Chapter 27: Chapter 27: And a pretzel in the sofa
"Umu… Yuuto? Are you there?" Momonga crept closer to a sound of swishing blades that originated from within the 'garden' behind the manor in his new estate.
It seemed that the boy had started to release his pent-up aggression that had seemed to pop up after he had recovered from his shell-shock that had come from 'Momon's fight with the two nuns.
He considered if he should interrupt the blonde boy, and came to a conclusion that he might as well try to see what exactly was troubling him.
Yuuto seemed to be meditating, kneeling on the ground. Except that he had a vast array of swords of different kinds arranged into a circle, each of the blades pointing away from him.
In his hands he held a regular saber, and he seemed to swing it almost testily from time to time… and then Yuuto brought out a european-styled large longsword and swung the saber at it.
Both blades shattered from the hit, and the boy returned to his meditative stance.
'...Odd. Is the sword-breaking part of his training? Just how many weapons do you have in your Inventory, Yuuto?' Momonga sighed as he knocked on a nearby tree to alert Yuuto to his presence.
The boy jumped up instantly, and then sat back down quietly as he noticed that 'Momon' was looking at him. "Momon-san."
"Yuuto-san." Momonga bowed his head slightly to convey that he intended to talk. "I was wondering if you were interested in having a small talk. You seem distressed?"
"I… wished to have a few words with the Executors you… hm, recruited." Yuuto's voice was strained.
"Why? They are part of the Peerage now, so please don't harm them. Unless they harm you, that is." Momonga's curiousity rose. 'Does he have a personal history with them?'
"I have my reasons."
"Would you be willing to share them? Maybe we can help each other?" Momonga proposed, and Yuuto seemed to think for a while before coming to a conclusion.
"Very well, but in exchange… Do you have the Excalibur shards those two women were wielding?" The boy's tone was strained.
"Excalibur shards? Oh, that blonde girl screamed something about 'Excalibur mimic' or somesuch." Momonga connected the dots. "Uh, sure. But what are you planning on doing with them?"
"Destroying them." Yuuto's tone was strained with warning.
"Ah, is sword destruction some skill of yours? Every sword you break is added to your inventory or something like that?" Momonga realized. "That's fairly useful. Although, if those two girls end up consenting to becoming proper parts of my Peerage then I'll likely return the swords to them-"
"NO!" Yuuto's tone was filled with so much rage that Momonga paused. The boy's usually composed and calm altitude was completely gone, and only rage and madness remained in his eyes. "Those… things… MUST BE DESTROYED!"
"Umu... " Momonga felt sweat dripping down his neck. The display reminded him of the time when Ainz Ooal Gown had gone to raid a dungeon, and Ulbert had found a cool red cape which Touch Me had wanted, and the argument that had followed. And then the duel that had followed the argument for the rightful owner of the cape, which Touch Me had won. 'Well then. I have loot Yuuto wants, but something I also need in case I need to garner goodwill from those two girls… Ugh, it's one of these things again…'
"I have some other swords in my inventory, would you like some of them instead?" Momonga thought about a few 'cool' blades he had moved to his inventory before the shutdown of YGGDRASIL but didn't have much emotional attachment for him. "I sort of need those two, umu, Excalibur blades."
Yuuto lunged at Momonga, causing him to take a step back in surprise. Then another, followed by ducking as the boy drew a club from thin air and tried to brain him with it. "NO! YOU WILL GIVE THEM TO ME! NOW! I will not allow ANYONE ELSE TO BE…"
"[Hold Species]" Momonga pointed his finger at the boy who snapped still and fell over on the ground, mid-swing and with momentum carrying him off balance. 'Good grief… Well, I guess we should duel over the ownership of the swords… Hm? Come to think of it, this might be a good chance to try that out…'
He released the spell, and Yuuto sprung up instantly.
"Listen, I propose a deal. We duel, with blades, and the winner keeps the swords. Does that sound fair? Oh, also, let's try not to kill each other or wreck my place." Momonga suggested before Yuuto could charge him again. It seemed that the words were enough to pierce through Yuuto's rage, and the boy stopped his charge with visible effort.
"...What was that spell just now?" Yuuto asked suspiciously as he took a step backwards. "Nevermind, that's not important right now. Very well, I accept your challenge, Momon. Let's… Gaak?"
"[Perfect Warrior] [Create Greater Item]" Momonga chanted and grasped his now-gauntleted hand into a fist. 'Hm… It seems that Yuuto isn't overly worried about me using YGGDRASIL spells. I might be able to reveal myself a little bit more, a bit by bit… until the truth no longer shocks them. After all, frogs jump from boiling water but sit willingly in warm water that gradually warms to boil.'
