WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Order

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◈ Paladin of a Ruined Order

Chapter 51

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A Single Strike

Mages who could reduce the damage by burning away the pollen with fire.

Elbridge, who could use divine power to block the demon's most crucial ability.

It was a demon almost too well matched to Elbridge, hard to find better.

'Still, I can't let my guard down.'

People unused to combat tend to cause problems out of tension and fear.

But people who've grown used to combat tend to meet crisis through carelessness instead.

Carelessness didn't have to be anything dramatic.

Just stopping the mind for a moment and letting the body move on habit alone.

That much was already enough to lose a life.

So even in the brief moment it took to close the distance to the demon, Elbridge kept thinking.

'How will the demon react?'

The most common behavior from plant-controlling demons was roots, stems, sharp thorns, or poisoned leaves erupting from directions that were hard to guard against.

'Then, right about now...'

As Elbridge charged the demon, he suddenly twisted his path.

A moment later, a sharp root burst up exactly where his foot would have landed. If he'd run without thinking, it would have skewered his foot clean through.

'Just as I thought.'

Elbridge kept running, adjusting his stride and shifting his angle little by little with every step.

Roots and stems shot up from the demon, aiming for him again and again. But dodging attacks like that wasn't especially difficult for Elbridge.

That didn't mean he could afford to take this leisurely, though.

An ordinary plant-type demonic beast attacked by "moving" its roots and stems. But this demon was targeting Elbridge by "growing" its roots and stems at explosive speed.

The two looked similar at a glance. But there was a critical difference between them.

A moving stem or root could simply be dodged, but a root that had already grown didn't vanish once the attack missed.

Which meant the space Elbridge had to move in kept shrinking with every passing second.

'I need to hurry a little.'

Given time, this demon would occupy every inch of space around it and eventually complete its own fortress.

It was exactly the kind of enemy that had to be dealt with quickly, even at some risk.

Elbridge's shifting form grazed past the demon.

Crack!

A deep gash opened in the demon's marble-like forearm. Not deep enough to sever the arm outright, but that was fine. Elbridge burned the feel of that strike into his memory.

'Hardness confirmed.'

Then he spun around at once, focused entirely on the demon's reaction.

The demon turned to look back a beat slower than Elbridge had. That delay gave Elbridge a clue.

'Its reaction speed is slow for a demon.'

'It turned its head even with its eyes covered. It's not used to being attacked from behind.'

'A demon unfamiliar with close combat, or maybe combat itself.'

Plants had already grown up around the demon and Elbridge, forming something close to a bird's nest.

The vines hadn't stopped growing. New vines sprouted from vines, new stems budded from stems, plain to see. The demon's pace of claiming the surrounding space kept accelerating.

The demon, this fortress of living plant, seemed to be speaking to Elbridge. That now was the only chance to escape it. That it could still let him out, if only now.

'That's not the right answer.'

In nearly every battle, time favored the demon.

If he pulled back now, next time he'd have to fight his way through a fortified stronghold just to reach it.

Even Elbridge couldn't manage that.

An old piece of advice from Leonhardt surfaced in his mind.

'A battle is like a road you can only walk once. Be careful before you take the first step, but once you've moved, you have to push forward decisively to the end.'

That was right. To minimize variables, and to raise the odds of survival.

The right move was to end this fight here, as fast as possible.

Elbridge swung his sword at the demon's neck.

"Hff!"

Most demons shaped like humans could be put down by taking the head or piercing the heart.

Thunk!

Sure enough, hardened wooden stems shot out to guard the neck.

'A feint?'

'No. This demon isn't experienced enough in combat to bother with feints. The neck really is a weak point.'

'Then what about the heart?'

Elbridge's sword abruptly changed direction, swinging down.

Elbridge's body had long surpassed ordinary human limits. But the arc his sword traced now put no small strain on his wrist and elbow.

Crunch!

Still, the strain was worth paying. That single strike tore one of the demon's arms clean off.

One arm. For a human, that would have been fatal. For a demon, it wasn't.

Both the demon and Elbridge knew that.

'What matters is the next move.'

Elbridge's arm bent again at an unnatural angle.

Before anyone could register it, his sword had flipped to a reverse grip and swept in horizontal.

Elbridge's blade drove into the stump where the demon's arm had been severed, digging deep into the spot where its heart should have been.

Elbridge held his breath and watched for a reaction.

But the demon only flinched, just barely.

'...Damn it.'

There were sometimes ones like this. Demons that couldn't be put down even by piercing the heart.

But in Elbridge's experience, demons like this always stopped moving once you took the head.

The problem was the situation had turned ugly.

The demon's vines, grown in an instant, were trying to pin down his sword and his right arm.

'If I lose the use of my sword, it's over.'

Elbridge responded more roughly than he normally would have.

He shoved the demon's chest back with his left arm while wrenching the sword free with his right.

Screeeech-

It worked. But the price was his left arm, still shoving at the demon's chest, getting seized by the vines.

Seized wasn't even the half of it. Sharp vine thorns dug straight into his left arm. A simple puncture wound would have been a mercy, but the pain in his left arm went numb almost instantly.

'Poison. A paralytic? Or something mixed?'

He was fine for now. The Goddess of the Rusted Shield would delay his death, and in that time, the Goddess of Spring Rain and Moss would grant her divine power again to heal him. He'd survived this way more than once or twice.

But that only worked up to a point. If he died outright from some physical cause while paralyzed, there'd be no healing left to matter.

Elbridge's eyes swept the surroundings fast. One goal. A gap where he could reach the demon's neck.

The search was quick, and the decision came instantly.

The muscles of his cocked right arm swelled.

