Escape From a Deserted Island With Enemy Female Soldiers

12 – A Very Small Amount of Trust (4)

Rachel gasped and sat up.

Right after getting hit by that mermaid monster’s sonic attack, she had regained consciousness to find herself lying in bed. The back of her head and her back were damp with sweat.

It was clammy, but on the other hand, she also smelled a soft, fluffy fragrance. A familiar scent.

Rachel sat up and slowly looked around.

The first thing that caught her eye was the pale pastel floral wallpaper. Next, she saw the oak desk and wardrobe. And over there, the shelf with the dolls her mother had made by hand.

It was all the landscape of Rachel’s room, from her memories.

Why?

This place shouldn’t exist anymore. It had all burned down that day, leaving not a trace. Yet, right now, it was perfectly fine before Rachel’s eyes.

Rachel slapped her cheek.

“Ugh.”

It hurt. The pain was too clear for this situation to be a dream.

Getting out of bed, Rachel suddenly realized her height was lower than usual. She tiptoed to the full-length mirror. A mere seven- or eight-year-old child was reflected there.

“No way.”

No matter how much she thought about it, it was impossible.

“…It’s a dream.”

A dream of losing her parents, becoming a soldier of the Holy Spirit Nation, and being stranded on a deserted island with an enemy magician.

What kind of nightmare was that? It would have been better if she had dreamt of being embraced by a prince on a white horse. Of course, that enemy guy in the dream was unbelievably handsome too… What am I even saying.

Shaking her head, Rachel wiped the cold sweat running down her forehead. She opened her door and went downstairs.

A savory smell wafted up. It was coming from the direction of the kitchen.

“Oh, Rachel. You’re up early today?”

“Is the sun rising in the west? Haha.”

Two adults greeted Rachel as she came down the stairs. Her mother, ‘Sierra Brightheart’, was making breakfast, and her father, ‘Lyman Brightheart’, was checking handouts to give to middle school students.

“You could have slept a little longer, it’s the weekend.”

“No, you’re up, so let’s eat together. But, Princess, you have to get your own fork and plate, okay?”

Mother, Father.

It had clearly only been a day, but emotions swelled like I hadn’t seen them in almost fifteen years.

*Drip.*

A single tear traced a path down Rachel’s cheek.

“Huh? Why is she suddenly like this?”

“Maybe she had a bad dream?”

She couldn’t control her emotions. Rachel rushed to her parents and hugged them tightly. Tears flowed endlessly, as if a faucet had been turned on.

Though bewildered, Sierra wordlessly stroked Rachel’s hair. A warm feeling spread through her, as if by magic. It was the same touch and scent she remembered.

Having regained that peace, Rachel spent happy days with her family. Eating meals, going on picnics, tending the garden, and sometimes even fishing.

Everything couldn’t have been more perfect.

Until an epidemic swept through her fishing village.

“Cough, cough!”

Everyone who was sick suffered from relentless coughing. The only hospital in the remote village was soon overcrowded. The collapse of the healthcare system was inevitable.

“Honey, Rachel. It’d be best if you stayed inside for a while and ate meals at home. The condition of those with the flu is not looking good.”

Rachel felt a sense of déjà vu.

The nightmare she’d had a few months ago had started from here. The villagers coming down with an unknown illness.

If her memory served her correctly, after this, a group of outsiders would appear, spouting words that sounded like something out of paganism.

“Fire! Only fire can end this plague!”

Just like that.

“This is divine punishment! If we leave it as it is, everyone will fall ill!”

“Everyone! Burn down the homes of the infected! It is the only way to appease the wrath of god!”

Rachel’s heart hammered in her chest.

“The nurse handing out disinfectant said it. Everyone who’s sick says their throat feels like it’s on fire. When they cough, little bits of that… ekirel stuff, are mixed in, apparently.”

Lyman said, returning from collecting supplies at the hospital.

“Oh, no.”

Rachel’s face turned pale. She grabbed at the two of them.

“Mom! Dad! We have to leave this town right now!”

“Rachel, what’s gotten into you?”

“If we stay here, our whole family will die!”

Rachel cried out.

“Those people outside, the ones saying weird things, they’re all evil sorcerers! They’re trying to summon a demon by using our townspeople as sacrifices! And that plague going around, they’re the ones who spread it!”

“Oh, sweetie, you’re letting your imagination run wild.”

Sierra stroked Rachel’s cheek.

“Our princess, there’s no need to worry so much. What kind of era are we living in? Those people are just disturbed. Don’t believe what they say.”

“Your mother’s right. We can get through this. Even if things get really bad, we’ll be safe if we just stay home.”

“But if we stay here, all the houses in this town will be burned to the ground!”

“Rachel. The village chief broadcast yesterday, remember? Doctors and priestess siblings are coming soon. If we just wait until then, everything will be okay.”

Maybe it’s just needless worry. It has to be.

But then news arrived that a critically ill patient had collapsed, spitting out fire instead of blood, and Rachel’s anxiety solidified into certainty.

“Mom, Dad! It’s really the sorcerers’ doing! We have to run now! Or we’ll be sacrificed too!”

