290

Chapter 290 — Something I Can Accept (6)

Fwoosh.

I quietly pulled the sword free with my body drenched in blood. The blade, wreathed in black Demonic Energy mixed with amber sparks so that it looked like a burning log fire, was still blazing.

Thud.

Meanwhile, the one from whom the sword had been pulled collapsed completely with a wet squelch. The corpse lying in the mud was filthy, yet still white enough to look strangely out of place.

The red blooming from one side of the heart looked almost like a flower.

‘For something made by humans, it’s a pretty decent sword.’

Ah, this was fucking brutal. Seriously.

Vowing never to fight another knight again, I looked around. Because of the Demonic Energy I had just released—or that had been released?—the battlefield had temporarily come to a standstill.

As for why everything had suddenly stopped… Well. Maybe it was along the same lines as what I’d tried in that forest a few days ago.

For example, they realized a higher-ranking demon had appeared and got scared.

What I could actually see supported that guess. Every time my gaze moved, they shrank back and bowed their heads. No matter how I looked at it, that was the posture of the weak being overwhelmed.

Some were even inching their feet backward as though trying to decide whether or not to run.

‘Want me to burn them?’

But looking for a chance to flee and actually tucking tail and running were two completely different things.

I watched the creatures waver between me and the gigantic beast standing tall in the distance. They did nothing but watch both sides, unwilling to take the first step. They had stopped attacking the humans, but they still hadn’t withdrawn from the battlefield itself.

In other words, if I wanted to remove them from this battlefield, I would have to do a little more.

I didn’t know how much more power I would need to expend to drive them away, though.

‘Should I make that bug bastard have no choice but to withdraw its army?’

Actually, driving every last one of them away would be a problem too.

Ignoring good and evil and considering only my own profit and loss, it would be better if some remained rather than leaving completely. Not because I wanted this city to stay in danger, but because there was always a chance the real Demon Knight would wipe his mouth clean and pretend not to know anything afterward.

There really were people in this world who, after you rescued them from drowning, would turn around and demand their bundle too.

‘If you permit it, I can erase every piece of trash interfering with this game.’

So.

Something I could deal with if I stepped in, but that still posed a small threat to the city, while not actually attacking it right away.

To put it bluntly, I wanted some demons to remain so that the situation would give me leverage in negotiations.

I knew it was an extremely selfish wish, but still.

「That would violate the contract.」

‘Oh? Exactly what part violates it?’

「You’re trying to use your power right now…….」

‘Why is it a problem if I’m offering to use it for free, without demanding a price? If you were going to act like this, you should’ve stopped the intervention just now too.’

「…That and this are different.」

‘Well, I don’t see any difference at all. Is it wrong to bring them victory out of goodwill, and clear away the trash out of goodwill?’

「I’d sooner believe that person kills people while smiling than believe you’d act out of goodwill!」

But of course it wouldn’t be easy, right?

Yeah.

How could something like that possibly work out?

‘Ah, ahahahaha! Ahahahahaha!! Right, exactly. You’re right. That really is true. Me acting out of goodwill? There’s no way something like that would ever happen!’

If everything always went in one individual’s favor, that wouldn’t be the world anymore……

‘But then, are you going to refuse? I’m saying I’ll take care of all those pieces of trash that could threaten your city. I’ll burn every last one of them away without asking for anything in return. And you’re still going to refuse?’

「……!」

‘You don’t want to, do you?’

I raised a blood-soaked hand and covered my face.

Only then did my entire body—cut by swords, burst open by the whip, gnawed by insects—begin to throb.

Even with my pain setting reduced, it hurt this much. I couldn’t even imagine how painful it would actually be.

Nor did I particularly want to imagine it.

‘So, kid, shut up. You chose your beloved hometown over the people who got dragged into this because of you. Don’t start pretending to worry about that person now.’

「……!」

Instead, through the gaps between my fingers, I watched words begin to appear.

[ Ta ke out Ra tel ]

[ Le t’s cle ar the are a ]

[ Yo u don’t wa nt our conver sation inter rupted eit her ¿ ]

No… Could I even call those words?

They burrowed into my brain like a voice and engraved themselves into my ears like written characters.

[ We pro bably can’t dea l with tha t fat pig up ahea d ]

[ But if we bu rn all the tra sh arou nd us ]

[ It sho uld buy you eno ugh time to hea r the tru th ]

I wasn’t particularly surprised by the bizarre phenomenon.

Come on. How long had it been since I learned that another being lived inside this body besides me? Why would something like this surprise me now?

