Demon Knight Bernhaigen (2)
What is a demon?
A mage who had lived through the era centuries ago—when demons blackened half the continent and ran rampant—once said of them:
"What kind of existence? The kind you kill on sight without asking questions. Ah, better to burn them to death. That's cleaner."
Kill them without asking, without questioning.
That very sentence sat at the absolute top of a knight's code, imperial law, and the doctrines of the Holy Church. And rightly so. Demons were humanity's greatest enemy.
"Aren't there good demons too?"
"If there were, would their name have 'evil' and 'demon' in it?"
Arthur, the hero who swept away the countless demons that had blackened the continent and ushered in the age of man. Merlin, who had burned so many of those demons at Arthur's side, let out a hollow laugh.
"I've burned more than five digits' worth of demons myself, and not a single one of them was capable of conversation. They were made that way from the start."
Merlin said,
"They're the kind that answer mercy with betrayal."
It was advice. It was lived experience.
Najin nodded. He had never intended to doubt that demons were twisted things. What mattered was how to deal with them.
The Demon Knight, Bernhaigen.
Before pursuing him, Najin meant to prepare thoroughly. Facing an opponent stronger than himself required every possible precaution.
According to the information from the books…
Books, and Merlin's stories.
Combining them all, Najin began writing down what he needed on paper. Holy water blessed by the Church, a silver dagger, antidotes, and items that would raise his resistance to demonic energy…
There. The list was complete.
Now he only had to obtain the items.
"Well now."
Merlin's voice echoed in his ear.
"You think you'll find those around here? Those are things you only get by going to the Church. You can't just pick them up anywhere."
"Tch. Figures, right?"
"Yeah. And another thing…"
Merlin said, sounding thoroughly unimpressed.
"You probably don't even need any of that in the first place."
"…What do you mean by that?"
"What's the most troublesome thing about fighting a demon? Demonic energy."
The malevolent aura that demons—or anything related to them—exuded. It polluted the surrounding air and mana, and went further still, blackening the very environment. To ordinary living beings, demonic energy was pure poison.
Common folk and martial artists alike.
A martial artist who had reached a high enough realm could fully resist it, but that was only possible at the level of a Sword Master. Demonic energy continued to accumulate inside the body, blackening flesh and soul alike.
"At first you don't even notice."
"But it keeps building until it hits a critical point, and then there's no turning back. Unless you receive regular baptisms from the Church, there's no way to resist it. And even that isn't perfect."
That was why humans and demons could never coexist, and why the Empire loathed demons so thoroughly. Listening to Merlin, however, Najin tilted his head.
"By that logic, don't I need the things on this list even more?"
"Look at this kid. Have you forgotten what you're carrying?"
Merlin snorted.
Something on an entirely different level from Church blessings, holy water, or silver weapons—didn't he already possess it?
"Excalibur bestows the blessings of purification and recovery upon its wielder. A blessing sensitive enough to react even to drunkenness… you think it wouldn't react to demonic energy?"
No way, Najin muttered.
Merlin nodded as if to say that "no way" was exactly right.
"You're completely immune to demonic energy."
"And as long as you carry Excalibur…"
You are a natural predator to demons.
Merlin murmured. Najin did not immediately grasp what she meant. True, the King Arthur of the fairy tales had slain many demons… but wasn't that simply because Arthur was exceptional?
At Najin's silent monologue, Merlin only smiled bitterly.
Apparently this boy still did not truly understand the weapon called Excalibur.
2.
The dawn just before the sun rose.
Najin began the pursuit.
The request form had sketched out an expected route, but it was only the roughest of outlines and of little real help. It merely suggested a vague direction.
For Najin, that was enough.
As he followed the trail, he suddenly felt a churning in his gut. His heart pounded hard, and a sharp instinct moved his body of its own accord—as if reacting to something twisted. When he turned his head and instinctively stepped toward it, the Demon Knight's tracks were stamped into the earth.
"Becoming the master of Excalibur means this, you know."
While Najin was still feeling the dissonance of that fact, Merlin whispered in his ear.
"It means you become the scabbard of Excalibur."
You assimilate with Excalibur.
You share its nature.
Merlin said so, then let out a long breath.
"Reacting sharply to anything evil is part of that influence. It's still faint… but tracking a bastard who openly spews his aura like this should be easy, right?"
Just trust your instincts, as always.
Merlin said, and Najin slowly nodded. He exhaled a long breath and moved quickly in the direction the trail continued.
