#018 Name
#018 Name
After Droniel left the village, the village chief focused on the festival with the villagers.
Hero! Hero! Hero!
Everyone raising a toast to Lucius praised his usual conduct.
The village's greatest hunter.
A friend who would faithfully live out each day to the very end even if the world crumbled.
A good soul so kind that even if a thief broke into his house, he would sit the thief down and tell him not to steal.
As the village chief who knew Lucius's true nature, he could neither affirm nor deny their words.
He had a bad history with Lucius, and had only survived thanks to the witch's help.
'I'll have to do a good job of explaining when people come later.'
The Holy Sword that had been stuck in the Holy Sword Village had been confirmed to be real.
Those who had felt the Holy Sword's immense mana would soon come rushing here, and the village chief would have to explain to them how the Holy Sword had come to awaken.
Perhaps that was why the witch, the Crimson Mage, had saved him.
The village chief once again gave thanks to the witch and raised his glass.
And then.
DING, DING, DING, DING————
At the sound of the alarm bell ringing in the distance, the village chief and all the villagers were stricken with terror.
"Wh-what is that?!"
"A monster attack...?"
"Wh-what in the world is it?!"
The villagers instantly fell into panic.
Even the village chief, the oldest among them, had never in his life seen this village attacked by anyone, yet being attacked twice in such a short time was unprecedented.
"C-could the Demon King Army have come because of the Holy Sword Awakening...?"
"You idiot! The Hero left! So why would they attack the village?!"
"L-let's run for now! If we stay here..."
NEIGH.
The sound of horses galloping came from the distance.
Ghost Horses radiating a sinister aura charged in and surrounded the villagers in an instant.
"H-hiik...?!"
"Death Knights...?!"
Death Knights.
Those mounted atop the Ghost Horses were Demonfolk for whom goblins would not be strange to describe as "mere."
Since a Death Knight could only be created when a knight who had learned Aura among knights died and became Undead, their strength was such that even one could reduce a village to ashes.
And yet, no fewer than twenty such Death Knights had come charging in.
They surrounded the villagers so that no one could escape, then simply waited for someone to arrive.
STEP, STEP.
[Who is the representative of this village?]
A skeletal knight approached from afar.
Unlike the other Death Knights, the skeletal knight wore no helmet and exposed his skull outright, clad in a pitch-black robe and holding a sword and shield as he stood before the village chief.
[So it's you.]
"Ah, aah..."
At the red energy flowing in the skeletal knight's eyes, the village chief's lips went completely dry.
It felt as though the skeletal knight would send his head flying with his sword at any moment, and the village chief prostrated himself flat on the ground.
"I-I am the village chief!"
[Where is the Hero?]
"Th-the Hero is..."
It would be foolish not to realize it.
That these beings had come to kill the Holy Sword Hero.
"Village chief...!"
The villagers were shaking their heads at the village chief or sending him intense looks.
Don't do it.
It was an intense gaze telling him not to open his mouth, to protect Lucius.
"Th-the Hero has left!!"
But the village chief opened his mouth.
"W-we don't know where he went either! He just said he would seal the Demon King..."
[Is that so.]
The skeletal knight sheathed his sword into his shield.
[Then there is no further business here.]
BANG!
He pulled out a shotgun and pulled the trigger at the village chief's head.
SPURT.
The village chief's head flew off.
The villagers screamed at the fountain of blood shooting up from the village chief's neck, but...
RATATATATAT.
Soon they were all slaughtered by the hail of rifle fire the Death Knights produced.
[The only reason this village was not attacked before was the one-in-a-million possibility of the Holy Sword awakening.]
The skeletal knight wiped the village chief's blood off his robe, then trampled the village chief's corpse.
[Thanks to those stupid goblins, the Holy Sword has awakened, and now the continent's balance of power will be overturned. Damn it.]
[Master Knight, you should retreat.]
[Why?]
[The Goddess Church bastards are coming.]
[They're always late.]
When the skeletal knight snapped his fingers, a red Ghost Horse far larger than the others appeared before him.
[Go and report to the Demon King. Say that we killed every human in the Holy Sword Village.]
[Understood. But Master, what about that one human on the outskirts...?]
[Hm.]
The skeletal knight spotted, far off in the corner of the village, a young man hiding in a hunter's house and trembling.
Though his build was as massive as a mountain, the young man was cowering in terror at the slaughter of the villagers, and the skeletal knight twisted his jaw joint.
[He's not even worth killing.]
[Will it not be dangerous?]
[Danger? That person will not be angered just because we left one wretch like that alive. And it's too late now. Look.]
The skeletal knight pulled the reins.
Beyond the forest.
There was a golden group rushing urgently toward where the Death Knights were.
[It's the Church. If we kill that human now and leave, we'll be slowed down.]
[I apologize for discovering him late, Master.]
