Chapter 122
#122. Demon Sword Forte (24) - Full Bloom
There are two elements that make up the Transcendent known as 『Sage of the Firmament』.
One is the remnant of the Demon King once called 『Slaughter』.
The other is the Sage himself—the one who defeated that Demon King.
At present, the Demon King holds the initiative, and it is also the Demon King's will that moves the ‘Dark Knight’ pursuing Pina.
However, the Sage's will has not disappeared either.
Though tainted and distorted, even the Demon King cannot freely manipulate the Sage's core desire for those who work hard to receive a fair reward.
This was precisely where Forte saw a chance.
It was nearly impossible for someone who was not a Transcendent to defeat one, but by borrowing the Transcendent's own power, Pina might be able to reach the realm where her blade could at least touch her opponent, even if she could not become its equal.
“Huff…. Huff….”
However, having a possibility and actually carrying it out were entirely different matters.
To seize even a theoretical chance of victory, the ordeal Pina Valestia had to endure was anything but moderate.
Her face had grown so flushed that it was gradually turning dark and sallow, while blood and sweat flowing from every part of her body mingled together and soaked her clothes.
Even so, she was not permitted to rest.
Swish!
A black slash skimmed past the place where Pina had been moments earlier.
A building that was more than a simple house—one that could easily be called a mansion—was split in two without putting up even token resistance.
If she slowed down even slightly, she would die.
If she made even one wrong judgment, she would die.
Even devoting herself solely to escape was a razor-thin struggle, but if she stopped hunting monsters, her growth would cease and her chance of victory would vanish.
“Ugh?!”
With a jolt, Pina lost her balance and fell.
She had been unable to control her own speed, which was growing faster and faster, and had ended up falling.
Her limbs scraped against the rough ground, but without even having time to scream from the pain, Pina quickly rolled to the side.
Something on her body was sliced away with a wet hiss.
She fell, collapsed, and crashed into things over and over.
She was slammed into mounds of dirt, and the flesh on her body was scraped away.
It was a situation for which the expression ‘battered beyond recognition’ was truly appropriate.
Crackle!
Even Forte was not unharmed.
No matter how much Forte used the Sage's Law, absorbing and processing that power was ultimately Forte's role.
As backlash for granting Pina enough power to reach a Transcendent, Forte was gradually destroying itself.
“……”
《…….》
Both Forte and Pina knew that, at this rate, defeat was closer than victory.
The demonic sword and its wielder both knew of a method with far better odds than this.
They could kill people.
Rather than building up strength by hunting down monsters one by one as they resisted or fled, it would be easier to cut down people who had already accumulated an abundance of that power within their bodies.
They would not need to kill that many, either.
The system had judged that she needed to kill half of all the students to reach the uppermost level of the sixth tier, but that assessment assumed permanent enhancement.
The sacrifice needed to win this single moment—this instant—was far smaller.
No one would be able to condemn them.
There was no one watching in the first place, and if she failed to defeat the Dark Knight now, everyone would be as good as dead anyway.
If a small sacrifice could save the many, how could that not be the rational thing to do?
“Haaaaaah!”
Even knowing that, Pina silently continued the fight.
Even knowing that, Forte silently fulfilled its role as a sword.
What did it matter if it was not rational? What did it matter if it was not efficient?
If killing someone, sacrificing them, and muttering ‘it can't be helped’ was the wise thing to do, then they would rather live as fools.
The Dark Knight watched Pina and Forte as they did so.
An unmistakable emotion of wariness appeared in its endlessly emotionless, inorganic eyes.
The Dark Knight's mouth, which had seemed as though it would never open, parted.
No voice came from it, but the system reacted instead.
【Quest: Swing a sword through empty air】【Reward: Instantly kill Pina Valestia】【Error】
【Quest: Stop and remain motionless for 3 seconds】【Reward: Acquire the ability to teleport】【Error】
【Quest: Stop breathing for 1 hour】【Reward: Forbid the creatures within the academy from breathing for 1 hour】【Error】
【Quest: Do not evade attacks for 24 hours】【Reward: Your own attacks are guaranteed to hit for 12 hours】【Error】
Error, error, error.
