Chapter 246 - A Knight's Prayer

A knight rode through the dead of night. He knew how dangerous it was to gallop down a road without a single light, but he shook the reins, urging his horse onward.

Children huddled in his arms. No fewer than four rode with him, perched precariously on the saddle. The knight sheltered them as best he could. He could sacrifice neither speed nor safety.

SNORT! SNORT!

The horse's snorting grew labored. It had reached its limit. William brought it to a halt.

"We'll have to walk from here."

William helped the children down one by one. When he set a girl he had been holding on the ground, she swayed badly.

"Are you all right?"

"..."

The girl did not answer. A larger boy answered for her.

"She says she's just a little dizzy. She's all right."

"Shall I carry you?"

"I'll do it."

The boy bravely turned his back to the girl, and she carefully climbed onto it.

One adult and four small children on a single horse. It had been no easy journey. William offered the horse an apology.

"I'm sorry. Please go a little farther in the wrong direction."

William slapped its rump, and the startled horse broke into a headlong run. That would delay pursuit a little longer. He decided to proceed through the undergrowth.

"All of you must follow exactly in my footsteps. Understood?"

"Yes."

William fashioned a torch and led the way. Not even the light of the moon and stars reached this place. It was utterly dark.

Much like his future.

'What do I do now?'

William knew what he had done. This was on an entirely different level from when he had become a refugee. Back then, he had been only a cadet. There had been some room for excuses.

But now he was a knight. A knight fleeing in defiance of his lord's will. He had spirited away condemned prisoners scheduled for execution tomorrow morning. His crime was so grave that being killed on the spot without torture would count as a merciful death. He would have to spend the rest of his life on the run.

William asked himself whether he had made a mistake.

And he answered: even if it was a mistake, he would have done it. Given ten thousand possibilities, he would have chosen the same course all ten thousand times.

The children were victims. He could not leave them to die after suffering so much. It went against everything he believed in.

'So what do I do now?'

The reality of his bleak prospects still stood before him.

'I do have a way to get money right away.'

The ceremonial sword Duke Yurei had given him, his last keepsake. Selling its jewels and gold inlay should let him settle in some quiet country village. Perhaps that would suffice.

Just then, the boy stopped walking. All the other children stopped in unison with him.

"What's wrong?"

William raised the torch to examine his face. The boy was sweating coldly, frightened of something.

"Th-they're coming."

The pursuers? He had expected them soon, but not this soon. They should have needed at least another three hours.

'The Regent has a Dragon Spawn at his side...'

He knew she was immensely powerful. His odds of winning a fight were zero. She would subdue him before he could put up any real resistance.

"D-Demons."

The Dragon Spawn would have been better. The boy's eyes turned scarlet as he scanned their surroundings.

"They're surrounding us, as if they knew we'd come here."

"..."

William could not ask whether he was certain. He, too, was beginning to sense it: the presence of death, so fitting for this dark forest.

Could he make it back alive? He thought it over again and again before reaching his conclusion.

"What's your name?" William asked the boy.

"Ruderic."

"Ruderic, listen carefully. Take the younger ones and hide in those bushes."

After making doubly sure they were well hidden, William warned them once more.

"Whatever happens, don't come out until I tell you to."

William extinguished the torch and drew his sword. In the middle of a forest where scarcely a ray of moonlight reached, he stood alone to face them. Red death drew closer, encircling him.

HEE-HEE-HEE...

HA-HA-HA...

Laughter echoed through the forest, chilling him. William kept turning, concentrating on the voices in the dark.

Then it happened.

A sixth sense.

William possessed the finely honed senses of a knight. They made his body move before his mind could comprehend.

CLANG!

An attack struck exactly where William had raised his blade at an angle. For a fleeting instant, the sparks revealed his attacker: black skin suited to the darkness, pointed teeth, and red eyes. An unmistakable Demon, straight out of a textbook.

