1

Felorn stood quiet and still, like any other vista of nature that Izumi knew from her past world. Even more so. Depressingly so. The birds, if there even were any, hadn't regained their songs. No squirrels or hares could be seen running between the stoic wooden pillars. The ant nests here and there along the path lay dormant. The weather was cloudy and glum, but it wouldn't rain. Nothing disturbed the melancholic silence of the woods. No dryads, basilisks, or unicorns appeared to harass the travelers on their solemn march back to Varnam.

The magic was gone.

The lord of the forest was dead and all nature mourned his passing.

The company rode on in matching silence. Although, it couldn’t even be called a company anymore, in terms of military units. They were less than a squad now. The wagons and carts were full of injured. A long line of riderless horses stepped after the wagons, looking no less heartbroken.

Those fallen in the basin of old Varnam had to be left for nature to claim. There was no manpower or time to go look for them or bring back the remains to bury. They had to reach back to civilization before nightfall, or else risk the vengeance of the Darkwood, unleashed from the restraints of its once benevolent ruler.

So the men told themselves.

In truth, the innate measure of hardships that the human spirit could endure had been filled to the brim for each of them, long ago. They could push themselves no further, even if they wanted to. In the scales with the respect for the deceased in one cup and the wholehearted desire to leave the accursed woods in the other, the latter weighed by far heavier. The knowledge that there was no spring of youth, no reward for their excruciating efforts, was the last straw. Not many had believed in the fairy tale to begin with and were driven exclusively by their adamant sense of duty to the fatherland. But while no one could dispute the strength of these knights' conviction, it could only carry them so far.

No praise awaited them at home, that was for sure.

The upside in the tragedy was that due to the dramatically reduced numbers, the return trip proceeded with exceptional swiftness. The steeds that hadn't seen much action for the past few days saved no stamina in carrying their apathetic masters away.

It was well before dusk, that the overgrown, untamed woodland scenery gave way to the familiar, orderly cleanliness it had exhibited in the early part of the way. Yuliana could barely hold back her tears when she saw no more bumpy hammocks or hills of moss through the gaps between the trees ahead, but only level pastures, and the picturesque silhouette of Varnam. She wasn't the only one. Sighs of relief, sobbing, and triumphant exclamations alike could be heard all among the weary riders and the injured.

They had made it out of Felorn. They had survived.

At that moment, at the gate of the forest, Yuliana saw that they were no longer foreigners, strangers from other lands, future enemies, prisoners and captors, or anything of the sort. No one looked back into the past and the wrongdoings left there. They were undoubtedly all brethren now, baptized by the shared, excruciating trial of fire, ash, and blood.

“Company, halt!”

As they exited the woods and reached the fresh, emerald field between the town and the treeline, the commander's order stopped the horses.

“Sergeant,” Miragrave asked. “Is the chest from the command materials still safe? The red one?”

“Ma'am, in the wagon, as ordered,” the knight responded.

“Good.”

“Hm? Another secret weapon?” Izumi asked.

“What?” Miragrave stirred. “No. Silver.”

“Silver?”

“Yes,” the Colonel said and heaved a heavy sigh. “Fuck camping, we are staying at a real inn tonight. His majesty pays. And no one gets in the bath before me, that's an order.”

Even after all they had been through, the travelers could still bring themselves to laugh now. That laughter felt liberating and sweeter than gold, or so Yuliana thought.

They left the horses at an empty enclosure a short distance away from the town. Freed from the saddles, bridles, and armorings, the jet black stallions wasted no time enjoying their freedom, cantering around the meadow. In the end, more horses had been brought back than there were riders. Domesticated and disciplined as they were, there should have been no chance of them leaving the proximity of their masters or wander off on their own, with fences or without.

Nevertheless, the swiftness with which the beasts now separated from their owners looked like nothing short of an act of rebellion, a unanimous protest against all the poor treatment. Only after making it a good distance away to the other side of the enclosure did they regroup and pause to munch grass, huffing and eyeing the knights with a restless air.

“What, don't you love me anymore, Matilda?” One knight called after his mount in a theatrical tone, making his comrades erupt in laughter.

“We made it out! Relax, Isolde!” another one tried to tell his reluctant steed. “It's over now!”

“Looks like we've earned ourselves a lifelong grudge.”

“Well, can you blame them? Seeing how things turned out, the horses were smarter than we were.”

“Only too true, brother.”

As the knights one by one departed for the town, to look for a place where to take and tend to wounded, Izumi listened in on their conversation with growing unease.

“As I thought...” she mumbled. “There's no other way, is there…?”

—“Itaka.”

To the earthling's surprise, the Colonel called out to her, walking a few paces behind with Yuliana. She had used her given name, no less, which Izumi hadn't heard in weeks. Not since she had left her home world.

“Hm?” Izumi turned around, surprised.

“I take it you know how to make coffee?” Miragrave asked her.

“Why, I do,” Izumi answered.