Najin ran through the forest before dawn.
The wind that blew was cold, and the air that tickled his nose carried the scent of blood. Najin frowned. A foul stench. One he knew well.
Thud.
His steps through the forest slowed. The sun had not yet risen, so the woods remained dim, but Najin's eyes—accustomed to night vision—saw the scene clearly.
Trees ripped up by the roots.
Branches snapped and broken.
Bloodstains splattered everywhere.
Follow them, and you would inevitably see the result of the battle that had taken place here. Najin's slowing steps finally stopped. Amid the vibrating stench of blood, he silently surveyed the surroundings.
A knight whose head had been crushed.
A knight whose arms and legs had been torn off.
A knight with a hole punched through his heart.
Knights, knights, and more knights. Corpses of those who could have been called strong lay scattered carelessly through the forest. Najin swung his sword and drove off the monsters that had been feeding on them.
"…"
In silence, Najin walked among the bodies.
Broken swords and pools of blood. Helmets without owners and crumpled armor. Passing the corpses that had met such wretched ends, he began to hear breathing.
Rough, labored breaths.
Breaths that seemed ready to snuff out at any moment.
Passing blood-soaked pine trees, Najin arrived at the source of the sound. There, a knight sat with his back against a tree, clutching his abdomen.
"Hah… haaah…"
Even at a glance, the wound was fatal.
The knight's breathing was ragged, dark crimson blood had pooled around him, and his face was deathly pale. Najin stopped in front of him.
As a shadow fell over his head, the knight tried to lift his face. Even that proved difficult; he coughed up bloody foam with a wet sound.
Najin wordlessly knelt so their eyes were level—so the man would not have to raise his head. Meeting his gaze, Najin said,
"Climb onto my back. I'll take you to the nearest church."
"I appreciate the offer, but…"
The knight smiled bitterly.
"I'll pass. I know my own body. Treatment won't save me now."
He briefly lifted the hand pressing against his abdomen. A large hole, and flesh rotting and festering from demonic energy. It was already far too late for recovery.
"That damned Bernhaigen. We used to be comrades, but he showed no mercy. Told me to die in agony and punched a hole straight through my gut before leaving. How irritating."
The knight chuckled.
He tried to sound light, but the pale face and cold sweat beading on his forehead made it sound nothing like a joke.
"Haa…"
Steadying his breath, the knight eyed Najin's appearance.
He did not look like a knight. More like a mercenary or adventurer—and judging by the quality of his gear, a fairly well-known one even in Cambria.
"Did you take a request?"
Najin nodded. He drew the Atanga Knights' request form from his coat and held it before the man's eyes.
"I see. So you took Atanga's request. A man who knows honor. I rate that courage and spirit highly…"
He spat a mouthful of blood-flecked saliva and continued.
"He's not someone you can handle. Tell them his level was misjudged. He's clearly contracted with a mid-rank demon at minimum… and the demonization is progressing."
He warned that the information was wrong.
"Keep your distance while you track him and send regular reports to the Atanga Knights. That would be best."
He told the pursuer who would come after him how to act. As if even that were not enough, he barely raised a trembling hand and pointed toward the direction of the rising sun. His fingertips shook violently.
"He went that way."
Take this.
Muttering so, the knight handed something to Najin. Probably a means of contacting Atanga. Najin silently accepted what was offered. Only then did the knight let the strength leave his shoulders and exhale.
As if he had finished what he needed to do.
As if he had set down a burden he had been carrying.
"Is there anything else you wish to leave behind?"
The knight's breathing was growing fainter.
Noticing it, Najin asked. The knight only smiled bitterly. Sharp kid. Muttering that, he forced his mouth open.
"Knight of the Trevache Family, Gilbert."
He slowly lowered the hand that had been sealing his abdomen. Gilbert had endured the agony so he could pass information to a pursuer who might come—someone like himself.
…The pain of flesh rotting from demonic energy was not something an ordinary person could endure. He had trained his mind as a knight, but there were limits.
Survival had already been less than slim—essentially nonexistent. It might have been kinder to draw the dagger at his breast and slit his own throat long ago. Yet Gilbert had struggled to the end.
To pass information to the pursuer who would follow.
So that the deaths of his comrades here would not be in vain, he had endured until the very last moment.
"I could not deliver good news to my lord, so I can only apologize for the disloyalty of bringing ill tidings instead."
Gilbert smiled.
"Give my lord my regards. If possible, add that I remained a proud knight to the end. That way my name might retain a little value."
