This was, of course, not the kind of weapon you’d wield with one hand—but Kondo was doing just that, holding the lower part of the hilt with his left. It was hard to believe he’d normally carry it this way, suggesting that he wasn’t demonstrating his true ability with it yet.
This man is a menace. He’s taking both of them on, and he’s not even trying to fight seriously yet… But why, though? If he wanted to kill them, he’d be far more engaged than this. If he’s not, then maybe he sees some kind of value to us? In other words…
Then Kagali arrived at the answer.
“Look out!” she immediately shouted. “Kondo might be able to control people somehow!”
“Heh. You’re right.”
She thought he’d deny it, but he didn’t. It was unnerving.
So he’s just revealing his hand? …No, there’s no point denying it if we already suspect as much. If he affirms it, though, that makes us warier of him. I don’t get it. Why…?
Now Kagali wasn’t sure what to believe. Kondo’s behavior was beyond her understanding; she couldn’t figure out her next move. If fighting wasn’t going to bring them victory, it should’ve been best to stick to the original stall-for-time strategy, she thought. But she had no clue why Kondo was just going along with it.
…No! It’s just not right! He said he wasn’t going to put up with our attempts at stalling, so why…? Ah! Wait! That’s what he meant!
It was only then that Kagali realized just how much of a menace Kondo truly was. Everything he said had intrinsic meaning to it, she realized. And through the lies he had weaved, he was fully controlling every aspect of this fight they had.
“You’re stalling for time, too…”
“Oh, you’ve finally noticed? You see how I’m helping you with your silly attempts at buying time now?”
“It’s too easy to decipher the thoughts of someone like you, you see.”
Despite her attempts at remaining calm, Kondo’s taunts were hitting home.
“Don’t give me that—”
“Do you know why they call me the mysterious figure stalking the halls of information?”
“…”
“You said it yourself, didn’t you? You just said I could control other people. So why don’t you also see that it’s simple for me to obtain information from the people under my control?”
What is he talking about? an astonished Kagali wondered. It sounded too amateurish to be a lie… But if it were true, it was a tremendously important secret to leak out. It was hard to believe that such a careful man would do something to expose his own hand like that.
“This is a hassle for me as well, you know. Not even I know everything. The plan was to make contact with you all on the outskirts of the city. We’d hardly want collateral damage inside the capital, and going easy on you in battle like this is more trouble than it’s worth.”
“Going easy?!”
“Hoh-hoh-hoh! You think that little of us, do you?”
Kondo’s statement elicited further enraged excitement from Teare and Footman. They were being taken in by his scheme, and Kagali knew how bad an idea that was. Her agitation grew.
“Calm down, you two! Don’t let his words disturb you!”
She tried to stop them from going too out of control. Kondo shot her a glance, looking less than amused. Then, after a quick glance at his revolver, he put it back on his belt, for reasons only he knew.
“What a pain. Come on. Allow me to neutralize you as a threat without killing you.”
The moment he grasped his sword with both hands, the atmosphere changed completely. Now his aura was something only a true master could achieve.
“Teare, allow me to take over here. Let’s go, human!”
The two of them together struck such a presence that even those fighting around them felt pressured into stopping.
Kondo kept his sword high, pointed up in the air, as he quietly gauged his foe. Footman, meanwhile, seemed to be ignoring any semblance of defense. His aura coursed across his body, shooting him forward like a gigantic bullet. He pinballed around, showing amazing agility for his well-nourished body. Then, accelerating with every bounce off the ground, he jumped around the vicinity of Kondo, erratically hopping from landing point to landing point and growing faster all the time.
“Hohhhhh-hoh-hoh-hoh! Try to follow me, if you can!”
Convinced he was exercising his full potential, Footman unleashed his finishing move on Kondo. The secret to his battle technique was the unique skill Amplifier, and that, in essence, is what it did. Whether the movement took wave form or existed as mass, he could accelerate it at will. Simply bouncing off something sped up his body, and he could amplify his weight as well, giving himself mass far greater than how he looked. The sheer kinetic energy this generated could likely tear any enemy to pieces.
“Take this—Angry Splatter!”
With absolute confidence and destructive power on his side, Footman lunged for Kondo. But without the slightest change of expression, Kondo unleashed a skill of his own.
“I’ve just executed Thundering Universe. You had best consider it an honor.”
