Upper Demon, Skill Unlocked (3)
The battle had become so catastrophically one-sided that even calling it the worst possible situation felt inadequate.
From the moment the “Burning Giant” at the south gate lifted its head above the ground, the orcs in the north and the “demon contractors” hidden inside the city had all started moving at once.
“They’re on the move! The Frost Steel Orcs have begun their advance!”
“Lord! We need to deal with that monster inside the city first!”
“Lord Arbato! At this rate the fortress will be breached!”
“Give the order, Arvato Daber Faital! Are you just going to watch while the city turns to ruins?!”
Arvato was getting a headache from the reports coming in all at once.
Fortunately, the lord of a knightly house that had guarded the snowfields his entire life was a man who knew how to judge a crisis.
Focusing on the words “Burning Giant,” Arvato quickly selected the mercenaries, knights, and adventurers best suited to counter it, and within minutes had already assembled a rescue unit made up of those with swift feet and those versed in alchemy.
And so the war against the orcs charging the north gate began as well.
BOOM!
Whoooosh!
The moment rocks started flying and spells began exchanging fire, Arvato mounted his horse.
“Lord?”
“Where do you think you’re going, with the battlefield like this?”
Of course, many expressed concern, but the lord was unyielding.
“They made their move the instant that monster was summoned. Which means the core of those pigs’ and demon contractors’ plan is that thing, the Burning Giant.”
In other words, if they could bring down the Burning Giant, the rest would be easy enough to handle.
His judgment was correct.
The entire plan of these “worshippers of the evil god” had been centered on the Flame Devil Armor.
It was a truly bewildering ambush, but the knight-lord Arvato did not lose his composure.
The rescue teams would already be saving the citizens of Faital, and the water mages, ice mages, and spiritists would at least be pinning down that giant’s feet.
Then, with my aura sword as a first-rank knight, if I cut through the giant’s heart, this will all be over.
With that cold, rational thought, the lord rode toward Faital’s city center with his knights... and saw it.
The overwhelming mass that looked like a mountain come to life, and the Hellfire Demon that did not budge even when drenched in water and ice.
“W-What on earth is that...”
And then Arvato saw it again.
The Gold Plate adventurer who wielded fourth-circle water magic, Raylord of the River, had been burned to black ash.
“A, a fourth-circle water mage... burned t-to death?”
It was a sight that shattered the lord’s common sense.
The path the demon had taken was already hell itself.
The fire would not go out.
Not even after dozens of mages had been dispatched to the area.
“It’s dangerous! Lord!”
At that moment, a knight shoved Arvato aside.
The lord tumbled from his horse, then tried to say something, only for his mouth to stiffen.
“Kraaah──!”
The instant his beloved steed and the knight touched the fireball that had fallen from the sky, they were reduced to blackened ash.
The knight died without even managing to let out a proper scream.
Common sense no longer applied.
This was a monstrosity that stood far, far outside reason.
And so Arvato understood.
“A demon... was it.”
The identity of that mountain-like giant that had already reached his very eyes.
This was not a monster one could “hold back” in any meaningful sense.
It was something that should never have been summoned in the first place.
They say that before a human standing before a demon, only prayer and regret are permitted...
The first-rank knight Orbato let go of his sword.
He dropped it, then shouted with all the breath in his body, “Run! Take every citizen left in the city and all the soldiers in the fortress, and run!”
That was the best choice left to the lord.
Even the knights who had been hoping for some trace of hope from him now wore faces drained white with despair.
That was when it happened.
Crack!
A pure white bolt of lightning split the black night sky vertically.
RUMBLE!
The blinding light and deafening thunder robbed Arvato of both sight and hearing at once.
Beep---
With nothing left but the ringing in his ears, the lord looked up.
He saw the burning mountain collapse like a miracle, and a man standing upright upon it.
It was as though the dawn itself had descended to drive away the endless night and light the first breath of morning... like the coming of a legendary Holy Grail Knight.
It took Lord Arvato Daber Faital quite some time to identify the true identity of the Holy Grail Knight before his eyes.
