Upper Demon, Skill Unlocked (2)

Raul knew perfectly well why the Snake had summoned a heart before his eyes. The heart of the Flame Devil Armor was, in truth, no different from a tiny sun. Merely by existing there, it incinerated everything around it; merely by beating, it radiated heat fierce enough to melt anything it touched. No ordinary priest could stand against it alone.

Normally, the only sensible answer was to run. First you secured a safe distance, then you gathered enough holy users to manifest a joint miracle called Aria—and only then could you face that heart head-on. That was what a high-rank demon's heart was.

"Sorry, but to me, it's just butcher-shop meat."

That, however, was an entirely different story for a Saint carrying a Halo.

-What the hell is this? What is happening? This, this makes no sense! The heart of the exalted Hellfire Knight? In one strike? Why aren't you burning, you bastard! You—Second Coming Saint, you son of a...

Only after dying did the Snake, now a wandering spirit, gape its jaws and howl.

-This can't be! That's it! It must be that the cunning goddess has draped a veil over my eyes, feeding me illusions! This is impossible!

By now, it had started denying reality altogether, even calling the heart that had crashed to the ground with a heavy boom a hallucination.

"Idiot."

Raul seized the snake's spirit form.

"If you ditched the flesh and became a spirit, you should've run. What are you doing hanging around there?"

-L-let me go! You loathsome Second Coming Saint! My blood is a beacon, and I will set this continent ablaze with infer—

Slash—!

There was no reason to hear the rest of that pathetic speech.

Maybe its brain really had been reptilian all the way down to the core.

Or maybe a sharp-eyed, clever beast would have still been better than that.

The Snake, once an executive of Exceed and a lesser demon, died like that.

"Phew."

He swept his gaze over the flames roaring hotly from every direction and guessed that this underground facility would soon erase itself on its own. Normally he should have gotten out at once and gone to help the princess or Celia, but...

I still have one annoying problem left.

When Raul turned his head, there it was: the heart, split nearly in half but still stubbornly holding its shape.

If that thing falls into the hands of demon contractors...

There was no telling what demon they might summon with it as a catalyst. The complete incineration would take a little time, but this had to be dealt with now.

So it was the moment he reached out toward the grotesque lump of meat with a look of utter annoyance that—

Ding—

A notification tone that made his scalp prickle rang inside his head.

"What?"

The moment he saw it, Raul's eyes flew wide open.

"You want me to unlock a unique skill?"

A unique skill was the class-defining skill belonging to one of Exeria's eighteen jobs. Even if an NPC shared the same class, it was a personal skill—something only a playable character could use, or even dream of imitating.

And yet...

...They're telling me to unlock that?

Wasn't the Saint's unique skill Halo?

Could there really be another Halo-bearer in Exeria besides Raul?

He was hit by a storm of questions in an instant, but he quickly shook his head.

No way.

As far as he knew, not once in all the history of Exeria had there ever been another being with a Halo.

Even the saintesses of the three great churches, passed down from generation to generation, possessed only a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Stigma; unlike Raul, they did not carry miracles on their backs.

The Halo really was the Saint's unique skill.

Then what the hell is that supposed to be...?

It wasn't as though the message could be lying, so why was it asking him to unlock a "second unique skill"?

There was only one possibility.

Could it be that the Saint actually has multiple unique skills?

The same unique skill that served as the alpha and omega for every other class?

"Ha."

At last, Raul understood the phenomenon in front of him and let out a thin smile. He tilted his head back and glanced over the burned husk of the snake.

"At this point, I ought to be bowing to it."

Learning an unknown fact out of nowhere was already a gain, and because the bastard had forced the issue, he had even been given the chance to unlock it.

Raul was usually so unlucky he sometimes wondered if he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ought to hold a shamanistic rite just to survive the week...

Yeah. If there's bad luck, there are bound to be good days too.

With a quiet snort, Raul laid his hand on the demon's core.

Then a voice brushed past his ear—the voice of the Saint.

He knew at once what he had to do.

"Let all the evil that covets the light become the nourishment that glorifies me."

As soon as he repeated the words, the one-meter slab of meat before him was wrapped in pure white light. A moment later, it turned into a clean stream of radiance and was sucked into Raul's left chest.

"Nourishment, huh..."

So this was what it meant for Raul to truly swallow a demon's heart.

