49. Let's Give It A Shot

I was riding in a carriage bound for the Abyss.

This time, too, Kairon had everything prepared in advance, just as he’d had it all ready for me to set out and bring Lillian back the moment I stepped clear of the training ground.

The more I see of him, the more he’s like a sly old fox. Not that I’m complaining — it makes things go smoothly.

In any case, Kairon was a man whose actions ran ahead of his words. He doled out only the strictly necessary information, dry as dust, never weighting it with emotion or dressing it up in flowery language. A thoroughly efficiency-first cast of mind.

Come to think of it, doesn’t that clash with the whole “head of a knight house” image as a character?

Say “knight commander” and the word conjures someone brimming with loyalty, the steadfast sort who’d lay down his life for his lord. By that measure, Kairon gave off the air of a cold, clear-headed head of the house long before that of a knight.

Shoo, shoo.

I swept the pointless stray thoughts aside and ran back through everything Kairon had explained, sorting it out in my head once more.

The Demonblood Stone is a gem that forms where the final boss makes its lair, so one way or another I’ll have to clear all the way to the end.

Kairon’s condition had been simple. Bring back the Demonblood Stone, the gem that glowed red. And that stone could be obtained only in the Abyss, a dungeon of no small importance even within the game.

Sixty was only the number I happened to know; the true count of Abysses ran far higher. As a rule they were scattered all across the continent, in remote wildernesses where no one lived and deep underground. The ones with juicy rewards or easy clears had their details passed around among players, so even Abysses I’d never set foot in myself, I still knew of.

The info on the unpopular Abysses, though — that was hard to come by.

Those sixty were intel I’d dug up by pounding the pavement on my own two feet.

I figured somebody had to be dealing with them.

Leave an Abyss alone and the monsters come pouring out, a “monster overflow.” But in this world there’d been no word yet of any large-scale overflow or loss of life, which was exactly why I’d paid the Abysses so little mind all this time.

To think they were being quietly cleaned up.

Powerful figures like Kairon had been silently cutting down the Abyss monsters in places where no one could see.

That aside — of all things, it had to be a Demon Abyss.

As I said, the Abysses were many, which meant the attributes of the monsters that turned up varied from one to the next. Undead, magic beasts, spirits… and this time, demons.

The Demonblood Stone Kairon had shown me could be found only in an Abyss where demons were the main monster.

Demons, huh….

Monsters split into those with intelligence and those without, and demons, even the low-ranking ones, had it. Like the army back in the real world, they were sorted into ranks, so even the trash mobs were a fair bit of trouble.

There was a blacksmith in the Empire who could work the Demonblood Stone.

Even so, the Demon Abyss was one of the popular dungeons. The clear difficulty ran high, but in exchange you came away with a top-tier material like the Demonblood Stone.

And it just so happened I was at the point where I could use a decent weapon.

The trial and a weapon upgrade, both at once. Looked like I could kill two birds with one stone.

“Your face looks kind of unpleasant.”

I’d been happily unfurling the wings of a little daydream for a while when Lillian, seated across from me, suddenly spoke up.

“That’s just you being nervous, Sis, so it looks that way to you. You wish I were scared along with you, but I look perfectly fine, so you’re jealous.”
“S-scared?! Who’s scared, huh!”
“You just stuttered.”
“I… I did not!”
“You stuttered again, though.”

This time she didn’t deny it. Lillian pulled her knees up and wrapped both arms around them.

“You’re right, I’m actually a little scared.”

She’d boldly volunteered to be my guardian, but now that the situation was bearing down on her, her composure seemed to be wavering.

“Wasn’t there some other way? We could’ve yielded the heir’s position to big brother and helped him instead…”

Lillian’s voice grew smaller and smaller.

There was only one Demonblood Stone to be had from the Abyss. Which meant that, if things turned sour, even if the fight against the demons went off without a hitch, a clash with Valerian over the stone might still break out.

“Lillian.”

Just then Seraphina, who had been silent all this while, cut Lillian off without so much as opening her eyes.

“A sword without resolve can cut nothing. If your heart is wavering, then turn back now, while you still can.”

“…”

An awkward silence circled the inside of the carriage.

Seraphina’s words were cold, but they weren’t wrong. Hesitate for even an instant in the Abyss, and one of us would have a hard time getting back in one piece.

Lillian was fanning her eyes with one hand, fighting to hold back the tears threatening to spill over at any second.

“Sis. I’ll be honest with you.”

Lillian shot me a desperate look, begging me to take her side. Unfortunately, I had not the slightest intention of answering that plea.

“If I have to, I’m prepared to cut down Brother, too.”
“Arden!”

Lillian cried out, aghast. Even Seraphina cracked her eyes open a sliver to look at me.

“That’s only if Brother tries to kill me first, of course. If he doesn’t, there’s no reason for me to attack first.”

It wasn’t a lie I’d cooked up to calm Lillian down. If Valerian were to beat the demon and claim the Demonblood Stone before me, I fully intended to concede defeat cleanly. I hadn’t the slightest wish to pick a sad, grubby fight over it. I’d hand the heir’s position right over, because losing the succession trial in the first place would mean I lacked the qualifications.

Lillian managed to force her agitation down, but her eyes still wandered, lost. It was my turn to point her in the right direction.

“I’m not asking that kind of resolve from you, Sis. There’s nothing more pointless than forcing someone to do what they can’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I pressed on with my explanation. If I stopped here, her morale would only sink further.

“You just protect me, Sis. Sister Seraphina and I will handle all the attacking.”
“Just protect you?”

Lillian asked, her face unconvinced. But I put on a serious expression and nailed it down.

