Chapter 12 - It Becomes an Entirely Different Story

WHIIINE—

A spirit flew straight at the assassin.

BOOM!

A tremor followed, powerful enough to make the earth seem to shake. This time, however, it missed. Through the dust, a silhouette emerged, still standing firm.

Had he dodged in that brief instant? He was no amateur. Annoyingly enough.

"... Ha."

With a nasty smile, he dropped his goblin stone axe. Then—

SWISH!

He drew a concealed dagger and went for my arm.

CLANG!

My armor kept my arm from being severed, but the impact was powerful enough to send a jolt all the way to my shoulder.

"... Given up pretending to be a goblin, have you?"

"You don't seem like someone I can take down with a stone axe. Whew, this is nerve-racking. I'm in trouble. Real trouble!"

He drew another dagger from his waist, switching to a weapon in each hand.

WHOOSH!

Suddenly, he was behind me. He had been right in front of me a moment ago.

"When was it, again? I've fought a paladin before, you know. I said one little thing about the Goddess, and he drew his sword and charged me. Seriously, can't a man make a joke?"

I could tell he was trying to provoke me by bringing up the Goddess, but I ignored him. I wasn't devout to begin with.

"Even after I cut through his ankle, he got back up on sheer grit. Paladins sure are tough. But that's all you've got. Hard to kill, but slow as hell."

WHOOSH!

He changed position once again.

"See? Sluggish."

He lowered his stance and darted in.

SWISH!

At the same time, his dagger lunged toward the back of my knee.

SCRAAAPE!

It happened in a split second. I twisted, deflecting the blade off a piece of my armor, but a moment later and my leg would have been severed.

"Tch."

He pulled away as quickly as he had closed in.

The backs of my knees were places the armor couldn't cover. He knew how to fight an armored opponent. So he hadn't been lying about fighting a paladin.

CLANG! SCRAPE!

His daggers slashed once each across the armor on my arm and leg. The movements flaunted his confidence that he could cut me wherever he pleased. He hadn't broken through yet, but it was only a matter of time. He relentlessly targeted my joints, moving even faster than on his first approach.

"You're no different from the other paladins after all. I'm telling you, I'm a bad matchup for your kind."

He sneered, pointing at my damaged armor.

"I thought you might be something special, but you're still well within expectations. Against someone as fast as me..."

He was coming again. The instant that thought crossed my mind—

"You can't do a damn thing!"

A dagger came flying toward my throat.

Just then—

A brilliant flash erupted from my hand, robbing him of his sight. It was a spell that created a sphere of light—the basic magic the priest at the monastery had demonstrated.

"Argh! You dirty bastard!"

He shielded his eyes with one arm and flailed with the other.

"And you call yourself a noble knight...!"

"Was a dirty paladin outside your expectations?"

HUMMMM!

Meanwhile, the spirits had finished their preparations. Four of them floated beside me. The buff I'd cast on them was Heightened Detection, an Enhancement spell that maximized the senses.

Normally, the spell was used to detect and track hidden enemies or mana. Stack its effects, however, and it became capable of more. For instance, keeping up with that pesky fly's speed.

SWISH, SWISH!

As he recovered from the flash and began moving again, the spirits' eyes followed him. They turned in whichever direction he moved, as though connected to him by invisible threads, ready to react at any moment. While I took his dagger strikes on my armor, the spirits adapted to his speed with their dramatically enhanced detection.

Now I added more buffs.

Increased Defense.

Increased Accuracy.

Increased Movement Speed.

CLANG!

As he thrust his dagger, a spirit threw itself into its path and knocked the attack aside.

"What..."

Buff magic was the very essence of a paladin. The spirits' roles changed depending on the buffs they received. They could read his movements, and now they were tougher, more accurate, and faster as well.

In other words, from this moment on, the spirits were mobile shields.

012

Gripping both daggers in reverse, the assassin charged. He closed in once more, but—

SWISH!

One of the spirits blocked his path. Just before colliding with its hardened body, he was forced to retreat. He regained his balance, looking flustered.

He tried closing the distance again, but his dagger struck a spirit instead of my throat. No matter how fast he moved, the spirits kept pace. They were already waiting at the point of impact.

"Making the Goddess's spirits blow themselves up, using them as meat shields... The more I learn about you, the less faith you seem to have. Makes me wonder why you haven't been dismissed. Still, it's amusing. I'll have to tell the others when I get back."

"You must have plenty of friends in the afterlife."

"Ha. Are you just going to keep blocking?"

He spoke as though he had all the time in the world, but his breathing was heavier than before.

HUMMM—

One spirit that had moved to block him returned to its place in front of me.

"From what I can see..."

As I began speaking, he fell silent. Or perhaps he was trying to catch his breath.

"Your specialty seems to be rushing in and swinging your blades, but my spirits have already adapted to your speed. Yes, it's just as you said."

