The Rakshasa's Fan
“Something has clearly gone wrong.”
In the Bertian Empire, the military strategist who had long served at the Emperor's side spoke to Aria, who was anxiously biting her lip at the Second Defense Line.
With no solid intelligence on the Demon King's army, even the smallest variable had to be treated with suspicion. Whenever she sent out recon squads on their periodic sweeps, the one instruction she had pressed on them above all was this: do not rely on artifact signals in a crisis — make returning on time, without fail, your absolute priority. Because if any of the Majin possessed a power that could seize control of a mind, things would become a serious headache indeed. Of course, that too was only a second-best measure, hardly a foolproof defense……
“They're returning!”
“What do you think?”
“My judgment will match Her Highness the Princess's own.”
Far off in the distance, the returning recon squads were in perfect condition, without a single scratch among them.
And that was precisely what made it strange. If nothing had happened out there, why would unharmed men only come back after two full hours?
“Halt!”
Aria's mana had reached the rank of Overlord, and it boasted a quantity so vast that it could not fully be contained within the magic circles carved into the air as she cast. Whether they sensed it or not, the squads that had returned safely all threw their hands up and hastily spun around.
“D-don't misunderstand! We sensed something suspicious in the area and were investigating it, that's all……!”
“Don't make me laugh!”
Wrenching her platinum-blonde hair — whipped about by the wind — into a rough knot, Aria spoke.
“Have you forgotten the orders I gave the recon squads?”
“You said that if a Majin with mind-control abilities existed, it would be a disaster — that our first priority was the return time! Please believe us! We are innocent! But if that suspicious presence had been the Demon King's army, we couldn't very well have ignored it!”
The soldiers desperately pressed their innocence, and yet the contradiction remained.
“Then don't trouble yourself over it.”
The Emperor's strategist walked to Aria's side, where she was grinding her teeth, and spoke.
“It seems best to simply blast this entire region off the map.”
“……You're a far bolder man than you look. It's a wonder you've never managed to marry.”
At that single remark — which pulled the trigger of her hesitation for her — Aria smiled and unleashed the spell she had already cast.
Her magic swept past the recon teams, who dove flat against the ground in alarm, and incinerated the landscape in every direction — an utterly overwhelming display of firepower.
“Danger——!”
At that moment, a knight beneath the castle wall — sword drawn and waiting for the order to ride out — reacted with lightning speed.
An overwhelming killing intent, vividly pressing in on his entire body!
But by the time he registered it, it was far too late.
No — registering it late was not the problem at all. A knight standing at the extreme apex of what a weapon of war could be responds to an opponent's killing intent almost by pure instinct.
It was simply that the Demon King, once aware, had burst through the flames at such blinding speed.
If his killing power falls short of what it takes to end me, then there's no need for me to die here.
In an instant, he shattered the sound barrier, and a ferocious shockwave erupted in his wake. Aria's magic split apart like a veil before the spreading sonic boom, and a strange sensation washed over her — as though the world around her were slowing to a crawl.
No matter how she struggled here, she would probably die.
And yet she was not afraid.
It was not resignation. She had felt it from the very moment the Demon King tore through the fire and their eyes met.
“Your Imperial——!”
Before the strategist at her side could so much as finish voicing a reaction, a right hand wearing a red ring reached out over Aria's shoulder.
Aria knew perfectly well who wore that ring.
The person who loved her more than anyone else in this world. She would stake her life on the claim that to that man, she was the finest princess in all the world.
And so she would not break here at the Demon King's hands.
Because there was only one man alive who could take her in his grasp and bend her.
CRACK!
The Demon King, surging forward with tremendous acceleration, slammed into Rohen's outstretched right hand — a hand charged with the power of the Word — and was flung violently away in the opposite direction. The ground split apart with a deafening roar, shrieking out unnatural fissures; it was not hard to imagine what state he would have been in had that blow landed flush.
“That was fast.”
“Did I look even a little impressive?”
They had been parted neither a short nor a long stretch of time, yet the moment their eyes met, smiles broke across both their faces.
But the uninvited guest, refusing them even a moment to exchange greetings before their long-awaited reunion, showed no sign of quietly withdrawing.
“……So it is a power that lets you move to whatever place you desire.”
The Demon King brushed the billowing dust from his body and rose to his feet.
“Even granting that, I find it curious how you located me so quickly.”
