The day after they decided to head for Kararagi, they ran into their first problem.
"You don't have a name."
Vigel crouched by the roadside, sketching a rough map on the ground with a twig as he spoke without looking up.
"Hey, hey, hey, seriously? Vigel, how can you forget your teammate's name when you're the boss? I'm Natsuki Subaru. Nat-su-ki Su-ba-ru-that's my name!"
"That's not what I mean. That's your name in your world."
Vigel rolled his eyes and looked up, a rare seriousness in his star-blue eyes.
"In the Vollachian Empire, how are you going to explain a young man from another world wearing strange clothes, speaking with a strange accent, and claiming to come from a 'convenience store'? A stranger without even a household registration might get hauled off for military service before he ever leaves the empire."
Subaru felt a wave of embarrassment. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
"Then what do you think I should be called?"
"I don't know, but you need a name. One that sounds like it belongs to someone from this world."
"Then how about you give me one, boss?"
Vigel felt that suddenly becoming the boss was pretty tiring, especially when his underling was an otherworlder his own Divine Protection of Prophecy couldn't see through at all.
Though the Divine Protection of Prophecy wasn't as powerful as one might imagine, and sometimes it failed-because clouds could obscure the stars and moon, too.
"You might not like a name I come up with."
"Better than nothing."
Vigel fell silent for a moment. He looked toward the distant, gray horizon, as though searching the stars for a place that had yet to be settled.
"Flugel."
"...Huh?"
"It means 'wings.' In my people's ancient tongue."
Vigel wrote the characters in the sand with his twig.
"You came from another world, like a bird that can't find anywhere to land. But a bird will always find its way."
Subaru stared at the characters for a long time, then said the name once, then again, as though confirming its weight with his own voice.
"Sounds pretty nice."
"Right? A name I come up with wouldn't be bad."
"But why 'wings'? Because I can fly?"
"Because you'll eventually land where you're meant to..."
"Why are you suddenly getting all philosophical again?"
"Don't ask. If you do, it's the guidance of the stars..."
"Honestly, every time I use the Divine Protection of 'Prophecy,' the same line keeps repeating in my head-'The stars say such and such.' And that's the only fucking line it says, just like those things in your world... right! NPCs in games."
"It just mechanically repeats that one line. I'm sick of hearing it. And I can't prophesy anything too big, either, or the voice gets louder along with it. It practically blows out my eardrums-even though it's only a voice in my head!"
Subaru looked at Vigel and listened to him. In the end, he could only scratch his head and agree.
"Then I guess both our abilities can leave us pretty speechless sometimes..."
"Right? You suffer when you die, and I suffer while I'm alive... that's why I want to try living differently."
After finishing his angry complaints, the silver-haired young man lowered his head again and continued drawing the map with his twig. His expression returned to calm, as though he'd only been discussing something trivial.
But Subaru suddenly felt that when the man had spoken that name, his fingers had lingered on the twig for an extra beat-as though he'd already begun to believe this person would fly far away.
"Okay,"
Subaru said.
"From today onward, within the empire, in this other world, my name is Flugel!"
"Why are you shouting... remember it. Don't get it wrong in front of other people."
"If I do, I'll just say it's my middle name."
"You don't have a middle name."
"Now I do."
Vigel looked up as though he wanted to say something, but in the end, he shook his head and kept drawing the map.
"Let's go. It's still a long way to Kararagi."
They walked for seven days, gradually drawing away from the empire. During those seven days, Subaru-no, Flugel-truly witnessed for the first time just how absurd Vigel's Divine Protection of "Prophecy" was.
He could read the weather, road conditions, and even whether there was an ambush ahead from the stars.
Whenever Flugel asked him, "How did you know?" he would only say, "The stars told me."
Then he would add, "The weather's been pretty good these past few days..."
There didn't seem to have been any densely overcast skies. Flugel was happy to have acknowledged a prophet like this as his boss, even if he didn't know anything like the White Tiger Vajra Transformation.
After all, their journey these past few days really had been unexpectedly smooth. If he'd been alone, who knew how many more times he might have died already... the past remained vivid in his mind. He didn't want to experience the agony of being torn apart by a witchbeast again.
Though fate always changed without warning.
Listening to Vigel on the road, he really did feel as though those stars were avoiding him.
Whenever he looked up at the night sky, he felt like an uninvited guest, as though he'd wandered into a banquet where he didn't belong, and everyone around him was pretending not to see him.
On the eighth day, while passing through a narrow valley, they encountered a peculiar pair of travelers.
To Flugel, they looked like two tall men. One had refined features, a kind face, flowing golden hair, and red eyes that were unforgettable at first glance.
His eyes are like rubies... is he some prince traveling incognito from another country?
When he looked at the other man, the picture changed completely.
He looked somewhat more powerfully built than everyone else, but he seemed to be constantly rubbing his messy red hair.
Flugel had meant to greet the peculiar pair, but when he saw the dark expression on Vigel's face and how his fingers had quietly tightened around his astrolabe, he hurried over to ask what was wrong.
And so the two pairs of travelers, each finding the other strange, merely passed one another without another word.
"Hey, Vigel, what happened? Why did you suddenly look so grim..."
