating chunks of dead beast.

There’re so many corpses it seems impossible to even count them.

“What could’ve happened here?”

“Wh-what the…?”

“You’re kidding…”

Killing this many beasts would require mobilizing a squad of knights several dozen strong.

What local group even has that many knights at their disposal?

As far as Akane knows, neither her own Messiah nor any of the neighboring factions have anything resembling that kind of man power.

Who did this? And why?

Suddenly, Akane thinks of a possibility.

“…Could an apex beast have done this?”

“What? An apex beast?!”

“From what I hear, an apex beast might have been involved with the incident my brother is looking into, as well.”

“………”

Her squadmates go as white as sheets.

There aren’t any factions in the vicinity with the power to pull something like this off, so the odds that this was done by something other than a human—like an apex beast—are exceedingly high.

Not all beasts in this world are the same.

Over ten different subspecies have already been identified, but one of them in particular—the incredibly powerful variant dubbed the apex beast—is responsible for countless dead knights and destroyed bases.

Apex beasts are like fear given flesh.

“Akane, w-we should get out of here, now.”

“There’s no way it’s still around,” she replies.

If it was, we’d all be long dead

, she tells herself. “And we still have to investigate. If an apex beast really did do this, then we need all the information we can get.”

“Y-yes, ma’am…”

The group timidly gets to work.

“These ones look like they were torn apart by fangs, but…it doesn’t make sense. These cuts are too clean.”

“It has sharp claws, then,” Akane notes.

“Th-these ones have been crushed flat. Oh, God, that’s gross.”

“Tremendous strength,” she adds.

“Th-these ones have parts all over the place… It’s like they were shredded to bits.”

“And a nasty cruel streak,” she concludes.

It’s one piece of bad news after another.

Even Akane has to admit that this apex beast’s power is off the charts.

All of the beasts there were defeated in a single strike.

Akane’s taken out a couple apex beasts in her day, but this thing is clearly far stronger than anything she’s ever encountered.

“We need a name for this new apex beast,” she says. “I suggest ‘the Brute.’”

“Looking at this mess, I’d say that’s more than appropriate.”

Suddenly, another squadmate calls over. “There’s someone here! We found survivors!”

“What?!” Akane yelps.

She had all but given up on finding the missing trio alive.

A moment later, though, her newly reignited hopes are dashed.

The people lying facedown in the hallway are strangers she’s never seen.

“Who are they?”

“Beats me, I just found them lying here. I think they’re unconscious.”

There are two of them.

The first is a boy with black hair.

He’s wearing jeans and a hoodie and carrying a backpack on his back. He’s the kind of generic refugee you could find just about anywhere.

“You think maybe their base got destroyed recently or something?”

“With an apex beast roaming around, I’d say that seems likely.”

Human strongholds falling to beast attacks has become a sadly common occurrence.

Whenever that happens, the residents are forced to search for new bases to join as refugees.

If a refugee can use magic, they’ll be accepted just about anywhere with open arms.

However, it’s all too common for refugees who aren’t so useful to get turned away at the gates, and even if they are allowed in, they’re often forced to do backbreaking manual labor to earn their keep. These days, nobody ever has enough supplies to go around.

Akane wonders if Nishino University will even take him.

“A-Akane, look at the girl! Look at her hair! It’s

silver

!”

“What?!”

Much to everyone’s surprise, the refugee girl’s hair is a beautiful shade of silver.

Akane removes the girl’s hat to get a better look.

Sure enough, it’s silver down to the roots.

“Could she really be an Awakened…?”

There are some knights called the Awakened whose magic is leagues stronger than anyone else’s.

Akane, with her red eyes, numbers among their ranks.

Those are the two notable features of the Awakened—their tremendous magic, and their physical idiosyncrasies.

In Akane’s case, her eyes turned red, but her anomaly is on the lighter side. Some people, like this girl, see their hair color change, and other unfortunate souls even experience horrible whole-body mutations.

“And look at her ears, Akane. They’re so long.”

The girl’s ears are long and pointed, almost like an elf’s out of a fairy tale.

“That settles it. She’s an Awakened, for sure.”

“A-an Awakened…”

Akane’s squadmates shrink back from the girl, almost as though they’re scared of her.

It’s not uncommon for the changes the Awakened go through to affect their personalities.

There’s no shortage of Awakeneds who use their incredible magic to kill people and end up having to be destroyed.

Those like Akane, who don’t have any visible changes to their personality, are in the minority. That’s why so many call her the Savior.

“Don’t worry. She was together with the boy, so she shouldn’t be dangerous.”

“O-oh yeah, good point. You’re right, she’s probably fine.”

The squad members’ expressions lighten a little.

As much as people fear the Awakened, they also seek their power.

“Are we going to take them both back with us?”

“Obviously,” Akane replies.

“But our supplies are thin as it is. We could leave the boy behind and just take the—”

“Now

listen here

.”

For a brief moment, Akane loses it.

However, seeing the unease that flashes across her squadmates’ faces helps her return to her senses.

“He might be a relative of hers. What do you plan on telling her when she wakes up?”

“Y-you’re right! We wouldn’t want to upset her and risk having her leave!”

“Yeah, let’s take them both and get out of here!”

Akane can feel her heart grow colder as she looks at her squadmates’ forced smiles.

However, she can’t really blame them.

Everyone has their hands full just worrying about themselves.

The only reason she’s able to show more compassion than they can is the security her strong magic offers her. At least, that’s what she tells herself to try to dampen her displeasure.

“Let’s go.”

Akane hoists the girl up onto her back and leaves the boy for the others to handle. She feels the girl’s gentle warmth spread across her body.

She really is pretty.

She’s probably still high school–aged. Akane remembers high school. She’ll never forget that happy youth she had.

Whenever things get tough nowadays, she always reminisces about back then and fantasizes that he’ll come and save her again.

She knows that’ll never happen, though.

After all, he died ages ago.