Monster Wave
Monster Wave
That he had slain the Demon King. That he had driven the Path of Light into the core—only to die in turn.
Serengeti could not refuse to believe it. And yet she still could not believe it.
"…Recall the words you spoke to me when I stood before the Star."
She was careful. Her expression was graver, more solemn, than it had been before I ever mentioned my own death. It meant what I had given her was not yet enough to earn her trust.
There's something more.
I knew Serengeti. More thoroughly now than I ever had in the game. Meeting her again as a Player had stirred a strange kinship and a quiet homesickness.
So I understood. There was another reason she could not speak freely of my death. Another proof she needed before she could be certain I was the Knight King.
…What did I say back then?
I could not remember. Of course I could not. When I had helped her claim the Star, I had "encouraged" her. That much I recalled. The problem was that I had no idea what the encouragement had actually been.
It had been nothing more than a character command. Hold Ctrl and tap T, and you could choose one of twenty-six emotional expressions. The "Encourage" command made the character mutter something while patting a companion on the back. How was I supposed to know the words?
"…You always fretted that if you swallowed a Star and Transcended, you would cease to be 'Serengeti.'"
The words left my mouth as if they had always been waiting there—words I should never have known.
"I did not understand the worry that lived in you then. Looking back now, I think you simply hoped the love you bore Hudson would never change."
"…That is correct."
"Standing before the Star, I encouraged you. I told you to shut up."
"Ah…"
A fine tremor ran through her entire body. A memory known only to her and the Knight King. I was just as startled. In that instant the scene unfolded before my eyes like a panorama.
—They say everyone who takes a Star is changed. I am afraid the same will happen to me.
—Shut up.
…That had not been encouragement. It had been more like a boot to the backside, shoving her toward the Star.
Was that really encouragement? And was it normal to be this moved by being told to shut up?
…She was crying.
Must be because I read the Star's Memory.
A hidden effect of the Star's Successor class. Every class possessed its own concealed unique effects; mine was the ability to read the memories of the Star's previous owner. That had to be it.
"Are you truly Lord Wilhelm?"
"I am."
"B-but your appearance…"
"There are circumstances."
"Have you become a 'Sinner'?"
"A Sinner?"
A sinner was someone who had committed a crime—usually the sort of wretch locked in a cell. But the word Serengeti had just used seemed to mean something else entirely. When I tilted my head, she wiped away the falling tears and spoke.
"There are those who hunt people who 'possess' another body while carrying the memories of their former life. They call such people Sinners. They call themselves Hunters… or Reapers."
"First I've heard of them."
Reapers. Player-hunters, without question. I thought I had caught the word once while listening to Hudson's life story, but I had never learned the details.
Serengeti shook her head.
"I do not know the particulars either. Only this: be careful. Their obsession and tenacity in hunting Sinners are said to defy imagination. Rumor claims they hide a 'black bell' that never rings against their chests."
"I'll keep it in mind."
"And… concerning Lord Wilhelm's final moments, there are things you must know. Even now I can scarcely believe what I saw was real, but if it was…"
She bit her lip. Then, with eyes that still trembled at the memory, she began to speak of what she had witnessed.
That day the Knight King forced open a warp into the Demon Realm with two hundred thousand soldiers at his back.
The resistance of the demonkin was fierce; thousands died the moment they set foot in that realm. Priests chanted prayer after prayer and preached with all their strength, yet the darkness of the Demon Realm was simply too powerful.
"I don't like the feel of this. It seems the Demon King's army knew of our attack in advance."
The exact date and hour of the warp that would open into the Demon Realm were known only to a bare handful of people. Yet the demonkin of the Demon Realm moved as though they had been waiting and prepared.
Even that meticulous readiness, however, was shattered by a single stroke.
KWA-AAAAAANG!
When the Knight King swung his colossal sword of light, thousands of demonkin evaporated in the blink of an eye. The terrain itself changed; every trap became useless.
He was the Martial God. The Knight King was a living deity. The demonkin who stood before him were so pitiful that his mere presence crushed them.
"The Knight King does not fall! All forces, charge!"
"Slay the demonkin! Drive back the darkness!"
"The Goddess of Victory smiles upon us!"
So long as the Knight King lived, victory was theirs. Yet the darkness of the Demon Realm ran deeper than anyone had imagined.
Where did everyone go?
…As time passed, soldiers simply vanished. A gap opened between the knights who had raced to the front and the rank-and-file behind them. At first they thought the soldiers were merely slow of foot. They were wrong.
Serengeti felt something was wrong. Even if this was the Demon Realm, they had not entered unprepared. Every contingency had been calculated before the warp was opened. The darkness itself had been accounted for; they had brought ample Torches of Dawn so that no one would lose the path.
This is deliberate. Artificial.
The army was being dismantled—little by little, so carefully that no one noticed. Not by demonkin, but by human hands.
By the time they realized it, it was already too late.
Who betrayed us?
Someone of sufficient rank to unravel an army of this size had turned traitor. Not one person—many. No single hand could have orchestrated so systematic a concealment.
"Aaaagh!"
"Saintess Seia!"
