Chapter 29

A lizardman stepped through each of the narrow portals. They seemed to have practiced the maneuver. They immediately formed a diamond shape, the one with the short sword taking point, the mage on one side, another swordsman the other, and the one in the back the sword couldn’t see that well.

“Is there another way out?” The sword heard Mei ask Arthur.

“Yeah. Well. Maybe. There’s definitely places to hide, anyway,” Arthur said. Mei tugged at the sword’s arm, and he followed the other two as they dashed away, the sword and Arthur huffing and puffing, Mei loping ahead of them both easily.

Behind them the lizardmen cried and squawked, and the sword heard the faint buzz that meant they were going to summon lightning.

The corridor split ahead of them, “Right,” Arthur muttered, and they all wheeled right. The sword caught a glimpse of the first arc of lightning zig-zagging towards them, it fizzled well short of their position, leaving behind a black scorch mark.

Both he and Arthur were short of breath, but Mei kept pace with them without sweating, and even had enough breath to speak. “Something is wrong,” she said.

“No duh,” Arthur gasped, “Lots of things are wrong.”

Another split, they went right again. The sword didn’t see their pursuers, either they had gained more distance, or they had stopped chasing after them.

The sword’s sides were aching in an uncomfortable way, “I will need to stop soon,” he said. He still had no stamina, and he was tired from his bout with the laughing girl. “You should probably go on without me.”

Mei and Arthur looked at each other, then rolled their eyes.

“I thought were over our emo episode today,” Arthur said. “Come on.”

They stopped outside Arthur’s door, Arthur opened it, suggesting they could hide there.

“I won’t go inside,” Mei said, “we’ll just get trapped.”

Arthur shrugged, “Alright. Least let’s get behind the pillars. Stop their line of sight for a moment anyway.”

The sword staggered to one of the stone pillars lining the corridor, heaving for breath.

“More time,” Mei muttered to herself. “Something doesn’t make sense but I can’t figure it out.”

“Enemies don’t have to make sense,” Arthur said, “most of the time, they just want to kill you dead.”

“But often they have an internal logic, however poorly conceived,” Mei said. “These little missions. Never committing. Waiting so long. And now here, just four of them? What are they doing?”

Arthur opened his mouth to say something snide, then closed it. Opened it again, looking thoughtful this time, but stopped as the sound of boots slapping against stone announced the arrival of their four assailants.

“I don’t suppose there’s any point in suggesting surrender?” Mei asked.

Arthur sighed. “I’m still not really interested in going to lizard land. Lizards kinda just taste like chicken, but like, chewier.” He reached up to the collar around his neck. He grimaced as he touched it with his fingers, and it began to glow with red light. The smell of burning flesh, not all that different than the smell of meats overcooking in one of Cadmarius’ ovens, briefly filled the air, and the collar popped from his neck.

Mei looked faintly appalled. “Is there…anything that can keep you under control?”

Arthur grinned. “If there were, you don’t really think I’d answer that question do you?”

He stepped out from behind the pillar, facing the four lizardmen. He bit one of the unsinged parts of his right hand, drawing blood, dipped his finger into it, it started to glow with a dim red light. He sketched a circle in the air, the lines he traced with his finger beginning to glow red as well.

“Ruby Summons.”

The circle expanded, spinning in the air till its diameter was longer than Arthur’s full height, and a figure began to emerge from its center.

Much much larger than the small imp Serpenedos.

The lizardmen did not react as the sword expected them to. Among the more predictable reactions would have been: scattering in order to make less of an easy target for the incoming demon, forming closer around their clearly more valuable fourth member, or simply retreating, evincing a reasonable amount of caution when it came to a new foe entering the field.

Instead, they broke formation, exposing their fourth member, the one in the rear, to whatever was coming at them.

Except the fourth member had a weapon now, one he hadn’t been carrying when he’d stepped out of the portal.

