The Sword That Cuts What Cannot Heal
The biggest problem with the fake Big Kroom was its regeneration. And according to Pier, there was a solution — his greatsword was imbued with the power of ruin. Simply put, any living being touched *directly* by the blade would suffer wounds that no regeneration or healing could ever mend — a literal, irrecoverable severing.
"Wait, why are you only telling me this NOW!" Simon shouted, beside himself. Pier clicked his tongue.
[Because I cannot leave my post. Look around, boy! There are far too many eyes watching.]
He had a point. With the state of emergency declared, more than ten Observers were circling around Big Kroom at all times.
"Is there any chance I could borrow Pier's sword, then?"
[This is the Nether Greatsword, forged from my own body! No one but I could so much as lift it, let alone swing it.]
Simon mulled it over for a moment, then snapped his fingers with a grin.
"How about this, then?"
[Let's hear it.]
When Simon finished explaining, Pier threw his head back and roared with laughter.
[What a mad idea!]
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Worth a shot."
[Fine!]
Simon opened his sub-space, and Pier dropped the greatsword to the ground. Just in case, Simon tried gripping the hilt and lifting it — it didn't budge an inch.
"Then let's begin."
Simon opened the sub-space once more. This time, not onto bare dirt —
Vuuuum!
— but onto the flat of Pier's greatsword itself.
A moment later, Pier's copy inside the sub-space reached out a skeletal arm and closed its bony fingers around the hilt.
"That's it! Now lift it straight up — all the way!"
Grind.
The arm emerging from the sub-space heaved the greatsword upright. Simon and Erzsébet let out a gasp of awe at the same time.
"It worked!"
"As expected of our Legion Commander's brilliance!"
[Brilliance, my aching bones!]
Pier's copy shouted in exasperation.
[You expect me to swing a sword like this? I can do nothing but hold it upright!]
"Holding it is more than enough."
Simon stepped forward and laid his hands over the ones gripping the hilt. Pier, his copy providing the line of sight, took the cue and bore down on the blade.
"Keep it square to the front!"
As Simon gave the order, Pier moved the greatsword — and the motion locked into place as if Simon himself were holding the blade.
Of course, Simon was only pretending to grip it; Pier's strength was carrying the sword's full weight.
"You're doing great!"
[...This feels deeply strange. In all my life — and all my death — I have never once held a sword like this.]
"It can't be helped. Better than getting caught by Kizen and hunted down, no?"
Erzsébet spun thread from her fingertips and wove it into cloth, then bound the spots where the greatsword and Pier's arm showed, hiding them from view.
Now it was perfect.
"...That said."
Simon felt a faint wave of dizziness. Jet-Black was being drained ceaselessly through the ring on his finger.
"Keeping a sub-space open burns through quite a lot of Jet-Black."
"And it strains the sub-space itself, my Lord. Let us seal it until we reach Big Kroom."
Simon closed the sub-space, recalled Pier's greatsword, and started running.
It should have been a long run — but luckily, or perhaps unluckily, Big Kroom had smashed apart chunks of the southern island and then changed course, drawing near to the central Kera Island once more.
'I have to stop it from reaching Kera Island. No matter what.'
Today was the third day of Island Survival.
The vast majority of the students had gathered on Kera Island. If Big Kroom attacked it, the exam-suspension order would finally, certainly come down — and in the worst case, it could end in catastrophe.
As he ran, Simon activated his mana communication device.
"Lorraine! Can you hear me?"
Static crackled, and a moment later Lorraine's voice came through.
— Loud and clear! More importantly, things are bad. The monster's heading for the central island again.
"I see it. And right now, I have a way to bring that monster down."
— What is it?
"A weapon that suppresses regeneration. But I have to wield it myself. Can you seal off the monster's arm for exactly five minutes or so? Pass the word to Serne too!"
As he finished, Simon wondered if he was being too brusque — issuing orders without so much as an explanation.
But —
— Got it.
Lorraine answered without hesitation and cut the line. She turned her gaze toward Serne, flying nearby.
