9 Chapter 9: Fall of the Demon Lord (1/2)

The moment the heroes charged into the castle, leaving the soldiers to fend off the demonic defenders and buy time for them to fight the Demon Lord, we began dying in droves.

As numerable as the knights were, our meager spells and tiny magic were no match for the might of the demons. I watched in horror as a gigantic fireball struck the platoon to my left, blowing a crater into the ground and sending human bodies flying into the air. The polished, silver armor afforded little protection against such arcane attacks. Limbs were torn and hurled across the clearing, disembodied heads rolled, and blood rained down.

Lightning, fire, ice, wood, wind, and earth. Spells of every element sprayed and engulfed the castle walls, obliterating entire squads of knights and blowing them to pieces, shredding them apart or lethally impaling them.

”Keep pushing! Keep them occupied so that the heroes can defeat the Demon Lord…ugh!”

The commander's order was cut off as a fireball struck him, disintegrating the upper part of his body and his right arm. The remainder toppled off his horse, but no blood spilled out from the cauterized, charred edges.

The shouts of men and curses of demons had devolved into an incoherent din, the voices drowned out by the clanging of metal and the roar of spells. I instinctively ducked as several wind blades flew above my head, but the three knights behind me weren't as quick. Their heads flew off from their shoulders, their necks cleanly severed by the nigh invisible spells.

”Sorry for getting ahead of you guys,” I told my deceased comrades, then continued charging forward. I wasn't looking to get stuck in the fight. Quite the contrary. Restia wasn't my world, I wasn't blessed with the proper combat abilities, and I was almost killed several times (in fact, I actually died once) upon arriving here.

I was sick of sticking my neck out for people who didn't appreciate my efforts.

I scrambled through the clearing, weaving through the crammed bodies. Despite the demons dominating the flow of the battle with magic, it wasn't as if the humans were entirely helpless against them. A squad of knights counterattacked with a combined lightning spell that electrocuted a trio of demons on the edge of the fortress walls and sent their sizzling bodies toppling below in spasms. A tsunami swept across the clearing, washing away a line of heavily armored demons and hindering their movements long enough for a deadly hail of icicles to rain down on them. Despite their armor, the demons were impaled in several places and nailed lifelessly to the ground.

”For the Emperor!”

The casualties on both sides were staggering. Heaps of bodies were mounting, and an ocean of blood was forming beneath our soles. I avoided the thickest of the battle and evaded several devastating spells to get to the edge, pressing my wall against an unbroken piece of wall and catching my breath. My break didn't last long, however, as several icicles thudded into the concrete beside me, breaking my cover. I immediately flopped down.

”Bloody hell!”

Swearing, I crawled along the stained grown, not caring that my once pristine armor was now smeared in crimson and other fouler fluids. The stench of death was revolting, or should be, but for some reason it was making me hungry.

I clenched my teeth, angry that my mouth was watering. I really was no longer human. The dead were calling out to me, pleading to be fed on, and my stomach growled…

Snap out of it!

I shook my head furiously, banging it against the wall for good measure. This was no time to get distracted. I had to crawl to safety and avoid getting caught in the crossfire of a war that I never intended to be a part of.

If I had been summoned properly alongside the rest of my classmates, and worked with them and the human kingdom of Restia to fight the demons from the start, I probably would have played along until the very end, as one of the thirty heroes. But alas, my classmates attempted to murder me, and then they hogged all the glory while sacrificing normal soldiers as pawns.

To be honest, if I hadn't been ditched from the start and forced to disguise myself as one of the common soldier folk, I probably wouldn't be able to empathize with them. That said, the knights were willingly expending their lives for victory. I admired their noble self-sacrifice, and felt guilty about leaving them to fight while I desperately scrambled to stay alive.

It felt so…selfish. So self-centered. While everyone was dying out there, willingly paying the price for victory, here I was, crawling in the dirt to stay alive at all costs. Just so I could take my revenge on my hateful classmates.

But this isn't my world. There is no reason for me to fight and die for it. I have no loved ones here, no friends…

Those deranged, murderous classmates of mine couldn't be counted as friends.

I took a deep breath and pushed myself up. A yell to my right caused me to jump to my feet – and just in time too. An earth spike burst out of the ground I was hugging earlier, slicing through the air. If I had been just a millisecond slower, I would have been impaled and held aloft helplessly, thrashing about in the air.

That looked like a painful way to die. Even worse, I probably wouldn't die from that. I didn't want to imagine being trapped with something spearing my body and holding me high up in the air, suffering for goodness knows how long…

Keep moving, you idiot!

I scurried away before a hail of icicles rained down on my position, embedding themselves deeply in the soil. Hearing a roar, I looked up, only to see a heavily armored orc-like demon charging at me while swinging his massive axe.

”Whoa!”

