After I’d become a magus knight, Hypno had merrily foisted a bunch of cursed arms upon me.
“First things first! Here you go—forty-seven Dáinsleifs! The sword broke during your fight with Karen, so I took the blade part and made all these knives!” Hypno said triumphantly, puffing up his (I think?) chest (barely anything to puff, honestly).
Hypno made a stark contrast with the teary-eyed member of the staff who was presenting me with a tray. On the latter lay a number of sharp weapons emitting an ominous aura, almost like a bloody mist. Yikes!
“See, Karen is full of hatred, so when she picked these up, they regained their brutality. But to our resident myth conqueror, that’s a nonissue! Now, please stash them in your coat’s numerous pockets!”
“Um, Hypno...”
I was not a myth conqueror! That was a misunderstanding! I couldn’t just accept those things!
Or so I would’ve told him, if Muramasa hadn’t suddenly started vibrating, going “ENHANCE! COMBAT! STRENGTH! EFFICIENT! SOUL! PREDATION!” and taking complete control of my arms, picking up the daggers one after another.
I threw them into the air and spread open my coat. The falling knives slid into the pockets Hypno had prepared—a perfect fit—and he(?) squealed in delight.
“Muramasa! Don’t be a show-off! What are you doing?! Also, didn’t you hear that these have regained their brutality?! I can’t just accept— Ngh?!”
My soul shuddered.
A pale blue mass—my soul, probably?—floated in my mind, and a large number of crimson blades were heading toward it, all shouting “BLOOD! BLOOD!” in unison as they tried to stab into it. They were trying to curse me like Muramasa had, I figured.
Completely unaware of the strange goings-on, Hypno approached me with a smile and said, “Here, take these too!” Cheerfully, he held out two weapons to me. “Come on, come on! You’ll take Aethon and Arash too, right? These two are incredibly wicked! One has an insatiable appetite for liver, and the other makes you want to die after firing it! Outrageous, right?!”
What the actual hell?! These are total shit!
Despite the terror in my heart, I took the remaining arms as well, wrapping the chain around my left arm and putting on the gun’s holster before slipping it inside.
Immediately, my soul began to shudder even harder, and a tin-colored chain and a tawny arrow also manifested inside my spiritual plane.
“BLOOD! BLOOD!”
“VISCERA! LIVEEER!”
“SCATTER LIKE BLOSSOMS! DESPAIR IN SUICIDE!”
My heart was overflowing with evil intent! The cursed arms surrounded my soul, lunging at it all at once to try and claim it for themselves! However—
“PERMISSION. TO SEIZE. DENIED!”
Black blades sprung forth from all over me, and began stabbing at the cursed arms!
The weapons slowly got sucked into my soul. Crunching and squelching noises echoed within me as they were greedily devoured.
“UNDERLING. SUBJUGATION. COMPLETE.”
In an instant, all the weapons I had on me turned black, prompting a loud and surprised “Whoa!” from Hypno.
“You’re the real deal, Crow!” he declared. “The evil arms all turned black, as if dyed by your strong will to eradicate all evil! Wooow!”
He was excited. Overjoyed, even.
I, uh, wasn’t. All the color had drained from my mental cheeks. Terrified, I glanced at Muramasa.
“Y-You can actually straight-up control cursed arms too?! Are you for real?!”
The mere thought of that amount of power made me shudder. I’d dreamed of breaking free from this thing’s control someday, but never in a million years had I thought it had this much power!
“Wait, so even if I find a way to break free from your curse and get rid of you... Won’t I just get immediately cursed by the other arms?”
“BINGO.”
“What do you mean, ‘bingo?!’ You knew, and you still had me take the other arms?! You cheating bastard!”
And so I fell right into Muramasa’s trap, becoming even less able to escape its clutches!
✦ ✦ ✦
Poor Crow, unable to get away from his controlling boyfriend!