103 - Chapter 29: The Yuri-Pig Who Opens the Gate ~Yuru-tical Parade~
Astride Ipos, who had soared into the sky, Shannon looked down upon the royal capital.
Thousands of bone Dragon Soldiers overflowed everywhere, but mountains of bones of roughly the same number had piled up. It was like a picture of hell.
Though the city's landscape was being sacrificed, the meteors from the sky certainly seemed effective, as even the immortal bone Dragon Soldiers found regeneration difficult once they were shattered to that extent.
And then, there was a spot on the main street of the royal capital's main gate that occasionally emitted a radiance. Shannon stared at the radiance emitted by a man who was facing the bone Dragon Soldiers alone as they surged forward like a tsunami.
The main gate of the royal capital. In this city surrounded by walls, it was the largest entrance. If the bone Dragon Soldiers overflowed from there, it would cause immense harm to the surrounding villages.
Foreseeing this, Julia had stationed soldiers around the area past the main gate, but not enough to handle thousands. This was because the majority of the manpower was being used to guide the evacuation of the royal capital's residents.
Richter likely remained to reduce their numbers even slightly, anticipating this, but────.
"He is a fine man. Your master."
Marianne spoke to Shannon, who was looking toward the main gate with a worried expression.
He was by no means a clever man. If anything, he was likely a foolish man. However, there are very few people with such a straight streak that they would dare play the fool and draw the short straw until the very end.
In that sense, she called him a fine man.
"Um... Master is single, so if you like, shall I introduce you later?"
"That is not what I meant!"
It seemed it did not get through to the child, Shannon, who had only just realized her own feelings of love, and she took the words at face value.
Eh? It's not? As Shannon tilted her head, Marianne continued, though exasperated that this child was really just...
"I am sure he agonized. I am sure he suffered. Even so, he likely chose to struggle."
The option to throw away everything for someone or for something is always available to every human being. However, it is impossible for every human to be able to take that option.
"To others, his methods might seem strange. They might be clumsy, muddy, unsightly, or pathetic."
This was not a matter of good or evil, or right or wrong, but because humans inherently possess self-preservation and defensive instincts.
"But, the figure of someone who desires to be so, and strives to be so────is very beautiful."
Marianne felt fondness for those who could suppress and step over those instincts to go beyond calculations of profit and loss, and she admired Richter for achieving it.
And if that were about to be lost, she was more than willing to lend a hand.
"I will never abandon those who uphold an aesthetic and walk their own path. For I wish to become such a person, and I desire to be so."
She had confirmed the condition of the shadow beasts. Lumilia's location had been identified, and a means of recovery had been established.
It was almost time to go all out.
"O ye who wander the boundaries, the day of wrath has finally come."
Thus, she stood upon the back of Ipos and murmured as if singing aloud.
"Gather the shining tears, cast aside the ephemeral, and answer my call."
This was not the usual shortened chant, Hyakki Yagyou. This was its full chant version.
"Destroy the melancholic perfection, assemble the joyful imperfection, and carve your mark upon the earth."
The phosphorescence of magic born from Marianne. Above her head, it formed a giant gate like a wire sculpture.
"At the end of the prayer of severance, cross the final wall."
That giant gate, carved with sinister reliefs of numerous monsters, nevertheless shone in gold and overwhelmed those who beheld it.
"Now, manifest────"
Eventually, the doors of the giant golden gate opened heavily, and countless eyes beyond them peered at the world they were to conquer.
And then.
"────Hyakki Yagyou (Lemegeton)."
Responding to the master's call, a great army of demons from another world overflowed into this world, clad in shadows, but this time accompanied by physical substance.
●
"Hurry! Just a little more!"
Amidst the chaos, Mule Gray stood at the vanguard, raising his sword and shouting. Beyond his voice were the citizens of the royal capital who had been late to evacuate.
The role given to him was the guidance of refugees and their frontline command. As a member of the First Knight Order, he and his subordinates, who often patrolled the royal capital, were well-known in this area. He had been given this duty because of that.
However, the guidance had reached its climax, and the enemy's offensive had finally become intense. The bone Dragon Soldiers were being driven forward by those bombings from the sky.
No, that probably wasn't the only reason. Those bone Dragon Soldiers were undead by attribute. If they were born from the Spirit Dragon, it was only natural. And the dead have a characteristic of being attracted to the living. With this many refugees, it was only logical that they would be lured.
(Even so, this number is...!)
Although it had become better than at the start due to the attacks from above, there were still thousands, or perhaps over ten thousand, bone Dragon Soldiers. He was hurriedly guiding the refugees toward the main gate, but the population of the royal capital was also large. Therefore, led by the First Knight Order, they were fighting a delaying action against the bone Dragon Soldiers.
If these were living creatures, it would not be so difficult. Even without killing them, if they were wounded, they would be slowed by pain, and if they became corpses, they would become obstacles for those following, literally becoming a wall of flesh. If it were a human army, manpower would also be taken to recover the wounded.
But against bone Dragon Soldiers, the situation was entirely different.
Whether limbs were torn off or crushed, they did not stop their advance. If everything was crushed, their activity would indeed stop, but there was no time to do that to every single one. Having no choice, they aimed for the legs to slow their movement, but the followers simply stepped over them and came forward, so it didn't even serve as a time-buy.
And due to the ceaseless tsunami-like offensive, the fatigue of Mule and his men had reached its limit. After all, this came right after the civil war. They had certainly not anticipated consecutive battles.
(Even so...!)
He had inherited the First Knight Order from Richter. In their first battle, he could not show an unsightly figure. Gritting their teeth, they continued to stand on the front line.
