Chapter 114

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A brief moment is all it takes. Just a brief moment. To kill a person, that is.

The enemies stared blankly for a moment as Ricard leaped from the great boulder. A streak of light cut through the air.

The man with pointed ears neither blocked nor counterattacked. He retreated a considerable distance, almost as if fleeing. The others did not.

They hurriedly drew throwing weapons or thrust their billhooks at him, but they were far too slow.

Something like wind swept past them, light flashed before their eyes, and heat seared their necks, arms, or shoulders. Those were their last memories, their last sensations, their last moments of consciousness.

Once they allowed Ricard within striking distance, attacking and defending became meaningless.

So did their numerical advantage. A brief moment was enough for six or seven armed men to die without even realizing they were dying.

Though there was no blood on his blade, Ricard flicked his sword out of habit and fixed his gaze on the man who had fled into the forest shadows.

The man looked back and forth between Ricard and the burning sword, fear and greed mingling in his eyes. Apparently, he coveted Ricard’s heart despite being unable to stand and fight him.

“You’re Riki, aren’t you? Red Cloak.”

So the man said. Hadn’t he already known? Ricard neither confirmed nor denied it.

He merely smiled in derision. The man’s sordid depths were plain to see.

“Now I see you don’t understand demons at all... You’re nothing more or less than a pig steeped in gluttony.”

“Say what you like. There are many of us, and we grow stronger every day. In the end, you’ll meet a miserable death too.”

“Increasing the amount of mana you have won’t change anything. Only a deep, expansive mind grants broader insight. You wouldn’t understand even if I explained it.”

Ricard approached to kill him, and the man fled, just as expected.

His movements, however, were extraordinary. Like the man who had leaped down the cliff a little while ago, he jumped higher than any human body should have allowed, landing on a tree branch.

Had they developed a Mana Drive that made their bodies lighter? It did not seem to help them in an actual fight, though. Otherwise, he would have tried something.

He stood on the branch looking down at Ricard, but the moment Ricard prepared to throw a stone, he darted away. After all, stone-throwing was a powerful technique humanity had favored from prehistoric times to the present.

Bounding from branch to branch, he vanished in an instant.

Ricard considered what to do for a moment, then gave chase in the direction the man had disappeared. He was less interested in catching him than in locating the other enemies.

Sure enough, before long he found increasing numbers converging on the spot where the signal flare had burst.

They had been spread far apart, but now they were closing in on the center of the circle. He could find them quickly without having to scour the forest.

Ricard hid in the undergrowth or behind trees, then struck in a single rush like a tiger and finished them off.

Splitting into small units had its advantages, but its drawbacks were equally clear. It left them vulnerable to being defeated one unit at a time.

Besides, the enemies had never dreamed they might come under counterattack, so they could not even flee properly. Contact was lost in an instant, and the communications network itself began to unravel.

Meanwhile, some of them had reached the peak where the party was hiding. When they saw Bori guarding the narrow, treacherous path, they naturally refrained from charging him and tried something from a distance instead.

They threw objects made with tar or some strange mixture and fired flaming arrows.

It was a bare, rocky mountain, so at first it was hard to see what they hoped to accomplish. Soon, however, thick, acrid smoke began to rise. It was far denser than anyone could have imagined.

Bori trusted Ricard’s judgment, but he knew he had to adapt when the situation changed. He left the approach and charged at the enemies.

When he drew the blade once known as the Phantom Sword, which he himself had renamed the Nameless Sword, a hue like starlight shining in the dark of night spread over its blade.

Unlike Ricard, however, Bori had a very difficult time fighting while dodging the troublesome throwing weapons and nets. One wrong move could see him captured or seriously injured.

Alone, he repeatedly pressed the enemy, fell back, and attacked again.

He needed to finish them in a single rush and move on to the next group as Ricard did, but that was difficult when he had people to defend.

The enemies sought any route around him, climbing the mountain to trap Bori between attacks from the front and rear. Instead, they ran into Hartmann’s family, Bremen, and Marie.

They had come for Bori in the first place, so they wondered what these people were doing here. However good the communications network, it was difficult to relay every detail of the original sighting accurately.

Hartmann and the others felt their hearts sink. Smoke was billowing up from below, making them fear a fire had broken out. In fact, there was no fire.

The enemies were equally disconcerted, but the battle-seasoned Marie drew her fine sword, Riki. It was a beautifully proportioned weapon, its blade’s length and width almost perfectly matching the golden ratio.

She slashed with it as swiftly as a surging wave, or a whip. An enemy who had climbed up by clinging to one handhold after another had his throat cut and fell.

Those below started in surprise. The thick smoke obscured their vision too, leaving them uncertain what had happened above.

“What’s going on?”

“Looks like there are more enemies.”

“Didn’t they say it was just one Sword Master?”

Apparently, many of them were temporary hires.

Capturing a Sword Master was extremely dangerous and difficult, but they had thought it would be manageable with enough people.

More enemies were another matter, though. Wasn’t that a breach of the agreed terms?

They immediately addressed a member of the clan that had hired them.

“There are more enemies. You’ll have to increase our fee.”