[No. We should be grateful that we killed everyone except this one. That way...]
NEIGH.
[The Hero bastard will get pissed off and go around killing all the other Demonfolk, won't he? Let's go!]
Their objective had been achieved.
The Death Knights quickly withdrew, and soon the people of the Goddess Church arrived at the village.
"...How could this happen?"
"As if they had been waiting... ugh."
"...Because of me."
The Saintess, Yan Diere, began biting her hand.
"Because I... delayed...?"
"Saintess! There's one survivor here!!"
Holy Sword Village.
Attacked by unidentified demonic beings, annihilated.
The only survivor at the scene was a single person.
* * *
"Welcome to Normance. To the city of freedom, adventure, and romance."
The Normance guard welcomed us as soon as I showed my brooch.
Thanks to it, we didn't have to answer any of the tedious questions—where we came from, why we were traveling, and where I had gotten the brooch.
"Master, that brooch is...?"
"It's a symbol of the Church and also a kind of pass. I owe Liliez one."
"...Liliez, commander of the Holy Knight Order of the Azure Moon Church... right?"
"Yeah."
There was no way the female knight escorting the Saintess wasn't the commander of the Holy Knight Order.
"Why? Do you think you'd lose?"
"...I realized how much I still lacked. That woman sized me up as far below her."
"That's true too. Those 'warriors,' you see, first judge people by their swordsmanship."
What was Lucius like right then?
At first glance, he was nothing more than some well-built Village Youth A or Hunter A.
"So the most important thing about a person is how they look at first glance. Look at that. How does he look?"
"...He looks strong."
I pointed at a man in full plate armor walking toward the Adventurers' Guild.
With a deep scar over one eye, he was heading toward the Adventurers' Guild with a menacing gaze, and the greatsword on his back seemed to flaunt his strength in all directions.
"Right? Guys like that are basically strong from the start."
"Do you like muscular people, Master?"
"I do prefer a solid build over a scrawny one."
In the past, the Demon King Army would only accept you if you had a basic physique to back it up.
Those who were physically weak or lacking were accepted into the Demon King Army only after undergoing a period of physical training, and if they couldn't pass, they were assigned to rear support duties such as supply rather than the Demon King Army.
"A healthy mind dwells in a healthy body. The healthier the body, the more properly the mind works."
"I see... I'll work hard."
"What? You're going to work even harder on top of that? Give it a rest, Arthur. ...Heh."
Arthur, Lucius.
I couldn't help but burst out laughing.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. But Lucius, what is your name?"
"My name...?"
"Yeah. Is Arthur your name, or is Lucius your name?"
Arthur Lucius.
It's a bit too ambiguous to call either one a surname.
His name seemed as though two given names had been stuck together.
"Both are my names. The person who took me in told me that one of the names was written on the basket I was placed in."
"Which one?"
"...I don't know. They didn't tell me."
"So one of them is a name from your birth father, and the other from your adoptive father? You're lucky to have two names."
"......."
Arthur blinked blankly.
"Why?"
"...I've never thought of it that way. That's because I was abandoned..."
"If they had really just abandoned you, they wouldn't have even given you a proper name."
Neither Arthur nor Lucius was a common name.
"'Arthur Lucius' is better than 'Jang Biere Anindes,' isn't it? Don't you think?"
"...Is there such a name?"
"There is."
It was the name of the Black Mage who had summoned me five hundred years ago.
The Black Mage had set his sights on me, so I beat him to death with everything I had and took his body.
"Names are truly important. How important, you ask? Even the Demonfolk in the Demon Realm are summoned by name when they make contracts with humans in the Middle Realm."
"R-really?"
"Of course. Do you know how important this is? When a Demonfolk is summoned by their 'True Name,' they can't move a muscle. For example..."
Who would be good?
With the name of someone widely known in the Middle Realm...
"Succubus Queen, Dream Demon Queen, Demon King of Lust. You know them?"
"...Master, you're probably the only person who would so casually speak the aliases of the Seven Demon Kings of the Demon Realm."
"Because I'd win even if I fought them."
I win, no matter what.
Because I had never once lost to the Succubus Queen.
"But calling them by such aliases is just a summoning. If you summon them by their True Name? Then any Demonfolk becomes a slave."
"I see... Then what about the Great Demon King...?"
"Bel Phe—"
Lucius covered my mouth with his hand at the speed of light.
"Master...!!"
"...Haah, hey."
I kicked Lucius in the shin.
"Where do you get off touching someone else's body without permission, you brat?"
"I'm sorry, ugh, I am... But still, that name...!"
"Haah. What are you so afraid of? If you're summoned by name, you can't move a muscle anyway."
"Oh... Then if the Great Demon King were summoned by their True Name...?"
"Simple."
I mimed strangling my own neck with my hand.
"The Great Demon King becomes the summoner's slave too."