"You heard?"
"Ha."
Serne let out a hollow laugh.
"And who exactly does he think he is, ordering us around like hired help?"
"Simon has a means of blocking its regeneration. Do you have a better idea?"
"No, but you actually *believe* that?"
"Yes."
Lorraine nodded as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"I trust him unconditionally."
"..."
"The left arm is yours."
With that, Lorraine urged her skeleton horse onward and was gone.
'...Haah.'
From Serne's standpoint, it was all but impossible to understand. She lowered her gaze — and there he was, Simon, charging headlong at Big Kroom.
— Your ways only multiply your enemies.
"Ugh, fiiine!"
Serne grumbled in irritation and crossed her arms. Countless feathers scattered into the air from her body.
Meanwhile, Simon had already closed the distance to directly beneath Big Kroom's foot.
The giant's massive legs kicked up more than dust now — they were stirring whole clouds of yellow grit.
"Erze! Ready?"
"Whenever you are, my Lord!"
"Let's go!"
The instant Big Kroom's sole touched the ground, Simon stomped down hard on a foothold of Jet-Black and launched himself up onto the top of the foot.
Thunk!
Then he drove the greatsword deep into the monster's instep.
Feeling the pain, the giant's eyes turned downward. Just meeting that monster's gaze sent cold sweat pouring down Simon's back.
'Here we go.'
There was no room for hesitation. With the sword buried in the foot, Simon activated the Jet-Black in his body and began to run.
From the instep to the ankle, from the ankle up the leg.
"HAAAAAAAH!"
With the greatsword still lodged in the flesh, he ran straight upward.
Whether Pier's claim about the power of ruin was true or not, the wounds left in the greatsword's wake simply refused to close.
Sshluk!
Sshrrrrluk!
Big Kroom wasn't about to sit still. The living bandages wrapped around its body tore loose in places and came flying at Simon.
Simon's eyes hardened.
'...Focus!'
Once more he reproduced the mental image Bahil had taught him. Time slowed, and slowed again, until his own running speed and the speed of the incoming bandages stretched into slow motion.
Holding his grip on the embedded sword, Simon twisted only his body and head to slip past the bandages.
"You must cut deeper wounds as you climb, my Lord!"
Erzsébet — still transformed into Brad — shouted. She was running alongside him.
"Keep the pain coming and its attacks will thin out!"
"Got it!"
He could feel it for himself: carving the sword deeper with every stride, the attacks came less frequently.
But then the flesh of its belly undulated and swelled, and a third arm burst out with a wet shlak!
'It has arms in its STOMACH?!'
The arm spread its palm wide and reached down to seize Simon.
"I'll take that one!"
Erzsébet overtook Simon's pace and crashed head-on into the third arm. Gripping it with both hands, she shouted:
"Go, quickly!"
"Thanks!"
Past Erzsébet, Simon now reached the spot where the giant's navel sat.
Then the world around him darkened. Big Kroom's enormous right hand was descending to snatch him up.
Erzsébet screamed for him to dodge from behind, but Simon bit his lip and ran a single, unbroken straight line.
SHLAAAK!
In that instant, Big Kroom's entire wrist was severed clean off. Above the raw, glistening cut surface, Simon saw Lorraine climbing upward.
"Keep running, Simon!"
From her head sprouted two horns, straight and sharp, like a demon's.
Shreng! Shreng! Shreng! Shreng!
Each time the ebony blade in her hand danced, the monster's arm split into ribbons of meat, like cuts from a butcher's block.
In a heartbeat she was at the shoulder, dropping the whole right arm from the body — then she leapt into the air and landed astride the skeleton horse waiting for her.
'That's our Lorraine!'
Having lost its right arm, Big Kroom now thrust out its left.
Sshrrrrrrrk!
Jet-black feathers coiled around Big Kroom's left arm. Serne uncrossed her arms and swept them outward in one graceful motion.
⟨ Ten Thousand Wings Chain ⟩
Clang! Clang!
The feathers decomposed into magic circles, then transformed into chains that linked to one another.
