Prologue: From Death, Life
Deep in the woods, under tree cover so dense the forest floor was poorly lit even at noon, Ulrike knew her end had come.
“......Ah.........”
Her open eyes reflected a dark-green world. There were no other people around, not even any birds or animals; there was only the light that filtered through the branches, slicing the dim darkness into parts and drawing strange patterns.
It would most likely be the last thing she ever saw.
“.........Ah......Ah...”
She was no longer able to form proper words. And no wonder—the branch of a fallen tree pierced her temple. It was a miracle that she was still conscious at all, even if only just.
“.........Oh...Ah...”
It was her bad luck that a sharp branch had been pointing straight up where she fell. Worse luck still that she had fallen sideways. The temples are the thinnest part of the skull, so soft that even a branch, given the right angle and force, can pierce them.
Yes. That was all Ulrike was: unlucky.
She had only come to the forest in the first place to gather mushrooms. Gathering wild mushrooms was a task often left to children, for it did not demand the strength of field work. Ulrike knew well where to find the mushrooms she sought and what kinds to pick, where there might be dangerous animals, where deadly rocks or cliffs awaited. She could have found them with her eyes closed. Or at least, she had been fully convinced she could when she set off into the woods.
And now, that overconfidence would prove fatal.
She hadn’t noticed that part of the slope was still slippery from the rainstorms that had soaked the area right up until the day before. Planning to take the same “shortcut” she always did, Ulrike had traversed the boulders that dotted the area, hopping from one to the next. The leaf mold was soft, making it difficult to walk as she struggled to gain footing.
In the split second she jumped onto the rock, her world turned upside down. She’d reached out a hand that grasped nothing but air. And then she was caught up in a landslide, helpless, her small body slamming against one rock and then another as she tumbled.
At the end of the last bounce, the branch of that fallen tree had been waiting for her.
“...Ah......gah...ah...”
She could barely comprehend what had happened to her. But she was going numb already; there was no sensation, no pain. Just her vision, slowly turning crimson.
I’m... going to d... die...
She felt only a striking tranquility, a resignation. Strangely, she wasn’t scared. Only sad that she wouldn’t see her parents again.
It had been only a little over ten years since she had entered this world—not a long life by any measure—yet she found memories floating through her mind. Although her life had not been rich or full, this was only normal in her experience, and she didn’t resent it. She remembered:
The time she’d been eating stew, and her mother smiled at her.
The time she’d been scolded for taking out her father’s farming tools.
The time she’d fought with her friend over something trivial.
The first time she’d held a newborn kitten.
The time she’d been caught in a landslide that tore away half her roots.
The time several branches had broken, unable to bear the weight of the snow.
And then—
...What’s... happen...ing...?
Something strange mixed with her memories. They weren’t her memories alone. Someone else’s recollections were there, too. No—not someone else, but something else. These weren’t human memories. Humans didn’t have roots or leaves or branches. They certainly didn’t taste the sweetness of the sunlight.
I... I... I...
Her consciousness slowly began to expand, like a single drop of blood spreading through a pool of water. That was when Ulrike noticed a single green bud pushing out of the trunk of the fallen tree. It had two healthy leaves, and the light through the treetops shone on it.
It was so young, it looked like she could have broken it in half at a touch. But even the countless, towering trees of this forest had begun as sprouts no bigger than this.
Suddenly, Ulrike remembered something her father had told her while he was at work in the fields. It takes more than light and water for trees and grass to grow, he’d said. They might grow with those two things alone, but they wouldn’t be healthy, abundant.
They needed something called “fertilizer”—something made of the excrement and decayed corpses of animals and birds, mixed with soil. The animals, which eat plants, would one day die, become earth, and help the plants grow full and strong.
So... will I...?
Die. Rot. Eventually, become a tree in this forest.
No. She wouldn’t have to wait until she rotted. This fallen tree already connected her to that young bud. She was already in the process of becoming nutrients for it—becoming a part of it.
She had neither the knowledge nor the wisdom to fully understand what that meant, and anyway, the power of complex thought was beyond her now.
She made no sound as her heart stopped beating.
A soft rain began to fall on the forest, as if mourning her death. Some drops landed on thick branches, others were caught by layers of leaves, but some fell on her body, and on the tiny life beside her rejoicing in its birth.
Chapter One: After a God Dies
“Hrk—!”
A blade-like talon slashed through the air. Given the effect it had, it might as well have been an actual blade. Several small bushes in its path went flying into the air the moment it touched them, as if they had been cut with a giant scythe.
It was sharp, and huge, and strong. If it struck an average human, it would probably take off their arm—or leg, or head, or whatever it caught. It wasn’t even trying to cut anything—just to grab. Even that was enough to kill a person easily. This was no ordinary power of destruction.
To anger such a creature would surely be to invite death. It could kill any mere human in a single blow; its overwhelming power amounted to authority over life and death.
And that was why, with fear and trembling, such creatures were called “gods.”
“Feh...!”
Yukinari gave a cluck of his tongue as he ducked just low enough to evade the claw.
“You’re no slouch, huh...!”
