Killing the Lord – 4

“Squeeeaaak!!!!!!”

As soon as the blessed dagger dug into his body, the Lord let out a bizarre scream. It wasn’t the Lord himself who made it, but a scream from the demon half-fused with his body.

I pulled out the dagger and stabbed it in again, repeating the motion of pulling it out and stabbing it in. For the first few stabs, his struggles grew with each thrust, but after that, his movements gradually became duller.

Aurora watched without batting an eye, her arms crossed below her chest, as the Lord was purified by divine power and died.

I plunged the dagger deep one last time, then pulled out my arm. The Lord lay weakly prostrate on the floor, repeating only strange squealing sounds.

“It’s done. Let’s go.”

“That thing, it’s still alive, isn’t it? Is it okay to leave it like that?”

Aurora’s finger pointed at the Lord, who was barely clinging to life and wriggling faintly on the floor.

“Yes, it’s alive.”

“You’re not going to kill it?”

“I could kill it if I wanted to, but I won’t. Lord Aurora-nim, from now on, we didn’t *not* kill that thing, we *couldn’t* kill it. You’ll have to play along with me.”

“Of course I will, don’t worry. But, you couldn’t kill it, not that you didn’t… There’s a reason for that, of course?”

“Of course there is.”

I pointed at the Lord with the tip of the dagger and spoke.

“What did I say I absolutely needed to kill a demon?”

“You said you needed a weapon imbued with divine power or a divine spell.”

“That’s correct. But we don’t have any weapons with divine power right now, do we? So, of course, we can’t kill it.”

“Huh? If it’s a divine weapon, you’re holding it in your hand… Ah, that’s right. I understand. Indeed, we had nothing with divine power. So we can’t kill that guy. What a shame.”

As expected of Aurora, who appeared as a very capable and intelligent NPC even in the game, she immediately understood my true intentions and played along.

“But let me ask one more thing. What’s the reason you’re so intent on hiding that weapon?”

“It’s not that I want to hide this dagger. To be precise, I want to hide the fact that I used it.”

“Hide the fact that you used it?”

Aurora asked back. I nodded.

“A weapon imbued with divine power, as the name suggests, can only be used if one possesses a certain level of faith. It’s impossible for someone without faith to unleash its proper power.”

My explanation was a roundabout way of saying that in the game, blessed weapons could only perform at their best if the ‘Faith’ and ‘Divine Power’ stats were above a certain level.

At my explanation, Aurora nodded, seemingly understanding, then paused and looked back at me.

“But how did you…?”

“Which nation comes to mind when you think of faith and divine power around here?”

“Without a doubt, the Raphaela Holy Nation.”

So the name of the Holy Nation had changed too. Good thing I didn’t open my mouth first.

“…Wait, then are you from the Raphaela Holy Nation?”

“No. That’s precisely why I want to hide the fact that I used this.”

At my words, Aurora let out an “Ah.”

“Because you want to hide the fact that you used a divine weapon, even though you’re not from the Holy Nation?”

“Correct.”

We had only exchanged a few words, but she immediately grasped the core of the matter. Seeing Aurora display the full extent of her abilities, just as she did in the game, made me feel quite pleased.

“…Alright, that reason makes sense. The Holy Nation fanatics are notoriously zealous, so you’d want to avoid getting entangled with them as much as possible. But then, how are you going to deal with that demon?”

“We’re not going to deal with it. We’ll send a letter to the Imperial Palace. To tell them a demon appeared and ask them to kill it.”

Even in the game, players had two choices:

Either kill the Lord directly using a blessed weapon or divine spell, or beat him up as much as desired to relieve stress, then send a letter to the Emperor asking him to deal with it.

One might generally think that killing him directly here would be much simpler, but if the player killed this guy, an event would occur later where the Holy Nation would show a very troublesome kind of interest.

Receiving their attention was out of the question for me. To avoid being saddled with all sorts of dirty and petty sub-quests, I had to visit the Holy Nation only once in the mid-game and never look back.

Who the hell thought of a quest to deliver long-distance packages 30 times without using fast travel?

“Well, alright. The target we have to deceive is the Emperor, but if we’ve already deceived him once, why couldn’t we do it a second time?”

“You deceived him once?”

“I’m talking about this idiot who messed with a demon-possessed book on his own and got eaten alive.”

“…Ah, that’s right. I momentarily forgot. That’s how it was, indeed.”

That itself was a lie, to begin with. So this would be the second time.

“And.”

Aurora, adding an afterthought, spun around, bowed slightly at the waist, and looked up at me.

“It’s only natural to show this much favor to the savior of my life. I have a mountain of gratitude to repay, don’t I?”

A bright smile appeared on her face.

“Iris, time’s almost up.”

“…I know. It’s not completely full yet, so wait a little longer.”

