Siruntel Demonic Realm (4)
The moment Leon broke into a run to save Celia—
What was Class B, with Billy and Esabel, doing?
"That could be dangerous."
"No—how the hell is that dangerous?!"
…They were fighting like cats and dogs.
Ever since they'd dropped into the Demonic Realm, Class B's representative Esabel and vice-representative Billy had been locked in a razor-edged argument that had already stretched past five minutes. Their opinions on what to do next had split clean down the middle.
Billy's position: lead Class B out of the Demonic Realm at once, by the shortest route possible.
Esabel's position: the other classes had clearly fallen here as well, so joining forces with them and bolstering their strength should come first.
To the watching students, both arguments sounded perfectly reasonable.
"We don't even know where they are. How exactly do you plan to find them?"
"Even if we aren't sure, we still have to try. They can't be far from here."
"Gambling on something that uncertain is worse than keeping the students we already have safe. Isn't that obvious?"
Looked at rationally, Billy's argument held water. Form ranks now, put as much distance as possible between themselves and the heart of the Demonic Realm—that was the sound judgment for the safety of Class B. As he said, you couldn't stake lives on a gamble with no guarantees.
Of course, that only held if you were thinking of Class B alone.
"And the other classes? What about them? Is there any guarantee they transferred in neat groups of twenty-five like we did?"
"…"
"What if they're scattered one or two at a time? They might be waiting for someone to come save them."
Esabel was a daughter of the imperial house that ruled the Latia Empire. She had been raised on the teaching that high station came with equal responsibility. Abandoning students in danger and walking away was simply not something she could do.
So was she throwing Class B into the fire for the sake of the others?
Not at all. In Esabel's judgment, twenty-five students were more than enough to handle the demonic beasts in the area. They had, after all, been drilling constantly in formation combat and group tactics of late.
And besides—
"The rescue party will be here soon anyway."
Esabel had no idea this was a Demonic Realm on the far side of the empire. She never doubted that the Academy would respond at once. As a princess who had lived her whole life in the palace, it was simply the way of the world: when something went wrong, someone always came and fixed it.
"So we pull the students in immediate danger out first, then hold on a little. That's all."
Once the scattered students were gathered, holding out would be easy enough—or so she believed.
"…"
Faced with the steel in Esabel's eyes, Billy gave up. That was not a stubbornness you could talk down with words.
In truth, this was a debate that had never happened in the original story. Back then, Mazias's underlings—who had been clearing the Siruntel Demonic Realm—had attacked the students so relentlessly that everyone was too busy surviving to argue over who to save. But Mazias was dead now, and his servants would not be appearing.
In their place, the subordinates of a Great Demon were already on their way.
Among the memories sealed inside the Demonic Soul Pill Leon had absorbed was one of a man fighting demonic beasts alone in a Demonic Realm.
Crude swordsmanship. Scar-riddled hands and arms. Muscle hardened by real combat. Judging by the gear he wore, the man had almost certainly been a mercenary—and a seasoned veteran at that.
The way he read a beast's habits, traits, and weak points the instant he saw it. The way he used terrain to draw them in. The precise calculation of when to strike, when to fall back, when to rest, when to move. With nothing but a single sword, he had carved through demonic beasts with practiced ease.
Those memories of a veteran mercenary were proving enormously useful to Leon now.
A Crybore's first attack always goes for the head.
The moment Leon saw the humanoid beast that looked as if it had been dipped head to toe in tar, he tilted his head at an angle.
Shiiik!
A bladed hand skimmed past his cheek, close enough to kiss. He felt the skin split and hot liquid run down, but—
The weak point isn't the head. It's the heart.
Without so much as a blink, Leon drove his sword home.
Thud!
The Crybore impaled on the tip of his blade convulsed once, then went limp and hung there, spent.
"Hah!"
A clean, bright rush of exhilaration flooded through him. Combat had always been a joy to Leon.
The dizzying exchanges that unfolded in the space of a second split a dozen ways. The electric thrill that ran down his spine when he slipped past a killing blow by a hair. The pure pleasure of a strike landing exactly where he meant it to. The intoxicating feel of steel parting bone and flesh. The godlike rush of sweeping a swarm of enemies aside with a single blade.