[Perfect Warrior] was a self-defense spell that Priests, Clerics and certain types of Mages could learn in order to transfer their 'class' temporarily to that of a level 100 warrior, complete with stats and item restrictions to match. However, the spell wouldn't give them class-related abilities, which meant that going toe-to-toe with actual Warrior class would be a very one-sided affair. However, if the caster was caught off-guard or nearly out of mana, they'd be able to resist longer as an ability-less warrior than as an exhausted-non-warrior.
Momonga figured that it'd be only fitting to challenge Yuuto into a sword-duel thanks to the boy's ability, and was fairly confident that he'd be able to match with the boy in melee when he had [Perfect Warrior] up, if the battle he had witnessed between Yuuto and a Death Knight was anything to go by. With luck he'd be able to give experience to the boy as well, and see if there were other ways of gaining experience than just killing someone.
Momonga reached to his back and drew the pair of greatswords from their latches, swinging them to his sides.
His new, black full-body plate armor seemed to absorb light, giving him an advantage as the day started to come to an end and the sky turned crimson like the cape he had created around his shoulders in homage to Touch Me's cape, although his new black and gold-tinted helmet looked more like medieval knight's helmet than a power ranger's white helmet that Touch Me had favored.
"Well then, let's go, Yuuto!" Momonga challenged, and Yuuto seemed to shake from his stupor. "Come at me, and claim your Excaliburs… if you can!"
For some reason Momon thought he heard something squeak girlishly, but disregarded the sound.
Momonga's words seemed to enrage the blonde boy to no end, and he answered the challenge with actions rather than words.
The swordsman called forth a long katana and charged, and the other 'swordsman' met the charge with his two greatswords, a signal for a fight that would have caused any of the Peerage's other members to watch in awe and fright.
'...Hmmm… Interesting.' Momonga thought as he parried a wild blow from the blonde boy, the swordsman discarding the weapon after Momonga's parry caused his stance to open up and pulled another weapon from his inventory to close the opening. 'I wonder if he's ever going to run out of weapons? He's discarding them at an alarming rate… is the Excalibur fragment truly so powerful or interesting that he'd sacrifice so many weapons just to get one of them?'
Steel clashed on steel, and the air was filled with buzzing of razor-sharp blades with neither side budging, but with Momonga deliberately holding his attacks back so he wouldn't end the fight prematurely.
"GRAAAH! [Flame Sword]!" Yuuto pulled a flaming blade and swung it at Momonga… or would have, except that the plate-clad dark warrior threw his greatsword at the boy and knocked the burning sword out of his hands, the blade sticking point-first into the garden's soil twenty feet or so away and causing the grass around it to start to smoulder.
"Please don't wreck my estate." Momonga told the boy, lifting his remaining greatsword on his shoulder.
"...STOP PLAYING WITH ME!" Yuuto screamed. "HOW?! How are you matching me?! Why are you stopping me?! Fight me properly!"
"Umu… calm down. You're not going to be able to touch me when you're lost to rage. I'll even give you a handicap- I won't move from where I stand. So come at me when your head is clear and your thoughts are in order, or you'll never touch me." Momonga advised. 'Hm… I could just use [Create Greater Item] to make another sword, but this gives me a chance to experiment a bit… let's see what's so great about this…'
Momonga reached into his inventory, disguising it as him drawing something from his hip, and drew a… long string of paracord? 'Huh? I wanted to draw the Excalibur shard…'
He glanced at the string and remembered that the girl from before had used some sort of call to transform the blade into actual weapon. 'What was that… umu… Oh yeah… wait… ugh, I'm really glad that the magical girl isn't watching... '
Momonga felt the horror of the chuuni grasp his soul as he prepared himself mentally, then lifted the paracord high in his gauntleted hand.
"REND, EXCALIBUR MIMIC!" Momonga called, the helmet masking his furious, embarrassed blush, and causing his wobbly voice to turn deep and resounding.
The blade turned into… an officer's dress saber, akin to one used by elite guards during Euro-Arcology wars back in Suzuki Satorou's world, the military group after whose uniform he had designed the… uniform of his creation in the treasury of Nazarick.
Momonga swung the saber instinctively towards Yuuto so the blade pointed at the boy, while Momonga's mind had officially gone offline.
