Chapter 8: Move Your Ass, Crow!

“My...body,” I uttered, shocked. What’s happening?!

As I massaged Iris to return her earlier favor, my fingertips suddenly slowed, my joints straining to move at all. I wondered if I’d come down with some kind of illness, but Iris was also spasming, her mouth agape, so I wasn’t the only one acting weird.

“C-Crow, I think...” Iris was struggling to talk. “This must be the work of an aetherborn! There must be one outside, blowing toxic pollen into the room!”

“What?!” Come to think of it, there was some kind of sweet smell in the air while I was massaging her... I was sniffing it because it smelled so good, like ninety percent milk and ten percent flowers! That was poison?! Ah shit, I gotta close the window!

Straining to drag my paralyzed legs toward the window, I was greeted by a bizarre sight.

“Ah ha ha ha! Come now, my lovelies! I will eat you all!”

Looking out the window, I saw a giant red flower, bigger than a house, blooming in the middle of the village. From its center sprouted a grotesque green woman.

Wait, I’ve read about that! That’s an alraune—a powerful plant aetherborn that kills people with its poisonous paralyzing pollen and countless vines!

According to the book I’d read, it typically took several magus knights to take one down. Alraune were said to grow underground for decades until fully mature, then go on a rampage.

Come to think of it, didn’t Iris say this village was established recently? Dude, they built a village on top of an alraune’s seed?! For real?!

And the damn thing just had to sprout right when I got here! Seriously, how unlucky can one man be?! It was my first chance in a while to get a proper night’s rest, dammit!

“Now then, who shall I eat first?” the creature mused.

Vines sprouted from beneath the ground, probing into various buildings throughout the village. Shortly after, the alraune drew them back, now coiled around villagers and travelers who cried out in anguish.

“H-Help me...”

“I can’t move!”

“Wh-Wh-What’s going on?!”

They all seemed to be affected by the paralyzing pollen and couldn’t break free of the vines. They spasmed pitifully, unable to take their eyes off the creature.

“Ah ha ha! You all look so tasty! ♡” Her dainty little mouth expanded into a grotesque maw lined with vicious, uneven teeth. The people cried out in terror at the prospect of being gnawed on by that thing.

Holy crap... It looks human, but that’s an aetherborn, all right! I thought to myself, terrified. Okay, now what?

I considered how to escape. Like, yes, it was very tragic for everyone she was about to eat, but how would one even fight that thing? They wouldn’t, that’s how.

Granted, I was barely able to move at this point. Paralyzing poison was cheating, I tell you.

Uhhh, I don’t think I can use my limbs, but maybe I can crawl around like a caterpillar? I could drag Iris along by the mouth and escape somehow, I was thinking to myself, when a voice reverberated deep within me.

“SOUL. SOUL. SOUL!”

Huh?

And of course, my body started moving. Why wouldn’t it?

Against my will, my weakened feet stomped the ground with a thud, my trembling arms gripping the black blade. With every movement, my nerves defied the paralyzing agent, sending jolts of pain coursing through me.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaugh! M-Muramasa?! Wait! Stop trying to control my body! Don’t force me to move! Hey!”

Scream as I might internally, Muramasa, the soul glutton, wouldn’t listen. Because of course it wouldn’t. The alraune was powerful prey, and the sword was ready to pounce, forcing my foot onto the window frame.

“Wait, no, you can’t jump out the window! The landing’s gonna hurt my ankle! Also, honestly, can we just not move, please?! My nerves are being torn apart! It’s driving me nuts! For real!”

“SILENCE!”

“What the—”

Seriously, that thing! What the hell was its problem? How rude of it to tell me to shut up when I was trying really hard to explain the situation! Honestly, that sword needed to work on its personality!

“I’ll kill you!” I exclaimed, letting slip my overwhelming hatred for the blade.

No, but really. Someday the demon sword’s curse would be lifted, I would be free from its clutches, and kick the crap out of that stupid piece of crap! And flush it down the toilet!

“SOOOUL!”

“Fuck you, stupid thing! I’ll make you regret this!”

Listen, it was making me move and jump out a damn window. I was upset, okay?

***

“I’ll kill you!”

The alraune froze, bewildered, at the overwhelming venom dripping from those words. Its body temperature dropped and it shuddered, goosebumps forming on its green skin.

A figure emerged from a window the aetherborn had neglected to attack. The Condemner descended, void-black sword in hand, majestically swooping down upon the creature.