The Saintess walking beside them staggered. She had been chanting sacrificial prayers without cease so that the knights would not be corrupted by demonic energy. Her once pure and beautiful face and body now sprouted sores swollen with every kind of miasma; her eyes were turning into the black sclera of a demon.
Saintess Seia. Even as her flesh rotted she refused to yield and cried out:
"G-go on! Keep going forward! I will bless you with my life!"
"But—!"
"You must not stop! You must never look back! This stretch is the Fly Hell—the place where the Demon King's miasma is strongest! All who turn around will rot!"
With her prayers of devotion she was rotting her own body in their place. That meant some of the knights who had gone ahead had already succumbed to the lure of the miasma and kept glancing behind them.
A hell where one could neither turn back nor tend to those who fell behind. Because no one could check who still followed once they entered, they had never noticed the army dissolving around them.
Then… there were people who already knew about this hell?
This was the first place humanity had ever set foot. To have known of it beforehand meant collusion with the Demon Realm.
Serengeti looked at the Knight King still racing at the head of the column. He never hesitated; he looked only forward.
The Fly Hell was more terrible than any of the seven hells that had come before. …When they finally emerged from the eighth hell—the Fly Hell—fewer than thirty knights remained.
Where… did everyone go?
Serengeti gasped for breath. When she looked down, the legs that should have been there were gone.
"…You fool."
The Knight King looked down at her and spoke. The instant they had tried to leave the Fly Hell, a trap had been waiting—a magic circle carved by the Demon King himself. The circle had activated only after half the Demon Realm had been sunk, and it should have claimed the life of Knight King Wilhelm.
In that moment Serengeti used her Transcendent power to switch their places. An ability gained through Transcendence took precedence over all else. She had survived by sheer luck, but her lower body had been blown away.
"Kh—!"
She coughed blood. She was dying. There was no surviving this. With the last of her strength she reached out and touched Knight King Wilhelm.
"Wilhelm. Most exalted and most honorable Knight King. When the expedition succeeds, please… protect Hudson. And deliver this, and my words. Tell him I am sorry I went first… and that I loved him truly."
She pressed the necklace she had been clutching into his hand. Wilhelm only shook his head.
"Save the sappy confessions for your own mouth."
At once he poured a Supreme Elixir over the severed stumps. Then he took out a single talisman and affixed it to her chest. Panic flooded Serengeti's eyes.
"Why would you waste that on the likes of me—!"
"I won't be needing it anymore."
The Extreme Annihilation Ward of Protection. A guardian talisman that created a resting place invisible to monsters in the field. Even that was useless against monsters that had Transcended past level 10. Yet even Transcended monsters could not kill anyone inside this Extreme Annihilation Ward. It had been reinforced so many times that its rank had been shattered again and again.
But there would be no further use for it.
Because—
"Watch from here. Watch me kill him."
…The Demon King stood right in front of them.
GROOOOOOAR!
The Demon King's core cracked. The Path of Light driven into it tore the Demon King's miasma to shreds. They had won. Victory! The long expedition into the Demon Realm had at last reached its end.
But the joy lasted only a moment.
What…?
Serengeti could not believe her own eyes. The moment the core shattered and the Demon King died—
ZZZAAAAAAK!
—the core exploded, and a miasma vast enough to swallow the world bound Wilhelm in place. And then—
"Monster of a man. To drive me this far without a single 'concession' from any goddess…"
…the Demon King's shadow began to move of its own will. At the same time time itself slowed. Everything around them seemed to freeze. The shadow looked down at its own body and clicked its tongue softly. It was nothing but rags now. With the core broken, resurrection in this flesh was impossible.
"But that is your fatal mistake."
The body had died, yet its essence had not. Only the complete power of a goddess could annihilate him. The human who had butchered his flesh was indeed a once-in-an-age hero—yet the goddess's power, the concessions, had never been properly invested. And so this was happening.
SHAAAAA!
The shadow was seeping into Wilhelm. Once it fully bound and consumed his body, the Demon King would rise again in a new vessel. That was the Demon King's final authority.
Remarkable. Truly remarkable.
A body that had Transcended by devouring five Stars was beyond imagination. The very substance of the flesh had left humanity behind and reached the realm of a Demigod. How thoroughly must it have been tempered?
"…Hm?"
SHWAAAAAK!
In that instant light began to pour from Knight King Wilhelm's body. Above his head the afterimage of a goddess appeared.
"Rhea…!"
The shadow recoiled violently. In a flash it drove the goddess's light away—yet it lost the most important things of all.
"You steal the life of a knight who followed you just so you won't lose the 'Stars'? And you still dare call yourself a goddess?!"
The goddess had taken Wilhelm's life by force and reclaimed the Stars. Because of that, the Demon King's plan to seize complete dominion over Wilhelm's body came to nothing. Where the light faded, Wilhelm lay dead, his face deathly pale.
"…There is no memory after that."
"…"
"Only… what burst out then was like pure evil itself…"
THUD!
KWA-AAAANG!
At that moment the ground shook and something exploded. Immediately Hudson's voice shouted from beyond the door.
"M-Monster Wave! The city is under attack!"