A Monster for a Monster
Simon and Lethe cleared out the standard passenger car and moved on to the next one.
The Holy Train was built from a hodgepodge of multipurpose cars linked end to end. First, second, and third class sleepers came first, followed by standard seating or freight cars, then more sleeper compartments, and the pattern repeated down its entire length.
The fierce fighting had broken out in the second-class car. The Blood Sky Cult faithful had stood the beds on end to form barricades, carved out space behind them, and were raining down long-range attacks without pause.
Simon and Lethe were blocking everything with their Barrier of Protection, but the effort was steadily gnawing away at their mental stamina.
"Ugh, they're such a pain."
Lethe clicked her tongue. What she really wanted was to sweep them all away with one broad physical attack, but the hostages at the back of the car weighed on her mind. Every one of them had their eyes and mouths covered, their hands and feet bound, and a red collar locked around their neck. She turned to Simon.
"Got any bright ideas?"
"……"
Simon considered for a moment, then turned his back to her.
"Just hold out for five minutes."
"Five minutes? Please. I'll give you two."
With his back turned, Simon slipped through into the next car. Once he confirmed it was empty, he took off the clothes he was wearing and flipped them inside out.
Fwish!
The garment transformed into a coat. The moment Simon channeled a thread of Jet-Black into its surface with his fingertip, it was flooded with black in an instant.
He fastened every button up to his throat, pulled the hood low over his head, and finally drew out the mask he'd bought at the black market and put it on.
I knew something like this would happen eventually.
Finished with his improvised disguise, Simon looked up. Above the compartment, he spotted an access panel set into the ceiling.
He leapt up, seized the emergency handhold with both hands, and drove his legs upward against the panel with all his strength.
Click!
It opened more easily than he'd expected. Bracing against the biting wind, Simon pulled himself up onto the roof of the train.
Clatter! Clatter! Clatter!
Out here, the roar of the train was even louder.
The train's definitely slowed down.
Simon steadied himself and scanned his surroundings. Rusty rails and trees growing wild and unchecked on either side. So this really wasn't an ordinary route after all — it looked like the train had switched direction partway through.
Move first. Think later.
Steeled, Simon ran. With a flying leap, he vaulted over to the roof of the next car.
"Should be about here."
From below, he could hear the sounds of Lethe clashing with the cultists. Simon traced a single magic circle onto the train's roof, then pulled a vial of hydrochloric acid potion from his subspace and set it in the center.
Toxicology — been a while! Nice to see you again.
Simon activated the circle.
Crash!
The vial shattered, and the potion's contents poured into the magic circle. Within moments, the circle turned the same vivid green as the potion itself.
Sssssssss!
The circle's effect kicked in, and the roof began to melt away in seconds. A gaping hole opened up, and through it, the Blood Sky Cultists came into view. A few of them spotted Simon — but it was already too late.
Simon dropped down through the hole.
BOOM!
Trampling cultists underfoot, Simon landed square in the middle of the pack.
As everyone panicked at the black-clad man who had dropped out of nowhere, Simon drove his left foot into the floor.
Open Gate!
Overlord's blades erupted from six directions at once and swept the cultists away. Over a dozen bodies went flying in every direction — some plummeting out the windows, others slamming into walls and crumpling to the floor.
"Kgh!"
"Kill the hooded freak first!"
There were still plenty of enemies left. The cultists fired volley after volley of blood-stream arrows from their palms, but Overlord's blades coiled around Simon's body like a protective shell, deflecting every one.
"Half of you handle the woman, the other half take this guy!"
"Keep shooting! Just bury them in numbers!"
Then, through the gaps in Overlord's whirling blades, Simon's eyes flashed beneath the mask.
"Numbers? Is that supposed to mean something?"
Simon hauled on an imaginary lever. A horde of skeletons came pouring out of his subspace.
Thanks to the relentless training he'd kept up since Leshill, Simon could now control six summon-type skeletons simultaneously — plus ten legion-type skeletons with no limit on their numbers. Sixteen skeletons in all descended upon the cultists, cutting them down as they arrived.