“How much more do you need?”

“Double it for every additional enemy.”

Was that an offer or a load of shit? True to their mercenary nature, they seized the opportunity to make a ludicrous demand.

There was no knowing how wealthy the Rubens clan was, but no amount of money could justify accepting such a proposal.

There was room to negotiate, of course, but no time for it in this urgent situation.

“Stand aside. We’ll handle this.”

With no other choice, the Rubens clan’s own swordsmen decided to act.

The mercenaries withdrew without a trace of regret, as if to say, suit yourselves. They only had to do what they were paid for. Why risk their lives any more than necessary?

Using their distinctive body-lightening technique, the Rubens swordsmen bounded straight up to Marie’s position. The terrain should have prevented several people from approaching at once, but not them.

The moment they appeared, Marie swung as though she had been waiting for them.

A purple flash tore through the pale smoke toward them. The Rubens men lost all coordination, and two died with absurd ease.

Rather than shock or grief at their comrades’ deaths, however, the sight of Marie’s sword filled their widening eyes with greed. Greed had long since twisted their very thought processes.

“Another Sword Master!”

“Spread out!”

“Someone get above her!”

Their greed must have transcended even the fear of death. They looked ready to drool at the sight of Marie. Darting about like a swarm of gnats, they began surrounding her on the rugged terrain.

As they encircled her from the front, rear, and sides, Marie found herself in a bind. Going on the offensive would leave the party exposed, but remaining on the defensive would allow the enemy to surround her.

And those light-footed movements—even professional acrobats could not match them. They seemed to have some special method of manipulating mana.

It was as though each side held both favorable and unfavorable cards. The fight was as precarious as walking on thin ice.

Marie had one final option: abandon the others. Alone, she could break through and join Bori. Even if she could not, she could simply kill everyone in her way and leave.

But she was not that sort of person. No more than her husband was. Even at the cost of her life, she would not so much as consider such cowardice.

What choice was there? There was no damned choice. Only a duty she had to stake her life on.

Then one of the Rubens men shouted at Hartmann’s family.

“Attack that bitch from behind! I’ll pay you anything you want!”

Marie flinched and looked back at the people she was protecting. Betrayal by someone trusted was the most lethal move of all, one even the most renowned swordsman could do nothing about.

Her own resolve was firm, but what about theirs? Distrust and doubt brushed against her heart.

Her fears were groundless. Just as Marie had no choice, betrayal had never been an option for them.

Without an instant’s hesitation, Hartmann stepped forward with his axe and shouted, loud and firm.

“We don’t want it!”

Then he charged the man who kept harrying Marie with hit-and-run attacks from the right.

Unfortunately, these enemies only looked weak because they had been facing Sword Masters. They were not men who would fall to an ordinary woodcutter’s axe.

The man did not merely dodge with ease. He counterattacked with equal ease. The axe cut empty air, and his blade slashed across Hartmann’s side.

“Father!”

“Darling!”

His wife and children cried out together. But the truly astonishing part was yet to come.

Despite the deep slash in his side, Hartmann gritted his teeth and held firm. With his dogged strength, he seized the man, hauled him close, and drove his head into his face. Not once, but over and over.

THUD! THUD! THUD! CRACK!

The enemy died with his face completely caved in. Blood streamed from Hartmann’s forehead, covering his face. In that state, he turned to his family and shouted.

“Stay back!”

Where did human strength come from? Clearly, it was not simply physical power or mana.

Radiant courage and unshakable resolve seemed to show how strong a person could truly be. Even if they achieved little. Even if they did not survive.

It was not the strong who survived, but the survivors who were strong? To hell with that. He did not want to live that way. That was the sort of man, the sort of father, the sort of husband Hartmann was.

A man who stood firm with his broad shoulders and chest, no matter how the world lashed him.

Meanwhile, enraged by the loss of a valued clan swordsman, the dead man’s comrades descended on Hartmann. Marie fought desperately, but it was not enough. It was too late to tell him to retreat.

As cuts appeared all over his body in an instant, Hartmann suddenly caught one enemy in a tight embrace. With iron resolve, he drove forward and hurled himself toward the jagged, pointed rocks.

In his final moment, Hartmann’s heart filled with regret for killing a priest, sorrow toward his family, and hope for a future even without him.

“Aaaaaah!”

For an instant, everyone watched in shock.

Then Hartmann fell with his enemy onto the treacherous terrain and met a heroic death in flames. Without a moment’s hesitation.

By this point, even the enemies were thinking, what the hell was that? Apart from the Sword Master, the others seemed to be ordinary people. Such fighting spirit left them cowed.

But those who had lost someone they loved could only stand stunned. For the moment, they felt neither sorrow nor anger so much as numbness. Reality felt like a lie.

The acrid smoke grew thicker still. As though trying to cover something.

A brief silence fell. Then one enemy recovered his wits and shouted.

“Take them hostage!”

Alarmed, Marie cried out.

“Get right against the wall!”

Her purple sword flashed through the smoke. But she could not repel every enemy as they leaped freely about, their bodies light as feathers.

