Demon Hunter (1)
The blizzard that had been raging so hard it looked as if it would freeze everything alive finally lost a little of its ferocity.
As the mountains of Exeria, which had always been buried in white, gradually revealed patches of moss-green stone, two figures walked across a snowfield so empty it showed no sign that human beings had ever set foot there.
“Damn it. Another mountain. Another one?!”
The one hurling profanity like a scream was Aila.
She wiped at her dripping nose and called out to Raul, who was walking ahead of her.
“Hey, old man! It’s another mountain, isn’t it? Another one!”
“You’re the one who said you’d follow me. Hurry up. Or hand Horus over and go back to Asmos on your own.”
“We’ve been walking for four days straight. How am I supposed to get back without Horus? So it’s either keep following you or freeze to death.”
“Did someone threaten you with a knife and force you to come along?”
“Siiiigh! I don’t know! I’m not playing with you anymore, old man.”
With her voice raised as though she were genuinely sulking, Aila stormed over and deliberately marched ahead of Raul, as if protesting him with her very back.
Even that didn’t last long.
“Old man, carry me. My legs can’t feel anything.”
Not even an hour later, Aila, who had once again been overtaken by Raul, looked utterly exhausted as she spoke.
“Thought you weren’t playing with me anymore.”
“Save me. This is awful. How does a person march with only six hours of sleep every other day? Even the Empire’s lunatics don’t work people this hard.”
“If you had the energy to complain like that, we’d already be there.”
“Whatever. I’m dying. I’m going to sleep.”
Flop.
Aila splayed out her already glaring red hair and flattened herself face-first into the white snow.
“Honestly...”
Raul had no choice. He circled back a few steps, brushed the snow off her body, and hoisted her onto his back.
“Dad, I love you.”
“I’ve never had a daughter like you.”
Raul adjusted the shameless Cinder assassin on his back and hurried on.
To be blunt, marching for forty hours at a time while sleeping only six had been the sort of absurdity even last year’s Raul could never have imagined.
Compared to Raul, who was armored with divine authority and blessings, it was probably true that Aila had every right to struggle.
Still, she had followed him for four whole days while grumbling the entire way, which was almost impressive in its own right.
How long had they been walking like that?
From behind Raul’s back came the sound of someone sleeping for real, soft and steady.
“Hah.”
Raul let out a faint laugh and continued the snowy, crunching march through the mountains.
Whether because marchers were simply fated to suffer or because the world had a sense of humor, the place Raul had been heading for appeared only half a day after Aila declared she was done.
The far northern edge of the Western Kingdom of Therion.
The mountain city of Rebraim, which could be found by following the long chain of mountains that stretched north-northeast from the labyrinth city of Asmos.
This was no longer territory belonging to the Western Kingdom of Therion.
From here on, it was land claimed by the Northern Kingdom.
Raul had crossed the “border” that no one dared set foot on in winter, all through sheer, punishing movement.
The dark outer wall that stretched for miles along the white mountain range was especially conspicuous in winter, when there were so many people who got stranded in the snow.
After walking and walking along Rebraim’s ramparts, which served both to rescue lives in this way and to send a brazen warning to invaders, Raul finally saw the city gate standing wide open despite the season.
He passed the soldier dozing in front of it without the slightest reaction.
Who would ever climb over the mountains in this weather?
The man had every right to be asleep.
Thanks to that, Raul was able to skip the annoying formalities and step into Rebraim.
The moment he entered the inn, the now-familiar reaction came right back at him.
“In this weather...?”
“I’m not a ghost, so put down the hatchet.”
“Then what are you? You’re really a traveler?”
“I’d like a room and meals. Both, if you please. Oh, and if possible, could I get some hot water too?”
“Welcome, sir.”
The innkeeper’s attitude changed so quickly it was almost laughable.
Still, it made sense. In winter, no one would come to Rebraim, a place whose only distinction was that it was a border city.
Raul took out eight silver coins from his coat and slid them across the counter.
Imperial coins were the standard currency used throughout Exeria, but exchange rates still varied from country to country and region to region.