'...That's… something I wanted to equip Pandora's Actor with, but didn't have time to farm reagents for a weapon that it wouldn't hamper its shapeshifting abilities...'Momonga's mind silently rebooted itself. He desperately wished to be able to cast [All Appraisal Magic Item] on the sword, but his spell-casting was effectively nullified as long as [Perfect Warrior] was active. '...Wait, did Excalibur Mimic read my mind?!'
He could have sworn he heard a female squeak from somewhere nearby but discarded it, focusing his attention on Yuuto who looked as if his world had turned upside-down.
"Y-you can wield Holy Swords?!" Yuuto finally broke out of his stupor, more enraged than ever. "WHY? HOW? WHAT DID YOU SACRIFICE? WHO DID YOU SACRIFICE?!"
The boy flung himself to combat, his earlier form breaking into wild swings that had no finesse or control but was more akin to a child throwing a tantrum with bladed weapons.
"Remember! Control yourself, Yuuto! Don't let rage control you!" Momonga tried to remind the boy, but his mind seemed to be completely gone.
"RRAAAGH! [Destruction Sword]!" The boy's rage reached a crescendo and he pulled an ominous, two-handed daemonic sword that swung towards Momonga slowly, utterly disregarding speed just to deliver a single hit and leaving Momonga unable to dodge thanks to the handicap of not moving from his spot.
The blade's aura made Momonga somewhat nervous, so he used his created sword to intercept the blade… only for the power within the daemonic sword to pulse, shattering the sword Momonga had created with [Create Greater Item].
'Ah, so that weapon is equivalent to a… hm… high-class item? It feels as though it has enough mana to classify it as such, and has the ability to break weapons… Interesting.' Momonga's mind formulated a new strategy in a flash as the heavy two-handed blade continued its swing. 'Ah… so he's trying to break Excalibur Mimic by having me parry the blade with. Cunning. I did tell him to come at me with a clear mind, and I'm glad he took it to heart even if he's pretending rage on the outside… Very well... '
Unwilling to break his handicap-promise to not move, and unwilling to let the boy break the Excalibur, and equally unwilling to use his superior speed to just stab the boy past his swing with Excalibur Mimic and slay him, Momonga decided to take the hit with his body, relying on his health to tank the hit.
"Guh!" Momonga felt the blade cut into his side, cutting through the armor thanks to the sword's item-breaking ability and sliding between his ribs, coming to an end close to the center of his chest.
The blade's energy detonated, showering the grass below the two with Momonga's host body's blood.
He thought he heard a shriek somewhere in the distance, but discarded it.
"W-ah?" Yuuto's momentum caused the boy to topple over, the blade tearing off his hands almost as if he hadn't been expecting the hit to connect.
Momonga grabbed the blade with his free hand, keeping it trapped in case Yuuto tried to pull it out from 'Momon's chest and swing again.
"...No… I…" Yuuto, however, seemed to be quite distracted by something. "No! Momon-san!"
'Hm, that hit took… Around one or two percent or so of my health? Although, my health is augmented quite a bit by [Perfect Warrior]'s stats-shift from caster to warrior so that would translate to… hm, loss of four percent of my health in normal circumstances?' Momonga considered the hit. 'This sword is definitely a high-class item, so it might have been able to even pierce my [High-Tier Physical Immunity] if my body had it properly. I still have [Body of Effulgent Beryl] active so the explosive and bludgeoning damage from the blade is mostly nullified, but the daemonic energy proportion still causes damage as it's not negative energy, but rather a different kind of energy altogether. This has been a fruitful experiment.'
'I wonder if this is Yuuto's trump card or if he has even more interesting swords in his inventory?' Momonga pulled the blade stuck to his chest partially out. "Good hi-Blugh!"
'Oh, yeah, a hit to the lungs. Blood everywhere, and blood flowing out my fleshy body's mouth will garble any words I'll try to get out.' Momonga sighed, causing even more blood to splatter on the grass through the breathing slits in his helmet.
"No- no! No! Rias, Asia!" Yuuto seemed to panic and started to shout towards the manor, so Momonga placed his gauntleted hand on the boy's shoulder to calm him down, stabbing the Excalibur Mimic to the ground and grabbing the daemonic sword in his chest with the now-freed hand. "Momon-san, I… I didn't… I didn't mean to... please don't die! Asia! ASIA!"
'Die? Oh, right. This kind of wound would be fatal for a regular human. Or devil, I guess.' Momonga sighed, realizing his mistake and grimacing as his blood splattered on Yuuto's chest through the holes in 'Momon's helmet. 'I need to find a way to activate my [High-Tier Physical Immunity] or some sort of fleshy regeneration so I don't turn blood-coughing mute whenever my lungs are hit.'
