The Tale of A Man Who Believed That His Reincarnation Had Granted Him A Japanese Sword And The Greatest Battle Sense, Only To Have The God Finally Inform Him "Huh, I Didn't Give You Any Combat Sense… That's Scary…" - Episode 30

“I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to keep you out so late… It’s already past midnight…”

“Don’t worry about it. We can’t just let a woman walk around alone late at night, and if it’s just you, Lito-san, you’ll keep drinking even if you lose track of time, right?”

“Thank you, my cute boy… With this, your big sister can keep drinking tomorrow and the day after without worrying about anything.”

“……If you drink too recklessly, I’ll just roll you into an alley and leave you there.”

I lent my shoulder to Lito-san, who had comfortably vomited various things onto my clothes, and we walked through the streets of midnight Redinbara, stopping occasionally to rest.

Originally, I intended for her to go home alone after I took care of her, but her face turned ashen, almost white, after she tried the elf’s homemade liquor. It felt wrong to part ways with her right in front of the store, looking so pale as if she had put on white makeup. So, I ended up accompanying her close to her lodging.

Ms. Lito was literally drinking like a fish in the Forest District, where the common people of Redinbara live, but the place where she was staying seemed to be in the Cloud District, the upscale area, which was a bit of a distance away.

In the deep night of Redinbara, faint bird calls can be heard from afar. Only the light from lanterns set up as streetlights illuminates the road, and although there are occasionally buildings with lights on along the street we are walking, basically all the buildings are already dark. Moreover, it is just me and Lito-san walking around, with no one else in sight.

The area where the bars are lined up and where I picked up Lito-san had plenty of open shops and people on the streets even at this hour, but here, there’s absolutely no one. It’s as deserted as a late-night terminal station where you end up after getting drunk from your boss’s harassment and taking the Chuo Rapid Line or something.

“There’s hardly anyone around here, is there? Have they all gone to bed already?”

“Hmm? … Ah, here it is. This place definitely has fewer people staying up late at night.”

A slightly tense and dignified atmosphere returned to Lito-san’s face, which had been all floppy from drinking. While saying “Whoa, whoa,” and swaying, Lito-san started walking on his own and lightly explained as he walked along the road.

“This place has a nearby location called ‘Witch’s Mouth.’ Do you know about it, Enri?”

“Yes, I saw it a little while ago when I was walking around the city with Laila.”

The Witch’s Mouth, when I visited with Laila, didn’t look that solid, but it was a hole about three meters in diameter in the ground… I think. They say women who were subjected to the Inquisition threw themselves in.

“Once, the ‘Great Witch Angelica’ ruled this land with violence and fear, along with the first king, Goddess Sama, and some knights who happened to be around to defeat her. But the residents of Redinbara still vividly remember the time when they were under the Great Witch’s control.”

The sound of her pin heels echoes alone on the completely deserted street.

“After the first king left this land, the people living in Redinbara formed a self-governing body and started indiscriminately interrogating anyone who resembled the Great Witch. Executions and more executions. The bl00d kept flowing until the loyal knight Noel put a stop to it.”

“Until Noel appeared, a blonde woman resembling Angelica, fearing a cruel death at the hands of the Inquisition, threw herself into the mouth of a witch.”

“The people who live near the Witch’s Maw never go out late at night. The women who threw themselves in would drag the living into the Witch’s Maw… you know what I mean! Well, it’s just a custom, I guess.”

Late at night, in a deserted street, Lito-san finished his explanation with a lot of atmosphere. No, it was genuinely scary, more like a ghost story. It wasn’t just an explanation; Lito-san narrated it with full immersion to scare us, right…?

“Hee hee hee,” Mr. Lito laughs mischievously. “This person definitely explained it just to scare me.”

“But you know, that place is just a big hole. I don’t know how deep it goes, but… should we go check it out? The Midnight Witch’s Mouth might even sober me up a bit.”

“Yeah… it’s just a bit scary, isn’t it? It’s dangerous because it’s dark.”

“That’s great! That’s great! Look, look, someone as strong as you, a swordsman, has roots and leaves too… but you shouldn’t be scared of superstitions!”

“Alright, let’s go!” Lito-san cheerfully swayed his cool, pitch-black jacket and strode deeper inside. I thought, “I don’t like this, it’s genuinely scary…” but despite feeling a bit scared inside, I followed her and stepped into the pitch-dark square.

