Bluesteel Blasphemer Volume 2

by Ichirou Sakaki

  So the things she said to him were simply in jest; she wasn’t especially interested in him as a member of the opposite sex. He had messed with her at one point—something about wanting to get into bed with a cultivated young woman and making her squeal—and she had been paying him back for it ever since.

  Truth be told, Yukinari was too over the top for her in a number of ways, and she couldn’t see him as an object of romantic interest at the moment. She felt friendly toward him, certainly, and if he genuinely came seeking her body, she wouldn’t hesitate to respond—but it would be largely out of her duty as deputy mayor.

  “Lord Yukinari’s powers aren’t godlike, he is a god.” Berta looked questioningly at her.

  “That’s not my point... Berta? You’re way more—I mean, talk about being in love with Yukinari.”

  “Yes, of course I am,” Berta said with no detectable embarrassment.

  “Yukinari said you don’t have to force yourself to be his shrine maiden or anything, but you still keep following him around... Hey, has he ever actually, y’know, done it with you?”

  Berta and Yukinari had been living in the same house together for quite some time now, but as far as Fiona had seen, Yukinari had never laid a finger on her.

  Berta provided the final proof: “No, not yet. Since I’m not really capable of anything else, I feel it’s the least I can do for him, but...” She looked down, almost sadly.

  “I mean, it’s not your fault...”

  Berta was an orphan who had been raised to be a living sacrifice. She barely knew how to do housekeeping or any of the other things that a normal girl might have learned from her parents to help her in the future. She seemed to be good with young children, perhaps because she’d helped raise her younger sisters at the orphanage, but that skill wasn’t much use now that she was serving Yukinari. And needless to say, the priests hadn’t gone out of their way to ensure she had any other particular abilities. Shrine maidens existed for one purpose and one purpose only: to offer up their bodies.

  Perhaps that explained Berta’s fixation on giving herself to Yukinari. Since he wasn’t a monster who ate people, the only other thing she could really do was to offer herself to him as a woman.

  “Lady Dasa is... You know... Always...” Berta said with her usual hesitation. She seemed to mean that Dasa got in the way, or that Yukinari held back because he was conscious of Dasa being there. From Fiona’s perspective, it was obvious that Dasa was also infatuated with Yukinari, but Yukinari seemed to view her as some kind of younger sister. Sometimes the two of them seemed to be at cross-purposes.

  “And now the two of them are off by themselves...”

  Now that she thought about it, supposedly they had been traveling together before they arrived in Friedland, as well. If their love had been growing that entire time, Berta couldn’t easily break in now. Perhaps it was the way Berta had been attached at the hip to Yukinari since he arrived in Friedland that somehow seemed to fire Dasa’s emotions, even though Berta herself didn’t realize it.

  For better or for worse, Fiona had a pretty good grasp of how others were feeling. But it seemed that she didn’t always bring the same clarity to her own emotions.

  “Okay, break’s over,” she said, shaking her head. “You know what? I would like some more tea.”

  But at that moment...

  Fiona paused and frowned. Had she just heard a voice calling out? She looked at Berta. The other girl seemed to have heard it, too; she was looking dubiously out the window. Fiona stood up from her desk and went over to the window herself. The shutters were open.

  She peered out. Everything looked normal in town. She wondered if a fire had broken out, or if maybe a carriage had run over a child, but...

  “Berta. What was that just now...?”

  “It sounded like a scream, but—”

  Before she could finish, the bellow came again—this time clearly. Fiona leaned out the window to try to see what was going on, when suddenly, she was covered in shadow.

  She was shocked; something massive had blocked out the sun. In the next instant it had passed over her head, wheeling around far away in the sky. It was a bizarre flying life form with four wings.

  “It’s that—”

  “—demigod!”

  It was the monstrous bird Yukinari had failed to kill several days before.

  ●

  Yukinari’s body was enveloped in a bluish-white light. A miraculous light, the proof that his very body itself was a miracle.

  “What is this...?” Even Ulrike—probably even Yggdra, who controlled her—was surprised.

