“See what being a wet blanket gets you?” Blood said, cackling devilishly.
“Back to form, I see.”
I nodded forcefully. No more hesitation. The unknown, warm light inside my heart was rapidly growing as hot as magma. My brain began picking up speed and putting together logic. I was now thinking very clearly.
I was okay. I was okay now. Mary had protected me. So the way forward was clear.
“I have a request. Please... Let me protect you all.”
Now, I could fight. I was sure of it. And nothing felt as good as determination.
◆
While the sun was up, I had something hot to eat. Steam was still rising from it as I ate. The heat spread around my body, and gave me energy and courage.
I made sure my equipment was in order. He’d told me he’d be coming at night. I adjusted my spear, Pale Moon, to a length of about two meters, and set the light to maximum range and maximum brightness.
I passed my shield over my left arm and attached it to my belt. I’d sharpened the edge, with consideration to potentially hitting him with it.
I put my leather armor on over the top of my thick under armor, and covered the vulnerable areas of my body with the metal armor—throat plate, breastplate, gauntlets, and greaves. I deliberately didn’t wear the helmet, thinking that it might obstruct my vision.
I was going against a god. None of this superficial armor would do anything besides make me feel better, anyway. In place of the helmet, I did at least tie on a headband, thinking that without it, I might get sweat in my eyes or get my forehead cracked by the aftermath of one of his attacks.
And lastly, I checked my sword belt, from which Overeater hung. This blade, which worked on Echoes, was the key to everything.
All the support that magic and benediction could possibly give me, I’d already had cast upon me and my equipment, with cooperation from Mary and Gus. Thanks to them, my physical abilities and resistance to magic were a third greater than normal. Whether that was to be “a mere third” or “a whole third” remained to be seen.
They’d told me many times not to do this, or to at least fight with them instead of on my own. But even if they fought alongside me, I wouldn’t be able to rely on them in their current state. I was certain that fighting by myself would be less stressful.
“Secret boss before leaving the first town...” I mumbled to myself, remembering the games of my previous world. “Who the hell designed this?”
But reality was like that from time to time. There would always be occasions when you ran straight into ridiculous opponents before you were properly prepared for them.
It would be nice if you could take gradual steps up from weaklings to more difficult enemies, but life didn’t always work out that way. Sometimes, you just immediately ran into a hopelessly, desperately strong opponent. The question was what to do about it.
“Nothing but figure out what’s my best chance and give it all I’ve got, I guess.”
You could call it the Japanese kamikaze spirit, but even so, I had learned through being reborn that there were times when pushing forward despite the danger was important.
Is the chance of winning high or low? Is this winnable or not? Is this doable or not? Questions like these often couldn’t be answered in real life without actually taking on the challenge. It wasn’t like I had stats to rely on.
It was important to consider the risks I was putting myself under, but I couldn’t allow myself to be too afraid of failure. If I tried to remove all risk before acting, I’d be stuck forever hugging my knees, never taking any action at all.
After doing some thorough stretches, I lit a stick of incense in front of the sculptures of the gods, and knelt before them.
“Gods of good virtue, I go now to fight for the father, mother, and grandfather who are dear to me. I will fight a wicked god, all on my own.” I put my hands together, and lowered my eyes. “Should you bear witness to this act and know it as good, I beg for your divine protection.”
May I not cower. May I not flinch. May my fighting be worthy of what they have taught me.
After that short prayer, I stood up. I opened the temple’s large doors. And entirely of my own volition, I stepped forward, into the outside world, and the total darkness of night. A freezing wind was howling noisily across the nighttime hill, and emanating from the graveyard at its foot was a dreadful, unholy aura.
“So. Have you made up your mind?”
You bet I have.
“Stagnate, unholy god...” I began to walk toward him. I gradually picked up speed. My walk became a run, and my run became a sprint. And then, in challenge and defiance, I shouted at a god.
“I will give you nothing!”
◆
I sprinted down the hill, my spear lighting up my surroundings. On the opposite side to the city, where lines of tombstones stood before a dense forest, was the man with the pale face and stagnant eyes the color of dusk. I hadn’t been able to move at all against him the day before.
The pressure I was feeling from him today was no different, but my body was moving unbelievably freely. Mary’s scolding, her encouragement, had fired me up so much that I could feel the heat burning inside me.
I openly declared my hostility to the Echo of this wicked and overwhelmingly powerful god, challenging him from the front. This looked foolish, but I had thought hard about the most optimal plan, and this was my conclusion.
He was a splinter of a god, a being that existed on a different plane than us humans. He wasn’t the kind of opponent you could do anything about by simply hitting him with a sword or a rock.
There were currently only about three conceivable methods of wounding or annihilating him: borrowing the power of another god; scoring a direct hit with high-level magic, as Gus had done; or striking him with a piece of high-level magic equipment.
The first, the appearance of an Echo of one of the good gods—I had absolutely no expectation of this. I wasn’t so full of myself that I thought the good gods, who were probably preoccupied elsewhere, would just conveniently do me the favor of appearing here in answer to my prayer. If I was planning to rely on a power that wasn’t under my own control, I should not be fighting, but locked away praying right now.
