Breaking Dawn
Lying in bed, Einzel felt as though he had finally reclaimed a shred of peace.
His body was thoroughly exhausted from the rigorous training, but several days had passed without anyone creeping into the dark to harm him. The sickening phantom sensation of running his blade through the priest who had murdered him—and whom he had murdered in return—had gradually begun to fade as he threw himself into the study of the sword. Convinced that he would no longer have to die from a cowardly ambush, nor kill another just to survive the night, he closed his eyes and drifted into sleep.
And when his senses returned, he found himself standing right outside the door to his room.
The moment the truth struck him, all color drained from his face. Time had wound backward to the exact moment he had returned to his quarters after finishing his daily training and evening meal. Someone had murdered him in his sleep.
Cold, suffocating dread sank into Einzel's chest.
He had assumed the previous attack was an isolated incident—the work of a single fanatic who harbored a personal hatred toward him. Yet even after he had cut that assassin down and burned the corpse to ash, someone else had come for his life. The upright, honorable swordsmanship Sein had drilled into him was useless here. His assailant had never harbored the slightest intention of facing him head-on, robbing him of even the chance to put up a fair fight. He did not know who had killed him, nor when the fatal blow had fallen in the dark.
Once again, Einzel was forced to spend the night in sleepless vigilance.
Then came the faint creak of the door swinging open.
Einzel slipped soundlessly from the bed and drew his blade. It was happening again. Clad in priestly vestments, yet another assassin had stepped across his threshold.
"...I didn't expect you to still be awake," the man with the dagger murmured.
"Why are you doing this to me?" Einzel demanded, his voice tight with suppressed fury. "And you're not the only one. Just who the hell are you people?"
"Because you must die for humanity to unite," the man answered coldly.
Einzel stared at him as if looking at an incomprehensible madman. "...Killing me will unite humanity?"
"Humanity lacks a sense of crisis. They know full well how immense the Demon King's power is, yet they turn a blind eye, foolishly believing that a single Hero will miraculously slay him. Tell me honestly: do you really believe you can bring down the Demon King on your own?"
"No, that's... not happening."
"Sein Luderan, Peria, and the Saintess, Beatrice. Every one of them came here to take part in this absurd gamble of slaying the Demon King by your side. Given enough time, those women could become humanity's greatest bastions of defense. Just because past Heroes managed to defeat Demon Kings, do people truly believe a Hero can march into the Demon King's stronghold and pull it off again? Everyone has lost sight of reality. And our leaders are eager to roll the dice one more time simply because it worked before. Even if a gamble succeeds a hundred times, a single failure means the extinction of mankind."
"...And what does killing me change?"
"It prevents a future where humanity's finest prodigies are led to slaughter, their brilliance extinguished under the hollow banner of the 'Hero.' It will shock the selfish pigs who are already scheming over postwar spoils as if victory were guaranteed. For the price of a single Hero's life, isn't that a bargain?"
"And do you have any guarantee that my death will lead to a better outcome?"
"Once you are dead, everyone will prostrate themselves before God and unite as one to fight."
"Isn't that just another baseless assumption? The premise that I can't slay the Demon King is an assumption to begin with. Can you honestly say a gamble built on layers of wild assumptions carries better odds than me killing the Demon King?"
Einzel raised his sword. Words were meaningless now. He unleashed a swift, light thrust straight toward the intruder.
'If your reach is longer than your opponent's, there's no need to clash head-on in a contest of strength,' Sein's instruction echoed in his mind. 'Just stinging them with quick, light jabs is enough to wear them down.'
The assassin countered the thrust by stepping backward.
'There are three ways to deal with an incoming attack. Dodging is the best, parrying is second, and backing away is the absolute worst.'
Einzel flowed seamlessly into a slash.
'Slashing serves to maintain your momentum and keep the initiative. Especially against an opponent with shorter reach, light, crisp swings are more than enough.'
The assassin barely managed to bring his dagger up in time, the steel blade of the Holy Sword flashing mere inches from his face. Desperate, the man manifested a magical barrier.
Einzel struck at it without hesitation.