  A god created by human hands was about to challenge a god born of nature.

  “You uncanny thing...!” Ulrike shouted, and lunged at Yukinari, waving her branch. She sensed that his transformation wasn’t complete yet. She may not have known the details, but she was objectively correct.

  “I won’t let you.”

  There was a murmur and a gunshot, and then Ulrike was thrown backward. But the second after that, she rolled forward again as if launched by a spring.

  “Do you seek to interfere, girl?” There was no blood on Ulrike’s face as she called out. But she was slightly off-balance, staggering just a little. Dasa had aimed at her head—specifically, at one of the “horns” that grew there. It was the same place she’d happened to shoot the other familiar who had attacked them; she had seen that creature blanch and withdraw.

  The horns might amount to kill shots for the familiars. Or perhaps they were what connected the familiars to Yggdra, much like how the missionaries had used tuning forks to control the statue of the guardian saint. If she could damage the horns, maybe Ulrike wouldn’t be able to move.

  “......Erk.”

  Ulrike waved her branch. She was stumbling, but a mass of branches from the trees nearby stretched out toward Yukinari and Dasa, while vines and ivies came flying like ropes.

  In the face of them—

  “I won’t let... you stop Yuki.” Dasa sniped from a prone position. Five bullets flew at Ulrike, but a wall of roots broke through the earth to shield her. Even Magnum bullets didn’t have the penetrating power to get through it.

  Dasa gave a start as, at the same moment, a vine wrapped itself around her right hand. She couldn’t move her gun anymore; she collapsed, and the other familiars, who had kept their distance until that moment, began to approach. They reached for her from every direction...

  “Hands off.”

  All at once, the familiars went flying.

  Ulrike steadied herself, amazed. Standing next to Dasa was a strange-looking knight in blue-black armor. Blue mail over a black foundation. This armor wasn’t just for show: it seemed to fit the figure exactly, almost as if he had been born that way.

  But the most striking thing about this knight had nothing to do with his body or his armor. It was the black-crystal wings that grew on his back. They opened and closed gently, almost as though they were breathing, and they must have contained a good deal of heat, because a slight haze rose from them.

  The Bluesteel Blasphemer.

  This was the “Blue Angel” that had killed the Dominus Doctrinae, the head of the Missionary Order, and a host of other high-ranking Church officials in the capital, practically in their own home, and then escaped. This was the form that allowed him to make the best use of his power.

  “Don’t touch Dasa,” the Bluesteel Blasphemer—the so-called Godslayer—growled. “Don’t hurt her. Don’t cause her any pain. I may forgive anything else, but not that. Even if I’m facing a god.”

  Yukinari put his hands together as if in prayer. A bluish-white light flowed between them, and a second later, he pulled a Durandall from each hand, as though extracting them from his own arms.

  “Mere hubris, Godslayer,” Ulrike said, slowly backing away. “What you forgive or do not forgive is of no consequence. Do you think you can kill me with those toys?”

  “Wanna find out?” Yukinari moved forward, as if pursuing
Ulrike.

  In the next instant, bullets flew at him from every direction.

  ●

  A vast shadow passed overhead. The huge body turned, quickly enough to set the air spinning, its four wings stirring up little clouds of dust. The monstrous bird of a demigod watched the people below it fleeing in panic, and let out a great cry as if specifically to frighten them.

  “Where... Where IS he? Where IS THAT man? I shAll eAT hIM!”

  The creature was clearly after Yukinari. But Yukinari had gone to Rostruch, and hadn’t yet come back.

  Fiona rushed out into town, calling at the top of her lungs: “Get inside! Whatever you do, don’t come out!” Since their erdgod was out of town, it fell to the deputy mayor to keep the people safe. “Nice sentiment, anyway,” Fiona muttered. In her right hand, she could feel the weight of the weapon she had grabbed as she left the mansion.

  It was a Durandall. One of the god-slaying armaments Yukinari had made before he left. And he had indeed felled their previous erdgod with one of these; he hadn’t used his powers as an angel.

