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Although he didn’t fully understand the situation, Rohan instinctively moved his body to cut through the pierced tentacles once again. Only after the cleanly halved pieces turned to powder and disappeared did his body, which had leaped into the air, gently land on the ground.
“Was that Arpel’s doing?”
<Yes. I’m sorry, because of me.>
“Huh? What for?”
<You almost got hurt because of what I told you.>
“No, that’s not it! It was all because I let my guard down…”
While Rohan’s eyes were wide open when they first started talking, now they shook vigorously from side to side. As if flustered by Arpel’s statement, he shook his head while swallowing incoherent words.
Creak, creak.
An eerie sound followed. One thing was certain: this wasn’t the kind of conversation to have with the tentacles that were starting to regrow behind them as if they had never been cut, belying the dialogue between the two.
“Heh. What a pity, what a pity. If I had been just a little faster, it would have been perfect.”
A voice laced with laughter rang out from above. Judging by the strange twisting of the area where a mouth should be, it seemed to be smiling.
Rohan watched it with a hardened expression. Arpel felt the same. As if responding to the anger boiling up inside, the blade in Rohan’s hand trembled, letting out a short cry.
The executive’s words were close to proving that the recent situation was all a ploy. Although it was enough to make them doubt everything they had discovered, thinking they had been played, Arpel calmly sorted through the situation even while feeling discomfort.
<That part from earlier is indeed the source of power.>
Whatever method was used, separate measures must have been prepared to avoid the sword strike. Thinking about how Rohan had almost been hurt because of this made Arpel’s teeth grind involuntarily.
Nevertheless, they hadn’t discovered nothing.
<And… it’s probably like the one in the forest.>
He felt the waves emitted by the power source up close. That’s why he could be certain. That this was the source of the spectral power spread throughout the forest, the unidentified something that had stolen power from him, and the entity that had cast a curse by raising strange fog in the village.
The ‘device’ Maisen mentioned must also be this.
“Does your body hurt?”
<…No. I’m fine.>
However, was Rohan’s concern different?
He thought there would be an ominous reaction right away, but Rohan reflexively checked Arpel’s physical condition first. His face turned pale, as if the memory of Arpel complaining of dizziness in the forest was still vivid in his mind.
Arpel, hesitating for a moment in confusion, gave a firm assurance that he was fine, and only then did color return to Rohan’s face. But soon after, it froze cold. He must have realized it too.
“Wish…”
That this might be that ‘wish’.
Rohan murmured softly. What had been circling in his mind since hearing the word ‘device’ from Maisen once again flowed out through his mouth.
He closed his eyes tightly, then opened them. His eyes, which had been downcast, regained their original light and stared straight ahead. His hand adjusted the sword, and a calm breath flowed between his lips. Rohan, who had pushed aside his fluctuating feelings and the worries that had been constantly gnawing at his mind without hesitation, silently looked at the unpleasant face that was grinning.
Whether it’s the wish or not, the fact that they need to destroy it remains unchanged. The exact role or function of the device can be figured out later.
“Arpel. Can you do that thing from earlier again?”
<It’s possible.>
Although they had failed by a hair’s breadth, it was a path they had already reached once. So Rohan thought that with Arpel’s help, it would be easier than before. Just as he was about to move his body—
Clatter, clatter.
An unpleasant noise was heard from somewhere. A sound that didn’t fit the center of the village, which had become a mess due to the battle with the executive. It continued several times.
“Kihik, kihihik.”
A breathless laugh was heard from above. Nevertheless, Rohan couldn’t shift his gaze and just stared beyond the swirling dust.
As if something was colliding, along with the irregular sound, a small noise that was faintly mixed in kept grating on his ears.
It was like… yes. It resembled the sound of footsteps on the ground. Thinking that, the vague shape visible beyond the dust seemed to look like a person.
“…Ah.”
As the sound got closer, Rohan’s expression visibly distorted. When whatever had been hidden by the dust finally revealed itself completely, emotions he couldn’t hide in time merged and poured out like a sigh.
Horror, disgust, wretchedness… numerous indescribable emotions mixed together. Arpel, too, receiving these emotions from Rohan, quietly observed the ‘things that were once people’ before them.
“Corpses that have received our blessing and entered eternal rest make good materials. They would be overjoyed to know this fact. We’ve found a use for their useless lives.”
