Demon Sword Master of the Holy Sword Academy - Volume 2 - Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

A MAD PARTY

“…Where did Leo go off to now?” Riselia wondered aloud, looking around the hall with a glass of juice in hand.

While she was busy taking care of Millet and Linze, Leonis had disappeared.

“What’s wrong, Selia?” Elfiné asked her.

“Miss Elfiné, have you seen Leo?”

“Maybe he went outside for a breather? Being around a lot of people can be exhausting.” Elfiné cracked a strained smile. “Aren’t you being a bit overprotective?”

“A-am I…?”

“It’s like taking care of a cat. If you’re being too clingy, it might run away.”

Elfiné tapped Riselia on the shoulder gently and walked off to another table. Riselia, however, was left a little surprised.

Maybe I am being overprotective…? The cat charm Leonis had given her vibrated slightly from its spot attached to Riselia’s terminal.

For some reason, Riselia simply couldn’t bear to leave Leonis alone. The question was why? It wasn’t just because he was a ten-year-old boy, and she was certain it wasn’t because she was his minion, either.

She’d felt that way ever since she first saw him in the ruins, after all. Riselia had this strange sensation that felt like she’d known Leonis since long before they’d met.

Why do I feel this way…?

Riselia lifted her face and saw Leonis approaching her.

“Oh, Leo, where were you?”

“I don’t like being around crowds, so I went out for some fresh air.”

“Oh…” It was exactly as Elfiné had said.

“Miss Selia…,” Leonis began, fixing his eyes on her face.

“What is it?”

“You’re cute.”

“…Huh?!” Riselia’s face went red. “Wh-wh-wh-what are you saying?!”

Leonis simply smiled, as if enjoying her flustered reaction.

“Were you lonely without me? You adorable thing, you,” he teased smugly.

“L-Leo, what’s gotten into you?” Riselia asked, sensing something was clearly off with his behavior and tone.

“I am such a sinful man to have inflicted this loneliness upon you, Miss Selia.” Leonis cradled his head in his own arms.

“Did you eat something strange?” Riselia asked, wondering if there might have been suspicious mushrooms in his salad.

Just as she was thinking of calling the ship’s doctor, the lights suddenly went out, plunging the hall into blackness.

“Huh…?”

“Kuh… Ah!”

Regina’s body bounced off the floor a few times before slamming against the wall. Claws flashed, unleashing an invisible shock wave. Had she not manifested her Holy Sword to protect herself, the attack would’ve gouged out her stomach.

…Why is…one of the Integrated Empire’s Holy Swordsmen doing this…?

Bearing the pain, Regina rose to her feet with her Holy Sword manifested in its gun form, Drag Striker. It was then she realized the one who’d attacked her wasn’t a royal guard.

“…What?!”

The person before her had the face of a wolf. It was a beastman. The top of his uniform had been torn apart, revealing a frame much larger than a human’s.

“Tch, using my Demon Sword must have canceled out the other Demon Sword’s power.” The beastman clicked his tongue and licked the claw weapon that had appeared over his right arm.

Regina was confused. Surely, that weapon couldn’t be…

A beastman with a Holy Sword?!

That shouldn’t have been possible. Holy Swords were gifts from the planet to humanity. They were a power meant to oppose the Voids. Regina had never heard of a beastman being able to call a Holy Sword.

No, that doesn’t matter now…

Regina brought up her Drag Striker. It was the third form of her Holy Sword, the Drag Howl, and took the shape of a musket. This made it the lightest and most adaptable of Drag Howl’s iterations.

“Huh. I was trying to cut your heart out, but….” The wolf beastman smirked viciously as he cautiously drew closer.

…Do I fight him? No, I should run and get reinforcements…

Regina’s Holy Sword wasn’t suited for close-quarters fighting. She’d been trained in hand-to-hand combat that involved weapons, but there was a fundamental and significant difference in physical ability between humans and beastmen.

Excalibur Academy’s training regimen was focused on group-based, anti-Void combat. There were some mock training sessions between Holy Swordsmen, but one-on-one wasn’t their usual fighting style.

“Just stand still and die!” The beastman swung his claws at her.

Here comes that invisible shock wave again!

Regina dropped and lay prone on the ground.

Skriiiiiiiip!

A tempestuous rumbling shook the air as the wall behind her was cleaved through. Regina nimbly rolled on the floor and got back up, firing Drag Striker. The lightning-laden bullet whizzed through the air, but the beastman flicked it away with his claw weapon.

“Ah-ha-ha, is that all your Holy Sword can do, human?!”

