It was an abnormal spectacle.
The moment Takuto Ira—who had been thought to have invaded this country alone and challenged battle single-handedly—transformed into something unknown and then exercised some form of ability.
Countless dark forces surged forth from that very spot.
Their emergence was utterly silent, and those who saw only the twin girls who appeared last instantly perceived them as beings that would bring a fatal, adverse effect upon themselves.
Yes, the Holy Knights, who possessed at least a measure of God's blessing, could discern at a glance what manner of beings those girls were.
"A Witch! A Witch has appeared— *ghbwk!*"
A grinding, ear-splitting sound, unlike any heard before, resounded.
Simultaneously, a Holy Knight's skull split open, revealing a gruesome sight like a broken pomegranate.
One of the twin girls who had executed that attack held a short-barreled gun that was emitting steam and smiled prettily.
"Target~?"
"Whoever moves! Shoot anything that moves, you know!"
"Yee-haw! Scramble, scramble~"
*Clank*, the Elful sisters raised a device far too massive for their frames.
Multiple barrels were bound into one, and something metallic trailed from what appeared to be a knapsack slung on their backs.
Known in the Realm of God as a minigun, it began spinning its muzzle to bring death and fulfill the purpose for which it had been born.
"Look out! Dodge it!"
Atou issued a warning.
But it was far too late to save the Holy Knights.
"Fire—!"
"Guah!"
"Gaah!"
"Hiiick!"
The ensuing scene was worthy of being called a picture of hell.
The minigun, swung around by the brute strength of the twins who had become heroes, emitted an eerie growl as it indiscriminately scattered its bullets, hammering death into any body within reach without distinguishing friend from foe.
The misfortune of the holy knights being struck could be attributed entirely to their ignorance of the weapon's nature.
Those hit in bad places were all laid out as corpses, and even those who managed to avoid fatal wounds sustained injuries severe enough to hamper their combat effectiveness.
Against this terrifying hail of death capable of piercing the robust holy knight armor and flesh, all the holy knights could do was protect themselves.
"Unit scatter! Secure targets individually!"
Gia, shouldering his massive rifle with ease, descended onto the battlefield with a murderous expression and issued orders to his allied warband.
Simultaneously, the warband scattered in all directions.
Just as Atou attempted to unleash his tentacles to stop them, he was suppressed by relentless gunfire from Gia and several Dark Elves, as if they had anticipated his move.
"Tch! I didn't expect such a tactic! --Not enough hands!"
"Who would have thought I'd have to appear in such a place... Well then, let us redeem our earlier failure here! --Annihilation Field!"
Further behind, old Mortar swiftly constructed military magic and activated it immediately.
In an instant, the earth decayed, and poison mingled with the air.
The land, from which the divine radiance had vanished, radiated an aura chilling enough to freeze the soul, like hell itself.
"Wha! This is--!"
"A special effect that weakens the abilities of those with holy attributes! Our fighting force will be drastically reduced like this!"
Dark Elves, aberrant insects, and skin-clad monsters.
All of them absorbed the dark aura, making their presence overwhelmingly powerful.
The holy host arrayed against them had already suffered devastating losses from the initial onslaught of devastation.
Atou, who knew all too well the terror of the firearms the enemy had brought to bear, had managed to protect her companions thanks in part to the fact that attacks had been concentrated on her. But conversely, this also meant she was being forced to fight while shielding Fenne, who was wounded, and Soarina, who lacked physical resilience, from the rain of bullets.
Moreover, their power had been greatly sapped by the Land of Ruin.
This was tantamount to shackles placed upon Atou's own combat capabilities—proof of how much more difficult dealing with the enemy had become.
And Atou's diminished fighting strength meant a crisis for Renea's side was imminent.
"Well then, let the party begin. A very, very splendid party."
Message===
The Queen of All Insects, Isla, has appeared in the world.
All insect units existing in this world receive a combat power modifier of +2.
―――
Before them stood a loathsome, aberrant existence.
The colossal insect queen, seemingly something beyond this world's reckoning, gave the signal to begin battle in a voice of terrible beauty.
"Sacred Knights, advance! Slay the enemies of God!"
""""O God, grant us the strength to annihilate the wicked!""""
The Holy Knights who had survived Fjord's words surged forward. Each among them was a warrior capable of matching a thousand. This swarm of Holy Knights—said each to rival an entire army unto themselves—now drew the divine swords tempered for the sole purpose of destroying evil.
