Heavy Metal
CRUNCH—!
The moment the words left his mouth, a deafening roar split the night.
The decorative iron spears set into the garden wall twisted of their own accord, then writhed like living serpents and punched straight through the invader’s ankles and thighs.
“Ghk—kh…!”
Hurled to the ground, the assassin lifted his head with a strangled groan of agony.
Before him stood a massive silhouette framed against the moonlight.
A suit of armor that waddled like a top-heavy roly-poly doll.
Those absurd, rounded curves had never looked so terrifying.
“This is my fortress. Anyone with a working brain would know better than to break into my house.”
Kalinder clenched his fist.
The pointed iron fence ringing the garden let out a hideous screech. Pillars of steel that had been solidly fixed in place suddenly softened like mollusks—
“Gah—kh…!”
The man never had time to react.
A thick iron spear, bent like soft taffy, coiled around the assassin’s throat as he thrashed on the ground and hoisted him into the air.
“Ghk—ghhhhh!”
Dangling helplessly, the assassin flailed in desperation. He clawed at the cold metal biting into his neck with all his strength. His legs kicked at empty air; gloved hands scraped frantically at the spear.
It was useless.
Kalinder twisted his fist with cold indifference.
CRACK.
A sickening wet snap, and the thrashing limbs went limp.
“…Dead already.”
Kalinder exhaled with a note of mild disappointment and slowly crossed the garden. Through the narrow slits of his round helm, crimson eyes flashed as they swept every shadowed corner of the grounds.
Hissss—
Hot steam vented from the seams of his armor. He stood perfectly still, listening past the night wind for the breath of another rat.
Then—
SHINK—!
The wet sound of a sharp blade parting flesh tore through the silence.
Kalinder turned his head. Beyond the heavy helm, a familiar silhouette came into view.
His eldest son, Diar Hasgard.
THUD!
Another assassin burst from the darkness and slammed into a pillar. Blood painted the stone; the man slid down it, leaving a red smear across the ground as well.
“S-sorry… I….”
Diar looked down at the figure crawling and begging. His eyes were ice.
THUNK.
Instead of answering, Diar drove his sword into the man’s thigh.
“Please—please…!”
THUNK.
Without so much as a change of expression, Diar thrust again. No hesitation. No mercy. Twice, three times—the blade deliberately avoided vital points, sinking deep as if toying with its prey.
“….”
At last the pleading mouth closed forever.
“My son.”
Kalinder’s heavy voice cut through the night air. Diar pulled his sword free of the corpse. Crimson blood ran down the blade and pattered onto the ground. He wiped his blood-spattered face roughly with his sleeve and regarded his father without expression.
“Your skill has improved.”
Kalinder looked down at the butchered assassin. He had noticed how sharply Diar’s attitude toward training had changed after the Subjugation Festival; the remark was born of that knowledge.
“It is still not enough. When I think of how I failed to help Romons and Daywin that day, I still….”
“No need to take it out on them, son. These are different men from those. Their methods are different.”
“Is that so. I failed to notice sooner. Father—where is Mother….”
WHIP—THUD!
What cut Diar’s words short was the weapon that buried itself in the garden soil.
A battle axe, its edge already painted red, stood sunk deep into the lawn.
“….”
Both Diar and Kalinder turned toward the direction the axe had come from.
There stood Countess Hasgard in elegant silk nightclothes. She swept her disheveled hair back with an irritated motion, strode over, and casually pulled the embedded axe free with one hand.
Crack.
The muscles of her arm stood out in hard cords.
“Where do you think you’re going.”
She took aim once more at the back of an intruder who had been trying to slip away unseen.
“C-Countess! We need to keep at least one of them alive!”
WHOOSH—!
She flung the axe again without the slightest hesitation.
“Th-this fuc—.”
CRUNCH!
The scream of the assassin who had been scrambling over the wall vanished into the dark beneath a heavy impact.
“R-run! Now!”
“Get out of here!”
The few survivors shrieked and bolted for the wall. Any pretense of stealth had been abandoned long ago. They shoved and trampled one another, desperately clawing their way over the barrier to escape the manor.
Meanwhile…
“….”
High in a tree outside the estate, a shadow looked down on the scene of slaughter.
