“Wha—? Crow?!” Iris watched, bewildered, as the dark aether began to flow from the young man just as his assailants attacked.
Then something even stranger happened. The aether took the shape of countless black arms and seized the men’s weapons!
“Gah! What the hell?!”
“Whoa! Nobody said he could do this shit!”
“Let me go, damn you!”
As the ruffians struggled to free themselves, the captive maids slipped away. And amid the echoing cries of the evildoers, a faint voice rose from within the swirling storm of darkness:
“My desire...is to be...”
Iris’s eyes widened in recognition. There was no mistaking it—this was the voice of the man she loved!
“The Condemner of All Evil, for the sake of others! Shouldering every burden, every responsibility!” he exclaimed passionately.
A knight’s vow.
For his country, his friends, his people—he would slaughter all evil, surpass all obstacles. Thus did the Condemner swear!
“Oh, Crow!”
“My dear young man!”
Iris and Eldia—two women who had taken up the sword in the name of justice—were trembling. His resounding oath burned hot in their hearts.
“Peace... Hope... I’d do anything for that!”
In the overflowing darkness, they all shivered and froze—the women out of emotion, the villainous brutes out of fear! Faced with the absolute determination and fervor of those words, not one of them so much as blinked.
“I hereby declare that...”
As the dark aether reached a critical mass, the figure of a knight emerged as if from a cocoon of darkness!
“I, Crow Titus, wish to someday sever all that is evil! For freedom and peace!”
Thus did the bringer of judgment make his second coming. At the heart of the crackling blackness stood Crow, the Condemner. He should’ve been severely injured. He should’ve been missing an arm. However, the strange aether, lodged in his injuries like a flame, turned to flesh and blood, replacing what he had lost.
“Oh, Crow!” Iris exclaimed, in tears at his miraculous revival.
The young man exuded a presence that made it seem as though he could’ve stood side by side with the knights in her childhood tales, overcoming all hardships. A hero, born in the modern age!
Buuut...
What the hell?! What’s with these scary-looking dudes? And Iris?! And a tiny loli?!!!
Our modern-age hero (actually just the pointedly ordinary Crow) was confused, you see.
After all, he’d been sleeping like a log, and then Muramasa had told him to shout out his desires—and the next thing he knew, he’d woken up and found himself in this situation.
Huh? Huh?! These clearly evil dudes are glaring right at me! This can’t be good! Uh, I should probably protect the loli!
Standing before the mysterious white-haired girl (actually seventy-year-old Eldia), Crow shielded her with his own body.
And then he put on a stupidly sharp face and spoke in a stupidly sharp tone.
“Never fear. I will protect you!”
“Huh?! ♡”
And that’s how, in a single moment, Empress Dowager Eldia was doomed.
See, from her point of view, this was a dream come true. A cool, passionate, righteous, and gorgeous man—the embodiment of all her ideals—stood protecting her like a scene straight out of a story. Suddenly, she was being treated like a heroine! And she was swooning over it!
Except, of course, while she thought he was a righteous man (based on hearsay and the series of oaths he’d just made), he wasn’t actually like that at all.
What Crow had said was “My desire is to be the Condemner of All Evil, for the sake of others! Shouldering every burden, every responsibility! Peace. Hope. I’d do anything for that! I hereby declare that I, Crow Titus, wish to someday sever all that is evil! For freedom and peace!”
What he had thought, however, was “My desire...? Well, honestly, all I want is to be hella popular with the ladies and take it easy! I’ve been the Condemner of All Evil for the sake of others all this time! Shouldering every burden, every responsibility! I’m sick of it! I wanna move on already and live in peace!!! My hope...is to have a big tiddy wife who takes, like, super good care of me, and also gives me money! I’d do anything for that! Um, except fighting! I hereby declare that I, Crow Titus, wish to someday sever all ties with you, you demonic embodiment of all that is evil! I wish for my freedom and peace back!”
The shallow bastard! He just wanted peace for himself! All they’d heard had been him articulating bits and pieces of his garbage desires! Just the buzzing of an insect who wanted to get rid of his yandere girlfriend (Muramasa) and find himself a sugar mama he could bang without a care in the world!
Unaware of any of this, Iris and Eldia’s maiden brains were in full overdrive, and the ruffians were desperately trying to get away—all over someone who was barely worthy of being called scum.
What they saw as a hero rising from the depths of hell was, in reality, just a slug crawling out of a drain. Gross, and definitely not worth cowering before.
Still, Crow’s acting skills and the mystique in his face were top-notch.
Fully aware of the abilities of the demonic sword flowing from his soul to his mind, he glared sharply at his enemies.
“Come, Muramasa! Show me your new power!”
Instantly, the jet-black blade was in Crow’s right hand. His left arm, grown anew, emanated dark aether. Truly, he looked like a hero reborn from the ashes, awakened to an extraordinary power.
As everyone around him trembled (for no reason), Crow raised his left arm. “I invoke ‘Forbidden Art: Wicked Soul Summoning’!” he shouted.
He’d just come up with that name, by the way.
Once again, dark aether began to overflow from his left arm. In a moment, it took shape, transforming into a group of trolls, aetherborn he had once slain.
The demonic army roared. They looked exactly like the real thing, except that their bodies were tinted black. With ragged breaths and murderous eyes like those of angry beasts, they turned to the thugs.
“Wh-What?! Where did these things come from?!” one of the ruffians shouted, as the group of men fell into a panic.
They’d had no idea this could happen! Their client—under the emperor’s orders—had told them this was the simple assassination of a man on the verge of death. So what the hell was this?!
“This is Muramasa’s new power,” Crow announced, black blade in hand. “It can now cause souls to manifest for a time.” Cool, right?!
His left arm regenerating, the summoning of the troll horde—all was the work of the recently awakened Muramasa. Crow’s soul, to which the blade was bound, could recreate his own missing body parts and organs with aether. Not only that, he could also summon fragments of the souls of aetherborn the sword had consumed, temporarily bringing them back to life.
These revived beasts obeyed Crow’s every command—not because they were under his thrall, but because they were simply terrified of Crow and Muramasa, who had once killed them so violently.
“Now go, my aetherborn! Destroy this evil! Cleanse it!”
With a mighty roar, the trolls attacked in unison, swinging their powerful arms and mowing down the thugs. Some still tried to resist, using their aethereal arms, but—
“It’s futile,” said Crow, the man who controlled the aetherborn horde, unfazed. His sword flashed over and over, and the thugs fell one after another, their bodies instantly dismembered.
And the resurrected hero (actually just controlled by a cursed sword), with a look of (pseudo-)dignity on his face, boldly declared:
“Embrace your doom, vile fiends!”
While internally screaming that his muscles were really sore, of course.
He obliterated every last one of his enemies.