“Newbie, give us some light.”

“Could you at least call me by my proper name, Ganat? It’s already been a full year since I got here.”

“One year is still ‘newbie.’ I can’t feel any pride in this job from those eyes of yours yet. If you want my approval, move sharp and quick.”

No comeback to that. The young demon Ganat let out an exasperated sigh and lit the area.

“…Pride in a job like this?”

Light bloomed across the dark wilderness. Thick clouds squatted in the pitch-black sky, and the occasional gust stole the heat from their skin.

Outside the walls that surrounded Londmel, the holy capital of the Vasion Holy Kingdom, there was no sign of human presence. Only Ganat, now starting work, and his superior, Brine. Just the two of them.

The job was simple: “Erase all traces of demon activity without being witnessed by humans.” Because demons secretly controlled the human academy, jobs like this came up often; yet to the young Ganat, this one felt utterly unnecessary.

At the end of the light Ganat cast lay the corpse of a synthetic beast chimera. He had heard it was a monster created by fusing magical beasts with Sacred beasts… Frankly, even for work, he didn’t want anything to do with them.

“I heard these abominations were made by a crimson demon minister’s subordinates, right? Telling me to take pride in cleaning up the higher-ups’ mess is a bit much. I’d feel way more self-respect just killing humans!”

“Keep your voice down. What if someone hears?”

“It’s the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. Who’s gonna hear?”

Ganat thought, but kept the complaint inside and scanned the surroundings again. Still nobody.

“…The Hero’s Ghost.”

“Here we go with the cliché. Cut it out. Sure, I’m younger and have a brighter future than you, but I’m not a kid who gets scared by old ghost stories anymore.”

“Sorry for being an old man with no future. I’m not so bored I’d scare a cocky rookie with dumb rumors for fun. But this job apparently involves that so-called Ghost… If I put it that way, does the situation make a little more sense?”

“…No way. The Hero was killed by the Demon King, remember? And his holy sword is in our possession.”

“Yeah, that part’s correct. But according to a certain student demon’s report, they encountered someone who seemed to be the Ghost. On top of that, that unusually huge synthetic chimera was made using demons and magical beasts as material. No matter how you slice it, someone hostile to us definitely exists… That’s Lord Crimson Demon Minister’s judgment. So stay alert.”

“…Roger that.”

Having worked under Brine for a full year, Ganat could tell there was no lie or bluff in those words. Above all, the longsword hanging at Brine’s hip lent weight to his warning.

“Then let’s finish this quick. Burn the synthetic chimera and we’re done, right?”

“That’s for the others. We’re handling the corpses of the chimeras that the supposed Ghost took care of. I doubt there’s anything, but we check for clues that might lead to the Ghost, then incinerate.”

“…No wonder your team got the best pay. Damn it, I drew the short straw.”

“Every sweet deal has a catch. Good life lesson, huh?”

“Then you didn’t need to scare me with ghost stories, did you?”

“What’s this? You scared after all?”

“…As if. Just a young man lamenting having to listen to an old geezer’s tall tales.”

Despite his words, Ganat kept watching the surroundings cautiously and warily. His tension couldn’t be explained by pay alone.

Brine examined the chimera carcass for a while. Ganat, alternating between watching the area and Brine’s work, finally lost patience and spoke.

“Can we burn it already!? There’s nothing suspicious, right!?”

“…Not sure. Every single one took one blunt strike, then a single thrust to a vital spot… Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”

“What’s odd about it? The blunt strike landed perfectly, then finished with a slash to the vitals.”

“More precisely: look at the power of that first blow. It was deliberately held back despite being strong enough to kill a synthetic chimera in one hit. Proof is that it didn’t aim for a vital. Doesn’t it feel like… the attacker deliberately left the finishing blow for the next strike?”

“Yeah yeah, sure, I’ll write that in the report, gramps. Let’s just burn it and go home.”

“Why are you so eager to burn it? Wait, there’s one more thing I found—”

Brine’s words were cut off by Ganat raising a hand.

“Sorry, Brine-san. My bad.”

At the end of Ganat’s gaze…

A silver-haired child wearing the uniform of Galileo Magic Academy stood there.

“Working hard this late at night! You’re the ones cleaning up magical beast corpses, right?”

In front of the cheerfully speaking girl, Ganat instinctively wanted to clutch his head.

(I screwed up. I checked so many times, but I missed the spot the light didn’t reach…)

After a full year under Brine, this level of failure meant he deserved to be called half-baked. No excuse this time. Ganat looked to Brine for instructions.

But the man standing there was not the usual Brine who would throw in a sarcastic remark yet calmly give orders.

“…No way.”

“No, getting shocked at my screw-up can wait. What do we do? That brat’s wearing a Galileo uniform. Same procedure as always?”

“No, that’s not it… Run!”

“Hah?”

“What I was about to say was about the blunt trauma! It was exactly the size of a child’s fist! The size of the brat in front of us!”

Only then did it click. A chill ran down Ganat’s spine.

Why had he overlooked it until now? Why had he been convinced no one was there?

The silver-haired girl had been standing in the light from the very beginning.

A lone child wandering the fields this late at night was creepy to begin with. The fact he hadn’t even thought that strange meant only a few possibilities, unless his brain was utterly useless.

And every one of those few possibilities required the girl’s power to explain.

(The most likely is some kind of concealment skill…! But even then, this level of effect…!?))

Just how high was her level? Brine, reaching the answer Ganat didn’t want to imagine first, drew his sword and pointed it at the girl.

“Wow, swordsmanship! But… that won’t reach me.”

A glittering crimson sword streak was born and vanished in the night darkness. A straight line from Brine’s head to his crotch.

(——Wha—)

What the hell was that.

Not even a death cry was permitted. With a wet sliding sound, the old body split vertically… and turned to dust.

He hadn’t seen the slash. All he barely caught was the crimson trajectory. It didn’t take long to realize that red glow had come from the blade of the sword the girl casually held.

“No way… A kid like this…? What the hell is that…!”

“There’s no rule saying children can’t kill demons, you know.”

The smiling girl’s right hand, gripping 《Sun Sword》, moved slightly. No, the motion only looked small; Ganat’s dynamic vision simply couldn’t keep up.

What came was another invisible slash. This time horizontal.

“Unlike those synthetic chimeras, you demons are so easy to clean up! You just turn straight into trash dust like that!”

Watching his own scattering blood turn to dust in his fading consciousness…

At the center of his dimming vision, a single Hero stood smiling in the darkness, silver hair swaying.