The quiet announcement was heard only after it was all over. In a single instant, Footman’s arms and legs had been severed. The action was far too quick to catch with the naked eye. It’d be absolutely impossible to pull off were it not for the awe-inspiring difference in ability at play.
His head was still attached, but there was now blood spurting out from a gaping wound across his neck. Not even that would be enough to kill Footman, but he was understandably out of this battle.
“And you’re Teare, aren’t you? Bind his arms and legs, and stop the bleeding out of his neck while you’re at it. I can’t have him dying on me yet.”
The order was given flatly, without emotion. The revolver was back in his right hand again; he was back to his original style. His body language indicated that he wasn’t interested in fighting anybody else.
“What…? What are you thinking…?!”
“I’m not going to kill any of you. Especially you, Kagali—or the ex–demon lord Kazalim, I should say. You have a lot of value to us. We can’t afford to have you dead.”
“Come on. You think I’m going to do that after what you’ve done?”
“Heh. I’m not asking for forgiveness. Didn’t I tell you that I can control other people?”
How loathsome of a man was he, even? Kagali eyed him hatefully. His manner of speaking irritated her to no end. She thought she had the right idea about all this, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she didn’t. Every word Kondo uttered got on her nerves.
Then a red burst of light emerged from Kondo’s handgun. Seeing this, Kondo smiled a little—a tiny, easily overlooked smile. Kagali was amazed he could smile at all… But at the same time, she sensed the biggest alarm bell yet.
He… It was true? He really was stalling?!
It was far too late to realize that. She abhorred being toyed with for this long, but still Kagali searched for the best way out of this. It was clear Kondo had all his cards in order, although she didn’t know what they were. It was impossible to escape; even buying any more time was a challenge.
And so there was just one choice to take. All Kagali could do was strike at the source of this danger, the calamity about to befall her friends. In other words, a suicide strike.
Death, she determined, was the best way to prevent information leaks. As a walking dead, though, Kagali would not truly cease to exist. She’d lose her physical body, yes, but as long as she inhabited someone else, she’d survive. Footman and Teare would realize what she meant to do, no doubt—they were walking dead as well, and just like Kagali, literally dying was unlikely. If all of them advanced upon Kondo at the same time, they’d fulfill their objective without revealing their intentions to him. Even if they all lost their bodies, they’d be able to escape and avoid the worst-case scenario. Such was Kagali’s decision, the best chip she had to play right now.
But how annoying! Sir Yuuki went through all this trouble to obtain my body. It took a while for me to settle in, too… Although it beats losing it all anyway. I hate to involve Footman and Teare in this, but I’ll see that they receive stronger bodies next time.
Her mind was made up. Laplace, she believed, would help clean up later. Kondo was just too strong—unexpectedly so. Based on her current assessment, Kagali believed he and Laplace were an even match…that or Kondo had a slight advantage. Even if he made it here, and they fought together, that still wouldn’t assure victory. It’d be foolish to put Laplace in danger as well, she reasoned.
What she wondered about was just how Kondo managed to take over other people’s minds. She wanted to flee after finding that out, but that might just be too greedy of her. So putting aside her doubts, she sprang into action.
“Well, just look at how much this human’s toyed with us, huh? Footman, Teare, stop playing with him, and let’s give him everything we’ve got. And you’ll get to see the full powers of the one they used to call a demon lord!”
Kagali stretched out her aura across her body, exercising power beyond all her limits. A borrowed body like this one had no chance of withstanding this; it’d be lucky to survive another few minutes. But this way, at least, she could settle this without Kondo thinking she chose to end her own life.
Footman and Teare, seeing Kagali’s move, immediately understood her plans.
“Hoh-hoh-hoh! It’ll take more than blowing my limbs off to stop me!”
“Yeah! And I’m still in this, too! I haven’t gone all out in ages upon ages, either. It’s so exciting!”
Footman, following Kagali’s lead, balled up his body and started bouncing around. Teare began unleashing her aura as well, blowing it up into a massive presence in the middle of the capital. If Kondo could be convinced this was a suicide strike aimed at taking both sides out, the strategy would be a success.
But despite the situation he was in, Kondo didn’t even bat an eye. He remained calm and measured as he sheathed his sword and spot-checked his revolver. Then, as casual as can be, he immediately rained all over Kagali’s parade.
“So I understand that walking dead can survive in spiritual form alone?”
