A clear sky without a single cloud.
A street without the slightest breeze.
Ordinarily, it would have been a perfect day, but today was a fucking mess.
“Ha! A hole. Blown nice and wide, too.”
A pitch-black hole hung in the sky.
Some called it divine punishment. Others called it a dimensional rift.
And I called it this.
Hellgate.
That damned hole was connected to the Demon Realm.
As if to prove it, demons were bursting from the hole and raining down upon the capital, the heart of the Empire.
“Ah, fuck. This cigarette is bitter.”
Whether the cigarette was bitter or my heart was, I could not tell.
Desperate screams for salvation echoed through the streets.
Save us. Please, help us.
But there was no one left to save them.
Hellgates had opened not only over the capital, but all across the nation.
The Empire had deployed its entire military in an attempt to stop them.
And yet.
“How come not a single bastard survived? Ptooey!”
Cigarettes made in the Empire tasted awful.
Any bastard who smoked these and called them good had a tongue that had gone mad.
Anyway, the demons that had burst from the holes had chewed the knights to pieces.
They could not have tasted very good in all that iron armor, so I had no idea what the demons enjoyed about eating them.
Their tongues had gone mad too.
“Do not wait! Let us fight! Take up your weapons!”
Just like the citizens of the capital, people in the provinces had formed militias to protect their homes.
The demons ate them too.
Crunching even their bones as if they were delicious.
Given how strange the demons looked, their tongues had to be strange as well.
“Hoo.”
Cigarette smoke drifted over the burning village.
One kind of smoke mingled with another until there was no telling them apart.
I was still alive, standing here and burning through a cigarette.
Am I supposed to call myself lucky?
“Pietro! Focus!”
SHNK.
The small imp’s head dropped off with a light thump!
Even its bones were tough, and the sensation of severing them felt disgusting.
“Ugly bastards.”
A priest had once told me that demons were creations abandoned by God. One look at the state of them told me he had been exactly right.
SQUELCH—!
Another one vomited blood before my eyes and burned away.
No matter how many times I saw them, I could not get used to how revolting they were.
This would not do.
They needed purifying.
“Captain!”
The woman who had shouted at me to focus turned her head.
Dry, jet-black hair. A body with more scarred places than unscarred ones. Clothes soaked in blood.
She looked pitiful enough that someone might spare her a handful of dog food.
Ah, no.
One look at her face, and they would probably kindly tell her not to stay outside and invite her in to wash up.
“Instead of spouting nonsense, kill one more!”
Well, now.
When had I ever spouted nonsense?
Even though she looked ready to collapse from exhaustion, her voice still rang sharp and clear.
The same went for her golden eyes, still bright with life.
Was the blood of the Imperial Family really that different?
“It is not nonsense!”
When a subordinate called for her, she could at least ask why.
I was one of the few knights in the Extermination Squad led by Third Imperial Princess Melina de Sigurd.
Though it seemed I was the only one left now.
That meant the Captain was the only person I had left to talk to.
“Then why are you calling me?”
“It is just, the more I think about it……”
“That is nonsense!”
“It is not nonsense. Just hear me out. If you had inherited the throne, this fucking mess would never have happened.”
Melina swallowed a sigh and turned her head.
Come on. I had told her to listen seriously.
“Before I die, I ought to get what is in my heart off my chest. Otherwise, how could I close my eyes in peace?”
“You have already said it before. Your eyes will close just fine.”
“That was then, and this is now. Seriously, aside from you, was there a single bastard in the Imperial Family who counted as human? It was full of sons of bitches who would run the country into the ground.”
Melina glared at me.
“Before blaming the Imperial Family, think about your own house. Is your family not every bit as fucked up?”
It was rather unfair of her to counter the truth with the truth.
“They’re coming!”
Melina’s sword flashed past me and sliced through a demon’s skull.
The demon’s filthy blood splattered across my face.
I felt like absolute shit.
It was not because I had remembered my fucked-up family.
It was because of the demon blood.
‘Trash bastards.’
My eldest brother, Johan, had been chosen by the Holy Sword.
My second brother, Vladimir, had taken up the Demonic Sword.
Those two illustrious men had become heroes simply because they had obtained special swords.
I had no idea what either bastard had ever done to deserve being called a hero.
Still, heroes they were.
And then.
‘They were so damned great that they betrayed the Empire.’
Fucking bastards.
Johan fell for the promise that he would be made Emperor and sided with the black mage.
Vladimir had his soul stolen by the Demonic Sword and became a Demonic Beast.
THWACK—!
A demon’s arm dropped in front of me.
Once again, Melina’s sword had saved my life.
“Where the hell is your head?!”
“I was wondering what would happen to my family if I made it out of here.”
“Ha! You madman.”
Of course I was mad.
How could anyone endure this without going mad?
“Tsk.”
Melina shook her head.
Apparently, she did not think I was doing very well.
“Pietro.”
