Preemptive Subjugation (2)

The Wolf Sword Calzack, caked in muddy water, exhaled an ominous purple Magi like smoke.

[Why, human, why, appear here, why, my pet, why…!!]

The demon Maslo screamed.

Without a word, I lowered my sword diagonally and settled into a ready stance, prepared to strike at any moment.

[Why!!!]

Fwaaah!!

As the demon Maslo roared through his many mouths, a gale thick with Magi swept over everything at once. A nauseating, sticky sensation crawled across my skin.

[I will, kill you! Offer that blood, to this swamp! With that blood, I will honor, my pet! That loathsome blood, blood!!]

"Then come and try."

I answered with a sneer.

Maslo's eyes flashed, and veins bulged across his face.

KWAANG!!

The swamp erupted. Through the spray of flying mud, the demon Maslo shot forward.

A straight-line leap.

Strictly speaking, it was fast. The ordinary me would have been cut down before I could even blink.

But to the me of right now, it was yawn-inducing. If I were to exaggerate a little, I could have taken a nap and still dodged it.

Maslo thrust his sword at my waist. A horizontal blade path carved through the air — the motion of a wild beast.

A sigh escaped me inwardly.

His center of gravity is way too far forward.

That much emotion packed into the strike, I supposed. A crude sword blow, consumed by the single-minded urge to kill his enemy in one hit.

Suddenly, I recalled a lesson from swordsmanship class.

— 'This is Opening Wing! The bridge that connects every technique of the Light Wing Sword — and its ultimate counter! Far too advanced for the likes of you lot just yet! But if you keep digging into the principles of the Light Wing Sword, it's a realm you'll reach someday!'

I broke down the demonstration my instructor had shown me, frame by frame, and reconstructed it in my mind.

Just as he had done, I raised silver mana along the blade. Then I swept my sword upward.

Opening Wing.

Kiiing!

[!]

The two blades locked and scraped against each other. For a fraction of a second, Maslo's sword path twisted, throwing off sparks.

KAANG!!

At the end of that single exchange, Maslo's sword screamed and was flung aside.

The recoil rang through both blades. Our swords whipped out to either side, flinging Magi and mud in every direction.

One of the knightly sword styles of Escrad, the empire guarded by the Griffin's five great pairs of wings.

The Light Wing Sword.

A style that efficiently redirects or repels an opponent's slash, inflates their motion, and then drives a follow-up into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the opening thus created. The whole sequence is like a griffin spreading its wings wide and diving in with steel talons bared.

The ordinary Ron Hazley couldn't have managed even a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠clumsy imitation of that technique. But the me who had reached the realm of Swordmaster could pull it off without difficulty.

Between the two swords flung wide, Maslo's flank lay completely exposed.

Before he could even recover his stance, my blade unleashed a storm of silver mana and cleaved him clean in two.

Chaaak!!

Fwaaaaah!!

The silver slash didn't stop at cutting through Maslo — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it roared outward like a tempest and split the swamp itself. The muddy water shredded by the cut surged up in towering waves and swallowed the surroundings whole.

Chwaaaa!

For a brief moment, a brown rain poured down.

[Ahh…, blood…. Ahh…. My swamp….]

Bathed in the muddy downpour, the demon Maslo crumbled into ash and vanished. Good riddance.

I picked up the sword of the wandering knight Silvia — the Wolf Sword Calzack — that had been so thoroughly defiled. The Magi clinging to it had already scattered with Maslo's death.

This sword is mine now.

Mine to use however I please.

So this is how I get it.

In For Elise, the demon Maslo swallows the Wolf Sword just before being defeated and enters a second phase. As a result, there was no way for the player to obtain the Wolf Sword intact.

An unexpected bonus, then.

Damn, look at the finish on this thing.

Sturdy and solidly weighted — I liked it a lot. A sleek, beautifully made piece of work.

My first personal sword, I supposed?

Ding!

An alert window appeared out of nowhere.

"Huh?"

This was a thing?

What, so the sword's abilities had been locked this whole time?

I genuinely had no idea.

And "Wandering Star," huh. Silvia must have been someone pretty extraordinary.

I'd nearly ended up as the victim of some sword NTR without even knowing it. Good thing it didn't turn out that way.

Picturing a spot outside the cave near the gate I'd entered through, I twisted the exit gate key in the air.

Whoosh!

A green gate formed with the turned key as its anchor. Passing through it, I arrived exactly where I'd intended.

"Hoo, it's over… uurgh…."

My body suddenly grew heavy, and a wave of exhaustion crashed over me. Every limb felt like summer ice cream melting in the sun.

I'd felt it last time too — adapting to the Swordmaster state wearing off was going to take a good long while.

I rested like that for a bit.

"……."

Then, unbidden, the sensation of deflecting Maslo's strike came back to me. The principles of the Light Wing Sword still lingered in my hands like an aftertaste.

Probably… no, definitely….

I closed my eyes, gripped my sword, and settled into stance. In my mind, I reconstructed the image of Maslo hurtling toward me.

Opening Wing.

Shing.

I swept my sword up to meet the imagined path of his blade.

But my body failed to stop the strike and went flying helplessly — all of it, of course, inside my head.

