VS Justice, Part 2

Every person involved there was someone who could move.

They were people who had experienced a true crisis at least once in their lives and survived it.

Therefore, they acted quickly.

“Lazaar!”

Tooyama called out to the companion who had been with him ever since he came to this world.

1 second.

“Yeah!”

Lazaar tried to spread the favor sent from a world beyond, the cloak of shadow that hid evil deeds, around himself.

1.2 seconds.

“Crap, boss! This way!”

“Urgh?!”

One beat later than the adventurers, but still with speed more than quick enough for someone who did not live by combat, the curly-haired young man Bise grabbed Dromora by the scruff of the neck and tried to flee from the scene.

2.9 seconds.

“Wha?! Bise?! Tch! Damn it! Behind the stall! And the shields can be taken off! Use them however you like!”

While being grabbed by the scruff of the neck, Dromora, whose livelihood was watching for opportunities and understanding situations, understood the killing intent between the female knight and the adventurer, and shouted the greatest concession he could make.

He was certain that his clever business partner would understand with those words alone.

4.2 seconds—

Everyone began taking their fastest, best, and most optimal actions.

But sadly, Justice flipped her switch even faster. Because she believed the words of her wise colleague, beloved by “death,” whom she trusted more than herself.

0.6 seconds.

“Too slow, dis.”

“Fa, st—”

Justice attacked without the slightest mercy or hesitation.

She kicked off the stone paving and stepped into the adventurer’s chest with speed that would put even a wild beast to shame.

What she swung was a simple punch. Yet the girl’s small fist was also, at the same time, a blow from a knight of the Angel Church.

“Ur, gh.”

The fist that sank cleanly into his stomach bent Tooyama’s body into a V shape. Cold sweat burst out, the impact pierced through to his back, and nausea rose in his throat.

He had taken a good one cleanly.

However,

“Tch. Tough, aren’t you, dis?”

At the same time, that slender arm, which had buried itself into him, was firmly pinned by both of Tooyama Naruhito’s arms, whose muscle density was unthinkable by this world’s nutritional standards.

She could not pull free. She could not move. Realizing that, Stolu clicked her tongue.

“N-Naruhito?!”

“I’m fine!! Lazaar! Run! This one’s way too dangerous! Even two-on-one, we can’t beat her!”

An Explorer did not go down for free. And among them, Tooyama Naruhito was overwhelmingly the type to struggle to the bitter end.

“B-but—”

“Decide! You can do that, can’t you?!”

Tooyama barked at the hesitating Lazaar. He knew Lazaar’s goodness, and at the same time, he understood how capable Lazaar was.

“—‘Shadow Guidance’!!”

Just as Tooyama expected, Lazaar cloaked himself in shadow. There was no need for both of them to go down together.

“This is the shadow of Floria of evil deeds…! I see, so that is how it is. Stolu, I will pursue the Lizardonian. He, too, is a being with a strong scent of death. My sacrament and his power are well matched.”

Lazaar vanished into the shadows, but the slender female knight was also one of those who received the favor of a “familiar.”

Because evil deeds and death were closely related familiars, their abilities were, in a certain sense, similar enough to interfere with each other.

“Understood, dis. Seventh Knight Cradea, be careful.”

“Yes. You too, First Knight Stolu.”

The two Church Knights were also battle-hardened veterans. With a brief exchange and swift judgment, the First Knight, Justice, faced Tooyama. And the Seventh Knight, Death, chased Lazaar.

“Hey, you, wait! Ghubh?!”

A knee strike stabbed into his stomach, and Tooyama instinctively let go, staggering.

He nearly fell to one knee, but he clenched his back teeth and endured it.

“What a sturdy body. You have trained well, dis. Black-haired man.”

“…That’s harsh. We went on a little adventure together.”

“Yes, it is unfortunate, dis, black-haired man. I had taken a slight liking to you two, but that is over now, dis.”

“…How about fighting an unarmed opponent while armed?”

“It means the work will be finished quickly, so there is no problem, dis.”

“That’s smart.”

“Naturally, dis.”

The conversation ended, and a strike came aimed at the gap in his awareness.

“Uweh?!”

Tooyama screamed as he rolled away from it. The stone paving hurt.

“He dodged again…”

Stolu stared at Tooyama with eyes whose highlights had vanished. It was only a matter of time before he was finished.

The girl now was no longer the carefree girl who kept saying “dis, dis.” She was a hunter who killed enemies.

“Damn it!! You sure flip your switch fast!”

Behind the stall—

Amid his panic, his brain found a way to survive. Dromora’s words, spoken after the surprisingly nimble employee grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him away from the scene.