The laws governing the academy gathered together, then repeatedly shattered before they could be completed.
The balance of the scales was no exception for the Dark Knight itself.
Just as it could not stop Pina from receiving the rewards she had earned, the Dark Knight could not obtain results disproportionate to its efforts.
Conversely—
【Quest: Make all the monsters in the academy self-destruct】【Reward: Acquire the ability to create clones equivalent to the points of the self-destructed monsters】【Error】
【Quest: Relinquish control over the monsters in the academy】【Reward: Acquire the ability to create clones equivalent to half the points of the monsters that gained their freedom】【Approved】
─The moment the scales balanced, the academy's laws smiled upon the Dark Knight as well.
Crack-crack-crack-crack!
All across the ground.
Bricks, finishing materials, and everything else covering the ground were shattered as tree roots burst upward.
The roots intertwined and tangled together, forming human shapes, while black darkness covered them like armor.
What emerged were hundreds of clones with the same appearance as the Dark Knight.
As though there were no need to decide who would go first, they all charged toward Pina at once.
Swish!
Pina's slash cleaved one of the clones in half at the waist in a single stroke.
In addition to the basic abilities Forte had enhanced to their limits, Pina also possessed the memories of the many adventures she had experienced as the Hero.
The Dark Knight's true body might have been a different matter, but its inferior clones were incapable of stopping Pina.
【You have defeated a Dark Knight (Clone)】【You have acquired #@#*&(】
However, even after defeating the clone, the reward was not properly granted.
It was not that she received nothing at all, but compared to the clone's strength, the reward was bizarrely small.
The system seemed to have sensed something wrong as well, for parts of its message were corrupted, but the next clone immediately attacked as if determined not to give her time to leisurely consider it.
When she cut down one, two came at her, and when she split two apart, four hurled themselves forward.
The Dark Knights did not even hesitate to use one another as shields or to impale Pina alongside their own comrades, so the wounds on Pina's body continued to multiply.
Just as she judged that she would be overwhelmed in a war of attrition and swept away everything around her with a powerful strike, even if it meant overexerting herself—
【Quest: Do not move from your position for 3 minutes.】【Reward: Your physical abilities are enhanced for 3 seconds.】【Approved】
The true body, which had remained motionless in one spot and merely watched the clones fight, kicked off the ground with all its strength.
Light flashed, and the air followed behind it.
Pina's body, which had not even realized that the Dark Knight was approaching, was cleaved in two by a pitch-black slash.
Crackle!
The attack connected, but no blood sprayed into the air.
Instead, roughly one-third of Forte's blade was shaved away.
Even in the face of this bizarre phenomenon, the Dark Knight did not panic and changed its tactics.
Rather than continuing to cut Pina down, the Dark Knight kicked her legs out from under her, making her lose her balance, then slammed the back of her head into the ground.
Once again, it seemed that Forte had taken the damage in her stead, leaving Pina's body uninjured, but when the Dark Knight's clones pinned her down with their bodies, Pina could not move at all.
The Dark Knight raised its sword high.
Its intention to keep striking Pina until Forte reached its limit was painfully obvious.
Wooooooooooooong!
Forte's blade rang out with a sword's cry.
Some of the metal forming the blade fell away on its own, and the fragments split into countless blades that whirled through the surroundings.
The Dark Knight's true body easily succeeded in evading them, but the clones did not.
More than a few dozen clones were swept away in an instant, and the resources composing them were absorbed by Forte.
【You have defeated a Dark Knight (Clone)】【You have acquired #@#*&(】
【You have defeated a Dark Knight (Clone)】【You have acquired #@#*&(】
【You have defeated a Dark Knight (Clone)………】
This time as well, the reward was not properly granted.
And the Dark Knight calmly made its next move.
【Quest: Free everyone in the unconscious ‘Temporary Storage’】【Reward: The power of the next spell used is amplified ‘once’】【Approved】
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
Celestial Academy, an island in the sky larger than most cities, trembled.
