Knight Demon (2)
The demon formed of knight corpses.
The Knight Demon, Orgis.
As Najin listened to the story of that demon, a thought settled over him. No matter how he looked at it, this did not seem like a commission one or two ordinary Sword Seekers could handle.
Demon. Masterpiece. Black mage. A monster that had swollen its bulk by devouring dozens of knights. Just lining up the core words was enough to make it clear something was off. Were the numbers joining the subjugation really enough for this? Najin fixed Argo with a doubtful look.
You're one to talk, charging a transcendent with nothing but a single sword in your hand…
Merlin regarded Najin with the same dubious gaze, but he ignored it.
"This is only my personal opinion," Najin said.
"Hm? Go on, speak."
"That demon, Orgis—it doesn't seem like something one or two Sword Seekers can face… Are we the only ones participating in the subjugation?"
"Ah. That."
Argo scratched the back of his neck, looking a little sheepish.
"There are a few people on site, but the ones actually fighting will be just you and me. Worried?"
"I'm fine, but you are a member of the Atanga Knights, Sir Argo. And fairly high-ranking at that."
"I know what you're asking. Could I have requested support? Of course. If you hadn't taken the offer, I would have."
But, he continued,
"Doing that would invite criticism—not as a member of Atanga, but simply as a human belonging to a group."
"Excuse me? Why?"
"Once an order, a mercenary company, a guild—any group of a certain size—reaches a certain scale, there is an unwritten rule. Namely: when a target flees into the Outer Land, it is proper to abandon the pursuit."
It was not for any particularly complicated reason.
As he spoke, Argo spread both arms wide.
"The Outer Land is vast. Excessively so. The terrain is brutal, there are no proper maps, no footholds. And it is crawling with the dead, monsters from the mythic age, transcendent beings, and demons—a living hell of a land."
Najin, who had experienced the Outer Land himself, nodded firmly.
"To operate out there you need at least one or two stars. People like that aren't common. They're the kind of talent who can hold key positions in an organization. What happens if people of that caliber go off into the Outer Land just to crush one target?"
"The entire group would be badly shaken."
"Exactly. The burden is far too great. So unless the matter is truly critical, no one expands operations all the way into the Outer Land."
Thinking it over, it was only natural.
The Outer Land was immense and treacherous. The risks and variables one had to accept were excessive, and the success rate of any operation was low. It was understandable that people had grown skeptical of conducting operations there at all.
"So even if traces of it are found in the Outer Land, launching a subjugation right away… honestly, it isn't the right call. And as someone who holds a key post in the order, it is a judgment I should not be making."
"I see."
"That's how it is. If I raised my voice about revenge for old comrades and giving them rest, plenty would follow… but it still feels off, doesn't it?"
A judgment unfitting for a knight of the order.
And yet, Argo said with a bitter smile,
"But how can I just sit still? A demon that greedily devoured my seniors and my peers is walking around free. How am I supposed to endure that?"
"That is also true."
"Ah. Almost forgot the most important part."
Argo snapped his fingers.
"As I said, alone it would be hard. But with you here, the story changes. We have a chance."
With that, he began explaining the operation. Listening carefully, Najin nodded deeply.
"We do have a real chance. How did you come up with this method?"
"I'd like to claim it was my own cleverness, but stealing another's credit is unknightly."
Argo shrugged.
"It was a method one of my peers came up with during the old pursuit. Back then neither of us had the skill to pull it off. Things are a little different now, wouldn't you say?"
2.
In the Outer Land, many ages coexisted.
That was because the heroes who had lived in those ages still survived by one means or another, and because the sanctuaries of the constellations were scattered throughout the Outer Land.
Sanctuary sounds grand, but all it means is that they transplanted their mindscape into reality. You know how the churches on the Continent have their holy sanctuaries? Same idea.
Merlin explained that there was no great difference between a constellation's star-domain sanctuary and a church's holy sanctuary. A sanctuary was a kind of stage—one's own mindscape, a place where one could be certain of oneself.
If you made a sanctuary, it would be the scenery of the underground city.
Do all constellations have sanctuaries?
Some don't bother making them. Usually the ones who settle somewhere create a sanctuary.
A sanctuary was a mindscape transplanted into reality.
And a mindscape could not help but be shaped by the age in which a person had lived. Just as Najin's mindscape was the landscape of the underground city, many constellations took particular scenes—cities, towers, palaces—as their mindscapes.
And those sanctuaries, once made real, did not vanish simply because their masters died or fell. Even if they lost their value as sanctuaries, the scenery remained. Abandoned cities and abandoned structures were the proof.
A sanctuary that had lost its master.
The place Najin and Argo were heading toward was exactly that. The carriage stopped at the boundary of the Outer Land; from there they went on foot. Along the way they encountered the dead and monsters of the Outer Land, but—
"Damn, they've noticed us. You take that side. I'll handle this—?"
Before Argo could finish, Najin had already dealt with every last one of them. He dashed in, pierced a heart, cut the legs out from under the ones guarding hearts, then smashed those hearts like a pickaxe driving into stone.
Screeeeech!
When Outer Land monsters appeared, the same pattern repeated. A long trail of sword aura from Najin swept through a monster's legs; its tendons severed, it crashed to the ground. Najin climbed onto its back and swung a few times, and blood fountained.
"Hoo."
At first Argo had been impressed. After watching the same scene unfold again and again, he simply stared at Najin in disbelief.
