Ch.957What Are These Things Now?

KWAAAAAANG!

The impact of my landing sent flames bursting in all directions. The bedrock shattered in concentric circles, melting as it was engulfed in fire.

“What is this, a falling star?”

“Reinforcements…!”

“Haschal…?!”

Voices rang out, seemingly welcoming me as I fell like a comet.

In the haze mixed with dust, I straightened my bent knees and swept the surroundings with sharp eyes.

In the middle of an open space transformed into ruins with everything blown apart, four knights in dragon-scale armor surrounded me in defensive positions.

What are these things?

They seemed familiar somehow… but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember where I’d seen them before.

“It’s a human? Why would a human appear like that? Doesn’t it burn?”

A seemingly impulsive young man muttered while fidgeting with the lance on his shoulder.

[Hmm, that one could make a living just selling his face.]

He had flowing golden hair and silver-blue eyes, and as Hersella said, his appearance was more handsome than any man I’d ever seen.

‘Indeed. He really looks like a male prostitute.’

With looks like that, he could buy a country and have change left over if he worked as a male courtesan. Not my type, though.

“Black hair and blue eyes. And is that Durandal…? I see. This must be the one our lord mentioned…”

Another knight. The blue-eyed man holding an ordinary spear instead of a lance aimed his spear tip at me while glaring.

A man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties.

His reddish-brown hair was cut short like a soldier obsessed with military discipline, and his angular, expressionless face looked like it wouldn’t bleed a drop even if stabbed.

A face like a sergeant waiting for a promotion review, you might say.

“Hmm… did he add Karma to mana? Impressive, that shouldn’t be possible.”

The last person. Unlike the other two knights who were relatively young, an elderly knight with white hair and a full beard brightened his gray eyes while stroking his chin whiskers.

He was gripping a greatsword with a blade that undulated like waves, and it was no ordinary weapon—the entire blade was engulfed in black flames.

A flaming sword, I’m rather envious of that. Durandal throws a fit and sheds all its flames the moment it’s wrapped in runic fire.

Well, I can just spew flames through runes anyway, and Durandal’s space-cutting ability is incomparably more powerful than any flaming blade…

…But a flame sword is cool, isn’t it?

Honestly, any man would have to admit this. A sword that burns brightly is a thousand times cooler than a sharp blade that cuts through anything, even if it’s a bit duller.

Why else would I have researched ways to create a flaming sword by any means necessary even after mastering Sky Slash?

I even achieved actual results. Though I’ve never used it because the efficiency was quite poor.

Anyway… while I’m very envious of that sword, now is not the time to be distracted by it.

“Hey, Demian. What happened to you?”

I turned my head and smirked at the fourth knight, Demian, who was standing behind me.

“How about it? Aren’t you grateful to me now? Don’t you feel like the training was worth it?”

Looking at his condition, he would have been dead already without it.

“You… the first thing you say when you arrive is…”

Demian let out a hollow laugh as he staggered.

Demian’s physical condition was visibly terrible.

His left arm, seemingly in the process of healing from a break, dangled while wrapped in pure white holy light. Large penetration wounds marked his abdomen and thigh.

His cheek was burned black, exposing his gums, and his armor was torn to shreds and half-destroyed.

My wounds weren’t exactly minor either, but compared to Demian’s, they hardly qualified as injuries.

Well, these guys each looked comparable to Jeirpalos. It was natural to end up in this state after facing three such opponents alone.

“Anyway, cast Healing Miracle on me. You should have enough strength left for that, right?”

I turned my head back toward the enemies and placed my hand on Durandal’s hilt.

Since it would take some time for the severely injured Demian to recover enough to fight, I would have to handle these guys alone until then.

“So… who are you?”

The blue-silver blade drawn from its scabbard pulsed intensely and trembled.

“…You’re asking who we are?”

The red-haired man who was aiming his spear at me, looking for an opening to strike, opened his mouth.

“Yeah. Two spear boys and an old man. I’m dying to know where you’ve been rolling around with those skills, wiping elf asses.”

“I’m not a male prostitute! I might have paid, but I’ve never been paid to do it!”

The blond beauty shouted as if denying his profession.

“That’s nothing to brag about, kid.”

Why are you proudly shouting about paying for it like it’s something to boast about?

Just looking at his appearance, he seemed like the type to get plenty of free service, but it seems the ladies in that profession were professional enough to make sure they got paid.

“Hmm. I heard he was a Stigmata bearer… but surprisingly foul-mouthed.”

“Think your face is any better? All wrinkled up. If you’re that old, you should be in a nursing home.”

