—The head of the charging earth dragon was blown clean off at the root, and the dragon carriage, dragged along by the willless giant body as it crumbled to the ground, veered wildly off the road and overturned.
The overturned carriage scraped violently across the ground, kicking up plumes of smoke as it roared. Wood snapped, and as the fallen earth dragon's flesh was caught in the wheels, the sickening sound of flesh being torn apart sent blood and gore spraying everywhere—in an instant, the scene had transformed into one of utter carnage.
The location was deep in the mountains, where they had left the Lifaus Highway and entered a forest road, arriving at the entrance to the Mathers domain.
Had they cleared a few more forested areas and hills, they would have reached their destination in about two more hours.
But the dragon carriage had been utterly destroyed along the way, and only the hollow sound of wheels spinning freely clattered through the accident site.
The earth dragon lay there as a lump of flesh, the vehicle had been reduced to wreckage, and the smoke, laced with earth and blood, gave off a bizarre stench.
In the midst of that scene, "...Ugh, augh..."
A boy, thrown clear and scraped up in places, was groaning in pain.
Slightly away from the collapsed dragon carriage, his body had fallen in a corner of the meadow off the forest road. The greenery there was thick with vines, which had likely cushioned his fall to some degree. Despite being at the center of such devastation, the boy's injuries were miraculously minor.
That said, the wounds from being hurled out defenselessly still hurt.
Abrasions and several contusions. Fortunately, there were no broken bones or heavy bleeding, but the pain was more than enough to bring a helpless child to his knees.
"Afuh, ughfu... aah..."
The black-haired boy, rolling out from the meadow, groaning in pain, tears streaming down his face.
His face was smeared with blood flowing from his forehead, scraped raw by the earth, and tears and drool only compounded the mess. His rough wiping had spread a reddish-brown streak across his entire face, and red stains had seeped into the mud-caked sleeves of his clothes.
The pathetic sight of an adult with gangly limbs in such a wretched state, combined with the devastation of the dragon carriage reduced to wreckage, left nothing but a sense of tragedy for anyone who beheld it.
And toward that scene— "————"
Figures clad in black emerged one after another, and more than a dozen surrounded the boy and the dragon carriage.
The figures identified the fallen, headless earth dragon, confirmed that it was indeed dead as a lump of flesh, and then quietly turned their gaze toward Subaru, who lay on the ground weeping.
The figures in black had hoods pulled low over their heads, making even their faces and genders indistinguishable. The shadows—it was unclear whether they even breathed—encircled Subaru with flickering, gliding movements, and looked down at him as he responded only to pain.
"——Ra."
Softly, one figure murmured a single word.
Once one let it slip, another spoke the same word. As they did, the chain of words flowed out one after another, and all those surrounding him began to whisper in a rolling cadence.
A world devoid of insect song or any trace of living things — only the sound of wind rustling branches and leaves, and the murmured whispers of black shadows. A warped scene, as if the world were complete unto itself.
And then — "—Gah! Ahh! Aaagh, haaagh!"
Gradually, as the whispers layered over one another, a change came over Subaru, who had been groaning in pain.
He twisted his body, arching his back against the ground, letting out strained cries — in that respect, he was no different from before. But the quality of his suffering was clearly different now.
Something beyond the realm of scrapes and bruises tormented him, something that seemed to be trying to overflow from within, and the seeds of pain raging through his body were sprouting, trying to tear him apart from the inside.
Had there been an observer, they would have noticed how his writhing corresponded to the whispers of the black shadows surrounding him. Looking down at the suffering Subaru, the shadows showed no intention of stopping their incantation. However, as though they had reached some conclusion from his gasping state, they continued whispering as they reached out toward his body — "—Bo."
An iron ball screaming through the air shattered the skull of the man who had been about to touch Subaru.
Blood and skull fragments sprayed in all around, raining mercilessly down on the suffering Subaru as well. The falling shadow's collapse was accompanied by the light jangling of an iron chain, and, writhing like a snake, it rampaged around the now-corpse of that shadow — lunging at the other black-robed figures.