The innkeeper stared at him, dumbfounded.
He looked at Raul with clear difficulty and said, “Our inn doesn’t offer the service of calling in a prostitute...”
Judging by how the man jumped straight to prostitution, it was obvious enough that this was indeed the barbaric Northern Kingdom.
Still, that at least gave him a rough idea of the local rates.
Apparently the money Raul had laid down was quite a lot.
“I don’t need a prostitute. Just put me down for unlimited lodging and meals.”
“Ah, so that’s what you meant? Well, come to think of it, you’ve come to a mountain backwater like this in winter, so I suppose you needed a place to park your backside. Understood. I’ll throw in unlimited hot water as a special courtesy too. But what’s the fellow on your back? Your wife... no, that can’t be right. Your daughter?”
Raul considered the innkeeper’s sudden question for a moment.
Come to think of it, what exactly was Aila to him?
The answer didn’t come immediately.
In the end, Raul answered however his mouth happened to move.
“Just a companion.”
“Yes, I figured. You’re too young for her to be your daughter this time. Very well. Go on upstairs.”
Raul took the key and headed straight up to the second floor of the shabby, worn-down inn.
He set down the bag that had been a gift from the fairy, then laid Aila—who had become another piece of luggage—on the bed. Only then did he finally let out a breath as if a burden had been lifted.
“Haaah.”
It was true that carrying a load on both shoulders had been exhausting.
Raul glanced at Aila, who was still sleeping like the world had ended, narrowed his brow slightly, and then sat down against the bed frame.
For a moment, he drifted off into a light doze.
What woke him was the heavy sound of footsteps coming up from below.
By instinct, he lifted his eyelids, and before long there came a knock from beyond the door.
Knock, knock.
“The hot water and food are both ready. Which would you like first?”
At the sound of the voice, Raul glanced toward the small window in the inn room and saw the blue sky outside already turning the color of vermilion.
He hadn’t felt like he’d slept for long, but time had passed more than he’d realized.
“Food first.”
Raul answered the innkeeper and woke the Cinder assassin, who was drooling in her sleep.
She blinked around with a vacant expression, then tugged at her clothes as if checking her own body.
“You didn’t mess with my body while I was asleep or anything, did you?”
Thwack!
“Ow!”
Raul finally gave her the forehead flick he’d been holding back for ages, then left the room.
He heard her voice from behind him, saying to wait a moment, that she was joking, but he ignored it.
When he went down to the first floor, one of the modestly arranged tables was already laid out with food steaming gently on the plates.
The main dishes were bread and oat porridge. Beside them were fried onions and peas lined up in neat little rows.
As Raul stared at the table with a strange expression, the innkeeper planted a hand on his hip and said proudly, “I’ve put together a proper spread, so help yourself.”
That was true enough.
Come to think of it, the Northern Kingdom of Erenic was a country built on especially harsh and impoverished land, even by Exeria’s standards.
By northern standards, this really was a “proper spread.”
At that moment, Aila, who had followed him downstairs in a shuffle, blurted out the thought he’d only been keeping to himself.
“No meat? Or booze!”
The innkeeper’s brows drew together.
Raul answered for him by flicking Aila in the forehead again, and the two of them finally sat down and began to eat.
Still, hunger was the best seasoning, and the thin oat porridge and hard bread tasted better than they had any right to.
“So? Why did you come all the way out to this mountain backwater again? If I followed you this far, you might as well tell me.”
Once she’d eaten enough to take the edge off, Aila spun her spoon around in the air and spoke.
“There’s someone I’m looking for.”
“That again?”
“Yeah.”
“Last time it turned out to be some refined young noblewoman, didn’t it? Is it a woman again this time? Old man, you’re sneakier than you look.”
Raul let out a quiet sigh at Aila, who could say such nonsense with a perfectly straight face.
“Have you ever heard of the Demon Hunters?”
“Huh? Oh! Yeah, I have.”
A faint glimmer entered Raul’s eyes.