“I still have the bag, can you believe it? My adjutant is not here anymore, so would you mind doing the honors? I could certainly use a hot drink after all this. I take it you wouldn’t refrain either?”

“Is that alright?” the summoned woman asked. “I mean, it was me, who...”

“I know,” the commander waved off her concerns and shook her head. “We are soldiers. It was his fate. Who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. You had your convictions, as did he. As an Imperial officer, I am obligated to condemn your actions. But as a person, I can only view what unfolded back there as a tragedy to all those involved. So how about it? Would you care to join me? For one moment, set aside our differences and try to see eye to eye again? In memory of the fallen.”

“Sure,” Izumi nodded, a bit timidly. She was supposed to be the older one, yet she felt hopelessly immature before the Colonel.

“Then, it is settled,” Miragrave faintly smiled. “You'll join us, Yuliana?”

“Eh? Coffee?” The princess blinked. “The thing Izumi has been talking about for all this time? It actually exists? What is it?”

“If you really want to know, then you must try it yourself,” the commander mischievously answered.

“Hmph,” Yuliana pouted. “That reminds me, Master always used to tease me like that when I was younger. I know I'm asking too many questions at times, but it's frustrating to be kept in suspense...”

“I did such things?”

“Oh, but if it's alright with you, may I invite Brian as well?” the princess requested. “I still owe him, for a great many things. And if I am to make our nations give up on war, then I shouldn't exclude my own from the effort.”

“Ah, that is fine by me.” Miragrave nodded.

Pleased, Yuliana immediately hurried her steps and left to catch up with the Langorian knight, who walked wearily some seventy feet ahead of them——but she was quickly stopped.

All of a sudden, Izumi seized the princess by the arm and held her back.

“What is it...?” Confused, Yuliana stopped and looked back at the woman.

Izumi had acted by instinct, not really thinking things through. Now, she quickly let go of the girl and hurried to explain herself, with apparent effort.

“I think it would be better if you kept some distance with that,” she said.

“That...?” Yuliana scowled at her in disbelief. “He’s got a name! I can tell that you don't like him very much, but don't you think you're taking it too far now?”

“T-that's not what I meant.” Before Yuliana's insulted look, Izumi had trouble finding the words. “It's not like I have anything personal against him, really. But...”

“But? What!?”

Izumi had wished not to say it out loud just yet, not without making sure beyond any doubt. But she had no choice anymore. Giving up on subtlety, she gave a plain answer,

“Well, he’s...probably not entirely human.”

The princess stared back at Izumi, speechless, unable to comprehend her meaning.

Ahead on the road, Brian also stopped. He shouldn't have heard them from this distance, but it was as if he somehow had. The other nearby knights paused as well, seeing the princess’s agitation, wondering what the odd drama was about. Feeling only deeply embarrassed and insulted for her countryman and faithful friend, Yuliana tried to ignore their stares and questioned Izumi, her face red with anger.

“And what else would he be if not a human, the same as you and I? Give it a rest!”

“Eh? Ah...That's...” Taken aback by the girl's unusual indignation, Izumi had difficulty expressing herself. Looking around, she then made up her mind, looked apologetically back at the princess and said,

“I mean, he’s the daemon. Probably.”

As if a switch had been flipped, the formerly relaxed and liberal atmosphere took a terrible, chilling turn. At once, Miragrave, who had followed to bizarre exchange from the side, directed a furious glare at Izumi.

“What did you just say?”

Yuliana's expression was no less horrified. Eyes wide, she stared at Izumi's face, expecting—praying—for the woman to reveal it only as a hideous, tasteless prank. No, even as a joke, it was already unforgivable. One simply couldn't utter such terrible things and laugh it off.

Even insults had their limit, surely.

“W-what are you talking about...?” the princess asked, desperately clutching at the woman's coat front. “Don't tell me you still suspect him? After everything we've been through together…? After everything...! Why? Why would you even suggest such a thing!?”

“Eeh, ‘still’...?” Izumi's looked disturbed by everyone's reaction. “I should be asking you this instead—when and why did you stop suspecting him? Because he can talk? Because his act is passable? Don't tell me you actually believed what the Vizier said, about them being only mindless animals? Why would you give any credit to somebody, who has never even seen the real deal?”

“Ehh…?”

“Mira-rin told us that daemons can look like anyone, right? Then everyone is suspect, and I mean everyone. And when you think about all that's happened along the way and how it got over the sea, then isn't it clear that daemons are actually more intelligent than humans?”

“We examined him!” Miragrave interjected. “You saw it yourself! He had all his body parts fully intact. Daemon impersonation can never be that flawless! Mimicking someone's superficial looks is one thing and perfectly reproducing a structure as complex as the human body from every angle, down to the smallest detail, is another. It's too much for a lucky guess!”

“He had all the toes, fingers, and such, yes,” Izumi answered. “But what about the stuff inside? We can't exactly check to see if he has all his organs in their proper places without cutting the guy open, right? The wizard said his clothes were real. That means, at some point, he stripped the real Brian and inspected his naked form, before putting on his clothes. I don't know how these monsters normally behave, but clearly he put some effort into the role. So the whole examination method was unreliable to begin with.”

