The Sword Demon's False Tale

"This city is something!"

Just before Caesar spotted the group.

〈Merea Mea〉's expedition party of 〈Demon Lord Alliance (Mea-Nesaia)〉 had arrived at art-city Vergilia.

The carriage trip took, end-to-end, about five days.

That counts as fast by carriage.

Lemuse, where they're based, sits somewhere in the eastern continent's centre slightly to the north-east; even so, to the north-eastern edge of the continent the trip needs that much time.

On reaching Vergilia's western gate, Merea's party closed the formalities short.

Shaw mostly handled the fine paperwork; Merea, thinking he'd need it later, observed from beside.

But — watching Shaw, on a natural motion, slip a few silver coins from a closed fist into a guard's hand —

— Watching alone won't teach me, this.

— such a thought surfaced inwardly.

He decided to ask, later, what the silver coins had meant.

"Right then — let's go, my master?"

Shaw, formalities closed and a light stretch up, turned to Merea and said it.

"You there — money-fiend. Do not call my master your master."

But the first to react to Shaw's line was not Merea but the maid beside him — Marisa.

"Eh — not, in fact, wrong, no?"

"Not wrong, but I get crawling skin. Untolerable crawling-skin."

Beside Merea, on a wry smile, Marisa wrapped her arms about her shoulders and turned a cold-rebuke glance at Shaw.

"Lately the maid's cold-rebukes on me are getting generic… the phrasing is rough…!"

Shaw, on the standard Marisa-onslaught, on a yare-yare shrug — but in his chest, a small relief sat.

"Mind — preferable to weird silence —"

On the road to Vergilia, Marisa had been quiet against her usual.

Shaw, also, knew that the silence was a function of the Violent-Period-tied wave of her interior.

But, on stepping into Vergilia, the wave was, by signs, settling.

The proof was, awkwardly, the count of cold-rebukes-per-hour against me — but that was, in fact, the cleanest read on the change.

Anyway — that Marisa was returning to normal register, Shaw, in spite of himself, felt with quiet relief.

"At any rate — you, also, are escorting our master, so being moody indefinitely is a problem, no?"

"…I am, aware."

When Shaw drove the line home, Marisa, on a slightly vexed and slightly embarrassed lip-bite, looked away.

Shaw, on it, surfaced a mockery-tinted smile.

"Mind — fundamentally, he doesn't, in fact, need an escort."

"…At that sacred mountain, we had a similar talk."

Suddenly, in answer to Shaw's line, Marisa threw a fond-recall line back.

That a normal line came back surprised Shaw a little — and he caught: in her way, perhaps, an apology for the road's poor showing.

The instant the thought landed, in spite of himself, a laugh leaked.

"Fha — you turning meek at me is, unexpectedly, also unsettling."

"Don't worry — soon I'll work you to a rag."

"Ah! We haven't clearly set up-and-down chain, but the authority leans slightly your way, so no hard-power use!!"

"Hah."

"Laughed through the nose, she did…!"

So — normal register restored — the other Demon Lords watched on a wry smile.

The picture, in a way, was settling to watch.

---

While that ran, mixed in among the just-arrived nobles, travellers, and merchants, the party kept moving into the city.

Merea, listening half on his comrades' light-banter, was sending the other half on the stalls flanking the street.

On the stall-shelves, strange things he had never seen.

Paintings, sculptures, gimmick-craft, jeweled rings, and occasional formula-craft small-goods.

Even what value can possibly attach to that level of pebbles, mixed in.

In the main, the trade was in physical objects.

"Art-city, eh."

For Merea, it was not a domain he had built knowledge in.

Even on this world's standard matters his knowledge was light; the peak-of-culture of art was, naturally, far out of reach.

— That sort of thing, without knowing the background, is hard to read.

In his prior world too, the same.

Fundamentally, a domain whose value sat on layered knowledge.

*— But — understanding it would be interesting.

If someone art-versed were here, he'd want them as a teacher.

"Anything you wanted?"

Beside him, 〈Sword Emperor〉 Elma drew up. On a small smile, she said it.

"Plenty interesting, but not want-to-buy level. Even bought, where would I keep it."

Merea, on a placing-an-object gesture, said it light.

To which Elma, on a troubled smile —

"Mn — same thinking-track as me. — Both of us, culturally behind, indeed."

— deepened the smile self-mocking.

Merea matched.

"At this level, we'd actually want an art-versed body in the alliance."

Merea, hands behind his head, said it.

"The money-fiend will want him pulled into 〈Wallet (Listale)〉. If you read art, it's money."

Within seconds of Elma's answer, from behind, Just so! came a voice — Merea and Elma exchanged a glance and sighed.

"Shaw himself, as a merchant, has touched the field, so more knowledgeable than most, surely."

"Yes — a fiend devouring every kind of knowledge on the money-axis. In a world where most things have money attached, that, on its own, becomes a frightening action-impulse —"

— and at that, Merea and Elma, on a beat, simultaneously turned.

And, ahead of the money-fiend's response, in voice-unison —

"The power of money is mighty!"

— let it land.

Sure enough, Shaw, ear pulled by Marisa, had been gathering no-small breath-of-resolve to say the exact line, and —

"Ah… got out-said…"

"Your action-principle is, fairly, monotone. Easy to predict."

"Simple is best, you know."

Merea and Elma, watching Shaw visibly droop, laughed again.

---

Walking on, the queue began to give.

Mind, better than near the gate — by Lemuse-standards, still crowded.

The thinning was thanks to travellers branching off into other lanes.

"Speaking of — our inn?"

A bit further on, Merea turned to Shaw.

Shaw, intent on a side-stall, caught Merea's question and returned his eye —

"In an alley one over from this main street. — Mind, the security isn't, by any measure, bad; the phrase back-alley needn't worry you."

