Backstab Upon Backstab (3)
Rewind the clock a little. I was on my way to meet Avalon, Sonic walking at my side.
"By the way, Master. Where exactly are we going?"
"Ah, I never told you, did I? Well, you see..."
As we walked, I laid out the secret alliance I'd struck with Avalon. Sonic's face immediately soured.
"Do you trust that man, Master? A Demon-Worshipping Swordsman is... not someone you can put your faith in."
She didn't bother hiding her unease. She didn't trust Avalon — and of course she didn't.
Sonic shared the memories of my past life. Canisia and the other girls had never crossed paths with a Demon-Worshipping Swordsman, but Sonic and I had fought Demon Worshipper Fairies in PvP more times than I cared to count.
Despite being only Rare-grade, a Demon-Worshipping Swordsman packed overwhelming firepower on par with the Special-grade classes a full tier above. That was why so many players kept at least one Fairy wearing the "Demon-Worshipping" prefix — Demon-Worshipping Swordsman, Demon-Worshipping Mage, Demon-Worshipping Priest, and on down the list.
There were quite a few classes carrying that Demon-Worshipping modifier, and people lumped them all together under a single name: Demon Worshipper.
Most players were seduced by the raw destructive power and raised Demon Worshippers without a second thought. I, unlike everyone else, never owned one.
The reason was simple. To obtain that class, you had to sacrifice Fairies.
Every so often, a Dark Merchant would visit the territory a player governed, peddling rare items you couldn't find in any of the territory shops — and charging a fortune for the privilege. His inventory changed every visit, but there was one item he brought with him almost every single time.
Special Item
Offer a sacrifice the summoned demon finds satisfactory, and one of your Fairies will be class-changed into a Demon Worshipper.
The problem? The sacrifice that demon demanded was a Fairy.
The rank of Fairy you had to offer scaled with the demon's own rank. A Lesser Demon required a 1-to-3-star Fairy. A Mid-rank Demon wanted 4-to-6-star. A Greater Demon demanded 7-to-9-star. And a Demon Lord required a 10-star Fairy.
Demon Worshippers were powerful, but they came with a fatal weakness: they couldn't gain experience from hunting. On top of that, raising their stats with Growth Stones was impossible. The only way for a Demon Worshipper to grow stronger was to keep offering sacrifices — Fairies — to the contracted demon. The strength and number of Fairies offered determined how much their traits, stats, and skills improved.
Other players could afford to keep Demon Worshippers because they had surplus Fairies sitting around in their territories doing nothing. Whether you were a whale or completely F2P, you were always starving for the resources needed to raise Fairies. That meant every territory was overflowing with Fairies you'd never gotten around to developing. They were useless anyway, so people fed them to their Demon Worshippers.
Even so... offering Fairies as sacrifices? Ugh. I fucking hate that.
I take my games seriously. A class that only got stronger by sacrificing Fairies never sat right with me.
Unlike other mobile games, Fairy Masters had no SSS-rank or SS-rank tiers. Which meant that even a low-rank, weak Fairy could be raised with enough affection into something that could stand toe-to-toe with anyone. I wasn't about to throw away Fairies bursting with potential just to grab some cheap power right now.
Someone would probably tell me I was taking a game — a bunch of data fragments — way too seriously. But what could I do? That's just how I was built.
Anyway. Back to the point.
When I reunited with Avalon in Merligan, I never trusted him from the start. Having the Demon-Worshipping Swordsman class meant he'd already offered someone up as a sacrifice to a demon.
If I hadn't known about Demon Worshippers, I might have believed him. After all, he'd been nothing but friendly to me from beginning to end.
Wait a second. Giving me those Fairies... was that to lower my guard?
Thinking back on everything that had happened with Avalon, the thought suddenly struck me. I'd assumed he was a genuine NTR freak who'd handed over those beautiful Fairies for his own twisted kicks. Now I was starting to wonder if that was even true.
Who wouldn't feel well-disposed toward someone who let you do whatever you wanted with gorgeous Fairies?
Wow... this guy is smart and completely unhinged.
If he'd really staged those NTR situations just to make me drop my guard, then Avalon was a dangerously meticulous piece of work.
So that's why he proposed an alliance...
It wasn't just Fuzzy and Klaxon. He was clearly planning to offer me and my Fairies up as sacrifices too. Until now it had only been suspicion. Now it was certainty. The intel on Fuzzy and Klaxon — the ones Avalon had suggested we backstab — had come from Avalon himself, hadn't it?
"Honestly, I felt a little guilty about it. But now my conscience is clear."
"Pardon? What are you talking about, Master?"
"Oh, nothing much. I was planning to backstab Avalon too. I never trusted him either."
Izabella the Wind Mage, Hisoka, Razle, Kanna — they were all excellent Fairies. And if I wanted to make them mine, I was going to have to stab Avalon in the back eventually.
