The True Face of Death
The man who had collapsed to the floor clutched desperately at his throat. Crimson blood slowly seeped between his fingers. “Gurgh… Ack…”
I could have taken his head in a single clean stroke, but I chose not to. These pathetic bastards who believed death was so wonderful that they tried to inflict it on themselves and everyone else. I wanted to teach them that “death” was the most miserable thing in this world.
A death you don’t even notice is called a blessing. Dying in your sleep, or passing without a chance to feel any pain or fear. That kind of end might feel a little unfair, but at least the word “rest” would fit. But if you’re forced to watch yourself die slowly? If you feel the unbearable agony and the sticky, damp stench of death creeping over you? Could that ever be called rest?
If someone faced such a miserable end, could they still praise death?
“I left you with your last breath.”
“Ack… Ack…”
“So take your time. Feel for yourself just how miserable this ‘wonderful’ death you keep talking about really is.”
Every time his heart beat, blood spurted from the half-severed throat. He would die slowly, very slowly. He would be fully aware of his own life reaching its end. There was no glory, no honor, and none of their religious convictions. No matter how you died or what thoughts you held at the end, death was ultimately nothing but a nightmare.
“Guhk!”
“Gehk!”
And the other Demon God Worshippers were experiencing that same misery. Every swing of Iris’s sword sent blood spraying everywhere. She targeted vital points to end some cleanly, while others she crippled by slicing the tendons in their arms and legs. I had thought about helping if she seemed to struggle, but she was handling it.
Training matches and real fights where you take lives are completely different. Cutting flesh, spilling blood, stealing life. When I first picked up a sword, that part tormented me greatly. The feeling had dulled over time, but for Iris this was still new. She had only experienced it once or twice at most. So if she faltered, I planned to step in without scolding her too harshly.
But as they say, even a rotten fish is still a fish. Just as she proclaimed herself a Hero, she was showing her true worth against these grunts.
“Uwaaaaah!!”
The one-eyed woman was also locked in fierce combat with the Demon God Worshippers who had taken her family hostage. The cultists considered themselves an elite group, but from our perspective they were all the same. The bishop-level ones might qualify as mid-bosses, with their dark order guards being about the level of the disciples’ followers. These grunts, however, fell far short of even that.
All they knew how to do was kidnap people, take hostages, threaten them, and use every dirty method to spread chaos in the world.
Thud, thud, thud, thud!!
…It seemed the ones fighting here weren’t all of them. I sensed a group of people rushing toward us from afar. They must have noticed the commotion and were gathering every Demon God Worshipper they could find.
I glanced over at Iris. She was fighting well, but more than ten enemies still remained. If more reinforcements arrived, she might be the first to run out of stamina.
Letting out a light sigh, I pulled the sword from the dead man’s throat. He had already expired, lying face-down in the pool of blood he had created without making a sound. If that was the death you all wanted so badly, I hope you greeted it with a smile.
“Those who reject the One True Being!”
“We shall grant rest to those who cannot understand the truth!”
I saw something gleaming with a faint light in the distance. They were properly armed with swords, spears, and other real weapons. In the game they only carried bizarre junk, so maybe this counted as an upgrade. At least these seemed like members who could actually fight.
Clang. Clang.
I lightly tapped the dead man’s sword against the wall. The dull sound told me its quality was terrible. Normally I would have thrown it away in disgust, but right now there was no better tool for the job.
I focused my mind and gathered the energy flowing through my body into a single point. Thanks to Master, the qi surged like it might explode at any moment. I carefully collected that power, channeled it through my hand, and poured it into the sword.
A high-quality blade could have endured it. It would resonate with the wielder’s energy, trembling lightly as it sliced through steel. But this poorly made piece of trash would develop cracks from even this much power. If it clashed with an enemy weapon now, it would shatter in moments.
So what would happen if I poured even more energy into it and made the sword explode on purpose? What if I used that in a battle against multiple foes?
The first person to test this kind of curiosity had been none other than Master himself.
‘It was a technique I enjoyed using against those demonic cult bastards. Swords were everywhere, and they were all such low-quality junk that calling them spoils of war was laughable. It was the perfect method.’
Crack…!
A fissure ran down the center of the blade where impurities had gathered. Blue energy spread along the crack, shattering the sword further.
“Yaaaaah!!”
The shouts of the Demon God Worshippers grew closer. Hearing them, the ones fighting Iris grew even more frenzied in their resistance. It was almost funny watching fanatics who praised death so highly now fighting desperately to survive. This was why not just anyone could be a proper villain. You always had to wrestle with your own contradictions. It would be more logical for them all to bite their swords and die together.
