I Became a Swordsmanship Instructor in a Romance Novel

Dave Continent.

“Ugh…….”

The Demon King was bleeding profusely, deeply wounded all over his body.

His flesh was tattered and torn, not a single part of him left unscathed.

The gigantic horns that once proudly adorned his forehead had long been severed, leaving his head bald.

Scrape

Scrape

Scrape

Zeke Clayman was nonchalantly scratching his back with one of the Demon King’s horns.

“Oh, for f*ck’s sake! Zeke! Would you stop scratching yourself with that thing in front of me?!”

“What’s the big deal? This thing’s great. The slight curve lets me reach that itchy spot on my back. Hey, Saintess, wanna try it?”

“No, thank you!”

Zeke offered the horn to the Saintess, thinking she might be envious, but she refused with a grimace.

“Ugh!”

The Demon King, lying prostrate in utter humiliation, glared upwards, his body trembling uncontrollably.

His other horn was deeply embedded in his buttock.

“See? I told you leveling up is the best way to crush these guys. Look at him, he’s nothing but a chew toy now.”

Zeke said in a cheerful voice.

It was a cruel method for someone called a hero, but the Saintess seemed accustomed to his brutal ways.

“Ha…. Have you considered that because you neglected the Lost Hopes, this land is no longer habitable? People are already turning against each other due to the famine, and it’s only going to get worse.”

“Hmph, they’re the ones who betrayed me. Let them starve a little. I don’t care about any of that. I’m just taking out these bastards as quickly and efficiently as possible so I can finally get the hell out of this place.”

“…And yet you save people whenever they’re about to die…. Is this what they call a tsundere…?”

The Saintess muttered, looking at Zeke with a strange expression.

“What are you mumbling about?”

“Oh, nothing. But what are you going to do when everyone’s dead?”

“Tsk, wasting time and worrying about those people will only lead to a bad ending. You gotta give them what they deserve. Taking care of these bastards as quickly as possible is the only way to save as many lives as possible. You still don’t trust me?”

“Who wouldn’t trust you….”

As Zeke glared at the Saintess with a menacing look,

She turned and sat down in front of the Demon King.

“Hmm, you know what…. I almost feel sorry for this guy. He probably never imagined he’d end up like this, huh?”

Twist

Twist

Though she claimed to pity him, the Saintess began to twist the horn embedded in the Demon King’s buttock.

The horn, arguably the strongest part of the Demon King’s body,

Was not a straight line, but curved, and even the slightest twist tore at his insides.

“Argh! Ugh! Aagh!! S-Stop! I-I was wrong! I won’t lay a finger on the Middle World ever again! Please! P-Please, stop!!!”

The Demon King screamed at the top of his lungs, begging for his life.

“‘I was wrong’ my ass.”

“I’m sorry! I was wrong! I’ll never come back here, I swear……. Hero Zeke, Saintess Solla, please have mercy….”

The Demon King, desperate to live, turned his tear-filled eyes to the Saintess and pleaded, but she only frowned, her dark circles prominent.

“Haah, Zeke. Why do these guys always charge in so confidently, then say the exact same thing when they’re about to die? He must have heard those words hundreds, thousands of times as he slaughtered humans weaker than himself….”

“And they always try to guilt-trip us at times like this. It’s disgusting. It makes me sick to my stomach to see these monsters, who built mountains out of human corpses, plead for their lives.”

Sigh

The Saintess let out a long sigh.

“For f*ck’s sake, at least be consistent. You sound like a little b*tch, whining and begging like that.”

“You’re a ‘b*tch’ too, you know.”

“Do I look like a woman to you? Forever alone. Virgin. A sad, sad virgin.”

“……I regret teaching you all those words. You were already foul-mouthed, but now you’re a freaking virtuoso at cursing.”

Zeke clicked his tongue and glared at the Saintess with a cold stare.

“Anyway, these guys are masters of hypocrisy.”

“Hypocrisy? What’s that? Another Earth word?”

“If I do it, it’s for the sake of the Lost Hopes, but if they do it, it’s ‘Scorched Earth’.”

“Wow, what a piece of sh*t.”

“I know, right?”

***

Slash

Without warning, Zeke’s sword drew a silver arc.

The Demon King’s body was instantly cleaved in two.

“That’s how you should finish them off. No pieces left behind.”

With that, Zeke and the Saintess left the scene.

The Demon King’s remains, reduced to dust, settled on the ground.

Swoosh

A dark red demonic energy rose from the spot, coalescing into a small sphere.

The sphere, flickering faintly as if on the verge of fading,

Was the last remaining fragment of the Demon King’s soul.

It stumbled towards a tear in the fabric of reality, slipping through into the Spirit World.

* * *

The Demon King, his body and soul torn to shreds, managed to escape to the Spirit World with only a fragment of his essence intact.

He was no longer the ruler who commanded the Spirit World.

His presence was so faint that the inhabitants remained oblivious to his return.

Fortunately, although the Spirit World’s energy couldn’t fully heal his soul, it significantly slowed down its deterioration.

He was alive, but barely.

Having lost all his power, the only things the Demon King could prey on were lowly worms.

Recovery was an arduous journey.

