CHAPTER 1
THE MASKED DARK LORD
That dream again…
Riselia Crystalia awoke from her restless slumber and wiped the cold sweat from her brow with her sleeping gown sleeve. Even six years after the Voids had destroyed the Third Assault Garden, Riselia was still plagued by that terrible nightmare.
Even with my body like this, I guess I still dream…, Riselia mused as she shook her head to banish the lingering unpleasantness from her mind. She sat up and opened the curtains of her window.
The morning sunlight shined upon the locks of Riselia’s argent hair. Stretching slightly, the young woman groggily rubbed her ice-blue eyes. Looking out the window, she spied a flock of birds perching on a tree in the courtyard.
Unfortunately, they weren’t cute little feathered friends, whose chirping signaled the coming of a refreshing morning, but rather…
“Caw! Caw! Caw!”
A murder of large, scary-faced crows had filled the trees beyond Riselia’s window. Their eerie shrieks almost seemed to announce that Riselia had risen from bed.
…There’s more of them now…, Riselia noted to herself, her expression contorting into a stiff frown. Crows had started flocking around her often as of late.
…Do I really smell like a corpse?
Riselia sniffed at her clothes, but the only scent she caught was the floral aroma of her soap. According to Leonis, creatures of the night like crows and bats tended to gather around vampires, as they were the supreme beings of darkness.
“The fact that they like me is nice, but…” Riselia sighed, looking out the window. If any more of them show up, people are gonna start spreading weird rumors about the dorm…
The Hræsvelgr dormitory rested on the outskirts of Excalibur Academy’s vast grounds. Because it looked older than its surrounding structures, people already treated it as a spooky mansion of sorts. Lately, there’d been rumors about a shadow in the shape of a girl and a large black dog wandering around the place after dark. The gossip really sounded like ghost stories. If crows started gathering around the dorm, people truly would start thinking the place was a haunted house.
Not that they’d be technically wrong. A vampire did live in the Hræsvelgr dorm, after all.
Brushing her fingers through her slightly disheveled hair, Riselia rose from her bed. She and Leonis planned to hold a training match this morning, so she had decided to wake up a bit earlier than usual.
“Leo, time to get up!” Riselia called after getting to her feet. However, when she opened the door and made to enter the adjacent chamber…
“…?!”
Her hand froze on the doorknob. Standing inside the room was a girl in a maid’s outfit holding a mop and bucket. She was cleaning the floor. She had sleek black hair cut to shoulder length and crimson eyes the color of twilight. Her gaze met Riselia’s straight on.
“…”
“…”
Both young women stood frozen for a few seconds. Then, the maid girl’s face screwed up in an expression that seemed to say, “Oh, drat.”
“…Huh…? Wh-who are you…?” Riselia blinked a few times and rubbed her eyes. Surprisingly, when she took another look, the maid girl was gone.
“Shit, they’re gonna corner us at this rate!”
“…We have to go on the offensive here. It’s not like we can hide forever.”
“That’s reckless. We don’t stand a chance against Holy Swordsmen with the weapons we have…”
Several sets of footsteps echoed through a dark corridor, as did voices that sounded similar to bestial growls. Golden eyes shone through the darkness. This was the Seventh Assault Garden’s seventh sector—the special demi-human protection ward.
The underground passageways that ran beneath the artificial biotope’s forest were occupied by armed beastmen. They were remnants of the Sovereign Wolves, a terrorist organization that opposed the Integrated Empire.
Two weeks ago, their comrades had tried to seajack the royal warship Hyperion in order to abduct Altiria Ray O’ltriese, the fourth princess. The Excalibur Academy students on board had opposed the Sovereign Wolves, however, and the operation had failed. The radical group’s leader, Bastea Colossuf, died with several other leading members, leaving the organization on the brink of collapse.
And now, they were being pursued by a group of the empire’s Holy Swordsmen.
“If only we were compatible with the Demon Swords, too…” The beastman leading what remained of the Sovereign Wolves growled in frustration.
“…Dammit, they’re coming!”
Several figures appeared ahead of the fleeing extremists, blocking the underground passage. Their white uniforms stood out in the dark. It was an elite force of Holy Swordsmen.
“Remnants of the Sovereign Wolves! You are under arrest for the crime of high treason!”
