Chapter 9

“Ah…” The holy sword flew all the way to the swamp, where the knights were still stuck. It plunged in and sank, releasing a huge belch of steam. With that, Diné had no hope of winning. “Ack…” “I apologize for tripping you,” said Terios, removing his foot from Diné’s hand as she relaxed, knowing she’d lost. “If you would allow me to tell you the reason you lost, it’s because you’re not experienced enough in fighting opponents equal to or more powerful than you.” He hadn’t heard about her past or anything, but he was probably right. “I’ve met a number of holy knights before you. Each and every one of them was blinded by their power. They had no one with whom they could seriously improve their skills.” Even within families descended from gods, not all children were blessed with powerful mana. How it worked was unclear, but either a family member’s power would suddenly awaken or an incredibly talented child would be born if the current holy knight died or was about to retire. This left them few opportunities to spar against an equal opponent, unless they sought out a holy knight descended from a different god. “It’s only natural for your skills to grow rusty if you only fight weaker opponents… Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lecture you,” said Terios, apologizing for suddenly going off on a tangent. Perhaps he’d become too accustomed to teaching the children. With that, he released the chains of light binding Diné. Although free, the woman didn’t attack. She simply sat compliantly on the ground. “You’re right. Since my grandfather, the former holy knight, died, there hasn’t been anyone who could win against me. It seems I’ve gotten full of myself,” admitted Diné, reflecting on what Terios said and somewhat relieved to have lost for once. Her face turned grim, and she stretched her neck out to admit defeat. “Kill me,” she begged. “No.” Terios’s response to the holy knight’s resolute order was quick. But she must have anticipated he would say that. Rather than showing her temper, she simply spoke calmly. “If you don’t kill me, I’ll aim for your throat time and time again.” “I also don’t want that. Which is why I’ll have to place a geas on you, so you do as I say.” Terios recited an incantation, and a complicated pattern of light appeared from the tip of his finger. It was a contract spell that forced the person it targeted to obey a specific order. “You’re going to take away my power instead of killing me? Do you really think that will make me relent?” “Well, I doubt you’ll give up.” He shrugged as she glared sharply at him. A geas was powerful, but it wasn’t perfect. The spell could be resisted or even broken depending on the difference in power between the caster and the target. Terios had immensely powerful mana, but Diné wasn’t that far behind as a descendant of a god. Bending her completely to his will was impossible. A magic user far more powerful than the caster could eliminate the binding contract, too. There likely weren’t any humans on the continent capable of nullifying the geas of an Undead King, but it wasn’t out of the question should Diné manage to locate something or someone of extraordinary power, such as a divine object or a priest willing to sacrifice their life to summon a god. “Kill me. That’s your best option.” Diné repeated the instructions countless times, as if reproaching him for not knowing any better. “If you are truly striving for a peaceful world, then eliminate your weakness here and now, along with me.” “…You are a wonderful woman.” “Don’t screw around at a time like this!” shouted Diné angrily, taking Terios’s remark as a joke, though he’d simply let his true thoughts slip out. Nevertheless, Terios did not intend to break his oath. “I am sorry, but I don’t plan on ever killing you, nor anyone else. That method has already failed me.” “What?” “That’s right. I failed.” As Diné reeled from his unexpected words, Terios gritted his teeth and recalled the mistakes he’d made when he was alive. “Even if millions of people hated me, I slew my enemies to build a world for the hundreds of millions of children who would be born. I killed, and I killed, and I killed. I believed that could birth a peaceful world.” Swept away by his memories, he slipped back into the harsh tone of his past as he spoke like he was confessing. “But I failed. The people I trusted betrayed me. They thrust a blade into my chest.” However, he didn’t hate the people who betrayed and killed him. “It was my fault. Their friends and family were among the millions of corpses I created.” Just as the friend of your friend wasn’t necessarily your companion, if you continued to slay everyone who saw you as an enemy, you would someday have to cut down someone with whom your allies had a relationship. He hadn’t hesitated when that happened. Internally, he’d lamented that it had to be done, but he’d never once shed a tear as he murdered his enemies. It was all for the peaceful world he sought. But the people he had thought of as friends, the people he had trusted, hadn’t forgiven him for that. “If you kill someone, someone else will resent you. That resentment grew. It warped into hate, then into hostility that pierced my heart. The country I had built collapsed, and war spread like wildfire across the continent.” Ultimately, his endless fight for a peaceful world that would save hundreds of millions had thrust tens of millions into calamity. It was the epitome of irony. “No way. You can’t be…?!” Diné was astonished. He whose identity she had deduced—Terios—returned to his usual tone and made the same declaration he had before. “And that is why I have sworn to build a peaceful world without killing a single person.” No matter how hard the path was, Terios stuck to it to avoid repeating his past mistakes. “Fortunately, a skeleton like myself won’t die of old age, so there’s no need for me to ‘live fast’ like I did before. You could even say I can now ‘die slow.’” Terios’s teeth chattered as he laughed at what he thought was a clever turn of phrase. Then he stretched out his finger, the one lit by the geas pattern, toward Diné. “Now then, will you agree to this?” he asked. “…I understand,” she muttered, accepting less because he had convinced her that not taking lives was feasible but more because she felt the loser should do as the winner pleased. She raised her right hand and touched the shining pattern Terios held out. Brilliant light surged forth, and a symbol proving her subordination to him appeared on her right palm. With that, the holy knight descended from the God of Fire became a pawn of the Undead King, albeit an unruly one. “No, Captain…” Despair overcame the knights in the swamp