8. Curse Plague (22)
8. Curse Plague (22)
The demon had been lunging at her as if he meant to tear her apart on the spot, but now that he stood before her, his movements grew cautious.
She had toyed with him more than once.
He stayed on guard, suspecting another trap.
He circled her fallen body, sniffing the air.
It didn't feel like an illusion.
He flicked his claws at her, lightly.
Her black dress and stockings split open in three long gashes.
Bright red blood welled up.
"Ngh!"
A pained groan escaped her lips.
A familiar thrill coursed through his whole body.
The sensation of parting soft flesh.
The scent of blood needling his nostrils.
This time it was real. No illusion.
Yet something about it displeased him.
It was her attitude.
By the time prey was cornered this far, they usually screamed and begged for their lives, paralyzed with fear.
Savoring that was another of his pleasures.
But this woman, even with him right in front of her, showed not the slightest hint of terror.
Her breathing, her gaze, her scent.
All utterly vacant.
The demon's pride was wounded.
Earlier, when she had struck him, he had felt—for an instant—the fear of death.
To have his life threatened by mere prey was humiliating enough.
And to have actually felt fear...
He wanted to repay her with interest.
He abandoned any thought of killing her in one swift stroke.
He wanted, by any means, to see terror on her face.
Zakanuba raked his claws across several more places on her body.
Her clothes were reduced to rags, and her snow-white skin was stained crimson.
Still, she held a composed expression. Not a single tear fell.
Growing impatient, the demon crushed both her wrists and ankles beneath his feet, snapping every bone.
Even then, she let out only a faint groan, refusing to the end to give him the reaction he craved.
Watching the demon torture her, Maya felt relief.
Good.
He was dragging it out.
The longer he wasted here, the better the troupe leader's chances of surviving.
Maybe, drunk on blood, the creature would forget about him entirely and simply leave.
Her task was to endure as long as possible.
"Kreeerr...?"
Zakanuba only seemed dim-witted because of his savagery. He was no dumb beast.
His instincts were razor-sharp.
He realized she was doing this for something else.
What was it she was after?
He didn't have to think long.
The answer was already clear.
The person she had thrown her own body away to protect.
The demon turned his head toward the firmly shut doors of the village hall.
The unconscious human inside.
That was her weakness.
"N-no..."
Maya realized what he was thinking.
Her icy expression crumbled for the first time since the torture began.
The demon let out a satisfied laugh.
At last, it showed on her face.
Fear.
"...L-leave him alone."
"Kee-ke-ke!"
Savoring her trembling voice and expression, Zakanuba approached the hall.
He sank his claws into the door and ripped it away. There was a bar on the inside, but his claws could shear through iron—to say nothing of mere wood.
"Ahh..."
Maya let out a despairing sigh as she watched the demon's back vanish inside.
She had used telekinesis to hide the troupe leader in the farthest corner, but a demon could track him by scent in moments.
She struggled to move her blood-soaked body.
But it did nothing more than twitch faintly; she couldn't shift an inch.
Her upper body, which she had barely managed to keep upright, collapsed.
Just then, an armored gauntlet caught her.
"Here now—are you all right?"
The hand belonged to Ivanenko.
His armor was dented and blood ran from his forehead, but he was alive.
A knight of his caliber wasn't about to die from being buried under a few roof tiles and bricks.
Having finally clawed his way out of the rubble, he had crept closer to ambush the demon from behind. But when he saw the creature disappear into the hall, he had rushed to Maya instead.
She seized the knight's arm as he leaned in to examine her wounds.
"Not me... the troupe leader... Please... save him..."
He tilted his head briefly at the words "troupe leader," then looked into the hall and his eyes flew wide.
"Ah—! Is that what you were—? B-but I can't leave you here..."
Maya shook her head.
"I'm... already finished... P-please... the troupe leader..."
Looking at how much blood she had lost, no one could have called her condition anything but fatal.
The knight nodded.
Clinging to her here wasn't helping—it would only trample on her resolve.
"Understood! Leave it to me!"
Ivanenko drew his sword and charged into the hall.
Maya saw a crimson glow ripple across the surface of his armor and blade—his Martial Spirit, which he could infuse into his cherished weapon.
He was a better knight than she had assumed.
Under normal circumstances he would be utterly outclassed, but with Zakanuba wounded, perhaps victory wasn't unthinkable.
Moments later, a tremendous din erupted from inside the hall.
The sounds of collisions, destruction, and howling roars swirled together.
Maya waited anxiously for the fight's outcome.
She forced her drooping eyelids open again and again.
Even if she died, she had to see the troupe leader safe first.
Not long after their battle began, a section of the hall's wall burst outward with a crash.
It was Ivanenko.
He shoved the bricks off himself, stood, and tore off his split helmet with a rough motion.
Then he picked up his fallen sword.
Maya assumed he would go back inside the building.
Instead, he slid the sword into its sheath and limped toward her, one leg dragging.
"A monster... what kind of m-monster..."
