The Reason One Covets Light, Part 1
At dusk, the long black twilight hanging beneath the sunset vanished.
In a single instant, white flames drove the darkness back.
Wrapped in that blaze, the black flash had already carved out three trajectories.
Serrk!
Raul's sword swept through the blue-haired mop-headed Paggle as if he were nothing more than air, then slit the throat of the ogre-sized brute standing behind him.
Thud.
The three heads dropped like cheap toys.
Not a single drop of blood spilled.
Only the demon's true body, woven as densely as thread, revealed itself as expected.
"Hiiik! W-what is that!"
The instant he saw it, Paggle collapsed where he stood.
Raul looked at him and found it more than a little surprising.
"From your face, I thought you were the distribution channel."
As Raul muttered that, Paggle frantically put distance between himself and the demon and shouted, "W-what the hell do you mean, distribution channel? And what the fuck is that? H-hey, spider brothers. What the hell is going on here..."
"Paggle."
Another huge man approached the trembling, finger-pointing Paggle.
"Shut up."
He glared at the disgracefully sprawled Paggle with a sharp look.
The blue mop head finally swallowed hard and clamped his mouth shut.
Raul, who had been watching the whole scene, lifted the corner of his mouth.
"Spider, then. The kind that got trampled in a turf war with Fatal's gutter and ran away?"
"...You know about something that happened over thirty years ago."
"I'm older than I look."
"Interesting."
"Takes one to know one."
Raul and the brute stared each other down with cold eyes, though their mouths wore the faint trace of amusement.
The first to move was the "spider."
"I came out thinking I'd make some pocket money, and instead I find a big one. Aura... no, a holy user."
"Both."
"Your color is a little strange, but the way you wield that sword... Motala?"
"Close."
"Then surely you're not one of those holy knights from the noble Mimir Order?"
"That one's close too."
"...So you don't feel like telling me."
The expression on his face never changed, but veins began to stand out on the fist of the man called Spider.
Raul grinned at that reaction and said, "Honestly, I called you out here just to confirm it. But this is more serious than I expected."
"What's serious?"
Raul answered the man called Spider, who was still twirling the kukris in both hands.
"Fifteen on the left side of your heart, twelve on the right. At that point, why not just open a fish farm?"
Then the man's mouth split open in a grotesque shape.
Inside it, astonishingly, was another eye.
A small but unmistakable pupil, glowing violet as if to assert its existence.
It belonged to a demon.
"Good eyesight."
The Spider's voice changed as well.
A skin-crawling sound, like nails scraping a chalkboard.
Raul was instantly reminded of the shriek of the Desecration Bug he had faced on Tetra Mountain.
It was the same.
"So you've grown enough to speak."
"Your eye. Your god. Need."
"Need?"
Raul frowned at the bizarre word spat from the mouth of that vile creature.
"You need divinity? From a demon?"
"Kh, khk, khkh, khkhkh."
At Raul's question, the demon wearing the Spider's flesh laughed like a radio that had lost its signal.
Apparently it had no intention of answering.
So Raul ignited the flames in the Sun King's Sword once more.
"Well, once I get to the top of your chain, something should come out."
"D-die! D-die..."
Kwaeeeeeeek-!
A piercing screech cut across the black night sky with Spider's silent monologue and Raul's own.
With the holy sword clutched in both hands, Raul first cut down the "spiders" charging in without a shred of fear.
The sword of Raul danced, carving a white afterimage through the air.
The brute-force swarm no longer posed any obstacle to him.
A sword whipping like a lash through a world slowed to a crawl.
The human faces caught by that blade fell like weak dead leaves.
Thud, thud, thud!
More than a dozen "spiders" lost their balance and sprawled across the ground in an instant.
Raul lifted one of their corpses with a single hand and deflected the daggers and throwing blades raining down from every direction.
He hurled the thing, now turned into a pincushion, forward, and in the same motion kicked off the ground and drove his sword in.
Thwack!
A sliver of flame bloomed with the sickening sound of flesh being split.
