Artoria the Big Liar

——And this is exactly as I planned.

The corners of my mouth are curved, trying to look as polite and confident as possible.

"Teacher, have you seen French movies?"

"French movie? Seems like you've only seen one "Amelie"? Haven't seen anything else... No, there's also "This Killer Is Not So Cold". I almost forgot, this is also a French movie. Because I watched The English version, so I ignored it subconsciously.”

"That's a pity. If the teacher read more, he should be able to understand the core of French culture. Although rationalism was born here, this is a romantic country, sometimes too romantic. As long as you like it, you will work hard to like it, because Shyness and hesitation are rare things. Even if this kind of like cools down quickly, they will speak out directly to avoid hurt and pain for both parties. The Germans say that the French only do five things in a year-eating, Sleeping, strikes, vacations and relationships. Although slander and exaggeration, this statement is not groundless."

"Oh? So that's how it is... This is also what is advertised in "Amelie"."

"Jeanne is that kind of person. As for me... I'm British and I've been taught to be reserved about it, but on the other hand, I've been taught to be responsive about it, and it turns out It's a passive acceptance."

It's a lame excuse, but it looks convincing.

What's more, this is Japan, and the concept of "grouping" only exists within themselves.As long as they give a reason, they will convince themselves that they are rare and strange, and they do not ask foreigners to "do as the Romans do".

Maybe people of the age of the head teacher don't think so, and it's even more nonsense among the students.

But for the older, more traditional school executives, this kind of thinking has become almost an instinct.

"That's it... so I understand. Yuya-san is very good at explaining this matter in this way."

"Thank you, teacher, for your praise." Following this route, I decided to continue inducing, using some form of intimidation to achieve concealment and deception. "As for the troubles caused to other students... Sorry, teacher, because of the different cultures, Jeanna regards this matter as a very common thing. If she has to take compulsory measures against Jeanna, she will probably take more radical measures , to combat what she sees as 'injustice' - the existing order itself. If this happened, I'm afraid everyone would be even less happy."

This is actually a prejudice against the French, but it is very convincing for those who have never been in contact with the French.

At least they themselves find it very convincing, but ignore that people are different, or simply don’t understand what kind of country France is, and only summarize a superficial and one-sided facial image from newspapers, TV, or literary works.

The teacher in charge nodded, seeming to agree with my statement.

"Cough...that's true, it's France after all...but, Yuya, are you okay?"

"You mean...?"

"The eyes of others, the evaluation of others."

"The purpose of the HEMA Department is to cultivate chivalry. It is my duty as a knight to protect Jeanne."

"...It seems that your family raised you as a male."

"Not really. It's my own choice based on the actual circumstances."

"Will this be too tiring?"

"As long as the people who support me are by my side, I can continue." Then, I blurred the boundary between fact and fiction, and brought the head teacher into her self-conceived story: "And... teacher, reality is not always satisfactory .Even sometimes, the reality will always be unsatisfactory, forcing people to the borderline between rationality and madness, forcing people to accept pressure and responsibilities that should not belong to them... Teacher, after such a thing happened, I have nothing else to do. I still have people to take care of, and I have to move on. I have to do this, I can only do this.”

"Ah, sorry, Youya-san..."

"It's all right, sir. That's all in the past after all."

"...Anyway, I understand this matter. Thanks for your hard work, Youya-san."

After a few more polite greetings, I left the teacher's office building—with a satisfied attitude.

My image, the image of a witch, has been completely solidified among the head teacher, teachers and even the school management.

This image is between the real and the fake, as fragile as soap bubbles.But as long as no one takes the initiative to puncture it, for a long time, it is a stable, beautiful psychological suggestion worthy of shouting happily or crying sadly, full of error correction and self-movement of the parties involved, and finally As far as no one has raised any doubts.

The witch at the door is still waiting for me.She was a little surprised, and seemed to think that I should stay inside for more time.

"How is it? Did that woman say anything?" The witch can read minds, and she saw through the identity of the head teacher at the first glance. Naturally, there would be no respect or affection in her mouth-no matter what era, witches and magicians are mutual. Two species that are hostile.

"The matter has been settled. No one from the school will bother us about this matter."