It was a long metal cylinder with an opening at one end, two grips at the bottom where the lizardman was holding it. Metal, or porcelain? The opaque white color made it hard to tell. Golden lines ran up and down the cylinder, crossing and winding around each other in an intricate pattern that suggested some greater meaning, though the sword couldn’t interpret it at all.

The lizardman hefted the cylinder, a gun of some kind, the sword supposed, and golden light slipped down those intricate lines from the back of the gun to the front, flowing forward like a river unleashed.

Pure golden light burst forth from the cylinder, temporarily blinding the sword. A moment of extreme danger, the sword felt trapped, unsure what to do, where to turn. He was so vulnerable in this body, he had no clear action to take.

When the light cleared, Arthur’s half-summoned demon was gone. The red circle of light was also gone. Arthur stood alone before the four lizardmen, swaying slightly, a lock of shock on his face.

Mei seized the sword, forcing him to look at her. “You have to do something,” she said. “Buy me time,” she said. “I need time to figure out what we’re supposed to do next. You have to save Arthur right now.”

Time.

The sword blinked. They were in a corridor with no counter against a weapon the sword had never seen before. That was not the sort of situation where he had a lot of options available to him, even if he wasn’t in a sack of flesh with a defective limb.

He could throw himself in front of the lizardmen, give Arthur a few more raw resources to work with. But no, the new weapon the lizardmen had was clearly an effective counter against him.

Mei could wield him, but that might go poorly with his broken arm.

He could use his own skills, but he was not confident that would do much more than provide a brief distraction, he might even hurt the others while he was doing it.

He needed time. Things were moving too quickly.

Of course.

He ran towards Arthur’s room, heedless that it put him now between Arthur and the lizardmen completely exposed. He pounded on the walls with good hand as he went, yelling at the top of his lungs.

“Francois! Wake up! Fancois!”

He reached the door next to Arthur’s and pounded at it. Aware that behind him lethal attention was about to produce lethal consequences in his direction.

He just had to hope the [God] was a light sleeper.

“Come on Francois! Get up right now!”

Blue light bloomed at the corners of his vision.

“Oh hey guys! What are you doing? Oh whoa, that’s like an actual [Archangel Gun], that’s crazy, haven’t seen one of those in a while. Not a super low number I guess, but still a real [Archangel Gun]! Man, I don’t think you can beat one of those. It kind of seems like you’re all gonna die.”

“Francois,” the sword said, “take us to the Starting Area.”

“I mean, I think [Archangel Guns] still work in the Starting Area, so I’m not sure that’s really going to—”

“Take me and Mei and Arthur to the starting area!” The sword said, as behind him he heard the crackle of lightning that meant their [Wizard] had decided he was worth paying attention to.

“Ohhhhhh. Yeah, sure. That makes sense. No problem.”

The floor turned white, the edges of the world blurred, darkened, and blue light bloomed on its borders.

Everything was suddenly quiet.

A moment later Mei and Arthur appeared in front of the sword. Arthur sprang back, teeth bared and hands in fists, ready to attack. Mei simply looked around, considering with her head tilted to one side.

“We are safe here?” Mei asked the sword.

The sword nodded.

Mei said, “good,” and started to pace.

After a moment, Arthur relaxed too. “Huh,” he said out loud. “This is…kind of clever. Hi Franky.”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Francoi’s voice replied, the sword noticed it seemed to have no particular source, but boomed from everywhere. “You are very mean, even when I try to be nice to you.”

“Aw c’mon,” Arthur said, “I’m not that bad, I make you laugh as often as I make you cry.”

“And you still snore, even though I told you they have solutions to that problem on Earth.”

“Look, I’m not going to wear some kind of dumb bandage on my nose, it’ll make me look like I’m a punk [Hero] just waiting for my tough guy chance to be a good guy and I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about me.”

“Everyone knows you’re not a [Hero] anyway, [Demon Lords] can’t be [Heroes].”

“Says you,”

“Yes,” [God] said.

“I think” the sword said, “Mei is ready to talk now.”