8. Curse Plague (18)
8. Curse Plague (18)
The demon prowled near Dvalchev Cathedral, a low growl rumbling in its throat.
It fixed the building's interior with a glare of pure frustration.
Moments ago, discovering all these humans packed together in one place had delighted it.
"An-another one... a monster! It's back!"
"Ah, damn it! This godforsaken village!"
Snatching up the humans who recoiled at the sight of it and snapping their bodies apart—that sensation was electric. The shrieks of terror-stricken prey thrilled it.
"You—you bastard!"
"How dare some demon—!"
A handful of humans swung weapons at it, but a lazy swipe of its arm was enough to cut their bodies apart. The metal they wrapped themselves in for protection meant nothing against its claws.
"G-get back!"
"Stay away from it!"
When the humans started to run, it wasn't worried. Their plodding foot speed would never carry them far. It was confident it could run them down.
It watched them flee into the building.
Deliberately cornering themselves. How obliging.
The demon, giddy at their stupidity, lunged.
That was a miscalculation.
The instant it crossed the threshold, a pain like needles stabbing into every cell of its body shot through it.
Hiiiissss.
Its skin sizzled and smoked, searing away.
"Kee-eek! Kee-eek!"
It scrambled backward. A reflex worthy of a born predator.
It stared down at its own scorched flesh, then fixed the cathedral with a look of pure malevolence.
Ground hallowed by holy light. The building the humans had entered was a place its kind could not easily approach.
It hadn't noticed in time.
Part of it was its excitement, but the bigger reason was the sheer intensity of the resentment radiating from the hundreds of souls lingering around the church. The air around that holy ground was as thick with negative energy as its own homeland.
"Kee-eeek!"
It bared its teeth at the cluster of humans peeking out from inside the church. The relief spreading across their faces made its blood boil.
All that meat, right there, and it couldn't reach it.
It slammed both fists against the ground and growled, seething.
Then its eyes landed on the people it had mauled earlier. Some were still breathing.
The demon scooped up one of the bodies sprawled on the ground. One hand gripped the torso; the other wrapped around the head and pulled.
"Guhk... p-please... no—graaahk!"
Crack. Rip-rend.
The head tore free, spinal column trailing behind it. Blood and meat sprayed into the air.
The people inside the cathedral who had been watching the scene outside screamed. Some convulsed and collapsed on the spot.
The demon chuckled, satisfied, and picked up the next victim—the one cowering facedown and trembling on the ground.
"Hnghk... p-please, please... waahh-aagh!"
The villagers inside the church clamped their hands over their ears against the succession of horrific sounds.
"Monster after monster. How did it ever come to this?"
"At least this one can't get into the church...."
"Wh-where's the Sister?"
"Still not yet."
Their gazes turned toward the chapel's interior.
There, Valentina knelt before the cross, reciting her prayers.
She had treated close to a hundred and fifty people today alone. By the time the demon appeared, her Holy Power was scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Priests of the Holy Church could replenish their Holy Power through worship. So long as their stamina and mental fortitude held out, their strength was, for all practical purposes, limitless.
Every time the sounds of people being brutalized outside reached her ears, her shoulders twitched. She wanted to bolt out the door and fight the creature right now. Even with only the power she currently possessed, she was confident she could bring down just that one.
But she couldn't. She didn't have enough Holy Power to face all of them at once.
She steadied her wavering heart and focused on replenishing her reserves.
"P-please... gu-eghk!"
The fifth victim had just been torn apart.
Ivanenko's body shook with helplessness.
A seasoned knight, he'd needed only a few glances at the demon's movements to gauge the gulf between them. The creature was a threat that would tax even five knights of his caliber fighting together. If he led the three or four soldiers stationed here into battle, they'd be slaughtered in under a minute. It galled him, but for now he had to trust in the Sister's power and endure it.
"Kee-kee-kee!"
The demon, as a token of appreciation for the audience that had watched his performance, lobbed a clump of dismembered corpses their way. His audience reciprocated by producing the sort of sounds a performer found most gratifying.
At that moment, Valentina rose sharply to her feet.
"Oh, Sister!"
"Holy Saintess!"
She walked toward the church entrance under the weight of their expectant stares.
A knight stood waiting for her there, sword already drawn. She shook her head at him.
"Sir Knight, please go to Mister Wonderstein."
"Wouldn't it be better to dispatch the creature together? Removing the threat decisively is the safest course."
"No. I'm sufficient on my own. And there's more than just this one."
Ivanenko's expression jolted with alarm.
"More than one?"
"Yes. I can feel them. There are three."
Three of those things? His breathing turned ragged.
"I'll protect the people here. Please, Sir Knight—bring that man back to this place."
"...Understood."
The two of them stepped outside the cathedral.
"Kee-kee-kee."
The demon, in the middle of sifting through the downed bodies for its next victim, spotted them. Its gaze locked onto Valentina, and she stared back, unwavering.
Her training at Troms Monastery had given her ample knowledge of demons.