“……”

I spread the power of Karma throughout my body and silenced the old man with sharp sarcasm.

Both the power of heroic Karma and murderous Karma had been considerably depleted from fighting ten fairy guardians… but that wasn’t a problem.

How often in life do you get to fight at full strength anyway? If I was tired, I’d just have to fight hard in that tired state.

“Be careful, Haschal…”

Demian warned me as he cast Healing Miracle on me.

“Worry about yourself. You look like you’re about to die if I look away.”

The nerve of him worrying about me. Someone weaker than me.

“No, really be careful. These guys are not only skilled, but they also used runic magic. Multiple types…”

“Runes…? That’s unexpected. They don’t seem to have any connection to the Dane.”

I thought I sensed strange mana from both the spear and lance, so they were weapons with runes engraved on them. I suddenly remembered the Deathknight I had hunted down before.

He had emerged from collapsed ruins, stronger than before, and had offered me the rune of collapse. He had also taught me the name of the fire rune.

“Well, I’ll just rip out their tongues. Let’s see if they can use runic magic then.”

The conditions for activating runic magic are either destroying the object engraved with the rune or chanting the rune’s name as an activation word.

It’s not impossible to forcibly activate it through other methods, but in such cases, the output itself is greatly reduced.

In other words, just shutting their mouths would be enough to not worry too much. Though that’s not such an easy task.

“…Hmph. Truly, you’re so rude and barbaric it’s difficult to even converse with you.”

The old man with the burning greatsword frowned and glared at me, apparently displeased by my expression about ripping out tongues.

“Rude? Barbaric? You’re no better.”

Is that something people who invaded someone else’s country as they pleased should say?

“To think that the heir who inherited his sword would be a half-barbarian who barely qualifies as human. Rotholandus must be grieving.”

Are you insulting the dead here…?

Insulting the dead and racial discrimination? How can someone wearing human skin say such terrible things? These were words only subhuman trash would utter.

“He didn’t seem to mind when I met him before.”

“You’ve encountered his thought entity? Then you must have received the blessing of the Fire Seal.”

The old man nodded with a smirk.

…This bastard knows too much about the Great’s Twelve Knights.

The fact that I met Rotholandus’s thought entity and received the Fire Seal blessing is something only a select few in the Holy State know about.

He even knows the exact name of the blessing.

“…Who are you people, really? Are you descendants of those men or something?”

“Well, who knows? If you kneel and ask politely, I might answer.”

He’s mocking me.

“Ah, forget it. I’ll just cut you to pieces and ask your corpse.”

I spread the Karma dwelling within me outward as I straightened my slightly bent knees with a jerk.

【Defying Fate】

The superhuman Karma that burst forth begins to dye the world gray.

In a world that was slowing down endlessly, I charged toward the red-haired man who was closest to me, raising Durandal high.

And then.

【Perception Acceleration】

The red-haired man, who had seemed almost frozen, turned his eyes to glare at me and moved his lips.

“■■■―.”

An inaudible murmur. In the soundless world of Defying Fate, I barely understood what he uttered by reading his lips.

[ᚱ]

Raidō. The rune of acceleration.

The spear he was gripping. The rune engraved on its shaft flashed with a clear light.

Immediately after, his movements, which had been as slow as a snail’s, accelerated rapidly. Almost matching my movements within Defying Fate.

An unexpected situation. Durandal’s blade, quickly adjusting its trajectory, collided with the tip of his spear, producing an inaudible explosion.

――――――!

With a flash of light that dyed my entire field of vision white, the red-haired man was thrown backward like a kicked dog.

Ha, look at this.

In the world of Defying Fate that was about to shatter as it approached its limit, I glared at him and gave a smile close to a sneer.

The rune of acceleration. Of all the many runes, it had to be that one. Isn’t that the rune the eighth apostle, Ragnar, used to counter Defying Fate?

And its output was even greater than Ragnar’s.

Ragnar had countered by combining the acceleration rune with several others, but this guy had responded to the time compression of Defying Fate—which had grown stronger since then—with just the acceleration rune alone.

He matched the speed but not the strength, so he was thrown backward… but from what I could see, he didn’t seem particularly injured.

He probably deliberately jumped back to deflect the impact. If he had tried to withstand it, his arm might have been shattered. A wise decision.

…This might be trickier than I thought.

I deactivated Defying Fate with a frown and clicked my tongue.

– KWAAAAAANG!

The world regained its color and sound. The red-haired man who had been thrown back accelerated rapidly and crashed through dozens of trees, shattering them.

Countless leaves swirled upward, caught in the pressure wave.