Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 4 - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: The Master’s Choice

Her body wasn’t supposed to be able to move anymore. I had confirmed it for myself. She hadn’t been breathing and she’d had no pulse. The majority of her blood had already spilled out. Her heart had ruptured, pierced by her own sword. Anyone would have concluded that the knight Shiran was nothing more than a butchered corpse, never to stand again.

That was supposed to be the case, but here before me, Shiran was on her feet. Not only that, her body began changing as she let out an appalling scream. Her deep wounds started filling in with swelling purple meat, almost like paste smeared over her skin. The entrails hanging from her waist slurped back into her body. Dark blood shot out of her stump of a left elbow and ate her severed forearm like a snake. The trail of blood returned to her body like a rewinding tape, placing her arm back where it belonged.

Purple meat bubbled out and reconnected the two pieces. In that instant, the ring on her finger changed from blue to yellow. That was the signal. It was proof that the elf who’d protected humanity had turned into a monster. She was now a mindless ghoul threatening the living.

All the conditions for this were indeed in place. Ghoul outbreaks depended on the density of mana in the area. On a battlefield, where the souls of the dead scattered like petals to the wind, mana would be temporarily amplified. Fort Tilia was located in the Woodlands, a region already brimming with mana. And on this day, over a thousand humans and monsters had lost their lives here. It was unmistakably a battlefield. There was no better set of conditions for a ghoul outbreak.

Even I could feel the mana floating around the fortress as her body sucked it in with terrifying force, despite the fact that I’d only learned to manipulate mana quite recently.

“Y-You bitch! How dare you...”

Juumonji’s cheek convulsed with pain as he picked up his broadsword and rose to his feet. At the same time, the swelling meat pushed out the sword in Shiran’s chest and it fell to the floor. She picked up the blade, then fiercely lunged in at Juumonji, who was still staggering in pain.

“Aaaaaargh!”

She let out a roar and came down with a diagonal slash. Juumonji caught the blow with his broadsword.

“Whoa?!”

His feet sank into the floor as he groaned in shock.

“Gaaaargh!”

Shiran followed through, turned her blade around, and then came back with a reversed slash against his blade. Juumonji’s body shook all over as he turned to block, his sword creaking from the blow.

A surging wave of offense began. Shiran didn’t show a hint of the delicate movements she had in life. Her swordsmanship was now terrifyingly violent, as if she were striking with a blunt weapon. However, her strikes also hadn’t been this forceful in life.

Perhaps that only stood to reason. She was already a monster. She existed on a separate stage from humanity now. Furthermore, although her sword skills no longer had the delicacy born of her diligent studies, the skills themselves remained drilled into her body. Her strikes were so sharp and precise that one wouldn’t think a mindless corpse was behind them.

Steel creaked. Wind cried. The living groaned. The dead screamed.

Juumonji wasn’t quietly surrendering, of course. His counterstrikes grazed Shiran’s cheek, cut apart her shoulder, and tore into her thigh.

“Aaaaaargh!”

However, Shiran didn’t care about such wounds now. She was, beyond any doubt, no more than a ghoul.

“There’s really no joining that battle, is there?”

I stood there in a daze as Gerbera, who had been fighting Juumonji moments ago, struck up a conversation with me. Lily also came over after properly reforming her smashed head.

“Sorry. My mistake exposed you to danger, My Lord.”

“It’s fine. Forget about it. More importantly, would you be able to support Shiran somehow?”

“That might be difficult. I do not want this opportunity to slip us by, but...” Gerbera knit her graceful brows as she watched the fierce crossing of swords between Juumonji and Shiran. “No matter how you look at it, she can no longer distinguish between friend and foe. It’s clear that fighting shoulder to shoulder with her would result in naught but my shoulder being bitten off.”

I couldn’t really refute her reasoning.

“Gaaaaaargh!”

Shiran lacked any sense of reason. The reach of her blade would undoubtedly reduce anyone to minced meat, which she’d then devour greedily. There was no way of fighting alongside her.

