At first, I thought they were bears.
But my accelerated perception captured their forms almost perfectly. Black. Enormous. Barely humanoid. Barely, because every joint in their bodies had swollen grotesquely and twisted out of shape.
Corpses, I thought, for some reason.
“...This.”
Yukine Indo murmured quietly. Her eyes were wide, and the words sounded as if she had forced them out of her throat—she seemed to say something else after that, but it was swallowed by the thunder of the collapse.
Even their heads were far removed from human shape. Their eyeballs bulged, blue-black veins stood out across their faces, and those veins writhed like centipedes. Every organ their bodies possessed was warped in some way.
They looked like misshapen giant dolls, molded with some intense malice. Or maybe designed by a child as a cruel joke.
Several of them came falling down with the rubble. Screams rose all around.
The sight of those grotesque bodies gave me a sense of déjà vu, and I reached the reason almost immediately.
Lord <Amber Briar>’s black arm. The arm that had grown in place of the one I had cut off.
They resembled that arm.
As if to support my guess, the grotesque humanoids showed the exact same behavior as Lord <Amber Briar>’s arm at that moment.
Meaning they started attacking the people around them indiscriminately.
A huge arm moved.
Crushed down.
A man trapped under rubble and unable to move became its prey.
The blood and scream of the first victim set off a terrible uproar.
“Hey!”
I turned back toward the three students, but I was a little too late. In hindsight, it was a stupid thing to say.
“Don’t move on your own! Especially you, Shirogamine—”
“No, that’s not it, damn it.”
Sera cursed and grabbed my shoulder. Meaning, look ahead.
“It’s Yukine, that idiot!”
“Yukine, fighting alone is dangerous.”
Shirogamine shouted right after her. Then she started running.
“Come back!”
I wanted to tell her, you come back. At least stay grouped up with Sera. But the real problem was farther ahead.
Yukine Indo.
Without the slightest concern for the falling rubble, she was already sprinting toward the grotesque figures. Her movement resembled a wild animal lunging at prey. She stepped forward once—and with that one step, Yukine vanished. Teleportation through space.
I felt a little surprised.
In situations like this, I had assumed Shirogamine would be the first to do something stupid.
“Every damn one of them.”
Moving however the hell they please. I clicked my tongue loudly enough for the other two to hear and started moving.
“Sera, don’t get separated! Follow me!”
I did not have the breathing room to check how Sera actually moved.
Yukine Indo leapt through space and slipped behind one of the grotesque monsters. She aimed for the back of its neck. She drove both daggers in as if clamping it between them, then twisted.
A sharp, unnatural crack rang out from flesh and bone.
The monster’s neck rotated about a hundred and eighty degrees, tore free, and flew.
Yukine Indo stood expressionless, splattered in blood. It was a dark, muddy, stagnant blood. Her execution had been brilliant. But even so, it was not enough. When fighting an unknown opponent, there was no such thing as being too cautious.
I had thought Yukine Indo understood that—then, in the next instant, her brow furrowed faintly.
Because the monster that should have lost its head swung its arm up with violent force.
She was struck and slammed into the floor. Indo’s small body bounced, and the headless monster moved in for a follow-up.
“Yukine.”
Shirogamine called her name shortly and stepped in.
“Master told you to fall back! Fall back! Stay!”
She slammed her shield into the monster’s follow-up strike and diverted it. Then came her sword. Its thick blade, like a meat cleaver, bit deep into the base of the elbow and severed it.
I see.
That was the first time I realized their swordsmanship had been trained for the three of them to fight one enemy together. Was this how they did things at the Academy?
Group combat over individual technique. Indo struck first, Shirogamine covered her. Sera probably handled the finishing blow.
Something about it felt distorted, but I could not put it into words.
So before I said anything, I accelerated and swung my bastard sword around. I struck the monster at the waist as it tried to keep moving even after losing its head and arm. I split through bone.
If its pelvis was destroyed, it physically could not get back up.
“Are you stupid? What the hell are you doing?”
I quickly grabbed Indo by the collar. If she teleported again, it would be a pain.
She had been coughing, but she was already trying to stand again, so that worked out nicely.
“Stop.”
Indo twisted, trying to escape my hand.
Her resistance was surprisingly fierce. Like a fish flopping around after being dragged onto land. As if I would let her go. I twisted her collar even harder, and Indo’s brow twitched with dissatisfaction. Then the little shit actually kicked me.
If I had not knocked it aside with my elbow on reflex, she might have broken my ribs.
“I can fight this time.”
Her answer was not merely evasive. It made absolutely no sense. This girl was terrifyingly bad at dealing with people, I thought. Irritation rose in me under the effects of <E3>.
“What are you doing?”
I asked again and looked into Indo’s eyes.
They looked frightened—or maybe like she did not know what she was supposed to do. For some reason, those eyes also gave me déjà vu. Right. I had seen her make eyes like that at Lord <Amber Briar>’s place. That had been when Lord <Amber Briar>’s mutated left arm—
When I had, against my will, shielded her from it.
The instant I remembered, Indo murmured shortly.
“Northern Bonfire.”
Then a shadow fell over us.