The Holy Swordsmen totaled four. The beastmen greatly outnumbered them. However, the power of Holy Swords, a boon granted only to humans, proved enough to overturn that advantage.
“““Holy Sword, Activate!””” the Holy Swordsmen intoned in unison, their voices reverberating through the underground corridor.
“Dammit!” One beastman howled as he and his fellows charged the Holy Swordsmen in desperation.
It was reckless. While the demi-humans’ physical prowess exceeded the humans’, they had no way of overcoming four Holy Swords.
I know that, dammit! the leader of the beastmen thought to himself bitterly.
That was when…
“Demonic Eyes, Curse These Fearless Ones—Vraid!” a new voice boomed from somewhere unseen.
Not a moment later, there was an explosion of light, and the Holy Swordsmen froze in place, their weapons still drawn. They now looked for all the world like silent statues.
“Wh-what just…?” The beastmen were speechless.
“—I’ve been looking for you… Finding you cost me valuable time.”
“…?!”
From the depths of the underground passage, a pale-blue light drifted in the musky darkness. Behind that glow, the faint sound of footsteps clicking against the floor reverberated through the close confines of the tunnel.
A dark, humanoid figure clad in a pitch-black overcoat appeared. There stood what looked like darkness given human form. Its face was covered by a silvery mask shaped like a skull.
“Wh-who the hell are you…?!”
The beastmen held up their weapons, their bodies trembling. However…
“Fools.”
The shade slightly raised its right hand. That simple motion was all that was needed to twist the weapons in the demi-humans’ hands as easily as dough. The useless things fell to the ground.
“What?!”
“Kneel. You are in my presence,” the shadow demanded, its voice bearing down like physical pressure and forcing the beastmen’s knees to buckle.
The ominous presence overflowing from this figure made their robust bodies shiver like leaves. The beastmen were the very symbol of the natural world’s law of survival of the fittest; their reactions were instinctual.
The shade before them was a monster of a far higher order than they—an absolute sovereign, made to reign over this world.
“You would raise your weapons against me…?” The shadow took another step closer. “Count yourselves fortunate, for I am magnanimous. Had Gazoth, the Lord of Beasts been in my position, you would already be dead.”
“Aah, aaaah… Aaaaaaaaaaaah…!”
None of the beastmen could raise their heads in the face of the dark specter’s overwhelming pressure. The insurgents fell prostrate, and the shadow tossed a small sack in front of them.
“Wh-what is this?” the lion-headed leader of the remnants asked.
“Your leader. His name was Bastea, I believe? These are his ashes.”
“What?!”
“When I found him on that ship, he had already been reduced to dust. Even in such a state, my Realm of Death sorcery could have resurrected him as an undead monster, but, well, I had no duty to do so.”
“Who are you…? No. Who might you be, mighty one?”
“I am a Dark Lord.”
“A Dark Lord…?”
“The Undead King, he who reigns over death and all connected to it. The true, legitimate ruler of this world.” As the shade’s voice echoed, the sinister aura that spilled from it grew more intense. Suffocated by the fierce, encroaching presence of death, a few of the beastmen fell unconscious.
“U-ugh… Oooh, aaah…!”
“Fear not. I stand before you to repay a favor.”
“A—A favor…?”
“Not to you, but to your distant ancestors. The Shamar clan, the Zaith clan, the Zakar clan. The beastmen warriors once served bravely as vanguards for the Dark Lords’ Armies.”
Those few Sovereign Wolves who were still conscious answered the shadow’s words with confusion. Ancestors? What was this monster saying?
“You who oppose the empire…” The so-called Dark Lord offered his hand. “Become my subordinates and serve in the Dark Lords’ Armies.” The shade’s clear voice echoed through the underground tunnel.
“Y-you want us…the remnants of the Sovereign Wolves, to serve under you, great one?”
“Correct. You shall be my minions, acting in my name to achieve my lofty goals. I shan’t force you, however. You may choose your fates freely. However…” The Dark Lord pointed at the statues behind them. “You haven’t long to decide. Within several minutes, the petrification on those people will end.”
“…!”
The eye sockets of the shadow’s skeletal mask blazed with an eerie light. A wrong answer here could leave the beastmen petrified, just like these Holy Swordsmen. The beastmen exchanged glances. Either way, their alternative was to be caught by the empire and sent to the gallows. They didn’t know what this inexplicable monster was after, but…
“U-understood.” The lion-headed beastmen stood and bowed low before the Dark Lord. “The remnants of the Sovereign Wolves will serve you, great one.”
