#088 Liberation
#088 Liberation
A colossal sword of flame, several meters long.
Its form alone stretched several meters, but the reach of the flame sword's influence was more than enough to cover the area far beyond the barrier.
FWOOSH!
The Diptera were caught in the blaze and burned before they could even approach the flame sword.
It had only been a tiny ember, yet the Diptera's entire bodies caught fire and collapsed to the ground.
FWOOSH.
White smoke rose as the Diptera corpses began to burn away.
"Whoa, isn't that burning the ground?!"
"Oh dear, that's my yard over there!"
"Please don't worry."
At first they thought the village was catching fire because of the Diptera that had fallen to the ground, but the flames clinging to the Diptera's bodies had no effect on the grass.
"It is sacred flame. A flame made of mana, so it burns only Demonfolk."
"O-oh, I see...!"
"As expected of the Witch! No, the Sage! Amazing!"
"This much is nothing."
It wasn't even my own power, anyway.
Lucius and Droniel might not notice, but that huge, imposing sword was a Holy Sword Replica.
It was merely a large manifestation of the Flame Hero Bareness's Holy Sword, Flamberge.
"...Droniel, let's go!"
"Right!"
FWOOSH.
At last, the man and woman began swinging the sword together.
Following Lucius's guidance, Droniel swung the sword with him, and the flames extending from the blade began to set the sky ablaze.
Skreeee!!
One by one, the Diptera fell from the sky, collapsing downward like a rain of fire.
My fists clenched as I watched Mana Stones go tumbling and rolling from the creatures' burning corpses, and I did my best to maintain the flame sword the two of them were swinging.
I had modeled it after Flamberge's appearance, but maintaining that sword was my mana.
Right now, I was fighting using my mana—more precisely, using the mana of the Mana Stones I had received from the villagers.
Shaving away my lifespan in real time, I was facing Beelzebub!
"Go, Lucius! Cut them all down!!"
FWOOSH, FWOOSH!
Lucius and Droniel, who had been launching flame slashes, lowered the sword until it was level with the ground.
Then they looked at each other and swung it upward toward the sky with all their might.
FWOOSH!!
The great sweeping arc traced a semicircle across the sky, and the Diptera burned once more as they fell.
Like mosquitoes whose wings had caught fire and plummeted to the ground, the Diptera simply crumbled endlessly to the earth.
"Liliez. Are you all right holding the barrier?"
"Y-yes. I'm fine. For now..."
"Then please hold on just a little longer. It looks like something big is coming from over there too."
"Pardon?"
SKREEEAAAH!!!
A roar echoed out.
Whether it was fury at the deaths of its minions, or fury that a Demon King like itself couldn't properly conquer a single village and was floundering—
...Or perhaps it was resentment at having lost its reason and being dominated by someone else.
I didn't yet know which it was.
But at the very least, Beelzebub's rage was unmistakable, and in a situation like this, Beelzebub's disposition was...
"A fusion is coming."
"Pardon?"
"It's going to become like that beetle giant the Spirit Machine fought."
RUSTLE!!
The Diptera began to merge into one all at once.
"Ugh...!"
If the previous monster had at least been woven from steel-like chitinous skin linked together like scales, now it was just a mass seething like maggots, clinging together into a single giant.
"Life into mana. Flesh into flesh. Let one life become every cell."
"Pardon?"
"So that's it. The monster from the legends...!"
There was no such legend.
It was just that, as a sage of a Hero Party, the basics required shouting out the enemy's true nature while pretending to know things at times like this.
"Be careful, Lucius! That monster truly is no ordinary existence! If what I know is correct...!!"
Crack, craaack!!
A dark purple mist spread from the giant monster's body and enveloped it.
Like an insect's cocoon, it wrapped around itself in an instant.
"Th-that, we should attack right now—"
"No. There's no opening to attack. It's not a transformation that takes time."
It only looked that way.
An ordinary insect would tear through its cocoon and spread its wings outside, but that cocoon-like surface was actually just a shell encasing the living cells within.
"It's coming."
SKREEEAAH!!
"The Demon King of the Demon Realm, the Lord of Gluttony, the Maw of the Abyss that devours all things, [Beelzebub]!!"
Ahh.
I had to shout it out like that to save face.
Would Liliez understand that Demon King's authority? Or would Lucius?
'Be grateful, you brat.'
By pretending to be frightened of Beelzebub, by pretending to be tense, I was granting Beelzebub its authority as a Demon King.
"Witch!"
"I-I'm fine...!! I can still, still do this."
I deliberately made my legs tremble and planted my staff on the ground to steady my posture.
"Master!!"
"I said I'm fine!"
Me, who had never trembled before any Demonfolk until now, trembling?
Even Lucius was completely fooled by my acting, gulping nervously at that enormous fly-monster—the Demon King Beelzebub—which was similar in size to a Spirit Machine.