Then, at last, the message he'd been waiting for appeared before his eyes.

...

For an instant, Raul froze like stone.

"And it's not even just a high-rank power. It's top-tier...?"

That was enough to inspire not mere admiration, but awe.

Raul had played Exeria for a very long time, but even he had only ever seen a top-tier authority three times.

And those had all belonged to the figures representing the three great churches.

The overwhelming miracles displayed once each by the three saintesses.

In the game, those had been called top-tier authorities, and the skill he had just obtained was of the same grade as those saintly miracles—a genuine top-rank power.

Heavenly Punishment...

It was a brand-new skill name that had never existed in Exeria before.

Raul felt his heart pounding hard in his chest.

At the same time, in the south...

Whiiiiine—!

Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong!

In Fatal, a noise sharp enough to make your ears ache rang from the slums in the south all the way to the outpost at the far north.

The cause was obvious at a glance.

Rising up from the slums at the southern edge was a hulking mass of life at least ten meters tall.

A monster clad head to toe in black armor, vomiting out dark red flames from the gaps between its plates.

It was the body of a high-rank demon: the Flame Devil Armor.

"So I really was lacking compared to those two."

Princess Elenoa was hiding in the shadow of the clock tower, the tallest building in the south, and letting out a small sigh of regret.

In the end, she had failed to stop the summoning.

Meow—

Then Horus, looking like a white tuft of cotton, let out a cry.

The princess felt as though she somehow understood Horus's feelings.

"It's not your fault, sweet one. This is all my poor judgment and incompetence."

In truth, Horus's rune magic had been as dazzling as the stars in the night sky. Countless floating characters, and scarlet flames that tinted the dawn so deeply for an instant that they seemed to swallow the dark.

The reason they had failed to reach the demon summoning circle was simply that they had begun the bombardment too far away, all to keep the princess safe.

Had they been a little closer, they would have been able to burn everything in the area to ash before the demon contractors with violet-tinged eyelids could even react.

"Because I was always treated so politely, I seem to have fooled myself in the end."

She spat the bitter murmur out of her mouth and looked once more at the blazing front before her.

Thud!

Now, the demon had finally emerged from underground and was standing fully upright in front of the south gate.

Its size was so monstrous it could honestly have been mistaken for a small mountain.

"And yet... those two are the ones who fight things like that."

What filled the princess's eyes was not fear of death.

What dimmed her brown gaze was the crushing self-loathing and helplessness that had only grown deeper day by day.

Princess Elenoa, who wanted to affirm herself by accomplishing something, found herself instead staring at that demon and feeling it all too clearly.

No matter how long I try, I'll never become like them.

The urge to simply vanish here, right where she stood, took hold of her.

Then a voice cut through the air.

"Your Highness should do what you can do."

She jerked her head toward the sudden voice and found a man with black hair standing there, sword in hand, as if he had appeared out of nowhere.

Unlike the princess's parched, exhausted face, Raul wore a faint smile as he said,

"I'm glad you're safe, Your Highness."

"Lord Raul, I..."

"There's no need to blame yourself. Celia and I were moving on the assumption that the high-rank demon's summoning would be incomplete, anyway."

"That... Yes. Indeed, it would be foolish to seriously expect success from me..."

"No, that's not what I meant."

When Elenoa began to speak of herself as if she were a corpse, Raul hastily shook his head.

"I mean that an incomplete summoning is enough."

"...What?"

"The way to wipe clean the catalyst and sacrifice required for a demon summoning isn't just fire."

"My efforts..."

"Anyway, we made it work. That was thanks to you blowing up one of their hideouts, and because she volunteered to head east, where things looked the most dangerous."

Even so, Raul saw that the princess's brown eyes still had no life in them, and he added softly,

"If you hadn't gathered your courage, we would never have timed it right."

"Lord Raul... you're still so kind. Is that what you call the virtue of an adventurer—reaching out to the one who has fallen?"

And yet her gaze did not change.

If anything, the dark self-mockery and ashen disgust only settled more thickly over her.

Looking at her, Raul thought she was terribly similar to Celia the first time he had met her—so unstable, balanced on the edge of collapse.

And then, all at once, he understood.

He understood why Celia had chosen to stay with Elenoa, even after giving up her walk with him.

