Off the Standard
Blood dripped from the Butcher's body in fat, heavy drops. Yet he only let out a quiet, suppressed laugh, utterly composed.
"Got a lot of questions, do you? Doesn't look like I'll be answering many."
"What you think doesn't matter."
A jet-black light flickered in Simon's eyes.
"I'll find out—by any means necessary."
"Now that's entertaining. Kid!"
Crunch.
In that instant, Simon could see the tendons standing out on the hand gripping the kitchen knife.
He still has strength left—!
Simon fell back, and the Butcher charged forward. As he surged ahead, the six Imperial Guard swords buried in his back tore free with a hideous, wet shriek.
Simon reacted at once.
Open Gate!
A subspace yawned open, and blade-tipped tentacles like writhing metal serpents came flooding in from every direction. But the Butcher simply raised two small kitchen knives, batting the tendrils aside one after another as he advanced.
"I've never once received a proper education in dark magic. Not in my entire life."
In a heartbeat, he had closed the distance to the very tip of Simon's nose, there in the gap between Overlord's coils. The kitchen knife stretched out toward the back of Simon's neck with a coarse screech of steel.
"No school, no master, nothing. And yet every single time, I was the one who won!"
Simon thrust out his arm in haste. One of the Imperial Guard's swords flew into his palm, and he caught the kitchen knife with it on the spot. With a thunderous clash, both men were thrown backward.
"Rank, affiliation, which academy you graduated from—the ones who spouted that garbage all became slabs of meat on my cutting board, every last one of them, without exception!"
He ran his tongue along the knife's blade. A long scar split open across it, and blood dripped from the steel in slow beads.
"The winner is the strong one, Simon Polentia."
"Mm."
Simon flicked his wrist and reversed his grip on the Guard's sword.
"I agree, Assassin."
The two men surged toward each other at the same moment.
The Butcher fought alone, but Simon had twenty Imperial Guards. Twenty turquoise blades pressed in from every angle without a single gap.
"Ghhk!"
There was no room to slip inside.
In the end, the Butcher hurled his body through the encirclement and broke free. The turquoise swords landed in rapid succession, raising cuts large and small across his skin.
Shiiiing—!
In return, the shallow gashes across Simon's body healed over. Seeing it, an odd gleam of interest entered the Butcher's eyes.
"A summon with a vampiric effect. Just like a Blood Golem, eh."
Simon smiled thinly and intensified his assault.
Chaeng! Kang! Kang! Kang! Kang!
Dozens of turquoise blades and two small kitchen knives collided again and again. The house was reduced to rubble in moments, and the battle spilled out into the open.
In the streets. Across the rooftops.
They clashed swords even as they scaled the fortress walls.
The students paused their own fighting and stood gaping, mouths hanging open, at the duel unfolding before them.
"P-Professor Aaron! We should join in—"
"Hold."
Aaron stretched out an arm, stopping the teaching assistants in their tracks.
"Leave it to Simon."
The sun was slowly rising, casting its light over the two figures as they exchanged blows with total concentration.
Every eye in the fortress turned toward them.
"Come on."
A short distance away, Loraine stood with a hand pressed over her chest, watching Simon.
"Well, obviously he's got this—"
Serene sat back in her chair with her legs crossed, resting her chin on her hand, entirely at ease. All around her lay the Mimic-turned assassins, sprawled bloody and motionless.
"...Tch."
Hector, still being treated for the wounds the One-Eyed Gentleman had given him, clicked his tongue in irritation.
kaaangangangangANG!
The shriek of colliding metal split the dawn.
"Everything in this world is information! A single movement from your opponent, a single habit in how you channel your Jet-Black!"
The Butcher lunged in and swung his knife in a flash.
Simon hurled the Chaos Spear in his left hand as a feint, then drove in with the Imperial Guard's sword gripped in his right.
kagagak!
Their blades crossed an inch from each other's cheeks, and their eyes locked.
"You command that many skeletons, yet you're extraordinarily protective of your summons' bodies! Out of mere sentimentality? Don't make me laugh!"
With a cheap trick, the Butcher flicked out a knife he'd had hidden in his coat, striking down an Imperial Guard coming in from behind.
Pok!
The Guard burst apart, and Simon winced without meaning to.
"A technique that shares damage between you and your summons! Isn't that right?"
"If you'd actually studied properly, you'd probably have been even more dangerous."
kak!
Simon shoved the Butcher's knife aside with the Guard's sword as he spoke.
"Haha! Bullseye, was it?"
"Sorry to disappoint, but the fact that I share damage with my Imperial Guard is something a lot of people already know. And."
Simon sent a single Guard lunging straight in. The Butcher swung his knife with obvious relish—but turquoise light drained out of the Guard's body, and it collapsed into dust.
"!"
In that window, Simon had already drawn two violet spears from his hip.
"Turning that against you is my formula for victory."
Crunch! Crack!
He drove the violet spears down through both of the Butcher's ankles.