"————"
But the black-robed figures reacted swiftly. Instantly severing their awareness from their companion's sudden death, they scattered silently through the area to evade the chain's pursuit.
In that moment, what the black-robed figures drew from their robes were blades shaped like crucifixes. Dull and glinting, they were gaudy implements with bladed tips, and the figures wielding one in each hand remained on high alert, scanning their surroundings without letting their guard down.
There were eleven of them. Every one had taken up a position where they could cover another's back, eliminating blind spots to form a formation capable of responding to ambushes — a commendable display of coordination.
But that, too, only applied to opponents within the bounds of a two-dimensional battlefield.
"—Shii!"
High above, an apron dress fluttered as feet kicked off tree branches.
A girl launched herself at a terrifying speed, shooting diagonally downward — her body arriving a fraction faster than the shadows could register the sound.
The pommel of a weapon swung downward pierced straight through the crown of a black-robed figure's head. With a sharp crack, a hole opened at the top of the skull, and the shadow staggered and collapsed as blood and brain matter spilled from the wound.
The girl kicked off that body, blinding another nearby black-robed figure, and leaped away. But the shadow whose fallen comrade had been used as a projectile hesitated not a moment. It charged, skewering the oncoming corpse of its ally head-on with a crucifix blade, and drove it through the girl as she retreated.
That shadow's body, along with the corpse it had impaled, was torn to shreds by a whirlwind of barbed iron balls.
The girl who had hurled the iron balls in a straight line — the moment the chain ran taut, her body pitched forward as if overcome by their weight. And right through the space where her head had tilted forward, a thrown crucifix blade passed. The hard sound of a blade biting into tree bark rang out, and the girl, gaining initial momentum in the same posture she had, leaped horizontally and detonated the ground.
"Rraaaaaa!"
The girl screamed, baring her fangs and snarling.
And atop her head, where blood-soaked blue hair swayed, a pure white, razor-sharp horn jutted out, gleaming.
The black-robed figure mid-leap was swept up in the onrushing girl's high-speed movement. The arm that wrapped around its waist shattered the shadow's midsection into pieces, then slammed what was now a confirmed half-paralyzed wretch against the tree behind it with all that momentum, ejecting most of its innards from both ends and tearing the life from its body.
With a single swing of her arm, the demon flung aside the dead black-robed corpse and recalled the iron ball to her hand, turning around.
The demon's adorable features were stained with blood, both eyes blazing with fierce light as she surveyed the black-robed figures with contempt. And when the boy still rolling at the feet of the silent black shadows entered her field of vision— "I won't let you do anything to Subaru-kun."
Declaring so with a voice brimming with commanding presence, the girl—
It was an injury sustained during the dragon carriage's rollover, from splintered wood she hadn't been able to dodge. Had it been Rem alone, she might have escaped unscathed—but that was not possible.
The instant the earth dragon's head was blown off, Rem knew immediately that the dragon carriage would overturn spectacularly.
What she did in that split second, recognizing the gravity of the situation, was focused on one thing alone: how to safely protect Subaru, who slept on her lap, from the rolling carriage.
Spinning her thoughts at dizzying speed and scanning her surroundings, she spotted a spot where grass and vines overlapped at the edge of her vision, and flung Subaru toward it. That alone consumed the mere fraction of a second she had before escape, and Rem was left to share the fate of the wrecked dragon carriage.
The result was the gash on her forehead and the piece of wood driven deep into her left thigh. She had forced her dislocated left shoulder back into place, and the searing pain that shot through it when she moved sent a numbness racing across her white cheek.
Yet Rem advanced with a stride that betrayed no hint whatsoever of those injuries— "
She glared at the cluster of black-robed figures and spat those words out in a voice filled with loathing.
In response to Rem's call, the black-robed figures still showed no reaction. They maintained their posture—it was impossible to tell whether they were conscious or not—holding crucifixes toward the fang-baring girl without moving.
