It was some sort of long-distance communication magic. Perhaps the earring served as a kind of magic catalyst? The girl seemed to have noticed Leonis staring at her and gave him a relieved smile.
“Thank goodness. Is your tummy feeling better now?”
“………”
Leonis nodded wordlessly, prompting the girl to move next to him.
“My name is Riselia Crystalia. I’m a Holy Swordswoman of the Seventh Assault Garden’s training academy, eighteenth platoon… Oh, um, I’m fifteen years old. What’s your name?”
She diligently kept her gaze at Leonis’s eye level and introduced herself. He technically understood her, but honestly, nothing she said seemed to register as meaningful to him. The only things Leonis really grasped were her name and age.
When it came to human-ruled nations in the area, the Lagard Kingdom and the Magocracy of Sheniebel came to mind, but the girl had not mentioned them insofar as he could tell. Also, this Riselia seemed to be under the impression that Leonis was a child who’d been abducted by monsters.
…I suppose I cannot fault her for that, given the way I look, Leonis thought in a self-deprecating manner.
He didn’t know what had caused his rebirth in this body… But he figured he might as well take advantage of the girl’s misunderstanding.
…For now, I need to get information about this world out of her.
Leonis raised his head.
“I am… Erm, I’m Leonis. Leonis Magnus, Miss.”
He tried to make his voice a bit more high-pitched to seem more childlike, but he still gave his name as a Dark Lord. He’d considered using a pseudonym, but going to such lengths with mere humans would wound his pride as a Dark Lord.
Besides, this was the proud name she had given him.
How will this one react to it…?
If the name of Leonis Death Magnus, the Undead King, was recorded in legend and passed down for posterity, it should elicit some kind of reaction from the girl.
“Leonis?” The girl’s light-blue eyes widened.
Ooh, so she does know of—
“What a cute name!”
“…R-really?” Leonis said with a grimace.
…What could possibly be cute about it? It was a name that struck terror into every corner of the world!
Evidently, his reputation as a Dark Lord hadn’t survived these many years.
“Leonis…Leo, how old are you?” Riselia asked.
“Ten years old…or so,” he replied, holding back the urge to snap at her for shortening the name of a Dark Lord.
“Or so?”
“Ah, I’m ten years old.”
He no longer remembered how old he’d been before becoming the Undead King. But it was probably close enough.
“You’re a refugee, right? Do you remember what the Void that took you looked like?”
“Void?” Leonis parroted the word.
“You don’t know what Voids are?”
“Erm…no.”
“Right… I suppose that does happen out in the frontier regions,” Riselia placed a hand on her chin and nodded, seemingly convinced. “Voids are enemies of mankind. They came here from another world. The Holy Swordsmen—that is to say, us—fight those Voids.”
“…Other world? Enemies?” Leonis was rather confused.
One thousand years ago, the ones called “enemies of mankind” had been the demons and the Dark Lords’ Armies. Alongside them was the Goddess of Rebellion, who’d betrayed the other deities of the Luminous Powers and declared war upon the world.
Have new forces risen in the world over the last thousand years? But…
The goddess’s prophecy had said nothing of this.
“We came to investigate a Void hive that’s formed in these ruins. They tend to show up around places like these. And…”
Riselia turned to look at the opened door of the mausoleum.
“That’s when I found this door.”
Now Leonis understood. She’d only found this place by way of coincidence. He couldn’t honestly say he much liked the idea of her unlocking the sealed door, but perhaps it had opened because one of the Undead King’s servants had rigged it to do so after one thousand years.
No, wait…
Leonis realized he’d neglected to confirm something terribly important.
“Erm…Miss Riselia?”
“You can call me Selia, Leo.”
“Then, uhhh, Miss Selia. What year of the Holy Calendar is it?”
He had asked using the calendar employed by human nations. If it’d been one thousand years since Necrozoa, the final stronghold of the Dark Lords’ Armies, had fallen, the year should have been around 1447. However…
“Holy Calendar?” Riselia gave a quizzical expression and furrowed her brow. “It’s the sixty-fourth year of the Integrated Human Calendar…”
“Integrated Human Calendar?” This time it was Leonis’s turn to parrot Riselia.
Another unfamiliar term.
…Just what in the world is going on?
It was then that Riselia’s earring lit up.
“—ady Selia…careful…engaged in battle…large Void…”
“Huh? What, Regina?!”
The voice filled with static before cutting off.
“What’s the matter?”
“…I’m not sure. But—” Riselia got to her feet with a sharp expression.
And the next moment…
Booooooooooooooooooom!
Beneath Necrozoa, the Grand Mausoleum shook violently.
“Wh-what?!”
Pebbles and fragments of stone began crumbling down on them from the ceiling. Riselia reflexively covered Leonis to shield him.
…!
A soft chest pressed against his face from beneath a uniform.
“Are you okay, Leo?”
“…Y-yes…” Leonis nodded, feeling his pulse quicken.
The scent of a young woman’s sweat lingered in his nostrils.
“It seems a Void’s shown up. My friend’s fighting it.” Riselia released him and looked around cautiously.
