The Name Is Pion
One kick had torn clean through the wall of the carriage. Meilyn stood trembling from head to toe, staring at the man in skeletal armor.
Who—what on earth is this man?
Even as terror held her frozen, the man turned his gaze back toward her. Then he strode over without a shred of hesitation and reached out his arm.
Urgh!
She screwed her eyes shut and twisted her head away. And then, suddenly, an arm was wrapped around her waist, and both her feet left the ground in one swift motion.
Only belatedly did she realize that she was being carried, tucked against the man's side.
Aaagh! What is this position?! So embarrassing!
She wanted to scream, but the crushing pressure radiating off the man sealed her lips tighter than any gag could have.
Wasn't resisting simply out of the question? The man glanced down once to confirm she was unharmed, then leapt straight off the speeding carriage.
"Kyaaaaaaahk!"
The blistering speed left her unable to gather her wits. She could see the scenery whipping past in a blur. Then—thud—she felt the man's two feet strike the dirt. Meilyn cautiously opened her eyes.
"……!"
Ahead of her, the old man who'd been thrown from the carriage earlier was crawling across the ground, blood streaming from his nose and mouth, one leg bent at a grotesque angle.
Shuddering, he pushed himself upright.
"Grrrrgh! Damn it all! Who the hell are you?! Who sent you?!"
"……."
Without answering, the man slowly lowered Meilyn to the ground, then raised the great white sword in his right hand upright and tilted his body sideways. A vicious killing intent poured off every inch of him.
How dare you……!
Though retired now, Javier had left behind a mountain of infamy in his active days as a necromancer.
He slammed the staff in his hand into the ground with a crash!, and skeletons came pouring out of his subspace in a wave.
Meilyn, still on the ground, lifted her head.
Every one of them was a mid-sized skeleton hauling a giant spear over three meters long—and there were more than twenty of them. This was a necromancer capable of fielding at least a full platoon.
That perverted old fossil really isn't ordinary after all!
SHRAAAAK!
A white arc of sword light carved a straight line through the air.
It looked for a moment like a violent gust of wind—then every single skeleton went tumbling across the ground at once.
"……Huh?"
A dumbfounded sound escaped Javier's lips.
Meilyn too stared at the man in open-mouthed shock.
Wh-what just happened?
The man rested the greatsword casually on his shoulder and began walking toward Javier. Panicked, Javier thrust out his arm.
Restoration!
But the fallen skeletons stayed silent.
He tried again and again—same result. All they did was rattle faintly, refusing to rise no matter what.
There's some strange dark magic woven into that sword. So this is what a powerhouse at this level looks like!
Sending his main force, the Meat Golems, off to Manus's side had been a blunder. Who could have imagined he'd be forced into a fight right here?
Nothing for it. He would have to use his last resort.
He slipped a hand inside his clothes and activated the jet-black magic circle drawn across his chest.
"Uuughk!"
Javier clutched at his throat and swayed, then began retching up strange lumps of living flesh from his mouth.
As if its nutrients were being siphoned away, his body shriveled more and more until it resembled a mummy, while the flesh he vomited up fed on Javier and swelled ever larger.
Meilyn's face contorted in horror.
He's been growing something inside his own body?!
Squelch! Sqrrrrrlch!
It was a monstrous creature that seemed to be made entirely of organs. It was already over three meters long, its limbs bulging with pulsing clusters of viscera.
-KWOOOOOAAAR!
The creature let out a monstrous shriek. Its entire body turned jet-black from head to toe, and sharp bone spikes erupted from both arms.
"Get away from there!"
Meilyn shouted.
"That one can't move! You don't have to fight it—just stay where you are and……!"
SHRING!
The man swung his greatsword.
A thin white line traced itself across the creature from shoulder to waist, and then its entire upper body slid cleanly off, toppling away at an angle.
One—one strike?!
Meilyn's pupils shook as if an earthquake had struck them. The man reversed his grip on the greatsword and lowered his shoulder.
PABABABAT!
Slash left, slash right, then a spinning diagonal cut.
Countless white lines scored the monster's body.
With a sound like ripping cloth, the creature's flesh broke apart into countless pieces and came raining down.
"Ah……."
Meilyn shuddered from head to toe.
Overwhelming strength.
He had toyed with and effortlessly destroyed a monster that a professional-grade necromancer had poured his very life into creating.
Just who—what on earth is this man?
The man rested his greatsword on his shoulder once more and looked back at her.
Her shoulders hunched.
Just looking at that skeletal helm, just watching the blue flame curl in its eye sockets, was enough to make fear bloom in her chest. He carried the aura of something utterly beyond the human.
As the man approached, she squeezed her eyes shut and jerked her head away.
Ugh, seriously! Why am I suddenly such a coward?
It wasn't only the man's intimidating presence. All this time, she had treated her Kizen uniform like a suit of invincible armor. And in truth, within the Dark Alliance, anyone wearing that uniform had been untouchable—no one dared lay a finger on a Kizen student.
That illusion had been shattered by Javier only moments ago. She hadn't merely been about to be defiled—she'd come within a hair's breadth of being sold off as a corpse.
Deathland was a place where common sense didn't apply. Even a Kizen student wasn't invincible here. And there was no telling what this man might do to her next. The thought sent fear crawling up her spine whether she liked it or not.
Swoop.
Not that again?!
Her face flushed red.
