Slayers - Volume 4 - Chapter 4

4: Welp, Guess We’d Better Finish This

“Hah, I could smell your foul schemes leagues away,” Amelia declared, her vestments flapping in the wind. “Though you may deceive the world, you could never deceive me!”

And with that heaping spoonful of nonsense, she cast aside her robes to reveal the loose-fitting white outfit she was wearing underneath. It looked much easier to move around in.

“Hup!” she shouted as she leaped.

“Wow!” the crowd remarked in awe.

She flipped off of the veranda, then...

Splat!

...missed the landing and kissed pavement.

Oof, that had to hurt...

After what felt like a silent eternity, Amelia sprung back to her feet and dusted herself off as if nothing had happened. Seemed like she was made of pretty stern stuff... Must’ve gotten that from her dad.

With a finger dramatically pointed at Alfred, she proclaimed, “The jig is up, Al! Turn yourself in!”

“Dammit!” He bared his teeth. “How did you know? When did you figure me out?!”

“Hah, simple! I was looking out over the garden because I couldn’t sleep, and I saw you sneak out! I followed you out of curiosity, only to witness you meet up with these ruffians and attack Mistress Lina! That’s when it occurred to me!”

Yeah, uh... it would have occurred to anyone at that point. Not really something to brag about...

Wait, did that mean that—after the fight had started—she climbed all the way up to the terrace and just waited around until Lord Clophel was in trouble? How did this girl’s mind work?

Nevertheless, when Alfred heard her accusation, he simply grinned.

“I see... That means I’ll have to kill you too,” he said, his eyes dancing with madness.

“I wouldn’t try it,” I said in disgust. “There’s only one way this scenario ends for a second-rate villain like you.”

“Villain?!” Alfred shouted angrily. “Nonsense! You clods could never understand! I serve the greater good here, for I am most fit to rule this country! If I were king, I’d make this country even bigger and more prosperous than ever! With me as our leader, we could even rule the entire world!”

I take back what I said before. This guy was third-rate at best.

“Heh. Very well,” Amelia said as she stepped forward. “Then prove your righteousness... by defeating me!”

If Alfred was a third-rate villain, Lady Amelia was a wannabe superhero. I felt like I was watching some scene out of an epic.

“Don’t interfere, Mistress Lina,” she said, following the tropes of heroic sagas to the letter.

On the bright side, this meant I could focus on picking off small fry and protecting Lord Clophel, which would be easy as pie. Lucky Lina!

But while we were out there flapping our gums, the deathmatch between Gourry and Zuma continued to unfold behind me. It was like they were in a world of their own. Poor Gourry’d really drawn the short straw here... which, yeah, I’d kind of forced into his hand, but still...

Gourry should have had the upper hand given his sword, but Zuma had magic. Gourry would seemingly back the assassin into a corner, and he’d retaliate by forcing Gourry on the defensive with a spell he’d been chanting.

“Darn it, this is going nowhere...” Gourry whispered.

Zuma, however, remained silent. Knowing that complaining wouldn’t improve the situation any, Gourry tried slashing at him again. And again, Zuma inched back.

Their battle kept edging toward us, until it reached Lord Clophel... who quickly retreated in my direction. Smart guy.

The fight made it as far as the man Amelia had taken out with her spell earlier, where Zuma decided to switch up his tactics.

“Dark Mist!” he hissed.

An eerie darkness spread out from where he stood, swiftly covering the area.

“Wugh?!” Gourry quickly retreated, so as not to be drawn into the encroaching darkness. A figure suddenly sprung from it after him. “Hah!”

Gourry thrust his sword, piercing his target... but it wasn’t Zuma! Skewered on Gourry’s blade was the victim of Amelia’s earlier spell. Zuma had tossed the fallen man lying at his feet out of the darkness at Gourry in order to occupy his sword.

Weaving around the corpse, then, the real Zuma rushed straight at Gourry. Against any other opponent or wielding anything other than the Sword of Light, Gourry likely wouldn’t have hesitated to cast his blade aside. But he did hesitate... and for a second, I couldn’t follow what happened with my eyes. Zuma’s hands moved, and his body went into a roll. Gourry dipped forward, and...

Zing! A high, clear noise rang into the night.

His sword snapped while he himself rolled along the ground with a kick from Zuma.

“Flare Arrow!” Alfred cast first.

Lady Amelia didn’t even try to dodge it. Alfred’s dozen or so arrows of flame were deflected in various random directions without even touching her—the work of a wind barrier!

“What?!” Alfred exclaimed, his eyes wide as he quickly moved on to his next chant.

This was one that I recognized. He clearly knew minor spells couldn’t penetrate Lady Amelia’s wind barrier, so he was going for something bigger. And even as that was unfolding, his shadow beasts were slowly closing in on her. But with no sign of panic, she just started quietly chanting some new spell.

“Dis Fang!” Alfred incanted, finishing his spell before she did.

The shadow he cast in the Lighting of the streetlamps elongated unnaturally, taking the shape of a dragon’s maw. Once again, he’d summoned a low-level magical beast from the astral plane into his own shadow.