“That’s…” The Colonel fell silent, stupefied.

“But—he saved my life!” Yuliana insisted, her hands shaking, powerless. Was the man she knew already dead?

“Did he, really?” Izumi retorted. “Does that make him a saint then? Can you be sure he saved you because he genuinely cared about you? Or only because he wanted to earn your trust?”

“Why...would he want me to trust him, if he were only a monster?”

“Because no matter how you look at it, you were the one easiest to win over in this group of ours. Don't take this the wrong way, but sometimes you really are too trusting for your own good. Everyone could hear you trying to defend him, back when we first met the guy. That was probably the reason. Of course, everybody else is more likely to trust a cute princess over a brooding foreigner. So long as you'd keep defending him, he'd have easier time getting the rest of us to accept him too. And looks like it went according to plan. I mean, did no one else seriously think it might be him?”

“S-stop...” the princess stuttered. She wanted to deny it, but at the same time, she found that she couldn't. “You can't be serious. This isn't funny, you have to...”

“Hey...” The accused, Brian, took a step forward.

He didn't manage more than a step.

A second later, he was surrounded by knights on all sides. Two on his left and right, respectively, their blades held up against his throat, and one in the back, ready to pierce his heart. The rest remained at a distance, prepared to provide backup. An archer further to the side stood ready to send an arrow through the man's head at the slightest odd move.

“It's a grim case you make,” Miragrave told Izumi in a low tone, her face dark. “Is conjecture all you have against him?”

“Well,” Izumi replied, “unless you're willing to cut him to check if he bleeds, then I suppose it's mostly my word against his. I didn't think too deep on it, at first. It was only after he saved Yule from the unicorn that I really started to doubt him.”

“Why would that incriminate him?”

“He took quite the tumble from horseback at full speed, with another person in his arms and no armor on, yet he brushed it off like nothing,” Izumi explained. “That sort of a stunt might pass in a B-grade action movie, but this world is supposed to have life-like physics. By personal experience, humans here aren't any tougher than in my own world. Yet, he bounced right up without a scratch. It was rather unreal.”

“Your world...?”

“The moss grew thick and soft there,” Yuliana tried to argue. “The sand wasn't that coarse either. This proves nothing! I wasn't hurt myself, we just got lucky!”

“You have your armor and he shielded you—which should have only added to the damage. But you're right. At this point, I was still only a bit suspicious. Until the incident at the river.”

“The river...?”

“Yeah,” Izumi continued her explanation. “When I killed that basilisk in front of him, a bit of blood spilled on his face and—”

“—You mean, you almost killed him...?” the princess interjected.

“—It was an accident! Either way, you said that basilisk blood was supposed to be highly toxic. He did act under the weather for a while, so I assumed I'd made a mistake. But then, less than a day after that, he tried to sneak out with you, and showed no signs of poisoning whatsoever.”

“He…He did say he only feigned sickness,” Yuliana had to admit. “But I never noticed any stains on his face either. Are you sure you saw right? It was dark, you could've made a mistake!”

“Well, that's what I thought too,” Izumi admitted with a shrug. “Maybe the water washed it away before he could be affected. So I let it slide for the time being.”

“The river!” Miragrave yelled at them. “You two fell in the river! Daemons cannot cross flowing water! So how could he make it?”

“He—He couldn't swim!” Yuliana recalled in horror, finding herself having trouble breathing. “We dragged him to the other side by force. With the rope. B-but, not many Langorians can swim. It doesn't prove...”

“That’s the thing, there was never any solid proof,” Izumi shrugged. “But the more you think about it, him being the monster is the only way to make any sense of this whole trip. Why the forest was against us from the start. The unicorn only ever targeted him. The dryads always rushed to wherever he was on the battlefield...Or so it seemed.”

“Why did you keep quiet about this!?” the Colonel shouted at her.

“It's only speculation. What if he was innocent and you lynched him because of my doubts? Yule would've never forgiven me! Besides, other than hearsay, I don't know the next thing about these daemons. I kinda wanted to see what he was up to, and why he pretended to be one of us. Are they really that evil as everybody says? Well, I figured he was up to no good after he killed the wizard. But then—well, a lot happened and there was no chance to bring it up.”

“Yornwhal was killed by the daemon? By him?” Miragrave’s astonishment wasn’t getting better. “Not the Divine of the woods? How could you tell that?”