Go.
Simon took command. He split the skeletons into two units, striking the enemies at the front and rear at the same time, while a handful of the remainder secured the hostages and moved them to the safety of the car behind.
Spear unit — advance.
The skeletons raised their spears and shields in formation and pushed forward, while Overlord covered them against long-range attacks.
In the space of a heartbeat — as easily as flipping his palm — Simon had turned the entire battle on its head. He glanced back. Several cultists, sensing the tide had turned against them, were trying to slip away toward the front of the train.
If I let them go, they'll call for reinforcements.
Simon stretched out his right arm. Several skeletons broke apart into the form of Bone Armour and shot forward like lightning.
Clack! Clack!
Then they began attaching themselves to the bodies of the two cultists who were fleeing fastest toward the rear car. The moment they saw bones latching onto their flesh with a rattle of clacking, they screamed in horror.
"Wh-what is this?! Stop—!"
Skull-made helms clamped down over their heads last. Within moments, the two cultists stood fully clad in Bone Armour — and turned around.
"Why aren't you two hurri— khak!"
The two Bone Armour-wearing cultists barricaded the narrow passageway and began attacking the very comrades who came running to escape.
"You're betraying us?!"
"I-I'm not doing this! My body's moving on its own!"
Simon's right hand was dancing through the air like a puppeteer pulling strings. Using these two to seal off the narrow corridor, he sent the remaining skeletons to suppress the cultists from behind.
It took less than ten minutes to completely neutralize nearly thirty of them.
An unqualified, flawless victory. When Simon, still in his black coat, raised a clenched fist into the air, the undead roared out a cry for the fallen in celebration.
Simon turned back with a smile.
"Alright, on to the next car. Le—"
The word died in his throat. Lethe's face was paler than he had ever seen it, her arms wrapped around herself as she trembled. Simon hastily pulled his mask up above his head.
"A-are you okay? That was a lot, wasn't it?"
She had trauma buried deep — the memory of watching with her own eyes as the people of her village were turned into skeletons. The memory of necromancers.
"I'm sorry. Let me dismiss them—"
Thud.
She walked toward him, her face set like stone. She passed through the skeletons scattered all around and stopped at Simon's side.
"Don't you dare underestimate me."
"……Lethe."
"You said it yourself, didn't you."
She kept walking, speaking as she passed him by.
"That you'd work to change what I think."
"……Uh? Yeah. Right."
"Let's go."
Simon let out a breath of relief and pulled the mask back down over his face.
They crossed into the next car. With the enemy's forces concentrated in second class, third class was spotless and utterly empty, and they moved straight on to the one after that.
"Oh no."
This car was drenched in blood from wall to wall.
Slain passengers and Priests lay where they'd fallen — and there were collapsed Blood Sky Cultists among them too. Deep, savage bite marks were visible on their bodies.
"A third party? Or else something that killed friend and foe alike, without discrimination."
"The bloodstains trail on toward the next car."
Simon pointed with an outstretched finger.
"Let's go."
"Right."
The two of them moved forward with painstaking caution. They crossed the narrow corridor connecting the cars and stepped into the next one.
And they saw it.
-KEGGUK! KEGG-KEGGUK.
A monster so huge its head brushed the ceiling, a writhing mass of raw red muscle with no skin to cover it. A canine muzzle jutted out from its face.
Hanging from its forepaw was a man in Priest's robes, freshly killed. The beast hurled the Priest against the wall, then fixed its oily, glistening eyes on the two of them.
Some kind of Chimera. This one won't be easy.
Simon's expression hardened.
"I've heard rumors. The Blood Sky Cult's secret weapon — a patchwork monstrosity stitched together from whatever scraps of human and monster flesh they could get their hands on. We call it a Hellhound."
-KEGG-KEGGUK!
The Hellhound began to advance. Simon issued his Absolute Command.
Thrust! Thrust!
The skeleton units charged, weapons raised.