Not good! If that thing bit Lady Amelia, it would damn near kill her... And unlike Shadow Snap, this spell couldn’t be dispelled with Lighting. The shadow dragon opened its massive jaws and rushed toward her!

Needless to say, I had my hands full while this was going down. I was defending Lord Clophel and fending off the hired goons. They weren’t first-rate fighters or anything... but there were a heck of a lot of ’em. I had leisure enough to keep up with Gourry and Lady Amelia’s respective fights, but not enough to offer any real support. I was hoping I could wipe out the riffraff and go help one of them, but...

“Graaah! This is so annoying!”

My next spell sent a few more goons flying.

Whip! Gourry sprang up a moment later. He’d probably protected himself from the brunt of Zuma’s kick by leaning forward and taking it with his breastplate. But by the time he was back on his feet, Zuma was already running at him full tilt again. Readying his broken sword, Gourry drew back and reached his left hand into his breast pocket.

“Fireball!” Zuma shouted, conjuring a pale blue light in front of his chest.

In that exact instant, Gourry’s left hand blurred and Zuma leaped away.

Vwoom! An explosion briefly dyed the night fog orange. Gourry had flicked a pebble at Zuma’s Fireball, causing it to prematurely detonate in the assassin’s face. But before the flames even died down, Zuma emerged from the smoke. Ready and waiting, Gourry took another swing!

“Flow Break!” Amelia’s voice rang out loud and clear.

The ground around her was immediately aglow with a magical light similar to Lighting. It took the shape of a six-pointed star, surrounded Alfred’s shadow dragon and shadow beasts, and then unleashed a blinding flash.

Alfred just stood there, voiceless and gaping. His shadow creatures had all disappeared with the light.

Lady Amelia’s spell probably functioned on the same principle I’d used to escape Kanzel’s strange pocket dimension. The shadowy magical beasts, having been summoned against their will, had a tenuous connection to this world. The momentary opening of a gate back to their own, under the influence of a six-pointed barrier that represented balance between worlds, sent them back where they belonged.

“I-Impossible!” Alfred looked around in disbelief, and by the time he looked back to Lady Amelia... she was on top of him. “What?!”

Smack! Her elbow caught Alfred clean in the jaw. He reeled over and collapsed onto his back. He didn’t move a muscle after that. The dude was done.

And it was just about then that I finally finished off the last of the small fry.

Gourry brought his broken sword down on Zuma, who would have still been just out of its reach even if the blade were whole. But Gourry hadn’t misjudged the distance. No, as he swung his sword, the blade ejected from its hilt and flew toward Zuma at close range. He’d apparently unfastened it at the same time he detonated the Fireball.

Zuma had no time to dodge, so he instead deflected it by batting it away by the flat side of the blade. His movements were almost inhuman, but...

It gave Gourry a momentary opening.

“Light, come forth!” he howled, conjuring a brilliant blade from his sword handle.

Zuma moved swiftly to dodge it, but—Crack!—the light caught him in the shoulder! Zuma then dove back. Gourry tried to catch him with a backhand slice, but it only grazed the assassin’s coat. His first strike, however, had lopped Zuma’s right arm off at the shoulder.

The match was all but decided now. Perhaps realizing that he’d lost, Zuma quickly moved to retreat. He leaped back through the air...

Which was exactly what I was waiting for. No way was I about to let someone so dangerous escape.

“Flare Lance!”

The instant Zuma’s feet left the ground, I predicted his trajectory and let my spell fly! There was no dodging this one!

Except—shockingly—Zuma batted aside the flaming spear with his remaining hand, dispersing the crimson flame! It was better than taking a direct hit, sure, but it was still a crazy reckless thing to do... With his left hand now turned totally to ash, the assassin disappeared down the dark road.

“Looks like it’s over,” Lady Amelia whispered.

I gave a firm nod. This should put an end to the chaos in Saillune... But for me? I wasn’t out of the woods yet.

I had to wonder... Just how powerful was the demon Kanzel?

Dawn broke with the palace in a flurry. We’d made it back, explained things to Sir Phil, and thrown the unconscious Alfred into one of the stand-alone buildings with a guard posted on him.

Christopher was our biggest problem now. It seemed Alfred had been the main culprit all along, but his father was certainly involved. The question was... to what extent?

Sir Phil took me and Gourry to look for Christopher. We found him sitting alone on a sofa in the palace’s entry hall, staring out into space. He’d probably already heard about Alfred’s capture, which had taken a toll on him. He looked like he’d aged overnight.

“Chris,” Sir Phil called to him.

“Is that you, Brother?” he whispered, turning to us with a self-reproaching smile on his face.

“I know everything,” Sir Phil said, taking a seat on the sofa across from him.

Gourry and I then sat down on either side of him. Royals always carried a dagger on them for self-protection, and we were afraid that a desperate Christopher might suddenly lunge at Sir Phil if things went south.

The second prince, however, just nodded limply and said, “How’s he... How’s Al?”

“Still unconscious. I’m sure he’ll wake up soon.”

