Why is this happeniiiiiiing?!
After bringing Iris to the inn, I found myself dashing across the city’s rooftops for some reason.
Leaping from building to building, I pushed on at full speed toward...who knows? Also, I was about to lose my shit. This was scary! What if I fell?!
I wasn’t doing it out of my own will, of course. Once again, it was the doing of the stupid-ass sword at my hip, Muramasa.
“Muramasa! Come on! What are you making me do now?!”
I’d been sleeping like a log, and then suddenly I was jolted awake and my body got taken over. Seriously, what the hell?
Obviously, I was attracting attention, and everyone was staring at me as they passed me by on the streets of Salem.
“Whoa! What’s with that guy?! That dark-haired dude is running like crazy from roof to roof!”
“Hey! What are you doing?! Is this some kinda act?!”
“Wait, isn’t that the total legend who dove headfirst into that crazy ‘in-love’ thing?!”
I was so embarrassed.
I was a gloomy introvert! I didn’t like being the center of attention! Could that sword please stop doing weird shit to my body already?!
“Uh, by the way, where are you taking me, Muramasa? This is the way to the inner exit...”
The inner exit led to the imperial capital—opposite from where I’d come in. What business did the damn thing have there? If it was hungry for aetherborn souls, shouldn’t it have been heading to the outer zone? Why was it heading for the safe zone, where there were practically no aetherborn to be found?
“QUALITY. SOUL!”
“Huh?!”
Muramasa, squealing with delight, made me run even faster. Dashing through the rooftops at ultrahigh speed, leaping full steam ahead across gaps many meters wide, and occasionally bursting through random strangers’ windows, I took the shortest, fastest path possible toward the inner exit!
My feet hurt! I was freaking out! People whose rooms I barged into were yelling at me! It was just awful!
“Ugh, come on! This is gonna be a problem later! Hey!”
“SOUL. SOUL!”
And then, when I jumped onto the next building—
Wait, there’s no next building!
Next thing I knew, I was past the buildings and at the fountain plaza. Just past it stood the inner gate, toward which I went sailing through the air. A terrifying floating feeling enveloped me.
Ahhhhhhhh! I’m falling! I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m so dead!
When I’d killed that one minotaur, Muramasa had forced me to land from pretty high up, but this was even higher up—and the ground below was cobblestone!
This is it! I’m a goner! This stupid piece of shit sword is gonna kill me!
I was falling and about to start crying when Muramasa started speaking to my soul, in unusually complicated words.
“ATTEMPTING POSTURE CONTROL. WORST-CASE SCENARIO: SIMPLE BONE FRACTURE.”
“What do you mean, ‘simple’ bone fracture?! That’s a major injury, damn you!” “Bastaaaaaard!” I snapped out loud, my anger boiling over.
What the hell did that asshole think it was doing?! That was my body it was wrecking!
As I screamed at it, my arm involuntarily raised Muramasa, and slash!
“Gwahhhhh!” screamed the black-robed man below me as the sword sliced him clean in half.
Oh. Oh no. Ohhhh no. I killed that guy. I killed that guy! Ahhhhhhhhhhh!
I’d just murdered a complete stranger!
Thanks to this person, who’d stood in the sword’s way as I landed and thus softened my impact, my ankle only got sprained instead of fractured. (Still hurt, though.) But never mind that! I was screwed!
“Wh-Who the hell are you?!” yelled a man.
“How dare you!” shouted another.
“You won’t get away with this!” threatened a third.
I figured they must’ve been with the guy I killed, since they were all wearing the same outfit. Also, they were pissed. And there were literal dozens of them, all in black military uniforms. They didn’t seem to be with the knights.
Wait, are they foreign military?!
They were on their way back from the capital, so maybe they’d gone there on official business or something?! And I’d just attacked them. Which made that a major international incident. Oh fuck.
I had just become a proper criminal.
“You. Stupid. Dipshit. Goddamn. Idiot! You just ruined my life, you moron! Asshole!”
What had I ever done to deserve being cursed by this thing? I was so angry at the demon sword that my gaze got sharper, and my breathing grew ragged and wild, like a beast’s.
I glared at Muramasa, held out in front of me, and the black-robed dudes flinched and went, “Gah!”
What were they getting scared for? I was just angry at the damn sword!
Ugh, I’m being so rude to these people, and... Huh?
That was when I noticed a figure covered in blood, in the center of the group of black-robed men, lying at their feet.
That silver hair... No way!
“Crow...!” the fallen figure said with a groan.
Vita. It was Vita. What the hell was she doing there?!
Wait, what? Why are these black-robed dudes stomping a young girl like her? Don’t tell me...
“Be careful, Crow! These men are dark magi! They’re dangerous!”
Oh, so they are!
Everything clicked into place. The rest was easy! All I had to do was act like I’d known the first dude I’d cut down was evil, and then pretend I was mad at the other guys instead of Muramasa, and then—
“Outsiders! You dare torture a young girl and disturb the peace of this city?! I hereby condemn you for your sins!”
—say the coolest one-liner I could think of while looking as dashing as humanly possible!
“Oh! Ohhhh, Crow! Crow...! ♡” Vita squealed, her eyes sparkling. She must’ve been really happy that I’d swooped in to save her.
Now nobody will realize I’m being controlled by the sword. Score! No problem! Now, then...
“DELICIOUS. WICKED. SOUL. EAT! EAT! EAT!”
“Bon appétit, Muramasa! I’ll just...be here. Existing. Yeah.”
Relaxing every muscle not on my face, I left everything to the sword.
✦ ✦ ✦
“O-Okay, but, like, what if this girl happened to have, I don’t know, a warped upbringing and, say, a dependent, love-hate relationship with one specific individual, and then got exposed to, like, an idealized version of a knight in shining armor coming to her rescue at the height of puberty? She’d lose her mind, man!”
—An average person witnessing Vita’s rescue