The previous night…

Inside a tower sunken beneath an abandoned desert district, Nihilo the Vortical Stampede stood face-to-face with a nightmare.

The inside of the experiment lab Viga used looked as if paint containers had been flipped over inside.

Red. Pale blue. Orange. Purple. Every single one of the horrible experimental creatures had burst apart, reduced to a formless pool of liquid.

In the midst of the unnatural and hideous carcasses, there stood a young girl with long black hair.

The one and only krsnik in the world—Roto the Cross.

She was said to be the end result of Enu the Distant Mirror’s ideal to save the world from the terror of the True Demon King.

She was a construct rapidly reared and developed through Viga’s Life Arts, yet her outward appearance made her look just barely ten or eleven years old. The fact that she awakened despite her physical body not reaching maturity suggested that there might have been some defect or flaw with her.

Likely due to genetic factors from her genetic model, Linaris the Obsidian, she still had a horrifyingly beautiful appearance and salacity to her, despite her immature form. Her simple sheer gown was soaked in artificial amniotic fluid and stuck fast to her body, showing the smooth undulations of her chest, her slender thighs, and her all-too-white skin through the material.

…Certainly doesn’t seem like this was part of the project.

Faced with this newborn girl, Nihilo had assumed a fighting stance.

She couldn’t predict what sort of speed or from what angle the girl’s attacks would come from.

Nihilo tried to imagine the method of Roto’s attack by looking at the fleshy fragments from the meaninglessly slaughtered experiments.

I get I’m not the one to be saying this, but—this girl’s way too evil.

“Fwee-hee-hee-hee-hee…”

Roto laughed in a clear tone, apparently happy about something.

“Nihilo. I really love you.”

This girl she had only just met now spoke to Nihilo with words of affection.

“I want to eat you up—”

There was a bursting sound.

Roto completely vanished right under Nihilo’s nose.

The nerve fibers that fanned out from her spine sensed everything in the room. Roto stepping into melee range after slipping carefully through a slightly obscured angle, and both of their spear hands crisscrossed each other, and—

There was a wet splashing noise. The flesh on Nihilo’s shoulder had been torn apart. The outpouring of blood flew straight up to the angled ceiling, reflecting back and disappearing into the darkness behind her.

That was the extent of what Nihilo could capture of Roto’s speed.

I can’t cope with her speed!

Though Nihilo the Vortical Stampede was designed under the assumption she would be piloting Helneten the Burial, she was still a construct imbued with all the techniques that Viga the Clamor, the second greatest Life Arts caster after Izick, had at her disposal.

On top of that, with the coolheaded decision-making that was characteristic of revenants, she recognized the truth without any resentment or despair.

Roto the Cross’s capabilities were on a completely different plane, even though they were both constructs created by Viga.

“…You know, everyone else besides me have all been weaklings who just get crushed to a pulp, but…”

Unilaterally trampling over all others, annihilating an entire armed force on her own—that had been the crux of Nihilo the Vortical Stampede’s functionality.

“Hee-hee. I guess now I finally understand how it feels to be the one getting crushed…”

As a revenant, Nihilo didn’t feel any pain from her wound. She also saw Roto hunched in a corner of the spacious, lightless room.

Roto didn’t immediately follow up her attack on Nihilo because her tiny mouth was busy chewing—on the flesh she had just gouged out of Nihilo.

I couldn’t catch the moment she attacked. Way too much of my body was scraped out for her to have taken a bite out of me directly. There were signs on the experiments’ flesh and organs that they had been cut cleanly with a sharp blade.

She took one of the organs overflowing from the experiment room.

There wasn’t any instinct to kill coming from the freshly born Roto. The fact that Nihilo was receiving a moment to predict and prepare for the next clash was her only clear advantage. She looked at the instruments and medicines scattered inside the experiment room. She stretched out one of her nerve fibers and checked on several items for herself.

Toxic chemical agents. Blades for medical use.

The weapon Roto uses has to be somewhere…

Before her lay the experimentation lab. There were no windows in the subterranean tower, so her only choice was to cut across the big room where Roto was and head for the stairwell. Nihilo had no idea what everyone else was doing right now, but she wasn’t in any position to expect help from Viga or Kuuro. It was highly likely they had all been disposed of already.

On top of that, were she to successfully get through the big room, if Roto pursued her with the same amount of speed, it would have been impossible for Nihilo to escape. The only way to survive was either to take out Roto’s legs or render her unable to fight.

Considering the sheer gap in capabilities she just witnessed, the options seemed like just as much of an unrealistic gamble as running away, but they were the only ones that had even the slightest sliver of success.

Roto had taken her attention off Nihilo; however, any surprise attack that didn’t finish her off instantly would leave Nihilo fatally open. She understood that when it came to simple power and performance, Roto bested her. Nihilo needed to create a golden opportunity to entice Roto into making a predictable attack.

“…Hey, Roto. If you love me, why’re you trying to break me?”

“Mrrm?”

Roto stopped her meal and looked Nihilo’s way.

“I’ve heard there are a lot of constructs…whose heart assemblies fail—and who lose their senses and go out of control.”

“Because of love.”

At last swallowing back the raw flesh, Roto flashed a carefree smile.

“I love everybody. Everyone in that room with me—and Mommy Viga, too. We just met, but I love you so much, Nihilo, my heart’s going ba-dump ba-dump, and I feel so happy I can’t contain myself. I love, love, love, love, love you… I wanna to snuggle close and become one.”

“…”

“Once I let everyone in that room go free, they did just that for me. Clung to me, bent and twisted their hands and feet… It felt so good and made me so happy. So I did the same for them, too. But some of them weren’t able to move anymore, so, mwee-hee-hee-hee… They couldn’t stay with me anymore…”

“So you ate them?”

Nihilo likely didn’t possess any decent sensibilities to speak of, either, but even to her, Roto’s logic was completely incomprehensible.

The creation of the krsnik must have ended in a wholly unexpected failure. That said, would a self-proclaimed demon king of Viga the Clamor’s caliber really screw up the creation of such an important construct?

Nihilo herself didn’t possess the capacity for empathy capable of immediately discerning Roto’s aberrant mental structure and trying to persuade her. For a weapon like Nihilo, meant to trample over her enemies, such a function wasn’t simply unnecessary but potentially a fatal flaw.

If she is a true prodigy, then the only advantage I have right now without Helneten is my combat experience.

Nihilo untensed herself slightly while, at the same time, she mentally prepared for the next attack.

“…But I haven’t done anything to earn your love. We don’t know much about each—”

A red afterimage rushed toward her. This speed—that Nihilo couldn’t even visually capture—was the exact opening to exploit.

Along the trajectory that connected to two of them, there was an explosive sound, not of air, but something wet and damp. Nihilo’s dodge wasn’t fast enough. Roto’s tiny body used her nightmarish physical strength to grab Nihilo and pin her down on the floor.

“Mwee-hee, hee-hee…!”

In the span of a single second, Nihilo had put several plans in place, and all of them had been defeated.

With such supernatural speed, Roto’s leap passed along the direct route connecting the pair without allowing Nihilo any time to dodge.

The damp explosive crack came from an experiment’s organs Nihilo had flung out in front of her. She understood what the experiment’s body makeup was. As a result, Roto was showered in strongly acidic gastric juices from the midair impact with the organ.

Nevertheless, her speed was no less staggering.

All of it was completely insufficient at hindering Roto’s mobility.

“Nihilo…do you need a reason to fall in love?” Roto asked Nihilo, still pinned against the ground, with a brilliant smile.

The epidermal layer of skin on the forearm around Nihilo’s upper arm had been burned raw down to the hypodermal layer below. A large portion of Roto’s simple gown had melted apart, and white bone peeked out from the wounds underneath.

It was more threatening than if she had been unharmed. It signaled that in the brief instant of their clash, despite having no knowledge of the acid used, Roto had made a decision on how to defend against it, and that she possessed the reaction speed to protect her face and combat instincts as well.

“I love your face. I love your body. Your voice is so, so pretty. You look at me, talk to me, came to see me… I don’t think you need…any fancy reason at all to fall in love with someone… Mwee-hee-hee-hee-hee… See, look… Just by clinging close like this…”

Nihilo was pressed down and couldn’t escape. Roto didn’t pay any mind to her own pain, either.

The constant, enormous amount of brain-melting euphoria must have allowed her to ignore it.

“Nhm…slrp, smooch…”

Pressing Nihilo down, Roto buried her face in the top of Nihilo’s shoulder, like an animal fawning over another member of its species, and began lapping up Nihilo’s blood in an ecstatic trance.

“…Wh-what’re you doing…?!”

“Nihilo, I love you… Stay here with me…”

Roto held Nihilo’s life and death in her hands. Roto’s whims were the sole reason why she hadn’t been killed immediately.

Can I kill her?

Roto currently had a large open wound, burned raw by the acid. With them clinging together like this, Nihilo realized she could probably stick her nerve fibers into the open wound and take control over Roto’s motor nerves.

Roto’s reaction speeds were so fast that even if Nihilo completely surprised her while they were on top of each other, she could easily sever over half of Nihilo’s nerve fibers. Still, if Nihilo could connect a single one, that would be enough to cause Roto intense pain and neutralize her—a means of flipping the huge gap in fighting power on its head.

A revenant’s judgment was coolheaded. She weighed the benefits and negatives, the advantages and disadvantages, all in a single moment.

She sent her nerve fibers rushing toward Roto.

“Ya yumyouye—” (To Roto’s blood—)

Nihilo became aware of the singing whisper resounding around her.

“Yamururui chumimyum. Yuchiyas yuyety. Yok yok yukmenen—yaneopept.” (Clouds and rainbows warbled by the voiceless. Small eyes of gaping cavern. Flower face crumbling in the rain—multiply.)

The terminal on Nihilo’s nerve fiber was stopped by a massive amount of blood pouring out from the wounds in Roto’s arm and chest.

The nerve fiber was a very dainty organ. Its trajectory was thrown off.

She made herself bleed more?!

It was nothing but a temporary defense. Like a multiheaded snake, she tried to adjust her aim and pierce her again.

Yet this attempt, too, proved meaningless.

In the single second it took for her blood to drain out and stain the floor, Roto the Cross’s wounds had been completely healed.

The brief opening to pierce Roto’s skin had been far too long against this foe’s reaction speed.

“You were only just born…!”

Regenerative Life Arts. Roto was a Word Arts–casting construct.

Nihilo’s ultimate gambit to connect her nerve fibers had been suppressed as well.

“Mwee-hee-hee! Hey…Nihilo? I actually gave myself my own name.”

With a majority of her clothing melted away, Roto’s bare skin was now exposed.

Her naked body, so smooth and pale it seemed to repel the copious amount of red blood, coiled itself around Nihilo.

“I was always listening to what sort of Word Arts made me, even when I still couldn’t see anything… What I needed to do to control this special blood of mine…what I needed to do to be able to love everyone…”

Her lips, slender as silk, sucked on Nihilo’s cheek, her eyelids, and lips.

“Nihilo, Nihilo…”

“Unh, ngh!”

The feeling of her small lips licking her all over made Nihilo groan.

Her own blood, her revenant circulatory fluid, began gushing out. Roto had bitten open one of her carotid arteries. Though it wouldn’t be enough to undo Viga’s suturing on her head, if Nihilo had been a living minia, this would have killed her.

My Word Arts core… If she destroys my brain, it’s over for me… Actually, even if she kept going and bit off my head, I might not be able to be revived this time! I’ll die!

Slender arms, slender legs, tangled around Nihilo’s body.

Nihilo had hit a wall. No matter what Nihilo attempted to do while being embraced like this, Roto had the physical capabilities to react with enough speed to outstrip her, and even if Nihilo were to score a telling blow against her, Roto would manage to regenerate with her Life Arts.

Roto the Cross was a surreal, beautiful young girl, like an angel. She had no hostility or desire to hurt other living creatures and may have genuinely tried to love her victims.

However, following that love to its end resulted in the horrible scene in the lab. No matter who they may have been, anyone Roto set her eyes on would be sweetly embraced and slowly but surely dismembered as she whispered her love in their ear.

Then—

“…!”

Roto leaped backward.

Her reflex speed was like a bug that sensed danger.

“…Nihilo.”

Retreating to a corner of the big room, she stared in Nihilo’s direction with the smile vanished from her face.

“Do you have something?”

“…Aw. You noticed, huh…? See, I was sure it would work out well, too…”

Nihilo struggled to stand up after being freed from the embrace of death.

She stood with her back to the lab—after working as Viga the Clamor’s assistant, she knew perfectly what sort of instruments or materials were located in which cupboard.

“It’s poison. Stay here and it’ll kill you.”

In the very beginning, when she had searched through the lab with her nerve fibers, she had discovered a vial filled with a lethal gas. Nihilo had fought back against Roto’s attack without ever moving from where she stood because she aimed to poison her to death with the volatile toxic substances that were spilling out from the laboratory.

Bereft of any life-sustaining activity, only Nihilo the revenant was able to act without any decreased functionality when caught within the same noxious gas cloud. The area around the lab was filled with the stench of the slaughtered experiments and other chemicals, so it should have been difficult for Roto to identify the smell of the poison.

She has no combat experience at all, and she still managed to suss this out?

Was this detection ability an inherited genetic factor from Linaris the Obsidian?

Or perhaps was she an innate monster with exceptional, logical-defying intuition?

“If you do that…we can’t stay together. Do you hate me, Nihilo?”

Roto’s stare was fixed on Nihilo.

“…That may be it. What’re you going to do? Going to just kill me here?”

“………”

Roto wavered for a long time before finally disappearing up the staircase leading to the surface.

She never came back.

Nihilo continued to stare down the staircase without dropping her guard, but before long she sat down on the floor.

When encountering an enemy one couldn’t escape from, who couldn’t be defeated or immobilized, there was still one other way to survive…to make the enemy flee of their own accord.

Even then, if Roto the Cross truly had any urge to kill, it would have been easy for her to dispose of Nihilo before the poison could affect her. Nihilo was lucky.

“…Why did it end up like this?”

The krsnik waking up while there were no others around and going out of control was in and of itself an abnormal situation.

There weren’t any signs that anyone besides Nihilo, including Roto’s own creator, Viga, was rushing toward this commotion. Kuuro the Cautious, able to grasp the entirety of the environment around him and even predict the future, should have been watching over everything.

“I need to…look for everybody…”

Ominous tides were beginning to rise.

A failure that could ruin absolutely everything.

At the same moment.

At a location far removed from the sunken desert tower were the silhouettes of several men and women.

One of them, a man cloaked in a dark-brown coat, was extremely short and outwardly resembled a young boy, but was, in fact, an adult leprechaun. Kuuro the Cautious.

“…The krsnik escaped,” he murmured gloomily. From this position, it was impossible to even see the outside of the tower, however, he declared this with such conviction it was as if he had watched the series of clashes between Roto and Nihilo right before his very eyes.

“She’s left the tower and headed down a different path. She won’t come across us.”

Kuuro the Cautious possessed a supernatural ability known as Clairvoyance.

Beyond just his five senses, it acutely combined thermal, magnetic, and many other senses that still had yet to be explained, together, and allowed him to comprehend all available information in the world around him at all times—an omniscient power.

Kuuro was, in fact, hired by this camp to use his Clairvoyance ability to prevent any unforeseen situations.

Enu the Distant Mirror proposed the original idea, and Viga the Clamor had carried it out—the krsnik project, meant to save the world from the True Demon King’s terror and use a vampire’s powers to control the people.

Kuuro currently carried in his arms Linaris the Obsidian, who had been used to complete this project.

Accompanying them was Yuno the Distant Talon, who Kuuro had been forced to capture along with Linaris.

“…Kuuro.”

Enu was restless. He had dropped his usual expression and kept his eyes constantly wide like an owl.

“Why did she go out of control? There were no signs of failure… If anything, her construction was proceeding far more ideally than the project first estimated…”

“…Asking me won’t help.”

Kuuro’s Clairvoyance was a power worthy of being described as omniscience, but it wasn’t true omniscience.

It only grasped all the information the world around him could provide, but it did not give him with the knowledge or learning to properly interpret it.

“But I did the job you asked me to do. If I had recognized any danger with the krsnik’s construction, I would’ve protected all of you from the threat immediately. As for whether I’m telling the truth… Nihilo the Vortical Stampede still survived, and you’ll figure it out from here.”

Looking at it another way, however, he could understand things even without any knowledge of them.

By rescuing Enu, Viga, Linaris, Yuno, and Cuneigh, while keeping only Nihilo in the dark, they were all able to make it out of the situation alive, including Nihilo. He understood, so that’s what he did, simple as that.

Kuuro didn’t possess the slightest knowledge of physical medicine or advanced Word Arts for construct creation like Viga the Clamor. Nevertheless, by combining the tremendous volume of information he got from his supernatural Clairvoyance, he confidently knew that there would be an unavoidable breakdown in the krsnik they’d created.

He wasn’t predicting the future logically. His Clairvoyance’s precognition was drawn out from Kuuro’s own unconscious—precise intuition that simply showed him the correct answer without requiring any midway calculations whatsoever.

“Everything had been progressing…well.”

Viga the Clamor appeared to be just as dumbfounded herself.

Her usual squinted-eye smile was the same as ever, but her voice trembled.

“If the construction failed, then her heart and mind itself shouldn’t have even formed in the first place. A perception abnormality that mistakes murder as love shouldn’t even be possible!”

“Who did this?” Enu said with a throaty growl.

“The only individuals who could have interfered with the construct creation are you and Nihilo the Vortical Stampede. Our base was completely locked up, and any infiltration from outside was impossible while Kuuro here was on lookout—however, what of the possibility that you betrayed us, Kuuro?”

Aureatia’s Thirteenth Minister, Enu the Distant Mirror, had crossed through the ranks of many different powers all for his idea of salvation.

Aureatia. The National Defense Research Institute. Obsidian Eyes. The Gray-Haired Child.

He had been involved with almost all the forces in the Sixways Exhibition turmoil, yet in reality, he wasn’t an ally to any of them, either. He had summoned the full extent of his wit and tenacity in order to make the krsnik a reality.

A construct to pacify any strife among the infected and save the world from the lingering threat of the Demon King.

What was born instead was an uncontrollable monster.

“Someone among the three of you is a liar. Isn’t that right?”

“Calm down. You…just don’t want to admit you failed.”

“…Kuuro. You once were a part of Obsidian Eyes, yes? As you waited patiently for Cuneigh the Wanderer’s treatment to finish…you were actually waiting for your chance to let Linaris the Obsidian escape, weren’t you?”

Linaris, slung over Kuuro’s back, was still unconscious.

At the hands of Viga and Nihilo, she had been subjected to torturous experimentation and sample gathering. The only reason her sickly body hadn’t died from starvation was because Viga’s superb medical techniques forcibly kept her alive.

“…That inconsistent reasoning’s not like you. You remember, I was the one who captured Linaris. You know full well that if I had any motive to do all of this, I would’ve been able to accomplish it all without you ever being the wiser. No reason to go out of my way to let you two escape, either. I’ve fulfilled the job you asked me to do to the letter,” said Kuuro.

In the coldly composed part of his mind, he knew this was an insincere answer.

In truth, was Enu right, and had Kuuro actually wished to let Linaris escape?

No matter what sort of results came from handing her over to Enu and Viga—even if it ultimately led to her death—Kuuro had desired to free Linaris, who had fatally chosen the wrong path, from the spiral of war and death.

“From here on out, I’m following the emergency procedures you laid out. I plan to protect Yuno and Linaris and head toward the rendezvous point. You two should wait to meet up with Nihilo and take a separate route. Don’t waste any time, and we should all be safe… That’s what my Clairvoyance is telling me.”

“You really…want me to trust you in a situation like this?”

“The danger isn’t over. There are still others pursuing you two.”

“…I can’t agree to that. At the very least, I want Linaris the Obsidian to come with us.”

“Cool your head. Look at the facts of the situation, like you always do. Your trio’s already acted antagonistically toward Aureatia. They know your faces, and your pursuers are closing in fast. You couldn’t possibly carry along Linaris while she’s so seriously ill—and while you’re unable to even detect anyone nearby.”

“You’re the only one here who can confirm if we are being chased. We can’t base any decision on that as long as we suspect you of betraying us.”

“…Fair enough. You’re the one who needs to make the call.”

Enu’s eyes were filled with suspicion.

Throughout Kuuro’s life, this sort of breakdown in communication hadn’t been rare. His Clairvoyance was able to perceive everything, even the future, with precision, but there was one thing this omniscient ability of his was unable to do.

It couldn’t make someone else believe in his own omniscience.

Family, friends, comrades—in the end, they all distrusted Kuuro’s words, grew scared, and chose the wrong path forward for themselves. Kuuro had lost hope from the accumulation of this distrust and descended to where it was now.

As a result, he had landed himself in this current situation.

Nothing I can do. Even had an inkling this was how it’d all end. The only ones who haven’t ever been suspicious of me…were Obsidian Eyes and Cuneigh.

If Enu wished for it, Kuuro would have no choice but to hand Linaris over.

He wanted to keep her alive, if possible, but that was nothing but his own obstinacy.

“…Minister Enu. What are you going to do about the corpse infection problem?”

“You’re…”

Yuno the Distant Talon broke her pale-faced silence.

“You all have a resistance to the vampire virus, but if you move throughout Aureatia, you won’t be able to avoid coming into contact with the other citizens. In which case, there is a high change that Linaris could scheme to use the citizens she’s turned into corpses to attack you or let her free…wouldn’t you say?”

“That’s our problem. You’re not in any position to stick your nose into our operation.”

“With all due respect…! Your senses are numbed, Minister Enu. Linaris is not a powerless hostage. She threatens the destruction of all Aureatia! The same Linaris that you tormented and tortured! Do you have any means of protecting yourself?!”

Yuno was pointing out a postulate that Kuuro hadn’t felt any need to recommunicate to them.

The ones who treated Linaris like an experiment—Enu, Viga, and Nihilo—needed to act separately from Linaris. The only one capable of preventing any resistance from Linaris, while acting covertly and avoiding the spread of the infection, was Kuuro and Kuuro alone.

“…Enu. We don’t have any time. We need to decide.”

In contrast to Enu, Viga seemed to have accepted this breakdown somewhat.

Was it because of the deformed psyche she had fostered as a natural-born monster? Or perhaps because, as a researcher, she was able to face the truth head-on.

“Either we entrust Linaris with Kuuro or we dispose of her here. I agree that it will be difficult to escape while bringing Linaris along with us.”

“Disposal…isn’t an option. If we lose Linaris the Obsidian…we won’t be able to create the next krsnik. A perfected krsnik… One that can spread the antibodies against terror to all the people… I won’t accept it.”

Enu shook his head.

Linaris’s mutant vampire strain, indiscriminately infecting others through the air and with powers of control that far surpassed a normal vampire, was still the final piece to the krsnik project puzzle that Enu had dedicated his whole life to doggedly pursue.

Of course he wasn’t able to give up on it.

“…Kuuro. We’ll go our separate ways. Bring Linaris with you, just as we arranged…”

“Got it.”

Even if he could see the ending up ahead, Kuuro hadn’t told Enu most of it.

Clairvoyance was just a power of knowledge.

Trying to influence the heart and mind of another was simple arrogance.

“Trust me.”

Enu’s and Viga’s figures disappeared over the desert horizon.

In the middle of the chilly desert night, Kuuro, with Linaris on his back; Cuneigh sleeping inside Kuuro’s chest pocket; and Yuno the Distant Talon were the only ones left behind, without any sign of life around them.

They walked along the vast, rocky, and endlessly unvaried land.

“Kuuro,” Yuno quietly murmured, perhaps unable to endure the silence any longer. “Did you really not see what could have caused the krsnik to go out of control?”

“…I wonder.”

Even if he had, without any knowledge on the subject, Kuuro lacked the vocabulary to properly convey it.

“This is just my own wild idea, but…Minister Enu suspected there was some artificial interference with the experiment. However, if you weren’t able to identify the culprit, then…at least, I think whoever caused it must have interfered more indirectly.”

This project seemed guaranteed to come together at the start, and there was no question that something had triggered the change. If his interference happened on a visible scale, then Kuuro’s eyes wouldn’t have missed it.

If there was some trigger for the mutation, then it was in a realm even Clairvoyance couldn’t peer into. An act that was executed by will alone.

“Then who do you think is behind it?”

“Linaris. If the krsnik pathogen Linaris possesses is a new strain not seen in another vampire, one that managed to spontaneously mutate…wouldn’t that mean she could make it mutate at will?

“Linaris, totally incapacitated, controlled the pathogen’s evolution solely through willpower and made the experiment fail… Pretty absurd idea. At the very least, Viga’s a doctor, and she didn’t reach that conclusion.

“…Still, I have seen things that surpass all imagination and common sense many, many times before.”

Yuno looked to Linaris, slung on Kuuro’s back.

The end result of her days of tortuous experimentation was that her complexion had lost even more color and was now a deathly pale white.

Except, this made her doll-like beauty all the more conspicuous—and spoke volumes of the vampire’s characteristic, and difficult to escape, coercive power, maintaining their beautiful features in the face of whatever changes occurred.

“What if the krsnik’s out-of-control behavior, mistaking killing as a form of love, was the result of Linaris…trying to accept the unending pain she felt after being tormented as material for the krsnik? The krsnik research focused on how to manipulate will and cognition. It’s totally possible that, because that mutation was introduced, the krsnik ended up as a creature that spread pain and anguish, too.”

Pain itself was real love…

Kuuro thought back to Frey the Waking.

To the broken failure who loved Linaris more than anyone else and, as a result, betrayed her, unable to do anything but etch wounds into Linaris’s heart, never letting her go.

She wasn’t the only one. Rehart the Obsidian, the rest of Obsidian Eyes, left behind in the age of war, kept her life restricted with the anguish known as love, and Linaris, without anyone else to turn to, had always sought that same anguish herself.

Had Roto the Cross’s breakdown always been inevitable?

“Less of a hypothesis and more of a wish. If that is indeed the truth, then at this point, there is no saving the young mistress or Enu… Or you, either. You resent their actions and want to make them responsible for the failure. You’re just trying to search for a cause based on the conclusion you want.”

“Hah… You may be right. It’s what I always do.” Yuno laughed with self-deprecation. “I need to make it someone’s fault, or I’ll never get salvation. Even when I know full well…that my own weakness is why I can’t do anything. If I just had the strength to protect Linaris…and my homeland of Nagan, then I never would have had to suffer like this.”

“Could be the opposite. Get strong, and it only brings you more and more inconveniences.”

“You make it sound like being too powerful is a bad thing.”

“…”

“That view is…arrogant, I think. The weak weren’t born just to become sentimental nourishment for the strong. Those who aren’t weak, and have the power to make their own choices, shouldn’t then blame their strength for why they weren’t able to choose the correct path.”

“You think that, even after seeing the misfortune Linaris has gone through?”

“…I do. Since none of that matters to those she’s killed.”

Yuno the Distant Talon. The girl who had appeared all alone during the chaotic melee of several forces converging on Obsidian Eyes’s hideout, and herself right before Kuuro’s very eyes out of nowhere—and Linaris’s friend.

The foreign body that seemed to worm her way into murky circumstances surrounding the krsnik. The only things Kuuro knew about her came from the conversations she had with Linaris while imprisoned.

“In that case, Yuno, let me ask.”

This mediocre, subservient young girl who was always at the whims of others had a fatal misunderstanding.

“Do you really still think you’re on the side of the weak?”

Kuuro did not know many things about Yuno the Distant Talon.

At the very least, she had shown once before that she could surpass the expectations of the supposedly omniscient Kuuro the Cautious.

If this was some groundless fantasy of hers, she knew phenomena could occur that far surpassed her own tiny world.

“You stopped being on the side of the weak a long time ago. You’re one of the strong, with the power to choose your own future…and with that choice, ruin the future of another, just as easily.”

“……For a long time? Me…?”

Yuno stopped moving for several steps.

It seemed Kuuro’s remark had shocked her far more than he imagined.

“That’s right. You’re strong.”

Kuuro turned around and looked up at Yuno standing on the upper side of the hill.

Only the small blue moon floated in the desert sky.

“What do you want to ruin next with that hatred of yours?”

After escaping from the tower, Nihilo the Vortical Stampede immediately fanned out her nerve fibers and searched for any signs of the others hidden among the sand.

While this was in part to check to see if Viga and the others were within her detection range, more so than that, Nihilo was wary of Roto the Cross. If Roto attacked her out here without any topographical advantage to exploit, Nihilo really would end up dead.

Fortunately, that sinister presence had already disappeared.

Nihilo had changed out of the clothes Roto had disheveled—and made stopgap repairs to her injured areas. The inside of Viga’s experiment lab had been fully stocked with biomaterial for construct creation.

She needed a transfusion to make up for all the circulatory fluid she had lost in particular. Revenants didn’t possess any hematogenous functionality.

“Over there is…”

Her nerve fibers detected a small moving air current.

Close to the edge of the horizon, Nihilo felt breathing she was very familiar with.

“Mom…and Enu the Distant Mirror. They already escaped, did they?”

The fact that there hadn’t been a sign of anyone, especially Kuuro, would then mean that they had gone through the previously arranged emergency escape procedures.

However, they weren’t used to escape from an Aureatian attack as expected, but due to an experiment, Roto the Cross, going out of control. While that was going on, they had left Nihilo behind to make her keep Roto in check.

To be free brings with it inconveniences that deprive you of freedom. I’m a weapon, so I don’t think they were wrong or anything, but…, she thought as she walked through the sand to meet up with them.

In the end, even here I’m treated as disposable.

In the past, she hadn’t felt this discomfort smolder in her chest as it did now.

When she waged battle against Aureatia under Viga’s orders, or even after she was captured by Aureatia and laid waste to Lithia at Hidow’s command, it was a fact of life to have someone giving her orders.

However, as she walked across the desert, she remembered once traversing a similar location on her journey with Yukiharu.

Yukiharu the Twilight Diver was the only one who never once tried to use Nihilo like a tool.

When she finally met up with the pair, Viga beamed at Nihilo with her usual smile.

“…Mom.”

“I see you made it out in one piece, Nihilo dear.”

Enu lingered next to Viga, but he didn’t have his usual composure.

Nihilo could clearly pick up on the unease and impatience he felt at the unexpected state of affairs.

“Sorry about that, but…we followed Kuuro’s predictions to the letter, which meant leaving you behind.”

Even in his state, Enu explained as if he had seen right through to Nihilo’s displeasure.

“He judged that a revenant like you would be able to survive. If you hadn’t bought us time, there would have been casualties among us. We owe you a great deal.”

“It’s fine… It didn’t bother me.”

It was indeed true that the reason she had been able to execute her poison gas attack under those circumstances might have been that she knew there wasn’t any threat of it harming anyone else. It wouldn’t be an impossible task considering Roto’s mobility, but escaping was another story… The fact was that someone had needed to buy them time.

However, if there was another reason why Nihilo had been exposed to danger…

“Nihilo. I want to hear about what state the krsnik’s in right now. Please tell us.”

…it was to confirm the facts regarding the out-of-control krsnik.

For them, having escaped from the tower according to Kuuro’s foreknowledge, there was no way to verify if the information they got from Kuuro’s Clairvoyance was accurate. They couldn’t ascertain how genuinely out of control Roto was—or how dangerous.

Thus, they had needed to leave Nihilo the Vortical Stampede behind and let her clash with Roto.

“The krsnik’s…unthinkably strong. She’s irregular even for a construct, I think. Her mobility, in particular—she’s just as fast as Helneten is in combat or maybe even faster. Her mental assembly has failed. She seems to have affection for everything in the world and yet…she slaughtered all the other experiments, and she tried to kill me while fawning all over me, too. Even though she was just born, she’s highly intelligent—she was able to perfectly regenerate herself with Word Arts. She said that she gave herself her own name… Her name is Roto the Cross.”

“Understood. That aligns with the situation Kuuro predicted with his Clairvoyance. As we discussed beforehand, we will head to the rendezvous point from here… But.”

Enu turned his back to Nihilo and continued.

“…I’d like you to pursue Kuuro the Cautious.”

“Why? That wasn’t part of the plan.”

“The krsnik’s creation failed due to some outside, artificial interference… Among us, the only suspect that could have performed such a trick is Kuuro. Even if the culprit is someone else, Kuuro’s Clairvoyance would have detected precisely who it was.”

Nihilo belatedly understood where Enu’s irritation stemmed from.

In which case, the fact that Enu and Viga were acting independently from Kuuro and the others might not have purely stemmed from following the escape plan.

“You mean that Kuuro had a change of heart at some point after bringing Linaris here?”

“The man continued to observe and report on the Particle Storm up until he almost died. I had assumed Kuuro wouldn’t bring his own personal feelings into matters. Nevertheless, given the fact that this accident happened, there is only one conclusion to make…”

“What do you think, Viga? You think someone actively caused this accident?”

“…I don’t know.”

Viga was also baffled by the sequence of unexpected situations confronting her.

Staying dead silent, she wasn’t like the Viga Nihilo knew.

She seemed to be brooding over something and accompanying Enu, but without ever expressing her opinion on his decision.

“I personally don’t think there was any failure in the krsnik’s creation. Something like this has never happened before. However, if the techniques that my kin consumed several generations to polish did, in fact, fail, then…”

Viga’s expression was unchanged.

She had the same mild smile; her eyes remained squinted.

“…does that mean all those victims died for nothing?”

Viga the Clamor was the last descendant of a family who dreamed of creating the prefect life-form.

The krsnik’s completion wasn’t only Enu’s earnest wish, but hers as well. Linaris the Obsidian must have been the ultimate base model to work from—a miracle that would never come again.

“We need to regain control of Linaris the Obsidian to verify that for ourselves, as well. I want you to meet up with Kuuro and watch over him to make sure he will bring Linaris to the rendezvous.”

“What’s the point? If Kuuro really is behind all this, he’ll just end up running away.”

“That’s fine. It became clear during the raid on Obsidian Eyes that his invincible Clairvoyance has a weakness. Kuuro may be able to escape, but he won’t be able to escape and bring Linaris with him. If Kuuro’s goal is to ensure Linaris survives, eventually he will need to act independently from her.”

“And you want me to go and recapture her then? Awfully reckless, isn’t it?”

“This is our only means to ensure the project continues. If Kuuro hasn’t betrayed us, then you can simply accompany him to the rendezvous point. That would serve as infallible proof.”

“…”

Nihilo surmised the unspoken purpose hidden in Enu’s words.

Enu had used Nihilo as a decoy. He was scared Nihilo might retaliate against him if they allowed her to accompany them.

“Viga… What do you think?”

“The krsnik assembly…should have been a success… I needed to look at Linaris’s body and inspect it further. Asking for your help is our only way to know for certain, I’m afraid.”

“…Well then.”

From the very start, there was no love between Nihilo and Viga. Nihilo had no illusions otherwise, either.

Furthermore, Viga’s goal was to create a perfect life-form that would save all the world’s people.

Slaughtering the people affected by the Demon King’s terror was, to Viga, simply her second-best option. Up until just the day before, the completion of the krsnik, meant to save the people from fear without needing to kill, should have been close at hand.

At this point, Nihilo was nothing but an outdated weapon.

“I get it. Well then… Hope to see you again sometime, Mom.”

Separating herself from the other two, Nihilo then broke into a run.

Nihilo the Vortical Stampede’s capabilities meant she would likely be able to catch up to Kuuro before he made it to an urban area.

As she felt the wind coil around her body, suddenly she thought back on what Roto the Cross had said to her.

Actually, that might have been the first time…

The krsnik project had failed.

If that was the truth of the situation, then did that mean that young girl was born unwanted by all?

…anyone told me that they loved me.

Though the desert night had grown very chilly, it wasn’t the temperature in the air that made Yuno’s intestines run ice-cold.

The True Demon King. Kiyazuna the Axle. Dakai the Magpie. Soujirou the Willow-Sword. Powerful, calamitous people who trampled over everything without a thought to the lives of anyone else. I always detested them all.

However, she had known for herself—

—Even while she desperately lived with this abhorrence for the strong in her breast, Yuno herself had betrayed and trampled over a significant number of others.

Yuno absolutely did not have enough misfortune, nor goodness of heart, to coddle herself in her position among the weak.

Perhaps that in and of itself was the strength that allowed her to make choices for her own life. The freedom that Soujirou had spoken of in the ruins of Nagan.

Someday will I…will I end up as something that I’ve always hated?

“Yuno the Distant Talon.”

Kuuro addressed her from up ahead with a murmur.

Strangely, despite how cold it was, Kuuro had taken off his thick coat a moment prior and moved the still-sleeping Cuneigh from his coat pocket into his pouch.

“…Yes?”

“There’s no more eyes watching over you. What do you intend to do from here on out?”

“I…I don’t think I can abandon Linaris after all. I know that if I do, I’ll be left with another lifetime’s worth of regret. Also, if the krsnik research is going to continue, we’ll have to meet up with Enu and the others in the end, anyway, right?”

“No… We might not meet up with them again.”

“Huh…? What does that—?”

It was at that exact moment.

Dust and sand assailed them from their flank like an incoming storm.

The sand came with too much speed and pressure for them to react, pulling Yuno down to the ground.

We’re under attack!

She had several scratches on the arm she used to cover her face.

This tract of land wasn’t a rocky desert but a stretch of accumulated sand. Yuno thought that an artillery shell or something similar had scored a direct hit, blowing the sand up around them. She stood up, wiped her eyes, and by then, the contest was decided.

“Nihilo the Vortical Stampede.”

Yuno heard Kuuro’s exasperated voice.

“Quit the meaningless attacks while you’re ahead.”

“Meaningless, really? Here I thought that forcing you to cover Linaris with that one attack would give me an opening.”

An alluring voice that seemed inhuman, despite containing a sense of sadism and pleasure.

It was Nihilo the Vortical Stampede?—meaning that, in the span of a single instant, she had closed in from far out of sight range. The hand she went to extend to grab Linaris had been stopped by Kuuro before she could even move a muscle.

Nihilo surely must have surpassed Kuuro in sheer physical strength, but Kuuro’s Clairvoyance could see how she channeled this power, and at which point he needed to stop her to bring her to a complete standstill.

“Tee-hee… So I guess any sort of cheap trick is useless against that Clairvoyance of yours?”

The explosion of sand a moment ago hadn’t come from any cannon fire. It was nothing but a smoke screen Nihilo had kicked up by punching a sand dune.

In Kuuro’s other hand was his sand-covered coat. He had taken it off a few minutes prior. He must have used it in his other hand to protect himself and Linaris from the sand blast. Kuuro had perceived everything—what direction the attack had come from along with the exact moment Nihilo would make her surprise attack—and stopped it all with his one free hand, without letting Linaris come to any harm.

A clash between monsters on a completely different plane from Yuno.

“…So Enu couldn’t put his trust in me, then.”

“You can even see through that, huh? As you guessed, I was ordered to take Linaris back.”

“I also know that you aren’t serious about this. I could understand it if you didn’t know about my Clairvoyance already, but if you were coming at me properly, you wouldn’t be this clumsy.”

“Just a teensy bit of a payback, really. When everyone found out the krsnik was out of control, you were the one who said to abandon me and run away, right?”

“I saw that ultimately everyone would come out safe. But that’s fair. You have a right to get revenge.”

Kuuro wiped his coat, but it seemed the fine desert sand didn’t want to fall off.

Nihilo crossed her arms behind her and seemed to be enjoying herself as she looked at Kuuro with a smile.

“But well, it looks like I just failed to recapture Linaris. Suppose that I means I can’t go back to Mom and Enu, huh?”

“You’re planning on dropping out of this project, too… Is that it? What do you plan to do from here without Viga the Clamor behind you? What’s your objective here?”

“I’m going to recover Helneten. The other body of mine.”

“…Helneten?”

It was the first time Yuno had heard the name. She wondered if that was true of Kuuro, too.

“It doesn’t concern anyone else but me, okay? Oh, right. Yuno the Distant Talon… I heard that you were in Lithia during the battle; is that right? Enu told me about it.”

“Yes, and what about…it?”

Yuno stepped backward with heightened caution.

She never expected a monster like Nihilo would turn her attention toward her in this situation.

Though Kuuro had effortlessly held out against her ambush, Yuno knew that Nihilo could kill her in the blink of an eye.

One of the powerful, who could hold Yuno’s life in her hand just by standing before her.

“See, there’s something I’ve been meaning to pass on to someone for a while. Anyone would’ve done the trick, really, but…I’m sure everyone I run into from here on out will be an enemy, so.”

“I—I am, too…”

Despite being terribly afraid, Yuno managed to get her voice out.

She couldn’t begin to imagine what a construct like Nihilo had to give her.

“I—I hate you! A-all the pain you caused Linaris…! The terrible things you did to her…!”

“Hee-hee-hee-hee… That was a lot of fun. Anyway, you don’t have to think of me as a friend or anything. I mean, I don’t particularly hate or like you at all, either.”

Nihilo kept up her smile as she took a step forward.

Her golden eyes peered into Yuno’s face, and Yuno quailed like she was being stared down by a snake.

Nihilo’s shapely lips whispered to her.

“Karawa Second District, street number sixty-eight. On the second floor of Rejura Curios is a locked room.”

“Huh…?! What?!”

“Didn’t catch that? Karawa Second District, street number sixty-eight. It’s a normal urban area, and no one gives it a second thought. The old man in Rejura Curios on the first floor doesn’t even know anything… I don’t have the key, but the one borrowing the room’s gone, so you can just break down the door.”

Nothing about this made any sense to Yuno.

Why did she suddenly tell Yuno about this? What meaning was there to telling her?

“There’s a hidden door underneath the rug, and that’s where all the information and evidence that Yukiharu the Twilight Diver gathered together is hidden… If you want power, head over there, Yuno the Distant Talon.”

“Wh-why?”

She was so perplexed that she simply voiced her thoughts out loud.

Yuno backed away.

“Why tell me about that…? Wh-what is the point to this?”

“Ah, sorry, maybe I should’ve explained a bit more… Yukiharu was a companion of mine up until a little while ago. He was a visitor and collected several bits of information that could very well topple Aureatia completely. He died in the middle of it all, but…it’s kind of a waste for all that hard work to come to nothing, right? This definitely wasn’t something I could bring up while Enu was around, too.”

Yuno had learned the name Yukiharu the Twilight Diver while she was working under Haade.

It was said he was acting in secret around the Sixways Exhibition and gathering information from all over the place.

What she hadn’t known was that he had died somewhere unbeknownst to anyone, nor that all the information he gathered was hoarded away somewhere.

“Sh-shouldn’t you…? Why don’t you just use it for yourself then, Nihilo?”

“Sort through all that information to get the most out of it and ingratiate myself in society? You think a revenant like me could do any of that? Gotta be a minia, or it won’t work. That, and they have to be fairly smart, too. That said, someone who seems like they’d have some delightful destructive fun with it would be best of all—I’m sure that would’ve been what Yukiharu wanted.”

“…S-something that audacious, I’d never… I’m sure I’d never even go somewhere like that…”

“Even if the information revealed who the True Hero was?”

“…!”

“Tee-hee-hee. That got a nice reaction out of you. Glad I told you.”

“…She’s not lying.” Kuuro glared sternly at Nihilo.

“What do you think I should do, Kuuro…?”

“Don’t try to get me to stop you. With trouble like that, you’re worse off just getting involved at all.”

“Don’t believe me if you want; it doesn’t make a difference to me, really. I just wanted to be sure to tell someone.”

With this, Nihilo turned on her heels.

As if, after staring so hard at Yuno a moment before, she immediately lost all interest.

“I’ll be going, then… Sorry for the trouble.”

“Nihilo…”

Yuno tried to call to her, but Nihilo didn’t turn around.

In the once-silent desert, Yuno’s heartbeat seemed to pound in her ears.

Yuno was terrified. The True Hero’s identity. A truth that would topple Aureatia.

If she wanted to know, she could easily learn for herself something that no one else knew.

She felt as if a world-ending bomb had been quietly dropped into her lap.

“What do you think…Nihilo plans to do…?”

“No clue. Will say that I doubt I’ll ever run into her again.”

Yuno the Distant Talon had believed that no matter how much she struggled, when faced with the colossal power to actually make the world turn, her struggle was little more than a flap of a butterfly’s wings.

However, over the course of this single quiet night, the krsnik was released into the world on a horrifying rampage. Nihilo the Vortical Stampede had begun to act of her own will.

Meanwhile, Yuno was accompanying Kuuro the Cautious, with his omniscience, and Linaris the Obsidian, the wickedest mutant strain of all.

“Better think of it as something that doesn’t concern you at all.”

Yuno had learned where a truth capable of overthrowing Aureatia was kept hidden.

Was there a chance that the things that had happened that night would actually change the world?

“The world doesn’t revolve around us,” Kuuro the Cautious spit out, as if resigned to it all.

Enu the Distant Mirror and Viga the Clamor walked through the lifeless desert for a while without exchanging a word.

The desert region in Aureatia’s Outer Ward was vast, but when compared to the grand swath of land controlled by Aureatia, it wasn’t that big at all. To get from the sunken tower back to the urban areas took only a single night, even without a carriage.

The path beneath their feet began to be covered in cobblestones, and they saw more and more homes housing the zmeu of the Outer Ward.

The morning was close. The pale-yellow dawn began to leak out from the clouds.

“Viga. Next time…”

Enu’s eyes squinted in the light.

“Next time, I promise I’ll prepare a finer research environment for you. I need you to create the perfect krsnik. No matter how many years it may take.”

The krsnik creation wasn’t a project that was just starting for the first time.

Enu had used the development facilities in the National Defense Research Institute, while always hiding from the eyes of Aureatia, and spent many months and years on selecting bodies to use as a base, evaluating the virus’s behavior and many other kinds of foundational research.

What had caused the project to fail was the supposed final piece of the puzzle.

“Linaris the Obsidian is a mutant strain unprecedented throughout all of history. Introducing her into the krsnik’s construction might have had some unexpected effect on it all.”

“…No. As I said before…I can’t imagine that’s the case. I didn’t see any indications of a mutation deviating from the standard in the virus’s state post-experiment up until yesterday.”

Viga didn’t speak in her usual drawling tone.

Though Viga was seen as someone with a completely broken psyche, even she felt pained over the development.

“If Linaris did cause the mutation, it would mean that she harbors a virus that’s capable of mutating into something with completely different characteristics without warning. If such a thing was possible, she couldn’t even be called a vampire anymore.”

“You’re right. That’s why I trust you more than Kuuro.”

“Enu…you don’t think all this wasn’t just a simple failure on my part?”

“I don’t.”

Enu made an effort not to look at Viga’s expression as she walked behind him.

He was walking with his back exposed to her.

“What about that I might have actually betrayed you, not Kuuro?”

“I don’t think so.”

Viga the Clamor was a cruel, broken wretch. Normally, she should’ve been the first person suspected.

“We’ve known each other a long time. I…may not have any knowledge on Life Arts, but I know you very well. It’s impossible that you would fail under those conditions,” he said without turning around.

Viga the Clamor was born and raised in a village that didn’t even have a name.

A hidden village created by a demon king, driven from the Kingdom long, long ago, in order to pursue and pass on their Life Arts and medical knowledge. Awful breeding and refinement using their own blood relations—the genius born as a result of many generations of selective breeding was Viga the Clamor.

However, the goal of her clan wasn’t to spread death or to bring ruin to the Kingdom.

It was to create a perfect life-form that would bring salvation to a world beyond all help.

In a world where the people believed the Wordmaker genuinely existed, they instead sought salvation from an idol of science.

Then Viga destroyed the village where she was born and raised—and drew within a hair’s breadth of slaughtering Aureatia. It had all been to stop the spread of the disease known as terror during the age of the True Demon King.

Arrested as a criminal, Viga was never given the chance to make use of her gifts. She was wasted as bait to expose the National Defense Research Institute Iriolde had organized in secret.

When the National Defense Research Institute was raided, there were orders from Aureatia to eradicate Viga the Clamor along with Yukiharu the Twilight Diver.

There wasn’t anyone who trusted Viga the Clamor. She was a monster.

“Besides, you never once voiced any complaint toward me or Aureatia.”

Enu had betrayed several different organizations, but he had gambled on Viga the Clamor’s genius—and the sincerity of her heart.

There wasn’t a single commonality between a bureaucrat who rose to the top of Aureatia’s government and a self-proclaimed demon king born without a single iota of morality, but he believed they had been comrades who shared a single goal.

“Enu. I understand that…for you, this may be little more than consolation, but…”

Viga opened her mouth with slight trepidation.

“The krsnik—Roto the Cross will carry out the objective we wanted to achieve. The body capable of infecting the world with peace, where no one is able to harm each other, is already completed. Her mind is simply broken.”

“…I must have really become weakhearted if I’m making a self-proclaimed demon king console me.”

Enu flashed a dry smile.

He had thought his emotions wouldn’t be affected by anything, but apparently the disparity from what he had hoped was the one thing that still affected him.

He had understood from the very beginning this whole project sounded like an empty fantasy. The next chance, or an even better chance, would never come, no matter how many years he waited.

“True… Even assuming Roto is this monster who will toy with, and ultimately rob, the lives of several people a day, it’s an all-too-cheap price to pay to maintain world peace… However, what was more significant was that she couldn’t be hostile to the minian races. Someone is bound to try slaying any existence that causes fear in others…”

After slipping into the lives of the people, creating a perfect collective, and etching peace within all the people, her life would peacefully run out within a single generation. That was how the salvation given from the krsnik project needed to go.

No matter what Roto the Cross accomplished from here on out, Aureatia would need to slay her.

“Even if Roto loves them all?”

“That’s right. Because no one will believe her.”

The reality was Enu understood the truth for himself.

Enu the Distant Mirror had made the wrong choice.

He feared and suspected Kuuro the Cautious; however he also knew that the leprechaun’s judgment had been sound.

Though Kuuro was trying to save Enu’s former master, Linaris the Obsidian, Enu knew that he wouldn’t do anything to run contrary to the loyalty he previously promised.

The reason he couldn’t believe him with his whole heart was because Enu thought Kuuro the Cautious was simply different from them.

The fear of the strong has been instilled in everyone…

The suicidal path Aureatia pursued was no different.

Each time they bore witness to the tremendous power of the Sixways Exhibition’s hero candidates, they then believed that these same hero candidates were capable of squashing their world underfoot of their own volition. They hoped that these threats that were guaranteed to one day bring ruin would be annihilated first.

Since all the champions brave enough to challenge the True Demon King had ended up that way, without exception.

How much better for everyone would it have been if they could all believe that the powerful and strong, so far removed from themselves, in fact, possessed hearts and minds exactly like them…and were simply trying to live correctly, according to their own beliefs?

This world wasn’t like that, however. It needed the perfect krsnik.

“Viga. Next time…” Enu turned around. He continued, “I know you’ll be able to do it.”

There wasn’t a single sign of the woman he had been talking to moments prior.

Instead, there was a grotesque oddity of a man, crawling face down on all fours with his long arms and legs.

The wickedest spy formation, unable to be detected as they got within arms’ reach, until putting themselves in view.

“Wieze the Variation…”

The pursuers Kuuro had foreseen weren’t within Aureatia. No matter how hard they had worked to erase their tracks, Obsidian Eyes, each member an unrivaled spy in their own right, had accurately dug up the route Linaris’s kidnapping had taken.

The only way to escape from them had been to obey the clairvoyant’s prognostications.

“We’ve secured Viga the Clamor. Our comrades will hear what she has to say, our way.” Wieze continued with hatred in his voice. “So you are free to answer however you like here… Enu the Distant Mirror. Where is our mistress?”

“Ha-ha…ha-ha-ha-ha.” Enu laughed, expression unchanged.

It was comical. Kuuro’s prediction had been correct after all.

Enu’s thinking, to believe that he could use his own wits and knowledge of the city to shake any pursuers, had been all too shortsighted and foolish.

There had been a safe path available to him. If he hadn’t distrusted Kuuro, been so obsessed with Linaris, and sent Nihilo the Vortical Stampede out to get them, Nihilo could have driven back Obsidian Eyes, were they to show up.

He should have trusted that Kuuro, having tormented Enu’s former master, wouldn’t deceive him, and believed in Nihilo’s loyalty after they used her as a decoy.

It was so simple that even a child could manage, so why, then, hadn’t Enu been able to?

It’s because I’m…

To Aureatia. To the National Defense Research Institute. To Obsidian Eyes. To the Gray-Haired Child.

A traitor myself.

