level_act18d3_01_beg

Silent. Strange. Unfathomable. Outsider.

So they naturally come to say.

Shadowy. Cold-blooded. Leaves for dead. A born monster.

So all will say behind my back.

Yes.

One needs only lose one's home, and one is nothing at all.

Reason says that I, coming here, should have been able to begin a new life.

Except the past cannot be rid. These things follow your shadow and climb your shins, dragging you into the abyss of the swamp.

Not one of us can break free of the past.

If there comes a day, and your home has found you...

2:33 A.M. \ Overcast

Rhodes Island Landship, Hallway

Alright! Once this report's handed in, your field mission will be formally closed out.

Mm.

Wait, is it still... blank? Ahem, hm-hm...

The only thing on this entire sheet is the word 'complete!'

Hmm?

The mission definitely is complete.

I-I mean, that's not wrong...

...but it wouldn't hurt if you wrote a little more, right?!

Hm?

(What do I do... just how difficult is she?)

(I never really talked to her before. I heard we were linking up with her, and the group leader even warned me... but this is still going to be tricky to handle.)

(Deep breath)

Alright, okay. I understand.

If the Doctor has any questions regarding the particulars of your mission, we'll seek confirmation from you again then.

...The Doctor?

Yes, Dr. Kal'tsit presumed you wouldn't want to hand a report in to her... and she also mentioned Amiya's too soft on you, and it can't go on like this... and so on.

So then we filed this mission away on the Doctor's end.

That woman. Hmph.

Do you want to report directly, then? Looks like the Doctor's out right now, so you can relax for a few days until the Doctor's back.

This report of yours, right now, could seriously use some more fleshing out!

Such a pain.

Fine, then. Mission code F1071, confirming submission. Follow-up specifics—

Wait.

Huh?

Give the files back to me. I've decided, it's okay if I add a few more details.

Oh! Of course it's okay! I'll leave it to you, then.

(This might go smoother than I anticipated...)

That's all from me then. Do head back and get some proper... um?

Your expression just completely changed. Has something happened?

In likelihood.

Huh? In here? Aboard the ship? An intruder?! I've heard about your acute senses. Could it be...

No, that's not right. The alarms should have sounded if there was danger aboard, right?

...Singing.

Singing? What singing? Er, it's silent all around. I can't hear any...

How? Why is there singing here?

I suppose there is a sort of droning sound, but that's not a song, is it? There's all kinds of machinery operating aboard Rhodes Island. Is it their vibrations, just maybe? Are you still not fully used to it?

No. The scent.

The scent of the seawater.

...Skadi? You're scaring me a little. What are you tal...

Huh? Hey! Skadi!

Skadi runs too hurriedly, too rapidly. She runs for the stairwell, fearing that those few seconds of apprehension riding the elevator will allow that scent to slip away.

A hunter is walking on seacoast way♪

She can hear the song. Aboard this ship, a vast majority cannot.

This language, this melody, has roused her memories. She is not one for nostalgia, but she knows it all too well.

But... this shouldn't be. This is a song that should not arise here.

With homeland left a mile behind, they must lament and pray♪

The singing shivers all throughout the ship's pipelines.

The scent of seawater, breaking unbreakingly, seeps out from the cabin walls.

Skadi remembers this scent just the same. With the damp closed in on her, her skin continuously contracts, becomes taut. Nervous, yet she is stirred too.

Could she have awoken? She cannot help but hasten her step.

Specter!

She pulls open the door to the treatment ward.

The bed is empty.

Perhaps she wanted to take a stroll outside after becoming lucid.

Wait... what is this?

She picks it up, and rubs it in her fingers.

...It looks like hers.

Specter's gold chain had been carelessly thrown to the ground. Or perhaps, deliberately.

Did she despise this item? Then she surely isn't pleased with her current identity.

The affairs of the Church—at least the Church of the sea—are all nefarious ones.

But... something's not right.

Outsider.

Without knowing why, Skadi has abruptly recalled that word.

She realizes that the scent is not Specter's at all.

Compared to the Specter of past, this scent now is too strong, and too callous. Skadi doubts it was simply a surprise that went all too hard to her head.

You're here. Who are you? Come out.

An Abyssal Hunter. But not Specter. Of all things, there were still other Abyssal Hunters who survived!

But why here?

...Where has Specter gone?

No matter who, or what, you are. Come out.

She needs to give chase. Something's not right. She senses the other one truly is nearby.

Skadi rushes out the door, and a silhouette flashes by the farthest recess of the corridor.

No... it's two. The singing still remains. The other one still incants.

Specter. That Abyssal Hunter has taken Specter.

So laggard.

If you were any slower, we would've been on our way.

Hunter! Who are you?

In one leap, Skadi pivots the corner, involuntarily feeling for any weapon on her she can use.

—What are you up to?

In that instant, before all else, she meets the other by the eyes.

Wait, you're...

Someone that she has never expected.

Skadi.

You seem quite well.

Could... you be the Second Company's—Specter's leader...?

You're... Gladiia...?!

It has been some time, Skadi. You are still able to recollect the Ægir's song, which deeply gratifies me.

Skadi cannot pick out even a single trace of 'gratitude' in her expression. This woman, from the first she knew her, has never once shown any change on her face.