as they watched the most powerful warrior in the kingdom give in to a monster. Terios slowly turned his gaze to them. “All right, I would like all of you to accept a geas as well. The contents are that you will not harm the children or me. That isn’t so bad, is it?” Unlike Diné, they didn’t have to follow his orders, only commit to not attacking Terios or the children. Even so, the knights’ pride wouldn’t allow them to give in to a monster. “I would rather return my life to the gods than betray my country and bow to the enemy!” shouted a young hot-blooded knight as he brought his sword to his own throat. At this, Diné shouted, “Stop! Don’t throw your life away!” “But, Captain!” The young knight must have been relieved to hear her voice the way it always was. That meant she hadn’t let the hope in her heart die. Though still anguished, he lowered the sword from his throat. Diné turned to her uncertain troops and gravely gave her orders. “Live. Go back to the capital. Report everything you saw and heard here to His Majesty without hiding anything. Know that it is the path that will lead to the kingdom’s salvation.” The Erythron Kingdom had no way of winning against Terios now that they’d lost the holy knight, their most powerful resource. They needed to convince the king and his ministers that the only method of survival was obedient surrender. No matter how ungraceful or pathetic it may be, that was the duty of a knight of the kingdom, the agonizing beliefs Diné’s words contained. “Captain… As you order, ma’am!” The knights picked up on her intentions and chose the path of life, tears of sorrow streaming down their faces. Ah, they’re all such wonderfully capable people. Terios was again certain that his past self had indeed erred. In those days, he would have mercilessly slaughtered these people if they had been his enemy. He raised the knights from the swamp and entered a geas contract with each of them, one by one. Mira and the other children had seen everything from a distant wheat field, including when Terios defeated Diné and chased off the knights. “Teacher was amazing.” “Yeah. It was so cool when he and the lady knight were all clang! clang! with their swords.” “I don’t care about that. Is he going to turn that swamp back to a field like before?” Torio was complaining as usual, but the other children were simply relieved that Terios had won. Mira smiled widely and ran over to the Undead King. “Teacher!” “Oh, Mira! And everyone else as well. I see you’re being bad children and skipping writing practice to watch the fight,” chided Terios. “S-sorry…” “I’m just joking. Thank you for being concerned for me.” Terios quickly changed his tune when Mira took him seriously and started apologizing. “Oh, good.” She exhaled, relieved. “That one really does look up to you,” said Diné with a shining smile from where she stood behind Terios. Mira looked at her in confusion and asked, “Huh, isn’t Ms. Holy Knight going home?” “Oh, I suppose I should explain,” said Terios, realizing the children had been watching from so far away, they hadn’t heard any of the talking. Terios took Diné’s right hand and showed the children the sigil there. “I’ve cast a geas spell on her, which makes it so that she has to do whatever I say,” explained Terios. “What?” “I lost the fight. Guess it’s better than losing my life,” Diné admitted reluctantly to the dumbfounded children. It was less that the woman was taking over Terios’s clarification and more that she wished to teach the children about the harshness of battle. Mira didn’t pick up on that at all, however. Instead, her face turned beet red. “T-Teacher’s a pervert!” “What?!” Terios was shocked by her outburst and didn’t understand her train of thought, but she continued yelling at him as angrily as possible. “You said you could make the holy knight do whatever you want with magic! That’s what a pervert would do!” “Wait a moment. I didn’t mean it in a weird way!” Desperately trying to deny the accusation, he opened the front of his cloak, “Look, didn’t I explain before that I can’t do perverted things because I don’t have anything there?” “But Melan said you can still do improper stuff even if that’s true!” cried Mira as she pointed to the black cat, her face flushing scarlet from glimpsing Terios’s white pelvic bones. “What, are you saying you actually named her? Hang on, that’s not what’s import—” “Someone with as much mana as you could make a fake penis or even tentacles or something,” appended Melan. “Wait—what are you saying?!” If Terios was slightly shaken from hearing Melan’s name, he was even more confused by her ridiculous suggestion. Diné, Torio, and all the other children edged away from the two bickering parties. “Is that what you intend for me…?” “I knew that skeleton was a pervert!” “What’s a pervert?” “It’s definitely someone really bad.” “Yay! Teacher’s a pervert!” The other children didn’t fully understand the meaning, but they still insulted Terios all the same. Typically, Mira would have defended him in a similar situation, but spurred on by a vague feeling she herself didn’t understand, she kept yelling. “So you like adult women more than little girls? That makes you a huge pervert!” “Normally, it’s the opposite!” cried Terios. “I knew you’d like someone with beautiful red hair like Diné more than someone with white locks like mine…” “I told you—you’re misunderstanding!” Mira’s emotions in disarray, tears welled up in her eyes. Terios softly stroked her head. “I meant what I said before. I think your hair is as beautiful as silver thread,” he assured. “…Really?” “Yes. No matter what anyone else says, I love it.” Love. The moment Mira heard that word, a warm feeling spread throughout her chest, and she instantly forgot why she was so angry. “Hee-hee-hee-hee, I love your white bones,” she replied. “O-oh, is that so…?” For some reason, Terios moved his chin like he was pulling back, then heaved a sigh of relief. However, Melan the black cat tapped his feet with her tail. “It’s too soon to be relieved,” she remarked, pointing to Diné’s and Torio’s hardened faces with her tail. “I do remember the history books said you took a girl thirty years younger than you as your mistress…,” muttered Diné. “Get away from Mira, you pedophile skeleton!” Torio commanded. “What’s a pedophile?” “It’s definitely someone really bad.” “Yay! Teacher’s a pedophile!” “Isn’t there something wrong with how this ended up?!” snapped Terios, trying desperately to dispel everyone’s misunderstandings. Once Mira finally got ahold of her senses, she helped Terios calm things down. By the time the uproar quieted, the village children had become quite accepting of the newly added holy knight.