The Hunt of the Hundred Demons
Every last monster dwelling in the Barren Lands had begun to flee at once.
To them, the mercenaries who usually launched their raids under cover of night were nothing more than a convenient source of food — but the beings now advancing from beyond this forest were not human.
KWAANG!
Dueoksini, King of the dokkaebi, hefted his massive club and in a single sweep obliterated the trees that barred the path ahead.
And beyond that instant, clean-swept clearing, the monsters who had failed to escape in time — facing the Hundred Demons themselves — scrambled to strike first rather than die without a fight.
But as though the mere thought of harming their master's body were beyond all forgiveness, Dueoksini lifted his distinctive upturned eyes high.
KREEEEEK!
In that very instant, the monsters collapsed where they stood, thrashing and writhing under pain so violent it felt as though their skulls might burst at any moment.
True to his epithet — the Demon Who Crushes the Mind — he had inflicted upon them precisely the sort of mental torment his name promised.
KUWOONG!
At the same moment, behind Rohen as he strode forward, Fenrir — freed from the bindings of Gleipnir — brought her colossal forepaw crashing down upon the monsters' heads.
Her true size was such that the drool pouring from her jaws could have carved out a river the moment her restraints fell away, but Fenrir, choosing not to swell her frame of her own accord, held herself to a modest size so as not to disturb Rohen walking at the vanguard, and hunted the monsters down one by one.
Of course, even at that restrained size, the sheer pressure radiating from Fenrir's appearance and her unmistakable presence was overwhelming.
"……"
And the four mercenaries who had joined this Night Parade of the Hundred Demons simply walked on in silence, staring at a scene they could scarcely believe was real.
「 Medusa. 」
"Yes."
He had done nothing more than speak her name, yet Medusa understood Rohen's intent at once and drew a blade across her own wrist.
The blood trickling down did not scatter; it pooled, then began to froth and churn, swiftly taking on the shape of a horse.
She was still in her beautiful woman's form, not yet her monstrous one — and so the sight of Pegasus, the winged steed of heaven, whinnying at her side suited her remarkably well.
"Would you bear me up into the sky?"
At Medusa's request, Pegasus quietly bowed and, taking her upon its back, soared aloft.
Watching this, the gumiho turned to Rohen, evidently displeased, and opened her mouth.
"This maiden could perform reconnaissance just as ably, if only you wished it."
「 But you cannot fly, can you? 」
At those words, the gumiho's brow furrowed faintly, and she summoned forth a shikigami through the harmonious balance of yin, yang, and the five elements.
The being — boasting a bulk no smaller than Fenrir or the Hydra — shot forward faster even than Pegasus, which had already taken to the air.
That one is……
A mythological creature wreathed in azure scales, bearing physical features ill-suited to its serpentine body.
But the Four Guardian Spirits clearly told me that was forbidden, didn't they?
[ That is, at best, a mere shikigami imitating the Four Guardian Spirits. Only its outward form borrows from the Azure Dragon; it holds none of the legendary records pertaining to the Azure Dragon itself. The shikigami was chosen to represent the Four Guardians in the first place because the Guardians were born of yin-yang and the five elements. ]
Truthfully, Rohen had little knowledge of yin-yang and the five elements — the very foundation of the Kotodama art — and so he simply nodded along in vague agreement.
How much time had passed, then?
The gumiho, who had been sharing sight with her Azure Dragon shikigami, soon swayed her tails and announced that she had located the target.
"This maiden found it faster than that useless woman."
「 Well done. 」
"From what I hear, if one were to cut off that woman's head and mount it upon a shield, it would demonstrate some manner of useful value — would that not suit you better, my lord? One woman is more than enough to stand at my master's side. That passable face of hers is, in truth, nothing more than a mask."
He had decided it was better to let such sticky, ugly emotions hang openly in the air than to hide them — but still, Rohen thought, it was not without its exhausting side.
According to every legendary record, the gumiho had never once, in all her existence, known a love with the man she desired that could be called a happy ending.
Which was precisely why he wondered — even if the affection she bore him had first been seeded by the power of his Lingual Magic, was it any wonder she clung to that feeling so obsessively?
"And not only that woman — that lowly, blood-drinking bat of a creature has no business at your side either. Your mercy is far too generous, my lor—!"
Rohen reached out and pressed his lips to hers, cutting off the gumiho's endless spewing of her ugly jealousy.
She showed a flash of momentary panic — but soon after, she responded to the kiss as though overcome with gratitude.