“Why do you laugh?”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha. Y-you…you lot are simply too comical. Fettered by your belief in Linaris the Obsidian and constantly tortured by it… Very well, then. I’ll reveal to you exactly where she is.”

Enu knew which route Kuuro’s group was heading down.

If they hadn’t betrayed Enu, then they would bring Linaris along a different road from Enu and Viga and head toward the rendezvous point.

“She’s long dead. She couldn’t handle our experiments. She was never going to survive being separated from Obsidian Eyes; that was obvious.”

“…”

The silence was long.

With the mask covering Wieze’s entire face, Enu couldn’t make out his expression.

Finally, he growled in a low whisper.

“………There will be a reprisal.”

Having killed Obsidian Eyes’s treasured mistress, Enu would likely taste the longest torment possible. If he ultimately revealed the truth at the end of all the torture, then it might prove to be completely meaningless torment at that.

Nevertheless, if there was any action he could take to compensate for his distrust toward Kuuro, it was this lie and this lie alone.

Since he would never live to see Kuuro again.

At some point, the morning sun had risen in the sky.

Enu the Distant Mirror’s fortune had run out.

Ah right. Roto the Cross, was it? A fine name. Just once…

She had undoubtedly awakened.

She possessed superb physical abilities and intelligence.

The only example, beautiful and strong, of the life-form Enu had desired.

…I would’ve liked to see her for myself.

Recently, Aureatia’s Industrial Ministry underwent a large-scale organizational restructuring.

Even before this, with former head Fourth Minister Kaete the Round Table’s downfall due to suspicions of foul play during the sixth match and plans for an insurrection, about half of the leading bureaucrats were headhunted by the other Twenty-Nine Officials, and the remaining ministry staff had just finished cutting back the ministry’s scale and reorganizing operations. Many among the staff were arrested as well for being sycophants to Kaete as he schemed to rebel against the current regime—and were responsible for researching, maintaining, and smuggling Beyond weaponry.

That same Kaete was suddenly reinstated among the Twenty-Nine Officials.

While the organizational structure of Aureatia as a whole, not just the Industrial Ministry, was going through unavoidable changes due to the events of the grand coup attempt and the death of Rosclay the Absolute, Kaete’s reinstatement was a puzzling personnel move, even when considering all the suspicions of foul play in the sixth match had been lifted.

Kaete’s reinstatement to the Twenty-Nine Officials was essentially lending him the position in name only. Kaete was only a special adviser, with the leadership of the Industrial Ministry not included with his reinstatement—and subjected to constant surveillance.

Given that he didn’t have any directorial duties, his office was very plain and simple. Reusing a maintenance worker station that had sat empty after personnel cuts, the interior had merely been adjusted to fit its new purpose.

Kaete paced around the windowless room looking irritated.

The assignment of this office wasn’t what had incited this anger. Kaete—nay, all of Aureatia was confronted right now with a far more threatening reality.

Kia the World Word… No, it wasn’t only her. Mestelexil’s learning ability was completely beyond my calculations! I can’t believe he was able to use such a method of attack…

Slaying the omnipotent.

Common sense dictated it impossible, yet Mestelexil thoroughly carried out this order.

Every single attack he threw at her, no matter what combination of Beyond weaponry, failed to have any effect on Kia the World Word whatsoever, even after outwitting her complete automatic defenses, yet in the very end, Mestelexil had used an attack of words to finally destroy Kia.

Mestelexil had accomplished his mission. His method was beyond what Kaete could have imagined, including all the tactics he used up to that point as well. However, going off the objective of fundamentally eliminating the threats to Aureatia and the Queen, everything had led in the worst direction possible.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

A subunit, a small round body reminiscent of Mestelexil’s head with three legs growing out of it, ran around the room laughing. It was chasing around an avian drone also constructed out of his own Word Arts.

Kaete thought it must have been nice to ignore Kaete’s worries and be so carefree.

What is going to happen to us?

At this stage, Aureatia could no longer shift the responsibility onto Kaete or Mestelexil and pretend it never happened.

Even the other Twenty-Nine Officials weren’t dimwitted enough to think that would solve the problem. Mestelexil’s fighting strength was indispensable to suppressing Kia, or any other threat.

However, in the absolutely worst-case scenario…there’s a chance Mestelexil will be disposed of, too.

Even omnipotence itself was unable to kill Mestelexil. That had been proven.

However, Kaete couldn’t say with certainty that Aureatia wouldn’t use some method outside of Kaete’s estimations against Mestelexil. Uhak the Silent, for example, originally meant to be employed against Kia, or the mysterious unknown parent unit in Obsidian Eyes, the vampire capable of infecting others instantly through even the slightest scratch.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Kaete! Wh-who is…my next opponent?!”

“Pipe down… I’m thinking.”

With any political foundation he once had now gone, Mestelexil was now the only card Kaete had to play.

Mestelexil was a perfected combat life-form, but Kaete was the only one who could protect him politically from the nation-state of Aureatia. Kaete needed consider what to do if the worst situation ever came about.

If we’re going to get done in eventually, then the only choice…is to take down Aureatia itself.

The batch of weapons he had previously produced in the Industrial Ministry had all been taken away, and he didn’t have a single soldier under his command. However, as long as Mestelexil was with him, he alone would have been able to bring the Industrial Ministry and the royal palace under control in the blink of an eye.

The strategy may have been nothing but a childish fantasy, including the idea that he and Kiyazuna would come out unharmed when it was all over, but taking the initiative to attack Aureatia and survive seemed far more realistic than the prospect of defeating Kia the World Word and living to tell the tale had first sounded.

They may be a flock of imbeciles, but I doubt they’re so soft that gaining control of the Queen would let me seize power… But now the situation has changed. Rosclay is dead. If push comes to shove—

The white noise of the radzio receiver provided to Kaete interrupted his train of thought.

On the other end of the line was Hidow the Clamp.

<Keate! Emergency, we’re requesting your presence! Can you get to the Central Assembly Hall?!>

“Tell me why. You think some vague request will get me to go anywhere?”

<I don’t got the time to deal with that crap of yours, got it?! The palace’s been destroyed! Kia the World Word did it! The main hall’s gone!>

“…The palace?”

Though he looked at the authority of the Kingdom and the value of the Queen with scorn more than anything else, Kaete found himself speechless. Even Kyaliga the Music Reed’s assault on the royal palace only happened because he had been allowed to clear the moat around the palace grounds.

The main hall of the royal palace was at the very center of the palace grounds and served as Queen Sephite’s residence. He should not have been hearing the end results that the main hall had been destroyed instead of a report that palace grounds had fallen.

Had Aureatia severed the delicate bond that had barely managed to keep this monster in check?

The person in charge of this incident summoned everyone who could immediately jump into action, including the commander on the scene.

It was Aureatia’s Twelfth Minister, Hidow the Clamp, who had been tasked with jurisdiction over the original royal palace assault.

Previously dismissed once during the turmoil of the Sixways Exhibition, following the large-scale coup, he had returned to his post in charge of the royal palace assault case. On the surface, his circumstances were the same as Kaete’s own. However, his commanding authority was above Kaete’s—a fact that Kaete was terribly loath to accept.

“We’re still waiting for a few people, but let’s get started.”

Hidow didn’t even introduce himself to everyone gathered in the conference room. This stemmed less from his usual rudeness and more from his panic that there wasn’t a second to waste.

“I’ll explain the situation again. Kia the World Word tore down the whole main hall at the royal palace. The damages include all the rooms in the Hall of Mirrors on the second floor of the west wing. Everything was blasted away in a big sphere shape. The hunting storehouses below it are in a catastrophic state, too, obviously. The human casualties are three lightly wounded chamberlains. Kia purposefully revealed herself to them and showed them part of the destruction.”

“Was her goal to send out a warning—or a threat?” a member of the Police Agency raised their hand and asked.

“That’s right. She coulda done all this without ever showing herself if she wanted, and she coulda gotten the chamberlains wrapped up in all the destruction, too. Heck, she coulda gone after the Queen herself and killed her on the spot. Best to assume that she did all this destruction in the most conspicuous and most heinous way because she wanted to declare war on all of us. She said something similar to the chamberlains, too,” Hidow continued flatly. “‘You all killed Elea.’”

Just how much rage had originally been in those words?

A young girl of just fourteen years old had declared war against the largest kingdom in the land.

“‘You’re going to pay for this.’”

A silence took hold of the conference room.

Kia wasn’t trying to eradicate everything and end it all at once. She was attempting to instill a fear in Aureatia worthy of the hatred she felt in her heart.

…Damn emotional brat.

Scowling at the stillness in the room, Kaete was more upset at their enemy’s illogical actions than anything else.

With both Kia the World Word and Kiyazuna the Axle, the more exceptional and unparalleled the strong were, for some reason, the more they enjoyed this self-satisfactory revenge. The powerful believed, and never questioned, that they had the right to choose how situations were resolved.

If she had just forced us to admit defeat from the start, we could’ve graciously accepted it all. By pressuring us but still giving us room to resist, our only option left’s to fight to the last.

Kaete picked up a note of anger more than fear in Hidow’s tone as he answered the question.

As irritating as it was, it appeared Hidow felt similarly to Kaete on the matter.

“Kia the World Word has been designated a self-proclaimed demon king. We’ll mobilize as many as possible of the hero candidates who can still fight and have them try to subjugate the World Word, but those with straightforward fighting capabilities will be benched for now. The central figures in this operation are Uhak the Silent and Kuze the Passing Calamity. The detailed arrangements are confidential, but they’ve already been sent into action. I want all of you to prevent any expected damages and handle everything without causing confusion on the scene.”

Erasure and instant death, is it?

At this stage, they were the only concepts capable of killing an omnipotent.

Given that Mestelexil’s all-out attacks didn’t get the job done, Psianop the Inexhaustive Stagnation and Shalk the Sound Slicer were out of the question, and even if they did bring Mele the Horizon’s Roar into battle, any sort of subjugation through raw power was going to be impossible.

After sharing the information on the situation and giving directives on the most important matters, everyone else hastily rose up from their seats while Kaete didn’t move, his arms crossed.

“Do you have a serious chance here?” Kaete asked Hidow, who had stayed behind in the meeting room.

“Only damn option we’ve got is to send Uhak the Silent at her… Can’t even communicate with the ogre, and he hangs out with Kia, too, but if kills her on some whim of his, then we got a chance.”

“Hmph. No guarantees he’ll be able to defeat her even if you get your wish. If she’s really omnipotent, then she could be able to create Word Arts even when they’ve all been canceled out.”

“I don’t got time to argue with some dumbass nonsense.”

“Is it really nonsense? When she survived Mestelexil’s onslaught, she clearly managed to roll back her fate. You said it yourself… We still don’t know what Kia’s powers are fully capable of.”

“…Tch!” Hidow clicked his tongue, sounding profoundly irritated.

All power had its limits. Kaete had planned the operation that day presupposing these types of fundamental laws to their world.

However, even with strength not of this world but from the Beyond, he hadn’t been able to gauge the limits of omnipotence.

“One more thing I want to know. What about Yaniegiz?”

“…Didn’t see him in the group, did you? Should make it obvious. That idiot quit the Twenty-Nine Officials. His whole arbitrary decision to use Elea’s name to lure out Kia was to do exactly this from the damn start…! Took all of Rosclay’s men with him, and he’s seriously trying to kill Kia the World Word. Guy’s nuts.”

“Laid all the groundwork inside the reformation faction, did he? The man’s an utter imbecile, but not for lack of spite. Does he know about this new operation, then?”

“No clue. There were a whole bunch of the reformation guys among the group gathered here. If they pass on the info to him, he might try to cut in and kill Kia after we lure her out. Not that him showing up’ll make a damn difference.”

“How are you going to lure her out?”

“Highly likely that Kia comes to get her friends back. Elea may be dead, but since Uhak’s alive, she can still save him. We’re using the North-South Railway to transport Uhak the Silent. Kuze the Passing Disaster’s his escort. Uhak was working together with Kia and Tu, but since he and Kuze shared a mentor, he might listen to what he says more than the other two.”

So the idea’s that Kuze’s not just a means to oppose Kia’s omnipotence but serves as a way to control Uhak once Kia’s been lured out, too… Pretty efficient move to make in an emergency like this.

If Uhak the Silent was truly able to nullify all supernatural abilities, then the moment he got close enough to perceive Kia the World Word, even a single musket shot would be able to finish her off.

On top of that, Kia’s attack methods could brush up against the conditions behind Kuze the Passing Disaster’s lethal counterattack.

“Kaete, you obviously know the reason I called you here when you don’t got a damn organization to even mobilize, yeah? Uhak’s being transported on the Orange Thirty-Six train along the North-South Railway. Tell Mestelexil to follow after ’em.”

“I planned on settling the score with Kia the World Word whether you told me to or not. Mestelexil and I took on this operation to begin with. Which is why I don’t like any of this. Right after Yaniegiz resigns, you just decide on your own to get this operation going. Was this whole ‘emergency meeting’ a big farce, too?”

This wasn’t the only part that stuck in Kaete’s throat—they were treating their strongest piece of all, Mestelexil, like a backup plan—and finding it unnecessary to mobilize him first and foremost.

“Listen, Kaete…I ain’t doing this ’cause I want to be throwing my weight around, got it?”

Hidow slammed his fist into the wall, but with how exhausted he was, it only made a quiet thud.

“…We’re faced with this emergency, and you expect me to listen to you mouth off about every little thing? Wake the hell up, Kaete. There ain’t no time to waste getting everyone’s opinions when we’re up against a foe like this. We were simply lucky to get out of this with only the palace’s main hall turned to rubble. Any district in Aureatia could get attacked right this very moment and be wiped off the damn map!”

“Hmph.”

In the past, Hidow the Clamp had been recognized by himself and others as a natural talent with a sheltered upbringing. Kaete acknowledged his wits, but when it came to political conflicts, he had viewed him as a runt who didn’t even come close to Rosclay.

Though, after interacting with Haade and Yaniegiz and witnessing their madness firsthand, Hidow might have caught their flames of obsessiveness.

When talking about genuine almighty power, they couldn’t afford to be stingy or picky about their methods.

When it came to that thought, Kaete was of the exact same position as Hidow.

“You’re the one who said it, so you better not get the priorities mixed up here. We’re killing Kia the World Word, no matter how we do it.”

At that same moment, there was strict surveillance spread out over the canal area in the Sixth Borough of the Northern Outer Ward, and the residents were forbidden from entering. The massive destruction that had torn apart the harbor area and several anchored vessels was explained to be the handiwork of self-proclaimed demon king Tu.

The nominal reason, the safety of the citizenry, wasn’t a false one. Tu the Magic’s fight with Shalk the Sound Slicer left her neutralized and in a difficult position to come back from, but Aureatia had failed in the true goal of the operation—slaying Kia the World Word.

From an outsider’s perspective, the reason behind the three-person union of Kia the World Word, Tu the Magic, and Uhak the Silent, unofficially designated the New Demon King Army, was unclear, and no one was certain that Kia the World Word would appear to rescue Tu. Nevertheless, Twentieth Minister Hidow the Clamp had sent as many surveillance personnel as possible to the Sixth Borough of the Outer Northern Ward at the same time he put the Uhak transfer plan into motion.

Kia the World Word’s fighting strength was closer in scale to a natural disaster than a singular individual at this point. There was zero chance that even the guarding eyes of the land’s largest army would be able to stop her assault, but there was significance to keeping the canal under watch.

The first was to prevent any contact with the citizens or any potential witnesses. The fact that Kia had been designated a self-proclaimed demon king had yet to be announced to the public at this stage.

The other reason was to observe her main goals. If Kia immediately came to rescue Tu, then it was highly likely she would plan to make contact with Uhak, too. It would solidify that pouring all their energy into the Uhak transport operation was their best option.

Tu also picked up on parts of this frantic action while still submerged underwater.

Vibrations and sounds, different from the flow of the river, which came to her ever so slightly from aboveground.

The presence of a person who seemed out of place in the desolate streets of the Northern Outer Word’s Sixth Borough pulled Tu out of her regretful drowse. Though, being a construct, Tu the Magic hadn’t actually been asleep in the true meaning of the word.

What’s going on up there?

As a result of her clash with Shalk the Sound Slicer, Tu was still totally immobilized. Tu’s body was bound up by something that even her brute strength could sever, despite being designed to possess ultimate physical abilities—a strand of her own hair.

The total blackness from being buried under the endless rubble and sand amassed on the riverbed made her lose all sense of time, but even then, not much time had actually passed since her defeat at Shalk’s hands.

Is Aureatia trying to lift me up out of here? That can’t be it, right…?

The faint vibrations eventually became a whirlpool, then began changing into a current with a singular direction.

It wasn’t the normal current of the canal, either. It was a swift torrent up toward the water’s surface.

“Bwh, blrgh!”

Tu struggled, unable to move her hands and feet, as she was swallowed up in the turbid waters.

Since Shalk had made her sink to the bottom, Tu had stopped breathing of her own accord, but after being fully freed from her coffin of sand and dirt, water suddenly rushed into her respiratory system.

Naturally, Tu wasn’t panicked about drowning like a regular living creature. Even in the midst of the storming waters, as if the earth and the sky had flipped on their heads, her senses still remained acute and clear.

There was a voice.

“Return Tu.”

Even among the surging current, she heard the voice perfectly.

A voice she recognized.

“…Kia!”

Dragged up by the raging torrent underwater, the momentum threw Tu up to the water’s surface.

Looking from the sky, Tu realized the current of the canal itself was coiled like a giant snake showing its belly.

The canal midway down was dyed pitch-black. What was once the riverbed had been flipped up to the surface, filling the waters with a massive amount of wood and metal. It was monstrous.

Tu landed on the demolished harbor like a cat.

While she was tossed into the air, the strands of her own hair that had tangled around her body unraveled like a matter of course. It wasn’t a phenomenon that was meant to occur naturally.

“Kia! You did all this, right?!”

Tu couldn’t think of anyone else besides Kia the World Word who was capable of having such powerful effect with just a single phrase of Word Arts. Despite being caught up in Aureatia’s schemes, Kia was unharmed and had saved Tu.

Tu still wondered to herself, though—had Kia always been the type of girl to use such destructive Word Arts like this?

Some part of her felt an instinctual unease. The wind was strong.

“Kia! Where the heck are you?”

Tu could immediately pick out Kia’s figure.

In the middle of a raging current no one from the harbor could hope to cross, there was a bizarre shipwreck.

Not only that, but the aberrant, rampaging waves were perfectly still at that point only.

On the unmoving wreckage’s bow stood a young girl in green clothes.

“…Looks like you got out all right, Tu,” Kia murmured with her back to Tu.

She had managed to stay safe.

At the very least, she hadn’t had her freedom robbed from her, like Tu.

Why then did Tu still feel this indescribable anxiety?

“H-hey, so… What about you, Kia? Sorry I couldn’t go to help you.”

“I’m…”

Her golden hair was down, not tied in their usual pigtails, and loosely fluttered in the navy blue sky.

“…Don’t be stupid. I’m fine. Totally fine. As if I’d ever care if you didn’t come to save me…or care about what anyone does to me…”

“Kia…”

“Since, if I say ‘die,’ then people would just die right there, no matter what… Am I wrong?”

“What…happened?”

Kia didn’t answer Tu.

“Hey, Tu. I think I actually liked Aureatia.”

Tu remembered Kia saying that she led a modest but happy life in Eta Sylvan Province.

Led out of her village into the outside world by her former teacher, Kia had lost a great deal. She was separated from her teacher and continued her lonely, solitary escape.

“A lot of awful stuff happened to me, angered me…and made me feel really terrible, but…the minia…weren’t all bad, either.”

The spray from the canal’s Word Arts roiling washed Tu’s cheeks.

Tu got the feeling she knew why Kia refused to face her.

“But I…”

I can’t fear. I was never given the ability to feel it.

Tu didn’t know how many things weighed on the minian races’ minds, how they hurt or anguished, or how much they feared. She was always left behind.

Yet despite that, why did she feel sad when someone she knew was hurt, in pain, or missing? She thought when she met the True Demon King that fateful day, and learned what true terror really was, some part of the functionality designed to make her the perfect life-form had broken down.

“…Kia. I’ll go, too. I won’t ask anything.”

“Tu… I—I can—I can do anything… I can make anything happen, so why—why…?”

“I’m here with you. You can’t do this all by yourself.”

As someone who trembled in fear even while furnished with invincible strength, this was all she could do.

When she saved Sephite, in the Land of the End—and her journey all along the way—this was the only thing Tu had ever managed to do. Even if everyone else was totally gone, Tu and Tu alone would never perish.

“Let’s go rescue Uhak! We can still… I know we can get to him in time!”

Kuze the Passing Disaster was carried to Romog Joint Military Hospital after the mission to take out Nectegio the Ravenous Rot in Kadan Third District. There were suspicions that, by stepping into Nectegio’s fungal labyrinth, he had been infected with an unknown pathogen.

Kuze himself had his own intention to use his hospital admission to draw out the beginning of the eleventh match.

The whereabouts of his opponent for the eleventh match, Zeljirga the Abyss Web, were currently a complete mystery, and unless they found her or Aureatia secured a replacement hero candidate for him to fight, Kuze’s match would end with a win by default.

That would make achieving Kuze’s goal impossible—in order to get Queen Sephite within range of Nastique’s instant death, the second-round matches, which the Queen was set to watch in person, needed to happen.

I’ll admit my little act about feeling unwell was a pretty ridiculous performance, but…

Right now, Kuze was atop a bed, shaking back and forth slightly.

It was the vibrations from the steam engine and the steel wheels. Kuze was currently lying inside the sleeping car of the Orange Thirty-Six Train, traveling along the North-South Railway that vertically crossed Aureatia.

I never thought they’d drag me into this before my hospital stay was even over.

The job assigned to Kuze was to guard and control the freshly recaptured Uhak the Silent.

He hadn’t been told anything else. He wondered what sort of enemy out there required them to utilize Uhak’s abilities just like they had with Nectegio.

In the end, Uhak had returned to being Aureatia’s weapon. Kuze hadn’t been able to give him freedom.

Kuze’s attempts to provide some bit of salvation to Tu and Uhak had proven meaningless. Uhak the Silent’s period of freedom had lasted less than a small month following Nectegio’s subjugation, and Tu the Magic had been designated a self-proclaimed demon king that the hero candidates were meant to slay.

Before long, he would likely be ordered to take out Tu as well.

That’s one thing I won’t do… Not that.

In order to shoulder all the disgrace that continued to stain the Order, Kuze needed, by himself, to assassinate the Queen. The only way a man like Kuze could meet the Queen was to remain on the playing field as a hero candidate.

The plot to assassinate the Queen was no longer just a problem for him alone. Dozens of the Order’s leaders had staked their lives and honor hoping for this one achievement. Kuze had claimed far too many lives in order to ultimately kill the Queen herself. Including his friend and Uhak’s sponsor, Nofelt, too.

There was no inferiority or superiority in the lives of those bearing hearts of their own, regardless of their sins. That was what the Order taught.

Even then, if Kuze was allowed one selfish wish of his own, he didn’t want to kill Tu.

“I’m sure that you’re aware, but I’m still recuperating here. While I get I need to do this to appear in my match, I’d really like to avoid any absurdly dangerous opponents like Nectegio again…” Kuze spoke to the man sitting in the same room, still lying back on the bed. “Am I really just here to escort Uhak? Minister um…Yaniegiz.”

“That’s right. My apologies for asking so much of you.”

Yaniegiz the Chisel was a thin, wiry man with a snaggletooth.

He had been one of the Twenty-Nine Officials until recently, but for some reason or another, he was demoted from his position.

Ever since Haade the Flashpoint plotted his coup, and Rosclay the Absolute was defeated in the turmoil, the personnel affairs within Aureatia’s Twenty-Nine Officials were in utter and complete chaos.

“However, during the fungal labyrinth mission, you showed that you were able to communicate with Uhak even though he cannot understand Word Arts, yes? Besides, that power of yours is just as effective whether you fight yourself or not, after all.”

“So that means there’s a chance I’ll get caught up in a fight on this escort duty? Bweh-heh-heh… Don’t like the sound of that…”

Supposing there was indeed an attack against Uhak, if it was large-scale enough to get Kuze caught up in it as well, Nastique would kill the enemy before they could get their target. That must have been Aureatia’s plan. He had no intention of correcting their misconception.

Nastique never got anywhere near Uhak and his complete Word Arts nullification. Even if she was nearby, Kuze couldn’t ensure the absolute safety of whoever he was tasked with protecting anyway. Rosclay had been fatally wounded right in front of Kuze’s eyes.

“Ah… This is just out of curiosity, but who do you plan on making Uhak fight? Without a sponsor, Uhak’s officially no longer a hero candidate, either…”

“That’s classified.”

“…I heard Tu the Magic was designated a self-proclaimed demon king, but this wouldn’t be about taking her out or anything, would it?”

“No.”

There wasn’t even any real reason to ask that. What a pathetic question…

Kuze had simply asked to hear Yaniegiz deny the cruelest hypothesis Kuze could come up with.

Assuming Yaniegiz had said it was, Kuze wouldn’t have been able to find the resolve to abandon his hero candidate status in resistance, nor to forsake Tu and Uhak.

The window from his bed was at a very acute angle, and he saw white clouds passing by outside.

As always, giving up was the only thing Kuze the Passing Disaster could ever manage to do.

Outside the train car, on the frame of the window, sat a young girl, almost transparently white with soft short hair.

She stared in the opposite direction the train ran, as if sending off the scenery behind them.

Kuze thought it was very much like her to think of what they had passed by, rather than where they were heading.

The death-bringing angel. Nastique the Quiet Singer.

It was the name of the angel only Kuze could see.

“…Kuze.”

Yaniegiz spoke up, sitting with his face tilted down.

“You see, I was born in the Central Kingdom, but I come from a very poor district. The Order’s cared for me countless times before, and I bet I caused them a lot of trouble, too.”

“I’m sure everyone would be overjoyed to know that they were able to help you, Minister Yaniegiz. What about the Order, then?”

“‘One mustn’t hate. One mustn’t harm. One mustn’t kill.’ —That is part of the Order’s teaching, yes?”

“…‘Just as one would do unto one’s family.’ You remember well.”

Kuze got up and sat at the edge of his bed.

At this point, there was no reason to pretend to be sick anymore, but more than that, whatever Yaniegiz had to get off his chest seemed like something he needed to seriously listen to as a follower of the Order.

“Tell me, then. If someone was to end up with someone they felt deserved something even worse than death…would that person no longer receive the Wordmaker’s salvation?”

“…”

Kuze looked out the window at Nastique.

One mustn’t kill. Kuze himself defied that teaching more than any other.

While he hadn’t hated or harmed anyone, he had constantly forced Nastique to kill others. To Kuze, that seemed far more sinful than killing another out of hatred.

“There are several theological discussions on this, so I hope you won’t mind me giving you my own personal interpretation, but…I believe that this teaching isn’t here to punish people who hate or harm. We’re taught that all with hearts and souls are loved, but…if the idea’s that only the good people without an evil heart are supposed to get along, that’d mean that everyone who wasn’t like that would never find salvation, wouldn’t it?

“But there are also a great many followers who interpret the Order’s teachings as holding the inevitability of punishment as paramount. Especially during the Demon King’s Age, the out-of-control rampage of the followers among the people were unpardonable.”

“…Bweh-heh-heh. Fair enough. Heck, I’d never try to claim that all those people have an incorrect understanding or that they’re not actual friends of the Order.”

Even the countless criticisms about the Order born from the terror of the True Demon King weren’t all baseless rumors and gossip. There were several followers who had been driven by their warped faith into committing truly ghastly acts. At the very least, for those who committed such acts at the time, it did not seem that faith in the Wordmaker became their salvation from the terror of the True Demon King.

Seeing the priests and followers that had gathered the trust of the community driven to madness must have instilled a fear toward the Order itself in the hearts of the people.

“Everyone out there…hurts others sometimes. Even us in the Order. Don’t you think that, at the same time, somewhere inside one’s heart, they’re wishing for something else? That, in truth, no one wants to hate. No one wants to harm… No one wants to kill.”

“…”

“I mean, think about it; holding that hate toward someone for so long would be agonizing for anyone, right?”

There were those in the world who transformed hatred into their prime motivator—or those who genuinely found glee in harming others. However, Kuze believed that there wasn’t anyone out there who felt that way from the very start.

If a person’s heart changed from the pain and anguish of their life, then it should have been just as possible to change their heart once again. That their hearts could revert back to what the Wordmaker had originally bestowed to them.

“Hee-hee… I just can’t seem to fully wrap my head around it, I’m afraid.”

Locking his fingers in his lap, Yaniegiz still had his head down.

“Just listening to our conversation here, it does seem that there is no admonition in the teachings, I will admit, but…if the Wordmaker and the Order won’t punish hateful hearts, then who will?”

“Oh, there is someone who will punish you. They’re always watching us and our actions.”

Everyone needs to behave properly.

When you do something bad, the angels will come to punish you.

“…It’s our own hearts that punish us.”

No one could see the Order’s angels, nor could they speak a word.

However, when these invisible angels fulfilled their roles, first vested with divided parts of the Wordmaker’s power and authority when the world began…the angels scattered in pieces to all corners of the world and dwelled within the hearts of each and every creature.

“…The heart. So the guilt one feels toward their sins is the punishment in and of itself… I see. Hee-hee, that’s your interpretation, then…”

“Perhaps it’s all a bit too convenient. Still, when I think about the reason that we were all born with a conscience…about why we have this function in our hearts, when we should be able to survive just by acting selfishly, personally, that seems to be the most logically consistent explanation. Though, I imagine it isn’t a very helpful one…”

“Then, what does one do to erase their hatred? If a sinner…no longer wishes to feel the anguish of their sins, what are they supposed to do?”

“…………The Order’s teachings say that is done by learning the heart of another. If one is able to recognize that there are things in common between them and even this object of their hatred, they’ll no longer have to maintain their hate.”

Kuze thought himself a fraud. He was simply telling Yaniegiz the same things preached wildly by the Order.

He didn’t know a way to actually save people.

In this world where the terror of the True Demon King had run rampant, even the leaders of the Order, far wiser than Kuze himself, didn’t know any such method.

“Learning about the heart of the one you hate, hmm…? Hee-hee.”

Yaniegiz gave a dark chuckle.

“Indeed, that is probably the best way. I know that…very well.”

<Master Yaniegiz has already boarded the train.>

Immediately following the meeting, Hidow the Clamp took a radzio call from the Orange Thirty-Six train.

While it was something he had predicted, it was a report he hadn’t wanted to hear.

“Dammit! That bastard’s done it now…! I want all the details!”

<He boarded together with three squads’ worth of troops claiming to be part of a Police Agency investigation. Given we were in the middle of an emergency escort and lacking personnel, we determined it would be difficult to fight them off…>

“You’re damn right it would be. What’s the point in Aureatia soldiers killing each other in the middle of a situation like this?!”

The plan to transport Uhak was being executed with speed and secrecy at Hidow’s sole discretion in order to prevent wider damages, but Yaniegiz had been in charge of everything up until just a few days prior, so it must have been leaked to him after all.

Freshly reinstated in his Twenty-Nine Officials’ post, Hidow still had no hope of using his perks to beat Yaniegiz. This was the head of the Police Agency, as well as a member of the reformation party carrying on Rosclay’s dying wishes.

“…All right, so now that he’s on board, what is he up to?”

<First he checked on Uhak’s status, and now he is keeping watch on Kuze. He does not appear to have caused them any harm.>

“That’s obvious, too. Yaniegiz knows more than anybody that three squads of soldiers ain’t going to do anything against guys like Uhak or Kuze.”

It went without saying, but it meant they wouldn’t have any effect on Kia the World Word, either.

Only enough troop strength to forcefully worm his way into the operation… That said, after doing all that to sneak on the train, does Yaniegiz have some trick up his sleeve that’ll let him take on Kia? He ain’t there just to watch Kia die out of some personal grudge, that’s for sure. The kind of idiots who pull this crap always got an equally stupid idea in their heads.

In the past, Hidow had looked down on fools who got carried away with totally illogical acts.

However, Harghent the Still, whom Hidow had looked down on, succeeded in bringing the Lucnoca the Winter into the Sixways Exhibition and completely upset the state of affairs in Aureatia.

Yaniegiz was nothing but a fool, the same as Harghent. Driven by his personal hate, he chose to enact a stupid plan that provoked Kia’s animosity and exposed all of Aureatia to the threat she posed.

Still, at that time, would Hidow have been able to come up with another ideal strategy like luring Kia out to the Mali Wastes alone and forcing her to battle against Mestelexil without causing damage to others?

“Yaniegiz’s a crazed loon, but he’s not actually stupid. He’s got to have some sort of plan, the kind that only someone willing to let Aureatia burn would come up with… Listen up; don’t you let Yaniegiz near Kia. If he’s in Kuze’s room, I want you to lock them both in there together until you reach the destination.”

<…Is that really okay, sir?>

“I’m giving you permission. Yaniegiz’s the one who illegally intervened in all this to begin with, got it?”

Uhak’s destination was simply designated for convenience’s sake. Considering Kia’s mobility and omnipotent abilities, it was highly likely she would attack mid-transport.

Hidow had reserved an entire train to transport Uhak in order to separate him from the city as fast as possible, as he was highly likely to be Kia’s next target, and to limit the casualties that would get caught up in Kia’s attack as much as possible. If they ambushed her at the Monstrous Races Protective Camp, they predicted damages that were far too great.

Also, there was significance in Kuze just being present wherever Kia was going to attack. If Kia was capable of breaking through even Uhak’s paranormal nullification, Kuze’s ability to grant instant death would then prove effective. His fundamentally undefined instant death was one of the possible methods that could prove effective against Kia’s almighty defenses.

To ensure that he didn’t get wise to the operation, as well as to stop him from getting within range of Uhak’s ability, given that that was still indeterminate, it was actually better to keep Kuze locked in his passenger car and not give him a chance to encounter Kia at all.

Right. This all works better for us this way.

Hidow felt like he was using rationality to guide his thoughts where he wanted them to go.

After capturing the train, Yaniegiz didn’t approach the true target of the operation in Uhak but went to see Kuze instead. Was this all to make Hidow think that they could handle any unexpected interference from him, by locking him up instead of properly dealing with him?

Before anything else, if Kia wished for it, she could easily encounter Yaniegiz whether he was locked up or not. The true choice Hidow was supposed to make wasn’t any sort of compromising strategy to ignore him or lock him up.

Right. If I truly wanted to expel Yaniegiz from this whole operation, I need to get them to stop the train, even if it means bloodshed for those on the line, and to kick Yaniegiz and all his men off… Aureatia’s very existence is at stake here. If I really think this is trouble, I need to do this.

<Lord Hidow?>

“Sorry. Thinking stuff over. Lemme ask you… You get that you’re risking your life on this operation, yeah?”

<Yes, sir. Young girl or not, we shall not let our guard down. I’ll put my life on the line to engage our nation’s enemy!>

Hidow had never felt suspicious of his soldiers’ loyalty or sense of duty when they desperately executed his orders—occasionally giving their lives to do so. Whether they were rank-and-file or crack troops, Hidow had always chosen the option that would lead to the least number of casualties.

This wasn’t done out of the goodness of his heart.

He wanted to keep on living without bearing the heavy guilt that came from affecting the lives of others.

Yaniegiz was dangerous. Aureatia might end up in ruins.

Would Hidow be able to give them the order that the enemy they were fighting wasn’t Kia the World Word but their fellow Aureatian soldiers?

“…Forget it. Same orders that I gave before. Try not to provoke the reformation guys too much.”

<Copy that, sir.>

The call ended.

Hidow held his head in his hands for a time and tried to erase his self-loathing.

A little while later, he looked over at Kaete, in the same room on a different radzio call.

“How’s Mestelexil doing on his end…?”

“…What? I’m talking to him right now. He’s mid-flight. He’ll arrive at the train soon.”

“I want to remove the troops Yaniegiz sneaked on…without harming them. Can Mestelexil do that?”

“Hmph. That’s what this is about… Don’t foist your meaningless busywork onto me.”

Hidow understood it deserved a scornful laugh.

From the beginning, he couldn’t have ever expected Mestelexil to handle delicate suppression very well.

“If you don’t mind them losing a few limbs, though, that’s a different story.”

The Orange Thirty-Six Train on the North-South Railway.

On this train, running far away from both the Aureatia Central Assembly Hall and the castle garden theater holding the Sixways Exhibition, the shura who dictated Aureatia’s fate were about to clash.

Uhak the Silent.

Kuze the Passing Disaster.

Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge.

Tu the Magic.

Kia the World Word.

The first indication was a high-pitched and artificial roar.

The noise, clearly different from the sound of a steam engine, changed into a low humming sound as it announced its approach.

Kuze lifted himself up.

“Um, Minister Yaniegiz, I don’t mean to panic, but is there something closing in on us out there…?!”

“Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge.”

Yaniegiz remained calm. He flipped through what appeared to be some investigation data.

“That noise is the sound of a fuel engine from the Beyond. Called a jet engine if I remember right.”

“Wait now…just hold on a second, Mestelexil…? Are we going to be all right…?”

It had been publicly announced that Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge had left the control of his supporter, went on a rampage, and then disappeared. Not only that, but according to Kuze’s own information, he didn’t appear to be associated with a respectable camp.

After supposedly dropping out of the tournament, Mestelexil had attacked Kuze unexpectedly as Kuze raced toward the eighth match, deployed by a lycan who appeared to be with Obsidian Eyes, Hartl the Light Pinch.

“I’m guessing they arranged ahead of time for him to meet up with this train, so please don’t overreact.”

“I mean, I obviously don’t kill people just for getting a little scared, but…”

Kuze scratched the back of his head, worried about what lay outside the window.

It seemed that Mestelexil wasn’t coming from the direction they were facing, as Kuze only saw the blue sky and town scattered among the passing landscape. What exactly was Aureatia planning here?

“For starters, this passenger car’s been locked from the outside, right? Isn’t that odd? Don’t tell me that I’ve fallen into some trap with you.”

“…Oh. Is that what you’re worried about? It’s not strange at all. I have nothing to do with this operation; I’m a total outsider who just sneaked on.”

“Wh-whaaat…?”

Kuze had been asleep in his passenger car bed right from the start and didn’t know anything about these circumstances.

When he thought back, Kuze hadn’t noticed Yaniegiz among the Aureatia soldiers who had given him his orders and accompanied him to the train, but since the man had entered his passenger car with such confidence, Kuze assumed Yaniegiz was the commanding officer on board.

“Besides, you said it yourself. I’m no longer a part of the Twenty-Nine Officials. I’d say, really, shutting me in here is a pretty reasonable on the part of the commanding officer for this operation.”

“And I’ve basically gotten caught up in all this…?”

The objective behind this whole transport mission was full of mysteries already, but the power dynamics in the Twenty-Nine Officials were even more inscrutable than that.

Nevertheless, Kuze couldn’t help feeling like danger was heading toward them. Perhaps he was simply a coward.

“Minister Yaniegiz… Though, actually, I guess I should drop the minister title.”

“As you wish.”

“Can I grab my shield? Just in case.”

In the corner of the car, Kuze’s great shield was leaning against a wall. Though he was traveling while infirm and not up for a fight, this was still nominally an escort mission.

Yaniegiz stood up as well.

“Did you…sense something?”

“Yeah. It’s different from the sound of Mestelexil’s engine, but something’s—”

In the span of single breath, Kuze dashed to his shield on the wall.

Using his right foot out ahead of him as the pivot point, he immediately whirled around and shielded Yaniegiz from the window.

There was a crushing noise.

It wasn’t the windows shattering—the iron walls of the train itself were torn apart and smashed.

Fine fragments grazed Kuze’s shield. Flying into the room was a tall young girl.

Her thin, chestnut-colored braid flowed behind her like a tail.

“There were passengers in here?! I’m sorry!”

“Tu…!”

Tu the Magic.

So was she the target Aureatia was trying to use Uhak to dispose of after all? Yaniegiz had denied the claim earlier, but…

“Kuze! Why’re you here?!”

“I should be the one—”

The moment Kuze went to reply to her, the situation drastically changed even further.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Something resembling a ball of flames flew in from the gaping hole Tu had made and slammed her into the door with explosive force. If Kuze hadn’t picked up his shield and moved to the corner of the room, both he and Yaniegiz would have been bowled over and crushed.

It was an indigo golem. It had a claw grip on Tu’s head and pushed it against the destroyed floor and door while the single eye on its round head whirled about.

“I-i-is this…the enemy?! I b-b-broke the…train! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

“Nnngh…! Hey, where did that come from?!”

It was Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge.

Seeing that a section of the train was destroyed, he had instantly flown there.

“…Dammit! Which one of them’s attacking the train here, Minister Yaniegiz?!”

“Neither of them! But she should already be close by!”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Your head isn’t…getting crushed! Hey, Kaete! I-is this who, I’m supposed to kill…?! What?! It…isn’t?! This is…Tu?! It…has to be Kia?!”

Mestelexil shouted as if he were conversing with someone.

Pressed down by Mestelexil’s massive arm, there must have been enough stress on her head to easily smash open her skull, and yet there wasn’t even a drop of blood on her.

Mestelexil… This guy is way too dangerous.

It was fair to say Nastique’s compatibility with Mestelexil was as awful as it could possibly be.

Nastique anticipated any and all hostile intentions, even the unknown attack methods from the Beyond, and was able to kill the golem, but Kuze had learned from actually engaging Mestelexil in combat that she couldn’t prevent the target she killed from coming back to life.

Mestelexil wasn’t just immortal like Tu. He became immortal by endlessly reviving himself. Even though he wasn’t antagonistic to Kuze right at that moment…

I’ve shown this guy…that Nastique can kill anyone at will!

Nastique the Quiet Singer would kill anyone who tried to kill Kuze.

Even against attacks too fast for anyone in the world to possibly react to, she would always bring instant death to the target faster than they could get the attack off, as if briefly turning back the wheels of fate an infinitesimally small amount. Therefore, Kuze could wipe out all his enemies without any harm befalling him, even if he didn’t make a single offensive move of his own.

He had never made it known what the conditions were to trigger this power, but Aureatia’s side had long figured out what they were based on numerous tests—or so they thought.

However, there was one other condition that could make Nastique go into action.

It was Kuze the Passing Disaster wanting to kill someone he had in his sights.

Not only delivering retributive punishment to those who wished to kill, Kuze had the right to freely kill anyone, if he so desired. His ultimate trump card, to be used to assassinate Queen Sephite.

No one knew about this condition to using his power. Curte of the Fair Skies. Nofelt the Somber Wind. None who witnessed still walked the land…except for Mestelexil.

Back then I did my best to make it look like it was an automatic counterattack, but…how strong is Mestelexil’s memory?! How sharp is his judgment…?! Assuming he’s returned to Aureatia’s side, does that mean he’s revealed my secret to them?!

“Ugh, can…you…stop?!”

Tu artlessly used her brute strength to raise her torso from under Mestelexil’s press.

“W-w-wow!”

Even for Mestelexil, possessing an irregular amount of strength for a construct, Tu’s physical strength was beyond his estimations. Thrown off-balance, this time it was Tu’s slender arm that grabbed Mestelexil’s wrist.

With just a single hand, she swung him about in the most literal sense.

“Wh-wh-whooooooooa!”

Ceiling. Wall. Floor. Crashes that sounded like earthquakes echoed continuously through the moving train.

Mestelexil, two times the size of a minia and made out of metals, was being slammed in every direction, as if Tu was a rambunctious child playing with her stuffed animal.

The passenger car, built solid and strong, was smashed up, whittled down, and even the noise of the whole train’s movement grew distorted from the impact.

“You’re so freaking…hard! What kinda golem are you?!”

“Tu! This is dangerous! You have to get off this train!”

Kuze frantically shouted as he protected Yaniegiz from the aftermath of the whirling destruction.

Kuze didn’t believe that Tu would get hurt, even up against a foe like Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge. Even though she was flailing around like a berserk warrior, he knew she had the sense not to get Kuze or the innocent Aureatia soldiers caught up in it all.

Still, she was in danger.

Uhak was riding on the same train. While he couldn’t assess what sort of standards Uhak acted under or what his powers could erase, but given that Tu was likely a construct, Kuze doubted that she would escape unscathed from Uhak’s Word Arts nullification.

“Uhak’s on this train, too!”

“I know! That’s why I’m here!”

“Wh-whoa… Let g-go of me!”

Several explosions flashed in Mestelexil’s hand.

He had fired something at point-blank range, but the attack only tore off Tu’s clothes in several places and revealed her bare skin beneath.

“It’s…still not…working! Kaete?! C-can I use…my…missiles?! Huh…?! I can’t…destroy…the train?! Why not?!”

Meanwhile, despite being slammed against the train with tremendous power, Mestelexil was also unharmed.

The sound of metal creaking and tearing apart. The din of gunpowder explosions. They didn’t come one at time but layered on top of each other all at once.

Kuze had the false sense that the pressure of the wind against his great shield was going to send his whole body flying.

“Minister Yaniegiz! What exactly am I supposed to do here?!”

“Don’t drop your guard… She should be close.”

Yaniegiz looked around the car, as if searching the empty air for something.

His complete indifference to the devastating destruction unfolding before his eyes was clearly abnormal.

Tu, still with just one hand, brandished Mestelexil over her head.

“Time! To fling you! Outside!”

Tu had either realized that no amount of slamming Mestelexil around was going to harm him, or thought that, at this rate, she would destroy the train itself and went to toss the golem out of the big hole in the wall.

Right at that moment, the wrist she had a grip on exploded.

“Ah?!”

Aiming for the moment Tu stopped moving, Mestelexil had cut off his hand at the wrist. The massive indigo frame rolled across the hole-ridden floor and collided with Kuze’s great shield.

“Hrnk!”

Mestelexil only made light contact, but Kuze let out a grunt at the weight he felt through his shield.

“…Are you all right, Kuze?”

“B-barely… Actually, we might be in real trouble here…”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! What is this…shield?!”

Mestelexil laughed as he got up and casually grabbed the large shield he had collided with.

Kuze felt himself almost get picked up into the air.

“Whoa there!”

“There’s people…behind…it!”

“H-hey there… Been a while, huh…?”

“Huh?! We’ve met before?! Kuze!”

“Bweh-heh-heh… A lot may’ve gone down between us, but last time’s all water under the bridge, okay? So…could you let go of my shield?”

“Kuze! Last time? When…was last…time?”

“So, um, aren’t you using a little too much strength…?!”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Mestelexil simply moving the shield was almost enough to send Kuze’s whole body whirling through the air.

“Minister Yaniegiz! Mestelexil here… He’s supposed to be our ally, right?!”

“…It hasn’t been announced publicly yet, but Aureatia’s regained control over him. Currently, he’s been tasked with this operation just like Uhak.”

“Control?! This is under control?! What exactly are you trying to defeat by bringing a guy like this along?!”

Kuze tried to reclaim the shield the best he could. He ended up in a ridiculous position, like a child fighting over a toy, but it was, of course, ultimately a waste of effort.

“Kia the World Word. The self-proclaimed demon king complicit in foul play during the fourth match and who attacked the royal palace to—”

“Foul play?”

Kuze heard an ice-cold voice right next to him. He reflexively looked in the direction of the voice, even taking his hand off his great shield.

It came from the empty air that Yaniegiz had been glaring at a moment ago.

“Go ahead and tell me… Who exactly committed foul play in that match?”

There was a young girl.

Long blond hair. A green robe, a bit like the elves’ folk dress.

Kuze felt like he had met her somewhere before—hadn’t the young girl he came across after the sixth match, sitting in the recesses of the night as if trying to hide from someone, looked like this, too?

“Y-you’re…”

She was like the Wordmaker themself.

“…Kia the World Word?”

“Who’re you? Did we meet somewhere? Sorry, but I’m not going to remember some random Aureatia soldier’s face.”

Kuze had been told what happened in the fourth match. He also knew that Aureatia was pursuing Kia to take her down. Still this girl was who they had been talking about?

On that day, Kuze had felt a loneliness in Kia.

Now she was angry. Profoundly angry.

“Get in my way, and I’ll kill you.”

Kia glanced at Mestelexil.

“Crumble.”

Kuze’s great shield fell on the spot.

At the same time, a wave of some substance suddenly pushed against Kuze’s shoes.

Sand!

Though he had seen the entire process play out in front of him, he needed to take a beat to understand the situation.

Right before Kuze’s eyes, Mestelexil had been disintegrated into an equal mass of sand.

“You’re in the way, too.”

“Kia! What’re you doing?!”

For some reason, Kia’s supposed ally, Tu, was upset.

“How could you really kill someone like that?! Our goal here’s to rescue Uhak!!”

“It’s fine… Killing him’s fine.”

The oscillations of the train made the mountain of sand pour down through the holes in the floor, soon vanishing entirely.

It was strange that Mestelexil didn’t regenerate like he had when Kuze fought him, but perhaps Kia had managed to kill that ability of his along with the rest of him.

Whatever the case, Mestelexil had died. That horrible monstrous golem, gone like that.

“He tried to kill me first.”

They were the words of a young girl Kuze knew almost nothing about.

And yet they made him feel as if his intestines were being squeezed tight.

—It was completely fine to kill those who tried to kill you.

Mestelexil had been a threat. As far as Kuze’s own objective was concerned, he might have been an outright enemy.

However, Kia killed that monster with ease.

No. She had successfully wanted to kill him.

“Minister Yaniegiz… Er, no, Yaniegiz. Should I put a stop to this girl…?”

“…Can that power of yours kill her?”

“That’s not what I meant. I…I already let it slip.”

After the fungal labyrinth was destroyed, Kuze had said something to the Aureatia soldiers to let Uhak go free.

With Uhak the Silent’s ability to nullify Word Arts.

He might be able to defeat Kia the World Word.

“Please…is there any way I can prevent Uhak from having to kill…?”

Judging from what he had just witnessed, Kuze thought his chances of stopping the girl were close to zero.

Omnipotence and instant death. Would he be destroyed before he even had a chance to talk to her, or would Nastique sense that intent to kill Kuze and take Kia’s life—those were the only possible results.

Even then, Kuze couldn’t bear it.

Letting the girl who he might’ve been able to help on that fateful day…die.

By the hands of his junior disciple, who he might’ve been able to stop in time…

All because of the words he had let slip on that fateful day—the sin would have crushed him.

“Lord Yaniegiz! Are you all right?! We’ve brought Uhak the Silent here!” an Aureatia soldier shouted from outside.

Kuze heard banging on the door, but the passenger car was likely warped from all the destruction.

If Uhak’s here, then maybe…we might be able to get through this without anyone dying.

He looked outside the window. Nastique’s figure was nowhere to be seen.

Uhak’s vicinity was the one place she never treaded.

Kuze would never forget. When the almshouse was attacked, Kuze had gotten through it without killing anyone because Uhak was watching over him.

At the same time, it also meant that Kuze was robbed of the only thing that made him invincible.

“…So Uhak’s here, then?”

“C-can…can we chat a second here, Kia the World Word?”

He needed to summon up his courage before Uhak and Kia were forced against each other.

“See, I’m actually Kuze the Passing Disaster. I’m not an Aureatia soldier but a paladin with the Order…”

“Okay, and? You don’t know the first thing about me; what is there to talk about?”

“Right, you’re right. I don’t know anything about you, and you know just as much about me…”

Kuze’s career as a warrior was peculiar and distorted.

He had only ever focused on training himself to avoid danger, in order to stop himself from killing his enemies.

That ability to sense danger was telling him that this young girl could kill him with only a thought. Could he get through to her without killing or making anyone else kill?

Kuze’s life was no longer his own life to do with as he saw fit.

He was responsible for the hope of the Order. He was doing something foolish.

“But…but look. When it comes to Uhak and Tu, I know a little bit about them.”

Tu was looking toward him. She didn’t interrupt to say anything, but she seemed anxious.

Once again, she was showing concern for a murderer like Kuze.

Kuze did his utmost to ensure his inner distress and despair didn’t show on his face. It resulted in an awfully vapid and unreliable smile.

“…Kia, are you worried about Uhak, too?”

“Shut up.”

Kuze fell to his knees. Both hands involuntarily pressed down on his throat.

He mistakenly felt for a second that he was being choked, but he realized he was still allowed to breathe and nothing else.

What rose within in him a moment later was a feeling of helplessness and terror.

“Going to all this hassle… Stop trying to trick me any more than you already have.”

