288

Chapter 288 — Something I Can Accept (4)

Crack.

A clear fracture appeared in the green gem sealed inside the glass tube.

The person who noticed it quietly approached the table.

Flutter.

Each time, the robe thrown carelessly over the body swayed.

Because the robe had slipped, the exposed neck, collarbone, and area around the shoulders that it failed to cover were coated in soft feathers.

“What could this mean……?”

The figure pulled a hand from a pocket and brushed back faded hair.

The wrinkled hand, when examined closely, was densely covered in tiny scales.

Hook-curved nails gave off a faint gleam.

Crack.

While the figure carefully stroked the hair without scratching the scalp, another flaw appeared in the gem.

The cleavage wasn’t severe yet, but it was obvious that if this continued, the gemstone would eventually shatter into pieces.

“I thought I would never use this in my lifetime.”

Even knowing that, the owner took no special action.

If anything, there was even a trace of excitement at the sight of the gem gradually breaking apart.

The gemstone’s reflected light touched ruby-red eyes and turned them brown.

A color dry and brittle like tree bark, yet damp and heavy like wet earth.

“What might the one who covets the heavens be thinking?”

The figure picked up the glass tube containing the gemstone and raised it to eye level.

“Hmm, Number 73?”

For an instant, the memory of when this gem had been created surfaced.

『This one… is a failure.』

Back when the Morning Star of another land had illuminated this tower.

* * *

“How.

Dare.

You.”

I had aimed to sever her arm, but the final result was only a cut about three centimeters deep into her shoulder.

Unlike a spear of Demonic Energy that rushed forward as a point, a slash cut the body as a line.

I had deliberately hidden it until now and used it as a surprise attack this time, yet she had reacted to that as well and blocked most of it.

Should I have just used it from the beginning?

Clicking my tongue at the disappointing result, I swung my empty hand.

Demonic Energy shot from my fingertips along my nails and clawed through the air, only to be erased by the whip.

The shattered energy dissolved into the wind.

“A mere human.”

Yet despite what looked to me like a perfect defense, she voiced displeasure.

No.

Anger.

My shirt was full of holes and I was leaking blood everywhere, but because her shoulder had been cut slightly, her eyes were blazing with rage.

Like an emerald that shattered if handled even slightly incorrectly, her strangely luminous teal eyes began to split along their cleavage.

Light bent and reflected across the spiderweb cracks, giving them a cold, sharp brilliance like broken glass.

“I will tear apart your soul and hang it upon that star.”

“…Oh.”

I blinked at the elegantly worded statement that, when summarized, meant little more than I’ll fucking kill you.

Whether human or not, everyone’s vocabulary became simpler once they were pissed off.

A useless realization.

“Go ahead.”

Separately, I would be relieved if anger simplified her actions as well.

If she only talked like that while keeping her movements soaked in reason, though, that would be a problem.

I was already being beaten one-sidedly.

If she started taking this completely seriously and raised the difficulty even further, things would become very troublesome.

With an awkward smile, I properly drew upon the Demonic Energy I had been conserving so carefully.

Meaning, in addition to the spears, I started spamming slashes too.

For the record, there wasn’t any deep reason I had held this skill back until now.

It was simply that slashes inevitably took on the shape of area attacks, whether I wanted them to or not.

And if I was going to use an area attack anyway, wouldn’t it be more efficient to do so when the surroundings were full of small fry as well?

Slash!

Exactly.

If I could reduce the number of minor monsters while simultaneously dealing with that knight, it would reduce the burden on the wall by the same amount.

So dragging things out early on had been a reasonably smart decision.

I hadn’t known I would end up this mangled, but still.

“Pathetic……!”

BOOM! BOOM!

I launched myself into the air to avoid the teal trajectory.

It was exactly the sort of huge movement you should never use recklessly in a fight between knights.

Kyarararak.

But this wasn’t a proper one-on-one fight.

I flipped through the air, avoiding both her sword and the demons beneath my feet.

The opponent who normally should have been focusing on me was also busy keeping the demons pouring in from all sides at bay.

The moment I landed with a foot planted atop a demon’s head, I swung my sword downward.

While cutting a demon with an elegant curve, she raised her own blade and deflected mine sideways.

