Looking back, those days may have been like hell.
The reason she did not think of them as hell was probably because she was too busy to even spare the time to think so.
It was not merely piling up corpses.
Not merely forging swords.
Not merely imitating and absorbing techniques.
Not merely training without rest.
Infiltrating the ranks of the demon army itself was, for Reinie, a battlefield where she could not let her guard down for even a moment.
She could not flaunt her power—yet she could not afford to be looked down upon either.
By feigning weakness while subtly advertising her usefulness, she escaped the capricious and unreasonable blades of slaughter.
Especially, restricting her mana so as not to display her strength was the same as forcibly suppressing the instincts and impulses of a demon. If she showed even the slightest fluctuation in her mana, it would provoke their wrath. The accumulated mental strain from this would drive an ordinary demon mad in less than a day. One mistake meant being left isolated and defenseless, her life constantly at risk—an extreme environment. That Reinie managed to deceive them all and continue accomplishing her objectives in such conditions meant her mental fortitude had reached something close to the realm of the divine.
—
However, once the days of execution ended and peace returned, faint cracks began to form in her mind.
She should have been longing for a proper life as a demon, and yet she still could not bring herself to eat human flesh.
Perhaps it could be called a lapse, but the moment that slackening arrived, thoughts that had never crossed her mind before began to rush through her like a revolving lantern.
—
What meaning is there in being good at killing people, if a defective demon who cannot eat humans?
—
Demons regard humans as prey—or simply as food. For Reinie, they never even reached the level of food; at best, they were merely prey.
No matter how skilled she was at bringing down prey, once it was killed, it became meaningless. When she tried to eat, her tongue—having learned the bitter taste of iron—refused to accept it.
After the days of execution ended, how many times had she thought of attacking humans at her whim? Yet not once had Reinie been able to put that into action.
For the sake of preserving her anonymity, she could kill them without the slightest hesitation. But when it came to eating, she could not bare her fangs.
—
What in the world is this?
—
There was a sensation of being eaten away by something.
With the end of hellish days and the return of peace, she had become aware of one facet of her own self-contradiction.
To begin with, on what basis had she believed she could return to being a proper demon?
Because she could not eat humans like a demon should, why had she turned her fangs so relentlessly on her own kind?
That scene still would not leave her mind. A memory of humiliation she could not forget, no matter how much she wished to.
She should have more than repaid that humiliation by now. And yet she could not forget it.
No—since escaping from hell, it felt as though the number of times it crossed her mind had only increased.
What meaning was there in recalling something long past? It was utterly pointless. It gained her nothing.
It was in the way.
In the way.
Get out of my head already.
It's you. You're to blame for everything. As long as you remain in my mind, I can never live as a proper demon.
You are nothing but an obstacle.
—
How can I make you disappear?
If I live like a demon and continue eating humans cleanly, will you vanish?
After killing so many humans already, would eating them now really make you disappear?
—
I should have been able to save so many more—so why won't you disappear?
—
What more am I supposed to do?
With no room left even to pay attention to her clouded thoughts, Reinie questioned herself.
Had the Demon King not been slain by the hero's party, perhaps she would never have agonized this far.
Perhaps it would have been easier to keep grinding herself down—until even those passing images faded away—while wallowing in anguish.
And thus, what gnawed at Reinie was nothing other than this half-baked peace.
She did not want to think about anything.
Once more, she longed for hell.
Once more, she felt the urge to waste herself away as a sword of execution.
"My body is made of swords…"
She had recited the chant countless times—yet somehow, there was no strength in her voice.
It was too late to return to being a proper demon.
And yet, she could never become human either.
"Even so… it is made of swords…"
And so, the girl chose to flee into being a sword.
She had done this so many times before that she was no longer even aware it was an escape.
—
Steel is my body, my blood does not flow, and fire is my blood;
my heart is a whetstone.
—
But the girl was about to learn something.
A sword without a sheath, left perpetually bare, will rust away.
There is no hollow vast enough for blood to circulate. And so, it can be polished endlessly, its brilliance restored again and again.
Yet if one keeps wielding a sword that never returns to its sheath, and polishes it every time it rusts—
—
"Reinie… you filthy disgrace to mages…!"
—
She would come to realize that both the sword that was her body and the whetstone that was her heart would eventually wear down.
The clash of blades resounded, the crackling roar of surging mana filled the air.
All of it was aimed at a single girl. Yet in an instant, those who unleashed it vanished, leaving behind only the girl and one massive man.
The sound of mana faded away, and before long, only the ringing of steel governed the world.
Facing one another stood a demon of the rank known as General, and a slender-bodied demon girl.
The general's sword was swung with unmistakable killing intent. In contrast, the girl's blade moved awkwardly, her heart seemingly not fully in the fight, displaying an almost unsightly lack of focus.
Mana overflowed from the general's body, raging as though about to burst apart. The girl's mana, by contrast, was frail—like a wavering balance scale.