It was a statement they ignored at their peril. Among their companions, only Yuuki knew the trio’s exact species. It was highly confidential intel, something not even Damrada was aware of. Nobody, not even Kondo, could’ve possibly known about it.
“Wh-why do you…?”
“War is something that fully ends before it begins, one could say. The Armored Division was wiped out because they underestimated the enemy and skimped on information gathering. If you simply run wild without any precise intelligence to go on, you’re all but guaranteeing your own defeat. Don’t you agree?”
“…”
“And by the way, I have to say that your comrade in arms was tremendously disappointing as well. I had him all set up at the exact right timing, and then some upstart demon lord completely bowls him over. Hardly a demon lord at all, I’d say. It makes me laugh.”
“…What?”
“But him losing was more convenient in the end, I suppose. I have a basic grasp of what went on over there, and it led to the creation of someone far more fascinating than Clayman anyway.”
“What the hell do you mean by that…?!”
Kagali exploded with anger. Any shred of remaining calm was thrown out the window. Her hatred for the man before her, Lieutenant Kondo, made her forget everything else. This was no less than a full confession that Kondo had total control over Clayman.
Looking back, Clayman had clearly lost his mind over time, a trend that progressed for at least several decades according to Laplace. Kagali assumed it was just the stress of becoming a demon lord, chiding herself for being overprotective of him—but if it was all Kondo’s doing, that was a different story. It meant that Kondo had a hand in virtually every failure in her plans, and that was hard to forgive. Worst of all, it was Kondo’s manipulation that sent her beloved Clayman to his demise…
He has to pay. I’ll never let this pass.
Her anger was nothing she or anyone else could control. Footman, sensitive to this, also picked up on it…and thus amplified it further. In the end, ironically, that was exactly what Kondo was hoping for—or aiming for, even.
“Getting emotional in the middle of battle? What a novice mistake. If that’s all the resolve you have, no wonder it was so easy to lead you to a trap like this.”
With that, Kondo pulled the trigger.
“Ah!”
There was a small bang. Kagali jumped back. There was no blood; this was a very special bullet, affecting not the body, but the mind. It was called a Dominion Bullet, a treasure granted by Emperor Ludora, and it was one of Kondo’s secret techniques. Each bullet contained a part of Ludora’s own power, making it capable of enthralling and controlling others. However, it worked on just one person at a time, and it was very likely not to work against those with strong mental fortitudes.
Kondo had an ample supply, but he still had to be very careful about how he used them—if a shot missed the mark, it’d both expose his hand to the enemy and cost him control over whoever he last shot with a Dominion Bullet. Using one to take over a demon lord’s mind required targeting them while asleep or in an agitated state—blinded by lust or by negative emotions like anger or grief. Once they were in the right condition, he could fire a Dominion Bullet to gain full control.
“Well, it took long enough, but we’re still sticking to the plan. Kagali, order your cohorts to cease hostilities immediately. You’re a careful person, so I assume you’ve implanted a locking curse on the summoned?”
“Yes, Sir Kondo.”
“Drop the ‘sir,’ please. ‘Lieutenant’ is fine.”
“Yes, Lieutenant Kondo. As you wish.”
Thus, Kagali fell into Kondo’s hands. And just as Kondo predicted, the souls of Yuuki’s comrades all had a locking curse etched on them. The same was also true of Teare and Footman, and thus they could not disobey the words of their commander Kagali.
Not everyone on hand had this locking curse, but it was quickly clear just how doomed they were. Better, they reasoned, to be captured than try to resist this horde.
Silence returned to the darkness of the capital.
“If you want to hate anyone, hate yourselves for being so powerless. Everyone has their own sense of what makes right, but only when integrated into a stronger will can it be acted upon. The same is true for one’s ideals. Your ambitions all vanished in the face of His Majesty’s just cause. Nothing more and nothing less.”
This was the one true rule—survival of the fittest. Kondo was well aware of it.
“Of course, those who are not prepared to be crushed in the end aren’t even qualified to have ambitions at all. That does not apply to you… So I’ll be sure to remember your disappointments for you.”
Kondo himself lived with a certain resolve. That’s why he never made fun of Kagali and her friends for what they attempted. If he lost, as he knew and understood from experience, he’d suffer the exact same fate.
Yuuki and Damrada were deep in a fierce battle, exchanging one blow, then another for what seemed like the millionth time.
