Cooperation
Cooperation
I had thought the incident was wrapped up, but the most annoying thing had remained.
[Master. Strong. Save me. I want to live.]
The Demon Sword, which had now even become smaller, had begun to beg for its life pathetically. I wasn't sure if 'pathetic' was the right word. The voice echoing in my head was just a little weak, but it was so utterly bright and innocent.
"You shitty mutt? Who decided you could call me master, huh?"
The Demon Sword's body, which had been huge as if it could bite people in half, had now shrunk to near the size of a medium dog. Not only its size, but whereas it had clearly looked like a wolf when it was huge, now its form was as vague as some liquid monster. It was as if it was surrounded by a hazy black mist, only partially suggesting its shape.
Because of that, all eyes, except for Asilie who was still worried about me, were darting between me and the Demon Sword with a mix of curiosity, fascination, and a spoonful of fear. I didn't particularly like the situation, but it was still comfortable to ask questions.
"More importantly, it seems like its vocabulary has dropped compared to earlier? Does anyone know why?"
As my head slowly regained function, memories returned, albeit fragmentary, and I could be sure. The voice that had rung in my head the moment that bastard first touched my body was no different from a human's. Since the manner and voice were the same, it must have been that bastard talking to me...
"Did it take too many hits and lose its vocabulary...?"
I tilted my head at the dumb manner of speaking that almost made me feel sorry, and Seneran answered.
"It's probably because it's running out of power."
Seneran, who cautiously offered her opinion, was needlessly careful. She seemed to have lost a little confidence after loudly declaring that all you had to do was kill the wielder, but then an unexpected situation arose. Well, such things happen in life; she really deflated easily.
"Power?"
"The power it got from human blood. The body it constructed on its own based on that power is gradually coming to an end."
I figured if I asked about the specific mechanism of that magical energy conversion, it would go on forever, so I decided to keep it to myself and asked another question.
"Why a dog, of all things?"
"Because that's the soul that became the material for the Demon Sword."
I didn't understand what that meant, so I tilted my head, and Seneran and Asilie added explanations and summarized the key point for me, and I couldn't help but be horrified.
"So, you're saying that originally, this thing was really a dog or some similar creature, and some crazy bastard killed it and stuffed it in just to make a sword?"
"Roughly, yes."
"Insane."
It wasn't even a human transmutation experiment; what kind of a fucked-up byproduct was this? The utterly demonic idea made me lose my mind.
"Are all Demon Swords like that?"
"All the things initially called Demon Swords are like that. It wasn't until later generations, when magic developed and methods to create their own egos along with artificial souls were researched, that it wasn't so."
A highly finished Demon Sword made that way would have an ego and be able to exert tremendous power based on emotions. But according to Asilie's additional explanation, in an incomplete case like this, instead of being a complete 'sword,' it tried to regain its original form. So that was why she had recognized it as incomplete as soon as she saw it.
Hearing the story, it was pitiful, but it had killed so many people that it was damn ambiguous.
"Tsk. It was pitiful, but not splitting it in half would be too light for the crimes it committed... Was this bastard going to keep eating people?"
[I won't eat. I'll listen well.]
As if sensing something, the thing panted and immediately butted in, brazenly, making even me stick out my tongue. Maybe because it was a dog, it was good at reading human emotions.
"Oh please, if you listened so well, would all those people have died?"
[Really. I listen well. The food said to kill everyone. So I killed.]
I stuttered for a moment, realizing that when it said 'food,' it meant the previous wielder, that thief bastard, but the next part was more shocking. You did it because you were told to?
[I did what my food wanted. Then the food died. So I moved the way I wanted.]
"Then what was that shit about telling me to kill in my head?"
[Master, you weren't master then. I thought you were food. To survive, I had to do that.]
Fuck. So it just acted on its survival instinct, nothing more; I was speechless. As if knowing or not knowing my feelings, Seneran waited until my not-quite-monologue ended before carefully answering my earlier question.
"It's complicated to explain in detail... but in the end, most cases of a Demon Sword rampaging are when the wielder can't control its emotional changes. Unlike the Demon Sword, which gets stronger the more blood it absorbs, the wielder is always ordinary. Since its design is ultimately that of a weapon, it doesn't act against its master's will. The stronger its ego, the more... it just interprets things very arbitrarily."