"It's the prophecy. Something's wrong with my prophecy. Those travelers just now, and the predictions for the road ahead-just now, all of them became impossible to prophesy."
They really had encountered a time when clouds obscured the stars.
Back when he was in White Sand Town, all he needed to do in a situation like this was go home, pull the covers over his head, and get a good sleep. He could make money by fooling people at his stall anyway; it was merely a question of whether they thought his predictions were accurate.
But now he'd left town with an underling, ready to travel, and his prophecy had chosen this moment to go wrong.
What should he do? How could he face the unknown dangers ahead? He began to feel that he really did rely too heavily on prophecy.
And now that he'd left his comfort zone, without prophecy, without any ability, how could he live up to the position of boss he'd claimed for himself? Even if the team currently consisted of only two people, himself included... a good-for-nothing like him really didn't deserve it.
"Boss, say something!"
He stayed silent, saying nothing.
"Vigel! Are you scared already? Haven't you been making prophecies this whole way? Where did the last prophecy leave off? It's not like we'll run into danger the second you lose your prophecy. How could we be that unlucky!"
Right, how could they possibly be that unlucky?
Everything had clearly been going so smoothly.
He'd lived this long without encountering any danger. He shouldn't scare himself.
After hearing Flugel's words, he comforted himself that way.
"The last prophecy was pretty rough... because what I asked the stars was: which of the two roads is more dangerous?"
He pointed toward the fork ahead. Following the direction of his finger, they could just make out that the two travelers had already disappeared down the right-hand road.
"Those two went right, so let's just follow them. They both seemed pretty strong, with all those muscles. There shouldn't be any problems."
After speaking, Flugel patted his shoulder and tried to help Vigel up so they could head right together.
"But the stars told me the road on the right was more dangerous than the one on the left! Either they're strong enough to take the right, or they're reckless idiots who picked a road at random. Based on all my years of experience, I feel like they're the latter-especially that red-haired muscleman. He looks like nothing but brawn and no brains!"
"Fine, then why don't we just go left?"
Flugel scratched his head.
"The right being more dangerous than the left doesn't mean the left isn't dangerous! I wanted to make a more detailed prophecy, but then... then..."
"Forget it, forget it. I refuse to believe we're really that unlucky. Let's go before we add any more variables."
And so, filled with unease, the two cautiously set off down the left-hand road.
But before long, they broke into a sprint, because-
"A witchbeast! Another witchbeast!"
Flugel and Vigel had no choice but to sprint, trying to escape this place of trouble as quickly as possible.
But their speed was ultimately no match for a witchbeast's extraordinarily powerful limbs-the enormous creature was terrifyingly huge, every step making the ground tremble, as though they would be trampled into pulp the next second.
"We shouldn't have come... shouldn't have come... I want to go back! I want to go back!"
The threat of death would destroy any bond that wasn't particularly close, devouring all reason and leaving only the human instinct to survive by any means necessary.
Vigel broke first.
He ran, gasping for breath, and looked back to see that gaping, bloody maw closing in. Fear completely drowned what little reason he had left.
"It's all your fault! You otherworlder! You just had to drag me out here. I'm done being your fucking boss!"
"Go die! Never trust a liar!"
He stuck out his foot and tripped Flugel to the ground.
As a dull thud sounded behind him, Vigel charged forward without looking back, only one thought remaining in his mind-
Survive.
As for what would happen to the person behind him, he could no longer spare a thought for it, nor did he want to.
But after running a few steps, he suddenly felt something tighten around his ankle-
After falling, Flugel had instinctively grabbed his ankle.
It wasn't out of revenge, nor out of anger-it was more like the instinctive reaction of a drowning man grabbing anything he could in his final moments.
Both men fell to the ground, tumbling into a heap.
Vigel struggled to shake him off, but that hand's grip was unusually tight.
"Let go! Fucking let go!"
He roared, no longer able to spare any care even for his precious astrolabe. He grabbed it and smashed it hard against Flugel's head.
Blood splattered at once. Warm liquid ran down through his black hair and dripped onto the sand.
Flugel's eyes lost focus for a moment, but his hand still didn't let go.
By then, the witchbeast had lunged at them, its enormous shadow engulfing them both.
The lower half of Flugel's body was torn apart in an instant, followed by his upper body. Mangled chunks of flesh scattered over the sand, even his scream cut short in his throat.
As the last traces of Flugel's consciousness faded, Vigel finally broke free. He staggered to his feet and fled forward.
After running a few steps, he glanced back-what he saw were remains torn beyond any human shape by the witchbeast, and those black eyes, devoid of any light, still gazing into the distance even after death.
In this shattered ending, no one knew how the rest of the story unfolded.
-At least, except for what Flugel would encounter in some future trial, through which we, too, could catch a glimpse...
He turned and kept running, but as he ran, his foot suddenly found empty air. He fell into a crevice, the back of his head striking a rock hard.
In the final moment before his vision darkened, he saw the witchbeast slowly turn and walk toward the crevice.
He desperately tried to move his body, but his limbs no longer obeyed him, heavy as though filled with lead.
He could only watch helplessly as the enormous beast drew closer and closer...
By the time its claws pierced his chest, he didn't even have the strength to scream.
Only one thought remained in his fading consciousness: If I hadn't run just now... if I hadn't abandoned him...