Had he failed to block that sword stroke, his head would have been cleaved in two. William immediately counterattacked, but despite his speed, the Demon dodged as lightly as if it were child's play and withdrew. During that single exchange, the red lights had completely surrounded him.

"He blocked that?"

"You received His grace, yet you can't kill a human with a single blow? Aren't you ashamed?"

"Shut up!"

The Demons snickered and chatted. There were about six. Just as William reached that count, a sharp pain shot through his thigh. He felt hot blood. As though his earlier block had been sheer luck.

"See? It was pure luck before."

The Demons circled William, mocking him. They were like spearmen standing around a caged beast. They could stab and retreat whenever they pleased, while he could only suffer at their hands.

Wounds multiplied across his body. Yet he blocked every lethal attack, managing to stay alive through it all.

"Persistent bastard."

The Demons were growing bored. They were about to rush him together and finish him off.

"Stop."

A weighty voice halted the Demons. William, too, stopped reflexively. Few could make his body stop on instinct with nothing but their voice. And so, inwardly, he denied it.

That man could not possibly be among these Demons.

"I'll handle this."

Then he stepped before William, who could not believe his eyes.

"... Your Grace."

Perry Yurei.

The man once known as Duke Yurei stood at their head. His middle-aged face had regained its youth and his skin had turned pitch-black, but William remembered his features clearly.

It was unmistakably Yurei.

"Duke Yurei... is that really you, Your Grace?"

"Yes, Perry Yurei. That was my name."

"Why... did you become a Demon?"

"Sigmund showed me."

The emotion in his eyes was...

"How meaningless this life is."

Emptiness.

Yurei's face was utterly hollow.

"And you accepted it?"

"I resisted at first. A foolish time, when I believed there was still some meaning to it."

A sigh escaped his lips.

"I should have let go of everything and become a Demon sooner."

"..."

Yurei would never say such things. He had marched into the Heinkel Kingdom to sacrifice his life for the future. A man like that would never spout nonsense about life being meaningless.

And yet this was Yurei.

William asked, "Then have you come... to punish me?"

"I have no intention of punishing you. The past means nothing."

"Then..."

"Those things you've hidden. I am merely here to retrieve the objects Linne made."

Yurei pointed directly at the bushes where the children were hiding.

"Those children will be used to serve Him."

"You already know where they are."

"Yes."

"Then why bother speaking to me? If you don't intend to punish me, what purpose does this conversation serve?"

"I mean to give you a chance."

Yurei tossed something at William's feet.

A syringe.

"You freed condemned prisoners, William. Once you lose those children, there will be nothing left for you to do. You will only be hunted all the harder."

"..."

"What reason is there to survive in such suffering? I will give you a chance to wash away your sins. Inject yourself with that. Become one of us."

William looked down at the syringe. It would contain a drug that turned people into Demons. He picked it up.

"This doesn't wash away sins."

The fighting spirit in his eyes had not faded.

"Sins aren't something you can forget so easily!"

William hurled it at the ground.

"Foolish boy."

But there was no sound of the syringe shattering. Instead, a sharp prick pierced William's neck.

"Ugh!"

The syringe he thought he had thrown away was embedded in his neck. A Demon had darted forward as fast as a flash of light and plunged it into him.

"You never had a choice."

Hot liquid coursed through William's body. The instant it reached his heart, it spread throughout him.

"Urgh... Urrrgh!!"

"Just accept it, William. Become one of us."

The black drug rose within his body, trying to consume him. William knew that the moment he let go of his mind, everything would end. As surely as he could not defy gravity, he would plunge into that distant abyss.

He resisted, and resisted.

"Wow, he's putting up quite a fight."

"Any other human would be done in ten seconds."

Five minutes passed, yet William had not become a Demon. Instead, the black blood creeping upward began to retreat before his will. That did not mean he had the advantage. The agony remained, and if he let his guard down, it would devour him.

"You are a fool, William."

Yurei asked him, "Do you believe there is hope for you?"