Whoosh-!
The Sun King's Sword, fueled by Raul's divinity, made the white flames flare even higher.
A broad horizontal slash traced through the air.
The burning white fire spread even to the vile creatures touched by the sword's edge, releasing a rancid smell of scorched flesh.
Once again, the bodies of the "spiders," turned to charcoal, collapsed to the floor.
"Kh, khk! Useless."
It was then that a sneer came from behind Raul's back.
He turned his head, and the Spider, who had been idly spinning the kukris in both hands all this time, continued, "Your divinity cannot burn, all at once, the whole body. Even if only one toe, one finger joint remains, we do not die. We do not die!"
So this was different from the street trash on Tetra Mountain.
The severed corpses Raul had cut down first were, in fact, already getting back to their feet with all limbs intact.
"An Undying Resistance?"
Just like those ghouls that had appeared in Latina Village.
Like those ghouls, which had been granted a strange characteristic beyond that of ordinary zombies, these Desecration Bugs were also special entities given skills by their master, "Ma."
"Our lord's, grace. Foolish, bastard."
"I'm sure it is."
"Your, trivial, divinity, we use, well."
While they exchanged those short lines, pale-gray clusters of larvae were already wriggling out of the charred corpses.
One, then two. The vile creatures rose as if nothing had happened.
Their eye sockets were black and empty, while the flesh spilling from their noses and ears slithered like jellyfish in the sea.
It was a hellscape in every sense: corpses walking, demons dancing, mockery of life made flesh.
"Kh, khk, khkh"
As Raul stood still before that spectacle, the speaking Desecration Bug's laughter grew louder.
Apparently it had taken his silence for fear.
But Raul only lifted the corner of his mouth in the very center of that infernal scene.
"Perfect."
"Huh? Kkhk! You've finally lost it!"
"No. I was just looking for a good sandbag, and now I find this kind of coincidence."
"Sand... what?"
With a smile that was half sneer and half mockery, Raul adjusted the Sun King's Sword.
His breathing settled, and the muscles in the hand gripping the sword stood out hard.
Then,
Fwoooosh──!!
The sword's white flames shot up to the black sky in an instant.
The Holy Weapon radiance wrapped from the tip of the blade all the way to Raul's shoulders, and it was on an entirely different level from the white fire he had shown so far.
The blazing flames drove the black dusk away, whitening the night.
At the center of that white night, Raul opened his eyes wide, his irises turned pure white for the first time since leaving the world of the Sacred Tree.
"Kuh! T-this is! A holy warrior's, power?! But how, the size of it..."
The Spider, crossing his arms over his head to shield himself from the blinding radiance, trembled in shock.
Then Raul spoke.
"Curious?"
His voice was utterly dry, utterly cold.
"How many times do you think your so-called undying resistance can withstand my sword, now that it carries the Sun King's flames and power too?"
Yet even as he said it, Raul's mouth curved unmistakably.
Kwaeeeeeeek──!
A scream ripped through the instant.
The revived creatures bared their teeth and shrieked, but a strange thing happened.
Their feet did not leave the ground.
No, to be precise, a white line had been drawn across the waists joining their upper and lower bodies.
Rumble!
Only after thunder rolled along that deep white light did the creatures crash to the floor and understand what had happened.
The Raul standing before them was gone.
He had already split half of the revived creatures in two.
Heads and torn upper bodies fell by the second.
The number had already surpassed twenty.
"D-"
The horrified Spider tried, too late, to swing the kukris in both hands, but his own hands had already been severed at the wrists and were rolling across the floor.
"Kraaaaaaah!"
Of course, not a single drop of blood flowed.
Even so, the creatures sliced by the holy sword screamed one after another because of the white flames blooming from each deep cut.
In that moment, a white longsword flew into the gaping mouth of one shrieking creature.
Clang-!
The blade pierced not only its maw but its throat as well, then drove into the ground with a metallic ring.
