Tormenting the Bluffing Beanpole (3)
Pff. Pwahahaha. Ahh, right up until I stepped in here I was a nervous wreck, but hearing what Phoebe just said wiped all of that clean away.
"Perhaps it's because you're such a pathetic apostle of an evil god." Honestly, Phoebe, a saintess has no business saying things like that.
Shaking the impact of the landing out of my body, I raised my shield. The eyes of the two people looking at me couldn't have been more opposite — Phoebe's slowly rising gaze, as if beholding a savior, and Nakrad's expression, crumpling by the second.
If I carelessly acted relaxed and Phoebe's aggro got drawn to me instead, that would be bad, so maybe I should lay down the taunts first.
"Hi there♡, Bluffing Beanpole♡. Still think you look cool, huh?♡ How much longer are you planning to stay stuck in your edgy teenage phase?♡ How pathetic♡. How lame♡."
Heat flickered to life in Nakrad's eyes as he heard my snickering laughter. Seeing his face again dredged up old memories, and a sliver of tension carved itself into my chest.
If the Mesugaki skill weren't forcing my actions, that wavering in my heart might have shown through completely.
It's fine. No problem at all. After all, I'm not the one who has to deal with him.
"It has been some time since I last possessed a body of flesh, so I cannot say for certain."
I turned my head at the voice beside me, and there stood an old man with hair gone completely white. The wrinkles carved into his face spoke of the many years he had lived — but his body told a very different story.
Despite his considerable age, that frame was as sturdy and powerful as Benedict's, which was proof enough of just what an absurd monster this old man really was.
Clad in immaculate white armor without a single blemish, the old man formed a sturdy shield of divinity around his left arm, then turned his gaze toward me.
"So this is the first time I have seen you like this, my girl."
Ruel. The soul that dwelled within my mace — the great holy knight who once saved the world.
When he was sealed inside the mace nagging at me, I had no idea, but Grandpa, you were an absolute monster, huh? The sheer pressure coming off him just from looking at him is no joke.
Now I understand why the face-obsessed fox talked so confidently.
Before we entered Phoebe's mental world, the fox had said this: that in the mental world, a physical body meant nothing — what mattered was the soul.
'Understand, child? The one inside the mace is bound to you by soul. If you enter the mental world, that old rascal naturally follows along with you.'
Grandpa stroked his mustache with a smile, then held his hand out toward me.
"How about it, eh? This old grandfather. Do I look dependable or what?"
'Of course you do!'
"Hm? It seems you had a particular answer in mind? You shameless old coot? But what am I to do — I don't feel like giving it to you?"
"Hah. Hearing the words that leak right out of you firsthand is rather irritating."
I handed him the mace even as he grumbled, well aware of the circumstances behind my words, and he gripped it in a hand three times the size of mine. The mace grew in response, swelling naturally to its full size, and Grandpa swung the thing — nearly as tall as I was — as lightly as if it were a wooden training stick.
"It has been a long while since I fought directly, so I cannot promise I'll be any good."
'...Grandpa?'
"What's this? Pathetic old Grandpa. Talking such a big game and now you're not confident? So you HAVE gone soft, huh?"
"...My girl. I beg your pardon, but would you kindly close your mouth for a moment? I fear I may strike you if this continues."
How does the legendary holy knight himself have such a thin skin? Grandpa, come on. Learn to brush off a little ribbing like it's nothing.
"Ah. My apologies. It has been so long since I gained a body that I got rather carried away. Well met, apostle of the evil gods. The name of this old man is Ruel — once a member of the Hero's Party that sealed away the evil gods. From your position as their servant, I imagine I am a man you are well entitled to despise."
As Grandpa stepped forward, Nakrad took a step back. His eyes darted about, unable to find anywhere to rest.
He was flustered.
By my standards, Nakrad counted as fairly strong — but measured against the entire continent, he still fell well short.
If the evil gods fully revived, perhaps things would be different, but as he was now, he couldn't help but be lacking. You only had to watch him getting swung around by Karl, who was merely a single knight of the House of Alrn, to know it.
But our Grandpa was a monster so terrifying that even if the evil gods revived and Nakrad gained his complete power, victory would be anything but guaranteed.
The title of holy knight of the Hero's Party was not given lightly.
"Lies."
"You believe it a lie? That hardly matters. Saying so will not make me disappear."
"Don't try to intimidate me with your posturing!"
Nakrad hurled the black spheres that had been floating around him. Each and every one of them carried enough power to immobilize me outright.
But Grandpa showed not the slightest fear at the sight of them. He simply swung his arm in leisurely strokes, mace in hand.
Watching Grandpa wield his mace was a marvel to me.
If this were back when I'd never held a weapon in my life, I wouldn't have understood — but the me of now was someone who practiced, day in and day out, the art of swinging a mace better.
So I couldn't help but see just how extraordinary Grandpa's movements were.
The way he gripped it. The distribution of force through each swing. The channeling of mana. And the release at the very end of it.