In response, the Hellhound lifted its foreleg. A massive axe blade of bone sprouted from its paw, and it swung the thing in a horizontal arc.
KRA-BOOOM!
A single blow wrecked three skeletons at once, scattering them to pieces. Watching the bones fly through the air, Simon thrust out his right arm.
⟨ Simon Original — Bone Nail ⟩
The bones mid-flight hung suspended in the air for an instant — then shot forward and hammered into the Hellhound's body.
But most of them failed to pierce the muscle and bounced right off. The Hellhound didn't even look tickled.
-KEGG-KEGGUK!
The Hellhound swung its foreleg in an immediate counterattack, and Lethe leapt forward, throwing up a holy barrier.
KRA-KOOM!
That rock-solid shield of hers cracked and splintered from a single blow.
The two of them abandoned defense and fell back. A second strike shattered Lethe's barrier completely.
"Trifling attacks won't do a thing! We have to cut its throat for good!"
"Then show me this for-good attack already!"
She swept her hands through the air in a blur of motion and unfurled a new magic circle. From it rose a thick, drill-shaped silver lance.
Whiiiiiiine!
The silver lance began to spin.
Lethe drew a holy sigil and clenched her fist tight, and a Blessing settled directly upon the divine lance. Ribbons of every shape and color — the Blessing made visible — fluttered out and wound themselves around the drill's body.
"DIE!"
Launched with a thunderous roar, the divine lance slammed dead center into the Hellhound's chest.
The beast's body was driven backward with an enormous crash, smashing into the wall.
-KEGG-KEGGUK!
And yet, even with the lance buried in the very spot where its heart should be, it rose to its feet as if nothing had happened. It was no ordinary living creature.
"Ugh, that was a waste of effort."
Lethe panted hard. Holy Power let her unfold magic circles at a moment's will, but it devoured her mental stamina in return.
"Fall back, Lethe. I'll handle this."
"……And how exactly do you plan to do that?"
"You catch a monster with a monster."
Simon declared it with total confidence and threw his subspace wide open — then reached inside, pulled out one perfectly ordinary zombie, and set it down on the floor. Then he raised the gray ring on his left hand to his lips and spoke.
"Prince, get ready."
"?"
Lethe frowned, baffled by the sight of him suddenly talking to a ring.
"Bring the crown over here with you."
With the conversation finished, Simon pressed the ring against the zombie's body. Naturally, nothing happened.
"H-what do you think you're doing! Now is not the time for jokes!"
"It's not a joke — this is how the summoning actually works!"
"Don't feed me that garbage! You think I don't know dark magic?"
-KEGUK! KEGG-KEGGUK!
The Hellhound charged in savagely, foreleg swinging.
"Kgh!"
Lethe dove in front of Simon once more, arms spread wide.
Barrier after barrier unfolded in the air, only to shatter one by one beneath the Hellhound's blows. Lethe raised a shield, the Hellhound smashed it — again and again.
"This is what I get for trusting you! Move, NOW!"
Even at her shout, Simon stood utterly motionless, ring still pressed to the zombie's body.
He could barely manage the Hellhound alone, and to make matters worse, commotion was rising from the car ahead — Blood Zombies came pouring in one after another.
"Lethe."
"What?!"
"That's enough. Step back."
CRASH!
Her last barrier had just shattered completely. Lethe ducked aside to evade, and the Hellhound's foreleg came hurtling down toward Simon.
RUMMMMBLE!
From the ceiling, black lightning crashed down onto the zombie's body.
The axe blade — mid-swing along a murderous arc — stopped dead, THUNK, against a hand wreathed in black lightning.
Lethe's eyes went wide.
The lightning-struck zombie's body undulated and shrank. In the blink of an eye, the zombie was gone, and in its place a boy wearing a golden crown and aristocratic robes was rising to his feet with weary eyes.
But that wasn't what had stunned her.
……I-I can't breathe. I've never seen an undead like this.
Prince stretched out a long, lazy yawn and looked back at Simon.
[So first I just beat the stuffing out of that dog, right?]