"Now go, my beloved children. Slay the enemies of Mynoghra."
"It's complicated, but... I'm going to ride on His Majesty's coattails here!"
"Let's do this, ho!"
"Screeee!!"
Facing them was the evil army that Mynoghra proudly fielded.
At its head was the Witch of Regret, backed by enhanced Combat Arthropods and Brain Eaters with racial specialization abilities.
Each side numbered in the hundreds—a small-scale group battle, one might say.
But considering the combat power each force contained, a battle rivaling armies of tens of thousands was unfolding here on Renea's land.
"Damn you! Damn you all!!"
While Erakino's furious screams tore through the air, Atou desperately endured the relentless rain of bullets.
Each individual shot was nothing to her.
But she could not abandon her comrades behind her here.
Atou had been rewritten by Erakino's Slurp, her nature changed to that of a comrade within the TRPG faction.
That forged, false sense of camaraderie had, roundabout as it was, led them all into this desperate situation.
"The Dark Elves are—!"
"What are they doing?! They're setting fire to the city!"
The Holy Knight who noticed first let out a scream verging on a wail.
Flames rose from the city streets.
The Dark Elf units that had dispersed earlier must have begun their sabotage work.
Fire in this urban district, dense with wooden buildings, was nothing short of fatal.
If left unchecked, it would inevitably develop into a massive conflagration—one that would burn the entire city to the ground.
The residents had already begun evacuating of their own accord, while the holy knights—who normally took the lead in dealing with such crises—continued their desperate life-and-death battle on the front lines.
The fall of the city was as good as decided.
"Damn it! This can't go on! Holy knights—protect the saint and Erakino with your lives, no matter what! I will turn this around!!"
Only a handful could move at those words. But the arrival of the most reliable senior holy knight was a mercy for Renea.
Using their bodies honed to the absolute limit, they scooped up Erakino and the others and retreated to a position beyond range of the gunfire.
Atou poured strength into her legs, finally seeing an opening for counterattack. One more leap to close the distance into the enemy's midst, and they would hesitate to fire recklessly for fear of hitting their own.
If she could then tear through from the inside—the plan formed in an instant.
But—
"Hey, did you maybe forget about us?"
"I never imagined I would end up fighting you, Atou."
There were those who would never permit that counterattack.
The Elful sisters.
They had already hurled away their spent miniguns somewhere and now closed in on Atou wielding their Demon Lord weapons, emanating an aura far too ominous for young girls to project.
"Tch—how annoying! But your timing could not be worse! It is day! The moon is nowhere to be found, and the sun still hangs high—at this hour, your powers are utterly useless!"
The words she spat out while effortlessly evading the two witches' attacks struck the mark precisely.
They were witches born of moonlight and tragedy. The full extent of their power and madness could only be unleashed on the night of a full moon.
In this weather—the exact opposite of that—they could not draw upon their hidden abilities. They were nothing more than warriors slightly stronger than the rest.
But—could Takuto Ira truly have overlooked this?
"Do you really believe that, Atou?"
"What are you—"
An aberrant insect with its face painted black asked in a lady's voice.
Atou showed a momentary expression of doubt at those words. But however rare her talent and intuition in combat might be, there was no way she could have noticed that possibility...
"My name is Moon. I am the dark mark that floats in the night sky—"
In that instant. The world sank into night, and found itself looking up at a brilliantly shining colossal moon.
"Impossible!!"
Here, a full moon's night was reproduced.
That evil god, who could become anyone precisely because it was no one, had finally succeeded in imitating even the phenomena of the world itself.
"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"
And at the same time, this was nothing other than a declaration that the two witches born from regret had awakened from their long slumber of sanity, and would now scatter their power in accordance with their madness.
"It's happening again! Those who would steal away our happiness have appeared again! I knew it! The world hates us! It hates us so much!!"
"Hehehe. How stupid. If only they had lived quietly without fighting, none of this would have happened. No one would have had to lose anything."
""Plague Infection""
""Idiocy Infection""
The most evil and most contemptible abilities were scattered at maximum output.
While it might be possible to forcibly resist with basic stats, these were the abilities of witches.
And there were two of them at once.
Most holy knights, desperate to cling to their sense of mission, simply fell to their knees before the disease devoured their bodies.
"Guh! Th-this is! Something like this!!"
Fjord cried out with an expression of despair.
Several hundred holy knights he had brought with him. Though their ranks and training varied greatly, every one of them was a warrior of extraordinary prowess.
