Shuumatsu Nani Shitemasu ka? Iden: Leila Asprey

NOVEMBER 30, 2020 ~ FLAMETJD

In this world, humanity was simply too weak. 

Humans lacked the strength to fight, yet were enemies with the vast majority of beings they shared the land with. Even if they wielded a weapon, a typical human being was no match for a single feral wolf. In terms of manpower or cohesion, the Orcs far surpassed them. Whether it was wisdom, techniques or magic, there existed a foe that humans could never hope to beat.

In reality, however, humanity controlled most of the continent. There were many reasons why this was, one of which being the group known as the Braves.

Brave. A title with the original meaning of ‘one who shows bravery’. In other words, Braves were people who’d achieved awe-inspiring feats, or shown the ambition to achieve such feats. For example: a general determined to face a mighty army, an assassin plotting to murder a despot, a sailor who defied the fierce currents of the winter ocean, a hermit who lived side-by-side with colossal man-eating bears, or a plain-looking suitor who sought an unattainable woman’s hand in marriage.

However, the group currently called Braves were not quite the same. Regal Braves and Quasi Braves were saints of sorts, as recognized by the Church of Holy Light. They were essentially superhumans wielding extraordinary strength, who bore both the duty of protecting humanity and the destiny of battling its strongest foes. While remaining human, they possessed immense combat power. 

That was especially true of the Regal Braves, who could annihilate any opponent from Elves to Dragons. They were crystallized embodiments of hope that existed to face unimaginable threats; actors dancing on battlefields far removed from the lives of weak, ordinary people. They were chosen from those with storied pasts, and might have any sort of history from disciples who’d inherited secret martial arts to highborn bastards from fallen kingdoms. Each and every one of them could be the protagonists of a legendary saga. These individuals were equipped with overwhelming charisma and dauntless spirits; it was as if they’d leapt from the pages of a fairy tale. They would rise up to any occasion, fight for justice and attain victory.

It goes without saying, but they did in fact defeat many strong enemies, protect the human race, and accomplish one brilliantly heroic exploit after another.

The Northern Fistilas Mountains.

If you braved those treacherous peaks and kept climbing, one foot after the other, you’d eventually come across an abandoned ancient shrine the size of a small city.

“Sorry about this, ye ancestors and gods of old!”

The apologetic girl leapt off a gigantic deity statue’s face, launching herself high into the air. A block of stone on the statue’s head that even a strongman wouldn’t be able to wrap his arms around, worn down from eons of exposure, shattered into smithereens from the counterimpact.

Leaping about from wall to wall, going ever higher and faster, the girl sliced off a large bat’s head with a single swing and sprang off its back. As her feet touched the shrine’s ceiling, she saw her next target and pushed off again.

Skills such as making Venom flow through one’s body like blood to strengthen one’s muscles, or using an Earth-style martial art to become almost weightless, could only be used by one who’d first surpassed their human limits. Going a step further, if the two skills were used in tandem, they’d bestow gravity-defying ease of movement upon their user – enough to fight monsters that ordinary humans could never touch.

That said, it’s still a real pain if there’s too many of them!

In the end, a sword was still just a sword. Though one might have the speed and skill to surpass a foe’s defenses as well as the strength and accuracy to crush them with one blow, one attack could only defeat one enemy. 

Exterminating hundreds of giant bats, therefore, would require hundreds of swings. And she spent almost twenty seconds doing just that. 

Bats large enough to prey on fully grown men; wolves mightier than oxen; swarms of unusual rats less scary-looking than the other two but each the size of a large dog. They were all abnormal creatures. If any one of them appeared near a village, no normal adventurer could deal with them and there’d likely be a great number of casualties. 

Having slaughtered every last one of them, the girl landed soundlessly on a stone cloister. Strangely, the bats and wolves did not leave any carcass behind when they were killed. They merely disappeared, melting like sugar cubes in water.

“How… how is such a thing possible…”

She heard a dumbfounded, shocked voice from somewhere. Gazing in its direction, she saw its owner. He was dressed like a rather old-fashioned noble; even though he was showing his age, one might be forgiven for considering him to be dashing. The most striking feature he had, however, was a pair of crimson eyes.

So not a human, then. He’s a bloodsucking Vampiric.

The Vampiric were creatures born from humanity. Even among the races collectively known as demons, Vampiric were viewed to be especially dangerous foes. There were many legends that told of their terrifying nature: they increased their numbers by directly corrupting the souls of human victims, or split their shadows to summon swarms of pestilence – the stories went on. The scariest fact was that there weren’t any battle records that could verify whether or not those legends were true, and thus no one could accurately determine their threat level. 

