Demon Sword Master of the Holy Sword Academy - Volume 5 - Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

THE TYRANNICAL DRAGON LORD

“…Hey, where’s Leo? He’s here somewhere, right?”

A girl with crimson air floated in the air. She was speaking to two stunned figures watching from the window. There was an almost violent beauty to the strange girl. Smooth, unblemished skin. Shapely limbs that looked like they had been sculpted by a goddess of beauty. Her eyes glinted like smoldering rubies.

Unconcerned with how she was being perceived, the young woman lorded over her audience like a tyrant reigning supreme over the heavens.

“I’ll ask you one more time. Where’s Leo?” The devilish girl’s voice was as cold as ice. Her crimson locks shook violently, the air around her crackling.

“Y-you…!” Riselia exclaimed, finally regaining enough composure to speak as she gawked out the second-floor window. “Who are you?”

“Oh. A mere human asks for my name?”

“…?!”

Riselia shivered beneath the burning gaze of the floating girl. The Vampire Queen suddenly felt like a rabbit being eyed by a dragon.

Wh-what’s with this girl…? She’s looking for Leo? Why…?

Riselia bravely met the crimson-haired girl’s stare despite her instinctual panic to hide the boy behind her back. That defiant attitude only served to sour the floating young woman’s mood, however.

“Foolish human.” The girl quietly thrust her right hand forward, producing a small, orange fireball. “Crimson Flare—,” she began chanting.

The sphere of flame quickly swelled.

“Wait, Veira!” the boy behind Riselia called out, stepping into view.

Leo?!

Riselia turned around and saw Leonis bitterly glaring up at the hovering girl he had called Veira. The crimson-haired girl’s eyebrows jumped in surprise.

“Child. Did you just speak my name?” she asked.

“Yes. I am…Leonis.”

“…Huh?” Veira eyed Leonis sharply at his admission. “What is this? Are you using a child in an attempt to fool me?”

“Would a child have this?” Leonis replied, producing a staff as tall as he was from the shadow at his feet.

Veira’s ruby eyes widened with disbelief. “…The Staff of Sealed Sins… It can’t be!”

“For now, come inside, and we can talk. I have…things I must ask you,” Leonis said before turning around and moving away from the window.

“Leo…,” Riselia protested with clear discomfort.

“Don’t worry, Miss Selia. She’s an old…yes, a very old friend.”

Veira contemplated the suggestion from her spot in the air for a while. Eventually, she shrugged. “…Hmm. Well, I suppose it’s best to hear the explanation for all of this.”

The crimson-haired girl landed on the windowsill and entered the room.

After entering his room with the strange young woman, Leonis locked the door behind him and immediately erected a barrier preventing sound from leaving the room. He then took one long, deep breath.

“…How are you still alive, you bloody fool?!” he bellowed, thrusting the tip of his staff at the young woman’s nose, even though she was a head taller than him.

Yes, Leonis knew who this person was. She was the very same red dragon discovered in the block of ice recently exhumed from the tundra. She was of the eight Dark Lords: Veira Greater Dragon, the Dragon Lord. Or rather, this was her human form.

Veira regarded Leonis with an elegant, confident smirk worthy of an absolute sovereign. “That’s a foolish question. I am the ruler of the dragons, the most powerful form of life this world has ever known. You hardly hold the monopoly on immortality, Leo.”

“…!”

Those words weren’t a bluff. Having fought Veira countless times, Leonis was convinced she spoke the truth.

…Right. Even if someone were to slay her successfully, Veira isn’t the kind to stay dead.

“I can understand you still being alive. But weren’t you corrupted by the power of emptiness?” Leonis asked bitterly.

Upon being released from her seal within the ice block, Veira’s body was corrupted by the Void miasma, which gradually transformed her into a Void Lord. After she had rampaged in the skies of the Seventh Assault Garden, she had seemingly perished in a duel with Leonis.

Veira shook her head with evident confusion.

“…Are you saying you can’t remember fighting me?” Leonis questioned.

“No. Or, well, I suppose there are some vague memories…,” Veira admitted, placing a finger on her lips pensively, as if trying to remember something. “Right before I awakened from my seal, I thought I heard someone’s voice…and then I completely lost consciousness. The next thing I knew, I was below the sea. That was a surprise. My body was mostly destroyed. Had I stayed that way much longer, I’d have truly met my end. Thus, I discarded my body and assumed this form. This is my worst awakening to date.”