“Kia! This isn’t right! You don’t have to get Kuze wrapped up in all this, too!”

“Fall down.”

Tu rushed over and supported Kuze’s body.

He was unable to lift himself up.

All he could do was watch. It was agonizing.

“Kuze’s a good guy, okay?!”

“That’s got nothing to do with me.”

Her icy cold eyes then shifted toward Yaniegiz.

“You.”

Totally robbed of control of his body, Kuze thought he was an utter buffoon.

Right from the very start, Kia hadn’t been looking at Kuze, but Yaniegiz behind him.

“You’re the one who tricked me with those documents.”

“Yes. That’s right, Kia the World Word. Uhak the Silent’s location is the one thing even you can’t detect. You weren’t able to directly draw him to you…or allow him to escape, were you? The only way you could interfere here was if you boarded the train yourself. You can’t directly affect Uhak with any Word Arts, after all.”

Yaniegiz forced himself onto the Orange Thirty-Six train despite having no authority to actually do so.

The man’s composure when he interacted with Kuze signaled it hadn’t been an impulsive act but a calmly calculated move.

“The fact that you appeared in this car instead of the one carrying Uhak proves that. After you rescued Tu the Magic, the next thing you detected were those conversing about Uhak the Silent’s whereabouts. About Mestelexil’s whereabouts after he attacked you. Where I, the one who lured you into that trap, was…”

This had been the reason behind making Mestelexil assemble at this location even though he had hadn’t been included among the force sent to conquer Kia the World Word’s omnipotence. However, Yaniegiz had taken into account that he would potentially be tracked down as another target of Kia’s revenge. Thus, he had sneaked onto the train knowing full well it was illegal.

Hatred lay at Yaniegiz’s core.

“Or perhaps…”

He couldn’t stop himself from hate.

Just as he couldn’t stop harming the object of his hatred.

“…the whereabouts of Elea the Red Tag’s killer.”

“………What?”

Kia reeled backward.

Her tempestuous rage at times resembled fear.

“Wh-what…did you just…say?”

“…I see you won’t tell me to shut up, will you?”

Yaniegiz flashed a smile that seemed to bludgeon her with his malice.

“I mean exactly what I said. If Elea the Red Tag was executed, then obviously that means there has to be someone who killed her. Hee, hee-hee… D-don’t tell me—you never even thought about it? That somewhere out there…was the person who did something so hateful, so unforgivable—”

Tu shouted.

“Kia! Don’t listen to him!”

“All of you—you—!”

Kia went to say something.

Words that would have brought ruin to Kuze and Yaniegiz, perhaps even Aureatia itself.

“Lord Yaniegiz!”

It was at that moment. The sound of a door to the hallway breaking apart.

They resolutely jumped into the passenger car, even knowing Kia the World Word was within.

“We’re glad you’re all right! Uhak the Silent has arrived!”

“Not yet!”

Outside in the hall lingered the ogre with gray skin.

With serene eyes, Uhak the Silent stared at the chaos within the passenger car.

“I never said that Uhak would actually neutralize Kia for us! From here on out, all we can do is leave it up to his own will!”

The logic was obvious—Uhak couldn’t give the slightest words of promise to anyone.

Though he should have learned the Order’s script from Cunodey the Ring Seat, he had never once tried to express his will to another.

He couldn’t be ordered by anyone else, nor manipulated.

If there was anything that could be done, it was to simply hope he would save everyone.

…Uhak.

Still unable to speak, Kuze stared at Uhak.

He hadn’t erased Words Art yet. Just like when he didn’t erase Nectegio, he was going to bring ruin to everything while Tu was in front of him.

Or perhaps, was this prediction nothing more than Kuze’s wish that Uhak would do that for him?

If Kuze had been able to speak, what would he have wished for?

Yaniegiz wore a nihilistic smile.

“See… That’s why Hidow’s grand strategy was too naive. He constructed a plan where, in the final stroke, the end result rested entirely in Uhak’s will… Honestly, if there was no guarantee that Uhak’s Word Arts erasure would happen, he should’ve formed a plan out of a situation where he’d have to erase it.”

“A-are you listening…? A-answer me.”

Kia didn’t even appear to notice Uhak, despite the ogre being her original goal in coming here.

She clenched down tightly on her chest.

The colossal hatred she felt was too much for even her to control.

“Who…killed Elea?”

“Isn’t there something you should be asking before that?”

That wasn’t the case with Yaniegiz’s hatred.

His was boiled down into a sordid blade of spite, and for the moment he could stab it into Kia.

“Why was Elea killed?”

“Why…? L-like…like there’s—”

“Any need to know that, you say? Since it’s just the excuse of murderers? That can’t be true, now can it? I don’t think you are that stupid. You passed the test we prepared for you, and you even learned how to read. Elea the Red Tag, then. What was she to you; how was she as a teacher?”

“Elea was—”

Kia hiccupped.

“Elea was always nice! Sh-she…took me all the way here to Aureatia, and…because she was always there for me…I…w-was so happy! Why?! Why did you have to kill her?!”

“…Elea the Red Tag was…”

It wasn’t Yaniegiz who answered Kia’s wails.

It was one of the soldiers who had rushed over to the passenger car with Uhak the Silent in tow.

“…a traitor who schemed to usurp Aureatia governmental authority. She desired the hero’s position solely out of her lust for power… To do that, she murdered her own hero candidate, and intended to manipulate an ignorant child with powerful Word Arts to kill Rosclay.”

“You’re lying!” Kia tearfully shouted.

The fact that everything hadn’t been destroyed was either because Uhak was preventing her Word Arts, or perhaps Kia’s mind could no longer focus on such a thing.

“If Elea was so precious to you, try thinking back carefully; go ahead. What was Elea doing? You realize she pretended to be a home tutor in order to survey Eta Sylvan Province for a potential invasion, right? Does truly nothing, anything at all, come to mind when I say all this?”

“Liar! Liar! Elea always… She— I was her…”

“She asked you to kill—”

Yaniegiz’s voice was cold enough to make one shiver.

“—didn’t she?”

“Unnnnnnnngh!”

There was a loud thud.

Tu threw Yaniegiz to the ground.

She must have held back as much as possible to make sure he wasn’t injured, but the moment he was slammed to the ground, Yaniegiz’s wiry left shoulder dislocated.

“Enough already! We don’t have to talk about this anymore! Kia…! Let’s grab Uhak and go home!”

“Hee, hee-hee, hee! Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee…!”

Please, I’m begging you.

Kuze was helpless. Kuze was invincible, yet always powerless, unable to do anything but wish and plead.

Even those wishes never once came true.

“Kia! You can’t kill people!”

“I…!”

The soldier from before barely managed to get his words out.

Kuze didn’t even know his name, yet for the sake of the mission, this soldier summoned up all his courage to speak.

“I was the one who killed Elea the Red Tag! To preserve order in the Kingdom!”

At this one location, where all of fate converged together, everything…

Yaniegiz’s ridiculing echoed.

“Uhak is forced to use his power when—”

“Y-you…you’re all lying… Elea didn’t…”

“—everything breaks down.”

Kia then said the decisive word…

“Break!”

In that moment, several things happened all at once.

Kia’s omnipotent Word Arts—an indistinct something, its very effects obscure—tried to massacre the soldiers.

The soldiers, to carry out their duty to Aureatia, fired at Kia.

Tu jumped in between Kia and the soldiers.

Uhak activated his Word Arts–canceling powers.

Kuze simply watched.

“Ah.”

At some point, her vision, plastered pure white, had cleared, and she saw a blue sky.

Up in the sky in front of her towered a brick overpass.

Beside her head, something resembling a smushed steel plate was sticking out of the ground.

She had fallen. She realized that, at that moment in the train, there had been a breakdown that defied imagination, whether from Word Arts or the fusillade of explosives and gunfire, and it had thrown her down below the overpass.

Blood was flowing.

It thickly clung to her forehead, and she wondered whose blood it was.

“Oh…”

Whatever the situation, she was never after some specific result.

She simply didn’t want to look back on something and wish she had been able to save someone, ever again.

Which was why she had jumped to protect Kia and the soldiers.

She didn’t regret anything.

Nevertheless, with her body that had maintained complete Word Arts homoeostasis from the moment she was born…

“I get it… This is…”

Tu the Magic walked off with staggered steps.

No matter how many times she wiped the blood away from her forehead, for some reason, there was never any less of it.

She shouldn’t have had any regrets at all, and yet somehow…

“My blood…”

She was scared.

That day, three bizarre guests arrived at Rouki the Small Digger’s doorstep.

According to them, they wanted to get a boat right away.

One among them, a leprechaun in a dark brown coat, for some reason had a detailed map of Aureatia’s waterways and specified which route to take—and in what order.

He laid out a roundabout route that used old channels even Rouki didn’t know about, but it would get them to their far-off destination while avoiding the eyes of many minia at once and, depending on the time of day, not require them to pass through any checkpoints.

The clients didn’t give their names. Rouki didn’t ask them, either.

Rouki the Small Digger was a smuggler in Sagasa Old Town.

It was a dangerous trade, but it was how he fed his two younger sisters.

“Y’know, I was sure that almost no one outside the district knew my name.”

With his usual cheery disposition, he guided his clients to the harbor.

“Who gave you my name, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Assuming someone did give me your name, you know I wouldn’t tell you who,” the leprechaun walking out ahead of them frankly replied.

“Ah-ha, well, you’ve got me there. Either way, you seem rather accustomed to these services, which I appreciate…”

The clients were one man and two women.

All three of them looked to be about as old as Rouki, around sixteen or seventeen. That said, the man was a leprechaun, so more likely than not he was far older.

The leprechaun in the coat never let down his guard and had a calm demeanor. When they commissioned him, this man was the one who did most of the bargaining. His gait and posture had the unique air of those accustomed to fighting. Although the leprechaun didn’t appear boorish at all, Rouki knew that, in a world of violence, the guys who were as composed as this man were merciless and intolerant of failure. Though he had his back to Rouki, it felt like the man was keeping watch on him the whole time, which terrified him.

One of the people he brought with him was a frighteningly beautiful young girl. Her silky black hair came to the top of her shoulders, and her fair skin looked almost deathly pale. Up until now, whenever the topic of Aureatia’s most beautiful woman came up in conversation, Rouki had only been able to vaguely name some famous actress or another, but now he could readily declare that this young girl, whose name he didn’t even know, was a cut above the rest.

The final client had a far plainer impression than the other two. Her brownish hair was braided, and while she didn’t stand out compared to the black-haired beauty, a closer look revealed that she had fairly attractive features as well. The thing that concerned Rouki, though, was that when she seemed to be thinking over something, a vaguely spiteful color came to her eyes, wholly unbecoming of her features.

“Still, Mister, I sure am jealous of you, gotta say!” Rouki loudly chatted as he rowed the boat.

While he was a smuggler, he didn’t avoid the eyes of others while operating in urban areas.

Bringing up these topics of idle chatter himself helped him come off as just a private tour boat, even when questioned otherwise, and it constituted one of the trade tricks he had developed for himself.

“Why, I’d say any noble would be envious to go sightseeing with such a striking pair of beauties! Oh, or are they family members of yours, perhaps?”

“……There’s three,” the coat-wearing leprechaun replied like Kouki had annoyed him somehow. He was pressing down on the area by his chest pocket.

Perhaps he was one of those clients who didn’t really engage in conversation. Running into them wasn’t uncommon in the underground trade, but the leprechaun hadn’t seemed to have any eccentric fantasies or hang-ups when they were talking about his requests, so Rouki was a bit surprised.

“Ah-ha, of course, forgive me! There are three of you, yes, sirree!”

Of course, Rouki had nothing to gain from pointing out this weird feeling in the first place.

Whether their conversation flowed smoothly or not, it just had to appear to anyone looking on that they were chitchatting idly between themselves.

“One of the Order’s chapels used to sit over on that islet there.”

The island in the waterway Kouki pointed to looked like nothing more than an overgrown grove of unkempt trees.

If one strained their eyes, they could probably make out the crumbling remains of the chapel within, but no one was likely to notice its existence unless it was pointed out to them.

“Ages ago, I used to go back and forth from the place all the time. Now they’ve pulled up the whole bridge and everything.”

“Master Rouki…were you a follower of the Order?”

“Huh?”

His heart reflexively skipped a beat when he heard the beautiful young girl say his name.

Damn, even her voice is cute…

The voice seemed to give transience form, mixed with the faintest seductive gasps.

Her eye-catching face was hidden below a wide-brimmed hat, but it took all Rouki had to stop his mind from focusing on her ample breasts pushing up from her white blouse.

This appraisal was totally unrelated to the job at hand. He told himself that to refocus.

“Well, my folks used to work a bit with the Order ’fore they died. They had me go to that chapel there more times than I can count…”

The boat had been left to him by his parents, but his family hadn’t always been involved in this line of work.

Rouki’s family previously transported goods out to Order facilities in remote areas and lived a humble life off the work.

However, in the age of chaos brought by the True Demon King, the Order faced intense persecution. Rouki didn’t know why. Rumors of unknown veracity—a priest somewhere being involved in human trafficking, a chapel somewhere with followers revering the True Demon King as the Wordmaker—piled up on top of each other until, at some point, a great number of people began to fear the Order itself.

Rouki’s parents had been forced to make a decision, too. The number of merchants wishing to trade with the Order continued decreasing, and the Order facilities had been continually abandoned and consolidated as they reduced the scale of their activities.

Rouki was still young and didn’t understand at the time what sort of conversation was going on between his parents.

Ultimately, Rouki’s family decided to forsake the Order. However, their lives didn’t improve for the better at all. Finally, the boat once used for aboveboard trade with the Order began to be used more and more to transport illicit cargo.

His parents ultimately botched something, and his father was found floating in the canal. His mother’s body never surfaced.

Rouki and his two little sisters were the only ones left.

“…Though, seeing as we were involved with the Order and all, I’ve got all sorts of memories with them. Musta been when I was six. I got this real nasty fever, and both my parents went rushing to see the Order… And together with them, everyone pleaded and got me seen by a noble doctor. Woulda been dead without that, I’d say.”

“…What a wonderful memory.”

“Oh no, not at all, it’s pathetic. Getting sick and almost kicking it? How embarrassing.”

Rouki cheerfully laughed it off.

Meanwhile, the plain-looking girl was murmuring to herself as if confirming something. “Nowadays, if I remember right…there’s a medical support system in place for homes below a certain income. Lady Flinsuda introduced the system, so that would make it…four years ago?”

“If only that had cropped up seven years sooner, I’m ’fraid. You really know your stuff now, don’t you, miss? Me, I don’t remember anything about this law or that organization, let alone how many years ago they all sprang up.”

“Oh, no, I just happened to remember, that’s all…”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha, sounds like we’ve got some very different definitions of ‘that’s all,’ miss.”

There were occasionally those in the underground trade who were strangely well-versed in the loopholes of the law, but it was rare to see anyone who pursued a proper education. Especially a young girl of seventeen like her.

Maybe this girl used to attend a really good Order facility somewhere—or maybe an academy near the center of Aureatia.

Up until the age of the Demon King, the true intellectual class had all gathered at the Order.

He had heard from a past client that they were on par with the current Aureatia bureaucrats, or in some cases even wiser.

However, as the Order’s power waned, Aureatia established academies to serve as educational institutions in the Order’s stead, and the Order’s intellectual class disappeared somewhere.

Perhaps they were still doing everything in their power to ensure the Order’s survival. Or maybe, much like Rouki and Rouki’s parents, they had abandoned their faith for their own survival and pursued a completely different life for themselves.

“I’m skeptical that Aureatia will be left with money to spare on relief for the poor,” the coat-wearing man spat in a low murmur. “Aureatia is a nation with a weak foundation, born from scraping together the last minian wealth and personnel under a wartime regime to barely form the outline of a kingdom. They threw their wealth around on publicity stunts to court public opinion like the Sixways Exhibition and social welfare programs, but they have weak prospects of maintaining it all… If they don’t bring in resources or people from outside, it’ll all run dry eventually.”

“You don’t say! Resources and people, huh? How exactly is Aureatia ’posed to come by that?”

“War.”

The beautiful women behind the man cowered in fright at the reply for some reason.

“An age of war might be on the horizon. An age where the frontier, impoverished from the True Demon King’s terror, will be devoured by Aureatia’s attempts to prolong itself… The Sixways Exhibition’s been shaken up far too much for everything to end peacefully for everyone. Rosclay the Absolute’s gone.”

“Oh, oh! That’s right! It blew me off my feet, too! Really is something wrong with the world out there, I tell you… Did you hear the news? Two students near the center of Aureatia followed Rosclay in death.”

“………What…?”

This time, the plain girl was the one to have an obvious reaction.

Her eyes opened wide, and she froze like a small creature in front of a hunter.

Among adolescent girls like her, many wanted to avoid the topic of Rosclay’s death altogether, but the nature of her reaction was different.

“…Huh? Don’t tell me you didn’t know that Rosclay died? Wait, if you live in Aureatia, there’s no way you’d not know that…”

“Um, no…”

The girl covered one eye with her hand and shook her head as if trying to dispel something from her mind.

“Th-they died because…Rosclay lost?”

“Wait, that’s what you’re hung up on? If anything, I expected a whole lot more people to follow him. After hearing a man like him died, nobody’d bat an eye if ten or even a hundred people died with him. Honestly, I’m shocked Aureatia even announced it.”

“There were far too many witnesses watching the match. A cover-up was probably impossible.”

“…Ruin…someone’s future…”

The plain girl was compulsively mumbling to herself.

Rouki thought it was incomprehensible that someone would be less shocked about Rosclay’s death and instead more concerned about the deaths that had come about as a result.

Rouki understood mourning the dead as much as anybody, but ultimately, they had all chosen it for themselves, and it wasn’t like Rosclay, or anyone else for that matter, bore any responsibility for it all.

Perhaps, though, it was a cold, or numbed, way of thinking about the death of another.

Yuno hadn’t actually wanted to make Soujirou the Willow-Sword win.

Even now, she didn’t really like him. If anything, she should have felt a debt of gratitude for slaying the Dungeon Golem that day, but there was some illogical emotional part of her that wasn’t able to accept that.

There were many things she had been too afraid to say out loud—about how he saved Yuno on a whim after she had lost her reason for living, about how he possessed so much power yet never thought to save anyone, about how he didn’t try to empathize with people tormented unfairly—which she had wanted to say to him the next time they met face-to-face.

Perhaps that was why she wanted Soujirou to win and come back to her?

She thought that wasn’t quite right, either.

Yuno was sure that Soujirou would have accepted the results of the battle equally, whether he won or lost.

For some reason, she was fully confident in that fact. While they had traveled together, Yuno had come to understand Soujirou, despite how indecipherable he was, just a little bit.

In order to carry out her revenge, she needed to ensure that the target of her vengeance understood her, or it was all pointless.

She wanted none other than the target of her vengeance to acknowledge this hatred that never disappeared, that Yuno was forced to carry with her for the rest of her life.

Yuno was convinced that this wish, and understanding her foe, were two sides of the same coin.

Which was why Yuno and Soujirou’s wishes had been the same.

She didn’t care about victory or defeat; she had simply wanted to give Soujirou the fights he wanted.

…But.

Even after disembarking from the boat and stepping into the forest, Yuno had kept dead silent and looked pale.

Kuuro ahead of her walked with Linaris on his back.

Yuno’s pace was slow.

I…killed…Rosclay?

What had this internal desire of Yuno’s ultimately brought about to the world?

Yuno had simply etched marks in a way to communicate to Soujirou and nothing more. Though she might not have been seen as ultimately responsible, she had nevertheless tried to get Soujirou and Rosclay to fight. Not just that, but she had acted with clear intent, to create the chance for Rosclay to die.

Whatever a weakling like her did, it shouldn’t have had any great effect on the world. That was why, even if it was meaningless, she at least wanted to carry out her one wish—that had been the impression she was under.

That wasn’t so, though. No matter how fervent or irreplaceable this wish of hers was, to those trampling her underfoot, it should have been totally unrelated to them at all.

She could have realized it all and stopped what she was doing, yet she hadn’t even been cognizant about the brutality signified in this act of hers until this moment.

It was exactly as Kuuro the Cautious had pointed out to her. Yuno had believed herself to be totally powerless, that she had abandoned her position and future before reaching where she was now, and yet at some point, she had become one of the unfair and powerful herself.

I… I can bring ruin to absolutely everything…

Now Yuno carried a bomb with her.

Why had Nihilo told Yuno about the legacy Yukiharu the Twilight Diver left behind?

If she had told one of the Twenty-Nine Officials, or the Gray-Haired Child instead, they would have been able to dispose of the truth for the betterment of the world. Yuno didn’t have the courage to do such a thing.

“Yuno. Watch where you step. You’ll fall,” Kuuro told her without looking back.

“…I will.”

The words helped her regain her sense of reality, and she saw a moss-covered rock on the ground just two steps ahead of her.

She carefully stepped over it to continue forward. Kuuro’s guidance was always accurate.

There must have been a great number of traps laid out across this forest, yet even a young girl like Yuno was able to advance through the brush as if none of them were ever there at all.

“…Kuuro.”

“What?”

“What…is going to happen to us from here?”

It had been Kuuro who found them a smuggler in the Outer Ward and laid out the course they took.

Yuno and Linaris were still effectively Kuuro’s hostages, and life-or-death power over them lay entirely in his hands.

“The plan is still to head to the rendezvous point with Enu and hand Linaris back over to him. That’s if Enu shows up…”

“But we’re heading to the Obsidian Eyes mansion right now, aren’t we?”

“You’re sharp.”

The trees and vegetation in the forest were the same as Yuno had seen around the mansion.

She couldn’t imagine Enu and Kuuro had set their meetup point at the base of operations that already had been exposed by the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists once before.

“…Master Kuuro. Are you all right with this?” Linaris said from atop Kuuro’s back.

Her complexion had been terrible the whole way. Although Viga the Clamor’s treatment had gotten Linaris out of critical condition, Yuno worried the whole time about whether the far more terrible and agonizing pain they subjected to Linaris hadn’t whittled her life away even further.

“This is something you need to do, mistress.”

“……Yes… I thank you for this…”

Linaris shut her long eyelashes.

Yuno wasn’t able to surmise what Linaris wanted. She couldn’t have been hoping to reunite with her comrades here. Kuuro wouldn’t want that to happen, for one thing, and an organization like Obsidian Eyes would certainly understand the dangers in returning to this hideout.

As they continued through the forest path, the mansion finally peeked out from dark green forest underbrush.

It was abandoned. The exterior of the mansion looked almost untouched, perhaps because Obsidian Eyes had fought to limit evidence of destruction, even when intercepting the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists. The traces of the battle in the forest seemed to have been erased by the flora and fauna in the time they had been away.

“Ah…”

A lonesome sigh slipped from Linaris’s lips.

“I’ll be watching from here… Can you get there alone?”

“…Yes.”

Linaris then quietly entered the manor by herself.

Yuno could only look on without saying a word.

Kuuro let out a long, exhausted sigh.

“…How much longer is Cuneigh going to stay sleeping? I’ve been waiting for her.”

Then he sat down on a parched rock and patted his chest pocket.

Viga had said that a tiny homunculus with a weak life force like Cuneigh needed to be placed in a type of hibernation state for a period of time. It was impossible to say just how long Viga’s life-prolonging treatment had managed to actually extend Cuneigh’s life.

“Kuuro, why…did you bring Linaris here to the mansion?”

“It’s a personal matter for her. What’s the point in you knowing about it?”

“She’s my friend… Does it involve her father?”

“……”

When Yuno had lived in the mansion, Linaris had mentioned her father several times, but Yuno had never once seen him.

“Father.” “Please forgive me.” “Please praise me.” “Please punish me.”

Linaris had repeatedly mumbled these incoherent thoughts as she lay delirious from the torturous experiments.

Perhaps he was like Lucelles was to Yuno, a source of regret impossible to forget, even on death’s doorstep.

“The mistress…” Kuuro pulled his hat farther down his face. “…killed her own father. At the very least, she believes she did.”

“Her own father…”

Of course Yuno hadn’t encountered him, then. He had been dead after all.

“I didn’t find that out by questioning Linaris. At this point, trying to unravel the cause of her father, of Rehart the Obsidian’s death, is all but impossible, too… But while it may have just been delirious, unconsciousness mumbling, Linaris was speaking from the heart.”

Yuno had only been able to hear fragments of what Linaris had said, but Kuuro had perceived everything that went on inside that tower. Given his Clairvoyance powers were able to accurately deduce the future with information from the present, he must have gotten a clear understanding of exactly what sort of past continued to haunt Linaris.

“What do you think? Do you think that Linaris killed the previous Obsidian and stole the organization from him?”

“…Linaris was…a spontaneous mutation, right? A vampire that infects through the air. How did Obsidian…? How did Linaris’s father feel about that spontaneous mutation…?”

Vampires never infected the same person simultaneously with viruses from two different parental units.

Linaris, meanwhile, could infect others all too easily—and through a completely different route from existing vampires. Her presence alone created a situation where Obsidian, the one in control of the organization, had no way of knowing which one of his agents had been infected by who first.

Obsidian Eyes was an organization based on the vampire’s power of control.

The spy guild once said to be the greatest in the land, able to prevent treachery in a more concrete way than through trust or discipline. If he then learned that a foreign body that threatened that very premise had slipped in among them…

“…I think he might have feared betrayal.”

“Me too. Rehart the Obsidian killed the organization’s enemies, killed anyone who knew the truth behind him, and killed anyone who betrayed him… He was a monster, far more cold-blooded and crueler than any of us, but there was one part of him that resembled Linaris, too. He was a coward.”

Yuno thought back to the conversations she had exchanged with Linaris while confined together.

Their enemy was terrifying, so they willfully blinded themselves to any points of commonality with it.

“To Linaris, Obsidian Eyes were her only friends… But for the previous Obsidian…that wasn’t so for Obsidian Eyes or even his own daughter…”

“That might’ve been how it was. Impossible to stay honest and decent if you keep being suspicious of everything. After all the war was done, I heard stories from the scattered remnants of Obsidian Eyes. About how deranged Rehart was in his final years—and how much he guided the organization’s decline.”

“……”

Yuno guessed that Kuuro didn’t think Linaris had actually killed Rehart.

On the other hand, Linaris believed from the bottom of her heart that the responsibility for Rehart’s death lay with her.

Which was the truth? Regardless, Rehart doubted everything and everyone, and as if the karma from all the lives he had taken came back to haunt him, he suffered a long, agonizing death.

“You asked why I brought the mistress back here, right?”

“…Yes.”

“She asked me to. She at least wanted to see her father.”

Linaris’s father was dead.

Nevertheless, Linaris spoke as if he was still alive.

Kuuro advanced through the manor without pause, until reaching the largest library on the second floor.

When the door opened, Yuno instinctively gasped.

It’s a corpse.

A rotted corpse sat in a wheelchair.

The dissolving, crumbling tissue was adhered to the seat and wheelchair back, and the foul odor felt like daggers in her nasal cavity.

Right in front of the wheelchair Linaris sat limply.

“Linaris…”

Linaris looked up at Yuno with hollow eyes.

Limpid, fine tears ran down her face.

“Rehart the Obsidian. So he really was dead.”

Kuuro walked up to Rehart’s corpse with his hands still shoved in his coat pockets.

Without a hint of grief or disappointment, he seemed simply fed up.

“If the timing of his death I heard was right, enough time’s gone by for him to be totally bones by now. But seeing as his stomach hasn’t swelled up from putrefaction—the body’s insides got pulled out, and he’s been maintained with Life Arts up until now. When the same Obsidian Eyes you stole from him cleared out of this base, the corpse was abandoned. So there was no one here to use Life Arts on him anymore…”

“…Th-that’s not…”

Linaris’s throat caught, just barely forming into a voice.

Kuuro kneeled down to meet Linaris’s eyes.

“Mistress. This thing is just a doll Obsidian Eyes used to control you. The fact that you assured me that you could see Rehart if you came here meant you knew the truth yourself. If Rehart was truly alive, he would’ve never stayed here waiting for you in this hideout.”

Kuuro had satisfied Linaris’s desire—and nothing more.

Linaris wished for her dream, reuniting with Rehart, and had come this far of her own accord.

“…I won’t tell you to pay for the lives you took. You have to decide that for yourself. That said, you never had any reason to be bound to Obsidian Eyes in the first place. That’s the truth.”

If the cruel truth couldn’t be changed, what was the correct choice—to stare straight at it like Kuuro or hide it away forever as Obsidian Eyes had?

“K-K…Kuuro!” Yuno shouted.

“Wh-why would you do all this…?! When she…doesn’t have a home to return to and is separated…from all her friends…! Just what sort of life are you expecting her to live from here?! She’s—she’s lost…everything…”

“I needed to do this. I…I followed Obsidian Eyes’s code and carried out my revenge. I want this to be the last victim of this organization. I’ll be failing my duty to Enu, but if you so wish for it, mistress, I can find somewhere to take you in where you can live a quiet life without having to kill anymore.”

He punctuated himself with a hoarse laugh.

Linaris adored Kuuro like a much older brother.

Similarly, Kuuro couldn’t have wanted to harm Linaris, yet this was the way things had to be.

Code, duty, revenge. Kuuro, too, had been forced to live bearing those unwanted burdens and performing nothing but unwanted deeds.

“If someone hadn’t shown this to her, then it never would have ended… You think my methods here were wrong.”

“Th-they…are wrong…”

It was painful.

Kuuro was surly, but he never trespassed on Yuno’s dignity.

Linaris was gentle and kind, and it made Yuno happy to be her friend.

Yet every time the two of them suffered, Yuno’s own chest grew tight and painful.

“Being a slave…to a dead person…”

“Losing absolutely everything’s the best place to start.”

“Doing something…you don’t even want to do…because you’re supposed to…”

“Sounds like you’ll never be free.”

“There’s nothing…nothing free about any of that. Th-that’s why…”

Yuno the Distant Talon had lost everything, just like Linaris had now.

She didn’t want that loss to be meaningless, and that was why she had desired to push forward with her egocentric and mistaken revenge.

Since freedom was the real hallmark of the strong.

“Unngh…hic, nggggh…”

“…Why are you crying?”

“I don’t know… I just don’t know!”

Everything was a chaotic mess.

She didn’t have the power to redeem her regrets. Nor the heart to remain consistent.

She couldn’t even save the hearts of the two people right in front her.

Yuno remained unable to gain anything that she wished for, and yet Yuno herself had long fallen on the side of the strong who pushed their irrationality on others.

“…Miss Yuno.” Linaris let out a faint, feeble voice. “It is…all right now. Please, just leave me…”

“…I—I can’t do that! We’re f-friends, aren’t we?! We’re…”

Before she could finish her thought, Yuno was pulled backward by the scruff of her neck.

It took a second to understand Kuuro had grabbed her and jumped backward with unimaginable agility.

“…K-koff! Kuuro!”

“Linaris, stop!”

They were in the hallway. Yuno understood that Kuuro determined they needed to put that much space between them.

The calm expression from moments ago was totally gone, and sweat poured down his brow like a waterfall.

“Koff! Wh-what…?! Why’d you pull me…?!”

Kuuro had no knowledge of microbiology. While his Clairvoyance was able to perceive changes in the microscopic world, it couldn’t then recognize what said changes then meant.

Despite all that, he had still foreseen a tremendous danger.

It’s just like what happened back then.

Yuno then realized what had happened at that moment.

A mutation, caused by her own volition.

“…You think…someone like me…”

In the middle of the ruined room, Linaris swayed back and forth as she stood up.

She had the beauty of an ephemeral dream.

“…could ever atone…for such terrible sins…”

“Linaris! If you are truly able to cause a mutation at will, then—”

“L-living without…any more killing…isn’t…”

Kuuro was unable to finish his sentence. With Yuno in his arms, he ran at full speed.

Yuno was sure he had so many other things he had wanted to convey to Linaris, yet he had needed to escape.

They couldn’t let her get close. He ran at the speed a disease spread.

Something even more lethal than total control was infecting the air.

“Linaris! Don’t do it! Linaris!”

Even as Yuno called after her, practically tearing her throat apart, she also knew that her voice wouldn’t penetrate the unfathomable depths of despair.

It had been the same for Yuno the day Nagan fell.

Linaris’s voice alone reached her, like a dying breeze.

“Farewell.”

Evening. Having finished his work for the day, Rouki the Small Digger walked the road home.

Instead of carrying goods, he had transported three bizarre passengers—but what was even more bizarre was that he couldn’t remember the details that made them seem so unusual. He barely still retained his memories of heading off to their destination. He was sure that he had been working up until that moment. However, he felt as if he had been simply handed his reward at the port and turned right back home.

Everyone who came into contact with Linaris the Obsidian, regardless of any malice on Linaris’s part, were made into corpses.

Despite her beautiful features that attracted more eyes than any other, Linaris never remained in anyone’s memory. She was constantly manipulating perceptions to erase the memories of any corpse who witnessed her.

Cripes. I’m not nearly old enough for this, but maybe I’ve started growing senile like the old man next door.

Nevertheless, he was an optimist by nature. Rouki quickly forgot about his uncertain misgivings.

What really mattered was that, with this job, he had gotten enough money to buy his two young sisters some proper clothes.

Though it wasn’t as profitable, compared to running illegal goods, just continuing with these safer types of jobs would be enough to at least feed their three-person family for the time being.

Rouki’s feet carried him to a grilled food place. They used cheap ingredients, and the taste was awful, but the amount of food they served couldn’t be beat.

“…Huh?”

Rouki felt that something was weirdly off.

He didn’t see the shop owner standing on the roadside amicably drawing in customers like usual.

Instead of the typical smoky smell of grilled food, a foul smell, like raw fish left out to spoil, hung in the air.

“Ummm, ’scuse me, it’s Rouki! Hey, Pops, you closed for today?”

He peered behind the counter. The shop owner was lying down on the ground. His neck was bent all the way to his back.

His throat was almost entirely gone, only held together by strands of skin.

All the fingers on both hands seemed to have disappeared somewhere.

Both of his shoes were off, and all his toes were missing, too.

“Uh…Pops…,” Kouki muttered in blank surprise.

There was a pool of blood at his feet, but the blood had dried a long time ago.

“You sleep in a spot like that, you’re gonna catch a cold, y’know…”

He knew without a doubt that he wasn’t going to be able to buy any grilled food today.

Rouki looked around the alleyway lined with shops. Calm and tranquil. Several people even passed through the alley.

Even though a lot of time must have passed since the shop owner died.

No one’s called the city guards or nothing?

Rouki teetered away before he broke into a run. He wanted to go back to his daily life and pretend like nothing happened.

His shady occupation meant he was the type to be immediately suspected when anything cropped up.

He had lost the courage or the willpower to inform anyone.

“Crap, crap, crap, no, no, no…!”

Though he didn’t feel tired, when he finally reached his home, he was totally out of breath.

It wasn’t his first time seeing a corpse. Anyone who had lived through the age of the True Demon King, even children, had seen them. However, there was an indescribable creepiness to the corpse Rouki had seen.

As if a mysterious something had played with the man while killing him.

He hadn’t seen anything. Eventually someone would discover the body, and the authorities would take it from there.

He rubbed his face while leaning against the door to his house to try to regain his usual demeanor.

It had nothing to do with Rouki. He’d go to sleep tonight and forget everything.

“I’m home!”

He opened the door.

“Sorry, Retta, Nabi! I didn’t have time to buy any sides for tonight, so we’ll use yesterday’s…”

It didn’t smell like his home. It was like raw fish left out to spoil.

The scene in the room before him was different. He thought he had returned home to someone else’s house.

“Mwee-hee-hee-hee!”

A creature, resembling a naked young girl, was lying down on the table.

On top of the table, a crimson-and-white something was scattered in a sloppy mess everywhere.

Amid all this, his youngest sister, Nabi, simply sat with a smile.

Wait, that’s weird.

For some reason, the girl looked like she had three arms.

Right. There were too many arms. He mistakenly saw the extra arm, because there were the arms of another young girl on the table—scattered on the table—and smeared all over the young girl was the torn-apart body of another young girl.

“………Retta.”

Why?

More than fear, despondent bewilderment took over Rouki’s brain.

He couldn’t move a muscle, like an herbivore face-to-face with a predator.

Why was everyone—even his youngest sister, Nabi—able to stay indifferent amid what was happening?

“Mwee-hee-hee-hee. I love Retta.”

The naked young girl kissed a lifeless chunk of flesh.

Then she looked at Rouki and smiled like an angel.

“I’ve fallen in love with you, too, mister…”

Leisha sincerely loved Kuze the Passing Disaster.

Whenever she talked about how much love she had for him, her teacher or friends never paid serious attention to her, but her feelings had only swelled further ever since Kuze had jumped headlong into danger to protect them when Leisha’s almshouse was attacked by a group of scoundrels.

However, because of that incident, Leisha and the others had been forced to all move away from Aureatia together.

When they moved, a weird young boy with gray hair had done a lot to take care of them. He didn’t look to be much older than Leisha and the others, but for some reason he worked alongside the adults, only to then join the kids, teaching them games to play and learning some new ones for himself.

The other children were simpleminded, so they immediately grew attached to this gray-haired kid, but Leisha wasn’t as immature as they were and didn’t fawn all over him.

Leisha was the prettiest one among them and destined to married Kuze in the future, so she couldn’t let herself do anything that might catch the eyes of another man.

In any event, Leisha and the others ended up moving away from their family home in Aureatia. It was understandable for the younger children, but there were some kids even older than Leisha who bawled their eyes out over it.

Leisha hadn’t shed a single tear when the almshouse was attacked, but even she cried at the move.

It was painful to be separated from Kuze. Her love had grown even stronger, and now she would be even farther away from him.

With that, they boarded a massive carriage, far bigger than any she had seen, and after a long journey, they arrived in the Free City of Okafu.

When they arrived, there was a large, newly constructed brown building, and everyone was astounded since no one had ever seen an Order building that looked so new.

Leisha and the others ended up living in this building after arriving in the city.

It wasn’t just the teacher and other kids who had come along with them to Okafu, but around four other teachers they knew from Aureatia came, too, as well as many other Order people Leisha had never met before.

Their food got much, much better, too. The Order didn’t have any money, yet they had so much meat and so many vegetables, it almost worried Leisha. Still, she didn’t really like the sour seasoning of Okafu’s food.

As Leisha and the others settled into their lives, there had apparently been a number of terrifying incidents back in Aureatia.

Alus the Star Runner caused a huge fire, and the military rampaged around for some reason that was difficult for her to fully understand. When she heard that Rosclay the Absolute had lost his match and died, Leisha was truly stunned.

Each new report made everyone worry about Kuze, but he always sent letters to Okafu letting them know he was okay. Really, Leisha wanted more than anything for him to come out to Okafu to see them, but she never said anything selfish or spoiled in her replies back.

The adults all said they’d be able to see him someday.

But when exactly would that day come?

By the time the Sixways Exhibition was over, Leisha would be a bit taller and more beautiful, obviously, and would Kuze then think about marrying her?

That was why she always wanted to know what was happening where Kuze was, back in Aureatia.

Naturally, Leisha loved Kuze the most, but she was sure the other kids felt the same, too. Any child raised in the Order was guaranteed to be really fond of Kuze.

—It all happened one day.

Gilea, one year older than her, came stomping into the study room.

He was a bit on the chubby side, and his footsteps were always so loud. She heard him coming all the way from the stairwell, long before he came down the hallway, and her mood had already soured.

“You gotta see this! It’s amazing! A dead body came from Aureatia!”

“Be quiet. I’m studying.”

“Aw, you’re the only one here, Leisha?! Man, and this has got to be part of some big, huge deal, too!”

“Mrr. What, I’m not good enough?”

“I mean, you’re always so cranky…”

Gilea went to leave, crestfallen, as if all the vigor from before had vanished entirely. It rubbed Leisha the wrong way.

“Hold it. So what’s this about a body from Aureatia?”

“Er, uh, so…promise you won’t get mad?”

“Why would I?!”

“See, you’re already mad!”

Gilea was seized with fear, covering his round body. His eyes were shut tightly, too.

For all his body mass, he was so timid. Leisha had never even hit any of the other kids before.

“Um…so, today, I woke up before the morning bell. I mean like, it was still dark outside and everything. So I went down to the first floor, right, ’cause I had to pee, and…”

There wasn’t anyone else here listening in on them, yet Gilea lowered his voice.

“A lot of the teachers were all gathered by the entrance and talking about something.”

“…When the sun wasn’t even up?”

“Weird, right? I know that they all get up earlier than we do, but I just knew it was weird for them all to be gathered like that so early… It sorta got hard to go down the stairs, so I listened and caught some of what they were saying, something about a guest from Aureatia…and what room to give them, that kinda stuff.”

“Doesn’t really say much. You don’t remember what exactly they were talking about?”

“I mean, all the stuff the adults talk about is way too hard for me to remember. I get it might be easy for you since you’re so smart and all, but…”

“…! Oh yes, I probably would have. Heh-heh. What else?”

“So you know how there’s a bunch of empty rooms in the basement, right? That area we normally don’t get to go in…where the adults store stuff—or the spots we only use to practice our emergency evacuation drills.”

“They stopped allowing kids in the basement because you all kept playing down there.”

“Ngh, I mean, yeah, I know, but…even still. I heard them say they were gonna use one of the rooms there. By that point, I couldn’t hold it in anymore, so I sneaked over to the bathroom and went back to bed, but after I woke up, that conversation I heard just kept bugging me, so…”

“Don’t tell me, you went down and looked?”

“Yup. When I did…”

Gilea flashed a weird smile. He may have been trying to look tough.

“There was a corpse lying down there. I bet they must’ve carried it in during the night.”

“The guest from Aureatia…is a corpse? And to bring it to an Order facility in the first place…are they going to make a grave for the deceased?”

If the corpse was from Aureatia, then they should have just made a grave for them in Aureatia.

While the Western Outer Ward Church that had looked after Leisha and the others was wholly uprooted and transferred to Okafu, there were still a large number of followers living in Aureatia.

“Isn’t it weird? That’s why I wanted to tell everyone…”

“Because you’re scared to go alone?”

“I’m not scared!”

Whatever the case, Leisha figured it was a good idea to check the body.

Leisha certainly didn’t like having the teachers hiding stuff from her, and she didn’t want to be plagued with the awful thought that the corpse might be Kuze’s.

“Let’s go see.”

“Uh, but where are the other guys…?”

“They went to the playground ages ago. They all said since you never showed up, they’d go without you today!”

“C’mooon.”

Even among the other boys, Gilea was especially unreliable, but Leisha figured with her along, they would be fine.

Besides, Leisha was just a tiny bit scared to go see the corpse by herself.

Leisha led the way as they walked through the large building and descended into the basement.

“Gilea, your footsteps are too loud.”

“Sorry. My body’s kinda heavy.”

“That’s got nothing to do with it; they’re loud because you slam your feet down nonstop. Noble children or princesses would never walk around like that.”

“I don’t really want to be a princess anyway.”

The room where Gilea saw the corpse was the third door past the stairs. It didn’t have a lock.

They had been taught that Order buildings, especially those used by children, had all been built like this. While, of course, the entrance and windows all had locks installed, inside the building was constructed to not need them in order to prevent children from being locked inside somewhere or doing something in secret.

“O-open it already.”

“…I was just about to, okay?”

Leisha timidly opened the door and looked inside the room.

It’s not Father Kuze…

It was a man’s body. His height and hair length were different from Kuze’s, so she immediately knew it was someone else.

The body didn’t have a right leg or a right arm.

Additionally, his left elbow was wrapped so thickly in bandages of some kind that it made his arm significantly thicker, and his whole body, not just his limbs, seemed to be in tatters.

“Whoa… Oh yeah, he’s dead, all right. He looks awful.”

“You’re not going to cry?”

“Like hell I’m gonna cry!”

This proved that Gilea hadn’t been lying to Leisha, but it made the whole situation all the stranger.

Why had the teachers carried a corpse like this down into the basement?

“This feels illegal…,” Leisha murmured with a grave look.

A simpleton like Gilea probably didn’t understand, but it was clear that someone was trying to cover up something.

Since…

“This corpse was murdered.”

“Who the hell’re you calling a corpse?”

“Aaaaauuuuuugh?!”

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeek?!”

Leisha screamed, and Gilea clung tightly to Leisha as he screamed.

An extraordinary paranormal phenomenon.

This corpse that had lost half its limbs had suddenly spoken to them.

“The hell’re a couple of twerps doing in here? This ain’t a hospital?”

“U-uh, wh-who are y-you?! Are you a phantom?!”

While Leisha had lost her voice, Gilea questioned the corpse in a shrill squeak.

Leisha thought that there wasn’t any phantom out there that would honestly reply, “Yup, I’m a phantom all right,” to Gilea’s stupid question.

“Geez, stop shouting, it’s splitting my head open… Soujirou. I’m Soujirou the Willow-Sword. Happy?”

“Y-yes, thank you very much, sir! P-please don’t curse us!”

“My name is…”

Gilea was freaking out so much that it actually let Leisha regain her composure.

Putting her hand to her chest, she stood up straight and introduced herself.

“Leisha. This place… The Order’s Okafu Branch Church looks after me.”

After she had calmed down, Leisha understood the situation in her own way.

He wasn’t a corpse. He was just gravely wounded. Whether he was brought here to be treated or for some other reason, he was still alive—and thus a guest, exactly as the teachers had said.

She needed to receive this guest with politeness and class… Leisha realized all of this far quicker than Gilea.

“Leisha, huh? What about that round guy there?”

“Eep! G-Gilea!”

“Hey, Mister…Soujirou, why did you come all the way to the Order in Okafu? Is it true that you’re here from Aureatia?”

“C’mon, we’re not done with the questions yet, geez… Look, I’m pretty damn banged up here… ’Sides, I ain’t never asked to get dragged out here.”

“…?”

“Well…heh, guess there wasn’t much choice. I cut down a real big important guy, and even the docs were trying to slit my throat for it and all… Be some of the better opponents if they’re that raring to go…”

Leisha found this Soujirou man’s explanation hard to follow, perhaps because he was talking about adult stuff.

He gave some important person a cut, and even his doctors tried to kill him, but he didn’t find that all that bad, either…? Was that what he was saying?

So then, is this guy a bad guy? But the teachers all decided to bring him into the Order… Will I need to understand these sorts of conversations to become an adult…?

“Oh, um, Mister Soujirou…you came here from Aureatia?” Gilea timidly raised his hand. “Do you know someone named Father Kuze?”

“Kuze the Passing Disaster?”

“Ahhh!” Leisha shrieked.

Why did Gilea have to steal away Leisha’s most important question?

She felt downright shocked at Gilea’s total lack of tact.

“Wait, what’s wrong…? You want to know, too, right, Leisha?”

“I do, and that’s what’s wrong! How could you do something like that?! Unbelievable!”

“Uh… If yer gonna fight, seriously, can you do it outside…? Wanna know about Kuze, yeah?”

“That’s right! You know him, then?!” Leisha couldn’t help but lean her body on top of the bed.

“Oh yeah, he’s one of you Order guys, too, ain’t he? You kids know him, do ya?”

“Y-yeah… He’s a really nice teacher.”

“I love him! I’m going to marry Kuze!”

“…That right? He’s…”

For some reason, Soujirou hesitated to keep going.

The one eye not covered up with bandages looked down at his right arm, severed at the elbow.

“…Yeah, I guess he might not be that bad a dude after all. Probably. Can you guys tell him next time to not get involved in too much risky stuff anymore?”

“What is Father Kuze doing in Aureatia?”

“Uh…buncha stuff.”

“‘Buncha stuff’ doesn’t tell me anything.”

“Ugh, shut up already, shut up! Get lost! Question time’s over!”

The only information on Kuze she had gotten out of this man, Soujirou, was far vaguer and more ambiguous than even Gilea’s memories of the previous night. She was chased out without any hope of hearing more, and to top it all off, the teacher making the rounds found them, and Leisha was reprimanded with Gilea until their break time was over.

She then got teased about it by the boys who returned from the playground, which led to another quarrel.

The rest of the day was the same as always. She studied, ate her meal, took a bath, and went to bed.

The teachers never said a word about Soujirou.

Leisha and Gilea didn’t talk about him, either.

She simply thought back over it while under the covers.

Just what sort of person was Soujirou before he came here anyway?

Remembering back to her conversation with Soujirou, there was something that felt strange to her.

At first, she thought he was dead. His whole body was in such terrible shape, it was the only assumption she had been able to make, and it wasn’t clear how much longer he’d survive with such serious wounds.

Despite all that, when Soujirou talked to them, there wasn’t the slightest hint of sadness or depression in his voice. If Leisha had suffered the same injuries, she would’ve never been able keep that kind of attitude.

I wonder what Father Kuze thinks about him…

“Sorry for the unwelcome trouble right after your arrival. Hope they didn’t offend you. We’ve got a truly mischievous bunch of children here always giving us a hard time.”

“You said it. So who’re you?”

“Maqure the Sky’s Lake Surface.”

Maqure was the elderly priest in charge of the Order’s Okafu branch. He was also one of the four grand priests tasked with managing the entire Order itself.

“Mind if we talk?”

“Sure. I got whole buncha questions I wanna ask, too. Why did I end up here?”

“It was at the Gray-Haired Child’s discretion. No matter which Aureatian hospital you were transported to, you were guaranteed to be killed. I can’t imagine you wanted to be killed by cowardly hands while unconscious, no?”

“Ain’t nothing cowardly in a fight to the death… This ‘Gray-Haired Child’ is that dude, right? The wannabe merchant guy who’s joined up with Okafu to do something or other. I ain’t even met him.”

“However, he knows you. It would seem that he saw saving you as beneficial for his camp.”

Receiving Soujirou the Willow-Sword, the “guest from Aureatia,” had been a request passed along through one of the Gray-Haired Child’s intermediaries.

Forsaken by Aureatia, the Order had decided to join forces with the Gray-Haired Child, and he and his allies had been entrusted with the future of the Order following the Sixways Exhibition.

“The Order also wishes to express our gratitude. If Rosclay the Absolute maintained complete control over the Sixways Exhibition, there would be no future for not just the Gray-Haired Child and Okafu here, but for the Order as well. The Gray-Haired Child likely saved you because you have some utility, but…I assume there is an even greater amount of respect meant in the gesture.”

“Well, what about you guys?”

“Things are different for us, of course.”

Soujirou’s lone unbandaged eye glared up at Maqure.

His eye was filled with an almost reptilian—yet still very much minian—fighting spirit.

If there was a lizard out there who ate the minian races, these were likely the eyes it would’ve had.

“The Order does not choose which lives to save based on respect or utilitarian worth. Regardless of whether you’re a sinner, an ogre…or even a self-proclaimed demon king that threatens Aureatia. As long as there is someone hurt and needing help, we will do everything in our power to save them. That is the salvation given to us by the Wordmaker.”

“Saying all that creepy stuff doesn’t explain a damn thing…”

“Word Arts are not an almighty means of communicating what’s in one’s heart. Action is the best means of gaining trust. As long as you are in our care, I promise to give you the aid you require.”

“Yeah, well, that’s all nice and dandy, but…”

Soujirou lifted his head, the only part of him he could move, and looked over his own body.

He had lost his right leg. Some of the wounds from his final fight with Rosclay had reached his inner organs. Everything from his left elbow down seemed to still be connected, but the joint had been blown away, nerves, tendons, bones and all, and it would be impossible to rebuild. A sharpened bone had been exposed from the wound on his right arm, but that had been severed.

“Is getting your help gonna do anything about all this?”

“No,” Maqure firmly replied.

If he had lost only his extremities, like his fingers and ears, or the freshly severed part was left perfectly intact, there were precedents where proficient Life Arts could regenerate said parts good as new.

Meanwhile, Rosclay, after being severely wounded in both legs following the fourth match, had concentrated all of Aureatia’s combined medical strength and sacrificed a considerable amount of his cellular lifespan to reclaim his original physical capabilities.

However, it was an extremely difficult feat to grow completely lost limbs back from nothing. Even if a brilliant Life Arts caster had a perfect understanding of their patient’s body, there was still no guarantee that it would be possible.

In addition to that, Soujirou was of the Beyond, where many things differed from the world here. It would be impossible for there ever to be a physician capable of understanding his body enough to regenerate his right arm.

“Unfortunately, it is not possible to heal those injuries. I am sure that in the Beyond where you once lived, there are myoelectric prosthetics and anatomical transplant techniques that far surpass our own. However, at present, you cannot hope for such technologies in our world. Furthermore, I imagine it would be impossible for a visitor to replicate their aberrant abilities even if they had something connected to them to replace their limbs.”

