Chapter 7

THE ASSAULT

The arrows were approaching .

And it wasn´t only one or two arrows .

Suddenly, an amount of arrows so great that becomes impossible to count poured down like rain .

The demons that were before marching, for the ones that carried one, each lifted their own shields . Fortunately, although there were still a great number of arrows, they were thinner than twigs . If it was those thin arrows, there would be no way they could go through the iron shields . The metallic sounds kept resounding indefinitely . But for the demons that were one second late to ready their shields, the arrow shower was like hell . Without being able to defend themselves, they would have the arrows piercing their throats and their arms . *1

Riku, who wasn´t carrying a shield, could only repel the incoming arrows with her halberd as much as she could . But even then, there was no way she could repel all of the arrows . One arrow grazed on Riku´s cheek . She felt the same pain as the one for cutting your finger with paper . With the back of her hand, she wiped her cheek .

“Stupid demons! For them to get fooled by false information!”

From up on a tree, a laughing voice was possible to hear .

Looking upwards to the voice, on a tree branch, there was a shadow covered with a black mantle . Together with him, there were roughly about a bit more than a hundred people . Holding his mantle together, there was a brooch with the image that looked like one of a snake inscribed on it . *2 Right as she saw the pattern, she sighed .

“It´s the family crest of the spiritualist family Bernaal . ”

Just like the Barusak household, it was one of the spiritualist families that served the king .

As a fellow spiritualist family, they would together participate in this ritualistic war . *3 She had heard some times that they were one of the spiritualist families that would just for the sake of prolonging the peace of the kingdom, fight the demons . At least, as far as her father had taught her, they weren´t a family that would do something coward like a night surprise attack .

Disregarding Riku, who was dumbfounded and tightly grasping her halberd, the situation still progressed .

“Shit! It was a trap?!”

“To think they concealed their smells and got close to us… Damn it . Everyone, attack!”

The demons wouldn´t only stand, keep being shot by the arrows .

The demons that had good physical constitution, all at once, were charging and striking against the trees .

As a demon enveloped by a carapace and another that looked like a bear stroke against the trees, the ground shook . Some spiritualist that had lost their balance fell down to the ground . But actually, there were also some spiritualists that went down the trees themselves before being thrown out of their balance . Each wielding a spiritualist blade, swinging it down towards the demons closer to the trees . The demons that were bellow the trees, just like a cutting a fruit, were cut into two halves . *4

“Tch, everyone charge!! Even if it is with your last efforts, kill them!”

“That´s my line . For the sake of the kingdom, kill all the demons!!”*5

The demon banning arts she so much had trained and the combat techniques of the demons she have been training as well; now both were confronting each other .

But the situation of the battle now was that the spiritualist side were having an overwhelming advantage . In terms of numbers, they were even . But the spiritualists were specialists in exterminating demons . *6 No matter how much the demons would temper their own bodies, they were like babies when facing the swords infused with demon banning power . After all, even the one with a carapace as hard as armor was easily cut . For each spiritualist killed, five or six demons would lose their heads .

“Shit . Fight until your last breath!! ”

The demon that was commanding the army had his voice interrupted .

A spiritualist that was carrying a spear thrust it through his back . Without any ceremonies, he easily died just like that . Even though the demon´s numbers were a considerable power enough to be called an small army, in front of the spiritualists, they were like powerless peons .

“Die! You demons don´t deserve to live anywhere in this world . ”

The spiritualist, with a loud voice, declared .

Yes, in all those hundred or years… The reason why demons weren´t even considered to be an enemy to humans was that .

And this time too, even before starting to fight, the winner had already been decided .

…Or so was supposed to be the case .

“Too fast . Demons die so easily…”

Out-of-place for a war, Riku´s voice resounded through the battlefield .

And as if following the intent of those words, screams from spiritualists started echoing around . *7

From how sudden the screams were, many spiritualists stopped moving . The demons that before were fighting a one-way defensive war, surprised, stopped their hands too . And then, by the time the spiritualists stopped moving, their good-fortune ended there .

