In the End (3)
The combat corrections the system feeds me are truly minor, yet so essential that I could never do without them, delivered in the quietest, most unobtrusive way.
For instance, they keep my sword from wavering so I can draw a clean line with every swing, help me distribute force when I catch a blow, or nudge my aim so the point of impact never strays from the mark.
Things like that.
Layer on Survival Instinct: Evasion Path Suggestion and the skill that flags openings and weak points for counter-evasion, and fighting becomes that much smoother.
Clang! Clash-clang!
No—let me correct that. With all of those, Berserk and I merely manage to hold a fragile balance.
Whether she is simply that strong or the system is broken, I cannot tell.
Kaaang!
In any case, the night forest rang with metallic notes and sprayed sparks.
The oil lamp standing between us shuddered whenever the earth itself trembled, yet never once toppled.
Whoosh!
I feinted a downward cut, twisted my wrist at the last instant, and slashed for her lower body.
Instead of wrenching free the blade still buried in the dirt, Berserk simply kicked the shaft with her foot and met me that way.
Clang! The two weapons collided with mass more than edge and spat another harsh note. I had thought I found a real opening; she was not an easy opponent.
“Hup!”
Even as the impact tried to drive the shaft back into the ground, she caught it and drove a thrust straight at me.
Now the crisis was mine. My two-hander had bounced upward from the same clash.
Yet this, too, could be a chance. Following the white-glowing fork the skill painted for me, I twisted my body.
Slash!
The fluttering hem of my coat was speared by the halberd. That was all. The blade skimmed past my side, tore cloth, and failed to open flesh.
Whoosh.
My body, meanwhile, completed a full spin on twisted ankle and waist.
The arm I had raised high was already reversing its grip, whirling the two-hander into a full circle to pile on speed.
“……!”
Distance, however, was the real key.
Berserk had closed in to deliver the thrust, and I, by brushing past her weapon, had closed the gap still further.
She was inside my reach now. I could cut her.
Swish!
I poured every ounce of strength into my hands and swept the sword in a great windmill arc, held as far back as it would go.
Berserk’s golden eyes flickered.
Clang!
The hastily recovered, re-thrust halberd caught my blade. The same trick I had used against her earlier—wedging the sword into the narrow gap between her weapon’s edges and killing the follow-up dead.
“Heup!”
Or perhaps she was aiming higher still.
She rolled the shaft inside her palm. Not a circular swing of the whole weapon—only the shaft itself rotating.
The joint tightened, the pressure spiked. Exactly like the instant a bottle-opener pries free a beer cap.
Screee. Both the halberd’s head and my two-hander gave ominous protests. At this rate one of them would snap or bend.
Whoosh!
What Berserk chose, though, was not to break it. She pulled.
“……!”
My sword was yanked forward as if suctioned; I locked both hands on the hilt by pure reflex.
She means to disarm me! Understanding arrived a heartbeat later.
We had never set victory conditions, yet having my weapon stolen could never be a road to winning.
I had no intention of surrendering it meekly. Faster than conscious thought I twisted the blade.
Screeeech!
With a sound that crawled up the spine my sword forced its way free of the vise. Dozens of sparks flared bright against the absolute dark.
“Hup!”
Berserk did not simply watch.
The moment I tried to give ground she thrust again. My two-hander still had not completely cleared her halberd.
Screech.
Ah—that sound reminded me of an old movie I once watched for a school project. Scraping a green chalkboard had sounded exactly like this.
I let the stray thought pass and reversed my grip, twisting the two-hander the opposite way. Where she had tightened the joint before, now I was the one clamping down.
Creeeak-creak-creak!
Still, it would be fine. It had to be fine.
I trusted the sword that had never once dropped below ninety durability, the blade that always climbed back to a perfect hundred even when it dipped into the low nineties.
Clang!
“……!”
Between the two weapons, mine was clearly the stronger.
Whoosh.
Yes! I pushed aside the brief surge of pleasure and finished the work—snapping the axe-blade of the halberd and freeing my sword in the same motion.
Because I had never doubted my weapon would break hers, the two-hander did not flop uselessly into the dirt.
Instead I guided its path; the force that exploded free poured straight into acceleration. The blade spun like a true windmill.
Thud!
Berserk swung desperately to meet it, yet the stored power and speed were mine. Shaft met two-hander; the shaft was driven aside.
And then? Between me still riding the acceleration and Berserk whose chain of attacks had shattered, an unbridgeable gap opened.
There was no way she could block.
Whoosh!
She knew it too. Instead of guarding she chose something else.
The rebound had thrown the weapon-end backward and the butt forward; the axe-blade was already scrap.
So she simply thrust the remaining haft at me.
Even headless, the two-and-a-half-meter reach was still very much alive.
Yet the path was one I could evade. With that, the answer to our exchange of clever strokes was decided.
I slipped the shaft exactly as before and swung.
My sword crashed toward her.
Thud!
A heavy something struck the grass a moment later. Thump! My two-hander burying itself in the earth was merely the afterthought.