“…? Gramps, who are you?”

“Just an old man.”

“Nah… Yer talking about my world like you know all about it.”

“That’s right. I do know about your world. When studied in a proper manner, anyone from the old to the very young can acquire the knowledge. The amount of knowledge that flows in from the Beyond is far greater than you imagine. Some goes unrecognized by the Kingdom and is completely forgotten. Teaching each other countless pieces of knowledge and wisdom—and uniting together. That is what our Order does.”

“So you’re saying a bunch of brainiacs can’t even fix me up?”

“That’s right. You will have to accept your lost limbs. You will need to live a life far different from what you have imagined up until now… That said, I want you to understand that this will not make your future worse. We can aid you in locating the knowledge that can help you.”

Maqure’s intention was to give Soujirou as much realistic hope as he could, given his injuries, but there weren’t many people who enjoyed hearing these sermons of his.

He could have chosen phrasings that would sound nice to hear and provide a fleeting happiness, but Maqure was a priest, not an author. He wasn’t a good liar.

“…I ain’t changing anything.”

Still, Soujirou replied with total composure, without any displeasure or despair.

“Just ’cause I can’t win a fight anymore doesn’t mean I want that to be how it all ends. If there’s no treating me, then just toss me out into my next fight like this.”

“…It’s far too early to give in to desperation. Your way of life is not who you are. Though you may have lost your strength, you haven’t been lost. You have the time and the freedom to think of a new way of living.”

“…Hate to break it to ya, but I ain’t saying this ’cause I’m desperate or impulsive or anything. Hell, even when I fought Rosclay, I said I’d fight ’im one-legged right from the start. I came all the way from another world and hopped onto this Sixways Exhibition ride… I ain’t gonna be satisfied until I know for sure who won and lost.”

He wasn’t just putting up a brave front. Looking at his expression and listening to his voice, Maqure knew.

Maqure had seen the look of someone truly wishing for death from the pits of despair many, many times before.

However, it felt as if Soujirou’s wish wasn’t even to die.

“I beat Rosclay, so I ain’t out yet. Lemme ask you, Gramps, if you screwed up somewhere along the way, would you give up your way of life and go find some new way to live or whatever? I’m still in the middle of the Sixways Exhibition here.”

“…I see. You consider your way of life to be completely different from your innate strength. You do not seek battle simply because you are strong and able to keep on winning…”

Visitors, without exception, fell into this world because they possessed some power that deviated from the laws of their own.

In cases of such tremendous power, it was bound to have an effect on the personality of the individual who wielded it. Power shaped personality, and personality developed power.

Maqure could similarly interpret Soujirou’s convictions, possessing an almost sporting tenor, as being shaped by his sheer strength, which allowed him to understand anything through the simple logic of victory or defeat.

Then there is nothing more I can do to help him. It isn’t in very good taste to try dissecting the heart…

Perhaps Maqure fell into this mindset because he was still inexperienced.

Maqure’s words, in that moment, still weren’t able to change Soujirou’s will. That was all there was to it. It was pure hubris to believe that simply understanding another’s heart would be enough to change their will.

“I understand. As a teacher of the Wordmaker’s lessons, I will do everything I can to stop you from dying, but…I do not wish to reject your wishes. I, too, have plenty of time. We simply need to calmly get to know each other from here on out.”

“Borrowing a place to sleep’s good enough for me… You’re a real exhausting guy to talk to, Gramps.”

Maqure couldn’t help but smile at the reply.

“The children often tell me the same thing.”

Tasked with regulating the Order, Maqure had a lot of work to do.

The Free City of Okafu, essentially a hostile nation to Aureatia despite being recently acknowledged as an official kingdom-affiliated state, had poor domestic security, partly due to the complete pause of their biggest industry, mercenary work. For the Order priests assigned to Okafu from Aureatia, even their own physical safety was a concern.

In the city, lined with temporary tent homes and shops, gunfire and the sounds of fighting echoed almost incessantly throughout the day and night.

Despite Okafu’s current state, Maqure didn’t walk around with any means to protect himself. He understood that it was absurd behavior born from pure faith, but Maqure also believed there was some real, yet impossible to see, causal relationship between going unarmed and never encountering true danger.

The ogre mercenary Maqure met that day was almost twice as tall as him.

“Maqure. I seek the Order’s cooperation.”

The ogre’s name was Wint the Astonishment.

He was a battle-hardened mercenary who had halted the invasion of the famed Kazuki the Black Tone. He was a rational and careful man, for an ogre, and unified a subsection of the mercenaries’ faction.

“There are more and more people exploiting Master Morio’s absence to break discipline. Looting and pillaging. Right now, I am barely managing to keep it under control, but soon the situation will be far too much for me to handle alone.”

“…And before that happens, you seek a proclamation from the Order to help regulate the mercenaries.”

Wint solemnly nodded. “I don’t want to pressure them with violence any more than I am now. With the backing of the Order’s knowledge and authority, everyone will be more willing to listen. War may be our profession, but we don’t want to war with each other…”

“…The cause of all this isn’t Master Morio’s absence. It stems from the abrupt loss of the work they’ve done until now, and losing a place to direct their strength. Our modern society is built under the social contract that people labor for the sake of the community and are provided the food they need as compensation, but…”

“I don’t get the academic stuff. Give me the direct explanation.”

“Sorry. Bad habit of mine. In short, what I’m trying to say is, this distortion came about very naturally.”

Right now there was no work in the Free City of Okafu.

That discounted the shops and other jobs that kept the city running, of course, but the mercenary industry that employed a majority of the residents was ordered to stand down after Okafu established peace with Aureatia. It put pressure on Okafu to hinder any organized acts of war during the Sixways Exhibition.

Okafu was able to maintain its current state because of the vast fortune the Gray-Haired Child invested in the city after pledging his full support. He prolonged Okafu’s survival even as it lacked any means of earning foreign dollars.

The downright absurd sum accumulated through his musket trades was itself one of the monstrous powers the Gray-Haired Child wielded. His funding also gave the Order in Okafu their large facility and allowed their followers to live comfortably.

“…Using strength to rectify this distortion will have undesirable results. We are able to make a proclamation. If there are any who follow the teachings of the Wordmaker, they may listen to what we have to say. However, what about the monstrous races and the constructs? The Order carries much less authority in a non-minian society like Okafu than you seem to expect. A different type of power will be necessary to solve this.”

“And that would be?”

“There is the theory that the surrounding environment breeds crime. If looting and plundering are rampant, then each of these incidents, including the time and location, as well as the culprit’s motives, need to be recorded, and those statistics then used to investigate trends. It might then be possible to identify conditions that make it easier to justify plundering—or that drives one to burglary.”

While Morio the Sentinel had departed Okafu, that hadn’t done anything to change the discipline in the city.

If anything, the squad commanders like Wint, who Morio had handpicked, must have been doing everything to carry out the duty Morio had entrusted to them and maintain the city’s discipline.

One possibility was that those who had changed without the eyes of Morio over them weren’t the mercenary squads but those outside of Morio’s chain of command—the shops and city suffering the damages.

“You make a good point. Can I expect the Order to cooperate with this?”

“I’ll reach out to an expert on statistics. We, too, are residents of Okafu. No member of the Order would ever be reluctant to help maintain the peace.”

Maqure glanced behind him at the massive Order facility.

It couldn’t be called a chapel or an almshouse. Its construction allowed them to complete all their functions within its walls.

The children from Aureatia were living in a building far cleaner and with better upkeep than before, but they certainly couldn’t freely go out past the wall and play in the streets. The building, even equipped with an underground emergency shelter, was built to protect the followers from the Okafu mercenaries themselves.

To the Gray-Haired Child, the Free City of Okafu was the only base of operations that could be insulated from Aureatia’s influence, but the Okafu mercenaries, suppressed and unable to fight, continued to smolder as a latent risk factor.

“Maqure. There is one other thing I wish to ask. What is Master Morio thinking? For all of us, getting the chance to fight in Aureatia had been plenty.”

“Some things are harder to carry out the easier they seem to be. Whatever the reason, Master Morio has his own justification for withdrawing your men from Aureatia. A perfect stranger like myself is not in any position to give you an explanation as to why. It would be best to trust not in each individual act of his, but believe that he is acting with the welfare of the Free City in mind.”

“Belief, is it? Right, forgot that’s the salvation you Order folks preach about… I’ll be counting on your cooperation.”

“I’m glad I heard about all this, as well. Now, I must be taking my leave.”

Maqure watched Wint depart.

The current state of Okafu’s mercenaries must have been an unexpected state of affairs for both Morio and the Gray-Haired Child. Despite getting his hands on a colossal military power in Okafu, the Gray-Haired Child was prevented from wielding their mobilization as a card to play during the Sixways Exhibition. An effect from the series of mysterious deaths at the hands of the invisible army.

The upset of a single cog, chained still until the Free City of Okafu was rendered completely inert.

The stratagem Linaris the Obsidian had carved out continued to progress like a chronic disease.

Too many unfortunate coincidences piled up on each other.

Even Maqure the Sky’s Lake Surface couldn’t recognize it as anything else.

“Father Maqure!”

He heard his name as he went to walk off. It came from a young girl, still a priest in training.

“Oh right, it’s lunch time, isn’t it? Did you run all this way just to get me?”

“Were you speaking with one of the Okafu residents? The western side of town is very dangerous.”

“An ogre by the name of Wint the Astonishment came to me for advice. Nothing to worry yourself about.”

“But, Father, an ogre…?”

“Ogres are no different from you or me. They, too, have hearts that understand Word Arts. Fear breeds prejudice and causes a breakdown in relationships.”

“That said, Father, everyone is still worried. There is some new incident or accident happening in Okafu almost every day… When I think about you getting caught up in something and being taken from us, why, I don’t know what we’d do!”

“Oh, but who would really be troubled in my absence?”

“Huh?! I would be very, very troubled! There is still so much you have yet to teach me, and that goes for everyone else, not just me! If you weren’t here, Father Maqure, the whole Order would have disbanded a long time ago!”

“You can still learn, whether I’m here or not. I didn’t learn everything from myself, after all. The accumulated knowledge of our predecessors that I learned from will remain behind forever. The same is true whether in the form of the Order or not. No one would be troubled at all. You would just feel lonely, not troubled.”

“Yes, but I don’t want to feel lonely like that.”

“…It’s bound to visit you someday.”

Maqure was the mastermind behind the Queen assassination plot. It was a scheme to have Kuze the Passing Disaster assassinate the Queen during the Sixways Exhibition, in order to personally shoulder all the notoriety that had been unfairly laid on the Order.

All the Order’s leaders who agreed to this plan, beginning with Maqure, would then be said to have belonged to a fictious crime guild. A villainous gang who lived as parasites on the Order, enriching themselves and ultimately scheming to overthrow the nation.

After the Queen’s assassination, there would also be those whose role would be to remain in the Order, to help expose this crime guild and blame them for everything. Many followers who were none the wiser, including this young priest in training, would be burdened with the role.

Many people would become unhappy. This was an egocentric martyrdom by someone who was unable to change their way of life and had lost all hope.

My way of life isn’t who I am… And here I thought I perfectly understood that, but…

“Father Maqure?”

“…Hmm. Just thinking about something. I’ll head right over.”

“Everyone’s waiting for you. Meals just don’t feel as bright without you around.”

The operation to slay Kia the World Word on the Orange Thirty-Six train along the North-South Railway ended in catastrophe.

The train car where the conflict broke out was warped into a physically unthinkable shape while attached to the other cars and was destroyed. The aftermath made it impossible to imagine what actually happened when omnipotence clashed with nullification.

The only survivors confirmed among those who had been in the car at the time were two of the reformation faction soldiers and Kuze the Passing Calamity.

According to Kaete, Mestelexil had detected that Uhak the Silent was on his way to the passenger car and descended from the sky. Considering the clash that followed right after, he had made the appropriate decision not to regenerate on the spot.

The whereabouts of Kia the World Word, Uhak the Silent, Tu the Magic, and several reformation faction soldiers, including Yaniegiz the Chisel, were all unknown.

This isn’t the worst possible outcome, Hidow tried to convince himself, after hearing the report.

Right at the end of this series of announcements, he told this to the bureaucrats gathered in operation headquarters:

“…You all did very well. There is a possibility that this erased Kia from existence, at the very least. If she took Uhak with her, then…the operation would be more of a success than we even hoped.”

Needless to say, Hidow himself didn’t believe such a self-serving explanation.

However, there was just barely enough material to create a flimsy bit of hope.

If bringing this much harm against Kia still wasn’t enough to successfully kill her, then Hidow and the others who led the operation should’ve been immediately erased from the world.

Given that the omnipotent Kia hadn’t done that yet, they must have dealt her some amount of damage.

“From here, this operation will shift from neutralizing Kia to searching and collecting her body. We have already commenced the search with the cooperation from the Public Safety Bureau. For now, all of you can rest.”

From there, he gave his sentiments of praise and appreciation before the meeting adjourned.

Even after everyone had left, Hidow didn’t have the energy to stand up. He went to lie facedown on the table and heaved a deep sigh.

He had done everything he could. Even still, by tomorrow, or potentially in the next second, the world might completely come to an end.

The fear would continue until he could confirm Kia’s body with his own eyes.

“…Hidow.”

When he looked up, Kaete the Round Table still remained.

“Do you seriously think this managed to kill Kia?”

“…Same either way, ain’t it? Whether we managed to kill her or not, we don’t got any more cards to play… Up to the Wordmaker how it all ends up now. Nothing I can do about this.”

“As long as you’re claiming the operation to slay Kia was success, I’m assuming this means you approve, then? Just like you promised, you’re getting Mestelexil reinstated as a hero candidate.”

“Go ahead, I don’t care… That was the only real option either way…”

“That’s not all. You didn’t mention anything about Yaniegiz, did you? Whatever the outcome, his selfish decisions hindered the operation. I think he should face proper punishment for it.”

“Like you got any room to talk…”

Kaete the Round Table was a dangerous man who had been almost openly preparing to revolt against Aureatia.

Still, Hidow didn’t have the energy to bring up the topic again.

“That guy’s…probably dead. No way he could’ve survived through that. He really was a complete idiot… Fought a fight he had no chance of winning and got obliterated without a trace, all for some stupid revenge. If he went about it properly, the guy might’ve been able to fill Rosclay’s shoes and everything…”

Killing the omnipotent was a problem far beyond the capabilities of the average man.

Yaniegiz had seriously attempted the feat all by himself, only using methods possible for the average minian man.

That vindictiveness might’ve actually born fruit.

They could never do anything more than this ever again. They had mobilized Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge, Uhak the Silent, and Kuze the Passing Disaster just to erase Kia the World Word.

Regardless of whatever means of attack existed across the land, it didn’t seem like it could surpass this.

“Hey, Kaete.”

“…What?”

“You’re really something…”

He spit out the sort of sentiment that wouldn’t typically come to mind.

Kaete the Round Table was fierce, wicked, only ever made enemies for himself, and never concealed his ambitions.

Hidow had thought that rashly wielding these abilities made Kaete the worst man possible for a Twenty-Nine Officials seat.

Yet right now, even in this hopeless atmosphere, he was still thinking about reviving Mestelexil as a hero candidate. He was always looking forward, toward victory.

As far as Hidow could see, the man would never break. He had the guts to directly force his many enemies to surrender before him, both then and now.

Right now, Hidow felt jealous of him.

“Shouldn’t you be…exhausted…?”

“Hmph. Don’t judge me by the standards of a mediocre man like you.”

“Mediocre, huh…? I like the sound of that, ha-ha…”

Hidow thought he would just fall asleep there with his face on the desk.

Just as he was about to doze off, the door to the meeting room opened.

Hidow didn’t have the energy to turn his head in that direction, but Kaete reacted in his stead.

“Jelky? You look… Is your eye okay?”

“… Did you say Jelky?”

Hidow raised his head.

Jelky had the right half of his face covered with bandages, but he looked like a completely different person, even discounting the wound.

The man with stamina and mental fortitude of iron, who had prevented Aureatia’s collapse and oversaw its administration without a day’s rest, looked horribly exhausted and emaciated.

“It’s fine.”

His voice was hoarse. He looked anything but fine.

Jelky had moved to secure the Queen’s safety the moment they could no longer ignore the possibility that Kia might attack the royal palace. Hidow heard that in the middle of it all, by an unfortunate stroke of luck, Jelky had lost his left eye in a small arms explosion.

The plot to overthrow Aureatia—and the death of Rosclay accompanying it. The threat posed by Kia the World Word. It was understandable that being involved in an unfortunate accident on top of this string of events would wear someone down to the bone, regardless of their mental fortitude. Even Jelky the Swift Ink.

“Did you…kill Kia the World Word?”

“……Not certain that we actually got her. That said, she disappeared, and I haven’t been killed off yet. Now, for getting solid proof… We’re going to think up how to do that from here.”

“Thank you for all your hard work, Hidow.”

A clear voice echoed in the room.

A young girl in a pure-white dress stepped out from behind Jelky.

“…Your Majesty.”

Wasn’t Jelky supposed to have evacuated her somewhere safe?

Still, her eyes, red like jewels, and her lustrous white hair couldn’t have belonged to anyone but Queen Sephite herself.

Hidow bitterly adjusted his posture.

The Queen had caught him looking awful with his face down on the table.

“Pardon me for my disgraceful appearance, Your Majesty… Hey, Jelky, I didn’t hear anything about this? Why’s Her Majesty here? What happened to getting her out of Aureatia?”

“Her Majesty…has been led to safety. I’ve brought her here…to get your acknowledgment on this matter as the one in charge of the royal palace attack aftermath. This girl isn’t Her Majesty.”

“Huh?”

Hidow looked at the girl’s face one more time. White hair. Red eyes. There was no way she could be anyone else.

Had Jelky finally gone insane?

“Master Jelky, are you sure it is okay to tell these gentlemen?”

Yet in a surprising turn, the Queen addressed Jelky formally.

“…It’s fine. Moving forward with you acting as Queen brings with it far too much danger. Some number of the Twenty-Nine Officials were going to need to be informed no matter what.”

“…A body double, then.”

With arms crossed, Kaete glared at the young girl.

“Yes. My name is Nanal the Fair-Skinned. Master Hidow, Master Kaete, a pleasure to meet you both.”

“Hmph. You reformation bastards… Had this little trick up your sleeve, did you? A mimic wouldn’t even look this close.”

Hidow was dumbfounded. She couldn’t possibly have come from a branch family to the Western royals. The whole lineage, save Sephite, was confirmed to have been wiped out by the Demon King’s attack.

“You and Her Majesty better not be taking me for a ride… What’re you even trying to do here, pulling a stunt like this?”

“…That’s obvious. It’s for the Sixways Exhibition,” Jelky spat. “We need to make sure the second-round matches actually happen. Not like the ninth match, away from everyone’s eyes, or the tenth match, without following proper procedures, but as formal matches shown to the people… As official Royal Games, the Queen needs to spectate the matches from the second round onward.”

“Hmph. What’s the point in being so stuck on meaningless formalities? Certainly doesn’t seem worth the risk of exposing the existence of the Queen’s body double. Are you the next one who’s followed Yaniegiz into madness?”

“…Nah. Jelky’s right that things could get real bad if we don’t bring out the Queen for this.”

The possibility that came to Hidow’s mind was a pressing problem, yet different from the question of the Kingdom’s legitimacy.

“There were two attacks on the royal palace, and in the second, the main hall itself was breached. I’m sure we’re controlling information as much as we can, but even that’s got its limits. By the time the next match comes together, the anxieties of everyone at the bottom’s gonna balloon real bad. We gotta hold a match in the middle of all that. Revealing Her Majesty to the masses can show them that she’s safe—and that the threat’s been taken care of.”

“…That’s right. Also, if we don’t, the exact opposite will happen. Now, with Rosclay gone, I see Aureatia as on the brink of collapse. The Sixways Exhibition in and of itself was expected to help regulate the emotions of the citizenry to begin with.”

The Sixways Exhibition was in no way a performance like some gladiator spectacle.

They were fights to the death, conforming to the format of the ancient true duels of the Kingdom, and the spectators brought into the match were formally treated not as an audience but as witnesses who could show, irrespective of social standing or position, that there were no lies or deceit in the final result.

However, on the other hand, the spectacle was certainly an aspect of it all.

These Royal Games, happening on an historically unprecedented scale, also served to demonstrate Aureatia’s national strength. The citizens harbored hope for the existence of the to-be-named Hero, and by spectating the extraordinary matches, they were able to let off the anxiety and displeasures of their ordinary lives.

Formally, as long as there was a reliable witness, the Sixways Exhibition could go on while hidden from the eyes of the people.

However, that wouldn’t serve to convince anyone.

“…Besides, there wasn’t anything we could have done about the ninth match. The threat of Lucnoca the Winter couldn’t have been subjugated any other way. However, the tenth match ended up happening largely as an accident and prevented it from being a formally held match.”

“And Uhak was supposed to appear in the twelfth match…and currently his whereabouts are unknown. Tch. Now that it’s come to this, our only option is to make it look like the eleventh match’s being held properly…”

“How’re you going to deal with the twelfth match, then?” Kaete interjected.

“Considering the current state of affairs, even if we do manage to find Uhak in time for the match, it doesn’t seem like a great idea to have him and Shalk the Sound Slicer crush each other, since Shalk currently isn’t hostile to us.”

“…Yeah, I’ll talk with Meeka about how to deal with that. Right now, we’re the ones responsible for handling Uhak and all. However the chips fall, the only choice is to have Uhak withdraw from the match altogether—but ain’t no way the people or Shalk’ll be satisfied with that. In exchange for the win by default, I’m planning on publicly announcing Shalk’s achievement, slaying a self-proclaimed demon king by himself.”

“You mean the fight he had to seal away Tu the Magic?”

“Right. That’s when we’ll reveal the details around the destruction of the Northern Outer Ward Sixth Borough’s harbor. Shalk the Sound Slicer will be given a win by default with Uhak the Silent’s withdrawal from the tournament, but Shalk, in advance of the match, clashed with a former hero candidate Tu the Magic and routed her without a single casualty. That’ll be plenty to get the masses on board with the results. The scale of the destruction from their fight’s already well-known to everyone in the Sixth Borough.”

It was a very heavy-handed framing, but they couldn’t afford to create even the slightest chance for Uhak to be defeated.

If they were going to eventually have to make him lose by default, they would need to provide information to make up for it.

“Personally, I wanted to ensure the twelfth match was properly carried out…,” Jelky said, pushing back his glasses, “…but your decision is still the best we can hope for. Right now, there are very few among the Twenty-Nine Officials who I can rely on to make sound judgments.”

“Hah, it would’ve been a lot better if the ogre at the center of all this was safe and sound…”

Uhak, together with Tu and Kia, had completely disappeared.

It went without saying that finding him was the highest priority, after Kia.

“In any case, if we need the eleventh match to happen properly…Kuze surviving is the one saving grace in all this. The guy might have the god of death protecting him or something, instead of an angel.”

“We’ll send out Mestelexil,” Kaete said with a sharp tone.

“Mestelexil will fight in the eleventh match. No one will object, right? We’ve confirmed Zeljirga the Abyss Web’s foul play during the sixth match, and Mestelexil’s defeat was reversed. If that’s the argument for his return as a hero candidate, then naturally, Mestelexil should appear in the match he would have advanced to in the first place.”

“…I mean, sure, that’s all we can really do here, but what does Kuze want?”

“Not a problem.”

Hidow’s question was answered by Jelky.

“I’ve gotten confirmation that the eleventh match can be held without issue. Kuze the Passing Disaster himself asked Grasse the Foundation Map to search for the missing Zeljirga…or another hero candidate to take her place. If he wishes to restore the Order’s honor, I can’t imagine Kuze wants a string of victories by default.”

That guy really has no luck at all, does he?

The fifth match, where Kuze would have been able to display his strength as the Order’s strongest paladin, ended in a win by default. Additionally, the way Hidow saw it, even assuming Kuze was given the chance to demonstrate his abilities before the eyes of the masses, it didn’t seem like it would then lead to restoring the Order’s reputation.

Kuze’s power was instant death. Without any tactics or real combat at all. His opponent simply perished on the spot.

As an onlooker, it came off as some kind of weird coincidence or an accident.

“…I will need to make an appearance in this eleventh match then, yes?” Nanal said with her hand up to her chest, having listened to the conversion quietly up until that point.

Each and every one of her mannerisms was almost self-deprecatingly similar to the Queen’s.

“Please let me make use of this face of mine, for Her Majesty the Queen and Aureatia.”

Looking at Nanal the Fair-Skinned’s white hair as she bowed her head, the smoldering unease in Hidow’s breast swelled even bigger.

If Kia the World Word was still alive, then she’d come after me since I was in command of the whole operation—but would she really?

Did a child like Kia even understand the concept of an operational commander in the first place?

She had twice now attacked the royal palace. He couldn’t deny the possibility that Kia believed that the Queen, the most eminent person in the Kingdom, was the one making all the decisions.

…I don’t know. Was there more of a chance that she’d target the Queen instead of me? If Kia really is alive, and she’s trying to kill the Queen…

Nanal the Fair-Skinned’s face was a perfect replica of Queen Sephite.

Until the Sixways Exhibition was over and Sephite returned, Nanal would have to conduct herself like the real Queen in the royal palace and fulfill her role as a decoy in preparation for Kia’s attack.

However, if Kia never broke into the royal palace and used her almighty Word Arts to search for the Queen’s whereabouts, that fundamental premise wouldn’t hold true. She would arrive first at the real Queen, not her body double, Nanal.

In the absolute worst-case scenario, what would happen?

Hidow still couldn’t be confident that Kia was dead.

Which Queen…would get killed?

The government administration of Aureatia’s Twenty-Nine Officials was formed to succeed the Central Kingdom’s Twenty-Nine Officers.

While the ranking of first to twenty-ninth was a holdover from that era, since it was a wartime regime that included military officers tasked with frontline resistance against the True Demon King, there had been intense personnel changes from the moment it was first brought together. There was almost never a time when all twenty-nine seats remained filled at once.

The twenty-ninth rank in particular had been vacant for a very long time. That said, this was not due to some kind of special aversion toward the lowest-ranked number. It was simply a coincidence that the other seats would get filled first.

However, as a result of the major restructuring following the attempted coup, at long last, this twenty-ninth seat was filled.

Aureatia’s Twenty-Ninth Official, Hiroto the Paradox. The Gray-Haired Child.

A deviant politician arriving from the Beyond, recommended by Jelky the Swift Ink as the man to fill the hole left by Rosclay the Absolute’s death in the tenth match.

Everyone else on the Twenty-Nine Officials knew full well that this personnel change brought danger, but it was just as true that they would need the sort of monstrous abilities the Gray-Haired Child possessed to govern Aureatia in its current state without any chaos.

Although allocating a ministry or bureau for him to oversee had been put on hold, directly following his appointment, Ninth General Yaniegiz resigned from his post and went missing, so currently, Hiroto was given authority over the Police Agency.

Maintaining public peace in Aureatia was very far removed from Aureatia’s core operations, the Sixways Exhibition first and foremost, while also something that wanted to be resolved, even if it required a pushy bit of personnel management.

Currently, Hiroto was taking charge of an investigation into the mysterious deaths occurring around the Old Town.

From just listening to the reports, there were numerous inexplicable and mysterious aspects to the case, so Hiroto was visiting the scene of the crime in person, with Morio the Sentinel with him as a bodyguard.

“…Mr. Morio Ariyama. Do you believe this to be the work of a beast?”

It was a woman’s corpse, seemingly torn apart by something sharp. The glimpses of white that peeked out in places from the body, reduced to a lump of red flesh, were exposed parts of her skeleton.

There was a tremendous amount of blood loss, and given the visible bloodstains suggesting the victim struggled and wriggled about, it appeared the body wasn’t destroyed postmortem but instead eaten alive.

It was a shopping district in broad daylight, where no beast would ever normally appear.

“There are signs that a piece of flesh was bitten off. But judging by the shape of the bite marks, it didn’t come from any type of beast, at the very least.”

Morio didn’t seem especially repulsed as he checked the wounds on the body.

“These were made by a person’s teeth. But their jaw was way too small to belong to a grown man. It’s either a child’s or a woman’s, I’d guess.”

“Any chance it came from a goblin?”

They were a diminutive monstrous race, about the size of a minian child, that did eat minia. The goblins Hiroto had brought into Aureatia had their desire for minian meat suppressed through substitute foods, but that still wasn’t an absolute guarantee.

“If it was, it’d be obvious from the jump. Goblins have well-developed canines that resemble a carnivorous animal’s more than a minia’s. At any rate, it was a minian who did her in.”

“If it was a vampire born from a minia, then their skeleton would be completely minian in nature, yes? While this story is from quite a long time ago, I had a companion who would kill like this.”

Hearing this, a look of exasperation came over Morio.

“You didn’t just have goblins with you, but vampires, too? You’re pretty much one of the monstrous races yourself.”

“What’s important isn’t a person’s race, but whether it’s possible to befriend them as an individual… Vampires are classified as one of the monstrous races, but vampires themselves don’t necessarily develop a preference for minian meat and blood.”

“So then you can’t say for certain that the culprit here’s a vampire, either.”

“The vampire I was acquainted with liked to eat minian meet for a different reason entirely.”

“……”

Hiroto’s hypothesis of a vampire killer wasn’t some joke.

If the wounds carved into the body did come from a child’s teeth, they would then need to prove how this child possessed enough strength to bite off a living person’s flesh.

“There is definitely something unusual about this.”

Morio was absolutely right. Not only that, but the true abnormality didn’t lie in the criminal’s profile.

“Why didn’t anyone report this stuff to anybody, if even nonspecialists like us can figure this out just from investigating the scene. This crime happened out in broad daylight, yet the first person to report it was someone who doesn’t even live in this district. The city guard didn’t even notice that there was a crime at all. Can’t be something ridiculous like the whole town’s in on the murder or something.”

The first person to discover the scene was a traveler from a different ward of Aureatia.

More than half a day, by the lowest estimate, had passed between the time of the crime and when it was discovered.

“Can you loan me several Okafu mercenaries? This job is going to require many hands and involve a lot of legwork. On my own, the best I can do is help any eyewitnesses open up to us.”

“Be great to give the men some work to do, but you got your goblin subordinates, right? If you aren’t looking to fight a war, then those guys’ll do a much better job. Well learned, too.”

“If this was a normal murder, I would have preferred to do so, but the corpse here was bitten apart. If I show a goblin to someone while there’s that preconception at play, they’re bound to associate the two whether on purpose or not.”

“Figures you’d say something like that. Suppose impressions are a politician’s weapon.”

That’s not true. There’s one other person who uses impressions as a weapon.

A corpse that seems totally random and unrelated to anything, meant to instill fear in those who see it.

Obsidian Eyes, at the time known as the invisible army, had manufactured unexplained deaths within many different organizations, and used the death and fear fomented by associating them with Okafu to manipulate Aureatia’s impression of the Free City.

Zigita Zogi read the threat of the invisible army in its early stages and made the Okafu army pull out of Aureatia while sharing information with them, but Hiroto now understood that the impression of this threat without form was the seed of antipathy between Aureatia and Okafu that remained.

A criminal suspected of being a vampire. An abnormally extensive degree of witness perception control. A method of killing that at first glance looks meaningless and instills fear… Is Linaris the Obsidian up to something?

It was highly unlikely. Hiroto the Paradox knew where exactly Linaris the Obsidian was.

As a bargaining chip, she had been handed over to Enu the Distant Mirror and Viga the Clamor. It was no concern of Hiroto’s what they used her for, but it was hard to believe she had immediately made a comeback.

Hiroto hadn’t killed Linaris due to a pledge he had made to a constituent, Yuno the Distant Talon. He had imposed abandoning revenge against Obsidian Eyes, Linaris included, on himself.

Thus, if this was Obsidian Eyes’s handiwork, given the limitations he had, they could potentially be one of the greatest threats.

The method itself is similar…but something is still different about it. Obsidian Eyes’s victims, including those corpsified, were more or less distributed indiscriminately, but the portion of victims from the weakest class of society was significantly smaller. Since Obsidian Eyes was formed of outcasts of society, it is uncharacteristic for them to make a show of killing someone in the Old Town.

While Hiroto pondered, Morio trimmed a brand-new cigar and lit it up.

“I got in touch with the men just now. As soon as they arrive, I’m heading over to the ruins of the National Defense Research Institute. I don’t really want to take my eyes off of you, but…”

“I understand. Looking into Mr. Yukiharu Shijima?”

Yukiharu the Twilight Diver had disappeared without a trace in the middle of his investigation into the National Defense Research Institute, and the most likely possibility was that he had used the chaos of the coup to head to the Tim Great Canal’s warehouses, where the Institute had been hidden.

All those same warehouses had been destroyed in an accident that seemed to have been the result of a cargo explosion. At the very least, that’s how Aureatia was treating it internally.

“Nothing nastier than a dead journalist. Just ’cause he’s dead doesn’t mean all the information and evidence he gathered magically disappeared with him.”

“But would Mr. Yukiharu Shijima truly die so easily?”

“If he’s still alive, I’d like to rescue him, but…he’s dead, all right. My gut’s never wrong.”

There were pieces of information in what Yukiharu had gathered that could have proved fatal for this world.

The most dangerous of all being the identity of the True Demon King.

If the world were to find out the Demon King was a visitor, the people would begin a rampage born from a new fear. Just like they had done against the New Demon King Army, they would try to eliminate everything related to the True Demon King.

The visitors living in this world. The Order built on the belief in the Wordmaker, who drew said visitors to their world. Civilization itself, predicated on knowledge from the beyond, may not have been spared, either.

Morio the Sentinel was one of the people who understood the threats the earliest. Using the mercenaries of Okafu, he thoroughly eradicated anyone who stepped foot in the Land of the End and used the rumors of the Demon King’s Bastard that terrified everyone to create a situation where no one even tried to get close to the region.

“…Out of my duty to you, I never disposed of Yukiharu the Twilight Diver while he was still alive. That said, I’m going to dispose of the dead man’s data how I see fit.”

“Hah. In that case, why did you come out to help with the investigation?”

“Can’t believe the guy who’s casually stuck his nose into some mysterious incident is telling me that. If you don’t get yourself a proper bodyguard, no one’ll be surprised if you end up dead.” Morio smiled with exasperation. “Since the only people still alive with the knowledge of the True Demon King’s identity are you and me.”

The Old Town in Aureatia was the collective name of the section of the city that was left out of city planning projects following the changeover from the Central Kingdom to Aureatia. While there were still some districts that had the same amount of activity as before, other sections had been transformed into what were, in essence, slums.

Sagasa Old Town, where Rouki the Small Digger lived, was a quintessential example.

Even still, no one wanted to believe that their life was unfortunate.

Rouki tried to live with a smile always on his face, while putting on a callous front. He didn’t get involved in any difficult topics, and even when a customer would yell at him, he’d brush it off with a smile. That was life.

Life was filled with unconscious anxiety. Poor, precarious, and with no future prospects.

His mother, having abandoned her faith in the Order, said something to him just once when she got terribly drunk one day.

Mom and Dad betrayed the Wordmaker. So it’s only natural the angels would punish us.

Rouki thought it was just superstition. Even now, he didn’t believe it.

However, there were times when these words would surface in his mind.

When he was hit by a ruffian and got his earnings for the day stolen. When he heard the deranged screams of the old man next door. When he heard another smuggler his age had been hung up in their own house. When nobles’ children would happily walk hand in hand with their parents. When he would think about the futures of his young sisters, Retta and Nabi.

Retta was dead.

Retta’s insides, cut open on top of the dinner table, had a lot of what looked like muscle and sinew frayed and mixed up with her skin and fat—completely different from the meat he saw properly prepared in a butcher shop.

Retta had always been cheerful, even after their parents died—joking around with Rouki and causing trouble for Nabi with him—and he would never see her again.

Rouki’s life changed after Retta died.

The group of hoodlums who hung around the canal no longer pushed Rouki around.

The adults from the criminal organizations stopped coming to him with dangerous jobs he couldn’t refuse.

He had never been able to relax and feel comfortable outside the house, no matter where he went, but now he was able to completely forget about all his worries, just like the children living in the center of Aureatia.

Rouki couldn’t understand complicated topics of conversation. He didn’t know why he had gotten this way.

He did know, though, that the change was thanks to someone.

“Morning, Big Brother Rouki. Are you hungry?”

“Morning.” Leaving his bedroom, Rouki was greeted with Roto’s smile.

Beautiful black hair draped down to her knees, and she had bloodred eyes.

Her clothes, like a bunch of tattered rags sewn together, had been patched up by the townspeople.

“Oh, morning, Roto…”

“So last night, Nabi and I slept together.”

Roto the Cross was not a member of Rouki’s family. However, despite how many times he warned her, she still came and went as she pleased, so he was no longer surprised when she appeared out of the blue. He knew that she meant no harm.

“Lately, we’ve been able to get by a whole lot better than before. Day before yesterday, old man Delger shared more veggies with us than we could even eat… I always thought he was a nasty new-rich guy, but he isn’t all bad.”

“Mwee-hee-hee, that’s nice.”

It looked like his young sister Nabi had already finished her breakfast for the morning.

Roto might have been the one who prepared it, too.

When they first let her use their kitchen, Roto had only been able to make awful dishes that were nothing more than a bunch of raw ingredients roughly kneaded together, but she had improved surprisingly fast after some other house started to teach her how to cook.

“Nabi, your cold all better now?”

“Mm-hmm. Roto took care of me. Can I play outside today? I promised everyone I’d meet up with them.”

“Be careful out there. Anything happens, you run away and talk to one of the people in town, okay?”

Rouki put a hand on Nabi’s small head.

Up until a little while ago, he never would have allowed Nabi to go outside alone.

Most of the residents in their town, not only Rouki, had dirtied their hands with crime.

It would have been one thing if the city guards kept an eye on this area, but Rouki knew for certain that letting a child, not even ten years old, go out without any means of protecting herself would end with her getting wrapped up in something awful.

Ever since Roto came to town, he realized that this anxiety of his had all been a big mistake.

Just as Rouki didn’t wish to harm anyone else, he was sure the other residents, even those treated as criminals, couldn’t have wished the same, either.

“C’mon, Big Brother Rouki. You eat up, too,” Roto said in a spoiled voice, putting her cheek on the table.

“Yeah, I suppose I will…”

He sat at the table. Breakfast was a grilled dish of kneaded ground meat.

Retta’s bloodstains were still left on the table, and Rouki felt a bit sad looking at them.

Retta was killed by Roto. For no reason.

Roto said that she loved her too much and accidentally killed her.

That day, Rouki had seen Retta’s remains strewn across the table. He had also seen Roto, who had killed her.

He had imagined what it would be like to lose his young sisters several times before. Ever since his parents had died…he had thought that losing one of his young sisters—who he supported in his parent’s stead, even if it meant doing dirty jobs—would leave him with a more intense anguish, like his body was torn apart. The kind of pain that would be etched in his heart for the rest of his life.

However, he wasn’t tormented by rage or hatred.

He was just sad.

Rouki would never be able to see Retta again, but now he had Roto instead.

She stood by everyone in this town, as if to fill the hole left by the precious people they had all lost, cuddling up and loving them.

“…That old man next door.”

“Hmm?”

Roto looked almost like a young wife as she happily gazed at Rouki while he ate.

“I probably should go check up on him. I’d feel bad if he’s covered in vomit again…”

He didn’t know the man’s name. The man no longer had the sanity left to introduce himself.

The rumors said his madness came after a brush with the New Demon King Army, and that after being abandoned by his family, he had ultimately drifted into Old Town. He practically lived like a wild beast, with filth and muck strewn about his home.

Previously, Rouki hadn’t wanted to get involved with him at all. Though he understood that the old man suffered horribly, he was scared his sisters would get hurt and had honestly wished the old man would just hurry up and die.

“I’ll head over in the afternoon. It’ll work out perfectly, since I can bring over some of these vegetables I got.”

“Uh-huh. Can I come with you, too, Big Brother Rouki?”

Rouki needed to clean up the kitchen after Roto’s cooking that morning. Roto had this adultlike atmosphere to her in a lot of ways that made it hard to believe she was still a young girl, but her complete indifference to cleaning up after herself was perfectly in line with her appearance. Rouki finished several of the household chores that had piled up before heading to the old man’s home.

When he arrived, the old man was still lying in his bed late into the day, moaning and groaning.

Rouki had just picked a replacement quilt from the trash heap, but it was now torn apart, the cotton sticking out. There were several stains in places, likely from incontinence.

Rouki was sure the old man would never regain his sanity.

That said, the man had gotten much quieter and more docile than before.

“Th-the Demon King…the Demon King’s… Stay away, everyone, keep away…”

“I love you, mister.”

Roto crawled into his bed and gently hugged him.

She genuinely loved this old man, alone and abandoned by his own family.

“The Demon King isn’t around anymore. Your wife’s not around, but you have me instead… Okay? Don’t worry. I’ll always be watching over you…”

“A-ahhh…”

“…I’ll leave some food here for you, mister. Even got some canned stuff, too. Call for me anytime something comes up.”

Rouki first began to take care of this old man when he learned that Roto had been coming and going from his house.

He had genuinely felt that she looked beautiful, comforting the old man even while surrounded by squalor.

Rouki was sure that Roto acted the same for every house she visited, not just with Rouki or the old man.

That was why he decided to join her in looking after the crazed old man.

A good deed. While the world at large would describe it as such, he did it unintentionally.

Rouki wasn’t a bad person. At the same time, he hadn’t believed he had the conscience to perform good deeds for others. However, as he cared for the old man, the heart that had been so hardened felt like it was instead growing contented and satisfied.

What exactly was the difference between looking after this old man and loving and caring for his young sisters?

Didn’t all living creatures possess hearts and souls born to feel true happiness from benevolence and goodwill?

“What’s your name, mister?”

“I don’t—I don’t remember…”

“I’m Roto the Cross. Roto. Make sure you don’t forget that, okay?”

There was no point in telling him her name. No matter how many times she did, the old man would forget it.

Still, seeing Roto smile gently as she hugged him close, Roto looked truly happy.

She’s like an angel.

One day, she appeared out of nowhere.

She took Retta’s life.

Then she brought happiness to everyone.

If that was what salvation was supposed to look like, then…

Mom. The Wordmaker might not’ve hated us after all.

In this town, no one competed with one another.

There were none who brandished their power or authority to harm the weak.

Incidents of robbery, or violence against others, stopped completely.

For the first time in his life, this town seemed like paradise.

The Okafu mercenaries visited Rouki’s house later that night.

They brought up the name of another resident of Sagasa Old Town, Eamy, and said they were going around investigating their mysterious death the prior morning on the main road.

“Oh, you’re here about Eamy? Really too bad what happened. They were real nice and friendly, too.”

“We’re pursuing someone we suspect killed Eamy. A girl around ten or so years old bit them to death in the street. Long black hair, red eyes, and with a big ribbon in her hair. She was almost naked at the time of the crime, but apparently she’ll change her clothes occasionally. That ring any bells, lad?”

“Ah… You mean Roto the Cross. Yeah, Roto’s definitely the one who killed Eamy, no doubt about it. She stops by my house from time to time, too.”

When they heard his testimony, the mercenaries all looked around at each other, seemingly bewildered.

“This is number six, man.”

“Not another one…”

The mercenary who first spoke pushed down on his hat with a scowl.

“…Lemme ask you something, lad. Is everyone in this town letting this girl casually go in and out of their houses despite knowing full well she’s behind all these killings? If someone’s threatening you, tell us. Okafu will help you.”

“Ah-ha, I don’t need any help. What’s so weird about that? Aren’t you glad to know for sure that Roto’s the one who killed them?”

“We were tasked with this investigation by the Twenty-Ninth Minister and authorized to act on behalf of the city guard. We’re gonna have to take in anyone covering for the killer or giving bogus testimony. You fine with that, lad?”

“Yup, I haven’t lied about anything.”

The old Rouki would have cowered in fear every time a strong adult threatened him like this, and he’d immediately say whatever came to mind in an attempt to appease them.

But as long as he didn’t feel any guilt or obligation in his heart, even a young child like Rouki was able to remain on equal footing in the face of these brawny armed men.

“…Listen, how are you not scared? Just look at how she kills people.”

If anything, the soldiers felt small instead.

“Ah-ha-ha, Roto’s not scary. Being scared of something like that is hard to bear, right?”

Rouki thought they were vapid words, the kind the priests of the Order said—but now he understood that they were correct.

“Where is Roto right now?”

“Behind you.”

A single red eye floated in the darkness of the night.

For a few moments now, Roto had been watching the mercenaries with a cheery smile.

“Um, misters?”

“—!!”

“It’s here! This is Roto the—”

“—can I eat you?”

At that moment, the mercenaries had likely tried to resort to violence.

Short swords and pistols. They were the types who could kill someone faster than Rouki could clap his hands.

Yet the mercenaries reacted to Roto’s arrival, and then…

They didn’t do a thing.

Her thin, tender arms were tangled around the torso of the soldier standing the closest to Roto.

“…I love you. I love you…,” Roto murmured with seductive gasps.

Standing on tiptoe and stretching up as tall as she could, she gave him several pecking kisses.

“Mwee-hee-hee… Guess what…? I’m Roto the Cross. I gave myself that name…”

“…………Ah, uh… Is that right?”

After stopping any shift to violence, the mercenary had looked dumbfounded, as if all his thoughts ground to a halt, before finally he murmured back to her as if sincerely accepting what Roto said.

Roto’s tiny fingers patted the mercenary’s stomach. Then…

“So you’re hungry? It is what it is, then.”

She pried open the mercenary’s gut all at once.

The blood spatter gushed like a fountain all the way inside, and a tremendous amount of organs and viscera spilled out into the entryway of Rouki’s house, but he didn’t mind.

Even if it got dirty, even if it got everywhere, it wasn’t a big deal at all.

Just like with Retta, he would clean it up later.

“I love you…I love you…”

She lapped up and devoured this soldier she had just met while he was still alive. Roto the Cross loved people.

The other mercenaries simply watched as it happened.

That was what all who encountered Roto the Cross wanted to do.

The truth was that no one out there wanted to fear or hate.

Since it was painful and agonizing to hold hostility and malice in one’s heart.

A detailed investigation of the warehouses along the Tim Great Canal hadn’t yet gotten underway following the National Defense Research Institute’s destruction.

A small group of soldiers had formally gone through the grounds to make the aftermath match up with the official “accidental explosion” explanation.

In addition to the Institute’s very existence needing to be treated as a state secret, in the midst of the chaos following Rosclay’s death, the operation to slay Kia the World Word, an equally important state secret, had been given much more priority than surveying this area.

Hiroto the Paradox receiving all this internal government information following his appointment as Aureatia’s Twenty-Ninth Official was a windfall for Morio.

He needed to set about this matter before anyone else could make their move.

Yukiharu the Twilight Diver had gone missing in this area. He needed to find a clue on what Yukiharu had left behind—or if he was still alive, where the man was himself.

Needless to say, he hadn’t received any permission from Aureatia to enter the area. However, the end result would be that Morio hadn’t come to this location, at this time, at all. That was why he had accompanied Hiroto the Paradox halfway through his search, to make it appear that he joined Hiroto in investigating the strange deaths.

He had three men with him. All of them were dressed in identical all-black clothing.

They wore armor produced on the new continent with composite materials and had the latest muskets and handguns. Short swords, as well. It wasn’t a full squad in scale, but they were still enough to respond to most of the dangers they would face.

While Aureatia had already introduced equipment from the Beyond, flowing out from the Industrial Ministry and performing far better than the equipment of the new continent, into real combat, Morio didn’t utilize weapons from unreliable origins without guaranteed supply of additional parts or ammunition.

All right, this massive security setup’s broadcasting that there’s something here. I figured Aureatia wouldn’t have a poorly placed surveillance detail, but…

The warehouses, now transformed to mountains of rubble, looked totally abandoned as far as he could see. There were no signs of any guards, either.

The area was blocked off with a long chain, and an emblem signifying no one was to enter was engraved on a sign. This was certainly enough to make a civilian think twice, at least.

“Master, there are no physical traps.”

They were hiding their true identities for this mission, and thus no one went by their real names while it was ongoing.

“Master” served as Morio’s code name. The three soldiers with them each had their own code names of Alfa, Bravo, and Charlie. Morio preferred to use the phonetic alphabet from the Beyond for code names.

“If this is it, we should be fine to undo the chains and enter.”

“Still, they needed to pretend that this was just the site of an accident… There has to be something set up here. I’ll take a look.”

Morio surveyed the scene without moving from his position, as if bringing everything within his line of sight.

He only needed the span of two breaths to see through the trap.

“That’s it. The chain’s connected to a tamper-detection sensor. The instant that this chain’s taken off or cut and the continuity’s severed, it’s probably set to send a radzio signal to whoever set it up.”

“Tamper detection?”

“It’s a security device from the Beyond. The armaments of Iriolde’s troops during the coup was another example, but…these Aureatia guys’ve figured out a way to produce Beyond machinery—and have begun learning how to use it, too. Real uncanny if you ask me…”

This world had constantly dealt with interference from the Beyond’s deviants from long in the past.

By rejecting excessive changes caused by influence from the Beyond, and integrating a select bit of knowledge and technology, the world had maintained the authority of the kingdoms and ensured it persisted through time.

However, after experiencing the terror of the True Demon King, this world had begun absorbing the weapons and technology of the Beyond without restraint, like a starving organism.

This world might one day overtake Morio’s own, all in the pursuit of war and killing.

“They put up a real dense wall of chains. It’ll be hard to slip through one of the gaps with all our equipment on. We’ll make a makeshift step stool outta the rubble here and hop over it. Time to get to work.”

“Roger.”

“Roger.”

“Roger.”

Morio and his men finished their work with coordinated precision, as if the four of them were one single organism.

They made sure to be on guard not only against Aureatia’s surveillance apparatus, but for any civilian witnesses as well.

They had to finish everything without anyone being the wiser about their infiltration.

“We’re searching for Yukiharu the Twilight Diver’s corpse and what he left behind. The target always carried a camera with him, in particular. I’d like to salvage it, if possible, but if that doesn’t seem doable, I want it destroyed beyond repair. Though unlikely, there’s a risk that he had a recording device from the Beyond on him that would be impossible to discern by appearances alone. I want to salvage any sort of ornaments or accessories the target had on him, no matter how small.”

“What should we do if the target is still alive? Another position could be that he has been confined and unable to get in contact.”

“In that case, kill him.”

Morio’s lips twisted into a smile.

Yukiharu the Twilight Diver wasn’t an outright friend, but he was still a visitor who had acted as part of the Gray-Haired Kid’s camp, just like Morio. Morio had also promised Hiroto that if he was alive, he would save the man.

“—But really, don’t go that far. I’m sure we’d be able to get some of the demands through in exchange for saving him. The absolute worst possible outcome is if our target isn’t here at all, regardless of whether he’s dead or alive.”

That would result in an extremely inconvenient state of affairs no matter if Yukiharu’s body had been secured by some other party, or he had simply feigned his death to break away from Hiroto’s camp.

“We need to do a thorough search to confirm what happened to him. Everyone, stay sharp and roll out.”

“Roger.”

“Roger.”

“Roger.”

The mercenaries spread out to the different areas they were assigned.

Morio once again dived silently into the depths of the black of night.

After deserting the Krsnik Project, Nihilo the Vortical Stampede didn’t have any specific destination.

While she accompanied Yukiharu during all his activities in Aureatia, Nihilo had a one-sided familiarity with many people in name only, but none of them had any way of knowing what was really in the box Yukiharu always carried on his back.

Excluding those involved in the Krsnik Project, Nihilo’s only other acquaintance had been Yukiharu the Twilight Diver.

Therefore, the results of her aimless wandering ultimately led her to the National Defense Research Institute.

With Nihilo’s physical abilities, she was able to clear the chains blocking up the scene with a single jump.

“…This is where Yukiharu died, right?”

The second floor of the biological experiments building. The laboratory assigned to Viga.

The biological experiments building itself was slanted, perhaps from the Aureatian military clashing with the multitudes of constructs within.

She identified the marks left behind of someone crawling while losing blood. This definitely had been where Yukiharu had died.

As if to prove that the carcasses of the Aureatia soldiers she had scattered about the room were in the exact spots she remembered.

