“SMALL ONE! EAT!” Making its move before the others, one of the familiars started to approach. It seemed to have determined that Dasa could be its prey and was advancing, hoping to sink its teeth into her. The girl in thin clothes belonged to the erdgod, but it looked like the other two, who hadn’t been planned for, were first come, first served.
“EAT, EAT!” Barking the words more than speaking them, the familiar leaped at Dasa. The jaws of its very human-like face opened, and its fangs, which were unequivocally those of an animal, snapped for the kill as saliva trailed from them. And then—
There was a deafening noise—a violent explosion of sound, a voice of dissent at this insane banquet. The familiar that had jumped at Dasa bent in midair and fell to Dasa’s side in a strange posture. But that was all. The familiar did not get up again but just lay there, its body twitching and convulsing. It was clearly near death. The erdgod and the other familiars froze in shock. It seemed that they were intelligent enough to understand that this was an abnormal situation.
“Yuki,” Dasa said, looking at him. “I’m going to... use it.”
“You already did... Ehh, whatever. It’s not like you had a choice.” Yukinari nodded at her. Permission received, Dasa aimed her weapon again, this time with proper form. The last time had been a quick draw, so she hadn’t had enough time to take aim.
"Red Chili."
Dasa whispered the weapon’s name as she held it at the ready. It was a black, large-caliber revolver fitted with a scope and bipod, clearly excessive and inappropriate for the hands of a young girl.
●
“Huh...?” Berta stared blankly at the scene in front of her.
There had been a thundering, earsplitting sound as if lightning had struck very close by, and the next moment, one of the familiars was rolling on the ground, gushing blood. Judging by the way it was twitching with its tongue hanging out and eyes rolled back in its head, it was in no state to stand anymore. It had probably been dealt a fatal wound.
But how? Even a single familiar was incredibly challenging for a lone human to deal with. How had a girl clearly smaller than even Berta, in a single attack...
“Killed... it...?” Berta said with a gasp, looking at the familiar, which was no longer moving.
The black item that the girl was holding was most likely a weapon. But it wasn’t a sword, and it wasn’t a spear. Nor was it a bow, or even a club. It was something that Berta had never seen before—in fact, never even heard of. It was a weapon that made a deafening noise like thunder. In which case... she didn’t know how it worked, but maybe it was a weapon that fired lightning or something?
“DEAD...”
“DEAD?”
“DEAD!”
“DEAD!”
Berta could tell that something like unease was spreading among the familiars. Although they were the servants of a god, they were not gods themselves and were still mortal. Unlike the erdgod, it was not impossible for an individual human to fell them—if the human had a weapon of unparalleled strength. Berta understood the logic, but even so...
“...What is... the meaning... of this... You... oppose me... the holy... guardian... of this... land...”
There was a sound like mud boiling. No—that was the erdgod’s voice, the words of a god boiling with anger. Perhaps it had affected the familiars, too. They were clawing up the ground with their four legs, muttering words like “KILL,” “BEAT,” “RIP,” and “TEAR.” It looked like they might attack all at once and at any moment. An ordinary person’s legs might have turned to jelly, or they might have wet themselves in fear. Yet this boy—
“Are you... a demigod... looking to... usurp me... as erdgod...? Or are you... a human... foolish enough... feeble enough... to not know... the natural... order...?”
“A god? Hah... A god, huh,” the boy answered with a faint smile. It wasn’t empty bravado. There was virtually no tension in his expression or his voice. In fact, he looked like he was standing in a relaxed pose. The only hint that this was a proper “stance” was that at some point, he had placed his right hand on his weapon, that long sword with the strangely bulky mounting. “Hate to burst your bubble, but I’m neither.”
“You...”
“An erdgod, huh... I see.” Slowly, the boy drew the sword and freed it from its sheath. He swept the black-lacquered blade noiselessly through the air, then pointed it at the erdgod. “You think just ’cause you’ve got a little brains, you’re hot shit? You’re just an animal. I’ll cut you into pieces, cook you up, and eat you for dinner.”
This insult showed a fearlessness toward the divine that went far beyond irreverence. But where on earth was he getting that confidence? It was the girl’s weapon that had killed the familiar, and even more crucially, it was impossible for a single human to fell the beings known as “erdgods”; being able to kill a familiar meant nothing.
Neither swords nor arrows worked on most of them. Their fur was harder than an iron helmet, yet flexible. Human weapons, whether they be blades or blunt instruments, would never reach the flesh behind it. Not to mention the sheer strength they packed in the attacks from their gigantic bodies. They could easily kill a human in a single punch. On top of which—
“Even you humans... are merely... monkeys... with brains...” The erdgod bared its teeth and grinned. In keeping with its claim of being a god, erdgods had an intelligence that matched that of humans; they were different from animals. It was said that crafty tricks didn’t work against them, and that doing something like that was, in fact, often counterproductive. That was why humans had decided to enter into an agreement rather than a confrontation with erdgods, worshipping them and offering them sacrifices in exchange for their power.