“Takahiro!”

“Commander...”

Seeing that this was a good opportunity, the commander came running over with her knights. Spotting Gerbera, she looked to be on guard, but an instant later she changed gears, deciding now wasn’t the time to be worrying about that.

“Let us retreat while we have the chance.”

“But Shiran...”

“That isn’t Shiran. Don’t misunderstand. It’s nothing more than an undead monster now.”

The commander’s opinion was to the point, demonstrating her long years of experience fighting in the Woodlands. She had probably experienced this situation more than she wanted to already.

She’s right. That isn’t Shiran... It was just a monster moving her corpse. Shiran was dead. That was the end of it. Even if she was standing and moving...it was just an undead monster. That much was common sense in this world.

“What shall we do, My Lord?” Gerbera asked. “Just as she says, we can escape now. Or do you wish to avenge her? If so, we could wait until that ghoul has reached its limits and exhausts Juumonji. This is a hard fight, even for him. He’ll definitely become fatigued after continuous battling. That should be more than enough for me to defeat him.”

Juumonji’s wounds were in fact multiplying. He’d managed to fend off the initial bite with his arm, but he was likely regretting that mistake now. What’s more, being attacked by the corpse of someone who was supposed to be dead, someone he’d killed with his very own hands, summoned a primordial fear within him. Juumonji’s strikes were clearly weaker than before. Not only that, the undead monster ignored anything other than a lethal blow, continuously driving in with strikes of its own. Not even a cheater could get away from such an opponent unscathed.

Shiran was of course getting hit all over, but she wasn’t even bleeding. Swelling purple meat instantly covered any damage. The wounds she’d suffered in life remained scarred, but all these new ones eventually smoothed out into regular skin.

This must have been a special characteristic of the undead monster she was now. Such regeneration was naturally accomplished through the use of mana. She was sure to keep fighting until she ran out of fuel. Just as Gerbera had said, we had more than enough time to run away, and if we wanted to counterattack, Juumonji would be weakened by the time he won.

“What shall we do?” Gerbera asked.

Fight and take revenge, or...

I closed my eyes for a single instant. I could see her smile on the back of my eyelids. I could hear the screams of the dead assaulting my ears.

I set my heart on what I wanted to do and opened my eyes. Now that I had made my decision, I naturally knew the right thing to do. All that was left was to accomplish it...no matter what happened as a result.

“Commander. Would you mind answering a question?”

“Huh? A question?”

The commander looked perplexed, but I asked anyway.

“Shiran looks different from a normal ghoul to me. Do you have any idea why that might be?”

“Different...how?”

“I once encountered knights who’d turned into ghouls. They couldn’t restore their wounded bodies like that, let alone wield a sword.”

“Wait. What does this have to do with...?”

“Please just answer me. It’s important.” I made it quite clear I wouldn’t take no for an answer.

The commander hesitated but answered me regardless of her confusion. “It’s known that on rare occasions, ghouls will exhibit such transformations.”

“Rare, is it? Do most cases involve famous knights, warriors, and mages? For example...like the Undead King Carl?”

This name came from a legend Kei had once told me about. It was a story of a nation that excelled in magic and whose king turned into a lich—an undead monster—upon his lover’s death. It was said that he maintained his intelligence through sheer willpower.

“That’s a fairy tale.”

“Yes, I know. It’s thought of as a fairy tale.”

Undead monsters couldn’t maintain their will from when they were alive. Although they were originally humans, they were monsters, after all. Monsters didn’t possess wills. That was common sense here. That was why the legend of the Undead King Carl was nothing more than a fairy tale.

I knew differently, however. Monsters who possessed wills did in fact exist. As such, there was a possibility that undead monsters could maintain their wills. If the legend of the Undead King Carl truly described events from the past...

“So, how about it? Do the people who become these rare specimens of ghouls show any kind of trend?”

