Volume I. Chapter III. - Grand Entrance

The date is March 29th, 1215, when a shooting star strikes the town of Hikone, bringing great disaster together with it. During this event, a lone soldier is passing by as he is sent to this town for a certain mission. With a curiosity that did not show on his face, he approached the crater, in hopes of investigating.

A short, black-haired boy with his short spiky hair, peaking out from beneath his general, well matching with his crimson red eyes. This young soldier’s name is Karna Gray.

———

The dust lifted by the crash makes it hard to see. I slowly stoop down the crate, step after step, soon descending to the bottom of the pit. That’s when I hear it, a gruesome beast-like groaning accompanied by the sound of bones being continuously snapped, and through the remaining dust, two red eyes begin to glow. Whatever it is already aware of my presence.

“It couldn’t be….”

I mumble to myself as a suspicion creeps up on my mind, when suddenly what appears to be a tail comes swinging my way. Its speed is too high to make a clear picture of its appearance.

I reflexively pull a part of my Katana out of its scabbard in an attempt to block what could be a fatal blow. It’s enough to save my skin, but I get launched into the air and land back on my feet a few meters back, outside of the area covered in dust.

It’s definitely a demon, somewhere in the middle threat classes, no weaker than that. Fortunately enough, there is a bell tower at the scene with its guards on it and so I yell.

“Ring the bell of the highest threat! The town is under attack!”

The two guards look at me in disbelief. They are hesitant to ring the bell due to lack of information. I click my tongue right before the demon emerges from the layers of dust at unimaginable speed and smacks me through a wall of one of the nearby houses as if it wasn’t damaged enough already.

“Done playing ‘hide and seek?’ ”

With a grin on my face, I question the creature as if it could understand me. Maybe now they will choose to ring the bell that they see the threat.

A tall, black, and muscular crooked body, its bones are visibly mangled on many parts. The demon’s knees are bent backward and the ends of each of its spine’s vertebrae peak through its thick skin, all the way to the tail which is ended with a sharp, spear-like bone. A blade of its own. The head is enhanced with its two big blood-red eyes and ash-gray horns coming out of the forehead. The demon’s face gives an impression of muscle atrophy as they are perfectly shaped after its skull.

The demon shifts its sight towards them and as it stares them down, the two guards begin to sweat in fear that brings them to a decision. One of them picks up his weapon, which in this case is a hammer, and in a hurry, he hits the big church bell while shouting.

“Alert the town, it’s a demon attack of the highest threat class! Everyone get to safety immediately!”

The terror in this man’s voice makes me giggle a bit, but just a tiny bit.

“I’m not even sure if the threat level is accurate. Let’s see if you are worthy of it. Though, I have a feeling I might have given you a bit too much credit.”

I get back on my feet. Blood is pouring down my face in the form of multiple thin streams. The demon begins to look around, then suddenly, it lets out a loud and powerful roar. The bell is agitating it, I will strike it down while I have the chance.

And so I dash out of the building, right beneath the demon’s waist, where its field of view doesn’t reach. It attempts to hit me nonetheless, but its efforts are in vain as my blade is out and ready to slay. With a smile, I strike the demon with an upward slash and split its arm in two, all the way to its elbow joint.

The beast's second arm flies out, directly at me. I dodge it by rotating my whole body into a full spin to follow up with another strike of my own but get stopped as the demon nearly hits me with the arm I’ve originally split in half. I’m forced to take a few steps back.

“Damn monster, that’s one heck of a regeneration speed.”

The crooked demon continues to simply stare at me. Despite the anxiety I’m feeling, I can’t get rid of the smug grin of mine. Then starts sniffing, as if it caught a scent of some sort. It reacts to the smell with another roar, then leaps high up.

“You won’t escape me that easily.”

I take my sword and position myself to throw it before taking a deep breath. My gift’s power flows through my veins and as dust lifts around my feet, a dark aura surrounds my weapon.

“Reaper's Art - Needle Bolt.“

I chant moments before launching my Katana at lightning speed toward the fleeing monster. The weapon rips through its head, leaving it to drop to the ground, causing another smaller-scale crater. Dust went up once again, giving the demon shelter yet again. Though, unlike last time, this time I know its whereabouts and I grab another sword from the ground that’s lying next to a dead soldier, who most likely died from the landing impact.

I then launch myself into the smokescreen and slash the space where it landed. The attack blows away the surrounding dust and I am the only one standing in the hole. It’s gone, the demon is not here, it must have fled. But that’s impossible, I would have noticed it. Unless….