Next, the second: high-level magic. This one was tricky. I was Gus’s apprentice; it wouldn’t be beyond me to fire off a magic of the same class as Entity Obliteration if I really tried. But I’d need to take my time meticulously preparing for it to have a reasonable chance of success. Binding him using high-speed multicasting, and then using Entity Obliteration to blast him and the Bindings away at once, was a wild technique that I couldn’t possibly learn to imitate in a single day. That being the case, it made no sense to try using an inferior version of that move on a foe who’d already been hit by it once and would be on his guard for anything similar.
Which brought me to the third: high-level magic equipment. This was the only possibility that looked like it had any chance of working. The demonblade “Overeater” that Blood had given me was up to the task without any doubt. Hitting him with this had more of a chance than sluggishly preparing a large-scale work of magic in front of an enemy who was still wary of it.
I didn’t just have to hit him. I had to hit him with the demonblade, which was short. Ideally, I’d wanted to trick him or something to get him to lower his guard, and aim for a surprise attack, but I was forced to conclude that would be impossible. Since there were only a limited number of methods to hurt him, the fact that I’d be equipped with an easily drawn sword which could accomplish exactly that would be just the same as declaring myself hostile.
Imagine it. Your enemy tells you he’s surrendering. Meanwhile, he’s approaching you with a knife blatantly held behind his back. No way would I trust that person. Neither would the god of undeath.
I did have the idea of hiding the demonblade somehow, but imagining that the incarnation of a god, and all his powers of perception, could be deceived by some mediocre trickery was
just wishful thinking. If I was prepared to attempt such a risky gamble, it’d be way better to just face up to it instead. Challenge him head-on, fully prepared for battle. So I attempted to appeal to his pride as a higher existence.
“I challenge you to battle! Accept, or be forever known as the god who fled from a mere human boy!”
The ideal situation would be if he fell for this cheap provocation and engaged me in single combat, but my sights were actually set slightly lower. The Echo of Stagnate instead applauded me as I drew closer, as if I had amused him.
“Hah hah hah! Not bad, for a mere boy.”
I couldn’t see him clearly. His flawless features were shrouded by mist.
“Let me guess—you are trying to focus my attention on you so you can restrict my movements.”
He knew exactly what I was planning. Regardless of whether he was going to fight me or not, I wanted to focus his attention on what to do with me.
After all, Blood and Mary were behind me, weakened. They already didn’t stand a chance of beating him. If he ignored me and concentrated on collecting them, there would be nothing I could do.
“Very well... I accept. But if you wish to challenge a god...”
A black mist spread from the god of undeath standing at the foot of the hill, squirming and crawling along the ground. It seeped into the ground like oil.
I didn’t know what he was planning, but I had to act first.
“Acceleratio!” I hurriedly incanted a Word off the top of my head and increased my speed further. Combined with the body strengthening effects I already had, the sense of acceleration quickly became overwhelming.
I couldn’t even tell how many meters forward I was bounding now with every step. Like a bullet I hurtled toward to the god of undeath, and arriving at my target, I grasped Overeater and pulled it free, combining the draw and the slash into a single swift—
A blunt strike from the side sent me flying. Knowing it was futile to fight the momentum, I sprang off the ground in the same direction on impact, eventually rolling backwards and leaping to my feet again.
“First prove yourself worthy.”
Tombstones all around toppled over. The ground swelled, and bodies clambered out.
“This... is...”
They were warriors. Skeletal warriors clad in rusted armor, with bits and pieces of them missing.
They were sorcerers. Skeletal sorcerers, with rotten staves in their hands, swaying slightly from side to side as they stood there, their eye sockets empty.
Grave-dirt crumbling from their bodies, more and more of the skeletons climbed to their feet around me.
“I am Stagnate, god of undeath...”
One thing came to mind. The three had come to this place to defeat the High King, and had brought a lot of allies with them.
They eventually managed to seal away the High King, but it came at the cost of their allies, as well as a contract with the god of undeath that they hadn’t wanted to enter into. They became protectors of the seal, and buried the bodies of the brave warriors that had died for their cause.
Buried them where? Here, of course!
“And commander of undying legions.”
The souls inside of them might not be the same, but these were certainly their allies, every one of them the remains of a person who deserved to be called a hero.
The god of undeath cackled quietly, and then broke into a loud laugh.
“Now, young warrior. Here is your chance. Show me your power!”
He was grinning, his arms spread wide in challenge, as if defying me to reach him. The undead corpses of those heroes completely surrounded him. They numbered about a hundred.
He’s toying with me. I don’t stand a chance. Those words started floating at the back of my mind.
“Ha!” I barked a single laugh. So what? My mouth had almost frozen in fear, but I forced the corners upward into a ferocious grin, as Blood must have done while he was alive.
I held my spear at the ready, cast my eyes over my surroundings, and thought about what my best plan of action was. I was sure that would have been Gus’s approach.
I wouldn’t give up. I wouldn’t allow myself to be shaken. I would believe in possibility until the end, just as I’d learned from Mary.