"Just what have you been doing these past four months?"
"Didn't I tell you in the carriage? I wandered the Outer Land rather diligently."
Parts he had abbreviated when summarizing the story.
Having witnessed Najin's combat methods and dirty little tricks out here, Argo was left with nothing but a hollow laugh. The movements were ruthlessly efficient and fast. It was less a matter of superior technique or raw power and more that the process from perception to judgment was absurdly quick.
Perceive. React. Counter.
All three happened in less than a second. The moment a hostile presence brushed them, Najin was already there, cutting a throat and returning. Until they reached their destination, Argo never even got a proper chance to swing his sword.
"Well now. At this rate I feel like I'm the one being escorted."
"I'll see you safely to the destination."
Najin's joke drew a laugh from Argo. They walked a long while and finally arrived. The abandoned sanctuary had belonged to a constellation that fell roughly three hundred years ago, and it resembled a city that had once truly existed.
The Free City, Pavanne.
A free city that had stood near a harbor centuries earlier. It had long since been absorbed into the Allied Nations and vanished, yet here in the distant Outer Land, Pavanne still existed. There was no vast harbor and no blue sea, but the bell tower that had been Pavanne's symbol still stood intact.
Ding… ding… doooong…
Listening to the bells rolling through the city, Najin and Argo stepped inside. At the entrance waited the people Argo had mentioned earlier—those already on site.
"A pleasure. I am Schmitz, the one who sent the letter."
Schmitz was a priest of the Holy Body Church, a man called a pilgrim. He led the priests who followed him on pilgrimages through the Outer Land. He was also a guardian who shared his starlight to protect the faithful who walked with him.
In truth, the believers gathered at Pavanne's entrance—aside from Schmitz himself—were ordinary people who had not even reached Expert, let alone Sword Seeker. They sat clustered around him, murmuring quietly.
"Well met, Father Schmitz. I saw the news that came through the Holy Body Church. The Knight Demon is here?"
"Yes. Beyond the line I drew over there."
"Can you tell us the full circumstances?"
"Of course."
Schmitz explained. Free City Pavanne was a sanctuary left by a constellation that had belonged to the Holy Body Church, and thus it counted as holy ground. He and his party had entered the city for a routine pilgrimage, only to find a demon waiting for them.
"That demon took the lives of two priests. It happened before I could even react. Observing it from a distance… it closely resembled the Knight Demon from the rumors."
"I see. Beyond that line, you say?"
Schmitz nodded.
His abilities centered on protection and barriers. The demon could not cross the line he had drawn. Even so, all he had managed to secure was a tiny pocket of ground at the city's entrance.
"May the blessing of the stars be with you."
Schmitz traced a light sign of the cross.
Argo tapped the translucent barrier a few times. There was no way through without dropping it.
"Would you lower the barrier for a moment?"
"Of course. Step back, children."
Schmitz released the barrier. As the believers withdrew, Najin and Argo drew their swords.
A soft glitter of light—and the barrier vanished. In that same instant something flashed deep within the city. It was a tiny, fleeting spark, yet Najin did not miss it.
Whoooosh!
A single arrow. It was aimed not at Najin but at the believers and Schmitz behind him. The speed was respectable, yet to Najin's eyes it drifted. There was no need to swing a sword.
Crack.
Najin simply reached out and snatched the arrow from the air. He snapped the head with his thumb, tossed it aside, and looked forward. A rain of arrows was already falling.
"Here they come."
While Schmitz hurriedly raised a new barrier, Argo and Najin stepped forward. They cut down the arrows as they came, and then the city itself began to change.
Ding… ding… doooong…
The gentle peal of the bells—
…
—sank into sudden silence. A single heartbeat of stillness. Then the bells that had been ringing so calmly went mad. Screeeech! A noise like metal being scraped raw tore through the air, and the entire city stirred.
And then—crack.
The city began to fold.
3.
Masterpieces—arms of mystery.
The blacksmith who forged them had given each a name, and through those names one could vaguely glimpse their powers.
Take the 34th Masterpiece, Fire Shadow. The haze that fire creates is a metaphor for fire's shadow; from that fact one could infer its ability. Indeed, it was a Masterpiece that used heat haze to confuse the eye.
The 21st Masterpiece, Echo, was the same.
An echo is the sound that strikes something and rebounds. Focusing on that quality of rebounding—of sounding again—revealed Echo's power. It did not merely return sound; it could rebound impact and even mana itself.
Then what of the 4th Masterpiece, Bookmark?
What was its ability?
A bookmark is something slipped between the pages of a book to mark how far one has read. In other words, to use a bookmark one must, by definition, insert it between something.
A Masterpiece—mystery itself—is the expansion of a concept.
It need not be between the pages of a book. If the user regards something as "pages," then it does not matter what is being closed upon it.
"Honestly,"
Najin muttered as he took in the sight before him,
"demons do think differently."
The Knight Demon Orgis.
True to a demon whose way of thinking was utterly alien to a human's, it seemed to regard the entire city as a single book. Watching buildings and bricks surge toward them like a wave, Najin thought:
Considering the Bookmark's power, the moment they are closed upon, this fight is going to become rather troublesome.
First they needed to open a path.
And Najin knew exactly the technique for that. He tossed the sword in his hand upward and, in the same motion, pulled the Cross-Star spear from his back.
A technique for smashing through whatever blocked the way and carving open a road.
Ramming.
A storm erupted.