“So you’re saying you cut yourself off from your body when the emptiness consumed it?”

“I don’t know what this ‘emptiness’ you keep mentioning is, but I suppose that would be the gist of it, yes. Unfortunately, that means I left the majority of my power back there.”

You really are like a lizard, Leonis thought, but he knew better than to say as much aloud.

Calling Veira a lizard was taboo, and would only serve to incur her wrath.

“But all that aside…” Veira poked Leonis’s forehead with an impish smile. “I could tell you were the one who killed me immediately, Leo. You’re the only one who could slay me like that, after all.”

“Well, we have fought many times before… W-wait, what are you doing?!”

Veira inched closer to Leonis’s head and started sniffing his hair.

“This is indeed your scent. It really is you, Leo.”

Veira’s cleavage was thrust before Leonis’s eyes. He hurriedly looked away, his cheeks flushed.

“Don’t tell me you followed my smell back here?” Leonis asked.

Unlike the days when he had an undead body, Leonis now bathed daily because of his clean freak of a minion. As keen as a dragon’s nose might have been, Veira shouldn’t have been able to track him with it.

I’m in a human body. Veira shouldn’t be familiar with anything about me in this form.

“I traced your magical wavelength,” Veira responded matter-of-factly, shaking her head. “A dragon can trace the trail of one’s mana.”

“Oh, right…,” Leonis said, gazing into the glint of Veira’s golden eyes. He kept his magical energy concealed most of the time, but evidently, that wasn’t enough to fool Veira.

“Your scent has changed, however. It smells rather refreshing. Like flowers…,” Veira remarked and inched her face closer to sniff at Leonis’s hair again.

The flower aroma was because he’d been using Riselia’s shampoo.

“Speaking of differences, I think it’s about time you started answering my questions, too,” Veira stated, folding her arms and looking down at Leonis. “Why, exactly, do you look like a child?”

“…Let us just say some unexpected developments led to me reincarnating incorrectly,” Leonis answered uncomfortably.

“Wait, you failed at sorcery?” Veira pressed, gazing fixedly at the other Dark Lord’s face. “I suppose strange things do happen.”

“Reincarnation is twelfth-order sorcery with many uncertain factors,” Leonis countered, frowning.

Veira considered something for a moment. “Hmm. You truly look nothing like you used to. You really were cute during your hero days, right?”

“Mind your own business.”

“And you even behave like a child.”

Veira sat on Leonis’s mattress, snickering. Her crimson hair spilled over the white sheets. She kicked her beautiful, slender legs forward and dangled them off the side.

“Don’t sit on my bed,” Leonis chided her, but she ignored him.

“So this is the Undead King’s new castle, is it?” Veira said, looking around the room curiously.

“For the time being,” Leonis replied tersely.

“A tad cramped, don’t you think? Was Death Hold in Necrozoa ruined?”

“Well, I heard Azure Hold has sunk to the bottom of the ocean,” Leonis shot back coldly.

Veira shrugged. “Yes, it went down along with the Divine Dragon the Luminous Powers sent to challenge me.” She then turned her eyes to a picture frame sitting on a bedside table. It was a commemorative photograph the eighteenth platoon had taken upon winning their first training match. Veira’s eyes settled on Riselia in the image. “That girl is an undead minion, yes? The wavelength of her mana wasn’t the same as a normal human’s.”

“Yes, she’s my vampire subordinate.”

“A vampire, hmm? That’s quite the prize.”

“Indeed.”

Riselia wasn’t just any vampire, but the highest grade of undead, a Vampire Queen. Leonis didn’t volunteer that information, though.

“She’s a fool to have tried to challenge a Dark Lord like me, but the fact she was willing to defend you with her life was admirable. She’s a fine servant,” Veira praised.

“That she is.”

Leonis was caught up in the pleasure of hearing his favored minion complimented when it happened. Veira lifted her dangling legs and snaked them around his neck, pulling him back toward the bed in a choke hold.

