A Nightmare Spilling from the West
A Nightmare Spilling from the West
The moment he burst through the clouds, Division Commander Irap let out a hollow laugh at the Magic Power he felt emanating from the Human Race command post.
It was astonishing enough that a member of the Human Race even possessed Magic Power, but the level of it was far from ordinary. The amount of Magic Power was so promising that if he were a member of the Demonfolk, Irap would have dragged him off immediately to assess his talent.
"With that kind of output, even if you wanted not to notice him, you couldn't."
"Sir?"
"Just talking to myself. Get ready. I'm throwing."
Chuckling, Irap drew the javelin he had brought, took a deep breath, and hurled it down with all his might.
His target was the bastard's head.
Attempting this while mounted on a wyvern was an unfamiliar experience even for him, but if he thought of it as throwing from a galloping horse while aiming at a low-ground target, it didn't seem unfeasible. The attack he launched flew toward its mark.
The order had been to capture alive or kill, but there had been no instruction prioritizing live capture. So the throw was made with the mindset that it wouldn't matter if this attack killed him. But astonishingly, Eldmia dodged his full-force javelin by a hair's breadth. The ground shook briefly and the Human Race command post erupted in chaos, but Irap didn't give a single shit.
If he dodged that narrowly, a third strike would finish him for sure. Figuring the job might end far easier than expected, Irap yanked out a second javelin and threw it almost without aiming. That didn't mean he just chucked it recklessly. The first throw had already landed properly, so he simply trusted his instincts and skill.
In fact, the second attack also flew true, and Irap was already drawing a third javelin without even confirming whether Eldmia had dodged. If it hit and killed him, all the better, but in all likelihood, he would dodge this one too. So the plan was to pinpoint his evasive position and throw instantly to finish it for good.
Just as he finalized his preparations with that thought, a loyal subordinate warned him.
"Division Commander! The wyvern is being pushed too hard!"
"If he doesn't die, 'too hard' won't be the end..."
Then something unexpected happened. Irap, who had taken his eyes off Eldmia for just a moment before refixing his gaze, tilted his head in puzzlement when he saw that the javelin he had thrown was not in the ground but in Eldmia's hand.
'Could it be that he actually caught what I threw?'
It wasn't impossible, but it was a feat bordering on miraculous skill.
His javelin prowess was so renowned that even within the Demon King's Army, he was called Irap, the One Who Shoots Light. No matter the distance, a throw of his was never something a being of that Magic Power level could easily catch in a single attempt. Even if they did catch it, realistically, they should have been dragged away by the javelin's momentum. This was not arrogance or hubris, but an utterly sober assessment.
For someone to catch it and, in turn, be aiming it back at him—the situation was so utterly alien that Irap failed to make a proper judgment in that instant.
And then light was shot back.
"Shit!"
The price of delayed judgment was steep. Having utterly failed to anticipate a counterattack, Irap was forced to sacrifice his entire javelin satchel.
The javelins themselves were custom-made with shafts of Magic-Armament Alloy, so they didn't shatter, but he couldn't stop the leather satchel from tearing and spilling them all out in a clattering cascade. Barely managing to keep hold of two javelins with all his strength, Irap looked at Eldmia, startled by the stinging sensation running through his palms.
"So, surviving this long wasn't just luck after all!"
Seeing the bastard, not content with that last attack, pull out the javelin embedded in the ground and aim at him once more made Irap's blood boil of its own accord. How long had it been since he'd faced a worthy opponent so full of fighting spirit, one who would attempt a frontal duel with javelins? Enemy or not, this was a member of the Human Race he genuinely liked.
"This time, it won't be as easy as you think."
Just as he was preparing to weather the attack with that thought, Irap realized that Eldmia's aim was slightly off.
Hmm? To hit me, he'd need to shift his aim a bit more to the side...
"...You, you cowardly bastard! The wyvern, you're aiming for the...!"
Before his warning could even finish, the javelin loosed from Eldmia's grip shot up in an instant and tore through one of the wyvern's shoulder joints.
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"Fuck, not easy. I was aiming for the skull."
If I'd realized a little sooner that the javelin, which I'd assumed was a solid lump of metal, might actually be a lump of Magic-Armament Alloy, I could've found a way to add more speed. But I was moving so frantically that the thought never reached me. Still, since it cleanly pierced through the wyvern's shoulder area, it was a given that the bastards, their speed and altitude visibly plummeting, would be kissing the ground soon enough.
"My god, to counter that..."
Ranje, still nearby, reacted with disbelief, but it wasn't like I did it because I wanted to. I just didn't want the ending where I kept dodging the explosions from his attacks by rolling around, only to catch a javelin and die.
"I simply chose the method with a slightly higher chance of survival. More importantly, it doesn't look like that bastard's backing off just because of this."
It was true that the situation was precarious as hell, but the wyvern kept steadily descending while heading straight for the command post. At this point, you'd think he would pull back a step, but seeing how he didn't know how to quit, he was either insanely confident in his skills or a man of fervent loyalty. Given the way he threw a javelin and his Magic Power reserves, the former was definitely a given, so maybe it was both.