A pained hiss escaped through the man's clenched teeth, and Simon stepped on Jet-Black and leapt skyward.
"Kghk! Hahahaha! You got me with that one!"
Simon stretched out his arms toward the heavens.
All of the Imperial Guards collapsed like puppets with severed strings, and their energy came flooding into him.
The turquoise light faded, turning a deep, absolute black.
A new technique, following in the line of Blood Arrow and Blood Sword—one Simon had created with inspiration drawn from the Simon of the future, as Serene had described him.
⟨ Simon Remake — Blood Orb ⟩
Guuuugugugu!
A black orb rose into his hand.
"Interesting!"
With both ankles pinned, the Butcher licked his lips. Craning his neck up at Simon, who stood silhouetted against the dawn with the orb in hand, he spun his kitchen knives in slow circles.
"Not yet."
The skeletons, freed from their Imperial Guard state, scrambled across the field, gathering up the Chaos Spears that had fallen during the fight and hurling them skyward.
The violet power of the Chaos Spears poured into the orb, wrapping its black core in a searing purple shell.
"Here it comes."
Dark magic transformed once more.
⟨ Simon Original — Chaos Orb ⟩
Simon gently pushed the violet orb from his palm.
"A firepower duel this time, is it!"
From the moment it left Simon's hand, the orb radiated violent waves of force in every direction. With his feet pinned, the Butcher crossed his two kitchen knives in front of himself.
If I deflect that thing back at him, the victory is mine!
Tendons stood rigid in his firmly planted legs, and gooseflesh prickled up both arms from sheer tension as he gripped the knives.
Thoom—
With a strangely light resonance, the orb touched the crossed knives.
"?!"
The Butcher knew at once.
This technique cannot be stopped.
The orb pressed onward, casually crumpling the blades it touched, and bore down on the Butcher's lower abdomen.
Guguguguk!
His back struck the top of the fortress wall.
Brdrdrdrk!
It punched through the floor and drove his body down into the earth.
KWAKWAKWAKWAKWAKWAKWAK—!
The wall buckled whole, tilting into a deep U-shape.
The onlookers' jaws hung wide open, and the Gahal warriors shrieked and scattered at what looked like a natural disaster made manifest.
At last.
Gududududuk!
Only after it had sunk an entire section of the wall and slammed into bedrock did the Chaos Orb finally stop, flickering, and dissolve. Through the settling dust, the Butcher could be seen sprawled out, the whites of his eyes showing.
A technique that converts explosive force into pure physical momentum.
Simon panted for breath and grinned.
This is how it's done, right? Future me.
WAAAAAAAH!
As if they had been waiting for exactly this, a colossal roar of cheers erupted from every direction.
Three hours after the battle.
Outside the fortress.
The war was over, and the ground beyond the walls was carpeted with the corpses of Mimics.
Countless arrows, and the scorched aftermath of Grelion's firepower. Great craters gaped across the earth in ragged rows.
"Ah— and here I thought this might be a Guardian."
"What're you gonna find rooting around a corpse? The others stripped it clean ages ago."
"Then go home, why don't you."
The Kizen students were still poking around the area, clinging to the last shreds of hope. These were the ones who had failed to claim a Guardian in this battle.
Pukeok! Pok!
Their skeletons finished off the occasional Mimic still twitching among the dead. The students ambled along, chattering about this and that.
And directly beneath one of those corpses—
Squelch—
a very small piece of flesh lay hidden.
His body gone, only the One-Eyed Gentleman's eyeball floated atop a pool of Jet-Black, carrying him along.
Another failure, then.
The eye drifted smoothly forward.
It was such a fine opportunity. Had I only recovered Simon Polentia, I could have been restored to my former standing within the Cabal.
Aaron, who had stopped him outright, and Grelion, whose firepower had gutted the monsters' numbers, went without saying.
Even among the students, there had been a fair number of formidable ones.
He had meant to quietly snatch Simon Polentia away amid the chaos, but perhaps he had thought too little of them. Dragging in the uncontrollable Butcher had been a blunder as well.
Once I return and reconstruct my body, I shall simply have to try again—
[You've been caught, haven't you.]
His fleeing form froze in the middle of the thick underbrush.
'!'
At some point, the One-Eyed Gentleman's eyeball had become entangled in a spiderweb. Webs stretched taut in every direction around him.
And at the very center, one woman sat perched, her rump pressed against a gossamer thread.
A Kizen student?
It was a pink-haired girl in a Kizen uniform—a figure the uniform did precious little to flatter. The tie hung loose around her neck, and her jacket was knotted around her waist.
Why did I sense nothing from her? Wait—that Jet-Black. Could it be—!
That distinctive aura of bloodlust he had felt in the village of the Frigod Autonomous Region.
Now he was certain. That woman was the worst of monsters, wearing Simon Polentia's shape.
[And here I was wondering.]
Her web reached down into the pool of Jet-Black beneath the eye. She drew up the pulp that had once been a body—the remains Aaron had pounded to mush.