“By the head,” Izumi raised her finger and explained. “I played the Witc**r and wanted to know more about the monster that killed poor gramps, so I went to check the remains closer. And by the looks of it, the head was torn off with brute force. There were faint, round bruises along his neck, but no claw or fang marks. Had the head been cut off with steel, the wound would've been cleaner, sharper. So whoever did it had to have had more or less humanoid hands that could grip and twist things, who is also way stronger than a regular man, and has some eye for art. A dryad wouldn’t have been smart enough to set up the stake to spook us. The only suspects I could think of then were some kind of a giant, an ogre, a big half-human ape, Mat-chan himself—or the daemon. But I was told that there are no trolls, big monkeys, or such in the woods. Also, we met Mat-chan at the spring and his vessel was an elk. So no hands. If you play Sherlock Holmes for a bit and eliminate all the impossible options, then the one answer that remains has to be the truth, right? On the night of the wizard's murder, Brian was not in chains anymore. Rather, he was there at the meeting and was one of the few people who knew where gramps was going. The guards were exhausted, the palisade broken in many places. He could've easily sneaked out in the dark, killed the wizard, propped up the head, and then gone back to bed without anyone noticing.”

“The explanation is a little difficult to follow...” the Colonel noted.

“Ai-chan gave me the last clue,” Izumi continued. “She appeared to me on the first day and told me to take Yule and run away. I thought it was weird how she refused to explain anything at the time, even though she generally loves her own voice a bit too much. At first, I thought she was scared of Mat-chan, but that theory was ruined by what happened at the spring. That was when it hit me. Ai-chan must've known the daemon was among us from the start. She didn't tell me anything in case I'd try to warn the others or fight the thing myself. I guess she didn't believe in our chances. 'Brian' always had an eye on Yule, and to Ai-chan, the survival of her vessel is all that matters, so she kept her head down. Well, now that we’re here, you only need to look at how the horses are behaving to tell that one of us is a Judas.”

Following Izumi's explanation, a heavy silence fell. For a moment, everyone briefly recalled the days the Langorian soldier had lived in their midst and his behavior. They thought about poor Baron Eisley and the horrid deception they had fallen for.

Then, slowly, all the eyes turned to the Langorian.

How would he answer? How would he argue his defense, to save his life?

He wouldn't.

At the face of these horrid allegations, Sir Brian Mallory——only stood still with a stolid look, all humanity drained from his face, staring directly at Yuliana. As if the swords held at his throat didn't even exist. No blood needed to be drawn. The suspect didn’t even care to keep up with the facade anymore. The abysmal truth became confirmed by the nauseating silence.

The princess shuddered and faced away, feeling dizzy, shivering, as if with fever.

Everyone knew what daemons were and what they could do.

Because they'd been told about them.

Because they'd heard the old tales.

But among everyone present, only Miragrave Marafel could understand the full extent of the peril they were in. Unable to contain her trembling, the Colonel now turned her eyes from the captive to the solitary archer left from her company. All her hopes were pinned on the five remaining dimeritium arrows that he carried. That knight, aiming at the monster, naively made eye contact with the commander, looking for approval.

What are you waiting for!? Do you need me to spell it out for you!? For the love of all that is holy, put that arrow into his head right now, or else we're all going to…!

Scared that her voice would betray her at this crucial moment, the Colonel only bit her lip and nodded. The archer, while ignorant of the gravity of the situation, still recognized the distress in his superior's eyes and tightened his grip on the bow.

Apparently, even elites could make mistakes.

Had he taken the shot immediately, without thinking, with perfect serenity of mind, his spirit tranquil as the surface of a solitary forest pond, perhaps he could've succeeded. Perhaps. But it was ten years too early for this man to reach the level of mastery required for the feat.

The gathering tension in his body and the intent to kill lighting up in his brain weren't ignored by the enemy’s preternatural senses.

Brian abruptly bowed deep forward.

No human would have made such a suicidal move with the razor-sharp swords held on his exposed throat, but he nevertheless leaned against them with his full weight, forcing them aside.

As a consequence, the released arrow of death narrowly missed the Langorian's head and scraped the cheek of one of the men on his right. The knight didn't have his helmet on, convinced that the whole ordeal was already over. Even with such light contact, the rune of power activated all the same and the guard's face caught fire.

“AIIEIEEEEEEEEE!” he reeled backwards, holding his burning face. There was no quenching those flames. In only a moment, his whole head was ash, the fire spreading to his shoulders, and he fell onto the lawn.

While everyone was momentarily stunned by this grotesque scene, the Langorian kicked backward, at the knight about to pierce his heart from behind. The kick of superhuman strength smashed in the chestplate, crushed the knight's ribs, and sent him flying through the air in a tall arc, blood bursting through the helmet visor.

A knight on the left, resorting to muscle memory in this chaotic situation, cut upward with his blade as if trying to execute a human opponent. There showed not a scratch on Sir Mallory's pale neck, however. No matter how it looked on the outside, his skin was not made up of the soft tissue of a human being, and a simple steel sword had no way of rending it. The Langorian turned and smacked the Imperial in the side the head with a haymaker of deceptive lightness. The soldier's head tipped eerily behind his back, making it evident his neck was irreparably broken.

The two remaining knights struck down with all their might, but their swords whistled through the air, harmless. Between them exploded a burst of black, smoke-like substance. The weird veil covered the Imperials’ vision, before rapidly drawing away, revealing that the prisoner was already gone.