The vanguard knights of that god, the shining shields meant to protect the people — every last one of them was made a pitiful spectacle before this malice.
"Damn it! Don't you dare get cocky, you bastard!"
"You won't get past us!"
Erakino and Soarina leapt forward simultaneously. Whether they had finally reformed their lines, or whether they had simply run out of patience, realizing that a purely defensive stance would get them nowhere in this situation.
But the flames unleashed by Soarina were nullified by Mearia's oblivion, and the claws raised by Erakino were grotesquely rotted off along with the entire arm, reduced to rot by Carrie.
"Hey, hey, what are we gonna do, Atou? Your precious little friends are gonna keep dying at this rate, you know? That's really, really sad, isn't it? It hurts, doesn't it? You don't wanna live anymore, do you!? Then let's just forget! Let's forget everything!"
"No matter how strong you may be, Atou, holding back both of us is impossible. Rather, we have business to attend to, so we'd appreciate it if the useless deadweight freeloaders would kindly stay out of our way."
The moment the two who had effortlessly repelled the witch Erakino and the saint Soarina finished speaking, their pressure only intensified. Naturally, Atou never ceased manipulating tentacles, never easing the assault.
But concealed within the dark night, countless bullets flew in from all directions, and monsters like long-legged worms and Brain Eaters obstructed the Elful sisters' approach.
During the interval, these girls who bore the dual nature of hero and champion performed deeds that would make heretics blush with shame, all without batting an eye.
"Rot the whole city away."
"Obligate the whole city."
"This is—! Could it be—!? Are you expanding the range of your abilities to cover the entire urban area!?"
The voice of astonishment rang out helplessly. The invisible force, however, spread over the city like a thin veil, eroding the innocent populace.
Their true objective had never been to deal with Atou and the others.
Their real purpose was... to spread plague and idiocy throughout the citizens of the city.
Diseases that would not kill but would require constant care, and the obliteration of the faith they had placed in the god they had believed in until now.
Their role, summoned by Takuto Ira, was nothing other than to cast this land into a true hell.
"Ho ho, it seems the Gear units are performing well enough."
Old Mortar was issuing orders to monsters across various locations.
Sensing the Elful sisters' awareness directed toward the entire city, Soarina attempted once again to destroy her enemies with her own flames.
This time, her target was not the sisters, but the Dark Elf sage commanding them from behind.
Yet her struggle proved futile. The old man she had been aiming for had somehow melted into the dark night, disappearing from sight.
Though visibility was maintained by the moonlight and the burning city, unaccustomed to night combat, she could not find the cunning Dark Elf sage for whom the night was his most favored domain.
"Ugh... damn it! Damn it!"
"Are you all right, Erakino?! You're hurt—ah! No!"
Soarina screamed at the sight of Erakino's arm rotting away, blood dripping steadily from her shoulder.
She was conscious, but her complexion was terrible.
Even with a witch's superhuman vitality, it was clear she needed treatment immediately.
And the only one present capable of providing it, the Game Master, remained silent and unmoving.
The attack on the city was a display of their composure.
It showed they had enough leeway to hold back both the Saint and the Witch while still sowing despair.
Eventually... the sisters' abilities would fulfill their duty to the fullest.
After that, the pillage by Takuto Ira would begin.
With their Game Master powers sealed and the Holy Knights annihilated, the only fighting force left to them was Atou.
Erakino could only exert her true power with the Game Master's backup, given her very nature, and Soarina's miracles were completely countered by Fremain. Fenne had withdrawn from the front lines due to injury, and even if unharmed, her strength was terribly unreliable.
And Takuto Ira was not an existence that could be overcome by Atou alone.
"Shit. Help me, help me, Master..."
"Stay strong, Erakino! Someone! Please take her and fall back!"
No one answered Soarina's voice. Most of the others were being flayed alive by those uncanny puppet-like monstrosities or devoured by swarms of those eerily insectoid creatures.
Atou was desperately holding back a rain of gunfire, and Fenne had already withdrawn from the front line.
And she herself possessed neither the means nor the wisdom to turn this situation around.
Despair seized control of Soarina's heart. It seemed this was truly the end.
"My name is—Kuhara."
Erakino, who should have been teetering on the brink of life and death, spoke in a deep masculine voice utterly unbefitting for her to produce.
"Kuhara Keiji's the name. Should I say, nice to meet you?"