[So you were an undead all along, weren't you?]
'...!'
[And no ordinary one—an undead possessing reason, one that thinks like a human. And yet, calling you an Ancient Undead like this maiden would be granting you far too much 'stature'.]
The One-Eyed Gentleman's eye trembled wildly.
Why was an Ancient Undead here?
Could it be—
Yesterday, in the village, the One-Eyed Gentleman had realized that she had been wandering about transformed into Simon Polentia's likeness.
None of this could be coincidence. Was Simon Polentia controlling her? Luring them in on purpose?
If so—
Then Simon Polentia is a Legion Commander!
This was decisive intelligence.
The information that Simon was the seventh. If he could deliver that much, confirmed, to the Cabal, he could go home.
Come to think of it, everything fit. Nephthys herself had recently ordered a ground-up investigation into the 7th Legion Commander within Kizen.
[And if not an Ancient Undead, then whatever could this be?]
Erzebet climbed down from her web and approached slowly. She looked the trapped eyeball over from one side to the other, then curled the corners of her mouth upward.
[What a darling little idea. An artificial spirit implanted in an undead vessel?]
'...!'
The One-Eyed Gentleman froze solid, feeling as though he had been stripped utterly bare. Erzebet's tongue flickered out.
[Like this, I can't even pry any information from you. The Lord Commander won't be pleased.]
'No! Stop—!'
Pukeok!
She pressed her finger down on the eye and crushed it.
Then she flicked the blood from her hand and reached into the pool of Jet-Black, drawing out the pulped mass of the corpse.
[Fufu. Still, I've recovered quite the precious prize, haven't I?]
After the battle, Simon had made his way outside the walls as well.
Crap. This is bad.
Simon pressed a hand to his forehead.
He'd been so tied up fighting the Cabal's people that, in practical terms, he had failed to secure the single most important thing—the Guardian.
He had promised Aaron he would build the finest Dullahan among all his classmates. And without a Guardian, the finest Dullahan could not be made.
"Hey there~"
At the sudden voice, Simon turned his head.
The pink-haired girl was waving at him.
"E-Erze?!"
Simon flinched and glanced around frantically. Fortunately, the other students nearby were too absorbed in hunting for Guardian corpses to pay her any mind.
Simon hurried over.
"What are you doing?! Why are you back in student form, and here of all places?"
"There is a matter I must report, my Lord."
The two of them stepped into the deep grass together.
"Whoa... this is incredible."
Spiderwebs blanketed everything in sight, and countless Mimic corpses hung suspended among them.
All around, Erzebet's Corpse Spiders swarmed, tearing strips of flesh from the Mimics and feeding.
"You brought your whole unit?"
"Yes. With numbers that great, I thought they might prove somewhat beyond the others—was my interference unwelcome, my Lord?"
"No, no—you saved us."
So that was it. He had wondered why the monster count at the initial breach of the fortress seemed lower than he'd sensed. It turned out Erzebet had been lending a hand all along.
Next, Erzebet showed Simon the One-Eyed Gentleman's corpse.
"Hmm. Hm-mm."
Simon looked down at the pulped mass of flesh and gave a wry smile.
"What am I supposed to do with this?"
"Its interior is nonetheless more intact than one might expect, my Lord. It may prove a valuable resource for studying the Cabal's new techniques."
"Ah—yeah, that's true, actually. Thanks for thinking of it."
Simon carefully stored the One-Eyed Gentleman's remains in his subspace.
"Speaking of corpses—by any chance, have you seen a Guardian body?"
"A Guardian? Ah, those tiresome brutes? I did see some, my Lord. Our spiders were engaged with several of them, as it happened."
"I need one of those!"
Simon and Erzebet searched the woods together.
And then—
"Wait! Wait! Don't eat that!"
They found it.
The Corpse Spiders had climbed atop the dead Guardian, but the armor-like shell encasing its body kept them from biting through.
Simon shooed the spiders off and let out a long breath of relief.
"One down. Thank goodness."
"However."
Erzebet lowered her fingertips.
"It has no head, my Lord."
"!"
It was a torso and nothing more.
Simon and Erzebet combined their efforts to search for the head, but the head—the one part left unprotected by the shell—had apparently already been devoured by the Corpse Spiders.
Simon leaned back against a tree, hollowed out by defeat.
"Haaah. If only I had the head, I could still make it work."
Once today passed, there was no telling when—or where—another Guardian could be found.
Sending Erzebet and her spider unit out to strip the Frigod Autonomous Region in search of one was unthinkable. The people living there couldn't possibly fail to notice. The risk was far too great.
...
Simon had been sunk in thought when his eyes abruptly sharpened.
—Make me a Dullahan so far beyond the standard that it astonishes me.
This Dullahan training evaluation was the most crucial step on the road to the Bone Dragon.
"Well, since it's come to this."
"?"
Simon lifted the headless Dullahan corpse with a sly grin.
"Then I'll just have to make it properly off the standard, won't I?"