“Yeah. You might be right!” The boy, showing no sign of fear, was still pointing his sword in challenge directly at the erdgod. Nothing good could come of a human challenging an erdgod. That was what Berta had been taught, at least. It was common sense, common knowledge that everyone who lived all the way out here knew—it was the fundamental understanding, burned into their heads, that informed all their decisions.
“R-Run!” Berta screamed, but it was too late. Her voice was drowned out by the erdgod’s roar as it attacked the boy.
●
Dasa leaned her back against a nearby pillar, securing a temporary place to stand. She pulled off her hood, took out her “ears” from her bag, and attached them to her headband.
Yukinari was the one who had actually made them, but the design was hers and based on her own knowledge and experience. It was her very own battle item. The construction wasn’t especially complicated: they were just large, triangular, parabolic microphones.
These ears, which had several times the area of Dasa’s own, efficiently picked up the surrounding sounds and fed them to her own ears without the slightest loss of detail. They’d been created based on the shape and structure of animal ears. And therefore—
“EAT!!” One of the familiars came flying at Dasa.
“...Enough.” Almost without looking, Dasa pointed Red Chili at it—the hammer was already cocked—and pulled the trigger.
A .44 Magnum bullet thundered out of the barrel. Dasa had good grip strength, and in any case the gun barely kicked, thanks to the recoil compensator attached to the muzzle and the weight of the scope and bipod. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the familiar collapse and writhe on the ground, then cocked the hammer again with her thumb, readying the next round.
“E-Excuse me...!” said the sacrificial girl beside her.
“Keep... quiet. Don’t... move.” Dasa aimed Red Chili ahead of her. In exactly that spot was a familiar about to jump at Yukinari diagonally from behind him.
She fired without hesitation. It was close range, so there was no need to use the scope. The bullet and its powerful point, originally loaded for hunting purposes, impacted the familiar’s hind leg—and tore it clean off.
“Erk.” Yukinari noticed the familiar and turned toward it, sw
inging his weapon Durandall around with him and bringing it crashing into the familiar’s neck. Its head flew off to the side.
“Yuki, concentrate on your own... enemy.”
“I know. Thanks!” Yukinari turned to face the erdgod once more.
As she was checking on Yukinari, Dasa used another three .44 Mags to kill three more familiars. Including the one she had killed initially, that made five total. It wasn’t quite half, but they had at least reduced the familiars’ numbers by a third.
Perhaps wary now that several others among them had been killed in quick succession, the familiars’ movements became hesitant and dull. Meanwhile, Dasa opened Red Chili’s loading gate, ejected the empty cases, and started mechanically reloading it with more .44 Magnum cartridges she had pulled from an inside pocket. Red Chili produced satisfying, metallic clicks as she worked. All the while, Dasa’s eyes were trained on the familiars and the erdgod who governed them.
“So they are a part... of the erdgod... after all...”
Every time one of the familiars was shot and killed, the erdgod’s body trembled faintly. Dasa remembered her sister Jirina telling her once. These beings called “erdgods,” or sometimes “demigods,” started as normal animals. It was said that when a group of a certain size centered around an aged individual and they achieved a mutual spiritual link, they would acquire the intelligence and character of a god. Gods acquired their power through being worshipped by those beneath them. In other words—
“The more familiars we kill... the more we can reduce the power of the erdgod... itself,” Dasa said under her breath, and aimed Red Chili, now fully loaded, not at the erdgod, but at the crowd of familiars surrounding them.
●
The erdgod’s stout arms extended toward Yukinari, aiming to tear him apart. Yukinari dodged, slashing into the erdgod’s palm at the same time. The feel of the slice was odd, almost like cutting into the ground itself. Feeling that his blade was sliding across the erdgod’s fur, Yukinari’s face creased into a slight frown.
“Ugh, really?”
“NWOOARRR!” The erdgod ignored Yukinari’s attack and continued trying to grab him. Even Yukinari would be in serious trouble if he were caught by this thing. Its size and muscles made it look like it could easily split a human being in two. That it had formerly been an animal was easy to believe. It was seriously strong. However...
“Heh!” Yukinari weaved between the stone pillars, to the left then to the right, continuing to dodge the erdgod’s arms. The sanctuary’s construction itself interfered with the erdgod, making the small Yukinari—small only in comparison to the erdgod, of course—almost impossible to chase. Its arms insistently stretched for him anyway. Yukinari knocked them away from him with Durandall. Arms already stretched to their limit didn’t hold even half of their normal strength.
“GRHH... YOU...” The erdgod growled in irritation.
Yukinari gazed at it, amused. “What’s wrong, beast? Forget how to string together a sentence?”
He cast a glance through narrowed eyes at the familiars crawling on the ground. Dasa had already killed ten. Apart from the erdgod himself, there were now only three or so of them left. This was Yukinari’s first time actually seeing an erdgod, but he knew what kind of being it was. He had been given that knowledge in advance. He was also roughly familiar with the theory the alchemists propounded regarding where the source of an erdgod’s intelligence and characteristics was located.
“How’s it feel to lose parts of your external brain? Goddy go dum-dum?”
“RAARRR!!” The erdgod roared in anger at Yukinari’s provocation. Apparently, he’d hit the nail on the head.
