Enlightenment, One After Another
Having seized enlightenment again and again, Yujun tore through the demonkin with a frenzy for which running mad was the only fitting name.
Thanks to that, they were cleared away in short order. And yet, among them, there was no one who looked like a Demon King. Only demonkin of much the same caliber.
Huh?
He glanced at his status window to check his level, and what he found astonished him. Swordsmanship had climbed to GX+.
Swordsmanship
GX+
The higher a rank rose, the more sharply its rate of ascent fell. Growth like this should not have been possible. It was not a matter of a single plus tacked onto the end. The higher an ability's rank, the more its effect amplified with every step gained—and GX, so far as he knew, was a rank no one had ever reached, not in the game War of the Gods, and not in the Tower of Infinity either.
When he thought of how his skill rank had risen by only a single step after he had gained enlightenment more times than he could count, he understood all too well how much weight that plus carried.
Honestly, with this many insights, a whole rank going up would have made sense.
Enlightenment was, in its own way, a kind of achievement. He had done it dozens of times in a row. It would have been stranger still if the rank had not risen.
And yet a bleakness came with the triumph. Even after so many enlightenments, all he had managed was a single rank. What would he have to accomplish to reach whatever lay beyond GX? Did anything beyond it even exist? What if it didn't, and GX+ was simply where the ladder ended?
Even if GX were the final rank, there was nothing to rue. Enlightenment made him stronger. If a rank's ceiling was only whatever the window deigned to show, what did that limit matter?
The absence of a Demon King was a pity, but with this, the greater part of the Demon King's army had been dealt with. He had already slaughtered an absurd number on the way here, and the fighting on the sixth floor had drawn still more of them in by the sound of it. Sweeping those up as well had left the academy comparatively clean.
I'm already past level 300?
It wasn't that his potential had sent the speed of his experience gain soaring. His level had simply climbed fast because he had killed so many enemies.
Once the sixth floor was settled, Yujun went first not to the Secret Library, but to the headmaster's office. Paranet had said a faint demonic aura was seeping from inside it, which meant a demonkin had gone in. Solaphe's absence weighed on him as well.
He reached for the office door.
A fierce spray of sparks crackled up and barred his approach. A magic barrier.
"There wasn't anyone in the Demon King's army who used magic."
Yenil tilted her head, as if something were amiss.
"The headmaster might have made it."
This was no time to stand around guessing. Yujun raised his sword and searched for the barrier's seams. Its caliber did not exceed his knowledge of barriers, and dozens of them came into view. Cut any but one, and the barrier would shatter. He set his blade to a suitable seam and drew a line.
Crack.
The formless barrier, invisible to the eye, came apart with ease. Because he had cut along the seam, the sound of it breaking was not so very loud. Yujun kicked the door open and burst through, and came face to face with Solaphe's strained expression.
Solaphe was not the only one in the office. A short man stood with his back turned, his upper body bare, as though fire magic had struck him more than once. The large, sharply defined muscles of his back drew the eye. Black tattoos were etched across his body, depicting some unknowable monstrous creature whose meaning could not be read.
Even so, Yujun could tell the man was a Demon King. The air he gave off resembled that of the Demon Kings he had killed until now. He was certain enough to stake his own hand on it.
"Transfer student! Good of you to come! Lend me a hand, would you."
Solaphe cast aside whatever dignity a headmaster ought to have and begged for help at once. In truth he looked dreadful, his face so gaunt it seemed he had burned through every drop of mana, while the Demon King, though peppered with minor cuts, did not look injured at all. Far from spent, his stamina seemed positively vigorous.
"That one is the Demon King. He means to enter the Secret Library, I believe. I never told him, of course. Heh heh..."
A little later, and it would have been a disaster. For a man who had been getting thrashed by the Demon King, Solaphe was remarkably pleased with himself. Fortunately, the Demon King seemed to have wanted something from the headmaster, and so had left him alive.
"Who set the barrier?"
"There was a barrier? Then it must have been Fretalin's doing."
"Fretalin? The professor?"
"Indeed. She was in league with the Demon King's army. Breaking the seal was her work as well. She kept her head down for nearly twenty years, and at last, judging the time to be right, she showed her true colors."
He could never forget Professor Fretalin, prickly from the very first meeting. So that excessive wariness back then had been her keeping an unforeseen variable in check?
"Where did she go?"
"I couldn't say."
Then the Demon King turned and fixed a steady gaze on Yujun. Solaphe, behind him, might as well not have existed.
"For your information, magic hardly works on him at all. To the likes of us mages, one might call him a natural enemy."
At the headmaster's words, Rayna, who had been preparing a great spell, went slack with dismay. Magic didn't work on him. For a mage, there was no sentence more crushing to one's will—and all the more so when it came from the mouth of the headmaster, the strongest mage in the academy.
"Yes. Being from another world. Just as that indolent old man said, no magic of any kind works on me."
The Demon King spoke low. It was probably a bluff. He was no god; magic could not fail against him entirely. Still, judging by how easily he had endured Headmaster Solaphe's spells, his magic resistance had to be extremely high.
No point spending what little mana I have on spells.
In any case, his mainstay had already been decided. The sword.
"So you are a swordsman after all."
Seeing Yujun raise his blade, a glint entered the Demon King's eyes. Yujun had slaughtered the Demon King's army all the way here without a single wound, and yet the Demon King showed neither fear nor even tension. To put it precisely, he was looking down on him.
This is how it should be. Arrogance is a Demon King's basic passive. I'd have been disappointed if he didn't have it.
"As it happens, I use a sword as well. Allow me to teach you a thing or two."
"Taking your time, aren't you. Didn't you have a goal? What'll you do if backup shows up?"
