Katahane no Riku

Chapter 7.The assault

The arrows were approaching.

And it wasn′t only one or two arrows.

Suddenly, an amount of arrows so great that becomes impossible to count poured down like rain.

The demons that were before marching, for the ones that carried one, each lifted their own shields. Fortunately, although there were still a great number of arrows, they were thinner than twigs. If it was those thin arrows, there would be no way they could go through the iron shields. The metallic sounds kept resounding indefinitely. But for the demons that were one second late to ready their shields, the arrow shower was like hell. Without being able to defend themselves, they would have the arrows piercing their throats and their arms.*1

Riku, who wasn′t carrying a shield, could only repel the incoming arrows with her halberd as much as she could. But even then, there was no way she could repel all of the arrows. One arrow grazed on Riku′s cheek. She felt the same pain as the one for cutting your finger with paper. With the back of her hand, she wiped her cheek.

“Stupid demons! For them to get fooled by false information!”

From up on a tree, a laughing voice was possible to hear.

Looking upwards to the voice, on a tree branch, there was a shadow covered with a black mantle. Together with him, there were roughly about a bit more than a hundred people. Holding his mantle together, there was a brooch with the image that looked like one of a snake inscribed on it.*2 Right as she saw the pattern, she sighed.

“It′s the family crest of the spiritualist family Bernaal.”

Just like the Barusak household, it was one of the spiritualist families that served the king.

As a fellow spiritualist family, they would together participate in this ritualistic war.*3 She had heard some times that they were one of the spiritualist families that would just for the sake of prolonging the peace of the kingdom, fight the demons. At least, as far as her father had taught her, they weren′t a family that would do something coward like a night surprise attack.

Disregarding Riku, who was dumbfounded and tightly grasping her halberd, the situation still progressed.

“Shit! It was a trap?!”

“To think they concealed their smells and got close to us… Damn it. Everyone, attack!”

The demons wouldn′t only stand, keep being shot by the arrows.

The demons that had good physical constitution, all at once, were charging and striking against the trees.

As a demon enveloped by a carapace and another that looked like a bear stroke against the trees, the ground shook. Some spiritualist that had lost their balance fell down to the ground. But actually, there were also some spiritualists that went down the trees themselves before being thrown out of their balance. Each wielding a spiritualist blade, swinging it down towards the demons closer to the trees. The demons that were bellow the trees, just like a cutting a fruit, were cut into two halves.*4

“Tch, everyone charge!! Even if it is with your last efforts, kill them!”

“That′s my line. For the sake of the kingdom, kill all the demons!!”*5

The demon banning arts she so much had trained and the combat techniques of the demons she have been training as well; now both were confronting each other.

But the situation of the battle now was that the spiritualist side were having an overwhelming advantage. In terms of numbers, they were even. But the spiritualists were specialists in exterminating demons.*6 No matter how much the demons would temper their own bodies, they were like babies when facing the swords infused with demon banning power. After all, even the one with a carapace as hard as armor was easily cut. For each spiritualist killed, five or six demons would lose their heads.

“Shit. Fight until your last breath!! ”

The demon that was commanding the army had his voice interrupted.

A spiritualist that was carrying a spear thrust it through his back. Without any ceremonies, he easily died just like that. Even though the demon′s numbers were a considerable power enough to be called an small army, in front of the spiritualists, they were like powerless peons.

“Die! You demons don′t deserve to live anywhere in this world.”

The spiritualist, with a loud voice, declared.

Yes, in all those hundred or years… The reason why demons weren′t even considered to be an enemy to humans was that.

And this time too, even before starting to fight, the winner had already been decided.

…Or so was supposed to be the case.

“Too fast. Demons die so easily…”

Out-of-place for a war, Riku′s voice resounded through the battlefield.

And as if following the intent of those words, screams from spiritualists started echoing around.*7

From how sudden the screams were, many spiritualists stopped moving. The demons that before were fighting a one-way defensive war, surprised, stopped their hands too. And then, by the time the spiritualists stopped moving, their good-fortune ended there.