It felt as if the skull mask sneered evilly at them.
“Very well. From now on, you shall call yourselves the Dark Lord’s Shadows.”
“Y-yes. By your will.” The beastmen terrorists fell to their knees.
“Then I shall give you your first order—” But as the Dark Lord swung up his hand, an untimely beeping sound filled the underground passage. “H-huh, wh-what…?!” The shadowy figure recoiled in surprise.
“—eo. Leo! Where are you right now?!”
The voice died down with another beep.
“…”
An awkward air hung over the place. The terrorists looked at each other.
“Heh-heh… Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” The Dark Lord suddenly started laughing, flapping his dark overcoat. “Obey My Will, Land, and Become an Eternal Maze! Create Labyrinth!”
As the specter chanted some kind of spell, the ground rumbled and lit up, forming a staircase leading farther down.
“Wh-what is this…?”
“I created an underground complex here. Make it your base and operate from there for the time being,” the shadow instructed over its shoulder after turning away. It then disappeared, leaving the stupefied beastmen behind. The terrorists could only gawk at the entrance to the labyrinth, their mouths hanging open in amazement.
Back in a dormitory room, a shadow bubbled up near his bed. From within rose a dark silhouette, clad in an ebon overcoat.
“Mantle of Illusions, Detach,” a muffled voice commanded.
The darkness enveloping the shade’s body came undone, and it was sucked into the shadows. A pair of small feet touched down on the floor.
“…My word. Keeping up that act does leave me feeling quite stiff.”
A ten-year-old boy sporting a school uniform had stepped out from that tall shadow. Standing in front of a full-length mirror, the child heaved a deep sigh. His face had handsome—if young and childish—features. His black hair was slightly unkempt and continually disobedient, and he wasn’t tall enough to eclipse even half the mirror.
When I look like this, I can’t conjure up even a lick of dignity and awe. This unassuming appearance did lull his enemies into carelessness, though, and it was ideal for fitting into a crowd.
Regardless, I did manage to create a foothold toward the reformation of the Dark Lords’ Armies.
This boy, the Dark Lord Leonis Death Magnus, smirked in satisfaction. The Sovereign Wolves were an anti-imperial armed terrorist organization made up of demi-humans. A few days ago, they had lost their leader in a seajacking incident, leaving Leonis free to claim the group’s remnants for his own.
Their ranks included far more than just the physically capable beastmen. The Sovereign Wolves were made up of elves and lizardmen, too. Both were unique species possessing valuable traits. Leonis was confident they could be of use.
That said, they didn’t seem to have any direct involvement with the dark elf woman who had produced the Demon Swords, but Leonis decided he’d look into that matter separately.
Still… Leonis took a terminal out of his pocket and eyed it reproachfully. My minion is a bit too overprotective.
Sighing bitterly, he opened the door to the living room…
“Aaah! L-Leo?!”
…Only to find a girl standing there, clad in just her underwear. Shining silvery hair and skin as white as the virgin snow. Her hair was a bit damp, as she’d likely just got out of the shower. The young woman stood frozen, her hands still on the hook of her bra. Her face was steadily reddening by the second.
“Ah… I-I’m sorry!”
Leonis hurriedly squeezed his eyes shut and turned away, but the image of the girl’s plump breasts and lithe limbs had already been burned into his mind. The sound of shifting fabric filled his ears for some time, until eventually…
“…You can turn around now, Leo.”
Leonis did just that, fixing his gaze on the now fully clothed Riselia.
“I’m sorry, I must have surprised you,” Riselia apologized as she tied a hair ribbon. Her blue uniform complemented her pale skin tone perfectly.
“N-no, I should be the one apologizing…”
“Where were you, by the way? You weren’t in your room. I was looking for you.”
“Erm… I was out for some morning exercise…”
“Exercise?” Riselia pouted adorably. “I’d have come along if you’d said something.”
“I mean, we already have our daily training curriculum. So you shouldn’t overdo it!” Leonis shook his head.
Riselia’s recent growth was astounding. Not only did she possess fantastic intuition, but also a drive to improve. Training her was satisfying. However, she was also hardworking to the point of overexertion. Pushing one’s limits could lead to collapse.