Then, Brian abruptly reappeared standing beside the second knight. His arm picked up the fully armored troop, as if he were only a toy, and, after a brief lift, smacked him down into the meadow with unreal force. Sinking into the soft soil, his back shattered, the knight was out of the fight.

The remaining knight bravely stepped on to attack again, but there was no chance he could match the speed or strength of this enemy. Before his desperate blow could land, his helmet, the head along with it, were brushed off his wide shoulders.

Meanwhile, the archer had drawn another arrow and aimed again.

Recovering from his tragic failure and preparing another shot had taken him barely four seconds. In those four seconds, the other combatants were summarily annihilated, unable to buy him even one more opening.

The Colonel hadn't requested a full company of knights out of loneliness.

Any less informed military leader would've been firmly of the opinion that dedicating even a dozen knights to the hunt for a single, man-sized mark was only a gross waste of the taxpayers’ money. They did think so and had expressed their views. But even knowing how her request would be received at the central command, Miragrave hadn't compromised.

A hundred men.

Always more, but never less than that.

Not for the beauty of the round number. Only because she had judged, by experience, by education, that a hundred elite fighters were the absolute minimum required to reliably take down a single daemon.

Of those hundred, only thirty truly mattered—the archers.

Only a full platoon of archers together could cover a sufficient firing sector to pin down and kill a monstrosity of this caliber. And only if each of them came equipped with the enchanted arrows capable of neutralizing the target in one hit. The seventy foot soldiers with their swords, spears, and shields, were needed exclusively to protect the archers, with their bodies.

Losses were expected. If they could bring down the enemy by sacrificing sixty percent of the company, then the mission should've been called a resounding success. More realistic was the estimate that eighty percent would perish.

However, more than that had been either lost or incapacitated in the woods of Felorn.

The chances of victory now—there were none.

Not even one per mil.

The archer released his second arrow, aiming at the chest of the Langorian. In his agitated state of mind, he'd shot slightly too soon, not trying to get a read on the enemy’s movements. Not that there was any meaning in faulting his hastiness. Whether he was agitated or calm, skilled or inexperienced, early or late, it no longer had any relevance. He had wasted the first shot. Now it was only him and the monster. And the rest of the arrows would go untouched.

The monster vanished, the arrow sinking uninterrupted through another eruption of mysterious black dust. A heartbeat later, Brian stood next to the archer, gripping his face. Before the poor man's heart could beat again, his head was already buried in the ground behind his boots, his corpse bent in a revolting, broken curve.

For Colonel Miragrave Estheria Marafel, this was the repetition of the nightmare that had haunted her dreams for the past seven years.

The death she had once escaped had caught up with her.

Miragrave had always wondered what she would do when the time should come. What she feared even more than death itself was that her cowardice would conquer her again. That it would force her to abandon those who depended on her, only to perish in disgrace and humiliation.

But now that the time was here, she did win over her fear.

Knowing it was hopeless, knowing she would die, freed of the expectations of success, she moved as an Imperial soldier, by the book, and seized the slim opening his men had died to produce. Charging in from the enemy's blind spot, she raised her elegant sword to pierce the beast's exposed, deceptively soft-looking neck, the likeliest structural vulnerability.

But her enemy was neither slow enough to get caught, nor foolish enough to rely on eyesight alone. For a daemon, there existed no blind spots. After all, the actual beast within the guise of a man had no eyes to begin with.

Unnaturally swiftly, the Lagorian soldier straightened himself and turned around.

“Eh…?”

Miragrave’s sword arm stopped.

Instead of Sir Brian Mallory of Langoria, she found herself staring at a dark, tall, handsome man. He had black hair and friendly hazel eyes, and he was dressed in a slim, light brown hunting outfit. There was a calm, compassionate smile on his comely face. His slightly curly hair was too short to hide his long, pointed ears.

“Aluen, Mira,” the stranger said. “Tuete callan.”

Frozen, the woman stared at the young cirelo, her trembling lips parted, eyes rounded in shock, and quietly mouthed,

“No way.”

Her attention stolen like this, Miragrave failed to pay attention to the enemy's hand, aiming at her heart with the intent to tear it out from under the rib cage.

She didn't feel it either—as the deathblow never reached her.

For the daemon, taking the Colonel's life now would have meant giving up its own head. Instead, it chose to interrupt the attack and dived sideways to evade the blade of the Amygla, about to dig into its neck.

——“My, you're pretty fast, I'll give you that,” Itaka Izumi said to the beast.

The creature slowly stood, tried his neck and looked at the fingers stained in pitch black blood. Exuding the dark smoke once again, the cirelo warrior's form was briefly shrouded. And in the next moment, Izumi realized she was looking at Sir Brian Mallory's face again. Together with the change in appearance, the wound on his neck had disappeared.

“What is that weapon?” the soldier asked her in a hollow tone.

