Chapter 109
#Chapter 109: Demonic Sword Forte (11) - Acquired Venom
The young man, a swordsman by profession, did not fully understand its value, but the magic Demon Divana had given him was extraordinarily powerful.
If practical mages were to name it, they would call it 『the magic that keeps nearby people from noticing a commotion』.
If theoretical mages were to assign it a rank and classification, it would be a fifth-tier illusion spell.
This spell ‘appropriately’ handled every kind of noise the young man made.
Rather than simply covering everything in silence, it allowed sounds to occur normally while ensuring that no one nearby could hear them.
As soon as the spell was applied, its caster could converse normally with companions and perceive the sounds around him.
Considering that sound-suppression spells generally overwrite every kind of sound with static or prevent the caster from hearing surrounding sounds as well, it was an exceptionally powerful and convenient spell.
In other words.
“Aaaaaaaah!!”
Patter-patter-patter-patter!
Even as the young man sprinted wildly through the dormitory corridor, screaming at the top of his lungs, no one else woke up to ask what was happening.
For a thief, it was the best possible outcome, but for a horror-movie victim, it was utterly maddening.
～♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫～
Even as the young man ran without pause, the ominous melody refused to stop.
“Get off!! I said get off!!”
The young man desperately tried to throw away the sword in his hand, but the sword would not come off.
It felt as though his palm had stuck to the hilt.
That alone was maddening enough, but the ghost(?) with disheveled black hair racing after him from behind terrified him even more.
Of course, the ghost—or rather, Pina—could not stop running either.
Was it because she felt a sense of duty to recover her stolen property?
That was not the only reason. There was another, more important one.
It was because the voice of the ‘Demonic Sword’ was reaching her ears in real time even now.
《Contractor, I feel a great sense of responsibility. It is responsibility for the grave error in judgment I committed.》
《To be honest, I thought you, my contractor, were keeping up rather well. Since simply maintaining the current state would be enough to reach our goal, I thought there was no need for me to interfere further.》
《That was why I said nothing even when you holed up in your room and lazed around all day on your days off. I thought it was a proper and appropriate rest.》
《However, it seems my judgment was mistaken. You failed to notice an outside intruder opening the door and entering while you were lost in sleep. What would have happened if the enemy’s objective had been assassination rather than theft?》
《That introduction grew long. So I shall state the main point briefly.》
《From now on, every time I count a number, one holiday will become a weekday. One.》
Kyaaaaaaaaah!
Pina screamed inwardly.
The reason she did not let that scream escape her lips was that even the breath it would consume was too precious to waste.
‘Give it back!!’
Pina’s eyes became bloodshot.
She was, at heart, an introvert.
However, being introverted and being meek did not necessarily go hand in hand.
The ferocity of an office worker watching a holiday burn away in real time was more intense than that of a fighting dog in a dogfighting ring, and Pina was no exception.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
Each time Pina’s legs pumped furiously, the distance between her and the young man rapidly narrowed.
《Ah, fuck…! This won’t do.》
Anxiety appeared in the eyes of the demon Divana as she watched.
If the young man were caught here, things would become complicated in many ways.
Their original aim was to wear down the other party’s strength, then approach her during a moment of weakness and grow close to her, but if things continued like this, he might be branded a thief and lose all the goodwill he had built up in the first place.
《Damn, casting magic without materializing is tricky!!》
As Divana exerted her power despite her irritation, the darkness near the ground around Pina momentarily acquired physical force and seized her ankle.
Splat! Pina toppled forward.
《Good, run away like this─ Fuck, what the hell is that?》
The demon, who had been about to give the young man instructions, swore at the sight unfolding before her.
Pina, who had seemed to fall, performed a forward roll and then proceeded to chase the young man in a posture that looked half prone.
Her nose was red, perhaps from hitting it when she fell, and her eyes were bloodshot with indescribable emotion, radiating enough force to make even Divana flinch involuntarily.
Blue mana seemed to ripple around Pina’s body, and she sprinted at a speed even greater than before.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
“Aaaaaaaah!”
At the sounds and presence he could sense without seeing them, the young man’s face turned deathly pale.
Divana tried to block Pina with every kind of magic, such as making the ground slippery or creating physical barriers from shadows, but Pina continued her pursuit without the slightest discouragement, even as she fell and crashed into things.
