Ishura - Volume 3 - Chapter 6

Chapter 6: The Age of the Demon King

Four years ago, in an age when the Demon King’s reign of terror darkened the very skies…

It lay a half-day’s walk from Kuta Silver City, where the volunteer army to block the Demon King’s invasion gathered. The man had crossed beyond the minian races’ final line of defense and stood there.

He carried no weapon.

His eyes drooped beneath a wide-brimmed hat, and his face seemed gaunt. He carried a large wooden box on his back, containing what was presumably his travel equipment.

He wasn’t a warrior. Supposing he did join up with the volunteer defense army, the man would’ve had no prospects of returning alive. He inherited a stout physique from his father and had dreamed of becoming the kingdom’s greatest bowman, but it didn’t take long to realize he had no talent for archery. He could have reluctantly shifted his focus to becoming a swordsman, but he knew this wouldn’t work out, either. He wasted two whole years simply confirming for himself that he had no strength for combat. And now, here he was.

“Sakaoe Great Bridge Town. Must be the place.”

Narrowing his eyes, he could finally discern the city emblem shown on the town guide board, dirtied with blood. It was supposed to be a trading city, well-known in the east and west. After hearing about it, the man never would have thought this would be how he’d end up paying it a visit.

“It really got this bad in just one small month, huh? I’ll b—”

His frivolous chatter stopped when he caught an elderly woman squatting beside a watermill along the road.

“I-it’s okay. You’re still alive. You’re still alive, okay? You’re not dead yet. Okay? It’ll—it’ll all be over soon. Just a little more…”

The woman was mumbling incoherently, half smiling and half crying.

She continued to raise a blunt instrument of some kind in the air, striking it hard into a young girl who was long dead.

The jerky convulsions in her leg that came with each blow were malfunctions caused by what remained of her brain, largely smashed and scattered on the ground.

“Haaah, haaah… I-it’ll be okay. This’ll make it all better. I’m scared. I’m so scared…… Auugh……”

“……”

The wooden box–laden man didn’t say a word or lend a hand, simply continuing on ahead. In this era, there were countless stories of people who invited even greater tragedy from getting involved with such people who had fallen so far.

When he passed by her, he got a good look at the blunt object she was single-mindedly bringing down repeatedly on the dead girl. It had been reduced to nothing but a deformed dark-red shape, but it had very tiny arms. Gripped firmly in the woman’s hand appeared to be a foot.

Curse the Demon King Army.

Heading toward the Demon King Army was sheer madness.

At this point, no one had ever thought about purposefully venturing into the Demon King Army.

Everyone knew that the “volunteer defense force” existed in name only. All they could manage was driving out the maddened citizenry and their deeds from the defense line and pray that the True Demon King never unpredictably crossed it.

The man himself had no guarantees he would return from his journey with his sanity intact. It was a reckless challenge.

Around the time his surroundings started to grow denser with buildings, three silhouettes, then a fourth, aimlessly appeared on the town streets.

Each one brandished a weapon that could hardly be called one. A rotted piece of lumber. An iron butter knife. One of the men even gripped down tight on the sharp edge of a rusted ax blade.

“Heh-heh. Eh-heh, hee-hee-hee-hee…”

“No… Please… Help meee. Someone, kill me…”

“Brother… It—it’s not my fault, okay? All this… It’s a dream…just a dream…”

The survivors who hid themselves in fear sensed the visitor and must’ve come reaching out to him for help—at the very least, the man figured that’s what he would’ve done.

“No… A-aauuuuuuuuugh! Aaaaaaah!”

A young girl flew at the lumber-wielding man and, together with a scream, gouged out his eye with a fork. Drilling the handle all the way down into the eye socket, she persistently kept up her destruction, tearfully screaming as she went.

“……”

The wooden box–laden man didn’t move, simply watching from a removed position. If he tried to stop them, he’d get swept up in it, too. Even for this young girl, so much more delicate than him, there was nothing he could do.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I’m sor—”

The girl’s apology was interrupted. The back of her head was bashed in by another man.

Even while the girl’s neck was twisted down in a strange angle, she still continued to scoop out her victim’s eyeball. With the second blow of the blunt object, her head was completely crushed. Another person was lured into the tragedy from a back alley somewhere, and the two killed each other. Yet another person came after. These people were seeking someone to help them, after all, then.

The man with the wooden box had stopped breathing at some point while he looked on.

He needed to stifle the part of his mind that found it all so terrifying.

I get it now. That’s why, then, that no one ever comes to save these people anymore.

