Ch.184Comrade (1)

*

Dragging my exhausted body forward was no easy task.

Each step felt impossibly heavier than before.

Only after the rage and thirst for revenge that had been boiling in my mind like a furnace subsided did I realize how much strength I had depleted in the recent battle.

Not just physically, but mentally as well.

Facing the Demon Lord in this state might be nothing short of suicide.

Yet I forced my increasingly sluggish feet to move forward, compelling my eyes to remain fixed on the Demon Lord’s castle.

There was no time to waste.

That’s why Silvia had already rushed into the Demon Lord’s castle ahead of me.

Tonight.

Right now, at this moment, an ominous certainty that we must end everything drove us all forward relentlessly.

“Damn it, splitting up with Silvia was a mistake from the start. We should have gone to the castle together…!”

We had only reached the vicinity of the Demon Lord’s castle this evening.

And then that very night, Balder appeared before Alice and me, bringing Maria with him.

There was no way this could be a coincidence.

The Demon Lord must have noticed our arrival.

With the Demon Lord aware of our presence, resting peacefully would be suicidal.

Assassins would surely come to slit our throats while we slept.

Indeed, as the night deepened, didn’t Balder appear?

Of course, we lacked sufficient information for an immediate confrontation.

There was no way to know how many forces the Demon Lord was hiding or how much he had recovered.

All I knew was how exhausted and depleted we were.

I was tired.

Silvia hadn’t had proper sleep for days.

Alice was dead.

We couldn’t afford to waste time.

This journey couldn’t be prolonged any further.

Today would be decisive.

Either humanity would perish in complete defeat, or we would kill the Demon Lord and reclaim our future.

One way or another, today would bring the conclusion.

“Ugh, move… damn legs!”

I cursed as I struggled with my creaking knees.

My thigh muscles spasmed, refusing to obey.

“Ash.”

Pia addressed me then.

She stood before me and said:

“Hold onto my shoulders.”

“Are you going to support me?”

“Yes.”

“…Thanks.”

“It’s nothing. Your current condition is partly due to anemia. So I should take responsibility.”

“I see…”

Pia had tried to support me a few times before, but I had always refused.

Even though others couldn’t see her, I couldn’t bring myself to lean on a girl who appeared to be only about ten years old.

But now it was different.

While Pia still maintained a female form, she had grown into a beautiful woman tall enough to meet my eye level.

Her small clothes barely covered her chest, revealing a firm, well-balanced physique with muscles that weren’t too prominent—a woman’s figure I could comfortably lean on.

She somewhat resembled Silvia.

“Hah… she used to look like Laila…”

I wondered if Laila would have grown to have a style similar to Silvia’s.

No, that didn’t seem likely no matter how I thought about it.

Perhaps Pia’s appearance followed what I considered the ideal female form.

“Hurry, we’re pressed for time.”

Pia straightened her back in front of me and nodded, gesturing toward her shoulders with her chin.

I nodded and obediently put one arm around her shoulders.

“No, not like that.”

Pia shook her head and placed my other arm on her shoulder as well.

We ended up in an awkward position, facing each other with both my arms on her shoulders.

“Huh? Like this?”

“Yes, now embrace my neck.”

“…Embrace?”

As I moved as Pia instructed, it looked as if I was holding her in my arms.

It felt strange somehow.

Like embracing a younger sister… no, an older sister.

Or perhaps more accurately, a daughter.

“This doesn’t look like support at all… Whoa?”

Pia slightly bent her waist, slipped her arms under my back and knees, and lifted me up.

I was raised in her arms while still embracing her neck.

Momentarily startled by the sudden floating sensation, I soon blushed with embarrassment.

This position… it was that one.

The one from romance novels I read when I was younger.

“Pia, wait!”

Pia ignored my protest and calmly said:

“Here we go.”

“W-wait, stop, this is too embarrassing!”

“Shh, Ash, close your mouth. You’ll bite your tongue.”

“No, this position…”

“I carried you like this when I teleported to your room before too.”

“I made a child carry me in a princess hold? If I’d known, I wouldn’t have allowed it!”

“Six years old? I’m as old as you are.”

“But still!”

“It’s fine. You know no one can see me.”

“I’m the one who’s embarrassed…”

“I’m going now. I warned you. Don’t blame me if you bite your tongue.”

“Wait—!”

*

Although it wasn’t the method I would have chosen, thanks to Pia’s consideration, I reached the vicinity of the Demon Lord’s castle in an instant.

Unlike before when it was almost like teleportation, this time she simply carried me while running at high speed.

Teleportation could only be attempted to places where Pia and I had spent enough time to form an attachment.

Just as Pia had warned, I nearly bit my tongue several times, and the extreme speed made it difficult to breathe properly, but I was able to conserve my strength.

As Pia set me down, I heard a boy’s voice.

“Oh, you startled me.”

I staggered as I stood up.

“Ugh, I’m thirsty. My mouth is completely dry.”

“…Ash? Why are you here already?”

The voice belonged to the merchant boy who had left with Silvia.

He was laying out corpses that he had retrieved from a large pit surrounding the castle.

The bodies didn’t appear to have decomposed yet, but they emitted a terribly foul odor.

The boy carefully set down another corpse he had been carrying on his shoulder and said:

“It hasn’t even been two hours yet. Why are you here so early? And where’s that female knight who was with you?”

I shook my head and replied:

“We were attacked.”

“What?”

“It’s a long story so I won’t go into details, but we were attacked by the Demon Lord’s subordinate. We managed to defeat them all, but… Alice…”

As my voice trailed off, the boy nodded in understanding.

“…I see.”

“What were you doing? Where’s Silvia?”

“She infiltrated the castle. It’s been a little less than an hour. I was… finding my comrades.”