“Who collected his body? There’s no way he survived…”

Despite her suspicions, she walked around Viga’s lab.

There were all kinds of records left behind, drawings, pictures, and notes written in a script only used in Viga’s village. Nihilo was able to comprehend a large majority of the records, too.

Nihilo was by no means an uneducated woman. Even before her attack on Aureatia, she had acted as the assistant to Viga the Clamor, a genius who had mastered the Life Arts exhaustively pursued by a secret hidden clan. The techniques and knowledge she had accumulated from countless experiments were then put to use as a weapon of Aureatia, and even after reviving herself into a different body, she still remembered it all.

From among the many horrific records Viga had left behind, Nihilo picked out what she was after.

“…Here you are. Helneten…”

“Helneten’s carcass was inspected by yours truly.”

“Instead of creating a new revenant, it really is much better to repair the one that already achieved such a high level of perfection, don’t you think?”

If she was going to repair me…repair Nihilo the Vortical Stampede, the weapon, just repairing my body wouldn’t complete the process. Knowing Mom…she must have restored Helneten to full operation, too.

Nihilo had found the records of Helneten’s reconstruction.

It would have been impossible to restore a massive revenant like Helneten away from the eyes of Aureatia anywhere else but here, within the National Defense Research Institute.

“Hee-hee… If she brought out something conspicuous like Helneten, she wouldn’t have even gotten to the krsnik project at all… Or maybe she thought once I got Helneten back I would betray her?”

Exiting the lab, Nihilo murmured to herself as she descended the stairs.

She was convinced that there was an underground building within this stretch of warehouses to house large-scale constructs.

When Yukiharu and Nihilo got caught in the raid on the institute, they encountered a wurm that had appeared from a space underground. If she traced the aftermath of that destruction backward, it should then lead her to the hidden underground cavern.

Nihilo simply descended. After going all the way downstairs, she continued down deep into the massive fissure opened up on the surface.

In the pitch black, devoid of any light source, she used her nerve fibers to get a sense of the geography as she searched.

It was a twisted pit without any footing, but with her excellent physical abilities, she used the undulations in the wall as handholds to descend farther.

Someone besides Nihilo likely would have required large machinery to clear out the debris that blocked the way as well.

“…This must be where they stored the weapons.”

It was a massive underground area. It must have originally been a cavern shaped by the erosion from the Tim Great Canal. In the era of the Central Kingdom, the entrance had been filled up during the riverbank protection works project, but for the select few with Iriolde’s wits and resources, it was possible to consider utilizing the space.

It was so vast that even the oscillations in the air she felt with her nerve fibers weren’t enough to perceive the opposite end of the cavern.

In a surprising turn, the cavern had a source of light. A colony of mushrooms faintly glowed with the colors of the evening sun. An abandoned strain of fungi had proliferated unrestricted. The spores were probably fatal.

Nihilo wasn’t aware of the whole picture, but this massive cavern originally housed a total of nine wurms and a great number of revenants and fungi, including a dragon revenant based off the body of Vikeon the Smoldering.

Some percentage of these constructs had been corroded by the overgrown fungi and completely rotted away, without ever seeing a chance to mobilize. However, there was one revenant covered in an armor that would never decay.

“Helneten.”

Helneten the Burial.

A heartless revenant created using a mighty tarantula. The deep celestial charsteel that covered its whole body was the ultimate mineral, boasting the greatest solidity and stability out of all the minerals yet discovered.

After the monster had destroyed Lithia and stopped functioning, it was salvaged by Aureatia and dismantled to both neutralize and analyze it. With his teeth sunk deep into Aureatia, Iriolde the Atypical Tome must have been able to recover the carcass for himself. Though there had likely been less than half of Helneten’s original model left behind, Nihilo never stopped feeling her connection to Helneten, their shared curse.

Loaned to her once to destroy Aureatia, then to destroy Lithia, it was the other body of her now-free self.

“So tell me—if this is the last time…”

She pressed the button. She began stripping away her minian clothes. Her skirt fell to the ground, and the orange light that filled the cavern illuminated Nihilo’s pale naked body like a phantasm.

Her new body had much smoother undulations than her last—and fewer suture marks that ran across her skin.

“…it’s fine for me to choose what to destroy for myself, right, Helneten…?”

As if to answer Nihilo’s will, the back of Helneten opened up.

Nihilo’s body slipped inside the interior, like a peaceful casket.

Connected with Helneten through her nerve fibers, Nihilo shuddered and gasped without respiration.

“Ahhh… Let’s go. We can go anywhere we want.”

Right now, there was nothing tying Nihilo down.

She had no country, no friends, not even a mother.

Driven by her instincts and inherent power, Nihilo could live freely.

At the same moment, Morio the Sentinel had arrived on the second floor of the slanted biological experiments building, tracing faint tracks.

A normal person likely couldn’t have walked along the heavily slanted floor, but for a deviant visitor like Morio, it didn’t hinder him whatsoever.

Bloodstains. The locations of the injuries… The numbers don’t add up.

All over the room were the shriveled corpses of what he assumed were Aureatia soldiers that had broken into the lab, but Morio’s eyes landed on a wide bloodstain in an area away from the other corpses.

There had definitely been a fatal amount of blood loss. He then discovered an even more conclusive mark.

Those are Yukiharu’s shoes, all right.

There were clear footprints left behind in the dried pool of blood.

Morio had accompanied Yukiharu the Twilight Diver on more than one occasion. Even Morio himself was fed up with his habit of remembering the shoes and fingerprints of anyone on the battlefield worthy of his attention.

Regardless, there were several things he could glean from this circumstantial evidence.

One. Yukiharu the Twilight Diver is dead. Two. Someone recovered his corpse. Three. This person isn’t on Aureatia’s side—or has some personal reason for collecting the body for themselves.

If he assumed that Aureatia’s official investigation came before Morio and recovered Yukiharu’s body, then it wouldn’t make sense for them to then leave behind the corpses of the Aureatia soldiers who had carried out the secret operation to raid the Institute.

It was either someone from the National Defense Research Institute, or someone else who knew of its existence. He had to pursue them further.

Morio sent out a radzio call.

“I’ve found bloodstains on the second floor of the biological experiments building that I believe came from Yukiharu the Twilight Diver. The amount of blood loss and elapsed time make it highly likely he’s already dead. All units, continue searching your assigned areas as scheduled. I’m returning to the rendezvous point first.”

<Roger.>

<Roger.>

<…Master.>

Morio surmised something was amiss from the third soldier’s voice.

With a bit of a delay, a small rumbling passed through the floor.

<I have just come under attack. It’s a monster. Currently near the Tim Great Canal sluice! A giant monster, what appears to be a tarantula…appeared from underground! It’s one of the Institute’s weapons!>

“Roger. Alfa, Bravo, Charlie. Unless otherwise urgent, suspend your investigations. Head to the Tim Great Canal and support Alfa. I’m heading there now.”

<Roger.>

<Roger.>

Morio turned his eyes to the lab wall.

Whether as part of its camouflage or to maintain security, the National Defense Research Institute buildings weren’t built with windows but instead constructed with ceiling vents as the only connections to outside. However, if Morio left through the doorway, there was a chance he wouldn’t make it to his soldiers in time.

With his back facing the door, he pulled out his musket.

It went without saying that destroying the wall, or any similarly spectacular feat, was impossible to pull off with the firepower of a musket, and yet—

“Don’t misfire on me now.”

Together with the gunshot, the corpses of the Aureatia soldiers bounced slightly in the air.

A moment later, there was an explosion along the wall.

Morio used the operating table to shelter him from the explosive gust and endured the ear-splitting shock wave.

Morio had shot one of the high-explosive shells included in the Aureatia soldiers’ gear and deflected it toward the wall.

Without pausing for a moment after the explosion, he jumped through the gaping hole in the wall.

Landing in the middle of debris-filled terrain, there wasn’t a single scratch on his body.

Morio the Sentinel had selected the shortest possible route. By destroying the wall in this direction and jumping out, he ended up right in front of the sluice.

“…What the heck is that?”

High in the night sky, a purple luminous form was giving off an ominous glow.

While he closed the distance, he realized these were the eyes of a tarantula, colored jet black as if to protectively blend into the night.

However, if it was an actual tarantula, it had a bizarrely high point of view.

A normal tarantula’s overall height was three to four meters. The light from these composite eyes was easily more than twenty meters off the ground.

It wasn’t a normal tarantula. It was a construct that had been remodeled and altered.

As he ran, Morio observed the entire scene before him. He discovered a soldier sitting behind some cover, shoving his body into a gap in the rubble. Without slowing his running speed almost at all, he slid down to where the soldier sat.

“I’m here. You look real worse for wear there, Alfa.”

“Yes, sir. Right after I engaged…it got me!”

The soldier he came across had lost everything from his right elbow down.

While he had performed first aid to tie off the artery, the blood loss continued unabated.

“And the rest of your arm?”

“Right here.”

Morio glanced at the arm passed to him.

It was keen severing cut.

“See how the enemy attacked?”

“No, sir… Not clearly in the dark.”

“This cut… If that’s a construct built out of a tarantula’s body, then this’s gotta be the work of a tarantula’s weft threads. It’s still string, but its thin, sharp side sections can cut through things. If they were fired at you in the dark like this, makes sense why you couldn’t see ’em.”

Morio was convinced of one other thing.

It’s intelligent. The construct didn’t attack Alfa with the intent to kill him. It’s watching us, observing what our next move will be. Given that the enemy doesn’t know how many of us there might be, the best outcome for them is if we take this as a warning and back out of here.

Morio the Sentinel was more than a mercenary, he was a commanding officer for his subordinates.

He wanted to avoid any risk of revealing the truth behind their investigation by engaging this monster. Normally, the choice to retreat was always an option.

However, Morio had one thing he needed to ask.

“You, construct. You understand Word Arts?”

Exposing himself from cover, Morio confronted the irregular monster.

He could tell that the tarantula’s composite eyes were focusing themselves at Morio on the ground.

“Good on you for figuring that out.”

“I can’t tell you who I work for, but we have no intentions to harm you or this facility. There is one thing I want to confirm with you, though.”

There weren’t very many individuals in the world who could create a construct with a heart capable of understanding Word Arts.

Morio determined that this monster must have been an abandoned construct made by a self-proclaimed demon king within the National Defense Research Institute.

Also, given its massive size, it had likely been kept hidden in order to guard this facility.

“There should have been someone who arrived before us and recovered a body here. Any idea who?”

“…You mean Yukiharu?” the monster murmured with faint displeasure.

“That’s right. Yukiharu the Twilight Diver’s corpse should have been here.”

“Hmmm. So you came here looking for Yukiharu, too, did you? I see; is that right…? Tee-hee-hee-hee.”

“…Men, prepare to intercept,” Morio murmured quietly as he dropped his center of gravity.

He understood that he had failed to handle her properly, but he wasn’t sure what exactly he had done wrong.

The attack arrived shortly afterward.

“Hrmgh!”

The air burst right next to his bent-back head.

The debris along the trajectory was completely severed—a long-range attack from the tarantula threads, difficult to get a visual on.

If he hadn’t guessed the method of attack beforehand, Morio might not have been able to dodge it.

“Alfa, right hand six. Step three. In sync. Bravo, direction moon. Claw. Charlie. Clap hands.”

“Roger.”

<Roger.>

<Roger.>

Morio gave out orders to the soldier behind him—and the two others through the radzio.

To a stranger, the orders were completely incomprehensible, sounding like a list of random words.

However, the four of them, even Alfa with his severed arm, acted as if they were all one.

Morio and Alfa, instantly going in their separate directions, stopped moving as if they predicted the opening in the rapid-fire threads.

At the same time, their two barrels aimed toward the same composite eyes.

—Though, in truth, there weren’t two of them.

Factoring in Charlie, flying into the fray from behind the monster, there were three.

“……!”

The gunfire continued in succession. The muskets from the new continent didn’t have automatic firing functionality, but the gunshots continued without any lull in the noise.

With the precision of an interlocking machine, they each alternated pulling their bolts back and showered the exact same point on the monster with precision fire. The gunshots fatally crisscrossed each other, as if an impossible-to-predict coincidence.

“Hee-hee, hee-hee-hee-hee…”

“No dice. Alfa, seven and eight. Charlie, rat hunting.”

“Roger.”

“Roger.”

The severing threads flashed and swiped across the rubble-covered area.

Morio’s squad also evaded this annihilation attack. It wasn’t only the deviant visitor Morio the Sentinel. The two of his Okafu mercenary subordinates did as well—and accepted this near-miraculous result as obvious.

“…Aren’t you all strong. Just where did you find these soldiers, I wonder?”

Morio the Sentinel himself was an unusually strong warrior. However, his deviance differed greatly from the individual combat-oriented deviance of Soujirou the Willow-Sword or Kazuki the Black Tone.

A deviant ability to understand.

With his powers of observation, able to grasp everything as if commanding a bird’s-eye view, he understood the battlefield, grasped the situation facing each individual subordinate deployed there, and made them understand Morio’s optimal judgment.

All soldiers had their own different quirks. Those who understood the world through numbers. Those who understood it through images. Those who understood it through letters. His orders, truly optimizing each and every single one of his warriors and all given under the extreme conditions of the battlefield, compressed an enormous amount of information until becoming an incantation that was totally meaningless in the abstract.

A true correct answer that the one enacting the Order themselves couldn’t reach with their own thoughts. When they acted in accordance with these optimal orders, the soldiers’ bodies were then able to make the correct movements, as if they had directly linked up with the commander’s brain.

This correct movement was completely different from pushing the users’ bodies past their limits until they broke down. Above all, they were far more efficient and unburdened, moving with additional power, while also continuing to battle without fatigue.

If one could move correctly based on a perfect understanding, then they would never know defeat.

It was the exact same essence as Morio’s own strength.

Therefore, on any battlefield where Morio was present, each and every individual soldier would turn into a fighting force equal to Morio the Sentinel himself.

“Hee-hee. I really will need to adjust to this body a bit more.”

This thing isn’t a tarantula.

He could finally spare enough thought power, fully mobilized to process the information on the battlefield, to hypothesize the true identity of their enemy.

The monster before them bore a shape that surpassed Morio’s understanding, but that was because it was two different creatures joined together.

Everything from the cephalothorax bearing the tarantula’s arms and legs—the abdomen of the construct had been substituted with the body of a colossal wurm. The tarantula’s impossibly tall height was because this grand body made it rise up like a tower.

It was no regular wurm. The Gray-Haired Child had told Morio the name of a monster who matched this size and these characteristics, half of whose body, from the trunk to tail, had been recovered by Aureatia.

“Particle Storm.”

“Hee, hee-hee-hee-hee.”

The earth exploded. The monster dived into the ground, relying completely on its solidity and brute strength to do so.

A bird’s-eye view. Morio had a grasp on all of it. The enemy’s target. The optimal choice.

“Alfa, first breath. Trigger twenty-three. Charlie, tip over the box.”

“Roger.”

“Roger.”

Instead of his musket, Morio grabbed the looped rope hanging from his belt.

He ran to jump over to a higher elevation from the rubble. Charlie was running below him. Alfa was wounded and began moving away, dropping out of the battle area.

A new fissure ran across the earth.

The monster split open the ground and appeared, with its fall threatening to swallow Charlie—

When, at that moment, Charlie grabbed the rope Morio had thrown his way.

With brute bestial strength, Morio pulled him up to higher elevation in a single breath.

“Thank you very much, Master!”

“Our attacks don’t penetrate it. This isn’t going to be easy. That and…”

Morio the Sentinel wasn’t capable of foreseeing an unknown attack with perfect precision.

He could only prepare himself to respond to an attack based on the situation.

“That last attack divided up the terrain.”

The water from the Tim Great Canal poured into the torn-up ground.

Those able to control the terrain itself could change the battlefield to give themselves the advantage without even needing to fully understand it.

“We’re going to need to come up with something. While you follow my orders, think for me, Charlie.”

“Roger.”

Looks like my bad habits haven’t changed.

As she engaged in destruction that trampled over the very geography itself, Nihilo’s mental state had cooled, if anything.

I should’ve seen enough in Lithia to know that a minia’s strength isn’t obvious from the outside.

When measured against Helneten’s scale, normal minia’s strength was nothing more than an insignificant speck. Thus, she accidently made light of the threats that would slip in among the nameless rabble.

In this current battle of hers, Nihilo picked up some amount of threat from the bearded man who seemed to be in charge of the others. She never could’ve imagined the remaining soldiers would also be this formidable. In fact, she managed cut off one arm of the first soldier she encountered before they could even react.

She had estimated she could annihilate them any way she wanted, but she didn’t have any real reason to kill them, either.

Nihilo had the urge to kill them because the fact that Yukiharu was gone when she came back here, and the fact that these soldiers were after Yukiharu, too, had rubbed her the wrong way.

She had nothing to gain from fighting proficient and skilled enemies like this for a long time—and increasing the possibility of a worst-case scenario.

This enemy doesn’t have any weapons that will work on deep celestial charsteel. Assuming they were able to open up the cockpit hatch like Dakai did in Lithia, there aren’t any minian races capable of jumping this high. Still.

A powerful shock slammed against the surface of her armor, as if they had waited for the moment Nihilo sunk into thought and weakened her attack.

It had come from some type of cannon firearm. It wasn’t from any of the muskets the soldiers in front of her had.

“No dice. Bravo, return the pot.”

The man in command gave orders through a radzio.

There was a bright flash far in the distance, and this time there was a series of explosions on the ground.

The water from the Tim Great Canal flowed into the ground loosened with her burrowing and began to make Helneten’s large mass sink.

There was a single external mark on Helneten’s armor from the direct hit, and it didn’t seem like the earth collapsing below would stop her from being able to surface, but Nihilo couldn’t deny that she had been attacked in a manner that exceeded her expectations.

“I get it… From the very beginning, you gave out orders to three other people, didn’t you?”

While Nihilo’s attention was drawn to the commander and his two other men, there was another one who had been acting separately from them the whole time.

After confirming that there was no way to break through her armor with the muskets at hand, they had a strategy that mobilized the one remaining soldier.

“The armory.”

She looked in the direction of the flash from before.

Helneten and the other constructs weren’t the only unused weapons at the National Defense Research Institute.

Nihilo couldn’t know what type of weapon it was, but it wouldn’t be odd for this area to have some of the Beyond weaponry Iriolde’s camp had deployed to their forces.

But then, how? I didn’t see signs of any complicated orders like that. Besides, even if they found some weapons from the Beyond, it’d be impossible to utilize them unless they normally trained under the assumption this would come up.

“If we keep up our fight here…”

The commander man spoke up.

“…we both might not get out of this unharmed. Guess that’s what you’re thinking.”

“…Hee-hee. Really wish you wouldn’t assume everything is going your way.”

“I’m negotiating here. I want to end this, and I’ll forget all about you cutting off one of my men’s arms. The one who stole Yukiharu’s corpse is somewhere else—don’t you think so, too?”

“I’ve got the advantage in this fight. That’s not negotiating; you’re just pleading for your life.”

“Oh no, we’re negotiating, all right. If you refuse, I’ll cut the chains surrounding this place and trip the tamper sensors.”

“…”

“Looks like you didn’t pick up on those, huh? Aureatia’s keeping watch on anyone trying to infiltrate the National Defense Research Institute. If I activate them, they’ll know immediately you’re running wild out here… If you truly insist on killing us, ’fraid I won’t have any other choice.”

“Hee-hee… I was just trying to enjoy my freedom, but now it feels like the wind’s been knocked out of my sails. Fine, then. If you tell me your name, I’ll let you go free.”

“Sorry, but this whole operation’s strictly confidential. Can’t leave any evidence I was here.”

Nihilo stared hard at the man in command.

She didn’t have any definitive reason to keep fighting from here.

At the same time, though, she thought that she didn’t especially need a reason to kill him, either.

“But if that’s all it takes to get you to back down, it’s a cheap price to pay. I’m Morio the Sentinel, the Free City of Okafu’s former self-proclaimed demon king.”

“Hee-hee-hee-hee…”

Nihilo laughed in delight. She really couldn’t afford to understand the minia forever.

“My name is Nihilo the Vortical Stampede… I hope we can meet again sometime, Morio the Sentinel.”

Turning Helneten around, she dived down into the collapsed riverbed of the Tim Great Canal.

There was something she had once said.

“You seriously like fighting that much? Are you crazy?”

It was a choice she hadn’t been able to make when she had been a weapon.

Sagasa Old Town was in a far more serious crisis than Aureatia initially recognized.

The residents had a sound grasp on the murders happening there and had no intent to cover it up—they simply acknowledged them and didn’t feel they were a concern.

It had also become clear that this abnormality wasn’t peculiar to Sagasa Old Town itself. One of the investigators working under Aureatia’s Twenty-Ninth Minister, Hiroto, had been murdered without putting up any resistance and before the eyes of the other investigators. On top of that, after the men had returned from their work, they didn’t even report the death until the dead member’s absence was pointed out to them.

A young girl by the name of Roto the Cross was the criminal behind the string of incidents. While her name and appearance had become clear, her origins and race were still a mystery. She lived in the Sagasa Old Town, rotating around the houses of the residents.

“…I have to say, I was too naive in my evaluation of the danger. One of the Okafu mercenaries has died. If I had made a wrong step myself, I could have died as well.”

After the incident, Hiroto the Paradox visited Romog Joint Military Hospital.

He was there to take tests for the vampire virus infection with the Okafu mercenaries who investigated the incident, as well as several residents of Sagasa Old Town. Additionally, he had needed to negotiate with the head of the Medical Division, Aureatia’s Seventh Minister, Flinsuda the Portent.

“Hmmm, it does seem that way, doesn’t it…?”

Flinsuda’s corpulent body appeared to have slimmed somewhat. While she was extremely busy, more than that, Hiroto thought that the anxiety and worry she felt for her former hero candidate Tu the Magic played a far larger role in her weight loss, now that she had been designated a self-proclaimed demon king. Depending on how much of a threat to Aureatia Tu posed, Flinsuda could be forced to relinquish her seat on the Twenty-Nine Officials like Hidow the Clamp had done before.

“Still, you can relax, Hiroto. Thanks to the antiserum, you weren’t infected at all. That said, the mercenaries and the other residents all tested positive. There’s no denying that a vampire epidemic is spreading through Sagasa.”

Vampires infected others with their virus through blood transmission and created corpses.

The main routes of infection were considered to be mixing blood through an open wound or by intimate bodily contact. Thus, this latest incident, where an entire town of people had been infected in a very short time, was extremely abnormal.

“There are several points that don’t make sense when trying to explain this as part of a vampire’s cognition manipulation. I would like to ask for your cooperation with identifying the characteristics of the Sagasa disease and helping resolve this.”

“…Analyzing it will take time. Once you start talking about manipulation from the parent unit, it will be impossible to shed light on the phenomenon just by investigating the pathogen.”

“Yes. That is why we will act to secure the parent unit.”

The most terrifying point regarding the situation in Sagasa Old Town was that, by its nature, there had to be a considerable number of murders of which Aureatia had no knowledge. That amount could be one a day or just as easily ten.

While there still wasn’t any proof that Roto the Cross was a vampire parent unit, getting rid of her would at the very least stop the string of murders happening in Sagasa Old Town.

“I understand there is a limited supply, but to capture Roto the Cross, we will need new doses of the antiserum. To save the lives of the Sagasa residents, I was hoping you could provide some number of them to me.”

“Hmmm, that will be difficult, I’m afraid.”

Flinsuda knit her well-kept eyebrows.

“As I am sure you are aware, the vampire antiserum can’t be made just because there’s a demand for it. No vast vault of wealth can do anything about the available supply, unfortunately.”

The antiserum, the only thing verifiably effective at preventing and treating the vampire infection, was refined from the bone marrow of the extremely rare dhampir. There were times when two people needed the antiserum, but only one could get it.

For Hiroto, it was a bitter memory.

“…Yes, of course. We will try to think up any countermeasures that we can on our end.”

Amassing wealth couldn’t buy more antiserum. Flinsuda the Portent was absolutely driven by money and greed above all, but in certain ways, she was also the most difficult person for Hiroto to influence with his financial power.

When the lives of others were on the line, Flinsuda the Portent mistook what her priorities were.

However, in regard to anything else, she could be bribed.

“Now then, I have another favor to ask today. Would you allow me to meet with a patient?”

In the battle that took place on the Orange Thirty-Six train along the North-South Railway, Kuze the Passing Disaster had been unharmed.

It felt like neither Kia activating her Words, nor the current situation, had ever happened.

A destructive event that seemed to distort reality itself and a stillness that seemed to reject said event had occurred at the same time. Directly afterward, everything was drowned out in a flash of light and an explosion. At the time, Kuze had believed the explosion came from the clash of two tremendous supernatural abilities, but that, too, was incorrect.

It was due to a weapon Yaniegiz and his men brought onto the train. It came from another weapon meant to kill Kia after her Word Arts were neutralized and one that wouldn’t be dissolved by the Word Arts neuralization itself—the industrially manufactured muskets from the new continent, along with some type of explosive.

When he arrived in Kuze’s passenger car, Yaniegiz already had a bomb set up in his luggage. Kuze didn’t notice it ahead of time.

Why wasn’t I able to do anything?

He was powerless.

He failed in his role as Uhak’s bodyguard.

Even as a priest of the Order, he hadn’t been able to make Yaniegiz give up his plan.

He had wanted to save everyone there… Uhak the Silent, Tu the Magic, Kia the World Word, Yaniegiz the Chisel, and all the Aureatia soldiers—but instead, he had simply watched.

Kuze was totally unharmed.

The doctor had told him it was a miracle he didn’t have a single scratch on him.

They also said that after they finished a simple checkup, he could be discharged immediately.

He hadn’t lost Nastique’s divine protection, either. She wore the same faint smile as always and watched over Kuze, even now.

“Bweh-heh-heh…”

A listless chuckle escaped his lips. Lying face up on the bed, he covered his eyes with his arm.

He didn’t want to abandon his hopes. He wanted to believe there was salvation in the world.

Even if he continued to live on, an end thick with sin and anguish was guaranteed to be waiting for him.

So why am I…alive…?

So long as no one was here to see it, he wished he could have cried, at least.

However, it seemed that his tears had dried up a long time ago.

Thus, Kuze the Passing Disaster simply passed the time idly, waiting until he was discharged.

Eventually, he had a visitor come to his room.

“It is good to see you again, Kuze the Passing Disaster.”

“…Oh, hello there, Mr. Hiroto. Thanks for making time for little old me…”

“I have brought one more person here with me. Would you mind speaking with Morio the Sentinel as well?”

“Morio the Sentinel. This is our first time meeting face-to-face, right? Thanks for seeing us.”

Appearing out from behind Hiroto was a large, bearded man.

His dangerous aura was completely out of place inside a hospital, but here in Romog Joint Military Hospital, there were plenty of visitors—and patients—who gave the same impression.

“Bweh-heh-heh… The commander of Okafu coming to see me in person? Have to wonder to what I owe the honor.”

“Right. I’ll get straight to the point.” Morio sat himself down in a chair meant for visitors. “We’ve positively identified Nihilo the Vortical Stampede.”

“Uh-huh. Nihilo…?”

“That was the name they used. Hiroto here told me that you’re acquainted with her?”

“Yes… Though, well, I was just hired by Aureatia to be her bodyguard, so they didn’t give me any sort of information on her identity. She was a construct but a good kid. Friendly, if a bit mischievous.”

“I see. So the Nihilo you saw was actually shaped like a person, then?”

“Yes, I’d say so…”

The young girl had been extensively camouflaged by Aureatia and escorted to Lithia amid continued national tensions. Kuze may have been thickheaded, but even he was able to sense there were some disquieting circumstances surrounding Nihilo.

“The Nihilo I saw was a massive revenant, over twenty-five meters tall, constructed out of a tarantula’s body. Hard to believe a totally unrelated construct would be claiming to be her. Anything come to mind when you compare that to the Nihilo you met?”

“…Now that you mention it.”

Kuze recalled the situation at the time. The operation Hidow the Clamp spearheaded hadn’t only included Nihilo the Vortical Stampede—they were also accompanied by a heavy carriage to disguise the Aureatia troops as traveling merchants.

“When I was guarding Nihilo, there was a freight carriage pulled along by a gigant, but I didn’t know what was inside. Nihilo asked me, though, If I said the cargo in the heavy carriage was also me, would you believe me? I thought it was some joke of hers, but…it was a strange turn of phrase, so I remembered.”

“So that is what’s going on here. Nihilo the Vortical Stampede… She was that colossal construct itself. A weapon created with the premise that she would board another, larger construct. Given the situation, during the Lithia War, she probably—”

“Kuze, thank you for answering our questions.”

For some reason, Hiroto the Paradox interrupted Morio.

Morio had a slightly suspicious look, but he didn’t seem particularly unhappy about it, and left the conversation to Hiroto.

“The reason I’m here today is because I want to get confirmation from you, Kuze, regarding the twelfth match. Do you have the will to continue on through the tournament?”

“I mean… ’Course I do; I never would have appeared at all if I did… What’s with the formalities all of a sudden?” Kuze answered, but inwardly he was shaken up.

In actuality, he had no plans on advancing through the tournament. His first-round match was the only one he had needed to win no matter what.

If he assassinated the Queen during the second round of the tournament, that itself was bound to make continuing the Sixways Exhibition untenable. The symbol of the Aureatia establishment would be killed, no hero would be born, and Kuze would take the fall for the crime without leaving any room for doubt.

The Order was in a cooperative relationship with the Gray-Haired Child for the Sixways Exhibition, but this plan to sacrifice many lives and save the faith was hidden from Hiroto the Paradox as well.

…Anyone would try to stop a stupid plan like this. If I didn’t know any better, even I would have.

“Mestelexil has been assigned to be your opponent in the twelfth match.”

“…!”

After the incident in the train, Kuze had had a bit of a hunch.

At Kuze’s behest, Aureatia searched for another hero candidate to step in for Zeljirga and fight in the eleventh match. Given that Mestelexil had returned under Aureatia’s control, treating Mestelexil’s disqualification in the sixth match as a victory instead was the easiest procedure to make work.

Still, the match was going to happen. If anything, this was the news Kuze had been waiting for.

“Kuze, considering the matchup, you have no hopes of beating him.”

Damn right I don’t, Kuze thought.

“Bweh-heh-heh… Don’t pull your punches, do you? Not that I blame you for looking at it that way…”

“Aureatia intends to hold the eleventh match, but if you wish, Kuze, I can handle the situation by saying you dropped out of the tournament after getting beneficial concessions from Aureatia. This is because I believe Aureatia doesn’t want to kill you. As far as the Sixways Exhibition is concerned, you’ll suffer a defeat, but it should be more than possible to make them accommodate the activities of the Order going forward.”

“…Basically, you’re telling me to lose by default? Can’t really jump on that idea. I have to become the hero and restore the Order’s honor. The whole reason I had them divide up the matches so I could win by default was for the sake of the Order. I didn’t come here to fight just to become a bargaining chip.”

He was lying. From the very beginning, Kuze had no intentions of becoming the hero.

Kuze was fighting to become a criminal who would be etched in the Kingdom’s history.

“Kuze. As a hero candidate, you have cooperated with Aureatian missions several times up until now. At first, the reformation sector was wary of you as part of the Order’s faction, but almost no one suspects you of harboring any rebellious intentions on the current Aureatia Assembly. You must be aware that the Sixways Exhibition also serves as a plan to eliminate the powerful individuals who could become a threat to the Kingdom. It’s possible to negotiate concessions in exchange for your withdrawal because Aureatia has determined that using the tournament to dispose of you would be a net loss for them. Just as it is with Mele the Horizon’s Roar…they see you as a necessary part of their fighting force to drive off threats to the Kingdom.”

“…Bweh-heh-heh, I’ll be damned… Didn’t realize that was how things had ended up.”

Kuze the Passing Disaster had complied with anything Aureatia asked of him.

Escorting Nihilo the Vortical Stampede. Taren the Punished’s assassination plot. Slaying self-proclaimed demon king Alus. Conquering the fungal labyrinth.

He had dirtied his hands during almost all of it, and bore witness to tragic and miserable deaths.

“…Guess it was all worth it, then.”

He could also imagine that the reformation faction’s change of heart had come in part from encouragement from Rosclay.

Within Aureatia, Rosclay was the only one who had figured out the plot to assassinate the Queen and expressed a willingness to cooperate.

He had assuaged Kuze’s suspicions and prepared for him to carry out the assassination. Knowing Rosclay, it would have even been possible to guide the opinions within the reformation faction while he was still alive.

“I prize the wishes of my constituents.”

Hiroto sat with his fingers interlocked and stared at Kuze with a smile.

Looking at Hiroto’s smile, meant to calm the other party, only made Kuze grow even more nervous.

He needed to make sure Hiroto didn’t see through him.

“If you wish to fight, then I will make appeals to ensure you do. However… Kuze, is a justification like the title of Hero really necessary to revive the Order? Currently, I am aiding the Order, and as you see, I now hold the position of Twenty-Ninth Minister. It should be possible to wipe away the Order’s poor reputation and make aid for those in need of protection a reality through the proper procedures and without risking your life.”

“…Proper procedures, huh?”

Appealing to the hearts of the people and saving the Order without killing anyone.

It was the best possible approach. Anyone would have wanted that, even the ones conspiring to assassinate the Queen.

Kuze’s heart told him he wanted to turn back. There was still time. It could all happen without anyone having to die, right? Wouldn’t it be fine to entrust the future to someone else one more time?

Proper procedures. Is he trying to say that my method isn’t proper?

Hiroto’s eyes were fixed on Kuze, observing him.

Kuze was speaking with a deviant politician. It was impossible for Kuze to outsmart him with logic.

How much does Hiroto know? Why did he come here to get confirmation from me directly?

Kuze could tell that his palms had gone clammy with sweat.

If he disclosed everything about the Order’s plan right now, he might be able to get through this without killing anyone else. The anguish he felt came from self-consciousness of his sins. If he confessed his sins, he could feel better.

—But the Order wouldn’t be saved.

Instead, it would then mean it wasn’t the criminal guild that hijacked the organization, but devout followers of the Order who had planned to assassinate the Queen. Even the attempt was a heinous crime, worthy of execution in and of itself. The followers’ determination, willing to accept all the sins on their shoulders, would be rendered meaningless, and the Order would suffer endless persecution—not as the victim but instead as the perpetrator.

We alone are going to carry out this assassination plot in complete secrecy ourselves, without confiding in anyone… I might be pushing my luck here, but with Hiroto’s power, maybe…

Kuze had witnessed for himself many times now what exactly the Gray-Haired Child could achieve.

He might’ve been able to do it.

On the other hand, Kuze also thought there was no way Hiroto ever would.

Kuze had joined forces with Hiroto the Paradox simply to use him in service of the assassination plot without revealing his true intentions. It was a grave betrayal. Kuze couldn’t put any trust in just how far Hiroto would go to defend the traitorous Order or how far he’d carry out his sense of obligation to Kuze.

The priests of the Order were quite literally putting their lives on the line and entrusting the future to Kuze.

Kuze couldn’t possibly expose the whole plan here solely on his own discretion.

“…I assure you in no uncertain terms that I am not proposing this because I have joined Aureatia’s side. I see you as a very precious friend and ally…and I do not want to let my friends die.” Hiroto spoke the sentiments in a solemn tone.

It made Kuze believe he wanted to rely on Hiroto, to try trusting him.

Thinking that there was no other way but to shoulder the sin of regicide wouldn’t save a soul. It was foolish martyrdom.

“Mr. Hiroto. There isn’t any problem if I can win, right?” Kuze murmured quietly.

He wasn’t sweating. He spoke as if out of rancor, shutting away all his unrest and sadness.

“I need to prepare some sort of chance of victory to do something about Mestelexil. I get now that even if I fall out of the Sixways Exhibition, you intend on continuing to support the Order… But here’s the thing. I’m part of the Order, too. The only thing I’ve been able to do is fight. Besides, if you’re trying to tell me that I’ve fought all this way to lose here…”

Kuze squarely met Hiroto’s eyes as they stared at him.

“…then what reason did I have for killing Nofelt?”

“…”

Kuze’s heart was weak.

He felt ready to give in Hiroto’s proposal.

If he didn’t think about the sacrifices that had been paid to get to where he was now, he wouldn’t have been able to endure it.

Kuze had sacrificed the lives of Ripel the Frost Leaf, Nofelt the Somber Wind, and Rique the Misfortune.

“…That is fair. I was speaking too selfishly and without considering your own will. Forgive me.”

“No worries. I just want…a little time to think.”

“I understand. I will take my leave here for today.”

“Sorry for giving you the runaround, Mr. Hiroto… I appreciate the concern.”

Kuze had managed to stand face-to-face with a devil like Hiroto the Paradox without betraying his faith.

It was because Kuze was always being watched. By a pure, unsullied angel, just for him.

Nastique.

Nastique sat beside Kuze and followed Hiroto’s departing figure with her eyes.

He felt glad that she hadn’t been erased.

Otherwise, left on his own, Kuze would have given in.

They were on the way back from Romog Joint Military Hospital.

As the carriage swayed back and forth, Morio questioned Hiroto beside him.

“What’re you going to do now? Seriously plan on agreeing with what he said and sending him into a fight to the death with Mestelexil?”

“…Unless Kuze’s opinion on the matter changes, that is indeed what will happen. Aureatia wishes to openly hold the eleventh match in order to control the population. Kaete the Round Table in particular likely sees it as a way to showcase Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge’s abilities to the Queen and all the people watching.”

“The reinstated Fourth Minister? After going out of his way to get Mestelexil reinstated after losing once, he’s gotta be planning on using the Sixways Exhibition to grab power.”

Aureatia could manipulate who won and lost. The prerequisite being, however, that they had to do the manipulation without revealing the foul play to the people. It would be difficult without consent from both parties involved.

“Kuze said he wanted time. There is a chance he might change his opinion in the future,” Hiroto muttered flatly. “However… I do not intend to force my ideas through against the will of my constituent. It is meaningless if I am the one who changes their heart.”

“Don’t you think Kuze’s hiding something?”

There wasn’t anything specific about his behavior that stuck out, but it seemed that way to Morio.

He might have found some meaning even beyond winning or losing his match with Mestelexil. Either that or he had already prepared some trump card that would work on Mestelexil.

“Everyone has a secret or two. I’m not going to pry.”

“…Secrets, huh? Actually, you cut me off when I was talking about Nihilo, too. Did that on purpose, didn’t you?”

“That’s right. There is no doubt that Nihilo the Vortical Stampede was the tarantula revenant who attacked during the Great Lithia Fire. Just as Kuze had been dispatched to assassinate Taren the Punished, Nihilo was an ace up Aureatia’s sleeve that they were saving as a last resort.”

“So they were sending constructs to war like they were some self-proclaimed demon king themselves. If you got all the evidence together and presented it to the public, the scandal could turn Aureatia upside down; I get that, but…”

Of course, Morio didn’t think Hiroto would do something like that.

He had burned evidence of the True Demon King’s identity right in front of Morio’s eyes. He wouldn’t choose a battle that would ruin everything out of some sense of justice, fairness, or to simply dispose of his enemies.

“…Is it really a problem if Kuze hears about that? Because there’s a chance the Order might do something uncalled for?”

“Oh no, certainly not. I didn’t tell him for a completely different reason.” Hiroto smiled in self-deprecation. “Several civilians were caught up in Nihilo the Vortical Stampede’s slaughter. I didn’t want Kuze to hear that, given he accompanied her.”

…Even took that into consideration, did you, Gray-Haired Child?

Inwardly, Morio was a bit surprised.

At a glance, Hiroto the Paradox seemed to be influencing the world based on some bigger picture the average person couldn’t surmise. However, in actuality, he perceived the value of even the smallest emotions the average person would ignore with far more weight than countless bigger-picture views.

Morio went to light his cigar before realizing they were inside a carriage and stopped.

“There was another reason I wanted confirmation on Nihilo… As you already know, I have entered into a deal with Enu the Distant Mirror. Mr. Yukiharu Shijima wanted the information that he provided regarding the National Defense Research Institute more than anything else.”

“So after predicting the massive coup through several information channels, you then used said coup to crush Rosclay. So what was Yukiharu up to at the same time?”

“Mr. Yukiharu Shijima showed interest in another piece of information—the whereabouts of Viga the Clamor. Though her personal history was cleverly purged, there were several points that matched up with a self-proclaimed demon king who attempted to invade Aureatia during the age of the True Demon King. At the time, this self-proclaimed demon king employed a massive tarantula revenant covered in deep celestial charsteel plating—the Vortical Stampede.”

This had to be a nickname given by the soldiers at the time who encountered it. It wasn’t a widely known name, unbeknownst even to Kuze, despite his time serving as her bodyguard. When the National Defense Research Institute monster introduced herself, it hadn’t rung any bells for Morio.

“On top of that, this Vortical Stampede who showed herself once more was searching for Mr. Yukiharu Shijima’s remains. Isn’t that right?”

“…Based on the info you had, it means Yukiharu made contact with Viga. This Viga also had the Vortical Stampede on hand, reclaiming it from Lithia some way or another.”

“Indeed. I believe we can assume that after laying low for so long, Nihilo acting so bombastically now would mean that she and Viga no longer have any need to remain dormant… Enu and Viga have made progress on their research project together.”

“The Thirteenth Minister of Aureatia and a self-proclaimed demon king with the National Defense Research Institute? Just what kind of research?”

“I don’t pry. However, I can hypothesize. I cooperated with capturing the living vampire specimen Enu said he required. The leader of Obsidian Eyes, Linaris the Obsidian.”

“…You helped out with something crazy like that?!”

“Of course.”

There was a radical consistency to Hiroto the Paradox’s actions that Morio couldn’t comprehend.

It wasn’t justice or morals that made him take action, but the wishes of his constituents.

“…A vampire. It connects to the incidents in Sagasa Old Town.”

“Yes. Would you not agree that Nihilo the Vortical Stampede’s activity signals that Enu and Viga’s research project has finished? Either it ended successfully, and they’ve moved to the offensive against Aureatia—or perhaps they failed, and as a result of their experiments, Nihilo and this vampire were set loose.”

“Really likely that their research was around making an artificial vampire. That’s this Roto the Cross. We can’t do anything on our end against Roto, but maybe we should pursue the Enu and Viga angle.”

“With regard to Roto the Cross, I successfully obtained Flinsuda’s cooperation. She should be able to deploy a fighting force far more suited to the circumstances than we are.”

“So that was your goal in coming all the way out to the hospital here…”

In any case, the threats to Aureatia hadn’t been completely eradicated yet.

The reason Aureatia was sorting out the powerful fighters they were able to control like Shalk the Sound Slicer and Mele the Horizon’s Roar was to eliminate these threats in the future.

For these individuals with utility value, it was more convenient for them to have withdrawn from the Sixways Exhibition where they would clash with similarly powerful fighters.

“…Hear about the Queen’s comfort tour? I’m sure it’s to show that she’s safe and sound after the attack on the royal palace, but…Okafu’s been included as one of her stops. Might be taking some careful measures against us ahead of the match.”

Kuze possessed an invincible superpower, but his weakness was his emotion.

Followers of the Order, evacuated from Aureatia, along with Kuze’s sponsor, Nophtok, were being sheltered in the Free City of Okafu. There was a chance that if Aureatia forcibly took them back, they could engineer a victory where Kuze would lose the match unharmed while the match is still shown to all. That had to be a lot more convenient for Aureatia than if Kuze just abstained from fighting.

Furthermore, Morio, though leader of Okafu, couldn’t accompany the Queen while on her visit there. Formerly or not, Morio was a self-proclaimed demon king.

“I wonder about that. I believe that now, with Rosclay’s defeat, it is unlikely that they would utilize such painstaking and well-thought-out tricks, but…I will get in touch with Maqure just in case.”

“Good. I’m having the mercs keep a close eye on the situation. Be a real mark of dishonor for a merc nation if the kids under their protection got taken away.”

Hiroto the Paradox was a deviant politician.

However, as he gained more and more supporters, the number of things he was saddled with ballooned ever larger.

It became difficult to continue protecting them, and he would then be forced into opposing those he once helped.

How exactly do you plan on dealing with this inconsistency, Hiroto the Paradox?

Up until now, the chaos that the Gray-Haired Child created had been in opposition of the discipline and order Aureatia had tried to build up.

However, Hiroto now put himself in a position that also required him to fight in the name of that same system. It was bound to become a fight with far less freedom available to him than before.

Would the Gray-Haired Child be able to carry through with his self-imposed restrictions, even under such inconvenient circumstances?

Becoming Aureatia’s ally has left him in the most awkward position of all. In some sense, this must be Aureatia’s retaliation for killing Rosclay.

One of the many jobs the Queen had performed was going on comfort tours within the Kingdom’s territory.

Young Nanal had thought that the only official business required of the Queen was to appear in front of the citizens at each stop and say a few words to greet them.

When she became a body double and actually started learning, though, she realized she had been greatly mistaken.

The addresses she gave the citizenry didn’t only require appropriate phrasing and mannerisms, but she needed to choose her words based on an understanding of the people’s current situation and with an accurate grasp of their history, as well.

A long time was spent in transit, and even when she reached a destination, she needed to attend gatherings day and night. She needed to be constantly mindful of her clothing and makeup, to ensure she was fine with anyone seeing her.

Amid all that, she had to do her usual work as well. While most of the government duties were handled by the Twenty-Nine Officials, there were a great number of things that required the Queen’s authorization, and she couldn’t afford to make a single perfunctory decision.

Nanal, born a mere pauper, did all of it.

It required a considerable amount of effort, even when bearing in mind the long days of learning she had spent in the Annex.

Nanal’s young body was able to fully carry out the harsh workload, not because she had perfectly memorized the correct way of speaking or the proper order of her actions.

She conducted herself by imagining what Sephite would do if she were there.

Sephite was the same age as Nanal and had done the same things. Nanal’s hardship was Sephite’s hardship, as well. When she considered that, she couldn’t be the only one to complain about the situation.

The comfort tour had arrived in the Free City of Okafu, far away from Aureatia.

The city had only made peace with Aureatia very recently; there were still a great number of citizens who held anti-Aureatia sentiments. The royalty needed to take the initiative and show their goodwill.

“Dant, we’re supposed to visit the Order today, aren’t we?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. A courtesy call to the Okafu Branch Church members, who live separately from the Okafu mercenaries you met with yesterday.”

The shaved-head military official was Dant the Heath Furrow. Nanal was especially nervous in front of him.

He was in charge of the palace guard and one of the few individuals who knew Sephite from the time of the United Western Kingdom. Fortunately, she only interacted with him when she was making a public appearance of some kind, but she still couldn’t behave carelessly.

“Okafu didn’t always have this branch; it was built specifically to take in followers who moved here from Aureatia. The orphans were evacuated to Okafu after the attack on the Western Outer Ward church, but they must be uneasy about living in a different environment compared to Aureatia. I am sure Your Majesty’s words will encourage them.”

“I know. The children are bearing with it wonderfully.”

Everything Nanal wore was formal wear tailored to Queen Sephite.

For instance, right now she was in a matte navy blue dress with white lace.

She looked in the large mirror.

When she was dressed in the Queen’s clothes, Nanal’s white looked just as attractive as Sephite’s white.

I wonder what sort of lives the Order kids are living here.

Nanal’s family had always been followers of the Order.

Her life in the Annex was filled with nothing but studying, so she prayed to the Wordmaker far less often than she had when living with her family, but even then she hadn’t renounced her faith.

When she thought of yet-unknown Order children, both excited anticipation, as if she was meeting a family member for the first time, and uneasiness welled up inside her at once.

…I’m okay. It doesn’t matter if they’re with the Order or are kids just like me; I just need to interact with them the same way I always do… With sincerity, just as Sephite did for me.

Though she felt nervous, she didn’t hold her hand up to her chest or take a deep breath.

At times like this, Nanal would blink her large eyes open and shut several times.

One of Sephite’s unique mannerisms that Nanal had seen countless times and ingrained into her body.

Several dozens of children sat obediently in the large assembly room. Behind them were all the adults of the Order from around Okafu.

Standing next to the podium was a large-built woman with a rectangular physique—Aureatia’s Twenty-Sixth Minister, Meeka the Whispered.

“Her Majesty the Queen has some words for you all.”

Meeka welcomed Nanal in with a stiff, blank expression.

Nanal assumed Meeka hadn’t said anything more than what was necessary until Nanal arrived.

“To all of you in the Order here in Okafu. I am so very glad you have prepared this chance for me to speak with you today. Please let me express my gratitude for all the hard work and consideration you have shown me on this courtesy tour.”

She had practiced speaking clearly with her throat fully open more than anything else.

Nanal’s actual voice was a bit higher pitched, but even without trying to match Sephite’s voice, as long as she worked to make her intonation, speed, and breathing all similar to Sephite, no one picked up on the difference.

“Furthermore, I wish to give my heartfelt sympathies to all the children here regarding the event that brought you to Okafu in the first place. As all of you are aware, our Aureatia is currently confronted with many difficult trials amid many changes. Of course, you were all faced with an unavoidably big challenge yourselves, and seeing you continue your constant and hardworking efforts, as well as seeing the fire of your faith still burning inside, brings me great joy, as if your adversity were my own—”

While most of them were paying attention to Nanal’s speech, there were some among the children who had grown bored and began playing by themselves. Seeing their behavior made it feel all the more heartwarming.

When Nanal had been little, she had never dreamed about the authority and power of a grand priest or royalty.

If anything, without the calamity of the True Demon King, Nanal would have been sitting among the children instead.

“In Okafu, I have shared the same meal with the people here and experienced the same culture. My deepest hope…is that through our conversation with you all together, I will be able to feel the way you do and learn what you know.”

She closed her eyes and gave a polite bow.

There was the sound of scattered clapping. If it were Sephite here, would she have been able to give a more touching speech?

“Today, at Her Majesty’s magnanimous discretion, we have prepared time for an exchange between Her Majesty and the children affected by the church attack. Please raise your hand and come up to the podium when called.”

“Meeka.” During a pause in Meeka’s stiff words, Nanal quietly informed her, “I’ll go down and talk with them. Fielding questions and answers like in the Assembly is a terrible way to learn how the children truly feel, don’t you think?”

“As you wish.” Meeka obeyed without objection. The staging here was exactly as originally planned.

The Queen interacting with underprivileged children the same age as herself, as equals. It made everyone know that even in a hostile nation like Okafu, the Queen didn’t feel inferior, nor was she scared of anyone.

Having a fairly normal conversation with the children of the Order was something Nanal herself wanted as well.

She wanted to know how the children differed from her when they had been caught up in the same irrationality as Nanal had yet, unlike her, were saved by the Wordmaker.

“Queen Sephite, talking to us?”

“Really? We can do that?”

“She’s so pretty…”

The children were bewildered at first, and none of them even got close to Nanal, but finally, with a push from one of the adult priests, they began to surround her one by one.

What did she normally do for fun?

Was the royal palace really busy?

How did somebody have to live to get pure-white hair like the Queen?

Do you ever think about people who died?

What is your favorite food?

She received several silly questions asked with childish earnestness, and Nanal similarly asked them several things back.

What is your name?

Where are you from?

What’s the most precious part of your life here?

The assembly hall chairs were lined up in a circle, and the children, too many to each get their own chair, took turns talking. If Nanal was ever at a loss for what to say, she could have signaled to Meeka at any time to end the conversation, but she hadn’t needed to at all.

Nanal was sure it would have been the same for Sephite.

“Queen Sephite…”

When both parties had begun to grow comfortable with one another, a girl with long blond hair leaned forward.

She was a lovely young girl by the name of Leisha.

“…do you have someone you love?”

“…Let’s see. I love all the people of Aureatia I rule over.”

“Th-that’s… Not like that! I want to know if you love anyone r-romantically! I wondered if even the Queen has feelings like that…”

“Leisha, quit it with that stuff.”

“How could you ask the Queen something like that…”

“Ah yes, well…”

In actuality, Nanal had understood.

She thought it might have been rude to sidestep the innocuous question.

The topic of love was a difficult one.

Leisha likely wasn’t talking about her marriage as a royal. While there weren’t any talks about it now because Sephite was still young, since she needed to pass on her royal blood, Sephite would eventually be engaged to someone.

However, love was a topic of the heart, different from that sort of practical reality.

Nanal didn’t have the slightest idea what sort of love Sephite may have had, and Nanal herself hadn’t seriously fallen in love with anyone before.

