The Demon Sword Claims Its Host
A few minutes earlier.
"Kh…!"
Lilith could scarcely believe it.
She had poured more power, for longer than usual, into her mana arrows — drawing on the orb the Apostle of the Unity God had given her — and still she had only managed a stalemate against that slender little boy.
No. The fact that he had held out until every last cultist was wiped out made it closer to his victory than hers.
"Our brothers on the upper floors have all fallen. Now it is our turn."
"…I have no excuse. I never imagined anyone could block my arrows…"
She saw no point in petty excuses that would only humiliate her further, so she admitted her failure without protest.
"They'll be here soon. We have to fall back. Where is the secret passage you said was in this place?"
Lilith remembered the Apostle mentioning a hidden escape route for the worst case when they first took up position here, and she proposed they use it.
"There is none."
The Apostle smiled faintly and delivered the words as if they were nothing at all.
"…What?"
"Is it not obvious? This is merely a tomb far from the royal palace. Why would anyone build a secret passage in a place like this?"
"But you said— I see. You deceived me from the start."
Lilith snarled the words at him, killing intent thick in her voice, but the smile never left the Apostle's lips.
There is one, of course — but we are meant to die here.
Royal obsession with their own safety ran deep enough that a secret passage would hardly be absent from a place like this. But they were supposed to fight desperately and perish on this ground.
Lilith, who could not afford to die until she returned to her own world, leveled her bow at the Apostle who had broken their agreement to retreat through the passage.
"Hmm. I did not take you for so foolish as to start an internal fight in a situation like this."
"You broke the promise first."
"Even if you take my head now, do you think they will welcome you?"
"That alone would be difficult, yes. But if I tell them what you did to that sword, the odds improve considerably."
The Apostle's face hardened at her words.
"I don't know the details, but one thing is clear — this entire plan rests on that sword. What happens if I warn them so that no one dares approach it?"
"That would be… inconvenient."
"Then find a way out of here if you want my mouth shut! I have to return to my original world!"
Lilith trained a mana arrow on the Apostle and threatened him. At the sight, the cultists who had worked some scheme on the sword with the Apostle on the third floor surrounded her and raised their weapons.
"It cannot be helped, then."
The words of surrender left the Apostle's mouth, and Lilith's face brightened —
"Lilith Marmat Asmodeus. Be silent."
"You— how…!"
Light flared from a strange sigil etched on the back of the Apostle's hand. In an instant Lilith found herself opening and closing her mouth, able to produce nothing but the sound of her own breath.
"A rather amusing summoning system. An Emblem that forces two absolute commands upon the summoned being."
"!!"
"Did you truly think I spent all that time after contracting with you in idle waste? The Outer God Coalition has no shortage of technicians. We deciphered this so-called Emblem long ago."
"!!!!"
"I command you again, Lilith Marmat Asmodeus. When I give the signal, fight our enemies until your life is spent."
Bound by two absolute commands, Lilith's free will was stripped away. She became a machine that would keep silent and, at the signal, attack the enemy as the Apostle ordered.
Master…!
She thought of the master from her original world — the one who had never used the Emblem system's absolute commands, who had moved her instead with sincere persuasion.
To have contracted with another master at all, after offering body and soul to the one who had kept her alive, was already a humiliation. To be spent as fuel for these people's plans was a shame and degradation beyond bearing.
I wanted… to see you one more time…
Worse still was the knowledge that she would never meet her master again.
Time passed. When the Apostle heard the special forces descending toward the third floor, he gave a nod of readiness to the believers gripping their weapons.
"This ends here! You filthy cultists!"
The Knight Captain who reached the third floor drove straight into the cultists, raining blows without hesitation. Had the founding king Durden still stood, they would have been cautious — but with every founding hero and more already cut down on the second floor, there was nothing left to fear.
"Kh! You fools! The Unity God was our only salvation!"
Unlike his earlier exchange with Lilith, the Apostle now shouted like a cornered cultist with nowhere left to run.
"Attack! All of you! For the Unity God!"
"For the Unity God!!"
Thwip!
"Gahk!"
At the Apostle's signal, Lilith — dominated by the absolute command — drew her bow in a sudden ambush and drove an arrow through the brow of a holy knight advancing behind a barrier of sacred rites.
"It's that archer!"
"That bitch!"
"I'll kill her!"
Those who had suffered under Lilith's arrows on the second floor charged her at once. The cultists formed a protective formation around her, and the fighting turned savage.
Thwip-thwip-thwip-thwip!
"Guh!"
"Khak!"
"Grk!"
"Hhk!"
Lilith drew her bow with mechanical precision — but unlike before, she no longer aimed for vital points or killing shots. She began striking elsewhere.
The forced command compelled her to attack them, yet she poured what little resistance she had into wounding rather than killing. She also wasted mana with deliberate inefficiency, burning down the time she could remain manifested as a summon as quickly as possible.