"No matter how it's merged into one, it's similar to that giant we caught before! Only its form is that of a Demon King—the substance inside is nothing but monsters!"
"In that case... we just have to kill every last one of them!"
"Exactly!!"
We just had to kill the giant mass of cells one by one.
Simply killing them would be difficult, but right now we had the most efficient weapon for dealing with Beelzebub.
"Lucius, we're swinging it! You understand?!"
"Yes! Then—"
Thud!
Beelzebub lightly stamped the ground.
And at the same time, it opened its mouth to the left and right and expelled a breath.
"!!"
I hastily blocked my eardrums with mana.
And at the same time, I shouted to the others.
"Cover your ears!! Hurry!!"
"What—"
Thud, thud.
Before I could even finish shouting, many people began to collapse.
"Droniel!!"
"Kh, ngh...!!"
Even the people inside the barrier, and even Rosemas, collapsed.
"Tch...!"
Part of it was that I endured because I was undead, but it was still powerful.
"An ultrasonic attack...!"
Beelzebub's specialty: generating a powerful wave that humans couldn't hear, but whose force was so immense it shook the entire brain and caused instantaneous concussion.
Only four of us remained standing now.
Me, Lucius, Droniel, and Liliez.
"This is...?!"
"Explanation later!! Lucius! Take Droniel inside the barrier!"
"What?! But this sword—if I let go, it'll disappear—!"
"Time out!!"
"Understood!!"
Lucius immediately hurled the sword toward Beelzebub and grabbed Droniel.
I had been about to simply reverse-summon the sword, but thanks to Lucius's quick thinking, I cast a new spell in the direction of making the sword explode, and flames roared across Beelzebub's entire body as it reached out toward us.
"Witch!"
"Liliez. Shrink the barrier to the minimum. Just enough to protect the people collapsed on the ground."
"Understood. But that enemy..."
"There are plenty of ways to bring it down. And..."
Now.
The moment everyone was unconscious.
"I'll show you. That even without the power of a Spirit Machine, with human strength alone, we can bring down a monster like that—a Demon King."
"Master."
Lucius fiddled with his ring and nodded heavily.
"I am prepared."
"...You don't mean?"
"It might be better for you to fight than for me to fight. No, it will be. Master."
Lucius knelt on one knee before me and extended one hand toward me.
"Please, use me."
"...I'm sorry. If it weren't Demon King-class, I'd want to give you the chance, but the opponent is what it is."
"It's fine. As long as I can protect you and the people."
"What in the world are you two..."
"Droniel."
I called Droniel.
Because she had protected her eardrums with her own mana the moment I shouted from outside the barrier, she was the only person still standing on two feet.
"I'm going to push my consciousness into Lucius. I'll control Lucius's body for a while and face that Demon King. Could you look after my body in the meantime?"
"The Sage's..."
Droniel glanced at Lucius, then at the people collapsed below, and nodded.
"I understand. In exchange, please save everyone, no matter what...!"
"Of course."
I pressed the back of my hand against the hand Lucius offered.
"I'm going."
"...Yes."
Lucius looked somewhat dissatisfied.
If only his own skill were a little stronger, he could face a Demon King himself—he must have felt regret.
But when the opponent was a Demon King, you had to match that level.
'As if a rookie hero could.'
The opponent was a Demon King.
To face a Demon King, you needed to be at least at the level of a hero who had completed their final awakening.
So.
"......Connection, initiating."
Now I would be the one to face it.
Whoosh.
My consciousness burrowed into Lucius's body once more.
Switching from Witch Bel's flesh to Lucius's flesh, Lucius's consciousness began to fall asleep into the darkness.
The space Lucius had yielded.
There, I took root and settled in.
Very slowly.
I imprinted my existence onto Lucius's body.
And the foundation behind this imprinting was the Wind Holy Sword that Lucius possessed.
"...Liliez, and Droniel."
When I called the two of them, they flinched in surprise and studied my—Lucius's—face.
"Could it be...?"
"I've borrowed his body for a moment. Given the situation, it's more effective for me to handle this in dealing with that thing."
Since this was the first time the two of them had seen this phenomenon, an explanation was necessary.
"Rest assured, Lucius is safe."
"Th-then the Witch...?"
"As long as my body is fine, there's no problem. Of course, with my soul having left my body, it's effectively dying in real time, but I just need to deal with that Demon King quickly and return."
And the fact that I could explain all this showed how much composure I had right now.
"Please wait inside the barrier. I'll deal with it and be right back."
SWISH.
I stepped outside the barrier as naturally as could be.
Passing through the wall of ice, I stood alone before the Demon King Beelzebub and steadied my breathing.
"O wind."
WHOOOOOSH.
A golden sword slowly appeared in my hand.
Golden wind swirled around me as its center, and I let the sword hang at my side.
"Come to my side. And reveal your power."
That power—
It was like a gale.
"My wind shall never fall."
Release.
"Come."
Ascalon.