“I see...” he sighed.

A heavy silence hung over the room for a while. Both brothers seemed equally uncertain about where to go from here.

“The fault is really mine,” Christopher finally said, stumbling over his words. “I filled his head with my designs... Ever since he was a child, I’ve done nothing but grumble about the unfairness of our circumstances. On and on about how I could have been king if only I’d been born sooner... So when he broached his plan to me, and introduced me to Kanzel outside the palace... far from stopping him, I encouraged him. Gleefully, even. I won’t say I was out of my mind... No, though I knew it would lead to something like this, I pressed my ambitions onto my son and dragged him down into the mud with me... I regret it so much... as a father...”

There, the stricken prince sighed deeply again.

“Punish me however you see fit,” he continued. “It’s the price I deserve to pay for my life of greed. Perhaps it’s the end I truly wanted. But he... Al is different. I foisted my wishes on him and made him believe they were his own. Call me an overindulgent father if you will, but if possible... please... I know it’s selfish to ask, but... Please, my brother. Please don’t be too hard on him...”

“How he’s treated will depend entirely on him,” Sir Phil replied.

Just then, I heard some ruckus among the soldiers outside. A figure then appeared in the door, silhouetted by the light behind him. It was Alfred, holding a sword in his hand.

“Al?!” Christopher and Sir Phil both exclaimed, leaping to their feet at once.

There was a tumult of footsteps and the soldiers surrounded him at the door, keeping their distance.

“Stay back!” the young prince barked as he slowly staggered into the hall. His face was a contorted mask of madness.

“Al, how did you...?” his father called softly.

“I escaped, obviously. You really thought I’d just sit in that room?!”

“What about the guard?” Sir Phil asked in a quiet voice.

“The guard?!” A twisted grin spread across his lips. “Please! Why should I need a guard?! I do recall a soldier who didn’t know his place, though... Do you know what he said to me?! ‘I fear I can’t let you leave’! Some nerve, wouldn’t you say? So I reminded him of his fealty! He can serve me better in the next world!”

“Enough, Al!” Christopher said in a trembling voice.

The soldiers moved in to surround us, but the situation must have been utterly demoralizing. None of them actually charged the crazed prince.

“Stop this,” his father called to him. “This has gone too far, Alfred! It’s over... It’s all over!”

“No!” Alfred shook his head passionately in response. “No, no! You’re wrong, Dad! It’s not over! It’s still not over!”

He glared at Sir Phil with bloodshot eyes and slowly crept closer. Sir Phil stood up as Gourry and I put our hands on our swords.

“Stop! Stop it!” Christopher insisted, putting himself between Sir Phil and Alfred.

“Get out of my way, Dad!” Alfred hissed through a clenched jaw, his teeth grinding audibly.

“Stop this, Al!” his father insisted again.

“Get out of my way!” he demanded as he leaped forward.

“Alfred!”

Crash! Christopher and Alfred collided... then Alfred slumped to the floor.

The boy’s lips moved slightly. The only witness to his last words was Christopher... who’d stabbed his son with his self-defense dagger.

“Is this... how it must end?” Christopher whispered, a sorrowful smile on his face. “I’m a failure... as a father...”

With that, he turned his dagger to his own breast and...

Clap! Sir Phil seized his hand.

“Brother! But why?!” Christopher exclaimed.

Sir Phil replied softly, “Because... you’re my brother.”

It was dawn the next day. Lady Amelia poked her head into my room around the time we were preparing to head out.

“Leaving already?” she asked.

“Yeah, there’s something I still need to do,” I responded with forced cheer.

I was talking about settling things with Kanzel. I wasn’t looking forward to it, given how he could blink through space and all, but there was no need to worry Lady Amelia with gloom and doom.

“Hmm...” she hummed, peering into my eyes knowingly. “What are you hiding, Mistress Lina?”

“N-Nothing!” I waved my hand dismissively. “I’m not hiding anything. Certainly not sneaking amenities out of the room you so generously hosted me in...”

“Not that! I mean there’s something you know that you’re not telling us!”

“Like what?”

“Like... whoever’s trying to kill you. Probably Kanzel, I guess, since he went missing and all. But why? Who is he really?”

“Well, it’s complicated...” I answered vaguely.

I didn’t know exactly why he was after me, but it was clear the matter was unrelated to the succession dispute in Saillune. Telling her about it might only lead to more trouble.

“Complicated how?” Lady Amelia asked anyway, forcing the issue.

“Well, just complicated... Why are you so interested, anyway?”

“It gets my righteous blood racing,” she uttered nonsensically, clenching her right hand into a fist. “There’s been a lot going on lately, both on the surface and deep below. I can’t help feeling like there’s something looming on the horizon... Maybe it’s just a change in the tide or destiny taking its course or something, but my justice sense tells me that it’s evil.”

I knew that shrine maidens were often blessed with good intuition, but something about referring to it as her “justice sense” made it seem super fishy.

“And Mistress Lina... While it’s clear to me that you yourself are no evildoer, my instincts tell me that you’re involved somehow.”

