Chapter 23. Stay Out of Bad Water
The moment Arendt's sword slid smoothly free of its sheath, Warren's body shifted and warped as well.
KWAAAANG!
Their twin strikes slammed against Blake's longsword and were, almost insultingly, stopped dead.
He was holding back the combined force of a werewolf and a knight all at once — and yet not a trace of strain showed anywhere on him.
"A shallow trick."
"What, like you didn't expect it from the start?"
Arendt flashed a wide grin. But there was no time to savor the moment, because Blake swung his sword with crushing force and knocked both of them away in a single stroke.
Rather than push the contest, Arendt gave ground and widened the distance, stealing a glance at Warren.
"You picked the wrong person to bite, didn't you? Aren't you supposed to be killing me?"
"Can you please shut that mouth of yours?"
Warren growled in irritation and hurled himself at Blake again. The masked man parried the furious claws just as effortlessly as before.
The exchange between the two was ferocious.
In the blink of an eye Warren had transformed into his wolf form, letting out a long, keening howl as his fangs bared.
"Rebecca seemed to trust you a great deal. A pity. Even now, you could still turn back."
Where that kind of strength came from in those long, spindly arms was beyond understanding. Even locked in a standoff with a werewolf, Blake remained perfectly, unnervingly composed.
Horror coiled in Warren's eyes.
"Trust me? I was just one of her more useful collectibles, nothing more."
"And does that matter so much?"
That characteristically mournful voice drifted out from behind the mask — and then, KWAAANG! an explosive burst of power hurled Warren backward. He faltered for a heartbeat at the unexpected blow, but recovered quickly and deflected the attack that came streaking toward his chest.
The two collided head-on, and a violent shockwave swept the surroundings. The arm Warren raised to catch Blake's blade on his claws began to tremble finely.
It meant the pressure being applied was more than even a werewolf's powerful muscles could easily withstand.
"It was hardly a losing arrangement for you, either. Your family survived, and as one of Rebecca's inner circle you lived comfortably enough, did you not?"
"I did. And every moment since, I've been regretting it."
Maybe there had been another path.
Back in the Imperial Palace, with his family's safety hanging in the balance, Warren had chosen to cooperate with the knights. But from the moment Arendt had entered this castle, other options had undeniably existed.
He could have told Rebecca everything about the knights' plan.
If he had hinted that Arendt — who spent his days playing tug-of-war with Rebecca — would never truly turn his back on the knights, the outcome would certainly have been different.
But Warren hadn't done it.
"I don't intend to retract the choice I made."
"Right. It was all fine, except the liquor was terrible!"
With a twisted smile, Warren raised one arm and brought it down hard on Blake. But the strike slammed into an invisible barrier and stopped short.
KWAAAANG!
The roar of a blow landing on solid stone shuddered the air around them.
Blake swept his sword, and Warren's massive frame went flying.
As he rolled across the floor with a crash, Blake lunged at him — and Arendt cut in front of the charging man.
KAAAANG!
Steel met steel with a harsh shriek of metal.
There was no way he could take the full force of a power that even the werewolf struggled against.
So Arendt chose to let the blow slide off to the side instead — and even that alone was enough to drag a groan out of him, the pressure bearing down like a crushing weight.
Twisting his body, Arendt struck straight for Blake's head. But once again, before his sword could so much as touch the man's flesh, something stopped it and sent it bouncing away.
FWOOOM!
The empty air itself exploded, blasting Arendt off his feet.
"……!"
Warren, lunging with an outstretched arm, just barely caught him by the nape and flung him the other way. It spared him a head-on collision with the wall, but the shock of being thrown down onto the cold stone floor was no small thing either.
Warren planted himself in front of Arendt, who rolled across the ground and coughed out a dry, ragged breath.
"You're in the way, so stay down."
"……That's hilarious, really."
Still swaying, Arendt somehow forced himself upright.
"Can you even handle him alone? If I hadn't been there earlier, you'd already be dead."
