The Dark Warrior

by Kugane Maruyama

  But Narberal scoffed lightly in reply. “I don’t think so!”

  Khajit’s eyelids fluttered for a moment as he failed to comprehend what she was saying.

  Then, to clarify, she began to move. “I just demonstrated one way I could easily kill you!” Narberal had been at an overwhelming disadvantage, but the moment she seemed to reveal the way she would turn the tables, she renounced it instead.

  Khajit had no idea why she would do that. “Are you insane…?”

  “I get that you’re a flea, but what kind of reply is that? It’d be nice if you’d use your head a little more!”

  Her frigid glare made his whole body tremble—not from anger but from fear. Anxiety flickered through his mind.

  “Let’s end this soon. It’s rude of me as a follower of Lord Ainz to keep him waiting… You seem to think magic won’t work on skeletal dragons, so allow me to create a learning opportunity for you, pond skater. The lesson fee is your life.”

  She dropped her staff, and the sound of her hands clapping together rang out. When she pulled them apart, white shocks arced between them. Reacting to the lightning writhing like Chinese dragons, the nearby air sparkled as it discharged. It was like she was enveloped in a white light.

  “…Gah…” Khajit’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. He had no more words. He knew she was casting a spell far beyond anything he was aware of. Within the white light frying his eyes, he could see her faint smile. Recalling the huge skeletal dragons standing between them, the clamorous alarm bells in his head made him scream. “Y-you can’t defeat skeletal dragons with magic! They have absolute resistance! Go! Kill her!” he ordered in a trembling voice that betrayed the fear he couldn’t hide.

  As the dragons approached, Narberal smiled like a cruel instructor who was about to educate a foolish pupil. “Absolute resistance? They do have resistance, but the power they have is to nullify spells from tier six and below.”

  It took a little more time for the dragons to reach Narberal, during which Khajit realized, with an awfully level head, what she meant by that.

  “In other words, I, Narberal Gamma, can use more powerful magic than that, so they won’t be able to nullify my attack!”

  She wasn’t lying—Khajit’s gut told him that.

  Which meant that this woman’s magic could slay the dragons and then kill him, too.

  “Why?! You’re going to destroy the fruit of more than five years of labor in less than an hour?!” Khajit squawked. Scenes of his past flickered before his eyes like the shadows of a revolving lantern.

  Khajit Dale Badantel.

  Given life as the only child of a father with a robust physique forged by village labor and a gentle mother in a remote Slane Theocracy village, he had a “normal” childhood.

  He started down the path from then to his current self when he found the remains of his mother.

  That day—the sun had been low on the horizon—Khajit had been racing toward his house. His mother had told him to be home early, but he was late for some reason he couldn’t even remember anymore: He’d been on the outskirts of the village looking for cool rocks; he’d picked up a stick and pretended to be a hero—some stupid thing like that.

  Thinking his mother would scold him, he’d flown into the house—and seen her sprawled on the floor. Shocked, he’d panicked, and even now he could remember the warmth he’d felt when he touched her.

  You’ve got to be kidding me. His expectations had been betrayed.

  His mother was dead.

  The clergyman said the cause of death was “a lump of blood that formed in her brain.” In other words, it was no one’s fault. No one was in the wrong. No, Khajit felt there was one and only one person to blame—himself.

  If he had gotten home sooner that day, would he have been able to save her? There was a huge number of the Slane Theocracy’s faith-magic casters, including several in his village. If he had gone to them for help, would his mother still be alive and smiling?

  The face of his precious mother twisted in pain…was a crime he had perpetrated.

  Khajit made up his mind. He would live to right his wrong, i.e., to bring his mother back to life.

  The more magic and knowledge he acquired, the bigger the obstacles he faced.

  There was a resurrection spell on faith magic’s fifth tier, but he couldn’t bring his mother back with it. During the resurrection, the deceased consumed a vast amount of life force; if the body didn’t have enough, it would be impossible to resurrect and turn to ashes. His mother didn’t have the life force in her for that.

  But he didn’t have enough time to develop a new resurrection spell. So, he would give up being human and turn undead to buy the time. That was the conclusion he came to.

  He abandoned the faith-magic path he’d been walking and turned down the path of using magical magic and becoming an undead, but he was confronted with another wall.

  It would take an extremely long time to plow ahead as a magical-magic caster, quit being human, and become a powerful undead. Then, there was also the hurdle of talent and ability—it was possible he wouldn’t be able to become an undead.

  The breakthrough plan he conceived was to gather a vast amount of negative energy—yes, the amount that killing every person living in a city and turning them into an undead would generate.

  Why, at the moment his desire would be realized, was there someone getting in his way?

  “Why should you have the right to make my five years of preparation in this city, the feelings I can’t forget even though it’s been more than thirty years, all for nothing?! You just came out of nowhere!!!”

  The response to Khajit’s howl was a sardonic smile. “I’m not interested in your feelings. But I do have something to say to you for all your laughable hard work… You made a lovely stepping-stone for Lord Ainz. Twin Max Chain Dragon Lightning!” Lightning writhing like a dragon shot out from each of Narberal’s hands.