Once more, the man tucked her against his side, crouched to the dirt, and launched into the sky.
Meilyn's scream rang out like an echo across the wasteland.
Meilyn was hauled away without the faintest idea what was happening to her.
The scenery streaked past in whooshes and blurs. The rough headwind made it hard just to keep her eyes open.
"……?"
Before long their speed gradually bled away, and the man touched down on the ground.
Meilyn's eyes snapped open and she scanned her surroundings. She couldn't make out much, but in the distance there was a path leading down toward the sewer.
Sshhp.
The man set her down on the ground and gestured at her.
Turn around?
She seemed to have no other choice. Still kneeling, she raised her upper body and turned her back to him, and the man moved his greatsword.
Snip.
The blade sheared through the rope. Then he gave the back of her hand a light prick with the tip of the greatsword, and the magic circle there shattered with a sharp clang.
So that had been the curse. Her core reactivated, and jet-black energy began flowing through her body once more.
Freed, Meilyn looked up at the man with a bewildered expression.
He's just… purely rescuing me?
The man turned away without a second thought, cloak swirling.
"W-wait, just a moment!"
Meilyn scrambled to her feet and called out.
"Thank you for saving my life! If you'd allow it, I'd love to repay you somehow!"
The man stopped mid-stride and turned only his head to look back at her.
It was a gaze that would cow anyone, no matter how many times she saw it, but she wrenched up her courage and placed a hand over her chest.
"I'm Meilyn Villenne, a student of Kizen and a member of the Ivory Tower. If there's anything you want, anything at all……."
[Return to your friends.]
Meilyn flinched at the man's voice—it was the first time she'd heard it. A low, cold timbre that didn't quite seem like a human voice at all.
[Two of them are collapsed in the sewer.]
"Ah……!"
Her squadmates flashed through her mind. Were they all right? But—two of them? Then what about the last one?
[One more man was captured, just like you.]
He said.
[But he escaped on his own and went into the sewer. He'll reach them within a few hours.]
Escaped on his own. Of course he did.
It's Simon. That's exactly what Simon would do.
Even as she was thinking this, the man resumed walking.
Suddenly Meilyn felt a surge of urgency. Was he really just going to leave like this? She wanted to know something—anything, the barest minimum—about this man.
"Your name!!"
She raised her voice.
"At least tell me your name! Please, I'm begging you!"
[…….]
The man stopped without a word. Then, without turning around, he answered shortly.
[Pion.]
THOOM!
The moment his bent knees straightened, his body shot up into the sky. Watching the man vanish into the darkness in an instant, Meilyn pressed her hands together, her face flushed with excitement.
……I'll see him again, won't I?
As she gazed after the vanishing figure, her heart kept pounding, again and again.
Running across the treetops, Simon pulled off Pier's skull helm and tossed it behind his back, then let out a long, relieved breath.
"Whewww! I thought I was done for!"
[Kheheheheh! Good work, boy!]
Here was how it had all come about.
After Prince abducted Meilyn, Simon had gone to interrogate the humans Pier had captured at the estate.
Making them talk hadn't been difficult. Pier, a specialist in intimidation, had simply rapped his blade against their necks a few times to set the mood of terror, and they'd spilled everything almost immediately.
They were employees serving a retired necromancer called Javier, they said, running a large-scale corpse supply operation.
When Simon asked whether they'd ever seen a girl in a Kizen uniform, they shook their heads. But if that girl had been handed over to Javier by Prince, they said, she would be loaded onto a carriage and sent to a campsite located some distance from here.
The estate, they explained, was about to become a battlefield.
-What do you mean, a battlefield?
At that question, the prisoners hesitated. There followed a brief interlude of Pier's sword-dance, after which they trembled like leaves and revealed the whole, previously hidden truth of the affair.
Javier had been maintaining simultaneous partnerships with the two great powers of Deathland's Ancient Undead—Prince and Manus.
And his ultimate goal: to have Manus eliminate Prince, then eliminate Manus himself at the end, and claim Prince's Crown for his own.
So he now knew the whole story—but for Simon, rescuing the abducted Meilyn came first.
Rather than rushing to the estate immediately, infiltrating it while the imminent war between Prince and Manus raged seemed the surest way to maximize the chances of a successful rescue.
In the meantime, Simon decided to check out the campsite the prisoners had mentioned.
He'd taken off his Kizen uniform, changed into the prisoners' clothes, and headed toward Javier's camp—only to spot, along the way, a single carriage bound for it.
Simon attacked the carriage without a moment's hesitation, and that was how, by the barest of margins, he'd managed to save Meilyn.
[Kheheh! By the way, boy!]
Pier said.
[That 'Pion' the girl asked you for earlier—what in the world was that?]
At the question, Simon flushed and cleared his throat with an awkward ahem.
"Ah, well…… At first I was going to answer 'Pier,' but I figured that could needlessly tangle the situation. So I just, you know, mixed Pier and my own name, Simon, and said Pion."
[KHAHAHAHAH!]
"Forget that story—we need to get to the estate, fast!"
A war between Prince and Manus. From Simon's standpoint, this was a stroke of fortune.
It was a chance, he thought, to claim the third Ancient Undead—the one so uncooperative about joining the Legion—for himself.
Simon lifted his head. Beyond the dense forest, he could see the estate going up in flames.
"Looks like the war's already begun."