A pointless joke.
Gilbert chuckled. With a final wet cough, dark crimson blood sprayed from his lips. After a brief convulsion, his body went limp.
He had not always lived as a proud knight.
But in the end he chose to die as one, and so he met his death. Najin wordlessly reached out and closed Gilbert's open eyes.
"…"
Najin rose to his feet.
He looked in the direction Gilbert had pointed. Dawn was breaking, as if announcing the end of the night. Gazing at the light filtering into the forest, Najin began to walk.
A knight who had met death as a knight.
Many lived as knights, but few sought to remain knights until the final moment. It was not easy for a person to stay honorable even when driven into a corner. And this was an age when the weight of the name "knight" had grown endlessly light.
Dissolute knights.
Knights who betrayed their lords and chased coin.
Knights who were nothing more than thugs drunk on their own strength.
Knights without honor or pride.
This was an age full of such knights. An age when most knights aimed for sure things like power and money rather than vague notions like honor and pride.
And that is precisely why.
Najin thought, and Merlin spoke.
"Knights like that shine all the brighter."
Those who sought to be knights even when there was nothing to gain. Those who sought to be knights at least in the final moment of their lives. Najin had seen someone like that before.
"Go, Najin."
"Stand at the highest place and cry out."
"That at your beginning there was a knight who chased the stars—Ivan."
In the knight just now,
Najin had glimpsed the image of his benefactor. He still did not fully understand things like honor and pride, but he knew at least that they deserved respect.
Because he knew that,
"Merlin."
Najin said.
"The plan has changed."
He gripped the sword at his waist tightly.
The original plan had been to keep his distance, watch the Demon Knight's movements, and then hold him in place when the Atanga Knights arrived.
He was an opponent far beyond Najin's level.
There had been no reason to risk his life.
He had intended only to use him as an opponent for combat experience. But his mind had changed. It had to change. He had realized this was not something he could approach so lightly.
"It seems I'll have to take him myself."
Najin's eyes had gone cold and still.
The declaration he made was not the ambition of an arrogant genius. It was a resolve that he would do it no matter what—an obsession that could be felt in the words.
"Only then do I think I might get even a sense of what honor and pride are."
Honor and pride. A knight who carried them.
The boy admired knights. Because the first knight he had ever seen had planted a dream in him.
"I am Ivan."
"Ivan, knight of Atanga."
The boy never forgot the pride shown by a certain one-eyed knight. He never forgot the honor that one-eyed knight had sought until the end.
Because that had been the first star the boy had ever seen.
Ivan's eyes as he cried out his pride had been a star that shone brighter than anything else. Najin wanted to understand that starlight. He had to know why Ivan had staked his life on such hollow-seeming values.
"I don't know the reason."
Najin exhaled a long breath.
His instincts were shouting.
"But if I clash with that Demon Knight with everything I have, I feel like I'll understand."
What kind of knight I want to become.
What honor and pride are.
Paradoxically, if he faced someone who had abandoned all of it, he felt he would come to know.
"Impulsive, aren't you."
"Seems so."
So, are you going to stop me?
Najin asked. At the question, Merlin only burst out laughing.
"What kind of nonsense is that?"
Merlin shouted.
"What are you doing? Why aren't you running already?"
"I figured you'd say that."
Najin moved his feet.
Following the trail, he began to run.
3.
The Demon Knight, Bernhaigen.
He turned at the sound of approaching footsteps. There stood someone walking straight toward him without the slightest attempt to hide his presence. Foolish beyond measure. Not even trying to conceal his approach for an ambush, but openly revealing himself?
Another knight, is it.
Thinking that, Bernhaigen turned his head. But there was no knight there. Instead of shining armor engraved with a family crest, a young man stood wearing what looked like clothing made from monster hides.
A mercenary?
Passing near Cambria, someone must have posted a request in the city. Pointless. Bernhaigen sighed and opened his mouth.
"Hey, you two-bit mercenary, butting in—"
"Name."
The young man cut him off. With a sharp ring he drew his sword and leveled it at Bernhaigen. Blade pointed, he asked.
What is your name?
At the act of asking an opponent's name before a duel, Bernhaigen let out a hollow laugh.
"Bernhaigen."
The Demon Knight gave his name.
Then the young man pointing a sword at him should give his own as well. Soon the young man's mouth opened.
"Najin."
What left his lips was not a false identity, but his true name.
"Squire of Ivan, knight of Atanga."
Sword aura rose from Najin's blade.