It was 『Slaughter』's signature spell, in which magic power itself was materialized into spears and thrown.
But this time, its scale was different.
The shafts were thick and long, as though the entire trunks of great trees had been used, while the spearheads were so enormous that they would crush a body outright rather than merely pierce it.
There were hundreds of them.
From high above in the distant sky, they fell toward the ground.
──! ──! ──! ──! ──! ──!
──! ──! ──! ──! ──! ──!
──! ──! ──! ──! ──! ──!
The sound disappeared.
As an overwhelming roar rang out again and again, the ears, unable to endure it, abandoned their duty.
A rain of destruction that pierced through streets, parks, and homes alike, turning them into porcupines without discrimination.
It possessed more than enough power to kill a single individual, but the Dark Knight did not stop there.
The sides of the spears undulated and writhed, then thousands upon tens of thousands of spikes extended from them in every direction, piercing everything around them.
It was a thorough and relentless attack, as though it would not permit even the slightest possibility of surviving by chance.
Roughly one-tenth of the academy's total area was transformed in an instant into a barren wasteland where no one could live.
At its center, a single flower bloomed.
The Dark Knight's body hesitated, if only slightly—very slightly.
It was an attack she had been certain would be fatal.
Impossible to evade. Impossible to defend against.
Even if it transferred the damage elsewhere as before, the destruction was so widespread that it would kill her outright, exceeding any amount it could endure.
Then, the Dark Knight suddenly sensed something strange.
If it had been 『Slaughter』—if it had been that Demon King who judged everything solely by numbers—it would not have attempted an attack like the one just now.
Freeing all the powerful beings who existed within this academy merely to kill Pina would carry far too much risk.
To take the life of a single human, an area-of-effect attack like this was unnecessary in the first place.
And yet, why had it gone so far as to forcefully try to finish off Pina and Forte?
No, even before that, why had it tried to use a system that had not yet come completely under its control?
Because they looked alike.
The eyes of those irrational and unpredictable dreamers who had once defeated the Demon King were strikingly similar to those of the girl before it.
Its unconscious judgment had been that if it prolonged the fight while leaving too much strength in reserve, it might lead to an unforeseen turn of events.
And if Pina's figure had overlapped with that of the Hero in the eyes of the Dark Knight (the Demon King),
then it must have done the same in the eyes of the system (the Sage).
【An error has been detected in reward settlement】
【Beginning recalculation】
【Issuing unpaid points】
【Issuing new quests】
【Quest: Do not allow a single innocent person to be caught up and killed】【Cleared】
【Quest: Bravely fight against an enemy you cannot defeat】【Cleared】
【Quest: Take on responsibilities you do not need to bear】【Cleared】
【Quest: Do not abandon a painful and difficult path】【Cleared】
【Quest: Take responsibility for cleaning up the ugly one's mess】【Cleared】
【Quest: Watch over our story】【Cleared】
【Quest: Win】
Pina looked at Forte.
Forte's condition was pitiful.
Broken and ruined, with hardly even a blade left intact.
《…This is truly pathetic. A sword that cannot even fulfill the role of a sword. I am ashamed to bear the name of demonic sword.》
“No, it's all right, Demonic Sword.”
Pina quietly gripped Forte's hilt.
Tightly, tightly, as though trying to hold on to even the slightest bit of something flowing out of Forte like sand.
Blue-shining aura took the place where Forte's blade had been.
It was not something forcibly created by Forte, but her own aura.
“Because you are the best to me.”
A storm of flower petals whirled through the air.
Light overflowed from the ground, from the ruins of collapsed buildings, and from every element composing the academy, mingling with the petals.
Clearer, brighter, and more abundant.
The Hero's flower, blooming in splendid full bloom, covered the Dark Knight.
The Dark Knight struggled as though trying somehow to escape the storm of petals, but before long, silence descended.
Those who awoke from their sleep gazed blankly up at the sky.
Blue petals danced beautifully, as far as the eye could see.