"Then what do you intend to do?"
Sonic asked for the details of the plan.
"I'm going to turn his plan against him. First thing — no prisoners. That's the important part."
"I see."
Sonic, who knew about Demon Worshippers just as I did, understood immediately what "no prisoners" meant.
In the game, you had to offer your own Fairies to raise a Demon Worshipper. But this was reality, wasn't it? You didn't have to sacrifice your own. Substitute offerings were everywhere, and demons weren't picky enough to care about the distinction.
Take prisoners, and they'd just become sacrifices for the demon — which meant they'd become Avalon's power, plain and simple. I'd already decided to backstab him. I wasn't about to let him get any stronger.
"And after that?"
"After that, we make an alliance."
"An alliance? With the other Masters?"
"Yeah."
"Will they really join hands with us? They're surrounded by enemies on all sides. I doubt they'll have the bandwidth to worry about a Demon Worshipper on top of everything else."
"Are those the only Masters around?"
"Pardon?"
"There's a saying. The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
The Masters I could ally with? As Sonic herself had put it — they were everywhere.
"Hey, Avalon. What's wrong with you? Come on, let's go catch Fuzzy already."
"....."
I clapped him on the shoulder and urged him along, but Avalon was still staring at Klaxon's corpse with eyes packed full of rage.
"...Alan."
"Yeah. You back with us? Geez, this guy almost dies once and he freezes up completely. You lived, so you don't have to stand there like a statue... Huh? Gah?!"
KRA-AAAAANG—!
The spot where I'd been standing erupted. I threw myself backward a split second before the blast hit.
"What the hell are you doing?!"
"....."
I shouted at Avalon. The one who'd attacked me was none other than Avalon himself. He looked at the crater where I'd been standing, then at me — now standing further back — and then he smiled. A smile that sent a chill crawling down my spine.
"You... you're no ordinary guy."
"What the fuck are you talking about? You attack me out of nowhere and now I'm 'no ordinary guy'? You piece of shit! That's rich, coming from you!"
"If you were really 5-star, you couldn't have dodged my attack. You couldn't have killed Klaxon either. But you did both."
"Oops."
Just as I'd seen through Avalon's plan, he'd seen through mine.
"Heh heh heh... You miserable son of a bitch. You actually tried to stab me in the back... You've got some balls."
"You were going to stab me in the back too. Call it even."
"Just like that sly crow bitch who brought you here. You're a piece of trash."
"Is that a self-introduction? We're both trash, so let's not throw stones. Though you're more trash than I am. At least I can be recycled."
"Shut your filthy mouth!"
Avalon exploded with rage and charged. Just like when he'd fought Klaxon, he was behind me in the blink of an eye.
I moved too.
"Looking the wrong way."
"What?!"
I took his back.
After fusing with the Mid-rank Demon Baphomet, Avalon's Agility stat had climbed to 140 points. Mine was currently 151. An eleven-point gap. I was far faster than Avalon.
Shhk—!
The instant I stole his back, Avalon frantically unfurled his wings and struck. Each wing had to be a good three meters long.
"Sonic!!!!!"
Instead of attacking Avalon, I fell back and called for Sonic.
"Yes, Master!"
Sonic didn't even look back. She abandoned me and vanished into the wheat field.
If I took Avalon, Sonic would have to face Izabella, Razle, Hisoka, and Kanna all by herself. Even with a higher star rank, those were ugly numbers — and unfortunately, Sonic was still 5-star. She could barely handle Kanna, Avalon's party tank, on her own.
That was why, before we'd met Avalon, I'd told Sonic that the moment I shouted, she was to hide in the wheat field. Not to run away — to lie in wait and strike when the opportunity came.
"Ah!"
"Damn it!"
By the time they realized, Sonic was gone. Avalon's Fairies wore expressions of dismay. But they quickly steeled their faces and surrounded me.
The wheat field was burning, but it was so vast that more of it was still untouched than not. They'd decided that chasing her through the wheat would be harder than just taking me down, so they'd boxed me in.
"I'll kill you, you maggot!"
"I already know plenty about you, so spare me the introductions!"
Black energy erupted from Avalon's hands.
Wave of Malice
A pulse of demonic malice detonates the earth.
Boom! Boom! B-BOOM!
The ground exploded. It was the same demon skill that had blown off Klaxon's limbs. I fell back, dodging his attacks. It was an area-of-effect skill — if I didn't evade cleanly, I'd take the hit.
"Hyaaah!"
Then Kanna, already back on her feet after Hisoka's healing, came crashing down on me from behind.
A soft, yielding warmth pressed against my back. Kanna's armor had been completely wrecked blocking Klaxon's attacks earlier.
"Now, Master!"
"Die!"
Kanna clung to my back like a cicada and shouted. Avalon's eyes lit up as he charged straight at me.