He hadn’t expected her to say yes.
Suddenly, he became curious about how much information Cinder had spread about the Demon Hunters.
“What did you hear?”
“Hm? Honestly, not much. If you travel around the north and west long enough, you run into all kinds of crazy bastards, and the ones wearing skulls on their heads are the sort you should quietly back away from.”
“...That’s it?”
“Yeah. Why, should there be more?”
Raul’s expression turned sour at the shockingly thin quality of the intelligence.
But then again, it was a matter of perspective.
That meant even Cinder—the group so infamous that nearly everyone in this world knew its name—would give those people a wide berth.
And Raul agreed with that a fair bit.
There was a reason he kept calling the Demon Hunters a bunch of psychopaths.
They were the kind of people who would do absolutely anything if it served their goals.
Only after a beat did Aila finally understand what he meant and blinked at him.
“You’re not telling me the ones you’re looking for this time are those guys, are you?”
Raul nodded without bothering to answer.
Aila looked baffled.
“But from what I’ve heard, they’re not the sort of people you can just decide to meet and then go meet.”
“Don’t worry about that. There’s always a way.”
Raul gave a small smile as he looked at her still-confused face.
After finishing their meal and taking a bath, Raul and Aila finally left the inn after nightfall.
Where Raul headed next was a butcher shop tucked into a corner of Rebraim, the mountain city blanketed in pure white snow.
He opened the door without hesitation, and the faint stink of blood drifted out even though it was winter. A grim-faced man’s eyes sharpened at once.
The muscular butcher, who had been holding a cleaver, twitched only his right eyebrow in question.
“That’s not a face I know.”
“I’ve only just gotten here.”
“In this weather?”
“That’s right.”
Thunk.
While Raul replied with an unruffled voice, the man kept twitching his brows and finally stabbed the cleaver diagonally into the chopping block, crossing his arms.
“I only do business with people I know.”
Raul gave a faint smile and pulled three silver coins from his coat.
“A well-preserved goat’s head, the innards of any wild beast you’ve got, and some animal horns—anything will do.”
At that, the butcher narrowed his eyes.
“What the hell do you need that crap for?”
“I need it.”
“At this hour? In winter?”
“There’s someone I’m looking for.”
After Raul answered briefly, the man glared at him with sharp eyes for a long while before turning and walking into the back of the butcher shop.
Once he was gone, Aila, who had been silent the whole time, finally spoke up.
“Old man, that bastard doesn’t seem like he’s just a butcher.”
Raul gave a short snort and answered, “Yeah.”
“Is he a Demon Hunter, then? And that weird little code you just used was some kind of password?”
“Something like that.”
“...You always say ‘something like that.’”
“Because I don’t know the exact details either.”
The information Raul knew about them came from thirty-one years in the past.
More specifically, it had been the play data of the player character “Demon Hunter Kyle.”
So Raul didn’t know much about the Demon Hunters now.
Then, from behind him, the voice of the man who had vanished into the back of the shop came through.
“Oi. We’re ready, so come on out here.”
Raul shot Aila a small warning glance, then stepped out of the butcher shop with complete calm.
“Over here.”
There, in the relatively wide alley between the butcher shop and the smithy, the man was beckoning to him.
Raul moved at once toward the shadowed side of the alley, and at the far end of the lane opposite him, he saw a man standing with the moon at his back.
The butcher naturally took his place beside that man and turned to look over here.
Even in the pitch-black dark, their eyes gleamed with a deep blue light.
It was true demonic power, something fundamentally different from the half-baked “miasma” of demon contractors.
Then two thick horns began to grow from the forehead of the man standing in the moonlight.
His face was hidden by a bone mask that had already been put on over him at some point. He was the Demon Hunter Raul had come looking for.
Didn’t expect to meet them this fast...
Still, he had saved time, so maybe that was good.
At that moment, the one wearing the goat skull opened his mouth.
“I will ask you something.”
His voice echoed as if it were not speaking from straight ahead, but resonating from all around at once.
“Human. Why do you know an old incantation that was discarded long ago?”