“You want it?” Izumi brandished the sword, stepping away from Miragrave, who took the chance to regroup with the remaining knights and Yuliana. “Too bad, I'm not giving it away. A day one bonus, you should've preordered like everybody else. Please give up on it.”

“...”

The monster wordlessly circled her.

“Hm?” Izumi remained still and tilted her head. “Not going to show anything fun to me? Ah, yes, you can only take the form of somebody you've actually met, right? That's a shame. I don't suppose you've met anyone with boobs bigger than mine?”

Without answering, the daemon dashed at Izumi.

After a few steps, Brian was obfuscated by the explosive smoke screen and vanished.

Having witnessed the trick once already, Izumi knew what to expect. Without waiting for the enemy to reappear, she immediately turned around and cut down. As she had predicted, the enemy had moved behind her. The pre-emptive strike connected, but the daemon quickly dropped to its back on the ground and escaped the full force of the blow. Remaining grounded, it swept up with a deadly kick. Not following through with her attack, Izumi stepped away and evaded the counter.

The daemon got back up, ignoring the cut running down from collarbone to chest, and the combatants returned to facing one another.

“Is it teleportation?” Izumi pondered without much urgency. “Turning non-corporeal? Either way, of all the possible fantasy abilities I can think of, that's probably the most annoying. But, like the trope goes, you have to take form again before you can land a hit. Which means, it's a pretty useless skill if only I can keep the initiative.”

“...”

“How can I keep it then—you were wondering about that, right? Oh, I'll tell! You're what they would call, a 'perfect killer'. In other words, a predator that has optimized to the max against its prey of choice. But being flawless makes you predictable, you know? For example, I know you'll only ever aim for my head or my heart. Because you can tell, by instinct, that anything other than an instant kill will result in a double K.O. with me as your opponent. That's right, I will take you down even if it kills me. But you wouldn't like that, would you? Us both dying here would mean we're completely equal and that's not fun at all, is it? And yet, if you're limited to two small targets, then I can anticipate your moves easily enough. Don't get me wrong; I'm definitely praising you here! If you were just a second-rate beast, you'd be dead by now.”

The daemon vanished again.

Instead of attempting another back attack, it reappeared right in front of Izumi, less than an arm's reach away. It had correctly judged Izumi’s sizable weapon as her greatest weakness. It wouldn’t be as effective at closer range.

A deadly straight punch shot through the air at the woman's face.

As swift as it was, it was not faster than the eye, however. As all boxers would know, one should look at the opponent's shoulders instead of their fists to see the attacks appropriately telegraphed, and Izumi didn't ignore this principle. She lowered her posture and tilted her neck to avoid the hit by a hair.

Izumi wasn’t out of tricks yet. She pulled the blade into her hands and held it upright as a shield, making full use of its width. A whole chain of furious punches continued to follow. It seemed the monster thought to overwhelm her with raw strength alone.

Turning the sword slightly at an angle, like a plow, Izumi deflected the offensive one punch after another. Like a church bell being hammered, metallic sounds reverberated from the abused sword under the daemon's unrelenting force. Simple steel might not have endured it, but the ancient blade absorbed the hits without cracking. And so did Izumi behind it. The murderous knuckles occasionally brushed her clothes and sides, but she got away with bruises.

The creature's effort to overcome her with a direct frontal assault soon proved fruitless. It put more force into the last blow, but at the expense of speed. Izumi had been waiting for it. She stepped left and let the opponent's fist hit straight against the metal. Absorbing the tremendous impact, she let the Amygla spin freely around in her grip like a windmill sail and used it to bash the enemy.

Air resistance made the counter slightly inaccurate.

The greatsword brushed Brian's shoulder and fell aside. The force of it should've been enough to pulverize the flesh and bones of a regular man, but the durability of the daemon's body was unreal. Only knocked slightly off balance, it rolled to the side and charged again without suspense. Izumi didn't waste the slight break. She turned to face the menace again and lifted the sword for an overhead strike, an execution.

Then, she suddenly realized that the one charging at her wasn't the Langorian man. In his place stepped the tanned, beautiful form of a young girl with dark hair. With a playful smile, the girl held out her arms and whispered the woman's name.

Without mercy, Izumi cut down.

It couldn't be said that the tactic had no effect on her. It made her angry and she struck with perhaps too much zeal. Perceiving no softening on her countenance, the daemon abandoned the attack and escaped in a black cloud well before contact.

“Why do they always do that?” Izumi sourly muttered, turning around.

The combatants were back to their original positions again.

The witnesses of the hair-raising battle were too astonished to move a muscle.

The daemon and the human woman—were close to equal. How could such a thing be possible?

In human form, the daemon's power became somewhat limited by the copied anatomy.

Meanwhile, due to the effects of the spring of Felorn, Izumi’s muscles wouldn’t tire as easily as before. Her altered cells weren’t as quick to pass on information or build up lactic acid, allowing her to keep her focus without feeling the fatigue from the long journey. The daemon's strength and speed remained unmatched, there was no denying that. But with experience and reasoning, Izumi was able to make up for her disadvantage.