“Oh, come on… No way…”

Rachel’s parents were the suspicious type. Truth be told, anyone would be. People claimed someone had died in a burst of flames, but unless you saw it with your own two eyes, how could you believe it?

“Isn’t it just some nonsense spread by those weird foreigners?”

“Let’s wait a bit longer, until the priests arrive.”

“No! We have to run now! I had a dream, a dream! Tonight, those lunatics will set our house on fire too!”

Rachel shouted herself hoarse, but it was no use. Instead of listening to their only daughter, Lyman and Sierra just told her not to get so worked up, trying to calm her down.

Rachel choked back her frustration. This wouldn’t do. She needed to pack clothes and food. At the very least, she had to leave the front door slightly ajar, so they could escape quickly if the house caught fire, and she could get her parents out.

Just as she was about to put her plan into action…

“Huh, uh?”

Her time started to accelerate.

She’d only blinked. But the sun, which had been high in the sky just moments ago, had sunk below the horizon. Rachel checked the clock in shock.

“Wh-what? Why is it suddenly the middle of the night…?”

“Honey! Get up quick! I smell smoke in the house!”

Rachel felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

There was no time to think. Rachel pulled back the curtains and looked out the window. Smoke was rising everywhere, blackening the sky. It was a scene straight out of the end of the world.

The embers stinging her nostrils weren’t just smelling of burning. There was a damp, sickening stench mixed in.

Mana.

The stench of Ekirel being converted into mana.

“Rachel!”

Her father Lyman’s voice came from downstairs. Rachel went down the stairs and met her parents in the entryway.

“Dad! Mom!”

“Rachel, you were right! Let’s get out of here! Oh…!”

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“The doorknob is hot!”

Flames burst through the front door.

“Damn it! Even if I break down the door, we can’t get out this way!”

“Let’s escape through the window!”

But the first floor was already completely surrounded by fire, leaving no way out. Rachel’s parents grabbed a thick blanket and went up to the second floor with her.

The windows on the second floor were all smaller compared to the first floor. It was because the previous owner had only casually renovated what was originally the attic. The windows were barely big enough for young Rachel to squeeze through.

“Rachel, wrap yourself in this blanket and jump down there.”

“But, Mom!”

“Don’t be scared. Hold on for just a second, only one second and it’ll all be over.”

It wasn’t the jumping that was scary. What was truly frightening was the future, the possibility of never seeing her parents’ faces again if she jumped. That day’s dream, playing out in reality.

“Where are Mom and Dad going to escape!”

“If you jump down first, Mom and Dad will find another window to escape from. Or we’ll wait in the bathroom with the water running, so you come back with the firefighters and save Mom and Dad. Okay?”

“Our princess, promise?”

Sierra and Lyman calmly reassured Rachel.

She wanted to scream no, that she’d rather die than be apart from them.

But reason knew. The only way to save her parents was to get down first and call for help from the outside.

Rachel, bundled up in the blanket, barely squeezed through the window and tumbled down. *Thud*, a considerable shock traveled through her fragile body.

“Huff, huff, Mom, Dad…!”

Rachel, having thrown off the blankets, turned around. The whole house was blazing. The two houses on either side were the same. This was absolutely no ordinary fire.

Rachel ran. Towards the fire station.

The entire village was burning. Maybe the fire equipment was already disabled. Rachel, dodging stray sparks, even got her face scorched.

Her uneasy prediction didn’t miss the mark.

Even the fire station was burning.

“Ah…”

Now, truly, there was nothing she could do. Except wander the streets and beg the villagers for help.

And so Rachel ran, and ran, and ran again. She raced down the main street searching for someone who could help. Maybe it was because she was a child, but she was already breathless after only a little movement.

But, with the whole village engulfed in flames, there was no one to help Rachel. Requesting help from the outside was also impossible. Because the village chief’s house, the only place with long-range communication, was also burning.

Powerlessness. Exhaustion.

Rachel, back in front of her still burning house, began to cry endlessly.

“Please help!”

Was there any salvation?

“Is anyone there?”

Probably not.

“My mom and dad are inside!”

It never even happened in her dreams.

“Anyone, please, help, me, heh-heh-sob…”

Rachel, screaming wildly, collapsed forward, out of energy.

Maybe that day’s dream had been a premonition. The Goddess had warned her beforehand. Before the future tragedy occurred, to quickly persuade her parents to run away.

Rachel couldn’t. She’d thought it was a dream. She never imagined it would become reality like this.

That’s when she was clawing at the floor, screaming.

[“W’HE DISSA.”]

Thud.

A group of people appeared.

[“QUNO NIDDH FAIH?”]

She didn’t understand what they were saying. But one thing was clear: they were the mages, the ones who had turned her village into this mess.

In the dream, she never met them. In the dream, Rachel was rescued by priests after everything was over, and they told her the whole story. The mages had tried to make her village a sacrifice for some wicked ritual.

Thanks to the priests’ purification, the ritual itself had failed, but it had completely ruined Rachel’s life. After losing her parents and ending up in the orphanage, she lost her smile completely.