“……”
“……”
I rapidly reconstructed what had made that sound and why my blade had missed a clean hit.
The answer stood right in front of me.
Berserk had discarded her weapon and stepped back; I had struck only the empty space she left. That was all.
“Shall we continue?”
Did I win? Did I actually win?
I refused to let the quiet thought carry me away. A broken weapon does not equal combat inability; she might refuse to count this as defeat.
I was certain, however, that the next attack would not come at once. Even if fists followed, not immediately—my instinct was clear on that.
So I took my time retrieving the sword planted in the ground.
It rose from between the grass and wet clay, trailing dirt. It had sunk so deep I needed real strength to wrench it free.
For a second I felt like King Arthur.
“…My defeat.”
Then, wait.
The moment the blade cleared the earth, Berserk clenched her fist and declared it. Every flicker of the lantern made the gold in her eyes seem to melt.
“I honor your strength.”
Yet that melting gold did not warp the way I expected. Surprising.
I had assumed some anger or regret might linger—after all, she had lost because of the weapons, not pure skill.
Ah, but was it really so unexpected? In everyday life she is hearty and straightforward. Perhaps she simply accepts even a variable like this as part of her own measure.
Either way, holding a grudge or letting it go both suit Berserk perfectly. And because of that, I could not let myself grow too elated either.
I carefully dispersed the high that victory had tried to build.
“…You fought well too.”
While I spoke, Berserk picked up the broken weapon and offered it a word of hard-earned praise. It looked less like she was treating a person and more like she was giving the tool she had long relied on the minimum courtesy of a proper farewell.
Still—breaking it was not my fault… No. Was it? I had meant to break it; that makes it my fault, doesn’t it?
I could have continued the fight without shattering the thing, and if it came to it I could even have accepted defeat… Though of course the concept would never allow that.
Ting. Still mired in the thought, I lightly kicked the flat of the blade with the toe of my boot. The sword spun half a turn and settled neatly across my shoulder.
“Berserk will leave a little later. You go first.”
She spoke then.
Because she said it while looking at the weapon, my chest gave an unnecessary lurch. It looked for all the world as though she were mourning the broken steel.
Yet when I studied the faintly lit face and the voice again, she did not seem particularly attached to the ruined weapon.
Too calm, too plain an attitude to carry any real lingering regret.
Then why stay behind a little longer?
Does she care nothing for the shattered gear yet still want to turn the cause of defeat over in her mind? Because if she waits until the city she might forget the details?
If she dawdles too long, though, dawn will break. Jumping the city gate will become far harder.
“Demon Knight.”
…Well, that much is not my concern. We are not the sort of companions who worry over and look after each other.
“Thank you for indulging my stubbornness today.”
I left the place, leaving Berserk’s gratitude behind me.
Perhaps the dawn dew was simply too cold; the pleasant heat that had filled me moments earlier had vanished without a trace.
That was how it ended.
The being whose purple hair darkened to black at the tips, whose eyes were so narrow they nearly vanished, who wore a dress plunging all the way to the navel, let out a small sound of genuine interest.
Flutter. Beside Pandemonium several crows wheeled and circled.
“It appears the power held until the name was fully absorbed.”
He settled one of the crows on his forearm and answered with open irritation.
Of course. That a contract is sustained by a name was something a demon understood far better than any human.
Unlike humans, whose essence remains unchanged even if the name is altered, a demon’s name and essence are bound together. Naturally.
One may deceive; one may never break. That is a contract.
Absolute. Most unfair yet most fair. The most profound law of all.
Neither the gods of this world nor the invaders who arrived from others can ever escape it.
“Of course. Should Your Lordship ever suffer the same fate, we would…”
“I apologize.”
The word “loyalty” has never suited the emotion called greed. What fits is cooperation aimed at seizing a prize, collusion meant to reap still greater profit.
In that same spirit Pandemonium had no desire to listen to empty flattery.
His standard for choosing contractors had never been those who would move on his behalf the moment he fell. It was those who would leap at once to tear everything he owned from his corpse—or those who would not.
Knowing that, such hollow words held no value. Worthless.
They made no money.
Therefore they were unnecessary.
“Yes. I will deal with them at once.”
“We are making contact. The first and second envoys were killed by mermen, the third was swallowed by the snake. The fourth has just been dispatched.”
Had he been able to wield the full strength of his true body, he would never have suffered such insolence. Pandemonium felt a deep, grinding irritation.
Even after devouring every scrap of stolen power—no, precisely because he had devoured it—the thirst for raw force only burned hotter.
“Do not concern yourself. This time I will certainly bring favorable news.”
Yet… that, too, would be soon.
Sensing the fragments of power that gathered from every direction, Pandemonium neatly laced together fingers as long and thin as spider legs.
Those fingers, far longer than the palm they belonged to, resembled a bird’s talons or the spines of a hedgehog.
And nestled softly inside that palm lay the King’s own seal.
The image of the being that possessed the wings of bird and bat, the head of a goat, the horns of a mountain ram, the tail of a serpent, the tusks of a boar, and the legs of a donkey glowed more wickedly than anything else in the dark.