Confession
The clash of monster fangs against my blade, and the whisper of steel carving shallowly into their hides, rang out through the still, desolate forest.
Unlike a knight — who tempers strength and stamina to their limits and favors honest, straightforward attacks — I fought with something closer to what they called Swift Sword: a style built to end things in an instant, drawing only fatal wounds to cripple an enemy. For me, that meant balance and speed. And right now, both of those were buried under vicious debuffs. The whole situation was unbearably inconvenient.
No matter how many times I cut, I couldn't draw that clean line of light I was used to. And because of that, even with countless gashes carved across my body, the monsters were still panting hard, stamping the earth as they came for me. They seemed to have realized I was in no condition to fight. They didn't give an inch, their cold eyes gleaming as they locked onto me.
I sucked in a breath, then let it out.
At last I felt my spent legs beginning to tremble. I couldn't keep this fight going. Any further delay was out of the question. Black was clever to the point of cowardice, patiently waiting for my stamina to hit rock bottom.
Every time I swung at those boar-monsters, it would leak just enough killing intent toward Lily for me to notice. That was the proof. I'd been circling her in a constant, anxious orbit, terrified of the moment Black would go for her, and my already overtaxed body had finally reached its limit.
Then the monsters kicked off the ground, driving their sharp tusks toward me.
If I kept to the same routine I'd been running until now — blocking their attacks, watching for an opening, striking back — a certain victory would have been guaranteed. But what I needed wasn't a sure win that would leave me dead on my feet. What I needed was a way to buy Lily the time and the strength to run, even if nothing about it was certain. In a word: a gamble.
I tightened my grip, holding the sword in a way I never usually did. Not an assassin's grip, meant to cut a life efficiently and fast — the grip of an ordinary swordsman. Of a knight. I settled my stance and looked straight at the monsters charging toward me.
The one on the left is a little closer.
The thought was brief. Judgment and action were faster. I slipped left a half-step and wrenched the sword up with everything I had, from low on the left toward the upper right.
A shriek tore the air. The blade-path wasn't perfect, but it was sharp enough. Following the line of the cut, the creature's face split nearly in two; unable to kill its own momentum, it slammed face-first into the dirt. I brought the sword down on the one to my right as it reared its head toward me, putting my weight into the blow.
Steel punched through flesh. A wet, choking scream.
Too shallow…!
The blade failed to take the neck clean off and jammed between the bones. A mistake — the unfamiliar grip, and a body already in far too critical a state. I should have tried this while I still had strength left… The regret flashed through me and was gone. There was no room for it now.
This one would die on its own anyway, from blood loss or whatever else. So I lifted my head toward Lily and shouted.
"Run!! Hurry!!!"
"…!"
Lily, who had been quietly conserving her strength, exploded into a sprint toward the rally point at my signal. She no longer even had the mana to maintain the magic she'd deployed, it seemed — she simply flung herself into the dark, trusting only the direction she knew.
At the same time, the Lycanthrope began to move its vast darkness toward her, deliberately making noise, as if it wanted to be heard. As we'd agreed, I ripped the sword from the boar-monster's neck and thrust it at the Lycanthrope to stop it.
A light, ringing deflection. Even though it could have torn me apart, sword and all, it flicked my blade aside as if it were nothing — then showed me its teeth, shining a brilliant white.
A smirk.
Yes. What that beast-type monster showed me was a smile like a sneer. What are you going to do about it, you pathetic thing? That kind of mockery.
My body trembled. Only then did I understand what it wanted. Between my slightly parted lips, teeth rattling with dread clicked together. I understood why it had done nothing but watch.
It — that Lycanthrope — was no ordinary monster. It was viciously intelligent, and horribly, meticulously sadistic. That was probably why, in the original story, it had gone out of its way to attack only Selina. It must have learned it somewhere, naturally, while hunting humans: if the one they're trying to protect dies first, the one left behind has no choice but to go mad.
That was why it had watched. Why it had waited, and waited, for my strength to run dry. So it could tear Lily apart in front of my exhausted eyes, and savor the way I screamed at how helplessly I had failed to protect her.
"You son of a bitch…!!"
I had to stop that from happening. No matter what. Even if my remaining arm was crushed to splinters, I had to keep this thing from reaching her.
Not anymore.
Never again.
I didn't want to watch her get hurt in front of me. I didn't want to feel the moment she died in my arms.
So I threw myself at it and swung. No — I just flung the arm that still held the sword. I no longer even had the strength to actually swing the blade.
A wet, punching sound.
"……Cough."
