The Devil and the Fire Knight
Side: Ryushin
「Ugh!」
「Ryushin!」
Luca comes running towards me.
I was holding the base of my missing left hand and trying to stop the bleeding.
「Looks like I had the wrong guy.」
The man who cut off my left hand spoke to me without a hint of distress.
─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─
Until a while ago, Luca and I were heading to the eastern side of the Steel Forest, steadily defeating C-rank demons such as orcs and goblin magicians.
Suddenly, a black-haired, blond-eyed man wearing a black cloak appeared.
The man who appeared on the spot as if he were cutting through space suddenly attacked me.
The next thing I knew, my left arm had been chopped off by the man’s sword.
「Ow, what the hell are you?!」
I ask the man while enduring the pain.
The dragon skin, an automatic defense skill unique to dragonoids, had been activated. However his skill still made it easy to chop off my arm, which should have had the same level of defense as a dragon, with an ordinary attack power.
「I have no taste for conversation with inferior species but…. well, since I’m celebrating my return, I’m going to let you in a special conversation. I am the demon, Valf.」
The man said he was a demon.
The existence that unites demons and demonkind, that’s a demon.
In appearance, he is no different from a human being, but the magic power within him was beyond comparison.
Luca stepped forward to protect me. His body was shaken by the sheer magic power of the demon, and he was trembling.
「Why are you attacking us!?」
「I felt a nostalgic magic power. Apparently, I was wrong, but I do not care about the details. Do you know of a man named Volcano Ryuden?」
「…Ryuden is my father.」
「Oh! So you are Ryuden’s son. Is he still alive?」
「No, my father died before I was born.」
「So he’s dead. Then you’re his last living memory.」
The demon seemed to be convinced of something.
The next moment, the demon’s figure disappeared.
「──Gwah!?」
My right arm was burning hot.
I looked down and saw that my right arm was missing, with blood spurting out of it.
The demon had cut off my right arm.
「Hmm. You’re a bit fragile, unlike Ryuden. Are you sure you’re really his son?」
The demon showed a look of disappointment as he spinned and played around with my right arm in his hands.
「Re, resurrection!!」
Luca cast a recovery spell on me.
A white bubble burst out from the base of the cut arm, and both of my arms started to regenerate.
「Guh. S-sorry, Luca.」
「Don’t mention it. Come on, Ryushin, let’s get out of here.」
「Oh, so you can regenerate. But that’s still not enough to get rid of me.」
My arm had regenerated thanks to Luca, but I still doubted that I could escape from this demon.
「You said you were Ryushin, right? I have no grudge against you, but your father sealed me up for an entire century. Now that Ryuden is gone, I have decided to repay you for my suffering.」
Then I remembered.
The chief of the village told me this story a long time ago.
A long time ago, a demon came to kill the Dragonoid clan that did not join the Demon King.
That demon was so overwhelmingly strong, that he managed to slaughter all the fierce men in the Dragonoid village by himself.
It is said that my father, who was the strongest man in the village at the time, risked his life to seal the demon.
It seems that the seal on the wizard Valf has been broken.
A mass of malice was standing in front of me.
「I will kill you, but not right away. I’ll take it slowly. I will make you feel so much agony and despair that you will regret ever being born.」
With that, the demon turned his palm toward Luca.
I knew what the demon was going to do.
「No, stop! Luca, run!」
「Huh── Gah!?」
Something invisible stuck to Luca’s neck and tightened around her neck. Luca tried to struggle, but wasn’t able to dislodge the bindings on her neck.
「Bastard! Dragonization!」
I turned my right hand into that of a dragon and struck the demon.
But my fist didn’t reach him at all.
I don’t know what he did to me, but I was on the ground.
I tried to get up, but the demon only stomped on my head and buried my face in the dirt.
「What’s with that half-assed dragonization? You are his son, right?」
「Get out of there, Ryushin!」
「Well, isn’t this woman daring? These kinds of people are the ones who are worth killing.」
As the demon raised his arm, countless black stakes appeared in the air.
The sharp tips of the stakes all pointed at Luca.
「Wait, wait, please! Kill me instead!」
「Hmm, you can just wait there. Just hate yourself for being so weak.」
One of the black stakes was released towards Luca.
「Luca!」
──「What?!」
The stake never reached Luca.
All of a sudden, the stakes were burned down by a Knight in Flames standing in front of Luca.
「What the hell is that thing? A Demon, or is it your magic?」
I gulped.
The demon steps on my head and puts pressure on my foot.
Suddenly, he stops trying to step on me.
「Gububuh?」
The demon let out a strange cry as he was blown away. The Knight of Flames struck the demon above me at impossible speeds.
The Fire Knight looked down at me.
Did he save me?
I looked at Luca and saw her sitting on the ground, looking at me with surprised eyes. Something that had been tightening around her neck seemed to be gone.
「What the hell are you!?」
The resurrected demon struck at the Fire Knight.
The Fire Knight fought back.
Every time the demon struck the Flaming Knight, his fist was burned and eviscerated.
However, the demon healed his fist with high-speed regeneration and immediately struck again.
On the other hand, every time the Fire Knight was hit by the demon, his armor was ripped off.
「Haha, hey, hey, have you finally died?」
After a few minutes of fighting, the demon succeeded in extracting what looked like the core of the Fire Knight. Once the Knight of Flames had its core taken from it, it immediately scattered on the spot.
Although the demon was fatigued, from our point of view, its magical power was still as overwhelming as before.
We don’t stand a chance.
I was hoping that the Fire Knight would win….
「What the hell was that? Is this your magic? No, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to kill you guys right now.」
Desperation came towards me.
But his pace quickly stopped.
「Ah, ah, ahhhhh!」
Despair was written on the demon’s face.
The Flaming Knights who had tormented the demon man had appeared again.
Increasing its number to five bodies.
「Hey, play fair!」
At the signal of the demon’s cry, the battle began again.
──No, it wasn’t a battle. It was a one-sided massacre made by the Flaming Knights.
The Fire Knights attacked incessantly for several tens of seconds, and eventually the demon had reached the end of his regeneration.
The demon’s black hair had turned completely white, his skin was dried up, and his eyes hollowed out.
And when the five Knights thrust their spears into the demon at the same time, it seemed to be the end of the line, and the demon disappeared into a pile of sand.
When the demon disappeared, the Fire Knights took one look at me and Luca and ran off in different directions, each of them running in different directions from mine.
「Oh, thank God.」
「Ryushin, are you okay?」
How about you, Luca, do you have your head on straight?
Luca and I assured each other that we were safe.
「What was that Knight?」
「I don’t know. But it didn’t seem to have any animosity towards us.」
「Ah.」
Yes, I’m curious about that.
I can’t help but feel like that Knight was protecting Luca and me.
Was it Tina-sensei’s magic? No, obviously not, that Knight had more magic power than Tina-sensei.
So, then, is it Haruto?
……..No, no way.