“…Ngh… What…are you…?!” Leonis managed, even as her legs strangled him. He tried to shake Veira off, but he had only a ten-year-old’s strength. The sensation of her thighs against the back of his head grew tighter.

“You dared to kill me, Leo.”

“Y-you’re still…alive…aren’t you…?!” Leonis croaked.

“I was mostly dead. And you tried to turn me into your minion, didn’t you?”

Squeeze.

“What were you trying to gain by turning me into a mindless skeleton dragon, hmm?”

Squeeze. Squeeze.

“N-no…it was…the Void…Voids…,” Leonis gasped out, struggling for air all the while.

“…Voids? You’ve mentioned that before.”

The pressure of Veira’s thighs slackened a bit.

“While you… I mean, while we were sealed, this world changed drastically,” Leonis explained after a deep breath.

“…So it seems,” Veira muttered, looking out the windows at Excalibur Academy’s facilities. “Tell me, Leo… What happened?” A slight shade of anxiety crossed the Dragon Lord’s eyes.

What are they talking about? Riselia thought, listening carefully at Leonis’s door. They had to be whispering, because she couldn’t hear even a peep. He called her an old friend, but…

Leonis looked like a boy, but his true identity was that of an ancient, powerful sorcerer. Did that mean this girl was also from that bygone era?

I really don’t know anything about Leo, do I…?

The realization caused Riselia to sigh. Just who was that boy she’d found in the ruins? And that fiercely beautiful, red-haired girl… Were she and Leonis well acquainted? If she was an old friend, she was no doubt even closer to him than Riselia was.

As Riselia agonized over such thoughts in front of the door, she twined an argent lock of her hair around a fingertip.

It kind of feels like I’m jealous of her…

The back of Riselia’s hand brushed against her cheek, which felt oddly feverish. She then breathed out heavily, as though trying to vent that heat.

And there was something I wanted to ask Leo, too. Riselia brought her hand to her chest, clenching it into a fist over her heart. Just what was that…?

When the gigantic dragon had run amok, Riselia had been attacked by that mysterious priest called Nefakess in the Sixth Assault Garden’s laboratory. She had met the man once before in the ruins of the Third Assault Garden.

With the help of Sakuya and that odd elf girl, Arle, Riselia had been able to fight him off. Yet before leaving, Nefakess had placed some kind of triangular black stone fragment inside Riselia’s heart. Three and a half days had passed, but there had been no change.

It could have merely been a trick by Nefakess, yet Riselia remained worried. Who was that odd priest anyhow? Their first encounter had been a coincidence; that much, Riselia was sure of. But when they had clashed the other day, it was clearly because he’d sought her out.

Leo didn’t seem to know him, but…

“—Selia, Lady Selia, we have a crater in the backyard…!”

Footsteps sounded as someone hurried up the stairs. The door swung open, revealing a young woman in a maid’s uniform brandishing a musket.

“Regina…” Riselia turned to face her.

“Are you okay, Lady Selia…?!” Regina heaved a sigh of relief when she saw her. She walked briskly into the room, with her Holy Sword—set in its rifle form, the Drag Striker—in hand. Then she leaned out the window, peering at the massive crater that had been cleaved into their backyard. “Is it a Void attack…?”

“Ah… No,” Riselia managed to reply, shaking her head.

“Really?” Regina repeated, a bit shocked.

“Ah, er, well, it’s…” Riselia’s eyes darted around as she floundered for an explanation. “Oh, yes, it was, that! That…bug showed up!”

“That bug?”

“You know, that bug! The kind they say that if you see one, there’s a hundred more nearby!”

“That bug… You don’t mean…that bug?” Regina asked, shivering with disgust.

“Yes. The bug that once menaced all of Hræsvelgr dorm. We had Miss Finé use her Eye of the Witch to find their hive and fought them for three days before finally claiming victory, remember? One of them showed up in the kitchen again.”

“…N-no!”

“Don’t worry. I had Leo blow it to smithereens,” Riselia stated, casting her gaze to the crater outside.

“I see.” Regina nodded gravely. “Those bugs always were really resilient…”

“Yes. If we don’t combat them like they’re Voids, that nightmare could repeat itself.”