I mean... she really wasn’t wrong on the whole “evil on the horizon” thing. But if I told her that, she’d probably use it as an excuse to tag along.

“You’re just overthinking things,” I said with a forced laugh.

A knock at the door snapped me out of my glassy-eyed stupor.

“Coming!”

I stood up from the bed and went to answer it.

“Hey,” said Gourry.

We were currently staying at an inn on the outskirts of Saillune. We could have made it out of the city before nightfall, but we’d ended up doing a little sightseeing and holing up here instead. I was just sitting around in my room after dinner, doing nothing, when my blond companion came knocking.

“What’s up, Gourry?” I asked.

“It’s just...” he answered vaguely as he took a seat in the chair by my nightstand.

I sat back down on the bed myself, and silence hung between us for a while.

“What’s wrong, Lina?” Gourry asked at last, gently.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on. You’re not acting like yourself. You were extra hyper when we were wandering around town today, but I could see you fall deep into thought every now and then. And you were silent all through dinner. Just tell me. What’s on your mind?”

“Mm...”

“I know it’s probably not anything I can fix, but... Even if I can’t, it can be nice to get things off your chest.”

“...”

I didn’t say anything for a while. The first floor of the inn was a bar, so we sat listening to the drunkards making merry from downstairs.

I sighed heavily after a time before beginning: “Well, I guess hiding it won’t do us any good. This afternoon, Lady Amelia came to me and said, ‘There’s evil on the horizon, and I think you’re involved somehow.’”

“That’s alarming.”

“Yeah, I guess... but it got me thinking.”

“That it’s karma catching up with you?”

“No! Seriously, why do you think Kanzel’s after me?”

“Huh? I never really thought about it...” Gourry looked a little unsure, as if he couldn’t understand why I’d brought it up. “I mean, I don’t think we’ve met him before... He did say something about Seigram though, so I’d say maybe he went crying to Kanzel after we roughed him up... but that’s silly. They’re demons, not some crime family.”

“Right?” I forced a smile onto my face.

“So, what are you thinking?”

“To be frank, I don’t have the foggiest idea why Kanzel is after me. But it’s possible... just maybe... What if it’s not Kanzel who’s after me, but demons in general?”

Gourry was silent in response to that.

“That would explain it, right?” I continued, unable to keep the depression out of my voice.

A while back, we fought a high-rank demon and—with a lot of luck—managed to take him out. That was Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu (a part of him, at least), the master of all demons in our world, who was split into seven pieces by Flare Dragon Ceifeed back in the days of myth. Yeah, I know, sounds like a fish story. But sometimes this stuff is true, okay?

To be honest, before that whole experience, I’d just assumed the legends of the Dark Lord were half-truths at best. The story everyone knew (except Gourry, apparently) claimed that one of Shabranigdu’s parts managed to revive a thousand years ago, and it was now locked in ice in the Katart Mountains, directing the demons of the world... Yeah, apparently that was also true. So would the being known as the Dark Lord of the North really just let me off the hook after I defeated one of his kindred?

Gourry had been involved in that incident too, so I expected he shared my concern.

“Why would demons as a whole have it out for you?” he asked, completely unfazed.

Oh, come on, man!

I’d assumed his earlier silence was because he was parsing the gravity of the situation, but I guess he actually just didn’t understand what I was talking about.

“Remember when we first met and I used a spell more powerful than Dragon Slave to defeat the Dark Lord?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Ugh! Is it not obvious?!”

“Nope.”

“Darn it... Word to the wise, pal: Thinking’s a use-it-or-lose-it deal. Let your cerebrum atrophy and you’ll end up totally dependent on your lizard brain.”

“You’re making it sound like I don’t do any thinking at all.”

“Do you? Ever?”

“Just say what you were going to say.”

I know I should’ve been used to it at this point, but these little exchanges of ours still got to me.

“We proved that a mere human can defeat a pretty high-rank demon. Maybe, at the time we beat him, his consciousness was in tune with the other pieces... and now the Dark Lord of the North knows what’s up and isn’t happy about it. Maybe he thinks that, as someone who can use a spell more powerful than a Dragon Slave, I’m a threat to him. What if he sent Kanzel to get rid of me? That would explain what Lady Amelia said.”

There, Gourry fell silent again.

“You follow me?” I asked.

“I... I do, but that means this is a pretty serious situation, huh?”

“Dead serious, yeah. It means that even if we beat Kanzel, we’re going to see more and more assassins sent our way. And they won’t stop trying to kill me until they succeed.”

“You seem pretty chill about all this...”

“The hell I am. But it’s all just a theory. There are still things it doesn’t explain.”

“Like what?”

“The attacks Kanzel used,” I said, raising a demonstrative finger. “If he really wanted me dead, he could’ve just blown up a whole city block... But all he used were those puny little attack spells. Why? There’s nothing obligating a demon to hold back against humans.”

“Maybe he was worried about collateral damage.”

“Yeah, right... Anyway, that’s one of the things I was thinking about.”

“Hmm... but it sounds like you’re determined to fight him again anyway.”