In the midst of this.
"Auu!!"
"Kuh...! Are you okay!?"
Finding a child who had been late to evacuate and had either tripped or gotten their foot caught, Mule rushed over to help them up.
"Commander!!"
Because it was a wartime appointment, the fact that they were not yet used to calling him Commander worked against them. He was a moment late in responding to his subordinate's call, and only then, seeing the terrified expression of the child he had helped up, did he finally realize. That there was likely an enemy behind them.
(At least, for this child...!)
Recognizing the figure of a bone Dragon Soldier in the child's eyes, Mule without hesitation became the child's shield. At the moment he prepared himself for death, an explosive roar echoed nearby.
Could that bombing have come this close!? He panicked, but there was no impact for that. Wondering what it was, he looked back.
"Kuma-"
That was there.
When he first saw it, it was a bipedal bear. Since he knew the legendary holy beasts were like that, he wondered if it was a holy beast of the bear beastmen, but it had no expression for that. Or rather, it looked somewhat artificial.
With a completely void face, yet making strangely fancy pitter-patter footsteps, the furry thing strode forward and, still expressionless, lowered its hips.
"Ku... ma!"
Closing in on the bone Dragon Soldier with a step too fast for the eye to follow, it landed a punch. Immediately after, along with the roar he had heard behind his back, the bone Dragon Soldier was shattered, and the aftershock swept in and crushed the following bone Dragon Soldiers as well.
"Kuma!"
Then, while leaping forward in a roll and stomping on bone Dragon Soldiers with its strangely short legs, it dove into the enemy ranks and opened its mouth wide.
"Ma!!"
It spat a beam of light from its mouth, sweeping away the surrounding bone Dragon Soldiers.
"What on earth is...?"
While Mule stood agape in bewilderment at this slaughter that was less of an unrivaled display and more of a mindless rampage, things that looked like beasts began to fall one after another from the sky.
Among them were things like the bear in front of him, crocodiles, birds, and even something that looked like a pear. And overall, they looked artificial, loose, and again, had void faces.
It was unclear what they were, but they were being spat out from the golden gate in the sky, vying to be first, raining down across the royal capital and, for some reason, attacking the bone Dragon Soldiers.
"G-go for it!"
When the child he was holding cheered, the bear-thing that had been beating a bone Dragon Soldier with a yakuza kick waved its hand toward the child, still with a void face.
'Ah'
It was struck from behind by another bone Dragon Soldier with a bone spear. A hard clanging sound echoed, but that thing did not budge an inch, slowly looked back, and opened its mouth to the maximum angle.
"Ku... maa────!!"
It spat a colossal beam of light from its mouth, incinerating the following bone Dragon Soldiers all at once. Seeing this, Mule would later describe it as being like a bear monster────but that is a story for a bit later.
●
"...Huh!?"
Now, Marianne, the culprit who had caused this rampage, was tilting her head as she looked at the all-out attack by the royal capital's mascot characters unfolding below.
Even Ipos, which she was using as a foothold, had been turned into a swallow-like mascot version. Given that it was even wearing a helmet, there was no lack of attention to detail in the reproduction. It looks like something you'd see at a baseball stadium, Marianne thought, escaping into reality.
However, this was a situation Marianne had not anticipated.
When she had tried the formal Hyakki Yagyou in the past, it had indeed accompanied physical substance like this time. But at that time, it had not been this fairytale-like. Since the original source was likely demons, she remembered them having quite sinister forms.
She thought they would appear like that this time too, but for some reason, all the familiars had appeared bringing along mascot character motifs she had seen somewhere.
Even Marianne could not help but be bewildered by this.
"You all, what on earth is this...?"
When she asked Ipos at her feet, despite being swallow-themed, he let out a 'caw' and sent a thought to his master. Then, the thoughts of all the familiars gathered to Marianne.
They said.
'Master, said before'
'Appearance is scary'
'Better to stay as shadows, cuter'
'Lost to lookism'
'Want to fight'
'Appearance is also important'
'So, everyone did a little plastic surgery'
'Obtained a beloved body'
'Cute? Cute?'
Come to think of it, she remembered saying something like that once when she had summoned them just to know her full power, and Marianne looked off into the distance.
"Even so, why mascot characters...?"
As she wondered, thoughts flew to her again.
'King brought memories'
'Master's old job'
'Event planner'
'Said that looked fun'
Come to think of it, she remembered being involved in regional town revitalization as part of sales when she worked at a trading company. Even at the time, it was a second- or third-hand mascot character trend. But precisely because there were pioneers, she had researched mascot characters all over Japan to study them.
Since it didn't hurt her conscience as much as the basic sales work, she remembered being able to enjoy the work unusually much. Being able to pitch without deceiving or trapping customers was very enjoyable.
'So everyone waited'
'Not as shadows, but to be called'
'King is also waiting'
King? When Marianne threw the question, the thoughts of the beasts hesitated. But as if having made up their minds, they sent it.
'Cannot be helped that you don't remember'
'King is that kind of being'
'No one knows and no one must know'
'But, if it is Master, you can know King's name. Because you are Master'
'Because you are Master, you can be given a temporary name for King'
'King is waiting'
'To be called by Master'
'At the end of the prayer of severance, the one who destroys the role'
'Marianne Romanette'
'No. ────Jinnai Yoshihiko'
Thump, Marianne's heart leaped. Jinnai Yoshihiko. No, Jinnai Tsubamehiko. That was the name she had when she was him.
'Not necessarily right now'
'But remember King'
'The King who desires severance'
'Call his name'
'Save King'
And then.
'Destroy the role'
Next time is next week... though that might be impossible.