Chapter 31
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 31
Chapter Title: 8. The Understander
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It's night. I'm walking alone.
My goal is simple.
To create meat shields that will tie down Arbelia von Carmilla.
I arrived beside a small swamp tucked away in the depths of the forest. Demon corpses littered the area.
This was the spot where I'd secretly gathered the bodies.
I opened my subspace and pulled out one of the corpses.
The body of a swordsman. I couldn't remember his name.
He had middling talent and scant mana reserves. All in all, a malignant piece of inventory that was tough to put to use.
'If only he'd had even a narrative. No narrative. No narrative at all.'
What a pity.
"Anyway, let's get started."
I channeled my mana while slicing horizontally with my index finger.
The demon corpses scattered around began to rise one by one.
Small-clawed demons, ones like turtles encased in icy shells, winged flyers with half their wings torn off...
The dead things writhed, drawn to my mana, and gathered before me.
I planned to turn them into chimeras.
'Quantity over quality for an elite ambush—it'll buy me more time this way.'
I knelt before the swordsman's corpse.
I slit open his chest and removed the heart. No blood flowed from the body.
'Gather mana in the heart, then roughly stitch the flesh together.'
I infused mana into the heart while casting reconstruction magic.
Kiiiiiiing!!
The demons' flesh began to be sucked into the heart in my hand.
I used the skeleton of an armored demon species as the base frame, transplanting in the sturdy muscle fibers unique to win demons.
I covered the exterior with the shell of an ice demon to boost defense.
Time passed, and finally, a single form began to take shape.
'Done.'
A humanoid monster.
Over two meters tall with grotesquely bulging muscles.
Only two legs, but four arms.
'Still not enough.'
As it was, this was just a sturdy meat shield.
Compared to a great demon, these physical specs were worth about three pinches of blood.
'Technology overcomes the limits of the flesh. Implant skills into it.'
Is the self the soul, or the memories?
The answer lay here.
I placed my hand on the forehead of the newly created chimera.
Memory incantation. A spell I'd developed myself long ago.
It injected extracted memories into the target's brain in the form of information.
I recalled using this magic in experiments to artificially create sword masters in the Firen Duchy.
I gathered fragments of swordsmanship knowledge stored in my mind.
Things I'd seen, learned, and stolen across centuries and thousands of battles.
Secret techniques of the Valrold family. Knight order's 8th martial transmission. Northern barbarians' heavy strikes. Even fragments of earth swordsmanship.
'Pour it in.'
The chimera's body began to convulse.
Backlash from forcibly awakening a half-dead brain.
A normal human would have turned into an idiot right there.
'But this one's a chimera. Its brain capacity and durability should outstrip a human's.'
Soon, the memory injection finished.
I stepped back and gazed at my newly born weapon.
"Stand up and swing a sword."
The chimera rose and picked up the greatsword I'd stuck into the ground nearby.
It swung the greatsword. A trajectory infused with swordsmanship.
'Lacking self-awareness, it's still not sharp.'
The chimera right now was no different from a meat puppet.
Only the bare mechanics of how to swing a sword had been inputted.
No emotions, no consciousness, nothing—just executing the programmed motions.
'That's not worthy of being called swordsmanship.'
True swordsmanship requires the swordsman's own self-awareness.
Swordplay without self-awareness is mere mimicry at best.
'Without self-awareness, it's just a clown dancing what they call swordsmanship.'
Now I had to make nine more like this.
Two weeks passed.
I managed to finish them within the promised timeframe, more or less.
I lined up the ten chimeras before me.
Each one was grotesquely vicious.
I equipped them all with different weapons, then began preparations for the assault in earnest.
There was only one step left.
'I need to awaken their self-awareness.'
Revive the dead flesh and restore their reset egos.
I just had to edit some of my own memories and cram them in.
'The self isn't the soul—it's an incomplete existence dependent on memories.'
This had already been proven in my previous 'reincarnated sword master experiment.'
First, I placed my hand over the initial chimera I'd made.
I crammed in a fragmented outline of Arbelia's appearance, then hammered in memories on top.
