That's Enough (2)
That blackmailer bastard had just put himself out on a cliff and was trying to force a handshake, but if he thought I would let myself get jerked around by it, he was dead wrong.
Having a son of a bitch like that survive thanks to me and keep operating as chief—or even great chief—would be infinitely worse. I had no idea what sort of tribe the Jatav were, but at the very least that Atart was the kind of man who would shove his own people's lives back dozens of paces.
Even so, I could not simply turn my back on the children.
In the end I drew my final card.
“Ha, so you came after all. Couldn't bring yourself to abandon the kids, could you?”
I had brought Akata— the Archmage kept calling the child that— with me because leaving her behind would only have made her another hostage. Cruel scene or not, survival came first.
Yet even with Akata safe, the rest of the children still stood under the shadow of death. The one Atart currently held was proof enough.
Boasting six arms, he was using two of them to carry a child piggyback. The way the child sobbed while perched there made it clear this was no joyful ride.
“If you cast even a single spell, I'll be in a tight spot.”
Ah. So he had planted the kid on his head as a living meat shield because he was afraid I might put a mana spear through his skull?
“And keep an eye on that priestess of yours as well. I may not know much else, but I know the signs of magic when I see them.”
He even pointed behind him and declared that any funny business would mean the children's deaths. Hanging at adult height all around the village, the rest of the kids came into view.
Every precaution had been taken with the sight of me subduing the rebels firmly in mind.
It had been a long time since I had met such a thoroughly rotten bastard.
“So, will you help us now? They've hit us with a small elite force. Taking advantage of our lack of a priestess, they're leaning hard on magic and even brought Jahukaya. Still, there aren't many of them. If we play it right…”
At those words heat surged into the corners of my eyes.
I'm pissed.
Really.
Don't you want to kill him?
It's annoying as hell.
Don't hold it in.
I have never once believed that living like a pushover was a mistake. The losses I took were always within what I could bear, and sometimes those same losses became irreplaceable chances for someone else.
You don't need to hold back.
But every so often, when I see people trying to use my goodwill, it makes my skin crawl.
Let's kill them all.
Is it because I stay quiet that I look easy? I have never once been an easy man.
“Demon Knight?”
Nullifying all status ailments except Rage…….
I took the measure of the depth and breadth of the boiling fury. This I could not endure. I was already drowning in stress; I refused to swallow this fucking situation on top of it.
“Demon Knight!”
I already knew what happened when you forced rage down, and what kind of aftermath an explosion of that rage could bring.
“Demon Knight, what the hell are you trying to—!”
First I narrowed the target of my wrath, carefully excluding every child and civilian around me.
…How?
It was different from the island.
Back then I had been furious at so many things at once—the enemies tormenting the children, the blood-soaked ground—and still I had been forced to choke the emotion down. That was why the anger kept swelling until it finally metastasized into the Rage status ailment.
Now the circumstances were different.
Now I could detonate it before the fury paralyzed my brain. I was allowed to.
How can I control my anger?
And if I looked the object of that rage straight in the eye, armed it with justice and the worth of the act, then poured it into the proper channel, anger itself was not necessarily evil.
Releasing water before the dam bursts is not short temper; it is wisdom.
How.
So I fixed my target and concentrated the mana thrashing inside my right arm into a single point.
A mere human.
“Demon Knight—!”
And the instant the mana had gathered completely into that one point, I vomited every scrap of rage and sorrow out along with it.
The mana that had proudly stood at 2,941 plummeted to zero as I loosed a jet-black beam.
───!
Accompanied by a thunderclap, a long black serpent of energy raced across the sky.
Where the giant snake passed, the forest simply vanished, as though a titan had taken a single bite out of the woods.
Even I could only give a hollow laugh at the sheer overwhelming spectacle. In a world that already possessed magic and sword aura, the first thought that struck me was that I was looking at a fragment of myth.
“Go ahead, then.”
So, you son of a bitch. Let's reset the board.
“You'll learn that the children's lives were your own life.”
Threats aren't something only you know how to make.
…I had thought that this time I could finally break him.
Ah.
Aah…….
“…What?”
“Why? Surprised by a reaction you didn't expect?”
The surroundings fell silent. For a situation in which another tribe had just declared war, the quiet was grotesquely out of place.
“Did you think this me would fear walking away carrying the corpses of innocent children?!”
But given what I had just done, and the way the resulting blast of wind had smashed several houses and sent people tumbling, the hush was hardly strange.
“Kill them! This body has already slaughtered even its own flesh and blood; adding the blood of children will change nothing!”
Even if they had been too dazed to look at me, once their bodies hit the dirt they would have had to take stock of their surroundings. And when every single person around them was staring at the forest behind, how could they not look that way as well?