I jumped away as his axe cleaved toward me, easily slicing through the wall. With a bellow, the orc closed in on me, slashing away and forcing me to duck. Remembering that I had a sword, I adopted a stance from one of those kendo lessons my father drilled into me in his dojo, and thrusted my blade forward. The orc had over-swung his axe, missing my head and burying the hatchet in the wall behind me. As he grunted and yanked on his massive weapon, I seized the opportunity and stabbed at an opening, plunging my blade into a vulnerable area left open by a gap in the armor.

”Aaaaargh!”

The orc bellowed in pain as it flailed about. Blinded by pain, it let go of the axe and staggered behind. Grabbing hold of the axe, which had been loosened by the orc's efforts, I pulled with all my strength to free it of the last few centimeters of concrete it was buried in, and then used the momentum to swing the heavy weapon at the orc's head, detaching it from his shoulder.

”Huff…”

I stared at the headless corpse, which staggered for a few moments before realizing that it was dead. It teetered before falling forward, and I hastily jumped out of the way before I could get knocked over by the huge bulk.

”You shouldn't have gotten ahead of yourself,” I told the orc, and then hastily left before several wind blades cut into the wall behind me. Panting, I ran off, keeping my head low to avoid getting it taken off my stray spells.

Zing!

I threw myself down as something sliced through the air, cutting apart both humans and demons alike. Crawling across the blood, I desperately grabbed a sword from a dead knight, prying the weapon free from his hands. Thankfully, his death was just fresh. In a few hours, he would have undergone rigor mortis and it would be near impossible for me to break his grip, but for now he still felt warm despite lacking a pulse.

”This is crazy!” I muttered under my breath as I scrambled back to my feet. There were far too many attacks to evade. It was a good thing I had pressed myself against the wall, which meant I didn't to worry about any attacks coming from that front.

But it also meant one less avenue of escape.

”Incoming!”

The officer's warning barely came in time. I looked up in reflex and saw a massive fireball flying toward my position. Cursing, I kicked away and tried to jump, but the flaming projectile was too huge to evade completely. The fireball struck the wall behind me and exploded, buffeting me with superheated shockwaves that sent me flying. My armor turned red-hot, scorching the flesh underneath that it was supposed to be protecting.

I smashed through the castle wall and was sent sprawling underneath a pile of rubble. My vision blackened and I groaned, my mind almost blanking out from the pain. From the sounds of nearby moans and screams, I gathered that I wasn't the only target or casualty of the blast. It wasn't just humans. Even demons had fallen from the blast, their bodies smoking.

”Wow, they're really having a blast, aren't they?”

I sighed and shook my head. Reaching out, I pulled myself out of the debris and crawled to the open. Unfortunately, the pain was far too much. Wincing at my snapped arm, I was forced to pause and lie helplessly amidst the rubble.

”Huff…huff…”

I closed my eyes and struggled to endure the pain. As I expected, my left arm began twisting back to its natural angle and straightening, the broken bones mending. As the heat from my armor faded away, my burns began to heal over, the blisters closing up and mending.

Then I heard a familiar voice.

”Don't falter! Get him!”

”Yeah!”

Ignoring the pain, which was slowly disappearing, I hastily pulled myself up and crawled through the rubble, peering through the cracks. A blinding flash of light seared itself into my retinas for a few seconds, but once I recovered, I confirmed what I was looking at.

My classmates were fighting the Demon Lord.

”Takeshi! Take the left! Yuji! The right! Minamoto-san! We're relying on you! Magic support, please cover us!”

Unsurprisingly, Kobayashi Kenji had taken command, directing the class in the fight against the Demon Lord. Kijima and Yamada obeyed him without hesitation, brandishing their swords. While slashing his golden sword, Kijima unleashed a pride of golden lions, their bodies glowing ethereally, as they assaulted a single man dressed in black cape. From the other side, Yamada bore down on that same man with a gigantic axe, swinging the massive weapon down to cleave him in half. Meanwhile, Kureha and Kobayashi assaulted the man from the center, their swords flashing at blinding speeds that my eyes couldn't follow. From behind, showers of fireballs, lightning, icicles, thorny vines, earth spikes and wind blades arced across the vast interior of the castle to crash down against the solitary figure, who merely stood calmly in the face of overwhelming destruction.

The Demon Lord. Huge horns curled from his head, his long, black hair sweeping past his shoulders. A regal, dark cloak was draped across his shoulders, pinned in place by golden pads. His eyes were inky black, his pupils so deep they seemed to suck whoever stared into them in. I shuddered. I was reminded of a black hole.

Despite the relentless attacks, he merely raised a hand. Black lightning splayed from his fingers and rapidly spread out in a colossal web, catching the magical attacks in the air and destroying them before they could reach him. In his right hand, he held a massive scythe that towered over him, which he swung to parry both Kobayashi and Kureha's blades. Deftly deflecting their attacks, he turned around and sliced through Kijima's lions, dissipating the ferocious beasts into harmless energy, and then kicked at the approaching Kijima, forcing him back. Spinning around to duck under Kureha's blade, and parrying Kobayashi's sword with his scythe, he twisted and sidestepped Yamada's axe before striking the big guy's chest with his palm and blowing him off.