A growl rolled out of it, almost a laugh.
"You fucking bastard…"
Its claw punched through my abdomen. Hot, viscous blood welled up in my throat and spilled from my mouth, faintly open with the pain. Watching me like that, it smirked again, smiling with those filthy teeth. It had used only a single claw to run me through, even though it could have killed me outright.
Then my body, still impaled on that claw, lifted with its hand, sailed through the air, and was hurled into the ground.
A heavy, meaty impact. Then the limp collapse of a body hitting dirt.
"Ve-Veri…?!"
Through vision blurring from shock and pain, I saw Lily's pupils violently trembling as they took in the wreck of me, suddenly thrown down in front of her. And through that same fading sight, darkness slowly closing in on her.
Run. Get out of here.
I wanted to scream at her that now was not the time to be distracted by the likes of me — to move her legs and run — but my lips wouldn't budge. And it wasn't only my lips. My entire body felt as if it had been pinned to a blade. Not a shred of strength would enter it. Not even a faint vibration stirred in the muscle.
"…!! …!"
Through vision guttering out, I saw Lily's mouth moving urgently toward me. But her voice only circled the shell of my ear before scattering away.
Was I going to die like this.
Was this how I was going to meet my end.
The vow that this time I would save her, no matter what. The hope of living happily with the woman I loved. The oath to protect her even for your share as well. Were all of those going to crumble so meaninglessly, like this.
In the end, was I doomed to watch her die once more at its hands… just as the author intended? She who had done nothing wrong — this unreasonably?
I bit down on my tongue and chewed, unable to contain the rage at a result this unjust after effort that had carved down to the bone.
Shut up. No. That cannot happen.
Why had I crawled through all that hell until now? To save her from this wretched tragedy of a story. She had been in a similar position to mine, but unlike me she had never stopped striving, never stopped reaching for results — I wanted to watch with these two eyes as she reached a happy ending.
Yeah. If I managed it once, why couldn't I do it twice.
I was the one who had moved my mouth even while my whole body was paralyzed, dragging it through despair like hell itself. And I was supposed to be unable to move just because there was a hole in me? Just because I'd bled a little too much?
Move. Move. Move. Move.
My body, hearing that desperate wish, screamed as it poured the last of my stamina into the right hand still locked around the sword. But it wasn't enough. As I was now, merely holding a blade wouldn't be enough to protect Lily.
Please. I'm begging you, legs. Move. Move for me. Let's just move a little more. Just a little is enough. Just a tiny bit — until Lily can get away, I don't care…
After that, I don't care if my body goes paralyzed again. I don't care even if I die…
I don't care what happens to this body of mine, so please… please, even just a little, just move!!!
…
…
…ra.
In that instant, I felt something hot welling up in my left eye, and I became aware that my breathing had changed. I felt myself moving my body freely, using mana I had never even been able to properly utilize. The long experience of the sword that I had only ever felt secondhand had now, I could tell, become entirely my own.
I could see Lily shouting something at me as I suddenly pushed myself up, but even so, I still couldn't hear a sound. Pouring what mana I had left into my hearing was not the right call in this situation. Every experience accumulated inside me was telling me that now was the time to focus solely on moving the muscles of my body.
The blood flowing from the dark-red hole in my abdomen stopped. I had used mana to seal off only the vessels that needed it. I started walking toward the creature that had been approaching Lily at its leisure. I could now clearly make out its form even in the darkness.
One pace toward it.
One stride, and it stepped away from me.
It seemed considerably rattled that I — who until moments ago had been on the verge of death — was walking around as if nothing were wrong. It seemed quite rattled that I, who had been too busy adapting to the dark to even properly grasp my own position, was staring straight into its eyes.
Or… it had instinctively judged that it could not win against me as I was now.
Either way, it didn't matter. All that mattered was that it had intended to toy with Lily and kill her right in front of me.
I closed the distance to the retreating creature in a single breath, then opened my mouth. My voice spilled out. And yet it was a tone entirely different from usual — deep, and unyielding.
Know your place, you mere beast.
At the same time, I swept the sword I gripped from the earth toward the sky. A sword held in a manner utterly different from everything until now — different even from a moment ago. With that swordsmanship I had once only glimpsed in memory, that I had never been able to use because it clashed too violently with my own nature — that swordsmanship that, in its honest knighthood, came close to perfection — I cut it upward.
Together with a sound that was almost monotonously simple.
Its darkness. The darkness of the sky. The uncanny chill of the forest.
They split along the golden path of the blade, carved as if it were cutting through sound itself — and crumbled.