The Sword Emperor's Lament

That day, a woman in a worn-out robe was climbing Lindholm Sacred Mountain.

"Steep, this mountain."

The woman, looking up at the summit, muttered with a bitter note.

"Die because you're a Demon Lord's descendant — that's tyranny in its full register. On top of that — hand over the demonic sword the line has carried — well. No effort to hide the greed, I'll grant them."

The woman was a descendant of a line that had been called 〈Demon Lord〉.

"Mind… cornered, for sure. Climbing the sacred mountain, only unidentified spirit-bodies running thick — anything else, nothing."

If she could wish for it, she'd want a legendary holy sword set at the summit.

A dream-sword that, with one in hand, could save the world.

"— Foolish, me. What I have is the demonic sword. Honest, only specialised in cutting, a life-eating demonic sword, only…"

The woman, knowing the fantasy was unattainable, was, regret-laden, picturing it anyway.

The fantasy was the measure of how far cornered she was.

---

She'd been a small-time mercenary in some city-state.

A country east of Lindholm Sacred Mountain.

In the present, war-coloured world, mercenaries had demand.

And — her body, also, by the look, wanted to fight.

Since her family-name's Demon Lord title had fallen into decline along with the rest of them, a long time had passed.

The 〈Sword Emperor〉 Demon-Lord title had worn down, and from human memory had, once, hazed away.

But the one demonic sword that gave the title its name still existed in the world.

〈Demonic Sword Krishra〉.

In the past, ancestors who pursued a sword that simply cut, no question had spent many lives in the pursuit, and the demonic sword was, by that, born.

The line that had wielded it, having pride in solid martial strength, became known as 〈the Thirty-Eight Heavenly Sword Brigade〉, a mercenary unit of fierce repute.

Thirty-eight people, thirty-eight swords.

The name came from the deployment-ritual in which the swords were raised together to the heavens before going to battle.

But, on a certain day, the head of that mercenary unit began to be called Demon Lord.

As a Demon Lord bearing an Emperor-class title, the line was, re-summoned into the world.

— Being a mercenary worked against us.

Once hired by, and fighting alongside, a certain power; on a second battlefield, contracted by a different employer, facing the previous employer across the line — that was the trigger.

Mercenaries, when paid, lend their strength. That is the trade.

Some called it drowning in war.

But, in the warring age, for nations without their own armed forces, mercenaries-for-money were a welcome existence.

Hence — mercenaries had to be honest about money.

So that opposition, also, could not be helped.

But —

— The first-employer side called the now-opposing them traitors.

The contemporary ancestor, by his strength, was certified as 〈Demon Lord.〉

In this age, the Demon Lord tag is slapped on for any number of after-the-fact reasons, but in her ancestor's case, that was the decisive reason.

— Resent, or not resent.

She understood the resentment of the previous employer, but the Demon Lord label slapped on the line in that era was now, on her, also exerting force.

To say it cleanly — at first, she had tried to put down the sword and live an honest life.

But the demonic sword, no matter how often released, returned to her hand.

The blood of the demonic sword's parent line runs in her body, perhaps.

And, sparring with the demonic sword for some stretch in push-back fashion, the mercenary line's blood, in turn, began to stir.

As if predetermined, she was drawn to fighting.

— No — in the end, I myself made that choice.

She had tried womanly work — waiting, cooking, ladies-in-waiting roles — and none had fit.

In time, the money ran out first.

In that moment, the mercenary work's good pay caught her eye, and she threw her body into combat.

As if waiting, the body moved.

Money came in, but on the flip side — she could not leave the fighting.

Drawn into the battle-heat.

Cannot continue like this.

For some reason, that thought came.

Thinking it, the demonic sword would not leave her hand.

Almost wishing she would slit her own throat with the demonic sword and end it — at that register of overwrought thought, on a battlefield she'd taken as a mercenary, the demonic sword was seen.

That, the pivot.

She began being chased by those who wanted the demonic sword.

Chased — she ran.

