Master of the Demonic Sword (8)
Kallen could only offer a wry, ambiguous expression in response to Nigel's words.
At that, Nigel was the one who asked him in turn.
"You knew from the very beginning, didn't you?"
"Well, wouldn't that be the natural conclusion?"
For an unarmed human to survive alone in the harsh environment of the Illusion Realm for decades would have been impossible even for a Sword Master.
Unless, of course, he had become a being that belonged to that place's rules—a spirit, in other words.
"...But how did you end up there?"
"I was struck down by a traitor."
Nigel's soul spoke with a voice thick with bitterness.
"Enrak. Vice-Commander of the Black Wolf Knights, and the comrade I trusted most in this world."
His eyes, dyed dark, were not looking at Kallen standing before him but at some place from decades past.
"I truly never imagined the man was one of the fiend's tentacles."
"..."
"Our supply lines had long since been cut, and the wounded kept piling up, but we never gave up. We clutched our starving bellies and chanted nothing but pride, guarding Talonde with the readiness to die. And then..."
Nigel continued in a hollow voice, his eyes glazed and distant.
"Around midnight, while I was patrolling near the main gate, I was struck from behind. Enrak drove a blade into my back, opened a Dimensional Rift right there, and threw me through it. Only then did I understand. The man was a Demonic Human."
"A ploy to destroy the evidence, then."
"...My last memory is of that bastard tearing Talonde's gate wide open."
Nigel stepped closer and gripped both of Kallen's arms, speaking as if pleading.
"Tell me. What became of Talonde? Did that traitor Enrak ever receive his due punishment? If you know anything, anything at all, tell me...! Please..."
"...The Black Wolf Knights were annihilated. As far as I know, Talonde and the Grand Barrier Stone of the north were destroyed completely."
Kallen simply shook his head, the bitterness thick on his tongue.
"Enrak became the sole survivor of that massacre—the hero who tried to prevent the betrayal. And..."
He glanced briefly at Nigel's soul, then forced the words out.
"You became the empire's worst traitor."
"...What?"
Nigel's soul froze solid where it stood.
After a moment, a hollow smile crept across his lips as he murmured to himself.
"...I suppose there was no other way. Heh heh..."
Emotions too tangled for a single sentence welled up in his eyes.
Nigel turned back to Kallen and asked in a subdued voice.
"How is Garnet faring?"
"She's grown into a remarkably spirited, ill-mannered young lady."
"Puhaha, is that so? That's my daughter, all right."
At Kallen's crooked grin, Nigel burst into a hearty laugh.
It soon died away.
Gazing up at the empty universe of the Illusion Realm with vacant eyes, Nigel spoke softly.
"Does that child resent me?"
"Honestly, how could she not?"
"...She became a traitor's daughter overnight, after all. You needn't say it—I can well imagine what she's suffered."
Nigel's twisted mouth soon hardened into an expression of resolve.
"Come to think of it—what is your name, friend?"
"Kallen."
"Kallen. A fine ring to it. Whoever gave it to you, I don't know, but it suits you remarkably well."
He nodded, then went on.
"Listen, Kallen. Might I ask one favor of you?"
"A favor...?"
Rummaging inside his breast, Nigel drew something out and handed it to Kallen.
It was a faded cloth banner, embroidered with golden thread and ornate decoration.
"This is..."
"The banner of the Black Wolf Knights—the one I guarded to the very end."
Nigel answered the puzzlement in Kallen's eyes.
"A relic imbued with a thousand years of the empire's sacred power. Had it ever been offered up as a sacrifice to the Demon Gods, the empire would have suffered a devastating spiritual blow. That's why Enrak tried until the very last to steal it—and it cost him his hand."
"Then this means..."
"Please carry this battle standard back to the empire. Do so, and at the very least, the stigma of a traitor's house that has been laid upon Garnet can be lifted."
Had Nigel truly been a traitor, there was no way he would still be keeping such a relic after all this time.
Had he offered up a sacred battle standard to the Demon Gods, it would have been more than enough to claim even the seat of an Apostle.
The banner he held out was, above all else, undeniable proof of his innocence.
Kallen couldn't help but be moved.