The sword angles that had fallen into place on their own as a Swordmaster, the ample mana, the distribution of force — none of it could be reproduced with my current body.

Knowing it in my head but my body refusing to follow, I guess.

Against some weakling, maybe… but not against someone at Maslo's level.

I opened my eyes again and clicked my tongue. Sheathing my practice sword, I slid the Wolf Sword Calzack into the long bag I'd prepared in advance, then headed back to the knight academy.

Shaaaaa.

Back at the dorm, I stood under a pouring stream of water and washed myself clean.

Productive day.

At some point, I'd started treating this bizarre situation as normal. Maybe the way my thoughts and emotions had sorted themselves so cleanly in the Swordmaster state during the Act 1, Scene 1 train incident had helped more than I realized.

Without that, I might still be flailing around in total confusion.

If I teamed up with the protagonist on top of everything else, things would probably get a lot easier….

I shook my head.

Still a bit early for that.

I knew the protagonist well. She was a chronic paranoid with a decisive temperament — strong because she was an overwhelming genius, and aggressively proactive to boot.

Behind that sunshine-bright smile, what she hid was a cold, ruthless obsession with the happiness of the people around her.

Which meant:

I'd be the one getting used more likely than not.

And that wasn't even counting the rest. Dump my future knowledge and unique ability on Elise out of nowhere, and all I'd buy myself was suspicion and a permanent spot at the top of her watch list.

I couldn't just blindly trust someone like that with my secrets. Even if things worked out in the end, that was hindsight talking — the risks I'd have to shoulder right now were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠far too great.

So for the time being, no unnecessary gambles. Not until I'd grown strong enough that even if my identity got exposed, she couldn't snatch the initiative away from me.

Ah, come to think of it…. It should have updated by now.

The protagonist had a peculiar record book that updated every time an incident leading straight to a bad ending was resolved. Thanks to that, she would already have realized that a dangerous demon had been dealt with.

Several hours earlier.

Ding!

Huh?

On the grounds of the Griffin Knight Academy, magenta hair tied in a half-up style swayed in the breeze.

She — Elise Lorendia, the protagonist of For Elise — caught sight of the translucent alert window floating before her eyes and faltered for a moment.

"What's wrong, Elise?"

"Heh, it's nothing."

Elise offered her friend a smile bright enough to call sunlight to mind, then started walking again. As their idle chatter resumed, she checked the alert window etched into the corner of her vision.

Yes.

"……."

Elise's eyes narrowed to slits.

Perhaps because she'd sunk so deep into thought, her small-framed friend Lara was watching her with open suspicion, one drooping sleeve covering her mouth, eyes half-lidded.

"Hey. Elise."

"Huh? Yeah?"

"Something going on with you? You've been weird lately."

Elise narrowed her eyes in a sly little squint and broke into a sweet smile.

"And if there is~?"

"Wha…? W-wait, just checking, but — you didn't go and fall for someone, did you…? No way, right?"

"Hmm, who knows~?"

"For real!? Tell me it's not for real!!"

Elise answered with practiced nonchalance, neatly redirecting Lara's attention.

And now, in the present.

Elise was still swinging her sword well into the night, deep in training. The indoor training hall had long since closed its doors, so she was alone in the outdoor grounds, relying on the light of a lamp.

"Hah… hah…."

She caught her breath and wiped the sweat blanketing her face. After drinking cool water from her canteen, she opened the Scenario Note out of habit.

The latest entry still recorded that a demon's head had gone flying.

"Who was it…?"

Elise's quiet voice melted into the night air.

The Scenario Note.

One day she'd woken up and this translucent window-like thing had simply started appearing. It foretold tragedies that would soon befall her or the people around her, and whenever those problems were resolved, it updated with the news that the tragic fate had been erased.

Almost as if a storyteller were narrating a fairy tale.

Thanks to it, Elise had managed to prevent any number of disasters before they struck.

She'd caught the assassin targeting her uncle in advance.

She'd slain the underground magical beast stalking her father before it could act.

She'd stopped the accident that would have cost her friend an arm.

She'd thwarted the maid's plot to poison her.

The Scenario Note described each of these outcomes as "preventing a bad ending."

Until now, the pattern had always been the same: Elise resolved an incident, and the Note recorded it….

The train incident last time, and now this….

During the train incident, the demon's appearance had been foretold the moment the train fell into the dungeon — and it had been resolved before she could lift a finger. This time, there hadn't even been a warning, and yet the Note had suddenly announced that a tragedy had been averted.

Judging by the scale of the tragedies the Scenario Note mentioned, neither demon would have been an easy opponent. And yet both had been subjugated one after another, without her knowing a thing about it.

There's no way this is a coincidence.

Was the one who killed both demons the same person?

If only the Scenario Note would give her something more concrete. Beyond the critical results, everything else was frustratingly vague and muddled….

Whether deliberately or not, someone had been quietly preventing her tragedies from behind the scenes — and Elise couldn't even begin to guess who.

She waved a hand once and dismissed the alert window.

…Strange.

Elise looked up at the crescent moon hanging in the night sky.

She still had no idea who had helped her, and any number of questions were gnawing at her mind….

But for someone who had always been the one doing the saving, being saved by someone else was a surprisingly fresh feeling.