“Well, yeah. If we don’t settle things soon, he’ll keep coming after me... and, lemme tell ya, that’s gonna put a real crimp in my lifestyle.”

“Then why don’t you just ask him about it? I’m sure he’d be happy to explain the situation.”

Hmm... it was true there was some kind of unwritten rule that villains had to cackle and reveal all their plans during the final battle. (At least, that was the going rate in my experience.)

“Well, that might work, but... I feel like I should work on some hypotheses in preparation.”

“Will that actually help you beat him?”

“No, but...”

“Then maybe you’d be better off not thinking so much about it.”

“Maybe.”

I found myself smirking. For once, Gourry was right.

“All right.” Feeling refreshed, I stretched. “Now then, let’s lift our spirits with a little midnight snack at the bar downstairs. I’m buying tonight.”

“Wow, that’s a rare treat,” he said as he stood up.

“One dish max!”

We stopped abruptly.

We were just outside of the city. Behind us stood the white buildings and hustle and bustle of Saillune, bathed in the noontime sun. Scattered forest stretched before us. A road cut straight through it, which would take us through several large cities on our way to the Kingdom of Gailia.

And dead ahead was Kanzel, leaned up against a tree.

“Did we keep you waiting long?” I snarked.

“Not at all in the scheme of the life I’ve lived.”

I knew we couldn’t fight here. If we went all-out, the city would end up taking most of the damage. I wanted to change locations, but...

Kanzel walked out onto the road, then casually turned his back to us.

“There’s a good place to fight up ahead. Follow me,” he offered.

Gourry and I shared a glance. If Kanzel had jumped us in the middle of a city, I wouldn’t have been able to use my big spells... and while I hated to admit it, there was virtually no way I could’ve won like that.

Outdoors, though, with no one around? I could cast whatever I wanted. I could win this way! Probably. But...

“Why the change of scenery?” I asked as we followed after Kanzel.

The answer he gave surprised me: “I can’t harm the people of the city.”

Gourry and I both went wide-eyed. I could hardly believe my ears.

“That’s... very considerate of you.”

“Don’t get the wrong idea. I have orders to keep human casualties to a minimum, apart from you. That’s all. Granted, that human assassin I hired was rather indiscriminate in the pursuit of our goal...”

Aha. That explained why he just gave up and disappeared when I dove into the crowd of Alfred’s men back in the city. But if he wasn’t supposed to harm humans, why was he allowed to hire wholesale murderbots like Zuma? Demon logic, man. Who can understand it?

Nevertheless... this meant there was someone pulling the strings behind him after all.

“Whose orders?” I asked, still walking behind Kanzel. The idea of stabbing him in the back was super tempting, but even though we’d left the city, there were still plenty of civilians along the road. I couldn’t start a fight just yet.

“That man there... Gourry, was it? I intend to let him live, so I cannot answer your question.”

“Tch. Okay, fine. Let me try again: Why are you after me?”

“We don’t like you,” Kanzel responded without turning back.

“Well, obviously. But why don’t you like me? If you beat me in the fight to come, I’d like to know the reason I was killed. Or, if I pull off killing you instead, I feel like I’m entitled to an answer.”

“Certainly. I’d like to tell you, but for various reasons, I cannot.”

“The tough life of a lackey, huh?”

“Indeed.”

I was hoping to get under his skin, but he shrugged off my comment easily enough. Refusing to rise to my petty provocations... This guy was a tough nut to crack.

“Looks like we’ve still some time before we reach our battleground, so I might as well ask a few more questions along the way. First, what happened to that assassin guy you hired, Zuma?”

“He disappeared after you two took both of his hands. That’s all that I know.”

He didn’t seem to care at all. No time for failures, I guess.

“I think you came at me three times in the palace, but...”

“Yes. But I held back due to the location, and failed every time,” Kanzel replied, turning onto a side path. Seemed we were getting closer.

“Now, those weird things you summoned the second time and the big bug the third time... where’d you pull those from?”

“The second time were bottom-tier demons. They cannot exist in this world under their own power, and so they possess beings of this world, transforming them in the process. I believe you refer to them as ‘lesser demons.’ What you saw is what they look like in the world they come from... Though I don’t know exactly how they appear to human eyes.”

Oho. So that’s what lesser demons are... That explained why you could hurt them with physical attacks. This was all very educational. I could collate it into a report and sell it for a high price to some sorcerer’s council somewhere. Assuming I lived through the battle ahead, anyway...

“The third time was one of the magical beasts that sleeps in the magma beneath the Kravale Volcano. I think you saw its power for yourself.”

“One of the magical beasts? You mean there’s more of those things around?”

“Though I don’t know how many exactly.”

Whoaaa... The world is truly vast.

“Do you have any other questions?” he asked.

I thought for a minute before answering, “Just one. I’m thinking no, but you weren’t behind all that ruckus in Saillune, right? You weren’t controlling Alfred or anything?”

“Certainly not. He sought a right hand to help execute his plan, and I used a little magic to make myself the leading candidate, but nothing more.”

“I see. I trust you.”