I gaze upon the spot where the unholy beast should have been lying and spot a faint gap in the ground covered in rubble. I kick the pile of rock out of the way and reveal the true size of the hole.

It managed to escape and even tried to cover up its escape route. Were this your average Demon, it would have been all over me, yet this one seems to have enough intelligence to plan an escape and go through with a goal other than eating whatever moves. I begin to laugh, with amusement, but also anger, fear, and disappointment. All these emotions combined now swirl within me as it is unclear just how much damage could this beast cause.

It wasn’t trying to fight me in the first place, all it did was defend itself. The outcome could have been much different if it were to fight me with its best But then, what is its objective?

“It would seem I’ve underestimated you. I suppose credit where credit is due.”

Is the one last thing I say before moving out for a hunt beneath the ringing bells of doom.

———

[Back at the Military School]

The bells haven’t stopped ringing. The demon is still out there somewhere…

My head is flooded with thoughts of what might be happening outside our district while sitting in the corner of one of the classrooms, together with Lena and Himari beside me. It’s full of students, some crying, but all terrified. The tutors have sent everyone into classrooms on the first floor, to make sure that nobody is missing.

“It looked like the thing hit the Niriu district, I wonder if the military is already taking care of it.”

Himari says quietly, almost whispering. We are currently located in the center of our town. Niriu is the first district you enter from here, to the east. Fortunately, our and the Kikuchi’s homes are on the west side of this place.

“It will be alright. We have skilled soldiers on our side, they will take care of it. No doubt.”

Lena replies as she attempts to comfort her and it helps even if just slightly. She seems much calmer compared to the rest of us. Himari now has a faint and gentle smile.

“The Demon came from the sky…”

I mumble. As someone who is fully interested in the concept of demons and everything around them, I’m lost in thought and without paying attention to what’s going on around me.

Lena looks at me worryingly as she questions me.

“…Yuuna?”

“Think about it…Demons always come out of the ground, as if actually crawling out of Hell. Not once was a Demon that fell from the sky recorded anywhere. You saw it yourself, it was like it fell here from a different world.”

Now both of them gaze at me with their wary eyes until Himari lets out a sigh and taps me on the head.

“You are over-thinking, Mrs. Demon ideologist.”

She frowns.

“Alright everyone, please enter the hallway. We’ll be moving you to one of the shelters.”

It seems they are done gathering us. They have decided to move us to multiple classrooms, but not all. The commander should still be somewhere around. That makes me feel a bit safer.

“Everyone stay calm and stick together, try not to get separated from the rest of the group!”

One of the tutors gives out his final warning before proceeding to open the entrance door, but once it’s open the tutor doesn’t take a single step outside.

Soon enough the screams of students from the front rows can be heard as the crowd of students slowly moves backwards.

Standing at the end of it, we are clueless about the events going on up front.

“What’s going on?”

Lena is visibly starting to lose her cool now too.

I jump onto the back of a boy standing before me and apologize for using him as a height booster and then I see it. As I set my sight straight before me, I’m presented with a street of mangled corpses and separated body parts all over it. It takes me a moment to realize what I’m looking at before falling off of the student. My head feels light.

“Yuuna? What’s wrong?”

Himari gets worried as she catches me.

“They are all dead.”

Both of them are at a loss for words.

“What are you talking about? Didn’t the Demon land in the opposite direction.”

Lena is right, it did, so why does it look like it came from the West instead? The students begin to push on us harder and harder, they are beyond terrified. Some of them even begin to run towards the back entrance. This situation not helping my condition. I think I’m going to throw up. Lena suddenly picks me up with a serious expression and starts dragging me towards the rear exit.

“Get yourself together, we are leaving for the bunker. At this rate, we will end up getting swept up in the chaos.”

Ah, that’s right, that was the school’s original plan too. My mind is becoming all hazy, it makes it a bit hard to move. However, there’s something odd about this.

“Hey, if the Demon was so close… why did it leave us? Did it not notice us?”

“Yuuna now is not the time!”

At first, she looked at me with an expression saying ‘Is she crazy?’, but changed the next moment. Almost as if she came to a realization of her own and at that exact moment the ceiling collapsed behind me as something came down through it.

Lena and Himari gaze upon it with terror while I have my back turned to it. I’m scared, but my curiosity gets the best of me and I slowly divert my eyes towards whatever just happened behind my back. A beast-like groaning is heard, accompanied by the sound of snapping bones and the smell of rot.

A large black and muscular but crooked body with a face closely resembling a skull and two big horns sticking out of it. The creature stands on a heap of rubble that has piled up and crushed some of the students as it looks at me with the creepiest smile.

The Demon has arrived.