Bang, bang, bang!
Intermittent explosions could be heard from the distance.
…Ugh, how dare they run amok in this tomb, the resting place of my comrades…?!
As the Dark Lord of Necrozoa, he couldn’t permit such disregard. Leonis tried to rise to his feet—
“…Whoa!”
“Leo?!”
—but tripped over the cuffs of his long robe and fell forward.
C-curses…
Rubbing his aching nose, this time he got up slowly. He wasn’t used to his boyish body yet.
“Are you all right? You’re not hurt, are you?”
“I-I’m fine.”
“You’re a tough little guy, aren’t you?” Riselia smiled with relief and patted Leonis on the head.
…It tickled. But Leonis was surprised to find it wasn’t unpleasant.
Really, what in the world is going on…?
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe.” Riselia stood and drew a metallic lump from a belt tied around her hip.
“Artificial Relic, Ray Hawk. Limited Initialization…Activate!” the girl whispered, holding the object in both hands.
The lump made a kind of loud clicking sound and changed its shape. What was now in the girl’s grasp was a cylindrical object that shined with a mana flare. It was probably some kind of projectile weapon, though nothing like it had existed in Leonis’s time.
“Over here…” Riselia took Leonis by the hand and broke into a run.
The next moment…
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!
“…?!”
A massive fist broke through the ruin’s wall.
“An ogre-class Void?!” Riselia exclaimed, her expression tense.
Did she just say “ogre”?!
Tension rose in Leonis at the first familiar word he’d heard today. Ogres—they were a race of man-eating demons that was part of the Dark Lords’ Armies under the command of the Lord of Rage, Dizolf. Leonis soon found his expectations dashed, however.
“Leo, get back…!”
What stepped through the collapsed wall was a giant standing five meters tall. What appeared to be luminescent red minerals grew out of its gray body. Nothing on its head gave the impression of being an eye, and it only had a horizontal opening across its face to serve as an eerie sort of mouth. Its drooping arms were covered in scales, and what looked like a beastly face writhed across its chest.
How is this an ogre…?
This was as far-removed as could be from the ogres Leonis knew. If it reminded him of anything, it was the disgusting hybrid creatures that Zemein, a staff officer in the Dark Lords’ Armies, had once worked on. Leonis and Zemein had rarely seen eye to eye.
“That’s a Void?!”
At his question, Selia glared at the monster and nodded in reply. “Yes. An enemy of humanity that takes the form of the gods of old—”
Pop! A dry, bursting sound rang out. Riselia had likely fired her projectile weapon, but it didn’t seem to have any effect. The creature’s scales deflected the shot.
“…Ugh, this weapon can’t even make a dent…!”
“!”
The Void roared from its horrific mouth, exhaling a dark smoke from the eerie oral cavity. It twisted its drooping arms like whips, sweeping Riselia back.
“Hmph. Ri Larte…!”
Leonis started chanting a spell from the Realm of Shadows to form a barrier when suddenly—
Boom! Boom! Boom!
—a series of intermittent explosions shook his eardrums. Crimson flames blew off the Void’s right arm, leaving bursts of hot air in their wake.
“Are you all right, Lady Selia?!”
“…Regina!”
The one who had fired through the wall to reach them was a petite girl carrying a giant cylindrical weapon. Her golden hair was parted into pigtails, which danced in the intense rush of air from the blasts…
As an aside, her chest was also prodigious.
Her jasper-colored eyes shone, catlike in the darkness. Her features were quite fair as well, not unlike Riselia’s.
She used the blast’s momentum to slide over the ground, halting with a screech.
“Like we thought, this ruin is a Void spawn point… Wait. Lady Selia, who’s the kid?” The girl called Regina looked at Leonis and cocked her head in surprise.
“I found him deep in the ruins. I’ll explain later…”
“Right…”
“!”
The monster got up, shaking off pieces of rubble as it did. Its right arm, which had just been blown off, had already begun to regenerate. The creature’s vitality was truly fearsome.
“That’s a large class for you. This much firepower won’t get us anywhere…” Regina fixed her grip on the massive projectile launcher on her shoulder. “Holy Sword Drag Howl, Mode Shift—
“The Anti-Large Aerial Beast Extermination Weapon—Dragon Slayer!”
And the next moment, the bulky weapon changed. Its muzzle took the form of a dragon’s maw, gaping even wider…
…What in the world is this device…?!
Leonis’s eyes widened.
Do you mean to say…that’s a Holy Sword?
“Get smooooked!”
Boooooooooooooooooooooom!
A shell burst forward. A white flash filled Leonis’s field of vision, followed by a rumbling blast.
…M-my poor Grand Mausoleum!
Leonis had to hold back from saying the words out loud. Even so, the weapon’s power was incredible. The sheer amount of heat it produced was equivalent to that of the fourth-order explosion-type magic, Rag Illa.
But that isn’t magic.
He hadn’t seen a mana flare, which magic always produced when it was invoked.
“D-did you finish it off?”
“Erm, Lady Selia, what you just did is called jinxing it…”
They could see its colossal shadow slowly rising from beyond the cloud of dust.