“Do you?” Keeping pace, he then said, “Now, say your goodbyes to your companion. It’s nearly time.”

We’d reached a clearing—a large green field about the size of a city block. It popped up out of nowhere like a suddenly-recalled memory. The path cut through it, then disappeared again into the forest on the other side.

Naturally, there wasn’t a soul around. Even though we were in the middle of the woods, there wasn’t a single bird chirping or insect humming. Had they all departed, sensing the danger to come?

Kanzel stopped in his tracks, finally turning back to me for the first time.

“Nothing to say? No farewell?” he asked.

“I still think I can win,” I answered honestly.

“As you like. Then let us begin.”

Fwsh! On Kanzel’s cue, Gourry and I took off running through knee-high grass. There wasn’t much point in getting distance on Kanzel, who could blink at will. I just wanted some time to chant a spell. Gourry stuck right behind me, the Sword of Light already drawn.

Kanzel had yet to move from his initial position. Was he waiting to attack the moment I unleashed my spell? Either way, I had no choice but to try it... So why not open with a bang?!

“Ragna Blast!”

Fwoosh! A pillar of darkness rose up from an inverted pentagram that formed around the still unmoving Kanzel, then erupted with black plasma at its center! This spell was powerful enough to take out something like a brass demon in one hit, but...

“You appear quite skilled... for a human.” The plasma assailed him, yet Kanzel merely smirked. “You’ll have to do far better to harm me, however.”

The moment those words left his mouth, my dark pillar shattered!

“What?!” I found myself screaming as I stopped in my tracks.

Kanzel’s arm moved. He turned his hand toward me, shooting four thread-like streaks of magical light from his fingers.

“Not a chance!” Gourry shouted, diving in front of me.

He meant to shield me with his own body and cut through the incoming magical blasts with the Sword of Light!

“Gourry!” I cried.

But he stayed put. The magical light, however... Right before it hit him, it changed course!

Ah, if only I had time to dodge—

The four rays circled around Gourry and pierced through my legs! With a silent scream, I fell into the grass.

Kanzel had nailed the thighs and ankles of both my legs. The wounds themselves weren’t that serious—they weren’t even bleeding—but the slightest movement sent shooting pains through me. I could hardly do anything like this.

It seemed I’d underestimated this guy. Kanzel was stronger than I even imagined!

“Lina!” Gourry wailed, panic-stricken.

“I’m okay! It’s not that bad!” I said, forcing a smile.

“Of course not. I made sure of that,” said Kanzel, his voice different. There was something beneath his usual pristine tone. “I don’t intend to finish you off right away. I mean for your end to be one of excruciating agony or madness. Either way, it won’t be a quick death.”

I felt a chill race up my spine. I’d finally put my finger on it, the emotion lurking in Kanzel’s voice... It was exaltation.

This is crazy! Who gets their rocks off by torturing a person?!

“What’s wrong? You don’t seem pleased,” Kanzel said with a cold... no, a crazed smile.

No duh, bro! Who would be happy to hear they were about to be tormented to death?!

At this rate, I didn’t have a second to spare. I had to finish this guy off now, once and for all.

“Stop it! Why are you doing this?” Gourry demanded, fury writ across his face.

“Why?” Kanzel asked while slowly walking toward us. “Do you not know what demons consume to survive?”

Ah... I was stung with a terrible twinge of regret.

“The source of our power is miasma—the negative emotions produced by all living things. Fear, anger, sorrow, despair. It’s the finest of delicacies to our kind! And the most effective way to procure it is through pain and suffering!”

Of course... When we fought in the city before, Kanzel had tried to kill me with one shot. That was because someone higher up the ladder had ordered him not to harm other humans, and Kanzel knew people were bound to show up if our fight went on too long. That was why he’d tried to finish me off before it could happen.

As for the reason he’d brought us out here... that was obviously, in part, to keep others from getting dragged into our fight. But it also seemed he meant to toy with me. In other words... Kanzel wanted to feast on my despair and fear, and Gourry’s anger and sorrow.

But... that overconfidence would be his doom! I’d already finished chanting my spell!

“Dragon Slave!”

“What?! Damn—”

Fwooooom! The red light consumed the demon and caused his body itself to explode!

Dragon Slave... The most powerful spell in the human repertoire called upon Shabranigdu, the Ruby-Eyed sovereign of all darkness in our world. Not even a powerful demon should be able to take one of these bad boys unscathed.

Mine had hit him head-on too, and at a time when he’d let his guard down completely.

“We did it, huh?” I said, shooting a wink at Gourry in spite of the pain in my legs.

“Yeah... You did,” he replied, reaching for me where I lay in the grass.

“Oh, you did it all right...” came a raspy voice from behind him... from the lingering smoke. We froze up. “I really felt that one...”

It can’t be...

At last, a humanoid figure slowly strolled out of the dissipating haze. No hair, no ears, no nose or mouth... The only things on the pallid, swollen flesh of his face were two wide-open eyes many times larger than a normal human’s.

Kanzel! This must be his true form in our world. But... but...

He’d taken plenty of damage, sure, but how in the world was he still moving after a direct hit from a Dragon Slave?!