"How did you explain it? Could it be a lie?"

"No, I'm telling the truth, every sentence is true, but the connection part is blurred. To others, this kind of vagueness is a polite euphemistic description, or it can only be described because of past scars. Indirect disclosure. As a result, the listener will use emotion and logic to complete the vague part, produce wrong conclusions and cognitions, and create the effect of deceiving himself.”

"...The result is still a trick?" The witch thought for a long time, and finally thought about this.

Sure enough, even if she can read minds, even if she is a bit clever, the witch is still a little fool with no formal education.

"It's an advanced deception." I explained the benefits of this deception in detail. "This deception does not violate the bottom line, and there is room for interpretation and understanding when it is exposed in the future. At least it will not be like a scam. Once the deceived understands the facts, the relationship will turn into an enemy. Just let the other party understand. The other party misunderstood me, not I deceived the other party, and the other party deceived himself again, allowing the deception itself to continue."

"So... have you ever used this on me?"

"There are three situations in which I will use this trick. One is when negotiating political affairs, one is when I don't want to hurt the other party, and the last is when I have to cover up certain facts-this time is the last one. And, You can read minds, right? In addition, you are the Witch of Dragons, even if I really use deception, it is impossible to really deceive you."

The witch pouted, not satisfied with the answer.

I used to be a political creature.And the most basic quality of a political creature is—unless it is fully confirmed, never speak too much, and leave room for yourself and the other party, so that things can be done well.

The sun is gradually slanting to the west. Although it is not evening yet, the clouds in the sky have begun to turn red.

I led the witch to move on.Pedestrians on the road either cast curious eyes or whispered to fellow travelers.

I'm not interested in how they feel.This kind of stuff is easy to guess.The witch didn't care, instead she took my arm and swore sovereignty over the whole school, not paying attention to these students at all.Everything is exactly the same as earlier.

On the way, the witch asked casually.

"Youya, what are you going to do next?"

"Society activities. I want to recruit five members before the end of this semester. Counting you, there are now four people. It is the last week now, and final exams will be held on Thursday and Friday. There are only three days left for us. sky."

"Huh? I want to come too?" The witch's eyes widened, and they were full of reluctance. "Come on, I don't want to play tricks with these students! Can you see that? Jeanne Darc was 20 when she died, not 16."

"It's a club for learning swordsmanship, not a play house." I explained simply.

"Swordsmanship? What am I, a witch, learning swordsmanship? As long as I find the flag and the sword, I can summon dragons and flames. I don't need swordsmanship at all. Have you ever seen a magician who is good at close combat? Isn't it all about manipulating demons or summoning energy? Attacked?"

The corners of my mouth trembled - because there were counterexamples around me before, and there were more than one.

"In theory. But in actual combat, you will often be forced to get involved in melee combat..." After a pause, I remembered that the witch has no interest in this kind of theoretical knowledge, so I explained it from another angle: " Let me put it another way. Both Morgan and Merlin are strong in melee combat. Especially Merlin, her swordsmanship is on par with mine, stronger than Lancelot. In fact, the fighting method of the "Children of the Forest" is based on Magic strengthens one's own body, obtains wild protection and strength, and uses weapons to fight. Merlin does know a lot of goblin magic, but she is a member of the 'Children of the Forest' after all."

There is a very famous strategy game on the Internet called "Age of Empires 2", in which the Celtic indigo raiders are the way these druids fight.The famous movie "Braveheart" also made a fairly accurate restoration of this point.As for transforming into various beasts to fight, this is something that has only appeared in the last 50 years-almost as long as under-done steaks, and has little to do with the original thing.

What I didn't expect was that the witch's attention was completely lost on the logic of what I said.

"Uh... Arthur, are you serious? Merlin? Her? Merlin is also a woman?"

"...Yes. Merlin is indeed a woman."

Even though he really didn't want to admit it, Merlin's words that night had given enough information.

It's just that I have no way to respond... At that time, I had already embarked on a road of no return, and I couldn't respond to anyone.

"You and Merlin also...?"

I kept silent - should I take it as the default?

Anyway, the witch can read my feelings.My silence is the best answer.

The witch raised her eyebrows, not feeling surprised at all, on the contrary, it should be so.