And while the general's physical strength was mighty enough to crush the girl in a single blow, the girl's strength was fragile to the point of seeming ephemeral.
—
Even so, the girl was overwhelming the general.
—
As demons, the general's rank should have been clearly superior. And yet, the girl's skill overturned that hierarchy entirely.
"Guh—why…?!"
The general, his expression twisted in agony as his shoulder was cut, swung his greatsword again—but it never struck the girl.
In strength and mana alike, he should have been superior.
Even knowing that the girl had been deliberately limiting her mana until now, that fact should not have changed.
And yet—he was being pushed back.
"Why—!? Why must I be driven back by the likes of you?! By a wretch who deceives others by suppressing her mana?! Why must I—?!"
Replacing his right arm, rendered useless by the wound to his shoulder, he swung wildly with his left. Still, he could not hit her. She was not particularly fast—yet she danced like a butterfly, evading him as she spun like a top.
And in the opening created by his wide swings, the girl's treasured sword slipped in.
"Gah—!"
What was pierced was his heart.
It was supposed to be a sword without killing intent. And yet, the techniques etched into her being—the body that remembered those techniques—effortlessly pierced his heart.
The general's blade, raised for another strike, came to a halt. Still, his eyes continued to glare at the girl.
His mind was so completely dominated by rage that even the thought of begging for his life never crossed it.
And yet, he could not bring down his final blow.
With a sickening gush, the sword twisted mercilessly inside his body, stirring his insides. The general felt a chilling air pass through his chest.
Then, sideways, his heart itself was carved out.
From that point, his body began to collapse backward, dispersing into mist as it turned into mana.
Even then, the girl did not look at him.
As she stared silently at the palm of her own hand, the general's rage reached its peak.
"Reinie… you filthy disgrace to mages…!"
That curse never reached Reinie.
His massive body scattered into particles of mana and vanished.
Reinie stared at her palm as if deep in thought.
Her eyes trembled with unmistakable agitation—an expression wholly unlike her usual self.
"My… my mana control… was exposed?"
She muttered the words in a trembling, broken voice.
The palm she stared at was shaking, just like her eyes.
The fact that she had committed a blunder she had never once made during her days as an executioner gouged deeply into Reinie's heart.
There was no sign of decline in the techniques she had copied and honed, nor in her swordcraft—if anything, they were still steadily accumulating and improving.
And yet, the mana suppression she should have honed just as carefully—the very foundational technique that had made her infiltration into the demon army possible—was wavering.
The general Reinie had just fought, along with the troops under his command, were a demon unit aiming to join up with the remnants of the Demon King's army gathering in the north.
Having resolved to return once more to the role of executioner, Reinie attempted to infiltrate that unit—and failed midway when her mana suppression was discovered.
The betrayal itself was not exposed. However, for demons who regarded hierarchies determined by mana as absolute, the mere existence of a kin who deceived others by suppressing their mana was unforgivable.
Thus, an ambush born of deception was no longer possible. Instead, Reinie found herself isolated and forced to face her enraged kin alone.
What saved her was that the combat experience she had accumulated during her executioner days already made the oncoming horde of demons trivial.
She quickly dealt with the lesser foes around her, and soon found herself in a direct one-on-one confrontation with the general who led them.
Between Reinie and the general was an overwhelming disparity. In mana, in physical strength, in build—Reinie was inferior in every respect. The difference in rank as demons was so vast it was almost despairing.
However, through her executioner days—spent constantly fighting and surviving while isolated—Reinie had acquired skill enough to overturn that disparity even in a frontal clash. Skill alone would not normally be enough to wound a general-class demon with a body like solid rock, but Reinie could generate the weapons needed to compensate on her own. Moreover, without switching weapons or altering her copied techniques to confuse him, she fought and won using only a single replicated blade.
And she did so while mentally shaken, her mind not fully present due to the shock of her mana suppression being exposed.
Even so, it went without saying that, for Reinie, this was already a failure unimaginable for her executioner-era self. Even if she possessed the strength to defeat him head-on, she had never once resorted to such an unreliable, careless approach.
When she had first begun her work as an executioner, there were moments of clumsiness. But those were issues of hunting methods or tactics—never once had her mana suppression been exposed.
And yet, this time, it finally had been.
A fluctuation in controlled mana was nothing other than a fluctuation of the mind.
The heart that was supposed to be immovable—a heart that had used countless humans and hunted countless demons alone—was now wavering.
"…So what, really?"
You again. You're interfering again.
It would be one thing if you merely unsettled me—but to interfere even during an execution like this?
Don't screw with me.
I wasn't supposed to deal with these ones yet. I was supposed to join them, link up with the Demon King's remnants gathering in the north, and then resume demon hunting.
And yet—here I am, stumbling over something this basic.