“You seem to have a poor impression of us demons,” Kanzel said, his voice seeming to come from multiple directions. “Even if you call upon the power of Shabranigdu, it must still be channeled through a human’s capacity. That might be enough to dispose of low-rank demons, but against a mid-rank demon like me? I won’t say it did nothing, but it’s obviously not enough to kill me in one blow.”

“M-Mid-rank?!” I found myself raising my voice.

“Is this your first time seeing the real power of a demon? Or had you simply assumed you were unstoppable because you killed a number of lower-ranking ones?” he asked, still slowly approaching.

“Stay back!” Gourry howled.

With the Sword of Light at the ready, he put himself in Kanzel’s path. He then swung his blade bravely...

“Out of my way!” the demon roared.

Kanzel swiped his extended left hand through the air, producing a magical shockwave. Gourry blocked it with his Sword of Light—but the shockwave won out!

Fwsh! Losing the metaphorical tug-of-war, Gourry went flying... leaving nothing to separate me and Kanzel.

“Heh...”

With ecstasy in his eyes, Kanzel raised a hand toward me. Red magical light shot out of it! I screamed and writhed from the burning pain in my side.

“Stop it!”

Gourry came running, Sword of Light in hand. Another set of rays pierced my body, one after another. None of them hit my vital points. Kanzel was going out of his way to torture me, just like he’d promised.

The pain was making my consciousness hazy. As it faded on me, the attacks ceased.

Huh...?

And the moment it came back to me, the attacks resumed. This was seriously bad!

The next thing I knew, Gourry was upon us, slashing at Kanzel... But just before his brilliant blade made contact with the demon, something black congealed into a shield and defended him from every one of Gourry’s swings.

“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” Gourry cried, hopeless and desperate as he whaled on Kanzel.

The demon, meanwhile, simply cackled.

“Gwahahaha! I can feel it! Your anger, your anguish! What flavor! How exquisite! Gwahaha! Despair! Suffer!”

It might have gone on for moments, maybe minutes... I don’t really recall. But the next thing I knew, I was in Gourry’s arms and Kanzel was standing a little ways away. It seemed Gourry had managed to make his way to my side and physically shield me from Kanzel’s attacks.

“Lina! Speak to me, Lina!”

“...Gourry...”

The slightest movement caused screaming pain to shoot through my body, but I wasn’t in any mortal danger. I could still talk.

“Listen, Lina. You’re going to have to use it,” Gourry whispered into my ear so that Kanzel couldn’t hear.

“Use... what?”

“That spell. Your most powerful one!”

Giga Slave...

I snapped back to myself. Gourry meant the strongest spell in existence, one that probably only I could use. It called upon the power of the Lord of Nightmares, a being even loftier than Shabranigdu. It was what I’d used to beat the Dark Lord when we fought him before. It was undoubtedly stronger than a Dragon Slave, and certainly enough to kill Kanzel. But...

“No,” I said.

“Why not?!”

“I can’t control it like this. It would kill us all...”

Those words struck Gourry dumb. If I failed to control the spell in question, the world itself could be destroyed... That’s what someone had told me once. I wasn’t sure if it was true or not, but I wasn’t in a hurry to test the theory.

Either way, the spell still consumed a massive amount of life energy. If I used it now, whether it worked or not, it would likely be the end of me.

That left me only one choice...

“Isn’t there anything we can do?!” Gourry asked in desperation.

“There is...” I replied.

“Then let’s try it!”

Are you sure... you’re okay just agreeing to it like that? I had to wonder. But if Gourry insisted, then it’s what we would do.

“What do you need from me, Lina?!”

“Just defend me from him and put everything you’ve got into striking him with the Sword of Light like you did before.”

“And then?”

“That’s all.”

“Got it,” Gourry agreed with a firm nod before rising to his feet.

“Finished your goodbyes?” Kanzel inquired.

Exaltation flashed in his eyes. With another swipe of his hand, Gourry was blown back again. I managed to bear the pain and sit up.

“Oh?” Kanzel murmured, impressed. “You have spirit. But I’ll have you screaming again very soon.”

I ignored his threat and began chanting once more.

Thou who art darker than twilight...

“Shabranigdu’s spell again?” Kanzel mocked as Gourry managed to pick himself up and ready the Sword of Light.

Thou who art redder than lifeblood...

“Struggling to the end... It’s unsightly. I’m disappointed.”

I swear in thy exalted name...

“I can easily survive another blast or two,” he boasted as Gourry charged him.

Obscured, deep in the flow of time...

“But they do hurt,” he continued as Gourry raised his blade.

And make this pledge to darkness here:

“You’re an annoyance. I think it’s time I be rid of you,” he declared, rebuffing the incoming Sword of Light with another conjured shield of darkness.

So all those in equal measure—

Kanzel then raised a hand, a light coalescing within it. Gourry raised his sword in kind.

Gah! I won’t finish my chant in time!

Yet just then... a pillar of blue fire swallowed the demon!

“Gwaaaaagh!” Kanzel wailed in the moment.