“Wait, could it be…”

Just as he had said. Tooyama slipped behind the stall.

“But it is over, dis, unarmed adventurer.”

Stolu smiled. Her low intelligence could only assume that Tooyama had hidden there as a stopgap measure—

“Damn it! Fortune favors the bold!!”

He yanked open a drawer in the stall by force.

Crack. A dull sound. It was badly fitted—no, it had been made so that it could not be pulled out unless one tugged at it with absurd force from the beginning.

“Huh?”

Stolu’s eyes widened.

Because that was gripped in Tooyama’s hand as he leapt out from behind the stall.

“Ha, haha, hi, hihihi. What the hell? You’ve got some good stuff after all.”

Black iron. White patterns mottled across it.

An iron rod about eighty centimeters long, sized to be held in one hand. Yet it was clearly a weapon.

It had no blade. Yet it was clearly a weapon that took lives.

Its swollen tip was shaped out of black iron into a diamond form. That swollen end was not just a simple rod.

“You must not use a shop’s goods without permission, dis.”

A mace. A blunt weapon created in Tooyama’s modern world to crush knight armor.

Tooyama Naruhito gripped the deadly weapon also known as a knight killer.

“I’ll pay for it.”

Tooyama gripped the mace’s handle tightly. It fit. It felt familiar. He perceived the mace as an extension of his own hand.

He liked blunt weapons. They could smash apart every annoying, stubborn thing.

When he broke into the mansion of a large corporation’s executive in high school, and when he shattered the window glass of a van driven around by a gang of delinquents.

And when he killed a monster for the first time in his life.

Always, in the moments of battle that were necessary in his life, amid crises that threatened him, a blunt weapon had been gripped in Tooyama Naruhito’s hand.

“If I had a handgun too, then Hammer Tooyama would be back, but well, that’s impossible.”

Ahead of him, the enemy. He stared at her. A habit from his Explorer days, the first step Explorers learned in training.

Look at the enemy. Correctly recognize the enemy that seeks to threaten you.

Become aware of the fighting function buried deep in your body as a living creature, possessed since the primitive age.

That became the trigger for the “intoxication.”

“I see, dis. I will ask you this. Do you intend to surrender?”

“No. I’ll do what I want. As my desires dictate.”

“Dungeon intoxication.”

In the modern world Tooyama came from, this was a phenomenon similar to drunkenness that occurred in humans who operated inside dungeons.

Because of it, Explorers deceived themselves about the killing that living creatures should naturally avoid, and about their fear of terrifying monsters, and advanced forward.

People became drunk on dungeons. And Tooyama Naruhito’s brain had long since been destroyed by that intoxication.

“Even if that means murder?”

At Stolu’s question, Tooyama smiled. He did not once avert his eyes from the girl’s eyes, which asked why he had killed.

The intoxication exposed one’s essence, the essence of that person.

As his desires dictated. Tooyama Naruhito lived under that simple rule.

“If that’s what I desire. I hate bastards who hurt other people and laugh about it. It pisses me off when trash gathers in groups and grins like idiots. I can’t forgive scum who prey on the weak and then live comfortably.”

It made his skin crawl when people did such things and still lived happily as if it were only natural—

That was all there was to the reason behind the murders Tooyama had committed.

He could no longer remember the faces of the people he had killed today, but their laughter, their grinning smiles without imagination, remained.

Those faces resembled them.

That laughter was always the same.

They gathered, laughed, and stank.

They were all the same as the ones who had taken his fluffy friend from him in his childhood.

He felt no guilt at all for disposing of them.

“I see, dis.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

No more words were necessary. Stolu stood for the reason for her existence, Justice, and Tooyama stood to live as Tooyama, as his desires dictated.

Ahead of him, the enemy.

The First Knight of the Angel Church, Stolu Pula.

“If that is your justice, then it cannot coexist with mine. …‘Justice.’”

“Yeah, that’s how justice works, isn’t it? I know.”

Pure justice and greed faced each other.

Both of their switches had already been fully flipped.

One of the spectators swallowed audibly.

That became the signal.

“Hah!”

“Ora!”

Stolu swung her slender sword, and the point that advanced straight ahead aimed at Tooyama’s torso.

Tooyama bent his body back sharply and dodged. At the same time, he swung the mace in a wide arc. The mace, raised by centrifugal force, aimed at Stolu’s small head.

“Slow.”

“Figured.”

Stolu hopped backward and dodged it, but Tooyama did not panic.

Tooyama put distance between himself and Stolu, grinned,

“I’m borrowing this too!”