Blood dripped steadily from Erakino as she continued speaking, seemingly unconcerned by it.
However, the content of her words was utterly incomprehensible coming from her, carrying the atmosphere of an entirely different person.
In that instant, Soarina understood what had happened.
The Game Master had made a gamble. By having the body introduce itself by a different name, it was attempting to overturn this predicament.
To interfere from somewhere that was not here, borrowing Erakino's mouth.
"My old man used to say. A man's gotta make one big bet somewhere in his life... I guess this is probably it."
When she came to her senses, the night had passed. Takuto Ira stood quietly in place.
His entire body was painted pitch black, but she could tell his gaze was fixed on Erakino.
No... that gaze was directed beyond Erakino, towards Kuhara.
"Takuto Ira, was it? You're pretty damn good at games. I've never played a game myself, but I know gambling inside and out. ...Well, knowing about it didn't exactly make me a winner, though."
Takuto Ira remained silent.
As ever, no emotion could be read from his expression—only a deep, abyssal darkness seemed to exist there.
"My life was nothing but losses. The last straw was getting cleaned out at some punk Yakuza boss's crummy illegal casino, which landed me in this mess. After that, I just kept losing and losing, and now it looks like I'm about to lose to you too."
The light of life faded from Erakino's eyes, and the blood gushing from her shoulders like a waterfall came to a stop.
Her life functions had ceased.
But the Game Master borrowed her mouth to keep speaking. To keep expressing the resolve and will he held within.
"But I'm not done here! I've got a purpose! I'm going to win this game in the end and make my dream come true! That's why—Takuto Ira."
A silence fell over the battlefield—an impossible, quiet moment.
Though neither side had been ordered to, both factions naturally loosened their grip, watching to see what would unfold.
As if this were the true battle that would decide the victor of it all.
"This is it. —Go ahead. If you can curse me to death, then kill me now!"
"Nnh... aah, good for you. There's no such—spell."
There was a slight pause before Takuto answered.
Perhaps unaccustomed to speaking, or perhaps for another reason.
Confronted with that defiant outburst, he offered only that single response, then fell silent.
In his words, the faintest trace of unease could be detected.
"Ha... hahaha... hahahaha..."
The man's—the Game Master's—dry laughter echoed across the field.
Was it admiration, or relief? After laughing for some time, the Game Master eventually stopped and gazed up at the sky with a wistful expression.
"Ha... my whole life has been nothing but losing. Nothing I ever did worked out, and before I knew it, I'd gotten tangled up in something like this."
A place that wasn't here. Somewhere else entirely.
A dark room with nothing but chairs, a table, and something resembling a television...
Kurikata screamed with everything he had.
"But still! It exists! I have my own stubbornness! To grit my teeth and swear I won't live a pathetic life next time! To fight with everything I have—I decided that the moment I died!"
=GM: Message===
Exercise of GM Authority.
Halt all combat.
―――
"I win! I won the bet!"
=GM: Message===
Exercise of GM Authority.
Eliminate Mynoghra forces.
Revive and fully restore the Renea forces of the Holy Kingdom.
Remove all negative effects surrounding the Holy Kingdom of Renea.
―――
The fallen rise once more, and light returns to the holy kingdom.
The monsters and Dark Elves that were once there all vanish, and the former peace is rapidly being restored.
=System Message===
All processing complete.
Deleting the player exceeds GM authority and is skipped.
―――
"...Troublesome. But how about this?"
=GM: Message===
GM authority activation.
The sealing of Takuto Ira's abilities as the "Nameless Evil God."
———
"It seems this will be fine."
Before he knew it, Takuto stood alone and desolate on the church's dais, surrounded by a holy army.
Thus, he lost everything.
Comrades, subordinates, even his own power… everything.
"It doesn't matter how many times you lose. One big win makes it all even. That's the beauty of gambling, isn't it? Truly, you're at the mercy of the dice."
Here, the victor is decided.
Kuruhara declares it boldly—that he has won the gamble and carved out his own destiny.
The conclusion was unexpectedly swift.
His judgment was the key to it all.
Takuto Ira was a fool, less than a fraudster, who had muddled through with bluff and dumb luck alone.
That was the conclusion reached.
"There's no winning path left for you. Game over, Takuto Ira."
While the Holy Saint Renea, the Holy Knight, and the witch he once loved all watched on,
The verdict of defeat was coldly delivered.
Now utterly alone, Takuto could only tremble at those words.