Maybe the erdgod had started to get impatient or forgotten itself in its anger. It forcibly broke a section of the sanctuary apart, pushed the large and tilting slab of stone slightly aside, and closed in on Yukinari. It planted its two back legs firmly on the ground, and with its remaining four legs—or were they arms?—the horrible monstrosity caught Yukinari from all sides.
Two “front legs,” either one of which looked like it could crush a human being, and two substantially thinner “arms” enclosed Yukinari from all four directions. The erdgod picked him up with those four “limbs,” and brought him up in front of its face.
“...DAMN... YOU...!” The jaw of its gigantic, human-like face opened as if to devour him, exposing its fangs and tongue.
“You really are a colossal dumbass,” Yukinari said casually, even as he stood moments away from being eaten head first. His eyes were focused intently inside the erdgod’s mouth—at the very back, where it connected to the throat. There was a small animal there, or at least the top half of one, baring its fangs. It was growing inside the erdgod’s mouth, a body living inside another body.
“Real smart move there, showing off your own weak spot.” Yukinari thrust Durandall at the head of the wild-dog-like thing at the back of the erdgod’s throat. Of course, the tip of his blade failed to reach. The sword’s point merely made a small nick in the erdgod’s comparatively soft tongue. That was never going to be enough to kill an erdgod. However...
“Just die already. Goddamn,” Yukinari said, and pulled the trigger. There was an explosion of sound from Durandall’s “mounting”—which was actually a cut-down, lever-action rifle, a Winchester M92 Randall. A large-diameter explosive round hit the wild dog’s head without the slightest deviation. And the next moment, the monster’s core scattered red blood and flesh in all directions, like a blooming flower.
●
The ground shook hard as the erdgod’s gigantic body hit the earth. Because of the weight of its body, the damp ground caving in was completely expected. However—
Berta gasped. The erdgod... had broken apart. Its huge body, which had functioned as a single god, broke up into disconnected “parts” like a tower of blocks collapsing. An instant later, those “parts,” which looked like chunks of flesh, changed shape once more, this time into small animals—although again, small only compared to the erdgod. A wild dog. A badger. A field mouse. A weasel. A number of such animal carcasses were lying on the ground. Berta realized that this was the erdgod’s true identity—the vessels that had made up its “holy body.” In other words...
“You felled...”
A god? By themselves? Just the two of—no, practically speaking, he had managed to kill it on his own...
Berta looked around, feeling like she had just witnessed something impossible. Already the familiars had returned to being the wild dogs and badgers that they had originally been. The traits that came from the erdgod’s divine spirit had disappeared.
“Those people—that person—”
Lastly, Berta stared stunned at the boy who had felled a god. Was it that weapon that had made this “deicide” possible? But no matter what weapon they had, was it really possible that an earthly being, a lone human, could kill a god? Wasn’t such an act... simply a miracle? She remembered the words the erdgod had spoken before it was felled.
— Even you humans... are merely... monkeys... with brains...
In the broad definition, monkeys were animals, too. And it wasn’t necessarily the case that humans were in an entirely different category of their own. If humans, too, were animals... maybe the same rules applied to humans as well?
In short... “Is that person—no, is he a person at all...?”
At the other end of Berta’s awe-filled gaze, the boy returned his sword to its sheath and casually stifled a yawn.
●
“He killed an erdgod...?”
Even after saying the words out loud, the priests still couldn’t believe it. They had been tasked with the job of confirming, from a lookout platform a short distance away from the sanctuary, that the sacrificial “shrine maiden” did her job correctly. Specifically, it was their holy work to witness the entire course of events, until the erdgod and its familiars had devoured the young female sacrifice and left satisfied, and preserve it all into record. But...
“
Who—no—What is that boy...?”
“The weapon, is it that weapon that’s the problem?”
“But I can hardly imagine...”
Their astonishment creeping into their voices, the priests exchanged glances. They had been taught that the ultimate greatness was to shut off their minds, for good or ill, and ensure that the preordained procedure—the ritual—was repeated. To them, continuing to follow the example of those who had come before them offered stability, security, and truth, and was the very definition of faith. And so, they were extremely weak in the face of an unexpected situation like this.
“This is serious. This is very serious.”
“We need to return to town immediately and report this.”
They spoke to each other in whispers and hushed tones, their faces close together—even though this place had been chosen specifically for its distance from the sacrificial ritual, and there was no way their voices would carry there. Then, they hurriedly climbed down from the lookout platform and scurried back to town.
Chapter Two: A God’s Form
The immediate threat seemed to have passed.
The animals which had comprised the body of the monster called an “erdgod” all seemed to be dead; they weren’t so much as twitching. Maybe after its “core” had been killed, they’d all been taken down with it. It was also possible that they were in thanatosis—animals sometimes feigned death when they sensed danger—but that would just mean that they feared Yukinari and recognized him as a threat. It was unlikely that they would suddenly attack.
In any case—
“Guess we don’t have to worry now.” Yukinari approached the girl in sheer clothing and grabbed hold of the chain that was connecting her to the iron stake. “Dasa, all okay?”
Bluesteel Blasphemer Volume 1 Page 3