Link meshing into link with perfect precision, the chains braided together like rope, sealing the left arm — and locking it in place against the very sky itself.
— UUUUAAAAAAAGH!
Big Kroom bellowed in fury and shook its left arm, but the chains only rattled and clanked. They did not break.
So the monster turned instead to the right arm Lorraine had carved apart. The seven shredded chunks of flesh fused together like sticky jelly, slowly knitting back toward their original shape.
Lorraine, flying at high speed astride her skeleton horse, swung her ebony sword.
Zzzzzzzzrak!
This time, a cubing cut — the arm's midsection was sliced into uniform rectangular blocks that scattered in all directions.
But before they could disperse fully through the air, flesh was already bonding to flesh through sticky fluid, faster than the wind could carry them apart.
The only one landing wounds that mattered was Simon — carving his way up Big Kroom's body with Pier's greatsword.
"Hah! Haah! Hoo!"
He'd made it up to the chest, but Simon was already feeling the wall of his stamina. No — he wasn't just feeling it. He had smashed through that wall again and again already.
Pier was carrying the sword, yes — but Simon had to sustain a near-vertical Dark Step up the slope, hold the sub-space open, *and* dodge the bandages flying at him from every side.
The conditions were, without question, the worst imaginable.
And yet.
'I WILL make this work!'
Falling now meant falling to his death. Plain and simple.
With the dizzying vista spread out far below him, Simon forced his deadened legs to keep moving, one step after another.
'Ah—!'
Then his right foot, planted on the monster's chest, lost its strength for an instant and slipped.
Simon's body lurched violently, tipping over.
— Oh dear, tired already?
A single feather drifted playfully in front of Simon's face.
'Serne?'
Snkt! Snt! Snt!
Feathers began sticking themselves to Simon's back.
— I'll push you.
The feathers decomposed instantly into magic circles and unleashed a torrent of force.
Boosted like a rocket at his back, Simon found his footing on the giant's chest with his right leg once more.
'Hoo—!'
Running again.
With the feathers bracing him from behind, it took a fraction of the effort. It was almost like running on wings.
"HAAAAAAAH!"
He roared and hurled himself off the shoulder — and at last,
the open sky spread before him.
Nothing above him anymore. To either side, only the giant's shoulder and its neck.
Simon planted his foot on the shoulder and ran for the neck.
'PIER!!'
[Ready when you are, boy!]
Simon was running. The Observers watched from every angle around him.
And beyond them, Serne watched with an expression she couldn't name.
'...Simon Polentia.'
The truth was, she had planned to replace the Legion Commander with someone else.
What she needed was not the boy called Simon, but the undead he possessed — and the power of a Legion Commander.
The Ivory Tower had necromancers aplenty who would grow without limit the moment they got their hands on a Legion. Simon himself was, whatever else happened, destined to disappear.
But.
The image of the boy — dragging legs that had long since hit their limit, his face warped by the howling wind, roaring defiance as he ran for nothing but the monster's throat — seared itself onto Serne's eyes.
A will that absolutely refuses to break.
'Could someone like that... ever...'
Could any of the Ivory Tower's necromancers do that?
Could they even imitate it?
Having surmounted every obstacle in his path and reached the giant's neck at last, Simon swung the pure-white greatsword down with an explosive roar.
ZUUUUUUUUNNNNG!
The world split in two.
The neck of the giant — dozens of times larger than Simon — parted down a perfectly clean cross-section, cleaved in half.
Serne felt as though she were drowning in a flood of shivers.
This —
This she could not deny.
'Irreplaceable.'
No one in the Ivory Tower could stand in for Simon Polentia.
[BUHAHAHAHAHA! You did it, boy! YOU DID IT!]
At Pier's roar, Simon managed a crooked grin. The giant's severed head went flying — and at the same moment, Simon's own body pitched over, losing its balance entirely.
High, high in the sky.
Up where the cold wind tore past him, Simon felt a jolt of pure exhilaration.
And then —
"Simon!"
His consciousness cut out.