“…!”

Regina fired Drag Striker a few more times, keeping the beastman in check as she retreated backward.

However…

Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

“What…?!”

Regina came to a stop as the bulkhead behind her sealed itself shut as though intentionally cutting off her avenue of escape.

“Too bad, girlie. This ship’s already under our control.”

“What did you say…?!”

They’ve hijacked the Hyperion? That means…they have Princess Altiria in their custody!

Regina looked down at the spirit curled up at her feet. The Carbuncle had probably run off to get away from the people who’d taken the princess hostage. Regina held up her Holy Sword to keep the spirit safe.

“Die!” the beastman howled as he rushed in, swinging his claws as he ran.

“…?!”

Regina fired her gun reflexively, but an unseen burst of force repelled the shots. She kicked off the wall behind her and moved into a horizontal leap. Shards of the torn-up floor and wall sped through the air, scraping Regina’s face as she moved. While she rolled out of range of the wolf-headed man’s attack, she fired again. This time, a shot managed to cut into the beastman’s collar.

Unfortunately, the beastman’s body proved quite sturdy. That one hit hadn’t been enough to deal a fatal wound.

“Ha! Too bad, Holy Swordswoman!” The beastman swung his claw weapon down at Regina, who’d fallen over.

Just before the attack could connect, however…

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom!

With a thundering blast, the sealed bulkhead burst open, and the beastman was sent flying down the corridor.

“…Huh?” Regina couldn’t help but make a rather silly expression. Turning around, she saw a young boy holding a large staff standing in the hole that had been blown through the bulkhead.

“…Erm, Miss Regina? What exactly is going on here?”

“Keh-heh-heh. Everyone better stay still if you don’t wanna die!”

The door to the party hall slammed shut. A total of thirty-six people, including the party staff, civilian representatives, Riselia, and the others, had been forced to sit together in the center of the hall. Men wearing the uniforms of Princess Altiria’s royal guard stood encircling the hostages.

They were skilled. In the brief moment the lights had gone out, they’d secured civilian hostages, holding blades to their throats to force the combat-capable Excalibur Academy students to disarm themselves and comply.

Tessera, Millet, Linze, and Leonis, the only children in attendance, had been separated and placed in one corner of the hall. The men declared that if anyone made any suspicious movements, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill hostages. Riselia and the other Holy Swordsmen had no choice but to obey.

What in the world is going on here?!

Riselia threw a questioning glance at Elfiné, who sat beside her, but her dependable senior simply shook her head wordlessly. The children from the orphanage were terribly frightened. Even the tomboyish Millet was shaking in fear. Curiously, Leonis remained unusually composed, despite having a blade held to his throat.

Why is Leo so calm about this? Riselia was panicking, but when Leonis caught her eye, he sent a playful wink in her direction.

“E-explain yourselves! You’re Her Highness’s royal guard! Why are you doing this?!” insisted a middle-aged man who served as one of the Seventh Assault Garden’s councillors.

“Heh-heh. Think we’re part of the royal guard, do you?” one of the young men sneered before peeling back his face.

“What?!” the councillor exclaimed in disbelief.

The false face of the guard was cast away to reveal the open jaws of a large wolf’s head.

“A—a werewolf?!”

“What is the…meaning of this…?” Fenris Edelritz of the executive committee muttered, her eyes wide with shock.

“This is the power of my Holy Sword—Face Thief.”

“A Holy Sword? Nonhumans shouldn’t be able to manifest one!” Fenris shouted.

“What, are you that surprised? Yeah, that’s right. The goddess gave us her blessing. The power of a Holy Sword isn’t your exclusive privilege anymore, see?”

The goddess? Riselia doubted her ears.

The werewolf man laughed gleefully and peered around at the academy students.

“This is where I’d tell ya to drop your weapons, but that doesn’t really work with you Holy Swordsmen, does it?” He then turned to the guard behind him. “Hey, Jakt—”

“I know…” The knight nodded and then began removing his face, too.

From beneath the facade emerged an old elf with tattoos all over his head. With his disguise discarded, his body quickly turned back to that of an old man.

“Demon Sword, Activate. Bomb Apple,” the old man whispered, and a black fruit that let out an ominous miasma appeared in his hand. Then, the wrinkled elf tossed the apple into the group of hostages.

“Wh-what did you do?!” Fenris asked.

“A b-bomb…of vapor. If you use…your Holy Sword…I’ll…detonate it.”

“?!” Riselia and the others swallowed nervously.

“What do you want?!”

