Kagyu BLADE & BASTARD: Return of The Hrathnir Volume 3

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-7183-9352-3
Verlag: J-Novel Club
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 3, 250 Seiten

Reihe: BLADE & BASTARD

Within the dungeon, a famous weapon is nothing more than a basic blade. Even a broadsword that's gutted a dragon can be reduced to shattered steel. Devastated, Garbage seeks out a replacement for her beloved sword...but what weapon could possibly match her? An old blade, sharp as diamond-the return of a legend. As ever, the dungeon's maw yawns wide to swallow foolhardy adventurers, and Iarumas's party continues to delve for treasure, for corpses, and for answers. One day, a member of Raraja's former clan catches up to him and dangles a tantalizing proposition: in exchange for clues about the rhea girl's whereabouts, Raraja must go into the dungeon alone. What could await him but a dark, lonely death? What awaits Garbage but a jagged, broken sword? And what slumbering legends might awaken in the blackest depths of the dungeon?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kagyu, Kumo

Weitere Mitwirkende

So-Bin

McCann, Sean

Leseproben

“Awoooooo!!!”

The redheaded girl howled as she sprang at the stone devil. Her broadsword whizzed through the air, shattering the fiend into hunks of rock. The blade swung left and right, without regard for whether it hit anything, scattering pebbles across the burial chamber with each strike.

“Eek...”

“Damn it! Show some restraint, moron! We can’t get in there!”

Obviously, these haphazard swings posed an issue for her comrades—Berkanan and Raraja.

The boy Raraja cursed up a storm. Beside him, Berkanan put one hand on her triangular hat, attempting to shrink into herself. Considering her great size, it was a futile effort.

she wondered.

The Dragon Slayer, which rested on her hip, had remained silent ever since the recent battle against the red dragon. Now it was just a good sword, maybe a little sharper than most. Its motivation seemed to have vanished entirely.

Pathetic as it was to admit, Berkanan sometimes stroked the pommel, wondering if that battle had all just been a dream. At this point, Berkanan couldn’t imagine herself as a dragon slayer.

Yet, by comparison...

“Wow...”

“Arf!!!”

Garbage was the best she’d ever been. She swung her broadsword with gusto, scattering the pack of monsters. In a way, that was the same as ever—and yet, Berkanan felt as if the girl had even more vigor now. After all, Raraja, who used to be able to keep up with her, was currently lagging behind as he swung his dagger around, parrying blows from the gargoyles.

Garbage took the lead, diving into crowds of monsters, scattering them, and then moving on to the next group. The girl was having the time of her life. At least, that’s how it seemed to Berkanan as she watched Garbage smile with her fangs bared.

“Is it because she was bathed in the dragon’s blood?” Berkanan wondered aloud.

“Perhaps,” murmured Iarumas. He stood at the rear, watching with one hand resting on the black staff at his hip. Deep inside his black cloak, his eyes were focused—not on the three frontline fighters, but on the corner of the burial chamber.

Berkanan reflexively looked in that direction. Her eyes widened.

The creature was massive. Goat-headed. And it was lumbering toward them.

“A new enemy, incoming from the side,” Iarumas warned.

“Wh-Whaa?!”

“Berkanan!” Raraja shouted, still surrounded by gargoyles. “You handle things over there!”

“R-Right!”

Her voice cracked as she responded to her name, but despite that, Berkanan headed toward the demon. From her perspective, her movements felt rapid, but to any objective observer, they would have seemed sluggish.

Drawing the Dragon Slayer in place of her staff, she sang out words of truth.

“Kafaref tai nuunzanme ()!”

The sleep-inducing miasma of KATINO surrounded the goat-headed demon, blotting it out, obscuring it from sight.

Indeed, Berkanan had learned spells other than HALITO, the little fire. This was proof—at least one mote of it—that her fight against the dragon hadn’t been a mere dream.

And even if KATINO was still only a first-level spell, the most basic of basics in the dungeon, Berkanan saw things differently. For her, each spell was a joy. They filled her with love and pride, so much so that she wanted to cast them whenever she had an opportunity.

Even a lesser demon was still a demon. Berkanan glared at the fiend, willing her magic to penetrate its spell resistance, though that mental effort had no impact on the result.

In reality, she must have just gotten lucky.

“GARGLL?!”

“I...did it...!”