Ssshh—
Leaves stirred by the wind alternately hid and revealed the approaching dawn. The figure melted perfectly into the darkness, watching with empty eyes as the Hasgard family butchered the assassins.
Karma was right after all….
He swallowed dryly. The manor grounds had become a slaughterhouse. The family head, the eldest son—even the lady of the house. Every last one of them was wielding power that put them beyond the limits of ordinary humans.
Now I understand how the Fourth died… they were simply too strong.
Hiss—
The Houndry elite drew a match from his coat and struck it hard. A reek of sulfur rose; a red flame bloomed in the dark.
“Reporting.”
He whispered low toward the flickering flame—and to the master who would be watching beyond it.
“Lord Karma. Confirmed.”
The flame wavered strangely, as if receiving the signal.
“We will pursue the assassins who fled.”
He blew out the match and launched himself after the terrified men fleeing into the night.
Flick, flick.
I shook the match until the flame died.
Of course the call would come when I couldn’t use the ring.
The Academy Director had written that he had good news, so I had come to the Academy for the first time in ages. The matchbox had suddenly started vibrating; I had ducked into a bathroom to check it.
As expected, the family had put on a fine display of its strength.
For a moment I truly felt how deep the depression and loss of Romons’s death had once cut. Father, Mother, Diar—and me, already a hikikomori, who had only become more of a wreck. Drowned in guilt and regret, I had done nothing. Nothing at all, until the rest of the family was dead as well.
But this time so many things had changed.
We would not live through that same future again.
Because I had planted Houndry nearby in advance, trusting in that truth, I could finally begin hunting the Death God Cult in earnest.
The other assassins who had struck the Hasgard estate. Track them, and the trail would lead there in the end.
The Death God Cult.
I had no intention of waiting politely for their moment to shine. This was not a manga that sat around while the villain transformed.
The Five Lanterns.
And the Necromancer too.
I would wipe them all out early.
“Patron…?”
A voice cut through my thoughts.
As I said, this was the Academy. Early morning or not, the chance of running into a female student was high enough. And among them, of course, the only girl who called me “Patron”—Ester was included.
“W-wow, long… long time no see….”
Ester blinked as if she could not quite believe her eyes.
“The second semester started ages ago and you never… showed up, so I thought maybe you’d forgotten about me….”
“Forgotten? Of course not.”
I had completely forgotten.
I hadn’t thought about her at all….
Perhaps because she was the symbolic first heroine. I had poured effort into her early on—she was essential for the Subjugation Festival—but lately Lucia, Amelia, and the other girls had driven her from my mind.
The last time I had seen her was when I returned to the marquisate, wasn’t it? Before going to see Marquis Fred, I had gotten off the train, exchanged a few words with Ester, and parted ways.
“I even sent you letters… did you get them?”
Letters?
What letters?
Ah. Right. We had talked about that.
“There’s still two months of vacation left. What should I do next?”
“What you should do? There’s nothing left. Yeah—resting thoroughly for a while wouldn’t be a bad idea. Your first semester of first year was eventful in all sorts of ways.”
“Um… you said you’d need me during the break, didn’t you? I thought there would be more to do. After the Subjugation Festival you always seemed to be thinking about something… is there anything I can help with?”
“Anything you can help with… if things go according to plan, there actually won’t be.”
While cleaning out Houndry there was no one to save. Only people to kill.
“I just… wish there was something else I could do.”
“If something comes up, I’ll contact you.”
“Ah, yes! That would be nice…!”
“Ester, are you sure you don’t need to visit your family home? Like you said, there’s still a lot of vacation left.”
“Ah, it’s fine. The time left isn’t really enough for a proper trip anyway. And thanks to the explanation you gave them before, they won’t be worried. But… where are you staying, Patron? It’s just… I thought I should know if I’m going to write….”
Hearing that, I wrote an address in my notebook, tore the page out, and handed it over.
Right. That was how it had gone.
“Here. Contact me if something urgent comes up.”
“Does it have to be urgent?”
“Hm?”
“If I just want to write a letter… would you mind?”
Ester had looked up at me with wide eyes.
“No reason to mind.”
“…Heh.”
The moment I answered she had smiled playfully.
“Then I’ll write to this address. Thank you again for giving me such a wonderful opportunity.”
The last memory I had of her was Ester bowing deeply at the waist, smiling brightly.