  “But a weapon’s no good if you don’t know how to use it.”

  Truth be told, Durandall was about as much use to Fiona as a good luck charm. Yukinari had technically taught her how to use the gun, and a bullet was already chambered, but she didn’t really believe she could wield the thing effectively.

  “Lady Fiona!” Berta came running up behind her—holding, of course, another Durandall.

  “Berta, you need to stay inside!”

  “B-But...”

  “Just do it!” And then Fiona was running again.

  At the moment, the demigod was still obsessed with finding Yukinari, so it hadn’t tried to attack any of the townspeople yet. But demigods increased their power by eating people. This monster would think about that soon enough, and once the rampage began there would be no stopping it. She had to get as many people as possible indoors before that happened.

  “Where iS HE?”

  Suddenly, the demigod did something new. Perhaps incensed at Yukinari’s failure to appear, it started rising into the sky.

  Apparently, it was ready to start eating.

  Thankfully, though, Fiona’s shouting had had some effect; most of the townspeople had evacuated inside. The demigod could, of course, crash through the roofs of the buildings if it wanted to, but that would take some time. Perhaps enough for her to come up with an idea.

  “Berta, get indoors! Anywhere!” As she shouted, Fiona let loose with Durandall. There was a roar, and the recoil made the gun jump in her hand. The bullet didn’t hit the bird, of course, but the demigod changed course. It dug its claws into a building, tearing up a wall as it forcibly changed direction.

  The demigod settled to the ground and looked at Fiona.

  “so thAt’s whERE yOu WErE!”

  “...Huh?”

  “i shAll PAy yOu bACK for tHE WoUNDS yoU gavE mE! FoR the Pain! ThE suFFERing!”

  The gunshots seemed to have confused the demigod into thinking that Fiona was Yukinari. Setting aside the fact that she was a woman and he was a man, they also had completely different heights and faces... Maybe it was just as hard for the demigod to tell humans apart as it was for humans to tell at a glance which birds were male and which female, or what the subtle differences between their bodies were.

  Fiona felt herself freeze. Until a moment ago, there had been a healthy distance between her and the demigod, and the creature hadn’t been personally focused on her. So the fear hadn’t hit her. But now... Now the demigod thought Fiona was the one it had come to eat. Its hatred was immediate and intense. Fiona had been able to ignore the fear until that moment, but now it grabbed her, threatening to strangle her from the inside out.

  It’s gonna eat me. No...

  It was the most primal fear, the atavistic terror native to every living thing.

  “nOW I shALl feAST!”

  The demigod kicked the ground and flew at Fiona.

  Distantly, she knew she had to get inside, but her body wouldn’t move. The huge beak opened wide as if to swallow her whole.

  “Lady Fiona!”

  “Graaaaaaahhh!”

  Berta’s shout became one with—was that a roar?

  The next second, Fiona was shoved to the side. “What...?” She blinked in confusion even as she tumbled to the ground. Thanks to the shove, she hadn’t been eaten. But who had pushed her?

  “Gwah?!” There was a screeching sound of impact, and a second later, someone else came flying to the ground beside Fiona. “Eeyow!” the figure cried. “That hurts! That is surpassingly painful!”

  She realized, to her astonishment, that it was Arlen Lansdowne. He wasn’t wearing armor, but he was carrying a long cavalry spear, and at the moment he was rolling through the dirt, repeating, “Yow! Ouch!” He must have used the spear to deflect the blow from the demigod’s beak.

  “Lansdowne?! Why in the world would you—”

  “What are you just lying there for?!” Arlen shouted at her. He managed to stop exclaiming in pain long enough to jump up. “You really are an unutterable fool, aren’t you!”

  “Who’s a fool?! Wait—where’d you get a weapon, anyway?!” The missionary knights of the True Church of Harris were supposed to be forbidden weapons, all of which had been locked up in the armory.

  “Arnold broke into the armory and—but now’s not the time!” He grabbed Fiona’s hand. “You ran all over town getting everyone else inside, but you couldn’t take your own advice? Truly foolish!”