In that regard, Leonis wished Riselia would be a bit more careful with herself. Even an undead vampire would grow exhausted if she was to deplete her mana.
“Are you all right, Lady Selia? I heard a scream,” Regina’s voice called from the corridor.
“Ah, yes, I’m fine. It was just Leo,” Riselia replied hurriedly.
“—I put a lot of effort into breakfast today,” Regina proudly proclaimed. She was wearing her usual maid uniform, and her hands rested confidently on her waist. “Eat up.”
Regina’s golden hair was tied up in pigtails, and her large, lively eyes were a shade of green. If Riselia could be likened to the kind, gentle moon, Regina had the atmosphere of the bright sun.
“It looks great,” Riselia commented.
“Hee-hee. Today I made your favorite, Lady Selia! Fluffy pancakes.”
Sitting on the table was a batch of pancakes with lots of honey, a salad of fruit and vegetables, sunny-side-up eggs, yogurt, and coffee. Riselia usually handled breakfast, but two times a week, Regina came over to prepare it. According to Regina herself, making meals for Riselia kept her maid skills honed.
“After all, if I leave you to handle the food yourself, you’ll just end up eating military rations, Lady Selia.”
“I-I’ve been making breakfast every day recently!” Riselia shot back, her cheeks a bit rosy. “I mean, I’ve got Leo to look after, too.”
Riselia was a decent cook in her own right, but she was no match for a full-fledged maid like Regina.
“Want me to spoon-feed you, kid?” Regina asked Leonis with a smirk.
“I—I can eat just fine on my own, thank you!” Leonis snapped back, his heart skipping a beat. He carried a bite-size piece of a pancake to his lips. “…It really is good,” he praised with pleasant surprise as he chewed and swallowed the piece.
The texture was nice and soft, and the sweet taste of honey filled his mouth. Its surface was crunchy. It had been expertly prepared. Leonis always thought the human body and its dependence on food were a nuisance, but…
…This isn’t that bad, the Dark Lord thought to himself, satisfied.
“Heh-heh. You’re so cute, kid. Makes it all worth it.”
“Leo, you need to eat some lettuce, too. We got it from the vegetable garden,” Riselia chided, shoveling some raw greens onto his plate. She seemed rather insistent.
She isn’t doing it to make my blood smoother, is she…? Leonis had been suspecting as much for a while now.
“What’s wrong, Leo?”
“Nothing,” Leonis replied evasively, bringing a mug of coffee to his lips.
…Coffee really is good in the mornings.
This beverage hadn’t existed a thousand years ago, but Leonis was growing fond of it. Its ebon color was like darkness made liquid. A fitting drink for a Dark Lord if there ever was one. Of course, it was too bitter straight, so Leonis added plenty of sugar to it.
“Is it just me, or have there been a lot of crows around our dorm recently?” Regina remarked, glancing out the window.
“R-really?” Riselia stuttered, a bit flustered. “Maybe it’s your imagination.”
“Should I drive them away?” Regina suggested, pantomiming the action of taking a shot with a gun.
“What? No! The poor things.”
“You’re too kind, Lady Selia. That’s what I like about you, though,” Regina appended with a wry smile and a shrug. “Still, people already call this dorm a haunted mansion. The birds aren’t going to help.”
“Really?” Leonis pressed.
“Yeah, there are rumors about some girl’s ghost and a large black dog walking around…”
“Oh, that’s right! I actually saw the ghost girl this morning!” Riselia raised her voice after suddenly recalling the incident from earlier.
“You did?” Regina asked.
“Yeah. She was really cute, and she was dressed like a maid—”
“So, me?” Regina pointed at herself.
“No, she had short black hair. And she was cleaning Leo’s room.”
“…!” Leonis almost gagged on his coffee. “M-maybe your eyes were playing tricks on you!” he managed between coughs.
“…Yeah, maybe. She was gone the moment I blinked.”
“Sounds like you were still sleepy. Speaking of, I heard today we have a joint training session and a practice match?” Leonis was doing his best to pivot the topic of conversation to something else.
“Oh, right, this is your first time seeing a sparring session between different platoons.”
Practice matches were a central part of Excalibur Academy’s training program. They were usually held earlier in the year, but the Stampede in the Seventh Assault Garden several weeks ago had pushed back the school’s schedule.
