Saintess
Saintess
A demon.
Irredeemable, wretched bastards who delighted in deceiving and toying with humans from the shadows to drag them into the abyss. These fuckers made terms like "pure evil" or "neutral evil" seem like a luxury—they were simply 'evil,' nothing more.
Their methods of driving people into the abyss were so utterly outlandish that in most cases you couldn't even mock someone with "you moron, you fell for *that*?" when you heard they'd been tricked. They were a race of natural-born con artists.
Whoever the fuck created these bastards, I didn't know, but I could clearly guess what kind of thinking went into it.
A race created for the sole purpose of thoroughly fucking over humanity. That's what demons were.
There was no point debating whether they were some god's byproduct or whether they worshipped one. They could have been alien lifeforms utterly unrelated to the gods of this world and it wouldn't have been strange at all. These pieces of walking garbage weren't even weak, either.
Even just what was recorded in the literature stated that demons toyed with mages using magic and toyed with warriors using martial force. I didn't know exactly what level that was, but it had to be considerable, right?
But ta-da! That was the story up until Eldmia Ega was born!
[Skreeeeeeek!!!]
The moment the sword was drawn, the demon bastard's neck was wrenched out, and it let out a gruesome shriek. The fact that it didn't die even after that was seriously fucked up, but still, it posed no threat to me whatsoever.
"Got scared for nothing. This is like a perfect counter-matchup."
Whatever the structure was, that thing it called a 'body' wasn't made of ordinary flesh and blood but was a lump of Magic Power. It seemed the demon bastard had to board that body, like creating and piloting an in-game avatar, in order to properly set foot in this world.
Then what kind of structure was that blood arrow earlier, and what process did the abilities those demon worshippers were granted before it had a body go through? Curiosity welled up.
I'd find out eventually.
[Wha-what are you?! Who the hell are you—Kieeeaaaaaak!!!]
"Oh, so the bodily sensations are still connected even with the head pulled off? This is definitely easier to deal with than when it was a blood clot."
When it was a blood clot, stabbing and swinging a sword and needles a hundred times would have been literally no different from cutting water with a knife, so I'd fought with my fists, but now my attacks connected properly. Thanks to that, its severed head was screaming its lungs out while staring at the nine needles stabbed into its own body.
[Stop!! Stop it!! I said stop, you crazy fuck!!]
"Where'd that smug tone from earlier go? You said you'd play with me. Come on, let's play. You don't get to stop just because you finished making your body."
[Ugh, gek! Khuuek!]
Across both my lives, I'd never had the sort of deranged taste that involves deriving pleasure from inflicting physical harm on people, but at this moment, I was utterly delighted!
Because this bastard was literally not a person, and was an irredeemable monster! I stopped toying with its mess of a body, hopped over, and picked up the severed head that was making dry-heaving sounds.
It was humanoid, but the face was truly hard to describe. Hairless, the head had all its features intact, but every single one was far from human.
Looked a bit like a bat whose head-skin was stretched taut too, maybe?
"Don't you think this'll make for an interesting philosophical contemplation?"
[Guweh... uk... Wha, what?]
"When I smash the altar with your head, will you worry about your head or the altar?"
[Cra, crazy fuck! Obviously my...]
Without waiting for an answer, I charged the altar and smashed the demon's head into it.
How dare you try to spoil my interesting philosophical contemplation?
-CRASH!
[Ghrk!]
I'd swung with quite some sincerity, but astonishingly enough, the bastard's head was fine!
Well, saying "fine" was a bit of an exaggeration. It looked like its cheekbone had caved in as if it'd taken one hell of a sucker punch.
[Stop! Stooop!]
"Let's do it about three more times. One try is too little to lend credibility to the experimental results."
[Le, let's make a contract! What do you want?! Just say it! Anything...!]
"I don't make contracts with bastards weaker than me."
[Eu, eukuaaaaak!!]
It was a contest to see whether my shoulder would get sore first, or its head would lose cohesion first.
It'd be nice if I could glean some info on the side too.
◈
When Deoni came to her senses through an overwhelming wave of weakness, the first thing she saw was a headless corpse sprawled on the floor.
Her common sense tried to label that corpse as belonging to the human who had been with her, but her eyes and intuition told her it belonged to the demon.
The latter was indeed correct. The corpse didn't have anything on that could be called clothing, and its body could hardly be called human. The unknown needles stuck all over it as though it had been tortured were puzzling, but what caught her attention even more was the sound.
The sound of something solid being smashed down onto something moist, viscous, yet sturdy.
Pulling herself together and glancing towards the source of the sound, what entered her field of vision, contrary to her final memory, was an altar in a state of massive collapse and the back view of a human.
Deoni shuddered, sensing intense hostility from that silhouette. Though the human's body blocked the view and she couldn't see exactly what he was doing, he was burning with enormous rage and hostility towards the altar, or whatever object was being smashed against the altar.
Actually, it was impossible not to know what it was. Add together the headless inhuman corpse, the altar, and the demon head that was clearly severed but nowhere to be seen... the result was obvious.
