Chapter 18: Enter the Condemner
“It seems that their organization is called Wanpurgis, the Order of the Black Star.”
After we’d dispatched men in black, Vita—hovering on the brink of death—told me about our foes. She said they, under the pretense of “wanting to equalize the pain between inner and outer citizens,” sought to destroy the Four Cardinal Cities and create a path for aetherborn to cross into the capital.
It made sense. Those cities were the only gaps in the Spirit Wall that isolated the inner zone from the outside world. Surely the government understood this as well, since they’d established divisions in each city and stationed knights there.
Vita continued, coughing. “There were far more enemy dark magi than there are knights in the Salem division... If you hadn’t taken them down, Crow, the city truly would have fallen!”
Despite her shallow breaths, Vita still praised me. I mean, it’s not that I wasn’t grateful, just...
I don’t think this is over just yet. Muramasa’s all antsy at my hip, after all.
The sword was full enough to not take over my body, but it’d been whining for a while now.
“DARK. EVIL. SOUL!”
“Wow, you’re so full of energy! That makes a whopping one of us! Don’t mind me. I’m just gonna disintegrate over here.”
The sword moved to the beat of its own drum, as always. It thought evil souls, like those of aetherborn and dark magi, were tastier. Maybe evil was kind of like fat? The fattier the meat, the tastier, after all.
For this guy to be kicking up such a giant fuss after having killed so many people, someone hella evil had to be nearby.
And I really didn’t want to fight anymore. I was sore all over.
“Crow? You have a rather grim frown on your face...”
“Mm,” I said, “It’s just a hunch, but I feel like we’re not out of the woods yet.”
“Huh? That...” Vita coughed before continuing, “What do you mean?”
Before I could answer, a group of people came running from the direction of the city center, waving their hands and shouting “Hey!” to get our attention.
They wore white military uniforms, signaling that they were the magus knights with the local division. Likely they’d heard the commotion and come to offer support.
“You’re... Lady Vita, an elite knight, and... Lady Iris’s apprentice, was it? The enemy—wait, you’ve wiped them all out?!”
“Did you two do it all by yourselves?!”
“Hey! This girl Vita—she’s badly injured!”
As soon as they realized how severe Vita’s condition was, several people came running to her side with potions. I figured she was in good hands now. And with this many people, they should easily be able to scout out any enemies still lurking about.
“Vita,” I said, “leave the rest to us. You should go to the division’s infirmary and rest—”
A sudden realization interrupted my words.
A commotion in front of the gate means all of the knights would be coming this way, right? Which means the manpower at the division’s headquarters would be...!
That had to be the enemy’s goal!
Thanks to Muramasa, I knew there were still enemies somewhere, so I was sure of it!
Pointing in the direction of the division’s headquarters, I yelled out to the knights, “Go back now! This is a diversion! Their real aim is the Salem division!”
The moment I finished saying that, a resounding boom rang out. With a massive explosion, part of the division headquarters went up in flames!
I knew it!
And the next moment, my sore, creaky, sprained legs took off at breakneck speed!
To avoid the crowd, I climbed atop the buildings once more, darting across the skies of Salem with no regard for the danger!
Not that I wanted to.
“EAT! EAT! SOOOOOULS!”
“Seriously, Muramasa?! Again?!”
***
“We’ve been had. This was their true objective all along.”
The division’s headquarters had turned hellish.
Flames raged throughout the building. Black smoke billowed from the holes in the ceiling. Many of the knights and staff had been charred beyond recognition.
Amid the inferno, Hypno, holding a dark gray axe, glared at a heavily scarred woman, dressed in black and with long red hair.
“I can’t believe Karen of the Scarlet Blade, of all people, would fall so far as to become a dark magus,” the commander said.
“Shut up,” the woman snapped. “Don’t act like you know anything about me, Hypno.”
Karen had a refined look to her, but terrible burn scars could be seen on her face, hands, and other exposed parts of her skin.
“You retired from your injuries yourself, no?” she spat. “Stop trying so hard for this damn country! Give me your aethereal arm and get out of my sight!”
