Evidence (2)
Deathbringer bit his lip, startled by the words that had just left his own mouth. He'd taken the bait completely. Hook, line, and sinker. His head was swimming with self-reproach.
"But… why? Why funnel the forces toward Munmunt…?"
While he was still lamenting, Daniel finally caught up to the situation and asked, his mouth working open and shut. It was Meister who answered in place of the swallowing Deathbringer.
"Like I said earlier, they probably weren't aiming for the Hero. And they weren't going after the other cities in the east, either. To take a city without a Great Demon, you'd need an absurd number of Lower Demons… and instead of just crushing everything in one go, they chose a slow squeeze, didn't they?"
In other words, they had given humanity the chance to gather in the east. Whether every last soldier had arrived yet didn't matter. What mattered was that troop movements weren't easy to reverse once they started—and once begun, they were nearly impossible to undo.
"On top of that, the advance word about the Great Demon. If they'd used it as a pure surprise play, it would've been more efficient—but they didn't. They made sure we heard about it ahead of time. Munmunt is in this much danger. Send your elites right now. Like they were wagging their tails at us."
"You're saying they actually used a Great Demon as bait? A Great Demon?"
"Wrong. It's because it's a Great Demon that it works as bait. The second we heard the news, we dropped everything and ran for nearly ten days straight—that should tell you enough. Erysichthon stole every scrap of our attention just by showing up."
The moment Munmunt became a fixed objective, the manpower of the surrounding cities poured toward it. The Hero's party was no exception. Neither were the knights of Manahfelt.
And a city emptied of its support forces would, in turn, pull manpower from somewhere even farther away. In short, the distribution of elite troops shifted. Eastward—toward Munmunt.
"So here's the problem. If all the forces are concentrated in the east… what happens to the west?"
And during that same stretch of time—what about the opposite side?
"…That region has the rugged mountain range and the Great Temple."
"They sent out one Great Demon as bait. There's no law saying another Great Demon won't be part of the actual attack."
Meister thought back to the power of the Great Demon he had witnessed in Bemyurhen. A mountain range that might as well have been a fortress against Lower Demons would mean nothing to them. Because they were Great Demons.
"And for something on the scale of the Great Temple—wouldn't it be worth throwing a Great Demon at it?"
With two Great Demons already dead, the enemy would have grown impatient as well.
Even Bemyurhen, which a Great Demon had wiped out, was eventually going to be rebuilt. The city's real value had come from its Magic Tower, and the vast majority of that tower's human resources had survived the disaster.
"Bemyurhen may have fallen, but at the end of the day it was only a loss of material resources. As long as the people remain, it'll be restored within ten years. And with the monster suspected of being the mermen's nest gone, the bloodbaths with the mermen will probably ease off too."
The moment Bemyurhen—one of humanity's great armories—was restored, the demons would be at a disadvantage all over again. Which meant that if they were going to throw the dice on a gamble, it had to be now.
"So the odds that they're attempting a strike in the west while we look east aren't exactly low, are they? The south's worthless to take because of the desert, and the north has far too many people."
And so Meister laid out the hypothesis he had only become certain of upon arriving here.
"Tell me more about that theory."
Behind him, a head of faded red hair stirred.
GROOOOOOOOAAAAAH!!!!
The instant Latel's teeth gouged into Behemoth's cornea, the colossal beast squeezed its eyelid shut and let out a scream of pure agony. I hadn't torn the eyeball itself, but the hit had clearly landed.
"Tough as hell…!"
But that level of damage wasn't what I'd been aiming for. Come on—shouldn't a cornea at least be soft? Even a human eye would be ruined if you stuck a needle in it!
I told you it was ridiculously hard.
The moment I threw Latel, I forced my freefalling body to move somehow. After a few spins, I landed on a tusk that jutted out like an elephant's horn—right at its lowest point.
THUD! Except Behemoth was thrashing wildly right now, so I started sliding straight off the tusk. TAP! My last flailing arm barely managed to hook a few fingers into a groove in the ivory.
My body kept trying to slip downward.
"Hup!"
But a crisis can become an opportunity, depending how you look at it. I used the recoil of the beast's thrashing to launch myself upward. My body sailed free of the tusk and arced toward its head.
GRAB! The coarse, sparse hairs growing there became handles in my fists. My feet found purchase in the cracks of its rough hide and dug in with stubborn resolve.
