Was it thanks to Luagarne, who'd been brainwashing them for days on end?
Or was it simply because of the song these people had been humming for so long?
Even as the village scenery suddenly changed and sounds of fighting echoed from everywhere, not a single villager looked for the Demonic Knight.
"Knight of Endings, grant us salvation."
An old woman muttered words that a child then picked up.
"They called him the Demonic Knight."
The shadow cast over the entire village was thick. Shadow in both the physical and psychological sense. Suddenly earth rose everywhere to become walls, and before they knew it, a ceiling had formed overhead blocking the sunlight.
And those who fed on their fear emerged.
Two swordsmen. One held a thin blade that bent flexibly, and the other wielded a deformed sword that was a straight rectangle from ricasso to tip.
"Wonder if there'll be any good cutting feel."
The deformed sword muttered.
"I'm tired of this work now. I just want to escape the Demonic Realm."
The owner of the thin sword replied. Both seemed accustomed to this kind of work.
"Don't you know you can't play this labyrinth game on the continent?"
The Balrog's labyrinthization could only be used in places heavily influenced by the Demonic Realm. A fact that could be inferred from their conversation.
Of course, except for those two who'd just appeared, it wasn't particularly important to anyone else here. When death was imminent, how could such things matter?
"Grant us the ending."
The old woman bowed her head. Seeing this, one of the men raised his short rectangular sword. The bastard who'd discussed cutting feel.
Sunken cheeks and blackened skin below the eyes, pallid to the point of being gray. Greasy hair grown down to his shoulders. It was an appearance that if met on a night road, one could immediately shout 'murderer' without hesitation. Moreover, he was wrapped in a jacket made of patched leather. The pants, vest, and coat he wore weren't ordinary either.
All made by tanning human leather. It was also his signature defensive equipment.
Since he'd spent his life using killing people as his pleasure's tool, even calling him a murderer upon seeing his appearance wouldn't all be a misunderstanding.
His right hand rose. If he brought it down like this, that old woman's head would split vertically.
Even if her skin had turned purple, her brain matter wouldn't have changed, and her blood would still be red. Of course, the cutting feel transmitted through his hand would be the same too.
It was an incredibly anticipated moment.
Normally he had to be satisfied with cutting demon beasts or monsters, or the bastard right next to him, but dealing with that adjacent bastard wasn't easy, and demon beasts or monsters had no cutting feel.
Part of his ugly desire showed on the skin of his face. His eyes filled with feverish heat as he brought the rectangular blade down.
Clang.
His sword failed to achieve its purpose.
Yet the heat in the murderer's eyes remained unchanged. His eyes turned toward the one who'd blocked his sword. He'd known from the start someone would approach and block, but he'd let it happen.
A longsword blocked his blade. That longsword was crafted by dwarf skill, and its owner bore the name Lawford.
"What the hell are you?"
Lawford asked while staring directly at his opponent. Compared to the murderer, he had a decent appearance and upright gaze.
He'd been in the middle of earnestly training, exchanging knowledge with Pel—though not in kind words.
Suddenly the surrounding terrain changed and he saw some bastard who seemed to have made cutting people his profession. So he blocked him.
Lawford's eyes were already scrutinizing the opponent thoroughly.
Posture, attitude, gaze and such. Among them, the eyes filled with heat made his stomach turn just from looking.
It seemed to hold the desire of an old man lusting after a young woman.
The opponent withdrew his blocked sword and wordlessly swung his other hand. A short rectangular sword was also gripped in that hand.
'Shikdo?'
Lawford pulled his sword to block while thinking the opponent's weapon was unique.
A short sword similar in form to a shikdo.
Something like a smile appeared at the corners of the opponent's mouth, which looked like it had never made an expression in its entire life.
"Hoo. You look like you'll have some cutting feel."
Hearing words spoken while exhaling breath made his spine tingle oddly.
Whoosh.
The opponent moved his feet to close the distance. The old woman still crouched with her head bowed between them. She couldn't even raise her head. Just trembled, paralyzed with fear.
The opponent's weapon was relatively shorter. Lawford's longsword was twice as long.
Then creating distance would be advantageous. The problem was what the bastard's right-hand shikdo was aiming for. He'd deliberately tried to chop the old woman to death.