The one still breathing was a middle-aged man who already had one of his thighs bitten off.

Simply having someone get close causes them to start slaughtering each other.

The man with one thigh torn off shakily walked and shoved both his hands right into the center of a pool of blood.

Those hands had killed his neighbor for no reason whatsoever. He was on the verge of death himself. A truth that pleased no one.

“Heh-heh.”

The man was laughing.

“Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh……”

Laughing in despair. No words could reach him.

He was a simple minia, no different from the man with the box. He must’ve lived a quiet life, celebrating happiness and lamenting misfortune.

This was the military force that comprised the Demon King Army.

“…Forgive me, old man. I ain’t the hero here.”

“I can’t take it… I’m scared… I want to relax… Aaaah……”

Even as a tragedy unfolded right before his very eyes, he absolutely couldn’t get himself involved. He understood that.

But at least once, he needed to test his own power.

“Hang on a sec, there.”

The man lowered the wooden box on his back to the ground. He took out his trusty instrument from inside when—

“HALT.”

It wasn’t one person. It sounded like several people all speaking as one.

An aberrant presence looked down on the men from the roof of what was once a church. It looked in part like an enormous wolf, but its coat of fur, gleaming blue and silver, was nothing like a wolf’s natural fur.

The man raised his hands up while still seated on the ground.

“…I’ve stopped.”

“YOU. YOU TRIED TO ADVANCE BEYOND THIS POINT.”

“And? Did you make your nest up ahead or something?”

“…DO YOU WISH TO STAND AGAINST THE TRUE DEMON KING?”

Anyone who visited this hellish place likely wouldn’t have any other reason.

“NO MATTER WHAT MEANS OR IDEAS YOU MAY POSSESS—THEY ARE FOOLISH DELUSIONS. ABANDON YOUR AMBITION AND RETURN WHENCE YOU CAME. OR BECOME MY SUSTENANCE. THESE ARE YOUR OPTIONS. NO MATTER WHICH YOU CHOOSE… IT SHALL BE A MORE MERCIFUL FATE THAN CHALLENGING THE DEMON KING.”

“Pretty impudent right off the bat, huh? Ominous, too. You a barghest? Definitely not a lycan, right?”

If it was a beastfolk that understood Word Arts, and with a wolf-like form, then it had to be a barghest. However, seeing its colossal frame and eight legs instead of four, it also appeared like something different entirely.

“I AM A CHIMERA. OZONEZMA.”

“A chimera…? No way. As if there’d ever be a chimera as cleanly put together as you. Also, eating me before I get the chance to meet the True Demon King is your idea of kindness? That’s messed up.”

“…EAT YOU? …YOU ARE FREE TO BELIEVE THAT I AM HERE TO EAT MINIA, IF YOU WISH. YOU SHALL NOT HEAR MY WARNING, THEN.”

“Nope. If you’re planning on killing me, get it over with. See, I don’t got any fighting skills to my name.”

The man smacked the back of his head.

Wholly free of deception, the man didn’t have any combat means at his disposal.

“……IN WHICH CASE, WHY DO YOU ADVANCE FORWARD? INDEED…… YOUR BODY POSSESSES MUSCLES WITH EXTREME AMOUNTS OF STAMINA. JUDGING BY YOUR DEFENSIVE BODY MOVEMENTS, A FIGHTER YOU ARE NOT…”

“Never met a wolf that blabbers on like you before… Come on, then, what’re you waiting for? You going to kill me or not?”

“WANTON SLAUGHTER IS NOT WHAT I SEEK.”

“Pfft… You look like a demon king straight out of a poem, and you’re playing the Goody Two-shoes act? I’m nothing but a bard. I just wanted to have this old man listen to my song.”

The beast shifted his eyes to the man’s personal treasure. It was a type of five-stringed instrument, but Ozonezma possessed no knowledge of it.

“So, Ozonezma, you’ve killed all the champions who’ve come here, acting the part of the Demon King’s gatekeeper like this? The thing is: I’m a bit different than all of them, see.”

Running his boorish fingers over the stringed surface, a sound played.

“The brilliance of his justice… A return to the field of corpses… The twin moons cross paths—”

“……?! WAIT.”

Ozonezma’s perplexed voice interrupted the singer’s voice.

“What is it?”

“WHY ARE YOU SINGING?”

“What else is a bard supposed to do?”

“BUT WHY ARE YOU SINGING HERE?”

The man grinned. A smile that showed a glimpse of the confidence at the root of the powerless man’s impudence and grit.

He sang.