Blackened bones connected piece by piece, and the skeletons repeatedly collided with each other as they moved. The feet made of bone fragments were walking steadily on the ground.
The clattering noise, which he thought resembled footsteps, was not an illusion. Countless skeletons were flashing dark blue eye lights before them.
Every time the empty eyes flashed, a strong spectral energy could be felt from them. Rohan, staring intently at the mist-like substance undulating above the bones, spoke softly.
“Did you have to desecrate them to this extent?”
Corpses blessed and entered into eternal rest. The executive had clearly said so. Therefore, it wasn’t particularly difficult to infer the identity of the suddenly appearing skeletons.
The graves in the center of the village, meant to honor those who died from the curse. Maisen had clearly said that they burned the bodies of the dead and gathered the remaining bones inside the coffins. The spectral energy residing in each of those gathered bones had created this utterly unpleasant scene.
“How unfortunate. I merely gave them a chance to live a new life. They must have departed happily, having been of help to the god!”
A clear sense of pride was felt in his posture as he shouted with arms spread wide. Rohan, looking at this sight, closed his eyes tightly several times and took deep breaths. Perhaps he felt that words wouldn’t get through to someone so immersed in their own ideology.
<Rohan.>
“…I know.”
No, that wasn’t it. He was just trying to somehow calm and endure the anger rising to the top of his head. It was obvious that if he jumped into battle like this, his movements would become simple and rough.
Hadn’t he heard from Arpel many times that while anger can be a driving force in a fight, it shouldn’t be excessive? Chewing on that memory, the murderous intent that had been surging uncontrollably became more stable.
The skeletons before him were merely ‘specters with physical form’. Rohan, gripping his sword properly, began to assess them with sharp eyes.
“…Tsk.”
The problem was the tentacles rushing from behind before he could finish his assessment. As soon as he dodged to the side, tentacles plunged into where he had been, making a brutal noise. Before he could cut them, another attack began to strike fiercely.
Clicking his tongue, Rohan finally moved far away from the skeletons. He was already preoccupied with dealing with and cutting hundreds of tentacles, and now he was in a position where he had to keep those things in check as well.
The fortunate point was that his attacks had also become easier.
Right after the dense divine power swept through, sharp thorns sprang up from where the shadows had formed. The tentacles reaching out to Rohan again were pierced by these and vanished all at once.
When Rohan attacked using divine power, Arpel would transform the scattered power once more to launch a time-delayed attack. It was truly a perfect coordinated attack, and close to a feat that no one blessed until now had been able to accomplish.
Yet it was not enough. It was because of the skeletons that had started to actively intervene in the battle.
<…We need to break the device.>
If broken, they reconnect. The skeletons were also repeating nearly infinite regeneration. In other words, to completely subdue either the tentacles or the skeletons, they had to precisely destroy the device buried under hundreds of tentacles.
It was an endless vicious cycle. Although everywhere was blocked by the increasing attacks, to end this attack, they needed to escape from here and break the device that was the source of power.
‘If there were more people.’
If there had been even one person who could divert these attacks, it might have been possible. Just as Rohan, gritting his teeth, was having such thoughts—
Kwaang!
Without even trying to conceal its presence, a being wrapped in bright light plunged down in front of him. As if a meteor shower had fallen, a bright trajectory remained on the path it had passed, and everything around it began to burn up.
“These hateful offspring of false gods…!”
The composure that hadn’t been lost even after hundreds of exchanges finally broke. It must have been because he strongly felt traces of the Celestial God from the uninvited guest who had suddenly intervened in a battle that was certain to end in his victory soon.
“Protect the Holy Maiden!”
“Cut down the skeletons! Don’t let them move!”
“Hold them back as much as possible! Our role is to open a path for the two of them!”
Seeing the holy knights who had suddenly intervened and were cutting down tentacles and skeletons, Rohan couldn’t help but be momentarily dazed. As holy power surged from all directions, he reflexively protected Arpel first, but still, the unknown sensation rising in his chest felt nothing but unfamiliar.
From the point where the intense attack resembling a meteor shower had burst, a sword suddenly rose. A massive greatsword that an ordinary person wouldn’t even dare to lift was lightly swung. A wry smile crossed Rohan’s lips at the familiar pattern.
“Hey! Rohan!”
Aren’t you dead?
It was the arrival of reinforcements, trivial but quite missed.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