It wasn't action on a whim but calculation.
You're going to protect this old woman, right? Then you have to guard that spot now, don't you?
That's what he seemed to ask.
Lawford extended his sword to block the shikdo the bastard swung with his right hand.
Clang!
Blades met and sparks flew. Because the terrain had changed and surroundings had darkened, the sparks stood out more.
While blocking the right-hand shikdo, the left-hand shikdo aimed for his throat. Lawford stretched his leg to the side from his extended sword stance and bent his knee to lower his posture.
Changing stance while supporting his body with one leg, he lifted one foot from the ground to kick at the opponent's ankle.
The bastard swinging shikdos spun swiftly around the old woman to avoid the kick.
He knew fighting with the old woman between them was advantageous.
'You're going to keep protecting her, right?'
The same question persisted. Moreover, he wasn't alone.
Lawford's brow furrowed. Was it difficult? Not exactly.
It was just because a certain memory came to mind.
It's hard to recognize immediately even if what you've only heard about appears before your eyes.
Especially so if there's a gap from the image drawn in your mind.
Lawford's opponent was the protagonist of a very old tale. Precisely, the villain.
In other words, one of the ghost stories his parents told him when he wouldn't listen as a child.
That's why his spine had tingled from just one word, not even intimidation. Because of memories etched from childhood.
"Murderer Dahmer?"
Murderer Dahmer, or Tanner Dahmer.
A notorious murderer who wielded two shikdos and made clothes from human leather.
He'd grown up suffering countless abuses in childhood, and his father was a leather craftsman.
One day, Dahmer, who'd picked up a knife by chance while being beaten with a leather strap, committed his first murder in something like rebellion—his parents. The day he first grasped a knife, he killed his parents, and afterward wrapped his knife handle with his father's leather.
He continued killing people afterward and sold their tanned leather, so he was also called Tanner Dahmer.
"Does this make sense?"
The position with the trembling, crouched old woman between them remained the same. Yet Lawford asked calmly.
Dahmer found it rather curious. Does this bastard have no fear? Or is he good at acting?
Whatever it was, he'd be someone with good cutting feel.
Lawford stared at him intently.
'Hasn't he been dead for decades?'
That's why despite such distinctive appearance and the conspicuously abnormal sight of patched leather draped over him, it hadn't come to mind immediately.
"That's right, I'm that Dahmer."
Three thick wrinkles sat like earthworms on his forehead.
One of the features that had always made Dahmer an object of fear.
'So that was real?'
As a child, he was just the protagonist of a scary story.
Among children raised in cities, few wouldn't know of Murderer Dahmer. That's how strange this was.
"For real?"
Dahmer nodded and tried to kick the old woman.
Lawford reacted to that movement. Dahmer planted the foot he'd been about to kick with and swung his weapons in a cross toward the bastard who'd entered his shikdos' range on his own.
Ttadang!
Lawford barely stopped his advancing body and raised his longsword diagonally to block.
The moment breath and motion were abruptly severed like that, a blade bent like a curve popped out from behind him to stab the back of his head.
Clang—!
But it wasn't Lawford who blocked that—it was another sword. Naturally, Pel.
"Two attacking one?"
Pel spoke while glaring at the opponent.
"Tsk, too bad."
The man with the flexibly bending sword clicked his tongue and retreated. Lightly tapping the ground with a thud, he narrowed his eyes and glared at Pel.
'He blocked this.'
He'd judged that his own sword swing was a bit faster, so even seeing Pel step up, he'd let it go. According to his calculations, his sword should have already pierced one bastard's skull, and the one in front should have been too late to block.
In other words, this bastard also seemed quite skilled. Then this match would drag on quite a bit.
He was a master of the orthodox sword style who calculated dozens of offensive and defensive exchanges in an instant.
Since Dahmer enjoyed tormenting opponents mentally or physically bit by bit before deciding victory in one strike, these two were swordsmen of completely different inclinations.
Lawford looked at both their stances, weapons, attitudes, and speech patterns to roughly gauge their tendencies.
What if his assessment was wrong? Beings that deceived both his senses and insight?
"Then I'd have to die."