“We’re members of the Sovereign Wolves,” the werewolf explained with a smirk.

“…Terrorists who advocate anti-imperial sentiments,” Riselia muttered. She’d heard of the Sovereign Wolves before.

They were a political faction formed around the Shamar clan, a group that both possessed great power and harbored anti-imperial sentiments. They advocated for the abolishment of demi-human discrimination and opposed the human rule of the Integrated Empire, spearheading terrorist acts that had taken the lives of over two hundred people in the Imperial Capital.

I hear their leader, Bastea Colossuf, went into hiding…

“We’re going to negotiate with the capital. We’ll demand the release of our incarcerated comrades in exchange for the Hyperion, Princess Altiria’s safe return, and your lives.”

“The empire won’t yield to a terrorist’s demands!” Fenris retorted.

“Heh-heh. I guess we’ll see, eh?” the werewolf said with a toothy grin.

…Communications outside the ship must be shut off. Riselia bit her lip.

Something was jamming connections in the Hyperion. In all likelihood, Excalibur Academy’s administration bureau wasn’t aware of what was happening yet.

“…Miss Elfiné,” Riselia whispered.

“Don’t worry,” Elfiné whispered back, holding Riselia’s hand tight in her own “For now, let’s just wait for our chance.”

“So what exactly is going on here?” Leonis asked Regina as he tied up the unconscious beastman with a shadow.

On his way up to the deck, the bulkheads had suddenly started closing around Leonis, trapping him between two of them. Left with no choice, he’d used explosion spells to blow open a path, which was where he encountered Regina fighting the beastman.

“Your guess is as good as mine. By the way, these bulkheads are military-grade enchanted steel. How did you break through?” Regina knitted her eyebrows suspiciously.

“Um, huh, so who’s this beastman?” Leonis looked away as if to dodge the question and fixed his gaze on the unconscious figure he’d bound.

“I think he’s a surviving member of the Sovereign Wolves, a group of anti-imperial terrorists,” Regina said, tapping her information terminal with a finger. “His face is a match for one of the people in the database’s wanted list.” She showed the screen to Leonis. Sure enough, the picture displayed on the device looked identical to the unconscious beastman sharing the hallway with them.

“How did he get aboard the ship?” Leonis wondered aloud. He and Shary could travel via magical shadow corridors to enter almost any place, but a mere werewolf shouldn’t have been able to perform such high-level sorcery.

“They probably snuck in during the confusion following the Void attack. Also, this beastman impersonated one of Her Highness’s royal guards.”

“He disguised himself?”

“Not exactly,” Regina shook her head. “He definitely used some kind of special power. It was the ability of a Holy Sword, I think.”

“A Holy Sword?” Leonis tilted his head questioningly. “Aren’t Holy Swords only granted to humans?”

“Yeah. I’ve never heard of a demi-human using one before,” Regina said, turning her attention to the beastman slumped over in a corner. “This werewolf didn’t call his power a Holy Sword, though… He called it a Demon Sword.”

“…A Demon Sword?” Leonis echoed her words suspiciously.

A Demon Sword, as opposed to a Holy Sword. Leonis wondered if it was merely a simple case of wordplay or if there was some deeper meaning to it.

He was granted little time to consider the idea, however, as a tremendous creaking sound shook the floor beneath them.

“Is the ship moving?” Regina asked in surprise.

A group of demi-humans stood with their hostage, the princess, on the main bridge of the Hyperion.

“I’ve closed all the bulkheads in the ship. Is this what you wanted?” Altiria asked, her voice trembling slightly. She bit her lip so hard, it was turning white. An Artificial Elemental in the shape of a frightening serpent was coiled around her arm. The repulsive sensation of linking with an unfamiliar spirit gave Altiria goose bumps.

…I can’t believe they created something like this.

Creating Artificial Elementals required secret technology known only to the royal house and the Phillet Company. Terrorists shouldn’t have had a spirit strong enough to manipulate the Hyperion.

“Heh-heh-heh, splendid. Such is the power of a princess with the blood of the three progenitor royal houses,” cackled the bewitching dark elf woman, Sharnak, as she stuck out her red tongue.

“…!”

Altiria glared at her resolutely. Despite the look, she proved unable to resist the dark elf woman. The knives at the throats of the bridge crew meant Altiria had to do everything they said. If she were to disobey their orders, the terrorists would mercilessly kill their hostages.

“Doing this won’t make the empire yield to your demands.”