  The skeletal dragons’ giant white frames trembled when the lightning bolts, each thicker than a human’s arm, met them. The lightning that coiled like Chinese dragons around the skeletal dragons’ bodies burned up the false life that made the dead bones move.

  The result was immediate.

  The skeletal dragons, who were supposed to have absolute resistance to magic, were turned to rubble by magic lightning.

  Even after they had completely crumbled, the lightning didn’t disappear. The two electric dragons raised their heads as if searching for their next prey and raced through the sky to their last remaining target.

  Khajit’s entire field of vision filled with pure white electric light. There was no time to beg for mercy, no time to scream. The tears that welled up in the corners of his eyes vaporized in an instant, leaving nothing behind but a whisper: “Mother…” Khajit was devoured by the lightning.

  His muscles went into convulsions, and his body writhed where he’d stood, as if he were doing a strange dance. After rapidly burning through his insides, the electricity vanished, and Khajit fell to the ground, smoking from his burns.

  The stench of cooking flesh wafted throughout the area.

  Narberal shrugged and called out to Khajit, whose body had curled up into a ball as his muscles burned up. “Even worms smell good grilled… Might make a nice souvenir for Entoma.” Dropping the name of her fellow Pleiades member who preyed on humans, Narberal sneered.

  The warrior before her opened up his arms as if he were going to hug her.

  “What’re ya doing? Ya give up?”

  “No, what? I just figured that since I gave Narberal the order, I should probably settle this pretty soon as well.”

  “Huh? Are you serious? How can you win against me with no martial arts or any decent skills? How much more annoying can you be?”

  “You talk a lot of crap for a wimp.”

  You’re the wimp! she nearly raged but instead calmed her seething heart. The man before her had little skill as a warrior, but his physical ability easily excee
ded the realm of ordinary humans. As far as she knew, it was surpassed by only two demigods: the Black Scripture’s extra seat and its captain, who occupied the first seat. But because of that, he swung his sword around however he felt like, which made both his offense and defense sloppy, which meant he was in danger of being dealt a fatal blow.

  Clementine put on her usual sneer and taunted him. “…Welllll, I do agree that we should settle this.”

  Momon the warrior merely shrugged in reply.

  She coolly observed the way he carried himself. He was full of holes, but that couldn’t be true. It had to be a trap.

  But she didn’t have a choice. What she’d said a moment ago had sounded like a joke, but she’d meant it. She figured she could escape if she could borrow a skeletal dragon, but she couldn’t afford to lose any more time. Even if it was to throw off the Flurry Scripture members who had come to the city, playtime was going a little long.

  She slowly moved into a crouch and tightened her grip on her stiletto. She wanted this critical clash to be short—if possible, over in one hit. She didn’t have time, but the other thing was that the warrior seemed to be gradually getting the hang of things. It was safer to crush him before he grew into a monster she couldn’t handle.

  With a sharp exhalation, Clementine charged. “Stride of Wind! Greater Evasion! Ability Boost! Greater Ability Boost!” She used the same four martial arts from before all at once to get her physical ability even a little closer to his. Regardless of how Momon had fought so far, there was still the possibility he could use martial arts.

  In her accelerating world, she could see her opponent’s every move. He was going to take his swords out of the ground and attack. Or use a martial art, or hand-to-hand combat, or a hidden weapon—no, a throwing weapon. She could think of a zillion ways he could attack her, but she was confident she could prevail over any of them. Then he betrayed her expectations.

  He’s not doing anything?!

  The dark warrior just stood there, arms open, as if he was welcoming her attack.

  A chill ran up Clementine’s spine—fear of the unknown; he was acting completely outside the scenarios she’d imagined. Should I keep charging or retreat? Those were her only two options.

  Clementine was cold-blooded and cruel, but she wasn’t stupid. In the split second left, she calculated out countless possibilities and countermeasures. What gave her the push to continue was self-confidence and pride in her abilities.

  Even though she’d betrayed them, she was a member of the Slane Theocracy’s strongest special-ops unit, the Black Scripture, and she could count the number of warriors powerful enough to defeat her on her fingers. There was no way she could run from this Momon character who had no reputation and little skill.

  Once she’d made her decision, the rest happened quickly. Her hesitation vanished, and having regained the cool composure befitting a top-class warrior, she leaped in close to Momon’s chest.

  “Die!”

  The stiletto she thrust, mobilizing all her body’s muscles, stabbed into the slit in his close helmet. Then, she twisted it. She increased pressure to reach the back of his skull and then wiggled the blade to break the nearby blood vessels so the wound would be fatal beyond a doubt.

  An armored arm wrapped tightly around her body, but she paid it no mind and followed up with another attack. Responding to her desire to kill him dead, the magic power contained in her stiletto was unleashed—Lightning.

  Electricity coursed through Ainz’s entire body.

  Clementine’s weapon was invested with the power of Magic Accumulation. The magic was drained in one shot, but it was possible to load up all different spells over and over. One could prepare according to their specific needs, so it was a really easy power to use.

  She’d stabbed to the back of his skull and left him a lightning souvenir. He’s definitely dead.