The demon slumped to its knees, a threat no longer. At least, not until it reawakened. With the beast incapacitated, Garbage and Raraja could fully focus on the gargoyles.

Berkanan now understood why the other adventurers had been so dismissive of a mage who couldn’t even cast KATINO. Though she had expanded her spell repertoire, she had no interest in switching parties, even though she probably could.

“Nice one!” Raraja yelled.

“Heh heh...” Berkanan smiled, but not because of the compliment—it was a grin of satisfaction. Usually, her role involved drawing enemy attention away from the others, and she had been forced to behave more like a fighter. But this time, she’d been able to do her job as a mage.

It was rare that Iarumas needed to draw the black staff that was the origin of his sobriquet—Berkanan already knew that the staff harbored a saber with a frighteningly sharp edge. The color reminded her of stories she’d heard back in her homeland about a type of lacquer, dark as the night.

When Berkanan had asked Iarumas if his sword was the one from Hiren, he’d simply said, “That’s a good one,” and denied it with a smile. “If it were, I could tell you that there’s no opponent more rewarding than a frost giant.”

That was probably a joke. Berkanan had only heard of such giants in the myths her grandmother told her that said, she also hadn’t seen dragons or demons before coming to the dungeon.

“Are demons supposed to show up here...?” Berkanan wondered.

The gargoyles were demons too, but they were weak, minor ones. They couldn’t even take form without a statue to inhabit. Lesser demons were another story. Despite their diminutive name, they were powerful enough to manifest themselves in the living world.

Maybe the ecology of the dungeon was still all messed up after the fire dragon went on its rampage, but...

“If you wanna think about that stuff, fine, but save it for we’ve taken care of these things!” Raraja shouted as he desperately evaded a stone beak.

“Oh, right...!”

Berkanan lumbered forward, then let out a listless battle cry and swung around with the Dragon Slayer. Despite her lack of energy, the sword was still magical—more importantly, that massive body of hers made her stand out. It attracted attention. There was no reason the gargoyles wouldn’t go after a girl whose flesh shook with each great swing of her enchanted blade.

“Wh-Whaa...aaaaaah?! There’s a whole bunch of them...?!”

“Nice!” shouted Raraja. “Keep on keeping ’em busy—just like that!”

It was now his turn to go on the offensive. Abominations of stone—there was no way his blade could pierce them. Raraja would have once thought this, but now...

“They’re not so hard compared to dragonscale!”

The boy crouched, entering a gargoyle’s blind spot, then pounced, his dagger gripped tightly in one hand. Aim set on a vital point—then one sharp thrust.

This insight was a product of the experience Raraja had gained through surviving—proof of the growth he had achieved.

And thankfully, the creature’s right eye was softer than a dragon’s.

“GAGLLL?!”

The eye shattered as Raraja’s dagger plunged inside the socket. A cry of pain ripped out of the gargoyle—it sounded like a burbling drain spout.

“Y-Yahhh!”

And with the mass of stone blinded in one eye and writhing on the burial chamber floor, it was easy enough for even Berkanan to smash it. The golden ring on her finger sparkled as she unleashed a comically huge swing. Combined with the massive size of her body, the strike hit with almost titanic strength.

“KLINK KLOCK?!”

There was a satisfying cracking sound as the stony devil was battered to smithereens. And all that power from a mage! How many of the world’s fighters would have envied her blessed physique? Yet Berkanan found her form less than agreeable. Oh, unfair world.

“Groaaar!!!”

None of that mattered to the tiny shadow that raced through the dancing dust—Garbage.

The girl left the rest of the rocky things to the yappy one and the big one—she focused her aim on the sleeping idiot’s head. Her entire body tensed like a coiled spring, and then she let loose, unwinding, dancing with her broadsword. The blade sliced through the air, tearing straight toward the goat’s forehead.

“Gling?!”

Steel bit into flesh just a little, and then, with frightening ease, her broadsword shattered.

The excess momentum sent Garbage careening across the floor, the broken sword still in her hand. In front of her was the demon, now released from KATINO due to the painful bruise she’d inflicted (damage).

But Garbage’s focus (hit points) was still intact. With a low growl, the redheaded girl sprang forward, broken blade in hand.

“Awoooooo!!!”

Claws reached for her, but Garbage slipped past them. She raised the broken sword and smashed the pommel into the demon. The weight of that pommel, which had been enough to counterbalance the blade of a broadsword, came down with enough force to make the goat’s skull rattle.

...