At what he judged to be the best moment, he moved forward—and the demigod, as though it had been waiting, attacked. This couldn’t be chance. It was clearly intentional.
This was what was called a “counter.” It didn’t simply mean the opponent’s attack was hard to avoid; Yukinari’s own momentum would be used against him. If he had been a fraction of a second slower to duck, it was likely he would no longer possess the top half of his body.
They were called “demigods”: those who wished to become the local erdgod. Then again, one might emphasize that they were demigods—from Yukinari’s perspective, barely gods at all. They hadn’t become true gods yet; they were just pretending to be.
But the power in their bizarre bodies was already close enough to that of a deity. As the earlier attack had revealed, a demigod had intelligence close to that of a human and wasn’t afraid to use it. A demigod knew how to apply their powers, and a single human pitted against one of these beasts could never hope to match it. He could only be overwhelmed and destroyed.
“You friggin’ monster!”
Yet as Yukinari shouted, there was no fear on his face. He knew that gods were not absolute, and they were not invincible. He didn’t have to bow before them and beg for mercy. He was their enemy, someone with power close to their own.
The demigod ro
ared as if in response: “Gryyyaaaahhhh!” The sound bounced off the cliffs on either side.
Yukinari and the demigod were in a valley. To the left and right were cliffsides, walls of stone that wound about in dizzying layers. It was not a very deep valley, but the rocks were hard; there were few places to hide and nowhere to run.
Yukinari moved forward again. As he did so, he swung something in his hand to the right—it was an attempt to take off his enemy’s head, but like the demigod’s claw, it met only air. The demigod had avoided it with an agile backward move.
“Grr!” Yukinari clucked his tongue again and pressed forward. This time he stretched out his arm and torso and brought his beloved weapon—Durandall—up in a rising sweep. But the blow again failed to strike home.
He couldn’t reach the thing. The demigod began to rise, even as it kept sliding backward.
“Get down here, you oversized roast chicken!”
“Grrryyyahhhhh!” The demigod spread its wings tauntingly as Yukinari stared daggers at it.
This demigod was a bird, if that was the word for it. Yukinari knew of no other way to describe a creature that had wings and feathers and flew through the air.
But its body was something vastly different from the image the word “bird” brought to mind. It could only ever qualify as a monstrosity of a bird. It had four massive wings on its back, its talons were long enough to pick up a cow or a horse, to say nothing of a human, and in addition to its beak, it boasted fangs and horns.
From several meters in the air, the demigod gave a cock of its head.
“Roa—st chic—ken. whAt iS That?”
The ability to speak proved its intelligence approached a human’s. Its mouth and throat were constructed differently from a person’s, making its voice screechy and hard to listen to, but Yukinari could understand it perfectly well.
“It’s something we eat for dinner,” he said. “And you better believe we would never let it eat us! You oughta learn what birds are for.” He prepared Durandall for another attack. “So come on down here like a good little chicken. I’ll pluck out your feathers and cook you right up!”
“whaT stRAnge thinGs yoU sAy. HuMAns eat anImals, godS eAt huMans. It is naTurE’s Law.”
The hideous grryaaah! that accompanied its words must have been laughter.
“Like hell it is. I think they changed the definition of nature’s law since you looked it up last.”
“YOU youRself dO not sEEm to kNOw whAt hUmAns are FoR. Do yOu thiNK to eAt a gOD?”
The creature rose even further into the air. Up and up, to a great height—and then it spun. It fell—no, dove—so fast it produced a roar, as though the air itself were crying out in terror.
Yukinari leaped forward to avoid the diving attack, but just when he thought the demigod would slam into the ground, it opened its wings, pushing off the rock face to change direction. Its massive body slipped through the air, following him.
Its claw slashed again. Yukinari ducked once more to dodge it—but he misjudged his movement by the tiniest bit, and the talon brushed the back of his black leather jacket, leaving a long tear.
“Gryaaah! Gryyaah! yOu hAVE no hOpe!” The demigod was jubilant as it began to ascend once more. “swIng your SWORD, iT cannOT reAch mE. Or wiLL yoU trY thrOWing iT? BY RighTs, yOU wHo crawl oN the Ground arE bUt playThings for Me, whO fLIEs iN the SKy!”
Yukinari grunted and adjusted his grip on the sword the demigod spoke of—Durandall—and looked at the sky in frustration. The demigod could come down to attack him, but his sword couldn’t possibly reach the creature where it hovered in the air. He could try to catch it just as it was attacking, of course, but that meant the demigod would always hold the initiative.
“Now what am I gonna do...?”
“DO yOu sEE noW? StAy yoUr hanD, and Be EAten. It iS youR desTINy to noUrish mE.”
And then the birdlike demigod began another dive.
“Pfft,” Yukinari said. “I was just playing you.”
A crack rang out, an explosion as loud as thunder. In the next instant, the onrushing demigod pitched violently.
“whAT—is thIS—?!”
It looked at Yukinari—at the weapon he held. A wisp of smoke rose from an oddly large piece attached just above the blade: a cylinder of steel that had produced the noise of a moment earlier.