"I can finish this before that happens, so it is no concern of yours."
The Demon King's form vanished. Perhaps because he was not particularly tall for a demonkin, his speed felt all the faster. Yujun set his sword forward in a stance that seemed to know, already, where the blow would land. In the next instant the Demon King was there, his blade already swinging into that very spot.
Clang—!
Cracks began to spider across Yujun's sword. No matter how much a Swordsmanship rank raised his attack power, it could not make durability infinite. The blade rebounded, and he swung into the wide opening left across the Demon King's chest. The Demon King retreated in a flash, and still his chest was cut, if only shallowly.
Dark crimson blood burst from the wound like a fountain. It was not a fatal blow. Yujun could see the flesh knitting itself back together almost at once.
"You dare..."
Rage took the Demon King, and he blasted out the power he had been holding in check as if it were exploding. The pressure alone was enough to make those around them stagger, but Yujun's stance did not so much as shift. He was immovability itself.
The Demon King pressed in with movements like a beast. He must have fought with twin blades; at some point a second sword had appeared in his hand. Steel whispered past steel, the edges never meeting cleanly, only sliding off one another. The Demon King's face began to twist. Not a single attack landed as it should. Not even the clash of sword on sword. Yujun slipped every one of them.
And then, in a certain moment, he suddenly took one step forward and thrust his sword straight out. There was no special stance, and no special technique. It simply looked as if he had shoved the blade forward out of nowhere, at a timing that made no sense.
Demon King Lides felt strangeness and blank shock at the same time. The world around him vanished, and Yujun's sword swelled to a vastness that filled his sight. There was room for nothing else. The world had become a single blade—a sword that seemed painted dark crimson with the blood of the Demon King's army. The sword, which had seemed frozen in place, began to move.
"Hm?"
That was the last thing the Demon King remembered.
A clean, shearing sound. The Demon King's body split in half, and the two pieces struck the floor hard at the same instant.
The fight was over before the mages could so much as cover him with a spell. Solaphe's mouth fell open.
"I... heavens..."
There was no one present who could have watched that and remained unshaken. To a third party, Yujun had merely extended his sword, slowly, forward. Before the blade even touched him, the Demon King had stopped dead, as if frozen solid. It was only natural to wonder whether the Demon King had died on purpose.
Solaphe dragged himself over with an effort and asked.
"You. Did you use some manner of brainwashing, or illusion magic?"
Yujun shook his head.
"Then what?"
"I just thought that was the moment to swing, so I did."
If he had magic like that, he would have used it long ago. As Yujun saw it, the Demon King had struck a wall. Because his opponent happened to wield the same weapon, he had recognized a staggering difference in level. Yujun had performed a feat from another dimension entirely, but the Demon King freezing had not been his intent. Whether the body locked or not, the result would not have changed.
Pacing near the corpse, Yujun frowned.
"There's no key."
He had assumed that killing the Demon King would grant it as a matter of course, since completing a trial had once handed him a key automatically. There was no achievement, either.
A boom shook the air, then another.
"The Secret Library! We must get to the Secret Library!"
Solaphe shouted.
"Fretalin?"
"Yes! She will have broken into the Secret Library. We must stop her."
"Wasn't this supposed to end once the Demon King was dead?"
"Within the Secret Library there is a tome a mage must never, under any circumstances, touch. A devil's book, one that would lead the empire to ruin. I have nothing to offer you in this state, but I beg you. Stop Fretalin. The Secret Library is likely open even now. She may have laid traps and barriers, so have a care. She is a mage no less outstanding than I."
If this had been a game, it would have been the moment he received quest experience. A shame. Even without the request, though, Yujun had meant to go to the Secret Library anyway. He had the headmaster whisper its location into his ear, and nodded.
"You all stay here."
He intended to leave Manuela, Yenil, and Paranet behind.
"Master. Are you quite certain you require no aid from us?"
"Do I look like I need help?"
"No?"
In the span of a few hours, Yujun had achieved a growth that defied belief. He had become a Barbarian. His items were gone, and nearly all of his skills and traits had vanished with them, and still he had nothing to fear. He trusted the power that Swordsmanship held.
Right. Swordsmanship suits me better than magic.
Wasn't the human heart supposed to bend like a reed? This affair seemed to have shattered the balance between magic and the sword, but that was no bad thing. It simply meant he had gained one weapon that was decisively stronger. With confidence like this, he felt as if he could cut down the No-Pay Casual Gamer and the Demon God alike.
Yujun ran for the Secret Library. His stamina overflowed. He had hardly moved at all until now; all he had done was time his swings against the enemies that came at him.
When he reached the place the headmaster had indicated, a barrier was indeed in place—finer than the one on the office, the sort that would trigger a massive explosion if mishandled.
I can't break this one along the seams.
If the barrier was destroyed rather than dispelled, there was every chance of a blast large enough to blow the entire main building of the magic academy apart. No. It would happen. Without a doubt.
Yujun set a hand on the barrier and poured mana into it. Dispelling one, once you knew the method, did not take much mana. It would cost a little time, though. In less than a minute he had it undone, and he stepped into the Secret Library.
Hastily rigged traps came flying, and Yujun swung with ease, knocking them aside or cutting them down. Steel rang on steel. Farther in, he caught sight of Fretalin's back as she scurried frantically through the vast Secret Library. She seemed to have heard the clash and noticed him.
"How did you get through the barrier..."
Fretalin's face was badly shaken. Now that she had shown her true colors, her expression seemed to have turned a shade more vicious. Or maybe that was only his bias.
"Looking for something? Mind if I look with you?"
"Die!"
Unwilling to speak with him at any length, Fretalin cast several ice spells at once and hurled them straight at him.