The demon clinging to the roof of its palate stared at Raul's sword, which had narrowly missed its eyes, and trembled.
Then the mouth of the one who had driven the blade in, Raul, opened with a savage curve.
"First, once."
At that instant, the Raul reflected in the creature's eyes wore a smile more devilish than any demon's.
That day, the demon learned the emotion called fear for the first time.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
In one corner of a deep, sprawling gutter.
A half-naked woman with smooth bare skin walked through a place dark and damp, foul with stench and overrun by black rats.
It was undoubtedly the sewer beneath Koyad, where the "spiders" had rooted themselves for the past thirty years.
And yet, aside from that woman moving freely through the place, there was no creature there that could reasonably be called human.
Tap-tap-tap.
With a nauseating clatter of insectlike legs, a huge shape climbed down the wall from the ceiling.
It was a monster with a human head and limbs that were not human's.
"Oh my, dear. Taluser hasn't come back."
At that, the half-naked woman addressed as Mother looked at the monster with a gentle expression.
"My sweet child, don't worry about that. Taluser isn't my first success. Even if his human skin gets torn off somewhere, he'll come back after devouring every witness as well."
"But, Mother. It is strange."
"Shh. Your mother is busy. Today is the day we offer worship to our lord."
"I am sorry."
"Good. Good. My lovely eldest."
On the surface, there was nothing especially strange about those words.
The mother was a person of faith, and this was a warmhearted conversation about a missing elder son and a missing brother.
The problem, of course, was that neither of the two participants in that human conversation was human at all.
Tap, tap, tap.
As the thing with insect legs climbed the wall again, the ceiling of the abandoned sewer came into view.
There, hanging in bunches, were "demons" whose awkwardly donned human skins only made them look even more grotesque.
Desecration Bugs.
Vile creatures who had entered the pupal stage and were waiting for the day they would spread their wings.
The woman watched that sight with a benevolent smile.
Then she closed and opened her eyes, and the pupils in them vanished too.
Only insectlike compound eyes remained, dark and glossy.
Thunk.
At last, the woman called Mother opened the iron door at the far end of the sewer and stepped inside.
In that room were an inverted cross, a black-painted goat skull, and an upside-down idol wrapped tightly in straw rope, all strewn about in no apparent order.
There was no pattern to them, and yet they formed an uncanny harmony all the same.
The woman standing at the center of it all lifted her head.
Then, defying gravity and all common sense, ripples spread across the water pooled on the ceiling.
Soon, a dim scene emerged beyond it.
There were several beings there with eyes similar to the woman's.
After studying the surface carefully, the woman finally spoke.
"I can't see two of them."
Then a Frost Iron Orc with gray-white skin replied, "No. It's three. The black mage Tod, Toruma of Tetra Mountain, and Meders, the hundred-man commander of our tribe who headed for Valentia, were found as corpses."
The woman extended a hand into the air.
Immediately, impossibly thin, tightly woven threads moved on their own and handed her a glass full of wine.
"I don't know about the first two, but that monster of a hundred-man commander turned up as a corpse? Do you honestly think that makes sense, priest?"
As the woman said that with a frown, the Frost Iron Orc, his red eyes flashing, bulged veins in his neck and replied, "The holy warriors of Motala are on the move! Signs of them were found in both Zern and Valentia! It may be their doing."
The woman drank her wine and curled her lips in mockery.
"Hah. Holy warriors, of all things? To kill that mad hundred-man commander Meders, you'd need an Inquisitor. No, at the very least, the war commander himself would have to appear."
The Frost Iron Orc spat thickly and answered, "Damn it! I know that! Our lord said there would be no movement from anyone of that caliber until this winter had passed! But Meders is dead. He's definitely dead."
Then a man with a face so still it was eerie opened his mouth.
"Could it have been the elves?"
"It is true that elves appeared at the scene. However, those who left the forest have no talent capable of taking down Meders, who was granted a bloodlust."
Then a shadow that was neither human nor orc spoke playfully.