“Pile in. I’ll make sure each and every one of you gets a taste of my steel!”
◆
The situation was not looking the least bit good. I stepped in close to one of the undead and bashed the edge of my shield sideways against him, smashing his brittle ribs and spine to pieces. Backed up against a large gravestone, I yelled out Words, deploying grease and webs to stop another approaching group. Meanwhile, I was swinging my spear down and sweeping it to the sides as if it was a staff, slamming it against several who had gotten too close and smashing their bones.
An undead who looked like a nimble fighter came leaping over the gravestone. The mail he was wearing was a beautiful silver color. I sensed immediately that it was mithril, or something like it. I probably wouldn’t be able to cut through it.
So as he was in midair, I lodged my spear’s blade in the gap between his fibula and his tibia, the two major bones of the lower leg, and disrupted his posture. He fell to the ground. My movements flowed forward into a heel kick, crushing his skull into fragments under my foot. By this time, I had thrust the butt of my spear behind me, its heavy metal cap helping to keep more enemies in check.
Someone fired a magic bullet at me from the side. “Acceleratio!” I leaped out of its way while applying magic to speed me up.
My jump took me over the large gravestone. I twisted my body in midair like a pole vaulter, seeking out the ones who were pursuing me. “Cadere Araneum!” I entangled them in a web, and moved position so I wouldn’t get driven into a corner.
“Oh...? Far from pretty, but... this against a hundred heroes...”
The god of undeath was muttering, as if he was impressed. But I was only fighting as I’d learned to fight.
If the hundred undead that appeared had all been high-level undead with intelligence like the three I was so familiar with, I would have been finished. But fortunately, despite being a god, it didn’t look as though he was capable of instantly producing undead that were that advanced en masse.
The warrior undead were definitely frighteningly skilled swordsmen, and it wasn’t hard to believe they were former greats. But many were missing body parts or armor, and they were at least a couple notches slower than Blood. If I kept control of the situation and took them all on individually, as much of a pain as that would be, I could destroy any of them with no more than three moves.
As for the sorcerer undead, they were almost too weak to take seriously. The intelligence dwelling inside them was too crude. Their aim was way off, and I was moving around at high speed with my body boosted as far as it would go. The only thing I was worried about was a lucky shot. If I kept my usage of magic methodical and centered on binding and obstruction magic as Gus had always taught me, using it for crowd control, and lured them into one-on-one battles, I could crush them easily with the fighting skills I’d learned from Blood.
But even so, the situation was looking extremely bad. The question wasn’t whether I could defeat a hundred or not. It was whether I could fight the god of undeath after having done so. There was no way my stamina was going to hold out if I kept engaging with this shoddy imitation of a 100-Man Melee.
If I became short of breath, the failure rate of my spoken magical incantations would increase. My moves, too, would become less effective as I grew more tired. If I could have absorbed life force from them with Overeater, I might have been able to continue fighting without getting tired, but unfortunately, all my opponents were undead, and had no life force to leech.
What was I going to do? I smashed another one with my spear and tried to think of a solution, but was interrupted.
“Wait.”
The undead all stopped moving. The god of undeath placed a hand against his chin a
nd hummed in thought.
“I thought of you as nothing more than an aside to the three heroes, but this is... greater than expected. What is your name?”
He had a smile on his face.
“Will...” I answered warily. I’d have preferred him to take me lightly, but it seemed his estimation of me had been revised upward. As I was beginning to consider the possibility that he was about to crush me more mercilessly than before, he spoke again.
“I see. Will... I want to ask you again to join me.”
Those words echoed loudly in my ears.
“I have taken to you. Your excellent skills in combat, your spiritual fortitude in challenging me alone, all of it is desirable. I would gladly have you as one of the many leaders of my undying legions.”
“What do you thi—”
“Ahh... Hold on. You are most likely misunderstanding something. Any person who offers themselves to me entirely is someone with value, and I don’t intend to treat them otherwise. That goes for them and for you.”
I had to admit I was a little surprised by those words. The image I had of the god of undeath was a grisly one, both from the level of Blood and Mary’s resignation, and more simply from the words “souls held prisoner by the wicked god of undeath.”
“If you choose to come with me, I will free you of that repugnant thing called death. You will ride on the ship of ghosts to the end of the sea, and arrive at my land, where you will find a paradise without age or disease.”
I was still trying to get over my surprise at this unexpected development, but he continued talking at length, undeterred.
“Under my command, there may be times when you cross swords with the forces of the virtuous gods. You will fight formidable enemies, and charge across the battlefield shoulder-to-shoulder with the heroes, saints, and sages of antiquity.”
He never faltered once as he spoke of his ideal. It was a powerful, convincing speech, from which a person could believe that things really were as he claimed.
“When the battle is over, I will hold a revel. It will be an event of great abandon and merriment, and a chance for you to regale the others with tales of your achievements on the battlefield. And then, the preparations will begin for the next. You must be aware that high-level undead possess strong souls, and the emotions of joy and happiness?”
The Boy in the City of the Dead Page 17