The tall woman carries Specter. The one Abyssal Hunter that Skadi understands to have survived the past several years, Specter, now lies on Gladiia's shoulder, dreaming another uncharacteristically tranquil dream.

The instant Specter's leader let slip a word, the singing vanished.

Skadi is dazed for a spell. From the port window rushes arid winds that only dry land could blow, brushing past Skadi's cheeks, almost dry themselves. She thinks to herself—this hunter is still alive, Gladiia is alive. Skadi has finally found another of her own.

No. It is Gladiia who found them. Yet...

I thought you were dead. You staked your lives to let us pass. I thought you were all dead.

Life is a precious thing. I am very happy to see that you, too, are alive.

Given Specter was still alive, I'd always been wondering whether or not any more of the Second could have made it...

How did you find this place? Specter... she's still better off staying in the ward.

One of the fiercest hunters in all of Skadi's mind chooses, at this juncture, to say nothing.

In Skadi's heart, doubt burgeons.

She's changed a lot. She may not necessarily recognize you now. Her body is still feeble.

Feeble? A hunter could not be feeble.

How long have you been on dry land?

Disease of the land, of a special kind, has hollowed her body out. The people aboard this ship can stabilize her condition.

In all these years, she's never come back to sanity. The current Specter is another person entirely. I don't know what it was that made her like this.

Gladiia does not speak, and the breeze blows through, her hair drifting in its wakes, covering her eye.

Skadi has realized where the problem lies.

Gladiia. Yes, you're Gladiia. There is no mistake. But what do you intend to do?

Where are you planning to take her?

I believed that upon dry land, the hunters were free. Have I misunderstood something?

No, Gladiia... she's still asleep. You never asked her... whether or not she wants to go.

You want to take her away from here.

You seem to show a great deal of interest in these new colleagues of yours. Do they not treat you too in kind? It would be but a passing motion for you to pinch their spines to dust, yet how is it you do not instill dread in them?

For these people of dry land to treat us with enmity is normal, but not for the ones aboard this ship. The ones I have met would not.

I still cannot fathom why you drop your guard.

No... I don't want to get them mixed up in this matter. The problem doesn't lie with me, nor them.

The problem lies in you.

Skadi takes a step toward.

What is your intent in doing this? You had best explain.

Hunter Skadi.

—On dry land, I will not constrain you with my rank of Consul.

Hm...

Yet neither do I have any obligation to explain myself to you.

I simply believe that I should have you know. It was I who took her, a member of my own company. This suffices.

Why?

You need not know the reason yet this evening.

But Specter!

—(Two Iberian words)—

Before the name fully reaches Skadi's ears, Gladiia has already slipped from the ship's window into the moonlight outside, Specter's limp body disappearing with her.

Skadi does not reach out. She does not even move.

She knows well that if Gladiia wants to leave, she has no hope of ever catching her; yet, if Gladiia only wanted to escape, then she would not have left any information behind.

She was seeking help, or she was hoodwinking herself. Skadi half-believes it, half doesn't, yet has no other alternative. At the least, she did not order Skadi to do anything, or not to do anything.

'Sal Viento.'

That is what Gladiia said.

Skadi cannot help but go.

Sal Viento.

This is far too unmoving a reunion.

What are you doing here?

Hey, isn't that Skadi?

She looks familiar. A little like the picture.

Ah! Haha, that didn't take any effort at all...

It's Skadi for sure. We hid in the right spot.

Hm?

Hey, see, she responded... and look at her face. That really is Skadi!

Still remember the 'Captain,' Skadi? We've got his money, and now we're gonna avenge him with your life!

You crackbrained idiot... you crackbrained idiot! I said this was a rotten idea!

Didn't we say using his money to run some cons would be enough?! Avenge my ass, bounty my ass! What chance in hell?!

Remember the rumors! If that's really her, you think there's a single cent in this for us? It'll cost our lives!

We'd better scram before it's too late! Grab your dumb scrap and run!

Pah.

You go crawling back to your shitheap bed cuddling burdenbeast piss and yelling mamá. You lose your nerve the moment a single long-haired girl says something to you. You want ME to go home empty-handed? No goddamn way!

You're right! Even if she really is Skadi, even if, what the hell can she do? She's all alone right now, isn't she?

We've got one, two... yeah, a bunch of guys!

But all those powerhouse bounty hunters are rotting in the ground, aren't they? She was alone then too!

And think about it, every time you say you have so many guys, does anything good ever come of it?

And who saw that? If you ask me, those guys? Maybe they just got drunk off their asses one night and all went into the same pretty little Kuranta's room.

Then she got her crossbows out her pants, went free-for-all, blew their brains to mush.

That's what rumors are! If all those wandering singers or whoever went around singing and playing without puffing their stories up a little, you think they'd make enough money to eat?

Splitting fifty mountains with a single sword, yeah, right... and I can punch a hole straight through Londinium with one fist!

Listen to me, brothers! If you wanna eat, come with me!

Skadi, Schmadi, we can put her down right here, and nobody can pinch our gold after! Add the bounty the others put on her head, we'll be set for the rest of our lives plus retirement!

I'll give you a choice. Run now, and you can live. I have no time to waste with you people.

Charge! Kill her dead!

(Ægirian) It's the rotted seagrass that clings most to one's leg.

I never thought it would be the annoyance of worthless bounty hunters that remained ever unchanging.