The balance broke in an instant—.
Rem, who had been orbiting the iron ball above her head, decided that nothing would be accomplished this way and struck first.
The iron ball, amplified by centrifugal force and brute arm strength, was an ironclad sentence of destruction that would pulverize every obstacle in its path. A single blow that could take not just bones but life itself—wherever it struck, it would strip everything away without mercy.
The chain extended to its fullest reach, snapping trees and scattering wood fragments and clumps of earth as it bore down on the black-robed figures. But they evaded it by leaping or by lowering their posture and dashing aside, then counterattacked in a single burst, hurling themselves at the defenseless Rem.
Her all-out swing had left a massive opening. Rem twisted her body by yanking back hard on the iron ball that had left her hand. But the enemy's blade would reach her before the iron ball could return—.
"—raa!!"
The jaw of the lead black-robed figure was gouged clean off by Rem's claw as she kicked upward from below.
This was no genteel description of a "kick"—her claw literally sheared the lower jaw away from directly beneath it.
The shadow, now missing its jaw with its pink tongue hanging limp, still lunged at Rem with movements that disregarded even its own fatal wound, swinging the crucifix to drive it into her chest.
—Before that motion could be fulfilled, the iron ball Rem had summoned blasted away the shadow's remaining upper jaw along with the entire skull.
The iron ball shot out amid a spray of brain matter. Rem caught the object hurtling toward her own face with her upraised palm—the spike pierced clean through her left hand, and crimson blood stained her white cheek. But she clenched it tight, immediately pivoted, and smashed the iron ball straight into the face of the black-robed figure beside her who had been about to swing a crucifix, crushing it utterly.
That made six in total. Having halved the assassins from the initial twelve, Rem fixed her blood-stained eyes on the remaining enemies, breathing hard through her shoulders.
Just then, a rock spear with its tip sharpened to a razor point came flying toward her. She tilted her head, dodging it at the last second. Her trailing hair and the side of her head scraped against the rock's surface, being honed like a whetstone, and the pain and impact made her vision blur.
Her sight stained crimson, the shock to her head robbed Rem of her judgment.
Suddenly, the ground beneath her felt muddy. Instinct reacting to the sinking chill in her body, she bent her legs slightly to generate recoil and leaped diagonally upward off one foot. Launching herself onto the branch of a large tree ahead, she thought to recreate the same ambush stance as before, but— "—Shit!"
Cursing her own rashness for jumping so carelessly in front of an enemy who possessed long-range attack options.
The branch she had intended to land on was scorched by scorching flames, and from the other side, a fireball emerged after burning clean through the great tree—the sensation of skin being seared by extreme heat spreading across her front. Rem instinctively raised her blood-caked left hand before her.
"Hyuma!!"
A thinly formed water membrane deployed in front of Rem. The instant it collided with the fireball, white steam erupted with a violent hiss, the death scream of water being boiled away echoing through the forest.
However, the fireball had only somewhat diminished its intensity; it was not so weakly forged that an impromptu incantation could dispel it.
"————!!"
Her clenched left hand now had a hole burned through the palm, making its usefulness in future combat questionable. Therefore, she swung her fist forward and, without hesitation, smashed it into the oncoming fireball with the same momentum, blasting her own fist apart along with the flames.
"—Uwah!"
Caught mid-air in the explosion, Rem's body was sent spinning like a top and slammed against the trunk of a tree. Falling into the writhing mass of roots, she groaned from the dull ache in her left arm and raised her head.
Her left arm was charred black from the wrist down, the little and ring fingers carbonized. The skin up to her elbow was horribly red and raw, and sensation had utterly vanished beyond her shoulder.
Unless treated by a healer of Felix's caliber, her left arm would never move again.
Pushing past such a severe injury, Rem stood up, returning her consciousness to the present and forgetting the pain.
Suppressing her groans, she instead roared and roused herself, intending to show the enemy that her fighting spirit was undiminished and to draw their attention even slightly away from Subaru.