At some point, she apparently found even falling and getting back up too bothersome, and went berserk on all fours.
Divana swallowed hard without realizing it at that ferocious momentum.
Just look at that face. Wasn’t she the one doing the chasing, yet didn’t she look exactly like someone was chasing her?
Clack! Clack-clack-clack-clack!
“Open! I said open!!”
Terrified, the young man tried to dash out through the dormitory’s main entrance, contrary to the original plan, but it was firmly locked.
Before the young man could find another way, Pina caught up to him.
Wham!
Pina’s kick landed squarely in the middle of the young man’s back, his body bending like a bow as he slammed into the door.
With a loud crash, one side of the door was torn away, and the young man and Pina were flung into the plaza in front of the dormitory.
Clutching Forte, which had been wrenched from the young man’s hand, Pina shouted.
“Demonic Sword!!”
A voice brimming with desperation.
Realizing the meaning hidden behind those words, Forte answered.
《Looks like I’ll have to work for two months without a day off.》
“Demonic Sword…?”
《Though it also seems like it might be two months and one extra week.》
“Demonic Sword…!”
Around the time a sword and a girl were performing a comedy skit.
The young man lay face-down on the ground, unable to move.
It was not because he was still terrified…
Horror was fundamentally a genre in which mental shock mattered more than physical shock, and after being battered by physical attacks, his mind had returned to that of a warrior rather than a horror-movie victim.
However, knowing now that his opponent was not some mysterious ghost-like creature did not exactly improve the situation.
The plan the young man and Divana had devised was to steal Pina’s sword, then approach her after she had lost her strength and become demoralized, and control her at will.
Yet stealing the sword had failed, and to make matters worse, he had been caught red-handed and even captured.
No matter how mild Pina’s personality might be, there was no chance she would listen to anything the young man said in a situation like this.
In other words, only one method remained to them.
《…It can’t be helped.》
Divana irritably scratched her head inside the accessory, then said,
《We have no choice but to subdue the hero’s descendant and imprison her somewhere. Once ‘that guy’ finds out the exact location of the seal, we can somehow drag her there and settle things.》
“I see.”
The young man agreed as well.
The best method would be to persuade Pina to destroy the seal, but if that was impossible, they would have to use the next-best option.
Above all, the academy was large relative to its population, and since the students did not follow fixed schedules but instead devoted themselves to completing their own quests as they pleased, there was a high chance that one or two missing students would go unnoticed.
Shing.
Having finished calculating, the young man quietly got to his feet and drew his sword.
“It’s unfortunate, Miss Pina. I had hoped to resolve this amicably if possible.”
As Divana’s contractor, the magic he had received from her enveloped his body.
Unlike Valzarez, who possessed the powerful ability ‘Copy’ and made a living solely off it, Divana was a balanced type with a fairly wide variety of abilities.
The young man’s physical abilities grew stronger, the sword energy that had merely strengthened his sword gained physical force of its own and was elevated into sword force, and he was even granted magical abilities he had not originally possessed.
More importantly, unlike Marik, Valzarez’s former contractor, who had been utterly incompetent, the young man Divana had chosen was talented enough to pass the entrance exam through his own ability alone.
With a face filled with sorrow and resolve, the young man calmly assumed his stance, and Pina hesitated.
Half unconsciously, the young man tried to predict what she would say.
Would it be astonishment at why he was doing something like this? Or perhaps betrayal at the fact that he had tried to use her?
Either was an understandable emotion, so the young man did not recklessly make excuses.
He knew perfectly well that he was committing an evil act. There was simply something he wanted badly enough to achieve even this way.
“Um, well.”
“What is it, Miss Pina?”
“There’s a leaf stuck in your hair.”
“……?”
“And there’s some dirt on your cheek, too.”
Pina pointed to her own face with a finger, as if indicating, Here.
With trembling hands, the young man checked the same spot and soon found the leaf stuck there.
He imagined himself delivering his lines in a solemn mood moments earlier with the leaf still attached.
It was hell.
Along with intense shame, the young man charged at Pina.
Pina panicked.
The situation certainly qualified as self-defense, but she was not hard-hearted enough to swing a sword at someone who had once been her companion─
《If I manage to subdue him without letting him land a single hit, you can keep your vacation after all.》
─THWAAACK!
Forte, still in its scabbard, struck the young man squarely in the face.