Meanwhile, the nun at the orphanage would always say that all mages were an evil lot, that in the Middle Ages they were the devil’s henchmen, bringing evil into this world, following the devil himself.

After that, hatred for mages was ingrained in Rachel to her very core.

That was the reason she’d joined the Holy Kingdom Air Force. The Mage Kingdom was the country built by mages. It was the only place where she could exact revenge.

[“DILL RUKE AUFH ROETSSHEM BH KM. HYUIFR.”]

[“SU, SHI INDALLAH FAIH NON LIDTEEMARAN CHUI BLA…….”]

[“TAUF. FAIH CAST NORZEN KENNIQ PI OLORHA VEMON EFF MIZCHEKH SANDALR U HOM. AL?”]

The mages were muttering in a devilish tongue. Then, a tall man in robes grabbed her leg and pulled.

“Let go! Let me go!”

She tried to resist, but it was pointless. In her current state, she had no chance in a struggle against a grown man.

[“ZEINNH SIE UPOH TRAGHA.”]

It was the moment the man was about to throw Rachel into the fire pit that a stone came flying from the side and struck his temple.

“Kuh-hurr-uck!”

*Thud.*

The man collapsed. His comrades murmured in confusion. One of them, having sensed something first, pointed in the direction the stone had come from.

From within the ash, a young man wearing the magic kingdom’s military uniform was walking toward them.

Rachel’s pupils constricted as she recognized the young man’s face.

“……Erich, Ronstein?”

The magic officer of the enemy nation she’d seen in her dreams. Her second nightmare, the one who had taken the lives of her comrades, friends since the orphanage, had torn through the darkness and appeared.

“Rachel Brokenheart.”

He spoke.

“Wake up. This is all an illusion.”

*

Magic is no different than a kitchen knife. If used well, it’s a useful tool for preparing food, but if used poorly, it becomes a means to commit indiscriminate murder in the streets.

Because of this, mages created a set of rules called ‘Oaths’. To prevent trash from wielding magic recklessly.

The Oath of Magic. Also known as the Zerem Oath.

Since the establishment of the magic kingdom, the Oath became part of national law. The nation established means of controlling mages’ abilities, including a system of national mages, and destructive magic was classified as ‘Prohibited,’ with those who used it facing life imprisonment or execution.

And illusion magic was classified as the highest grade of the hundreds of prohibited magics: ‘Instant-Death Prohibited Magic.’

A sinister sorcery that grants the caster the ability to manipulate the victim’s emotions at will, and ultimately, the authority to physically burst their nerve cells.

[“What.”]

[“Why is a brat here?”]

[“Looks like they escaped. Pick them up and put them back in.”]

[“Hey, even so, they’re just a kid, that’s a bit much….”]

[“Who cares? Everyone knows that child bone powder is so efficient for the Demon Lord’s revival, right?”]

It seemed I was currently inside a Valkyrie’s memory.

“Let go of me! I said let go!”

[“We’ll send you to your parents.”]

Even just seeing these fragments, I could tell. This scene must have been one of the most harrowing and painful days for her.

At the same time, I understood why she was so averse to bonfires.

“Tch.”

I picked up a rock that was lying nearby. And then, I gave the black-robed man who was trying to throw Rachel into the burning house, a taste of our esteemed Department of Magestone Studies’ tradition: a rock fight.

“Guh-hurk!”

[“What was that, who is it!”]

The rest of the group glared at me. But by the time they noticed, the marbles of stone were already embedded in their foreheads.

[“Return.”]

As I uttered the spell, the world began to blur. Rachel was looking at me. She was starting to realize that this world was an illusion.

“…Erich, Ronstein?”

“Rachel Brokenheart. Wake up. This is a fantasy.”

“What? What do you mean…”

“This is inside your memory. Think back. What were you doing just a moment ago?”

There was no vitality in Rachel’s pupils. It seemed like she had been dealt a particularly huge shock. Damn it, this is why mental restrictions are dangerous.

I raised my voice a notch.

“We’re stranded on a deserted island, just the two of us, and we fell into a cave trying to escape in a lifeboat and then ran into a mermaid monster! We’re seeing this whole scene because we’re trapped in that thing’s illusion magic! You don’t even know a single word of the Magocracy’s language! Just think about the fact we’re talking to each other right now, doesn’t that scream ‘something’s wrong’?”

“Th-then,”

Rachel murmured.

“It wasn’t a dream. All of that. It all actually happened?”

“I don’t know much about your past, but yeah, probably.”

The girl’s lips twisted. Her eyes looked like rotten codfish.

“Take my hand, Rachel. No, Valkyrie.”

Rachel slowly took my hand and got up. The world shifted. The illusionary sea of fire vanished, and a white space appeared. We had reached the ‘backstage’ of the illusion magic.

Valkyrie, now back to her original form, was sniffling. Even though she was the enemy, I couldn’t just ignore it, so I wiped her tears.

“Damn mages. I’m going to kill them all.”

“Leave me out of it.”

“…I’ll think about it.”

The world crafted by magic began to crumble. It was time to return to reality.

“Let’s kill that fish b*tch first, then talk.”