The Demon Of The Hunt

‘Goddamn it, he’s strong as hell!’

The pressure was like having a laser cannon fired right in front of his face. Solomon belatedly kicked off the ground to dodge the trajectory, then immediately ran into the forest.

‘Would layering over this even help here?’

Before that visibly holy radiance, he honestly doubted how much a mere Level 2 veil spell could do. So Solomon conserved his spells. Even the invisibility spell. Unless he could first properly break through the multiple layers of radiance, the aura wrapped around that paladin, he couldn’t afford to waste his cards carelessly.

The Black Bird Spirits, being masses of mana, were one thing, but what about Solomon?

‘He’d definitely notice me.’

That bright aura would surely serve as an almost absolute protective beacon against sneak attacks and every kind of ambush. In a sense, it was a worst-case matchup.

“Show yourself fair and square! And hunt me down!”

Even as he said that, the paladin in golden armor shouted desperately. Hearing that voice, Solomon realized it instinctively.

‘He can’t… pinpoint my position.’

So Solomon leveled the already-loaded Nightfall automatic crossbow and fired a shadow bolt into empty air. Taang! Dark mana shot out. Following that trajectory, the paladin hurriedly moved as well. Once again, his two-handed greatsword swung and released a golden shockwave.

He realized it belatedly. It was not merely that the forest terrain was preventing him from locating Solomon. At first it had been a suspicion. Before long, as he closed the distance, that suspicion turned into certainty.

His two eyes were blind, weeping pitch-black bloody tears. A black, dark liquid, sticky like tar, dripping down like the sap of the trees here.

‘He can’t see.’

All he could sense was Solomon’s presence, or the movement of mana. Even that was not as sharp as it should have been.
─ For what?
─ For what, caw, is it for?

Before long, the flock of crows perched around him outside the aura’s range all mimicked a human voice at once. The radiant paladin collapsed to his knees and cried out as if sobbing.

“With these hands, I committed an unforgivable sin and fell into hell. Deceived by a sorcerer’s temptation, I killed my beloved family, my wife, my sons and daughters, with my own hands! I broke the oath I was meant to uphold with these hands!”

─ Do you believe this pain and death in hell will bring you salvation?

Solomon asked back coldly. Caw, caw. Looking down on the sinner while commanding the flock of crows.

─ Is there… no forgiveness for you?

The paladin asked back in a trembling voice.

“Even you cannot forgive me… and mean to leave me in this suffering?”
─ For someone saying that, you’re struggling awfully hard to stay alive.
“Only a fair and square defeat can save me!”
─ That’s unfortunate.

Solomon shrugged.

“I’m pretty far removed from fighting fair.”

Even so, it could not be helped. Caw, caw. Focusing his mind, Solomon summoned the maximum number of crows he could control with the 「Hitchcock」 Black Bird Spirit Bracelet. They were made of mana and well suited to scattering the bastard’s focus, and their number was already enough to fill the darkness of the forest and more.

Those very birds all charged toward the aura at once like a bird strike.

Kwachik, kwachik!
Like Alfred Hitchcock’s 「The Birds」, countless crows were crushed and torn apart, yet they still flew without hesitation into the paladin’s aura. The endless self-destruction of dark spirits. Within that endlessly accumulating darkness, Solomon was moving.

‘.’

Within the darkness of the countless Black Bird Spirits, a darkness layered over that darkness. It was not enough to swallow the paladin’s golden aura whole, but for a brief instant, a very brief instant… it could at least offset it.

‘Now!’

Solomon didn’t miss that opening. He didn’t even use an invisibility spell, nor cast an enhancement spell like on his blade. The only things that bastard could read were mana and presence.
So he simply became a soundless assassin and stood behind him.

And what he layered on in that moment was only one ability.

‘Class trait 「Blade in the Dark」activate.’

His strongest card which allowed him to deliver a critical hit to a sneak attack with no questions asked once per day.
He didn’t care even if what stood before him was a heavily armored suit from the medieval era plated in gold.

‘ , activate.’

A forced sneak attack from an invisible state was effective on his side as well. Especially with the buff effect of added on top of it.

The blade tip drove down.
Solomon’s Ghost Whale Bone Blade drove into that single point of weakness, the gap between the plates of armor, the seam fastened with rivets, the joint where the bindings met.

[Sneak Attack Roll……]

The blade swung. At the end point where Solomon’s blade drove down, the sensation that should have been there─.

‘……!’

Kaaang!
It was canceled out against the metallic clang of the armor, as if refusing to go down so easily.

[Sneak Attack Roll Critical Failure]

‘Fuck!’

His heart sank. Even so, it was still too early for despair. The odds were not high. But they were not so low that hope itself was impossible.

And so, when one more chance was finally offered.

[Would you like to consume 1 <Fate Die ⚅> and attempt a reroll?]