“What is it? Why are you suddenly saying my name all suspiciously?”
“I am glad I met you.”
Her gaze was suspiciously gentle.
That was exactly how she looked whenever she meant to work me to the bone…….
“Had it not been wartime, I would never have met any of you.”
“It would have been better if we had met in peacetime.”
The warmth left her eyes, and her hand curled into a fist.
Perhaps she had not meant to work me after all…….
“Yes. That would have been better. But you know it. Without the war, we could never have met.”
I knew.
Melina was an illegitimate child.
No one knew who her birth mother was.
All anyone knew was that the Emperor had tried to hide Melina away.
Rumor had it that he had locked her in a room and never allowed her to leave.
BOOM—!
Five demons tumbled down one after another beneath the sword strike Melina unleashed.
It was a sword art unique to the Imperial Family.
“Had the war not broken out, I could never have learned this. I would have stayed locked in the tower, waiting for the day I died.”
“A prince might have appeared and freed you.”
Melina flicked the blood from her sword and gave a faint smile.
“Running away would have been quicker.”
“Even if you starved to death outside the Imperial Palace?”
“Even if I starved to death outside the Imperial Palace.”
It was something she said all the time.
I nodded and looked up at the sky.
As if the demons that had descended so far were nothing but specks of dust, an impossible number were pouring down in a frenzy.
At times like this, I only wanted to spout more nonsense.
“You know, I had a dream.”
Melina, who had been looking at the same place, turned her gaze toward me.
“What dream?”
“A dre……am of rescuing a princess from a tower.”
Melina’s sword was pointed at me instead of a demon.
One more joke and my head would fly.
“To stop running, survive, and be acknowledged as a proper man.”
Like Melina, I was an illegitimate child.
I did not know why I had been born.
Perhaps they needed one child to send into the army. Perhaps my father wanted a new woman. Perhaps one wild night had simply ended that way.
There were plenty of possible reasons.
No one would answer when I asked which of those reasons had dropped me into the world.
So I merely shrugged and thought, ‘I guess that’s how it was.’
Knowing the reason would not change my circumstances anyway.
So I drifted through life.
No matter how hard I tried, my illustrious brothers only beat me senseless.
I drifted so carelessly that even when my mother died, I simply thought that was how things were.
Even though she had been stabbed to death in broad daylight.
Even though the killer had never been found.
I thought nothing would change, so I let it be.
‘I should’ve at least found the killer.’
I let it be?
No.
I ran away.
I had an idea who had killed her, but everything felt too heavy and frightening.
I ran away behind the excuse that there was nothing I could do.
“Do you regret the past?”
“Doesn’t everyone live that way? Like how, right before you die, the thing that comes to mind is the piece of bread you left unfinished yesterday.”
Melina gave a dry laugh.
“They’re coming.”
The swarm of demons covering the sky drew closer.
Letting out a low breath, I looked around.
The Imperial Palace had once been so magnificent, yet nothing remained but ash.
Not the brilliant flowers. Not the dazzling ornaments.
Not a single thing remained.
The only things decorating the gray canvas were corpses and bloodstains.
“Do you know? I find those things every bit as disgusting as you do.”
She raised her sword high.
Amid the darkness cast by the demons’ shadows, brilliant white sword energy scattered light.
It looked like a small sun casting light through storm clouds.
Melina, radiating light.
She was the only hope of the collapsing Empire.
BOOM—!
The demons struck by the light unleashed hideous shrieks.
Their revolting cries shook the sky, the earth, and Melina and me.
“They’re singing and dancing. They must be dying of excitement.”
“Then we should kill them.”
“Exactly. We should kill them. They’re dying of excitement!”
I squeezed out the last of my mana and formed sword energy.
The horde of demons descended upon Melina and me.
“Come! I shall annihilate evil to the very end!”
I raised my sword.
Threw myself forward.
Kept my feet moving.
Limbs were cut and torn apart.
Blood poured.
“Do you think this is enough to bring me down?!”
I cut and cut again.
Until there was no feeling left in my hands.
Until I could not even feel whether the blade was still attached.
FLASH.
The darkness that had covered my vision receded, and clear light poured down.
The grotesque cries of the demons vanished as if they had never existed.
“Did we get them?”
On one knee, Melina stared at the sky as she released a ragged breath.
I, too, raised my head with the last of my strength, leaning on my sword for support.
Silence.
A single speck approached us.
“You still had strength left to fight?”
A voice sweet enough to be unpleasant.
Dense killing intent seeped from it.
The demons that had charged like starving beasts now bowed their heads and trembled.
“So you are those who sing of hope.”
Enormous horns.
Wings resembling an angel’s, but dyed red.
Bright yellow eyes.
A demon above demons, a being that sought to devour the world with an intellect beyond humanity.
A being that ceaselessly preached denial and declared that destruction alone held value.
“The Demon King.”
Drenched in blood, Melina staggered as she glared at the Demon King.
