Chapter 108
#Chapter 108: Demonic Sword Forte (10) - Melody
Truth is a terrifying thing.
Even more so for someone who has hidden something.
‘I must not be found out.’
The young man had a secret.
A secret that, the moment it became known to the world, would end his social life—and perhaps even his physical life.
‘The fact that I’m a demon contractor…!’
Pina Vallestia.
The moment the “truth” that the young man—supposedly no more than a porter for the hero’s descendant’s party—was actually a demon contractor came to light, the world would never leave him alone.
The fanatics of the Pantheon would turn the young man’s family inside out along with him, then methodically trample every detail of his life into the dirt.
Staying alive would be difficult, and even if he managed it, he would have to live as a fugitive for the rest of his life, evading relentless pursuit. Even the Empire, famous as a nation of infidels, would not deliberately set itself against the Pantheon just to protect him.
Fortunately, he had done well so far.
If he could remain by the side of that terrifying hero’s descendant and see the mission through to the end, he would be able to enjoy a peaceful retirement.
Free from all the shackles and responsibilities of his family, he could surely live a sweet life with his beloved Lady Divana!
That was how it was supposed to be.
“Uh, um, I’m sorry. No, saying I’m sorry is a little strange too, but, um.”
The Grim Reaper was approaching the young man.
Swaying her excessively long, glossy black hair tied into a ponytail, not a single strand of it damaged.
The young man normally thought it looked like the pendulum of a grandfather clock, but not now.
It looked more like a noose on a gallows.
The moment his neck slipped into that noose, his body seemed likely to dangle there as well.
“For starters, since you’re apparently a descendant of the hero, I can’t just leave a demon contractor alone….”
The girl looked exactly as she usually did.
She could not meet people’s eyes properly, darting her gaze about and trailing off at the ends of her sentences.
She looked harmless and weak, with not a hint of confidence.
But the young man was not fooled.
Because.
That girl was a person who could hole up in a dungeon all day, slaughtering monsters with that exact same face and tone of voice.
She was a murderous doll that could slice through golems, slice through mimics, slice through poison gas, slice through the notion that humans were social animals—in short, slice through anything and everything.
When there is one person who remains sane amid a scene of madness, that person is the most dangerous of all.
In the girl’s clear golden eyes, the young man glimpsed an indescribable madness.
“D-don’t come any closer.”
“I-I’ll make it hurt as little as possible! It’ll feel like getting a single injection!”
“My…! My…!”
“You’ve been a great help to me! Please rest in peace!”
“Don’t come near meeeeeeeeeee─!!”
“Ah, the Demonic Sword says to send its regards too! Then, take this!”
Shhk!
***
“Aaaaaaaah!!”
The young man jolted upright in bed with a scream.
《W-what? What happened?》
The demon Divana, who had been resting inside the accessory, spoke in alarm.
The young man stared blankly around him, then gingerly felt his own neck and let out a sigh of relief.
“Th-thank goodness.”
《What on earth is wrong with you? Did you have a nightmare?》
“I dreamed that the dungeon-clearing doll chopped off my head and went ‘hee-hee’ as blood sprayed everywhere…. Thank goodness it was only a dream.”
《…….》
The demon Divana thought,
Is this thing broken? I don’t think I’ve used it for that long.
Although Divana had begun to suspect that this was a defective product, fortunately, the young man was able to retain his position as her contractor without being returned.
It was not because she was especially merciful; it was simply that terminating a contract inside Sky Academy and finding a new contractor was about as difficult as a certain Lady C gaining contractual leverage over a certain servant C.
This was why one should never enter into a contract lightly.
The demon and her contractor, now a “shared-fate community (local area only),” embarked on Operation: Exclude the Demonic Sword.
《How about stealing it during a break in the middle of combat? I can make a fake, so we can quietly swap it out while she looks away for a moment.》
After hearing Divana’s suggestion, the young man quietly shook his head.
He did not criticize his beloved female demon for her ignorance.
That was because, owing to the special environment of Sky Academy, he knew she could not keep watch over the outside world twenty-four hours a day.
“Lady Divana. That’s impossible.”
《Why?》
“She holds a sword in one hand and a spoon in the other while eating.”
《Is she fucking crazy?》
First operation: scrapped because the target was a fucking lunatic.
《Then what about watching her during weapon maintenance? Use your connections to tell her there is an upperclassman who specializes in weapon care. If you tell her that he can make her precious sword even stronger, don’t you think she’ll be happy to hear it?》
“Ohhh, Lady Divana! As expected, you’re wise! I’ll talk to her as soon as we go to the dungeon today!”
And the next day.
《…….》
“……”
《D-do you remember what she said? Maybe I’ve had so much to worry about lately that my hearing and memory are getting confused.》
“‘The Demonic Sword said it would be better to clear one more quest than waste time on such heretical pursuits as weapon enhancement!’”
