The community was in shambles.
A terrible shock wave, from the dragon’s mere descent, had caused countless homes to collapse, and the air was thick with debris and dust.
And it was then, battered and broken, with an arm missing, trapped in the pits of despair, that I suddenly felt...angry.
“VESSEL! ESCAPE!”
“Shut up.”
“WHAT?!”
“I don’t want to hear your nonsense!”
There was no way I could escape anymore. More than that, however, I...no longer wanted to.
“GROOOOOOAR!”
Fuck off.
The dragon’s roar grated on my ears.
Moments ago, I’d been scared to death. I was dead either way, however. The utter despair had crushed all of my fears.
And my heart was boiling with rage.
Why do I have to go through all this shit?
I’d lost an arm. My body was torn. The pit of my stomach was swirling.
Muramasa’s recklessness had earned me the ire of the royal family, and now I’d been ordered to fight a dragon and die.
Why did this have to happen? Why did it have to happen to me?
Who was to blame? Was Muramasa the main cause? No, no it wasn’t.
I’d found it by accident. And it wasn’t malicious. Just hungry.
So, was it the murderous dragon’s fault? Again, no.
It was enraged because I’d invaded its territory and grievously injured it. Of course it hated me. But that wasn’t personal, not at all.
So...
The greatest evils here are the prime minister and the royal family. Yeah. I get it.
I was going to kill them. If it was the last thing I ever did, you bet your ass I was going to make them pay.
And I would slaughter anything that stood in my way too.
Unlike Muramasa, unlike this black dragon, there was clear malice in these people’s orders. How dare they, how dare they try to hurt me?!
Fueled by unbridled anger, I pushed myself to my feet.
My missing left arm made me unsteady, but the black dragon did not take the opportunity to strike.
“G-GRAAAR!”
Instead, it was incredibly cautious, its eyes shining with more vigilance than when I had been whole.
That’s right, dragon. I can kill you. I will not hesitate to.
I emerged from the dust, willingly drawing closer to the black beast.
Walking in the opposite direction of the crowd fleeing around me, I approached with murder in my eyes.
You did this to me. You’ll pay too. I’ll slaughter the royal family and every last one of their lackeys, even if it means you need to die first. Even if it’s just for now, I’ll survive. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill them all.
Perhaps those were the muddled thoughts of a dying mind, but I had never been so full of fury.
And so, for once, I wasn’t acting out of self-preservation. I wanted to be a thorn in their side. I was actually going to fight as the radiant Condemner of All Evil, just to spite the royal family.
I stood valiantly in front of the dragon, raising my voice so that people would hear.
“I will not allow you to hurt these people. Is it me you want? Come and get me,” I declared. On a scale of one to ten, I looked sharp as all shit. “Muramasa. Lend me your strength!”
“AS YOU WISH!”
With a force matching my rage, I raced forward, the ground cracking beneath my feet as I closed the distance between myself and the beast in an instant.
The dragon roared in confusion.
I should’ve been dead. I should’ve been unable to move with such speed.
How did I do it, you ask?
I’m cursed. Even if I’m apart from the sword, we’re still connected. As long as I’m alive, Muramasa can control me!
Guided by the cursed blade, I drew Arash, the Death Shot, with my right hand.
“Perish!”
I thrust the large-caliber weapon at the dragon and fired at point-blank.
A split second before the destructive beam was released, the black beast quickly soared. It was the first time it’d performed an evasive maneuver.
The shot missed it, and pierced through the forest beyond the village, scorching hundreds of trees in its path. The gun’s power was truly terrifying.
So, dragon. You only got serious about killing me when I tried to shoot this thing, right? In other words, you know that if I pull off a close-range shot, you’ll end up just like those trees over there.
This time, Arash—who usually brought death to its wielder in exchange for its incredible firepower—showed no signs of wanting to try.
I mean, why would it? “You’re satisfied, aren’t you, Arash? I’m already a dead man walking, aren’t I?!”
“O, MY MASTER! YOUR LIMBS TORN, YOUR ORGANS RUPTURED, YOUR BLOOD GUSHING, YOUR BONES SHATTERED! THE BEAUTY OF IT ALL! SCATTER! SCATTER!” the gun screamed in ecstasy, sounding very excited at the prospect of me fighting to the death in the throes of such agony.
“Fine, you bastard. Get the hots for my corpse all you want. In exchange, you’ll do exactly as I tell you!”
An angry roar reverberated across the skies.
From the wings of the black dragon flying overhead, two magic circles appeared.
They looked like a pair of giant eyes. Aimed down at me, they began to concentrate high amounts of aether.
“Oh. Is that a wind spell coming from your wings? Predictable.”