“The way I see it, Sis, you can’t even kill a demon. If a demon in front of you shed tears and got down on its knees begging for its life, you’d go soft and let it go.”
“I would not!”
“And if the demon that showed up in front of you wore my face from when I was a child — could you kill it then?”
“Th-that’s…”

Lillian made to argue back, then shut her mouth. She was the kind of person who couldn’t say “I could kill it,” not even as a lie. Too tender-hearted, the sort who felt another’s pain and wept right alongside them. That was the kind of person Lillian was.

“Just play support, Sis. Summon those friends of yours and have them fight in your place. Don’t go charging in to attack halfheartedly and get in my way and Sister Seraphina’s.”

I spoke to Lillian more firmly now.

If I don’t draw a clear line right now, she’ll hesitate in the real fight and get hurt — that much is obvious.

There’s nothing you regret more down the road than handling things half-heartedly.

“…All right. I’ll make sure I don’t get in the way.”

Lillian bit her lip and nodded. I turned my gaze away, hoping she’d settle her own heart.

There were still a few days left before we reached the Abyss.

You have to decide your own life for yourself.

I meant to leave the time that remained entirely to her.

Lillian closed her eyes and slipped into meditation, and I, for my part, ran back through the Abyss map and the monster patterns in my head, piecing together a strategy.

There were definitely a total of seventy-two types of Demon Abyss.

That number, seventy-two, was just too transparent. Anyone could see the dev team had blatantly ripped off the “Solomon’s 72 Demons” lore wholesale¹.

And on top of that, seventy-two demons weren’t even all this game had. The “Blood Lord” I’d faced was a demon too, and the very foundation of the DV system, the one that triggers demonification at 100 percent, was rooted in demons as well.

Come to think of it, House Arne ends up falling into the Demon Knights too.

At this rate, did the dev team have a single dead ancestor they couldn’t cram a demon into? No matter how you sliced it, the whole thing was crawling with demons.

There was a reason this game went by the title Demonic Frontier.

It was practically to the point where the ant strolling past would turn out to be a demon’s lackey and the well in the village square a demon’s spit. The whole wide world was just one big demon buffet.

At any rate, just as I was freshly taking in all over again what a bleak setting this game had, Seraphina, who’d been quietly meditating, rose from her seat.

Even with the carriage rocking this way and that, she crossed straight to stand in front of me in a single motion, without a single stumble.

“What is it?”

Snap!

Seraphina’s hand seized me by the collar.

“S-Sister?”
“Out.”
“Huh?”

Whoosh—!

Seraphina put her strength into the hand gripping my collar and flung me clear out of the moving carriage.

“Gwaaaagh!”

I sailed through the air and slammed face-first into the dirt. Lucky for me, the breakfall I’d drilled into myself over the past half year of being tossed around spared me any serious injury.

Rrrrumble.

The carriage, having confirmed I’d dropped off, screeched to a halt.

I brushed off the dust, got to my feet, and jabbed a finger at the carriage.

“Are you out of your mind?! Who throws a person out of a moving carriage?! I almost died!”

But Seraphina, stepping down from the carriage door, was unruffled. She folded her arms, looked down at me, and spoke coldly.

“Earlier you told Lillian, didn’t you. That the two of us would do the attacking.”
“I did! But what does that have to do with this?!”
“Don’t get the wrong idea. At your current level, it’s hopeless. You fall hopelessly short of standing at my side.”
“Which is exactly why I’m racking my brain working out a strategy!”
“That’s not the problem.”

Seraphina cut off my protest and raised a hand toward the coachman.

“Coachman, drive on.”
“Wh— huh?!”

The carriage began to rattle and pick up speed again, and I was left all alone, stranded on the desolate forest road.

Leaning against the rail of the receding carriage, Seraphina gave her indifferent notice.

“Arden. For the next two days, you run and keep up.”

The carriage drew away at a frightening speed. I let out a dumbfounded, hollow laugh, then kicked off the ground on instinct.

“…Has this big sister actually lost her mind?”

The curses came tumbling out of my mouth.

Chase a running carriage for two whole days? It was absurd.

True, Arden’s body had grown vastly healthier and sturdier than when I’d first possessed it, but even so, it hadn’t escaped the bounds of a human.

I chased after the carriage with everything I had.

First things first, I’ve got to get on board somehow.

The distance was just about to close.

Shoom—!

A blue flash of light grazed past the side of my face with a sharp tearing sound. As I tried to dodge the sudden attack my feet tangled, and I lost my balance and went rolling across the dirt. When I lifted my head, a sharp spear of ice stood buried, ever so prettily, right in front of my foot.

From atop the carriage, Seraphina crooked a fingertip. A gesture that said, Come on, then.

…That pisses me off.

As I got back to my feet, her voice carried to me past the ice spear.

“The Abyss is subjugated each time by the head of the house. But those things revive endlessly.”
“…”
“Which means it never gets a hundred-percent cleanout. The ones that survive learn, evolve, and lie in ambush, ready for us to come storming back in.”
“That’s a perfectly reasonable point… but what in the world does it have to do with running me into the ground like some brute?”
“If you have complaints, come and air them.”

I hadn’t realized it before, but this big sister had a real gift for making a person’s blood boil.

I steeled my resolve and sprinted full-speed down the road the carriage had taken.

When I catch her, I’m going to give her a piece of my mind.

Another ice spear came flying. But the same trick doesn’t work twice. I twisted aside and dodged it lightly.

“Not a chance!”

But it was too soon to relax. Before I knew it, ice knights had been summoned and were charging at me.

“Argh, come on!”

A running carriage, ice spears flying at me, and ice knights on top of it all.

“Until now, you’ve only ever fought in a static training ground. But the real thing is different.”

I drew the sword at my waist.

“Move. Stop, and you die.”
“Fine, let’s give it a shot!”

And so began two days of hell, a marathon straight out of a nightmare.