“You guys too, shouldn′t you just go die already?”

Riku swung her halberd.

The sharply polished lump of iron as if it was very much unexpected flew towards a spiritualist. Cutting his torso and sending it flying, the body fell while exposing his internal organs. But before it fell to the ground, another spiritualist that was still looking at his friend that suddenly died just now had his head cut off. The fresh blood was spraying to the surroundings. Some of this blood stuck to the face of one of the spiritualist, who seemed to be their captain. That spiritualist slowly moved his hand to touch his cheek. In his finger, there was now blood sticking to it. Only then he came to himself. It was an expression of surprise at first, but soon he started to twist his face. The emotion there was of anger. The spiritualist, with his eyes bloodshot, looked at the blood soaked Riku.

“You damned demon lass.”

As he raised his voice, he readied his sword stance.

Riku, with a expressionless face, was rotating her halberd. With very cold eyes, she looked at the spiritualist. Then, slowly she walked toward that sword wielding spiritualist. From her behavior, it looked as if she wasn′t even ready for fighting. She was only lazily rotating her halberd with her right hand. Looking at how Riku was acting, veins in his head popped out because of anger.8*

“You will only be able to act arrogant for now. I will kill you with my own hands!”

The spiritualist vigorously raised his sword overhead.

Riku, raised her face to follow the sword, as if doing so was a pain in the ass. Even now that the overpowering demon banning sword was swung down, it didn′t seem like she was thinking about evading the attack. Instead, as if to catch the sword that was being swung down, Riku put her hand forward. The sword, together with the sound of the wind being cut, fell down towards Riku′s hand. The impact of the sword being swung down made Riku frown a bit.

But that was all. It was supposed to be a strong attack, but Riku was left unharmed. Until now, it was the same sword that were easily cutting down demons, but in Riku′s palm, there weren′t any wounds.

The spiritualist expression turned from anger to surprise. While shouting, he put his demon banning power into his sword. But even so, Riku was left unfazed. No matter how much power he would put into the sword, Riku wouldn′t bleed.

“Wh-why!?”

“While there is demon banning power into it, in its normal state, it is nothing more than a simple and blunt harmless sword.”

The spiritualist was shocked.

Rather than anger, the surprise and fear of the unknown dominated. Through all of his body, he was sweating. He was now fearful of the little Riku more than anything else.*9

On the other way, Riku was showing an expression that was the opposite of the spiritualist′s. She was showing one vaguely tranquil and a lonely smile. But, in her eyes resided madness. Looking up at the surprised spiritualist, Riku indifferently spoke to him.

“Even if you can cut demons, you can′t cut me.”*10

Holding his sword with her left hand and tightly holding her halberd with her right hand, still with a calm expression…

“Goodbye, spiritualist of Bernaal.”

And the spiritualist, unable to put resistance, was vertically cut in half.*11

A deep red color similar to her hair painted Riku′s skin. Without showing any signs that she cared about that, she turned her eyes to the remaining spiritualists.

“Good afternoon, Bernaal spiritualists. Have you prepared yourselves to hand over your heads?”

While holding her blood covered halberd in her hand, she walked over the now cut into two spiritualist.

It was like Othello. The board which the white pieces were in predominance, with only a single black piece, the the situation was reveresed.

As the red halberd danced, heads with its faces twisted in fear would fly around. To the spiritualists, it would be like the image of hell itself. Even so, there were spiritualists that were still somewhat right in mind. One spiritualist, while trembling so much his demon banning sword was shaking, shouted with all his strength.

“It-It′s only one person! If we can kill that, it will be our win!!”

“If you can kill that? That may be a little wrong.”

The spiritualist trembling arm was cut off and fell to the ground. As he saw his arm there on the ground, any remaining sanity was blown away. Raising a scream that wouldn′t become words, he took one step back. Because of how in panic he was as he did so, he ended up falling down backside. Even so, he did his all to run away. He retreated as he was being dyed in red by the blood on the ground.