"Your twig-of-a-body isn't much help to anyone."
"And who was it, exactly, that got beaten black and blue by this twig and thrown into a cell?"
"I should have torn your mouth open from the very beginning."
"Yeah, yeah. Next up: frost-bitten wolf."
After that savage exchange — from two men no one could reasonably call allies — Warren moved first.
Driving his forelegs into the ground like arms, he tangled with Blake. But this time too, his strikes were stopped dead just short of the enemy.
Once more, the flow of the air shifted, subtle and strange.
Blake seemed to manipulate air pressure at will. Seen that way, even the tremendous strength with which he withstood a werewolf's power made sense.
It was an ability that had never appeared in the novel.
So this was the price of taking Frost-Tinged Touch.
Arendt watched Warren barely land on his feet after being blocked out of thin air.
This is straight-up cheating.
He couldn't even land a grazing hit, let alone a real one.
Blake was facing Warren — a man who had given even Laios a long, hard fight in the novel — without so much as a ragged breath.
Unless they found a way through, it wouldn't matter whether Laios joined them or not. The situation would stay exactly the same.
Every artifact carried absurd, impossible power — but each one had its limits, some boundary it could not cross.
They had to find that line.
Arendt focused intently on Warren's struggle — or more precisely, on the points where his attacks were being blocked.
Is the range limited, maybe?
There was nothing to do but test it.
Hardening his resolve, Arendt gripped his sword tight and wedged himself between Warren and Blake.
GWAAAGH!
Blades crashed together, and a shockwave strong enough to lift the hair on his head tore through the air around them.
The pressure slamming into his whole body nearly knocked his mind loose, but Arendt gritted his teeth and held.
Skreek. Skeeeek.
The grinding blades let out a wretched squeal. Unable to fully bear the opposing force, Arendt began sliding backward, one step, then two.
His arms shook violently. Wounds that had nearly finished healing split open again, staining his shoulder red.
"You don't strike me as a man with any great sense of mission. And yet you seem quite practiced at selling others to save your own skin."
The voice that reached him remained flat and dry, but the question lurking beneath it could not quite be hidden.
"Why go this far? If you had simply stayed quiet, at the very least your life would have been spared. Did you truly believe you could defeat me?"
The stark white mask covering Blake's face still betrayed no expression whatsoever.
Arendt gritted his teeth and shoved with all his strength, but Blake didn't budge an inch. That stalemate lasted only moments — then the masked man sensed an attack rushing in from behind.
It was Warren.
The werewolf charged with his whole body, snarling savagely, jaws snapping for the back of the enemy's neck.
Blake wrenched his body sideways, hurling Arendt away at last, and spun to face Warren.
BANG!
As Arendt went tumbling, Warren took over the exchange like a relief soldier, his razor fangs clashing against Blake's blade.
He clamped his jaw down with everything he had, both hands joining in to seize the great blade itself.
"……!"
The edge punched through the thick leather and bit into his palms. Hot blood sprayed in every direction, but Warren's hands never let go.
In that instant, Arendt — who had recovered his footing — kicked off the ground.
Blake felt the movement and tried to react, but the black sword jammed hard into Warren's palm didn't move at all. Arendt drove into the gap between them without missing a beat and swung.
Blake clicked his tongue in pure irritation, kicked Warren square in the chest, and answered the attack.
The moment Warren went flying, Arendt's sword carved a sharp, gleaming arc — and etched a clear crack across the stark white mask.
Crack.
The lower half of the split mask dropped away with a soft tap, leaving Blake's jaw fully exposed.
Even he, apparently, hadn't anticipated this — he froze for a moment, lips parted slightly.
Wiping the blood trailing from the corner of his mouth, Arendt smirked.
"Ahaha, so you need to secure some safe distance to use your artifact, is that it? Can't activate it with someone this close, huh?"
Beneath the broken mask, a pale jaw clenched down, hard and vicious.
"You asked why I'd go this far? What does the reason matter? I do it because I have to. That's all."