As for whether anyone still had the guts to move after witnessing that sight… well.
“But remember this!”
There would be none until I finished speaking, I was certain.
“If you kill those children, then as vengeance for those guiltless ones I will carve your flesh, pulverize your bones, shred your guts, and scatter the pieces across their graves!”
So let's go. This is a game of chicken.
Whether you go all-in with “fuck it, everyone dies,” or you freeze and end up saving the kids exactly as I intend—whichever of us flinches harder is the one who dies.
“Choose!”
But I guarantee you this: even if the final victor is not me, the loser will most certainly be you.
“Whether you take those children's lives as companions on your road to the afterlife, or you quietly mind your own damned business.”
Either way, you die.
“W-what……”
Maybe it was because concept and true self had finally spoken with one voice and I had gotten properly angry for the first time in ages. Heat bloomed across my cheeks—the temperature of pure rage.
Was that a bad thing? Not particularly.
The situation was complete shit, yet inside I felt clean. Honestly, this was the first time I had been free to rage without first weighing the circumstances.
With Montata it had been a little… yeah. My position then had forced me to watch myself even when I wanted to explode.
“The ch-children……”
Thud.
More than that, this bastard—though I had expected it—was truly losing his mind.
I had deliberately dragged out the setting's past to make the words hit harder, and it seemed to have worked.
Well, it was hard to imagine that a man who had murdered his own blood relatives would suddenly grow sentimental over other people's deaths. That was exactly why I had said it.
Barely restraining the urge to spit every insult I wanted to hurl, I drove my zweihander into the earth beside me. Mana that had surged up in an instant poured black streams through the hand gripping the hilt.
A clear threat.
“I said choose.”
Only then did Atart, who had been pitifully waving the children about, finally shut his mouth.
Apparently he still preferred not to die just yet; he did not so much as brush a hair on the hostages. It was so absurd I could not even laugh.
【Just now… what in the world…….】
【Black thunder… stretched from the foreigner's hand.】
【A snake… did a snake fly across the sky?】
Meanwhile the people who had been fighting began to murmur. Neither the invaders nor the defenders could quite muster the courage to resume the slaughter; they simply stood there awkwardly.
【He's running!】
A boy of about fifteen clutching a child suddenly bolted. The Jatav warrior who yanked his spear free toward that boy was probably acting on pure reflex.
Slash!
I would not allow it. To make certain everyone knew it was my doing, I flicked my hand and loosed a mana spear.
Think of it as gathering mana at the fingertips and throwing it the way you would a knife or a card.
Easier than forming one in mid-air and far cheaper in mana, the spear streaked forward and sheared the warrior's weapon clean through.
The warrior's face went blank with shock, and the child scrambled away.
“How dare you.”
What a joke. Did they think the only reason I refused to help Bigabol was because I was rooting for the invaders?
“My refusal to side with that vermin does not make your invasion righteous. So go ahead and rampage. The instant you turn your weapons on those who have neither arms nor the will to fight, I will personally take your heads.”
I fixed the Jatav warrior with a savage, unblinking stare. People had told me that my pupils, locked as if nailed in place, were a murderer's eyes, so I kept them perfectly still.
Whether the look worked or not, the warrior began pouring cold sweat and backed away.
【…I convey this to the warriors of Jatav. We are present in the Bigabol tribe as guests… and we have no intention of intervening in this conflict. At least so long as you do not attack those who lack the will to resist.】
Ah, right—they couldn't understand my words, could they? No matter. The Archmage appeared to be translating.
【I earnestly request that you leave the civilians who flee or surrender alone; we will not care who wins or loses. If you do not wish us to interfere, that is.】
Of course the whole thing left me feeling uncomfortably like some sort of international organization… but so what? Power already shown; if it saved lives, good.
【The foreigner's words cannot be trusted!】
【And if you refuse to trust them? What then? I warn you now: the one standing beside me will not treat you with anything resembling my polite restraint.】
【……!!】
【I will say it once more. You have no choice. Please do not force us into the worst possible decision.】
Fortunately, whether the Archmage's delivery was effective or not, the Jatav stopped drawing blades on civilians.
【Damn it all! That is simply taking Jatav's side while pretending neutrality! Do you intend to stand by as guests while our entire tribe is slaughtered?!】
【It seems the chief was the one who first crossed the line. And the true force driving Bigabol to the cliff is not us.】
【Do you feel no pity for us?!】
I watched children and old people gather behind me and once more fixed Atart with a glare. I could not understand the words, but that shameless face told me nothing good was coming out of his mouth.
Atart, who had been whining at the Archmage, flinched hard.