Then Elbridge thrust his sword forward like a spear strike. The demon's vines reacted, late, trying to block his right arm and the blade.

He felt the sharp vine thorns tear into the skin of his right arm. Not deep, though. Elbridge didn't stop.

Screeeech!

With superhuman force, Elbridge drove the sword straight into the demon's neck.

The demon's eyes, hidden behind its blindfold, turned toward him.

And Elbridge felt the demon's will.

[Not yet...]

Elbridge snorted.

Right. You probably need more time. Which is exactly why I'm not going to give it to you.

Elbridge wrenched his right arm hard, twisting and tearing the sword lodged in the demon's neck. His right arm joined his left as a ruin of torn flesh, but he didn't care.

A flawless victory without so much as a scratch only existed in a child's imagination, or in some storyteller's tale.

A paladin's battle was always like this.

After no small measure of pain, the demon's vines finally stopped moving.

Elbridge felt the last of the demon's will fade away.

Then, a massive surge of divinity burst forth.

An amount of divinity beyond any comparison to killing a demonic beast.

Only a small fraction of it was something Elbridge could actually absorb. But even that fraction was enough to fill his vessel to the brim.

'If only I could consecrate the demon's corpse too...'

Elbridge's chest filled with a boyish thrill.

Out of all the countless battles he'd fought, the times he'd taken down a demon single-handedly were few enough to count on one hand.

Elbridge turned back and called out to the mages, "Seal it."

The moment he said that, his head spun.

'So it wasn't a simple paralytic poison after all...'

Elbridge's consciousness cut out.

"Seal it."

Elbridge left those words behind before losing consciousness.

It was a clear, simple request, but the reaction from the people around him came a beat late.

Even the Vice Master of the Central Magic Tower, not just the ordinary mages, reacted slowly.

'...What did I just watch?'

Even a highly skilled knight would have a hard time taking on a demonic beast alone, or so the Vice Master had heard.

But Elbridge had subdued not a demonic beast, but a demon, alone. A sight hard to accept even after seeing it with their own eyes.

'Alone against a demon...?'

Of course, Elbridge hadn't been the only one present in that space.

But not a single person there could claim to have actually helped him, so no matter how generously you judged them, none of them had risen above the level of spectator.

Only then did the Vice Master realize something important. Elbridge had asked for an acceleration spell, but the Vice Master had been so stunned watching the fight that they'd never actually cast it.

'I did something stupid.'

Face flushed red with embarrassment, the Vice Master of the Central Magic Tower approached Elbridge and the demon.

The Vice Master conjured a gust of wind to blow away every last trace of drifting pollen, then, just as Elbridge had, covered nose and mouth with a left forearm and began casting a spell.

The first step was separating Elbridge from the demon.

Shk.

The Vice Master swung their staff, and a sharp gust of wind rose and sliced through the stems and vines the demon had grown.

With the demon subdued, the plant matter, once harder than most metal, had gone as soft as ordinary wood.

The Vice Master pulled Elbridge free, then chanted alongside the mages who had gathered nearby, sealing the demon.

"The open door shall close, and the closed door shall be forgotten. Though the sun sets and stars rise, time shall not touch this place..."

Before the demon had been subdued, sealing it would have been no easy task even with dozens or hundreds of people.

But now that the demon was completely subdued, only a handful of mages were needed to finish the seal without much trouble.

Marcus, who had come running over, dug frantically through his belongings.

He pulled out a small glass bottle filled with red liquid, an Elixir.

'Good thing I brought this along. Somehow I had a feeling I'd need it...'

Elbridge had taken most of his wounds on both arms.

Not fatal wounds in themselves, but the bleeding was heavy.

Was it a wound bad enough to kill him? Bad enough to need the Elixir?

Marcus didn't know medicine, so he had no answer to that either.

But one thing was certain. Better to dump the Elixir on him and get an earful for it later than to hesitate and let Elbridge die.

Just as Marcus was about to twist the cap off the Elixir,

Hmmm-

The pillar of light from before plunged down again and wrapped around Elbridge.

In an instant, the wounds on Elbridge's arms vanished. All that remained were small scars.

"..."

Marcus still stood there gripping the cap of the Elixir.

Because Elbridge still hadn't woken up.

Marcus checked his breathing.

'Seems normal... or does it? A little slow, maybe?'

Marcus grabbed Elbridge's shoulders and shook him hard.

Elbridge still didn't wake.

'Should I feed him the Elixir now? I probably should, right? If I don't and something goes wrong, that's a real disaster...'

Just as Marcus, torn, finally moved to open the Elixir,

the God of Fox Rain sent down an oracle, the first in a long while.

- Marcus. Don't make a fuss, just stay still...

Marcus obeyed the oracle faithfully.

Elbridge was dreaming.

A dream of a woman with rough hands stroking a young Elbridge's head, whispering to him.

The woman spoke with sad urgency.

"Elbridge. Clench your teeth, put on your angriest face, and tell the man that you hate demons more than anything in the world... Understand?"

Elbridge nodded.

The woman pulled the small Elbridge into a tight embrace, and Elbridge hugged her back just as tightly.

It was soft and warm...

No, warm, but somehow not quite soft. More like a thick, shaggy texture instead...

'Shaggy...?'

Elbridge forced his eyes open with effort.

A wretched sight unfolded before him.

Rombel was in his arms, wearing a face like he'd bitten into a bug.

It was a sight capable of dealing serious damage even to a hardened paladin's spirit, so Elbridge protected himself with an instant reflex.

He shoved Rombel away with his left arm, and without meaning to, swung his right fist straight into Rombel's jaw.

Whack!

Rombel lost consciousness and slumped to the ground.

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