"Tsk, it seems that you are indeed very capable...don't tell me that the Knights of the Round Table are also women."

"Of course not," I said. "Only Mordred, Gareth, and Lanmallock are female, and the rest are male...Gareth is too young. And Lanmallock doesn't like me." , but Morgan, as the legend says."

"It's okay...it's nothing surprising. As a king, it's impossible to have no love life. Aren't Capet and Valois like this? Even sending people to the palace is not given at all." Looking back... No, it’s still different. Anyway, you can’t do the extravagance of the Carolingian series and the debauchery of the Capet series. You don’t even dare to respond to the other party’s feelings, so that’s it. .”

This witch spoke as if I was cowardly and dared not take on responsibilities and feelings.

Relying on her ability to read minds, the witch immediately switched expressions just like switching masks in a Noh drama.

"In short, since you want me to join the club, I can't have any other answer, right? Just as a practice with you? Anyway, if you're not around, I'm pretty boring and have nothing to do. And, If you don’t want to practice swords, it’s a little abnormal…” Realizing something, the witch continued to ask: “However, you said there are four people? Who is the other person?”

"It's an ordinary boy...maybe not so ordinary, but it's really different from us..."

At this moment, my words stopped.

The sky turned scarlet in an instant, and the sun was as dark red as dying.

The wind stopped completely, the branches beside the road solidified, and there was a smell of blood in the air.

This is a magician's great magic, which has been arranged for a long time, and with a large amount of blood as the medium, there may still be many lives.

Feeling the abnormality of the space, an emotion of regret spread in my heart.

"That's really bold, this magician..." The witch chuckled lightly, completely ignoring the caster. "Arthur, it seems that the peaceful life you expected is coming to an end. This is an enchantment, and the time inside the enchantment is stopped—or it can be completely controlled by the creator of the enchantment. What, you feel very sorry ?"

Taking a deep breath, a smile finally appeared on the corner of my mouth.

This is the end of the peaceful life... Originally, I was quite afraid of this.

But now, it seems that because the witch is by my side, some knots in my heart have loosened.

So, I raised my hand.

Viscous darkness oozes from my wrist, gathers, shapes, and condenses along my fingertips, and finally forms a sword - 1.3 meters long, slender as an awl, equipped with a British short U-shaped Gauntlets, exceptionally lightweight.The scarlet ring of triple greatness and the inscription of the fairy are engraved on the sword body.It is more like a training sword for practice than a thickened and widened epee for combat use.

Even so, no one can deny its power—it is darker than darkness, not even light can escape, and even space is distorted, as if wrapped in a fog of distorted cognition, as if a nightmare is composed of fear and malice.Not to mention steel, even space occlusion and even causal barriers, it can easily cut through it, just like its literal meaning "broken steel sword".

This sword is my answer to the witch.Only this sword is enough.

"Is this the holy sword?" the witch asked with great interest. "As mentioned before, the one given to you by the Holy Grail? It fits your temperament quite well!"

"That's right...that's the sword." I replied softly, my eyes fixed on the false sky. "However, its essence is no longer the pseudo-noble Phantasm given by the Holy Grail system. It merged with me, was swallowed by darkness, tempered by darkness, and showed the form I expected according to my will - it has long been Not the holy sword, but the arm of the tyrant, the claws of the evil dragon."

(5346 words in this chapter)

Chapter 23: Dimensional Demon

The enchantment is scarlet, the sky is dark, and the dying stars are swaying decay and destruction on the ground.

As if I was walking down the street yesterday, I held the witch's hand in my left hand and my sword in my right as I walked around the school.

It's not a purposeful advance, but simply telling the maker of the enchantment that I am here, waiting for a response.

The response came quickly, less than 2 minutes in total - as I expected, a hostile response.

The space is like a cracked mirror, forming a gorgeous crack like an aurora.From this crack, four humanoid creatures shrouded in black mist drilled out, holding four kinds of weapons: long sword, long spear, short bow and staff respectively.

Black mist blurs their outlines, obscuring their features.The strange power makes their body structure constantly change, sometimes tall and sometimes short, now male and female, now old and now young, extremely weird, as if I am in a nightmare at this time, and these humanoid creatures are nightmares within nightmares.And these weapons, like their owners, are shrouded in black mist, constantly changing the details.