A small beat —

"And — the main street is this. Inn here would be unsleepably noisy."

"Right."

Inn on the main street would, indeed, drown in the bustle.

By day fine; sleeping hours drowned out is a problem.

"Then — about time we shifted to the next alley —"

Merea, having looked over the stalls and cut his curiosity at a clean point, was about to say let's head to the inn.

But —

"The gentleman there!"

— a different voice cut in.

A man, on a humble-shape address, was running up at Merea.

Some distance still, but the man — no eye for other travellers and nobles — was pushing past them on hand-shoves, on a straight-line to him. Soon to land in front.

Finally, the man surfaced blocking Merea's path.

Beside Merea, Elma, on reflex, slid a hand under her cloak to the demonic sword's hilt.

"Sorry to halt you! But! — There's something I absolutely want to show you!"

By the look, the man was a push-sale merchant of the kind they'd seen a few times along the way.

Elma, noticing it, eased the combat-stance — but did not, yet, take her hand from under the cloak.

"Hm? Show me?"

To which, the targeted Merea, on the standard preamble, showed no unpleasant face and answered.

His body-stance, too, was not particularly braced.

— …No — that seems to be it.

But Elma, instantly, revised.

Merea's stance was fully natural, but what she could react to, Merea cannot react to is impossible.

At Star-Tree Castle she'd sparred with him for training a few times; her read was on that experience.

"What what?"

Elma was running the inner check-loop when, from Merea's side, a curiosity-shaded gaze went to the merchant's hand.

Far from displeased at the push-sale, he was — welcoming it, by the read.

The push-sale-as-event, enjoying.

About then, the other Demon Lords' eyes had also picked up the merchant standing in front of Merea, and a part — Shaw — said Twenty points.

Shaw's eyes had been on the merchant's feet.

"This, sir!"

About then, the merchant, on Merea's prompt, presented something long-and-thin he had in hand.

Wrapped in cloth, theatrically.

"This?"

Merea tilted his head; the merchant, on a Just look, untied the cloth.

What surfaced — a single sword.

From behind Merea, Shaw murmured Ten points.

To it, Marisa's voice followed. — For reference — breakdown? / Why is he selling a sword to a man not wearing one? / I see. / Mind, it's a flashy sword — for display, perhaps.

"Selling this."

"A splendid piece, sir. A celebrated sword from the southern continent, said to have been used by the 〈Sword Demon〉."

"Oh — 〈Sword Demon〉."

At the merchant's word, Merea's brow lifted.

"I see…. 〈Sword Demon〉."

In a putting-on-airs register, on a strange-tinted curiosity, Merea was mn-mn-nodding.

A small puzzled shade was in it, but the smile still on his face was soft.

"Yes. — Said to match, even, the famed Imperial Weapon, the Sword Emperor's 〈Demonic Sword Krishra〉."

"Hah. Sword Emperor's, Krishra-grade. — Hmh hmh."

This time Elma's brow lifted. Same theatrical nodding.

On her face, a deliberately interested shape.

"Mind — possibly, more foul than even Krishra. The Sword Demon was mad on the sword, and with this sword massacred innocents — by the hundreds. By that, the souls of the slain attached to the sword, and it took on this eerie, gnawing edge — and an attached curse: once used, will not leave the wielder's hand until death."

After the merchant's pitch, again from behind, Shaw murmured Five points.

To which, Marisa, on task-mode, asked the breakdown. Breakdown.

Phrasing too flashy. And — no coherence, Shaw, on a yare-yare shrug, on both hands.

The other Demon Lords, on wry smiles, listened to the exchange and returned their eyes to Merea.

There — they noticed a certain anomaly.

"Ah — bad… in his Heroic-Spirit-parents is a real 〈Sword Demon〉. Massacred innocents as a lie is bad…"

A small line from Salman.

Salman, with the twins flanking, was looking at Merea's back.

The eye —

— had read the anger-aura rising from Merea's back.

A beat after Salman, the others caught Merea's anger.

Their short but dense shared time made reading Merea's interior easy.

"Ah — correction. Zero points."

After Salman, Shaw said it.

The merchant's score had dropped to zero.

"…"

"Asking the breakdown not?"

To which Marisa — on Shaw's prompt — by inversion —

"Saying it isn't necessary; I read."

— let a sigh out.

This Marisa had not, even for a beat, taken her eye off Merea's back.

And — the hands she'd had folded neatly at her knees were now at her hips. Ready-to-move posture.

Shaw, watching, hah, sighed large.

After that, his eye returned to the merchant in front of Merea, and he said —

"— Well, in this case, the man had no luck. Almost no one would, by chance, predict that the real 〈Sword Demon〉 is known to the man in front of him."

"If it comes to it, I stop it."

"It's all right — over-stated, you. Merea is not a beast. — Mind, let's at least put a warning in."

Shaw, slightly raising his voice, threw a line at the merchant — still alone gloating, situation unread.

"You there! Best to stop about there! If your own internal alarm-bell isn't ringing yet, then please take my warning and try a different mark!"

"— For your own body and mind," Shaw added small, last.

But the merchant, by the look, took that for another merchant's deflection-line — not pulling out here — and bit down further.

"The Sword Demon's deeds, demon by the title-tag, are particularly avoided lately, but that is, in itself, value. A peerless rare-of-vice register. A man like that's sword, only one in the world, the rarity goes without saying. — Anyone would want it. Now or never. Please — purchase."

"…"

To the merchant's coarse pitch, Merea, in the end, did not let a word out.

But the soft smile that had been on his face was, somewhere, gone — and the change finally signalled to the merchant that the situation had shifted.

Merea's red eyes, gaze alone could kill, held an unbearably sharp light.