Chapter 119 - Encounter (3)

I drew my sword.

The sword I had given Nol was neither long nor thick enough to launch a sword strike capable of countering Hecate's. I might have had a slight edge in strength, but the sword wouldn't hold up.

Just focus on winning.

But I couldn't bring myself to swing right away.

「You cut your hair.」

Hecate spoke, poised to unleash a strike at any moment.

「It suited you better long.」

「Did it?」

I ran my left hand over the hair covering my nape and murmured,

「It certainly used to be very long.」

Actually, I didn't remember cutting it. I'd opened my eyes to find it short. It wasn't until much later that I learned how long it had once been.

But what did that matter now?

Hecate's legs tensed.

「You still remember the imperial language?」

「Yes. For now.」

「I warned Kyle plenty of times.」

The creatures weren't approaching us. Some of them, however, were throwing themselves at Sylvia without pause. She was slaughtering them, looking half displeased and half satisfied.

Apparently, Hecate had no intention of letting her approach.

I drew a breath, ready to dodge any incoming attack.

「That Hildebert might make a different choice.」

KABOOM!

A building collapsed.

Hecate's sword strike had cleaved clean through it. I ducked beneath the impact and put some distance between us, biting my lip.

「But Kyle wouldn't listen to me.」

RUMBLE, CRASH!

「Either he trusted you too much, or...」

KABOOM!

「He thought you had no reason to choose otherwise.」

I might lose this.

Once again, I realized just how pathetic I'd become. Hecate was renowned for her exceptional leadership and unbending loyalty, but she was also an excellent swordswoman. Neither Kyle nor I had ever disputed that.

I'd thought I'd recovered a fair amount of my old skill.

But at this rate, I wasn't even...

「You're nothing special anymore.」

BOOM!

A diagonal gash opened across my forearm.

Blood sprayed. The strike hurtled past me, its remaining force shredding everything in the road. A utility pole and a motorcycle split in two.

I cut down a creature lunging at my side, then settled back into my stance.

「Commander.」

Then Hecate's quiet call broke my stance.

I'd thought I wouldn't do anything so stupid. I'd thought I was fully prepared. Yet at that achingly familiar address, my grip slackened for an instant.

In the lightless city, Hecate looked straight at me.

Orange eyes.

「Even so,」

They still held the pride of the empire.

「I never thought you'd hand my sword over to a mere human.」

KABOOM!

THUD!

... I'd deflected it.

A fine sword indeed.

I looked down at the blade. Its edge was chipped, but it had kept its shape.

Hecate's massive sword strike had been too large to dodge. I'd barely managed to divert it skyward. Not completely, though: it had sliced away the flesh atop my forearm.

A standard-issue sword wouldn't have deflected it at all.

After looking down at the blade drenched in my blood, I took my stance.

There wasn't much time...

[Reinforcements arriving in ten minutes.]

「I hear you lost your memory?」

Yun's voice came over the communicator at the same moment Hecate spoke.

I blinked, preparing to close the distance.

「What?」

「I heard everything you said to that human living in the subway.」

Ah.

Jin.

Jin Silver. A name that lingered as guilt and pain flashed through my mind.

So did his ash-gray arm. An arm the color of something dipped in cement.

Now that some of my memories had returned, I knew what that was. Those who received too much energy from survivors of a sacred tree's curse had their skin turn to stone. They slowly petrified, then eventually crumbled to dust.

Though Jin wouldn't have known why his arm had turned gray.

「I couldn't believe it for a while, but seeing you now, it seems to be true. Selling out your comrades, then conveniently losing your memory. What a coward you are.」

「Did you kill him?」

「That's what you're worried about?」

Hecate gave a venomous smile.

「That's the first question you ask me? You're still worrying about these things?」

KABOOM!

Flesh was sliced from my left arm.

At the same instant, I kicked off the ground and closed in. There was no way I could launch an effective strike with this sword. Nor was I in any condition to meet Hecate's blade head-on.

But that didn't mean I had no options.

Amazingly, my useless squadmates were proving helpful.

BOOM!

I dodged Hecate's attack and simultaneously unleashed a light sword strike.

It sliced through the pin of a grenade rolling on the ground.

KABOOM!

“Mommyyy!”

Lucia Kwon, who had somehow drifted into this part of the battlefield, screamed.

Sorry, ma'am.

But that grenade you dropped was a great help. Though I have no idea how anyone manages to go around dropping grenades.

Offering thanks she would never hear, I rose from behind the rubble of a building.

Grenades were powerful weapons. They would do far more damage to us, who healed less readily than Badgers.

I looked at Hecate. Her legs were bleeding from shrapnel she hadn't managed to block.

Her eyes rolled.

「I'd hoped for a fight with a little more dignity.」

Hecate flicked the fragments out with her sword.

「It's astonishing how pathetic you've become.」

In the end, Hecate had no chance of winning anyway.

She must have known that herself. If this had been a one-on-one fight, she would have won overwhelmingly.

But it wasn't.

For one thing, Choi Yun was here. With his strength, he could have joined me and taken her head at once. Instead, because of my request, the Badger was currently tearing the giant's head off.