She took in the creature's features—the rabbit-like head, the deer's antlers, the goat-legged gait, the long arms tipped with raking claws—and a name surfaced from memory.
Zakanuba.
One of the demons that dwelled in the Abyss. They were known to appear at sites of mass slaughter.
In keeping with its epithet, "the Scavenger," its preferred meal was rotting corpses. That diet, however, did not imply any deficiency in combat ability. The Zakanuba was a demon so formidable that a pack of twenty was said to be capable of hunting a dragon.
What's more, the leader of a Zakanuba pack—the so-called Reaper, a "Nua-Zakanuba"—was rumored to manage that feat alone.
When the antlered rabbit-head first thrust itself into view, her stomach had dropped, convinced the Reaper itself had manifested. The demonic energy prickling against her skin was far beyond what she'd anticipated.
Thankfully, the creature was no Reaper. Just an ordinary Zakanuba. The reason the demonic aura felt so overpowering was simply that her holy defenses were depleted, leaving her acutely exposed.
"Kee-rrrrr."
The Zakanuba straightened its back. It stood nearly four meters tall, a particularly large specimen even for its kind.
Trading blows with a demon this size would strain even a knight in full heavy armor. No matter how much exorcism training a battle-priest received, the body's human limits remained.
Through long study, exorcists had found a way to surpass those limits when fighting demons.
Valentina had employed that method just before leaving the church. She felt power coursing through her entire body.
Holy Needles—Sacred Stakes refined to a minuscule size. They were not solely instruments of healing. A battle-priest could drive them into specific acupoints of the human body to dramatically augment its physical strength.
"Kee-eghk!"
The Zakanuba swung an arm at her. An unarmored human female—nothing but a lump of tenderized meat waiting to happen after one good strike.
Thud.
Its arm connected, and Valentina went flying backward, crashing into a pile of rubble that erupted in a cloud of dust.
A direct hit from its claws. The Zakanuba had no doubt she was dead.
It turned its head toward the next quarry. The human knight was sprinting downhill from the village.
It moved to pursue—and someone caught its arm.
"Kee-ruk?"
The hand belonged to the human it had just sent flying. As the dust cloud settled, she stood upright, back straight. A strip of her habit was torn away, and blood ran from the arm she'd used to block the claws, but her eyes were open—clear and fixed squarely on it.
And in her other hand, the one not gripping its arm, a great spear of light was coalescing.
"Kee-eghk!"
Facing the screeching Zakanuba, she closed her fist tight and spoke.
"For the sin of toying with human life—you will be punished."
Her fist drove forward. The spear of light punched straight through the Zakanuba's gut.
***
Maya lifted Wonderstein with telekinesis and hurled him inside the village hall. She slammed the door and threw the inner latch, sealing it shut.
Through all of it, her eyes never left one spot.
The street across from the hall. There, hunched and staring back at her, stood a demon with a rabbit's head.
Zakanuba. She'd seen one in a book before—an Abyssal demon.
"Kee-kee-kee."
It licked the blood off its claws and mocked her. It had just launched a surprise attack aimed at Wonderstein.
If Maya hadn't twisted her body to take the blow in his place, his head might be rolling on the ground right now.
Her cardigan was shredded and gone. One arm was soaked red from a wound that bled freely from the shoulder. She fought to steady a body trembling with pain.
"Kee-rrrrr."
The Zakanuba sneered. Endangering herself to save someone else's life. A staggeringly stupid act.
She sneered back at herself.
Why? If she had chosen to flee, her own life would have been safely secured. A simple illusion would have made slipping past a demon's notice trivial. He would have died, yes, but better one death than two.
Yet she'd chosen the path where both of them dying was the more likely outcome. The top student of the Magic Academy, and she couldn't even do basic arithmetic.
I've gotten stupid. Ever since he started teaching me.
What a terrible teacher. He couldn't make his student smarter—only dumber.
She clutched her bleeding arm and leaned against the hall's entrance. Her white hair and pale skin glowed softly in the moonlight, even in the deep darkness.
But nothing shone brighter right now than the resolve in her heart.
She hadn't trained for magical combat. On top of that, neither her body nor her mana reserves were anywhere near normal.
Her cold analytical mind told her the truth. She was going to die. Guaranteed.
Maya smiled. She didn't know why, but a laugh escaped her.
A powerful demon like a Zakanuba couldn't operate freely in this world once the sun rose. Come dawn, the creature would be forced back into the Abyss.
She just had to hold out until then. Even if she died, as long as the Troupe Leader survived—
Then one person would live. Her math checked out after all.
She summoned every drop of mana in her body. There was a vast difference between treating death as trivial and steeling oneself to face it. She'd never known that having someone behind her to protect could make strength surge like this.
She concentrated her mana on a single point. Scattering her power half-heartedly wouldn't stop a Zakanuba. She needed one devastating blow.
Woom.
A fist-sized sphere of telekinetic force materialized before her eyes.
It contained twenty percent of her remaining mana. Fired at high velocity, the impact would outclass a cannon.
The creature kicked off the ground and charged. Maya hurled the sphere straight at the center of its brow.