"Khkhk? Not the aging king of Therion. The kingdom's knight order has already come over to our side."
"Then what is it? Did that sharp little lord of Zern somehow take Meders down?"
"Impossible."
"Then how are you going to explain this? A black mage, a shamanic corrupter, and even a hundred-man commander all got taken out. What, did those men get beaten by some common roadside thug?"
"..."
No one answered the woman's outburst.
Then the huge orc who had kept his mouth shut all this while spoke up at last.
"What if that thug is a saint?"
At that moment, a heavy silence descended.
In that stillness where even breathing had gone missing, the orc spoke again.
"It's already been over a year since the revelation of the saint's return. It's about time he showed himself somewhere."
"What nonsense!"
Clang!
The woman crushed the empty wineglass in her hand and twisted her face as well.
"The land foreseen as the site of the saint's return is the eastern part of Exeria. Unless he lost his mind, why would he cross the continent the moment he woke up and come all the way here?"
"That..."
The orc fell silent, taken aback, and the woman lowered her voice with her features still pinched hard.
"Let's stop with the nonsense. Everything will be revealed on the night of the coming full moon, once the priest receives our lord's revelation."
Then the shadow, which had been chuckling all this time, took up her words.
"Right. Our role in Exceed is only to carry out our lord's resurrection ritual and the bloodless conquest of Therion. Let's just report our progress as usual and wrap this up. It's been a while since I had a body, and I feel like I'm about to piss myself in here. Actually, is it okay if I just do it?"
"Disgusting bastard."
"Kihihihihihihi."
The Exceed meeting did not last long.
All they had to do was share how well each of them was carrying out their roles, chiefly in the frozen lands, the kingdom, and the great city in the west.
At last, the image beyond the surface rippled irregularly once more and faded away, just as it had appeared.
"Haaah."
The woman looked like her head was splitting, and she furiously rubbed her face over and over.
"Tod... With that bastard dead, the ritual's been delayed. Toruma is dead, so the egg distribution is cut off. And instead of making plans, they're spouting nonsense about saints and Meders."
Pathetic. Pathetic.
As if trying to swallow her anger, the woman muttered the same words over and over with almost pathological repetition, biting at her own nails.
"How did a bunch of useless bastards like that become Exceed..."
In her eyes lived a sense of superiority of unknown origin.
That was when it happened.
"Since your origin is demon, it seems you don't much like being in the same class as demon contractors?"
A placid line, out of nowhere.
"Who are you!"
The woman, her compound eyes wide, shouted reflexively and exhaled a dreadful aura of demonic energy, but...
Step, step.
The face of the man emerging calmly from the gloom beyond the sewer shadows did not twitch at all.
Beneath the dull green light burning overhead, the black-haired man came to a stop.
He did not even look at the woman before him, only raised his head to stare at the ceiling with a composed face.
"So this was a network of scattered cells, all moving at once. That explains why you can't cut one branch without it linking to the others."
The man, Raul, only then raised the corner of his mouth.
"As expected. The sort of thing a cowardly archduke would do."
"What?!"
At the word archduke, the woman's face twisted hideously.
Her crushed expression snapped as she shouted, "What are you! How did you get in here? My children outside should never have let you through!"
The blast of dark demonic energy came flying at him with the shout.
But Raul simply let it slide off his hand as if it were nothing, then carried that same hand behind his back.
"I have a lot I want to ask you. Mother of the Desecration Bugs. Spider Queen, who succeeded in evolving."
Srrrk-!
What he drew slowly was, without fail, the Sun King's Sword.
"Still, I am the kind of man who sees through a game I start."
"Game? What are you talking about? Wait, that, that power...?!"
Whoooosh.
The white flames shot all the way up to the ceiling in an instant, lighting the underground chamber where no light reached and bathing it in brilliance.
Raul answered the horrified Spider Queen with a chilling smile.
Then he said, "My best record so far was fifty-four times. As for you, final boss, how many times do I have to cut you before you actually die?"
He smiled as if he were truly enjoying the game.