And tore a shield from the display shelf of the street stall, holding it in his left hand.

“Tch. You did that on purpose, dis?”

“I’m forcing my way through!”

Tooyama held up the shield and kicked off the ground. Naturally, Stolu readied herself to intercept him.

“Huh?”

Stolu’s eyes widened. With a mace and a light shield, she had expected close combat beginning from a perfect melee movement. However, Tooyama Naruhito—

“Idiot, idiot! Like hell I’d fight seriously in a place like this!”

Ran away.

“Move, move! Don’t blame me if you get dragged into this!”

“Uwaa! He’s coming this way!”

“Don’t screw around! Fight!”

Pretending to charge, he suddenly turned, moved away from Dromora’s street stall in one burst, and mixed into the crowd of onlookers who had gathered to see what was happening.

Stolu stood alone in front of the stall, still gripping the hilt of the slender sword at her waist, and stared at the crowd into which Tooyama had disappeared.

“…Am I the idiot, dis?”

She lowered her head and muttered.

A knight’s pride lay in battle. A knight’s honor lay in risking one’s life in battle for one’s faith.

She had sensed it.

The black-haired man, the murderer, had certainly carried the scent of the strong. He had broken the justice of the Church and the law of the Empire, and he was also strong.

She had thought they could kill each other while staking their pride. An honorable battle to judge a criminal who had violated the law. She had thought she could prove again today the reason she had been born, fulfill her role, and immerse herself in the joy of doing so.

And she had also thought that he was a person who lived well. If they had met differently, perhaps they could have become friends. She had even thought such a thing.

He hunted monsters, carried them with his partner, negotiated prices with a merchant…

Ah, how—

Tooyama Naruhito had surely given her the feeling that he could make her feel alive.

And yet, despite that, he ran away. He deceived her.

“…No.”

Clatter, clatter. Her small palms trembled. Her colleague Cradea had trembled from fear of Tooyama.

Then what about Stolu?

“I am not an idiot, dis!!!!!”

It was anger. The young female knight’s small body trembled from easy-to-understand contempt and anger at having her expectations betrayed.

“Eek.”

“A-A Church Knight is furious… Sh-shouldn’t we get out of here?”

“Idiot, what about the shop?!”

The crowd fell into panic. Everyone knew. Everyone understood. The Angel Church was widespread throughout the world.

They knew the valor of the knights who symbolized its military power, and their ferocity as well.

History and song had proven what it meant to touch the anger of a Church Knight.

“I will not let you escape. If you will not fight, then from this moment onward, this is no longer a struggle under law and justice. It is hunting time, dis! No matter where you run, I will hang your head and display it, dis!”

Waaaaaaaah?!

R-run awaaaaay!

W-wait, don’t leave me behind!

The open-air market was swallowed by a wave of terror. People tangled together, and the crowd scattered like baby spiders.

Stolu advanced to search for Tooyama. Each time she moved through the open-air market, another person started running, fleeing.

The crowd moved as if avoiding Stolu, but gradually, even that much composure vanished.

Fear and panic were contagious. More and more people began to appear who did not understand what they were afraid of or what they had to flee from.

In the blink of an eye, the open-air market became chaos. People running in fear, people closing their stalls, people crouching where they stood.

That chaos swallowed even Stolu, who had created the crowd.

“Tch. This makes searching for him a pain, dis.”

She clicked her tongue without thinking. However, no matter how much they were in the way, she could not lay hands on innocent civilians.

She searched for Tooyama, but Stolu’s low line of sight began to be obstructed by the crowd—

“—?!!!”

It was not a reaction born of reason, but a movement almost like a spinal reflex.

It was an action born from sensing clear killing intent that had oozed out among the fleeing people.

Stolu shifted her body half a step.

A blow from an iron mass swung down, grazing the tip of her nose.

“Oops, amazing reaction. No, that was almost reflex.”

Stolu had been able to dodge because of her natural talent.

The attack had been swung with fighting intent while mixed among the fleeing people in the crowd.

The blow aimed at Stolu’s head missed and struck the stone paving hard with its momentum.

The strike that put small cracks in the stone paving had come from that man.

“You…!”

“I’m not interested in fighting a monster head-on. Chase me, knight.”

It was Tooyama Naruhito.

He grinned, struck, and withdrew.

He turned on his heel and blended into the crowd.

“Y-you—don’t run! Kh, wait right there, dis!!”

She reflexively chased him.

However, Stolu could not think.

Unable to understand the man’s aim, she chased him. Without even recognizing that the place he was leading her was where the crowd was denser and thicker.