《Fuck.》
Second operation: scrapped because her hearing and memory were perfectly fine.
《Let’s try the straightforward approach instead. Tell her that, as a fellow swordsman, you’d like to borrow her sword just once.》
“The weapon I use is a shortsword, and a single-edged one at that, while hers is clearly a double-edged longsword or bastard sword.”
《Aren’t all swords basically the same?》
“What kind of lunacy is it to say a guandao is a greatsword?”
《……?》
Third operation: scrapped because the weapons had different musicality.
Since neither the young man nor Divana had a supervisor who could approve their plan while spouting nonsense like, “Make it feel like the new generation while preserving tradition—how can you not understand something this simple?”,
they were fortunately able to reach an agreement on the fourth plan.
They had no choice but to sneak in at night and steal it.
“Everything here at Sky Academy is carried out through quests and rewards. Because of that, it’s easy to assume the place has no openings whatsoever, but the academy’s internal rules themselves aren’t actually all that thorough or strict.”
Quite apart from the minor details, the number of faculty and staff was extremely low.
It was unavoidable, really. Although Sky Academy had fewer students than the other two flagship schools, its enrollment still exceeded three digits.
By contrast, there were only three “professors” managing the academy, and even counting the rest of the staff, the total did not reach double digits.
Although all three professors were overwhelmingly powerful within Sky Academy, it was impossible for so few people to manage every student with care.
No one knew why the academy maintained such a small staff, but to the young man and Divana, it was an obvious opportunity.
Of course, the moment the act of “entering a female student’s room in the dead of night to steal her sword” was exposed, the young man would truly lose a great many things, but he decided to willingly accept the risk.
To accomplish something big, one had to take on a certain amount of risk.
It was absolutely not because holing up in the dungeon without rest had made him go a little crazy.
In the pitch-black night,
after confirming that Lizenol, the swordsmanship professor, had finished his final patrol, the young man cautiously approached Pina’s room.
A demon contractor’s abilities were always connected to the abilities possessed by the demon itself.
And since the demons of 『Deception』 wielded illusion- and phantasm-type magic as naturally as breathing, infiltration was not particularly difficult.
The sound of the young man’s footsteps and breathing was all covered over by an oppressive silence, while an illusion overlaid his figure like a shadow in the darkness.
After forcibly disabling the lock and entering the room, the young man was greeted by a quiet stillness.
Pina was fast asleep on the bed, breathing softly, and a sword lay on the shelf beside her.
There was just one thing.
‘…Why is there a cushion under the sword?’
There was nothing particularly strange about carefully storing a valuable weapon, but the sight gave the young man an inexplicable sense of incongruity.
Would it be an illusion to say it felt as though she treated the weapon itself as her master?
‘Phew, yes. At least she isn’t sleeping with it beneath her pillow or hugging it in her sleep.’
In the young man’s mind, Pina was already such a bizarre person that neither would have seemed strange, so he persuaded himself that this was more than acceptable.
Even though he knew the various spells would prevent any sound, the young man reached for the sword with strangely cautious movements.
Just as he tightened his grip around the hilt and was about to leave the room,
“Demonic Sword….”
Hic!
The young man desperately swallowed the hiccup that almost escaped him.
Trembling, he looked over his shoulder and saw Pina rolling around on the bed, mumbling something in her sleep.
‘W-was that sleep-talking?’
Complaining inwardly that his heart had nearly fallen out of his chest, the young man left the room as he was.
The very moment he let his guard down,
～ ♬ 〜
he heard a sound.
～♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫～
A melody like one coming from a music box.
～♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♬ ♪ ♬ ♪～
It was vaguely similar to a lullaby, but far too eerie to be called one.
“W-what is that!?”
Even though he knew he shouldn’t, the young man reflexively opened his mouth.
“L-Lady Divana? What on earth is this….”
《I don’t know. What is this? What the hell is it?》
Divana was just as flustered, so she could not give her contractor an appropriate answer.
In their haste to look around and determine where the unpleasant melody was coming from, they soon realized two things.
That the melody was ringing out from the sword.
And that someone was staring straight at him through the gap of the open door.
“……”
“……”
The young man and Divana did not know that the melody echoing around them was the OST of a horror movie that had once been famous as a cellphone ringtone.
Nor did they know that long hair was difficult to manage and would fall over one’s face if left loose, or that Pina was still half-asleep, making her eyes look extremely menacing.
Therefore, they interpreted the situation in an entirely subjective manner.
A dark hallway.
An eerie melody.
A ghost glaring at them through the crack in the open door, blood vessels standing out in its eyes amid a mess of black hair.
“Aaaaaaaah!!”
《W-whaaat?》
The young man began to flee.
The demon stood there, dumbfounded.
The disheveled black-haired monster chased after himThe horror chase had begun.