Hypno watched as the woman snatched the sword of a nearby fallen knight and deposited it into a pouch at her waist—far too small for the weapon’s size. Still, the blade slid right in, as if it had been absorbed into the fourth dimension.
“A storage device that ignores mass... Is that Fionn mac Cumhaill’s treasure bag? Our nation’s most prized treasure, thought long lost! How do you—”
“Who knows?” the woman said nonchalantly, pointing her flaming sword at the commander. “And who cares? What I want to know is what you’re going to do, Hypno. Are you handing over your weapon and turning tail? Or would you rather have my Surtr burn you alive?”
The tip of her red-hot blade emitted a blazing beam of light, and Karen traced it from Hypno’s chest to his lower abdomen, exposing smooth, white skin as the fibers of the commander’s outfit burned away.
“Urgh...”
The woman laughed, her voice a mix of mockery and hatred. “Ah ha ha! I’ve always wanted to see it. So it’s not just your face that’s pretty—your body is too! Completely unlike mine, charred for the sake of this country.”
As its wielder’s rage grew, the flaming sword ran even hotter.
“That fateful day, twenty years ago, spelled the end for me as a woman, and for your ability to fight,” she spat. “And yet you remain a loyal dog of Lemuria!”
Even as Karen spoke to her old comrade, the heat from the flames became so intense that objects around them began to melt.
“Hypno! You’re just a filthy dog to the nobility now, aren’t you?! If you’re going to waste your life away anyway, then come with me!”
Amid the flames, she reached out a hand to Hypno—an invitation to join her in damnation as a dark magus, to help her destroy the empire.
The commander looked at her with a hint of surprise and a quiet head shake. “I’m sorry, Karen. Your invitation comes a little too late.”
“What?!” she screamed in shock, the flames running wilder still around her. “The fuck are you talking about?!”
“You’re right. I’ve been wasting my life away,” Hypno said. “I kept on serving this country, believing that someday it would get better. The more peaceful the inner zone became, however, the more corruption spread. After all the ridiculous demands, I reached the end of my rope.”
“Then why?”
“I recently met this remarkable young man named Crow, you see,” Hypno explained. “He set my heart alight once more.”
The commander strongly believed that the young man could truly change the country for the better. That he would condemn the corrupt and illuminate the way to a brighter future.
“So I’m sorry, Karen, but I cannot go with you. I don’t want to destroy this country. I want to build it anew with Crow!”
“Hypnooo!” she growled furiously.
The woman reached into the magic bag at her waist, pulling out a second, giant crimson blade.
“Have it your way! If you’re not with me, you’re against me! You’re dead!”
“That’s...Dáinsleif, the Crimson Thirst?!” The blade Crow’d turned in had been stolen, and once again fallen into the hands of an evildoer!
“I remember you in your prime,” Karen explained. “So I figure going the extra mile to crush you can’t hurt.”
“Karen, wielding two aethereal swords at the same time isn’t wise,” Hypno warned.
“The words of a cornered rat!” Karen snapped. “I’ve killed all the other knights in this building. The ones that left for the gate are probably going at it with Nya’s group. Maybe they’re all fucking dead!”
The woman let out a loud, wicked cackle. Pitiful, Hypno thought. She’d once been a defender of the kingdom. How far she’d fallen.
“Now scream in terror for me, Hypno! I’ll stain that pretty face of yours with fear!” Karen yelled.
She brandished her swords, lunging mercilessly at her former comrade. Hypno, in turn, quietly gazed upwards.
“I have no reason to be afraid,” the commander said.
“What?!”
“You see,” Hypno began. “In times of trouble, heroes come to save the day.”
The next moment, a man swooped down from the skies above the collapsed building. Swinging his jet-black blade, he repelled Karen’s attack!
It was him!
“Crow!” Hypno exclaimed. “You came!”
“Leave the rest to me.”
The raven-haired swordsman entered the fray!
And he did so by dropping from a height of many, many meters.
My leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeegs!!!