【The one who declared he would kill the children if we did not intervene was you, Chief Atart!! How dare you speak of pity from that position!!】
At the same moment the Archmage's roar cracked across the field. Now I really wanted to know what the bastard had said.
【You who side with the chief are no better! Just because the hostages are the children of rebels, you stand by and watch?!】
Whoa. The Archmage was properly furious.
Somehow my own rage drained away. As before, watching the usually impossibly gentle Archmage explode made my heart shrink for no reason at all.
If I had not been locked into the concept, I would have clasped my hands and pressed my forehead to the dirt.
【How utterly foolish! If those children die, the next hostages are obvious!】
【……! What nonsense is this!】
【Wait—what are you saying!】
【I will leave you with one final word. The chief did not stake only those children's lives. He staked every child in this village against us.】
Not knowing why he was so angry only made it scarier.
【Chief……?】
【Lies! Do not be shaken! The enemy stands before us!】
【…….】
And yet… did the morale seem to be cracking?
【It's true!!】
The child behind me—Akata—suddenly bellowed.
【That human even told me to kill this man!! He said I didn't help him!!】
Hey, why are you pointing at me while you say that……
【…Akata?】
【I don't know. Yesterday he said the possibility was high or something?】
【But if things become like this……】
【My whole family is already dead—what's the point of this tribe living? If I can just watch Atart die, I don't care if the whole damned tribe burns.】
Hey……
【C-chief, is that true?】
【Do not be shaken! Will you fall for the words of a rebel's child with the enemy right in front of you?! You already know the rebels colluded with Jatav!!】
【That bastard doesn't give a damn about our tribe's fate! He took every last child hostage and said whoever loses, they all die!】
I became the still eye of the storm and felt distinctly sulky. I had even prepared them an escape route and now they were isolating me… sniff.
Slash!
At that moment Atart drew his sword—or rather, swung the blade he had already been holding.
Either way, the fact that he had taken a man's head was beyond dispute. It belonged to the one who had been most passionately muttering something or other at him.
Atart's face, still seething with rage, swept the surroundings with eyes gone ice-cold.
【I am your chief. If any of you would be swayed by the words of a foreigner and a rebel, then throw down your weapons and go crawl under them.】
Did he have… charisma?
No idea. Domestic abuser, child-hostage-taker, “human trash who wastes oxygen and doesn't even recycle”—even if he possessed charisma I would claim he did not.
But that was merely my opinion. Everyone else immediately fell into line. Even after watching a man die, they chose obedience over protest.
He had not become chief for nothing. Still trash, though.
【They cannot attack civilians! Exploit that opening!】
【…Yes!】
On top of everything, Atart apparently possessed real ability. The damage was severe, yet they somehow managed to form lines and begin holding out.
Considering the twin handicaps of receiving no help from me and having no priestess, it was genuinely impressive talent. Still trash, though.
【Bastard……】
Win or lose for Bigabol, I sincerely hoped the Jatav would at least kill Atart.
I continued grinding my teeth at the man still holding the children—of course I did. The instant he released the hostages I would kill him—and the knowledge that any attack on him risked catching the kids made even praying for it feel wrong.
But for him to survive and actually win? Those children would have to live under the very bastards who had used them as human shields.
Ah, fucking irritating.
Kill him. Please.
Really, is there no way to just deal with that one guy.
Kill everything that pisses you off!
Just that one bastard……
“My lord.”
Was it my imagination? I thought I heard a voice that should not have been audible right now……
“Knight, my lord.”
“……!”
I carefully rolled my eyes toward the voice that had slipped through the ringing in my ears. Between the houses a pair of green ears and a tail peeped out. Behind them an unhideable mass of muscle peeked her eyes around the corner.
“Uh, so… is there anything we can help with?”
“Berserk wants to fight.”
These two were genuinely ridiculous. When the hell had they gotten here? And why were they hiding like that? Berserk had nearly half her body sticking out……
Wait.
I looked at Dev and Berserk again.
If this worked out right… couldn't we save the children?
“Mage.”
“……? What is it.”
This was beyond my own head. I called the person here with the highest intelligence stat. It was time to form a plan.
【Damn it, the resistance is too strong!】
【Shit. Even if the rebellion failed we were supposed to at least bleed their strength dry—don't worry, he said……! This is exactly why you never trust another tribe!】
【Commander, the Jahukaya are taking heavy losses! Decide!】
【Pull out that means! I didn't want to use the foreigner's item, but we have no choice. Throw it!】
It had been time to scheme……
【Throw it!】
In the middle of the fierce fighting a small jar landed in the center of the village.
【Huh?】
【Uh, uhhh!】
【Uwaaaaak!!!】
“…A curse!!”
Disaster began to spread.