The spirits glided into formation, facing him.

"We're a bad matchup."

The moment I finished, his eyes creased.

This time, I approached him. Naturally, the spirits around me followed.

SHING!

I drew the sword at my waist and took my stance. It was a third-rate longsword that had been lying around the house. I wasn't a master craftsman, so I did sometimes blame my tools, but it would suffice to cut off a head.

Time to finish this.

SWISH—!

When I swung, he bent backward at the waist to evade the slash. He dodged with an acrobatic movement and launched a habitual counterattack, but—

BANG!

A spirit blocked him again. His counterattack looked like some sort of stunt, but when it failed, all it left him with was a ridiculous pose. That reflexive counter had become a weakness instead, throwing him off balance.

I was bound to win this close-quarters exchange. With the spirits handling all the defense while I focused solely on attacking, the fight became far easier.

Like this.

SLASH!

All I had to do was wait for an opening and cut.

"Guh!"

A vertical slash. It cut both his chin and his throat, but only shallowly. I'd intended to take his head off in one stroke, but he'd barely managed to evade even that.

Instead, the mask split by my sword's tip slipped down. The face he'd concealed beneath his hood and mask began to emerge.

The moment I saw it, I stopped breathing.

A shaved head and green eyes. And that loathsome expression.

... He was the leader of Lucia's guild.

A clue had been hidden here. A clue that could have told me this world was a game had been hidden in the Subjugation Festival.

His name was... Karma, wasn't it?

My second brother wasn't the only thing I'd lost by not attending the Subjugation Festival. One wrong choice had cost me the chance to discover this world's true nature early on.

I'd thought the Subjugation Festival had nothing to do with relationship events. I'd thought no choices would appear and no affection scores would change.

But perhaps a great deal would change now.

"Did Lucia come too?"

"No, Lucia is... Wait. What are you?"

"If she didn't, never mind."

The Laward–Lucia storyline began with Laward slaying Karma. In other words, if I killed this bastard ahead of time, Laward and Lucia would never get together. The very basis for it would disappear.

"Perfect."

Now that I knew who the assassin was, I no longer had to worry about breaking him before I could discover who was behind him.

I caught a spirit in my hand and brought it over my sword's blade.

Moving my hand as though spreading oil, I infused the spirit into the sword. Its buffs transferred to the weapon, and the blade turned orange and thrummed.

The remaining spirits moved as well. Two attached themselves to my right and left greaves, respectively. The last settled on my left gauntlet.

I recalled how he'd shattered the ground as he closed the distance earlier—

CRUNCH!

And imitated that movement, rushing right up to him.

WHOOSH!

At the same time, the spirit attached to my left hand moved at blinding speed, driving the sword forward.

"What..."

He couldn't say another word.

SLICE—

The strike, accompanied by sword aura, sheared straight through his neck. His headless body sank to its knees and collapsed with a thud.

Unable to withstand the spirit's mana, the third-rate longsword melted in dripping clumps. With a sword I'd hastily grabbed from home, holding a spirit just once was the best I could manage.

I turned to inspect the corpse. Blood gushed from the open stump of his neck, staining the green grass red.

"... Hmm."

Rummaging through a corpse was unpleasant, but I had to collect the loot. If memory served, he was a boss with fairly generous rewards. A miniboss-type character.

Unless Laward's stats reached a certain threshold, he couldn't defeat Karma, and his relationship with Lucia would hit a ceiling. Defeating Karma, on the other hand, unlocked several Lucia endings and came with additional rewards.

There should be a key somewhere.

I rolled him over and searched his pockets until my fingertips caught on something. That texture—paper. It wasn't the key I'd hoped for, but I took it out to check anyway.

Written on the paper was a contract killing request. It promised an enormous sum of gold for assassinating Romans Hasgard.

The sender was the Death God's cult. Fanatics who followed the necromancer. Their emblem was clearly marked on it.

Diametrically opposed to the Goddess's faith, they had gathered under the name of the Death God's cult and gone into hiding. In my previous life, the war had already begun by the time I learned of their existence.

Until now, I'd believed one of the territories bordering the County of Hasgard had orchestrated our house's destruction. That they'd done it to seize our lands.

But I'd been wrong.

The ones targeting House Hasgard were followers of the mastermind. We had been prey to something far greater.

That made this an entirely different story.

I was an extra, but perhaps I hadn't been merely a bit player. Since no one remembered an extra's face, they could be anyone. Passerby 1, Villager A, or a tree.

While the protagonist gave a passionate performance beneath the spotlight, the extra hurriedly changed into another role behind the curtain. Then they stepped onto the stage again as someone else.

This time, I thought I might land a fairly substantial role.

My fist tightened hard around the contract.

Now I knew. Knowing that the Death God's cult had been active earlier than expected meant I could trace them back.

I could fight back.