As you move towards the center, the ground slopes down, and the square in front of you, shaped like a bowl, is almost entirely shrouded in darkness with very little light. In the center of the square, there is a hole surrounded by a simple fence, which is the place referred to as the Witch’s Mouth that has been the topic of conversation.

When I visited with Laila during the day, it didn’t leave much of an impression, but coming here in the dead of night feels completely different. It’s scary. I want to go home. Let me go home. In my past life, I was the type of person who couldn’t even go to the bathroom after watching ghost shows on TV.

Lito-san, with a light step, headed down to the center of the square and peered into the large hole. Since she was still feeling the effects of the alcohol and might stumble and fall in, I hurried to her side.

“See, Enri! There’s nothing here, right? Superstitions, superstitions, there’s no way something could drag us in☆”

Out of a morbid curiosity, I also peered into the witch’s mouth. Inside the wide-open maw spread a dark, pitch-black void, just an indistinct expanse of darkness, and it didn’t seem like anything was actually there. Letting out a sigh, I turned my back to the witch’s mouth and was about to leave the place with Lito-san, who was laughing cheerfully. It was then.

I heard a squelching sound as something grabbed the gravel-covered ground. The sound came from directly behind me, which meant it was the witch’s mouth. Feeling an unpleasant presence, I glanced back and saw something protruding from the large hole. It was a long, thin, pale human hand. Not just one, but two, three, four, and many more hands were crawling out.

Gooch… gooch… The sound of slime splattering fills the air as something massive writhes and crawls out of the hole. At the same time, the atmosphere in this place begins to change. A clear sense of murderous intent permeates the quiet midnight air.

“Enri?……!?”

Lito-san seemed to not grasp the situation for a moment, but soon sensed the strange atmosphere in the room, and the relaxed expression on his face completely vanished. Lito-san and I turned our bodies towards the thing that had crawled out of the large hole.

In a sense, it was human—a woman’s face with matted, slime-covered blonde hair, a torso with bloodless, pale skin like flabby flesh, hands desperately flailing to grasp something, and legs trembling as they struggled to support an oversized body. However, they were not one.

From the flabby mass of white flesh, faces, torsos, hands, and legs protruded in various directions. It was extremely blasphemous and had a nauseatingly grotesque appearance. There were legs at the bottom of the white flesh mass, but the faces, torsos, and hands grew out of the mass in a completely irregular manner, as if they had been forcibly thrust into it.

“To us, salvation! To us, salvation! Save the great grand witch, save the great grand witch… Help us, help us, Lady Angelica, help us… It hurts! It hurts!!”

Twenty faces simultaneously whisper the same words at a volume that seems to echo. Their hands reach out with the force of breaking something nearby, and their feet, though unsteady, are definitely coming this way.

From that mass, a murderous intent filled with a sense of resentment and desperation is directed towards me. A monster, a yokai. I thought I could avoid killing it if it returned to its hole, but if it harbors intent to kill, then I will cut it down no matter what. I place my left hand on the sheath, lightly move my right hand, and slowly advance forward.

“Lito, get away from me.”

“No, I can’t leave it all to you.”

Lito showed a slightly hesitant expression before murmuring “Limited Release Half-Release” and summoning a spear to her hand. The spear was familiar. It was a twisted, bloodthirsty red-black spear, the very one wielded by the Dusk Knight she had encountered at the swordsmanship tournament.

“Enri, um…”

“Talking comes later.”

He spoke briefly to the neighboring female knight and immediately directed his gaze to the white mass of flesh. It stood about ten shaku, roughly three meters tall, and was as wide as four large men lined up. It appeared to be swaying, but in reality, its feet were firmly planted on the ground, and the swaying motion was merely a ruse to lure in its prey.

Sending a glance at the female knight, he immediately takes off running. Using all the fingers of his right hand, he firmly grips the hilt and swiftly draws his sword. Taking a deep breath, he stomps his right foot into the ground with such force that it seems to crack, and with that momentum, he thrusts the tip of the sword straight into the mass of flesh.

The chunk of meat, without even having time to cry out in pain, reaches out in every direction, as if clinging, tearing, and crushing.