The next moment, steel rained down upon the dragon’s wings from above, piercing their thin membranes forty-seven times!
Astonished and in intense pain, the black dragon roared.
Thanks to its wounds, the magic circles on its wings dispersed, and the storm they had been about to unleash raged wildly. How amusing to see its massive body toyed with by its own wind!
“I’d heard dragons can use spells. All it took was a little thinking to figure out what your trick was. There’s no way a giant lump of useless flesh like you can fly that quickly!”
In other words, the dragon had been using a spell to generate wind, enhancing the power of its flapping wings, and thus had been able to accelerate rapidly despite its massive size.
After I figured that out, dealing with it was easy. I just needed to destroy the source of its little trick!
The forty-seven Dáinsleifs scattered into the air around me.
They were the ones that had shredded the dragon’s wings. And now the swarm of vampiric blades was swimming through the air.
“Good job, Dáinsleif! It was you who stopped the bleeding in my left shoulder, right?”
“TEE HEE!”
Aw, it was nervous! How cute! For a bloodsucking blade, anyway. I was in its debt!
See, when my arm had been torn off, I’d hardly bled, for some reason. Thinking about that, I remembered something.
Dáinsleif’s original owner had formed blood into huge flying blades. So this thing can not only convert the blood that it absorbs into power for its wielder, it can also manipulate blood to an extent.
If it could turn blood into a flying blade, it stands to reason it could make itself fly by being covered in blood.
Under this assumption, when I’d stepped out from the dust, I’d released all the daggers from my pockets.
And so, while the dragon’s focus was on me, I had the swarm of blades take to the skies, then rain down on the beast for a surprise attack at just the right time.
“GROOOOOOOAR!”
The black creature exploded in anger, trying in vain to flap its wings and avoid falling.
“Aethon! Activate!”
“HA HA!”
The black chain coiled around the dragon’s neck began to wriggle, and in an instant it stretched, tangling with the beast’s wings!
“GROOOAR?!”
Thanks, buddy.
Completely halting its movements was impossible, but hindering it from flapping its wings even slightly was enough.
Because, you see, thanks to that...
“Now you’re just dropping like the sack of meat you are.”
And thus, the next second, with a thundering crash, the black dragon hit the ground, sending its flesh and blood gushing forth in a gory shower.
Its roar of agony echoed throughout the village.
Weighing tens of tons and taking a fall like that, it had to have suffered massive damage to even its internal organs.
Look! Now we match!
“G-GRAAR!”
The dragon writhed in pain, but still had a will to fight. In a final act of defiance, it raised its massive claws overhead, aiming at me.
Ah, yes.
“I almost forgot to return the favor.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, I fired the aethereal gun, its destructive beam tearing off the dragon’s arm, causing a massive splatter of fresh blood.
It let out a pitiful, anguished scream.
The moment its giant body began to convulse, Muramasa—still stuck to the dragon’s back until now—came loose.
And, as if meant to be, it fell right in front of me, piercing the ground.
“Welcome back, demonic blade,” I said.
Sword in hand, I approached the black dragon.
It seemed unable to move, overcome by pain. With each step I took toward it, its once ferocious visage twisted more and more. It was shuddering in fear.
Another pitiful roar escaped it.
The jet-black blade was reflected clearly in its eyes.
Muramasa, the Black Reaper. The giant asshole of a sword that had changed my life forever.
Yeah, it was an awful, sickening piece of trash excuse for a partner, but there was one thing about it I couldn’t deny I liked.
“You know, at least you look really cool.”
And then, in one swift motion, I plunged Muramasa straight into the dragon’s eye, past the hilt, all the way to my elbow. And then I twisted it.
A miserable cry of agony rang in my ears.
Behind the dragon’s eye, its brain collapsed with a gruesome squelch.
Another shriek. And then another. In its final moments, the dragon roared and writhed.
“GRA... AH...”
And finally, it was gone.
“Hmph.”
Pulling out the blade, I thrust it upward at the heavens.
The astonished villagers stood around me—a good distance away—and stared in disbelief.
I’d felt it. They’d been blindly fleeing in terror, but their feet had stopped them dead in their tracks. After all, the dragon hadn’t been chasing after them.
And then they’d looked back and seen it overpowered by a lone magus knight.
Showtime.
I—the thorn in the royal family’s side, the nobody—was going to become a nationwide legend, engraved in the people’s hearts.
Gotta look cool, at least.
Time to be the most dignified Condemner this world had ever seen.
“Embrace your doom, vile fiend! The empire’s peace shall not be disturbed as long as I, Crow Titus, draw breath!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“M-MR. VESSEL, SIR?!”
The cursed arms were in quite a state.