“…I’m sorry, Leisha. I still haven’t experienced love yet.”

When she replied with a sheepish smile, the children loudly exclaimed with excitement.

She felt embarrassed.

“Aw, but you’re so pretty!”

“I thought you got married a long time ago.”

“What’re you, stupid? The Queen’s just eleven years old.”

“So even the Queen is like that, too…”

Nanal sneaked her hand up to her cheek. She was worried her face might have flushed pink.

It was a childish question, unrelated to the Kingdom, without any threat of exposing who she really was, yet she became unsure about how exactly Sephite would behave in a moment like this. Nanal’s heart was pounding in her chest.

“Queen! I have someone I love! His name is Father Kuze—Kuze the Passing Disaster!”

“Kuze the Passing Disaster.”

Slowly repeating the name, Nanal gave herself time to think.

Someone related to the royal family that Sephite would have known about. Or maybe one of the Aureatia bureaucrats—no, neither were right. The name of a hero candidate. If she remembered correctly, he was a paladin of the Order.

“Kuze, the hero candidate, you mean. I hear he is a very brave man who has joined the Sixways Exhibition… What a splendid person to fall in love with, Leisha.”

“Th-that’s…right. I’ve loved Father Kuze…for a long, long time…”

Leisha expressed her feelings in faltering fragments while the hands in her lap gripped down tightly on her skirt.

Nanal stood up without a moment’s hesitation and walked over to Leisha’s chair.

She drew in close to Leisha’s trembling shoulders.

“…Are you worried about Kuze?”

“I am. Father Kuze…is going to get hurt. When he saved all of us, he had wounds everywhere. Your Majesty. I… No, this goes for all of us…! We don’t want Kuze to get killed in the Royal Games.”

“…Is that so? You’re very kind, Leisha.”

Nanal tried not to be influenced by Leisha’s emotions.

She gave her a calm, benevolent smile and drew close without actually touching Leisha.

The Sixways Exhibition was held in a format called true duels.

A duel from Kingdom antiquity, where individuals were allowed to use any and all methods at their disposal. Both taking a life and losing one’s life were acceptable results.

Since she had accumulated the same knowledge as Sephite, Nanal was able to explain why the Sixways Exhibition ended up this way.

As these Royal Games were held to establish proof that if one defeated the True Demon King, mock battles or other types of competition wouldn’t create the same conditions as the heroic deed. This fight was set to determine the Kingdom’s future, and everyone wanted to see a victory that was defined without any grounds for complaint.

Having lived in the Annex, Nanal didn’t actually know how profound a shadow the terror of the True Demon King had cast over this world. Thus, even knowing the reason, she couldn’t stop the irresponsible thought from coming to her—

…They should have figured out a way to decide the Hero without anyone having to die.

No matter how accurate and convincing the method may have been, it didn’t justify the loss of heart-bearing lives.

Perhaps the reason many people wished for such a thing was because this age saw the Wordmaker’s teaching begin to disappear.

“Queen. Even if Father Kuze is the True Hero…I don’t want him to fight in the Sixways Exhibition any more than he has. Is even the Queen’s power not enough to make that happen?”

“It isn’t. A person’s heart is something that even I, the Queen, can’t change. If Kuze wished to escape his fight, then of course I can grant his wish. Withdrawing from the Sixways Exhibition is allowed… But I’m sure that Kuze has something more precious to him than his own life, too.”

“Is that…even more important than me? More than everyone in the Order? All of us would be so sad if Father Kuze died, so why doesn’t he think his own life is precious, too?”

“…”

There were no longer any other kids trying to stop Leisha’s hounding questions.

Everyone wore a sad look on their faces. Kuze the Passing Disaster had so many people concerned for his well-being.

A young female priest couldn’t stand by any longer and admonished Leisha.

“Leisha. You can’t keep pestering Her Majesty like that. There are plenty of other children who want to talk with her, too. You’re their elder sister, so you should let them have their turn.”

“…Wait.”

The restraining word pushed itself out of her mouth.

The real Sephite surely wouldn’t act this way.

“I want…to let these children see Kuze the Passing Disaster.”

She wanted to grant their wishes.

These children had long tasted the anxiety that had tormented Nanal the day when she was ripped apart from her family.

“That cannot happen, Your Majesty.”

A priest stepped out from behind all the other adults. A stern-looking white-haired old man.

Nanal struggled to remember what she had learned as all her thoughts threatened to stop.

…Maqure the Sky’s Lake Surface.

“Queen Sephite. I am one of the grand priests of the Order, Maqure the Sky’s Lake Surface. I thank you very much for showing the children your warm consideration on top of your visit here to Okafu.”

Maqure’s voice sounded just as stern as he looked. Nanal was being thanked, yet she felt as if he was mad at her.

“If you have an opinion on this, Maqure, I’d like to hear it.”

“These children are here in Okafu by the request of none other than Kuze himself. I, too, wish to keep these children from getting caught up in any danger. Legally, they are all residents of Okafu now. Forcefully taking them away could bring an unwanted change in the relationship between our nations. Nor should the Queen be providing any support regarding the circumstances of any one candidate in particular.”

“Is that really so?”

Maqure the Sky’s Lake Surface was one of the Order’s leaders. He was far cleverer with his tongue than a child like Nanal—and very smart. What he said made logical sense as well.

Still, Nanal thought of what to say to persuade him. She wanted to.

Right now she was Sephite, and Nanal wanted to show the same empathy Sephite had for her back then.

“Leisha and her friends were originally citizens living in Aureatia. Now that Aureatia and Okafu have found peace, is there any problem with letting them return to their former city for a short while? I’m not showing any favoritism to Kuze the Passing Disaster—I’m showing it to these children here.”

“This will adversely affect your courtesy visit schedule from here. Please reconsider.”

“Meeka.”

Nanal called Meeka to the podium without taking her eyes off Maqure.

“What do you think, Meeka? I have entrusted Aureatia to all of you… Are you really unable to grant the tiniest wish of these small children?”

Nanal couldn’t believe what she was saying.

The child who had gotten by with her artless pickpocket skills was giving orders to one of the Order’s grand priests—and one of the Aureatia’s highest-ranking bureaucrats—and trying to make them listen to her selfishness.

Meeka, having observed the entirety of Nanal’s interactions with the children without a word, replied briefly.

She purposefully didn’t give her view. It was a short, stern rejection.

“It will be difficult.”

“I’m the Queen.” Nanal then rejected the rejection. “The responsibility lies with me. Difficult or not, I want it to happen.”

“Understood. If Your Majesty commands it, there is nothing more I will say.”

Meeka didn’t argue any further. She bowed her head.

Walking in right up to Maqure, her red pupils stared up into the old man’s sunken eyes.

“Maqure. The Order teaches that those with hearts of their own are meant to talk to one another, right? I…wish to see Kuze stand in the arena with the good wishes of Leisha and her friends, and with all of them accepting the situation. It would be so sad for followers of the same teachings to be unable to talk to one another or understand each other’s hearts, no? That’s why I want you to accept this, too.”

“…Your Majesty.” Maqure’s stern expression didn’t falter, but there was agony in the long silence. “…You are correct. Kuze should not be allowed…to fight alone and be unable to talk to anyone.”

Maqure gave in. A grand priest of the Order.

Nanal felt as if everyone gathered in the assembly hall could hear the loud pounding in her chest.

It was terrifying.

Terrifying.

Terrifying.

No one could go against her. The authority of the Queen…the power bestowed to Nanal simply for looking similar was far more tremendous than she had thought.

The children had also fallen silent in utter amazement.

Finally, after the short interval, voices began to stir.

Then, they turned into a loud cheer.

“Yaaaaay!”

“Really?! We really get to go back to Aureatia?!”

“She actually beat Father Maqure!”

“We get to see Father Kuze! Hey, what should we bring him?!”

“Miss Queen! Thank you so much!”

“That was amazing! This is all thanks to you, Leisha!”

“Queen Sephite…sniff…”

Nanal looked at the scene with the vague sense that none of it was real.

She had done something so far beyond her station.

Nevertheless, she felt a burning happiness spread slowly inside her breast.

Using the Queen’s authority, she could wield vast sums of wealth or even cause a war.

However, Nanal instead felt the urge to use it on good deeds that didn’t benefit her at all.

I was taught a long time ago. The Wordmaker’s salvation…and the angels…all dwell within our consciences.

Nanal still believed in the teachings of the Wordmaker.

Right now, as the Queen, she couldn’t say that to anyone.

However, she felt like she had done her best to achieve something she could be proud of.

The Order followers under protection by the Free City of Okafu were going to temporarily return to Aureatia.

Though he had planned for the possibility that Aureatia would take them back, the actual method Aureatia employed far surpassed anything Hiroto the Paradox had anticipated.

Hiroto first apologized to the person on the other end of the radzio.

“Please forgive me. It seems the other side managed to skillfully make use of the Queen’s courtesy visit. I never expected that the Queen herself would make a move.”

The long-range radzio call, passed through several relays, was to Maqure the Sky’s Lake Surface.

<I, too, wasn’t strong enough. This opportunity to speak with the children happened by accident, after the originally scheduled meeting was postponed. They made use of this incidental change for themselves.>

The Okafu mercenaries had been prepared for a violent kidnapping.

Maqure would have gotten wise to any plan that used specious excuses to lead them away and put a stop to it.

However, when ordered face-to-face by the highest authority, there was no choice but to obey.

Though Aureatia’s business was handled by the Twenty-Nine Officials, the Queen wielded ultimate authority.

<There can’t be any political justification to bring these children, now considered Okafu citizens, back to Aureatia. That said, there wasn’t enough invalidity to go against a direct order from the Queen, either. They used the scene of the children pleading with her. If it had been an order from the Twenty-Nine Officials, or even an indirect order from the Queen, passed on to him in a message, Maqure would have had enough composure to deal with the situation.>

Maqure had been isolated and helpless. The only ones there were the children and the younger generation of priests, with Maqure likely the only one to understand the danger in having the children taken by Aureatia.

“Do you believe that Aureatia has complete control over the Queen? Even the largest faction, Rosclay’s reformation faction, hasn’t employed any strategies that make use of her.”

<I cannot say… However, if I may give my own view of the situation… The Queen seemed to be extending her hand to the children with purely good intentions. She is a wise and sincere person. She didn’t seem to lose her composure when faced with my objections, either.>

“For now, let’s consider this to still be up in the air… I’ll leave the rest to you.”

<My apologies.>

“There is no need to stress over what has already happened. I am in a position to ensure there are no calls to turn them into hostages.”

<I am not apologizing for the outcome. When the Queen pleaded with me, I couldn’t stop from wanting to let the kids go myself.>

Maqure the Sky’s Lake Surface’s tone was as matter-of-fact as always, but it had a vaguely sorrowful tenor.

<I was the one who decided to make Kuze fight alone in the first place, yet I was all too inexperienced. Even at this age, I only grow more and more indecisive…>

Hiroto smiled when he heard Maqure express himself.

“Is that really so, though? Hesitation is quintessential. You’ll understand that when you’re older.”

After accepting the Queen-ordered homecoming for the orphans evacuated to Okafu, a select group of the Twenty-Nine Officials gathered together and held an impromptu meeting in the Aureatia Central Assembly Hall.

The gathered roster included Hidow the Clamp, along with Grasse the Foundation Map, Cayon the Thundering, Antel the Alignment, Kaete the Round Table, and Hiroto the Paradox. Jelky the Swift Ink pushed through the injury to his eye to attend.

Grasse the Foundation Map opened up the meeting with his usual, easygoing tone.

“Well then, main topic for today is to discuss the temporary Okafu orphan repatriation measure that has become an official order from the Queen as of today. Since this is a royal decree, if we want to oppose it, we need to hold a special assembly and get an oppositional resolution. With that in mind, I need gather up the opinions of anyone who has given their authorization. How about you, Cayon?”

Grasse tossed the question to Cayon sitting beside him.

“Whatever, right? What’s the problem?”

A man with one arm. Mele the Horizon’s Roar’s sponsor and one who remained neutral among all the factions.

“Sure, if this decree rubbed up against Aureatia’s military strategy maybe, but letting some small children return to their homeland is cute, really. Besides, Okafu themselves have far too much going on to use something like this as a pretext to attack. Am I wrong?”

Cayon tried to draw out information from Hiroto, sitting diagonally across from him.

Appointed to his position as the Twenty-Ninth Minister, Hiroto was tasked with brokering negotiation between Okafu and Aureatia in Haade the Flashpoint’s stead, whose accidental victory in the tenth match effectively made him fall from power.

“This stemmed from Her Majesty’s genuine consideration for the children, so there couldn’t possibly be any objection. Morio the Sentinel, along with the rest of the Okafu leadership, welcome this temporary return as a chance to show the repaired relationships between Aureatia and Okafu. If there are any concerns, they would lie with the Order, not Okafu.”

Hiroto the Paradox’s present position had him acting as the spokesperson for the Order, as well as the Free City of Okafu. The religious group Aureatia had to abandon when they rebuilt the minian nation was still part of the foundational support base that comprised the Gray-Haired Child’s power and influence.

“Though the attempt during the fifth match failed, it is still true that when the Order’s hero candidate, Kuze the Passing Disaster, had his match, someone targeted not the man himself, but those around him, in an attempt to force their demands on him. While the Sun’s Conifer were the main offenders in the Western Outer Ward Church incident, when taking into account Aureatia’s present state of affairs, there is no guarantee that there won’t be another type of cowardly attack again. As Okafu’s diplomatic envoy, I would ask you to entrust the safety of the orphan evacuees to me.”

There was hidden meaning behind the man’s words… An attempt to keep Jelky of the reformation party in check, in particular.

For starters, the whole Sun’s Conifer incident right after the fifth match was absolutely the work of old man Nophtok.

Even Hidow, previously at one end of the reformation faction, could only hypothesize on what sort of operation had been behind the whole affair. That said, Kuze’s sponsor and reformation faction member Nophtok the Crepuscle Bell had become mentally unstable for some unknown reason ever since.

Nophtok was being sheltered by Okafu with the rest of the Order followers and still hadn’t returned.

It was natural to assume that Nophtok, with discretionary powers over Kuze, decided for himself to eliminate Kuze through the use of hostages and, somehow or another, suffered a reprisal of some kind from the Order.

Way the reformation faction sees it, they want to keep Kuze the Passing Disaster on hand by any means necessary. So then, unexpected temporary homecoming’s another card for ’em to play to ensure Kuze loses without issue while still holding the eleventh match itself.

Hidow looked to see Jelky the Swift Ink’s expression.

Sharp—and as cold and expressionless as ice. However, he had thick shadows underneath his good right eye, and it was clear he hadn’t recovered from the unexplained exhaustion from before.

“…Understood. The Twenty-Ninth Minister has voted to protect the evacuees during their temporary return, and unless anyone else wants to take on the task, I’d personally prefer to leave them up to him. Coordinating with Okafu on details, including repatriation procedures, will go smoothly at the hands of the one among us on cordial terms with Okafu.”

…I’m surprised. Figured he’d gripe a little more to get some concessions.

Rudely perched on one elbow, he watched the two go back and forth.

Although part of the Twenty-Nine Officials, Hiroto was a latent adversary to the current system. At the very least, when Rosclay the Absolute was still alive, he wouldn’t have gotten this demand of his through.

“Kuze the Passing Disaster is awaiting the eleventh match. Considering the precedent the Twenty-Ninth Minister mentioned, he is surely on high alert to any tactics from outside forces. Considering the numerous matters we need to deal with, I want to avoid any actions that could needlessly provoke Kuze’s animosity…”

“Indeed. Similarly, to ensure no harm comes to the Queen’s honor, this evacuee homecoming should only be employed to show proof of Okafu and Aureatia’s amicable relationship. Is there anyone else who would be interested in taking this on?”

No one raised their hand at Hiroto’s question. Hidow, of course, had no intentions of getting saddled with the trouble.

“All right then, Okafu diplomat handles the Okafu stuff, and moving forward, we’re accepting the orphan’s visit with the Twenty-Ninth Minister in charge. There was also something about the eleventh match, too, right?”

“Hiroto the Paradox. Kuze the Passing Disaster’s appearing in the eleventh match, right?”

The question came from Kaete the Round Table. He had shown overt disinterest in the talk of the orphans.

He was Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge’s sponsor and would be fighting a decisive battle in the eleventh match against Hiroto, Kuze the Passing Disaster’s de facto sponsor.

“I don’t care about some piss-poor brats. But if they make that guy cower from the fight, all the effort we spent on arranging this’ll go up in smoke. You better drag him out into that arena.”

“Assuming the eleventh match will happen… If possible, I would like Kuze kept in a usable state for later.”

The tanned man with glasses was Antel the Alignment.

“The snag is that Kuze’s power of instant death doesn’t occur with a visible counterattack. Depending on how the things play out, it could come off as Kuze being crushed by a weapon without any means of fighting back. Mestelexil has been forcefully reinstated after already being disqualified once. To ensure we don’t sour the citizen’s feelings toward Mestelexil, we should put some limitations on what method of attack he can use.”

“Hmph. Don’t push your luck. This isn’t something some low-level reformation nobody should be sticking his head into. You lot may be annoyed at my reinstatement, but the truth is Mestelexil is far more useful to us than a spineless coward like Kuze. Besides, from here on out, do you really want to gauge the Order’s feelings on something every time we want to get some use out of him, like with this whole Okafu brat situation? At this point, Kuze the Passing Disaster is unnecessary.”

“Thing is: I made that proposal more with your position in mind than out of concern for Kuze. The way to win is just as important as the how. Understanding that or not was the biggest difference between you and Rosclay.”

“Oh, was it now? Well, the one who did understand that is dead. I guess I was right, then.”

“…”

“Ugh, c’moooon now, you two! Enough of the bickering, I swear. This meeting is still going on here.”

Cayon cut into the powder-keg situation in spite of himself. Hidow was fed up with it all.

Grasse didn’t appear concerned whatsoever and, if anything, seemed to be enjoying himself as he pushed the meeting forward.

“All right, Antel, we’ll consider what you said as just a proposal, okay? As for Kuze’s appearance, we’ll have the Twenty-Ninth Minister confirm… Though actually, I just want a firm answer. Kuze’s going to fight, right?”

“Although he has expressed as much, he does appear to have some misgivings. I think it prudent to think Mestelexil might win by default depending on Kuze’s intentions here—and plan accordingly.”

“Really now? That’d put me in an awkward spot if he withdraws, though. Kuze’s the one who asked me to set up the eleventh match for him, and we even got the go-ahead to reinstate Mestelexil, too.”

“Not much we can do if the dude’s changed his mind, right?” Hidow chimed in with his head leaning on the back of the chair. “Kuze’s abilities are just to kill and nothing else, so an opponent like Mestelexil’s will definitely be more than he can handle. Though, I doubt he ever imagined a candidate deemed defeated would pop back up to fight him.”

Jelky turned his sights to Hiroto.

“…The eleventh match is going to happen. Even if Kuze the Passing Disaster withdraws, his sponsor will need to take responsibility and bring forth a replacement for him. If Kuze’s having second thoughts, I want him to make his intentions clear to us as soon as possible.”

“I will try.”

Strictly speaking, Hiroto the Paradox was not Kuze the Passing Disaster’s sponsor. Kuze’s sponsor continued to be Nophtok the Crepuscule Bell, and Hiroto was acting on his behalf.

“Next item then. For the World Word issue, as of right now she’s considered dead—that’s fair, right? At present, there haven’t been any retaliatory attacks against those she’d target first. The Queen has been safe while out on her courtesy tour as well.”

“That’s right. One thing is that we still haven’t found Kia’s body. There’s still the possibility that she was just incapacitated or lost her will to fight. No further damage’s cropped up, but I want all of you to understand the situation and have a sense of urgency.”

As he spoke, Hidow felt a bitter uneasiness.

It was true that Hidow and Aureatia were unharmed. But no one had actually confirmed if the Queen was safe.

The only people in this meeting who knew that currently the Queen was a body double were Hidow and Kaete, having been informed by Jelky—and Antel. There were only a few who even knew she existed.

On top of that, save for Jelky, no one knew where the real Queen was.

It’s totally possible that I haven’t dealt with any reprisal from Kia yet because the Queen was killed a long time ago. In that case, what is Jelky planning to do? No way he’s gonna try to pass off that body double as the real Queen, right?

Given that he had informed Hidow, already broken off from the reformation faction, and Kaete, an enemy to their faction, about the existence of the body double, Hidow just had to trust Jelky wouldn’t do anything brash.

“Well, the Queen’s going around to all the different regions in the first place because Kia’s assumed dead. Let’s move on to the next topic then: the ongoing incident in Sagasa Old Town.”

“The Sagasa matter…and this Roto the Cross.”

Instead of Kia the World Word, this was now the problem directly facing Aureatia.

More accurately put, the fact that it hadn’t become a problem yet was what made it so threatening.

There was a clear case of macabre serial murders—one with the culprit positively identified—however not a single person had managed to discern the full scope of it all, and with the threat of infection, they were unable to send any personnel to handle it.

“Yet another issue involving the Twenty-Ninth Minister… Got yourself way too many matters to handle right after assuming office. You all right?”

“There is no need to worry.” Hiroto answered Grasse’s consideration with a breezy smile. “Taking into account the Okafu mercenary casualties from the investigation, I believe any large-scale deployment to Sagasa Old Town is inadvisable. More preferable would be a small number who can quickly neutralize Roto the Cross without any adverse effects on the citizens. With this in mind, I have requested Flinsuda’s assistance and secured a supply of antiserum for Kuze the Passing Disaster, along with her commitment to the investigation.”

“All right then, we can assume Roto the Cross is a vampire. There was a huge collapsed cavern inside the ruins of the National Defense Research Institute… Could be that a vampire they had gotten their hands on escaped.”

“I’ve arrived at the same hypothesis, Antel. Judging from several points of circumstantial evidence, it seems to be a different parent unit from the one within Obsidian Eyes, however… After sharing our data with Flinsuda, she indicated that it was possible that, among the nearly extinct vampires, the mutation to allow for airborne infection manifested simultaneously in multiple individuals. Thus, in regard to Roto the Cross, I have made her eradication my highest priority, and after inoculating him with one of the limited vials of antiserum, I intend to deploy Kuze to face her.”

“Sure, if the enemy doesn’t hesitate to kill, then using Kuze as bait will let us get her, but…a vampire that infects through the air?” Hidow murmured.

It sounded preposterous, but Kaete, having raided Obsidian Eyes’s hideout with the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists, said he witnessed this threat right before his very eyes.

“I just can’t bring myself to believe it. You serious that there’s someone like that out there, Kaete?”

“Hmph. So the flurry of scientific evidence I presented was too much for a moron like you to comprehend? Now with Kia the World Word gone, vampires are Aureatia’s greatest threat. We screwed up handling the spread in its early stages, and there’s no undoing the damage.”

“…Okay then, so tell me,” Cayon said, exasperated. “Why haven’t you sent Mestelexil out to Sagasa, then? He’s a construct, so the vampire pathogen isn’t going to infect him, right? Wouldn’t he be a much better fit than Kuze?”

“Really exposing how shallow that thought process of yours is, Cayon. Just think for a second… There’s a chance Mestelexil’s weapons will harm regular citizens by accident. If Roto the Cross is simply just a young vampire, as estimated, then excessive firepower’s unnecessary. This whole Sagasa matter is nothing more than a basic murder investigation to begin with. Mestelexil will be deployed for operations that require greater firepower.”

“Sounds a little fishy to meee. Though, I agree we can’t have Mestelexil running wild in the city. As an aside, Mele can’t do it, either. No matter how precise his aim may be, why, the whole town will come crumbling down.”

This guy always manages to come out on top… Went and used a point he wormed out of Kaete to give himself a reason not to get Mele involved.

As this went on, Hiroto raised his hand.

“As you are all aware, we have yet to get a clear picture of this entire incident, and we should expect the unexpected. While I am sure Kuze alone would be enough to handle a normal threat, I would like to take any and all precautions. That said, the environment means deploying excessive force like Mestelexil or Mele is unfeasible…” Hiroto looked over to Jelky. “Can we send in Shalk the Sound Slicer? He is another construct hero candidate, so there isn’t any need to prepare more doses of antiserum. With Shalk’s fighting style, even if there was a battle, he will be able to keep the destruction to a minimum. I don’t believe anyone would be more suited for the task.”

“…I agree. We’ll need to negotiate with his sponsor, Hyakka, though he doesn’t always answer our requests for help. If it seems possible to go a different route and use one of Okafu’s own constructs, I’d like you to consider that option, too. If necessary, we can give them permission to stay in Aureatia temporarily.”

“Thank you very much.”

“…Okay, so—” Cayon spoke up once again. “What’s this other operation you’re deploying Mestelexil for, then? I certainly haven’t heard anything. Is everyone else but me in on it already?”

“I’m not aware of anything.”

“Me neither.”

Hidow and Hiroto both gave their answers.

In other words, the other attendees, Jelky and Antel with the reformation party and the one managing the Aureatia Assembly, Grasse, had all gotten on the same page about this beforehand.

“Fine, then I’ll explain it to you. We’re searching Obsidian Eyes’s base of operations. The investigation team will be composed of Health Ministry personnel, and Mestelexil will be accompanying them as their bodyguard.”

“Sure… Is Mestelexil seriously necessary for something like that?”

The explanation didn’t really satisfy Hidow. An organization of Obsidian Eyes’s caliber surely made it a habit not to leave behind any evidence in their old bases, and it would have been very unlikely for them to return just to hinder an investigation of their abandoned hideout.

A considerable number of days had passed since the raid on their headquarters, and it was hard to believe this investigation would produce any concrete clues.

“There is still a slim chance,” Jelky said. “Whether Obsidian Eyes appears to obstruct the investigation, the parent unit we believe to be the Obsidian can employ a force of birds and other small animals. Depending on how they react to the investigation, Mestelexil’s destructive force may prove necessary. With the threat of airborne infection, a medical professional inoculated with the antiserum will need to be deployed with the investigation unit… Since the Sagasa case is going on at the same time, we cannot afford to lose a single one of them.”

Without any prospects for creating more dhampir-produced antiserum, there could only be a limited number of inoculated people.

A group of doctors within the Health Ministry had been given the antiserum even before some of the Twenty-Nine Officials, due to their line of work. If they were going to be deploying everyone with a resistance to the vampire virus at once, utilizing this group of doctors was unavoidable.

“You heard him. Since he can’t get deployed in the city, Mestelexil’s going to investigate Obsidian Eyes. Depending on the data we find, it could be used to bring down this Roto the Cross or whatever.”

“Given that the two tasked with handling these investigations, Kuze and Mestelexil, are set to fight each other in the eleventh match…,” Antel murmured, “…we have no choice but to mobilize them at the same time to wrap everything up beforehand.”

Now, with Uhak gone in exchange for slaying Kia, Aureatia had limited fighting power available.

Several different calamities were waiting for their time to ignite.

Even within this very meeting room, there was one secretly scheming, using lies to outwit all the others.

Of course, all of you readers were already aware.

The one planning to outwit the others was Kaete the Round Table.

He hadn’t told any outright lies. He simply hadn’t reported what had already been completed.

The time was about one small month prior to the special assembly called to address the Okafu orphan evacuees’ temporary return to Aureatia.

It immediately followed the operation on the Orange Thirty-Six train. Kaete the Round Table, together with Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge, set off for Obsidian Eyes’s base of operations.

“Wrap this up before dawn. Don’t screw up this time, Mestelexil.”

“I—I have never…screwed up…before!”

During the clash on the train, Mestelexil had been handily disintegrated by Kia’s Word Arts. Afterward, to avoid being caught in Uhak’s Word Arts nullification, he delayed his regeneration and fell out of the train car—however, his true goal was, by falling off the train, to create a period of time when his whereabouts would be unknown and to take action elsewhere while deceiving Aureatia.

Kaete immediately got into contact with Mestelexil after he regenerated, and they headed for this location together.

Hidow the Clamp was dealing with the aftermath of the operation he had carried out under his sole discretion, along with prioritizing the search for Kia’s body above all else, and so he wasn’t in any position to keep a close eye on Kaete.

The Aureatia leaders are all devoting everything to Kia the World Word. Seeing as they haven’t even started a proper investigation of the National Defense Research Institute, they certainly aren’t going to give the Obsidian Eyes’s headquarters any attention.

No important information would still be inside the Obsidian Eyes’s headquarters. Kaete assumed as much. However, if the spy guild had withdrawn during that chaotic battle, they couldn’t have had the time to dispose of everyone there.

Nevertheless, they were after something in the area that only Kaete’s camp could utilize.

“No leftover pathogen around, right, Mestelexil?”

“Yeah, n-no problem! None, anywhere!”

Snaps and crackles rang out from all around the thicket, and the smell of charred metal and vegetation hung in the air. It was closely followed by the sound of taut strings snapping—or something heavy falling to the ground—resounding intermittently.

Mestelexil detected the traps strung up in the vicinity of the manor and burned through them with an invisible laser beam.

Though Obsidian Eyes had vanished from the area, it still remained dangerous.

It was unknown how many days the mutant virus remained in the air, and even when ruling out that vector of infection, the physical traps would cut down anyone who stepped on them carelessly.

Aureatia’s records showed that Kaete had never been inoculated with the vampire antiserum, but it wasn’t a problem.

Kaete had hidden several facts that could potentially benefit Aureatia. One among them was that Mestelexil’s Life Arts were able to reproduce any drug with a makeup he understood—and in unlimited supply. Kaete’s camp alone could retain as much antiserum as they wanted.

When Kaete had pleaded with Jelky to be reinstated, the vampire threat against Aureatia had stirred up more than enough. A time would come when he could eventually force Aureatia to pay the highest price for his antiserum manufacturing method that didn’t require a dhampir.

Those Aureatia imbeciles. I bet it seems like I sincerely surrendered to Aureatia’s will. But…while to them it might appear as if I don’t have the slightest chance right now, they’ll get a front-row seat when I use my own wits and strength to reclaim my power.

Kaete was trying to secure a tool to do just that with this search.

Once he had reconstructed his faction, he could again produce weapons. Personnel, however, didn’t come so easily.

He would have to collect together those with the will to rebel against Aureatia’s current system once more—and enough to support a whole faction.

“K-Kaete! I found them! Someone…collapsed underground!”

“Good job. They still alive?”

“No idea!”

After arriving in the manor, Kaete followed along with Mestelexil’s detection system and went underground.

The room they were after was hidden behind several layers of locks and camouflage, but a light tap from Mestelexil was enough to tear the locks off, door and all.

Kaete calmly walked forward into the room—a prison cell.

“Well, it seems our positions have reversed from the first time we met.”

“…Huh…? Kaete the…Round Table?” a hoarse voice replied.

“Seems you’re just barely still alive, Caneeya the Fruit Trimming. How lucky…for me anyway.”

Caneeya the Fruit Trimming. She had been the virtual leader of the current Old Kingdoms’ loyalists. Her natural physique and well-developed muscles, greater than your average full-grown man, seemed visibly enfeebled from being confined so long.

The prison cell appeared to have been converted out of the manor’s basement, and it had water pipes running through it, but there were no food stores at all. She managed to survive for the whole small month following her defeat because of her defining characteristic: the physique she had been blessed with.

“I heard from the remaining Old Kingdoms’ loyalist survivors that you had been captured in the middle of the battle. Knowing Obsidian Eyes, they wouldn’t fail to dig out information from the enemy commander. Additionally, I knew after being routed and losing Mestelexil, they wouldn’t have the time to take care of their captives.”

Kaete still maintained his connection with the remnants of the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists.

Almost all the soldiers who entered the area that day had been wiped out, and they couldn’t even muster up enough of a fighting force to rescue Caneeya themselves, but nevertheless, Kaete could get use out of their connections, resources, and network of groups who still continued to resist Aureatia.

Up until recently, Kaete had been on the run from Aureatia and left with no choice but to be placed under the organized protection of the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists.

But from here on out, the roles of master and servant were reversed.

Kaete the Round Table now held the organizational power of the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists firmly in his grasp.

Only Kaete could effectively utilize the dying group, now lacking any fighting force whatsoever. He could make up for their decisively insufficient military strength with however many golem soldiers or weapons necessary from the Beyond.

He had needed to venture inside the manor before Aureatia could begin their formal investigation. In order to take complete control of the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists, he needed to secure Caneeya—or in the worst-case scenario, her corpse.

“Wh-why…?! What am I…doing in a place like this…? W-were you the one…who locked me in here, Kaete?”

“Hmph. Right, those spies are able to erase a corpse’s memory. Whether they go to the hassle of silencing a captive, works out the same for them either way.”

He threw a packaged meal and water down at Caneeya.

She crawled and devoured the hard, burnt piece of bread like a wild beast.

“You have no right to refuse. I’ll rescue you from here, but I’m not saving you from certain death for free. From here on, you’re going to work hard for me, Caneeya the Fruit Trimming.”

“……”

“We’re done here, Mestelexil. Finish carrying Caneeya out of here before Aureatia gets wise to this. I’ll arrange a place to hide her.”

“Uh-huh…”

Mestelexil gave a lukewarm response.

His round head swiveled around and focused on the area aboveground.

“…What? Something bothering you up there?”

“Th-there is…another person…here!”

“What?”

Kaete furrowed his brow. This manor was far outside the city, deep inside a forest. Given there were lethal traps laid out all over the area, a civilian wouldn’t haphazardly wander into this place.

In which case, was it one of the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists, recklessly making their way here to rescue Caneeya?

Or perhaps, after all the time had passed, Obsidian Eyes had returned to their headquarters.

“We need to dispose of them, Mestelexil. Can you do that?”

“Y-yup! They are…above us! Let’s go, Kaete!”

With Mestelexil carrying the near-dead Caneeya, they went to the ground floor.

Mestelexil had apparently sensed the sound of faint breathing.

He detected Caneeya both underground and on the brink of death first. Is her breathing really that faint? With the precision of Mestelexil’s detection abilities, I can assume he’s not mistaking it for some small animal’s breathing, but…

When they arrived at the library, the odor of decomposing flesh assailed his senses.

Still, Kaete didn’t seem especially disturbed or uneasy when he opened the door. Mestelexil hadn’t sensed any danger.

“…………Who’re you, then…?”

A sloppy mass of something was adhered to the wheelchair.

While it seemed to be a person at some point, this wasn’t the breathing Mestelexil had sensed.

Next to the chair, a beautiful young girl sat like a corpse.

“S-Sis!”

“…? What’re you talking about?”

“Kaete! I-it’s the…nice…lady, Sis!”

It went without saying that Mestelexil didn’t have a sister, neither elder nor younger.

That said, when they had fought each other on this land before, hadn’t Mestelexil behaved in a similar way?

“……Master Kaete. I did not…know you were here…”

The young girl opened her mouth. Her voice was hollow and almost lifeless, like a ghost.

Hidden behind her bangs, Kaete couldn’t make out her face.

“I am…the leader of Obsidian Eyes. Linaris…the Obsidian…”

“Th-the Obsidian…?”

The commander of Obsidian Eyes. A vampire born from a spontaneous mutation, capable of airborne infection.

The monster that gnawed at Aureatia, who possessed a power capable of laying waste to it, and yet whose extreme cowardice kept their identity a total mystery as they maneuvered.

“Caneeya, is this the one…? Did she capture you?”

“I don’t know. My memories…are hazy…”

“I—I… I remembered! M-my electronics! My electronic records…made me remember! I used…to listen to…anything Sis…told me!”

“Impossible.”

Even if the homunculus’s memories were erased, there was an electrical copy of the memories inside the golem body.

Mestelexil’s testimony was likely true. He simply hadn’t been able to connect the dots until he saw the girl herself.

There was only one person capable of issuing orders to the corspified Mestelexil.

“It was the work of this tiny little girl…?!”

Kaete was astonished.

This mere child had fomented unrest in the largest minian kingdom with her intelligence and schemes.

Kaete had lost the power of his faction, and Kiyazuna the Axle had lost an arm.

“I will atone…for my crimes……for disturbing the Kingdom…”

She needed to be killed.

Kaete had no idea what destruction had come to this young girl or why she was left behind in a place like this.

However, a vampire bearing an airborne pathogen could potentially annihilate the whole kingdom simply by virtue of her existence.

She was not the weakling she appeared to be. She was, without any doubt, the monster who had outfoxed Kaete.

Despite this firm conviction and fear…

“…I beg you. P-please…kill me…,” Linaris begged Kaete with a sob.

“Not happening,” Kaete heartlessly told her.

A smile came to him, the corners of his mouth twitching and spasming. He was terrified.

“You think mere death is enough to atone for your deeds? Rejoice. I’m making you one of my pawns, too, until I’ve gotten every last breath out of you.”

This was the kind of good luck that never came twice.

Kaete and Kaete alone would be able to effectively utilize someone who was essentially destruction incarnate—Obsidian herself.

The means to make an inexhaustible supply of antiserum. As well as the means to spread the vampire infection as he saw fit.

With these two trump cards, unbeknownst to anyone in Aureatia, he could make overthrowing Aureatia a reality in any number of ways.

“I’ll be the one holding everything in my grasp in the end.”

Kaete the Round Table never backed down. Not as long as his ambitions propelled him forward.

However, without fail, all those who confronted Linaris the Oblivion…

Kaete used what was largely intimidation to commandeer his base from the leftover Old Kingdoms’ loyalists.

It was camouflaged to look like a private residence outside of the Tao Ninth District, and in actuality, excluding the midrange radzio and the munition storage, the facility didn’t differ much from the other homes around it.

It was a shabby base point, embodying the present state of the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists, but constructing another ambitious facility like the underground sick room for Kiyazuna the Axle was out of the question.

Caneeya the Fruit Trimming was confined to this residence after being recovered from the Obsidian Eyes manor. Her daily necessities and goods for her medical treatment were delivered via Old Kingdoms’ loyalists dispatched by Kaete.

Caneeya made a relatively quick recovery, perhaps thanks to her naturally healthy body, but she was still unable to remember the series of events that led her to being locked up underground. During the upheaval of the coup, she had laid out a plan to send an all-out attack on key points in Aureatia—and all her memories from that point had been wiped away by Linaris’s cognition manipulation.

Linaris the Oblivion was currently isolated in one of the other bedrooms in the residence.

There were black curtains on the windows to accommodate Linaris’s weakness to sunlight—buffered with weather stripping to prevent the virus from spreading. She wasn’t allowed any contact with the outside.

In the narrow rays of morning light, Linaris awoke from a nightmare.

When she got up, the thin sheets slid smoothly off her skin.

She was in so much agony, and yet because of her natural constitution, she didn’t even sweat much.

In the darkness, her mind blanky circled the same idea.

…I was supposed to die.

If she had been born the daughter of an average citizen, she would have succumbed to illness without the choice to get suitable treatment. From the very beginning, she had been born with a body meant to die.

Due to her birth, the once-grand Rehart was driven mad by suspicion and jealousy.

In order to soothe Rehart’s fear and comfort him, Linaris had desperately demonstrated her obedience.

He had died unable to trust in the love of his own daughter, right up to his last breath.

Everything was rendered meaningless.

Everything destroyed, just because of her very existence.

She had continued to fight to reject this truth, and in doing so had taken the lives of people who had no involvement with Obsidian Eyes or the flames of war whatsoever. Hartl had died, and so had Frey.

Yuno had become her friend, and Kuuro had been like an elder brother to her once, and they both had rejected her as well.

If I just had never been born in the first place…

Linaris knew that her wish to die was out of a desire to escape.

She had been highly intelligent and insightful from birth, and yet the oh-so-young Linaris never had the imagination to go with it.

Linaris was able to take the lives of a great number of faceless, nameless people. It was also precisely because she knew neither their faces nor names that she hadn’t any idea how to atone for what she had done. She wished that her quiet death would be enough to balance out the losses that were greatly disproportionate to a single person’s life.

“Sis!”

“…”

She vacantly looked toward the voice.

On the floor of the dark room, a round body with a single purple eye rolled around on the floor.

“D-do you…wish to speak with…your dad?”

It was a subunit of Mestelexil’s, tasked with surveilling everyone in the house. He had three thin legs, but the level floor made it possible to move by rolling around like this.

This unit itself didn’t have a heart of its own but was similar to a radzio transmitter, simply exchanging sight and sounds with Mestelexil—that was Linaris’s understanding.

“…My…father…?”

“Yeah!”

Mestelexil spun around in a circle.

“I love…Mama the most…in the world! You love…your dad, too, right, Sis?! Y-you…are always calling…out to…him!”

“…That’s right. But…no matter how much I call to him, he will never come back to me… As such…I cannot speak with my Father.”

“He won’t…come home?! Why?!”

Linaris stopped talking.

Father wasn’t coming home. Even if she carried out the rest of his idea, she would never get any praise for it.

He was dead.

“I wonder…”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I—I hope…you can…see him! You’d be a lot…happier…that way!”

Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge was, for some reason, friendly to Linaris.

She didn’t know if it was some lingering aftereffect of his time as a corpse or if he was simply referencing the replicated memories, but he called Linaris “Sis” and “Nice Lady” just as he did while under her control.

Within Obsidian Eyes, they had the techniques to peer deep inside the psyches of those under their control and rearrange them. In the depths of Mestelexil’s psyche was an unconditional trust in his family.

Linaris had been able to parasitically latch on to that trust in his.

A hideous and hateful feat.

“…Master Mestelexil… You’ll be appearing in the Sixways Exhibition again, yes?”

“Yup!”

Though she was almost entirely cut off from the outside world, her speculation on the current situation and her assumptions on the tendences of those involved had easily guided her to the answer. Not only Kiyazuna the Axle, but Kaete the Round Table had also staked his life on recapturing Mestelexil, signaling their aim to prop up Mestelexil as a hero candidate once more now that Rosclay’s death had shaken Aureatia’s foundations.

“Master Mestelexil, do you fight for the sake of Master Kaete? Or because your mother…because Miss Kiyazuna wishes you to do so?”

“Nope! Mama says…I’m free to do…whatever…I want! But…I like…violence! Crushing people, mashing them up, is really fun! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! That’s why…I’m helping…Kaete…of my own…free will!”

“…”

She was jealous.

If she couldn’t atone anyway, she wished she could at least enjoy the killing, the lies, and the torment she brought.

There had been a wurm by the name of Atrazek the Particle Storm. A malevolent monster who had constantly tormented the weak inhabitants in the desert.

Linaris had used Atrazek in her plot and killed him after condemning him for his sins, but compared to Linaris’s own misery, unable to even make herself happy, she couldn’t help thinking that Atrazek was far superior in this regard.

“Sis—”

The subunit’s singular eye looked up at Linaris’s profile.

“Do you…want someone…to tell you what to do? Otherwise, you can’t…fight?”

“…That’s right.”

She smiled in pain.

Mestelexil was far wiser than his words and behavior made him out to be.

In a different way from Linaris, who analyzed a person’s psyche to understand their reasoning, he excelled at calculating backward from the illogicality in another’s actions and using that to get ahold of weaknesses he could exploit in battle.

“Master Mestelexil, have you ever…found fighting…painful or difficult?”

“Nope! Why would…it be…painful?!”

“Wh-what…? Well.”

The overly direct question made Linaris confused and unsure as she searched for the answer.

“K-killing…killing someone…is the act of stomping over everything said person built up, their lives, their emotions… And well. They might have been…going through the same agony as yourself…or they may have—might have become a friend…”

Even a child learned this sort of logic. Linaris, of course, understood this obvious fact herself.

However, she had thought that she was different. As long as the other person was a minian, Linaris could never become their friend, and she thought that anyone who found out her true identity would prioritize the justice of the minian races over Linaris, just as Shirok the Sextant had.

Vampires being nothing but an enemy to the minian races was a fact of life, and she never felt it was painful or difficult to accept. Her father, Rehart himself, had been able to stain his hands with the blood of others because he believed in this commonsense fact.

Yet Yuno hadn’t betrayed her. Linaris didn’t believe she was the single unique example among the minia, either. The natural consequence then being that the potential for such a friendship had existed within all the people Linaris had killed up until that point.

“I’ve never…thought about that…complicated stuff! Don’t…try to become…friends with everything! Though, you can k-kill anyone…that gets on…your nerves! That isn’t…painful at all—and actually, really fun! ’Cause I’m…the strongest! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

“…Is that not a…? Um. A slightly violent manner of thinking…”

“Sis, can’t do it! Kaete said mean…stuff like that! That Sis…is actually super strong…but really…a coward!”

“A coward…”

“I-if we…fought…who do you think…would be stronger?! But…I’m fine…not knowing! I’m not going…to kill…you, Sis! You don’t…get in the way…at all!”

Cowardice. He was absolutely right. That had been the only way for her to live.

However—

Doing something…you don’t even want to do…because you’re supposed to…

Linaris inwardly repeated the words Yuno had desperately tried to convey to her.

There’s nothing free about any of that.

Even now, the words held her heart in a vice. She knew what Yuno was saying.

However, just like the wickedness of bringing harm to another, though she understood it in her mind, she knew she didn’t truly understand from the heart.

Mestelexil fought in the Sixways Exhibition. With a far more pure and innocent motivation than Linaris or anyone else.

It wasn’t about any righteousness or justice—or a lack thereof. It seemed to her like the most correct way of going about it.

“Master Mestelexil, please. I ask that you keep fighting for me.”

“Sure! Y-you’ll…cheer me on, too, Sis?!”

“I will.”

Wrapping herself up in the thin sheets, she flashed a lonely smile.

Linaris’s virus was mutating.

If she was capable of wielding a power that could annihilate everything, without paying any mind to anything else…

She could fight against the very world itself.

“I think I might…like to try fighting you after you win, Master Mestelexil.”

One small month after Kaete’s camp had secured Linaris the Obsidian.

Across this forty-day period, Kia the World Word was determined to have been neutralized, remaining quiet since the attack on the train. Meanwhile, Roto the Cross had infiltrated Sagasa Old Town, unbeknownst to anyone. The order from Nanal, disguised as the Queen, to temporarily repatriate the Okafu orphan evacuees was a matter that even Jelky hadn’t anticipated.

During this time, with the turmoil following Rosclay’s death beginning to subside, they had resolved to hold the eleventh match as well.

With the eleventh match at hand, the two hero candidates set to fight in it, Mestelexil and Kuze, were both employed to take on their own dangerous investigatory missions.

Mestelexil’s mission to investigate Obsidian Eyes’s base of operation was a stroke of deceptive maneuvering by Kaete the Round Table. The intention was to cover up the traces of Mestelexil’s unofficial presence in the manor by having him enter the area again as part of an official investigation.

Meanwhile, Kuze was sent to investigate the serial murders that had broken out in Sagasa Old Town.

An invisible serial killer who wasn’t reported by any witnesses, despite several seeing the crime and perpetrator with their very eyes.

The first one to notice the strange occurrences in Sagasa Old Town and task Hiroto the Paradox with investigating them was Aureatia’s Third Minister, Jelky the Swift Ink.

Aureatia was vast. A person dying was a daily occurrence.

However, the deaths and trouble in the streets, very trivial compared to concerns on a national scale, were something he needed to devote more caution to than anything else.

An unacknowledged murder that normally wouldn’t have even been seen as worth investigating at all. The Twenty-Ninth Minister was sent into the field directly based on inferences made from many rumors and testimonies, and as a result, a vampire mutant capable of airborne infection, like the parent unit of Obsidian Eyes, by the name of Roto the Cross, surfaced as the suspect.

No. True fear is far worse than this, Jelky thought as he glared at the map of Aureatia on the office wall.

Rosclay had died, and the royal palace was attacked. Given that true terror had already been let out into the world, it was practically a miracle that Aureatia hadn’t been brought to ruin from civilian unrest.

Kuze the Passing Disaster had been dispatched to handle the Sagasa Old Town matter.

Everyone else might have been able to hope that he would get the situation under control.

However, Jelky alone knew that true terror was lurking somewhere else.

Queen Sephite. The revived Demon King.

When facing true fear, a person couldn’t even manage to counteract it at all.

Serial murders. Violent death. The influence from the terror is bound to come up somewhere… Where is she?

At midday in Sagasa Old Town, there were no changes signaling some abnormal state of affairs.

The sounds of food being cooked, stringed instruments playing, and residents conversing could be heard.

Nothing at all suggested that there were murders that had yet to still be fully brought to light going on in the town.

Although he had been informed ahead of time about the abnormal goings-on in Sagasa, after seeing the actual sights for himself, Kuze first grew suspicious.

“…Is this Roto the Cross person really here in this town at all?”

Only wielding his great shield and gauntlets, Kuze’s figure could slip right into the everyday bustle of the town to some degree, even with all his equipment on hand, but it was so peaceful that even this scant amount of equipment seemed wholly out of place. On top of that was Kuze’s companion—

“THE FACT IS: SOMETHING STRANGE IS GOING ON.”

—a chimera with a body almost twice as big as a minia’s, who resembled a wolf with bluish-gray fur.

From the citizens’ perspective, he was much more the monster here, and the real abnormality around them.

“PUBLIC ORDER IN THE OLD TOWN APPARENTLY CONTINUES TO IMPROVE FOR THE BETTER. SUPPOSEDLY, THE ONLY EXPLANATION IS THAT THE CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION ACTIVE AROUND SAGASA HAS STOPPED ALL THEIR ACTIVITIES. SAGASA WAS NOT ORIGINALLY SUCH A PEACEFUL TOWN.”

The chimera was unmistakable hero candidate Ozonezma the Capricious. Defeated in the third match, from there he had been working as part of Aureatia’s fighting force.

“It is rare to see children playing by themselves in these parts of town, that’s for sure. So the fact that nothing looks wrong is already part of the strangeness, then. Other than that…I know.”

Kuze went back the way they came a bit and looked down at the riverside from the arched brick bridge.

“Yup, I knew it. There’s no one living on the streets.”

“SO THEY MOVED ELSEWHERE?”

“Usually not a great sign, to be honest. Means that they can’t live here anymore.”

“I SEE WHY YOU WERE SENT TO INVESTIGATE. BETWEEN THIS AND THE PLAYING CHILDREN, YOU ARE OBSERVING THE RESIDENTS A LOT CLOSER THAN I AM.”

“Bweh-heh-heh… Sorry to say, I don’t think I’ll be able to live up to those expectations. Not great at jobs that need me to think hard and suspect people, see… Already hard enough for me as it is knowing that people’ve died.”

On that point, cerebral Ozonezma was perfect for the role. The beastfolk had apparently collaborated with Flinsuda the Portent several times before and possessed the medical knowledge needed to respond to a vampire outbreak.

Ozonezma was dispatched on the mission in place of the hero candidate Hiroto had originally requested to help, Shalk the Sound Slicer. Shalk was seen as suited for the job due to the fact that he couldn’t be infected by the vampire virus, but the strong fighter apparently didn’t have the temperament to willingly involve himself in a peacekeeping investigation.

Furthermore, Ozonezma previously traveled back and forth between this continent and the new continent—and at first belonged to Hiroto’s camp. It was fair to say the power of his connections made it possible for Hiroto to deploy the chimera.

“Now that I think about it, this is our first time working together…even when we’re technically in the same faction and everything, too.”

“FACTION—I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT IS THE BEST WAY TO PUT IT. BOTH YOU AND I ARE NOT ACCOMPANYING HIROTO BECAUSE WE WISH TO. THOSE WHO NEED THE GRAY-HAIRED CHILD HAVE THEIR OWN AIMS. HIROTO THE PARADOX DOESN’T INTERFERE, EITHER. WE’RE IN AN EQUAL, COLLABORATIVE PARTNERSHIP.”

“In that case, what does he consider an ally?”

“THOSE WHO TAKE THE HAND HE OFFERS THEM… THOSE NOT NEEDING HIS HELP ARE SIMILARLY NOT NEEDED BY HIROTO.”

As he conversed with Ozonezma, Kuze went down to the riverside and looked for evidence that people had lived there.

Embers and containers of foodstuffs. There had been someone living under this bridge after all.

“If there was an Order branch here, I could’ve just asked around there, too.”

“I KNOW THE FULL GEOGRAPHY HERE. THERE IS NO ORDER BRANCH IN SAGASA.”

“Bweh-heh-heh… It was destroyed and consolidated into another church ages ago. Giving a hand to those who got left out of society used to be all left up to the Order, too…”

“KUZE. CAN I ENTRUST YOU WITH QUESTIONING THE CITIZENS?”

Ozonezma pointed his snout up above the bridge.

An elderly woman who appeared to be a local was just crossing over.