Besides… if I thought back to how this vermilion sword had been sucked into my hand just moments ago, or how the Demonic Energy had suddenly burst out against my will, the identity of the being speaking now was obvious.

[ You’ve inve sted th is mu ch alrea dy ]

[ You do n’t wa nt it to en d with out hea ring the tr uth eit her, ri ght? ]

Maybe because the Truth had finally been put on the table, the fuckers who had only stood by and watched were finally beginning to intervene.

[ Don’t wor ry ]

[ I wo n’t tou ch the ci ty ]

What pissed me off was that the tone made me feel like there should be a “lol” tacked onto the end.

Because of that, I could tell that the one who had spoken through the System window and the one speaking now were separate beings.

Going a step farther, judging by the sheer obnoxiousness and lack of manners, I could even distinguish the real Demon Knight from the demon.

[ Wh at are yo u do ing? ]

[ Ta ke it ou t alre ady ]

[ I’ll he lp you ]

The System window had at least apologized once, so it probably wasn’t the demon.

Which meant this rude bastard was definitely the demon.

“Oh, so you did have a tongue after all. You avoided conversation so thoroughly that I thought you were some dog-food maggot with no tongue, no ears, and no dialogue function installed.”

[ ……. ]

But when I thought about it, wasn’t this demon the reason the real Demon Knight had summoned me here in the first place?

Then wasn’t this bastard ultimately the single biggest cause of this whole fucking situation?

This son of a bitch really had the nerve to laugh through text at me.

My hands trembled before the fragment of the enemy I had finally encountered.

The words remained silent for a moment, then continued.

[ Sho uld I ju st lea ve, th en? ]

“The way you threaten people the instant something displeases you makes it wonderfully obvious how you’ve lived your life. And if you’re telling me to take something out, shouldn’t you tell me what I’m supposed to take out? Ratel? How am I supposed to know what you mean if that’s all you say? Or what, did living as a parasite inside someone else’s body like some socially stunted loser make you start throwing around terms only you know?”

[ You rea lly do ta lk pret tily ]

“Thank you for the compliment. You’re spectacularly terrible at talking yourself. You can’t even use spaces properly.”

It had been a while since I’d really let my mouth run, so part of me felt refreshed, while another part still felt like my anger was boiling over.

Watching the string of text fall silent again just because I’d said something harsh, I organized everything I wanted to say to that bastard.

There were so many things I wanted to vomit out the instant I saw its face.

[ You r Zweihan der ]

[ Ta ke it ou t ]

So many things.

I wasn’t sure I’d actually manage to say them all.

My insides were already boiling now. If I saw that thing’s face directly, I’d probably get even more pissed off.

[ Swi ng the swo rd ]

[ And spre ad Demo nic Ene rgy wit h it ]

But I couldn’t ignore the instruction.

The demon and the real Demon Knight were both still infuriating, but the people behind me had done nothing wrong.

[ Reme mber th is ]

I planted the amber-colored sword upside down into the earth and stretched an empty hand into the air.

The Zweihander formed in the space between my fingers.

The grip I had grown accustomed to over nearly a year filled my palm snugly.

Fwoosh.

The black flames clinging to my body flowed into the Zweihander.

[ Demo nic Ene rgy mu st not mo ve ahe ad of the swo rd ]

[ And the swo rd mu st not mo ve fas ter tha n the Ene rgy ]

[ The swo rd an d Demo nic Ene rgy ha ve to swi ng at the sa me ti me ]

The words entering through my ears were somewhat abstract.

I had no idea what exactly it expected me to do.

[ Eve ryth ing tou ched by the spre ading Ene rgy wi ll bur n ]

But I understood that last part clearly.

So I could designate the range too?

Good.

I liked that quite a bit.

I gripped the sword firmly in both hands.

“Concentration?”

[ Thre e ti mes wh at you use d in the fo rest. ]

“Good.”

If I emptied basically all the Demonic Energy I had, that should be about right.

I swung the sword.

Read only on MUGEX

* * *

Some went mad from thirst and died trying to drink the demons’ blood.

Some could not endure their hunger and began biting anything around them without distinguishing friend from foe, only to be eaten themselves.

Some collapsed with their organs eaten away while trying to drive off the flies, moths, and maggots covering their entire bodies.

Others scratched at themselves under the diseases those creatures carried until their flesh rotted away.

In a scene of madness where having one’s body torn apart, melted, or severed by demons would almost qualify as a good death, Gunter heard a metallic sound like a sharp crack.