That was... That was a Ra Tilt, the strongest astral spell in existence!

Kanzel whipped around at the unexpected attack and beheld a small figure—Lady Amelia!

I took the opportunity to finish my chant. All I had to do now was incant the words of power! I watched as Gourry raised the Sword of Light aloft, and...

“Dragon Slave!” I unleashed my spell.

“I told you, it’s pointless!” Kanzel cried.

Yet, before all our eyes... the sword flashed, its brilliant blade turning the color of blood.

“What—?!”

As the demon cried out, the blade of light bisected him top to bottom. He was unable to let out even a death rattle as Gourry cleaved him in two and Amelia sealed the deal with another Ra Tilt. Kanzel’s body turned to white powder, which was carried off by the wind before it ever hit the ground.

At last... it was over. I must have been so relieved, I lost consciousness in an instant.

“By the way, Lina, just what did you do back there?” Gourry asked.

I was lying in bed with nothing better to do one day after our battle with Kanzel. I’d apparently been carried off to the magical doctors of Saillune for treatment... again. I never seem to remember any of this stuff.

Incidentally, my supervising doctor this time was Master Grey. He apparently did shifts here too. He told me Sylphiel was still having fits in her sleep from time to time. Guess she hadn’t quite fully recovered. But all that aside...

My wounds were already healed and I was practically back in tip-top shape. I was on bedrest just to be on the safe side.

“Back there?” I dissembled.

“Yeah. The Sword of Light suddenly turned red, and I could cut through him easily. What was that all about?”

“Oh, I just cast my Dragon Slave on the Sword of Light. The sword channeled and amplified the spell, thus it cut through Kanzel’s defenses.”

“Ah, I get it.” He clapped his hands together... then seized up. “Hey, wait.”

“What?”

“Couldn’t that have blown the Sword of Light up?”

Huh, so he figured it out.

“Oh, well, you know! Heeheehee...”

“You can’t cutesy-pie your way out of this! That was a possibility, wasn’t it?!”

“Well, you’re the one who said ‘let’s just do it’ before I could explain! Besides, that sword withstood a Giga Slave! The odds were miniscule a Dragon Slave was gonna do anything to it.”

“How minuscule?”

“Like, fifty-fifty?”

“What?!”

“Just kidding! Definitely under 10 percent.”

That wasn’t an excuse or a white lie; it was my genuine estimate. Even for a legendary weapon, the Sword of Light seemed to far outstrip any human capacity... It seemed I still had a lot of research left to do on it.

“So... what was Kanzel’s deal with you, anyway?” Lady Amelia piped up. I had no idea what she was doing here.

“Oh, well, uh... apparently he was acting under someone’s orders,” I said, cocking my head.

At the very least, it was clear now that that said “someone” was neither the Dark Lord of the North nor Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu.

How do I know that, you ask? Simple. Kanzel said “Shabranigdu,” not “Lord Shabranigdu.” And he clearly wasn’t the rude, insubordinate type by nature... Which meant something complicated must be going down in the demon world.

“By the way, Lady Amelia... I thank you for saving me, of course, but what are you doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she said, waving her arms. “I persuaded my dad to let me leave the palace, and I asked all around before finally catching up with you guys! When I found you, Kanzel had you against a wall, so I cast a quick spell and—”

“No, I get all that,” I said, interrupting her. “I’m asking why you came after us, and why you’re still here.”

“I told you already!” She cast a wink my way and then said, “There’s something on the horizon, remember? And you seem to be connected to it. I wanna find out what it is, and if it’s evil, I’ll smash it with the hammer of justice!”

Amelia was on fire, ranting away in her own little world. It didn’t really bother me, but I could imagine it was annoying the other patients.

Moreover, was it really okay to start a journey for such a vague reason? Then again, I have to admit I set off myself because my big sister back home told me to get out and see the world...

“Anyway, I’ll be sticking with you guys from now on. It’s a pleasure!” she declared as though it were no big deal.

“But shouldn’t you ask Sir Phil—”

“I did. I told you, I persuaded him to let me out of the palace.”

Geh. How do you persuade that guy about anything?

“You make it sound easy, Lady Amelia, but we have a hard fight ahead of us... Possibly a deadly one.”

“I know all that! But I don’t want to spend all my time as some sheltered princess in a palace. I want to devote myself to justice! To live a tumultuous life! Our candles should burn hot and bright! Oh... And since we’re friends now, you should really just call me ‘Amelia’ without the whole ‘Lady’ business.”

“I don’t think there’s any talking her out of it,” Gourry said, somewhat startled.

Agh... my head hurts.

“Okay, now that that’s decided, Mistress Lina—I mean, Lina—where are we headed next?”

I wasn’t sure anything had been “decided” myself, but... oh well.

I’d been thinking about visiting home before we got sucked into all this drama, but it seemed I wasn’t going to get the chance for that. I didn’t know why they were after me, but if there were demons messing around in my life, I was going to have to learn a lot more about them.

Thus our destination would be the land of dark legend...

“To the Kingdom of Dils,” I announced matter-of-factly.