He glanced back at the hall with the fear-glazed eyes of a man who had lost his nerve.
It seemed a single exchange with Zakanuba had shattered his courage.
So much for "leave it to me."
Maya wanted to spit a curse at him.
She wanted to hurl the words at him: And you call yourself a knight?
But she had no strength left; her voice wouldn't come.
From inside the hall, the sounds of something smashing and breaking continued.
Maya understood what the demon was doing.
He was destroying the troupe leader.
So that she could despair completely.
Mist welled in her eyes.
No.
He had it wrong.
A corpse was just decaying organic matter left behind after death. Whatever became of it, she wouldn't have cared in the slightest.
That was the truth, once.
That was the kind of person I was...
Tears gathered in her eyes.
The day she had left Wally on the road and gone home alone,
she had built a fortress of ironclad logic around her heart.
That impenetrable fortress
had cracked when she met him.
Had been pierced through as she came to know him.
And now, losing him, it crumbled to nothing.
Tears slid down her face.
She didn't want to see it.
The troupe leader's corpse.
She didn't want to see him broken.
At that moment, the noise shaking the building ceased.
Ah. It's over.
She heard the sound of the last pillar holding up her heart collapse.
He was dead.
Or shattered so badly that death would have been kinder.
Something flew from the entrance of the hall.
It scattered blood as it sailed and landed in front of Maya with a wet, heavy splat.
She stared at it through tear-blurred eyes.
In the darkness, a hazy silhouette gradually sharpened into a distinct form.
Her pupils widened.
It was not what she had expected.
A huge rabbit head with broken horns.
Zakanuba's severed head lay where it had rolled, tongue lolling out.
He was dead.
Before she could even begin to work out what had happened, someone stepped out of the hall.
The sound of those shoes was familiar.
She barely managed to lift her head and wipe her tears on the back of her hand.
Was this a dream?
Was she conjuring illusions in the moments before death?
She studied the figure descending the stairs.
Black suit, black hat, and a black cloak billowing behind him.
Long golden hair brushing his shoulders, a face that looked as if it had been carved from marble.
Her teacher was looking down at her, smiling.
"My apologies, Miss Maya. It seems a great deal happened while I was unconscious."
No. Don't apologize.
That isn't what I wanted to hear.
"Thank you. I'm alive because of you."
...That, I like hearing.
And I'm the one who should be thanking you.
For staying alive.
Wonderstein stepped past the knight, who was glaring at him warily, and knelt in front of her.
"I'm going to place my hands on you to heal your body. Please don't resist."
Resist?
Your hands on me.
I could never mind that.
Maya mumbled the kind of embarrassing words she would never, ever have said if she were in her right mind, and closed her eyes.
A warm energy spread out from wherever his touch fell.
Once he had confirmed her body was restored, Wonderstein rose to his feet.
He turned to Ivanenko.
"Would you look after Miss Maya for a moment?"
The knight flinched at the sight of that smile.
"W-where are you going?"
"Where help is needed."
Leaving those words behind, he swept his cloak and strode off toward somewhere.
After a moment of hesitation, the knight called out after him.
"Who... are you?"
Inside the hall a short while ago, the knight had seen it.
There had been another monster in there.
Legs tipped with blades that sprouted from his back.
A spear of bone pulled from his arm.
The same powers the Flesh Mass that had attacked the cathedral had used.
Wonderstein stood still for a moment as if considering the question, then turned back with a smile.
"Frank Wonderstein. Just the leader of an ordinary circus troupe."
And then he slid into the darkness and was gone.
Ivanenko stared at the direction he had vanished for a long moment, then gathered the fallen Maya in his arms and carried her into the village hall.
***
The members of the Monster Circus Troupe faced two Zakanubas.
Even one of the demons had been more than they could handle—and now two!
On top of that, Umon, a core fighter, was injured!
They thought they were as good as dead.
Just as the two demons were about to leap at them, a man stepped between.
A threadbare suit, a threadbare coat, a threadbare hat, and threadbare shoes.
An unshaven face and hair that looked like it hadn't been washed in a week—a man who embodied the word "threadbare" in his very appearance.
He gave off the impression that he would be denied entry even to a contest for the world's poorest gentleman, on the grounds that his attire was simply too shabby.
He was the complete opposite of their troupe leader, who always walked around in a neatly pressed suit.
The man looked up at the two demons before him and clicked his tongue.
"I came thinking that fool might have gotten himself lost again, and here I am—dragged into something ridiculous."
Enraged by the leisure in his attitude, the Zakanubas bared their fangs and charged.
"Kreeee!"
"Who do you think you're barking at, you demons?"
The man stretched out his palm toward them both.
"An Apostle of the Demon God Kairal commands."
He spat out the cigarette he had been holding between his teeth.
"Power of the earth that pulls all things... invert."
Demon God Kairal.
The Demon God of coins and mirrors, who loves duality and reversal.
His most potent power activated.
The Authority of Reversal.
"Kreeaagh!"
"Kirruk?"
The two demons plunged upward into the sky.