However— "————"
Silently, the palm of the unarmed black-robed figure struck her torso, slamming her back into the great tree once more with a devastating impact.
Her insides felt wrung and crushed, the power enough to grind her breastbone, and a torrent of blood sprayed from Rem's mouth.
The scorching sensation of vomiting blood burned her throat, and her body sank under the agony of being constricted. As the palm pulled back and thrust forward again, she barely managed to dodge it before it could crush her skull. The tree trunk behind her was punched clean through by the palm heel, the massive tree sent flying through the air as if it weighed nothing.
The black-robed figure who had closed the distance and cracked the ground with a single step was clearly on a different level from her opponents before. Rem dodged the follow-up attack with a sideways leap, rolled, and spat out the blood remaining in her mouth, her gaze darting around searching for the iron ball she had dropped.
"————!!"
A stone spear grazed past her cheek, and her staggering body was hammered from behind by a stone mace. Her spine screamed under the impact, her small frame bouncing off the earth and sent flying.
Waiting where she landed was the unarmed silhouette that had overwhelmed Rem earlier. The figure held the iron ball Rem had dropped, and as she bounced upward, it swung the iron mass down toward her— "—Erluema!"
The blood she spat out in the incantation froze, and the blade of pure blood sliced halfway through the arm of the man wielding the iron ball. The pain made the iron ball slip from the black-robed figure's grasp. Then— "Gurururu!"
Driving her fist into the ground to control her posture, Rem sprang upward and reached out her right hand to seize the handle of the iron ball the black-robed figure had dropped. At the same time, she kicked up the iron ball that had fallen to the ground, sending it flying behind the figure. The chain wrapped around the figure's thick neck, and she pulled with the force of a vice.
A wet, squelching sound rang out as the chain bit into flesh, and the black-robed figure's neck snapped along with the shin bone, twisted one hundred and eighty degrees backward. Its face, now staring in reverse, looked at Rem, and the light drained from both eyes.
As its body sank, Rem allowed herself a brief moment of relief—she had felled a formidable enemy. In that instant— "————!!!"
The black-robed figure's body, which should have been dead, moved. A kick of devastating power swept across Rem's torso.
The direct hit to her left flank shattered every rib on her left side, snapped her left thigh, and smashed her into the ground. And with that final blow, the black-robed figure truly expired this time. Its body lay facedown, staring up at the sky—a gruesome corpse complete.
"Ngh... ahh..."
Groaning, coughing up blood, Rem forced herself to her feet, berating her left side—from her arm down—for refusing to cooperate.
She had likely dispatched the most seasoned combatant among the enemy group. But the price she paid was not cheap.
Five remained. None of them had come alongside the unarmed fighter, which meant none of them specialized in close combat. If that was the case, she could finish them by closing in and snapping their necks one by one.
But could she do it in this trembling state, battered and covered in wounds, with only her right side still functional?
Shaking her head, crushing her own weakness under her teeth, Rem berated herself as she teetered on the edge of breaking.
It was not a question of whether she could. She had to.
What did it matter if her left side was dead? Her right still moved. If her right arm gave out, she could stomp them to death with her feet, and if her right leg gave out too, she would bite them to death.
If she killed every last one of them and Subaru survived, that was Rem's victory.
She had already engaged in combat on this scale, and what was more, she had entered the Mathers domain.
She was not conscious of it, but there was no way her sister had not received the full weight of her murderous emotions drenched in killing intent. Before long, her sister would pinpoint this location.
At that point, whether Rem was alive or dead did not matter. As long as she protected Subaru's life, what hesitation was there in using herself up here?
A trace of lingering attachment twisted in Rem's heart.
To kill her last hesitation, Rem glanced toward where Subaru should be lying. If she could at least lay eyes on him once more, nothing else mattered.
But then— "—Subaru-kun!?"
He's gone.
Subaru—the one who should have been groaning in pain, in agony, in fear—was nowhere to be seen.
Panicking, Rem swept her gaze across the surroundings.