He had gauged Rohen's position through the shared memory of his monsters, so he knew that Rohen standing here was, physically speaking, impossible.
But Rohen had no intention of kindly explaining the White Feather Fan's abilities. He simply reached into his transmutation list and drew out Excalibur, tightening his grip.
And the Demon King — displeased by that insolent audacity of a mere human looking down on him from atop the castle wall — widened both eyes and launched into a charge.
He sought to seize the upper hand on the strength of his superior physicality — but thanks to Rohen layering the Word's power onto every exchange, he felt his speed dull by geometric degrees.
Setting everything else aside, this ability was the one thing the Demon King found most intolerable.
“You pin me here, all so you can land a spell — is your scheme really so transparent?”
The Demon King, mid-exchange of blows, glanced at Aria casting behind them and spoke in a deliberately languid tone, but Rohen answered only with a dry chuckle.
He had already made it clear: if there was any means of killing the Demon King, use it without discrimination. There was no need, at this point with Rohen himself present, to end the Demon King's life with magic.
“Physical Immunity.”
Physical Immunity, unleashed now that their physical levels had been equalized, was all but invincible. The Demon King evidently understood that his attacks had no effect whatsoever, for he devoted himself entirely to evasion.
“Why so quiet this time? Where's that clever mouth of yours?”
The Demon King's unique ability, as Rohen predicted, was the power to twist the outcomes produced by actions his own body initiated through physical contact. If that were truly how it worked, then even Physical Immunity should have failed against it — and yet he refused to use it. So Rohen began a petty bit of baiting.
That ability surely carried a restriction. And uncovering what that restriction was would be a prize well worth the trouble.
Swift and Decisive!
So — if the Demon King would not draw his sword, then Rohen would simply make him draw it.
Strength That Uproots Mountains, Spirit That Crowns the World!
Swift and Decisive stripped away the word's restrictions, if only for a time.
At the uncanny force surging into every single arc of the swinging blade, the Demon King flinched — yet still refused to let go of his composure. And when Excalibur closed to point-blank range in the blink of an eye and drove for the space between his brows, he seized the blade in both hands and spoke.
“Scatter.”
WHUMP—!
A moment of silence fell, deceptively calm — then a colossal wind-pressure erupted around the Demon King and Rohen, swallowing the lingering flames of Aria's magic whole and beginning to whirl with savage intensity. It was the recoil of the force used to forcibly snuff out the energy layered on Excalibur's edge, scattering outward across the surroundings.
Rohen paid it no heed, steeping himself in calm.
Swift and Decisive lasted fifteen seconds. So within that window, his goals were to wring out as much information as possible — and to harvest another death from the Demon King.
Neither Advance Nor Retreat!
A new word, learned by combining the leftover consonants and vowels into the empty space left behind when the words invoking great fortune dissolved. Through it, he forced a situation in which the Demon King could neither fall back nor flee.
The power of Equalize was only valid so long as the Demon King made Rohen himself his target — so this word compensated for that weakness, sealing off any chance of his blind spot being exploited.
At the same time, the Demon King answered the successive blows of Strength That Uproots Mountains with practiced skill through his own unique ability — but when that clash of parries passed the seventh exchange……
CRACK!
Rather than continue neutralizing, the Demon King chose to evade, accepting damage to himself in the process.
Only then did Rohen, steadying his ragged breath, deduce it: the Demon King's unique ability could not be used more than seven times within a fixed span — at the very least.
……Of course, it could all be a bluff.
Much like feigning that his own unique ability had only a handful of uses left.
But this much was certain profit, Rohen judged — and, clutching his severed arm, he opened his mouth toward the risen Demon King and spoke with the power of the Word.
“Thunderbolt.”
Complete immunity to any manner in which he had already died once — but even that surely carried a limit on its uses. And if one of those slots could be pinned down as death by lightning……
BOOOOOM!
Though the Demon King had fallen back, the bolt struck him down at hardly any distance from Rohen at all, and Rohen felt the ringing in his ears with a searing clarity. But he could not stop here — so he opened his mouth and pressed the attack once more.
“Thunderbolt!”
Five seconds remained on Swift and Decisive.
“Thunderbolt!”
