“We never did settle things.” The blue-haired asshole looked at me. Despite being the newest member of the Twelve Saints, he had already been given a Heavenly Sword. Now that he mentioned it, he had attacked me when we’d first met.
Letting out a small sigh, I readied my bone sword. “Sure. I’ve been planning on killing you from the start anyway.”
“That makes two of us. Any undead who threatens the princess will fall by my hand.” The grave keeper devoted himself to Nemophila, conflating her with his former master.
“I’m not gonna lose to some delusional freak who should have died three hundred years ago.”
“And why exactly is it that you still cling to life?”
“I don’t want a man showing interest in me. Gross.” Our clashing swords signaled the end of our conversation. Our first encounter had given me the impression that he had honed his skills against humans. Given he apparently used to be a knight who protected a noblewoman, that assumption seemed correct. For some reason he didn’t have his holy woman’s divine protection, but that wasn’t a reason for me to hold back.
We slammed our swords against each other. A dull sound rang out as my bone sword collided with his Heavenly Sword made of an unknown material. In a simple contest of strength, I would never lose. He retreated as though he’d been repelled, and I launched a follow-up attack.
First, I sprung forward and unleashed a thrust at his eyes. He tilted his head to dodge it, but I expected as much. Next, I swung my sword horizontally at his neck. The blue-haired holy knight reacted immediately, relaxing his knees and using his weight to drop to the ground. Not letting my sword fly over his head, I stopped partway through and brought it down on him. It was an attack consisting of three parts: a thrust, a horizontal sweep, and a downward swing.
With a slight grimace, the grave keeper put strength back into his knees and jumped backwards. Any one of those attacks would have killed an ordinary person—it was impressive he could dodge them all. Then again, if he hadn’t been at least this capable, he would have been exterminated a long time ago, so I probably should have expected it. At any rate, he successfully avoided my three-part attack. That was why I added a fourth.
“Bone Sword Generation.” A bone blade pierced through his chest, sticking out like a sickle. The grave keeper hadn’t noticed it emerge from the ground behind him and had impaled himself on it as he jumped back.
“S-So you’ve given up on trying to hide it, have you?” The moment he’d dodged my first thrust, I had extended a bone from the sole of my foot through the ground, then, predicting where he would go, I’d brought it to the surface just as he jumped.
Sure, I had used my ability, but it wasn’t like I was running around as a skeleton. “I just have to make sure nobody notices.” Aside from White and Blizzard, everyone else was dealing with the horde of curions that had arrived from the city center. They didn’t have the leeway to look at what we were doing behind them. That said, the aftermath would be an issue if I shed my flesh, so I was still limited in what I could do.
“Why didn’t you aim for my neck?” Even as he pulled himself off the sickle piercing his abdomen and blood gushed from the gaping wound, the blue-haired asshole remained calm. I didn’t think any further pursuit would reach him, so I made the bone I had generated disappear for now.
“I’d feel bad for you if I ended things too quickly.”
“You may be an unserious man, but you don’t strike me as the type to reveal your hand on the battlefield without reason.”
“There’s no reason for me to be talking to you, yet here I am.” Or so I said, but I hadn’t actually been holding back. His reactions had been just a bit too fast for me to reach his neck. The fact that he was moving faster than in our previous bout was probably proof of his seriousness. Oh well. I just have to factor his current speed into my plan next time.
Ending our conversation, I approached the grave keeper once again. As I brought my blade down, intent on cutting him in two, he casually raised his own sword. Although I had fully intended to cut right through his sword, my bone sword suddenly broke and lost almost half its length. The unharmed grave keeper then swung at me before I could recover.
As I ducked, his sword passed over the top of my head. I thrust my broken sword at the wound in his abdomen, but the moment it touched him, the rest of the sword turned to dust and crumbled away. This time not even the pommel was left. He then swung his sword at me, which I barely managed to dodge by the skin of my teeth as I retreated.
“What’s the matter? The sword saint can’t hold on to his sword?”
The first time, I couldn’t tell what had caused my sword to break. The second time, I was paying close attention, yet all I saw was my sword turn to dust. “That was Tremor Transmission, right?” It was the Shaman of the Heavenly Garden’s ability. It seemed there was more to it than just causing landslides and earthquakes.
“Oh? You recognized it?”
“Well, it can’t be Golden Garden, and it doesn’t look like your Heavenly Sword has an ability stored in it. That only leaves Tremor Transmission. Doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.” Still, I couldn’t immediately figure out how Tremor Transmission would cause my sword to break. Maybe a scholar would have been able to identify the logic behind it, but I wasn’t that smart. However, I could formulate the necessary hypothesis to continue fighting.