Dragging himself up inch by inch, Arendt curled his lips into a crooked smile.
He was simply being faithful to the role this damned world had dumped into his lap.
"How is anyone supposed to live doing only what they want? Don't your gods teach you even that much?"
"Weren't you the one doing all this because you *wanted* to, you lunatic……"
Warren, still shaking himself back into shape, managed to interject even in the middle of all this.
Whether he flip-flopped or not was beside the point — when it came to making people turn their outfits inside out, the man clearly had a gift.
Blake, who had maintained his composure throughout, finally could not contain the killing intent any longer, and his teeth ground together audibly.
"Filthy spawn of the Light……"
"Plenty of talk from a lousy cultist rebel, don't you think?"
Arendt spat the blood welling up in his throat onto the floor and gripped his sword again.
"Take off that ridiculous mask and you can't even keep your face in order? It's you or me today, you Pervert Mask bastard."
His palms had split open and were streaming blood, and his face was so pale he looked ready to collapse at any moment. But his eyes alone were unchanged, still steeped in the same mocking laughter as at the start.
"I'll send you along to Vincent, so look forward to it. Reunited with an old friend after so long — go catch up. Not even a commander, mind you — the two of you, cut down side by side by a mere apprentice knight."
"……You will die by my hand today."
Beneath the shattered mask, a face twisted up with fury contorted hideously.
KWAAAGH!
A raging storm began to swirl around him.
His steps seemed to fall back slightly — and then his figure vanished outright. The next instant, Blake stood directly in front of Arendt's nose.
"……!"
KAAAANG!
Blake's ferocious strike crashed down on the sword Arendt had thrown up on pure reflex.
He pressed Arendt relentlessly. Every single blow was punishingly, overwhelmingly heavy.
Arendt barely deflected a handful of strikes, and even managed to meet the sword lunge driving at his throat with a counter — but the force of it overwhelmed him and sent him sprawling.
The moment Blake moved to finish it, Warren threw himself in from behind.
"You worthless, gutter-born bastards—!"
Blake re-gripped his sword in one hand and stretched the other out toward the werewolf.
KWAAAGH!
A violent explosion erupted from the empty air and swallowed Warren head-on.
Knocked backward, Warren spun his body through the air, kicked off the ground, and charged again.
Blake turned to answer — and at the very edge of his vision, something came rushing in from beside him. Without quite meaning to, he turned his head.
He'd thought Arendt was still some distance away, but in the blink of an eye the man was right in front of him, sword swinging in a great, fast arc.
"……?!"
GYAAAANG!
Blake blocked the strike — and could not contain his shock.
An imitation?
It was a perfect replica of the very attack Blake himself had used.
In a moment like this, so desperate, so split-second — could an enemy truly copy a strike he had dealt out, move for move?
Stunned for an instant, he realized a beat too late that Warren was bearing down on him.
He kicked Arendt away and ducked quickly, but he failed to dodge Warren's claws before they tore across his shoulder.
Drip, drip.
Scarlet blood spattered onto the floor.
Like a man who had just witnessed the impossible, Blake stared blankly back and forth between the wound carved into his own shoulder and the blood dripping from it.
The face beneath the mask crumpled in disarray.
But that wasn't the end of it.
"Wh-what the hell are these bastards?!"
"Suppress them all!"
Suddenly, strange shouts rose from below the castle. After the terrified screams of the mercenaries came a commanding roar that shook the night sky.
"CHAAAARGE!"
"In the name of God Luce — leave not a single one alive! Eradicate them all!"
Blake realized something had gone badly, badly wrong.
He jerked his head up — and met the eyes of Arendt, who had just barely hauled himself to his feet with the help of a trembling arm.
"Looks…… good on you, bastard."
With an unabashed sneer, Arendt pointed a finger over Blake's shoulder.
At the same moment—
KUUUUM.
Blake felt something enormous settle onto the ground behind him.
"The best swordsman in the world has arrived."
The play had reached its climax — which meant it was finally time for the protagonist to take the stage.