***
Heavenly Punishment, as the name suggested, was a skill that condensed immense divinity gathered from the heavens and brought it down in the form of lightning.
Divinity that took the shape of lightning...
It was on an entirely different level from the forms of the three major churches: fire, water, and raw energy.
Divinity transformed into lightning wielded a destructive power that could not be compared to any church’s manifestation.
And that was not all.
The voice of the saint that had echoed in Raul’s mind the instant he had purged the body of the Flame Devil Armor.
“All evil things that hunger for light shall become the nourishment that magnifies me.”
So, on a hunch, he tried speaking as he had when he absorbed the “heart.”
And the mountain-like corpse of the demon was indeed wrapped in light.
〔Unique skill, Heavenly Punishment【Lv.1】 is growing through proper offering.〕
【Lv.1】 → 【Lv.1.3】
Absorbing the body of a high-ranked demon caused the skill’s level to rise.
By nature, he was a saint who copied the authorities of other churches when he saw them, but it seemed that this unique skill of his could level up by subjugating demons of rank “high” and above.
A simple mechanism is nice.
After all, Raul was going to keep hunting demons from here on out anyway.
Then he heard footsteps.
Turning his head, he saw the knights clambering awkwardly over the corpse of the high-ranked demon as they came toward him.
At the front of them all, a man with a mustache gaped with his eyes wide open.
“Y-You are...! SilverBullet?!”
He was the lord of Faital.
And as the knights who followed him drew close enough to clearly make out Raul’s face, they all fell silent one after another, as though they had seen a ghost.
Raul looked at them and said calmly, “This is convenient. Lord. I have something to tell you.”
To the knights who were so shocked they could barely stay in their right minds, he spoke of Exceed, the secret organization operating in the western region, and of the Abyss Archduke.
Under normal circumstances, the knights would have barked back that this was nonsense pulled out of thin air, but things were different now.
Now he was the one who had personally butchered a demon before their very eyes.
Fortunately, Lord Arvato, who had a properly working brain, understood Raul’s words immediately.
“...Then this demon is...”
“A high-ranked demon called the Flame Devil Armor.”
Raul’s single sentence sent a massive shockwave through the group.
“A, high-ranked demon?!”
“A high-ranked demon is that legendary monster that no one can ever handle alone unless they’re a grand priest, a bishop, or an inquisitor...?”
“And Sir SilverBullet brought it down with one strike... what in the world is he...?”
Eyes and mouths all gaped wide, and the chorus of their murmuring spread around him like a concert of disbelief.
Then the lord, who had been quietly digesting Raul’s words by himself, asked, “Then... what path should we of Faital follow from here on, Raul?”
For the intelligent lord of Faital, it was a remarkably dependent question.
And yet Lord Arvato was already looking at Raul with the eyes of someone beholding something sacred.
Asking me for the path...
Usually, the only people a border margrave would ask for guidance were members of the royal bloodline or saints of the church.
Which meant Lord Arvato of Faital had now accepted Raul, at the very least, as some kind of high-ranking covert cleric of the church.
No matter how you slice it, I’m not quite there yet...
Lately, he had been mistaken for a judge of Motala far more often than usual.
Still, since this misunderstanding only added weight to his words, Raul did not bother correcting it.
“Please do everything you can to support Eleanor’s ascent to the throne. She may be fragile now, but one day, when she has broken free of her anguish, she will become a king who governs the nation properly.”
He spoke with firm conviction, even adding a touch of exaggeration for emphasis, and Arvato responded at once.
“As the shield of the snowfields and the sword of Her Highness Omilio, Arvato Daber Faital will receive the revelation of the great saint, Raul!”
Clack!
The lord dropped to one knee with a heavy clang of armor and bowed his head.
Raul, who had not expected him to go so far as to offer royal protocol, was startled.
“We will receive the revelation!”
Yet Faital’s loyal knights followed their lord without hesitation, and in an instant Raul found himself receiving salutes from them as though he were some royal of Therion.
Well, it doesn’t hurt me any.
Faital, which commanded one of the most disciplined knightly orders even in Therion, would be aiding the princess.