“Your presence brings me such joy. Pain only grows when there is even the slenderest thread of hope.”
SNAP!
KABOOOOOM—!
He had merely snapped his fingers, yet the terrified demons vanished.
Even the few buildings that still marked this place as the capital collapsed.
Now only Melina, the Demon King, and I remained amid the ruins.
“Praise should be given in silence. Thus have I cleared everything away.”
“…….”
“Be afraid. I descended in person to behold you.”
The Demon King descended to the ground and approached Melina and me.
“Magnificent. Countless have challenged me, but none were your equal.”
He stood close enough to reach with a thrust of the sword.
Melina and I were reflected in the Demon King’s snake-like pupils.
“Come to me.”
Melina’s face twisted.
The Demon King only smiled, looking even more delighted.
“I shall bestow upon you power and wisdom beyond anything humans would dare imagine.”
She burned through the life remaining in her body and drew up her aura.
“Don’t make me laugh!”
An incomparably dense golden aura.
It was power attainable only after reaching the utmost realm.
With that power, she could cut down any demon.
CLANG—!
THUD—!
The ground filled my vision.
Crushing pressure.
I could neither move nor breathe.
“COUGH!”
Melina, collapsed at the Demon King’s feet, vomited blood.
Her broken sword rolled across the ground.
The Demon King looked down at Melina.
“The trial is not mine, but yours, humans.”
“You son of a…… COUGH!”
The Demon King lightly touched Melina’s head.
Melina was driven into the ground, literally.
Blood poured from her entire body.
More blood than ever before.
“And what of you? Will you not come to me?”
“At least let me out of this before you ask. Fu…… Ptooey!”
How badly had the blood clotted for it to be nothing but black?
“You feel entirely different from your brothers.”
“……?”
“The child who dreamed of becoming Emperor. The child who dreamed of becoming a Demon King. Yes. I claimed them both.”
The Demon King caressed my face with a benevolent smile.
My eyes met his.
A sweet temptation.
The overwhelming sense that I could avoid dying here and stand above them.
That I could become a being who looked down upon the world.
“Your eyes are clear. Do you feel better?”
“I don’t feel bad, but I think you’ve misread my eyes.”
I gripped the broken sword blade and stabbed it into the Demon King’s chest.
The Demon King looked down indifferently at the blade buried in him.
“You overcame the weight and waited for an opening? Magnificent. You endured what no one else has ever endured. Descending in person was worthwhile.”
The Demon King’s hand clamped around my face.
“Ghk! Aaaaargh!”
It was agony as though my face, my blood, my mind, and my soul were all burning.
“Come to me. I shall grant you a world you have never seen before!”
“Who says you can?!”
SQUELCH—!
At the sound of Melina’s voice, the Demon King’s hand fell away from my face.
The Demon King trembled.
Melina’s sword was buried in his chest.
“Y-you were alive?”
“I said I’d kill you, didn’t I?”
Melina’s smile.
At that moment, the Demon King began to laugh as well.
“Hope is truly a wonderful thing. It gives pain meaning.”
The Demon King pulled the sword from his chest.
“Run!”
Melina grabbed me where I lay and began running headlong.
She headed toward the cathedral, left gaunt as a bare skeleton.
“Captain?”
Spitting blood between ragged breaths, Melina gripped my shoulder.
“Listen carefully.”
“Captain, listening isn’t the issue……”
“No! Listen! Don’t talk. Just listen.”
She removed the ring she had been wearing.
The dirt and blood caked on it scattered before my eyes.
Holy light enveloped the ring.
“Why are you taking that off?”
“I told you to just listen!”
That ring was something the Saintess had entrusted to the Imperial Princess.
She had pressed the warning upon her again and again.
Never take it off.
KRA-KABOOM—!
Massive explosions erupted around the cathedral.
It was the Demon King’s little game, savoring the cornered rats before eating them.
“COUGH! Pietro, you’re the one who has to use this power. You started later than I did, but you’ve got the same power, don’t you? If you start earlier, there’ll be some way.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just listen!”
RUMBLE.
The cathedral’s remaining walls collapsed.
The texture of the air around us changed.
“Ghk!”
Melina was crushed beneath the Demon King’s foot.
The ring in her hand fell at my feet.
“Are you done dreaming?”
A sinister smile spread across the Demon King’s face.
“Put it on, now!”
I gave him a sinister smile of my own and slipped on the ring.
At that moment, the Demon King’s face twisted.
“Why is that there?!”
FLASH!
“Walk the Path of the Sword Saint! Don’t run away. You have to learn Siegfried Sigurd’s swordsmanship!”
“Stop!”
Clutching darkness, the Demon King lunged at me.
Melina de Sigurd’s eyes shone gold.
“Melina!”
My vision was dyed gold.
Beyond it, Melina was cleaved by darkness.
I screamed no, but no sound came out.
Only Melina’s smile scattered like flower petals.
“Please, Pietro.”
My consciousness faded.