Regina was seemingly convinced, and the Drag Striker faded into thin air. “Well, they’re kind of like Voids in the sense that their nests are really problematic…,” she remarked, trailing off. “Oh, speaking of—Miss Selia, did you see the message this morning?”

Riselia shook her head. She hadn’t yet checked her terminal today.

“The academy’s reconnaissance planes detected a large Void Hive,” Regina said. She took out her terminal and projected a small, three-dimensional map.

“…Wait, no way…” Riselia’s eyes widened in shock. “Isn’t this where Leo…?”

“…Right, it’s near the ruins we were investigating at the time.”

This new Void Hive had been discovered in a large forest growing near the entrance to the underground ruins where Leonis was found. A thick miasma now permeated the entire wood, earning it the moniker the Forest of Death.

“…Well, there were Voids in the ruins where Leo was,” Riselia recalled, staring gravely at the terminal’s screen. She could never forget that. It was the day she’d lost her life.

“The administration bureau wants to organize an extermination unit as early as tomorrow and send them on-site ASAP,” explained Regina.

“…That makes sense.”

Since the Seventh Assault Garden had the greatest number of Holy Swordsmen out of the bunch, it constantly fought on the front lines. Even so, Hive extermination missions were the most perilous missions. The mortality rate during those missions was markedly high compared with other duties.

“Did they ask the eighteenth platoon to participate?” Selia asked.

“Not yet,” Regina replied. “But it’s possible they will.”

“Yeah…”

There were three reasons that made it likely. First, Riselia and Regina once investigated the ruins near the Forest of Death, and they were familiar with the area’s topography. Second, the information Elfiné gathered at the time as their operator would be useful for the current situation. And last, they’d recently accomplished the impressive task of returning safely from an excursion to the Third Assault Garden.

“Understood. Let’s make sure we’re ready, just in case they call on us.”

“Yes, Lady Selia.”

Leonis explained the situation of the world to Veira, using his terminal to provide visual references. He told her of the Voids, the unknown enemies that appeared from dimensional rifts. He informed her of the Holy Swords: a supernatural power certain people wielded that was different from sorcery. And he described the Integrated Empire that formed following the Voids’ invasions.

Leonis even made sure Veira was aware of how the Archsage Arakael Degradios and the Holy Woman Tearis Resurrectia had been revived and of the mysterious forces that seemed to be behind their return. Most importantly, he revealed the Voids had corrupted the Goddess Roselia’s reincarnated body.

“…Voids, you say. Those things have been running rampant through this world?” Veira muttered softly after quietly listening to Leonis’s story.

It was a lot to take in at once, so Leonis worried Veira might have difficulty grasping it all. However, she was wise and comprehended swiftly.

“So the ones that altered me with that power of emptiness were the same who attempted resurrecting the Holy Woman?” Veira asked with cold wrath plain in her voice.

Leonis nodded. “So it would seem.”

Nefakess Reizaad, the white-haired bishop he’d seen in the ruined city, had also appeared when Veira had awakened. He’d sent Shade Fiend assassins to scout. That couldn’t have been a coincidence. The bishop must have been involved with Tearis’s and Veira’s revivals.

“Nefakess Reizaad. He was an officer in the Dark Lords’ Armies,” Veira remarked.

“Yes. A confidant of Azra-Ael.”

Azra-Ael, the Devil of the Underworld, was the most senior and oldest of the Dark Lords in service to the goddess, but his history was mostly unknown. Supposedly, the Goddess of Rebellion had summoned him from some other world, but what precisely that meant was unclear.

“Azra-Ael… Has he returned as well?” wondered Veira.

“I don’t know,” Leonis replied, shaking his head.

Regardless, it was obvious his confidant Nefakess was active and manipulating things behind the scenes. Perhaps he was working under the Devil of the Underworld’s orders, seeking to revive his master.

But if Azra-Ael were to be restored, what then?

Would he seek out the goddess’s reincarnation and rebuild the Dark Lords’ Armies like Leonis? Or was his goal something else?

Veira’s loyalty to Roselia has never been in question, mused Leonis. If they shared the same objective, perhaps they could join forces. However…

Leonis’s grip on the Staff of Sealed Sins tightened. His Demon Sword was sealed inside that rod. It was a weapon meant to slay the Goddess of Rebellion should the power of the Voids corrupt her. Such was the mission placed upon the blade Leonis had been given.