“I guess we’ll see about that,” Bastea Colossuf, the leader, coldly shot back with a sneer. “We have you and this battleship in our custody. I think the safe return of everyone aboard is a good enough deal to persuade them to release our comrades.”

With that ferocious smile on his lips, Bastea grabbed the princess by the throat with his large hands.

“…Nnng, aah… Guh, aaah…!” Pain ran through Altiria’s body as the beastman’s thick lion claws dug into her flesh.

“Your Highness!” one of the crew members cried.

“I’d love nothing more than to tear your throat out, but you’re worth more alive for the time being.” Bastea’s intense, feline eyes were full of a deep hatred for the empire and the royal family.

“Heh-heh-heh, you mustn’t do that. The goddess has business with this princess,” Sharnak said, chiding him lightly.

“Hmph…” Bastea released the princess, and her petite form crumpled to the floor.

“Kah, nng…,” she coughed, trying to fill her lungs with air.

Suddenly, the ship’s operator went pale as he said, “A—a vast amount of biological reactions have been confirmed along the ship’s course…”

“A Void reef,” Bastea muttered. “Evade it and go northeast, toward Carsez Island. We’ll regroup with our comrades who’re hiding there to restock our supplies and manpower.”

“…Understood.” The operator nodded.

“Oh, that’d be a problem…,” Sharnak cut in.

“What?” Bastea turned a suspicious gaze on her.

“Maintain our course and run the ship into the Void reef,” she instructed.

“Are you insane?!” Bastea shouted. “Did you completely lose your marbles, you damn witch?! If we enter the reef, the Voids will swallow the ship whole with us inside!”

“Yes, that’s precisely the idea.”

“Wh-what…?!”

Sharnak licked the blade of the black Demon Sword in her hand with an ecstatic expression. A shade of definite madness settled over her crimson eyes.

“…You. You’re a priestess for the Cult of Downfall,” Bastea declared.

“Would you mind not lumping me together with those suicidal cultists?”

“Don’t try to hide it, you dark elf hag!” Bastea Colossuf howled, activating his Demon Sword. A broadsword wreathed in crimson flames appeared in his large, burly hands.

“Oh, you incorrigible little fool…,” Sharnak sneered as her black Demon Sword let out a sudden flash.

At that moment, the flames around the Demon Sword in Bastea’s hands flared up wildly, consuming him rapidly.

“Gaaah… Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

“Trying to kill me with the Demon Sword I granted you is a fool’s errand.” Sharnak cackled as she looked down at the beastman being consumed by the fire.

“Y-you cursed…witch!”

“I’ve no more need of you, Bastea Colossuf. Though I will be putting your adorable little subordinates to good use.”

In a matter of moments, Bastea had been reduced to dust by the flames that had erupted from his own Demon Sword. The other beastmen showed no response to the abrupt death of their leader. With emotionless, doll-like faces, each kept his blade firmly trained on the hostages.

“…”

Altiria remained silent and glared at Sharnak. Before her stood a deranged woman who dared to grin gleefully after having killed her own comrade. It was clear the act hadn’t been to save Altiria, either. The dark elf gave off a far more menacing air than Bastea ever had.

“Heh-heh. Now then, Princess…” Sharnak turned to face her, stepping over the ashes on the floor. “You heard me, yes? Keep the ship on its current course.”

“…I—I refuse,” Altiria replied, mustering all the courage she could.

If the ship were to enter a Void reef, the whole vessel would be lost. Even if they took the crew and passengers captive, she couldn’t accept such a demand.

“My, now that is a bother.” Sharnak cocked her head as if troubled by something trifling.

“Wh-why would you even do such a thing…?” Altiria asked.

“Heh-heh. Why, to create more Demon Swords, of course,” Sharnak replied.

“Demon Swords…?”

“Yes. To create a Demon Sword, one must taint a Holy Sword. In other words, the only sacrifices fit for the goddess are Holy Swordsmen who have been corrupted by the miasma of nothingness.”

What is she saying…? Altiria was truly and purely terrified by Sharnak’s manic mutterings.

This isn’t someone I can reason with…

“…I’m a princess of the empire. Even if you take my life, I will never do as you say!”

“Oh? Now, that’s a pity. But I’m afraid your compliance isn’t a factor.”

Sharnak recited an esoteric chant, and the Artificial Elemental serpent coiled around Altiria’s arm began to writhe wildly in answer. A surge of information rushed into the princess’s mind, forcing her unconscious.

“N-noo… Noooooo!”

“Now, let us offer up a sacrifice in celebration of the goddess’s arrival!”

Sharnak’s mad laughter filled the room.