Then again, that didn't mean the rage was understandable to her.
Did the human have his own circumstances? But it was clearly the first time both demon and human had seen each other. For a human to rage that much simply because the target belonged to the species called 'demon' didn't mesh with his open-minded attitude toward the Demonfolk.
Deoni, who had fallen into questioning the human, came back to her senses only after the man straightened his hunched back and stopped striking the altar.
The demon's head in his hand had astonishingly retained something close to its original shape. Compared with the altar, which was almost completely destroyed, you couldn't even guess how tough a demon's body was. It wasn't even dead, either; the head in the man's grip was still making faint, dying breaths.
The man who had single-handedly created such a gruesome spectacle tossed the demon's head onto the altar and spoke with indifference.
"I gave it some thought. I think you valued that altar more than your own head."
[Zjeu... jeureu... zjeual...]
"No idea what gibberish you're spouting. So when the hell do you die? I'm getting bored, so I'd like you to die now."
"...Demons can only die when their heart is pulled out and crushed."
At Deoni's answer, the human's gaze, which had been fixed on the sobbing demon's head, turned towards her.
"You're awake? Are you feeling alright?"
"Originally, it would've been extremely dangerous... but thanks to you quickly incapacitating the demon, I'm fine."
Smiling as if relieved, as if the fury felt from his back view had never existed in the first place, the human left the altar and approached the demon's corpse.
Contrary to what she expected—which was naturally pulling out the heart—he simply dragged the demon's corpse back to the altar.
"Hey. You heard that?"
Even as she was unable to understand what he was doing, the demon's severed head was gradually regaining its form from its wretched state. Its recovery power was disgustingly outstanding, but unlike its body, both of its eyes were trembling like an aspen, perfectly befitting the description of having "lost the will to live."
"Says you can only die when your heart's crushed."
[Tha, that is correct. Whe, when we incarnate... we can o-only die if the heart is destroyed... We cannot commit suicide. If we do, even our spirit body is extinguished...]
So please kill me.
At the sight of the demon begging for death, Deoni unwittingly opened her eyes wide. The demon, who had mouthed words she could only disbelieve, was even shedding tears and wishing for death.
Just what had he done while she'd been unconscious for something like this to be possible?
"For free?"
[Wha, what do you wish for? I-I shall do anything within my power!]
The human was actually trying to wring something out of the demon in exchange for granting it death. Faced with a sight harder to believe than the phrase 'a good demon,' Deoni couldn't do anything but stare, completely lost for words.
"Don't ever get tangled with me again. Whether you intended it or not, I don't give a damn. If you get entangled with me in any way whatsoever, we will have a much more enjoyable time than we did today."
[I, I swea-ear it! I, the demon Inguladius, shall never again... uh...]
"Eldmia Ega."
[Eh, shall ne-ver be invo-olv-ed with Eldmia Ega! I swe-ear it!]
"What does it matter if you're lying. Just means I get another round of fun."
Deoni witnessed the rare spectacle of a demon shedding tears of joy and repeatedly thanking the human as it dissolved after he casually drew his sword and stabbed down where its heart should be. The surreal sight left her dizzy enough to stagger.
But the human, who had sheathed his sword again and turned around as if the surreal result he himself had created was of zero concern to him, was simply looking at her with a still-unbothered attitude.
"That demon bastard said the space here is a bit twisted from its meddling. It said it'll go back to normal shortly after it dies, so you might want to hurry if you don't want to run into my companions?"
"...It's become a situation where I can't do that either."
She'd forgotten because it was so shocking, but Deoni had actually received a revelation from the Demon God Epaga just as shocking as a moment ago. When she reconsidered it with her gradually clearing head, the content was still shocking, so she found herself licking her lips and hesitating without knowing it.
"Eldmia Ega. I have a message for you from the Demon God Epaga."
"The only business that person could have with me is probably asking me not to kill you lot or to give up my long-cherished wish. I'd guess?"
"No. It is neither."
For a moment she was intensely curious about what kind of long-cherished wish could make him think that way, but that wasn't what was important right now.
Eldmia made an expression of great surprise, but Deoni, who was merely the messenger, felt like dying in several ways. She didn't know what kind of things that guy normally said in his daily life... but the message Epaga had delivered must absolutely be conveyed to him.
They were sacrilegious words that Deoni, who had lived a righteous life, could barely bring herself to mouth.
"L-Lady Epaga said... s-so..."
"So what?"
"N-not 'So you were here, you fucking bastard,' but 'you f-f-fucking bitch'—she said to correct it properly!"
Shock spread across Eldmia's face.
For whatever reason, even after staying frozen like that for a long time, the single line he squeezed out after barely regaining his composure, rolling his eyes with the utmost gravity, was a sight for sore eyes in many ways.
"Th-then... how should I properly pray to Lady Epaga?"
At Eldmia's demeanor asking for the Demon God Church's prayer method with a respectful attitude hard to find even if you washed your eyes out compared to his attitude just moments ago, Deoni felt a dizzying vertigo wash over her.