Nigel's soul could easily have festered into a vengeful spirit consumed by bitter resentment. Instead, he had endured decades of solitude in this place for the sole chance of meeting someone who could clear his name.
"And there is one more thing I'd like you to tell Garnet."
He spoke in a voice slightly worn.
"Tell her that her father... never once betrayed a knight's honor, even at the very end."
"...I will."
"Thank you."
Seeing Kallen nod, Nigel's soul finally smiled in relief.
Then, at a sharp, shrill cry drawing nearer from close by, his face hardened once more.
"Go to the rift, now! I will hold the rear!"
Drawing his sword, Nigel wheeled around and planted himself squarely in the path.
Then he glanced back at Kallen and spoke.
"Take good care of my daughter, Professor."
"...I'll certainly give it my best effort."
"What kind of lukewarm answer is that?"
He scrunched his face at the noncommittal reply.
"And now that I think of it, something about you seems rather suspicious... You haven't laid a hand on my daughter, have you?"
"..."
He had, in fact, laid a hand on her—in a different sense entirely.
Guilt pricking at him for no good reason, Kallen quietly turned his head away, avoiding Nigel's gaze.
The old knight's eyes bored into him all the more sharply.
"I wouldn't hand my daughter over even if the empire's greatest knight came begging. Remember that."
"Well, I'll keep it in mind."
Kallen shrugged with practiced nonchalance.
At that, Nigel could only shake his head, a helpless chuckle spilling out of him.
"...Very well, then. Hurry along."
The swarming, malevolent host had already blanketed the surroundings in utter blackness.
There truly was no more time to waste.
Kallen bowed his head one last time in salute to the empire's valiant commander.
"Good fortune to you."
Nigel did not look back, offering only a casual flick of his hand in farewell.
Tucking the battle standard into his breast, Kallen threw himself into the rift.
At once, his lower body began to lose its form, dissolving into faint wisps.
Kallen turned his still-remaining upper half and looked back at Nigel.
"Long live the empire! Long live His Majesty the Emperor! Cursed servants of darkness! Not one of you shall pass this place without first running me through!"
The very last thing Kallen witnessed was the sight of the knight-commander's back as, sword raised high and utterly alone, he charged into the demon host.
"...I'm back."
Kallen murmured to himself the moment his feet touched solid ground.
The forest here had no violet-stained leaves, nor grotesque eyeballs sprouting here and there.
It was the first time in his life this wretched world had ever felt so welcome.
His gaze flicked upward.
The blood-red sky was shrouded in something opaque, impossible to see clearly.
Kallen knew at once that the spot where he stood lay inside the barrier that had blocked him earlier.
"So not much time has passed, then..."
The guide of spiritual connection Nigel had spoken of seemed to have worked well this time, too.
Had he plunged blindly through the rift, it would not have been strange at all to land on the far side of the world—or to return decades in the future.
"...Small mercies."
Fidgeting with the locket in his breast, Kallen moved swiftly and nimbly toward the interior of the barrier.
The rustle of grass beneath his feet prickled unusually at his ears.
The forest made no sound at all, as if it had sunk entirely into silence.
That only served to deepen Kallen's sense of foreboding.
"Whew... and now I've gone and accepted a favor on top of everything..."
At the vivid image of the platinum-haired student that resurfaced in his mind, Kallen let out a long, heavy sigh, as if his head ached.
"Garnet Forts, a sword wreathed in crimson energy, and now Demonic Humans bursting out of a rift..."
Recounting the string of events, he muttered with a grimace.
"Nah, no way..."
The worst-case scenario that had crept into his head, Kallen shook it away at once.
Before long, the spring at the heart of Alheim, wide as a lake, began to draw near in the distance.
Scattered around its edge lay dozens of students, sprawled carelessly across the ground.
It was a bizarre sight—as though they had all fallen under a mass sleeping spell at once.
Among them were students from the Swordsmanship Department whose faces Kallen recognized as well, like Kayden and Zarel.
Kallen hurried over to them.
Fortunately, they had merely collapsed from the shock; there appeared to be no threat to their lives.
"Whew..."
Only after busily checking their pulses was Kallen finally about to breathe a sigh of relief.