What could break this stalemate and in which side's favor?

“What next?” the woman rested the greatsword on her shoulder and waited. “You're going to go after Yule or Mira-rin again? Just try me.”

The remaining few knights had moved to guard the Colonel and the princess. Not even the monster could reach either without first going through that wall of muscle, steel, and courage. And turning its back on Izumi to do so was clearly unwise.

“I thought you were the boogeyman everyone's scared of?” Izumi ridiculed the beast. “Don't tell me this is all you can do?”

Not responding to the provocation, the assassin girl's gaze quietly, unemotionally, observed the woman. They were mirrored in every regard, even in their attempts to rattle the other.

Still, Izumi was starting to feel her human weaknesses. Her taunts stirred no reaction in the enemy, but the longer she stared at the figure of Riswelze, the clearer she felt the pain of loss. This was a foe that attacked not only the body but also the mind. To hide her vulnerability, Izumi quickly continued to speak with forceful lightness,

“Hey, what I don't get is, if you can change shape into whatever you've seen in the past, then why do you still insist on fighting like a human being? Don't you know that for a human, another person is always the easiest opponent? Are you giving me a handicap? Or could it be, you actually can't take any other form? This is your limit?”

A faint smile now appearing on her lips, false Riswelze took a step forward.

By the second step, her figure had vanished, veiled in an expanding cloud of black smoke.

The creature that stepped out of the unnatural mist was a great deal taller.

As if to answer Izumi's expectations, the monster had assumed a form that wasn't human.

It was an enormous giant, nearly twenty feet tall.

A being strikingly similar to the sinister oni of Japanese mythology, a fat, red-skinned, long-armed, stubby-legged giant with thick horns on both sides of the head, and cruel tusks poking out from the wide mouth. The giant's eyes burned vividly with the fire of hatred—or, only one did, it was a cyclops.

Even though Izumi had expected it, baited it, she couldn't avoid being surprised.

Against its massive appearance, the ogre moved quite nimbly compared to the CGI creations Izumi had seen in her past world. Before she could think of a proper way to deal with the startling foe, the giant leaped forward and reached out its large hand. Like casually picking up a pebble from the side of the road, it swept the woman off the ground.

Izumi couldn't escape it.

The giant's vast hand easily reached around her whole body, as if she were only a toy figurine. Pushing against the wide palm, Izumi got away from the fingers right as they began to close, and barely avoided being completely crushed.

But her left arm was still caught.

Not letting go, the giant briskly lifted her up in the air. Izumi felt her shoulder dislocate by the abrupt pull. The pain flashing through her arm and entire upper body, mixed with the stomach-twisting sense of weightlessness, nearly made her faint for a second.

Lifting its victim above its head, the daemon apparently planned to smack her back into the ground like a rat. Izumi felt the bones of her forearm bend in the crushing grip—but her sword arm remained free. Resisting the pain, she stabbed the blade through the ogre's wrist. Black blood poured from the wound, yet the monster didn't even flinch.

Not waiting for a reaction either, using the pinned weapon for support, Izumi kicked her legs up. Vaulting over the monster's arm, she continued to pull the Amygla's handle along, slicing the thick flesh. The twisting motion and the severing of sinews forced the ogre's fingers loose, and Izumi could pull her mauled arm free.

Continuing to fall, Izumi carved the flesh all the way around the tree-like hand, pulling the sword, and dropped back down onto the field. She didn't stop there. As soon as her feet reached the ground, she bent her legs, spun quickly around over her knees, and cut again at the back of monster's thigh, a bit above the bulky knee. Before the Amygla's peerless sharpness and hardness, the monster’s hide was powerless. With half of its leg muscles dissected, the giant lost its balance while attempting to turn after her.

As it wavered, Izumi stepped up, let go of her sword, and drew a pattern on the red skin with a finger. Nothing more she could do, as the giant tumbled forward and changed shape back into the guise of Brian Mallory mid-fall, landing far outside her reach.

Once more, the bout had failed to produce a victor.

Izumi picked up her weapon and whacked her shoulder with the flat side of the blade, forcing the arm back in joint. But the mental damage wasn't as easily restored. She should have continued to apply pressure and finish off the enemy without delay—but it was impossible. Her legs refused to move, her ankles were stiffened and hurting from the drop, her left arm still painful to move. Blood hummed in her ears, and she felt faint.

Just being unable to feel it so clearly didn’t mean she wasn’t tired.

Unable to hide her fatigue, Izumi leaned on the sword and tried to catch her breath.

Meanwhile, on the face of the masquerading enemy—no signs of exhaustion or pain were visible. As it changed form, all the wounds previously inflicted had vanished without a trace. As Brian's confident, gray-blue eyes stared back at her once more, Izumi recalled Miragrave's words.

Anyone could kill. There were a great many monsters in the world of Ortho that were deadly to humans. Then what made daemons stand out?