"Even when it sucks blood?"
"Hmm. That also needs some explanation. Let's compare a Demon Sword to a water skin. In the beginning, it's empty."
To make it easier to understand, Seneran took out the leather water flask from her waist, turned it upside down, dumped out the contents, and said:
"And the water is the blood it absorbed in battle. Because it has an ego, the Demon Sword recognizes this filled-with-water state as 'satiety.' It's satisfied in that state, but when it has to use power and the blood leaks out like this, it suddenly feels ravenous hunger."
"Even though normally having no blood is the normal state?"
"Because the moment it drinks blood, it comes to understand 'hunger'."
It was a truly demonic idea. Even demons would give a standing ovation to the bastard who first created a Demon Sword.
"So in the end, it depends on how you handle it."
"Because it's a weapon."
It was short, but a truly core explanation. Honestly, if the washing machine had just spun moderately, I was going to split the whole washer in half, but this wasn't that level of a problem.
"...Can we subjugate it?"
"It's already subjugated the moment it called Eldi its master. After drinking blood in some form and a sort of power struggle, Eldi won, so it calls him master."
"Ugh... To treat it, do I have to give it blood?"
"Yeah."
At Asilie's answer, who was stuck close to my side, I let out a deep sigh and looked at the Demon Sword. Whether I'd gotten emotionally attached in the meantime, no matter how much I looked, it only seemed pitiful.
"Do you have a name?"
[Name! Don't have! Give me one! I'll listen well! Save me!]
It was truly pitiful. Not empty words—it still couldn't even stand up properly from the floor, it had no respiratory organs yet it was panting, and knowing that its appearance was merely a manifestation of past memories and its identity made it even sadder. It was even making a half-assed tail and wagging it diligently.
Even though it was killed by human hands and its soul extracted to complete a tool for humans, that bastard was just a dog that wanted to listen well and wag its tail.
The sight reminded me of the most pitiful dog I knew, and with a feeling of resignation, I drew a needle and scraped my forearm to let some blood flow. I wondered if I really needed to give it my blood, but seeing this pathetic state, I didn't want to make it lick blood off some corpse.
And I gave a name to the guy who was lapping up blood with its tongue hanging out for a while.
"From today, you're Laika."
[Name! Good! I'm Laika!]
"...And you're coming with me."
[Good! Let's go together! Laika happy! I'll listen well, master!]
Damn it. Just thinking about the dogs I raised in my past life almost brought tears to my eyes.
"Are you okay? I'm sure you're acting with resolve, but... it's a Demon Sword."
At Mr. Gin's words, I just nodded. That was the normal reaction. A Demon Sword, unless things get extreme, is not something I'd use but loot to sell. The problem the thief had experienced was too big a risk.
I could've lost my mind, so yeah, I was in a dangerous situation this time. If anyone around me had gotten hurt, I would have split it in half immediately. If a human had tried that, even if everyone was fine, I would have cracked its skull open first. Because that would've been out of pure malice and calculation.
But it felt a bit off to kill a beast just for struggling to survive. So vowing to split it in half if the same thing happened once more, I answered nonchalantly.
"I'll just think of it as raising a dog."
After lapping up the blood, the Demon Sword seemed to regain its energy, stood up, and started to solidify its form. What had been roughly the shape of a four-legged animal gradually gained a proper face, a waist, legs...
"...Is that your original form?"
[Yup! Laika's form! Original form!]
The guy, panting and spinning in circles chasing its tail as if satisfied with its form, sat down and looked up at me.
"Uh, I've seen this kind of dog before. A herding dog? Called a sheepdog? Among those dogs, there were a lot with short legs and long waists like that."
"Now that I see it, it's unnecessarily cute."
"Hmm... Honestly, I thought it would just get smaller from the size we saw earlier."
The face was hard to call a complete dog shape. The features were almost like a wolf-shaped helmet.
But those short legs, long waist, and plump rump were the form of a dog I was all too familiar with from my past life.
"...Right, at least it doesn't shed fur, that's good."
[Yup! Laika don't shed fur!]
And so, I ended up adopting a Welsh Corgi.