"Damn it, for a second there I thought I'd be holding a funeral... Huh?"
Sensing something, he straightened at once.
Then, expression frozen solid, he stared intently at one direction of the forest.
Shaaaaa...
A strange wind was blowing through the sealed barrier on all sides.
The killing intent riding on it made no effort to hide itself, prickling against Kallen's skin as it flaunted its presence.
And at last, someone emerged slowly from the shadows of the forest, revealing themselves.
"You..."
Kallen's mouth clamped shut.
A sword radiating ominous crimson energy in all directions, blazing like open flame.
And the one holding it was the platinum-haired girl—her mind utterly devoured by the demonic blade.
"...Garnet."
The worst-case scenario he had strained so hard to deny now stood before his very eyes.
Just as Kallen reached out toward her, Garnet closed the distance in an instant and swung her sword straight for his throat.
"Ghk!"
It was a strike so swift and powerful that the duel they'd had before couldn't even compare.
Kallen barely deflected it and attempted a counterattack, but she simply evaded it with ease, flipping nimbly backward through the air like a squirrel.
"..."
Garnet's sapphire eyes were clouded and dull, without a flicker of focus in them.
The grotesque smile splitting her face ear to ear meant one thing: complete control of her body had passed to the demonic sword.
What stood before him was no longer the proud, sharp-tongued first-year of Elysion, but a slave of the demonic blade, doomed to repeat nothing but destruction and slaughter until the day she died.
"How on earth did this happen... How did you end up devoured by a demonic sword?"
Kallen stared at Garnet in disbelief.
His voice was thick with heartfelt sorrow.
"It should never have come to this. Why... why would you make that kind of choice..."
"..."
No answer came to Kallen's lament.
The demonic sword in her hand simply erupted with even more sinister crimson energy, as if in mockery.
"Was your despair truly that deep? So deep that you'd... surrender your body to a cursed blade?"
"..."
Still, no answer returned.
At that, Kallen let out a deep, resigned sigh.
"...You're right. This is my responsibility."
His hollow eyes turned toward the sky, staining red like the dying sunset.
"Who could blame you for it? And least of all me—I have no such right. But..."
His gaze turned back, locking straight onto Garnet.
In those grey eyes, weary and empty until now, something rare was beginning to kindle—a spark of resolve.
"What happened today... was my failure. I failed, as your professor, to truly teach you."
The resolute words carried both belated regret and the solidarity of one who shared her fate.
"So I will take responsibility for it—starting now."
Sword in hand, Kallen's right arm suddenly drooped low toward the ground.
It was an awkward stance, good for neither defense nor attack, but Kallen paid it no mind, simply closing his eyes and concentrating.
Shaaaaa...
Before long, a pale radiance glittered along the outline of his body.
Like dew evaporating in the morning sun, Kallen was casually releasing everything he had been holding within.
Drrrr...
Kallen's battered old sword convulsed violently, as though it were alive. Its movements were wild and fervent, as if freed at last from a long, long confinement.
And from its edge, an utterly black, suffocating darkness began to surge forth—a darkness so deep it seemed to swallow even the surrounding light.
GWAAAAAH...!
A savage black gale, fierce enough to sweep him off his feet, whipped into a maelstrom around him.
The black vortex swelled larger with every blink of an eye.
Sticky, ominous black mist climbed backwards up Kallen's arm like a cascade flowing in reverse, churning roughly beneath his skin.
Tuk. Tududuk.
Blood vessels, blackened utterly, wove themselves across his right arm like a grotesque spiderweb.
The spreading black mist was eroding half his body at a terrifying pace.
And then Kallen opened his eyes once more.
"Then allow me to teach you properly—as your professor."
It was a voice that rumbled rough and low, as though scraping the very bedrock of his soul.
Kallen's eyes—dyed pitch black, without a trace of white remaining—fixed themselves squarely on Garnet.
The barrier he had shattered lay in ruins around him, and what had descended over everything was a darkness as deep and black as the abyss itself.
Before it, Garnet's crimson aura flickered faintly, no more than a firefly caught in the path of a typhoon.
Kallen leveled his sword directly at her and murmured, low and quiet.
"How to wield a demonic sword."