“Impossible! Impossible, impossible, impossible! This is impossible!” The Vampiric raked his temples with claw-like fingers, so hard it seemed like he might draw his own blood. “Human, have you any idea what you just struck?!”

“Beats me,” Leila answered casually, sharply flicking her sword to the side. With a resounding boom, jet-black droplets of what might’ve been blood, which had gotten onto the blade during the battle, flew everywhere. “Some ugly thing that’ll make me sick with a single touch?”

“Exactly!” She was a bit taken aback. I just threw out a random answer impatiently. To think I’d hit the nail on the head. What are the odds? “They’re plague demons, you see?” the Vampiric went on. “They might appear to be common pests, but are fundamentally far different. Forget touching them, if you strike them with a sword you’ll be instantly afflicted with a terrible curse. Your flesh will rot, your insides will melt, and you’ll die!”

“Wow, scary.” She lightly shook her head, as if she was trying to get rid of a dirty stain – though, of course, she was just trying to get a rise out of the Vampiric.

“You just – you killed all of those demons! All the curses sealed within them should’ve struck you down by now!” His bony finger trembled as he pointed it straight at Leila. “Why? Why are you still alive and well, human child?!”

“Wouldn’t say I’m well, y’know? I’m kinda tired, my head hurts a bit, and your pets got my sword all dirty.” Leila glanced at it. Its blade normally shone with a light bluish metallic glow, but now it was dyed a sickly yellow here and there and seemed to be covered in multiple oily stains.

“That can’t be! Those demons were meant to kill millions of humans and destroy their countries! You went and took all those curses into yourself! How… how is it possible that you’re still standing…?”

Destroying countries, huh? That was certainly catastrophic. If Vampirics could cause that sort of widespread disaster, it was no wonder they were the scariest of all demon races. But now’s not the time for that.

“Isn’t it because those guys were only enough for a few countries?”

“…What? What did you say?”

She sighed. “Geez, listen up a bit, ‘kay? I’m saying if you wanna destroy the guardian of the whole human race with brute force, you’re gonna need enough plague stuff to obliterate each and every human being in the world.”

The Vampiric’s eyes bulged. “You… you’re full of nonsense…!”

“Ahh, yeah, I’ve heard that a lot,” Leila readily admitted. The demon wasn’t lying; she was used to other people treating her words like nonsense. Honestly speaking, she herself thought what she’d just said seemed ridiculous as well. All the same, despite what others might think, the truth was the truth. And the Regal Brave was the Regal Brave.

“I’ll never accept such a thing!” With a guttural howl, the Vampiric suddenly charged Leila.

“I figured–”

She felt like she understood, but there was no way she’d agree or sympathize with him. After all, she was the ridiculous one here. She didn’t have that right, so there was only one thing she could do.

“–which means you’ll die here.”

She raised her greatsword, which still sparkled with a turquoise lustre even though it’d been stained by demon blood, and thrust it straight into the Vampiric’s chest. Blood gushed out of his mouth.

“Urgh… aagh…”

“To us humans, you bunch are crazy beings we’re hard-pressed to accept. Since both of us are two sides of the same coin, let’s keep on hating each other, ‘kay?”

Her flippant words probably fell on deaf ears. A faint light shone through the web of fine cracks criss-crossing the greatsword’s blade. As far as demons were concerned, Vampirics were considered the closest to immortals; they’d instantly regenerate from any injury, which was why they were feared so greatly. But…

“Agh…”

“This is Seniolis, one of the top-class Kaliyons. As long as the right wielder uses it, any enemy it strikes will die, no matter who or what they are.”

At the moment of death, the Vampiric was silent. His countenance froze in a rictus of pain with his eyes bulging and his jaws dropping open to expose his uneven teeth, even as the rest of his body ceased to move.

Hmph. Leila yanked out her sword, and his corpse fell wetly to the floor of the abandoned shrine. All around her, silence reigned. The only living thing there was herself now. Alright, time to head out.

She turned around and strode forward, but stopped after a few steps and glanced over her shoulder. The corpse laid there unblinkingly, eyes staring at nothing. To humans, he was a fantastical being. And to that fantastical being, perhaps she herself was a fantastical being as well.

I see. Perhaps you are different from us demons after all.

The corpse’s lips didn’t move. Now that her footsteps had stopped, all was silent again. That must’ve just been my imagination, Leila thought.