The Demon King's true body would never die to lightning like this. But with their physical levels synchronized through Equalize, it was another matter entirely. Even an Aura Master would not perish from one or two direct strikes from a bolt falling out of the sky — but if those bolts came hammering down in rapid succession, the outcome would be very different.
CRACKLE!
Current that the ground failed to swallow swept across the earth like wind. A prickling tingle ran over his skin, and his hair stood on end with static.
“Thunderbolt!”
And in the instant Swift and Decisive ran out at last, the final bolt came down upon the Demon King.
Unable to withstand the violence of it, the Demon King sank to one knee, sending up a thick, unpleasant stench of searing flesh. His ruined upper body seemed about to collapse pitifully face-first into the dirt — yet a heartbeat later, as though he had already shed the aftermath, he stretched both arms out, planted his palms against the earth, and pushed himself upright.
New flesh blossomed across his body in an instant, sheathing over the charred skin — it was as if time itself were being rewound. The synchronized body, courtesy of Equalize, had died unable to endure the relentless thunderbolts, and he had revived bearing complete immunity to that very attack.
“BURST——!”
CRUUUNCH!
BOOM!
“Rohen!”
A variable that had slipped, if only briefly. He had never imagined that the moment the Demon King died and revived, the effects of Equalize would unravel — and in the blink of an eye the distance closed, the Demon King's strike plunged in toward his heart, and Rohen went flying wretchedly, unable to bear it.
Khk……!
Had it not been for the golden armor of the Fairy King Manannán mac Lir, which he had transmuted and donned in advance, an instant death would have been only natural.
My legs…… won't move.
Worse, the shock rippling through his whole body had left him with what felt like a mild concussion; he could not rise, and swaying, he slumped down where he stood. Even so, his eyes held stubbornly on the Demon King — but when it came to physical capability, Rohen too had reached the rank of Aura Master, and for a single instant he lost track of the Demon King's movement entirely.
WHAM!
By the time he belatedly registered the presence again, a fist loaded with crushing weight had already smashed viciously into his side. Had the golden armor of the Fairy King Manannán mac Lir spared him from that earlier blow — so was that why the Demon King saw no need to expend his unique ability?
Sprawled wretchedly across the ground, Rohen spat the blood welling up in his mouth onto the dirt.
He may well be performing right up to the end…… If I laid the whole board on the assumption that his ability's limit really is seven uses, and I'm wrong about that, it could all fall apart on me.
Throb!
The pain of his insides having been rattled to pieces made it impossible to string his thoughts together, but Rohen barely clung to consciousness, opened his mouth, and poured the power of the Word into it.
“Mirror Flower, Water Moon.”
The illusion lost its efficacy the instant it was seen through by direct contact. But a few stolen seconds would be enough, he judged — and the moment the Demon King was caught in the phantom of Mirror Flower, Water Moon, Rohen swept his gaze down the Divine Instrument entries of his transmutation list.
Immediately — before the notification that Mirror Flower, Water Moon had been seen through and its power nullified had even finished appearing……
“……”
What Rohen held before the Demon King's eyes was a fan of enormous size.
Not the White Feather Fan.
The Rakshasa's Palm-Leaf Fan — a Divine Instrument he had already placed on his transmutation list in advance, purchased with his Faith points.
No need to be sparing with it.
Among all the Divine Instruments he possessed, the Palm-Leaf Fan had the lowest lethal power anyway.
And so, without hesitation, Rohen seized the fan in both hands and pivoted his body half a turn.
WHOOOSH——!
The Demon King's body — capable of shattering the sound barrier at a whim — could not possibly endure the wind-pressure that came crashing over it. His feet left the ground, and he simply began to fly.
He knew, after all, that this attack carried almost no direct killing force — that its true purpose was nothing more than to eject him from the battlefield. From the moment he grasped that resistance was futile, he made no effort to struggle, simply surrendering himself to the wind.
And so the Demon King vanished from the Second Defense Line of Javelin County, and Rohen — belatedly screwing up his face — set about healing the concussion rattling his insides.
……There's still an enemy left, isn't there?
The Palm-Leaf Fan's effect faded.
Beyond the scorched, hollowed-out landscape stood a single skeleton — one that had failed to flee, left standing with nothing but its bare bones exposed.
The Palm-Leaf Fan's power worked only on the direct target it was aimed at. And so Barel, who had not followed the Demon King off the battlefield, was left behind alone — with no choice but to be taken captive.