Then Eleanor’s chances of becoming king safely would rise exponentially.
And once Eleanor became king, she would not simply accept the brainwashing taught by the three fraudulent churches that called Raul the Saint of the End.
If this all works out...
Raul might gain not just one or two noble families, but a nation-level friendly force in the form of the Therion Kingdom itself.
***
Three days after the outbreak of war, the Frost Steel Orcs withdrew, having needlessly lost half their military strength.
It could hardly have gone otherwise.
They had likely moved under the assumption that the Flame Devil Armor that had appeared in the city would smash through the thick fortification walls of the outpost for them.
The moment that high-ranked demon fell, there was already no chance left for those foolish orcs.
Faital also carried out a sweeping internal purge of demon contractors.
Seeria, who was running through the entire city with more than forty knights under her command, earned herself the nickname “Demon Butcher.”
Having finished off the Abyss Archduke’s claws and insidious schemes that had been hanging over Faital, Raul finally received word on the fourth night that the code had been deciphered.
Knock, knock.
“Come in.”
The room of the locksmith Dirk, whom he visited after a long time, looked no different from before.
“...There was a demon invasion and even a war, but you stayed here all this time?”
“Eh? And what, was this old man supposed to go out swinging a kitchen knife? No matter what happens, I do what I can here. That’s what matters, you brat.”
“You’re very level-headed.”
“Good. You know it.”
Cough!
Dirk gave an unnecessary little cough and pointed at the sheet of parchment hanging in one corner of the room.
“Anyway, what was written in that cipher you brought is right there.”
Raul shifted his gaze, and there it was, a sentence that seemed loaded with meaning.
[When the sun draped over the eyes of Therion is swallowed by darkness, the Day of Ascension will dawn, and Resurrection shall be fulfilled.]
“The eyes of Therion?”
Raul had barely gotten past the first phrase when Dirk, standing beside him, let out a dry chuckle and said, “It means the royal audience chamber of the Therion royal family.”
“Ah. I see.”
“But I can’t make sense of what it means for the sun to be swallowed by darkness.”
The sun swallowed by darkness.
Dirk frowned as if the part gave him a headache, but Raul understood immediately what it meant.
An eclipse...
Eclipses and lunar eclipses had often appeared in Exeria as omens that something particularly ill-fated was about to happen.
But in order to know the exact date and time, he would need to meet an astrologer, the three-star profession of prophecy and foresight.
“An eclipse?”
Raul gave the confused Dirk a brief explanation of his own.
“So that’s the phenomenon where the sun is covered by the moon’s shadow... There are truly wondrous things in this world.”
“Astrology is usually treated as a field that doubts divine authority, so it’s been shunned almost as much as sorcery. It’s not that strange that you wouldn’t know.”
“Ha, of course. Everything humans do is narrow-minded in exactly that way.”
“Still, the problem is that if all it says is ‘eclipse,’ we can’t know the exact day or hour.”
As Raul tapped thoughtfully beneath his chin, Dirk suddenly flashed a grin.
“I know where one astrologer is.”
“You do?”
“Why are you so surprised? You thought no one would know because I don’t know about this eclipse or whatever it was?”
Honestly, he had not expected him to know.
Compared to other professions, astrologers were exceptionally rare.
“Really?”
“Heh heh heh. Yes, you brat. In the far north of Therion, Asmos. Someone claimed they saw an astrologer there around last winter.”
“Asmos...”
Asmos was a so-called “labyrinth city,” built up around the countless mazes and dungeons surrounding it.
***
With his destination decided, Raul returned to his room at once and packed his things.
The labyrinth city of Asmos was, in any case, a city he had already suspected might be home to the Holy Sword.
Which meant there was no reason for him to hesitate about going there.
The night was dark, the moon pale.
Even the sky was clear tonight, and the blizzard had eased considerably.
For someone who had always been a wanderer, was there really a better time than this to leave Faital?
Princess Eleanor and Seeria. If they joined up with the holy warriors and had Faital behind them, they would surely be able to work their way through the obstacles on their own.