“Our opponents this time are the eleventh platoon, from Fafnir dorm,” Regina told Leonis, showing him her terminal. “They’re a higher-ranked squad led by Fenris Edelritz.”
There was a picture of a girl projected on the device’s monitor. She looked like an affluent young lady. What’s more, Leonis recognized her. She was a student from the executive committee who had introduced herself to him during the party aboard the Hyperion.
“Erm, is there any point to having Holy Swordsmen fight each other?” The tactless question slipped from Leonis’s lips the second it crossed his mind.
Holy Swords were supposedly a power granted to the human race to fight the twisted creatures known as Voids.
“It’s said that Holy Swords competing against each other encourages their growth,” Riselia explained, holding up her index finger.
“Growth?”
“Yes. By clashing against each other, Holy Swords can change their forms.”
“My Drag Howl only had its cannon mode at first. It couldn’t shift into a pistol until later down the line,” Regina added.
“I see. So they do it to help the weapons mature…,” Leonis whispered to himself.
Holy Swords were a power granted by the planet, the tools that allowed humanity to strike back at the Voids. Their might was a fundamentally different sort than sorcery, which was based on the laws of nature. A thousand years ago, humans’ comparatively low mana capacities and weak physical capabilities had made them inferior to the elves and demi-humans. But in the end, it was humanity that survived the past millennia. They had endured and achieved a technological standard high enough to build these advanced Assault Gardens.
The evolution of Holy Swords. It’s as if the weapons are a manifestation of humankind’s strength as a species, Leonis mused to himself.
“It’s also my first training match since I got my Holy Sword, so we have to give it our all!” Riselia proclaimed, pumping her fists. “If you get good grades during the training match, you get invited to the Holy Sword Blade Dance Festival at the capital.”
“Really?” Leonis asked, curious to hear more.
“Yeah. It’s held once a year, and Holy Swordsmen are selected from every Assault Garden to participate in a celebration of swordsmanship. It’s pretty much out of reach for us, but…” Riselia trailed off.
“You never know,” Regina said. “You have a Holy Sword now, and we have the kid on our side, too.”
“You’re right.” Riselia nodded. “For now, let’s put our all into winning the sparring match today.”
…Hmm. The capital, eh? Not bad.
The capital. The first Assault Garden to be built and the central hub of the Integrated Empire. When the Dark Lords’ Armies rose again, Leonis planned to seize control of that city.
If we get selected to participate in this Holy Sword Blade Dance Festival, I could scout out the capital without drawing attention to myself. Quite unlike Riselia’s pure excitement, it was malicious intent that brewed in Leonis’s heart.
Dark-green light illuminated the half-circle-shaped space. At the center of the chamber, something undulated gently. The glow was coming from a mana furnace, a large, crystal-like apparatus capable of powering a massive Assault Garden.
The device gathered the mana flowing through underground ley lines and converted it into an enormous amount of energy—a crystallization of human wisdom. And sitting atop that container holding the mana furnace in place was something humanoid…
A beautiful girl. Her pale frame was completely exposed, and her long hair pulsed with light in time to the mana furnace’s flickering. Half her body was fused into the furnace, and countless cables were connected to her spinal cord, sharing the mana the immense machine supplied to the city.
The young woman’s eyes lacked the light of intelligence. Her hollow gaze simply stared into the dark.
“Yes, I see things are coming along nicely. Splendid.” An ill-fitting, cheerful voice resounded through the chamber.
A man appeared, the sound of his footsteps clicking against the floor. He was young and dressed in white, priestly attire. His hair was alabaster, and his blue eyes had a gentle glint to them. His mere presence made the place feel like some grand cathedral.
The young man looked up at the woman fused into the mana furnace and smiled.
“For now, it seems it’s a success. Well, we did offer up several hundred Demon Swords as a sacrifice. If it didn’t work, I’d be quite livid with those old cultists.” He placed a hand on the shining mana furnace, the smirk still on his lips. “Soon, it will be time for you to awaken—our prophesized goddess.”
Void habitats were at all times filled with a dense miasma. They were dark, polluted areas unsuitable for humans. It was from one such gloomy, repugnant place that it appeared. Sailing along the ocean’s surface was a titanic man-made structure—one of the final fortifications built to safeguard humanity from the apostles of emptiness.
It was a ruined city said to have been destroyed in the Stampede six years ago.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login