Raul scratched the side of his forehead awkwardly, then ran a hand through his bangs for no reason at all, letting out a quiet groan inside.

Damn.

Now that he was seeing Elenoa overlaid with that other girl, he couldn't possibly leave her alone.

"Elenoa. Look at me."

He lowered himself until his eyes were level with the princess, who had been staring downward all this time.

"I'm looking at Elenoa right now. Not the princess, and not your abilities either. I'm looking at you as a person—just Elenoa."

Did the words move her heart?

Princess Elenoa blinked faintly at last.

Before those murky brown eyes stood Raul's dark, obsidian gaze.

Holding her eyes like that, he said,

"We made the best choice we could. And that choice was able to become an even better one because it had the courage of a woman named Elenoa behind it."

"But, sir, I..."

He cut off Elenoa before she could pour out another self-denying answer.

"Trust me, Elenoa. You haven't failed yet, and we haven't lost at all."

Then Raul turned his back on her and walked to the railing at the very edge of the clock tower.

In his hand was the sword still etched with scarlet flame patterns.

Watching him from behind, the princess went pale and said,

"You're going there?"

The direction she pointed toward was where the Flame Devil Armor had begun to walk by instinct, without reason.

The road the demon took had become hell itself, wreathed in sulfurous fire.

Many of Fatal's residents were running for their lives.

One by one, adventurers and mercenaries were arriving to shield them, using water and ice magic to resist it.

But such resistance meant nothing before a high-rank demon.

The demon kept walking.

Even as an empty shell stripped of mind and heart, it kept moving to fulfill the first purpose of the summoning.

If that thing could run, speak, and even wield magic...

Just imagining it sent a chill down Raul's spine.

Then Princess Elenoa, who had more or less ignored his warning, shouted as if in fury,

"It's dangerous. Lord Raul, it's far too dangerous! Better to request reinforcements from Sir Arbato at the outpost, or—even better—wait until Lady Celia can join us!"

When Raul glanced back, her face had long since shed its mask of composure and was now an unmistakable, tearful grimace.

Just as Raul had seen Celia in Elenoa, Elenoa seemed to be seeing someone else in Raul's back, because tears had already gathered bright in her eyes.

Raul stared quietly at that twisted, trembling face, then suddenly smiled faintly and spoke.

"Elenoa. From here on out, keep this in mind."

"Please... don't say anything and just get down from that railing. I, I can't... I can't take any more of this!"

As she wept, Elenoa reached out in a hurry to grab the hem of Raul's robe.

"Even if this world looks like a damned playground for demons."

For a heartbeat, the princess lost her words.

In Raul's dark eyes, a blinding white light had suddenly begun to flicker.

It was a proof of divinity brighter and clearer than even Celia, the Motala holy knight.

Still frozen in place, Elenoa looked up as Raul gave her a soft smile and said in a low voice,

"There is definitely a true miracle in Exeria that punishes those wicked things."

At that very instant, a tremendous light burst from the spot where Raul had been standing.

The princess winced at the brilliance, and when she opened her eyes again, the man was gone.

All that remained was the faint hiss of crackling electricity ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and a thin, lingering afterglow of lightning.

For one stunned moment she could not understand what had happened—then she saw it.

A bolt of white lightning cleaving the black dawn sky ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in a perfect vertical line.

Crack-crack-crack-crack!

The lightning, appearing like a dragon, writhed fiercely in the heavens as though alive, bleaching the whole world white before...

...it fell in a single brilliant strike onto the head of the flaming hell-demon.

Rumble—!

The monstrous roar made even the princess, standing far away, feel it in her ears.

Her vision was drowned by the afterimage of the lightning, her hearing went distant for an instant, and for a moment she could neither see nor hear anything at all.

How long did that last?

When sight and sound finally returned, the princess opened her eyes and looked forward again.

Then she froze there.

The demon.

That monster of all monsters, the high-rank demon that no one had been able to stop even by a single step, had suddenly vanished.

No—more precisely, it had not vanished at all.

Along the very path of the wildly surging lightning, its entire body had been torn and twisted as though space itself had been carved open.

Then, above the demon's crumbling corpse as it lost its center and collapsed, a man wrapped in pure white light stood alone, straight and unmoving.

He raised high a sword wrapped in white flame and armor of light that called to mind the armies of heaven—

lofty beyond measure, and infinitely noble.

It was Raul.