“Move! Get out of my way!”

Stolu raised her voice, but that only spread the crowd’s panic further.

Once again, the crowd grew more chaotic.

“Gah?!!”

“Whoa, you blocked that too? Dangerous.”

Another blow was swung. She somehow deflected the mace with her sword as it scooped up from below, hidden within the crowd.

Tooyama’s posture collapsed badly. His torso was wide open, and the First Knight was not one to overlook that.

“—Ah.”

“Hihi.”

It was the perfect chance. Stolu reached for her slender sword to finish him, but at this stage, she finally realized it and let out a sound.

Tooyama smiled because his strategy had succeeded.

“Damn… you coward…”

By the time she muttered that, Tooyama had already fled back into the crowd.

She could not swing her sword.

It was simple. Simply, there were too many people around Tooyama and herself. Even with a slender sword, if she drew it and swung, it might hit someone other than Tooyama. That possibility dulled her sword as a knight.

“Hihihihi. Good. I’m glad your justice isn’t just empty talk.”

Tooyama blended into the crowd again. His own position and his opponent’s position, the gap in strength, and the environment.

His combat thinking concluded that this was the most efficient method.

In terms of skill, Stolu could probably pierce only Tooyama in this crowd without any problem. However, it was a possibility. Even so, there was a possibility she might injure someone else.

That “what if” dulled the girl’s sword tip.

“Damn… it…”

“Come on, you’re full of openings!”

“Kh!”

From between the fleeing people, Tooyama assaulted her again.

In contrast, Tooyama had no hesitation at all. Though he did not swing the mace wildly, he raised it without care and swung it with all his might toward the crown of her head.

The difference between weapons, a blunt weapon and a sword. With a sword, even a touch could cause serious injury, but with a blunt weapon, the story was different.

Its simple structure and construction delivered death only to the one clearly targeted with killing intent.

“Here we go!”

“Ah?!”

Repeated blows, repeated blows, a barrage.

Once Stolu became aware of that fact, of the possibility that she might injure the people around her, her movements slowed all at once.

“Hihi.”

The man was not one to miss that.

Blow after blow from the mace came down toward Stolu. Stolu continued blocking and parrying them with unbelievable strength and skill, but—

“Take thiiiis!”

“Kya?!”

With one spirited blow, he swung the shield wide and slammed it toward Stolu’s right hand, which held her sword.

Clang. Metal rang against metal.

Tooyama’s shield knocked the slender sword from Stolu’s hand.

“Got you.”

He did not intend to kill her. The situation was different from when he dealt with the gatekeepers. This was not the right timing to dispose of her.

Tooyama immediately swung the shield down toward the crown of the girl, who was now empty-handed and still off balance.

He would smash one blow into her with a clang, then run off, search for Lazaar, and think of a move to break through the situation.

His combat thinking raced. There was no hesitation in Tooyama’s movement.

Through tactics and shrewdness, he would even neutralize a Church Knight—

“—Did you think you had won, dis?”

He heard it clearly. In the instant he swung the shield down.

He saw it clearly. A cruel smile appeared on the face of the young girl who was the First Knight of the Angel Church.

“‘Justice’ wins, dis.”

Ping.

“—Huh?”

It was a phenomenon far beyond Tooyama’s understanding.

There had been carelessness there that he himself had not noticed. Perhaps his victories accumulated over a short time, overcoming a dragon and strangling crows to death, had dulled his instincts.

“Grave good.”

The slender sword Tooyama had knocked away. Where was the slender sword?

“—Above.”

He looked up. A thin sword spun round and round.

His spinning thoughts accelerated.

—I don’t understand. But for an instant, it seemed like the sword tip was pointed at me.

Lazaar’s words. The way the bandit had died.

—Through the use of “Justice,” the bearer of this sacrament receives an immense correction to every action related to justice as they think or feel it.

The wording of the message. In other words, what? This one’s actions, all of them, will go well?

No way. No, wait, what is this? My thoughts are too fast.

Tooyama did not realize it. His thoughts had accelerated enough that the time around him felt slow.

He did not realize that this was his life flashing before his eyes.

Through the use of “Justice,” the board had now begun moving entirely in Stolu’s favor.

The thin sword Tooyama had knocked away—no, had been made to knock away—the Hanging Sword spun round and round.

Its sword tip was pointed at Tooyama.

In that slow world, Justice slowly lifted the corners of the girl’s smile.

It was the dark smile of joy at turning one’s talent against another person.

“Grave good, execution. Hang him, ‘Hanging Sword.’”

“Ah—”

The next instant after he heard Stolu’s voice, it was already—