Hssss…
Blue energy leaked from the sword that could no longer contain it. Like a bomb venting smoke right before detonation, I pointed the blade that had reached its limit forward. The moment I saw the faces of those stinking bastards in front of me, I poured one final strand of energy into the tip of the sword.
Boom!
Thud! Thud-thud-thud!!
The sound of something shattering. Then the noise of objects piercing flesh, tearing through bodies, and liquid spraying. A brief silence fell over the noisy underground cavern. No more shouts. No more running footsteps. The only thing left was the damp stench of death that the Demon God Worshippers had claimed to desire so much.
The vivid blood splatter on the walls and the streams of blood flowing downward were grotesquely vivid. I tossed the sword hilt that remained onto the floor and turned around. The one-eyed woman, the remaining Demon God Worshippers, and even Iris were staring with stunned expressions, letting out soft gasps of “Whoa…”
“What are you doing, disciple?”
“Y-yes?”
“Your hands have stopped moving.”
“…Ah!”
Iris, who had been frozen in shock, threw another punch. The head of the Demon God Worshipper who had lost his focus exploded, scattering in every direction.
“Kuhk, cough…”
As I watched the cultists fall one by one at Iris’s hands, I heard a faint breath from behind me. It seemed one of them had luckily survived the blast. Each fragment of the sword had carried my qi, making them essentially bullets. Since he had been at the very back, he had barely managed to cling to life.
“Y-you… just who the hell are you…?”
It seemed he had reached his limit. His lines were exactly what you’d expect. No different from the game. It was a perfectly natural reaction, but it felt so cliché.
“Heh heh…! So you killed all my brothers?”
“As you can see. They’re all dead. Since you say death is the greatest rest, I did you a favor, didn’t I?”
“I’ll grant you that same rest. Keh heh, kuhahaha…! Foolish brat. Thanks to you…”
“I already know. You couldn’t offer other people’s blood, but you can make up for it with your own. Now you’ll be able to summon a mid-grade monster. With luck, maybe even a high-grade one.”
The laughter of the Demon God Worshipper who had been cackling suddenly stopped. His eyes asked how I could possibly know that. I simply shrugged.
“You think I would have come this far without knowing something like that?”
“How could you know something even our brothers didn’t…”
“Enough. Hurry up and summon the monster. I still need to train my disciple.”
The method of summoning monsters was simple. A group that wished to call them, and a suitable price. It was obvious that the price here was “blood.”
I grabbed one of the blades that had fallen nearby. Without hesitation, I plunged it into the surviving cultist’s heart.
“Guhk! Ack…! Glurk! Y-you idiot…!”
“Why? Because the chance of summoning a higher-grade monster increases when you’re killed by someone else rather than taking your own life? I know that too. So there’s no need to worry.”
“Y-you knew and still… did this…?”
“Since we’re doing this anyway, let’s skip the mid-grade and go straight for a high-grade monster. I want to give my disciple a proper challenge.”
With those words, I pulled the blade from his chest. Blood gushed out powerfully. The man trembled violently before going still in death. Soon after, his body turned red and began absorbing the blood that had flowed around him. It wasn’t enough, so it even drew in the blood of the Demon God Worshippers that Iris and the one-eyed woman had killed.
All the red liquid scattered throughout the underground cavern gathered in one place. The blood writhed and bubbled, forming a shape similar to a liquid monster, like a slime. It gradually took on a more defined form until finally it revealed itself before us as a bizarre, unidentifiable creature.
“What is this…”
“Iris.”
“Yes, Master!”
“This is your next test. Defeat that thing by yourself.”
“…Pardon?”
“I said, kill that monster that just appeared by yourself.”
Iris’s face showed clear panic at my words. Even at a glance, it looked completely different from the monsters she had faced before. And it wasn’t just its appearance. By now she must have sensed it too. This was an incomparably stronger creature than anything she had fought until now. If she approached it the way she had before, she could very well be the one who ended up dead.
“Can you do it?”
She had to be able to. No, she must do it. If she couldn’t even defeat a monster of this level, she didn’t deserve to be called my disciple. She couldn’t be called a Hero chosen by the world either. This wasn’t an insurmountable mountain. It was simply a path she was supposed to walk.
Would she be able to overcome it without wavering? She had shown many disappointing sides until now. Could she truly pass this test without making a single mistake?
“…Yes. I can do it. I will definitely succeed.”
Good. That’s what a Hero should say. Only then would she be able to survive in this absurd world.