Cooperation
Cooperation
A Demon Sword.
Even though the Demon God and the Demonfolk clearly existed, the Demon Sword was an object with no connection to them whatsoever.
This item could be called a byproduct of the countless magical tools derived from magic, and while there were many forms and types, fundamentally a Demon Sword was made by taking the soul of a living being as collateral.
Rage at one's own death sharpened the weapon, the survival instinct to keep living made it self-repair by drinking the blood of enemies. The various modifications, derived magics, swordsmanship, and so on were all just additional flourishes. Those could be mimicked by a magic sword too, not just a Demon Sword.
Naturally, the stronger the core soul was, the stronger the ego became. As a recoil from that, it would arbitrarily shed the form of a weapon to seek its original appearance, erode its wielder, and seize their ego. And it would express blind fury and wish for slaughter against those who had made it into that state.
Therefore, wielders who failed to control a Demon Sword and were enthralled committed slaughter. They couldn't exercise restraint. That was the structure of it.
That should have been the case, but...
"I-Is that really okay?"
At some point while the whole party had gathered in the waterway clearing, Sen asked, her voice thick with anxiety, but no one could answer.
Actually, Seneran wanted to answer. That it wasn't remotely okay. Just a mere bandit holding it and going berserk had required Eldmia, Yekaterina, and Gin—three warriors—to all stick to him. There was no way it was fine for this thing, having learned to use Magic Power and subsequently made Envelde—a knight who had rolled and tumbled across battlefields and who possessed the skill to cut him down—its next prey.
That was clearly what should have been true... yet for some reason, Eldmia was in the middle of throwing punches at the Demon Sword that had taken on a beast's form, without so much as glancing around.
"E-Eldi! Are you okay?!"
Beside her, Asilie shouted on the slim chance he'd respond, but no answer came back. Eldmia simply and silently attacked the Demon Sword, blindly. That alone made it obvious he wasn't in his right mind.
Clearly, Eldmia was currently enthralled by the Demon Sword. Whether the Demon Sword was powerful or had accumulated enough strength through the slaughter it had committed in the city, it was true that he'd been taken the moment he so much as touched it, unable to even put up proper resistance. Seneran, understanding what it meant for him to be attacking the Demon Sword in that state, felt a faint chill run down her spine.
- Yipe! Yipe! Yipe!
Eldmia's way of thinking. His pathological revulsion toward aggression directed at himself. The result of that revulsion being etched past reason and into instinct. He wouldn't tolerate even an existence that 'attacked' his mind.
- Yipe!
What kind of human could he be to act like that, she was utterly sick of it, but the Demon Sword wasn't a pushover either. The Demon Sword was impulsive but by no means stupid. The very reason it had deliberately chosen Eldmia was because it had realized he was the strongest, and it possessed a cunning intelligence sharp enough to spontaneously devise the underhanded method of silently slipping its body through to make contact while held, knowing it couldn't make him its host by direct means.
That was why the Demon Sword was still attempting to erode Eldmia's mind. Because it understood that was the only way it could 'survive' here, it hadn't given up even amidst that merciless violence.
Since things had already escalated this far, it would be ideal if the Demon Sword's plan completely fell through, but with no way of knowing when Eldmia's mind might suddenly be fully eroded, they couldn't just stand around with their hands behind their backs.
"The part of the Demon Sword touching Eldmia's left hand right now. We have to sever it!"
Seneran, having finished her assessment, solemnly spoke the task that needed to be done, but what came back was Kals's deflating question.
"Uh, how...? Out of the three strongest among us, only one even managed to scratch it."
And that one person wasn't in his right mind right now.
"He's punching like crazy right now, so maybe we snatch the sword Eldmia was using and cut it off?"
"A good weapon's part of it, but this is a skill issue. Even the war hammer Yekaterina swung couldn't break the Demon Sword..."
"Mr. Gin! The axe!"
Before the pointless exchange between Sen and Baije could even finish, Yekaterina shouted.
"The Demon Sword's resistance has weakened because its attention's on Eldmia right now! We use your axe as a chisel!"
Weakened resistance wasn't the same as none at all. Gin, who was clamping down on one of its legs, was feeling that fact with his own body. He turned his eyes, about to ask Yekaterina. If she was really sure this was okay. Since Eldmia was throwing punches like a madman, a slight mistake from their position could get Eldmia's arm cut off and their own guts spilled.
But the moment he met Yekaterina's resolute eyes, he couldn't ask a thing.
"Hrrgh! I'll give the signal! Someone grab Eldmia when he gets blown clear!"
