Luce
Rodeban, lost in thought, suddenly shook his head from side to side.
Let's be realistic. Passing the technique on might be insanely difficult in the first place.
He looked at Marden with open skepticism.
"You're peddling a secret art a little too freely. What if you teach me and I still can't use it?"
"Don't worry. The Progenitor himself will temper you. And the First Apostle will help you as a fellow apostle."
Marden pointed at Rodeban's blackened skin.
"The Progenitor was right. With a half-human, half-demon body, you'll adapt faster than anyone. Seeing it with my own eyes, I finally understand."
Rodeban's face twisted into something dark and serious.
Marden had clearly meant it as praise. Rodeban did not take it that way.
"……What? Half-human, half-demon?"
In that same instant, the figure of Luce standing beside him simply vanished.
"……!"
Rodeban spun around with wide eyes.
A single scream erupted from the enemy ranks—
"Kyaaaaaaah—!"
—and then the wet, rhythmic sound of metal parting flesh began to roll out in rapid succession.
Luce was slaughtering the vampire clan right in the middle of their formation, swinging the standard-issue longsword he had once quietly "borrowed" from army stores.
Shhk—! Slash—!
Oh, for fuck's sake.
Rodeban pressed a hand to his forehead.
He had not seen this coming at all.
Apparently the girl with the Heavenly Killing Star had taken his scowling face as the signal to attack.
At this rate she'll kill every last one of them.
In the game, the Heavenly Killing Star trait granted absurd physical stats. The catch was that once combat started, you lost all control of the character……
A sigh slipped from Rodeban's lips.
……Not that she ever listens to me anyway.
The enemies were low-tier. The fight had already become a one-sided massacre.
Shhk—!
Blood sprayed among the enemy ranks. A moment later Luce's voice floated in from the opposite direction.
"The mister doesn't like being called half-human, half-demon."
She was killing them with single strokes. Every swing of her blade sheared off arms, legs, torsos, and necks in neat succession.
The escorts at Rodeban's side charged forward.
"Lord Rodeban! We'll join the fray as well!"
Rodeban gave a half-hearted nod.
"Ah, yes. Go ahead."
The situation was already nearly finished. He felt no particular need to get involved himself.
He glanced over at Marden.
"……."
The bishop was staring at his own men being carved apart with an expression of pure disbelief. Then he spat a single furious line at Rodeban.
"You…… repaying goodwill with enmity."
……That was goodwill?
Rodeban started with a defense.
"I didn't say a word."
"Shameless bastard. The Progenitor has his eyes on you. We will meet again……."
Having said his piece, Marden spun and fled into the forest faster than anyone else present.
While they had been talking, the bulk of his forces had already been butchered by Luce. The outcome was obvious.
Rodeban offered a brief appraisal of the whole mess.
"This is absurd."
Luce had been good at fighting from the day they first met. No one had ever taught her formal swordsmanship, yet she instinctively found the most efficient movements. Pure natural talent.
Even now she was simply cutting and thrusting—nothing fancy.
Rodeban raised a hand and watched Marden's retreating back.
"……He's pretty fast."
Unbidden, the bishop's parting words returned to him.
We'll meet again, he said……
Rodeban could only shake his head at that claim. Judging by the way Luce was tearing through the remaining troops, Marden's chances of escaping alive looked vanishingly small.
Luce was not the type to show mercy.
More precisely, she simply did not know how.
"……Where do you think you're going."
A chilly voice cut through the chaos of the battlefield. A girl whose face was completely painted in blood shot toward the forest like an arrow.
Thud—! Shhk—!
Wet explosions of blood echoed a few times from the darkness. It seemed the bishop was using Blood Magic after all.
Not that it mattered against Luce. Earlier Rodeban had even seen her slicing the blood constructs apart with her sword.
"……."
After a short while the sounds of bursting blood stopped.
Rodeban offered a brief silent prayer.
……He's dead.
Then, accompanied by soft squelching footsteps, Luce emerged from the trees holding Marden's head.
She looked exactly like a general returning with the enemy commander's head on a pike. Rodeban could only think one thing.
Why on earth did she bring that back?
No matter how he looked at it, this was not normal behavior for a sixteen-year-old girl. She could have just said she killed him……
A quick survey of the battlefield showed the escorts efficiently rounding up the stragglers.