But right as that spiritualist was about to pull back, a sharp spear pierced through his chest.

“Sorry, but I can′t just let that brat just go and reap all the achievements, can I?”

It was Vrusto′s spear that had pierced through the spiritualist.

As if that was a signal, all the demons that were still alive went to attack the remaining spiritualists. Among them, there were not even one person still willing to fight. To Riku′s eyes, the spiritualists that had lost their fighting spirit weren′t a threat to the demons that had seen a chance of winning.

“It′s not enough.”*12

Riku was looking at the surroundings from afar, seeing the demons swarming the spiritualists.

Without averting her eyes from the tragedy that was happening to them and without even blinking; only holding her halberd in her arms as she was looking at it.

“Alright, quickly someone tell captain Leivein about the trap!”

“Reorganize the rankings, we are pulling back!!”

As the last spiritualist stopped moving, the remaining demon were taking the commands given.

Within the sea of blood, everyone happy about their victory and talking to one another about each of their struggles. Among those, one demon left from the group of demons that were talking. As if he remembered something, that demon approached Riku. It was not possible to see through the expression that was on the face of the demon…Of Vrusto.

From his hairy wolf face, looked like it was angry, but at the same time, it looked as if he was laughing. Since there was nothing to say about that, Riku saluted to him while still grasping her halberd.

Silently, Vrusto looked at Riku for a moment. And then lifting up his hand with sharp nails…

“You did well!”

And with all his strength, he slapped her back.

Because of the strength put into it, she staggered. Because of such sudden attack, Riku was about to voice her complaints, but before she could open her mouth, Vrusto started talking.

“You, I thought since you were only a little brat you would die in your first battle. This is evidence that my training methods are very good.”

Because of such a weird reason, Vrusto′s tone of voice seemed very happy.

Whether because of how he was bragging about his skills as an instructor or something else.

Riku didn′t understand very well, but thinking about that was troublesome now. She wasn′t really interested in the reason why Vrusto was happy. While rubbing her pained back, she looked at Vrusto.

“But, you are really covered in blood, huh. When we come back, you need to properly wash the blood that is covering your armor. You are still a girl after all, one way or another.”13*

Only saying that, Vrusto turned away from Riku.

He went back to the group of surviving demons. In the end, she didn′t really know what all that was about as a question mark floated above her head. For now, she thought she should be wiping the blood that was covering her halberd with her handkerchief. With that, she took out the handkerchief that was in her pocket. But even the handkerchief that was supposed to be white was covered in blood.

“Hey, brat. By the way, I have something I want to ask.”

As she was wiping her halberd with the blood covered handkerchief, Vrusto turned back to her.

“You were supposed to be of one of those spiritualist families, right? Is it really alright for you to have killed them just like that with no hesitation?”

“Was there a problem in doing so?”

Riku tilted her little head.

Each time she moved the handkerchief, the blood stains would stretch onto the silvery blade. She was able to remove the fragments of organs and most of the blood. But if she were to wipe more than that, it would make the halberd even dirtier rather than cleaning it. As she was folding her handkerchief, she said.

“That was the enemy, right? If they are that, then they are people that need to be killed, right?”

“But a few weeks before, they were you allies, weren′t they?”

“Allies?”

To Vrusto′s question, Riku raised the corners of her mouth.

With her red hair fluttering with the wind, her lips dyed in blood formed a smile.

“Those people wouldn′t accept me. That′s why they weren′t my allies. Besides…”

Deep in Riku′s eyelids, radiant blue eyes were reflected onto them.

For the first time since she had been born somebody expected something out of her.

Leivein had accepted Riku′s power. And to her, that didn′t have anywhere to go, he gave her a place to belong to.

…Even the red hair she didn′t like that much he told her that it looked nice on her.

The one to first accept her existence was Leivein. The one to first consider her necessary was him too. That′s why she would swing her halberd for his sake.

For the sake of the Dragon Demon Battalion he gave to her…

“It′s because here is the place I belong to.”

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