Then Raul, or rather the wandering man burdened with a strange fate, ought to disappear from this place.
And so, after he finished packing and slung the large bag over his back, another thought still roiled in his mind.
Now that it’s clear the Therion royal palace is involved...
Couldn’t Raul just stay and join Seeria on the road to making Eleanor king?
The Saint Pursuit Squad was a little troublesome, but if he shook them off with a potion that paralyzed divinity, he could probably manage somehow...
...No.
Raul suddenly realized how absurd his own thoughts were and gave a dry laugh.
For Eleanor to become king, she would need a proper pretext and the backing of a power base.
And the power base of Faital alone would never be enough.
She would have to stand on the support of the Church of Justice.
Which meant Eleanor and the Saint Pursuit Squad needed to have a proper, genuine meeting, not some half-baked formality.
“Haah.”
Letting out a long sigh, Raul looked at the white breath leaving his mouth and finally let go of the lingering attachment in his chest.
Whenever Seeria got involved, this always happened.
He became stubbornly attached, and he started wanting to make irrational choices.
In the end, it was probably because he wanted to remain with her by any means necessary.
“Fuck.”
Why did he have to leave at all...?
Raul cursed under his breath, bitterly angry at the whole situation surrounding him.
Still, even then, he gathered himself and soothed the heavy weight settling in his chest.
At any rate, he had to go.
That was the fate of a continental fugitive.
And so, unseen by anyone, Raul left the Faital outpost.
The snowfield bathed in pale moonlight looked even bluer than usual tonight.
Even as he walked, crunching through the snow, his pace would not quicken.
It was frustrating. Suffocating. Oppressively so.
Then it happened.
Crackleeeeeeee!
Suddenly, a violet flash writhed across the black night sky, and an enormous detonation rolled over all of Faital.
Startled, Raul lifted his head and looked up, and it appeared by tearing through the heavens themselves.
At the very center of the sky.
A black sphere that had abruptly manifested in the Celestial Vault.
But it was not merely a sphere.
Split open with a sound like flesh being torn apart.
What blazed forth from it were a pair of dark violet eyes and mouths.
A grotesque life-form made up of dozens of eyes and mouths alone.
In that instant, a message appeared before Raul’s eyes.
〔The great demon of the abyss, “The Void,” is watching you.〕
Then, as its twisted mouth contorted and opened, a horrifying noise erupted.
-We saw you.
-Our eternal enemy.
-The Saint of the Beginning.
-We are not the same as we were sixteen hundred years ago.
-We shall hunt you.
-We will not lose you.
-To our teeth, your heart shall come.
-To our teeth, your entrails shall come.
-Until the day you are utterly, completely destroyed.
It was a roar so deafening it felt like it might rip the ears apart merely by being heard.
And yet, for some reason, the saint’s mind could understand every word.
At last, the dozens of eyes and mouths of The Void all curved at once into a hideous arc.
The great demon of the abyss, The Void, left nothing behind but a revolting smile before vanishing from the night sky.
“...”
The inside of Raul’s mouth was suddenly thick with the bitter scent of blood.
He had not been injured by it.
He had simply once again been reminded of cold reality, and had bitten down on his own lower lip.
Right.
That was what the saint’s enemy looked like.
How, then, could he ever draw Seeria into his trial?
Raul could not stay at her side.
Traveling with Raul would only mean dragging her into the great wave of trials that lay ahead.
Raul clenched his fist.
His mind was clearer than it had been a moment before, and yet he still felt a little hot around the eyes.
Before long, the Faital outpost lit up behind him.
At the window of the guest room on the top floor, a familiar white-haired woman leaned out.
“Raul!”
Her voice reached him.
Her face looked deeply shaken, and the beautiful eyes that met his were filled with unmistakable worry.
But Raul only moved his lips slightly toward her.
See you again.
Trusting that her eyes would be enough to tell, Raul hurled himself into the thinning blizzard.
The winter night was cold.
Colder than usual.
Beneath the pale moonlight, Raul left the frozen northern fortress alone.
---