Yuuto's daemonic blade fell to the ground as Momonga finished pulling it off and stepped back, half expecting the boy to grab the blade and continue the fight since Momonga had shown that he was still capable of continuing, and half expecting the boy to halt the fight as it looked like Yuuto thought he had killed 'Momon'.
"No! Not again! I… I won't lose more of my comrades to the Holy Blades!" Yuuto screamed, throwing himself against Momon and placing both of his hands futilely on the long slice in 'Momon's chest armor where blood was pouring out. "ASIA! PLEASE!"
"Bughg." Momonga felt resigned as he was unable to do much for the boy's panic. 'I wonder if I could just cough up all the blood in my body in one go and then speak normally?'
He discarded the theory, figuring that if he tried to do so then Yuuto would likely flip out completely as he seemed quite distressed. 'Doesn't he remember that supposedly 'Momon' can regenerate? He shouldn't be this surprised… or did something happen in his past and he's having a flashback to something else? He said something about not losing more comrades.. has he killed his 'comrades' in the past? Ugh, challenging him to a duel was really insensitive, wasn't it...'
'Momon' reached to pat Yuuto's shoulder again, and the boy fell to his knees, his eyes lifeless.
The armored form of Momon knelt on one knee so the two would be roughly on eye-level with each other.
"Blugh… guh… Hack!" Momonga's new attempt to speak didn't help Yuuto's mood.
"I'll run to get Asia! Don't move! Please!" Yuuto tried to throw off the gauntleted hand from his shoulder, but Momonga didn't lose the grip.
'...If Asia comes and sees me like this, she'll likely pass out or tries to heal me, fails, and then passes out…' Momonga sighed, feeling that the blood in his lungs started to come to an end on the account that his fleshy body had bled most of its blood on the ground that was now stained in crimson. "Y- Blurh- uuto…"
"Momon, I'm… I can't… I didn't…" Yuuto tried to respond. "I- I didn't think I just… I thought, I thought you'd dodge, that you'd parry me, I didn't mean to…"
"Urgh…" Momonga put both his arms on the boy's shoulders to keep him up as it looked like Yuuto would keel over soon.
"...Holy swords… No… It wasn't the holy sword that killed you. It was my rage. My foolishness. You told me… You told me to be calm, to not let rage overcome me…"
Momonga was surprised to see tears falling down Yuuto's eyes. "Y-uuto, Blught… I'm not… dead…"
Yuuto froze on the spot. "A-ah?"
"Cough… R-regeneration… I took that hit… intentionally… it was a good hit… Y-blurgh-your strategy was cunning… you tried to… guh, break the… blurgh, Excalibur fragment…" Momonga coughed out. "So… figured out you didn't think… that I'd get hit… instead…"
"A…. ah. Aha… Ahahaha!" Yuuto shook and it looked like his strength failed him as he fell to the blood-stained grass like a doll whose strings had been cut. "Ahahahahaha! Aha… Momon-san… You're cruel. Cruel teacher."
"S-so… I guess that makes me the loser." Momonga figured that it wouldn't be sportsmanlike to continue the fight after the whole 'wounding' spectacle. So he reached to grab the Excalibur Mimic that he had stabbed to the ground, and reached to his inventory for the Excalibur shard the blue-haired girl had dropped alongside Durandal. 'Well, if Yuuto breaks the swords and adds them to his inventory, I can just ask to borrow them later and see what's up with the Excalibur Mimic…' "Here, the Excaliburs…"
"...No. Keep them." Yuuto seemed to calm down. "I… I already placed my vengeance too high. I see what you were talking about. I consider myself a good student, so I won't force my teacher to repeat his lessons, not when they are taught with blood."
'Eh?'
"You showed me… you took the hit deliberately. I was only focused on the Excalibur, no, on the holy sword. Blind to everything else. The Holy Sword Project, where I was forced to fight to survive and to kill my friends… I swore vengeance after escaping, I swore on the memory of those who had been killed for the sake of Holy Swords…"
'Umu, what exactly is he…'
"...But you are correct. A blind man with a blade will only hurt those around him. I was so focused on destroying the Excalibur that I didn't even consider the fact I could have killed you with it…"
'I didn't, I just used my health to tank the hit…'
"...Hah… You're cunning, Momon-san. You could survive that hit, to teach me a lesson in humility. If I destroy the holy swords, I won't bring my dead friends peace, only my rage would create more bodies out of those who had been turned to Holy Sword wielders, people like myself. They were never my enemy. Nor were the Holy Swords…"
'...Did I hit Yuuto's head by accident?'