She feared that the aftermath of the earlier battle had caught him and sent him flying somewhere. But no matter how hard she looked, she couldn't find him.
And then, Rem suddenly realized.
"One... is missing..."
The remaining black-robed figures numbered five. But no matter where she looked, only four were there.
The black-robed figures holding crosses in both hands stood blocking the forest path ahead, then began to move away, shielding from Rem's view the companion who was receding into the distance.
—As if to keep her away from the one who had fled carrying Subaru on their back.
"You... people..."
Trembling words spilled from trembling lips.
Her lips, drained of color from massive blood loss, were stained with the rouge of blood overflowing from her mouth. Amid that savage war paint, Rem twisted her sweet features into the very visage of a demon, "Not content with taking away Rem's reason to live..."
She bent her right arm gripping the iron ball, flexed one leg, and built up explosive power.
Ahead, tension rippled through the black-robed figures, and at the instant they lunged toward her— "Now you'd even take away my reason to die right here and now—!!"
Rem's roar erupted, and her body launched forward with a kick so powerful it could have blown the earth away.
What lay before her as she charged in was—using the cross-wielding black-robed figures as a screen—fist-sized fireballs being chanted into existence behind them. However, their numbers were so vast they threatened to cover her entire field of vision.
"————————!!!"
A scream exploded, and immediately after, a chain of crimson light blazed through the dawn-lit forest.
Extreme heat howled through, scorching the trees to nothing, reducing everything to scorched earth—the world writhed in its death throes under the sheer thermal energy, —and across the scorched wasteland, the charred remains of a white apron dress fluttered down, only to be incinerated in the next instant.
※※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ —Swaying, throbbing, swaying some more, throbbing some more.
Carried on the shoulders of a black-clad figure, swaying helplessly, Subaru let drool hang from his lips.
The injuries from the fall off the dragon carriage—he could barely feel them anymore. It wasn't that the pain had vanished; rather, his consciousness had been swallowed up by a pain so overwhelming that everything else became irrelevant, robbing him of even the will to move.
The scene where the dragon carriage had overturned and the black-clad figures had surrounded Subaru, beginning their whispered incantations.
Listening to that whispering, Subaru's body had been nearly torn apart from within by an indescribable sensation swelling up inside him, and in his skull a storm raged—far too violent for the word "ringing" to describe.
Something dark thrashed inside his chest, his gut, the interior of his cranium, the very center of his heart, as though trying to mangle his very existence into a shapeless mess.
Just thinking about what would have happened if it had continued a little longer made his blood run cold.
That pain was the kind that shattered the human heart. The kind that twisted it. The kind that remade it entirely. The kind that made a person no longer a person.
If it had gone on just as it was—
Abruptly, as though remembering to, wild laughter spilled from the corners of his lips along with drool.
As the self slowly returned to a consciousness that had been dominated by pain, the heart naturally laid bare its fractured state along an entirely different vector from the pain itself.
His whole body ached. His head especially felt as though it might split open.
Blue was gone. Blue was not by his side. He was being carried by someone in black. What was this blackness, and where had Blue gone? Where were they headed now?
Parting through the forest, the black-clad figure ran along a beast trail at breathtaking speed.
Despite a slender build that didn't particularly suggest extreme training, the sight of this figure carrying a deadweight, limp human and dashing through the trees like the wind was utterly surreal.
Like a shadow gliding in pursuit of the sun's rays, the black-clad figure bore Subaru through the mountains, navigating a landmarkless beast trail with absolute confidence.
And so, perhaps ten-odd minutes into the run— Deep within a green darkness where no sunlight reached, the black-clad figure suddenly came to a halt. Towering directly ahead was a sheer cliff face, its rock surface prominently covered in moss, so tall that looking up made one dizzy—not something anyone could traverse without equipment.
Facing such a wall, the black-clad figure cast its gaze about, then stepped toward the most conspicuous rock formation. And then, pressing a palm against it: "————"
Hearing the shadow mutter something in a faint voice, Subaru's body went rigid with tension.