Changes came gradually.
The vacant chimera opened its mouth and let out a sound, then suddenly began to sob.
"Th-that... Aaa..."
I kept injecting memories.
Infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood—the life of one man through the stages.
A linguistic structure began to form in the chimera's sobs.
"I... meee... I ammm..."
I halted the memory injection before the ego could fully form a complete self.
Immediately, I slammed in an intense memory.
This time, of a boy watching his family massacred by demons.
"Th-that... Uwaaaaa! Uwaaaaaaaa!!"
The chimera began to howl monstrously.
The rudimentary language structure had long vanished.
'Perfect.'
I did the same for the remaining nine, implanting memories to complete their incomplete egos.
Then I released them all at once.
The ten chimeras charged forward.
Solely to kill one person: Arbelia von Carmilla.
As I watched them go, I contacted Broker.
"Sent them. Ten in total. They'll reach Arbelia soon."
[Okay. The moment Arbelia encounters the chimeras, we'll start right away.]
I leisurely followed in the chimeras' wake.
After the demon summoning incident in Firendel.
Arbelia von Carmilla had come north with Ceres.
For Ceres's training. Nowhere was better for gaining real combat experience than the north.
"That was good. But your killing intent was too thick. Attacks like that are easy to read."
Arbelia pointed out Ceres's flaw as she continued the training.
That was when it happened.
A massive wave of mana rippled through the air.
Not even bothering to hide it, something was approaching from beyond the horizon.
Ceres seemed to sense it too. She lowered her sword, scanned her surroundings warily, and turned.
"...Arbelia? Something's coming—"
"—Quiet."
Arbelia steadied her breathing and expanded her senses to their limit.
Ten in total. All racing straight for her.
'Killing intent.'
Viscous killing intent directed solely at Arbelia.
"Ceres. We took out all the demons on the way here, so you can make it back alone. Hurry to the village."
The old Ceres would have hesitated, worried for Arbelia.
But after that day, Ceres had changed.
Ceres nodded and turned away.
"Yes. See you in the village."
She accepted her limits and followed orders to the letter.
One of the stark changes since Ernst Walther's death.
Far off, shapes began to emerge through the blizzard.
'Human... no. Humanoid entities.'
Over two meters tall.
Hideously overdeveloped muscle masses. Four arms.
A mishmash of traits from different demon species, like a Frankenstein of creatures.
Beings that could never exist in these northern snowfields.
'Chimeras.'
No naturally born lifeform could evolve in such an unbalanced way.
Muscle arrangement, joint structure, even the rhythm of their breathing.
All of it artificial.
'Someone made these and sent them after me. Who?'
Several suspects came to mind. The most likely was Blue Moon.
'Even the imperial army had a few who defected to Blue Moon.'
But only a handful.
Few idiots willingly boarded a sinking ship.
'Impossible. Blue Moon lacks the resources. Even if they had spare time and troops, they wouldn't stray from the front lines.'
If Blue Moon was targeting anyone, it'd be their networks with other kingdoms.
That was their top priority.
Then, the lead chimera opened its mouth.
"Th... aa... Ar... be... li... a..."
"...!!"
It tried mimicking human speech, but its vocal structure was all wrong.
A sound stuck between a wail and a scream.
"Uwa... a... kill... you..."
The ten chimeras moved in unison.
In their movements, Arbelia spotted another ominous fact.
'Swordsmanship.'
Monstrous forms, but their steps and stances were steeped in the basics of swordsmanship.
Clumsy and erratic, yes—but unmistakably traces of systematic training.
Someone had taught these monsters swordsmanship.
'No, not taught. This is sloppy mimicry of someone's movements...?'
The first chimera charged.
Arbelia exhaled and raised her sword.
'Subdue it and pry out the culprit.'
She made her judgment.
"Arbelia!!"
Ceres's call rang out from behind.
"Grrrrowl!!"
Hundreds of demons were charging toward a single point from below the ridge.
Toward the village.
'Diversion?!'
The ten chimeras swung their weapons at Arbelia in unison.