Feeling the owner of those light footsteps charge in without a shred of hesitation, Gin sucked in a deep breath. He hadn't expected to be pulling acrobatics at his age.
"Going in!"
Boom! Gin's body, bulkier than any dwarf's, shot up into the air. In that instant, Yekaterina felt as if the world had stopped.
Like a pole vaulter, Gin used his own axe as a support to leap over the beast-form Demon Sword, spinning his body in midair as his gaze locked onto Eldmia's left arm. The axe that had been with him his whole life was swung with not a hair's breadth of error, precisely aimed at the silver tendril extending from the Demon Sword.
When the gap between that tendril holding Eldmia and the axe had shrunk to about the size of a fist, Yekaterina lifted the war hammer that had been crushing the Demon Sword's head.
"Kasphi-Ellaxia!"
And she swung the war hammer with all her might, shouting a battle cry she hadn't spoken even once since leaving her homeland.
The blood-soaked war hammer became a streak of light, evading Eldmia's swinging fist to strike down precisely atop Gin's axe.
-CLANG!
The impact and the aftershock flung the three of them in separate directions.
◈
The moment my vision, which had been dyed red, blazed bright white, what I felt was a sense of drifting I couldn't identify.
A sharp shock traveled up my left arm and a gale slammed into my face, and then without realizing it, I felt a powerful force push my body, which had been off balance, flat like knocking over a bundle of dry straw. Yet I couldn't understand what the hell was happening. It was less that my head wasn't working and more a sense of dissonance from my mind, which had been racing too fast before, returning to normal speed.
I clearly remembered up to the point that this bastard had pulled some kind of trick, but after that, the only thing that surfaced was that I'd been furious to the top of my head, without a single thing making proper sense. All that remained was a deep, seething rage toward that son of a bitch.
"Eldi!"
"Whoa?!"
What seized my senses then was Asilie's sudden action. Her body, which could never be called larger than others', tried to catch me with her whole body as I was sent flying backward to collapse.
Thanks to that, I, who'd thoughtlessly been planning to just roll along the floor first, had to pull Asilie, who'd closed in beside me, into my arms and slide hard.
"A-Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?"
"I think the scrapes from sliding just now hurt the most..."
Of course, what she was worried about wasn't those minor scratches, but honestly, aside from that I was perfectly fine.
From the look of things, it was clear I hadn't broken free voluntarily. That Demon Sword or bastard or whatever indistinguishable piece of trash was lying sprawled out like a water deer hit by a cart, thrashing its legs, and Yekaterina and Mr. Gin, dragging their bodies that had been flung across the floor like mine, had only just managed to steady themselves.
It was only when I saw that one side of Mr. Gin's battle axe was crushed like a stomped-on tin can in that scene that I could understand the situation.
"Mr. Gin. I'll definitely compensate you for that."
"Heh heh. Just glad you seem to have come back to your senses quickly. Honestly, it's not at a level where I can tell you not to worry about it, so I'll gratefully accept."
Even though we were taking our time, slowly getting up, that shitty mutt was crawling on the floor like its semicircular canals had been wrecked.
"What the hell, why's it all caved in like that?"
And sure enough, its head area was severely dented as if it'd been hammered with a fist-sized tenderizing mallet. When I asked, wondering if it was really so badly injured it couldn't get up, Asilie answered from within my arms with an exasperated tone.
"You pummeled it with your fists, Eldi."
"...I did?"
I had absolutely no memory of it. But examining the gauntlet after hearing Asilie's words, there were definitely traces of it being dented here and there. The brief question of how it was in such decent shape for having pounded something that my own Magic Power-wrapped sword couldn't even cut lingered, but for now, the fact that the thing was incapacitated was more important, so I decided to worry about it later and also expressed my thanks to Yekaterina.
"Thank you, Yekaterina. Looks like I didn't end up a mess thanks to you."
"Haha, I'm just glad you seem unharmed. Really scared the hell out of me."
As the Demon Sword's movements gradually weakened, the other comrades slowly closed the distance too. Honestly, if that thing went on a rampage like before, it'd be hell, so it was an extremely sensible response.
[S-Spare me.]
Just as we were tightening the encirclement, the Demon Sword, panting like it was on its last breath, spoke to me.
"This son of a bitch is begging for his life now."
"...Eldi?"
[Spare me. I won't betray you. Spare me.]
"...The Demon Sword's saying something right now?"
A flurry of unexpected reactions poured in at the single remark I'd let slip, dumbfounded by the thing begging for its life.
What? Am I the only one hearing this?