He struck the pommel with his left hand, flicked the pointed blade upward, and forcefully hacked through the mass of flesh, cutting it upwards with a gouging motion. Drawing his right foot back in a semicircle, he smoothly slashed away all the hands that reached out, like leaves fluttering in the air, without losing the momentum of his powerful upward strike.

The miserable mass of white flesh lets out a roar of anger and approaches with its massive body.

“Save us! Great Grand Sorceress! Help us! Why! It hurts! It hurts! No! Stop!”

The massive lump of flesh that tried to cling to her was precisely pierced through by the knight’s thrust, who charged at it with the force of a warhorse from the side. The knight, using all her body weight, drove her spear deep into the lump of flesh and shouted.

“Pierce, open, penetrate, my magic spear!!”

The red-black spear held by the female knight exudes an extraordinary presence. Instantly, she leaps back two or three steps, and countless thorns protrude from every part of the white mass. Each thorn has a small stick protruding from it, serving as a barb, and a moment later, the mass lets out a weak scream.

The white mass of flesh, pierced by countless malevolent thorns and a spear, knelt weakly, transforming into something like black sand and dissipating as if nothing had ever been there. With a single swing of the sword, it twirled in his hand and sheathed the blade.

The excitement of battle was dissipating with the silent night breeze that was blowing in. When I looked over at Lito-san, he was murmuring “Re-seal Return” and returning the spear he had summoned back into the void.

“Ah, ahahaha… Wow, as expected of you, Enri… I guess I didn’t even need to help you, huh? Um, sorry about that… okay?”

“There’s no need to apologize, well, for now, shall we have a leisurely chat?”

The Witch’s Mouth Square, now devoid of the blasphemous-looking monster, was utterly peaceful. The monster had broken the fences set up around the hole when it emerged, but that was about the extent of the damage. The white-fleshed monster had screamed quite loudly, but no one had come out of the surrounding buildings.

Lito and I sat down in a suitable spot in the square and gazed at the hole from which the monster had just crawled out.

“That was something, wasn’t it? I cut it out of impulse.”

“Well… judging by how it disappeared, it seemed more like a curse imbued with magical power or a summoning spell close to a curse rather than a living creature. But honestly, I don’t really understand it. Maybe a court magician would know.”

There was a brief pause, and Mr. Lito began to speak, looking somewhat embarrassed.

“…I’m sorry, you know. I’m the one who will be your opponent in the finals. It’s not that I was hiding it, but I just didn’t have the right moment to tell you.”

“Is Mr. Lito that incredibly reliable-looking Twilight Knight… really?”

When I replied in a slightly joking tone, Lito-san slumped down as if a sound effect could be added, sitting on the floor with his head bowed.

“My family, or rather, my mom… she’s the real Twilight Knight. She was the one who won the last swordsmanship tournament, and even though the armor and weapons she uses look the same, the insides are different, you know?”

“By the way, what happened to your mother? Did she perhaps pass away due to an illness or something?”

“I did it…”

In response to my question, Lito-san answered in a barely audible voice, and I couldn’t quite catch it. When I asked her to say it again, she suddenly lifted her head from her seated position and, almost defiantly, said this.

“They eloped! That person! Can you believe it? They ran away with a young man from the country that was at war with our kingdom!”

“Uh, uh… a, elopement, huh…”

“That’s right, Enri! Can you believe it!? I was training back home when suddenly a letter arrived saying, ‘I’m going to live for love, don’t look for me, from Mommy ♡ P.S. I don’t need that spear, so I’ll send it later. You’re the head of the family from today.’ Can you believe it? It’s seriously over☆”

Thanks to the completely unexpected answer I received, to be honest, I had no idea how to respond. I mean, normally you wouldn’t think of something like that. I was thinking they died from illness or in battle, but eloping? With my modern societal values from my previous life, I could never have thought of that.

“The king couldn’t let anyone else know that one of the honorable four knights had eloped with a man from a warring country, so he came directly to me, bowed his head, and begged.”

“As the Knight of Dusk, I put on my helmet and served him. It felt like cleaning up after my mother, which I hated, but when it came to taking responsibility… there was no one else but me, right?”

“I was personally taught by the king about manners, language, and diplomatic strategies, but seriously, I can’t stand it anymore! No, no, no! I can’t handle it without drinking!”