“You guys too, shouldn´t you just go die already?”

Riku swung her halberd .

The sharply polished lump of iron as if it was very much unexpected flew towards a spiritualist . Cutting his torso and sending it flying, the body fell while exposing his internal organs . But before it fell to the ground, another spiritualist that was still looking at his friend that suddenly died just now had his head cut off . The fresh blood was spraying to the surroundings . Some of this blood stuck to the face of one of the spiritualist, who seemed to be their captain . That spiritualist slowly moved his hand to touch his cheek . In his finger, there was now blood sticking to it . Only then he came to himself . It was an expression of surprise at first, but soon he started to twist his face . The emotion there was of anger . The spiritualist, with his eyes bloodshot, looked at the blood soaked Riku .

“You damned demon lass . ”

As he raised his voice, he readied his sword stance .

Riku, with a expressionless face, was rotating her halberd . With very cold eyes, she looked at the spiritualist . Then, slowly she walked toward that sword wielding spiritualist . From her behavior, it looked as if she wasn´t even ready for fighting . She was only lazily rotating her halberd with her right hand . Looking at how Riku was acting, veins in his head popped out because of anger . 8*

“You will only be able to act arrogant for now . I will kill you with my own hands!”

The spiritualist vigorously raised his sword overhead .

Riku, raised her face to follow the sword, as if doing so was a pain in the ass . Even now that the overpowering demon banning sword was swung down, it didn´t seem like she was thinking about evading the attack . Instead, as if to catch the sword that was being swung down, Riku put her hand forward . The sword, together with the sound of the wind being cut, fell down towards Riku´s hand . The impact of the sword being swung down made Riku frown a bit .

But that was all . It was supposed to be a strong attack, but Riku was left unharmed . Until now, it was the same sword that were easily cutting down demons, but in Riku´s palm, there weren´t any wounds .

The spiritualist expression turned from anger to surprise . While shouting, he put his demon banning power into his sword . But even so, Riku was left unfazed . No matter how much power he would put into the sword, Riku wouldn´t bleed .

“Wh-why!?”

“While there is demon banning power into it, in its normal state, it is nothing more than a simple and blunt harmless sword . ”

The spiritualist was shocked .

Rather than anger, the surprise and fear of the unknown dominated . Through all of his body, he was sweating . He was now fearful of the little Riku more than anything else . *9

On the other way, Riku was showing an expression that was the opposite of the spiritualist´s . She was showing one vaguely tranquil and a lonely smile . But, in her eyes resided madness . Looking up at the surprised spiritualist, Riku indifferently spoke to him .

“Even if you can cut demons, you can´t cut me . ”*10

Holding his sword with her left hand and tightly holding her halberd with her right hand, still with a calm expression…

“Goodbye, spiritualist of Bernaal . ”

And the spiritualist, unable to put resistance, was vertically cut in half . *11

A deep red color similar to her hair painted Riku´s skin . Without showing any signs that she cared about that, she turned her eyes to the remaining spiritualists .

“Good afternoon, Bernaal spiritualists . Have you prepared yourselves to hand over your heads?”

While holding her blood covered halberd in her hand, she walked over the now cut into two spiritualist .

It was like Othello . The board which the white pieces were in predominance, with only a single black piece, the the situation was reveresed .

As the red halberd danced, heads with its faces twisted in fear would fly around . To the spiritualists, it would be like the image of hell itself . Even so, there were spiritualists that were still somewhat right in mind . One spiritualist, while trembling so much his demon banning sword was shaking, shouted with all his strength .

“It-It´s only one person! If we can kill that, it will be our win!!”

“If you can kill that? That may be a little wrong . ”

The spiritualist trembling arm was cut off and fell to the ground . As he saw his arm there on the ground, any remaining sanity was blown away . Raising a scream that wouldn´t become words, he took one step back . Because of how in panic he was as he did so, he ended up falling down backside . Even so, he did his all to run away . He retreated as he was being dyed in red by the blood on the ground .