He seemed...half-invalid.

The poison was doubtlessly affecting him. His limbs were trembling, and he could barely stand.

His eyes, however, told a different story.

“How dare you attack these people, you abomination!” the young man exclaimed, casting a piercing, murderous glare at the creature.

“Eek!” the alraune yelped, taken aback by the sheer force of the hatred burning in his eyes.

He took one step forward, drawing closer to the aetherborn. Then another.

The man should’ve been under the effect of the toxin. His nerves should be numb, his every muscle stiff.

Yet he did not stop. Gripping his sword, onward he came.

“Wicked, evil, despicable creature!” the dark-haired swordsman declared. “How dare you taint this place with your vile poison! How dare you laugh at the good, helpless people of this village and attempt to devour them! I, Crow Titus, will make you pay!”

His overflowing fury froze the aetherborn in its tracks.

The astonished citizens gasped. They’d been ready to die, resigned to the fact they’d be eaten alive, unable to move a single muscle. But a savior had magically appeared before them, aethereal arm in hand, bringing the light of hope to their eyes once more.

“That strange blade must be an aethereal arm!” someone exclaimed. “With that, he can fight the aetherborn!”

“That must be the disciple of Lady Iris! They came to our inn together!”

“Iris of the White Blade has a disciple?!”

It was as though the people, their spirits revitalized, had forgotten their terror. Their uplifted spirits made the alraune’s aetherborn instincts scream.

“Lowly human! How dare you threaten me! I will not be defeated by the likes of you!” she shouted. With a shriek, she let loose a blast of vines, seeking to bind this insolent human, humiliate him, and beat him to death. Yet—

“Too slow.”

For a moment, the sword in his hand blurred. The vines fell to pieces in a flash, scattering around the stunned aetherborn.

“Wh-What?!” she exclaimed. Impossible! It cannot be!

What manner of swordsmanship was that? How could he—under the effect of her poison—cut through her vines so quickly? Just how much rage seethed within this man, enabling him to do so despite the paralysis? The aetherborn’s mind raced with such fearful thoughts.

And then she snapped, letting out an ear-splitting screech.

“Youuu! What the hell are you?!” she demanded.

The alraune grew as many vines as her stockpiled nutrients would allow, swinging them wildly at Crow.

“Die! Die! Diiiiiie!”

No longer in the mood to attack the villagers, she turned, hell-bent on killing the young man, frantically whipping at him with her vines.

Not a single strike landed, however.

Instead, her vines struck the nearby homes, their walls collapsing as Crow quietly drew closer.

“You cannot kill me,” he intoned. “For disrupting the peace of these upstanding people, you will be judged by my hand!”

It was as though a wall of slashing swords defended him. The vines attempting to attack him were instantly cut to pieces. None could reach the young swordsman.

“Eek!” the aetherborn shrieked frantically. “Stay away from me! Don’t come any closer, you monster!” Crow possessed a supernaturally strong will to fight, and in the eyes of the alraune, inhuman though she was, he was the monster. He’s not normal, she thought. I’m going to die. He’s going to kill me!

Her mind swirling with such thoughts, she continued her rampage, but her attacks gradually grew slower. Sprouting so many vines had drained her stockpiled nutrients. Each vine sprouted thinner than the last, and each new wave had fewer and fewer of them.

Thus did her end come. The moment her vigorous frenzy fell off, Crow took a forceful step forward.

“Embrace your doom, vile fiend!”

The sword sliced through her neck in an instant. As the moon rose in the night sky, the malignant flower faded from existence like the memory of a dream.

And—

Wahhhhhh! Finally the damn thing’s gone!!!

The alraune had met her end in terror of Crow’s murderous wrath. Except there had been no such thing.

Crow didn’t have a lick of willpower within him. No, it had all been the doing of his magical puppeteering blade, Muramasa. In fact, his initial threat to kill someone had been directed at the sword!

Of course, the aetherborn had no means of knowing this preposterous truth. Nor did the people who crowded around.

“Oh, Mr. Crow!”

“Our protector! Our savior!”

“We’re alive, thanks to you!”

The people’s eyes lit up as they cheered. To them, Crow was a hero—he’d saved their lives, after all. They couldn’t possibly know their savior was nothing but a stupid puppet. All the cool one-liners he’d been spouting certainly didn’t help.

Historians would go on to write about that momentous day in the village’s records—a waste of perfectly good paper.