William answered as though it were self-evident.

"If a knight abandons hope... what reason is there for knights to exist?"

Humans were weak. Without something to lean on, they were easily swept away and broken. A knight was meant to be that support.

"Then let me teach you."

Yet even that support was, in the end, only human. A human remained human, unable to rise beyond humanity.

"Just how futile that hope is."

Yurei raised his sword and pointed it at him.

"Ten strikes."

His sword was a masterpiece among masterpieces, forged by a master craftsman.

"Block all ten attacks I deliver to kill you. If you do, I will leave this place quietly."

"..."

"But if you fail, only death awaits. What will you do?"

The answer came easily. William rose and lifted his sword.

Anyone watching would have called it a mistake. As reckless and stupid as charging into a storm approaching from afar. Deep down, William thought so too.

He felt it when he took the first blow.

CLANG!

Overwhelming strength and aura.

Though not a swordmaster, Yurei had been a renowned swordsman, a knight among knights who had taken on any opponent in duels between champions and emerged victorious. Now, having surpassed even his prime, that knight unleashed his sword strikes at William.

Blocking the blow was close to a miracle. The next came immediately.

CLANG!

The second.

William had no time to think. His thoughts froze, giving way to panic, and with that panic came an immense wave of fear that crashed over him.

CLANG!

CLANG!

The third.

His muscles tore.

CLANG!

The fourth.

Still, William's body held firm.

CLANG!

The fifth.

The Demonic blood that had been subsiding burrowed into William's mind.

CLANG!

The sixth.

Still, William did not lose himself.

CLANG!

The seventh.

The reverberations of those sword strikes hammered relentlessly at William's blade, his body, his soul.

CLANG!

The eighth.

William's aura scattered.

CRASH!

The ninth.

His sword broke. The blade flew far away, leaving only the hilt in William's hand.

The Demons mocked the sight.

"How will you survive now, Sir William?"

"Try conjuring some aura, at least. Might give you a chance, wouldn't it?"

"They say humans find superhuman strength in desperate moments. Can't you do the same?"

Yurei's question was stern and brief.

"What now?"

A body battered beyond recognition. Breath barely escaping his lips. Perfect conditions for the black blood to consume him.

Yet William remained unbroken.

He discarded the broken sword and placed his hand on another scabbard. He still had one sword left. A sword too ornate for use in battle.

The moment they saw the shape of its blade, the Demons roared with laughter again.

"Hahaha! What do you plan to do with that toy sword?!"

"He must think it's got some great power just because it's fancy! What an absurd little shit!"

"Silence!"

Yurei's roar silenced them. Though he had lost himself, he knew that sword.

"You kept it."

"... Yes."

"It will break."

"..."

William did not answer. Yurei took his stance, preparing to deliver the final blow. William held his sword upright and closed his eyes.

In the instant before death reached him, he was praying.

* * *

There was a man.

He could have become a promising knight, but instead he became the leader of a band of refugees. Then he became a security captain, and in recognition of his achievements, a knight of the far east.

But once again, he betrayed his lord. The fate awaiting a traitor did not take long to arrive.

Fading breath and soul. A flash of red light bearing down upon him. The man sensed his death.

At that moment, standing at the end of his life, he acted on instinct. Some would have begged for mercy, desperate to live. Others would have lost their will to fight, forgotten what they must protect, and turned to flee.

But this man chose prayer.

"O God..."

This man named William is a sinner whose crimes cry out to heaven. In the name of conviction, I betrayed two lords and scorned the laws of chivalry. Cast this body into the deepest reaches of Hell, and make an example of me with a punishment more terrible than death.

"But..."

In the end, it must be humans who save humanity. Allow this lowly soul of mine to burn to its very end. Grant me the strength to stand before evil until the last. Have mercy upon innocent souls, and grant salvation to those who have lost their way.

As his prayer ended, time began to move for the man again.

CLAAANG!

The tenth.

The sword did not break.