No matter how capable Reinie might be, she would never attempt to reach the north alone. As the Demon King's remnants gathered there, the human side was also beginning to concentrate elite warriors and mages in the north.
She would not head into such a demonic hellscape by herself. She might possibly have the strength to do so alone—but "possibly" was not enough to act on.
This is bad. This won't do.
"…I'm calling off going north. At this rate, I'll definitely be traced."
She was confident that ordinary demons would not notice her even now. But against demons skilled in mana detection, like this time, there was a near certainty she would be exposed. That was how far her mana control had deteriorated.
Before heading north, she had to do something about this "wavering."
She still intended to continue hunting demons, but considering the risk of this wavering being detected, infiltration tactics that relied on lowering their guard could no longer be used lightly.
She would have to rely primarily on methods that allowed her to finish them off from a distance where the wavering could not be detected—without being noticed at all.
"Process: Roll. Break: Decomposition."
She decomposed the treasured sword in her hand into mana.
The black sphere of magical energy reverted to its original state, then began to take on a different form once more.
"Imitation Blade, transformation off."
She muttered the words weakly, and at the same time the mana that had shaped the treasured sword transformed into her familiar white longbow.
A modified bow crafted from the most durable material Reinie had ever encountered, its string replaced with a filament boasting unparalleled strength—one wielded by a certain demon.
By combining the archery of Valheit that she had copied and refined with the keen eye she herself had trained, sniping from a distance beyond detection without being noticed was a trivial task.
"…For a while, I'll make this bow my main weapon."
She discarded the sword and took up the bow.
For some reason—she felt a sense of defeat, as though she had lost to something decisive—yet Reinie still chose it.
Rather than using a risky method, she chose a more reliable, lower-risk approach.
That mindset was the greatest reason Reinie had survived this long.
And yet, she had never once abandoned the sword that allowed her to make use of her imitated techniques.
At least, Reinie herself was aware that this was because honing the single spell known as Imitation Magic: Airphasen was the only way of being that still felt demon-like to her.
The sword is the symbol of weapons—the most straightforward form a weapon can take. Among the many types of melee arms—axes, spears, daggers, and other blunt weapons—swords were the most commonly used by both humans and demons alike.
In other words, for Reinie, abandoning the sword meant discarding the majority of the techniques she had copied so far. To most demons, throwing away the fruits of all their past training would have been an unforgivable taboo. But because Reinie was an aberration, it was a compromise she could barely accept.
Still, she felt that the reason for this sense of defeat lay elsewhere.
In the end, Reinie—whose very foundation was that of a demon—could not understand it.
No matter how close she came to his swordcraft, the decisive lack of empathetic ability that prevented her from ever experiencing possession was the clearest proof of that.
She had already given up on ever fully catching up. Precisely because of that, she took greater pride than other demons in this magic—her one and only, one-of-a-kind power—that allowed her to compensate.
But if asked whether that was the reason, it somehow felt different.
"…It doesn't matter. Right now, I have to do something about this wavering."
Because Reinie excelled at mana detection more than anyone else, she understood it clearly. No matter how slight it was, she could acutely sense her own wavering—and for her, this decline in mana control was fatal. She could no longer continue hunting as she once had.
Even so, Reinie told herself that what she had to do had not changed.
—
After walking a little farther, she could see signs of human life in the distance.
Unaware that demons had just been fighting one another nearby, a calm, peaceful atmosphere drifted through the area.
"..."
Reinie gazed at it indifferently.
Unable to eat humans, humans were not active prey for her.
Though she had killed so many that those words had lost their persuasiveness, every one of those deaths had been necessary for her hunts.
It was her policy that no one who learned of her hunting would be allowed to live.
In other words, if she judged a kill to be necessary for her hunt, she would carry it out without mercy.
And so, that village had originally been slated to be left to its fate.
The village lay along the planned route of the demon unit she had infiltrated earlier.
Had her mana suppression not been exposed and their advance not been halted, the stench of gruesome death would have been rising from that village by now.
If she was to infiltrate the remnants gathering on the northern plateau, Reinie would at least have had to behave as a member of their army until then.
She had even intended to actively point out the hiding places of fleeing villagers to demonstrate the usefulness of her mana detection to them.
In other words, that village was a settlement saved only because of Reinie's blunder.
For Reinie, that village could have become the clearest symbol of this fatal mistake.
It should have been nothing but detestable—
—
Then what was this feeling, settling softly into her chest?
—
It was close to the sensation she remembered from the days when she still hunted inefficiently, before she had begun using humans—but Reinie never arrived at an answer as to what it was.
With a vague restlessness that would not let her stay still, Reinie turned her back and disappeared into the darkness of the forest.
That night, Reinie slept beneath the trees.
Back when she had been in that village, she often indulged in lazy sleep beneath the apple trees of the farm just like this. She dimly recalled that when she awoke, there had been two people smiling gently down at her.
—
The hand gripping the cloth wrapped around her body trembled, just slightly.