However, you are a Regal Brave. Therefore, you aren’t human anymore, are you?

“Hmph.” I’m just hallucinating stuff now, Leila reassured herself. No need to talk to myself. Grinning, she headed for the shrine’s exit once more.

…Eh?

A wave of dizziness slammed into her, causing her vision to blur slightly. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to ascertain her physical well-being. She felt slightly more tired than usual, and it seemed like she might have a small fever.

Three days later, Leila returned to the Capital. 

“Are you an idiot?”

A somewhat aged man with an exceptionally powerful physique stared at her with his whiskered mouth wide open as if she were the biggest moron he had ever seen.

“Let me get this straight. You recieved, no, directly and fully took enough curses to topple entire countries?”

“I knew you’d be like this, but I really had no choice,” Leila said nonchalantly, waving her hands at her master. “If I didn’t take in all of them the whole area would’ve probably been contaminated, and even surrounding towns might’ve been destroyed.”

“Your life versus the lives of forty-seven thousand, six hundred and fifty three others, eh?” Her master rubbed the bridge of his nose. “ Leila… it’s fine if you chose the latter after giving it a good amount of thought, but you should at least weigh the two choices before your hand gets forced. Your life isn’t so unimportant that you can just throw it away in a moment of folly, you know?”

His words rang strangely true. Maybe he’d already figured out the exact number of curses within Leila’s body, and calculated how many they’d kill. It didn’t seem like something normal humans could do, but Leila didn’t bat an eye. Her master had always been a little superhuman. 

“So what, you wanted me to leave those people to their deaths? To give up on those forty thousand lives?”

“All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t forget you have a choice. Whatever path you choose, you’ve got to understand that acting out of your own volition and acting because duty compels you to are two different things altogether.”

“Hmm… I think I kinda get it, but not really?”

“I don’t want you to become a subservient lapdog, you brat.”

“Well, I’m not gonna disagree.” Leila knew that she was considered a well-behaved child, the sort who did whatever she was told, and because of that was perfect for adults to manipulate. Still, It wasn’t as if she cared much. Besides, the world was an unfair place. She figured her life held some meaning if she could use it to help others.

Of course, she also knew quite well that there were people who worried about her and thought her way of thinking was unacceptable. What’s more, she was somehow happy to know they felt that way, which bothered her a little.

Is this… embarrassment? Or shyness? She subconsciously scratched her cheek, unsure how to handle her emotions.

“Anyway, those curses are now concentrated within your body. Despite all that, it probably won’t be a big problem – they’ll naturally be cleansed if you just leave them as they are. The issue lies with–”

“Yeah.” The two of them looked towards the grime-spotted sword hanging on the wall.

Seniolis was a holy sword; the most ancient, top-class and strongest one. Actually, ‘holy sword’ was sort of a misnomer, since there wasn’t anything holy or blessed about them to begin with. The weapons the world knew to be holy swords were merely the products of human skill and craftsmanship. One of the most unusual features about them were their appearances, being composed of Talismans of different sizes and shapes bound together by spell lines.

As each holy sword was akin to a rare treasure, you couldn’t just dump them off at any old city workshop for tuning and repair. Even lower-tier or mass-produced Kaliyons needed specialized equipment and a trained technician on hand to be tuned, let alone the five ancient top-class Kaliyons – if there was a problem with any of those, you’d be helpless unless you found an equally top-class technician to service them.

“Have any of the Capital’s guys figured out a way to fix it?”

“Nope. The lot of them were practically sobbing. Saying things like ‘Unless you take apart every single spell line surrounding its spinal circuit at the same time, the whole system will be thrown into disarray! Our technicians just can’t do that sort of thing!’”

“No surprise, coming from them. What ‘bout the baldies at the Church?”

“They said it’s fine to leave it as is, since its functions are still intact. Since the crystal core isn’t broken, it might end up purifying itself eventually.”

“That’s not a surprise, either.”

Her master sighed deeply. “Even so, we can’t simply leave it alone.” Producing a notebook in his hands, he tore off a few pieces of paper, daubed a pen in ink, and scribbled down a few words. “Here, take these to the people who need to see them. You might need to get a little forceful, but as long as you bring up my name here and there you should be fine.”

“What’s that?” She peered curiously at the papers.

“Letters of recommendation and a written prescription.” He passed them to Leila, grimacing like he was suffering from a particularly nasty headache. “Although your body’s condition can’t be helped, I know someone who might be able to fix Seniolis. Put your Regal Brave responsibilities on hold and go find that fellow.”