"Latel!!"
I couldn't hold on like this forever. I called Latel back. A little Demon Energy drained away, and the white mass came flying toward me.
THUNK!
I reshaped it into crampons, a glove dense with spikes, and a grappling hook on a rope.
Not bad.
With climbing gear, both scaling and holding on got a lot easier.
Thud, thud. My body began climbing a meter at a time with each jump. The violent thrashing nearly flung me off more than once, but between the tools and my physical ability, I managed. Before long I was standing between the creature's brows again.
WHOOSH. Changing Latel's form every single time would burn through Demon Energy too fast, so instead I drew the amber sword and set it ablaze as it was. A radiance bright enough to see from ten ri away shone in place of the cloud-veiled sun.
WHOOSH!
My body rose into the air as well. I hadn't been thrown off by the thrashing. To drive a sword—not a spear—into the center of that massive eye rather than the edge, I simply needed the height.
I floated in the empty air before Behemoth's eye, which still hadn't managed to close its lid. Only then did the beast notice me and begin to squeeze that enormous eyelid shut.
There.
But I was already ready to throw. In a stretch of time that felt slowed to a crawl, my hand flung the longsword whose blade I had been gripping.
The sword, blazing as splendidly as the magic it held, streaked toward the exact spot I had stabbed before.
GUAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!
It sank in. The moment I was sure the blade had torn through the sclera, I yanked the rope—Latel—tied to the hilt. Just as an emerald knight might snap a rapier back with a whip, my sword came whistling back along the line.
SHHHRK!
At the same time, the hook in my other hand caught on Behemoth's tusk. No more worrying about sliding off like before. From here on out, all I had to do was repeat the process.
"Hey, demon."
What.
"This thing isn't going to die just from having its eye torn open. What do I do after that?"
Once the pattern was set, the rest was pure repetition. But would a monster this massive actually die from one ruined eye? Not a chance.
What kind of question is that? Dig into the eye, crawl inside, and either scrape out the flesh or roast the brain.
"…."
Of course that was the only answer. I let out a weak sigh at the result I'd half expected.
If just piercing the cornea had taken this long, how long would it take to break through the flesh and bone inside? The endless future ahead pulled another sigh out of me.
Annoyed? Don't like it? Then lend me your body. I'll butcher it clean for you.
"If you don't want to get banned from coming out and running your mouth, shut up."
Somebody's in a mood.
I started climbing again, running more easily along the tusk with Latel transformed into crampons. The situation changed right after that.
Mud began oozing from Behemoth's hide in thick rivulets. It looked almost like sweat pouring from pores. The foul-smelling sludge gushed out in surges, turning the creature's body slick and treacherous.
What a pain in the ass…
And that wasn't all. From the thin muck, demons resembling cockroaches began to crawl free. Each one was roughly the size of a grown man's torso—utterly revolting.
BZZZZ.
At the same time, the swarms of flies that had been buzzing everywhere simply vanished. Too sudden to write off as me having killed too many of them.
"AAAAAAGH!!"
"Hwaah—hwaaaaagh!!"
Tch. The wound you barely managed to open is about to heal again.
No. They hadn't vanished. They had simply moved the battlefield.
"Help me—please, help me!"
"Oh god!!"
Screams drifted faintly from the walls. The screams of people being eaten alive by insects.
"What the hell is that…!"
Why are you surprised? Behemoth's essence is Gluttony. It's a vermin that devours everything.
I cut down every cockroach that rushed me and glared at the demon. Explain. At my look, she folded her arms.
What's the point of asking when you already know? It's hungry, so it eats. Basic principle.
"So it's eating people?"
Well, what's driving it to feed right now isn't just its nature. Maintaining its domain for two days has worn it down, and you threatening it by stabbing its eye probably didn't help.
As she spoke, she brushed her hair back. Long white locks past her waist swayed and settled.
Idiot, that thing. Once every demon it brought was dead, it should've just withdrawn without any stupid ideas. Instead it sticks its neck out thinking, 'Can I eat that? The body holding me is just sitting there…' Worthless beast.
But the opponent was the opponent, and the situation was the situation—I couldn't afford to get distracted. SHUNK! My teeth clenched as I severed a cockroach's neck.
Anyway, kill it fast. Even if it eats everyone on the walls, it won't become more of a threat… but if it dumps all that into healing the wound, that'll be a headache in its own right.