Frog—Luagarne's words came to mind. Hadn't she said from the start that facing such skilled opponents, one shouldn't even think of surviving?
Then Pel's words from beside him also came to mind.
"If you want to live, train. You talentless Lawford bastard."
A bastard who made up nicknames as he pleased.
Still, it was probably thanks to that bastard.
Reading Dahmer's intentions was easy for Lawford. Incomparably more straightforward than the unexpected strikes Pel showed.
Though Dahmer himself thought nothing of the sort, Lawford naturally awakened one of his talents in this moment.
The eye that objectified himself as if viewing from the sky understood the opponent's perspective as if looking at himself through the opponent's gaze.
In such situations, reading the opponent's intentions was too easy.
Dahmer thought he was gnawing at his opponent bit by bit. Lawford played along to match.
Pretending to misstep, pretending his breath was tangled, ultimately pretending to despair that he couldn't save the old woman if time continued like this.
Enkrid-style orthodox swordsmanship, the deceiving sword.
Dahmer thought he'd grasped an opportunity and swung his blade with full power. From the pattern of continuously crossing left and right or changing tempo, he raised both shikdos overhead to gather strength before striking down. A powerful strike with changed tempo and rhythm.
Lawford met the moment he'd been waiting for, gripping his sword grip with his right hand while grasping near the ricasso with his left as he received and endured both shikdos.
Kwang!
It was a strike imbued with Will. The opponent was a murderer who'd reached knight level through killing.
Or rather, that's what he'd been a very long time ago.
Lawford adhered his blade with the bind technique. He absorbed the impact with his knees and waist while receiving the force the opponent sent so it wouldn't bounce off.
He then stomped on the bastard's foot that had extended past the old woman.
He blocked while extending his foot to stomp. In other words, blocking and stomping were simultaneous.
Dahmer couldn't avoid it. Lawford's foot struck his instep. It was a heavy stomp that produced a thud sound.
Crack. Crunch.
As his broken instep bones contorted Dahmer's face, Lawford had already released his sword and reached out to grab the bastard's chin and neck, twisting them in opposite directions for one full rotation.
Crrrrrack.
The cervical vertebrae twisted a full rotation and the neck skin coiled in a spiral.
It was part of the martial arts he'd learned a bit from watching Audin and Enkrid and receiving some teaching from them.
Dahmer dropped to his knees on the floor with a thud without even a death cry. Lawford had killed his childhood fear. Well, he didn't particularly think it was a great accomplishment.
In the meantime, Pel had also finished his fight.
The bastard who'd pretended to be a calculation master had been thinking, so Pel charged straight at him and slashed diagonally with the essence of the Vortex Enkrid had shown him.
The man with the flexibly bending sword hadn't anticipated Pel's strike in his calculations, and fell spilling his guts between his split body. Along with the guts, black mist gushed out instead of blood.
"Bastards who'd die to their master anyway."
Then he spoke those words.
"Master?"
Pel asked back, and he answered with a cackle.
"You're all inside the labyrinth right now!"
Shouting that, he vomited black mist and died. His body transformed into black mist and disappeared.
"Labyrinth?"
Lawford, who'd approached, asked, and Pel just shrugged. Only then did the old woman slowly raise her head.
"It's alright now."
Whether dying to a master or labyrinth or whatever, those were later problems.
For now, Lawford had achieved what he wanted. In other words, he'd protected someone like Enkrid. Though the other party was a purple-skinned owner called a Demon-Man or Eroded, it was satisfying.
"This won't be the end, right?"
"Well, then we'd better move diligently."
The two walked toward presences and ominous feelings sensed here and there. Soon they met Frog supporting herself with her loop sword, one leg and one arm severed. Judging by the black powder before her, she'd already killed her opponent.
"What happened?"
Lawford approached and asked. As he supported Frog, she tightened her muscles to stop the bleeding while speaking.
"Something suddenly popped out. Knight level."
"And?"
"Jaxen slipped away smoothly."
Ah, understood completely.
The group now numbering three walked on and then met Audin, Teresa, and Roman.
And they saw Audin fighting in earnest.
'It was the same when he broke the wall, but.'
Now it was more brutal.
"How dare you detain souls who should go to the Lord!"
Moreover, he seemed angry.