That Thing Is the Enemy
“Is Kenna doing alright?”
Another me lifted his severed head from where it had rolled across the ground.
She should be facing off against that woman right now. If I was just dreaming this, that meant I wasn’t dead yet.
“Kenna’s in danger right now—I have to get back!”
“Hold on a second. We’ve got plenty of time, so let’s take it easy and talk—whoa!”
The other me tried balancing his head back onto his severed neck, but the instant he let go, it tumbled right back down.
“Cut the crap and send me back already!”
“Wait, hear me out. I wanted to share a theory I came up with.”
I pinched my cheek, but there was no sign of waking up—only sharp pain, and the gaping hole in my chest still throbbed with a dull ache.
I surveyed my surroundings, but there was nothing except a barren wasteland stretching endlessly beneath the twilight sky. Total helplessness.
With nothing else I could do, I slumped down with an irritated scowl and gave a silent nod.
“Great. So going forward, whenever I... wait, whenever you... or is it ‘we’?”
“Stop playing word games.”
“Alright, alright. Every time we die, the number of corpses here is going to increase.”
If I was the second, it was obvious there would be a third, a fourth, and so on.
“And?”
“You swung your sword earlier, right?”
My brow furrowed at the pointless question.
“Get to the point.”
“I knew it. My arm flexed with strength on its own back then.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Did you feel yourself getting stronger by any chance?”
I thought back to the fight just before, but I couldn’t say for certain. I’d only swung once and cleaved her in a single stroke, so I hadn’t even used my full strength.
“I don’t know. I’d have to fight a few more times to be sure.”
“So the theory holds for now. Just a hunch I have, anyway. Go on, fight your heart out.”
Cradling his head in his left arm, the other me waved goodbye with his right hand.
Darkness consumed my vision, and an instant later, my eyes snapped open—standing upright in reality.
“H-How are you alive?”
A grating, metallic screech scraped against my eardrums. Looking down, my chest was completely whole again, without a single wound.
When I raised my head, I saw five guards dead across the blood-soaked carpet, gaping holes gouged through their chests. Standing in the center of the slaughter was the woman.
She was entirely unblemished, so pristine it made me question whether I’d cut her at all. From her back, six crimson tentacles squirmed and undulated in the air.
The woman drilled an intense, bewildered gaze into me, fascinated by my sudden return to life.
Now’s my chance. Drawing my sword, I kicked off the ground with everything I had.
I closed the distance in a single breath.
Clang—!
I aimed straight for her neck, but two tentacles crossed to intercept. The edge bit deep, slicing halfway through the second tentacle.
“Why are you attacking me?!”
Her metallic shriek battered my eardrums.
“Corpore meo inimicum con—”
Kenna’s voice trailed off, unable to complete the chant.
Seizing the opening, I used the recoil of the locked blade to pivot and drove a heavy kick into the woman’s flank.
“Guh...!”
A guttural groan tore from her—the blow had landed flush.
Behind me came the sharp whistle of parted wind. Glancing back, I saw arrows striking true, sending the remaining threats sprawling to the floor.
“…Inimicum contero.”
More bizarre words. I decided not to worry about what they meant for now.
Crimson radiance erupted from the tip of Kenna’s staff. Starting from the tips of the tentacles, the woman’s entire body disintegrated into a shower of scattering scarlet dust.
A thick, blood-red mist settled over the battlefield.
“Cough, cough!”
It felt as though crushed red pepper had coated the back of my throat. But since she had already survived a blast earlier, I couldn’t be sure this had killed her.
“Cough, hack... What the hell is this thing?” I called out, retreating toward Kenna.
“Vesper. She’s a demon.”
A demon. The mythical beings from the folklore I’d heard as a child. I doubted my own ears. I’d never heard any proper account of them, so the term existed only as an abstract word in my memories.
“What on earth is a demon?”
“…I don’t know their origins either.”
If even Kenna didn’t know, there was nothing to be done.
Swish. Swoosh.
The sound of cutting air echoed through the mist. The bastard was still alive.
“Vesper, was it? How is she so damn resilient?”
As the haze cleared, raw crimson skin was exposed.
...No, was that skin, or bare muscle?
Her heart and lungs were fully visible.