  “H-How dare you...”

  “Just get inside! You’re in the way!”

  These words came not from Arlen, but from yet another voice. Fiona saw three more knights—without armor, but carrying swords and spears—trying to make a stand against the demigod. It must have been one of them who had shouted.

  The demigod was truly massive, so large that even out on the main street, its movements were constrained by the buildings to either side. Its overwhelming size gave it a much greater range than the missionaries; their swords and spears would be of no real use. But they might be enough to buy some time.

  “Lady Fiona!” Berta, who had already evacuated to a nearby building, leaned out and called to her. Fiona couldn’t yet make the strength come into her muscles, so Arlen half-carried, half-dragged her to where Berta was.

  “Tell me why!”

  “Why? Why what?”

  “I mean, why did you help me?” It simply didn’t make sense to her.

  “I don’t understand a thing you’re saying, woman.” Arlen appeared to sincerely mean it. “We’re knights of the Missionary Order. Holy warriors charged with felling demons and bringing precious salvation to the unenlightened people of the frontier. When faced with a demon, we fight it. If there’s any chance, however small, that the people here, bumpkins though they are, might one day come to the teachings of the True Church, then it’s only natural that we would protect them. They can’t convert if they’re dead!”

  “You......”

  The words he spoke were arrogant and dismissive, utterly without regard for the people he was talking about—this was unmistakably the Arlen Lansdowne she knew. And yet...

  “It’s our duty to destroy the demons in these remote regions. The ‘Blue Angel’ is one thing—but this is just a monster, and an ugly one at that. Why should we be afraid?”

  And yet he was different, too. Somewhere between the time they had parted ways in the capital and the time they had met again in Friedland, he had become a knight.

  ●

  Yukinari had his hands full just trying to cover Dasa. The “bullets” struck his armored body from all sides. They didn’t seem to have much penetrating power, but they came like a storm, keeping him pinned.

  “What the...?!”

  Because he was lying prone, trying to keep Dasa safe, it was hard to get a sense of what was going on. All he knew for sure was that this was some kind of attack by Yggdra.

  Guns? Are the
y spraying bullets at me? How did an erdgod...

  This world had had no concept of firearms until Yukinari brought it here. Even in the capital, which was relatively more advanced than the frontier regions, there were no explosives suitable for combat use. It was possible someone had thought of the idea of a gun, but as far as Yukinari knew, projectile weapons and artillery were represented, at best, by bows and arrows.

  Or was there some genius in Rostruch who had invented this revolutionary weapon?

  But I don’t hear any gunshots...

  There had been plenty of noise when the bullets bounced off him, but no sound of a major explosion. So how on earth were they firing them? Pressurized gas, maybe. Springs. Or else...

  “Hrk...”

  His consciousness wavered with the next round of impacts. He had no idea how long his enemies’ ammunition might last, but he wasn’t going to get anywhere at this rate. If he got too dizzy, he might not even be able to protect Dasa.

  “Dasa—”

  “Yuki?”

  “I’m going to make a shield. Stay hidden under it.”

  “...Okay.”

  Once he had Dasa’s agreement, Yukinari began the process of physical reconstitution. In this form as an armored knight, Yukinari could transform anything that was touching any part of his body. He broke down the earth immediately beneath his knees and elbows, making a half-sphere-shaped shield to cover Dasa.

  “There.” After he was sure the chrome molybdenum-steel blockade was in place, Yukinari rolled to one side and grabbed Durandall, which he had cast aside when he first threw himself on Dasa. He jumped up, then darted to the side again. He was banking on the hope that if his opponents were using anything like guns, they wouldn’t be able to aim as quickly as he could move.

  But he was shocked as he realized, for the first time, what the “bullets” were that had struck him.

  “Is this... a seed?”

  Yes. A seed, fired with incredible force.

  Flowers had grown up around him and Dasa, flowers so large they confused his sense of distance. They had shed their petals, launching their seeds from swollen fruits.