It wasn’t apparent what the mastermind behind all the recent incidents sought. Yet it was clear they’d polluted the goddess’s reincarnated body with the Voids. That alone was enough of a reason for Leonis to oppose them. What’s more, Nefakess had also made attempts on the lives of Riselia and Shary, his minions.

And no matter what his goals might be, that justifies a thousand deaths, Leonis thought, dark light shining in his eyes.

“A mere officer of the Dark Lords’ Armies trying to use me for their petty ends? There’s no end to his foolishness,” Veira spat.

“Nefakess could be scheming to awaken the other Dark Lords, too,” Leonis noted.

“But didn’t they all perish a thousand years ago?” Veira questioned.

“Yes, but the other Dark Lords weren’t the types to stay dead, either. Truthfully, I was convinced you perished in the battle against the Swordmaster of the Six Heroes.”

“That fight certainly left me in a precarious state, but I managed to escape. I hibernated in the tundra until some fools decided to dig me out…” Veira rose from Leonis’s bed, her red locks flowing down to her waist. “And thanks to that, I’ve risen in an incomplete state. Even worse, those Voids corrupting me forced me to give up the majority of my powers. Recovery will take a while.”

“That rampage was just because you were grouchy after waking up?” Leonis cracked an ironic smile.

Veira glared at him and then approached the window, stretching. Beyond it was a clear night sky. The Central Garden’s high-rises stood in the distance.

“I think I’ll go take a look around the human city,” Veira said. “It looks fun.”

“What…?” Leonis stammered in a panic. “W-wait!”

“What?” Veira directed a dubious gaze at him.

“This is my kingdom. Don’t go around like you own the place.”

Veira, the Dragon Lord. The Dark Lord who reigned over the dragons. That which comes with the storm. A living, breathing catastrophic maelstrom. Who could say what might happen if Leonis let someone like her run loose…

Do you have any idea about the lengths I went to just to keep my power hidden?!

Of course, Leonis hadn’t done a masterful job of concealing his true strength at all, but he wasn’t aware of that.

“Your kingdom? Hmm…I really can’t strut about as I please then, can I?” Veira turned around and regarded Leonis with a foreboding smile. “Why don’t you show me around the place, then?”

“What? Why should I have to—?”

“If you don’t want to, that’s fine. I can go myself.”

Biting his lip, Leonis bitterly conceded. “…W-wait! Fine. I’ll escort you.”

“Seeing the world a thousand years later should definitely help stave off my boredom,” Veira commented with a pleased smile.

Half of the Seventh Assault Garden’s anti-Void laboratory had caved in when the dragon-class Void Lord awakened from within the ice block, and the place was in the middle of hasty repairs. Standing atop the rubble was a woman with sleek black hair. She was clad in a white coat.

“You don’t have to act so distantly, Finé.”

“…What are you scheming at, Clauvia?”

A girl wearing a school uniform and sporting equally sleek black hair down to her waist stood beside the woman.

“Would you believe me if I told you I’m working for humanity’s salvation?” Clauvia Phillet, Elfiné’s older sister, questioned with a bothered smile.

Elfiné had no intention of believing that kind of nonsense, of course. “…What happened to that Void Lord?” she asked with a sigh.

“We’ve scoured the seafloor, but came up with nothing.” Clauvia shrugged and then shook her head.

Clauvia’s research team had discovered a gigantic ice block in the northern tundra and brought it back to their facility. The Void Lord hibernating within it had suddenly awakened, broken free, and rampaged through the Sixth and Seventh Assault Gardens. It then had directed its attention to the ocean, where it mysteriously disappeared from the sensors and had not been detected since.

“You called it a Dark Lord…,” Elfiné said, glaring sharply at her sister.

A Dark Lord, bringers of catastrophe spoken of in fairy tales. Was that dragon somehow different from previously encountered Void Lords?

“Yes. In ages past, they ruled over the world. Duke Crystalia posited that the Dark Lords could be our trump card in stopping the Voids’ invasion,” Clauvia replied.

Elfiné cocked an eyebrow suspiciously. “Duke Crystalia…?”