When that deep, heavy voice struck his ears, Raul let out a breath.
“So it was discarded after all. Well, it’s been over thirty years, so I figured it might be.”
“Choose your answer carefully. Otherwise, your life...”
Raul cut off the bone fetishist, who was trying far too hard to sound imposing, with a faint smile.
“Carefully my ass. You were going to kidnap me no matter what I said.”
At that instant, blue flames flashed in the eye sockets of the bone mask.
Raul knew exactly what that meant.
Without hesitation, he moved his hand behind his back.
The very next moment,
Whoooom—!
With a heavy rushing sound, a massive crescent blade that had not existed anywhere in this place a moment before suddenly tore through the air and flew at him.
Clang!
Raul casually flicked the heavy weapon aside with his sword as naturally as breathing, but then, without so much as a warning or a sound, a gray-white goat horn shot up right in front of his nose.
It was none other than the mask of the Demon Hunter standing in the moonlight.
Raul twisted his head and slipped past it at a distance so thin it nearly brushed the tip of his nose.
At the same time, he twisted his body with the shifted balance and poured that rotational force straight into his leg.
Crack!
Raul’s kick aimed precisely for the bastard’s ribs.
But the Demon Hunter had already crouched low and blocked the kick with both arms.
With a heavy impact, the man’s body was shoved back more than a step.
Raul’s obsidian eyes and the Demon Hunter’s blue-lit eyes glared at each other.
The colorless lull in the fight lasted less than two seconds.
In the next instant, the Demon Hunter came charging in with two wavy daggers reversed in both hands, each one drawn from the hidden weapons strapped to his legs.
Raul held his sword horizontally and blocked the charging assault like a buffalo slamming forward, taking the blow on the flat of the blade rather than the edge.
Screeeech—!
Then the Demon Hunter’s entire body suddenly flashed in rapid pulses, splitting in a heartbeat into two blue shadows that kicked off the walls to the left and right.
One attacked from the upper left in a diagonal slash, while the other drove a deep, deadly strike upward from the right.
Two blades each.
Four daggers in total.
The Demon Hunter clearly intended to finish Raul with a sword style as elusive and winding as a mirage.
Raul made a judgment at once with the fast, razor-sharp speed of his mind.
A longsword swung with both hands couldn’t stop that.
So Raul ignited pure white flame on his right ankle and left hand at the same time.
Shhhhk—! Clang!
Raul stepped on, seized, and crushed the four daggers that had been flung back by the recoil of Holy Armor in a split second.
And yet, that wasn’t the real strike.
Cutting through the sound of wind once more, the crescent blade flew at his brow again.
But for some reason, Raul didn’t dodge.
Krzzzzk—!
Instead, without even blinking, he faced forward, and the afterimage of a pure white helm was already layered over his head.
It wasn’t anything special.
It was simply Motala’s power, as it always had been, wrapped around Raul’s entire body.
Raul clenched his left hand, which was glowing in the shape of a semi-transparent gauntlet, and swung hard toward the head of the bastard who was still brandishing the crescent blade.
The Demon Hunter let go of the weapon without hesitation and threw his whole body backward with astonishing speed, taking rapid steps to retreat.
But Raul had predicted even that and immediately opened his fist, scattering the shattered fragments of the daggers inside it with tremendous force.
“Hngh?!”
The Demon Hunter finally made a sound of surprise for the first time and threw his upper body back hard to avoid the fragments that were flying for his upper arm.
Raul did not miss the moment when the bastard’s balance broke for the first time.
“You guys are always like this.”
Before the Demon Hunter knew it, Raul was already standing in front of him with a fist raised high.
With a faint smile, he drove the fist wrapped in sanctity straight into the man’s solar plexus.
“The second things go sideways, you go straight for the kill.”
Bang!
“Guh—!?”
With the sound of something breaking, the Demon Hunter collapsed where he stood.
Standing there with the moon at his back, just as the Demon Hunter had done a moment ago, Raul said, “Cool your head off while you sleep for a bit.”