The sword aura that shot out cut through the hem of her clothes and sliced straight through everything behind her.

“So close……!”

Yet her actual weapon endured my strike with ease.

I’d heard rapiers generally had poor durability, but whether her weapon was simply excellent or the common knowledge I had was wrong, it remained disgustingly intact.

No.

If anything, my sword was the one that seemed cracked.

I shut my mouth just as I was about to mutter what a shame while staring at the longsword’s slightly chipped edge.

If the longsword shattered, I would lose my primary method of fighting her.

Of course, I still had the Zweihander in my inventory, and durability wasn’t much of a concern with that……

But what I learned in Manhappelt was how to fight with a longsword.

Not how to fight with a True Zweihander.

And if I was already barely keeping up with a longsword I had actually trained with, switching to a weapon I wielded even more crudely might genuinely get my head cut off.

For now, I shut up and poured Demonic Energy into the sword embedded in the ground.

Using the blade as a conduit, the energy flowed into the earth and sharpened into spikes.

BOOOOM!

The Demonic Energy exploded outward from the sword as its axis and spread forward.

Sssk.

Once again, however, the veil formed by her blade cut apart all of my energy, rendering it useless.

“You cannot defeat me.”

But that was nothing more than a trick.

Her swordsmanship, accumulated steadily over years, remained something I couldn’t imagine copying no matter how many times I saw it.

But that move?

Just seeing it was enough for me to get an idea of how it worked.

So it was definitely a trick.

“You suddenly started talking again, so—”

I curved my lips upward as smoothly as possible.

Buzz.

Flies, winged ants, and cockroaches crawled into my clothes and dug into my wounds, but I ignored them for the moment.

“Looks like you’re starting to get nervous?”

My sword painted dozens of trajectories at random as it unleashed slash after slash.

As though trying to divide the entire world into hundreds of cubes.

Read only on MUGEX

* * *

『I believe I followed your request perfectly. A replica that even priests consider completely human, yet still obeys the original. There was nothing that could be done about its combat strength, so setting that aside, are you saying it has some other defect?』

『How astonishing. To think such a question would come from one who claims to pursue wisdom. Do you truly ask because you do not know, or are you pretending ignorance?』

『…Ha ha.』

『One who thirsts for knowledge, had I wished to obtain a human who obeyed me, I would never have come before you. Wealth, honor, knowledge. There are many who would bow their heads to me the moment I promised a fitting price.』

『Then?』

『There is no value in being treated as human by humans. It must appear human to humans and demonic to demons before it possesses worth.』

『That is impossible.』

『Yes. So it would seem. Then our transaction ends here. If impossibility has been proven, there is no longer any reason for me to remain.』

* * *

“Astonishing.”

BOOM.

The instant her foot touched a mound, the earth sank in concentric terraces.

Mud lifted into the air, and demons were flung upward with it.

The sword aura tearing wildly through the ground failed to cut into the lowered earth and instead carved apart only the air above it.

“It is difficult enough simply to wag one’s tongue so frivolously.”

But all of that was merely a secondary effect of what she actually intended to do.

The air, which for a moment seemed to flow slowly, suddenly accelerated.

Her body arrived directly before mine.

An attack from someone several times more knowledgeable about swords than I was.

I widened my eyes and observed it.

My surroundings made evasion impossible.

Counterattacking was my only option.

Clang-clang-clang!

Our swords tangled in an instant.

Starting from a high guard, the locked blades rotated and collided at a speed an ordinary person’s eyes would struggle even to follow, scattering sharp metallic ringing.

With nothing but a turn of her wrist, she smoothly deflected my blade, changed the angle, and slashed at my hand.

I barely blocked it and tried to cut her thigh.

She slipped half a step backward, evaded, and went for my head again.

Block.

Attack.

Block the attack.

Get blocked.

Repeat.

I didn’t even have time to use a slash.

Apparently she had realized that the moment I swung my sword broadly, sword aura would shoot along the path of the blade.

She denied me every chance to swing toward her.

Thud!

Yet even at that moment, neither she nor I had only the other’s attacks to worry about.

Flutter.