It's a pity that the emotion called fear has long been stripped from my consciousness. No matter how bizarre it is, it is not a nightmare for me-these things don't scare me at all.

"It'll be fine in a while, I'll take care of them."

After leaving the witch with these words, I let go of her hand, and changed the posture of holding the sword to hold the hilt with both hands.

Then, dark red magic power burst out from my feet, and I turned into a jet of black lightning, attacking the four humanoid monsters.

In the blink of an eye, before the swordsman could react, I had already arrived in front of the swordsman.

Its speed is very slow, and it instinctively wants to raise the sword to block.But I, who was holding the magic sword, didn't care about these at all, and slashed across without any change.Then, the slender magic sword seemed to be sliced ​​across soft cheese by a table knife, and the human body and the sword were cut into two flat halves.

The magic sword is too light, even lighter than the training sword, and it is extremely easy to control.I suppressed its potential energy without any effort, and immediately changed my move. One upward pick took the life of the gunman who hadn't made a move yet.

At this time, the archer had already drawn his bow, and the pitch-black energy turned into an arrow, which pointed directly at the witch in the distance.But it is too slow, these humanoid creatures are too slow, so slow that I have already dealt with two of them, and I haven't fully drawn the bowstring yet.

Then, just for a moment, the slender magic sword cut and shredded it, like a piece of carrot thrown into the air, easily cut into pieces of equal size.

It's a complete waste of time - and that's what I'm aiming for.

These humanoid monsters are obviously imitating the "Servant", the highest level of familiars composed of spirit seeds and magic power.Servants' abilities and characteristics are bound to weapons and to their ranks.Among the Servants, the worst class is the Warlock who uses magic.

The warlock in front of him showed his shortcomings to the fullest.

On the one hand it was slow—so slow it was almost unreasonable.Without the support of the position, he could only stand there and chant the mantra dryly.Moreover, chanting mantras requires posture, and one cannot move easily.Not to mention other servants, even if it is a slightly stronger soldier, if he fires a gun with a shuttle of consecrated mercury bullets, the warlock will be defeated and he can begin to say his last words.

On the other hand, this sorcerer didn't observe my situation, so he just fired a football-sized yin qi bullet with his staff in such a bitter way—this is one of the most common attack methods used by magicians. Corrosion condensation.It's almost as stupid as trying to douse a flame with gasoline.

I sighed helplessly in my heart, without dodging or evading, I raised my left hand to catch this Yin-Qi bullet.Then, the darkness swallowed the darkness, the curse drowned the curse, and the energy of the Yin Qi bomb was easily absorbed by me, turned into a part of the dark magic power, and dissolved in the blood.

Originally, I wanted to keep it and see if I could find some clues and intelligence.Now, it has proved this idea wrong with its own behavior.And I stopped wasting time, like I've done training countless times, cleanly chopping it up into the same size pieces, thousands of them, about the size of a sugar cube.

At this time, these puppets faded away from the black mist, revealing their true posture—no face, no physical features, knees and elbows are ball joints, and the whole body is pure white, completely body dolls.It was only because of some strange power that it was transformed into a shadow-like existence, and was ordered to attack, just like the skeleton manipulated by the necromancer in the story.

Of course, the strength is of course stronger than the skeleton.However, when the strength reaches my level, there is no difference between a skeleton and a doll.

The battle is over.The witch wanted to come to me, but I stopped her.

"Wait a minute. We have to deal with the aftermath."

Japanese kendo has a concept called "canshin", that is, one must remain vigilant after the opponent has fallen.Similar concepts are common in martial arts around the world, and modern militaries also use pistols to fill the heads of enemy corpses as battlefield norms.

In order to prevent these body dolls from moving again, or suddenly approaching the witch to self-destruct.I took a little bit of effort to cut the swordsman and gunman dolls that were cut in half into pieces, and used dark magic to corrode all the pieces, and the white doll pieces turned into burnt yellow and blackened jelly It is similar to being splashed with concentrated sulfuric acid, and has absolutely no possibility of being used as waste.

"All right."