The sight of the weapon belonging to the one fighting the traitor breaking happened to lodge itself in his vision.

“N-No—”

Clatter.

Perhaps seeing it at all had been coincidence.

In a battlefield that chaotic, looking in that particular direction at that particular instant and witnessing what happened beyond probably really had been a trick of coincidence.

But it was fate that the Amber Knight’s sword, discarded by the traitor, caught against his foot.

And surely it was destiny that no demon interfered as he picked up Bernstein and hurled it.

“Atia!!”

The sword that ordinarily would have fallen three or four meters short of the wall was caught by a black line and sucked toward the place he had wanted it to reach.

“Young Lord!”

Krararak!

But in the tiny instant before the sword reached its destination, Gunter had to pay the price for ignoring everything else.

The demon he had turned his back on swung its claws at him.

Or at least, it should have.

Thoom.

For an instant, the weight of the air changed, and the claws that should have reached his neck stopped with less than a sheet of paper between them.

[Runrunrunrunrun.]

Kyaaaaagh!

[WrathhascomeWrathhascomeWrathhas.]

It wasn’t only that one demon.

The demons that had half overrun the wall began shrieking one after another and retreating.

“The demons are withdrawing!”

The soldiers thrust their spears in bewilderment, but few of the demons resisted.

Like a terrified swarm of rats, they threw themselves from the wall and crawled across the ground below.

“Ah…….”

That was when the sword containing a fragment of dawn was dyed with night for an instant, then returned once more to the color of daybreak.

Pitch-black sparks drifted like ash.

The vermilion blade shone so brightly it hurt the eyes, blazing like a torch.

It was the flame that pierced the traitor’s heart.

“It’s the Amber Knight…….”

“Sir Amber…….”

“The Amber Knight has returned……!”

The surviving soldiers turned their gazes toward that brilliant light.

With the demons retreating, there was no reason for them not to.

Those who remembered the vermilion flames wept.

Those who did not remember them sang of God.

“A-A demon… but it’s a demon…….”

“God, we… we…….”

The priests who had received God’s power were in much the same state.

They struggled with the ultimate contradiction they had witnessed while staring blankly at the hope that had arrived alongside it.

“God, why do You place us through trials such as these……?”

The bishop, one arm torn away by a demon, muttered as tears streamed down their face.

“Bishop.”

“…Young Lord.”

“The people…….”

Gunter stopped before finishing and looked across the wall.

The trained soldiers had been reduced to one-third their original number, and most of those who remained were wounded.

“Please heal the people.”

“…There is not much Divine Power left available to us.”

If they healed all of them, the priests would no longer be able to use their power.

In other words, if they had to face the demons again before recovering, they would be unable to borrow God’s power.

“…I do not believe that thing is our enemy.”

They would have no strength left to keep the being standing outside the wall in check.

“Is that because it resembles Sir Amber, or Sir Amber’s child?”

“…No. I just… I simply.”

“Young Lord…….”

“…I know. Damn it, I know I shouldn’t make decisions based on vague faith. I know. I know this is a gamble… but it’s not as though leaving the soldiers untreated would let us defeat that thing, is it?”

Would keeping strength in reserve really mean anything?

“If we conserve our strength right now, can we defeat that thing, Bishop?”

Gunter helped the bishop upright while watching portions of the world evaporate soundlessly.

The army of evil they had desperately struggled merely to withstand disappeared without leaving even a single mote of ash behind.

Even within that brief moment, the sight was perfectly visible.

All of it had been done with a single swing of a sword.

“This isn’t an emotional decision. I thought about it before deciding. So, Bishop, just… let’s save the soldiers.”

“…Yes.”

Watching the bishop laugh helplessly, Gunter forced strength into his trembling legs.

Now it was time to restore order atop the wall.

“Uh, uh!”

“……?!”

Suddenly, something resembling bone rose from beyond the wall.

* * *

I watched the Zweihander melt into white mucus, then surge upward and become a cocoon protecting me.

I closed my eyes.

If the demon bastard had been telling the truth, this would completely block any attacks that might come while I was vulnerable.

Now it was finally time to talk properly.

My vision was wrapped in pitch-black darkness.

Then the fall began.

[Hello, Gretchen.]

「…….」

[This is the first time we’ve properly seen each other’s faces, right?]

「…I’m sorry. I’m sorry.」

When the fall finally ended, I could at last see the beings who had dragged me into this place.

A figure wearing a mountain-goat skull like a mask and a gray-haired boy with tears filling his eyes stood in a world of red and white.