Organs that belonged deep inside a body pulsed openly in the air, framed by vivid networks of blood vessels and striated tissue. Her heart pounded with steady, rhythmic thumps, while her lungs shrank and inflated like bellows. It was as if someone had skinned and inverted a human like a doll. A violent shudder ran down my spine.
A monstrosity. Truly, no other word fit.
“W-W-What is that?!”
“Ah…”
Hearing the shaken gasps of Ershin and Golgotha behind me, I tightened my grip on the longsword. I had to sever those bothersome tentacles first.
⟨ Strength Enhancement ⟩
Words I could finally understand. A taut surge tightened across my muscles.
Slash!
Sprinting behind the woman in a blur of speed, I lopped off four of her tentacles in a single sweeping stroke. The remaining two thrust straight into my field of vision, but an arrow took them dead-on, knocking them off balance.
Slash!
I cleaved through the other two. With that, nothing stood in my way.
Thwack—!
Bone ground beneath my blade, wet tissue sprayed into the air, and the woman’s upper torso slid sideways off her lower half. Through the bloody cleave, I could faintly make out my companions.
Thud.
In that split second, two fresh tentacles sprouted from the severed torso on the floor and punched straight through my chest once more.
“Guhhh…!”
With my lungs punctured, only a thin, wheezing groan escaped my throat. Suffocation seized me, and blinding agony forced my eyes shut.
Wondering if I’d open my eyes in that wasteland again, I counted three seconds and cracked my lids.
I saw two versions of myself standing there. One with a severed head, and one with a single hole pierced through his chest.
So it was true: dying sent me to this place, and before long, I would resurrect.
“See ya. Catch you next time.”
Both of them waved to see me off.
When I blinked again, the woman was standing right in the center of my vision, completely uninjured. Her six tentacles were fully restored, and the hole through my own chest was gone without a trace.
It was certain now: I couldn’t die. The real problem was figuring out how to put this monster down. Kicking off the floor, I vaulted backward through the air and landed cleanly before Kenna.
At this rate, we’d exhaust ourselves first. I had to learn something, anything.
“Kenna. What’s her weakness?”
“…This is my first time actually fighting her.”
“What?”
“That’s why I tried using magic guaranteed to kill her, but none of the spells are triggering.”
Indeed, her staff hadn’t glowed even as she kept chanting. I vaguely recalled her muttering earlier about spells not being recognized.
“Then give me whatever information you have.”
“We thought she was on our side, but she betrayed us and sided with the demons. She leaked every critical piece of intel to them.”
I see. So she’s a demon spy. At least that proved she was capable of reason. Seeing no way to kill this monster, I decided to wager on a different approach.
“Vesper. Can we talk for a minute?”
I kept a tight grip on my sword hilt, ready to parry an ambush at a moment’s notice.
“How do you know my name?”
A raspy metallic screech fraught with rage struck my ears.
“You wouldn’t want me calling you a monstrosity, would you?”
“…Let’s hear what kind of drivel you have to say.”
Seeing Vesper’s tentacles settle down, I knew the first step was a success. If there was a chance for dialogue, I had to leverage it to gain an advantage. How would she react if I pressed her on the one clue I had—her being a spy? Noting that her killing intent had weakened, I lowered the tip of my sword toward the ground.
“Why did you choose to betray humanity?”
Vesper tilted her head in silence, looking utterly bewildered. Perhaps calling it a betrayal was the wrong angle if she had been an infiltrator from the start.
“I know you’re pretending to side with humans just to dig up intel.”
Again, Vesper tilted her head without a word. If she wasn’t a traitor or a spy, then what was she?
“Whose side are you on?”
“No one’s,” Vesper said, shaking her head.
“Not even the demons?”
“I don’t consider them my kin.”
She sounded neutral. Was she claiming that because she was a spy, or was she speaking from the heart?
“Then what did you come here for?”
“To find a haven.”
“A haven?”
“You humans have places to return to, don’t you? I’m simply wandering in search of somewhere like that.”
It reminded me of my own childhood. That brief period of wandering after my parents died, before I was taken in by the orphanage.
“Did the demons cast you out, too?”
“No. I ran away on my own.”
Her metallic rasp softened as she gradually settled down. Did she just want to live among humans? Despite her grotesque appearance, her goal was surprisingly human, and the tension in my sword hand loosened slightly. Wondering how Kenna was assessing this, I glanced over my shoulder.