'A barrier works by drastically shedding the kinetic energy of an incoming weapon, not by deflecting it like a physical shield,' Sein had explained. 'If you strike from outside their barrier, the kinetic energy distributes unnaturally between the hilt and the blade. Inferior weapons might warp or shatter under the stress, but with the Holy Sword, you don't need to worry about that. Keep that principle in mind and adapt.'
Though the barrier dragged at the Holy Sword's velocity, the blade continued its trajectory, cleaving into the defensive field as if swinging through deep water. The assassin frantically parried with his dagger, sparks flying amid harsh shrieks of clashing steel. Yet the initiative remained entirely in Einzel's grasp. In close-quarters combat, superior reach was paramount, and a mere dagger could never wrest control away from a long blade like the Holy Sword.
Realizing he could not endure behind his barrier forever, the assassin abandoned defense and lunged forward recklessly. Hasty decisions in battle were invariably fatal. Einzel instinctively understood what an adversary stripped of momentum and hope would do. The instant the man charged, Einzel snapped a sharp kick into his leg.
With his knee joint smashed, the assassin's forward rush violently collapsed. Striking down an immobilized foe took mere seconds. With a clean, decisive arc, the Holy Sword severed his neck. A wet thump followed as the man's head rolled across the floor.
Einzel stared down at the aftermath of his second kill. Blood pooled steadily from what had once been a living human being, while the severed head stared back at the Hero with hollow, unblinking eyes. Einzel incinerated the body with fire magic, stripped off his blood-soaked clothes to scrub the red stains from the floorboards, and threw the garments into the flames as well.
The following morning, Einzel requested a fresh set of clothes under the excuse that he had accidentally burned his own while practicing magic. His request was granted without question.
Beatrice bit down on her lip and clenched her fists so hard that droplets of blood trickled from both.
"A priest... attacked the Hero...?"
She could barely believe her eyes, and her mind struggled to comprehend what she had heard, but the reality was undeniable. Even if circumstantial evidence pointed toward Einzel colluding with the enemy later on, priests hunting down their own Hero was utterly unfathomable. Worse, they had already succeeded in killing him multiple times. Nausea surged up Beatrice's throat, forcing her to swallow down a dry heave.
"...So he took the swordplay I taught him and immediately used it to kill a man," Sein murmured, staring down at her own blade. "...That explains why his sword reeked of killing intent the first time we sparred."
Peria's face contorted in sheer anguish. "I... I thought he was just being lazy and unfocused during our lessons. To think he was going through this..." She pressed a trembling hand against her forehead. "I had no idea he was too terrified to sleep..."
Lena had not yet appeared in this memory record, which allowed her to observe Einzel's circumstances with a colder degree of detachment.
"...Is this why he betrayed us?"
Beatrice looked at Lena, tears welling in her eyes. "...What do you mean?"
"They were supposed to be fighting the Demon King together," Lena said grimly. "Yet priests from his own church tried to murder him over political factions and petty theories. Did he simply grow sick of it all?"
Beatrice opened her mouth to argue, but the words withered on her tongue. It made horrifying sense.
"Tired of the infighting, disgusted by demons, sick of everything..." Lena muttered. "Maybe that's why he was willing to commit atrocities, conspire with the enemy, and still strike down the Demon King. Because he just wanted it all to end. He hated everything."
"...Are you suggesting the Hero hated the world?"
"If he did, colluding with Grandis makes sense. And maybe he hated us, too—for pushing him back onto the battlefield even after the Demon King fell. Maybe he orchestrated that massacre on purpose..."
Sein forced herself to pull her thoughts together. "Everything right now is mere speculation. We haven't even witnessed a tenth of what transpired, let alone half. Peria, I know this is grueling, but please keep going."
Swaying on her feet, Peria managed a weak nod before fading back into the spellwork.
"I really don't know what to believe anymore," Beatrice whispered brokenly. "The Hero we thought was righteous turned out to have conspired with the enemy and committed unforgivable sins. But now we find out he bore burdens and secrets we never even dreamed of. I... I don't know if I have the strength to keep watching. I don't know if I can bear to face the truth..."
The memory crystal continued to radiate its cold luminescence. Yet even bathed in its brightest light, the women remained lost in unending darkness.
Meanwhile, at that very moment... Einzel was beating a monster to death with his bare fists.
"Fucking goddammit all!"