But right as that spiritualist was about to pull back, a sharp spear pierced through his chest .

“Sorry, but I can´t just let that brat just go and reap all the achievements, can I?”

It was Vrusto´s spear that had pierced through the spiritualist .

As if that was a signal, all the demons that were still alive went to attack the remaining spiritualists . Among them, there were not even one person still willing to fight . To Riku´s eyes, the spiritualists that had lost their fighting spirit weren´t a threat to the demons that had seen a chance of winning .

“It´s not enough . ”*12

Riku was looking at the surroundings from afar, seeing the demons swarming the spiritualists .

Without averting her eyes from the tragedy that was happening to them and without even blinking; only holding her halberd in her arms as she was looking at it .

“Alright, quickly someone tell captain Leivein about the trap!”

“Reorganize the rankings, we are pulling back!!”

As the last spiritualist stopped moving, the remaining demon were taking the commands given .

Within the sea of blood, everyone happy about their victory and talking to one another about each of their struggles . Among those, one demon left from the group of demons that were talking . As if he remembered something, that demon approached Riku . It was not possible to see through the expression that was on the face of the demon…Of Vrusto .

From his hairy wolf face, looked like it was angry, but at the same time, it looked as if he was laughing . Since there was nothing to say about that, Riku saluted to him while still grasping her halberd .

Silently, Vrusto looked at Riku for a moment . And then lifting up his hand with sharp nails…

“You did well!”

And with all his strength, he slapped her back .

Because of the strength put into it, she staggered . Because of such sudden attack, Riku was about to voice her complaints, but before she could open her mouth, Vrusto started talking .

“You, I thought since you were only a little brat you would die in your first battle . This is evidence that my training methods are very good . ”

Because of such a weird reason, Vrusto´s tone of voice seemed very happy .

Whether because of how he was bragging about his skills as an instructor or something else .

Riku didn´t understand very well, but thinking about that was troublesome now . She wasn´t really interested in the reason why Vrusto was happy . While rubbing her pained back, she looked at Vrusto .

“But, you are really covered in blood, huh . When we come back, you need to properly wash the blood that is covering your armor . You are still a girl after all, one way or another . ”13*

Only saying that, Vrusto turned away from Riku .

He went back to the group of surviving demons . In the end, she didn´t really know what all that was about as a question mark floated above her head . For now, she thought she should be wiping the blood that was covering her halberd with her handkerchief . With that, she took out the handkerchief that was in her pocket . But even the handkerchief that was supposed to be white was covered in blood .

“Hey, brat . By the way, I have something I want to ask . ”

As she was wiping her halberd with the blood covered handkerchief, Vrusto turned back to her .

“You were supposed to be of one of those spiritualist families, right? Is it really alright for you to have killed them just like that with no hesitation?”

“Was there a problem in doing so?”

Riku tilted her little head .

Each time she moved the handkerchief, the blood stains would stretch onto the silvery blade . She was able to remove the fragments of organs and most of the blood . But if she were to wipe more than that, it would make the halberd even dirtier rather than cleaning it . As she was folding her handkerchief, she said .

“That was the enemy, right? If they are that, then they are people that need to be killed, right?”

“But a few weeks before, they were you allies, weren´t they?”

“Allies?”

To Vrusto´s question, Riku raised the corners of her mouth .

With her red hair fluttering with the wind, her lips dyed in blood formed a smile .

“Those people wouldn´t accept me . That´s why they weren´t my allies . Besides…”

Deep in Riku´s eyelids, radiant blue eyes were reflected onto them .

For the first time since she had been born somebody expected something out of her .

Leivein had accepted Riku´s power . And to her, that didn´t have anywhere to go, he gave her a place to belong to .

…Even the red hair she didn´t like that much he told her that it looked nice on her .

The one to first accept her existence was Leivein . The one to first consider her necessary was him too . That´s why she would swing her halberd for his sake .

For the sake of the Dragon Demon Battalion he gave to her…

“It´s because here is the place I belong to . ”