CH 244

Under the three shimmering moons, a battle between beasts and knights was raging.

Monsters cried, people roared, and sword swings extinguished light.

It was a chaotic battlefield.

But strangely enough, order was starting to take hold.

When the old knight swung his sword, even the largest of beasts were made to open up a path.

When the wielder of the magic sword went on a rampage, it confused the enemy troops and created openings.

Irvin and I, being adventurers, slew the enemy troops with the quickest and most minimalistic techniques possible.

The more we fought, the more the enemy troops perished.

It was an order most splendid. Despite that, the prince still had a faint smile on his face as he watched us.

He's luring us in.

It's obviously a trap. Or maybe he has a trump card of some sort.

I don't care.

Even if it's a trap, I'll smash through it and advance.

「Souya! His Majesty is in good health, I assume!」

「Of course! He even had new heirs!」

I answered Zamonglass' shout with my own.

He has slain so many beasts. How can he be anything but in good health?

「That's good to hear!」

A huge 16-meter tall beast was once again cut in two by Zamonglass.

But countless spears shot out from the beast's dissipating body.

Zamonglass knocked about half of the spears down with his sturdy sword, but the other half struck him all over. He was pierced through by dozens of spears, but still managed to wipe out all the enemy troops hiding in the beast's shadow with a single cleave.

The old knight, now riddled with holes, threw the proof that he had lived, his sword, to me.

「This time, I have no regrets. Because I get to die before my disciples」

The moment before Zamonglass vanished, he broke out into a smile as gallant as His Majesty's.

「Go!!!」

After I had received his sword, we proceeded.

The enemy troops' movements suddenly become organized. Using the beasts as shields, they threw their spears at us from the shadows whenever there was an opening.

The beasts also stopped taking large swings at us. Forced onto the defensive, we were gradually being cornered―――――――

「Don't underestimate us」

I stepped forward.

What I had received was not just his sword.

The sword I swung with all the inherited strength fell like a thunderbolt, annihilating all the beasts and enemy troops in its way with a single blow.

And then, shadows filled the night sky.

Spears of green light fell like rain.

It was a saturation attack.

「Tch」

With a click of his tongue, the beast-hunter stepped out in front of us.

Agathion quivered and then black lightning emanated from its blade. The ground caved in, creating a dome-shaped crater, as if gravity had changed only in that spot.

「Cut them all down, Agathion!」

Enormous explosions resounded through the air as slashes flew. Spears and even the thin clouds in the sky were swept away.

Still, not all the spears were obliterated.

Three spears pierced through the beast-hunter's body.

「Dammit, I failed to reach him again」

He threw Agathion roughly and it stuck into the ground at my feet.

The beast-hunter glared at me as if looking at an enemy.

「I hate you, but I hate that bastard with the disgusting look on his face over there to the point where I can't even tolerate his existence. You kill him. You definitely have to kill him. You're the one who killed this Varner Kalbezzo, so you can surely do it」

Varner vanished.

「Souya, I'll tell you what I was unable to say back then」

Irvin stepped forward.

As if to say, "Behold."

As if to say, "Behold my battle."

「To tell the truth, to me, my sister mattered less than everyone else in the party. I truly enjoyed our adventures. There were no racial prejudices, no walls between us. Our ages didn't matter. Even though we all had different thoughts and desires, we were united in the pure pursuit of a single goal. I wanted to adventure together with you all until the very end. So, at the very least, watch my battle through till its end」

「………Yeah」

He fought.

I was mesmerized by his ferocious swordsmanship, which surpassed that of his teacher’s.

Every step forward he took in his battle, enemy troops would disappear. No matter what tactics they used, they were no match for him.

I leisurely walked down the path he had opened for me.

There was once an adventurer named Irvin the Dragon Scale.

He was a young knight who made his mark early and passed away early.

I sometimes think to myself.

If he had lived and continued his career as an adventurer, how much fame would he have garnered, I wonder? What greater and more magnificent deeds would he have accomplished?

The realization of those thoughts is now on display before my eyes.

Irvin was strong.

My party member was strong.

He was stronger than anyone else, I'd exclaim from the bottom of my heart.

He could slay gigantic beasts and spirit knights were nothing to him.

If anyone were to ask me who the greatest knight that ever lived was, I would answer with "Irvin Foz Gasim".

I’d spread his name far and wide as the man who surpassed even the father of adventurers.

「Souya, my friend」

Irvin stopped and thrust his sword into the ground.

There were no longer any enemies hindering my path to the prince. He had defeated them all.

「Go. And accomplish what must be accomplished」

「Irvin, goodbye」

「Farewell」

The moment we passed each other, his light dissipated. I thought I felt a pat on my back.

With the old knight's sword and the magic sword on my back and my friend's sword in my hand, I stood before the prince.