"...Keep the swords. They are just tools, and you've made me see it. I've been foolish, I've chased after the sword, but it is not my enemy, and neither is the hand wielding it, but the one who has ordered the blow to be struck." Yuuto seemed to recover from his bout of insanity. "Ha… When did you get this wise, Momon-kun?"
"Umu…" Momonga sighed, resigned that things were just happening around him. 'Yes, I'd like to meet this wise Momon-sama as well, and ask him what happened just now?'
"Ah!" the voice of a young girl invaded the garden and the two saw Asia running towards them, almost tripping over the comfortable indoors dress she wore in her desperation. "Momon-san! Yuuto-kun! Are you alright?! What happened? Is that blood? Why- why is there that much blood? What happened? Did the 'Supreme Being' attack?!"
The girl's voice turned increasingly panicked and her face paled in equal measure as she took the scene.
"Asia, Momon… ah… nevermind, regeneration, right?" Yuuto tried to explain the situation to the panicking girl, and got up to his feet slowly. "We were, um, having a friendly spar, Asia-san. Ah, this blood isn't mine, it's um… well… Momon-san's"
"MOMON-SAN'S BLOOD?! FRIENDLY SPA- uuuuh…" Asia seemed to suffer a critical consciousness failure upon realizing that the blood around the garden was Momon's, and she slumped down on the grass, completely out of it.
She recovered her consciousness almost instantly afterwards, however, and half-dived, half-sprinted towards Momon and tried to heal him. "Work, please work, [Twilight Healing]!"
The green light refused to enter Momonga's body, as had happened before, so Momonga just shrugged and grabbed the girl with his still-armored hands to keep her from devolving into a panicked mess when the healing failed. "I'm alright, Asia-san. I regenerate. I was, umu, just having a duel for the ownership of two swords, I guess. Yuuto won but decided to let me keep them."
Yuuto backed away slowly as Asia turned her eyes towards the blonde boy, and for some reason Momonga felt as if he had thrown Yuuto under the truck.
"Yuuto-san… You're the worst." Asia's glare and words seemed to hurt Yuuto's very soul, and the blonde boy bowed deep towards the two after realizing his position.
"I'm sorry, Momon-san, Asia-san! Please forgive me!"
"It's all good. Don't worry about it." Momon waved his gauntleted hand while Asia hesitated, realizing what she had said to the blonde boy, and seemed deeply upset by her own words.
"I-it's alright, Yuuto-san, I shouldn't have…"
Momonga sighed as the two went back and forth with apologies. 'I guess I'll have to spend another health potion to restore this body… I need to seriously find an actual regeneration or healing ability that I can use instead of the consumables, I'll run out eventually otherwise… I wonder if Yubelluna knows about something like that? I found the mana potion when we went, umu, 'shopping'… She might have a lead...'
He sighed. It seemed that based on Asia's explanation the two Executors hadn't woken up yet, so Momonga had some time to kill.
'Well, might as well use this chance to get to know my Peerage a bit better…'
.
.
"Phuah…. My heart almost stopped." Serafall was lying on her back in a bush. She had thrown a stone to the window of the room where 'Asia-tan' had been squatting in, and the healer had apparently looked out of the window and seen the aftermath of the 'fight' that had happened in the garden.
In truth, the magical girl had freaked out royally when she had seen Mo-kun get skewered like a sweet potato, but it looked like the situation had resolved itself without her needing to get too involved with it.
"So Mo-kun is fairly good dad if his dad-like actions with that cat-girl were anything to go by, sans the tail-pulling, he's actually strong if that fireball thing was any indication, he's pretty good sword fighter although his form is kinda crude and more focused on strength and natural speed than good form, and is good at resolving issues between family members, or other people." Serafall counted, lifting a finger for each point and drawing a line over a corresponding sentence in a small pink notebook she had on her lap. "And he won't die instantly if something hits him! If he's a good lover too then he's the perfect package! So-tan chose super well!"
And… and…
Magical Girl Levi-Tan's heart beat louder and louder as she remembered the cool black knight-armor 'Mo-kun' had donned, and the two cool blades he had used, and then the super-cool dress saber he had pulled with a dramatic flair and cool catch-phrase.
"Aaaaaaah! I want! I want! I want!" The magical girl kicked her feet in frustration in a petulant display of her true colours, which were pink and more pink. "Beelzebub-tan, you're super mean! Why can't I make Kings into my own Peerage members! Unfair! Uncalled for! I waaaantttt!"
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