Butchering demonic beasts with superior skill was a deep and genuine pleasure.
Pleasure was pleasure, of course—but Leon was also diligently doing what needed to be done.
Tap!
"Around… there, looks like."
He climbed a high hill and tried to fix Celia's position. Even knowing the general direction she'd fallen, finding one girl in a space this vast was no easy task. The method Leon used was simple: exploit the habits of the beasts themselves.
Wherever the beasts are thickest, that's where the people are.
Like insects swarming to a sweet scent, demonic beasts instinctively charged toward the smell of humans the moment they caught it. Human flesh—something that simply did not exist in the Demon Realm—was a delicacy to them. Women, and young girls in particular, were the rarest of delicacies.
Celia was a platinum coin dropped in the middle of a beggars' den.
And so—
Toward a stretch of forest where great trees stood sparsely, countless demonic beasts were pouring in one direction like a pack of starving dogs.
"…"
The smile on Leon's face hardened to stone.
Boom!
The ground where he stood cratered inward, and his body shot forward like a bolt of light.
The blood of every living thing in the Demon Realm is black.
Celia's entire body was coated in it.
"Hah… hah…"
Ragged breaths tore endlessly from between her lips.
"Grrrr!"
A two-headed dog burst from the undergrowth, drool streaming between its teeth as it lunged at her.
"Hup!"
Celia drove a fist with everything she had into the left head—
Crack!
—then spun her body like a top and smashed a reverse kick into the right.
Crunch!
With its neck twisted, the beast staggered into a daze. Celia kicked it over at once and began hammering both fists down with every ounce of strength she had left.
Thud! Thud! Crunch! Crack!
Demonic beasts were stubbornly hard to kill. Ending one bare-handed took a great many blows.
Crunch! Snap! Crack!
Dark crimson blood sprayed into the air—a mixture of the beast's and the blood pouring from Celia's shredded hands.
"Just—die—already…!"
She kept swinging through the agony of bones grinding to pieces. Blood from a gash in her forehead kept flooding her vision.
Crunch!
At last both necks snapped, and the thing went still.
Thud-thud-thud!
Without a second to rest, Celia was running again. Linger even a moment and she would be surrounded.
"Ngh!"
She grimaced at the searing pain that shot through her with every step. There was not a single uninjured place left on her body.
A deep gash in her left thigh. A massive bite taken out of her right side. A puncture near the shoulder from a thrashing tail that left her left arm barely usable. Those were only the major wounds. Add the scrapes from tearing through underbrush and the bruises from every blow she'd taken, and if she hadn't been an Expert of the mid-low rank, she would have collapsed long ago.
"Hah… hah…"
Thud-thud-thud!
Thirty minutes of running from demonic beasts. She was holding on somehow with the bare scraps of fist-and-kick technique she'd learned from her family—but her stamina was draining by the second, her wounds were widening, and the number of beasts kept growing. She had already exhausted her spirit power; her spirit, Selphia, had left her long ago. She had lost so much blood that her mind was fogging, and the gaps between her breaths were growing shorter and shorter.
The situation was spiraling toward the absolute worst.
"Hup!"
Boom!
But Celia did not give up. Sit still and wait to die? That had never been her way.
No weapon? Use both arms and both legs. Arms broken? Drive the shattered bone into the enemy. Limbs severed? Tear flesh with whatever teeth remained. Fight and resist until the very last breath.
That was what it meant to be a martial artist. That was what it meant to be a Helbridge. That was Celia.
"Ptew."
She spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground. A few broken teeth came with it and rolled across the dirt.
"…"
She desperately wanted a cigarette. But hands this soaked in blood couldn't even strike a light.
Thud-thud-thud-thud—
The ground-shaking approach of more footsteps made her skin crawl. Celia clicked her tongue once and forced her body to move.
For an instant, a man's face flickered through her mind.
"…"
Her father? One of her brothers? Or perhaps…
…She couldn't be sure.