Without hesitation, Damrada aimed a spinning back blow at a pressure point on Yuuki’s face. It was blocked with a palm; Yuuki attempted to gain control of Damrada’s wrist, but he was denied as his opponent unleashed a chop to hold him back. Yuuki, anticipating this, twisted his upper body back as he executed a double kick. But Damrada was quick to pick up on it, sinking down and sweeping with his leg—then his opponent jumped up, perhaps reading this counter in advance, and tried to take his head off with a spinning kick. However, Yuuki’s leg cut through thin air; Damrada was back on his feet a safe distance away.
It was a sophisticated, refined exchange of martial arts that went beyond the scope of what human beings could maneuver. They kept rattling them off, again and again, at a pace so regular that they almost seemed to be in a training session. But they were going too fast for the normal human eye to follow. The lack of spectators was a pity, but then again, they’d have trouble rounding up an audience with the skills required to watch and appreciate them.
Here was a battle between dedicated masters, fought only with their own well-honed bodies. But that wasn’t all that was taking place. Yuuki was also trying to communicate with Damrada—not with speech, but through Telepathy. Damrada, in turn, was trying to help Yuuki with that. That’s why there was so much unnecessary physical contact; when they went hand-against-hand for an instant, that’s when they were exchanging messages.
(Wow, we’re finally connected, huh? I didn’t expect you to gain an ultimate skill as well, Damrada. You had no idea how much trouble I had opening a Telepathy link to you. Have you had this since we met, perhaps?)
(It was borrowed, Sir Yuuki, but yes, I’ve been in possession of it for as long as we’ve known each other. I don’t use it very often, however, so I doubt you would have noticed.)
Yuuki couldn’t help but snicker at this. When he awakened to his own ultimate skill, only then did he realize the mind-boggling difference between them and regular unique skills. Still, there was something in Damrada’s reply that he couldn’t gloss over.
(Borrowed? What do you mean?)
Skills like these were, by nature, acquired by yourself. Some people could craft them like Yuuki, but they couldn’t just be conjured out of nothing. They were using their own desires to change the form of the power within their soul. It wasn’t something that could be “borrowed.”
(I mean exactly what I said. My power was granted to me by His Majesty.)
(Is that even possible?)
(I understand your skepticism, but you have me as a witness to it. You’ll have to accept that it is possible, yes.)
(I see. Fair point.)
Having it phrased that way, Yuuki had no choice but to accept it. That naturally led to his next question.
(So can he just pass on skills to anybody he wants?)
(Oh, no.) Damrada smiled. (The average person does not have the capacity to obtain even a unique skill, much less an ultimate one. Simply accepting that power requires an enormous amount of energy. You’d need to be completely remade, the way otherworlders are, to pull it off.)
(Well, that’s a relief. I was worried the emperor was holding a closeout sale on ultimate skills.)
(Ha-ha-ha! No, he hasn’t managed that yet. It’s one of his objectives, however.)
Yuuki could accept that.
(And that’s why he’s gathering all these strong people?)
(Precisely. Humans, too, can evolve after enough training. Their entire species changes, and they become Enlightened. As a Saint, Sir Yuuki, I believe you know the process?)
(Pretty much, yeah.)
He had a general understanding. Humans can go from Enlightened to Sainthood, and that took more than regular old training. Even the Ten Great Saints, deemed the strongest in the Western Nations, had just two real Saints among them—Hinata and Saare.
(Only upon becoming Enlightened can one break free from the framework of humanity, where they must live among their own kind. They remain an individual but also gain the ability to connect with the world at large. Those who reach that stage here become Imperial Guardians, having passed the minimum requirements His Majesty has put in place.)
(Being Enlightened’s the minimum requirement?)
(Yes, that’s right. If you fought against Guy, Sir Yuuki, then you understood just how strong he was, I assume? Even a Saint could never beat him.)
(Yeah, I’ll grant you that.)
Guy was simply unassailable. That much was made perfectly clear, taking him on. No half-assed attempt would even touch him.
(If you want to defeat Guy, as an absolute minimum, you must awaken to the ultimate in force.)
(An ultimate skill, in other words?)
It made sense to Yuuki. That came across more strongly to him, now that he had an ultimate skill of his own. The only way to tackle someone with an ultimate was to break out an ultimate of your own.
(Exactly. His Majesty is familiar with this as well. That is why he grants trials to those who are Enlightened, to help them awaken further and become vessels worthy enough of the ultimate skill he can give them.)