He had to cower before pathetic creatures like goblins,

And fight tooth and nail with slimes over the scraps of filth left behind by other monsters.

As time passed, and the very notion of being the Demon King began to fade from his memory,

A faint glimmer of faith appeared from a long-forgotten cave in the Middle World, a place he had completely erased from his mind.

‘Oh, Demon King…! Save the Lost Hopes…!’

[ …I… I am… the Demon King…. Yes… I am… ]

The faith that sprouted from that cave gradually spread, and one by one, those who followed him blindly began to emerge.

His sense of self as the Demon King slowly returned, and as he answered their prayers, his power gradually recovered.

A thousand years passed.

He was desperate.

He endured grueling trials and swallowed his pride to regain his power.

The memory of that humiliating defeat, far from fading, remained vivid even after a thousand years, constantly tormenting him.

Even though Zeke wasn’t his designated nemesis, and even though the Saintess was by his side, and even though he had let his guard down…

He had never imagined that he would be so utterly defeated by a single human, caught completely off guard.

He had never expected that after a thousand years, that damn hero would still be alive, much less come looking for him again.

But it had served as a harsh reminder that such irregularities could always arise.

‘Damn it! Damn it! Damn iiiit!!!’

The Demon King thought of Zeke Clayman endlessly.

He imagined, over and over, how he could defeat him if another like him were to appear.

If only he could get his hands on him again, he would tear him to shreds a thousand times over.

And now, his chance for revenge had come.

The Demon King was the first to make his move.

He hadn’t become complacent just because Zeke had gained power through a designated nemesis.

He knew better than anyone that time was of the essence.

If he hesitated, even with overwhelming power, that man could appear before him with his sword at his throat at any moment.

‘Damn it, if only I hadn’t lost the Priestess to that wretched fool, I could have crushed him completely.’

The vessel he had prepared in the Middle World to confront Zeke Clayman when he returned.

Since his previous body had been reduced to dust by Zeke,

He had the Lost Hopes create an artificial body for him to inhabit.

But those incompetent fools had lost that crucial vessel to some insignificant nobody.

He had pressed the Lost Hopes for information, but all they could find was the girl who had abducted the Priestess.

The Priestess herself was nowhere to be found.

* * *

Zeke, his eyes narrowed, surveyed his surroundings.

Everything within the reach of the demonic energy he emitted was the Demon King’s domain.

At any moment, from any direction, the Demon King’s crimson tendrils could lash out.

Whoosh!

A sonic boom ripped through the air.

A tendril shot towards Zeke, piercing his afterimage.

Zeke’s form, momentarily distorted, vanished from the spot.

But a split second later, a grating sound echoed as the Demon King’s tendril was severed.

The ground bubbled and boiled, the earth melting away.

A nearby tree, grazed by a fragment of the severed tendril, instantly turned to ash, disintegrating before it could even catch fire.

The battle between Zeke and the Demon King.

Crackle

Boom

Crash

It was a clash of titans, a force of nature.

With each swing of Zeke’s sword, a silver whirlwind of razor-sharp energy and blue flames tore through the air.

The Demon King retaliated with a barrage of tendrils.

Their attacks collided in a blinding flurry of sparks and thunderous roars.

BOOOOOM!!!

BOOM!!!

KRAKOOOOM!!!

The Demon King unleashed a torrent of abilities, each more devastating than the last,

But any magic that entered the range of Zeke’s sword was instantly dispelled, its core essence cleaved in two.

Thousands upon thousands of tendrils shot toward Zeke, each aimed at a different point in time and space.

Zeke’s eyes gleamed,

Calculating the trajectory and timing of each attack.

Dash

He launched himself into the heart of the tendril storm, seemingly diving headfirst into his own demise.

FWOOSH

FWOOSH

FWOOSH

FWOOSH

FWOOSH

But then, one by one, the tendrils began to explode.

The very landscape buckled and cracked under the strain of their epic confrontation.

Mountains crumbled into valleys as the shockwaves from their clash reshaped the world around them.

“Haha! You’ve gotten stronger…! So it wasn’t just the power boost from your nemesis, huh? You’ve been putting in some work, haven’t you?”

Zeke said, his voice filled with delight.

[ You have no idea what I’ve endured to get to this point!!! ]

“Well, it’s been fun and all… but you’ve been using the same attacks over and over…. Is that all you’ve got?”

Zeke’s playful grin vanished in an instant.

His expression, still frozen in a smile, hardened.

The incongruity was chilling.

“Don’t tell me this is it. There’s more, isn’t there? Something to impress me. Something to entertain me… Right? It’s been a while since I’ve had a real fight. I’d be very disappointed if this were the end.”

[ ……. ]

The Demon King’s relentless assault abruptly ceased.

Zeke’s killing intent held him captive.

Within Zeke’s domain, every movement, every thought, was laid bare.

This was not the time to make a move.

The Demon King stood frozen, every muscle taut with tension.

“You made me draw my sword. Now face the consequences.”

Zeke’s dark, unfathomable eyes bored into the Demon King.

“So I’ll ask again. Is that all you’ve got?”

His voice, cold as the grave, echoed in the Demon King’s ears.