Free Iriya the Berserker by Hideyuki Kikuchi Page B

right—but how do you know about this thing?”
    “Well, it’s something called a thrice-split baron. There’s not many of them, but they’re one of the dangerous creatures found in these parts. Humans rarely run into them, so you don’t hear much talk about them, but when they find their prey, they take a similar form to it in order to get closer. I didn’t realize that’s what it was until it had its arm around you . . . She sure was pretty. I’m surprised it didn’t fool you.”
    “Yeah,” Iriya replied with an embarrassed grin, and then she turned to the right. D was just coming back. What remained in Iriya’s brain of the beauty of that transformed plant monster now melted away like ice.
    Giving her head a shake to push the gorgeous new countenance out of it, Iriya said to Meeker, “You saved me. Thank you. You sure know a lot about Frontier creatures, don’t you?”
    “Only what I’ve read in books,” Meeker replied bashfully, rubbing the back of his head with a bit of pride.
    “Well, thanks to that I’m still alive. You remember that: you saved my life. And I’ll be grateful to you for as long as I live.”
    As the boy nodded, the two of them noticed that D was looking at them. Though there was no change in his fierce beauty, the two of them had to smile. They’d gotten an impression of a different sort of expression.
    An hour later, D found Nogia’s corpse. His stomach had gone for the pieces of jerky D had scattered around, and within days that stomach would be filling the bellies of other creatures in the wilderness.
    Iriya and Meeker exchanged suspicious looks.
    “A falling-out with his partners?” Iriya murmured, but Meeker shook his head. Memories of the incident with the demonic insects, which he’d managed to repress until now, rose to the fore. He described what’d transpired to Iriya.
    “In that case, I wonder if it means we’ve got an ally? D, any idea who it could be?”
    Although there was no reply, the two of them got the distinct impression a cry of pain had once again risen from D’s left fist.
II
    It was late afternoon when they arrived in the town of Clements. With a chain of mountains for a backdrop, the small town sat alone in the wilderness. The remaining light colored the peaks to the west and created a brief world of vermilion before the evening would be enveloped by blue.
    “Everyone looks so red. It’s incredible!” Iriya exclaimed.
    “Yeah, it’s like everything’s soaked in blood!” the hoarse voice added.
    And how did D look in that crimson world? The people on the wooden sidewalks, the men driving wagons, the travelers high in the saddle, the crane operators, the miners with their carts of ore, the prostitutes who might as well have been naked—all of them were drawn at first to his gorgeous visage but pulled back again with looks of horror on their faces. In fact, a traveler’s horse and one of the miners’ carts collided, knocking all parties involved to the ground.
    When they were halfway up Main Street, Iriya turned to a building on their right and said, “If you’re looking for the hotel, it’s right here.”
    All D said was “I have somewhere to go.”
    “Where?” she asked, but then she caught sight of Meeker’s face as the boy rode on the horse next to hers. He was utterly crestfallen. Before they’d reached the town he’d spoken less and less, and since entering he hadn’t said a word. That told Iriya all she needed to know.
    “You’re going to put him in an orphanage?”
    The Hunter nodded slightly.
    “You know where it’s at?”
    “I saw it on a map once.”
    Iriya was just about to tell him not to, but then she held her tongue. She considered the trio’s respective futures.
    “I suppose it’s the only way,” Iriya said, returning to the boy’s side. That was all she could do for him.
    Presently, D turned right off Main Street. The road of packed earth stretched like a thread to a distant forest. Five or six hundred yards