Kuze got up on the embankment and raised his voice.

“Excuse me, ma’am! Up there in the bridge. Would you mind if I ask you a bit about Sagasa?”

“…Oh, what is this? You are Father Kuze, with the Order, am I right? The hero candidate…”

“Ah-ha, hello, hello… I’m Kuze the Passing Disaster.”

Kuze scratched his head awkwardly.

…Having Ozonezma pop out’s going to scare her.

When he looked down at the riverbank he had climbed up from, Ozonezma was already gone. He must have hidden under the bridge to make sure none of the citizens saw him.

“I’m surprised you even recognized me. Here I thought I wasn’t that well-known.”

Since the Sixways Exhibition wasn’t supposed to be a performance of any kind, and propaganda was given tacit approval, Aureatia hadn’t publicly released any portraits or photographs in an official capacity. As such, there had been an extremely big discrepancy in name recognition between the sixteen hero candidates.

The one accompanying him for example, Ozonezma, had aimed to advance through the tournament while concealing data on his especially deadly methods of attack.

Among all of them, Kuze hadn’t even participated in an actual match yet.

Kuze was the only one who had advanced through the first round with a win by default.

“Oh please, the Order has always taken great care of my family. From the Central Kingdom days, in fact. Even since that Demon King led to our church disappearing, Sagasa has truly fallen into rough shape, let me tell you… However, when I heard that a paladin of the Order had become a hero candidate, I got into touch with some of my old acquaintances. They told me about you, Father Kuze.”

“…Is that right? Bweh-heh-heh… Nothing makes me happier than knowing I helped old friends get back in touch. Hearing that you overcame such great trials and are still doing fine is a great solace to us all.”

The Order didn’t only refer to the community that practiced the Wordmaker’s teachings.

Even if they lost their church and could no longer offer their prayers, people were still able to connect with one another. Individuals studying the same subjects, neighbors living in the same area—it was perfectly acceptable for the Wordmaker’s teachings to serve as the opportunity for connection. Just like this elder woman, one could even remember about such connections they may have had somewhere in their past, too.

“Oh, forgive me for blabbering on. You wanted to ask me something, yes?”

“Please don’t be—personally, I’d love to talk even more, but…Aureatia asked me to come out here and investigate Sagasa. Sorry to bring this up out of the blue, but were there any people living around this bridge up until recently? If you happened to know where they might’ve gone, that’d be an even bigger help…”

“Oh… Ah yes, those people. Yes, they did used to live there. I’ve heard that one was taken in by Nogui—they run the general store, mind you—and two more were taken in by Gilza at the water mill. I do not know what happened to the others, but…if I had to guess, I imagine someone else here in Sagasa is looking after them.”

“You said they ‘took them in’? None of those people were their relatives or anything?”

“That’s right. None of the people here had any kith nor kin to speak of.”

A world that built proper mutual aid between people was the Order’s very ideal.

However, it was because Kuze placed himself within the Order that he knew how this reality could never easily be realized.

Did this then mean that relatively normal merchants and citizens leading their normal lives had grown into the type of individuals who would take in those left living on the street in a spontaneous fit of goodwill?

If that really is what’s happening here…

This was an unusual change. Roto the Cross was having some sort of influence on Sagasa Old Town.

…Isn’t this strange phenomenon something to be happy about?

From the bridge, he could see what was happening in the riverside plaza.

Children were laughing and freely running all about.

Along the grassy riverbank, a senior was sitting alone, fishing.

There was a group of young men who had likely been part of the violent elements of society. They appeared to be struggling with some unfamiliar transporting work and were fixing up an old steam automobile that had broken down mid-travel with the help of a nearby resident.

Among them was a face Kuze had seen once before. If he remembered right, the massive man was someone with Sun’s Conifer.

No one was scared of anyone else. If there was a world out there where everything went perfectly well like this, then—

“…Father Kuze?”

The elder lady called out to him with concern.

“Oh, bweh-heh-heh… Sorry about that. Not used to this sort of work, so was just lost in thought a moment… Is there anything in particular that’s been troubling you lately, ma’am? Are you able to get by with peace of mind?”

“I would say so. There haven’t been any unsettling incidents lately, and everyone has been nothing but kind to me…”

To Kuze, it seemed like she was genuinely speaking her mind.

“Perhaps we have little Roto’s arrival to thank for that, too.”

…Roto the Cross.

Aureatia had concluded that a young girl named Roto was the culprit behind this series of grotesque murders.

However, if this Roto the Cross truly did exist, was she really a threat to Aureatia?

Was this simply Aureatia trying to dispose of an inconvenient presence they couldn’t control, like they did with Tu?

“Forgive me for peppering you with questions nonstop, ma’am. Did you have anywhere to be?”

“Oh my, now that you mention it, I was supposed to be heading to a tea party with a friend. Not that we have the money or the tools to actually have tea, mind you… Ha-ha-ha. Apparently, it’s always been a bit of a childhood dream for her, and she wanted to give it a shot, if only in spirit.”

“…Bweh-heh-heh. Well, that sounds grand. May the Wordmaker’s teachings always help you on your travels.”

“Thank you. I’m cheering for you from the shadows, Father Kuze. Give it all you’ve got.”

Kuze watched on as the elderly woman crossed the bridge with plodding steps.

One thing was clear to him from their conversation.

The series of strange happenings wasn’t some conspiracy or act of malice.

Roto the Cross might have been cunningly making it appear this way, but even then—Kuze felt that the Sagasa residents’ contentment wasn’t because Roto was manipulating their emotions.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK?”

Ozonezma had gotten up on the guard railing without Kuze even noticing.

He hadn’t made a single sound, perhaps because of his unimaginable flexibility despite having a massive body.

“THERE IS NO GUARANTEE SHE WAS GIVING US THE TRUTH. RIGHT NOW THE RESIDENTS OF SAGASA RECOGNIZE THERE ARE MURDERS BUT HAVE NOT PERCEIVED IT AS A PROBLEM. WE SHOULD VIEW ANY TESTIMONY AS CLASHING WITH THE FACTS OF REALITY TO SOME EXTENT.”

“…Good point. Still, that woman wasn’t being compelled by fear and forced into lying. If a person’s heart has found salvation, it might be the same either way, regardless of the realities of the situation…”

“SO SALVATION OF THE HEART OVER REAL MATERIAL RELIEF. A WAY OF FRAMING BEFITTING A PALADIN.”

“Roto the Cross is doing something the Order couldn’t. I want a chance to talk with her now… What do you think, then? Who’s got it right here, the information from Aureatia or the word of the citizens?”

“I DO NOT INTEND TO FACE THIS INVESTIGATION WITH ANY PREJUDICES. WE WILL BE ABLE TO CONFIRM FOR OURSELVES DIRECTLY WHICH SIDE IS CORRECT FROM HERE. COGNITION MANIPULATION WILL NOT WORK ON EITHER OF US… IF WE CAN CONFIRM THAT THERE IS SOMETHING GOING ON HERE, THAT WILL SHOW US MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE.”

While Kuze had received the antiserum thanks to Hiroto’s connections, apparently Ozonezma wouldn’t get infected with the vampire virus for a different reason.

Ozonezma wasn’t a naturally born chimera but a weapon very similar to a construct, manufactured after undergoing exhaustive remodeling and adjustments at the hands of the self-proclaimed demon king Izick. As a result, techniques related to disease and poison—Izick’s most knowledgeable field of Word Arts—had gone into his creation, making Ozonezma basically immune to most existing poisons and diseases.

“I don’t know about ‘confirming for ourselves,’ though…we may be able to find some evidence that can prove something’s going on, but just how are we supposed to prove that something isn’t? I mean, if Aureatia’s telling us the truth, then even if there is some incident here, it’s not causing any disturbances, and the residents themselves don’t even recognize it as abnormal, right?”

“WE SHOULD ASK FOR ROTO THE CROSS’S WHEREABOUTS. IN FACT, WHEN THE OKAFU MERCENARIES DID THEIR INVESTIGATION, THEY WERE HONESTLY TOLD WHERE SHE WAS. IF WE TRACK HER AREA OF ACTIVITY, WE CAN VERIFY IF THIS IS A MAJOR INCIDENT… AS LONG AS THE CITIZENS DON’T PERCEIVE ANYTHING TO BE ABNORMAL, THEY WON’T TRY TO COVER FOR HER OR HIDE HER FROM US.”

“When you put it that way, I guess you’re right… I screwed up, then. That old woman might’ve known something.”

“CAPITALIZE ON THAT NEXT TIME, KUZE THE PASSING DISASTER.”

“Bweh-heh-heh. Sorry for the trouble, then…”

Kuze was scratching his head with a fake smile when suddenly he stopped moving.

It took him another moment to realize something was lodged at the edge of his consciousness.

Roto the Cross is a girl. She looks around ten years old or so…and the residents don’t feel anything odd about her presence.

He turned his sights back toward the riverside plaza he could see from the bridge.

The children laughed as they played tag together.

Mixed in among them, he could see a girl with long black hair, decorated with several ribbons.

She looked like a normal girl. At the moment, she was simply chasing after another one of the children and playing among them.

“…Ozonezma.”

“I’M AWARE. I COULD TAKE HER OUT FROM HERE…”

Ozonezma’s back split apart, and countless arms sprouted out from it.

“Don’t.” Kuze hastily stopped him. “She just matches the description we have; that’s all. She might simply be a normal minian girl.”

“I CAN TELL. I EXCEL AT DIAGNOSING PHYSICAL ABILITIES. HER BODY IS THE ONLY ONE THERE THAT IS CLEARLY NOT MINIAN. REGARDLESS OF WHETHER SHE IS A MURDER SUSPECT, ROTO THE CROSS IS A VAMPIRE.”

“Even then…! What are the children going to think when their friend gets killed right before their eyes?!”

Ozonezma had diagnosed Roto as a vampire.

Irrespective of if these serial murders were happening or not, vampires needed to be exterminated no matter what.

If this vampire virus truly did spread through the air, then Roto the Cross would infect others simply by existing. She would bring about a calamity that minian society could never recover from.

Even then, he still desired to hear her out. Kuze wanted to hope.

Without waiting for Ozonezma’s agreement, he ran to the plaza where Roto laughed and smiled.

Maybe the truth is that Roto the Cross can actually coexist with us. Roto the Cross…

Vampires needed to be killed. That was the Kingdom’s rule and custom.

However, the Wordmaker’s teachings certainly didn’t say anything like that.

Whether ogres, vampires, or even monstrous constructs… As long as one has a heart that can understand Word Arts, there was no need to be afraid of one another.

“Roto the Cross!”

Running into the plaza, he called out the girl’s name.

As if it was but a continuation of their innocent play, Roto was hugging a young boy close and kissing him.

She cast a sidelong glance toward Kuze, her seductive red eyes completely at odds with her youthfulness.

“…Who are you?”

“Well, my name…is Kuze the Passing Disaster. I’m an Order paladin.”

“I know about that stuff…the Order. Someone told me all about it…”

“Did they, now…? So you’re Roto the Cross, then.”

“Hey. So Wordmaker’s teachings, they’re supposed to make everyone get along, right? That’s so wonderful. I want to love many, many people, too, and become one with them. Mwee-hee-hee… So that’s why I decided to make everyone in this town get along…”

Kuze couldn’t approach carelessly.

Roto once again held the boy in her arms tightly and kissed him.

The young boy laughed like it tickled.

Though it may not have looked like anything more than children playing, the present situation was as if a mighty predator had taken a hostage.

“Roto, what’s up?”

“Who’re you, mister? We were playing here, you know.”

“That shield’s so big! Ha-ha-ha!”

…Be careful, Kuze. Provoke her the wrong way, and these children will get wrapped up in everything.

Nastique couldn’t respond to malicious intent aimed at anyone else besides Kuze.

At the very least, Kuze needed to have her focus on himself.

“Sorry to show up outta the blue like this… I just heard rumors about you from some friends in the Order, see. They were really grateful to you now that everyone’s gotten so much kinder.”

“Nuh-uh. It’s not me. Everyone wished for it to be like that.”

Roto spun around while still holding on to the boy’s hands.

Though her clothes were similar to the flowery outfits a young aristocrat girl would wear, in actually they were simply tailored together from different scraps of fabric and tied off with ribbons in places, leaving her thin arms and legs exposed.

The crinoline used to maintain her skirt’s shape poked out from underneath, perhaps due to a lack of fabric, and it almost seemed like a part of her skeleton.

“No one really wants to hate anyone.”

“…Why do you think that?”

“That’s how I was built. I can understand everyone’s fears.”

The lone eye that poked out from the long bangs covering half her face stared hard at Kuze.

Although vampires controlled others through pheromones, it was said the back-and-forth signal happened reciprocally, establishing a type of cognitive response between vampire and corpse.

In which case, Roto may not have been lying.

Even if Roto was a vampire capable of airborne infection, it was meaningless against Kuze. Nevertheless, Kuze felt threatened, as if her faintly glowing red eyes were peering into the depths of his heart.

“…I feel bad for you, Mister Kuze.”

“Huh…? For me?”

“Mwee-hee-hee-hee. You’re scared. You’re scared that everyone will go away.”

“…Where exactly did you come from?”

There were so many things he wanted to interrogate her about. Still, he insisted on speaking with her like she was a normal child.

He couldn’t expose the children here to danger because of his own personal feelings.

“From the bottom of the desert. From drugs and glass…and a sea of blood. I was made by someone. I am the one and only krsnik…a wish born from the pain of people who continue to fear.”

He looked at Roto’s face. She wore a blissful, innocent smile.

However, she spoke in an icy tone, as if her childlike speech up until now had all been an act.

This girl…

When he thought about it, it was abnormal from the start.

This criminal had changed all the residents of the town to corpses and could cover up this whole matter at a whim, yet why didn’t she erase their memories of her? Just what sort of goal was there behind giving peace of mind to the people or erasing their fear when, to a vampire, such cognitive manipulation was as easy as breathing?

…isn’t a naturally born vampire. She’s an artificial creature…adjusted in a way that benefits minia, which is why she’s behaving like this…

“I want to save you. I love you, Mister Kuze.”

Kuze was terrified.

He knew at that moment that the one Roto was trying to kill wasn’t Kuze.

The young girl still exuded an angelic smile.

“Can I eat him?”

“Wait!”

The girl’s fingers flashed like the jaw of a fierce predator and went to gouge out the face of the child next to her.

At the very same instant, a silvery beam of light thrust in from the flank and repelled Roto’s hand.

Kuze’s quickest reaction still didn’t come until after the instantaneous clash was over.

He tried to grasp Roto’s dainty shoulder.

His eyes played tricks on him, as if he had grabbed her afterimage. She had disappeared with unparalleled speed.

“…Ozonezma!”

Shade. His monstrously huge body had descended from the sky above and gotten between Roto and the children.

The innumerable arms sprouting from his back had already fixed their aim. His silver scalpels blurred together—

There was a quick succession of sizzling sounds of the air rupturing and burning hot.

The scalpel projectiles turned into beams of silver light and hollowed out the streetlamp Roto had jumped on.

Roto was no longer there. Ozonezma’s projectile attack had cut off the streetlamp post, melting it red-hot.

“SHE’S FAST.”

Kuze understood the meaning in the chimera’s comment.

Obviously, Kuze’s attempt to catch her hadn’t worked.

Even that cannon-like throw hadn’t been fast enough to catch her.

“Ozonezma, can you chase her?!”

“THE ONLY CHOICE IS TO USE THE TERRAIN TO ATTACK HER FROM BOTH SIDES. I WANT YOU TO GO AROUND TO THE RUINS DOWNSTREAM FROM THE WESTERN HILL ROAD.”

“Got it… Watch yourself.”

“YOU TOO.”

Saying that as he departed, Ozonezma leaped with enough speed to almost disappear completely.

Kuze took a deep breath to regain all the oxygen he had lost.

The clash had happened within the realm of death itself, which Kuze had only just barely been able to fully perceive. A waterfall of sweat poured down his back.

Kuze looked at the left-behind children.

“Hey, was that a wolf just now?”

“It was really big.”

“Oh, I know, I know! Ozonezma’s one of the hero candidates! I heard he looks like a wolf!”

“Where did Roto go?”

…This isn’t normal.

There were so many children here and yet not a single one was scared.

Not of Roto trying to kill one of their own, not of Roto almost being killed, not of the appearance of Ozonezma the Capricious, and not even of the wisdom-defying battle that had unfolded right before their eyes.

Fear was the origin of exclusion and hostility, but at the same time, it was a necessary function all hearts were furnished with. The most instinctual ability to sense danger, in order to ensure a creature’s survival.

The boy who had just been held tightly by Roto and almost had his face gouged apart was already goofing around with the other children and laughing.

If we let Roto live, the whole world will end up like this.

That was why they needed to defeat her. That was what Kuze said to convince himself.

In some part of his heart, he resigned to the fact that, really, this was how things were meant to be.

A red afterimage bounded right and left through the midday city streets.

The violent gust of silver hot on its heels was Ozonezma the Capricious.

SHE CALLED HERSELF A “KRSNIK,” DID SHE? NO REGULAR VAMPIRE WOULD EVER HAVE THIS LEVEL OF PHYSICAL PROWESS.

The narrow, complicated Old Town geography worked against Ozonezma to some degree.

At their max speed, Ozonezma and Roto were likely equals. However, Roto’s small and light body was able to drastically change her acceleration and direction at will. With a massively heavier body, Ozonezma had constraints on his footing.

If Ozonezma attempted to follow Roto in the same manner, lithely bounding, kicking, and moving in all directions along the private houses and shopping arcade, at this speed, he would destroy them all, crushing them underfoot. As such, he was unable to use the most direct path available, and Roto the Cross gained a large lead on him.

He jumped. He ran. The scenery melted away, reaching speeds where he couldn’t properly see or hear anything.

He chased after Roto’s light, like an ephemeral star.

She was slower than Shalk the Sound Slicer. However, when he compared to her to Alus the Star Runner, he was unable to say for certain who was faster. That was how nimble and lightly she moved.

Ozonezma’s advantage despite his inferior speed was the ability to limit his foe’s movements and guide where she went. As he continued to trail behind her at his max speed, he once again readied his vast arsenal of scalpels.

For Ozonezma the Capricious, even unmatched techniques requiring maximum concentration could be used in parallel.

SHE PUT THE HILL AT HER BACK.

Judging the exact instant when the private residences wouldn’t be in his line of fire, he launched his blades like a silver tempest.

“Mwee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee.”

The girl with long black hair took a path with a bizarre trajectory, like a whirlwind. She evaded his attack.

Ozonezma was a weapon birthed from the hands of Izick the Chromatic, the wickedest self-proclaimed demon king the world had ever known.

Roto’s abilities were on par with his own. Something like her should not have simply appeared without any warning.

The fact that she could dodge Ozonezma’s throwing attack, their initial velocity breaking the sound barrier and easily bursting a minian body into pieces, meant that even the firearms from the Beyond couldn’t match Roto’s speed.

As their chase continued, they had slipped out of the residential area at some point, into the lowlands along the river, crowded with flooded ruins.

The smell of rotting wooden constructions. The unpaved ground was muddy, and the shabby houses were heavily warped and submerged in the water, likely due to repeated river floodings.

Ozonezma’s attacks had been meant to drive Roto to this location.

There was no need to worry about getting citizens involved if they were in a section that was uninhabitable, even if it was still within Sagasa.

It was possible that there were homeless people living here in this section as well; he was forced to consider them necessary sacrifices to eliminate Roto the Cross for good.

“…Mwee-hee-hee.”

With the tips of her bare feet sunk into the mud, Roto finally turned around.

Her posturing was adorable, with her hands held behind her back.

“Guess you caught up to me.”

She smiled.

“I JUST WANT TO TALK.”

When Roto stood about twenty meters away from him, Ozonezma, too, stopped in his tracks.

“MY NAME IS OZONEZMA THE CAPRICIOUS. I’M A WEAPON CREATED BY A SELF-PROCLAIMED DEMON KING… YOU SEEM TO BE SOMETHING SIMIL—”

Air and earth exploded.

Ozonezma hammered all his remaining scalpels and placed an attack in the trajectory of her evasion.

Together with the explosive roar, Ozonezma could sense the sound of flesh bursting apart.

“IF YOU BELIEVED THAT DIRECTLY LAUNCHING MY BLADES AT YOU WAS MY ONLY ATTACK…”

Powder smoke filled the air.

Two of Ozonezma’s myriad arms were holding muskets.

Their bullets were far slower than his laser-like projectile attacks, but by taking a roundabout route to narrow the path of her evasion, he had hit Roto. Slim fingers twirled the long gun around and around.

“…THAT’S BECAUSE I TAUGHT YOU TO THINK SO.”

“…!”

Roto’s figure was swaying. She had been shot in the thigh, and blood was flying everywhere.

A wound to that part of the body wasn’t fatal. Even against a high-angle shot that caught her completely off guard, Roto had moved to evade right before it hit.

However, the outcome was still exactly as Ozonezma had calculated.

THERE WERE TWO BULLETS. IF SHE EVADED THE BULLET AIMED AT HER TORSO, SHE WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO DODGE THE ONE AT HER LOWER BODY. I ROBBED HER OF HER MOBILITY.

“I love it… You’re actually trying…to learn about and understand me…”

He had purposefully acted to ensure that the few remaining scalpels he had left would be completely used up in this attack.

A trump card he had set aside to render the enemy unable to dodge—and create enough time to reload.

“Yagoyurgyrorok. Yogmegenyeryu. Yesgefgoyuyarg. Yayoymvyuuya. Yarhatyu.” (From Ozonezma to Aureatia earth. Shadow of queued divergence. Swimming horn. Reflected in a white line. Assemble.)

Using Craft Arts on the mud, he generated scalpels.

Now he no longer needed to narrow down the density of his throwing attacks.

He could crush her in a barrage that showed no consideration for the surroundings and kill her without giving any space to dodge—

“Mwee-hee-hee!”

The laughter came from right below him.

WHEN DID SHE—?!

Ozonezma had put close to ten meters between them.

While her original agility was one thing, it was inconceivable that she had been able to instantly close the distance while her thigh was shot through.

However.

Sensing crisis, his thoughts ran at a different speed than reality around him.

WHEN I MADE THAT FIRST SURPRISE ATTACK ON HER…

The movement she made to kill the young boy, as if on a whim, had been blocked by Ozonezma’s long-range attack.

SHE DIDN’T GUARD AGAINST IT?

A dull thud reverberated in Ozonezma’s stomach.

It resembled the tiger claw attacks in the Beyond, but the technique couldn’t even be described as a martial art.

However, those young fingers were sharp enough to pierce through Ozonezma’s armor-like fur.

The transparent red blades, like five artificial nails of polished jewels—

“Ya yumyouye. Yasreou yuchones. Yonfu gyoune.” (To Roto’s blood. Reed boat suspended in the void. Poison hair enveloping sleep.)

“…NOW YOU’VE STOPPED MOVING…!”

No matter how much raw strength Roto commanded, for Ozonezma, a wound to his stomach wasn’t lethal.

Right as he tried to cut up Roto from close range—

“Yyayuis yorainea. Yact.” (Blue moon swelling and decaying. Burst.)

Together with a popping sound, Ozonezma’s countless arms fell into disarray.

He reeled. He thought. His recognized that his stomach area had been almost entirely gouged out.

The area Roto’s fingers had dug into had exploded from within.

“Ozonezma, I think…”

“HURCK…AUGH…!”

“…I’ve fallen in love with you.”

This time, it was Ozonezma’s turn to open up space between them.

The crimson fingernails left behind a crescent moon afterimage, cutting off the arm Ozonezma attempted to counterattack with.

One of her thighs had been shot through, and yet her agility hadn’t slowed whatsoever.

That was why she had closed the distance while he replenished his arsenal. Roto hadn’t even been wounded by the rifle fire.

Ozonezma prepared himself to lose another arm into order to regain his balance. He slashed.

Roto revolved as if dancing. Ozonezma’s slashing attack veered off course from some mysterious pressure. Fingernails. With an almost vacuum-like sharpness, yet another one of his arms was cut off.

Ozonezma still hadn’t escaped the range of her fingernails.

The difference in their speed meant that he was never going to be able to escape.

WORD ARTS THAT HARDEN BLOOD.

Roto’s blood was a blade rupturing Ozonezma’s fur.

It was also armor that diverted Ozonezma’s scalpel projectiles and could block a gunshot head-on.

Roto’s claw had grabbed Ozonezma’s massive foreleg, as if trying to embrace it.

Her gemlike fingernails were also liquid. They penetrated his fur and were digging into his flesh—however, that itself was nothing but a trivial scratch on his body.

“…Hey. Let’s become one…”

NO. THESE WORD ARTS…

“Yact.” (Burst.)

A muffled, explosive boom.

His foreleg was severed and sent flying. It had ruptured from within.

The lethal series of attacks continued.

Roto used the momentum of the explosion to spin around vertically, before attempting to land a follow-up attack on Ozonezma’s neck while he was off-balance.

“NNGH, GWAAAAOR!”

Before she could strike, he kicked Roto’s light body away and sent her flying.

Only Ozonezma’s detached lower body had moved. Crawling forward with his back legs and the arms that thronged from the severed section, he had kicked Roto away with a simple command through his ganglions.

Ozonezma was a physician as well as a chimera. While he had continued to splice the bodies of organisms into his own, he had also performed self-alterations to allow him to split his body apart and still be able to act.

When his stomach section first exploded, he had self-amputated in order to counterattack.

“Mwee-hee-hee-hee-hee… That feels so good……”

She had been hit with strike powerful enough to instantly render an average child into fleshy pulp, yet Roto got back up once more. The section of her body that got hit was covered in smooth, candylike red crystal.

…MANIPULATE INTERMOLECULAR FORCE!

A blade just composed of condensed blood would normally never scar Ozonezma’s body.

However, the solidity of matter came from the strength of intermolecular bonding.

Using Force Arts specialized at making her own blood the focal point, she could produce solidity on par with dragon scale.

She permeated into him like a liquid, dug in with a rigid solid, and then once she left the tiniest scratch behind, she was able to change it into a gaseous body with sixteen thousand times the volume—and kill with an explosion from inside.

“IMPOSSIBLE TO DEFEND AGAINST…AND DELIVERING INSTANT DEATH. I SEE NOW. THIS WILL NOT BE EASY…”

The arms growing out from his half-body cross section supported his body in place of his missing forelimb.

Ozonezma was alive thanks to near immortal survivability, however, about 70 percent of other normal organisms would have been killed in the clash.

“Ya yumyouye. Tamururui chumimyum. Yuchiyas yuyety.” (To Roto’s blood. Clouds and rainbows warbled by the voiceless. Small eyes of gaping cavern.)

A massive amount of blood poured out from all over Roto’s body, staining her girlish clothes red.

“Yok yok yukmenen. Yaneopept.” (Flower face crumbling in the rain. Multiple hematopoiesis and regeneration.)

She had healed the internal bleeding and organ ruptures from his kick. It happened far too fast.

A krsnik who infected with an airborne virus of “peace.” She robbed the will to fight from everyone, and even if one did manage to battle her, as an organism, she possessed simple, raw, abnormal strength.

I UNDERSTAND WHAT SHE IS CAPABLE OF. I HAVE NO INTENTION OF LOSING IN A BATTLE OF ATTRITION, BUT…

Even if he assumed she was able to repeat hematopoiesis and regenerate infinitely, there wasn’t anyone who could rival Ozonezma when challenged by his physical capabilities. Regardless of how terrifying an organism Roto may have been, she still only had the abilities of a single creature.

Still, Ozonezma felt that he hadn’t been getting hit with Roto’s attacks up until now simply because seeing her Word Arts for the first time had surprised him. He got the sense that he was unable to perceive any indication she would attack and was delayed in responding to each move she made.

“Ozonezma! Are you all right?!”

He then heard a voice.

Kuze the Passing Disaster. He was heading toward Ozonezma, paying no heed to the mud soiling the bottom of his clothes.

Ozonezma had lured Roto to this area from the very start. Ozonezma had formulated a strategy to have Kuze, with his inferior mobility, come from the opposite direction in a pincer attack. However.

“DO NOT COME HERE, KUZE THE PASSING DISASTER!”

“You don’t have to worry about me! What’re we supposed to do now?!”

“THAT IS NOT IT! YOUR INSTANT DEATH CANNOT KILL THIS ENEMY!”

A smiling Roto once again closed the distance to Ozonezma with terrifying speed.

A straight line tracing her movement was carved into the muddy swamp huddled with ruins.

Throw. Throw. Slash, parry, slash, slash.

Ozonezma’s waylaying attack, using the full extent of his ability to process things in parallel, was not in response to any indication of an incoming attack.

“SHE HAS NO HOSTILITY.”

Roto herself had said that right from the start.

It wasn’t that her behavior was inconsistent with what she claimed; she was attacking and preying on others who had genuine goodwill.

Superb warriors capable of seeing the signs of hostility and responding in kind, would instead be struck without warning by her ultra-fast attacks, dying completely off guard.

Claws and scalpels. The slashing attacks entangled with each other at point-blank range, like a gust of wind.

Ozonezma continued to meet the nonstop offense at unbelievable speeds, not through prediction but reaction.

“KUZE! CALL AUREATIA FOR BACKUP…! CALL FOR SHALK THE SOUND SLICER!”

“…”

Kuze didn’t answer. Instead, he turned his back to Ozonezma.

He stared hard in that direction. He was flustered.

“…Why?” Kuze murmured in a quavering voice.

Ozonezma was locked in an unworldly hand-to-hand clash. He couldn’t afford to spare any attention in that direction.

Nevertheless—

“Wait, Roto? What’re you doing in a place like this?”

“Ha-ha-ha, playing in the mud, Roto?”

“Geez, Roto, look at your clothes! They’re filthy!”

“Mom! Look at that huge wolf!”

“Rotooo! Ah-ha-ha-ha!”

“IMPOSSIBLE!”

—the clamorous voices that trickled to him mid-combat echoed with abnormal clarity in his ears.

Ozonezma had lured Roto to these downstream ruins at the start to prevent the residents from getting wrapped up in everything.

Yet right now, the Sagasa residents were beginning to gather here, not perceiving the danger.

Since he had been coping with powers different from a regular vampire, it had had his imagination—

There was no reason to assume Roto couldn’t use the powers of vampire.

All the Sagasa residents were infected—and Roto the Cross’s pawns.

“Stop, everyone! Don’t go over there!”

“Nuh-uh! Everyone, come here! Let’s all be one together!” Kuze shouted. Even a brawny paladin couldn’t stop dozens of regular residents by himself.

The Sagasa residents didn’t feel fear. They obeyed Roto’s behavioral commands and jumped into the vortex of carnage.

With instantaneous judgment, Ozonezma halted the slash meant to keep Roto in check.

A smiling child forced their way in between them. Their head burst.

Roto’s claws sliced off one of Ozonezma’s arms, catching the child’s head in the process.

“DAMN YOU…!”

“Mwee-hee-hee-hee! Ya yumyouye. Yasreou yuchones. Yonfu gyoune.” (To Roto’s blood. Reed boat suspended in the void. Poison hair enveloping sleep.)

Roto grabbed the arm from the child’s scattered body in midair.

Like a club with joints, the child’s upper arm thrashed Ozonezma.

“Yyayuis yorainea. Yact.” (Blue moon swelling and decaying. Burst.)

She made the blood flowing backward through the minian blood vessels explode, blocking Ozonezma’s line of sight in a bloody mist.

With Ozonezma’s superb sensory organs, he still maintained a grasp on the situation.

Of the slash attack from both of Roto’s arms and the residents huddling together as if deprived of all free will.

They were happy. They were all going to die in bliss.

“Stop! Please, Roto, don’t do this…!”

Ozonezma could hear Kuze’s heartrending screams from beyond the throng.

There were too many of them. Even with Ozonezma’s capabilities, he would eventually be unable to cope with the attacks.

Ozonezma was a physician. However, he wasn’t a minian physician—just as he had done in the past, if it was necessary, he wasn’t going to hesitate.

“Grrrr, nrrrauuuugh!”

His myriad arms grabbed the residents and used them as shields against Roto’s slashes.

Using a rib he had pulled out in place of a scalpel, he thrust it toward Roto.

Brandishing someone’s ankle, he slammed their skull at her.

Her blood armoring made the skull burst. Either that or her claws had effortlessly cleaved it apart.

Roto’s small form endlessly skipped in every direction, using the people’s bodies for footing.

Each time her feet touched down, a person would burst apart like a water balloon and cloud Ozonezma’s line of sight.

Red claws. Word Arts. Innumerable arms. Blood.

He avoided the fatal moment. And again. He needed to continue to evade.

“Ozonezma…! Don’t kill them! They’re all innocent people!”

I UNDERSTAND.

There was something Ozonezma realized after Soujirou confronted him with the truth.

Ozonezma’s true nature really was that of a monster.

Absolutely nothing had changed about him from the time when Izick first created him, killing champions in an attempt to challenge the Demon King for years on end.

However, the time he spent traveling with Olukt was the only time he had been able to delude himself into believing he had a virtuous heart.

Even now he chased after the illusion he saw back then and tried to save others.

WE MAY HAVE BOTH BEEN CREATED BY IZICK, BUT I AM DIFFERENT FROM TU THE MAGIC.

Ozonezma the Capricious was destined to continue his betrayals, betraying his own wish.

Since in the end, in order to save others, he had chosen a method that killed them.

I WAS BORN WITHOUT BEING ENTRUSTED WITH ANY WISHES OR DESIRES, AS A WEAPON.

The nightmarish slaughter was over.

The thick fog of bloody mist had cleared, and both Ozonezma and Roto had survived.

The only ones left standing among the crowded group of residents were four children whom Kuze had seized in his arms.

The children were smiling.

Roto was seated on top of a crumbling house pillar, outside of Ozonezma’s attack range.

“…YOU’RE NOT GETTING AWAY.”

Ozonezma snarled as blood poured out from all parts of his body.

The distance between them was twenty-three meters. Ozonezma determined that, even when accounting for Roto’s speed, he had enough of a reprieve to adjust his stance before she approached.

He reattached the lower half of his body he had amputated. A great number of his arms had been cut off, and his forelimb had exploded, but the injuries weren’t serious enough to prevent him from continuing the fight.

He also now understood the enemy’s behavioral pattern. If he didn’t make any considerations for the lives of outsiders to their fight, Ozonezma could continue fighting Roto until she ran out of stamina.

“Hey, I wanna talk. I like talking about the Wordmaker…”

Roto sat down atop the pillar despite being in the middle of combat. Hugging one of her knees close, the other kicked her pale bare foot back and forth.

Ozonezma considered replenishing the stock of scalpels he had used up in the melee from before and sniping at her from afar—however, she might have been tempting him into creating that opening. He couldn’t get a read on any forewarnings to what her intentions were. He observed for any indication of movement.

“I HAVE NOTHING TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT. Yagoyurgyrorok. Yogmegenyeryu. Yesgefgoyuyarg.” (From Ozonezma to Aureatia earth. Shadow of queued divergence.)

“Is that because you think I’m dumb?”

Her tone rang cold, unlike her previously childish and fawning voice.

An alluring smile, as if created to charm anything and everything.

“Hey… You believe I’m just a monster without any thinking heart of my own, don’t you…?”

“Yayoymvyuuya. Yarhatyu.” (Swimming horn. Reflected in a white line. Assemble.)

“Ozonezma! Run!”

Kuze’s shout made Ozonezma realize.

No matter how dangerous, threatening, and enchantingly beautiful, he should not have let himself be captivated by Roto.

Their melee from moments prior ended with Roto putting far more distance between them than she had before—a distance that normally would only result in facing one-sided long-range fire.

She retreated.

Roto the Cross wasn’t only limited to attacking. She could control others.

Ozonezma should have been watching the sky.

Through the bloody mist, Ozonezma had seen it.

A blazing, brilliant star, radiant even in the scarlet daytime sky.

He knew this attack. It was hard to believe.

Roto the Cross could control others. She had gained control over all the residents in Sagasa Old Town.

However, how far did this control spread through airborne infection actually reach?

The red eyes stared hard at Ozonezma. She was taking aim.

“Horizon’s Roar…”

The arrow fell like a star.

The arrow that landed right on Ozonezma’s coordinates gouged, dissolved, and destroyed everything in its straight path.

“You’re saying Mele the Horizon’s Roar…attacked an urban area…?”

Jelky the Swift Ink couldn’t summon any further words after receiving the report in his office.

A tragedy that should have never come to pass.

“There is no mistaking it, sir. The ruins in the lower basin of the Sagasa River were annihilated from the arrow he shot. Ozonezma the Capricious, engaged in combat with Roto the Cross, took a direct hit… Everything on-site has dissolved to nothing, so we have no way to get confirmation, but he is mostly dead…!”

“…She wasn’t just a serial killer. I’m designating Roto the Cross…a self-proclaimed demon king. For Mele the Horizon’s Roar…there is still a chance it was a simple accident. Deferring judgment…”

Jelky gave his orders with a sour look. However, inwardly, Jelky himself had mostly given up as well.

Mele was, without a doubt, one of Roto’s corpses. They couldn’t prepare an antiserum that could circulate through his colossal body.

Contrary to Jelky’s intention to use the Sixways Exhibition to annihilate all threats, Aureatia continued to screen and filter said threats. The power to destroy any threat that could be controlled by a sponsor or the Kingdom.

Ozonezma the Capricious.

Kuze the Passing Disaster.

Uhak the Silent.

Shalk the Sound Slicer.

Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge.

Mele the Horizon’s Roar.

Jelky had previously been of the mind that if such individuals were to remain alive along with the True Hero, and they could serve as a deterrent toward any other threat the world may face, it might have been best to overlook their existence.

However, it was the champions who seek to exorcise such threats who will eventually go mad and use that power to destroy miniankind.

They had seen any number of such examples during the age of the Demon King.

“…Is there nothing we can do?”

Mele the Horizon’s Roar was infected—there was an even more frightening reality.

Jelky looked at the map of Aureatia on the wall.

The gigant village on the northern edge of Aureatia was as far from Sagasa Old Town as anything in the city.

What it signaled was a hopeless fact. That everything they did was already too late.

Rosclay had died, and the royal palace was attacked. Given that true terror had already been let out into the world, it was practically a miracle that Aureatia hadn’t been brought to ruin from civilian unrest.

“Everyone is infected…”

A miracle had happened.

A world where not a single person felt fear was coming.

She possessed hyper-versatile blood that could become both a deadly weapon and an indestructible shield.

She acquired an infection route under minian hands that had undergone an impossible mutation.

As the final variant species, her transcendent speed and intellect afforded her few equals across all of recorded history.

Arriving at the extremes of wishes and prayers—and spreading rampant: the love of an ideal world.

Idol. Krsnik.

Roto the Cross.

Leisha and the others took a long carriage ride, like when they had left Aureatia for Okafu.

The benefactor who had accommodated the Order children, Queen Sephite, accompanied them some of the way.

Sephite was very kind during the entire trip, and smelled so lovely whenever she got close, and always had perfect posture, and she was prettier, too, even if Leisha hated to admit it.

“How is it living in the Order, Leisha?”

The question had come when they were staying in a town in the east of Okafu.

The next day, Sephite would part ways from Leisha’s group on the way back to Okafu.

She was going to continue her courtesy visits to other towns for a little while. Leisha thought it sounded really tough.

“I’m sure it must be very lively and fun living with other kids your age.”

“Nuh-uh, not at all! They are so annoying… I mean, there are so many kids with terrible manners, and I wish they’d all behave properly just like you, Queen Sephite.”

“No one is born with good manners, you know. Both you and all the other children are still in the middle of learning all sorts of things… Whatever mistakes you or the other children may make, you’ll always be forgiven.”

Hearing such an upstanding person like Sephite say that made Leisha really embarrassed about who she normally asked, even if Sephite didn’t mind.

Really, Leisha was still just as much a child, too.

It had been an honor simply to have the Queen come to chat with poor orphans like them, and Leisha should have been satisfied with that alone, yet instead she answered Sephite’s kindness with her selfishness—and even broke into tears, too.

The other children, meanwhile, even the ones much younger than Leisha, never cried at all, despite how much hardship and loneliness they were feeling.

“…What about you, Queen Sephite?” Leisha quietly murmured.

Sephite was the exact same age as Leisha and the others, and yet…

“Have you already gotten past that ‘middle’?”

“…No.”

Sephite squinted her eyes, seeming a bit sad and conflicted as she looked at Leisha.

“I’m in the middle, too. I have to become a lot wiser, and a lot kinder to so many more people, or I’ll never become the version of myself I want to be.”

“But…Queen Sephite, you’re already so wonderful. I can’t believe that you’re still not how you want to be.”

“…Tee-hee-hee. Everyone’s still in the middle—even after they become adults or, in your case, become independent from the Order—as long as they still have a dream. So you’ll start to change, too, to follow your dream.”

“Thank you very much…”

After she had unconsciously bowed her head to Sephite, her words began to circulate through Leisha’s head.

If their studying was never going to be over, when would Leisha and the others then become adults?

If “not yet” and “someday” were going to continue on from here, then wouldn’t that mean the day was never going to come?

“Queen Sephite, I…I want to marry Father Kuze. Not after I become an adult or anything—I want to marry him as soon as possible. Everyone, especially the boys, laugh at me whenever I say stuff like this, but…is it really that weird?”

“…Can you tell me more about that, Leisha?”

Sephite’s porcelain white hand took Leisha’s fingers.

Though they were both girls, the warmth and sensation made Leisha’s heart race.

“Well, I want to become Father Kuze’s wife and live together…and make him dinner, do his laundry, and shave his beard for him. I’ve changed a lot about myself. I’ve practiced a lot, and I make myself look pretty every day so I can be a good match for him… I’ve tried really hard, so I could become his wife even tomorrow.”

Some distant future wasn’t good enough.

It wasn’t empty talk or some dream she irresponsibly blabbed about—she genuinely loved Kuze.

“When will this ‘middle’ part actually be done? Even if I want it to be over right now, am I supposed to fix that selfishness…and keep studying hard and changing myself forever, or else our dreams are never going to come true?”

“Well…”

Queen Sephite faltered for the first time.

Sephite had always been so bright and levelheaded, and this was the first time Leisha had seen her hesitate with her words.

“Yes, that’s true… While you may still be midway through so much, the person you are right now is yours and yours alone, after all. I’m certain there some things that…you’ll regret if you wait until you’ve changed.”

Sephite spoke deliberately, still holding Leisha’s hand, as if meditating on something.

“Queen Sephite? I’m going to go tell Father Kuze how I feel.”

“Of course.”

“That I want him to stop this hero stuff, be together with me, live in a tiny house…”

“Yes.”

“…and be happy.”

A child’s dream. The kind that perhaps would only be entertained when someone was midway through life, with still so much yet to learn…

Nevertheless, an earnest dream.

“Leisha…Leisha. Be sure to tell him all that, okay?”

Leisha felt herself being embraced. Long white hair wrapped around Leisha.

She felt like her true heart was being conveyed through their body warmth.

Leisha wanted to convey her heart to Kuze, too.

The arrow from Mele the Horizon’s Roar that erased the ruins in the lower Sagasa basin had targeted Ozonezma with precision.

The belief was that Kuze that Passing Disaster had once again been able to avoid the destructive calamity, right after surviving the clash between Kia and Uhak on the North-South Railway, because of the precision targeting Mele had on Ozonezma alone.

However, there were none in Aureatia who had a full grasp of the conditions at the time, even after carrying out their survey of the aftermath.

Kuze had only been a mere ten meters removed from the impact point where Ozonezma had stood.

He wasn’t the only one either; the four children he protected had all survived without any serious injuries at all.

Nobody knew that an impossible miracle, like the divine protection of the angels themselves, had occurred.

Kuze requested to appear in the eleventh match, scheduled for the following day.

Kuze was having a talk with his sponsor, Hiroto the Paradox in the Aureatia branch of Okafu’s Dignitary Parlor.

“The Health Ministry has requested you be admitted for testing, but we’ve confirmed you haven’t been infected with Roto’s virus. We will be able to hold the match. If that is what you wish.”

“Of course I’m appearing in the match. If I don’t, there’s no point to being the only survivor…”

Uhak the Silent. Tu the Magic. Yaniegiz the Chisel. The people of Sagasa Old Town who perished before his eyes.

Kuze had been entirely helpless in the face of their tragedy. He hadn’t even been able to defeat Aureatia’s enemy.

He hadn’t a scratch on him, and yet he felt exhausted.

I’m doing this…Nastique. Don’t stop me.

He had to have suffered enough by now. He wanted to finish his final job.

Kuze’s continued survival was fate.

“Besides, there’s no need to hospitalize me at this point… I-I’ve had enough tests to last a lifetime already. I haven’t broken a single bone. I can fight, just as scheduled.”

His opponent in the eleventh match was Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge. The venue was the castle garden theater.

The match was already widely known to everyone, and Aureatia was pulling out all the stops ahead of the first officially sanctioned Sixways Exhibition match in a long while, but if he asked Hiroto the Paradox, he could probably contradict that very logic itself.

“I have made requests to Kaete the Round Table, but there is no reason for his side to show any considerations toward your safety. I recommend that you prepare a means to immediately signal your surrender, depending on the nature of Mestelexil’s attacks.”

“Bweh-heh-heh… I must really be pitiful. Here I was hoping you’d at least believe I had a shot, Mr. Hiroto.”

“…Fair enough. I do think that there is a possibility that your powers of instant death can actually kill Mestelexil and his endless regeneration. It is also true that the further you advance through the tournament, the more advantageous concessions you will be able to get from Aureatia. I promise to carry out my pledge to you.”

Kuze realized that there was hint of consolation in Hiroto’s words.

It’s not going to be easy… I get it, I get it.

A loss in this match didn’t guarantee he was going to die. If he was neutralized by a nonlethal weapon of Mestelexil’s, as one example, he could be defeated without dying.

However, if Kuze were to win, it guaranteed that Mestelexil would die. It would mean that one of Aureatia’s trump cards, Mestelexil, had been eliminated by Kuze, under Hiroto’s banner. The discord between Aureatia and the Gray-Haired Child would sink into an even greater quagmire, and it would become more difficult for Hiroto to realize the promises he made.

As a result, Kuze couldn’t trust Hiroto.

“Mr. Hiroto…why didn’t you stop Aureatia from bringing the children here?”

“…”

“A temporary repatriation by the special discretion of the Queen… That’s got to just be Aureatia’s excuse, right?”

“…Forgive me. Both Maqure and I did everything in our power, but we couldn’t stop an order from the Queen. However, even within Aureatia, since the children were once entrusted to Okafu, Okafu mercenaries and my own goblin soldiers will keep them safe. I promise you.”

“So I can head into my match with total peace of mind? You can’t be seriously trying to tell me that. Mr. Hiroto, up until now, you’ve suggested that I shouldn’t appear in my match… So where do your own intentions fall here?”

“My own intentions, you say…”

Hiroto’s calm face moved ever so slightly.

The Gray-Haired Child. What was his own desire? What did he want?

Kuze had maintained this cooperative relationship with Hiroto for a long time, but the man had been an incomprehensible entity from the very beginning.

Despite that, he had never tried to meet halfway and understand the man right up until the end.

Perhaps it was because, even if he did understand why he couldn’t do that—carry out the teachings of the Wordmaker even children knew about—it would only bring him pain.

Hiroto had always been someone he needed to betray.

“My wish is the wish of my constituents, free of any coercion, situational or personal… I promise you that, to the best of my abilities, I will work to hold the match under impartial conditions. This is all the final confirmations I needed from you. Thank you very much for your time.”

“…Hey, Mr. Hiroto.”

When he stood up from a chair, a question pushed itself out of Kuze’s mouth.

The words that came next were unnecessary. If the Order’s plan failed, everything would have been for naught.

However, before their parting, was there any problem with getting a single bit of proof that he had trusted Hiroto?

If he was wrong here, then it meant that Kuze had been truly incapable of understanding Hiroto right up to the end.

“You’ve already realized I’m hiding something from you, right?”

“That’s right,” Hiroto replied calmly, with his eyes still cast down at the table.

“You know, I could be trying to deceive you in the worst way possible here.”

“I won’t pry any further.”

Now that Hiroto had stood up, Kuze couldn’t see what sort of expression he was making with his face downcast.

Still, for some reason, he got the feeling Hiroto was smiling.

“…We’re friends, aren’t we?”

He decided to walk the streets of Aureatia with no real destination in mind.

The following day, Kuze would appear in his match and kill the Queen.

The town around him, ignorant of that fact, was almost mysteriously peaceful.

The citizens were wildly excited about the Sixways Exhibition. The bars were filled with laughter, couriers were running this way and that in a frenzy, and somewhere far in the distance, someone was launching fireworks. Anyone and everyone was talking about the upcoming match.

For the matches up until now, there had been a vague savagery and apprehension to it all. Now most of the citizens seemed to be looking forward to the match with pure hope and anticipation.

“Please continue with the Sixways Exhibition,” was it…?

Kuze had also heard Rosclay the Absolute’s dying words to the people.

As if a curse cast with his last breath, the Sixways Exhibition had yet to unravel.

Up until about one small month ago, there had been campaigns by the people to stop the Sixways Exhibition, as well as one distressing event after another from those trying to assassinate Soujirou for killing Rosclay, those attempting copycat attacks on the royal palace, or those who committed suicide to follow Rosclay into death.

Looking at Aureatia now, it seemed like the nonstop chaos at the time had never happened at all.

“Bweh-heh-heh… Sure is peaceful…”

The shops and newspaper stands involved with the Sixways Exhibition were all shouting the names of the combatants in tomorrow’s match to draw in customers, but not a single person paid Kuze any mind. Without his gauntlets or great shield, he looked like a normal citizen walking the streets. While he figured there were several accurate photographs of the hero candidates going around, even if anyone had come across them, they probably wouldn’t guess that an exhausted and lifeless middle-aged man was the hero candidate himself.

This is all for the best, really.

To a majority of the people in Aureatia, their first impression of Kuze the Passing Disaster wouldn’t be as the hero candidate who won the fifth match by default but as the heinous criminal who assassinated the Queen in the eleventh match.

The less people that came to like Kuze, the better.

“Father Kuze.”

Yet there was someone who picked Kuze out and stopped him.

Long blond hair, with part of it braided behind her. Charming, intelligent eyes.

He hadn’t even needed to check her appearance to know—her voice was more than enough.

“…Leisha.”

He was astonished. It felt as if all the crowds in Aureatia had come to a halt.

How did she manage to find him?

He hadn’t intended to see any of the children who had returned to Aureatia.

Kuze feared that, despite resolving not to let anything affect his heart, as soon as he came into contact with the children’s innocent smiles and tearful faces, his determination might waver.

“Father Kuze!”

Kuze caught Leisha in his arms as she came rushing over.

His black robe became damp with teardrops.

“That’s right; it’s Leisha. I came back a full four days ago. F-Father Kuze…why didn’t you come to see everyone? We’ve wanted to see you the whole time…!”

“Bweh-heh-heh… Sorry. I had work to do for Aureatia…investigating this, questioning so-and-so, and well, I couldn’t get away.”

He was lying.

He had used the incident in Sagasa Old Town as an excuse to keep himself from facing the children.

The Roto the Cross affair, where several children the same age as Leisha and the others had died.

“Th-that’s not…the reason why, is it?”

Leisha didn’t seem angry, but more worried.

“Th-there’s just no way…you wouldn’t send us a letter or anything while we were here, no matter how busy you were, I just know it. I said to the others…that you had to have some reason…and that you would be sure to come see us before the match…”

Leisha was a clever, compassionate girl.

Though Kuze was supposedly the adult here, he knew she was being considerate of him, without whining or acting spoiled.

From there, she took responsibility for what she had said and came to find him.

“Th-there’s still time. Father Kuze, come with me. I came in a carriage… From here we can go back to where the others are…”

“Leisha. That carriage of yours—”

Kuze assumed the carriage on the opposite side of the street had been the one that carried Leisha.

He hardly believed that a child’s feet could’ve found Kuze across Aureatia’s vast borders.

Someone that would have known that Kuze would be passing through here around this time.

“—who readied it for you?”

“What? Um… Someone really important in Okafu…who’s always helped us out… He’s about the same age as us, with gray hair…”

The Gray-Haired Child.

Hiroto the Paradox granted whatever was asked of him. An ally to anyone, chaotic, and who never pried further.

Surely there must have been some benefit to granting Leisha’s innocent wish.