"On your knees!"
"Surrender and you live!"
Everywhere he looked, vampires were kneeling. Most of them had been thoroughly terrified by the sight of Luce running wild. There was no real need for him to step in.
He had won a battle without lifting a finger.
Then Luce walked up to him, face utterly blank, still holding the dripping head.
"Mister. I'm back."
"……Welcome back."
Up close, Marden had died with his eyes wide open. The look of pure terror frozen on his face was mildly unsettling.
What exactly had frightened him so much?
Rodeban muttered under his breath.
"We made a promise to meet again. And only the head showed up."
Luce tilted her head.
"Who are you talking to?"
He gave an awkward little smile. Ever since he started carrying a Magic Sword, the amount of nonsense he muttered out loud seemed to have increased. All because they never paid the proper commission fees.
Rodeban said,
"Never mind. Just drop that thing in your hand. It's gruesome."
His lips moved soundlessly for a second. This was the moment he was supposed to thank her for fighting in his place. The problem was that praising someone for killing people felt stuck in his throat.
Thud.
She let the head fall, then looked up at him with a faintly anxious expression.
"Are you mad that I did whatever I wanted?"
"……."
Rodeban stared at the rolling head and felt a complicated mix of emotions. A girl who had just slaughtered thirty people like rats was now fretting over a single word from him, reading his face for cues.
The dissonance was extreme, but more than that……
Where the hell am I even supposed to start teaching her?
He had no answer. How was he supposed to turn this one into a person?
Another thought drifted through his mind.
What exactly do they teach at the Academy, anyway?
As expected, academies were useless.
Having thus soothed his non-Academy inferiority complex, Rodeban said,
"I'm not mad. Come here. Let's wipe some of that blood off."
"O-okay."
Luce shuffled closer, looking awkward. Her entire upper body was soaked in blood. Only now did Rodeban fully understand why the enemies had been so terrified.
She looks like an actual ghost.
He pulled a handkerchief from his coat.
"We'll just clean your face for now. You'll have to change clothes when we get back."
"Okay."
While he wiped the blood away, one of the knights approached and delivered a report.
"Lord Rodeban. Reporting. No casualties among the knight order. We have captured fifteen prisoners. However, transporting them will require additional manpower, so we have requested support from headquarters. It will take roughly an hour for the reinforcements to arrive. What are your orders?"
"We'll wait with you. We should also clean up the bodies here."
"Understood."
After answering, the knight's gaze shifted to Luce. He bowed deeply.
"Thanks to Lady Luce, our order suffered almost no losses. Now I see why Lord Rodeban values her so highly. To be honest, when we were surrounded I felt a moment of real fear…… Thank you. Truly."
"……."
At the knight's words, Luce shot a quick glance at Rodeban's face. She clearly was not used to receiving gratitude.
A beat late, she gave a small nod.
"……You're welcome."
Rodeban was helping the knights pile the corpses in one place.
Following northern custom, they intended to cremate them. Strictly speaking he could have left everything to them and returned already, but he had deliberately stayed behind to slowly teach Luce a sense of guilt over killing.
There was also the practical risk of a follow-up attack; remaining here was safer anyway.
"Heave-ho."
Rodeban lifted a corpse. He was working a little harder than usual, mostly because he had done absolutely nothing during the actual fight. As a result he still felt fresh and full of energy.
"Um, Lord Rodeban."
The same knight from earlier approached with a worried look.
"From what we heard earlier, someone called the Progenitor is watching you. Should we call for more support?"
Rodeban waved the concern away as if it were nothing.
"No, it's fine. Don't worry about it. The vampire clan doesn't even have that large a population to begin with."
"Mm. Understood. Well, considering how strong you are, Lord Rodeban…… it probably won't matter. I'll go back to clearing bodies."
"Ah, yes."
Watching the knight walk off, Rodeban thought,
Why are knight-order people so good at flattery?
Thud—!
He dropped the corpse he had been dragging onto the growing pile. When he turned his head, Luce was already standing there with her usual blank expression, waiting.
He asked,
"How does it feel, cleaning up the bodies?"
She answered flatly.
"Just okay."
"I see."
Rodeban nodded and thought, without meaning to,
She's hopeless.