With things as they were, Bremen, Roy, and Becca joined the fight. Was this the last resort Ricard had spoken of?

It was like a tiger trying to protect chicks while eagles and hawks swooped in from every direction to snatch them away.

Suppressing the grief that was only now welling up, Roy clenched his teeth and focused on his opponent. Yet the man seemed merely to be toying with him.

Roy was not wholly untrained, but he was nowhere near ready to face the clan’s swordsmen.

In the end, he managed only a few exchanges before his opponent circled his blade as though binding Roy’s sword and knocked it far away. In the same instant, the man reached out to seize him.

Roy ducked so low he was nearly flat on the ground, barely avoiding the hand. Just then, his fingers touched something lying beneath him. His father’s axe.

It was heavy for a boy to lift. But with the right technique, swinging it took relatively little strength and delivered far more force than a sword. The only difficulty was striking exactly where he intended.

Ever since he was little, Roy had sometimes played with it when his parents were not watching. That was the extent of his experience with an axe. Yet now he swung it powerfully, making full use of its centrifugal force.

Memories from early childhood mingled in an instant with all the training he had done.

THUD!

Whether by aim or by luck, he took the man’s knee clean off.

His opponent stared in disbelief, but with one leg missing below the knee, his body began to topple.

Yet Roy continued as though it were all a single motion. After striking the knee, he swept the axe behind his head and brought it down with all his strength.

WHOOSH! CRUNCH!

Before the man could even hit the ground, the axe blade buried itself in his face, killing him.

That brought the Rubens swordsmen’s death toll to five. Marie had killed two, Hartmann two, and Roy one.

Five highly skilled swordsmen were no small loss. As though a tipping point had been passed, the pressure on Marie suddenly slackened.

And then a red cloak fluttered through the smoke.

Ricard appeared out of nowhere and swung his sword. Before anyone could react, one man was dead, tumbling down the rocky mountainside.

At last, the offensive broke, and Marie finally moved to charge out and kill the enemies.

Thrown into confusion by the sudden reversal, they missed their footing and tumbled down the mountain, one after another. Only one or two managed to flee in haste.

“Marie. Roy.”

Having killed more enemies than anyone else, Ricard hurriedly checked on the party. Apart from being drenched in sweat with her hair in disarray, Marie was unharmed. Roy looked strangely dazed.

“F-Father...”

Roy barely managed to speak. Ricard spotted Hartmann’s body far below the hiding place, dead alongside an enemy. Damn.

“Let’s help Bori first.”

Ricard spoke as he kept his wits about him. Fortunately, the fighting on that side appeared to be over too. Bori climbed up, breathing hard.

Looking around, they found the mercenaries had withdrawn and were nowhere in sight. Fewer reinforcements had arrived than expected, and when they belatedly learned that Ricard had killed most of them, they had simply left.

Yet there was no joy in victory, or anything like it. The late-afternoon sun was bright, but the smoke made it pale and hazy. The lack of wind felt suffocating.

Ricard slowly descended where there was no path, first intending to recover the body.

He helped the others down, catching and supporting them, until they all gathered around Hartmann’s body. The enemy was an unwelcome sight, so he hoisted the corpse and flung it far away.

Having died in a fall, Hartmann was in a rather dreadful state. Cracked and broken.

They had thought they lived with a constant fear of death while accepting it in their own way. But when it actually came, it was hard to believe.

“Sob... Sob...”

His wife, Elia, was the first to begin weeping. She collapsed over her husband’s body and cried. Their daughter cried too.

Roy, however, simply stood motionless, watching.

“Roy.”

Ricard put an arm around his pupil’s shoulders. Roy buried his face against him, then said something unexpected.

“You said I have to handle negative emotions properly, didn’t you? What should I do? You say it’s a matter of how I set my mind, but do I have a choice? Do I? Is there even such a thing?”

Ricard’s heart ached. After a brief but deep moment of thought, he asked the pupil in his arms a question of his own.

“Are you angry?”

“At everything. Including myself.”

Because he was his father’s son, because he loved his father, guilt flooded Roy. If only he had trained harder. If only he had talent. If only he had sold out his friend in the Viola clan. Every possibility tormented him, whether it was right or wrong.

“Remember your father. Remember the good times you had together. You can take your time accepting this. There’s no hurry. And you did nothing wrong. Hold on to your sorrow and anger. Treasure them. But...”

Ricard trailed off. He could feel the front of his clothes growing wet.

“Leave becoming a demon to me. I promise you, they will pay in blood. All you have to do is keep loving and respecting your father.”

Ricard wanted to protect the noble character that had only just begun to sprout. It had not yet grown into a great tree, and the storms of life could easily break and twist it.

A brief moment is all it takes. Just a brief moment. To kill a person, or to let go of oneself.

And so, to hold Roy up as he crumbled, Ricard volunteered to become a demon himself.

A demon among demons. Drawing that part of himself out when needed was hardly pleasant, but he believed the burden should fall to someone with experience.

It was time to show those pigs, who did nothing but gorge on hearts, what a true demon was.

But now was the time to mourn. Shrouded in pale smoke, the peak looked as though it wore white mourning clothes.