She still clutched her staff tightly, the murderous glint in her eyes unbroken.
Looking back at Vesper, the malice directed at me had all but vanished. This felt like an opportunity. How should I handle her? Or should I look for a way to win her over? Tension coiled in my fingers again.
“Kenna. Is what Vesper said true?”
“I believed she meant it, and I even helped her settle down… but she had already crossed over to their side.”
Kenna’s voice trembled, fighting to swallow her fury.
So that’s why she called it a betrayal. In the end, Vesper really had become a spy. A dangerous variable like this ought to be eliminated beforehand, but taking down an immortal monster like her seemed an impossible task right now.
Then I remembered the wasteland after death. The other me had theorized that dying more times might make me stronger. If repeatedly dying and reviving could truly empower me, maybe one day I’d be able to handle her.
As that thought crossed my mind, a phantom ache pierced my chest, and a chill wrapped around my neck.
“Elias! Don’t you dare think like that!!”
Kenna’s desperate scream snapped me right back to my senses.
“Haaah…”
What an idiotic thought. I had no idea how many times I’d have to die, and Kenna could get hurt before I ever got strong enough. Pitting two unkillable monsters against each other would only lead to an endless stalemate. The sensible choice was to call a truce.
“Vesper. I apologize for striking first. Let’s pretend we never saw each other today.”
Sheathing my sword, I offered a hand. Vesper studied me intently before slowly opening her mouth.
“That bitch seems desperate to keep you from dying… even though you can’t die.”
For a split second, I wanted to snap at her for insulting Kenna, but provoking her wouldn’t do any good in this situation. I gritted my teeth.
“Y-Yeah, looks like it.”
“Mad because I cursed at her? Khehehe. You must cherish her an awful lot.”
Vesper laughed with an ear-grating, metallic cackle.
“Hey, purple-haired girl. Seems like you know a good place. Why don’t you tell me?”
Vesper turned her gaze toward Kenna.
“…The Valoria Kingdom,” Kenna answered coldly.
Valoria. If I recalled correctly, that was the fifth kingdom scheduled on our journey.
“Thank you. I’ll be waiting there, then.”
Vesper picked up an abandoned blanket nearby, wrapped it around her entire body, and began to walk away at an unhurried pace.
Then, pausing in her tracks, she looked back at me.
“I can read emotions, you see. If what you directed at me was pure hatred, I wouldn’t have let you off so easily. Take care.”
With that, she slipped into the alleyway and vanished from sight.
As the tension drained out of me, the corpses of the guards scattered across the floor entered my vision.
“Vesper, you could’ve at least cleaned this mess up before leaving…”
It was a troublesome situation, but thanks to the testimonies of the townspeople who had been watching in secret, we were spared from being arrested.
“You managed to survive that, did you?” Ershin said, patting my waist with her palm.
“Elias-ssi. Seeing you so unharmed is nothing short of a miracle,” Golgotha added, tilting his head with a quiet sigh.
Neither of them seemed to realize that I had actually died and revived.
“So what on earth was that creature, anyway?” Ershin asked.
“Thinking of it as an unusual monster is sufficient,” Kenna replied, adjusting her pointed black hat.
“To think it was capable of speech—how fascinating. I wonder how much of an explosion it could endure before succumbing,” Golgotha murmured, a faint gleam of madness flickering in his eyes.
“Enough of that. Let’s go get some rest.”
“Indeed. You must be suffering from aftereffects as well.”
We found an inn and rented a room for each of us.
It was a cramped space with nothing more than a single bed and a small window. Designed purely for sleep, it lacked so much as a desk or a wardrobe. Setting down my leather armor, sword, and pack in the corner, I threw myself onto the bed. A beam of warm yellow light filtered in through the window above my head.
“Demons, huh…”
Lying on my back, I muttered quietly as Vesper’s visage came to mind.
She had been utterly hideous, unlike any human. Were all demons like that? If I ever crossed paths with someone concealing their entire body beneath bandages or a heavy robe, I’d have to be suspicious.
Knock, knock, knock.
“It’s open. Come in.”
Click. Creak—thud.
Dressed in simple white hemp clothes, Kenna padded softly across the room, nudged me aside, and lay down right beside me.