Still sitting on his helmet, the prince clapped his hands languidly.

「A parting between friends, huh? That's something I quite enjoy watching」

I don't give a damn about anything this guy says.

「But well, how do I put this……」

The prince snapped his fingers.

「Sorry, but it was all meaningless」

Green light flooded the night plain.

Just as before, no, an army of spirits several times larger appeared.

「You're a pretty entertaining clown. As such, I’ll crush you with the combined might of every troop I can muster」

Their numbers were staggering.

That army was far too vast for any one person to handle.

But……

「Prince of Elysium, I have a question for you. What are curses?」

I’m not stalling for time.

One thing has become very clear to me.

「Very well. I'll answer you as a reward. Curses are【Death】, 【Souls】,【Memories】, and【The World】. And my power is the【Domination】of them all. If you want to defeat this undying power, drop the nonsense about protecting the world and come prepared to destroy it instead」

How trivial.

What a truly worthless ruler he is.

「The hubris of a mere human to talk about destroying the world…… What humans can destroy is at most just the world of humans」

「What a boring answer. Your time on the stage is over. Just die quickly」

The prince signaled with his finger.

The army moved to surround me.

The three knights' efforts had not been for nothing. They had placed me in this very moment, standing before the prince who had "brought out every spirit of the dead he could muster".

The three of them had done the work of billions.

「Prince, let me show you one last thing」

「Oh, you still have something up your sleeve?」

「It's one of my specialties. Watch close, alright?」

I chanted.

I recited my final ode.

「My god, O Misuranika, the dark fire. I'm the one who devours the curses of people, uses it as food and turns it into power. I'm your one and only follower.

By the resentment of the spirits of the dead assembled here, I call the beast.

O black cat,

O Demon King,

O Wise King,

O knights,

O everyone’s thoughts,

Bestow upon me the power of all the forgotten ones.

My god.

My god!

Grant my wish! I won't forgive evil, and I'll vanquish evil with evil! I harbor a beast while remaining in human form, and I hunt beasts to extinction while remaining human! There is no night that doesn't break into dawn! No dreams that one doesn't awaken from! Abominable blood of calamity! I will make it die out right here, right now! So, for the last time, come! The night of the hunter!」

He says that curses are【Death】, 【Souls】,【Memories】, and【The World】.

If his power is the【Domination】of them all, then the true power of Misuranika the Forgotten One is to【Usurp[1]】them all.

It's as the Demon King said.

If I had used this at the start, I would have died of exhaustion fighting all the spirits he could bring forth afterward. But right now, right at this very moment when my enemy has assembled all of his spirits in one place……

……I can seize them all and turn them into my power.

O infinite power harbored within.

You can have all of me. So grant me power and life.

[1] This is actually a theme in this story that has been really difficult to bring across in translation because English is too specific a language and doesn’t allow for the vagueness and multiple meanings of the Japanese language a lot of the time.

The word used here(簒奪) can mean usurp, arrogate, seize, take over, and so on. The word in Misuranika’s vows(seizing what can be seized) is 奪う, and it means “seize, take from, steal, and so on”. As you can see, 奪う and 簒奪 have an overlapping meaning of “seize”. The hint that these two are linked is the Demon King, who was Misuranika’s follower and whose very title is given for usurping a throne.

So in essence, this twist is saying, “Her power is not just ‘seizing’ but ‘usurping’(it sounds higher-leveled though the meaning is similar).”

Can you believe how long it has been since Souya last used Wild Hunt? But yeah, finally, the moment has come. But how incredibly cool this moment is. And how incredibly sad… Souya has finally taken the nuclear option, so to speak. Win or lose, he loses everything…

But dammit, this author is so good at making me cry. I really love absolute bro moments like the one he had with Irvin… Bye-bye, Irvin, Zamonglass, and Varner.

Btw, isn’t Irvin kinda much stronger than he was when he was alive? Well, perhaps not surprisingly, this is neither a plot hole nor romanticism, and there’s actually a reason for this. As it won’t be explained for a while, just throw it into the back of your mind for now. Extremely sharp-eyed readers may have found the clues to this littered all over from as early as the first volume though.

Yup, Misuranika-sama’s true power is to usurp/seize/steal curses. Like that time when she took away the charm Rana cast(which she called a type of curse), or when, in her own words, she took “the curse of death into my body” to save Souya before his first Wild Hunt, and so on. Now, on a completely unrelated side note, Misuranika’s normal followers won’t have the Lycan’s curse to directly change the stolen curses into power, so how would her power have worked for them? Well, it’s already hinted at quite clearly in volume 3, so happy hunting!

But yeah, the arc ends on Souya finally using Wild Hunt, which was epic. And we’ll finally see how the prince fights next time, so stay tuned!