It was a particularly enormous shadow. About fifty percent larger than the other specimens. What made it look especially dangerous were its arms. They were far too large for its torso, and sword-like claws grew from them. A roar went up, harsh and grating, like a sandstorm mixed with rust.
“That one—Nephilim. Large type with claws.”
Indo said something. Still struggling, she tried to look back at the giant shadow.
“Shit.”
After an instant of hesitation, thought, and judgment, I let go of Yukine Indo’s collar. Almost at the same time, Indo’s small shadow sprang, landed, and vanished. She leapt through space again—I was genuinely stunned. Too reckless.
With no choice, I shouted to the allied force I could not exactly rely on.
“Shirogamine, support! Read!”
By read, I meant read my thoughts, but who knew how much of that got through. I had no choice but to start moving.
The fight between Indo and the giant was settled in about two seconds.
First move.
Indo’s attack was extremely precise. An astonishingly smart strike from behind, aimed at the right arm.
Not bad. Against an enemy that kept moving after losing its head, destroying the limbs to reduce its combat ability was the right call. That said, her precision was still only precision meant for human opponents.
She drove both daggers into the base of its shoulder, twisted them with arm strength enhanced by <E3>, and tried to tear through it.
But the grotesque giant’s arm was far too thick and too tough.
Indo’s daggers sank in beautifully, but they stopped after she had torn through about half the arm. Naturally, that allowed the monster to counterattack. It made a primitive movement, like shaking off a small animal. Indo’s body was sent flying with ease. New chapters come out on g.com first.
Then came the claws.
Shirogamine tried to cut in again, but it was completely meaningless.
She gave some idiotic shout as she was blown away together with her shield and rolled across the floor.
That was the downside of their three-person coordination.
If one move failed somewhere, the others’ actions failed in a chain reaction. I could sense Sera rushing over too, but she would not make it in time to save Indo. The giant’s half-torn arm swung down fast, spraying dark bodily fluid. At its end were the claws.
I steeled myself.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
The most I managed was a curse.
I ran in at top speed. Instead of the descending claws, I caught the area around its wrist with my left elbow, blocking it.
A grotesque sound of destruction rang out. Even with its arm half torn off, the impact was this heavy? No wonder. It was nothing like Indo’s kick. My bones must have shattered violently, but the actions ingrained into my body completed themselves faster than I could properly register the pain.
One strike with the bastard sword in my right hand.
I severed the giant’s left leg below the knee, the leg supporting its center of gravity.
The grotesque monster let out a shriek and collapsed on the spot. In desperation, it swung the claws on its left arm at me, but of course I had predicted that.
I swept them away with an upward swing of my bastard sword—this one was severed too—and then the half-torn claws came again. There was nothing I could do about that.
I turned my back on the giant.
Even I had to admit it was a bold decision. I grabbed Indo as if carrying her and tried to leap back with everything I had—but in the end, I only rolled across the floor. A burning impact shot through my left leg.
The claws must have caught me. Had they reached the bone? The flesh had peeled back and burst open. I tried to stand, but it did not work. My left arm would not move at all. Left leg, left arm. No matter how skilled I was, this was bad.
The grotesque giant did not seem able to move anymore, but there were still plenty of other monsters wandering around the entrance hall. Worse, they were searching for the stupid party guests who had failed to escape. By now, there were only four humans left in the hall besides the monsters.
Meaning me, Indo, Shirogamine, and Sera.
“Master.”
Shirogamine, infuriatingly, stood as if to protect me.
“Please rest. Your foremost disciple will hold them off here! Your foremost disciple! Me!”
There was not the slightest trace of fear in her voice. It chilled me. Even Indo had shown something that looked like fear just now.
“Seriously, Mr. Yashiro, what the hell!”
Sera Pendragon would deny it herself, but she was much more obviously terrified. She already had her Japanese sword drawn and stood guarding Shirogamine’s back. Her blue eyes were fixed on my left leg.
“That is insanely broken! And you’re bleeding! What the hell are we supposed to do?”
“It’s nothing serious.”
“Like hell it isn’t!”
Sera shouted. Rather than sounding scared, she sounded genuinely angry.
True enough, I could not move. Sera’s point was a fact. When bones were crushed, depending on the severity, self-healing took time even under <E3>. Dozens of seconds, or several minutes. Either way, in this situation, that was hopeless.
So the only thing I could do was say something obviously frivolous and irresponsible.
“This makes for a perfect lesson. Plenty of tension, right?”
If they screwed up, they would die, and naturally, so would I. That meant I had to teach them with deadly seriousness. Literally deadly seriousness.
“First, let’s start with you. Hey. Why the hell are you frozen?”
I grabbed Indo by the collar and shook her. She had been staring stiff-faced at my wound. She had not even tried to stand.
“You’re the one who needs to work the hardest. I’ll hear your circumstances later. Pull that selfish shit again and—”
“I understand.”
Before I could finish announcing the existence of some terrifying penalty, Indo nodded. Do you really? I thought.
“I understand.”
As if reading my mind, Indo repeated herself.
A world of difference from Shirogamine’s “Yes, I understand.”
“This time, I’ll fight.”