They, taking the moment, dug up the 〈Sword Emperor〉 blood that ran in her body, and on that pretext, swung weapons at her. — Die because you're a Demon Lord.

— What is a Demon Lord.

Resentment from those she'd cut as a mercenary, she could understand.

But, of all things, those who came after the demonic sword were — at the time — allies.

— I do not want this kind of fighting.

Even if she would drown in fighting, she'd want to do it like a mercenary.

At minimum — to swing the sword for someone.

She cannot, by now, become a clean hero.

That, also, she understands.

Like the older ancestor who aimed to be a hero for those who held no martial strength, she can no longer be.

— I, by now, am a Demon Lord.

A label not easily peeled off has been pasted on her back.

That her impulse and the older ancestor's were the same — that, she registered after she had already been chased as a Demon Lord.

Too late.

Chased; running; the head goes muddy.

She no longer knows what to do.

By what guideline to live.

To die is, in the end, to die. And — frankly — slightly frightening.

---

"Almost the summit."

She'd cut down a few beasts and a few spirit-bodies along the way.

The demonic sword, single-mindedly specialised in cutting, was apparently capable of cutting spirit-bodies too.

The Heroic Spirits of rumour she might not, even, be able to cut — but the lower-rank animal-spirits and the thin-presence spirit-bodies dispersed in a single swing.

She thought it bad form, but they came at her, so could not be helped.

Then the woman reached the summit of Lindholm Sacred Mountain.

There, one man stood.

A man with beautiful snow-white hair, of transcendent bearing.

---

The man, with strange white flames, was burning a great stone clean and shaping something.

What he had shaped was an austere, slim-rectangular form, with characters carved into its face.

— A name?

Then he set it into the ground, standing it like a grave.

"…"

The woman, observing the man at the summit, took a step.

Jari — gravel-sound — the man did not turn.

— Doll? — A wraith of some kind?

"Sorry. I can't break my hand off this just now — if you've business, please wait."

The man said it without turning.

At the voice, the woman's breath caught.

A surprised huh nearly leaked out.

"…Human?"

"Yes."

"That?"

"The graves of the people who raised me."

That brief exchange settled it: this was a human.

He builds graves for someone.

Then — likely human.

A strange acceptance came to the woman.

---

Strangely, the man's work continued day and night.

That is — it would not, at any point, end.

How many people's graves was he building.

The woman, her demonic sword stuck into the ground, robe lifting on the wind, watched.

The man was, single-mindedly, with white-shining flame wreathed on his index finger, burning stone clean.

"How many graves are you building?"

The woman, finally unable to hold it in, asked.

"A hundred."

"H-hundred…"

In moments like this, womanly sounds come, mind.

The number itself plainly startled her.

"…"

The woman watched the man's back.

Then, finally —

"…If you don't mind — let me help. I climbed up Lindholm Sacred Mountain, but I have nothing in particular to do."

She said it.

Half lie, half true.

"Really? Glad. Help me, then. Just stand the stones in order."

But, hearing the man's glad tone, the line, in full, became true.

"Understood."

The woman peeled off her robe and wrapped it on the hilt of the demonic sword stuck in the ground.

Inside the robe she was lightly clad; the mountain wind felt cold on the skin, but moving she'd warm soon.

"— Oh."

"Mm?"

The man, suddenly, stopped his motion and turned his eye on her at last.

The man had red eyes that held a strange shine.

"I'm Merea. — 〈Merea Mea〉."

"I'm 〈Elma Eluiza〉. We seem about the same age — drop the honorifics, call me Elma."

"Merea, also fine. — Right then, kindly, Elma."

"Yes."

She did not ask anything beyond the name.

Asking deeper would, by feel, break the strange space in which one could think nothing — so, until the gravestones were all done, she set into the work, silently.

— Cornered situation, mind — but doing something no-mind like this is not bad.

Reality-flight, perhaps.

But, Elma thought it from the bottom.

This strange situation — she had begun to enjoy.