Chapter 34
The first to sense that presence was Sharen, who was living among the commoners.
She liked the spirit energy she could feel in the commoners' quarter, so she had abandoned her comfortable lodgings and was staying there.
When she suddenly sensed a chilling presence, she immediately used flight magic to fly to the eastern wall of the castle, where she sensed it.
The soldiers on the wall were startled when Sharen suddenly flew over.
“Lady Sharen!”
“Is something wrong?”
Sharen had no time to answer them.
Because she could feel a chilling presence coming from the edge of the horizon.
She had felt this chilling presence only once before.
“This is definitely black magic…”
Sharen had felt this same sensation when she handled a commission to deal with bandits who had turned into evil spirits through black magic, without knowing what they were doing, and she tensed up.
The bandits back then had apparently not performed a proper ritual, so the evil spirit had been like a weak monster that had failed to manifest properly.
But the presence she sensed now was on an entirely different level.
She could tell that it had been created through a proper ritual and with numerous sacrifices.
As she wondered how to deal with a properly summoned evil spirit, trouble erupted before she had any time to think.
[ “Kraaaaaaak!!!” ]
“Th-That!!”
“It's a monster tide!!!”
Countless monsters, driven berserk by the evil spirit's presence, began rushing toward them.
With no time to hesitate, Sharen cast a spell.
"Ignis Pluvia! (Ignis Pluvia / Fire Rain spell)!"
As her incantation took effect, a red magic circle unfolded behind her.
Then enormous fireballs poured down from it like rain toward the monsters.
While holding back the monsters, Sharen shouted to the soldiers.
“Quickly, bring the others and Sir Rikain! Hurry!”
“Yes!”
“Understood!!”
Realizing that this was no ordinary situation, Sharen quickly sent for Rikain and the other knights.
Although the monsters made her lose track of the evil spirit's presence, Sharen was certain it had to be somewhere nearby, so she began holding back the monsters while casting spells.
* * *
While Sharen was holding back the monsters outside, the castle interior also began to grow noisy.
Woken by the noise, Calix opened his bedroom door and came out.
“It's noisy outside. What's going on?”
“Nothing is wrong, my lord.”
“Nothing is wrong? It sounded like there was even an explosion.”
Rana spoke calmly to Calix.
Naturally, a major incident was about to unfold.
But causing confusion now could instead put Calix's safety at risk.
For the moment, Calix's bedroom, where Sharen had even installed special protective magic, was the safest place to be.
At that moment, Azel immediately resorted to force.
“My lord! It is dangerous to go outside right now. Please stay in your bedroom!”
“Wait! Azel!? Hold on!!”
Thud-!
Azel simply used her strength to shove Calix back into the room.
Rana was uncharacteristically flustered as she watched the bedroom door slam shut with a loud bang.
Was it really all right to shove my lord into his room like that?
But before she had time to think about it, it arrived.
“It's coming! Rana!”
At Azel's words, Rana immediately threw off her maid's skirt and drew the two daggers hidden against her thighs.
Azel also drew her sword and took up a stance.
She had a premonition that whatever enemy was coming would not be amenable to conversation.
And her premonition proved correct.
Swaaaak-!!
It appeared through a distant window.
It looked like a black shadow.
It took the form of a hooded skeleton, but up close, it was more like shapeless smoke.
And from where its eyes should have been, an evil red light glared at them.
It looked just like the Grim Reaper of Hell from the fairy tales she had heard as a child.
“This is…”
“Lady Azel, do you know what this is?”
“I have seen it in a book before.”
Azel recalled something she had learned at the academy.
In a record of a battle against black magic that she had read out of curiosity, Azel had once seen the thing before her.
It was one of the evil spirits that could be summoned through black magic.
An evil spirit that relentlessly pursued its target and took its life at its summoner's command. Its name was definitely…
“『Shadow Reaper』. Yes, it is definitely an evil spirit called the ‘Shadow Reaper.’”
“That's good. Then you must know how to defeat it as well.”
“The thing is…I didn't read that part!”
“That is unfortunate.”
While the two of them were talking, the Shadow Reaper began to move.
Recognizing the two blocking its path as enemies, the reaper charged at them.
“It's coming!”
“Dodge!!”
The reaper simply swung its hand in front of them.
Azel and Rana hurriedly dodged to either side, avoiding the reaper's attack.
“Swaaaaaaa…”
The flowerpot where the reaper had struck was cleanly sliced apart by a single gesture, as if cut with a razor.
If they were hit by an attack like that, even a knight's armor would be sliced through like tofu.
The reaper looked at Rana, one of the two people who had evaded its attack.
After studying Rana intently for a moment, it rushed at her like the wind and began attacking.
‘It's fast!’
The Shadow Reaper pursued Rana at windlike speed, swinging its hands.
Rana narrowly evaded the attacks, but even she, who had graduated top of her class from the Assassination Department, felt that the reaper's attacks were too fast to avoid completely.
Whoosh-!
Unable to keep simply dodging, Rana threw a dagger at the reaper's skull.
The dagger pierced straight through the center of the skull's forehead.
But then…
Srrrk-
“It went through!?”
The dagger Rana threw passed straight through the center of the skull's forehead—or rather, through it entirely.
As Rana reeled from the complete lack of resistance, as though she had stabbed empty air, the reaper's hand descended upon her.
“Lady Rana!”
To Azel, the reaper's hand reaching toward Rana, who was floating in midair, looked like nothing less than a sentence of death.
But just as the reaper's hand was about to touch Rana, she disappeared.
“Kak!?”
“Huh?”
The reaper also seemed bewildered when Rana vanished in an instant.