It was a reflex born of fear that the incantation which had echoed through his mind back at that scene would be repeated once more.
But the single phrase that had been whispered appeared to be something different from the earlier curse, and its effect did not grind against his skull the way that one had.
"————"
Before the black-robed figure who had murmured the curse, the enormous chunk of rock suddenly vanished.
As though it had dissolved into the atmosphere like a dream or an illusion, the black-robed figure accepted this as the most natural thing in the world, readjusted Subaru on their shoulder, and stepped into the cave that had appeared where the rock had been.
The cave air was bitingly cold, and the only sound was the measured echo of shadowy footsteps striking the ground. After proceeding a dozen or so meters into the cavern, the light from behind was abruptly sealed off. Presumably, the entrance had been blocked by the rock once more.
Inside the cave, where the cold pierced at his skin, the black-robed figure showed no sign of panic, nor did their stride falter in the slightest.
And then, the dim darkness before the steadily advancing shadow was suddenly swept away by a hazy white glow—the radiance of Ragmite ore.
What appeared to be the walls of a passage had ore installed at regular intervals, and one by one, the lights ignited to guide the shadow's path forward.
The cave drew them deeper and deeper, into darkness and more darkness.
Whether it was the cold that made his blood-tinged skin bristle, or some other cause entirely— Subaru, still being carried, trembled slightly, hot tears spilling from the corners of his eyes as he continued to laugh—a hollow, vacant laugh.
And then, the end of that dark, cold, rocky passage came into view.
Where the glow of Ragmite ore shone a little brighter and the lighting was properly arranged, there was a natural chamber of vastly greater size than anything else within the cave.
It was here that Subaru would come face to face with the mass of malice.
* * * * * * * * * * * —He was a gaunt man.
Surrounded by men in black robes, he himself was clad in black vestments.
He was slightly taller than Subaru, with dark green bangs trimmed to just the length where they fell over his eyes. His cheeks were hollow—so much so that it seemed apt to describe his body as having just enough flesh and skin stretched over bone to maintain a vaguely human shape, utterly devoid of any sense of vitality.
That was, of course, setting aside those crazily gleaming eyes of his.
The man leaned forward, staring intently at Subaru, who was bound and slumped against the wall. He tilted his neck a full ninety degrees atop his bent torso, gazing with rudely bulging eyes—a posture that laid bare an aberrant strangeness, and in truth, the man's words and manner were clearly cut from a different cloth from ordinary people.
"Naaaruuhoo doo... this, this is certainly most interesting, it is."
Having thoroughly surveyed Subaru from top to bottom with a licking gaze, the man gave a satisfied nod, signaling his agreement to the men surrounding him.
The black-robed figures pulled their chins in at the man's affirmation, silently waiting for him to continue.
The man showed no reaction to the figures' silence, instead clenching his left hand in his right as though lost in thought—and jamming his thumb into the wound on his wrist, paying no heed to the blood that dripped from it, he dug back into his own flesh.
"Aaah, I see... you're not 'Pride,' are you?"
Still hunched over, the man twisted around, peering up at Subaru from that bizarre posture. He brought his blood-stained thumb—the one he had just gouged into his wound—to his mouth, savoring the taste of iron on his tongue in ecstasy, his murky eyes trembling with feverish light.
There was no answer from Subaru.
He could only blankly gaze up at the face of the man standing before him, putting on a dopey, out-of-place smile.
Watching that, the man pulled his finger from his lips with a wet sound and— "Ah, is that so. Well, well—how rude of me. Here I am, and I haven't even introduced myself yet, have I!"
Matching Subaru's smile, the man parted his pale lips sideways into a sinister grin, then slowly and politely bowed at the waist, "I am of the
And from that bent posture, he deftly craned his neck to stare straight at Subaru, "Archbishop of 'Sloth,' Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti... Yes, sir!"
Having declared himself, pointing both hands' fingers at Subaru, the man—Petelgeuse—cackled.
Kolkolkolkolkolkolkol.