……Why had I forgotten all of that until now?
And the address I had given Ester was the luxury inn where I had been staying temporarily in the marquisate. After that, unexpectedly, my lodging had changed. Once I became Karma there was simply too much to do. Going back and forth between the inn and Houndry had been a nuisance, so I had just lived at the hideout. I never returned to that inn for the rest of the vacation.
“R…ight. The letters. Of course I got them.”
In other words: I had never seen any letters.
“Ahaha… I figured you had… I thought maybe you hadn’t seen them since there was no reply.”
“I meant to write back and completely forgot. I’m sorry.”
“It was like… how should I put it… like a hundred pages had just vanished… that kind of feeling.”
Then—flick. Ester’s eyes changed.
The light went out of them.
Whether I had chosen the wrong dialogue option or not, for a brief moment she seemed like someone else entirely.
Someone else.
Someone who looked exactly like the figure I had seen in Ending 29.
Esther Hellfire.
“It wasn’t just you, Patron… somehow… it felt like a lot of people had forgotten about me… ha… ha, hahaha….”
This….
This was starting to look dangerous, wasn’t it…?
The image of a city turned into a sea of flames flashed through my mind.
I needed to salvage this right now—
“I’m fine. I understand.”
Suddenly Ester smiled softly.
“I know you’ve been busy. Not getting a reply did make me a little… sad, but I understand. After everything that happened, of course you’d be overwhelmed. Your family—are they all right now?”
It was a smile as warm as a goddess’s.
Warm enough that I felt ashamed of ever having thought the nickname was cringeworthy.
I had ignored her letters for over two months, and she said she understood. She even asked after me out of concern.
She really was a heroine for a reason.
“They’re fine, thanks to you. I just heard news of the family, as a matter of fact. They’re doing well. Especially Mother.”
“I’m glad. I’d like to greet them myself sometime. Hehe….”
“Why are you laughing?”
“I just remembered how kind the Hasgards were to me. Thinking of that still… makes me happy.”
“Is that so. We’re grateful to you as well.”
“I only did what you told me to, Patron. Ah—I’m on classroom cleanup duty, so I should… go.”
“All right.”
Whoosh—
Ester bowed deeply at the waist and headed for the classroom. I watched her receding figure—especially the silver hair that bounced with every step—and activated the Favorability Scouter.
Ester’s favorability was currently 50.
Halfway filled.
“Good thing I raised it in advance….”
That sudden change in her eyes had startled me for a second, but it didn’t seem like something to worry about yet. And she was still supposed to be falling for Laward. The fact that I, not Laward, had failed to answer her letters probably hadn’t been a fatal mental blow.
I let out a breath of relief and headed for the Director’s office.
We exchanged greetings, caught up on recent events, sat on the sofa, and even managed a sip of tea before—
“Ta-da! The Holy Knights are paying us a visit!”
The Director thrust an official document at me with the happiest expression I had ever seen on his face.
“And the Commander himself is coming! Is this a dream or reality… Daywin, please slap me once!”
“Excuse me? Well… clench your jaw first, I suppose.”
“Ah, I—I was only speaking figuratively. My apologies. I got a little too excited.”
The thoroughly worked-up middle-aged man straightened his tie and returned to his usual self almost at once.
“In any case, the Commander is coming in person!”
“That is surprising. That Blash would….”
“Blash?”
“…A slip of the tongue. Please forget it.”
“He’s definitely coming to see Laward, don’t you think?”
His eyes sparkled like a child waiting for a present.
“It couldn’t be anyone but Laward. Top scores in Academy history, and he’s as devout and diligent as any aspiring Holy Knight could be.”
He paused, then lowered his voice a little.
“And Daywin—I don’t know why, but there are even rumors that Laward wiped out a criminal guild in District 6.”
“Haha. How mysterious.”
“Still only a first-year, and already receiving this kind of attention… it’s wonderful. You must be very proud, Daywin.”
“Yes… I am.”
Just as the Director said, Laward had performed excellently within the scope I had given him. Letting him run wild in Houndry seemed to have paid off as well.
I remembered the day I had opened my eyes in my room after regressing. The day I had sworn I would turn Laward into a Holy Knight.
At last, the moment I had been waiting for had arrived.