“There are very few examples to begin with...so you can’t really call it a trend...” the commander started, looking up at the ceiling as if searching her memories. “It’s certainly true that a few exceptions occurred when exceptional knights were lost. Ghoul outbreaks among a company of knights is considered a scandal, though, so they weren’t left in official records.”

“I see. Thank you for letting me know,” I said with a nod. I looked over to the ongoing battle between Shiran and Juumonji.

“Master, are you planning to...?” Lily said, guessing what I was getting at. “Is that even possible?”

“Yeah.”

This was my power. I could tell by instinct whether something was possible. I turned back to the commander, who had no idea what was going on, and cut straight to the chase.

“It’s possible to get Shiran back.”

“Wha—?!”

“Really?!”

The commander was speechless, while Kei, who had been hanging her head this entire time, reacted vividly.

“Is that true, Takahiro?! Can you really revive my sister?!”

“Unfortunately, I can’t revive her.” I caught Kei as she jumped up at me and shook my head. “However, I might be able to return her heart and mind to the undead monster she has become.”

“Wh-What do you mean?” Kei asked, her eyes darting about in confusion.

“Oh yeah, I haven’t told you how my ability works yet, have I? My power doesn’t merely subdue monsters to do my bidding. By connecting my heart to theirs, I can give these girls a will.”

“Does that mean...?”

Kei’s eyes were sparkling with hope and understanding. I gave her a nod. Shiran was a monster now, meaning she was a valid target for my ability. I could connect to her heart.

“It does have its limits, though,” I added.

My power couldn’t create something from nothing. I couldn’t grant a monster a heart if it didn’t have the groundings for one to sprout from, so it was important that this undead monster possess even a fragment of Shiran’s original will. There was no real reason for me to worry about this, though. I was convinced.

“Kei, both you and I are still alive because Shiran awakened as an undead monster. That was no coincidence.”

Shiran turned into a monster the moment Kei and I were in grave danger. Such a convenient coincidence didn’t exist in this irrational world.

“Shiran’s desire to protect others stirred up her corpse. Even if she lost her sense of reason, she hasn’t lost her heart. I should be able to recover it.”

According to the legend of the Undead King Carl, he was an outstanding mage with tenacious willpower. If these were the conditions for becoming an undead with a will, then Shiran, an outstanding spiritualist who’d continuously fought while harboring such a strong desire to protect others, met those conditions perfectly. The one fighting here right now wasn’t some nameless undead monster. It was Shiran. The girl who had gallantly stood in battle, resolved for death, was now continuing her fight beyond life.

This was all because she wanted to protect someone. That single desire drove her. There was another reason I knew her heart was still intact, though. When Asarina had been burned and I’d lost my emergency means of evasion, for a single instant, when I could clearly see my impending doom, I definitely heard her.

“I need to protect them, no matter what.”

There was no mistaking it. That was Shiran’s voice. Perhaps her emotions had synchronized with mine when I faced the same threat she had challenged. For just that moment, I was connected to her through the mental path. Perhaps because an undead monster was a bit special, the mental path was cut off now. If I could properly reconnect it, though, I was sure my voice would reach her.

“But to do that, I’ll need to touch her.”

According to my experiences up until now, the mental path, the true nature of my ability, was stronger the closer I was to my target. If I could directly touch her skin, then I’d be able to reach her heart. However, that also meant interfering in Shiran and Juumonji’s fight.

“In other words, it’s our turn, right?” Lily said, spinning her spear and exchanging glances with Gerbera. “I’ll pin down Shiran so that our master can touch her.”

“In the meantime, I am to face off against that man. Very well. I shall not fail as I did before.”

Gerbera’s lips curved upward as her legs skittered about. A warlike smile prefaced her rematch. I smiled myself, seeing such a reassuring reaction from her, then gently pushed Kei away from me.

“Um...Takahiro.” She resisted ever so slightly and grabbed the hem of my clothes with her tiny hands. “Please take care of my sister.”

I smiled and brushed her head.

“Leave it to me.”