Watching him, I confirmed one thing beyond all doubt: that was the completed form. That was the most efficient, most devastating way a mace could possibly be swung.
"Do you still believe it mere posturing?"
Grandpa looked at Nakrad's tightly sealed lips, took a single step forward, and spoke.
"In a sense, this has worked out rather well. It was always stifling, having to offer advice through words alone — but now I finally get to show you how a real fight is done."
Watch and learn. The moment those words ended, Grandpa broke into a run.
From the day Ruel awoke from his long slumber, he had always been at Lucy's side.
When she trained.
When she sparred against other knights.
When she read until she slumped her forehead down onto her desk.
When the Chief God's blessing forced foul words out of her mouth and left her flustered.
In the very moments she grumbled to herself about how insufferably naggy he was.
When those around her shunned her and she quietly bled inside.
And, inevitably, in that moment when she rose again from the brink of death — always, without fail, Ruel was there beside her.
When he first awoke, Ruel had thought: if helping this girl was the will of God, then so he would do.
But now, he thought differently. After so long a time spent at Lucy's side, having come to know just how upright and genuinely good a person she was, Ruel regarded her as his own granddaughter.
And the man standing before him now was the wretched bastard who had once tried to kill that granddaughter of his.
There was not one shred of mercy anywhere within him. Not a trace.
"Where do you think you're running?"
The instant Nakrad tried to hide himself within the shadows, Ruel pinned that very shadow down beneath his foot. This was the man who had once sealed an evil god with his own hands. Naturally, he had experience toppling the Evil God of Darkness itself — and he knew exactly how to fight such a foe.
Catching the fleeing man, he kicked Nakrad and sent him flying far into the distance.
"Not yet. Up you get."
"You... wretched old—!"
Where does he get off collapsing this soon?
When Lucy suffered under your torment, she endured pain far worse than this — and still she rose. She stood in your way. She seized you by the ankle. One who torments others ought to steel himself to receive that karma in full — so was your resolve as an apostle of the evil gods truly only this much?
"There is still a great deal I intend to show Lucy. You make an excellent teaching aid."
"DIE!"
As Nakrad screamed, spikes of dark mana tried to erupt from the shadows pooled across the ground. But the moment Ruel pressed his divinity-laden sole down upon them, they were crushed apart before they could even take form.
"Divinity is not merely fuel for holy magic. Depending on how it is applied, it can bring about infinite results."
For you, Lucy — still standing at the very threshold of the holy knight's path — that must seem a distant thing. But one day, you too will reach this place.
You have me at your side, after all. So watch closely, and remember what you see.
"I said DIE!"
Even with his scheme shattered, Nakrad refused to give up. He threw himself at Ruel, attempting close combat. The combination of dark-mana sorcery and respectable grappling would have been genuinely threatening — but before Ruel, it was powerless.
He caught every one of Nakrad's attacks on his shield, and each time an opening appeared, he steadily accumulated impact with the mace.
Watch, Lucy. This is the way of the shield-bearer. To move selfishly, to fight dirty, to strip your opponent of his reason — that is precisely what the one who bears the shield must do.
This is what I have always meant when I told you to fight like a crocodile.
Lurking beneath the surface of his shield and baring his fangs only when the advantage was his, Ruel wore Nakrad down bit by bit — and before long, the man was rolling across the ground once more.
He barely managed to push himself upright, but his legs were trembling.
No single blow had been a killing strike, but every mace swing carrying genuine killing intent had torn flesh and shattered bone, and the accumulated damage was anything but light.
"Still not enough."
Looking down at him, Ruel tightened his grip on the mace and moved forward.
It was still not enough.
Lucy endured far longer than this before you, you calamity. So surely you can endure at least this much more.
"Stay back! I said stay back!"
This time, Nakrad summoned a horde of thrashing creatures from within his own shadow. Beings wrought of darkness, every one of them steeped in sinister mana — which is another way of saying they were utterly fragile before divinity.
Ruel swept his gaze slowly over the horde encircling him, then raised his mace high overhead.
"Behold, my girl. This is the realm you will one day reach."
And then divinity gathered upon the head of his mace.
The divinity possessed by the holy knight who had once stood on the front lines and driven back the darkness when the world drowned in shadow was like a second sun.
The black things staining the sky recoiled backward.
The horde surrounding him burrowed back into the shadows from which they'd come.
And the apostle of the evil gods, who had conjured this entire scene, could do nothing before it but scream.
When it was all over, Ruel — bathed in the light pouring down from above — walked step by unhurried step toward Nakrad, sprawled flat upon the ground.
Paralyzed with terror, Nakrad crawled across the floor, trying to put as much distance between them as he could, but he could not escape Ruel's footfalls.
Standing over him at last, Ruel raised the mace high.
"I will have my vengeance! I will repay this humiliation upon the apostle of Armadi!"
"Go right ahead. For when you do, you will find yourself on your knees beneath my girl."
The mace came down, following gravity's pull.