Nothing.

Trying to fight them, one soon discovered that nothing could be done.

Nothing could sway them, nothing scared them, nothing hurt them.

It was like fighting shadows, with no sense of progression, no personality traits to exploit, no alternative interests to offer. All they cared about was the death of whoever dared to challenge them.

What's up with this? I knew you were bad news, but nobody told me you're literally invincible! At least say something! Show some emotion. Give me a corny speech about how I'm persistent and annoying, too much of a hassle to even kill. How you'll let me go because it was entertaining. How you'll look forward to the next battle, how you can't wait to see how much I'll grow from here.

Of course, no answer was given to her unvoiced thoughts.

Like a cat circling its tired prey, Brian stepped lazily over the grass, waiting for the ideal moment to attack again.

“Hey,” Izumi forced herself to break the silence. “Don't you think I've whittled down your HP enough for you to show me your true form already? Don't tell me you have fourteen phases I gotta go through before I can see the real deal? Which one was the earlier? Just to make sure, there was a checkpoint before this bit, right?”

Without a word, the daemon faced her and dashed into run again.

As much as she wanted to throw away her sword and give up, Izumi recomposed herself and raised her blade once more. If it really were a game, she would've indeed thrown her controller into the wall by now. But this was reality and she couldn't surrender, not while the others stood behind her, their lives depending on her. Gripping the Amygla in a two-handed kendo stance, bearing with the pain in her shoulder, Izumi gritted her teeth and waited.

What would it do now?

How would it surprise her?

She had run out of references.

Anything. It could be anything.

She could only wait and see.

And the daemon did surprise her—by granting her wish.

A surge of black smoke veiled the Langorian knight's features again.

In the next instant, an entirely different kind of a being was running at the woman.

Seeing that form, Izumi—lost her focus.

Could anyone blame her for faltering on that crucial moment? No matter how she seemed, she was only a human with a human heart, after all. And what she faced now was something that didn't exist in her world.

An existence that the Earth had been spared of.

A veritable monster.

A nightmare—an abomination.

An abyss that didn't look back.

As the black, elongated fingers reached for her neck, Izumi forgot her age. Feeling like a helpless child, she reflexively raised her arms to cover her face, squeezed her eyes tightly shut, and shrieked,

——“Brandt!”

A hideous, inhuman roar tore the air, shaking the hearts of anyone who heard it.

Even though the appearance changed, the rune of power Izumi had drawn on the creature's skin activated at being named. It was a desperate gamble, a shot in the dark, but it had worked. For a moment, Izumi saw nothing. Flames, pitch black mist, and cinders breezed past her, intense heat blowing against her face.

And then, silence.

There was no pain—an alarming observation on its own. Izumi hadn’t thought she could make it without injuries. She slowly lowered her arms and noted that her head felt weirdly, unnaturally light. Not even daring to swallow, she slowly removed her right hand from the greatsword's grip and touched her neck. It felt wet, hot. She looked at her shaking fingers.

They were only sweaty.

“...That's twice now, Rise.”

Gathering her courage, Izumi exhaled, relaxed her shoulders, and turned to look back.

A short distance away on the field stood the young cirelo male, a faint smile on his lips, like a playful fairy of the forest. By redoing its form once again, the daemon had managed to quench the flames of the Rune of Ignition, but its body was still steaming all over in the cool evening, as if terribly hot.

Was that expression any indication of the creature's own emotions? Did it even have any? Had it acknowledged Izumi as a worthy rival? Or was it only an empty, meaningless, superficial gesture, mimicking the once observed behavior of the deceased?

No one would ever know.

In the daemon's grip was a thick tuft of hair; Izumi's hair, severed at shoulder level. Had the rune not worked, her head would've been in that grip together with the hair. Discarding the stolen locks, the daemon looked at the woman in the eyes, turned and—walked away.

Unable to move, not making a sound, the survivors watched the monster's distancing back until it had vanished completely into the light mist that sunset had condensed over the fields.

Everyone knew it was wrong.

Letting the beast go now meant certain death to some oblivious soul out there in the world. There could be no doubt of that. The question was not to whom, but to just how many? How many would come to pay the price for the cowardice of these men and women today? And yet, could any mortal in their position have done or be expected to do otherwise? The code of chivalry alone didn't provide anyone with the strength to achieve the impossible.

Not even madness could have.

The undeniable fact was that their lives had been spared by a hair. And by this point, they were all better than aware that another miracle would not follow. Given a second chance at life, who could willingly cast it away for the sake of dying a failed hero?

You may hear songs and legends of the events that transpired in the times following this fateful encounter. But you will hear none ever describe what happened on the field outside the town of Varnam that night. Not one poem. Even long after, when the surviving knights would awake in their own beds, sweating and shouting, and their wives would ask them, “what is wrong?”, the men would only quietly whisper back, “nothing, nothing,” before returning to restless slumber. Resolved to take their shame to the grave.