(Sounds pretty crazy. But if I were him, I’d do the same thing, I guess.)
(I’m glad you understand so quickly.)
Yuuki and Damrada smiled at each other. It might be completely illogical to the average person, but Yuuki saw the reasoning behind it. Once you had the methodology down, it could allow you to collect a large number of people with ultimate skills. He disliked how someone else beat him to the idea, but he had to admit to its charms. The only problem with it was that it required someone as uniquely qualified as Ludora to engineer.
(The fact that Ludora can grant ultimate powers at all is just amazing.)
(Hee-hee-hee… Yes, it proves his greatness beyond any doubt. And if you become a Saint under his tutelage, His Majesty will grant you the ultimate skill Alternative.)
Damrada’s telepathic voice sounded proud to Yuuki. He could feel the respect Damrada held for Emperor Ludora, and it made him laugh a little. Damrada might have been loyal to Yuuki still, but his feelings for the emperor were a different matter. Yuuki knew this was the case, although he really wished Damrada hid it a little more. Of course, he normally never made that kind of mistake, so Yuuki assumed he was acting this way on purpose right now.
(So is Ludora waging this war in order to awaken more of his knights?)
(I suppose he would be. Our previous war was stymied by interference from Veldora, but that was a blessing in disguise. A few people evolved into Enlightened in the process, so we gained even more power than we lost.)
Talk about patience, an impressed—and jealous—Yuuki thought.
So the two of them shared thoughts with each other through Telepathy as they fought, or sparred, or whatever. Finally, Yuuki managed to break through the last of Damrada’s psychological barriers.
(Oh, here we go. I found the core of the power controlling you.)
(Ah, wonderful to hear. Do you think you can remove it?)
(Yeah, no problems there. But if I do, won’t Kondo find out?)
(I imagine he will, yes, but I’m not sure I care.)
(Well, here we go, then.)
They hadn’t been sparring for no reason. Damrada knew about Yuuki’s Anti-Skill ability, and he believed it could overcome the thrall that Kondo put upon him. Yuuki was aware of that as well, and without any further instruction, he had spent the past while probing Damrada. Now he would use the new power awakened in him to bring his friend back to normal.
Mammon, Lord of Greed—the ultimate skill Yuuki had acquired—specialized in seizing things. It contained the ability Lifestealer, for example, which sapped energy on contact. Using it allowed Yuuki to deal damage simply by punching and having it blocked. The exact type of energy taken—magical, physical—depended on the opponent, but whatever it was, Yuuki could take it and use it for himself.
Lifestealer didn’t work on Damrada, however. He had too much strength, and even under Kondo’s control, he still maintained that strength in the best possible condition. Regardless of his mind’s intentions, his body was doing the best it could to interfere with Yuuki. That was thanks to Alternative, the ultimate gift provided by the emperor. This skill protected his very soul, an impenetrable psychological barrier that nullified any kind of spiritual attack. This was combined with absolute physical destructive skills that could penetrate all defenses. Put them together, and Damrada had become an undefeated champion in every way.
Kondo was able to control him because the Dominion Bullets the emperor gave him were devised to be higher level than Alternative. If Damrada had learned Alternative naturally instead of receiving it as a gift, his body never would’ve been taken over. It was a real obstacle, and Yuuki had to use Anti-Skill to the hilt to break down the barriers. In time, though, he found the Dominion Bullet lodged in his soul, and once he had Damrada’s permission, he instantly focused his power on it.
“Lifestealer!”
The bottom of Yuuki’s palm struck Damrada’s chest.
The precisely controlled blow shattered only the bullet and nothing else. It seemed so anticlimactic, but now Damrada was free once more.
“Thank you, Sir Yuuki.”
“Yeah. Hope you can stop relying on others like that for a while. I’m worried about Kagali’s group, though. I gotta go, but what’re you gonna do?”
“Let me join you. I need to speak with the demon lord Rimuru tomorrow regardless. We’ll be proceeding with the coup right after that, so it’d be too dangerous to return to where Kondo is.”
“True. No need to try patching things up now, is there?”
Yuuki laughed; Damrada joined him.
“Ready to go, then?”
“By all means.”
He turned around and headed for the door, Damrada nodding and following along. But just then:
“So why were you playing with this outside element instead of taking care of him, Damrada? You weren’t seriously planning to betray His Majesty, were you?”
The cold voice made Yuuki too nervous to move. The real crisis was only beginning…