The moment he and Leonard joined us, Hecate would have no chance.

Moreover, the forces that had rescued the surrounded Badgers were on their way.

And however badly my skills had deteriorated, I was confident I could last ten minutes. A renowned great general like Hecate couldn't possibly fail to recognize that.

So either she had come to take me down with her, or simply to see what state I was in.

It was far more likely she'd started with the latter intention.

Only started.

「Hecate.」

I called out to my opponent, who had lost her reason at some point and was foolishly flinging strike after strike.

One of my own kind, unable to think of leaving while I stood before her.

She masked it with a show of composure, but I had immediately recognized the state my former subordinate was in.

「At this rate, you'll die at human hands.」

「You're the last person I want to hear that from.」

「I know I have no right to wish for anything...」

「Shut your mouth.」

「But I don't want to see you die a pointless death.」

「I said shut up!」

I sighed at the sight of my kin raging beyond reason.

Don't go berserk here.

I haven't regained enough skill to cut off your head yet. I don't want to watch you die at human hands.

「You cowardly traitor!」

KABOOM!

A sword strike split five ways.

It was a magnificent strike, utterly impossible to evade. It tore through the asphalt and cleaved the ruins in its path as it hurtled toward me.

And I ran straight at it.

The attack left no opening. The instant one of those razor-sharp strikes pierced my abdomen and passed through, I swung my sword.

My strike sliced the grenade in front of Hecate.

KABOOM!

“Aaargh!”

「Ha ha! Serves you right!」

“Cough.”

Lucia Kwon was hurled into the distance along with the grenade fragments.

Jerry Jones, who had been beside her, went tumbling over the asphalt too. They seemed to have been caught squarely in the blast.

So I was the one committing friendly fire.

Meanwhile, my kin, who had completely neutralized the explosion with her sword, laughed shrilly.

「To think my commander would resort to such a pathetic attack!」

Running into her strike had let me set off the grenade exactly where I wanted, but...

「I do enjoy seeing how far you've fallen!」

It hurt like hell.

Clutching my escaping entrails with my left hand, I gasped for breath that tasted of blood.

This part of the battlefield had become complete chaos too. Allies caught in a grenade blast. Hecate laughing with hatred amid torn-up asphalt and pale smoke. And Sylvia steadily closing the distance to her.

Not even noticing that... She'd completely lost her reason in her rage.

Hecate was already blind to every enemy but me. If she kept this up, she really would die at human hands.

From the look of things, Yun's or Sylvia's.

I truly didn't want to see that.

I had to come up with something, fast.

I dragged my heavy body a few steps and peered down into the crater left by the grenade.

The explosion on the torn asphalt had exposed a sewer.

「Hecate.」

I tore off a strip of skin where her smooth sword strike had split it.

Then I walked a few steps, dropped it into the sewer, and murmured,

「I'm sorry to show you such a pathetic sight.」

「Oh, don't be. I'm having a wonderful time. I don't expect anything from trash like you anymore anyway.」

「I caused this, so I intend to take responsibility and put things right as far as my strength allows.」

I spoke as I watched the piece of flesh splash into the water.

It was something I'd been thinking ever since regaining part of my memory.

A resolve I'd had no need to share with anyone outside my own kind. Now I told my old comrade.

「I'll kill my kin with my own hands.」

The sewer water began to churn.

「And I'll die at yours.」

As long as I remained a Black Badger, that could happen at any time.

I had no intention of turning away from what I'd done. I still couldn't remember exactly why I'd sided with humanity, but remembering wouldn't change the reality much. I'd turned my sword on Kyle and helped kill my own kind. I'd helped humanity win the war against us.

So I would help humanity see its victory through to the end.

And in the course of putting right what I'd done, I would fall at the hands of my kin.

On the battlefield...

To the creatures they controlled. Or to an attack from one of my own kind. If I defeated even the last of my kin, I would gladly enlist their hand to bring about my death.

That was a traitor's resolve.

I couldn't die by my own hand.

Nor did I intend to watch my kin before me die at the hands of humans who delighted in slaughter.

「So you're saying you want to die now?」

Hecate snorted and raised her sword.

So excited by my defenseless state, she didn't even notice Sylvia running up behind her.

「You're asking me to kill you now, aren't you? I'll grant your cowardly wish, Commander. It's what I've wanted too—」

SCREEEEECH!

A creature surged up in a spray of water.

It rose through the hole in the sewer pipe, its enormous body filling my vision.

Hard scales gleamed in the faint moonlight.

The water dragon, Leviathan.

The creature that lived in Area B-6 and emerged to bask in the sunlight was difficult both to kill and to control with any precision.

That was why it wasn't under Hecate's command.

And why I could give it orders, however clumsily.

A method unique to us, one Kyle had been so proud of.

A technique I hadn't managed to recall in the colosseum, and hadn't used particularly often even in the past.

Apparently, desperation like this could bring it back.

“Swallow her.”

I pointed at Hecate and gave the water dragon its order.

I could control this massive creature for precisely one minute.

I intended to accomplish my objective within that minute.

“Swallow her and leave.”

So she wouldn't lose her life at human hands.