───
<Fate Die ⚅>
Tags - special die, consumable die
: If a die roll during a sneak attack results in a critical failure (fumble), you may consume this die to attempt a reroll.
: This die is classified as a special, consumable die, and up to 1 can be restored upon resting.
───

There was no comparing the expected value of one attempt and two. And Solomon had been given another chance. A last chance. There would be no chance after this.

When he realized it, the hands of the clock had been turned backward. At the very instant he was about to kick off the ground. Their movements played in reverse like rewinding a video, then the reverse playback stopped at a certain point.
Then the clock hands began ticking again.

Back to the very point where he could correct his mistake.

Solomon kicked off the ground again. More squarely than ever.

Chwaaaak!
Blood sprayed out. The paladin twisted in pain. Belatedly, his two-handed greatsword swung horizontally. Had Solomon not dodged, his waist would likely have been cut clean in two.
So Solomon lowered his stance, and it happened right after that.

[Spell Resistance Failed!]

With a shattering sound like glass breaking, the layered over the area collapsed. The bird strike built by the countless Black Bird Spirits charging all at once likewise left not even crow corpses behind, only dissolving into mana particles.
What remained, then, was a painful golden radiance like sunlight shining on a vampire.

‘Kh…!’

It wasn’t a metaphor. Solomon could actually feel the light burning him with every passing moment inside it. As if it were burning flesh and bone. He couldn’t stay in it for long. But neither was it enough to make him flee immediately. Above all, considerable damage had been piling up on his opponent as well. The Reaper subclass’s 「Excessive Bleeding」 and 「Bloody Harvest」 were likely applying too. Even so, Solomon didn’t care.

‘I’ll finish it with the next strike.’

So Solomon steeled himself. He would not dodge. He would simply face him head-on. Paradoxically, gripping the hilt more squarely than ever.

‘Activate , .’

It was not for his sake. There was prey he could take, and a reward to gain. That was all.

Right then.
A tearing sound through the air─rang out.

The sound of a great bowstring being drawn and an arrow tearing through the air. It was the sound of that great bow piercing the skull of the paladin Solomon was meant to finish with his own hands, forcing through the helmet armor like paper.
His head split apart on the spot, his skull shattered, and brain matter and fragments of brain scattered everywhere.
A sneak attack so cowardly it could never be called fair and square.

The arrow pierced the paladin’s skull the moment before Solomon’s own strike could land. Far removed from anything fair and square.

─ Aaah, aaaahhh……!

A scream rang out. Even though that skull had already exploded, it was as if he were crying out against the fate of suffering endlessly in the endless pain of hell without ever being absolved.

“!”
“Well now.”

A voice was heard. It was Barbatos, that demon’s voice. As if he had been waiting from the beginning.

“Regrettably, that prey’s suffering cannot yet be brought to an end”
“……Cannot yet be ended?”
“That’s right. For him to meet death fair and square… his sin is far too deep.”

Solomon asked back in disbelief.

“Didn’t you say you’d let me harvest prey in the forest, as promised?”
“Just as I said. That was my recompense. Though, a hunter losing his prey in the forest is not exactly a rare thing.”
“You mean stealing someone else’s prey.”
“Is that not the charm of the hunt?”

Barbatos sneered in a leisurely voice.

“Wasn’t the promise that once the hunt was over, you’d let me leave here safely?”
“A promise is a promise. And demons always keep their promises.”

The crimson demon answered, holding a great bow of absurd size that no human could wield, the feather on his hunter’s hat fluttering.

“Specifically, it was a promise to send you back after the hunt was over.”
“……”

Saying that, Barbatos adjusted his great bow.

“But now, look at this situation.”

As the unquestionable Demon of the Hunt.

“What a skilled hunter will encounter in the unknown depths of the forest, and what he will come to hunt.”

Solomon had not yet harvested any prey. He had not even succeeded in his first hunt.

“─And what an unskilled hunter will encounter in the unknown depths of the forest, and by what he will be hunted.”
“……”
“The difference between hunter and prey can be overturned as easily as flipping a hand. Is that not the true charm of the hunt?”

He was right. The hunt wasn’t over.
The hunting grounds of Barbatos, the Demon of the Hunt. No matter what one hunted and gained here, in the end this was still that demon’s hunting ground.

“I’ll give you one minute to run.”

Barbatos said, nocking the string on his great bow and showing an ease more relaxed than ever. Seeing that, Solomon understood. Even if he had targeted those hands and feet he first encountered instead of the paladin, the result would not have changed.
He had never intended to let Solomon leave alive in the first place.

“Did you sell off your gratitude on the way here?”
“Oh, as I said……”

Barbatos answered the taunt.

“Just now, I repaid my debt. Did you not, in fact, enter my hunting grounds and receive the right to harvest prey?”

In a maddeningly leisurely voice.

“You have already received your recompense, and with that, the debt between us is settled.”
“You bastard.”
“There is no longer any debt between us to owe or to carry. Is that not so?”
“……I suppose so.”

Solomon answered coldly. There was no longer any debt left to demand from the being before him. At the same time, he understood.

Why a demon was, in the end, called a demon.