"Damn it, I'm going to go put on some proper armor. Don't push yourself too hard!"
The words 'Once that thing lands, I won't have a choice but to push hard, though.' never left my mouth. That was because the knights who swarmed in, as if trading places with the hastily retreating Ranje, made me feel immensely reassured.
Among them were those wearing the powered suits that had accompanied the escort when I visited the Kingdom of Esmue. According to her explanation, they were assistive devices for knights whose skills were slightly lacking, but their outward appearance alone was convincing enough to be called humanity's final weapon. The sense of security they provided was beyond anything ordinary knights could offer.
But even more reassuring than that was their mindset—that they didn't let their guard down just because a single wyvern was flying toward them.
Because the Demonfolk possessed martial prowess vastly superior to members of the Human Race on average, the more an action would be considered insane for a member of the Human Race to take, the more seriously they reacted to it. Truly a wise judgment.
Even as I admired inwardly the fact that the Kingdom hadn't been holding its borders with mere paper-thin defenses, the wyvern steadily closed the distance. Since it still had some altitude, everyone was on high alert, senses strained, trying to gauge exactly how it would attack when the wyvern reached directly overhead—
"That thing... why's it just going past?"
Just as an unnamed knight blurted out with a face full of bewilderment, it flew right past us. The knights tracked the wyvern with their eyes in confusion, and I, hit by a sudden realization, had to experience the feeling of getting a mirror therapy session.
Ah, so this is what it feels like to be on the receiving end.
"Everyone scatter! The enemy jumped from the wyvern!"
While a torrent of curses erupted inside me, the only thing I could do was issue an order that practically amounted to usurping command and fire every single needle except the great needle at the owner of that overwhelming Magic Power.
Water Buffalo Horn was plunging down from the sky, gripping a javelin in each hand.
Honestly, even I hadn't anticipated it. Because, by even my current common sense, jumping from a height equivalent to a ten-story building with no means of reducing speed was close to suicide.
But judging by how Water Buffalo Horn—whose face I could finally see properly now—swung the javelins in both hands to swat away the needles while smiling, unless he was feeling a sense of accomplishment from his perfectly executed suicide attempt, there was no way in hell he'd just die like that.
The knights, who hadn't taken my shout lightly, simultaneously readjusted their weapons and turned their eyes toward the enemy overhead. But because they had grasped the madman's attempted plunge several seconds too late, they couldn't mount a proper response.
"I am the One Who Shoots Light, Commander of the Demon King's Army 7th Division! Irap!!"
A thundering shout, and then a javelin shot down like lightning.
"This son of a..."
Infuriatingly unfair as it was, this time I had absolutely no trick to catch it, so I had to hurl myself sideways yet again.
-BOOM!
The earth exploded, spraying clods of dirt skyward. In that fleeting instant when my body lifted into the air, what I saw was the Demonfolk member—self-proclaimed as Irap—landing on the ground right after his javelin.
The crazy fucker, as casually as if he'd just hopped off a bunk bed, picked up the javelin he'd thrown and, utterly ignoring the encircling net that had been thrown into chaos, charged straight at me.
"Let's see what you've got, Eldmia!!"
Using the recoil from bouncing once off the ground due to the explosion's shock, I spun sideways into an aerial somersault while drawing the great needle and hurled it right between the eyes of the recklessly charging bastard. It was an attack so desperate I could confidently say I'd never poured more Magic Power into a needle throw since I started using them.
Was it because my tension had peaked so high that I couldn't even conceive of trying to blow a whistle for a bluff? In a world where even the scattering dust seemed to move slowly, only my thoughts raced by like bullets.
If I swung an axe in front of this bastard, I was dead. Having swiftly reached that conclusion, I yanked the axe off my back and threw it not at him but off to the side, then drew my sword.
The martial force the bastard displayed during that brief action alone was a fucking headache. As if he were deliberately showing off his true power, the tip of the javelin he thrust with one hand collided with the great needle and, after an instant of resistance, sent it flying. Then, as if it were nothing, he swung both javelins to deflect the swords slashed at him from the flanks by three knights who had regained their stances no less quickly than me, and immediately countered. Though the attacks didn't deal fatal wounds, they were more than enough to bind the knights' feet.
I haven't even run into a centurion yet, so what the fuck is this boss rush order?
It was a sight that sapped my confidence on its own, but I forced a smile and set my stance firmly. I was at a loss for how to deal with a son of a bitch who could punch holes in armor with a one-handed spear and was now coming at me with one in each hand. But I couldn't exactly space out and die, either.
Completely unaware of my inner state, Water Buffalo Horn tucked the two short spears at his waist like lances, lowered his stance for even greater speed, and roared.
"Hahaha! Are you enjoying yourself, Eldmia?"
Seeing me smile, did he think I was enjoying this situation? Dumbfounded, my expression rotted of its own accord.
"I smiled because this is all so fucked, you bastard!"
I deflected the two javelins that had been flying in to punch holes in my chest by knocking them upward, corrected his shitty misunderstanding, and then swung my sword to sever at least one of the bastard's fingers.