"A way to stop them!"
…What?
"Is there a way to stop that insect swarm?!"
Hmm. A way to stop them… burn every last human along with them?
"Fuck, not that!"
There's nothing else. It's not like you can kill those bugs one by one.
Damn it, useless piece of trash. What had she been doing all this time without developing a single skill for this?
I swallowed the words clawing up my throat and leapt again. If there was no other way, then I just had to kill Behemoth that much faster.
Just dump all your Demon Energy and blow the whole city away. Then the bugs are gone, and with nothing left for it to eat, it can't heal either.
"That doesn't even sound like a real suggestion!"
But when I reached the brow again, what greeted me wasn't an open eye—it was a tightly shut eyelid.
Don't like it, then don't. But get this through your head. The only reason Behemoth could succeed Baalzebub's seat with intelligence like that—and the only reason it's still holding that seat—is pure, goddamn physical toughness and regeneration.
How was I supposed to break through this? I clung to the eyelid. Even forcing my fingers into the seam and straining with everything I had wouldn't pry the closed eye open.
THUNK! Driving the sword into the gap produced roughly the same result. Brute force could wedge it in somehow, but the idea of actually stirring around inside the eye felt hopeless.
SCREEEEEECH!
The Demon Energy-charged blade let out a grotesque sound—the sound of the sword's inner frame twisting.
For reference, the original Gluttony, Baalzebub, died to two Flash Slashes—that attack that sweeps an entire area clean. Mammon, the one we fought in Bemyurhen, died to a single direct Flash Slash. Even that snake they called an Ancient Beast only survived one after putting on a turtle shell, and died to the second.
Damn it, this isn't even my sword! I pulled the amber blade free and drove Latel in instead. Thankfully, Latel didn't make any bending sounds.
But Behemoth tanked my Flash Slash more than three times even before it ate Baalzebub's remnant. You getting this? That goddamn thing can only be killed by slowly, carefully carving it down over time—and only after you've cleared away everything nearby it could eat so it has no chance to recover.
But I still couldn't dig any deeper. I shifted my gaze to the demon, who was still expounding on Behemoth's toughness.
So give up on that city.
Then I lowered my head again.
You'll never die—but there's also no chance you'll take Behemoth down before they do.
Atop the walls, soldiers and the blue-haired man leading them were locked in a desperate struggle.
"…I see."
"My lady Proxy…"
"Thank you for your insight. Thanks to you, I understand that we must finish the matter of Munmunt as quickly as possible."
The Hero closed her eyes quietly after hearing Meister out. The Great Temple. Her nest, her hometown, the place where everything had begun.
Perhaps the closest thing she had to a home.
"…San, are you okay?"
"Why would you ask that?"
"W-well, you know… the Great Temple might be in danger…"
"And?"
She could not allow herself to be shaken by that. God's great warrior, the bearer of destiny, the Hero who carried the oracle—she forced down the churning in her gut and steadied her heart.
"That the demons are targeting that place is not a confirmed fact. And even if it truly were in danger, there is nothing I could do about it. This place and that one are simply too far apart."
"…San."
"Whereas before me lies a land already in ruin, and it is a distance I can run to save at once. What must take priority is clear."
"San."
"So keep the hypothesis in mind—then erase it from your head. What we must focus on is the battle soon to come, not some uncertain threat to the Great Temple."
The words she forced out at the cost of something twisting deep in her chest were more convincing than expected—enough to persuade even the one who spoke them. Having finished rationalizing, her green eyes stared blankly beyond the mountains.
The sky just breaking into dawn was a lovely pale violet that did not match the situation at all.
"…Also, prepare to depart soon."
Still, there were clouds to veil that lovely color. That, at least, was a mercy. The Hero closed her eyes softly.
"…What about the villagers?"
"We leave them."
"But…"
"Remaining here is safer for them. It isn't as though we have the spare manpower to leave anyone behind."
Please, let the clouds fill this entire wide sky. Let them keep her from being exposed before the sun.
"If it truly troubles you, then at least make sure their weapons are—"
Ah.
A life far too shameful to set before the heavens.
"Wh-what is it, San?"
Before the all-too-familiar corruption beginning to assert its presence amid the unfamiliar Demon Energy, the Hero bit her lip.
"…Let's go."
Dawn. Dawn had broken.
It would be a day that changed them all.