It was a gun.
To the untrained eye, Yukinari’s blade Durandall might look like nothing more than a roughly-constructed longsword. But in fact, it included a Randall—a sawed-off Winchester M-92 lever-action rifle—in what amounted to a sword-gun.
“Grryah...”
The .44 Magnum bullet from Yukinari’s weapon had lodged itself deep in the demigod’s head. This time, it was the demigod who had suffered a counterattack. As quick as its reflexes may have been, it could not dodge a ball of steel coming at it faster than the speed of sound.
“Grrrryahh!”
Even with blood gushing from its head, the demigod continued to glide at Yukinari as if hoping to snatch him up. Its closely layered feathers seemed to have acted as natural bullet-proofing, blunting the power of the shot somewhat. The flow of blood soon stopped as well. Smart enough to call itself a god, the creature seemed to understand that it couldn’t let itself bleed out, although how it had stopped the bleeding, Yukinari didn’t know.
“Should’ve used steel-tipped bullets, not hollow-point,” he muttered, turning his back as he worked the loading lever, putting the next bullet in the chamber. And then...
“—Dasa.”
“...Mm.”
The next shot did not sound from Durandall.
When had she gotten there? Behind Yukinari, on top of a large-ish rock, was a girl wielding a crude-looking gun.
She was very pretty: silver hair trimmed neatly to shoulder length, blue eyes blinking behind her glasses. Her cheeks were as white and smooth as a piece of pottery; she was as beautiful as if a finely made doll had come to life.
Dasa Urban. To Yukinari, she was like a sister, a savior—a partner.
There was a silence. The gun Dasa used, “Red Chili,” was a revolver with a bipod and scope for sniper work. It took the same .44-caliber Magnum bullets as Durandall. It was of a construction known as “single action,” a relatively old style popular back when the West was being won.
There was another roar. Another and another.
“Grryaaahh?!”
The demigod screeched. Red blossoms bloomed across its body, showing where bullets had hit. Several of them, in the blink of an eye. Fanning. Rather than cocking the gun and then pulling the trigger in two distinct steps, the right hand steadies the gun and holds the trigger down, while the left quickly works the hammer. The quick motion of the left hand resembles someone fanning themselves, hence the name. The technique is specifically for revolvers, and an experienced shooter can let off six bullets so fast that the effect is almost like a machine gun; the sound of the shots becomes one continuous roar. Dasa, though, was not at that point yet.
The demigod began to garble its words, perhaps from shock. “whAt whaT wHat maNNer of weaP wEap weAPyyyahh!”
Even if its skin or feathers were almost as good as a bulletproof vest, six Magnum rounds would have an effect. The creature began to weave through the air—it brushed the ground as it found itself unable to stay aloft, gave a great bounce, and slammed into a rock wall.
“Got a bit too into playing god, birdbrain? Do me a favor and die.”
Durandall howled as it finished the fight.
“Gyygrahh...!”
The demigod’s head snapped back, turning red. However strong its defense was, two or three shots concentrated in the same area would penetrate deep into its body. That required a certain precision on the part of the shooter, of course—something much easier to achieve when the target was collapsed on the ground, unable to move.
“Grah...”
The body slumped over, twitched briefly, and then went still.
“That’
s it for him, then,” Yukinari said with a sigh. “You can come out now.” He was speaking in the direction of a nearby boulder. About ten people emerged, looking absolutely terrified.
“Honored... Honored erdgod?” one of them asked.
“I’m not—” Yukinari started, then seemed to change his mind. “Sorry, I guess I am.” He scratched his cheek in embarrassment.
“Did you... fell that demigod? All by yourself?”
“Well, I had help,” he said, glancing at Dasa.
The people who were accompanying him on this survey knew that Yukinari was “the Godslayer,” but they had never actually seen him fight. To them, the battle that played out before their eyes must have seemed like a dream, or an illusion. From what they saw, two seemingly ordinary humans had just killed a god—a fantastical story if there ever was one.
Yukinari was just saying, “All right, back to our survey,” when a sharp cry from Dasa called his attention.
“Yuki!”
He immediately spun around to find the demigod he thought he had killed taking a great leap. Then the birdlike creature was rising into the air, its four wings producing a tremendous wind.
“Thanatosis?!” Yukinari shouted, looking up.
Some animals “play dead” when confronted with an especially powerful enemy. Apparently, the demigod had only been pretending to be defeated so Yukinari would let down his guard. He had only his own inattentiveness to blame.
The massive size of the demigod was not one any bird or animal would have attained in the normal course of growth. In most cases, an older creature became the “core” to which a dozen or even several dozen other animals would become spiritually bound. They came to look like a single, massive entity.
When the demigod died, the bond would be broken and the various animals that composed it would be separated. But this one hadn’t shown any sign of falling apart—that should have been proof enough that it wasn’t really dead.
Yukinari brought Durandall to bear as fast as he could.
“I won’t let you go, you—!”
But the monster was ascending strenuously. Yukinari looked at its back and let out a little breath. It was already out of range.
Bluesteel Blasphemer Volume 2 Page 1