”Yuji!”

Kobayashi glanced at his comrade, his lips twisting into a sneer. I could tell what he was thinking.

Useless buffoon, can't even do his job right.

Well, neither could he. Before he could counterattack, the Demon Lord slashed at him with his scythe, pressuring him into the defensive. Perspiration ran down Kobayashi's face as he tried to hold the Demon Lord at bay. Kureha tried to strike from the side, but the Demon Lord skillfully evaded her blade before knocking her off the steps in his throne room, and then crashed against a staggering Kobayashi, bringing him to his knees.

”Uh…”

Kobayashi grunted, gradually caving in to the Demon Lord's attacks. Before the Demon Lord could press his advantage, however, Tsukishima Tomoyo's black magic streaked across the throne room to slam into him. However, the Demon Lord intuitively detected the attack and quickly pulled back. The black spells struck the carpet, causing it to rot.

”Oh, black magic?”

The Demon Lord looked more amused than appalled. Scowling, Tsukishima launched a second wave of black magic at him, but this time he didn't even bother to evade. Raising his left arm, he caught the dark blast with his bare hand.

”What…?”

Tsukishima gaped at him in disbelief, but the Demon Lord merely chuckled.

”What's so surprising? Isn't it natural that the Demon Lord would be completely immune to black magic? I am the master of those dark arts you're so proud of.”

”That can't be…!”

Even as she fell back, the rest of our classmates stepped in to fire divine blasts and other elemental spells. The Demon Lord merely shook his head with a chuckle.

”Shall I show you? The real method of using dark magic?”

With a single flick of his hand, he enveloped the entire throne room in darkness, sucking all the spells into a bottomless abyss.

”No way…”

”What the hell is with this cheat-level character?”

”I know he's the final boss, but this is just ridiculous! This game is broken!”

Despite clearly being outmatched in a life-and-death situation, it seemed my former classmates were still treating this as a game. Ganging up on a single guy, treating this like a boss battle and discarding soldiers' lives as expendable pawns (because they considered the knights NPCs), none of their actions seemed to indicate that they were taking this seriously.

”How do we beat a cheat-boss like him?”

”This is so unfair!”

”Quit whining!” Kobayashi snapped at them. ”We can beat him! He's just a boss character! We're the chosen ones! The heroes! We have cheat abilities of our own! On my mark, charge!”

Kijima and Yamada had gotten back to their feet, and they followed their leader doggedly. Kureha hesitated, but she joined the guys. Behind, the rest of the class followed, rallied by Kobayashi's rousing speech and joining the fight.

Despite being vastly outnumbered, the Demon Lord lived up to his name. Moving with superhuman speed, he swung his scythe and kicked a few students off the steps, while simultaneously dodging the rest of the attacks.

The guy was downright insane.

Wreathed in black lightning, he blew up a bunch of my classmates, sending them flying. Behind, the girls in charge of healing stepped forward and began casting restoration spells on their wounded comrades. I took note of Yoshida Yume, Midorikawa Midori and Aoyama Aoi. So those two girls and one guy were the main healers in class, huh…

I needed to factor that into my strategy for my eventual confrontation. They would prove troublesome, especially if I aimed to kill Kobayashi and the others. Granted, the two girls were gentle, sweet and kind to everyone except me, and while they didn't exactly bully me, they never helped me either. Hmm, come to think of it, didn't Midorikawa call me disgusting the other day? And Yoshida looked repulsed and disgusted when I fell near her as well. As for Aoyama, he probably didn't even know I existed.

Yeah…they hated my guts too. Fine, they were in my hit list as well.

Ooyama Eiji, the biggest guy in class, came swinging with his hammer. Lightning wreathed his hammer, spraying the Demon Lord, but the latter remained unfazed. Instead, the Demon Lord caught the hammer with the head of his scythe, then spun it around to slam the shaft into Ooyama's stomach, causing him to double over. While the big guy grunted and fell to his knees, the Demon Lord kicked him in the jaw, felling the poor boy.

Crack.

I winced at the ominous sound. That had to hurt.

Twirling his scythe like a staff, the Demon Lord fended off hordes of the so-called heroes at once. From my vantage point, it seemed ironic how the supposed heroes were doing something as unheroic as ganging up on a single opponent. Granted, the Demon Lord was super strong, so they couldn't afford to be picky with their options. Had Kobayashi done the honorable thing, he would have been slain long ago. While that would be a good thing for me, I couldn't rely on my classmates being that stupid.

Besides, it was more satisfying to take revenge with my own two hands than to have someone else do it for me.