At that time, the Knight Commanders of the Silver Dawn Knights were gathered at the main gate, looking anxious. The moon was already shining brightly in the sky. Iris’s silver hair gleamed brilliantly under the moonlight.

Not long after, the ‘time when the moon hangs on the tallest tree’ that the newcomer had mentioned arrived. As soon as the moon hung on the tree, Rije looked around the main road in front of the castle gate. But the street was quiet.

“Erica, do you see anyone on the road?”

“No. I don’t see anything. It’s empty.”

“Is that so.”

Iris replied curtly. It was a single word imbued with very complex emotions.

“Claudia, Rije, Erica. Prepare yourselves. We’re going to the mansion.”

At that curt remark, the Knight Commanders, without anyone needing to go first, each mounted their horses. They had long since finished preparing to raid the mansion. They were just waiting for the time.

There was a reason why Claudia, Iris, Rije, and Erica were acting so urgently. It was because of a single remark the newcomer had left before entering the Lord’s mansion:

If he didn’t return by the time the moon hung on the tallest tree, as seen from the castle’s main gate, would they come looking for him at the mansion?

Rije had laughed, asking why he would say such an ominous thing, but the newcomer’s expression was serious. And indeed, the newcomer had not returned by this time.

In that case, there was only one thing to do.

If there was a dispute with the Lord, the Silver Dawn Knights were the ones who would suffer, so in the past, they would have just endured it and moved on. But now, the situation was different.

Because they absolutely did not want to lose that newcomer.

At some point, without anyone needing to go first, the speed at which they rode their horses gradually increased. Rije, especially, who was at the very front, was practically galloping.

There were no people to be found on the streets, so there was no need to ride carefully, and as anxiety steadily rose, their speed increased, so they quickly arrived at the mansion.

“Huh…? What are they?”

“Why are those bitches here at this hour? Halt! Halt! Hey, can’t you hear me?! Stop!”

Two knights guarding the mansion’s main gate, yawning widely, were startled to see Rije and the other three galloping at full speed on horseback, and shouted for them to halt.

Instead of stopping her horse as commanded by the knights, Rije pulled out her twin daggers from her waist.

The knights were even more flustered at the sight. They had never experienced a situation where the Silver Dawn Knights openly defied them.

And because they knew that if they faced them head-on, their own skills were no match for the Silver Dawn Knights.

By the time the two knights finally grasped the situation and tried to grab their weapons, their entire bodies were already frozen solid and they had been cut to pieces.

“Kuheok!”

“Kehek!”

The knights rolled on the ground, bleeding from all over their bodies. Rije didn’t even glance at the unconscious knights and rushed into the mansion. Iris, Erica, and Claudia followed soon after.

The four Knight Commanders only stopped their horses once they reached the entrance to the mansion.

“The newcomer is inside, right?”

“It’s highly probable.”

“Shall we storm in, unnie?”

“Of course we should. No, even if you object, I’ll go alone.”

Rije’s usual playful and lively demeanor was nowhere to be seen; instead, a grim and fierce aura, befitting her hair color, enveloped her. It was an aura that would cut down anything that stood in her way.

“Why would we object? If we’re going in, we’re all going in together. And what’s the worst that could happen to our lives if we get picked on for this? Later, we can just tell that newcomer, ‘Because of you, we ended up like this, so buy us a drink.'”

Claudia stepped forward with her greatsword. She raised her arm high above her head and forcefully brought it down on the main gate. With a KWA-KWANG! sound, the wooden door shattered like a straw doll.

Rije was first, followed by Iris, Erica, and Claudia.

“Welcome.”

As the four entered the mansion, the first thing they found was a maid who scurried towards them and politely bowed her head.

“……?”

Question marks simultaneously appeared above their heads. The weapons in their hands slowly lowered.

“What, did she just greet us?”

“She said ‘welcome’? Did I just mishear?”

“I heard it too. I thought only my ears had gone strange, but it seems all our ears have gone strange. Is it an illusion spell?”

Claudia, Erica, and Iris froze in place, bewildered. Rije, however, strode over to the maid and grabbed her by the collar.

“Stop with the useless tricks and tell me right now where the newcomer is-!”

“The ‘newcomer-ssi’ asked me to escort the Knight Commanders to the reception room. Please follow me.”

This time, even Rije couldn’t help but freeze in a daze.

As the grip on her collar loosened, the maid calmly straightened her clothes and turned to ascend the stairs. Her figure soon disappeared upstairs.

But none of the four remaining moved from their spots.

No, they couldn’t move. Their minds, having received such a great shock, refused to think. Their gaping mouths showed no sign of closing.

The four were finally able to follow the maid to the reception room only after she, having waited upstairs to no avail, came back down and told them to follow her once more.

And in the room the four entered, there were…

“Oh, you’re here?”

“Welcome, Knight Commanders.”

…the newcomer and Aurora, perfectly fine, sitting opposite each other at a table, sipping tea.