The boy’s gaze swept over the bodies on the ground.

Looking more carefully, I could see that the corpses strewn across the ground were not human but demon folk.

Were they sacrificed by the Demon Lord? Or by Balder?

If they were Balder’s victims, perhaps Balder had been routinely killing those who approached the Demon Lord’s castle.

Maybe Balder had merely been patrolling the area and attacked us by chance, meaning the Demon Lord might not yet be aware of our presence?

Though the possibility was small, just entertaining this hopeful speculation made me feel a little better.

“…”

I deliberately composed my expression.

Even though they were demons, it was shockingly inhumane of me to be lost in thought in front of these victims of the Demon Lord.

Especially since these were people precious to this boy.

Indeed, his eyes were filled with unmistakable grief.

After a moment of silence, I carefully addressed the boy.

“I’m planning to follow Silvia inside. Would you mind showing me the way?”

The boy slowly shook his head.

“…Wait a moment. I have a favor to ask too.”

“A favor?”

“I heard earlier today that you know how to use magic, right?”

“…My skills are poor.”

“Still… would you take a look?”

The boy slowly crouched down and lifted the clothing of one of the corpses on the ground.

It was the body of a female demon who had died with an agonized expression. On her back was a large magic circle carved into her flesh, tearing through the skin.

The boy spoke with a trembling voice:

“Can you recognize this magic circle?”

“…”

Without me having to ask, Pia created a small flame to provide light.

I slowly examined the corpse.

“I’m sorry, but it’s written in a language I don’t know.”

“I know the language. It’s the demon tongue. But I don’t understand magic formulas, so I can’t tell what was done to these people.”

“…Alright, stand beside me and read the parts I point to.”

I slowly analyzed the magic circle’s structure, pointing at the inscriptions with my finger.

The boy calmly read aloud the text I indicated.

After a while, we both understood the meaning of the magic carved into these bodies.

And we realized why they all wore such agonized expressions.

“My God…”

“Damn it all…”

I was horrified, and the boy was furious.

This was a type of necromancy.

It was a crude, twisted, self-made formula that I had never seen in any book, but with my thorough theoretical studies, I could somehow interpret it.

It was a truly crude and malicious magic formula.

“How terrible.”

The effect of the magic was roughly as follows:

After carving this formula to inflict pain, it consumed the soul of the sufficiently tormented victim to summon the soul of a dead person and forcibly bind it to the corpse.

Then it stole the consciousness of the revived corpse and controlled it.

It was clearly a more labor-intensive method than ordinary necromancy, but the undead created this way were different from ordinary undead.

Unlike regular undead that retained only bestial instincts and could only bite and claw, the undead created through this method maintained the skills and talents they had in life because their souls remained in their bodies.

And because the soul remained, unlike other undead, they could rise again even if burned or beheaded.

“You use our demon folk merely to create undead, and not even directly but as material to create other undead! And you still call yourself the king of demons, Demon Lord!”

The boy shouted in rage, venting his fury.

But his angry outcry didn’t register in my ears at all.

Because I already knew.

Because I had already seen the result of this atrocious magic formula.

“Sister Maria…”

So inside that body of Sister Maria I had just fought, her soul was present?

And the body of Sister Maria that Alice had sacrificed her life to destroy could rise again?

I could only be appalled at the malice and cruelty embedded in every stroke of this magic formula, carved with a sharp blade tearing through skin.

Then Pia approached me and said:

“No, Ash… Sister Maria won’t rise again. That’s certain. Her body was completely reduced to ashes. I saw it. I’m sure of it.”

“Reduced to ashes?”

“I’m certain. I could tell by the smell. The resurrected Sister Maria is definitely dead.”

“…I see.”

I nodded.

“Because Sister Alice gave it her all…”

Perhaps her tremendous holy power and the power of her sacred sword that burns all evil things had given Sister Maria peace.

Sister Maria would not rise again.

But now, Sister Alice is gone.

“…Wait.”

As that thought struck me, I hurriedly looked around.

More than thirty corpses were strewn about.

I asked the boy with a trembling voice:

“Hey… was this magic circle carved into all of these bodies?”

“Yes…”

I looked at the magic formula carved into the corpse once more.

Desperately hoping my thoughts were wrong, I traced the magic formula.

But as always, the miserable reality extended its malicious hand toward me, leaving no room for doubt.

“…Damn it.”

The formula inscribed in this magic circle was clearly meant for one person per corpse.

That meant Maria wasn’t the only one who had been resurrected.

I grabbed the boy’s shoulders and shouted:

“We need to get inside the castle, right now!”

“What is it? What did you figure out?”

“The resurrected people. It’s not just one or two. There are at least as many as these corpses!”

“…So?”

“One of the resurrected was Maria. The mage from the hero’s party!”

“…”

The boy still didn’t seem to grasp the situation.

Frustrated, I shouted:

“Silvia is in danger!”

“That woman?”

“Don’t you get it yet? The resurrected people are the hero’s party! They were Silvia’s comrades!”

“…!”

I don’t know.

Neither Alice nor I felt much resistance when we had to destroy the resurrected Maria.

But what about Silvia?

With Silvia’s personality, she might cut down her former comrades without hesitation if they stood in her way.

But on the other hand, I knew well how much guilt she felt for being the only survivor among all her comrades.

She might know they need to be killed, but she might hesitate.

She might hesitate, yet ultimately cut them down.

But Silvia wasn’t Sister Alice.

No matter how many times she cut them down, without a sacred sword, Silvia’s former comrades would rise again and again to attack her.

How long could Silvia endure?

This hell where her guilt continuously revives to overwhelm her?

I practically lifted the boy to his feet.

“Please, hurry!”