Of course the special forces, knowing none of this, only saw their casualties mount and redoubled their efforts to cut down the archer the cultists were shielding.
Now!
Noriyoshi realized his moment had finally come.
In this chaos — the enemy's last thrashing driving everyone's injuries skyward — he would draw Excalibur and sweep them all away in a single stroke!
He would show everyone that he was a hero worthy of being Excalibur's master!
I ran into unexpected interference upstairs, but this isn't bad either!
Having already scripted his rise as a hero, he rolled his eyes quickly and confirmed where the founding king's sword was planted.
The fighting raged in the center of the chamber. The founding king's tomb and Excalibur stood against the northern wall.
Tap!
Confirming that everyone was locked on the cultists, Noriyoshi slipped sideways and sprinted for the tomb and the sword thrust into the stone beside it.
"Hm!? No! Stop that one!"
The Apostle, watching the battle from the rear with his swollen body, cried out in shock at Noriyoshi's sudden move.
He had never imagined that, in the middle of combat and in full view of everyone, some mercenary who was not even a knight would try to draw Galaig.
"Is he seriously—!"
The Knight Captain, too, sensed that Noriyoshi meant to pull the founding king's sword, Galaig, and reeled in dismay.
The bizarre mental world of Earth-born people who arrived in another world convinced they were the protagonist had produced a sudden act neither side had anticipated. For a man raised in the twenty-first century, royal authority carried no weight at all.
"Stop him!! Shoot that one! Shoot him, you filthy elf bitch!"
The Apostle ordered Lilith to fire on Noriyoshi — but she deliberately ignored the command so that the Apostle's plan would collapse.
After all, the absolute command had been fight our enemies, not a designation of any specific target.
So Noriyoshi reached Galaig, seized the hilt, and heaved with all his strength.
Grrrnnn—
"Ha… hahaha! Hahahahahaha! I knew it! I—!"
The legendary blade that no one but the founding king had ever drawn came free in his hand.
Howling with the rapture of realizing he was the protagonist, Noriyoshi—
"I'm the protagonist! I was the protagonist all along… huh?"
—suddenly found the scenery changing in an instant. He stood alone in a strange, pure-white space.
"What… is this…?"
The murderous clamor of moments before had vanished. He stood abandoned in a silence so deep he could have heard dust fall, and his mind spun furiously.
"Is this some kind of trial?"
Apparently one had to pass a test to wield this sword.
"There are swords like that. Fine! What kind of trial is it? Bring it on!"
Whatever hardship came, he — the protagonist — would surely pass it.
Certain of that, Noriyoshi felt a presence and turned.
"Ha…?"
There, something that could only be called ominous — a vast, jelly-like mass the color of dried blood, of a height he could not measure — was surging toward him.
Splat!
The jelly-thing engulfed Noriyoshi. His consciousness and soul were absorbed into it.
A moment later the mass that had swallowed him contracted, then began to reshape itself into a human form.
"Tch. Idiots. Can't even succeed at something this simple."
The completed human wore Noriyoshi's shape — but it was an entirely different being.
The eyes that had once shone with boundless confidence that he was the protagonist, eager for the adventures ahead, had gone cold and sharp. That alone was proof enough.
"Talent enough, but nothing satisfactory. And a mere mercenary, at that."
Recalling the memories of the Noriyoshi he had just absorbed, he twisted his face in disgust.
"What is this garbage."
A piece of trash who, bullied and ostracized in his own era, had soothed himself by claiming he had been born in the wrong time. The moment he arrived in Zelsdad he had lucked into a usable mana load, fallen into the delusion that he was the protagonist of some Japanese isekai story, and drawn Galaig on nothing but baseless confidence.
"This complicates things."
Originally the sword was meant to fall into royal hands — a collateral branch at the very least. Only then could he enter a royal body and remake this world for the Unity God.
He had assumed that if anyone drew the blade, it would be royalty first. He had failed to account for the mental world of Earth-born people, and the plan had come apart.
Noriyoshi had believed Galaig was Excalibur. In truth it was a demon sword that devoured its wielder's mind and seized the flesh.
That was why Durden's name matched the magic sword's own.
The Halrot Kingdom remained ignorant of this because, for a demon sword that dominated minds, it was peculiarly selective — hunting only the talented. Founding King Durden had fit that criterion perfectly, and just as now, the sword had absorbed his soul and learned this world's knowledge and circumstances.
In any case, the original plan had been to reawaken awareness of Galaig — long forgotten because no one had drawn it — place it in the hands of a curious royal, and from inside the Halrot Kingdom itself begin to make believers of the Unity God.
They could have devised far more vicious schemes if they wished. The deliberate dimensional warping, the invitation of a subjugation force so they could be "defeated," had all been for this purpose.
And now an Earth-born named Noriyoshi had knocked the plan's most critical keystone askew.
"It cannot be helped. Too late to abandon the work. The road will be far longer, but acting freely as a mercenary is not so bad — and if the descendants propose a political marriage for the one who drew me, that would serve well enough."