The insects that had appeared with the demons and clung to our bodies—

and the Gutworms waiting beneath the earth for an opportunity—

were enemies too.

I swatted away a moth obscuring my vision as I swung the sword.

The moth was the size of my palm and unexpectedly heavy, giving a solid sensation when I knocked it away.

Clang!

Her rapier pierced a tiny fly and immediately met my sword.

Slash!

At the same moment, a Gutworm erupted from the ground.

Our gazes tangled for an instant.

Then, as if we had agreed beforehand, both swords fell.

Slash!

Her blade severed the Gutworm on the right.

Mine took the head off an Earth-Eater on the left.

Clang!

Our swords crossed again—

then separated.

We had both retreated from the slime that erupted between us.

Now.

I realized this distance was the timing I needed.

“An obvious intention.”

SWISH!

But before I could swing, the whip rushed in like a snake.

CRACK!

A single lash violently tore the air.

Several insects caught in its path disintegrated before my eyes.

Forget pity.

I absolutely did not want to get hit by that.

Kyar—Kyak!

I stabbed through the belly of an approaching ghoul and dragged the blade downward.

Then I grabbed its shoulder and vaulted over it.

Slash!

The whip that came immediately afterward tore open the flesh of the innocent ghoul instead.

It made an excellent shield.

Anyway.

Hidden behind the ghoul, my sword drew a line along the horizon.

With a strange noise, the crescent crawled across the earth—

then vanished.

Slash!

Half a beat later, the demons’ bodies were cut horizontally and erupted into sprays of blood.

Among them, only one person remained unbisected.

The rapier, standing sideways like the rings of Saturn, had blocked in front of its owner like a shield.

Behind her, a handful of demons had barely survived within a fan-shaped area.

The radius I had cut probably wasn’t even twenty meters across.

Beyond that were far more.

“Whew.”

But the important thing was that she had taken no damage at all.

Crunch.

She crushed the twitching hand of a corpse beneath the heel of her white boot.

Mud splattered upward.

Blood flowing through the mud stained her footwear as well.

It was a strangely discordant, uncomfortable sight—

as though even the most exalted being could not avoid being dirtied when standing in a mire.

“So why did you side with demons when they treat you like this?”

And because of that, I still couldn’t understand why she was doing any of this.

If she were on the demons’ side, why were they attacking her just as they attacked me?

If she weren’t on their side, why had she inflicted so much damage on the city?

It only made things more confusing.

“A reason.”

The knight in soiled white raised her head after destroying an incoming swarm of insects with a single sweep of the whip.

* * *

『According to our agreement, I will take this with me.』

『…What will you do with it now?』

『It may be a failure, but that does not mean it is without use. It will be used somewhere appropriate.』

『If possible, could you use it somewhere I can watch? At least let me observe it.』

『What an amusing request.』

『As expected, that is not possible?』

『I shall leave behind that emerald you secretly made. Be satisfied with that, one who longs for knowledge.』

『…You knew?』

『Have you forgotten where your research itself began?』

『…….』

『Once it has stabilized, I will return to retrieve that. That will be our final meeting.』

* * *

“Humans always insist upon giving meaning to such turning points. Most events in this world occur through currents that cannot be explained.”

I thought she might flare up again after receiving a small wound to the shoulder, but unexpectedly, her voice remained calm.

Crunch!

Apparently she still possessed the ability to monitor her surroundings without turning her gaze.

The rapier stabbed straight through the throat of an Earth-Eater trying to bite into her.

“However, yes.”

Then, as though swinging a skewer, she drove the impaled Earth-Eater into the ground.

Its head failed to withstand the force.

It tore apart and separated, and only the upper portion of the head ended up striking the mud.

“Foolish one. Since you insist upon asking for a reason, I will answer mercifully.”

Splat.

The severed head lay abandoned in the mud with its eyes rolled back.

The blood-soaked mire and chunks of flesh rolling through it looked like a fragment of hell dragged into the world.

And above that hellscape, the teal figure made her declaration.

“Everything I do is to drag down the one who insulted me, and to rebel against the one who made it impossible for me even to stand at the starting line.”

Behind the quietly spoken words seemed to boil an inferiority complex like molten lava.

“You will be the first.”