「 You alone are the one I shower with favor like this. 」
Even if only a temporary measure, nothing worked better in moments like these than making the undeniable truth absolutely clear — that she was different from all the others.
Sure enough, the moment the kiss ended, it was as if nothing had happened; she walked at his side in quiet, dignified elegance, brushing her lips near his cheek.
One had only to watch the way her nine tails swayed with unusual liveliness to know exactly how good her mood had become.
Thud. Thud.
When at last they arrived at the place where the mercenaries' companions were trapped, a thick, fishy stench of blood washed over them.
"……Derek!"
"We came! We're here!"
Fortunately, there were survivors.
A handful of people, wreathed in faint mana, resisting desperately with every ounce of strength they had left.
One might wonder why people with a talent for mana were working as mercenaries at all — but a talent of that meager caliber would never have been chosen by a noble house.
And so they lived the mercenary life to scrape together funds, aiming to enroll in the Academy and raise their own worth. It was as simple as that.
"Damn it all, damn it all! Why did it take you so long to get here?!"
The man standing against the monsters wept tears of blood as he wailed.
His companions, who had fought at his side for so long, lay cold and lifeless where they had fallen.
「 Save them. 」
At Rohen's command, the Hundred Demons threw themselves as one into the heart of the battlefield and began to butcher the monsters.
The survivors watched the crisis that had crashed down upon them dissolve in an instant — so swiftly it felt almost hollow — and one by one they collapsed where they stood, their faces blank with disbelief.
Then, gazing upon the gruesome corpses of the companions who had fought beside them until now, they felt grief mingle with the belated relief of having survived.
"Th-thank yo—"
CRACK!
"Do not lay a hand upon this maiden's body."
One of the men, reaching out a hand toward the gumiho to offer his thanks, felt the thick edge of killing intent and hastily bowed his head.
"I—I beg your pardon."
Watching this, Rohen sighed and moved on.
「 You asked me to save them, and so I have brought them here. 」
"……Thank you."
「 If there is anything more you would ask of me, why not say it now? 」
Among the survivors of the isolation, there were those who possessed consonants and vowels — those with genuine magical aptitude.
And if a thing was worth doing properly, it was best done cleanly.
"……please."
"……"
"Kill every monster in this region! Do honor to the souls of my companions — the ones I can no longer walk beside — I beg of you!"
Strictly speaking, it was the decision to hunt at night that had caused all of this, and it would have been far more natural for the one who had led them into it to bear the blame.
But with no trace of such resentment to be found, it seemed they had all agreed to the venture together.
When the man at their head knelt first and made his plea, the others followed, dropping to their knees and bowing their heads to the earth.
Watching them, Rohen turned his back and gave his command to the Hundred Demons gathered around him.
「 Go and kill. 」
Short, and to the point.
Obeying that single, sufficient word, the Hundred Demons who had crowded around him scattered in all directions.
The gumiho's shikigami prowled the four compass points, slaughtering the monsters wholesale, while the vampire — drawing in the blood they had spilled — toyed with them like playthings……
CRACK!
Gliding past at her side, the Snow Woman exhaled her freezing breath, icing the monsters solid and shattering them to pieces.
As for Medusa, seemingly unwilling to show anyone her grotesque true form, she kept her distance astride Pegasus and reaped the monsters from afar through the petrifying gaze of her eyes.
When the last of the mercenaries' desperate, miserable screams had vanished without a trace, what filled the empty space in their wake was —
the wailing of monsters, ringing out across the dead of night.
And Rohen, master of those Hundred Demons, simply stood alone and aloof where he was.
When that span of time — short if you called it short, long if you called it long — finally came to an end,
rivers had been carved from the blood of the monsters, and mountains raised from their corpses.
A battlefield of rivers of blood and mountains of the dead — a sacrifice more than sufficient to honor the souls of the fallen, exactly as the mercenaries who had made the plea had asked.
Good enough.
Having confirmed at last that the supply of consonants and vowels was complete, Rohen exchanged a brief look with the mercenaries staring at him and walked away with unhurried steps.
The cleanup that remained was not his concern — lingering longer would serve no purpose.
After all, Lapis was waiting for him.
"……"
As Rohen drew further and further away, a thick fog descended once more, swallowing the Hundred Demons whole as if they were nothing more than a midsummer night's dream, and the Barren Lands revealed themselves as though nothing had ever happened —
but the mercenaries who had stood there knew, without a doubt, that everything they had witnessed with their own two eyes was no illusion.