Without caring that her hair was hitting me nearby, Lito-san let it all out in one go, shaking her head vigorously and scratching her head with a “Nooo!!”

“…Even this swordsmanship tournament, I was asked by the king and his subordinates to participate as a recommendation from the Port family. Well, thanks to Olivia, the head of the Port family, being a reasonable person, I got permission to do as I please as long as I participate in the tournament.”

Mr. Lito, sitting with his knees hugged and a lonely look in his eyes, continued speaking with a distant gaze.

“I came here a little before the tournament started. The people in the town are nice, the drinks are delicious, and even though I had to hide my identity, I could still do some adventurer work, so it was fun… but living a lie all the time is really exhausting.”

“I can’t tell anyone my secrets. Even if I do, in the end, I have to cast a forgetfulness spell. So sometimes, when I find someone I could get along with, I end up spilling it all out. Even if nothing remains in the end… I’m sorry.”

She stood up, sadly brought her left hand closer to me, and gently touched my head. It felt like a farewell gesture.

“Thank you for listening. You’re a kind boy… but, I can’t let anyone remember me. It’s okay to forget.”

“Great white waves, carry my memories away to the other side. ‘Drift Memories'”

A bubble-like thing of faint white light enveloped his head, bursting with a high-pitched sound and disappearing. Mr. Lito forcibly switched from his sad expression to the lively smile he always showed.

“Hey, Enri! For a place called ‘Witch’s Mouth,’ there wasn’t anything special, was there? There wasn’t anything in particular, and now I’m sober and can walk!”

She tries to continue the conversation as usual. Ignoring her, I check various parts of my body and try to recall my memories up to this point.

Lito-san is the Twilight Knight, the Twilight Knight is actually Lito-san’s mother, and Lito-san has an alcohol addiction due to stress. Alright, I can remember everything. Just like what happened at the Adventurers’ Guild, it seems that magic that affects the inner self gets completely blocked for some reason. After finishing the memory check, I told Lito-san with a deliberate look of apology.

“……Sorry, Lito-san. I just remembered, it seems like magic that affects the inner self doesn’t work on me. I remember everything.”

“………..Huh? W-What?! This is, like, the ultimate secret forgetfulness magic that I learned directly from the goddess herself, you know?”

“Lito’s mother eloped, and Lito became an alcoholic due to the stress, right?”

“Waaah!! The parts I especially wanted to disappear are all still there!!”

Mr. Lito, clutching his head and crouching down, began to escape reality while muttering to himself.

“Why, of all things, does the goddess’s forgetfulness magic not work on me? Is it my constitution, my equipment, the place I used it, or is it because I couldn’t properly refine my magic power? …Ah, what should I do? The king absolutely told me not to let anyone else know…”

Ah, how should I put it, poor thing. It’s just like when I was a securities trader, being forced to meet impossible quotas. I get it, I get it. When something unavoidable happens, you first check the situation, and then you end up acting while thinking, “There’s no way this can be done.”

I gently place my hand on Lito-san’s trembling shoulder and speak as kindly as possible to reassure her.

“It’s okay, I absolutely won’t tell anyone your secret.”

“Absolutely? … Hah, yeah, there’s nothing I can do about it anymore … If you look at it differently, it means I’ve gained more allies who understand my situation, so it’s a promise then.”

Lito-san, brushing aside her black hair and straightening the collar of her cool black jacket that looked somewhat masculine, offered a smile that seemed both resigned and filled with peace, and extended her hand. As they held hands, they exchanged glances, both feeling a bit shy.

“Thanks for keeping it a secret, but I’ll fight properly in the finals without holding back.”

“Of course, I’ll fight with all my might to properly take off Lito’s head.”

“That’s not something you say while shaking hands☆… I’m completely sober now, so I can go home by myself. Thanks a lot.”

Trusting her words now that she’s sober, I said goodbye to her in the square. Lito-san winked with a snap and cheerfully said “Bye-bye!” while waving her hand vigorously until I was out of sight.

“Well, that kid is that kid. We need to properly investigate that white curse-like entity before the king arrives.”

Her whispers didn’t reach my ears, and I returned to the witch’s staff storage area, along with the clothes that had been soiled and smelled of various things because of Lito and the monster.