As he gently hugged her tiny body, Kuze gritted his teeth.

Did you really think…really think, after all this, you could stop me…? With a stunt like this?

Ever since Kuze had taken victory over Tu the Magic, he could no longer stop. Like a watch whose tiny parts no longer locked together, he continued to creak onward.

“I might kill the children.”

“I might end up doing that to protect everything else within the Order.”

“I’m so full of loathing, I want to kill absolutely everything in the world.”

He had a hunch. The day would come when he could no longer keep Nastique under control.

That was why he wanted to shoulder this futureless martyrdom.

He had wanted to at least commit a sin for salvation while he still had goodness in his heart.

“…Leisha.” Kuze spoke in a low tone to Leisha, still holding her close in his arms. “Why did you leave Okafu?”

“Well…o-of course I did! Everyone says…th-that…you’ll be fine, but… And that even if you fight…you won’t die no matter what, but—but still…!”

Leisha practically screamed as she spoke.

“You might die…! I’ve—I’ve worked really hard so you’ll be happy someday! Because I love you! But if you die, that someday won’t ever come…!”

“Is that right? Bweh-heh-heh… Ah, Leisha, you’re just too stupid.”

“Father Kuze…?”

Kuze continued to hug Leisha tightly.

Even as Leisha grew confused and let out labored breaths, he gradually strengthened his hold on her.

With a devilishly savage grin, he continued.

“You really don’t know anything, Leisha. From the very start, you were never going to grow into an adult, never going to be a bride.”

“Huh…?”

“You don’t know the original reason why…all of you had to flee from Aureatia, do you? No, you carelessly stroll back here, bweh-heh-heh… Saved me a lot of trouble, really… The thing is—children’s organs? They go for a whole lot of money.”

Kuze didn’t ease up.

He held her tight. With his whole body, he felt the sensation of bones creaking.

To etch fear into her. To ascertain her final feelings of affection.

“Augh…koff… F-Father Kuze…you’re hurting me…”

“Why do you think the talk about the foster parent we found for you…suddenly went away? Why do you think those guys who attacked the almshouse came in the first place? Why do you think…?”

Did they really think he would stop now?

“…No one in the Order can ever be happy?”

“…F-Fa…ther…Kuze…I…”

He could tell a hot liquid like blood was tracing his jaw.

Tears. It took him so long to even realize it.

He was crying as he smiled.

However, she wouldn’t see this terrible face of his.

Nor would he see what sort of terrible despair Leisha currently showed on her adorable face.

Kuze was hugging Leisha—too close for Leisha’s face to be visible.

Choking, Leisha’s consciousness began to fade. Kuze could feel the strength leave her body.

“Bweh…bweh-heh-heh, heh… You’re really stupid, Leisha…”

The true fool was…

The true villain was…

“I can’t believe you fell in love with a bad guy like me…”

In the abandoned underground aqueduct ruins, there was a sickroom for Kiyazuna the Axle.

The hidden room was carved out from the wall of the aqueduct with extremely high-level Craft Arts.

Kiyazuna the Axle had been seriously injured when trying to take back Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge and continued to receive medical treatment here, away from the eyes of anyone else.

The brutal self-proclaimed demon king, who had been more vivacious than anyone even a quarter of her advanced age, now couldn’t even raise herself up in bed.

“M-Mama! I’m going…to appear…in a match!”

Mestelexil’s subunit hectically rushed around the room.

“Heh, that right…?”

The short reply was all she gave back to Mestelexil, but it was plenty.

This subunit, a spherical body with thin insectoid legs, wasn’t an idea that Kiyazuna had given Mestelexil. It was evidence of his growth.

Mestelexil had grown capable of creating this type of advanced communication terminal in order to stay by Kiyazuna’s side while his movements were under constant surveillance by Aureatia. The communication between the subunit and Mestelexil’s main body utilized an encryption technology that was clearly distinct from radzio communication, the primitive wireless technology of their current civilization.

“I-if I win, Mama will…get to be…fixed up, right?!”

<…Quiet, Mestelexil; how many times do I have to repeat myself?>

Kaete’s voice cut into the transmission.

<Grams, don’t worry. Luck’s on our side.>

Kiyazuna didn’t want to admit it, but Kaete’s brilliant work exceeded her expectations.

Willfully returning Aureatia despite rebelling against them, and without any shred of trust to his name, Kaete then immediately obtained an opportunity to prove Mestelexil’s utility with the subjugation of the World Word.

Securing the trump cards that would serve as a means to regain his lost military forces—Caneeya the Fruit Trimming and Linaris the Obsidian—couldn’t have merely happened because he was blessed with good luck.

This insatiable greed grabbed any chance that presented itself to him and held on tight.

Kaete the Round Table may have been a piss-poor disciple who was still inexperienced in a lot of areas from Kiyazuna’s perspective, but this greed was his sole unique talent that surpassed even Kiyazuna.

That held true for the eleventh match, too.

<Kuze the Passing Disaster is plotting something and using this match to do it.>

“Huh?! Is that…true…Kaete?!”

<Hmph. Never thought that far, did you? In any case, the man went out of his way to negotiate with Grasse the Foundation Map to produce an opponent to fight. Unless the man’s just suicidal, it’s safe to assume his goal was to ensure the match itself happened. The cowards in Aureatia don’t seem to be proactive about disposing of him, either.>

“But…why would he do…something like that?! He is…b-bound to lose…if he fights me!”

<That’s right. He knows that his power of instant death doesn’t have any effect on you. You’re sure about that, right, Mestelexil?>

“Y-yup! W-we’ve fought…before! I was…just fine!”

Presently, only Obsidian Eyes and Kiyazuna’s camp knew about the clash that happened right before the eighth match, when Mestelexil tried to drive Kuze away and prevent his arrival at the arena.

Aureatia’s position was that there was a high chance that Kuze’s instant death wouldn’t have an effect on Mestelexil’s immortality, but Kiyazuna’s camp knew it wouldn’t work from actual combat results. It was a big difference.

From Aureatia’s perspective, Kuze was a heavy underdog in the eleventh match, but to Kiyazuna’s camp, their victory was a guarantee.

<Kuze himself should know that, too. No telling if he has some scheme that’ll come from outside the arena that makes use of the audience, or perhaps he’s planning to make some pitiful speech… In any case, I suggested the idea that he has something up his sleeve. I’ve gotten approval to kill him if he makes any treasonous moves during the match.>

“Cripes, just as…koff, cheeky as ever, ain’t ya…?”

Kiyazuna smiled. Kaete wasn’t thinking at all about Aureatia or its best interests.

However, if something would help him win and defeat his enemies, he wouldn’t hesitate to use any means at his disposal.

<Don’t push yourself to talk, Grams. Heard more than enough of your lectures.>

“Hey, Kaete?! Can I…kill Kuze?!”

<Priority’s still to just disable him. Outrageous that we’re the stronger ones and need to hold back, but this match’ll be in the castle garden theater with the audience watching. We have to consider the image we’re giving to the mindless unwashed masses—that said, Mestelexil, you need to judge for yourself, too. The loss of Kuze will cause our value to rise in proportion… If Kuze does anything suspicious, don’t hesitate to end him.>

“D-don’t…worry! I will win…super fast!”

<Hmph. That’s right. Don’t give him any time to act at all. Right at the start of the match, use high-density desflurane or a directional sonic weapon to disable Kuze the Passing Disaster. Kuze’s instant death ability can’t counter an attack that doesn’t use deadly force.>

A thought came to Kiyazuna as she observed Kaete and Mestelexil’s back-and-forth.

Kaete, you little brat. Went and grew up, did ya…?

Mestelexil was a construct furnished with Word Arts and a heart, but for a long time, he’d never had a proper conversion with anyone besides his creator, Kiyazuna the Axle.

Kiyazuna remembered when they had first arrived in Aureatia, Kaete was completely unable to control him. Mestelexil himself looked down on Kaete for being so arrogant, despite being far weaker than himself.

Right now, though, Kaete seemed to have established some form of a trusting relationship with Mestelexil. Ever since Kiyazuna had been confined to bed, Kaete didn’t merely keep on going—he had gotten even stronger.

Kiyazuna didn’t have any concerns for Mestelexil’s development. He continued to exceed her expectations ever since he chose to let go of the enchanted blasting sword during his battle with Toroa the Awful.

Kiyazuna the Axle had been laid low; that was true. However, she wasn’t defeated.

She still had her disciple—and her son—left in this world.

You better win, Mestelexil. Kaete…

She didn’t have the stamina to waste on this meaningless encouragement.

That said, she didn’t think she needed to say it out loud to convey her message, either.

You two are just getting started here…

In the front row of the spectator seats that encased the open arena of the castle garden theater, there was a seat for guests of honor.

It was a special seat for important guests to spectate the events held in the castle garden theater, but when Royal Games were held, needless to say, the only one allowed to sit there was the royal governing the Kingdom.

Nanal felt almost dizzy looking up from the seat at the preposterous numbers in the audience.

Even during her short time as Queen Sephite’s body double, she had given speeches in front of groups of people, but she had never stood in front of so many before. It seemed as if most of the minian population was smushed into the castle garden theater at that moment.

She had just returned to Aureatia after her courtesy tour around the cities and towns in each of the different regions. The eleventh match’s date had been scheduled to line up with her return to Aureatia.

The young Nanal was terribly exhausted, but she concealed the bags under her eyes with makeup, and even as she felt ready to collapse, she maintained her posture and expression. She couldn’t let herself bring shame to Sephite.

I wonder if Leisha and her friends were able to meet with Father Kuze.

This trivial thought floated through her mind as she noticed the people’s excitement.

The spectators she saw from down in her seat of honor looked like specks of colors, and she had no way of possibly determining which specks among them were the Order children.

Kuze the Passing Disaster was appearing in the match as scheduled. An upstanding and honorable act.

However, if she was allowed to wish not as the Queen but as Nanal herself, she hoped he was fighting to win and return to the children’s side.

…A combatant is knocked down and doesn’t get up. A combatant willingly admits their defeat with their own words.

These were the two conditions determining defeat in the Sixways Exhibition. The match didn’t have to be decided by death.

However, given that these were Royal Games, they were held in order to be shown to the royalty—to none other than Nanal herself. It meant that Nanal the Fair-Skinned would bear the responsibility for these tremendous champions so far beyond her reach.

Nanal, nothing but a girl of humble origins without any actual authority or pedigree to speak of.

Kuze. Mestelexil. I have no idea what sort of desires the two hero candidates facing today’s battle are risking their lives for. Still, if I’m allowed to make my own wish, despite my ignorance…

Nanal couldn’t bear the agony otherwise.

…I don’t want either of you to die.

Aureatia’s Twenty-Sixth Minister, Meeka the Whispered, let out a booming voice.

“Both sides shall agree to the accords of the true duel!”

Among the four matches in the second round of the Sixways Exhibition, not a single one had been conducted in a normal manner.

This eleventh match was no exception.

“A combatant is knocked down and doesn’t get up. A combatant willingly admits their defeat with their own words. Either of these two conditions shall decide the match—”

Kuze the Passing Disaster, whose goal wasn’t victory but only the assassination of the Queen.

Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge, asked to disable Kuze without killing him.

A clash, far too twisted and warped to be called a normal match, was about to unfold before the eyes of the public.

“I, Meeka the Whispered, shall act as impartial adjudicator.”

The second round had been, across the entire span of the Sixways Exhibition, the battle that claimed most lives.

Meanwhile, this match to close the second round…

“Begin with the sound of the band’s starting gun.”

Match eleven.

Kuze the Passing Disaster versus Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge.

Amid the cheers filling the arena, Kuze’s heart was still.

…I’m finally here.

In front of him stood Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge.

Mestelexil was invincible. Everybody said that Kuze couldn’t win.

That was fine. From the very start, he had never once won in a fight against someone else.

All he did was kill.

He would be able to kill the Queen.

Before the eyes of all the people seeking an honorable battle, Kuze the Passing Disaster would fight in the most dishonorable way imaginable.

I’m glad I could do this without showing Leisha…showing all the children.

He had made sure there was no going back.

Leisha must have felt despondent after Kuze’s betrayal.

She had likely shared what Kuze was truly like with all the other children, too.

As such, there was no way they would see his battle.

The only one who watched over Kuze’s deeds was Nastique.

All was quiet.

At the signal, I’ll go around in front of the seat of honor.

In the back of his head, he visualized the steps of the plan he had put together with Maqure the Sky’s Lake Surface. In order to turn himself into a machine, without any hesitation or thought at all.

The seat of honor was constructed directly opposite from where the adjudicator Meeka the Whispered stood, in the front row of the spectator seats, looking out at the profile of the two hero candidates facing each other. It was partitioned away from the other spectator seats and walled off, meaning most of the audience in the garden theater couldn’t see inside.

That wasn’t the only barrier. Aureatia had a magic item used to protect the royal family—the Curtain of Ancestral Virtue.

It was a magic item shaped like a soft canopy and tinged with faint iridescence. Any arrow or bullet that flew at it would have its trajectory thrown off—as if tracing along the undependable thin piece of cloth—and never reach the Queen no matter what. As long as a projectile was coming from outside the drapery, it could even defend against stray bullets from the Beyond weaponry employed by Mestelexil.

However, this defense did not possess any characteristics that would stop Nastique who ignored any and all obstructions of the material world to come bringing death. Thus, to Kuze, the Curtain of Ancestral Virtue was as much of an obstacle as any normal canopy would have been.

Unless he got closer, he wouldn’t be able to see the Queen underneath.

It’s less than one hundred meters from the center of the garden theater where we start. If I can clear 90 percent of that distance, I should be able to see plenty of the Queen even through the canopy… The only potential problem being…

His opponent, Mestelexil, possessed an excessive degree of lethality.

Not only that, but from battles before the eighth match, Mestelexil learned a loophole in Kuze’s instant death counterattack—if he created unmanned turrets that targeted Kuze automatically, Kuze would die unable to do anything.

The problem with this guy isn’t his ability to kill.

The true threat Mestelexil posed was that he knew how to counter Kuze.

It was through Nastique’s unknowable means of attack and only using the information gained by their brief clash that he had been able to think up a way to counter the instant death counterattacks.

He might see through my intentions here in the brief moment it takes me to get close to the Queen.

Kuze could not give Mestelexil even the slightest moment to think.

He had to make Mestelexil believe he intended to fight. He couldn’t get himself into a stance that suggested he was about to run off.

As he confronted Mestelexil, his mind was focused solely on the seat of honor.

As his consciousness seemed to make time slow down around him, he heard the gunshot.

The sound—

He ran. A thin box-shaped apparatus deployed from Mestelexil’s back.

Kuze couldn’t spare any attention to it.

“LRAX 2000X.”

A shrill noise slammed Kuze’s whole body like a shock wave.

His legs twisted. He staggered. The discomfort felt like his brain was being pounded.

Kuze collapsed on the ground, but he then tried to stand up.

“Huh?!” Mestelexil shouted as if he couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing. “How?!”

“Why?!” Kaete shouted, going pale. He stood in Mestelexil’s entryway into the arena. “He was directly hit with a sound weapon from the Beyond! He shouldn’t be able to move!”

There were two types of attacks Kuze the Passing Disaster had suffered:

The directional sonic weapon, LRAX 2000X, and the rapid onset inhalant anesthetic, desflurane.

Both weapons had been created ahead of time and housed within Mestelexil’s internal structure, meant to be deployed and sprayed exactly as the match began to swiftly knock Kuze unconscious.

Hidow had heard about this strategy beforehand as well.

“Strange.”

Hidow the Clamp sat leaning against the arena entrance wall and glared out at the arena.

Hidow was keeping surveillance over Kaete for Aureatia. Normally, only the sponsor for the hero candidate currently battling should have been standing there, but someone needed to keep eyes on Kaete the Round Table—given his past precedent of foul play—and watch for any movement from him during the match.

“Since he held out against Mestelexil’s opening attack, must mean that the guy’s prepared some sort of method of winning here.”

A technology-minded civil officer like Kaete might have been unsettled from having no idea what Kuze’s method might be, but to Hidow, this was actually one of several developments he had anticipated.

Hidow also didn’t have any insights into what Kuze’s method might have been, but it was easy to think that he had some sort of trump card he was saving for the match, given he was so hung up on ensuring the eleventh match was held at all.

“Despite that, though, he tried to run away from Mestelexil, didn’t he?”

“What is he after…?! If Kuze makes any suspicious moves, we’re clear to kill him. That was the deal, right, Hidow?”

“Everything’s happening aboveboard here. Shouldn’t be any problems…”

He glared at the arena. He hadn’t been able to admonish Kaete for his excessively violent words.

Hidow had an ominous feeling.

“I…get it. So this is what it…does.”

After getting up, Kuze’s legs tangled up again and he collapsed.

He didn’t feel any pain. Instead, it was a different kind of discomfort, as if his brain had been completely gouged out.

He had lost his sense of equilibrium, too, but he could still crawl along the ground.

Kuze needed to get even just a little closer to the Queen while, at the same time, getting as far away from the starting position as possible.

According to Father Maqure’s predictions…Mestelexil is spraying…a drug that will knock me unconscious. I have…to get away…fast…

The din of the sonic weapon continued to buffet Kuze’s body, but while the noise would have immediately robbed a normal person of their senses, it sounded far away, as if the whole world was separated from him on the other side of a glass wall.

Kuze’s present condition was not due to the sonic weapon.

“K-Kuze! Surrender now!”

The noise from the sonic weapon had stopped.

Instead, he heard Mestelexil demanding his surrender.

Kuze crawled, ungracefully trying to escape from Mestelexil.

Had he managed to get out of the range of the chemical spray?

“Do anything weird, and I’ll kill you! Kaete said…I could!”

“Bweh, heh-heh…” Kuze groaned as his intoxication headed toward death. “Go ahead…and try…”

Mestelexil pointed his right arm, replaced with a gatling gun, at Kuze.

This was just a feint. Mestelexil wouldn’t make any attacks he deemed useless. That was why he had stopped using his sonic weapon and dispersing the chemical agent.

But if the attack was one he already proved was effective…

“If you don’t surrender…I’ll rip your legs apart!”

Mestelexil must have prepared them while the sonic weapon was blaring at him—in the time it took Kuze to move just five feet in pure agony, Mestelexil had finished making three unmanned turrets.

Independent weapons without any life of their own, that Nastique’s instant death counterattacks couldn’t deal with.

In their previous exchange, it had taken everything he had to survive by the skin of his teeth.

Now, though…

See, Mestelexil, the thing is…

Taking in the pain was necessary.

Brandishing the great shield he had tightly strapped to his arm, he flashed a stilted smile.

Even I’ve got a card or two up my sleeve.

The light of the muzzle flare flashed like a twinkling star.

In the blink of an eye, the lower half of his paladin great shield was drilled through, and bullets sunk into both of his feet.

Getting his legs shot through didn’t even begin to describe it. The firepower was enough to atomize his legs, bones and all.

“Bweh, heh-heh…heh…”

Kuze remained standing.

“No way.”

“The Order guy’s…”

“Those things are guns, right?”

“Anyone would be dead after something like that.”

“He’s not even bleeding…”

The audience’s excitement began to change into bewilderment at the invulnerability that defied all logic.

Amid the smoke, the single purple eye flickered, keeping close watch on Kuze.

“Hey, Kuze! What did…you bring with…you?!”

“Bweh, heh-heh.”

At the ruins in the lower basin of the Sagasa River, when Mele the Horizon’s Roar’s arrow brought down destruction—

Kuze, as well as the children he protected, had been miraculously unharmed.

His survival was mysterious, even when accounting for the instant death protection given to him by Nastique the Quiet Singer.

However, Kuze had lived solely to assassinate the Queen here in this match. All the battles he had fought until now had been for this purpose.

Including, for example, when Alus the Star Runner was slain in an operation by Aureatia.

Who had been right below him at the time?

Among Alus’s collection of treasures, there was still one with unknown whereabouts.

“The Greatshield of the Dead.”

A necklace resembling a snow crystal and small enough to be concealed anywhere in one’s clothes.

It generated a spatial phase shift around the user at the point of activation, which was able to block any and all changes in properties caused by external factors. It even guarded the brain cells against sound and chemical agents.

However, this magic tool of invincibility came with an explicit downside. Each time the molecular units of the spatial phase shifted drastically, they would generate friction in the binding of the molecules. When a living organism used this in particular, it would bring pain and injuries intense enough to make movement impossible, knocking wyverns out from the sky and even forcing minia standing on the solid earth to crawl.

Still, was that even a downside at all?

Kuze the Passing Disaster never actually attacked for himself.

Whether they were nonlethal attacks, attacks without any intent to injure, or attacks made without any will or intent behind them—none had any effect on Kuze as he was now.

On top of that, Kuze himself was able to kill any number of foes he saw, instantly and all at once, without lifting a finger.

“Bweh, bweh, heh-heh… I’m—”

Kuze flashed a flippant smile.

He had to come off this way, even if only on the surface, or else he wouldn’t be able to continue playing his role as the Order’s cleaner.

“—invincible.”

Nor continue to be invincible.

“Greatshield of the Dead…!”

It was one of Alus the Star Runner’s magic tools that Hidow the Clamp also had a deep connection with.

Even watching along from the entrance to the arena, it was impossible for Hidow to mistake the light of its maximum activation.

“That was what he had up his sleeve?! Ridiculous… An assassin who can kill instantly…and who’s immortal?!”

Kuze the Passing Disaster was the only one capable of killing Alus the Star Runner after activating the Greatshield of the Dead.

But now the one in possession of that same Greatshield of the Dead was Kuze himself.

“This means there ain’t a minian out there who can best Kuze now…!”

“……Still, he may be immortal now, but what of it?” Kaete murmured.

Now that Kuze’s incomprehensible method of defense was made clear, Kaete had regained his composure.

“You say no one can best him, but that only goes for those without any means to overcome death. From the start, Kuze’s power of instant death had slim prospects of working on Mestelexil. Surely he can’t think that just remaining upright will be enough to win…?”

There were many ways of winning by holding out against an attack.

Buying time. Forcing a battle of attrition. Chipping away at the opponent’s will to fight.

However, none of these strategies that immediately came to mind for Hidow seemed like they’d work on the foe Kuze faced. There had to be something else.

Kuze has…

He had an ominous feeling, like a cold chill.

At the time, Hidow had been the one who ordered Kuze the Passing Disaster to dispose of Alus the Star Runner.

Even as he formed a cooperative relationship with the Gray-Haired Child, Kuze consistently followed Aureatia’s orders to the letter. However, if from all the way back then, Kuze had been deceiving his collaborators and acting to secure a magic tool specifically for this match, then…

…another goal here besides winning this fight.

“…Mestelexil. Give up on immobilizing him.”

Kaete gave orders to Mestelexil through his communication terminal.

Hidow didn’t stop him. His judgment was sound.

There was a chance that, just like Zeljirga in the sixth match, Kuze was hiding some means to neutralize Mestelexil instead. Either that or he was scheming to set up something else.

He was too dangerous.

“Kill Kuze the Passing Disaster.”

“Hey, what’s that…?”

“Is it…really okay for a person to get like that?”

“Hurry up and surrender…”

“Oh, Wordmaker, have mercy…”

The match was just as one-sided as the fourth between Rosclay and Kia, but the reaction of the audience was the complete opposite.

Mestelexil’s offensive wasn’t completely incomprehensible like Kia’s but came from terrifying weapons possessing a physical form. The bullets, the flames, and the flashes of light all swooped down on the powerless, mere minian Kuze.

Still, he continued to stand. As if he was using his body to prove the miracle of the Wordmaker.

“I mean, he’s with the Order, right? They kidnapped kids for money and stuff…”

“But if weapons like that aren’t affecting him at all, then maybe they’re right…”

“…There really are people who still believe.”

“See, there is something wrong with those Order folks, I’m telling you.”

“The story of the Wordmaker… A long time ago, my grandmother told me all about it…”

The sound, the light, and the smell all made his sense of reality fade.

Mestelexil deployed countless support weapons and continued to pelt Kuze with an absurd amount of firepower.

He wasn’t trying to overpower Kuze with brute force because he couldn’t ascertain how to break through Kuze’s defenses. Mestelexil had read the situation and knew it was the most optimal strategy.

I can’t turn off the Greatshield of the Dead.

The price of Greatshield of the Dead gnawed terribly at Kuze’s remaining life.

Mestelexil’s vehement attack, continuously generating an inexhaustible supply of ammo and fuel, didn’t even let up for a breath.

What tormented Kuze was far more terrible than suffocation—the torment of his cells changing their properties and approaching their end.

Blown away by cannon fire, he collapsed, crawled, got back up, vomited, used the remnants of his shield to stand up, walked, collapsed, and was continuously showered in a hail of bullet fire.

“Are you sure I don’t have to kill that?”

With his sense of reality fading, this hallucinatory voice seemed like it echoed even more clearly than usual in his mind.

The angel, with a slender, ephemeral physique somewhere between a young girl and boy, was always watching over and protecting Kuze.

All the attacks tormenting Kuze were from autonomous weapons.

Against Mestelexil, who had already learned and adapted, his instant death counterattacks would not work.

Nevertheless, Kuze could kill Mestelexil simply by wishing so in his heart.

“Are you sure I don’t need to kill someone trying to kill you?”

There wasn’t a single person out there it was okay to kill.

…That’s right. Tu even said as much, didn’t she? You can’t kill people, right?

It seemed to him like there was more meaning to it than simply keeping his method of assassinating the Queen a secret.

He had stolen the irreplaceable lives of several people.

Still, he had been able to get to this point.

There wasn’t any need to kill anymore. If Kuze just managed to reach his goal, it would be all over.

Ahhh… Is this how everyone felt…?

Several followers had chosen to martyr themselves as evil villains who had abandoned the faith.

Even wise Maqure the Sky’s Lake Surface, who surely could have chosen so many other different methods, hadn’t stopped their foolish desire.

They all must have felt the same way Kuze did now.

They wanted to bring an end to it.

They had wanted an end to the torment of a cruel world—and to maintain this pure and noble faith amid it.

Just as Kuze himself feared the hatred and urge to kill hidden within his own heart, they all must have feared that someday, as they lived through cruel reality, the beauty of their faith would become sullied.

Though they understood it was a terrible and foolish method, in order to keep the faith of those left behind pure, they wanted to shoulder that defilement and impurity themselves and die. They wanted to prove with their lives that their own faith had been true.

“Someday.” “Not yet.”

In the age of the True Demon King, everyone had lived in the middle, in suspension.

Believing that if they followed the teachings of the Wordmaker, someday, their day of salvation would come.

Such a day never came. Thus, at the very least, they had wanted a final conclusion to their faith in place of their reward for it.

“Every…one…”

He crawled along the ground of the garden theater, covered in sand.

Kuze had fought with his back to the seat of honor.

“Please let me…save…everyone…”

He had two reasons for doing so. One was that, while she may have been safely secured underneath the Curtain of Ancestral Virtue, there was a chance that Mestelexil might hesitate to aim at the Queen. The other was the possibility that Kuze, essentially unable to move while he activated the Greatshield of the Dead, would be pushed back by the blast waves and impacts, shortening the distance he needed to go.

Mestelexil’s saturation attack, meant to push Kuze to the breaking point, had ironically pushed him within a short distance from the Queen.

“…Why don’t you…kill me?”

Mestelexil asked an innocent question after forcing the automatic gunfire to stop.

With Kuze’s position, the gunshots would end up hitting the Curtain of Ancestral Virtue.

“Bweh-heh-heh… You did realize the truth after all…”

Just once, Kuze had actively killed Mestelexil.

Mestelexil must have analyzed his log of the events and detected a long time ago that he hadn’t died from an automatic counterattack.

However, because he was an ultimate weapon, he had thought about how he would overcome the attack if it was used against him. He hadn’t imagined that Kuze had kept the power hidden to wield against someone else.

“But…”

Kuze had arrived.

“You’re too late.”

He turned around. She was in his sights. For Kuze, that would be the end.

Kuze looked at the Queen’s figure.

Long, radiant white hair. Similarly white porcelain skin.

She was a beautiful young girl.

Like the pure-white angel Kuze always saw.

Oh no…

However, when he looked at this almost otherworldly figure…

A strange thought crossed Kuze’s mind.

She’s just a normal kid…

His body was reaching its limits, maintaining constant protection from the Greatshield of the Dead.

He could tell his fingers were beginning to buckle.

He had made it. He could finish it.

Only ever able to kill, Kuze could finally save everyone he had loved.

“Bweh, bweh-heh-heh…heh… What the heck…?”

The Queen, just like a normal young girl—was simply praying, out of concern for Kuze.

Her position, with her hands tightly gripped together and eyes closed…

“This has to be a joke, Wordmaker…”

…was the way to pray to the Wordmaker, taught to all the Order children.

“Not like this…”

—If it’s not the sort of tragedy a person’s strength can help save…then people can’t save at all.

Kuze collapsed to his knees before the Queen.

A stance that made it look as if he was about to confess his sins.

When he placed both hands on the ground, their tips crumbled to mush.

He didn’t need to move. He just needed to think about killing her.

Kuze had to, or he would betray everything and everyone.

To all those he had killed. To those he had wanted to save.

And yet.

In this final moment, Kuze had a selfish wish.

He didn’t want to kill her.

Since this feeling to make such a wish itself was the salvation bestowed by the Wordmaker.

“Nastique. Please.”

Nastique cocked her head in confusion.

Her childish, innocent eyes peered into Kuze’s own.

“The…last one…I want you to kill…”

Kuze the Passing Disaster was always the only one to survive. The angel who protected Kuze would kill anyone who thought to murder him, so Kuze had never been able to die.

However, there was one way to finish off this incoherent and broken-down faith of his—

“Please, kill m—”

“Father Kuze.”

At first, he thought Nastique had spoken.

That wasn’t the case.

Kuze wondered if it was because Mestelexil’s guns had stopped.

Or perhaps everyone had gone silent watching Kuze kneel before the Queen.

His crumbling body had clearly picked up the voice. He had no idea why he was able to.

Somewhere far away inside the vast garden theater, someone was calling his name.

“…Father Kuze.”

“Come home, Father Kuze.”

“Father Kuze!”

“Don’t leave us…!”

“Father Kuze…”

It was the children’s voices. There was no mistaking that, amid the bustling crowd, there were familiar voices.

Brought all the way to Aureatia by the Queen, Kuze’s most precious…

“Bweh…heh-heh… Why’re you all… Why, Leisha…”

He had done everything to ensure there was no going back.

He had cruelly betrayed her, left her with a terrifying memory.

“So why…?”

He firmly gripped the Greatshield of the Dead. He wasn’t able to give up.

His cheeks crumbled, and something flowed out, neither blood nor tears.

Leisha hadn’t told them.

She was just a child. She should’ve been terrified more than ever before.

Despite it all, she still believed in the kind Father Kuze, the Father Kuze she loved.

He stretched out a hand to the Queen as he fell face down, and a white hand settled on top of it.

The corners of her mouth relaxing meant a smile.

She was an entirely different entity from minia like Kuze, and yet she smiled.

“You…” I—

Am loved.

And have had salvation held out before, and yet.

“…deserve to be saved, too.” I don’t want to die.

“…Your…Majesty.”

Kuze spoke.

He was in a wretched state, resembling an abandoned black rag.

He took his hand off the Greatshield of the Dead, and without asking the angel for death…

“I surrender… I………don’t want to die…”

His vocal cords were horribly wounded, and his voice was too frail for anyone else to hear.

However, the Queen herself was the closest to him and heard his declaration.

The Queen wiped the line of tears from her cheeks.

Ahhh…

Why was she crying at seeing a man like Kuze.

She seemed just like any normal young girl.

I’m so glad I got through without killing.

“…Why didn’t you kill him?”

Mestelexil was immediately pressed for answers by Kaete after returning from the match victorious.

“It turned out that Kuze didn’t have anything else up his sleeve besides the Greatshield of the Dead. In the end, he was just a sniveling groveling mess. There were any number of ways to kill him from that position. Why did you just watch?”

“Hmmm…”

Mestelexil loved one-sided violence.

He enjoyed running roughshod and crushing those without any power to resist.

“But…Kuze…d-didn’t kill me! So…I didn’t…do anything!”

However, his fight with Kuze wasn’t actually one-sided.

Mestelexil knew that Kuze was able to kill any target in his sights at will. Kuze held the violent force to resist, yet he chose not to use it, right up to the very end.

Mestelexil’s immature emotions felt that fact wasn’t fair, somehow.

“I—I want…to act cool…like Mama!”

“Hmph, there you go again with your nonsense.”

Kaete scratched his head in exasperation.

However, in a rare twist for Kaete, he turned around without reprimanding Mestelexil any further.

“Hey, Kaete!”

Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge was an ultimate weapon, capable of learning.

This intelligence of his was beginning to learn something from Kiyazuna’s brush with death, Kia’s wailing lament against death, and Kuze’s rejection of death.

“Wh-why…is everyone…so sad…about dying?!”

“…What a stupid question.”

Kaete the Round Table seemed to genuinely believe it, too.

He spat out his response.

“Everyone out there still holds on to a stupid belief: that anything’s possible as long as you’re still alive.”

Eleventh Match. Winner, Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge.

Kuze the Passing Disaster’s heroic outcome, as if using his own body to prove the strength of his faith, seemed to have left a strong impression on the citizens of Aureatia.

More residents in central Aureatia began to pay more attention to the existence of the almost completely forgotten Order, and among the wealthy class, there were some who expressed interest in supporting their cause.

There were also those who regarded the Order as even more dangerous, but few groups in proportion to the population—almost a bizarrely low number—were then driven toward such aggressive thoughts.

The trend signaled the spread of an even more terrifying disease, but there were only but a few who knew the truth behind it.

“Maqure. I’ve also been approached by several private citizens about supporting Order activities… Kuze lost, but I would say he produced magnificent results.”

Hiroto the Paradox, as Kuze’s acting sponsor, was giving Maqure the Sky’s Lake Surface a report on the aftermath of the match.

A stern voice replied through the radzio.

<I’m just as surprised myself. To most of the citizens, all Kuze showed them was a weird, alien power and his faith. I never could have thought that Aureatia society would be so accepting…>

Behind the calm, matter-of-fact tone wasn’t a tinge of joy but a vague despair and unrest.

<It’s almost…almost like the time before the True Demon King’s terror was etched into everyone’s hearts… If I had been able to predict this kind of outcome from the start, then—>

“You never would’ve needed to kill the Queen?”

<……!>

Hiroto the Paradox already understood.

The true desires of those who gave him their support. As well as how to grant them.

“I do not pry into those I consider friends. That is a restriction I have imposed on myself as a politician… However, even if I do not investigate things myself, there are those who come to me looking for counsel.”

<I see… Then, you knew from the very start… Of course you did. There had to be someone who’d come to you…even if it meant betraying their fellow Order followers… No one would have ever wished for something like this. To abandon one’s responsibility as a follower and just make it easier for themselves…>

“Maqure. I understand the pain you are going through.”

The priest who had sought out Hiroto for advice had been in just as much agony.

If Hiroto hadn’t been fairly considerate and thoughtful with him, the man would have likely taken his own life.

To them, that was just how strongly they felt about betraying their faith.

<…All the responsibility lies with me. I…sacrificed Kuze, sacrificed our devout family for a dirty, foul conspiracy. A sin most hideous and irredeemable.>

“Indeed. Which is why I will be keeping it all a secret. Please keep the truth hidden and take everything to the grave, without any confession or condemnation. That can be the only way to save your Order.”

<A cruel punishment. We wanted to make things easier… We wanted it all to end.>

“Maqure. You understand that, with this, you will be forced to become true friends of ours, yes? We will gladly cooperate with disposing of the evidence of your fabricated crimes… Getting your organization back on its feet will be impossible with our power alone. With all your inherited knowledge and the trust you’ve gained from your followers…we will need cooperation from you, most of all.”

Hiroto had seen many people give up and stop along the way as they aimed to realize their ideal.

However, Hiroto the Paradox had lived longer than any other and still hadn’t given up.

“This will continue. As long as one lives, they’re still in the middle of it all.”

<If that is what you wanted…why didn’t you stop us? You’ve joined forces with Dant the Heath Furrow of the Queen’s faction, yes? If our plan had succeeded, you would have been eternally unable to realize the wishes of a major supporter.>

“Is that right?”

A faint smile came over Hiroto as he spoke.

“And what if, instead, you would’ve actually been the ones whose wishes wouldn’t be fulfilled?”

Nanal the Fair-Skinned, after attending the eleventh match, was heading to the palace in her personal carriage.

When she was moving about in an official capacity, the Curtain of Ancestral Virtue was spread out inside the carriage. Not only did this protect her from attacks, but the faint iridescent shimmer showcased the authority of royalty.

In addition, Aureatia’s Twenty-Fourth general and head of the palace guard, Dant the Heath Furrow, always rode along in the carriage with her.

A loyal retainer from the United Western Kingdom era, duty bound to give his life to protect the Queen in an emergency.

When appearing before the Queen, Dant was relatively taciturn, perhaps focused on his work. However, Nanal couldn’t afford to make any careless mistakes in her words or behavior when speaking with him. Dant knew Sephite better than anyone else.

In addition, right now, she didn’t want him to see the marks left behind by her tears.

…Why did I cry back there?

She was sure the real Sephite wouldn’t have cried. Nanal had, though.

Because it was as if the teachings of the Wordmaker she had abandoned to her memories had appeared right before her.

That didn’t seem to be the only reason.

Because she saw the beauty of earnest devotion, without any relation to the Wordmaker or the Order.

She knew that wasn’t all of it, either.

I was really happy he…

Nanal didn’t know anything about Kuze the Passing Disaster.

What sort of life he had led or what sort of determination had caused him to take on the Sixways Exhibition.

However, that same Father Kuze that Leisha and the others loved so much—and who tried so desperately to save everyone…

…decided to live on.

Nanal was nothing more than the Queen’s body double. She held absolutely no responsibility for the future of Aureatia, and compared to the true Queen, she was horribly ignorant to the state of affairs in the country.

Nevertheless, as a young girl who didn’t know anything…she wished Kuze the Passing Disaster’s decision to live on would lead to hope for this country’s future.

“Hey, Dant, I—”

Nanal went to convey all this to Dant.

“I knew it wasn’t right.”

Nanal reflexively stopped talking.

She felt something icy cold in Dant’s tone.

“Your mannerisms, your way of talking, all of it is exactly like the Queen. But…there was always this indescribable feeling that something was off.”

“…What’s wrong, Dant?”

“I have served the royal family since before the princess was born. Even after she ascended as Queen in Aureatia, I have always protected my Queen. Even if you mimic everything about her… I know Sephite better than family.”

Nanal felt like the sounds of the carriage were getting more and more distant, as if she was sinking down deep into the cold, dark sea.

Inside the carriage, concealed underneath the canopy, there wasn’t anyone else besides Dant and Nanal.

“My Queen doesn’t cry.”

“…………”

The secret that she couldn’t let anyone uncover had already been exposed.

“Who are you?”

At present, there were only a select few people who knew the whereabouts of the real queen.

One among them was named Bihat the Outstanding Tool.

He was neither an important figure to Aureatia nor prominently powerful. If anything, he was a failure.

—One small month prior, when Sephite disappeared and Kia the World Word was subjugated on the North-South Railway.

Bihat the Outstanding Tool did not hold Aureatian citizenship. He lived in hiding in a corner of the Old Town, trying to mix in among the lower-class laborers.

That day, he had just finished a long stint of wandering around a black market beyond the reach of Aureatia’s price controls.

“Ikwena! The eggs are too expensive. They’re almost double what they were yesterday.”

The young woman with evenly cut hair that fell below her chin poked her face out from the crowd.

While her rank was that of a noncommissioned officer, she was still young enough to be described as a girl.

“Turns out the prices here are all just whatever the seller’s asking for. Better give up on the eggs.”

“Dammit, sunny-side up eggs are the only thing to look forward to, living like this…”

Circumstances necessitated them to hide away from the eyes of Aureatia.

Bihat the Outstanding Tool and Ikwena the Parcel were Old Kingdoms’ loyalists.

Bihat, in particular, was an officer from the time of the Central Kingdom, who had been in charge of the supply base while stationed in Toghie City. Of course, that base had been totally wiped out in an attack by Mestelexil.

“Routed” was the best way to describe the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists’ current situation.

After Gilnes the Ruined Castle’s death, Caneeya the Fruit Trimmer had just barely been able to keep the disorderly Old Kingdoms’ loyalists together, but after being led by Kiyazuna the Axle into attacking Obsidian Eyes’s hidden base of operations, they had suffered tremendous losses. Caneeya herself was currently missing.

Bihat and Ikwena may have been some of the luckier ones.

Within the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists’ organizational framework, they had been tasked with logistical support, and due to Bihat’s innately cautious personality in particular, they distanced themselves from the frontline squads who were putting all their efforts into subversive activities that had no real promise.

This bore fruit, and they managed to avoid getting wrapped up in the internal strife that splintered the organization and only maintained a minimal connection to them as they lived in hiding within the city.

“…Not enough money. Money, money, everything’s about money.”

In the past, one source of funding for the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists’ activities had been support from Iriolde the Atypical Tome.

However, Iriolde’s camp had been annihilated together with their grand coup, and that in turn drove the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists up against the wall. Caneeya’s raid on Obsidian Eyes’s base of operations occurred at the same time as the coup, but if they hadn’t acted at that moment, sooner or later any sort of operation on a grander scale would have become impossible.

“If we were just feeding ourselves it’d be one thing, but we can’t go cutting the old man’s food.”

“What if we put the new recruit to work? It seems like he can do a whole lot more than we can, and I’m sure if we used him right, he’d help out a lot.”

“I’d…really rather not rely on him. He’s scary. I mean, he’s definitely a construct, right?”

“Right…”

Carrying their bag of foodstuffs in hand, they continued through the complex terrain, neither indoors nor fully outdoors, and headed to their base. The narrow residence, as if being squashed between the houses—though, likely just illegally built in the opening—was the current base of operations for Bihat’s group.

“We’re back.”

“Ugh, it’s so hot… Bihat, can I go take a bath?”

“So long as it’s a cold one. How’s the old man doing?” Bihat called into the inner room. Given how the residence was constructed, even the partitions between rooms were crude.

“Not very good, I’d say. He finally got to sleep…”

Appearing from the back was a young man in an outfit that clashed starkly with their living conditions, topped in a trim feathered red cap. While his face was young and handsome, Bihat was convinced it was an imitation of some kind.

“…Research again?”

The drawings scattered about the floor were all blueprints for some unknown machinery.

“I keep trying to tell him that he doesn’t need to make this stuff anymore. He’s been like this ever since I rescued him from the National Defense Research Institute…”

“Miluzi the Coffin Edict, huh?”

The bed in the back bulged upward, signaling that an old man was lying down underneath the covers.

Miluzi the Coffin Edict. Even Bihat the Outstanding Tool had heard the name before. A self-proclaimed demon king who had become the cornerstone of the modern popularization of the steam engine.

He had apparently developed constructs at Iriolde’s National Defense Research Institute.

However, the National Defense Research Institute had been wiped out in an Aureatian attack, and many of the research findings and materials had been lost. This young man was the one amid all that who had discovered Miluzi on his deathbed and rescued him.

“I wish he’d at least get his head on right and help us out a bit… What about you, rookie? There was talk about having you going out to work, too…from Ikwena.”

“I don’t think so. I mean, I’d really like to, but if I go out, there won’t be anyone here to look after Miluzi… I can’t just abandon a friend like that…”

The young man’s name was Acromdo the Variety.

Bihat wasn’t sure how he’d gotten wind of them—this mysterious new recruit approached Bihat’s group with an abnormal degree of friendless, right after they had started to live in hiding and, in addition, willingly decided to join the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists’ shambling remains.

He claimed that his goal was to become friendly with miniankind, but the way Bihat saw it, he likely would have been fine with joining any force unassociated with Aureatia, as long as they looked after Miluzi.

“I know this isn’t great news to hear right after making a point of joining the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists, but we’re going to have to start focusing more on getting by soon. If we could just find General Caneeya, that might help, but…”

“Oh, I just had a great idea. I can be both inside the house and outside at once. If you just bring me any minian you find, then—”

“Bihat! W-we’ve…got an emergency!”

Ikwena slammed open the door and came into the room.

The poorly fitted sliding door came off instantly.

“Huh?! Why the hell’re you walking around like that?!”

She must have been just about to hop into the bath as she was wrapped up in a single towel.

“This isn’t the time for that stuff! Come look at this!”

“At what, your naked body?!”

“No, not that, geez!”

Hurried along by Ikwena and her menacing demeanor, a complete one-eighty from her usual meekness, they exited to the bath built in the garden.

As to be expected, it was little more than a bathtub compiled out of scrap wood and casks in the narrow strip of open land between the buildings. They couldn’t take baths on rainy days, since it became impossible to start a fire.

“Whoa, whoa, this is hot water! Thought I told you to take a cold bath!”

“Well, I apologize for that, but… This girl…!”

“…”

A young girl was laid out in a corner of the alleyway like someone dying on the street…

This empty lot hadn’t been Bihat and Ikwena’s personal property to begin with, and it connected directly to the alleyway, so if someone wanted to come inside, it was easy to do so.

However, the girl’s appearance made it very clear she wasn’t a resident of the Old Town.

Though it was dirtied in places, her long, beautiful hair seemed to shine silver. Soft, velvety skin. White first-class clothing…

“…Ikwena. What’s the deal here?”

“Th-that’s what…I want to know.”

There wasn’t a single Old Kingdoms’ loyalist who could mistake her.

For them, with their hatred of Aureatia, who had usurped the current government from King Aur of the Central Kingdom, the girl was undoubtedly the very symbol of their enemy.

Now she was collapsed before their eyes. Alone, helpless, and not even conscious. Her breathing was weak, too.

Presented with the greatest opportunity to fulfill his faction’s goal on a silver platter, Bihat, if anything, was terrified.

“Queen Sephite…”

The Orange Thirty-Six train of the North-South Railway. Roto the Cross. Caneeya the Fruit Trimming and Linaris the Oblivion.

Many encounters and unusual events that would drastically change Aureatia occurred during the same small month before the eleventh match, as if all were inevitably guided by the stars.

A little later after Bihat the Outstanding Tool’s fateful encounter, there was a young girl who descended on the same Old Town.

The girl had a neater and tidier appearance than anyone in the city, yet none there could match the powerful hatred and animosity filling her turquoise eyes. The hair she once tied into two ponytails was draped straight down over her, but she no longer had any presence of mind to tie it up again.

However, all the people of the city came and went through the streets as if none of them could even see this odd and conspicuous young girl.

The young girl was capable of such a feat.

This young girl looked at the small scrap of cloth in her fist and spoke to it in a hate-filled voice.

“Look for Sephite.”

At the almshouse where Kuze grew up, there was a small pond.

A murky pond, filthy with algae.

On the opposite shore, what appeared to be the vestiges of a divine idol were buried in the roots of a tree, but since none of the teachers gave it a second thought, it might not have been an idol of the Wordmaker.

It was a place that everyone avoided, but Kuze went there on occasion.

Late at night, he’d slip out of the dormitory, and as he stepped over leaves wet with dew and heard the chirping insects echo around him, he traveled the somber path—always alone.

However, once night fell, there was the voice of someone singing there.

A tiny, faint, boyish voice.

Sung with Word Arts not of this world, a song of nostalgia for a far-off time.

It was such a quiet song that no one had ever heard except for Kuze.

Moonlight. The warble of the trees, waving in the wind.

A small song, only audible in that moment when the world fell silent.

Beautiful terror and mystery, as if catching a glimpse of a faraway place beyond the reach of Word Arts.

She had no weight. She was able to dance on top of a single flower petal.

Angels were said to have been born when the Wordmaker created their world.

However, as if left behind in the cogwheels of the world as they began to turn—her eyes couldn’t see anything, and her ears didn’t hear anything.

She was an afterimage of creation, any meaning behind wielding the power she was given now gone, simply existing there until the day she should disappear.

There were none who knew what happened to Kuze the Passing Disaster after he was defeated in the eleventh match and had fallen from the tournament.

The man who had betrayed everything neither returned to Aureatia nor to the Order.

Even if he had been forgiven for what he had done, this must have been what he himself wanted.

“…Oh yeah. That’s right. You can remember that star’s location because of the hexagonal shape.”

A man in a black robe walked all alone down a road that connected two cities somewhere.

However, the man continued to talk as if there was someone there next to him.

“I remember that. A long, long time ago, Father Maqure taught me all about it…”

On the hand sticking up into the night sky, there were no longer any fingers capable of pointing to the stars.

His whole body was falling apart—and surely with no hope of it getting better.

The family who had been his personal symbol of happiness and smiles had been left far behind.

Now he didn’t carry the proof of his faith, the paladin’s great shield, on his back.

Close to half of his hair had lost its color, and he seemed almost like the angel he was looking at.

Nevertheless, he had been saved.

He got the feeling that there was real happiness in the world.

“Yeah. Let’s go see that, too… Nah, I’m not lonely at all. No matter where you end up in the world, there’ll always be Word Arts there.”

According to the Order doctrine, angels didn’t take forms of young girls in white.

The angels the Wordmaker brought to this world, the power to bestow salvation to others, lay within a person’s heart.

However, maybe the heart bestowed by the Wordmaker could be found all over this world of theirs.

Just as it was possible, through Word Arts, to express one’s heart to the wind, the water, and the soil.

This world of theirs was filled with many miracles, the sort that no one ever saw…

Even Nastique must have wanted to become one of those miracles, too.

The young Kuze alone had encountered the forgotten and left-behind angel.

Disconnected from their world of existence, Nastique took the lives of those from theirs.

That was miserable. A terribly sad reality.

However, what had been truly sad was forcing Nastique to take the lives of others.

That was why they would go on, just the two of them. To ensure that she never had to take any more lives again.

“It’ll be just fine, Nastique.”

The man smiled. He no longer had to fight for anyone else.

He managed not to kill.

He managed not to make her kill.

He was so glad.

“I just know…everyone will be happy.”

The Western Outer Ward Church had been abandoned following the orphans’ temporary emigration to Okafu, but it hadn’t been sold off. The Gray-Haired Child had looked after the building as it was the place the children would eventually return.

Of course, Leisha didn’t learn until afterward that the nice boy who had told her Kuze’s whereabouts was called the Gray-Haired Child. She had thought his name just described his appearance.

Leisha was doing everything she could to decorate the church interior.

“C’mon, no one’s going to use this place until we come back anyway, right?”

Gilea had come to get Leisha and, in the process, gotten himself stuck helping her out.

“There isn’t any point to cleaning or decorating, right?”

“There absolutely is.”

The following day, Leisha and the children were returning to Okafu.

There wouldn’t be anyone who could stay in this building to wait.

So at the very least, she wanted to make it as tidy as possible.

“I’m making sure Father Kuze won’t feel lonely when he comes back.”

Leisha hadn’t said anything to anyone about the day Kuze suddenly changed.

Whether he claimed otherwise, there was no way Kuze was actually a bad person.

Not only that, but at the time—

…You’re the stupid one, Father Kuze.

They had received a letter from the grand priest Maqure assuring them the Order was bound to improve from here on out.

He also said that Kuze’s match had touched the hearts of many people.

Leisha knew that Kuze had been a big fat liar—he had been thinking about what was best for her and the others the whole time.

Even when he tried to scare Leisha, she immediately picked up on the lie.

It should have been easy for Kuze to use his much larger body to strangle tiny Leisha.

It should’ve been nothing to him. Of course that gentle hug he gave me wasn’t going to knock me unconscious.

Leisha continued to neatly decorate the interior with her clumsy, handmade paper decorations.

The cafeteria. The parlor. The playroom. The kitchen. The chapel.

Every single corner of the church was filled with precious memories made with Kuze.

Perhaps this church had been the house she wanted to live in with Kuze the whole time.

“…Leisha,” Gilea said, concerned.

Leisha understood he was trying to be considerate in his own way.

“They’re totally going to find Father Kuze, right?”

“You’ve got it all wrong, Gilea.”

Leisha smiled like a blooming flower.

“We were all going to go look for him.”

Right now, she was still in the middle, but someday, the time would come when they would all be happy.

Then, someday, Leisha would become the happiest of all, as Kuze’s bride.

So please—angels. Make everyone happy.

She could keep believing, however long it took.

Since these teachings had made Leisha’s most precious person happy.

Everyone, including Father Kuze.