“In the verdant morning… The valiant true king… Drinks deep of honor eternal…”

“………………”

The song, and the music, continued.

It was verse that sang the tale of an ancient king long ago, one even children would recognize.

The music he played conveyed as much. The exceedingly simple sound of his voice, and his strings, quivered as to stir the depths of the soul.

Beauty. Touching—singular words were unable to fully express the delight, the sorrow, the hope, the rage, the resignation, the hatred, the joy…… It was as if all the emotions constituting one’s heart simultaneously blossomed at once.

They were neither Word Arts nor a superpower, but it was the sort of song that penetrated deep into every corner of the parched scene of despair.

“……”

Even the man with one of his thighs bitten off had stopped laughing.

As if the song had abated the waves of sadness and terror, he silently stared at the bard.

“…WHAT IS THAT?”

Even the giant beast listened with rapt attention.

It was stimulus from the turbulent world, the first he had known after surviving his life of bloodshed.

“CAN THAT DEFEAT THE DEMON KING?”

“Of course it can’t. Still though, plenty of people have disappeared trying to kill them with more direct methods. Needs to be someone out there who tries something a bit more unorthodox. With my music… Pfft.”

He couldn’t help laughing at the sheer absurdity of his words.

“I’m going to touch the True Demon King’s heart.”

“IMPOSSIBLE.”

Ozonezma shook his head. The man was taking on the True Demon King. No matter how wonderful his music may have been, it was obvious from the start that it was impossible.

“A FOOLISH ATTEMPT. INDEED, YOU ARE YET ANOTHER GOING TOWARD THEIR DEATH.”

“Think so? What about you then, Ozonezma? You don’t want to become the hero?”

The man didn’t think this Ozonezma in front of him was one of the True Demon King’s followers.

Everyone knew that the True Demon King didn’t have anyone like that with them.

No one could become their companion. Because they were the enemy of all living things.

In which case, the chimera’s warning was unquestionably true. Death was the only option to stem those who sought to stand up to the madness and perish in futility—such was the complete and total despair that awaited up ahead.

“IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME. THAT IS PRECISELY WHY I REMAIN HERE. I… I DO NOT WISH TO TASTE THE DESPAIR OF THOSE WHO HAVE MOVED ON.”

“Hey, it’s not impossible. Even an idiot like me is trying to defeat the True Demon King. You’re telling me you can’t muster up the same amount of courage?”

“……”

“Even if you stay back here for now, the fight’s gonna find you eventually.”

He stood up and shouldered the injured man.

With his song, he had successfully pacified a single person. However, their mind might never fully return. So immense was the terror the True Demon King induced.

“However, was there a power out there in this world capable of reaching them, however slightly, in their hearts?”

He was imagining one possible future.

“…No need to get all worked up. My work here’s done. I’ll head back now.”

“WORK…? WHAT WAS YOUR WORK?”

“Y’know, you had a point. You’re totally right—it’s utter madness to be singing in a dangerous place like this. Since you were kind enough to watch me, I was finally able to test things. There aren’t too many guys out there who can capture the Demon King Army alive, see. Very few. Up until now, I’ve only ever been able to test it on a girl with her eyeballs crushed, really…”

“……WAIT.”

Ozonezma elegantly dropped down from the rooftop. Landing without a sound, despite his huge frame, his perfectly joined body made it impossible to determine what part of it was chimera.

The beast followed after the man as he walked off.

“YOU ARE IN SO MUCH DANGER I CANNOT SIT AND WATCH. WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE A SINGLE GUARD ALONG WITH YOU?”

“Well, well, did you really like my song that much?”

“…THAT IS NOT MY POINT.”

It was preposterous ambition that even the man himself found hard to believe.

A traveling bard who simply sung his songs and an unknown champion-slaying beast.

Perhaps that was what made it all the more interesting.

At least one person needed to try an unorthodox method.

“Well, you’re free to come with me for as long as you’d like; I don’t mind. Even you’d start feeling depressed if you stayed behind in a place like that.”

“…TOWN ISN’T TOO FAR AWAY NOW. ALSO, I HAVE YET TO ASK YOU YOUR NAME.”

“Olukt the Drifting Compass Needle. I’m gonna do something so amazing that they’re gonna be writing songs praising me one day, just you wait.”

It was two years before the Demon King’s subjugation. There was a man named Olukt the Drifting Compass Needle.

It was an era of darkness. He was nothing more than another victim of the True Demon King, another amid the masses of victims. There were plenty of others like him.

Without making anyone hear his mentally soothing singing, he died without leaving a name for himself behind.

However…