Galaig, its mind already corrupted by the Unity God's believers into a devotee of that god, decided either to become a hero in this Earth-born body and slowly grow the Unity God's power — or to seek out a vessel of greater talent than this flesh.
"Hyaaaaaaaaaah!!"
KRAAAAAA—!!
"Urgh!"
"Guh!"
Noriyoshi — who had drawn Galaig — erupted with power, snapping every gaze in the chamber onto himself in a single breath.
An Origin-level aura. No — something beyond it. Everyone froze solid.
When the Apostle's eyes met Noriyoshi's, the Apostle gave a small nod and cried out as if in shock.
"H-how! Even with the founding king's corpse we could not draw it—!"
"You fools! Did you think absorbing the flesh alone would be enough!"
Galaig, occupying Noriyoshi's body, tore freely at the life force within it to amplify his own power. Using strength this way would burn the body's lifespan down at a terrifying rate — but when the time came, he would simply change vessels.
"Haaah!"
Galaig shouted boldly and struck at the cultists. Of course the cultists knew the plan; they resisted with desperate sincerity, attacking as if they truly meant to kill him. Anything less would have raised suspicion.
THWOOM!!
Half the sword's power, half mana wrenched from Noriyoshi's source force. Galaig swung his body as freely as a weapon and carved the cultists apart, then closed on Lilith, who had been loosing mana arrows from the rear.
Believing her the heart of the scheme, she fought desperately to kill him — but Galaig, who had absorbed hundreds of human souls and lived as both great hero and great villain, simply slipped her arrows and drove inward.
"!!"
Lilith could use magic, but her system required spoken incantations. With her mouth sealed, the only thing left to her was—
KRASH-CRACK!
"Die, vile dark elf!"
—to glare with hate-filled eyes as Galaig cut her down, armor and all.
Mas…ter…
Ssssss— clatter!
Her body severed, Lilith dissolved as if breaking apart at the molecular level. The bow she had wielded tumbled lifelessly to the floor.
Galaig swallowed the fallen bow into the subspace function bound to his true form.
With this, I can summon that woman again. Properly persuaded, she will make useful strength.
Having heard everything while still a sword, he intended to convince her that this, too, had been part of the plan — that she had been forced to fight desperately to deceive the enemy — and then put her to work building his power.
"This is the last of it!"
Having finished the cultists and Lilith, Galaig lunged at the Apostle and rose to match the man's height — swollen from the countless humans he had absorbed.
"U-Unity Goddddd!"
The Apostle thrashed with a "desperate" prayer — but Galaig split his body on a diagonal, and the staff in his hand shattered.
Whether the staff had been a sacred relic of the Unity God or not, the alien mana vanished, and the dimensionally warped region began to normalize.
Thus Galaig, wearing Noriyoshi's body, single-handedly settled the battle that had tormented them all, and showed everyone a master worthy of the legendary blade.
"In… incredible."
"To display such martial might alone…!"
"That Galaig has found a new master…!"
Some marveled, some reeled at Galaig's power — but the knights who recovered their composure felt the situation had only grown more troublesome.
A nameless mercenary had drawn the legendary sword of Halrot Kingdom's founding king. And by displaying power befitting its master, he had made it impossible to simply take the blade by force.
If he had at least been a noble of some obscure minor house of the kingdom, it would not have been this much of a headache.
Something feels wrong.
While everyone else's eyes were fixed on the birth of a new legend, Lillian felt a strange unease.
Whether it was a master's instinct or the instinct of a mercenary captain who had fallen into countless traps across countless contracts, she could not say. But one thing was certain: everything from the beginning until now had been strange.
Rather than the satisfaction of resolving a great crisis, she felt only the lingering discomfort of having been led by some other design, of a matter finished half-heartedly and off-center.
"Hah! Hah! I-is everyone all right!?"
While all attention remained locked on Noriyoshi, who had drawn the legendary sword, a soft young voice called from the floor entrance.
Heads turned. Kaisent was frantically rolling his eyes, trying to grasp what was happening.
"Uh… well… there was this sudden surge of enormous mana, and…"
Th-th-th-th-th-that…!
And Galaig — seeing Kaisent for the first time not through Noriyoshi's memories but with his own faculties — barely managed to choke down the scream that tried to tear free.
A m-m-monster…! Talent like that… I never saw it in my former world, and I have never seen it in this one either!
As a demon sword that absorbed the souls of the talented, he could perceive a person's gift. And what he beheld now was a monster of talent he had never witnessed since the day of his own creation.
I must take that boy's body! Royalty, plans — none of it matters! If I can claim that flesh, I would abandon every scheme I have built even if it had already succeeded perfectly!
Seizing a royal body to work from inside the kingdom was nothing beside claiming that body and starting from the bottom. The latter was thousands of times more profitable.
Galaig began laying plans to steal Kaisent's flesh by any means — but with everyone watching, he could not move freely.
I have to create a chance to meet him alone! Somehow!