Riselia’s father…? But why?

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more, Finé,” Clauvia stated. “Not unless you come with me to the capital.”

“What do you need my help for?” the younger sibling inquired.

“I already told you. Humanity’s salvation.”

“…” Elfiné knew her sister wasn’t to be trusted. Clauvia Phillet was a witch.

“You’re breaking my heart, Finé. Have you no faith in your big sister?”

“You have a lot of nerve asking me that…”

“Fine, I understand,” Clauvia said with a bitter smile. “Then I guess I’ll need to regain my baby sister’s confidence. Look, I’ll give you one thing you really want.” Clauvia reached into her coat’s pocket and pulled out a small memory device. She casually tossed it over to Elfiné, who fumbled to catch it.

“What’s this?” Elfiné demanded.

“Data on the Phillet Company. You’ve infiltrated their system a few times, haven’t you?”

“…!”

It was true. Elfiné had used her Eye of the Witch to repeatedly access the Astral Garden.

“Oh, and don’t worry, I’m the only one who’s noticed. Well, for now, anyway,” Clauvia remarked, waving a hand dismissively.

“What is this data?” Elfiné asked.

“The D Project.” Clauvia chanted the words, like the verse of a song.

Elfiné was taken aback. The D Project was a name she’d encountered several times while sneaking into the Phillet Company’s servers. However, the information was too heavily encrypted and guarded for her to decipher it alone.

“Its formal name is the Demon Sword Project. An endeavor to create a power that would stand equal to the Holy Swords,” Clauvia explained.

“Demon Swords…”

The title invoked memories of events that had taken place several weeks ago. When the royal family’s personal craft, the Hyperion, was attacked by demi-human terrorists. The insurgents who took the Academy’s students hostage used abilities similar to Holy Swords—and they called those powers Demon Swords.

“The D Project is researching a method of evolving Holy Swords. But unfortunately, many of the Holy Swordsmen involved with its experiments experienced mental abnormalities and became unstable and violent. Quite a few of them died.”

“Evolving Holy Swords?!” Elfiné exclaimed, aghast. “Holy Swords are a power granted to humankind by the planet. That kind of work is—”

“Yes, it’s top secret,” Clauvia interjected. “And it hasn’t been especially fruitful, so the Phillet Company washed its hands of it pretty quickly. But…” She brought her lips to Elfiné’s ears. “Recently, someone new took over the division working on this and has been continuing the experiments somewhere else.”

“…Somewhere else?”

“Yes. The perfect place for such research. Where there are plenty of young men and women who have only just awakened to their Holy Swords…”

“…No!”

“…Make her pay…! She’ll pay… That woman, she’ll rue the day…!”

A young man sat on a bench in the Central Garden, muttering to himself manically. He had fair features and golden hair, but his face was contorted in an angry expression. His Excalibur Academy uniform was wrinkled and shabby.

Muselle Rhodes, elder son of the dignified House Rhodes…and the previous wielder of a Holy Sword bearing the powerful ability of domination.

While he had talent and the support that came with being the child of a count, he rarely went on Void exterminations. Instead, he was waited upon by other students, daughters of petty nobility. That lifestyle had recently come to an end, however, when he’d lost the power of his Holy Sword.

“…Dammit… Dammit! It’s all that woman’s fault…and that brat’s!” Muselle howled, unconcerned that others might be watching.

Muselle had believed his duel with the talentless Riselia Crystalia was an assured victory. Yet he’d lost, and his Holy Sword was shattered before a large audience. Ever since, he’d failed to manifest his Holy Sword again. And one who couldn’t produce their Holy Sword did not count as a Holy Swordsman.

The girls that had been under his spell were freed, and all had left his side.

“You made a fool out of me…Riselia… You and that braaaaat!”

Muselle’s fury knew no bounds. He’d strip Riselia naked and shame her before that stupid boy’s eyes. She could scream and weep and beg, but he would never show her mercy. He’d subject her to humiliation words could never describe, and only then would he place her under his Holy Sword’s control, using her as a slave until she died!

As Muselle’s heart seethed with anger and hatred…

“Answer me. Do you seek the power to make that wish a reality?”

…There was a voice that sounded in his mind—the merciful, affectionate tones of a goddess.