  But—

  “I’m not done yet! Flow Acceleration!” Clementine accelerated, whipped out another stiletto, and stabbed that through his helmet slit as well. On top of that, she unleashed the Fireball spell it contained. She hallucinated Momon’s flesh burning up from the inside out and had the feeling she could smell the meat grilling.

  Instead, her eyes widened in shock at how wrong she was.

  “Hmm. Yggdrasil didn’t have magical weapons like that. The more you know!”

  As he spoke at leisure with a stiletto still sticking out of each eye, she realized that it hadn’t been a coincidence that there wasn’t blood on the blade when she’d stabbed him earlier.

  “No way! This can’t be happening! Why won’t you die?!” She’d never heard of a martial art that made the user invincible. Was there something protecting him from stabbing? Even then, how did he block the magic follow-up? Even the veteran warrior Clementine didn’t know the answer.

  “?!” She was pulled in close. Their bodies bumped together, and her adventurer plates jangled.

  “You want to know if you got the answer right?”

  The raven-black armor—poof—disappeared, revealing Momon’s horrifying face. It was a skull with neither flesh nor skin. Stilettos were stabbed into both of his vacant orbits—through his mirrored shades—but he didn’t give any indication he was experiencing any pain.

  That appearance rang a bell for Clementine. “An undead… An elder lich?!”

  “…? Well, I sure have some questions for you, but meh. Let’s just say you’re close. And then…”

  She shouldn’t have been able to read an expression from a face with no skin or flesh, but she had the feeling he was wearing a wide grin.

  “So, how does it feel fighting a caster with a sword? How does it feel to not have it end with a swoop and a shoonk?”

  “D-don’t make fun of me!” Clementine struggled violently to get away, but it was as if she were bound to him by sturdy chains, and she couldn’t.

  An elder lich was certainly a mighty undead, good at using magic and so on, but it shouldn’t have much in the way of physical ability; in a comparison with Clementine, she should come out on top. But…

  “Wh-why?!”

  I can’t get away.

  Her entire body went cold when it dawned on her that his incredible power and physical ability wasn’t due to some magical effect in his armor. The image that ran through her mind was of a butterfly caught in a spider’s web—a helpless creature.

  “This was the true nature of your handicap. Basically, you weren’t an enemy I had to take seriously enough to use magic on.”

  “You piece of shiiiiiiiiit!”

  “Well, now that the cat’s out of the bag, let’s begin after I get these out of my way.” There was a dragging noise as the elder lich pulled a stiletto out of his head and threw it away. Clementine was still struggling as he removed the other, but it seemed even one of his hands far exceeded the strength of her entire body, and she couldn’t budge in his embrace.

  Once the stilettos were gone, the sinister red flames in his empty eye sockets turned to Clementine, who was breathing irregularly as she strained against him.

  “Okay, let’s begin.”

  Begin what? thought Clementine as the already intimate distance between her and the elder lich shrank even farther. In her ears was an unpleasant creaking noise.

  When she realized what he was trying to do, she felt as though she’d been stabbed in the back with an icicle.

  “You aren’t…? You can’t be…! Youuuuuuu!”

  The noise was the shriek of her armor beginning to dent.

  He’s trying to crush me against his chest.

  The elder lich should have been getting squashed against the armor as well, but he must have changed his body to be more powerful somehow. It was immovable and made her think of a thick wall.

  “If you were weaker—”

  The elder lich took a dagger out from somewhere. The blade was black, and there were four jewels set in the hilt. “I considered ending your life with this, but I figure there’s not much differenc
e between dying on a sword, getting snapped in half, or being crushed. You’re dead no matter what.”

  Her whole body shuddered. Throughout his commentary, the pressure was gradually increasing. The strange weight on her chest was becoming oppressive. Ping! Ping! Unable to bear it, the plates of the adventurers she’d killed began popping off her armor and falling to the graveyard ground as if they were finally being interred. The first to go were the ones she had most recently acquired.

  It got harder and harder to breathe. This is awful.

  She hated the arm wrapped around her back.

  She blamed herself for wearing light armor in order to increase her evasion and be able to attach the adventurer plates.

  Having learned that swords had no effect on the elder lich, she began beating his face with her fists, half crazed. She was hitting so hard she was hurting herself, but she wasn’t at leisure to feel the pain. Then, she drew her morning star and began frantically pounding with that, but she couldn’t do it right and only ended up wounding herself.

  It was easy to imagine the fate that awaited her. The choking breaths, the weight on her chest, and her breaking armor made it crystal clear what would happen.

  “Don’t struggle so much. If the position of my arm slips, it’ll end too simply. You took your time killing them, so I want to take my time on you, too.”

  Clementine desperately continued her attacks. She tried pushing off of his head with her hand, scratching at him till her nails peeled back, biting him with her front teeth… None of it worked and the pressure continued increasing.

  No matter how much she flailed, there was no escaping the jaws that were his arms. She still fought. Even as her breathing grew more difficult and her field of vision began to shrink, she fought for the chance to survive.

  “La Danse Macabre?”

  She couldn’t even spare the effort to hear that quiet remark.

  There was a gurgling sound, and Ainz was splashed with vomit and filth. Something dark flashed through the red flames in his vacant orbits.