Meanwhile, Rana teleported to the dagger she had thrown and escaped to Azel's side.
“Lady Rana! You're safe.”
“Whew, I thought I was going to die.”
Rana, who had fled to Azel's side, let out a sigh of relief.
The reaper still seemed unable to find Rana, looking around from side to side in search of her.
“What should we do? That monster called a reaper seems to be one of those ghost-type monsters I've heard rumors about.”
“Yes, it seems so.”
Both Rana and Azel had learned about them at the academy.
There were intangible, ghostlike monsters in the world, and they could be fought only with ‘equipment blessed by the Church’ or ‘holy magic.’
“With my current equipment, I have no way to harm that monster. Do you have anything, Lady Azel?”
“…………”
Azel pondered.
She wondered whether she should reveal here the secret she had not even told her comrades in the Golden Knights.
“Lady Azel?”
“……”
After pondering for a moment, Azel made up her mind.
She would use it to save the lord who had understood her and the first friend she had made after coming here.
Surely even her father would understand.
“Lady Rana…I would like to ask one favor of you, because I trust you.”
“Yes, Lady Azel. Please, go ahead.”
Azel stepped forward.
Moonlight streaming through the broken window began to illuminate her.
“I would like you to keep what you are about to see a secret.”
“I will keep it secret. I swear it on the honor of House Ansus—or rather, on my lord's honor.”
Apparently satisfied by Rana's answer, Azel smiled and gripped her sword.
Then she used her blessing.
“O moonlight that guides me, goddess who leads me.”
As if the commotion up until then had been an illusion, the world fell silent.
The green moonlight illuminating the castle began to be drawn into her sword.
“Dwell within my sword and grant me the power of purification.”
When she finished speaking, her sword began to glow with the power of moonlight.
This was Azel's blessing, <The Moonlight-Shining Sword>.
It was the ability to create a sword blessed by the moon, and because of this ability, she could display even greater power when fighting on nights illuminated by moonlight.
That was why she was known by the epithet ‘Moonlight Knight,’ and this was all the Golden Knights and the prince knew of Azel's abilities.
The true ability of the blessing Azel had hidden was not simply that it made her stronger when fighting at night.
Her sword, imbued with the power of moonlight by the Moonlight-Shining Sword, gained a powerful ability to banish evil.
“Kaaaaaa…”
Only then did the reaper recognize Rana and Azel.
And it instinctively sensed it.
That the emerald-like sword glowing green with moonlight was its natural enemy.
The emotion known as fear began to bloom within the Shadow Reaper, which should have had no emotions at all.
“Poor evil spirit…”
Moonlight began to spill from her sword.
The Shadow Reaper decided that surviving was necessary to complete its mission and chose to flee.
The reaper fled much faster than it had moved when charging at Rana.
“Return to the place where you belong!”
Azel swung the Moonlight Sword at the evil spirit.
A green blade of light burst from the sword and flew toward the reaper.
No matter how fast the reaper was, it was still night—the Moon Goddess's hour.
“Kaaaaaaak!!!!”
Caught in the blade of moonlight, the reaper was torn apart and purified amid a grotesque scream.
The inside of the castle fell silent again once the Shadow Reaper disappeared.
* * *
After the reaper disappeared, Azel began to panic.
“Lady Rana! What should we do about this?”
“What do you mean, ‘do about it’?”
“I want to hide my blessing!”
“So that is what you were worried about.”
In this world, people kept the abilities of their blessings secret even from their own liege lords.
Rana had not told the princess about all the abilities of her own blessing either.
Assuming that Azel wanted to conceal her blessing's abilities for personal reasons, Rana told her how to handle the situation.
“I think this should work.”
Azel was flustered by Rana's suggestion, but when Rana said it would help the lord's reputation, she decided to follow her advice.
And ten minutes later, Calix was running through the castle.
“I won't forgive you, monsters! How dare you injure my vassals!!”
What Calix saw when he opened the door was Rana and Azel, covered in wounds.
They claimed they had fought to protect Calix but had been overwhelmed, and Calix encouraged them for their valiant struggle before setting out to summon the other knights.
Then Azel said…
“Just in case, please take my sword with you. My lord, it will surely be useful.”
Since he had no weapon, Calix took Azel's sword as she suggested and went outside the castle.
It was somewhat strange that Azel's sword emitted a green light, but Calix assumed she had made it luminescent so it would be easier to see at night, and carried it out without giving it much thought.
As he was about to go outside, Calix met Rikain and the knights, who had returned after dealing with the situation outside.
“My lord!”
“Are you safe!?”
“Yes, I'm safe. Azel and Rana were injured inside. Please have them treated.”
“Yes! Understood.”
Just as he thought the situation had been resolved and began to relax, a fragment of the Shadow Reaper reacted to the aura of the Moonlight Sword that had slain it.
“Kaaaaaaak!!”
“What is that!!!”
“Protect the lord!!”
The small fragment of the Shadow Reaper that suddenly burst from the darkness flew straight toward Lord Calix.
At its sudden appearance, Calix reflexively swung the sword Azel had given him.
“Damn! You scared me!”
Swoosh-!
“Kieeeeeeek!!”
The Shadow Reaper, already weakened to its absolute limit and lacking the strength to kill even an ant, was purified and disappeared when Calix swung Azel's sword.
A brief silence fell among the knights and subjects who witnessed it.
Then they began shouting.
“Did the lord just cut down an evil spirit!?”
“The lord personally vanquished an evil spirit!”
Calix could not keep up with what was happening amid the sudden cheers of the knights and subjects.
“…What happened?“
Another song about Kron's Silver Dragon was created that day.
It was a song about a young lord who vanquished an evil spirit.